Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - I Surrender All... But... | Historical Books | Judges 19:1-21

Episode Date: March 20, 2025

If God came to you in a vision, commanding you to give up everything for him, would you do it? You might assume you would, but are you sure? Or are there parts of your life you'd still want to hold back from God? In today's episode, Patrick shares how Judges 19:1-21 encourages us to surrender everything to King Jesus. If you're listening on Spotify, comment below one takeaway from today's episode! Read the Bible with us in 2025! This year, we’re exploring the Historical Books—Joshua, Judges, 1 & 2 Samuel, and 1 & 2 Kings. Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Judges 19:1-21

Welcome to 10-minute Bible talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Patrick Miller. Imagine God came to you in a vision or a dream, and he said this, I want you to surrender everything to me. How does that prospect make you feel? What would you say? Perhaps your first response is that if I saw God face to face, I'd say yes, take everything, absolutely. But I'm not so sure you would. Or at least I'm not so sure I would. because the truth is that God asks us every day to surrender everything to him. And how we answer in the everyday is inevitably how we'd answer face to face.

And if anything like me, here's my honest answer on an everyday basis. Yes, Lord, I surrender everything to you, but. And you can fill in the blank. Yes, Lord, I surrender everything to you, but my comfort, but my bank account. but my diet, but my sexuality, but my words, but my work, but my nightly entertainment, but my schedule, but my whatever it is for you. And I'm asking you this question, how would you answer God if you saw him face to face? Well, I'm asking that because the world is more porous than you think. People really do encounter angels and demons, visions, and dreams, miracles, and healings. We

often assume that if we experienced something like that, we'd be changed forever. But that's not true. The crowds that witnessed Jesus' miracles also shouted crucify him. Some of the people he healed also rejected him. Some of the people who saw his miracles and followed him as a disciple. They betrayed him to the religious leaders. In one terrifying story, Jesus comes to a coastal town and he ends up casting 1,000 demons out of a man. And this man was tormented by the demons. And as a result of them, he had some sort of superhuman strength. He was tormenting people in the countryside.

And Jesus cast out these 1,000 demons. After that, the people from the nearby city come out to see Jesus and visit him. And what do they do? Do they say, Jesus, thank you so much. We surrender everything to you now that we see your power. No, they ask him to leave. at once. And this is true to this day. If you pay attention, you'll realize that people in the Christian and secular world are often sometimes encountering miracles and visions, things that they

cannot explain. For example, I think of one man who spent his entire life with poor eyesight, but after an encounter with a divine, and this guy's not a Christian, but he had some bizarre encounter, he gained his eyesight back. And again, it should be said, this man, he's a well-known, well-trusted journalist. He can't explain what happened to him. And people corroborated the fact that he did have poor eyesight before this event happened. But when he had this encounter with God and it beckoned him to come back to God, the man said that he rejected the voice despite the healing. He said, I can't explain the healing, but I don't believe that the voice is true, that the calling is worth heeding. Why? Well, it's because the voice bid him to come and die. It bid him to come and take up his cross. It bid him to come and

surrender everything to Jesus, and he didn't want to do it. Despite the encounter, he couldn't do it. So what about you? I have no doubt that you've encountered God in some way in your life. Perhaps it was just a feeling or a sense of his presence. Perhaps it was a overwhelming wave of emotion. Perhaps it was in words that a human spoke to you, and yet you knew somehow that those words were more than human. They were divine. Or perhaps you've encountered God. in more extraordinary ways. And the question is, have you obeyed the vision? Have you heeded the encounter?

Have you responded to the call? Because here's the catch with God's question. Will you surrender everything? It's an all or nothing question. You either surrender all or surrender nothing. There is no holding back from God. Because if you hold back one part of your life, that part of your life will become a foothold for the devil,

a staging ground to take over the rest of your existence. You either cede the whole nation of yourself to God, or you seed it to the devil. As I read the book of judges, I can't escape the sense that the author wants us to see that the people of Israel will they're characterized by half-hearted surrender. They give part of their lives to God, but not this, but not that. You can imagine them saying, yes, Lord, I surrender everything, But. And Judges 19 is a horrific example of what happens when we do this. Today we'll cover the first half of the chapter, which, to be honest with you, is far less

gruesome and disturbing than the second half, but I am giving you that content warning ahead of time. This is a dark disturbing story. But that's part of the point. When we say everything but to God, we're always setting ourselves up for a worst second half. The shoe always drops with sin and the devil. If you say to God, I will surrender everything but, for a moment it might be good, but it comes back to get you. Let's pick up in verse 1 of chapter 19. In those days, when there was no king in Israel, a certain Levite was sojourning in the remote parts of the hill country of Ephraim, who took to himself a concubine from Bethlehem and Judah, and his concubine was unfaithful to him, and she went away from him to her father's house at Bethlehem and Judah, and was there for four months.

