The Book of Judges: Hearts of Iron, Feet of Clay
A Bible Story Not for Children
SPEAKER: Michael P. Andrus
Introduction: The passage before us this morning–the final three chapters of the Book of Judges–has been called “the sewer of Scripture.” It has the dubious distinction of being perhaps the most disgusting story in the Bible, unredeemed by a single admirable character or a single noble act.[i] It wouldn’t be too far off to refer to it as “the Starr Report of the Bible.” Yet, it’s here for a reason. 2 Timothy 3:16 says, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
Judges 19-21 is an extensive portion of Scripture, much too long for us to read this morning. Besides, I would not relish reading it publicly. I prefer to just tell the story, sharing just enough of the sick details to help you grasp the point. It is indeed a Bible story not for children.
You will recall that in our last message from Judges, I spoke on the fact that “When People Lack Godly Leaders, Spiritual Anarchy Reigns.” Today the message is this: “When People Lack Godly Leaders, Moral Anarchy Reigns.” The two concepts go hand in hand, and the reason is simple. One’s theology and one’s morality cannot remain in disequilibrium for long. Either our theology must be watered down to match our behavior, or our behavior must change to line up with our theology. So, the more bizarre the spiritual views a people hold, the more bizarre one can expect their moral behavior to become.
Our story opens with another reminder that “in those days Israel had no king.” They didn’t have a human king, and they didn’t recognize God as king, so there was no moral or spiritual authority to keep in check the sinful tendencies of the people. The first character we meet here is another Levite. The last one we met in chapters 17 & 18 was corrupt. This one is worse. It is not without irony that the two key individuals in these last five chapters are both priests–spiritual leaders of God’s people. The subtle message is this: blind guides cannot lead the blind.
This Levite, who lived in a remote area of northern Israel, met a woman from the town of Bethlehem and made her his concubine. A concubine was somewhere between a wife and a live-in paramour, a second-class wife. Since she was often a slave or a woman without a dowry, she generally didn’t receive the same respect as a man’s wife, but she did have legal status and the man was often referred to as her “husband,” as in this story. God often warned His people not to multiply wives or concubines because His intention was for marriage to consist of one man and one woman bonded in a life-time relationship. He knew that multiple relationships would inevitably lead to the disintegration of the spiritual, moral, and social fabric of the nation.
As it turned out, this woman was unfaithful to the Levite and, for some reason or other, left him and returned to her father’s house in Bethlehem. He got lonesome after four months and went to retrieve her. His father-in-law was glad to see him and persuaded him to stay for a celebration. For three days they ate and drank. On the fourth day the Levite, having apparently somewhat reconciled with his concubine, got up early to return to his home in Ephraim, but his father-in-law prevailed upon him to party a while longer. The next day the same thing happened.
Finally, the Levite realized that if he didn’t force the issue, he’d never get away, so he and his concubine abruptly left Bethlehem toward evening on the fifth day. It’s about 5 miles from Bethlehem to Jerusalem, which is called “Jebus” in verse 11, because it was still controlled by the Gentile Jebusites. The Levite was afraid to spend the night in a Gentile town, so, even though it was late in the day, he decided to go on to Gibeah, an Israelite town that belonged to the Jewish tribe of Benjamin. It should be safer there. When they arrived, they headed for the town square and sat down waiting for someone to offer them hospitality. That may seem strange to us today, but it was expected in those days that a Jewish stranger would always be offered hospitality.
Finally, an old man who was not even from Gibeah but was just working there, saw the Levite and his party and extended hospitality to them. The first hint that something was wrong with this place can be seen in the old man’s warning, “You are welcome at my house, only don’t spend the night in the square.”
