(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

So tonight, in Judges 17, not only are we through with the story about Samson, but we've actually entered a new phase in the book of Judges that is no longer giving us the history of the individual judges. You know, we've gone through all the different judges, talking about guys like Othniel and Ehud and Barak and Deborah, Gideon, and on down the list, culminating with Samson. Now we've entered this new phase of material that's not in chronological order with the rest of the book, it's just giving us some other stories that took place during the period of the judges. They didn't really fit into the narrative, so they get stuck at the end. The book of 2 Samuel is the same way. When you get toward the end of 2 Samuel, you'll get to David's last words, David's dying, but then a few chapters later you have all these other stories about David. It's because at the end of 2 Samuel there's some material that's tagged on at the end of the book that is what I like to call the bonus material. You know, it's sort of like the DVD extras of the book of Judges or of 2 Samuel. It's the bonus material at the end. And the purpose of this material at the end is just to show you how messed up things were during this period of the judges, just to kind of show you some moral low points that were reached in the book of Judges. Of course, we're going to get to the famous story a little bit later about the Sodomites in Judges chapter 19 and that horrific story that'll take us through the last three chapters of the book of Judges. But this material here is to show us just why things did not go well in the time of the judges and why they eventually end up having a king because when there's no king in Israel and every man does that which is right in his own eyes, things go really badly. Now this chapter in particular, I love this chapter because it's just so funny. I've had a lot of good laughs over the years just reading this chapter. And it's almost like a game or a puzzle when you approach this chapter just to see how many things wrong with this chapter you can find. And the people are committing so many sins. It's almost like a game of count the sins, count the bad things and the mistakes that people make in this chapter. So there's definitely a lot that we can learn from this chapter. But when there's no king in Israel, every man does that which is right in his own eyes. And you say, well, hey, that sounds good, you know, doing right. Doing what's right. I mean, don't we all sort of have like an inner moral compass? I mean, come on, we all kind of know what's right and wrong, don't we? Folks, that's the day that we're living in right now. Every man does what's right in his own eyes. If you talk to the atheists and the agnostics out there, they'll tell you, I don't need God for morality. I don't need the Bible for morality. I know what's right and wrong. I can just do what's right in my own eyes. But here's the thing about that. In the book of Proverbs, the Bible tells us that every man's way is right in his own eyes. Everybody thinks that they're right and that what they're doing is right. Obviously, there are exceptions to that. But in general, people think they're doing right even when they do all kinds of crazy and wrong things. I mean, look, when we go out soul winning, we run into all kinds of people who think that they believe right. They think they're in the right religion and they're so oblivious to the truth. They're just clueless. Like, you know, today we were soul winning in a very Mormon neighborhood. And it just blew my mind how these Mormons are just so clueless and oblivious. You know, I began to talk to them and they asked me, well, why don't you accept? Why would you accept the Book of Mormon? You know, why would you accept these other scriptures that give another perspective? And I said, well, they don't line up with the Bible. And this guy said, well, give me an example of that. I said, well, you know, the Bible says there's one God. Of course, I didn't say it in that voice. I said it in a very kind voice. My soul winning partner can attest fact I was smiling the whole time and very friendly. But I said, well, I'm going to I'm going to get a little louder as I tell the story. So this isn't really how it was. OK, I'm embellishing here. But I said, there's only one God. Are you saying that we think that there's more than one God? And it was basically it was this it was this this middle aged man, middle aged woman, and then some elderly parents that were there was four people that we were conversing with. And they're all just, well, we believe there's more God. And I said, look, all of us here know that you believe that there are lots of other gods. So, you know, why don't we just kind of why don't we just kind of cut the crap? You know, I didn't say that either. Remember, this is all very embellished. OK, I basically said, hey. Here's what I did say. I just said, hey, you know, we all know that that isn't true. I mean, we all know that you guys believe that there's other gods. And they're just like, no, no. But but here, look, this works every single time. I always bring up to them the song If You Could High to Kolob. They have a hymn that they sing in the Mormon Church and it's very popular. It's called If You Could High to Kolob. And every single time I bring this up, then they'll immediately stop denying that they believe in multiple gods because the song brings up multiple gods. You know, because they're from the Starbase Kolob, if you've seen the cartoon. Who knows the cartoon I'm talking about? From the 1980s documentary The God Makers, there's that Mormon cartoon. If you haven't seen it, you must watch it immediately. But in that cartoon, it talks about the Starbase Kolob and all these other gods. Well, they have a hymn where they sing about that. And it's a popular hymn and I've never met a Mormon who didn't know the song. And so I bring up, I say, well, what about the hymn that you sing? If You Could High to Kolob. I said, you know, that talks about there being other gods. And this is what the lady says to me just to show you just how they're just so deluded. She says