Judges 19:1-20:48, John 3:22-4:3, Psalms 104:24-35, Proverbs 14:22-23
Today is the 4th day of May welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian and it’s great to be here with you today as we gather around the Global Campfire and take the next step forward together. And that next step forward leads us back into the book of Judges. And we will actually be concluding the book of Judges tomorrow. But before we can do that, we have some hard territory that we need to move through. Judges, chapters 19 and 20 today.
Commentary:
Okay. So, in the book of Judges we have a profoundly troubling story that really pretty much from beginning to end is no good. And once again, the book of Judges is making us…at least giving us an understanding of why things are the way that they are. So often as we move through this book we hear things like, there was no king in Israel or at that time the people did what was right in their own eyes or a combination of both of those statements. And that’s how our reading today begins. “In those days when there was no king in Israel there was a certain Levite living as a resident foreigner.” We learned all about that Levite living as a resident foreigner who went back to Bethlehem to find his concubine and rekindle their relationship and bring her home and her father’s continual delaying and asking them to stay another day. And finally, the guy leaves. Finally, they do leave and they’re on their way back and they could go to Jerusalem and stay with the Jebusites. That’s the closest place to stay, but the guy is like we’re gonna stay where there are other Israelites. We’re gonna stay with our own countrymen. And we can understand that. You don’t want to go into a foreign city. And who knows what’s gonna happen in a foreign city. But man, what happened in city that’s related and of the same people is by far worse than anything that could’ve happened. It’s like the worst thing that could’ve happened. So, they go to the city of Gibeah, the mound or ruins where this place was exists until this day. It is definitely not a safe or easy place to get to and it’s kind of a contested place because during the tumultuous time of the establishment of modern Israel there have been some wars and there have been territories that were taken and this particular area is one of those territories. So, it’s kind of contested. There was a palace being built upon the mound at one time back in like the early 1960s I think if I remember right, or mid 60s and it’s just a hole…it’s just left there. I’ve been there to film it. It's…I mean when you understand kind of what happened there, and what resulted there it's…it’s pretty dark. So, the place is still there and we don’t have to go into every gory detail. What happens is this concubine who had fled back to her father’s house in Bethlehem is thrown out the door and raped the death. I mean…and that’s probably the mild way to say it because she was abused in every way you can imagine and left. And she dragged herself back to the door and dies on the porch basically. And when the guy gets up in the morning and is like, come on let’s go. And right there, you know, like even at that part in the story you’re just livid at this guy. Like, what is going on here? What…what is this story? Why is this in the bible? Like this is a horrible horrible story. But then we have to go back to the beginning of the story. In those days there was no king in Israel and that is what judges continually shows us. The centuries that followed Joshua were centuries of decline and God intervening with a judge just to restore some things, but it was an ever downward spiral. And, so, once again we read a story like this, get maybe a little bit antagonistic toward God like he wanted this to happen, and certainly put this in the Bible and so we’re supposed to be disrupted by this. And all kinds of things can happen to us until we realize that we are seeing a time where everybody is making their own choices and doing what they think is right and its tribal. And even the tribes are not knit together as one people anymore. And that’s what ends up resulting. I mean we have this grisly tale of the woman dying in Gibeah and being taken back to her homeland and being divided up into 12 parts so one part of her body could be sent to each of the 12 tribes of Israel. And that actually brought them together as one person. Tragedy has a way of doing that. And that brought them back together. And we could think…ahh…this is just that the way things went. But it’s not. 400,000 people came together at Mizpah. This is about as viral of the thing as that…as we see in the Bible because this wasn’t texted or live streamed or posted anywhere. This word just spread very quickly and it’s through the body parts basically that show up among the tribal leaders. And, so, they come together united against the Benjamite’s who are standing by the perpetrators of this evil. And the people of Israel, the 400,000 people, they are incensed about this as we are when we read it. They are incensed about