Religious Chaos

Good to see everybody. I invite you guys to go ahead and stand with me. We'll pray and we'll get started. Thank you for the day, God. We give you praise. We give you glory and we give you honor for who you are, God. For how much you love us, for what you've done for us, Lord God. For all the ways you take care of us and provide for us, Lord God. We give you praise. We give you thanks.

Father, we ask that you bless this time. Lord, help us to lift a joyful noise to you this evening, God. And let your word go out with power. We love you and we praise you in your precious and holy name. Amen. Yes, Lord God, and I will confess that you are Lord. Amen. Amen. You guys can go ahead and have a seat if you like.

We just invite your Holy Spirit in this place to see my life, Lord. And we just come to you this evening, God, and we give you praise and we give you thanks. Because you are God. You are King of kings and Lord of lords. Our praise and this evening, Lord, we invite you, we invite your Holy Spirit to come and do its mighty work here. We ask that you would overflow Pastor Ryan with your gift of teaching. Give him the words to speak.

And prepare our hearts to receive the word that you have prepared for us. We love you and we praise you. We thank you. In Jesus' name. Amen.

Most of the book of Judges is what we would call a historical narrative. And it picks up directly from Joshua and flows first into the first judge and carries all the way through to Samson. But at chapter 17, the historical narrative sort of stops because really the story of the nation of Israel will continue when you get to Samuel. Samson was the last of the judges and it picks up again in Samuel.

Really, chapter 17 through 21 of Judges, as well as the book of Ruth, don't necessarily follow chronologically in history. They are what we would call snapshots of the times of the judges. Really, a lot of people think that these first two chapters, chapter 17 and 18, took place much closer to the death of David. Joshua probably around the time of Othniel because the historical narrative sort of stops when we get a picture of what life was like in an everyday fashion during the book of Judges.

We know that the time of the judges was a time, and we'll see this verse tonight, where there was no king in Israel and everyone did that which was right in their own eyes. And we've seen it on a large scale with the lives of the judges who have come in every time that the nation did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. And the children of Israel, cried out to the Lord and God sent a judge to deliver. But now we get into two or three stories here that take us deeper into what went on on a personal level with families and situations within the nation of Israel during the time of the judges.

If I'm being completely honest, the story that we'll cover tonight, and even more so the story that we cover next week, are pretty dark days for the nation of Israel. Almost difficult stories to read to know that this is what took place. Amongst God's chosen people, but we are reminded that this is what happens when people do not follow God and are left to their own ways when they do not follow the leadership that God has provided and they are left to their own ideas. And so tonight we will cover what I call religious chaos, religious chaos, and it starts in chapter 17 verse 1 and it says this.

Now there was a man of the hill country of Israel. Ephraim, whose name was Micah. He said to his mother, the 1100 pieces of silver, which were taken from you about which you uttered a curse in my hearing. Behold, the silver is with me. I took it. And his mother said, blessed be my son by the Lord. He then returned the 1100 pieces of silver to his mother and his mother said, I wholly dedicate the silver from my hands.

And to the Lord for my son to make a graven image and a molten image. Now, therefore, I will return them to you. So when he returned the silver to his mother, his mother took 200 pieces of silver and gave them to the silversmith who made them into a graven image and a molten image. And they were in the house of Micah. Hi, I'd like to introduce you to dysfunction, right?

Everything about just the beginning of this story is about the most dysfunctional. Thing you've ever heard. Okay, so so the story is painted. There's this guy named Micah, right? Micah is living apparently in the household of his mom still and his mom had 1100 pieces of silver stolen from her. Now, we have to understand that that's an incredible amount of money.

We'll find out later in this chapter. If not the next chapter, I can't remember exactly where it was that 10 pieces of silver would equal about a year's wages for a working man at that point in time. So he didn't steal a small sum of money. He stole a huge sum. Some of money from his mother and notice what his mother did after the money was stolen. She she declared some sort of a curse in his hearing on whoever took the silver and he said mom remember that time that somebody stole some silver for you from you and then you were like cursed as he who stole the silver from you.