to me, well, yeah, but what about all the other religions that sing that song? What about all the other churches that sing that song? And I looked at her and I said, I said, ma'am, I guarantee you there is not a church on this planet that sings that song besides the Mormon Church. And she's just like, what? I mean, isn't everybody singing about Kolob? Isn't everybody singing about all these multiple gods at the Starbase Kolob? I'm like, no, and then and then and then she's like, well, who wrote that song? I'm thinking like, oh, Mormon. And then the older the older gentleman, he looked a little awkward because he's like, he named the Mormon prophet that wrote it. He's like, you know, it was our guy. And she's just like, oh, OK, you know, and then the elderly lady is like, let me quote you a verse from the Bible. She quotes the Book of Mormon, and I said, ma'am, that's not the Bible. I said, so, you know, I can't really comment on that verse because I'm totally unfamiliar with it because it's not in the Bible. She's like, well, yeah, but it's in the Book of Mormon. And I'm like, OK, but you know what I mean? It's like they thought that they were right. I mean, they thought like, we know our stuff. We are right. I mean, they were they were very confident. They were not on the they weren't on the defense at all. I mean, they're just like, we know our of course, everybody sings about Kolob and, you know, let me quote you the Bible. But it's just they don't know that. And that's the whole point. And I was nice to them, of course, friendly, because here's the thing. You know, that's why we're out there soul winning is to show people the error of their ways. We're trying to show them that what they think is right in their own eyes is actually something that leads on to death. The Bible says there is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. And so it seems right. You say, oh, you know, the Bible just doesn't seem right to me. Hey, you're the one that's not right. The word of God is correct. And a lot of people do a lot of things that seem right. They seem moral. They seem like good people. But my friend, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. We must seek the Lord. We must listen to the word of God and not just assume that we can follow our heart. The heart is deceitful above all things. What's the number one attribute of the human heart? Deceit. The heart is deceitful above all things. There's there's nothing else that characterizes the heart more than deceit because the heart is deceitful. What above all things? The heart has various attributes. What's the number one attribute of the heart of man? Deceitful. Don't trust it. Do not just follow your heart to thine own self. Be true. Folks, it's going to lead you right off the cliff. You've got to hearken unto the voice of the Lord. You must be humble and receive the word of God, receive correction, receive instruction and not just say, well, I'm just going to go with what seems right to me, what feels right to me. Think about how many things in life they seem right, but they turn out not to be right. Think about that. Well, that just doesn't seem right. I mean, think of and you know what? OK, here, let's let's not talk about the Bible for a moment. Let's talk about everybody's favorite subject in 2021. We're going to talk about science. OK, think about this. How many things about science they don't seem right, but yet they are right. You know, for example, take this Bible, right? If I were to hand you this Bible and have you describe it to me, you know, what would you say about this Bible, Daniel? Is it is it describe the book, just just the physical object. Just describe it to me. No, no, just like like like like what does it feel like? What's it feel like? How's it feel? I don't know. It feels like leather almost, but I'm not sure if it is. You know, to me, like I look at this and I say like, you know, this this is a solid object. Would you agree with me? Is this is this solid? OK, feels pretty solid, right? OK, kind of feels a little cold. Definitely doesn't feel hot or anything, right? So is this thing moving around? Or is it at rest? Yeah, I mean, so, you know, these are you say, well, that's a stupid question. That's just common sense. I mean, we all know it's a solid object. It's just sitting here. But but here's the thing. If you actually study science, guess what? You're going to find out you're going to find out that this object is like ninety nine point nine nine nine nine nine nine percent empty space and that every particle of this object is in rapid motion. Generating heat through kinetic energy. Am I right? Is it true? Yeah, it's true. So isn't that interesting? You know what seems right about this object or any object and what actually is happening in that object are two very different things. So can we just trust common sense and just what's obvious? No, we can't. We need the Lord to guide us. We need scripture to guide us because a lot of things just seem right where we're just following our heart and we're judging according to the outward appearance of things. And I'm telling you that what we think is right is not always right. And so we don't want to get this attitude that just kind of follows our gut or our heart or instinct because we have, of course, the flesh that's going to lead us astray. What's the instinct of the flesh to sin? What's the instinct of the flesh? To wander away from the right path and we have to put on the new man, we have to walk in the spirit and we have to take heed unto the word of God. OK, now let's look at this chapter and understand the fact that this is not a chapter telling us how to be a good Christian and how to walk with God and how to worship the Lord. This is a chapter showing us how decayed the worship of the Lord had gotten in Israel, how far off the mark they are, how wrong they are. The Bible gives us stories about people who do the wrong things. So we don't want to look at these school stories as prescriptive. They are descriptive, right? They're not prescribing, hey, here's what you do. They're describing, here's what people did. And it's not right. Now, let's look at this chapter and play the game