Midweek Bible Study Live

[Music] um [Music] [Music] [Music] you [Music] my [Music] this [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so good evening welcome to our midweek bible studies it is a joy to have you with us tonight welcome glad to that you are with us in worship and in study of the word we've had a good good day today and it's been a great week so far so we are coming to jump right into the word of god on tonight and spend this time in study in study so let me just say welcome to each of you do me a favor if this is your first time sharing with us in a midweek bible studies would you please put that in the chat space if this is your first time sharing let us know your first timer and if this is not your first time but you are sharing from outside of the city and watching outside of the city or the state even or even the country for that matter please put that in the chat space as well so we can get a chance to greet you and to thank you for being a part of the experience tonight all right well i am excited about our study tonight so let's jump into uh the word of god but before we do let's pray let's ask god to be with us to bless our time together tonight to send the presence of his holy spirit with us as we study the word father i thank you that you have called us to this place of worship you've called us to this place of study to hear your word to be encouraged by your word to grow by your word and we thank you god we thank you for this medium of technology that allows us to stream this to the different homes and families that are receiving them thank you god that you have enabled us to be a blessing to so many people so now father we ask that as we are sharing as we are ministering and as we are teaching tonight that you would allow for your spirit to take control and that you would have your way we ask now for the perfect teaching ministry of the holy spirit that you would do what only you are able to do lord we admit that our study tonight is difficult it's difficult to hear some of the things that this book of judges is teaching so i pray that you will give us compassion as we teach but also give us conviction as we listen allow us to hear the voice of the spirit speaking to us tonight and i'll give you praise for it thank you god for challenging us in so many ways we ask now for your favor over our time of study in jesus name a man and amen again well one more time welcome to our midweek bible studies i want to make sure that you guys are aware of a couple things one um just want to make sure that you know that we do have a return date for coming back into the sanctuary but if we need to make a change to that date we will um so far the date stands at the second sunday in october but if that is needed to change we will certainly make that change so just want you to be fully aware that if we need to make a change we certainly will do that um we are watching the numbers every week i get a copy of them every week and if we see that the spike is continuing because it is continuing when we decided to return to in-person worship services it was in a downward spiral or the um the trajectory was going down and the covet cases were decreasing now that the delta variant is causing a lot of havoc and it is causing the cases to rise again in terms of new cases of covet 19 as well as hospitalizations so as a result of that we want to watch it carefully and if we need to change our return date we'll let you know um and that will happen this month you'll know it this month as soon as we make that decision as it stands right now we are returning uh on the second sunday of october please listen for any future updates all god's people said amen to that also want to mention that we are asking if you would uh please register your membership status we have so many of you that have already registered and we could not be happier that that has taken place thank you so many of you have already registered but there are many more of you that need to get registered for our membership status our membership data update and we are in the final stages of that update and if you have not yet registered your membership you want to do that right now you can do it now simply go to our website which is www.newlifeatl.org go to our website you'll see the membership renewal banner right in the what's happening at new life section just click on that banner and it will uh take you to the page where you can get registered it's very simple it's very easy to do it takes five minutes to get it done but i'm just asking you to not not wait and don't procrastinate if you do not register we do not have a record of you being a member of our church if you do not register we do not have a record of you being a member of our church that's how critical this is so we need you to get registered many people have wondered why are we doing this well because our church has grown so much we had to switch databases we had to go to a new database system and we wanted to be certain that you are registered in that new database system so please get registered right away and all god's people said amen to that all right i have one final announcement to make and that is how saddened i am that we have had to discontinue or we've we've done our last i should say our last uh morning monday morning prayer and um so it's just it's just sad for me because i've enjoyed spending the time with you every single monday morning uh but on the other side it does allow us an opportunity to take a break from uh presenting those uh those worship experiences every monday but we'll be back for more worship and more worship opportunities and more connecting opportunities but thank you to each of you that have been with us for the entire uh year almost for the balance of the year you've been with us thank you so much for participating in our monday morning prayers and thank you for praying for my strength and my wife's strength as we've been presenting them every monday thank you so much for all of your prayers and your support all right it is giving time time to honor god with our gifts to take this moment to give to the work of ministry and to give to what god is doing in his kingdom through this local church all of you know that on wednesday nights we take this opportunity to minister to our community financially so everything that is given on wednesday night goes directly into our community every bit of it every dime that's given so please give generously give confidently uh give liberally and give in faith tonight not only are you blessing homes and families in the community that need it but you're also blessing your own family and you're blessing your own home you are allowing this as an opportunity for you to be blessed that god is able to use this as a blessing for your home and for your family so i strongly encourage you to give faithfully and give generously tonight three ways in which you're able to give you can give online by going to new life dash atl dot o r g forward slash giving or you can go to our home page and just click on the giving uh tab that's at the very top menu uh button or navigational bar i should say secondly you can give to text by texting the word new life atl to the number seven seven nine seven seven seven seven nine seven seven you can give that way and then lastly you can send in your gifts to new life church 3592 flat shoals road decatur georgia 300-34 you can send in your gifts there and we'd be so so happy to receive them and make sure that they get applied in the area of ministry that matches your intent please make it a point to give tonight and to be generous in doing so let's pray let's ask god to bless us as we give father i thank you that you have called us to give you've blessed us to be a blessing