Day 96: Judges 19-21

Welcome to five -minute Bible your daily guide for your daily reading today's April the 6th, and we'll be looking at judges 19 through 21

Now today we come to the final chapters of the book of Judges and they are among some of the darkest

Chapters in all of Scripture if not the darkest overall by this point. We're roughly 160 years removed from the death of Joshua the high point of the

Era that we're looking at and the descent that has been going on is now complete what began as Compromise has now fallen into total collapse and judges 19 through 21 shows us what happens when a nation

Abandons the Lord entirely there is no judge No deliverer and no restraint the covenant people who were called to reflect

God's covenant holiness now Mirror the very wickedness that they were meant to drive out and this is not just a failure

It is the undoing of a people and in that way judges 19 presents one of the most disturbing scenes in the entire

Bible and it is meant to be it's meant to be visceral and to shock you a Levite and his concubine travel through Israel and arrive in the city of Gibeah Which is a city belonging to the tribe of Benjamin and during the night wicked men surround the house and demand to violate the

Levite and what follows is a Horrifying echo of Sodom but instead of protecting what is right the situation spirals into Macabre violence the concubine is handed over instead of the

Levite and she is abused throughout the night By these wicked men and then collapses at the door and by morning

She is dead the Levi's response is just as shocking Not only does he abandon her to this brutality but he takes her dead body cuts it into pieces and sends it throughout the tribes of Israel in 12 pieces as Summons of the of the gruesome thing that has happened to him but also it forces the nation to look at what it's become to look at a visceral image of its own brutality and Judges 20 records

Israel's response at first it appears righteous the tribes gather and they demand justice from Benjamin but Benjamin refuses to hand over the guilty men and then civil war erupts and conflict is then

Catastrophized and ten thousands of people dies cities are destroyed though Israel eventually prevails

The cost is staggering and the tribe of Benjamin is nearly wiped out

Then in judges 21 we see the aftermath and instead of Resolution we find more compromise the people attempt to preserve

Benjamin. They're a series of morally twisted solutions Including sanctioned violence and forced marriages even in trying to fix the problem

They deepen the wound and the book ends without Any kind of restoration without any kind of clarity and without any hope that you can perceive and in that way

I want you to ask the following question. What happens when God's authority is Completely removed and everyone becomes their own

Standard judges 19 through 21 shows us that when there is no King and there is no submission to God That humanity does what it's right when in its own eyes and when it does that it

Collapses and in that way the central pattern of these chapters is not just sin but dehumanization

The repeated phrase explains everything everyone did what was right in their own eyes and what it's right without God quickly becomes monstrous

What is most striking is that this is happening in Israel the story Intentionally mirrors

Genesis 19 with the people of Sodom and Gomorrah But now it's not the pagans who are committing these vile acts and atrocities it's the covenant people the line between the holy and the profane have been erased by years and years of Compromise and idolatry even their pursuit of justice is fractured

They rightly identify the evil, but they wrongly respond with disproportionate destruction and compounded sin

They fight for righteousness But without the righteousness of God governing them and their actions spiral into further chaos

The result is a nation that cannot distinguish justice from vengeance or restoration from destruction

And this is the final stage of the pattern that we've been seeing through the book of Judges The compromise has led to corruption.

The corruption has led to confusion. The confusion has led to collapse and in the end

Humanity itself begins to unravel because when God's authority is removed people don't become free

They become enslaved and they become dangerous now judges also ends by leaving us in the dark on Purpose there is no faithful judge.

There is no righteous leader There is no true restoration the final line echoes over the entire book that there was no king in Israel and Everyone did what was right in their own eyes.

And this is a dramatic foreshadowing of a future King and That future

King will in the near term be fulfilled by David and David's line But it's not enough because Jesus Christ is the ultimate answer to that cry

We're judges shows as people that are collapsing under their own sin Christ will one day come from the line of David and establish a kingdom that is going to transform the world from the inside out

He doesn't merely impose order externally. He renews our hearts He writes his law within his people's souls and he governs them by his spirit while Israel became just like Sodom Christ came and made a people who would be conformed to his image where justice was distorted and vengeance spiraled out of control

Christ came and embodied perfect justice and perfect mercy and unlike the cycles of judges

His reign does not deteriorate it advances steadily restoring what sin has broken and bringing

Increasing righteousness into the world judges ends in chaos But it points us forward to a king whose kingdom will never end

So as you read judges 19 through 21 today, I want you to sit in the weight of the ending There is no resolution only the undeniable need for something greater and we know that is

Christ and tomorrow We're gonna step into the book of Ruth. We're gonna spend one day on the book of Ruth so we will not do an independent introduction, but we're gonna see a book that's written right in the middle of this dark period of Judges where God is quietly working

Redemption out for his people preserving online and preparing a way for the coming

King But with that read your Bible carefully Devotionally and joyfully and may the