A Strange, And Not So Strange, Story (5)

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).