WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.879 We are finishing up tonight our series, The Gospel According to Judges. 00:00:04.879 --> 00:00:08.919 So we've been working our way through the judges and here we are at the very end of 00:00:08.919 --> 00:00:09.919 the book. 00:00:09.919 --> 00:00:11.419 This is where the book ends. 00:00:11.419 --> 00:00:15.839 So we read a portion of that, three chapters to cover tonight. 00:00:15.839 --> 00:00:19.359 We can't possibly do that in any detail. 00:00:19.359 --> 00:00:24.379 So I tried to read from a section that I thought would give the overarching view of the story 00:00:24.379 --> 00:00:26.320 that happens here. 00:00:26.320 --> 00:00:30.160 There's a good chance that if you've been in the church your entire life you have never 00:00:30.160 --> 00:00:34.079 heard a sermon on Judges 19 and 21. 00:00:34.079 --> 00:00:36.480 John Calvin never preached it. 00:00:36.480 --> 00:00:38.000 Charles Spurgeon never preached it. 00:00:38.000 --> 00:00:40.000 Mark Lloyd-Jones never preached it. 00:00:40.000 --> 00:00:44.719 So good chance that maybe you've not heard a sermon on this. 00:00:44.719 --> 00:00:50.840 For 16 chapters we have the stories of heroes, people who save, redeemers, judges. 00:00:50.840 --> 00:00:54.000 That's what the word judge means in the book of judges. 00:00:54.000 --> 00:00:59.439 Warriors that save Israel from their idolatry that God sends. 00:00:59.439 --> 00:01:03.960 And we finished up a three-part series on Samson and then you come to this decline 00:01:03.960 --> 00:01:05.460 narrative. 00:01:05.460 --> 00:01:10.960 And in chapter 17 and 18 we start to learn about this decline of the priesthood. 00:01:10.960 --> 00:01:14.920 And in 19 to 21 the decline of the priesthood gets worse. 00:01:14.920 --> 00:01:21.200 And the book of Judges ends with what one commentator says is the premier horror story 00:01:21.200 --> 00:01:23.519 in the whole of the Bible. 00:01:23.519 --> 00:01:24.719 And that's the story. 00:01:24.719 --> 00:01:31.000 There's an assault, a very horrible scene, a murder, and then a civil war that breaks 00:01:31.000 --> 00:01:33.000 out in response to it. 00:01:33.000 --> 00:01:34.640 And it's hard to read. 00:01:34.640 --> 00:01:38.560 If you go through and read Judges 19 to 21 in the fool it's a very difficult passage 00:01:38.560 --> 00:01:40.799 to read through. 00:01:40.799 --> 00:01:45.739 What's missing here, unlike the rest of the book of Judges, is there is no judge. 00:01:45.739 --> 00:01:47.079 There is no redeemer. 00:01:47.079 --> 00:01:51.280 There is nobody that comes in and saves the day that God sends to save here at the end 00:01:51.280 --> 00:01:52.280 of the passage. 00:01:52.280 --> 00:01:53.599 There's no hope at the end. 00:01:53.599 --> 00:01:58.120 The very last verse we read is everybody did what was right according to their own eyes, 00:01:58.120 --> 00:01:59.760 there was no king. 00:01:59.760 --> 00:02:04.400 And so the story just ends in utter hopelessness and evil really at the end of the book. 00:02:04.400 --> 00:02:06.079 It's only sadness. 00:02:06.079 --> 00:02:11.120 One of the commentators talks about how the Hebrew throughout chapter 19 to 21 is really 00:02:11.120 --> 00:02:14.520 terse and stark and minimal. 00:02:14.520 --> 00:02:17.319 So there's not a lot of language. 00:02:17.319 --> 00:02:22.000 Even the way the grammar structure just comes across as bleak and sad. 00:02:22.000 --> 00:02:26.280 And that's exactly what I think comes across when we read it in English as well. 00:02:26.280 --> 00:02:33.719 Let me say before we jump in, the Bible is so gritty sometimes and so real and recounting 00:02:33.719 --> 00:02:38.280 to us some of the horrors that have happened in world history. 00:02:38.280 --> 00:02:46.960 And if this were a legend, if you were trying to promote religion based on legends, this 00:02:46.960 --> 00:02:49.560 is not something that you would ever include. 00:02:49.560 --> 00:02:55.199 The only way that this is here is if it happened. 00:02:55.199 --> 00:02:56.199 It's history. 00:02:56.199 --> 00:02:57.800 It's historicity that we have. 00:02:57.800 --> 00:03:01.280 This is a very historical account, the book of Judges. 00:03:01.280 --> 00:03:05.879 And it's also very, very highly crafted text, 19 to 21. 00:03:05.879 --> 00:03:10.520 So the commentators tell us that if you read carefully, one of the things you can find is 00:03:10.520 --> 00:03:15.920 it's probably the case that what happens in 19 to 21 isn't actually happening at the 00:03:15.920 --> 00:03:19.539 end of the era of the judges, but sometimes maybe in the middle. 00:03:19.539 --> 00:03:23.280 But it's being placed at the end of the book of Judges to make a point. 00:03:23.280 --> 00:03:30.479 So it's both historical and written, the book, overall, to make a point to tell us something. 00:03:30.479 --> 00:03:35.359 There's a lot of finesse in the language and the text and the way that it was written. 00:03:35.359 --> 00:03:40.280 And I think that when you see that, one of the things you see is that there is symbol 00:03:40.280 --> 00:03:42.959 in every single section. 00:03:42.959 --> 00:03:48.039 There are things being pointed to in other parts of the Bible throughout this horror 00:03:48.039 --> 00:03:49.039 story. 00:03:49.039 --> 00:03:52.199 It's full of idioms and understatements and foreshadowing. 00:03:52.199 --> 00:03:54.560 So let's look at it together briefly. 00:03:54.560 --> 00:04:02.840 I think we learned here in the most broad sphere of the story that God pursues, that 00:04:02.840 --> 00:04:09.439 Israel or the priest lingers, that Sodom grows, and finally Rachel weeps. 00:04:09.439 --> 00:04:10.439 Okay? 00:04:10.439 --> 00:04:12.120 So those four things. 00:04:12.120 --> 00:04:15.919 First, God chases, God pursues. 00:04:15.919 --> 00:04:19.719 After 19 verses one to four is sort of the preface to the whole story. 00:04:19.719 --> 00:04:25.599 And in it, it is in the most surprising way about God's love. 00:04:25.599 --> 00:04:31.360 And we read in the New Testament from John the Apostle, God is love. 00:04:31.360 --> 00:04:35.039 And right here in the first four verses of this story, that's exactly the message. 00:04:35.039 --> 00:04:36.599 That's the idea that's coming out. 00:04:36.599 --> 00:04:38.399 You say, well, hey, I read it with you. 00:04:38.399 --> 00:04:41.159 I don't see where you're getting that from. 00:04:41.159 --> 00:04:42.719 But look, this is what happened. 