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!
God’s people fighting among themselves.
Israel against the Benjaminites. Israel gathered together and only afterwards came to inquire of the Lord. Once the people were gathered together, then they asked God who was to go first into battle. All too often, after a decision has been made, then we ask for God’s blessing.
All too often we act in haste and only afterwards involve our God in our decisions. As God’s people, God wants us to live as His people each day in every way in all we do and say.
Help me this day Lord to live for Jesus.
The reading of today also reminds me of the NT passage, who is without sin, let him cast the first stone.
Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!
Thou art the Potter, I am the clay.
Mold me and make me after Thy will,
While I am waiting, yielded and still.
Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!
Search me and try me, Master, today!
Whiter than snow, Lord, wash me just now,
As in Thy presence humbly I bow.
Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!
Wounded and weary, help me, I pray!
Power, all power, surely is Thine!
Touch me and heal me, Savior divine.
Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!
Hold o’er my being absolute sway!
Fill with Thy Spirit ’till all shall see
Christ only, always, living in me.