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00:00 So good to see everybody back here before Chinese New Year or welcome back our elder Richard and his wife Leeling.
00:07 Been away for a long time. Good to see them back here in our midst in our characteristic spot in front. All right.
00:14 So uh we're going to do uh if you're going to rush off today, I think problem for you. I have to preach through five
00:21 chapters. All right. So uh you got to have to stay back for a while. So um Judges 17-21
00:32 uh is um the finale of the book of Judges. Let's start with a word of prayer. Lord we ask that you speak to us
00:38 even though it is five chapters. Uh help us keep awake. Help us have the word of God sink to our hearts that it will
00:46 touch us and help us realize that we really do need a a real king. We ask for
00:51 Jesus sake. Amen. Right. So five uh chapters giving you the background of uh
00:57 judges where with the first two chapters was Israel's failure of conquest of the
01:02 promised land. Then you've got battles to defeat evil by the judges ehood
01:08 Deborah Gideon Japa Samson and each time as you go more of the character flaws of
01:15 each judge comes up again and again and what the worst judge and the strongest judge is actually Samson. And then when
01:22 we go to chapter 17 to 21, uh this actually instead of putting the
01:28 telescope or the microscope on the individual leaders, we now put the telescope onto the society at large.
01:35 This is what's happening to the judges, but what's happening to the people on the ground? And so these five chapters
01:43 important tell us what's happening on the ground. You have the cycle of judges here where peace Israel does evil. God
01:50 punishes Israel with an enemy. Israel cries out to God. God raises up judge to defeat the enemy. God delivers Israel
01:56 from the enemy and peace comes again. This cycle repeats itself and again again. And we've already gone through
02:02 the first 17 uh chapters about individual judges. Now we're going to home in on what society was like. There
02:09 are three points I want to make. First of all, personal idolatry leads to false religion. Second of all, false religion
02:16 leads to personal and social disintegration. And lastly, we all need to come under one true king. So, let's
02:23 start off with personal adultery leading to false worship. Judges 17 and 19 are
02:29 the two chapters we're going to focus on today because they tell us all we need to know about this particular theme. Um,
02:36 and then the rest we will deal with very cursorally. So, our action begins in these three states. Dan, Ephraim, and
02:44 Benjamin, right in the center of where uh Israel is. Remember, they have not conquered part of the promised land.
02:52 Canaanites are living amongst their midst. And we start to see the seeds of apostasy, the people of Israel. And
02:59 these seeds are very familiar. We can pick up these seeds in our own society as well. And first thing is that you
03:06 know it starts off how's backsliding start off with good intentions never bad
03:11 intentions. It's religious pragmatism has to do something that's practical. False religion believes it begins with
03:18 self-righteousness. False religion is ultimately born bound up with materialism and the use of spiritual
03:24 leverage for personal gain. These are the features if you look in any church in any religion these are the features
03:30 that actually start to seep in and they're the seeds of disaster for the church. And the story starts off with
03:36 Micah and his mother. And we find Micah actually stole 1,100
03:43 pieces of silver. I don't know how to steal 1,100. It's a heck of a lot of silver. He must have got a the mover's
03:50 trucks to come in and take it away. When he stole that money, his mother found
03:56 out that the money was gone and she was very upset. So what they do in those days? Call the MACC. No, she issues a
04:04 curse. In those days, they believe in curse. Once you cannot curse her, you're going to, you know, have a disease and
04:11 going to die. So, they believe the person. And Micah found out mother cursed the guy who stole and he
04:16 confessed. Mom, it was me. All right. It was me. And then he said, "Oh my God,
04:22 I've cursed my own son." So what do you do? Reverse the charisma. Then he says,
04:29 "Blessed be my son by the Lord." You see what I mean? So the curse is uttered by her. She retracts the curse and puts a
04:36 blessing as in you know instead. And as you can see as a result of that he
04:42 restored 1,100 pieces of silver to his mother and his mother said I dedicate the silver to the lord from my hand for
04:50 my son to make a carved image and a metal image. Now therefore I'll restore to you. See in order to make things
04:57 better right I better take the money that I have that he give to me. I don't want it. I'm going to use it and just
05:04 dedicate to God. The trouble is the Exodus says you cannot make yourself a calf image. And she takes the money good
05:12 intention because she she wants to bless the Lord, right? And instead she takes it to make a calf image for herself. So
05:19 false religion actually starts always with good intention. There's nobody who starts religion with a bad intention.
05:24 And and she could have worshiped any number of gods around at a time. neighborhood gods like like like uh
05:30 Dagon of the Philistines or Kimosh or Baal, plenty of them around. She could have chosen one of them, but she never
05:36 chose them. She chose to worship Yahweh. And instead this man Micah and by the
05:42 way Micah uh is um the name of Micah is very significant. Man of Micah is
05:47 basically the one who is like Yahweh. Wow. Very good name, Christian name. A
05:53 man who is like Yahweh. But he is not like Yahweh as you can see. And what he does is that he had a shrine. He made an
06:00 ephod and household gods and ordained one of his sons to become his priest.
06:06 Why? Very good. Very very practical. Instead of going all the way to church, you have your own church in your house.
06:11 You have the radio program on YouTube and you make your son your pastor. Isn't that great? All right. And the verse six
06:18 says, you know, in those days there's no king. Everybody did was right his eyes. And this is a refrain that comes in
06:24 again and again. And and God says in Deuteronomy, you shall not worship the Lord your God in that way. You shall
06:30 seek the place that the Lord your God will choose out. So it's like you know
06:35 the place that the Lord God chooses is his first baptist church. You cannot worship at USJ4.
