A Disgusting Story (Part A)

And what God is doing with this 19th chapter is he's pulling back the curtain to show us the evil in the land, the evil amongst the people that were called to a higher life. He's pointing out the results of idolatry that the people were religious, but they weren't righteous.

Not every single one of them, but enough of them to cause a civil war and almost the entire annihilation of the whole tribe. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of Judges.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. Now, here's Pastor Rick in Judges chapter 19 as he begins a brand new message called, A Disgusting Story. I could have used a theological term and would not have struck much interest. I could have said a depraved story. It is a depraved story, but it's disgusting. It's so disgusting that it's painful to read. If you were to just sit down and read this 19th chapter of Judges, it would, I think to a righteous soul, it would bother them. The behavior of the men in this chapter is entirely inexcusable and it is their depravity that leads to many pointless deaths that we get in the next chapter. The casting away of God's moral law is the result of the rot that comes out of the hearts of these people. It comes straight out of hell, this desire to get rid of God's moral law, and we're living it unlike ever before in our country.

One of the sickest stories in the Bible, unfortunately there are a couple of others that are as sick. It's God just not editing out the facts. Interesting thing about facts, they don't care about our feelings. They are what they are and it is best to try to be on the same side of the facts than on the opposite side of them.

But again, their pardon is not going to come. There's no cultural justification. There's nothing about the age they lived in that supports any of their appalling acts. It's a vomitous list of characters. I'm setting it up pretty good and it illustrates for all of us the full-blown blindness and the savagery of sin when it is rampant in a society, when there is no salt of the earth to slow it down.

No heroes, only villains and a victim, one almost victim also. And what God is doing with this 19th chapter is he's pulling back the curtain to show us the evil in the land, the evil amongst the people that were called to a higher life. He's pointing out the results of idolatry, that the people were religious but they weren't righteous. Not every single one of them but enough of them to cause a civil war and almost the entire annihilation of a whole tribe. Gibeah of Benjamin, where the atrocities take place, had become like Sodom and Gomorrah.

I mean, it's not something you can put your finger on and say, well, how did that happen? I don't know, except that they turned their back on God so thoroughly, so deliberately, that hell just had a field day with the hearts, the minds, the conscience, the total breakdown of morality. So we look now at the first verse, and it came to pass in those days when there was no king in Israel that there was a certain Levite staying in the remote mountains of Ephraim. He took for himself a concubine from Bethlehem and Judah. This no king in Israel has been emphasized already twice.

This is the third time. There will still be another. Of course, it is telling us that the book was published in the days of the kings. We have other evidences within Judges, internal evidences that alert us to that. For instance, we get to chapter verse 10. You're going to refer to Jerusalem as Jabez and with a parentheses that that's Jerusalem, which we know did not occur or get the name change until David became king. And it says here in verse 1, there was a certain Levite. Now here's another Levite, another spiritual leader, religious leader with shameful behavior. He is not centered on righteousness.

His inactions will bring that out as well as his actions. It's not the same Levite that we read in chapters 17 and 18. And yes, the historian is saying, listen, the land had those who were called to preach the word, to uphold it, and they weren't doing it. And as a result, this is what we got. It's negligence, spiritual negligence. What would happen if you had a solid church in the community where the pastor preached the word of God, expositionally, opened it up verse by verse even, and nobody in the congregation ever preached to anybody? That would be horrific.

If you just sat on, ooh, this is good, tickled ears. So this Levite, again, not the same one as we read, he was bad enough. This Levite is a savage. It says, staying in the remote mountains of Ephraim, that's a Levite settlement. Within Ephraim's territory, they were given land for the Levites.

We read that in Joshua 21, and the rest of the children of Kohath had ten cities by lot from the families of the tribe of Ephraim. Kohath was, of course, a Levite. It continues in verse one, he took for himself a concubine from Bethlehem in Judah. Now we got to talk about these concubines.

They're not the problem. The name sounds like, oh, concubine. What about the men that created this system? He likely had a wife, at least one other wife, in addition to the concubine. And they were female servants for men. It was legal at this time in Israel, or maybe I should say it this way, it was not illegal. There were actual laws given by God to Moses for the people concerning concubines.