this. They say, “nothing like this has ever happened in Israel before.” So, we can see now why that would be documented and why we would be able to read about it and glean from it and try to gain some understanding and perspective from the way that this story goes so that it doesn’t get repeated. And once again we see the Bible leaving the dirt in. Like it’s not glorifying these people or glorifying anything but the Lord. And the Lord is so often exasperated as He’s like…what is…how…what are you doing? All you have to do to find what you’re looking for is come home to me but you’ve got to have this knowledge of good and evil and you’ve got to make your own way and you’ve gotta turn to other false gods and you’ve gotta abandon me. And, so, this is leading to nowhere. And once again, we see a story that shows us, this leads nowhere. Ultimately this led to civil war. Ultimately this led to tens of thousands of people dying. Ultimately, this brought the near complete annihilation of one of the tribes of Israel. And as we move toward our conclusion of Judges, we’ll see that the people realize that and it brings a tremendous amount of grief as we will see as we continue our journey forward tomorrow. And one of the things that we can certainly learn from the story like this one is that it all matters. Nothing that we do is inconsequential. Meaningless decisions in this story end up adding up to the destruction of the tribe of Israel. Like, if they had just left in the morning instead of night that could have changed the entire destiny, that could have change, the whole story. Or what if, after this crime, this terrible evil that has absolutely brought the people to gather in their outrage. What if when they went down to Gibeah and confronted the Gibeahites and said, “deliver the perpetrators to us because we have to cleanse…they have to die.” What if they had turned over the criminals? Totally different story. And if we go back through this story, we can see that every little decision built its way into a pretty monumental outcome. It all matters, the things that we do, the things we do in the dark, the things that we do in the light. It’s all adding up to something. At bare minimum it’s adding up to what our life’ story is. And if there’s going to be no sovereign in our life, if there is no king in our heart at that time and we are doing whatever seems right in our own eyes than this story becomes a metaphor of the kinds of things that can happen when we choose to be our own Lord.
Prayer:
Father, we thank you for your word and we thank you for everything that’s in your word. Our story today from the book of Judges is not necessarily a favorite that we keep coming back to because it brings comfort. It doesn’t do that it brings disruption. It shakes us up. Thank You for that because it shows us what we’re capable of becoming when we become something without You. And we don’t want any part of that. And, so, we surrender ourselves yet again falling to our knees, raising our hands in surrender, opening our hearts to You and asking Holy Spirit, come reveal the darkness reveal the places we should not allow to be a part of who we are anymore because they are only leading us astray. And if we are led fully astray there is no end to the evil that we can perpetrate. And we can see from stories like today just how low it can get. So, forgive us. We humble ourselves. We repent. We surrender. We ask You to lead us into all truth, and we ask in the name of Jesus. Amen.
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And that’s it for today. I’m Brian I love you and now I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.
Community Prayer and Praise:
Good morning this is Donna Longing to be God’s Delight in Pennsylvania and this morning is Friday April 29th and I’m calling in to pray for Tammy from the Adirondacks. I heard…Tammy I heard your prayer this morning and that you are just spent, I believe, at the end of your own strength and you’re over thinking and feeling guilty. You’re your husband’s caretaker which is hard hard hard and you’ve survived ovarian cancer. That’s amazing! That…that was a tremendous taxing toll on your body and your mind and emotions in and of itself. So, now you’re feeling guilty that you can’t please God. And, oh my dear, I pray that God’s mercy would just wash over you and lift you up. Lord Jesus, please fill Tammy with the light of Your love that she would know that You are her dear daughter, that You do please her, that no she’s not perfect but she is perfected in You and that You love her and that she is doing Your will in pouring herself out for her husband. And it may not be pretty, and she may not always feel what she thinks she should feel, but I pray Lord that all of what she knows because she knows You would sink into her heart, that she would feel it deep down. Heal the pain of her mind and emotions and lift her up and lighten her soul and lift her burden. Give her help and those to surround her with Your love. In Jesus’ name I pray all these things. Amen.
