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9, and the reason that I read Judges 8 just now was just to give you a little bit of the introduction just so you can kind of get the context of what we're seeing in chapter 9 because I'm going to preach through the events of chapter 9 about Abimelech, but let me just bring you up to speed quickly. Of course, Gideon was the famous man who the Bible says was a mighty man of valor and God chose him to deliver the Israelites from the Midianites. They'd been enslaved by the Midianites. The Midianites were coming in and taking all the increase of their harvest. They would raise wheat and all kinds of crops. The Midianites were taxing them very heavily and taking away all their wealth and if you remember Gideon was hiding wheat to try to hoard it and keep it away from the Midianites and God's angel comes and speaks to Gideon and tells him, you're going to deliver the Israelites. You're going to defeat the enemy. You're going to fight against Midian. And if you remember he assembles an army of 32,000 men and he's going to defeat the Midianites, but God tells Gideon that God doesn't want Gideon to get the glory and he doesn't want Israel to take the glory for themselves. He says you have too many troops. You need to whittle down the number of troops a little bit. Now they were facing an enemy that was as many as the sandwiches by the sea, the Bible says. I mean a massive, innumerable enemy. They only have 32,000, but God said it's too many. And so if you remember, Gideon extends to everyone the invitation to go home if you're scared. He said if you're scared, go home. Of course 22,000 go home. Now he's left with 10,000. God says it's still too many. And so he said have them go down to the river, and we're going to test them down there, and if you go down to the river and drink water, all the men who get on their knees and bring their hand to their mouth and lap the water out of their hand, those are the ones you're going to take with you. The ones who put their face down in the water, you're not going to take them. So they go down to the river and only 300 men drink the water the way that God had told Gideon they should drink if they were going to come with them. And so now he's down to 300 troops against an innumerable enemy, and if you remember God miraculously steps in, Gideon divides his group of 300 into 3 groups of 100 each, and if you remember they have a pitcher with a lamp in it and a trumpet in the other hand. They surround the enemy. They break their pitchers, shine the lights, blow the trumpet, and they cry out the sword of the Lord and of Gideon, and when they do so, the enemy, God performed a miracle where the enemy heard the noise of a much greater army than what was really there, 300 men. God amplified the sound, and so they thought, we're surrounded by a massive enemy, and there was so much confusion and trampling upon one another that that innumerable army flees before Gideon and his 300 men. Well as Gideon and his 300 men are pursuing this great army, obviously the other children of Israel, they hear about the great victory and the great rout that's taking place, and so they all join in and they follow Gideon, and then Gideon had a great army at his back, and he pursues them, he destroys Midian, he defeats them, and we read a little bit about the latter portion of that in Judges chapter 8, what we just read. So now let's get to the aftermath. Gideon the great hero, the man of faith, the man of God, has defeated the enemies of the Lord, he's brought freedom and liberty to his nation. Let's start reading in chapter 8 verse 27, the Bible says, And Gideon made an ephod thereof, and put it in his city, even in Ophrah. And all Israel went thither, a-whoring after it, which thing became a snare unto Gideon and to his house. And of course that was a mistake that Gideon did make. He never stopped worshipping the Lord, he never forsook the Lord and went after other ephods, but he did create this golden image of an ephod, and because he made that image, it was a stumbling block unto others. Even though he never worshipped this golden image, other people did and so forth. Look at verse 28, Thus was Midian subdued before the children of Israel, so that they lifted up their heads no more. And the country was in quietness forty years in the days of Gideon. So after Gideon defeats this enemy, for forty years there's peace and prosperity and quietness in the land. It says in verse 29, Then Jerubal, the son of Joash, went and dwelt in his own house. You say, who's Jerubal? Well Jerubal is a name that Gideon's father named him. Because Gideon's name was Gideon, but at one point Gideon, before he defeated the enemy's Midian, he destroys the altar of Baal. And they're worshipping this false god Baal, and Gideon destroyed that altar, and so they changed his name to Jerubal, and that basically means the one that Baal strives against or pleads against, or the one who pleads against Baal. Basically the man who is at enmity with Baal, the name Jerubal means. Now Baal is a term, and this is going to come up a little bit later in the story, Baal is a term for Satan, if you remember in the Bible. All throughout the Bible we see terms like Baal, Baal Zebub, Baal Ekron, Beelzebub, Beliel, and then in the book of Jeremiah, the Bible, and in Daniel it talks about Bel, B-E-L. Same thing, it's just different ways of saying the same thing, Baal, Beelzebub, Baelim, whatever. It's all talking about worshipping Satan, because the Bible teaches very clearly that these Old Testament nations, when they worshiped, quote, other gods, the Bible is clear they're worshipping Satan. And that's why the Bible calls Satan Beelzebub and calls him Baal. Also in the New Testament, in 1 Corinthians, the Bible says that the things