It's good to be with you all this morning. My name is Jonathan. I've been with you all many times in the past, but if you're new, as Andy mentioned, I work as a college pastor here in Colorado Springs. I grew up here in Colorado Springs.
And I work mostly on Colorado College and University of Colorado Springs as a Presbyterian minister with the campus ministry wing of the Presbyterian Church. It's called Reformed University Fellowship.
It's always a treat to be with you. I hope you all had a happy new year. I hope you all had a happy Christmas, happy holidays.
Anyways, we are, first of all, welcome to all of you, particularly if you're new. Maybe you're stumbling in here with new year resolutions to come to church and you don't know exactly why you're here.
Particularly welcome to you. We're really, really glad that you're here. Coming to church can be a really intimidating thing, and we're glad you would spend your time with us.
There's a lot of other things you can do on a Sunday morning, so we hope that this is a safe and welcoming place for you.
Turn your Bibles to Judges chapter 19. Judges chapter 19. This is, I don't know if there's, there's no universe where this is a great sermon to start our New Year's off with.
One of you came up and said to me while we were getting, while we were doing our greet time, and says, you have your work cut out for you.
This is a challenging passage that we are going to look at, and there's a reason why.
The last time I was with you, Matthew asked me to walk through evangelism, sharing our faith, sharing the Christian faith with our friends who do not know Jesus yet as their Savior, King, Lord, Priest.
And he says it was well received and asked me to continue this theme, asked me to do more of this.
And so today and next week, I'll be with you again, and we'll look at this same idea again, different passage.
But to continue the thread of how do we share our faith, or how is the Christian faith good news in 2026?
Maybe that's the only way I can think about a New Year's sermon is how do we share our faith?
The reality, here's the reality. There's two things that are happening in our world.
The good news is there is a deep spiritual searching happening in this country on a level that we haven't seen since most of us have been alive.
You can read pretty much any of the thought pieces, newspapers, anybody, even movies.
I just watched a movie last night that was radically different from a movie that you would have made 10 years ago about how it thinks about religion and the pasture and all these.
Something is happening. Something's in the air.
There is a deep spiritual searching.
The cows are coming home from secularism, this attempt to live our life apart from God, and it's not working.
So that's the good news.
The challenge is that our world, our friends, still have deep suspicion of organized religion and of the Christian faith in particular.
They still are not persuaded.
They still think Christianity is dangerous, is hard on minorities, is bad for our world.
And so evangelism is simultaneously more necessary than it's ever been and also very challenging.
And you've experienced this if you've ever tried to share your faith with someone who doesn't know Jesus yet.
Family members, kids who've walked away from the Lord, neighbors, coworkers.
It's just challenging.
You can go back and look at the YouTube channels on what I talked about last time.
We talked about this.
We're going to look at it again from another angle today.
And we're going to look at easily what I think is one of the most challenging passages in the Bible.
It is, this is a doozy.
I know that Matthew just finished preaching on the book of Judges.
And we're going to look at it again, but from an angle of how do we share our faith.
And if you're here today and you would say, I am not a Christian.
I don't know why I'm here.
I have deep questions of the Christian faith.
Then in particular, I would say this is for you.
I would ask you to wrestle rigorously with us as we think about what the Christian faith offers to our world.
What this is is a passage that shows us that when humans do terrible things, God still intervenes to save us.
That's what this passage is about.
When humans do terrible things, God still intervenes to save us.
I'm going to set the stage for a little bit and then we'll read it.
The background of Judges is that Israel had been in a covenantal relationship with God.
Israel is in a covenantal relationship with God, which is a lot like a marriage
where they promised to worship and love and obey God completely in the same way that we would vow fidelity to our spouse.
They would obey God.
And the tragedy is they never did it.
They never followed through fully on this promise.
And as a matter of fact, they consistently, repeatedly run away from God and reject his rule, reject his covenant,
and turn to pretty much anything else, power, money, other religions, anything else other than God.
And Judges, the book of Judges is, in a sense, it's the social and spiritual critique of their failure to worship God.
That's what Judges is.
It's turning the mirror on them and saying this is what happens to your hearts, to your society, to your world when you don't follow God.
And then the book is a slow deterioration.
It's a slow, the drain coming out and showing us how bad it can get.
And this is graphic, but if you are doing your dishes after, you know, a big meal,
you start washing the dishes in the sink, and the top water of the dirty dishwasher is not that bad.
