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Man, chapter 8 of 1 Chronicles, we have the detailed genealogy for the tribe of Benjamin. Now why so much detail about Benjamin? A couple of reasons. In this section of 1 Chronicles 1 through 9, the three tribes that get the most air time as it were, the ones that are talked about the most, are Judah, Benjamin, and Levi and that's for obvious reasons. The southern kingdom of Judah was made up of the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin and then of course the Levites are the ones who offer the service of the Lord so they're pretty important too. So it makes sense that those three tribes are emphasized. As you study the Old Testament and when you get into the divided kingdom, you'll notice it's Judah and Benjamin mentioned in the same breath over and over again. When it was first prophesied that the kingdom would be split, if you remember there was the prophet that came to Jeroboam and tore up the piece of clothing and said you take ten pieces and it was the ten tribes that Jeroboam would rule, Rehoboam would rule over the southern kingdom of the two tribes. Now one of the things that we can learn from this genealogy right away, you say what can we possibly learn from just this list of names? Now in previous chapters in 1 Chronicles like chapters 1 through 7, God threw in little anecdotes into each chapter, just kind of a little breather from all the names, you know the prayer of Jabez or this little story or that story. This chapter doesn't really have any story like that if you notice. This is pretty much just purely names but I'll tell you one thing that we can learn right away just on the surface in this chapter is how many of Saul's sons actually lived and survived and just generation after generation after generation of Saul's descendants and what we can see from that is that King David honored his word to Jonathan and his descendants honored that word and that they did not wipe out the sons of Saul. See in the ancient world often when a new dynasty would come on the scene, you know when we pass from say the house of Saul to the house of David, they would often wipe out all the descendants of that previous king because those are people that have a claim to the throne but David did not do that. In fact, David went out of his way to bless and do good unto the sons of Saul and even his descendants honored that and so we can see Saul's descendants surviving and having kids and multiplying and so forth. So what I'm going to preach about tonight is just the tribe of Benjamin in general. I'm just going to give you kind of an overview of the tribe of Benjamin in the Bible. It's one of the most interesting tribes if you follow their story from beginning to end and if you would flip over to the book of Judges chapter 19, that's where we're going to end up in a few moments, Judges chapter 19 but before we look at Judges 19, let me bring you up to that point in the story of the tribe of Benjamin. Now if you remember, of course, Jacob had two wives and two concubines so in a sense he had a total of four wives and the sons with Rachel, the beloved wife, were Joseph and Benjamin. So Benjamin is the youngest son of the tribes and of course, Benjamin was favored by his brother Joseph because that was his full-blooded brother and when Benjamin went down into Egypt and they all were reunited, he was always giving special gifts to Benjamin and giving him more food and more riches and really favoring him. So then 400 years of slavery in Egypt, the children of Israel come out of the land of Egypt, they inherit the promised land, the book of Joshua and in the book of Judges, we see the next 400 years of history, pretty much the first 400 years in the promised land. After the children of Israel leave Egypt, they come into the promised land, they've inherited a lot of the land, they didn't inherit all of it, there are still a lot of enemies and so that's what the book of Judges is about. Well as we read the book of Judges, what we see is a cycle of the Israelites serving the Lord, God blesses them, they have peace, they have prosperity but then they end up turning away from the Lord and worshiping false gods, going into sin and when they do that, God sends enemies that will come and put them into bondage. Then when they're in bondage and things are going bad for them, they cry out to the Lord and the Lord sends them a judge or a deliverer that will deliver them from their oppressors and then there's peace and prosperity again but then over time when things are going good, they eventually turn away from the Lord and the cycle continues but when you read the book of Judges, it's not just a cycle, you often hear it explained that way which is true that it's a cycle but it's more like a downward spiral though because it's a cycle but it keeps getting worse and worse and worse. The sin gets worse and in fact the judges that God sends, they get less and less glorious and they have more and more problems so what you see is actually Israel on a downward spiral for hundreds of years and then at the end of that downward spiral, they end up having to switch systems away from the system of the judges to actually having a king and that king is of course King Saul. So what do I mean by the downward spiral? Well, if you look at the early judges in the book of Judges, you'll see men like Othniel, the son of Kenaz, right? Great guy, doesn't really say anything negative about him. You got guys like Ehud, you've got Barak and