which the Gentiles offer unto idols, he said they offer unto devils. And so these false gods, these idols, these images of Baal Zebub, Baal Ekron, whoever the case, the Bible says that these are devils, these are demons that they are actually worshipping. So Jerubal means the one who is at enmity with Baal would be one way of putting it. And it says in verse 30, and Gideon, and again, Gideon and Jerubal are the same person. And Gideon had three score and ten sons of his body begotten, for he had many wives. And his concubine that was in Shechem, she also bare him a son, whose name he called Abimelech. So get the picture, Gideon has disobeyed the Lord here in one way. First of all, he made that image of the Ephod. But secondly, he has taken upon him multiple wives. Now this is something that the Bible has never taught and never condoned. The Bible says, from the beginning it was not so. He said that it is written that a man should leave father and mother and cleave unto his wife, singular, and they too shall be one flesh. Therefore what God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. And so the Bible teaches very clearly that a man should have one wife. That is marriage according to the Bible. Not two wives, not three wives. But yet we see throughout the Bible, especially in the Old Testament, people who multiplied wives. People who took on a second wife, a third wife, in conformity to the world around them. Now that's not a temptation today because the world around us does not accept polygamy today. But in other parts of the world, polygamy is accepted. In America, it's not. In America, people just go from one to the next to the next to the next to the next. But in the Bible days, you know, they practice polygamy, which is a sin and it's always been a sin. Now he made the mistake of having multiple wives and the Bible tells us that with his multiple wives, he begat 70 children, 7-0, 70 children with these wives. And he also begat a child out of wedlock with a concubine or a maidservant and his name was Abimelech. So Abimelech, what the Bible would call the bastard son of Gideon. And then he has 70 sons that he fathered with his wives. Let's keep reading. That's going to come up later in the story. And it says in verse 32, and Gideon, the son of Joash, died in a good old age and was buried in the sepulcher of Joash's father in Ophrah of the Abiezrites. Verse 33, and it came to pass as soon as Gideon was dead that the children of Israel turned again and went ahoring after Balaam. Now the word Balaam is plural there. It means basically a multiplicity of Baals. They're worshipping more than one false god by the name of Baal and it says they made Baal-bereth their god. Verse 34, and the children of Israel remembered not the Lord their God who had delivered them out of the hands of all their enemies on every side, neither showed a kindness to the house of Jerubel or Gideon, namely Gideon, according to all the goodness which he had showed unto Israel. So this is the cycle that keeps happening in the book of Judges over and over again. God delivers the people from their enemies. He sends a savior or a deliverer or a judge that will come in and deliver them from their enemies. This time it was Gideon. But after 40 years of peace and prosperity they begin to get comfortable. They begin to forget how the Lord saved them and they are not running scared anymore and now they go ahoring after other gods and that happens over and over again for 400 some years in the book of Judges. It just goes over and over again, the cycle of people when things are going good they forget the Lord. And we need to make sure that that's not the way our life is. You know in times of trouble we seek unto the Lord, don't we? I mean when we're in bad shape, when we're in the storms of life, you know when we're suffering, boy that's when we're on our knees begging God to step in, oh God help us. And then when he helps us we're thankful and we're renewed in our service for him. But then as time goes on and things go well we begin to indulge in the cares of this life and we begin to forget to read the Bible, we don't have time for prayer and stuff like that. God has to bring us through more struggle and more trying times in order to get us to come back and seek him. And honestly we probably wouldn't go through so many crises in our life if we would just remember God all the time and just continually be thankful to him, continually praise him, continually pray unto him and read our Bibles. But you know he has to get our attention over and over again with hard times. Now let's get into chapter 9. This is what I really want to preach about this morning. Look at verse 1, and Abimelech the son of Jerubel, and remember this is his illegitimate son with the concubine, and Abimelech the son of Jerubel went to Shechem unto his mother's brethren and communed with them and with all the family of the house of his mother's father, saying speak I pray you in the ears of all the men of Shechem. Weather is better for you, either that all the sons of Jerubel, which are threescore and ten again, that's seventy, threescore and ten persons reign over you, or that one reign over you. Remember also that I'm your bone and your flesh, and his mother's brethren spake of him in the ears of all the men of Shechem all these words, and their hearts inclined to follow Abimelech, for they said he is our brother, and they gave him threescore and ten pieces of silver, out of the house of Baalbereth, wherewith Abimelech hired vain and light persons which followed him. So where is the money coming from to finance Abimelech's kingdom that he's going to set up? Where's it coming from? The house of Baalbereth, which Baalbereth is basically a false god, it's a devil that they're worshipping. So he gets his money