Sermon Tone Analysis

Try Hard - Fail Hard

Vin pooped on Jono and Reba’s carpet.

Everywhere I went I kept finding more spots.

Scrub, walk to the next spot.

Now there are more spots.

What is happening?

What is the problem?

I am the problem.

I missed the very first piece of poop… with my eyes… but not with my foot.

So every I am going as I attempt to clean it up, I am making the problem worse.

I am the problem!

The more I run around, the faster I run around, the more I try, the worse I am making the problem!

Captain Try Hard!

I am just making it worse!

Doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result.

(The solution is to burn the shoe with fire!)

Making.

It.

Worse.

Recap

To punish the men of Gibeah for assaulting the Levite’s concubine, the tribes of Israel kill 25 companies (or 25,000) men of Benjamin.

After two failures, I think to punish all of Israel and bring them in appropriate humility before God, God gives them the victory.

This strongly implies that God is supportive of the action to punish the men of Gibeah and the Benjamites who defended their sin.

But then… as Israel (and human beings) are wont to do, they take it too far.

That… escalated quickly.

From the “men of Benjamin” now the all the people of Benjamin.

They carried out a tribal holocaust.

Where did God command that?

Oh… He didn’t.

In fact, the voice of the Lord is entirely absent in everything that follows.

As if, shockingly, the elders of the tribe didn’t learn their lesson about humbly seeking God’s will the last time!

With the blood up from the battle, the tribes of Israel carry out an almost total holocaust against the tribe of Benjamin.

Then, as if they are waking up from a nightmare, they look around and realize what they have done.

Ridiculous question.

Who did it?

How often do we blame God for the consequences of our own sin and stupid?

(You guys probably do that, I never do!)

And they are stuck because they made a stupid vow.

And, recall, their is provision in the law for repenting of a stupid vow.

The only thing locking them into their foolish vow is their foolish pride.

But they stick with it.

And they (conveniently) remember another foolish vow they made that could solve the problem.

For they are motivated by compassion (the only redeeming light in this story).

So they can solve their aggregious sin (killing all the Benjamites), compounded by their foolish (racist) vow (not to let any daughters marry Benjamites) by taking advantage of another foolish vow (to kill anyone who didn’t come to their vengeance party).

Are you hearing this?

Everyone here thinks they’re helping, they think they are “solving the problem.”

One sin leads to the holocaust of the tribe, leads to the destruction of an entire city on a flimsy premise in order to steal and force-marry (aka another form of rape) 400 virgins.

Oh no, we didn’t steal enough virgins!!!

What should we do?

Obviously find an opportunity to steal more women!

Remember the Feast God commanded virgins to come out and dance in the vineyards?

No, because He didn’t.

This is some kind of pagan version of (possibly) the Feast of Tabernacles.

The elders command the remaining men of Benjamin to go and kidnap these women, and the men of Shiloh should just be glad we didn’t kill them too.

And why were they in this situation?

You have heard it again and again… because Judges says it again and again.

But it going to say it one last time.

In summary.

The last verse in Judges.

For posterity: let’s read it together:

Sin begets sin

Sin begets sin begets sin.

And it only grows, it only escalates.

To summarize: we have the horrible, personal, brutal and ugly sin of Judges 19.

The parts of the concubine are sent around Israel to stir up outrage at this immorality… and it does.

Rape and murder leads to Civil War… which leads to tribal holocaust… which is “solved” by the destruction of a city and the kidnapping and rape of 600 more women.

Sin leads to more sin… and to solve that?

More sin!

Definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result.

They are Trying Hard.

It isn’t their fault.

They are responsible, certainly… but their thinkers are broken and so their thoughts are bad.

Their hearts are sinful and so their solutions are sinful.

Of course they are!

They are completely unable to solve their own situation… because they tools they have to “solve” it are themselves part of the problem.

Everyone doing what is right in their own eyes… leads to moral chaos and mutual destruction.

People hurting people.

Because your eyes and my eyes are clouded as to what is right.

My sinful nature damages my ability to see right… all I really see is what is “right” (or good) for me, and even that is shortsighted and temporary.

If there’s a fire you’re trying to douse, you can’t put it out from inside the house.

They are helpless to fix their own problem… they need help from outside.

They need rescue.

The solution to their problems is never going to come from within because all of their ideas, their minds, their hearts, their motivations and their actions… all are filled with the same sin they are trying to solve.

The Only Solution

The solution has to come from without.

And it isn’t “trying harder” or “doing better.”

Disaster and tragedy of this magnitude requires major change.

And this isn’t just the Israelites.

The same magnitude of tragedy and sin that plagued their society and each one of their lives plagues our society and each one of our lives.

Trying harder won’t cut it.

The solution is just as drastic as the problem.

The solution is starting over, radically and completely, with totally new selves, new minds, new hearts, new motivations, even new bodies.

New selves.

New natures.

Remade from without.

The solution is death and resurrection.

The Only Solution

How do we get free from sin?

We die in Christ.

It’s the only way.