Open—Stephen Rule
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Trust this is properly digested food. I didn't come. This is my morning reading I have to share with you and I trust it's of the Lord.
Tie it briefly to the reading this morning as well on a very different line, but ties in, I think, in the Book of Revelation.
I was enjoying the reading this morning that God had to bring in judgment to restore relationship.
And there may be relationships in this room here that are broken, are broken because of sin, but God delights to restore relationship in the Book of Revelation ends with the marriage supper of the Lamb. It ends. You know, we had in our chapter this morning the root of David, but in the last chapter it's the root and offspring of David when the bride is calling for her bridegroom.
There's the not just the eternal God, but the eternal God become flesh.
Wanting to be in a relationship with those people. My personal readings have been in the Book of Judges.
Personal reading this morning was in Judges 20. I'll give a very brief context for it. And then that theme of broken relationships that God delights to restore, and maybe just a little bit of how he does it in the book of Judges. Of course, there's this moral decline throughout the book. A chronological part of the book ends with chapter 16 at the end of Samson's life.
And in Samson's life, the last of the judges.
Is life is characterized by that mixture of failure and the Spirit of God working but there's those moments in his life when he calls on God there's the moments in the life and the Spirit of God comes on him. But the last five chapters are grouped morally to create that moral appendix to the book they're not chronological and so in chapter 17 and 18, the story of.
The Levite of of Ephraim, whose.
UMM used by Micah and Micah uses him as his priest.
And in that story you have a graven image created, and God's name is associated with a graven image.
God himself isn't coming on in power as in the life of Samson, but his name is there connected with idolatry. His name is there in chapter 19, the next step in the moral progression. It's totally dark. There's nationalism. There's no calling on the name of the Lord. There's not even an acknowledgement of the name of the Lord. And with a graven image or an attempt to associate his name with anything, it's gone totally black.
And the moral character of that chapter.
As awful, every person in that chapter is totally black.
Then you come to my personal reading this morning, Judges 20, and it's black too. But God is stepping into that black scene to restore relationship. That's what His delight is. And no matter where you are in your local assembly, in your home and personal relationships that you have with others, it may be that it looks like it does if you read it on your own later and Judges 19, it may look totally black.
May look like there's absolutely nothing left, not even the name of God to call on what's empty. And then you have the moral outrage of others in Judges 20. Just a notice of a few points. There's a lot in the chapter.
I know I haven't fully digested it, was enjoying it this morning, but just to notice a couple things. The children of Israel are stirred up.
By the sin of Benjamin, And so they come up ready to.
To Judge Benjamin. Benjamin comes to defend those that have done so much that was wrong in the prior chapter.
And there's war, and the children of Benjamin are numbered and so on. There's many details there. Just give a couple points on the moral theme here. Verse 18. Children of Israel arose and went up to the House of God.
Asked counsel of God and said, which of us shall go up first to the battle against the children of Benjamin? The Lord said Judah shall go up first.
So here they're stored up, stirred up with moral outrage. They go up to the House of God. Good place to go.
They asked God and they get an answer. Looks good, doesn't it? And maybe in our own lives, there's a situation and we're stirred up about it. We've been stirred up about it. Maybe it's with a child and things aren't quite right with that child. Maybe it's a relative or a brother or sister in Christ, and we're stirred up by it and we have our plan and we have our sense of how to deal with the matter.
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And we go and we.
Present our solution to the Lord, and we present it as a question, Should I do this? Our hearts are so subtle, they're so clever, they're so unaware of what's going on down inside, and yet God is at work. That's what I want to bring out here. And this blackest spot in man's moral history. Just about certainly in the book of Judges, God is at work.
And so he answers them. It's beautiful. They came to the right person.
They ask their solution, who shall go out? They don't give God the option as to whether they should go up. This had to be dealt with and they were going to do it. And his answer, God answers them. I've often wondered, why did God answer? Why didn't he explain to them?
No, you're in the wrong place. You need to be humbled first. That's not what he does, he says to them. Judah gives them an answer. Judah shall go up first.
Why?
Wasn't the one Judah the one closest to them to to Benjamin? Judah was the tribe right by Benjamin? Who was it that had had the chance to see what was going on with Benjamin? Go back to the book of Genesis.
Look at Judas heart and Genesis when it's Benjamin, he's willing, he stirred up in that process of restoration. Who stirred up there to be surety for the little brother? It's Judah and that whole process of restoration that occurs in Genesis. Who is it there? Who is it 2 to here? The one that was closest?
Who does God start the work with? Not with Benjamin. He starts to work with the one closest to him that had watched him drift off. And if there's a child in a home and there's certain behavior and it's not right, maybe the Lord wants to start with the parent and deal with the parent, not because the child, because God doesn't love the child. He's going to restore everybody in this process. Those subtle hearts of theirs couldn't see the need in themselves.
And our subtle hearts sometimes only see the need in the other person.
