Gooding, David: 3 - Heroes and Heroines of Faith

People like that all, uh, often use false alternatives to try and convince you. The answer is neither. The better thing is that the Lord shall rule over you, like Gideon said. Remember, said he, that I am bo- your bone and flesh. He appealed to family connections and pride. Oh, my brethren, I wish it were not true of church history, of assembly history. What a lot of power politics there has been. And then divisions according to family lines. Ooh. Slays his brethren so as to become king himself. And Jotham, one of the surviving sons that hadn't been massacred, went away and told his parable of the, this fable of the trees. You see, they asked the olive tree to be king. Nonsense, said he. What do I want to be king for? My job is to produce oil to make glad their hearts. They went to the vine and said, you be king. Nonsense, said the vine. What do I want to be king for? My job is to produce wine that makes glad the heart of God and man. They came to the fig tree and said, you be king. Nonsense, said the fig. What do I want to do being king? My contribution is to bring forth the fatness to feed the people of God. I want to be king. They came to the bramble, said, would you be king? I will, he said. Will I be king? Watch anybody that doesn't bow to me. Let fire come out of me and consume him. Good old bramble, eh, wato, true to life. Not going to contribute anything. Just being in charge. King, and woe betide anybody that objects. Look at the warning of Christ. You scarce believe it, would you? On that sacred of sacred moments at the Last Supper, there arose a strife among the apostles who should be the greatest. And the Lord had to say, kings of the Gentiles, lord it over them, but you shall not be so. But he that is greater among you, let him become as a younger, and he that is chief as he that is served. Forgive the crudeness of the illustration. Who is bigger? The old pig in his sty that hoots his head off? Or the farmer that serves him. And who shall be bigger all eternity, as the blessed Lord takes the likes of you and me and sits us down at his table in his kingdom and girds himself and himself comes forth and serves us at table? So he said himself. Who is the bigger? Yes. Yes. There was a chap called Gail. He had a s- idea in his head. Who would deal with this Abimelech? Ha! Who is Abimelech? Haven't you heard the argument before? Who is Mr. Smith? Well, I say so. Who is Abimelech? Would God these people wander my hand. You say he'll deliver us. Well, if he does, it'll be worse than Abimelech. He thinks his objection to Abimelech is it's Abimelech doing it, whereas everybody knows it should be him that's doing it. He ought to be king. Abimelech outwitted him, and Zibal, Abimelech's commander in chief, turned around eventually and said to him, where is your mouth? No, this is but crude competition. Who can be boss? Who won the victory? Well, that good old woman, victory of common sense care for the people of God. Her city was being besieged by Bimlec's armies, if you please, over the question who was boss. Well, she had been, like women did in those days, it was their job to mill the flour, you see, so as to bake the bread, keep the family fed. I don't know whether she'd finished or not done the flour for that day. And Abimelech was leading the troops outside the city, come to destroy the city all over these stupid things. She got the upper millstone, heaved it over the wall, landed on his head. It didn't do his head a lot of good, well, perhaps it did. It broke his skull and stopped the stupid nonsense of the whole business. Thank God for the woman. Concerned to feed the people of God, instead of wanting to be the boss. God save us from getting skulls that are full of wanting to be boss. Let's go to the next one. Um, Ammonites, yes. Next captivity was for the Ammonites, and if we follow the same technique of reconnoitering the enemy, there will be a lot of scriptures that come to our aid. Ammonites were marked by two things. What they loved to do was to make a fool of the people of God, scold them, laugh at them, make them look ridiculous, mock them. And then the other thing that they did, if they could, was to steal their inheritance. They would argue that the inheritance now occupied by Israel was really theirs, and Israel went and stole it. So, Ammon, he was the son of Lot by his daughter. But you look at these examples. Nahash the Ammonite, one Samuel eleven, proposes a covenant with the men of Jabesh on condition that their right eyes shall be put out, and I will lay it for a reproach on all Israel. Make a fool of them. Men whose eyes, right eyes are, are, are, uh, uh, cut out, you see, they can't aim an arrow, can they? Not only going to defeat them, but