06:41 Right? So here you shall bring uh the to choose out all your tribes to put his name and make his habitation there.
06:46 There you shall go and there you shall bring all your sacrifices. So again he's breaking the law. And if you can see
06:52 this is rife in all over our society. If you look at this Buddha, where do you find this Buddha? Anybody know? Anybody
06:58 know where Ging? Because you've been there, right? So if you go to Ging a lot of religious
07:04 figures, you know, as you're driving up there, the gods are smiling at you. And why do you get on top? But there's the
07:10 Chinsu cave temple. You know, why you why do you put a temple next to a gambling joint,
07:17 right? It's obvious, isn't it? Religious pragmatism. No point going. You see they
07:23 got don't have time to go to temple on Sunday right because you what they're gambling right so might as well next door you gamble gamble a bit then you go
07:29 inside the temple get a bit of and then come out there gamble and go back again if you're losing then go back there and
07:35 worship again and you come out very practical this is called religious pragmatism and this the beginning of the
07:41 seeds of apostasy look at yian introduced this Japanese gentleman called Akihiko Condo who recently
07:48 married a hologram and you know why he married his hologram Because all his
07:53 life he was bullied by women. Apparently Japanese women very fierce.
07:59 He's a morita here. No. And they called him what? Drop dead. Creepy. Otaku.
08:05 Otaku means nerd. So if you go to Japan and call any of you guys otaku is not a good thing. She's not admiring you.
08:13 Okay. She you know and and he said this two-dimensional characters can't cheat
08:18 or age or die. I'm not seeking these rail women because in rail women it's
08:23 impossible. All women women will cheat and die in age. All right. So basically he wants something after his own making
08:31 and it's a convenient god. This is Psalm 115. See the gods are silver and gold
08:37 made by human hands. Their mouths but cannot speak, eyes but cannot see, ears but cannot hear, noses but cannot smell.
08:44 Their hands but cannot feel but cannot walk. They cannot make a sound with a throat. Those who make them are just
08:50 like them and as are all who trust in them. Isn't that convenient to have a god like that? Never catch out you like
08:56 a wife. Doesn't Have you watch a steadfast wives is a movie about how they actually have wives as what?
09:02 Robots. They don't catch out you. They don't tell you take out the the the garbage, right? They never nag at you.
09:09 God is like that. So it's the best kind of God that you could have. And here self false religion begins with
09:15 self-righteousness. Micah he made an ephod ordained one of
09:20 his sons who became his priest. So not only having a shrine you got to have the ephod which is a special dress which the
09:26 priests have with the woman and tin to say yes or no to decide what decisions are from God and he made one of his sons
09:34 his priest. All right. Why did he make the son the priest? Probably the son is more righteous than him. All right. His
09:39 hands are not quite as dirty. So it begins with self-righteousness and and that's what we do in our lives. If you
09:44 look at the parable of the prodigal son, we'll be doing that uh this coming Wednesday if you're interested. The the
09:50 son when he's run out of money, all right, realizes that he's in deep deep
09:55 trouble and he has to go back and he says, "I will go back to my father and I will say to him, father, I have sinned
10:01 against heaven before you. I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as a hired servant." Why does he do
10:07 that? Because he still needs to earn his way back into the good graces of his father. We're always trying to clean up
10:14 our own lives with our own measure of self-righteousness. And lastly, s second lastly, the false
10:22 religion is ultimately bound up with materialism. You see, he said to his mother, I will
10:27 dedicate 1,100 pieces of silver. Then she said, "I will dedicate this silver
10:33 to the Lord from my hand to my son." How much does she give?
10:40 Something wrong with the math here, isn't it? Wow. You see, I only give all and now I only give 200.
10:46 You see where's the other thousand? Where's the other 900? Hiding somewhere. Sounds familiar. Acts chapter 5 as
10:53 Ananas and Sapphira. It's the oldest trick in the book, right? Yeah. We just had our tithes and offering. Did you put
10:59 all of it in? False religion is is bound up with materialism. And and here you actually
11:06 have a young man from Bethlehem. is not he wasn't in one of the designated 48 cities for Levites to be in. And he was
11:12 a Levite who is a priestly class. He sgeoned there and he's looking to sgeon
11:19 where he can find a place. He journeyed to the hill country of Ephraim, the house of Micah. Micah said, "Hey, where
11:24 you come from?" And he said, "I am a Levite or Benjamin. I'm looking I'm sjgeoning to where I may find a place."
11:30 So you have a wandering gunslinger as it were, right? A wandering pastor, no job.
11:37 and he's going from town to town looking for somebody to hire him. That's not how
11:43 it happens. In Deuteronomy says, "And if a Levite comes from any of your towns and all of Israel where he lives, he may
11:49 come where he desires to the place that the Lord will choose and minister in the name of the Lord his God." You can't
11:55 just have a wandering gunslinger kind of priest go anywhere you like and be your personal pastor. There's no such thing.
12:02 All right? You have to go to where God designates. Okay? and you minister in
12:07 the name of the Lord. So here he says, I'll make you an offer you cannot refuse. Right? Stay with me. Be a
12:14 father. Be a priest. I give you 10 pieces of silver a year. One suit of
12:19 clothes. Oh, you one suit of clothes only. Not enough is a nice suit of clothes. Uh
12:25 and your living. So whatever you need there, here's a credit card. All expenses paid. And then Levi went in.
