Judges 20
Notes
Transcript
Intro
Intro
From 1861-1865 the United States experienced what remains to be one of the worst things that has ever happened to our nation. The stats on the Civil War are horrible, even by today’s standards. 3 million Americans fought each other in the war, and 620,000 of them died in it. This one war claimed more American lives than the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Spanish American War, WWI, WWII, and the Korean War combined. For four years, our nation was ravaging itself and ended up killing over 2 percent of its entire population, and for what? There can be some debate about the causes of the Civil War, but without question the issue of slavery rested right in the middle of everything. Looking back on the Civil War can be both incredibly frustrating and inspiring; frustrating because so many people died defending what they believed to be their right to enslave, own, and mistreat people — and inspiring because so many people were willing to die to stand up for the rights of the oppressed.
The text we have in front of us has a similar effect on the reader as the American Civil War. Here we have a nation going to war with itself, a war that will be incredibly bloody. Brother will kill brother over a matter of deep immorality. The eleven tribes look at what has been done in Gibeah and are digusted enough to go to war to see justice done; Benjamin apparently sees nothing wrong with the actions of Gibeah.
The truth is that the Civil War isn’t the only occasion we look at and think to ourselves, “how could they be so blind?” In fact, this is an almost daily occurence for us both as we observe the course of history and as we observe the world around us today. It’s fascinating that so many can be caught defending something that appears to us to be so obviously evil. Why is that?
It’s because obvious sin isn’t so obvious to those who are under its hardening effects, and because those who are blind to their own sin will zealously defend it. In their defense of their sin, they will invariably cause harm to themselves and to the ones they love. This is true of Benjamin in this passage, it was true of the Americans fighting for slavery, and its true of you and I today as well.
The truth this passage forces us to confront is that we are blind to the sin that has hardened our own hearts, and that this sin is hurting us and the ones we love. Like the rest of the book of judges, this causes us to long for the redemption and healing that can only be found in Jesus.
Sin has a hardening effect that blinds you
Sin has a hardening effect that blinds you
Sin is often obvious to the objective viewer
Sin is often obvious to the objective viewer
The 11 tribes gather and make an immediate decision to punish Gibeah
If there is a glimmer of hope to find in the latter part of the book of Judges, it’s here. In the aftermath of the atrocity committed in Gibeah, 11 of the 12 tribes come together and unilaterally agree that what happened was wicked to the extreme and must be punished. In fact, they don’t even waste time with politics about the matter - judgement will be swift and severe, which is appropriate concerning the crime that was committed.
In this instance, the sin committed by Gibeah was obvious to everyone that heard about it. There was no debating or arguing, no sides to be taking — there was vile sin and there was punishment to be dealt out.
And the tribes of Israel sent men through all the tribe of Benjamin, saying, “What evil is this that has taken place among you? Now therefore give up the men, the worthless fellows in Gibeah, that we may put them to death and purge evil from Israel.” But the Benjaminites would not listen to the voice of their brothers, the people of Israel.
This is how sin should be - it should stick out like a sore thumb to all who see it. Sin should jump out at us as something seriously wrong with the way things ought to be. When we see sin, we should see it as a disruption of the natural way of things, an affront to God’s holiness, and a wicked attack on God’s image bearers.
This is how it should be, and this is how it often is for the objective observer who has seen the light, but this is unfortunately not how it always is.
Though the sins committed in Gibeah were obvious to the 11 tribes, the sin was not so obvious nor so heinous to the people of Benjamin.
Sin’s hardening effect blinds you
Sin’s hardening effect blinds you
When the messengers from the other tribes come into Benjamin handing down the judgement against their city Gibeah, Benjamin refuses to take responsibility, repent, or even admit wrongdoing.
Benjamin has been hardened by the effects of their sin and they were blind to the wickedness that lived so freely amongst them.
Again, any neutral observer can look at the events that took place and immediately see the vile wickedness in it. When you and I read the events that took place in Gibeah, we are rightly horrified by it.
But this is the effect sin has on us. Sin hardens our hearts, it causes us to become callous to its destructive nature, and it makes us blind to its evil. Before long we become confused and unable to clearly make judgments about things that would be obvious to a neutral observer.
