Judges | Chapter 17

Judges Chapter 17:1-13

“Let’s Make God in our Image!”

  • Introduction
  • Vs. 1-6 Who is like me
  • Vs. 7-13 I did it my way

Introduction

At this stage in the book of Judges it is good to remind ourselves as to the reason Samuel (the last of the prophets) compiled this 350 year record of the judges of Israel. He did so on the eve of the nation’s desire to be like the nations around them and have a king. Samuel’s point is that their trouble was not in the form of government that they had, it was in the fact they didn’t have God on the throne of their hearts!

At this point in the book of Judges after Samson we have an appendix to the book as the chronological history ends and what remains is not in order. The events described in the final five chapters take place earlier in the book of Judges before the 41 year rule of the Philistines. They chronicle religious people (tribes of Dan and Benjamin) who first live in religious corruption (chapters 17-18) then moral corruption (chapters 19-21). The key to understanding these 5 chapters lies in the twice repeated phrase “everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (17:6, 21:25). In that statement we learn two very important truths as it relates to His Church today:

  • The Israelites didn’t do what was wrong in their own eyes: They were convinced that they were doing what was right. Their value system, moral and religious standards had lost touch with God’s Word. But they were still right in their own eyes!
  • These two stories reveal a “cause and effect” of the destruction of God’s people and the nation He had blessed them with: When people “spiritually” do what is right in their own eyes, it is only a matter of time before they do what is morally right in their own eyes…even within the walls of His church!

I’m told that deep up in the Sulphur Mountains of the Canadian Rockies outside of the town of Banff is an area famous for its views and its wildlife specifically their mountain goats. There are signs everywhere not to feed them the leftovers from the Teahouse Restaurant that sits atop the mountain. The reason is they got hooked on the junk food and as a result neglected their normal diet of grass and began to lose weight and become sickly. One of the rangers explained it this way, “Sheep develop a taste for junk. I wish people would realize their kindness amounts to cruelty.” Folks that is not just true for four legged sheep, it is true for us two legged variety as well, spiritual junk food; it is like candy counterparts share four things in common:

  1. It always tastes good
  2. It doesn’t immediately destroy us
  3. It has little or no nutritional value
  4. It spoils our appetites for what IS good for us

We become spiritual junk food addicts to what only satisfies our taste buds which results in our spiritual starvation. Author Eugene Peterson made this observation regarding today’s church; “We have celebrities but not saints…people aimless and bored that amuse themselves with trivia and trash”

Samuel compiled this first story in which we will see three types of spiritual junk food that Micah and his Levite priest offered:

  1. Chapter 17:1-6 Self-made religion: It offers prosperity and popularity at no cost
  2. Chapter 17:7-13 Self-seeking service: It offers service but only for personal advancement or benefit
  3. Chapter 18:1-10, 72-31 Self pleasing lifestyle: It offers everything you want out of religion without having to change anything about your lifestyle

To copy a Miller Lite commercial, it claims to be “Less filling and tastes great.” Churches across our land have adopted this formula of church growth because numerically it works! If the hireling shepherd directs God’s sheep in these areas of “spiritual junk food” his church will grow in numbers and people will leave the grass of grace found in the Word of God for the “snicker bar” that tastes great but has no spiritual value. And as more leave to the “less filling and tastes great” church, those that have depleting numbers feel they have to switch to this same type of “spiritual junk food” under the guise that God is blessing the growth for these other churches, and all the while God’s sheep become more and more sickly! 

Saints hear me that God only adds from those He saves, not from those already saved!!

Vs. 1-6 Who is like me

Vs. 1-4 The man, (Micah) “Who is like the Lord” lived in the hill country of Ephraim in an area where the Tabernacle was located in Shiloh, He was a thief but he was obviously from a well to do family as he store from his mother what equals 110 years of wages, It seems that he was also superstitious as it was the fear of the curse of his mother and not the fear of the Lord that caused Micah to return the money. The facts about Micah are he is:

  • A man that was starting his own religion right next door to the place where the TRUE God’s tabernacle was. This was not due to lack of availability, but opportunity.
  • A wealthy man stealing from what amounted to his own family’s wealth. 
  • A practical man living aa superstitious lifestyle.

All totaled Micah broke 7 out of the 10 commandments without leaving home and he doesn’t even appear to be the least bit concerned over it. 

His mother having placed a curse upon the money reverses this and makes it a blessing once she finds out that the thief was her son, Perhaps her reasoning was that though her son was a thief at least he is an honest one. The apple didn’t fall far from the tree as she also is a thief as she tells her boy that she dedicated the full amount to the Lord on his behalf for the construction idols. But as we read down a few words we find out that she took out 200 shekels of that gave it to the silversmith for the idols but happened to the other 900 shekels? So, like her son she is a walking contradiction. 

