Moral Outrage is the Beginning of Revival

“So all the men of Israel were gathered against the city, knit together as one man.” (Jud 20:11 AV)

The background of this verse is perhaps one of the most unfortunate of all recorded events in the history of Israel.  There were so many moral failures that led to this verse.  A Levite took a harlot as a wife.  Both the Levite was in the wrong and so was the harlot.  She left him to play the harlot in her home town.  The Levite retrieves her, and on the way back home, she is repeatedly abused by the men of Gibeah.  The Levite awakes the next morning to find her dead on the front landing of the house.  He takes her body back home, dismembers it, and sends twelve pieces among the rest of the tribes of Israel.  They respond with outrage and gather themselves to take counsel as to what needs to be done to the men of Gibeah.  To say this is unfortunate is an understatement.  The response of the nation of Israel is that which we must contemplate this morning.

It is one thing to suffer moral failure to the degree which is recorded here.  But there is some encouragement here and a rebuke of our present condition.  When moral failure came, at least the nation was not so far gone that they failed to have feelings about what has transpired.  The fact there was moral outrage as hideous sin is a ray of hope.  If there are obvious and momentous feelings about something, anything, then there is hope of revival.  What our culture has done is to desensitize us to the repulsiveness of sin.  We do not feel a think anymore.  If there is mass shooting, a gang rape, children dying of drug related crimes; we are matte- of-factly coping with these tragedies as normal.  A nation that feels nothing is a nation that is nation without hope.

Jesus Christ correctly prophesied the love of many will wax cold because of sin.  When sin abounds, He said, the love of many will wax cold.  We will not care.  When I see my home state celebrate at the killing of newborns, and it seems as though the emotions of a nation are not repulsed by this, one wonders if there is any hope.  When we see extreme perverts influencing our young people in our public schools and there is no national outrage, one wonders if there is any hope.  The good news in all this is even though the nation of Israel was far from what God intended, there was a breaking point.  There was something that stirred the people back towards their moral center.  One can only hope and pray that our nation, churches, and families are not too far gone that we cannot be stirred again to a moral outrage at the repulsiveness of sin that abounds.