Judges 9: The Greater Enemy Audio Transcript
Judges: Scandalous Saviors
06 – THE GREATER ENEMY – Ryan Aufenkamp
Intro
One of my favorite authors, Andrew Peterson, he writes that evil digs a pit and the maker makes a well. That is his way. Right? I love that song. Just to think about the dying thief rejoicing in that fountain in his day.
And then it relates it to us. There may I, though vile as he, wash all my sins away. That’s what we’ve come to celebrate this morning is that God is a wellspring of grace and mercy for us, where we can cleanse ourselves from our sin and we can rejoice in that this morning.
It’s good to be gathered to do that. It’s good to be gathered with the word of God in our hands. If you don’t know me, my name is Ryan. I’m one of the five pastors here. And if you don’t know me, I’d love to change that. I’d love to get to know you. And so please come say hi after the service.
One of my roles here is I get to share the pulpit with Toby and glad for that. We are in the book of Judges. And so if you have your Bible, go ahead, get it out, turn it on, turn over to Judges chapter nine. If you are new or just joining us, we started a series through Joshua, Judges and Ruth back in September.
And we made our way through Joshua. We finished it last month. And here we are in the book of Judges. And we kind of started the book of Judges by saying, OK, this is going to be like a long, dark tunnel for us.
BECOMING WHAT WE BEHOLD
And actually, to this point, it hasn’t been like too dark yet. Right? Things have been OK. We’ve been following the spin cycle. It’s kind of how we set up the book of Judges. The whole book is cyclical as the people of God continue to fall into their sin, to follow their sin.
God raises up deliverers called judges and saves them for a time. And then the judge dies and the people go back to their sin. And so that’s the cycle that we’ve seen time and time again. And the judges, we’ve called them scandalous saviors. And so far, our judges, they haven’t actually been too bad.
We get Ehud, the left-handed hero. And we looked at Deborah. And Deborah is incredible.
She’s like this incredible leader, hero of the faith. And nothing bad is said about her. The only thing bad that happens with her is that she dies. And we can’t actually hold that against her. Right? And then we looked at Gideon last week. And Gideon, God builds an incredible amount of faith in him.
And he leads his people to victory. And that story is awesome. And then you get to like the second half of chapter eight, which we didn’t really look at last week. And we’ll look at a little bit this morning. And we see, okay, there’s some things in Gideon’s life that were maybe not so great.
Chapter nine in the book of Judges, like if we were on a hillside and we’re descending, chapter nine is a cliff. And we’re going to kind of just fall off of it this morning.
There’s nothing we can do about it. And it sort of is the doorway to lots more darkness that’s going to happen. Not to scare you, but just to prepare you for what’s to come. So Judges chapter nine, I kind of get set up for us at the end of chapter eight.
And so I want us to see that. We sort of, we see the spin cycle continue, but there’s something different in the setup to chapter nine versus the setup to the previous chapters. Look at chapter eight, verses 33 through 35. As soon as Gideon died, so this is setting it up for us, just like we’ve seen, the people of Israel turned again and whored after the Baals and made Baal bareth their God.
And the people of Israel did not remember the Lord, their God, who had delivered them from the hand of all their enemies on every side. And they did not show steadfast love to the family of Jerubal, that is Gideon, in return for all the good that he had done.
So we see there that the spin cycle is set up for us, that the people of God forget their God, and they run after the Baals. But there’s something added here in this new section or this setup to chapter nine, and it’s that the people not only forget their God, but they forget their own people.
They forget Gideon, and they don’t show steadfast love to him. And it’s what sets up this new leader, who’s not a judge, the son of Gideon, Abimelech, to come and to lead the people. We’re seeing in the book of Judges over and over again that the further away from God that the people get, the more they become like the surrounding nations, the more they become like the Canaanites, and the more that they act like the Canaanites.
And it’s evidence here that they’re forgetting their own people. There’s a series I alluded to an author earlier by the name of Andrew Peterson. He’s one of my favorite artists, authors. He’s the guy that wrote the song, Is He Worthy, that we sing here that’s so beautiful.
And he has a book series called The Wingfeather Saga that is kind of aimed at a younger audience, teens or tweens. Are any of you familiar with The Wingfeather Saga? All right, some of you are. Yeah, Toby has been talking about it for like the past three weeks.
He’s been listening to it. And so I can’t help but to make a passing mention of it. This book series is great. If you’ve got young readers at home, this is one you definitely want to put in their hands. And if you’re looking for a series to read that’s easy to read and funny and has some depth to it, this would be a great one.
