The Depths of Spiritual Decadence – FBC Morning Light (4/25/2023)

The Decadence of the Judges and Israel’s Rejection of God’s Rule

Well, a good Tuesday morning to you. Today we're reading in Judges 17 and 18, John chapter 14, and the 82nd Psalm. The last several chapters of the book of Judges, 17 and 18, and then 19 through 21, they serve to illustrate just how decadent the period of the judges had become, when there was no king and every man did that which was right in his own eyes.

That repetition of the idea of there being no king is not only pointing to the human king that is necessary and will come eventually in the person of David, and then ultimately in David's offspring, David's son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

But Israel has turned its back on their true king, the Lord God, and they are not submitting to his rule and to his word. This creates all kinds of problems in the nation and terrible decadence. In chapters 17 and 18 is an illustration of the spiritual decadence of the land, and then 19 through 21 of the moral decadence.

Micah’s Prosperity Gospel Religion

Today I want to just focus in on chapters 17 and 18, and look at these two individuals, Micah and then the priest that Micah has recruited to work in his house, the Levite. Again, there's so much that could be said here, but I just want to point out two ideas.

One is that Micah had succumbed to, or elevated in his thinking, the idea of a prosperity gospel. The prosperity gospel today is common in some circles, and the whole mentality of that prosperity gospel is, you follow this particular formula and God will bless you with all kinds of material blessings, with wealth and so on and so forth.

Micah had that same mentality all the way back in the Old Testament in the book of Judges. We see that in chapter 17, verse 13, where what Micah has done thus far is, remember he stole silver from his mother, and then he returns it to her, he confesses it, he returns it to her, and his mother says, oh, I had dedicated this silver to the Lord to make a shrine.

She takes some of that silver that Micah had stolen, and she takes some of that silver and has a golden idol, or a silver idol, made out of some of that silver. Micah takes that silver idol and puts it up in his house in a little shrine, and he's got himself an ephod and all this kind of stuff.

He's got his own little household worship center with his household God. In the meantime, he makes one of his sons his priest. Then a Levite comes sojourning along, and Micah takes him into his and he says to him, stay here, since you're a Levite, be a priest to our house.

How good it is to have a Levite be a priest in our house. Here's where I get the prosperity gospel thinking. At the end of the chapter, chapter 17, the last verse, it says this. Micah said, now I know that the Lord, Yahweh, will be good to me, since I have a Levite as my priest.

I know the Lord will be good to me because I have a Levite to my priest. He's like, I've got the formula worked out. I've got a shrine, I've got a silver representation of God, I've got an ephod, and now I've got a Levite to be a priest.

Could there be anything else necessary for God to be good to me? He's got the formula all worked out. This is messed up theology, for no other reason, because everything about his worship center is off.

It's spiritually wrong. It is unbiblical. Then you've got the priest, and the priest also demonstrates the spiritual corruption of the land. Here he is, he's a Levite, and there's no indication that he's in the Aaronic line, so he's not legitimately serving as a priest, my understanding of the text, but nevertheless, he's serving in that capacity.

The Danites’ Theft and the Opportunistic Priest

Then along come the Danites, who are looking for another territory, another area to settle in, and they happen to come through the territory where Micah's home is. They stop in, and they find out Micah's got this shrine, and he's got a Levite serving as a priest.

First the scouting team comes by, and they come into Micah's house, and they see everything he has. They go up, and they find this place where it's a great place for the Danites to settle. The scouts go back home, tell everybody else, hey, come on, let's go take this land.

They come back through the territory where Micah's house is, and the Levite, and the scouts say, hey, this guy's house, he's got a shrine, and he's got a priest. The Danites, they go into Micah's house, they steal his god, his shrine, his idol, and his ephod, and other household gods, and they tell the Levite, hey, come with us, be a priest to us.

How much better it is that you be a priest to us than just to one man. And so in verses 19 and 20 of chapter 18, it says that when they went to Micah's house, they took the household gods, and the priest said, what are you doing?

And they said to him, be quiet, put your hand over your mouth, come with us, be a father and a priest to us. Is it better for you to be a priest to the household of one man, or that you be a priest to the tribe of a family in Israel?

So the priest's heart, here's the key, the priest's heart was glad, and he, the priest, took the ephod, the household idols, and the carved image, and he took his place among the people of the Danites.

Now, what is the thinking of this Levite? What is his mindset? What is his attitude toward his supposed spiritual ministry? Is it not that of the typical opportunist? He has no loyalties but to himself, to what will give him the greatest quote-unquote success, the greatest personal prosperity and prestige.

Now, you know, there are so-called ministers of the gospel serving, working in places today, and I'm not interested in naming any names, I don't want to point anybody out, but you surely have seen it and come across it in your experience, perhaps, where these guys, they're more charlatans who seem to be in it for the money, the prestige, the accoutrements of success, and not really leading people rightly.

So the spiritual decadence of Judges 17 and 18 is still going on in the 21st century, in the New Testament era, and I think God showed us this in Judges 17 and 18, so we'd be alert to it, and we would see the indicators of spiritual decadence, even in our era.

Let's keep our eyes open for those things, and let's not fall prey, let's not fall prey to them ourselves. So our God and our Father, we thank you for this challenge from Judges 17 and 18. Lord, I pray, deliver us from the spiritual decadence that we just end up doing things that seem good in our own eyes, and are really absolutely a departure from your Word.

Deliver us from that spiritually, we pray, in Jesus' name, and for his sake, amen. All right, well listen, have a good rest of your Tuesday, and once again, tonight at seven o 'clock, we're having another session in our Eternal Issues Bible Conference, and we have tonight and then tomorrow night as well.

Hope you can make it. Have a good day. God bless.