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All right, so tonight we come
into the last lesson in the book of Judges. So if you turn to
Judges chapter 19, and we're going to look at three chapters
tonight, 19, 20, and 21. He said, well, three chapters,
yes, because they all go together, those three chapters. And tonight
we're going to look at a passage of Scripture that is very disturbing,
but it's in the Word of God, and we need to look at it. So
tonight we're going to look at when sin goes unchecked. Look in Judges chapter 19, verse
1. So we're going to look at Judges
19 verse 1 tonight. And we're going to dissect chapter
19, 20, and 21. And next week, Lord, we will
pick up on the book of Ruth. So, it says, And it came to pass
in those days, when there was no king in Israel, there was
a certain Levite sojourning on the side of Mount Ephraim, and
took to him a concubine of Bethlehem Judah. Let's pray. Heavenly Father,
thank You, Lord, for Your Word. We can open, we can read it,
we can study, and Lord, we can even make application out of
it, Lord. And I just pray tonight, give us something we can take
home, we can live it, so we can glorify Your name even more.
In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. So tonight we're going
to look at these three chapters. And I said last week, I said
that it is amazing how When you go to the book of Judges, it
is an interesting book because all the way until these chapters
you see that the Lord saying, the Bible saying that the children
of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord. And that's pretty
much what we see. And what we see in those chapters
is that judges, the children of Israel, will leave the Lord,
will go and live like the people of the land, and do wickedness.
And when in their wickedness, they will cry out to God. I mean,
after they sinned against God tremendously. And what happened
there was that they'd be oppressed by the people of the land. And
because they'd be oppressed, they'd come to the end of themselves
and ask the Lord to forgive them. And the Lord would send a judge.
These judges are not like the judges of today that we look
at them. They have like a cape and they
sit in some court somewhere. That's not the type of judges
that the Bible is talking about here. So these judges were kind
of protectors, so to speak. They were ruled for those years
and as long as that judge was alive, the children of Israel
were okay. Until the judge died and they
all go back to the same cycle. I see many times that's the way
some Christians are. They're following the ways of
sin and they make a mess out of their life and then they repent
of their sin and they come to church for a little while and
they're there for a little while then they go back to the same
cycle again. They make another mess and they go back and they
continue doing that. And when we live like that we
never have really victory in our Christian life. Because if
we live in the middle of the fence, and I say today I'm going
to try to stay in the middle. Listen, if you walk in the fence,
you're either going to fall to one side or the other. You can't
keep up walking in the fence. You're going to fall. So the
children of Israel did that. But when we come to these chapters
right here, God gave us a glimpse at the wickedness of the people.
When we say like, you know, the children of Israel did evil in
the sight of the Lord, God's going to show us the evil right
now in this chapter. Alright? That's why some people
say, I don't understand why this chapter is in the Bible. Oh,
I understand why it's in the Bible. Alright? And when we begin
to read this, you're going to say, wow. But look at this. These
chapters teach us sin, that sin escalates. When sin goes unchecked,
only escalates creating great damage. As we read these chapters,
we see how personal sin escalates into the sinful behavior of a
city, which escalates into a sinful behavior of a tribe, which escalates
into the sinful behavior of a nation, and it leads to genocide. That's
what happens here in these chapters. So, to say that the moral climate
of the Western culture has changed significantly significantly,
I'm sorry, in our lifetime is to say the least. We understand
if you look at the condition of our nation, even the world,
we can say morality is gone, out the door. If you look back
like 10, 20 years ago and look at today, you say, what happened? You know what? When you open
the gates, and let sin in, and the gates still open, all kind
of sin keeps flowing in. It doesn't stop. And that's where
we live in today. That's what happened in the book
of Judges right here. When you open the floodgates,
everything comes right in. Now let me put it this way. Let's
say you have a big river. And that river is full. That
river is began to expand itself. You say, all right, we're going
to open the flood gate so we don't see no floods going to
the land. We're going to open the flood
gate. When you open that flood gate, trees are coming, roots
are coming, rocks, everything goes down. The same thing is
sin. When we Christians, we open the floodgates or the gates of
sin, there's no sin. When I'm going to stop, it just
keeps going. That's what happens here. So to say that the moral,
like I say, even today, that time morality is gone. Today
in our world, morality is gone. So today we live in an era where
moral absolutes are considered part of the past. Listen, there
was a day that you didn't dare curse an older person. He wouldn't dare say anything
bad in front of a lady. There was a day you just didn't
say that, you didn't speak that way. There was a day that you
would walk, help a lady in a grocery store, an older lady. You would
open the door for a person, let the person go in. You wouldn't
just walk in the store and shut the door and didn't care if the
door hit somebody in the nose or in the face. You would just
stay there, open the door and the person would walk in and
the person would sit down. It was a day, that's the way
life was for all of us. Today, We just don't care. Morality is gone. A person is
here cursing life and everything else, using words that I don't
even know how to say it, in front of anybody, of a child, of a
woman, anybody. And if you turn around and say,
could you please change the way you're talking, they get mad
at you. I was in a restaurant with my wife, not far from here. And this couple sitting in there,
and they were going at it. They were going at it. And I
had it. So I look at him, I said to the lady, because she was
the worst. I said, could you please talk softer so I don't
want to hear all the garbage that's coming out of your mouth.
