This recording is from Christ Kingdom Church in Avalon Park, Orlando. Visit us online at ChristKingdom.org for our calendar, driving directions, and more audio recordings. Well, we've been going through the book of Judges since I guess September. Today we're in Judges 17 and 18. And I know that most of you read chapter 17 and 18 in preparation for today's service. But for those of you who didn't, I'm going to give you a little bit of a summary. Long ago, in a land far, far away, the Middle East, Palestine to be exact, there lived a man whose name was Who Is Like Yahweh? Who Is Like Yahweh was his name? Of course, in his language it was pronounced a little bit different. It was pronounced Mika or Micah. And Micah lived in the hill country of Ephraim. You'll see it up here. We'll get a map going for you. Mika lived in the hill country of Ephraim, okay? And Micah was an Israelite, and he was an Ephraimite from the tribe of Ephraim, and he lived during the time of the Judges, okay? Something about Micah. Micah had himself his own private chapel. He had his own little sanctuary in his house, and his son was his own personal priest, okay? Not to mention, they had tons of new age cult kind of stuff. They had an Ephod, which, sorry, I don't have an Ephod, but this will do. He had an Ephod. Now, Ephods, it's kind of debated. It can mean a couple of different things. One, it can mean something that a priest would have worn at the time in going into the throne room of God. Another, and Ephod can mean a miniature representation of a deity used for connecting with the divine, okay? So he had an Ephod, and he had some terraphemes, what they were called. And these were basically little idols, okay? That would be worshiped. So he had all this cool new age cult stuff, right? So he's following so far? Well, Micah was not only a cult leader, he was also a dirty thief. Micah stole a fortune from his own mother, 1100 Shekels. Give you an idea, and those days the average annual salary for an Israelite was around 10 or 11 Shekels. Micah steals 1100 Shekels from his own mom, okay? That's the kind of guy we're talking about. Well, his mom, she doesn't know he stole it, but she does know that her fortune was stolen, so she goes berserk naturally and pronounces a curse on whoever it was that stole this money from her. Micah overhears this curse, and thinks now would be a good time to return this money to my mom. So he goes back to her, hey mom, heard you pronouncing that curse? Surprise, I'm the one who has it, here you go, gives it back to her. Believe it or not, she's actually thrilled and takes some of it and makes it into a castle. A castle, a silver statue of a god to give to her son to add to his collection. Following, okay? Meanwhile, they're lived a young Levite down in the area of Bethlehem, which isn't on the map what it is, but not in one of the big ones. It's close to the Zora and Estol all down there at the bottom. They're living a young Levite in the town of Bethlehem. Well, he was also pedigree to become a priest, but he decided that he'd like to go off and seek opportunities elsewhere in another town. So Levite begins to start heading north. Well, on his way north, he ends up in the hill country of Ephraim, and who does he bump into? Micah, it's serendipitous, two dreams collide.
The Levite who's looking for a home, and Micah, who's got his own little personal chapel, decides, this will be a perfect opportunity for me. I can get a legitimate priest to be my priest. Fires his son, offers the job to the Levite who accepts, and they live happily ever after, not really. Following so far? During all this time, the Danites, okay? Remember when the Israelites came into the Promised Land? They each had allotted them their own territory of land, and they had to conquer the people living in that land, and they'd get their own little territory that God had given them. Well, the Danites didn't do that. They didn't conquer the Amorites. You can read about this back in Judges 2, I think. We talked about it back in September. The Danites didn't do that, okay? So they don't have a place to call home. So right about this time, when all this is going on with Micah and the Levite, the Danites are looking for a place to call home, even though God had already given them a place to call home. Makes sense? It's not supposed to. So this is what they do. They get five of their most robust, brawny, strong, mighty fighting men, represented by the five gentlemen standing here, and they say, hey guys, go north, spy out some different territory, find us a place that we can call home for our tribe. So that's what they do. They head north, come with me, Danites. Well, on their trek north, they come into the hill country of Ephraim, and who do they bump into, but the house of Micah. They're outside camping, okay? Outside the house of Micah, and they over here, Micah's priest, the Levite inside talking, he says something, say something Mark. Well, they can tell that he has a southern accent, and so that part really is in the scriptures. They