Sermon Tone Analysis

The music band Skillet is a Christian Rock band, I used to listen to them a lot during my teen and college days.

The lead singer of the band’s name is John Cooper, and he once said “I'm amazed that so many Christians want the benefits of the kingdom of God, but with the caveat that they themselves be the king."

In so many ways, that sums up the book of Judges.

We have seen the cycles go around.

We saw Othniel and Ehud and Shamgar.

We saw Deborah and Barak.

Gideon, Abimelech, Jepthah, and and several minor judges Tola, Jair, Ibzan, Elon, Abdon.

Then finally we saw the life of Samson.

I hope as I read through that list of judges that you were able to bring some of the details of these judges to mind.

I hope you were able to reflect on the lives of some of these individuals and how God used them mightily to being deliverance to Israel.

I hope you were also able to remember that the names at the beginning of that list acted much more noble than the individuals toward the end of the list.

Men like Othniel, Ehud, Barak, and even the early part of Gideon’s life.

These individuals were very concerned with the wellbeing of the people.

As the cycles wax on.

however, we find that increasingly that the judges act more for their own interest than the for interest of the nation.

This really began in a clear way with Gideon, as he went from fighting for the nation to enacting his own personal revenge and establishing himself in a kingly position while rejecting the title.

Men like Abimelech and Jepthah only did things for other in so far as it served their own interest and established their own authority.

By the time we get to Samson there is not even a pretense of seeking to serve the people, but rather their judge was entirely self-focused, self-guided, and ultimately ended in self-destruction.

There has been a clear trend, not only in the people, but in the leadership as well.

Samson is the last judge in the book of Judges.

There will be one more judge in Isreal, and his name is Samuel, but within this book itself, Samson is the last one.

The author has taken us through this period of the nation of Israel's history and has skillfully illustrated the cyclical decline of the people as they have become increasingly Canaanized.

As we arrive at the end of the book, the author gives us two concluding stories that each have a few episodes each.

The stories that remain are going to leave a bad taste in your mouth.

They may even make you sick to your stomach.

There are difficult things in these last few chapters, and that’s especially true in that last portion of the book, which we will examine in the next couple of weeks.

In many ways, these are some of the most difficult chapters of the old testament.

I’ve had different people ask me over the years what the point of these stories is.

how do we find benefit from them?

What are we supposed to do?

As we prepare ourselves to read this, I need you to know that the sickening feeling that we are going to experience is a good thing.

We aren’t supposed to look at these stories and gloss over the troubling details in search of typology or veiled analogies to Christ.

We’re supposed to sit and stare into the face of our own depravity and see how vile sin really is, and see what happens to a society that has turned its back on the King of kings.

So don’t try to push the yucky feeling away.

Embrace it for the gift that it is.

Where does a rejection of the King of kings and the subsequent increasing worldliness of a society including its rulers lead?

Today, we see that it inevitably leads to idolatry, and to a pursuit of selfish ambition.

Beginning with Idolatry

Inevitability of Idolatry

Here is a unique situation.

A man comes clean to his mother about stealing her silver.

It might be inferred from the text that he is coming clean because she uttered a curse and maybe some bad things were happening, so he confesses.

He seems to link the curse to his confession.

She responds with several shocking actions.

First he calls him blessed by the LORD, and she uses the covenant name of God, YAHWEH to issue a blessing to likely correct the curse that she had previously uttered.

But look at what she does with the money!

She dedicates it to YAHWEH....but then makes an idol out of a portion of the money!

It’s bad enough that she creates an idol, which is expressly forbidden by God.

God has made it clear that He is the one true God.

There are none other.

To make an idol and worship the created thing over the creator is the most arrogant and despicable act any human can do.

Rom 1 speaks to this.

She only adds to the egregiousness of the sin by having the audacity to say “this is YAHWEH!

As if one could capture the likeness of God with a metal carving, as if someone could contain the immensity and splendor and beauty of the LORD in pieces of silver, as if anyone could ever express the glory of God in such an image as that.

This calls to mind the Israelites at Mt Sinai, when Moses was on the mountain and the people clamored out to Aaron, make us an image, we don’t know what has become of Moses.

Aaron collected gold and made the infamous golden calf, but had the audacity to say “This is YAHWEH your god who brought you out of Egypt!”

God went to great lengths to teach the people that there is but one true God and no one can capture him in some carved image.

But those lessons seem to be long forgotten, as Micah’s mother commissions this idol.

Micah’s response is to not only worship the image, but turn his household into a shrine, complete with priestly garments and then he makes his son a priest.

This is a further violation of the Law of Moses.

Of course only Levites could be priests.

This only demonstrates the continued Canaanization of the people, as it was common for the Canaanites for their households to make their sons priests over their household shrines.

To a later Israelite who might have been further trained in the law, these are shocking developments.

These things ought not to be!

The narrator helps us out with verse 6.

There was no king.

There was no one to be the firm leader that the people needed.

They had rejected the LORD as king and none of the judges were providing the leadership they so desperately needed, case in point, the last judge Samson.

Samson was the one who pursued the Philistine woman because she was, in his own words “right in my eyes”

So now all the people are doing the same.

And why not?

If you cast of the rule of the LORD, what’s left to follow?

Whatever seems good to you the result.

When people detach themselves from the guidance of the Lord, they do whatever is right in their own sinful eyes, and so often that leads to aimless wandering and restless searching for something.

As we read on we find a few wandering individuals and groups, who seem to be motivated by their own selfish ambition.

Inevitability of Selfish Ambition

So now a Levite enters the story.

The test says twice that the man is “looking for a place.”

There is ambiguity in the language there, so its not entirely clear what it is that he’s looking for.

It may be a home.

A new job.

A place to call his own.

A new area to put down roots.

From the context I think we can surmise that he was seeking to find a place for himself that might benefit him in some way.

Already we have another issue.

The Levites were not supposed to seek out land or a portion.

God had said in his Law that He was their portion and that they were to be content serving the Lord though the tabernacle and temple ministries.

The Levites aren’t supposed to be seeking to make anything for themselves but relying upon God’s provision.

The fact that he is wandering could be indicative of at least two things.

1.

The people of the land are failing to provide for the Levites as God commanded in His Law.

2. The Levites are failing to trust God’s provision and are selfishly looking to establish themselves by wandering around looking for a place.

With what we know about the land at the time, it’s likely a sad combination of the two.

I any case, he shows up, happens to run into Micah, and Micah offers him a job as his personal household priest, and the text says that the Levite was “content to dwell with him”

But notice also the motivation for Micah in verse 13:

Now I know that the Lord will prosper me, because I have a Levite as a priest”

For all his failures, for all his violations, Micah thinks he can curry the Lord’s favor simply by giving a token nod toward what he seems to know is good and proper.

He ignores everything God says in his word, but then when he has the opportunity to hire a Levite, he has the audacity to think that alone will bring blessing, despite his ongoing disobedience to what God has clearly said.

Church, we need to be careful.

It’s easy for us to sit and look at what these characters are doing and shake our heads.

But so often we are prone to the same thing.