Judges 18 Bible Study / Podcast

Micah’s False Religion and the Tribe of Dan

Let's open up to the book of Judges, chapter 18. We're going to continue the story of Micah and his idolatry. I had said last time that this is a very relevant topic for the church today because Micah—who is Micah?

Micah was a guy who started his own competing religion to what Israel had with the tabernacle. Micah had his own priesthood, which really opposed the priesthood of Aaron. Micah had his own sacred items, which opposed the furniture of the tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant.

And this idolatrous religion that Micah founded, he started it in his own house. But in this chapter, Judges 18, the false religion quickly spreads to an entire tribe, and that's the tribe of Dan. The tribe of Dan was in the northernmost part of Israel.

So the reason why this is relevant is because there is so much confusion today within, not only within the world, but within the church, really. You pick a dozen churches, and they might teach a dozen different things.

And the reason why there's so much confusion, why people are confused, it's because there are countless men out there who have started either their own churches with their own new spin on Christianity, or in more serious cases, you have the cults.

So a guy starts his own cult, and he claims to be, or they claim to be, the true, authentic form of Christianity. So you have all these different competing ideas out there. And even within some of the churches, we would, you know, agree that, hey, we are, you know, okay, the Presbyterians and the Baptists and the Charismatics, and we all kind of recognize each other as true Christians, as long as we believe the gospel of Christ crucified and risen.

And yet, we all believe different things. We all teach different things, and, you know, that creates confusion. But why does that happen? Because somewhere along the line, somebody taught false doctrine, and they started their own group, and now that church was teaching something different than this church.

Well, that's exactly what's happening here. It's a little more serious of a situation. But you have Micah and his idolatrous religion that he just came up with himself, and it's all standing in opposition to the tabernacle that Moses had built.

So bottom line is there is the true, authentic form of Christianity, and then there are all these competing ideas of who Jesus was and what he came to do. And it causes some people to throw their arms in the air and conclude that, well, nobody can really know the truth.

After all, everyone's teaching and believing something different. So why bother? Because you can never really know. Well, that's the way a lot of people look at it. So that's why this is an important topic, and we're going to learn some principles, hopefully, from this study.

This is what false religion does. That's the more serious cases. But this is what false doctrine does. But the truth, here's the thing, here's the good news. The truth isn't that difficult to discover if you just stick close to the source of truth, which is the Word of God.

Believe what the Bible says. Take it at face value. You're not going to go wrong. So back in Israel at this time, the Word of God was written on tablets of stone, right? And the tablets of stone, the Word of God, was located within the Ark of the Covenant, inside of the tabernacle, which was located at Shiloh.

So that was the true church, if you want to put it in modern terms. The descendants of Aaron, that was the true priesthood. But this man Micah, he comes along and he builds his own shrine, instituted a new priesthood, a new way to worship God.

And then once it caught on, it helped to deceive an entire tribe. So while the details are different, the same thing continues to happen even to this day. So while the story in the book of Judges is often one that gets ignored, it's very important.

So let's go through it and hopefully we can learn some things to protect ourselves and to help other people that, you know, the truth is knowable. Let's begin Judges chapter 18, starting in verse 1.

Ear-Tickling Religion and False Priests

In those days there was no king in Israel, and in those days the tribe of the Danites was seeking an inheritance for itself to dwell in. For until that day their inheritance among the tribes of Israel had not fallen to them.

So the children of Dan sent five men of their family from their territory, men of valor from Zorah and Eshteriel, to spy out the land and search it. They said to them,.

Go, search the land.

So they went to the mountains of Ephraim, to the house of Micah, and lodged there. While they were at the house of Micah, they recognized the voice of the young Levite. They turned aside and said to him, Who brought you here?

What are you doing in this place? What do you have here? Thus and so Micah did for me. He has hired me, and I have become his priest.

Please inquire of God that we may know whether the journey on which we will go will be prosperous.

Go in peace. The presence of the Lord will be with you on your way.

So the chapter begins by reminding us of how there was no king in Israel. Everyone is just kind of doing their own thing. Now it says the tribe of the Danites in verse 1. This may have not been the entire tribe, but a smaller group of them.