12:30 And Levi was content to dwell with the man. The young man became like him, one of sons. And then who ordained the
12:36 priest? Micah. Micah. Who the tribe of Ephraim? Can he
12:43 ordain a priest? He can't. So now you're supposed to go to a place where God
12:48 designates and minister in the name of God. Now he's ministering in the name of Mica. So false religion is ultimately
12:55 bound up with materialism. Here's a nice uh American uh uh uh pastor called
13:00 Charles Sherlock Filmore of the Unity Church. And he re-ransates Psalm 323.
13:06 The Lord is my banker. My credit is good. He makes me lie down in a consciousness of omnipresence abundance.
13:13 He gives me the keys to his strong box. He restored my faith in his riches. He guided me the path of prosperity for his
13:20 name's sake. Yeah, although I walk in the very shadow of depth, I shall fear no evil, thou art with me. Thy silver
13:26 and thy gold they secure me. They thou preparest a way for me in the presence of the collector. You fill my wallet
13:33 with plenty. My measure runth over. Surely goodness and plenty will follow me all the days of my life. I shall do
13:39 some business in the name of the Lord forever. Take that home and memorize it.
13:46 Materialism. Uh and then the last one, the use of of spiritual leverage for
13:51 personal gain. And then Micah said, "Now I know God will prosper me." You know
13:56 why? Because I got my personal pastor. I got a Levite and a priest. And so here
14:02 the whole idea is that is that the purpose of religion is to give you blessing. The purpose of religion to
14:08 give you success. And if you look at it, we become cultural Christians. And we look at our lives and the lives of
14:14 non-Christian. There's not a lot of difference. We are now cultivating consumers rather than worshippers.
14:22 People come to church to be entertained rather to be broken. We're looking at a
14:27 audience rather than a flock of sheep. That's why after service on Sunday, everybody chabot. They don't come back
14:33 on a to be discipled. That's what's happening to the church.
14:38 All right? And God can be controlled. Here is a Kenneth Copeland who writes writes about the laws of prosperity.
14:44 Faith is a spiritual force, a spiritual energy, a spiritual power. It's this force of faith that makes the laws of
14:51 spirit world function. There certain laws governing prosperity revealed in God's word. Faith causes them to
14:58 function. With faith, you can actually control God. And if you don't believe me, this is an article uh from uh
15:05 Malaysia Christianitymia.com. Uh Michael Lee of Full Gospel Businessman. If you're here, I'm sorry,
15:11 but this is public. It's a publication, so I'm allowed to say all this. He says that he was uh in very difficult spot in
15:18 his life. Uh he testified at the summit uh the other day and he said uh uh he
15:24 was bankrupt. He was business was in trouble and then they told him to become a Christian and he they read to him this
15:30 verse. Blessed are those who fear the Lord who walk in obedience to him. You will eat the fruit of your labor. Blessings and prosperity uh be yours. It
15:38 goes on your your wife will be like a fruitful vine. You know this verse everybody likes favorite psalm right? He
15:43 took this and he said, you know, if you are the true one true God, I surrender my life and let's see how you take my
15:49 life. Oh, very transactional, isn't it? I'm going to take God at his word.
15:55 Nothing wrong with that. And then later on, uh, he's prospered and because of
16:01 his faith and obedience to God, many miracles begin to take place. He got his house, the security business prospered,
16:08 his relationship with his wife couldn't be better. If you are faithful to God, the Bible says you will reap the good of
16:13 the land. You all better go to summit. This is the kind of theology that a lot
16:21 of Christians have bought into that it's something you use spiritual leverage,
16:26 right? You give something to God and God gives something to you. Here is Creo dollar. When we pray believing that we
16:33 already receive what we have, God has no choice but to make your prayers come to pass is a key to getting results as a
16:39 Christian. So you pray with the faith, right? God has no choice. His hands are tied. He's got to heal you. He's got to
16:46 give you the million dollars. He's got to give you your BMW, right? You know why we think this is because
16:52 all our problems come down from whling God down to our size. These things you
16:58 have done and have been silent. You thought I was like one of you, your one
17:04 like yourself. Now I rebuke you and lay the charge before you. You know, God
17:10 looks like he's Chinese. Why? Because I'm Chinese. God likes dim sum like I like dim sum.
17:18 You give Pet a cup of coffee at Whisk in Empire and he'll do anything for you,
17:25 right? And you think God is like you. He can be bribed.
17:31 If you're gay, God must be gay, too. That's what happens when we try to The
17:37 whole problem idolatry is whittling God down to our size. So, if you look in
17:43 Western literature, the picture of Jesus is always like this, isn't it? Got to have a beard. He's got to be white. You
17:49 look among the black people, he's got to be black. He's got to be If you come to China, Jesus looks like
17:55 that, too. No problem. Idolatry is that he must
18:00 look like us. We are remaking God. Idrop idolatry. We are remaking God in our
18:06 image. And you can find later on this idea that the whole tribe of Dan comes
18:12 around to Mecca. Very good. Huh? I like your idol. I like your shrine. And they
18:17 rampas. They grabbed his priest. They grabbed his shrine and say, "Well, we'll
18:22 buy into this." The entire tribe commits idolatry
18:28 and all the other tribes. Did they say anything?
18:34 Not one word. You're supposed if a tribe creates uh uh
18:39 goes to idolatry, they're supposed to be placed under the ban haram. They're supposed to be destroyed. God will not
18:46 tolerate. They didn't lift a single finger. This is what's happening to the people of Israel. Now we come to Judges.