  • She rewards her son for being an honest thief
  • She gives money to construct idols for the God who forbids such action
  • She says she has given the full 1,100 to the Lord but keeps 900 for herself

Like her son, she has a thin veneer of worship towards God over a substance of idolatry. Not only did she not correct Micah she funded his idolatry! And Micah did all of this only a few miles from the site where God’s tabernacle was located. His shrine may have been beautiful, it many attracted many visitors but it distracted people from the true God and nothing was nothing more than a home-made substitute self-made god.  

Vs. 5-6 Micah establishes an elaborate religious system:

  • First, he sets up a shrine: A small temple where others could come and worship these idols.
  • Second, he fabricates an ephod: In doing this Micah imitating the worship at the Tabernacle of God by making a specific garment worn by priests of Israel.
  • Third, he makes additional household idols: Micah also made household gods that were worshipping in hopes of gaining prosperity and guidance. 
  • Finally, he consecrated one of his sons to become his priest: Micah established priesthood among his sones establishing a rival religion in Israel. 

The result was a man-centered religion that was to serve and please man, not God. Micah was not worshipping Baal or some false god, he was trying to worship the true God his own way. This is very clear in the Hebrew as we are told in verse 13 when Micah says, “Now I know that the Lord (YAHWEH) will be good to me” Micah was creating idols to enhance his worship experience, but this is wrong for two reasons:

  • Nothing we create with our own hands, imaginations, creativity, or belief systems, can ever come close to the nature and character of God as found in His Word. They amount to a stick drawing portrait that only mars the original, like graffiti on the Mona Lisa!
  • Secondly, inevitable people will worship their creation above the original which theirs was created to represent. Soon people will be more interested in preserving the flawed copy then the original and will do so at any and every cost. 

Micah is guilty of handcrafting a god into the image that he wanted and then gluing biblical names to it. What’s even more amazing to me as you spring ahead to chapter 18:24 and Micah says, “You’ve taken away all my gods and my priest and I have nothing left! As Micah was guilty of doing this, he didn’t do so unaware of what he was doing! In Chapter 18:31 we are told that not only did Micah do this but the tribe around him continued to use his false god and false system all the while only being a few miles from where the true God would have met them. It had nothing to do with availability or convenience and everything to do with the refusal to simply seek God out in His word.  Micah created religion without a God who continues to reveal Himself, a religion that was safe because it only did what Micah wanted it to do but at the price of the continual presence of God! 


Vs. 7-13 I did it my way

Vs. 7-13 We now come to the 2nd character in this story a “Young Levite from Bethlehem to stay wherever he could find a place. This Levite was an opportunist, a mercenary missionary looking for personal betterment. Now it you do your homework you will realize that this wasn’t his first move as Bethlehem was not a Levitical city. He was into self-promotion and wasn’t letting God direct his life or his calling. 

This type of self-service isn’t all that uncommon today many Christians will leave a church simply because not enough people pay attention to them and choose another church by asking “What can this Church do for me?”

The next stage of this Levites career happens as he meets Micah and two men without any principals get together. Even though Micah’s religion was in place, his son was looking for a bigger opportunity a chance to move up. But verse 10 tells us that the Levite became Micah’s priest not the Lord’s servant. I’m afraid that a lot of us who serve as priests today are the people’s priests and not the Lord’s servant as they spend God’s resources pleasing the people instead of pleasing the Lord.  

A Levite was not to be a priest in numbers 16 Korah tried to act as priest outside the scope of God’s calling and the ground opened and swallowed him. This Levite had refused God’s calling in his life as to the location and the type of service and made his own choices. Next week we shall see that instead of just being Micah’s priest the Danites will steal him and Micah’s religion away and instead of being over a family he will be a bishop over a tribe.  

The man who had become dissatisfied serving the Lord will become the apostate priest of an entire tribe and things were happening, book deals, conference guest speaking radio and T.V. and people were leaving the true worship of God for a substitute that pleased their palates!

There is one last thing about this unnamed Levite and that has to do with his identity. In 18:30 we are told his name is Jonathan the son of Gershom, the son of Manasseh different. The Jewish scribes were so embarrassed by this Levite’s connection to one ancestor that they added one Hebrew letter to change the ancestor to Manasseh from … MOSES! That’s right, this upwardly mobile minister, this mercenary missionary was a great grandson of Moses. Instead of seeking God’s place Jonathan was seeking his place in the world, climbing the ladder of Christian promotion, wanting notoriety, attention, and praise. 

How different from his grandfather Moses as we read in Numbers 12:3 that “Moses was more humble than any other person on earth.”

Far too many of God’s shepherds are following after the idols of ministry success: Multitudes of people, big buildings, reputation and a big salary. These types of hirelings find it easy to gather congregations as people leave their established church to go after all the excitement down the road because clearly “God is blessing because the people who left their previous churches to go there.”