The Chaos of Usurpation: Why Human Autonomy Fails

• Human Authority vs. Divine Kingship [00:27:00 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor argues that when humans attempt to usurp God's rightful authority, they become 'horrible kings' and chaos ensues.
• Sinful Autonomy [00:28:13 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor highlights the recurring phrase 'all the people did what was right in their own eyes' as the root cause of spiritual decline in the book of Judges.
• The Cycle of Judges [00:28:51 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor outlines the downward spiral of Israel's history: unfaithfulness, syncretism, oppression, crying out for mercy, deliverance by a judge, and subsequent forgetfulness.
• The Cycle of Judges and Apostasy [00:28:51 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor describes the downward cycle of Israel's unfaithfulness, syncretism, oppression, and temporary deliverance by flawed judges.
• Corruption of Worship [00:30:48 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor introduces the theme of 'corruption of worship' through the stories of Micah (Exhibit A) and the Danites (Exhibit B), highlighting self-made religion and idolatry.
• Human-Centered Theology [00:34:17 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor argues that replacing God's authority with human preference results in a 'customizable' and 'marketable' god that serves human desires rather than divine truth.
• Collapse of Morality and Justice [00:40:37 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor transitions to the 'darkest scenes' in Judges (Chapters 19-21), specifically the story of the Levite and his concubine, illustrating the total breakdown of societal and moral order.
• Moral Collapse and Vulnerability [00:45:18 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor describes the horrific events in Judges 19-21, including sexual violence, murder, and civil war, to illustrate the suffering of the vulnerable when God's kingship is replaced by human autonomy.
• Sinful Solutions to Sin [00:49:22 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor argues that when humans replace God's kingship, their attempts to fix problems often result in sins more severe than the original issue, citing the Israelites' violent loopholes to save the tribe of Benjamin.
• Theological Failure of Human Leadership [00:52:20 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor explains that Israel's problem was not political but theological (a heart issue), demonstrating that human leaders like Saul, David, and Solomon cannot cure a corrupted heart.
• Gospel and Christology [00:55:20 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor transitions to the New Testament, identifying Jesus Christ as the 'true King' and 'perfecter of the faith' who saves believers from sin and death, contrasting Him with the flawed judges of old.

• Sermon Illustration [00:23:49 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor recounts a childhood 'parent swap' vacation experience where he and his siblings played 'parents' and treated their actual parents like children. The story illustrates how the children were stubborn, unfair, and chaotic when they held authority, serving as an analogy for why 'children make terrible rulers' and humans make 'horrible kings' when they replace God.
• Sermon Illustration [00:31:19 ▶️ 📄]
  > The story of Micah, who stole silver from his mother, created a private shrine with idols, consecrated his own son as a priest, and later hired a traveling Levite (Jonathan) to replace his son, believing this would bring him prosperity.
• Sermon Illustration [00:36:51 ▶️ 📄]
  > The story of the Danites, who stole Micah's gods, shrine, and priest to take with them when they conquered a city, demonstrating the fragility of self-made religion when confronted by stronger forces.
• Sermon Illustration [00:35:00 ▶️ 📄]
  > The story of Thomas Jefferson, who used a razor blade to cut out passages from the Bible that disturbed or disagreed with his personal worldview, illustrating the act of 'picking and choosing' scripture to create a god in one's own image.
• Sermon Illustration [00:41:04 ▶️ 📄]
  > The story of the Levite and his concubine in Judges 19, where the Levite's host offers his daughter and the concubine to a mob instead of the guest, and the Levite eventually throws the concubine out to the mob, leading to her death and dismemberment.
• Sermon Illustration [00:42:57 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor recounts the biblical narrative of Judges 19-21: a Levite and his concubine are hosted by an older man in Gibeah; corrupt men demand sexual relations with the Levite; the host offers his daughter and the concubine instead; the Levite throws the concubine out; she is abused and dies; the Levite dismembers her body and sends pieces to Israel; this provokes civil war against Benjamin; Israel wins but then uses violence and kidnapping to provide wives for the surviving Benjamites.
• Sermon Illustration [00:49:36 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor references modern '48 Hours' or '24 Hours' true crime specials where people commit further sins (like murder) to cover up initial sins (like infidelity), illustrating how human solutions often become more sinful than the original problem.
• Sermon Illustration [00:50:14 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor draws parallels between the biblical narrative and modern societal issues, including lying to cover embarrassment, seeking revenge, addiction to escape stress, and performing abortions for convenience rather than necessity.

