All right, there we go. Judges 19, verse one. In those days, when there was no king in Israel, a certain Levite was sojourning in the remote parts of the hill country of Ephraim, who took to himself a concubine from Bethlehem in Judah. And his concubine was unfaithful to him, and she went away from him to her father's house at Bethlehem in Judah, and was there some four months. Then her husband arose and went after her to speak kindly to her and to bring her back. He had with him his servant and a couple of donkeys. And she brought him into her father's house, and when the girl's father saw him, he came with joy to meet him. And his father-in-law, the girl's father, made him stay, and he remained with him three days. So they ate and drank and spent the night there. And on the fourth day, they arose early in the morning, and he prepared to go. But the girl's father said to his son-in-law, strengthen your heart with a morsel of bread, and after that, you may go. So the two of them sat and ate and drank together. And the girl's father said to the man, be pleased to spend the night, and let your heart be merry. And when the man rose up to go, his father-in-law pressed him till he spent the night there again. And on the fifth day, he arose early in the morning to depart, And the girl's father said, strengthen your heart and wait until the day declines. So they ate both of them. And when the man and his concubine, his servant, rose up to depart, his father-in-law, the girl's father, said to him, behold, now the day has waned toward the evening. Please spend the night. Behold, the day draws to its close. Lodge here and let your heart be merry. And tomorrow you shall rise early in the morning for your journey and go home. But the man would not spend the night. He rose up and departed and arrived opposite Jebus, that is Jerusalem. He had with him a couple of saddled donkeys and his concubine was with him. When they were near Jebus, the day was nearly over and the servant said to his master, come now, let us turn aside to the city of the Jebusites and spend the night in it. And the master said to him, we will not turn aside into the city of foreigners who do not belong to the people of Israel. We will pass on to Gibla. And he said to the young man, come now, let us draw near to one of these places and spend the night near Gibba or at Ramah. So they passed on and went their way. And the sun went down on them near Gibba, which belongs to the Benjamin. Then they turned aside there to go in and spend the night at Gibba. And he went in and sat down in the open square of the city, for no one took them into his house to spend the night. And behold, an old man was coming from his work in the field that evening. The man was from the hill country of Ephraim, and he was sojourning in Giba. And the men of that place were Benjaminites. And he lifted up his eyes and saw the traveler in the open square of the city. And the old man said, where are you going? And where do you come from? And he said to him, we are passing from Bethlehem in Judah to the remote parts of the hill country of Ephraim, from which I come. I went to Bethlehem in Judah. and I'm now going to the house of the Lord, but no one has taken me into his house. We have straw and feed for our donkeys, with bread and wine for me, and your female servant, a young man with your servants, there is no lack of anything. And the old man said, peace be to you, I will care for you all, all your wants, only do not spend the night in the square. So he brought him into his house and gave the donkeys feed, and they washed their feet and ate and drank. That's the reading of God's word, let's all pray together. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you that you have not kept us in the dark, but you have revealed yourself to us. And in these pages, we can see of your character. We can see throughout history how you have worked with men, how you have loved your people, and how you still do so today. Give me strength as your servant, that I would speak of you, keep my words from error, and I speak of Christ and Christ alone. In his name I pray, and amen, and amen. So if you remember last time, we had dealt with Micah and his mother, the Levite that was sojourning there, and Dan. Dan, or the Levite, a member, had confessed in that chapter 17, I believe, that he had stole the money from his mother. She had pronounced a curse upon whoever stole it in his presence. He had then took the money that she had given him, made idols with it, and made himself something of a temple, for which he took a priest, a Levite that was sojourning there, and made him his priest over his house. The Danites, who had not come into any land because they had not been able to possess it, they had not been able, with their might, to take any of it when they come into the land, had been seeking a place for themselves. That had brought them across that house of Micah. And as they sent spies, the spies saw it out, and then went and saw, remember that land Lash there, that unsuspecting people that were farmers, and they decided they were going to take that land. And so when they went back and got their men, got their warriors to come back and take that land, they passed back through Micah's home. his temple he had set up there to really himself and those foreign gods, those household gods and