Well, at least you're not a female. Paul, I have a question. In the first service this morning, did you, in the second service this morning, you had the women sing one verse and the men sing another verse. Did you do that in the first service? Because on the second verse this morning, I noticed that the instruments cut out and I was just wailing on the way up there. The sound of the congregation got real low and I thought, oh my goodness, am I supposed to be singing or not? Which one you were?
That is my question. You didn't make it real clear for a second, but we made it clear for a second. You sure did. And by the second hour I knew the answer. So in good shape. Alright, let's open our Bibles together to the book of Judges where we will finish our series in this book tonight. Somebody has said this is the sewer of the Bible. Have you read ahead? Have you read what these chapters are like? This is R-rated.
In fact, these are the kinds of chapters that critics of the Bible like to point to when they say, well you see the Bible has all this stuff just like movies do today and you Christians complain about the movies, the Bible has stuff like that and worse in it. Well, you're going to see tonight that there's some pretty ugly stuff in these three chapters. Verse chapter 19 is where we begin. There's a difference though, isn't there? You see the Bible gives us the truth. It gives us the facts.
Just like Friday always asks for it. Just the facts ma'am, just the facts. See the Bible gives us the facts. It doesn't try to stir up period interests by what it tells us. That's the difference. One of the differences between movies today and the Bible, between television today and the Bible. It is true the Bible gives us some pretty lurid facts about what happened to various peoples in various places.
But never does the Bible do that in order to stimulate us in our imagination and to delight in sin. But that is not the case with television and with movies. The very reason for delving into these things in those cases is to stimulate the imagination of people and to satisfy some sort of perverse interest. Tonight's text is tough, and it's going to be tough on some of us here. It says that it came about in those days when there was no king in Israel.
And so this is one of those phrases you remember that helps us know that the person who's writing this is writing much later than the events. And the person who's writing this is writing it during the time when there was a king and is pointed backward in time when there was no king in Israel and telling us about what happened.
Now we know from some of the other things that we'll touch on in the chapter, in these chapters that what happened in these three chapters, 19, 20, and 21, happened early on in the period of Judges. That long after Joshua had passed from the scene. And so it happened back in the 1300s, probably, 1300s B.C. when these things took place here.
Chapters 17 and 18, 19 through 21, tell us of the deplorable conditions in Israel in those days when there was a broad turning to idolatry and away from God, when the people were unfaithful. And so we see religious apostasy and gross immorality coming together. And really that happens, doesn't it, in every civilization that turns from God?
There's a turning from God and apostasy from him, and the result of that is that man's wickedness begins to bubble up and express itself and then it just takes over. And that, I think, is where our culture is today. It says that in those days there was a certain Levite staying in the remote part of the hill country of Ephraim. You remember that was north of Jerusalem, between Jerusalem and the Sea of Galilee.
There's a ridge of hills, high hills, small mountains, that stretch north from Jerusalem, and that's the hill country that is mentioned here. He took a concubine for himself from Bethlehem in Judah, Bethlehem being on the other side of Jerusalem. And we learn immediately here that there was in Israel practiced multiple wives. A concubine was a secondary wife, not the primary wife, but a secondary wife. Now does this mean that God approved it because it happened in Israel? No, it does not.
God did not approve it. But God recognizes that it happened. He tells us about it. And it's interesting that whenever there were multiple wives, there were concubines involved, always there was sorrow that came from that. Whether you talk about Abraham, or you talk about Jacob, or you talk about David or Solomon, they had always led the heartache and the tragedy personally and nationally for the people. But it says his concubine played the harlot against him. She was unfaithful.
And she went away from him to her father's house in Bethlehem in Judah and was there for months. And the husband of the wives went after her to speak tenderly to her in order to bring her back, taking with him a servant and a pair of donkeys. So she brought him into her father's house, and when the girl's father saw him, she was glad to meet him. And his father-in-law, the girl's father, detained him, and he remained with him three days. So they ate and drank and lodged there.
This is just a lot of hospitality, very customary among the Bedouin people, people of intents. And it came about that on the fourth day, they got up early in the morning, and he prepared to go. And the girl's father said to his son-in-law, sustain yourself with a piece of bread, and afterward you may go. So they sat down and ate and drank together. The girl's father said to the man, well, please be willing to spend the night. Let your heart be merry.
