When we live by what we think is right

As I look back at the book of Judges, I guess I came in knowing it was a dark book, but going through it this year, I realize that even more.

It was a time when even the judges that delivered the Israelites did things that were morally questionable.  And again, as I mentioned before, it comes down to that one phrase that closes the book of Judges,

In those days Israel had no king; all the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes.  Judges 21:25 (NLT)

They didn’t do what was truly right in God’s eyes.  They did what they thought was right.

What happens when we live that way?  I think the answer is found in these final chapters of Judges.

1.  A complete collapse of morals. 

It is utterly shocking to see the behavior of the city of Gibeah.

The story mirrors completely the story of Lot while he was in Sodom.

As in that story, a man and his concubine comes to a town and while he’s staying at someone’s house, the townspeople bang on the door demanding that the host send the man out so that they can rape him.

As in the story of Lot, the host refuses to do so, but offers his daughter and the concubine to the crowd so that they can rape them.

But unlike the story of Lot, the visitor wasn’t an angel, and he did not prevent the concubine from being sent out into the crowd to be  raped.

As a result, the woman was brutally abused, and eventually died.  Things were so bad in that town, that they had become exactly like Sodom, which God had destroyed for its evil.

2.  We start to defend what is evil.

When the Israelites heard about this atrocious behavior, they demanded that the tribe of Benjamin surrender the men who had done this.

But instead of doing so, the Benjamites fought to defend their men who had raped and killed the woman.

The apostle Paul puts it this way,

Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.  (Romans 1:32)

3.  Even when we try to do right, we do wrong.

After defeating the Benjamites, the rest of the Israelites vowed not to let any of their daughters marry into the tribe of Benjamin because of what had happened.

Their anger was understandable, but they should’ve never made that vow.  What they quickly realized was that if they held to that vow, the tribe of Benjamin would soon disappear.

As a result, they attacked a city so that they could give the women there to the Benjamites.

And when there still weren’t enough women  for the Benjamites, they schemed to get around their vow by letting the Benjamites take their daughters, “without permission,” so as not to break their vow.

In short, the whole story was a mess from start to finish.

But it does show what happens when we we live by what we think is right rather than what God has told us.

How about you?  Where are you getting your ideas of right and wrong?  Are you taking them from God’s word?  Or are you taking them from what your own ideas of right and wrong are?

There is only one true standard of right and wrong and it doesn’t come from us.  So as we face the moral decisions of life, let us not turn toward our own wisdom, but to God’s.

Anything else leads to moral decay and ultimately to our own destruction.