Judges 21
“Doing Right in Your Own Eyes”
Scripture: Judges 21:1-25
Lesson Focus: To follow God and not do what is right in our own eyes.
Memory Verse: “Open my eyes that I may see wondrous things from Your law.” Psalm 119:18
Activities and Crafts: Coloring sheet, Activity Page
Craft: My “eyes” will seek you craft
Introduction: Blindfold Game: Choose 2 kids. Blindfold one of the children and the other child will lead the child. Tell them they need to follow the rules.
1. Tell them to walk around the room
2. Tell them to hop on one foot
3. Tell them to sit in a chair
4. Tell the blindfold child to put “lipstick” on the other child. (I will provide chapstick)
After you are done, ask the kids what was so hard about what they did. Ask the blindfolded kid what was hard about being blindfolded.
Tell all the kids that it is never fun to not see where we are going. We make mistakes and can get hurt when we are blind. Today in our last lesson in the book of Judges we are going to see God’s people choose to “do what is right in their own eyes.” That mean they made decisions that were not what God would have wanted for their lives. They were blind to being led by God. They did things their own way and it does not turn out well.
Bible Study:
Judges 21:1-3
√ What “oath” did the nation of Israel make? (To not let any of their daughters
marry a man from the tribe of Benjamin.)
√ What were they sad about? (That they were only 11 tribes of Israel)
√ What question do they ask God? (Why?)
When bad things happen many times people ask God why? They want to know why something happened. Why did God allow this? Many times people blame God.
√ Do you think God was to blame?
√ Did God make the tribe of Benjamin do that terrible sin?
√ Did God make the tribe of Benjamin not be sorry for their sin?
√ Did God make the other 11 tribes make hasty promises to not let their daughters marry the men that were left in the tribe of Benjamin?
All of these decisions were made without God. They did not pray or seek God’s advice in any of these areas. We often sin and make mistakes and then we blame God and others.
David said in Psalm 51:4, “Against You, You only have I sinned and done evil in Your sight…That You may be found just when you speak, and blameless when you judge.”
In other words, when we sin we sin against God. We do the evil before a just and loving God that is Holy. Therefore, God is just when He judges our sin and gives us the consequences of our sin. If our heart is right, God will forgive. But we pay the price of our sin in the consequences that sin produces. We cannot blame God or others when we sin…..we make that choice!
Judges 21:5-7
The children of Israel are sad that the tribe of Benjamin will die out and then there will only be 11 tribes left. Even though the children of Israel brought this on themselves by swearing that none of their daughters should marry these men. Now they are trying to come up with their own plan to remedy the situation. They were doing right in their own eyes.
Judges 21:8-11
The children of Israel are franticly trying to come up with a solution to the problem that they created. They decide to attach a neighboring town that did not help them in the fight and then take the unwed women for the few men that had hidden from the tribe of Benjamin. They don’t seek the Lord; they just try to solve things in their own way…”they did what was right in their own eyes!”
Judges 21:12
The children of Israel find 400 women to be brides, but they are still 200 short. So do they seek the Lord and ask for His help? No, they come up with another plan. “They did right in their own eyes.”
Judges 21:13-24
The children of Israel are still short for the men of the tribe of Benjamin. They come up with plan #2. It is not a good plan…it is not a nice plan…they plan to kidnap the daughters of Shiloh. “They are doing right in their own eyes!”
Judges 21:25:
The book of Judges ends on a sad note.
1. No King
2. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
In the entire book of Judges we saw good judges and bad ones. We saw God give them victory over and over. We saw Judges lead the people to stay close to God and when they did the people lived in peace. But the book ends in despair.
√ Is everyone doing what is right in their own eyes a good thing? Why or why not?
√ Do we often make the wrong choices?
The nation of Israel is a mess at this time because they did not serve God the King.
What can we learn from the book of Judges?
We have only one Judge and that is God. “Le the heavens declare His righteousness, for God Himself is Judge.” Psalm 50:6 The people of Israel only followed God when there was a Judge who followed God. They needed a human to follow God and live for Him.
We are saved through Jesus Christ and He is the one that we follow. We can learn from leaders and but we must only “FOLLOW” Jesus. “Follow Me and I will make you become fishers of men.” Mark 1:17 Jesus is the one who we imitate!
If God is our Judges then we are accountable to Him. That means that we are to live for God in everything we do. We will answer to God for everything we do here on earth. This is not a cause for fear. He has given us everything we need to follow Him. He gave us Salvation through Jesus Christ. He gave us a new life through the Holy Spirit. He gave us the power to live for Him through the Holy Spirit. He gave us forgiveness of our daily sins and the conviction of the Holy Spirit to deal with the sins in our lives. He gave us His Word to guide us and show us who God really is.
We have only one King and that is Jesus Christ. We are told in Revelation 19:16 that His name is “King of Kings and Lord of Lords.” If Jesus is King then He is the boss of us. We are to serve Him in everything we do. There is nothing that is too small in our lives that we should go to God is prayer and ask Him to lead us. The enemy wants us to divide up our lives and give Sunday’s to Him and then the rest of the time we do things on our own. If we live like that then we are “doing what is right in our own eyes.” That is not how God wants us to live.
How do we “Do What is Right In Our Own Eyes?”
1. We don’t go to God in prayer. We make decisions without asking God. (Psalm 5:8)
2. We don’t read the Bible and learn how God wants us to live. (Psalm 119:11)
3. We don’t let God’s Spirit produce fruit in us (Galatians 5)
4. We don’t put on our “Armor” (Ephesians 6) to prepare for daily warfare.
God grace has given us everything we need to follow Him. God knows what is best for our lives. That does not mean that it will be easy or that everything will run smooth. But it does mean that we seek God and ask Him to work in every area of our lives. We do not do “what is right in our own eyes” we do what is right in God’s eyes!
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