A Look at the Dark Side of Doing What’s Right in Our Own Eyes
Let’s start by being honest—morality is a tricky thing. We all have our own ideas of what’s right and wrong, and sometimes those ideas can get pretty murky. The world tells us that we can figure out what’s good and bad on our own, that we don’t need God to have moral values. But here’s the real question: What’s the foundation of those values? What holds them up when life gets tough or when the world around us starts to shift? You see, God has given us a solid foundation for morality in His commandments, and they’re not just random rules to follow—they’re rooted in His character and His love for us. Psalm 119:160 reminds us, “The sum of your word is truth, and every one of your righteous rules endures forever.” God’s truth is unchanging, unlike the shifting standards of society. News commentator Ted Koppel once pointed out that real peace comes from following a moral compass that stays true no matter what trends or fashions come and go. That’s exactly what God offers us in His Word—a compass that always points to what’s truly right.
But let’s face it, not everyone follows that compass. The story in Judges 19 shows us what happens when people create their own moral systems, ones that are based on their desires rather than God’s truth. Here we see a Levite, someone who should have been a spiritual leader, getting caught up in a twisted value system. Instead of protecting the woman in his care, he lets her be abused and then uses her death to stir up outrage and revenge. This isn’t just a story of one man’s failure—it’s a snapshot of what happens when a society loses its moral bearings. The people in this story did what was right in their own eyes, and the result was utter chaos and violence.
It’s a grim reminder that when we drift away from God’s truth, we end up in a moral vacuum where anything goes, and the most vulnerable among us suffer the consequences.
The idea that morality is universal is pretty fascinating. Anthropologists have found that every culture, past and present, has some sense of right and wrong. But here’s the thing: even though every culture has moral standards, those standards can be wildly different. What’s considered virtuous in one place might be seen as wrong in another. So how do we know what’s really right? Jesus simplifies it for us by summing up the entire moral law in one word: love. He teaches us that our moral compass should always point toward loving God and loving others. When we live by this principle, everything else—honesty, loyalty, generosity, and sacrifice—falls into place. The story of the Levite and his concubine, though, is a stark example of what happens when love is missing from the equation. The Levite didn’t love or protect the woman in his care; instead, he treated her as disposable, and that led to a cascade of violence and revenge. This lack of love shows us just how far people can fall when they’re not guided by God’s truth.
The aftermath of the Levite’s actions is both shocking and sobering. When he finds his concubine dead, he doesn’t grieve her loss as a person—he sees it as an affront to his own honor. His response? He cuts her body into pieces and sends them throughout Israel to provoke outrage. The tribes respond by gathering an army to seek justice, but their version of justice is just as twisted as the original crime. Instead of dealing with the guilty, they end up wiping out entire towns, including innocent men, women, and children. And when they realize they’ve almost annihilated an entire tribe, they come up with a horrifying plan to repopulate it by kidnapping more women and forcing them into marriage. It’s a brutal cycle of violence, all because everyone was doing what was right in their own eyes without any regard for God’s moral standards.
This story from Judges, often called “the sewer of Scripture,” is a vivid picture of what happens when there’s no moral leadership. The people had no king, no one to guide them according to God’s laws, so they did whatever seemed right to them. The result was moral chaos, where every person’s version of right and wrong led to unspeakable acts of violence and degradation. It’s easy to look at this story and think, “How could they not see how wrong they were?” But the truth is, when we stray from God’s moral vision, we’re all susceptible to justifying actions that we know deep down are wrong. This story forces us to confront the ugly reality of what happens when we abandon God’s standards for our own.
So, where does that leave us? The story in Judges shows us that without God, our moral compasses get completely twisted. But here’s the good news—God doesn’t just leave us to figure out right and wrong on our own. He has given us clear moral guidelines in His Word, and He’s shown us what true love and justice look like through Jesus. Jesus not only taught us what’s right and wrong; He lived it out perfectly and then went to the cross to deal with the consequences of our moral failures. Because of Him, we have hope. We know that there’s a day coming when justice will be done, when wrongs will be righted, and when every tear will be wiped away.
But until that day, we have a responsibility. We need to align our lives with God’s moral vision, to let His Word be our guide, not just in what we believe but in how we live. The challenge for us is to look at our own lives and ask, “Where have I been doing what’s right in my own eyes instead of following God’s truth?” It’s not enough to know what’s right; we have to live it out, trusting that God’s ways are not only right but also best for us and for the world.
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