make fools of them, a reproach. One chronicles Haman the Ammonite shaves David's servants and cuts off their garments in the Middle East into their buckets and shaves their beards off. Made fools of the men he did. The men were greatly ashamed. As for territorial things, look at this, Ammon, they've ripped up the women with child of Gilead, that they might enlarge their border. Ruthless. I have heard the insults of Moab and the taunts of the Ammonites who insulted my people, made threats against their land. Now look at this from Nehemiah, when Sambalot the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite heard it, they laughed us to scorn. Here was Nehemiah, he was chancellor to the Persian monarch, anyway, governor now of Palestine, and he'd set his heart on rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem, and Tobiah and company didn't like that. This man come to restore Jerusalem city, they said. Ha. And their first tactic was to laugh us to scorn and despised us. And here comes Tobiah. Can you see him? His robes, he was a some boy, of course. It wasn't just a man from the back street. Uh, he he he had, uh, diplomatic, uh, uh, intercourse with the pharaohs of Egypt and such like things. Very wealthy, influential person. You can see him in his robes, can't you, coming around this half-built wall of Jerusalem. This is he, you see? Oh, what are these little evangelicals doing? Ah, do you see? Why this wall that they're supposed to be building? Well, even if a fox went by and wagged its tail, it wouldn't the whole thing down, wouldn't it? Well, the, the, the, the, the scorn and sarcasm didn't work, then they turned a bit nasty. So they're always wanting to filch Israel's territory. And one of their techniques is to laugh and to scorn. So second Peter chapter three, know this, that in the last days shall come mockers. They too can be enemies. Some people find mockery impossible to endure, you know. Now scripture said an Ammonite should not enter into the assembly of God. Nehemiah went back home at one stage to Persia, and then when he returned, Nehemiah's fi- Nehemiah finds old Tobiah the Ammonite installed in the great chamber in the courts of the house of God. For all his mockery, you see his motive. Invading the very house of God. Well, he soon got hold of him and his furniture and kicked the lot out, says Nehemiah. Yes. And so it was in Judges eleven that Ammon claimed the right to Israel's territory and inheritance. And that accounts, perhaps, for the distinguishing mark of Jethro's tactics in dealing with the enemy. Let's look at the next slide. Uh, God's remonstrance with Israel, yes, their danger, pointed out God, was thinking that forsaking the Lord does not really matter, because if it results in trouble, God will always save us from the consequences of our idolatry and start a new revival like he's always done. Half a minute, says God. You cried unto me before, and I saved you, and yet you have forsaken me and served other gods, wherefore I will save you no more. You go and cry, cry to the gods you've chosen. It mustn't get it into our heads that just because God has initiated revivals in the past, it doesn't really matter whether we go astray or not, for he'll do it in the future. Calls for genuine and fundamental repentance. Yes, but now watch, when Israel came to that desirable repentant state, now watch what Jethro did. His distinguishing tactic, diplomacy. That's the right word to put on it. Eh, he argued the historical facts of redemptive history. Will thou not possess that which Chemosh thy God gives thee to possess? So whomsoever the Lord our God has dispossessed from before us, them will we possess. In other words, in answer to Ammon's claim that when you came out of Egypt, you pinched our land, Nehemiah argues back with recalling the history of what happened and how it was that God dispossessed the Ammonites and gave the territory to us. He argued history of the people of God. Now that, you know, as a tactic is exceedingly important. Indeed, if you read the first two chapters of Galatians, you will find Paul himself arguing from church history, that is the history of the early, the very earliest years of Christianity. The issue at stake, of course, was on what condition are we saved and justified? And some people said you have to be faith in Christ plus circumcision. And Paul said, no, you don't. I'm telling you, it's simply by faith. And others said to Paul, who, but who are you to say that? You, I mean to say, you got your gospel from the apostles in Ro- in Jerusalem, didn't you? Paul says, Ro- uh, Paul, now this is a matter to be faced. What are the historical facts? Did Paul get his gospel from the apostles in Jerusalem? For if he did, then you could appeal above the head