• Pastoral Charge [00:56:10 ▶️ 📄]
  > Identify personal idols or priorities that have replaced Christ and surrender them to Jesus at the cross.

[00:05:21] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_01]
[00:05:21] As we continue as we begin our worship, we start with our call to worship.
[00:05:27] You can join me in a bulletin or follow along on the screen.
[00:05:33] In the days when people did what was right in their own eyes, the Lord still called his people back to covenant and mercy.
[00:05:46] On this Fourth of July weekend, we give thanks for the gifts of community and freedom, and we remember that no nation is our salvation.
[00:06:01] Come, let us worship the God who forms us into a people of grace.
[00:06:07] We will worship the Lord our God.
[00:06:11] And please join me now in our prayer of invocation.
[00:06:15] Holy God, you are our refuge and our righteousness.
[00:06:19] On this weekend of national celebration, we give thanks for the blessings we enjoy and confess the ways we trust what is right in our own eyes.
[00:06:30] Forgive our pride, our neglect of justice, and our failure to love our neighbor.
[00:06:37] By your Spirit, form us again into a people who walk in your mercy and seek your peace.
[00:06:46] Amen.
[00:06:47] As you are able, please stand for the singing of our first hymn.
[00:06:51] Our faith together using the Apostles' Creed.
[00:09:48] And I ask you, O Christian, what is it that you believe?
[00:09:52] I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius
[00:10:07] Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried. He descended into hell. The third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From thence
[00:10:22] he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen. You may be seated. Again, it is in your bulletin, but just to highlight it
[00:10:46] as a way of reminder, we have the upcoming AED CPR training with additive refreshments. That'll take place on Sunday, July 19th at two o'clock. And it's just to help you get certified and trained on how to do CPR and run an AED device. This will be on the church, so you don't have to pay
[00:11:04] anything. We do simply ask that you, if you are interested, space is limited, reach out to the church office and we can get you registered and and added to the list of participants again three hours long i've done many of these just be prepared if you've never done this before
[00:11:21] if it if you're if it's hard on your knees to be on the floor for too long bring padding just so we practice on the dummies and um for the people they are dummies but they're people
[00:11:32] just come see for yourself man it and it's a fun time to get trained do with others but also it's helpful just to have people among the church all be trained in case of any emergency. So I highly
[00:11:45] encourage you to participate in that. Now please join me for a moment of prayer. Lord, we thank you for your grace and mercy that is new for us every single morning. I pray that you would have your
[00:12:05] way with us today, that you would receive our worship, that you would join us and sit next to us as well as fill our hearts with more of you so that we all may look more and more like Jesus
[00:12:19] Christ every day and the world would be better for it. My friends, in this moment, let us not take this opportunity to silently confess our sins before God. Jesus Christ, Son of the living God,
[00:12:50] have mercy on me, a sinner. I'll be the first to say I am not perfect. I am not as holy as I want to be. We all fall short of God's glory every day, be it because of our pride or arrogance,
[00:13:08] be it because of our ignorance or cold hearts. Whatever the spectrum of sin we fall on, it is sin, and all it wants to do is separate us from you. So I ask, have mercy on us, Jesus,
[00:13:25] because without it we are lost. But today, in this moment, we lean on the assurances of grace to be found in Christ Jesus. In the words of our brother Paul, can death, famine, nakedness, sickness, or
[00:13:44] sword, the powers of heaven or hell, angels or demons, can anything in all creation separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Savior? No. So today we lean on the promises that
[00:13:59] the love of God is with us even now to heal us, to forgive, and to restore.
[00:14:05] Praise Jesus.
[00:14:09] Lord, my heart is heavy this morning.
[00:14:12] I know Pastor Dave will probably say something in a moment when he joins us, but my heart is heavy for the families of George Brawley, he who passed away, I believe, on Friday, for Bill Morrow, who passed away last week on Sunday,
[00:14:29] for the family of Bobby Hinson, as his wife passed away, And there's just a lot of grief.
[00:14:37] Some of these people, pillars of this church and with a long history.
[00:14:44] And for that, Lord, we simply come to you and ask that you bring comfort, Lord, to their friends, to their family, to their children, grandchildren.
[00:14:52] God, heal the broken heart.
[00:14:55] We are reminded of the pain and sting of death that still attacks us and still remains.
[00:15:02] But we look forward to the day, God, when we are reunited with all our family and friends across the generations.
