And now Romans chapter 1, shorter passage here, Romans chapter 1, which puts the judges passage kind of in light of where these people were. Romans 1 beginning in verse 20 through chapter 2 verse 1. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power with Godhead, so that they are without excuse. Because that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations. And their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, into birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things. Wherefore, God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lust of their own heart to dishonor their own bodies between themselves, who changed the truth of God into a lie and worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections, for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman burned in their lust to one another, to one, one toward another. Men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which is meat. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not convenient. being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity, whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful, who knowing the judgment of God that they which commit such things are worthy of death, and not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest. For wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself. For thou that judgest doest the same things. My text actually is from Judges. I had it turned around a bit, but you'll understand, and I can assure this, the account of Judges is very fresh in your minds. I trust you, you're familiar with that book, and you know a lot of very peculiar things happen in that time period, the time of the Judges, things that make us wince maybe, and wonder how could things like that ever happen? What kind of people were they that lived back then? What were they thinking? The things that took place in the time of the judges make us uncomfortable even to read them. And we wish for an explanation that would relate to this century a little more, to the way we live and experience the world today. You might be tempted to say, I don't understand this. Though it's more likely you actually do understand it quite well, it's just it's so shocking. You wish there were a milder way of understanding it, of interpreting it. You might even be attempted to say these stories are unbelievable or incredible. But, beloved God, don't say that. God's word may astound you, surprise you, leave you shocked, but it is believable. It is credible. And as a Christian, you're expected to believe it. Of course, those who don't believe the word of God will say and mean that these stories really are unbelievable. That is, they don't believe them at all. They chalk these outlandish incidents up to mythology and superstition. You and I don't do that. These events shocking as they are really happened and they sound very bizarre to us, but these are true accounts of real people. They're neither myths nor allegories. You may be shocked by what happened and yeah, you should be. We should be. And while these things may make you uncomfortable, You must try to be fair and honest with scripture and not try to make things more plausible or acceptable to modern ears. You mustn't think they're unbelievable or not to be believed. And above all, you mustn't insult the God of truth by trying to make his word more acceptable to your sensibilities. In those days, there was no king, no federal government, no standing army. No government-sponsored public works, no paid police force, and no high taxes. Everything was governed on a very local level by judges. And it was, I would say, a libertarian's dream when everyone did what was right in their own eyes. Now, this familiar and oft-repeated statement of doing what is right in their own eyes is most often used as a description of wickedness, because that's where it very often led. But it's really not. It's neutral, because when Righteous, good people do what's right in their own eyes, things go well. Everything's good, but when bad people do what's right in their own eyes, that's when things go sadly wrong. The tribes of Israel had their good times and their bad times, their ups and the downs in those 350 years, both morally and therefore politically. If we borrow language from our confession, we might say this Old Testament church was sometimes more, sometimes less visible. You're familiar with the cycle, more or less, in Judges. First, we'll say the people loved God, kept his commandments, things went well for the people, and the people prospered. But then the people forgot God, and they degenerated and fell into sin. God then became angry. and sent foreign oppressors, and they became slaves for a while. When that happened, the people realized their failure and cried out to God. And the next cycle is God raised up a deliverer who consolidated the tribes, drove back the enemies, and he liberated the people once again. And the thankful people enjoyed peace for a while and prosperity. The next generation, however, forgot the Lord, abused their liberty, fell into sin, and the cycle begins all over again. These cycles continued from the conquest of Canaan and Joshua until the time of the anointing of Saul, the first king of United Israel. That was a long period, about 350 years, about 60 years longer than the United States has been in existence. But it appears from some of the names mentioned, this what took place here in chapter 19 was actually early on, when they were first oppressed by the Philistines. The account provides for us an example of just how far the people of Israel had fallen into immorality in such a short time and fell under the influence of the wicked peoples who were living in the Canaan land. Now you remember Sodom and Gomorrah had been destroyed centuries before actually, but their sins revived and infected that land. Uh, Sodom and Gomorrah, the people were, were killed, destroyed, but their sins somehow carried on in the, in the people. And sadly, God's people learned their ways, the ways of their neighbors. They didn't want to be out of step with the