“In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” Judges 21:25
The book of Judges tells a story of chaos, wasted years, stupidity, outrage and tragedy. It narrates a significant season in the history of God’s people.
What went wrong? The author sums it up in the last verse of his book: “Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” They were not doing what they thought was wrong. They were doing what they thought was right. But what was right in their own eyes created disaster after disaster. They needed a king, a Christ-figure, to save them from their wretched rightness, their good intentions, their moral fervor, going by their “gut.” “Whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool” (Proverbs 28:26).
We have a King who declares to us in the Bible what is right in His eyes. For us, how He sees things is an adjustment. Sometimes, a big adjustment. Big enough to qualify as repentance. But a careful, observant, humble, constant, lifelong searching of the Scriptures is how He saves us from our disastrous rightness and leads us into green pastures and beside still waters we could never find on our own.