I'm came here to have dinner. Could you please change the...
She looks at me and she said, what's the matter with you? This
is America. And I said, lady, you know what
you need? You just need a bar of soap in your mouth. You need
a metal brush and just wash your mouth because your mouth is like
a septic tank. I thought the guy was going to
do something, going to get up and be mad. He didn't. He looked
at her and he go, He agreed with me. But see, that's the stage
of our society. We came to a point, we're so
desensitized that it's like normal. And you say, what's wrong with
you? That's the way everybody speaks. No, it's not true. Some
people don't speak that way. Listen, even to this day, I am
54, my mom is 76. I don't say anything in front
of my mother. I don't speak that way, but we
just don't. She's still my mother. That's the way I was raised.
But morality is out the door. That's what we see right here
as well. So such errors is our error rate. The last chapter
of the book of Judges seemed strangely out of place. The last
judge mentioned in the book of Judges is Simpson. We just look
at his life. The story is told in Judges 13 to 16, chapter 13
to 16. But here are four more chapters
following his story. These last chapters of Judges
are a departure from the early narrative structure of the book.
So the first 16 chapters give us a bird's eye view of things. A regular uh, in times right
here we read the people did evil, like I said, in the sight of
the Lord. But now God allows us to look into this chapters
and see what kind of evil is going on. So let's look at this from several
points tonight about this chapters. So let's look at point number
one. We see perversion in the lands.
Look what it says, let's look at chapter 19. Chapter 19 of
the Book of Judges begins with the story of a gang rape of a
woman by a group of men in the city of Gibeah in the tribal
area of Benjamin. So the back story starts with
a Levite a priest, the hill country of Ephraim, seeking to regain
custody of a runaway concubine. So let's look at these chapters.
Look at verse two. We're already with verse one.
And look at verse two. And his concubine played the whore against
him and went away from him into her father's house in Bethlehem,
Judah. And it was there four whole months.
and her husband arose and went after her to speak friendly unto
her and unto bring her again saying his servant with him and
a couple of asses and she brought him into her father's house and
when the father of the damsel saw him he rejoiced to meet him
and his father-in-law, the damsel's father, retained him and then
he abode with him three days so they did eat and drink and
lodge there so while we are not told And we cannot be certain
of a number of the Old Testament scholars believe that the Levite
of the current story is Jonathan here, the grandson of Moses.
And the Levite of the previous two chapters... Levi's concubine was unfaithful
to him and runs back home to her father's house. So we see
right here a concubine is not literally his wife, is, I want to explain where concubine
is, but she's unfaithful to him and she runs away and she goes
to see, to go to her father's house. No, he goes after her.
That's what we see in these chapters here. So Now, a concubine was
a woman, often a servant or a slave, with whom a man had regular sexual
relations, but to whom he was not allegedly married to. A concubine
did not have the rights of a wife, and a concubine's children were
not right heirs of the person, or if that man, whatever he had,
would not go to them. So even if a husband treated
a concubine as a wife, she had virtually no legal rights and
her future and that of any of her children, I'm sorry, will
often belong to the real wife of that guy. So let's put it
like this. So I was married with my wife
and I had a concubine. If that concubine have children
that from me, literally that children didn't belong to her,
it was to my wife. That happened to Abraham, remember? And many others in the Bible.
The concubine had no rights. even though she lived there.
And some of them would like them so much, would call them their
wives. But they were not. But this was done in the Old
Testament. So concubines were something
that were very popular in those days. So why God never sanctioned,
God didn't approve this. Don't want to say like, oh I'm
getting myself a concubine. No. God didn't approve this stuff. People just did it. So four months
after she runs away, the Levites travel to Bethlehem, this Levi,
where he initiated reconciliation with her, with his concubine.