They were inferior wives with lesser rights, and the children that they bore also would have lesser rights and less of an inheritance. This created strife. Whenever polygamy shows up in Scripture, it never is cast in a good light.

It is always a problem laden with strife. It is almost as if God allowed these things to happen so he could show future generations the folly of it all. And the rabbis eventually wrote, God gave Adam one wife on record, and so a man should have one wife. Paul would ring in on that. He'd carry it over into the church also. Well, she was regarded as part of the family, often selected to bear children. Hagar was a concubine of Abraham. So were Billa and Zilpha, concubines of Jacob. And they were selected to have children for Jacob.

And again, these assistant wives, it was a disaster. There are no less than 31 accounts in Scripture of polygamists in the Old Testament, both good and bad men alike. Abraham, as I mentioned, and Jacob. Nahor, Abraham's brother, is said to have had a concubine. Of course, the kings, the first three for sure, King Saul, David, and let's not forget Solomon. Solomon did everything large and wrong after a certain point. He had 300 of them. There's no excuse for that. You'd be troubled to justify him having 800 wives, or however many.

I lost count after 400. And you could somewhat, okay, I'm not justifying it. I'm not saying it's right, because they'd swayed his heart from the Lord. But if you wanted to look at it from a secular light, well, these were political marriages. Yeah, well, what about the concubines? You didn't need them. There was no political gain from having concubines. You had all those wives.

Well, they were, you know, cut down expenses. Anyway, this is given to us in contrast also. What a stark difference it is the way God treated Israel as a wife, and not as a concubine, yet the nation never really seemed to figure it out, and not for any long stretch of time. Now, it is fair to say that the Jewish people were surrounded by this behavior their entire existence. It was just throughout the ancient land.

It was not something they created, but it was everywhere. And Solomon's falling headlong into it, of course, does not justify his behavior. Gideon, great man of God, nobody can dispute. We all love the story of Gideon. Well, most of us, but there's fact in it, and again, the facts don't care about your feelings. Judges 8, verse 30 and 31, Gideon had 70 sons who were his own offspring, for he had many wives.

I'm glad it's told us that. I mean, 70 sons. Do you need to tell me he had many wives?

Because it wasn't one. Anyway, and it continues, verse 31, Judges 8, and his concubine who was in Shechem. He wasn't content with many wives. He also had to have a concubine, and that brought, you know, raised up Abimelech. He was a murderer. He had problems.

Okay, so we've gotten concubinage out of the way for now. From Bethlehem and Judah, again, Bethlehem knew not what she would mean to humanity, to mankind by producing, as places go, the Messiah. Verse 2, But his concubine played the harlot against him and went away from him to her father's house at Bethlehem and Judah, and was there for four months, and was there four months. Now, there's a bit of a challenge to what she actually did or did not do.

Was it harlotry or disharmony in the relationship? And there's a basis for this challenge because the Old Testament, the Hebrew words, they can be tough. Some of them, you know, the scholars, we think this is it based on the root word that's connected to it, and that's how they get to the bottom of the difficult ones. Others are homonyms that sound so close to another one that the meaning could be obscured. The Vulgate, which is the Latin translation of the Hebrew Old Testament, the Septuagint is the Greek, the Targum, the Aramaic, and then you have Josephus, the historian, who was a Jew, but Josephus is not always that trustworthy, but still he is closer to the events and that counts for something, I suppose. Well, all four of those did not understand this word to mean infidelity, marital infidelity.

Because of the homonym, and they don't translate it that way. They believe that she was not guilty of harlotry, but of disharmony, of disagreeance with this Levite. She said, fine, I'm going home to dad. I can't take you anymore. So she left.

It was only about 20, 10 miles or so. And there's evidence within the story to support this. Had she been guilty as a concubine of infidelity in Leviticus 19, verse 20, it seems to say that she would have been guilty, found guilty and scourged, but not put to death. Would he have taken her back as a Levite? That would have been, you would say, well, all of this would be socially unacceptable.

