Message 9
Chapters 17—21
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Scripture Reading: Judg. 17, Judg. 18
In this life-study of the books of Joshua, Judges, and Ruth, we are concerned not with history but with learning from the types how to gain Christ and enjoy Him. The history contained in these books is a great type that shows how God’s elect can gain and enjoy the good land, which is a complete and all-inclusive type of Christ. Even the small details show us the secret of gaining and enjoying Christ, just as in our daily life something as small as shopping for an article of clothing can be a factor in whether or not we obtain Christ and enjoy Christ.
When we were saved, we were brought into a fellowship of the Divine Trinity with His redeemed and regenerated people. From that time God and we have been in a fellowship. First John 1:3 says, “That which we have seen and heard we report also to you that you also may have fellowship with us, and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.” This fellowship is between the apostles and God and between the believers and the apostles. The full salvation of God is in this fellowship. It is in this fellowship that we can gain what God has given us, that is, the Son of God given to us by God as our allotted portion.
If we remain in this fellowship, we will have the way to gain and enjoy Christ. If our fellowship with God is cut off, we will lose our enjoyment immediately. Concerning this, the Lord Jesus uses the word abide and speaks of our abiding in Him as the vine (John 15:4). The vine is a figure of the all-inclusive Christ under God’s cultivation. As long as the branch abides in the vine, there is fellowship. But once a branch ceases to abide in the vine, the branch is cut off, becomes barren and dry, and loses the enjoyment of the riches of the vine (vv. 5-6).
The fellowship of life is not a rough matter but is very fine. Even a little word spoken with an improper attitude is enough to cut us off from the fellowship of life.
Our enjoyment of Christ is essential. Our fellowship can speed up the turning of the great wheel of God’s move in the universe. But if we are cut off from the fellowship just a little, God’s economy will not be able to go forward for a period of time. Therefore, we need to be careful every day and in every detail, keeping ourselves in the enjoyment of Christ all the time. Then God’s economy will be able to go forward.
In Revelation 22:20 the Lord Jesus said, “I come quickly,” but today there is no sign that He is coming, because the wheel has not had an adequate opportunity to turn. If the saints in the Lord’s recovery take care of all the items of the intrinsic significances of the books of Joshua, Judges, and Ruth, the Lord will be able to come back much sooner. However, doing things without taking care of the inner feeling, the sense of life within, may delay the Lord for a longtime.
The rebellion that took place in 1959-1965 in Taiwan delayed the Lord very much. When we began the ministry there in 1949, we increased nearly a hundred-fold in just a few years. Since the rebellion the rate of increase has never been the same. The recent rebellion in the recovery has also delayed the Lord and, in certain respects, hindered the move of the wheel of God’s economy. For this reason, I have been stressing the intrinsic significances in Joshua and Judges. I have been doing this not only to show that God has given us Christ as the good land but also to show how we can possess and enjoy this land for generations to come.
Being saved is easy, but remaining in the fellowship with God to enjoy Christ is not easy. Many fundamental Christians preach that Christ, the Son of God, is the Savior of sinners, but they may know very little, if anything, about the fellowship with the Triune God.
At this juncture, let us consider the situation of Israel as it is presented in Judges 17 and 18. In their degradation Israel became chaotic in three ways: in government, in worship, and in morality. They had no government, no administration. God’s tabernacle was at Shiloh, and the high priest had the Urim and Thummim, but there was no administration. Judges 17 and 18 reveal the abominable chaos in the children of Israel’s worship. Micah set up a house of gods in his home. His mother consecrated silver to Jehovah to make an idol and a molten image. Micah then set up a house of gods, made an ephod and teraphim, and consecrated one of his sons to be his priest. The ephod signifies the authority of God, without which no one can worship God. Later, Micah consecrated a Levite to be his house priest, paying him a salary of ten pieces of silver a year plus an array of clothing and his food. In those days the Danites robbed Micah of his idol, the ephod, the teraphim, and the molten image with his priest, and with them they set up another worship place in the city of Dan, while God’s tabernacle remained in Shiloh. The result was two worship centers — the proper one with God’s tabernacle at Shiloh and the improper one in Dan. That was the chaos of the children of Israel in their worship.
We may apply this picture to the present situation of Christianity. Today’s Christianity has many “houses of Micah,” the most prominent of which is the Roman Catholic Church. The Roman Catholic Church has set up idols, made its own “ephod,” and set up its own priests. According to the New Testament all those who are born of God should be priests (1 Pet. 2:5, 9), but Catholicism has hired its own priests and set up a hierarchy under a pope. In principle, Catholicism is the same as the house of Micah in Judges. The state churches, the denominations, and many of the independent groups are also houses of Micah, full of idols as replacements of Christ.