You open up the drain, and all the bottom stuff starts circling to the bottom, right?
All this gross stuff.
That's what the book of Judges is, is the drain is circling, and all the bad stuff's at the bottom.
And here we are at the end of this book, and it's all the bad stuff.
It's the worst of the worst.
And so I'm going to read this for us.
I've written, I've chosen a long passage, so spare with us.
And I would also warn you that this is a very hard passage.
It does, I would say, this is a trigger warning.
This passage does involve assault, sexual assault, and rape.
And so please prepare yourself for that.
If you need to step out, there's no shame, no foul in that.
I'll try to deal with it as gently as I can, but I'll let you know that it's there.
Okay, so this is Judges 19.
This is God's word.
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 in Judah.
And his concubine was unfaithful to him, and she went away from him to her father's house at Bethlehem in Judah,
and was there for four months.
Then her husband arose and went after her to speak kindly to her and to bring her back.
He had with him his servant and a couple of donkeys, and she brought him into her father's house.
And when the girl's father saw him, he came with joy to meet him.
And his father-in-law, the girl's father, made him stay, and he remained with him three days.
So they ate and drank and spent the night there.
And on the fourth day they arose early in the morning, and he prepared to go.
But the girl's father said to his son-in-law,
Strengthen your heart with a morsel of bread, and after that you may go.
So the two of them sat and ate and drank together.
And the girl's father said to the man,
Be pleased to spend the night, and let your heart be merry.
And when the man rose up to go, his father-in-law pressed him till he spent the night there again.
And on the fifth day he rose early in the morning to depart.
And the girl's father said, Strengthen your heart and wait until the day declines.
So they ate, both of them.
And when the man and his concubine and his servant rose up to depart, his father-in-law, the girl's father, said to him,
Behold, now the day has waned toward evening.
Please spend the night.
And behold, the day draws to its close.
Lodge here and let your heart be merry, and tomorrow you shall arise early in the morning for your journey and go home.
But the man would not spend the night.
He rose up and departed and arrived opposite Jabez, that is, Jerusalem.
He had with him a couple of saddled donkeys, and his concubine was with him.
And when they were near Jebus, the day was nearly over, and the servants said to his master,
Come now, let us turn aside to the city of the Jebusites and spend the night in it.
And his master said to him, We will not turn aside into the city of foreigners who do not belong to the people of Israel,
but we will pass on to Gibeah.
And he said to his young man, Come and let us draw near to one of the places and spend the night at Gibeah, or in Ramah.
So they passed on and went their way, and the sun went down on them near Gibeah, which belongs to Benjamin.
And they turned aside there to go in and spend the night at Gibeah.
And he went in and sat down in the open square of the city, for no one took them into his house to spend the night.
Verse 16.
And behold, an old man was coming from his work in the field that evening.
The man was from the hill country of Ephraim, and he was sojourning in Gibeah.
The men of the place were Benjamites.
And he lifted up his eyes and saw the traveler in the open square of the city.
And the old man said, Where are you going, and where do you come from?
And he said to him, We are passing from Bethlehem and Judah to the remote parts of the hill country of Ephraim, from which I come.
And I went to Bethlehem and Judah, and I am going to the house of the Lord.
But no one has taken me into his house.
We have straw and feed for our donkeys, with bread and wine for me and your female servant, and the young man with your servants.
There is no lack of anything.
And the old man said, Peace be with you.
I will care for all your wants.
Only do not spend the night in the square.
So he brought him into his house and gave the donkeys feed.
And they washed their feet and ate and drank.
As they were making their hearts merry, behold, 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 has come into your house, that we may know him.
And the man, the master of the house, went out to them and said to them,
No, my brothers, do not act so wickedly.
Since this man has come into my house, do not do this vile thing.
Behold, here is my virgin daughter and her concubine.
Let me bring them out now.
Violate them and do to them what seems good to you.
But against this man, do not do this outrageous thing.
But the men would not listen to him.
So the man seized his concubine and made her go out to him.
And they knew her and abused her all night until morning.
And as the dawn began to break, they let her go.
And as morning appeared, the woman came and fell down at the door of the man's house where her master was until it was light.
And the man rose up in the morning.
And when he opened the doors of the house and went out to go on his way, behold, there was his concubine lying at the door of the house with her hands on the threshold.
