The response in this story is pretty drastic, but it is a picture of God’s desire for His people.  When the people of Israel heard about the story in the previous chapter, the realized that they could not allow this level of wickedness to remain.  God would judge them as a nation if they didn’t do something about the sin.  God’s desire was for His people to be holy, separate, and different.  As a nation they came together to rid the country of this sin.  Their first attempt was to ask the tribe of Benjamin to have the same convictions and deliver the wicked men for judgement.  When the people of Benjamin refused, the response of the nation was to engage in a civil war, which God blessed.  Eventually Israel destroyed most of the tribe of Benjamin.

This was a special situation.  God’s people had just entered the promised land, and were new as a nation.  If the sin and wickedness of the tribe of Benjamin was not dealt with, the cancer of this sin would eventually spread throughout all of Israel.  Therefore, God’s response was to send judgement through the rest of the nation.  At this time, God is not calling the church to rise up and start a civil war.  But He is calling the church to have the same attitude about sin that He does.

God hates sin.  He is holy and morally perfect.  He will not allow sin in His presence, and will always judge sin.  His desire is that His people will be broken hearted over their sin, and the sin of their culture.  When His people feel the same way about sin as He does, God’s people can then stand against wickedness in His church and in society in a loving way.

We live in a culture that is drifting further and further away from the mores commanded in the Scripture.  But the real tragedy is that the people of God, those who claim the name of Jesus don’t really have different values and attitudes from the world around.  The truth be told, Christianity in our country looks a lot more like the book of Judges than we want to believe.

This story illustrates one of the great Biblical truths about people.  The Bible teaches that people are totally depraved.  This means that people are totally unable to please God on their own, and that if they are left to themselves, they will always choose his own wills and desires.  The book of Isaiah says, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and Jehovah hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.”  People will always choose sin, and if left to themselves, they will end up in the situation our society is in now.

The only answer to man’s depravity is God’s grace.  God can and does make a difference in people’s life, and can deliver them from their sin.  This is why God is so wonderful!  He can take a life that is selfish, and separated from God and can change them forever.

The men of Gibeah had fallen to incredible depths of wickedness.  They prove to us that man is hopeless apart from God.  As you will see in the next chapter, they will experience judgement as a result of their sin.  American society reflects the depth of wickedness in Gibeah.  The good news is that those who trust in Christ can experience the grace of God and forgiveness from sin.  Aren’t you thankful that God didn’t leave you in the state you were in before He saved you?

The Danites (tribe of Dan) were one of the twelve tribes of Israel.  God had led His people from Egypt into the Promised Land, and each tribe was given an “inheritance” which was a section of land that would be theirs.  The tribe of Dan was sent to the southwest end of Israel when they conquered the land in the book of Joshua.  But in this location, they were under constant pressure from the Philistines and other nations.  God’s desire was for them to trust Him and live in the land He had given them.  But these people decided they had a better plan.  They learned of a rich area that was inhabited by people who couldn’t defend themselves in the northern section of Israel, so they decided to leave the land God had given them and go secure a land for themselves.

On the way, they learned about the idolatrous priest and Micah’s idols (from chapter 17).  They stole the idols and forced the priest to go with them. They then went to this new city, conquered it, and moved in to the new city.  And they did all this with “God’s blessing” (not really).  In the end, the city of Dan became a problem for all of Israel because it became a mecca of idol worship in the land.  God would eventually judge the entire nation for this sort of idolatry.  Although they were victorious, the Danites had disobeyed many of God’s direct commandments to them.  God was not blessing them.  In fact, they were setting themselves up for judgement which would eventually be devastating.

For all of human history people have been doing their own thing and trying to say that God showed them that is alright.  People are pretty ingenious as they come up with ways to have God affirm their sinful behaviors.  Several Christian denominations have endorsed and ordained homosexual priests and pastors, declaring that God affirms their lifestyle.  Married couples declaring that God led them away from their marriage to the “right person.”  People with incessant greed arguing that God wants them to be rich so they can give a tithe back, all the while they are stepping on the poor to gain riches.  The problem with these statements are that they directly contradict the direct teachings of Scripture.  Instead of seeking God and listening to what He says, people tend to decide what they want to do and then find a way to say that God is blessing their efforts.

