If you'd open your Bibles, please, to the 20th chapter of the book of Judges, Judges chapter 20. Before we begin our journey through the book, we'll read the text as we go through it tonight. Let's look to the Lord in prayer. Father, we thank you for the Word of God and for your people who have come out to partake of it. We would pray your blessing on the analysis of this 20th chapter that you've inspired in scripture of this book of Judges. And I pray that you administer to our minds and hearts as we go through it in Jesus' name. Amen. Now, I had something bizarre happen yesterday, which I'm going to share with you. Mary had asked me to stop by a store and pick up some hamburger buns. This appears to be a very simple assignment, one in which you would not think you could get into any trouble. I get the buns and choose the checkout line of the ten items or less. There's a woman checking out, a big guy in front of me, and another guy behind me. Now, the guy who is in front of me is on a phone, and by the way he's talking, he sounds to me to be a little psychotic. So I decided not to get in a conversation with him. I would just stand there quietly, wait my turn, not say a word, and check out with my hamburger buns. Now, the woman checks out, and the man who's in front of me steps to the counter, and he tells the cashier to hand him some skulls chewing tobacco, the long stem. Well, the woman turns to the tobacco rack and says, well, I don't see any here. About that time, the guy who's standing behind me says, he doesn't need any anyway. Well, now the guy in front of me turned to the guy behind me and says, I'll meet you out in the parking lot. Now, I'm in the middle of these two guys with hamburger buns. This is true, absolutely true. I'm not carrying a concealed weapon. The poor cashier lays out five or eight cans of chaw on the counter. That's what you call it in that arena, chaw. And the guy turns around and says, this isn't it. This isn't what I want. Well, the guy who's behind me says he shouldn't be buying it anyway. So the big guy turns to me and he says, do you hear an echo here? I'm not saying a word. The guy behind me says, this man agrees with me. The guy behind me says, I agree with him. Now, at this point, the guy in front says, I'll be waiting for you outside. Plus, I don't think the guy here agrees with you. In fact, he doesn't even seem to want to get involved. And I'm thinking, the guy's smarter than he looks. Now, I'm also thinking, if I get out of this alive, I'm going home and talk to Mary about these suicide missions. In the meantime, the cashier says to the guy, well, I'd like to see you try to take the guy standing behind me. And she points to the guy and says, I know that guy. And by this point, the guy has picked out a can of tobacco and is checking out. Now my mind is moving a million miles an hour and I'm thinking, now what if this guy turns to me and he says to me, do you agree with the guy behind me? And I decided I would say, yes, I do, but God has given you your own body. If you want to risk getting cancer, that's your business. Just buy your chewing tobacco and go to it. What that situation did in just a very brief amount of time was force me to think carefully through my options. I thought about my choices. I thought about consequences of what I would say and how I would respond. And by the grace of God, I got out of that situation and got home with those wonderful hamburger buns. One philosopher said, almost all of our problems in life are due to the fact that we're not willing to quietly sit down for 30 minutes and think through all possible consequences of our actions. If God's people would do that, they would make many more right choices and they would not end up being so depressed. And if ever you want to see an example of an entire nation who never did quietly sit down and think through their biblical options, it is the nation Israel. They never seemed to care much about the consequences if they decided to do what was wrong before the Lord. Israel was a nation filled with people who were living life their own way. They weren't interested in consulting the word of God. They were not interested in doing the will of God. And as a result, her existence is a big disaster and frankly still is. When we come to the end of the book of Judges, it is dark, dreary, and it's a depressing time in the history of Israel. And the reason for this depression is because God's people just continued to govern their lives their own way. They didn't seek the Word of God, they didn't seek to obey the will of God, and they found themselves hitting rock bottom. One commentator said, I'll be glad when the book of Judges is over because there isn't a whole lot of good news in this book. And what this book shows you is if you drift away from the Word of God, you can hit rock bottom. Last time we were together, we looked at chapter 19 and we saw that God's people hit an all-new-time low. Men from the tribe of Benjamin reached a new level of depravity and perverted evil. The evil men wanted to rape a man and ended up raping a concubine and as a result she died. And then you'll recall as we signed off the chapter that Levite cut her up into 12 pieces