So what we see right here, a land that forgot hospitality. So he goes and grabs her so he
can go back. Let's look at verse 10, what
it says right now. But the man would not tarry that night, but
he arose up and departed and came over against Jebus, which
is Jerusalem. And there were with him two asses
settled, his concubine also was with him. And when they were
by Jabesh, the day was far spent, and a servant said unto his master,
Come, I pray thee, and let us turn unto this city of the Jezebites,
and lodge in it. And his master said unto him,
We will not turn aside, either, unto the city of a stranger that
is now the children of Israel. We will pass over to Gibeah.
and he said on to this so this they're going to he said I don't
want to stay here we're going to a city the city that Bible
talks about is in Bethlehem Judah or so I know I'm sorry so no
it's not as in Benjamin so they're going there so they need to find
a place for the night interesting here there that hospitality was
a very big thing in those days we're going to see something
here. During the period of Georgia it was dangerous to travel in
the daytime even more at night. Those were dangerous times. So
the Levite didn't want to stay in Jerusalem because it was in
the hands of the pagan Jezebites. So he prayed, he pressed on four
miles to Gibeah so he could be with his own people. but the
men of Gibeah turned out to be wicked and as the heat and around
them. So he thought, I'm going to lodge
with my own people. He was in for a surprise. And
the Bible describes about what kind of surprise he's going to
have here. So he has to begin with, with nobody in Gibeah turned,
came to open the visit. Those days were like this. They
come to the center of town and they will wait there. And somebody
in town will come and accommodate them for the night. They will
show hospitality. Hospitality is not very common
in America these days. A lot of people are not very
hospitable, especially here in the Northeast. They're not very
hospitable. In the South, you see people
are more hospitable. They're more kind. I don't know,
I guess it's, I don't know why, but I noticed that. When I go
south, I come north, I see a big difference the way people are.
I'm not saying that you're not hospitable, but many people aren't
very hospitable. You ever knock on somebody's
door and they only open about this much in the door? Hi, how
are you? Can I help you? You don't even...
Yes, and you're trying to introduce yourself to them and it's still
like this much and it's cold outside and it's raining. I come
from a culture like if somebody knocks on your door, you open
the door, you invite a man. Especially if you know the person. And here in America, it's like
it's raining, it's snowing and you're over there going, hi,
how are you? And they leave you there. So hospitality is one of the
sacred laws of the east and no stranger was to neglect it. But
one man show up and only one man show up concern was a Ephraimite
right here. Nobody came. So this man comes
and show this man hospitality. So hospitality let me tell you
is a dying thing. There are many people who don't
show it. They don't care. That is not part of what they
do. So Let it be. Let's look at here. Land loaded
with wickedness. Look at George's 1922. It says,
now as they were making their hearts married, like you know,
these people got there. These people invite a man. So
inside this man's house, as they get married, you know, the night's
going on. They're having a good time together. Look it says,
behold the men of the city soot sounds of bilia. These people
are not saved. Literally, they're sons of the
devil. That's what the Bible calls them here. So you understand what the Bible
is talking about here? Okay. I know we live in a day
and age where we have to be politically correct. I'm going to be very
politically correct right here. These are all homosexuals. They
came to the door. They knocked on the door. They
were about to knock the door down. And He said, bring the
man that you have in your house. Bring him out. We want to know
him. And folks, Let me then look at what it says in verse 23. You see the man comes outside
and begs them and say, no you're not going to do this. This is
wrong. You're not going to do this. Just go your way. Don't
we, it's not a passage in the Bible about a lot that happened
the same thing? Isn't a lot when the angels came and came into
Sodom and the men of the city knocking the door and said the
same thing? Bring the men out that we may know them. And the
angels just blind their eyes and Lot get out of the city and
his family. Same thing right here. It's interesting.
So folks, the Lord allows us to see in the last chapter the
wickedness that was going on in the land. So God opens the
doors right here so we can see the wickedness of the land right
here. So there was no leader in Israel. There was no priest. The priesthood
was in disarray. Everybody was doing what was
right in their own eyes. When there was no, listen, when
there was no rules to follow, no laws to obey, no spiritual
guidance, the result is wickedness. When we discard God and take
Him out of everything, the result is wickedness. When we disregard
sin, the result is total wickedness. Let me tell you something. If
we had no authority in America, we had no governors, no president,
no policemen, no laws, what do you think would happen to America?
It would be disarray everywhere. Everybody was doing right in
their own eyes. Everybody will show power. In my house I rule. The other one across the street,
in my house I rule. And it will be chaotic stuff.
We think, listen, the Bible says that the heart of man is desperately
wicked. Everybody thinks they're right.
