Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We are at the
point where we have been focusing our spiritual
discipline. Our spiritual discipline focus for
this six months is fasting. So fasting is a spiritual
discipline. So we're going to back this truck
up just for a second and talk a little bit about
what a spiritual discipline is. A spiritual discipline
is not, for example, something that is forced
on you, something that is required of you, or
something that is scheduled in your life for
you, that's outside your control. And discipline
is something that you choose to do, you choose
when you do it, you choose essentially how you
do it, and you choose then to follow through
on your plans. That's the nature of discipline.
If I say, for example, I'm going to get out of
bed in the morning, the first thing I'm going
to do is do five push -ups, first thing every
morning. And then I get out of bed the next morning
and I don't do those five push -ups, even though
I said I would. And obviously that's not discipline,
right? I didn't choose to do what I said I was
going to do. So spiritual discipline is something
that you can choose to do. You set up the parameters
of it. You decide when you're going to do it,
how you're going to do it, and then you intentionally
follow through with that. So you can see then
how the spiritual discipline has some side effects
that are not necessarily the main thing, but
some side effects. So, for example, the main
thing might be and should be drawing close to
God. We want to know God. We want to know more
about God. We want to experience God firsthand.
We want to let God affect us. All that kind of
thing. You might be fasting. to entreat God to
do something. Like we talked about last week
about Esther and them entreating God to know
that they were right by God so that when she
came before God, if she lost her life, she'd
be right for that. Right? When she came before
the king. And so the side effects can be sometimes
astonishing. So you fast for a couple of weeks,
for example, let's say you fast from sweets.
I'm not going to eat sugar, processed flour,
I'm going to eat sweets for a couple of weeks.
Now, the idea is to draw closer to God, to develop
self -discipline, to be the kind of person God
wants you to be. But the side effect might be
you might lose some weight. Your mind will be
less fogged because there's a thing where sugar
and processed foods... cloud your mind and make
it harder to think clearly. So now you can think
more clearly. Or you might have the effect that
you start getting up before your alarm goes off.
You start thinking in the morning, by the time
your alarm goes off, your mind says, hey, it's
about time for your alarm to go off. You wake
up, look, and sure enough, a minute later, your
alarm goes off. You have side effects that take
place. But here's the problem. This is the lesson
for today, the thing I wanted to hone in on.
We cannot do the fasting. We cannot do the spiritual
discipline of prayer, giving, serving, worship,
Fellowship, these are all certain disciplines
that we do, right? We cannot do those things
for the side effects. So be careful that you
don't say, for example, like, okay, I'm going
to diet and try to get my weight under control,
and then think of that as fasting, as if that
is also going to make you more godly or draw
you closer. That's not how that works, right?
Or if you have, we talk about fasting before
you're fasting. I had a blood test done a couple,
three weeks ago, and you have eight hours of
fasting, right? Well, that eight hours of fasting
before I had my blood test done, they did not
yield me any spiritual fruit whatsoever. I basically
just didn't eat far away from bed. I got up in
the morning, I didn't have breakfast, I went
and had my blood test done. And that's not even
a challenge, really. It might be for somebody,
but for most people, it would not really be a
challenge. And so that is not the spiritual discipline
of fasting. Let's say you're... You go to the
doctor and find out that you're allergic to,
insert whatever, garlic, right? You say, well,
I love garlic in my food, but I'm not going to
eat garlic anymore because when I eat garlic,
I get these allergy symptoms. I get sick or whatever.
Well, giving up garlic is not the circuit for
fasting at that point. And you can see part of
why that is because the situation is forcing
it, right? You don't have any control. There's
no discipline. Every time you eat that garlic,
you get sick. So that's not fasting. Spiritual
discipline is when you set it up, you decide
what you're going to do, you decide how you're
going to do it, and then you follow through.
And yes, there are positive side effects that
happen from fasting, but they are not the goal,
nor do they themselves. If you decide to eat
right for a few months and lose 50 pounds, that
does not make that fasting. All right, so we're
going to pray together, and we're going to pass
it on to one more. Tony Tate, would you lead
us in prayer this time? I haven't got very long
time. Bless you, Father, in whatever that needs
to go. Bless our family, bless the church, and
many others as well, to let the gospel advance
in the kingdom of God. Thank you for everything
you give us in Jesus' name. Amen. so so A tender
whisper. It's who you are. I can hardly think
as lonely. is you Felicia's limping around, but
just for the record, she was safe at first base,
I'm told. So she paid a very dear price for that.
We've got the fun night on Thursday for anybody
who wants to come out and watch, or for the team,
we're playing softball one last time, mixing
up with the other teams, and it's kind of exciting
to finally be done with the season. And then,
of course, it was funny because last week I used
an illustration about how people tend to want
to... prolong things or restart things like that
as soon as it's finishing. And now there is talk
of a fall softball season. So we may be playing
softball, some of us, yet this year. It's been
very fun. And it is hard to let it go. So if
you like to play softball, maybe there's an opportunity
for you. It'll be a shorter season, five, six
weeks. But it could be coming in about a month,
it sounds like. All right. So we have been working
through the book of Judges. And sometimes we
go kind of fast and I understand that. So I'm
going to kind of recap some things just to make
sure everybody's on the same page. So up through
the chapter 18 of the book of Judges, what we
have seen is a repeated theme over and over again,
where it says everyone did what was right in
their own eyes. Now, what we've seen is that
what was right in their own eyes is pretty bad
stuff. Like they have begun to worship idols.
