Brothers and sisters, if you have your Bibles with you, please turn with me to chapter 20 of the book of Judges. We have come nearly to the end of Judges, where we are now being shown the evil that the people did in the eyes of the Lord. Starting back at chapter 17, we've seen unfolded for us godlessness, that leads to wickedness. And so last week and these next two weeks are all really one story. The gross immorality of Chapter 19 leads to the reprisals, the punishment of Chapter 20. And their solution to the problem necessitates another problem, a solution to their near extermination, a solution that's nearly as wicked as or maybe as wicked as everything else that's taken place. I will not read the entire chapter, though we will in outline form deal with all of it. But what I want to deal with more than the details of the passage are the questions that rise up in our hearts and minds as we consider this account. Pray with me, please. Father, open our ears, open our hearts to hear your word. Give us understanding, Father, that apart from the Holy Spirit, I am sure we would remain blank, unable to hear and understand. Lord, guide me in the things that I would say this day, that we do expose and express the truth and may hear it and believe We ask these things in Jesus' name, amen. This is a, again, not so much time spent on the details, but I want to address the questions that are here. The first thing we see, of course, is that Israel is united, almost completely. as I say, beginning at verse 20, at verse 1 of chapter 20. Then all the people of Israel came out from Dan to Beersheba, including the land of Gilead. And the congregation assembled as one man to the Lord at Mizpah. And the chiefs of all the people of all the tribes of Israel presented themselves in the assembly of the people of God, 400,000 men on foot that drew the sword. Now the people of Benjamin heard that the people of Israel had gone up to Mizpah. And the people of Israel said, tell us, how did this evil happen? And the Levite, the husband of the woman who was murdered, answered and said, I came to Gibeah that belongs to Benjamin, I and my concubine, to spend the night. And the leaders of Gibeah rose against me and surrounded the house against me by night. They meant to kill me, and they violated my concubine, and she is dead. So I took hold of my concubine and cut her in pieces and sent her throughout all the country in the inheritance of Israel, for they have committed abomination and outrage in Israel. Behold, you people of Israel, all of you give your advice and counsel here. And all the people arose as one man saying, none of us will go to his tent and none of us will return to his house. But now this is what we will do to Gibeah. We will go up against it by lot. And that's exactly what they did. The word went out from Dan to Beersheba. That's like Maine to Florida. If you were in colonial days, from Boston to Savannah. And by the way, some of those providences that may be on the other side of the mountains that we're bringing them to. So even the eastern tribes, the tribes east of the Jordan, They gathered all the people. They made an assembly of all the people of God. And so 400,000 gather. 400,000 men of arms gather. Benjamin, you'll notice, was not invited. Or at least that seems to be the implication. The people of Benjamin heard that the people of Israel had gone to Mizpah. These were the perpetrators. And were they not invited? Or did they get the invitation and decided, no, we're not coming anyway. I think it's probably more the previous. And as they gather, they receive the testimony of the Levite, shaded very nicely, you'll notice, so that he looks pretty good in this story. He makes no mention of, well, so I threw her out to them. No, I came completely in peace, and it was all their fault, and I was just a gentleman and a perfect, gracious host in all of this. Others had to have testified, we know from the scripture, because it would take more than one witness to condemn someone to death or particularly the city worth in this case. And so the verdict is rendered at verse nine in that they will go up against it by lot. At verse 13, we're going to learn that they will put them to death. They're going to remove the evil. from among them. The men of Gibeah must be destroyed. Now, it's clear it's the men of Gibeah that they are going against. There's no hint of the destruction of the whole tribe. It's the wicked men. But this will change. They were acting as one. This is the first time in the book of Judges where that phrase all Israel gathered is used. And it's three times here, verse one, verse eight, verse 11, united as one man, united as one man, and repeatedly in the passage, as one, as one, all Israel. How sad. How dreadfully sad. That the first time Israel can really come together is not to defeat the Canaanites and the Philistines and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Ammonites, but a tribe in Israel. They are unified. All but Benjamin, Benjamin Balks. It seems that they have been excluded from the proceedings. You wonder what might have been different if Israel had gone to the Benjaminites and said, You understand what happened here, what are you going to do about it? Because if you aren't going to deal with it, we are. But that's not what happens. 