 Again, the title of our sermon this evening, Ludeness and Outrage in Israel, Judges chapter 19, verses one through 30. And tonight in this text, we consider our descent down that dark staircase that is Judges 19 into the darkness that is the idolatry and moral ruin of the nation of Israel. And we see that warned, don't we, in the book of Judges. We see God having warned them in chapter two, verse two. God had said to them, you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land. You shall tear down their altars. But he says to Israel, you've not obeyed my voice. You've not obeyed my voice. Why have you done this? Therefore, I also said, I will not drive them out from before you, but they shall be thorns in your side. Their gods shall be a snare to you. Now, Paul would later say, what fellowship does light have with darkness? What accord has Christ with belial? What part has a believer with an unbeliever? We are to tear down their altars. We're to separate ourselves from the godlessness of this world. We're to come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean. God says, and I will receive you. But he turns to the Israelites here and he says to them, you've not obeyed my voice. You've not obeyed my voice. That's not what Israel does here. They don't obey the Lord. They don't come out from them and separate themselves from that pagan influence. They welcome it into their bosom, so to speak. Allow that pagan influence to live amongst them. And so what we see then in Judges chapter 19 through 21, this final section in the book of Judges is a consequence of that fateful and disobedient and unbelieving decision. What you see in the open conduct, the open conduct of the Benjamites of the Israelites in Judges chapter 19 to 21 is a consequence of that decision, that refusal to obey, that disobedience that was prevalent in Judges chapter one at the beginning of the book. This is the judgment of God. Do you see? This conduct, exactly what we see in Romans chapter one, their conduct, their behavior, their hard-heartedness, this wickedness is the fruit of their own heart, the fruit of their own sin, but it is a judgment of God against their disobedience. People often take pride in their opinions, don't they? They can be very hard-hearted, very stubborn. They can be steeled in their opinions, not willing to budge. That's the definition of hard-hearted or the definition of stiff-necked, isn't Israel often referred to as stiff-necked in the Bible. That is a judgment upon your refusal to obey and submit yourself to the word of God. Let it not be said of us that our stubbornness, our obstinacy or our hard-heartedness or our stiff-neckedness is a judgment of God upon our failure to submit ourselves to his word or our failure to obey him or refusal to obey him. Here, this is a consequence. What we see is a consequence. That apostasy, that turning away from God is described by the familiar refrain here at the end of the book. In those days there was no king in Israel and everyone did what was right in his own eyes. Now think with me for a moment. What is astonishing and tragic about this account and what isn't necessarily apparent through a cursory reading of the text is the tremendous speed with which this shocking downfall takes place. They have run headlong downhill to this point in Judges chapter 19 with breakneck speed. And I want you to see that from the text. Now, we would naturally think that the book of Judges is arranged chronologically. We began in chapter one, we worked ourselves to the point now in chapter 19 and it appears as though that everything is arranged chronologically as we work through the book. But what we find here is that our narrator who we believe to be Samuel has arranged the chapters of the book to express something more to us than a mere historical record. The historical period of the Judges. Follow along with me now. The historical period of the Judges accounted for about 400 years of Israelite history between the conquest of the land under Joshua and the establishment of the monarchy under the prophet Samuel. Samson, who we met in Judges chapter 13 through 16, Samson would have come at the very end of that 400 year period and we see Israel's clash with the Philistines still prevalent in the reign of Saul who would have come immediately after Samson may have even been a rough contemporary of Samson and during the monarchy further during the reign of David. We still see David still fighting with the Philistines. Samson himself would have likely been a contemporary of the young Samuel who would later anoint both Saul and David King. So Samson comes at the very end of that period of the Judges, that 400 year period. Then we come now to the end of the book of Judges and what do we see? We see the account of Micah's idolatry. We see the apostasy of the tribe of Dan chapter 17, chapter 18 and now further we see the sin of Benjamin. We see civil war in Judges chapter 19 through 21. I want you to see with