And the man arose to go, but his father now urged him, so he spent the night there again. On the fifth day he arose to go, early in the morning, the girl's father said, please sustain yourself, wait till afternoon. So both of them ate. And when the man arose to go to this concubine's service, father and other girl's father said to him, behold, now the day's drawing to a close, sun's going down, spend the night.
Lo, the day's coming to an end, spend the night here that your heart may be married into now, you may rise early for your journey so that you may go home. So what's taking place here is just customary hospitality, and you see in-laws inviting the son-in-law to stay a little longer. That's different than today, isn't it? But the man was not willing to spend the night, so he arose and departed and came to a place opposite Jebus. And to buy parenthesis, he says, that is Jerusalem.
This is the old name, before it was under the control of the Israelites, it was called Jebus. And there were with him, it says, a pair of sated donkeys, his concubine also was with him. And when they drew near Jebus, the day was almost gone. The servant said to his master, please come, let us turn aside into the city of the Jebusites and spend the night in it. The master said to him, we will not turn aside into the city of foreigners who are not the sons of Israel, we will go as far as Gibeah.
And he said to his servant, come, let us approach one of these places and we will spend the night in Gibeah or Ramah. Well, this is on north. Now we're traveling from Bethlehem through Jerusalem, Jebus as it was called then, and we're heading on north toward home. And the servant seeing the sun going down says, hey, we need to spend the night here, but the man did not wish to do that. He says, Levi did not wish to do that because this was a city of foreigners. He did not feel safe there.
He wanted to go to an Israelite city where he would feel safe. And we're about to see what a terrible mistake he made in doing that. And so they passed along, went their way, and the sun set on them near Gibeah, which belongs to Benjamin, that is the tribe of Benjamin. They turned aside there in order to enter Lodge in Gibeah. By the way, who came from Gibeah? Does anybody know who came from Gibeah in Benjamin later? Saul, that's exactly right. This is Saul's hometown.
And we're talking 300 years later when Saul would have come from here, but you'll see what happened to the city where his ancestors lived. They turned aside, went to Gibeah, entered, and they sat down in the open square of the city. Now this is Times Square, folks. I mean, I've not been to Times Square in New York City. God has been pleased to deliver me from that. But from what I understand about Times Square, this is just like Times Square.
Now typically, there was a square in a city, and it was the market area. And when there was someone who was traveling, they would wait there in the town square for someone in the city to open their home to them. That was the custom. And obviously, they didn't have hotels. And this man and his party stayed there in the square, but no one took them into his house to spend the night. That gives us a little insight into this city of Gibeah.
They have lacked the common courtesies of their own culture. They did not do what they should have done in caring for this stranger and his party. It says, Behold, an old man was coming out of the field from his work at evening. He was from the hill country of Ephraim, just like the Levites, as a matter of fact, and was staying in Gibeah. But the men of the place were Benjamites, so he didn't really fit in there. He was a sojourner there for temporary purposes.
He lifted up his eyes and saw this traveler and his party in the square of the city in the old man said, Where are you going? And where do you come from? And he said, We're passing from Bethlehem and Judah to the remote part of the hill country of Ephraim. I'm from there. I went to Bethlehem and Judah. But I'm now going to make my house, and no man will take me into his house. Yet there's both straw and fodder for our donkeys.
You see, customarily, the one who invited the party as a guest would care for his needs and for his animal's needs. That was part of the hospitality. But here the Levite is saying, Look, I've got food for my donkeys. I have bread and wine for my party. Really, we don't like anything except a roof over our heads. The old man said, Pace to you. Only let me take care of your needs. He refused to use the man's own provisions.
He said, I'll provide for you, but do not spend the night in the open square. Now, there's a reason for that, as we're about to see. And this is a yellow light that comes on here. Something is wrong in this city. I've already seen one yellow light. Here's a second one. So he took them into his house and gave the donkeys fodder, and they washed their feet and ate and drank. And now they were making merry, it says. By the way, we've seen that term now two or three times.
It simply is an idiomatic expression, meaning they were eating and drinking and talking. They were making merry. To hold the men of the city, certain worthless fellows, surrounded the house, pounding the door. This phrase, worthless fellows, or if you have King James, it may say sons of Belial. Do any of you have that? Sons of Belial. Literally, it means that these were people of no profit. They are worthless, as the New American says.