They've added in a lot of false worship. They
worship God incorrectly. They have sinned against
God in a wide variety of ways. And last time,
what we really saw was that it had become so
normal that the behaviors that they had gotten
into were really not even being questioned anymore.
And that's where we take up chapter 18. But before
we get to that, I want to say something about
the story that we're about to read. So are you
familiar at all with the story of Lot and Sodom?
If not, let me give you just a brief synopsis.
So Lot was Abraham's nephew, and Abraham was
promised to have a great nation coming out of
him, but he had had no children. And so Lot was
with Abraham while Abraham was traveling, and
they both became very prosperous. They had a
lot of kids, a lot of shepherds, a lot of sheep,
a lot of good things going on. And so they needed
a park. So Abraham said, Lot, look at the land
wherever you want, and you pick where you want
to go. So Lot chose this beautiful, fertile valley
that was composed then of Sodom and Gomorrah
and the surrounding lands. And that's where he
went. And he continued to prosper there, but
he lived in Sodom. So at a certain point, Sodom
became so sinful that God was going to destroy
Sodom. And Abraham sort of negotiated with God,
said, you know, please don't, please don't do
that. Lot lives there and said, if there were
50 righteous people that lived there, would you
still destroy Sodom? And God said, if there's
50 righteous, I would not destroy Sodom. I would
let it go if there was 50. It kept getting negotiated
down until Abraham said, if there was one righteous
man, would you destroy Sodom? And God said, no,
if there was one righteous man, I would spare
the city for one righteous man. And so what winds
up happening is that's the deal they strike.
And God sends a couple of angels to Sodom. When
the angels arrive in Sodom, they go to Lot's
house. And they're visiting with Lot. And Lot
is the one righteous man in Sodom for which God
would spare that city. And he's living there
with his two virgin daughters. Well, while the
angels are there, the town hears that some strangers
have come. And they come and they're banging
on the door. And they plead with Lot. They tell
Lot, let the men out so that we might have relations
with them. That's kind of disgusting. But that
gives you an idea of how far Sodom had fallen.
So Sodom was populated by Canaanites. You've
heard that term before, Canaanites. Those are
the people that lived in the Promised Land. And
Canaan comes out of the son Ham, who was the
son of Noah. And he was the one who kind of betrayed
Noah. And he was said to be living in a land
and tempting God's people all throughout to do
evil. And so the people of Canaan lived in Sodom.
God hauls by the angels, hauls Lot out. He tells
him, God, go right now, you and all your family.
And they go out, and God destroys Sodom and Gomorrah
with a huge fire, rains down from the sky, destroys
both cities. You know, there's a side story there
where Lot's wife looks back, longing for what
they had when they were living in Sodom, and
she's turned to a pillar of salt. Allegedly,
you can still go there today and see the pillar
of salt, whether that's really the pillar of
salt or not is unknown. So Lot goes into the
hills. So when Lot goes into the hills, some
people think that he and his daughters thought
that all human society was wiped out. But actually,
if you read the story, that cannot be true, because
God shows Lot the other cities where he could
have gone to live, and Lot chooses to not go
to those other cities. Instead, he chooses to
go in the hills. But his daughters then, in desperation,
his virgin daughters, these are the same virgin
daughters that Lot was ready to shove outside
to the crowd. Sodom so that they could have their
way with his virgin daughters instead of the
angels, right? But it doesn't wind up happening.
The angels blind the crowd and then they pull
Lot out. But he was ready to give up his virgin
daughters to the crowd. So they get Lot drunk
while they're staying in the hills. They get
Lot drunk and have babies with Lot, with their
dad, right? Very disgusting. I get all that,
right? And out of that come two peoples. the
Moabites and the Ammonites. So two sons born
to Lot, and they become the Moabites and the
Ammonites. So the Moabites were people that refused
Israelite hospitality when they were coming out
of Egypt, and they became lasting, enduring enemies
of Israel. I'm giving you a lot of background,
so just suck up what you can, okay? And then
in the book of Judges already, we have seen the
Moabite empire basically defeated by the Judges,
okay? Judges 11, there was a super fat king named
Eglon, who was the king of the Moabites. And
Ehud stabbed him with a left -handed dagger and
he killed him. And then after that, they cast
him off. I'm sorry, that's Judges 3. And then
in Judges 11, the Ammonites attacked Gilead over
a land dispute. They said to Jephthah, well,
you know, you cheated us, whatever. And Jephthah
said, no, not actually. And they attacked and
then they were destroyed. And so now. They still
exist as a people around, and they're just tempting
people to worship their false gods. They were
really wicked. They worshiped a god that required
human sacrifice. They worshiped false gods that
allowed them to do all kinds of things that were
evil and nasty. And they're around, and they've
lured the Israelites. And so where we're at right
now, as we go into chapter 19, is the Israelites
have accepted a lot of those wicked things. They
came from the Moabites. They came from the Ammonites.