with me. If you would count the sins, count the errors, count the violations of God's law, because there are a lot. OK, verse number one says, And there was a man of Mount Ephraim whose name was Micah. And he said unto his mother, The eleven hundred shekels of silver that were taken from thee about which thou cursed and spakest of also in mine ears. Behold, the silver's with me. I took it. So basically, we have this young man confessing to his mom this massive theft, just this incredible theft, this huge, gigantic sum of money that she's been cursing about and mad about and upset about. You know, this young man has stolen from his mother and he feels bad about it. So he confesses it to his mom and he says, you know what, I've got the silver, I took it. And his mother said, Blessed be thou of the Lord, my son. And when he had restored the eleven hundred shekels of silver to his mother, his mother said, I had wholly dedicated the silver unto the Lord from my hand for my son to make a graven image and a molten image. Now, therefore, I'll restore it. No, no, son, you take the money back. So he steals the eleven hundred bucks. And it's not it's way more than that because it's eleven. It's actually real money, eleven hundred shekels of silver. Get the picture here. The young man stole this incredible amount of money. He feels bad, so he returns it to his mom and she says, son, that money was intended for you anyway, because I really wanted to make you a graven image. I really want to make you idols. Now, what's interesting about this is that she says in verse number three. I had a holy, that means completely entirely, dedicated the silver unto who? Unto the Lord. And this is not just a generic name for God. She's not saying, hey, I dedicate this to the supreme being. He didn't say I'm dedicated this to God, whoever he is. It's dedicated to a person's name here, because when it says the Lord in all caps, capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D, that is the name of God. That's a proper name, specifically referring to the God of Israel. OK, so this is not just a generic thing. She's saying I dedicate this to the Lord, not to some other false God, pagan God, Philistine God. She's saying I dedicated this to the Lord to make a graven image. Now, how are you going to dedicate a graven image to the Lord? A graven image to the Lord when the Second Commandment and the Ten Commandments says, thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image. But then she said, well, do this for the Lord. Make this graven image. But not only that, she says that she had a holy dedicated the silver unto the Lord. And it says in verse four, yet he restored the money unto his mother. So basically, he gives her the money. She gives it back to him. He gives it back to her. And now she takes the money. Verse four says she took 200 shekels of silver and gave them to the founder. The founder is a guy who works with metal. He's got the bellows and he melts it down and can shape and fashion it, who made thereof a graven image and a molten image. And they were in the house of Micah. Now, stop for a second here. Notice that she had wholly dedicated the 1100 shekels. But then what does she end up doing? She ends up saying, you know what? Let's just do 200. And I'm just going to keep 900. Now, here's the thing. You know, looking aside from the fact right now that she shouldn't even be making a graven image or a molten image because that's a major sin that the Lord hates. But even just putting that aside for a moment, you know, if you wholly dedicate something unto the Lord, if you make some kind of a promise to the Lord or a vow to the Lord, or you dedicate something or to be sanctified unto the Lord, that's holy at that point. And if you take that back, now you're robbing God. Now, if you think about the story of Ananias and Sapphira in the New Testament, they sell a piece of land and instead of bringing the whole price and laying it at the apostles' feet, they keep back a part thereof. And they only lay a portion of the money at the apostles' feet. And what they were doing was they were imitating a different guy who had actually sold some land and brought all of it and gave it to the apostles. They're like, well, we want to be like that guy. We want to be cool like that. We want to get the recognition and the accolades that he got. We want to seem spiritual too. So we're going to do the same thing, except we don't really want to give all the money. We want to keep a little bit. And it's interesting what Peter tells them. He says, look, while you had the land, wasn't it in your own power? And here's what he's basically saying to them in Acts chapter 5. You didn't have to give any of this money to the Lord. You didn't have to give any of this. But if you're going to sit there and say, I'm going to sell this land and give it all to the Lord, and then you keep back part of the price, you've lied unto the Holy Ghost. And God punishes them severely. They actually just fall over dead right there on the spot. And they're literally carried out of the church building dead. Now, that's a very grievous sin that they committed there, Ananias and Sapphira in Acts chapter 5. It's a very famous story for that reason. And so we see that if you dedicate something to the Lord, you have to follow through on that. Nobody's making you do that in the first place, OK? But once you do that, you've got to follow through. You know, a lot of churches will have programs where people commit to giving certain amounts of money. And I personally do not like this. We don't participate in it at our church because of the fact that when you see people making these commitments to give unto missions or whatever, they don't typically follow through with it all the way. And I remember I went to a church where they did this faith promise missions. And everybody's filling out a commitment card of what they're going to give. And they would really push you hard like during this week where it's like they put you on this big guilt trip and put you just under a lot of pressure to make this commitment to a weekly donation to missions or a monthly donation to missions. And I remember one time