18:53 Um and and before that you know the guy who was the Levite you know who he was
18:59 Jonathan son of Gershon son of wow
19:04 this priest was actually Moses descendant. So it doesn't know about doesn't mean
19:10 your pedigree protects you from false religion. False religion can arise out
19:16 of any root. False religion leads to personal and social disintegration.
19:22 Here's a story which epitomizes this whole sorry saga of the society. As a
19:27 Levite who is basically a priestlike figure and he's got concubine. Don't ask me a question. What's the business of a
19:34 Levite having a concubine? I would tell you very complicated like in those days. In those days there was
19:41 no king in Israel. Right? You see every time the author starts off in those days there was no king and a certain Levite
19:48 was sening in the remote parts of the hill country of Cypra took himself a concubine. a problem with the concubine.
19:54 She also not clean you know. Uh what she did was you know the Chinese wear green hat right? You know why you wear green
20:00 hat and the concubine was unfaithful to him and she went Jeff you don't know
20:06 what is green hat right? Yeah. So uh in translated in western ter is called cutold
20:13 and your wife runs off with another man you're a cuckold. So in China you when someone gives you a green hat when you
20:19 visit is not a good thing. and his wife uh the concubine was unfaithful to him and she went away to
20:25 her father's house at Bethlehem in Judah and there was some four months and then the husband arose and went after her to
20:32 speak kindly to her bring her back so apparently this priest is a nice guy he's wearing all the green hat all the
20:37 way down to Bethlehem to bring his wife back and he persuades her and you know the concubine agrees to go back with him
20:44 and then they go back from uh uh Bethlehem to go back to Ephraim here on
20:49 the way there was no pit there was a pit stopped at Jabus. They didn't want to go there. You know why? This was is
20:55 actually this a future Jerusalem, but it was a city of foreigners. These are other people want to go back. We stopped
21:01 for a pit stop at Gipia, you know. All right. You know why? Because these are Israelites here. They kakang, okay? Own
21:08 people. Why should you stay in a place of other people, foreign, full of Bangladeshi, right? So, you don't want to stay there. You want to stay where a
21:13 whole bunch of Chinese, right? So, they go to their kin's house over here, uh,
21:19 Gibia. And then here you can see if you go to the ancient Israelite city
21:26 in those days there are no absolutely no hotels. You know why? Because you're supposed to take people in especially
21:31 your own kind bring them to the house. Hospitality rule is number one. There's no bigger rule than hospitality. It's
21:39 extreme shame if nobody takes you in. And here they are sitting in the city
21:44 square and nobody takes them in. and he sat down in the open square. No one took
21:51 them in to spend the night. Everybody goes pass, pass, pass, pass and nobody take them in. Terrible, isn't it? Why
21:58 did you go to KL Central and sit down? You think anybody will take you in? No,
22:04 it's because it's expected. All right, nobody take you in. But in those days, somebody will take you in. So this shows
22:10 extreme social disintegration. Okay. And then Gollum comes up and the old man
22:17 says to you, "Peace be to you. I will care for all your wants only. Do not spend the night in the square." So he
22:23 knows it's dangerous. He brought him his house and gave donkeys a feed. They washed his feet and they ate and and you
22:29 know this man didn't come from the city. He actually comes from Ephraim,
22:35 right? Here's a foreigner as well. He he was a visiting guy and he's the one who takes him in. The people of the city
22:40 don't even take him in. And then you actually have a parallel event. You have Judges 19, a terrible thing that takes
22:47 place. A whole bunch of people come at night and they bang on the door and they
22:53 want to have sex with the priest.
22:58 They don't want him to come and, you know, bless their house. They want you to they want to have sex with him. And
23:03 then it's exactly the same as Genesis 19. They're parallel events. You can see that the words used in Genesis 19 and
23:11 the words used in Judges 19 are one quarter of them are exactly the same. The author uses the same Hebrew words.
23:19 Homosexual sex is involved in both of them. The both the crowd wanted to have sex uh the angels on Genesis 19 and
23:27 Judges 19, they want to have sex with the Levites. Both of them thrust the women out as alternatives,
23:35 which is very shocking. Both of them show you a breakdown of laws of adultery, homosexual sex, and
23:41 hospitality. The laws have broken down. And then and even worse, they don't even respect a Levite. Well, I guess they
23:48 don't respect the angels, but they don't even respect a Levite. So, here you can see a total degradation. The people of
23:54 Israel at that time are just like the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. And they deserve the same thing. Daughter is
24:02 telling us. and and here is my virgin daughter and his concubine. Let me bring
24:09 them out now. Violate them and do with them what seems good to you. But against
24:14 this man, don't do this outrageous thing. Can you imagine a father doing that to his daughter? How could men do
24:23 such things? Well, Genesis, Judges 17 says, "In those days, there's no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in
24:29 his own eyes. And then the man would not listen to him. So what you know man do the Levite?
24:35 He grabbed his concubine and kicked out of the house.
24:40 That's my translation. You You think she went willingly? Hey darling, uh would you like to step out?
24:49 I don't think so. He had to grab her and threw her out of the big heave hole.
24:54 Okay. And they knew her and abused her all night until the morning. And the
24:60 dawn began to break. And then they let her go. What do you think the Levite was doing
25:07 while she was screaming? Turn up the TV louder.
25:13 Hey, let's eat some quay. What were the people in the town doing? Woman screaming in the middle of the night
25:20 being raped. Oh, we close our window. Sounds like K.