Then her husband arose and went after her to speak kindly to her and bring her back. So do you see how this story is showing us people who want to surrender everything but? Here we have a priest, and he's a Levi. This is someone who's called to embody the holiness of the law to the utmost degree. But when we meet him, he's actually doing the opposite. He's traipsing around with a concubine. I know that's kind of a strange word for us today, but a concubine was a woman. who was not a man's wife, but was instead a servant with whom he had sexual relations.

And the law that God gave the Israelites does not condone having concubines. Instead, it makes it clear that sex should exist only inside of marriage. That's why there's only one other concubine mentioned in Israel after the Exodus, after Israel's given the law. But here we are encountering a priest who's reintroducing this evil old practice. We can imagine him saying to God, yes Lord, I surrender everything, but my sexuality, but my sexual satisfaction. Worse yet, even though the story calls this woman unfaithful, and that doesn't mean that she

committed adultery, it seems like what it's implying is that she was unfaithful because she abandoned him, she left him behind, she broke her commitment to him. But the story actually eventually implies that part of the reason she ran away was that because he was abusive to her. And this becomes clear later in the story when he quite literally gets, gives her away to other men to be abused and then quite literally cuts her up into pieces. But here it's only implied. It's implied when it says that he went to her and spoke to her kindly. When you hear that, that he goes back and he speaks to her kindly, you can almost get the creeps.

This is an abusive man continuing the cycle of abuse. He hurt her and now he's going back and saying, oh, I'm sorry and he's being so sweet and he's trying to win her back. And this actually gets highlighted by the fact that the woman's father doesn't want the man to leave with her. It's almost as though he's trying to keep the Levite around his house. Don't take his daughter away because he knows that while the Levite has the right to take his daughter away, he doesn't want him to do it because he knows that if he does it, his daughter will get hurt. And so you can imagine the Levite here. Yes, Lord, I surrender everything but my words, but my hands, but my pride, but

my anger. Finally, the Levite ends up leaving with the woman from her father's houses after days of her father trying to keep her around. And as they're leaving, they end up avoiding the city of Jerusalem because at the time it's inhabited by non-Israelites. And instead, they stop in Gabia, Israelite city. But no one takes them in. Now, it's important to note that this would have been a tremendous insults in the hospitality culture of the ancient world. It would have been as though the city was saying, yes, Lord, I surrender everything to you, but my home, but my resources. Finally, Knight sets in and the man and his concubine are still sitting in the town square. No one's invited them in.

And finally, an old man shows up. He finds them and he does the right thing. He invites them into his house. And tomorrow we'll learn the terrible story of what happens next. But today, I want us to stay focused on the main thing. God is asking you, just like he asks the Levite, just like he asks the people of Gabia, he's asking you to surrender everything to him. How do we answer?

Yes, Lord, I'll surrender everything. But what's the thing that you're holding back? because that thing, it will grow. It will become a stronghold for the devil. It will be the means by which he conquers you. And that's why this isn't an all or nothing offer. We either surrendered the whole of life to God or in reality we end up surrendering none of it.

Do you know why God is asking you to surrender to him? It's because he's a good king. And it's because he wants to do good in your life. But he can't do that good if you won't give your life to him. In verse one of Judges 19, the author reminds us that, quote, in those days there was no king in Israel. And I think the author wants us to respond, well, wait a second, there was a king.

What about God? Isn't he supposed to be the king of Israel? And the biblical answer is, yes, he is. But in the story, we see that the Levite lived, like there was no king except for himself. Because when given the choice to surrender his life to God or not, he ultimately said, God, I won't give you at all.

So no things. So what about you? Will you surrender everything? or nothing? Those are the only two choices. What are you holding back? What do you need to give to King Jesus? Remember that he is gracious, he is forgiving, he is loving, and he is good. The real question for you is this. Do you trust that what he has for you, if you surrender everything to him, then it's better than what you want for yourself, if you hold it back? You see, when we give in the disobedience, we don't surrender our whole lives to God, the disobedience makes promises to us

And we think that the things that it's promising are far better than what Jesus offers us in obedience. But that is a lie. He wants so much better for you than what sin wants for you. So today, answer his question, will you surrender everything to me? Say yes, Lord, I want to be obedient. I want to give everything to you. So surrender to him. Surrender at all.