Deborah and you have all these glorious victories and glorious stories and everything's going great. But then you look at some of the later judges, you get into a guy like Jephthah and he obviously has some serious problems. First of all, he's the son of a prostitute and then he ends up making that foolish vow where he ends up sacrificing his daughter and so forth and you can kind of compare some of the judges from the early part of Judges to the latter part of Judges. For example, Othniel is the one who capitalized on a vow made by Caleb. Caleb makes a vow about his daughter, right? Caleb says, hey, whoever takes the city is going to receive acts of my daughter to wife. And then Othniel takes the city, wins the daughter, everybody lives happily ever after. Later on, it's a vow of he's going to sacrifice whatever meets him at the door and he ends up making a vow that actually destroys his daughter. Instead of marrying his daughter to a nice person, he actually ends up causing his daughter to get killed. And then, of course, we get into the biblical judge, the most famous judge, Samson and he's not as godly and righteous as some of the earlier judges. He's with a prostitute. He is marrying a Philistine. He ends up getting blinded and shamed and humiliated and on and on. So what we see is kind of just a downward spiral. In fact, at one point in Judges Chapter 10, God even gets angry and sends a message to children of Israel saying, I'm not going to send you any more deliverance. Go cry out to your false gods. I'm through. But even though God told them that, they still made supplication unto him. They still did right and so what do they get? They get Jephthah and he does deliver them. So what we see is that the book of Judges starts out really heroic and it really just goes down the toilet by the end of Judges. What do we have toward the end of Judges? Well, after the story of Samson, we have the story of the Danites. And the Danites are the ones who set up the first permanent base of idolatry in Israel. We talked about them, I believe, last Wednesday night, didn't we? And the Danites set up that base of idolatry in that false priesthood. And then after that story, we get into a story that involves the tribe of Benjamin and this is what I'm building up to here in Chapter 19. And what's interesting about Judges 19 is that the story in Judges 19 is really similar to the story in Genesis 19. And what's interesting about that is that what we see is that the children of Israel, they start out God's people triumphantly entering the promised land. They go on a downward spiral for hundreds of years and what do they end up being? They end up becoming like Sodom and Gomorrah. You see, according to the Bible, the Sodomite lifestyle or death style, as we should call it, is actually the final stage of human depravity. It's the end of the line. I mean, as a society just gets worse and worse and worse and worse, that's the final stage. What do we see in Romans Chapter 1? You know, we see that degeneration of the reprobate in Romans Chapter 1. And at the very end of that road is what? Men with men. Women with women. Vile affections. Well, it's the same thing with the Book of Judges. The Book of Judges culminates with a story that shows that the children of Israel have become like unto Sodom and Gomorrah. This is them at their worst point. And specifically, it was the tribe of Benjamin that was guilty in this. Now, there are a lot of comparisons like this throughout Scripture. For example, in Romans Chapter 9, the Bible says, except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we should have been like unto Sodom and been like unto Gomorrah. So in Romans Chapter 9, it's saying that the children of Israel, without the seed, without Jesus Christ, without a righteous remnant, with Christ in their hearts, they'd be like Sodom and they'd be like Gomorrah. And what do we see today? We see the nation of Israel without Jesus Christ and they are like unto Sodom and Gomorrah today. In fact, Tel Aviv is the only city in the Middle East that has Sodomite pride parades. The only place where Sodomites are out and proud in the Middle East is in the nation of Israel. Okay? It is the queerest city in that part of the world. And in fact, some people have ranked it even number one in the entire world of being a Sodomite tourist destination to go to Tel Aviv. Not exactly the Holy Land, is it? But when you don't have Jesus Christ, it doesn't matter if you're Israel, it doesn't matter if you're the tribe of Benjamin or Judah or who you are, without Christ, it's a downward spiral and the end of the road for a society that rejects the Lord is to become like Sodom. That's why the story in Judges 19 is so similar to the story in Genesis 19. God's trying to send us a clear message, these people have become like Sodom. That's why when Isaiah is rebuking the children of Judah in Isaiah chapter 1, he says, hear ye this ye rulers of Sodom. He's talking to the rulers of Israel or Judah specifically, but he calls them the rulers of Sodom. Now look at Judges 19 verse 12. In the story here, there are some people, they got a late start. You know how it is when you're packing up, you're trying to get on the road, you plan on leaving first thing in the morning, but you don't end up leaving until around lunchtime. And then it's like, well, we might as well eat lunch before we leave town. And then you eat lunch, you don't get on the road until the afternoon. That's exactly what happened here. So they get on the road