Take your Bibles with me and go to Judges again. Judges chapter 17 tonight. We are going to read all of chapter 17 in a minute but we are also going to cover chapter 18.

I think this is one of the most interesting stories in the whole book of Judges and it has incredible implications for us today. I hope you listen intently tonight.

Let's go ahead and read all of chapter 17.

[!bible] Judges 17:1-13 - KJV

1. And there was a man of mount Ephraim, whose name was Micah.
2. And he said unto his mother, The eleven hundred shekels of silver that were taken from thee, about which thou cursedst, and spakest of also in mine ears, behold, the silver is with me; I took it. And his mother said, Blessed be thou of the LORD, my son.
3. And when he had restored the eleven hundred shekels of silver to his mother, his mother said, I had wholly dedicated the silver unto the LORD from my hand for my son, to make a graven image and a molten image: now therefore I will restore it unto thee.
4. Yet he restored the money unto his mother; and his mother took two hundred shekels of silver, and gave them to the founder, who made thereof a graven image and a molten image: and they were in the house of Micah.
5. And the man Micah had an house of gods, and made an ephod, and teraphim, and consecrated one of his sons, who became his priest.
6. In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes.
7. And there was a young man out of Bethlehemjudah of the family of Judah, who was a Levite, and he sojourned there.
8. And the man departed out of the city from Bethlehemjudah to sojourn where he could find a place: and he came to mount Ephraim to the house of Micah, as he journeyed.
9. And Micah said unto him, Whence comest thou? And he said unto him, I am a Levite of Bethlehemjudah, and I go to sojourn where I may find a place.
10. And Micah said unto him, Dwell with me, and be unto me a father and a priest, and I will give thee ten shekels of silver by the year, and a suit of apparel, and thy victuals. So the Levite went in.
11. And the Levite was content to dwell with the man; and the young man was unto him as one of his sons.
12. And Micah consecrated the Levite; and the young man became his priest, and was in the house of Micah.
13. Then said Micah, Now know I that the LORD will do me good, seeing I have a Levite to my priest.

This chapter starts a new section in the book of Judges. It's not really about judges anymore.

The last judge was Samson. The last several chapters of the book are really about how messed up Israel had become.

This story is obviously intended to illustrate that for us.

Look at verse 6. It's kind of the theme.

[!bible] Judges 17:6 - KJV 6. In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes.

Every man did that which was right in his own eyes.

In this story, we are going to see people basically breaking all of the ten commandments.

There is no adultery recorded, but pretty much all of the rest of the ten commandments are broken and here is the thing - they are broken in the name of the Lord.

The commandments are broken and the people breaking them seem to have no idea that they are doing wrong.

They are even putting religious clothes on their sin.

I've heard people before justify their actions by saying "it seemed right to me."

And that's good. We shouldn't go against our conscience.

But we also have to realize that just because something is right in our eyes doesn't mean that it is right in God's eyes, and that even religious people can have their conscience affected, sin against God, and have no problem with it.

Everyman was doing right in his own eyes, there was a complete breakdown of righteousness. And we are going to see in this story a breakdown of every institution: the family, religion, and the state.

Let's start by talking about...

1. A broken family life.

This story starts by telling us about this guy Micah and Micah has a problem.

Micah has stolen 1,100 pieces of silver from his mom. He saw she had it. It was easy for him to take. So he took it.

Now, 1,100 pieces of silver is an enormous amount of money. Later on in this story one man is going to get excited about an annual salary of 10 pieces of silver. So this is 110 times what a good salary was.

Micah has stolen it from his mom.

That's not Micah's problem. Micah's problem is he hears his mom give a curse.

She said something like "May the person who stole my money be afflicted with the fleas from 1,000 camels." That kind of curse.

Now, can I ask you something. Where in the Bible do we ever see a prespriction for this kind of cursing? It doesn't exist.

Do you know what it is? It is superstition. Pure superstition.

But Micah hears this curse and he decides to come clean to his mom.

Notice:

• He's not sad he stole the money.
• He's not repenting of mistreating his mother.
• He is upset because he heard this curse.

He doesn't fear God - he fears this stupid superstitious curse.

So he comes clean to his mom and what is her response?

She immediately turns the curse into a blessing. Oh, bless you Micah.

Then she says "I'm dedicating this to the LORD."

And notice, in verse 3, she uses the all caps version of the LORD. They are calling God by His special and specific name here.