00:04:42.720 --> 00:04:48.440 In verse one, we have that refrain, in Israel in those days, there was no king. 00:04:48.440 --> 00:04:52.680 It begins that way and it ends that way at the end of chapter 21, verse 25. 00:04:52.680 --> 00:04:54.000 There was no king. 00:04:54.000 --> 00:04:56.760 Everybody's doing what's right in their own eyes. 00:04:56.760 --> 00:05:00.200 And then right after that, we learn about this priest. 00:05:00.200 --> 00:05:05.400 Now when it says there was no king, it's not only saying there was no monarch in the land, 00:05:05.400 --> 00:05:06.560 which is true. 00:05:06.560 --> 00:05:11.680 But it's also saying that every single person in Israel at this time doesn't have the Lord 00:05:11.680 --> 00:05:13.280 as their king. 00:05:13.280 --> 00:05:15.360 It's talking about the heart. 00:05:15.360 --> 00:05:16.360 There was no monarch. 00:05:16.360 --> 00:05:18.120 David was yet to come to the throne. 00:05:18.120 --> 00:05:20.040 That'd be many hundreds of years later. 00:05:20.040 --> 00:05:22.160 But here we read and say there was no king. 00:05:22.160 --> 00:05:26.600 There was no king in the heart of humanity, in the heart of Israel either. 00:05:26.600 --> 00:05:29.199 They weren't serving the king, the real God. 00:05:29.199 --> 00:05:30.680 Nobody had a king. 00:05:30.680 --> 00:05:31.800 Everybody was their own king. 00:05:31.800 --> 00:05:33.120 They did what was right in their own eyes. 00:05:33.120 --> 00:05:34.639 That's the big idea. 00:05:34.639 --> 00:05:37.160 And so here's the priest. 00:05:37.160 --> 00:05:41.040 And it says here at the University that the priest, the Levite, he's a priest. 00:05:41.040 --> 00:05:43.840 He takes for himself a wife. 00:05:43.840 --> 00:05:50.240 And the ESV translated says it took for himself a concubine from Bethlehem. 00:05:50.240 --> 00:05:53.600 But the word in Hebrew could be translated lots of different ways. 00:05:53.600 --> 00:05:58.560 So it can just be he took for himself a wife, an Isha, a wife. 00:05:58.560 --> 00:06:02.800 We later learned that he treated her like property. 00:06:02.800 --> 00:06:06.680 But here it could just be read and I think it's helpful to say he took for himself a 00:06:06.680 --> 00:06:08.720 wife. 00:06:08.720 --> 00:06:18.240 Because what happens, she runs away, she leaves him, and he, after she leaves him, chases 00:06:18.240 --> 00:06:19.560 after her. 00:06:19.560 --> 00:06:21.360 And he goes and he pursues her. 00:06:21.360 --> 00:06:25.280 And it says that after months and months of this, he finds her and it says that he spoke 00:06:25.280 --> 00:06:28.760 words of kindness to her because he wanted her to come home. 00:06:28.760 --> 00:06:30.000 All right? 00:06:30.000 --> 00:06:31.600 That's the preface to the story. 00:06:31.600 --> 00:06:38.040 A priest who's married to a woman who leaves him, runs away, and he pursues her and he 00:06:38.040 --> 00:06:41.160 chases her and he'll do anything he can to get her back. 00:06:41.160 --> 00:06:43.000 He wants her to come home. 00:06:43.000 --> 00:06:49.640 And you know, if you think about it for just a moment, you read the rest of the Old Testament, 00:06:49.640 --> 00:06:52.280 that looks like the character of God. 00:06:52.280 --> 00:06:58.720 So the whole Old Testament in some sense often frames God's relationship to us as his relentless 00:06:58.720 --> 00:07:02.280 pursuit of his bride. 00:07:02.280 --> 00:07:04.120 And he chases after her and he goes for her. 00:07:04.120 --> 00:07:07.360 And you know, if you think about the whole book of Judges, the whole book of Judges is 00:07:07.360 --> 00:07:13.199 about God's relentless pursuit of his bride, his people, who are constantly running away 00:07:13.199 --> 00:07:15.280 from him and leaving him. 00:07:15.280 --> 00:07:20.800 And he refuses to not chase after them, to not go and get them, to not bring them home 00:07:20.800 --> 00:07:21.800 again. 00:07:21.800 --> 00:07:23.360 And the priest looks like that. 00:07:23.360 --> 00:07:24.920 He looks like that in this passage. 00:07:24.920 --> 00:07:25.920 C.S. 00:07:25.920 --> 00:07:27.879 Lewis, I love what he says about the love of God. 00:07:27.879 --> 00:07:36.879 He says, the consuming fire himself, the love that made the worlds persistent as the artist's 00:07:36.879 --> 00:07:43.719 love for his work, despotic as a man's love for a dog, provident and venerable as a father's 00:07:43.719 --> 00:07:54.120 love for a child, jealous and extroval, exacting as a love of a man for his wife. 00:07:54.120 --> 00:07:59.279 We get a parable and image here in this man's life of God's love and grace, the jealous 00:07:59.279 --> 00:08:03.639 husband that refuses to not go chase after his bride. 00:08:03.639 --> 00:08:07.439 Now if you're thinking about that, you might immediately jump in your mind if you know the 00:08:07.439 --> 00:08:13.279 Old Testament and the prophets to the book of Hosea, where Hosea marries a prostitute 00:08:13.279 --> 00:08:17.959 and she leaves him and over and over again he chases after her. 00:08:17.959 --> 00:08:21.120 And he goes and he gets her and he wants to bring her home. 00:08:21.120 --> 00:08:29.159 And in Hosea there are three references to quote the abomination at Ghibia. 00:08:29.160 --> 00:08:35.960 And the abomination at Ghibia in Hosea I think is referencing the story of the priest in 00:08:35.960 --> 00:08:38.320 this concubine, this woman. 00:08:38.320 --> 00:08:39.320 It's bringing this back up. 00:08:39.320 --> 00:08:40.420 Why? 00:08:40.420 --> 00:08:46.120 Because at first this priest looks like God, the one who loves us relentlessly, who will 00:08:46.120 --> 00:08:48.680 not let us go even when we run away. 00:08:48.680 --> 00:08:53.639 And then you read a chapter over and he is exactly the opposite of that. 00:08:53.639 --> 00:08:58.519 So at first he looks like God, he looks like Hosea and then he becomes the anti-Hosea. 00:08:58.519 --> 00:09:03.000 He becomes everything that is against God and against the ways of the Lord and against 00:09:03.000 --> 00:09:07.159 the relentless pursuit of grace. 00:09:07.159 --> 00:09:13.559 But before we move on to that I just want to say God says to us in the Old Testament 00:09:13.559 --> 00:09:21.199 and in the Gospel, just think about Luke 15, the father who pulls up his robe to run out 00:09:21.199 --> 00:09:24.559 to bring his prodigal son home. 00:09:24.559 --> 00:09:28.079 God in the Gospel is the husband who comes to pursue his bride. 