The LORD was with the people of Judah, and they took possession of the hill country. But they failed to drive out the people living in the plains, who had iron chariots.

Judges 1:19

The angel of the LORD went up from Gilgal to Bokim and said to the Israelites, “I brought you out of Egypt into this land that I swore to give your ancestors, and I said I would never break my covenant with you. For your part, you were not to make any covenants with the people living in this land; instead, you were to destroy their altars. But you disobeyed my command. Why did you do this? So now I declare that I will no longer drive out the people living in your land. They will be thorns in your sides, and their gods will be a constant temptation to you.”
Judges 2:1-3

• Israel is a nation struggling with its identity. 
• Israel is focused more on place, than position or purpose. 
• Judges 1 and 2 give us a picture of a nation struggling with spiritual problems. 
• We get a glimpse into the brokenness of the human soul. 
• We watch a nation struggle with its identity and its relationship with God. 
• Israel had been tasked to drive out the inhabitants of the land. 
• Israel’s lack of belief in the promises of God led to disaster. 
• It is not that they could do it, they wouldn’t. 
• Israel was very religiously active, yet they ceased to walk by faith. 
• The book of Judges is a very modern book. 
• The book charts seven cycles of sin and its consequences in the nation. 
• People justify their sin. 
• Judges reveals a God that works above the chaos and through the chaos to bring redemption. 

God wanted the hearts of His people. They thought He just wanted right behavior. Obedience flows from a changed heart. 

“Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the LORD. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”
Jeremiah 31:31-34