He said to her, Get up.
Let us be going.
But there was no answer.
Then he put her on the donkey and the man rose up and went away to his home.
And when he entered his house, he took a knife and taking hold of his concubine, he divided her limb by limb into 12 pieces and sent her throughout all the territory of Israel.
And all who saw it said, Such a thing has never happened or been seen from the day that the people of Israel came up out of the land of Egypt until this day.
Consider it.
Take counsel and speak.
Take.
As far as God's word.
Let's pray.
Lord in heaven, we come now to your word and we need you to give us strength and your spirit.
Equip us now as we study it, that we would know you know your grace and love in Jesus.
And we would hope and we would bring that hope to others.
It's in Jesus name that we pray.
Amen.
So what has just happened in this passage?
I'll recap it briefly.
a man takes a sexual partner.
He goes with her, and she eventually leaves him,
spends five days to try and get her back,
and as he starts for home, they stop at a town,
and no one takes them in.
An old man says ominously, don't spend the night here.
At least come into my house.
And a group of, as while he's in his home,
a group of worthless fellows, the text says,
comes demanding to essentially have the man sexually.
And the man instead gives the concubine,
and they proceed to effectively abuse her to death.
And the original man takes her body
and sends it throughout the country.
And thus ends our passage.
It's incredibly disturbing.
It's incredibly unnerving.
And we are left asking,
what in the world do we do with a passage like this?
What do we do with this?
In fact, we read something like this,
and we say, everything's wrong here.
And in fact, we don't even know the half of everything that's wrong.
We could spend a whole sermon discussing layers upon layers upon layers
of things that have gone deeply wrong in this society.
Things like a concubine.
Things like a Levite.
Things like having a woman like this.
Things like sexual infidelity.
Irresponsible parting.
Inhospility to countrymen.
Homosexual lust.
Oppression of women.
Gang rape.
Human slaughter.
We didn't even read the part where we get to civil war and genocide.
It just spirals, and it's all woven together,
and the whole scene is brutal and horrible.
And we're left wondering, what do we make of this?
What do we make of this?
And actually, we're very used to thinking about,
we're actually quite, we're used to thinking about things like this.
There's a popular TV genre that most of us,
at least, watch something like this,
and these are these Vice shows that are very similar to this.
I'm thinking of shows like Breaking Bad or Ozark or Yellowstone,
and they put their character in a world that doesn't have restraints,
where they are free to let their vices run wild.
And they're basically asking, how bad can humanity get?
How bad can this character deteriorate?
How quickly can a vice destroy a society?
And these shows are fascinating to us.
It's kind of like when you drive past a car wreck.
You say you just want everybody to pass it,
but then as soon as you get to it, we're all looking at it too,
the same way.
We want to see, we know it's horrible, but we can't look away.
And it's stories like this, it's shows like this,
where they fix the camera on the philosophical
and existential questions of the human nature.
Don't flinch, don't look away,
and force us to ask, what is humanity?
What is wrong with our world?
And that is a place that is ripe for sharing our faith.
It is ripe for sharing our faith.
This text asks, what is wrong with our world?
And it shows us.
It shows us what is deeply wrong with our world.
Let me show you.
There's a phrase that was repeated at the very beginning of chapter 19,
but then it shows up several times throughout Judges.
You see at the very beginning of chapter 19, verse 1,
in those days there was no king in Israel.
In those days there was no king in Israel.
And it's actually repeated several times.
In chapter 17, verse 6, it says,
in those days there was no king in Israel.
Then it adds another line.
It says, and everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
Same thing in chapter 18.
In those days there was no king in Israel.
And then as a sort of inclusio to end this whole story,
if we were to keep reading chapters 19 and 21,
we read the continued deterioration that ends, like I said,
in genocide and civil war.
The very last words of the book of Judges are,
in those days there was no king in Israel,
and everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
So three, four times the text repeats this refrain,
and that repeated line is the interpretation.
It explains what is going wrong.
We're faced with this horrible, horrible situation
that just is gut-wrenching.
And the text tells us, what is wrong with this?
There's no king and everyone does what is right in his own eyes.
Judges tells us that what is wrong with our world,
what is wrong in this situation,
the oppression and the violence
that we see percolating, spreading out
throughout this story, throughout the human experience,
is that there is no king,
and everyone does what is right in his own eyes.