can tell that he has an accent from the south, because he is from the south, he's from down in Bethlehem. And so they decide to sneak over, tiptoe over, get his attention, and they say, hey, you sound like you're from the south. What are you doing up here? Well, the Levite explains it all to him, he says this guy. Micah hired me as his own personal priest, he's got his own chapel, with his own ephod, terrifying, and cast god statue. So they think, perfect, you're a priest, do your priest thing, and tell us whether or not our mission is going to be successful. So that's what he does, he does his little priest thing, he gets back to him and says, thumbs up, your mission is going to be successful. So on they head further north, come on with me, Danites. All the way up to this area on the map, Laish. They see this town Laish, and what they see is a very quiet and unsuspecting people. And they think, perfect, they're living on a fertile track of land, very prosperous people, but quiet and unsuspecting. And they think, this is prime time location to move our tribe. Let's go tell the others. They head back all the way back down to the Eshtaul area to the south, and they tell the others, they say, hey, we found this track of land, it's incredible. These people are sitting ducks, they don't see us coming, let's go wipe them out and take their land. Everybody goes, yes, let's do it. Now the whole tribe represented by these five brawny men head back north, on their way north, they end up in the hill country of Ephraim. And whose house do they come across? Micah's house. So the five brawny men turned back to their tribe and they say, listen, we've been at this house before. This guy's got his own chapel. He has his own new age cult stuff. God's he has an effod, a statue of an idol, he has little idol's he worship. And he has his own priest. Let's go in this guy's house and steal the stuff. So the five mighty warriors creep into Micah's house and start looting everything. Well sooner or later, the Levite wakes up. He sees them and he says, what are you guys doing? And they say, well, we're stealing everything, but we've got an offer for you. Okay? He says, what's the offer? They say, come and be our priest. I don't know what this guy Micah's paying you, but you want to stay here and be the priest of this lousy guy Micah the rest of your life? Or you can come and be the priest to our entire clan. Levite says, let me think about it. Sure. Takes them up on the offer. So now the Levite, the effod, the cast gods, the terrifying, all in the possession of the Danites and they all continue heading north. So let's go to Levite and Danites. We're heading north up to Laish. And they get about this far when Micah wakes up, realizes this stuff has been stolen and makes this face. So then he gets on the way and goes up to catch up to them and he says, hey, you guys took my gods that I made and you stole my priest. What else do I have left? Danites turn them and say, listen, you better turn around and head back home or you're about to get a weapon from 600 armed men. Micah says, got it, turns around, heads back home, head hanging low, empty handed. The Danites and the Levite and all their gods continue north but we don't have much further to go and they end up at Laish, the town of the unsuspecting quiet people. And they massacre them, kill every single one of them, burn the town to the ground and rebuild it and name it Dan. They took the cast god statue that they stole from Micah and they set it up in the city and the Levite, well he and his descendants were the private priests of the Danite tribe for many, many years, the end. Thank our volunteers, please. Okay, think about that story. What's missing from the story? What character is missing? Bingo, bingo. We've got Micah, we've got the Levite priest, we've got the Danites. Nowhere in this story is Yahweh, God of Israel, mention. Well his name is mentioned but nowhere is there a conversation between any of these characters and him. There's no sign of any relationship in this story between God's people and him. And it's interesting, isn't it? All over the Old Testament. That's what you see. Conversations between God's people Israel and God. Conversations between God's people Israel and his angels, messengers of God, at least someone seeking him in prayer. And yet in this story, when there's plenty to pray about, familial theft, questionable worship practices, being understatement. A tribe trying to find their allotted land and home, and yet nothing. It's almost as if in these chapters Yahweh has forgotten. It's almost as if the covenant of Yahweh. Remember in Exodus 6, when he said this in many ways, all throughout Genesis to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, but in Exodus 6, when he says, you will be my people and I will be your God. Nobody else, me, and you're my people. That promise of that covenant and relationship, it's almost as if that's been totally forgotten. It makes me think of the movie Toy Story because God has been subjected to become