What happens next is almost beyond belief. While the Levite and his party are enjoying themselves in the old man’s house, a gang of perverts surrounds the house, pounds on the door, and demands of the old man, “Bring out the man who came to your house so we can have sex with him.” The last time we read anything like this in the Scriptures was in the story of Lot and the angelic visitors to whom he showed hospitality in Sodom and Gomorrah. And the parallel is not accidental. The point is being made that this kind of deviant behavior, which up until now was known only in Sodom and Gomorrah–cities God judged with fire from heaven–is now happening in Israel, among the people of God.
The old man goes out and tries to dissuade the men of Gibeah. “Don’t do this disgraceful thing,” he pleads, and he offers a creative alternative. “Look, here is my virgin daughter, and the Levite’s concubine. I will bring them out to you now, and you can use them and do to them whatever you wish. But to this man, don’t do such a disgraceful thing.” But the gang persists in their demands. So, to satisfy their lustful appetites, the Levite sends his concubine out to the perverts. They abuse her throughout the night, letting her go only at daybreak. She crawls back to the house and is lying there in the doorway when the Levite gets up, and after enjoying breakfast and coffee, steps out to continue his journey.
Almost stumbling over the woman, he apparently kicks her lightly in the ribs and says, “Get up; let’s go.” But it says in verse 28, “There was no answer.” She’s dead. Now he’s really ticked at the men of Gibeah. They have violated his property rights. He puts the woman’s body on his donkey and sets out for home. When he arrives, he takes a knife and cuts the woman’s body into twelve parts–one for each tribe of Israel. The head he puts in a box marked, “Judah.” The right arm is to go to Simeon. The entrails are for Rueben. Etc. And he calls UPS.
When the packages arrive at their destinations, each with a cover letter to stir up the conscience of the recipient, everyone is revolted and says, “Such a thing has never been seen or done, not since the day the Israelites came up out of Egypt. Think about it! Consider it! Tell us what to do!” They are outraged by the way this woman has died.
At the beginning of chapter 20 we find that the leaders of Israel decide to raise an army of 400,000 armed men at Mizpah to deal with the disgraceful behavior of the Benjamites at Gibeah. But first they want to hear first-hand from the Levite what happened. So, he tells the story of how his concubine died that night in Gibeah, undoubtedly using selective memory to exonerate himself and put the Benjamites in the worst possible light. No one would suspect from his account that any folly or callousness of his own might have contributed to the death of the girl!
Inflamed by the Levite’s story, the Israelites instantly decide that the whole town of Gibeah deserves to be exterminated. Cooler heads prevail temporarily, however, proposing that the Benjamites be given the opportunity to extradite the perverts. That way the guilty can be punished and the innocent can go free. But the Benjamites will have none of it. The men of Gibeah belong to their tribe, and they will defend their own people. Full-scale civil war breaks out.
The Benjamites can field an army of only 26,700 against the coalition’s army of 400,000, but they are superb soldiers, and they win the first two battles decisively. On the third day the tide turns, and the tribe of Benjamin undergoes a withering defeat. The vast majority of their soldiers are killed; in fact, only 600 escape to the desert. The coalition forces then attack all the Benjamite towns, kill all the women and children and animals, and burn the towns with fire.
When the blood lust subsides, the 11 tribes wake up to the fact that they have just cut off their nose to spite their face. They have punished Benjamin alright, but in the process, they have decimated one of their own tribes. For over 500 years, since the time of Jacob, the tribal system has been a basic feature of their national life, and it is unthinkable to them that Israel should exist in any other form than the twelve tribes. Yet now only 600 men are left of the tribe of Benjamin, and the women and children are all dead. Furthermore, in the heat of their anger, the rest of the tribes have all taken a vow that they will never allow one of their daughters to marry a Benjamite. And a vow is, of course, unbreakable!
They weep bitterly, “O Lord, the God of Israel, why has this happened to Israel? Why should one tribe be missing from Israel today?” Well, the obvious answer is because they took vengeance into their own hands and exterminated them! These people remind me of some I have counseled over the years. As a result of doing stupid, ungodly things, they find themselves in a wretched mess, and then they say, “Why has God allowed this to happen in my life?” God gets blamed for a lot of things when individuals do what is right in their own eyes.