me a particular time marker given to us in this account. Look at Judges chapter 20 and drop down to verse 26. Judges chapter 20 and look at verse 26. The nation is distraught over this wickedness of Benjamin. Verse 26 says this, then all the children of Israel that is all the people went up and came to the house of God and wept. They sat there before the Lord fasted that day until evening and they offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the Lord. So the children of Israel inquired of the Lord. The Ark of the Covenant of God was there in those days and Phineas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron stood before it in those days saying shall I yet again go out to battle against the children of my brother Benjamin or shall I cease? Lord said go up for tomorrow I will deliver them into your hand. Well, look at that text more in depth next week but what's interesting here, our time marker, is that those are the days, the days that we're looking at, the days that we're studying those are the days of Phineas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron. Now Aaron was the brother of Moses, that's right. Think about the time we're talking about. Aaron was the brother of Moses. Aaron served as high priest during the wilderness wanderings of that first generation, right? The emancipation generation that came out of Egypt. Eleazar was the priest that served alongside Joshua as Joshua led the second generation, the inheritance generation in the occupation, the conquest of the land. So Phineas then, his son, Eleazar's son is serving as priest after Eleazar and he would have been priest in Judges chapter one. Interesting, isn't it? Phineas' son served as priest in Judges chapter one when the Israelites begin their failed attempt to secure the individual territories of the land. He was there. He was there when the Lord gave that warning in Judges chapter two. Phineas was there and it means then, it means that this section of Judges chapters 19 through 21, this terrible wickedness, this heinous sin, this flashback of the very depravity of Sodom itself took place among God's covenant people at the very outset of their occupation of the land and not at the end. Do you see? Now that's tragic. It gives us something to think about, doesn't it? Little time at all, virtually no time at all, merely one generation had elapsed between Israel taking possession of their inheritance and the warning that the Lord gave them of impending apostasy in Judges chapter two and Israel turning in apostasy to this wickedness that we see in Judges chapter 19, 20 and 21. It is astonishing, astonishing. They have greased the slide, so to speak. Israel has gotten to this point almost immediately after they have occupied the land. Now, one question is why? Why is the book arranged this way? Why is this account at the end of the book? We can certainly ask why, how is it possible that Israel has debased themselves in this way so quickly but why is this account at the end of the book? Our author, likely Samuel, has been recording the history of the Judges during this period and the history that he's been recording has been somewhat chronological. Some of these judges overlapping and the placement of this record at the end, the very climax of the book is as if Samuel wanted to say, this is how bad the whole period was. This was a time when there was no king in Israel and everyone did what was right in his own eyes. You say, this is characteristic of the period of the Judges. The prophet, Hosea, later in Hosea, chapter 10, verse nine, Hosea would say, oh Israel, you have sinned from the days of Gibeah. What's he talking about? He's talking about this very incident with the Levite and his concubine and the war with Benjamin. He said there they stood, the battle in Gibeah against the children of iniquity did not overtake them. This is the way that Israel began in the land. And what does that tell us? That tells us we need a king. We are in desperate need of a king. We are in desperate need to see that we can't live our lives according to what looks right in our own eyes. We need a Lord. We need the Lord Jesus Christ, not just any king. We need a king who will bring righteousness, a king who will rule in righteousness, the scepter of his kingdom, a scepter of righteousness. We need the Lord Jesus Christ. That was the promise that God had made to the children of Israel. The coming of one who had crushed the head of the serpent, the coming of one who would rule his people with a rod of iron, the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now when we last left our unnamed Levite, his unnamed and unfaithful concubine and his unnamed servant, they were all walking back from Bethlehem and Judah toward the hill country of Ephraim, where they are from. Sun is beginning to set, night is beginning to fall, and they make a very fateful decision to pass by Jebus or Jerusalem. Because at that time, Jerusalem, Jebus, is a city still occupied