I just want to mention yesterday morning for many of you who know
the family, Jake and Jake and Maria Fair, I think it's Maria
Fair. He passed away yesterday morning
due to a battle with cancer. He was in Hospice in Leamington.
So I just want to be mindful of them.
Many of you know them very well. They used to be part of the
search many years ago to just remember them.
Your prayers, Our sermon title this morning is Pride and Power
Leads to Ruin. We do not have to look far to
see how much the world today is obsessed with power and control.
The whole world seems to be just saturated and ever growing
hunger for dominance and control and does not matter where we
look, the struggle is everywhere.
We're born with it, with a desire to be in charge, to call
the shots. It happens in families.
There's rivalry, there's there's striving for power and dominance
and control happens in schools, happens in colleges and
universities and places of employment.
I don't need to mention politics.
And sadly, even in churches, power in and of itself is just
that. It's just power.
But power is dangerous. When human power and earthly
pride mix, that is sinful. A quote attributed to Abraham
Lincoln reads. Nearly all men can stand
adversity. But if you want to test a man's
character, give him power, and that will very quickly reveal
what kind of person this is. I believe it's true what this
quote says. Many people it seems can lead a
fairly stable normal life and sometimes you can't really see
anything wrong with this individual.
But when that someone gets a taste of power and control, then
everything changes. Someone has said power tends to
corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
There's some things to watch for when a person starts corrupting
due to power. Initially a person may be given
power and they may not seem to be falling for it, they just do
their job. But as time moves on, as time
progresses, their position kind of gets to them and they start
corrupting. There's a verse in Proverbs
chapter 16, verse 18 that reads pride goes before a fall, Pride
goes before destruction and a haughty spirit spirit before a
fall. Some of the slide is not
working. I'm just going to read the
verse. It may not be a reputational
fall. A person makes a decision.
Or maybe a reputational fall. A person makes a decision and
through arrogance and pride and the reputation falls.
It could be finances making a foolish decision because they're
proud and then things don't work out.
Or it can be a spiritual or a moral fall.
A person may think themselves above danger, above
accountability. What has been alarming to me
over the last number of years especially is how many pastors,
church leaders fall due to moral indiscretion, thinking they're
they're beyond danger because of power and pride.
Their position, power and pride are a very dangerous mix.
I do not find any story in the Old Testament where a humble man
fell into sin just out of the blue.
And in this morning's sermon, we will see especially one man how
pride ruined him. Last Sunday we took a break from
a sermon series and judges when we had Pastor A Burke from
Straffordville with us and he spoke on the topic of money and
his sermon title was Money Talks.
And it is true. Money is a powerful tool, a
powerful master. Either it controls us or we
control it. Either it serves us or we serve
it as Jesus says. And often times in our world,
money and power they get, they get mixed up.
And So what we do is our resources is a window into our
heart. And whether we have little or
much is not the question, it's what we do with it.
And as long as we stay humble, the amount of money is not
really the issue. But when power or control or
pride creeps into the equation, then money can become very
deadly and dangerous as well. So today in the book of Judges,
we will cover 2 chapters that are separate stories, but
they're part of the same family and they tie in one one to the
other. So today we will wrap up the
story of Gideon, how he finished his time as a judge in Israel.
And then we will look at his son Abimelech, who made himself
king, actually a judge, but also king.
And we will see how his time just quickly unraveled and ended
in a very catastrophic way back in Judges chapter 6.
We began with Gideon some Sundays ago, and we learned that
he considered himself small. In his own eyes, he was a man
who felt he had nothing to offer.
Look where I come from. I'm come from a very minor, from
a very insignificant tribe. Who am I?
He was humble at heart in a sense, but God called him to
lead the children of Israel into victory against the Midianites.
He wasn't interested. He was not the man for the job,
but God patiently pushed him along and drew him along.
And eventually Gideon took courage and put his trust in
God, and God used him to overthrow the Midianites.
And even though God used him to lead the charge, it was God's
power that did the work. It was Gideon who had to be in
charge of the group. But God did the work.
And as we look at Gideon in Chapter 6 and seven, we saw
clearly how Gideon did not think highly of himself at all.
He was just a simple, humble farmer trying to be safe from
the Midianites. And out here he was used in a
very powerful way. Well, things did not stay that
way this morning. We'll see how Gideon, even
though he started well, he ended worse than he started, or he
ended less than he was before he started.