idols that we were told about. So when they had come back through, they had not only pillaged and plundered and took lash, but they decided, well, the question was posed, what will we do? Because in this house, they have many gods, many household gods and things of that nature and the ephod. So they took all his household gods from him and in the process also took his Levite. They then went to Lash and remember set up that city of idolatry there after killing and burning it to the ground and rebuilding it. And that's where we had dropped off last time in the book. We now pick up in verses one and two here with another Levite that is indeed sojourning. another Levite that is indeed sojourning. We're not told he's sojourning for goods or anything of that nature like the Levite was the last time we had seen him. Remember, he had been Moses's grandson, if I recall correctly, who had done all those things and helped set up that city and been Micah's false priest there for ill-gotten gain. This one here is just simply journeying when we were told that he has a concubine who is unfaithful to him. So we can read there again in verses one and two. In those days, there was no king in Israel, and a certain Levite was sojourning in the remote parts of the hill country of Ephraim, who took to himself a concubine from Bethlehem in Judah. His concubine was unfaithful to him, and she went away from him to her father's house in Bethlehem in Judah and was there some four months. This is what we are told. We open with the same words that we have seen before in the book many, many times, that there was indeed no king in Israel. In those days, there was no king in Israel. This points to the anarchy that we have seen within the book. This points to God's law being completely shunned. And indeed, what we've seen through the book is a need for a king, is a need for someone to represent the people to stand for them, but to do so faithfully. And that's what we have failed to find within our time in the book of Judges. We need someone who would come and not only keep the covenant, but keep the covenant indefinitely, right? To lead the people in that covenant keeping. The problem being is we've not found a man that could do so, or if a man could do so, when he died, the people went back into their idolatry. So this has been the dilemma we have been looking at in the book judges, of course all pointing to Christ and what he's done for us in the New Covenant. So this is our story. We have this Levite who's traveling who's from Ephraim, the story that we have seen before, and he's going to go after this concubine who had been unfaithful to him after some four months. She had been unfaithful, went away, went to her father's house there and been unfaithful some four months. We see first of all we see that there is no one to wield the sword within this nation, as we're seeing at this time within Israel, because the man himself is going after his concubine. It's been four months, no justice has been executed. When we understand that in the case of adultery, that it was death, in the case of adultery, it was death, Deuteronomy 22. Deuteronomy 22. If a man is found laying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die. The man who lay with the woman and the woman, so you shall purge the evil from Israel. That was the commandment from the Lord. But we're dealing with a time toward the closing of the book and really throughout the whole book where these children of Israel are pushing away from God's law. God's law is not upheld. There's no magistrate to wield the sword and execute justice for God's law. And so the people are doing what they want. They're doing what is right as we've seen time and time again in their own eyes. So people are trying to be a self-law unto themselves and that's what's caused all this anarchy and this debauchery that we've seen in the book. And we will definitely see in chapter 19, mostly the second part of it there, we'll hopefully see next week. This is what is going on. It's a very fitting story, though, if we think about our time in the Book of Judges, of this concubine who was unfaithful. Very fitting indeed. All through the Book of Judges, what we have seen is the story of a wife who has indeed been unfaithful, and that has been Israel. Israel to her husband, which was God, the one who looked after her, the one who brought her out of slavery, has played the role of the harlot, indeed more than the wife, and has went after foreign gods and things of that nature for her betterment, and has left Yahweh time and time again. Remember, that was our cycle in the book. Yahweh had sold them into the hands of their enemies because of their idolatry, because of the part they had played. It's something that we see also in Jeremiah's time, if you remember Jeremiah the weeping prophet, because the judgment that was coming upon that northern kingdom there in Jeremiah chapter three, the same question is posed about the wife who leaves her husband for another. If a man divorces his wife and she goes from him and becomes another man's wife, will he return to her? Would not that land be greatly polluted? You have played the whore with many lovers, and would you return to me, declares the Lord. Lift up your eyes to the bare height and see, where have you not been ravished? By the waysides you have set awaiting