00:09:28.080 --> 00:09:30.960 He's the father who chases after his prodigal son. 00:09:30.960 --> 00:09:36.440 He's the one in Luke 13 where Jesus stands over the horizon from Bethany looking at Jerusalem 00:09:36.440 --> 00:09:41.639 and says, oh Jerusalem, weeping for her, how I long to gather you like a mother hen would 00:09:41.639 --> 00:09:43.240 gather her chicks under her wing. 00:09:43.240 --> 00:09:45.120 He longs to gather us. 00:09:45.120 --> 00:09:46.120 He chases us. 00:09:46.120 --> 00:09:47.120 He pursues us. 00:09:47.120 --> 00:09:48.759 That's the love of God. 00:09:48.759 --> 00:09:55.440 And then for a moment the priest of God looks like that and then we see that he is actually 00:09:55.440 --> 00:09:56.440 the anti-Hosea. 00:09:56.440 --> 00:10:00.160 All right, so secondly, the priest lingers. 00:10:00.160 --> 00:10:05.760 Now we're going to come to the horror story in just a moment, but how does it move from 00:10:05.760 --> 00:10:12.120 this moment where the priest looks like the love of God pursuing his bride and that yet 00:10:12.120 --> 00:10:13.720 becomes the total opposite? 00:10:13.720 --> 00:10:20.360 And I think there's a hint of why, how in this strange story that's hard maybe at first 00:10:20.360 --> 00:10:26.360 to make sense of, of just telling us that when he went to bring his wife home, the father 00:10:26.360 --> 00:10:32.960 in law, her father for five days in a row said, no, no, no, don't leave. 00:10:32.960 --> 00:10:35.740 So that's what he read in verses three, four to eight. 00:10:35.740 --> 00:10:38.600 So the father, they're there. 00:10:38.600 --> 00:10:40.879 His wife has said, okay, I'll come home with you. 00:10:40.879 --> 00:10:43.680 But the father in law says, well, you know, it's late in the day. 00:10:43.680 --> 00:10:45.200 It's dinner time. 00:10:45.200 --> 00:10:47.560 Just eat, stay here, spend the night. 00:10:47.560 --> 00:10:48.759 You can go tomorrow. 00:10:48.759 --> 00:10:49.919 And then tomorrow comes. 00:10:49.919 --> 00:10:54.080 And you know, by the time, then evening comes the next day and it happens five times. 00:10:54.080 --> 00:10:59.800 And we can tell that he wants to leave in the story, but the priest just can't quite 00:10:59.800 --> 00:11:02.480 get himself to leave until after the fifth day. 00:11:02.480 --> 00:11:06.320 There's this real sense that he lingers and that the father in law gets him to linger 00:11:06.320 --> 00:11:08.000 over and over and over again. 00:11:08.000 --> 00:11:14.080 Now this is a highly crafted text and a historical text. 00:11:14.080 --> 00:11:19.000 And one of the things we see is first the priest looks like the God of the book of judges 00:11:19.000 --> 00:11:25.000 who continues to come after his people no matter what idol they chase, who loves them 00:11:25.000 --> 00:11:29.799 all the way to the point of coming and sending a redeemer over and over again, 12 times. 00:11:29.799 --> 00:11:33.000 And then the priest lingers. 00:11:33.000 --> 00:11:36.480 And all of a sudden we see that there's a transition where the priest now looks like 00:11:36.480 --> 00:11:42.159 the people of Israel throughout the book of judges who every time they come, they see 00:11:42.159 --> 00:11:45.559 that idol, they're canonized. 00:11:45.559 --> 00:11:49.719 They see something that they want that they lust after an idol and they lingers. 00:11:49.719 --> 00:11:54.719 They say, I know that God has told me not to pursue this thing, but you know, I don't, 00:11:54.719 --> 00:11:55.719 I'm not so sure. 00:11:55.719 --> 00:11:58.359 And they stick around too long. 00:11:58.359 --> 00:12:02.079 And then they cry out to the Lord and say, we want you to save us. 00:12:02.079 --> 00:12:06.319 But then a redeemer comes and eventually they walk right back to the God that they were 00:12:06.319 --> 00:12:07.479 chasing. 00:12:07.479 --> 00:12:11.679 And there's this theme in the book of judges where every single time Israel seems to keep 00:12:11.679 --> 00:12:17.319 just walking right back to the God that they've just been freed from, they linger. 00:12:17.319 --> 00:12:21.439 And you can think about stories that have already happened in the Old Testament where 00:12:21.439 --> 00:12:22.759 God's people linger. 00:12:22.759 --> 00:12:27.159 So I think there's a real connection here to the Sodom and Gomorrah story over and over 00:12:27.159 --> 00:12:31.000 again where Lot is told by the angels, get out of the city, get your family out of the 00:12:31.000 --> 00:12:32.000 city. 00:12:32.000 --> 00:12:33.000 This place is evil. 00:12:33.000 --> 00:12:36.719 A lot of the same things actually happened in Sodom and Gomorrah that are going to happen 00:12:36.719 --> 00:12:40.079 in the story that we're about to look at. 00:12:40.080 --> 00:12:42.600 And it says, but Lot lingered. 00:12:42.600 --> 00:12:47.200 And you can think about the people of Israel crossing the Red Sea right after they crossed 00:12:47.200 --> 00:12:50.280 the Red Sea and they say, whoa, we miss Egypt. 00:12:50.280 --> 00:12:51.920 You know, Egypt was so much better. 00:12:51.920 --> 00:12:53.600 There was good food. 00:12:53.600 --> 00:12:54.600 And we had it. 00:12:54.600 --> 00:12:57.400 Yeah, sure, we were working hard, but we had it a lot better in Egypt. 00:12:57.400 --> 00:13:02.040 And they actually wanted the idol that they had been set free from over and over and over 00:13:02.040 --> 00:13:03.040 again. 00:13:03.040 --> 00:13:04.040 There's this narrative of lingering. 00:13:04.040 --> 00:13:05.400 The priests looked like God. 00:13:05.400 --> 00:13:09.240 And now the priest looks like Israel across the book of judges. 00:13:09.240 --> 00:13:14.320 And I think what's happening there is they're trying the author here is trying to take us 00:13:14.320 --> 00:13:20.840 a step towards understanding the true nature of evil because we're about to think about 00:13:20.840 --> 00:13:26.279 evil, a horror story, real evil. 00:13:26.279 --> 00:13:31.240 And one of the things that judges continues to make us wrestle with is the nature of evil. 00:13:31.240 --> 00:13:33.399 What is it that draws us into sin? 00:13:33.399 --> 00:13:36.639 What is it that makes humans evil? 00:13:36.639 --> 00:13:38.960 And we're going to see in just a moment. 00:13:38.960 --> 00:13:44.320 And very next story, humans can do terrible things, very terrible things. 