Finishing well is not by accident.
If you want to finish well in life, you'll have to be just as
focused going across the finish line as you were when you
started. There's never a time to take
your eyes off the track or off the off the road.
We don't just coast to victory. It is a race to the finish, to
the end. One would like to think that in
life a person would want to end better than they began, correct?
I think so. Gideon was one of those leaders.
He was very humble to start. He was well used by God.
God used him in a very good way. But then things changed and he
ended worse than he started. It's it's a sad story.
But then his son Abimelech becomes the next guy, makes
himself the next guy in charge. And it was really bad getting
started doing things toward the end that revealed character
flaws about him that would be his downfall.
So let's begin reading out of Judges chapter 8, one to three.
And I'll say it at the start, we won't read all of chapters 1 and
chapters 8:00 and 9:00. It's just too much scripture for
this morning. So I'll just pick some passages
and I'll just talk about the rest.
Now the men of Ephraim said to him, meaning, Gideon, why have
you done done this to us by not calling us when you went to
fight with the Midianites? And they reprimanded him
sharply. So he, Gideon said to them, What
I what have I done now in comparison with you?
Is not the gleaning of the grapes of Ephraim better than
the vintage of Abbiezer? God has delivered into your
hands the Princess of Midian Orb and Zeb, and what was I able to
do in comparison with you? Then their anger toward him
subsided when he said that so far so good, he did the right
thing. After the war, Gideon had called
out for help from some of the tribes, and help came, but the
Ephraimites were angry that they had not been invited sooner, had
been not been involved more, and they kind of felt left out.
And so their pride and ego was hurt.
And what exactly all their motives were, we don't know.
Maybe they wanted more spoils of the war.
They wanted some recognition from the battles.
You know what we fought in that battle, so on.
We don't know for sure. But anyway, they wanted in on
the glory and the victory and Gideon is here getting rebuked
and reprimanded by these men of Ephraim for not having included
them more than he had. Well, Gideon had every right to
justify what he did and explain himself.
After all, God told me your army's too big and you need to
cut down the army and so on. Does none of that just says look
what you did. You captured orb and Z.
That's better than what I did. He's a humble man.
Gideon did what Proverbs 15 verse one writes.
A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.
Does it ever? How many of us at some point or
other just wish, I wish I kept my mouth shut.
I think all of us at some point have just thought, OK, no, I
shouldn't have said that. I wish I kept my mouth shut.
But you know what? There's a good answer for that.
Repent, humility and repentance. It's hard, but it's good.
It's healthy. And so Gideon, he starts out
well here. He went on the pursuit of these
kings and these, these Aphramites, they're upset.
He says look what what you did was better than what I did.
And off he goes. But now we see a shift
happening. Let's continue.
See, Gideon goes on the pursuit of the kings of Midian.
He comes to a place called Sakath, Don't know if that's
correct pronunciation. But anyway, he comes to this
place. He asks the men of that place
for bread for his army. His 300 guys were with him as
he's chasing the Midianites. Well, they taunt him.
They, they, they turn him down, taunting him.
And who are you? And maybe these men of soccer
think that Gideon, he's probably not going to win and the mobits
are going to come back. And then we've chosen the wrong
side. We don't know all the details,
but they don't help him out. Well, Gideon is upset.
And this is where the shift happens.
Gideon is not humble anymore. And verse 7, if you follow in
your Scripture, it tells us that Gideon is angry and he tells
them what he's going to do. He says, OK, you won't give me
bread. But when I capture those kings,
when the Lord gives them into my hands, I'm going to come here.
I'm going to tear your flesh with thorns of the desert.
That's a threat. He's crediting God with
delivering the kings into his hand that he's doing.
But these thorns are not just simple small garden thistles.
They're heavy, strong wooden thorns or wood like thorns that
go deep, They're long, they're sharp.
I'm going to punish you with thorns of the desert.
They knew what he was talking about.
Well, on he goes. He doesn't get help from them.
He goes to the next city of Pennuell and he asks for bread
as well. Again, they answer him in the
same way he told these guys. When I come back here with my
with victory, I'm going to tear down your tower.
Where's soft answer? Turns away wrath.
Where's that? A shift had taken place.
Gideon had now become a man of power.
He'd been chosen by God to lead this charge against the
Mennonites. And it was wrong for the men of
these places to not trust him enough to give him food.
