Would you open your Bibles with me this evening to the book of Judges and chapter number 19. The book of Judges and chapter 19. That would be very tempting to pass over. This would be one of those. If I was not committed to verse by verse exposition, if I was not committed to walking you through books of the Bible, I would be inclined to jump this over. Because it's ugly, it's just ugly. But one thing that you can depend on, God has given to us an honest book and it relates the honest ugliness of fallen mankind and just how brutal and thoughtless men can be. It'll take us a couple of minutes and then as we read this and you see it unfold, you'll be reminded of the truth that I'm stating to you. In Judges chapter 19 verse 1 we read, and it came to pass in those days when there was no king in Israel. There's that illusion again, constantly we find this being mentioned again. There was no king in Israel. Every man did that which was right in his own sight. In other words, there's no moral compass. There's no true moral north, so people do whatever they want. And this is just really, the inspired writer opens this chapter up to us this way, if we may say it that way, simply to prepare us for what is coming. And it came to pass in those days when there was no king in Israel that there was a certain Levite sojourning on the side of Mount Ephraim who took to him a concubine out of Bethlehem, Judah. And his concubine played the whore against him and went away from him into her father's house to Bethlehem, Judah, and was there four whole months. And her husband arose and went after her to speak friendly unto her and to bring her again, having his servant with him, and a couple of asses. And she brought him into her father's house. And when the father of the damsel saw him, he rejoiced to meet him. And his father-in-law, now he's married this concubine, but the language of this relates that this man is his father-in-law, this Levite's father-in-law. Verse 4, And his father-in-law, the damsel's father, retained him, and he abode with him three days, so that they did eat and drink and lodge there. And it came to pass on the fourth day, when they arose early in the morning, that he rose up to the park, And the damsel's father said unto his son-in-law, comfort thine heart with a morsel of bread, and afterward go your way. And they sat down and did eat and drink, and both of them together, for the damsel's father had said unto the man, be content, I pray thee, and tarry all night, and let thine heart be merry. And when the man rose up to depart, his father-in-law urged him, therefore he lodged there again. And he rose early in the morning on the fifth day to depart, And the damsel's father said, comfort thine heart, I pray thee. And they tarried until afternoon, and they did eat both of them. And when they rose up to the park, he and his concubine and his servant, his father-in-law, the damsel's father, said unto him, behold now, the day draweth toward evening. I pray you, tarry all night. Behold, the day groweth to an end. The lodge hear that thine heart may be merry, and tomorrow get you early on your way that thou I may as go home. But the man would not tarry that night. But he rose up and departed, and came over against Jebus, which is Jerusalem. And there were with him two asses saddled. His concubine also was with him. And when they were by Jebus, the day was far spent. And the servant said unto his master, Come, I pray thee, and let us turn in unto this city of the Jebusites, and lodge in it. And his master said unto him, We will not turn aside hither into the city of a stranger that is not of the children of Israel. We will pass over to Gibeah. And he said unto his servant, Come and let us draw near to one of these places to lodge all night in Gibeah or in Ramah. And they passed on and went their way. And the sun went down upon them when they were by Gibeah, which belonged to Benjamin. And they turned aside thither to go in and to lodge in Gibeah, And when he went in, he set him down in the street of the city, for there was no man that took them into his house to lodge him. And behold, there came an old man from his work out in the field at Even, which was also of Mount Ephraim. And he sojourned in Gibeah, but the men of the place were Benjamites. And when he had lifted up his eyes, he saw a wayfaring man in the street of the city. And the old man said, Whither goest thou, and whence comest thou? And he said unto him, we are passing for Bethlehem, Judah, toward the side of Mount Ephraim, from thence am I. And I went to Bethlehem, Judah, but I am now going to the house of the Lord, and there is no man that receiveth me to house. Yet there is both straw and proviter for our asses, and there is bread and wine also for me and for thy handmaid. And for the young man which is with thy servants, there is no one of anything. And the old man said, peace be with thee. Howsoever, let all thy wants lie upon me, only lauds not in the street. So he brought him into his house and gave provender unto the asses, and they washed their feet and did eat and drink. Now as they were making their hearts merry, behold, the men of the city, certain sons of Belial, beset the house round about and beat at the door and spake to