SCRIPTURE: Judges 20
OBSERVATION/APPLICATION:
WARNING – DISTURBING CONTENT!!!
Then the Israelites, all the people, went up to Bethel, and there they sat weeping before the LORD. They fasted that day until evening and presented burnt offerings and fellowship offerings to the LORD. [Judges 20:26] How bad things were in Israel those days. It seems like we have a hybrid of immorality and obedience. In so many ways, the people of Israel were far from God’s Law. Yet they also recognize Gibeah’s behaviour as wrong. Does this passage suggest that God approves of Israel, but not Gibeah? Is their repentance, and God’s response, an example of good religion, i.e. what God wants? Yes and No.
They were going through the right motions, but they weren’t going far enough. They were condemning sin in others, but not in themselves. They wanted God’s blessing (victory in war against Benjamin), but not God’s correction. They are like the Pharisees coming to John the Baptist: Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. [Matthew 3:6-8] The right motions, but not the right motivations.
We should not read these chapters in a moralistic way (be like the Levite, don’t be like the Benjaminites). I suspect that the Israelites lost the first two battles in part because God was not pleased with them. These were tragic times in Israel, but it was not because God was rejecting them, it was because they were rejecting God.
We cannot ignore the depths of sin, we cannot pretend that our hearts are not so bad. God wants us to be fully honest with Him. Being religious, going through the motions, going to church, doing good, etc. does not cover up or compensate for our deeper heart condition. This story provides a mirror for our own hearts, so that we can come clean before the Lord. Jesus’ words in Luke 13 apply here as well: Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. [Luke 13:2-3]
Genuine honesty, humility and repentance is the only way God can help us, forgive us, change us!
PRAYER:
Lord, help me to be honest, humble and genuinely repentant!
I think the American civil war is a good illustration of how civil war (this is what is happening in Judges 20) occurs. It was not ‘good’ people against ‘bad’ people, but a nation that for years had tolerated and even promoted wrong and sinful practices, and reaping the consequences. There were good and bad people on both sides, and people on all sides died. Certainly God was opposed to slavery, but that doesn’t mean He was 100% behind the north, or all the people fighting for the north. God sees deeper than our ‘sides’, He sees and knows the heart. What we do is always mixed, imperfect, but what God does is always right – even if I don’t always understand it.
Lord, I am not sure what the message from today’s reading is. It does reveal how messed up things can become when a nation rejects God and His moral law. The people do show signs of repentance, but is it too little, too late? Is there a message for Canada in this? We cannot collectively, as a nation, continue to marginalize God and disregard His moral order, and still expect to prosper.
Maybe this is the message, maybe today’s reading is intended to show me (us) the seriousness of sin and immorality and God-lessness, and that what we see here is a warning about what lies ahead for us as a nation – all of us. This is not intended to make me judgmental (the problem with Canada) but to make me humble (the problem with us) and eager to redirect my life, and those around me, towards God and His will.
Lord, I sense You nudging me to being more serious about living for, and promoting, Your kingdom. Our nations future is at stake in this.
During the days of the Judges, all did what was right in their own eyes, not just the Benjaminites. Judah was at fault too. All too often we see the splinter in their eye and not the beam that it in our own eye. We readily see the sins of others but our inward vision, to see our own sin is found to be lacking.
Judah was found wanting in the battles because they too needed to rely fully on the Lord.
When we point at others, there are three fingers point at ourselves – one to others and the thumb to God. I live in His presence at all times, yet are there are the times I think He doesn’t see me. My actions tell me that. There are three fingers pointing at myself, that’s the place to start – my relationship to the Lord. I must be right with God. Create in me a clean heart oh God! I do not, can not, must not start with the sins of those around me. I must be right with God and all of God’s people must be right with Him. As children try to please their parents, how am I today pleasing Him? How am I today living for Jesus. What am I doing that the Father will say, well done?
Create in me a clean heart oh God,
And renew a right spirit within me.
Create in me a clean heart oh God,
And renew a right spirit within me.
And cast me not away from Thy presence oh Lord,
And take not Thy Holy Spirit from me.
Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation,
And renew a right spirit within me.