late and it starts getting dark. And you know, when you're in an unfamiliar place, when you're in a foreign country and it's starting to get dark, you want to lodge somewhere, you want to get indoors, you want to get in a safe place. Well, this guy, he has a lot of faith in the children of Israel. He thinks to himself, hey, look, as long as we lodge in one of the cities of Israel, we're going to be safe. We're going to be okay. We just need to stay away from these heathen cities, you know, these, the Jebusites, we don't want to stay there. Jebus, you know, that's a foreign place. Who knows what will happen in Jebus. We need to hold out, you know, you know, he's looking at that billboard that says next hotel. And he's like, you know what, we can make that just to get out of Jebus and get back amongst the Israelites. Okay. So he skips Jebus and he pushes on to the land of Benjamin. Look what the Bible says in verse 12. His master said unto him, we will not turn aside hither into the city of a stranger. We're not going to Jebus. That is not of the children of Israel. We will pass over to Gibeah. And he said unto his servant, come and let us draw near to one of these places to lodge all night in Gibeah or in Ramah. And they passed on and went their way. And the sun went down upon them when they were by Gibeah, which belongeth to Benjamin. And they turned aside thither to go in into lodge in Gibeah. And when he went in, he sat him down in a street of the city, for there was no man that took them into his house to lodging. And behold, there came an old man from his work out of the field at even, which was also of Mount Ephraim, and he sojourned in Gibeah. But the men of the place were Benjamites. So this guy's not a Benjamite. This guy's from Mount Ephraim, but the men of the city are Benjamites. And when he had lifted up his eyes, he saw a wayfaring man in the street of the city and the old man said, whither goest thou and whence comest thou? And he said unto them, We're passing from Bethlehem Judah, toward the side of Mount Ephraim, from Vensimai. And I went to Bethlehem Judah, but I'm now going to the house of the Lord. And there is no man that receiveth me to house. Jump down to verse 20. The old man said, Peace be with thee. Howsoever let all thy wants lie upon me, only lodge not in the street. So this guy's saying, hey, whatever you do, don't lodge in the street. You need to come over to my house. So he brought him into his house, verse 21, and gave provender unto the asses, and they washed their feet, and did eat and drink. Now as they were making their hearts merry, behold, the men of the city, certain sons of Belial, beset the house round about, and beat at the door, and spake to the master of the house, the old man, saying, Bring forth the man that came into thine house, that we may know him. Now what's the difference between this story and Sodom and Gomorrah? Of course, they're very similar, but the difference is that in Sodom, all the men of the city, small and great, were all perverts. In this city, it was just certain men, the sons of Belial. So it's not all of them, it's just a portion of them, right? And they say, Bring this man out to us, that we may know him. And this is the kind of knowing as in where it said, Adam knew Eve, his wife, and she conceived and brought forth the son. So they want to be with this man carnally, in the most disgusting way. And the man, the master of the house, went out unto them, and said unto them, Nay, my brethren, nay, I pray you, do not so wickedly, seeing that this man is coming to my house, do not this folly, behold, here is my daughter a maiden, and his concubine, them I will bring out now, humble ye them, and do with them what seemeth good unto you. But do unto this man not so vile a thing. Now obviously this guy is out to lunch to just sacrifice these women. Obviously this is not right at all for him to just say, Hey, why don't you take my daughter, and why don't you take this concubine, you know, and abuse them. But what you have to understand is that this guy is just so disgusted and horrified by the sodomite acts that they want to perform on another man, that he feels like this is the lesser of two evils, you know, to just give them these women to abuse. And obviously it's very misguided to do that. Obviously the guy is totally wrong to have done that. But there are a couple things we can learn from that is I think what the Bible is teaching us as well is that, you know, your concubine can be seen as expendable, and what we can learn from that is, you know what, if your boyfriend wants to sleep with you but he doesn't want to marry you, he doesn't love you. Think about that. I mean, if he loved you, he wants to spend the rest of his life with you, then he's going to marry you. What is a concubine? A concubine is one that is slept with but is not a legitimate wife. And so this guy is ready to just throw his concubine under the bus. Why? Because men that value women's bodies are going to marry them, not just fornicate with them on a perpetual basis, which is what a concubine is in this story. So we see that the concubine is offered unto them, which is obviously bizarre that these guys would do that, but that's what they did. These guys are not godly men. But the men would not hearken to him, verse 25. So the man took his concubine and brought her forth unto them, and they knew her and abused her all the night until the morning, and when the day began to spring, they let her go. One thing we can learn here is that