the master of the house, the old man saying, Bring forth the man that came into thine house that we may know him. And the man, the master of the house, went out unto them and said unto them, Nay, my brother, nay, I pray you, do not so wickedly, seeing that this man has come into mine house, do not this folly. Behold, here is my daughter, a maiden, and his concubine, Them will I bring out now, and humble ye them, and do with them what seemeth good unto you. But unto this man do not so vile a thing. But the men would not hearken to him. So the man took his concubine, and brought her forth unto them. And they knew her, and abused her all the night until the morning. And when the day began to spring, they let her go. Then came the woman in the dawning of the day, fell down at the door of the man's house where her lord was, till it was light. And her lord rose up in the morning, and opened the doors of the house, and went out to go his way. And behold, the woman, his concubine, was falling down at the door of the house, and her hands were upon the threshold. And he said unto her, up, and let us be going. But none answered. Then the man took her upon an ass, and the man rose up and got him into his place. And when he was come into his house, he took a knife and laid hold on his concubine and divided her together with her bones into 12 pieces and sent her into all the coast of Israel. And it was so that all that saw it said, there was no such deed done nor seen from the day that the children of Israel came up out of the land of Egypt unto this day. Consider of it, take advice, and speak your minds. Now, that's a lengthy read, and we have committed ourselves to both teaching through and reading through books. Tonight I want to give some thought to a bloody and brutal chain reaction. A bloody and brutal chain reaction. Some of you are old enough to remember the events that I'm about to read about. Some of you well remember December 7th in 1941 when Japan shockingly comes and bombs Pearl Harbor. When they came in, they bombed Pearl Harbor and the United States enters World War II. A very short time later, a physicist named J. Robert Oppenheimer becomes the director of the Manhattan Project, a U.S. government program that was formed to build and test an atomic bomb. Originally, it was designed to combat Nazi Germany. In May of 1945, Germany surrenders, unconditionally surrenders to the Allied forces, ending the war in Europe, but the war with Japan was still going on. In July of 1945, the U.S. successfully detonated its first atomic bomb in the deserts of New Mexico. August 6, 1945, An atomic bomb, nicknamed Little Boy, was dropped on Hiroshima, exploding 2,000 feet above the ground, killing 80,000 people instantly. August 1945, three days later, an atomic bomb is dropped over Nagasaki, Japan. 75,000 people are killed instantly. All told, over a quarter million people would die as a result of the atomic bombs that were dropped. Within a week, Japan surrenders and thus ends World War II. Events may begin small, but they can have a huge chain reaction. In this text that we read together this evening, what begins as a private problem at home becomes a huge battle not for just one family or one city or one tribe, but for the entire nation. Judges 19, 20, and 21, all three of the last chapters of Judges, these last three chapters, encompass this same story and you just see that chain reaction unfolding. It's almost like you see on TV and the movies sometimes you see one library shelf fall and when it falls it hits another and that chain reaction starts all the way and knocks down and makes a huge mess and this is exactly what we see. We see a bloody and brutal chain reaction of events from this 19th chapter of Judges. It is interesting that the arrangement, and I will give you some preliminary remarks, but the arrangement of this book is really not given to us chronologically, especially these last five chapters of Judges. Almost definitively, I shouldn't even say probably, almost definitively, these last five chapters of Judges take place early on after the death of Joshua. The reason we know this is if you remember the last two chapters that we studied together in the idolatry of Micah and Dan, Some of that came as a result of a Levite who was the grandson of Moses. And he had set himself up as a priest up against what God had commanded. But nonetheless, just a couple generations from Moses, you have a man who's completely abandoned the sacrifices and the altar the way that God had ordained. In this story, Judges 19-20-21, we're going to learn that one of the men involved in this is the grandson of Aaron. The grandson of Aaron. I guess one of the ways that you could look at it is that this book of Judges is not really given to us chronologically as much as it is given to us methodically. The author wants us to see how the nation of Israel went from bad to worse to unthinkable, simply unthinkable. The moral degradation of God's nation is on full display in these last few chapters. I just want us to take a look at this 19 chapter as revolting as it is as disturbing as it is and just see how this unfolds in the story. And if you're like me, you sit here and read this and you shake your head. You ever turn on the