Okay, so I've got good news and I've got bad news. Good news is I found the silver bad news is I'm the one that stole it. And what does she say? Blessed be be my son by the. Lord blessed be my son by the Lord right and so she says here's what we should do we should go and we should first of all you can have the silver but let's take some of it and let's let's make a couple of household idols idols that can work for us idols that we can worship and she said so she took 200 pieces of silver gave them to the silversmith and he made two idols one was a molten image meaning it was pure silver that was molded into some sort of a God.

The other was a. Given image meaning that it was probably would that was overlaid with silver now some have said that potentially what they made was actually a small version of the Ark of the Covenant the wooden box with the angels on top we don't know that for sure but some commentators have said that that's a potential of what they made oddly enough the Ark of the Covenant was to be overlaid with gold not silver nevertheless they've made themselves an idol and so we see here first of all the things are.

Incredibly dysfunctional because they felt like the right thing for them to do was to make an idol out of this money that was stolen and we need to understand something about the idol that was made there were two different types of idols that were made at this point in time some were images of the foreign gods around them bail Ashtoreth things along those lines some were actually images with which they used to worship God they were actually images of God which by the way we just read in Deuteronomy they weren't.

Supposed to do that right in our reading the past week or two that's what we read they're not supposed to make for themselves any sort of graven image most people feel like that's what they made they were trying to worship the one true God but to do so through pagan means to create idols if you will images that would remind them of God images that would bring them back to a closer relationship with God what a screwed up religious chaos.

Right they're not doing what God told them to do they're doing what they think is right and so it goes on from there it says in verse five and the man Micah had a shrine and he made an ephod and household idols and he consecrated one of his sons so that he might become his priest so he doesn't just stop with idols he sets up an entire religious system right and the religious system that he sets up has a god.

That they worship it has a priest that leads them in worship and it has an ephod the clothing or the authority of the priest in order for them to worship it's kind of amazing because this is a man centered man oriented religious system that is intended to serve and to please man that's a quote out of David Guzik's commentary now when we first hear that we think who does that sort of thing.

Well I won't get overly controversial but there's at least one church I can think of that does that sort of thing and it starts with a C because they've created all of these things right that I'm thinking of the Catholic Church right now I may as well just call it like it is what I just heard described here was the Catholic Church because they have their images and they have their own priesthood and they have their own authority of the priesthood and so before we say who does that well our culture does that right but it's not just the Catholic Church that does that because I can look at a lot of

Protestant churches that have set up their own images with their own idea of God and their own type of authority doing things the way that they want to do them and so before we look at the nation of Israel and the household of Micah and say what is that guy thinking we should probably first examine ourselves and say what am I thinking do I have any of this idolatry in my life have I set up images in my life that remind me of God have I set up images in my life that remind me of God. Have I set up images in my life that remind me of God have I set up images in my life that remind me of God.

Which is right in their own eyes what do we say speak your truth that's what we say today because it sounds way more culturally acceptable right it's okay you have your truth and I have mine well they had their truth and everybody else had theirs because there was no king and everyone did that which was right in their own eyes now is the problem that there was no king no the problem was that the king that was set up which was to be a theocracy which was none other than God himself was not being a lord. And everyone did that which was right in their own eyes well it goes on from there to say.

Verse 7 now there was a young man from Bethlehem in Judah of the family of Judah who was a Levite and he was staying there then the man departed from the city from Bethlehem in Judah. To stay wherever he might find a place and as he made his journey he came to the hill country of Ephraim to the house of Micah. And Bethlehem was the place where he scrubbed his hair and hence he discovered a new kingdom which is called Bethlehem because they were walking in it and he smashing him with the kurd he scrubbing him with the kundalini and they kept himDB Which was the king did that which was right in their own eyes well it goes on from there to say. And Micah said to him, where do you come from?

He said to him, I'm a Levite from Bethlehem in Judah, and I am going to stay wherever I may find a place. Micah then said to him, dwell with me and be a father and a priest to me, and I will give you ten pieces of silver a year, a suit of clothes, and your maintenance. So the Levite went in. The Levite agreed to live with the man. The young man became to him like one of his sons.

So Micah consecrated the Levite, and the young man became his priest, and he lived in the house of Micah. Then Micah said, now I know that the Lord will prosper me, seeing I have a Levite as priest. Oh, the story continues, right? And we're just sitting here going, who does this? So this Levite, who, by the way, is of the priestly tribe, right? The job of the Levites was the service of the tabernacle.