It is used elsewhere in the Old Testament, people who are involved in idolatry in Deuteronomy 13.13. They are called the sons of Belial, people who worship false gods, gods other than the true God. In 1 Samuel 2.12, it is used of the two sons of the high priest. They are called sons of Belial. They are worthless. They are no good because of their rebellion. The rebellion against the Lord, the rebellion against their father, and their immorality.
In 1 Samuel 1.16, it is used of those in drunkenness. Here, it is used of a population of people who are given to lewd, sensual behavior. In this particular case, homosexuality. It says, they spoke to the owner of the house, the old man, saying, bring out the man who came into your house, that we may have relations with him. What does this remind you of? Does this harken back to some other thing?
I write Sodom, and the angels who went down into Sodom to rescue Lot, and the perverse desires of the men of Sodom for those angels who appeared as normal human beings in that case. Here it is a similar situation. They're pounding on the doors of this house, wanting in. Do you know how frightening that would be? I can't imagine that.
Now, in a different way, but in a similarly frightening way, there was a church out in California last year that took a strong stand against the homosexuals in that city. On a particular night, the homosexuals surrounded that church as the congregation was trying to get in, spat upon the adults and children, calling them every kind of filthy, perverse name they could think of.
Beat on the doors and the walls of that church during the whole service, because they were having a speaker there from one of the pro-family coalitions. I should have gotten details together better for you, but some of you are shaking your heads. You know what I'm talking about. The people who were there talked about how terrified they were because of all of the noise. Here's a similar situation.
The man, the owner of the house, went out to them and said, No, my fellows, please do not act so wickedly. Since this man has come into my house, do not commit this act of folly. So he pleads with them to stop. But then he says, Here's my virgin daughter and his concubine. Please let me bring them out, that you may lavish them and do to them whatever you wish. But do not commit such an act of folly against this man. What do you think of that? That's pretty sick, isn't it?
It fit with the values of that day. I'm not saying they're godly values. I'm not saying they're right values, but they fit with the values of the pagan world of that day. And here's a Jew living in a city of Jews, Benjamites. And you can just see the moral situation in that city is absolutely rotten. No wonder this is called the Seer of the Bible. But the man would not listen to him. So the man seized his concubine and he brought her out to them.
And they raped her and abused her all night until morning. And they let her go at the approach of dawn. Where's God? Where's God here that he would allow something like this to happen? Well, I'll tell you where God is. God is on his throne in heaven. There's a great deal of injustice, a great deal of wrong that is done in our world that God allows. It doesn't mean that he's not in control. He is in control. It doesn't mean that God permits.
It doesn't mean that God loves what's happening, that God approves it, there's the word I'm looking for, because God doesn't approve it. But God sits upon his throne and he beholds the just and the unjust. And in the end, everyone will give account for their deeds. This is a terrible thing that happened, a terrible thing that God condemns. It says, As the day began to dawn, the woman came and fell down at the doorway of the man's house where her master was until full daylight.
When her master rose in the morning and opened the doors of the house and went out to go in his way, it says, Behold, his concubine was lying at the doorway of the house with her hands on the threshold. She was dead. Notice that he was just going to go in his way. What does it tell you about this Levite? Is he the kind of a man you would want your daughter to marry? He's a man who lacks a great deal of character. He may be a Jew and he may be a Levite, but he lacks character.
His concern was to go in his way and just happen to stumble into this body on the door threshold. He said, Get up and let's go, but there was no answer. He placed her on the donkey. The man arose and went to his home and he entered his house. I mean, this, you think, would have been bad. We're going worse. He took a knife and laid hold of his concubine and cut her in twelve pieces. The onion, bam, and sent her throughout the territory of Israel. You say, this is in the Bible?
Yes, it's in the Bible. That reminds you, it does not mean that God approves it. God is not holding this up in any sense of an example to follow, obviously. God is simply telling us exactly what took place. Sometimes we hear the horrors that take place in our world today and we say, was there ever time as bad as this? Yes, there was. There have been. And there was in Israel. And there was no king. And the people did that which was right in their own hearts. Moral relativism leads to this.