But then, in the next breath she says "I'm dedicating this to the LORD to ... make a graven image."

What? Does anyone else see a problem here?

What is the second commandment? Don't make graven images.

That's pretty clear.

Now, Micah and his mom were probably making an image that was supposed to represent God. That doesn't matter.

The commandment clearly forbids making any graven image to represent God.

So there is idolatry going on here, but its going on in the name of God.

Notice something else - she promised to dedicate 1,100 pieces of silver to God. But what does she actually give? 200 pieces of silver.

Um...200 is not equal to 1,100. So she's lied.

But notice one more thing. She casually takes that silver to a smith and gets an idol made.

Like it's easy. No big deal. Like there are six idol makers in town.

Then Micah sets up a house of gods. His own little private shrine. His own private temple.

Presumably. His goal is to worship God there. But it also sounds like there was some Baal and Dagon going on there too.

Inside his little temple he creates an ephod - that is the special garment the priests would wear - and then he makes his son the priest of his little temple.

Now, here is a question: On whose authority?

• You setup a temple: Who told you you could do that?
• You made an idol: Who told you to make the idol?
• You made an ephod: Who told you to make an ephod?
• You setup your son as an alternate priest: Who made you God that you get to choose who priests are?

This whole story is meant to show us just how bad Israel has gotten and we see it through the actions of this family.

I mean, they have broken almost all of the ten commandments here:

• They have another god before God.
• They have made graven images.
• They have taken God's name in vain.
• They have dishonor of parents.
• They have theft.
• They have bearing false witness.
• They have covetousness (in taking the silver in the first place.)

That's seven out of ten. And guess what? No one seems to be the least bit bothered by it. No pangs of conscience at all. They are good.

This family was representative of all the families in Israel - and for the most part, the family side of society was completely corrupt.

Now, before I move onto talking about the next two parts of society that were corrupt I want to make a few points of application from what we've talked about so far:

Points of application

First...

Christianized superstition is still superstition.

You can't just put God's name on your little incantation and expect God to bless it.

There are a lot of people doing these quasi religious things and I'm afraid they are just as superstitious about it as a medicine man in the heart of Africa or a Taoist worshipping in Japan.

I'll give you an example. Hardly a day goes by that I don't see a Christian tattoo:

• A cross
• Some scripture reference
• "God is bigger than my highs and lows."

Or...

• I'll see good people wearing a cross necklace
• Or a Christian t-shirt
• Or a Christian bumper sticker

Just today I was running an errand and I say a tire cover that said "stand for the flag and kneel for the cross."

Ok. The people doing this may have great motives. They probably do. But I'm afraid if we aren't careful that these are just some kind of Christian good luck charms. Like God is obligated to bless me because I'm wearing a John 3:16 hoodie or because I have a cross necklace on.

I remember my grandmother - who gratefully got saved shortly before she died - but long before this she started collecting little angels to go around the house in the hopes they would bring her good luck and health.

Friends, that is just cheap garden variety superstition and superstition doesn't get better because we slap God's name on it. If anything, it gets worse.

There is another point of application I want to make before I move on and that is...

2. When it comes to our faith, we don't get to just make it up.

The children of Israel had very specific, very clear rules about how to worship God and how not to worship God.

The whole Exodus thing. All that time Moses spent on Mt. Sinia. That wasn't that long ago. In fact, one of the guys in this story might have been Moses' grandson.

God gave them very specific rules and do you know what we see in this story - it's like they say "nah, we'll do our own thing."

People still do that today. They treat religion like it's some creative project. Like they can just make it up as they go along.

• Want to have the pastor dress like spiderman and come into the auditorium on a zip line - go for it.
• Want to take a queen song, slightly change the words, make a musical production out of it, and sing it as a mother's day special - knock yourself out.
• Want to take a Bible verse completely out of context and preach on whatever you feel is important today - why not?

But that's not how this works. God tells us how it is to be done and we do it. We aren't making it up as we go along. We are following His plan.

So this family is completely corrupted and this is a sign that the family life of Israel had been completely corrupted.

But the family isn't God's only institution. The second institution God gave us is the church, and in the Old Testament, the rough equivalent was the tabernacle and the priesthood system.

And in the second half of chapter 17, we see that not only did you have a broken family life, you had...

2. A broken faith life

Micah sets up his little temple. His son is the priest. All is good.

