When we read passages like this we tend to think of them as being distant in time and place and altogether strange. These events happened over 3,000 years ago, over 3,000 miles away, but they give us spiritual insight in a dark world right here.
But people don’t change all that much. What we’re going to see here is full of 21st-Century, online, media-driven insanity.
And the Lord doesn’t change at all. So we’re also going to see how he is still perfect and wise in his judgments, true to his own righteousness, and ultimately gracious in calling sinners to repentance and reconciliation.
This is God’s call to peace in a godless, messed-up world.
These notes accompany a sermon on YouTube delivered in July 2026 at Bromborough Evangelical Church Wirral. You can find more in the series in our sermon index.
Cry out to God over the sins of others (1-10)
We left Samson in chapter 16, and then the rest of the book falls into two sections: 17 & 18, and then 19-21. We’ll have the children with us from next week, so we’re taking them in reverse order.
Chapter 19 is a detailed description of sordid events. A Levite (a man from the tribe of Levi) had a concubine (a kind of second-tier wife, usually without inheritance rights). She was unfaithful, left him, and returned to her father. So the Levite went to get her back. On their way home, they went to Gibeah overnight. There the men of the town tried first to rape the Levite, so he handed his concubine over instead. They raped her and left her for dead. He loaded her on the donkey, and when he got home he cut her up into pieces and sent the parts across the land.
Needless to say, there was uproar. It’s grotesque.
Why did he do it? Instead of appealing to God, crying out for justice from the Judge of all the earth, he cried out to society. He wanted vengeance, so he pulled off a horrible publicity stunt designed to get maximum reaction (it still does).
This is a case of manufactured victimhood. He’s hardly an innocent party, but he takes action to make it look like he’s a helpless victim. His account in v4-6 doesn’t explain how he threw her out to the gang in Gibeah to save his own skin.And it’s not even clear when she died or who murdered her: He found her at the door in the morning with her hand on the doorstep – such a heartbreaking image. But was she dead then? It’s not clear. Did he kill her? It’s not said.
Media manipulation
He diverts attention away from himself with his knife. It’s media manipulation. Our society is full of this stuff.
A powerful narrative is created to direct public sentiment.
Same-sex relationships were illegal until 1967, and obviously now they have the full legal status marriage. How did that happen? By carefully curated narrative and media manipulation – films, drama, stories of injustice against the LGBT community, and so on.
The same is happening in relation to euthanasia and assisted suicide: Public sentiment is being changed by powerful emotional appeals. Humans are narrative people. We engage with stories much more than facts and statistics.
Politicians make use of this all the time.
The Levite would have loved Social Media. He’d have posted something on X or some other right-wing app about his mistreatment at Gibeah. Everyone would be outraged! But the response doesn’t always stay online. You remember the tragic death of 18-year-old Henry Nowak, dying as he was arrested by police. Online vigilantes wrongly identified a police officer called Christi Hill – and they went after her. She had to flee home and stay in a safe house until it was made clear that she had absolutely nothing to do with it.
How does it happen? Exactly as the Levite did it. You take a story sure to outrage everyone and you post the news in a way that everyone can see it and react together.
You might see these kind of things yourself online. You’re outraged – rightly so! We demand action – obviously! You might share the story yourself, or comment on it.
But here’s the thing: Who is crying out to the Lord?
Void of prayer
Remember the cycle in Judges: People sinned, so God handed them over to their enemies, then they cried out to God, who sent them a rescuer. But here, the cry isn’t to God; it’s to society. And the result is a self-salvation project, not a rescuer from God.
Our society is so saturated with violence that it barely makes the news: World Cup progress is a bigger headline than the brutal murder of a former cabinet minister. Abortion – the legalised killing of unborn children – is regarded as ‘birth control’ and ‘a good thing for women.’ We’re encouraged to support social injustices with cheap brands and Sunday trading.
And here’s the problem: God’s own people have lost our sense of outrage. You can’t see the wood for the trees. You’re so surrounded by shocking events that you don’t really see them any more: And you don’t cry out the Lord about them, you want the Government to do something.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, we’ve been chosen to be a holy priesthood of believers: That means we should be crying out to God for his mercy on this rebellious world. You can’t outsource social concern to the Christian Institute: It should stir your heart to prayer. Why is it that some of you can gather for a church business meeting but not for prayer? Why can you gather for a nice time together but not to cry out to God for the lost sinners around us?
Could it be that we’re blind to the sins of the world because we’re blind to our own sinfulness, having lost sight of the glory of God in Christ? We need spiritual insight in a dark world.
And don’t think I’m calling you to performative prayer that won’t kid anyone. Your private prayers should reflect a heart that grieves over sin. And that should then overflow into a burning desire to gather for public prayer: “We should pray!”
So much for the sins of others. Now:
Confess to God your own sins (11-16)
Back to Judges 20. The Levite has prompted Israel into action. He’s even got them acting as one, united against a common enemy. Even Deborah couldn’t manage that. But the problem here is that the enemy is one of their own tribes of Israel, the Benjaminites.
The Levite’s publicity stunt means that there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind: The men of Gibeah are guilty and deserving of punishment. So read Judges 20:13-14.
