A Disgusting Story (Part C)

The reason it's graphic for us, here's a picture from the scripture of what this behavior is. And again, it's one thing if someone struggles with this. There's all sorts of sins to struggle with. It's another thing to begin to take up the flag and fight for that sin. And it doesn't have to be just this sin. It can be, you know, stealing and a lot of murder and things like drug dealing.

Here's Pastor Rick in Judges chapter 19 with the conclusion of his study called, A Disgusting Story. We don't want to mooch off of anyone. We take care of ourselves. We don't want to be a burden. Verse 20, And the old man said, Peace be with you.

However, let all your needs be my responsibility, only do not spend the night in the open square. Maybe he didn't want to spook them. Maybe because he felt they would have tried to get out of town and met with robbers on the road, be hunted down.

I don't know. The story doesn't tell us that, look, you don't want to stay. You're in the wrong neighborhood, kid. And you do not want to be found outdoors anywhere in the vicinity of Gibeah. Echoes of Lot's days in Sodom. Genesis chapter 19 verses 2 and 3.

And he said, Now these are the angels that had come to get Lot out of Sodom and Gomorrah so the judgment could fall. It's a type of the rapture of God pulling his righteous ones out before the tribulation starts. And those who believe that the church will go through the great tribulation period, it's just dumb. It doesn't make any sense. It's like close the barn door after the horse is out. It's, you know, bang, halt. It's just everything's backwards. So I don't know.

I think the people who hold that belief just have a lot of guilt and think the church should just get a really nasty spanking. That's the only thing I can think of. Anyway, Lot being taken, because we can't bring fire down on this place, the angels tell him, as long as you're in the city, this is a type of the rapture. Daniel, not in the furnace, as the three, you know, other Jewish men were, a type of the rapture. We see these things.

They're inescapable. Anyway, Genesis 19, he said to the angels, Lot speaking, Hear now, my lords, please turn into your servant's house and spend the night and wash your feet. Then you may rise early and go on your way. And they said, No, but we will spend the night in the open square. But he insisted strongly. So they turned into him and entered his house. Then he made them a feast and baked unleavened bread and they ate because they felt safe inside. Well, again, this old man knew. He knew what was going on and he knew that he had to do something. This was noble up to this point, but still he views women as chattel.

And yeah, in that culture, you can somewhat, it's easier to make room for it. Nowhere near an hour is verse 21. So he brought him into his house and gave fodder to the donkeys. And they washed their feet and ate and drank. And there's the third eating and drinking of this Levi. He's just going all over the place, having good old time.

And here he is, verse 22 now. And they were enjoying themselves. Suddenly, certain men of the city, perverted men, surrounded the house and beat on the door. They spoke to the master of the house, the old man saying, Bring out the man who came to your house that we may know him.

And of course, carnally is the in the context of what will unfold. And the translators have inserted that so we understand they're not looking to just say, Hey, you got friends. They'd like to meet them.

That's not what's happening here. This is dark, where it says that they were perverted men. Again, at least the New King James translators and the others too have it in their own way.

Right on with that. These are sons of Belial. They are worthless men.

That is the Hebrew meaning. But their actions are sexually perverse. And so it is true to the story. It is all of a sudden, here they are just, you know, eating and drinking. Their feet have been washed and have just enjoying each other's pleasure. And these criminals surround the house as if a gate in hell were opened up.

And here they come. And the account draws on the episode in Sodom and Gomorrah. It is almost parallel.

There are differences, but overall it's very close. And it's showing that Gibeah of Benjamin had become like Sodom in spite of all of their opportunity to never be like Sodom. The Bible again just deals with fact.

It's very blunt. This is how it is. You can't live in a make-believe world without overriding, you know, the system in your head. You get rid of reason.

And some do. And so we learn that sin may relocate without altering its behavior. It's still sin.

It's still going to do what it does. That's the nature of sin and the fallen nature of men, perverted men, mastered by a twisted sense of entitlement. I can indulge myself at your cost. And I don't care what you think. We never intended human beings to behave this way. And of course we're living in an age where Satan has duped this generation to believe in a lot of kooky things. Sodomy is one of them, encouraging them to rename sodomy as a gay behavior. And it's not.

There's nothing gay about it. And so defensive are they that they are trying to make it criminal to lead people out of this lifestyle who want out. Because sin is addictive. And yeah, the Church doesn't back down.

We would love to be helpful. We don't hate the people who are in this. We don't want to hate them. But it's a sin and we're not going to back down from what God calls it to make them feel better. Again, facts don't care about your feelings and this can get us killed.

And we better face that. So it is one thing to struggle with an addiction or a sin of any kind. It's another thing to celebrate it.

So go around beating a drum and demanding other people give deference to it. And whenever this particular type of sin is allowed to roam without resistance, collapse is inevitable. Consider the Roman Caesars. I mean, they were almost like 40 of them died violently as Caesar.

Talk about a sale on assassinations. So what they do against us, of course, is they label us haters and attackers and intolerant. They demonize us. They call us bigots. We have to learn to say, I'll be whatever you say I am.

