Do Not Do What Seems Right

Hey, hey, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This morning we are at Judges chapter 21, the last chapter of Judges. Kind of continues on in this story of what's happened with Benjamin. There's this evil story about this Levite guy, and this girl from Bethlehem, and she's his concubine, and this gang rape. It's just a horrible story, right? Her gang rape, and then they go down, and all Israel is gathered together, and they go and avenge that wickedness. But now what happens to the tribe of Benjamin? What happens This, should we be saying that there's 11 tribes of Abraham instead of 12? I'll have some coffee, we'll pray. And we'll get into the last chapter, pretty sobering chapter still of the book of Judges. Let's have some coffee and we'll pray. Let's pray.
God, we thank you so much for this day. Lord, you've given us a day that we can read your word and we pray that we would understand it. We pray that your Holy Spirit would please teach us, instruct us, lead us. God, we pray that you would guide us into truth. We pray that we would understand who you are, that we would be taught by your Holy Spirit how we should live. Lord, please let us walk in your ways in Jesus's name. Amen. Here we go. We're going to wrap up the book of Judges this morning. Now the men of Israel had sworn an oath at Mizpah, saying, None of us shall give his daughter to Benjamin as a wife.
Then the people came to the house of God, and remained there before God till evening. They lifted up their voices and wept bitterly, and said, O Lord God of Israel, why has this come to pass in Israel, that to-day there should be one tribe missing in Israel? So it came to pass on the next morning that the people rose early and built an altar there and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. The children of Israel said, Who is there among all the tribes of Israel who did not come up with the assembly to the Lord? For they had made a great oath concerning anyone who had not come up to the Lord at Mizpah, saying, He shall surely be put to death. And the children of Israel grieved for Benjamin, their brother, and said, one tribe is cut off from Israel today. What shall we do for wives for those who remain, seeing we have sworn by the Lord that we shall not give them our daughters as wives?
And they said, there is one. What one is there from the tribe of Israel who did not come up from up to Mizba to the Lord? And in fact, no one had come up to the camp from Jabesh Gilead to the assembly. For when the people were counted, indeed, not one of the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead were there.
So the congregation sent out there 12,000 of their most valiant men and commanded them, saying, Go and strike the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead with the edge of the sword, including the women and children. And this is the thing that you shall do. You shall utterly destroy every male and every woman who has known a man intimately. So they found among the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead 400 young virgins who had not known a man intimately.
And they brought them to the camp at Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan. Then the whole congregation sent word to the children of Benjamin who were at the rock of Ramon and announced peace to them. So Benjamin came back at that time and they gave them the women whom they had saved alive, the women of Jabesh Gilead.
Yet they had not found enough for them. And the people grieved for Benjamin, because the Lord had made a void in the tribes of Israel. Then the elders of the congregation said, What shall we do for wives for those who remain, since the women of Benjamin have been destroyed? And they said, There must be an inheritance for the survivors of Benjamin, that a tribe may not be destroyed from Israel. However, we cannot give them wives from our daughters, for the children of Israel have sworn an oath, saying, Cursed be the one who gives a wife to Benjamin.
Then they said, in fact, there is a yearly feast of the Lord in Shiloh, which is north of Bethel, one on the east side of the highway that goes up from Bethel to Shechem and south of Labona. Therefore they instructed the children of Benjamin, saying, Go, lie in wait in the vineyards, and watch. And just when the daughters of Shiloh come out to perform their dances, then come out from the vineyards, and every man catch a wife for himself from the daughters of Shiloh, then go to the land of Benjamin. Then it shall be when their fathers or their brothers come out to us to complain, that we will say to them, Be kind to them for our sakes, because we did not take a wife for any of them in the war.
For it is not as though you have given the women to them at this time, making yourselves guilty of your oath. And the children of Benjamin did so. And they took enough wives for the number from those who danced, whom they caught. Then they went and returned to their inheritance, and they rebuilt the cities and dwelt in them.
So the children of Israel departed from there at that time. Every man to his tribe and family, they went out from there, every man to his inheritance. In those days, there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. well we got to ask ourselves our three questions a what's this about b what's the best verse to summarize this and c what are we called to do so what's this about there's been this horrible war right three waves of battles there's only a tiny remnant left tens of thousands of people have died and the tribes are sad right why is the lord allowed a whole tribe to be destroyed And they got a problem, they had made an oath.
They knew that it was only a matter of time until those few who were remaining at the Rock of Ramon would, you know, they'd get old, they'd die, and there wouldn't be any children. And so they needed preserved wives, but they made an oath, almost like we're back at the Jephthah story, right? They made this oath saying, none of us will ever give our daughters to be their wives.
They're not going to do this inter-tribal marrying. And so they got to find out a way for it. Guys, this is just a messed up story. This is where legalism just gets in the way of stuff. Instead of recognizing, man, we made a foolish vow. We made an oath that was wrong.
And so what do they do? Oh, what tribe didn't go out? Oh, Jabesh, Gilead didn't go out. And so they treat a town who didn't join in their warfare, I'm sure in their minds they thought, these are the people who didn't care about this atrocity. They didn't care about this at all. There isn't a single person here. And so they must not even really be Israelites.