and sent one to each tribe. Now when you come to chapter 20, you get brother killing brother because nobody here is really much interested in what is God's will and what does God's word say. And the lesson that we need to see and we will see as we go through these verses is when God's people have drifted away from the word of God and live life their own way, the end results will be disastrous. But if they will honestly confront their sin, if they will face up to it and face it and deal with it, they can have some victory. Now there are real Christians right now, tonight, who are in jail, frankly, because they've done evil. I don't doubt that or deny that. There are some real Christians tonight dying of AIDS because they've been immoral. There are real Christians right now totally and completely depressed because of choices they've made in life. Some of these people are absolutely miserable, and they still will not turn to the Lord. They still will not turn to the Word of God. They still will not try to figure out where their life has gone or deviated from Scripture, and their life is going to end in a disaster. That is the story of the book of Judges. If the people would turn to the Lord, they could get out of their depravity, they could experience victory. But if they don't turn to the Lord, it ends a mess. The result of the nation of Israel doing what was right in their own eyes was immorality, lack of unity, divisions, fighting, war, and as you'll see tonight, death. You don't have a lot of happiness here. There aren't a lot of good times, there are not a lot of times in which these people are rejoicing in the Lord because there is no focus on God, His will, and there's no real peace that any of them have and God has just let them go their own way. At this point in the history of Israel, the nation is totally out of control and there are eight events that we want to see tonight. First of all, all the sons of Israel gather together to the Lord at Mizpah. Notice verse 1 of chapter 20. Then all the sons of Israel from Dan to Beersheba, including the land of Gilead, came out and the congregation assembled as one man to the Lord at Mizpah. Apparently when each of the leaders of the tribes got one of those body parts, and you'll recall that he cut them up in 12 pieces and he sent them to the 12 tribes of Israel and when each leader got his piece, each leader gathered together at a big meeting that they held in Mizpah. Now Mizpah was located about eight miles north of Jerusalem. It's about four miles north of Gibeah. That's where the crime had occurred. That's where the rape had taken place. It was a national place of meeting in the tribe of Benjamin's land. Verse 1 tells us that all the Israelites from Dan to Beersheba were there. What that geographically means is all the Israelites from the far north of the promised land to the far south of the promised land, and then also the Transjordan tribes from the land of Gilead, they all showed up at this. Now it is specifically revealed from verse 18 that the presence where God actually was, was in Bethel. That, in my opinion, is where they should have gone. They should have gone to Bethel to consult God, but that's not what they're doing. They've gathered at Mizpah. Now, it's true God is omnipresent, so he's everywhere present. He's omniscient, which means he knows the reasons that they're gathering. However, you would think if they really were interested in seeking out the will of God, they would have said, we need to go to Bethel. That's where the Ark of the Covenant is. That's where the tabernacle is. That's where the real priests are. And that's where we can worship God. But they didn't. They met in Mizpah. And what this tells us, ladies and gentlemen, is that this nation is still doing what's right in their own eyes. I mean, they want to do something. They're beginning to form some type of plan, but it's their own plan. They've come up with their own agenda and their own plan, and at this point, their plan seems to include God, but isn't necessarily one that depends on God. Many of God's people operate like that today. I mean, they don't want to leave God out of their lives, but they don't want to depend on Him either. So when it comes to making their decisions, they make their own decisions. Then they'll bring God into the equation somehow, but they're not really interested in knowing beforehand what is his word telling me to do or what is the will of God before I do it. But at least we can say with somewhat of a breath of fresh air on the positive side, they were interested a little bit in thinking about God. Which brings us to the second event, Israel's leaders gather the soldiers to prepare to attack Benjamin. Notice verse 2, the chiefs of all the people, even of all the tribes of Israel, took their stand in the assembly of the people of God, 400,000 foot soldiers who drew the sword. Now it's interesting that the leaders take their stand in the assembly, in the Greek Septuagint, that's the word we use for church. So this really does have religious overtones to it. What you have here is a gathering of political and religious leaders for the purpose of mobilizing 400,000 soldiers to draw their swords