00:13:44.320 --> 00:13:49.920 And in the 20th century, it became a really common thing to talk about environment being 00:13:49.920 --> 00:13:54.800 the primary way that we assess how evil arises in people. 00:13:54.800 --> 00:14:00.200 So 20th century psychology, 20th century criminal psychology in particular talks a lot about 00:14:00.200 --> 00:14:04.920 how its environment that creates criminality and evil. 00:14:04.919 --> 00:14:09.159 And so a way a person was raised, what they weren't given, the environment that they were 00:14:09.159 --> 00:14:10.159 raised in. 00:14:10.159 --> 00:14:11.679 And we've seen that that's very real. 00:14:11.679 --> 00:14:14.479 That's very true in so many ways. 00:14:14.479 --> 00:14:19.240 And one of the things that the book of judges wants to come, I think, and say to us is that 00:14:19.240 --> 00:14:22.299 while that is true, that environment really does matter. 00:14:22.299 --> 00:14:27.120 We know that sometimes people who are loved really well and grew up in great homes and 00:14:27.120 --> 00:14:31.399 all those sorts of things can find themselves doing really terrible things. 00:14:31.399 --> 00:14:37.399 And psychology doesn't really get to the bottom of the nature of evil, of what's wrong with 00:14:37.399 --> 00:14:38.399 us. 00:14:38.399 --> 00:14:44.240 And I think one of the messages here is that secondary circumstances do not cause evil, 00:14:44.240 --> 00:14:46.480 they enhance evil. 00:14:46.480 --> 00:14:50.840 Secondary circumstances are not the cause of our evil, but they can enhance it or diminish 00:14:50.840 --> 00:14:52.079 it. 00:14:52.079 --> 00:14:56.759 And instead, the cause of evil is that we linger. 00:14:56.759 --> 00:15:01.019 What I mean by that is throughout the whole book of judges, we keep, the Israelites run 00:15:01.019 --> 00:15:05.759 back to the idols they've been freed from and the priest sticks around too long in this 00:15:05.759 --> 00:15:07.480 location. 00:15:07.480 --> 00:15:13.319 And it takes you all the way back to the Garden of Eden where lingering looks something like 00:15:13.319 --> 00:15:18.039 the serpent coming and saying, well, did God really say? 00:15:18.039 --> 00:15:22.840 And Adam and Eve being slowly convinced, you know, I know that God has told me the way 00:15:22.840 --> 00:15:28.919 to live, I know that God made me, I know that God loves me, I know that, but I'm not totally 00:15:28.919 --> 00:15:31.799 sure that God's got my best interests at heart. 00:15:31.799 --> 00:15:33.959 I'm not actually sure. 00:15:33.959 --> 00:15:43.000 And lingering, the heart of evil is when there is no king, you just become your own king. 00:15:43.000 --> 00:15:44.799 You just live according to your own desires. 00:15:44.799 --> 00:15:49.079 When every human being just does whatever they want to do, we linger, we say, you know, 00:15:49.079 --> 00:15:53.799 I know God made me, I know God loves me, I know God has set the good path for my life 00:15:53.799 --> 00:15:55.879 and told me how to live. 00:15:55.879 --> 00:16:00.840 And at the same time, I'm not really that sure that God has my deepest interest, you 00:16:00.840 --> 00:16:02.639 know, I've got to look out for myself. 00:16:02.639 --> 00:16:03.639 I've got to be number one. 00:16:03.639 --> 00:16:07.200 Who's going to love me and take care of me if I don't do it? 00:16:07.200 --> 00:16:10.480 And throughout the book of Judges, that's really the story is that we just let our desires 00:16:10.480 --> 00:16:13.679 carry us into anything because there is no king in our hearts. 00:16:13.679 --> 00:16:15.519 We are the king of our hearts. 00:16:15.519 --> 00:16:16.519 That's the heart of Judges. 00:16:16.519 --> 00:16:21.559 That's the truth about canonization, about the embrace of evil. 00:16:21.559 --> 00:16:26.679 It's a thousand million little decisions to be the king of our own lives. 00:16:26.679 --> 00:16:29.919 That's the message of the story, I think. 00:16:29.919 --> 00:16:35.899 Sinclair Ferguson, he tells a story that I think really gets us across about what we 00:16:35.899 --> 00:16:40.919 think about God and the heart of hearts and the deepest of our hearts as human beings. 00:16:40.919 --> 00:16:46.959 He says, imagine that it's Christmas time and you take a dad, takes a little boy to 00:16:46.959 --> 00:16:50.979 the toy superstore. 00:16:50.980 --> 00:16:56.560 He walks through the store with a little boy and he says, listen son, you see that toy 00:16:56.560 --> 00:16:57.560 right there? 00:16:57.560 --> 00:16:59.519 And he says, oh yeah, I see it dad. 00:16:59.519 --> 00:17:01.879 And he says, do you want that? 00:17:01.879 --> 00:17:04.160 You know I want that toy. 00:17:04.160 --> 00:17:06.680 And he takes it to the next aisle and says, do you see that toy there? 00:17:06.680 --> 00:17:08.680 Oh yeah, I see it. 00:17:08.680 --> 00:17:10.000 Do you want that dad? 00:17:10.000 --> 00:17:12.240 You know I want that toy. 00:17:12.240 --> 00:17:16.079 And every aisle he takes him, he points out the greatest thing on the aisle and he shows 00:17:16.079 --> 00:17:18.519 it to him and the boy says, oh, I want it. 00:17:18.519 --> 00:17:20.920 And the dad brings him to the front of the store and says, listen, the reason I brought 00:17:20.920 --> 00:17:26.120 you here today is to tell you I am not getting you a single thing from this store. 00:17:26.120 --> 00:17:29.240 I am not getting you a single thing for Christmas at all. 00:17:29.240 --> 00:17:30.880 You won't get any toys. 00:17:30.880 --> 00:17:35.400 And Sinclair says, you know, in the heart of hearts, that's what we think about God. 00:17:35.400 --> 00:17:43.360 The father who exists to restrict us and to not have our interests and to not want greatness 00:17:43.360 --> 00:17:47.120 for us, not life for us, that's what we think. 00:17:47.119 --> 00:17:51.759 And so he says, you know, I know God said all this stuff and I know he made me, but 00:17:51.759 --> 00:17:53.759 I really don't know. 00:17:53.759 --> 00:17:58.119 And I feel like I would be better in control of my life than he will be. 00:17:58.119 --> 00:18:02.839 And so we linger around the tree of the knowledge of good and evil a little too long until we 00:18:02.839 --> 00:18:03.919 take and we eat. 00:18:03.919 --> 00:18:05.479 And I think that's what's happening to the priest here. 00:18:05.479 --> 00:18:06.919 He stayed. 00:18:06.919 --> 00:18:15.199 Like so many have lingered around idolatry and eventually it captures them. 00:18:15.200 --> 00:18:19.559 And so the nature of evil is that utter evil, the heart type story that we were about to 00:18:19.559 --> 00:18:24.400 read about comes about in a thousand small ways. 00:18:24.400 --> 00:18:27.039 So third, Sodom grows. 