Judges 21

Order of Service

• Call to Worship — Psalm 48:1-14
• Hymn — Great Is the Lord Our God (#48A)
• Prayer of Invocation
• Heidelberg Catechism — Question 45
• Hymn — Jesus, Lover of My Soul (#450)
• Pastoral Prayer
• Scripture Reading — Judges 21:1-25
• Sermon
• Hymn — Come, Thou Almighty King (#212)
• Benediction — Numbers 6:24-26

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Sermon Title: The Lord's Mercy Meets Us in Our Moral Mess

Scripture: Judges 21:1-25

I. Our Moral Mess

A. The book of Judges opens with Israel inquiring of the Lord after Joshua's death and closes with the repeated refrain: "In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes."

B. Two rash oaths made at Mizpah set up the moral tangle of this passage

1. The "wife oath" — no tribe would give daughters in marriage to Benjamin
2. A death oath — any part of Israel that failed to answer the assembly's summons would be devoted to destruction

C. Israel's response to Benjamin's near-extinction shows a mixture of right and wrong

1. They weep and offer sacrifices before the Lord (Judges 21:2-4) — a genuine, if incomplete, repentance
2. They proclaim peace to the surviving Benjaminites (Judges 21:13) — a concern for what God cares about
3. Yet their solution involves slaughtering Jabesh-gilead to produce 400 virgins for the 600 surviving Benjaminite men
4. The math still falls short (400 women for 600 men), so they devise a plan for Benjamin to snatch girls dancing at the Shiloh festival
5. Convoluted reasoning in Judges 21:22 allows Israel to claim clean hands — the fathers did not "give" their daughters, and Benjamin did not take them in formal battle

D. The problem of oaths is not that they can be made, but what has been promised in haste and without wisdom

1. Compare Jephthah's foolish oath and the sacrifice of his daughter
2. Proverbs 12:22 — "Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who act faithfully are his delight"

E. Application: the mirror of God's Word reflects our own moral mess

1. A thorn-like mixing of right and wrong, good motives and selfish ones
2. Romans 7:21 — "I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand"
3. We are a "mixed bag" — salt and sugar indistinguishable once combined

II. The Lord's Mercy That Meets Us in Our Moral Mess

A. God does not speak in this passage; the actions are neither commended nor condemned — yet his providence is at work throughout

B. Israel's compassion for Benjamin (twice noted: Judges 21:6 and Judges 21:15) is, through the fog of the mess, a vehicle of the Lord's own compassion

1. Hosea 11:8 — "How can I give you up, O Ephraim? My compassion grows warm and tender"
2. Benjamin deserved complete destruction like Sodom; instead a remnant is preserved

C. God is faithful to himself and therefore faithful to his covenant people

1. He cannot deny himself (2 Timothy 2:13)
2. To let Benjamin perish entirely would dishonor his name before the watching world
3. Dale Ralph Davis: "It is of Yahweh's mercies that we are not consumed. Even in wrath, Yahweh remembered mercy" — the subtitle of Judges and of the gospel

D. From Benjamin's preserved remnant comes the first king of Israel — Saul — and ultimately the King of kings

1. God preserves this people so that his Son can come
2. Romans 5:6-10 — "While we were still weak… while we were still sinners… while we were still enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son"

E. Application: the Lord's tenacious grace

1. Dale Ralph Davis: "Yahweh's grace is far more tenacious than his people's depravity and insists on still holding them even in their sinfulness and their stupidity"
2. Galatians 4:4-5 — "God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law"
3. Deuteronomy 7 — God chose Israel not for their size or righteousness, but solely because he loved them; the same is true for every believer
4. There is a king in Israel — the Son whom God has placed on the throne; look to him