If you'd open your Bibles tonight to the 21st chapter of the book of Judges as we come to this book for the final time, this final chapter, and we'll be looking at the final verses of the book as we work through it tonight. So before we begin our journey, let's bow and look to the Lord in prayer. Father, we thank you for your word. and we thank you for your people who have taken time out of their lives to be here tonight to look at it. We realize that this book of Judges has been a most interesting journey and we thank you for the privilege of having the inspired written scriptures in our hands in our own language so that we could enjoy the privilege of going through this book and gleaning from it exactly what you would want us to glean. We pray that for tonight's study, that you administer to our minds and hearts through this inspired passage. In Jesus' name, amen. Psychologists and sociologists and anthropologists and philosophers and even theologians are all trying to figure out how to solve what's going on in the United States because we have a major social, economic, and moral problems and they're trying to figure out how do we go about to rectify the situation. The solution is pretty simple, really. Those that honor God, God will honor. Back in 1928, during the Depression, an editorial appeared in the Wall Street Journal, and it said this. What America needs today is not government controls, industrial expansion, or a bumper corn crop. America needs to return to the day when Grandpa took the team out of the field in the early afternoon on Wednesday in order to hitch them to the old spring wagon into which Grandma put all of the children after she washed their faces shining clean and they drove off to prayer meeting in the little white church at the crossroads underneath the oak trees where everyone believed the Bible, trusted Christ, and loved one another. There's been a gap since this time of judges till now of over 3,000 years. And if you look at our day and you look at its modern technology, it would appear as though we're way advanced. I mean, we're way beyond what they had in the book of judges. We have computers. We have satellite TV. We have vehicles that can almost drive themselves. I mean, you look at our culture and compare that to what they had back then. They're traveling by foot and by donkey, and the provisions are minimal. We certainly seem to be far more sophisticated in our day than they were back in the book of Judges. Yet, when you look at the morality of the world, and you look at the spiritual convictions, and you look at the values of most people and the attitude that most have toward God and His Word, we are no different. The fact is, nothing has changed at all. Everyone was right in their own eyes back then, and the same is true now. The Apostle Paul said that the Old Testament things are written for our instruction. When you tackle a book like Judges, every believer ought to think very seriously about what happened in this book, because that kind of thing can actually happen to a church. It can actually happen to you and me. It is possible for any one of us to begin to drift away from the Word of God to the point that things end in a complete disaster. In chapter 20, we saw that Israel had just about eliminated the tribe of Benjamin, and now all of Israel is living in the aftermath of that big mess. You have only 600 males from the tribe of Benjamin left, and the tribe of Benjamin was in danger of extinction. And you'll recall, according to chapter 20 and verse 48, that the men of Israel went around, they burned down those cities, they killed the people, and they just basically got rid of everything. And so we're in the aftermath of that. And what we see when we look at this passage of scripture is in the aftermath of confronting and dealing with that sin, Israel once again came up with their own plan to preserve Benjamin, which was a plan of murder and kidnapping. Now you would think by now that Israel would have learned a lesson. And that lesson would have been, you know, we need to do honest business with the Lord because every time we begin to drift out into our own way, it ends up in a disaster. That's some lesson that you and I need to learn. Every time we do what's right in our own eyes, every time we do what's wrong in God's eyes, the end will not be you'll be happy. The end will be a disaster. And you would think that Israel by now would be so sick of being in trouble and so sick of one mess after another that they would have finally turned everything over to the Lord and you say, you know, we botched this thing. We have really moved in a wrong direction. Now we're going to make it right, but they haven't learned yet. So when you come to the final chapter of the book of Judges, there are four parts to this historical conclusion that teach us that very point they haven't learned it yet. The first part is Israel faces some emotional problems in the aftermath of their oaths. I'm reading from verse 1, now the men of Israel had sworn in Mispah saying, none of us shall give his daughter to Benjamin in marriage. So the people came to Bethel and sat there before God until evening and lifted up their voices and wept bitterly. They said, Why, O Lord God of Israel, has this come about in