The following message was given at Grace Community Church in Mendon, Nevada. We're in Judges chapter 19. We're going to pick back up at verse 27. Over the course of the afternoon, we're going to cover the entirety of chapter 20, but we'll start out just reading through verse 11. Would you please stand for the reading of God's Word? And her master rose up in the morning. And when he opened the doors of the house and went out to go on his way, behold, there was his concubine lying at the door of the house with her hands on the threshold. He said to her, get up, let us be going. But there was no answer. Then he put her on the donkey and the man rose up and went away to his home. And when he entered his house, he took a knife and taking hold of his concubine, he divided her limb by limb into 12 pieces and sent her throughout all the territory of Israel. And all who saw it said, such a thing has never happened or been seen from the day that the people of Israel came up out of the land of Egypt until this day, consider it, take counsel and speak. Then all the people of Israel came out from Dan to Beersheba, including the land of Gilead and the congregation assembled as one man to the Lord at Mizpah. And the chiefs of all the people of all the tribes of Israel presented themselves in the assembly of the people of God, 400,000 men on foot that drew the sword. Now the people of Benjamin heard that the people of Israel had gone up to Mizpah. And the people of Israel said, tell us, how did this evil happen? And the Levite, the husband of the woman who was murdered, answered and said, I came to Gibeah that belongs to Benjamin, I and my concubine, to spend the night. And the leaders of Gibeah rose against me and surrounded the house against me by night. They meant to kill me and they violated my concubine and she is dead. So I took hold of my concubine and cut her in pieces and sent her throughout all the country of the inheritance of Israel for they have committed abomination and outrage in Israel. Behold, you people of Israel, all of you, give your advice and counsel here. And all the people arose as one man saying, none of us will go to his tent and none of us will return to his house. But now this is what we will do to Gibeah. We will go up against it by a lot. And we will take 10 men of a hundred throughout all the tribes of Israel and a hundred of a thousand and a thousand of 10,000 to bring provisions for the people that when they come, they may repay Gibeah of Benjamin for all the outrage that they have committed in Israel. So all the men of Israel gathered against the city, united as one man. This is the reading of God's word. Please have a seat. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the incredible life-giving gift it is to us. And we pray that by your Spirit's power, we pray that by faith, we would be able to receive the blessing that's here today. Lord, we thank you even for hard, dark passages. Please be with us in Jesus' name, amen. Last week, we covered chapter 19, which is just the beginning of this horror story. And it is a chapter that is so overflowing with horror, so overflowing with injustice, it is frankly a bit overwhelming to read, to think about, to preach, I'm sure to hear preached. Chapter 19, it stirs in us all, frankly. It stirs in us all this sense of righteousness, of the knowledge of what is true and good and right, because you hear all the awful things that happened in that last chapter, and you cry out, where is the justice? Where is the justice? This passage, it actually has some fairly personal meaning to me. I've told some of you this story, but I can't help but tell it again. When I was in college at UNR, it's not a believing place, and so you're not expecting to get a friendly reception really anywhere as a Christian. And I had the opportunity to take a class, and it had Bible in the name, and I was excited. You know, so many of those classes, so many of those literature classes, they're just overflowing with just kind of liberal, progressive agendas. And I'm thinking, I'm going to get to read the Bible in class at UNR. I'm going to get credit for this. This is going to be great. But the class was called, The Bible is Literature. And that indicates the perspective from which they were going to teach. They weren't going to teach from the perspective of faith and humility and submission. They were gonna say, let's look at this as an influential book. And so one day we're sitting there in class and the professor, to his credit, great professor, really good teacher, but he has us open to Judges 19. And so there we are, as far as I know, there was like two Christians, me and this other gal, maybe another, but you're the minority. And the professor has us read this chapter, chapter 19, with that awful scene, the mob and all the violence and injustice. And then there's this sort of, what do you do with that