to others now father as we give we pray that you would receive our gifts let them bless the kingdom of god i pray that your ministry goes forth because your people have been generous in giving and then return back to every home and every house blessings upon blessings upon blessings because of their faithfulness in giving and we give your name praise in jesus name a man and a man again all right let's take this as a opportunity to give let's take this moment to give [Music] all right all god's people said amen all righty let me um make my gifts tonight [Music] a man amen amen all right well let's jump right into the word of god tonight let's get ready to study open your bibles to the book of judges the book of judges and this is the second to the last lesson that we will have in this book and i know that you are happy that this uh this book is is almost over i know you're happy i know that i am it's been a very difficult book to teach it's a difficult book to teach not because of the complexity of the content the content is very straightforward it's not complex content at all but it's difficult to teach because of the challenge that the content presents to your own moral understanding of christ of life your relationship with god it presents such a conviction in the area of sin and it makes this book difficult to teach and difficult to hear because it's a mirror it's a mirror of conviction as it relates to our walk with god and our individual sins it is a book about disobeying god about disobedience and it speaks about this disobedience in very very graphic and detailed terms now there are of course the theological challenges of the book and the issues um that relate to war and uh annihilating a group and annihilating tribes and the canaanites and all those theological concerns yes those are there but at the end of the day the book is about how god handles our sin what god does when we sin how he responds to our sin that's at the end of the day what this book is about and it's hard to hear because all of us said all of us commit sins the challenge is when you're teaching the book of judges that it can be so convicting that people fall into two categories category number one is i can't get it right so why even try there's no way that i can get this right um i can't agree with what god says i should be doing i'm i'm wrong here and i'm wrong there and i'm wrong in this so why even try and these are the folks who morally quit they just morally quit you know they go through the motions but morally they've checked out they are not trying to be righteous or live right any longer and then you have the other extreme that's one extreme pretty extreme you have the other extreme of those folks who they just beat themselves up they beat themselves up trying to do it trying to get it right don't want to disobey god don't want to fall into the sins that judges is warning about don't want to live in that particular way and they just kind of beat themselves up and they slip into this guilt and shame those are the two deep extremes what i want you to do is i want you to find yourself somewhere in the middle of this somewhere in the middle in the middle where i've not morally checked out i i know this is the standard i know this is what god has called me to do i know that this is righteous living i know that this is the way god wants me to live and i want to obey god i want to obey god but then on the other side you are saying but when i do miss it and when i do fall and when i do sin i have a savior jesus christ who forgives me of my sin so i don't wallow in guilt and shame because he has forgiven me of sin i am forgiven by the blood of jesus christ that i'm somewhere in this middle that i want to obey god i desire to obey god and i am living to do it i'm living to obey him i'm living to honor him but i won't fall into guilt and shame when my sin is presented before me that i will not allow for condemnation to come along with the conviction the conviction comes but not with condemnation now here's here's here's what i want to challenge you in that when you are finding your your your space in the middle of those two extremes and you're finding your space with the word of god trusting in the forgiveness of jesus christ but desiring to live and obey god and not commit sins having that that that balance two things i want to make sure you know number one the spirit of god seeks to drive us toward righteousness the spirit of god when you find that comfortable space now comes the holy spirit who seeks to drive us toward righteousness so it convicts us it it gives us a passion and a desire to live right before god to live holy and allow the spirit to do its job don't fall into guilt and condemnation whenever you sin and mess up and don't check out because you can't do it you can't get it right but allow the holy spirit to drive us toward righteousness to convict us toward righteousness that's number one allow the spirit of god to do his job to do his job secondly i want you to recognize as you mature in the things of god as you mature as god seeks to use you more as god seeks to get more glory out of your life as you grow in your walk with god as you grow and how you are used in the kingdom of god there should be a natural yearning for righteousness a natural yearning to do what honors god a natural yearning a natural desire a natural craving to do what honors god the spirit of god aids me in doing it it drives me towards it but then i myself also have a heart that desires to obey and honor god so that's what i want the book of judges to do to bring the ministry of the holy spirit into your life and to show you that natural desire of your heart to obey god not to get you into moral i quit you know i'm moral retirement i can't get it right so i'ma stop trying and not to get you into guilt and shame because i've tried and tried and tried and keep failing and keep failing and keep failing i want to bring you to a place of conviction and not condemnation that's why i believe god included this book is that it might not only bring us to a place of conviction but it might show us the dangers that are attached when we disobey god all right so having said that we have been talking in this in this book about what disobedience looks like we're now in chapter number 19 20 and 21 the last three chapters of the book and we're going to see disobedience sin immorality we're going to see chaos and corruption happen at the highest levels you can imagine i mean as a matter of fact the chapter that we're looking at tonight it is it's so heinous and it is so hard to read it's hard to read it's hard to hear that i've often wondered how in the world do you teach this how how can you teach this chapter there isn't anything in the chapter nothing at all in this chapter that any of us want to read i mean it talks about one ugly ugly theme after another ugly theme in this chapter but we're going to study it and find out why god placed it in the scriptures and why we must eat the whole scroll and study this book so we get a picture of disobedience and disobedience gets seen in its clearest light the further we get to the end of the book we start seeing the disobedience in a clearer light now we have already looked at micah micah is not a judge micah is a man who represents the moral decline of the nation of israel he's a man who represents how morally low israel has come how morally low israel has fallen and he is we told you his story last time and the whole aspect of micah's story talks to us about spiritual ignorance the danger of being ignorant of the things of god that he was just ignorant but it was a deceptive ignorance because he thought he knew he he thought he knew what was right he thought he knew the way that he should