Whatever the case, this segment of the tribe, they're looking for extra land for themselves. So five men are sent out to spy the land, and they come to Micah's house. And they seem to know that the Levite that Micah had ordained, they seem to know him, and he's serving as Micah's priest.

And remember, he's not hearing from God. This is a false priesthood. Micah has created his own false religion with idols, and he ordained a man that was not qualified because he's not a descendant of Aaron.

He's not one of Aaron's sons. So first Micah had ordained his own son, which didn't look very good. Then he ordains this other man because he was a Levite. Because you can't just become a priest. You had to be, yes, of the tribe of Levi, but a descendant of Aaron.

So what do we have here? We have a false religion with wrong practices, wrong teachings. Now these spies, they talk to the Levite, and they have no problem with this. They seem to embrace it. They know who he is.

And what does he do? This false priest, he preaches kind of a good news, not gospel good news, but kind of a positive message, positive words that, hey, God is with you. God's gonna bless you. And he's really telling them what they wanna hear.

So that's the first principle that we see. We need to watch out for ear ticklers, right? This is the term. Someone who is a man pleaser or someone who's tickling ears. They're just telling you what you wanna hear.

You do not want a preacher who just tells you what you wanna hear, because that's not necessarily the truth. You want a preacher who's gonna preach the truth to you. But this Levite in Micah's house, he's a false priest.

He's just making it up as he goes along. So beware of religious teachers, okay? This is the first point. Beware of religious teachers who speak only positive things, because they're just trying to get in to your good graces.

They're telling people what they wanna hear. Now, if this Levite actually had a word from God, and if he were to actually tell them the truth, he would, number one, have to admit that he's not really hearing from God.

And he would have to tell them the truth that judgment was gonna come to their tribe. See, in the end, this is not gonna work out for the tribe of Dan. This would actually be their downfall. The tribe of Dan is going to adopt this false religion created by Micah.

They're gonna adopt idolatry. And because of that, the tribe of Dan is going to lose their inheritance. But that message just doesn't sell. They don't wanna hear that. Nobody wants to hear bad news, and it's just like the true gospel.

To preach the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ, you have to preach the bad news first, that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, and that the wages of sin is death. But that's not what most people wanna hear.

They just want the good parts. That, hey, God loves you, he has a wonderful plan for your life. God is with you no matter what. God loves you unconditionally. God's just gonna bless you and bless you.

See, that's what people want to hear, and that's kind of what's happening in this situation. This priest just tells the Danites what they wanna hear. Now, the true message of what they needed to hear was probably more in line with the message of Jesus and John the Baptist when they preached repentance.

Jesus taught self-denial, but again, this guy, he's an ear-tickler. Okay, so Jonathan the Levite, Micah's priest, he is an ear-tickler. But isn't this true that most people, few would admit this, but most people would rather be lied to than told the truth?

And that's what the Levite is doing for the Danites. He is lying to them. He's just making all of this up, telling them what they wanna hear cuz he knows it'll benefit him. And it does, because later on when the Danites come back, they show up with their army and they offer this Levite, they offer him a new job, a better job.

Verse 19, they will tell him later on in the story, they say, come with us, be a father and a priest to us. For it is better for you to be a priest to the household of one man. Or is it better for you to be the priest to the household of one man?

Or that you be the priest to a tribe and a family in Israel? So the priest's heart was glad. So in other words, they give him a promotion. And that kinda gives you a little insight into the character of this man, Jonathan.

What's he doing? He betrays Micah, who put him in this false priesthood to begin with. So number one, beware of ear-ticklers, they're just in it for themselves. And number two, those same people who are just in it for themselves, they will end up betraying people if they think that it's going to benefit them.

So there will be betrayal and lies. Okay, so this is really kind of a picture of what a false prophet does. They lie, and they're betraying God, and they lie to God's people. Okay, so this is a very serious matter.

And I sort of feel like we're living in similar times. Remember how the chapter starts that there was no king in Israel? In other words, it was sort of a free for all. People could pretty much say and do whatever they wanted in the name of God.

