Judges 17:1-13 Life Without A Compass ES 13 Sep 15 1706
Do you know where North is? Which direction is North? How can you tell?
• If we are not sure, can we decide where North is? Can we all just agree to pick one direction and call it North?
• Can we change it? Who has the final say on this? Nobody.
• The compass has the final say. It’s the reality we are put in. There is only ONE North.
Many things in life are given. They are truths revealed to us, from creation and from the Creator.
• They are there NOT because we make them out to be; they are there because God designs them to be.
• We don’t create science; we discover science. We can study it, analyse it, test it, understand it, but we cannot change it.
Likewise God exists and He is involved in our lives. He is not a creation of our minds or our hands.
• The truth about God comes through revelations – from His Word (through inspired men and prophets) and from Jesus Christ, the God-incarnate (the clearest revelation of Himself).
• We are called to discover Him, to know Him and worship Him. When we find Him, we will find life – its meaning and purpose.
Life cannot be complete without God. We cannot live life without a reference to God. He is the compass for life.
• This was what happened to the people of Israel living in the times of the Judges.
• They’ve lost their compass. They’ve lost their reference point.
The author paints this picture for us in his conclusion. Chapter 17-21 is an epilogue, like an appendix to a book.
• With the last judge SAMSON, he has completed the series of stories regarding the various judges that God had raised to save His people.
• He ends this book recalling the sad events that had taken place in this very dark period of Israel’s history, when “Israel had no king” (repeated 4 times – 17:6, 18:1, 19:1 and 21:25) and everyone did what they like.
This conclusion can be separated into TWO parts - Judges 17-18 and Judges 19-21.
• It would seems that the author wants us to see these TWO big pictures:
(1) Israel lost sense of who God is (Judges 17-18). NO COMPASS.
• They’ve lost their bearing. They have broken their relationship with God, and they are not aware of it.
(2) Israel lost the meaning and purpose of life (Judges 19-21). NO MAP.
• They don’t know what they are living for. The last few chapters are “senseless”.
I want to share from the 1st part today – life without a compass.
[Let’s read Judges 17:1-13]
Judges 17:6 “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”
• Israel has degenerated to the point where they can make their own gods and install their own priests. Both apostasy and idolatry rolled into one.
• And they do not know how LOST they were. They presume that God was with them and life goes on as usual.
• The truth is, we don’t always know we are lost. It takes some time. We can be deluded by false belief and not realise it.
Look at the situation here. We are introduced to a man named Micah.
• His mother was rich. Someone stole eleven hundred shekels of silver from her. That’s a lot of money.
• She cursed the thief, not knowing that it was her own son who stole from her.
• The curse was severe enough to scare her son into confessing. He confessed but what followed wasn’t a reprimand or the offer of a guilt offering before God.
• Her response was: “The Lord bless you, my son!” (17:2) She did not correct her son or set things right.
• She then decides to consecrate her silver to the Lord. How? By asking Micah to make a carved image and idol out of it.
• In one breath, she consecrates to God and makes an idol. She pays lip service to God and sin against God at the same time. This is outrageous but true.
• And she was oblivious to the irony of it all.
Verse 5 tells us that the carved image, together with the ephod and other idols, were all placed in a shrine in Micah’s house.
• And he installed one of his sons as his priest, which is against God’s command because only Levites can serve as priests (Deut 18:1).
And this is not the end of this messy situation. Next came a young Levite in 17:7.
• We got to know his name is Jonathan from 18:30. He is said to be from Bethlehem, but left Bethlehem in search of some other place to stay.
• It’s odd that he lives in Bethlehem because Bethlehem is not one of the 48 cities where Levites live.
• The people no longer worship the Lord in the Tabernacle. They are not making sacrifices and the support for the Levites breaks down. This explains why this young Levite is searching for a place to live. He is retrenched!
He is now a “priest for hire” and Micah offers to pay him and house him.
• We read later in Judges 18:18-20 that he left Micah and followed the Danites:
“18When these men went into Micah's house and took the carved image, the ephod, the other household gods and the cast idol, the priest said to them, "What are you doing?" 19They answered him, "Be quiet! Don't say a word. Come with us, and be our father and priest. Isn't it better that you serve a tribe and clan in Israel as priest rather than just one man's household?" 20Then the priest was glad. He took the ephod, the other household gods and the carved image and went along with the people.”
• He was given an offer. It’s a good career move! He goes where the perks are.
When this Levite came to work for Micah, listen to what he says (Judges 17:13): “Now I know that the Lord will be good to me, since this Levite has become my priest.”
• He was so deluded to actually think that God will bless him now because he has a REAL Levite living under his roof and serving the idols he made.
• Micah has become so comfortable with wrongs, they are now rights. What is wrong has now become right.
Everything that we’ve read so far is blatantly wrong, in absolutely every way and yet it happened.
• It happened because the people has already lost their compass in life. They are confused. They do not know right from wrong.
• People are lost without God. There is no reference point. Everyone can do what they like.
• Can we do what we like? Creation don’t do what they like, they follow the laws of nature, the laws of science. Man follows spiritual laws that God has set.
This is what is happening to our world. There is no absolute truth. There is no absolute right or wrong. You decide, what is good and right and fitting.
• You can even decide who god is, shape it in the way you want, and then worship it. I say IT because there is only ONE true God.
• He is not an UNKNOWN God, Paul tells the people of Athens in Acts 17.
• Acts 17:24-28 24"The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. 25And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. 26From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and He determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. 27God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28`For in Him we live and move and have our being.'…
So WHERE IS NORTH? (Use phone to check)
There is only ONE North. There is only ONE true God. He not only points us to the truth, He Himself is the truth.
• You find Him and you will find the answers to the meaning and purpose of life. You cannot live life without Him.
• Read and study what He says. He is the way, the truth, and the life. There is no other. He is our reference point. We pray and talk to Him.
• Don’t do what you LIKE, do what is RIGHT. Seek God!
It’s like GPS - Global Positioning System. We have it on our phones and in our cars. We can tell where we are and how to get to where we want to go.
• I read that this space-based navigation system can provides location and time information in all weather conditions, anywhere on or near the Earth where there is an unobstructed line of sight to a network of 24 GPS satellites that are placed into orbit (now 30) giving out signals.
• On our end we just need a GPS receiver to receive the signals and read the information, and we can tell where we are and which way to go.
Our relationship with God is like that.
• God is alive and He is actively involved in our lives. He sends us signals of His truths from His Word, information that we need to know, to navigate our ways through life. He speaks to guide and to direct.
• Our part, as the receiving end, is to maintain this unobstructed line of communication with Him. We read the Bible and we listen to His Word.
There are times we go under (going into an underpass) and we lost sense of Him for a moment.
• But when we come up, we recalibrate and get our bearings right again.
• He never cease to speak and guide. Don’t ignore Him. Obey His signals and you will get to where He wants you to go.
- How is your relationship with God?
- Is your line of communication open to Him?
- Have you lost His signals?
We cannot live life without this compass.
