If you'd open your bibles to the 17th chapter of the book of judges judges chapter 17, we'll be looking at the Entire chapter tonight as we go through the 13 verses before we look at our text tonight Let's bow and look to the lord in prayer father. We thank you for this great book of judges. What a Wonderful book it is it certainly teaches us many lessons in life and we pray that we would learn lessons here tonight From this very interesting text of scripture that you have inspired and we will thank you for that in Jesus name Amen, I read of two atheists who were flying in an airplane and the engines went out and they realized that they were going to crash and faced with the fact that they were going to die and the atheists grasp at some hope and they decided they would turn to God. The problem was they didn't quite know how to turn to the Lord and they didn't know how to pray. So one of the atheists said to another, how are we going to turn to God if we don't know how to pray? One of the atheists said, well, listen, I used to live next to a Catholic church and I listened to them pray many times. He said, well, let's pray their prayer. So he said, okay, B5. N14, B1. Their prayer turned out to be a bingo game. Having religion does not mean one is right with God. And when people have hearts that are not right with God, they still want to be religious. And usually when people have hearts that are not right with God, they will rely upon religious rites and ceremonies and man-made things like candles and crucifixes and beads. None of those things are in the Bible. The fact of the matter is they're not really interested in studying the Bible because they want their religion. I believe we're living in a day in which most of people, including many ministers and congregations, they're not really interested in understanding and obeying the word of God. I receive mailings on a regular basis on how to market the church, and not one of them says in any of the mailings, carefully expound the scriptures. Most people who claim to be Christian are living their life their way, they're doing what is right in their own eyes, and they don't give much thought to what the scriptures actually say. One of the symptoms that we are living in that society, or kind of society, is that men raised up by God, who can actually communicate the truth of God, disappear. men of God who were known for carefully expounding the scriptures and doctrines of far and few between. And all of this leaves people in a state in which they're trying to figure out life on their own and they don't have any authority base for what they do except for themselves. Now when you come to these chapters of Judges, Judges 17 to 21, you come to a point in time where the great judges are gone. We're basically now at an interval period between the judges and the kings. In fact, the key phrase that shows up in the next few chapters as we wind this book of judges down is, in those days, there was no king in Israel and everyone was doing that which was right in their own eyes. So any resemblance of godly leadership, and there hasn't been a lot of good leadership along the way, but there's been some moments of great leadership, any resemblance is gone. You have no more Gideons, you have no more Jephthahs, you have no more Samsons, nobody points anybody to the true, pure ways of God. God has stopped raising up his men. He just lets people drift along this way or that way into la-la land, and they make a total mess of themselves. As one commentator said, the life of the people of Israel falls completely apart here. In these final chapters of the book of Judges, what we see is the utter spiritual decay of Israel in their home life, their religious life, their civil life, and their moral life. What you're about to witness as we wind this book down is a spiritual, social, and sexual perversion that'll end up dominating God's own people. Home lives, where God was supposed to be honored and God was supposed to be reverenced, become a mess. Worship becomes man-made and completely distorted. It's been well observed that God has established three major institutions, the government, the home, and worship. And when people move away from the word of God, all of those areas begin to fall apart. Everyone was doing what was right in his own eyes, and there was a complete departure of the Word of God. There was no proper doctrine, no proper leadership, no desire to understand scripture, no desire to obey the Word. You have total confusion in the land of Israel. God's own people had so departed from the Word that this nation is morally and spiritually bankrupt. And what we'll see tonight as we go through this chapter is When you lose your understanding of the Word, and you lose your focus on the Word, God will sovereignly permit that society to deteriorate, completely deteriorate. And you'll start to see the deterioration in the home and in worship. God's people decided to worship God on their terms. They're not interested in what the Scriptures say, and God starts causing the world of His own people to completely cave in. Now in this passage tonight we're about to meet a very strange family. It's the family of Micah. The irony of the name Micah is that his name means who is like Jehovah. He is anything but a reflection of Jehovah. J. Verna McGee said Micah is a mama's boy who's a spoiled brat. Micah's family is bizarre to the point that it shows what a family of God can actually become if you drift away from