go he thought he knew what was appropriate what was spiritually acceptable he was completely ignorant but he was deceived by his own ignorance that's a danger for us to be deceived by our ignorance it's one thing to not know we understand that you don't know and you don't but when you don't know but you think you do when you don't know but you think you do know the the definition of that is called a fool foolishness it is foolish whenever you act as if you know when you don't it is prideful a prideful foolishness whenever you refuse to be corrected or instructed or taught and the whole nature of spiritual ignorance is that it is meant to deceive now not ignorance not ignorance i mean you cannot know natural things but whenever you don't know spiritual things spiritual things satan uses that kind of ignorance to deceive us to make us think that we are fine we understand we know and we'll talk about why that was so dangerous all right and so we saw four deceptions in micah's experience one was religious superstition deceived him he felt like he could give authority and power that belonged to god to adamant and inanimate things religious superstition this is this whole idea of religiosity that if i just you know i just pray a certain way or do a certain thing surely god is going to help me or god he helps me through all these other means around me and we get into silly things like luck and chance and ways in which we live our lives not depending on god but really depending on ourselves depending on fate depending on life but not depending on god's religious superstition then deception number two is religious insincerity this is whenever i don't really want to know what god wants i don't really want to know god's will i don't really want to know what god desires for me i just want to do what i what i want to do and i want god to rubber stamp it with a yes that i am not sincere about my my desire to know his will i'm not sincere it's a religious insincerity that i do all the right things say all the right words but it's not coming from a pure heart that i have ulterior motives in the prayers that i make this is in sincerity deception number three is religious celebratism religious celebratism or celebrity or celebrityism is whenever i am attaching my faith to a personality that my faith and my experience with god is attached to a person a personality a denomination a church um a particular kind of faith a kind of belief system i'm attached to baptist or or pentecostal or i'm attached to charismatic or i'm attached to this bishop or that preacher or that person or my grandmother's faith or my mom's faith or my dad's faith or the legend of of the people in my life who have honored god i'm attaching my faith to that anytime that you attach your faith to anything other than god other than god through the blood of jesus christ any time you attach your faith to anything other than god you have gotten into celebritism you are making things or people larger larger than they are in the eyes of god when you make things and people larger than they are in the eyes of god that is religious celebrities and then of course deception number four and lastly is religious idolatrism religious idolatrism we're going to talk a little bit about this idea of idolatry idolatry the issue that i make something out of a god that is not god and so i wanted to be sure that we had some good definitions for idolatry because it's going to set the stage for a good bit of our conversation on tonight idolatry it is any human invention that serves as a replacement for a spiritual truth this is the broader definition of idolatry it is any human invention any human idea any human idea any human concept that serves as a replacement for a spiritual truth that whenever i replace a spiritual truth this is god this is christ this is grace this is salvation this is mercy this is the favor of god a spiritual truth this is the doctrines of god this is atonement this is the doctrine of the cross the blood of jesus any human invention any idea that serves as a replacement for spiritual truth that is idolatry whenever i replace god and all things related to god with any other idea any other idea and so if i can make i can make my job i can make my career i can make um the money i can make power or image a god because i replace the spiritual truths about god with my job my money my career my image my status and etc etc etc the number two is any human affection any human experience or any human desire that occupies a space in one's heart that god uniquely desires to occupy any human affection any human experience in any human desire affection this is the passions and the loves and the things that i have as my cravings any human affection the things i love any human experience of things that have happened to me that i've gone through any human desire anything that i want any cravings that i may have anything that brings me a sense of pleasure or satisfaction or gratification any one of these things that occupies a space in my heart that god uniquely desires to occupy that is idolatry that is idolatry and here's the point here's the point all of us have done it all of us have done it don't get in to con condemnation don't go to either one of those extremes stay with me here in the middle of the road all of us have done it and i believe that the book of judges exists so that we will allow the conviction not the condemnation but the conviction of the holy spirit to minister to us when we have done it if we are still doing it and how to correct it because here's the thing here's the thing you and i are held accountable for it not condemnation no but judgment yes not not condemnation not your worthless and you're no good not that kind of stuff but judgment yes that disobedience idolatry of any kind brings about the judgment of god these are the consequences attached to my sin my transgression my trespass that's judgment and i don't want you to be judged and i don't want to be judged either but i do know that whenever we are refusing to accept conviction when we refuse to allow the holy spirit to drive us to a place of repentance we invite that judgment into our life one of the areas that we are judged in is idolatry now idolatry is at a deep deep level of iniquity a deep level of iniquity and it allows you to sink into this abyss that once you start down the idle mountain once you start sliding down the idle slope once you get on that slope man it goes deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper until you're so deep you don't recognize that you're in that abyss anymore and this is why teaching this becomes so critical and so important all right so your bibles are open to judges chapter 19 and um we're going to talk about spiritual reprobation spiritual reprobation looking at the lessons of the levite and his concubine the levite and his concubine we're talking tonight about the tragedy of abandoning god the tragedy of abandoning god this is looking at spiritual reprobation everybody say reprobation go ahead and say it right where you're sitting right in your living room or in your home reprobation reprobation you you you may not understand fully what that term means but you do know what the term probation means and i've taught this before probation probation actually comes from the latin word probatum and probatimo probate us what it means is to give opportunity for testing to show worthiness to test or try to for the purpose of proving worthiness that's what probatus means or probatum in the latin means it means to test or try to prove worthiness so whenever you are uh incarcerated and you get out of jail they allow you to go through a time of probation this time of probation is allowing you the opportunity to prove your