And if anybody should have known the law, it was the Levites, because they had to study the law in order to do their job. This Levite was living in Bethlehem. Now, interestingly enough, there were, if I remember correctly, was it 40 cities that they set up for the Levites? I think it was 40. Bethlehem's not one of them. So he was already living in a place he shouldn't have been living.

And he decides the place where he shouldn't be living is not where he should be living anymore. But instead of going to find one of the cities of the Levites, he says, I'm just going to go find some place to live, wherever I may roam, right? And so he went. He roams around, finding this place, and he comes to Micah's house, undoubtedly seeking some sort of shelter for the night.

And Micah says, hey, who are you? He says, well, I'm a Levite, and I'm looking for a place that I can live. And Micah goes, this is perfect. I'll consecrate you as a priest with the authority that he does not have to consecrate anyone as a priest, even though he's established his own authority. He doesn't actually have the authority to do that. He says, I'll consecrate you as a priest of my household idols,

and then you can be here. And I know that at that point in time, God will bless me, because I've added a little bit of what God wants to everything that I'm doing. Isn't that what we're like sometimes? I'm going to do a little bit of what God wants, so that he can bless all of the other things that I'm doing. After all, I do go to church on Sunday, don't I?

It doesn't really matter how I live the rest of the week. I do go to church on Sunday, and sometimes Wednesday. So it doesn't matter whatever. I've added a little bit of God to everything that I'm doing, and everything's fine. And that's exactly what he does here. And so the Levite goes, I mean, it sounds like a pretty good deal to me. You know, 10 pieces of silver a year, brand new set of clothes every year,

all the food that I can eat. It seems like a good deal. Absolutely. I'll stay with you. And so they became really close. And he says, now God's going to prosper me because I have a Levite here. But the story's not done yet. And so starting in chapter 18, we see the move of the tribe of Dan. And so in chapter 18, trust me, these two tie together. In chapter 18, it says this.

In those days, there was no king of Israel. I'm sensing a theme. And in those days, the tribe of the Danites was seeking an inheritance for themselves to live in. For until that day, an inheritance had not been allotted to them as a possession among the tribes of Israel. Now, one. Small thing about that is that an inheritance had been given to them. They just hadn't been able to take their inheritance.

And so they were looking for a place that was a little bit easier to overtake than where they were right then. It says in verse 2, So the sons of Dan sent from their family five men out of their whole number, valiant men from Zorah and Eshtael, to spy out the land and to search it. They said to them, go search the land. They came to the hill country of Ephraim, to the house of Micah, and lodged there.

Dude's house was popular. We can't change that now. When they were there, when they were near the house of Micah, they recognized the voice of the young man, the Levite, who turned aside there and said to him, who brought you here and what are you doing in this place and what do you have here? He said to them, thus and so has Micah done to me, and he has hired me, and I have become, and I have become his priest.

Interestingly enough, they recognize that this guy is a Levite, and they recognize it from his voice. Now, the only thing that I can think is that he was from southern Israel, right? So maybe he had a southern Israel accent. That's the only thing I've been able to come up with. Or perhaps he spoke like a Levite, somehow used the language that a Levite would use.

Or maybe they knew him because they used to live in that same area. Whatever it was, they recognized his voice. They're like, you're a Levite. What are you doing here? He goes, I got the greatest deal ever, right? So there I was. I'm roaming for some place to live because I didn't like Bethlehem anymore. Wasn't really for me. And they come across this guy here that you're about to stay with.

His name's Micah. Great deal. He says, I will give you X amount of dollars plus some clothes and some food if you just stay here and be my priest. And I'm like, seems like a no-brainer. So here I am. I'm his Levite. I'm his priest of his household gods. And so rather than these guys go saying, that's a terrible idea, because that's a terrible idea. I'm a Levite.

I'm a Levite. I'm a Levite. That's not at all what God has to say. They're like, we're going to make this work for us. Notice what it says in verse 5. They said to him, inquire of God, please, that we may know whether our way on which we are going will prosper. And the priest said to them, go in peace. Your way in which you are going has the Lord's approval.