But the Lord is there at work to draw out, to stir up, to restore all of them. And who does He begin with? The one closest to Benjamin.
And.
God's going to work in our life for restoration and our families in our homes. He's going to start with us. And so Judah and Judah goes up and perhaps you know the story. I trust you do Judah and the children of Israel that go up lose their.
Verse 21, the 20 and 2000 men, Verse 22 And the people, the men of Israel, encouraged themselves and set their battle again in array in the place where they put themselves in array the first day. And then the children of Israel, verse 23, went up and wept before the Lord until leaving that beautiful they wept. It's brought in here and it goes. It goes for a defined period. It goes until evening.
We'll see a change in the next.
Period of the Lord's working with them, and asked counsel of the Lord, saying, Shall I go up against again to battle against the children of Benjamin my brother?
Said Benjamin, my brother, with no real restoration, there is no real.
Bringing together the people of God until we realize that we're brothers.
There's no proper discipline. I don't know the wholeness of it unless there's a sense of what the relationship is. If it's in the assembly, it's my brother. It's my fellow sister or brother. If it's in the family, there's a sense of that relationship. It's not one against the other, but it's a relationship. They didn't say Benjamin, my brother, the first time.
She noticed they were already.
The battle was already set in array, they were still going to forge forward with their plan, but they do come up and they do sit before the Lord.
And the Lord says, go up against him.
Benjamin had more to learn, but so did they. They go up, there's 18,000 that die this time and then it says verse 26.
Then all the children of Israel and all the people went up.
And came unto the House of God. It didn't say all.
Before now it says all they all go up. Before they went up, I don't know who. Now it says they all go up. And in whatever situation there is, perhaps it's a matter. I don't know any matters in any local assemblies here. So this is not directed at anyone.
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But if there is a matter all of something to learn.
Says it so clearly here, if there's going to be that full restoration of everyone together.
It says all go up to the House of the Lord and so they all must go. And all the people went up and came into the House of God and wept and sat there before the Lord and fasted that day until even and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the Lord. So now there's more elements added. They fast, there's the sense of their need to really listen to what God has to say and perhaps.
Maybe it's a matter in our own personal life and it's not been fully dealt with. Maybe it's because the Lord has more to teach. They've already learned a lot. They've learned a lot in what the Lord has to say and bring out for them. But there's more. And the problem hasn't been resolved because God wants to do a deeper work than they could possibly see. At the beginning they saw Benjamin sin. Then they saw Benjamin their brother, and now all of them that are there and now.
There's a personal fasting, a recognition they need to set aside everything and hear what God has to say. And they're sitting there and there are the burnt offerings and the peace offerings. God himself is now being honored. They were doing the right thing and going up to the House of God, but there was no comment about sacrifices earlier. Now there's the burnt offering who Christ is to God the Father.
And the peace offering, the offering of communion, there hasn't been that communion offering until now.
But now that they are concerned about Benjamin, their brother, now that all of them are there, now that there's a sense that there is a need to depend and wait and hear what the Lord has to say, says in verse 27, the children of Israel inquired of the Lord, the ark of the covenant of God was there in those days. We find out in these verses that this really occurred chronologically at the very beginning of their the time of the book of Judges.
But I'll skip down to or after the parenthesis in verse 28.
Shall I yet again go out to the battle against the children of Benjamin, my brother?
Or shall I seats? Or there's something wrong here, but maybe I'm not the one to fix it.
They still recognize that there's a need, but now Benjamin is their brother and now they're willing to stop and let the Lord decide whether they're part of the solution or not. There's a dependence in their hearts and the Lord God said go up.
He told Judah to go up first. He told them to go up last time.
But now he says go up for tomorrow, I will deliver them into thine hand. He actually tells them, now I'm here, now I'm going to give the result.
There was a lot to learn. There's more to learn in the rest of the chapter. There's more to learn in.
What follows in the next chapter? Those are the points on my heart.
The Lord is going to bring full restoration and a personal life.
And a home and an assembly, it's going to touch everyone. It's going to touch everyone deeply. It's going to bring about a full and proper restoration. And I just enjoyed as well. You know, in Genesis, Judah and Benjamin are brought together and they're individuals.
Here the Lord begins with Judah.
When were Judah and Benjamin separated again?
In their history.
Weren't they together all the way?
When while the Lord doesn't work, he can do a full work. I'd just like to apply it that way. When the Lord does the work, as he does here in this chapter. When the tribes are broken apart later due to the idolatry that Solomon had brought in, and in the days of Rehoboam, they're split. Judah and Benjamin are still together. It may be an incredibly black moment in your personal life or wherever you're at, but when God does that work of restoration.
He delights to do it properly and thoroughly, at least in the application sense of it.
Judah and Benjamin are not split. They remain together as far as I know. Correct me afterwards, please. They remain together as far as I know, to the end of the Word of God. The Lord can and delights to fully restore.