they got, you know, we have a week long preaching. It was like every night we're hearing from missionaries, big missions conference, just preaching, preaching, preaching, preaching, hammering this, right? Well, the time comes when we're going to fill out our commitment cards and everybody was supposed to be praying about, you know, how much they could give. And, you know, there's all these sermons you got to give beyond your ability. You know, you got to step out of faith. If you have the money, that's not even faith. I mean, you got to really extend it and push it or whatever. So it came time to collect up the cards and they collect them up. They counted up during some singing and the pastor has handed the figure and he just looked at it and he's just like, this is ridiculous. Hand out all the cards again. We didn't do over. This isn't enough money. You remember that? And I know you were there because I remember you sitting next to me and saying to me, oh, man, now people are really going to commit to stuff that they're not even going to do even more than they already have. And I remember even, you know, on a good year we'd get to the end and it was like 75% of what was promised came in. Isn't that great? Or 80% of what was promised. And I'm thinking to myself, like, hold on a second. You had everybody make this commitment, this vow, this promise, faith promise. And I was just kind of horrified by the 25% broken promise. I wasn't rejoicing about all the people who didn't steal the Babylonist garment and put it under their tent. You know, I was worried about Achan. I was worried about Ananias and Sapphira. I'm thinking to myself. So 25% of what was committed was a lie. Didn't happen. Didn't follow through. And I was just thinking to myself, how much better it would be to just have never promised anything to promise zero. And then you haven't broken this commitment, broken this promise. That's why I don't like that whole concept of faith promise. And I don't like the fundraisers and the money emphasis in church anyway. That's why our church has never had a fundraiser in the last 15 and a half years of our existence. And we are going to keep it that way. Amen. We're just not into money. And I'm not I'm not ragging on churches that raise money. I'm just saying we don't do it because we just we don't want to emphasize that. We don't want that to be the big thing on our minds all the time. And you know, anyway, that's a whole nother sermon. But the point is, you know, when you commit to something, you've got to follow through with that. You know what? You can go through life without getting married. But once you get married, you're committed to that now. You know, once you get married, guess what? It's till death do us part. You've made that commitment. You've got to stick with that. And so it's one thing to just make no commitment at all. But when you promise something. And so this woman here has promised 1100 shekels of silver unto the Lord. That's what she filled out on the faith promise card. And then she basically gives 200. But here's the thing. The world would look at this and say, because remember, everybody's doing what's right in their own eyes. The world would look at this and say, well, hey, she's donating 200 shekels of silver. That's a massive donation. Put her name on a plaque. Put her name on the wall. Isn't it so great? But how does the Lord see things the same way man sees them? No, see, the Lord looks down at that, and he'd rather get zero than to get 200 when you committed 1100 and you gave 200. It'd be better if you had committed zero, delivered zero, than to break a vow to God. Okay. Not only that, when God looks down and sees 200 shekels of silver going to break his commandments, 200 shekels go into a faith promise mission, and the missionary's teaching a false gospel. He's teaching a lordship salvation, turn over a new leaf type salvation, repent of your sins, and live a good life now, salvation, instead of salvation by faith alone. You know, you'd be better off not even giving at all than to give to a graven image, a molten image, giving to idolatry, but the world would just look at that and say, oh, what a wonderful donation toward religion. What a wonderful donation toward church. What a wonderful donation toward Christianity. And you say, well, how can you say that this woman's not worshiping the Lord when it says Lord in all caps right there? But you know what? You can say that you're worshiping Jesus, and it could be another Jesus. Isn't that what the Bible says in 2 Corinthians chapter 11? There could be another Jesus, could be another Jehovah. You think the Jehovah's Witnesses are worshiping the same God that we're worshiping? He's got the same name. But there's another Jesus. There's a false Christ. There's another gospel, another spirit. And so man would look at this and think, this is a great family. This is a great family. I mean, giving back the money that you stole, wow, what great character. But you know what? I'd much rather hang around with the guy who didn't steal the 1,100 shekels of silver in the first place. You know, look, if you stole the money, by all means, give it back. But you know what's even better than stealing the money and giving it back is not stealing it in the first place. This isn't really that cool that this guy's conscience is eating him up, and he gives back this insane amount of theft that he's done, this massive amount of money. And so he restores the money. It goes to make an idol. It's a graven image. This is totally against God. But the saga continues in verse 5. The man Micah had a house of gods and made an ephod and terrified him and consecrated one of his sons who became his priest. Now, he's got a lot of religious trappings. You know, he puts up a lot of religious paraphernalia. He's got the outfit. He's got the ephod. He's got the terra-fem. He's got the stained glass windows. He's got the incense. He's got the statues and the idols. He's got the pulpit and the pews. He's got the pipe organ. He's got all these accoutrements of religion. And then he just randomly ordains someone to be the priest, just one of his sons. He just picks his son. Now, look, the Bible is