there is a story in the Old Testament that if I'm honest with you I consider the most disturbing in the entire Bible it could well be considered inappropriate for minors so before you watch this video I want to make sure you know that this video is not suitable for all ages and could trigger some kind of Trauma from your past the story I am referring to is found in chapters 19 to 21 of the Book of Judges many people are familiar with chapter 19 but do not read the rest of the story I believe there
are several important lessons that you and I need to learn from such a disturbing story first I will tell you the story as dramatically as possible and then we will explore the lessons I believe we can learn join me in Judges chapter 19 in chapter 19 verse1 in the days when there was no king in Israel a levite who lived in a remote part of the Hill Country of Ephraim acquired a woman from Bethlehem of of Judah as his concubine I want you to understand that here is a levite man living in the northern part
of Israel and he acquires this woman to be his concubine or wife however you want to call it and she is living in the south in Bethlehem let's continue the story she was unfaithful to him and left him for her father's house in Bethlehem of Judah where she stayed for 4 months she betrayed him and returned to her father's house in Bethlehem so the story continues essentially this levite man wants to get his wife back so he travels from the north of the Hill Country of Ephraim to the south in Bethlehem to seek this woman
and be with her again he gets there and her father is very hospitable several times the man says I have to go give me my wife so I can return home and the father says no no stay another night he says okay I'll stay another night and this repeats for several days until finally the man says with all due respect I appreciate your hospitality but I need to leave I need to go home so finally he leaves to go home and that is where all the tragedy occurs while the man is with his concubine traveling
in southern Israel from Bethlehem toward the north to ephem they were near jbus and the day was almost over the servant said to his master please why don't we stop in this city of jbus and spend the night here but his master replied we will not stop in a foreign city where there are no Israelites let's continue to gibba then the servant suggested let's try to reach one of these places and spend the night in giaba or Rama so they continued their journey and the sun set as they approached Gaba in Benjamin they went there
and to their surprise no one was willing to take them into their homes Hospitality was a significant aspect of Israelite culture at the end of the night an old man appeared in the the square and asked why are you still here hasn't someone already welcomed you into their house they responded no no one has taking us in the old man said you know what you can stay with me tonight the levite responded great just to let you know we don't need anything from you we have enough food for our donkeys for me and for my
concubine we just need a place to rest our heads if you give me a pillow that's all I need the old man said no problem you can stay with me so the levite his servant and his concubine spent the night at this man's house in gibba then this happened while they were enjoying themselves suddenly wicked men of the city surrounded the house and banged on the door they said to the homeowner the old man bring out the man who came to your house so we can have sex with him wow this is where the story
takes a turn there are perverted men living in giba benjamites who go to this old man's house and say we know you have a guest in your house bring him out so all of us can have sex with him now see what happens next the homeowner came out and said please do not commit this evil act my brothers after all this man has come under my roof do not commit this vile atrocity here let me bring out my virgin daughter and the man's concubine abuse them and do whatever you want with them but do not
commit this outrageous thing against this man we will deal with with this a bit later in this video but what happens next is Unthinkable the verse 25 says but the man would not listen then he took his concubine and brought her out to them they raped and abused her all night until morning at dawn they let her go now my friend that's why I said this video might be considered inappropriate for Miners and could trigger some things from your past because imagine here there's a group of perverted men and they're taking turns returns having sex
with this woman they are raping her throughout the night until in the morning they finally let her go and this is what happens to this young woman a tragic start in the morning the woman returned and as Dawn broke she collapsed at the door of the house where her Lord was you can imagine how worn out beaten and abused she was from the entire night by these men that she barely had the strength to crawl back to the man's house and just collapsed on the porch and lay there now observe what happens next it says
here that when her Lord got up in the morning he opened the doors of the house and went out to continue his journey there was the woman his concubine collapsed near the door of the house with her hands on the threshold get up he said to her let's go but there was no response the woman had been so abused that she had died note that it says here that the man put her on his donkey and went to his his home what happens next is very sad and horrific but it says as follows when he
entered his house he took a knife held his concubine cut her into 12 pieces limb by limb and then sent her throughout the territory of Israel everyone who saw this said nothing like this has happened or been seen since the day the Israelites came out of the land of Egypt until now think about it discuss and speak up this man took his concubine to his house cut her into 12 pieces and undoubtedly attached a letter to each piece of his deceased concubine and sent a different piece of her body to the 12 tribes of Israel
with a letter detailing exactly what had been done by his own Brothers one of the 12 tribes of Israel The Tribe of Benjamin and when these other tribes saw and read what had happened with this woman they said nothing like this has happened throughout our history now there is much more to the story in chapters 20 and 21 so I want you to wait but here is where I want to start looking at some lessons we can learn from this the first lesson is this when there is no accountability in our lives we tend to
strongly deviate look at judges 19:1 which we read earlier but I'll read it again in those days when there was no king in Israel you and I when we do not have to be accountable when there is no fear of having to expl explain ourselves or be responsible for our decisions and actions are more prone to make bad decisions because we think we can make these decisions in isolation without having to answer to anyone else and that is exactly what was happening in Israel there was no King there was a law but people were not
