Wanderers | Sunday, October 13, 2024

Amen. God is so good! Praise the Lord for His goodness this morning. Thank you, Pastor Anthony and team. You guys can have a seat.

Singing about the faithfulness of the Lord, it's good to be reminded that God is faithful and that He deserves our faithfulness and our faith in Him. We were reminded of the fact that He alone is the one we should put our faith in. This last week, of course, the Padres had to let us down once again, and Anthony is gloating, wearing his Dodger hat. I had so hoped that I could give him a Padres hat today, but apparently not. Maybe there's always next year; that's what we keep telling ourselves, right?

So, hey, would you take out your Bibles this morning? If you don't have a Bible, you can raise your hand, and an usher will bring you one. We are in the Book of Judges, which is the seventh book of the Bible. If you open to the very first book and turn to the right, you'll pass Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, and then Judges. Judges chapter 18 is where we are today.

As is often the case when we open the Scriptures, it is important for us to recognize that the historical and cultural setting is important. It's essential to understand the cultural and historic context in which these stories exist; it helps the stories to make more sense. To understand exactly what's going on in this text in Judges chapter 18, it's helpful to zoom out to kind of the 50,000-foot view and get the lay of the land.

In the very first book of the Bible, Genesis, we are introduced to the man Abram, or Abraham. God calls this man to come and follow Him, and He gives him a promise. He promises him, when he's 75 years old and has no children, that if he follows and trusts in Him, then He will make him the father of many nations. God says He will give him descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand on the sea.

That is God's promise to him. Not only does He promise him descendants, but He also says He will give him a land if he comes and follows Him, and He will show him this land. So, Abram follows and trusts in the Lord, and God makes good on His promise. He gives him his first descendant, Isaac. From Isaac, the next one is Jacob, and then Jacob has 12 sons who become what we call the 12 tribes of Israel, because Jacob's name is changed to Israel. That really is the whole story summed up very quickly.

The first book of the Bible is the Book of Genesis. In it, God promised Abram descendants, but he did not yet take possession of the promised land that God had promised to him. At the end of the story of Genesis, his descendants, the children of Israel, find themselves not in the land that God had promised them, but in Egypt.

When you get to the next book, Exodus, it is 400 years later. The descendants of Israel have grown into a large group of people, but they are now under the oppressive hand of the king of Egypt, Pharaoh, as slaves. They cry out to God, effectively reminding Him of His promise to their father Abram that He would give them a land. In response, God sends them a deliverer, Moses, who comes and tells Pharaoh to let His people go. Ultimately, through the divine intervention of God, the people of Israel are led out of Egypt.

They come to Mount Sinai and enter into a covenant relationship with God, where God is going to be their God and they are going to be His people. This covenant relationship is somewhat similar to the relationship that one enters into when becoming a husband or a wife. When asked by the officiant, "Will you take this person to be your wife or husband?" the response is typically, "I do." The children of Israel entered into a covenant relationship with God, pledging their obedience to follow Him.

However, their obedience did not last long, and they wandered in the wilderness for 40 years on their way to the land of Canaan, the promised land. This whole story is found in the Book of Numbers. Ultimately, they come to the border of the promised land just before Moses, the one who led them out of Egypt and through the wilderness, is going to die. He reaffirms with them the covenant that God had established with them, and once again, they pledge their allegiance to follow and serve God as they prepare to enter the promised land. This is the essence of the story found in Deuteronomy.

At the end of Deuteronomy, Moses dies, and Joshua becomes the leader who guides the children of Israel over the Jordan River into the promised land to take possession of it and conquer the land. This is the whole story of the Book of Joshua. At the end of the Book of Joshua, Joshua has a conversation with the people, much like the conversation that Moses had with them in Deuteronomy, and he says to them...

That famous verse, which we have right by our door at our house, states, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." Maybe you have heard that verse before. All the people said to Joshua, "We will do the same. We're going to serve the Lord." That was their commitment.

Joshua dies at the end of the Book of Joshua, and that brings us into Judges, which we began studying at the beginning of this year. We read the introductory words found in Judges chapter 2, verse 10: "When all that generation had been gathered to their fathers," that is, when the conquering generation under Joshua had died, "another generation arose after them that did not know the Lord nor the work which He had done for Israel."

Then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and served false gods. They forsook the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They followed after other gods from among the people that were around them. They bowed down to them, and in doing so, they provoked the Lord to anger. This is the whole story of the Book of Judges, which we've been studying.

