Tag: lawlessness

Cheering for the Bad Guy?

Old Testament: Judges 10 & 11

Poetry: Psalm 56

New Testament: 1 Corinthians 13:6

            Usually, when we watch a movie we are introduced to a hero or heroic group to root for.  We want the “good guy” to win and the “bad guy” to lose.  We need to see Batman defeat the Joker or 007 to defeat the agents of SPECTRE.

            Occasionally, though, the filmmaker sneaks one by us and we find ourselves rooting for the anti-hero.  The show Breaking Bad did an outstanding job of getting us to root for Walter White who morphed from being an ordinary hard-working science teacher husband and dad to Heisenberg, the drug kingpin of the southwest who poisoned people with his methamphetamine creation.

            I recently saw someone post on Reddit that he realized later in life that the movie Top Gun had us rooting for Maverick instead of Ice Man when clearly Ice Man was the far better pilot and person. “Iceman was the only pilot that: actually obeyed the rules, was a skilled flier, never killed anybody in the entire movie and correctly identified all of Maverick’s faults.”  Yet we were all rooting for Maverick.

            To that, I will simply add that I can’t imagine why anyone would ever root for the evil New York Yankees, Dallas Cowboys, or Alabama Crimson Tide. (I’ll stop before I make some more lifelong enemies).

            The spirit of this age is constantly working to pull people away from finding joy in truth.  The Bible contains an epic story about our hero, a loving God who creates a place where everything is good and populates it with people in his divine image to care for the earth, who are opposed by those he created.  But God loves this creation so much that he will stop at nothing to find ways to rescue and restore that which is lost and broken and corrupt. 

            We are currently living amidst the ongoing battle against that which is true and right.  People are daily undermining what is good and just and loving and claiming that that which is evil and corrupt is good, and that which is good and holy is evil.

            For Paul, true love does not root for the villain or the anti-hero.  True love does not rejoice that evil is victorious.  True love finds its joy in the truth that is consistent with God and God’s love.

            Jesus predicted that before the end of this age, there would be a decrease in love.  In Matthew 24:12 Jesus says: “And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.”  When people reject what is true and right, when people reject the ways that God lays before us to keep a rightly ordered society, it will result in a loss of love.  Lovelessness is the natural outgrowth of lawlessness.

            Jesus said “I am the way, the truth and the life.” (John 14:6).  If you want to have true life, you have to follow the path of Jesus, the path of truth.   Paul says essentially,  you can’t find love if you reject God’s truth.  You can’t truly love God and love people if you don’t love God’s truth.

            Today, ask yourself, “Are there things in my life that I know are the opposite of God’s truth?”  If you answer “yes”, you must be willing to reorient your life to pursue God’s truth and rejoice in God’s truth to practice true love.

Pastor Jeff Fletcher

Reflection Questions

  1. Why do you think increased lawlessness results in failure to love the truth?
  2. Why is society becoming more enamored with anti-heroes who are opposed to truth?
  3. How can you grow to love truth more in your life?
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Without a King

Judges 19-21 and John 13

If you’ve not yet read today’s scriptures, especially Judges 19-21 you should read them now.  Right now!  Go ahead, I’ll wait patiently while you read this very disturbing story. (Be sure to read it in an easy to read version like the NIV or ESV and not KJV so you don’t get lost).  Did you read it?  How did you feel while reading it?  Disgusted?  Angry? Sick to your stomach?  To be honest I felt all of those things and I feel all of those things whenever I read it.  It is like watching a Netflix docuseries about horrible rapes and murders, only it gets much worse because it goes from rape and murder to all out warfare…a virtual bloodbath.  Made worse by the fact that these are cousins fighting each other.

How sick is it to see a bunch of thugs demanding to gang rape a houseguest?  How sick is it that a young woman is given to the sex-crazed angry mob who end up raping her and murdering her and leaving her body on the front door? How truly bizarre that the husband then cuts up her dead body and sends it all over the country?  How crazy is it that this results in war with thousands of cousins killing each other?  And how truly bizarre that the war is resolved by encouraging a bunch of warriors to kidnap virgins and drag them home and force them to be their wives?  You couldn’t make up this kind of sick, twisted, debauched behavior… and yet here it is in the Bible?  What on earth is going on?