Israel, so that one tribe should be missing today in Israel? It came about the next day, that the people arose early, and built an altar there, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. Then the sons of Israel said, Who is there among all the tribes of Israel, who did not come up in the assembly to the Lord? For they had taken a great oath concerning him, who did not come up to the Lord at Mizpah saying he shall surely be put to death and the sons of Israel were sorry for their brother Benjamin and said one tribe is cut off from Israel today what shall we do for wives for those who are left since we have sworn by the Lord not to give them any of our daughters in marriage now when we went through chapter 20 we saw that they had met there in Mizpah and apparently one of the things that happened when they got together is they came up with a couple of real interesting O's It doesn't show up in Chapter 20. We get the data about this in Chapter 21. The first oath is apparently they all swore an oath together that they were going to be united in taking this oath that they would not give their daughters in marriage to any Benjaminite. And that's what you see in verse 1. It's repeated again there in verse 7. They were not going to allow the sons of Benjamin to marry any of their daughters. They apparently swore an oath. Now we've seen people get in big trouble by making oaths in this book. We've seen people get in serious trouble by using their mouths to say stupid things. We have seen people get in big trouble by making up legalistic rules and promises that they're going to do before God when God didn't even demand it, and it ends in a disaster. And you can be certain when they take these oaths that they shouldn't have been making in the first place, that's how it's going to end. Now, the problem when you take an oath that you're not going to allow any of the daughters to marry the sons of Benjamin is you're presenting something that really is contrary to the word of God. Because according to Mosaic law, the Israelite was only supposed to marry within the Israelite economy. In other words, a Benjamite could marry another Israelite, but it had to be an Israelite. They weren't supposed to marry anybody outside the boundary limits of the nation Israel. That's recorded in the Old Testament law. So they had taken an oath, we're not going to allow any of the sons of Benjamin to marry our daughters. And the second oath that they apparently pronounced there at Mizpah was that they would put to death any Israelite who refused to help destroy the Benjamites. Boy, that's a worse deal than that Penn State mess. I mean, that Penn State, they fired some coaching staff for not doing more to help protect children. Israel's going to kill those that didn't even help kill the rapist Benjaminites. And neither of these oaths is sanctioned by God. They just made them up. They go to Mishpah, they make their oaths, they make their promises. They haven't done this because God has led them to do it. They've come up with this themselves. And now they find themselves in a real bind, and verse 2 says, they are weeping bitterly before the Lord in Bethel. That, ladies and gentlemen, is where doing what's right in your own eyes will always leave you, it will leave you weeping. These people of God are emotional, and as a result they're just weeping. They weep when they were not getting a victory. We saw that in chapter 20. They're weeping before God then, and now they're weeping because they have victory. They should have been rejoicing at victory, but now they're weeping because of that. That's what happens when you get out of sync in your relationship with the Lord. In fact, the book of Judges has often been called by scholars the book of weeping. And that's what happens when you do what's right in your own eyes. If you purpose to do what's right in your own eyes and not follow the word of God, you'll spend many a lonely, depressing night crying yourself to sleep. Because happiness and joy are found in your relationship with the Lord. They're not found in circumstances, they're found in your relationship with the Lord. And when the relationship with the Lord is right, you can rejoice and have joy no matter what the circumstances are. But not Israel, because they weren't right with God. In fact, in verse 3, why God has this happened to us? Why, oh God, are they saying has this thing happened? Well, the answer to that is because you people are spiritually stupid! All of these bad things have happened to you because you have lived your life your own way. You refuse to obey the scriptures. You refuse to follow the word of God. You have made one ridiculous decision after another. If you don't want to govern your life by scripture, that's what you do. You just make one stupid decision after another. You make a wrong decision and another wrong decision, your choices are skewed, your mindset is skewed, you don't have any compass about you that's accurate, and off you go and you end up in a mess. Why, oh God, is this happening to us? And according to verse 4, they did sense we've got to sacrifice something to the Lord, so they build an altar and they offer burn offerings and peace offerings, but that didn't seem to solve anything. One writer said, at least