“This is crazy. These are Israelites. Mom refers to God by the holy name Yahweh (all caps LORD in 2&3). She dedicates her blessing to the LORD. The name Micah means who is like Yahweh. Micah and his mom aren’t ignorant of God. Yet, they are carrying on—blessing the LORD by making an idol and self-appointing a priest over the shrine of idols—as if they are doing nothing wrong.”
“It gets crazier. In 7-8, we meet a real-life priest, a Levite looking for a job. …There is a lot wrong with this Levite. First, Levites don’t sojourn. As priests, they lived and served where and how they were appointed (Joshua 21:2). But this Levite is doing his own thing with no clear goal. He is a DIY priest. He allows Micah to do what Micah has no authority to do—ordain him. Now, the Levite is serving not in the house of God but in the house of Micah, a pagan shrine filled with idols.”
“This is DIY religion to the core. Make your own gods. Build your own shrine. Hire your own priest. Be the kind of priest you want to be. Worship how, when, and where you want according to your preferences and advantages. All in the name of Yahweh.”
“How does this happen? We don’t have to guess. The opening words of Ch. 18—In those days there was no king in Israel— remind us that DIY religion wasn’t an isolated situation in the hill country of Ephraim. Remember the tribe of Dan? The tribe that gave us Samson? They enter the story as nomads.”
“After not doing things God’s way—driving out Canaanites—Ch 18:1-11 shows us how Dan took a DIY approach to securing land. Wouldn’t you know it? They ended up at Micah’s place and recognized the accent of his freelancing Levite. Knowing he is a man of the cloth, they ask him to ask God if their mission will be successful.”
“In 7-13, the men went north with the blessing of the Levite, where they found Laish, a prosperous town that is unsuspecting and isolated, making it easy to conquer. They report back to home base. They get the go-ahead to attack. They grab 600 soldiers and head back to Laish. On the way, they stop off at Micah’s again.”
“Micah recognizes they have taken his idols and priest. He chases the Danite army down to get his idols and priest back. When Micah catches up to them, he complains that they took everything from him.”
“The identity of the rogue priest is finally revealed: Jonathan, Son of Gershom, grandson of Moses. Even the house of Moses, the man through whom God said—You will serve and worship me this way, has been corrupted with DIY religion.”
“There is the beginning of Judges, then the cycle of Judges in 3-16, the last being Samson. The third section, 17-21, serves as snapshots of Israel’s spiritual demise. Dan serves as the poster child of the DIY religion of Israel. They went out and got their own land, worshiped their own idols, established a rival worship center to Shiloh, and appointed their own fake priests. This went on for centuries until, as 29 says, Assyria captured them in 720 BC.”
“The DIY revolution began long before our time. Micah and his mother, Jonathan the rogue priest and the tribe of Dan, all God’s people, serving themselves by serving Yahweh their own way.”
“God is not a buffet offering Himself up for our preferences and ambitions. That’s the Do It Yourself religion. That’s what Micah, his mother, Jonathan, the tribe of Dan, and all of Israel were are guilty of. They aren’t atheists. They use the name Yahweh. They have a priest. They have a place to worship. But all that is just a veneer. In reality, they are living for themselves. They worship God according to their circumstances and their preferences.”
“Here are the questions we must ask ourselves: Who determines my beliefs? Who shapes my decisions? Who establishes my priorities? Who fuels my passions? Who decides when and how you participate in corporate worship? We just did a seven-week series from the Bible on The Sunday Gathering. Has anything changed in your worship, or are you still worshipping God in your own way?”
“God doesn’t give us that freedom in His kingdom. It’s His kingdom, not ours. In Matthew 6, Jesus taught his disciples to pray this way—Father, your kingdom come, MY will be done. He didn’t say that, did he? He said—Your kingdom come, YOUR will be done. [emphasis added].”
“Micah’s idols are gone, and his response is—Now I have nothing. Let that be a sober warning against idolatry in our own lives. Idolatry always leaves us empty-handed. Like Jeremiah 2:13 says—They are like broken cisterns that cannot hold water. In all their shininess and promise, the things of this world can’t give us what we need. They always fail us. They always leave us saying—I have nothing!”
“Jesus says there are only two ways to build your life: On the sinking sand of self or the solid rock of Christ. You either believe in Jesus, or you reject Jesus. You are either in the light or you are in the dark. You are either with God, or you are against God. You are either justified in a crucified and risen Christ, or you are condemned in your sin. If you build your way, verse 24 is what you get. Here is where Micah’s response in 24 is exceedingly hopeful. If you build God’s way, no matter what happens in this life, you could lose all you have but still have everything because Jesus is everything.”
“This is where the Book of Judges points us. We do have a king. He is sufficient. He is superior. He is all-satisfying. Of all the things we can do ourselves, Jesus did what we could never do ourselves. He did exactly what his Father asked him to do for our sake, even giving up his own life.”
ADDITIONAL SCRIPTURE:
Philippians 2:5-8
QUOTES:
Barry Webb - “Judges 17 is full of religious words, objects, activities, and persons, but none of it is governed by respect for God’s Law or to honor him as an end in itself. Rather this has all been about people using religion to serve their own interests—a mother to indulge her son, a Levite to secure a better life for himself, and Micah to achieve prosperity by adding a veneer of orthodoxy to his idolatrous shrine.”
APPLICATION:
- Who do you serve? Who is running your life? Who determines how you live?
The Christian confession can be reduced to three words—Jesus is Lord. He has brought his kingdom, of which he is the king. If you profess to be part of his kingdom, is he your King? Is Jesus your Lord? Or are you your own Lord cherry-picking the things Jesus taught and commanded?
Where have you become a DIY Christian? Where is your life being led by your personal preferences, circumstances, convenience, and ambitions instead of Jesus? How are you writing your own script? That’s the challenge for us—we want to write our own script instead of submitting our lives to God’s script (Bible).
Let today be the day we all come to our King on bended knee, repenting of our idols, embracing our blood-bought forgiveness, and holding fast to the grace and promises of our great Lord and King Jesus until he returns for us.