Not much was gonna be done about it. When Moses was alive, that was not the case. But when there is no godly leader, there's nobody in charge to kinda uphold or enforce standards. When that's the case, things tend towards decline.

Because really, everything rises or falls on leadership. It seems to me that today, within evangelical Christianity, there's sort of a lack of leadership. The most well-known leaders in the modern evangelical church, the men and women, who have the most influence, that are on TV and sell the most books, they're the ones doing the ear-tickling.

They're acting like Micah's false priest, telling the Danites that God is with them, when that really wasn't true. But it sure sounded good. So that's the situation we have today. There's no one leader who's kinda keeping it all together.

That's just not the way it is. So there's all sorts of people out there teaching whatever they want, making it up, and they're the ones sort of ruling the day. So there's no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in their own eyes.

That's kinda the way it is now. Everyone's kinda off doing their own thing. And again, it creates mass confusion. Okay, so this false religion, Micah's idolatry, that started in his house, it's growing.

So the people who are not testing it against God's revealed truth, right? It's nobody saying, hey, what is this priesthood here in Micah's house? Is this sanctioned by the Aaronic priesthood? Is this sanctioned by the tabernacle?

Do the people in Shiloh know you're doing this? Does this line up with what Moses said? See, nobody's doing that. Nobody's testing it. What they're seeing is that it's growing. It grows in Micah's house, and then it jumps to this tribe, and it's just getting bigger and bigger.

And people look at that, and they assume that because this false religion was growing, well, that must mean that God is blessing it. But is that the way it works? Do you realize that at this point in the book of Judges, at this point in Israel's history, the most popular up-and-coming religious movement in Israel was this, Micah's idolatry?

It's gonna take over the entire tribe of Dan? This is a false religion, and yet it's growing, and it's adopted. I just wanna try to put this in terms where maybe we could understand what it would be like if it happened today.

It would be as if a man started his own church here in Massachusetts, and within a year or two, it just grew and grew and became the official state religion. What would most people say if that happened?

They would insist. I guarantee you, most people would look at that, and they would insist. This is a clear move of God. Look how it's growing. Look at all the people involved. This is clearly a move of the Holy Spirit.

Isn't this what happened with the Asbury revival? If you can think what you want about that, but people saw that tons and tons of people went there. And thousands of people, tens of thousands were involved.

And people, well, that's a clear move of the Holy Spirit. Well, maybe, but maybe not. How do you really know? It needs to be tested against the word of God. And if you did try to test the Asbury revival against the word of God, then people just got mad.

But that's really what needs to happen here. They need to test Micah's false religion, because people back then, they obviously didn't view it as a false religion. But it needed to be tested against what God had revealed to Moses, but nobody was doing that.

They just see that it's gonna grow. So therefore, it must be of God, because look at all the thousands or tens of thousands of people involved. So what's happening here in the book of Judges, this is a clear violation of God's word to Moses.

And it's easy for us to see it, because we're reading through the book, we're looking back in hindsight. It would have been, it's easy for us to see the problems, but it wouldn't have been as easy if you were living through it.

Testing Movements by the Word of God

Okay, so the spy, let's get back to the story. So the spies bring back the good report about the land. They say to the tribe of Dan, for God has given it into your hands, a place where there is no lack of anything that is on the earth.

Okay, so where are they getting this idea? They got it from this false priest. In verse 11, 600 troops, after they get this positive report from the spies, okay, let's get an army together. We're gonna march.

We're gonna take the land. But on their journey to do that, they have to travel through the mountains of Ephraim, and that's when they come to Micah's house. Remember, they've already been there, the five spies, and they talk to this false priest.

But now the whole army is on their way through, and the five spies that are with them, they tell the soldiers, they tell the company, hey, while we're passing through, we know of this house in this village over here, there's this man Micah, and in his house, there's a bunch of valuables, a bunch of silver.

Why don't we go over and steal it? I mean, that's what they're doing. So the people in the army, they say, okay, yeah, let's go and take all these valuables. Verse 15, so they turned aside there, and they came to the house of the young Levite man, to the house of Micah, and greeted him.

