United in Outrage | Sunday, October 27, 2024

But the children of Benjamin would not listen to the voice of their brethren, the children of Israel. Instead the children of Benjamin gathered together from their cities to the city of Gibeah, to go to battle against the children of Israel. (Judges 20:13–14)

In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes. (Judges 21:25)

When outrage at evil is right, but every human answer to it falls short, where do we look for justice?

October 7th and the Reality of Outrage

This week we finish the Book of Judges. In light of the message I gave last week from Judges 19 about outrage at horrible moral evil, I was looking this morning at a picture of my family taken on October 6th of last year in Athens, Greece. We were about to board a cruise ship on our way to Israel. Two days later we were scheduled to be in the port of Ashdod, twenty miles from Gaza.

But on the morning of October 7th, 2023, while we were a couple hundred miles away on our way to Jerusalem, I began getting bombarded with notifications about what was happening as Hamas attacked. That day has now become as significant to Israel as 9/11 is to us. Within hours I received text messages and emails asking if we were okay. We were more than okay aboard that cruise ship, but it was evident that what was happening a short distance away was an absolute horror.

Our tour was diverted—we never made it to Jerusalem. As the news, images, and video spread, so did a massive, understandable outrage. Millions, if not billions, of people were stirred to anger.

Be Angry, and Do Not Sin

As I shared last week from Judges 19—a passage of twisted, outrageous moral evil—outrageous immorality demands moral outrage. When we see something hideous and heinous, the right response is anger, what we call indignation. Paul's command in Ephesians 4:26 takes hold: "Be angry."

I don't know a single person here who isn't good at fulfilling that command. The hard part is that Ephesians 4:26 contains two commands: "Be angry, and do not sin." This puts us on a fine tightwire. We are rightly angered at moral evil—righteous indignation—and yet we are commanded not to sin. How do we be angry and not sin?

The events at the close of Judges, in chapters 20 and 21, are not as disturbing as what triggered them in chapter 19, but they are still very strange. If you've read ahead, you probably left scratching your head. Rather than going verse by verse, let me summarize.

A Summary of the Atrocity and the War

In chapter 19, a horrible moral evil was committed in the territory of the tribe of Benjamin, in a city called Gibeah. A Levite, one of the priests of the nation, came into Gibeah with his wife and stayed the night. Perverted men of the city surrounded the house and demanded that the owner deliver the Levite to them that they might know him carnally—the same thing that happened in Sodom in Genesis 19.

The host did not deliver the Levite, but instead—and it is hard to comprehend—his young wife was given to them, and they ravished her to death. In response, the Levite, rightly indignant, dismembered her body and sent it to all the heads of the tribes of Israel. We look at that and think, what on earth is going on? But it was a message they could not ignore, intended to shock and outrage them, to confront them with a moral evil they could not look away from.

In outrage, the nation gathered together as one man—the eleven tribes, with 400,000 men armed for war—saying this injustice must be dealt with. They fulfilled the command, "Be angry," and they were rightly angered.

Enforcing Justice Is Right—But Hard

This reminds us of an important truth. Point one: enforcing justice is the proper response to evil and injustice. When the eleven tribes gather, outraged and indignant, they are right. In fact, if you are not outraged by moral evil, it says something about the searing of your own conscience.

The difficulty—and we see it not only in the text but in our own hearts—is finding the proper and just response to injustice. Christians have wrestled with this for millennia. It touches the whole discussion of just war theory: how do you deal with wickedness? What is the right tool, and what is the right measure of justice? It is a far more difficult question than we often realize.

Their initial response was possibly the right first step: they gathered, united, declaring that what happened was wrong and needed to be dealt with. In verse 13 they come to Benjamin and say, "Deliver up the men, the perverted men who are in Gibeah, that we may put them to death and remove the evil from Israel." They were seeking to fulfill the law of Moses, which required capital punishment for such an atrocity. But imagine the picture: behind the messengers stood 400,000 armed men.

