The Hoop of History
Judges 18-21
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The hoop of history has always been rolling, and it is still rolling.
As a kid, I liked to play with hula hoops. And not just around my waist, but I would roll them. I would put a spin on them outside and throw them a ways and they would roll back to me. In similar fashion, one spot on the hoop would come around again and again, and it is a picture of human nature, the sin nature, and how a dog returns to his vomit.
This study about Israel is frustrating when we see how they turned their back on God over and over again in cycles. Sin, Suffering, Supplication, Salvation -- over and again. Especially frustrating is the fact that this was written for our admonition, because God knows we are just like them, and would live in a nation that would go in the same way itself.
And the children of Dan set up the graven image: and Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son of Manasseh, he and his sons were priests to the tribe of Dan until the day of the captivity of the land. And they set them up Micah's graven image, which he made, all the time that the house of God was in Shiloh [Jdg. 18:30-31].
Here is a picture of real apostasy. Who is Jonathan? He happens to be the grandson of Moses! These people had gone a long way from God. Remember that Moses had said, speaking for the Lord, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth" (Exod. 20:3-4). And here is Moses' grandson, a priest with an idol! This is tragic. The hoop of history is still rolling!
When I was a kid, with my parents in the ministry, I was shocked to learn some of the things that were going on within the organized church. It's always disappointing when people go liberal, but they do. Entire denominations have been started and filled up by Christians who went liberal, left a good Bible believing church, and went their own way. Colleges and Universities go liberal, and you and I will if we are not careful! The hoop of history is still rolling!
People who should know better go off the deep end every day. They are falling like flies, succumbing to many temptations of the world today. I went to college with friends who today have plummeted themselves off of cliffs to their own demise. Many who have thrown all standards to the winds in order to join movements that are not in God's best interest.
Dwight L. Moody was a real saint of God. But one of his sons held an office in the most liberal organization in this country. It's hard to understand how a son of a man like Moody could depart from the gospel of Jesus Christ and from the integrity and inerrancy of the Word of God! But that's the way it goes with the human heart. It happened in Israel, and it has happened in America.
Apostasy is an awful thing. And a nation's problems begin with religious apostasy. This is what happened to the nation of Israel. Here we see Moses' grandson serving as priest with Micah's graven image!
Chapter 19
It starts in the homes of believers, spreads to the church, and on to the state. The hoop of history is still rolling! As we have seen, the downfall of a people begins with religious apostasy. From there it moves on to the second stage, which is moral awfulness. This is graphically illustrated in the frightful episode which concludes the Book of Judges. It centers about the tribe of Benjamin. This tribe engaged in gross immorality which led to civil war. It began with the men of Benjamin abusing and finally murdering a Levite's concubine. The other tribes try to exterminate the tribe of Benjamin. This period ends in total national corruption and confusion and with this the Book of Judges concludes: "In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes" (Jdg. 21:25).
And it came to pass in those days, when there was no king in Israel, that there was a certain Levite sojourning on the side of mount Ephraim, who took to him a concubine out of Beth-lehem-judah. And his concubine played the whore against him, and went away from him unto her father's house to Beth-lehem-judah, and was there four whole months [Jdg. 19:1-2].
These two verses give us another insight into the life of the children of Israel of that day, and it is a good illustration of Romans chapters 1 - 3. Can you imagine a Levite marrying a woman like that? Well, he did, and she played the harlot, left him, and went back to her father's house. This Levite followed her, was warmly received by her father, and stayed several days. Then the Levite and his concubine left and headed northward. They stayed one night in Gibeah, a city of the Benjamites. An old man who was also from mount Ephraim and was sojourning in Gibeah offered them hospitality. That night, while they were being entertained by their host, some men of the city demanded (as was done in Sodom before its destruction) the Levite for their homosexual gratification. Believing it would mean final death for him, he gave them instead his concubine. They abused her all night and absolutely caused her death by repeatedly raping her. This horrible act sounds like something that could have happened in our country -- does it not? In fact, the parallel to our contemporary society is quite striking as you read through this section. The hoop of history is still rolling!
The Levite was really wrought up by this crime, and what he did reveals how low they were in that day. He took her and cut her up in pieces, then sent a piece to each tribe with a message of what had taken place!
The reaction of the rest of the nation to this outrage is recorded in the next two chapters.
CHAPTERS 20 AND 21
Following religious apostasy, then moral awfulness, the next step downward in the life of Israel (and of every nation) is spiritual anarchy.
We are no longer one nation under God. The hoop of history is still rolling! It is spiritual anarchy where everyone does what is right in their own eyes. And political anarchy could be on its way as well. I don't advocate rebellion, revolt, and revolution as it stands today, but that day could very well come. Many are talking about it now, states threaten to secede from the United States. Arizona last week decided that if the USA wouldn't do right by their southern border that they would take things into their own hands! It could get very interesting.