when they start building an altar and offering their burnt offerings and peace offerings, they seem to be on the right track toward forgiveness. But then, of course, they blow it again. In fact, the thing is almost hypocritical, because here they offer a peace offering to God in verse 4, and then in verse 5 they want to know, well now, who didn't come help us kill the Benjaminites so that we can go and put them to death? Oh, we want God to forgive us. I mean, we're offering these peace offerings before the Lord, and we've let God down a million times. And by the way, there's no hint at all. that these Israelites are before the Lord saying, we have sinned grossly against you in our rebellion. They don't confess that at all, but they offer these offerings to be at peace with God, and they're willing to kill their brothers who let them down just one time. Now here's the weird thing. In verse 6, the sons of Israel were sorry for their brother Benjamin. They are sorrier for the Benjaminites, who are rapists. than they are for their own brothers who just didn't come help them kill the benjaminites so verse seven says what we do we gotta do how we gotta we gotta solve this brings us to the second historical part they come up with their own solution to the problem verse eight and they said what one is there of the tribes of israel who did not come up to the lord admissible and behold no one had come to the camp from james gilead to the assembly For when the people were numbered, behold, not one of the inhabitants of Jabesh-Gilead was there. And the congregation sent 12,000 of the valiant warriors there and commanded them, saying, go and strike the inhabitants of Jabesh-Gilead with the edge of the sword, with the women and with the little ones. This is the thing that you shall do. You shall utterly destroy every man and every woman who has lain with a man. And they found among the inhabitants of Jabesh-Gilead 400 young virgins. who had not known a man by lying with him, and they brought them to the camp of Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan." Now this is so typical of people that want to do what's right in their own eyes. They have a word of prayer, then just do what they want to do. I mean, they basically just pray about it and then they take off on their own plan. Haven't you seen that before? I mean, some people wonder what they should do and they never go really to God and pour out their hearts before the Lord in prayer. They never search the word of God. They don't consult with people who are skilled in the scriptures at all. They just fly off half-cocked because they want to do what they want to do and they bathe it in a little word of prayer. And as they were considering these things, it dawned on them that nobody from the town of Jabesh Gilead, which was located about 45 miles northeast of Gibeah, had responded to their call for help. So they said, hey, here's a good way we can fulfill some vows. We can go there and we can kill the people because we promised we were going to kill people who didn't help us fight. And then we can pick up some girls there and that'll solve the problem for these guys to have some girls. So that's what they did. Jabez Gilead was only about 38 miles northeast of Bethel, two miles east of the Jordan River. So they take off and they send 12,000 soldiers to the town, and the goal is you kill all the men, you kill the women, you kill the children, you kill any man or woman who's been physically intimate. This is crazy war. I mean, even when our country goes to war, there are rules of war. And if someone violates those rules and they start killing innocent civilians, and they just go in and they start killing men, women, and children, and wiping them out, they can get in serious trouble, but not here. And in some very distorted system of weird justice, since they would not help destroy the sexual perverts of Benjamin. Remember, those people of Benjamin had been homosexual and heterosexual rapists. Because they would kill any man or any woman who'd had normal relationships because they didn't lift a finger to help them but according to verse 12 while they're there they find 400 virgins and They take those virgins that they bring them to Shiloh which is located about nine miles north of Bethel 30 miles north of Jerusalem and now they come up with an amazing plan of their own and They decide that they're going to move toward reconciliation with Benjamin. So in verse 13 we read, who were at the rock of Ramon and proclaim peace to them. Benjamin returned at that time, and they gave them the women whom they had kept alive from the women of Jabesh-Gilead, yet they were not enough for them. And the people were sorry for Benjamin, because the Lord had made a breach in the tribes of Israel. Then the elders of the congregation said, what shall we do for wives for those who are left, since the women are destroyed out of Benjamin? They said, there must be an inheritance for the survivors of Benjamin, so that a tribe will not be blotted out from Israel. But we cannot give them wives of our daughters, for the sons of Israel has sworn, saying, cursed is he who gives a wife to Benjamin. Now this story gets weirder. Instead of these Israelites wanting to reconcile with their fellow Israelites, they