Throwing out the White Flag

It's 10/7 and the verse of the day is from Judges 10:7, "So the Lord burned with anger against Israel, and he turned them over to the Philistines and the Ammonites,"  NLT

 It appears that the Israelites just couldn't get it right.  The verse prior to this one says that, again, the Israelites did evil in the LORD's sight.  They worshipped false idols and gods.  The worst part of their evil was that they abandoned the LORD and no longer served Him at all.  That's when the LORD sort of took His hand of protection off of them and let the enemies that were oppressing them have their way with them.  When it was too late, they recognized that the false gods they were following could do nothing to rescue them. 

I'm consistently reminded that our society is as challenged as the Israelites.  We are a rebellious people who turn our backs on our God.  At first, it is subtle.  We just do little things that seem like they won't matter much in the whole scheme of things, then, before we know it, we've compromised who we are and what we believe and..more importantly...we've started to look to ourselves or other things to do what only our God can do.  But only He can rescue us. 

Let's learn from history and not be as hard-headed and hard-hearted as the Israelites.  Let's turn back to God while His mercy still washes over us.  I don't want to find out what it would mean to have His anger burn against us and to have Him turn us over to all that could conquer and oppress us.  No, I'm throwing out the white flag now and asking Him to rescue us before it is too late.