Good morning, everybody it’s Susan from Canada Gods Yellow Flower calling, and I hear a lot of people mourning their mother’s passing and I want you to know how lucky you are to have a mother that you actually miss. My mother was not a loving mother. I loved her terribly and so did my sisters. We all looked after her faithfully while she was suffering from a stroke and in a nursing home but for years I mourned not having the mother that loved me. But I want to pray for moms right now. Lord God, I just…you know, parenting is a very difficult difficult sacrificial job and I pray for each mother represented here, that the love of Christ would shine through. Even with the tough discipline we sometimes have to give our children we pray that the love would always shine through. I pray for wisdom over each parent to know what to do in every circumstance. And let it all be done and love. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
This is Doctor John in Illinois. First, I want to thank the Hardin family for this wonderful podcast, this chance…this chance to share together our lives. And this is a message for Tammy of the Adirondacks. And I want to say to you sister, don’t quit. There’s this song I’ve been listening to recently and one of the lines in it says, kings feel it, beggars and thieves feel it. And I think what it is when you are afraid and you’re fearful and you’re wondering does God hear me. I promise you sister he does. And you say you study a word and you’re seeking God. So, all through the word everywhere is a love story to you to tell you that He sees you and He hears you and He knows your needs before you ask. Psalm 27:14 says, wait on the Lord. Be of good courage for He strengthens your heart. Hebrews 10:35 says, do not throw away this confident trust you have in the Lord. Remember the great reward it brings you. And patient endurance is what you need right now so that you will continue to do God’s will. And you will receive what He’s promised. So, I just want to encourage you sister that there are people listening and people in the same boat as you are and the same questions and the same hurts and the same wonders. But I’m saying to you don’t quit. Stay with us. Trust in God because He’s always faithful. God bless you sister.
Hi this is Donna from California and was listening to the community prayer line for this this past week and Holly Heart had called in a prayer toward the end, a little bit more toward the end and really resonated with me the…the things that you were talking about, staying in the hotel and seeing these people around you who struggle. And earlier this week I was up in Santa Monica CA which is a pretty wealthy city, very hi red district. I was up there helping my daughter and babysitting my granddaughter. And I was walking my little granddaughter around town in her stroller and there are a lot of…just so many homeless folks who live up there. They’re just…they’re part of the landscape really and came across this image I just have not been able to get out of my mind. And I know we see this, but it was this…early in the morning, rather early, and a gentleman was just hunched over a filthy trash bin and he himself was just…just so disheveled and he was just digging through it looking for something to eat. And I was reminded that when Jesus sat down at table with people and when He reached out to lepers He didn’t say hey…hey how did you get to this state? How did this happen? He just saw the person. He saw the person and that person is a human being in the image of God. And I just…something I’ve carried with me. More to say but just wanted to reach out about that.
Hey there, DAB. You don’t know me. I am a first-time caller and I think I’ve decided to go by the name His Daughter Dominique and I’m just calling to give a praise report. Today is May 1st, 2022, and I have just finished listening to the recording of December 31st, 2021 and I am just so happy and emotional because I did it. It’s such an answered prayer, something I’ve been wanting to do for so many years and so many excuses made throughout my life as to why I didn’t have enough time to go through the Bible and read His word. And I am just so thankful for…for the DAB production and the family and all the blessings that I’ve encountered through this app and this community. I want you guys to know that I’ve prayed for each and every one of you. And I just want to encourage those first time listeners or those who are struggling for feeling behind. There’s no such thing. There’s no such thing as being behind. OK? God is working through you. Every day you listen there’s a new blessing, there’s something to be learned, there’s something to be…to just be gained. You can only gain from this. And if you’re behind just keep going like Brian says, just take one step forward. That’s OK if you’re five months behind like I am because in the end you’ll get there. And I’m so happy and just so encouraged and I can’t wait for tomorrow because tomorrow I’ll be starting January 1st, 2022. So, thank you. I’m praying for you all and I love you.