ILLUSTRATE: For the Americans of the south in the 1800s, the question of slavery became clouded in their hardened hearts. What we see as obvious simply wasn’t for them. There was too much economic risk, too much at stake for them to lose, and at the end of the day they had become convinced in their hearts that the evils taking place weren’t all that evil.
Apply: Friends, that hardening effect of sin is in you as well. You might think it isn’t but thats kind of the point; you’re blind to it, you can’t see it. It’s rare for a person to know exactly how evil their actions are while they do them, our enemy is craftier than to let us see it so clearly.
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.
Sin has so hardened our hearts and minds that we have become blind to the depth of our sin and because we are blind, we don’t even always know where we are acting so wickedly.
But as a general rule, you can always expect the person to zealously defend the sin that they are hardened and blinded by.
Those hardened and blind to sin zealously defend it
Those hardened and blind to sin zealously defend it
Benjamin didn’t just refuse to repent or acknowledge the wickedness of their actions; they mustered an army to fight to protect it. Judges 20:15
And the people of Benjamin mustered out of their cities on that day 26,000 men who drew the sword, besides the inhabitants of Gibeah, who mustered 700 chosen men.
Of those 26,700 men who are ready to kill and die in war, how many of them do you think truly believed Gibeah was innocent and deserving of protection? Do you think clear thought had any place in their thinking? Were they able to see the situation objectively and clearly?
No, and we would be hard pressed to imagine that anyone would want to make an argument for why the men of Gibeah should be allowed to go without punishment for their actions. Who wants to take up the case of the men who violate every stranger that gets near them?
Here we have one of the twelve tribes ready to fight their brothers to defend the sin that they have grown so callous to. Though there is no logical thinking that could bring you to justify the actions of Gibeah, they are willing to fight zealously to defend it.
Apply: Romans 1:28-32
And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.
We do just the same. Though God’s word is as clear as can be on all matters of holiness and morality, we continue to make justifications and allowances for ourselves and others. In our hardened hearts, we take up arms and are willing to fight for the evil we understand so very little of.
And as we take up those arms to fight, we will find that we are hurting the ones we love and destroying ourselves.
Blindly defending sin hurts you and everyone you love
Blindly defending sin hurts you and everyone you love
It hurts those you love (40k dead of Israel)
It hurts those you love (40k dead of Israel)
When Benjamin insisted on defending the guilty men of Gibeah, the other 11 tribes came before the Lord and ask him who should go to battle first. The Lord responds as he does in other times of war and tells Judah to lead the charge against Benjamin. So the next morning they rise up early and do as the Lord says, and much to their horror, they are routed by Benjamin. In a single day, 22,000 of their people are killed in battle.
Following the battle, we read in verse 23
And the people of Israel went up and wept before the Lord until the evening. And they inquired of the Lord, “Shall we again draw near to fight against our brothers, the people of Benjamin?” And the Lord said, “Go up against them.”
You can feel the pain in their inquiring, “shall we go up against our brothers” . They are mourning the loss of 22,000 and to make matters worse, it’s in a war they are fighting with their kin, their brothers. Yet the Lord tells them to go up again, and so they do on the second day.
But the second day wasn’t any different. As Israel goes up again to fight with Benjamin, they lose another 18,000 of their people on the second day of this war. And just like the first day, they again spend the evening sitting in the presence of the Lord, weeping, sacrificing, and inquiring if they should go up one more time against their brothers.
The Lord tells them that they should, and that tomorrow things will be different.
Can you feel their pain? Can you see how to sin of Gibeah didn’t just affect the inhabitants of Gibeah? It didn’t just affect the Levite or his concubine, or the man who offered to house them that night, or his daughter, or even just the tribe of Benjamin, but the sin of the people of Gibeah, which Benjamin insists on defending, is now ravaging the entire nation of Israel.
Apply: This is the power of sin and evil. That famous line proves true once more, that “sin will also take you further than you wanted to go and cost you more than you wanted to spend.” When we sin in the hardness of our hearts, and when we insist on defending that sin in our lives, we may not realize it at the time, but the destructive effects of our sin will reach out and touch the lives of our brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, friends, and neighbors.
And then when it’s done ravaging them, sin will make its final claim: your life.
