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JUDGES 21
(Readings: 1 Samuel 15; 2 Timothy 2:1-13)
It’s Grace Alone That Can Overrule!
Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ…
Some of us will remember the Watergate Conspiracy which happened in the United States of America in the early 1970’s.
It was as a result of being implicated in a break-in into their rival political party’s Head Quarters that saw a Vice-President and even the President of that country forced to resign from office.
It’s a piece of history which it seems we will never forget.
You see, apart from the devastation it caused then, we have been doomed to have that word “gate” used as a suffix on any name remotely tied in with corruption ever since!
There’s been “Climate-gate”, “Hack-gate”, “Billy-gate”, “FIFA-gate”, and all sorts of thing-gates!
At the time of the Watergate Conspiracy, though, it wasn’t so clear for many people.
Was it actually the Vice-President or even the President himself who broke into the Watergate building in Washington D.C.?
In fact, neither of these two, nor did any of their closest and most important advisors know anything about the break-in itself.
The real problem came with the cover-up which occurred afterwards.
You see, in order to avoid getting blamed for what happened, everyone covered up for each other.
So much like someone might get someone else to be an alibi for them so as to have an excuse to get out of being copped for a crime, so the different levels within the Republican Party then did for each other.
And that went all the way to the White House itself!
In other words, if the original conspirators had come clean right from the start, it would never have brought anyone down, let alone the President and Vice-President!
Our text shows the same.
In the previous two sermons on Judges 19 and 20, we saw how the Benjamites were protecting a town in their tribe.
It was the town where the male inhabitants had raped and brutally murdered the concubine of a Levite.
The rest of Israel demanded justice for this.
And when Benjamin refused to help and instead gathered to defend Gibeah, the eleven other tribes moved against them.
But their motivation was based on revenge, not justice.
It was about “We’re going to get them” and not “The Lord will punish them.”
Indeed, even though for a moment it seemed they came back to the Lord’s way and had his blessing very soon their selfishness came through again.
Their self-interest completely annihilated any concern whatsoever for the others!
How bad things have become!
And it’s going to get a lot worse.
This chapter shows how much they tried to cover up.
And so, let’s see, in a first aspect to our text, that … IT GOES FROM BAD TO WORSE!
The first verse of chapter 21 stands out, then, as a sore thumb to show them how far they had sinned.
As they were very much caught up in the heat of the moment, when they were gathered together to make judgment against Benjamin they made some extremely rash vows.
They took this oath together at Mizpah, “No one of us shall give his daughter in marriage to Benjamin.”
Now they felt guilty.
They are crying out to God, and weeping bitterly.
“Why has this happened?” they groan in verse 3.
One of the family was gone!
How wrong it had all gone!
Would now the Lord convict their hearts once more?
Could this be a genuine change in them?
It seemed he did.
Verse 4 says that they “offered burnt offerings and peace offerings.”
They were even concerned that everyone should have been present.
Yet for which motivation, congregation?
Was it really for doing right by the Lord God, or was it just to salve their consciences over that terrible treatment of the Benjaminites?
For once having realised that Jabesh Gilead wasn’t there, they were bound by oath to put everyone there to death.
Was this another one of their rash vows?
Suddenly, however, it was convenient to leave four hundred virgins alive.
Kill everyone else, but these will come in handy!
And then we might well wonder whether that vow about those failing to fight Benjamin would have been enforced!
It was convenient to kill the people of Jabesh Gilead.
They wanted the four hundred virgins to salve their consciences about that vow against the Benjaminites in verse 1.
This is political expediency that would be quite at home in many governments of our day!
They covered it all up!
We should think about that, congregation.
So quickly we fall into the trap of doing what we feel like doing.
And then whatever you might have committed yourself to before is instantly dismissed.
What price are our principles?
How easily don’t we compromise?
And how quickly don’t we justify that with excuses?
Excuses that only make things a lot worse.
IT GOES FROM BAD TO WORSE!
You see, your life becomes revolved around being untrue.
You live a lie.
The Israelites show how this is as they find they’re still two hundred women short for wives.
Well, what do we do now?
One thing is certain though, isn’t it?
They’re going to salve their consciences!
So, having set out on this compromising way, their wrong becomes all the worse.
For what do the elders think of next?
Verse 19 has their response.
They say there, “Behold, there is the yearly feast of the LORD in Shiloh…”
Now, that’s Christian worship they’re speaking about.
What are they going to do there - there where the people hearts are meant to be completely dedicated to the Lord their God?
Well, we read it, didn’t we?
At what was meant to be a time of praising and thanking the LORD, they brazenly stole from him!
“Come and take our daughters, because we can’t give them to you.”
They’ve covered it up all over again!
Maybe, though, the ends justified the means.
The tribe was saved.
Wasn’t their inheritance restored?
Weren’t their towns rebuilt and settled in?
Isn’t it later that Israel gets their first king from this very tribe?
But, congregation, where do we see the Lord’s people at the end of our text?