just one of these many religious paraphernalia and idols that Micah has in his possession and that people are fighting over. It's almost like in Toy Story, remember when Buzz Lightyear shows up on the scene, Woody is just thrown under the bed at one point and forgotten about. It's almost as if Micah and the Danites, at this point in Israelite history, have just thrown Yahweh under the bed, made him into a toy, thrown him under the bed, and forgotten about him. Well God knew that this would be a temptation, didn't he? I mean, if you read Deuteronomy before they enter the land, all over the place, are these words do not forget, in Deuteronomy 4 and Deuteronomy 6, Deuteronomy 8, Deuteronomy 25, do not forget. You're going to get in the land that I have given you, do not forget that I'm your God, that I'm the one who brought you out of slavery, out of Egypt, and I'm giving you an inheritance, do not forget, and that's exactly what they do. Listen, the reason the story is placed here, okay, just really quick. This story of Micah and the Danites is actually not chronological, well the story is in itself, but it's not placed in the book of Judges chronologically by the narrator. It doesn't take place after the story of Samson, which we learned about last week. So why then, Joe, did the narrator put this story in Judges 17 and 18? The answer is because he wasn't moving on to a new time chronologically, but to a new topic. See, these people actually lived, this all took place during the time of the Judges, but sometime earlier. The reason that the author puts it here is because he's saying, moving on to something else. See, we've been looking at Judges for the past 10 or so chapters, more than that, 13 chapters. God raises up these Judges to fight off these external enemies of Israel. And now the narrator is saying, all along there's been another enemy. The bigger enemy is the cancer within, not the enemy without. Bigger than the problem of these nations warring against Israel is the problem with Israel, and that's what we get in these last few chapters of Judges. What about our culture? Some similarities, right? I mean, in God for Americans, many times needs to be a toy that won't argue or tell us we're wrong, that we can take off the shelf when we need him and throw into the bed and forget about him when we don't. Our culture resembles in many ways, the culture of the Israelites, but there are effects to God being forgotten. There are effects to him being toyed and discarded. Just as if tomorrow there was no rain and the next day and the next day and rain never came again, the earth would dry up wither away. So when God has forgotten thrown under the bed, there are effects, the hearts of people wither and dry up and die. What are some of these effects? We're going to look at three this morning, okay? What happens when God has forgotten? Number one, it's all about number one. What happens when God has forgotten? It's all about numero uno. Number one, it's all about me. It's one of the more prophetic voices of our time, Toby Keith has said in one of his songs, I want to talk about me, I want to talk about I, I want to talk about number one, oh my, me, my greatest part of that song is after the chorus when you hear the backup voices just chanting me, me, me, me. And you don't have to look too deep into the story of Judges 17 and 18 to see that mantra being chanted, do you, me, me, me. It's all about number one. There's this word the narrator uses, la cach. Say that with me, la cach. One more time, la cach. I got to have that little at the end of it. Common word in the Hebrew language. He uses it multiple times in these stories, it means to take some context to take away by force, okay? You see that all over the place in here? Micah, la cach, his mother's fortune. The Danites, la cach, all of Micah's religious stuff. The priest goes with the Danites, la cach, all the stuff and takes, it's take, take, take. Me, me, me, la cach, la cach, until there's nothing left to la cach and I'm still not filled because I wasn't originally meant to live only for me, but was made to live for the real number one. And then for number two, you, and number two, you, three, you, number four, you, number five, you, and on and on and on. It goes. But in this, we find living for number one. No room for community, stealing the Danites. I mean, they go all the way up to Laïche, which is for all practical purposes, not even in the promised land anymore. It's outside of the territory. Who cares about them? We're on tribe. It's all about us. Number one. Western Christianity, as you know, can tend to be really individualistic as well, can it? We tend to, in many ways, think of God like a blackjack dealer. I know none of you have ever played blackjack, but you may have seen it in the movies or something. But it's this idea where it's me and the dealer. It's me and then it's you and the dealer and then it's you and the dealer. But the main connection is here, me and God, but you don't really talk to the other people at the blackjack