Is There Any Hope?

We end our journey in the book of Judges with a story that is about as awful as you can find. The story focuses on a man and his concubine seeking a place to stay the night on the way to visit the Tabernacle. Believing he has found a place of hospitality, the story quickly turns ugly as the men from the city first try to take and rape the man, but instead tale his concubine, abuse and rape her to the point of death. The man's insane response leads to a civil war filled with violence against the tribe of Benjamin. The story just gets more violent and depraved from there, and at the center is the horrible treatment and abuse of women. This story and the book of Judges concludes with the theme statement, "In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes." Israel was supposed to be different because they had a different God. Sadly, their story just mimics those told by the unbelieving nations around them. We live in a world filled with abuse, violence, power grabs, and greed. Judges actually ends where human history keeps landing, leaving us with the question, "Is there any hope for a better story?" Thankfully, the story does not end here, as Judges prepares us for the coming of a king and God's Kingdom, with the promise that one day the True King will rescue His people and make everything sad untrue.