want to reconcile with the Benjaminites. And according to verse 13, the whole congregation of Israel went to the 600 sons of Benjamin and they wanted to proclaim to them some peace settlement. And as a peace offering, they give these guys 400 virgins that they had taken from Jabesh Gillian. I mean, these girls have no say in anything at all in this. I mean, this is nothing more than a program that forces these girls to have sex with 400 Benjamite men. And according to verse 15, they felt sorry for Benjamin. And I'm thinking, what about the girls? What about the 400 innocent girls? Why don't you feel sorry for them? They were sad that there had been a problem between Israel and Benjamin. Aren't we forgetting just a little something here? The reason why they had a problem with the Benjamites is because they were homosexual rapists. And they had refused to face their sin. They wouldn't turn the culprits over who raped and murdered a woman. And by the way, there is absolutely no evidence that Benjamin had repented of any sin. There's no hint that these 600 guys who were hiding out at this rock area were down there trying to get right with God. You don't find them saying, oh, we're so sorry for what has happened here. And here you have Israel who's out there trying to reconcile with Benjamin. See, that's what happens when people just get away from the Word. They lose all sense of right and wrong. They lose all sense of decency. They can actually end up doing just the opposite of what God would want them to do. These Israelites should have been out there with Benjamin saying, you know what? You need to get right with God. Your whole tribe is a mess. You had people who were evil, and you wouldn't even deal with the evil. You wouldn't even turn them over to do what's right. Instead, here these guys are out there telling Benjamin, we're just so sorry. We're just so sorry that all of this negative stuff has happened, and here are 400 girls for your pleasure. I'll never forget years ago in another ministry when our church had to put an immoral person under discipline and out of the church. Some very fleshly people in the church actually went to the godless, immoral person to try to make him feel good, and they almost apologized for the discipline. And when our leaders learned of this, they said to some of these people, have you lost your minds? What's the matter with you? We don't need to be reconciled to him. He needs to be reconciled to God. He's the one who's done the evil. He's the one who's been immoral. He's the one who won't face up to it and deal with it. And you're out there trying to make amends with him. That is exactly what these Israelites were doing with the Benjamites. Now giving the Benjamites 400 girls presented a problem. Because according to chapter 20 and verse 47, you've got 600 men. So this means you have 200 Benjamites who don't have a woman. 400 of them have a woman, but 200 of them don't. So the leaders of Israel are trying to form a solution because of that stupid vow that said we can't give any one of our daughters to the sons of Benjamin. And this is bizarre because there's no hint that these men of Benjamin are confessing sin. Nobody here is seeking the will of God. Nobody here is before the Lord pouring out their hearts. The Israelites are not even challenging Benjamin to get right with God. The Israelites are not saying, God, give us wisdom. What should we do in this situation? We need to know your word. We need to know your will. And all they're doing is trying to figure this out. And they're coming up with things that are actually irrational. They say, boy, it's going to be a problem because we're going to have a tribe that's going to be completely cut off if we can't produce another 200 girls. Well, what happens to the 400 girls? I mean, you're obviously going to have some babies there that's going to continue the tribe of Benjamin, but these people have had their minds, and their minds have drifted away from the Word of God, and they are just drifting into their own la-la land. Which brings us to the fourth part. Israel comes up with their own plans to help Benjamin. Notice verse 19. So they said, behold, there's a feast of the Lord from year to year in Shiloh, which is on the north side of Bethel on the east side of the highway that goes up from Bethel to Shechem and on the south side of Labona. And they commanded the sons of Benjamin, saying, Go and lie in wait in the vineyards, and watch. And behold, if the daughters of Shiloh come out to take part in the dances, then you shall come out of the vineyards, and each of you shall catch his wife from the daughters of Shiloh, and go to the land of Benjamin. It shall come about when their fathers or their brothers come to complain to us that we shall say give them to us voluntarily because we did not take for each man of Benjamin a wife in battle nor did you give them to them else you would now be guilty. sons of Benjamin did so and took wives according to their number from those who danced whom they carried away and they went and returned to their inheritance and rebuilt the cities and lived in them the sons of Israel departed from there at that time every man to his tribe and family and each one of them went out from there to his inheritance