Covenant 11/15/2020

Thank you for a great job.

Well, this is a strange message today. It's entitled the collapse of a culture. If you're watching it home. I've got to encourage you to have the kids head out of the room now at this point because what we're going to see here in the life of God's people is so disappointing in and tragic in Godless that we've got a dismissed the children from the room to even reflect on what we're going to look at. You can turn this mic down in the house just a little bit. That would be great. We had a chance to take a look at the the people of God. A group of what was that? She was called by Scholars the dust of the Earth the Hebrews the superiors who who made their way out of Egypt not by their own force or might but because by way of God's promise to Abraham, he heard their cries and slavery and he redeem them. He broke the back of pharaoh in the greatest nation in the history of the world the most powerful one and he delivered them from the clutches of slavery. Not only that but he brought them across a desert and set them on the very verge of entry into us a land flowing with milk and honey. Get because of their facelessness though. They had seen great things. They decided not to follow his lead into that wonderful land in a generation spent a lifetime in the wilderness with their children more faithful than they rose up and Moses passed the Baton of leadership on to Joshua and then as we saw in the life of that man in the people of that day, they entered into the promised land and they claimed it an act of God's judgment that was challenging for us to deal with against the Canaanites in the ammonites in the people who made up that land for 400 years. God had patiently waited for them to repent and due to their lack of repentance and rebellion and godlessness got acted against them in judgment that he gave his people the scope of the promised land the great battles had been one but skirmishes remained and got charged his people to drive out the inhabitants of the land. And before then to have nothing to do with them not to develop relationships with them or bond together with them not to give their sons or daughters in marriage to the people of the land because if they did they would come to practice the Wicked Ways of the people that God had driven out before them and as we've seen as we've turned into the pages of the judges in the store running the stories of those forerunners of faith that God raised up in that generation. The people of Israel did not listen to the Lord they broke Faith with the God who had been so faithful to them and they went their own way and decade after decade. They find themselves under the bondage of local oppressors until they repented God would raise up a leader for the scriptures call a judge not simply to adjudicate matters in the life of the community but to deliver them from the hands of their enemies. After their repentance had matured and they had sought the Lord once again time and time again, it's called the cycle of the judges as you study it in the literature the people of God rit relented in and pursue the things of this world the things of the culture around them until overwhelmed. They repented and God graciously not because of Any goodness that was in they acted on their behalf and redeem them Pastor Bob looked at the life of two of those judges last week as we look at Gideon and we look at Samsung. The story that will look at today is a story that I'm surprised that I would never have to be even preach about in the pages of God's holy word and yet it's documented for us. I think the two stories that we will look at today simply highlights. The the absolute the Devolution of God's people in the baseless nacin wickedness and godlessness. You got a Bible. I want you to take it out and follow along with me as we look at the story of two different events and Israel's life for one of those events were going to step back a little bit in time Pastor Bob preached on Gideon and Samson and we're going to look at the story that precedes Samson the story of Gideon Sons, or at least one of those sons and then we'll Step Beyond The Story of Samson to a very disheartening account that God's word records. Well Gideon as we know it was the man that God had raised up to drive out the midianites who had come against Israel and God raised him up to deliver those people. Remember God found median. There is he was window in his wheat in a winepress. The angel lord said, oh mighty man of Valor and called this man who was cowering in a wine, press hiding from the enemies of Israel to deliver a nation and got used to him to deliver a nation in a demonstrable active God's power and might It was not by the strength of any Israel army that God delivered Israel in that day as he went away himself the the force that was with Gideon to a a my new number, but it was by the power of God by the power of the same. Holy spirit that raised Christ from the dead that he delivered his people from their enemies and got God brought peace through Gideon throughout his life in the years that would follow and get though. God used Gideon in a mighty way as we saw it last week getting was not necessarily A righteous man. There is no one righteous before the Lord. His relationship with Austin every generation and always is a relationship that is grounded entirely upon God's grace the sinful men and women we see that clearly in the stories of these forerunners of faith. We pick up the story where Pastor Bob left off the other week and Judges chapter 8 verse 29 and following and it's a tragic account as it unfolds before us. Yoruba, Yoruba all the son of joash went and lived in his own house that Gideon had 70 sons was the other name that was given to Gideon. That's the one who had dominated bail when he had to cut down that the asherah pole when he began their the ministry that God called him to throw his nickname was Jurupa all now Gideon had 70 Sons That's a pretty remarkable accomplishment. I stopped and thought to myself how many suns could I possibly have if that's all I did all the time. My great-grandmother are a great great grandma that they had 17 children. This was in a different generation. I think she was just giving birth to laborers for the farm there something like that and not all of them survived. But even though someone in my own life and my own family story who had such a expensive family could never meet a number like this and so almost immediately as we read. What do we know? That getting did not just have one wife is the Lord intended or a game but but many wives has 70 Sons his own offspring for he had