I'm agreeing with God, not with you. And though I give my body to be burned, if I have not love. That's the tricky part. It's so hard to love people that get up in your face when you want to knock them out a couple of times.

Carry water with you so you can wake them up again. Come on. Get back. Come on, kid.

I'm going to knock you out again. It's the flesh. And you can't get into a spiritual view without a lot of prayer and love of the Lord.

All right. Well, anyway, that's a part of it. He says, bring out the man who came to your house, I mean, verse 22, that we may know him carnally. And again, there's nothing virtuous or noble about this. It's criminal. Now, verse 23, now we look at their response to this.

And this is the story here. Because, well, let's read the verse, verse 23. But the man, the master of the house, went out to them and said to them, my brethren, I beg you, do not act so wickedly seeing this man has come into my house. Do not commit this outrage. Well, the statement confirms that their intentions were diabolical.

As he says, don't commit to do this wicked act. But you cannot reason with sick-minded people because their minds are sick, because their hearts are dirty, because they've rejected the only true God. And therefore, someone else has taken his place. And it is Satan. And Satan is the consummate kook. Anybody that would be in the presence, the throne room of God, and rebel against him cannot be all there. And he is the father of lies. He's the father of true insanity. And this story is bringing it out.

We even saw it in the book of Genesis under the similar situation. But you cannot reason with them without consequence. And here was their chance to be heroes, this man and the Levite. This was their chance to die for what was right rather than live, you know, the obvious thing to live for what was wrong. This is an extreme situation. This is not a little thing.

The guy's not trying to steal his bicycle, the act that they're going to commit. So at this point, they were to step up. Instead, they stepped down. Verse 24, Look, here is my virgin daughter and the man's concubine. Let me bring them out now. Humble them and do with them as you please, but to this man do not do such a vile thing.

It's revolting. To offer his daughter? I think he's bluffing with the daughter. The story bears it out because the daughter doesn't end up out there. The concubine ends up out there.

Well, you know, this is after all my home. I don't think it went to that. He just threw her out. But this is, Lot did the similar thing, offering his daughters. What kind of father is that? I think Lot was bluffing, buying time too. I would like to think that.

I couldn't believe Lot is that bad. Peter calls him righteous in the spirit. So somehow, in this man's thinking, this was a lesser evil than standing their ground and fighting. You know, when the disciples said, We have swords, how would that translate to they?

We've got pistols and rifles. The Lord did not rebuke them for that. I think it's dishonorable not to protect your home. I know the Amish would disagree, but we would disagree on a lot of things.

Like deodorant. Well, you got to spend some time with them and you'll see what I'm talking about. But anyway, back to this.

I don't know. So the women, they were just chattel to these men. Not to all the men, but to these men. One of the good things about Elkanah, the husband of Hannah, when we get to Samuel, and about Boaz, they were upstanding men.

Elkanah loved Hannah and he wanted to do whatever he could. From our culture, we say, Well, I'll tell you what one thing is, don't marry two women. How about that? At the same time.

Now, this wanting to just have women as their geishas, their pets is certainly not godly. One commentator from the pulpit commentary, W.F. Adeney, I like him. You've got to search for him, though. He's woven into, and he's an old ancient writer, I mean early 1800s. He says, In the excitement of a mob, men will commit excesses from which they would shrink in solitary action. Yet responsibility is still individual, and each man must ultimately answer for his own sins. Just a mob mentality.

In a mob, you would do things that you would never do walking down the street by yourself. Or you get in the herd, or the pack, you'll do these things. And Adeney is rightly saying, Yeah, well, you're still going to have the answer for that. That doesn't excuse your behavior. And so when righteousness is rotted in the heart of an individual, then the life is only useful to Satan.

That's the story. When righteousness rots in your heart, you're only good for Satan. But when righteousness lives in your heart, you're useful to the Lord. That's the whole story of Philemon and Onesimus.

It was Onesiphorus, too, that's another character. So, I mean, today, consider, you know, these political liberals who insist on murdering the unborn, but go out and hug a tree. I mean, it's madness. They don't get it. They think that somehow this is someone's right. Fighting for animal rights, and yet having no problem with jailing Christians.

If they could, for having the audacity to not agree with them. Satan, a serious customer. Verse 25, But the men would not heed him. So much for their negotiation. So the men took his concubine and brought her out to them, and they knew her and abused her all night until morning. And when the day began to break, they let her go.

It was painful to read this. This made them criminals. And the record, the horrific record, is saying, look what Benjamin and Ephraim did. One attacked and the other accommodated the attack to lessen the blow. They sacrificed her. Her life was not as important as their lives.

Whatever they thought in those days is not the point, it's what we think right now. And the victim, the concubine from Judah, she was blameless as far as we know. The Benjamites were rapists and murderers, and all the blame goes to them. Well, there's so much blame flying around, there's some left over for these men who did nothing. This unnatural appetite that they insisted on satisfying at the cost of another person's life without shame. They have become dishonorable in history in the lowest sense.

I mean, it's dishonorable to steal a dollar. What is it to end someone's life like this? Verse 26, then the woman came as day was dawning and fell down at the door of the man's house where her master was till it was light.