the scriptures. God's people decided to worship God on their own terms, not on his terms, and he said, fine, I'll let your family just fall apart. And there are two downward spiral parts to this I want you to see. Part number one, when people do what is right in their own eyes, there will be a lack of what is morally and biblically right in the home. I'm reading from Judges 17, 1. Now there was a man of the hill country of Ephraim, whose name was Mike. He said to his mother, the 1,100 pieces of silver which were taken from you, about which you uttered a curse in my hearing, behold, the silver is with me. I took it. And his mother said, blessed be my son by the Lord. He then returned the 1,100 pieces of silver to his mother. And his mother said, I wholly dedicate the silver from my hand to the Lord for my son to make a graven image and a molten image. Now, therefore, I will return them to you. So when he returned the silver to his mother, his mother took 200 pieces of silver and gave them to the silversmith, who made them into a graven image and a molten image. And they were in the house of Micah. And the man Micah had a shrine and he made an ephod and household idols and consecrated one of his sons that he might become his priest. In those days there was no king in Israel. Every man did what was right in his own eyes. God's word was so neglected that dads and moms and children who claimed to know God didn't even know when things were going awry in their own home. They couldn't even see stuff going wrong. In this section Micah admits he stole money from his mother. And his mother praises him and actually promotes idolatrous worship. This is how religiously insane things had become here, supposedly as the home of believers. But when you look at this home, you see there's no resemblance whatsoever of any form of biblical righteousness. This guy Micah is a real piece of work. He lived in the hill country of Ephraim. He lived in the mountainous parts of the tribal land belonging to Ephraim. His name, as we said, means who is like Jehovah. The problem is not with his godly name. The problem is in his godless behavior. Apparently the family of Micah was very wealthy because Micah had stolen 1,100 pieces of silver from his mother. Now that's a lot of money. We've seen that number, 1,100 pieces of silver before. That's the amount that each of the five Philistine lords agreed to pay Delilah if she could get Samson to tell her the source of her strength. Some try to connect this to Delilah or some family relative of Delilah, but the text does not permit us to actually do it. But the value of 1,100 pieces of silver is seen to be quite a sum of money if you see the priest who's hired a little later in the chapter for ten pieces of silver a year and he accepts the job and it turns out to be a pretty good wage so you're looking here at a hundred and ten times the amount of the average salvery what you have here is a major crime of embezzlement I mean if you lived in a world where the annual salvery is thirty thousand dollars this is the equivalent of this boy stealing three point three million dollars from his mother This is not a loan. Micah stole this money from his own mother. Now what kind of kid would do that? What kind of kid would take 3.3 million dollars from his own mother? Certainly not a child who's interested in obeying God and honoring the parents and honoring God and walking in the ways of God. I've known of cases like that of people who claim they're Christians. I know of a wife who stole her husband's money. I know of a husband who stole the wife's money. Both of these people went to church. According to verse 2, Micah heard his mother utter a curse. That's what bothered him. He heard her utter some type of curse in the home. And he was kind of a guy with a religious bent to him. He was somewhat of a mystical type of guy. And he hears his mother utter a curse on whoever took the money. And he came under some sort of deranged conviction. He goes to his mother and he says, well, I'm the one who took it. He still had some type of conscience that could be somewhat bothered. Actually, what Micah's going to do, what the text says he does do, he confesses to his mother that he took the money, then he's going to give it back. But here's what he won't do. According to the Old Testament law, if you stole money, you were to make biblical restitution. And the biblical restitution that you were to make under Old Testament law was you were to add one-fifth additional restitution to your payment. And then, after you did that, you were supposed to, if you wanted to be right with God, go before the Lord and offer a sin or guilt offering. That all shows up in Leviticus 6. So what you actually have happening here is Micah, he's really not interested in doing what God wants him to do, he's doing what he wants to do. And here's where this thing gets bizarre. According to verse 2, when her son goes to his mom and says, I'm the one who stole your money, instead of this mother being totally appalled by this, she blesses her son by the name of the Lord. Instead of her rebuking her son, she sounds like Casey Anthony's mother. I hope she comes home so we can cook her a good meal and have a family reunion. Instead of saying, look, you're guilty here. You've done something evil here. You need to make this right with God here. She tries to undo the curse and pronounce a blessing. What you'll see in a moment is that the reason why she doesn't curse her son is