Try Hard

Try Hard - Fail Hard

Vin pooped on Jono and Reba’s carpet. Everywhere I went I kept finding more spots. Scrub, walk to the next spot. Now there are more spots. What is happening?

What is the problem?

I am the problem. I missed the very first piece of poop… with my eyes… but not with my foot. So every I am going as I attempt to clean it up, I am making the problem worse. I am the problem!

The more I run around, the faster I run around, the more I try, the worse I am making the problem! Captain Try Hard! I am just making it worse!

Doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result.

(The solution is to burn the shoe with fire!)

Making. It. Worse.

Recap

To punish the men of Gibeah for assaulting the Levite’s concubine, the tribes of Israel kill 25 companies (or 25,000) men of Benjamin. After two failures, I think to punish all of Israel and bring them in appropriate humility before God, God gives them the victory. This strongly implies that God is supportive of the action to punish the men of Gibeah and the Benjamites who defended their sin.

Judges 20:46–47 ESV

So all who fell that day of Benjamin were 25,000 men who drew the sword, all of them men of valor. But 600 men turned and fled toward the wilderness to the rock of Rimmon and remained at the rock of Rimmon four months.

But then… as Israel (and human beings) are wont to do, they take it too far.

Judges 20:48 ESV

And the men of Israel turned back against the people of Benjamin and struck them with the edge of the sword, the city, men and beasts and all that they found. And all the towns that they found they set on fire.

That… escalated quickly. From the “men of Benjamin” now the all the people of Benjamin. They carried out a tribal holocaust. Where did God command that? Oh… He didn’t. In fact, the voice of the Lord is entirely absent in everything that follows. As if, shockingly, the elders of the tribe didn’t learn their lesson about humbly seeking God’s will the last time!

With the blood up from the battle, the tribes of Israel carry out an almost total holocaust against the tribe of Benjamin. Then, as if they are waking up from a nightmare, they look around and realize what they have done.

Judges 21:1–4 ESV

Now the men of Israel had sworn at Mizpah, “No one of us shall give his daughter in marriage to Benjamin.” And the people came to Bethel and sat there till evening before God, and they lifted up their voices and wept bitterly. 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?” And the next day the people rose early and built there an altar and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings.

Ridiculous question. Who did it?

How often do we blame God for the consequences of our own sin and stupid? (You guys probably do that, I never do!)

And they are stuck because they made a stupid vow. And, recall, their is provision in the law for repenting of a stupid vow. The only thing locking them into their foolish vow is their foolish pride. But they stick with it.

And they (conveniently) remember another foolish vow they made that could solve the problem.

Judges 21:5 ESV

And the people of Israel said, “Which of all the tribes of Israel did not come up in the assembly to the Lord?” For they had taken a great oath concerning him who did not come up to the Lord to Mizpah, saying, “He shall surely be put to death.”

For they are motivated by compassion (the only redeeming light in this story).

Judges 21:6–7 ESV

And the people of Israel had compassion for Benjamin their brother and said, “One tribe is cut off from Israel this day. What shall we do for wives for those who are left, since we have sworn by the Lord that we will not give them any of our daughters for wives?”

So they can solve their aggregious sin (killing all the Benjamites), compounded by their foolish (racist) vow (not to let any daughters marry Benjamites) by taking advantage of another foolish vow (to kill anyone who didn’t come to their vengeance party).

Judges 21:8–12 ESV

And they said, “What one is there of the tribes of Israel that did not come up to the Lord to Mizpah?” And behold, no one had come to the camp from Jabesh-gilead, to the assembly. For when the people were mustered, behold, not one of the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead was there. So the congregation sent 12,000 of their bravest men there and commanded them, “Go and strike the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead with the edge of the sword; also the women and the little ones. This is what you shall do: every male and every woman that has lain with a male you shall devote to destruction.” And they found among the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead 400 young virgins who had not known a man by lying with him, and they brought them to the camp at Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan.

Are you hearing this?

Everyone here thinks they’re helping, they think they are “solving the problem.” One sin leads to the holocaust of the tribe, leads to the destruction of an entire city on a flimsy premise in order to steal and force-marry (aka another form of rape) 400 virgins.

Judges 21:13–14 ESV

Then the whole congregation sent word to the people of Benjamin who were at the rock of Rimmon and proclaimed peace to them. And Benjamin returned at that time. And they gave them the women whom they had saved alive of the women of Jabesh-gilead, but they were not enough for them.

Oh no, we didn’t steal enough virgins!!!

Judges 21:15 ESV

And the people had compassion on Benjamin because the Lord had made a breach in the tribes of Israel.

What should we do? Obviously find an opportunity to steal more women!

Judges 21:16–23 ESV

Then the elders of the congregation said, “What shall we do for wives for those who are left, since the women are destroyed out of Benjamin?” And they said, “There must be an inheritance for the survivors of Benjamin, that a tribe not be blotted out from Israel. Yet we cannot give them wives from our daughters.” For the people of Israel had sworn, “Cursed be he who gives a wife to Benjamin.” So they said, “Behold, there is the yearly feast of the Lord at Shiloh, which is north of Bethel, on the east of the highway that goes up from Bethel to Shechem, and south of Lebonah.” And they commanded the people of Benjamin, saying, “Go and lie in ambush in the vineyards and watch. If the daughters of Shiloh come out to dance in the dances, then come out of the vineyards and snatch each man his wife from the daughters of Shiloh, and go to the land of Benjamin. And when their fathers or their brothers come to complain to us, we will say to them, ‘Grant them graciously to us, because we did not take for each man of them his wife in battle, neither did you give them to them, else you would now be guilty.’ ” And the people of Benjamin did so and took their wives, according to their number, from the dancers whom they carried off. Then they went and returned to their inheritance and rebuilt the towns and lived in them.

Remember the Feast God commanded virgins to come out and dance in the vineyards? No, because He didn’t.

This is some kind of pagan version of (possibly) the Feast of Tabernacles.

The elders command the remaining men of Benjamin to go and kidnap these women, and the men of Shiloh should just be glad we didn’t kill them too.

And why were they in this situation? You have heard it again and again… because Judges says it again and again. But it going to say it one last time. In summary. The last verse in Judges. For posterity: let’s read it together:

Judges 21:25 ESV

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

Sin begets sin

Sin begets sin begets sin. And it only grows, it only escalates.

To summarize: we have the horrible, personal, brutal and ugly sin of Judges 19. The parts of the concubine are sent around Israel to stir up outrage at this immorality… and it does.

Rape and murder leads to Civil War… which leads to tribal holocaust… which is “solved” by the destruction of a city and the kidnapping and rape of 600 more women.

Sin leads to more sin… and to solve that? More sin!

Definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result.

They are Trying Hard.

It isn’t their fault. They are responsible, certainly… but their thinkers are broken and so their thoughts are bad. Their hearts are sinful and so their solutions are sinful. Of course they are!

They are completely unable to solve their own situation… because they tools they have to “solve” it are themselves part of the problem.

Everyone doing what is right in their own eyes… leads to moral chaos and mutual destruction. People hurting people. Because your eyes and my eyes are clouded as to what is right. My sinful nature damages my ability to see right… all I really see is what is “right” (or good) for me, and even that is shortsighted and temporary.

If there’s a fire you’re trying to douse, you can’t put it out from inside the house.

They are helpless to fix their own problem… they need help from outside. They need rescue.

The solution to their problems is never going to come from within because all of their ideas, their minds, their hearts, their motivations and their actions… all are filled with the same sin they are trying to solve.

The Only Solution

The solution has to come from without. And it isn’t “trying harder” or “doing better.” Disaster and tragedy of this magnitude requires major change.

And this isn’t just the Israelites. The same magnitude of tragedy and sin that plagued their society and each one of their lives plagues our society and each one of our lives. Trying harder won’t cut it.

The solution is just as drastic as the problem.

The solution is starting over, radically and completely, with totally new selves, new minds, new hearts, new motivations, even new bodies. New selves. New natures. Remade from without.

The solution is death and resurrection.

Romans 6:3–7 ESV

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin.

The Only Solution

How do we get free from sin? We die in Christ. It’s the only way. It’s the only solution.

Then we get new natures. New minds that can participate in thinking new thoughts: Christ-like thoughts.

New hearts with a new will: a will that chases after His will. Love that reflects His love.

The solution for you - death and resurrection in Christ Jesus.

The solution to sin in your life - death and resurrection in Christ Jesus. Change comes, not through trying hard, but through re-creation in Christ.

The solution to the disaster of sin and stupid in your neighbors life, in your friends’ lives… it isn’t you or anyone coming up with a new plan to “solve” it. It is simply this: death and resurrection in Christ Jesus.

The solution to the problems of the world: destruction and recreation - new heaven and new earth - this too is death and resurrection in Christ Jesus.

Invitation to Prayer of Salvation

Invitation to Baptism