They came from the Canaanites, right? Who all
come out of essentially where? They come out
of lines of God's people that were wicked by
nature. Ham was wicked, cursed by God, and then
sponsored the Canaanites who filled the land,
filled Sodom and those two cities. Sodom and
Gomorrah were so wicked that God just outright
destroyed them, right? But many Canaanites that
didn't live in those cities still existed and
were still luring the Israelites to do wrong
things. The Moabites... were came out of that
line a lot which was not the chosen line not
the line of jesus not the line of abraham right
and they were wicked and ruled and molested and
ruled over god's people and forced them to follow
false gods and so on and eventually were defeated
by the judges but still exists still tempting
them and i think in numbers 25 for example the
ladies of the mobites um led the men of Israel
to marry them and worship their false gods. And
they tempted them with sex and seduced them and
so on. And so really, we have a wicked people
that surround. And now we have God's people becoming
a wicked people. So we have studied through 17
and 18. We saw that to the point that now people
are not even asking questions. And you're going
to see that a little bit again then in Judges
chapter 19. Maybe give me a little hoot, a holler,
amen, hallelujah, something. I know it's going
to be hard. So we've got three families traveling
and two families out sick. So the room is a little
thin, but be with me. Come on now. This is Judges
chapter 19. Thank you. All right. This is God's
word. Whether I get right or wrong, what it says,
it says what it says. You don't have to like
it. I don't have to like it, but it says what
it says. And we do have to adjust to it and let
God speak. Okay. So in Judges chapter 19. So
what's going to happen here, what we're going
to read today really isn't. It isn't too horrible,
but we can see that it's in the offing of something
that's pretty bad. All right. So 19 says in those
days when there was no king in Israel, reminding
us that the story is continuing for everything
that we've been studying. A Levite who should
have been a priest, a Levite staying in a remote
part of the hill country of Ephraim, acquired
a woman from Bethlehem in Judah as his concubine.
There are so many things wrong with that statement.
First of all, the Levite shouldn't have been
living in Ephraim, right? They're supposed to
be focused around. Shiloh, but he's living off
in the hill country of Ephraim, away from where
they're supposed to be worshiping God. And then,
let's say he's off. So he's on rotation. He serves
the temple. Right now, he's not. Then he has
a woman from Bethlehem in Judah as his concubine,
not his wife. So, FYI, concubines are not biblical.
All throughout biblical history, we've seen people
take wives and also take concubines. They're
not biblical. A concubine is like a wife with
no rights. And that's not biblical, right? And
so he shouldn't have had a concubine at all,
but he has one. Verse two, it says, but she was
unfaithful to him. So in other words, she didn't
stick with him. And she left him for her father's
house in Bethlehem in Judah. She was there for
four months. So she's been gone away from him
for four months. Then her husband got up and
followed her to speak kindly to her. So he doesn't
go after her to punish her. He doesn't go after
her to like... make her a laughingstock in the
middle of town for not being faithful or anything
like that. Right. He goes after her to speak
kindly to her and to bring her back. He had his
servant with him and a pair of donkeys. So she
brought him to her father's house. And when the
girl's father saw him, he gladly welcomed him.
All right. So here's what we have. So we have
a man who takes a woman not to be his wife, but
to be his concubine. So he's not followed godly
principles in taking this woman into his life.
She's got no real rights in his household. And
he goes to her dad's house where she has fled
after for four months. He's been there because
she doesn't like it where she's at. And her dad's
like, oh, I'm so glad to see you. All right.
Now, if you're a dad in the room, you're not
resonating with that response. Right. Exactly.
That's what I'm thinking. Like, I've got an issue
with you. You took this my wife into your house.
You had sex with her. You did not make her your
wife. You're not taking care of her. She doesn't
like it there. And she came home and for four
months I've been hearing and my wife's been hearing,
my kids have been hearing all about the way it
was. And now you come and, hey, welcome. Glad
to meet you. Now, that's not how I would expect
that to go. But again, we're living in a twisted
time with wicked standards. All right. So it
says his father -in -law, the girl's father,
detained him and he stayed with him for three
days. So he's providing him for three days. It
says they ate, they drank, they spent the nights
there. On the fourth day, they got up early in
the morning, prepared to go. So the man is taking
his concubine and they're leaving. Not married,
but they're leaving. But the girl's father said
to his son -in -law, has something to eat. Keep
up your strength and then you can go. So he's
going to give him some extra hospitality. He's
going to entreat him to stay a little while longer.
So that makes him look kind of respectable, right?
He's treating him with a lot of respect. So they
sat down and the two of them ate and drank together.
Then the girl's father said to the man, please
agree to stay overnight and enjoy yourselves.
So he entreats him to stay one more night. Let's
party some more. The man got up to go, but his
father -in -law persuaded him. So he stayed and
spent the night there again. He got up early
in the morning of the fifth day to leave, but
the girl's father said to him, please keep up
your strength. So they wait until late afternoon
and the two of them ate. The man got up to go
with his concubine and his servant. When his
father -in -law, the girl's father said to him,
look, Night is coming. Please spend the night.
See, the day is almost over. Spend the night
here. Enjoy yourself. Then you can go up early
tomorrow for your journey and go home. So he
keeps entreating him to stay a little longer,
stay a little longer. And that kind of hospitality,
that kind of generousness looks good, doesn't
it? Because you want people to give you stuff.
Don't you feel good about people when they give
you stuff? So it seems pretty good. But the man
never said anything about God, never said anything
about the fact that she was a concubine, not
a wife. Never said anything about the fact that
this Levite was not following the rules that
God had laid out. So that takes us through verse
9. We're going to go a little further. 10. But
the man was unwilling to spend the night. He
got up, departed, and arrived opposite Jabez,
that is, Jerusalem. The man had his two saddled
donkeys and his concubine with him. When they
were near Jabez, and the day was almost gone,
the servant said to his master, Please, why not
let us stop at the Jebusite city and spend the
night here? So they want to go in the city, be
safe from wild animals, maybe stay somewhere
warm and comfortable rather than continuing to
travel. But his master replied to him, We will
not stop at a foreign city where there are no
Israelites. Let's move on to Gibeah. Come on,
he said. Let's try to reach one of these places
and spend the night in Gibeah or Ramah. So they
continued on their journey. And the sun set as
they neared Gibeah and Benjamin. They stopped
to go in and spend the night in Gibeah. The Levite
went in, sat down in the city square, but no
one took them into their home to spend the night.