of Paul to the apostles in Jerusalem, couldn't you? If he got the gospel from them. So Paul spends two whole chapters nearly telling them what the facts are about history. I did not get the gospel from the apostles in Jerusalem. Went up to see them, those that seemed to be pillars, John and James and Peter, whatever they were, pillars or not pillars. I'm telling you now, they added nothing to me. To the doctrine of justification by faith, plus nothing. They said I should be careful to remember the poor. I was doing that anyway, says Paul. These are the facts. My dear brothers and sisters, you know, we need to know our church history, actually, don't we? We mustn't forget our church history. You will find still, some say, the great Orthodox churches will tell you, and so will the Church of Rome, that whereas you have the Bible, of course you cannot yourself interpret the Bible, because it was the church that gave you the Bible. So, as one Russian said to me, you can't use the Bible to prove that our church is wrong in any respect. It's our church that gave you the Bible. Come, come, it is. Well, is it the fact? Did the church give us the Bible? What are the historic facts about it? If we are not careful and we forget our church history, we can be bamboozled and deceived, and before we know where we are, what is part of the heritage of God's people can be filched away from us. We need to know our church history, and particularly the history as given us in the New Testament. Righto, let's hear the last. Jephthah's weakness. Oh, I'm going to run over this as hard as I can, because I fear when you've heard what I've got to say, I shall not get out the door unscathed. He was an illegitimate child, that Judges tells us, and suffered obviously the resultant pain of rejection by the legitimate parts of the family, and had to go off into exile. His reaction when they called him back, the urge to be recognized as head. If I fight the Ammonites and the Lord gives them into my hand, shall I be head, says he. Gonna be accepted, he's gonna be head now. How, uh, he guards his fellow nationals then, after the victory, when his fellow nationals criticized him, oh, poor old boy, he had that, uh, rejection complex, didn't he? He got wild with them, took the Fords of Jordan and slaughtered them. Stood for the truth. There have been many heroes who have stood for the truth in the church and then in the end have failed to distinguish between the enemy and their brethren, you know. How do you explain what happens to his daughter? Well, I ought to say I don't know. This I offer very tentatively. His desire to be head, desire to found a dynasty? Don't know. But you consider the three judges, uh, came after him, and particularly those do- those two. The judges, the minor judges that came after him. This chap here was a judge. He had three hundred, I think it was, or two hundred sons that rode on mules. Pooh! They were some raining house, they were. This chap had twice the number. all on white asses. Woo! I never read of Moses, somehow riding a white ass around a camp, do you? Jethro wanted a big dynasty, wanted to be head anyway. They made him head. Jethro spoke all his words before the Lord in Mizpah, and he vowed this vow: If thou wilt deliver the children of Ammon into my hands, whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, it shall be the Lord's. And the Lord delivered them. When he came back, the first thing that came out of the house to meet him was his daughter, his only child. Beside her had neither son nor daughter. Was it an accident? Or did God's providential control of things allow it that way? What did he do to the girl? That I'm not going to decide for you. Whether he offered her a sacrifice to God or consecrated her to the Lord as a perpetual virgin. She went up and down on the mountains, bewailing her virginity. The result, as scripture gives it, is beside her he had neither son nor daughter. There was never any reigning house of Jethro. You say that can't be right. You're possibly correct. Let's turn on to the next slide. About this, I say very little. We've already considered it in part, and the story is exceedingly well known, perhaps the best known of all the stories in the Book of Judges. You are the experts therein. Recognizing the enemy this time is a question of recognizing the Philistines. They were the nation that gave their name to the land that, uh, you'll see Palestine is literally the land of the Philistines. And people that talked about Palestine often got the impression it was the land of the Philistines, as distinct from the Promised Land given by God to Israel. Their distinguishing mark, they were uncircumcised, the uncircumcised Philistines. That is, they were not members of God's covenant