Two verses stand out- the first verse and the last verse.  It begins with Judges 19:1: “In those days Israel had no king.”   The last verse is Judges 21:25 “In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit.”   Those two verses essentially explain all of the chaos, vile and disgusting behavior that goes on throughout the story.  Human beings do not survive very well in situations of complete anarchy.  In school you may have read the book The Lord of the Flies.  It’s about a group of young boys during WWII in England who are taken away from the country for their own safety to protect them from the war.  Their plane crashes on an Island and the boys  survive with no adult supervision.  What happens when you have a bunch of schoolboys together with no adult supervision?  Absolute chaos.  What happens when you have a country where there is no leadership, no law and order?  Absolute chaos.  That is what was going on in Israel at the time of our story in Judges.  “Everyone did as they saw fit.”  That’s a recipe for lawlessness.

Those of you living in the United States have gotten a little taste of this during the past year.  In places where demonstrations and protests turned into riots, in places where all law and order broke down, and for a few minutes at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 we saw examples of what happens when “everyone did as they saw fit.”

After God brought His people out of slavery in Egypt, one of the first things that he did to help form them as a community was give them 10 commandments for how they were to live.  He also gave them instructions for how to worship, what foods to eat and not eat, and instructions for how to respond to infectious diseases and how to properly dispose of human excrement and dead bodies.  He gave them rules about who you could and could not have sex with: you can have sex with your husband or wife of the opposite sex.  You cannot have sex with your sister, your mother, your aunt, your neighbor’s wife, people of your own gender or your animals.  God did His best as Israel’s king to create order and stability within their communities so that they could be healthy, have strong families and communities and live long and prosperous lives as His chosen people. 

Some people followed God’s instructions for their lives and prospered.  Others rejected God as King and His instructions.  By the time we get to Judges 19-21 we arrive at a place of near anarchy where “everyone did as they saw fit.”  And that is how we get the story of the tribe of Benjamin trying to gang rape a cousin, murdering his wife, the man cutting her to pieces and it leading to a civil war that ends only after a bunch of virgins are sex-trafficked (abducted and taken by force to be wives).  That’s how lawlessness worked then, and that’s how it still works today and if you don’t believe me just watch a Netflix documentary (or the news every day on tv.)

Jesus shows us a better way in John 13.  Jesus is God’s choice to be Israel’s king.  He is worthy to be king because he is both humble and loving and also obedient to His father and His God.  Jesus shows his humble love by kneeling down and washing the feet of the people over whom he will serve as King.  Jesus the king loves his servants enough to wash their dirty feet, and to die for them.  That is a king we can follow.  That is a king we can love.  That is a king who will one day restore order and bring a final end to lawlessness and chaos and make all things right.  This is a King whose words and example and life we can follow.

-Jeff Fletcher

Today’s Bible passages can be read or listened to at BibleGateway here – Judges 19-21 and John 13

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A Country in Chaos (Judges 19-21)

Thursday, October 6

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Shelby Upton

Judges 19-21 starts its account by making it known that the events took place when Israel had no king.  Even more than Israel having no king, Samson was the last judge so during this time there was no spiritual leader either.
The accounts in these chapters are gruesome and disturbing. First we read about the Levite staying in Gibeah while traveling. While there perverted men of the city demanded that he be handed over to have sex with him. When they refuse his concubine is handed over then raped and abused all night and dies from her injuries.
When the man returns home, to send a message to Israel he cuts her up into 12 pieces and sends her out to the territories.  This then triggers a civil war in Israel against Benjamin where the Lord does tell Israel to fight against the Benjaminites. God hands over the Benjaminites to the Israelites but tens of thousands of men die during this war.
These accounts of lawless Israel not held accountable by a king or judge are so sad and unfathomable. We see the people not consulting God but trying to figure everything out on their own. When we do whatever we want without regard to God and his laws, life is a mess.  Our understanding and rationale is so flawed–just look at how entrenched in sin and unmanageable Israel had become!
The last verse sums up this section very well, Judges 21:25 “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did whatever he wanted.” And it was chaos.