God loves you!  He wants the best for you.  But the best is always on God’s terms.  He demands obedience to his commandments.  We cannot do whatever we want and expect God to bless us.  God’s blessings in life come when we trust Him and obey Him.

What area of your life needs adjustment to God.  Is there an activity or attitude in your life that is against God’s commands?  Adjust yourself to God and He will bless you.  But be assured, God will not adjust Himself to your behavior.

This story teaches that God is concerned about how we worship.  In the 10 Commandments, God had told his people not to make idols as objects of worship.  His desire was for His people to worship Him with their hearts.  In this story, Micah stole a lot of money from his mother.  When she cursed the person who stole her money, Micah felt guilty and gave the money back.  In a sort of twisted way, his mother said that she wanted to dedicate the money to God, so she took the silver to a silversmith and had him make an idol and other objects of worship.  They then set up a shrine to worship God with the idols and other objects.  This is where it is weird.  They kind of set a church in their own backyard, and decided that they could worship God on their own terms.  You see, they really believed they were worshiping God when they went into the shrine and bowed to the idols.  But we can’t come to God any way we want.  We must come to Him as he commands.

Micah even found a priest who would be his own personal priest, thinking that if he had his own idols, and his own priest, that God would really hear him and he could really worship God.  The Levites were one of the twelve tribes of Israel, but this tribe was the tribe of priests and religious leaders.  Funny how you can create just about any spiritual idea and then find some religious nut to call himself the pastor of that idea.  Shows that just because a person has a white clergy collar or an ordination certificate on his wall, that does not necessarily make him holy or a person who speaks for God.   But if we are going to come to God, we have to do it on His terms!

Is there a parallel to this story in God’s people today?  Of course.  Many people believe they can come to church and worship God on their own terms.  They think they can show up with a bad attitude, sing the songs half-heartedly, not really pay attention to the preacher, and leave the same as they came in.  Church is a place to have ears tickled and hearts uplifted, but not a place to bow before the eternal God in submission.  We come on our own terms, and God will accept what we offer to him, no matter how lame or off base it is.  Paul warned of such a time in 2 Timothy 4:3 as he challenges his son in the faith, Timothy, to faithfully preach the Word of God.

For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.

The essence of worship is a life submitted to God.  If God can never contradict us, never convict, never challenge to change, never push us, then we don’t really want a God, we want a genie.  For this to happen, true worship begins with a heart that is full of the Holy Spirit.  We must want everything God has to offer, and give everything we are to Him.  Second, true worship is based on the truth of God’s Word.  We must worship as God has taught in His Word.

God didn’t respond to Micah’s worship.  Micah was never blessed by God, nor did God do anything in his life as a result of his worship.  When we worship half-heartedly, giving only the leftovers to God, our results will be the same as Micah.

When you go to church Sunday, remember Micah, and worship God in spirit and in truth!

Sin will keep take you farther than you wanted to stray, keep you longer than you wanted to stay, and cost you more than you ever wanted to pay!  Samson’s sinful actions and impulsive heart are about to catch up with him.  This story is a classic picture of the lure of sin, and the danger.

To begin with, we see Samson with a prostitute.  He is a sex addict.  He just can’t say “no” to a woman who will give him sex.  Then we find him in another relationships with a Philistine woman, again against God’s plan for His people.  To understand the rest of this story, you must remember the Nazirite vow that Samson had lived under.  God had kept His promise to Samson’s parents, that as long as his hair wasn’t cut, God would protect him.  The issue wasn’t Samson’s hair, it was obedience to God.  Still, Samson continues to make one self-absorbed narcissistic decision after another.