In the evening, an old man came in from his work
in the field. So first of all, it was culturally
acceptable for somebody to take him in, but nobody
did. Now this guy comes in, and he's going to
be the one who's like shining character, in a
sense. In the evening, An old man came in from
his work in the field. He was from the hill country
of Ephraim as well, right? So the Levite is from
there and now so is he. But he was residing in
Gibeah where the people were Benjamites. Benjamites,
there we go. When he looked up and saw the traveler
in the city square, the old man asked, where
are you going and where do you come from? He
answered him, we're traveling from Bethlehem
in Judah to the remote hill country of Ephraim
where I am from. I went to Bethlehem and Judah,
and now I'm going to the house of the Lord. No
one has taken me into his home, although there's
straw and feed for the donkeys, and I have bread
and wine for my concubine and the servant with
us. There is nothing we lack. Welcome, said the
old man. I'll take care of everything you need.
Only don't spend the night in the square. So
he brought him to his house and fed the donkeys.
Then they washed their feet and they ate and
they drank. So notice that we remember, don't
forget that we're dealing with a time of wickedness.
Right. So the city does not welcome him in. But
here comes a guy who will. And he does. Right.
And we find out that the guy, the Levite, could
even provide for all of his stuff. He wasn't
asking for any resources. He didn't need anybody
to feed him. He had all the food that he needed.
Anybody to take care of his cattle. He had to
take care of the cow and so on. And yet no one
would be taking him in. We've been hearing this
phrase. In those days, there was no king and
everyone did what was right in their own eyes.
And we see a difference between the father of
the concubine, who probably should have been
mad about what was going on with his daughter,
but he wasn't. And there was no discussion of
God whatsoever. But he's offering a great deal
of hospitality to the city where the man goes,
where nobody wants to offer him hospitality at
all. So this guy keeps entreating him. Let me
give you more. Let me give you more. Let me give
you more. No talk of righteousness, but very
much a respectable hospitality. Where over here,
nobody even cares, right? They don't have to
give him anything, just a roof over his head
and they won't give him anything. Now this man
comes in and he sees him in trouble, basically
sleeping out in the square overnight and he invites
him in. Evil has become ordinary and many people
in this chapter still think that they are respectable.
That dad, he thinks he's respectable because
he keeps offering hospitality, giving. He's not
asking for anything in return. The people, they
think they're respectable, right? They're living
their lives, working, whatever, but they just
let a stranger sleep in the square and they don't
provide him with any hospitality. And now this
guy thinks he's respectable. He brings him into
his house. I want you to see then that sometimes
evil starts with thinking you're doing the right
thing and you just keep going and it's really
not the right thing at all. The relationship
becomes compromised between you and God because
you have a standard and God has a standard and
the standards are not the same. Your family maybe
continues to function, saying we believe in God.
I will never forget back in the day, a long time
ago in the ICE event, we had some evangelists
who came in from out of town and we went around
and talked to people, knocked on doors and talked
to people in the street and whatever. And we've
done a number of things like that. But there
was one girl who was coming to our... This is
a young girl. I think she was 11 or 12 years
old. And she was a professing Christian. Her
mom would not let her get baptized, but she was
a professing Christian. And she was pretty devout.
She was reading her Bible. She was praying. She
was serving in the church. She was doing stuff.
Always had a smile on her face. Joy of the Lord.
And I talked to her about the way it was at home.
And she said, well, we keep our Bibles on our
nightstands. And my mom always encourages us
to read our Bible every night before we go to
bed. And I'm like, well, that's cool. And so
we pray before we eat. That's cool. And I started
thinking in my head, I think, you know, I think
maybe maybe she lives in a Christian household
and there's just something wrong about the way,
you know, they don't understand that they should
be plugging the church. They should be serving
the kingdom. They should be doing these things.
I was thinking about that. Then the ICE event
came up and it and that put me knocking on her
door. So I knocked on her door and her mom was
home and she was not. And the man of the household
was not home as well. And they were not married,
but that's irrelevant in this story. The bottom
line is, she was the only one home. And so I
started talking to her about Jesus. And the truth
is, I had two women with me and they went over
to the side and sat down because the conversation
took like 40 minutes. They went over to the side
and sat down and they were praying. And they
were praying for her. And they were praying for
me. And before we were done, that woman... prayed
to accept Jesus Christ as Lord for the first
time. Now, I had begun to think in hearing the
stories of her household about Bibles on the
nightstand, about praying before meals and no
foul language allowed and being respectful of
your parents. I began to think that that household
maybe had some saved people in it. But when I
talked to her, she was open and honest. She was
very transparent about it, right? She said, I'm
not saved. I know I'm not saved. What does it
actually mean to be saved? And we talked about
it, and she prayed to accept Christ. In this
story, we see hospitality. Everyone seems pleasant.
The customs and appearances. Yet no one is asking,
what does God require? People are clinging to
traditions, and we do that a lot today. When
my parents were young, my dad was 18. He got
my mom pregnant. She was 16, almost 17. And it
was traditional then, very much cultural, that
if you got pregnant, you got married. And so
my parents were like, it's no problem. We want
to get married. We love each other. We'll live
together for the rest of our lives. I was too
young, really, but we want to get married. And
so they could not get married in the church building
because my mom was pregnant with my brother.
