 Throughout my life I've increasingly found that reading scripture in public isn't just about feeding our own spirits and minds, but about rehearsing the mighty acts of God for God's glory. So let's think together about Judges 21, 25. And first we're going to need some tea. In those days there was no king in Israel. All the people did what was right in their own eyes. That's the last line of the Book of Judges. The book which some see as one of the darkest points in the whole Bible. And indeed it's a puzzling book in the Bible for many people. Many people when they were in Sunday school skipped over it entirely, except possibly for one or two of the key stories like Samson and so on. But so much of the Book of Judges is a puzzle to us because it doesn't look as though this book is a good example of how God's people should behave. And often people are taught to look at the Bible to see examples of behaviour, faith, et cetera, et cetera. But by the time you get to the end of Judges you're crossing your eyes and your hair standing on end and you're saying, I'm glad I wasn't living in those times because it's a terrible time when, as it says, everyone was just doing what they wanted. Everyone was doing what was right in their own eyes. And actually one of the things that this last line of Judges is reminding us is that the Bible isn't simply a collection of good examples of how to behave or even simply of examples of how not to behave. It's a way of talking about the larger purposes of God that God had brought his people out of Egypt to be the people who would be the advanced guard of his ultimate new creation. But though he had shown them so many extraordinary deeds in the wilderness and indeed in the Exodus itself, when they then came into the land they got muddled, they forgot, they didn't remember what God had done bringing them out of Egypt and they started to copy the local habits of the people of the land and particularly they started to worship the idols that were all around them and they started to behave in the way that idolatry normally leads people to behave and the results of that are written right across the Book of Judges particularly in the last three or four chapters which are what some people have called texts of terror. They make you think, oh no, how could people possibly behave like this? And the author or editor of the Book of Judges knows perfectly well that this is the way life is in that book and so this is how the book ends that this was not the way God intended it to be. God had another plan. He was going to reorganize his people. There was no king in Israel then and the book is hinting but there will be one day and then we will know how to live. Now of course as we know from 1st and 2nd Samuel to look no further the institution of the monarchy was itself not an unqualified success to say the least but with the choice of King David and we can imagine the editor of Judges looking at David and Solomon in particular with the choice of King David there was a man after God's own heart and in principle though David went horribly wrong himself in principle Israel was called to worship Yahweh the God who had brought them out of Egypt and to serve him and to come together in worship in Jerusalem in the place which David was organizing and which Solomon his son would build. So this line in Judges reminds us not simply to read one verse or one passage but to look at the larger whole to look at the whole sweep of the biblical story and then as we look out beyond the sequence from Judges on into 1st and 2nd Samuel so we look at the larger biblical story itself and we see even throughout the Old Testament and even in that post-exilic period with puzzled prophets like Haggai and Malachi saying we've come back from Babylon but things are still not right we should be able to hear a word like the word that the editor has put at the end of Judges in those days the Messiah had not yet come things were still going wrong, things were still muddled we should then look at that larger biblical story and we should say thank you Lord that despite the failure and sin and indeed those texts of terror which are generated from within that context you have in Jesus brought about your Messiah who is not only the true king of Israel but the Lord of the whole world and even beyond that we can look out and say well at the moment we in the church have much to repent of we get muddled, we produce our own texts of terror our own ways of going horribly wrong and we long for the day when Jesus will return when finally the earth and heaven will be one and God will be with us and we are living like the editor of Judges we are living in hope and we look at the present time with all its follies and failures and we say thank you Lord that one day, one day all will be complete one day when Jesus comes back to heal the world to raise his people from the dead then all will be complete and we will look back and we will say yes that's how it was then but thank God for his larger purposes of which we now tremblingly find ourselves apart so may God give you faith and hope to look to his ultimate purposes for you and for his world and trust him even if all seems dark at the present how is this passage speaking to you? let us know in the comments like and subscribe or check out our other videos