And it came about that all who saw it said, nothing like this has ever happened or been seen from the day when the sons of Israel came up from the land of Egypt to this day. Consider it, take counsel, and speak up. Now, why he did this was to send a message. This was such a heinous act on his part, such a repulsive thing that he did, that he knew that it would get some kind of response from the people of Israel. And it says, all the sons of Israel from Dan to Beersheba.
Have you ever heard that phrase before? From Dan to Beersheba? That is an expression that is sometimes used meaning from one extremity to the other, from one end to the other. Dan being to the farthest north in Israel, Beersheba being all the way to the south, so everybody in between too. So from Dan to Beersheba, including the land of Gilead, which is in the Transjordan to the east of the Jordan River, they came out and the congregation assembled as one man to the Lord at Nezpa.
Nezpa was located eight miles north of Jerusalem and was just a few miles from Gibeah. And the chiefs of all the people, even of all the tribes of Israel, took their stand in the assembly of the people of God. Four hundred thousand foot soldiers who drew the sword. There are some critics who say, this could not possibly be four hundred thousand people. They must have put an extra zero in here.
Well we believe that there is no reason to think that four hundred thousand is not the appropriate number. It is a lot of people. But you notice that Benjamin was able to muster an army of over twenty seven thousand. That was just one tribe. So you have the other eleven tribes, four hundred thousand is not too much. And Benjamin heard what was going on. The sons of Israel said, tell us, how did this wickedness take place? So the Levite goes back over the story.
He tells exactly what had happened. And he says in verse seven, behold all you sons of Israel, give your advice and counsel here. So what are we going to do about this? And all the people rose as one man. You will notice that phrase several times in the text here. It is the tremendous power of unity. The power of having a unified purpose. Whether it be a positive one or a negative one, unity is a powerful force.
And by the way, if I can say this in a sigh, that is the purpose of this strategic plan that we are going to be talking about over the upcoming weeks. By the end of May everyone will have a chance to look at that and to participate in it. It is to bring oneness of vision and understanding of what we are about as a church. It is very powerful to have unity. And that was taking place here, although the way they got it was extremely vile.
And they said not one of us will go to his tent, nor will any of us return to his house. But now this is the thing which we will do to Gibeah. We will go up against it by lot. In other words, we are going to cast lots so he would go in order and so on. And the plan was to take one-tenth of all the people who would supply food for this army that was being gathered together, which would go up against Gibeah of Benjamin because of the disgraceful acts that they committed.
So the men of Israel were gathered against the city, united as one man. And the tribes of Israel sent men throughout the entire tribe of Benjamin saying, what is this wickedness that has taken place among you? Now then deliver up the men, the sons of Belial in Gibeah, that we may put them to death in and remove this wickedness from Israel. But the sons of Benjamin would not listen to the voice of their brothers, the sons of Israel. Is that some odd deal?
Wouldn't it seem reasonable that they would give up the people who committed this heinous crime and spare themselves from the war? What do you think is about them that causes them to say, forget it? Any ideas? Maybe they shared some of the same character flaws. What did you say? They're involved with them? A sense of tribal unity? Maybe that's a part of it too. Hey, we're Benjamats, we're going to stick together? Well, they will refuse to do it.
The sons of Benjamin gathered from the cities to Gibeah to go out to battle against the sons of Israel. So here we have the tribes of Israel fighting each other. There's a civil war breaking out over this terrible situation. And from the cities on that day, the sons of Benjamin numbered 26,000 men to draw the sword besides the inhabitants of Gibeah who were numbered 700 choice men. Out of all these people, 700 choice men were left handed. Each one could sling a stone at a hare and not miss.
Do you know how powerful a stone is from a sling? Have you ever seen that demonstrated? How much force is gathered when you whip a solid stone around and release it? It can literally break into the skull of a person and explode the brain. It's interesting to me, it says they were left handed. Is that discrimination or what? I mean, why does he say left handed, you think? Any ideas about it?
Okay. The thought has come to my mind that perhaps the normal thing would be to hold your sword in your right hand and what in your left hand? Your shield, okay? So you've got this opposing soldier who's got his sword here and his shield here. Obviously the shield is going to be tending to shield this part of his body. He's going to be looking around the shield this way to fight. So if a guy on the other side uses his left hand to throw a stone, the shield is here, the stone's coming this way.
