“When Government Fails” – FBC Morning Light (3/28/2024)

Well a good Thursday morning to you, and this is Maundy Thursday, and tonight at seven o 'clock at Faith Baptist we're going to be having a Maundy Thursday service, where we gather together, we sing hymns, we read the scriptures together, we commemorate the Lord's Supper together, really kind of reflecting on that night that the Lord was betrayed before the crucifixion, and we walk in the evenings in this service, we walk through the events of that Last Supper, through the crucifixion, and we end with the crucifixion, the cross, and that all is to be anticipatory of Resurrection Sunday.

If you're in this, in the area, Sauk Valley area, I encourage you to join us. We'd be more than happy to have you with us at seven o 'clock this evening for that Maundy Thursday service. Well today, in our Bible reading, we're reading the end of the book of Judges, chapters 19 through 21, and then jumping back to chapter 12.

The Moral Corruption in Judges 19-21

Again, you know, we're looking at Judges, we're reading chronologically. So chapters 19 through 21, I pointed out the other day, they serve to illustrate the moral corruption in the society. The chapters 17 -18 serve to illustrate the religious corruption in the society.

But chapters 19 -21 are interesting because they're bookended by the statement that there was no king. So chapter 19, verse 1, says it came to pass in those days when there was no king in Israel, and then chapter 21 ends, the last verse says, in those days there was no king in Israel, everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

And I think what's being emphasized here is that what is the role of the government? One of the primary functions of government is to serve in a restriction, a restricting way, a restraining way, I should say.

Restraining evil, and the other way is to protect its people. Restraint and protection. And when the government doesn't do its job, this is what's illustrated in chapters 19 -21. When the government, as a divine institution, does not do its job of restraining evil and protecting its people, the result is moral corruption and chaos, and social corruption, social decay and chaos.

And you see both of those things in these chapters. In chapter 19, there's no government, there's no king to do the restraining and protecting of the people, they're not recognizing the king that exists, the king of kings in heaven, the Lord.

So there's no king, there's no government to restrain and protect, so without that restraint there's moral chaos. And what happens? You've got this story about a Levite who has a concubine, and I mean it's just a horrible, horrible story.

The concubine leaves him, goes to her father's home. After a certain period of time, he goes to fetch his concubine, stays at the at the father's house for a couple of days, has a little bit of a party with him, finally leaves, takes the concubine with him.

It's too late in the day to get all the way home, so they stop overnight in Jebus, and while they're there in the city of the Benjamites, while they're there, the men of the city come, surround the place, they want to behave with homosexual relations with the guy.

Instead, the men of the house, the father offers his daughters, they say no, we want the guy. Eventually they give the concubine and send her out to the guys. And the men of the city just abuse the woman all night long, and she ends up stumbling back to the house, falls dead at the doorstep.

He takes her back to his, the Levite, takes her back to his place and cuts her up into 12 pieces, sends the pieces throughout Israel, calling the different tribes to come do battle against the Benjamites.

Okay, so you got this horribly immoral behavior going on. Why? There's no king, there's no restraint, so there is therefore moral decay and corruption and chaos. You know what, when government doesn't do its job to restrain immoral behavior, there is immoral decay, there's moral decay and corruption.

And we're seeing this in our own nation today, are we not? I just read today, I just read about a woman in Alaska who was kicked out of her Planet Fitness membership because she went in her locker room and there was a man in there shaving, a man who claimed to be a woman, and she took a picture of him to document that this man was in the ladies dressing room shaving, and huddled over in a corner in fear was a 12-year-old girl wrapped in a towel, because here's a guy in the women's locker room.

And instead of enforcing the gender-specific locker rooms, Planet Fitness's position was, no, this guy has a right, he wants to be a woman, claims to be a woman, he has a right to be in there. Moral decay, no concern for the protection of women, moral corruption, moral decay, chaos.

And then social decay and chaos, and that's what happens in the rest of the chapters, 20 and 21, where, you know, all the rest of the tribes that go to war against the Benjamites because of what they've done, and there's just this social decay and social chaos, and even at the end of that, it's just an unbelievable story.

It would be unbelievable, except we're living it in a modern expression, where our government is sadly failing in so many ways to restrain moral corruption and to protect its citizenry. What in the world is happening in the southern border, and not just the southern border?

What's happening in our cities and communities, where all kinds of criminal activity is taking place without almost no restraint? What in the world is going on? All that's going on is, government is not doing its job.

The king, there is no king. So the people are doing what's right in their own eyes. That's what's going on. Isn't this a timely account? I think it is. May God help us, and may God deliver us, and have mercy on us, so that we might have a government that does its God-given responsibility of restraint, restraint and protection, moral restraint, and the protection of its citizenry.

Our Father and our God, we do plead for mercy. We pray that by your grace, you would give us such a government, restore such a government unto us, we pray, that it would do its divine responsibility. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen.

All right, well listen, have a good rest of your Thursday, and again, if you can make it to the Maundy Thursday service tonight, I encourage you to do so. We'd be glad to have you. God bless.