Going Deeper Than Intellectual Understanding — James Jennings

The Darkness of Judges 19 and Its Warning for the Church

Well, go ahead and turn in your copy of God's Word to the book of Judges. To the book of Judges. Chapter 19. And as we read, and as I'm sharing with you, I want you to ask this question, how did the situation in Israel become so dark?

People ask that about America. People ask that about, you know, you've got documentaries on Rome. Well, the Bible has a whole lot to say about Israel. And at different places and different ways, it might explain the root problem leading to the darkness in a certain way.

And something devotionally stood out at the start of Judges that we're going to look at that I think is going to answer the question of how did it get as dark? As it does. Now before we look at how it got that dark, we're going to look at some of the darkness here in Judges 19.

And remember, this is all very applicable for us. Old Testament history. Paul is very quick in 1 Corinthians 10 to tell us that these things are written down for our example. And so it's so helpful to look at examples, right?

Even in parenting, that's one of the things you do. You might re-illustrate whatever the child did. Re-enact it. In order for them to really recognize, oh, this is what happened. You know, the parent said, come, and I went and picked up a toy and then came.

I didn't come right away. Or whatever. You're re-enacting that. You want the person to see a visualization of what happened. And so Paul, he pulls in Israel constantly at different points. And so this is for us.

You might say, as we look at Judges 19, you might think, you know what? This doesn't have anything to do with our church. There's no sort of darkness to this degree. But we're going to look at where all this started and you're going to realize it wasn't that dark initially.

It got there at some point. And I would argue the same thing with the churches in Revelation, right? They didn't get as dark as it was in some of them overnight. There was a progressive change to get to that state.

So, Judges 19, and let me pray and then we will read from there. Father, Lord, we do thank You for history that's in Your Word of God. Lord, we find great encouragement from history seeing Your utter incredible faithfulness.

Finding that not one good promise of the Lord our God failed. Yet, Lord, we also find in Your Word terrifying, horrible, and dark examples of where sin can lead. And Lord, we start Your Word out and what do we find?

We find within one generation, there's already the first murderer because of some sibling rivalry. And Lord, we look at Cain killing his brother and it's just shocking. Lord, it doesn't shock us enough as it should.

So Lord, we want to be kept from subtle areas of drifting that could lead to such darkness. So Lord, help us. We pray You'd quicken these thoughts from Your Word and make them real for Your people this morning and for my own soul.

I ask this in Christ's name, Amen. Well, Judges 19. We're going to skim a few of these verses and then read eight of them. So, verse 1, In those days there was no Cain in Israel. That's mentioned often.

And verse 2, this is the whole situation with the man with the concubine. Verse 2,. And his concubine was unfaithful to him. Or she was playing the harlot. Some versions render it. Others try to make it sound like she just got angry at her husband and she left him.

But the ESV, it puts she was unfaithful to him. What did she do? She went to her father's house. She was there for four months. The end of verse 2 says,. Then this husband arose, verse 3, he went after her to speak kindly to her and bring her back.

And so you've got a bad marital situation right here. Why is all this being put here? Well, let's go down. He eventually leaves his father-in-law's home. And you know the father-in-law kept wanting them to stay longer.

Longer and longer. And they finally left. Verse 10,. But the man would not spend the night. He rose and departed. And he arrived opposite Jebus.". That is Jerusalem. He had with him a couple of saddled donkeys and his concubine was with him.

When they were near Jebus, the day was nearly over and the servant said to his master, Come now, let us turn aside to the city of the Jebusites and spend the night in it. Look what his master said. His master said to him, We will not turn aside into the city of foreigners who do not belong to the people of Israel, but we will pass on to Jebus.".

Now, take note of that. You could have stopped somewhere. They didn't. Why? It's a place of foreigners. We want to stay somewhere that's owned by the twelve tribes. We want to stay somewhere that is of Israel.

What's the assumption? We stay somewhere where people are of our nation, how are they going to treat us? They're going to speak good treatment. We're all in this together. We're the twelve tribes. It's going to be a really good time.

Well, that's not what we find out. At the end of v. 14, they drew near to Gibeah, which belongs to Benjamin. So you can see, it's part of the nation. Now, v. 22. I'm just going to read from v. 22 -30.

