Our text for this morning you will find in the last chapter of the Book of Judges, chapter 21. And I hope at this point you aren't completely wearied by the melancholy account of the Book of Judges and these last chapters in particular. We have been looking Actually, through most of the entire book, we have been looking at the brokenness of Israel. Their broken relationships, their broken sense of morality, their broken reasoning. And what we've seen, that brokenness, it's not just presented to us in the abstract. Oh, they break the word of God, they break the law of God, violating some divine perfection. But we see it in the practical evil that comes through and from Israel. Evil that nearly all the world can acknowledge as wicked and foul, and yet is repeated generation after generation throughout history in one culture after another. Judges chapter 21, beginning at verse 1. Now the men of Israel had sworn at Mitzpah, no one of us shall give his daughter in marriage to Benjamin. And the people came to Bethel and sat there till evening before God. And they lifted up their voices and wept bitterly. And they said, oh Lord, the God of Israel, why has this happened in Israel? That today there should be one tribe lacking in Israel. And the next day the people rose early and built there an altar and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. And the people of Israel said, which of all the tribes of Israel did not come up in the assembly to the Lord? For they had taken a great oath concerning him who did not come up to the Lord to mitzpah, saying, he shall surely be put to death. And the people of Israel had compassion for Benjamin, their brother, and said, one tribe is cut off from Israel this day. What shall we do for wives for those who are left, since we have sworn by the Lord that we will not give them any of our daughters for wives? We'll pick up the text in a moment. Pray with me, please. Father, oh, that our ears are open this morning to the word of truth, that Lord, you would guide us into all truth today. So lead me, Father, in this word, and lead us, I ask, in Jesus' name. Amen. Ever been in a bind because of a promise you made? Honey, I'll take care of that as soon as the game is over. Only you didn't know it was a doubleheader. Or there's another game right after. Oh, wait a minute, it's not really ended. I mean, that's a trivial kind of thing. Promises we've made that have been very hard to keep? I think of that one. Not that she's been hard to love, but I know I've made it hard on her from time to time. And I could give you specific examples of which I will not. Thank you very much. Promises made in haste, not thinking through the consequences. Promises that are going to cost me in ways that I hadn't anticipated. Israel is in a terrible dilemma. How do we preserve the 12th tribe? It started out that they were going to punish those wicked men of Gibeah back in chapter 20, verse 13, but all of Benjamin became harem or devoted to destruction as they aligned themselves with the men of Gibeah. And so they were treated like the inhabitants of Canaan. Now we're told in verse 6 that Israel had compassion on Benjamin. They'll say it again in verse 15. They were concerned for the integrity of Israel. There were 12 sons of Jacob. There were 12 tribes. There were 12 stones in the ephod of the high priest. There were 12 camps that were placed around the Ark of the Covenant. Not 11, but complements of their scorched earth campaign. Benjamin, if it's going to survive, needs wives. But how do we keep our vow? Our vows, actually, because two emerge in this passage. They make a great oath. They will put to death anyone who doesn't join them. Likely, they meant the whole town. Now, you can surmise some reasoning behind it. They demonstrate, is it a a town that shows no concern for the crime committed? Do they not fear God's judgment upon the whole nation as a result of that? Don't they support justice? Are they defying the authority of the community gathered, of that covenant community? And somebody comes up with what seems to be to them a brilliant plan. And so the passage goes on in verse 8, was there a tribe? Was there a city? Yes, there was, Jebus Gilian. Oh, well, we can keep our word. We can go and wipe them out like we said we were going to. Ah, but guess what? If we don't kill their virgin daughters, we get to pick up the wives. Two birds with one stone. We keep our vow and Benjamin gets their wives. Now they want to show compassion on Benjamin, but they show no compassion on Jabesh Gilead. What twisted reasoning. Jabesh Gilead are Israelites as well. And so they send 12,000 of their finest, it says, soldiers. You wonder, aren't they tired of this slaughter yet? It just reminded me of the Danites. taking on a quiet people. And so they attack and they carry off 400 women who had never known a man. And their fathers didn't have to violate a vow in terms of not giving up their daughters because they weren't there to take that vow. So, pretty good deal. Israel kept its vow, whether it was honoring to the Lord Well, that's another question altogether. Are we careful with the promises that we make, careful that we don't make rash, quick judgments, statements, commitments? Because when you make a promise, when you take a vow, you had better consider it long and hard. It may mean, those words may mean consequences that you really haven't considered or thought through. You want to take time carefully because, as I said to the children, Our words do matter to the Lord. So with brides in hand, the people come and call to Benjamin, verse 13. Then the whole congregation sent word to the people of Benjamin who were at the Rock of Rimen and proclaimed peace to them. And Benjamin returned at that time and they gave them the women whom they had saved alive of the women of Jabesh Gilead. But they were not