the Israelites come up with a plan they said you know our oath is we can't give our daughters to Benjamin or the sons of Benjamin in marriage but We didn't say that the Benjamites couldn't take or steal our daughters. If they steal them, then it wouldn't be us giving them away. So just 13 miles north of Mizpah was Shiloh and many Israelite daughters, it was harvest time, would be participating in what they would call their harvest festival and they'd go out there by those vineyard areas and they would dance. Labona was about three miles north of Shiloh. And this dancing festival that these Israelites were involved in, they didn't get from the Bible. The idea that you go out and dance around out in the vineyards, they came from Canaanite heathen cultures. I find that interesting because this is one of the verses that some churches have cited as a proof text for having dancing girls in church. And the fact is, this has nothing to do with church, and furthermore, it was a heathen ritual. It wasn't a biblical ritual. It's a known fact that heathen religions feature all kinds of dancing girls, and I am bold to say that when you have dancing girls in church, you're in a church that's promoting what's diabolical, not what's biblical. And the Israelites told the Benjamites, you go hide in the vineyard areas. And when you see those girls come out dancing, you grab one of them and steal her. Grab one of those girls, steal the girl, and then take her to your land. In other words, you forcefully take your pick of girls, you kidnap them, and make them your wife. One commentator said, instead of the sons of Benjamin raping one girl, They're actually now involved in raping 600. You have 400 plus another 200 here. And then the Israelites said, and when their fathers or brothers come out and challenge us about what's happened, we'll say, oh, we're innocent. See, we gave a vow that we couldn't give our daughters away to them, but they just came and they took their Benjamite wives, they just took them and they stole them, and therefore we're all innocent of this, and we'll just cover this whole thing up. What this is, ladies and gentlemen, is nothing more than democratic evil. People in political power sanctioning evil in a democracy. It's a democratic plan that we kidnap girls and we sanction it at the government level. It's no different than when a government says we sanction the killing of babies by abortion. It's no different than when a government says we acknowledge homosexuality is just an okay lifestyle and you can live it your way. Democratic evil. That's what you have in this book of judges. So that's exactly what the Benjamites did. They took their wives, they went back to their land, they rebuilt their cities, and according to verse 24, all Israel went home to live out their lives in their own ways, in their own land. What an ugly, evil story. And you have this story before you because one Levite did not do what was right. One Levite, instead of acting like the priest he should have been, let his concubine be raped and killed because he was not an honorable man. Then he cut her up into pieces, and he sent the pieces to 12 tribes, and that's what led to this whole mess. And as you come to the end of the book of Judges, it signs off with this verse in verse 25. In those days, there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. In those days, there was no king in Israel. In our day, there is no king in Israel. And you wanna know why? Because when their king went to Israel, She said, we don't want him. We'd rather have Barabbas. Give us a choice between Barabbas and our king. And she chose Barabbas. And they have been living out judges, doing what's right in their own eyes ever since they made that decision. If this is the story of our life, nobody rules me. I don't submit to any king. I do what's right in my own eyes. We're to be pitied. Because what that means is that we don't much care what's right in the sight of the Lord. God had given grace to his people time and time again throughout this book, but they just never seemed to learn. They just kept doing what was right in their own eyes. Nothing changed. They would not make an effort at all to transform themselves by the grace of God into the glory that was reflected by biblical righteousness. Nothing changed for them, and nothing much changes for a lot of people. Now, I believe this book of Judges is very eschatological in this sense. After Judges comes the kings. And two of the kings who actually pointed the nation back to God. were David and Solomon. And under those kings reign, Israel was probably the happiest that it has ever been in its history. And she'll never be that happy again until the king of kings is back and reigning. And if we put this in an eschatology, we can say that just before the king comes, who will actually make everything happy and wonderful, it'll be a time in which everyone is doing right in their own eyes. And when you look at what's happening in our world, we are there. I leave us with five practical applications from this book that we have seen as we've gone through the 21 chapters. First of all, God is looking to use people who love him, who love his word, who seek to obey him. All through the book of Judges, you keep spotting that. God