00:18:27.039 --> 00:18:28.039 Now here's the story. 00:18:28.039 --> 00:18:34.640 We read the summary of the horror story in chapter 20, when the priest recounts it. 00:18:34.640 --> 00:18:38.960 And so you can go back later and read the details of exactly what takes place. 00:18:38.960 --> 00:18:46.120 But just to say that eventually the priest takes his wife, who is now definitively as 00:18:46.120 --> 00:18:51.799 the ESV translates it, concubine property to him clearly. 00:18:51.799 --> 00:18:57.440 And they go to Ramagibya, these two towns that are connected to one another, Ramagibya. 00:18:57.440 --> 00:19:01.039 And they stay there and a man says, don't stay out in the town square. 00:19:01.039 --> 00:19:02.640 It's a dangerous place. 00:19:02.640 --> 00:19:04.000 Come into my home. 00:19:04.000 --> 00:19:05.000 And so he's there. 00:19:05.000 --> 00:19:06.720 He's in the home and in the middle of the night. 00:19:06.720 --> 00:19:09.240 Stay similar to the Sodom and Gomorrah story. 00:19:09.240 --> 00:19:15.600 The men of the city come and they try to take the man and his family and assault them. 00:19:15.600 --> 00:19:20.839 And the owner of the home pushes the priest's wife out of the door. 00:19:20.839 --> 00:19:25.799 And she is assaulted and murdered throughout the course of the night, eventually murdered 00:19:25.799 --> 00:19:28.120 on the doorstep of the door. 00:19:28.120 --> 00:19:30.000 And so it's a true horror story. 00:19:30.000 --> 00:19:35.559 She becomes an absolute victim of such a terrible event. 00:19:35.559 --> 00:19:39.279 And what we see is that the priest allows this to take place. 00:19:39.279 --> 00:19:41.399 So he's not the one that pushes her out the door. 00:19:41.399 --> 00:19:47.000 The man's home, it's the man's home that pushes her and he watches it all take place. 00:19:47.000 --> 00:19:51.440 A few things that then I think the narrator is trying to get us to see here. 00:19:51.440 --> 00:19:56.720 One is that there's three great crimes at least that occur here. 00:19:56.720 --> 00:19:58.759 There's sexual assault and there's murder. 00:19:58.759 --> 00:20:02.200 These are the first two, the very visible and obvious first two. 00:20:02.200 --> 00:20:06.799 And when you look at the literary craft, especially the Hebrew text as the commentators talk about, 00:20:06.799 --> 00:20:11.720 one of the things that jumps out is the text never tells you what to think. 00:20:11.720 --> 00:20:16.080 And instead it gives you, it doesn't give you any gory details. 00:20:16.080 --> 00:20:20.799 Instead it gives you very terse language, very stark verbs. 00:20:20.799 --> 00:20:23.200 It's very short. 00:20:23.200 --> 00:20:27.160 And I think that leaves a sense of utter sadness in the passage. 00:20:27.160 --> 00:20:35.920 And one commentator says, if ever a human being endured a night of utter horror, it was she. 00:20:35.920 --> 00:20:41.560 That night must have seemed as the dark pit of hell itself. 00:20:41.560 --> 00:20:46.680 We see here in this moment that she is no wife of his, he treats her like property. 00:20:46.680 --> 00:20:51.800 And remember, this is not chronologically at the end of the book of Judges, it happens 00:20:51.800 --> 00:20:54.720 somewhere during the time of the judges. 00:20:54.720 --> 00:21:00.000 But it's being placed here at the very end of the book of Judges to say that this event 00:21:00.000 --> 00:21:02.400 is the height of evil. 00:21:02.400 --> 00:21:08.279 It's at the end to say that we've reached ultimate evil in this book and amongst this 00:21:08.279 --> 00:21:09.279 community. 00:21:09.279 --> 00:21:13.000 It's the end of a down spiral of humanity that takes place here. 00:21:13.000 --> 00:21:15.880 Let me say about this, just one thing very briefly. 00:21:15.880 --> 00:21:22.880 In the Bible, the God of the Bible, steps in in Genesis chapter two, in Proverbs chapter 00:21:22.880 --> 00:21:29.280 12, and in 1 Corinthians 11 verse seven, and says the same thing three times. 00:21:29.280 --> 00:21:36.280 And all those passages, God says that woman is the crown or glory of creation and the 00:21:36.280 --> 00:21:40.800 crown or glory of mankind, of humans. 00:21:40.800 --> 00:21:45.360 And so in the creation story, we have this wonderful picture where God creates Adam, 00:21:45.360 --> 00:21:48.640 but then he says, but it's not yet very good. 00:21:48.640 --> 00:21:49.720 And then he creates Eve. 00:21:49.720 --> 00:21:54.440 And when Eve comes, the language is at last bone about bones, flesh and flesh. 00:21:54.440 --> 00:21:59.240 So there's this real image in the creation that woman Eve is the pinnacle of the creation 00:21:59.240 --> 00:22:00.880 story. 00:22:00.880 --> 00:22:05.160 And it's not surprising at all that Proverbs chapter 12 says that woman is the crown of 00:22:05.160 --> 00:22:06.839 mankind, of humankind. 00:22:06.839 --> 00:22:13.240 Or Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11 that a woman is the glory of man, that she is the pinnacle 00:22:13.240 --> 00:22:16.720 creature, pinnacle of creation. 00:22:16.720 --> 00:22:22.279 And that's why in the New Testament, when the new and better Adam, the true groom, comes 00:22:22.279 --> 00:22:28.799 to save his bride, he says that the whole church is the bride of Christ, all of us. 00:22:28.799 --> 00:22:37.000 And so even the images and metaphors of salvation are cast in this pinnacle image of a bride, 00:22:37.000 --> 00:22:39.759 a groom coming for his bride. 00:22:39.759 --> 00:22:43.000 And that means that what happens in this horror story at the very end of the book of Judges 00:22:43.000 --> 00:22:50.400 to say that this is pinnacle evil is the exact reversal of creation order. 00:22:50.400 --> 00:22:53.960 It's complete flipping on its head of what should be. 00:22:53.960 --> 00:22:58.200 Where we see in the beginning in the creation story of Genesis two and three that God made 00:22:58.200 --> 00:23:03.279 Adam the, what was Adam, the priest. 00:23:03.279 --> 00:23:07.640 And he was given the pinnacle of creation, his bride. 00:23:07.640 --> 00:23:14.880 And he was told, guard and protect and care for the garden, love your wife, build creation 00:23:14.880 --> 00:23:17.240 order in the way that God's made it. 00:23:17.240 --> 00:23:23.080 And we see in Adam a man who set while she was tempted by the serpent and did absolutely 00:23:23.080 --> 00:23:24.460 nothing. 