these vile sodomites, these homos, they go both ways. That's why the Bible says if a man lie also with mankind as he lies with a woman, even both of them have committed an abomination, they shall surely be put to death, their blood shall be upon them. And so what we see here is that they take this concubine as a consolation, since they can't have what they really wanted, which was the man that came unto them, they end up abusing this woman, and they abuse her all night until the morning, and when the day began to break, they let her go. So when it starts to get light, they go running away like cockroaches from the light because the evil deeds that they do are done in darkness. Then came the dawning of the day, verse 26. Then came the woman in the dawning of the day and fell down at the door of the man's house where her Lord was till it was light, and her Lord rose up in the morning and opened the doors of the house, and went out to go his way, and behold, the woman, his concubine, was fallen down at the door of the house, and her hands were upon the threshold, and he set her up and let us be going, but none answered. Then the man took her upon an ass, and the man rose up and got him into his place, and when he was coming to his house, he took a knife and laid hold on his concubine and divided her together with her bones into twelve pieces, and sent her into all the coasts of Israel, and it was so that all that saw it said, There was no such deed done nor seen from the day that the children of Israel came up out of the land of Egypt unto this day. Consider of it, take advice, and speak your minds. What do we see here? This horrific story, I mean, this is horrible. It's just disgusting, there's perversion, there's violence, there's an innocent victim, there's a mutilation of corpses. I mean, this is a horrific story. Why would God put this in the Bible? Because he's trying to show you, look, if you forsake the Lord, if you forsake his commandments, if you forsake the Word of God, this is where you're heading, and this is where we're heading in America today. I mean, do you really think we're not on this path? When you look around and you see the men with men, and the women with women, and you see it promoted on TV and the radio and the magazines, books, even children's books, this is where we're heading, and it heads to something that is not like what you see on TV, where they try to make it look funny or cute or it's an alternative lifestyle. No, these are the horrors of the sodomite death style, perversion, disease, filth, violence, murder, etc. That's where it leads. We are heading down a very dark path in America, and don't be deceived by the hellavision and by the churches that water this down and put a rainbow flag out in front of their church and everything. Look, this is reality right here. This is the true story of where that death style leads of sodomy. Now here's the most important part. Look at chapter 20. When they get together, the tribes of Israel, they're disgusted and horrified just like we are reading it thousands of years later. It says in verse 12, actually look at verse 11, so all the men of Israel were gathered against the city, knit together as one man, and you know what? That's how we ought to be when we hear about these bunch of sodomites and about the perverts and the sons of Belial in our day. We as Christians should be knit together as one man. We should all agree it's horrible, it's disgusting, it cannot be tolerated. But that's not what we see today. What we see is a very small minority of preachers, myself included, who preach hard against this stuff and condemn this stuff, and then we have 99% of even fundamental Baptists who believe that we should tolerate the sodomites and just be tolerant of it. They say, well, it's a sin, but we'll tolerate it, we'll bring them into church, we'll bring them into Sunday school, we'll invite them in, but it's a sin, but we're all sinners, so let's just bring in the sodomites. Total opposite of what the Bible teaches here about this subject. But look what the Bible says, the tribes of Israel sent men throughout all the tribe of Benjamin saying, what wickedness is this that is done among you? Now therefore, deliver us the men, the children of Belial, which are in Gibeah, that we may put them to death and put away evil from Israel. Watch this, but the children of Benjamin would not hearken to the voice of their brethren, the children of Israel, but the children of Benjamin gathered themselves together out of the cities under Gibeah to go out to battle against the children of Israel. So what happens is you have a group of people, the Benjamites, and they're not homos. It was only certain sons of Belial that were. It was just that one city. It was just that one town. It was just that one place. And all the rest of the Israelites wanted was just for those people to be turned over to them to be punished. Deliver unto us these men that have done this. Deliver unto us the sons of Belial. But no, no, they want to tolerate the homos. They want to tolerate the sodomites. They want to coexist with them and live with them and get along with them and defend them and love them. And so what ends up happening, who do they end up fighting against? They end up fighting against God's people. And that's what we see today. We have churches today where I'm not welcome, you're not welcome, our staff isn't welcome, our friends aren't welcome, but come on in, homos. That's what's going on today amongst independent Baptist