You know, they had bigger problems than this that they were just ignoring. So you're really challenged to figure out what was going on in his empty head. Again, he's a savage. There's nothing redeeming about this Levite. And when the pressure's on, oozing out of him will come the filth. I don't like him. And I don't think anybody should like this guy, this type of a character, or at least lighten up, because there, by the grace of God, go I. I'm not going to lighten up, but so much. But these are not virtues that we're being faced with.

We're being faced with the absence of virtue. So anyway, the Septuagint says that the woman became angry with the Levite and went to her father. And if she had children with him, she was probably too young at this point.

We'll come to that in a moment. They would be legitimate children. So she had some status, but second class. And she went to her father's house in Bethlehem, which is not that far, verse 3. Then her husband arose and went after her to speak kindly to her and bring her back, having his servant and a couple of donkeys with him. So she brought him into her father's house, and when the father of the young woman saw him, he was glad to meet him.

Apparently, he began to miss her. Sounds like a real romance going on here. But it's not. And I don't take any, it's not a gleeful rebuke. It's just the story is too horrific to embarrass yourself by trying to look for some silver lining that does not exist. He was speaking kindly to her, it says here, to speak kindly to her, to bring her back. Again, sounds like love.

It's not even close. It's all selfish. It's all for him. He just wants her. He doesn't care anything about her.

He wants to know how, he's just interested in how he can satisfy himself. So she brought him to her father's house. She's young again, we'll get that in a second, but this is a tragic, not a happy ending. And when her father, when the father at the bottom of verse 3, when the father of the young woman saw him, he was glad to meet him. The father of the young woman.

That specification, I think, is there to alert us to the fact that the Levite is out of what you would say the ideal age range for her. Well, come across that with Boaz and Ruth, that's no problem. But significant to the story is her father and this Levite are going to hit it off. They're going to identify with each other. They're going to be buddies just yucking it up the whole time. And that in itself is not bad.

That's just not enough. The father does not appear to be a rotten apple in the story, but the rest of the men do. Verse 4, Now his father-in-law, the young woman's father, detained him, and he stayed with him three days. So they ate and drank and lodged there.

Verse 5, Then it came to pass on the fourth day that they arose early in the morning, and he stood to depart. But the young woman's father said to him, Son-in-law, refresh your heart with a morsel of bread, and afterward go your way. Let me pause there. Some of this is cultural and it's expected. To me, from our culture, it's deceptive. Like, you know you were trying to get me to stay the whole week, and you just take a little bit and go, but you're really like a Laban kind of guy, aren't you?

Not really. This is cultural. This kind of saves face.

You know, you give the person opportunities. I'm told in one culture that they fill the tea up on your cup to halfway as you go through the meal. When they fill it up all the way, they're saying to you, it's time to go home. That's a very subtle and nice way.

You try it here, nobody will get it. You pour it until it flows over all over the table, and they're just still staying. You have to tell them, okay, turn the lights off. I'm going to bed. Anyway, verse 6, They sat down, and the two men ate and drank together. Then the young woman's father said to the man, Please, be content to stay all night, and let your heart be merry.

And when the man stood to depart, his father-in-law urged him, so he lodged there again. So they're enjoying the company. Five days of eating and drinking.

This Levite seems to not be paying a cent for it. He's having a good old time. So much so that three times in this one chapter, we read that he ate and drank. He ate and drank. He ate and drank. The father was good with it. He was good with it.

No abuse there. In verse 8, Then he arose early in the morning on the fifth day to depart, but the young woman's father said, Please, refresh your heart. So he delayed until afternoon, and both of them ate. He's going to be too fat to go after a while. So what we're getting, knowing the man, if the man was noble when the trouble came, we would be looking at this in an entirely different light. We would say he must have been a strong character. What we end up with, he must have been a fun guy, a nice guy to be with. He just had no courage and no sense of duty.

As a Levite, was there a sense in his heart? Was there a call of duty on his life? You know, you have to have a reason to live. Just, you know, eating and drinking is not enough.