many wives. And his concubine who was in shechem also bore him a son and he called his name abimelech. That seems like such a strange far-off story this powerful leader with this many wives and with his concubines but to just about a year ago. I remembering I might I might get this wrong, but I think I can remember correctly. I remember reading an article that the king of Thailand am I remembering this correctly? I might have got the country wrong had had promoted his mistress to the title of official Royal concubine to the distress, of course of the queen and of the people a few months later he demoted her but six months later he lifted her up. Once again to the position of the official Royal concubine. It's so even in our own generation men of power who have no heart for the Lord make some very strange decision and Gideon who at least it one level was a man of the Lord made some very foolish and ungodly decisions in these ways and it would come back to haunt him and his family's line verse 31 and his concubine who was in shechem also bore him a son. And he called his name abimelech. And Gideon the son of joash died in a good old age and was buried in the Tomb of joash is father at ofra of the Abbey has a bee as their rights. As soon as Gideon die the people of Israel turned again and hoard after the Bales and made the album their God and the people of Israel did not remember the Lord their God do it deliver them from the hand of all their enemies on every side and they did not show steadfast. Love to the family of Jurupa. All that is Gideon in return for all the good that he had done to Israel. And the story continues and it gets worse. Now demo wreck this journal but all went to shechem to his mother's relatives and said to them and to the whole clan of his mother's family say in the ears of all the leaders of shechem which is better for you that all 70 of the sons of Drogba all rule over you or that one rule over you remember also that I am your phone and your flesh It's a Gideon's son who the concubine they're in shechem goes back to shut them to strike and alliance with the leaders of the city. The tragic nature of this story I think is underscored by the location in which it takes place. Trichome was a very significant biblical city as you may remember it was there 400 years earlier that Abram had built an altar by the sacred tree. Oak tree of moray to commemorate his meeting with God. It was there in shechem that Abraham's grandson Jacob set up an altar to the Lord in and buried the household gods of his servants in his household before he departed symbolically turning away from idolatry for the final time and turning toward the lord. And get it was also shechem is a city in which the sons of Jacob after learning of the rape of their daughter went into shechem. And murdered its namesake for taking advantage of their sister and slaughtered every male in the entire town. Was basically a genocide there wasn't something that the Lord called those man those sons of Jacob to do and so Jacob was shechem was a famous and significant City in the life of God's people it was just outside of shechem by Mount gerizim and mount a ball that Fitbit Moses instructed that the law be read to the people as they entered into the promised land in Joshua did just that he proclaimed the curses and and the blessings of the Lord. They are before God's people in the valley of shechem between these two mountains. And now this is story of God's people that they've devolved over the course of these decades sensors in on this famous city that God had used so many times in the life of his people. And here's what we read. After a bivouac went to his relatives there and shechem tries to make a deal with them and Joshua chapter 9 verse 3. His mother's relatives spoke all these words on his behalf in the ears of all the letters leaders of shechem that he would be their ruler and not his 70 brothers and their hearts inclined to follow abimelech for they said he is our brother and they gave him 70 pieces of silver and noticed where they got them out of the house of Alba Rich the false god who Israel had come to Worship in Gideon's death. These are the ties that were intended for bail. They were given by the leaders of shechem to abimelech that he might do his Dirty deeds and with those ties with abimelech hired worthless and Reckless fellows who followed him. He went to his father's house at ofra and killed his brothers the sons of Jurupa all the sons of Gideon 70 men. on one stone I guess when I read that part of that story it struck me with a brutal act. This was these men were not murdered out in private or in different strikes or hits against these brothers, but they were captured and they were brought to Gideon's house in ophrah and they were brought before the concubines son who they had turn their back upon and abimelech killed each and every one of them on the same Stone one by one. That's so often. When we look back at the stories of scripture. We look at it from what we learned in Sunday school the story of Samson or the story of Gideon as we saw last week and we we don't think through the the challenging events or the the difficult pieces that make those stories. You think of Gideon do you ever think of his son abimelech and what he did there in shechem on that day? This is where God's people were in their life had they had turn their back on Yahweh and begun to worship. But all but it was the very ties that the people of Israel had given to this false god that were used to empower the army of abimelech to slaughter the descendants of Gideon to murder them In Cold Blood. Verse 5 but josam the youngest son of jaraba always left for he hit himself and all the leaders of shechem came together and all Bethany Lowe and they went and made abimelech King by the oak of the pillar at shechem. Where you lead a little bit we meet read a little bit later in the story that jotham returns before fleeing and he stands on Mount the Mountainside the very Mountainside on which a Joshua proclaim the curses and blessings to God's people a generation before and he proclaimed at the top of his lungs. And what was kind of a natural Amphitheater there in that area a curse be had on the people of shechem and on abimelech himself. And the scripture goes on to record that it was a curse not simply from his mouth, but that the Lord honored and the Lord brought great conflict between abimelech in the sheqer might leaders in the course of the three years in which he ruled over them until ultimately that leaders of shechem in a bin Malik and his rabble came into conflict which cost them all their lives.