table. How you doing? How you doing with the dealer of, you know, don't have the best cards, but I can't complain. How about you and so on? And then somebody gets blackjack and it's just like, wow, congratulations. You got blackjack. I never get blackjack. You know, but that's not the way it's meant to be in Christianity. We're not just a group of people that show up on Sunday mornings at the same time. The church is a body of Christ, the family of God. It's not all about number one, me. Like if somebody were to give you a pair of hockey skates for Christmas, said, hey, here's some awesome hockey skates. And you're just like, this is great. And you got so excited. You went to rock on ice every weekend, sort of practice and learning how to do the hockey stop, you know, and skating around. Maybe even learn to skate backwards. And then this person comes back to you and they say, I'm glad that you're enjoying this hockey skate so much, but maybe I didn't make myself clear. I gave them to you because I want you to be on the team. Not because I want you to go and learn how to do pirouettes and all sorts of solo stuff, but I want you to be on the hockey team. Remember when God called Abram and he said, you will be a nation that will bless other nations. It's not just about you. It's about the world. But our tendency for sure is towards selfishness, self protection. But God's people are called to give yourselves away. Got it? What happens when God's forgotten? It's all about number one. Second, it's all about religion. All about religion. Some of you may know this. Some of you may not. Let me make it really clear. Christianity is not religion. Christianity is not religion. Nor was God's intent for his relationship with his people ever and the Old Testament with his people Israel to be religion. God was not trying to corner the market on religions and come up with the first one and the best. It's not about religion. Listen to what Tim Keller says about religion. He says religion is I obey so I can be accepted. The gospel is I am accepted so I can obey. Religion is I obey so I can be accepted. The gospel is I am accepted so I can obey. If the gospel, if this is a picture of it in some way, of Jesus coming to your prison cell, opening up the door, pulling you out to freedom and then taking your place on the inside, then religion is all of your life trying to find a way to get back in that cell so that you can figure out how to pick the lock and open it yourself and free yourself. And when God has forgotten, when the relationship, when the gospel, the connection with him is forgotten and he's thrown under the bed, all you have left is religion. Religions all over these two chapters, isn't it? I mean, Micah even at one point after he has himself his own priest, he says at the end of chapter 17 he says, now I know God will be good to me because I have for myself a Levite priest. You see the religious thinking in that? You see the backwards thinking in that? And Micah's name was who is like Yahweh? Who is like Yahweh's name? And through his life he answers it by saying many are like Yahweh. God's the worshiper like Yahweh. Religion is like Yahweh. I love his cry out in chapter 18 after the Danites of stolen his gods and his priests and he comes in them and he says, you've taken the gods that I made. What do I have left? Because if a God that can be made admittedly made, no less a God who can't protect himself from being stolen, it's hilarious, right? But more than hilarious, it's tragic. And even more than tragic, it's convicting. Because we do this, we have our religious stuff. The things that are in our hands that we won't let go of that give us a sense of favor with God that is not based on what his favor is based on. We're afraid if we let go, we'd have to cry out too. What else do I have? Anybody feel a little better about your salvation when it's been a long time since you've really messed up, since you've really fallen back into sin. Anybody feel just a little bit better about your position with God? Is there a place in your heart that's crying out like Micah? Now I know I'll have his favor. It's religion. When you do something incredibly sacrificial, incredibly sacrificial, do you think, I wonder if God's looking down now and he's thinking, you know, I might have been wrong about you. You're actually pretty decent. Keep it up. Religion. Do you ever just mess up so bad, fall back into an old pattern of sin and think, I can't pray. I can't talk to God now, not in this condition. Religion. How dare we think that it's because of us that we can go to God in prayer, that we can have relationship with Him. It's not, but it's because of Christ and the gospel. When you always forgotten, however, when that covenant is forgotten, when the gospel has faded from your memory, it's all about religion. What else are you going to hang on to? Third point. What happens when God has forgotten? It's all about number one. It's all about religion and it's all very, very boring. It's all very, very boring. Tim Keller says about