And so they got married in my grandparents' living
room. Now, they got married in my grandparents'
living room because, quote, it was the right
thing to do. My dad had got her pregnant, so
it was the right thing to do. They got married
there with my dad's parents there and my mom's
mom was there because it was the right thing
to do. They stayed together for life because
it was the right thing to do. Now, fast forward
40 years. 40 years later in a church in Tennessee,
my mother accepted Jesus Christ as her Lord and
Savior. There's a lot of things that people are
doing and trying to be honest. Everybody knows
you should basically be honest. You shouldn't
get caught in a lie, at least. And there's a
lot of things that people are trying to do that
they think are right. And it's hard. And they
get it right sometimes and they don't get it
right sometimes. And in this story, we see people
who think they have a standard. They seem respectable.
Right. They're doing what somebody else might
not do. But the truth is their heart is not necessarily
right. Sometimes would be Christians or people
think they're Christians take on Christian culture,
Christian schools, Christian politics, Christian
families. Right. They automatically produce good
things because they think they are Christians,
but they are not actually right by God. Only
transformed hearts. will produce the righteousness
that God is looking for. And in this story, there
are no transformed hearts. There are hospitable
people, respectable people, people with good
reputations, people that think that they're right,
but their hearts are not transformed. Notice
then that evil often waits quietly until circumstances
reveal that, reveal the truth that we're seeing.
So now go back to the text for a minute. We already
know that the people of Gideon are pretty kind
of like withdrawn from the Levite and his concubine
and servant, right? And now it begins in verse
22 that we see something happen. Verse 22, while
they were enjoying themselves, all of a sudden
wicked men of the city surrounded the house and
beat on the door. They said to the old man who
was the owner of the house, bring out the man,
the man, sorry, the man who came to your house
so we can have sex with him. Now, that's this
translation. In the actual Hebrew, it uses a
word that means to know him intimately. Now,
whether that means sex for sure or not, but it
means to know him intimately, not just to talk
to him, not just like a conversation with him,
but to know him intimately. And so in this translation,
it says that we can have sex with him, which
is probably pretty accurate. The owner of the
house went out and said to them, please don't
do this evil. See, they can identify, he's identifying
that that is an evil thing. But now listen to
his logic. He says, please don't do this evil,
my brothers. After all, this man has come into
my house. Don't commit this horrible outrage.
See, he's appealing that they should not take
the man outside and have sex with him because
he took him into his house. Not because it's
wrong. Not because God says it's wrong. Not because
God has destroyed Sodom. You know the story.
So did they. In fact, the people who read this
story in the book of Judges would have known
intimately the story of Sodom and how God had
destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah for similar sin
to this. And that's not what he says. Consider
how God treated Sodom after they tried to sleep
with the angels. No, he doesn't say that. He
just says, but I took this man into my house.
We have a custom. I have a responsibility to
provide them with safety. You should leave them
alone and let me provide them with hospitality,
right? Even subtly under the current, he might
be saying, at least wait until the morning when
they leave, right? Because that's what the text
is saying. Don't commit this horrible outrage
because I brought them into my house. Here, let
me bring out my virgin daughter and the man's
concubine now. abuse them and do whatever you
want to them, but don't commit this outrageous
thing against this man. I mean, now if this is
surprising you, I warned you, we are dealing
with a people living in a period of wickedness
that has become so proliferous that everyone
falls to it almost immediately. And even though
the man showed hospitality, showed respect to
a traveler, has been generous, now under pressure
of a mob beating on his door, He offers his own
daughter and the Levite's concubine, which is
not his property. That's not his wife. It's not
his wife with no rights, right? He offers the
daughter and the concubine to be raped all night
so that the man can be spared. But the men would
not listen to him. They're not going to listen.
They want to have relations with the man who's
safely in the house. So the man who was providing
the shelter seized. I'm sorry, the man who is
receiving the shelter, the Levite, seized his
concubine. This is the woman whose father he
just spent the last week with. He snatches her,
probably by the arm or the hair, and he took
her outside to them. And they raped her and abused
her all night until morning. And at daybreak,
they let her go. That morning, the woman made
her way back. And as it was getting light, she
collapsed at the doorway of the man's house where
her master was. That concludes our text for the
day. I know it's a dark text. It's a difficult
text. And I spent many hours processing it mentally
and spiritually this week to get us to where
we are right this second. I submit to you that
for a moment in this story, everything seemed
hopeful. The Levite and his concubine and his
servant are safe in the house. They're being
treated with respect. It sounds like this guy
that has invited them in is a pretty decent dude,
right? He's somewhat respectable. The city appears
peaceful. Nothing terrible is actually happening.
But the evil has been there all along. It simply
hasn't been tested. Extreme situations reveal
while ordinary days conceal. So you can or the
people you know can live fairly normally day
in and day out respectable lives. And then when
real trouble comes, when evil rears its ugly
head, the evil that is in a person or in their
situation or in their household jumps up and
matches the evil. Pressure does not create character.
People do not get better because times get tough.
pressure creates character in any way is after
you come out of the tough times and realize that
you come out of the tough times, you realize,
hey, I can do more than I ever thought I could.
Not during. During, we act out of what is in
our deeper urges. Our character is revealed.
The veneer, that's the surface painting, the
way the surface has been prepared of civilization
is thin when hearts remain unchanged. I've been
with a very nice guy. Seemed like he was friendly.
We could have conversations. I thought we were
pretty much alike. And we went to a restaurant
and ordered a sandwich and it came out wrong.