It doesn't matter. Listen, you talk to people, everybody
has to have an opinion, don't they? Well all of us have an
opinion. And you can talk to somebody and they're definitely
wrong. And go convince them that they're wrong. And they tell
you, you told you that I'm wrong, I'm right. But anyway, the law
of hospitality demands that the old man protect his quest at
all costs. To invite someone into your house
means not only providing hospitality, but also to offer protection. So that man, that man was just
doing what was right. I said, don't do this. He was
actually protecting the death of that
man because that's what the hospitality is called about. So the old man
from Ephraim pleads with these people not to do such a wicked
thing. And he even offers them his own daughter. Now in this
passage we see the wickedness of the man of the land, the wickedness
of this old man in the house, and the wickedness of the Levi,
the priest. So we see sin coming from the
frank direction. So these men come knocking on
the door. They're homosexuals. They're
angry. They want to know the guy that is in the house. The
man in the house, the owner of the house says, no but I'll give
you my daughter. Then we see the wickedness of
the Levi that literally grabs a concubine and gives her away. Who's wrong in this thing? All
of them. All of them. So the twist in
this story is found in verse 24, where the Levi himself took
his concubine and sent her out to be gathered by this mob. Look what it says in verse 24.
How wicked can you be? You're not going to touch this
guy, but you can do whatever you want to this one. Folks, it's very rare to hear
preaching on a passage like this in the Bible, okay? You just
don't hear it, but it's here. So the Hebrew word used here
means to take by force. Literally this Levite took her
concubine by force. Literally she probably fought
and said, I don't want to do this, I'm not going. He grabbed
her and out the door you go. So now, can two men in their
right mind do such a thing? There are a bunch of wicked men
outside the house who are acting worse than animals and they grabbed
this woman and gave them to be abused by them. And one of them is a Levite.
Let me tell you. I know the old man wants to save
his neck. So is the Levi. So he offers them something else. Let me tell you, if you were
there, what would you do? It's easy to read the passage,
isn't it? If you were there, what would you do? That's exactly what I thought.
I was like, you know what? I want my dead body. All right,
where's the two by four? Oh goodness, I'm just kidding.
But anyway, but they don't seem to even to talk about it. They just go, okay, that's the
solution right here. So definitely the men outside
of the house were wicked and evil, but the other two men inside
were not much better. us what we say like you know
we like to point fingers at others look at you oh look and we forget
to turn the finger around and say what about me how quick we
are to point fingers at others and say look at what you're doing
look what you're doing and God says well turn that finger back
towards you what about you what are you doing it's exactly what
these guys this guy's a levi this guy's a priest Actually this passage is very
similar, like I said, to the one where Lot is faced with the
same dilemma. And what he does, he offers his
two daughters. See what sin can do in your life? What happens
to Lot? You end up laying with his two
daughters and have children from his daughters. See what happens
when we allow sin to have dominance in our lives? Why would Lot do
that? Lot got drunk. You say, well
I can handle alcohol. I don't think Lot could. We think
we can heal. No, we cannot. See, when we allow
sin to have dominion over us, to overtake us, we do things
we would never imagine we will do. And we just do it. Let me give you a story. We have a kid. None of you know
where the kid is, but went to Pensacola Christian College.
There's one rule in the college. You don't go out the college,
out of those grounds, with a person of the opposite sex. They went
and got a pass to go out. I mean, a couple of boys. They
lie. They went out with the girls.
They came in. One of the girls comes in, said
that she, the boys tried to assault, sexually assault her. See what
Sen does? I don't know if charges were
pressed. Press against them, but he's
no longer in college. They tell him, go home. When
sin goes unchecked, when we're allowed to go, we justify it,
we justify it, we justify it, and it gets worse and worse and
worse and worse. That's what we see here. So, this concubine is abused
repeatedly and violently raped all night. What is the people in the village?
Obviously this woman was screaming. Obviously there was commotion
in the streets. Where's the neighbors next door?
Where's the people in the streets? Nobody came. Somebody was being
violated over there in the middle of the streets. Obviously there
was noise, there was hollowing and screaming. Where was the
people in the village? You see that? There was two men,
a Levi and an old man in the house. They didn't even get out
of the house. There was these men outside abusing
and raping this woman. Where's the neighbors? It's not my problem. They closed
the doors. It's not my problem. It's not what we do. The scene of verse 26 is heartbreaking. Look what it says. Then came
the woman in the dawning of the day, early in the morning, when
the sun came up. You know what? If you look at
this verse, most wickedness happened at night. It's not by mistake
that Satan is the prince of darkness. Sin is done at night. They're
all night abusing this woman. When the sun comes up, they run. And look what it says right here.