with Abraham. They were not of Abraham's seed, and they were not heirs of the inheritance. What was their God Dagon like? One Samuel five is a good description of him. When the Ark of the Lord came to the Philistine country, they captured it, and they put it in the temple of their god. It came in the morning, a god was fallen over. Of course, they said, no, gods oughtn't to fall over. That's by definition. So, what should we do when our, when your god falls over? So they put together their brains and their brawn, and they heaved their god up and put him on his pedestal there. They said, you stay there now, and then they got down and worshipped him. Came the next day, and he has fallen over, and what is more, his head was cut off and his, his hands were cut off on the threshold. They said, goodness me, when a god loses his head and loses his hands as well, I mean, what shall a man do? We'll have to cure that situation, they said. So they put his hands on again, they put his head on again. By their own intelligence and brawn, heaved him back on his pedestal. Doesn't take a lot to see, does it, that their god was merely an objectivization of their own brain and brawn. Like Feuerbach in his philosophy. Did you ever come across a Feuerbach? Well, if you haven't, don't. But if you have, you see, old Feuerbach would say, now, when you say God is love, you're not saying there's a God out there who's love. What you're saying is, really, that love that all mankind feels, you're objectivizing the feeling of love, you see. And actually, what you're saying is human love is God. A lot of moderns that think like that still, don't they? They say not God is love, but love is God. The objectivization of human brains and brawn, man's brain power and his, his energies, as though it were God. That was them. Their finest specimen was, of course, the Superman. Don't say he's a picture of the devil. He wasn't really. He was a big man. Saul the King, he thought he was a big man, but one day he came out of the Philistine camp, a man as big as a, as a half the size of Divis Mountain, and, uh, you'll see he had a s- helmet on like a trash can and a spear in his hand like a telegraph post. Ooh, some man. And now the big man Saul was so scared he scuttled away in his tent. Big manism. They are the Philistines. Samson, his preparation, he owed it to his parents, a Nazarite from his birth. There was nothing about him to indicate that his muscles were stronger than anybody else's, apparently. Normal looking chap, a bit abnormal because he had long hair as a Nazarite, looked more like a woman. His strength was the supernatural power of the Spirit of God against mere humanism. Man of faith, Hebrews says it was. Let me be careful what I say. But he married an unconverted Philistine woman. Blurred the distinction between people of the covenant and people outside the covenant. Broke the rules of his Nazariteship time and time again. Vexed the Philistines, but never finally delivered Israel from them. Died in captivity. Full of the Spirit of God, moved by the Spirit of God, yes, he irritated the Philistines, certainly he did. And in that extent, kept the difference between Philistines and the people of God alive. That's something to be thankful for. He never delivered the people. Great exploits he did. He got a lot of foxes and tied the tails together and set them in the, in the corn, burnt the corn out. So what? A lot of fireworks that was. Do you think that's a good expression of the Holy Spirit? He told the Philistines riddles, which they couldn't answer, or had no hope of answering. So what was the point of it? He was a Nazarite, shouldn't drink wine the first thing he was to go down to the Valley of Sorek, which is the place where the best wine is produced. Any Israelite was told they mustn't, uh, touch bones. If they touched bones, they got defiled. He found a dead lion, a lion, unclean animal with the bees. Brought the honey out of the dead lion. Give me. Found the jawbone of an ass. That would have defiled any Israelite, let alone a Nazarite. Used it. Is it okay to break the rules as long as you're filled with the Holy Spirit? What about all the preparations? Look at that wonderful experience of his parents. When the man of God came to them. And, uh, they offered an offering. Tell us your name, they said. He said, why do you ask after my name, seeing it is wonderful? Incomprehensible name. And he touched the sacrifice that went up, and as they watched, the man of God ascended in the flame to heaven, and they realized they'd seen the living God. Burned in their hearts forevermore, they seen the man who is the Son of God, ascending into heaven. It's the source of our power. Being exalted now, he sent forth the Spirit, says Acts. Thank God for