Israel wants justice for the moral atrocity of Gibeah. That is a good thing. And the Lord used Israel’s outrage to discipline Gibeah and Benjamin. But Israel’s sense of justice is distorted. Justice demanded the execution of the worthless fellows of Gibeah, the New Sodom, and the Benjamites who came out to fight for them. But did the Lord’s justice not demand putting to death all the civilians—men, women, and children—and completely destroying the rest of Benjamin’s towns? Hardly. Why then did they go beyond his justice?
By contrast, they did not do all that God commanded, in the case of the Levite. They did not follow due process after hearing just his testimony. The Lord’s justice calls for that. Why did Israel they not do all that God commanded in this case? And then, why did they not react with moral outrage at other serious sins going on at that very time in Israel, that we saw with Micah, the other Levite, and the Danites? There was rank idolatry, murder, and other sins, at a personal and tribal level. The Lord’s justice called for discipline in these cases. But Israel responded with indifference.
Where does a distorted view of true justice leave you? It leaves you with a zeal without balance. It leaves you in a place where certain things set you off, and other things you tolerate.
So we see our own hearts. Do you have a fervent zeal for all the things for which the Lord is zealous? Do you have a passion to follow the decrees of the Lord, and to fight the enemies of the Lord, Satan, and sin? Or, are you zealous to follow God more in some areas than in others? Are there places where you have the determination, thoroughness, and vigour to deal with a sin, all the while ignoring other places where there are moral problems that need discipline and uprooting?
To ask it differently, are you ever zealous to take the speck out of your neighbour’s eye without paying any attention to the giant beam coming out of your own eye? Are you ever over-exacting, self-righteous, addressing and disciplining the sin of somebody else without being aware of your own sins? Husbands, do you do this toward your wives, using your headship to zealously correct your spouse? Wives, do you do this toward your husbands, when you see behaviour that bothers you? Parents, do you expect as much or more from your children than you do from yourselves, and then discipline them when they don’t measure? Do we in the church look at our neighbour, and get animated about little faults of theirs, wishing they would basically just be as good and upright as we are, while we forget how petty, childish, and self-focused we can be? If you answer Yes to any of these questions, our text is a warning to your pride, which expands the more it gazes on the sins of others. And, the greater our pride is, the more twisted and distorted our zeal for justice becomes. We become more and more dedicated to making sure others do all that the Lord has commanded them than seeing to it that we ourselves follow him wholeheartedly, weeding out our own sin, putting it to death.
45 And they turned and fled toward the wilderness to the rock of Rimmon. Five thousand men of them were cut down in the highways. And they were pursued hard to Gidom, and 2,000 men of them were struck down.