Let your gods help you

And the children of Israel cried out to the LORD, saying, "We have sinned against You, because we have both forsaken our God and served the Baals!" So the LORD said to the children of Israel, "Did I not deliver you from the Egyptians and from the Amorites and from the people of Ammon and from the Philistines? Also the Sidonians and Amalekites and Maonites oppressed you; and you cried out to Me, and I delivered you from their hand. Yet you have forsaken Me and served other gods. Therefore I will deliver you no more. Go and cry out to the gods which you have chosen; let them deliver you in your time of distress." – Judges 10.10-14

I don’t know if ‘frustrated’ is the right word for what happens here. Does God get frustrated? I don’t know. But Israel here it looks like God had had enough of Israel’s cycles of sin.

The people cry out to God again. They must have been a little stunned at His response:

Haven’t I delivered you over and over again
Every time you have called Me I have responded
And yet every time you go after the false gods again
That's enough – I am not going to deliver you again
Go to your gods and let them help you

That sounds fair enough – you want to worship your false gods, let them help you. I am done.

Of course, God is not done. His grace reigns. The confess their sins and turn to God and He will deliver them – but this was a wake up call. They knew that their false gods could not do what God could do.

I can only thank God that He doesn’t leave me to my own devices. My gods or my things or my notions or my ideas would always fail. Praise God that He doesn’t just throw up His hands and give up on me when I rebel and choose my own ways.