rest of the world, you see. The tribe of Dan was worshiping idols. The tribe of Benjamin had fallen into sodomy. As for the tribe of Levi, which was consecrated to the Lord to lead Israel in holiness as a private priesthood, they had become a stumbling block for the rest of Israel. It was a very bad time. Forbidden sin of sexual immorality were found in Israel, including the abomination of homosexuality that we today politely call gay. Calling it by a happy name might make it more acceptable in men's eyes, but it doesn't make it less abominable in God's. Levite priest who had a concubine and serious family troubles is described in the first part of the chapter. He stayed too long as a guest with his father-in-law, but finally he left. You could read about the strange things that happened there earlier in the chapter, but not right now. Our concern begins with his traveling with his concubine and his son or servant north from Bethlehem. It was late and they would need a place to stay. The sun was going down because he got a late start, again, because he tarried too much. The first city he came to was what was later to be called Jerusalem. This time, however, it was called Jebus. J-E-B-U-S, Jebus, and it was the home of the Jebusites, or we call them Jebusites. They were not Israelites. They were not believers. They were not covenant people. They were pagans of the worst sort. Even though it was getting late in the evening when he came to Jebus, the Levi thought the better part of wisdom not to stop there, to spend the night as the guest of not God's people. So he went on to Gibeah. Now, Gibeah is a city of the tribe of Benjamin. ostensibly a much safer place to go to spend the night than heathen Jebus. Gibeah was at least a city of fellow Israelites and we would hope full of hospitable believers. As it turned out, while there were some true believers there, there were also many wicked people who didn't love the Lord and it seemed that no one invited them in. I suppose that was what was right in their own eyes. Now, One virtue that's very key to the Christian faith is, and to this story is hospitality. Hospitality is a practice of being kind and generous and cordial to others in need of a place to stay or in need of something to eat. Um, we do this. It's a prime Christian virtue. All Christians should try to be hospitable officer of the church. Both elders and deacons are especially to be given to hospitality. but I hope you know hospitality isn't exclusively a Christian virtue. Uh, many false religions and irreligious people can also be very hospitable. And sadly, sometimes it, their hospitality puts ours to shame and people in the near and middle East actually are very noted for their hospitality. If you've ever been there or know someone who has these days, you may be inclined to think of Muslims as a, cruel and hateful terrorists, and many are, of course, we don't deny that, but the majority of the plain hardworking people who aren't involved in carrying swords in that region are legendary for their hospitality. Rita, my wife, lived in Palestine for a year before we were married, and she tells about the extraordinary kindness and selfless hospitality of the people living there. They'll feed you with the best food, invite you into their house, even if they're poor and have nothing for themselves. Now, whether that was the case 4,000 years ago, I can't say for sure, but there are hints of scripture that even way back then, the peoples of this region were very hospitable. If someone needed food, they would give it. If someone needed a place to stay, they'd give you their bed and they would sleep on the floor. They'd see that the stranger had a roof over his head. Perhaps even the pagans of Jebus might have been hospitable enough if they had stopped there. Maybe they should have. But it's understandable that the traveling Levite with his concubine and fellow servant would prefer the fellowship in a home with fellow believers, wouldn't you? The communion of the saints, something we cherish. I would certainly prefer that. It was very late when the When the Levite and his family arrived, they were obviously travelers. And yet to their surprise, nobody in Gibeah, the city of Israel, town of Israel, offered to take them in. Could it be because Gibeah was a town of Benjamites and they didn't want to take in somebody from the tribe of Levi, kind of like you go to Cleveland with a Steelers shirt on. Well, maybe could be, but probably there's more serious reason. It wasn't so much that the traveler was from another tribe, but because he was specifically a Levite, a man who was of the priestly tribe chosen by God to serve him. Now, a Levite would have represented to the morally lax Benjamites, a priest, a religious man who might look on them disfavorably or speak some harsh words about their lifestyles. It's something like how the presence of a minister at a party sometimes spoils the raucous fun. People are very quiet at a reception and so on, and as long as the minister's around, as soon as he leaves, people open up a little bit. Oh well, the priest thought, as he said to the companions, we'll just camp here in the town square. An elderly man saw them and kindly insisted they stay at his house for the night. Now on that night, we read about something happened that we might expect would more likely in the city of Jebus. a group of sodomites, sexual perverts, gathered around the house, and they demanded the Levite come out so they could have their way with him. Was this a common practice of the people, that they looked for strangers to molest them, perhaps? Or was it maybe more than that? They knew the man was, they too knew the man was a Levite, a priest of God, and that made him all the more desirable for the nefarious acts. They wished not only to practice their vile sins, but especially to desecrate what God said is holy unto him. That's very typical, you know. As a kind of a comparison, the neo-Nazis, they like to go around and paint swastikas, and they could paint them anywhere they wish, on their own doors, or if they want to, but they