moment? This moment when it's almost a confrontation. It's not that the professor was mean or aggressive or anything, but it's like, look it. Look it, this is what you people believe. This is what you people are about. And the implication ends up being something like, look it, your book endorses the abuse of women. Which is so utterly unfair. But in that moment, I frankly didn't know how to handle it. It's one of those moments I think you've probably had the same where you just wish you had the words in the moment, not a minute later, not five minutes later, not 15 years later. So you just go silent because you say, I don't know what to do with that chapter. I don't know what I'm supposed to make of that. But it was presented to us in some sense as if it represented God's values, when if you can remember last week, it is the clearest thing in the world that these are not God's values. God himself by his word in this same book would condemn everything that happened in the last chapter. But the thing I found so particularly unfair was that frankly, we didn't keep reading. Because chapter 20 comes next. And in chapter 20, you begin to see a lot more clearly what God thought of the atrocities of chapter 19. We are going to see that these horrific crimes that were committed, they did not escape God's notice. We are going to see justice coming. And part of you is gonna rejoice because we need justice when such evil happens. There's going to be joy to know that there's a just God at work. But part of you is just frankly gonna be sorrowed by the cost of that justice. So Israel responds to this horrific sin The Levite, he goes home from Gibeah and the implication seems to be that his wife, the concubine has died in the assault, although that's not entirely clear, takes her home and then does the stunningly gruesome act of dismembering his wife. Gruesome to say the least, But frankly, also just one more time that this woman has been disrespected. That is not what you do with your wife. He dismembers her, sends a piece of her to every tribe in the nation. And the point of this, as alien as this is to us, because I hope no one in their right mind anymore thinks this is a way that you get a message out. But as alien as it is to us, what it clearly was to them is a call to arms. You will see this kind of behavior later actually in King Saul, when it's time to fight the Ammonites. Now he chops up an oxen, which is a much better choice. And he sends them out and says, you guys better show up because we're going to war. This clearly functions in the same way as a call to arms and Israel, when they get word of what happened, they are shocked and they rally from north to south. The entire nation rallies in shock at this heinous crime that was committed. What we see is them gathering together and they're not gathering simply to talk about what happened. This is a military camp, 400,000 strong. Finally there with the Levite in front of them, they're able to say, so you tell us what happened. And the Levite presents his absolutely one-sided case. Did you notice he leaves out the part where, by the way, they came for me and I thrust my wife out into the mob to save my life? He left that part out. He leaves that part out, but in the broadest sense, he tells them what happened. And he concludes with this. He says, this was an abomination and an outrage. Or if you have the New American Standard, it says that it was lewd and disgraceful. But either way, the idea of abomination, abomination is kind of a technical word according to religious law. The idea is it's shameful, It was used of things like fornication, incest, murder. It's an abomination and it is an outrage. That is, this is willful sin. This is sacrilege. And as far as he goes, the Levite's right. Abomination, outrage. And then he looks at everyone and he essentially says, so what are you going to do about it? And then if you're paying attention, you'll notice The Levite just exits the story. He's done. You will not hear anything else out of him, which sort of goes to show what the author of Judges is doing with him. The story of the Levite and his concubine is really the introduction now for this story. He wants us to understand how we got where we are about to get. The Levite exits and now it's in Israel's hands. Israel to their credit, they respond in great unity. Three times in the text it says that they responded as one man, that is this common purpose. You imagine 400,000 fighting men with one purpose. They've got one purpose and they are united in it. The leadership says, you know what we're gonna do? We're going to take action against Gibeah, this awful town that committed this heinous crime. They prepare nationwide for this assault. They will go as far as it takes. That's what they're saying with this 10 out of 100, 100 out of 1,000, 1,000 out of 10,000. They're saying, we are going to devote 