Judges 18-19

God’s message to me: False worship, no matter how it is dressed, leads only to disaster. Micah hired a Levite as pries to his false gods and when the tribe of Dan entered his land to take their inheritance they took the priest and the false gods and the ephod(priests breastplate) made for the priest to serve the false gods. The Danites added to their own sin by setting the same priest up for themselves to serve the stolen false gods. Their false priest led them in false worship to false gods instead of respecting Jehovah who had given them the land they took as inheritance.

Among the tribe of Benjamin were worshipers of Beliel. Sexual immorality including homosexuality and rape were a common practice in this false religion. They took the beloved concubine wife of Levite and raped and abused her all night so that she died on the doorstep of the house in which he lodged. The Levite cut her body into 12 pieces and sent them throughout Israel as a message regarding the evil being done by the worshipers of Beliel in the tribe of Benjamin. The message would be received and acted on most dramatically.

Promises: God fulfills His promises even when we don’t. The tribe of Dan was promised territory in the promised land. They waited longer than they should have to take it but, when they went to take it God gave it to them easily. They went in with a small force and took the territory then promptly set up worship to false gods found there. They failed, pretty much, every part of their end of the bargain but, God did not fail one word of His end.

Commands: While not said specifically this passage demonstrates disobedience to the first two commandments. “You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image -any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God,”.

Timeless principles: Symbolism over substance. The tribe of Levi was chosen to serve God in the temple. Choosing a Levite to be your personal priest for false gods doesn’t change the false gods into real ones. symbols and lucky charms are still prevalent in society and in the church. They are false and have no place.

How can I apply what I’ve learned: I hear these things all the time. “my god is a loving god who could never send someone to hell forever.” “My god doesn’t make mistakes so how dare you judge my homosexual behavior.” “The bible is the flawed creation of man based on centuries of oral tradition. The real god wouldn’t behave the way it says.”

ALLOW ME TO BE VERY CLEAR. If your god is not the God of the bible you are worshipping a false god and have set up an image in your mind to worship as an idol. I have, in the course of this study, clearly established that the bible is and has been and was from the beginning a written record. It has been established that the words were given by God who ordered his servants to put them in writing. God, as described in the bible, is the only true and living God. There is no other. Worshiping some ideal that comes from your personal morality is idolatry, paganism, humanism, false worship.

more to learn for in-depth study: We see some of the results of false worship here. Tomorrows story continues with the results of Benjamin tolerating the sons of Beliel.

Rights, in the United States, are often misunderstood. You have the right to behave badly so long as it doesn’t interfere with the rights of others. You do not have a right to be accepted. When people demand that others stop praying because they are offended, when they demand that religious references be removed from public view and hearing, when they demand that we recognized their offensive actions as normal, they are demanding the right to be accepted. I don’t have the right to have Christianity accepted by all and they don’t have the right to have me accept abortion on demand, vegetarianism, bestiality, pedophilia, or any other perversion.

If you think you have an American or even a Christian responsibility to accept others as they are please read carefully tomorrows assignment and see the result of a tribe that accepted perversion as normal.

tomorrow: Judges 20-21