25:26 So after going to such effort to recover the concubine, how could you know how could a Levite trust her out to these
25:32 brutes in those days? No king, everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
25:38 Morning come and she staggered there, you know, to the man's house where the master was. It was light and the master
25:45 rose up and he had a good sleep. You know, our friend sleeping while his wife being raped. He's not like you sit in
25:52 the in the in the waiting room where your hus your wife being operated at night, you won't be sleeping, right? I hope not. While she's being raped, he
25:60 went to sleep. How do you figure that? If your husband like that, I think you better kick him out. He opened the doors
26:06 and went out and there was his concubine lying at the door of the house with her hands on the threshold. There she was
26:13 lying. And what would a good husband do? Ydian, oh darling, are you okay? sent
26:19 you to Sububang Medical Center. Peter will put up a drip. The best antibiotics in the world. You know what he did?
26:29 Get up. Let's get going. I'm late for Chinese New Year celebration. EO.
26:36 Can you imagine? The wife is lying there torn to shreds. They say, "Get up.
26:42 I'm late. Mother not waiting. Got to go." This is total callousness from a human
26:50 being. This is a pastor. No. Hope not one of our pastors.
26:55 It's a terrible indictment of a human being. No answer. Then he put her on the donkey. He just threw her on the donkey.
27:01 Right. And the man rose and went away, entered his house. He took a dive, took
27:06 hold of his concubine. He cut her up limb by limb to 12 pieces and sent her through all the territories of Israel.
27:14 Number one question is what? Anyone know what's a what's the question? Ask the ladies. What would be the question that
27:19 goes through your mind? I know she's cru so cruel, but when he
27:24 cut her up, was she alive or dead? Huh?
27:30 The Bible is silent. That puts enough ambiguity there that
27:35 she might have been alive, right? The Bible would have said she died really. What? But he actually put her on donkey
27:41 and then let's go and drive back. And after you go there, he cuts her into pieces. It's it's cast in such a
27:46 callous, nonchalant, casual way. Oh, by the way, I'm just cutting. By the way, darling, you lie down, make yourself
27:53 comfortable while I cut you into 12 pieces and I'll distribute you to the whole of uh Israel. And then later on,
28:01 he brings her to uh he brings the whole tribe out to all the tribes. He complains to the whole of Israel. Uh and
28:08 they and he says you know I came to Gibia that belongs to Puerin my concubine to spend the night and the
28:14 leaders of Giba rose against me and surrounded the house against me by night. They meant to kill me and they violated my concubine and she's dead.
28:22 Very careful. Didn't you know how she died doesn't say right but implies that
28:28 they actually killed her. Right. Okay. So here you actually see the irony is that you know he went to Giba rather
28:35 than Jabus. I think she would have been better treated in foreigner's house. It's an inverted sense of ethics even in
28:42 the man himself. you look, he he tells his brothers, "No, my brothers, don't act so wickedly. Since this man has come
28:48 into my house, do not do this vile thing. Behold, my virgin daughter and
28:53 this concubine, let me bring them out to you. Violate them and do with them what seems good to you." What kind of ethics
28:60 is that? Don't touch this man, but violate my daughter and this concubine just as well. C him, whatever you want
29:06 to do. It looks good. It's an inverted sense of ethics. In those days there's no king and everybody did what was right
29:13 in their own eyes. And then it says that such a thing has never happened or been seen from the day
29:19 the people of Israel came up out of the land of Egypt until this day. Consider it take counsel and speak. This is the
29:25 ending verse in verse 19. And if you look at this complaint later on what
29:32 happened is that it led to fullscale civil war. All right. And you can find
29:37 uh they they actually mobilized three 400,000 Israelites to fight against the
29:43 tribe of Benjamin to decimate them. And when they found that they decimated a lot of them until there's nothing left,
29:48 they suddenly realized that we overdid the killing, right? There only like 600 men left. So we better find them some
29:55 wives, right? So what they did was they they grabbed uh you know and raped 400 virgins and 200 dancers and and used
30:03 them as forced wives to the remnant tribe of Benjamin.
30:08 Fullscale civil war happened. Uh and if you look at the way
30:14 he testified to them look this is 20 how he testified. This is what happened in
30:20 those days. They were making their hearts marry. The men of the city, worthless fellows, surrounded the house
30:26 beating on the door. Only the men of the city, right? When he started to complain to the rest of the tribes of Israel, the
30:32 Levites said, "I came to Gibia that belongs to Benjamin and my concubine to spend the
30:39 night. And the leaders of Giba, hey, men of the city, become leaders of Giba, rose up against me, surrounded the house
30:46 against me by night. They meant to kill me." They didn't mean to kill him. What do they mean to do? Have a fun time with
30:54 him. Play play only. Sex only. What? And now they meant to kill me. They violated
31:02 my concubine. And now she's dead implying. You see, they add chili and spice to the story to instigate the
31:11 crowd. And what happened to crowd? Did the crowd have a mac at 30 general came up? Did they have a
31:17 trial? Did they have an inquiry? No. They took the word of one Levite
31:24 and they started to prosecute a civil war. Fullscale civil war. And here you
31:30 can see the irony, isn't it? The irony is that when the entire tribe of Dan goes into idolatry, they don't lift a
31:38 single finger. When one woman gets killed, complained
31:43 by the Levite, they mobilize 400,000 troops, which is more than Deborah could
31:48 mobilize, when Samson could mobilize, anybody can mobilize
31:53 to destroy their fellow Israelites, the disproportionality of sin and
31:59 punishment. Because when men does what they want in their eyes, certain sins are important, certain sins are not
32:04 important because we decide. This is a society that's gone mad. And it's the
32:09 same as our society where we are supposed to live together in a rainbow coalition as it were in Chinese uh Malay
32:16 or Indian. But our society is similarly fragmented. Uh you have this gentleman who who basically stole a handphone you
32:23 know 2015 and because of a certain race everybody riots 2015 and and uh you know
32:31 Seafield riots as well. is still with us because of us that whenever there's race
32:37 involved, we are totally totally totally separated. Look at that. Uh these are
32:42 the things that are in public today where one race is pitted against another. Not only that, it's Bangladeshi
32:49 and Pakistani is so no good. And if you're a negro, it says we don't rent rooms to negroes.