And in this, it points us back
to what we confessed in our confession of faith,
which is, what is sin?
Sin
is a declaration
of I would have no king
but myself.
I would do what is right
in my own eyes.
What did we confess?
Sin
is any
transgression
of the law
of God.
Anytime we look at God
and say,
you as king
have no authority
in my life,
I will do
and I will discern
what is right
for myself.
I will be
my own king.
This is what we confess
when we say,
what is sin?
It is the want of conformity unto
and transgression
of God's law.
It is looking at God
who is our creator
and king
and saying,
not you,
I will do
what I would do.
And this,
the text says here,
Judges 19,
Judges,
the whole book says,
the source
of the violence
and the abuse,
that gut sucker punch
that you feel
when you read this text
is the rejection
of God
and the claim
of this individual autonomy.
I will do
what is right
in my own eyes.
And this leads
to the pain
that we feel
as we read this story.
There's a great
theologian philosopher,
a guy named Christopher Walken,
he says this,
when every man
deciding for himself
what is good and evil
sets a high value
on himself
and demands
that everyone else
value him
in the same way,
then human beings
are in a perpetual
and unrelenting war
with each other.
Autonomy
and the ethic
of violence
are a natural fit
for one another.
Autonomy
and an ethic
of violence
are a natural fit
for one another.
And so Judges 19,
this passage
shows us
that the problem
for humanity
is autonomy,
rejection of God
and his rule.
The story
of the Bible
is exposing
our hearts
as deep
rebels
against God.
And the conclusion,
here's the conclusion,
is that unrestrained
sin,
that is unrestrained
autonomy,
leads inevitably
to total
societal breakdown.
Unrestrained
sin leads
to weak
parts of our world
being hurt.
when autonomy,
everyone doing
what is right
in his own eyes
runs its course,
then the most vulnerable
get the most hurt.
Now,
how in the world
does this begin
to apply
to sharing our faith?
Let me show you.
I've read this passage
many times
with non-Christians
and they will say
something like this,
see,
how can the Bible
have this passage
in it?
How does the Bible,
how can your God
possibly let this happen?
This is awful.
Don't you see?
This is what's wrong
with religion.
This is what's wrong.
This is why we,
this is why I'm not a Christian
is because this is
in the Bible.
Today's passage
is a lot of things
but you can't look at this
and accuse it
of shying away
from the darkest parts
of the human experience.
You cannot help
but feel outrage
and grief
and anger
at verse 28.
Oh my gosh.
going to her
he said,
get up
and be going
and there was
no answer.
That woman
alone,
abandoned,
in utter
soul torment
dies
and what we get
to do
is as we read
this with our
friends,
we say
that's exactly
what the Bible
wants you to feel
in this situation.
You get,
we must,
if you're here
and you're searching
and you feel
indignation,
how can this
be in the Bible?
The Bible
would say
exactly.
That's the point.
You are feeling
what you should feel.
You should be
outraged
by this.
You should be
furious
by this.
It challenges us
because it says
the outrage
that you feel,
the source of it
is sin.
Sin is the problem.
And frankly,
we live in the same
world as Judges 19
today.
We have a fancier
world for everyone
doing what is right
in their own eyes.
A famous sociologist,
a guy named Robert
Bella,
coined a term
called expressive
individualism,
which is a fancy
way of saying
everyone does
what is right
in his own eyes.
Which,
it means
that we live
in a world
where everyone
has the individual
right to express
their own
individuality,
express their
own feelings.
And in fact,
we are taught,
trained,
incentivized,
catechized,
to look within us,
to be our most
authentic self,
and then to live
that out on the
world as a stage.
And this starts
from as young
as childhood.
Think about
every single
Disney movie.
Every single
Disney movie.
I let my kids
watch Disney,
I grew up
watching Disney,
and this is
what we hear.
And it's
unavoidable.
Even if you don't
let your kids
watch Disney,
it is in the air
we breathe.
But every single
one is a sugar-coated
Broadway version
of everyone do
what is right
in your own eyes.
Think about
the movie Frozen.
What does Elsa
sing in Let It Go?
It is an expression.
It is a song
of self-expression.
Listen,
she says,
the fears that
once controlled me
can't get to me
at all.
It's time to see
what I can do
to test the limits
and break through.
No right,
no wrong,
no rules for me.
I'm free.
Let it go.