churches. They hate me. They hate you, but they love the homos. Figure that out. They've become the tribe of Benjamin today and it's funny because I preached a sermon a while back called Saul and the Old IFB and of course Saul was of what tribe, Benjamin. So we can say, how about this, the tribe of Benjamin and the Old IFB. You know, where they end up fighting against their brothers and sisters in Christ to defend homos. I mean they hate Pastor Anderson, why? Because they love homos. And Pastor, can you believe what Pastor Anderson said about the sodomites? And then they end up getting mad at me. Why don't they get their heart knit together as one man, at least on this one subject? And say, hey, we can agree on that. That's what the Bible clearly teaches. But no, they want to coexist with them. You say, well, you know, they still say it's a sin. Well, I'm sure the tribe of Benjamin said it was a sin too. But they said, but let's keep them around. Let's tolerate them. Let's coexist with them. Let's consider them to be fine. You know, and I did a sermon a while back called AIDS, the Judgment of God. And there was a quote from a famous preacher of yesteryear, of course later he apologized for it and backed off and everything like that. But here's what he said. He said AIDS is not the judgment of God on sodomites. He said AIDS is the judgment of God on the society that tolerates sodomites. You know why? Even people that are not sodomites end up suffering from AIDS through blood transfusions. Sometimes babies are born with that virus. They could get it even through just being a whoremonger because of the fact that they tolerated that sin. They allowed it to spread. And then that disease spreads right along with it. And so it's the judgment of God on the society that tolerates sodomites. That's a true story. And so we see here that the children of Benjamin, they tolerate the most heinous, wicked perversion. They won't do anything about it. So they end up fighting against their own brother and going to war with the children of Israel. Well, to make a long story short, the Israelites, you know, they end up fighting against the tribe of Benjamin. So it's a civil war. The whole rest of Israel versus Benjamin. Where's the thing? The Benjamites were pretty good warriors. I mean, they were skilled at war. So they attack the Benjamites and they get defeated. Now they're kind of blown away by that because they knew God is on their side. They knew that they're preaching right. They knew that they're standing in the right place. And they sought counsel of the Lord. And God told them to fight this battle. But they end up losing the battle and they end up having heavy casualties. Thousands of people die. So they pray to the Lord and say, hey, should we keep fighting against Benjamin? And God says, go do it again. They go fight again and the second time they lose again. Okay? They end up suffering heavy casualties again. I mean, now they're really starting to wonder what's going on. Then they pray to the Lord and ask if they should go up again. And the third time they go in there and they win the battle on the third time. God gives them the victory. And in fact, they fight such a decisive battle that they literally wiped out the entire tribe of Benjamin to where there were only 600 men left. So I mean, we're talking about a tribe with tens of thousands of people in it. They end up wiping out Benjamin to the point where they were afraid that this tribe will never exist again. I mean, that tribe got wiped out. There were literally 600 survivors. Everyone else is dead. Everyone else is wiped out for the whole tribe of Benjamin. Now there are some great lessons we can learn from this story. One of the things we can learn is that when we're fighting on the right side, when we're fighting the Lord's battles, we're not always going to win every single battle. Now we're always going to have the victory in the long run. We are more than conquerors. We are on the winning side. But you know what? Don't expect your life to just be a series of victories. It's just not going to happen. Even when you're doing right, even when God's 100% on your side, even when it's a clear case of right versus wrong, good versus evil, you are going to lose some battles. You're going to have some setbacks. So you don't want to just have a setback or have something bad happen or lose a battle and just assume, oh, you know, God's not with me. God's not in this. No, no, no. If you are following the Bible, God's with you. If God's word says he's with you, he's with you. It doesn't matter what the circumstances are. It doesn't matter if things go poorly or if they go well. If you get the promotion or the demotion. It doesn't matter if the church grows or shrinks. It doesn't matter. Are you following the word of God? Now in the long run, God's always going to bless. In the long run, you're going to win the victory the third time. But in the short term, there are going to be setbacks, period. And so does that mean you change and say, oh, well, maybe we are supposed to tolerate sodomites because Benjamin whooped us. No way. You say, you know what? Right's right. Wrong's wrong. And you keep fighting. That's what the Bible says. So on the third time, they fight them. They win. They wipe out the whole tribe of Benjamin. Now this shows you how this cancer can destroy a group of people. I mean, how a whole nation can be destroyed by allowing the sodomites to just run rampant and allowing the homos and sodomites to take