lovers like an Arab. in the wilderness. You have polluted the land with your vile whoredom." So this was the judgment that come upon this northern kingdom. They were destroyed, if you remember, around 722 BC. And Israel, in the same light, we're seeing them doing the same thing here. This has been the way they've acted to God within the book. of judges. They've went after the other gods, they've went after all these things, and so the destruction has indeed been just. Back in our text, verses 3-10, let's look at it together. Okay? Okay. Verses 3-10. Then her husband arose and went after her to speak kindly to her and to bring her back. He had with him his servant and a couple of donkeys, and she brought him into her father's house. And when the girl's father saw him, he came with joy to meet him. And his father-in-law, the girl's father, made him stay, and he remained with him three days. So they ate and drank and spent the night there. And on the fourth day they arose early in the morning, and he prepared to go. But the girl's father said to his son-in-law, strengthen your heart with a morsel of bread, and after that you may go. So the two of them sat and ate and drank together. And the girl's father said to the man, be pleased to spend the night and let your heart be merry. When the man rose up to go, his father-in-law pressed him till he spent the night there again. And the fifth day he arose early in the morning to depart. And the girl's father said, strengthen your heart and wait until the day declines. So they ate both of them. And when the man and his concubine, his servant, rose up to depart, his father-in-law, the girl's father, said to him, behold, now the day has waned toward the evening. Please spend the night. Behold, the day draws to its close. Lodge here and let your heart be merry, and tomorrow you shall rise early in the morning for your journey and go home. But the man would not spend the night. He rose up and departed and arrived opposite Jebus. That is Jerusalem. He had with him a couple of saddled donkeys and his concubine was with him. So the Levite who is looking for his concubine, who's going after her, finds her at her father's house there. And we're told that this is his wife in some places. concubine in the other. This was meant that the woman that this Levite was with had a lower status than wife. Commentators go back and forth on why this was. It may have been because he didn't really have much to give her. He traveled to and fro, the Levite did. It may have been because he just used her as something of a slave and she had a lower status. But in any sense, she was indeed a concubine, lower lower in status than a wife to this man. We see that when he comes in, he's met graciously by her father to come in and stay with him. This hospitality that we see her father give him is gonna be contrast with the second part of what we're going to be studying today, when Owen would take the men. We'll see that in just a moment. But, so the father not only wants him to stay with him that night, but multiple nights, and keeps encouraging him to do the same every day. He gets up, he's ready to go. He says, no, eat with me. They eat, they drink, they're married. And he says, we'll stay the night again. And he does this day after day. until finally he is indeed rejected. The father had just taken in his daughter even though she had broke the law, even though she was deserving of death. He simply took in his daughter and maybe some commentators lean that way, it's untold. This was a sense in which he was trying to pay the man back. It could be this was just simply hospitality. People were meant to be hospitable at the time. He may have just been taking him in. Or it may have been that he was trying in some way to ease his pain and atone for what his daughter had done to him. And so he urges him every day, no, stay, let me take care of you, sit in the easy chair, drink with me, be married, forget all these troubles that my daughter has caused. Perhaps that's so, it's not written, so we really don't know. I'm not dogmatic on that, of course. But this is what is going on here. So he goes and he retrieves his concubine there and after so many days he will not stay any longer but he decides to go out and he decides to go out not early in the morning but later on in the day after it had waned toward the evening and this is what sets us up for the second part that this is what sets us up for him to be in the city toward nightfall. We're told that they come across this place Jebus here. Jerusalem is what it was, the Jebusites there. And then we can pick it up again in verse 11. Let's see here, just a moment. Yes, verse 11 of our text. I'm going to see the second half here. So the first half is going to contrast with the second half, the hospitality of the father-in-law contrasted with the hospitality of these Benjaminites here within the city. So let's read again together. 