This series is all about a family and especially their kids that are kind of discovering their identities and discovering the power of a name, the power of a family, the power of knowing who you are. And the villains in the story we see in the first book, they’re called the Fangs of Deng, which is awesome.
And these Fangs of Deng, sorry for those that haven’t read it, I’m going to give away just a tidbit of what’s going on in the book. The Fangs of Deng, they’re actually children that have been carried away and they’ve been transformed by this leader named Nag the Nameless, which is incredible.
They’ve been transformed by making these children forget who they are, making them forget their names, making them forget their stories, making them forget the power in that. And by forgetting who they are, they’re turned into animals.
We’re going to see in chapter 9 that when God’s people forget who they are, when they forget their purpose, when they forget their identities, they start looking like animals. They start acting like animals. And I just want to warn you, this chapter is pretty dark.
And so we’re going to read a portion of it here, verses 1 through 21. If you have strength to stand, let’s jump into it. We’re going to jump into the darkness together. Chapter 9, starting in verse 1, I’m reading from the ESV. This is the word of the Lord.
JUDGES 9:1-21
Now Abimelech, the son of Jerubbaal, went to Shechem, to his mother’s relatives, and said to them, and to the whole clan of his mother’s family, saying in the ears of all the leaders of Shechem, what is better for you, that all 70 of the sons of Jerubbaal rule over you, or that one rule over you?
Remember also that I am your bone and your flesh. And his mother’s relatives spoke all these words on his behalf, in the ears of all the leaders of Shechem, and their hearts inclined to follow Abimelech, for they said, he is our brother. And they gave him 70 pieces of silver out of the house of Baal-Bareth, with which Abimelech hired worthless and reckless fellows who followed him.
And he went to his father’s house at Ophrah, and killed his brothers, the sons of Jerubbaal, 70 men on one stone. But Jotham, the youngest son of Jerubbaal, was left, for he hid himself. And all the leaders of Shechem came together, and all Beth Milo, and they went and made Abimelech king, by the oak of the pillar at Shechem.
When he was told to Jotham, he went and stood on top of Mount Gerizim, and cried aloud, and said to them, listen to me, you leaders of Shechem, that God may listen to you. The trees once went out to anoint a king over them, and they said to the olive tree, rain over us.
But the olive tree said to them, shall I leave my abundance, by which gods and men are honored, and go hold sway over the trees? And the tree said to the fig tree, you come and rain over us. But the fig tree said to them, shall I leave my sweetness and my good fruit, and go hold sway over the trees?
And the tree said to the vine, you come rain over us. But the vine said to them, shall I leave my wine that cheers God and men, and go hold sway over the trees? Then all the trees said to the bramble, you come rain over us. And the bramble said to the trees, if in good faith you’re anointing me king over you, then come, take refuge in my shade.
But if not, let fire come out of the bramble, and devour the cedars of Lebanon. Now therefore, if you acted in good faith and integrity when you made Abimelech king, and if you have dealt well with Jeroboam and his house, and have done to him as his deeds deserved, for my father fought for you, and risked his life, and delivered you from the hand of Midian, and you have risen up against my father’s house this day, and killed his sons, 70 men on one stone.
And you have made Abimelech, the son of his female servant, king over the leaders of Shechem, because he is your relative. If then you have acted in good faith and integrity with Jeroboam, and with his house this day, then rejoice in Abimelech, and let him also rejoice in you.
But if not, let fire come out from Abimelech, and devour the leaders of Shechem and Beth Milo. And let fire come out from the leaders of Shechem, and from Beth Milo, and devour Abimelech. And Jotham ran away, and fled, and went to Bir, and lived there because of Abimelech, his brother.
Let’s pray. Lord, thank you that this story is here, and Lord, the author of the book of Judges wrote it by your hand. Your spirit has penned every word here, and every word, this whole story is for us, and it’s a warning for us. And Lord, I pray that as your spirit worked to put this story here in the scriptures, I pray that your spirit would be at work this morning, convicting our own hearts.
Lord, helping us to see how important good leadership is among your people. Lord, I pray that we would walk away from here resolved to watch out for leaders like Abimelech. And Lord, to in our own lives lead our families, and lead our Bible studies, and lead those in our workplace, not in the ways that Abimelech is leading his people.
Lord, I just pray that these warnings would actually set in this morning, and help us to walk in your ways instead of to forget you, and become like the world, and become like animals like we see in this text.
Pray those things in Jesus’ name. Amen. Go ahead and have a seat.
CONTEXT
A couple of contextual things that I just want to point out really quickly. You notice first that this whole story takes place in Shechem, and Shechem is this really important place. We saw it a couple times in the book of Joshua.
