In Those Days

By Ted Mock

January 28, 2026

Judges 21:25 In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.

The news of the day in which we live,  look much like “those days” of Judges.  As I was finishing my daily Bible reading in Judges, I was struck by the pattern of what happens when there is no law in the land.  God had given the Jewish people commandments, statutes, and judgments to live by.  These were God’s laws of governing conduct between men, and they were being abandoned in the last days of Judges.

Chapter 17 begins with a son stealing from his own mother, she condones his theft, and Micah makes an idol with the silver he had taken.  

Covetousness is idolatry according to Colossians 3:5. When you decide you can do anything that is right in your own eyes, you make yourself god and become an idolater.  And there is a downward spiral when idolatry becomes open. 

In the story of Micah, he made the idol and hired a priest to validate his idolatry.  Then the Danites came and stole the idol and the priest by force. They continue on to kill people who were quiet and secure.  The next story tells a sad tale of a runaway concubine and the immorality and murder that took place. 

The situation was so bizarre and evil that the rest of the nation was shocked into action that resulted in the almost total genocide of the tribe of Benjamin. 

The pattern was idolatry, immorality, and violence in those days. The same pattern is with us today. Our nation has forsaken God and his laws, making ourselves king, doing whatever we want.  We don’t have silver idols. We serve god, the almighty dollar.  And idolatry has led to immorality and now violence fills our land.

Reflection—The only cure available is to take down our idol of materialism and put God back in His rightful place.