Automatic Transcript Generated:
Speaker 1:
Alright.
Speaker 3:
Our last question, Marsha, is asking, can you explain Judges 19:25? Why does God allow this to happen? Seems like when you read the Bible, women are less hard to relate with a God God that allowed this to happen. Not only did they give her up willingly, the husband was found sleeping, she was being gang raped and he slept.
Speaker 2:
Cool.
Speaker 3:
It’s a heavy topic to end on in our short time, but it’s a very important topic.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I was going to say we could talk about this one for an hour.
Speaker 3:
Can we bring that verse up and see what that is?
Speaker 3:
Actually, before we go to that, I want to explain something about the Book of Judges. Now to my sister here who’s asking this? I totally agree. This is a horrible story and it’s kind of interesting. Like we’re talking about. There’s things in the Bible. Like, you see the suicide of Saul or you see the suicide of Judas Iscariot. Now, these are not examples of things that God promotes. These are stories to learn from it and to keep it from happening again in your life. This is not God’s will for any of us to suffer, to perish, to go through these horrible things. And when it comes to the Book of Judges, it’s definitely an interesting book. Now there’s a verse I want to show you before we get into chapter 19. That kind of summarizes what was going on in Israel during this time. Now the Book of Judges is called Judges because there was no King in Israel. Israel was just kind of loosely governed by judges or these people that were wise that people would go to whenever they were having issues. And if you go to Judges, chapter 17 and verse six, this kind of summarizes the essence of the world that people were living in back in that time.
Speaker 3:
And in Judges, Chapter 17, verse six, I’ll just go ahead and read it. It says, in those days, there was no King in Israel. So there was really no structure or leadership. And it says everyone did what was right in his own eyes. So people say it was anarchy, but it was definitely this weird time of just like there wasn’t like a police force. There wasn’t structure. You were just kind of left to do what you thought was right.
Speaker 2:
And it applied in that too, is they’re not doing what was right in God’s eyes.
Speaker 2:
No. Yes, exactly. They were doing what was right in their eyes. They’re like, well, I think this is good for me. So this is what I want to do. And there was no King. There was no justice system to kind of enforce Marshall laws basically that we would understand today. Like today, if somebody is robbing you, you would call the police, someone who can help you. Back then, there was nobody to do that. It was just kind of like you’re kind of vulnerable and you’re just kind of at the mercy of the guy who is bigger than you. And so when it comes to the story in Judges 19, it’s kind of an interesting story. And you do need to see some of the context of what was going on. So this man, basically, it just says a Benjamin Knight or it doesn’t say his name. If you go to Judges Chapter 19, verse one, and it says, and it came to pass in those days when there was no King in Israel. So it keeps reiterating in this book, there was no King. Like, there was no structure, there was no authority that there was a certain Levite.
Speaker 1:
So journey in the land in the mountain of Frame who took to him a concubine out of Bethlehem Judah. So basically, the context is that this Levite, which was a man of God, basically was or at least the person who lived in Israel, took him a concubine. So he was basically marrying this girl. And if you go to verse two, it kind of tells you what kind of girl this was. And it says, and his concubine played the whore against him. So she was cheating on him. She was not doing the right thing or she played the harlot against him and went away from him to her father’s house at Bethlehem in Judah and was there for four whole months. So basically, this woman was not a righteous woman. She was just doing whatever she felt like, which was, you know, to cheat on her husband. And I’ll summarize the basics of the chapter is that he goes and out to be with her because he’s like, hey, I married you, I love you. Come back to me. He didn’t want to divorce her. He wanted to make things right. He wanted to fix their relationship.
Speaker 1:
And once they get there, basically there’s like this back and forth between him and her dad. Or he’s like, oh, don’t leave. Basically, I think he just knew she just wanted to keep messing around or whatever she was doing there in Bethlehem Judah. And he’s finally just like, no, I want to take my wife home. We need to go. We need to not be here. This is where she’s getting into mischief. And this is a wrong relationship. And it kind of symbolized what was going on with God’s people as a woman. God’s people are always symbolized as a woman. Like you see in Revelation Twelve and Revelation 17, either a good woman being God’s righteous Church or Roman 17 being an unholy Church, basically apostate Church. And so you see that she’s cheating on her husband. And he finally just says, we got to go home. And on the way home, basically, he’s taken in by this man who doesn’t want him staying out in the street. And at that time, some dirty men come and they are like, hey, we want to sexually assault the man. They actually wanted the Levite. And so it’s just kind of a terrible story where that man who took in the Levite and his concubine to protect them says, hey, I don’t want you to rape this man, which is what the men in the city were asking to do.
Speaker 1:
That’s what they felt like doing. And he said, no, don’t do it. Take one of these. Take anything else, but don’t. Sodomize this man that’s wrong.
Speaker 2:
Like what happened with a lot in Sodom Gamora.