[00:15:08] in paradise where you at the center is you who conquered and has swallowed up death and sin forever and more than just death many of us here are facing all kinds of tragedies and crises
[00:15:22] maybe not crisis or emergencies but certainly conflict turmoil the struggles of life we're not exactly living in the days of paradise today whether we are uncomfortable with this heat wave of weather and people are suffering from lack of AC and limited power. Others suffer from financial
[00:15:48] struggles. Others suffer from the breaking down of having healthy relationships among friends and families. Our world is just at war with itself every day. And so we come to you. I first pray for First Presbyterian Church that we may remain a pillar in this community and a pillar of faith,
[00:16:13] that we may hold on to the tradition of glorifying you and having you first and foremost in our lives.
[00:16:22] And I pray that every other church in this area and beyond that calls on your name holds to that same truth and value, that there is no other but Christ.
[00:16:32] There is no other hope than that which is in Jesus and the gospel.
[00:16:38] So fill this place, that it would not return void.
[00:16:44] Bless Mooresville and surrounding communities, Lord, that we would be a place that sees your goodness at work in people's lives, in the lives of those that feel lost or confused or disillusioned and cynical.
[00:16:59] I pray, God, that as we as a nation celebrate 250 years, Lord, that we would remember that the reason we are celebrating is because there was a war against oppression.
[00:17:11] there was a a moment where we didn't have the freedoms that we have so today as christians our ultimate loyalty is to christ who has freed us from sin and death and hell and in that lord
[00:17:27] we truly celebrate help us to be a people that love you help us to be a people that love one another and help us to be a church that makes disciples that continue that same tradition
[00:17:38] of love, hope, faith, and joy.
[00:17:43] We pray all these things in the most holy name of Christ.
[00:17:46] And together let us pray what he taught us to pray.
[00:17:49] Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
[00:17:54] Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
[00:17:59] Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.
[00:18:06] Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
[00:18:10] For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.
[00:18:16] Amen.
[00:18:19] As you are able, please stand as we sing our next hymn.

[00:22:25] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_02]
[00:22:25] I know that your wife just recently passed and we're keeping you in prayer and it's great to see you here today.
[00:22:48] And I know you've been, Bobby's not been in worship a lot recently because he's been home being a caretaker.
[00:22:53] And so just want to extend that to you as well, our love and prayers for you and your family.
[00:23:02] So good to be back home. We were away on vacation for a bit. Thank you. Moses preached one week, Jordan preached last week. I hear they both, I was here for Moses, but I hear they both
[00:23:13] represented very well. I spared Jordan from finishing off the book of Judges.
[00:23:20] as you'll see this morning. I'm sure she was grateful not to do this particular passage.
[00:23:26] We've been 10 weeks in the book of Judges. This morning's message covers five chapters but I'm just reading one verse. With that one verse there'll be two sections. This verse is repeated four times and you'll see how it's connected. First as we go into that I want to share a story
[00:23:49] from several years back. My family was on vacation in Key Biscayne, Florida. We had a two-bedroom cottage. I don't know who came up with this idea, but we had a parent swap one night.
[00:24:03] When I say a parent swap, the children became parents for an evening. It was all make-believe, and the parents became children. I was 11 or 12 at the time. I thought it was a wonderful idea.
[00:24:15] I became dad. My sister became mom. My younger brother was maybe four or five. He became Uncle Jonathan and my parents were little David and little Miriam and starting at dinner time we were in charge. We set the table. We cooked the meal. It had to have been something like hot dogs
[00:24:34] or pizza but we cooked the meal and then we did the dishes afterwards. We played a game. We led the game as the parents. And then we sent the kids off to put on their jammies. We went to
[00:24:48] their bedroom, and we read bedtime stories, said a goodnight prayer. And it was around eight o'clock in the evening, and we're like, time for you to go to sleep. And now we had the living room to
[00:25:00] ourselves. We flipped on the television set. The Miami Dolphins were playing a preseason game.
[00:25:04] And I said to Uncle Jonathan, I said, what if little David could come join us for the football game. So we knock on the door, and we're like, hey, David, do you want to join us for some football?
[00:25:14] And he looked pleasantly surprised, like, I'd love that. So David comes, my mom, Miriam, said, well, can I come too? And we said, no, you're a little younger, and you need to stay put there.
[00:25:27] And so dad comes out, or David comes out, and we give him a bowl of ice cream, and we're watching the football game, and then we hear this little knock-knock, can I please come out? And we said,
[00:25:42] Miriam, you need to go to bed, and you need to stay quiet. And she said, this isn't fair. Well, we were very well programmed. Miriam, life is not always fair. And this went on a little bit,
[00:26:00] and we were telling her to, you know, stay quiet, don't talk back, we're the adult, you're the child.