But how Gideon responded wasn't right either.
You know, it's, it's weird how other people's sins reveal the
sins in our own lives. Commentators mentioned that
Gideon here had crossed the line.
Now it had become personal. He had done this fighting.
Sure, he had been in the lead, in the lead, he had been in
charge. But now he makes it personal.
Now he's into settling scores. Now it's not so much anymore
doing it because God called me to do this, and all while these
guys don't help me. So what?
No, I'm going to make them pay. Sometimes this happens in life.
Things are said, pride gets hurt, lines are drawn, scores
are kept, people dig in, goodwill and humility evaporate.
What had happened to Gideon? He had gotten power and he
became angry. Now he's using his power in
anger to control people and that's never good, but he
continues the chase. We find further in chapter 8,
the kings of Midian, they had fled.
They had to had escaped to a place that they thought they
were safe. You can read that in verse 10.
They still had 15,000 men with them. 120 had fallen, 120,000
had fallen. I want to mention also two
Sundays ago when I preached on this, I didn't do my math
correctly. Some of you may have caught
that. I mentioned there were 120,000
men and Gideon had three hundred, a ratio of 400
Midianites to 1 Israelite, but actually my numbers were wrong.
Actually the correct answer was there were 120,000 had fallen,
15,000 remained, meaning there were 135,000 to begin with
against Gideon's 300, which was actually 450 Midianites to an
Israelite. So the the numbers were even
farther apart. Now here there's still 15,000
Midianites left and Gideon's on the attack and he still is
vastly outnumbered. He's caught up with the kings,
he charges and they flee and he captures the 2 kings of Midian.
He achieves the objective and God is still with him.
Now Gideon goes back the way he came, with his prisoners in tow,
to the places he had earlier asked for bread.
He comes to Sokkath and there he captures a young man outside the
city and interrogates him. Who are the elders in the city?
And the guy writes the names down for him.
And Gideon does as he said he would.
He teaches those men of Sokkath a lesson with thorns from the
desert in anger. That's not relationship
building, that's not conciliatory, that's not
helping. He settles a score for all we
can imagine. If anything, if there was
already distance between him and these men now just grew even
greater. He goes to the other town.
Panda Will tore their city down down and kills the men in the
city. Now let's keep in mind who's he
killing. He's killing fellow Israelites
in anger. He's killing his own countrymen.
One has to say good moral leaders show self restraint and
self-control. But here Gideon and Anger is
killing his own countrymen because they wouldn't give him
bread. He was going to prove himself.
He's not finished yet. Next he goes he talks to the 2
kings he had captured and asked them about.
So what were those men on Mount Tabor that you killed?
Now, obviously he's referring back to some earlier event
before all this went down, when they were constantly raiding
them and and robbing them. Who were the guys in Mount Tabor
that you guys killed? Oh, they were like you looked
like kings. And then Gideon says to them,
they were my brothers. If you had spared them, I would
spare you. And in anger, he takes charge.
And he tells his son, Jethro, take your sword and kill these
men. And there's a reason why he
talked to his young younger, to his son who's who's a youth to
kill these kings, because it would be humiliation for the
kings to be killed by a youth. And it's just going to humiliate
them. Yet.
Well, he won't do it. He's too, too afraid.
He's a youth. So he does it himself.
But you know what James one verse 20 says?
The wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of
God. The wrath of man does not
produce the righteousness of God.
It gets worse after the war is over.
Now the men of Israel come and ask Gideon to come and rule over
them. Let's read verse 22 to 23.
Then the men of Israel said to Gideon, Rule over us, both you
and your son, and your grandson also, for you've delivered us
from the hand of Midian. But Gideon said to him, I will
not rule over you, nor shall my son rule over you.
The Lord shall rule over you. Great, great statement.
That's exactly what he should have said.
But what's troubling here is the very thing God wanted the people
to avoid from happening in Chapter 7 they're now doing in
Chapter 7. God told Gideon, your army's too
big if you win with this big army.
The children of Israel said our own hand saved us.
And now they were not taking credit to themselves.
Hey, Gideon saved us. No, it was not Gideon, it was
the Lord. But they claimed glory for
Gideon. Big mistake.
Well, Gideon says Nope, I'm not going to do it.
Well, at least he says he's not going to do it.
But let's see what's in his heart.
He knew better. He did the right thing by
refusing. But what was in his heart?
Let's read on. Was he completely innocent?
