A Place Of Grace
10-18-26

  • God is on His Throne… There is a King!

    Psalm 103:19 “The Lord has established His throne in the heavens, And His sovereignty rules over all.”
    Psalm 47:8 “God reigns over the nations, God sits on His holy throne.”
    Lamentations 5:19 “You, O Lord, rule forever; Your throne is from generation to generation.”
    Daniel 4:34 even King Nebuchadnezzar declared of God… “I blessed the Most High and praised and honored Him who lives forever; For His dominion is an everlasting dominion, And His kingdom endures from generation to generation.”
    We have watched the cycle of Judges repeat: Sin → Oppression → Cry → Deliverance → Rest → Sin again.
    The spiral descended as we moved forward: And the decline wasn’t localized.
    It has moved across the land.
    It has moved across generations and through families
    It has even impacted the judges themselves: The people God raises up to deliver Israel increasingly began to resemble the culture from which Israel needed deliverance
    It has moved into Israel's worship… today we see the impact it had even on the Levites, ones God set apart to serve him in the Tabernacle and leading spiritually.
    In our observation of this ugly book that reveals mankind’s hearts we see:
    While YES, God remains on His Throne from everlasting to everlasting
    They may acknowledge His existence and seek His help while resisting His authority.
    In Chapters 17-21 the writer of Judges repeats the statement:
    Judges 17:6 NASB95
    In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes.
    Judges 18:1 NASB95
    In those days there was no king of Israel; …
    Judges 19:1 NASB95
    Now it came about in those days, when there was no king in Israel…
    The book closes with this assessment:
    Judges 21:25 NASB95
    In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
    This two fold statement that says so much…
    NO KING
    Israel had no earthly king, and increasingly refused to submit to their heavenly King.
    RIGHT IN THIER OWN EYES
    God’s Truth no longer defined “right” for them…
    Judges hasn’t simply shown us people intentionally choosing what they know is evil.
    It shows something perhaps more dangerous: People deciding for themselves what is good.
    Judges answers the question of: "What happens when God's people stop living according to God's Word?" & instead… DO RIGHT IN OUR OWN EYES
    Judges is a record of what happens when God’s people replace God’s authority and Truth with thier own…

    The Narrative of Judges 17-21

    These chapters demonstrate well how… “What we Believe impacts Behavior…”
    Chapters 17-18 Follows a Levite who settles in the hill country of Ephraim, where he becomes entangled with a man named Micah who has a household religious setup.
    Micah establishes a private shrine, makes idols, appoints priests, and assumes that having a Levite guarantees God’s blessing.
    Later, the tribe of Dan, seeking new territory after failing to secure their original allotment, discovers Micah’s shrine and steals the idol, and persuades his priest to accompany them. They establish their own sanctuary of idolatrous worship in the conquered land.
    These chapters illustrate the religious chaos into which Israel had fallen.
    In these chapters we see worship according to personal preference and how personal corruption becomes tribal corruption!
    People use God’s name (spiritual talk) while disregarding God’s instructions.
    Religious confidence and apparent success do not establish God’s approval.
    Chapters 19-21 Recounts a second Levite’s journey from Ephraim to Bethlehem to retrieve his concubine, who had abandoned him and returned to her father’s house.
    The Levite seeks safety among fellow Israelites, but Gibeah becomes the setting for sexual violence, betrayal, and his concubine’s death.
    The Levite dismembers her body and summons national outrage & Benjamin refuses to surrender Gibeah’s offenders.
    The narrative escalates into violence and tribal warfare prompting the other tribes to wage war against Benjamin in response.
    God authorizes battle and grants victory; Israel then carries the destruction into Benjamin’s settlements, without a recorded command to eliminate the tribe.
    Israel’s outrage at Gibeah was warranted. That warranted outrage did not make every proposed remedy righteous.
    Doing right in our own eyes can include opposing real wickedness, using religious language, and feeling justified—while refusing to let God govern our response.
    Israel mourns Benjamin’s near extinction, then obtains wives for the survivors through another massacre and the seizure of women.
    We see in these chapters how Israel becomes horrifyingly like Sodom, they protected wickedness and thier human solutions multiply the evil
    We ironically observe people trying to repair the consequences of their decisions without abandoning their self-directed ways.
    The progression moves from corrupted worship to corrupted community life.
    They fail to see God as King, therefore, why obey Him, why look to His decrees as the gauge for what is right or wrong? Why seek what He wants in a situations?

    Eli, A Levite Priest

    The last verse of Judges appears discouraging, dark and ominous… as it describes a people, a nation, and worship.
    This was also true of the priests:
    In 1 Samuel we see a priest named Eli. Though apparently a moral man himself, had failed in dealing with his priestly sons. He rebuked his sons verbally but failed to take the action their wickedness required, permitting thier evil actions to continue:
    They took the choice meat of the sacrifices and offerings belonging to the Lord for themselves (thier own appetite)
    They also engaged in sexual acts with women serving at the tabernacle entrance
    1 Samuel 2:12-13 says this about his sons…
    1 Samuel 2:12–13 NASB95
    Now the sons of Eli were worthless men; they did not know the Lord and the custom of the priests with the people…
    The phrase that captures the heart issue of Judges continues to ring true… “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”

    BUT GOD…

    Why would God preserve such an ugly book like Judges, revealing the depravity of mankind’s heart?
    Why would God fill Scripture with narratives centered around failure?
    Why have we spent time studying one of the darkest books in the Bible?
    Because ugly stories often reveal beautiful truth concerning God!
    because it reveals God… His Holiness, Mercy, and Grace because it reveals us… our depravity, our justifications, and OUR NEED!!!
    Where do you acknowledge God’s authority… while resisting what His Word requires?
    Your family loyalties
    Your personal desires
    Your worship preferences
    Your responses to wrongdoing or sin
    People can acknowledge God, use spiritual language, and oppose genuine evil while still resisting His authority.
    God never ceased to sit on His Throne through the whole time of Judges. ( Neither has He in your life as well. ) He has remained Sovereign and is working in a Providential way:
    In Judges we see there was no king recognized in Israel
    In Ruth we saw a work of Redemption as God preserved a crucial line of Judah
    The birth of Obed would bring about a great grandson named David
    As Samuel opens up its pages we see one other Levite family…
    A son is given by God in response to a Godly mother’s prayer
    1 Samuel 2:10 captures a segment of her prayer…
    1 Samuel 2:10 NASB95
    “Those who contend with the Lord will be shattered; Against them He will thunder in the heavens, The Lord will judge the ends of the earth; And He will give strength to His king, And will exalt the horn of His anointed.”
    BUT GOD has a divine purpose for this boy Samuel…

    Something or Someone… is coming!

    This boy Samuel will grown into a Godly man…
    He would serve as a PRIEST
    He would serve as LAST OF THE JUDGES
    He would serve as a PROPHET
    … And he would be a KING MAKER!
    observing Samuel being last of the Judges we will come to see:
    Isreal had NO king
    There is a NEED for a King
    God will reveal the PROMISED King
    … and ultimately God will PROVIDE the King they truly NEED
    I am excited as all of this unfolds in our next series… as we explore “THE COMING KING!”

      • Judges 17:6NASB95

      • Judges 18:1NASB95

      • Judges 19:1NASB95

      • Judges 21:25NASB95

      • Judges 17–21NASB95

      • 1 Samuel 2:12–13NASB95

      • 1 Samuel 2:10NASB95

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