See, that's the point I think, that these men were going to be especially effective because right handed warriors with shields would be vulnerable to left handed sling throwers. Watch out for left handed sling throwers. The men of Israel, besides Benjamin numbered 400,000 who draw the sword, all these were men of war.
And it says the sons of Israel rose and went up to Bethel, that's a city not college, and inquired of God and said, who shall go up first for us to battle against the sons of Benjamin? The name Bethel means house of God, yet it is a city that's very ancient in Israel, goes all the way back to the days of Abraham. So it's been there for hundreds of years. And apparently the tabernacle, which was originally placed in Sharlo, was at Bethel at this point.
There's some indication that the tabernacle was moved back and forth. And the reason of course that we go to the tabernacle is because there's where the priests would be and the priest, the high priest would have the yom and tungum, a means by which the will of God might be known. A little mysterious as to what the yom and tungum were, perhaps a couple of stones within a pocket or a box and whichever stone was drawn out, it gave a yes or no answer.
But by some means God devised the yom and tungum to be the way for his people to know his will. And so they went up and they asked this question, who shall go up first to the battle? And the Lord said, Judah will go first. So the sons of Israel rose in the morning and camped against Gibeah. The men of Israel went out to battle against Benjamin. The men of Israel arrayed for battle against them at Gibeah. And the sons of Benjamin came out and they killed 22,000 men of Israel.
Now, did you get that? 22,000. Only people died in the Vietnam War. 50 plus thousand people, soldiers on the American side, were killed in Vietnam. So here in one day you've got nearly half that number slain. I mean, this is a carnage. But the people, the men of Israel encouraged themselves and arrayed for battle again in the place where they had arrayed themselves the first day.
And the sons of Israel went up and wept before the Lord until evening and inquired of the Lord, saying, Shall we again draw near for battle against the sons of Benjamin? And the Lord said, Go up. Go up. And so they did. And that day 18,000 men were killed. What's going on here? God said, Send Judah first. God said, Go up. And now a total of 40,000 of them have been killed. Is God playing a joke on his people? What do you think God is doing here?
Do you have any ideas as to why God is telling them to go up? He's really judging the whole nation here in a way. And he's causing even the other tribes of Israel, especially they at this point, to reevaluate themselves spiritually. God allows things sometimes to come into our lives that are very painful so that we as a result of that may seek him. Now these people did go, but it suggests at least that they went up perfunctorily. They just went up.
And God wanted more than just outward external seeking of him. He allowed tremendous defeat and it says, Now that they went up and they wept again, and they offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the Lord. So they offered this time. And the sons of Israel inquired of the Lord, it says here, the ark of the covenant was there in those days. And Phineas, the son of Elias or Aaron's son, stood before to minister in those days.
Now notice that parenthesis because that's where we're able to somewhat time date this book. Phineas, as it says here, is Aaron's grandson. Aaron was the brother of Moses. He is still alive. Phineas is still alive. And so it tells us that this is early in the period of judges in the 1300s undoubtedly. And they say, Shall I yet again go to battle against the sons of my brother Benjamin or shall I cease? The Lord said, Go up for tomorrow I will deliver them into your hand.
So now God gives them a specific promise and they did that. They went up against the sons of Benjamin this third time and arrayed themselves as at other times. And the sons of Benjamin went out against the people and they were drawn away from the city and they began to strike and kill some of the people as at other times in the highways on which one goes up to Bethel and the other to Gibeah and in the field about 30 men of Israel. So about 30 men were killed just pretty quickly in the battle.
And what we would learn is we would look at this more closely down through verse 46 because up through verse 36 we have kind of a snapshot of the battle and then up through verse 46 then there is more detail about what happened. And basically what happened was that they planned an ambush and they drew out the men of Gibeah. They fell back. 30 of them were killed and doing that the men of the soldiers in Gibeah felt, Hey, we are just like the other two days. So carelessly they left the city.
They were drawn away from the city but there was an ambush set and soldiers from Israel closed in behind them and entered into the city of Gibeah and they burned it.
And as the smoke was going up from the city the soldiers in Israel who had fallen back pointed to the city and the soldiers had been drawn out from Gibeah turned around to look and suddenly they saw they had been hit and they panicked and the result of that was tremendous destruction for them and it says that there were 25,000 of them who fell that day. Only 600 of them who remained. Now you start adding up the figures here. We have got about 1,000 men unaccounted for.