respecting the law it was not being enforced and as a result they ended up doing something they probably never imagined they would do the second mini lesson I want to address is we need to ensure that we treat every human being as a bearer of the image of God here is this man saying it would be wrong for them to do whatever they want with this man but they can do what they want with my daughter and with his concubine his mindset was that the life and virtue of this man were more valuable than his
own daughter and the concubine of this man we need to make sure and that's why seeing inappropriate sights and such we must make sure not to do it if you want to stop viewing things online that you know you shouldn't be watching and you know what I mean I want you to see each girl you are looking at as a bearer of the image of God as someone who is your daughter imagine if you would want someone looking at your daughter doing the things you are seeing on the screen but here's the third thing I
want to highlight in this video the more you and I Stray From God the more vulnerable we become to doing things we never imagined we would do you see when you look at the Book of Judges as a whole what you will see is a nation of people who have slowly drifted away from God they have slowly deviated and what you see happening in chapters 19 to 21 is the culmination of drifting away from God and shows how far the nation as a whole drifted away from God and my friend you and I are no
different because if we do not maintain a close connection with God if we stray from God if we deviate from God that is when we like the Israelites will find ourselves doing things that someone 10 years ago would have tried to tell us we would do and we would have been convinced that there was no way we would do those things there's no way I'll get a divorce there's no way I'll have an affair there's no way I'll be fired from my job because they found me watching something online there's no way I'll be smoking
marijuana or whatever the further you stray from God the more vulnerable you become to committing that sin now the story doesn't end in chapter 19 I wish it did but in fact it gets worse because what happens now in chapter 20 is a civil war among the 11 tribes of Israel and they are fighting against The Tribe of Benjamin because it was The Tribe of Benjamin that committed that atrocious Act of sin against one of their own Israeli brothers so I encourage you to read in detail chapters 20 and 21 but to summarize there is
a huge battle thousands and thousands of lives were lost as a result of that battle from both sides and what ends up happening is that only 600 benjamite men remain then in chapter 21 the other 11 tribes begin to feel bad or pity for The Tribe of Benjamin because they are essentially worried that this Tribe of Benjamin is going to become extinct since there only 600 men left alive but no benjamite women for them to marry and reproduce now they have another problem because now they are worried that one of their 12 tribes of Israel
is going to become extinct this leads to my fourth lesson every bad decision we make has consequences that we cannot choose although what these benjamites did was wrong the other 11 tribes coming and actually fighting and killing them was a decision they made and now they have to deal with the outcome of that decision and the benjamites also have to pay for the outcome of their bad decision listen you can choose your sin but you can't choose your consequences every decision you make has consequences and the problem is personally you and I cannot choose those
consequences so what happens is that the Israelites Go and Kill men from this clan called jabesh Gilead and there are 400 women who have never been with a man then they take these 400 women and give them to 400 of the 600 benjamite men so these men can reproduce but what's the problem simple math there were 600 benjamite men who couldn't find wives because all the wives had been killed and 400 of them now have a wife given to them from the clan of jabesh Gilead so the problem is that there are now 200 men
from Benjamin who do not have wives and that's why I said that one bad decision leads to another what happens next is that these Israelites basically say you know what we all made a vow saying we could not give our daughters to any of the benjamites but it says nothing about if they are taken so what happens is that they have to make another bad decision and say you know what this is what the benjamites need to do send a message and say look there's a festival coming up a feast and basically some of our
daughters are going to be dancing and having fun at this Feast technically we cannot give our daughters to you because we made a vow but if you find them and kidnap them that's on you if you find them and kidnap them we'll be free from that vow because technically we didn't give our daughters to you and you'll be able to have a wife and reproduce so they have this feast and essentially these 200 benjamite men go and steal and kidnap these women while they are dancing at a party and take them back as their wives
personally I know this is a crazy story and I tried to summarize it as quickly as I could but the point is this one bad decision often leads to another and all kinds of bad decisions affect other people go through this story again and see how many people were negatively affected by one bad decision some of the benjamite men deserved what happened to them but most of the people in Benjamin had nothing to do with it and died in battle the people of jabesh Gilead died too the women were then taken from their land and
given to these benjamites and then these other women were kidnapped by the benjamite men and taken away from their families all this happened because of bad decisions but here is the fifth and last lesson I want to encourage you with today God has Grace for us even in the midst of our most destructive decisions notice how the Book of Judges ends it says here that the benjamites did this and took the number of women they needed from the dancers they captured they returned to their own inheritance rebuilt their cities and lived in them at that
time each of the Israelites returned from there to his own tribe and family each returned from there to his own inheritance and of course the last verse of the Book of Judges characterizes and describes the entire Book of Judges it says here that in those days there was no king in Israel is everyone did what was right in his own eyes my friend although God was merciful in allowing this Tribe of Benjamin to rebuild and not go extinct there were consequences for their decisions and if there's nothing else you take from this video I want
to encourage you to understand that every decision you and I make has consequences often they can't even be measured and consequences that we cannot choose see you in the next video goodbye for now God bless you