[00:26:05] and finally she tried to play the parent card and said, this isn't fun anymore.
[00:26:11] And we said, oh, you know, life isn't, you know, we basically kept her in bed.
[00:26:17] Her feelings got hurt. We were stubborn. Long story short, you know, things got chaotic.
[00:26:23] That was our first and last parent swap. It was a glorious evening. As I look back, my assessment, and I'm not sure how profound this is, but my assessment looking back, I came to this
[00:26:38] conclusion. Kids make terrible victory. Children make terrible rulers. Children can't handle that kind of authority. You know, that's something we can laugh at. We can look back in the past. It was a silly game, but as we've been working our way through the book of Judges, do you see what
[00:27:00] happens when human beings take on authority that is not their place? Human beings make horrible kings when we try to replace God in His rightful place. Do you see that happening throughout the book of Judges? You know, and the big idea I want to get across this morning
[00:27:22] is this. When we replace God's kingship with our own, chaos becomes inevitable.
[00:27:32] It's true back then. It's true today. I'm going to read you one verse from these five chapters. This verse is repeated four separate times. There's a lot of detail in these last five chapters, and this verse is repeated four times. It gives us a little bit
[00:27:51] of insight to the mindset of the narrator, what he wants us to hear. And it's this, Judges 17.
[00:27:58] this is the first time where it occurs chapter 17 verse 6 this is our verse for this morning quote in those days there was no king in israel all the people did what was right
[00:28:13] in their own eyes this is the word of the lord you see what happens when people do what's right in their own eyes that's repeated now we're going to do two segments here a reminder just a little
[00:28:31] bit of context. We've been working our way week after week. There's a cycle, and it's a downward cycle, right, where Israel, God's covenant people, they're unfaithful. They forget when it comes to their relationship, the covenants made with the Lord. Although the Lord is perfectly, He's sovereign
[00:28:51] and He's faithful and He's perfect in His character, when His people forget, things go bad.
[00:28:58] they continue to worship in each of these cycles they worship Yahweh but they mix religions we talked about that a few weeks ago syncretism and then the Lord gives them over to their own desires
[00:29:11] he gives them over to other nations who oppress them what happens when oppressed the people cry out in their pain and in their anguish not so much out of repentance but we just don't feel good
[00:29:24] and they cry out and the lord consistently shows mercy actually it can be translated pity he shows mercy he shows grace he raises a judge which means deliverer when the judge delivers there's peace in the land until the judge dies and then god's people become forgetful again and
[00:29:51] that cycle just keeps getting worse and worse each new judge is more progressively flawed a few weeks ago. You heard Moses share about Samson. Would you say that was a man of high character? Samson, who broke all of his Nazarite vows, who womanized, who married into other
[00:30:08] cultures. I mean, look at all the disturbing things that took place in his life, yet he's still in Hebrews 11. I remind you each week, many of these judges are in Hebrews chapter 11 being commended for their faith.
[00:30:24] We get to chapter 17 of Judges and no new deliverer shows up.
[00:30:34] We're done receiving these judges.
[00:30:37] And the first segment here, chapters 17 and 18, I want to emphasize this, the corruption of worship.
[00:30:48] And that's been a theme throughout the book, but we see it here magnified the corruption of worship, and we're going to see two stories in chapter 17 and 18.
[00:30:58] I'll give you the summary of each story. I'll call them Exhibit A and Exhibit B. Exhibit A, we are introduced to a man named Micah, and Micah has a self-made religion. So chapter 17, Micah's from Ephraim. He is an Israelite. Micah, in the intro to the book, we discover,
[00:31:19] has stolen from his mother. He stole silver from his mother. His mother pronounces a curse on whoever the thief is, not knowing it's her own son. Micah gets spooked. There's some superstition here. So he confesses to his mother. He returns the silver. And then mom offsets the curse
[00:31:41] with a blessing. And she dedicates a part of the silver to the Lord. She consecrates it.
[00:31:47] and then has an idol made from the silver, presents it to her son Micah. Micah, we learn, in his own home has a shrine with his own man-made gods. He still worships Jehovah, but he
[00:32:02] is borrowed from the culture and he adds this new idol to his collection of gods. And we also learn that there's a priest in the home. He has his own private priest, his son. He consecrated his own
[00:32:18] son. So he has this man-made religion happening in his own house. And right around there, we see all of these disturbing things. There's religious confusion, troubling aspects. There's theft.
