Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - When We Become Like the World | Judges | Judges 19

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. I'm Tanya Wilmuth. And I'm Patrick Miller. Right now, we're going through the Book of Judges. If you haven't subscribed to our new podcast, Truth Over Tribe, I'd encourage you to take some time and go do that right now. We've got interviews about culture, politics, and the things you really care about with people like John Mark Comer, John Tyson, Oz Guinness, and many, many others. It's going to be a great podcast.

Starting point is 00:00:33 I've been excited about the interviews and the topics that we've taken on. So stop right now. Go subscribe to Truth Over Tribe on your podcast player. Welcome to the darkest, worst, most nauseating story in the entire book of judges. It's the story of the Levi in his concubine. And I just want to give you a warning. This is a story that involves murder and rape. And so if that's in your history or past, you might want to turn this off.

Starting point is 00:01:01 The reality is that this is a story that will, make you sick, and then it will make your blood boil because it's so wrong. It's so unjust. The story actually recalls Genesis 19, and that's when God brings his justice against Sodom and Gamora. He does this because of their own injustice, their own wickedness. In Genesis 19, there's three angelic figures who visit the two cities, Sodom and Gomorrah, to see if the cries of the poor and the hurting are hurting, you see, God's been hearing all these poor and hurting people saying they are oppressing us, they're harming us, they're harming us, they're hurting us, they're hurting us. And so he sent out messengers to go check things out. And as it turns out, the cries are

Starting point is 00:01:38 true. And this ends up getting illustrated in terrible fashion. When the angels arrive, no one welcomes them in. They're all ignored. And so ultimately, a foreigner, someone who isn't a citizen of Sodom or Gomorrah, a guy named Lot, he ends up taking the angels in. And as soon as he does, the men of the town start trying to break down the door so that they can rape and murder lots of visitors. Lots begging them to stop, but the people refuse, and so the angels strike them all with blindness. They help Lot's family to escape, and then both cities are burned to the ground by a rain of fire. Sodom, it ends up becoming a biblical symbol for what happens when the world isn't the way it's supposed to be? What happens when we worship our idols?

Starting point is 00:02:22 When we give into those idols' demands to enact injustice, to vandalize God's shalom. God called Israel to be a light in that darkness. to reflect God's love, his goodness, mercy to a lost world so that that lost world would see him and so that that lost world would be magnetized to him. But the entire book of Judges shows how completely Israel fails in this mission. Judges 19, it's the capstone of the entire book because in this story, Israel becomes exactly like the world. In fact, Israel becomes like the worst part of the world. Israel becomes just like Sodom.

Starting point is 00:03:02 Rather than being a light to an unjust hurting broken world, Israel becomes a reflection of it. In this story, there's a Levite. And as a Levite, he should be leading the worship of Yahweh. Instead, he's leading around a concubine. A concubine was essentially a sex slave, a woman who didn't have the status of a wife, and she would serve a man's household and also sleep with him whenever he requested it. It's awful, but it's about to get worse. On a multi-day journey home, the sun begins to set, and then we read this story, Judges 1911.

Starting point is 00:03:34 When they were near Jeebus and the day was almost gone, the servant said to his master, come, let's stop at the city of the Jebusites and spend the night. His master, this is the Levite, he replied, no, we won't go into any city whose people are not Israelites. We will go on to Gabia. So let's pause for a second, just to make sure we aren't getting lost in cities and details. the Levite in his concubine, they need to find a place to sleep for the night. And the Levite servant, he suggests, let's go stay in Jibis. But Jibis is a city full of non-Israelites. And so the

Starting point is 00:04:07 Levite, understandably rejects this offer. He says, why would we stay with Canaanites when we could go stay with our own people, the Israelites of Ghibia? And so they end up going on. They go to the city of Ghibia. But when they get there, no one takes them in. The sun ends up setting. And finally, an Israelite who wasn't a citizen of Gabia offers them a place in his house. And then this is what happens. Verse 22, while they were enjoying themselves, some of the wicked men of the city surrounded the house. Pounding on the door, they shouted to the old man who owned the house. Bring out the man who came to your house so that we can have sex with him.

Starting point is 00:04:45 The old man ends up responding. It says, no, don't do this. This is wicked. This is awful. But we pick up in verse 25. but the men would not listen to him. And so the Levite took his concubine and sent her outside to them, and they raped her and abused her throughout the night,

Starting point is 00:05:02 and at dawn they let her go. At daybreak, the woman went back to the house where her master was staying, fell down at the door, and lay there until daylight. When her master got up in the morning and opened up the door of the house and stepped out to continue on his way, there lay his concubine, fallen in the doorway of the house, with her hands on the threshold. and he said to her, get up, let's go. But there is no answer. Then the man put her on his donkey

Starting point is 00:05:28 and set out for home. When he reached home, he took out a knife and cut up his concubine, limb by limb into 12 parts and sent them to all the areas of Israel. Everyone who saw it was saying to one another, such a thing has never been seen or done, not since the day the Israelites came up out of Egypt. Just imagine we must do something, so speak up. I hate reading this passage. From top to bottom, it is terrible. The way the men of the city rape and kill the concubine, the way the Levite sacrifices her in his own place. He shows no courage, no goodness. The way that he treats her like property when he walks outside and he finds her. It's not even clear whether or not she's dead, but he just treats her like property, throws her on top of his donkey. And then when he gets home,

Starting point is 00:06:14 he uses the very skills he developed as a priest, as someone who had to cut apart and sacrifice animals. He uses those same skills to dismember her. Israel has become totally degraded. It's exactly like Sodom. In fact, it's worse than Sodom. They aren't alight to the world. They're a reflection of its worst parts. And it says something, I think, that the way that the author of judges proves his point that Israel has been totally degraded. He does this by focusing on how men treat women. And that really matters. Because in the patriarchal world of the Near East, women were treated as property. But the author of this story shows that this concubine, she is no one's property. She is an image bearer of the living God. And so he's showing that the apex of Israel's evil, of their idolatry, of their injustice,

Starting point is 00:07:04 it's not an offense against a man. It's an awful offense against a beloved daughter of God. What's the point here? The point is that when God's people become like the world, It is far, far, far, far, far worse than when the world acts like the world. We shouldn't be surprised when the world acts unjustly. That's them. But what about us? We should be surprised when it becomes us. So surprised that we fall down on our knees and repent, that we seek to right the wrongs we've done, to pay the penalty for those wrongs and cast ourselves on God's mercy.

Starting point is 00:07:40 How have you become like the world? Have you bought into the world's destructive and abusive sexual ethic? Have you worshipped something God created over God himself? Have you become violent with your words or your deeds or your actions? We are called to be lights to the world. Jesus came as king to make us into a light to the world. But we can never forget that the temptation to become like Sodom never leaves us behind. We can descend into the depth.

Starting point is 00:08:13 of depravity, if you're on that slide right now, it's time to repent, to seek forgiveness, to write wrongs. If you're leading an organization that's on that slide right now, it's time to repent, to seek forgiveness, to write wrongs. Don't hide. Give it to Jesus before you become like Sodom. Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed this content, please subscribe and give us a rating. That helps other people find this podcast more easily. Also, ask yourself, who could you share this podcast with? Texting an episode to a friend or a family member is a great way to help them grow spiritually. If you want to go deeper, check out our show notes for book recommendations.

Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - When We Become Like the World | Judges | Judges 19

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