1994, some of you remember that year. The OJ Simpson trial was that year. I was at a presbytery meeting, a committee meeting, Five men there, myself included. Three of them were black pastors from the PCA. And of course the conversation, the topic came up. And this is when they were trying to move, when they were moving the trial from Santa Monica to Los Angeles. And my brother said, I want you to understand, we want him tried, but we want to do it. Not an all white Santa Monica. We want to do it. I thought, maybe Benjamin is feeling the same way. He says, we need to deal with this. You need to let us deal with this. But they're not given the opportunity. Instead, they're instructed in verse 13 to give them up. Verse 12, and the tribes of Israel sent men throughout all the tribe of Benjamin saying, what evil is this that has taken place among you? Now therefore give up the men, the worthless fellows in Gibeah, that we may put them to death and purge evil from Israel. But the Benjaminites would not listen to the voice of their brothers, the people of Israel. The people of Benjamin came together out of their cities to Gibeah to go out to battle against the people of Israel. And so they muster 26,000 men. They bring them all to Gibeah. They are united. in their defense of Gibeah. With them comes 700 left-handed snipers, you might call them, as good with a sling and a stone as David would be when he goes up against Goliath to sink a stone into his forehead. These men could hit a hare at, what, 150 feet, 200, 300? I don't know. And they're lefties. Benjamin. son of the right hand. And the best shots in the place are 700 lefties. Kind of interesting. They are united in defending their sinful, wicked brothers. I love Matthew Henry's commentary. So I have an aside comment here. It seems there is no cause so bad but that it will find some patrons, some advocates to appear for it. He does go on, but woe to those by whom such offenses come. And we look around our own day and we think there isn't a crazy, wild, ridiculous, or wicked scheme that isn't presented that someone, and oftentimes many someones, are going to join in it. I think Matthew Henry was right on. For Benjamin, blood ties, those physical relations, are deeper than covenant ties, than their spiritual relationship. They're committed to that family, and it's deeper than their commitment to the faith to which they have been bound. It may have been the source of the problem in the tribe of Benjamin. I think sometimes we need to ask ourselves, is that true for us? Do I have a greater loyalty to my blood and kin, a greater commitment to my blood and kin than I do to the Christ, to the church, the church for which Jesus died? Jesus did not die for my personal family. They're loaned to me, surely, but they're all under his hand. He died for his church? Are my concerns for my personal family greater than my concern for the body of Christ? We need to be careful. When one came to Jesus, Luke chapter 9, verse 59, he said, I'm ready to follow you. Just let me bury my father first. Now, of course, what he was saying is he isn't saying my father has died. Let me bury him. He's saying when my father dies, well, then I'll come. And Jesus said, what? Let the dead bury the dead. Matthew 10, for I have come to set a man against his father and a daughter against her mother and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. There are times when our allegiance to the body of Christ, when our allegiance to our King and Lord must overcome, must overrule our commitment to our family. Does my family, the things that I want to do with my family override worship? Does it override my ability to be engaged in witness or in fellowship? Benjamin decides family ties are more important than spiritual ties. And so they align themselves with deeds of darkness. as it says in Romans 13, and other places as well. So the battle lines are extended, extended from Gibeah to war with Benjamin. And so at 18, we see that Israel has determined its course, they know what they're going to do, and now they come to the Lord. The people of Israel arose and went up to Bethel and inquired of God, who shall go up first for us to fight against the people of Benjamin? And the Lord said, Judah shall go up first. Then the people of Israel arose in the morning and encamped against Gibeah. And the men of Israel went out to fight against Benjamin. And the men of Israel drew up the battle line against them at Gibeah. The people of Benjamin came out of Gibeah and destroyed on that day 22,000 men of the Israelites. People, the men of Israel took courage and again formed the battle line in the same place where they had formed it on the first day. And the people of Israel went up and wept this time before the Lord until evening. And they inquired of the Lord, shall we again draw near to fight against our brothers for the people of the people of Benjamin, our brothers? And the Lord said, go up against them. So the people of Israel came near against the people of Benjamin the second day. And Benjamin went against them out of Gibeah the second day and destroyed 18,000 men of the people of Israel. All these were men who drew the sword. And I can feel it, and I think it's probably in you as well. Who shall go first? We've come to the Lord. We've sought his favor. Now, we know we're in the right. Who's supposed to take the lead? And the Lord answers, Judah shall take the lead. In the same way, when they entered the land, Judah would take the lead. In other words, they had to have someone in command. But they would also be at the front. They'd be the first to fall. They take the brunt of the attack and 22,000 fall. Shall we continue to fight against our brothers? They're seeking the Lord's direction. They even come with tears. Should we continue this fight? And the Lord says, yes. And so they go up again and 18,000 fall. And we go, Lord. They're calling upon your name. You're giving them direction. They're supposed to have success. They aren't supposed to have some crushing defeat. We know the drill. The cause is right. We have the numbers. We've sought your favor. Quote, unquote, we've sought your direction. We should win. They were asking the Lord, you see, to bless their plans. They hadn't sought from the beginning. This is the first time they appealed to the Lord that we see. the first time that they've come together to call upon the name of the Lord. They've already decided what they're going to do. And so they just want the Lord to tell them how to do it. Again, their cause was good. Fifteen to one, this shouldn't be