If you have your Bibles, would you turn with me, please? To Judges, the book of Judges, chapter 19. If you're visiting with us this morning, I almost feel like I need to apologize. We are in the last chapters of the book of Judges, chapters on which you have likely never heard a sermon, and if you have read them, you probably know why. Throughout the book, we have seen the people suffering because they did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. As we come to these last chapters, actually the last five chapters of the book, we are given to see just what the evil was that they did in the sight of the Lord. What did it look like? And so as we come to this passage, two weeks ago, chapters 17 and 18, we looked at the godlessness of the people. That's what was set before us. Not that they were atheists, that they believed in no God, but they became idolaters. They made God something he is not. They wanted to add to God. They wanted to worship him. However, they were pleased to worship him. And so we looked at a Levite who was more interested in his personal status and personal gain than he was in serving the Lord. At Micah, who made his god and made his ephod and made his priest, most of which and much of which came out of goods that he had stolen. And so he was, you know, this is designer worship. I'll do it my way. And we saw the tribe of Dan doing the same things, stealing what had been stolen, taking the idols, the ephod, the shrines. the priests taking it all, setting up their own place of worship, acting in dramatic unfaithfulness. And so they were a people calling on Yahweh, but not as Yahweh, not as the Lord, the only true and living God. It was godlessness. Where does godlessness lead? These next three chapters are unparalleled in their expression of depravity. more disturbing than Jephthah and his vow, more distressing than David with Bathsheba and Uriah. It's worse in its nature and it's worse in its consequences. And remember, these are the nations that were not around Israel, but Israel. The actions portrayed in these chapters are, by modern standards, absolutely appalling. but understand they were appalling by ancient standards too. I will try to be delicate given my audience, but there's nothing delicate about this account. If you remember Sodom and Lot, then you have a good reference point. So let me approach this a little differently. It is a, it's a long chapter. I'm not going to read all of it. I would like to read portions of it and give us an outline of events if you will, and then we'll come back into the passage. So some of it has been printed for you if you don't have a Bible. Judges chapter 19. Let's see if we can get an understanding of the events. Pray with me as we do this. Father, open our hearts and ears. Lord, let me speak your word, not mine, Father. I enter these passages with fear and trembling, but I pray, Father, that we would hear the truth and not just be broken by it, Lord, but find healing as well. This we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. 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 father saw him, he came with joy to meet him. And his father-in-law, the girl's father, said to him, stay. And he remained with him three days. They ate and drank and spent the night there. And so it begins. We meet a Levite and his unfaithful concubine, who then deserts him. Both those offenses, by the way, both of those actions are punishable by death. But a Levite with a concubine? The godlessness of Israel has indeed made its way into the religious establishment. After four months, he wants her back. So he follows her to her father's house. And verse three tells us he speaks kindly to her as a husband. Now, given what will happen later in the passage and the way we hear him speak, I think we are to understand that this was not his usual manner. He doesn't stay just for a few nights. He ends up staying for five nights. He keeps invited to stay, to stay, to stay. But on the fifth day, after a bit of the day has waned, they get a late start on the journey home. So at verse 10, we pick it up. 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 this city of the Jebusites and spend the night in it. And his 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 Gibeah. And he said to his young man, come and let us draw near to one of those places and spend the night in Gibeah or Rama. So they passed on and went on their way. And as the sun and the sun went down on them near Gibeah, which belongs to Benjamin, that is the tribe of Benjamin. And they turn it turned aside there. to go in and spend the night at Gibeah. 