11 through 21. When they were near Jebus, The day was nearly over, and the servant said to his master, come now, let us turn aside to the city of the Jebusites and spend the night in it. And the master said to him, we will not turn aside into the city of foreigners who do not belong to the people of Israel, but we will pass on to Giba. And he said to the young man, come and let us draw near to one of these places and spend the night at Giba or Ramah. So they passed on and went their way, and the sun went down on them near Giba. which belongs to Benjamin. And they turned aside there to go in and spend the night at Gibba. And he went in and sat down in the open square of the city, for no one took them into his house to spend the night. And behold, a man was coming from his work in the field. At evening, the man was from the hill country of Ephraim, and he was sojourning in Gibba. And the men of that place were Benjaminites. And he lifted up his eyes and saw the traveler in the open square of the city. And the old man said, where are you going and where do you come from? And he said to him, we are passing from Bethlehem in Judah to the remote parts of the hill country of Ephraim from which I come. I went to Bethlehem in Judah and I'm going to the house of the Lord, but no one has taken me into his house. We have straw and feed for our donkeys with bread and wine for me and your female servant. and the young man with your servants, there is no lack of anything. And the old man said, peace be to you, I will care for all your wants, only do not spend the night in the square. So he brought him into his house and gave the donkeys feed, and they washed their feet and they ate. drink. So because it is late, the servant wants to go to that Jerusalem there, the land of the Jebusites there, that town, but the master does not wish to do so. He does not wish to go in and spend the night with these Gentile people, fearing of how they will be treated. So he says, let's go into this town. He says, no, we won't do so, but we'll go and stay with the children of Israel in fear of how they would be treated within that land. And so they continue and they go to Gibba there. But when they get there, what they find is not what they expected. When they get there, they do not find hospitality, but indeed no one takes them in. No one takes the Levite in to their house. They did not want to stay with the Gentiles, but now what they have seen is indeed going to be something worse and worse company than the Gentiles. And this is this contrast here. As the Psalm says in Psalms 11, Psalms 11, well-known portion of Scripture, I believe this is really the backdrop of what we are seeing here and what we will see throughout the remainder of the chapter. It says, in the Lord I take refuge. How can you say to myself, flee like a bird to your mountain? For behold, the wicked bend the bow. They have fitted their arrow to the string to shoot in the dark at the upright in heart. If the foundations, and this is what I want to get, if the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do? And that's what we're gonna see within this chapter. A little bit in our takes today, and a whole, whole lot next week. We will deal with this depravity that we see the children of Israel committing, things that are even worse than what we have seen before, and all their idolatry, and the fact that they are a whole lot worse than any of the Gentile peoples ever thought about being. This people, who was supposed to be a people of God, who was supposed to represent Yahweh, who indeed got the laws of Yahweh, unlike any other people who the foreign people were supposed to look upon and say, what kind of God is this who is so close to his people, who is so near to his people with these laws and statutes that they are given. Indeed, they look worse than the people they were supposed to show light to. And this is what we are seeing within our text. To help a man that was poor or to help a sojourner was something that was commanded of the children of Israel. We can see that in Leviticus 25. Leviticus 25, this was something that was commanded the people. 25 and 35. It says, if your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, you shall support him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you. Take no interest from him or profit, but fear your God that your brother may live beside you. So even if someone in Israel become poor, you are to treat him like the sojourner. So how was they to treat the sojourner? This is what I'm getting at here. They were to take care of them. They were to bring them into their homes. They were to care for these people. And yet we find this Levite in a city of his fellow brothers, it is of another tribe, but his fellow brothers within the nation of Israel, and he can find no one to help. He can find no one that will help him, that will bring him in to their home and give him food. At the first hour, he can't find anyone and he simply has to go sit in the square. The Israelites were told to do this. They were told to bring, this reoccurs all through the Old Testament. They were told to be hospitable. They were told to bring people into their houses because they were once sojourners in the land of Egypt. This is what God had said time and time again. Exodus 22. Exodus 22 and 21 there. says you shall not wrong the sojourner or oppress him, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. So this is what they were supposed to do, be hospitable, excuse me, be hospitable to people that are traveling, be hospitable to people when they come, even that aren't a part of the tribes of Israel, this man wasn't a part of the tribes of Israel, but even those sojourners, bring them in, take care of them, because you were once a sojourner. You were