Israel Defeated by Satan

7There was a young man out of Bethlehem Judah, of the family of Judah, who was a Levite; and he lived there. 8The man departed out of the city, out of Bethlehem Judah, to live where he could find a place, and he came to the hill country of Ephraim, to the house of Micah, as he traveled. 9Micah said to him, “Where did you come from?” He said to him, “I am a Levite of Bethlehem Judah, and I am looking for a place to live.” 10Micah said to him, “Dwell with me, and be to me a father and a priest, and I will give you ten pieces of silver per year, a suit of clothing, and your food.” So the Levite went in. 11The Levite was content to dwell with the man; and the young man was to him as one of his sons. 12Micah consecrated the Levite, and the young man became his priest, and was in the house of Micah. 13Then Micah said, “Now know I that Yahweh will do good to me, since I have a Levite as my priest.”

Fasten the first button wrong, and every button after it will be wrong as well. Buttonholes are made so that buttons fasten easily, but if the wearer gets the first one wrong, the garment cannot do what it was made to do. The first button, which people think so little of, plays the vital part of putting every other button in its place. God wants his people to be that first button. If they stand in their place and fulfill their part well, the generations of faith that follow will naturally take up their part as the second and third buttons. And those who look on, seeing the good conduct of saints who keep spiritual order, will receive the gospel.

But Christians today are not fulfilling their part as they should. As a result, the world is growing ever more crooked and unsightly, like a garment buttoned wrong from the top. To set these problems right, late as it may seem, we must undo every button and fasten them correctly from the start. Otherwise, however carefully we try to fasten the rest, we cannot wear the garment properly, because the first one was wrong.

We are meant to build a firm order by exalting God and fighting against sin. Since we have sinned by yielding to Satan, that order must now be set right through repentance. The world may seem stronger than the church, like a Babylon that can never fall; yet the world God created can shine only when his people change. If we give no light, the world’s order will go on in its ruin, and in the end it will face judgment. Refastening from the first button will take time, but the quickest way is still for us to repent and turn back.

Through the book of Judges we have seen how badly the people of Israel soiled the beautiful garment of salvation that God made for them. In his love and care he set them free from more than four hundred years of slavery and led them into the promised land. Having come through so many trials to enter Canaan, they would have built God’s own kingdom had they kept order by his word.

But Israel did not serve God as king. They abandoned his word, worshiped idols even more than the Canaanites did, and lived lives of moral decay. Israel sank into sexual immorality so quickly; from this we can see that anyone who departs from God is bound to live in lewdness.

You can now overcome the lusts of your heart by faith, and worship and praise God, because God is keeping you. People today, bound by shameful desires, abandon the natural relations between man and woman, and men with men and women with women commit what is shameful. They are doing what is not fitting because God has not held back their sin but has left them in their corrupted state.

Consider the Levite and his wife in today’s passage. Though he had a wife, the Levite lived a sexually loose life, and in her anger she gave vent to her grievance by committing the same immorality as her husband. Her answer to his immorality was to fall into the same sin herself, and this makes plain how far Israel had fallen.

Revelation 12:7-9 records that Michael and the dragon fought in heaven, and that the great dragon, unable to prevail against Michael, was cast out: the old serpent, called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world, was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. This Satan is a spirit who opposes God, an evil spirit who never stops accusing and slandering God’s people before him, so that they may not be saved. These spirits roam the whole world and do all they can to bring down even one soul.

Admittedly, his being thrown down to the earth by Michael points to the beginning of the end; yet the passage also shows us plainly what Satan does. They wage war against the armies of God, and they come before God’s throne to accuse and slander his people; they do not rest for a moment. That is why we must stay awake. Only then will we keep from sinning as Adam and Eve did, and survive as those who take the Kingdom of Heaven by force.

Satan is a spirit who deceives people and murders them by taking their lives. Yet because God’s people live mixed in with so many idolaters, they have lost their wariness of Satan, just as Israel did. Satan uses the media to brainwash children into believing he is nothing to fear. He crafts lively, appealing stories, as if the characters were alive; the figures may have horns or look frightening and ugly, but otherwise they come to children like friendly playmates.

But Satan is not a cartoon character; he is an evil spirit who truly exists. He distorts the perfect forms of human beings, made in God’s image, and of animals as well, giving them one eye or three, putting horns on animals, clouding people’s judgment. Many will probably ask whether we are not overreacting to a cartoon everyone watches, a character children love. But that is exactly Satan’s strategy, which is why we must judge rightly.

He is even changing the idea of sex, to break the law God established when he made humankind to be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth. Knowing that sexuality is where people are weakest, he has corrupted it, changing what marriage itself is understood to be.

Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed precisely because of sexual corruption. Relations between a man and a man, or a woman and a woman, are not the natural relationship through which children are born and a family grows. God clearly said that man and woman were to be fruitful and multiply by becoming one. Nor did God tell them to be fruitful and multiply through polygamy. When we see Sodom and Gomorrah, which broke this word and gave themselves to sexual sin, come under judgment, we can know for certain that homosexuality is a sin. In the past, a tender affection between two people of the same sex was called friendship; now, because all such feelings are confined to the sexual, the way people think about them has itself changed.