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." They pass by Jerusalem, a city that this man says, foreigners, he's not going to spend time there. He's going to leave that behind. Instead, he goes into the territory of Benjamin to Gibeah. but no one takes them in. A dreadful breach of hospitality. An old man coming down at the end of his work day finds them there in the square and bids them to come to him. Now he's not from Benjamin, he's another man from the hill country of Ephraim. But at verse 20, 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 donkey's feed and they washed his feet and ate and drank. It was the sojourner himself who asked, offered the hospitality to the Ephraimite. It was he who had compassion on him and who was fearful to leave him in the square. Verses 22, through 26 are the return to Sodom. And the parallels between Judges 19 and Genesis 19 are very clear and very intentional. Men surround the house with their unholy demand, bring the man out. The host makes an unholy appeal. I'll give you my virgin daughter and his concubine. They reject it. And this time there's no angel to draw back the hand of Lot or this Levite. And the Levite, fearful of him for his own, thrusts the concubine, his wife, out to this wicked crowd. And she is subjected through the night to horrific abuse. She dies on the doorstep of the house at dawn. The abusers obviously fear no consequences. They're strangers. What are they going to be able to do? And the passage then concludes with the staggering indifference of the Levite and a call for retribution against the people of Benjamin. Verse 27 to the end. And her master rose up in the morning and when he opened the doors of the house and went out to go on his way, behold, there was his concubine lying at the door of the house with her hands on the threshold. And he said to her, get up, let us be going. But there was no answer. Then he put her on the donkey and the man rose up and went away to his house. And when he entered his house, he took a knife and divided her up limb by limb into 12 pieces and sent her throughout all the territory of Israel. All who saw it said, such a thing has never happened or been seen from the day that the people of Israel came up out of the land of Egypt until this day. Consider it. Take counsel and speak. Why is this here? Why must we read this? Why is this preserved for us? Why is such a terrible thing even left in the Bible? Because the Word of God does not shy away from the condition of the human heart. It does not pretend that we are all basically good. nice people who left to ourselves and when pressed will really do what is best for everyone. No, we want to be our own kings. And when there was no king in Israel, they were not in submission to any king, the king of kings, and their wickedness quickly matched, indeed outpaced the wickedness of the people that they had been sent to judge. A way of introduction, let me give you the setting, if you will. We've seen the flow, the events of the passage, but we need to understand the setting, because this does not take place at the very end of Judges, as if that downward spiral just got worse and worse and worse and worse, and this is where they ended up. No, the setting is very early in the period of the Judges. We know that from the next chapter, verse 28. This took place in the days of Phineas, the high priest, son of Eleazar. Eleazar died when Joshua did. So if Phineas lives for another 40 years, at most, this is 80 years from when they crossed into Israel, at most. Remember, we're answering He's answering the question. He's writing with a theological concern, not a chronological one. He is answering the question, what did they do that was evil in the sight of the Lord? That's his purpose, to show the path and the consequences of sin, the judgment we deserve, a desperate need that we have for a true deliverer. He helps us to see, I trust as well, ultimately the mercy and grace of God. So remember, this is not at the very end. It's almost where they started. His point, very simple. Godlessness, and again, not just atheism, but worshipping anything other than the true God, godlessness leads to wickedness. And we see it in perverted relationships, in perverted morality, and distorted and perverted reasoning. Godlessness distorts relationships. It perverts them. Godlessness leads to a view, the loss of the view of men and women made as image bearers, made in the image of God. And so it leads to relationships where we see individuals as objects, not image bearers. Again, that Levite sees his, he speaks to her initially as a husband, but in verse 27, it's the master who is leaving, by the way, Read verse 27 again. No concern whatsoever. Well, if she comes back, she comes back. I mean, she ran away once. She's probably getting what she deserved. He's leaving her there. Such is his view of this woman. She's a concubine. She has no real claim on him, on his posterity or anything else. If she has children, he doesn't even have to claim them. They don't receive anything from him. When we lose that view, of men and women as image bearers. They become objects. And objects, brothers and sisters, are property. They're not persons. The old man does it with his virgin daughter. Property. Take her. The Levite thrusts her out. It's just property. It's not someone to be protected and cherished. Godlessness leads to wickedness. And we lose the view of that image