Let's read on. Verse 24 it says Gideon said to
them, I would like to make a request of you that each of you
would give me the earrings from his plunder.
There was plunder, for they had golden earrings because they
were Ishmaelites. So they answered, we will gladly
give them. And they spread out a garment
and each man threw it into it, the earrings from his plunder.
Now the weight of the gold earrings that he requested was
1700 shekels of gold beside the crescents, ornaments and
pendants, purple robes which were on the kings of Midian, and
besides the chains that were around the camel's necks.
Then Gideon made it into an ephod and set it up in the city
Ofra, and all Israel played the harlot with it.
There it became a snare to Gideon and to his house.
Thus meeting was subdued before the children of Israel, so they
lifted their heads no more, and the country was quiet for 40
years in the days of Gideon. Yes, good, but the seeds had
been sown and they would bear fruit.
No sooner had the people been free from bondage headed
straight to another form of bondage.
Gideon made this ephod and we don't know exactly what all was
in his heart. Maybe it was kind of a memorial
or what people built statues to celebrate, commemorate important
events. Maybe that was it.
I won't claim to say it was one, but one thing for sure.
This was a, an, an object to kind of bring people together or
to have a common focus. And I want to say in in Gideon's
defense, he did not intend it to be an idol, but that is what it
became. It was simply a replica of a
priestly garment that the priests wore when they worship
in the House of God. Sometimes an object may be put
in place or a practice may be put in place for a good
intention, but it ends up being something different.
It gets misused. And no doubt this ephod was
something like that. We say with confidence Gideon
was not a man who planned to lead his nation into idol
worship, but his actions still facilitated it.
The gold ephod became a snare to Gideon in his family.
It became not the pointer to a good event or a good history or
to God. It itself became the point.
It became an idol. What Gideon perhaps should have
done is immediately just destroy it.
But for all we know, he didn't deal with the issue at all.
And then it goes on to say something else about getting as
well. He had seventy sons who were his
own offspring all. And then because he had many
wives and so he had a lot of sons, and this was a weakness on
his part. Under Old Testament law, it was
allowed for a man to have numerous wives, but that was
never God's plan. This is just an additional piece
of information about getting as a man, besides his many wives,
he had a slave woman or a woman who was as concubine, not
married to her. She was his his wife, side wife
for pleasure and that was it. And through her he had a son.
And guess what? He named that son.
He named that son Abimelech. The word Abimelech is a very
interesting word. It's actually a name that means
in Hebrew, my father is king. Let's imagine that.
What's going on here? Here we have Gideon, the man who
refuses to be king. He won't worship idols.
And he doesn't want his sons to be king.
But then he has a son and names that boy my father is king.
So here's Abimelech walking around and say, hey, what's your
name? My father is king.
In all of this, we find a subtle hints that do not paint getting
in a favorable light. Even though he refused this
position of power and authority that was offered to him and he
refused it, his mind still was not completely free from it.
He was in some ways acting like 1.
Well, let's continue reading Judges 8 verse 33 and on to 35.
So it was as soon as Gideon was dead that the children of Israel
played the harlot again, the harlot with the bales, and made
Bale beareth their God. That's the children of Israel
did not remember the Lord their God who had delivered them from
the hands of all their enemies on every side, nor did they show
kindness to the House of Jerobeal Gideon in accordance
with the good he had done for Israel.
How quickly people forget Noe Gideon was not who he or what he
could have been, but he did a lot of good, but he didn't end
on a high note. This is a sad thing when when
when a person like that slides or or declines.
It happens today all through society.
It's easy to start well, but it's not that easy sometimes to
finish well because the temptations are relentless.
Opportunities galore everywhere. Now with Gideon gone, the nation
goes into full blown idol worship again and again.
Problems rise again. But you know, for the first time
in the history of the judges. Now this was a long history
already over 200 years by now. For the first time in the book
of Judges, the problems that arise, they don't arise from
outside now, they start within this time.
It's not an outward enemy that's going to trouble them.
It's an inward enemy that's going to come on the scene.
Let's read Judges Chapter 9, verse one to six.
Then Abimelech, this boy, the son of Jerobeil, went to
Shechem, to his mother's brothers, and spoke with them
and with all the family of the House of his mother's father,
saying, please speak into hearing of all the men of
Shechem. So these are his uncles.
