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Accommodate God In All Aspects of Life
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Judges 20:1-21:25
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Transcript
Common Regrets and Human Tendencies
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What is the biggest regret you have in life? This question was asked to many Americans in a recent Pew survey.
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Many of the answers had a very common thread. Many reacted saying, perhaps I've responded too quickly in anger, or I've tried to fix a mistake and I end up making it worse.
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I've made decisions without thinking through the the consequences for those decisions. One person summarized it best this way. He said, I tried to solve yesterday's problems with today's bad decision.
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Is that you?
Historical Lessons from Israel's Mistakes
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Trying to solve yesterday's problems with today's bad decisions? It's exactly what we see as we close out these last two chapters in Judges.
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So the people of Israel who are outraged, and they should be, because there's this horrible sin that's committed in the city of Gibeah, Briefly touched upon that last week if you were here.
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Their anger is justified. It's understandable. But instead of humbly seeking the Lord and his wisdom, they they seek revenge.
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They don't seek the Lord. They seek revenge. And then to make it worse, they try to fix that revenge by making more human mistakes. it's it's It's terrible. Every step seems to just make the situation worse.
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One commentator said it this way. He said, sin rarely travels alone. It usually brings along more sin with it. This is the tragic story that we'll see here as we close out the book of Judges today.
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already warned up poor Isaiah. I told him there's gonna be a lot of scripture today. I hope you can keep up. I'll gonna do some jumping around, and I'm going to try stick real close to the the storyline. What Judges, these final two chapters, teach us, brothers and sisters, is There's a right right way that we handle life, and that is when we accommodate God. That means we include God in every as ah every aspect of what we do.
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And when we don't do that, things spiral out of control. Even if we attempt to try to fix things ourselves, they just get worse.
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So as you turn to chapter 20 with me, Judges chapter 20, I want you to think to yourself today, are there any areas in my life where God has been left out? Either intentionally,
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meaning you did it on purpose, you don't want him there, or unintentionally, meaning perhaps you have just overlooked it. And leaving him out of those areas isn't causing problems in your life.
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That's what I want you to consider as we as we look here, these last two chapters. The story begins with something that as we, if you read this, and ladies, I'm going to defer back to you because you guys have just had this Bible study intensive with me.
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As you read this story probably from the surface level, you probably thought everything looks great initially. Israel's unified, they're out seeking justice, but but underneath that storyline, there's something deeply troubling going on, and I'm gonna try to point that out as we go
Modern Parallels to Ancient Errors
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on. Chapter 20, we're gonna read the first five verses, and it says, that all the Israelites were unified as one man, from Dan in the north to Beersheba in the south.
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including those across the Jordan and the land of Gilead. The entire community assembled in the presence of the Lord at Mishpat. The leaders of all the people and of all the tribes of Israel. By the way, I'm reading that with with accentuation in case you didn't know that.
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There's a lot of alls going on here, y'all.
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The leaders of all the people and all the tribes of Israel. 400,000 warriors.
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armed with swords, took their positions in the assembly of the people of God. Verse 3 says, word soon reached the land of Benjamin that the other tribes had gone up to Mizpah. The Israelites then asked how this terrible crime had happened.
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What crime, you ask? Well, we we touched upon this last week. um This poor concubine that got abused. I'll just put it that way. This is what they're referring to.
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Now look at verse 4 and verse 5 because the Levite summarizes exactly what happened, sort The
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That night some of the leading citizens of Gibeah. I like how how the New Living Translation says citizens, as if these were upstanding people. The citizens of Gideon surrounded the house. They planned to kill me, and then they raped my concubine until she was dead.
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Interesting how he leaves out. He was the one who pushed her out the door. Don't forget that little detail.
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It's interesting to me in just these first couple of verses. Israel's gathered, I put in my notes, unified. They're all together.
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They're outraged at this horrible travesty that's happened to this poor lady. Their anger is justified. It's understandable. This crime was horrific.
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By the way, last week i didn't even go into detail. I left that for your homework. I hope some of you read that. It's pretty tragic. It's pretty graphic. But I want you to notice something. here in verse 7.
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So now then, all of you, the entire community of Israel, you must decide here and now what should be done about this. So there's a horrible crime that's happened, and all of Israel is gathered.