over. I mean, you get decimated. You get wiped out down to 600 people. I mean, that shows how God brings judgment and wrath upon this. So they're down to 600 guys, but they decide, you know what? We don't want to lose this tribe. You know, we're the 12 tribes of Israel. We don't want Benjamin to just cease to exist, right? So they come up with a plan to get wives for these guys. Because the men of the rest of the tribes of Israel, they had all sworn, we're not giving our daughters to be the wives. You know, no daughter of mine is going to marry one of these fag hags from Benjamin, one of these queer baits from Benjamin. So they'd sworn an oath like that, so they didn't want to break their word. So what they did was they figured out, okay, well, who didn't come to the battle and make that oath? Because they all joined together. They called all the cities and all the tribes together, and they all swore an oath. We're not giving our daughters these bunch of perverts. We're going to fight against these people. We're going to wipe them out. So they figured out which cities didn't participate. And you know what they did? They went and wiped out those cities that didn't participate, and they took the unmarried women from those cities, and they gave them to the Benjamites to provide their wives. And that provided most of the wives. And there was another way that they got the rest of the wives for sake of time. I'm not going to go into that, but they basically just ended up just kind of sweeping them off their feet. But that's a whole other story. So anyway, you know what that tells me is that God expects us not to be neutral in this battle. You know what I mean? We're supposed to fight this stuff. I mean, if we're Americans, if we love America, if we love our children, if we love the Lord, then it's our duty when we see the Sodomites taking over our land to stand up and preach hard and fight against sin. And you know what? Which church didn't go up to the battle? Which church has remained silent? Which church would not preach against the Sodomites? You know what? God might wipe that church out. God might just allow that candlestick to be removed. God might punish that church. Why? Because they're not in the fight. You know, God has told us to preach the Word, to preach the whole counsel of God, to preach Romans chapter 1, to preach all the other scriptures that are applicable. And if people sit it out and just say, well, I'm not a Benjamite, I mean, I'm not pro-Sodomite, they're just kind of sitting it out, meaning that they just never mention it. They don't say one way or the other, well, you know what? Those people got wiped out. They got wiped out. So we need to be careful not to be neutral but to get all the way on the Lord's side and to fight the Lord's battles. So Benjamin becomes a very small tribe, right? Six hundred men plus their wives and they have to start from scratch, start having babies and start producing heirs and offspring and so forth. Well, that's why when you go just a few pages to the right in your Bible and you get to first Samuel chapter 9, flip over to first Samuel chapter 9, that's why King Saul, when he finds out that he is the one that is going to be the king of Israel, look what he says in first Samuel chapter 9 verse 21. And Saul answered and said, Am not I a Benjamite of the smallest of the tribes of Israel? Why is Benjamin the smallest tribe? I mean, it wasn't that way previously. If you have kids and they had a bunch of kids and so the reason that Saul is of the smallest tribe is because his tribe had been virtually wiped out down to six hundred men and had to build up again and so that's why Saul says, Well, I am of the smallest of the tribes of Israel and my family, the least of all the families of the tribe of Benjamin, wherefore then speakest thou so to me? And of course, this is another testament of the grace of God that even if your grandparents weren't right with God, your parents weren't right with God, they didn't love the Lord. You know what? You can still be like a Saul where you decide to do right because Saul started out as a great man of God and God chose Saul because of his humility and because of other good attributes that he had and his love for the Lord to be the first king of Israel. So God can still use you even if you come from a bad tribe, even if you come from some relatives and ancestors that weren't very godly, you can overcome those things. That's why Jesus chose one of his disciples as a Canaanite. Simon the Canaanite was one of Jesus' disciples. Even though the Canaanites in general had been cursed, there could still be a good Canaanite, right? Still be a godly Canaanite. So don't get this attitude that, oh, all the Cretans are liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. You don't want to ever just write off an entire nationality or an entire race of people or an entire ethnicity because you know what, even if there's a certain culture that's a wicked culture or a nation that's a wicked nation, there could still be righteous people that come out of that and even great men of God and great ladies to come out of that. So every person should be judged on an individual basis, not just lumped in, oh, you're a Benjaminite. Well, who else was a Benjaminite? Well, let's talk about the tribe of Benjamin throughout the Bible. Of course, we start out in Genesis with Benjamin the person. Then we see the tribe of Benjamin doesn't do very well in the book of Judges. They pretty much get wiped out for being a fag