FBC Daily Devotional – September 7, 2021

Good Tuesday morning. Did you have a good holiday yesterday? We able to get some extra rests and refreshment Take in the outdoors and enjoy it. I hope I hope so. I hope that was a Good day for you, and the Lord blessed you in it.

The Chaos of Judges 21 Without God’s Word

Well today here we are Tuesday morning and today we read in Judges chapter 21 and man alive How convoluted our thinking can be? When we don't have the Word of God or don't use God's Word To guide our thinking and to guide our decisions.

So this last chapter in the book of Judges is a Good illustration of that very thing. It follows up on the story chapter 1920 where you know this this Levite had a concubine that got abused by Benjamite men and she ended up dying from the sexual abuse that she experienced at their hands and then he he cuts her up and sends her parts of parts of her body throughout the throughout the land and tells people you need to come and deal with these Benjamites and they'll come and they go to fight against the Benjamites and Pretty much wipe them out and they they kill So many of the Benjamites there's just a handful of them left but the problem is at least the way they see it is, you know, here are these Benjamites and.

We've.

Human Schemes to Preserve the Tribe

We've annihilated all of the rest of these are Benjamite men. We've annihilated all of the other people in the tribe the Benjamite tribe so there aren't any women for them to marry within their tribe and Therefore this is a tribe in Israel that is going to be destroyed.

The problem is they say we made a promise that we would never give any of our daughters to any Benjamite men. Well, there's so much about that. There's just totally Bizarre and wrong. I mean totally without any question, but here they are so.

So they're perfectly willing to go through all the stuff that they've already done that is a bit outrageous and making outrageous vows and so on and so forth and and now. They're very concerned about offending the Lord.

Should they violate that vow and give some of their daughters to these Benjamite guys to get to marry and to perpetuate the family? Turn the tribe. So they have to come up with an alternative. What are we going to do?

How in the world are we going to? Provide wives for these Benjamite men. They come up with a plan. First thing We're gonna do they say is we're gonna find out is there a community that didn't come help us fight the Benjamites in the first Place and they do a little poll and they find out.

Yep. There's this community. They didn't send any warriors. That's okay. Here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna go in and kill all the men in that community and we'll Take the virgin women from that community and give them to the Benjamites for for brides.

Okay, where did you get any divine guidance for that? Obviously they did not but that's exactly what they did.

And.

The Benjamites Get Wives by More Violence

They get the brides for the for the men and yet there's not enough of them. There's still a bunch of Benjamite men who don't have a wife. So now what are you gonna do? Well, there's a festival coming up and this particular festival all the virgins of the community of the area they go out and they do this dance and so forth and so.

The.

The other tribal leaders they say to these Benjamites. Okay. Here's what you need to do you need to go hide in the bushes until all the the virgins come out and when you see them come out then You rush and grab yourself one and that'll be your wife.

So yeah, it sounds like a good idea, but they'll kill us if we do that and these tribal leaders No, don't don't worry about that. We'll take care of it. We'll cover for you so go for it. And they did and they went for it and They all got themselves Wives and they all lived happily ever after right?

Well.

They didn't all live happily ever after in that community they got they got annihilated so that some brides could be given to the Benjamite guys. And the parents of the the people whose daughters got kidnapped.

They didn't live happily ever after after having their brat and their daughters kidnapped. And the men of that community who Who who had all the eligible all the eligible ladies taken away from the community they didn't live happily ever after.

What a mess what an absolute mess. And this is. I mean this is recorded in in the scriptures and it's recorded for our learning for our Understanding. And what is the lesson that is trying to be that is in is communicated here in this chapter in this book.

The Need for the Right King and Divine Guidance

The lesson is the message is what's Written in the last verse of the book and it says this in those days. There was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. The message of the book of Judges is that?

We need the right King and that is Jesus and We need divine guidance. To know how to live if we're left to figure it out on our own. So that everyone does what's right in his own eyes. There is nothing but downwardly spiraling Chaos anarchy spiritual moral.

You know religious even governmental anarchy we need The King Jesus and we need his word the Bible. Let's be sure we've learned that lesson and learned it well in our lives. Father we do. Thank you for even recording these sordid tales in your word.

Thank the stories and things that happened in Israel's history. That serve to warn us and teach us and serve as examples some good many bad. Thank you for teaching us. Just how desperately we need to live our lives according to your word under the authority of the King King Jesus and this we pray in Jesus name.

Amen. All right. Well, I hope you have a good rest of your Tuesday and you know, may God bless you in it. Good day.