enough for them. And the people had compassion on Benjamin because the Lord had made a breach in the tribes of Israel. They bring a peace offering. We have wives. Come back, brothers. And so there's that restoration. Justice has been served. The offense has been paid for. Here's a present for you. Oops, we don't have enough. Now what do we do? Because once again, now this second oath comes into play. Beginning at verse 16, then the elders of the congregation said, what shall we do for wives for those who are left since the women are destroyed out of Benjamin? And they said, there must be an inheritance for the survivors of Benjamin that the tribe not be blotted out from Israel. Yet we cannot give them wives from our daughters for the people of Israel had sworn cursed be he who gives a wife to Benjamin. And so they come up with another great plan. There's a feast every year at Shiloh. That's, of course, the Feast of Booths. It's the celebration of the harvest. It's remembering God's provision for his people in the wilderness. So the idea is, well, let God provide for the Benjaminites at this feast. Go ahead, lie in wait, ambush them, and carry off the women. Not the married women, just the unmarried. And verse 22, they tell us, And when their fathers or their brothers come to complain to us, we'll say to them, grant them graciously to us, because we did not take for each man of them his wife in battle. Neither did you give them, else you would now be guilty. You see what they're trying to do? They don't want them to violate their vow. And so the solution is, we'll just steal them. And then when their fathers or their brothers come to us, we can just say, look, we didn't kill you in battle for them. So back off. And you didn't have to violate your vow because you didn't give them up willfully. They were stolen from you. So be at peace. Now, this dance was like David's dancing before the Lord, it wasn't sensual. Not even sure it was mixed because they had no trouble telling the married women from the unmarried women. It was a time for the girls to dance before the Lord. Matthew Henry was helpful last week. This week he reminds us, their dancing thus in public made them an easy prey to those who had design upon them. Whence Bishop Hall observes that the ambushes of evil spirits carry away many souls from dancing to a fearful desolation. Got that? Time to lock up your daughters. Don't you dare let them dance. And I know we have young women here who are dancing. And here's my warning to you that souls, many a soul from dancing has been carried away to a fearful desolation. I think they've read a little into the text here, brothers and sisters. Just being honest there. But ladies, be forewarned. I don't know what I'm going to do with my own daughter who loves swing dancing and ballroom dancing. I guess she's on the verge of being carried away into a fearful desolation. In all seriousness, however, Do you see what Israel is saying? We aren't going to break our vow. No matter what that vow is, we aren't going to break it. We're going to act like Jephthah here. So we aren't going to let our daughters marry them. But instead, we'll tell the men of Benjamin to act like Boko Haram. Just take them. And so the wives are secured. And the people of Benjamin, verse 23, did so and took their wives according to the number from the dancers whom they carried off. Then they went and returned to their inheritance and rebuilt the towns and lived in them. And the people of Israel departed from there at that time, every man to his tribe and family. And they went out from there, every man to his inheritance." It's all tied up. Benjamin has their wives. The continuation of the tribe is secured. Nobody had to break any of their vows. We kept them all. Now, yes, one town was butchered, and some of those wives had to watch their families be slaughtered as they were carried away. And others, well, they were just ripped out of their families and their homes and carried off to be married. But it's all good. It's all good. Everyone, well, everyone who's been left standing, went home. Job well done. Everything wrapped up, all's well that ends well. The end, not quite. In those days, there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. The story's easy to tell. The questions that it raises, however, are not so easy to address. And we have some really challenging ones here in the passage. The problem of evil, the problem of God's sovereignty, and the problem of God's mercy. Consider the problem of evil, because we know this is evil. This is wrong. We don't need the writer to tell us it is, but he did. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. This was evil in the eyes of the Lord. It's evil in our eyes, but it was not evil in theirs. The fact is, evil is not fundamentally a cultural issue. It wasn't just wrong. It's not just wrong for our culture today. We look back on this and we say, this is wicked behavior. Yes, it is. But it was wicked behavior then, too. was terribly wrong for their culture as well as ours, because it's not just our sensibilities that are assaulted in these things. It's the character of God that's assaulted and his law, which they had, by the way. We know it's evil because we don't define it. God does. God defines evil. God says what is good. and what is not. He sets the standard, and that standard is the unchanging, inviolable standard, the law of God. That standard is rooted in the nature of God, who is good and just and righteous and holy. And the only way we can define what is evil is to stand it apart from that. What is not good, it is rejecting the good that God is. I take away his standard of what is good and we're in a free fall. He has revealed that truth. The challenge comes every time evil raises its head and we make a judgment of what is right and wrong. There is a standard. And it is