Today’s Reading Judges 19-21
Focal Scripture: Judges 19:23 “The owner of the house went out and said to them, “Please don’t do this evil, my brothers. After all, this man has come into my house. Don’t commit this horrible outrage.”
The book of Judges demonstrates one true consistency. Men are evil. Even under good circumstances people are capable of extreme evil and depravity. I am not sure about you but I have seen much evil in my life personally. I am not sure why God has allowed me to witness such acts. I am not sure why God has allowed me to experience such depravity and evil. One thing that these situations has taught me is that the human heart is full of wickedness and desires to worship itself.
In the reading today we see a glimpse of just how evil some men where during this time. There was a group of men trying to beat down the door to get to a guest. Why? They wanted to have sex with this guest. Their hearts and minds were set on evil. To stop one evil from taking place the owner of the house offers up his daughter and the mans concubine to stop the evil act from happening. What happens next is an evil act that explains the brutalization of a human being. The concubine was raped and pillaged all night. Then ultimately her master cuts her up into pieces and sends her body over Israel.
The implication for the believer is obvious. The people we are around on a daily basis are capable of all types of wickedness. The only hope they have is that God can and is willing to forgive sins. That God cares deeply about the souls of people and wants them to be redeemed. However, people can’t know the truth unless people tell them about the wondrous works of God. Evil people are on a straight line to punishment and judgement. However, we must not think that just the big sins are the problem. We are all sinners and capable of evil in our own right. We do not need to be a people who are self deceived and think we can not be evil ourselves. We are very much capable of evil.
To keep this from happening we must know we are capable of evil and surrender ourselves to God on a daily basis. Far too often people will say “I could never do something like that.” What keeps us from committing evil acts? Our desire and pursuit of Christ. We must be laser focused on God and how he wants to change us form the inside out. We can never believe that we have arrived in our faith walks. Only an arrogant person believes that they never could do evil.
We see many examples of believers committing sins that are horrible. King David a man after God’s heart and he committed murder and adultery. Why? Because he was not focused on God. The point of today’s devotion is to remind ourselves we can’t ever let our guard down. We are capable of sin and sin that hurts ourselves and others. We must humble every fiber of our humanity and give our lives to Christ. This is why we are to be slaves to him and not our flesh.
So I challenge you today to examine your heart and see where evil is still trying to win. Once you find it, acknowledge it and kill it. Then watch how your faith grows.
Tomorrow I plan on reading Ruth 1-4