Which is better for you, that all seventy sons of the sons of
Jerubel? Jerubel reign over you or that
one reign over you? Remember, I am your own flesh
and blood. Your own flesh and bone.
Look how he starts. Gideon couldn't be persuaded to
take the title. King Abimelech hunts for it.
He goes after it. What's he doing right out of the
gate? Everything is wrong.
He gets to work campaigning, getting support from people who
he believes will be on his side. The first thing we see about
them like is his pride. He has a proud heart.
At this point in the game, he does not yet have power to use
his to use against the people that he's going to go after.
But he will need backing to carry out his plan to become
king. He desperately wants the
position. He wants to be the king.
He wants power to rule. You see when people start to
advertise themselves and try to portray themselves, hey, look at
me, I'm the guy for your next for that position.
When that happens, be very careful.
There are people who go and apply for a job and they don't
even have the job yet. They try to convince their would
be a boss, how lucky they would. You'd be lucky if you hire me
kind of thing. He's saying this to his mother's
brothers and his family uncles. Hey, look, I'm bringing lots to
the table. Get me as your next leader.
If people come to you and flatter you, why you why they
should put you in such and such a position?
General rule, don't go for it. I've sat with different leaders
who've hired someone for their workplace or organization only
so badly to wish they had never hired that guy for that job.
It's a lot harder to terminate someone than it is to hire them.
Just count the stories of workplaces hiring the wrong
people and and thinking they were the right people only to
find out, oh, they had an agenda.
They're not here for the for the industry or for the
organization. They're here just to gain
control. Happens everywhere.
Here in the story of judges is a picture of a self focused power
hungry man. He saw an opportunity to gain a
foothold and to take power. And here's he's requesting
others to do the work of persuading the people in the
town to do his favor. Hey uncles, put in a good word
for me. I should be your king.
Let's continue reading verse 3. And his mother's brothers, his
uncles, spoke all these words concerning him in the hearing of
all the men of Shechem. See, now it's spreading.
And their heart was inclined to follow Abimelech, for they said
He's our brother. So they gave him 70 shekels of
silver from the temple of Bale Beareth, which with which
Abimelech hired worthless and reckless men, and they followed
him. Success.
His wicked plan worked. He had convinced his uncles and
he had gotten their support and they're spreading it now.
He gets the following. Next, he's given money from the
temple out of the treasury of Baal.
He uses that money, hires for himself some maybe a bodyguard,
some reckless men who he could use to do what he wanted them.
He's smart. These men could be bought.
All they cared about was how much are we getting paid?
Let's continue on verse 5. Then he went.
Now he has this following, he has this gang.
He went to his father's house at Ofra and killed his brothers,
the 70 sons of Jerebel, on us on one stone.
But Jotham, the youngest son of Jerebel, was left because he hid
himself. And all the men of Shechem
gathered together, all of Beth Milo, and they went and made
Abimelech king beside the terebin's tree at the pillar.
That wasn't Shechem. The deed was done.
Abimelech had gotten the support he wanted, his uncles had gotten
the men of Shechem on board and they had gotten a good
following. He got the financial backing, he
got his gang together, he got rid of the possible competition,
his half brothers, and they had made him king.
He was not really truly a king, but he had the title now.
What could go wrong, right? He had all that he wanted and
that he needed. He was king and proud of it.
He was at the top. The youngest son, Jotham, had
escaped. He had not gotten killed when
all his other brothers had gotten killed and he'd gotten
away. He went into hiding.
When he heard what happened, he gave a warning and we find this
warning in chapter in Chapter 9, verse 7 to 21.
I don't believe you have that on on the PowerPoint, but Judges 97
to 21 beginning verse 7. Now when they told Jotham, he
went and stood on top of Mount Garrett's team and lifted his
voice and crowd out and said to them, listen to me.
You men have Shechem that God may listen to you.
The trees once went forth to anoint the king over them, and
they said to the olive tree, Reign over us.
But the olive tree said to them, Should I cease giving my oil,
with which my which which they honor God and men, and go to
sway over trees. Then the trees said to the fig
tree, You come and reign over us.
But the fig tree said to them, Should I cease my sweetness and
my good fruit, and go to sway over trees?
Then the tree said to the vine, You come and reign over us.
But the vine said to them, Should I cease my new wine,
which cheers both God and men, go to sway over trees.