It was first where God came and spoke to Abraham, and promised him the promised land back in Genesis 12, right? And then the people come to Shechem, and that was where Joshua led in a covenant renewal after the defeated eye. And then at the very end of the book of Joshua, he regathers all his people, and it’s at Shechem that they reaffirm the covenant once again.
So this is an important place for the people of God, and apparently this place of Shechem is, you know, there is a monument to the Lord there in Shechem, these stones that are set up. And right next to it apparently is a place of worship for Baal, right?
This is how far we’ve come from the end of Joshua into the middle of the book of Judges.
And Jotham, the only surviving brother of Abimelech, he goes up onto Mount Gerizim. This is where Joshua likely would have been speaking to all his people. Shechem is in this little valley between Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal, and he’s going up and he’s speaking this oracle.
He’s essentially prophesying over them, and he’s prophesying judgment, right? With the story of the trees, right? He says in verse 14, all of the trees, that is you leaders of Shechem, you’re all these trees, and you’re coming, you’re looking for a leader, and you go to the bramble, and you say, you come reign over us.
And the bramble, who is Abimelech, says to the trees, if in good faith you’re anointing me king over you, then come and take refuge in my shade. But if not, let fire come out of the bramble and devour the cedars of Lebanon. He’s essentially speaking judgment.
You have chosen your leader, and you have chosen a leader who will burn you up. He’s going to set the whole forest on fire. I want to spend our majority of our time this morning looking at what characterizes the blazing bramble, what characterizes poor leadership within God’s people, what characterizes Abimelech in the way that he leads, and the way that it leads to a forest fire.
1.) THE BLAZING BRAMBLE AMIDST GOD’S PEOPLE
So we’ll start there with the blazing bramble amidst God’s people. I want you to notice again in verse 15, for starters, that the bramble in this oracle that Jotham gives says to the trees, if in good faith you’re anointing me king over you, then come and take refuge in my shade.
How many of you, when you’re looking for shade or shelter from the sun, go and look for the brambles? Right? Like, how many of you have ever been like, yeah, let me go find a bramble and make sure that I can find some shade? No! Like, brambles are not good for shade, right?
Especially, it’s just so funny to me, the trees that provide shade, they’re looking to the bramble, and the bramble’s like, well, yeah, come take shelter under me, right? No, the bramble, the only thing that bramble is good for is for lighting fires, right?
And that’s who they’re electing king over them. Why is Abimelech this way? I want to start there. Before we look at Abimelech’s leadership, I actually want to start at the roots of the blazing bramble.
LEADERS DISPLAYING HEAD BUT NOT HEART
What has made Abimelech grow into a bramble? And it actually starts back in chapter 8 with the leadership of his father. Because his father, Gideon, fails him in some pretty significant ways. Gideon is a leader who in some ways displayed head, but not heart.
And in some ways, he himself is a blazing bramble among the people of God. Turn back to Judges chapter 8, starting in verse 22. So after all of the good things that Gideon had done, he comes to his hometown, and the men of Israel, they come to Gideon, they gather around him, and they give him this call.
They say, rule over us, you and your son and your grandson also, for you have saved us from the hand of Midian. And in verse 23, Gideon responds. He says to them, I will not rule over you. And my son will not rule over you. The Lord will rule over you.
And this is the moment in the text that you look at that response and you rejoice, and you say, yes, Gideon, that’s awesome, right? You had the opportunity to be king, and you said, no, God is going to be king over you. And before we get too excited about that, we should look at the rest of the chapter.
Because what happens next is that while Gideon says, the Lord is going to reign over you as king, the very next thing he does is he takes tribute from all of the people.
He says, the Lord’s going to reign over you as king, but give me all your spoils of war. All of your gold earrings, give them to me. And then what does he go and do? He’s kind of curiously, he makes this golden ephod. And an ephod is an article of clothing that a high priest would have worn.
And so he makes this ephod, and he puts it in his hometown, and it becomes the snare for the people of Israel. They come, and they bow down to it, and they worship it. And really, I believe that what it is, is it’s a signal of him as king. Really, they’re coming to worship Gideon when they’re coming to bow down to this ephod.
Right? And whether Gideon intended that or not, he’s sort of acting as a king.
And then we read on in the story, if you jump down to verses 29 through 31. Jerubbaal, that is Gideon, the son of Joash, he went and lived in his own house. And Gideon had 70 sons, his own offspring, for he had many wives. Pause there. It’s a very kingly thing to do, right?