the Holy Spirit. We can do nothing without his power. But does being filled with the Spirit mean that we don't have to keep the rules? Well, God was merciful. He got himself in a bit of a trap there, but escaped. If we keep on breaking the rules, there came a point when there was a trap set and no escape. And he lost his Nazarite hair. Was taken into captivity and never did deliver the people of God from the grip of the Philistines. He had a final victory. Acceptance that victory comes through death. With that, let us turn now to the rest of the book, as quickly as we may. And we can consider the history, Gideon the turning point. Is he there? Never mind if he isn't. We have noticed, as we began this morning, the symmetry in these things. The first one, secret of success is wife, the last one, secret of his downfall is wives. But you will notice that as far as the design of the book goes, the turning point is here, in Gideon, successful in the first bit, lapsing, fighting his fellow Israelites, lapsing into idolatry, and setting Israel on the path that led to decline. Let's look now, therefore, at the, uh, first epilogue. We've already talked of it, let's not dwell too long on the gloom of it. Now the institutionalizing of idolatry. Before it was intermittent, lapsing and then being recovered. And these things happened in different parts of the country. These deliverances were not the complete nation. Idolatry would break out in the northern tribes, say, and then the northern tribes would be delivered. Idolatry would break out in the south at another time, and so forth and so on. These deliverers were not nationwide deliverers. They delivered in that part to which they belonged. But, um, hitherto the idolatry being intermittent, the things went worse than that. The instituc- institutionalization of idolatry resulting from a complete loss of knowledge of God and disregard of his word. Look at this sorry thing. This man, the example called Micah. Micah, like the prophet Micah, had a beautiful name, in Hebrew, Mikayahu, meaning who is like Jehovah? And when the Bible asks who is like Jehovah, it is, of course, the re- rhetorical question. That means, who is like Jehovah? There isn't anybody like Jehovah, of course not. He is absolutely unique. Death knell to all idolatry. The name Micah sums up the uniqueness of God, which was the absolute, absolute fundamental element in Israel's faith. Micah. He and his mother make a silver idol. He has a house of God, gods. A Levite comes and hires himself out for money. How on earth can you hire a Levite? You can hire a value taxi or something, usually, or a VIP taxi. You can't hire a Levite, can you? You say, why not? Because they belong to God, didn't they? God bought them at the redemption from Egypt. You could support a Levite by your tithes given to God, then given to the Levites. You couldn't hire a Levite. From whom would you hire them, I wonder? But they hired a Levite, gone into the ministry. Micah, now I know the Lord will do me good, seeing that I have a Levite as my priest. An absolute ignorance of God's word. Sheer idolatry on the part of a man who carried the name as though he were a genuine believer in God. Sad, that, isn't it? We'll see the next bit. Then came the Danites. They were seeking their inheritance. Their inheritance was too small down in the southeast, so they went north to get a better inheritance. You say that looks very good. They're like old Caleb and Othniel and Axo, seeking more inheritance. God bless them. Ha, they sent out spies. Well, that was a good orthodox thing to do, wasn't it? Moses had done that in the wilderness. So had Joshua. And they inquired of God. Oh, marvelous. They went to destroy the city Canaanites and build their own city. Marvelous, you say. Wait a minute. It's all as false as it could be. Should have inquired of the high priest. Shouldn't they? Who did they inquire of? They kind of with this Levite inquired of this Levite who'd hired himself out, and he gave them a very nice, smooth answer. You would if you were expecting a fee, wouldn't you? And then there was the expedition itself. They came across this Micah with his Levite, and they take the Levite from Micah by offering him a better living, if you please come with us. You've got a small little living here, we could give you a bigger living, you see, so that's what they did. And he saw, he was called to this bigger living. And they took Micah's gods by force. Marvelous. There was no morality about it. The ultimate sanction was force and violence. And when Micah complained, they said, you go back home, because if you don't... Do you see how they're treating these gods like middle- medieval times treated relics of the saints, you know? And if you were a powerful