WHO DO YOU BELONG TO?

Can I pray for you in any way?

Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.

In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

In those days, Israel had no king. And in those days, the tribe of the Danites was seeking a place of their own where they might settle, because they had not yet come into an inheritance among the tribes of Israel. So the Danites sent five warriors from Zorah and Eshtaol to spy out the land and explore it. These men represented all their clans. They told them, “Go, explore the land.”

The men entered the hill country of Ephraim and came to the house of Micah, where they spent the night. When they were near Micah’s house, they recognized the voice of the young Levite so they turned in there and asked him, “Who brought you here? What are you doing in this place? Why are you here?”

He told them what Micah had done for him and said, “He has hired me and I am his priest.”

Then they said to him, “Please inquire of God to learn whether our journey will be successful.”

The priest answered them, “Go in peace. Your journey has the Lord’s approval.”

So the five men left and came to Laish, where they saw that the people were living in safety, like the Sidonians, unsuspecting and secure. And since their land lacked nothing, they were prosperous. Also, they lived a long way from the Sidonians and had no relationship with anyone else.

When they returned to Zorah and Eshtaol, their brothers asked them, “How did you find things?”

They answered, “Come on, let’s attack them! We have seen that the land is very good. Aren’t you going to do something? Don’t hesitate to go there and take it over. When you get there, you will find an unsuspecting people and a spacious land that God has put into your hands, a land that lacks nothing whatever.

Then six hundred men from the clan of the Danites, armed for battle, set out from Zorah and Eshtaol. On their way, they set up camp near Kiriath Jearim in Judah. This is why the place west of Kiriath Jearim is called Mahaneh Dan to this day. From there, they went on to the hill country of Ephraim and came to Micah’s house.

Then the five men who had spied out the land of Laish said to their brothers, “Do you know that one of these houses has an ephod, other household gods, a carved image, and a cast idol? Now you know what to do.” So they turned in there and went to the house of the young Levite at Micah’s place and greeted him. The six hundred Danites, armed for battle, stood at the entrance to the gate. The five men who had spied out the land went inside and took the carved image, the ephod, the other household gods, and the cast idol while the priest and the six hundred armed men stood at the entrance to the gate.

When these men went into Micah’s house and took the carved image, the ephod, the other household gods, and the cast idol, the priest said to them, “What are you doing?”

They answered him, “Be quiet! Don’t say a word. Come with us, and be our father and priest. Isn’t it better that you serve a tribe and clan in Israel as priest rather than just one man’s household?” Then the priest was glad. He took the ephod, the other household gods, and the carved image and went along with the people. Putting their little children, their livestock, and their possessions in front of them, they turned away and left.

When they had gone some distance from Micah’s house, the men who lived near Micah were called together and overtook the Danites. As they shouted after them, the Danites turned and said to Micah, “What’s the matter with you that you called out your men to fight?”

He replied, “You took the gods I made and my priest and went away. What else do I have? How can you ask, ‘What’s the matter with you?’ “

The Danites answered, “Don’t argue with us or some hot tempered men will attack you, and you and your family will lose your lives.” So the Danites went their way and Micah, seeing that they were too strong for him, turned around and went back home.

Then they took what Micah had made and his priest and went on to Laish, against a peaceful and unsuspecting people. They attacked them with the sword and burned down their city. There was no one to rescue them because they lived a long way from Sidon and had no relationship with anyone else. The city was in a valley near Beth Rehob.

The Danites rebuilt the city and settled there. They named it Dan after their forefather Dan, who was born to Israel – though the city used to be called Laish. There the Danites set up for themselves the idols and Jonathan, son of Gershom, the son of Moses, and his sons were priests for the tribe of Dan until the time of the captivity of the land. They continued to use the idols Micah had made, all the time the house of God was in Shiloh.

Judges 18

This ends our reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

In Judges, chapter 17, we were introduced to a man named Micah. You’ll recall that he had stolen silver shekels from his mother, then confessed to her and returned the stolen money hearing her call out a curse on whoever took it. In response to this, you’ll remember that the mother gave a portion of the silver back to Micah who used it to make an idol and a carved image, items he placed in a shrine within his home for worship. One of his sons was appointed to be his priest.