Back in the ancient Near Eastern times, to have many wives for diplomatic reasons. And verse 31, his concubine, who was in Shechem, also bore him a son, and he called his name Abimelech. Right? I want to point out to you that, you know, Abimelech enters the story here.
And if you look at the Hebrew of the name Abimelech, that name means, my father is king.
He literally, he tells the people, no, the Lord is going to be your king. And then he goes off, and he has all these sons, and he has an illegitimate son with this concubine of his, and he names him, my father is king. It’s clear that Gideon, while he might know the truth, it’s not connecting in some senses with his heart.
He’s not actually living it. He’s living in hypocrisy. Right? And I want to point that out. There’s so much tension here in the book of Judges, especially because when we read in Hebrews chapter 11, like the hall of faith, you guys familiar with that?
We read that like Gideon is in it, and Samson is in it, which is just mind-blowing. Right? By the grace of God. Right?
And so this doesn’t mean that Gideon had like completely, totally turned away from the Lord, but in some senses, he’s leading from a place of hypocrisy. And it completely sets his son up for failure. It sets his son up for an identity crisis. It leads to all that happens in chapter 9.
I want to make the case here this morning. When we think about leadership among God’s people, we tend to think of people with a platform. We tend to think of people who stand up on a stage and do what I’m doing right now, or who write articles, or write books, or, you know, those are our leaders.
You know, some of, I would say probably the majority of the most influential leaders among God’s people, they’re not people that stand on a platform.
They’re fathers. Some of the most influential people in the kingdom of God are fathers. God has given you that role. If you were a father here this morning, he has given you a leadership role in your family. It’s God-given. Do not lead it from a place of only head but no heart.
Do not lead your family to come to church on a weekend and then go home and live completely differently than how you look here, polished on a Sunday morning. I want to give you that call that the next generation of Christians raised up to know and be lights in the world, it’s not gonna come just from a pastor on a stage.
It’s gonna come from you, dads, who are leading at home. Your kids need to see you with open Bibles. And I just, I want to say that sometimes, you know, fathers, you can feel like, I don’t know, like, man, maybe my only role is just to provide for my family.
My role is so much more than that. It’s to invest in your family. It’s to get home from work and play with your kids, right? And I’m talking from a place of having young kids. And I’m preaching to myself here, too. You need to know that. And dads that have kids that are out of the house, you still have a role.
Keep investing in your kids.
And I just, you know, I don’t want to just berate you. I’m a part of a Bible study on Mondays that we help lead. And I’m seeing incredible leadership from the fathers in that group. And I’m so grateful. Fathers that are invested in their kids’ lives. Fathers that are leading from a beautiful place.
And I see that in and among our church body. And I just want to give you the call this morning. Keep going. It matters. It matters. Because to lead like Gideon leads his own son, Abimelech, devastating consequences. And we see them played out in chapter 9.
Sadly, Abimelech, as his name suggests, decides to take power by scheming.
LEADERS APPEALING TO SCHEMES RATHER THAN SPIRIT
Instead, by relying on the Spirit. And in part, because his own identity is so twisted because of his father. What we see of the blazing bramble amidst God’s people is Abimelech, a leader who appeals to schemes rather than Spirit. We’ve seen throughout the book of Judges so far that God appoints a leader that is generally led by God’s Spirit.
And in chapter 9, we see a break in the narrative from God raising up Judges. And we see a self-appointed leader who doesn’t lead by God’s Spirit. But what does he do in verse 2? He comes to his hometown, the hometown of his mother, Shechem. And he says to his relatives, say in the ears of all the leaders of Shechem, which is better for you?
That all 70 of the sons of Jerubah all rule over you? Or that one rule over you? Remember also that I am your bone and your flesh. I think that there’s a stark irony here. That the appeal of all of the other leaders, the Judges that God raised up, it’s through the power of God’s Spirit.
And here, Abimelech is raised up. And what is his appeal? It’s through flesh and bone, not through Spirit. I’m thinking, he sounds so much like the serpent in the garden, right? Whispering in the ears of people. And in verse 3, the leaders of Shechem, they hear these things and foolishly, their hearts are inclined towards Abimelech because he is their brother.
This is just, it’s really interesting up to this point in the biblical narrative, there’s been no king in Israel, right? There’s been really no talk of a king, right? God is supposed to be their king. And Abimelech comes and he pits Israelite against Israelite, right?
In all of the other chapters we have seen so far, the enemy that is oppressing the people of God are the Amalekites or the Midianites, right? Or King Eglon, right? But in our chapter, the enemy is God’s own people. They’re warring against each other, right?