because she herself is a thief. I know of a case in which a mother stole little things all her life, little things like towels and salt and pepper shakers and supplies from places. When her child grew up, he got in serious trouble for stealing things. like mother, like son. Dr. Warren Wiersbe said, Vance Havner used to say, look, don't worry over the fact that the government won't allow children to have Bibles in schools, because they'll get a free one when they get to prison. Now in this episode, Micah is in violation of four of the famous Ten Commandments. Commandment number one says you shouldn't worship any other thing other than God. He's going to make an idol. Commandment number five says you're to honor your parents. Commandment number eight says you shouldn't steal. Commandment number ten says you shouldn't covet. Micah has totally dishonored God. He's totally dishonored his mother. He's stolen from his mother, and his mother is so far removed from understanding the Word of God, she pronounces a blessing on him for stealing from her. This family was so indifferent to God that there was no conviction there's been wrong here. See, God isn't the authority in this family. They're just all doing what is right in their own eyes. I am convinced one of the saddest signs of our degrading times is that parents have lost their ability and willingness to communicate what is morally and biblically right to their children. In some homes, there's a lack of biblical communication and discipline. There are some fathers and mothers who are almost afraid to look their children in the face and say, you're wrong. You're living in sin. This is evil what you're doing here. It's almost like we don't dare say that because we live in a society when everybody is doing what they want to do. It's true. A mother or father cannot live life for their child, but they can certainly have the decency to tell their child what is biblically right and wrong. And if you don't think we're living in this kind of society, then just talk to schoolteachers, especially Christian schoolteachers, who will tell you if they try to correct the child for doing wrong, they get in serious trouble with the parents. There is a place for mothers and fathers to tell their children, you're in sin. There's a place for mothers or fathers saying, you need to make this right. There's a place for mothers and fathers saying, you've done wrong, you've done evil, you need to resolve this. But when you live in a society in which everything is just tolerated, very few parents have the integrity or they don't have the, as it were, the guts to tell their children anything. And only parents who understand the importance of the authority of the word of God, who recognize there will be a high day of accountability, are in a position to say what is right and wrong. And if a child would steal money from his mother or grandmother, I guarantee you God will track them down. Richard Rogers, who wrote a commentary on judges back in the 1600s, said, if a child defrauds his parents and steals from his parents, the blessings of God will never be theirs. And according to verse 3, Micah returned the money to his mother, and then the mother decides she's going to dedicate the money to God and make an idol. This is how crazy this family has become. This is supposed to be a family of God. Verse 3 we read, then he returned the 1,100 pieces of silver to his mother, and his mother said, I wholly dedicate the silver from my hand to the Lord for my son to make a graven image and a molten image. Now, therefore, I will return them to you. He gives the money back to his mother, the mother who is supposed to have some sort of spiritual wits to her is so twisted up in her brain and doctrine she doesn't know what's right anymore. She not only doesn't discipline this kid, she not only doesn't say you're wrong and in sin, she actually blesses him and then leads him further into idolatry. She helps her son set up his own little religious establishment. She takes the stolen money back, and then she offers some pseudo prayer to God. She probably bows her head, and she is acting like she's doing all of this in the presence of God. And I do want you to notice what she says. She says, I wholly dedicate the silver from my hand to the Lord. Do you see that? I wholly dedicate the silver. She gives the impression. front of her son and in front of anybody else who's there to see it that she is dedicating all 1,100 pieces of silver to the Lord but when you read verse 4 She must have changed her mind because when you read verse 4 she takes 200 pieces of silver and not the 1,100 that she said she was gonna dedicate and she made an idol out of the 200 pieces and then returned the idol back to Micah and she pockets 900 pieces of silver. So here's the mother you've got going, she's stealing. Like mother, like son, she's lying. Like mother, like son. And if you can't be trusted to follow through on your word and your promises to the Lord, how can you expect children to follow through when you as a parent don't? When a mother loses her proper focus on God's Word, she can lose her ability to make true righteous stands with her own children. Mothers, you need to understand God's Word. You need to take a stand for it. I know it's hard for a mother to do, but there are times when a mom needs to do it. This mother was so distorted in her thinking anymore that she actually was partially responsible for her son not doing what's right. She's