If you would open up your Bibles to Judges chapter 19, 20, and 21, it's on page 257 of your Pew Bible.
Well, in February 2023, there was a train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, and it resulted
in a massive toxic waste spill.
It was quite a train wreck.
And the cause, it turns out, was a failed wheel bearing in the train itself.
This morning, we're going to look at the book of Judges, and the book of Judges ends in a train wreck.
You could say the whole book of Judges is a train wreck.
God's old covenant people, Israel, failing to dispossess the nations of the promised land,
and they failed to dispossess them because they failed to trust that their king was in their midst.
They failed to trust Yahweh.
It resulted in a train wreck with toxic waste all over the place.
Cycle after cycle, throughout the Judges, we see Israel denying and disobeying their king who was in their midst.
The tragedy is that Israel becomes like the Canaanite nations that they were to devote to destruction.
And at the end of the book of Judges, do you know who's devoted to destruction?
Judges 19, 20, and 21 is a smoldering wreckage of God's people.
Israel has been Canaanite.
Israel has been Canaanized.
They've become just like the nations they were to dispossess.
Israel's greatest enemy, it turns out, wasn't the surrounding nations.
It was themselves.
They were the cause to their own train wreck.
Now, if you were a railway inspector back in February 2023,
and you showed up to East Palestine,
you would have been given the responsibility to find out what was the cause of that train wreck.
And this morning, we get to see kind of the final kind of wreckage of this train wreck called Israel.
So, the cause of their Canaanization is what we're going after.
They were their own worst enemy.
And you know what?
It begs the question, church,
are we our own worst enemy?
Is there a train wreck for us just waiting to happen?
Four scenes.
Scene 1, chapter 19, 1 through 10,
we have an introduction,
and you're going to smell something off.
Scene 2, chapter 19, 10 through 28,
we have one of the most graphic, wicked acts in your Bible.
Scene 3, chapter 19, 29 through chapter 20, verse 48,
there is a holy war.
And there's deep, dark irony.
Scene 4, all of chapter 21, damage control,
according to what's right in your own eyes.
The book of Judges poses a warning for the Christian church today.
Are we our own worst enemy?
Let's look at scene 1.
We've got a marital spat.
Chapter 19, 1 through 10.
And before we get into something,
I just want you to notice verse 1.
In those days when there was no king in Israel,
that's the author being a little bit tongue-in-cheek.
There was not a human king in Israel.
But Yahweh, the king of all, was in Israel.
His people just weren't acknowledging him as king.
So we start off there.
And then we learn about this marital spat.
We are brought into, in verses 2 through 10,
this marital spat between an unnamed Levite and his concubine.
Now remember, a Levite was the clergy of Israel.
They were their own tribe.
They were like the pastors of Israel.
They were the spiritual leaders of Israel.
So they were the ones who were to be leading the nation spiritually.
And this Levite, turns out, he's got a concubine
who took to himself a concubine from Bethlehem, 19.
1.
A concubine was a second-class wife,
usually a servant or a slave,
and their primary responsibility was to generate babies.
It was demeaning.
And what should strike you out of the gate
is that a spiritual leader of Israel has a concubine.
Smells a little off.
Well, in verse 3, he goes from the hill country of Ephraim,
where he's sojourning,
and he goes to Bethlehem to where she went to be with her father
because she had committed some kind of unfaithfulness.
He gets there.
He speaks kindly to her.
She welcomes him in,
and it looks like things are getting patched up.
And then verses 4 through 9,
we are introduced to the concubine's dad
who is, like, aggressively hospitable.
So in verse 4, we read that
he made the Levite,
his concubine,
the daughter of the Bethlehemite,
and his servant stay three days.
Come stay.
Let's drink and be merry.
Next day, verse 5, day 4,
the Levite, his concubine,
their servant,
they get ready to go.
This hospitable Bethlehemite says,
no, no, come on.
You don't want to go.
He's kind of full-course press, hospitality.
No, let's eat, drink.
Let's enjoy each other's company.
The day passes.
They stay another night.
Verses 8 through 10,
day 5 rolls around.
They get up.
They get ready to go.
The day passes.
The dad is putting full-court press hospitality on,
and you start kind of asking,
why is he being so hospitable?
Does he know something that we don't know?
But eventually in verse 10,
the man, the Levite,
would not spend the night.
So he rose and departs.
And so this is well into the day.
So here's the introduction.
We've got a Levite,
his concubine wife,
and this very hospitable dad.
And this is how this account,
this,
the end of the book of Judges,
this account starts.