Abimelech comes and says, you don’t want those 70 guys ruling over you, you want me to rule over you.
And the leaders believe him. He’s leading through schemes, pitting person against person. And there’s such a warning here that godly leaders are not to be led by scheming, they’re to be led by the Spirit. And I will say as a church leader, it’s really tempting to be led through scheming rather than the Spirit.
And I was thinking about this, I was thinking about church leadership in general as I was reading this and thinking about a lot of the failings of pastors and leaders just over even the last couple of years, even the last couple of months.
And I was tempted to just kind of go off on all of that. And I think by the Spirit’s leading, I started thinking about why am I so grateful for Evergreen Bible Church? And I don’t want to just stand here and puff up Evergreen Bible Church as the greatest church ever, right?
And I don’t want to say anything bad about other churches, but I just for a moment want to say, I’m so grateful. I shared my story of how I came to Evergreen a couple of weeks ago. And when I got hired on staff here, I was 22 years old. I was a kid, right?
And we at Evergreen, we believe that the office of being a pastor also means that you’re an elder, that there’s no distinction in the scriptures.
The pastor and elder are synonymous. And so as a 22 year old, I came on staff and I was immediately put on the elder board, right? Which felt funny for me as a 22 year old. And so for the first couple of years on the elder team, I just listened a lot.
I didn’t say a lot. I just observed. And in those years, what I observed is a team that is not led by scheming, but is led by prayer and the Spirit of God. And I’m so grateful. You know, I can, and again, I’m not trying to make comments about other churches or other things, but I can count on one hand the amount of times in the nine years that I’ve been here that our elder team has gathered together and talked about, you know, how to build more finances or build a bigger church or get more people in the door or get more butts in seats, right?
That’s just not what our meetings are about. Our meetings are all about how can we shepherd our people better? And Lord, would you raise up leaders in our church? And would you raise us up to shepherd our people and send them out? And phase two, the conversation has not been, man, we wanna grow this thing and we wanna make sure that this thing, Evergreen Bible Church just becomes massive.
And again, not making comments. I’m just saying that we didn’t spend all this money to build phase two to become a bigger church. We spent all this money to build phase two to do what we’re doing better, to better equip the saints for the work of ministry.
And I’m so grateful that we’re a part of a church that is led by leadership, that are led by the spirit of God and not by schemes of men, not by tickling ears when we preach.
After scheming, Abimelech, he enacts his scheme, his plans. And the leaders of Shechem, they give him money from the house of Baal, Bereth, and he goes and he hires worthless and reckless fellows to carry out his plans. And as I was reading that this week, my thoughts were going, as I was reading that this week, my thoughts were going to the Lion King.
It’s been years since I’ve watched the Lion King, but you guys remember Uncle Scar, right? Yeah. So I’m reading about Abimelech and I’m like, dude, the parallels between Abimelech and Scar are just uncanny, right?
Basically he is Uncle Scar. Scar is like, you know, he can’t stand that his brother is king and then his brother has a son Simba and Simba is the next in line for the throne and Scar starts scheming about how can I take the throne, right? And what does he go and do?
He hires himself worthless and reckless fellows, right? Who does he hire? The hyenas, right? And he, do you guys remember this? He sings a song about it. He sings this song called Be Prepared. He says, I never thought hyenas essential. They’re crude and unspeakably plain, but maybe they have a glimmer of potential if allied to my vision and brain.
I know that your powers of retention are as wet as a warthog’s backside, but thick as you are, pay attention. My words are a matter of pride. It’s clear from your vacant expressions the lights are not all on upstairs, but we’re talking kings and successions.
Even you can’t be caught unawares. So prepare for a chance of a lifetime. Be prepared for sensational news. A shining new era is tiptoeing near and where do we feature? Just listen to teacher. I know it sounds sordid, but you’ll be rewarded when at last I’m given my dues and justice deliciously squared.
Be prepared, right? These worthless and reckless fellows, the hyenas that Abimelech goes and hires, the words literally mean empty.
Right? Empty, and they have no regard for what they are doing. Careless of consequence. And I don’t know about you, but, you know, I watched The Lion King when I was really young. And, you know, Mufasa, he gets scarred, right? Pun intended. And he wasn’t the only one that got scarred.
I, as a child, was completely scarred by the scene when Mufasa is like falling to his doom, right? Like I’m, you know, I’m holding on to childhood trauma because of that movie. Maybe some of you are feeling that this morning. When, in verse five here, I think we’re actually supposed to feel that sort of a thing.