It's a tragic and terrible picture of the Devolution of God's people as they turn their back on the Lord again and find themselves in utter Despair and utter chaos in an Antarctic reign of a brutal leader. I know you might think that this would be the ultimate low point in their lives. It simply was not so. The story of Samson comes after this story. There are several other judges who the Lord raises up who Lodge IR. Jeptha. It was an L on Ogden and Samson over the course of about a 75 to 80 year. Before we find ourselves at the next story that we land up on.

Another story that is very challenging and in in somewhat overwhelming. You can turn with me there and we'll take a look at it. It's found in judges. I think it's chapter 19. And if I do my notes, I copy and paste it. So I've got to text in front of me and it seems like I keep forgetting to put the chapter mark down. This is the story of the levite and his concubine. And so I think that is that judges 19. Let's see here. Yes chapter 19. So Judges chapter 19, this is after the story of Samson after his deliverance. And here's what we read. This is the story that that led me to have the kids leave so that they wouldn't have to go through it together. It paints a picture of Israel at it just ended under low. It's the story about a levite the descendant of Aaron who is intended to be one of the mediators between the Lord and his people and an event that transpire that this is unimaginable in those days. We read Judges chapter 19 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 again? Not a great plan here and his concubine was unfaithful to him and she went away from him to her father's house at Bethlehem in Judah and was therefore some for months then her husband a rose and went after her to speak kindly to her and bring her back. He had with him his servant and a couple of donkeys. But the man would not spend the night he rose up in departed verse in the Bible. Spend the night he rose up and departed in arrive opposite. Jealous, that is Jerusalem.

He had with him a couple of Saddle donkeys and his concubine was with him when they were near Jeb Bush the day was nearly over and the servant said to his master come now. Let us turn aside to this city of the jebusites and spend the night in it at his master said to him. We will not turn aside into the city of foreigners do not belong to the people it is real but we will pass on to gibeah and he said to his young man, and let us draw near to one of these places and spend the night at gibeah or Rama. So they passed on and went their way and the sun went down on them near gibeah which belongs to Benjamin. Have you turned aside their to go in and spend the night give you any went in and sat down in the open Square of the city for no one took them into his house to spend the night. I'm hold an old man was coming from his work in the field that evening. The man was from the Hill Country of every man. He was sojourning in gibeah the men of the place were benjamites. Descendants of Benjamin one of Jacob's sons Joseph's beloved brother and he lifted up his eyes and saw the traveler in the open the square of the city and the old man said, where are you going? And where do you come from? And he said to him we are passing from Bethlehem into Judah to the remote parts of the Hill Country of Africa theme from which I come I went to Bethlehem in Judah and I'm going to the house of the Lord but no one is taking me into his house. We have straw and feed for our donkeys with bread and wine for me and your female female serving in the young man with your servants. There is no lack of anything and the old man said Peace be to you I will care for all your wants only do not spend the night in the Square so he brought him into his house and gave the donkeys feed and they wash their feet and eat and drink. Are they were making their hearts Mary behold the men of this city worthless fellows surrounded the house beating on the door, and they said that the old man and the Master of the House bring out the man who came into your house. That we may know him. Andaman the Master of the House went out to them and said to them know my brother's do not act so wickedly since this man is come into my house. Do not do this vile thing. Behold here are my virgin daughter and his concubine. Let me bring them out to the to you violate them and do with them. What seems good to you. But against this man do not do this outrageous thing. But the men would not listen to him to the man sees his concubine and made her go out to them and they knew her and abused her all night until the morning and it's the dawn began to break. They let her go. And it's morning appeared the moment came and fell down at the door of the man's house where her master was until it was light. Their Master rose up in the morning and we open the doors of the house and went out to go on his way behold. There was his concubine and lying at the door of the house with her hands on the threshold. He said to her get up. Let us be going. There was no answer. He put her on the donkey and the man rose up and went away to his home. We entered his house. He took a knife and taking hold of his concubine. He divided her limb by limb in the 12 pieces and sent her throughout all the territory of Israel. And all who saw it said such a thing is never happened or been seen from the day that the people of Israel came up out of the land of Egypt until this day consider it take counsel and speak.