And apparently that was just too much and put
him over the edge. And suddenly he was not a
nice guy at all. And I realized something about
my friend at that time. And I already knew he
wasn't saved because I tried to talk to him about
Christ and failed. But I realized that he had
a very thin surface coat of goodness. And it
covered every angle. No matter how you looked
at him, he looked good. But then when something
would get beyond him, something would strike
him a little deeply, something would bother him,
there was real evil there to be unleashed. I
felt bad for the people he unleashed it upon
that day to the point that I even said something
and a little bit of it was unleashed upon me.
Many people believe and they say, I'd never do
that. But scripture teaches, Jeremiah 17, 9,
the human heart is desperately wicked. In fact,
it even goes on to say, who can know it? And
what's implied there is that even you cannot
know your heart and what you are capable of when
the situation turns dark. Without God's transforming
grace, no one knows what he is capable of. I've
been asked a number of times, like, if somebody
was coming after your family, would you stand
up? Would you be strong? Would you defeat them?
Would you do whatever you have to take a bullet,
wield a knife? And I pray I would. But I'm a
human being. I want to. I know what I want to
be in the moment of friction. And I just have
to trust God that he will make me in the moment
of friction what I need to be. Because I also
know that in me is a weak man, a sinful man,
a wicked man. Even if right now you can paint
a pretty good picture. of yourself, you have
to realize that if times grow rough, do you know
that there were people who fist fought, literally
fist fought, knocked over carts, threw each other
around in aisles over toilet paper during COVID.
Toilet paper. Because people were worried that
they would not have something to wipe their butt
with if COVID went on for a little while. FYI,
you don't even need toilet paper. It's a luxury.
And they were beating each other up and sending
each other to the hospital. because times had
grown dark, and dark times reveal character.
The truth is that our best is never enough. The
old man is more honorable than the rest, the
Levite is better than some, the father -in -law
seems generous, yet every person in the story
is compromised. No hero appears. The lesson here
is startling. Being better than everyone else
is not enough. God never called his people merely
to be less wicked. He called us to be holy. I
already quoted Jeremiah 17 .9 that says the heart
is deceitful above all things and desperately
wicked. Listen to Romans 3 .9 -12 for a second.
It says, what then? Are we better than they?
In other words, as Christians, are we better
than someone else? Not at all. For we have already
charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under
sin. As it is written, there is none righteous,
not even one. There is none who understands.
There is none who seeks for God. All have turned
aside. Together they have become useless. There
is none who does good. There is not even one.
And so Paul is writing to the church at Rome
that outside the kingdom of God, outside the
righteousness that Jesus Christ will freely provide
to you if you will accept it, there is no righteousness.
Those who do good and who do good under pressure
will still yield under a different pressure or
a deeper pressure because in them there is no
good. Isaiah 64 says it this way. For all of
us have become like one who is unclean and all
our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment
and all of us wither like a leaf and our iniquities
like the wind take us away. That's what's going
on in the passage of scripture that we see today.
It's not a question of whether or not a human
being will yield to doing something that they
should not do. It's not a question of whether
or not a father will make a mistake as a parent
or whether a child will disobey their parents.
It's not a question of whether or not a teacher
will make the wrong decision in the classroom
or whether a doctor will make a mistake on the
job that costs somebody mobility or even their
life. It's not a question of whether or not bad
things will happen when people are left to their
own devices. The question is when. The question
becomes how much pressure does a person need
to endure or what kind of pressure do they need
to endure to bring out of them the wickedness
that resides in every human being? That's the
reality of it. But there is hope. There is hope.
And we're coming to the conclusion already. is
that we need something better than our best,
but there is something better offered. Remember
Sodom. God judged Sodom. He said that people
of Sodom, they will not repent. They are wicked.
And he decided to destroy them. Here, Israel
has become Sodom. And people who read this story
in its original writing, written in the Hebrew,
scratched out on a scroll, told from person to
person, Well, I heard so -and -so say, so -and
-so said, they read this scroll, and so on. They
remembered the story of Sodom. They knew that
the people in this story had become like the
people in Sodom, and there was nothing left keeping
them from deserving a reign of fire. This story
too much echoes that story for them to not have
known that. The difference is not that Israel
is less sinful. That's not why God doesn't rain
down fire and destroy Israel. It's not that God's
being patient and he'll destroy them eventually
when they've proven themselves as too wicked.
Rather, it is God's covenant mercy. God has decided
to make a covenant with certain people on the
earth that the kingdom may advance and that anyone
who would be willing could theoretically enter
that kingdom. and come into a right relationship
with God. Like righteous Lot, who was distressed
by Sodom's wickedness, the New Testament describes
as that righteous man, Lot, who was distressed
daily, vexed daily by the wickedness that surrounded
him. There are still people who are grieved by
sin in the story, yet the nation itself has become
deeply corrupt. God delays judgment because Israel
is his covenant people. not because they deserve
to be preserved. God's mercy is not saying that
these wicked actions are okay. God never says
that that man taking a concubine, a wife of less
rights, that that's okay. Or that men raping
men in the city forcibly is okay. Or that men
raping unto death a concubine, that wife of lesser
rights, is okay. God never says any of those
things okay. God has not changed his position.
God's patience is not saying that people will
be accepted while they do these things. Hear
me today. If you are here today and you are living
in sin and you are doing so intentionally, there
is nothing in scripture that says that God will
accept you under those terms. What they needed
and what we need today is the same. New hearts.