And we're looking at where this darkness has gotten here at this point in Judges. "...As they were making their hearts merry, behold, the men of the city, worthless fellows, surrounded the house, beating on the door.".

And no, I didn't just turn in my Bible to read about Sodom and Gomorrah. Right? In Israel, in the city of Benjamin, the exact same thing is happening. You see? Very similar language and situation. "...They said to the old man, the master of the house, bring out the man who came into your house, that we may know him.

And the man and the master of the house went out to them and he said to them, no, my brothers, don't act so wickedly since this man is coming to the house. Do not do this vile thing. Behold, here are my virgin daughter and his concubine.

Let me bring them out now. Violate them and do with them what seems good to you.". That's a shocking statement. Seems good to you? "...But against this man, do not do this outrageous thing.". Verse 25,.

"...But the men would not listen to him. So the man seized his concubine and he made a girl out to them. And they knew her and abused her all night until the morning. And as the dawn began to break, they let her go.

And as the morning appeared, the woman came. She fell down at the door of the man's house where her master was until it was light.". It doesn't seem like the man's watching out the window looking to intervene, wondering what he can do.

Verse 27,. "...Her master rose up in the morning. And when he had opened the doors of the house and went out to go on his way, behold, there was his concubine lying at the door of the house with her hands on the threshold.

He said to her, Get up. Let us be going. But there was no answer. Then he put her on the donkey and the man rose and went away to his home. And when he entered his house, he took a knife, taking hold of his concubine, he divided her limb by limb into twelve pieces, and he sent her throughout all the territory of Israel.".

Verse 30,. "...And all who saw it said, Such a thing...". We're going to have to look at what the thing is. It's not the man cutting up the concubine. You can tell that from the context. It's what the minute Jebeah did.

"...Such a thing has never happened...". This seeking to rape the man, this homosexuality, this wickedness, "...has been seen from the day the people of Israel came up out of the land of Egypt until this day.".

And then the people, all who saw it, they're saying, we've got to consider this. We need to take counsel about this. We need to get together about this and we need to speak about it. Like something has to happen.

And that's exactly what continues on in chapter 20, which we're not going to read chapter 20, but they get together. They do take counsel. Verse 7 of chapter 20,. "...Behold, you people of Israel, all of you, give your advice and counsel here.".

They get together. They have this counsel. Verse 6 of chapter 20,. "...because they have committed an abomination and an outrage in Israel.". And then even in chapter 20,. "...The tribes of Israel sent men through all the tribe of Benjamin...".

So that's the tribe where all this wickedness happened. And they said, what is the evil that has taken place among you? How did this evil happen? And if you know the chapter well, the men of Benjamin, they defend Beah and there's a war and there's slaughter.

But brethren, I don't know about you, I mean, some of you might even, if your kids are in here, you're thinking, I don't like this chapter being read with my kids in here. I don't know. That's in God's Word.

It shows the significant darkness that has gotten to this point. Now regardless of how you might respond today, my question isn't how do we take this and how do we respond to it? We have a document right here saying how they responded to this outrage.

And that's something we want to consider. How did they respond? And think about it. It had been maybe about 300 to 400 years if you do the math, since they left Egypt. And now at this moment, it's gotten back to the point where they were seeing the acts of wickedness.

And look at v. 30. It reminded them of the land of Egypt. It took a couple hundred years here, and now it's like, wait a minute, look what just happened. Are we living in Egypt? Remember the guy? He didn't want to stop at a town that wasn't a part of Israel, because he thought he'd get better treatment going to Gabia because it was a tribe of Benjamin, right?

Or it's under Benjamin's reign. And he goes there and looks at the treatment he gets. He gets treated like Lot and Sodom and Gomorrah. And so we've got this re-emergence of profound darkness centuries later and the people, they're right to say, consider it, take counsel, and speak about it.

We've got to do something about it. So quickly though, because when you look at v. 30, if you're just reading this and you say, all who saw it said such a thing has never happened. You could easily take the it, meaning the guy cutting up the concubine.

You could think that's the great wickedness. But just to make sure in your mind you realize that's not the thing. I think we get so shocked by that that we think, oh wow, that must be what he's talking about.

No, the focus is on Israel, a nation in Israel, a tribe in Israel acting as Sodom and Gomorrah. We see where their anger is directed as you read on. The tribes, they rally to avenge the wickedness and punish Gabiah.

