Judges 16:30-18:31
It is a sad thing, as we have remarked, when the Church gives up her separated position, but it’s also sad to talk of a separated position, without practical separation from the world. If we do this, it will not be long until we, like Samson, give up such a position to please our friends whom we have made outside the true path of faith.
Samson’s parents went down, and took him up, to bury him. Thank God, no true child of God can ever be lost, nor will anything done for Christ in obedience to His Word ever be forgotten, but may the Lord keep our feet walking in His ways in these days of testing. Samson was brought up in a separated home, as perhaps the one who reads these lines has been, but it is only by cleaving to the Lord with purpose of heart that we are kept faitul to Him.
“O Lamb of God, still keep us
Close to Thy pierced side;
‘Tis only there in safety
And peace we can abide.”
The seventeenth chapter begins a new section of the book of Judges, for it gives us a little insight into the sad condition into which the people fell, so soon after God had brought them into the land. It is not the enemy’s power oppressing them, which we find here, but their own evil state within, and thus we often read these words, “In those days there was no king in Israel.” Refusing to own Jehovah as their king, they fell into all forms of evil.
In the chapter before us we see how they still used the name of the Lord, but connected it with idolatry, just as we find so commonly today; and there seemed to be little, if any, conscience about cursing and stealing. We also find the origin here, of the idea of a man being clothed, fed, and paid to be a priest by human appointment. Micah, the householder here, thought everything must be right because he had a Levite for his priest, and the young Levite who took the position was happy and content to do whatever Micah required, for it was he who paid him. It was simply a place and an easy occupation he was seeking.
The children of Dan sought to expand their coast, at this time, and, after spying out the land, they gathered an army to capture Laish. It was a typical example of the state of things in those heathen cities, where they did not fear God nor regard man, and nothing put them to shame, we are told. When the spies came to the house of Micah, they asked the young Levite to inquire of the Lord for them, and he told them, “Go in peace; before the Lord is your way wherein ye go.” When these Danites returned with their army to capture Laish they came to the house of Micah, stole his idols, and persuaded the young Levite to come with them and be the priest of the tribe of Dan.
Like many a “hireling” today, he was glad to be a priest to so many. It was pleasing to have “a larger congregation” and he willingly accepted “the call,” without any thought of what the Lord would have him do. Alas, he had the miserable “honor” of becoming the priest of the tribe of Dan, who were the first to set up idolatrous worship as a tribe, setting aside God’s center at Shiloh. What a solemn thing it is to have to do with the One who knows the secrets of the heart—even all our moves and motives.
ML 01/10/1954