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Everybody, unified. Except the tribe of Benjamin, we'll find out. But instead of consulting God, they talk amongst themselves. Okay, we're all here, we're all huddled around, what are we going to do about this crime?
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They're not seeking God. They're going to seek revenge. That's their focus. Action, not submission. Imagine a group of your neighbors upset about some problem that happened on your street.
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They meet in the driveway. Hey, everybody, come over to my house. We're going to meet in the driveway. And the voices get louder. Somebody starts yelling, hey, we've got to do something. And within minutes, a plan is made. No facts are checked.
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No wisdom is sought. God's not even mentioned. Pitchforks are grabbed, torches are grabbed, and off they go in the situation
Consequences of Ignoring Divine Guidance
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just spiraled out of control.
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Pastor, that will never happen in my neighborhood because I live on a farm. It takes 20 minutes to get to my driveway.
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How about if I spin that example and say this happens online every single day.
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Some pastor somewhere gets accused of something and nobody knows the facts. and everybody piles on this guy. Calling for his resignation. Calling for a deep dive into his background and his beliefs.
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They don't seek God, they just simply seek revenge. This is what happens. And it reminds me, it reminds us of how easy it is to react first and then to seek God second.
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When in fact we should seek God first and then react based upon what God informs us.
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We can be so convinced that we're right. Matter of fact, I saw a little video just the other day. so Two guys standing on either side of the table and they had a basketball in the middle. One guy on the right, he ask he's asked, what color is that basketball?
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And he looks at the basketball and he says it's white. He said, are you 100% sure? I'm 100% sure. And he asked the other guy on the other side, what color is that basketball? He said, black. He said, how convinced are you that that basketball is black?
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100% I'm convinced. then he had them walk around the other side the table only to realize the basketball was painted white on this side and black on that side. Both thought they were 100% correct.
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Both were 100% wrong.
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I give this illustration because I think sometimes it's very easy to become morally outraged and not be spiritually guided.
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If we want to avoid this kind of damage that we're going to see unfold here in these last two chapters of Judges, We've got to learn to pause first. Pause long enough to say, Lord, what would you have me do in this situation?
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Too often we we let our emotions take over. And we get so excited or so upset or so hurt or so angry. And we want to lash out. And instead it would do us a tremendous benefit if we would just simply pause and consult the Lord.
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In my notes I put, Lord, what would you have me do here? That's what I wrote to myself.
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So they go from this mob mentality, they've gathered everybody together, and if you look down here to verse 12, it says, The Israelites sent messengers to the tribe of Benjamin, saying, What a terrible thing has been done among you.
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Remember, ah Gibeah is in this territory of Benjamin.
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So all of Israel, verse 13 says, hey, Benjamin, give up those evil men, those troublemakers from Gibeah so we can execute them and purge Israel of this evil. But the people of Benjamin would not listen.
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Instead, they they came from their towns and they gathered to Gibeah to fight the Israelites. Brother on brother crime, this is what I put here. This is what this is.
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Inner tribal war ready to happen. Instead of repentance and justice, the situation becomes a civil war among Israelites, among God's people. Not among Israelites and Canaanites, among Israelites and Israelites, brother against brother.
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But sometimes families experience this same problem. Disagreements over something they can't even remember happened so many years ago, and it causes a fracture.
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Instead of seeking God's wisdom, they look to their own wisdom, Pride enters the room.
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Months go by. Years go by.
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Relationships broken. Brothers and sisters who should be getting along don't speak to each other. This is exactly what's happening in Israel at this point. And I put, if we're honest with ourselves this morning, this kind of conflict is not limited in Israel.
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It happens in families. Your family, my family.
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When your grown kids don't do what you want them to do, fracture happens. When your neighbors don't do what you want them to do, fracture happens.
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Dare I even say church fracture happens. Small disagreements grow into longstanding division. Humility is replaced by pride.
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And I just put ah the lesson for us as clear this morning. If we're to accommodate God, that means if we're going to include him in our relationships, in all the things that we do, we need to seek forgiveness, we need to show grace, we need to pursue peace at all costs.
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Even above your own agenda.