take special delight in painting them on a synagogue, or in a Jewish cemetery, on the stones. In the same way, Those who hate Christianity might spew their hatred anywhere at all, but they take special delight in defiling a church or disrupting a prayer meeting. You see, aim for what is precious to God. They could shout any expletive or an anger or disgust about anything, but they take special delight in taking the name of Jesus in vain. Now all sins are contrary to the will of God, but some sins are more heinous than others by reason of several aggravations. And you can see there's aggravations to the sin of desecrating what God specifically calls holy. Pardon me. So I think that because the traveler was a Levite, the sons of Belial took even more delight in their wicked intentions. The homeless came to the house of the old man and demanded the Levite come out so they could know him, for a little fun, as they might have put it. The old man refused to turn his Levite as guest over to the sons of Belial. Belial means useless, so they're sons of uselessness. He even told the perverts, do not do so wickedly. He even, and here's where the story absolutely shocks us, he even offered to give them his own virgin, I guess the granddaughter, I think it was, as well as the Levite concubine if they would just go away and leave the guests alone. What's going on here? How could anyone do that? We understand that a host must show hospitality, yeah, but hey, at what cost? This is so shocking that this is why people see this as unbelievable. They would want to make it an allegory, a wish for some other softer explanation. But this is exactly what happened. Shocking as it is. Here's where I almost want to say this is unbelievable. Well, it's a word of God. It's believable. It's just sometimes very shocking. Can you imagine such a thing? We're not so much surprised that the perverts would abuse anyone, but the men of the house who should have protected the weaker vessels fairly pushed them out the door, at least the concubine. Well, a poor woman was brutally raped, and who knows what they did to her. The next morning, when the Levite got up to continue on his way, he opened the door, and there lay the concubine. He presumed she was sleeping after a hard night. He urged her to get up and discovered, no, she was dead. She was murdered. The Levite was understandably enraged. He couldn't imagine the people of Israel had sunken so low as this. It's very disturbing. You might even want to exclaim, incredible, or think to yourself, this is unbelievable. But as I said, Earlier, God's word is credible and it is believable. It's just shocking. That's all shocking, powerfully so. And this count is given for that purpose to shock us. Shocking as it is. But then the priest did something else. It's unthinkable to us. Pardon me. He cut the dead concubine's body up into 12 pieces and said one to each of the tribes of Israel. perhaps with a note of explanation, or maybe the messenger who carried it, this body part, would explain why, and a cry of horror went up in all the land. The message was as gruesome as it was graphic. A modern parallel I come up with might be as a protest against abortion to send the dead aborted babies to every governor of every state in the union. It would certainly send a very powerful message, wouldn't it? Now, I'm not suggesting that. Don't do that. Don't do that. I'm only proposing this as a modern hypothetical parallel. Now, as we recount this incident, doesn't it remind you of another similar occasion in the Bible? Very similar, isn't it? And almost the same thing happened. It should. You remember the angels, who are also men of God, right? The three men who visited Abraham, while one who was called the Lord, actually, was talking to Abraham, the other two went to Sodom as guests to see Lot and his family. Lot was hospitable and took them in. That night, the violent homosexuals of the city demanded that Lot send out two strangers so they could molest them. Lot refused, but then he did the unthinkable. He offered his two daughters to them if they would just go away and leave the guests alone. Again, hospitality. Wow, shocking. Here, Genesis is different from the judges. The wicked perverts refused the girls and were about to break down the door when the men or angels caused them to be blinded. Their plans were foiled, and you know how Lot and his daughters escaped a destruction, and his wife almost. Now, you can see evident similarities between these two accounts. Now, here's what the super smart critics do with these two accounts. First, they say these stories are unbelievable. to have actually happened, too much. The last thing they want to do is believe the Bible. They admit the people may be cruel sometimes, but who would ever offer their own women to such vile and dangerous people just to protect their guests? We find it unbelievable, they say. It would never happen for real. This must be what it is. This must be an old Hebrew folktale that got told and retold with different people and at different times and in slightly different ways. It's the same story just new characters. The writers of Genesis tell it one way with Lot and his daughters. The writers of Judges tell the same old tale, slightly different with the Levite and his concubine. It's too much of a stretch, they say, to imagine this ever happened at all, really, and then way too much of a coincidence to say it happened twice. It's gotta be the same old folk tale simply retold, so they say. But, beloved of God, These are two true accounts. They both really happen, and yes, they are similar, but there are some very profound differences, too. First, the writer of Judges, possibly Samuel, we don't really know, knew the scriptures, surely, and he knew what Moses wrote in Genesis. He knew about Lot and Sodom and Gomorrah, and he deliberately made the comparison of what really happened by copying many of the same words and phrases. if you're able to see that. But here's the difference. In Genesis, the guests went into the heathen city of Sodom, knowing that the city was not