God's Justice Comes With Judah

Order of Service

• Call to Worship — Psalm 145:1-2, 3, 21
• Hymn — Psalm 145B (I Will Exalt You, God My King)
• Prayer of Invocation
• Heidelberg Catechism — Lord's Day 16, Questions 40–44
• Hymn — Jesus, Lover of My Soul (#450)
• Pastoral Prayer
• Sermon
• Hymn — How Long Will You Forget Me, Lord (#13)
• Benediction — 2 Corinthians 13:14

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Sermon Title: God's Justice Comes With Judah

Scripture: Judges 20

I. The Tragedy of God's Justice for Sin

A. The fracturing of fellowship

1. All Israel assembled — from Dan to Beersheba — but Benjamin was absent, treated as though outside the covenant people
2. The language throughout the passage distinguishes "the people of Israel" from "Benjamin," making us feel the grief of division within one covenant nation
3. Sin is the great divider; even Jesus taught that his coming would divide households (Matthew 10:34-36)

B. The hardening of hearts

1. Israel showed restraint — their initial request was only for Benjamin to hand over the guilty men of Gibeah (Judges 20:13)
2. Benjamin refused and immediately prepared for war, making the entire tribe complicit in the sin of the few
3. Refusing to deal with sin — whether by an individual, a church court, or a tribe — reveals a hardening heart and puts all in grave danger; sin left alone will always grow

C. The devastation of death

1. By the numbers: approximately 40,030 men of the eleven tribes killed; 25,100 men of Benjamin killed — over 65,000 dead
2. Romans 6:23 — the wages of sin is death; physical death as well as spiritual death is the consequence of sin from the earliest pages of Scripture
3. As Matthew Henry observed, war is a tragedy that commonly destroys the stage it is acted on

II. The Triumph of God's Justice for Sin

A. The sharing of righteous anger

1. Eleven tribes united as one man to purge evil from Israel, reflecting the holy anger of God who is a consuming fire
2. At nearly every step Israel checks in with the Lord — verses 20:18, 20:23, and 20:27 — not wanting to run ahead of God
3. The Lord's final word — "Go up, for tomorrow I will give them into your hand" (Judges 20:28) — language previously reserved for pagan enemies, now spoken of Benjamin
4. God's people today join with him in this same pursuit through church discipline and the serious treatment of sin among members

B. The sharing of righteous anguish

1. Israel's losses on the first two days drive them to weeping, fasting, and offering sacrifices before the Lord (Judges 20:23, 26)
2. Dane Ortland: God is free of fallen emotion but not all emotion — there are places in Scripture where God's heart is inflamed with pity and compassion for his people
3. Christ himself displays the grief of God perfectly — "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem… how often I would have gathered your children together" (Matthew 23:37)
4. When God's people grieve over sin and pursue justice for it, they share in both God's anger and his anguish

III. The Trajectory of God's Justice for Sin

A. Judah goes first — and why it matters

1. When Israel asks who shall go first, the Lord answers: "Judah shall go up first" (Judges 20:18)
2. Jacob's blessing promised Judah a lion's cub, the scepter, and the obedience of the peoples (Genesis 49:8-10) — a line of kings from Judah
3. Judah goes first throughout Israel's history: through the wilderness, at the opening of Judges against the Canaanites, and now against Benjamin
4. Judges is making a theological argument not merely for a king, but for a king from Judah — not Saul of Benjamin, but David of Judah, the man after God's own heart, with whom God covenants that an heir will sit on the throne forever

B. The trajectory runs to Christ, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah

1. God's chosen everlasting king comes from Judah — and that trajectory leads to Christ Jesus
2. Christ goes first — he leads the charge into battle for his people, bearing in himself both the tragedy and the triumph of God's justice for sin
3. He weeps over Jerusalem; he drinks the cup of undiluted wrath on the cross; he cries, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" — and then, "It is finished"
4. Isaiah 53:10-11 — out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; God himself bore the full cost of justice for the sins of his people
5. To harden the heart against this king is to be left to pay that cost alone — eternally; to come to him in faith is to receive life abundantly (John 10:10)