in order to destroy Benjamin. By the way, this is the largest mobilized military force in the history of Israel, and they've gathered together not to fight the Canaanites, not to fight the Amorites, not to fight the Philistines, but to fight their brothers. It's so sad because one must wonder, where were those political, religious leaders and chiefs? Where had they been all these years? Why did it take this tragedy to get them to say, you know, we need to turn back to the Lord? And why didn't they step up before now and turn the nation back to God and the Word of God? It's kind of like what I've wondered about what happened back in the 60s. I mean, where were our political religious leaders when the Bible was being taken out of schools? You know, it's so odd because Christian organizations will rise up and they'll try to get a candidate elected, but when the candidate is elected, there's not a lot that changes in morality, and not a lot that changes in the focus of the nation, especially when it comes to God and His Word. Why is it that some of these supposed God-fearing political leaders don't put God or His Word back in schools? Why don't they go on a war path to say, we're bringing God back into everything. We're going to do away with that which is evil. That's just what you have here in the political religious world. I mean, they were there, but they really weren't interested in zeroing in on the word or will of God. Which brings us to the third event. The sons of Israel asked the Levite to tell them what happened. Verse 3 says, now the sons of Benjamin heard that the sons of Israel had gone up the Mizpah. And the sons of Israel said, tell us, how did this wickedness take place? So the Levite, the husband of the woman who was murdered, answered and said, I came with my concubine to spend the night at Gibeah, which belongs to Benjamin. But the men of Gibeah rose up against me and surrounded the house at night because of me. They intended to kill me. Instead they ravished my concubine so that she died. And I took hold of my concubine and cut her in pieces and sent her throughout the land of Israel's inheritance. For they have committed a lewd and disgraceful act in Israel. Behold, all you sons of Israel, give your advice and counsel here." Verse 3 begins very interestingly with the fact that the Benjamites got word that this meeting was taking place. It's possible, although not stated, that they were called to appear at this assembly, but they didn't do it. They didn't show up. Dwayne Lindsay, in his commentary in the Book of Judges, said the tribe of Benjamin did receive one of those 12 parts of the concubine, and they knew that there was this big meeting that was taking place at Mizpah, but they didn't bother to go. When the Israelites gathered together, they asked the Levite, now tell us what happened. And let's remember that this Levitical priest is not much of a man with backbone or integrity. As far as I'm concerned, he's a gutless weasel. So now this man has an opportunity to tell his story to the nation. And you can be sure when you have this kind of guy telling his story, I mean, when you have a gutless weasel telling his story, he's going to put the spin on it that will spin it his way. He'll try to make this to be something where his character comes out good. But I tell you this about this guy, he hasn't repented of anything. There's no hint he's given his life to the Lord. That tragedy, that evil tragedy did not prompt him to turn to the Lord. He's gonna spin this story the way he wants to spin it. It's so sad because a Levite is supposed to be one who communicates the Word of God to people. He should have been going to Israel and looking Israel in the eyes and confronting them with the Word of God and the will of God. He was supposed to address the nation as a spokesman for God. Instead, he uses his five minutes of fame to tell his pathetic life story. And there's not anything in the story he tells that honors God in any way. Now when you read the account of the way he spins this in verses 4 to 7, he tells the men of Israel there are some key distortions and there are some key omissions. What we see in the way he tells them the story is that the general storyline is true, but he's not actually telling them exactly what happened. He's shading things because he wants to make himself look good. The Levite is not quite telling the whole truth. And by the way, I want to show you what a pathetic leader he is. Notice the emphasis he keeps putting on himself. You'll notice the pronoun I is used twice, once in verse 4, again in verse 6. You'll notice the pronoun my is used three times, verse 4, 5, and 6. And you'll notice the pronoun me is used three times in verse 5. This Levite's a poor excuse for a leader because everything is about him. It's all about him. He's the crux of the story. All the bad things happen to him when in fact he was responsible for shoving his concubine out the door to those worthless men. You know, every now and then on a board there's some leader that gets on the board who's just like that. It's all about them. They talk about, I did it, I did, not we, I did it. It's about me, it's all about me. You know, Dr. Chaffer in