An Eye for an Eye—and a Resistant Tribe

You've heard the saying, "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth." It gives us the idea of lex talionis—the punishment must fit the crime. The crime here was atrocious and needed to be dealt with; the law said these men should die. But something about how the message was delivered—perhaps those 400,000 armed men—caused Benjamin to resist. The children of Benjamin would not listen, and instead gathered to go to war against their brothers.

In this we can probably all identify with something. We do not always respond perfectly when we are angry. I rarely enter into anger with a reasonable, level head. Typically it is only after I have reacted that I find myself wondering, could I have handled that better? Could the eleven tribes have handled this better than dispatching 400,000 armed men? They probably could have. They were rightly indignant, but their response may not have been the best.

Instead of reconsidering, the eleven tribes gathered to go to war against their brothers—now a civil war. It was right for Israel to respond; it would have been wrong not to. Justice must be enforced when terrible moral evil has been committed. But how do we respond justly to evil? Outrageous immorality demands moral outrage, yet moral outrage rarely results in a perfectly moral response.

The Right Measure of Justice Is Hard to Judge

Point two: the right tools and measures of justice are incredibly hard to judge. This is why it would be hard to be a judge, why some of you duck out of jury duty—you don't want to be in the position of making that decision.

There was a similar circumstance at the end of the Book of Joshua. A tribe appeared to do something morally wrong, and eleven-and-a-half tribes came together on the brink of civil war. But there, they sent ambassadors ahead, negotiated, and reached a peaceful resolution. Here, that is not the case.

In the first two days of battle, 40,000 men of the eleven tribes died—ten percent of their force. On the third day, they nearly annihilated Benjamin, killing almost all of their 25,000-plus fighters, leaving only 600 men. They did to their own brothers what they had done to the Canaanites. I cannot help but think of James in the New Testament: "the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God." My wrath, even when justified, does not bring about God's perfect righteousness. That is the challenge of this passage: how do we deal with moral evil in a righteous way?

"No King in Israel": Moral Relativism and Chaos

The final chapter adds another crisis. Having nearly destroyed Benjamin, the eleven tribes must keep the tribe from going extinct. Only 600 men remain, and they have no wives. So they take a roll call: was there a city that didn't come to fight? Yes—so let's go kill them and take their young virgin daughters for Benjamin. When that doesn't provide enough wives, they tell the men, "Go hide in the bushes at the feast in the mountains, and when you see a young virgin dancing, take her." You read this and ask, what on earth is happening? How is this just?

The answer is the very last word of the book: "In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes." Israel was no longer one nation under God. They no longer had God's rule directing them through His law. What had spread was what we would today call moral relativism—no right and true standard of what is right and true. Everyone chose for himself, and as long as it seemed like a good plan, they did it.

Point three: social chaos is the inevitable outcome of moral relativism. Some may argue against this, but I see no other outcome. If there is no universal standard, society falls into disorder—whether 3,200 years ago in Israel or in 2024 in the Western world. There was an erosion of authority; no one agreed who was over whom, so Benjamin could say, "Who are you to rule over us?"

A Testimony to Our Fallenness

This entire period is another testimony to man's sinful fallenness—whether the pagan Canaanites who rejected God or the people of God who had His covenant and law. The book opened in Judges 2:10: "another generation arose after them who did not know the LORD nor the work which He had done for Israel... and the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD." It closes with "everyone did what was right in his own eyes."

When you govern yourself only by what is right in your own eyes—because our hearts are desperately wicked—we fulfill Proverbs 14: "There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." It leads to destruction and chaos.

When we are confronted with gross immorality and injustice, as we are every day in a fallen world—especially at times like October 7th—we are rightly outraged, and we demand justice. But rarely are our demands satisfied, because our best efforts at justice are tainted by our sinful nature. Our best attempts frequently fall short or go too far. We are left with a pit in our stomach, asking: is there no justice for evil?

The Righteous Wrath of God

There is an answer. "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men" (Romans 1:18). The wrath of God is what human evil deserves, what gross wickedness demands—the righteous wrath of God. Ezekiel said twice in chapter 18, "The soul that sins shall die." Romans says, "the wages of sin is death." Part of us says, that's true; there needs to be justice.