32:55 We are a completely dysfunctional society. were totally disintegrated because everybody did what
33:02 was right in his own eyes. When we do what is right in our own eyes, that's not just society. We are part of
33:08 society. What do we do? We self-reliance. We rely on ourselves. We're proud of our ability. We enjoy
33:14 being asked to do things. But we never want to ask other people. We don't like
33:20 to uh we don't need other people to grow in our Christian lives. We we don't mind uh uh receiving gifts, but we don't give
33:26 gifts. I remember uh Chinese New Year coming up, right? In the old days, my mother used to, you know, check when
33:33 other people come in, they'll quickly grab all our angals, you know, and see how much we got.
33:39 Then he'll divide by the number of children the visitors had. So, we're like net of zero.
33:47 We only got to keep the profit. Why? Because a proud Chinese tradition
33:52 of being self-reliant. We don't owe anybody any money.
33:58 That that's what we are like self-sufficient. We have good reputation superficially. We're outgoing but we
34:04 don't have many relationships. Few people access our lives. When we come to gamma, you you see people come and
34:10 listen. But when we come to the the group to discuss their their problems and do repentance, everybody runs away.
34:16 Why? Because we are self-sufficient. We don't like people to access our lives. We don't like them to dig in. When our
34:22 relationships become hard, we get out. We measure spiritual growth by what we
34:27 know. What else? Self-p protection. We keep others at arms length. We fear that
34:33 they will when they know the real you, then they run away. Ah, you know, you're like that.
34:38 Avoid conflict sometimes because we're addicted to approval. We see feel
34:43 self-important. We're addicted to being busy to fill our void. We want attention, but we don't want sacrifice.
34:50 We're concerned more about reputation than relationships. And we measure our our spiritual growth by accomplishments.
34:57 With self-will, we'll choose work over people. Our schedule is more important. And when you come to church, we have
35:03 anything there. We'll ask ourselves, what do I get out of this? Oh, if I'm, you know, whether I come to prayer
35:08 meeting, what do I get out of this? Come to gamma, what do I get out of this? So, this is everybody doing what is right in
35:14 his own eyes. Our our society is totally disintegrated. I mean if you look at the
35:20 way we live our lives, we have lots of human beings in the world but not much humanity.
35:26 You see the rich have more rooms than children, right? And yet the poor have
35:32 more children than rooms. That's a sign of a society. We have so smartphones,
35:37 right? How many you've got smartphones? Put your hands up. Right? The smartphones bring you closer to those
35:44 who are far away. But to those who are near, they put you far away. Try having
35:51 dinner with your children. Right? When I have dinner, my children, everybody's headphone is up and we seem
35:56 to be further away. When they're in Melbourne, at least we can Skype and they came closer. It's a it's a contradiction, isn't it? This is our
36:03 society. You know, we open Facebook more than the holy book, right?
36:09 We we live in a society where the single mother can look after 10 children but 10 children cannot look after a single
36:15 mother. We live in a society where the rich walk for miles to digest food and the poor have to walk for miles to get
36:22 food. We live in a society where we pay women to get naked and yet many women
36:28 have no clothes to cover the nakedness. You know in your handphone how many
36:35 contacts have you got? Last count I had was thousand5.
36:41 We got full of contacts but very few relationships. Isn't that true? Huge contact list but
36:48 very few relationships. We have lots of possessions but not much appreciation. We know the price of everything you know
36:56 but we don't know the value of anything. That is our society. We are totally
37:03 fragmented totally confused. Facebook recently you know not male female and then you got 71
37:09 other options of which you got to fill and write and if you look at this gentleman who married the hologram he
37:15 says diversity in society has been long called for it won't make necessarily make you happy to be bound to the
37:21 template of happiness in which a man and woman marry and bear child I believe we must all consider all kinds of love and
37:27 all kinds of happiness so therefore it's diversity our our our morals our values are totally skewered this is the uh song
37:36 uh from the called Shallow. Uh there's a hit movie called A Star Was Born starring Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga
37:44 and they actually won the Critics's Choice Award and as she sat down there and she received the award, she gave a
37:51 thank you speech and I heard the thank you speech and says this song reflects the shallowess of our society. But
37:58 that's why she wrote this song and look at the words of this song. Tell me something girl. Are you happy in this
38:03 modern world? Do you need more? Is there something else you're searching for? I'm falling. In the good times, I find
38:09 myself longing for change. In the bad times, I fear myself. So when there's no good time, no bad time. Every time has a
38:17 problem. And and and and she sings to him, tell me something, boy. Are you
38:22 tired of filling that void? Or you need more. Ain't it hard to keep it so hardcore? I don't understand what
38:29 hardcore means. Maybe the young people explained to me later on. Lastly, we
38:34 need to come under one true king. You see, in those days, there was no
38:40 king in Israel. Everybody did what was right in his own eyes. If you look
38:47 subsequent to that, the genealogy of kings of ancient Israel and Judah, and
38:52 all of them were total failure. So, obviously, it didn't refer to that king.