news in the evening and just shake your head with some of the stuff you hear about some of the stuff you see and you wonder how how could that happen? How could a mother do that to her children? How could a father do this to his children? How could a nation? When we see these things, we just want to shake our head and say, how did we get like this? And when we look at this account out of Judges 19, it ought to cause us to shake our heads and say, how did God's people get like this? And then again, it comes back to the fact that there's no moral compass. There's no true moral north. And every man does what is right in his own eyes. And the warning, though, we're not Israel. We're not Israel. America's a separate nation altogether, but we need to understand, blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, right? And the wicked shall be turned into hell, and all nations that forget God. And as we see the moral degradation exploding in our society, we need to realize that the same atrocities that happen that we're reading about here can happen in this nation if we abandon God, because God just may abandon us. One of the greatest judgments that God can ever put on the people is He just turns them over to themselves. In fact, that's what Romans 1 is all about. When God just says, if that's how you want to be, just have at it, and just turns them over to a reprobate mind. And our concern for our children and grandchildren should certainly be that God would be gracious and long-suffering to this nation lest we become so morally off kilter and so ungodly as the children of Israel here. Let's just look at this story and let me help you unpack some of the events of it. There's a Levite, and again, the 17th and 18th chapter is surrounded around a Levite, centered around a Levite. 19, 20, and 21 is surrounded by a Levite. And it is the Holy Spirit's way of saying to us, even the people who should be the most spiritual-minded in Israel are not spiritual-minded. Really what we see unfolding in this last five chapters of Judges is what the old theologians call the Canaanization of Israel. Do you get that? Understand that language? When the Israelites become like the Canaanites, it is them, it is not that the Jewish people are affecting the world around them, it is the world around them affecting the Jewish people, and that often how it unfolds. But this Levite, one of the men who should be the most spiritual-minded, spiritually inclined individual, he has taken to himself a concubine out of Bethlehem, Judah. For the lack of a better term, a second wife who is a lesser wife. We see this going out or going on throughout the Old Testament. God never condones it. It was just simply was the way that it was done. And there's a lot to unfold here, and I don't want to keep you all evening, but one of the things that I want you to see in this as we make our way through this is that really this lady is treated so atrociously. And if it were not for the incredible impact that Judaism and Christianity has had on this world. Many minorities and women would still be treated this way. You look at parts of the world where Christianity is not spread, and you see how minorities and women are treated there. You just look and see. But this man has taken him a lesser wife, a concubine, and they have a falling out. Our King James language says that she went a-whoring against him and ran around on him. And verse number 2, "...and his concubine played the whore." There's some conversation, some manuscript conversation on this, whether or not the reading should be that She went out and fooled around on him or whether or not they just had a big argument. Some of the oldest manuscripts read a little bit different than what we have in our King James, but it's either way, she leaves him. They have an argument, she leaves him and she goes home to her father and stays there for four months. I guess he finally figures she ain't coming back. I gotta go get it. So he loads up a couple of donkeys and takes a servant with him and he heads from Mount Ephraim to Bethlehem Judah to where she is and goes into the, what is called his father-in-law's home and she receives him there. And he stays there day one, day two, day three. In typical Middle Eastern culture, you would receive somebody, be very hospitable to them. treating them well and so the day three passes and on the fourth day this man decides I'm gonna take my wife and I'm gonna go back home and the father-in-law says man just sit down let's get let's get you something to eat and have something cold to drink and next thing you know the whole day is gone it comes up the evening time and the man Levite says, I'm going to get up and leave. And the father-in-law says, no, just stay. It's late. You don't want to leave this late at night. So he agrees. And then the fifth day comes. He gets up in the morning. He's getting ready to leave. And the father-in-law says, no, why don't you just stay here and have a little something to eat and drink? And you can leave later on. And so he does that. They have something to eat and drink. And then that afternoon, The Levite says, I'm going to leave. And the father-in-law, he again says, no, just stay the night. You don't want to be leaving this late