worthiness to prove or be tested in the area of your worthiness and that testing period you can't commit any crimes and you can't have anything that's you know that's uh that's criminal in nature during this testing period so you can prove you are worthy to be back in society that's what probation is about so then if that's probation testing a testing season to prove my worthiness then reprobation or reprobation is the reversal of that re to reverse re can mean to do over again yes but re also means to reverse you can reverse the probation to reverse the probation is that i have proven not that i am worthy i've proven that i am unworthy i've proven that i do not belong in society i've proven that i have i've failed the test so i am having my probation revoked that is what reprobation means reprobation is a place that people get to it is a place whenever they are beyond the normal reaches of human common grace they are beyond the normal reaches of common grace this is if they're going to change if they're going to be redeemed if they're going to be saved or salvaged something uncommon is going to have to happen god is going to have to either allow something uncommon or cause something uncommon because this person is so reprobate they are so steeped in their sin that they are beyond the common reaches the human reaches rather of common grace and so god has to bring something unique and something specific in their life that is uncommon now you know that there has been there are many of you that are listening to me and watching me and you've had this happen to you this has been how many of us came to faith that we came to faith because god had to allow something uncommon to reach us that we had reached such a point of reprobation whether it is in our sin or whether it is in our iniquity or whether it is in our own transgressions but we had reached such a place of reprobation that in order for us to be reached god had to allow or cause allow or cause something significantly uncommon to happen in order for us to be redeemed now i want to be very very clear very clear for some people the preaching of the gospel is all they need they come to church they hear the gospel is preached and that's all that they need that message is so powerful so clear their hearts are ready to receive for other people man they've been in church they can hear sermon after sermon after sermon the heart is so dark so hard so callous that it's going to take something else to break up that fallow ground so the seed of the word can be planted in it jesus spoke about this he spoke about four conditions of the heart there's a condition of the heart where it's basically by the wayside this is seed that is sown by the wayside this is seed that is sown on a heart so hard so cemented that it never even finds dirt never even finds root that this particular seed gets taken by the enemy immediately quickly as soon as it's sown the enemy comes and takes it up the second kind of heart is the heart that has is stony ground this is heart that is stony ground it's it's it's it's it's got some earth but it's got stones in it and it's hard for the roots to take hold because the stones are there these stones represent all the cares of the world all the issues that we deal with the things that make finding the getting the word of god down in the root of our heart makes it difficult either our pride or our pain pride or pain either one because those are the stones of life and then you've got this other kind of ground which is shallow ground very shallow these are folks who don't think hard about god don't think much about spiritual things they're just very shallow there's no depth to them so they hear the word of god and quickly receive the word of god immediately man they just hear it but it's all so insincere it's all built on something so surface and so shallow things like i want god to pay the bills and god to make me happy and god to give me some blessing or god to give some some favor in my life or i wanna i wanna have some joy it's just shallow things it's health wealth prosperity type gospel and it's quickly you receive it you adopt the word of god you believe it you go strong and the moment that the sun starts shining the moment that the heat of the day starts beaming down on that heart it's going to wither up and dry that seed and dry up that plant because the roots never did go down deep because there was no depth to the faith the faith did not have any depth there are people that fit those three categories they are so rocky they are so stoning that the word is choked out by pain or pleasures by pain or pleasures it chokes out the word and there are other people that are so shallow they're so surface level so shallow that the word of god could never find any depth in their life at all they only want what they can get from god they don't want to give anything to god then there are people that have this wayside kind of heart cement it is cement there's no dirt at all it's pure semen and every time you sow the word the enemy comes and snatches up that word immediately because it's sown on cement that cemented heart that's reprobation that's reprobation it's at a place where the only way the word of god is going to find root in that person's life is if god does something uncommon and breaks up that ground so the word of god can find root israel had gotten to a reprobate place started off in judges one on their way cycle after cycle after cycle of disobedience and oppression then calling out to god he sends a deliverer then disobedience and oppression he calls out to god and he sends another deliverer this happened in seven cycles seven cycles of people who have the covenant of god who know god who are god's chosen people that god brought them out of egypt through the red sea chosen people these are god's people but because they have made a habit they've made a habit of disobeying god a habit of forsaking god a habit of leaving god a habit of coming back and leaving coming back and leaving coming back and leaving that now they've gotten to a place where the cycle doesn't even happen anymore the cycle no longer happens after chapter number 17. samson is the last judge that speaks in this cycle now they've gone into such deep reprobation that every story after this is a story of significant moral decline now we're talking about the tragedy of abandoning god abandoning god we learned this from the lesson of the levite and his concubine we go from conquest to compromise down to corruption this is the whole trajectory of the book of judges it begins off in conquest they're fighting the canaanites and they're taking the land but it slowly degrades in the compromise and now they've compromised their faith they've compromised their morals they've compromised their values they've slowly sunk into a compromising position before the enemy they do a little good do a little evil they mix the evil in with the good they call the good evil and the evil good they're mixing terms and they're sort of mixing up this righteousness and unrighteousness this good and bad and that's compromise they've followed the canaanites they've married the canaanite uh women and sons they've intermarried with canaanite families they have adopted canaanite gods canaanite ideologies canaanite theologies canaanite perspectives on faith and religion they've adopted these idols that's compromise and when the compromise never gets remedied it moves them to a place of corruption to a place of corruption all right so what i want to do is i want us to take a real good look at what is mentioned here in judges chapter number 19. and judges 19 i'm going to read this story to you it won't be on the screen and so i'll read this story to you and um we'll come back and take a look