Delilah was a fox!  She was gorgeous!  She had those flirty eyes, and that sweet voice.  And she knew how to treat a man!  I kind of picture Delilah as a sweet, southern-belle type woman, with a cute little accent.  Samson just loved Delilah.  And he couldn’t say no to her.  I can just see her asking Samson about his secret as she strokes his hair, and kisses him, “You can trust little ol’ me.”  You would have thought that he would get the tar out of there, but no, he couldn’t resist her charm.  He begins by telling her that if he is tied with leather ropes that would hold him.  During the night, Delilah ties him down with leather ropes.  The next morning, with the Philistines int he room, Delilah shouts, “Samson, the Philistines are upon you.”  He breaks the leather cords easily.  The next night Delilah bats her eyes at him, wiggles her hips, and says, “Oh Samson, how can we be close if you don’t tell me the truth.”  This time Samson tells her to have them tie him down with new ropes made of horses hair (he’s getting a little closer to the truth).  Same song, next verse.  Samson breaks the ropes and the Philistines run off.   The next night Samson tells her to braid his hair (now he is real close to the truth).  Finally, Samson gives in to sweet little Delilah.  He tells her the secret to his strength.  He tells her that if she were to cut his hair, he would lose his strength.  During the night, she cuts his hair. The next morning the Philistines are in the room, Delilah shouts.  But this time something is different.  The Spirit of God has left Samson.  He no longer has his strength.  The consequences of sin have crept up on him, and there is nothing he can do.  The Philistines capture Samson, pluck his eyes out, and take him into captivity.

You may say,”Something like this never happens today.”  Think again.  There are people all around with stories like Samson.  Stories that start something like this, “It all started with one drink. . .”  “I never imagined that flirting in the office would lead to this…”  “It was just one time, one night…”  “It’s just pictures on the computer, it’s not real…”   God loves us deeply.  He created us for His glory and to live in fellowship with Him.  He can also see the path of our lives clearly. When we come across commands in the Bible, our tendency is to step over them, believing that somehow we can be the one person who lives outside of God’s commands but maintains the life we wanted.  We live in a culture that basically ignores most of God’s instruction on sexuality, lifestyle, and morality.  And way too often, we who know God embrace the culture’s mores believing we can control our lives much better than God can.  Samson should have stayed away from Delilah in the first place.  His life will crash and burn.  The challenge from this story is that we too need to hear from God as he tells us to flee from temptation (I Corinthians 6:18) rather than seeing how close we can come to it without caving in.

While all this is pretty cool, and true, what I don’t understand is how God would use Samson.  He’s impulsive, proud, and not really worried about obeying God.  But God still accomplishes His plan through Samson.  God had a covenant with the Hebrews, which included promises of deliverance and protection when they trusted Him.  After years of oppression by the Philistines, God acted on behalf of His people.  The Philistines livelihood was messed up, so instead of making war on the Israelites, they would have to spend extra time trying to come up with food.  And 1,000 of their men are gone, which depleted their army and hindered their capability of fighting God’s people.  God is using Samson to bring judgement on the Philistines because of their evil treatment of the Jews.  But why Samson?

But you see, that is just it.  God is going to accomplish His will and purpose.  If God wants to send revival to an area, He will do it.  If God wants to send judgement to an area, he will do it.  Nothing you or I do will stop God’s plan.  Often, we have bought into the idea that there are good people and bad people, and God only likes the good people.  It only seems rational that God is searching out and finding the people who really love him and live perfect lives.  Their kids are wonderful, and they always break into prayer, and they have a certain glow.  The only problem with this perspective is the Bible, especially the story in the Old Testament.  Samson is one of a myriad of totally whacked out people that God chooses as an instrument of His Divine purpose.  The reason is that ultimately the story of the Bible is not about good people and bad people.  We are all bad, sinful people.  The story of the Bible is about God’s grace and the fact that He is the Sovereign King of the universe who will accomplish His purpose.

But we can decide how we will fit in that plan.  If we respond to God with faith, love, and obedience, we will experience blessing and contentment, no matter what is happening in the world around us.  But if we are proud and try to do it our own way, we will experience the consequences of sin and defeat.  While God does use Samson, it does not go well for Samson.  In the end God saves both the Jews and Samson, but the path is very painful.  If you are a follower of Jesus, you may choose a rebellious, unbelieving path.  But that path will not go will.  Still, God will still accomplish His plan.