Can you even believe that that story is recorded in the pages of scripture?

How could it possibly be? Get this people of God. Who was delivered by his strong and mighty right hand out of the land of Egypt? promises fulfilled from centuries before for them the mightiest acts of Deliverance that have ever been witnessed apart from maybe the resurrection and the Miracles of Jesus were seen firsthand by these people and their immediate ancestors. God brought them into a promise land after dividing the Jordan River before their very eyes and and and set them in a land flowing with milk and honey and yet this very set of people the one that God had set aside for themselves is devolved to such an extent that these are the events that take place in the borders of their Nation.

It's a horrifying picture. It certainly is nothing that God would have ever intended. And get it demonstrates to us. with one question Pain, the Devolution of God's people here in this season of their lives together.

such a horrendous act it was in such a Brazen Cole by this levite priests for justice to the tribes that they gathered together and after they heard from the man they decided to fall upon the gibeonites who had done this the descendants of Benjamin and cut them down and they did just that They promised that they would never again give their daughters to the the people of gibeon in it in marriage and and they brought God's judgment down upon that city in in grading a powerful Act. And it was all this even in the conclusion of that story. They realize that in that active Vengeance, they have nearly cut off one of the tribes of Israel. And so once again the leaders of Israel were together and they say will what will we do and then ask the question will we promised the Lord that we would never give our daughters in marriage to these people again, but was there any Tribune wasn't present when we made that commitment you kind of get a sense. I think at one level of the strangest of their thinking in this in this generation. Was there any tribe you didn't go with us in that battle and they had one tribe that had not gone along with them the tribe of jabesh-gilead and so they went and they took twelve thousand men and killed all the people in the city of jabesh-gilead and they took the the Virgin daughters back and they gave them to the gibeonites for wives and yet the gibeonites didn't have enough wives. Actually said well here's what you can do. If there's a festival in which we celebrate outside of Shiloh and the young girls go to celebrate at the festival. You can go there and hide in the bushes and you can kidnap as many young girls as you want. We will not have given them to you. So we will not break our promise to the Lord, but you can steal them away as wives for yourself. And when the people of Shiloh complain will tell them that will give them some kind of an answer. It's not a pretty picture.

Got the mighty acts of Deliverance for a people to Define them as his own as set apart to be consecrated by his name and by his present as a light to the Nations even in this time. We're leaving now. And what seems to be under Darkness.

In the Book of Judges concludes with this statement in Judges chapter 21 in those days. There was no king in Israel. And everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

What a tragic fall from the Deliverance of the Lord to the decadence of this Godless living and I don't trust act idolatrous activities.

Societies do not devolve for no reason at all. I think they honestly we're watching the Devolution of our own society as well. Romans chapter 1 talks a little bit about what it looks like when a society rejects the Lord and moves onto its own path. Even as the Israelites had done here in this generation. This is what the Apostle Paul Wright says, he paint the picture with divine revelation of a society's degeneration and God's action in the face of that immoral path. In Romans chapter 1 verse 18 you can read along if you'd like is you as I read the Apostle Paul writes this for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven. Against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who buy their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them for his invisible attributes namely his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made so that they are without excuse. For although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking. And their foolish Hearts, this is a reference their moral understanding was darkened. Claiming to be wise they became fools and exchange the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things that the Apostle Paul here is painting a picture of the degeneration of any society of any society that is made up of men and women who God created in his own image to know better who see his glory in creation, but we've seen today is the degeneration of his own people. Who did not simply need to look at the Heavens to see the handiwork of God, but could look to the very stones that God had given to Moses with his law inscribed upon them the mighty acts of Deliverance for them as a special and unique people. Paul goes on the tells us what happens in a society that has degenerated into evolved in such a way that is turned its back on God that they know very well who he is. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves notice the activity that took place in the story that we looked at today the devaluing of their bodies and dishonoring because they exchanged the truth about God for a lot and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator who is blessed forever for this reason. God gave them up to dishonorable passions their women exchanged natural relations for those who are contrary to Nature and the men likewise gave up naturalizations with women and were consumed with passion for one another men committing Shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. Exactly what we see here in the text that we've looked at today and yet increasingly. It's what we see play out in our own society today. And not in the dark corners of our society but lift it up as as ideal Pathways for those in the very center of our culture. And since they did not see fit verse 28 to acknowledge. God God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness evil covetousness. How is fearful of Envy murder Strife two-seat maliciousness their gossip slanderers haters of God insolent hottie boastful inventors of eatable disobedient to parents foolish faithless heartless ruthless. So they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die. They not only do them, but give approval to those who practice them.