10% of the population just to maintaining the supply lines so that we can do this as long as it needs to be done. Decisive action from the leadership of Israel. And in one sense, This response is a really big success. The manpower just alone is a huge success, bigger than anything in the book of Judges. When there were actually good judges, good deliverers, you know, you think of Deborah and Barak, they mobilized like 10,000 soldiers. Gideon mobilizes 32,000 before God winnows them down to that 300. So 400,000 is a way bigger response. Good for Israel, the manpower right there, huge contrast to the rest of the book of Judges. Moreover, the unity, the unity that they at last show, that is a big contrast. If you pay close attention to the book of Judges, what you find is that all the big stories, they're regional stories. Israel's never responding all together. They're just little pockets where these acts of deliverance were happening. They were never united. And so here we have, we have actual unity. So there's really success in that sense. The response of manpower, the response of unity, but this whole success, it is tainted by the purpose behind it all. Because what is their purpose? The only point of unity in the book of Judges is watching Israel mobilize to punish fellow Israelites. The mission was for Israel to go into the promised land united and drive out the Canaanites. They were supposed to gang up on the Canaanites. So this big success is not such a success when you consider that the justice they have to administer is against fellow Israelites. And this punishment, it's going to go beyond the town of Gibeah. If you pick back up in the text, we're at verse 12, and we see then what comes next. And the tribes of Israel sent men through all the tribe of Benjamin saying, what evil is this that has taken place among you? Now, therefore, give up the men, the worthless fellows in Gibeah, that we may put them to death and purge evil from Israel. But the Benjaminites would not listen to the voice of their brothers, the people of Israel. Then the people of Benjamin came together out of the cities to Gibeah to go out to battle against the people of Israel. And the people of Benjamin mustered out of their cities on that day 26,000 men who drew the sword, besides the inhabitants of Gibeah, who mustered 700 chosen men. Among all these were 700 chosen men who were left-handed. Every one could sling a stone at a hare and not miss. The men of Israel, apart from Benjamin, mustered 400,000 men who drew the sword. All these were men of war. So Benjamin, confronted by their brothers, confronted by the people of Israel, confronted with this demand for justice, what does Benjamin do? Benjamin Defends Gibeah. Stunning. They mobilize all of their fighting forces. 26,000 strong come out. On top of that, there's like 700 special forces soldiers. What made these men special, we touched on this a while ago in judges, was that they were trained to be ambidextrous. So they were trained to be able to sling left-handed. Why is that an advantage? That's an advantage because most soldiers would be right-handed, sword over here, shield over here. What that means is if you're slinging right-handed, you're slinging right into the shield. If you're slinging left-handed, you have a new angle and you're able to do new damage, especially if you're anywhere near as accurate as these men apparently are. These soldiers are deadly. But you still, you just back up and you say, what reason could there be for defending Gibeah. There should be a hundred votes out of a hundred that says, yes, judge those worthless men. I mean, don't they realize, don't they realize that these men are wicked, awful, inexcusable sinners. What we said last week was that we are watching the people of God become more and more like Canaanites. The Canaanization of Israel is what it's been called. And what was so awful last week was that the Levite and his concubine purposely did not go to a Canaanite town, Jerusalem, to stay because they feared how they would be welcomed. They went to the people of God thinking they would know how to welcome them. Then the people of God treated them as bad as any Canaanite could have thought of. It was awful to see how Gibeah was so Canaanized. This is the next level of canonization. How bad do you have to be then, not simply to have committed the crime, but to be willing to defend the crime? Benjamin is willing to defend with blood this horrific sin. So, I mean, essentially what they end up having to say is they may be worthless fellows, but there are worthless fellows and you're not gonna touch them. I mean, this is the heart of tribalism. You're not gonna touch my people. Don't you dare. I will back them up no matter what. And what you see in Benjamin then is that their loyalty to kin is greater than their loyalty to God. That's what we're talking about. We're not