00:23:24.460 --> 00:23:30.560 We learn in Genesis three that Adam was with her as Eve was tempted by Satan. 00:23:30.560 --> 00:23:36.520 And we read about a man in this story who sat in the home and watched this happen to 00:23:36.519 --> 00:23:39.119 his wife and did absolutely nothing. 00:23:39.119 --> 00:23:41.879 And you see this is the utter reversal of all creation order. 00:23:41.879 --> 00:23:42.879 This is the height of evil. 00:23:42.879 --> 00:23:46.639 This is everything that should not be and God hates it. 00:23:46.639 --> 00:23:47.639 That's the point. 00:23:47.639 --> 00:23:48.639 It's here. 00:23:48.639 --> 00:23:49.639 It's descriptive, not prescriptive. 00:23:49.639 --> 00:23:52.039 It's saying to us prescriptively, God hates it. 00:23:52.039 --> 00:23:57.279 That's why it's at the very end of the height of evil in the book of Judges. 00:23:57.279 --> 00:23:59.920 And it's no coincidence. 00:23:59.920 --> 00:24:06.240 It's no coincidence that this is a young girl, this woman he marries is, she's from Bethlehem. 00:24:06.240 --> 00:24:07.920 She's a young girl, Bethlehem. 00:24:07.920 --> 00:24:15.400 And she draws us to think of Eve and Mary and all that God will do with a better priest 00:24:15.400 --> 00:24:19.160 pursuing the true bride. 00:24:19.160 --> 00:24:22.160 She enters into the pain like the pit of hell on this night. 00:24:22.160 --> 00:24:26.160 And the question I think, and we'll move on, is just to say, does God care? 00:24:26.160 --> 00:24:28.559 And the answer is absolutely yes. 00:24:28.559 --> 00:24:34.000 And in Hebrews four verse 12, we have, I'll just leave you with this phrase, Hebrews four 00:24:34.000 --> 00:24:36.120 verse 12, so important. 00:24:36.119 --> 00:24:43.359 Hebrews Christ, we're told, is the better priest who sympathizes with our weaknesses, 00:24:43.359 --> 00:24:48.639 with our struggles, with our sufferings, with the evil that people experience in this world. 00:24:48.639 --> 00:24:51.719 So many people, and probably people in this room have experienced some horrible things 00:24:51.719 --> 00:24:52.719 in this life. 00:24:52.719 --> 00:24:57.719 And just to say that the word sympathize in our English is not strong enough, what it 00:24:57.719 --> 00:24:59.639 says in Hebrews four 12. 00:24:59.640 --> 00:25:06.240 In Hebrews four 12, it says that Jesus sympathizes with those who suffer evil, who walk through 00:25:06.240 --> 00:25:10.960 the pain of this life, and sympathize. 00:25:10.960 --> 00:25:16.000 It means more literally to suffer with. 00:25:16.000 --> 00:25:18.640 Not just somebody who says, oh, wow, I'm sorry that that happened. 00:25:18.640 --> 00:25:24.400 No, it says that Jesus Christ suffers with, meaning that the God of all creation who does 00:25:24.400 --> 00:25:31.280 not change became, became human, and as a human being, he suffers with us. 00:25:31.280 --> 00:25:34.080 He feels the pain. 00:25:34.080 --> 00:25:37.759 He knows what it's like to experience such great evil. 00:25:37.759 --> 00:25:40.280 He suffers with us. 00:25:40.280 --> 00:25:47.120 That's the promise of the gospel that our Savior has suffered and suffers, knows the 00:25:47.120 --> 00:25:50.480 heart of the sufferer to the uttermost. 00:25:50.480 --> 00:25:55.279 But what the narrator focused on, and we'll move to the final thing, what the narrator 00:25:55.279 --> 00:25:59.160 focused on here is one particular evil, I think, above all others. 00:25:59.160 --> 00:26:04.440 And I think the evil that's being highlighted across these three chapters is very particularly 00:26:04.440 --> 00:26:07.360 the passivity of the priest. 00:26:07.360 --> 00:26:12.000 So I think above anything else, the narrator is trying to bring that out. 00:26:12.000 --> 00:26:16.400 And the reason for that, just to make it simple and to reiterate, is that that's because this 00:26:16.400 --> 00:26:21.759 man is like Adam, watching his bride be taken. 00:26:21.759 --> 00:26:26.759 And just like Eve was overtaken by Satan, so this priest stands utterly passive, doing 00:26:26.759 --> 00:26:28.600 absolutely nothing. 00:26:28.600 --> 00:26:33.120 And you've got to ask the question when you see such a horror story of a man who stands 00:26:33.120 --> 00:26:36.680 aside and does nothing, what should he have done? 00:26:36.680 --> 00:26:38.440 And the answer, I think, is pretty clear. 00:26:38.440 --> 00:26:40.200 He should have stood against evil. 00:26:40.200 --> 00:26:42.160 He should have fought for his bride. 00:26:42.160 --> 00:26:45.000 He should have gone down to death for her. 00:26:45.000 --> 00:26:50.599 He should have walked out and gone and fought to the death for her. 00:26:50.599 --> 00:26:57.440 And this priest who does not look like God anymore did not, but we have a better priest 00:26:57.440 --> 00:27:05.279 who came into this world to go toe to toe with every single evil, every single injustice, 00:27:05.279 --> 00:27:11.640 and to fight to the death, to die, to win by losing, a better priest to redeem his true 00:27:11.640 --> 00:27:13.599 bride. 00:27:13.599 --> 00:27:16.919 And that means that we're left at the end of the book of Judges with a book that leaves 00:27:16.919 --> 00:27:23.799 you in hopelessness, but leaves you in immense longing, immense longing for a priest who would 00:27:23.799 --> 00:27:28.319 give himself to death for the sake of his bride, for a king. 00:27:28.319 --> 00:27:31.240 In this day, there was no king in Israel. 00:27:31.240 --> 00:27:35.639 And so we're left longing for a better king, a true king, a time when there will be a king, 00:27:35.639 --> 00:27:38.079 a king who will bring justice. 00:27:38.079 --> 00:27:39.719 And evil like this will be wiped away. 00:27:39.719 --> 00:27:41.480 There will be healing in his wings. 00:27:41.480 --> 00:27:46.200 Finally, fourthly, Rachel Weeps. 00:27:46.200 --> 00:27:51.400 If we look at the overall overarching story and we think about the civil war that breaks 00:27:51.400 --> 00:27:56.079 out, which is the whole of the last two chapters, is about the civil war that breaks out because 00:27:56.079 --> 00:28:01.400 of this event, there's something really interesting that takes place. 00:28:01.400 --> 00:28:04.160 Just highlight that very quickly. 00:28:04.160 --> 00:28:07.240 This event looks a lot like Sodom and Gomorrah. 