When the tribes of Israel received a part of this dismembered woman with the message of what had taken place in Gibeah, they were incensed against the tribe of Benjamin. They believed the law should be enforced. In that respect they had not sunk as low as we have today in our philosophy that lawlessness should be permitted and we should have as little law as possible. They gave Benjamin an opportunity to deliver up the offenders, but instead Benjamin declared war against the other eleven tribes! So the tribes assembled together and came against Benjamin.
Then all the children of Israel went out, and the congregation was gathered together as one man, from Dan even to Beer-sheba, with the land of Gilead, unto the Lord in Mizpeh. And the chief of all the people, even of all the tribes of Israel, presented themselves in the assembly of the people of God, four hundred thousand footmen that drew sword [Jdg. 20:1-2].
Apparently the tribe of Benjamin had a tremendous army. We are given an interesting sidelight here:
Among all this people there were seven hundred chosen men lefthanded; every one could sling stones at an hair breadth, and not miss [Jdg. 20:16].
Now the men of Benjamin were overcome by sheer numbers. In fact, the tribe of Benjamin was almost destroyed.
And there fell of Benjamin eighteen thousand men; all these were men of valour. And they turned and fled toward the wilderness unto the rock of Rimmon: and they gleaned of them in the highways five thousand men; and pursued hard after them unto Gidom, and slew two thousand men of them. So that all which fell that day of Benjamin were twenty and five thousand men that drew the sword; all these were men of valour [Jdg. 20:44-46].
The people in the tribe of Benjamin were judged because of their gross immorality. What a tragic thing it was for so many to die. This was the favorite tribe. Benjamin, you will recall, was the youngest son of old Jacob, and a favorite son. Benjamin was the one for whom Judah was willing to lay down his life. He occupied a place next to Judah.
Unfortunately gross immorality had taken place and had set tribe against tribe and class against class. Then what happened? It led to political anarchy. First there was religious apostasy in the temple and moral awfulness in the home, and finally political anarchy in the state. These are the steps that any nation takes that goes down. The hoop of history is still rolling!
The final chapter in the Book of Judges deals with the mourning for Israel's lost tribe and the provision the people made for its future.
The slaughter of the Benjamites caused Israel to be faced with a new problem. Almost the entire tribe of Benjamin had been destroyed, and the other tribes vowed not to let their daughters marry any of the few remaining Benjamites. Exactly how was the tribe of Benjamin going to be preserved? Before the war, the Israelites had made another vow. They said that any who refused to come to Mizpeh and fight would be put to death. They found out that the men of Jabesh-gilead had not responded to the appeal, and so the command went out for twelve thousand men of Israel to kill the males of Jabesh-gilead, marry the women, and bring the virgins back to the camp at Shiloh. These virgins then became wives to four hundred Benjamites. A means was also found to get wives for the remaining Benjamites and to rebuild the cities that had been destroyed in the fighting.
It's not God's way. How sad when a nation believes it has to deal immorally in order to make it. How pitiful when a nation has to rob from its children in order to feel fiscally solvent. How depressing when a nation becomes politically correct in order to please immoral, whining rejects who think everything has to be perfectly fair. And how blasphemous when God who has been so good to us is kicked out of our nation, leaving behind a smattering of Christians lost in a sea of lost people who don't even know they are lost!
This period ends in total national corruption and confusion. The final verse concludes the sordid story of the Book of Judges:
In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes [Jdg. 21:25].
Here in this twenty-first century the heads of state would do well to study the Book of Judges. Why? Because, the hoop of history is still rolling!
Back in 1928, when the depression first began, a brief editorial appeared in the Wall Street Journal, which read:
What America needs today is not Government controls, industrial expansion, or a bumper corn crop; America needs to return to the day when grandpa took the team out of the field in the early afternoon on Wednesday in order to hitch them to the old spring wagon into which grandma put all of the children after she washed their faces shining clean; and they drove off to prayer meeting in the little white church at the crossroads underneath the oak trees, where everyone believed the Bible, trusted Christ, and loved one another.
Where did our trouble begin? As the home went, so went the church, and as the church went, so went the nation. People say, "If we could just change this or that and put in this party or that party, everything would be fine." All of this is nonsense. What we need today is to get back to a spiritual foundation. That is where we went off the track, and that is where our troubles began. We have seen in the Book of Judges the philosophy of history, and the hoop of history is still rolling. Frankly, I am disturbed because it has never changed. I'm not giving up hope, but I can read the handwriting on the wall. God have mercy on America!
Truly, I find the most hope in the prospect that if the worst happens in my country, it may lead to a spiritual awakening and we might see multitudes get saved before the end. But only God knows how things will unfold, but what He has showed us in His Word, about the past in Israel and the future in Revelation, tells us it is time to look up, for our redemption draweth nigh! The hoop of history won't continue to roll forever.
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