Spiritual Anarchy

Spiritual Anarchy

Judges 17 & 18

READ: “One of the most difficult books to deal with in all of the Old Testament is the book of Judges. It contains the stories of men and women who lived during the “dark ages” of Israel’s spiritual history. These people lived in the time period between Joshua and Samuel. Even though they lived after the Law was given to Moses, they lived in a period of history when the Law was ignored and forgotten. There is almost no mention of the Law in the entire book of Judges. Though God had given them specific instructions in the Law about who He was, how He wanted to be worshipped, and what He expected of His people, the Israelites abandoned those words and did what was right in their own eyes (see Judges 21.25).

The result was a group of people who lacked a moral compass, whose spirituality was off the mark at best, and at times, downright evil. The stories found in these pages are examples of what it looks like when there is a famine of the Word of God.

Most of the book is focused around the stories of the Judges, the charismatic leaders that were raised up by God to deliver Israel from its enemies. A few of them were shining lights (most notably Deborah), but most of them were dim watt bulbs (think Jephthah or Samson). With the death of Samson in chapter 16, the book ends with a collection of stories that are even more bizarre and disturbing than the ones before, as hard as that seems. The story told over the course of the two chapters of seventeen and eighteen is a prime example of the consequences of living without the Words of God. The story takes 44 verses to tell, so allow me to summarize some parts while quoting others.”1

I want to give you some principles and then we are going to look into God's word and see them played out over and over...

SPIRITUAL ANARCHY ALWAYS RESULTS IN MORAL COLLAPSE

It follows this pattern

1. You have a person with no moral compass

2. They meet another person with no moral compass

3. They multiply their sin and become spiritually bankrupt themselves and a danger to others.

Pathetic story from the start.

Son of wealthy family.... looking for the easy way out.

Didn't want to wait for inheritance.

Didn't want to work for anything.

Saw what he wanted... had no moral or spiritual compass... took it.

Judges 17:10 indicates that ten shekels a year was an adequate wage. Therefore, 1,100 shekels was a great fortune.

But without the true belief in God, he fell prey to superstition feared his mothers curse so confessed his sin.

It was easy to see how the young man got there... thief

he learned it at his mother's knee

she stole 900 sheckles from God

One of the true tragedies of our times is so many parents who are steering through the moral fog of relativism... and have no moral bearings or compass to pass on to their children.

So, their children get deeper and deeper into the fog.

Too many parents have abandoned the church, the Word, and the faith.

What is left… no absolutes... just relativism?

But the relativism of their parents does not match the relativism of their friends and so they pick and choose.

There is no king, no absolute higher law...so they do what is right in their own sight.

Notice how the mother did not even correct the boy for stealing,

how could she—a thief herself

Not only was she guilty of failing to do right by him... she was guilty of leading him to sin.

She was the one responsible for getting him into IDOLATRY.

You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God (Exodus 20:4-5).

This is what happens when you combine two hearts and minds , both wicked and neither having any principles.

The sin is multiplied.... IDOLATRY.

That is the reason God wants you to have Christian friends, partners and spouse.

Two persons without moral compasses combine their sin

Then you become spiritually bankrupt, spiritually malnourished and starving

Then you are a danger to those around you.... his son.

God's anger burned against Micah, his mother, and now his son.

That is the nature of sin.... it always takes you farther than you wanted and it always keeps you longer than you wanted

It always involves others

He consecrated one of his sons to be his Priest