once a slave. This was once your state. You once had no one to help you And so we'll show love to them people Because God has brought you out of that state and now you can show love to them people understanding that that was you At one plate at one point in time in your life, but unfortunately for the children of Israel This has been a lot of what we have seen within the book. They had indeed forgotten where they had come from They had forgotten where they had come from. Something that Yahweh warned against. Deuteronomy chapter 8. We've been here before, but remember in Deuteronomy chapter 8 is this warning that when they go into the land, not to forget all that the Lord has done for them. Deuteronomy chapter 8 and verse 7. It says, for the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks, of water, of fountains and springs flowing out in the valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land in which you will eat without scarcity, in which you will like nothing, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper. and you shall eat and be full and you shall bless the lord your god for the good land he has given you take care at least you forget the lord your god by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes which i command you today at least when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them when you're when the herds of your flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, then your heart be lifted up and you forget the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, who led you to the great terrifying wilderness with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground. where there was no water, who brought you water out of the flinty rock, who fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know, that he might humble you and test you to do you good in the end. Beware, at least you say in your heart, my power and might and my hand have gotten me this wealth. You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the power to get wealth. that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers as it is this day. And if you forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish. Like the nations that the Lord makes to perish before you, so shall you perish because you would not obey the voice of the Lord. You're a God. So this is the warning they would give. When you go into this land, when you possess all this wealth, when you get all these things that God is blessing you with because he loves you, not because of anything you merited within yourself, right? Right. They didn't do anything to deserve this. This is just God's grace upon them. I'm going to bring you into this land. I'm going to give you all these things. All these things are going to be multiplied to you. When you do this, they are told to watch and be careful. Because within man, it is very easy for him to forget where he come from and become something of a high-minded, become high and lifted up in his own thoughts, right? And say, it is me who has got all these things. It is I who have worked all these things out for myself, and I've put myself in a good standing by the works of my own hand. the inference there and what we can see in our own lives is we don't want ourselves as the church to do the same thing. How many of us have come from terrible backgrounds and sinful lives who were haters of God, right? And haters of other people who God has now saved. He's redeemed us. He has brought us up as it was out of Egypt, out of that slavery. And yet, although most people proclaim that in our land, we cannot find hospitality and love and understanding. That we were once in that same state. We rarely can find people that will bring people in, that will give them the gospel, that will be humble, understanding that we ourselves were once slaves to sin. that we ourselves were once bound. And if it were not for God, if it were not for his grace upon us, we would be in that state today. This is the mindset as Christians that we're supposed to stay in. Understand that it's all of Christ and none of us. Understand that the only difference between the sinner, between the drug addict on the street and Brandon Schell is the grace of God upon my life. This is the something that the children of Israel had lost. They were supposed to look at the soldier and say, I understand. I was once in that state. I will now show you the same grace that Yahweh has shown me. I will give you something you do not deserve. I will bring you into my home and I will give you food. Not that you merit, but all of grace. This is what was meant to happen by the Children of Israel, and that's not what we're seeing in our text. Instead, we see this Levite sitting there in the courtyard because no one would take them in. Another thing that we can be warned about is we can read text like this, and we can say, oh, well, that's obviously not us. because we go to church and we talk about the Lord all the time and we pay tithes and we do all these things. So obviously we keep God in our mind and even America as a whole, America as a whole, they'll keep God around. He's spoken of all the time, right? God is spoken of all the time, but it's not just merely a head knowledge is what he's referring to here. I don't think the children of Israel totally forgot about Yahweh. If you asked them, who's Yahweh? They