00:28:07.240 --> 00:28:12.200 And it also looks a lot like the Rachel and Jacob story, in a way. 00:28:12.200 --> 00:28:19.880 So if you think back to the book of Genesis, Isaac had a son, Jacob, whose name would be 00:28:19.880 --> 00:28:20.880 Israel. 00:28:20.880 --> 00:28:23.519 He would be the father of the 12 tribes of Israel. 00:28:23.519 --> 00:28:28.960 And Isaac, Jacob, sorry, went out to find his wife, Rachel. 00:28:28.960 --> 00:28:34.440 And when he found his wife, Rachel, the father-in-law said, well, no, no, no, don't leave. 00:28:34.440 --> 00:28:37.200 Stay, layman. 00:28:37.200 --> 00:28:41.960 And layman told Rachel and Jacob, you know, if you really want to be mayor, if you really 00:28:41.960 --> 00:28:44.600 want to have Rachel, you've got to stay. 00:28:44.600 --> 00:28:47.960 And lingered and lingered and lingered and it took forever. 00:28:47.960 --> 00:28:52.480 And then when they finally did leave, where did Rachel go? 00:28:52.480 --> 00:28:56.400 Rachel went, Rachel and Jacob, they went to Ramah. 00:28:56.400 --> 00:29:03.000 And when the priest and his wife leave, they go to Ramah Ghibiel. 00:29:03.000 --> 00:29:08.880 And there, Rachel gives birth to Benjamin and she dies. 00:29:08.880 --> 00:29:15.680 And here, this woman goes to Ramah and she dies at the hand of Benjamin. 00:29:15.680 --> 00:29:19.160 The Benjaminites are the one that kill her. 00:29:19.160 --> 00:29:20.599 And then we have this very famous verse. 00:29:20.599 --> 00:29:23.960 You may know about it from Jeremiah 31 and Matthew 2. 00:29:23.960 --> 00:29:31.720 A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children and 00:29:31.720 --> 00:29:34.640 refusing to be comforted because they are no more. 00:29:34.640 --> 00:29:37.880 Now that verse has lots of meanings. 00:29:37.880 --> 00:29:42.160 The depth of Rachel's weeping across the whole Bible, so many layers. 00:29:42.160 --> 00:29:47.600 But I think it begins here where Rachel, in a metaphorical sense, weeps from the grave 00:29:47.600 --> 00:29:53.799 for her Benjamin, the tribe of her son who has committed this great evil against this 00:29:53.799 --> 00:29:55.720 woman. 00:29:55.720 --> 00:29:59.559 And when you read chapter 20, verse 20 to 25, one of the things that you think, we read 00:29:59.559 --> 00:30:06.440 it, it's about the Civil War, Israel gathers together all the tribes and takes up arms 00:30:06.440 --> 00:30:10.639 against Benjamin and says, you know, Benjamin, bring us the evil men that did this. 00:30:10.639 --> 00:30:11.639 They must be judged. 00:30:11.639 --> 00:30:13.720 They must be condemned to death. 00:30:13.720 --> 00:30:18.079 And what happens instead is sort of the opposite of what you would expect. 00:30:18.079 --> 00:30:23.319 Israel goes to battle against Benjamin and Benjamin several times in a row wins. 00:30:23.319 --> 00:30:26.879 And you think, surely God is going to bring Benjamin to judgment. 00:30:26.880 --> 00:30:31.000 God is going to destroy these evil men of Benjamin that did this evil thing at the hands 00:30:31.000 --> 00:30:35.520 of the Israelites and the priests, you know, taking and saying, we've got to go do this. 00:30:35.520 --> 00:30:36.760 This is what happened. 00:30:36.760 --> 00:30:37.760 And instead that doesn't happen. 00:30:37.760 --> 00:30:43.200 The Israelites lose in the Civil War, at least at the beginning. 00:30:43.200 --> 00:30:47.840 And I think the reason for that is the pronouncement at the end of this book is being made. 00:30:47.840 --> 00:30:51.360 That when you look around and you say, well, who are the good guys? 00:30:51.360 --> 00:30:52.560 Where are the good guys? 00:30:52.560 --> 00:30:54.280 Is it Israel? 00:30:54.280 --> 00:30:56.120 And God is saying, no. 00:30:56.119 --> 00:30:57.119 Is it Benjamin? 00:30:57.119 --> 00:30:58.119 No. 00:30:58.119 --> 00:30:59.119 Is it the priest? 00:30:59.119 --> 00:31:00.119 Is it the priesthood? 00:31:00.119 --> 00:31:01.119 The Levites? 00:31:01.119 --> 00:31:02.119 No. 00:31:02.119 --> 00:31:03.119 There are no good guys. 00:31:03.119 --> 00:31:05.079 Everybody has run away from the Lord. 00:31:05.079 --> 00:31:07.119 There is no king in Israel. 00:31:07.119 --> 00:31:08.359 It feels utterly hopeless. 00:31:08.359 --> 00:31:13.959 And for that reason, he takes her body and puts it into 12 pieces and sends it across 00:31:13.959 --> 00:31:19.359 all of Israel wide because Rachel's weeping in her grave saying the sons of Jacob, Israel, 00:31:19.359 --> 00:31:21.479 the 12 tribes, they're no more. 00:31:21.479 --> 00:31:22.479 They're destroyed. 00:31:22.479 --> 00:31:23.479 They've lost everything. 00:31:23.479 --> 00:31:25.399 They don't follow the Lord. 00:31:25.400 --> 00:31:26.600 None of them do. 00:31:26.600 --> 00:31:28.040 There is no hope. 00:31:28.040 --> 00:31:29.840 Nobody is pursuing God. 00:31:29.840 --> 00:31:32.880 There's no good guy at the end of the story. 00:31:32.880 --> 00:31:35.600 So let me close with this. 00:31:35.600 --> 00:31:37.840 What's wrong with the world? 00:31:37.840 --> 00:31:41.440 And there is such a thing as maximized evil. 00:31:41.440 --> 00:31:42.759 We just read about it. 00:31:42.759 --> 00:31:44.360 Utter horror. 00:31:44.360 --> 00:31:46.640 The climax of evil in the book of Judges. 00:31:46.640 --> 00:31:47.640 We've seen it here. 00:31:47.640 --> 00:31:48.980 Evil to the max. 00:31:48.980 --> 00:31:53.400 But oftentimes our culture wants us to think about a spectrum of people. 00:31:53.400 --> 00:31:56.440 There's good people and there's bad people. 00:31:56.440 --> 00:31:59.880 There's really evil people and there's normal people, the good people. 00:31:59.880 --> 00:32:08.240 And the Bible comes in and destroys that and cuts through that and says the truth about 00:32:08.240 --> 00:32:12.600 the human heart is that it is wicked continually, that we are born in an equity. 00:32:12.600 --> 00:32:16.600 And the book of Judges, I think, calls us at the end to just take a look at ourselves 00:32:16.600 --> 00:32:22.400 and know ourselves and look at our own heart and say that the true nature of evil, the 00:32:22.400 --> 00:32:28.480 true nature of evil is when we say, I know God made me, but I'm not really sure he has 00:32:28.480 --> 00:32:31.040 my best interest at heart. 00:32:31.040 --> 00:32:32.759 And we become our own kings. 00:32:32.759 --> 00:32:36.519 And that's the bottom, at the bottom, the root of the nature of evil. 00:32:36.519 --> 00:32:41.400 Hannah Arendt, one of the very famous philosophers from the 20th century, she wrote a book called 00:32:41.400 --> 00:32:43.560 the banality of evil. 00:32:43.560 --> 00:32:45.280 You may have heard of this. 00:32:45.280 --> 00:32:49.720 She wrote it while she observed the trial of Adolf Eichmann. 