really clear that the priesthood is with the house of Aaron. It's supposed to be of the Levites. And it's not enough that the priests be Levites. They're specifically supposed to be of the descendants of Aaron. The sons of Aaron are the priests. But this guy just says, you know, one of my sons, he seems interested in, you know, going into the clergy. So let's just ordain this guy. So he ordains a random guy. And by the way, in false religion throughout the Bible, it talks about them ordaining the lowest of the people to be priests of the false gods in the high places. And so he ordains this random guy. And then the Bible tells us right after it says he consecrated one of his sons who became his priests. In those days, there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes. That statement is a little bit just out of nowhere, isn't it? It's a little bit random, except that it's there to remind us, don't try this at home. Because he doesn't want somebody to read this and think, oh, you know, maybe one of my sons could be a priest. Maybe I could set up a graven image. Maybe I can get my own terra-fem and my own ephod and my own religious paraphernalia. OK, so the Bible is giving a little disclaimer here saying, look, this was a time when there's no king in Israel and everybody's doing what's right in their own eyes. And that is not a good thing. In fact, you don't have to necessarily turn there. But if you want to just look at the last verse of the Book of Judges at the end of Chapter 21, the Book of Judges closes with, in those days, there was no king in Israel. Every man did that which was right in his own eyes after telling a very gnarly story that we're going to get to in a few weeks when we're covering Chapters 19 through 21. And so this disclaimer is thrown in multiple times lest the reader be confused and think that this is actually a good guy, good thing, good story. So let's keep going here. Verse 7, and there was a young man out of Bethlehem, Judah, of the family of Judah, who was a Levite, and he sojourned there. And the man departed out of the city from Bethlehem, Judah. Of course, this is going to be the birthplace of Jesus Christ. To sojourn where he could find a place. And he came to Mount Ephraim to the house of Micah as he journeyed. And Micah said unto him, whence comest thou? And he said unto him, I'm a Levite of Bethlehem, Judah, and I go to sojourn where I may find a place. And Micah said unto him, dwell with me. I mean, you're just kind of a drifter? You're just kind of looking for a gig? Well, look no further because I've got your gig right here, all right? Because did you say that you're a Levite? Because guess what? I've got this little house of gods going. I've got this new religion that I'm starting here in my own little worship place. And right now, one of my sons is doing it. But man, if we could get a Levite, we're almost getting closer to what God actually asked for, which is actually the sons of Aaron of Levi. So he tells this guy, if you're a Levite, dwell with me. And in fact, you know, I'm even going to call you Father so and so. This is the first Catholic in the Bible. He's got the idols, he's got the paraphernalia, and now he's got the Holy Father. You'll be unto me a father and a priest. Now, here's what's so silly about this. This guy's a young man. Why is he looking at this young pup saying, you're going to be my father. You're going to be a father to me. Because it's using the word father as like a religious title, which is exactly what Christ told us not to do. OK. And it's because of people like this that Jesus even brought that up. The fact that Jesus even brought that up and said, call no man father upon your earth is because people are doing it. This is an example of someone doing it much earlier. This is someone doing it. We don't know exactly when this story took place. But, you know, we're talking about approximately what, you know, 1500 years earlier or something, you know, roughly. And so this is probably this probably happened earlier. Like I said, it's not in chronological order with the rest of the Book of Judges, probably more toward the beginning of the Book of Judges if we cross reference scripture. So we're talking, you know, 1400 years or whatever. And so Jesus is saying, don't be called father, don't be called rabbi, don't be called master because people are being called those things in a religious sense. And this is not a good title to give unto a religious leader. I should not be called Father Anderson. OK, I should not be called Rabbi Anderson. I should not be called Master Anderson. These are blasphemous titles because those should be reserved for the Lord himself. The Lord is our father. He's our master. He's the rabbi. Well, Jesus was a Jewish rabbi. He wasn't a rabbi. He was the rabbi because no one else should be called rabbi. So we see here that he's really happy to have this guy as a father and as a priest. And he's going to pay him good. I mean, he's going to give him 10 shekels of silver by the year. And this should help you to understand what an enormous sum the 200 shekels is and the 1,100 shekels is if this guy's annual income is being advertised as, hey, you're going to get 10 shekels a year. So if you get 10 shekels a year, here's a little bit of math for you, right? You get 10 shekels a year. How long is it going to take you to earn 1,100 shekels of silver? 