You come from that zoomed-out, 50,000-foot view where you see the whole lineage that brought them to this point. Now we zoom in to the snapshots, the specific stories of how the children of Israel forsook the Lord and began to bow down to other false gods instead of being faithful to God. In the midst of that, God would occasionally raise up a deliverer. We've been introduced to a number of them over this year—guys like Barak, Samson, Gideon, and Deborah.

Now, as we come to the final chapters, from Judges chapter 17 through 21, the last five chapters of the Book of Judges, we are given just a brief overview. There are no judges mentioned, no deliverers mentioned during this period of time. We're just given an idea of the moral and spiritual condition of the people at that time.

The challenge with this is that you come here on a Sunday morning, and I open the Bible to a text that's describing a history that's some 3,000 years old, 3,200 years old. It's easy for us to look at this and ask, "How does this have anything to do with me? What is the application? What is the relevance for me in this text?" It's not wrong for us to think that way, but I hope that as we go through the text today, we will see that there are some connections here—some things that we can begin to see and understand in this passage of Scripture.

The condition of Israel is described for us in two verses that bookend this passage from chapters 17 to 21. It is kind of sandwiched between these two statements. The exact same words are found in Judges 17:6, which I mentioned last week, and the phrase is reiterated perfectly in Judges 21:25, the very last verse of the book. It says this: "In those days there was no king in Israel, and everyone did what was right in his own eyes." This is mentioned in Judges 17:6 and is rehearsed a second time in Judges 21:25.

What we have here is a period of time in Israel's history where they are in the land that God had promised them hundreds of years before to Abraham. As they are in the land, it is expected that they will be able to govern themselves according to God's law. God had given them the law and had called them to govern their lives accordingly. If they stepped out of line from that, there would be individuals, judges who understood the law, who could review what was going on and challenge and encourage them to walk in the law.

However, that wasn't working because everyone was doing what was right in their own eyes. They were not following the moral governance of God. We are in this period of time, which spans about 300 to 350 years, between the time that Israel took possession of the land under Joshua and the time that they finally say, as we see in the book of Samuel, "We want a king to rule over us." This is not working; everything is chaos. There is moral chaos and confusion. If only we had someone to govern and rule us, we want a king to rule over us.

This is the period of time where we are being prepared for the monarchy, the kings of Israel, to come into the storyline. This is that time when there was no king in Israel, and everyone did what was right in his own eyes. The first part of that clause, "In those days there was no king in Israel," appears two more times in chapter 18, verse 1, which we will see today, and then again in chapter 19, verse 1. The expectation of the author of this text is that when you hear the words "In those days there was no king in Israel," you will fill in the rest of the story: "and everyone did what was right in his own eyes."

Five chapters is a snapshot of all of that, and this becomes the theme of this period of time. Another generation arose that knew not the Lord nor the work which He had done in Israel. The children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord. That's Judges 2:1. In those days, there was no king in Israel, and everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

Here in the Book of Judges, we have an answer to the question: What happens when your culture has no moral governance or compass? What happens if the moral understanding is removed, or there is no agreed-upon objective standard of what is right and wrong? If you were out in the wilderness and had no compass, what is the likelihood that you would get lost? They had no moral compass, and we see the lostness of the people in this section of Scripture.

What happens when your culture has no moral governance, no compass, no objective standard, and no agreed-upon view of what is right and wrong? We are living in days like that. Why is this text, which is 3,000 years old, relevant for us? Because we are living in a time that is not all that dissimilar to the time in which the judges lived, to the time in which the man we were introduced to last week, Micah, lived.

In our day, it was much the same during this period of time. You will meet people who say things like, "Well, my truth is..." I always kind of cringe when I hear those words. I think to myself, "Is there not a truth that is the truth, the objective standard?" In 2024, in America and throughout Western culture, it is the reality that we do not have an agreed-upon moral theory or moral standard or ethical standard to rely upon.

This is becoming more and more of a consideration for us because, as of November 2021, we have something new that has been unleashed in our culture called artificial intelligence and large language models. In the decades to come, whether we like it or not, aspects of our culture are going to be ceded, and the control of things is going to be handed over to artificial intelligence to make decisions for us. Unfortunately, there are not too many people asking the question: What will rule and govern them? What value system, what moral theory, what ethical standard is going to be put in place that governs those things? We don't even have an agreed-upon ethical standard in our day.