So she died. These guys abused her all night and literally killed
her. But it goes more in here. The
Levite's words in verse 28 reveals to us our cold and callous and
uncaring heart this man have. Look at verse 28. And he said
unto her, I mean, she's laying there. It's daylight now. He comes outside and look what
it says. And he said unto her, up and let us be gone. But none answered. Then the man
took her up upon her ass, and the man rose up and got him into
his place. So he literally didn't even check
if she's alright or not. He just looks at her and says,
get up! Let's go! That shows how much he cared.
And how callous and wicked his heart is. This is a Levi, folks. This is not a regular guy. This is a man of God, supposedly.
He comes out, he has no concern about a human being that's been
raped all night. And literally she's dead. So the preceding actions by this
Levi are even more wicked than the previous ones. Look at verse
29. And when he was coming to his
house, he took a knife, and lay hold on his concubine and divided
her together with her bones into twelve pieces and sent her onto
all the coasts of Israel." It's pretty brutal, isn't it?
If you're like, why in the world he did that for? Literally he
cut her body in twelve parts and sent each piece to each tribe
of Israel. And look what it says here. Let's
see, verse 20 and 30. There was no such deed done nor
seen from the day that the children of Israel came up out of the
land of Egypt unto this day. Consider it. Take advice and
speak your minds. So nothing like this ever been
done with the children of Israel. But it happened there. The Lord
just allows us to see the wickedness that goes on in that land. When
God says they did evil in the sight of the Lord, you have to
think what kind of evil these people are doing. So we see not
only homosexuals did what they did, rape that woman all night,
but we see a man outside offering a daughter. We see another man
that grabs a concubine, put her outside. We see people in the
village that do nothing about it as a crime is going on. And
in the morning when she gets up, when he gets up, he just
says to her, let's go. And now, it goes even worse because
it's horrifying what we see here. He cuts her in pieces. cold, callous heart. See, in a culture that was always
had great respect for the deceased body, this Levi is going to add
one more act of disrespect, as actions are horrifying. He's
more concerned about the loss of his honor than the loss of
his wife. He's more concerned about vengeance
than he is with the vicious attack of his wife. Our hearts look
at this and say, why in the world is this guy so sensitive to this? And he says, this guy is angry
and mad. You know what this guy wants
to do? He wants to create a civil war now. But let me tell you
this, if somebody is to blame about this, it's not more the
people outside, it's him. Who sent a woman outside? He
did. So he's part of the crime. Why didn't he say, over my dead
body, that woman's not going anywhere. He didn't. So how naive was it for you to
expect that she would be alive the next morning? Finding her
dad and her dostas, but feeling guilty about it, he put her corpse
on a donkey and made her way home. How sad. Of course, he
wanted to mobilize the support of the other 11 tribes and punish
the men of Gibeah. who had killed his wife, but
in fact he was the one, like I said, who was to blame. He
did that. He created that. So number one,
we see the perversion of the land. Number two, we see the
war in the land. We go to chapter 20, the next
chapter. This chapter is preceded after
one another. So the Levites' gruesome announcement produced
the results that he wanted. Leaders and soldiers from the
entire nation except Benjamin, and Jabesh, Gilead, came together
to Masphoth to determine what to do. So when the tribes of
Israel received that pieces of her body, they got angry. Wouldn't
you? They said, what's going on in
our land? Why this brutality? They got
all together, the 11 tribes. Benjamin was out, but the 11
tribes came together. And you know what? This man planned
this. Now we're going to have civil war. We're going to go
and we're going to go after the tribe of Benjamin. See letter A we see the appeal. The eleven tribes had agreed
as one man to attack Gibeab. But first they sent a representative
throughout the tribe of Benjamin calling for the people to confess
their wickedness and hand over the guilty man. Now let me tell
you this. People do this all the time.
If they're guilty, give them back. Let them go pay for what
they did. But no, they said, we're not
going to give the people to you. They refused to give those men,
the men that commit the crime, they refused to give them back.
So some people may have interpreted the stubbornness of Benjamin
as an act of patriotism. They were not only trying to
protect their own citizens, but they refused to cooperate definitely
as an act of rebellion against God. When sin isn't exposed,
when it isn't exposed, confessed and punished, it pollutes society
and defiles the land. Listen, when sin goes out unconfessed,
it pollutes the land. It messes up society. It happens
to any society. The wicked men of Gabia were
like the cancerous tumor in the body that had to be cut out.