We’re supposed to feel like absolutely gut-wrenching what is going on. These are the people of God. In verse five, here’s what happens. He goes to Orpha with these worthless and reckless fellows, and he kills his brothers, the sons of Jerubbaal, 70 men on one stone.
What he’s doing is he’s dragging them all out, and to kill them all on one stone means that he’s bringing them into the town center, and it’s a public execution of all of his brothers. It’s horrible. Abimelech, a bramble among God’s people, he will not lead through faithfulness.
LEADERS LEADING THROUGH FEAR INSTEAD OF FAITHFULNESS
He’s going to lead through fear. Abimelech shows that he will actually provide no shelter for the people of God, for the people under his rule. He is not a tree that provides shade. He is a bramble that’s ready to explode into flames, and that’s how he will lead.
Friends, this is the complete opposite of godly leadership. In thinking of brambles among God’s people, poor leadership, I think one of the biggest red flags that we could look out for is those who are leading from a place of fear, leading from a place where they are ready to explode on anybody that would disagree with them, ready to lead through an iron fist rather than faithfulness.
I think of when Jesus is talking to the sons of thunder, right? James and John, the sons of Zebedee, and they’re debating about who’s going to be greatest among them, and what does Jesus say to them in Matthew 20, 25? Jesus called to them and said, you know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them.
It shall not be so among you. Whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the son of man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.
Leadership among the people of God, the people that we look to as leaders, I would ask you, the people that you look to as leaders, what characterizes them? Is it a fiery personality? Is it a person that’s ready to explode in anger? You know, there’s a lot of talk in our world right now, in our culture right now about what masculinity looks like.
I think of the Joe Rogan podcast, and you know, all of the people associated with him, and no comments on Joe Rogan. I think you could even look at our president in some ways, and look at this topic of masculinity, and you’d come away thinking that, yeah, to be a man means that you’re a testosterone-charged bull, and you’re ready to fight at a moment’s notice, and that’s what it means to be a man.
And I am all for men being men, and men not being effeminate, but godly leadership, godly men, they lead through humility. They lead through being servants. They lead through showing and exercising love, and care, and compassion.
Not through bursting into flames the moment that something doesn’t go their way, or somebody disagrees with them. I feel like there’s a lot to say, and I don’t want you to just think that I’m only picking on men this morning, but I actually want to give another call to the men within our congregation.
I want to give a call to husbands, and just ask you the question, husbands, are your wives walking on eggshells around you at home? Are your wives worried that they’re going to say something wrong, and you are going to explode on them? Is that the way that you are leading your family at home?
That if they don’t do something right, or whatever, that you are ready to just be angry at the drop of a hat? Husbands lead your wives as Christ leads his church, sacrificing for her, loving them as a bride, right? That’s what it means to lead, to be patient, and slow to anger, to put away your pride and preferences for the sake of being an example of Christ in your marriage.
And if your wife is afraid of you, if she’s feeling like she’s walking on eggshells, it’s not her problem, it’s yours. So husbands, I want to give you that clear call. Do not lead like Abimelech leads, as a bramble in your own home. And I want to give a call to parents as well, and maybe more specifically to moms.
Those of you that are raising kids, we get this Ephesians 6.4, don’t provoke your children to anger. It says, fathers don’t provoke your children to anger. I think it applies to mothers as well. And I think one of the best ways to provoke your children to anger is to be angry at them, truly.
And so you are leading your children, you’re raising them up, and I’m speaking to myself here too. You know, we’ve got young kids at home, and I was confessing last night at the service, Lucy was up at midnight the other night, and my first reaction when she was up at midnight was not to walk in compassionately and lovingly.
It was to walk in and be like, what are you doing? Right?
And just to be angry. And it’s a human response, but man, I got to kill that. And parents, you got to kill that. How are you disciplining? Are you disciplining in anger? Are you disciplining because your kids are inconveniencing you? Discipline is not just a tool for rote obedience.
Discipline is a tool for training your kids, training them to know the Lord. And the Lord does not discipline in anger. He disciplines for our good. And I want to give one more call. All of us, in some ways, we are called to be leaders in and among this world as ambassadors for Christ, right?
Ambassadors go to other countries, and they are representing Christ, or they’re representing like the United States to the nation that they are a part of. We are ambassadors for Christ. How are we leading in and among the world? Is it through an angry fist anytime that the world comes up against us and has a different point of view?
Are we angry at them? Are we debating them with fire? Or are we coming in compassionately, lovingly trying to understand somebody who has a completely different worldview and trying to point them to the grace and love and mercy of our Savior, Jesus Christ?
Church, how are we doing with that? I have to move on because friends, we’re five verses in and I’m like out of time completely. It’s not good. Do you guys like, we could just keep going through the 12 o’clock service. We could just pack this place out.
