Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

The last two weeks we have looked at the Religious Corruption of Israel

Today we will conclude the Book of Judges by summarizing it’s last few chapters 19-21

which speaks to the real enemy “The Canaanite Within”

Perhaps the worst corruption we have been privy to up until the time of the Judges is the occurence of Sodom and Gomorrah

We will see that Israel is not that far from it’s story and we know how God judged that evil...

The Moral Degeneration of Israel (19:1-21:25)

Beginning of the outrage at Gibeah (19:1-9)

So the Levite goes out to redeem his concubine who has been unfaithful to him

there the father-in-law persuades him to stay longer, than he desires...

Nature of the outrage at Gibeah (19:10-30)

After traveling for awhile we come to verse 15...

This is a shocking development the social disintegration that no one would open their doors even for a fellow countrymen

The hospitality that God commands is not evident...

Finally someone inquires to their situation...

After accepting this hospitality the following corruption rears it’s ugly head...

The host who is responsible for his guests safety offers a compromise...

Israel has found her enemy and it is self!!!!!

This is a scene straight out of Sodom and Gomorrah, who would think that Israel herself would turn out this way...

More grotesque things happen at the death of the Levite’s concubine...

He sends a message out to all Israel by cutting up his concubine and mails her pieces out to all the land...

Our sermon text speaks to the response and outrage of the nation

Which will now culminate in civil war...

The Canaanization of Israel comes to a fitting conclusion.

First, socially this chapter illustrates the continuation and intensification of cancerous Canaanite living.

We are invited to view this revelation through the eyes of the women.

The women of Jabesh-Gilead lose their families, are dragged out of their homes, and are forced to live with cursed Benjamites.

Then during an exuberant celebration the “daughters of Shiloh” are ambushed, violently captured, removed from their families, and also forced to live with the cursed Benjamites.

No one considers their feelings about this fate.

On the contrary, all voices of protest are stifled.

The rape of an individual has multiplied into the rape of four hundred victims of war and two hundred innocent merry maidens.

Indeed, by now the Israelite landscape is full with the victims of violence:

the Levite’s concubine (19:29–30),

the women of Benjamin (20:48),

the virgins of Jabesh-Gilead (21:14),

and the dancers of Shiloh (21:23).

In the words of one commentator, “Israelite males have dismembered the corporate bodies of Israelite females.

Since they have done it to one of the least of women, they have done it unto many.”

We ought to be cautioned, however, against generalizing the problems reflected in these final chapters to all Israelite social structures, as if the system itself is fundamentally flawed.

What happens here is not expressive of normal commanded Israelite living

any more than the altar in Joash’s backyard, Gideon’s ephod, Jephthah’s vow, and Micah’s image...

The entire book portrays a nation rotting at the core.

Pointing out “The Canaanite Within”...

What would be normative biblical obedience

Is that male headship is not a position of power

but one of responsibility,

in which the leader sacrifices himself for the well-being of the led the flock...

In the Book of Judges this pattern is reversed.

Repeatedly women and children are sacrificed for males.

Second, historically, because of the actions of the elders of Israel the tribe of Benjamin is rescued, and the full complement of twelve tribes is thereby preserved.

This is not God’s orchestration it is mans...

Man was more concerned about itself than keeping the covenant of God

The covenant which should have been the very heart of Israel...

Hereafter Benjamin, sandwiched between Judah and Ephraim, will struggle to find a role in national life.

But in the providence of God, this tribe would yield some important historical figures,

most notably Saul, the experimental king,

and a thousand years later his namesake Saul/Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles (Rom 11:1).

Like the stories of Tamar and Rahab and even Ruth, this account serves as a witness to God’s ability to turn around the wrath of human beings and reconcile it back to Himself.

Israel can no longer point a judgmental finger at Sodom and Gomorrah because she is just as guilty...

Civil War threatens the survival of a people

Just like spiritual warfare threatens our existence...

We see men trying to fix a problem their way and not god’s way...

Benjamin is almost wiped out but to save her they make a Canaanite decision due to their Canaanite mindset...

Just like Sarah attempted to help God who needed no help

We see Israel trying to help God once again through her human power and makes another decision “In Her Own Eyes”

Here is their solution...

The nation must strain so hard in the final chapter to preserve the Israelite ideal,

employing reasoning and strategies that appear to fulfill the letter of the law but at every turn violate its spirit.

The future of Benjamin depends on finding loopholes in the law.

The final rationalization (lit.), “Be gracious to them for our sakes” (v.

22) exposes the ultimate irony of the ancient event.

But in so doing it also captures the perversion of our modern world in which sympathy for the criminal so often eclipses compassion for the victims and commitment to righteousness.

To the modern ear the statement sounds so human, so sensitive, so caring;

but these people are blinded to the reality that in lavishing grace on Canaanite behaving Benjamites

they have oppressed society’s innocent and weak.

There is indeed no king in Israel.

Every man does what is right in his own eyes.

The entire nation becomes an accomplice in the defense of Canaanism.

What Benjamin did for Gibeah the nation does for Benjamin.

Through this final episode, as through the Book of Judges as a whole, the reader witnesses the amazing grace of God.

Yahweh does indeed permit the Israelites to pursue their foolish rationalizations, but despite their persistent expressions of Canaanite social and religious degeneracy he does not destroy them.

Because of his grace the nation of Israel does indeed emerge more or less intact from the dark days of the governors/judges.

Looking to the future Yahweh cannot allow his people to succumb totally to the Canaanite world.

But the reader must know that his work continues here and generally in human history in spite of, rather than because of, his people.

And the nation’s propensity to capitulate to Canaanite ways and attitudes will not end here.

It persists throughout her history, until in 722 and 586 b.c., after more than half a millennium, Yahweh has finally had enough.

If the reader will read on to the beginning of the next book of the Hebrew canon (1 Samuel), however, he or she will discover that while the darkness continues, the grace of Yahweh will begin to penetrate that darkness.

He will remove those who embody Canaanite values (Eli and his sons, Saul) and replace them with agents of light and grace (Samuel, David).

This book and the history of the nation that follows serve as eternal testimony to the grim reality that God’s people are often their own worst enemy.

It is not the enemies outside who threaten the soul but the Canaanite within.

At the same time this book and the ones that follow declare in most emphatic terms that God’s work will get done!

His kingdom is eternal; his covenant with this people is eternal; his promises are eternal.

Human heroes in the Book of Judges are few and far between.

The same is true in the history of the church and especially in the contemporary American evangelical church.

No book in the Old Testament offers the modern church as telling a mirror as this book.

From the jealousies of the Ephraimites to the religious pragmatism of the Danites, from the paganism of Gideon to the self-centeredness of Samson, and from the unmanliness of Barak to the violence against women by the men of Gibeah, all the marks of Canaanite degeneracy are evident in the church and its leaders today.

This book is a wake-up call for a church moribund in its own selfish pursuits.

Instead of heeding the call of truly godly leaders and letting Jesus Christ be Lord of the church, everywhere congregations and their leaders do what is right in their own eyes.

In the meantime, Yahweh, the Lord of history and the Lord of the church, remains unchanged in character and intent.

Because of his bountiful grace he continues to hear the cry of the oppressed and to deliver those who call upon him.