What does the degeneration of a society look like? I used to have to study it in the pages of scripture. And now we just have to turn on our televisions and watch it play out. As our own Nation moves away from a Christian Heritage and I'm not saying it was a Christian Nation for say it certainly was not what it was shaved in many ways by biblical ideas and norms and it breaks free intentionally and with all the right to do so because people can choose to do what they will a new Society will emerge it will not emerge on god-given principles, but it will emerge on the passions and desires and lust of the heart of the men and women who control it and who make it up. And if you wonder where it will end the scriptures prophetically tell us not just where it will end. But how it will end. Yeah, this is nothing new. We look back to the pages of scripture today. It's on not in the midst of a secular culture that it turned its back on God these very things play out and God's judgment follow but in a very lives of the people that God had redeemed their culture their society, didn't it? It had evolved to such a degree that every man did what was right in his own eyes.

So what are we as Christians to do? How are we to respond we read and learn and weep for the people of God in this generation who had betrayed the Lord who would take it on the values of the cultures around them and completely degenerated into the most baseless passions and lust and murderous desires. We learn from that but we look to our own day. It's interesting the charge that the Lord has given us. We can find it clearly even in the words of the Apostle Paul. He did not describe the degeneration of a culture to be a doomsday Sayer, but he said it as the backdrop against which God's people are called to Proclaim good news all the more forcefully all the more clearly all the more passionately and all the more graciously. I told your rights in Romans 1:16 before he describes this societal degeneration. He writes for I am not ashamed of the Gospel Romans 1:16 for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes to the Jew first and also to the Greek for in it. The righteousness of God is revealed from faith for Faith. He goes on a little bit further in Romans 3:21 and expands after he's described as degenerative Society. It's gone Wayward and all its ways. He writes these words but now the righteousness of God has been revealed apart from the law all the law and Prophets bear witness to it the lawn prophets foretold it the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe for there is no distinction for all have sinned. And fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift for the Redemption that is in Christ. Jesus who God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith.

as soon as we turn on our television and we watch with our own eyes in our own day our society collapse around us. We need not be filled with despair. We must be filled with resolve. The resolved not of God's judgment because we do not bear God's judgment in our hands. God will bring it when he returns. We respond with the resolve. the Gospel of Jesus Christ the grace of God to a generation that does not deserve it the love of God in the midst of a culture that is surrounded by ever-increasing darkness and the mercy of God that is found for the most bases of sinners in the cross of Jesus Christ. What will emerge in the days ahead in our own land in our own communities? I will tell you. They will collapse around us. And yet there's not a single thing that can stand against the Church of Jesus Christ because it's through his church that he brings hope and light and life the world and of those and it's mixed who he will call to be his own.

And that day everyone did what was right in their own eyes. But in our day we are equipped with the good news for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but shall have everlasting.

What's closed in a word of Prayer? gracious and holy God We give you thanks for who you are. We give you thanks Lord, certainly that you are a god of righteousness and truth of Justice. And as a result of judgment as well. but even more so Lord because of who we are sinners as we are we give you thanks that you were a god of grace and mercy We are those that have come out of a pagan Society of a Godless land not of Our Own Strength or might or goodness. But because you have showered upon us your grace and you saved us from the certain death that send bring and we Rejoice at your goodness and your grace. And we asked oh God that you will even today embolden Us by the power of your holy spirit with an even stronger resolve in this very day to bring the good news of the grace and mercy of God has revealed in the cross of Jesus Christ for the world to those who desperately need to know it. Because there is no other name under heaven or under Earth by which men can be saved or must be saved. But the name of Jesus Christ the lord. You pray all these things in his name. Amen.