Genesis 13 tells us that Abram settled in Canaan, while his nephew Lot settled in Sodom and Gomorrah, which looked beautiful to him. Those cities, which seemed as lovely as the garden of Eden, were sexually depraved and morally corrupt, and they came under Yahweh’s wrath in a judgment of burning sulfur. At Bab edh-Dhra, a city thought to be Sodom, archaeologists found traces of fire concentrated on the roofs of the buildings, and the sulfurous ash left by burnt rock. At Bab edh-Dhra, across from the salt mountain that calls Lot’s wife to mind, they also found more than two million pieces of pottery, potsherds, and bodies, evidence that thousands or even tens of thousands of people had lived there, thereby confirming that the Bible is true.

2 Peter 3:3-7

3knowing this first, that in the last days mockers will come, walking after their own lusts, 4and saying, “Where is the promise of his coming? For, from the day that the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.” 5For this they willfully forget, that there were heavens from of old, and an earth formed out of water and amid water, by the word of God; 6by which means the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished. 7But the heavens that now exist, and the earth, by the same word have been stored up for fire, being reserved against the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.

In 2 Peter 3:3-7, Peter says that in the last days, before Jesus returns, false teachers will come who deny the end, despise and blaspheme God, and display their lust for evil. These false teachers mocked the apostles who preached Christ’s return, calling the Lord’s coming and God’s creation lies. But on the last day, when Jesus Christ returns, they will be judged by the Lord they mocked. They told the church that, just as all things go on unchanged, there will be no judgment and no return of Jesus Christ.

Peter answered those who claimed the Lord would not return by pointing to the judgment of the flood. However unchanged all things might look to them, he said, this world has already been judged once by water, and on the last day God will judge it by fire. Whether people believe it or not, God keeps the heavens and the earth as they are, reserved for the last day, when he will judge by fire those who do not believe in him and have not lived godly lives.

When God judged Sodom and Gomorrah with fire and sulfur, he was showing in advance, through those cities and the Dead Sea, that this world will be judged by fire on the day Jesus Christ comes. To those who spoke only of what they could see, Peter said that since God is not like mortals, they must not forget that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

In the light of this word, a human life is no more than a speck of dust. So we must not judge Christ’s return by our human sense of time, but believe that God will act according to his eternal purpose. If we are shaken by the claims of those who mock God, doubt will take root; we must always stay awake, filled with the Holy Spirit, and be on our guard. The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, then, has been shown to be fact. Even so, a great many people today mock the works of God, do not believe in heaven and hell, and live as they please. That is their freedom; but on the last day, when the world is judged, they will fall into the fire of hell with Satan.

I have dwelt on Sodom and Gomorrah at such length because today’s passage concerns the sins of the people of Israel, who had become as corrupt as Sodom and Gomorrah. Only if we read the passage believing this will the conduct of the Levite and of Israel make sense, and only then will we see clearly what sin is.

The Levites, called by God’s special providence, served in God’s house on behalf of the other tribes of Israel and carried out all the duties of making atonement for the people’s sins. They shared the holy task of taking down and setting up the tabernacle, carried the ark of the covenant, and were charged with teaching the people the law and judging their disputes. Beyond that, their work for God reached from the temple choir and the temple gatekeepers to the building and repair of the temple. And yet a Levite, who was meant to do all this for God, had fallen.

Judges 19:1

1In those days, when there was no king in Israel, there was a certain Levite living on the farther side of the hill country of Ephraim, who took for himself a concubine out of Bethlehem Judah.

A Levite who worked at the tabernacle was living with his concubine in the hill country of Ephraim. Though he had taken a concubine, he was still not satisfied and committed further impurity, and his concubine, enraged at this, fell into the same sin. She left her husband and went back to her father in Bethlehem Judah, where she stayed four months, so it seems the two had separated. This incident, in which the Levite’s sexual sin defiled the name of God, shows plainly how far Israel had fallen morally. Search the Scriptures, and you will find that when Israel forsook God’s holy word and worshiped idols, the first sin it committed was sexual immorality. This is the area Satan works at most eagerly when he drags people down, and so, unless we are armed with the word, we will inevitably be deceived.

When his wife went back to her father’s house, had the Levite looked once more at his own sin, he would have been given a chance to turn back. Instead, unable to forget the concubine who had given him pleasure, he set off for Judah to bring her home. The Levite was a man who served at the tabernacle, and yet he fell this easily, which reveals how powerful sexual temptation is.

It is tragic: when the Levites are corrupt, no one is left to warn the people, which leaves Israel no chance to turn back to God. This is exactly what Satan is aiming at, so we can withstand his attacks only if we stand unshaken on the rock of the word.

Friends, let us picture a magnet. Small iron filings scattered on the ground are hard to pick up by hand, but pass a magnet over them just once and you will see a mass of filings come up clinging to it. If the magnet is a saint who holds the word, and the filings are souls who need to hear it, we can see how great a sin it is for the church not to preach the word to the world today. Turn it around and let the magnet be Satan: when he tries to lure those who keep the faith, only if they abide in the Holy Spirit will he be unable to touch them.