this story. He says, this story gives us a great example of the banality of evil. The predictability, just the blah, the kind of boringness of the story. Some of you are thinking, yeah. Listen, it's that way for a reason. The narrator left it that way to show us that when we're reading it, we're going something's missing. Something's not right here. This is too boring because there is something missing. Tim Keller says, evil does not usually make people incredibly wicked and violent. That would be interesting. And usually that tends to wake people up. Rather, sin tends to make us hollow, externally proper and even nice, but underneath everyone is scraping and clutching for power. In other words, more times than not, sin doesn't necessarily lead to these incredibly wicked acts of debauchery, wickedness. More often than not, sin leads to hollow and to fake and to boring. Only by worshiping a real God can we ever escape this banal boring fate. No wonder people in this culture are tired of religion, right? It's the same old thing. It's fake on the outside, internally hollow, moving through life, doing this and doing this and doing this so that we can get this. And it's just like everybody else in the world is boring. There's nothing to it. And as Christians, we can take a story that is not boring. The story of redemption and we can make it boring. Your savior is not boring. The story of redemption, not boring. This story in 1718 starts out boring, but the ending is wild. Jesus comes a thousand years later. Look, Jesus looks at what's going on in 1717 and 18, okay? And you know how we can't gaping wound real life or TV. I mean, we just can't even look at it. You got to turn away. And yet Jesus fixes his eyes on what's going on in this world. In 1718 and a thousand years later when it's still going on and he says, I'm not going to put a bandaid over that. I'm going to enter into I'm going to live in that place. And then I'm going to die. And I'm going to be fought over like the gods that were fought over in Micah's day and my tours are going to be my clothes are going to be torn off me. And I'm going to be crucified and I'm going to be thrown under the bed like Yahweh, but Jesus is no toy. And Jesus will not stay under the bed. Jesus resurrects conquers even death and says, hey, we've won. I did it, but we've won because I'm inviting my people with me as Moses parted the sea and made room for the Israelites to leave slavery to freedom. Jesus made room where there wasn't room and says, come on. Be my brother. Be my sister. Come with me. Share in my inheritance. It's mine, but you can have it. Come along with me. I don't know if any of you read any Cormac McCarthy, the border trilogy and all the pretty horses yet. He had a book that came out a couple years ago called The Road. And if you've read it, you know the condition of this tragic world that is in the story that he tells about. Just dark, cloudy, incessant searching for food and for life that can't be found in this world. And it comes to the end in his last few lines of the book. He says this says once there were broke trout in the streams and the mountains. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world and it's becoming. Maps and mazes of a thing a world which could not be put back. Not be made right again. As Christians, we can respond to that statement wrong. It's being put back. Jesus started that process a thousand years ago. It's being put back. Your life can be put back. Your friends, your community can be put back to rights. Do you feel like your story is boring? Would you say, yes, my story is kind of boring. Maybe you're forgetting part of it. Maybe some of you don't know the other part. The bigger story that you connect with through Christ, that we're going to be learning more and more about through this Advent season and Christmas. But maybe many of you like me have forgot in many ways. The Savior's promise of eternal life with him. And that changes. That changes us. That makes us live differently. Do you want to escape the self-centered, religious, boring fate? Don't tell God you'll get back to Him later when you get a chance. Talk to Him now. Let's pray. God, we don't. There's nothing we can do. There's no amount of idols we can procure, personal priests we can find. There's nothing we can do. Our behavior in order to be able to come to your throne. But only by what Jesus has done. And so God, we come to you in the powerful name of Jesus. And we ask that you would show us your story and how we're part of that. And where we fit in and what you're doing in us, reveal to us how it is not a boring place to be. It is filled with excitement and promise, shock, surprise, feelings, emotions. It's a vibrant place to live. And we thank you for the privilege that you've made room for us to come through. And you have an inheritance waiting for us because of Christ. Continue to work in our hearts as we continue in worship this morning. Pray these things. And the only name that we can pray in the name of the mighty Jesus Christ. Amen.