would use anybody who got serious about Him and His Word. It didn't matter what their previous failure had been. If they decided, I'm going to get real serious about God and His Word, God would raise them up and use them. But if you're going to be that kind of person, your goal can't be, I'm going to do what's right in my eyes. Your goal must be, I want to do what's right in God's eyes. That's the kind of person God uses. Secondly, God is still sovereign and still working out his plan even in a grim world. I mean, just listen to the news. Our world's pathetic. There's very little justice very little honesty, very little integrity. It doesn't shock us anymore to turn on the news and hear almost anything. Isn't it good to know that our sovereign God is still on his throne? And because we know biblical prophecy, we know that this world is spiraling downward, which is leading right to the rapture. It won't be long until we'll have the privilege of seeing the King of Kings, and that'll be the happiest moment of our lives. Thirdly, God will allow nations, individuals, and churches to go their own way. And one thing we've seen over and over again in this book of Judges is immorality can do it. People who plunged into immorality, they ended up in a big, big mess. If you want to live life doing what's right in your own eyes and you want to pursue immorality, God will let you do it. But I tell you this, based on the book of Judges, you'll be miserable. Your life will end a disaster. And although the misery may not hit you instantly, it will hit you eventually. Judges proves that. That that evil and that misery does hit. God can let His own people become very miserable because they will not yield to Him. Which brings us to the fourth application. God will graciously forgive his people and greatly use them if they'll face their sin and confess it and turn from it. We saw that time and time again in this book of Judges. We just really kept hoping somebody would get that point. I mean, by the time you get to chapter 21, you hope somebody in this nation has figured this out. But if no one in the nation Israel figured this out, then don't miss it in your life. Understand this principle that God can greatly use people, but he expects them to face their sin and turn from it. And if they do that, he will use them. And finally, judges is an amazing demonstration of God's grace. Now let me show you something amazing from Revelation chapter 7. Go over to Revelation chapter 7. Twelve tribes are named in Revelation chapter 7 that will be critical evangelical tribes during the Tribulation. These 12,000 from each tribe will be singled out by God to present the gospel of grace and the gospel of the kingdom of Israel to the whole world. And they'll do it in about a three and a half year span. When you look at Revelation 7 and down to verse 8, there's a listing of tribes there. And when you get to the end of verse 8, we see from the tribe of Benjamin, 12,000 were sealed. Imagine that. Imagine that. This tribe that had been involved in such perverted evil by God's grace ends up being used by the Lord because he's restored that tribe and he's going to bless that tribe because at some point in time they're going to get serious about the Lord Jesus Christ and the Word of God. So any person who gets serious about their relationship with Jesus Christ, any person who gets serious about the word of God can experience the amazing grace of an amazing God. And it is our prayer that you've profited from our journey through this book of Judges. This book has challenged me and I hope it's challenged you. When it comes time for us to individually face Jesus Christ, the one statement you never want to hear from his lips, is that, you know, you were just like the person of judges. You were just like people in the book of judges. May God help us all never to have that testimony be the testimony of our lives. May we pray. If you're here tonight and you've never trusted Jesus Christ as your savior, you may have done perverse things in life, but you can trust him tonight and be washed clean of them all. You invite him into your life to be your savior. Perhaps you're here tonight, you're a believer, and you've been way out of whack in your relationship with God. You are just living life your own way. You're in sin. You know you're doing what's wrong. You're doing what's right in your own eyes. You aren't following the word of God, and you know it tonight. Well, it's time for you to think seriously about confessing that sin and doing business with the Lord. If you do, you can be greatly used by him. Our Father, we thank you so much for this marvelous book of Judges. It has been a wonderful honor to be able to take one of your precious inspired books and go through it and see all the amazing things that you've revealed through it. We pray that this book will influence our minds and hearts, affect our lives. I pray that you would never allow us as individuals or as a church to have the testimony of your lips be, you are just like those people in the book of Judges. I pray, Lord, that our goal in life would be to do thy will and not our will. Lord, for anything that you've accomplished as we've gone through this book, we thank you and praise you. In Jesus' name, amen.