God had told his people not to marry women from different cultures.  The issue wasn’t race, but religion.  God didn’t want his people to marry someone who would tempt them to serve other gods.  But Samson saw a Philistine woman he liked, and he went for her.  God had told him not to touch a dead body (remember the Nazirite vow), but when he saw honey in the carcass of a lion, he wanted it and he got it!  When he is tricked by his fiancee and her Philistine friends, he gets mad, goes out and kills 30 men to pay the debt he owed.  Samson is a stud, but eventually, being led by his flesh is going to get the best of him.

God’s desire is that we be led by the Spirit.  What does this mean?  It means that our choices and lifestyle are driven by the Spirit of God who dwells in the life of the Christian.  We are to seek God’s desire and purpose for our lives, and allow God’s Spirit to direct.  When the mind is unsure, the Spirit will guide you.  When your emotions are out of whack, the Spirit can calm and comfort.  When your flesh is desiring something that can hurt you, the Spirit of God can strengthen you.  “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the lusts of the flesh (Galatians 5:13).”  What part of your anatomy drives you?

A note about God’s use of Samson to accomplish His will.  It seems strange that God would use a guy like Samson.  As you read on in this story, you will see that Samson is not really that concerned about following God and doing His will.  But God uses Him.  God’s purpose for Samson is to deliver the Israelites from the oppression of the Philistines.  God accomplishes this purpose, at times using the sinful choices Samson makes.  This teaches that God is going to accomplish His plan.  On the other hand, Samson will eventually suffer grave consequences for his sin.  So even though God accomplishes His plan, there are still consequences for sin.  It would be much easier for Samson, and for you and me, if we would follow God’s plan and lived as people filled with the Holy Spirit.  He will accomplish His plan, but we would experience a much better life with Him if we trust and obey Him.

Samson’s birth was very special, much like the birth of Samuel, Jacob, and Jesus.  An angel of the Lord appeared to his parents and told them they would have a child that would be a special part of God’s plan.  They were to make the child a Naziritie.  A what?  To understand this you must understand God’s commands and instruction in Numbers 6.  In Numbers 6, God gives His people a way for individuals to make a special commitment to God to be separate and different, set apart for His purposes.  The vow of the Nazirite was a vow that someone would take for himself or his child that separated them for God’s plan and purpose alone.  The vow consisted of three commitments.  First, the Nazirite would abstain from wine, or anything that could intoxicate.  Second, the Nazirite would never cut his hair as long as he was under the vow.  This was a visible sign of his commitment to God.  Third, the Nazirite would never go near a dead body, not even that of a family member.  In the Old Testament law, going near a dead body would leave a person ceremonially unclean, and unable to worship.  All this may seem weird, but keep this in mind.  To take the vow of a Nazirite was to surrender the life of yourself or your child’s life in a way that was very special to God and that he was going to be set apart for God’s purpose and plan, period.

God himself, appeared to Samson’s parents, and let them know that Samson was going to be a special person, set apart for God’s plan.  God had chosen Samson to be the deliverer of His people, a reminder that the Bible is about the sovereign work of God, not the goodness of people.  His parent’s response is terrific.  They wanted to know everything they could about raising this child as God intended.  In Judges 13:8, Samson’s father prayed and asked that the angel would return and teach them how to be good parents and help their son be everything God wanted.  And God did use him.  But you will also see that all the good parenting in the world was not enough when Samson was tempted.

The night before my son Andy was born, I had a very special time with God.  Heidi was going to be induced into labor, so she and I knew that Andy would be born the next day.  I imagined what it must have felt like for God to know when His Son was going to be born.  I prayed about being a dad, and about having a son, and about what he would be like.  I also prayed that God would make Andy special in God’s plan, and use us to train him to be everything God wants him to be.

Being a parent can be tough.  When you were a baby, your parents, if they are Christians, probably had similar prayers.  They probably dedicated you to the Lord.  If you are a a parent who loves Jesus, you probably find anguish in your soul as you pray for your kids asking God to protect them and give them a love for Jesus that is deep and transforming.  Parents want the very best for their kids, and their desire should be for them to be all God intended for them to be.  But there is also a point where a person must find their own faith and follow Jesus for themselves.  Samson is God’s chosen, and his parents pursued God, but the path Samson takes does not go well.