[00:32:33] There's a curse. There's idolatry. There's, you know, breaking of the second commandment. There's a private shrine. There are household gods. There's an unauthorized priest in an unauthorized place of worship Deuteronomy chapter 12 says there's one true place of worship Micah according
[00:32:52] to God's word shouldn't be doing any of this and right there the narrator inserts chapter 17 verse 6 that's where it first pops up and there was no king in Israel all the people did what was right
[00:33:08] in their own eyes. The rest of that chapter Micah then discovers a traveling Levite. He's unemployed and he approaches him to be to replace his son as the priest. Now at that time in that culture
[00:33:29] all priests were Levites but not all Levites were priests. To be a priest you needed to be from the line of Aaron. This particular Levite, his name was Jonathan, was not from the line of Aaron,
[00:33:42] but he's approached by Micah. Micah installs him as the new priest in his household, and he thinks he's doing something good. Because we read in chapter 17, Micah exclaims this. He says, now I know that the Lord will prosper me because the Levite has become my priest.
[00:34:05] I want to make this statement here.
[00:34:08] When we replace God's kingship with our own, we shrink God into a size we think we can control.
[00:34:17] Do we ever do that?
[00:34:20] Do we ever shrink God down to our level?
[00:34:25] When we flip-flop the spiritual reality of being made in God's image to Him being made in ours, He becomes customizable, marketable, portable, self-affirming. For Micah, God existed to bless Micah rather than Micah existing to worship or serve God. It's backwards. It's like the parent
[00:34:48] swap, except this isn't a game. You know, I've shared with you several times the Thomas Jefferson Bible. I know this is a holiday weekend and we're celebrating, you know, the birth of our country.
[00:35:00] and one of, you know, Thomas Jefferson, he believed in God. He was a deist. Yet, one thing we've learned that his own personal Bible, you can find a copy, not the exact Bible, but a duplicate
[00:35:13] on Amazon. His Bible, the Thomas Jefferson Bible, when he approached Scripture, do you remember what he would do? Yeah, he would, I heard someone just say it, cut out what he didn't like. If he hit a
[00:35:27] section of scripture that either disturbed him or he disagreed with or he didn't understand it fully he just took a razor blade and cut that out of his bible and you see what's happening there
[00:35:39] jefferson you and me we're made in god's image do we ever do that picking and choosing from scripture when we pick and choose now we are creating a god in our image rather than truly
[00:35:52] trusting you know God as he has revealed himself to us and there may be aspects that don't fit your worldview but the way God has revealed himself he is not only a God of love he is a
[00:36:06] God of justice and we take the fullness and he's perfect and our minds are too small to always understand and there's a danger when we replace God's kingship with our own we shrink him into
[00:36:18] a size we think we can control. And we're going to see in chapter 18 how that works out for Micah.
[00:36:26] Exhibit B. There's a group that's introduced, a tribe, the Danites, and they expose the frailty of self-made religion. Chapter 18 opens with the narrator's, reminds us, he says, quote, in those days, there was no king in Israel. And there we see how Micah's homemade gods and his
[00:36:51] self-appointed priest now run up against a tribe far stronger than him and his homemade religion.
[00:37:02] And it doesn't go well for Micah. The Danites, they were a tribe of Israel who had been given, they had never fully driven out the Canaanites from the land they had been given by God. They
[00:37:19] didn't fully trust, and they'd become nomadic, people without land. They were a powerful group, so they were scouting out. They actually chose five spies to scout out. They were looking for a piece of land that they could overtake and these five spies ended up stumbling upon Micah and they
[00:37:40] spent the night in his home he showed hospitality and they were intrigued by the shrine and the gods and that Micah even had his own personal priest and they start inquiring of this priest and the
[00:37:55] priest starts tickling their ears they're sharing about their mission he affirms their mission gives his blessing upon their mission. They head off. They find a certain city that I would compare it to Switzerland today. It's a peaceful city. It was a wealthy city, but they didn't like getting
[00:38:12] involved in politics or tribal war. And they thought, this is land we can conquer. So they go back. They bring 600 soldiers. And on the way to go conquer that land, they stop by Micah's home
[00:38:27] and they steal everything from him, his shrine, his gods. They even take his priest. The priest is a little bit resistant, but then when they say, hey, you know, we'll give you a broader platform.
[00:38:38] We'll give you more money. The priest's like, okay, I'm good with this. You know, and he compromises and they go. And when Micah discovers what just took place, he comes after this group, these 600
[00:38:50] soldiers with some of his people, and he is outraged. And he says to them, listen to this quote. It's from chapter 18. He says, quote, you take my gods that I made and the priest and go
[00:39:06] away and what have I left? He's outraged, but then he realizes they're stronger than him and he turns around and goes home empty-handed. The spies, you know, they go in and they conquer that land.