Jeremiah 30. 31, 31 to 33, the prophet Jeremiah
writes it this way, says, Behold, days are coming,
declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant
with the house of Israel and with the house of
Judah. Not like the covenant which I made with
their fathers in the day I took them by the hand
to bring them out of the land of Egypt. My covenant
which they broke, although I was a husband to
them, declares the Lord. But this is the covenant
which I will make with the house of Israel after
those days, declares the Lord. I will put my
law within them and on their heart. I will write
it. And I will be their God and they shall be
my people. That is the very gospel itself. That
is the invitation that is directed at us and
at every human living being. That we might come
to him and receive a new heart. Ezekiel 36 then
says this way. Moreover, I will give you a new
heart, put a new spirit within you. And I will
remove the heart of stone from your flesh and
give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my
spirit within you. And then in the New Testament,
in Hebrews 8, we get this. when I will effect
the new covenant with the house of Israel and
with the house of Judah, not like the covenant
which I made with their fathers on the day when
I took them by the hand to lead them out of the
land of Egypt, for they did not continue in my
covenant, and I did not care for them, says the
Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make
with the house of Israel after those days, says
the Lord. I will put my law in their minds and
I will write them on their hearts. See, the writer
of Hebrews is saying that the covenant with the
church today, with believers today, is the same
renewed covenant that was promised by Jeremiah
and Ezekiel, really by God through them. He says,
and I will be their God and they shall be my
people. And they shall not teach everyone his
fellow citizen and everyone his brother saying,
know the Lord. For all will know me from the
least to the greatest of them. For I will be
merciful to their iniquities, and I will remember
their sins no more. When he set a new covenant,
he has made the first obsolete. But whatever
is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready
to disappear. One more set of verses, 1 Corinthians
1. For the word of the cross is foolishness to
those who are perishing, but to us who are being
saved, it is the power of God. See, in this story,
we have people who are trying to appear respectable.
People who are trying to have a good reputation.
They're trying to follow the cultural laws and
rules and look good to the people around them.
But internally, they're wicked. Paul writes to
the Corinthians that if we were following the
wisdom of the cross to the people around us,
that wisdom is going to seem like foolishness.
So a good reputation or a pure and respectable,
that's not our goal. 19 in that same chapter
says, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and
the cleverness of the clever I will set aside.
Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where
is the debater of this age? Has not God made
foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in
the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom
did not come to know God, God was well pleased
through the foolishness of the message preached
to save those who believe. Will you believe God
is well pleased through the foolishness of the
message preached? to save you. For indeed, Jews
ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom. But
we preach Christ crucified to Jews a stumbling
block and to Gentiles foolishness. But to those
who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ,
the power of God and the wisdom of God, because
the foolishness of God is wiser than men and
the weakness of God is stronger than men. And
what I hear is an entreaty by God to this point.
Please, I'm begging you, stop trying to look
good. You're wasting your effort. To be respectable,
to have a good reputation, that is a waste. Our
hope is not better manners, better traditions,
better politics, better families, better religion.
All these things are quite respectable in society.
But our hope is not even our best effort. Our
hope is Jesus Christ. who gives what sinful hearts
cannot produce, he gives a new heart, a new spirit,
and a new life. There's a story in the New Testament,
I won't go there and read it to you, but I'm
going to recap it for you, about a man named
Nicodemus. He was extremely well respected. He
fasted two days a week. That means for 24 hours,
he would go without any food or drink whatsoever,
no water, two days a week. He memorized whole
books of the Bible, had the book of Genesis,
long book. Word for word, beginning to end, memorized.
And not only the book of Genesis, multiple books.
He was a preacher in high demand. He traveled
all around proselytizing, trying to get people
to believe that the Jewish religion was the only
way. It was the way to the Messiah, the way that
God would make that all people would get saved.
He was in such high demand that he never had
a weekend where he wasn't preaching in a temple
or a synagogue or a small group. And Jesus said
to that man, you must be born again in order
to be saved. You can be as respectable as you
want and you're going to go to hell with a whole
bunch of respectable people. But if you will
be born again, if you will allow Jesus to be
Lord of your life, if you allow Jesus to come
and live in you and lead you and guide you from
this day forward, whether it's a year or 50 or
until Jesus comes again, whatever that looks
like, he'll make you born again. He'll take out
of you your heart of stone and give you a heart
of flesh. So there might be somebody in your
room saying, I really never wanted this. And
right now in this moment, you're going like,
wait a minute, I think I do want this. I think
I need this. I think this is what my life needs
to be like. This is what God's been trying to
do. And I see that now. That's God in the process
of taking out your stone heart, which did not
want to be with God, and giving you a heart of
flesh. I heard people a lot of times say that
the gospel is plan A. And there is no plan B.
But that actually isn't true. The gospel is plan
A. And plan A is you must admit that you need
Jesus, believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior,
and commit to follow him for the rest of your
life. That's plan A. That's the simple gospel
of how to get saved. Cry out to the Lord, it
says, in the name of the Lord, in the name of
the Lord Jesus Christ. And he will always answer
and always save you. But there are people who
do not want that. Their heart is hard. They don't
want a relationship with Jesus. They think, well,
I can't trust anyone because I've been betrayed
so much. I can't depend on anyone. I got to learn.
My parents and my situation has taught me to
be dependable, not to depend on anybody. I can't
let anyone in to lead, to guide, to govern my
life. I am the one. Solo mio. I'm doing it. They
don't want Jesus. And that's a heart of stone.
But there is a plan B in which God says that
when the gospel comes, when the truth of Jesus
comes, that people are softened. They go start
thinking, well, maybe this heart of stone has
been a little heavy. Maybe it's been a little
hard. Maybe there's been times where it has not
served me the way it should have. Maybe it's
not what I was made to be. Just that doubt, that
question. And God begins to take out that heart
of stone and put in a heart of flesh. And you
can feel, when you feel, what you will feel is
that you feel you need him. Because that's what
you were created for. And Jesus said to that
very respectable man, you must be born again.