A lot of people are thinking about this. This has actually become the basis of my own research and my doctoral work, which has to do with the ethics of artificial intelligence. It is a real question because if we're going to give control and authority into the hands of something to rule and govern, there needs to be some sort of ethical standard.

The children of Israel were facing a similar dilemma, albeit in a different context. They didn't have computers and server farms to rely upon, but they were certainly looking for a king who would have some sort of moral inclination. In this story, we zoom in and get close snapshots of what it looks like when a people no longer have a ruling governance of a moral theory that governs all.

The story in Judges 18 that we will look at this morning is a continuation of chapter 17, which we examined last week. If you were here, you were introduced to a man named Micah. If you were not here last week, let me summarize: we meet a man named Micah who, when we encounter him, is revealed to be a thief. He is presented to us in a time when there was no king in Israel, and everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

The first thing we learn about Micah is that he stole $660,000 worth of silver from his mother. That is not a small amount of money. You can imagine that if someone stole $60,000 worth of anything from you, you might be a little upset. In fact, you might react similarly to Micah's mother, who, upon discovering the theft, damned the person who stole the silver. She literally put a curse on the silver and the person who took the money.

Micah, after stealing 1,100 shekels of silver—more than $60,000 worth—eventually came to his mother, perhaps sheepishly, and said, "Mom, you remember that silver that went missing?" She responded, "You mean the 1,100 shekels of silver? Damn that person who took that money!" Micah then confessed, "Well, you know, I took it. The silver is with me."

His mother changed her tune quickly and said, "Oh, bless your heart, my son! Blessed be you of the Lord, my son." As he fessed up to stealing the silver from her, she added, "I had committed that money to you. I had dedicated it to the Lord for you, my son, so that you could take some of that silver and make an idol that we could worship God through worshiping this idol."

The lack of moral inclination and the total disregard for God's law is fascinating. These are the people of Israel, the ones who entered into a covenant with God. In the stipulations of that covenant, He had given them commandments. You know them as the Ten Commandments. The first one says, "You shall have no other gods before Me." The second one states, "You shall not make for yourself any carved image of any likeness or bow down to it." The third one says, "You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain."

One of the ways to take the name of God in vain is to worship something as God when that is not God. Here is Micah's mother and Micah, and they are blatantly breaking these commandments of God. First, he stole money from his mom. The eighth commandment says, "Thou shalt not steal." Of course, to steal the money, he coveted it, and the tenth commandment says, "Thou shalt not covet."

We have all these things happening here, and finally, when he confesses and returns the money, she says, "Well, I was really hoping that we could make a god to bow down to and worship as God with this silver." They justify their actions, saying, "Well, I guess that's perfectly fine." How could they do this? In those days, there was no king in Israel, and everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

Micah takes the silver from his mother, and after he returns it to her, he makes a god to worship, an idol. He eventually finds an individual who comes from the tribe of Levi. In the nation of Israel, there was a tribal group called the Levites, and they were the priests. This traveling Levite comes through, and Micah asks, "Will you be my priest?" The Levite agrees because he is going to make some money in the whole situation. He is looking for a place to live and some money, thinking, "Man, this is a great deal. You need a Levite; I'm a Levite. You have a place; I need a place. This will work."

They seal the deal, and now Micah has a replica of the Tabernacle in his home. Eventually, he staffs it with a Levite to handle all the things—his own personal priest. He concludes this with the very last words of Judges, chapter 17, verse 13: "Then Micah said, 'Now I know the Lord will be good to me since I have a Levite as priest.' I've checked off all the boxes; I've done all the things. Now, because I've done all the religious things, I know God is going to be good to me because I did all the things." In his mind, he thinks, "I do this, and You owe me, God."

Because Micah had a human-centered view of religious devotion to God, he was going to serve God in his own human-centered way for his own human-centered means. Now, I know God will be good to me because I did all of these things. Of course, it was right in Micah's eyes; he was just doing what he figured to be right. However, that doesn't mean it was righteous before God. It was right in his eyes, but this self-centered, ultimately selfish form of worship, which the Scriptures make very clear is sinful.

Micah's devotion to God, his love for God, led him to do things that appeared, on the outside, to be loving. If you look at them from a distance, he was giving sacrifices, offering prayers, and showing devotion to God. It looks like he was doing all the loving, devoted things to God, but he was only doing it to get something in return. So, what do we call it when someone does something that appears on the outside to be loving in order to try and get some sort of gain? We call it prostitution. Micah prostituted himself to God for personal gain.