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Say it's not so, Pastor. Yes. Sometimes we hold back what we really want to say to somebody, to prevent disagreements, to foster unity, to keep those destructive divisions from happening.
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Now put ironically here, these tribes are all unified, but they're unified under the wrong purpose. They're not unified under God. They're unified under revenge.
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They're organized, they're structured. I know lots of churches that are organized and structured.
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But they're not seeking God's will. They're seeking their own will.
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My prayer all week long, by the way, as I was preparing this lesson, let God's will be done on this mission trip for the youth. Let the youth see something that shakes them, that rattles them while they're out there serving, that reminds them of who they are as the hands and feet of Christ.
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Because I think, brothers and sisters, we can go with the wrong motivation often.
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I was telling somebody just the other day when I had coffee with them one morning, I said, I saw all on social media this big, huge church that I know. Their kids are going on this youth mission effort.
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Brand new t-shirts. Brand new baseball caps with the church logo all on
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Young girl dressed to the nines with a paintbrush, painting an old rickety fence and somebody's taking this big huge social media picture, serving our community.
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And I thought, is that really what Jesus has called us to do? Let me hold a quick paintbrush so I get a cameo and they can post it on Facebook. Look how great our church is doing. Look how great our youth are.
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I don't know brothers sisters. I think sometimes we get it all wrong. The Israelites get it all wrong. They're going down a path that's going to have horrendous
Cycle of Sin and Wisdom
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repercussions.
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Thousands will die. Thousands of israel Israelites will die here in just a few few minutes. I'm going to show you that
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you that. I'm just going to completely skip this next part because I want to get to the numbers.
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let me Let me just jump real quick. Chapter 20. listen Listen to the loss of life here. This should floor you. Chapter 20, verse 21 says, But Benjamin's warriors who were defending the town came out and they killed, there's 22,000 Israelites that day.
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All right. Verse 25, couple of verses down. But the men of Benjamin killed another 18,000 Israelites. and now you have 22, then you have another 18. Look at verse 35.
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Keep going down.
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And on that day, the Israelites killed 25,100 of Benjamin's warriors.
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Keep going down. 44. Verse 44. forty
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That day, 18,000 of Benjamin Strong died. The survivors fled into the wilderness toward the rock Ramon. But Israel killed another 5,000, so add to that number. Then they continued to chase until they killed another 2,000.
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Verse 46, so that day the tribe of Benjamin lost 25,000 strong warriors, leaving only 600. The aftermath. six hundred
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the aftermath
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Just by my quick calculations, it's over 65,000 people. 65,000 people died in this exchange.
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Why? Because they acted out of anger. They acted out of revenge. They acted out of human wisdom instead of consulting God.
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And to make matters worse, well, I just put in here...
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We see this often, this this type of tragedy that starts small and it just keeps adding and it keeps adding and it keeps adding.
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It's like when went in a small church, if I can say, not our church, don't get me wrong here. When a small church, when when gossip starts,
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And it starts to question somebody in the congregation or somebody on staff. And then that starts to to catch fuel. And that gossip get the gossip gets more and more and more people talk about division starts happening.
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And people say, you know, I'm not really sure this is the place for me anymore. And then they then they leave. And then they take families with them. And then that small church gets a reputation in that community. Oh, well, that those are the people that fill in the blank.
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That's why we decide to leave. Brothers sisters, that's why we have 20 or 30 churches here in Cameron. Make no mistake, there's too many churches here in Camry.
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By the way, i'm going to be known as that pastor who got the bells working at First Baptist Church and who tells everybody there's too many churches in Camry. Mark my words.
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To make matters worse, you know it's like, hey, let's just do a bunch of killing on revenge. Now let's just make it even worse.
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There's some kidnapping that goes on here.
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don't really know where to jump in exactly to make this story make sense. Let's look at verse, let's go to chapter 21 starting in verse 6. Poor Isaiah, I know he's jumping all around. The Israelites felt sorry for their brother Benjamin.
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This is the one tribe that was left out of this, right? That all the killings started happening. says, today one of our tribes of Israel had been cut off. How can we find wives for the few who remain? This is the 600, basically, that are left. Since so we have sworn by the Lord not to give them our daughters in marriage. Well, where did that vow come? came right up at chapter 21, verse 1.