This is the
guiding vision
of the sexual
revolution
from 1968
to now.
This is how
we are trained
to think about
our money
in our economics.
This is the vision
of capitalism.
No one can tell me
how to spend my money.
I get to choose
what I do with it.
And we've created
a whole online
internet market system
that will have
your products
to let you
curate your own life
within eight hours
or less.
You can have
any product
you want
at your front door.
This is how
we treat our politics.
Michael Sandel,
who's a preeminent
political philosopher,
says that liberalism,
liberalism is the
political philosophy
that undergirds
how we,
the American
political experience,
the vision of democracy,
says this,
liberalism is a
plurality of persons,
each with his own
interests, aims,
and conceptions
of the good.
Liberalism and
democracy
maximize the
political,
social,
and economic
rights of the
individual
to live their
lives as they
choose.
In our world
today,
we have perfected
the art
of everyone
does what is
right in their
own eyes.
Robert Bella
says it this way,
in the absence
of any objective
criteria of right
or wrong,
good or evil,
the self
and its feelings
become its own
moral guide.
and there
each individual
is entitled
to his or
her own
bit of space
and is utterly
free with its
boundaries.
This is the world
we live in.
It's unavoidable.
And here's the
trick.
It's killing us.
And everyone
knows it.
This is why I say
we have more
opportunities to
share the gospel
than we have in
80 years.
Everyone looks
around us right
now and says,
whatever we're
doing right now
ain't working.
This ain't it.
If this is what
living life is,
I don't want to
be a part of it.
If this is what
society does,
I don't want a
piece of it.
It's killing us.
And like this
story,
it's particularly
hurting the
weakest members
of our world,
the poor,
women with
weaker bodies.
people with
dark skin.
It hurts them
most.
Many of you
know,
I was just
sitting in on
Scott Sage's
AI class.
Many of you
know there's
an AI tool
called Grok.
It's Twitter
and X's
AR platform.
It's a powerful
tool.
Last week I was
reading a story
about how it is
being used by
men to deep
fake women.
And so it can
take a single
picture of a
woman,
any woman,
and you can
essentially turn
any picture into
pornography.
And there's
nothing that we
can do about
it.
Women are
scrolling the
internet and
they will find a
picture of
themselves that
has been deep
faked into a
sexually explicit
image.
And they will
call the police
and say,
what will you
do about this?
And they'll say,
there's nothing
we can do.
Why?
Because we live
in a land where
the First Amendment,
I'm pro-First
Amendment, but this
is free speech and
there's nothing we
can do.
there is no
king in the
land and everyone
does what is right
in their own
eyes and the
most vulnerable
are hurt the
most.
And here's what's
true, our
non-Christian
friends know that
something is
desperately wrong.
They know it,
but they can't
explain why.
And we read
Judges 19 to
them and we
let it sink in
and we let them
feel outrage.
We let them feel
how terrible it
is and we say,
do you not see
this is the world
we live in?
And they say,
yes, I see it
and I hate it.
And we get to
say, you know
what the reason
is?
It's because of
sin.
It's because we
live in a world
where everyone
does what is
right in their
own eyes and
you know it's
killing us.
I know it's
killing us.
Don't you see
that listening to
your heart leads
to oppression and
abuse and
injustice?
this is where
we can reason
with our friends
and say,
would you agree
that our world
tells us to
listen to our
hearts, to
express our
individuality, to
use our freedoms
to make our own
name great, to
buy what we want
when we want, to
vote in a way
that makes my
life better?
Well, yes, I
would say that's
the way we live.
That's the world,
that's a good
world to live in.
But don't you
see that if
everyone does this
wholesale, the
result is
oppression.
Pain, abuse,
Judges 19, it's
unavoidable.
This is what we
live in.
And here's why
this passage, here's
why stories like
this are so
amazing.
People will read
this and say,
this is in the
Bible, this is
outrageous, how
can this be?
And the Bible
says exactly.
It shocks us, it
offends us, it
shows us how
threatening human
nature is separated
from God.
And we can
slingshot off of
this and say we
need someone to
save us.
you know that.
Let me show you
who he is.
Back to our
story.
It gets worse.
I wish I could
say it gets
better.
I won't read the
rest.
You can go read
it on your own.
The Levite
retrieves his
concubine.
He's not willing
to intercede on
his own, but he
sends her body
throughout the land
and shows what
has been done to
her.