And there's something that you need to know is off here.
First is this.
We don't know the nature of the concubine's unfaithfulness.
And so we learn that.
Verse 2,
and his concubine was unfaithful to him,
but we're not told how.
And then,
the second thing we notice that's kind of off
is this kind of aggressive,
over-the-top hospitality by the concubine's dad.
Like, what's that all about?
Does he know something we don't know?
But what should really get your attention
is that the spiritual leader,
one of the spiritual leaders of Israel,
has a concubine.
He is clearly ignoring Genesis 2, 24 and 25,
which is very clear in saying
God's design for marriage
is one man married to one woman
before him for life.
So we start with a bit of some compromise here.
Moral compromise.
Now, if you were inspecting a train wreck
in Judges 19, 20, and 21,
you're looking at a spiritual leader
who's compromised.
Despite his sweet talking,
something's off here.
But what we're going to see
is we're not looking at the cause
of the train wreck.
The failure of the train wreck
is something else.
So let's move on to scene two.
Scene two is in chapter 19, 10 through 28.
And just to remind you
that the Levite is concubine,
and the servant with their donkeys,
they have left Bethlehem,
and they're going to go back
up to the hill country of Ephraim.
And so that's basically
a 10 to 12 mile trek north.
They got a day started late in the day.
And so in verses 10 through 15,
what we see is
they need to make a decision
of where they're going to stay the night
because they got to stop somewhere
because it's too far to travel
to get back to the hill country of Ephraim.
And so what we notice right out of the gate
is that they get near to this place
called Jebus.
And we see the author chime in,
that is Jerusalem.
And so what that means is this.
This city, which is later to become Jerusalem,
is in control of Canaanites,
non-Israelites,
or what the Levite will say is foreigners.
Well, we see in verse 11
that the servant says,
hey, Master Levite,
hey, let's turn aside
to this city of the Jebusites, Jebus,
and we will just kind of bed down for the night.
To which the Levite said,
absolutely not, verse 12 and 13.
They're foreigners.
They don't belong to the people of Israel.
We're going to move past them
and go another four or five miles to Gibeah.
Let's go there
because that's our people.
And what he knows is
they're going to be hospitable.
The Jebusites,
they're not going to be hospitable to us Jews.
They're foreigners.
But when we get to Gibeah,
which is of the tribe of Benjamin,
they will treat us well.
So in verse 15,
we fast forward,
they show up in Gibeah.
They went into the square,
which a traveling Jew would go into,
and they would expect someone
to be hospitable to them.
And look what happens.
No one took them into his house
to spend the night, verse 15.
And what you need to know
is that is a red flag.
Their inhospitableness,
that is not good.
In verses 16 through 21,
the story continues.
There's this old man,
not from Gibeah,
but from the hill country of Ephraim.
He's a sojourner in Gibeah.
He's doing some work there.
And we learn in verse 16,
he's coming back from his work
in the field at evening,
and he comes into the town square,
and he sees the Levite,
the concubine,
and their servant in the square.
He engages them in conversation.
And then eventually,
he invites them into his home.
He says in verse 20,
peace be to you.
I will care for all your wants.
And here's what you need.
It's a person not from Gibeah
showing hospitality
to these kind of sojourners
coming through.
It's a bit odd.
And then comes something
of an ominous warning.
Only, verse 20,
only do not spend the night
in the square.
He knows something.
He knows something
that the Levite,
the concubine,
and their servant,
does not know.
And so I think it was more like,
peace be to you.
I will care for you.
He's looking at his watch.
All right,
you don't want to be out here
in the square.
Let's get in my house.
And then it's in verse 22 through 28
that we will see
one of the most horrific scenes
in your Bible.
Now, I need to let you know up front,
it is graphic.
But I also need to let you know
that it's intended
to make you think
of another passage
in your Bible.
In Genesis 19,
Sodom,
God sends two angels
to rescue Lot
and then bring judgment
on Sodom and Gomorrah.
And then the men
of the city of Sodom
surround the house
and they demand
to know the two men
who are angels.
and we see something
very similar happen
in verses 22 through 28.
22, as they are making
their hearts merry,
this is happening in Israel.
This is happening
in a city of the Benjamites.
They have not gone to Jabez
in order to be
among their own.
The men of the city,
worthless fellows,
surrounded the house,
beating on the door,
and they said to the old man,
the master of the house,
bring out the man
who came into your house
that we may know him.
It's a demand.
And it's what's called
a euphemism.