All is good until one day, a man happens to come by. A man who isn't from there.

This man (we find out at the end of chapter 18 that his name was Jonathan) is a Levite.

Verse 7 tells us he was from Bethlehem and he had been living in Bethlehem.

Now, already, that's a problem. Because as a Levite, there were cities were they were supposed to live. Cities set aside for them.

But apparently, that wasn't working for Jonathan.

Maybe (and I'm just spitballing here) maybe the jews had stopped paying tithes and offerings and maybe the priests and Levites weren't being cared for - and so Jonathan had to do something else.

But what he does is wrong. Rather than trusting the Lord. It seems like Jonathan becomes a priest for hire and sets out to find someone who will hire him.

Well Micah meets him and likes him. "A Levite! Now my little temple will seem more legitimate. Son, your fired. We got a new priest."

And Micah hires this priest for 10 shekels of silver a year and one change of clothing.

So Jonathan, who no doubt knew better, goes to work as the priest for this fake temple, filled with fake gods and counterfeit's of the real thing, so he can make ten shekels and a shirt.

Now, there was nothing wrong with Jonathan providing for his family. Nothing wrong with him making money.

But what is wrong, what is absolutely wrong, is treating being a priest to God as some job where you can just fish around until you get the best offer.

And Jonathan didn't just go from one good church to another that could pay him better. He compromised his message and his ethics for pay.

He went and used his religious pedigree to consecrate the fake religion that Micah had going on.

And Micah was all for it. Look at verse 13 again. One of the saddest verses in the Bible.

[!bible] Judges 17:13 - KJV 13. Then said Micah, Now know I that the LORD will do me good, seeing I have a Levite to my priest.

(Sarcastic voice) Yep Micah, that's how it works. You get the right guy in there and God will have to bless your unbiblical nonsense. That makes tons of sense.

So, this is meant to show us that their religious life, their church life if you will, was completely broken.

And again, before I move on to the next point, let's stop here and make three...

Points of Application

The first point I want to make is...

Religion isn't about getting God to bless us.

When Micah said Now know that the LORD will do me good. He revealed a lot about what his motivation was for. He was using religion to get God to bless him. He had a man centered religion.

If I had to guess, I'd say 90% of religion is man-centered. It's all about blessing man. Making life better for man. Getting some religious grease on the wheels of life, some religious shocks put on the old station wagon.

Most people are out to get a blessing. That's where their religion starts and that is where it ends. What's in it for me?

But true religion isn't about us. It's about the glory of God. One preacher put it this way:

The goal of true faith is not to get access to God so that He can do what we want, but to give God access to our heart so we can do what He wants.

Think about Job. Job was faithful to God, and what did it get him? He lost his kids. He lost his health. His wife told him to curse God and die. His closest friends thought he was in secret sin.

Yet Job said "though he slay me, still will I bless him." That is true faith.

It's not "do right because it will work out best for you" (that may be true, but that misses the point.)

It is "do right for the glory of God, even if it hurts you."

True Religion isn't about working down some kind of blessing.

Let me give you a second point...

God isn't some kind of genie who is waiting for magic words or actions to release a blessing.

Think about Micah's statement again "Now I know God will do good to me, because I have a Levite for a priest."

Do you know what Micah was after? He was after the secret formula. He thought if he could just say the right words and do the right things and get the right people on the bus, then God would have to bless him.

But God isn't a genie. That's not how it works.

First, Micah had already disobeyed God's clear instruction in setting up the temple, and the fact that he hired this Levite shows he knew that.

So he was trying to get just enough Godliness to get God to bless his disobedience. That's not how it works.

Sometimes I talk to people and they think, if I can just do this and this and this then God will have to bless me...

• If I just give enough to the church.
• If I just read my Bible enough.
• If I just go to church regularly.
• If I just dress right.

Now, you can do all those things for the glory of God, and God may bless you for it - but if you are doing it because you are treating God like some kind of cosmic computer function that has to bless you if you do the right combination of things - you are missing the whole point.

Let me give you one more thought from this part of the story.

You know, Micah sets up this false religion for his own benefit. So God would do him good. And I think this shows us that...

There will always be false religions coopting God for personal benefit, and there will always be hirelings that go along with it for personal gain.

• Why are there so many churches?
• Why are there so many TV evangelists?
• Why can you go to almost any town in America and find some huge church where the successful people go - with some successful pastor leading the charge?