It hurts you (whole nation almost wiped out)
It hurts you (whole nation almost wiped out)
On the third day of Israel’s civil war, Benjamin begins with a minor victory that leads them to believe that they will once again slaughter their brothers. In their overconfidence, they overstep their abilities and fall into the hands of an ambush that Israel had set for them.
Of the 26,700 men of Benjamin that were fighting, 25,100 of them were killed in a single day before the remnant ran away and fled into the wilderness to live in secret for months. Almost every able-bodied man in the entire tribe are utterly destroyed.
Do you realize what that means? The men of Benjamin fought tooth, claw, and nail well past the point that the battle was lost. There had come a point in the fighting where the Eleven tribes had obviously won; but rather than admit defeat and stop fighting, Benjamin continued to fight and defend.
For what? To defend the sin of Gibeah.
the Eleven tribes claim victory in the war, if you can call it that. Benjamin is all but destroyed as a result of defending the sin that they had become so hardened to. They acted like Sodom and Gomorrah, and they were judged like Sodom and Gomorrah as the Eleven Tribes swept through Benjamin and set every village on fire.
Illustrate:
Apply: Once again, these are the terms of sin. After its done ravaging everything around you, it will strike its final killing blow against you. Though you may not be engaged in a civil war, there are many sins each of us harbor that have destructive effects.
Men can lust after women on a screen and wreak havoc on their marriage without even seeing the problem there.
Women can pass their time gossiping about the people they love, damaging their reputation and causing others to hate them, and not even see the problem with their actions.
Friends can lie to one another without feeling bad about it.
Children can constantly disobey their parents and make their lives so incredibly difficult, ultimately insulting God in the process, and be blind to the effects of their sin.
And ALL of this will harden the sinner, blinding them to its severity.
So then what are we to do? Are we doomed to hurt the ones we love until our sin finally exacts its final toll in us?
Praise be to God for his Son Jesus Christ, our Savior and Redeemer.
Christ Softens our hearts, calls us to repentance, and heals what is broken
Christ Softens our hearts, calls us to repentance, and heals what is broken
Christ softens our hearts
Christ softens our hearts
State: If the book of Judges makes one thing clear, its this: the hearts of humanity have grown incredibly hard because of sin.
One thing the gospel of Jesus Christ makes very clear is this: God has sent his Holy Spirit into our hearts by faith, giving us soft hearts that learn to hate sin and love God.
Apply: promised aspect of the new covenant
And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.
But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.
Jesus has causes us to hate sin and long to serve him. This is repentance in its purest form.
The word repentance, metanoia in Greek, the closest literal translation we could have for it is something like “change of mind.” The sense of the word is that a person has gone from loving and valuing one thing and has began to love and value something quite different. The foundation of repentance is something internal.
In other words, you can’t expect to see repentance in someone who hasn’t had a change of mind and heart. You can force behavioral changes to a certain extent, and that can sometimes be helpful, but it cannot guarantee repentance.
For example, the civil war was fought to force behavioral changes into our country. When the north won, it forced the abolition of slavery into our law, it eventually stopped people from owning slaves. That was a good behavioral modification, but it certainly didn’t stop the poison of racism from driving the behavior of certain individuals.
Even for race relations in our own nation, we have historically needed something beyond wars, protests, and legislation; we need Jesus.
Repentance is something that is out of our reach to bring somebody into, we can’t even bring our own selves into repentance. Repentance is something that is granted to us by God, and thankfully it is something that God has in fact granted us by his Holy Spirit.
As God effectually calls us into repentance and opens our eyes to the sin that has so ravaged us, we will not like what we see. The truth is a bitter medicine to those that have done evil.
But God doesn’t call us into repentance just so that we will weep over all the evil we have done. No, but God has provided for this need.
The gospel makes this clear as well: Jesus heals what has been broken in this world.
Christ heals what has been broken
Christ heals what has been broken
State: Just as Israel is in a desperate state of brokenness and in need of healing, so also is our world today. In our sin, we have done much damage to ourselves and to others. The gospel of Jesus Christ deals with this in three ways:
Jesus has paid our sin debt
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
2. God assures us that he can use evil to work good
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
3. God is bringing us to a new and eternal life on a new Earth that has not been stained by sin.
Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years.