at it here's here's what it says and it came to pass in those days when there was no king in israel no king in israel this is the catchphrase of the last four chapters of the book of judges no king in israel this catchphrase actually begins in judges chapter number 17. in judges 17 and verse 6 it says and there was no king in israel but every man did what was right in his own eyes it says there was no king in israel and every man did what was right in his own eyes it ends the last verse of the book of judges ends with that exact same phrase it says the last verse of the book of judges that there was no king in israel in those days there was no king in israel every man did that which was right in his own eyes this is the way in which they lived their life they did whatever they wanted to do they lived by their own choices by their own decisions every man did whatever every man thought he could do that was right so it says in verse number one of judges chapter number 19. it says and it came to pass in those days when there was no king in israel that there was a certain levite so journeying on the side of mount ephraim who took to him a concubine out of bethlehem judah now this is important because the levites are the priest this is a priest he's in the priestly tribe now whether he is a functioning priest or not we doubt it but he is of the priestly tribe which would mean all the levites are priests they're all priests they have a moral responsibility to honor god as a priest he is not to have a concubine and this priest takes it on a concubine a concubine is basically it is a second wife so he has a wife and then he has a servant girl who lives in his home whom he has taken as a second wife and she has a responsibility of bearing children unto him much like the concubines of jacob remember uh leah and uh and rachel but there were two concubines bill ha and zilpah just like abraham had the concubine of hagar there is sarah his wife in hagar the concubine you'll know that this whole idea of concubines it is servants who serve in the home whom the men would take or the leader of that home would take as a second wife this was not to be done for the levites for the priestly tribe he has taken a concubine it says in his concupine his concubine played the against him and went away from him under her father's house to bethlehem judah and was there four whole months and so here you have this levites concubine who now plays the as the bible says here in the king james version and goes and she is in these illicit affairs she's in several illicit affairs and she then runs away from her husband and goes to live with her father back to her father's home in bethlehem judah bethlehem is the same place that jesus was born now here you have a judite woman who is living in bethlehem judah she is a servant girl in a levites home the levite marries her as a concubine obviously she doesn't want to be as concubine she now leaves them she becomes a harlot in the streets he obviously hears of this so i would suspect out of fear for her life she goes to live back with her father now note that a harlot or a woman who has lived who has had affairs this particular person the scriptures would say needs to be stoned or should be stoned so to save her life she goes to live with her father now it says that uh in verse number three and her husband arose and went after her to speak friendly under her and to bring her again having his servant with him and a couple of donkeys and uh she brought him into her father's house and when the father of the damsel saw him he rejoiced to meet him now this father never met this man this is his daughter's husband which of course she is concubine and she has now played the harlot she's now had his illicit affairs on him he could very well be coming for revenge or coming for biblical justice to stone her as the law would require but he comes and speaks friendly to her he loves her josephus when he tells about this particular story josephus is a jewish historian when he gives the history of this particular story josephus adds a bit more information to this that we don't know if it's true or not but this is certainly from joseph's a historian's perspective who is a jewish man he says that this relationship between the concubine and the levite was contentious that the levite loved this beautiful concubine this beautiful damsel this beautiful girl but she did not love him more than likely there was a significant age difference that he was significantly older than she was and probably not the kind of man that she would have wanted that she wanted someone different someone that was younger and someone more vibrant but this is the man who owns her so he owns her and has forced her hand into marriage she is not married because she wants to be she's married because she's forced to be married now she goes out and she has these affairs which josephus says is not harlotry josephus says she goes out looking for a regular true love relationship as she is a young girl not wanting to give children to this look to this levite but having a love relationship where she bears children in love this is her desire to do then the levite hears of this and he goes searching for her she runs to her father's house now you'll see this enormous hospitality that takes place in the father's home so it says in verse 5 of judges chapter number 7 chapter number 19 it says 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 the concubine's father said unto his son-in-law comfort your heart with a morsel of bread and afterward go your way so they sat back down this is the levite his concubine and the damsel's father they sat down and did eat and drank both of them together for the damsel's father had said unto the man be content i pray you and tarry all night and let your heart be merry when the man rose up to depart obviously the next day his father-in-law urged him therefore he lodged there again so now he stayed two nights longer than he intended and he arose early in the morning on the fifth day to depart and the damsel's father said comfort your heart i pray you and they tarried until afternoon and they both did eat and when the man rose up to depart he and his concubine and his servant his father-in-law the damsel's father said unto him behold now the day draws toward evening i beg you tarry all night behold the day grows to an end lodge here that your heart may be merry and tomorrow get up early and be on your way that you may go home verse says verse 10 says the man would not tarry the knight rose up early and departed and came up came over against jebus jebus is the old canaanite name for jerusalem so he comes to jerusalem which is jebus which is jerusalem and there were with him two donkeys settled his concubine also was with him and when they were by jebus by jebus jerusalem the day was far spent and the servant said unto his master come i pray you let us turn in into 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 gibeon so let me stop there and tell you a little bit about what's going on here you have this levite comes looking for his wife concubine when he gets to the father's house he the father greets him openly and begs him to come in now the father knows that he could be coming to kill his daughter he knows that so the extreme hospitality the father says stay the night eat some more comfort your heart stay another night please have more to eat have more to drink be merry stay another night the father is overdoing the hospitality number one because it is the palestinian ancient palestinian way that they were overly uh hospitable when guests came in um that were that were traveling you had a responsibility to be hospitable to your guest but more than that you had a responsibility to be hospitable