“The Dark Side”
“Now it came about in those days,
when there was no king in Israel.” (v.1)
We’ve heard
this phrase many times now in the book of Judges. This time, it speaks of the
people of Israel. They had no king; they had no authority over them. Therefore,
every man did what was right in his own eyes. In our chapter today we will see
just how dark the children of Israel became.
What
brings one man to do what is delightful in the eyes of God (the concubine’s
father) and another to do what is despicable in the eyes of God (the man of
Ephraim)? Perhaps the answer is that we are made in the image of God and
therefore have a desire to do good but, have been marred by our own sin and
have an innate bent toward evil. Our own culture declares, “Every person must determine what
is right for him or her personally”, or “What’s right for me may not be right
for you. There are no absolutes.” That’s the big lie in our society today.
We know
this type of thinking is absolutely wrong. There are absolutes. The universe is
governed by, absolute laws. One of which is gravity. If you try and defy
gravity or try and bend the law to fit your understanding of gravity, I
guarantee you will find yourself suffering the effects of gravity.
This is
exactly what happened to the people of Israel. They ignored God’s law, did what
was right in their own eyes, and slipped into the dark side of evil. Seeking one's own pleasure at the expense of all others
(as we see here in chapter 19) arises out of a heart that is deceitful and
desperately wicked. Sadly we see this everyday in the news.
There
is no control over such a heart, only a cure found in the grace of salvation.
The
Truth
“And having
been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him.” (Hebrews 5:9)