government, you, you stole the relics out of somebody else's cathedral and brought them home. Then you had the good saints on your side, didn't you? No matter who you st- who you stole them from. Some people even went and stole Patrick, but that's another story. And Michael followed them after, did Micah, and said, you've taken away my gods which I made. Oh, dear me, the hopeless wail of the idolater. There's no concept of the living God. No salvation or freedom either. You've taken away the gods I made. Oh, what would break your heart to hear it, wouldn't it? Idolatry in the place of the living God. The destruction of Laish. Executing the judgment of God, like Israel was supposed to do. When they conquered the people of Aiish and destroyed their city, they set up idolatry. Israel never recovered from it to the end of their days. Sad, isn't it? We mustn't feel ourselves superior. My brothers and sisters, remember the history of Christendom. And the last epilogue. The all-tribal assembly. It was concerned with matters that concerned inter-tribal travel and commerce, in order to guard the sanctities of hospitality, sex, marriage, and oaths. The Greeks had a similar thing, only they called their god Zeus Zenos, the god that looks after strangers. In those ancient times, travel was a very dangerous thing. The innkeeper could easily murder you to get hold of your money. And, uh, you remember the Greek story, how Paris came from Troy and stayed with Menelaus and went off with Menelaus's wife. The whole tribal assembly was to deal with these things, preserve the sanctities of life. The trouble of the story, the Benjamites of Gibeah commit a worse moral outrage than even the Gentiles of Jebus would have done. The sorry story, what a pathetic picture, the peel of the woman in early morning, her hands out on the threshold, pleading for protection. Just a body. There's no soul, the voice left. Sin is a cruel and dehumanizing thing, isn't it? The Levites challenged to all Israel for discipline. Surely they must discipline. So must the church. The old argument that you shouldn't attempt discipline in the church is quite false, isn't it? You should let the tares grow with the wheat, so in the church there's believers and unbelievers, saints and outrageous sinners as well. That's nonsense. We are commanded, 1 Corinthians five, to exercise godly discipline. In the story of the tares and the wheat, not, our Lord is not talking to the elders of a church. He's talking about the angels who at the final judgment shall come out and bundle the tares into bundles, consign them to the flames. Not a question of talking of the church, he's talking about the problem of evil in the world at large. Inside the church, I don't judge those that are without, says Paul, but I judge those that are within. We have to have discipline. For the sake of the gospel, you'll have to have discipline. If the Corinthians are going to allow a man known in the city as a Christian brother, living in a- a- a- admirality such as would shock even Greeks, well, the Greeks going to think of the gospel to start with, and the name of Christ? For the sake of the testimony and the gospel, there must be discipline. For the sake of the man himself, for if he's a believer, then the discipline of the church under God, we hope, will bring the man to repentance, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. The discipline is a difficult thing, isn't it? Here's the problem. All the other Benjamites side with those of Gibeah. Oh, how true to life that is. When a case of discipline arrives in the church and the offending man or woman, then his family all gang up with them. All the other in tribes inquired the Lord. They, uh, uh, said, who shall go up first against Benjamin? Oh, sorry that they have to, but God answered, Judah shall go up first. But when they started to go up twice over, Benjamin came out and disastrously defeated them on two occasions. But when the Lord had said, go up, they were so broken that they came to confession and weeping and inquiring before the ark of the Lord. Ah, yes. They were going to be safe to engage in discipline of a fallen tribe. They better start here, not going up as though they were superior, but chastise themselves in heart. Weeping. See what happened next. They went up and they defeated these Benjamites, and now look at this. Their excessive discipline practically wiped out the whole of Benjamin. Dear, dear, dear, dear. Only six hundred escaped, and they were left with no wives. Discipline, yes, but now gone to an absolute and absurd extreme. Why, even the Old Testament said that when you discipline a brother, you mustn't, uh, beat him with more stripes than thirty nine in case you come to despise the man. Even when he's under discipline, you