Why Israel Failed: They Did What was Right in Their Own Eyes I. Introduction A. Recognition of Israel's failure 1. Israel in the flesh, overall, a failure 2. They did not keep their obligation in the covenant 3. God first punished them, exiled them, and then entirely destroyed their religious system in 70CE (cf. Matthew 24:1-36) 4. Parable of the Vineyard shows what happens (Matthew 21:33-44, Mark 12:1-11)-- original occupants (Israel) removed, new inhabitants (Christians) enter 5. Failure of Israel due to many reasons together-- perhaps a few failures could be endured, but the combination caused downfall 6. Nevertheless, we can learn from each instance of failure B. 1 Corinthians 10:6 1. Failure of Israel is designed to be a lesson for us 2. We must learn so that we may not fall into the same temptations! C. Israel's first failure, as we saw, was that Egypt never left them 1. Always desired to turn back 2. Whole generation perished! D. Israel also failed by not conquering the land fully 1. Other nations became a snare to them 2. Most future trouble stemmed from this E. Let us continue to examine failures of Israel II. "They Did What was Right in Their Own Eyes" A. The period of the Judges was not a pleasant time in Israel 1. Constant cycle 2. Oppressed by foreign power, called out to God, God raised up a judge, judge delivers Israel, Israel follows other gods, oppressed again (Judges 2:12-23) 3. A real "low" in their history B. The constant theme of the Judges author is how the people, without direction from a king, "did what was right in their own eyes" 1. Mentioned twice-- Judges 17:6, 21:25 2. Now, we know that God should be their ruler and that they should not need a king, but it is manifest that these people acted in such a way as to demonstrate that they did indeed require some kind of central authority to keep them in some kind of line! 3. With little threat of earthly punishment, we see that the people simply did what they esteemed to be good! C. Let us consider the two episodes where the quotes are found III. Judges 17-18: Micah, the Levite, and the tribe of Dan A. The first instance of the statement is in Judges 17:6, in the midst of a narrative comprising Judges 17-18 B. It will not take long to highlight the depravity inherent in this story C. Micah, an Ephraimite, stole 1100 pieces of silver from his mother (Judges 17:1-2) D. His mother tells him to take it and have a carved image and metal image of YHWH from it (vv. 3-4) E. He made an ephod and household gods and ordained his son as priest (v. 5) F. Indeed people did what was right in their own eyes (v. 6)! G. A Levite comes and is persuaded to be Micah's priest (vv. 7-12) H. Micah now is confident of the blessing of the LORD because he has a Levite ministering with his ephod and images (v. 13)! I. Meanwhile, tribe of Dan is looking for a homeland, comes by Micah's place, asks the Levite if they will succeed (Judges 6:1-6) J. On their way to capture Laish (later Dan), they come and induce the Levite to travel with them and become the priest of the whole tribe with the images and household gods (vv. 7-29) K. They take the land, and the priest, within the direct line of Moses (!!) is their tribal priest, and the image is enshrined for at least a few generations (vv. 30-31)! L. Within this story we see flagrant idolatry of both layperson and Levite, priests of the wrong tribe, stealing, and no one seems to see a problem with any of this! M. How truly depraved! IV. Judges 19-21: The Levite, the Concubine, and Benjamin A. The second narrative, comprising Judges 19-21, makes the first look tame! B. A Levite has a concubine who plays the harlot, he comes and gets her back (Judges 19:1-3) C. The father-in-law detains the man until late on the fifth day, and begins heading out, and gets to Gibeah of Benjamin (vv. 4-16) D. The man lodges with a fellow Ephraimite (vv. 17-21) E. The men of Gibeah demand to "know" the traveler, but the concubine is sent out, and the men of Gibeah rape her to death that evening (vv. 22-28) F. The Levite cuts up the concubine into twelve pieces and sends one to each tribe (vv. 29-30) G. All Israel, enraged, comes together to fight Benjamin; Benjamin is defeated in the end, with 65,000 total dying, leaving only 600 men left to Benjamin (Judges 20) H. Since all Israel vowed to not give their women as wives to Benjamin, in a form of repentance, the men of Israel destroy Jabesh-gilead and kill all but the virgin women to give as brides to the sons of Benjamin who remained (Judges 21:1-13) I. Since that was not enough, the Israelites told the Benjaminites to lie in ambush in Shiloh and steal the virgins at the festival and take them as wives (Judges 21:14-24) J. The book ends reminding us how "everyone did what was right in their own eyes" (v. 25) K. The depravity is astounding 1. Levites having concubines they take back after they went whoring 2. Benjaminites desiring to rape men, rape a woman to death 3. 65,000 Israelites die on account of the war engendered by this act 4. To make up for a foolish vow, an innocent city demolished 5. Women stolen also on account of that vow V. Then and Now A. The lesson should be rather manifest! B. Hosea 4:1-4 1. Hosea could just as easily be talking about the period of the Judges! 2. The very consequences of not knowing God are what happens in that book! C. Proverbs 14:12, 16:25 1. There is a way that may seem right to men... 2. ...but it leads to death! 3. Israel attests to this! D. We live in a time when people generally despise authority figures and consider themselves the authority 1. A combination of factors 2. First of all, Americans have inherited a distrust for persons in authority 3. Add to that modern relativist theory, where there is no one standard, but what is right for you is not necessarily right for me and vice versa... 4. ...and you see thousands of people "doing what is right in their own eyes"! E. Do we not see today the same types of fruit as was seen in Israel of old? 1. All kinds of people would profess Christianity but do not feel compelled to follow God as He has established in the Scriptures 2. Many have no problem rationalizing forms of murder, adultery, homosexuality, and all kinds of immorality on the basis of "freedom" 3. The overall decline in religion should not surprise us in a day and age where immorality is glorified at every turn 4. Nor should it surprise us to hear of flagrant immorality being done everywhere in this climate! VI. Follow God A. While it may be easy to condemn "them" for these things, we must remember that Israel was God's chosen people of days of old, and they were the ones doing these things! B. We must make sure that we are not "doing what is right in our own eyes" as they were then! C. We must have proper knowledge of God, following Him as He has established and not according to our whims (Colossians 3:17) D. We must put this into practice in our own lives, being righteous people in an unrighteous age (Hebrews 5:14, Galatians 5:19-24)! E. While others might strike down their own paths, we ought to know that such is the way of death, and strive to stay on God's path! F. Let us not be as Israel; let us do what is right in God's eyes, and establish Christ as King in our lives (Matthew 28:18)! G. Invitation/songbook