And so they send some of their most valiant men and notice they destroy every one of Jabesh Gilead. This is of the half tribe of Manasseh on the other side of the Jordan River. They kill them. All the women and children, they only keep the virgins alive.
They treat them with a law of warfare that they were supposed to treat non-Israelites with. I'm convinced that this is most likely a violation of the laws about taking slaves. They weren't allowed to do this. They weren't allowed to treat the women this way. They weren't allowed to treat their fellow Israelites this way.
But yeah, here they find it, and then they, okay, they go and they tell these guys at the Rock of Ramon, hey, hey guys, we're at peace, right? And so they give them all these ladies, but then they find out they don't have enough ladies for all the guys who are there, so what do they do?
They concoct a second plan. And they go back to their oaths, oh no, hand-wringing, we made this oath, we made these vows, we can't do anything, but we don't want to lose a tribe, so what do we do? Oh, we know what we'll do, we'll kidnap The ladies and the rabbis, I'll talk about this in a second, but the rabbi said this is like the 15th of Av.
And so it's the harvest time for the grapes in the summer. And so they're coming out and they're dancing. Shiloh is where the tabernacle was. This is supposed to be a time of great joy. And instead, they're getting kidnapped, stolen away. Again, this is evil, this is wrong. But everybody just goes back home. Why is all this happening? In those days, there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
That's what I have underlined, by the way. It's the best verse to summarize this section. Maybe my underline, you know, verse two, or sorry, verse three, I think would also be a good one to underline as well. The later Jewish rabbis would kind of try to clean this up a little bit and would say it's an atrocity and things like that. But they would say, oh, well, these women were coming out and they would be dressed in white and this was the lifting of inter-tribal kind of isolation, right? So you were now allowed to marry from the children of Ephraim, where Shiloh was, now these children of Benjamin, or these men of Benjamin could marry them.
And they almost whitewashed this into this joyous day. I mean, no, this is ugly. This is a horrible, ugly event. We should not whitewash it. And I don't think the scripture would whitewash it. I think there's a reason why. There's the estimation, the very last words of judges.
In those days, there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. Not following the Lord, making rash vows, just doing stuff, not following biblical principle. murdering entire towns, wiping them off the face of the planet, treating their wives like women of war, kidnapping young girls who were joyful going to the tabernacle. Couldn't imagine sending my daughter to go to a church event And on her way home, other religious leaders concocted a plan to find a legal loophole around some type of oath and my daughter get kidnapped and sold away forever. It's evil. It's wicked. It's wrong. This is the despising of the scheming of men. So what's this about, right? This is a scheming of the tribes to get women for Benjamin. It's a hard story. So what are we called to do?
There was still a king in Israel, Jehovah himself, at Shiloh there, at the tabernacle where those young women were dancing. where the worship of God and the sacrifices of God were happening, there was a holy of holies with an ark and mercy seat upon that ark. God was on his throne and the people wouldn't see it. God was there and attached the ark with the book of the covenant. and no one's reading it.
They're coming up with schemes, they're coming up with their own ideas, they're doing whatever they want. But they're now asking, what does the Lord want? They had asked, who will go up to war against Benjamin first? They'd done that, they'd made sacrifices. But they had not asked the Lord if this was his plan. There's no mention of that anywhere here.
How often do we do that in our own lives? How often do we try to fix our own sinful decisions by our own more sinful decisions? How often do we make rash declarations and rash vows and run headlong into just doing things and not stopping and asking the Lord, God, the King of Kings, what do you say about this? How frequently do the problems in my life reflect my lack of piety and holiness, my lack of recognizing that Jesus is the King of kings and the Lord of lords.
And yet God still doesn't turn his back on these people. This is the amazing thing that I, sorry, my nose is disappearing here. This is one of the amazing things to me about all the Old Testament. You would, man, if I was God, I'm so judgmental that if I was God, I'd just be like, you know, just wash my hands of these people. I just, he's just silly, stupid people.
Thank God he's not like me. But he's gracious. And he's kind. Slow to anger. And abounding in mercy. Someday there would come a king. There would come a king from Bethlehem. and he would rise up. And my question is, do we follow that king today? By this they will know that you are my disciples. Two ways. They'll see it by knowing we love one another.
And if we keep his commandments, do we listen to him? Do we love others as we would want to be loved? Do we love God with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength? And when we fail, and boy are we gonna fail, do we trust in Christ as our only hope?
He is the substance of our faith, and he is the Lord of our lives. He redeemed you. Your King redeemed you. Follow Him, Christian. May you not do whatever's right in your own eyes, but may you seek the will of Jesus Christ, your King of Kings. Let's pray. Father, we thank you that you are gracious towards us. You did not wipe your hands of us. thinking we were so stupid that we don't deserve mercy. Lord, we don't deserve mercy, but you are good and kind and gracious and patient and loving. And so, Father, please teach us to walk in your ways. Let us, let us, Father, be more and more conformed to likeness of Christ.
Fill us with your spirit, empower us, Lord, to know that you are our King, and to do what is right in your eyes. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, may you live your life today knowing that it is before the very face of God. And may you know that his face, if you are in Christ, is shining upon you. May he be gracious to you and keep you. I'll see you next time. Bye.