(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

It says in verse 9, Moreover the children of Ammon passed over Jordan to fight also against Judah and against Benjamin. So now they're crossing the river. They're not just messing with the fringe people anymore. Now they're crossing the river into the heart of the Promised Land and going after the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, which of course is where Jerusalem will be located, just to give you the geography, although of course this is before Jerusalem's time. But just to help you understand that that's deep in the heart of the Promised Land. And so then they cross over to fight against Judah and against Benjamin and against the house of Ephraim so that Israel was sore distressed. And the children of Israel cried unto the Lord saying, We've sinned against thee both because we've forsaken our God and also served Balaam. And the Lord said unto the children of Israel, Did not I deliver you from the Egyptians and from the Amorites, from the children of Ammon and from the Philistines, the Zydonians also and the Ammon? He's like, Look, I keep delivering you and delivering you. And it's like, How many times are we going to do this? Because there's been a pattern throughout the Book of Judges where every time things go well for them, then as soon as the godly leader is gone, as soon as the judge is gone, then they go back to worshipping other gods and being idiots and ruining their lives. And then they repent, they cry out to God when things are going bad. He sends them a deliverer and it's just a cycle over and over again. But what you have to understand about the Book of Judges, it isn't just a cycle. It always gets a little bit worse every time. So it's like they go bad, good, bad, good, bad, good, but the bad is always a little worse and the good is never quite as good. So the Book of Judges, even though it's in a cycle, it's kind of like a downward spiral ultimately. And so God here is not just at the drop of a hat ready to say, Oh, you guys repent now? Oh, no problem. Come on home. He's like, Wait a minute. You know, how many times are we going to do this? I delivered you from these people. I delivered you from these people. I delivered you from these people. And he knows their hearts that they haven't really made a full repentance because he's looking at them and saying, You know, why don't you go cry out to the gods you've been worshipping? You know, it seems like they still have those gods in their heart. And so he rebukes them instead of just welcoming them back with open arms. He says, I delivered you from X, Y, and Z people at the end of verse 12. You cried to me and I delivered you out of their hand. Yet you have forsaken me and served other gods. Wherefore I will deliver you no more. I am not going to deliver you anymore. The answer is no. You want me to deliver you? No. And they're like, Well, you know, he should just be glad that they're praying to him. Well, he's sick of them only coming to him when they're in their direst need and constantly committing adultery with these other false gods. He says in verse 13, Yet you have forsaken me and served other gods. Wherefore I will deliver you no more. Go and cry out to the gods which you've chosen. Let them deliver you in the time of your tribulation. You know, I got to tell a funny story here. I apologize if I've already told this story a bunch of times, but it's so funny. When Pastor Jimenez first came to preach here back in 2006, so we're talking about 15 years ago, he came and preached a sermon, and he was young. He was 20 years old, but everybody thought he was a pastor because he was just so mature and preached so well. But anyway, he's preaching along, and when you've been in church a long time, and when you know a lot about the Bible, you can kind of know what's coming in a sermon. And when a pastor says, you know, Turn to so-and-so the book, you kind of know what chapter he's going to because you can kind of predict where the sermon's going. So he's preaching along, and he says, Turn to Judges chapter 10. And I was paying attention to the sermon, and I kind of knew where he was going, and I thought to myself, He wants Joshua 10. He's not looking for Judges 10. He's looking for Joshua 10. So he turns to the chapter, he turns to Judges 10, and you can tell he gets kind of confused. He looks a little nervous. He looks a little confused. He's kind of sweating a little bit. But then he just starts reading it anyway. So he just goes with it. So he just starts reading Judges 10 anyway, like, I don't think anyone else noticed that there was a problem. It's just that I knew where he was going, and so I was really homed in paying attention. And so he reads the part from Judges 10. He meant to read the part in Joshua 10, because Joshua 10's about the sun standing still. That's the passage he was going for. He reads the Judges 10 passage instead, and then just incorporates it into his sermon. And then he just starts preaching this part about, you know, go cry unto these other gods. And he preached this whole part. And then he just, you know, went back to his notes and just kept rolling. And he had accidentally written down Judges instead of Joshua. I kid you not, and this is back when the church was very small. There was like 15 people there or something. I kid you not, a guy walks up to me after the service and says, man, that part when he talked about, you know, go cry to the other gods, you know, let them deliver you in the time of your affliction. He said, man, that part just like nailed me right between the eyes. He said that part was so convicting. And that ended up being like the big part of the sermon that did the most for him. Is that funny or what? You know, it just goes to show how God will lead a preacher to preach on what we need to hear a lot of the time. And so even through making a mistake, obviously God actually led that mistake because this guy needed that point. But I don't know if I've told that story before, but I know I've told it in the preaching class before because the lesson in the preaching class was, you know, if you make a mistake, just go with it. You know what I mean? You just go with it because, hey, it's all good, amen, you know, just preach whatever's in front of you. And nobody else even knew that it was a mistake. Some people thought it was the best part of the whole sermon. So anyway, I can't ever read Judges 10 or Joshua 10 without thinking about that.