| Beloved, Over the last month and a half, I have immersed myself in the book of Judges, writing a series of devotions to assist parents in family worship. This week I wrote on the final chapters which focus on two wandering Levites, the one who promoted self-serving idolatry (chs. 17-18) and the other who promoted self-serving immorality (chs. 19-21). After setting before us the twelve warrior judges raised up to deliver God’s apostate people (chs. 2-16), these final accounts give us a window into just how morally insane Israel had become. The book ends by telling us that such moral insanity was actually the result of moral relativism: “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in their own eyes” (21:25). Sound familiar? Once a society rejects God, it loses all moral stability. You simply cannot have objective, universally-binding moral standards unless there is a transcendent and righteous God who structures, defines, and delimits the moral order. Israel rejected God, and it left them with nothing but the sovereign self to determine right from wrong. The fruit of such was shockingly terrifying. Consider the account in Judges 19. God designed children to be conceived only between a husband and wife within the covenant of marriage. But when God is out of the picture, who is to say that babies can’t be conceived in other relational contexts? Concubines, anyone? A concubine, like the one this wandering Levite took to himself (v. 1), was a female servant used for the purpose of having progeny. Maybe you don’t like the idea of a concubine, but who are you to tell me that I can’t have one (or 300, see 1 Kings 11:3)? Without God, who is to say that a woman isn’t anything more than a piece of property to be used to give me a lot of children (something prized in the ANE)? God designed men to be protectors and to lay down their lives for women and children. But when God is out of the picture, who is to say that the notion of a male protector is not an outdated, chauvinistic leftover of a patriarchal society? Furthermore, why should I risk my life for the sake of another? When fellow Israelites threatened to gang rape this wandering Levite, he grabbed a hold of his concubine, shoved her out the door, and let these men rape her instead (v. 25). The Levite got a great night of sleep while his concubine was sexually violated to death in the streets, and when he found her dead on the following morning, there was not the slightest hint of compassion or agony (vv. 27-28). Add to that this brutal band of rapist murderers who preyed on the vulnerable. For who is to say rape is wrong? You can tell me all day long that lawful sex requires mutual consent, but upon what basis can you ground the need for consent in a sexual relationship if there is no God and no objective moral order? And if we are just highly-evolved cockroaches, why can’t we squash a woman beneath our feet like a nasty bug? God designed the body to be treated with dignity in both life and death. But then God is out of the picture, who is to say that a proper burial is necessary? Why not gruesomely cut up the body and send an arm here and a leg there to stir up a desire for vengeance among the people (as this Levite did in vv. 29-30)? After all, it’s just a piece of decaying flesh. We’re not talking about an image-bearing creature because there is no God to image. This final account in Judges is so disturbing that you might be wondering if it is acceptable for your pastor to write about it in an email! I found myself asking whether it was appropriate to share it with children in family worship. But not only do I think it is appropriate (assuming it is shared in a manner befitting the audience’s age), but I think it is necessary. Our kids need to understand what happens to a society when the cultural refrain is, “No right, no wrong, no rules for me. I’m free!” They need to understand that the illusion of moral autonomy does not lead to freedom or life. Instead, it leads to bondage and death. In fact, it led God’s not-so-holy nation to civil war (ch. 20), threatening to wipe out Israel entirely. A nation in which everyone is free to do what is right in their own eyes is a nation that sooner or later self-destructs. God gives us these stories in Judges to graphically impress that upon us and our children. In a society that increasingly mirrors the moral madness of the book of Judges, our kids need the book of Judges now more than ever. For it demonstrates just how desperately we need a King to subdue us to Himself, delivering us from our self-serving idolatry and immorality. Jesus is the one we are left longing for when we reach the final verse of this dark volume of Israel’s history, and we need to grapple with the darkness if we would properly long for the bright light of His life-giving deliverance. Yours in Christ, Pastor Nick |