from this false god's religion, and he hires with it vain and light persons to follow. It's basically not people of character or integrity or people who really believe in the battle that they're fighting, mercenaries, soldiers that are just hired to follow after him for financial gain. They're just willing to fight for him because there's money in it. And you know that's always the wrong reason to fight or to go to war, for financial gain. Think about that now. In the Bible, the Bible teaches that there were to go to battle, and they weren't to hire out the heathen to help them fight their battles. If you remember, there was a time when the king of Judah, he hired those from the sinful northern kingdom of Samaria to come and fight with him, and he hired them with money. And God said, don't bring these guys with you. These are not godly men. These are not right. The heathen kingdom, because the northern kingdom had gone after other gods. And so the Bible teaches that we should not hire wicked people to fight our battles for us, okay? And let me tell you something, people who go to war, people who will kill and fight for a paycheck just in order to gain financially, they are truly vain and light persons. When you have a battle that's fought because people believe in the battle, and they believe in the cause, and they believe in what you're fighting for, that's going to be the right kind of soldier right there. But when it's somebody who just wants the money, they don't care about what's right, you're going to get the wrong kind of people. And I believe that that's a mistake today that our nation is making in regard to the military. Today even filthy sodomites, even these reprobate homosexuals today are being welcomed into the military for filthy lucre's sake. You know, I talked to a lot of people today and they're joining the military and they even say, I don't even believe in the wars that we're fighting. I don't even believe in any of this. But they said it's a paycheck, it's good money. That's not the right reason. And I'm not against fighting for your country and fighting for what's right, but you better decide whether you believe in the fight that's going on and not just be one who just fights and kills for money, for financial gain. And you know, however you feel about the battle, that's between you and God. But let me tell you something, you better not go out and kill and fight for a paycheck. It ought to be because you believe in the fight, you believe it's right. You believe that our cause is just, and that it's justified in the eyes of God. That's what I believe. But the Bible says here that he hired these vain and light persons to follow him. And you can tell what kind of people these are that are following him based on verse 5. And he went into his father's house at Ophrah and slew his brethren, the sons of Jerubel, being three score and ten persons upon one stone. Notwithstanding yet Jotham, the youngest son of Jerubel, was left for he hid himself. So Abimelech, the bastard son of Gideon, he decides I want to take over this kingdom. And if you remember when they offered Gideon to be king, they said rule over us, reign over us. Gideon said I will not reign over you, the Lord will reign over you. Because God never set up the nation of Israel to be under a king, they were supposed to have judges, but ultimately God was their king and they did not have a man to rule over them. And so Gideon refused to rule over them. And for 40 years he judged Israel biblically, but he did not rule and reign as a king. And so he also said my sons will also not reign over you, I don't want them to reign over you. We need to keep God's system of government. But Abimelech, he decides no, I want all the power for myself. I want to reign and rule as a king myself. And I don't want any of my brethren to be competition. And so I am going to kill, I mean like Cain killed Abel, he's going to murder his own half-brothers, he's going to murder his own family, and he hires all these vain and light persons to be his soldiers, and he tells them kill these innocent people, and they do it. Kill these 70 men, the sons of Gideon. Now remember, Gideon had saved their nation, Gideon had fought their battles for them, and this is how they repay Gideon, by killing all of his children? I mean how would you like it after you're gone that all your children are slaughtered? That's not respectful of you, not to mention the fact that it's cold-blooded murder. But they murder these 70 sons, but they didn't get all 70 of them. One of them escapes, one of them hides themself, and his name is Jotham, but 69 of Gideon's sons are slaughtered. Now let me stop and say this. In these days, having a lot of children and having a lot of sons was something that people aspire to, was considered a great honor, was considered something of status. It was something that people wanted, I mean they wanted to have as many children as possible. This is before Margaret Sanger in Planned Parenthood brainwashed you into thinking that children are a burden. The Bible says children are inherited to the Lord, and the fruit of the womb is his reward. According to the Bible, children are a blessing. The Bible says as arrows are in the hand of a mighty man, so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath this quiver full of them. They shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate. The Bible always teaches that multiplying and having a lot of children is a blessed thing. And when people had a lot of children, especially when they had sons, they looked at it as this is somebody who is going to carry on my line. And obviously daughters are just as valuable as sons. I have both, I have four sons and three daughters, and I love my daughters every bit as much. In fact, I'd be fine with having