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, everyone. Welcome to the Word for Life broadcast from Brookside Baptist Church. My name is Scott Sander. I'm the newest member of the pastoral staff here at Brookside, associate pastor of counseling and teaching, and I'm joined by our senior pastor, Pastor Ken Keltner, as we're going through the book of Judges right now. We are approaching the Christmas season, and we hope you're all preparing this year as we celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior. We want to let you know that at Brookside Church on Christmas Eve, we're going to have our normal Sunday morning services, 9 and 10, 15. If you don't have a church home, we'd love for you to join us. There will be no Sunday school or staff nursery that morning, but we will have a candlelight service at 4 p.m. as well, and then we're going to have a great time on New Year's Eve, we'll have all our normal services in the morning as well, and then join us at 8 o'clock in the evening as we have a fun celebration, we'll have some refreshments, we'll show a godly film, and then we'll celebrate communion. as we ring in the new year. So, Pastor Ken, we've been going through the book of Judges here and we finished up chapter 18 last week and we saw the tribe of Dan with Moses' grandson as their priest setting up these false religion, a false system of religion with false idols and we turn to a new chapter here and things are not going to get any prettier, unfortunately. And this, again, is these five chapters, 17 through 21, are taking place at the first part of the Book of Judges. They're not following the chronology of here's what happened after Samson. I mean, Samson's life really kind of hit a low, I mean, but in the end, Samson is in the Hall of Faith chapter in Hebrews chapter 11. because he did come back to the Lord, but it was after some very severe consequences in his life. But this is all happening early on after the death of Joshua. you know we have the supreme court cases going on you have state supreme court cases going on about this whole idea of same-sex marriage if i if i want to title chapter nineteen i'd say i would say spire spiraling toward sodom uh... right uh... i see that taking place right here within these united states uh... In fact, you can be in prayer for our missionary, he was our first pastor here at Brookside, Bill Jones in New York City. He's getting ready to He's getting ready to host a pastor's conference there in the city of New York. He's been there in New York City for, I believe, it has to be over probably 22 years now. God's just really blessed him. But they've just been informed by one of the city council members that the LGBTQ community is not only going to boycott, to protest, of course they would boycott it, But they're going to protest it, but they're giving a threat that if they're not going to renege on what the Bible teaches about homosexuality, they're going to try to totally disrupt it. And I thought, wow, it's almost like the angels coming into Sodom, you know, and a lot, you know, takes him into his home, and then the house is surrounded. by the LGBTQ community. And this is where we're living today. But you be in prayer for Bill Jones, and they're not gonna back down. They're gonna meet, and they're gonna love people, and they're gonna want to share the gospel, but we're living in a day where our distinctiveness, I believe, for Christ really matters. Paul told Titus this in chapter 2 of Titus, that we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present age. Listen, don't you be discouraged. God is not wringing his hands wondering, man, what is happening here on planet Earth? God still reigns, and he still has called us to a wonderful mission. And can I tell you, people are looking for the truth. I can't believe that there are a lot of people in the LGBTQ community that are actually happy. You know, they don't have this contentment that, you know, you just see it in the spirit of wanting to fight. But let's be faithful in these dark days for we're called to be lights in this dark world. As one author stated it, let's get some class back into righteousness. Let's impact our community, our city, and our country and enlarge God's kingdom with the message that Jesus saves. That's the truth. Jesus said it so simply, I am the way. Really, it's like He's saying, I'm the only way, I'm the only truth, I'm the only life. No man can come to the Father except through me. And I must admit, it's no accident where we find ourselves in Scripture this morning, Judges 19, some have entitled this section, The Sewer of Scripture. I mean, these last five chapters give us two episodes of what life was like in Israel when the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord. So, Judges 17 and 18 was the first narrative or the first episode in the ground-level sequel of A Bird's Eye View of Evil in the previous 16 chapters. The context of chapters 17 and 18 describes the loss of theological integrity in the nation because of idolatry. It started with one man in Ephraim and it spread to the entire Danite tribe. And the culprit, as you mentioned kicking off this broadcast, involved a Levite by the name of Jonathan, who was the grandson of Moses. I mean, these Levites, they were men who were called by God to be the standard bearers of truth, teachers of the law, and educators of the nation. They were led, they were to lead the nation in what is true and what is holy. But instead, we saw this Levite sell out his responsibilities to the highest bidder. If you remember, for 10 shekels, a shirt, a room, and a board. And then he moved up the ladder to be a priest for an entire tribe