partially responsible for her son not facing up to things and making it right. She's partially responsible for her son not worshiping God. She's actually promoting idolatry. So according to verse 5, Micah makes an idolatrous shine. In Hebrew, Beth Elohim, he makes a house of gods. He makes his own little temple. He makes a house of gods, which is another violation of the Word of God, because you were only supposed to worship God in the place that was designated by the Lord. Here's what you have here. I mean, this all looks religiously impressive. You have a thief who's not willing to do what's right before God, setting up his own system of religion, and he's not even offered a guilt offering before the Lord to make it right. Now I have had the privilege of doing weddings over the years in Indiana, Illinois, Idaho, Montana, Michigan. The state of Michigan has the most strenuous set of clergy rules for marriages that I've ever seen in any state I've ever conducted a marriage. It's actually a misdemeanor for a clergyman to officiate at a wedding in any way that does not get this paperwork done right and accurately and back to the state in proper time. And I was talking to some people, why do they have these rules in Michigan? I've never seen this before. It's because there were a bunch of phony ministers who were putting up shingles saying they're a church and they're a minister and they're marrying and they're not doing what's right, they're not doing what's legal. And as a result of that, they came up with some rules that said, look, you have to be a bona fide minister, you have to be a pastor of a church, and you have to show the credentials and prove that you can do it before you can marry someone or you can get in trouble. Why? Because the world of religion is filled with liars. is that God's designated place of worship was Shiloh, So what this means is Micah's idolatry is not about not having access to God's place of worship. This is about blatant disobedience to God's inspired word. Naturally, when you've got a guy who's not willing to face this before God, he's stolen money, he doesn't want to face it before God, he's not about to go to the place where God's presence and power is. He's going to invent his own religion. So he takes idolatry to another level. Not only Did he make his house into some form of tabernacle? But he decides, I'm going to make my own priesthood. I'm going to take one of my sons and I'll make him a priest. Now this priest was not called by God. He's not gifted by God at all. The priest was made a priest by Micah. He's appointed by his own dad to be a priest. That's how he gets this job. So what you have here is you have Micah, he steals from his mother, he's an idol worshiper, he makes his own false place of worship, and then he appoints his own false priest. As Gary Inrig said, Micah was guilty of self-made religion and a homemade God. Do you see how evil things have become with God's own people? They lost their way. And the reason why they lost their way is because of a focus on God's word. I cannot help but think of a church that I knew of that was run by a family. The family determined who the pastor was, turned out to be one of their relatives. Didn't matter if it was God's will or not for that flock, it was one of their relatives. The man did not study, the man could not preach, but he had the right connections. He had the right relationships to somebody in the church and he made them their pastor. They made it by appointment. And even to this day that church has a deadness to us. It's just like a spiritual cemetery. so this kind of thing that you see here in the seventeenth chapter of judges still goes on today there are ministers who are appointed by a man not gifted by god and the moment you start drifting away from the word of god and doing what is right in your own eyes that's the moment you start a spiral downward of doing evil which brings us to the second downward part they lack what is morally and biblically right in worship now watch what happens in verse seven There was a young man from Bethlehem in Judah of the family of Judah who was a Levite, and he was staying there. Then the man departed from the city from Bethlehem in Judah to stay wherever he might find a place. And as he made his journey, he came to the hill country of Ephraim to the house of Micah. Micah said to him, where do you come from? He said to him, I'm a Levite from Bethlehem in Judah, and I'm going to stay wherever I may find a place. Micah then said to him, dwell with me and be a father and a priest to me and I'll give you ten pieces of silver a year, a suit of clothes and your maintenance. So the Levite went in. The Levite agreed to live with the man and the young man became to him like one of his sons. So Micah consecrated the Levite and the young man became his priest and lived in the house of Micah. Then Micah said, now I know that the Lord will prosper me seeing I have a Levite as a priest. This is all a religious sham! God's Word was so neglected that Micah's family invents their own system of worship. And in verse 7, we're introduced to a young Levite from Bethlehem in Judah. We don't learn his name here, but the fact that he's from Bethlehem in Judah is repeated three times, so that's important. In fact, two times it is stated that this priest departed from Bethlehem to stay wherever he might find a place. This priest, who thinks he's a priest, is totally confused about everything connected to God. He doesn't