Spiritual darkness needs spiritual light, but when faced with truth in the cold light of day, the Benjaminites chose darkness. There’s a complete hard-hearted unwillingness to hear the charge or deal with the sin within. They want to protect their own. There’s no king, and no respect for God, so they feel they can live by their own rules.
And so sin feeds on itself. Wicked plans seem natural to wicked minds, and things escalate.
What had started as a brutal rape and murder ends up with tens of thousands of soldiers being killed in civil war. No-one is addressing the real enemy – a society of sinful godlessness based around the individual’s right to choose their own version of right and wrong.
Where does that “right” of choice get us? Around 600,000 people die each year in the UK. Another 300,000 unborn children never see the light of day
The thing is, we must call out sin for what it is. And when we realise that you have sinned, you must own it. Your sin will lead you to hell – eternal separation from God. You can’t undo that, or even offset it with lots of good. Your only hope is for God to forgive you.
Call for repentance
But that means you need to confess your sin and repent of it. Only then can you turn to God and ask him to forgive you.
Jesus said, “unless you repent, you will all perish” (Luke 13:3). He also said, “repentance for forgiveness of sins will be proclaimed” (Luke 24:47). Never assume you’re “in the right” with God because of your feelings or circumstance – or even your conscience.
God’s word is the only moral absolute. Seek it; obey it.
The Benjaminites withdrew from Israel to keep their sin. A lack of either love or desire for unity is often a sign of pride and wilful deafness in the face of God’s laws.
We said that you should cry out to God over the sins of others. That’s loving if your desire is their Christlikeness. But if you’re not prepared to confess your own sin then crying out to God is like praying over a speck in their eye while you have a plank in yours.
So listen – really listen and obey, God’s word. His commands: He commands you to sing, to pray always, to gather with God’s people (here), to witness, to love (your neighbour, other Christians). When I say such things, I’ve got no natural authority to tell you what to do – but these are the commands of God.
So what’s your immediate, natural reaction? Do you immediately start with the excuses? Do you have a wilful spiritual deafness – “Not me!” If your reaction to commands like that is anything other than submission to God, then repent! And if your reaction to being commanded to repent is also negative, then repent!
Unless you confess to God your own sin, you will never know peace with God, or peace within.
Glorify Christ: Confess, repent, and live for him.
Be a peace-maker (17-36)
Finally we come to the battle between Benjamin and the rest of Israel. It happened in three waves.
- In the first wave, there’s no serious reference to God except to ask him who should go out first. They want the Lord to bless their plan; they don’t think to ask him whether it’s the right plan. He says Judah is to go first – it’s a painful echo of chapter 1, except that the ‘enemy’ here is a brother.
- The second wave begins with weeping before the Lord (v23) – but it’s grief and loss, not repentance.
- When that wave fails, they go back to the Lord properly with fasting and sacrifice. Their failure against Benjamin seems to have been a judgment on Israel from the Lord. They had presumed on his judgment on Benjamin, while going about their own ridiculous plans. And so the third wave of battle is successful. And notice Judges 20:35 in particular. Their defeat was judgment from God.
If the first wave of attacks had succeeded, that would have been judgment against Benjamin but Israel would have continued in their apostasy (abandonment of God). They’d have remained confident in their self-righteousness.
But the Lord acts for his own glory, teaching us repentance and justice, along with utter dependence even when you do his work.
So in the end, Benjamin are utterly reduced and broken. They were wilfully unrepentant, and end up separated from God by their own choice. Hell is full of such people.
Israel were humbled before the Lord into a remembrance of dependance. They were reminded that they were, in fact, their own worst enemy. That’s spiritual insight in a dark world.
And the Lord was glorified in his justice and wisdom and (crucially) in how he called his people to himself.
The call to reconciliation
He led Israel through discipline – to himself, to reconciliation through sacrifice and a High Priest’s work.
Jesus said, “Blessed are the peace-makers for they will be called sons of God” (Matthew 5:9). Why say that? Because God is a peacemaker. A reconciler.
God drove foolish, sinful Israel to himself. And they came with tears and sacrifice. He still calls you to himself right now, and he has provided the sacrifice needed to atone for your sin:
Col 1:21-22 Once you were alienated and hostile in your minds as expressed in your evil actions. But now he has reconciled you by his physical body through his death, to present you holy, faultless, and blameless before him
God calls you to come in repentance of your sin, and he offers up Christ as the sacrifice for your sin for full reconciliation. Peace with God. Come to God for eternal life – he is calling you!
And knowing that, you then carry his ministry of reconciliation to the world: You’re his ambassador:
2 Cor 5:18-21 Everything is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and he has committed the message of reconciliation to us. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us. We plead on Christ’s behalf, “Be reconciled to God.” He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
The sin in your heart and mind drives God towards you in compassion. That sinful enmity draws his compassion and so he acts to bring you reconciliation: Justice as Jesus takes the punishment you deserve, peace with God as you’re credited with righteousness. And because the world around you is as broken today as it was in Judges 20, he calls you to take that message of reconciliation out today.
Summary
Cry out to God over the sins of others. Pray in private and together.
Confess to God your own sin – don’t just moan about the sins of others; be right with God.
Be a peacemaker – someone who knows reconciliation with God and takes that message out to a broken world.