Can I just go ahead and say nothing that's going on right now has the Lord's approval? Nothing. Nothing. Micah doesn't have the Lord's approval. The Levite doesn't have the Lord's approval. The people of Dan don't have the Lord's approval. But if you keep telling yourself you have that enough, then you start to believe it. Right? And isn't that the problem that we have with sometimes the way that we live our lives?

Is that we have enough of God that we say, I have the Lord's approval. And if I keep justifying it long enough, then I can make just about anything seem right in God's eyes. Because after all, it's right in my eyes. Because there was no king in Israel, and everyone did that which was right in their own eyes. Even the Levite, who should have known better, didn't know any better.

And they said, if he says it's okay, he should know what the law says, then what we're doing must be okay. See why I called this religious chaos? But doesn't it just kind of sound familiar? Doesn't it just kind of sound like the world that we live in right now? And so many prosperity preachers, or you name the thing that we hear right now, well, it goes on from there.

They say, hey, you've got the Lord's approval. Go ahead. So the five men departed, and they came to Laish. And they saw the people who were in it living in security after the manner of the Sidonians, quiet and secure, for there was no ruler humiliating them for anything in the land. And they were far from the Sidonians, and had no dealings with anyone. And when they came back to their brothers at Zorah and Eshter, their brothers said to

them, what do you report? They said, arise and let us go up against them, for we have seen the land, and behold, it is very good, and you will sit still. Do not delay to go, to enter, to possess the land. When you enter, you will come to a secure people with a spacious land, for God has given it into your hand, a place where there is no lack of anything that is on the earth.

Then from the family of the Danites, from Zorah, from Eshter, 600 men armed with weapons of war set out. They went up, and they camped at Kiriath-Jerim in Judah. Therefore, they called that place Dan. I have no idea how you pronounce that. Behold, it is west of Kiriath-Jerim. They passed from there to the hill country. They came to the house of Micah. So they go all the way to the north end of Israel at this point in time, almost to Lebanon,

really the mountains of Lebanon is where they are, the very north end of Israel, and they find this quiet little community called Laish. They had really no leadership there. They were far away from anybody that could come help them. It was just this quiet little place that was in a beautiful area, and they said, we can take it. Now, we do need to understand something.

God did want all of the inhabitants of the land. They were driven out. Their desire to go and take a part of the land was not the problem. It was the way that they were going about it that was the problem. It was the fact that they weren't content in their own allotment that was the problem. It was the fact that they were seeking idols for wisdom that was the problem.

They were doing the right thing in the wrong way. And so they find this area, and they go back and report, and they're like, we found the perfect spot. Let's send about 600 guys up there. And you're going to do great. And so, verse 14, it says, So again, they come near to the house of Micah, and they're like, you're never going to believe what's going on here.

They've got everything that you need to set up your own religion. They've got all the information. They've got the idols. They've got a Levite. We could really do something cool here. Let's think about what we're going to do. And so this is what they do. So they turned aside and came to the house of the young man, the Levite, to the house of Micah, and asked him of his welfare.

The 600 men armed with their weapons of war, who were of the sons of Dan, stood by the entrance of the gate. And the five men who went to spy out the land went up and entered there and took the graven image and the ephod and the household idols. The household idols and the molten image, while the priest stood by the entrance of the gate with 600 armed men with weapons of war. When these men went into Micah's house and took the graven image, the ephod and the household idols, and the molten image, the priest said to them, what are you doing?

They said, be silent, put your hand over your mouth, and come with us. And be to us a father and a priest. It's better for you to be the priest of the house of one man or for you to be the priest of a tribe. A tribe and a family in Israel. And the priest said, I could never do that. No, he said, the priest's heart was glad. He took the ephod and the household idols and the graven image and went among the people.

They said, hey, listen, I know what we should do. Let's take it all, and then we'll have God's blessing on us, too. And so they go in, and the priest is like, what are you guys doing? You're stealing from this guy, who, by the way, was like a son to Micah, right? You would think there would be some sort of loyalty there. And they're like, shh, put your hand over your mouth.

Don't talk. You come with us. Isn't it better that you be the priest of a whole tribe of people instead of just this one family? And he's like, sounds fair, and goes with them, right? And so he takes everything, scoops it all up. I don't know how big these things were, but I feel like you could scoop them all up. Takes them with him, probably wraps them in the ephod.