Speaker 2:
Exactly. And so what ended up happening is not the Levite, not her husband, but the other man just threw the concubine out of the house. And those evil men, yes, they indeed raped her throughout the night. And in the morning, she came to the back of the door. It’s terrible because it says he died and she died because they abused her so badly. And it is a horrible story. And it’s kind of weird how the story ends in the end of the chapter, which what happens is that Levi, he ends up cutting her into twelve pieces and sends her to the twelve tribes of Israel and says, look what we’ve come to. Look where we’re at. This is what has become of my wife. Even though she was a Harlot, I still loved her. I still took her in. And the men in Bethlehem, these are supposedly so God’s people. This is not like they were out in the Gentile and. No, they were in Israel. And this horrible thing happened to her, and it was not right. And basically, this story is sent out as a message to God’s. People think about where you’re going, think about what you’re doing, because one sin gone unchecked has no bounds.
Speaker 1:
And if you keep on this path of just one sin, it leads to the next. It leads to the next till you don’t even recognize yourself anymore. Like, these are supposed to be God’s people. And yet they were horrible men who raped and murdered an innocent, a woman who to them was innocent. They had no right to do that to her.
Speaker 2:
And this only led to the entire tribe of Benjamin being wiped out.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, exactly. It’s horrible. It’s a horrible, horrible story. But it’s there again for that lesson of just because you’re in a Church, just because you’re taking the name of God, unless you are connected to God, unless you are obedient to his will, you will lose control over yourself. You need to have a King sit on the throne of your heart, which is Jesus, because even if you claim the name of Christ, but if he doesn’t live in you, you’re going to end up doing horrible things that you are definitely going to regret, and it’ll definitely hurt other people. So, sister, I hear you. It is a terrible story, and I don’t like reading it. And I wish it wasn’t in the Bible because I know it happened, but it’s there for an example as a warning to God’s people to be careful of the person you allow yourself to become. Because again, just because you’re a Church doesn’t mean everybody there is thinking Holy thoughts and doing Holy things. We all need to keep ourselves in check no matter what our position is, no matter who we are, we need to stay connected to Christ and be obedient to him and not just do whatever is good in our own site.
Speaker 1:
However, we feel like we have to submit ourselves to the true King, the King of Kings, and to his will, which will keep ourselves safe and keep us protecting each other from the sin that wants to live in us. I’m sorry, Jay. Wendy, do you have any other thoughts on this one?
Speaker 2:
Yeah. Marsha also seems to be struggling with this concept too, of why does God allow instead of women to be treated as second class citizens to go through this and just turn his back on it. And I just want to briefly dress that if we look at Genesis 316, God is pronouncing what’s considered the curses. And he says to Eve, I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception in pain. You shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you. Some people think this is God giving the right to men to rule over women. But what I think really going on is God’s now saying this is what the future is going to be like for you, Eve. And because of sin now being in the world, men are now going to dominate and rule over women. And you’re not going to have this co equal relationship that God had originally intended. That’s a function of sin we breathed into the world. God is waiting eagerly for the day when he could wipe it out. But that’s in the world right now. And so this is a consequence of it, because we’re sinful human beings.
Speaker 2:
We have inequalities left and right, and the man versus woman inequality is one of those that we see in the world today. That’s not what God wants. He’s not turning his back on it, but he’s allowing sin to show its utter sinfulness, as he did with the Benjamin Mites who just gang raped that poor woman. Because of that, it revealed how horribly sinful that whole society become. And go look at God, Jesus in person and how he treated women, and he always treated them with respect, with the utmost respect, very kind, very endearing. If men would always come and put them down, he always lifted those women up. And so that is the true example of how God is with regard to women. And it’s not this concept of a God who wants some second class citizens. That’s not the God of the Bible.
Speaker 3:
And it goes back to what we said earlier, that things in the Bible are not all recommendations for how things are supposed to be. A lot of them are recommended illustrations of what happens when we separate from God, when we go against this thing, when we go our own way and encourage society to go its own way. So yeah, it’s very interesting how that happens and what those stories tell us and it’s so important that we get them in the right light and read and understand them in the right light to understand that and recognize it. Yeah. It’s a very powerful story that if we saw today somebody throwing a woman out of their home to rapist like we would think that was the most horrific thing because it is. And we see that already illustrated in the Bible and we see what caused that to happen there and we can see that today as well. That what causes those things to happen is again, people just deciding to go their own way and not exactly not follow God’s way.
Speaker 2:
God’s not going to intervene all the time to stop us from the evil of people around us. Sometimes he does, often he does, but not all the time. And we’ll understand why, as Dena says, when we get to Heaven, we’ll understand all these things better.
Speaker 3:
Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2:
Wow. Live tough topics today.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, very heavy.
Speaker 2:
No Mark of the Beast today, but really profound topics that affect all of us and I think they’re super important topics.
Speaker 3:
A lot of people will open the Bible and just talk about all the good stuff in it and say just be good and do good and good things happen.
Speaker 2:
You got to put on a happy face all the time.
Speaker 3:
Yeah. And it doesn’t really get to helping people with the realities, the difficult realities of life. And so I really appreciate these questions that come in even though they are difficult, even though they are complex and hard sometimes to digest and work through. But at the same time like that’s the truth that says it’s free. That’s the truth that when we recognize that and we see these realities for what they are, that something so simple is just doing what we want to do without regard to whether that’s what God would want us to do or not. It leads down these paths and so it helps us see the end when we make decisions that might seem frivolous on the surface and how important it is for us to die daily and surrender our life daily to God’s path for us.
Speaker 1:
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