They don't get angry to go punish the man, the Levite. The Levite's head is not on the chopping block. It's Gabiah. It's that city where these men sought to sodomize this man. That's where their anger is fueled towards.

And think about this. This happened in Gabiah. I mean, the city of Benjamin. Hosea even speaks about it in 9. They have deeply corrupted themselves. And then he has a reference point right then to refer to.

And he says, as in the days of Gabiah. He will remember their sin. He will punish their sin. It's like, that's a point. You know how the Bible referred to Sodom and Gomorrah? Well, Hosea is referring to this time in Israel.

That's how dark it was. It became a point of reference for the depravity that the nation had got to. And we should be asking, how did it get to this point? What's going on here that we would avoid that as well?

Them exchanging natural relations. Them having absolute violence towards a person. And I don't even think that... There's one other verse in the narrative I was going to read, but the man who he stayed at his house wasn't even from the city.

Which verse was that? Verse 16 of chapter 19. Behold, an old man was coming from his work in the field. The man was from the hill country of Ephraim. He was just sojourning in Gabiah. You see, he's not even from the city.

This place has gotten to a point of total darkness. These acts are so wicked that it brought about God's divine judgment of fire and brimstone from heaven upon Sodom and Gomorrah. Right? And this man, he had no angels there to deliver him from the wickedness of these people.

Now, is there a great indifference in this Levite as well? Yeah, I mean, I don't know about you, when you read v. 28, he walks out the door and he says, get up, let's get going. That's just shocking. The same man who spoke kindly to her in the chapter before to get her to come back with him is now saying, let's get up.

I mean, what is it? This woman, it's like he's treating her like there was just some boxing match and got knocked down and it's like, hey, get up. Let's get out of the ring. I mean, this woman was just severely abused and harmed and ultimately murdered by these men.

This is an outrageous thing that is happening right here. It's absolutely horrible to think about this happening. Alright, now, as horrendous as that is, what the man's treatment of the woman is, it's nothing compared to those of Jebeah.

Now, this Levite then, he cut up sacrifices. Sorry, this Levite who would usually cut up a sacrifice, used to doing that. What does he do here? He cuts up his concubine. He just was at the father-in-law's house.

He cuts up her body to send one piece of the body to all of the different tribes. And I think this implies that there is a letter that was attached, right? If you look at v. 30, all who saw it, they said, well, let's consider it, take counsel and speak.

Clearly, just receiving some body part isn't going to make you understand what's going on. Right? I think it's implied there was something communicated. So I look at the body part. It's like an attachment to the letter in order to provoke an outrage in the people to recognize this is as dark as it's got and we've got to take counsel.

We've got to consider it. We've got to do something about it. And that's exactly what it brings about as we see in chapter 20. You know how it is. You get some email and it has something in there about the atrocities that are happening in some foreign country.

Well, that email has pictures attached to it of kids being brutally harmed or women being brutally harmed. That kind of makes that email have a greater weight to it. I think that's the whole idea here.

Here this letter is, listen to what happened in Gabia. This is happening in Israel. I stopped her to get hospitality. This is what I got. And here this attachment is, this member of my concubine, for you all to recognize the absolute darkness and to count on a moral outrage being awakened in the people, which is exactly what happened.

There is an outrage. They do get together. They do counsel. And that is applicable to us, right? There are certain things that it's kind of like child training or other areas where you don't deal with it severely enough, right?

Eli disciplined his sons, but it wasn't severe enough, so their wicked behavior continued, right? The same type of thing can happen in the church or anywhere in life where something is so severe and you don't have the right response.

Well, this guy, it's like he's provoking them to have a serious response. I mean, this is Sodom and Gomorrah v. 2 .0. We've got to do something about this. So there's times that you need to be a whistleblower, so to speak.

You need to expose the corruption on a grander scale. And you need to sound an undeniable alarm. That's how I take him getting home, thinking about all of it, and he doesn't just do nothing. Verse 29, divides his concubine up limb by limb and sends her to the territories.

And for chapter 20, you can see what it led to. It led to war. Sadly though, the nation's already this dark. They didn't wipe out all the Benjamites. They didn't kill them all. What, 600 were left alive?

