Injustice in Twelve Pieces: Sexual Violence in the Bible | Agassiz Campus

So whenever we read a passage like this, it raises two big and crucial questions.

First, why is this horror movie of a story in scripture in the first place? Why is this here? And the second question is, what does God want us to learn from it? Well, I wanna propose four answers to those questions.

And they are, if you're taking notes.

First, that sin knows no bottom.

Second, that culture reflects itself, but not always God.

Third, that your wounds do not erase or diminish your worth.

And fourth, praise God, justice is coming.

Number one, sin knows no bottom.

we need to ask the question, how does God's people, because let's not lose focus on that point that the men in this story are God's people.

This is from the tribe of Israel.

So we have to ask the question before we go any further, how do God's people, the people who are supposed to be upholding the virtue of what it means to live a holy life, how do they get to this place where this is the sin that they are committing? It is an ugly question, but it is a necessary question to answer.

And if you've ever read through the whole book of Judges, you'll notice certain refrains and phrases that are repeated over and over again.

And the answer to this question, Judges 21, 25 says, in those days, there was no king in Israel.

Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

which is also really the message of the entire book of Judges.

The book of Judges is a graphic warning of what happens when God's people willingly and choosingly turn away from God.

And in Israel's case here, how they sprinted away from God.

Because even though sin knows no bottom, in the book of Judges, Israel committed themselves to trying to find it over and over again.

The point is not merely that Israel was making isolated mistakes, that this is just some isolated incident that is the exception, not the rule.

Unfortunately, the story is more the rule than it is the exception.

But we find how sin in the book of Judges, that it's a recurring pattern that reshaped the nation, most commonly known as the cycle of Judges.

And it'll be up on the screen.

And each cycle of Judges had five stages for the people of Israel.

First, they sinned.

Israel turned away from God.