It’d be great. For the sake of time, I’m just, I’m actually going to summarize the rest of the story for us. So 22 through the end of the chapter. So Abimelech, he leads for three years as king over Shechem and a couple of the surrounding towns. And Jotham, after, you know, proclaiming judgment on the leaders of Shechem, he runs away and hides.
And we see after three years that God is going to drive a wedge between the leaders of Shechem and Abimelech, their king. It says that he does so in verse 22 by sending an evil spirit to drive a wedge between them. And this is worth so much more time than I’m going to give it.
This could lead you to ask a lot of questions. Like what is God doing here and using an evil spirit to do this? Does he cause sin? I just want to say that the best way to interpret scripture is with more scripture, right? And so we read in the New Testament, James tells us that God himself tempts no one to sin.
It’s not as though God is using this evil spirit to tempt Abimelech and the leaders of Shechem to sin. He’s actually using, exercising sovereign authority even over the evil forces in this world to judge the leaders of Abimelech and the leaders of Shechem.
And that’s something actually I think we should rejoice in. That God has sovereign control even over evil forces in this world to use for his good purposes and plans, right?
And so here’s what happens in the rest of the story. The leaders of Shechem, they’re kind of warring against Abimelech. And this guy, this family comes and they start living in Shechem. This guy named Gaal, which is a great name. Somebody should name their son Gaal.
It won’t be me, but yeah, but you should, exactly. And Gaal comes to town. He’s this incredible kind of character who comes in and the leaders of Shechem, they like throw this party for him. And they’re all drinking too much wine. And Gaal starts running his mouth.
Gaal starts talking, you know, the leaders of Shechem, they’re confiding in him.
They’re saying Abimelech is the worst leader. And Gaal is like, who is Abimelech? Like I could take him on, you know, bring it on. Like bring your army on. I’m paraphrasing here, right? But that’s essentially what Gaal is doing. And one of Abimelech’s officers, Zebel, overhears this and he’s like, oh, we got to squash this, right?
We got to make sure a coup doesn’t happen. And so Zebel sends a message to Abimelech and says, come bring your army down on Gaal, right? And the next morning after this party, Gaal comes to the city gates and he’s standing there and he’s watching the hillside and he’s seeing men come down from the hills.
And he turns over to Zebel and he’s like, do you see what I’m seeing right here? And Zebel’s like, you’re seeing shadows, man. Don’t worry about it.
And then as the men get closer, Gaal turns to Zebel and he’s like, those are guys. That’s not shadows. And the best line in this whole narrative comes in verse 37, 38. Zebel turns to him and says, where’s your mouth now, Gaal? Right? It’s like sick burn, man.
This is great. And long story short, Abimelech and his whole army come down and they wipe out Gaal and all of his men. But here’s where the awful, awful part is. Abimelech, blazing bramble, he doesn’t just stop at wiping out Gaal and his men. He actually hides in ambush and the next day, all of the workers from the town go out to the fields and Abimelech and his men, they’re hiding out there and they just slaughter all of them.
And then they proceed to enter the city and they kill everybody. And all of the leaders of Shechem and those that are surviving, they run to the tower, the house of their god Baal, and they go take refuge there and Abimelech comes with fire and he just sets the whole tower on fire.
And then he’s so angry that he continues on to the next town and he wants to do the same thing there and make war on it. Right? He’s turned into this blazing bramble that eventually sets the whole forest ablaze. We see the whole forest ablaze among God’s people because they’re led by Abimelech.
2.) THE FOREST ABLAZE AMONG GOD’S PEOPLE
Here’s what I want us to see. Here’s a large part of why I think this story is here. Man, I got to speed up. There’s a lesson for God’s people here that if you will not be led by God, if you will not let God be your leader, if you should choose a leader based on charisma and wit and accolades and schemes and displays of strength, you will find yourself set ablaze.
God has made his people to be priests to the nations, right? That’s his purpose for them. This is chapter 19. He purposes them and says that I’m going to make you such that you’re going to go proclaim my excellencies to all of the surrounding nations.
That’s their purpose. And here in chapter 9, what we see is the complete opposite of that, a complete reversal of mission. This is the forest fire ablaze among the people of God is that led by bad leaders, they start not looking outside of the church, not going to the nations, but they start turning inward on each other and they start warring with each other.
A COMPLETE REVERSAL OF MISSION
Church, here’s something I believe with all of my heart. One of Satan’s great goals is to get the church, God’s people to be the church’s greatest enemy. I’m going to say that again.