Then all the trees said to the Bramble, You come and reign over
us. And the Bramble said to the
trees, If in truth you anoint me as your king, then come and take
shelter in my shade, but if not, let fire come out of the Bramble
and devour the Cedars of Lebanon.
That was the parable that Jotham told to the men of Shechem.
Then he explains it. He says Now therefore we're 16.
If you have acted in truth and sincerity and making the demo
like king, and if you have dwelt with, dealt well with Jerry
Bello and his house and have done to him what he deserves.
For my father fought for you, risked his life and delivered
you out of the hand of Midian. But you've risen up against my
father's house this day and killed his seventy sons on one
stone, and made Abimelech the son of his female servant, king
over the men of Shechem, because he's your brother.
If then you've acted in truth and sincerity with Jaribel, with
his house this day, then rejoice in Abimelech.
Let him rejoice in you. But if not, let fire come from
Abimelech and devour the men of Shechem and Beth Milo, And let
fire come from the men of Shechem, and from Beth Milo and
devour Abimelech in verse 21. And Jonathan ran away and fled
and went to Beer and dwelt there for fear of Abimelech.
His brother Jotham, the youngest, pronounced a curse on
what had happened, and he fled because he was afraid for his
life. Let's read verse 22.
Now Continue reading. After Abimelech had reigned over
Israel three years, God sent a spirit of ill will between
Abimelech and the men of Shechem.
And the men of Shechem dealt treacherously with Abimelech,
that the crime done to the 70 sons of Jerebel might be settled
and their blood be laid on Abimelech, their brother who
killed them, and on the men of Shechem who aided him in the
killing of his brothers. And the men of Shechem sent men
an ambush against him on the tops of the mountains, and they
robbed all who passed by them along the way.
And it was told Abimelech 3 years, that's it, That's all he
got. And it didn't go well.
Was it worth it? Of course not.
In the light of eternity, something like Abimelech did is
never worth it. It tells us that God sent his
spirit of ill will between Abimelech and the men of
Shechem, and it says they dealt treacherously with him.
Yes, evil spirits exist. There was a spirit of ill will
sent by God to go between Abimelech and these people.
God wasn't watching. He was putting the wheels in
motion to bring Abimelech to justice.
It has been said that the wheels of justice grind slowly and
sometimes they do, but they do eventually bring justice.
God was getting ready to let Abimelech reap what he had sown.
He had sown treachery and murder and he would reap disaster.
It tells us the men set an ambush against the him on the
tops of the mountains. Commentators write that this was
These were travel routes here and caravans and travelers would
come through them and maybe had to pay tolls and taxes for
passing through these areas. And so now Bimlex doesn't get
these revenues and they're getting robbed.
And so Bimlex is told what's going on and he's going to deal
with it. There's something for us to
learn here. If you're dealing with a person
who's friendly to you, who wants to be on your team, but he has
no problem being mean to other people, trampling on them, and
just being proud and arrogant, then watch out.
They may be your friend early on, in the early stages, they
may not be robbing you. They may be treating you better
than others. But watch out.
As soon as they find it to their benefit to be mean to you,
reject you, malign you, discredit you, they will.
That's what people do in these kinds of scenarios.
Abimelech was an evil man and he had hired evil people and they
got along well, but only so long, all within a span of three
years. Let's continue reading Chapter
9, verse 26. Now GAIL, the son of Ebet, came
with his brothers and went over to Shechem.
I don't know who he was. I didn't do a lot of study on
him, any study. In fact, it just just in the
story here and says the men of Shechem put their confidence in
him. You see the shift, the loyalty
to Abimelech is now shifted to ebed and now the trail begins
betrayal. So they went out into the
fields, verse 27, and gathered grapes from the vineyards and
tried them and made merry and they went into the House of
their God and ate and drank and cursed Abimelech.
Then GAIL, the son of Ebet said, who's Abimelech and who's
Shechem that we should serve him?
Is he not the son of Jerebel? This is about Zebulu's officer.
Serve the men of Hammer, the father of Shechem.
Why should we serve him? If only this people were under
my authority, then I would remove Abimelech.
So he said to Abimelech, increase your army and come out
open defiance. Abimelech now was facing the
exact thing that he had done to his own family.
He would now face open rebellion.
For first time in Israel there was internal war.
We read the fighting broke out between Abimelech and Gale and
the Abimelech did have the upper hand initially, but in the end
he met his demise. Abimelech did fight against Gale
in a number of cities, overpowered the opposition, but
then he came to a place where he met his.
