Babe Ruth is synonymous with greatness on the baseball field. Still, his lifestyle away from the field was often filled with a large appetite for food, alcohol, and women. During his playing career for the New York Yankees, his life was often a downward cycle of extravagant spending and high living. His repeated mistakes led to a poor reputation that hurt his chances of becoming a team manager later in life.

Judges 2-3 – Spiritual Lessons

Israel also experienced downward cycles of disobedience, discipline, despair, and, finally, deliverance. Each cycle spun them further downward. Repentance from each cycle was shallow and temporary before they relapsed into idolatry. Now that they eliminated Jehovah from worship. They just added the worship of Baals—the pagan god of the Canaanites—to their worship of Jehovah.

Some people don’t want to learn from others. Israel slid “downhill” when a generation failed to learn from the preceding generation. The older generation’s suffering was wasted on the sons and daughters because they refused to listen and learn. All believers must learn spiritual lessons from teachers and pastors. When we refuse to learn, we step away from God in stages. Stage one is friendship with the world (James 4:4). Stage two is contamination by the world (James 1:27). Stage three is the love of the world (1 John 2:15). Finally, stage four is conformity to the world (Romans 12:2). 

The Kingdom Coach and Athlete avoid spiritual discipline by obeying God and not allowing themselves to slide into a downward cycle of disobedience.

Bible Memory Verse – “I delivered you from the hands of the Egyptians and from the hands of all your oppressors and drove them out before you and gave you their land.” Judges 6:9 (LSB)