Judges 19:1-30
Consider…Take Advice
Moral Anarchy
Review: Final Phase: Anarchy…the progression from apathy, to apostasy, to anarchy
No king in Israel…and every man did that which is right in his own eyes.
The Emptiness of False Religion
Micah…a Jew…in name only…man-made gods, man-made worship, man-made priest
Levite…a hireling…an imposter… probably not a Levite at all…1Kings 12:31-32
No authority…unbridled liberty
Our text today is the most disgusting and degrading passage in the Scripture.
v.1a The Breakdown of the church
No spiritual standards
When God goes away…anything and everything goes.
v.1-9 The Breakdown of the family
No moral standards
The Levite takes a concubine (v.1) to wife (v.3/4)…a violation of God’s standard…Gen 2:24
Concubine a second-class wife…mistress, common law, significant other, baby mom etc.
The Levite unfaithful to his wife….1Cor 5:15-20
The concubine play the whore…
The concubine unfaithful to the Levite.
v.10-15 The Breakdown of the family of God
No hospitality
Choose not to stay with the Gentiles/the lost…Jebusites
Choosing rather to journey to what he thought were God’s people…they were really sons of Belial…as were Eli’s sons…1Sam 2:12 Lost men…Jew’s in name only.
When God’s people depart from the truth (apostasy) , they often sink lower than the lost world around them…Rom 1:26-32, 2Tim 3:1-5
The old man, an Ephraimite…took them in.
v.22-26 The Breakdown of society
No fear of God…defenders of every form of evil in the name of liberty…and human freedom, choice
The Gibeonites of Benjamin…were the new Sodomites…Gen 19:1-3
The zenith of moral corruption…despicable …violent…gross immorality
The perverted unnatural lusts against men…homosexuality
Deut 23:17 There shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel, nor a sodomite of the sons of Israel.
Both were capital offenses. Deut 22:21…Lev 18:22 abomination, Lev 20:13
The violence and abuse against women…gang rape…Deut 22:25-26
The total disregard for the safety of the one he professed to love, when his own life threatened.
Loveless marriages…sacrificed to the mob to save his own skin.
Without natural affection…without conscience.
The view she was property, not a person…v.26 …expendable.
The dismemberment of the corpse…we dismember 300,000 babies a year.
The incitement to genocide.
v.27-30 The Breakdown of outrage
Desensitized…the tribes were surprised…shocked…sickened…outraged…