"It's déjà vu all over again". Baseball legend Yogi Berra is credited with saying that after watching Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris regularly hit back to back home runs while playing for the NY Yankees.

"It's déjà vu all over again" is particularly fitting for our review of the period of the judges because the Israelite pattern of apostasy. It was a constant cycle of falling away, being captured, and rescued by God – just to start over again with the next generation. Over and over they repeated that pattern and every time God was willing to come to their rescue (Judges 2:11-23).

The cycle followed a consistent pattern. First Israel “did that which is evil in the sight of Jehovah” by serving the Baalim and Ashtaroth. Second, God allowed oppressors to rise up and afflict the nation because of their sin, “he gave them into the hands of plunderers who plundered them.” Third, when it got bad enough they called on God for relief and He sent a judge to save them, “for the Lord was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who oppressed and afflicted them.” Fourth, in just a few short years another generation came along and fell away again, “but it came about when the judge died, that they would turn back and act more corruptly than their fathers.”

The real “déjà vu all over again,” the one shining consistency, a constant ray of hope, in all that repetition is God’s mercy and grace. That consistency met its ultimate fulfillment at the cross. And that, my friends, is the greatest example of déjà vu for all of us. Let's break the cycle of sin by submitting to the savior; today, and every day.