not dependent on the culture. The problem with evil is that many today want to be the arbiters of that standard themselves. They don't want an objective, binding standard. So then what is judgment based on? What is good or true or right based on? What I think right now and arbitrary standards of no use to us. It always changes. I don't know if you've noticed, but the Western world seems to be in deep trouble in this regard right now. I read very recently, both in Canada and Great Britain, acquitted men, Muslim men, I probably shouldn't say that because I'm profiling, acquitted men who claimed that they didn't know their actions were wrong. Therefore, they couldn't be held guilty. Their crimes, of course, were against women. But those things weren't wrong in their own culture. By their standards, their consciences were clear. Now, I don't know about you, but I was told on more than one occasion, ignorance of the law is no excuse. The standard holds. It doesn't change. But we're looking at a world around us where the standards are coming down. If your conscience is clear, well, I guess we can't judge you then. And so justice is perverted. What happens to the conscience of the one violated? I guess that doesn't matter. You see, all sin is against God. Sin is more than a violation of my conscience. Sin isn't defined by my sensibilities. Even Paul can say in 1 Corinthians 4.4, I believe, where he says, my conscience may be clear, but that does not mean that I am therefore acquitted. Because it's not my conscience, it's the law of God. Sin isn't defined by my sensibilities. I am not the arbiter of right and wrong. If that's the case, then everything works in my favor. My sin is given permission to run rampant. We need to understand that a clear conscience and without guilt or without sin are quite different. Israel had a clear conscience in the way they handled this whole thing, the affair of Benjamin. but their guilt and their sin remain. Godlessness leads to wickedness. And this idea that justice, right and wrong, is dependent upon me and upon my belief, I mean, it's contradictory. It's self-contradictory. There's no basis to tell anyone that anything is wrong. Boko Haram says kidnapping young girls isn't wrong. We have no basis on which to judge them, if conscience alone is the determining factor. But sin, sin is against God. It's a transgression. against God and against the law of God. We define in our shorter catechism, sin is any want of conformity unto, in other words, I don't do what I'm supposed to do, the law and the truth is set before me and I don't do it. Want of, I don't match up to it. Or transgression of, I break what is specifically clear, the law of God. There's one who stands over creation. He sets the standards. But I think our definition of sin needs to go deeper than that idea of I don't do what I'm supposed to do and I do what I'm not supposed to do. That led to this idea of sin is like you're shooting the arrow at the target and you miss the mark kind of thing. That isn't truly a biblical concept of sin, because that attributes a lot to us, really. I'm trying to hit the mark. I'm trying to do what's right. I'm always trying to do good. And sometimes I miss. Oh, I sin. I'm not as good as I should have been, and I did something I shouldn't. So I'm missing the mark. The Christian, I pray, is trying to hit a target. This is who my God is, and I want to walk in conformity. But apart from him, You've got your crossbow, and you're aiming for God. Because you don't want his authority, and you don't want his rule. It's not that I'm trying to do what's right. I'm trying to get God out of the picture. I'm back to the garden. I can be like God, as long as the true one isn't in the picture. Sin goes deep. It is rebellion against God as God. It's the desire for self. determination, and, oh, we are really good at justifying ourselves, aren't we? When we do, we need to set our conscience against the Word of God, against the character of God, and see how well we stand then. I didn't have a choice. Oh, did I? I really didn't have a choice? I couldn't stop what I felt was so important and act. I couldn't work for justice or for righteousness. I had no opportunity to serve. We'd better set it against God's standards. That's just one of our problems in this passage. There is evil set before us. because it violates not just my conscience, but the Word of God, defiling the character of God. Another problem I think we've got to address is the problem of God's sovereignty. Did you hear some of these verses, some of these responses? Verse 3, O Lord, the God of Israel, why has this happened in Israel that today there should be one tribe lacking in Israel? As if they're saying, well, we certainly weren't part of the problem. They've got amnesia. How could this happen? That seems a pretty strange question after what they've been up to. Can we pin this on God? And Israel wanted to. And so I believe these statements, verse 3 again and verse 15, are really from their perspective. The author hasn't commented on these things. And so we need to discern because he's not given a commentary on the text for us, save that last verse. Now, at verse 15, the people had compassion on Benjamin because the Lord had made a breach in the tribes of Israel. It's the Lord's fault. He made the breach. I mean, it sounds like they're saying God didn't have compassion, but we do. Again, this sort of self-justifying stance because the Lord had made a breach in the tribes of Israel. Now, there is truth to that statement because what we wrestle with in terms of God's sovereignty is that he is absolutely sovereign. His will will not be thwarted. It will not be violated. His sovereign will controls all things. There is nothing that happens outside of that sovereign will and plan. So I know that the world is not chaotic. I know that I am not