by foreigners, the Jebusites. So the Levite decides to press on another three or four miles north toward Gibeah, which belongs to the tribe of Benjamin. Thought it would be safe because his people were there. The Levite would rather stop in Gibeah in order to avoid the Canaanites, but did not realize that stopping in Gibeah, the Canaanites had invaded his own people, right? The Canaanite value system was in their heart, so to speak, in Gibeah. And there in Gibeah, they run into the shamefully inhospitable Benjamites who will not take them in, but the town square, obviously no safe place to settle, they run into a very hospitable old man from Ephraim, not even from Gibeah, he's from Ephraim, and he does take them in. Now, beginning in verse 20, we see an urgent appeal, a perverted attack, a heartless deal, and a devastating outcome. We looked at an urgent appeal and a perverted attack last week. The urgent appeal came in verses 20 and 21, where the old man said, peace be with you, however, let all your needs be my responsibility. Do not spend the night in the open square, and so he brought them into his house and gave fodder to the donkeys, and they washed their feet, ate, and drank. And again, there seems to be this sense of urgency on the part of the old man, he knows that all things are not well, all things are not right in Gibeah, and wants them to spend the night in his place, don't spend the night in the open square. We then considered the perverted attack in verse 22. As they were enjoying themselves, suddenly certain men of the city, perverted men, literally, sons of Belial, they surrounded the house, beat on the door, they spoke to the master of the house, the old man saying, bring out the man who came to your house that we may know him carnally. And we know what that means, we don't have to use our imaginations there. In this, we're meant by our author to see Sodom revisited. You can't help but see a large number of connections between this account and Sodom, and Genesis chapter 19. And that's intentional. We're to see the wickedness and the heinousness of that sin, that Sodomite sin here in Gibeah, in this account. There's an intentional link. Gibeah and the wickedness of Sodom are connected in God's judgment upon their sin, do you see? The author is saying that the two are connected by a common fallenness, a common depravity, a common heart condition. And listen, that is a common heart condition, a heart condition that is common to all men. All men, apart from God's saving work by his spirit, through the person and work of Jesus Christ, all human beings are capable of gross, reprehensible sin. The seed of that sin lies within the heart. Listen, it is a common grace of God through his restraint on this world, through as one of the uses of the law that we've talked about, his restraint on sin that all men aren't more wicked than they are. But here we see that seed lurking within the heart of all men. This seed, this sin certainly would have been unthinkable, unconscionable to any son of Abraham. And yet here it is committed by a tribe in Israel. It's amazing, isn't it? Now we have to remember that this degeneracy began somewhere. Where did it begin? It began in Judges chapter one. It began at the very beginning with the failure of the Israelites to obey the word of God. God had said, go in, by faith, they were to take that territory, they were to drive out the Canaanites, kill everyone under the ban, yet Israel did not obey the Lord's voice. They did not drive out the wicked and worldly influence of the Canaanites from among them. They refused to obey. The Lord warned them in Judges chapter two, and now we see sin in Israel, such as verse 30, not has been done or seen from the day that the children of Israel came up from the land of Egypt until this day. And in this case, took no time at all. Matter of one generation, within the lifetime of Phineas, the grandson of Aaron. And this remember is the judgment of God. Now, this wickedness in Gibeah provokes third, a heartless and a desperate deal, a heartless deal, verse 23. But the man, the master of the house, went out to them and said to them, know my brethren, I beg you, do not act so wickedly. Seeing this man has come into my house, do not commit this outrage. Notice first, the old man began by addressing them as brethren. Brethren, they were, according to that standard. They were of the tribe of Benjamin, the sons of Jacob, were the ones who were committing this outrage. Next, notice he drew attention to the shamefulness of the act. I beg you, do not act so wickedly. This was a shameful thing they were doing. Thirdly, he pleaded with them as one responsible for those who he had taken under his care, who he had taken into his house. He pleaded with them, do not commit this outrage. This man has come into my house. In other words, the old man's honor was at stake. Do you see? It's the old man's honor that is at stake. They would not be persuaded. These Benjamites were