in the evening. And the Levite says, no, we are leaving. And he, on this fifth day, he refuses to stay. And so they begin their journey. And they're leaving. He said it back to his homeland. He's headed back to Mount Ephraim. And as they leave there, they only get about six miles and it's starting to get dark. They get near the city of Jebus. And I'm summarizing some of this, throwing it together for you. Verse number 11, you see, when they were by Jebus, the day was far spent. This servant that he had brought with him says unto him, let's go spend the night with the Jebusites. Now this is the city of Jerusalem. glorious city of Jerusalem, but it's not yet under Israeli control. It will not be under the control of the Israelites until King David comes and drives out the Jebusites and then renames it Jerusalem. So at this time, it is under control of Canaanites, if we can use that broad term speaking of them, the Jebusites. And this Levite says, no, I don't want to go. I don't want to go spend the night there. That's a Canaanite city. Let's travel a little bit further, and we'll find A city where the Israelites are and we'll spend the night there so they do they go about four more miles He doesn't get very far. It only gets about 10 miles And he must have left pretty late in the evening because he only gets about 10 miles. It's him his concubine wife his servant and a couple of Donkeys that they have brought and they turn into the city of gibia gibia is in the land of benjamin one of the 12 tribes the land of benjamin And as they go into the city, what would be customary is they would go into the square of the city. Our Bibles read into the street of the city, but he would have went into the square of the city, the city square, and there he would have waited for someone to show him some hospitality. That would have been the normal cultural thing to do, that you would show hospitality to a stranger and open up your home to them, but nobody does. And they're sitting out, it's dark now, and they're sitting out in the city street when an old man, don't get mad at me, the Bible calls him an old man. And when an old man comes in from the field, and he too is from Mount Ephraim, but for whatever reason, right now he's living in the city of Gibeah, and this old man He tells this Levite and his concubine says, why don't you just come to my house and stay the night? And the Levite says, man, he said, you don't have to worry about us. All we need is a roof over our head. We got food for the animals. We got food and wine for ourselves. If you'll just give us a place to sleep, we'll be fine. And this old man says, no, I won't hear of it. I'll take care of everything. You and your wife just come into my home. And so they do. They go into the home of this old man, they wash their feet, they feed the animals, they sit down, they're eating and enjoying a meal when all of a sudden there's a pounding at the door. And it is men from the city of Gideon. And what we're about to get into is ugly and it's uncomfortable, but it is what happened. I believe it, the book says it, and I believe it. Their calm, quiet evening is interrupted by a knocking on the door, and it's men of this city. Now listen, these are Benjamites. The Bible is clear to tell us these are Israelites, Benjamites of the tribe of Israel. This is God's chosen nation. And they say to that old man, we want you. To send out this guest of yours, this Levite, we want you to send him out that we may know him. And that's good old Elizabethan English for, so we can have sexual relations with him. It is the exact same word that is used, Adam knew his wife Eve. Cain knew his wife. It's the exact same language, okay? Sexual intimacy. In other words, you send this man out so that we may have homosexual sex with him. There it is, in all of its ugliness. That's what they're demanding. Send him out. And the old man goes out and he says to them, no, don't do this, don't do this terrible thing. In fact, I want you to notice that the text calls them, in verse 22, just look at this, now as they were making their hearts merry, behold, the men of the city certain sons of Belial. And this is a, it's a unique Arrangement of words. The Sons of Belial simply means worthless fellows. We may say they're no count, they're no good. Wouldn't you describe some people that way? They're just saying no good. They're no count. Good for nothing. In fact, the same language is used if you remember the story of Nabal, between King David and Nabal, he is called a son of Belial, a foolish or worthless man. You get over to the New Testament in Corinthians, it talks about what concord does Christ have with Belial. And there Belial is made out to be symbolic of Satan. So it's really not a stretch to say that these men are worthless men under the influence of Satan. And they want to have forced homosexual rape of this man. And the old man, he goes out and he says to them, verse 23, don't do this. Don't be so wicked. This man has come into my house. Don't do this folly. That word folly has to do with abject wickedness, foolishness, utter, utter ungodliness, lasciviousness. Don't do this. And he says, this old man, his way of trying to fend them off or push them back, as he says to them in verse 