And what happened next? They had made a rash oath that we can't let them marry any of our women. Remember, this is people supporting what happened at Gebeah. And what does Israel then proceed to do? Let's get these guys some wives.

And hey, you know what? There's this one tribe, they didn't actually come to the battle. Let's go kill all their men, kill all their women and their children, but keep all the virgins and give them to these Benjamites.

And they did that. How many women did they get? 400. So they didn't have enough. They needed 200 more women. And you know what this dark nation at this point did? They sanctioned abduction and kidnapping of women.

And there's this festival going on and they just tell them to go out there and kidnap those women and take them away. And you know what, as I was reading that, I thought that's almost exactly what happened in Israel at that festival.

Hamas comes into the festival and they start kidnapping these different women and taking them back to the Gaza Strip. I mean, that's what this nation is doing to try to keep this one tribe alive. Imagine.

Imagine all of this happening right here. All this evil taking place. Chapter 21 is where all that happens. Verse 20, go, lie and ambush in the vineyards and watch. They're endorsing kidnapping these women.

Well, you had some type of oath, right? We better not break the oath. But you know what? We'll sanction a little trick here and you can go and just take these women away from their families and then we're going to tell the families they can't do anything about it.

It's dark. Do you want to live in this nation at this point? Do you want to move there? Is this how the news is? Do you guys want to relocate? To Gabia? To Benjamin? To Israel? So, how did it end up like this?

And they were even sending people to Benjamin. I pointed out chapter 20, verse 12. Similar question. What evil is this that's taken place? How did this evil take place? They're asking that question. How could such a wicked thing take place?

So I'm asking the same question because they're asking that question and I trust you're asking that question as well. So that's when I want to now transition to look at one of the answers that I think really stands out that is given leading in to all of this.

Personal Knowledge of God and the Collapse of Faith

And so turn to Joshua. Go back to the left. Joshua 24, and then we're going to look at the start of Judges. Everything is not at this point yet right here, but something stood out devotionally where I thought this is very interesting.

This gets brought up at the end of Joshua. It gets brought up at the start of Judges. This keeps getting mentioned here. I think this is application for us. Joshua 24, verse 29, after these things, Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died, being 110 years old.

They buried him in his own inheritance at Timnasera, which is in the hill country of Ephraim, north of the mountain of Gash. The hill country of Ephraim. That's where that one guy came from who was staying in Gebeah.

Verse 31. This is the verse. Look at verse 31. Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua and had known all the work that the Lord did for Israel.

That's interesting. Some versions, they render it all those who had personally experienced the power of God, the works of God, who personally knew the Lord. And look at verse 31. They served. That word is worship.

They worshiped the Lord, but it stopped at some point. What led to the diminishing of the worshiping of the Lord that is mentioned right there? Joshua dies, and then all these other people who were alive and had witnessed firsthand the power of God, they die.

They die. Now, let's go further into judges. Well, real fast, another version renders verse 31. Listen to this. These men had experienced firsthand everything the Lord had done for Israel. When you take out the people who firsthand had experienced the power of God, who walked with the Lord, who knew the Lord, you take them out.

Look where Israel ends up. The interesting thing is when those men were alive, their influence was powerful enough that a nation of people was at least going through the motions and doing the very things that they supposedly were supposed to be doing.

But you take those men out of the picture who truly knew the Lord. That's something right here that happens. It seems like their worship it hinged upon Joshua and the elders who firsthand had experienced the Lord.

Meaning they were just going through the motions like a child with their parents. You remove the parents and you see what the child truly desires. And we see for a younger generation to continue in the path of the older, they need to not only inherit the knowledge and the truth in the head, but the younger generation has to personally experience and know the reality of the Lord and know the Lord Jesus Christ.

Did not Christ say, this is eternal life, that they might know Me, the one true God, and Jesus Christ Whom I have sent. Salvation is to know the Lord. It's not just in the head. The Pharisees are a New Testament example of people who had a lot of intellect.

They had a lot of head knowledge. And so, you can just have traditions, you can know truth, you can look up to good, wise people, but that is not enough if it isn't a reality in your own life. And everything doesn't just nosedive into a crash right away.

There is a drifting. And if you look at the start of Judges, you see what he said right there, and then you go into the start of Judges, we're going to see the same thing mentioned in a minute, but look at chapter 1.