It's so easy for me, and maybe for you, to point the finger in judgment and say, "Gosh, you're such a fool," and condemn him for all these things. The sobering challenge is that when I look in the mirror of the Scriptures, I see myself. I'm no different than Micah. I can be easily seduced into thinking that I do all these things so that I can get something from God. That's the challenge.

I know that most of you here this morning, especially in the second service, are super spiritual and would never do such a thing. But I'll confess to you that I can easily be seduced and tempted into serving God only for what I can get. Then the challenge is that we justify it. It's a convicting story when you see it in that light.

To ensure that we remember the whole situation going on here, the God-inspired author of Judges reminds us in chapter 18, verse 1, that in those days there was no king in Israel. How could all this chaos happen with Micah stealing from his mom, taking the money, and building an idol center, a cultic worship center in his home? How could this happen? Well, in those days, there was no king in Israel. At that same time, chapter 18, verse 1, states that the tribe of the Danites was involved. There were twelve tribes in Israel, and one of them was called Dan.

The Danites were seeking an inheritance for themselves to dwell in, for until that day, their inheritance among the tribes of Israel had not fallen to them. This is kind of interesting because it's a half-truth. Back at the end of Joshua, before he brought the children of Israel into the land and before he died, he divided the land of Canaan among the children of Israel by lot. What that meant is that all the elders and leaders of the tribes of Israel gathered with Joshua, and effectively, although it wasn't identical to this, they flipped a coin or cast the dice to figure out who would get certain portions of land.

Each of the twelve tribes was given a portion of inheritance in the Promised Land according to the lot they cast. Dan was given a piece of property in the central part of the nation of Israel in ancient times, which corresponds to the same basic geographic section of Israel that we see today. They were given this piece of land right in the middle of the nation of Israel. However, we read in Judges chapter 18 that, to this point, the tribe of Dan had not received their inheritance. That’s not exactly true; Joshua had given them an inheritance.

So, why did they not have their piece of ground in this passage? Judges chapter 1 opens with these words: "During that time, the Amorites forced the children of Dan into the mountains, for they would not allow them to come down into the valley because the Amorites were determined to dwell in the land." What’s going on here? The tribe of Dan was given an inheritance by God through Joshua, but they never actually took possession of it because it was too hard. They didn’t take possession of it because there was a group of enemies that lived there, and those enemies were too strong for them.

Even though God had said, "I will be with you, and I will fight for you, and I will give you the land; all you have to do is enter into it," they didn’t do it. They didn’t do it because it was just too difficult. When we read in this passage that they had not received their inheritance, that’s not exactly true. They were looking for an easier land to conquer, kind of the path of least resistance. God had given them this portion of land, but they thought, "Well, we can’t do that; it’s just kind of difficult. It’s not easy." I like easy; maybe you like easy. It would just be easier to do something else, to go somewhere else, maybe outside of God's inherited property.

He's given to us, but I'm sure the Lord will be with us because we're God's people. We can kind of do what we want. The tribe of Dan couldn't take the portion of the land that they were supposed to take because it was just too difficult. Maybe we're being told here, as my kids might say, that there was a whole bunch of betas in the tribe of Dan. They liked soy lattes, and I'm sorry if you like soy lattes, but they couldn't take the land. They got it given to them.

In very much the same way as Micah, whom we met in chapter 17, and the Levite that we met in chapter 17, the Danites that we meet here in chapter 18 are on a quest to find something new and better. However, they want to find something that is new and better than what God has given to them. They want to find something that's new, better, and easier. It would just be so much easier to get a new piece of land that's not as difficult as the old piece of land.

As we're going to see in this section of Scripture, they were content to do whatever they needed to do to achieve this. Whatever it takes, just like with Micah. If getting ahead meant stealing from your family, then steal from your family. If getting ahead means worshiping and serving idols, then Micah and his mother create a place where they worship and serve idols. If getting ahead means selling yourself to get whatever you can through your priestly prostitution, then the Levite will sell himself to get whatever he can. Whatever it takes.

What we see here reminds me of something I've observed, and it's rarely proved to be a good thing. Point number one, if you're taking notes: we tend to wander when we're not planted. Micah wasn't planted; he certainly wasn't founded upon the rock of God's Word. The Levite wasn't planted upon being faithful to God's command, and the Danites were not planted in the land that God had given to them.