Finally, someone suggests the problem can be solved by implementing another foolish vow they made when amassing their huge army against Benjamin. We read in 21:5 that they had taken a solemn oath that anyone who failed to join their coalition would be put to death. When they do a little research, they discover that one town failed to send representatives to the pep rally at Mizpah when they decided to punish Benjamin. It was the Jewish town of Jabesh Gilead. We aren’t told why they didn’t participate, and no one tries to find out. All they care about is that they have found a potential way out of their dilemma.
The coalition of 11 tribes sends 12,000 soldiers to Jabesh Gilead and kill everyone in that town, including the women and children, except for the young virgins. They find 400 such girls and they offer them to the 600 surviving Bejaminite soldiers who are hiding out in the desert. The idea is that with these girls the Benjamites can have children, and that way their tribe will survive.
However, this solution still leaves 200 men without wives. So someone comes up with another brilliant idea. An annual religious festival is coming up in a few days at Shiloh, where the tabernacle of the Lord is located. One of the key events at this festival is when all the young girls do folk dances before the Lord. So, they tell the 200 Benjamites who lack wives to hide in the bushes near the festival. When the young girls of Shiloh come out to dance before the Lord, the 200 Benjamite soldiers can jump out of the bushes and seize whomever they want for a wife.
They even decide how to respond when the girls’ fathers or brothers ask, “What about our oath that we will never give our daughters to a Benjamite?” They are to be consoled with the fact that they aren’t giving their daughters or sisters away; the girls are being kidnapped! Talk about trying to avoid guilt on a legal technicality! With everything brought to a satisfactory conclusion, everybody goes home. The story and the book then end with the familiar statement, “In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit.”
Now that’s in essence the story before us. I would like to enumerate for you some of the evidence of moral anarchy that I see in this story. Ask yourself whether you see any parallels in our own day:
Sexual sin is rampant and tolerated.
We see it first in the story in the fact that a man of God, a Levite, has a concubine, a woman on the side. Sadly, this is not that unusual today, either for religious leaders, business leaders, or politicians. But God goes to great lengths in His Word to warn His people about the tragedy of sexual sin. It is, according to 1 Cor. 6, a unique kind of sin. It is not more sinful than other sins, but it is more destructive. Here’s how Paul puts it: “Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body.” Sexual sin is self-destructive, and it is cumulative in its self-destruction. Every time one engages in it, he or she destroys another piece of his or her “self,” to say nothing of self-respect.
Then in our story we see the terrible perversion attempted by the men of Gibeah with the Levite, and the unspeakable sexual violence perpetrated by them on the Levite’s concubine. Of course, the disregard for sexual honor shown by the Levite and the old man in offering their concubine and virgin daughter respectively to be used and abused, is no less shameful than the actions of the men of Gibeah. God demands sexual purity among His people. Yet in Judges, such sin was rampant and openly tolerated.
Sadly, our society is also filled with gross immorality, defended by suave, articulate, attractive spokespersons. One can scarcely find a perversion that someone is not willing to defend as essential to human freedom.[ii] The message is constantly being forced on us that homosexuality is natural and normal, and that anyone who disagrees is a homophobe and a bigot. Premarital sex and even adultery are also defended as, if not totally acceptable, at least inevitable. Friends, don’t give in to this propaganda of the Enemy.
A second evidence of moral anarchy in our story, also evident today, is that …
The guilty are defended out of blind loyalty.
When the Benjamites are asked to hand over the men who perpetrated the awful violence against the Levite’s concubine, they decide that tribal loyalty is more important than truth or justice. We are in a very dangerous place when the most perverted kinds of behavior are excused just because a person belongs to our tribe, or race, or religion, or political party.