We also read where Micah later met a young Levite who he enlisted to work for him and be his priest. The Levite agreed to the offer and stayed with Micah and his family, serving as his personal priest and all seemed well in the household…or at least it did to Micah who was doing what he saw fit. Never for a moment did he stop to consider that what he was doing directly violated God’s commands regarding worship, worship that was to be centered on Him and Him alone.

The same was true for the young Levite who should have flat out rejected Micah’s proposal in the first place, warning him that his plan for worship was nothing short of wicked and false…worship that would be abhorred by God.

Obviously, the Lord wasn’t going to allow this to continue and so in today’s scripture passage, we see the Danites enter the scene, disrupting Micah’s peaceful solitude and breaking up his illicit worship arrangements.

The scriptures show us that the Danites primarily were searching for a place to live. And although they had been allotted land when Canaan was divided among the tribes, they had not been able to occupy their allotted region because of the Amorites and Philistines. So they sent out “five warriors from Zorah and Eshtaol to spy out the land and explore it”.

After setting out, we read where the men “entered the hill country of Ephraim and came to the house of Micah, where they spent the night” and while staying there, they “recognized the voice of the young Levite” and asked him, “Who brought you here? What are you doing in this place? Why are you here?”

So the Levite, Micah’s self appointed priest, “told them what (he) had done for him”. And after learning that the young Levite was a priest, the five warriors made the following request:

“Please inquire of God to learn whether our journey will be successful.”

In response, the Levite, who we will learn in named Jonathan, the ”son of Gershom, the son of Moses”, tells the men to “go in peace” for their journey was approved by God. With this, we see that the “five men left and came to Laish, where they saw that the people were living in safety” and prosperity because the “land lacked nothing”. Additionally, they noticed that the people were “unsuspecting and secure”, living “a long way from the Sidonians and having no relationship with anyone else”. Armed with this information, they returned and made a report to their tribe.

The scriptures tell us that after they had returned to Zorah and Eshtaol, their brothers asked:

“How did you find things?”

To which they replied:

“Come on, let’s attack them! We have seen that the land is very good. Aren’t you going to do something? Don’t hesitate to go there and take it over. When you get there, you will find an unsuspecting people and a spacious land that God has put into your hands, a land that lacks nothing whatever.”

This had to be very welcome news to a people who had been nomadic and desperately in need of a place to call home but unfortunately, it spelled trouble for the unsuspecting people of Laish. For we read where the Danites set out to conquer Laish for themselves, six hundred men in number who were armed and ready for battle. And as they traveled toward Laish, the scriptures tell us that they came to Micah’s home and while the six hundred men waited, the five warriors who had visited prior entered the house and stole the stole the ephod, cast idol, carved image, and other household gods.

This met the objection of Jonathan, Micah’s young Levite priest but he was quickly silenced by the Danite thieves who said:

“Be quiet! Don’t say a word. Come with us, and be our father and priest. Isn’t it better that you serve a tribe and clan in Israel as priest rather than just one man’s household?”

And so we see where Jonathan, like so many of his fellow Israelites at the time, did what he saw was fit. Presented with the option of leaving Micah and joining the tribe of Dan, he gladly decides to do so, going with the marauding forces and leaving Micah behind. So much for loyalty, right?

With this, the tribe of Dan set back out for Laish, taking Jonathan and “the ephod, the other household gods, and the carved image” with them, unbeknownst that Micah, who didn’t take kindly to being robbed, was advancing on them along with a group of men who lived near him. We read where they “shouted after” the Danites who turned and said this to Micah:

“What’s the matter with you that you called out your men to fight?”

It was a question with an obvious answer as Micah explains that he had come after them for robbing his household and taking away his priest as well. Essentially, this left Micah asking the Danites this question:

“What else do I have?”

Here we find the problem that comes when we place our life value on things and not the Lord. It was an issue in biblical times and it still is today.

You see, we have a real tendency to latch onto worldly things, thinking we possess them…worldly things that have an expiration date on them. And when we place our faith and trust in things that are fleeting, we find ourselves like Micah, lost when we lose them. Indeed, as the old wise saying goes, “If we’re not careful, our possessions will possess us.”