One of Satan’s greatest goals, his most lofty goals is to get us to war with each other and to be so focused on warring and battling with each other that we don’t ever actually go out those doors and fulfill the great commission that Jesus has given us.
And I like, man, we as the church need to be privy to this as a strategy of the enemy, because if the enemy can get us to war with each other, all he has to do is stand back and let the church catch on fire and we’ll take each other out. And what does this look like?
It looks like, you know, saying, man, that church down the road, they’re awful for X, Y, and Z reasons, or they have a different doctrinal statement than us because they are dispensationalist versus us, the covenantalists, or vice versa, or they’re premillennial and we’re amillennial, or they’re Calvinist or we’re Arminian, or they’re Pentecostals and we’re Baptists.
That’s what it looks like.
And pretty soon, the church starts looking at each other and saying, you’ve got it wrong, and fighting against each other instead of saying, you know what? What are the core essential doctrines of the faith? And we’re going to go out and proclaim those things to the world.
Oh, we can get so consumed with each other that we completely miss our purpose and our mission as the church, which is to gather here, yes, but then to walk out those doors and be a witness to a watching world. Friends, we were never meant to be a forest fire, a blaze, right, a spectacle for the world to look at.
Oh, look at the church that’s on fire. We were meant to be a city shining on a hill, right?
There’s a big difference. Church, I want us to see that. Our enemy is not each other. It’s not. And that’s what it turns into here in Judges chapter 9. And I’m just, I’m grateful. EBC, I believe, has been a historically good example of not making enemies with each other, of bearing with the burdens of one another, of weeping with those who weep.
I got to, I got to close this. Worship team, why don’t you come get ready to go lead us in worship. Just two really quick things as we finish our time. One, I want us to see from Judges chapter 9 as well that God does not let the guilty go unpunished.
Abimelech, he eventually goes on to Thebes and it’s kind of, there’s another heroic woman who she, she carries this millstone up in this tower. All of the people go take refuge in this tower in the middle of the town of Thebes. And this lady has this millstone and just word of warning, never underestimate a lady with a millstone.
Seriously, it’s a word of caution to you. She drops it from the top of this tower and it crushes the head of Abimelech. And it’s this little picture, I believe, that God doesn’t let the guilty go unpunished, but the head of the serpent will be crushed.
God will take care of it. And you know, the question comes to mind, why does, why does God let leaders like Abimelech lead his church? Right? And, and I take so much comfort in the fact that yes, Abimelech reigned for three years, but God, he dealt with it and he will deal with the bad leaders in the church and among God’s people.
And second, the next thing, the last thing I want us to take from this chapter, you know, there are two judges that are raised up after Abimelech’s reign and we get like five verses on them. Their names are Tola and Jer. Let me just read the first verse of chapter 10.
After Abimelech, there arose to save Israel Tola, the son of Pua, son of Dodo.
Awesome. A man of Issachar. And then after him arose Jer, the Gileadite. And he had 30 sons who rode on 30 donkeys and had 30 cities, right? You get like nothing about these guys. But the one thing that I want us to point at, all of the other judges, they come and it says they saved them from the hands of their enemies, right?
It saved them from the hand of Midian or the Amalekites, X, Y, and Z. What does it say of Tola and Jer? That they saved Israel from who? Themselves. They saved Israel from the greater enemy, which is us. And friends, we need a savior who will come and not just save us from the surrounding nations, not just save us from the devil and his schemes, but save us from us.
And that is what God has done through Christ. He has brought him to this world to save us from the greater enemy, the greatest enemy, which is us, to replace our hearts of stone with hearts of flesh. Oh, praise God this morning that that is the end of the story.
So I want to pray for us and then let’s sing to the Lord in response to his mercy. Father, thank you for this warning story of a blazing bramble that is leading your people. Lord, may it never be so of our church. Lord, may we always be a people who are led by the spirit of God.
May our leaders lead not through an iron fist, but through compassion and mercy as servants. Lord, thank you that that has been our historical example. And Lord, as we just think about our own opportunities for leadership within God’s church, Lord, the people that we lead, whether it’s in Bible studies or mentorships or our own kids or our families, Lord, help us to lead compassionately with mercy and love to lead the way that Christ has led.
Lord, do that work in us. And we pray that we would not be a blazing bramble amidst your people. Lord, thank you that you come and you save us from us. Lord, that’s the greatest enemy that we need saving from. Thank you for Christ on the cross. Lord, we need you.
We need you. We need you. It’s in your great name that we pray. Amen. Let’s confess our need for hymn and song. Would you stand if you’re able?