Let me tell you, if we go on on sinning and sinning and our
sin doesn't get checked, we just continue doing more and more
and we just contaminate everything. Listen, you can sin and drag
people with you. Listen, There are much sin in
our country that is going unchecked. There are many parents who now
have reprimanded their children for the wrong that they're doing.
There's many guys that don't look at their own sin. They justify
it. And you know what it does? It continues to pollute society.
Listen, why we are where we are in America today. Why morality
is at an all-time low. You know why? Because it continues
to go unchecked. The floodgates are open and sin
continues to come in. And what you see is a society
where morality does not exist. And we see the disrespect that
goes on. Like I said, profanity. It was unheard amongst people
when I was a kid. It was unheard. You just didn't
speak that way. You respect an elderly person.
You respect the kids. You respect a lady, a man. Not today. They're going to be
next to you just using all kinds of words. And you look at them
like, what planet did you come from? You know why? Because morality is an all-time
low. That's what happens when we allow sin to continue unchecked. So let's see the result right
here. Let it be the result. Georges chapter 20 verse 13 it
says, And now therefore deliver us up, the man, the children
of Bilhel, which are in Gibeah, that we may put them to death
and put away evil from the land. But the children of Benjamin
would not hearken to the voice of their brethren, the children
of Israel. But the children of Benjamin
gathered themselves together out of the city unto Gibeah to
go unto battle against the children of Israel." So see the result
of sin, what happened here? That crime happened, that Levite
cut that woman in pieces, knew what he was doing, and he started
something here. You have 11 tribes against one
tribe. This tribe stubbornly said, we're
not going to give you these guys. And the other guy said, if you
don't give one way, you're going to give the other way. We're
going after you. You know what's about to happen here? The tribe
of Benjamin is about to disappear. Because they're so determined
they're going to clean the land of wickedness. So when God's people
refuse to obey God's Word, the result is always tragic. The
spiritual life of a church is crippled and eventually destroyed
when the congregation shuts its eyes to sin and will not discipline
the offenders. Listen, sometimes Things go on
even in churches and people close their eyes to it. They don't
want to talk about it. They don't want to say something.
You know what happens? It keeps spreading. It keeps
contaminating. Let me give you a story. There's
this church of 800 people. Almost 900 people. Alright? The pastor falls in sin with
a woman. All right? He goes up in the
pulpit and says, I had a, what do you call it? I'm going to
quote his words. I had an emotional relationship with this woman. You had what? Okay. And the people, oh yeah, we love
you pastor, we don't want you to leave. And he gets up, yes,
and he stayed. You know what happened? Sin went
unchecked. They let it spread. It spread. It spread. You know what happened
to that church? That church died. It's gone. God says even to you and me,
if you keep going this way, I'm going to chastise you. Don't
you think God walks in his churches and looks at what's going on?
We can see this way as well. So the spiritual life of a church
is crippled and eventually destroyed when the congregation shut its
eyes and will not discipline the offenders. Let us see the attack. From verse
18 to verse 20 of chapter 20, we see the children of Israel
rose up to the house of the Lord and asked counsel of God and
said, which of us shall go up first in the battle against the
children of Benjamin? And the Lord said, Judah shall
go first. And the children of Israel rose
up in the morning and encamped against Gibeal. And the men of
Israel went up to battle against Benjamin. And the men of Israel
put themselves in array to fight against them in Gibeon. Let me
tell you what happens here. Now we have brothers against
brothers. The children of Israel fight against each other. This
is civil war. You know why? Because sin went unchecked. You see that? When you allow
sin to escalate to go unchecked, it grows and it grows. And as
it grows, it pollutes the minds of people to a point you see
brother against brother now. And there's no way that Benjamin
can survive this. You've got 11 tribes against
one tribe. There's no way. But too stubbornly
they say, oh no, we're going to stand up for our people. Oh,
your people is guilty. need to be punished. Sin's going
unchecked right here. Look, God gave them permission
to go to battle, but God in His mercy towards the children of
Benjamin, allowed Benjamin to win. You read these chapters
and you go, God is good. But look what it says. And the
11 tribes, look. God gave them permission to battle
with the tribe of Judah leading the attack. The first day God
allowed the Benjamites to win and kill 22,000 Israelite soldiers. You say, Lord, what are you doing?
The eleven tribes wept before the Lord again and sought His
will. So they were doing right. They wanted to do the Lord's
will. Perhaps it was one reason why God permitted the Israelites
to lose the first battle. It was to give them an opportunity
to reflect on the fact that they were fighting their own flesh
and blood. But in the second day of the
war, Benjamin won again and killed 18,000 of his brothers. You're
talking about one tribe against eleven tribes. 11 tribes again sought the face
of the Lord, this time with fasting and sacrifices along with tears.