talking about Israel having just some popular opinion poll and saying, why don't you do what we want you to do? They are standing against God. This is a loyalty to God matter and they are failing utterly. They're going to stand with notorious sinners instead of standing with God. Instead of fighting for justice, They're going to fight for sin. Awful. But what happens, you think? What happens when sinners decide to face off with God? It won't be good. It won't be good, not for them. What comes next is three days of battle. three days divided up and each day there's going to be a pattern you'll see in the text. Pick back up with me in verse 19, no 18. The people of Israel arose and went up to Bethel and inquired of God, who shall go up first for us to fight against the people of Benjamin? And the Lord said, Judah shall go up first. Then the people of Israel rose in the morning and encamped against Gibeah and the men of Israel went out to fight against Benjamin and the men of Israel drew up the battle line against them at Gibeah. The people of Benjamin came out of Gibeah and destroyed on that day 22,000 men of the Israelites. Pause, pause there. Israel goes before the Lord and they say, we're gonna go take these guys out. Who goes first? And what you would hear, if you can remember back that far, is this is an echo of the way the book of Judges started. They asked back then, who's supposed to go up to battle first? The answer back then was also Judah. Judah should go first. Judah had a preeminence among the tribes. More than that, this concubine was from Bethlehem, which would have been of Judah. Judah has double reason to go first. But when you hear the numbers, 400,000 versus 26,000, what do you think is supposed to happen? You think they're just going to wipe them out. Then what a shock when you read that Benjamin destroys 22,000 men on that first day. It is a massive defeat. Nothing like what any of them were expecting, no doubt. And so the text keeps going, pick back up again, this time in verse 22. But the people, the men of Israel took courage and again formed the battle line in the same place where they had formed it on the first day. And the people of Israel went up and wept before the Lord until the evening. And they inquired of the Lord, shall we again draw near to fight against our brothers, the people of Benjamin? The Lord said, go up against them. So the people of Israel came near against the people of Benjamin the second day. And Benjamin went against them out of Gibeah the second day and destroyed 18,000 men of the people of Israel. All these were men who drew the sword. So the passage keeps going. So they inquire of the Lord again, but there's this intensity that's growing undoubtedly from the shock of how badly they were just defeated. They go again before the Lord, this time with weeping. No doubt you would be weeping after losing 22,000 men the day before. No doubt there's weeping, this anxiety to say, we thought we were going to wipe the floor with these people. What just happened? This time, they seem to be a little bit humbled and they go before the Lord, not with this, we're going Lord, who should go? Instead, they go up and they ask the Lord, if they should go, should we do this? And God, again, he answers, go do this. So they take courage, they again draw the lines, and again, huge defeat, 18,000 Israelites struck down. At this point, this army of 26,000 has slaughtered 40,000 of the enemy. It's an awful day for Israel, two days, and they've lost 10% of their forces. So we come to day three, and we pick back up in the text at verse 26. Then all the people of Israel, the whole army, went up and came to Bethel and wept. They sat there before the Lord and fasted that day until evening, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the Lord. And the people of Israel inquired of the Lord, for the ark of the covenant of God was there in those days. And Phineas, the son of Eleazar, son of Aaron, ministered before it in those days. saying, shall we go out once more to battle against our brothers, the people of Benjamin? Or shall we cease? The Lord said, go up for tomorrow I will give them into your hand. So Israel set men in ambush around Gibeah. And the people of Israel went up against the people of Benjamin on the third day and set themselves in array against Gibeah as at other times. And the people of Benjamin went out against the people and were drawn away from the city. And as at other times, they began to strike and kill some of the people in the highways, one of which goes up to Bethel and the other to Gibeah. And in the open country, about 30 men of Israel. And the people of Benjamin said, they are routed before us as at the first. But the people of Israel said, let us flee and draw them away from the city to the highways. And all the men of Israel rose up out of their place and set themselves in array at Baal