24, here, take my virgin daughter and this man's concubine. Take them and go do whatever you want with him. Now, you can't read this without being a little bit disturbed, right? Being a little bit uncomfortable by it. But also you can't read this without going back to Genesis 19 in your mind and thinking about what happened when the angels visited the city of Sodom and they were in the house of Lot. very similar i think just think about this genesis nineteen judges nineteen i think that the author here waltz excuse me waltz to draw the similarities wants to draw these parallels making it clear that israel has degraded itself that they are no longer like the children of god they're like the children of sock they're no longer dot people but they have demoralized themselves into now they are like the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. There is a very distinct parallel given here. It echoes, the author echoes clearly that the people of Gibeah were like the people of Sodom. And so he offers to them his virgin daughter and then this man's concubine, but verse 25, the men would not hearken, they would not hear this. Their twisted, sick, vile, wretched lust and passion did not want those women, but instead wanted that man. And there's obviously this verbal confrontation taking place outside. And notice in verse 25, the men would not hearken to him. So the man, that is the Levite, takes his concubine and brought her forth. And the language is just sort of shoved her out the door. And they knew her. There's that same language again, that intimate language. They forced themselves sexually on her. They knew her and abused her all the night until the morning. And it's ugly, but it was just brutal gang rape. That's what it was. I'm convinced, as I've studied this, They beat her, abused her, hurt her, treated her as if she was nothing. Nothing. And they did it till the day began to dawn, and then they let her go. And can you see, and it would serve us well, as uncomfortable as it makes us to get a mental image of this woman beaten and bloody and broken and weak, walking, stumbling, crawling back to this old man's house where her husband is. And she, if I understand the narrative at all, it is as if she just, with her last breath, she falls at the door, her hands laying on the threshold. How will this Levite respond? He gets up in the morning, opens the door, and there she is lying there. We don't know. We just don't know because the text doesn't say, but she's either dead or near dead. He says to her, get up, let's go. Verse 28, up, let us be going. But she didn't answer. Either she was too weak or she was already dead. So he picks her up and lays her across one of the animals that they had brought, and he takes her home. And it would be bad enough, would it not, if the story ended right there? We could call it atrocious if it ended right there. We could say what a horrible thing that this was. But the story doesn't end there. He takes her home, cuts her dead body into 12 pieces, and then sends those 12 pieces out to all the 12 tribes of Israel. This is, to some degree, a called war, really, if we wanna look at it big picture. You've gotta put this in with Judges 19, 20, and 21. This is a call to arms, if you will. What will transpire over the next two chapters just shows the ugly end of this chain reaction as it continues to grow. It would be difficult to number every breach of either Old Testament law or simple morality or conscious behavior. It would be difficult to number every egregious act in this chapter. Let me just mention a few things. Polygamy, adultery, drunkenness, homosexuality, rape, murder, the desecration of a dead body, the protection of the guilty, civil war, kidnapping, and forced marriage. All of these and more take place at the close of the book of Judges. And as we read this, we ought to just shake our head and say, how? How does this happen? One of the key figures, in fact, in chapter 20, you'll discern, we'll get into that next week, but chapter 20, we'll learn that one of the men, key men involved in this is the grandson of Aaron. Look how quickly things have turned. But here's the question. When we read these things and they shock us, why? Why? Why does it shock us? Why does it bother us? Because we have some sense of morality, some sense of right and wrong, some sense of truth, right? What God condones, what God hates. But I'd like to ask this. If our atheist friends are right, and there is no God, then why not do everything that this chapter says and then some? What I'm trying to get you to see, and what I want you to think about in this is, Humanity, left to ourselves, don't go from bad to better. We go from bad to worse to unthinkable. Humanity, apart from God, left to ourselves, are capable of some good things. Don't misunderstand me. But when every man does what is right in his own sight, social order and basic morality do not exist. If Darwin is right, and we are all but base animals, why be offended with a chapter like this? I wish people would stop and consider. It is the blind depravity of men that keeps them from seeing any reason or logic. Some of the same people who are fighting for the rights of certain individuals don't realize that they're cutting