And to us, this
feels extremely
hyperreactive.
At the time, it
was a version of
basically photo
journalism.
Photojournalists
would go to the
Vietnam War, take
pictures of what
was happening, and
send them back.
This is photo
journalism at its
most graphic.
And it incenses the
nation.
You read in
chapter 20, at the
end of the 20,
everyone says,
nothing like this
has ever been done
before.
What are we going
to do about it?
So the rest of the
Israelite nation
gathers a giant
army, 400,000
soldiers, and goes
and attacks the
Benjamites.
And there is a
multi-day civil war
between all the
11 tribes against
the Benjamites.
And eventually, the
Benjamites are
utterly obliterated.
All the men are
killed.
And effectively, a
tribe is almost
wiped out.
And the passage
ends with
essentially stealing
more women to
give to the
Benjamites who are
almost gone so
that they can still
be around.
And so the passage
ends, even worse,
civil war and
genocide, killing
an entire people
group.
And it ends
saying, there was
no king in the
land and everyone
does what is right
in his own eyes.
And the human
predicament apart
from God is cold,
nasty, brutish, and
short.
So what do we do
with this?
What do we do
with this?
Well, there's a few
things.
First, we have to
acknowledge that God
cares deeply about
this story.
God cares deeply
about it.
He does not approve
of this evil.
God is strikingly
quiet in this whole
story.
You don't see any
place where God is
approving or
condoning of any
of this.
The only time he
speaks is he just
sort of lets them
go and have this
civil war.
But nowhere does
God approve of
this violence or
abuse.
And in fact, if
that's part of your
story, which
statistically it is
in this room, hear
me say that
whatever has
happened to you,
God is as upset
with it as anyone.
And he cares
deeply for you.
And the good news
of the gospel is
that he has, is,
and will do
something about
that pain.
And we will
look at that
in a minute.
The God of the
Bible hates
injustice.
He hates
abuse.
Listen to what
Deuteronomy says.
In Deuteronomy 16,
God tells his
people, justice
and justice only
you shall, you
shall follow.
In the Psalms,
it's all over how
he cares about
justice.
And then it
tells us that God
is going to do
something.
The next book
in the Jewish
Bible, the next
words in the
Jewish Bible
after 2125 is
1 Samuel.
And 1 Samuel is
the story of God
beginning to
provide what?
A king.
Someone who
will come to
bring the
justice, the
vindication that
this story needs
so badly.
And it is not
just any king,
but it is the
king par
excellence.
David, the
king that Psalm
89 says,
righteousness and
justice are the
foundation of your
throne.
The low point of
Judges 19 rises
to a climax of
the best king in
Israel's history
where there's a
time of peace and
thriving and
justice.
But we know that
that's not even
enough because even
David would what?
Abuse a woman.
We need a better
king than even
King David.
David.
And Psalm 110
points to him and
says that there is
a son of David,
one who will come
as king, who will
be perfectly
righteous and bring
perfect justice
forever.
And later on in
Matthew 22, what
does Jesus say?
He says, Psalm 110,
David's great son,
the king that David
was supposed to be,
it's me.
I'm him, Jesus
says.
And Jesus says,
the time is at
hand.
The kingdom of
God is now at
hand.
Jesus comes and
says, everything
that was wrong in
Judges 19, this
king that you
needed, I am he.
I am the one who
will come and bring
justice.
The time that we
long for a king
where justice and
righteousness would
be integrated into
the very fabric of
our society, of our
world, Jesus says,
I will come and do
that.
And here's what's
amazing.
Jesus is the
antidote to the
sin problem.
How?
Jesus never did
what was right in
his own eyes.
He was sinless.
John tells us that
his only desire was
to do the will of
his father.
And yet, even
though he never
did what was right
in his own eyes,
what happens to
him, he suffers
the abuse of a
violent mob outside
the city.
What happens to the
concubine happens
to Jesus, brutally
murdered by a rage
filled crowd outside
of the city.
Jesus is the
sinless king who
would suffer the
abuse, the
violation, the
death at the
hands of an
abusive crowd.
How?
Why?
So that he could
crush abuse
forever.
Psalm, I mean,
Isaiah 9, we
read this for
Christmas.
Of the increase of
his government,
king, and peace,
there will be no
end.
