Judges Chapters 17 & 18
“In those days
there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes”
(Judges 17:6). “In those days there was no king in Israel…” (Judges 18:1a).
When Jesus
Christ is not acknowledged as King in the Church, we can expect confusion and
chaos and cacophony. When Jesus Christ is not served and submitted to, when we
do not bow our hearts and knees before Him, we will do what is right in our own
eyes. When Jesus Christ is not our King, we can anticipate much of what we see
in Judges to be replicated in the professing church.
In Judges 18 we
see that the tribe of Dan has yet to fully possess its inheritance and that it
has sent five men to spy out the region of Laish (see also Joshua 19:40ff).
“When they were near the house of Micah, they recognized the voice of the young
man, the Levite; and they turned aside there and said to him, “Who brought you
here? And what are you doing in this place? And what do you have here?”
We’re not told
how the men of Dan knew the Levite, but they must have known him fairly well to
have recognized his voice, or the Levite must have had quite the distinctive
voice. In any case these five men, who had yet to enter into their inheritance,
sought direction from the Levite, who had abdicated his inheritance for idol
worship. The Danites knew the voice of the Levite but they did not know the
Voice of Yahweh. O that we would know that the fulness of our inheritance is in
Jesus Christ and that we will not find it in idols, in syncretistic
Christianity, in the ways of this present evil age…no matter how successful
these ways may appear.
The Danites ask
the Levite, “Inquire of God, please, that we may know whether our way on which
we are going will be prosperous.” The Levite responds, “Go in peace; your way
in which you are going has Yahweh’s approval.”
The Danites see
Micah’s idols, they see the Levite acting as a priest in Micah’s idolatrous
household, and yet they want the Levite to inquire of God concerning their
plans – they want to know if they will be prosperous. The Danites have
forgotten the Law that Yahweh gave through Moses, they have forgotten their
forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – or perhaps more accurately, they have
chosen to ignore Yahweh’s Law and to reject their heritage.
Now while I
suppose we ought to be careful about putting too much emphasis on this, I want
to point out that the Danites want to know what “God” thinks about their
mission, they do not use the name Yahweh, the covenant name of the God of
Israel. On the other hand, the Levite does use the name Yahweh when he tells
the five men that they have “Yahweh’s approval.”
Is our
conversation and thinking centered in Jesus Christ? Is it centered in the
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? Or is our conversation and thinking centered on
“God”? Do we speak of an ambiguous God, or do we speak of our Lord Jesus
Christ? Do we speak of the Father who gave His Only Son? Do we speak of the
Holy Spirit who lives in us? Or do we speak of a nebulous God who has been
created in myriad images by mankind?
Dear friends, the
name Jesus Christ is that Name above all names, “…there is salvation in no one
else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by
which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Concerning Christ Jesus Paul writes, “For
this reason, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is
above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those
who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will
confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:9 –
11).
We are called to
explicitly and unambiguously preach, teach, and share Jesus Christ with others.
As the Church, we are called to be monogamously wedded to Jesus Christ. If we
are indeed in a relationship with Jesus Christ we will speak of Jesus Christ to
one another in the Church, and to others outside the Church.
Now to be sure,
there are pseudo-Christians who use the name Jesus just as the Levite used the
name Yahweh. There are seminary professors and pastors and authors who attempt
to remake Jesus Christ into their own image, thus leading others into darkness.
Having said this, I ask the question, “Are we speaking to one another of Jesus
Christ? Or…do we speak of “things” and “activities” and such? Are we more
likely to talk to others about “church” or about Jesus Christ? Are we more
likely to use the ambiguous term “God” when speaking to others or do we speak
to others of Jesus Christ…doing so as a result of our relationship with Jesus
Christ, in Jesus Christ, and through Jesus Christ?”
This is really
only one question, phrased in different ways – is Jesus our all in all? Is He our
everything? We can talk of “church” forever, we may speak of a nebulous “god”
forever, and no one will hear of the Christ of the Cross and the Cross of Jesus
Christ; no one will hear of the marvelous and wonderful love of the Father for
men and women and young people, no one will hear the call to confess their
sins, repent, and enter into a relationship with Jesus Christ.
O dear friends,
we like to be safe; speaking of church is safe, speaking generally of a god
with pithy sayings and cute maxims is safe – but speaking of Jesus Christ is
never safe, for the message of Jesus requires us to die to self and live to
Him, and it requires us to bear His shame and His rejection – for the sake of a
lost and dying world. Tell me now, what do you think, what is the point of a
person gaining the entire world but losing his or her soul? (Mark 8:34ff). Are
we known as a people who speak of Jesus Christ? Or are we known as a people who
talk about morality, politics, church, god, success? Just who do we belong to?
Can we say with
Paul, “I do not consider my life of any account as dear to myself” (Acts
20:24a)?
The Danites
wanted to know if they would prosper in their way. Does this sound like our
preaching today? The Danites had forgotten that true prosperity is to know the
Word of Yahweh, to walk in that Word, to meditate in that Word, and to never
allow that Word to depart from our hearts and minds (Joshua 1, Psalm 1).
When “everyone
does what is right in his own eyes,” everyone has idols; personal idols, family
idols, regional idols, national idols. When “there is no King,” we do what we
want, when we want, and how we want – not just Monday through Saturday, but on
Sunday mornings, for we are accountable to no one and we can bring idols into
the Temple as long as they bring us success, otherwise they will not be
accepted.
Idolatry was
normative for Israel, for everyone did what was right in his own eyes. Is it
normative for us?
O dear friends,
to know Jesus is to belong to Jesus; to no longer belong to ourselves. To
follow Jesus is to surrender our lives to Jesus Christ, to learn His Way of
Life, the Way of laying our lives down daily for Him; to glorify Him and so
that others might know Him.
The Apostle John
concluded his first letter to Christians with these words:
“Little
children, guard yourselves from idols.” (1 John 5:21).
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