said, yeah, he brought us from Egypt. They knew who Yahweh was. So that's not the forgetting that is being prompted here. It's verse 11. This is what we take care, at least we do. It says, take care, at least you forget the Lord your God. So don't just stop there. It's not just, oh, well, I forgot about him. This is how you forget him, by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes, which I command you today. It's in how we treat people. It's in how we love God and love neighbor, which we understand fulfills the law. That shows if you truly have remembered where God has brought you from. You see, it's not a lip service. It's not just simply saying, well, I'm thankful for what God has brought me from. You can tell if a man is thankful of where God has brought him from by the way he treats others. By the way he treats people that were in his same standing that he was in before God showed grace to him. You can see a lot from a man by how he treats people, by how, first of all, he loves God, and how, second of all, he loves neighbor. As Jesus said, that the law depends upon that. As Paul said, that love is the fulfilling of the law, right? Because love does no harm. And that's what we have to guard against as Christians. It's easy for us to look, and as we've seen before, in these chapters and see these people and say, they had a God that was so close to them. How could they go astray like this? And then for us in our lives to do the exact same thing and never see it. It's very, very easy to look at other people and say, well, you've done this wrong and you've done that wrong. And it's not easy at all to look at ourselves and truly evaluate ourselves and say, you're not loving God. You're not loving others the way you should. A lot of us don't want to do that in our lives. We should do more of it. So this is what we should guard against. This is what we should see within the story. We do not want to become like this. We do not want to be brought out of slavery and then look at those that are still within that bondage and kind of cast your eyes down upon them and degrade them and think that they are something less than you. The only thing that indeed, like we've said before, has brought you into a higher standing is the grace of God. No works of your hand has gotten you here. So we have to understand that. And so this Levite is, back in our text, is stuck in this square until he is seen by an older man coming from work. And you might say, well, there you go. You said no one would help him. And this man is helping him until we figure out that this man indeed is a sojourner also. This man is not even from that place, right? He's from Ephraim. He's a sojourner there. And so none of the townspeople would even help. None of the people of this city would help. It took another sojourner to see him and say, don't be out upon the street. Back in our text, we can see that toward the end there. So in 17, he lifted up his eyes and saw the traveler in the open square in the city. And the old man said, where are you going? And where do you come from? There is concern here with this old man, him being a sojourner himself. And so he warns him in the passages to come. Although the man says we have plenty of feet and things of that nature. He warns him to get off of the street, off of the street, this town square here, somewhere that would seemingly be within the walls of Israel. And you would think would be safe haven. you would think would be a safe place. But just as we've seen as the people of Israel treat other people, it is something much more than just a lack of hospitality. In these pages and in this chapter, we're going to see something much more than just a lack of hospitality, but indeed severe idolatry, severe idolatry that leads to these homosexual lifestyles that we will see later in the chapter. and this debauchery that's happened to the people of Benjamin here, which indeed is going to cause, remember we spoke about that civil war, that is going to happen toward the latter half of the book. And so for the lack of time, we will stop here, but the man goes in with the Levite, and it seems if we stop right there at 21, that he is okay. He has evaded this danger. Surely he is within this city here, he's with the Benjaminites, and he's in a house. Surely that will be safe. And this place that should have been a safe haven is indeed a den of thieves, is indeed a place worse than anything he could have stayed in with the Gentiles. And so that's what we will see later on. But that's all the time we have for today. Let's get into anything else. Let's just pray together. Father, I thank you for this text. Although these things are heavy, God, Although the things we get into are vile, you have recorded them for a reason, your word is... kept it for a reason. We may look upon it. We may refrain from it. We may hate sin as you do. We may revile it and push it away, push it out of our lives. Help us all to be killing the sin that's in our lives, to be loving you and in return loving our neighbor, to have an understanding of the bondage that we were in, that anyone who sins is a slave of sin, that we were those slaves and that you have brought us up out of that slavery. May we as your people look upon people who are in that bondage and show them mercy as you have showed us. In Christ's name I pray, amen.