know where he's supposed to minister. He doesn't even know where he's supposed to live. You have a Levite out looking for a job. What he's actually looking for is a job promotion. He wants to upgrade his ministry status. He is out looking for some place where he can minister. He's looking for some place where nobody's going to hold him accountable. He's not seeking the will of God at all. He's seeking his own will. And I'm telling you there are a bunch of ministers just like that. They're opportunists. They're not interested in going where God wants them to go. They're not interested in doing what God wants them to do. They have their own agenda. Now I can say this to you tonight truthfully. We have never gone job hunting for a ministry ever in our lives. Ministries have come to us by the grace of God. It's one of the ways I know that God's doing things when something like that happens. But that's not what you learn when you go to most schools. Most schools don't say, wait on God for him to open up some door and don't go out there and just go out there and be aggressive to find a job. Most seminaries will say, get your resume out there. Look it up. And when we were in school, there were guys that would go and they would look up, where are the big cities? Where are the big churches? Where are the big contracts? Where are the big paychecks? That's this guy, this Levite traveling around looking for something like that. One of the satanic traps in a society that is moving away from the word of God is that there will be a rise of self-appointed religious ministers. They're not interested in carefully teaching the scriptures. They're not interested in giving glory to God. They're interested in self-advancement. They're interested in self-glory. They want big churches, big numbers, and they go out and look for a job until they find it. They'll go from place to place. Oh, they may go to this ministry for a year or two, then they'll go to another ministry for a year or two, but they're always on the prowl for a better ministry. But what this text teaches and what ministers needs to know is that if you want to appoint yourself, it will always take you away from God and His word and His will, and ultimately it's going to take you deep into sin. Any minister should want to do God's will regardless of where it is or what it is. But this Levite was out job hunting. Now the Levites were not given any specific territory, foreign inheritance, but they were assigned various cities where they were supposed to live and they were supposed to be cared for. Bethlehem was not one of the 48 Levitical cities in the list according to Joshua and Numbers. So this Levite is out where he's not even supposed to be. He's in a city looking for work where he's not supposed to be. He's trying to find a better job someplace else other than where God apparently wanted him to be. He's looking for a nice cushy job where he doesn't have to work hard. He can make a good living. And according to verse eight, he came to the hill country of Ephraim and wouldn't you know, he shows up at the house of Micah. Oh, this is going to be a beautiful deal because you got a guy who doesn't care about obeying the word of God and he's setting up his own religion. And now in walks a priest right into your house. Now, Levites were dedicated for priestly service, but They were only permitted to serve if they were a descendant of Aaron. If they weren't from the line of Aaron, according to Numbers 3.10, and they tried to be a priest, they were supposed to be killed. What you'll see a couple of weeks from tonight is that according to Judges 18, this priest's name was Jonathan. He's not from Aaron's line. He's from the line of Moses. So in all reality, he's really not even supposed to be a priest. Furthermore, according to Numbers 4, a priest from the Aaronic line was supposed to be at least 30 years old. The text says he was a young man. We're not even sure if this guy was 30 years old. So Micah is from the wrong place, he's looking for a job, and he's probably the wrong age. You have a Levite who happens to show up at Micah's house, and according to verse 10, Micah offers him a job. He says, hey, I'm looking for a priest, and here's what I'll pay you. I'll pay you 10 pieces of silver a year, I'll give you a change of clothing, I'll give you everything you need to maintain your life, your housing, your food, your expenses. And Micah says in verses 10 to 11, that you'll be both a father and a son and a priest to me, and I'll treat you like a son. And he's basically saying to him, you're going to have a good life. And Micah puts all of his religious belief in this guy. I mean, he is so messed up in his brain. He's so far removed from the word of God that he's just playing in religion. And it's interesting, by the way, But of course, this Levitical priest, Norm Micah, would even know this. If you actually look at the amount that Micah offers the guy, compare that with what God said was to be the provision for the priest. He's actually getting the short end of the deal, but he doesn't care. He's a young guy. He's found a job. Nobody's going to hold him accountable. And according to verse 11, the text says, he agreed to live with the man and the young man became to him like one of his sons. He agreed that he's going to take the job. This is a good setup. good pay, good benefits. I'm out here. I'm calling the shots. Nobody will hold me accountable. I'm going to be happy here." What this young