Tamar. And the men of Israel, who were in ambush, rushed out of their place from Maarekeba. And there came against Gibeah 10,000 chosen men out of all Israel. And the battle was hard, but the Benjamin Knights did not know that disaster was close upon them. And the Lord defeated Benjamin before Israel. And the people of Israel destroyed 25,100 men of Benjamin that day. All these men, all these were men who drew the sword. So the people of Benjamin saw that they were defeated. The men of Israel gave ground to Benjamin because they trusted the men in ambush whom they had set against Gibeah. Then the men in ambush hurried and rushed against Gibeah. The men in ambush moved out and struck all the city with the edge of the sword. Now the appointed signal between the men of Israel and the men in the main ambush was that when they made a great cloud of smoke rise up out of the city, the men of Israel should turn in battle. Now Benjamin had begun to strike and kill about 30 men of Israel. They said, surely they are defeated before us as in the first battle. But when the signal began to rise out of the city in a column of smoke, Benjaminites looked behind them and behold, the whole of the city went up in smoke to heaven. Then the men of Israel turned and the men of Benjamin were dismayed for they saw that disaster was close upon them. Therefore, they turned their backs before the men of Israel in the direction of the wilderness. But the battle overtook them, and those who came out of the cities were destroying them in their midst. Surrounding the Benjaminites, they pursued them and trod them down from Nohah as far as opposite Gibeah on the east. 18,000 men of Benjamin fell, all of them men of valor, and they turned and fled toward the wilderness to the Rock of Ramon. 5,000 men of them were cut down in the highways, and they were pursued hard to Gedome, and 2,000 men of them were struck down. So all who fell that day of Benjamin were 25,000 men who drew the sword, all of them men of valor. But 600 men turned and fled toward the wilderness to the Rock of Raman and remained at the Rock of Raman four months. And the men of Israel turned back against the people of Benjamin and struck them with the edge of the sword. The city, men, and beasts, and all that they found, and all the towns that they found, they set on fire. Day three starts out and that inquiring ramps up one more level. Now it's not just some of the people, all of the people go up before the Lord. Now it's not just weeping. Now it's weeping and fasting and offerings revealed. Now it's Aaron's grandson is the priest through whom they are inquiring. One more hint, by the way, that the end of the book of Judges is actually happening early in the timeline of Israel. But they go again before the Lord and they're saying, should we go again or should we stop? You can imagine the despair, just getting absolutely trounced, wondering maybe we're going the wrong way. Maybe that's why this is happening. But God, different this time, God responds and promises them victory. And those words of promise, they go out and they set a new strategy, ambush. This is exactly like Joshua chapter seven and eight. They go forward and you're gonna see if that sounded like two of the same stories it was, verses 33 through 36 were like a summary. Then verses 36, the second half of 36 to the end of 48 were like the battle in detail. And so they go out and what do they do? They lure Benjamin out. You may wonder why should 40,000 men have to die to get to this point? But one thing came of it. Benjamin was confident at this point. We've taken out 40,000 of them, let's get them. They can't handle us. And so on that third day, they're willing to get lured away from the city. They get drawn out and Israel makes a stand. 10,000 chosen men who need to occupy this army while the main ambush goes around. The other force attacks the city, slaughters them and sets the whole place on fire. You can imagine the moment of dismay when that overconfidence comes crashing down because one of your fellow soldiers looks over his shoulder and says, wait, why is there smoke coming up from back there? When the men of Israel saw that smoke going up to high heaven, that was their signal. They turn and suddenly Benjamin realizes this was a trap. They can feel the disaster is upon them. The other force after having slaughtered the city is gonna come out and join the attack on the main army and they're going to absolutely destroy Benjamin. But the key verse here, it's not the strategy per se. It's not what Israel was doing exactly. This key verse is verse 35. And the Lord defeated Benjamin before Israel. Why did this happen? This wasn't just a triumph of tactics. This was God striking down Benjamin. Israel's going to go and surround Benjamin's army. They're going to annihilate them. 600 men is all that's going to be left of this mighty fighting