Have you ever heard about,
you know,
you're somewhere
and you hear about
Tim and Georgina
hooking up?
That hookup language
is a euphemism
for having sex.
This phrase
that we may know him
is a euphemism
for this gang
of violent,
worthless fellows
having sex
with the Levite.
This is a threat
of homosexual gang rape.
Now typically,
we're not exposed
to homosexual gang rape
outside of context
of prison scenes.
What's being done here
is showing you
just how far
Israel has fallen.
these men
are Sodom-like men.
They are
Sodomite-like.
This is a wicked act.
In verses 23 and 24,
the old man,
he defends his guests.
He says,
no,
my brothers,
do not act so.
Look it,
wickedly
since this man
has come into my house.
Do not do this
vile thing
at the end of verse 24,
but against this man.
Do not do
this outrageous
thing.
There are some people
in the church
that claim to be Christians
who would say
what is vile
and wicked
and outrageous
is not the homosexual
nature of this.
It is the rape of it
because we don't have
consenting adults.
What's wrong here
is the lack of consent,
some people would say.
And that is wrong.
But what's clearly
being said
as wicked
and vile
and outrageous
is the homosexual
nature of this.
make no mistake,
the Bible is very clear
on homosexuality.
In Leviticus 18.22,
the people of Israel
are told
a man cannot lie
with a man
nor a woman
with a woman.
It goes on
in that same passage
to talk about
forbidding incest
and bestiality.
And then in 18.24,
do you know what
is written?
Don't do this.
Don't become like
the nations around you.
Romans 1
in your New Testament
18-32
clearly
forbid homosexuality
and it points
to homosexuality
as a sign
of forsaking God
and giving them up
and God handing people
over to their sinful desires.
These men of Gibeah,
these worthless fellows,
were more like
the men of Sodom.
But the big difference is
the men of Sodom
didn't claim
to be,
to have Yahweh
as their king.
men.
This is horrific.
And it gets worse.
Verse 24,
the old man
offers his virgin daughter
and then the Levite's
concubine
to try to somehow
satisfy the lust
of this mob of men.
You know what he's doing?
He's trying to protect
this one man's honor
by giving away
to women.
You know what that means?
He was messed up.
He's trying to do
what's right
in his own eyes,
that old man.
Not just these worthless
fellows in Gibeah,
but the old man too.
Women are not
of less value
than men.
And then it gets
just horrific.
The men in 25,
they don't listen.
Like, no.
Bang, bang, bang,
bang, bang.
And then the Levite,
verse 26,
the man
pushes out
his concubine.
Pushes her out.
Closes the door.
And we read
that this gang
of violent men
rape her
all night long.
A daybreak.
She manages
the strength
to get back
to the old man's house.
She cannot get in.
She doesn't have
the strength.
She's been
horrifically abused.
Horrifically abused.
And then
the next day
rolls around.
Verse 27.
And her master,
notice the language change,
her master,
he slept
that night.
What?
He got up,
made coffee,
shaved,
grabbed his briefcase,
made sure he's got
his day pack,
and he's leaving
the house
to go on his way
to the hill country
of Ephraim,
and he just happens
to stumble across
his concubine
who's at the doorway.
And notice,
verse 27,
with her hands
on the threshold,
that should get
into your brain.
So close.
And literally,
this Levite
walks over her.
Now,
start looking back
on that whole little
line in verse 2
about she was unfaithful
to her husband,
you start to wonder,
hmm,
callous,
uncaring,
treating her
like some kind
of meat,
demeaning,
and you know what?
We don't know
if she's dead or not.
Look what he does.
28,
get up,
let's go!
We gotta beat
the morning traffic.
Talk about vile.
He picks her up,
puts her on her donkey,
and they go
all the way back
to the hill country
of Ephraim.
This is a horrific scene.
Gruesome in many ways.
It's gonna get
even more gruesome.
Now,
if you were inspecting
this train wreck
and you see this
toxic waste
all over the place,
you're gonna notice
a couple things.
There's a lack
of hospitality.
You notice
the men of Gibeah
who are
Sodom-like,
but they're Israelites,
Canaanized.
And you can't help
but notice
how this Levite,
so callous,
how he treats
his concubine,
he demeans her.
Do you know what, gang?
When we leave
our first love,
brothers,
when we leave
our first love,
when we leave
King Jesus,
do you know
who will suffer?
The women
in our lives.
Man, don't you wish
they just stopped
at Jabez,
the foreign town?
But we're not seeing
the cause
of this train wreck.