00:32:49.720 --> 00:32:53.360 I mentioned this on a Wednesday night a couple of months ago, I think. 00:32:53.360 --> 00:32:56.440 But Adolf Eichmann was the creator of the Nazi death camps. 00:32:56.440 --> 00:33:01.440 He was one of the main architects of the death camps under the Nazi regime. 00:33:01.440 --> 00:33:05.519 And Hannah Arendt wrote this book and it really shocked a lot of people because it's called 00:33:05.519 --> 00:33:10.440 the banality of evil because her thesis in the book is that when she studied Eichmann 00:33:10.440 --> 00:33:15.680 and other figures like that at the end of World War II that had run the architects of 00:33:15.680 --> 00:33:19.360 the Nazi death camps and things like that, she said that she found them all to be very 00:33:19.359 --> 00:33:22.439 quote, run of the mill. 00:33:22.439 --> 00:33:27.599 And she said that the evil of Eichmann, she writes about in the book, was thousands of 00:33:27.599 --> 00:33:34.279 small choices, commonplace, little sins, mostly complacency. 00:33:34.279 --> 00:33:39.139 She said that a lot of it was Eichmann seeking a promotion. 00:33:39.139 --> 00:33:43.799 He just wanted to rise up the ladder in the culture that he lived in. 00:33:43.799 --> 00:33:49.399 Little idols stacked on top of little idols, stacked on top of little idols, lingering 00:33:49.399 --> 00:33:55.200 until one day utter evil was normalized very slowly. 00:33:55.200 --> 00:34:02.879 And 22 years later, well after she wrote this book, Mike Wallace, on 60 Minutes, one of 00:34:02.879 --> 00:34:07.720 the famous television interviewers in the U.S. interviewed Yehiel de Neur. 00:34:07.720 --> 00:34:13.639 Yehiel de Neur was one of the witnesses against Eichmann at the trials in Nuremberg. 00:34:13.639 --> 00:34:20.400 And Yehiel de Neur, when he walked into the courtroom, when he saw Eichmann, he passed 00:34:20.400 --> 00:34:21.400 out. 00:34:21.400 --> 00:34:22.400 He fainted. 00:34:22.400 --> 00:34:27.400 And 22 years later, Mike Wallace is asking Yehiel de Neur, what went through your mind? 00:34:27.400 --> 00:34:31.000 What caused you to pass out when you saw Adolf Eichmann? 00:34:31.000 --> 00:34:32.079 Was it hatred? 00:34:32.079 --> 00:34:33.159 Was it fear? 00:34:33.159 --> 00:34:36.000 Was it because you stared into the face of utter evil? 00:34:36.000 --> 00:34:39.639 And Yehiel de Neur startled Mike Wallace and the American viewers. 00:34:39.639 --> 00:34:41.879 Immensely, he said, no, no, no, no. 00:34:41.879 --> 00:34:42.879 Here's what overwhelmed me. 00:34:42.880 --> 00:34:47.160 I came in, I looked at Eichmann, and I realized this is not a demon. 00:34:47.160 --> 00:34:48.960 This is not a superhuman. 00:34:48.960 --> 00:34:52.440 This is someone just like me. 00:34:52.440 --> 00:34:56.840 And if he's capable of doing this, so am I. 00:34:56.840 --> 00:35:01.519 And Yehiel de Neur said very famously, Eichmann is in all of us. 00:35:01.519 --> 00:35:04.039 And he faced himself. 00:35:04.039 --> 00:35:09.160 And he says that he's pointing, you know, he understood the Old Testament and the Old 00:35:09.160 --> 00:35:12.760 Testament comes and teaches that sin is at the base of every human heart. 00:35:12.760 --> 00:35:16.760 Because we say there is no king, I want to be my own king. 00:35:16.760 --> 00:35:19.720 And the heart of humanity is continually evil. 00:35:19.720 --> 00:35:22.360 And the nature of evil is to reject the king. 00:35:22.360 --> 00:35:23.360 It's unbelief. 00:35:23.360 --> 00:35:24.860 It's unbelief. 00:35:24.860 --> 00:35:27.520 The problem of evil is us. 00:35:27.520 --> 00:35:33.080 And Christianity does not offer a philosophy, a therapy. 00:35:33.080 --> 00:35:35.120 It offers a person. 00:35:35.120 --> 00:35:41.040 Jesus Christ, the true and better priest, the better Hosea, the real king, the God who 00:35:41.039 --> 00:35:46.759 chases and pursues and will not leave us until he saves us, until he redeems us, until 00:35:46.759 --> 00:35:49.000 he shows us mercy. 00:35:49.000 --> 00:35:50.000 So let me say this. 00:35:50.000 --> 00:35:55.759 There is so much to say in every individual case of anybody who has experienced utter evil 00:35:55.759 --> 00:35:58.639 in their life, maximized evil. 00:35:58.639 --> 00:36:02.599 So much to say. 00:36:02.599 --> 00:36:05.400 And tonight I just want to say that no matter what we have done, no matter what has been 00:36:05.400 --> 00:36:13.519 done to us, there is eternal hope in the priest who died for his bride. 00:36:13.519 --> 00:36:16.160 There is healing in his wings. 00:36:16.160 --> 00:36:17.160 Let's pray. 00:36:17.160 --> 00:36:23.039 Father, we come to you to recognize the power of your holy word. 00:36:23.039 --> 00:36:29.000 And we see in the book of Judges that even in the midst of such horror, there is the 00:36:29.000 --> 00:36:35.840 message of the gospel that we have a true high priest, a true king, and a true husband 00:36:35.840 --> 00:36:41.559 who would not leave us in the midst of a culture of evil, a society of evil, or with our own 00:36:41.559 --> 00:36:47.920 heart full of sin, but who came to save, who came to redeem, who came to rescue his 00:36:47.920 --> 00:36:48.920 bride. 00:36:48.920 --> 00:36:54.679 So we just ask now that you would renew us in that we just sit for a moment in the sadness 00:36:54.679 --> 00:36:59.759 of this world and we look out and we lament the horrors that people experience and we 00:36:59.759 --> 00:37:07.359 recognize the pain and the truth that there really is evil. 00:37:07.359 --> 00:37:11.279 There really is deep sin that wounds. 00:37:11.279 --> 00:37:18.319 And we look to you, Lord Jesus, tonight for some measure of healing in this life and for 00:37:18.319 --> 00:37:22.480 utter and utmost healing in the life that is to come. 00:37:22.480 --> 00:37:27.719 So we take hope tonight, we pray for those who need tonight to take hope and glorification 00:37:27.719 --> 00:37:33.000 and resting in the fact that one day justice will be done and healing will be given under 00:37:33.000 --> 00:37:34.159 the wings of Christ. 00:37:34.159 --> 00:37:38.159 And so we ask, Lord, that you would comfort us with that hope and help us to rest in that 00:37:38.159 --> 00:37:39.519 and we pray that in Jesus' name. 00:37:39.519 --> 00:37:55.519 Amen.