Look at this issue of partial obedience that really starts to happen. Verse 27, Manasseh did not drive out the inhabitants. Okay, well, you know, Manasseh, they did that. Verse 29, Ephraim did not drive out the Canaanites.

Okay, now it's just two of them. Verse 30, Zebulun did not drive out the inhabitants. Verse 31, Asher did not drive out the inhabitants. Verse 33, Naphtali did not drive out the inhabitants of Beth-shemesh or the inhabitants of Beth-ah-nah, so that they lived among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land.

Nevertheless, they ended up putting them to forced labor. In verse 34, the Amorites pressed the people of Dan back into the hill country for they didn't allow them to come down to the plain. And the Amorites persisted in dwelling in Mount Horez.

So you've got this partial obedience. You go to chapter 2. Now the angel of the Lord, verse 1, went up from Gilgal, and he said, I brought you up from Egypt and I brought you into the land that I swore to give to your fathers.

I said I will never break My covenant with you, and you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land. You shall break down their altar, but you have not obeyed My voice. So they're not obeying.

They have a partial obedience here. And then look what he brings up. Verse 6, when Joshua dismissed the people, the people of Israel went each to his own inheritance to take possession of the land. Verse 7, and the people served the Lord.

He's basically reiterating the same thing. All the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua who had seen all the great work that the Lord had done for Israel. Verse 10, and all that generation were also gathered to their fathers, and there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that He had done for Israel.

They hadn't personally known the Lord. They didn't know His work. You remove the people who do, and then you see who's really going through the motions. Or who's just going through the motions and who isn't really walking in an intimate way with Christ.

And we read these sad words, Judges 2 .17, They soon turned aside from the way in which their fathers had walked, who had obeyed the commandments of the Lord, and they did not do so. To me, that's just a scary verse.

Right? Especially even being a father. And you think of trying to instill the truth and the Gospel in your children. And the last thing you want to do is you die. And you're the influence holding those children's religion together.

And it's not something that they have as a reality of them in Christ. And all of a sudden, that restraint is now removed. And they go live in sin. I've seen that happen. And some of those people thankfully got converted at a later point after their parent died and was gone.

And then look at v. 19. But whenever the Judge died, they turned back and were more corrupt than their father. So again, restraint. When one of the Judges is alive and he's leading, there's restraint.

But you take them out of the picture, and they're not going to drop any of the practices or their stubborn ways. And so, it's clearly showing that individuals can end up mechanically adopting their leaders' beliefs and values similar to shadowing their footsteps without genuinely grasping the convictions for themselves.

That metaphor of shadowing someone's footsteps, it underscores the idea of you're following closely behind someone. You're mimicking every move without engaging deeply or understanding the path you're actually on.

You're following it, but you don't understand it. It's not personal. It's just doing something because someone else does it, but not because you really believe in it yourself. You could say it's like copying someone else's homework.

You might get all the right answers, but you're not actually learning anything. You're getting it in the head. It's not in the heart. It's short-term memory. And the real test is, let's say if you're a kid at school and someone was actually copying all the answers, you get the kid who really knows the material, you remove him, what's going to happen to the person who's left?

Do they themselves know that material? And I would say clearly, to truly experience and know the Lord is to be truly born again, to have genuine faith, right? I mean, the problem with Israel is we find even Paul saying most of them died in the wilderness in unbelief.

I mean, you have a nation of people who are a part of a physical nation, but most of them had not been circumcised in the heart. And it was, what does the law even produce? What do we see the law doing in the New Testament?

It's arousing sin in different people. I mean, Israel kept getting darker and darker because the majority of Israel did not truly know Christ. They didn't know the Lord. They didn't have a new heart. They didn't have a different spirit, right?

It says Caleb is a man with a different spirit because he's followed Me wholly, therefore he will enter the land. So this is a caution for our church, for all of us. If we forget what it truly means to be a Christian, or if we drop our standards of what genuine conversion is and what is an authentic characteristic of someone who's following Christ, and we just start adhering to traditions, we stand a generation away from vanishing.

And look, that happens. You get churches, they lower what it really means to be a Christian. And not to harshly pick on Presbyterians, but this happens more with Presbyterians because they already have the idea of our kids are part of the covenant and in some way they're good to go.