And so they take off. It says in verse 22, and when they had gone some distance from the house of Micah, the men who were in the houses near Micah's house. Assembled and overtook the sons of Dan. They cried to the sons of Dan, who turned around and said to Micah, what's the matter with you that you have assembled together? He said, you've taken my gods, which I've made, and the priest that have gone away.

And what do I have besides? So how can you say to me, what's the matter with you? So Micah wakes up and realizes what's going on. And some of the people in the surrounding area, undoubtedly households of servants, that are around him, and he gathers up as many men as he can, and he goes after them. But after all, these are 600 armed men, and I doubt that Micah had 600 armed guys with

him. We kind of know that by the way Micah's going to react. And so he shows up with these men looking for a fight, and they look at him and they're like, what's your problem? He goes, dude, you stole all my idols. You took my priest. You took everything that I had. How are you going to say, what's wrong with you? Of course I have a problem. You took all my stuff.

But it doesn't go very well for him. Verse 22. Verse 25, it says, the sons of Dan said, don't let your voice be heard among us, or else fierce men will fall upon you, and you will lose your life with the lives of your household. Ooh, that's pretty good smack talk right there. And so in verse 26, it says, so the sons of Dan went on their way, and when Micah saw

that they were too strong for him, he turned and went back to his house, undoubtedly feeling like he'd lost all of his religion. Because now his household idols and his priest were gone. And that's the last we hear of Micah. It says in verse 28, and there was no one, or excuse me, verse 27, then when they took what Micah had made, and the priest who had belonged to him, and came to Laish, to a people quiet and secure, and struck them with the edge of the sword, and they burned the city with fire.

And there was no one to deliver them, because it was far from Sidon. They had no dealings with anyone. It was in the valley which is near Beth Rehob, and they rebuilt the city, and they lived in it. And they called the name of that city Dan, after the name of Dan their father, who was born in Israel. However, the name of the city was formerly Laish. The sons of Dan set up for themselves the graven image, and Jonathan the son of Gershon,

the son of Manasseh, he and his sons were priests to the tribe of the Danites, until the day. Now, the captivity of the land. So they set up for themselves Micah's graven image, which he had made, and all the time that the house of God was at Shiloh. A couple of interesting things to pay attention to about that. This Jonathan, who was one of the Levites, was the son of Gershon, who was the son of

Manasseh. In other words, this was the great-grandson of Moses. That's a pretty unfortunate thing, isn't it? Pretty unfortunate thing. Pretty unfortunate thing. Pretty unfortunate thing that he would have been. He was not close to the law, and he still found himself in this position where he was willing to give in to idolatry. Here's the next interesting thing about this city of Dan, which is what they established

the name of the city as. Always, idolatry was an issue for the tribe of Dan. Always, idolatry was an issue in the city of Dan, not just because of the idols that were set up there, but later in the history of the nation of Israel, after Solomon, there will come a man named Jeroboam. And Jeroboam, who will split the kingdom, as God had said would happen, where the two tribes, Judah and Benjamin in the south, and the northern ten tribes would split up.

But when Jeroboam took over the northern ten tribes, he got very nervous that the children of Israel would go back to Jerusalem to worship and completely forget about who they really were as the northern ten tribes. And so he built a golden calf. To be set up in Dan. And there would never be a time in the tribes of the northern, or the northern tribes of Israel that idolatry was not the thing that dominated every king that they had.

Isn't it kind of interesting that once a pattern is established, that pattern, apart from the miraculous work of God in our lives, is really hard to break. Family patterns can be really hard to break. And that's exactly what took place in the lives of these people. See what I mean about some of these chapters? You're like, oh my gosh. It's just religious chaos.

That's what was going on in Israel during the time of the judges. And so what do we even take away from this? And quite frankly, the next week is going to be a little bit harder. But this one, I came up with two main things that we take away from this chapter. On religious chaos. Number one, we need to beware of religion that is based on man. We need to beware of religion that is based on man.

And I mean a handful of things like that by that. First of all, we must beware of religion that is based on man and his legalistic rules. We must beware of religion that is based on man and his legalistic rules. We're so good at making rules, aren't we? I mean, I feel like it's the thing that we love to do the most. We love to make rules. Not about the things that we like.

