What Is Your "Bochim"?

Judges 2:1–5

The Angel of the LORD went up from Gilgal to Bochim and said, "I brought you out of Egypt and led you into the land I had promised to your fathers. I also said: I will never break My covenant with you. You are not to make a covenant with the people who are living in this land, and you are to tear down their altars. But you have not obeyed Me. What is this you have done?

Therefore, I now say: I will not drive out these people before you. They will be thorns in your sides, and their gods will be a trap to you." When the Angel of the LORD had spoken these words to all the Israelites, the people wept loudly. So they named that place Bochim and offered sacrifices there to the LORD.

Judges chapter one is a sad record of failure. The children of Israel are in the Promised Land, but they fail to drive out the inhabitants of the land. Not the angel of the Lord speaks to them in chapter two and tells them these remaining people will be “thorns in your sides, and their gods will be a trap to you.”

All of these things are illustrations of us of the life of a New Testament Believer. When we become Christians we bring baggage from the old life. There are still sins and habits of the flesh that hang on to our lives like ticks on a dog. For a while they may go unnoticed, but eventually, as they continue to suck, we become of their presence and the pain they cause.

But what we do with these sins when the Holy Spirit makes us aware of them is critical. If we confess and forsake them the Holy Spirit will enable us to drive them from our lives—maybe not entirely, because the flesh is always with us. But these sins are pushed beyond the borders of our daily practice. They can occasionally launch a raid here and there. But they’re not habitual sins that continually stifle and defeat us.

However, there can be some practices of the flesh that we are slow to let go of. We want to hang on to these. It maybe pornography, or an evening beer, or a profane tongue, or a questionable business practice. We don’t want to let go of these because they make us feel good, or make us feel powerful, or make us feel we are in control, or make us feel we are being successful. But eventually they become our Bochim, our place of weeping. Why? If we do not judge our sin our sin will judge us! That sin will eventually come out and become your disgrace. Your testimony is damaged. An opportunity to witness is lost. To say nothing of arrested Christian development—we stop growing. And if we are truly Believers there is nothing more precious to us than the presence of our Lord Jesus. We want to be nearer to Him. Anything that blocks His presence becomes for us a source of sorrow and weeping.

But Bochim can become a place of deliverance and renewal. If we will confess and forsake our sin the Holy Spirit will operate powerfully to set us free. Try it.