hardened, given over to their lusts, reminds us of Romans chapter one. They've been given over to a debased mind to do those things which are not fitting, those things which are not natural. And so then, rather than calling on the Lord for help in his time of need, rather than taking it upon himself to defend those who had come under his care, what does the old man do? He offers a heartless deal. Verse 24, look, here is my virgin daughter and the man's concubine. Let me bring them out now, humble them and do with them as you please, literally, as is good in your eyes. Does that ring a bell? And everyone was doing what was right in their own eyes. The old man said to them, do with them as is good in your eyes is literally what the text reads. But to this man, do not do such a vile thing. In other words, do your vile thing to my daughter instead. Really? Do your vile thing to this woman who is my guest. Really. There's simply no way to excuse what is being offered. There's no way around the fact that this is a heartless, disgusting, reprehensible deal that this man is attempting to make with these Benjaminites. Is there no, no one who calls on the name of the Lord here in Israel at this time? Is there no one who has any sense? No one who loves the word of God, the law of God loves righteousness. Apparently not. Do with them as you please. No amount of cultural or chronological accommodation here will suffice. You can't say to yourself, well that's just the way things were back then. You can't say, well, concubine is more property than she was. Why, if they could do it. That, no, there is no excuse. This is nothing more than the swappings of unconscionable evils. That's all it is. It's the swapping of one ridiculous absurd evil for another ridiculous absurd evil. And all of that, think with me, that picture in the shadow of the love and sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. Right? Who would never have done such an abhorrent thing, but took all of our sin and shame and guilt upon himself and he himself suffered in our place for us. Right? The love of Jesus Christ should compel us. So that's how we should love. The Lord, when he met with his disciples in the upper room said, John chapter 13, as I have loved you, so now you love one another. There is nothing, nothing even remotely picturing that kind of love here in Judges chapter 19. It's just not here. Feminism will point to this account as evidence of the evils of patriarchalism, right? The evils of the patriarchy or how patriarchy relationships are that kind of standard in our day is so evil. And so this is not a picture of biblical patriarchy. This is a picture of depravity. This is a picture of man's sin. Anyone who would lead any man, listen to me, husbands, young men, if you're going to lead your household, if you're gonna lead your wife, if you're gonna lead your kids, if you're gonna lead for the Lord's sake, if you're a single man and you're gonna lead in a ministry of the Lord's church, if you're gonna lead an evangelism, if you're gonna lead in anything, men, your leadership will look like the sacrificial love of the Lord Jesus Christ and nothing like this, Godlessness, right? We have every right, every reason in our day and age to condemn everything about this and the Bible certainly does. There's no way in which the Bible upholds this as some righteous form of patriarchalism, right? There's no way the Bible upholds this. The Bible condemns this and does so with the strongest fervor in texts just like this. We're to be abhorred by this. We're to be disgusted by it. John chapter 13, 34, Jesus said, "'Love one another as I have loved you.'" And then he gave his life and he took our punishment upon himself. He didn't offer someone else up. He offered himself up. If we would be like the Lord Jesus Christ, we must be prepared to stand for righteousness to our own hurt first. To our own hurt first. You know, there is something to be said for situational awareness. You think ahead of time. If I were in that position, what would I do? Men, you need to think about that when you're with your wife out somewhere and somebody's gonna come up to you to mug you or someone attempts to harm you or your family. What are you gonna do, right? You think about those things in advance and think about what you would do. Would you place yourself between harm and those you are called to love? Lord Jesus Christ certainly did. We must be prepared to love one another to our own hurt if that's what is necessary and we trust in the Lord for deliverance. The Lord can certainly deliver us, right? He delivered Daniel out of the lion's den. He delivered Meshach Abednego out of the fiery furnace. The Lord can certainly deliver us but if the Lord decides not to, they would say, we're gonna trust him anyway and do what is right. The old man here fails. The old man fails. It's as if his honor in this unspoken honor code of hospitality in the ancient Near East with this Levite in his