The 600 men armed with their weapons of war, you can just imagine if you're one of these guys and 600 soldiers show up at your house, it's a little intimidating. So they show up with their weapons of war, who are of the children of Dan, and they stood by the entrance of the gate.

Then the five men who had gone to spy out the land went up, entering there, and they took the carved image, the ephod, the household idols, and the molded image. And the priest stood at the entrance of the gate, with the 600 men who were armed with weapons of war, verse 18.

And when these went into Micah's house and took the carved image, the ephod, and the household items, and the molded image, the priest said to them, what are you doing? And that's where they strike a deal with him.

Remember, they've already met him once. Now they're encountering him again, but this time they have an army, and now they're stealing all this stuff. So let's make a deal. Okay, why would they want this Levite with them?

Well, they seem to be superstitious. Not only was Micah superstitious, remember that he said, now that I have a Levite in my house, God is gonna bless me. Well, that's what these men of Dan think. That, well, there's gotta be something to this guy.

And there's some commentators who think that this Levite is like the great, great grandson of Moses or something. So there's some allure to him, some mystique about him. And they think, hey, if this guy's with us, then God's gonna bless us.

Besides, he already told us a good word, and let's strike a deal with him. So what do they do? The soldiers, the Danites, they ask this false priest, join us. And, hey, listen, you can either stay here and be the head of a family, or you can be like the head of a whole tribe, which is better.

We'll pay you more, too. And he can, that's the deal. They'll do this for him, and what's he gonna do in return? He'll continue to preach to the people of Dan that, hey, you're gonna be blessed with prosperity and health and great success.

So they strike up this deal. He's gonna continue to bless them, and they're gonna give him this cushy job. So everybody benefits, right? Well, except that this is totally perverse, and it's against the word of God.

Now, do they care about that? No. Do most people today, when something, false doctrine is being taught, well, if there's a lot of money involved and there's a movement that's growing, people don't really care if it's biblical or not.

They look at it, is this fun? Is it exciting? Is it gonna benefit us? Okay, we're in. Unfortunately, that's just the way it often goes. So the soldiers, what do they do? They plunder the house of Micah, which was probably more like an entire village, not just his personal home.

And they left town in verse 21, and it says, they put the little ones, the livestock, and the goods in front of them. They obviously did this because they expected Micah to gather a bunch of men to pursue them, which, of course, he did.

So Micah, and Micah, remember, Micah is kind of the leader of a big family or a village, so he has some men with probably has swords, and he gets a little army to kind of catch up with them, because they stole all of his stuff.

So he catches up, Micah, and his men, he catches up to the Danites. And he says, hey, what is going on? And they turn around, the Danites turn around, they kind of play dumb. They say to Micah in verse 23, what are you doing?

Why are you chasing us? What's the problem? And Micah says in verse 24, you've taken away my gods, which I've made. And you've taken the priest, and you have taken them away, you've stolen them. And now what more do I have?

You've robbed me blind. How can you say to me, what's the problem? At which point, the soldiers threaten him. It's like, hey, listen, pal, you better shut up and turn around if you know what's good for you.

And he kind of compares, okay, they have 600 soldiers, and he has far less than that. So he realizes that there's not much he can do about it. So Micah, he turns around, he gives up, and he goes home.

And that's kind of the end of his story. But the Danites, they have Micah's idols. They have the silver, they have the molded image, they have the ephod, they have the false priest, who they think has this insight, or this inside track to God.

The Danites, verse 27, so they took the things Micah had, and the priest who had belonged to him, and they went to Laish, to a people, quiet and secure, and they struck them with the edge of the sword, and they burned the city with fire.

So this was the land that the spies had scouted out. Remember, the priest said, hey, God is with you. Do all that is in your heart, God is with you. You'll succeed. So they go to this village, and they kill everybody, they destroy the village.

And then they rebuild it, and they call that city Dan, after the patriarch of their tribe, Dan, the son of Jacob, or the son of Israel. And here's the tragedy, in how we know that the words of the Levite, in the religion started by Micah, this is how we know that it was not of God.

It says in verse 30, then the children of Dan set up for themselves the carved image. And Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son of Manasseh, and his sons, were priests to the tribe of Dan until the day of the captivity of the land.