38:58 Um this is an article written by an American Muslim and he proposed a viable
39:04 answer to today's societal dis disintegration. He say in contrast to Christianity, Islam not only enjoins the
39:10 ideal to protect the integrity of family but at the same time it chalks out means and strategies to curb potential
39:16 undesirabs that may lead to the violation of the ideal. Islam does not leave the believers unguided on crucial
39:22 aspects with small disruption could bring monstrous consequences to the civility of the entire society. He's
39:28 correct. Societies disintegrated. But we need to put in these strategies to curb.
39:34 And what do they do? Well, they're suggesting that you amend the constitution so there's more punishment.
39:40 So if you actually steal something, they're allowed in certain places to chop your hands off. Is that is that the solution? or uh the Isma recently
39:48 launched a campaign to recognize Malaysia as an Islamic state. So you go around someone says to you see it
39:54 doesn't mean Christ it means a crescent and yet there was a
39:60 reply by Dr. Abbat Farukq Musa uh who is a chairman of the Islamic Renaissance
40:06 front and he wrote only in a secular state can a Muslim live a life based on
40:11 his own free will and true conviction because for the sake of God not because they're scared of the state and
40:17 apparatus and imposition. He said you cannot have true faith if you are forced to obey when they alter the constitution
40:24 till you steal something they chop your hands off that is not how you curb the human sin and in fact this is a book
40:31 called Islam without extreme which was banned by the previous government and is written by a moderate called Mustafa Ako
40:36 from Istanbul and he writes the freedom to sin which is basically a necessary medium for Muslim to be sincerely pious
40:44 you cannot be pious if you're forced to be pious you must have freedom Freom
40:49 freedom is the basis of which the argument against Islamic state in fact there's an Islamic city index started by
40:56 these two Georgetown University professors that ranks world uh all the
41:01 nations of the world according to their adherence to Islamic economic principles
41:07 of fair play uh economic growth job creation adoption of Islamic principles
41:13 and you can find the ranking of 1 to 50 94% % are western countries and the
41:20 bottom 30 64% are Islamic countries.
41:25 So you want to be Islamic country that's a no-brainer. You know that Malaysia is number 43. We're like the top of all the
41:33 purported Islabic countries in the world. We're the top. So it's it's it's something beyond you can't force people.
41:40 uh Soren Kakagard writes in his sickness unto death is sin is building your
41:46 identity and your selfworth on happiness on anything other than God.
41:51 It's inside. The king can't be a king on the outside. The king has to be a king
41:56 on the inside. Islam doesn't get that. The people of Israel, kings of Israel, didn't get that. A lot of countries
42:02 don't get that. Sin is making anything else king in our lives. In Romans
42:08 chapter uh 1, Paul writes, "Although they knew God, they didn't honor him as
42:13 God or give him thanks. They became futile. They changed in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened.
42:18 Claiming to be wise, they became fools. They exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal men,
42:24 birds, animals, and creeping things." That is the problem. Sin is when you're elevating people above God. When you
42:31 elevate people above God, this is what Micah did. His name was like Yahweh but
42:37 he did he was anything but like Yahweh. If you look at the we cannot be king. You know why? If you look at this cycle
42:45 in the end who is the enemy. Israel is the greatest enemy of Israel.
42:50 We look in the mirror and who's our enemy? Ourselves. They mobilize 400,000 people to kill their own prime.
42:58 Why is it that if you look do we have a name? You know know the the the the the
43:04 that poor fellow who was killed at sea field. We all know his name right? What's his name? Adam. We know
43:13 his name. Judges 17 to 21. What's the name of the
43:18 concubine? How come? What's the name of Levite? What's the
43:25 name of the old man? Surely they would know. Isn't it the author purposely suppressed it? You
43:32 know why he suppressed it? Because the nameless figures represent the society.
43:37 The entire society is like that. I could put anybody there. They're all like
43:42 that. In fact, if you look at evil people, this is Odell Ikeman who was put on
43:49 trial. He was one of the people who are architects of the German Holocaust who killed millions of people. They brought
43:56 him to trial and and the writer Hannah Art was struck by the benality of evil
44:02 which evil looks like you thought you would bring somebody so evil to that kill millions of people he would have horns growing out of his head right and
44:09 he's be dripping you know with blood from his mouth but Adolf Ikeman looked like an ordinary guy he could be your
44:16 banker your personal banker or your neighbor and she writes here I was struck by the manifest shallowess in the
44:23 doer which made it impossible possible to trace uncontestable evil of his deeds to any deeper level or roots of motives.
44:30 The deeds were monstrous, but the doer at least the the very effective one now on trial was quite ordinary, common
44:37 place, neither demonic nor monstrous. He's like one of us, isn't it? Adolf
44:46 Ikeman was one of us. And you look at the atrocities that happened in this country to us. If you ask my mother,
44:51 she'll never want to go to Japan because she's witnessed firsthand her uncle's head being chopped off by a Japanese.
44:58 And yet, if you go to Japan today, they're the nicest people on the face of the earth. You lose your wallet, they'll
45:03 bring it back to you. The benality of evil, it looks like underneath the surface, the evil is all of us. You
45:11 know, we have debates on sedition laws, regulation of Facebook, censorship,
45:16 internet. You know why? Because at the slightest provocation, we will take to the streets.