one of his lectures to the students that I heard at Dallas Theological Seminary said, when I speak, I try as little as possible to use the pronoun I. Well, this priest hadn't figured out that kind of integrity. Now, he leaves out a lot of key details and he makes some stuff up. He tells them in verse 5 that the men wanted to kill him, which in fact was not true, they wanted to rape him. Second in verse 5, he makes it sound like they forcibly took his concubine, when in fact that isn't true at all. He's the one who shoved her out the door and then you remember he went to bed and went to sleep. And then when he gets all done putting his spin on the story, he says to them in verse 7, Now I've just appealed to all you sons of Israel. I've called you together. I just want your advice. Just give me your counsel. And when he does this, he almost comes across like he's some wise hero, but not before God, I tell you. I believe many people are living life their own way, and they're just shading it to make it look another way than it really is. And they may shade it before other people and put their spit on it, like they're really in a close walk with the Lord. But there will come a day when they will get before the Lord and nobody is going to shade anything ever again. Which brings us to the fourth event. The people of Israel decide to support a movement to destroy Benjamin. Notice verse 8. Then all the people arose, as one man saying, Not one of us will go to his tent, nor will any of us return to his house. But now this is the thing which we will do to Gibeah. We will go up against it by lot. And we will take 10 men out of 100 throughout the tribes of Israel and 100 out of 1,000 and 1,000 out of 10,000 to supply food for the people. And when they came to Gibeah of Benjamin, they may punish them for all the disgraceful acts that they have committed in Israel. Then all the men of Israel were gathered against the city, united as one man. After hearing the gruesome details that the Levite had told them, the nation Israel united with one voice. One time in history, they were operating as a unified nation. In fact, you'll notice that the phrase, they operated as one man, is repeated three times. Verse 1, 8, and 11. They operated as one man. Isn't that sad? Because here's what they were united in doing. They're not united in, let's study the scriptures. Let's learn the word. Let's find out the will of God for each of us as a tribe of Israel. They're not united in that. They're united in a desire to kill their brother. And their plan was one-tenth of the warriors will provide the supplies. When we go against Benjamin and all the others, we'll go to war against Benjamin by lot. We'll draw lots to see who goes. 4,000 men would provide logistical supplies for the military and 36,000 would attack by lot. No one would shrink away from responsibility. The goal is revenge and the goal is destruction. Now Israel will make some key mistakes here, but there is one thing I do want us to observe. There does come a point in time where God does pour out his vengeance on a God-mocking, Christ-rejecting world, and he will destroy them, and he will destroy the world. And if we put this in the context of the book of Judges, and we compare that with other passages that are similar, we know that when you have a rise of immoral, homosexual perversion, it is not far removed from facing the judgment of God. There is a God who monitors all this stuff. There is a God who is one day going to put an end to all of this stuff. One day the murders and the thieves and the occult members are all going to be destroyed. We know that's true from studying the New Testament in the tribulation that's going to happen. And the same principle is found right here in the Old Testament. God finally reached the point where he said, I've had enough of this. Which brings us to the fifth event. The people of Israel surround Gibeah. They demand that the Benjamites turn over the evil men. Notice verse 12. Then the tribes of Israel sent men through the entire tribe of Benjamin saying, what is this wickedness that has taken place among you? Now then, deliver up the men, the worthless fellows in Gibeah, that we may put them to death and remove this wickedness from Israel. But the sons of Benjamin would not listen to the voice of their brothers and the sons of Israel. The men of Israel gave the Benjamites an opportunity to make this right. Just turn those evil guys over to us and we'll settle this and it'll be done. That language worthless fellows means they were sons of Belial. They were sons of Satan. What they had done was satanic. Their homosexual activity, their rape of that woman was certainly not something that honored the Lord. It was an abomination to the Lord. According to Mosaic law, a homosexual was to be put to death. But you remember, this wasn't a homosexual act that was committed. That Levite threw his concubine out to these men and they gang raped her all night long. Well, according to Deuteronomy, those who raped somebody were also to be put to death. But the Benjamites refused. They chose their tribal unity over national unity. They probably said, well, this is humiliating. And they're so far removed