Judges 19:1-30

The dangers of tolerating sin are made very evident in this passage.  Israel had been given great blessing from God.  They had been freed from slavery, God had revealed Himself and His will to them through the Law, He had provided for them miraculously and brought them into a beautiful land that they could call their own.  However, their hearts became cold towards God and they did not obey His commandments; they began to tolerate sin and various forms of idolatry in their midst.  The proliferation of sin became so great that this chapter looks like it could have been the history of Sodom and Gomorrah and not the story of Israel.  We must take careful note of this reality for when we tolerate sin in our lives, we are walking down this very same pathway and it is a slippery slope.

THE REALITY OF INFIDELITY: The text simply states that a Levite had a concubine, not a wife, but a concubine.  This concubine is unfaithful to him so he sends her back to her father’s house, but later repents and decides to go and take her back.  The father is happy about this arrangement and proceeds to try to prolong their visit.  I believe that he was trying to encourage the Levite to marry the girl, but he seems content with the relationship as it is.  Marriage is one of the basic building blocks of our society.  When we redefine marriage or simply set it aside, there are grave consequences.  The woman’s unfaithfulness is an obvious one, but that is little league in comparison to what was about to happen to them.  We must learn to put a great value on marriage and on faithfulness within marriage if we are to have any hope of having a society that will be blessed by God.

THE RISE OF IMMORALITY: Once the family is abandoned and everyone simply continues to do what is right in their own eyes, there is really no stopping the avalanche of sin that will inevitably come crashing down upon our society.   The Levite and his concubine go to what they consider to be a city of brothers who will care for them and offer them protection and a place to rest.  They find one man who is willing to take them in, but the men of the city show up and want the man to come out so that they can have relations with him.  They are impassioned with homosexuality and their desires simply “must” be satisfied with this new man that is in town.  Like Lot in Sodom, the Levite’s host offers these men his own virgin daughter and the Levite’s concubine, but they insist on the man.  When they try to force their way in the host pushes the concubine out the door and the men of the city rape her all night long until she dies on the steps of the house.  I cannot imagine taking these steps out of fear of sexual predators, yet when we stop to think about it, our society is running in this same direction.  The truth is that this disgusting lust is a very real part of every single one of our hearts.  It is only by God’s grace that we do not act like these perverse men and we must beware of tolerating any sins in our lives, because they lead to this kind of debauchery.  

THE RESULT OF INDIGNITY: The, in my estimation, cowardly Levite picks up his dead concubine, takes her home and proceeds to cut her into twelve pieces and tells the other tribes of the depths of depravity that have infected this group from the tribe of Benjamin.  The man become indignant, the other tribes become indignant as they all realize just how far and deep the sin of Israel has spread.  This is a sort of “wake up call” for these people, but the reality is that it is far too late.  They have been pushing the snooze button on their consciences for so long that sin has lulled them into a nightmare from which they may never awake.  It is one thing to become indignant over the sins of others, and we are all very good at doing that.  However, it is a far different thing, a thing the God wants, to repent of our own sin.  We are quick to stand in awe and judgment over the grotesque sins that are ravaging our culture; but we refuse to turn from the sin in which we enjoy dabbling.  We must not congratulate ourselves for becoming indignant over the sins of others; God requires that we turn in repentance from our own.