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The Israelites make this vow at Mizpah. We'll never give out our daughters in marriage to a man from the tribe of Benjamin. So there's the vow.
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None of our daughters will go to anybody in the tribe of Benjamin. But now there's this real problem. We have the tribe of Benjamin. There's only 600 people. What do we possibly do? There's not enough people. We can't give them any of our daughters. There's got to be a better solution, I put, to the problem. How do we fix this mistake that we've come up with?
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Well, here's the solution. Let's just go kidnap some women. So, if you look down, verse 10.
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So the assembly sent 12,000 of their best warriors to Gebesh Gilead with the orders to kill everyone there. So here's some more killing going on.
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Kill everybody, including women and children. This is what you are to do. Completely destroy all the males. Don't leave any males alive. And every woman who is not a virgin, kill her as well.
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Among the residents of Gebesh Gilead, they found 400 young virgins who had never slept with a man, And they brought them to the camp of Shiloh in the land of Canaan. The Israelite assembly sent, this is verse 13, sent a peace delegation to the remaining people of Benjamin living in ah in the Rock of Rimen.
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Then the men Benjamin returned to their homes where, surprise, 400 women awaited them. And they took them as their wives. Let's make matters worse.
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Yeah, let's just find this patch I put in my notes a spackle. How many of you'all of you have used spackle on your wall when there cracks started happening in the sheetrock? Instead of calling somebody a professional, I'm just to put a little spackle on there. And then a month later, the crack keeps going and that thing you fixed has gotten worse.
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The problem not the sheetrock, it's the foundation.
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They just make this matter worse. They kidnap women, one sin leads to another, one bad decision requires another bad decision to fix it. Which, by the way, this completely characterizes my non-Christian life before I came to Christ. One bad decision after another.
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Trying to get myself out of one problem from the next. Maybe you're here today and that's you too.
Moral Decline and Spiritual Lessons
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It's like when somebody spills coffee on the road and their loving wife says,
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You've got to blot it. You've got to blot it up. Don't smear it with a with the towel. I'm not saying anybody in my family would have ever told me to do that. but i've been told many times, you've got to got use the right chemical cleaner, otherwise it's just going to keep spreading.
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The more you smear it, the bigger that stain gets. Brothers and sisters, that's exactly what happens when we try to solve earthly problems without consulting God. That stain, that sin, just keeps getting bigger.
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And I put, when we leave God out of the most basic decisions in our life, whether that's your home, that's your relationships, that's your church, that's your finances, we're gonna create problems that we're gonna regret later.
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And those bad decisions rarely affect just ourselves, by the way. It always seems to affect other people. Collateral damage, I wrote in my notes right here. When we leave God out of our lives, the consequences often spread far beyond what we could ever imagine.
00:21:56
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But when we seek the Lord's wisdom on things, our lives can be brought under His protection and His provision, and we receive blessing instead of harm. I'll just put down, as we as we close out this book, there's one Sobering truth, if if if we can if we can bubble this up to the top, one big overarching thing.
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In those days, there was no king in Israel, and everybody did what was right in their own eyes.
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very last verse, the last chapter of Judges, 21-25. In those days, Israel had no king, and all the people did whatever they seemed right in their own eyes.
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It's a telling story.
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S-O-R-D. Sin, oppression, repentance, deliverance. Remember, this is the acronym I want you to remember when we think of the book of Judges. I also want you to think of this very line. There's no king and everybody's doing whatever they think's right.
00:23:01
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And that's never it's never good. Matter of fact, in your English Bible, when you look at the very next book in Ruth, this is how Ruth starts. And somebody says, no, we're not starting Ruth.
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Calm down. It's just one verse. In those days when the or more literal translation, in those days when the judges judged, there was a severe like a severe famine that came into that land.
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The whole book of Ruth is premised on the fact that the book of Judges says things aren't going great for Israel. They're doing things in their own sight. There is no king. That's the backdrop of how Ruth starts.
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And because that's the case, there's a famine in that land.
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What do we do with this closing tale, this,
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I put tale of modern culture, everybody doing whatever they think is right in their own eyes. Everybody doing whatever they want to do personal preference over God's truth.
