Man, Judges chapter 18 is the second chapter in a little two-chapter story here.
If you remember where we are in the book of Judges, chapters 1 through 16 got us through
all of the actual stories of the Judges.
When we get to chapter 17, we're done talking about the Judges, and now we're just getting
several chapters explaining what things were like in the times of the Judges.
So this material is out of order from the rest of the book because it's just stuff that
happened in the time of the Judges.
That's why at the beginning of chapter 18 verse 1 it just says, in those days there
was no king in Israel.
Remember that's the theme of this end portion of the book.
We saw that statement made in chapter 17.
We see it here in chapter 18.
And then at the very end in chapter 21 we see that the last verse of Judges is, in those
days there was no king in Israel, every man did that which was right in his own eyes.
That's not a phrase that has come up earlier in the book of Judges in chapters 1 through
16, but in chapter 17 through 21 it keeps coming up because this is kind of another
section in the book of Judges showing us just what the times were like and the need for
leadership and how there's a lack of leadership and how all of these wrong things are going
on in Israel.
In fact, if you study the book of Judges and compare scripture with scripture you realize
that these events that we're reading about in chapters 17 and 18 are actually probably
hundreds of years before Samson.
They're probably actually toward the beginning of the period of the Judges.
Because the period of the Judges is about 400 years and Samson was the last one that
we saw and this is an event that happened earlier toward the beginning of that time.
So it says in chapter 18 verse 1, in those days there was no king in Israel and in those
days the tribe of the Danites sought them an inheritance to dwell in.
And again, this would tend to indicate this is toward the beginning when they're still
getting settled into the land and everybody's getting dialed in with their inheritance.
For unto that day all their inheritance had not fallen into them among the tribes of Israel.
And the children of Dan sent of their family five men from their coast, men of valor, from
Zorah and from Eshtaal, to spy out the land and to search it.
And they said unto them, go search the land.
Who when they came to Mount Ephraim to the house of Micah they lodged there.
This is before hotels so you would stay at people's houses.
When they were by the house of Micah they knew the voice of the young man, the Levite.
And they turned in thither and said unto him, who brought thee hither and what makest thou
in this place and what hast thou here?
So basically they recognized this guy's voice because if you remember we were introduced
to this bozo back in chapter 17, this priest of Micah.
And this guy's just a wandering guy and right away you have to wonder if this guy's a Levite,
shouldn't he have a gig already back serving the Lord, you know, with the other Levites
and shouldn't he be with his family and serving the Lord in the tabernacle and doing what
Levites do, why is he just wandering?
You know when you have a guy who's just wandering and he doesn't have any friends or family,
he's just kind of this guy out wandering around and he's just going to start a church now?
That's kind of weird.
And you know that's why we kind of make a big deal about the fact that anybody who pastors
a church or anybody who starts a church, they need to be coming from a church.
You know you have just these guys who've been out of church for years listening online,
now all of a sudden they're going to found their own church.
That's ridiculous.
You know before you can be a leader in the church you need to be a follower in the church.
And great followers make great leaders, you know.
So if you've got a guy who's serving faithfully in his local church and approved of by his
fellow church members and they decide, yeah, this is great, this guy's qualified, yeah,
this guy should go start this church, that's a little different than a guy just out on
his own wandering around and he's just going to do it on his own.
Because there's obviously something wrong with this guy's life if he's just wandering
around willing to just go anywhere and just, sure, I'll be a priest for you, whatever.
And that's who this guy is.
I don't want to review from last week but that's what we talked about last week, this
guy.
And they recognize this guy's voice because they're coming from the same general region
that he's from.
And so it's just kind of a small world where they recognize the guy's voice and say, whoa,
this is our buddy, whoa, what are you doing here, man?
And I want to show you some things about this phony priest.
This is something that can really show us an example of what false preachers or false
teachers or phonies in the ministry are like.