safe. The people there were unbelievers and made no pretense of the fear of God. What happened there was more or less expected with such evil people. In Judges 19, however, the Levite passed by a similar heathen city of unbelievers, the city of Jebusites, because he preferred the safety and fellowship of the people of God. What one might expect in Sodom or in Jebus should never have happened in Gibeah, a city of God's people. And here's the point. The point is that while you might think you could expect such filthy, utterly perverted behavior from heathen peoples, you must not imagine that the same thing could never be found among the people of God. Even though we might expect heathen peoples might do such horrible, terrific things, we don't expect it to happen in Israel, do we? These are Israelites, Benjamites. Here it was, the people of God were no different from the people of the world. We're all cut from the same cloth. Yes, the children of God are redeemed and we're given new hearts and seek after new obedience. And we've tasted the good word of God and the powers of things to come that we're not yet glorified. And so the lust of the flesh and temptations of the world is still very much here with us. And we must never take our eyes off the prize of righteousness. That's been one for us in Jesus Christ, our savior. Jesus taught his disciples to pray, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Many people make that their practice to pray that every day. I went to school at a time when even in the public schools, that was a prayer. Why did he teach that? Do you think it was unnecessary? Do you think that just because you're saved, that you're now beyond such things and incapable of them? We read or see in the news some shame that has clouded the Roman church in which And which Protestant hasn't expressed with a kind of a knowing look, what could they expect? They don't allow the priest to marry and then they're surprised the priest resort to vile deeds with their choir boys. What did they think might happen? But now my smug friends, I ask do you think you're beyond that? Do you think that could never happen in the RPC? Do you think it hasn't happened? We must all remember What happened in heathen Sodom happened in covenanted Gibeah, only with an added murder. The abject disrespect for women, unwholesome sexual conduct, disrespect for life is not only found among the wicked unbelievers, but alas and shame can also be found among the people of the book, the people who bear God's name when they lose their fear of God. and allow their liberty of conscience to become their excuse for licentiousness. In this case, the people who did what was right in their own eyes was wrong. Beloved of God, if you have come to the place in your life where you begin to think in your heart, I've come so far in a Christian faith, I become strong. I have no more fear of being tempted in this or that direction because, well, I'm beyond that now. Would you then compare yourself to Christ's boastful disciple who once boasted he could never forsake his master, but within hours, his bold confession was worthless. At that moment, the great apostle Peter was the son of Belial. You must understand, God's beloved people, that even as the redeemed Israelites of Gibeah living freely in the promised land were feeling smug as they recalled the account of the evil sodomites who lived long ago in the days of father abraham they were saying within themselves that will never happen here they fell into the identical abomination and proved themselves belial worthless even so dear children of god as we earlier as we enter the year uh 2020 wednesday We must learn to humble ourselves, trust God, and not lean on our own strength. We have those same moral genes as our spiritual ancestors. No sin is beyond us. Never underestimate depravity. Never underestimate depravity, and least of all, in yourself. I've heard it said, and sometimes you hear this, when a terrible crime's been committed, and people in defense of the accused will say, Why, so-and-so is incapable of that. What do you think? As sure as we're all children of Adam and Eve, so and so is capable of that. It may astonish, but it's not unbelievable. You're capable of that, and so am I. It's a fearful thing about us, but it's all the more reason to fear God, trust in His grace, to seriously pray that it would lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. We should be shocked to learn or remember about this ourselves, and yet you also have this confidence that as Jesus Christ was about to go to the cross, he promised his confused and fearful disciples that he would send them the Comforter. You have that same Comforter, who is the Holy Ghost, who guides you into the truth, the truth of scriptures, which are able to make you wise unto salvation, give you the strength to resist the devil. You must be wise to that which is good and innocent to that which is evil. And as we said, remember that the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet shortly. Never forget the Spirit of Christ is able to keep you from stumbling and present you blameless before the presence of God's glory and with great joy. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we confess at this time Yes, we are by nature, by first nature, disposed to all kinds of evil. And it's only your grace that keeps us from it. And we're thankful that you even use restraint. We hesitate to call it grace on those who do not know you, but you restrain them for the sake of your people. Even as Sodom might have been spared if it were, but 10 righteous people in the city. We thank you for that. We thank you we live in the world we do. We thank you that we hear the gospel and we're able to hear it. We also confess that it makes us ashamed, ashamed of ourselves, what we would be if left to our own devices. But also, we are thankful for the reminder that he that is in us is greater than he that is in the world. And he gives us strength to keep us from temptation. and lead us from evil. Bless us, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.