These are not MIAs actually. These 1,000 men were probably killed. These are 1,000 men of Gibeah. They were probably killed, these Benjamites were probably killed the first two days just not mentioned in the text. So while there were 40,000 Israelites being killed there were at least 1,000 of the Benjamites killed in those battles. So when you come down to it, it all comes out. It says in verse 47 there were 600 men who turned and fled toward the wilderness of the Rock of Women.
That's four miles east of Bethel. So we're not talking about a big geographical area here. This is all within five, six, eight miles. They remained in the Rock of Women for four months. The Rock of Women was a cone and so they were able to get up on top of that and to protect themselves and they were there for four months. The men of Israel then turned back against the sons of Benjamin. They struck them with the edge of the sword. They set the city on fire.
They killed and plundered and that brings us to chapter 21. And it says, now we're going to see something really strange in this chapter and I don't launch you single men here to get any ideas in what we're going to read about. The men of Israel had sworn in Mizpah saying, none of us shall give his daughter to Benjamin in marriage.
In other words, part of their covenant as one man earlier was, we will not give any of our daughters to the Benjamites to marry because they are such worthless people. They made that oath among themselves. They swore that. So the people came to Bethel and they sat there before God until evening. Now these are the Israelites who won and they lifted up their voices and wept, early. There really wasn't a celebration on their part.
They were weeping and they said, why, oh Lord, God of Israel has this come about in Israel so that one tribe should be missing today in Israel? Have you ever heard people get into trouble and turn and say, God, why did you do this? I think that's a bit what you have here, the part of these people. I mean, this mess was because of their own sin, the sin of the people. Now they turn and say, God, why? But their concern was genuine and it was that one whole tribe of Israel was about to be extinct.
There were only 600 men left and there were no women to marry among the Benjamites. They were dead. 600 men were left with Benjamites and the people of Israel had sworn they would not give their daughters to marry them. So that meant when those 600 died, that was it for the tribe of Benjamin. And yet there were promises that God had made to Benjamin, to the tribe of Benjamin. And so they're alarmed by this, that one of their own tribes is about to go extinct and they began to think on that.
And it came about the next day that the people rose early and built an altar there and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. Then the sons of Israel said, who is there among all the tribes of Israel who did not come up in the assembly to the Lord? So they're thinking back. They're going to go back and take account now, who was it that came up to fight this battle with us?
And they take account of that when they had taken that oath and they realized that, and they had taken oath that said, anyone who doesn't come up, who's not represented here, is going to be put to death. And the sons of Israel were sorry for their brother Benjamin. One tribe was cut off from Israel. What shall we do, they say, for wives? And they said, who is there among the tribes of Israel that did not come up to the Lord of Mespah?
Verse 8, and behold, no one had come to the camp from Jabesh-Gilead to the assembly. That was a city on the other side of the Jordan River and no one had come from there to join in the battle. And when the people were numbered, behold, not one of the inhabitants of Jabesh-Gilead was there, and the congregation sent 12,000 of the valiant warriors there and commanded them saying, Go and strike the inhabitants of Jabesh-Gilead with the edge of the sword, with the women and the little ones.
And this is the thing that you shall do. You shall utterly destroy every man and every woman who has land with a man. And they found among the inhabitants of Jabesh-Gilead 400 young virgins who had not yet known a man by lying with him, and they brought them to the camp at Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan. Isn't that pretty disgusting? But that's what they decided they would do. And they did it. And the people of Jabesh-Gilead paid with their lives.
And so they had 400 wives now for the 600 men, gained at a horrible price. And the whole congregation sent word and spoke to the sons of Benjamin who were up there on the rock, and they made peace. And Benjamin returned and they gave them the women they had kept alive from Jabesh-Gilead. But they weren't enough of them. There's 200 men without wives. And the people were sorry for Benjamin because the Lord had made a breach in the tribes of Israel.
And then the elders of the congregation said, What shall we do for wives for those who are left? And they said, There must be inheritance for the survivors of Benjamin, that a child may not be brought about, but we cannot give them wives or our daughters. For the sons of Israelites were saying, Christ is he who gives a wife to Benjamin. See, they keep bringing this up. They're trying to get around this oath they had made. Well, we need to be careful, don't we?
