FBC Daily Devotional – September 3, 2021

Well, a good Friday to you.

We are facing the weekend and looking forward to it.

I hope you're looking forward to the Lord's Day and gathering together with God's people and the worshiping and

serving Him at church on Sunday.

I hope you can make that.

Well today, we're reading in Judges 17 and 18 and the last five

chapters of the book of Judges are really well, they're really depressing.

They really basically recount two big -picture ideas.

Chapters 17 and 18 show just how badly deteriorated

things have become spiritually in Israel.

Chapters 19 through 21 show how degraded the nation has become morally

during this period where everyone does what is right in his own eyes.

So today's reading in Judges 17 and 18 illustrate for us

how very concerned people can be with religion while at the same time being

very unconcerned with what God has to say about how to worship Him and how to

serve Him.

I mean there is but one God and regardless of what all the other

global religions would say, there's one God and even those who affirm they believe

in the one God, the God of the Bible, they can be very concerned with

religion and the worshiping of that one God but be quite unconcerned

with what He has to say about how to go about worshiping.

It's illustrated in this text.

So for example, as the story begins, there's this man by the name of Micah.

He steals his mom's silver.

He gets feeling guilty about it.

He comes and confesses it and she says, well, you know, bless the Lord for you.

There's an expression of religion, right?

Of faith in Yahweh, the Lord God of Israel.

But then she says, I'll tell you what, I'm gonna dedicate that silver that you stole and have now given back.

I'm gonna dedicate that silver to Yahweh to make a graven image, to make a carved image.

Wait a minute.

The God who said, I am Yahweh your God, you shall not make any graven

images.

And yet that's exactly what she's going to do with that silver.

Micah, her son, then takes that image that mom has made for him,

builds a shrine, installs his son, who's not a Levite, not in

the tribe of Levi, which is required for the priesthood, but Micah builds

a shrine, installs his son as a priest and eventually a

Levite comes along his way and he finally enlists that Levite and says, oh,

you know, now God's gonna bless me because I've got this shrine to God and I've got a Levite

to be my priest.

Nothing to do with the tabernacle and the worshiping God at the tabernacle.

He's got his own shrine.

He doesn't need the tabernacle in spite of what God has said.

And then along come this representative group from the tribe of Dan, the Danites, and

they come to Micah's house and they don't think anything whatsoever of

stealing Micah's idol, his shrine,

and stealing his priest and taking him along with him, luring him along with

him, a fellow Israelite, and supposedly for the religious benefit.

The Danites think if we take these idols and we take the priest, then God will

bless us in our venture.

And then there's the Levite himself.

He's supposed to be one who upholds the law and teaches the law

to others and yet he's nothing but a religious opportunist.

He's looking for the best opportunity he has to pad his life, to make his life

easy and what's in his own best interests rather than what God wants.

And then finally the Danites, they erected this shrine and

installed this Levite as the priest and his

sons as their priests and expect that now God is going to

bless us.

In other words, all of this all of this corruption, religious spiritual corruption,

is kind of like religion as a good luck charm.

Right?

If I just have this shrine, God will bless me.

Oh, now I've got a real Levite.

Now God's really gonna bless me.

The Danites, oh, we're gonna get this guy's shrine and God will bless us and we'll take his priest and God will really bless us.

It's all religion as good luck charm.

Does that sound familiar?

I.

Think there are a lot of professing Christians who are gonna go to church on Sunday because they think if

they do, God will bless them.

It's a good luck charm and they might even take their Bible with them because then God will

really bless them.

And on and on we can go with different things, religious accoutrements, if you will.

Not really caring what God has to say about how he wants to be worshipped, but taking these things,

incorporating these things into our lives so that, well, surely now God will bless

me.

Oh, my friend, I hope that we will be determined to worship God in spirit and

in truth as he wants to be worshipped.

Let's learn from these horrible mistakes that are recorded for us in the book of Judges and

be otherwise, shall we?

Our Father and our God, I pray that when we gather together and on the Lord's Day as

a people of God in the assembled place that you've called us to worship you, I pray that we

will worship you in spirit and in truth and we ask it in Jesus name.

Amen.

All right.

Well, I hope you'll have a good rest of your Friday and a wonderful weekend and especially made the highlight of

it all be the gathering with God's people on the Lord's Day.

Good day.

God bless.