45:23 Freedom of speech has its limits and we are struggling with that because you all it takes one Levite to tell a couple of
45:30 lies and they went up and killed almost the entire tribe. That same spirit is
45:36 here today because we as a society are totally fragmented. We as a society we
45:42 we produce our own self contradictions. We blame God. When something bad happens, your mother is killed by some
45:50 tree falling over and then you say, "Oh, if God is so powerful, so good, he could
45:55 have prevented it. I hate you, God." If you love, you think God is so powerful that he could have prevented the death
46:01 of your mother. Don't you think he's powerful enough to have a reason why he allowed her to die that you don't know
46:07 about? We are self-contradicting ourselves, aren't we? Here we put people things
46:14 above people. One day the things will be above us. Here is Kylie Jenner on
46:19 Instagram. She only got 18 million likes. The egg got more likes than her.
46:25 32 million eggs. Not 32 million eggs. 32 million likes. You know this is the
46:32 world that we actually have. Cash is king. And because cash is king, you got
46:37 tabonghaji, you got SRC, you got everything else coming. Why? Because once you put people at that level, then
46:43 things become above us. You know, when they actually had for a thousand over years the the the ark of God being
46:50 brought around. Do you know that the ark of God is actually a throne? There are two cherobiums here and here and this
46:58 part empty you know. And why is it empty? Because every time you take the blood and it's offer you
47:04 splash it on the mercy seat. It's called a seat. Seat for whom to sit you are. If
47:11 we sit you be is probably killed on the spot. The seat is empty and the seat is
47:16 empty for a thousand over years until somebody sits on that seat. This is a
47:21 throne. Who sits on this throne? He is the image of the invisible God,
47:27 firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created in heaven and earth, visible and invisible, whether
47:33 thrones or dominance or rulers or authorities. all things that were created through him and for him. The
47:38 seat was empty for one reason. One day there will be a king and that king is
47:44 Jesus Christ who took the seat on that place and he bled and died on our
47:50 behalf. Only that king can be king of our hearts. You know there was a if you
47:57 have a little god, little gods will produce little people. There's a story in the Chronicles of Nania where where
48:03 Lucy meets Alan again and as she grew older she s says to Alan hey how come
48:08 you look bigger you know and then Alan says the more you grow the more you will
48:14 find me bigger and it's true isn't it the more we grow in our Christian life
48:20 the more we understand the word then God will seem bigger if you have a little
48:26 God and you bring God down to your size you will produce littleer simple
48:31 and and one of the greatest inventions of all time is basically the Hubble telescope. Why? Because the Hubble
48:38 telescopes allows us to see beyond the clouds, beyond the atmosphere into the
48:43 universe and we actually see the universe much much much bigger than what we actually believe. If we didn't have
48:50 technological advances that you know what we'll do? We'll see God. We'll see the world as a flat plane where we could
48:57 sail a ship and probably tip over the end. Why? Because we're looking at the world through our own eyes. As we open
49:03 our eyes, we see things bigger. So, we need a big God. We need a true God.
49:09 Elizabeth Elliot, who lost her husband to the Oka Indians, um they asked her how she reconciled herself to the death
49:16 of her husband on the mission field. And he says, "If he is God, then he's worthy
49:21 of my worship and my service, and I will find no rest anywhere else but in his will." And there is infinitely,
49:28 immeasurably, unspeakably beyond the largest notion of what we think he's up to. See, the true God is beyond what you
49:35 can think, you can feel, you can imagine. He's immense. Even Hubble telescope will only show you a little
49:41 bit of what he's like. We cannot come to church and look for the sword all the time. We only want success. Let me tell
49:49 you, if you're under the the kingship of the only one true king, there will be another sword is surrender,
49:56 sacrifice, suffering, service, and seeking his will. That's the sword. If
50:02 God is your king, then that's the worst sword. If you are the king, then that
50:09 will be only one word, the success. Patrick Bolley ends this sermon of mine.
50:15 I'm going to quote him. He's a founder and CEO of Man and Mirror. He writes, "We need to help people discover their
50:21 identity and purpose in Christ, not in satisfying worldly ambitions. It must help them discover their true gifts and
50:27 calling rather than endorse the pursuit of pleasure. It must help men and women
50:32 discover God's will rather than encouraging to write their own script. A script that invariably includes a
50:39 constant desire for more and more things. The throne is no longer empty.
50:46 Brothers and sisters in Christ, you can continue to do things
50:51 the way you like. Come to church, leave as you like, and not be part of this family and run away self-sufficient,
50:58 self-reliance, self-will, self-protecting. But your life will disintegrate as our
51:06 society has disintegrated. We need a true king not imposed from outside but from inside where the throne
51:12 is filled with the person who bled. And this day the awful tragedy of gen of
51:19 Judges 17 to 21 is repeated again and again in every corner of this world
51:24 because in every corner of this world we need the true king. Let's pray.
51:33 Father Lord, we thank you that there is there's hope that that
51:40 throne today is filled and you are the
51:46 only image of God that we should see in our lives. Not an image of wood or stone
51:52 or gold that cannot speak, cannot think, cannot interrupt us. where we pledge as
51:59 your people to humbly come and we want to repent that we no longer want to do
52:05 things as we see fit in our own eyes. We really want you to come in our hearts
52:11 and be our king. That we will surrender, we will sacrifice, we will serve, we'll
52:17 honor and glorify you. We ask for Jesus sake. Amen.
52:23 Church, can we stand to sing this closing song?