And then a few verses later he says, do not marvel
that I say unto you, you must be born again.
Listen to me. If people who appeared respectable
but had hearts of stone went to heaven, heaven
would not be like heaven anymore. Heaven would
be people throwing other people out the door
to be raped in the street. Because when the pressure
comes, people exhibit that heart of stone. They
exhibit that wickedness. that deceitfulness that
even they do not know. Respectability without
regeneration will always fail to produce righteousness.
A couple of quotes and we'll be through. Socrates,
you might have heard that word. Socrates, a very
wise, long, long time ago philosopher, right?
Socrates. He said this, he said, the way to gain
a good reputation is to endeavor to do what you
desire to appear. Let me say it again. The way
to gain a good reputation. is to endeavor to
be what you desire to appear. In other words,
people have gotten it backwards. People are painting
their houses of their lives, trying to look good
without ever cleaning up what's inside. But if
you clean up what's inside, the outside will
naturally follow. If you get a new heart, you
will become more honest and eventually you will
just become honest. You will walk in the light.
You will be sanctified by God, set apart for
his holy service. You will serve without asking
for anything back. Instead of serving, hoping
that people will praise you, hoping that people
will give to you, hoping people will pat you
on the back or that you'll get an A or the teacher
will be a little bit more gentle with you the
next time you're acting up. You'll serve because
it's who you are. Socrates said, the way to gain
a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you
desire to appear. You can try all day to be what
you really desire to appear, but something's
going to come along and it's going to push you.
And it's going to punch through to that which
you really are, unless you become that which
you really want to be. And what you really want
to be is right by God. You want to be in a relationship
with the Lord that will help you every moment
of every day, when it's hard and when it's easy,
which, by the way, is also when it's hard. William
Shakespeare, whoever he was, said, Reputation
is an idol. So people seek after looking good
to people. Reputation is an idol. Reputation
is an idol and most false imposition. In other
words, people get stuck trying to get good reputation
and it doesn't do them any good whatsoever. He
says, it's oft got without merit. In other words,
a lot of people have a good reputation, even
they don't deserve it. And lost without deserving.
A lot of people who deserve a good reputation.
We'll lose it because of rumor, slander, lies,
cheating, whatever. That has happened to me.
We've served people, done nothing wrong, and
then had them lie about us just to kind of put
distance between us and them. Occasionally it
was so that they wouldn't have to pay back a
debt or so that they wouldn't look bad themselves,
whatever. And when somebody slanders your reputation,
your best defense is to know who you are. To
be who you are. And the only chance of that is
to be right by God. Abraham Lincoln said this,
he said, Character is like a tree, and reputation,
it's shadow. The shadow is what we think of it.
The tree is the real thing. Jesus is inviting
you to get a character of his creation, a heart
of flesh. A leader who will lead you in the right
direction. A servant who will teach you to serve.
A lover who will love as example and then make
you able to love the same way. In 1989, I went
to the theater to see a rom -com. I'm exposing
myself. I love romantic comedy. And a lot of
them I can't watch because I don't watch rated
R movies or a lot of things they show. Things
they say are not good. I won't watch, but there
are occasionally ones. In 1989, I wasn't saved,
and I went to go see a movie. The movie was called
Harry Met Sally. Are you familiar with that movie?
No? It was a very big movie. For a rom -com,
it was one of the most grossingest of all time.
At the end of the movie, it was supposed to end
with them breaking up, and that was it. That
was how the movie was supposed to end. That was
the realistic ending. That was the script. That's
what they had planned. And as they're producing
the movie, it became... obvious that the two
of them breaking up after everybody in the movie
had rooted for them to be together was going
to be a problem. It was going to cause a problem
with the audiences, and it was going to get bad
reviews. Early watchers said, no, we don't want
that. That's not good. And so the two actors
in the movie were Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan,
and they said to Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan,
well, we're cutting the end of the movie. Instead
of them breaking up, we want them to end up together.
But we don't have anybody to write lines, so
take care of it. And so they took care of it.
And Billy Crystal looked deeply into Meg Ryan's
eyes and he says, when you realize you want to
spend the rest of your life with somebody, you
want the rest of your life to start as soon as
possible. And then that line spread throughout
the world and affected people. And now it's spread
to here and affected us. And why do you think
that is? Because when you realize that you want
to spend the rest of your life with Jesus, You're
going to want the rest of your life to start
right away. This concludes the message. It's
a message of a people living in respectable ways
in a very dark time. I'm asking you, are you
somebody like that? It's not good enough. It
wasn't good enough for me when I was 25 years
old. I began to realize I had a house and a job,
a career. I was successful, as some people count
success. I had a beautiful wife, a beautiful
daughter. and one on the way, lots of loans,
paying for everything. Both our cars had loans,
our house had loans. I put the mower on a credit
card, and I realized that that wasn't going to
get it done. Whatever you've managed to collect,
it's not going to get it done. Whatever people
think of you, it's not going to get it done.
There will be no standing before the white throne
of judgment and saying, but everybody loved me.
I did all these good things. Those who make those
pleas, we already know. Jesus will say, get away
from me. I never knew you. I'm asking you. No
matter how respectable or what people think about
you, will you start your life with Jesus today?
When you realize that you want to spend the rest
of your life with somebody, you're going to want
to start it right away. I ask the praise team
to come forward and lead us in our final song.
If you're here today and say, I feel God pulling
on my heart.