So they're already lowering a standard right there where these kids kind of grow up with some expectation. Well, I'm part of God's covenant people. It's all going to be okay. And you look at church history and you look at those who embrace some of those views, you don't find generations and generations lasting there.

You find compromise happening. I'm not saying that can't happen in a Baptist church. It absolutely can if you lower the doctrine of regeneration and don't talk about what true conversion is. But a few leaders can influence a whole nation, yet the whole nation not have reality.

Passing Faith Through Genuine Conversion

And I remember getting converted when God saved me. That was one of the things I had to ask myself. I thought, what if all the men I really respect became an atheist tomorrow? Would I still follow Christ?

I played through that scenario in my own mind. And the whole point of it was to ask myself the question, is my knowledge of Christ personal? Or have I just heard all this truth, heard all this doctrine and with joy received it, but there's nothing in my own soul of me walking personally with Christ for myself?

And yes, thank God that when you're saved, you have older Christians and they could be like big trees, that they're sturdier, their root system is bigger. And when the winds of trials come, the little trees are being protected and everything.

But eventually when those old trees die out and all you got is the younger generation, you're going to find who really has a deep root. But some of those trees, they might topple over with those winds of trials and the cares of this life and it proved that the faith there, it wasn't the real thing.

So do you firsthand know Christ for yourself or do you live off the reality of others? And when you think about firsthand, firsthand experience, it refers to knowledge gained through direct involvement.

It's not secondhand sources or accounts. It's a direct involvement of you walking and knowing and believing in Christ for yourself. Brethren, it's amazing. Joshua alive and those elders alive and how much Israel was towing the line.

And yet they die off and it's just like, vanishes into depravity. Now this in no way means we don't tell the works of God to those who have yet to know the Lord. We do that. We better do that. Listen to Psalm 78 verse three.

What we have heard and learned and you know why we tell people the works of God? You know why us as parents should try to journal and remember the great things God has done and relay that to our children and read our children biographies where they see the great things God did in the lives of other individuals and why you should rejoice at the Thanksgiving prayer meeting or why we should ask for praise requests because that's going to show people as they're seeing what God is doing, they're going to see, the kids are going to realize this God is really, He has a value and He is worthy.

He's worthy. And that might be the very catalyst to get them to trust the Lord is they recognize His faithfulness in your own life. And so just because there's a danger where people live off the reality of others, it doesn't mean you conceal all of that.

But Psalm 78, what we have heard and learned, that which our ancestors have told us, we will not hide from their descendants. We will tell the next generation about the Lord's praiseworthy acts. About His strength and the amazing things He has done.

He established a rule in Jacob. He set up a law in Israel. He commanded our ancestors to make His deeds known to their descendants so that the next generation, children yet to be born, might know about them.

They will grow up and tell their descendants about them. I mean, are we doing that? That's one application here. You know what you could do? You can all the more talk about the Lord, talk about His praiseworthiness, talk about His deliverances, testify to His name before your kids, before brethren in this church, that they get to not grumble, not be anxious, not complain.

That's what the Israelites did and it spread like a canker sore to all the other individuals. And how long did Moses have to be gone for Israel to decide that there's someone else worthy to worship? 40 days.

And they were impatient with the delay and they went up to Aaron and they said, get up. Make a golden calf for us to bow down and worship. Forty days. Isn't that incredible? Joel 1 says, tell your children about it.

Have your children tell their children and their children the following generation. So yes, we've got to be taking the truth and communicating it to the younger generation. As Paul said in 2 Timothy 1, I'm reminded of your sincere faith, Timothy, a faith that first dwelt in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice.

And listen to this, and now I am sure it dwells in you as well. Paul was certain. The true, saving faith and the knowledge in the walk with the Lord Jesus Christ that Lois and Eunice had. Paul could look at Timothy and it was evident enough in his life that he was sure that that dwelt in him.

It wasn't just head knowledge. It wasn't just going through the motions. It wasn't just cheating on someone's homework. It wasn't just following someone else's footsteps. But Timothy was going in his own path, he and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Judges 2 .10, all that generation that gathered to their fathers, there arose another generation who didn't know the Lord. They didn't know His words. They hadn't experienced His goodness themselves. They didn't feel deeply moved by how great He is.