That catches up after a while. Even as you get older, you want a purpose in life. God always says, Well, you know, as a backup plan, you can always pray. You can get serious about praying.

Find out what to put on that list. Anyway, we, of course, Christians, we have a call of duty. We are called to duty. In a world of lost souls and Antichrist. I mean, now more than ever, we don't have people who just aren't interested in Christ or disagree with him.

They actually, aggressively, they hate him and they don't want you to like him, as it was during the Communist years in Eastern Europe. James chapter 4 verses 8 and 9, Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. So we're saying, is this Levite doing any of this? The same calling was on his life. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn, weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. What James was saying, if you're not serious about saving souls and righteousness, you need to get serious. That's what James is saying. That's what Ecclesiastes 7, 6.

Like the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool. This also is vanity. No purpose in life there.

There's nothing there that is attractive. And again, not knowing the father-in-law any more than his daughter was a concubine and he seems to just have having a good time with the Levite. We cannot necessarily put him in the same category as this Levite. Verse 9, When the man stood to depart, he and his concubine and his servant, his father-in-law, the young woman's father, said to him, Look, the day is now dawning toward evening. Please spend the night. See, the day is coming to an end. Lodge here that your heart may be merry tomorrow and go your way early so that you may get home.

However, verse 10, the man was not willing to spend the night so he rose and departed and came to Jabez, that is Jerusalem, with him or the two saddle donkeys, his concubine, was also with him and of course the servant. So finally, he says enough is enough. I've got to get home and he's now determined to leave.

It is true some visitors don't know when to leave and you turn the AC off of the heat and you give them hints and it doesn't work. Sometimes, you know, you're having a good time, you don't know when to end it. I mean, honestly, it can be a little tricky thing sometimes. They look like they're really having a lot of fun. I'm having a lot of fun. Maybe I should leave now. And then all of a sudden, the wife and husband look at each other, it's time to go. It's just life. I like the teacup thing.

We should institute that. Everybody, start buying teacups and don't fill them up until you're ready. Yeah, tough crowd, I figured as much. Verse 11. They were near Jabez and the day was far spent and the servant said to his master, come, please let us turn aside into this city of the Jebusites and lodge in it. Now, Jabez, originally Salem, you know, Melchizedek, the king of Salem, now Jabez, the Jebusites had taken possession of it and they were a mean lot. They mocked David.

You know, we could defend a city without, you know, those who are 4F, who aren't fit for combat. They can beat you back, David, and David said the man that gets to, you know, climbs up the well of Jabez and opens the gate for us, he becomes commander of our army and Joab, of course, he did it. There were others probably going to make the move and they saw Joab look at them and said we better just let Joab do it.

If you know anything about him, you do not want to be on the sword piercing side of Joab. So, but that comes later after David is king in Israel. So here, these Jebusites not being Jews, the Levite turns his nose up to them. I don't want to stay with these Gentiles, these are Canaanites and they're disgusting. It's five miles from Bethlehem to Jabez and it's about another four to Gibeah, which is the next Jewish village. They're fearing night travel and that's why the servant says, you know, it's getting dark, let's turn here. Verse 12, But his master said to him, we will not turn aside here into a city of foreigners who are not children of Israel, we will go to Gibeah. Well, he's racially motivated, not spiritually, and he had a little care for the obedience with God, righteousness, he simply hated Canaanites and it would not be these Jebusites who commit this heinous crime that's on the way.

It will be the people of God. Thanks for tuning in to Cross Reference Radio for this study in the book of Judges. Cross Reference Radio is the teaching ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel in Mechanicsville, Virginia. If you'd like more information about this ministry, we invite you to visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com. You'll find additional teachings from Pastor Rick available there and we encourage you to subscribe to our podcast. By doing so, you'll be notified of each new edition of Cross Reference Radio. You can search for Cross Reference Radio on your favorite podcast app or just follow the links at crossreferenceradio.com. That's all the time we have for today. Join us next time to continue learning more from the book of Judges, right here on Cross Reference Radio.