household, it's as if his honor is more important in the lives of his own daughter and this woman who's a guest in his house. His reputation matters more than justice or love. Verse 25, the men would not heed him. Unlike the account of Sodom in Genesis chapter 19, there are no angels involved to strike these wicked men with blindness. There's no one to lead them out by the hand. So the man took his concubine and he brought her out to them. Like someone might toss a scrap of meat out to a pack of wild dogs. That's what he did with his concubine. Having gone to great lengths to retrieve his wayward concubine, he now cast her aside when his own safety is in jeopardy and the text says they knew her and abused her all night until morning and when the day began to break, they let her go. It has the sense of they discarded her. What the sense is in that statement, they discarded her. Lastly then, a devastating outcome. Heartless deal, a devastating outcome. Verse 26, then the woman came as the day was dawning, fell down at the door of the man's house where her master was till it was light. When her master arose in the morning, opened the doors of the house and went out to go his way. He didn't open the doors of his house to go and look for his concubine. Didn't open the doors of my house because I was concerned how she was faring. Opened the doors of the house to go his way. However, the word is behold, there was his concubine, fallen at the door of the house with her hands on the threshold. One commentator remarked that these verses were cold and calculated to match the Levite's attitude. The woman lies dead, her hands reaching out for the threshold, two week to open the door, two week to even knock, two week to cry out. She dies with her hands reaching out for help, reaching out for the safety of the doorway, reaching out for the help of her husband. And verse 28, as if nothing had happened, he said to her, get up, let us be going, but there was no answer. So the man lifted her onto the donkey, the man got up and went to his place. This man is abhorrently calloused. And we run out of adjectives, don't we? After a while, abhorrently, reprehensibly, deplorably, disgustingly, shamefully, all right? You start running out of adjectives. This man is calloused. The wording of the text actually leaves open the possibility that he found her alive at the threshold, doesn't it? If you read the text, there's that question that lingers, was she alive or was she dead? The text doesn't clearly say he would later say that she was dead, but we can't trust this guy anyway. So was she alive or was she dead? What does he do? Verse 29, when he entered his house then, he took a knife, he laid a hold of his concubine. This is the second time that she's been laid hold of, brutally laid hold of. He laid hold of his concubine and divided her into 12 pieces. Limb bylem desecrated her body and sent her throughout all the territory of Israel, brutally taken by hand a second time. He cuts her up as if she were a dead animal, carcass. This would serve to mobilize the nation of Israel, verse 30, and so it was that all who saw it said, no such deed has been done or seen from the day that the children of Israel came up from the land of Egypt until this day. I'm not exactly certain if that is the cutting up of the concubine that they're referring to as this deed. More than likely it's the deed of the Benjamites in raping her and then murdering her. Both would fit under that fitting description and they respond, consider it, confer and speak up. That's the command of our author to do that. He's saying to us, he's saying to his Israelite audience, those that would have read this book in Israel's history and down through to our day to day, he says to us, consider it, confer and speak up. Well, what is it that we are to consider? Well, in the short time we have left, consider this. Proverbs chapter 14, verse 12, there is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death. You hear Solomon there? There is a way which seems right to man, but its end is the way of death. When there was no king in Israel, everyone did what was right in his own eyes. It may seem right in your own eyes, but what you're doing and how you are living, when you are doing that which is right in your own eyes, the end of that thing is death. The end of that thing is destruction. There's a path associated with that, isn't there? It's not an isolated decision. It's not an isolated attitude of heart. It's not an isolated disposition. It is a pathway. And the Lord shows us in Judges chapter 19, it's a pathway to apostasy. It's a pathway to destruction. The end of that way is death. Get off of that path. You and I cannot live doing what is right in our own eyes. We have to do what is right in the Lord's eyes. And listen, we have to acknowledge that we often think and make decisions and act in ways that seem right to us. We need to be concerned that they are right according to God's word. So how do