This is a comfort to those who have experienced malevolent evil. I've had conversations with people in our culture upset by the doctrine of hell. Do you know what that often indicates? That they have not suffered malevolent evil. How grateful I am that I have not. But there are many who have watched their children killed or their families ravished, and to them the doctrine of hell is a comfort—because hell says God will judge. There will be a final accounting.

But within that consolation is a devastating reality: Romans 3:23, "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." And that "all" includes me and you. It is easy to look at the perverted men of Gibeah, or Hamas, and say, "that needs to be judged"—but that very statement means I ought to be judged too. "But I didn't do something that horrible." It doesn't matter.

Consider Habakkuk. He looked at his nation, filled with sin, and said, "God, you need to judge my nation." God answered, "Okay, I'll use the Babylonians." Habakkuk replied, "No, no—we're not that bad." The fickleness of my own heart in my moral outrage reveals that I, too, deserve judgment.

The Cross: The Only Right Remedy

What is the answer? This morning we partake of communion, and in the bread and the cup is God's answer. Point four: the cross is the only right remedy for sin. Wickedness must be judged; sin must be dealt with. And the cross is perfect justice poured out upon sin, because there Jesus, who never sinned, became sin for us, and God's wrath was poured out upon Him.

This fulfilled Isaiah, 700 years before Christ: "He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all."

How many of you have been angered by injustice? Sickened by October 7th or 9/11? Your moral outrage is a self-condemnation. Romans 2 says, "Therefore you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are who judge, for in whatever you judge another you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things... Do you think that you will escape the judgment of God?" When I judge something as worthy of judgment, I affirm that there is a standard of righteousness—and therefore unrighteousness must be judged.

We Need a King Not of This World

The deliverers in Judges who came to deal with the wickedness were ineffectual and flawed—Samson, Gideon, Jephthah. The best of men are men at best. We are left asking, is that all we have? We need someone to fix this.

That is exactly Israel's response two books later in 1 Samuel: "We need a king." But the books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles are full of kings who were terrible. Even the best, David, commits adultery and murders to cover it up. Is there no one to fix this? The problem is that every king presented is of this world; we need a King who is not of this world.

John saw the answer in Revelation 19: "Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war... His name is called The Word of God... Out of His mouth goes a sharp sword... He Himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And He has on His robe and on His thigh a name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS."

Your Kingdom Come

We see the moral injustice of the world, as Israel did 3,000 years ago, and we cry for someone to make it right. We are nine days from a presidential election, and we say, "Maybe this person will fix it." I'm here to tell you, probably not—actually, the odds are zero. Don't misunderstand: I'm not saying don't vote. Vote. I voted last Thursday. But hold moderated expectations, because the kings of this world will always leave you longing for a King who is Faithful and True.

This is why Christians for millennia have prayed, "Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." And the awesome thing is that on the cross, sin is punished—He who knew no sin became sin for us, that we might receive His righteousness. Now we remember His body broken and His blood shed in fulfillment of Isaiah's words, because all we like sheep have gone astray, and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

Closing Prayer

Father God, I pray that You would remind us again that You are the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and that our desires for justice are only ultimately satisfied in You. We pray, come Lord Jesus, come. There is social chaos in our world; it is the inevitable outcome of departing from the truth of Your Word—moral relativism. And there is only one answer for evil and sin: the salvation found only in You at the cross. We thank You that Your body was broken and Your blood shed for us, to deal finally and completely with sin. Someday You will establish Your kingdom, and there will be no more suffering and no more sin. We say, come Lord Jesus, come.

Lord, we know from the Scriptures that without the shedding of blood there is no removal of the stain of sin. But You who knew no sin became sin for us; You took the sin of the world upon Yourself, stood in our place as a substitution, so that You could give us Your forgiving grace and Your righteousness. We thank You that You put away the enmity, that You deal with sin entirely, and that You will one day rule and reign with righteousness. Help us to be ambassadors of Your kingdom in this culture, lights shining in a dark place. We pray, Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Come quickly, Lord Jesus.

And now may the Lord bless and keep you, and may He make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. May He lift up His countenance upon you and give you His peace. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of His Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.