How Low Can God’s People Go?

One of the most disturbing chapters in the Bible is Judges 19. It's a chapter many Christians have never read—or if they have, they've wondered why God would include such a horrific story in Scripture.

The answer is simple: because it serves as a warning.

Judges 19 is not included to shock us for shock's sake. It is meant to hold up a mirror and ask a difficult question: What happens when God's people reject God's rule?

The tragedy isn't merely that Israel became morally corrupt. The tragedy is that God's covenant people began to resemble the very darkness they were supposed to stand against. The author intentionally echoes the story of Sodom in Genesis 19, forcing us to realize that the spiritual disease Israel once condemned had taken root within her own borders.

That warning still speaks today.

It's easy to grieve the moral decline of our culture. It's easy to point at headlines, politics, entertainment, or society and say, "Look how far we've fallen."

But Scripture consistently reminds us that revival begins with God's people. Before we point outward, we're called to look inward.

Peter writes, "For the time has come for judgment, and it must begin with God's household" (1 Peter 4:17).

The Levite in Judges 19 exposed the sins of others while refusing to confront his own. Sadly, that temptation remains alive today. We can become experts at outrage while remaining strangers to repentance.

The gospel offers a far better way.

The Levite used another person's broken body to awaken outrage. Jesus willingly gave His own body to awaken repentance, forgiveness, and new life.

The answer to a culture doing what is right in its own eyes is not louder outrage. It is a church joyfully returning to the gracious rule of King Jesus.

This week, before asking, "How did the world get this bad?" ask a different question:

"Lord, where have I resisted Your rule?"

Real renewal always begins there.