you avoid them? How do you avoid doing what is right in your own eyes? How do you avoid living that way? The first is acknowledge your ignorance. Acknowledge that apart from the Lord Jesus Christ, apart from grace, apart from mercy, apart from the Holy Spirit, we don't know what is right. We can't find right with two hands in a search warrant. We need God's help, right? We need God's help. Acknowledge your ignorance. Acknowledge the fact that our hearts are deceitfully and desperately wicked above all things. Acknowledge that if it were up to me, I'd go astray. Acknowledge our ignorance. Acknowledge the darkness that lies within us as fallen human beings and cast ourselves upon the wisdom of God's word. Acknowledge your ignorance. Secondly, submit yourself to His word. Submit yourself to His word. God's word is truth. God's word is health to our bones. God's word is safety to us. Submit yourself to His word. What does that look like? Third, listen to this from Romans chapter 12 verse two. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. You see, in the Christian life, it's not enough. It's not enough to merely say, I'll do whatever God's word says to do. It says for me to go right, I'll go right. It says for me to go left, I'll go left. It says for me not to steal, I won't steal. I'm gonna know. No, we need the renewing of our mind. We need the transformation of our mind, the transformation of our hearts. We need the transformation of who we are. We need to transform how we think, which will transform what we believe, which will transform how we live. We need a life transformation. We don't necessarily need information. We need information for transformation. We need to be changed by His word. We need our mind renewed by His word. We need to be shaped and molded by His word. That's what it means to submit ourselves to the word of God. Not to just sort of casually say, well, I'll do what it says, because when the time comes and that intersects with your own personal will, most of the time your own personal will wins out in that scenario. We need to be submersed in Scripture with a heart-spirit-wrought commitment to follow the Lord's lead wherever it leads us. We need to be shaped by the word, molded by the word. Do not be conformed to this world. Those worldly influences, God told them in Judges chapter two, cast those aside, right? Put away those idols. Don't submit yourself to their influence. Cast them away from you, put them away, and Israel refused to obey God's word, and God said to them, what are you doing? You've not obeyed my voice, what are you doing? Do not be conformed to this world. Put worldliness away, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove. So that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. The not being conformed to the world and the being transformed by the renewing of your mind are prerequisites, do you see, to that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. In other words, you can't prove what is that good and acceptable perfect will of God unless you have put away worldliness and be transformed by the renewing of your mind, do you see? So our three steps in avoiding doing what is right in our own eyes, acknowledging our ignorance, acknowledging our inward depravity, acknowledging our fulness, second, submitting yourself to his word, and thirdly, not being conformed to this world, but being transformed by the renewing of our mind. Lord is gracious and by his spirit, he continues to help us. We need to rely on him in faith, amen. Let's pray together. Father in heaven, Lord, we need you every day, every hour, every minute, we need your help. We need your truth, we need your word. We need you, Spirit of God, guiding us and directing us. We do not want to lean on our own understanding, but in all our ways, Lord, we want to acknowledge you and pray, Lord, that you will guide us and direct us. You will make our steps sure. And we know, Lord, we trust the promises that you've given us in your word, that as we live for you and as we lean and depend on you in faith, that we are safe and secure. You work all things together for our good, and we trust you in that, Lord, and thank you for it. Help us, Lord, cultivate within our hearts a hunger and a thirst for righteousness. Cultivate within us a desperation for wisdom and the wisdom that only comes from your word, applied to our minds, to our hearts, by your spirit. We pray for these things, Lord, and we pray without doubting, knowing that you give liberally to those who pray in such faith. And we trust you, Lord, and thank you for the blessedness of that promise to us. Be with us, Lord, as we seek to live for you. Protect us from this bent within our own heart to trail off, to doing that which is right in our own eyes and help us, Lord, to remain steadfast in doing what is right in your eyes. We love you. We thank you for the opportunity of studying this book together, this time that we've had together in Jesus' name. Amen.