How come there is this terribly sad ending.
Why does this chapter and, indeed, the whole book close with the words, “In those days there was no king in Israel.
“Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”
They were those who had depended so much on their own selves.
They had no room for God as their leader.
How were they showing their salvation from the Lord?
What light was shining now from that people whom he had so miraculously delivered from Egypt?
How were they his witness among the nations - those freed from the house of slavery?
Instead, there is no hope and no direction.
They are lost!
In the words of a second aspect to this text … IT CAN’T GET ANY WORSE!
Congregation, this was nothing new for the Old Testament church.
Even later when they had kings they often rejected God.
The king who came from Benjamin, Saul, showed how unprincipled he could be when it came to keeping the best of the spoils.
That’s what we read in 1st Samuel 15 that he did with the Amalekite possessions after defeating them.
It’s nothing new for us, either!
When we go our own way we don’t need a king.
Then we do what is right in our own eyes.
Friend, are you quite happy just to live life as you feel?
Are you quite at peace not sure what will happen next?
Imagine that tomorrow morning you set off in your car.
Maybe you’re going to work.
Or it’s to do shopping.
Perhaps it is dropping the kids off somewhere.
But during the night the road rules were all changed.
Suddenly everyone has to drive on the right hand side of the road.
What?
That’s no way to live your life!
That’s confusing!
You see, we need direction.
We cannot do as everyone sees fit – you can’t do what’s right in your own eyes!
And most of all this is true spiritually.
Mankind may have developed his own myth of being able to control the future.
He might think he can direct God in any way he wants.
That’s really the essence of all this ‘New Age’ mumbo-jumbo!
It’s just ‘the ‘Old Age’ of man making the kind of God he likes.
Yet, what does the history of doing things our own way teach us?
Isn’t that when we see quite clearly that that’s no way to do it?
And once we’re brought to our senses, we know it’s not common sense.
We can only be guided by God’s sense - sanctified sense!
Realising that this is so opens our eyes to the darkness this world is really in!
IT CAN’T GET ANY WORSE!
This, congregation, is the vivid picture of Judges.
Because “…in those days there was no king in Israel.”
We’ve seen that this refers to far more than a physical king.
This is no earthly monarch, as Saul, David, or Solomon would be.
It really expresses that complete spiritual lack.
Dear friend - it is really, really black!
The darkness has become overwhelming!
It is pitch black!
But, you know - then the light does shine!
For against such total darkness any light will be seen!
Imagine then how much the Son of God’s love will beam forth!
Because it may seem that God abandons his people here.
We can even think that at most he’s just there looking on from the sidelines.
But the Lord God is actually making sure that they will never finally destroy themselves by their own deliberate stupidity.
So how this ends is simply a story of grace.
For these are God’s people.
These are those he has bound himself to by unbreakable promises - even though they tried so hard to break them!
And even though they’ve made so many stupid promises themselves!
This is what the apostle Paul wrote of in Romans 5.
There in verse 20, it says, “But where sin increased, grace increased all the more.”
And to Timothy he described it in his second letter chapter 2.
In verse 13 he declares, “…if we are faithless, he remains faithful - for he cannot deny himself.”
The marvellous mystery of faith is that after we ourselves have been so totally shown to be part of that dark night of sin that now we confess Jesus Christ!
Our Saviour God turns us right around, and makes us so completely what we are not!
For at the deepest and most devastating time of your sin, God’s Son went through the death of deaths!
Upon that lonely and forsaken rugged cross, Christ Jesus himself atoned for all the sins of our text, and much, much more besides!
To we who were wallowing so helplessly in the sinking-sand of our own self-despair, he reached out his hand.
To we who in our own struggles to make things right only sank deeper into that pit - as we know that quick-sand does - Jesus pulled us free.
And in him the cycle of sin is eternally broken!
Do you see it, friend?
Has the King come to you?
And, indeed, if you can see that in him there is alone your hope and your direction, then you have met him in faith!
That makes us humble.
And it makes us very hungry.
For spiritually we hunger and thirst now for his dear Presence.
With the hymn-writer Augustus Toplady we cry, “Nothing in my hand I bring, Simply to thy cross I cling; Naked, come to thee for dress; Helpless, look to thee for grace; Foul, I to the fountain fly; Wash me, Saviour, or I die.”
Congregation, this last verse can be so different!
Why - can’t you and I declare and live, “In our days the Church has a King; and united we strive to do everything as is right in his eyes!”
Amen.
PRAYER:
Let’s pray…
O Lord God,
May that truly be our whole focus!
May the world see there is a God in Israel; that Christ is alive in his Body, of which he is the Head.
So humble us by your Spirit, that we will look to you for everything and forsaking all others keep looking to you.
Then we will do all things as our Lord Jesus sees fit.
In his precious Name, we pray, Amen.
* As a matter of courtesy please advise Rev. Sjirk Bajema, if you plan to use this sermon in a worship service. Thank-you.
(c) Copyright 2021, Rev. Sjirk Bajema
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