religious leader would do is walk around and people would call him father. Who wouldn't like that? You're a young religious guy. You're walking around. Everybody's calling you father. This is a good career move that it appears to be for this guy, but this is going to turn out to be bad because he should have checked his own spiritual life. and he should have checked Micah's own spiritual life. Many years ago, when I was pastoring another church, a church approached me about becoming a pastor. I didn't know a thing about the church, but I knew Mr. Miles probably did, so I called him to consult with him about the church, and he said, you stay clear of it. He said, this is one place that I would say was Ichabod. It's written all over it. The glory of God has departed it. And I've always been thankful that I stayed clear of that place because it was going to be a dead-end ministry. That's exactly what this priest is going into, a dead-end ministry. It's a shame that this young priest didn't do a little more homework and say, you know, I'm working for a guy who steals from his mother. I'm working for a guy who never makes things right. I'm working for someone who has no integrity. But according to verse 12, Micah had some type of dedication ceremony, and he made the Levite priest. And we get the reason why Micah wanted the priest hanging around his property. Verse 13 says, Now I know that the Lord will prosper me, seeing I have a Levite as a priest. This is all about Micah's prosperity. See, that's his idol. It's money. That's why he stole it. That's why he embezzled it. Now God is a God who prospers His people who obey Him, who love Him, who turn to Him in His Word. He prospers them in multiple ways. God will prosper those who want to obey His Word. God will prosper those who want to deal with sin, who want to be honest. But that's not the case here at all. From Micah's perspective, this is about some priest that you have hanging around as a lucky charm. But Micah is going to soon learn God is not going to prosper him at all. But do you see what's happening here in worship? Do you see how bizarre worship became in Israel? This family's making up their own stuff and they're calling it worship. There's no serious emphasis on teaching the word. There's no serious emphasis on doing what's right to get you into a right relationship with God. This is all a big religious sham. And this religious stuff does not impress God at all. I mean, you do have to ask yourself, what kind of child would steal from his mother? What kind of mother would lead her own child into idolatry? What kind of minister would minister in a place of idolatry? Well, here, the kind of person that would do that is one who does what's right in their own eyes. The kind of person who could care less about what says the Lord. There are people who go to church every week. They appear to be religious. They do what's right in their own eyes. They don't care if they ever hear God's word. They don't care if they ever hear it actually expounded accurately. There are people who go to church to see dancing girls. There are people who go to church to hear bands. I was told today in a phone call from someone who said, I listen every week to the radio as I'm driving to church, and our church doesn't feed us the Word of God, but the people are nice. They don't even care if they crack open a Bible. I just saw a megachurch leader stand up and tell interesting stories for one half hour. He never actually expounded one verse of scripture, and the people there loved it, and they call it worship. It is a sham. You take a family not interested in carefully knowing the Word, You take a church not interested in carefully understanding the scriptures and you take the authority base for what you believe and do right away. When you take away the authority base of the scriptures, you lose that sharp sense of right and wrong. You begin to drift away in this way and that way and you don't stand for much of anything. That is exactly what happened in the book of Judges when all the people did what was right in their own eyes. May we pray. Now, you may be a real religious person here tonight, but you need to know this. If you do not believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, no matter how religious you are, you will experience the condemnatory wrath of God. You can go through religious motions, you can do religious stuff, but you need Christ in your life. And that's the truth of Scripture. If you've never believed on Him right now in this moment, Right where you sit, you pray something like this. God, I know I'm a sinner. I thank you that Christ died for me. And right now, I invite him into my life to be my savior. Our Father, we thank you for this book of Judges. It is a powerful book. It's a practical book. It, in many ways, mirrors what we're seeing take place in the United States of America. We pray, dear God, that you would sovereignly intervene in the minds and hearts of those who are in high places, that they would come to realize the value of going back to the scriptures and honoring you and honoring your words so that you can bless us. We thank you for the privilege we've had of sharing this great Lord's Day together. We pray that you would dismiss us with your blessings tonight. We pray that you would keep us all safe in the next couple of weeks as we're apart. Watch over the flock, protect the flock, protect the ministry. And for that, we will thank you. In Jesus' name, amen.