Judges 19: Sin and Restoration

What a horrendous story! In those days Israel had no king. Have you ever had those situations that you have no idea why they had to happen? We read a story of rape and murder in the Bible and guess what, there’s really no deep life lessons attached to it. Sure, there are some basic principles we could pull out of the story but really Israel has decayed terribly. It has no king. Israel is not following God or a leader God appointed. Horrendous stories were happening. We see the world that’s lost in sin in Judges 19.

Sometimes when life takes these ugly turns we need to look to the future. Ultimately Jesus comes into the story and starts restoration. Ultimately he will come again and make ugly sinful situations ancient history.

Until then what is a person supposed to do? I suppose one could simply continue to redeem the world while praying to God to come again quickly. But that doesn't seem to give us much hope for today. The Lord's prayer indicates that we can experience some change today, "your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Through Christ's death on the cross we can experience some of heaven today. We can help restore this broken world to what God intended, because Christ has already begun this work. It may be frustrating as we see the problems around us and it may seem futile at times but God is stronger and more gracious than we can imagine. Therefore our service to him is never in vain.

Posted by Danny