The Lord answered their prayers and now only told them to attack
again, but also assured them that this time they would win.
The strategy he would use on the third day was similar to
which Joshua used in Joshua chapter 8. So self-confidence became
the two days of victory. And guess what? It would happen
there. Over 25,000 Benjamites were killed on the battle, on
their highways, or highways, or they, and they fled to the
wilderness. So Gabriel was taken, his inhabitants
were slain, and the city was burned to the ground. In fact,
the Israelites army wept out several others, I mean, wept
out or killed several other cities with this operation that they
did. There's one thing interesting right here. Go to chapter 21.
We see the brokenness of the land. Look what it says in verse
2. And the people came to the house of God and abode there
till evening before God and lift up their voices and wept sore. So what happened when we sin
chose as ugly head? When there was the tribe of Benjamite
was just gone, the children of Israel went to the house of God
and cried because it is no victory. We just killed our brothers.
And look what it says in verse 3. And said, O Lord God of Israel,
why is this come to pass in Israel that there should be today one
tribe lacking in Israel? So they're looking and it says,
one tribe, but we killed our brothers. Benjamin is gone. Once the anger cools off, the
eleven tribes realize that they had just about eliminated a tribe
from the nation of Israel. And this made them wept. You see, that's what happens. Sin, when it goes unchecked,
it escalates. And when we try to fix it, it
brings a lot of consequences. say, well but they killed the
people. Yeah, they're crying because that was their brothers.
They killed women and children. Because they say, how you know
that? Let's look down a couple of chapters here, a couple of
verses. See On their anger, like I said, they made them weep. But there were 600 soldiers who
were left from Benjamin who needed wives. So, if they needed wives,
what happened to their wives? They were killed. They killed
everyone. And they found out that 600 soldiers
were left out of the tribe of Benjamin. There was no woman,
there was no children. If these guys died, Benjamin
would be gone. It would be no more the tribe
of Benjamin. Let me tell you. The children of Israel were one
nation. Imagine for an example, all right? How hard it was in American Civil
War. We were not there. But imagine
how hard it could have been when America was in civil war. Americans
killing Americans. Imagine if we go to a civil war
right now. I don't want to happen, don't
get me wrong. But imagine if it happened. Brothers killing
brothers. In the end, who wins? No one. Broken hearts. Imagine if you
have a cousin or a brother, let's say during the American Civil
War. Let's say you had a cousin or
a brother or aunt or uncle in the south and you in the north.
And you're fighting against them. And you kill a brother in the
battlefield. Is anybody going to win? No.
That's why the children of Israel are in the house of God crying.
Because their pain is in there. That's what sin does. It brings
pain. But there's one thing right here,
the children of Israel that made a pledge right here or a covenant
that they will exterminate or kill the children of Benjamin. But there were 600 soldiers that
were left from Benjamin who needed wives if they were going to reestablish
their tribe. But the 11 tribes had sworn not
to give them wives. Where would these wives come
from? Nobody had come to war from Jabesh
or Gilead, which means two things. They hadn't participated in the
oath and the city deserved to be punished. It was possible
that when the 12 parts of the concubine's body were sent to
Israel, a warning was issued and any tribe of the city that
didn't respond and help fight Benjamin would be treated the
same way. If that was the case, then the
men of Jabesh Gilead knew that there was a stake when they remained
at home. and to ensure the slaughter of
the city was their own fault. So we see right here, the executors
found 400 virgins in the city, women who could become wives
of the two-thirds of the soldiers that were on the rock, the Benjamites. These men had been on the rock
for four months. If you can read that in Judges
chapter 20 verse 47. But now they could take their
brides and go home. What a price was paid for those
wives. But such are the wages of sin. A whole tribe was killed. 600 people is left. So what they
did, they have a plan right here. So what price? So the elders
had held another meeting to discuss how could they provide wives
for the children of Israel. So 11 tribes, what they say right
here is this. Alright, okay, we're not going to kill these
guys. If we kill them, if they don't have any wives, they don't
have any people born out of their blood, and guess what? They're
just going to disappear. So we're going to have to come up with
a plan so they can have wives. So they allowed these women to
go to them, but let me see what it says right here. The tribes
would be violating their own oath because they would be given
the girls as brides. The girls were being taken was
a matter of semantics. They both agreed to follow the
plan. So the 600 men got their brides. The 11 tribes kept their
vow. The city of Gilead was punished. The tribe of Benjamin was taught
a lesson. and the 12 tribes of Israel were