mustn't despise him. And two Corinthians two reminded the Corinthians that they must be concerned for the recovery of the offender, not his elimination. Now, all the tribes had sworn an oath not to give their daughters as wives to the Benjamites. That was an excessive zeal, wasn't it? Now they lamented. They had a problem. How to get out of their oath? For if these Benjamites can't have wives, the whole tribe of Benjamin will die out. What a disaster. So they hit upon a thing. They said, wait a minute, the men of Jabez Gilead didn't come and help us in the war, did they, against the Benjamites? Well, that's a good enough excuse. And they went along and slaughtered the whole lot, otherwise innocent chaps. For not joining in the earlier discipline, and seized their virgins and gave them to the surviving Benjamin... men. This is very strange behavior, isn't it? Even so, there were not enough my- wise, and they said, what, what does nobody do? We've sworn an oath, you see. Can't go back on our oath. We mustn't give any girls to the Benjamites, and, and how shall we do? They must have been Jesuits, I think. Eh, you see, they thought up a, a, a reason. We won't give them ourselves, but we'll arrange a dance for the girls from Shiloh, and we'll give the Ben and Benjamin the lowdown and say the girls are coming out to dance, and you hide up there, and when they're dancing, you rush forward and take the lot. And it won't be us giving them to you, no. That's what they did. And to solve their consciences, they tried to believe that they had not broken their oath because they did not actually give these girls to the Benjamites. Oh dear, dear, dear, dear, dear. Thus the assembly undermined the very sanctities it was meant to uphold. And in the very process of trying to uphold those sanctities, and in the course of chastising one act of intertribal injustice, itself committed two others. Sad, isn't it? A general lesson for the church. Discipline is necessary, but beware of carnal attitude that in the course of disciplining others commits grievous acts of compassionless cruelty and casuistically justifies its own trespasses against the law of Christ. And that we've done. Save this to note. The last thing. The last one is. The right of it. Breakdown in the theory and practice of faith in direct theocracy. What is direct theocracy? Well, in the time of the judges, they had no king. God himself was king. God appointed judges, Levites, priests, leaders of his people, but there was no king. God himself was meant to be king. Judges is the witness to the breakdown in theory and practice of faith in direct theocracy. When you saw that Nahash, the king of the Ammonites, came against you, you said to me, nay, but the king shall reign over us, when the Lord your God was your king. Losing faith in God's direct rule. They must invent a king. The men of Israel said to Gideon, rule thou over us. I will not rule over us, neither shall my son rule over you. The Lord shall rule over you. Ah, but it went downhill. He had a son, they called him, my father is king. And all the men of Shechem made Abimelech king. In spite of Jotham's fable against kingship. Jethro intends to be head. And finally, many times over, the historian re- says, in those days there was no king in Israel. Every man did that which was right in his own eyes. You say that shows they ought to have had a king. Wait a minute. Theocracy doesn't work, you say, you have to have a king. Really? Why did they do what was right in their own eyes? Did they do so in Moses' day? Did they do it in Joshua's day? They didn't have a king then, did they? They didn't do every man what was right in his own eyes in the days of Moses nor the days of Joshua. Why did they start doing it in these days? And the reason perhaps we discern in our final slide. The book of Judges witnesses to the failure of the institutions of judgeship. Consider Samson, the Levites. That Levite who hired himself out to Micah and served idolatry. The priests, Moses' grandson and his sons, priests in an idolatrous shrine. The breakdown of the all-tribal assembly. The book of Samuel tells us that after those days of the worsening corruption of the priesthood, Eli's sons. The complete breakdown of the judges, Samuel's sons. The appointment of a king, Saul, a complete failure. So that God then appointed David, the king over God's, after God's own heart. Marvelous, you say. Yes. Books of First and Second Kings tell us that the monarchy descended from David eventually went wrong. And all the institutions in the end proved imperfect, and they pointed to what the types had adumbrated, that the final solution would have to be the coming of the Christ, the judge, priest, king, and savior, the one and only Son of God incarnate.