to your guest even if your guest was your enemy was your enemy and if your guest was your enemy and you were hospitable to him the hospitality itself would make it so that that guest that man who is your guest would not do the harm or the ill that he intended to do to you as an enemy because you had treated him with such great hospitality so he is overdoing the hospitality of someone who has a right a at least a uh moses law right to require the death of his daughter now don't miss that because when he finally says no i'm getting up and i'm going i'm taking my wife your daughter with me and i'm going i'm not going to stay obviously he's saying i ain't going to hurt you i'm not going to hurt her i just want to leave i'm not going to hurt anybody i just want to leave with my wife and my possessions so he goes back to ephraim where he's from as he's on his way back where he's from he stops near a city of the jebusites which is our jerusalem that we know he stops there and desires to turn in so his servant says who is his riding partner or the servant who keeps the uh the caravan in place the servant says master let's stay in jebus let's stay here and he says no no no no i will not stay in jebus because they're not israelites and if i stay in a place that's not israelites i i'm not going to be received with the same hospitality that i just got from my concubine's father-in-law and i don't want to put myself in danger i don't want to be with a stranger i don't want to put my myself and my concubine and us in harm's way we're going to go to israel's camp to israel's territory and stay in israel the closest place to them was a place called gibeah gibbya is the closest area it is a place of the danites or a of the tribe of benjamin excuse me not dan benjamin it's a place of the tribe of benjamin so he says i'm going to go to gibeon the closest israelite territory so he goes to gibeon now let's continue reading it says and his master said to him verse 12 of judges 19 we will not turn aside here into the city of a stranger that is none of the children of israel will pass over to gibeah and he said unto his servant come and let us draw near to one of these these places to lodge all night in gibeah or in rama two places that are in israel and they passed on and went their way the sun went down upon them and they uh when they were by gibeah which belongs to benjamin and they turned aside there to go in and to lodge and gibeah and when he went in he sat down in a street of the city for there was no man that took them into his house to logic now that's very strange because a part of the israelite and ancient palestinian culture is when strangers come in you show them great hospitality here you have this levite his concubine and servant and maybe some others that are with him and they're in the middle of the street nobody takes them in first red flag that this is not a place that honors the law of god or the law of moses but this levite could care less he doesn't care because he is also spiritually ignorant so now it goes on and it says and um and when he had lifted up his eyes i'm sorry verse 16. and behold there came an old man from his work out of the field at evening which was also about ephraim and he's sir jordan um in in gibby he traveled and give you 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 where are you going and where are you coming from and he answered and said we are passing from bethlehem judah toward the side of mount ephraim from there is where i'm from i went to bethlehem judah but i'm now going to the house of the lord and there is no man that receives me to house he says i'm going back to bethlehem i'm going back to ephraim i'm going back to shiloh where the house of the lord is but i i'm tired and there's nobody that's going to give me any hospitality i'm in the street and there's no one that will take me in and so here the man says in verse 19 yet there is both straw and preventer for our donkeys there is bread and wine also for me and for your handmaid and for the young man which is with your servant there is no one of anything this is the levite saying we will not be a burden on anyone so the old man said peace be with you how so ever let all your wants lie upon me only don't lodge in the street tonight so he brought him into his house gave him food for his donkeys and washed their feet and they did eat and drink so this is what was supposed to happen this old man is not from benjamin he's not a benjamite he's an aphromite he's from ephraim this old man placed and put the levite into his home and showed him hospitality now here's where things start going horribly wrong here you have it says in verse 22 now as they were making their hearts mary behold the men of the city certain sons of belial beset the house round about and beat at the door where the old man's house and the levite the concubine are lodging are staying they surround the house beat at the door and spoke to the master of the house the old man and said bring out the man that came into your house that we may know him this word no is the word for sexual intimacy it's the word for carnal knowing knowing him carnally these were these men who wanted to have homosexual relationship they wanted to rape homosexually rape this man that was staying in the old man's house this levite who was traveling with this concubine so this levite is in the old man's home in benjamin he did not want to stay in jebus because they were strangers and he thought he would be in danger he goes to his own people his own jewish culture and jewish nation he comes there nobody shows him any hospitality an old man who is not even from benjamin comes and says hey you can stay at my house he takes the man to his house and then these men these sons of belial the bible says belial is the name that morphed into a name for satan the sons of satan is the idea these demonic men thugs these demonic men surround the house and they beat on the door of the house and they call for the old man to bring out the levite his guest to bring him out so that they might so they might rape him so that they might know him carnally and this is have homosexual react actions with him now listen very carefully does this not sound like something you've heard before it does you heard this from genesis chapter number 19. in genesis chapter 19 same thing lot lot has two angelic guests who are now guests at his home these are angels these two angels come in an angel often and they stay in lot's house they're in lot's house the men of sodom and gomorrah where lot was living remember lot he compromised lot compromised and he sold out and he followed the ways of those people around him he enjoyed the wealth and all the comforts and luxury of sodom and gomorrah and abraham said no i won't do that you set your tent towards sodom i'm moving in a different direction so lot and abraham they divided they split each other they split from each other lot has these guests in his home the men come out and when the men come out the men of the city of sodom come and surround lot's house beat on lot's door same thing and they said where are those two men that went in those two angels where are those two men that went in because we want you to bring them out that we may know them that's sexual me we know them i want you to hear this very clearly this act of homosexuality from genesis 19 to judges 19 both of these chapters they sound very familiar very similar but here's the difference the difference is in genesis these were sodomites these were gamorites these were non-israelites these were canaanites if you will people who had no knowledge of jehovah no knowledge of god they were completely away from god and they were demanding to rape the man here you have israelites these are