Scene three,
holy war.
this is 1929
through 2048.
We pick up
where we left off.
The Levite
has put this woman,
we're not sure
she's dead or not.
He brings her back
to his house
in the hill country
of Ephraim
and he takes out
a knife
and he dismembers her
and he sends
the members
of her body
all throughout Israel.
Gruesome.
Even in her death,
he demeans her.
You know what it is?
It's a call to war.
He goes out
to all the tribes
and all the tribes
see this
and they've never
seen anything
like this before.
And then in chapter 20,
1 through 7,
there's this
holy gathering
of God's people.
We have not seen this
in the book of Judges.
Not one judge
was able to do this.
We have
the tribes
of Israel
in a holy convocation
coming together
in Mitzpah,
which is right
in between
the tribe
of Benjamin,
the land of Benjamin
and the land of Ephraim.
they gather
as one people,
one man,
verse 1.
Well,
almost one man
because in verse 3,
the Benjamites
hear about this
and they don't go.
So this is like
11 of the 12 tribes
in almost
unified Israel.
The leaders
of all these
tribes
that have gathered
in verses 4 through 7,
they want an explanation
from the Levite.
What's behind all this?
And he tells them.
In verses 4 through 7,
he gives an explanation.
What I want you to see
is in verse 5.
And he says,
and the leaders
of Gibeah
rose against me.
This is the Levite.
And the leaders
of Gibeah
rose against me
and surrounded
the house against me
by night.
They meant to kill me
and they violated
my concubine
and she's dead.
Do you know
what that is?
That's keeping people
from incriminating him
language.
He doesn't say
how she died.
And it leaves us,
the readers,
thinking,
uh,
Mr. Levite,
it looks like
you're leaving out
something pretty
significant here,
which means
this whole thing
is under suspicion
of false pretense.
in verses 8 through 11,
he presents,
well,
he presents his case
in the verses 8 through 11.
It gets its effect.
One man responds.
The whole peoples
are like,
yes,
we're going to do this.
And they call together
hundreds of thousands
of men to battle,
400,000.
notice,
nobody's calling
on the Lord.
Nobody.
In verses 12
and through 13,
there's a delegate
sent from these
11 tribes
to Benjamin.
They say,
hey,
would you please
hand over
these worthless
fellows
that did this
terrible deed
so that we can
put them to death?
And you know
what Benjamin does?
Verse 13,
he says,
they say,
no.
They're not going
to give him up.
Verse 14,
then the people
of Benjamin
came together
out of the cities
of Gibeah
to go out to battle
against the people
of Israel.
They would not listen
to the voice
of their brothers.
There's something
wrong here.
Terribly wrong.
And so,
in verses 14 through 17,
the battle lines
are formed.
You have just over
26,000 Benjamites
squaring off
against 400,000
Israelites.
This, my friends,
is a holy war
and it is a highly
ironic civil war
because the Benjamins,
Benjaminites,
are acting
like Canaanites.
Israel's greatest enemy
is itself.
There's a three-day war
that follows.
Day one,
19 through 23,
Israel seeks God.
They go out
to face
the Benjamites
and 22,000
Israelites
are killed.
Day two,
verses 24 through 28,
after seeking God,
Israel
goes to battle again.
The Benjamites
again defeat
Israel,
killing 18,000
Israelites.
And then they respond
by seeking the Lord,
by weeping
and fasting
and they're presenting
offerings
and it's what
they should have been
doing all along
at the beginning
of the book.
When they couldn't
push out
the Canaanite nations,
this is what they
should have been doing.
Day three,
Israel engages
Benjamin again.
This is 29 through 48.
They change their tactics.
They set up an ambush.
The Benjamites
think they're winning
again
and then
the whole thing
turns.
And that day,
Benjamin was decimated.
In verse 44,
18,000 killed.
Verse 45,
5,000 Benjamites killed.
At the end of verse 45,
2,000 Benjamites fall.
And so what you have left
are 600 Benjamites left.
Complete and utter decimation.
We learn that it's
verse 35,
the Lord
defeated Benjamin.
In verse 48,
and the men of Israel
turned back against
the people of Benjamin
and struck them
with the edge
of the sword,
the city,
the men,
beasts,
all that they found,
and all the towns
that they found,
they set on fire.
Devoted to destruction.
Holy war
on itself
because they've been
Ganonized.
Israel has become
its own worst enemy.
The destruction
of this
tribe of
Benjamin
is an outworking
of God's
justice.