Not everything in Christianity is wrong, but everything is a mixture. It is like the woman who hid leaven in three measures of meal until the whole was leavened (Matt. 13:33). The meal signifies Christ as food for God and for His people. The leaven signifies evil things (1 Cor. 5:6, 8) and evil doctrines (Matt. 16:6, 11-12). Micah’s mother offered something to God, but her offering to God was mixed with the leaven of idolatry. Today the same mixture and chaotic situation exists in Christianity.
Let us now turn to Judges 17 and 18 and consider what these chapters have to say regarding the abominable chaos in Israel’s worship.
Judges 17:1-6 tells us that Micah, a man from the hill country of Ephraim, set up a house of gods in his house.
Micah took eleven hundred pieces of silver from his mother without her knowing it (v. 2a).
Micah’s mother uttered a curse and spoke it in his hearing (v. 2b).
Micah confessed to his mother that he stole the silver, and she said, “Blessed of Jehovah be my son!” (v. 2c).
Micah returned the silver to his mother, and she consecrated the silver to Jehovah from her hand to her son to make an idol and a molten image. She gave two hundred pieces of the silver to the founder, who made them into an idol and a molten image (vv. 3-4).
Micah set up a house of gods. He also made an ephod and teraphim and consecrated one of his sons to become his priest (v. 5).
Verse 6 says that in those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did that which was right in his own eyes.
In verses 7 through 13 we see that Micah consecrated a Levite to be his house priest.
The Levite was a young man from Bethlehem in Judah, of the family of Judah. He was a sojourner, traveling in order to dwell wherever he could find a place (vv. 7-9).
Micah asked this young man to stay with him and be a father and a priest to him, promising to pay him ten pieces of silver a year and an array of clothing and his food (v. 10).
The Levite was content to stay with Micah, and the young man was to Micah like one of his sons (v. 11).
Micah consecrated the Levite to be his priest in his house. Then Micah said, “Now I know that Jehovah will prosper me, because the Levite has become my priest” (vv. 12-13).
In chapter eighteen we see that the Danites robbed Micah of his sculptured idol, the ephod, the teraphim, and the molten image with his priest.
In those days there was no king in Israel, and the tribe of the Danites sought for themselves an inheritance to dwell in, for unto that day the lot had not fallen for them on an inheritance among the tribes of Israel (v. 1).
The children of Dan sent five men from among all of them, men of valor, to spy out the land and search it out. They came to the country of Ephraim, to the house of Micah, and they lodged there (v. 2).
The five men recognized the voice of the young Levite man, and they asked him, “Who brought you here? And what are you doing in this place? And what do you have here?” (v.3). When the Levite explained that Micah had hired him to be his priest, they said to him, “Inquire now of God that we may know if our way on which we are going will be prosperous” (vv. 4-5).
The priest ordained by Micah said to the five men, “Go in peace; your way on which you are going is before Jehovah” (v. 6).
The five men left and came to Laish. They saw the people who were in it, dwelling quiet and secure. Then they went back to their brothers and asked them to go to take possession of the land, saying, “God has indeed delivered it into your hand” (vv. 7-10).
Six hundred men girded with weapons of war set out from the family of Dan and came to the house of Micah in the hill country of Ephraim (vv. 11-13).
The five men who had gone to spy the land of Laish entered into the house of the young Levite, the house of Micah, with six hundred men girded with weapons of war standing at the entrance of the gate, to seize the sculptured idol, the ephod, the teraphim, and the molten image. When the priest asked them what they were doing, they said to him, “Is it better for you to be a priest for the house of one man or a priest for a tribe and family in Israel?” (vv. 14-19).
The young priest’s heart was glad. He took the ephod, the teraphim, and the sculptured idol and went into the midst of the people. Thus, the Danites robbed Micah of all the idols and the priest with which he worshipped God (vv. 20-26).
Taking the idols which Micah had made and the priest that had been his, the Danites came to Laish, slew the people, burned the city, and called the name of the city Dan, according to the name of Dan their father (vv. 27-29).
The children of Dan erected the sculptured idol. Jonathan the son of Gershom, the son of Moses, he and his sons, became priests to the tribe of Dan until the day of the captivity of the land. They set up the sculptured idol that Micah had made the whole time that the house of God was in Shiloh (vv. 30-31).