Paul said in the last days that men would not endure sound doctrine but heap to themselves teachers having itching ears.

That means that men would find people to tell them what they want to hear.

Jonathan the priest is a man who tells people want they want to hear so long as he gets a buck and some nice threads out of it.

There has never been a lack of those teachers and those churches and there never will be - and the wise Christian finds a way to steer clear of them.

Let me quickly tell you what happens in chapter 18. In chapter 17 we saw a broken home and a broken religion.

But there is a third God-ordained institution - and that is the government. The state.

In chapter 18 we see...

3. A federal life

The tribe of Dan had failed to take the land that God had for them. God told them what land was theres. God told them where to go.

But they didn't have the courage or the resolve to do it.

So they had been living for some time in the hill country.

Well, they had finally had enough of this so they were going to finally go and get the land God had alloted for them right?

Right?

No. They send five guys on a scouting expedition to look for some easier land they can take.

And wouldn't you know it these five guys end up at Micah's house, and they end up having a conversation with Micah's priest Jonathan.

They ask Jonathan if he will pray a blessing on their little expedition - and of course Jonathan will - Jonathan will bless anything if there is money in it for him.

Telling people what they want to hear is kind of his thing.

So they go on with their scouting and they find this town that is like a colony for the Sidonians.

Sidon is a city in Lebanon. I actually have friends from Sidon.

But apparently there were these Sidonians living in a part of Israel and they were just minding their own business. They were peaceful as could be.

So the five Danites are like - we can beat them.

They go back to the hill country and get 600 men for their army and they go on the attack.

They to this city and kill everyone and burn the whole city to the ground.

But along the way, someone says "Hey, do you know what would go really good in our new city? That shrine from Micah's house."

So they take their army of 600 dudes and just go and take it. They straight up steal it.

And Jonathan the priest sees them doing it and tries to stop them "What are you doing?"

And they say "Wouldn't you like to be our priest? I mean, there is way more prestige in being the priest for a whole tribe than being the priest for just one guy."

And what do you think Jonathan does? Fight for his boss? Stand on principle?

No way. He just goes along with it. In fact, in says in verse 20 that this made his heart glad.

You see, when you are a hireling, you can justify anything if they pay is right.

So they go out and Jonathan conveniently puts himself in the middle of this army.

Then Micah finds out what has happened and he gets his posse together and rides out to meet them. "What gives? Why did you take my stuff?"

Look at chapter 18 verse 25:

[!bible] Judges 18:25 - KJV 25. And the children of Dan said unto him, Let not thy voice be heard among us, lest angry fellows run upon thee, and thou lose thy life, with the lives of thy household.

Do you catch that? The Danites were basically saying "It would be a shame if some, um, angry fellows, were to hurt you and kill you and your family, um."

It's a veiled threat. Micah, for his part, is smart enough to see he isn't going to whip 600 soldiers. So he goes home defeated and says "What have I more?"

They name this city Dan. They setup their own temple there. Jonathan becomes the priest. And this carries on for generations.

In fact, when Israel split, it was this city Dan that Jeroboam put one of the golden calfs in. It was always a center for idolatry in Israel.

Now, let me wrap this up by making a few...

Points of Application

First...

People are often looking for the easy win when God already told them what to do.

God told Dan what land to conquer. But apparently that was too hard. So they looked for God to bless their disobedience and they looked to find some easier way.

God has given us marching orders. He's told us what to do. But for many Christians, it's too hard - and they are just trying to get God to bless their disobedience as they seek some easier way.

Don't be like that.

One more point and I'm done...

People want a thin veneer of religion over their own lusts.

Why did the tribe of Dan - which just murdered a bunch of people and just robbed a guy blind - care to setup a temple?

I mean - why even go through the motions?

In this chapter, we've seen just about every one of the ten commandments trampled on except adultery. And do you know what? It's being done by religious people - people using the name of God.

What most people want is not true religion. Most people want a god shaped in their likeness. A god that blesses what they are already doing.

And let me just warn you - its easy to see that when it's some liberals across the country. But we can be guilty of the same thing.

God and country - is too often "country and God."

Faith and family is often family, then faith.

If we aren't careful, we are just putting some Christian paint over what we want to do anyway.

And God sees right through it. He looks down and says:

[!bible] Judges 17:6 - KJV 6. In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes.

Let's pray.