Frankly, one of the issues that has troubled me most about the incidents of the past several weeks in our nation’s capital is the incredible hypocrisy on the part of political leaders of two particular groups—the women’s movement and the black community. Please understand that I am talking about their most visible leaders, not necessarily the rank and file. These leaders, almost without exception, denounced Senator Packwood and Justice Clarence Thomas as unfit for public service due to allegations that were, for the most part, denied and unproven. Yet when behavior that is exponentially more depraved is admitted or at least uncontested by President Clinton, one hears from the same leaders noble cries of the need to forgive.
It seems clear that the issue that generated opposition to Packwood and Thomas was really a smokescreen. Of course, this cuts both ways. It is possible for those who have antipathy toward Clinton’s politics to attack him on issues they are willing to overlook in a conservative politician. We all have blind spots. It is human nature to give the benefit of the doubt to those who are on our team and to deny the same to those who oppose us. We need to have a righteous response to sin no matter who commits it. There should be no free passes and no excuses, even for our friends. And there should be no refusal to forgive when there is true repentance, even for our enemies.
A third evidence of moral anarchy is seen in the fact that …
A low regard for human life in general, and for women in particular, permeates society.
The near extermination of the Benjamites by the 11 tribes of Israel clearly demonstrates a very low regard for human life. By the way, we should note a universal principle here–an ungodly solution to one problem almost always creates another that is worse. When we take vengeance into our own hands, we almost always over-react. When we lie to cover up a sin, the lie can end up costing us more than the sin itself.
Now it’s not difficult for us to find examples today of the same low regard for human life. We see ethnic cleansing being practiced in Bosnia and Sudan. We see indiscriminate terrorism being practiced in the Middle East and in Ireland. We see the kidnapping and murder of large numbers of people by drug lords in Latin America. But friends, these largely third-world countries have no corner on a low regard for human life, at least not while civilized countries like ours have spokesmen like Ted Turner. This man is one of the movers and shakers of our society, but to me he exhibits the spirit of anti-Christ. This past week, expressing his concern for raising the quality of life for everyone on the planet, Turner offered a solution to overpopulation to go along with the $1 billion he has pledged to the UN. He advocated reducing the population of the earth from 6 billion to 2 billion by asking everyone to limit themselves to one child.
Turner felt somewhat embarrassed making this suggestion since he has fathered five children himself, but he said, “I can’t do anything about that now. I can’t shoot them.” I’m sure his kids are glad that the murder of grown children is not yet legal in our country, as is the murder of unborn ones, thanks to the strong support of people like Turner and his wife.
But our story not only exhibits a low regard for human life in general, but also a low regard for women in particular. The attitude of the Levite toward his concubine is baffling. He cared enough for her to travel to Bethlehem to seek reconciliation, but he didn’t care enough to protect her from being gang-raped and murdered. Today, 3,000 years later we have the same schizophrenic attitude on the part of many in our society toward women. They are treated with great respect because of their power as a voting lobby, but the same people often treat them as sexual objects to be used. No society and no culture will ever rise any higher than the honor given to women.
A final evidence of moral anarchy I want to mention is that …
Lip service is paid to God even though hearts are far from Him.
In reading the account in chapters 20-21 we find a strange thing. As the 11 tribes are planning to start a civil war to exterminate the Benjamites, they are constantly (at least five times) inquiring of the Lord, sometimes with tears and sometimes with fasting. What’s going on here? I think what we’re seeing is that no matter how wicked people get, they are never beyond using religion to achieve their ends. Even the most twisted are not above invoking the name of God when it will serve their purposes.
I received a fascinating document this past week. It is a talk that my dear friend, Pastor Mark Friz of St. Paul’s UCC Church, gave a week ago to the denominational leaders of the Missouri Conference of the United Church of Christ. In explaining why his church was leaving that denomination to join the EFCA, he said:
“Instead of taking a clear position in opposition to the national church, our philosophy here in the Missouri Conference has been to appease and ignore. For example, rather than protest the worship of the goddess Sophia at the Reimagining Conference (where the UCC is now the only denominational supporter), we have heard nothing about it on the local level. The same goes for the UCC AIDS Curriculum, which graphically describes every conceivable form of homosexual and heterosexual contact to 5th and 6th graders. Homosexual marriages were performed in two of our St. Louis area churches, but again we heard no protest from the Conference.