benjamites these are men of israel they know jehovah they know god they have served god they know moses they know joshua they know the story of god these are god's chosen people they have fallen into such deep corruption that they are now doing the exact same thing that the men did in sodom and gomorrah here you have the people of god that are doing the same thing that the sodomites and the gamorites were doing the difference is they don't know god these people do it is a very very telling scenario a dangerously telling scenario when the church the people of god act the same way the world acts when the very sins the very heinous sins of the world are the exact same sins of the church when the very thing you can get at the club you can get it at the church the very same thing you can get on the street you can get it at the church the very same attitudes and ways from the world they are readily available and evident in the church this is the whole point of this this exercise the whole point of this story is that these sodomites these rather these benjamites these benjamites god's chosen people of the tribe of benjamin had degraded so they had gone so far down that they were acting and living just like sodom and gomorrah why why did this happen it happened because in those days there was no king in israel but every man did that which was right in his own eyes there was no righteous standard no word from god no direction from god that's how this section starts 17 6 and that's how this section ends in chapter 21 verse 25 the same words because this is what happens to any people who fall into compromise and on their way to corruption me you any person none of us are exempt from this none of us are now i know you may be saying well i didn't do that i didn't do what what they did i get it i get it but but you see paul taught us that a little leaven leavens the whole lump it doesn't take a whole lot a little leaven leavens the whole lump a little bit of sin destroys the whole batch right so whenever you allow it into your heart i have and you have all of us have the issue is i don't want to get you the condemnation no condemnation no guilt none of that no shame none of that but yes conviction yes conviction because if you don't change if you don't change you run the risk of falling into this corruption this corroding of the heart corroding of the spirit corroding of the soul corroding of the mind when you no longer can think that which honors god and feel that which honors god you don't think it you don't feel it you don't live it it is corroding it's a corruption and it all spirals down from a subtle small deception it starts with this deception one deception two deception three deception four when i get to idolatry i no longer allow god to establish what is right and wrong for me i no longer allow spiritual truth to be true in my life it is now whatever i see however i see it i do what i think is right in my own eyes and when we begin to call evil good and good evil we have passed over a dangerous line right now right now every single one of us we're in probation every single one of us we're in this age of grace we're in probation every single one of us we have been we have been released from jail released from jail by the blood of jesus christ the blood of jesus christ has released us from jail hallelujah we are now in probation until he comes back again and we shall be changed into his likeness but right now every single one of us is in probation and the spirit of god is here to lead us into that right life that right living with him but there's so many people so many people who have revoked their probation they're in reprobation and these are the individuals who see what they want to see and make god follow them and not them following god now there is a big issue of can you be saved and be reprobate huge issue can you be saved and can you be reprobate at the same time i want to give you my short answer and this is not the method it's not the purpose of the teaching here's my short answer no no that reprobation is an indication that salvation never truly happened reprobation is an indication that salvation never truly happened now say it again because there's a lot of asians in that right reprobation is an indication that salvation never truly happened the book of hebrews talks about this in hebrews chapter 6 when it says that they tasted the word of god they didn't swallow they did not ingest they did not live out their faith they did not live out this salvation experience they did not live out what the spirit of god had brought into their life they only tasted they were partakers they were in the same area in the same room in the same service they heard the gospel they know the story they've been in church all their lives they have a good heart they're good people but they're not genuinely authentically truly saved truly born again truly saved and when you are truly saved and truly born again it doesn't mean you're not going to sin my god no i mean you sin i've sinned i've done sins that i am deeply ashamed of ashamed of i can't believe i did it that's ashamed of but there is at the core of our lives at the core of our heart this passionate desire to live for god i miss it i mess up i don't get it right but at the core of our heart there is this passionate desire to live for god the fire never went out the fire now the flame flickered low no doubt about that the flame flickered low and the embers they seem to almost die down but the fire for god never went out that's how you know you have it when the bible says make your calling and election sure that's what it means the fire never goes out never goes out when you get to a place where the fire is gone the burning desire is not there you're justifying things you do you're justifying your sin you're you're making your sin right in your own eyes to yourself you're justifying it within yourself that is when it becomes dangerous that's whenever the reprobation becomes an indication that salvation never took place and that is the hard danger i know this is really really hard to hear well here's what happens here's what happens the old man comes out i won't read the rest of it because of time i'll just tell you what happens the old man comes out and the old man when he gets there he comes out to these to these men these these homosexual men who are standing there wanting to rape the rape the levite that's in they come there they said they're turning over to us just like they did in sodom and gomorrah just like they did so he says no no no don't do this don't do this he says here you take listen carefully you take my virgin daughter and you take the man's concubine and you can do whatever you want to do to them all night long now hear me very clearly i don't know what happened to the virgin daughter but the man's concubine was thrust out of the house and thrust into the angry mob and when the man's concubine got thrust into the angry mob same compromise that lot was about to make to give them his daughters lot said you can have my door to the sodomites you can have my daughter my daughters i got two one of the doors you can have both of them just don't touch these men now notice lot regretted this because those two daughters had incestuous relationship with lot from which the moabites and the ammonites have come from who have been thorns in the side of israel ever since that this is a legacy of sin a legacy of iniquity a legacy a legacy of this corruption and you have the exact same offer being made it's almost as if this old man never read the bible he never read the writings of moses he had so forgotten his own faith well that concubine is thrust out and they abuse her the bible says all night long they abuse this concubine repetitively