hag, which a fag hag is a woman who likes to hang around with homos as her friends. You know what I'm talking about? That's called a fag hag. That was a 90s word, I guess. When I was growing up, that was what they were called. And then a queer bait is one that's not a homo, but he's what the homos are going to try to recruit next. He's the queer bait. And you know what, it's not enough to just be straight, okay, friend? We need men that act like men, dress like men, wear their hair like men. We need manliness, effeminacy is a sin, okay? And then we need women who dress like women, wear their hair like women, and live as women and are feminine and godly. And so we don't want to be like the Benjaminites. But then, of course, there's forgiveness for the 600 that didn't get wiped out. They learned their lesson. They got right with the Lord. The tribe grew again. King Saul came out of that. And so the most famous thing about the tribe of Benjamin in the Old Testament is King Saul, right? So we have the great man of God, King Saul. But of course, he ends up his life poorly, and we'll talk about that in a little bit. But another mention of the tribe of Benjamin is that the tribe of Benjamin is the tribe that stays with the tribe of Judah and keeps worshiping the Lord when the other 10 tribes go bad, right? So in the days of Rehoboam and Jeroboam and all the kings of Israel and the divided kingdom, Benjamin stays with the house of David and stays with worshiping the Lord. So Judah and Benjamin become the two best tribes for a long time. Okay, then when the people go into captivity into Babylon, and then when they come back, Judah and Benjamin are again mentioned as being the ones who come back. So in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, it's Judah and Benjamin, Judah and Benjamin, both coming back to the land. Now the book of Esther is another episode toward the very end of the Old Testament history that involves the tribe of Benjamin because Mordecai and Esther are of the tribe of Benjamin. It says that Mordecai was a Benjamite. And if you would flip over to the book of Esther chapter 2, Esther chapter 2. I'm not 100% sure what this means and maybe somebody will be reading their Bible and get some good ideas about this or something will jump out at you next time you're reading the book of Esther. But there's some kind of a connection between King Saul and Mordecai. There's something symbolically going on. I'm not really 100% sure what it is, but it's interesting because first of all, Mordecai is of the tribe of Benjamin. But if you look at the names of his relatives, it says in verse 5, now in Shushan the palace, there was a certain Jew whose name was Mordecai, the son of Jer, the son of Shimei, the son of Kish, a Benjamite. And if you remember what was Saul's father's name, Kish. So that's kind of a signal to us like, okay, these guys both have Benjamin in common. But they also both have a guy named Kish mentioned. And then it's interesting too because what is the name of Mordecai's mortal enemy? Mordecai's main enemy in the book of Esther is Haman, the son of Hamadatha, the Agagite. And who was the guy that messed up King Saul's life where he was supposed to kill a guy and he didn't do it and he got in trouble with the Lord? What was the guy's name that Saul was supposed to kill? Agag. So it's kind of interesting. Saul was supposed to kill a guy named Agag and the enemy of Mordecai is the Agagite. So I think there's something that God's trying to show us there, a little symbolism or something. That's a little homework assignment for you to figure that out because I couldn't figure it out. But I just thought that was kind of interesting, that little tie-in. And then I would say the next very significant thing for the tribe of Benjamin is that when we get in the New Testament, the apostle Paul is of the tribe of Benjamin. He says, I also am an Israelite of the tribe of Benjamin. I'm a Hebrew of the Hebrews. I'm of the tribe of Benjamin, right? So we've got King Saul in the Old Testament who's of the tribe of Benjamin. And then we've got the apostle Paul in the New Testament, but what's Paul's real name? Saul. So we have an Old Testament Benjamite named Saul and we have a New Testament Benjamite named Saul. And it's interesting if you compare the two. What do the two have in common? Well, think about this. They kind of lived their lives in the opposite order, okay? King Saul starts out serving the Lord, loving the Lord, and then he ends up doing what? Persecuting David and going to the devil, right? Well, Saul in the New Testament is the exact opposite. He starts out persecuting David because he's persecuting whom? Jesus. Because remember, Jesus, when he appeared unto him, said, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? So when you persecute Christians, who are you really persecuting? Jesus, right? Because if you've done it unto one of the least of these, my brethren Jesus said, you've done it unto me. So if you help God's people and give them food and drink, you're actually doing that for Christ. But if you harm God's people and persecute Christians and hurt them, you're actually attacking Christ. So that's why he said, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? So Saul in the New Testament starts out persecuting David, you know, persecuting the Son of David, Jesus Christ, but then he ends up being humble, serving the Lord, loving the Lord. Old Testament, Saul is the opposite. Starts out humble, loving the Lord, serving the