It's not as if the tribe of Dan did not have an inheritance; they just didn't have an inheritance that was easy for them to take. They were unwilling to do this. In this, there's an admonition or an admission that they're not grateful to God for what God has given to them. They're not trusting in God to help them take full possession of what God has given to them, and they're not willing to take responsibility for what God has provided.

Given to them, they are what this pastor I mentioned last week from the 1960s, Paris Reidhead, identifies in his message "Ten Shekels and a Shirt" as those who have wanderlust and an itching foot. Wanderlust means they are just looking for something more; the grass is always greener on the other side kind of thinking. I have seen it in my life more than a few times, and maybe you've observed it as well.

It's the issue with the person where the job is not good enough, the salary is not high enough, the recognition is not frequent enough, the house is not big enough, the friends are not supportive enough, the church is not exciting enough, the wife is not intimate enough, and the husband is not kind enough.

Point number two, if you're taking notes: when enough is not enough, restlessness leads to compromise, discontent, and disobedience. When we're not content or happy with what we have, we seek out something else, often by the easiest means possible—the path of least resistance. We pursue something that seems more attractive, more comfortable, easier, or better. We have the itching foot and the wanderlust that causes us to seek temporary fixes, the worldly solutions to fill the void we have, instead of being faithful to what God has given us and called us to. We assume that the next thing will be the better thing and pursue those things instead of seeking after God and His enabling power to take possession of what He has given us.

This is exactly where Micah was, and the Levite was in chapter 17. It's exactly where the tribe of Dan is in chapter 18. We are introduced to five spies—five men—who set out from the tribe of Dan. In Judges 18:3, these five spies set out, and while they are traveling, they come to the house of Micah. The children of Dan, in verse 2, sent out five men of their family from the territory, men of valor from Zorah and Eshtaol, to spy out the land and search it. They said, "Go, search the land."

So they went to the mountains of Ephraim and came to the house of Micah, where they lodged. While they were at the house of Micah, they heard the voice of a young Levite who was there. They turned aside and said to the young Levite, "Who brought you here? What are you doing in this place? What do you have here?"

Five men from the tribe of Dan approached Micah, who had hired one of them to be his priest. They asked him to inquire of God so they could know whether their journey would be prosperous.

As these five men traveled, they turned aside to Micah's house. Perhaps they were considering starting a hamburger joint. When they arrived, they noticed that Micah's voice was different from the other people in the area; he had an accent that indicated he was from somewhere else. They asked him where he was from, and he replied, "I am a Levite from the tribe of Levi, but I am from Bethlehem in Judah."

They were surprised to learn that he did not live there. They inquired about what brought him to that place, and he explained that he had been hired by Micah to be his priest. The men were impressed and thought it was fortunate to have a priest with them on their mission. They asked him to pray to God on their behalf, hoping for a blessing for their journey.

Micah's priest blessed their journey, saying, "Go in peace; the presence of the Lord be with you." The five men then departed and continued on their way.

The geography of this journey is interesting. The people of Dan lived in the central part of Israel, while Micah's house was just north of them in the mountains of Ephraim. The Levite blessed their journey, and they traveled all the way to the northernmost tip of the land of Israel, actually beyond the territory allotted to God's people. They reached a town called Laish, where they found a people who dwelt safely, much like the Sidonians. Sidon is located in modern-day Lebanon along the coast.

The people of Laish were quiet and secure, with no rulers in the land to put them to shame. They were far from the Sidonians and had no ties with anyone. Upon arriving in this small town, the five Danite spies thought it was a sweet and beautiful place, situated on the foothills leading up into the mountains of Israel. The people there were peaceful and untroubled, making it an attractive location for them.

The opportunity they had been unwilling or unable to move into was what God had for them to possess—the land that God had given to them. Now, they had set out to find something easier and better, and they thought that they had found it. Isn't it always the case?

Point number three: another man's lot always looks a lot better than ours when we're discontent and restless. I know none of you have ever experienced this, but I'll confess to you that there have been times when it’s not just something that happens in business or in other areas of society; it happens for pastors in ministry too. You can go to a pastor's conference and meet a guy who pastors a church of 3,000, or you might meet someone who pastors a church of 6,000 or even 10,000. You think, "Oh man, they have it so easy! It would be so much nicer and so much easier if I just had tens of thousands of people."