And you can't help
but notice,
if you're an inspector
on this train wreck,
a couple things,
Benjamin refuses
to listen to her brothers
just as the men
of Gibeah
refuse to listen
to the old man.
We got a tribe
kind of characteristic
there.
It's not good.
And you can't help
but think,
this whole thing
started with a big
question mark.
Was that Levite
honest?
Is this whole thing
under false pretense,
and yet God,
God did what
he wanted to do.
And yet here,
with civil war,
we're not seeing
the cause.
What got him there?
What's behind
all this?
Scene four
is the aftermath.
600 wives
for 600 Benjamites.
There's a change
of heart
among the Israelites
in two through four.
We learn in verse
one of chapter 21
that they made a vow
that when they had
all gathered
in Mitzpah,
they said,
we're not going back
to our homes
until this is all done.
And by the way,
vow number two
is that we're not
going to give our wives,
any of our daughters,
to these Benjamites
for their wives,
ensuring that they
would be totally destroyed
from the face
of the earth.
But they have a change
of kind of heart.
In verses two through four,
six and seven,
they start having compassion
on Benjamin.
They start asking,
wait,
we don't want to see them
wiped off the face
of the planet.
So now they start
asking the question,
wait,
how can we provide
wives
for these Benjamites,
600,
who escaped
to the wilderness,
and yet preserve
our word?
that we don't have
to break our vow?
That we don't go back
on what we say?
It's completely ridiculous.
It's like the rash vow
of Jephthah.
These men have vowed
not to give their daughters
as wives
to these Benjamites,
and now they're going
to protect their vow
at all costs.
It would have been
far better
if they would just
have confessed
the foolishness
of their vow
and given their daughters
as wives.
But they don't.
And what they do
instead
is awful.
In verses eight through twelve,
they completely destroy
another Israelite city,
Jebesh Gilead,
devoting it to destruction.
And of all,
the only ones
that survived
Jebesh Gilead
were four hundred
virgin girls.
And they bring
those four hundred
virgin girls,
which they essentially
kidnapped as a result
of murder,
and they bring them
to the Benjamites,
the 600 in the wilderness.
But there's 600
in the wilderness.
There's just 400
young ladies.
They're short 200.
And so,
they bring up
this other plan
where they
say,
and this is
verses 16 through 24,
they tell
this Benjamite,
hey, you know what?
There is this feast
in Shiloh.
The daughters of Shiloh
always come out
and do the dance.
You guys wait
and ambush
and then grab them
for yourselves.
And when the men
of Shiloh come to us,
say,
what's going on?
We'll say,
hey,
we needed to do this.
We kept you
in the dark,
men of Shiloh.
We want to preserve
our word.
It's ridiculous.
200 women kidnapped.
400 women kidnapped.
Hundreds of people
killed
so they can keep
their word.
They don't have to
break their vow.
They were doing
what's right
in their own eyes.
They're not consulting
the Lord at any point.
They're more concerned
about preserving
their honor
than the honor
of King Yahweh.
If you're inspecting
this train wreck,
seeing the pride,
doing it,
making sure you are
keeping your honor,
being right at all costs,
the killing,
the kidnapping,
you're seeing Israel
as a smoldering wreck
of a people,
and the question is,
why would they do this?
How does this get
to be this?
Scene one,
we have a sketchy Levite.
Scene two,
we have these
Sodom-like men.
Scene three,
we have this
holy civil war
of Benjamin
being devoted
to destruction.
Scene four is this
trying to figure out
how to damage control
according to what's
right in your own eyes.
What's happened?
It's the last verse
of the entire book.
In those days,
there was no king
in Israel.
Everyone did what was
right in his own eyes.
this last verse
points to
the very heart
of this train wreck.
It's apostasy.
It's the people of Israel
rejecting Yahweh
as their king.
And they deny him,
they disobey him.
There may not be
a human king
in Israel,
but there is
a divine king
in Israel
and they have
totally rejected him.
They give him
lip service,
but that's about it.
You know,
when you start
looking at this
toxic waste
all over
1920 and 21,
this compromised
spiritual leader,
the sexual abomination
of homosexual rape
and then heterosexual rape,
you see the inhospitality,
you see the peddling
of false pretense,
rash vows,
men protecting their honor
at all costs,
the needless loss of life,
and throughout this story
is the demeaning of women
time and time again.
It's the way of the world.
It's doing what's right
in your own eyes
and it's the result
of leaving your first love,
King Yahweh.
The train wreck
was caused
by Israel's unfaithfulness.