But about the things that we don't like, we love to make rules. I'll never forget talking to a class one time. I had a class of kids. And they were a little out of control. And I said, okay, so let's talk about what rules we should have in this class. Like what should rules be like? Let's write them down. And so they started giving me their rules. And they were way harder on themselves.

I ever would have been on them. Their rules got so detailed and so difficult. I was like, this is way harder than I would ever want to make anything in this entire class. And yet, that's what we tend to do. That's what man tends to do. And we love to build religions based on more and more rules. You know why? Because the more rules I keep, the better I feel about myself.

The more rules I keep, the better I feel about myself. And so we need to beware of a religion. We need to beware of a religion that is based on man and his legalistic rules. But the second thing that we need to beware of about religion based on man is we need to beware of a religion that is based on man and his licentious desires. That's the other thing. Oddly enough, the two go very much hand in hand.

Because usually we're legalistic about the things that we don't like and we're licentious about the things that we do. And the other thing that we see in our culture right now is we see this very licentious way of handling everything in a sense where everything goes, right? Right? And as long as you love God, it doesn't really matter how you live your life.

As long as you want to try to love God, it doesn't really matter the sins that you commit because God just forgives them all anyway. And we have to beware of that kind of licentious thinking which has been around since the very beginning of time, right? And so we have to beware of man and his licentious desires. Interestingly enough, one of the speakers that we heard, we only caught part of it.

We had to listen to the rest of it on our phone because we had to go back and catch a flight. Right? But it was by Sean McDowell and it was really, really good. Anything that you can read or listen to of Sean McDowell, it's Josh McDowell's son. If you know who Josh McDowell is, Evidence That Demands a Verdict is what he wrote. Anything of Sean McDowell's is really, really good

because he's kind of right in the heart of all of the things that are going on because he lives in LA, right? And he's so good because he goes to all the places nobody else will go to and he'll just ask them questions. And that was kind of what his whole teaching was about. As a matter of fact, sidebar, I'm reading a book by him right now and I've shared about it before because I'm a slow reader.

It's called The Beauty of Intolerance. And he said there was an LGBTQ pride convention that was taking place near where I was and so I signed up to go to it because I wanted to know what they are thinking. I wanted to understand. He said it was all fun and games until they broke us up into small groups and they asked us why we were there. He said luckily I had a good amount of time to think about it.

Because I was able to tell them. He said but they shut me down really fast and I said now wait a second. What you want is open discussion and for everybody else to hear out how you feel about things but you're not giving me that. And I thought that was pretty good. It was a pretty good response. And he said he'd stayed in contact with several of those people.

It's kind of interesting. But the point that he made was this. We have to be a people who speak the truth in love. He said, It is rare to find someone who does both. A lot of us as Christians can be a little bit legalistic and we're really good at speaking the truth but we don't do it in love. Therefore we push away people which is still biblically imbalanced

based upon what Jesus said. He said and some people only have the love end of things where they want to let everything go which is what I'm talking about with licentious desires. And what you'll find about anybody that wants to teach a gospel that allows licentious desires to happen and that allows licentious desires to happen that allows licentious desires to happen that allows licentious desires to happen that allows licentious desires to happen that allows licentious desires or has deconstructed their faith what you'll almost always find at the heart of it is that they struggle with sin and they want their sin to be allowed. And so we have to be aware of religion that's based on man and his licentious desires.

But the third aspect of being aware of religion based on man is we must be aware of a religion based on man and his own ideas of God. And his own ideas of God. I'm sure you've heard it just like I have. Well, I don't believe that my God would ever do whatever, fill in blank here. And eventually you just have to come to a place where you say, you're right. Your God wouldn't do that because he doesn't exist.

Because that's not who God actually is. And we have to be aware because listen, if you have any kind of desire to be understanding of people, then you will start hearing their ideas about God. And especially if you have any sort of insecurities in your relationship with the Lord, you can start believing that God is real. You can start believing what other people have to say about God.