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Your truth's not my truth. There is no absolute truth. Have you heard that before? You just need to ask your grown kids, they'll tell you. This is what's being sent out into into their iPhones, their Android, their social media.
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You can have it your way. You don't need God's truth.
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But when we live according to that plan, brothers and sisters, it's there's harm and destruction all over that picture.
Incorporating Divine Guidance in Daily Life
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So the question we need to ask ourselves and we asked at the very beginning that we're we're now going to answer, how do we make sure that God is included in every part of our lives? Well, I just put the very the very basic, most practical example I can give you today, something that you can leave here today that you can start practicing with, is the way in which you handle your finances.
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Surely he's not going to end his sermon on judges talking about my money.
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Because any time we bring up money, people get funny. I don't know why that is.
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Many of you, money is the one area in your life where you're tempered tempted to operate in your own power, in your own wisdom. I know it's best. i know how best to spend my money.
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Matter of fact, I made that money. Therefore, it's my money. And I'm going to spend it the way I want to spend it.
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We plan our spending, we organize our bills, we set our priorities. But if we ever stopped and asked ourselves this, Lord, how would you want me to use this money that you have provided me?
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Completely reframes our finances. Proverbs 3.9 says that we are to honor the Lord with our wealth in the first fruits from all of our produce.
00:25:56
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That means our finances are not just simply something practical. It's something spiritual. God has provided us with what we have financially so that we can invest in the future.
00:26:10
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that we can invest in moving the kingdom purposes further while we're here. Because brothers and sisters, you can't take it with you.
00:26:24
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Matter of fact, not next week. But the following week, we're going to Youth Sunday here. The youth are are going to be managing a large portion of what's going on here in the church. It's going to be fantastic.
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I'm going put Kathy Barrett on the spot. I'm going ask her a few questions about the mission trip. going to ask a couple of the youth some questions. We have two youth, two college kids that are going to Crewe in LSU. They're to come speak for a couple minutes that Sunday as well.
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It's gonna be a fantastic time. I'm gonna wrap up with a very simple message that simply says this, how are we investing in the future? How are we investing in the youth? How are we moving forward the kingdom of God with the finances that you have?
00:27:06
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So one simple concrete step that you could do today, that you could take home today as you step out of these doors and you go back to your house, the next time that you sit down and you go to pay your bills or you go to make a purchase or you go to set up your monthly planning on your budget, I would ask if you would just pause and pray this prayer. Lord, everything I have comes from you.
00:27:26
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That's the first recognition. It all comes from above. Would you help me to use that which you have given me to serve you? It's that simple. comes from you. Help me to use to use those the right way Maybe that means setting aside a portion of your income.
00:27:45
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Maybe you're somebody who doesn't give regularly. Maybe you're somebody who just says, here's a couple bucks that's in my pocket that I washed over the weekend and I found them in my jeans. I'm going to drop them in the plate as it gets passed around.
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You laugh.
00:28:01
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Pastor, Tithing is is an Old Testament term. It's not anywhere near in the New Testament. I don't want to hear anything about tithing. Well, let me tell you, come sit with me, and I will fix that problem that you have in about 30 seconds.
00:28:14
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And it's not 10%, by the way. When I'm done with you, it's more like 32% if you want to get down to brass tacks. But it all comes from God in the first place. So the the sooner you realize it's all his, it's so much easier to give back. You give back with ah with a joyful heart.
00:28:30
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Sit down with your budget and say, Lord, help me to see that it comes from you, that I can give back in a way that honors you, give generously, reevaluate maybe how you're spending this week.
00:28:45
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Do I really need those new pair of tennis shoes? By the way, for me, that's that's a big thing. I love tennis shoes. Do I really need that, or can that money be given to the crew folks that are gonna come here in a couple weeks?
00:29:01
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This is what it means to accommodate or to include God in every aspect of our lives, not just the comfortable places. I love to include God on my Sunday time with you guys. the finances? I don't know about that.
00:29:16
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What I watch on TV during the week when nobody's watching? I don't know if I want you guys included on that.
00:29:24
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That's not including God in all aspects of our lives. Those are the comfortable areas of our lives. I'm challenging you today. Include him in every area and watch him flourish.