immersed in idolatry. So here we have an entire nation that has lost touch with the infinite, personal, righteous God because of the irresponsibility of leadership. And so Judges contains the story of people who had the right words, but worshiped God on their own terms. Uh, excuse me, does that sound familiar today? Pete Yeah, it sure does. Could have thought you were talking about today. Randy I mean, it has set off a catalyst of devastating effects. I mean, these events were not simply the result of chance, but of choices. Friends, the little choices we make have big consequences. So, let me ask, is it possible to maintain theological ignorance and still have moral uprightness? In fact, You're huge in creation, Scott, and I know you've done a lot with answers in Genesis. But at some point, I'm going to get back into Genesis 1-11, and as I've been studying, I have found that evolution really came about to try to declare there's no accountability to God. And primarily, in a sexual vein, you can do what you want and you're not held accountable to a higher power. I can't wait to get into that study, but I think all of us would agree that if we were asked what type of marriage would we like, what kind of kids would we like, what kind of neighborhood would we like, what kind of leaders would we like, I believe most of us would give the same answer. We would want people of integrity, honesty, love, and moral character. I mean, obviously, we would want them to know Christ, but I mean, there are unsaved people that can actually have those characteristics. You know, can you get peaches from a thorn bush? The answer is no. Can you reject the notion of an infinite, personal, and holy God and elevate nature and idolatry and get men who are moral? Whatever is true of Israel is going to be true of us, my friends. Our country has fallen into a moral fog and into even a sophisticated type of idolatry. I mean, we just haven't embodied nature into a person. We have left nature an inanimate force and simply call it silent science. And science has given us evolution in some form or another. Let me make just this comment. If you deny the literal interpretation of the Genesis account of creation, you have undermined every major doctrine of the Bible, including the sovereignty of God, the inerrancy of scripture, the depravity of man, and the gospel itself. Those chapters are so important. They're so foundational. There's a reason they come first in scripture. Exactly. If the Genesis account is not divinely inherently true and sufficient, my friends, all moral obligations to God are null and void. Man can do whatever they want. In other words, when we remove the absolute boundaries of what is right for man and expected by God, it is no coincidence that fornication, adultery, homosexuality, murder is actually celebrated today. How could you have the massacre that took place in Israel on October 7th and people are jumping up and down excited about that? Or what took place on 9-11 that people were jumping up and down excited about people who died. I mean, it is a world in which there is an absolute lack of morality and sense of anything accountable that we're going to be before God. So, if you're driving along, we're in Judges 19, if you happen to be uh waking up this morning and your bible is right near there and you want to open up to judges 19 and and if and if you haven't ever read judges 19 you're going to be a little unprepared for and stunned by the violence in the second story or episode which illustrates for us the evil in the day in fact i'm it's so evil i i don't even know if there's ever been a movie uh made of it it is so despicable It is deeply repulsive and in Israel's history, an episode of absolute shame. The writer of Judges, however, gives us a hint in verse 1 before he introduces us to the very dark side of life without God. Why don't you read verse 1 of chapter 19 for us, Scott. And it came to pass in those days, when there was no king in Israel, that there was a certain Levite staying in the remote mountains of Ephraim. He took for himself a concubine from Bethlehem in Judah. So we have the repetition here of humanism that men did that which was right in their own eyes and they did evil in God's eyes. This beginning prefaces what we thus read in this chapter, what we'll read in this chapter, there is no king. everyone does right in his own eyes. Man then becomes the arbitrator of what is actually truth and what is right. And you're going to see, as we go through this over the next several sessions, the climax of Israel's moral depravity exposed through a litany of unspeakable sins. And I do hate kind of fighting ourselves here at this point in the Christmas season because it is just horrific. It isn't just here about a nation, but this is an indictment on the people that make up this nation. And so what we see in Judges 19 is what any group of people can see in their land, a total stair-stepping down into depravity. As God-fearing Americans, this must be concerning to us today. And so our study over the next several broadcasts will center around three statements. One would be permissiveness leads to depravity. Disobedience encourages compromise and rebellion results in anarchy. And so friends, I know it's not a pretty picture and a good passage to study around the Christmas season. but it is where we are living today in America. And I trust that God will use it. I hope we won't lose the message and the focus of this Christmas season, but that we will be alert to what God, the people God brings into our life that we can share. Here is why Jesus came and he came for each of us. 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.