And pretty soon we're giving into the ideas of licentiousness or we're giving into the ideas of legalism. And we must be aware of religion, of man with his own ideas of who God is. So number one, we must be aware of religion based on man. But number two, God's word must be our standard. And I want to tell you something. I changed this point. When I started writing this out,

I wrote, God's word should be our guide. But I thought, you know what's wrong with the word guide in a situation like this? Is a guide is more of a, it's more of an option, right? But have you ever gone on a tour and you can either follow the guide or you can go off on your own? Listen, I'm gonna go off on my own sort of a person, right? I am a loner. I will go off by myself

and start looking at all of the things. My ADHD kicks in and I start doing one of these things and I start walking around and it's like, oh shoot, I've lost the guide, right? And so I didn't like the word guide. I thought, you know what? It needs to be standard because God's word has to be our standard. And so if we are to learn anything from this, is that God's word has to be our standard,

first of all, of who God is. I have to throw out all of my ideas of what I think God is like because the moment I insert, I think God is like, I'm probably wrong. I need to look at this. Have you ever had a portion of scripture that you come to and you're like, whoa, that doesn't jive with what I usually think God is like. Have you ever come to a portion of scripture like that?

I do it all the time. And I have to be like, I know I'm wrong, but that just doesn't always fit my idea of God. But listen, if my idea of God doesn't fit with what scripture has to say, I have to change my idea of God. And I have to gain a deeper understanding. One of the best books I've ever read that will truly challenge your understanding of God. And he is saturated in this book with scripture.

It's called Knowledge of the Holy by A.W. Tozer because he points out the fact that there are so many things about God that we refuse to believe because it goes against what we think God is like. We have a hard time justifying the fact that God is both mercy and judgment, right? Like sometimes those two things feel absolutely opposite of each other. But if God is not judgment,

then he can't be mercy. And if God is not mercy, then he can't be judgment, right? He has to be both. He has to be the righteous judge so that he can be the God that shows mercy. And so we have to use God's word as our standard to teach us who God is. I hope that in your reading of the Old Testament right now, every now and then you're sitting back and going,

whew, I didn't know that's how God was. Because there is much more of the fullness of God that we need to understand. Second thing is that God's word must be our standard for sin and salvation. We can't go with what somebody else thinks salvation is. We can't go with some works-based salvation, some licentious-based salvation. Sin and salvation have to be founded in God's word

because it is his final authority on what sin and salvation actually is. I know it sounds like I'm preaching to the choir, but my friends, it's being challenged on a daily basis by all of the people around us, most of which are in the church. People outside of the church, they don't believe the Bible. They don't believe the Bible anyway. They challenge everything about it.

But within the church, what we're seeing right now is people challenging God's standard on what sin and salvation actually is. And we have to use God's word as our standard. Imagine what would have happened if the Levite would have shown up and Micah would have said, I have these household idols. And he would have gone, well, the first two commandments go against you having household idols.

I can't be your priest. I can't have your false authority because you've already violated the first two commandments of God's word. Therefore, let's get back to what it actually says because God is being worshiped right now in Shiloh in the tabernacle with the sacrifices that he has prescribed. We would have eliminated chapter 17 like it'd been a much shorter study, right?

And right now you're going, amen. Because it would be done. But they didn't use God's word as a standard. So you had issues. But then the third aspect of using God's word as a standard is God's word must be our standard for how we worship. For how we worship. And that doesn't just mean the songs that we sing, although that absolutely fits into that category

because worship is not just one area of your life. Worship is every area of your life. Therefore, God's word must be that standard. And we must continually hold our lives up to the light of God's word and say, does the way that I live my life worship you? Because if there's areas where it doesn't, then it's time for God's word to change us. Brothers and sisters,

I'm just going to keep bringing you back to the same thing. You need to know what God's word says. Not just what the words on the page say, but what God's word says to you directly from him, right? And so, get back to what God wants us to do. And if they would have done that, it would have changed a whole lot of things. And so next week, we will finish the book of Judges,

believe it or not. Thank God, right? Because it's good. There's good stuff in it. But man, sometimes it's hard. Would you bow with me? Father, we come to you. And Lord, I thank you for who you are. Lord, I thank you that you are the God who holds us to a standard. And yet, you are the God who has already met the standard for us. Lord, I praise you for your mercy.

I praise you that you are far beyond our finding out. And yet, you have made yourself knowable through your spirit, through your word, and through the revelation of Jesus Christ. Father, we praise you for who you are. And may we continue to be amazed by your grace. In Jesus' name, amen.