Scripture - Judges 4:2–3
Judges 4:2–3 // “And the LORD sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor. The commander of his army was Sisera, who lived in Harosheth-hagoyim. Then the people of Israel cried out to the LORD for help, for he had 900 chariots of iron and he oppressed the people of Israel cruelly for twenty years.”
In the story of Deborah, the people of Israel are living under the oppressive rule of Sisera, the commander of King Jabin’s army. And they’ve been living this way for twenty years. That means there were teenagers who had never known what freedom felt like. There were children born into oppression who didn’t even know there was another way to live. Bondage wasn’t something that interrupted their lives. Bondage became their life.
Judges 5 gives us a picture of just how bad things had become:
“The highways were abandoned, and travelers kept to the byways. The villagers ceased in Israel…” - Judges 5:6–7
The main roads had been abandoned because people were afraid to travel them. Village life had collapsed. Families had adjusted their daily routines around the presence of the enemy. Normal life had been rearranged around their oppression. This had become their “new normal.”
Reading this reminds me of 2020 during the COVID pandemic. The main roads were empty. Shopping malls looked like barren wastelands. The few people you did see walking around had face diapers on. Everyone started talking about establishing a “new normal,” and somehow part of that new normal included shutting down churches while strip clubs could remain open - but I digress...
But this is what oppression does. At first, you’re horrified by it. Then you start accommodating it. Then you start organizing your life around it. And eventually, you call bondage normal.
This is why spiritual drift is so dangerous. You never drift into godliness. You never accidentally become holy. You never coast your way into greater intimacy with Jesus. You only drift toward compromise.
G.K. Chesterton once wrote:
“A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.”
The current is always moving somewhere. If you aren’t intentionally swimming against it, you’re already being carried by it. And that’s how spiritual drift usually happens. Nobody wakes up one morning and decides, “Today I’m going to walk away from God.”
It happens gradually.
- Your prayers become less consistent.
- Your convictions get a little quieter.
- Compromise gets a little easier.
- Worship becomes optional.
- Your Bible stays closed a little longer.
- Things that once bothered you stop bothering you.
- Things you once called sin start getting explained away.
And eventually, you find yourself living somewhere spiritually that five years ago you swore you would never live.
Here’s the truth: Sin doesn’t usually conquer your life by invasion. It conquers your life by normalization.
The enemy doesn’t always need you to celebrate sin. Sometimes he just needs you to get used to it. What once shocked you becomes something you tolerate. What you tolerated becomes something you accommodate. What you accommodated eventually becomes something you defend.
But then Judges 5 gives us one of the most powerful lines in Deborah’s story:
“…until I, Deborah, arose, until I arose as a mother in Israel.” - Judges 5:7
For twenty years, Israel had learned how to live around the enemy. Then somebody got up. Somebody decided bondage wasn’t going to be normal anymore. Somebody decided it was time to fight.
And maybe that’s the word of the Lord for you today: Get back in the fight.
Stop accommodating what God has called you to confront.
- Open your Bible again.
- Get on your knees again.
- Get back into worship.
- Recover your convictions.
- Repent where you need to repent.
- Get back into the fight.
Because drifting requires nothing. But resisting the current is evidence that you’re alive.
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