a big problem. And yet 40,000 of them fall. One-tenth of the number gathered. One-tenth of that number had been sent back to the tribes to gather supplies, if you look at verses 8 through 11, so that if they had to make a siege, they were going to be well provided for. They weren't going to have a problem. So what's going on here? What's God doing? Is he judging the Israelites too? Is it that they hadn't entered this battle in some way without sin? Why hadn't they, for instance, responded to the idolatry of the Danites back in chapter 19 because the idolatry of the tribe was every bit as wicked as the abominations of Gibeah. Deuteronomy 13 lays it out pretty clearly what's to happen to those who pursue idolatry. Is God punishing them? I don't know. I certainly can't say for certain. But the question just rings in our hearts. Lord, what are you doing? There are times when his purposes are hidden, hidden from us. He is accomplishing his will, but we are not always made privy to those eternal decrees and judgments. The secret things, Deuteronomy 29, 29, the secret things belong to God. We know that he's working out his justice and his righteousness in both the objects of that judgment and in the instruments of that judgment. And we have to get that into our heads because as we go through the history of Israel, we will see it repeatedly. He'll raise up the Assyrians or the Babylonians to bring judgment against his people. It's not that he won't judge them, But even the prophets cried out, Lord, what are you doing, this wicked people? There are times when his purposes are hidden from us, and I believe this is likely one of them. He had other purposes along with the judgment of Gibeah. So now they come a third time to the Lord. Verse 26, and all the people of Israel, the whole army went up and came to Bethel and wept." Now everyone comes, and they come to Bethel. They don't just need an oracle to tell them, do this or do that. Now they seek the Lord. And the people of Israel inquired of the Lord, for the ark of the covenant of God was there in those days. And Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, ministered before it in those days, saying, shall we go out once more to battle against our brothers, the people of Benjamin, or shall we cease? And the Lord said, Now we get the theology. Now we get the truth. Now we get the issue. Go up, for tomorrow I will give them into your hand. They had been seeking the Lord's direction. Now they need his blessing and his favor. They come to the house of the Lord in confession. They come in humility. They bow themselves before the Lord. Interestingly, Benjamin couldn't do that anymore. They had cut themselves off, cut themselves off from the means of grace, from the means of God's ministry to them. They were far away from access. And now the Lord gives, when they come in confession and in humility, when they come to know what he would do, I will give them into your hand. We don't trust our cause just because it's right. We don't trust our numbers or our strength. We trust in the Lord. The battle belongs to the Lord. We sing hymns of it. Literally, it says the victory belongs to the Lord. Proverbs 21, 2131, I think. I will give them into your hands. It's the Lord who will fight. And so they enter the battle. Verses 29 through 48 show the plan, the well-planned, the well-devised plan, the well-executed plan of Israel before the Lord. And the Lord fought for them. And it brings Benjamin to the verge of extinction. They set a trap so they can draw the people out of Gibeah, the terrain would have been such that you couldn't bring 400,000 people into the assault. You would come in narrowly, which is why they were able to cut them down. And maybe it was those glorious victories that they had had the first two times that gives them a little too much confidence in Gibeah, and so they come out against Israel. And they are flanked, and they are deceived. because there are men in ambush who will come to take Gibeah and take the whole city. And as I say, the plan may have been a little, or more than a little too well executed, because we'd grieve. Benjamin would lose 25,000 men of the sword in the battle, and then more. 600 men of arms, total 600 men, would escape to the Rock of Rimen. And they came into the city of Gibeah, and they killed everyone and everything in it. And once they were done with that slaughter, and once they'd trapped those 600 men, they went to every town in Benjamin and killed everyone and everything and burned the cities. All that were left were 600 men of the tribe. Vindication? Obeying the word of the Lord? I don't think so. It was vengeance. 40,000 Israelites dead. You're going to pay for this. Because everyone did what was right in his own eyes. Don't lose that. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. It's how the section begins. It's how the section ends. It is what rules everything in the middle. There was no king in Israel. And as I said, the questions and the sorrow and the grief just rises up in us. Lord, what is happening? What are you doing? Come back to those three questions with which we started this study. What does this say about God? What does this tell me about who God is, his power, his character, his attributes, his promises? What does it tell me about who God is? Can I answer that question here? What does it tell us about ourselves? What does it tell us about humanity? Does it point us to Christ, as the Old Testament, in Jesus' words, is intended to do, to point us toward him? Well, I believe it does, brothers and sisters. I believe we can put some semblance of answer to those questions. We've already declared that the depth of the judgments of God are beyond our grasp. Isaiah 55, verse 8, our ways are not his ways. Can I know all of what God is doing here? I cannot. Clearly, judgment on Gibeah was just, and the Lord said, yes, go against them. Yes, go against them. The judgment is right. But I