[00:39:28] now here's the the irony that's devastating the Danites this tribe did what was right in their eyes by stealing the very gods Micah had made to do what was right in his eyes see how messy life
[00:39:46] gets when we try to replace God or put ourselves in a position of authority where we don't belong and it's usually the stronger that went out and the more vulnerable that lose and Micah thought he had this system all worked out and it was taken right from in front of his
[00:40:07] own eyes and the God that he had created was no longer effective or doing anything for him because it was made up it was homemade now we're going to shift we we see in these two chapters
[00:40:22] some disturbing things it gets worse chapter 19 20 21 and i would like to say uh chapter 19 what we get introduced to here i would say it's a low point in the book of judges and we've seen some
[00:40:37] pretty low things and i would venture it i could arguably make the case that this also might be one of the darkest scenes in all of the old testament and there's some pretty dark things that take
[00:40:51] place in the old testament so we're going to take a look here in these three chapters the collapse of morality and of justice and again we'll have exhibit a exhibit b exhibit a we see a story of
[00:41:04] the levite and his concubine chapter 19 opens again with that phrase quote in those days when there was no king in israel and it then never names him but it speaks of a levite who's traveling to Bethlehem to retrieve his concubine.
[00:41:26] Now back in those days, this is not God-ordained, but those who were married and had a wife that was barren, they would often remarry, and the secondary wife would be a concubine to have children with.
[00:41:43] So they had all the legal rights of a marriage.
[00:41:47] Again, you see some of the, this is all pretty warped and pretty messy but so he had a concubine who was unfaithful to him and she had gone back to Bethlehem to be with her father he's going to retrieve her he ends up in
[00:42:02] Bethlehem spends a few days there at least from the outside looking in as you read the story it seems as though that they reconciled in some way because now he's headed back home with his
[00:42:14] concubine and a servant and a couple donkeys and as they're traveling it's getting late at night and they think we need to stop and rest however the nearest place is canaanite village and they don't want to stop there they want to stop among their own people so they continue on for a bit
[00:42:31] and they make it to a place where the benjamites live gibia is the name of the community and they stop there hoping for hospitality nobody shows them hospitality that wasn't just a courtesy in that culture covenant people were to show hospitality to one another nobody did that
[00:42:57] so there's an older man in the community that took them in he was not an israelite the older man takes them in and he's hospitable and that evening the home of this older man gets surrounded
[00:43:13] by a group of men corrupt men it says they were perverted these men came and they surrounded the home and they demanded for them to for this host to send out the Levite because they wanted to have
[00:43:27] relations with him it's very clear in scripture what type of relations this was like a Sodom and Gomorrah situation echoes of that and the host refuses he's like I'm not giving up my guest but then instead he says you can have my daughter my virgin daughter and you can have my guests
[00:43:50] concubine because he's looking out for himself and he's looking out for his guest and he views these vulnerable people are expendable it's a horrible thing and then they press in no we want we want the levite and then the levite finally throws his own concubine out the door and locks
[00:44:12] the door and they allow these men to have their way with her the entire evening I mean I can't think of a more horrific scene and then the next morning they dropped this woman the concubine we
[00:44:24] never learned her name at the doorstep and then to add to that in the morning when the Levite finds his his concubine collapsed outside the door his initial reaction is even more horrific he sees her
[00:44:38] laying there and he says to her in a very callous tone get up let us be going after what she just experienced well he comes to find that she she's dead so he loads her up on his donkey and he
[00:44:57] brings her back to his home and then when he gets home he cuts her body into 12 pieces and sends a peace to each tribe of Israel, and his goal is to provoke national outrage. Again, when we replace
[00:45:18] God's kingship, the vulnerable suffer first. We see, and this is horrific, I mean, it's horrifying.
[00:45:30] It's recorded right here in Scripture. Exhibit B, we see a civil war that exposes the frailty of moral relativism. Chapter 20 opens with Israel united in outrage over this lewd and outrageous act committed in Gibeah. The leaders gather. The people deliver two responses. There's a verdict
[00:45:55] and there's a vow. And these leaders, again, they're outraged. The verdict is this. The men of Gibeah are guilty and must face justice. They're all together on this. They're outraged.
[00:46:13] And when they approach the Benjamites, the Benjamites say, we're not giving up these men.