bearer. And the child in the womb is an object. It's a lump of cells. It's nothing living or real, even though scientifically, medically, absolutely it is. And biologically, absolutely it's a human being. But it's an object. And an object is property. And I do what I want with my property. And if my property doesn't benefit me, I get rid of it. The sexual abuse that is portrayed here is staggering. And of course, it ends up being foisted, perpetrated on this woman by one who was supposed to protect, by one known all too well, which is, of course, usually the case in sexual abuse. Again, the Bible does not shy away from difficult issues. As a culture becomes more secular, as godlessness spreads and deepens, we ought not to be surprised by callous attitudes towards sexual immorality. Sexual abuse around the world is rampant in what I would term godless societies. Those are societies you can say, well, they believe in God. But do they believe in the God who created, who made them, who set apart breathing out, breathing life into a man and a woman to make them living beings to be made as image bearers? No. Godlessness leads to wickedness. And so we are becoming a schizophrenic culture. We demand rights and privileges for women while turning them in a multi-billion dollar industry into objects. We have a culture that has and is going through a sexual revolution and what it's bringing forth is not freedom but bondage and greater abuses because godlessness leads to wickedness. And I grieve to read a passage like this and to have to preach it because I know, I know, all I have to do is look at the number and I know that there are many here who have experienced such abuse. And we grieve. Don't hide it. Don't feel like here that has to be hidden away. No one can know. No one can know the struggles that I'm still facing and dealing with, the things that I'm still wrestling with as a result. No. Find someone, brother, sister, in whom you can confide, who can encourage you, help you, guide you to that place where you can be encouraged and strengthened. and no healing and hope. We can talk about it here. Clearly the Lord is not afraid to acknowledge it and to set forth a way for hope and for life. This must be a place that is safe, where healing and hope can be restored, where grace and be experienced and peace becomes a real possibility. We go in and we look at the New Testament and we want a view of women. Look what Jesus does, the way he responds, the way he draws women to himself, where he's surrounded by them, dependent upon them. In so many instances, they provided for him. When someone comes, a woman of ill repute weeping at his feet, what does he grant? Forgiveness, healing. His goal was to restore them and to renew them. Yes, he confronts the woman at the well in Samaria and how gracious he is to do it. And she finds rest and peace and life. We can go on through the New Testament because we saw even in Timothy how Paul, well, we can go to Galatians. What happens there? There's no difference, male, female, slave. Gentile, Jew, Freeman. No. God does not make that distinction. And so women are held up. And they are to be a part of the church. And they are supposed to be a part of the life of the church. And they are to be engaged in ministry. And they are to receive the teaching. And they can be used in many ways, including instructing other women and others who, in the faith, they're lifted up. What a picture we get. But here, yes, godlessness leads to wickedness. It does so in our morality. The moral compass expressed in these passages is, you would think, you want to say incomprehensible. But no, apart from God, apart from Christ, apart from the work of the spirit, this is what morality will be. Again, what's a Levite doing with a concubine? Consider the gross immorality of these men. We're right back to Romans 1 in terms of the exchange made of what was natural for what is unnatural. But it seems perfectly reasonable and natural to them. The moral compass, the moral consciousness has just been destroyed. He comes into Gibeah where Hospitality should be the hallmark of the Israelites, and instead the place is inhospitable. They're received not with care, but to be taken advantage of. We're shocked by the unimaginable coldness of the Levite. And the language there is as blunt and cold as it comes across. here in an English translation. Get up, let's be going. It's meant to seem and be that harsh. Godlessness destroys morality. And godlessness, it may be underneath all of that, is that what godlessness destroys ultimately is our reasoning. Our relationships and our morality flow from that impaired reason. Again, Romans 1.25, they exchanged the truth about God for a lie. This is exactly what's happening and what's being said before us. They become their own arbiters of truth. What would have been unthinkable becomes acceptable. They trust their own judgment, their own reason, their own logic. They will define their own purpose, not according to the word of God, but according to their own