fight. If he was judging Israel too, it was also his blessing to give them victory. His judgments are perfect and righteous, but the ways may not be understood by us. His purposes are beyond our grasp. God is much bigger than we want to make him sometimes. You see, what the Israelites were trying to do was simply use God as the this way or this way, this thing or this thing. Give me the yes or no. Bring out the Urim and Thummim. Turn it over one way or the other. Just tell me what to do next. They weren't coming to God, humbling themselves, bowing and saying, you are God. You rule and you reign. And I do not know all your ways, but Lord, bring me into those paths. We come expecting that obedience, I fear that we come expecting that when our path is clear, when we believe that we have understood the word or God's instructions, that we're walking in obedience, doing what he calls and what he asks us to do, that therefore there won't be any suffering. And there won't be any failure, and there won't be any difficulty, because after all, I'm doing what you told me to do, Lord. Tell that to Paul, would you? Paul, who wanted to go up into Asia, and God said, no, I'm sending you further west. As a matter of fact, I want you to go to Macedonia. OK, Lord, I hear. I'm going to Macedonia. And when he lands there within two weeks, what? He's in a Philippian jail, having been beaten near to death. for no cause and without any charges. But Lord, you sent me here, yes, to accomplish my will in you and in these people. And of course, we have the letter of the Philippians as some of the fruit of that. But did it mean because he was walking in faith and in obedience that there would be no struggle? Take the ultimate example, the Lord Jesus, who walked in absolute, perfect obedience. He could only do what the Lord gave him to do. He couldn't do anything else. Did it mean, therefore, that Jesus would not suffer, that he would not struggle, that he would not know hardship? No, it did not. And so what do we learn about ourselves here? We learn that God's ways are mysterious, We have to learn, brothers and sisters, that our ways are not His ways. And if He chooses to bring struggle and suffering, even as a result of obedience, it is because He is at work to bring glory to Himself, honor to His name, and good for me. Give me the grace to see it, Lord. Two other things let me just point out quickly. One, the sin of Gibeah against, in a sense, one person. Now, I admit it's broader than that. It's greater than that. But it seemed, probably in their eyes, isolated, sojourner, traveler, who's going to care anything about it? One wicked act, what's the big deal? Do you remember some of you about 30 years ago, maybe a little more, when we were told what happens in the bedroom is private, it doesn't affect anybody? Right? It isn't going to affect your life at all. It means nothing to you. We can do whatever we want there. It's private. It's just between us. Has anybody looked around lately to see where we are in regard to that? Private? Are you kidding? Now I am being forced to accept, to promote things that I believe are abominations, that I believe are biblically damaging to the soul, to the heart, to the society. That's why they're an abomination, because the Lord looks at it and says, you're defying that for which I have made you. And it will have dreadful repercussions, which, of course, we're seeing. It does. But, hey, it's a private thing. It doesn't affect anybody else. Pornography, it's a private thing. How many multi-billion dollar business? Oh, yeah, that's private, all right. The destructions of families and hearts and lives, oh, yeah, that's private, all right. It's just one individual. What fools we are if we think that sin doesn't have dreadful ramifications. One act by Gibeah, 100,000 people dead. Yeah, add it up. It's at least 100,000. 40,000 Israelites, 26,000 men, all the women and children besides. Yeah, it's easy. It's just one sin. That's what I wanted to do with you children, was to try and figure out how to show that lying doesn't end with just one lie. It's over, it doesn't go anywhere, it doesn't mean anything, or stealing, or any number of other things. Parents, if you can figure out how to teach that to your children, you are doing well, very well, to see that those sins never remain private. It's what the Bible teaches. The wages of sin may be death, That's what will come ultimately, but the effect and the power of sin is desolation. It's the destruction of what we saw last week, the perversion and destruction of relationships, the warping of our sensibilities and our morality, the perversion and the destruction of our reasoning. The effect and the power of sin is, as I say, desolation. Does it point me to Christ? That there might be hope, that there might be deliverance, that there might be one who comes not with the acts of wickedness, but with acts of righteousness and holiness and purity, who himself would be wickedly murdered. They didn't call it murder. They said, well, this is an act of justice. He's being condemned. For what? For being a righteous man. Praise God that the same way that power of sin spreads its desolation and destruction, the power of the righteousness and the holiness and the grace and the mercy and the forgiveness of Christ can spread as well, poured out on all those who will come, trusting in that name, resting in that name. Yes, there is hope in that gospel. I can and will be pointed to the king that Israel so desperately needed, not the ones that would fail them within a generation or two of human kings, but of a heavenly King who can rule our hearts and deliver us from the devastation of sin, from the devastation of doing what is right in our own eyes. Father, open our hearts and our eyes to the power, the saving power, the redeeming, renewing power of our Savior. So strengthen us, Lord. Build us up in faith and life and love, we pray in Jesus' name, amen.