And in Judges Chapter 9 verse 50 we find in the town of Thebes.
Then Abimelech went to Thebes and he camped against Thebes and
took it. But there was a strong tower in
the city, and all the men and women, all the people of the
city, fled there and shut themselves in.
Then they went up to the top of the tower.
So Abimelech came as far as the tower and fought against it.
He drew near the door of the tower to burn it with fire.
But a certain woman dropped an upper millstone on Abimelech's
head and crushed his skull. Then he quickly called to the
young man, his armor bearer, and said, Draw your sword and kill
me, lest men save me. A woman killed him.
So his young man thrust him through, and he died.
And when the men of Israel saw that Abimelech was dead, they
departed every man to his place. Thus God repaid the wickedness
of Abimelech, which he had done to his father by killing his
seventy brothers and all the evil of the men of Shechem.
God returned on their own heads, and on them came the curse of
Jotham, the son of Jarabel at the end, who dealt Abimelech his
last card. God, did you know something?
With the death of Abimelech, problems were mostly gone.
One man in so much trouble. Think of it, what pride and
power did? Abimelech was a man filled with
pride. He hungered for power and he
took it, wanting to rule Israel for his own benefit.
And God stopped him after only three years.
The pride in Abimelech's heart led him to his quest for power,
and when he had it, it led to his ruin.
Notice something about Abimelech.
He remained proud, unbending, unrepentant, and defy it to the
bitter end. That's how he died.
What Bimelech did was sad. But you know what's even sadder?
It's sadder how many people in Israel were drawn down into his
net, went down with him. How much bloodshed happened
because of his ambitions, his arrogance, his pride, and his
grabbing for power. What should Scripture teach us,
teach us here? What is the take away here from
Judges Chapter 8 and 9? Sin does not pay, sin is not
worth it. Power and pride mixed is an
awful combination. Paul has something to say to his
readers, to his audience when it comes to walking with Jesus in
Philippians chapter 2 verse 3 says let nothing be done through
selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind.
Let each esteem others better than himself.
You know Jesus is a good example.
He set aside all power, all glory, and became a humble man
and served. We do not find anywhere in
Scripture, at least I don't find anywhere in Scripture where
anyone has succeeded who got tangled up with power and
control together and at the same time finished.
Well, I don't know of anyone, but there are those who remained
humble even when they came into power and did a lot of good for
God's glory and the benefit of their fellow human beings.
Take for instance, the story of Joseph.
He was sold as a young man, unjustly treated, sold as a
slave to Egypt, unjustly treated by Potiphar's wife, imprisoned,
forgotten in prison. One day God ordained the events
so that he became the Prime Minister of Egypt, and he was
placed there for a time to save Egypt out of the the famine that
was going to come. When the famine came, his
brothers came to buy grain. He instantly recognized them.
He had no pride and knowledge toward them.
He could have executed his brothers and nobody would have
lifted a finger. He had power, He had control,
but He had humility. You and I today can choose the
path you want to follow. Do we want to follow the path of
pride? We choose that.
Do we want power? That should alarm us?
If we do, that needs to be repented of.
Do we want to be like Abimelech, where it's all about what I
want? My way is the best way.
Or can I trust Jesus, walk in his footsteps, and then connect
with fellow believers and see what's good for the greater good
for all of us together? When a person let's go of power
and control, there is a sweet surrender, a sweet release, and
the security in Christ that far surpasses anything this world
has to offer. When we surrender to Jesus, when
we come into relationship with Jesus, there's the sweet
fellowship seeking after his will, the well-being of others.
And when we seek to serve instead of be served, When we
seek to honor others instead of seeking honor, when we lay down
our aspirations, our desires and ambitions for the benefit of
others, that is where the Spirit of God dwells, and that is where
there is peace. Let's pray, Lord, we have seen
how easy it is to give into the temptation of pride and power.
Help us, Lord, to stay clear of the snares and traps of power
and pride. Lord, may you be gracious to us,
revealed to us where we have compromised and are in that
trap. Help us Lord, and help set us
free. We pray, Lord, that as we leave
here today, that we will leave here walking with you, following
your example and be like your Saints of old and avoid those
who are like Abimelech. Help us, Lord Jesus, to be
faithful, to be humble and obedient to you.
We're thanking your Lord, and we pray.
Amen.