Lord, ends up persecuting David and going against the Lord, going to the witch at Endor and everything else. But when we think about their memory, how are they remembered? How did they end up? Well, at the end of Paul's life or New Testament, Saul of Tarsus, Saul of Tarsus said, I fought a good fight. I finished my course. I kept the faith. Henceforth, there's laid up for me the crown, right? So Old Testament, Saul starts out with the crown and loses it. New Testament, Saul starts out on the wrong side, ends up receiving the crown, right? I fought a good fight, finished my course, right? And he goes down in history as the greatest Christian who ever lived, right? Old Testament, Saul goes down in history as a bad guy. And how does he end up? He ends up having his corpse mutilated, right? And having his head hung up in the house of Dagon, his body's over here, his head's over, I mean, just mutilated, dishonored, shamed. That's what we see about Old Testament, Saul. So the moral of the story is you got to go all the way to the finish line if you want to have a good legacy. You can live a great life and do great things, but if you turn away from the Lord at the end of their life, that's all going to be undone. You know, people are going to look at you in general as a bad guy when you just go off the deep end and turn away from the Lord. You've got to stay with the Lord all the way to the end. Now we're not talking about salvation. When we get to heaven, Saul's going to be there, there's no question about that. But he ended up his life a complete failure and that's why that's not a popular name today. I mean, I think that there are Jews who name their kid that, but I don't think any Christians name their kid Saul. I mean, I'm sure it's out there and I'm not, you know, down on anybody who has that name. But that name, S-A-U-L, that's not a popular baby name. But the name Paul, how many Pauls do we have here tonight? Put up your hand if your name's Paul tonight. Yeah, one, two, three Pauls. Yeah, that's a pretty popular name. Why? Because there's a guy who ended up his life right. Okay? So, we can take comfort in that, maybe if we had a bad background or a bad past or, you know, wickedness in our past. You know what? You can live that down and be like an apostle Paul and press toward the mark for the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. And the other side of that is that, you know, you might have done a lot of godly things in the past, but if you're getting backslidden right now, you still have the potential to completely ruin your life. Now look, King Saul started out great and did a lot of great things, but you almost never hear a positive sermon about Saul. You almost never hear a positive mention about Saul, even though the Bible says that the Spirit of the Lord came upon him. It says that about him more than any other Old Testament character, if you count how many times it says that the Spirit of the Lord came upon him. I believe he's tied with Samson for the number of times that the Spirit of the Lord came upon him. But is that what we emphasize? No. Saul is almost always a negative sermon illustration, because he end up, I mean, think about Demas. Demas had forsaken me having loved this present world. I'm sure Demas did a lot of great stuff before that, but nobody cares. It's all about how you end up. So we need to finish strong in the Christian life. You know, push it all the way to the finish line. Don't quit because, you know, your good deeds from your youth and your childhood and your young adulthood isn't going to do anything for you in the end. You still might end up getting wiped out like King Saul if you turn away from the Lord in the end. So there are some parallels that kind of connect all the stories about Benjamin. You know, the fact that you got some wicked Benjamites and judges, but yet a good group can come out of that and a good man like Saul can come out of that, right? So you've got Saul of Tarsus, he's a bad guy, but he ended up being able to be redeemed and so forth. So anyway, that's just kind of an overview of the tribe of Benjamin in the Bible. A lot of important lessons to learn. And so, you know, I just don't have a lot to say about that list of names in 1 Chronicles chapter 8, except for the fact that David clearly spared Saul's descendants, and that was the right thing to do, because he was trusting the Lord to keep him on the throne. The Lord promised him, you and your sons are going to reign. So the house of Saul was not a threat to him, because he was trusting in the Lord. But when we're not trusting in the Lord, everybody's a threat to us, you know, and that's why King Saul was so paranoid about David and everything, because he knew that he had lost the blessing of God. If we have the blessing of God in our life, if God be for us, who can be against us, right? God's going to bless us, protect us, but those who are outside of the will of God, they end up living in fear, right, because, you know, they never know when judgment's going to come. Let's bow our heads in our board of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord, and these stories about the tribe of Benjamin that we could learn from, Lord. I just pray that we would apply these truths to our life, Lord. Help us to stand up for what's right. Help us to stand against these sons of Belial, the Sodomites, Lord, and help us also to finish our life strong, to be humble and love you and serve you all the way to the end of our lives. In Jesus' name we pray.