It's not necessarily a bad thing for a church to grow; in fact, it would be an awesome thing if a church reaches more people. However, it can certainly be a bad thing if I find myself breaking the Tenth Commandment that says, "Thou shalt not covet." I start to think, "Oh, it would be so nice if I just had that thing. It would be so much better."

The Apostle Paul in the New Testament hints that his biggest area of struggle was covetousness. He alludes to this in Romans chapter 6 and Romans chapter 7, which gives some understanding of Paul's actions before he was a Christian, when he was Saul of Tarsus. He was so ambitious that he killed people to get what he wanted. You might wonder, "Why would you do that?" Well, he struggled with covetousness. The Scriptures say, "Thou shalt not covet," and the opposite of living in a place of covetousness is living in a place of contentment.

I don't know about you, but I have found that contentment is really hard. It's really difficult to be content. In fact, I would go so far as to say that it's almost impossible in and of myself to be content. There’s this famous verse that you may have heard before, because it’s very well-known: "I can do all things through Him who gives me strength." Some of you know this; it’s Philippians 4:13. But did you know the context of that verse is dealing with contentment?

Philippians 4:12 states, "I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things, I have learned both to be full and to be."

Hungry both to abound and to suffer need, he says, "I have learned in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content." Then he says, "I can do all things through Him who gives me strength." What's he saying there? He's saying that contentment is really hard; it's very difficult without God's help.

I find that there are many times over the years where I've had to pray, "God, can you please help me to be content?" It's really difficult. What we see here in these individuals is a discontentedness or a malcontentedness. Their discontent and malcontentedness lead them to act in disobedient and sinful ways because they are not under the ruling governance of God. There was no king in Israel, and everyone did what was right in their own eyes.

The spies came back, as noted in Judges 18. They returned to their brothers in the central part of Israel, and their brethren asked them, "What's your report?" They replied, "Oh man, we got a great report for you! We found the perfect place for us. Arise, let us go up against the people who live in Laish, for we have seen the land, and indeed it is very good."

Now, you have already been given a nice piece of land that God has provided in the Promised Land, but they had not taken possession of that piece because it was just too difficult. Instead, they found a new, really good piece of land. "Would you do nothing? Don't you think you should do something? Do not hesitate to go in and possess the land. When you go, you will come to a secure people in a large land, for God has given it into your hands—a place where there is no lack of anything that is on the earth."

The five spies returned to their brothers in the region of Dan and said, "Man, we have found the gem of the land! God must be giving it to us." In fact, we met a Levite who blessed us, so surely God is giving us this piece of land.

I think it is true that everybody is seeking the good life. People will define the good life differently. If you ask a dozen people what the good life is, you might get a dozen different ideas. However, there will be a lot of crossover, and everyone is seeking that good life. It looks something like this: a place where there is no lack of anything that is on the earth. Doesn't that sound like the good life? A place where there's no lack of anything? I think I'd like a life where there's no lack of anything.

When I get that bill from Dan McAllister for my property tax, I don't think, "Oh, that's a bummer." You got that this last week too, didn't you? There's no lack; I just think, "I have an abundance." So, there's no man that is the good life. I sure would like the good life, and the tribe of Dan wanted the good life. They were seeking the good life, and so they justify it by saying, "Well, the good life God has given into our hands. It's ours; we just need to take it."

We have been given this good life that God wants us to have. He wants us to have it, so if He wants us to have it, then it doesn't matter how we take it, even if that means the massacre of innocence. In Judges 18:11, the 600 men of the family of the Danites went from where they lived in the region of Dan, armed with weapons of war. They went up and encamped in Kiriath-Jearim, and they continued on their way to Laish.

Here's the picture: the five spies come back to their brothers and say, "We have found the land. It is the good life. We just need to go take it. It's much easier than this piece of land we have here. There are not many bad people there; we can just go take these people, no problem." They say this is great, so 600 of them armed themselves for battle and set out. They were on their way to take the land.

Now, it's interesting. If you read commentary on this passage of Scripture, many commentators agree that the people of Dan should have taken the land that God had given to them. The right response was for the 600 of them, armed for battle, to go and take the land that God had said was theirs. However, they didn't do that. Most commentators I've read agree they should have taken the land that they had been given by God, but there is disagreement among commentators as to whether or not what they are now doing—leaving their plot of land and going all the way up to this little secure town called Laish, far away from them in the northern part of the nation—is right.

