Offering Right Worship!

Judges 17

Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Monday, March 7.

As the book of Judges starts to come to an end with its final two stories, the situation has worsened for Israel. To explain the setting for the story of the Ephraimite Micah and his Levite priest, Judges 17:6 reminded the reader, “In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes.” The absence of a strong central leader in Israel was responsible for not only the anarchy of the tribes, culminating in civil war by the end of the book, but also to the widespread religious apostasy, which is the focus of this chapter.

Apostasy is not necessarily a walking away from being religious or spiritual, but, rather, it is the decision to step off the prescribed way of one’s faith. Plainly speaking, it is a breaking of the covenant as established by God for our good. It’s offering a form of worship that God does not accept. That is what is described in Judges 17:5, “And the man Micah had a shrine and he made an ephod and household idols and consecrated one of his sons, that he might become his priest.”

Clearly Micah was a religious person, but the making of a house shrine, with the worship of household idols, and the consecration of his son as a priest, was not an acceptable form of worship to God. Micah was an ambiguous character, and while he does not seem to be filled with evil intent, he was simply doing what was right in his own eyes and wandered out of the way. It was this sort of misguided behavior that went unchecked by strong leadership, that ultimately led to the corruption of the priesthood and the people, ending in the nation’s destruction.

Seize the moment and walk in the way of God! Follow the way of Jesus and worship God in spirit and in truth (John 4:24).

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