subject to fate or fate I know that the world is not random and therefore impossible to understand or find meaning in it. God has decreed whatsoever shall come to pass and it will come to pass. And so all of those promises that God made, I can rest in them because he will fulfill them. And so I know that ultimately, in an ultimate sense, yes, it was in God's sovereign will that Benjamin would suffer in this way. Knowing His purposes, that's outside of my knowledge or ability to discern. But God has also granted to us His revealed will. That is, He has given us and instructed us in what is right and good and just what is honoring, what brings glory, what will bring blessing. He has given us his revealed will. Now, those two, we must understand, work together. It was Israel's sin that nearly blotted out Benjamin. God did not make them act like they did. They did so in their own free will. He did not make them do anything. He did not force them to do anything. They acted according to their own nature, their own plans, their own desires. God, in his infinite wisdom, has laid those two together. You think about it. Think of Christ on the cross. In Acts 2, verse 23, Jesus was delivered up according to the definite plan and for knowledge of God. And yet the finger is pointed at the lawless men who crucified him and killed him by their own hands. God has not violated their will. He has not forced them to do anything. And yet they have served God's ultimate purposes, such as the challenge of the sovereignty of God in regard to his sovereign will and his revealed will. David knew what he was doing with Bathsheba, with Uriah. Did God force him? We know that that is a foolish thought. David would have to confess his sin against the Lord. And of course, we read what Jesus said to the Pharisees, woe to you scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites, because they were doing what Israel was doing. Hey, we'll keep the vows. We'll get them right down to the nitpicky stuff. But in terms of justice and mercy, off the screen. They were blind guides straining out gnats and swallowing camels. How often am I doing right in my own eyes at the moment? And God must bring me to my senses. And I can acknowledge there my capability, my culpability, my responsibility. Here's the distorted reasoning of that sinful mind, a mind that needs to be renewed. Yeah, there's tension in this passage. But I think maybe the greatest tension as we come to the end of the book of Judges is the problem of God's mercy. If God is just, And Israel has persisted. And we'll go on from this point. Remember, this was fairly early on in the time of the judges. They would go on. They would continue before the Lord to do what was evil in his sight. And they would know struggle and suffering at the hands of those around them. They would eventually cry out to the Lord, rarely in real repentance, just crying out in their suffering. And God would hear, and he would respond. And he would draw them out, and he'd raise up someone who could help them, who could save them, who could deliver them. Why? Because God, like Israel, and very unlike Israel, in a sense, had committed himself to a vow, a promise, that he would not break or violate, and he would not distort it by unloving, by unwise, ungracious by unfaithful acts of any sort. No. I, the Lord, do not change. Therefore, O children of Jacob, you are not consumed. Malachi 3.6. It goes back to Genesis, when God said to Abraham, I'm going to raise a great people out of you, my people. And at Genesis 17, 8, I will be their God. So that the prophets throughout the whole, the entire Old Testament could proclaim, and they shall be my people, and I will be their God. Because God had said to his people, Exodus 19, you shall be my treasured possession. among all peoples. Malachi 3, they shall be mine in the day when I make up my treasured possession and I will spare them as a man spares his own son. But you know he did not spare his own son to make them that treasured possession. Why does he call us back? Why does he take us when we come over and over again, confessing our sin, repenting, trying to turn away? Because of his promise. Because he is faithful. Because he is God and we are not. Because it's not some changing standard, some cultural design or plan that guides his plans and his promise. He is faithful. We have been chosen as His own possession to be holy and blameless. And that He will do. His promise wasn't rash. There wasn't anything about His promise, or any of them, of which He did not know every detail, every part, every implication, every purpose. possible problem, every challenge to it, He knew it all. He knew what it would cost when He made that promise. He knew from the start what sacrifice would be required to fulfill that vow. That in love, because He loved us, He would send His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. that is to take the wrath that belonged to us and laid it on his son so that all who would believe and all who would rest would be secured, delivered, saved, forgiven, indeed granted life because his son could only fulfill the promises perfectly. Fulfilling all that law not destroying it, not wiping it out so that that standard isn't there anymore. So now we can't even think about good anymore. No, no, it's been fulfilled, fulfilled wondrously and gloriously. God has kept his promise. So we can declare all is well. Father, thank you. Praise you. Praise you, O Lord, for so great a salvation. We praise you, most glorious one, most holy one, that you have made yourself known in Jesus Christ. You have made your ways, your law, your goodness has been revealed. Lord, let us lay hold now of Jesus Christ by the power of the Spirit and the life that he grants that we would walk, Lord, in the obedience of life, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.