Our conference has done nothing to take a stand on the sanctity of human life. Whether the UCC is opening the gates for abortion, euthanasia, suicide or doctor assisted suicide, we hear no protests. Instead, we supported the misguided policies of our national church recently when we installed Rev. Cynthia Bumb as the Executive Director of the Missouri Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.
On the theological scene, Rev. Stephen Patterson continues to teach the radical position of the Jesus Seminar (which is rank heresy) at Eden Seminary, with not a peep of protest heard from the Conference. The Board for World Ministries continues to focus on social action and ‘finding the Christ in every religion’ rather than focusing on its task of ‘making disciples of all nations and baptizing them into the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.’
Recently Gayle, Denise and David (I won’t read their last names) were kind enough to meet with me to talk about these issues. When I asked why the Missouri Conference never opposed the National Church, David said that it was the job of the Conference to ‘support the prophetic voices in our midst.’”
There it is, friends–heresy being called prophesy, God being invoked to cover ungodliness. Pastor Mark goes on to conclude,
“Having come from a family where for five generations, my fathers and grandfathers have been pastors in this denomination (or its predecessors), you can be sure that this decision was not made lightly…. It causes me great pains to sever the ties that have been part of my family for years. Even so, this summer as I read through many of the historical documents passed down to me from my ancestors, I realized that our current denomination no longer holds to the same Gospel that was preached by my ancestors. If they could be here today, I believe they would be cheering this decision to leave the UCC.”
The Israelites in our story are using religion all the while they are involved in behavior that is most ungodly. And God plays along with them, offering them guidance, which is no longer, as it once was, a guarantee of success, but a recipe for disaster. They think they are hearing His promises of blessing, but He is actually speaking words of condemnation.
Conclusion: So, where do we go from here? Well, in respect to our sermon series, the Book of Judges ends on such a dreadful note that I am simply unwilling to leave it here. So, we are going right on to the Book of Ruth next Sunday, a book which in the Hebrew Bible is attached to the Book of Judges. It is a book which demonstrates the refreshing truth that even in the darkest of times there is a faithful remnant who walk with God, and God is still working out His eternal purposes through them. We are going to find encouragement as we see the providence of God in the four chapters of this love story.
But this morning I would like to say that this “Bible story not for children” is also a Bible story not to be ignored. If we are living (and I believe we are), in a culture where sexual sin is rampant and tolerated, where the guilty are defended out of blind loyalty, where there is a low regard for human life in general and for women in particular, and where lip service is paid to the Lord even though hearts are far from Him, we need to humble ourselves before God and repent. Remember the words of 2 Chron. 7:14? “If my people, who are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then (and the implications are that only then) will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”
It starts, of course, with the people of God. The Lord says, “If my people….” The people of the world are not called upon to humble themselves and pray and seek God’s face and turn from their wicked ways. It’s the people of God who are called to do these things. Then and only then will we find healing for our land.
Do you belong to the people of God? Do you know Him personally by faith in Jesus Christ?
He died for you;
He paid the penalty for your sin;
He offers you forgiveness through His death on the Cross.
There is no other way.
Prayer: Father, we are a hurting people. Our nation is in a moral crisis. We need to humble ourselves and pray and seek your face and turn from our wicked ways. Thank you, Father that “where sin increases, grace abounds all the more.” We need your grace. Amen.
DATE: September 20, 1998
Tags:
Sexual sin
Blind loyalty
Lip service
[i] Gary Inrig, Hearts of Iron, Feet of Clay, 282.
[ii] Inrig, 285.