So they set up for themselves Micah's carved image, which he made all the time that the house of God was in Shiloh. So what is this? This is a competing religion. It's a false religion, it's a newfangled way to worship the Lord.

The true worship of God was at Shiloh with the tabernacle, but now there's this entire tribe that has this new spin on the worship of God that's mixed with idolatry. And this false religion continues for hundreds of years until Israel and the tribe of Dan was taken captive by the Assyrians.

So do you realize what happened? This small religion that started in this one guy's house, it ended up growing to corrupt an entire Israelite tribe. But it all started with one man. How many times has this played out during history?

We have the truth, we have the true gospel of Christ crucified and risen. And then along comes a man. He starts a house church, he starts a cult, and he has a whole new take on who Jesus was or what Jesus came to do.

A whole new spin on what he thinks the Bible teaches. Most of the time when this happens, it never goes anywhere, it doesn't take off. But every once in a while, it does. And when it does, it leads hundreds or thousands, if not tens of thousands, sometimes it leads millions of people away from God into apostasy.

For example, this is exactly what happened with the Mormons. This is what happened with the Jehovah's Witnesses. Started out as a small Bible study, then it grew into a false religion with millions of people.

It happened with David Koresh of the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas. He claimed to be the Lamb of God. It's like, this guy's insane, and he only has a few followers. No, he actually had quite a few, and it grew, and it ended in tragedy.

People are led astray. Why? Because there's a new movement, there's all this excitement, there's all these people involved. If it's growing, they say, well, this must be of God if it's growing. That's not true.

It's not necessarily true. Mormonism grew from Joseph Smith and his two friends to what, 18 million people in the world today. Does that prove that it's true? Of course not. Islam's started by one man, Muhammad, and now there's what, two billion professing Muslims in the world.

Just because it grows and it's big and there's a lot of people involved and a lot of money and a lot of excitement or whatever, that doesn't prove anything. Everything has to be tested against the Word of God.

And we have, that's what the Bible says, right? Test all things, hold fast to that which is good. Test the spirits, whether or not they are of God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

Jesus warned of false prophets. So we need to compare everything over and against what the Bible says. How many millions of people have been deceived? And in the more extreme cases, when they join maybe a very dangerous cult, how many people have died?

And that's not even to get into the second death, which is far more tragic. This is what false religion does. This is what false doctrine does. Why do I hate false doctrine so much? Because this is what it does.

How many people die and enter into a Christless eternity because of false teachers, because of false religion? How many people died and went to Sheol because of this false religion of Jonathan the Levite, started in the house of Micah?

I have no idea, but a lot. This is what the devil does. He wants to sow seeds of confusion. The devil wants to deceive, number one, to deceive and draw people away from the Lord. Number two, to create confusion to keep others away from God.

Because again, people see all these different churches, or all these different religions, they're all teaching something different. And it leads people to say, well, how can we ever really know the truth?

But we can know the truth, and the truth lies in the word of God. My friends, it's true that confusion is everywhere. But the good news is this. As the scripture says, our God is not the author of confusion.

The Truth Is Knowable in Scripture

So I'd like to close with this. Jesus said in John 8, 32, he says, you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. Yeah, it's true, I guess, most people, they get their beliefs from TV, from Hollywood, from politics, what they were taught in school, what their friends think.

There's all these people, and that's probably included us at times, or even now to a degree, that we tend to be conformed to this world. Because we hear things from all these different sources, and it has an impact in the way we think.

But the Christian is to have, and the Christian who has the spirit has the mind of Christ. How do we know the truth? We look to the scripture. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed in order to have the mind of Christ.

What do we need first? We must look to the word of Christ. So, in conclusion, let me encourage you in this way. If you feel like there's all this confusion, this pastor says this, and that pastor says this, and this church teaches that, and this cult teaches that, and this other religion has a totally different idea.

If that causes confusion, hey, tune it all out, seek Christ. Seek his word. Turn to the scripture as the source of truth. Seek Christ, the true Christ of scripture. The one who said, seek and you will find.

Knock and it'll be open to you for everyone who asks receives and he who seeks finds.