[00:46:19] So it leads to civil war. Israel far outnumbers the Benjamites, but the Benjamites were mighty warriors. They were left-handed. They had a tremendous strategy when it came to war.
[00:46:31] and what should have been quick and succinct ended up being three days of battle and on the third day there was an ambush and finally the benjamins the benjamins were defeated and israel burned down
[00:46:48] their city destroyed killed men women children i mean it's just a horrific scene there were 600 men that escaped into the wilderness and survived and when this was all said and done when the dust settled when the boiling blood cooled down Israel then began to mourn and they
[00:47:15] weren't mourning out of repentance there's a little bit more like nostalgia and what have we just done you know they were part of their we've almost wiped out an entire tribe and they're looking back at their history and they don't want the Benjamites to go extinct but at the same time
[00:47:33] when they had pronounced the verdict somewhere in chapter 21 they also made a vow to God that they would not equip any Benjamite with their own daughters and so now you have these 600 men
[00:47:50] no one to marry and what does Israel do they don't seek God's wisdom again they turn to their own wisdom and they come up with two solutions because they don't want this tribe to become
[00:48:07] extinct solution number one there's one city they're looking for a loophole because they'd made a vow there's one city that had not partaken in the civil war and they'd stayed out of it and because they weren't part of that they also weren't part of the gathering of leaders that
[00:48:25] had made a vow so they went to that city they destroyed the city killed everyone leveled it and took 400 virgins from that city and provided them to the Benjamites.
[00:48:39] Now there's still 200 women short.
[00:48:42] Solution number two, they still have to find an additional 200 wives, so they go to a feast in Shiloh and they kidnap from that feast 200 virgins.
[00:48:54] Here's the way they justified it.
[00:48:56] These people were part of the vow, but they're not giving us their daughters, we're just taking those daughters from them.
[00:49:01] so that was their loophole that's how they justified in their mind and again i'm not going to go deeper into this but i want to make the statement when we replace god's kingship with our own catch this solutions can be more sinful than the problem we see that back then in a
[00:49:22] horrific fashion the true the same is true today you know my wife and i we sometimes like to watch those 48 hours or 2020 specials you ever seen those and and we're fascinated by by human
[00:49:36] depravity what what the length people go there's usually someone in the the you know the 24 or the 48 hours there's someone who's been unfaithful and to try to clean things up someone usually ends up
[00:49:48] dead you've seen any of those you know you have investigative reporters and it's like rather than have the you know there's a sin that needs to be dealt with and rather than have the awkward
[00:49:59] conversation someone gets eliminated and you do an even worse sin to try to deal with the sin that already took place now i was trying to think in the world we live in today we look back and say
[00:50:14] we can't believe the behavior we see in the book of judges but think about today the way that we behave. We sometimes lie to cover embarrassment and can make things worse through our lies or
[00:50:28] trying to keep up with those lies. We sometimes seek revenge to fix hurt. They hurt me, I'm going to hurt them back and then it just escalates and it gets worse. Sometimes we become addicted to
[00:50:40] escape stress and rather than to deal with something, we medicate it, we hurt ourselves and then we hurt our loved ones around us.
[00:50:48] We sacrifice the vulnerable to protect our own convenience.
[00:50:54] And I know there are people stand in different places with the whole pro-life, pro-choice, but how many of our abortions are done out of simply convenience?
[00:51:07] When we replace God's kingship with our own solutions can become more sinful than the problem.
[00:51:14] Judges 21-25 gives us one more time this phrase quote in those days there was no king in Israel all the people did what was right in their own eyes that's pretty much how Judges concludes
[00:51:30] doesn't leave us feeling very good does it how do you feel with that conclusion why even have the book of Judges what's the purpose of Judges you know I've told you each week what I've called a gospel glimpse. This week I want to give another one and I'm going to make
[00:51:51] it more than simply a glimpse. This is going to really be a take home. I want to show us here at the very end, I'm going to label this restoration of true worship and morality. We see here judges
[00:52:03] is a story about what happens when God is not king. What happens when God is not king. When when children try to become rulers and take the place of God. Israel thought their problem was
[00:52:20] political. They just needed a better ruler, but that wasn't the case. Their problem was theological and they had a problem with the heart. If money rules, greed wins. If success rules, pride wins.
[00:52:36] If self-rules, chaos wins. The very next book in Samuel, Israel demands a king, quote, like the nations, and God gives them exactly what they asked for. Who does he give them?
[00:52:52] Saul, right? Do you know what Saul means? Asked for. Do you know where Saul was from?