Jesus addressed this in His famous Sermon on the Mount. Here’s what He had to say in Matthew, chapter 6:

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in Heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Vv. 19-21

Micah’s treasure was his false idols, household gods, and self-appointed priest. They were where his heart was and so when they were taken, he was left feeling like he had nothing else left. This is what happens when we choose to live a life apart from God...the God we will never lose…the only One in life who will never leave us nor forsake us.

Given all this, the question is:

Who do you belong to?

Are you holding onto the Lord more than anything else in your life, and when I say anything, I mean anything. This includes human beings you might be close to such as an earthly father, mother, husband, wife, child, brother, sister, or anyone else. No one should be closer to your heart, mind and soul than the Lord Almighty (Matthew 22:37). Ditto for any material things.

This matter is very personal for me and so I would like to close with the following personal testimony, one that underscores this message and reinforces the expectations of God’s Word.

This true story begins in the year 2002. I was serving in the United States Navy at the time onboard the USS BATAAN in Norfolk VA and we were scheduled to go to sea for a brief overnighter. The weekend before we pulled out, my wife Grace had not been feeling well felt well and ended up spending the entire day Sunday in bed, something that was completely uncharacteristic for her. And so before I left the house to go to the ship on Monday morning, I made her promise me that she would go to her doctor if she still wasn’t feeling well, a plan she agreed to. And with that, I went to the ship and we pulled away from the pier, heading out to sea.

Later that afternoon, I tried to call Grace to see how she was doing and there was no answer at home and so feeling like something might be wrong, I called the closest hospital emergency room and was told she was there. Not wanting to give away too much information over the phone due to privacy reasons, the hospital would only tell me that she was being looked at and had a “blood disorder”. They added that they were admitting her, encouraging me to call back later so I could talk to her directly about her condition. They said she would be on the third floor but as I would find out later, she never made it there.

This is because the hospital sent her to the critical care wing of another hospital in downtown Norfolk, who placed her in intensive care. The ship’s doctor was able to call the doctors attending to Grace and they provided him the information about what was happening. Essentially, her platelet count was over four million and normal is 100,000 to 400,000. Her body had been turning into a big blood clot.

I remember praying harder than I had ever prayed before as I anxiously waited for the ship to get back into port so I could get to the hospital. Hours seemed like days but finally we got tied up and I was off to see her.

As I arrived at the critical care wing, I went into the room and saw Grace hooked to more monitors than I care to remember. She was extremely weak and sedated, and I learned that there was worry that she had a blood clot in her aorta. The nurses said it was very iffy as to whether she was going to make it.

And so I went outside her room, sat on the waiting bench, and prayed again…and the Lord spoke to my heart through the Spirit, giving me what I needed the most at the time…the truth. He basically told me that Grace belonged to Him, not me. He had blessed me with the opportunity to be her husband but she wasn’t mine and I didn’t have the right to dictate to Him the time and place when He would bring her back to Himself. If that was to happen, my only proper response was to rejoice and give thanks that He blessed me with the time Grace and I did spend together. He finished by letting me know the same applied to my two daughters.

Friends, I can’t tell you how liberating and comforting those words were to me in that moment for as always, the Lord was right. I had no legitimate claim to Grace for she didn’t belong to me. Ditto for my kids or my parents or anyone else who was dear to me for in the end translation, they all belonged to Him and Him alone. This would frame my view on relationships from that place forward for I viewed them through a new and holy perspective, a perspective provide by God.

Well, as it happened, Grace pulled through because it wasn’t yet her time to return to her Heavenly Father. And although we would learn she had an incurable bone marrow disease, the Lord blessed us with an awesome hematologist and medication that would keep her platelet producing mechanism in check with no side effects. Today, nearly 26 years later, she continues to do well, reminding us every day that the Lord was, is, and will always be so good.

As you read this today, I pray that you will see that God is the only One you need to belong to and see others as belonging to Him as well. May you ever see Him at work in life, ever showing His amazing goodness, grace, mercy and, most of all, love.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.