Because the Levite exerts no influence through the word, Israel is rotting, like iron filings left lying on the ground. The Levite, who should be stirring the people powerfully with the word, has himself fallen; as a result, God’s people are not hearing the holy word.

I have found it frustrating that these people would walk with God only when someone pulled them along. They too had met God, known him, and entered Canaan. It grieved me to watch them reveal the most depraved side of human nature whenever there was no judge or king. Job, unlike them, did not betray God once he had met him, and Abraham, Moses, and many other people of faith kept the faith on their own at the risk of their lives and saved other souls. Even with no one to lead us and no one to recognize us, we can exalt God’s name to the full in the place he has given us. If we rise up of our own accord with such humble faith, we will be able to extend the Kingdom of God.

When the Levite, who should have been the center around which Israel’s faith was held together, fell, the whole people pursued sexual pleasure and defiled the name of God.

Judges 19:10

10But the man wouldn’t stay that night, but he rose up and departed, and toward Jebus (also called Jerusalem). With him were a couple of saddled donkeys. His concubine also was with him.

The Levite’s father-in-law welcomed the son-in-law who had come for his daughter. After being lavishly entertained, the Levite tried to leave on the fifth day, but his father-in-law urged him to stay longer, and the delay meant that night was falling. Because the Sabbath would begin the next day, the Levite set out for home despite the late hour; but since it had already grown so dark, he decided to spend the night at Gibeah, which belonged to Benjamin. He thought that in Gibeah, among his own people, he would find help, but no one would take the travelers in, and they found themselves in difficulty. Just then they met an old man coming home from his work in the field, and he gladly brought them to his house.

But this was only the beginning of the misfortune. As they rested peacefully in the old man’s house, the worthless men of the city pounded on the door and threatened him, demanding that he bring out the Levite who had come into his house. The scene is no different from the night Lot took the angels into his house and the worthless men shouted for him to bring them out. The term for these men means sons of Belial, and Belial carries the sense of “useless,” “worthless,” “good for nothing”; it is used mostly in combination with words for people.

Under Satan’s control, these worthless men beat hard on the door, wanting to drag out the Levite and have sex with him. The land of Gibeah, where the Levite lodged, was the land of foreigners, but at that time the tribe of Benjamin had received it as their inheritance, so these men were Benjamites. The Dead Sea, formed long ago when the people of Sodom were judged, lay not far from Gibeah. They could look at the Dead Sea and knew why Sodom and Gomorrah had been destroyed, yet they refused to take that history as a warning.

Then the old man, as if mimicking Lot’s very words, offered his virgin daughter and the man’s concubine, and begged them not to do such folly to this man. Just as the angels stopped Lot’s words, the Levite ought to have fought them to the end; instead he forced his concubine out and gave her to them. A man who hands over the wife he loves to such a mob to protect his own skin is as wicked as the wicked men themselves. If he had entrusted the matter to God in faith and prayed earnestly, God would have shown him the same miracle, just as the angels in Lot’s house struck the worthless men blind.

But the Levite, who had brought his concubine back for the pleasures of the flesh, drove her to her death to save his own life. He thought only of himself; everything centered on him, and he was selfish to the extreme. Watching a Levite throw away another’s life so easily for his own safety, we can see what kinds of choices a person makes once they have entered the way of corruption. When we look at the people of the world today, who hold the lives of others cheap for the sake of their own glory, we see that this world is no different from Sodom and Gomorrah.

Only by following in faith Jesus Christ, who willingly gave up his life on the cross and gave us eternal life, can we remain saints who do good in this harsh world.

Today the world shows contempt for life, as if to mock God, and homosexuality is protected by law, as if to scoff at the command to multiply. Since the world’s law and order are being torn down by Satan, we must keep the word, proclaim it, and strive to save even one soul. The laws of the world are being bent away from morality and conscience and toward protecting the pleasures of the body. Drugs are being legalized, and under the banner of protecting the human rights of criminals and sexual minorities, the rights of far more people go unprotected.

Israel now is no different from Sodom and Gomorrah. Thrown to the mob, the woman was abused until dawn; though her husband had not protected her, she still made her way to the door of the house where he was and died there, her hands on the threshold. Even this act of hers, dying with her hands on the threshold, reflects a superstitious custom: she did it in the hope that the god of the threshold might save her. From the Benjamites trying to drag out the Levite, to the Levite setting out to bring back his concubine, to the woman dying with her hands on the threshold, the good order of God’s people had collapsed like a garment buttoned wrong from the first.

Through the Bible we now see how evil these people were. Yet if we ask whether this nation and this people, the church and its members, are living any differently, we could not honestly say that they are.

Friends, once we leave God, we can never make a sound judgment. Only in God’s light can we tell good from evil, see our own sin, and receive the chance to be saved.

Even if the whole world falls into corruption, even if everyone in the world leaves God, I earnestly hope that you will be wise enough, though you stand alone, to rely on God and hold high the lamp of the word.