110 years, right? I mean, that's not going to happen. That's if you spent nothing. So you see what an enormous sum we were dealing with earlier in the chapter. One wonders what she did with the 900 shekels. She really went out and had a spending spree, apparently. I don't know what she did with it. But he says, hey, I'm going to give you 10 shekels of silver by the year and a suit of apparel and thy vittles. So he's saying, food and clothing's included. And 10 shekels a year cash. And the Levite was content to dwell with the man. And the young man was unto him as one of his sons. Just a minute ago, he was going to be his father. Now he's like one of his sons, you know? But false religion tends to be backwards, doesn't it? You know, you got 18-year-old Mormons coming to your door on their tricycles. And what is their name tag say? Elder. And they're 17, 18, 19 years old. And Micah consecrated the Levite. And the young man became his priest and was in the house of Micah. Now think about this. How does he consecrate this priest? I mean, by what authority does he consecrate this guy? I mean, what gives him the right to just declare this guy, you know, I now consecrate you and, you know, get a little bit of this going on. You know, all right, now you're consecrated. You know, if it's not ordained by God, it's meaningless. Only God can, can ordain these type of priesthood. You know, there was a priesthood ordained in the Old Testament and it was, it was Aaron and it was the sons of Aaron. And then in the New Testament, God ordained a new priesthood after the order of Melchizedek, not after the order of Aaron, not of Levi. That's why Jesus Christ did not come out of the tribe of Levi. The Bible says in Hebrews, it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Judah, of which tribe Moses spake nothing concerning priesthood. And so he's of the order of Melchizedek, not of the order of Aaron. Now, let me give you a great tip for studying the Bible. And I think this is one of the most important tips for understanding scripture. And that is that there is no new thing under the sun. A lot of people get this wrong attitude when they approach scripture that, oh, people were totally different back then. Things were totally different back then. Everything was completely there. You know, you got to understand their culture and it just wasn't like today. But I don't believe that because, you know, the Bible says there's no new thing under the sun. Is there anything where of it may be said, see, this is new. It has been already of old time, which was before us. The thing that is done is that which shall be done. Okay, the thing that has been the thing that's going to be, it's all alike. There's no new thing under the sun. Now, why is that so important for understanding the Bible? Because if we look around us today, we see what people are like. And we see what the world's like. We see different types of characters and different personalities and different people and places and situations. And what we need to understand is that in the Bible times that the same kind of stuff was going on as is going on right now. Even if we went back 300 years from now or 700 years, you know, not even if we went all the way to Bible days, if we just went back to 500 years ago, I guarantee you 500 years ago, there was a guy like Steven Anderson. There was a Steven Anderson guy out there and there was a Joel Osteen kind of guy. There was a Rick Warren kind of guy. There was a Joe Biden kind of guy, you know, the village idiot. Amen. But basically, you know, there were different characters and, you know, there were guys just like you. And you ladies, there were ladies just like you living at the time of Christ and living 500 years ago, 1000 years ago. Human nature is human nature. People are people. There's no new thing under the sun. So if we understand that, that can help us understand scripture because we can understand that the things that we see today, scripture is relevant to those things. The danger in not understanding what I'm explaining to you right now is that you might think to yourself, I don't know if scripture is relevant because things were different back then. And have you heard that one before? You know, if the Bible says for women to keep silence in the church, it's not permitted to speak and that a woman should not be allowed to teach or to usurp authority over a man, but to be in silence. And so, you know, having a woman pass to the church is not biblical. Having a woman get up behind the pulpit and teach and preach the word of God is not biblical. But yet people will say, well, I just don't know if that's relevant because things are different now. But are they really different? Is there any new thing under the sun or are things essentially the same now as they were back then and the same rules apply now as they did back then? You know, what's changed? Do they, though? Because there's no new thing under the sun, the same things that were going on back then in marriages, the same kind of marriage fights were happening, the same successful marriages were happening, the same marriage failures were happening. I mean, did people get divorced back then? They must have if Jesus spent a bunch of time talking about it. I mean, if people weren't getting divorced back then, why did Jesus keep bringing up divorce in Matthew 5, Matthew 19? He brings it up in Mark. He brings it up in Luke. Paul's dealing with it in Romans. It must have been a thing. It's it's been around. It's out there. Okay. The same things that we're going through right now, people were going through back then. So you have a religion like the Roman Catholic Church or that were there religions like that back then? Was that mentality out there? Is that just a new idea? You know, Buddhism, Hinduism, Mormonism. There's no new thing under the sun. Mormonism is not new. Mormonism is just like Islam. Look at the parallels between the Prophet Muhammad and Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. Parallels abound. Why? Because there's no new thing under the sun. It's just it's just another Mohammed. It's a white man's Mohammed. American Mohammed, American Taliban. Amen. And there's a lot of similarities that you could point to. It just wasn't as successful as Islam, you know, because Islam is a much bigger religion. But it's the same deal, folks. So many similarities. Oh, yeah, the Bible is God's word, but it's been corrupted. Here, let me give you a new scripture. It's what they both said. Oh, I got it revealed from an angel. It's what they both said. Oh, by the way, let me have 10 or 11 wives. That's what they both did. No new thing under the sun. And so when you're studying the Bible, realize that the Bible is extremely relevant to our day because the same type of people that we have today in 2021 are the same type of people that we're reading about in the pages of the Bible. And so when we read this scripture in Judges Chapter 17, you know, this should seem familiar to us and understand the fact that there are all kinds of false religions out there that are going to name the name of the Lord. They may even name the name of Jesus or name the name of Christ or name the name of Jehovah. But yet they're going to practice idolatry in the name of the Lord. It's called the Roman Catholic Church. They're going to call the priest Father, just like the Roman Catholic Church. And so this is just like a proto-Catholicism going on. Just an early Catholicism is what we're reading about here in this chapter. And so when we read this chapter, we need to look at it as a negative story. Now, of course, in Chapter 18, which is the much longer chapter, we're going to see how this goes completely bad. And we're going to see how God does not bless Micah like he thought he would. Because look at the final verse of Chapter 17. Then said Micah, now know I that the Lord will do me good, because the Bible tells me so. Nope. Now know I that the Lord will do me good, seeing I have a Levite to my priest. Now I know. I mean, look, how can you say this isn't an answered prayer? How can you say this isn't an act of God? Here we are out in the middle of nowhere, and all of a sudden this Levite just shows up, he has no gig, and he's willing to be my personal priest? I mean, is God blessing me or what? Well, guess what? This is how people think today, too, isn't it? You know what they do? They look at the circumstances of their life and say, I'm blessed by God. But guess what? There are a lot of people doing a lot of wrong things, but yet prospering. I mean, how many chapters did Job tell us about that? He says, man, I see all these wicked people prospering all the time. What are you guys talking about? And so you cannot base right and wrong based on how well things seem to go in your life. Things might be going really badly in your life, and you might be smack dab in the middle of God's will. Other times, things are going great, and you're backslidden. You don't want to think to yourself, oh, well, when I was backslidden, things were going great. Now that I'm serving God, things aren't going as well. God must want me like I was when I was backslidden. You cannot base it on that because, first of all, there's a delayed reaction when it comes to being blessed by God and cursed by God. It's always a delayed reaction. So you do something wrong. You don't always get punished right away. It's a delayed reaction. You do something right. You don't always get blessed right away. It's a delayed reaction. So you could do right for 10 years, and then all of a sudden, you start doing wrong. And you're like, well, things are still going good. That's because you're still reaping the good that you sowed. But now you're sowing bad. Eventually, you're going to start reaping the bad stuff. It's a delayed reaction. So you don't want to ever base what's right and wrong based on circumstances. How do we know what's right and wrong? We know based on what the Bible says. If the Bible says not to make a molten image, we don't make one. It's for sure wrong, because God said don't do it. But what about that guy over there who's got a molten image? And look how much money he's making. Look how healthy he is. Look at his beautiful family. Maybe I need a molten image too. He's got a little Mary shrine in his front yard, and he looks real happy. Right? He looks real happy. Maybe I need to do the same thing. Folks, that's not how we determine right and wrong. We've got to go by what the Bible says. Appearances can be deceiving. And also, you can have somebody who's doing really well today, but the Bible says God has set them in slippery places, though. You know, yeah, oh yeah, they're living real high, but they're in a very slippery place. And it's going to come very suddenly, the downfall, the demise. And it's a delayed reaction. And so we see people today that have the same mentality. I've talked to people and tried to preach the gospel unto them, and they said, well, I know for sure I'm saved because God answered my prayers. So I know for sure I'm saved. And I'm thinking to myself, that's not the right assurance of salvation. Because I guarantee you, some Japanese person folded up a piece of paper and threw it off a bridge. Or what do they do? They stick it in something? Somebody help me out. You're my Japan guy. What do they do? They shove it in there? Yeah. So, and you know, I guarantee you, I'm not going to do that. I guarantee you that somebody in Japan wrote that down, shoved it in there, and whatever they wrote on that paper happened. You think that's ever happened before? You see all those thousands of pieces of paper? First of all, statistically, it's just going to happen anyway, just by sheer statistics. But number two, there's this thing called confirmation bias, where when you're expecting something to happen, you see it as having happened the way that you expected it. Oh, I prayed for this and it happened. It's confirmation bias a lot of the time. And not only that, you know, an unsaved person, you know, might be in a jam. Oh, God, help me. And maybe God really does help them because he knows they're going to get saved down the road. And so he wants them to stay alive because he doesn't want them to die before they get that clear presentation of the gospel that's going to lead to their salvation. But what if the clear presentation of the gospel comes like, why must I already be saved? Because I got in this car crash and miraculously survived. That proves I'm saved, you know, because God saved me, you know, from a car wreck. God blessed me. Things went well for me. You know, I pray and look, folks, I pray all the time and God answers my prayers all the time. And here's the thing about that, though. You know, you can't always be 100% sure what is an answer to prayer and what was going to happen anyway. Now I'm not, you know, and don't freak out when I say that, but it's true. I heard a preacher one time say that when he gets in the shower every morning, he prays that the water will come out of the tap and then he turns the faucet. Now, I personally thought that was a dumb thing to pray. And then he's like, see, just prayers being answered all