So two quick applications.  First to all of us.  Your parents may or may not have been believers.  They may have prayed deeply for you, or may have led you away from God.  Either way, the challenge of the Samson story is that we take care not to follow the same path as he did.  Now for parents.  Pray for your kids, train them to love Jesus, passionately teach them the Scriptures.  But this is not a guarantee, so in the end, you must trust God to work in your kids.  And if a child strays from the faith, don’t give up, keep seeking God on their behalf.  God will be faithful.

The men of Ephraim (one of the tribes of Israel) crossed the Jordan River to make war with Jephthah because they weren’t able to get the glory of winning the battle against Ammon.  They weren’t concerned about the people of Gilead, they just wanted to get the glory for winning the battle, and were jealous of Jephthah and his men.  Jephthah responded by saying, “First of all, I sent a memo letting you know that we were in a battle and wanted your help.  But you never showed, so I took my life in my own hands.”  Ephraim wasn’t there when the people of Gilead needed them.  Second, Jephthah said, “How dare you come to make war with us today.”  Instead of rejoicing over their brother’s victory, the people of Ephraim were jealous.

God gave Jephthah another victory, this time over the people of Ephraim.  As the Ephraimites fled, the people of Gilead captured them and killed them.  They even used a trick, asking the people of Ephraim to say a word that showed their accent (Kind of like asking a southerner to say, “you all” and they’d say “ya’ll”).  The point of this story is that God’s people should have rushed to the aid of their brothers, and then rejoiced when they gained a victory.

The church is God’s people today.  But sometimes, the church acts just like the people of Ephraim.  When our brothers are in trouble, we don’t run to their aid.  Just the opposite, many times when a fellow Christian is hurting or in trouble, his brothers or sisters in Christ will add insults and hurt to the problem.  And when a sister has achieved a victory, and something awesome has happened in her life, fellow Christians will get jealous, and treat her with contempt, instead of rejoicing with her.

The church ought to be a place where God’s people come together to find refuge, safety, and fellowship.  We ought to “weep with those who weep, and rejoice with those who rejoice.”  The application for this passage is simple.  As the people of God, the church is to be a community of faith experiencing God’s grace and power together.  When one person in the community hurts, we all should suffer with them.  When one has a joy or victory, it is a group experience.  But all of this takes ever deepening relationship together.  If everyone does this, then God’s people would act like God’s people.

God takes our vows very seriously.  When you get your drivers license you make a vow to obey the laws.  If you were ever a witness in a trial, you would make a vow to “tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”  When two people get married they make a vow to each other and to God to stay together until death.  When you make a vow, you give your word, and God wants our word to be trusted.  So we had better be careful about making hasty vows.
Jephthah was a judge in Israel.  He had a shaky background.  He was the illegitimate son of a prostitute.  His brothers ran him out of town.  But he was also a warrior and a leader, and when things got tough the elders in his hometown, Gilead, asked him to come back and be their leader.  He was to go fight the king of Ammon.  So he made a vow.  “God, if you will let me win this fight,” he said, “I will sacrifice the first thing that comes out of the door of my house when I return.”

God allowed Jephthah to win the battle easily.  He and his men came home celebrating.  And the word of the victory had gotten back to his home.  When they came toward the house, Jephthah’s daughter came dancing and singing out of the house, praising God for the victory.  As soon as he saw her, Jephthah remembered his vow, and knew that if he had made a vow to God, he must keep it.

Scholars are divided over how to interpret the rest of this passage, but there are two possibilities.  First, that Jephthah carried out his vow as he intended, and made his daughter a human sacrifice.  Although this was against God’s law, many of the pagan nations around Israel did human sacrifice in fulfilling vows to their deity.  The second possibility is that Jephthah made his daughter a living sacrifice, meaning that he dedicated her to the temple, and to remain a virgin for life.  Since she was the only child in Jephthah’s family, this would mean that he would have no grandchildren, and the family name would cease to exist, which in their culture was a sign of God’s judgement in wiping a family off the face of the earth.  Either way this passage is interpreted, Jephthah’s daughter died a virgin, and his family name ended with her.  He suffered the terrible consequences of making a hasty vow.

So, there are two things to remember about making vows.  First, be careful about making hasty vows.  Second, if you make a vow, God takes your word very seriously.