from the word of God that they didn't think right. They didn't think biblically. They didn't feel right about this. I mean, that's the way it is. I mean, stinking pride can blind you. And when you're off on your own little tangent, far removed from the word of God, you don't come under conviction for much of anything. Somebody who is deep in sin once said, I just don't feel good about going to church. Well, I wonder why. You're deep in sin. I wonder why you don't feel good about going to church. If you do feel good about going to church, then you're in a lousy church. And the fact of the matter is these Benjamites were Ben and they would not turn these evil sinners over to these Israelites even though it was the will of God. And I wonder if we'd do that. I wonder if we as a church would do that. Well, let's see. Let's go over to 1 Corinthians chapter 5. Let's start reading at verse 11. Paul addressing a New Testament Grace Age Church. He says in 1 Corinthians 5, but I actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person or a covetous or an idolater or a reviler or a drunkard or a swindler not even to eat with such a one. what have I to do with judging outsiders do you not judge those that are within the church but those who are outside God judges you remove the wicked man from among yourselves I wonder would we do that I mean if we had somebody in the church and God says get them out they are leavening the whole church get them out of there would we do that that was the choice Benjamin was left with and the Benjamite said no Which brings us to the sixth event, the Benjamites refused to turn these men over and they gather 26,700 men to fight against the 400,000 Israelites. Notice verse 14, the sons of Benjamin gathered from the cities of Gibeah to go out to battle against the sons of Israel. From the cities on that day, the sons of Benjamin were numbered 26,000 men who draw the sword, besides the inhabitants of Gibeah, who were numbered 700 choice men. Out of all of these people, 700 choice men were left-handed. Each one could sling a stone at a hair and not miss. Then the men of Israel, besides Benjamin, were numbered 400,000 men who draw the sword. All of these were men of war. Now the Benjamites were so far removed from the word and will of God, they were so corrupt that they didn't even admit these guys had sinned. They didn't even acknowledge the fact that we have these evil culprits in our midst. And they were not about to turn them over to the Israelites. You would think that they would be appalled by hearing about a gang rape and homosexuality, but that didn't faze them. And not only did they refuse to punish the sin, they patronized the sinner. They protect the sinner. That's the kind of world we're living in today. I mean, someone goes out and does horrible evil and people rally around them and defend them. Just look at that Casey Anthony trial. I mean, that still sits bad with me. I mean, she goes out and murders her little baby and then people rally around her and defend her. That's just exactly what these Benjamites were doing. Instead of them dealing with those that had done such horrible evil, instead of saying, look, these guys were evil in what they did, and we need to do what's right before the Lord, they gather up their own military force of 26,000 Benjaminites, plus 700 choice men from Gibeah who were left-handed and skilled with a sling. By the way, these 700 guys were like a special ops group among the other soldiers. Now, the men of this time were very accurate with slings and stones, and they were as accurate as any military man is today with a rifle and scope. If you put one of these guys within range, They could pick off an enemy just like a sniper with a rifle. It's been calculated that a man trained with a sling could sling a stone at 90 miles an hour. Now most major league baseball players can throw a baseball at 90 miles an hour, but they struggle to throw a strike over the plate at 90 miles an hour. These guys were so well-trained that they could sling a stone at 90 miles an hour and not miss a hair target at a much greater distance than 60 feet 6 inches. And what's real interesting about this is that that word not miss, hatah in Hebrew, is the root word from which we get our word sin in the Old Testament. What that means, ladies and gentlemen, is sin is missing the mark. In other words, when you miss the mark just a little bit, even at a hair's distance, you are sinning against God. And these 700 could sling those stones, and they wouldn't miss. Now, if you have that kind of skill, there would be many who would die in this kind of conflict. Benjamin was not going to go down without a fight, and they were not about to turn over these guys to the Israelites. And when you initially look at the numbers, it would appear as though it's very lopsided, 400,000 to 26,700. But the Benjamites live in hilly country. It's pretty easy to defend. Plus, they have these skilled guys with a sling. Furthermore, they're arrogant, and they felt as though they could defeat the Israelites even though they were outnumbered. And that's what arrogance will do. Arrogance looks big, talks big. That's what arrogance does. You think you can go up against anything. You think you can go up against anyone, including God. I mean, the biggest reason people will reject Jesus Christ is because of their pride. And they'll think that they can somehow go up against God and they're going to win when in fact they're about to lose. Which brings us to the seventh event, Israel finally turns to God for help. Now notice verse 18. Now the sons of Israel arose and went up to Bethel and inquired of God and said, Who shall go up first for us to battle against the sons of Benjamin? Then the Lord said, Judah shall go first. Now, how would you like to be God to figure out this mess? You have an entire nation, everybody doing what's right in their own eyes. Nobody has consulted his word or him in any way, shape or form. And now they go to God with the idea, we want to kill our brother, who ought to go first? And I want you to notice, by the way, what they initially ask God and what they don't ask God. What they ask God is who should go first, not should we go at all. Their first prayer should have been, God, what is your will here? God, what is it you would have us do? If they would have started off with that, this story would have gone a whole different way. Because God's answer would be, before you go out there and try to tackle the sin of somebody else, you had better deal with your own sin. Because you've been a group of people that have wandered far, far away from me. But they've already decided what they're going to do. They just want God to put a stamp on this and tell them who ought to go first. Representatives from the 12 tribes go to Bethel, consult with God. Bethel was the place of the temporal location of the tabernacle. So this consultation with God would mean that God would authorize them to go to war against their own brothers. And they finally say, who should go first? And God says, I'll tell you who to send first. You send Judah. Now, when I read that, my mind went back to the first verse of this book. Let's just go back to Judges 1. And in Judges 1, the question was asked, who shall go up first against the Canaanites and fight against them? And the Lord said, Judah. Send Judah first. You see, Judah didn't really want to do what God wanted them to do, because you'll remember, they called in Simeon. And God said, I want you to go do it. So God said, all right, you take Judah, and you send Judah up there first. So you send them first. Furthermore, that concubine was from Bethlehem in Judah, so that's pretty logical. And perhaps God's saying, I want to see whether or not this group really is trusting me. But God's about to teach them a costly lesson, namely, if you do what's right in your own eyes, If you don't start with me and follow my word and do my will, you're going to pay a heavy price. It's true that God can give victory when one finally turns to Him, but there's a heavy price to be paid here because they have not finally and fully turned to Him. Which brings us to the eighth event. God does not give victory for three days. I want you to notice verse 19. We read in verse 19, So the sons of Israel arose in the morning and camped against Gibeah. The men of Israel went out to the battle against Benjamin, and the men of Israel arrayed for battle against them at Gibeah. Then the sons of Benjamin came out of Gibeah and fell to the ground on that day. Twenty-two thousand men of Israel But the people, the men of Israel encouraged themselves and arrayed for battle again in the place where they had arrayed themselves the first day. The sons of Israel went up and wept before the Lord until evening and inquired of the Lord, saying, Shall we again draw near for battle against the sons of my brother Benjamin? The Lord said, Go up against him. And the sons of Israel came against the sons of Benjamin the second day. Benjamin went out against them from Gibeah the second day and fell to the ground again. Eighteen thousand men of the sons of Israel, all these drew the sword. Then all the sons of Israel and all the people went up and came to Bethel and wept. Thus they remained there before the Lord and fasted that day until evening. And they offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the Lord. There are three main battles that are carefully described here. Battle one, the first day, God says, fine, send Judah out. So what happens is the first day God allowed the Benjamites to win and Israel loses 22,000 men. We're not told how many Benjamites were lost, but we are told how many Israelites were lost. 22,000. And notice what verse 22 says in the aftermath of that. They encouraged themselves. They strengthened themselves. It's kind of the flavor of the Hebrew word. I mean, God's not encouraging them. God is not strengthening them. But they found strength in themselves. Oh, ladies and gentlemen, how many times do God's people need to fail before they realize you don't find strength and encouragement in yourself? If we're going to find strength and encouragement, it's going to be in the Lord. And you have to say, well, now, what went wrong? I mean, God said, send Judah out there. What went wrong? What went wrong with the plan? We thought we were doing what was right. I'll tell you what went wrong. They