Freedom That is Not Freeing.

Introduction:

2 - What “Freedom to do What I Want,” Looks Like.

Samson Story

Israel did not ask for saving

Samson had the Power of the Holy Spirit, but not the Character of the Holy Spirit

As a result No Peace, but these last two major stories.

Micah and the Danites.

Micah Steels his Mom’s silver, she curses, he admits.

Judges 17:3 ESV

And he restored the 1,100 pieces of silver to his mother. And his mother said, “I dedicate the silver to the Lord from my hand for my son, to make a carved image and a metal image. Now therefore I will restore it to you.”

Judges 17:6 ESV

In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

Wandering Levite - Micah pays to be his personal priest over the idol.

We see a mixture of the worshipping the Lord and Idols in order to prosper.

Consumerism - Personal Pastor - Levites are supposed to serve the community.

Judges 18:1 ESV

In those days there was no king in Israel. And in those days the tribe of the people of Dan was seeking for itself an inheritance to dwell in, for until then no inheritance among the tribes of Israel had fallen to them.

5 - Use Map to Tell the Story:

God gave them this land.

Philistines on one end, and Ephraim crowding them out.

Dan is the tribe of Samson.

They look for new territory - They find a peaceful people who they can easily take over - Laish - Not their given territory.

On their way through trickery they steal Micah’s idol and shrine, and they pay his priest more to be their priest.

So again, we see here greed like Samson, and compromise to their covenant with God.

Judges 18:30 ESV

And the people of Dan set up the carved image for themselves, and Jonathan the son of Gershom, son of Moses, and his sons were priests to the tribe of the Danites until the day of the captivity of the land.

So we see a false religion institutionalized in one of the tribes.

Next Story is Horrendous.

Judges 19:1 ESV

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.

A Levite is travelling around with his concubine - between slave/wife - more and less rights.

It is getting dark so they decide to stay in a Benjamite town instead of a Caananite town (Jebus).

In the town square no one takes them in, but an old man.

Parallel to Sodom and Gomorah slide.

Levite & Concubine guests, two angels guests.

Both Lot and the old man insist they not stay in the square.

All the men of Sodom, Some or all the men of Gibeah arrive

“Bring out the man (men) to us so that we can have sex with them.

Lot and the old man say, don’t do this wicked thing, here take my daughters (lot), take my virgin daughter and the Levites concubine (old man)

Sodom gets violent and so the Angels blind the men and allow for Lots family to escape.

In this story, the Levite shoves out his concubine, where they rape her, and leave her for dead.

The next morning, the Levite takes her body home, and cuts her into 12 pieces to send in the mail to the 12 tribes with a note describing what happened to her.

Commentary on the state of Israel at this point - It has become as bad as Sodom and Gomorrah.

When the tribes get the message they assemble and they decided to ask Benjamin to give up the men who raped/killed the concubine so for capital punishment.

Benjamin decides to resist and go to war against the rest of the tribes - civil war.

Only now do the tribes ask God, “Which tribe should first?”

Notice they don’t ask God for any guidance beforehand. They have already decided. They are not praying to join God’s work, but for God to join in on their decision.

In reality, God’s judgment is on them. He lets them be their own undoing if you will.

The Benjamites when the first battle.

They go to God, "Should we continue to fight against them?” God, says, “Yes.”

The Benjamites win the second battle.

God, “Should we continue to fight them?” God, “Yes, and this time you will win.”

And indeed they do win. But they are used to battles where they fought the Canaanites to destroy the entire cities, which they did to the Benjamites.

All that was left was 600 Benjimite men, and no Benjimite women for them to Marry.

The other 11 tribes realized that they made a pact, that they would not give any of there daughters into marriage to the Benjimites.

So they do what all humans do.

Judges 21:3 ESV

And they said, “O Lord, the God of Israel, why has this happened in Israel, that today there should be one tribe lacking in Israel?”

- They blame God, they don’t take responsibility.

They devise a plan - They figure out there no one from the town of Jabesh-Gilead was present when they decided to go to war with Benjamin. So they went to that town, killed the inhabitents of their fellow Israelites, and found 400 virgins to give to some of the Benjamites as wives.

But that was not enough. There were 200 still without wives. So when they had a festival they told those 200 men to hide in the bushes and when the dancing virgin’s dance by in the processional, that they can jump out and steal them to be their wives.

And that is what they did, and everyone went back to their own business.

Judges 21:25 ESV

In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

What can we say about this?

This Freedom is not Freeing.

In fact, I might say this looks like Hell on Earth

Hell is receiving all your heart desires, unless that heart’s desire is God. The result is not peace, but rather Chaos.

Postmodernism

This will be the result of Postmodernism

When everyone becomes the author of their own truth, then everyone else must succumb to that truth.

Perhaps this is why we see mass shootings, our culture has believed that my truth is my truth. I do not submit to an overarching standard of Morality designed by God.

To that end Postmodern philosophy will do the same thing, by using God conveniently. It seems so spiritual, but in reality we treat God as a genie in the bottle to make our wishes, our personal standard of truth help us prosper.

Atheists have the same problem. While they may be moral people from time to time, they have no basis for that morality. And so really they are doing what seems right in their own eyes.

This is not new to history.

The Sophists taught courses that might have been labeled with such current phrasings as:

· How to win no matter how bad your case is.

· How to win friends and influence people

· How to succeed in business without really trying

· How to fall into a pigsty and come out smelling like a rose.

· How to succeed in life.

· How to play to win

The Sophists held no values other than winning and succeeding. They were not true believers in the myths of the Greeks but would use references and quotations from the tales for their own purposes. They were secular atheists, relativists and cynical about religious beliefs and all traditions. They believed and taught that "might makes right". They were pragmatists trusting in whatever works to bring about the desired end at whatever the cost. They made a business of their own form of education as developing skills in rhetoric and profited from it.

Their concerns were not with truth but with practical knowledge. They practiced rhetoric in order to persuade and not to discover truth. Their art was to persuade the crowd and not to convince people of the truth. They moved thought from cosmology and cosmogony and theogony, stories of the gods and the universe, to a concern for humanity. Their focus was human civilization and human customs. Their theater was the ethical and political problems of immediate concern for humans. They put the individual human being at the center of all thought and value. They did not hold for any universals; not universal truths nor universal values. They sought and took payment for their lessons at speaking (and writing). - Queensborough Community College website.

Plato argued that Sophists were degrading the morality of society.

The Wild West.

So, What brings True Freedom?

Living Out What is Right in our King’s Eyes.

We need a King.

Cheryl A. Brown suggests that the refrain - In those days they had no King. Refers to the people not having an earthly king, but also not recognizing God as their king.

Peter: In Acts 15:10 - “Why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the (gentile) disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?”

What Judges sets us up for the Good News.

Judges tells us - left to our own, we humans will devolve into chaos, - We need a savior King.

And God is preparing one. in the time of Judges - The Book of Ruth.

Ruth lived in the middle of the book of Judges. God is preserving his people even though they are disobeying him and spiraling down hill.

Ruth and Naomi are just trying to survive - Ruth is a Moabite from one of the Nations that oppressed Israel at one point in Judges.

It’s as though God’s promise never happened, but he finds a way through God honoring, people honoring actions of Ruth and Boaz.

Obed, Jesse, David - Leads to Jesus.

We have a Lord - Jesus

We are not saved because of our morality, but if we want to see His Kingdom reign in this world we will.

Go to him as Lord, not as an afterthought.

Ask Him first what his will and join Him - Need Scripture., Not ask Him to join our will.

Do what is right in His eyes.

Conclusion: