GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
JUDGES 21:25
25 In those days Israel had no king. Everyone did whatever seemed right in his own eyes.
This statement or parts of it appear four times in Judges (17:6; 18:1; 19:1 and here in 21:25). It appears in these chapters as a refrain; the inspired author offers it as a hint: Such horrible things happen when the people have no leadership. And yet, didn’t they have leaders in the judges themselves? These outrages that happened in Benjamin and the idolatry of the Danites took place early, while Othniel judged the people in Judah—just a few miles away from Benjamin, and just next door to the land assigned to Dan.
Yet God blessed his people through the judges. Even after Benjamin was all but annihilated, Ehud was raised up. Abimelech terrorized, but he was removed. Oppression by Canaanite nations was always met with the right judge at the right time. God was looking after his people all along. For every Micah with his idols there was a Gideon willing to burn his father’s pagan shrine. Things would not be much different under the kings when they came. Many of the kings—all the northern kings, and several southern kings—would be schnooks and heathens, twisting the truth to their own ends, taking any honest rebuke and turning it into an excuse for dismissing an advisor or murdering a friend (1 Kings 18:12; Jeremiah 41:1-3; Luke 11:47). It’s no different today, in any country on earth. But God is still in control. He will not abandon us or forsake us.
Put your trust in Christ, who gave his blood, his breath and his very life to rescue us from our sins. This is where the true Christian, the gentle reader who wants to understand the Bible as the precious word of God and not slash and hack it to bits as if it were the poorer half of the manuscript of Beowulf as the critics always do—the true Christian shows his Christian worth. We read the Bible and accept it because it is the word of God. We preach the Bible because it is the saving, healing word of God. We must not add to it, or rob it of its power by stealing the point away from the Lord’s gospel. “For the Christian faith,” Luther said, “is not a joke, nor is it a little thing, but as Christ says in the gospel, ‘It can do all things’ (Mark 9:23). But, my dear friend, where are those who believe thus and who can do such things [proclaim it and put it into practice]? Nevertheless, although the great majority does not do this, we must teach it and know it for the sake of those who will not [turn from it], however few they may be. As Isaiah 55:11 says, God’s word does not return empty, but accomplishes his purpose. The others who despise this wholesome teaching which is given for their salvation have their judge to whom they must answer. We are excused; we have done our part.” (“Whether Soldiers, Too, Can Be Saved.” LW 46 p. 136).
When I set out to write this little series of devotions on Judges, some people asked me not to do it because it is too violent a book; to bloody. But here, every much as in the Gospels or the Epistles of Paul and Peter, here is the word of God. Here is the example of those few faithful who rose up when the times and people needed them. If the finest example in the book is Deborah, then embrace her and thank God for her. If you are comforted that some of the Lord’s great servants in the book led lives that were not so very thrilling, but more ordinary—men like Tola and Jair, and Ibzan Elon and Abdon—then praise God if your life is less thrilling and more peaceful, like theirs. But if God requires you to grab whatever weapon is handy like Shamgar and walk bravely down into the land of the pagans, then make God’s word your only weapon, and be confident in that word. “I will speak of your statutes before kings and will not be put to shame” (Psalm 119:46). And the Lord will be with you always, to the very end of the age.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Archives by Wisconsin Lutheran Chapel: http://www.wlchapel.org/worship/daily-devotion/
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota