Woe to a Peaceful Community

Woe to a Peaceful Community - Judges 18:7-13 A community is a group of people who live together under certain rules or with the same interests. The Church is a community. As far as the church is, our move is that we are faithful united by the same faith, and that we celebrate all that is the doctrine of the Holy Scriptures and worship God. It is to gather the faithful until the end of time. It's not about starting and leaving everything halfway, it's about being faithful to the end. (Revelation 2:10) Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life. "God will give us a crown that is eternal life itself."

I. It is a living crown that we are leading to win.

A. We are in the Church's race to be fighters, not idlers (fruitless, unemployed).

1. We can see Laish, a peaceful (quiet) community.

2. They were totally quiet and did not prepare themselves as a nation; to have an army, watchmen to watch over Laish.

3. Spies arrived to observe the terrain they needed.

4. And some came to them who needed to give land to their people.

5. The attitude they will have is: to take what they want, that you well find in people in a 'peaceful community'.

6. When there are no eyes to see, no ears to hear, and no intention to discern, then the place becomes a Laish.

7. Laish, unknown to the sons of Dan, who needed a place to live.

8. Dan's sons come to Laish to explore it.

9. Never was there a place so badly governed and so badly guarded that it could be easier prey for an invader. Everything was in disorder.

10. Every citizen could be as bad as he pleased, for "there was no one to restrain them."

11. Added to this was the economic prosperity that could be seen by the lifestyle that was led.

12. For idleness and licentiousness encamped (excelled) for their respects; they provoked God by their immoralities and consumed one another by their vices and violence.

13. The heir of the bridle: (as it says in the Hebrew).

14. What is implied by the office of the magistrate (Romans 13:3-4) who is destined to curb evil and who possesses the bridle, "for this authority has been entrusted to him in order that he may investigate and suppress every vice and succeed in instilling fear in evildoers."

15. Only God's grace can renew the minds of the damned and change depraved hearts, "but the power of the magistrate (official administering justice, courts) can curb vicious practices and bind criminal hands, so that the wickedness of the wicked will not prove harmful or so infectious as to curb wickedness.

16. The method to be used to curb wickedness.

17. Evildoers must be put to shame, so that those who do not want to yield to the restraint of shame and desire to sin before God, and disregard (fail to hear) the voice of conscience, may be restrained by the shame of the punishment they suffer before men.

18. Every possible method must be used to banish sin from the public light and to cover it with shame and contempt, so that people may be ashamed of their idleness, drunkenness, fraud, lying, and other vices, and so that reputation and good name may always be on the side of virtue (right reason, a strong and firm mode) (a power, strength, ability to perform a function, action), virtue denotes a certain perfection of potency, the end of potency is the act. Therefore a power is said

to be perfect when it is determined to its act. Now the perfection of each being is chiefly considered to its end.

19. How miserable and close to ruin are those places that lack magistrates (members of the judiciary with a rank higher than a judge)!

20. The people were ill-guarded; the people of Laish were careless, idle, cheerful, and trusting, with their doors open; unrepaired walls, etc., because they didn't see any danger from anywhere.

21. This was also a sign that the Israelites, because of Laish’s laziness and cowardice, were no longer as fearsome to the Canaanites as they had been when they came to the land. Otherwise, this city of Laish, whose population most likely knew that it had been assigned to the Israelites, would not have felt so confident.

22. Moreover, they had no business with anyone, which shows their laziness and economic independence.

23. It is probable that, just as they scoffed at submission to a government, they also despised any alliance with any of their neighbors.

24. They had "no interest in anyone"; "So no one was interested in them."

25. The encouragement which the spies gave to their countrymen with the report they brought them from Laish (8-10). (a) They were told that the country (piece of land) is very good, (9) better than the hill country in which they were heaped and hemmed in by the Philistines. (b) They told them that it was easy to conquer, for they were sure that, with God's blessing, they would soon take possession of it, for the people there were confident. (10)

26. Expedition (Dan vs. Laish excursion). These Danites, to whom the city had been assigned, at last went to them. (11-13)

27. The armed men numbered only six hundred. Such was their struggle. Amen.