force, not to mention all the people of the town that had just been destroyed. They go fleeing to the wilderness and clear in the air is that there is no defense against God's justice. Israel, by the way, They're not done with just an army. They go on and they are going to actually execute the holy warfare that they have been executing on Canaanites before now. The idea, God said, this isn't a strategy for warfare, this is how you judge an evil people. Wipe them out, devote them all to destruction. This is what Israel's going to do to one of their own, to their own tribe. They are going to go and strike down every city, every man, every beast, every Benjaminite that they can find. They are going to accomplish this act of holy war. And so you have to zoom back and set this tragedy in the big picture. As we said, God had commanded Joshua and that generation to go into the land of Canaan and to devote all the Canaanites to destruction. It was holy war, but the book of Judges is the chronicle of how they didn't follow in Joshua's steps. No, they gave up on holy war. They gave up on following the Lord. The book of Judges is how the people of Israel became like Canaanites. And so here you put it all together. It is so tragically fitting that the last act of holy war in the book of Judges is when Israel devotes one of their own tribes to destruction. Entirely just, entirely fitting, and absolutely heartbreaking all at the same time. Devastating justice falls on Benjamin, falls on the tribe of Benjamin, falls on even the so-called people of God. God's justice cannot be thwarted. God's justice cannot be defeated. God, by his nature, guarantees justice. Maybe not today, but absolutely on that last day. It is because God is fundamentally just that he is going to guarantee that justice will be done. And see, this is that remnant of God's work in us all, believer and unbeliever alike. We all know that there is a creator. We all know there is a judge to whom we will all answer. And it doesn't matter how skillfully humanity tries to defend its sin. We go around and we say things like, well, the Bible's outdated. We say things like, we know better now. We say things like, well, what I did was justified. We say things like, no one can judge me. Well, bad news. Yeah, God can. And yes, God will. God's justice will never be denied. And so for those who don't believe, oh, if you're here, you gotta hear this. For those who don't believe, you have to know justice is coming for you. God has missed none of your crimes. He knows them all. And He is the God who will find every single sin out. You cannot dodge God's justice. You cannot thwart God's justice. You will have zero chance of being able to defend against God's justice. God, by His very nature, must answer your sin. He must respond. The fear of every sinner is that God is just. God is just every time. But the good news, the good news is that there is a way for sinners to escape God's justice. The tribe of Benjamin, they stood up for sinners, but they did it in such a way as to thwart justice. See, Jesus Christ stood up for sinners, but he did so in such a way as to fulfill God's justice. The cross, the cross was not simply God proving that he is loving, the cross was God proving that he is just. God did not, God could not just arbitrarily forgive everyone. Hey, no big deal. It's impossible for a holy, just God to just walk away from any sin. No, justice had to be paid. And justice was paid for by the Savior who stood in the place of sinners. Our Savior so identified with his people that their sin became counted as his. And when that devastating blow of justice landed from God's own hand, it landed on the shoulders of Jesus Christ. So we ask, who would ever stand up for such wicked, awful, inexcusable sinners as us? Jesus Christ would. Jesus Christ did. So this is what you gotta know. This is what you have to take away. Justice comes for every sinner who clings to their sin. But mercy and forgiveness are held out for every sinner who would cling to Jesus Christ instead. Let's pray. Our God, we thank you for these two dark chapters. We thank you that you would shine light on an evil people and let them know they're evil. But more than that, we thank you that you would offer forgiveness to such an evil people. We thank you that you would set your love on such an evil people, just wonders greater than we can get our minds around. Our God, may your justice hound every one of our hearts if we're not walking with you. But we pray that every person who can hear these words, we pray that they would run from justice and run to the gospel of Jesus Christ. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen. We hope that you were edified by this message. For additional sermons as well as information on giving to the ministry of Grace Community Church, please visit us online at gracenevada.com. That's gracenevada.com.