the time. Dear Lord, please let there be cold, refreshing water in my cup right now. It's there. Amen. That's nonsense, isn't it? Now, look, sometimes things happen and that really blow you away and you know it is an answer to prayer. You're like, wow, that's an answer to prayer. But you see how people could maybe take a lot of little things that were going to happen anyway and just assume that they're an answer to prayer? What does the Bible say? And folks, I'm not just up here philosophizing out of my own heart. What I'm saying is biblical. You know what the Bible says? That God sends rain on the just and on the unjust. God's merciful and good unto the unthankful and to the evil. And the Bible teaches that God gives gifts unto unsaved people. Read your Bible. God gives them gifts. He sends rain on the just and the unjust. Well, you know, you went out there and danced naked and God sent rain. The rain dance or whatever. Oh, well, that proves that our religion is the right religion. That doesn't prove anything because maybe it was going to rain anyway. Or maybe God just fell back for you and sent you rain because he sends rain on the just and the unjust. But don't praise your false God. Don't thank him. And this is wrong. A Levite as your priest means nothing because, number one, God didn't say to have a Levite as your priest. He said you have to have one of the sons of Aaron as your priest. Sometimes I wonder if this guy's even really a Levite. Because he's a Bethlehem Judah of the family of Judah. Who is a Levite? OK, this guy's kind of a Levite. But here's the thing. OK, he's a Levite. Is that enough to be a priest? Nope. You have to be this very small subgroup of Levi called the House of Aaron. Not just a Levite. It's not enough to be a Levite. You have to be in the priesthood. So another thing that we can learn from this in verse 13 is that close enough isn't when it comes to commandments of God. Well, you know, Levite, we're in the ballpark. Right? I mean, you know, yeah, it's supposed to be of Aaron. But hey, Levite's better than my son. Not good enough. Not good enough. You know, with the things of God, it's not enough to kind of just get in the ballpark. You know, like, well, I believe 53 books of the Bible. You know, there's a few. You know, there's a few. But I believe most of the Bible. Is that enough? Well, you know, I mean, yeah, you know, the Mormons. Yeah, OK. They believe in other gods on other planets and Kolob and all that. But I mean, come on. They got Jesus right there in the name. I mean, it's pretty darn close. You know, and look, that's how people were talking when Mitt Romney was running for president. He had a lot of people saying, hey, are Mormons really that different? I mean, pretty close. You know, they got another testament. But hey, they got the King James. Close enough isn't when it comes to serving God. We need to make sure that we actually have the right God, the right gospel, the right Bible, not to just be in the ballpark. It's not good enough. And this guy says, now I know that the Lord will do me good, seeing I have a Levi to my priest. And what are we going to read in the next chapter? How bad it goes for him. It goes badly. It does not go well. So no, you don't know that the Lord's going to do you good. Now, here's the thing. I know that if I follow God's commandments, the Lord's going to do me good because the Bible told me that. Jesus loves me. This I know. Because look at all the good stuff that's happened in my life. Everything I touch turns to gold. That's how I know Jesus loves me. No, Jesus loves me. This I know for the Bible tells me so. How do I know that Jesus loves me? Is it because of a fossil that was dug up? Show me the archaeology. Is it because a philosopher explained it to me through rational logic? Is it because of the fact that I had a burning sensation in my bosom? Is it because of the fact that I'm being blessed because I drive a fancy car and live in a fancy house and wear fancy clothes? That's how I know Jesus loves me. No, Jesus loves me. This I know for the Bible tells me so. For the Bible tells me so. The Bible will tell us these things. This guy is not even looking at the Bible. I don't know if this guy's ever even seen a Bible because this guy wouldn't be making a graven image and ordaining his son and doing all these wild things if he actually knew what the scripture said. And so we need to take this chapter and think about how it would apply to our day and what we could learn not to do from this chapter. We don't want to have the priests that we call Father, graven images, promise money to the Lord and then only give part of it. It's better just to not make any promises like that. And we don't want to go by our circumstances to know whether God's blessing us or not and just kind of look at how things are going. And then that's how we determine the will of God, by how things are going. Wrong, because the Bible says many are the afflictions of the righteous. But out of them all, God delivers them. So in the end, you end up great like Job, but you go through some stuff as a Christian, don't you? You know, who here has been through some dark times in your life as a Christian? Put up your hand if you've been through some dark periods as a Christian. Exactly. And the rest of you buckle up because it's coming. Let's close on that. All right. Let's bow your heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for the book of Judges. Lord, it's a fun book to read. It's a wild ride as we read through the book of Judges, Lord. And please help us as we read your word to understand it, Lord, and help us to realize that there's no new thing under the sun and that it's relevant, Lord. Help us not to think of it as being some distant, far off book about a far off place. But Lord, help us to read the Bible as a book about our lives today in 2021. Help us to apply it to our lives today and always understand that the people in the Bible are just like the people today. And Lord, help us to see ourselves in the pages of scripture and to learn what to do from the right examples and what not to do from wrong examples like this. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.