saved. How they did this? Somebody remembered
that many of the virgins from the tribes participated in an
annual feast at Siloam. If there remained 200 men of
Benjamin, so what they did, they let those guys come and literally
take the woman. They did nothing about it. They
had this feast and the virgins were there, the women were there,
and the purpose is that the men of Benjamin would come and take
them. And that's what happened. They allowed that because the
children of Israel didn't want to take it. Very interesting
here. And that's how the tribe of Benjamin
came to be and began to grow again. But what I want to see
and I conclude with this, here is this. The book of Judges closes
with this verse. Look at verse 25 in Judges 21-25
it says, In those days there was no kingdom of Israel. Every
man did that which was right in their own eyes. That's the
way it was in those days. And the book closes showing us
what sin does in the lives of people. Listen, I don't know
where you are in your life. But let me tell you, if you're
living in sin, you think you're going the right way? We're not. Because the more we sin, the
more we justify. The more we sin, the more we
justify. But let me tell you this, every sin brings consequences. What happened here is this. It
started with a Levite, an old man, and homosexuals. And that's what happened, the
crime. He even proceeded. He caught that woman in 12 pieces,
sent to the 12 tribes of Israel, with the purpose to have a civil
war. And he got it. A tribe almost disappeared because
of their own stubbornness. Because they didn't want to give
the guilty man up. You see what Sam does? He goes unchecked. That's what sin does. And let
me tell you, if we think, me and you, we can get away with
sin, we are mistaking. Look what the Bible says, be
sure your sin will find you out. There's nothing that is done
in the dark that will not be shown in the light. You say,
but some people did all kinds of things, they died. But it
is revealed even after they leave. But let me tell you, oh but they
didn't pay for it. God is the judge. They might not pay here
at the society but they pay on the other side because the judge
is waiting for them. See people think they can get
away. No we cannot. We either confess it and forsake
it and reap the consequences and trust God. But if we keep
going on sin, that's what happens. And let me tell you, if you open
the floodgates and allow sin to come in, it gets worse. And let me tell you folks, that's
where our society is right now. We live in a society right now,
I think it's worldwide, where the floodgates are so open and
everything goes. It is amazing what we see and
we scratch our heads and say, Is people knowing what they're
doing? Is this thing alright? Everything goes these days. And
they say to you, who are you to tell me I'm wrong? Well, there's
a God in heaven that says, you are wrong. And let me tell you,
there's a God in heaven that says, my word does not change
and sin still sin. Well, we conclude this book and we start next week in another
book, the book of Ruth. So now, I think about this Levi
and I wonder, how did this man make it past the Ordination Council? This Levi is not a good example
of a spiritual leader at all. Because of his actions and self-centered
attitude, thousands of people lost their lives. Sometimes we say, it's my prerogative.
I do what I want to do. What I'm doing, I'm not hurting
anyone. Really? Let me tell you like this. What
we do drags other people. It does. What we do drags other
people. Let me put it like this. Okay,
I'm a father. I'm a husband. I'm a father.
I'm a grandfather. Maybe one of these days I'll
become a great-grandfather. But think about it. What I do
right now, if I do something wrong, don't you think it's going
to affect all these people? Yes, it will. Yes, it will. So well you know I already raised
my kids, I can put my guards down. No, no, no. You have an
example to give to this generation, that generation and that generation.
So we have that example to give. And when we think that what we
do does not affect other people, we are justifying our own sin. That's what happens here. People
who are doing right in their own eyes. Listen, it pays to
live for the Lord. It pays to live a life of righteousness
and holiness. Even in a wicked world. Let me
tell you something folks. I conclude with this. You think
that our society is just bad right now. Don't you think through
the ages society has been bad? and bad. And the people that
live in those ages, they would say the same thing. Goodness,
this society is wicked. We say the same thing today.
But let me tell you something. We were born for such a time
as this. This is our time. You're not going to live 100
years from now. You're living now. And you know what we're
doing now? We'd be an example to the wickedness that is outside.
We'd be an example of godliness and morality and holiness to
people that need to see the light of Christ. Because if we live
like they do, What's the difference? But they need to see Christ in
us, holiness in us, so they can look at us and say, oh, I like
that, I want that. And that's what we need to do.
Journey Through The Bible- When Sin Goes Unchecked
Series Journey Through the Bible
| Sermon ID | 102920024471314 |
| Duration | 55:10 |
| Date | |
| Category | Midweek Service |
| Bible Text | Judges 19 |
| Language | English |
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