Some say what they did is wrong, while others say they were okay to do this. I am of the opinion that they are not justified in what they are doing because they have not taken possession of what God had given to them, and now they are going to massacre a group of people. As they travel north, leaving Dan and going through the mountains of Ephraim, the five spies remember, "Hey, when we were on this trip last time, we stopped over at this place over here. They have good burgers, and there's this guy that serves there—he's Micah."

The Levite was someone they should stop in and see. In verse 13, they passed from there to the mountains of Ephraim and came to the house of Micah. The five men who had gone out to spy the country of Laish answered and said to their brethren, "Do you know something really interesting? In the house of this Micah guy, there is an ephod—that's the robe that the priest would wear during that time—and a household of idols, a carved image, and a molded image."

Now, if they were following the law, what should they do with these things? If they were following God's law, they should destroy these items because they are against God. So here, the five spies say to their brothers, "You know, in this house, there is this cultic worship center. Therefore, consider what you should do." If they considered what they should do in light of the law, they should destroy these items, but they did not do that.

Instead, they turned aside and came to the house of the young man, the Levite, to the house of Micah. They greeted him, and the 600 men who were armed with weapons of war, who were of the children of Dan, stood by at the entrance of the gate. The five spies who had gone out to spy the land entered the house and took the carved image, the ephod, the household idols, and the molded images. The priest stood by the door at the entrance of the gate with the 600 men who were armed with weapons of war.

When they went into Micah's house and took the carved image, the ephod, the household idols, and the molded image, the priest said to them, "What are you doing?" He might have expected their response to be, "These things are wrong; they are against God, so we are going to destroy them." But that is not what they said. Instead, they told him, "Shh, be quiet. Put your hand over your mouth and come with us. Be to us a father and a priest. Isn't it better for you to be the priest of an entire tribe than the priest of one man in his household?"

The priest's heart was glad. Why? Because he had been looking for a place. He had found a place with Micah, but it is better to be the priest of an entire tribe than the priest of one man. He received a better offer, so the priest's heart was glad. He took the ephod and the household idols, which he had stolen from Micah, just as Micah had stolen from his mother the carved image. He took his place among the people, positioning himself right in the middle of these six men to guard himself from Micah. Then they turned and departed, putting the little ones and the livestock from the goods in front of them.

A priest of an entire tribe is more significant than just the priest of one family in Israel. You should come with us. The priest's heart was glad.

Point number four: compromise makes one happy to play the harlot when the offer arises. James in the New Testament says each one is tempted when they are drawn away by their own desires and enticed. Certainly, the Levite was drawn away by his own desires and enticed here. The tribe of Dan was happy because now they had a priest, a Levite, to be with them in their new territory and their new ambitious endeavor. The Levite was happy; his heart was glad. I mean, bummer for Micah.

Where is Micah? In verse 22, when they were a good way from the house of Micah, the men who were in the houses near Micah's house gathered together and overtook the children of Dan. What happened? The Levite took everything that was Micah's, ransacked his little cultic worship center, and went on his way with the tribe of Dan. Micah came home, maybe from a long day at work, and he showed up to find his house completely ransacked. He exclaimed, "What on Earth has happened?" He called all his neighbors, who probably worshiped at his own little temple, together and said, "I've been robbed." They replied, "Well, let's go find the robbers."

So they got together and set out to track down the robbers. They had no idea they were going to find 600 men who were armed for war, but they were determined to find them because of the injustice of it all. Micah was angry. They finally pursued the children of Dan and called out to them in verse 23. The children of Dan turned around and said to Micah, "What ails you, and why have you gathered such a company together? What's going on?"

Micah arrived with his group of neighbors, ready to confront the situation. When they got there, they saw 600 armed men and asked, "What are you guys doing?" The children of Dan turned around and said, "What's your problem, man? What's your beef?" Micah replied, "You've taken away all of my gods that I made, and the priest—that's mine! You've gone away, and what more do I have?" He continued, "You say to me, 'What ails me?' You've robbed me! You've taken all my stuff, and you're asking me why I'm upset? I'm upset because you took all my stuff!"

Classic response. The children of Dan then said to him, "Do not let your voice be heard among us, lest angry men fall upon you and you lose your life and the lives of your household." This is the classic racket here, isn't it?

They said, "Hey, you might want to tone down your tone, Micah. You seem a little boisterous here. We have a lot of strong guys here that you don't want to upset. They might kill you and everyone in your household if you don't change your tune." This is what we call "Thug Justice," where might makes right.