word. And so this passage is encapsulated, if you will, by verse 1 and by verse 30. Such a thing has never happened or been seen from the day that the people of Israel came up out of the land of Egypt until this day. Consider it. Take counsel and speak. We haven't seen such things, they say. Never in Israel. His reasoning is so foul that he takes her and cuts her up and sends out packages to the tribes. Imagine being the postman with that package in the days of no refrigeration. And they receive it and it's, how can this be? Because evil is good and good is evil. I may have told you some few years ago, two or three years ago, I don't remember now, we were out visiting our son in Chicago. It was Memorial Day weekend. They had a neighborhood block party picnic, and I ended up speaking to a man well in his 90s, had lived in the neighborhood more than 50 years, fought in World War II, commanded an artillery unit. And at the end of the war, he was in Germany, right near the end of the war. And as they were pressing in, they came to a work camp that had been abandoned by the Nazis. And the conditions, he would not describe the conditions. What he did describe is what he had to do. There was a town less than two miles away, less than two miles. And he went and found the mayor, and they said, of course, we know nothing about it. Oh, no, we have no knowledge of this whatsoever. We have no idea what could be there. calling evil good and good evil. Godlessness leads to wickedness. I'll deny everything. I'll pretend that it never existed. He gave them until 8 o'clock in the morning to be at the camp. Clothing, bedding, cleaning supplies, food, shovels, and ready to work. His men would be in the town at 8 o'clock. If anyone was left in the town or if there was anything in the town that needed to be in the camp, he'd shell it into oblivion. Such was what he had seen. So don't, we can't sit here and say, well, this could never happen. Oh, yes, it can and does. Godlessness. leads to wickedness. Larry, is there hope? What hope is here? Back to verse 1. Back to verse 1. When there was no king in Israel. Ah, but this writer is looking back because there was a king. There was a king whom God used to bring them out of such bondage and of course that king is looking ahead to the true king. There was no king in Israel, there was no physical king at that time, but there was no king in their hearts. First Samuel 8 verse 7, God says to Samuel, they've not rejected you, they have rejected me as king. They have rejected me from being king over them. See, there was no king in their hearts. There was no rule. There was no one. There was no guide. There was no protector. There was no deliverer. They had become a godless people that wanted no oversight and no care. But there is a king. God, we know, has sent Jesus Christ, king of the Jews, he was declared, and is of the line and lineage of David. King who comes from heaven, who left his throne to come to this wicked place full of nothing but strangers to bring forgiveness, to bring grace, to bring hope, to bring life, to bring salvation. How? By giving his own life and by rising from the dead to return to his throne so that he might rule over all those who come to Him, who trust in Him, who look to Him, who serve His, to serve Him as King. And so there is hope for us. Godliness isn't going to rest in you, it isn't going to rest in me, apart from the King who brings it, who gives it, who makes that new creation out of us. And in that new creation, in the service to that king, where does that lead? Godliness, it leads to life. And so he will restore those relationships because he's torn down the barriers between the Jew and the Gentile, between God and man. Relationships can be renewed. He teaches us and instills in us what is true and right and just and pure and commendable and lovely and praiseworthy and excellent. And so morality and moral consciousness and life can be renewed and restored. And we do become a very different people. Why? Because he is at work renewing our minds. We take every thought captive. We bring into conformity our minds with the word of the King, with the word of God, so that we are brought into conformity with the person and the character of Jesus Christ. Such is the work of the King, to deliver us from bondage and shame and sorrow, to give us eyes to see the hope that is ours in Jesus Christ, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. There can yet be life, brothers and sisters. No, do not toss out Judges 19 or 20 or 21. It is who we are apart from that King. But with our King, not godlessness, not wickedness, but life and godliness and eternal life. Father, give us the eyes to see what you set before us. Help us, Lord, to see the purpose in these pages, in these accounts, Lord. Remind us, Lord, of where we would be apart from grace, apart from a King who has come to deliver and to rescue and to save. Help us to see, Father, that there but for the grace of God go I and save. Hear us, we ask and pray in Jesus' name. Amen.