And the big question is,
if Israel
became its own
worst enemy
through apostasy,
can the church,
is there a train wreck
waiting to happen
for us?
Are we going to
deny and disobey
King Jesus
and have the same
kind of toxic waste
strewn about?
It's already happening.
Spiritual leaders
experiencing,
committing sexual immorality,
every three months
it seems like we hear
of another pastor
who's committed
sexual immorality.
Not to mention
the plague
of pastors
succumbing to
pornography.
There's the waffling
on sexual issues
in the church.
Claiming that
homosexuality
is an acceptable
lifestyle
instead of grievous
in God's sight.
It's not good.
The men of Gibeah
and Benjamin
who wouldn't listen
to their brothers,
they don't want
to be corrected.
Even the men
of Benjamin
kind of closing
ranks around
rapists
to protect
their own.
And then there's
civil war
in the church
allowing politics
to demonize
fellow believers.
Quick to judge,
quick to spread
false rumors,
speculations,
false pretenses.
And then there's
the demeaning
of women
in the church.
We believe
the Bible
is very clear
about male
headship
in the home
and in the church
but that's not
chauvinism.
No,
we believe
male headship
is exercised
in a way
that causes
the ladies
in our life
to thrive.
Is the church
a train wreck
waiting to happen?
Yes,
we are.
If
we leave
our first love,
it's going to happen.
how do we not
become a train wreck?
The failure
of Israel
is that
they forgot
that their God
was in their midst.
There was
no king
in Israel.
In the book
of Revelation,
chapter 1,
we have
this incredible
vision
of the risen,
radiant,
and reigning Christ
from 12
through 16.
And
John tells us
in verse 12,
then I turned
to see the voice
that was speaking
to me
and on turning
I saw seven
golden lampstands
which we know
in verse 20
are the seven churches.
And in the midst
of the lampstands,
one like a son of man.
in the midst
of the lampstands,
in the midst
of the churches,
one standing
like the son of man.
Do you know
who's in our midst?
The risen,
radiant,
and reigning
King Jesus.
Do you know
how we not
become a train wreck?
Do you know
how we keep ourselves
from becoming
our own worst enemy?
By keeping Jesus
as our first love.
This same Jesus
wrote seven letters
to seven churches,
chapters 2 and 3.
And to the first church,
Ephesus,
he said,
I have this against you,
that you have lost
your first love.
They're doing
everything right,
but they wandered
away from Jesus.
How do we become
our own worst enemy?
We will become
our own worst enemy.
We will become
a train wreck
if we leave Jesus.
If we forget about him.
If we let secondary things
become primary things.
So do you know
how to keep Jesus
as our first love?
We cry out to him.
We confess him
as our first love.
We ask him
to show us his glory.
And then we open up
the Bible
and we take big,
long looks
at our king.
When was the last time
you read
Revelation chapter 1?
Revelation chapter 2 and 3?
Revelation chapter 19?
Take long, deep looks
at your king.
We got to keep him
central.
And when we keep him
central, do you know
what's going to happen?
Pastors will become
examples of sexual
faithfulness.
Churches will speak
courageously
on issues of
sexuality
and the sifting
sands of our culture.
We will welcome
rebuke.
We will
not
despise
women
brothers.
We won't
demean them.
We will
help them
thrive in
all areas.
We won't
fan the flames
of civil war
within ourselves
but pursue
peace,
unity,
maintaining the
bond of the
spirit and the
bond of peace.
King Jesus
is our answer.
He's in our
midst
and he will
keep us
from becoming
our own
worst enemy,
from keep us
becoming a
train wreck.
We've come to
the end of
Judges.
It's been one
long train wreck
of God's
old covenant
people and the
cause is apostasy.
They left
their first love.
And Judges,
it's a sober
warning.
what will
happen
if we
forget our
God.
But it
also points
us to
our perfect
king who
accomplished a
forever salvation.
He's our
first love.
He's worthy
of it.
Let's not be a
train wreck,
church.
Let's
be a
bright and
beautiful
bride
of Christ.
let's pray
together.
God in
heaven,
we thank you
for the
book of
Judges.
We thank
you that
you have
given it
to us
for our
good,
that we
can learn.
God,
would you
help us
to take
this lesson
to heart
from Israel
so that we
can remain
faithful to
you.
Lord Jesus,
you are our
king.
And you
are the same
today,
yesterday,
and forever.
Lord,
would you
not just
keep us
from becoming
a train wreck,
but God,
would you
cause us
to shine
bright in
this dark
city for
the glory
of your
name.
Amen.