their own throats, if you will. What we read about in this chapter is the end result of a worldview that does not include God. A worldview that does not include God. If we are all simply base animals, and all morality is purely subjective, then why not? kill, steal, rape, pillage and consume anything and everyone. Why not? If Darwin is right and we are simply the random result of cosmic coincidence and only the strong will survive, why not do whatever pleases the flesh? Who cares about right or wrong? If we're just animals and we're going to live and die and that's it, why not do whatever you want? Why be offended at this? Might makes right in the eyes of many in this world. You look at how this poor woman was treated. Now, I'm not trying to make anybody mad. I don't know whether or not she went out and cheated on her husband or whether they had a big argument, depending on whatever manuscript line you read after. But either way, this woman did not deserve the atrocities that happened to her. To be brutally gang raped all night and murdered. Her own husband callously just throwing her like a sack of potatoes on the back of an animal, taking her home and dismembering her. This is the end result of a worldview without God. When women are no more than a piece of property, look in the world today, in many Middle Eastern cultures today, Women are still treated just like this. With the absence of Christian morals, listen, true God-given right and wrong, the laws of Yahweh, Jehovah God. Without this, there is no true moral compass. I see these stories, I know you see them too, where women in the Middle East are taken out and killed, stoned, beheaded. You know why? Because someone raped them. It's the curse of an Adamic nature, our fallen nature. This is what the world looks like without Christ, without law, without God. It looks like what we read about in Judges 19. We should give solemn and serious thought to the direction our nation is headed. I'm not sure everybody understood what I was alluding to a few moments ago. I see women on TV, people groups on TV, fighting for the rights of people whose whole desire it is to To bring death and destruction and maim and murder. I'm not, you know me, I don't get into politics from the pulpit, I don't do it. But the liberal agenda of trying to swing wide the gates and the doors and allow the Muslim influence in our world. And some of these women, don't they realize what would happen if an Islamic society took over? I mean, don't you think? And I'm not trying to get political, I'm just trying to say this is how blind that we can be without the grace and mercy of God. If this could happen to Israel, it could certainly happen to this nation. If we could get so far removed from God that such atrocities like this take place, I would encourage you to read Judges 20 and 21. and see this domino effect, see this chain reaction take place. We won't get into it this evening, but what will transpire will almost be the extinction of an entire tribe from Israel. One of my roles, Leland's here, Brother Gordon, man that handled the word of God. One of our roles is to take these stories, text, narratives, and try to show people the glory of God and the goodness of the gospel out of this. And as I read this and studied this, it's like I almost hate to even bring in the glory of God into a story this ugly. But at the same time, I'm reminded that it is the gospel of grace and only the good grace of God that would keep us from committing such atrocities. And it's only the gospel of grace that can save a nation from such things. I like what, if I could slide one more little political jab in, I like what one man said, said the hope for America is not gonna come in on Air Force One. It's not gonna come in on Air Force One. It's gonna come through the power of the gospel. That's the hope. And what Israel needs, really, and this is a big, big picture, but Israel doesn't need to bow to an earthly king. They need to bow to their sovereign king, God himself. When you leave God out, this is what happens. I am concerned, and I think that you are, and should, and rightly as well. That there could be an increased turning away from true morality, and this is the end result of it. It should make us a more solemn people, more fervent people, realizing that we have what this world needs, and that is the gospel of grace. That's what this world needs. I'm tempted as I, Studies, you know, I started to say as I studied chapters like this, but thank goodness There's not that many chapters like this in the Bible I'm tempted to hand off my outline to somebody else to say here you deal with this because I don't want to because it's ugly But who knows who knows and I just simply say this who knows What you and I might be were it not for the grace of God? let me say something and I've closed but I You ought to think about that young lady. Now, whether or not she went and fooled around on her husband, or they had a falling out, I'm not interested in debating. You ought to think about that young lady, what happened to her, and what will end up happening to Israel itself because of sin. And it give us a desire not to trifle with sin, not to toy with it, but to treat it like you'd treat a coiled-up rattlesnake.