And on the throne
of David and
over his kingdom
to establish it
and uphold it
with justice and
righteousness from
this time forth and
forevermore.
David's son, the
king, will bring
true justice, true
peace to a violent
and abusive world.
Judges tells us
that we are not
okay, that we need
help, that our
world is broken, and
God sees it, he
knows, and he will
do something about
it.
And this is what we
get to tell our
friends.
We make them want
it so badly, and
then we say, and
he has come to do
it.
There's three moves
as we share our
friends, share this
with our friends.
We agree with our
non-Christian friends
that the world is
broken.
Yes, I agree with
you.
Our world is deeply
broken.
You know it, I
know it.
And then we show a
better diagnosis of
the problem.
What do you think is
the problem?
And it doesn't go
deep enough.
Let me tell you what
the deepest problem
is.
Everyone does what
is right in their
own eyes.
It's sin.
But I have a
better solution.
It's the coming
king.
It's the gospel.
It's the king who
has come and who
will come again to
right every wrong.
Jesus is the king
who will bring
perfect justice.
Will you follow him
with me?
Jesus is the king
who suffered the
abuse to crush
abuse forever.
Will you follow him
with me?
Jesus suffered in
our place.
Never did what was
right in his own
eyes to fix a
broken world.
Will you follow
him with me?
This is what
evangelism is.
Slingshotting off
the pain of a
broken world and
showing them the
best and only
solution.
I'll close with
this.
Kurt Vonnegut
wrote a book
called Slaughterhouse
Five which is a
story processing
the trauma of
World War II.
It's particularly
the firebombing
of Dresden which
he describes in
the book.
He talks about a
man named Billy
Pilgrim who
becomes unstuck
in time and
can travel backwards
in time and he
sees life backwards
and he pictures
the firebombing of
Dresden backwards.
This is what he
says.
Seen backwards by
Billy the story
went like this.
American planes
full of holes and
wounded men and
corpses took off
backwards from an
airfield in
England.
Over France a few
German fighter planes
flew at them
backwards and
sucked bullets and
shell fragments from
some of the planes
and crewmen.
They did the same
for wrecked American
bombers on the
ground and those
planes flew home
backwards to join
the formation.
The formation flew
backwards over a
German city that
was on flames.
The bombers opened
their bomb bay
doors and exerted a
miraculous magnetism
which shrunk the
fires and gathered
them into cylindrical
steel tubes and
lifted these tubes
into the bellies of
the planes.
The containers were
stored neatly in
racks.
The Germans below
had miraculous
devices on their
own which were
long steel tubes.
They used them to
suck fragments from
the crewmen in the
planes.
But there were still
wounded Americans
though and some of
the bombers were in
bad repair.
Over France though
the German fighters
came up again and
made everything and
everybody as good as
new.
When the bombers got
back to base the
steel syndicals were
taken from their
racks and shipped
back to the United
States of America
where factories were
operating day and
night dismantling the
tubes and separating
the dangerous
components into
minerals.
Touchingly it was
mainly women who did
this work.
The minerals were
then shipped to
specialists in remote
areas.
It was their business
to put them deep in
the ground to hide
them cleverly so that
they could never hurt
anyone again.
The American pilots
turned in their
uniforms and became
high school kids and
Hitler was turned into
a baby Billy Pilgrim
supposed.
Billy Pilgrim saw that
everybody turned into a
baby and all humanity
without exception
conspired biologically to
produce two perfect
innocent people named
Adam and Eve he
supposed.
that's what our faith
promises.
To suck all of the
pain out of our
world.
All of the abuse.
The hell that is a
firebombing of a city
and to bury it deep in
the ground.
That's what we offer to
our friends.
God sucking all the
evil out of the world
through Jesus as bad
as it gets.
Judges 19 or firebombing
Jesus the king time
working backwards to
save us from ourselves.
We offer that to our
friends.
I offer that to you.
And I say would you
follow Jesus with me?
Would you pray with me?
Father in heaven thank
you that you have are
and will suck all the
pain and the abuse and
the evil out of this
world.
And you are doing it
soon.
We pray that you would
come soon and finish the
job.
Until then give us
grace.
Give us patience.
Give us endurance to
await the day when the
kingdom finally comes.
Give us the ability to
share this good news
faithfully and patiently
with our friends and be
glorified in it.
It's in Jesus name we
pray.
Amen.
slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide