in a world of conflicting values, when questions are more common than answers. God's Word provides everything we need to live a God-centered, truth-driven life. Now, here's the Word for Life broadcast, brought to you by Brookside Baptist Church. Good morning, welcome to the Word for Life broadcast. I'm Kent Keltner, pastor of Brookside Baptist Church, and in studio with me this morning is Scott Sander. He's our newest pastoral staff member. He and his wife Diane are are full-time with us now, and we're so thankful to have you and Diane and your family here, Scott. We're thankful to be here as well. And thanks for filling in for Pastor Mark, who's ill, and it is that time of the year that sickness seems to kind of go around. Yeah, it is the season. Yeah, and if it's going around, I always tell people, I'll catch it. Maybe pretty soon it'll be just you and Pastor Mark. Let me remind you this Sunday night, six o'clock, our adults, our choir and orchestra and drama team, they're putting on The Promised One, and that will be the program that starts at 6 p.m. here. Then the next Sunday's the 24th. Wow, Christmas is right here. And our morning services are at 9 and 1015 on that Sunday, no Sunday school or Bible study hours there, just the worship service. Four o'clock is our candlelight Christmas Eve service, I think you'll enjoy that. Wonderful music, Challenge from God's Word, and that's about an hour service. And then Sunday the 31st, Everything's good to go in the morning and Sunday evening, New Year's Eve, we will start at 8 p.m., we'll have some refreshments, show a slide, have some activities and some fun, a little bit of a fun time and come up for the film and then we'll go into the new year with observing communion. So I hope that you can join with us as we again celebrate again all that our Lord Jesus did in coming to this earth to not just simply be born but to die for our sins and then be resurrected and we look forward to that time that we'll be in His presence. If you haven't joined us, we're here in Judges chapter 18, and last session we just let you know that chapters 17 through 21, these five chapters, don't chronologically follow along after Samson. They would really follow along after the death of Joshua, which would be at the beginning of the book of Judges. And it's really just a flashback of a couple of different narratives to help us really see and give us insight into the terrible moral condition of the times. thing to put the chronology there, Ken, because Judges 2.10 tells us, "...when all that generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation arose after them who did not know the Lord, nor the work which he had done for Israel." We're seeing that played out with the Danites and the Levites here in these chapters. Kenneth Exactly. In fact, last, you know, one of the last sessions that we had, we talked about what Don Carson, who was a scholar and theologian, stated, he said, one generation knows the gospel of Christ personally, the next generation assumes that and the third generation loses it. And I think we've seen just a lack of gospel-focused living and a lack of the gospel-focused message. I mean, most believers can define the gospel, possibly be even willing to defend the gospel at work or in their neighborhood or even with their family. but we're not doing a good job of declaring the gospel today. And God wants us to open our mouths and talk to people, because we're, I gotta believe, Scott, we are in these last days, and yet, I'm sure, you know, at the end of Joshua, because remember, Joshua probably had seen this coming because he said, for as me and my house, we're going to serve the Lord. It's almost like it's coming down to just us. And so, as we go into chapter 17 and 18, we found ourselves really right here in the first of the two narratives, which really stand in kind of a cause-effect relationship. And it began in chapter 17, which is the story of a spiritual and religious anarchy, and the second, in chapters 19 to 21, is a shocking picture of just total moral collapse. And these two go hand-in-hand and usually in that order. Listen, when spiritual anarchy prevails, moral collapse will inevitably follow, because religious apostasy will lead to moral confusion. So, as we begin chapter 18, we notice quickly that the tribe of Dan is looking to go possess its inheritance. However, it's written to reveal their point of view. They've already failed to possess their inheritance, as we're told in the first chapter of Judges, when they ran from the Amorites in unbelief. What's interesting, too, in Judges chapter 5, Deborah, who is that judge, bemoans about several tribes who would not help the nation. And she reveals that the tribe of Dan, they were already huddled up in ships waiting to set sail should the Israelites lose the battle. You see that in verse 17. So, the tribe of Dan, in actuality, since disobeying in the past, has been wandering around looking for a handout, or it would kind of build, or to someone to pray upon. And they found the perfect victim in Micah, the Levite. which leads to a massacre of peaceful people and liege. Then as we see in the remainder of the chapter, beginning in verse 14, the Danites are on their way to possess the land that they've stolen, as they have gotten word from the priest that was at Micah's house. And what could be a better thing for them to do than just to take the religious shrine and take it to their own homeland. I mean, what an interesting scenario here. Scott, why don't you begin reading at verse 14 and read to verse 17. This is interesting, and if you're driving along, I hope you can stay alert to traffic, but focus in on what's taking place here. Then the five men who had gone to spy out the country of Laish answered and said to their brethren, Do you know that there are in these houses an ephod, household idols, a carved image, and a molded image? Now therefore consider what you should do. So they turned aside there and came to the house of the young Levite man, to the house of Micah, and greeted him. The six hundred men, armed with their weapons of war, who were of the children of Dan, stood by the entrance of the gate. Then the five men who had gone to spy out the land went up. Entering there, they took the carved image, the ephod, the household idols, and the molded image. The priests stood at the entrance of the gate with the six hundred men who were armed with weapons of war. is almost like hello like for you to meet uh... some of my buddies and six hundred and uh... what you have is now are is alright we're gonna take it thank you for being so kind to want to give it to us because remember uh... we don't want to make my buddies angry i mean it i mean you talk about intimidation and force here's how they came in i think and it's really such irony because you remember in judges seventeen verse two we read about mike is confession to his mother of his staff that hey i've stolen from you then here in chapter eighteen beginning of verse seventeen we read about the the den i'd stealing mike is wholly paraphernalia Micah stole, and the Danites stole from Micah. I mean, how fitting. And so, the Sanctuary of Dan had its beginning in a double theft. I mean, what a newfound religion here, as they're beginning to build upon this foundation, they're continuing to build on this foundation of just disobeying God, the authority of God. Even in trying to become religious, they're doing what they believe is right in their own eyes. You know, you look at it, I don't know if I've thought about this that often or much, Scott, is these five spies must have been pretty influential. I mean, they come back and go, hey, now brethren, it's gonna be a great land, it's prosperous, we can take it. But maybe we need to take some spiritual paraphernalia along and let's just take it from this guy's house here. Petey- It's also interesting because they were convinced this was from God, yet they're still going after these idols. Oh, these shiny idols, they look better to us than God, who we think directed us here. And I think in the last broadcast, we did mention the interesting fact that in Revelation chapter 7, which is the passage of Scripture that gives us the 144,000 Hebrew witnesses, 12,000 from this tribe, 12,000, so forth, the tribe of Dan is not mentioned there. And some say, well, man, what? Why would God do that? Well, number one, they refused to follow God's mission for them in the land of Israel, and they chose to establish and promote a false religion. And so God later now is going to refuse to give them the special ministry of blessing for Him in the future. And so listen, when a false religion is promoted, it's going to attract superstition. When God is set aside, we must believe in something or someone. I mean, everyone places his faith in something, even the atheist has placed his faith in his own reason that God does not exist. And I always thought this is interesting, Scott, God only gave a half of one verse to the atheist. the fool has said in his heart, there is no God. That's Psalm 14.1, but that's not the whole psalm, that's just half of it. Listen, the denial of God's authority opens the door to all kinds of unbelievable confusion. You know, you look at it and America really has become really a new land for Eastern religions today. uh... really shouldn't be that much of a surprise to us. Dr. Andrew Greeley of the University of Chicago, years ago, in a massive survey, concluded that 67 percent of Americans now believe in the supernatural. Twenty-nine percent believe in reincarnation. I believe that's probably gone up. And 42 percent believe that they have been in contact with someone who's already died. I mean, they're making TV shows about this kind of stuff. You know, I mean, in other words, Americans have found a new world of reality, and it's a world of miracles or out-of-body experiences and conversations with spirit entities that lived thousands of years ago. And unfortunately, millions of Americans have bought into it in varying degrees, and it's the same lie that the Danites and Micah and the Levite brought into this fulfillment direction that can be found not by denying or ignoring god but rear rewriting who god is and what the spiritual world really is all about uh... when we come back for our next broadcast we're going to get into uh... uh... verses eighteen through twenty of this chapter and what what takes place because uh... Micah is going to really want to track down, you know, he's going to gather his neighbors up to go, hey, they took what's mine. But again, the Danites have a good body of soldiers that are armed to the teeth here. The sad part, and you've already mentioned this a couple times, Scott, they believe God was giving them this. I mean, what deception can blind our eyes to the truth? And really, they're going to be under the disciplined hand of God through this whole process. well i hope you'll join us uh... i know it's a judges of the section and we're in now is a very difficult passage but we're we're looking at the first narrative of the two that are going to appear here at the end so i hope you'll be able to join us in our next broadcast thank you We hope you enjoyed today's program. If you have a question we can answer, or would like information on the Word for Life, would like to donate to continue to produce this broadcast, or need resources for your Christian walk, contact us at Brookside Baptist Church, 4470 North Pilgrim Road, Brookfield, Wisconsin, 53005. You can also visit us at brooksidebc.org. That's brooksidebc.org. or call us at 262-783-6180. That's 262-783-6180. Thanks for listening today, and please tune in again as we bring the Word of God to your life.