[00:53:01] Gibeah. Isn't that interesting? That's not by accident. He's from Gibeah where all this horrid stuff took place. The very cradle of rape, murder, moral collapse we read about in chapter 19, God was proving a point. Human leaders cannot cure a corrupted heart. Saul couldn't do that.
[00:53:25] King David couldn't do that. Solomon couldn't do that. Judges ends in failure, and it does so to create a longing for a true and better judge, a true and better deliverer, a true and better king.
[00:53:46] Can you see that?
[00:53:47] And I keep emphasizing each week, Hebrews chapter 11.
[00:53:50] I'm like, I don't know how Samson got into the book of heroes.
[00:53:54] You know, I don't know how Jephthah's there.
[00:53:56] I don't know how, you know, Gideon had some good qualities.
[00:53:59] He had some pretty horrible qualities as well.
[00:54:01] How do they make it into the, and they're all commended for their faith.
[00:54:06] And the beauty of this is as messy as they are and as flawed as they are, uh god's mercy and grace always outruns our human depravity hebrews chapter 12 tells us where to look next we're surrounded by a cloud of witnesses where are we to fix our eyes
[00:54:30] as believers on jesus christ our author and perfecter of the faith hebrews chapter 12 Where the judges were temporary, where they were flawed, where they were incomplete, Jesus is perfect and eternal.
[00:54:48] Judges is a story about what happens when God is not king.
[00:54:51] It's also a story about a true king who refuses to let go.
[00:54:57] Israel's sin was great, but God's sovereign mercy outpaced their sin every single time.
[00:55:04] When we replace God's kingship with our own, our worship's corrupted, or morality collapses, the vulnerable suffer, yet God's grace refuses to let you and me go.
[00:55:20] And here's the good news. Here's the gospel. The New Testament tells us, behold your king.
[00:55:27] Who's the king? Jesus Christ, King of kings, Lord of lords. Behold your king. He was the promised Messiah, fulfilled the mess this world had gotten into, the brokenness, the fallenness that was promised, and he came as the true king, the perfect king. He emptied himself of all power,
[00:55:50] humbled himself, born into this world, suffered to the point of death, death on a cross, took on our sins, conquered death, was resurrected through faith in him. You can stand before the throne is perfect. You can stand before the throne as a child of God. Behold your King, Jesus Christ,
[00:56:10] the true Deliverer, our true Savior. What does He save us from? Sin and death. Our challenge this morning, we need to step off our self-made thrones. If there's anything in your life right now that is a priority over Christ as King, if you replace Him with anything, whether it be money
[00:56:35] or sports. All things can be good in the right place, but if you replace or put those things above him, those are the things we need to put place at the foot of the cross and surrender
[00:56:46] to the true king who can pull you back together, who can fix you, who can make things right by his grace. I'm going to close this time in prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the gift of
[00:57:01] your word. I admit there are aspects of judges that are hard to stomach, difficult to work through, and Lord, they do point towards our desperate need for a Savior, one beyond what we can conjure up ourselves. Lord, we place things on thrones, we place people on thrones, we
[00:57:27] make up our own idols and they always fail us. But we thank you for your patience. We thank you for your love. We thank you for your grace. We thank you that you, there's no sin so great that you
[00:57:44] will reject us other than blasphemy of your Holy Spirit. Lord, we thank you for embracing us and through faith in Jesus what you can do in and through us. Words cannot express our gratitude as
[00:58:00] we close out this service, we express our gratitude to you through worship. We love you, Lord, and pray all these things in Jesus' name. Amen. I want to share for the rest of the summer that
[00:58:43] the next sermon series is going to be entitled, Encounters with Jesus. And I'm not going to say it's light reading, but I think it will be a nice refresher. Things like Nicodemus, or the woman at
[00:58:56] the well or the blind man and I the nature of summer with people coming and going on vacation you can come on any week and receive another message on someone encountering Jesus and how he transformed their life and as we leave this morning I want to give you that invitation
[00:59:12] if there is something there may be something you're hanging on too tight and you feel unworthy of God's love and his grace this morning I truly want the gospel the good news of Jesus to come
[00:59:24] through. We serve a God of grace. There's nothing you can do, nothing you can do that you can't confess and get a new fresh slate, and He'll receive you. God of love, God of grace. Yes,
[00:59:38] He's a God of justice, but there's nothing, and there may be that one person in this room like, no, I'm not worthy. There's nothing you can do. Nothing can cut across the love of God and His
[00:59:49] grace that He will extend. So as we leave this place, may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God our Father, may the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with each and every one of you
[00:59:58] now and forever. Amen.