I told you this was going to be an ugly story. Poor thing, with her last breath, she turns to the house where she should have found a protector. And he, who instead of protecting her, deserted her in her hour of profound need, while he slept peacefully, wakes up in the morning fresh and ready to go. And this is how the story is told by him to the other tribes in Judges 20. When he tells, he says, well, let me tell you what happened.

Listen to this. And the men of Gibeah rose up against me and surrounded the house at night because of me. They intended to kill me, but instead they ravished my concubine so that she died. It was a terrible crime.

Why did you give them to her? Well, they took her. Why didn't you fight for your life? Well, life is not as precious as mine. May God help all of us to never stoop so low. Don't worry, the story gets worse. Verse 27, when her master arose in the morning, he opened the doors of the house and went out to go his way. And there was his concubine fallen at the door of the house with her hands on the threshold. She's just trying to get in.

I could really, you know, tug on your emotions and just, you know, lay on this. I'm not. This is an awful picture. There's no compassion that comes from him, none that we read of. And the historian knows this, so historians not just, you know, this is how it was. As we mentioned, as we went through going through judges, that he would make, give the address or the detail, the facts of what happened, the account, and not make comment, leaving it to the reader because it was so obvious. And so, all she was able to do, after being abused out in the street, was lie down and die as he lied down and slept. And she's likely dead at this point. This is the devolution of a society.

This is the rot of a society, resulting in much bloodshed through war to come. Verse 28, and he said to her, Get up, let us be going. But there was no answer. So the man lifted her onto the donkey and the man got up and went to his place. Don't worry, the story gets worse. But this is, you know, you say, what kind of man is this? I'm not going to try to find a way to make him look like a hero.

He should have died that night. James chapter 1, verse 15, Then when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is full grown, brings forth death. We know that, so we fight it.

When you stop fighting it, then it's going to bring forth the death. And these men of Gibeah are an example of that. They had become like the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, but worse because they did not have the light of God as these grotesque individuals had. Verse 29, When he entered his house, he took a knife, laid hold of his concubine, and divided her into twelve pieces limb by limb, and sent her throughout all the territory of Israel.

Limb by limb. That Hebrew phrased word there is used of the priest preparing their sacrifices, and the historian could have used other language in the Hebrew to make this statement, but on purpose. Here we have a Levite who prepares sacrifices, preparing her as one, when he himself should have been sacrificed. And here he is putting his butchering skills to a grotesque task on a human sacrifice, and, you know, he just, he thinks he's going to shock and awe the recipients, and he will, but how dare he? How dare he do something like this? He was a hypocrite calling others to honor. Come fight for this moment.

Come exact justice and revenge. No mention of God in any of this. No mention of calling out to the Lord. And verse 30 continues, And so it was that all who saw it said, No such deed has been done or seen from the day that the children of Israel came up from the land of Egypt until this day.

Consider it, confer, and speak up. Well, that is the effect once they receive these dismembered parts that it had on the other tribes. They said this is just terrible, and we need to do something, and everybody better think about it and man up.

That's the idea. King Saul will summon the Jews to fight the Ammonites. He will cut up 12 yoke of oxen to do it, which is still kind of bad, but at least you can eat it. It's meat.

Ahijah the prophet, when he goes to Jeroboam, or at least announced to him that Jeroboam will now be ruler of the 10 tribes, he takes the garment and he tears it into 10 strips. That's better than dismembering. I mean, there were other ways to make his point. I don't find any way to excuse it. I don't find, well, you got to consider, no you don't.

This is just rotten in every age, and again, that's why it is here. Hosea, he happens to agree with me. Well, I agree with Hosea. Because hundreds of years later, he brings this up. Hosea 9, he says, They are deeply corrupted as in the days of Gibeah. He will remember their iniquity, he will punish their sins. Listen, when the tribes rally to fight these Benjamins, the Benjamins aren't going down easy. They circle the wagons. They're going to get up and fight for their right to be perverts.

And they will kill a lot of people doing it. Ultimately, they will be almost wiped out. Hosea is not finished. He says that in Hosea 9. In Hosea 10, he says, O Israel, you have sinned from the days of Gibeah.

There they stood. The battle in Gibeah against the children of iniquity did not overtake them. And so, again, he's just pointing to this horrific crime. It would be like, you know, if this happened in our time, we pointed back 300 years back and said, remember that, remember the Alamo, or something like that.

Today, Israel is one of the most accommodating nations on earth for Sodomite behavior. And you say, well, that's inflammatory speech by calling it. I'm just not going to yield, because that's how they shut us up. They write our dictionary for us.

It's like packing our parachute. That's how they build tolerance, and then acceptance, and celebration, by nudging us away from what God says these things are. And the reason, it's graphic for us. Here's a picture from the scripture of what this behavior is. And again, it's one thing if someone struggles with this. There's all sorts of sins to struggle with. It's another thing to begin to take up the flag and fight for that sin. And that is the great distinction. It doesn't have to be just this sin.

It can be, you know, stealing, and a lot of murder, and things like that, drug dealing. 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. It's time to continue learning more from the book of Judges, here on Cross-Reference Radio.