They're trying to find a way to get around this vow, this solemn oath that they had made. So they said, Behold, there's a feast of the Lord from year to year in Shalom. That's where the tabernacle was. Unclear which feast they're talking about. Here could have been the Passover or the Day of Atonement, and most likely the latter. He says, Which is the north side of Bethel on the east side of the highway that goes up from Bethel to Shechem and the south side of Lebanon?
Sounds like my grandfather, how he used to give directions. You know, you go up here past the Smith Place and take a ride, and you can't see what I'm saying. Whoever wrote this knew well the territory.
And they commanded the sons of Benjamin, saying, Go and lie and wait in the vineyards and watch, and behold, if the daughters of Shalom come out to take part in the dances, then you shall come out of the vineyards and each of you shall catch his wife and the daughters of Shalom and go to the land of Benjamin. So this is how they're going to make up the deficit in lives. That's why I'm saying to you single men who are here, watch out. Don't do this. This is not an example for you.
And it came about when their fathers or their brothers come to complain to us that we shall say to them, give them to us voluntarily, because we did not take for each man of Benjamin a wife in battle, nor did you give them to them, or else you would now be guilty. In other words, they're saying, we can't give them, but they can take them. They can steal them. So that's what they decided to do. That's how they got around it.
And the sons of Benjamin did so and took wives according to their number, from those who danced to whom they carried away. And they went and returned to their inheritance and rebuilt the cities and lived in them. And the sons of Israel departed from there at that time. Every man to his tribe and family and each of them went out from there to his inheritance. And so this very ugly episode in Israel's history comes to a close.
And as I say, Saul was born out of one of these arranged marriages here, because it came from Gibeah 300 years later. Is it any wonder then that the writer of the book closes again by saying, in those days there was no king in Israel? Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. And I say, how in the world can a civilization, especially people who have had the knowledge of God, who've had the writings of Moses, how in the world can these people end up in such a mess like this?
And I'll answer the question by saying the same way that the United States is doing it today. Exactly the same way. Everyone doing what is right in his own eyes. What's right for you is right for you, what's right for me is right for me. It is moral relativism and it is tearing the heart out of our nation and you wonder why there's violence in our country, you wonder why there's immorality, you don't, but people do. Well, we need to educate more.
We need to pay higher taxes so we can improve the living situations of people. None of that is the problem and they refuse to see what the real problem is. It's a moral problem. It is a moral problem. And our country would be far better off to allow the Ten Commandments to be taught in the public schools of this country again than to raise the taxes under the dime. I mean it's free. They don't have to pay anything to teach morality in our schools and in our homes.
But we refuse to do that and I tell you something, we're going to end up the same place the judges did and we're going to be under the judgment, indeed I believe we are under the judgment of God. It's only beginning, it can get a lot worse if our country doesn't repent. I pray it will. I pray it will. Well, I wish we could conclude judges on a happy note and they all went out and lived happily ever afterward but they went out but they didn't live happily ever afterward.
They still had some terrible things to learn. But you know what God says to us in the New Testament, all of these things are written for our example so that we can learn by them. So let's avoid the mistakes that the people of Israel made in their religious apostasy and turning away from God and turning away from morality and right and wrong based upon the absolutes of the Word of God.
Let's learn by watching their example and determine in our hearts that we will live differently and obediently to God. And everybody will love us if we do that. Right? Well, that's another story isn't it? Jesus said the world will hate you because of that. They will be hostile toward you but we are called to be faithful, not to be happy. Happiness comes later when we are with Jesus. That's where there is fullness of joy for evermore. But in this world we will have tribulations and trials.
We are destined for these things, as Paul told the Thessalonians. That's part of our lot that we should rejoice that we are counted worthy to suffer shame for the name of Jesus Christ. So let's not think it's strange when fiery trials come to us as though something unusual happened. This is our lot in the world to suffer in the place of Jesus Christ. What a privilege that is. What a privilege it is to suffer for Jesus in the world.
And like him we commit our souls to him who is a faithful creator and anticipate the day of his victory. Let's pray together. Father, we live in a time that is so much like this period in the book of Judges that it is frightening. But we learn a lot from it. In the midst of the moral decay, the apostate... Father, we live in a time that is so much like this period in the book of Judges that it is frightening.
Father, we live in a time that is so much like this period in the book of Judges that you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you