had never repented of their sin. Whenever God allows His people to be destroyed, it is always due, in the Old Testament law, to non-repentant sin. In that text of Deuteronomy, chapter 28, He says, if you obey Me, I'll bless you. But if you don't obey Me, I will allow you to be destroyed. I will allow numbers of your people to actually be eliminated. And so what these guys had done is they'd gone before God saying, well, which tribe should go first? But they had never gone before God and dealt with their sin. So when they went out, they lost. The 11 tribes wept, and again they seek the will of God. That's interesting because they still don't deal with their sin, and God said, fine, go again the next day. So they go out again the next day, and again they go out, and this time they lose. In the second battle, Benjamin wins again, and Israel loses 18,000 men. And I want you to carefully observe what happens in verse 23. They change the name of the noun for God. It is called God back in verse 18. By the time you get to verse 23, they're weeping and they're using a different name for God. It's capital L, capital O-R-D. It's Jehovah, the covenant name for God. And in verse 23, they're finally admitting that Benjamin is my brother. They've lost two times now. When they first approached God, they didn't use His covenant name. It was simply a matter of fighting the sons of Benjamin. But now, because of the loss, they're using the covenant name for God. And then, don't miss verse 26. It says that they offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the Lord. It had taken all of that to get this group of people from Israel to say, you know, we've got our own sin problem. We've never dealt with anything before the Lord and we're out here trying to exterminate other people with their sin problem. And according to verse 27, the sons of Israel inquired of the Lord, now notice this, for the ark of the covenant of God was there in those days. And then you also notice in verse 28, and Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, Aaron's son, stood before it to minister in those days, saying, shall I again go out to battle against the sons of the brother of Benjamin, or shall I cease? And the Lord said, go up, for tomorrow I will deliver them into your hand. They had not until this moment faced their own sin, and that's why God let them suffer two major defeats. God will not give victory until one is willing to face his own sin. God can use us for great things, but he'll never do it unless we're willing to deal with our sin. It's that simple. And for the first time, by the way, and by the way, for the only time in the book of Judges, the Ark of the Covenant's brought up. Why is that brought up? Because for the first time, this nation is saying, maybe we ought to check the Word. And there's a real priest we ought to consult. Not these phony priests that we've been hanging around with. We need to consult with Phinehas. Phinehas is the grandson of Aaron, and he was known to be a man who could tell the truth of God. He was a man who knew the Word of God. He could tell us what to do, and they finally turned to him. It took 40,000 men for them to lose until they finally figured out, you know what, it's time we face up to our own problems. And when they finally came to terms with their own problems, according to verses 26 to 28, they again sought the Lord. The Lord said, on day three, you'll have victory. They were just about to give up. They just felt that it's all over. They were right in being angry at the sin, but before they go out and they deal with the sin of others, they need to be making sure they took the beam out of their own eye. They need to be sure that they were doing what was right before the Lord. And I have to wonder, when I think about this, I wonder how many blessings of God we've missed in life, simply because we didn't deal with things right. I'll bet it's over 40,000. The third battle takes place on the third day and God gives him victory. You'll notice verse 29, so Israel set men in ambush around Gibeah. The sons of Israel went up against the sons of Benjamin on the third day and arrayed themselves against Gibeah as at other times. The sons of Benjamin went out against the people and were drawn away from the city. They began to strike and kill some of the people as at other times on the highways, one of which goes up to Bethel and the other to Gibeah. And in a field, about 30 men of Israel, the sons of Benjamin said, they're struck down before us. As at the first, but the sons of Israel said, let us flee that we may draw them away from the city to the highways. Then all the men of Israel arose from their place and arrayed themselves at Baal Tamar. And the men of Israel in ambush broke out of their place even at Merah Gibah. When 10,000 choice men from all Israel came against Gibeah, the battle became fierce, but Benjamin did not know the disaster was close to them. And the Lord struck Benjamin before Israel, so that the sons of Israel destroyed 25,100 men of Benjamin that day, all who drew the sword. So the sons of Benjamin saw that they were defeated when the men of Israel gave ground to Benjamin because they relied on the men in ambush