over and over and over two versions and i don't have time to get into the two versions one version says that she was abused so much until she they killed her that night they raped her repetitively repetitively until they killed her and dropped her on the steps it's one version another version says they raped her till she was of no benefit at all no good whatsoever and the man later the husband the levite later he killed her we don't know which happened i believe the levite did the killing but that's a whole nother state altogether don't have time to get into that finally the levite picks up either his dead concubine or his enormously his enormously battered and beat concubine who is at the point of death puts her on his beast and they go home when they finally get home here's what this levite does and here's where it gets very very gory very gory the levite takes he takes a knife he takes a sword and he chops up his concubine limb to limb to limb he dismembers her into 12 different parts arm arm leg a head he dismembers her into 12 different parts and this levite he sends one part of his dead concubine he sends it with a messenger to each one of the twelve tribes of israel each one of the twelve tribes we would have to make the accession the assumption that benjamin was even included and he sends this parts of his concubine to the 12 tribes of israel throughout the entire land of israel so he has 12 people who are carrying these these body parts with a message now the message is not given to us but we can assume what it is look what they did to her look how they abused her look how they have damaged her look what they did it's almost as if he is saying the blood of this woman is on your hands because of what happened so i can i can imagine these messengers are going to the 12 tribes talking to the elders of each tribe and presenting the arm or the leg or the head and saying here's the story the levite man went to stay in gibeah and the benjamites came sons of belial and they they wanted to rape the man but yet the old man gave him their conch gave him his concubine and his concubine went out and was abused and raped all night now bring justice justice has to happen there has to be justice and here's what transpired justice comes in the form of the army and my time is up my time is up i want to say this this is such a hard hard chapter to both hear and teach it's hard because the big question is why would he do this why not bury her why not give her a proper burial why not do a proper thing but rather than bury her he could send the message without sending the body parts he could have sent that message to those 12 tribes there are two issues here one israel had become so callous to spiritual things so callous that without the body parts they wouldn't have cared they wouldn't have cared they had become so calloused so evil in their hearts that without this shocking shocking thing of rotted body parts with this story that the messengers would have told them they would not have even cared secondly secondly that this sending of the body parts is his way of saying i demand justice for this issue but it's not a justice for the woman he dismembers her he dishonors her he disfigures her he continues the abuse even in her death that she got in her life he cared nothing about this woman he did not he did not protect her from those dangerous men he protected himself he stayed in the house while she was out being abused his heart was so dark and so black and so so wicked that he would not even protect his own bride his own wife his own concubine another human being so he sends her to these tribes not to get justice for her he cares nothing about her he wants to get justice for himself look at what they did to me look at how they dishonored me look at how they did this to me the whole nature of sin is sin focuses all the attention on yourself all the ugly and the damaging pieces of sin the corruption the corroding nature of sin it focuses all the attention on yourself on me on i me and my and i and that's what makes it so sinful that's what makes it so sinful we've gone from idolatry and little trinkets and idolatry with baal and astaroth we've gone from baal to their individual person now he has become the idol his pride has become the idol his rights have become the idol his comfort his name his image has become the idol and he is so much his own idol that he will dishonor another human being considering her as nothing as nothing dismembering her body and sending her out so that he can get justice for himself and not for her and not for her this is what's wrong with our country this is what's wrong with our culture this is what's wrong with our church this is what's wrong with our people this is what's wrong we no longer care about the hurting or care about the abused or care about the weak it is now all about us what i want what i think what i feel the way i see it is all about us it's not about them it's all about us and that that's why god that's why god put judges 19 in the bible that's why god put it in the scriptures to show us how far we've fallen and how easy it is to get there my time is well over well over i apologize for the length but i needed you to make certain that we hear this story all right come here in your own heart in my own heart where am i hiding that level of self-centeredness where is that level of self-centeredness is hiding when does it come out when does that selfish part of me show itself when does that selfish part of you show itself who have you abused because of that selfish part who have you harmed who have you heard whoever you ignored who have you walked over who have you walked away from because of that selfishness what person what person has cried tears because you were so into you to the point where we chop up people that we're supposed to love we chop up the people that we're supposed to love and we use them as pawns to get our own way that is what's wrong with the culture all right i'm done wow i know how tough it is right now for you to not sink into a condemnation and i would love to sanitize this passage so that we could teach it cute and teach it nice but sometimes some passages you can't do that i wish at seasons of my own life i had read this passage that way i wish at seasons of my own life i had had somebody to preach this passage that way to me so i want to give you what in many ways wasn't given to me and that is the truth the hard truth so we can be better father i thank you for what our eyes have seen in your word and when our ears have heard lord i thank you for the conviction of the holy spirit that is very real in many of our lives right now i just pray that you would let the spirit of god do its perfect work let it bring us to a place of selflessness and not selfishness let it let it bring us to a place of care for the weak and care for the hurting let it bring us to a place of honoring your word hearing the truth of your word and having a passion to live it out let it bring us to a place of repentance a place of remorse a place of coming broken before you to have you fix us heal us put us back together change our hearts [Music] so lord i give you praise for the work of the holy spirit long after this night is over may your spirit still supply your grace in jesus name amen to the only wise god our savior be majesty dominion and power now and forevermore in jesus name we pray amen and amen again thank you so much for being here tonight we'll see you on sunday morning don't miss it it's going to be a blessing i love you much bye [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: New Life Decatur

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Length: 82min 50sec (4970 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 01 2021