Judges 20:13
“Now therefore deliver us the men, the children of Belial, which are in Gibeah, that we may put them to death, and put away evil from Israel. But the children of Benjamin would not hearken to the voice of their brethren the children of Israel:”
The verse above is the result of a very sick story about a man whose concubine left him to go to her father’s house. During the time that she was with her father, she lived an immoral life, but though this man knew about it, he still wanted to reconcile their relationship. He journeyed to her father’s house to reconcile the relationship, and apparently was successful with his attempts.
When they left her father’s house and took the long journey home, they stopped late at night to get some rest. Certain men of the city saw them enter an older man’s home, and these men of Belial approached the house to force the man to commit wicked acts with them. Instead, the man gave them his concubine whom they abused all night. When the morning came, she had enough strength to make it to the house but died on the doorstep. When this man saw what was done, he cut her body into pieces and sent it throughout Israel to ask for their help to make these people pay.
The part I want you to see is that when the men of Israel approached the tribe of Benjamin to ask for those men, the men of Benjamin would not deliver them; instead, they were more loyal to their tribesmen than they were to truth. It says in the verse above that the men of Benjamin “would not hearken to the voice of their brethren the children of Israel:” They were willing to overlook the sin committed just for the sake of their name and relationships.
One could argue that the men of Benjamin were loyal to their friends, but their loyalty was wrong. When you are more loyal to personalities and tradition than you are to truth and right, your loyalty is wrong. Being loyal isn’t always a good thing. If you are loyal just for the sake of being loyal, you are loyal to the wrong thing. You need to reconsider your loyalties whenever they cause you to compromise truth or do the wrong thing. Let me give you a couple of suggestions concerning loyalty.
First, be loyal to truth and right and not to loyalty. These people should have been angered at the wrong that was committed, but they weren’t because of their loyalty. You must always do right even when others say you are disloyal. Truth and right are what we are to do no matter who it may affect. When you have to choose between doing right and being loyal, you shouldn’t have a difficult decision to make because truth and right should be where your loyalty is placed.
Second, if you give your loyalty to God and the faith, you will never have to make the difficult choice as to what to do when personalities or institutions that you love do wrong. It all comes down to where you place your loyalty. The main difference between those who take a stand against family, friends and associations when they do wrong and those who don’t is that those who make that stand are loyal to God and truth.
Friend, be careful about developing the wrong loyalty. Place your loyalty in God and the faith and the stand against those who do wrong won’t be as difficult. Yes, they will call you disloyal, but you are not disloyal because your loyalty is placed in the right person and place.