whom they had set against Gibeah. The men in ambush hurried and rushed against Gibeah. The men in ambush also deployed and struck all the city with the edge of the sword. Now the appointed sign between the men of Israel and the men of ambush was that they would make a great cloud of smoke rise from the city then the men of Israel turned in the battle and Benjamin began to strike and kill about 30 men of Israel for they said surely they are defeated before us as in the first battle but when the cloud began to rise from the city in the column of the smoke Benjamin looked behind them and behold the whole city was going up in smoke to heaven And the men of Israel turned, and the men of Benjamin were terrified, for they saw the disaster was close to them. Therefore they turned their backs before the men of Israel toward the direction of the wilderness. But the battle overtook them, while those who came out of the cities destroyed them in the midst of them. They surrounded Benjamin, pursued them without rest, and trod them down opposite Gibeah toward the east. Thus eighteen thousand men of Benjamin fell, All these were valiant warriors the rest turned and fled to Toward the wilderness to the rock of Ramon and they caught 5,000 of them on the highway and overtook them at Gedome and killed 2,000 of them So all the Benjamin who fell that day were 25,000 men who drew the sword all these were valiant warriors but 600 men turned and fled toward the wilderness to the rock of Ramon and there they remained on the rock of Ramon four months and The men of Israel then turned back against the sons of Benjamin and struck them with the edge of the sword, both the entire city with the cattle and all they found. They also set on fire all the cities which they found." The Benjamites were not afraid of Israel anymore. They're self-confident. So when they see them come out against them a third day, they figure this is just going to be like any other day. We'll go out there and we'll rout them. And what they didn't realize is this time God's victory was on the side of the Israelites. And Israel went into Gibeah, snuck in behind the Benjamites who'd gone out to fight the Israelites, and they set the city on fire. And when those Benjamites turned around and they saw that their city was burning, they realized it's all over. Over 25,000 Benjamites were killed, which means all but 600 Benjamites were destroyed. And I want you to notice verse 35, and the Lord struck Benjamin before Israel. This was all done by a sovereign God. Now how does a nation end up in such a mess? How does it end in such a disaster? Here's how it ended. Here's how it all happened. They just started drifting from the Word of God. They just said, you know, we don't really need to consult the Scriptures. We'll just do what's right in their own eyes. There was no one who knew the Word. As a result of that, no one dared to stand up and communicate the word and God's people ended up in a mess. I think it's a scary statement in verse 34 when it said that the men of Benjamin did not know that disaster was close to them. Because I think most people in this world don't realize that. They don't realize how close they are to eternal disaster. They're one heartbeat away from eternity. If you're here tonight and you do not know Jesus Christ as your Savior, you need to know disaster is that close to you. One heartbeat away. Now just take a minute to quietly think about that. Think of the potential consequences of you rejecting Jesus Christ. Think of the potential consequences of you walking out of here tonight not right with God. And perhaps you've suffered one setback after another and you just can't figure out why. Why is this going so wrong? Why are things going so bad? Is it possible God's trying to get your attention? Could it be God's saying it's time for you to deal with something? It's time for you to face your own sin. One thing defeat can always do and one thing defeat should do is cause us to turn to the Lord. If we can learn that lesson, to turn to the Lord when we're low, to turn to the Lord when we're down, we've learned a powerful lesson that, frankly, Israel just didn't seem to learn. May we pray. If you're here tonight and you've never believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, you think seriously about the consequences of rejecting Jesus Christ as Savior. If you leave here tonight, and you reject him tonight, you've rejected him one more time. Think about the consequences of that. If it were me, I'd invite him into my life right now, sitting right where you sit. Our Father, we thank you so much for the word. We thank you for... The lessons that we've learned as we've gone through judges. We pray that you would continue to make us people with whom you are pleased. We realize, Lord, that this nation, had they just done honest business with you, could be the recipient of great blessings. And they were, in fact, the recipient of blessings once they dealt with things in their own national lives. I pray that we would do that on an individual basis. I pray that we'd individually face up to things and deal with things. And for that, we will thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.