It's fascinating because we have a lot of sinful things happening here, both with Micah and the tribe of Dan. Micah is upset with them, but it's like a guy getting upset because someone stole what he stole. Might makes right. How could any of this happen? Well, there was no king in Israel, and everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

So, the children of Dan went their way, and Micah saw that they were too strong for him. He turned and went back to his house. They took the things that Micah had made and the priest who belonged to him. They went to Laish, found a people quiet and secure, struck them with the edge of the sword, and massacred them. They burned the city with fire, and there was no one to deliver them because it was far away from anyone who could help them in the region of Sidon. They had no ties with anyone; it was in the valley that belongs to Beth-rehob.

After burning the city, they rebuilt it and dwelt there. Point number five: injustice thrives when might replaces righteousness. The tribe of Dan destroyed all the people who lived in Laish, burned the city, and rebuilt it. Then, verse 29 says they called the name of the city Dan, replacing the name from Laish to Dan after their own tribe, although the name was formerly Laish.

Verse 30 states that the children of Israel set up for themselves the carved image. They destroyed the city, rebuilt it, and took the image that they had taken from Micah's house to build an altar in the region of Dan. An amazing thing is that you can go to the ruins of the city of Dan today, and one of the most prominent features of the city is the ancient altar that was probably originally built by this group of people when they established that city.

What was the false god that they worshiped there? Other passages of Scripture say that it was an image of a golden calf, taking us all the way back to Mount Sinai. But then, the rest of the story—maybe you remember that old radio announcer Paul Harvey? "And that's the rest of the story." Or now, today, Mike Rowe has "The Way I Heard It." So, here's the rest of the story.

Verse 30 of Judges chapter 18 states that the Danites set up for themselves an idol. Jonathan, the son of Gersam, and the New King James Version refers to him as the son of Manasseh, along with his sons, were priests of the tribe of Dan until the time of the captivity of the land. However, if you read it in the New International Version, there seems to be an issue with the name Manasseh. In the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, it says the Danites set up for themselves an idol to worship in the region of Dan.

Jonathan, the Levite, was in the household of Micah and now comes with the Danites. His name was Jonathan, the son of Gersam, the son of Moses. Wait, you mean that same Moses who said to the children of Israel, "You shall have no other gods to bow down to, and you shall not make for yourselves any carved images, and you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain"? Yes, that Moses. This Levite is a descendant of Moses. If not his grandson, then he is one of his great-grandsons or great-great-grandsons, but he is in the lineage of Moses.

This tells us a very important thing: spirituality, religiousness, and righteousness are not genetically transferred. They might be virally transmitted; they might be caught and contagious, but you cannot expect that Moses's children and grandchildren will actually serve the Lord. In fact, they might bring the worst form of idolatry into the land. You may wonder how this could possibly happen. Well, in those days, there was no king in Israel, and everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

The inclination might be that if we only had a king, everything would be just fine. Isn't that how we often think? It seems that everything has fallen apart, and there have been times in the past when more people in our culture seemed to follow and serve God. Our culture appeared to be on a better path regarding righteousness, but now it seems like things have decayed. If only we had a better king to rule over us, that would fix it. This will be Israel's inclination in the next book, 1 Samuel: if only we had a king, that would solve our problems.

What we will discover is that this will not fix it. Why? Because the only thing that will fix it is a work of God, by His grace, by His Spirit, and by His gospel. This seems relevant somehow for 2024. I can't quite put my finger on it yet, but maybe next week we will see.

Stand and close in prayer. Father God, I pray that you would help us to learn from this text, even though it does seem so far in time and distance from us. God, would you speak to us from it? Give us wisdom for how we ought to live in our day.

Lord, help us. If there is any conviction in our hearts that we find ourselves following after the pattern of Micah, the Levite, or the Danites, may we come to you and confess. We thank you that if we confess our sins, you are faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness.

It is certain that when I look into the perfect law of liberty, the mirror that is the Scripture, I realize that there are areas of my heart that need to be transformed. I thank you, Lord, that you are able to sanctify, purify, and cleanse us from anything that is out of order with your nature and your word.

So I ask, God, that you would do that. Help me to be someone who is wholly dedicated and committed to you, and to be, in some way, a light that shines in a dark place. I pray this today in your name. Amen.