daughters all the way from here on out. I love having daughters. It's funny because when I first had three sons, I thought, well if I just have only sons, that's okay. When I started having daughters, I started realizing what I was missing. And so now I really love having daughters, I love both. It's just a different blessing, having sons and having daughters. But in the world's eyes in those days, man, you have 70 sons, I mean that's prosperity. And if you remember, even a wicked man like Haman, the son of Amadeth of the Agagite, in the book of Esther, he bragged about how he had 10 sons, remember he bragged about it? Look at my wealth, look at my power, and I have 10 sons. And it was considered a good thing and a blessing. Now I'll guarantee you that when Gideon took all these multiple wives unto him, part of his goal was to have a lot of children. That was part of his goal. He's trying to multiply a lot of children unto himself, okay? And he wants to have a lot of sons, but wait a minute, does God bless that kind of logic that says I'm going to break God's laws in order to prosper, in order to succeed? And you know what? I'm going to, because I want to multiply and have a lot of children, I'm just going to have a whole bunch of wives and then I can produce more children with all these multiplicity of wives if I only have one wife, I can only produce so many children, but wait a minute. The Bible says, Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding. You know, Abraham, he begat one son with his wife, and that son was Isaac, but wait a minute, does his name live on? And his sons and his descendants are like the sand which is by the seashore innumerable. Isaac had two children with his wife, Jacob and Esau, but yet his descendants are like the sand of the seashore. Now in their own understanding, they could have said, oh, I need to take on more wives and then I can have more children. But that's not a biblical logic right there. And look how God does not allow Gideon to succeed in that. He has all these multiple wives so that he can produce all these 70 sons that are going to carry on his name after him and carry his heritage. And guess what? 69 of them are wiped out. And the 70th is going to be wiped out soon too, and guess how many he ends up having? One. See I believe that if he would have trusted in the Lord and just had one wife, and just had however many children with that wife that God gave him, however many that was, whether it was only one or whether it was five, whether it was seven, you know, whatever. If he would have just trusted the Lord, obeyed God, married one wife, produced children with that wife, I don't believe that this would have happened where they're all getting slaughtered. And who was it that slaughtered them? The one that he had with the concubine that wasn't even his wife. So you see how the sins of Gideon are coming back to haunt even after he's gone. And the thing that I want to drive in with this chapter, and I'm going to get to this more as we go through the chapter, the thing I really want to drive in with this chapter is that whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. And here's another thing I want to drive in. Be sure your sins will find you out. You know, we commit sins and we do it lightly, but we don't realize these sins have repercussions for many years to come, even after we're gone, even amongst our descendants. And so this sin that Jerubel committed by going in under this concubine and producing an illegitimate child, you know, that haunted him. And basically he ends up losing all of his other children. They're all killed. And so 69 of his 71 children are wiped out by this murderous Cain named Abimelech. Let's keep reading the story. So he wiped them out. It says in verse 6, and all the men of Shechem gathered together and all the house of Millo and went and made Abimelech king. It's interesting because we always think of Saul as being the first king of Israel, and in many senses of course he is, and we think of David as being the second king, but really if you really want to be technical about it, this is the first king of Israel. He's a king over the whole land of Israel and he only reigns for three years, but he is still king nonetheless. So it says they made him king by the plane of the pillar that was in Shechem. And when they told it to Jotham, he went and stood in the top of Mount Gerizim and lifted up his voice and cried and said unto them, Harken unto me you men of Shechem, that God may hearken unto you. And he tells this parable, I'm going to skip over the parable for sake of time, but it's interesting because he gets up into Mount Gerizim to basically preach and to put this curse upon Abimelech, and when he gets up there, there's a significance there because Mount Gerizim is a significant mountain in the Bible. If you remember back in Deuteronomy 27 and 28, God commanded that Moses would put certain blessings upon those who obey the commandments of the Lord and certain cursings upon those that disobeyed the commandments of the Lord. And Deuteronomy 28 is a great chapter on sowing and reaping. It's a great chapter on the fact that hey, if you obey God with your life, he's going to bless your life. And if you disobey God, you're going to be cursed for it. Now Mount Gerizim was the mount where the blessings were proclaimed and Mount Ebal was the mount where the cursings were proclaimed, and those two mountains signify Gerizim the blessings of the Lord for those who do right, and Ebal represented the cursings of the Lord on those who do wrong. And that's really what we see in this chapter. We see that those who do wrong are cursed. And so instead of the blessing that was once pronounced from Mount Gerizim, Jotham is getting up and proclaiming a curse from that same mountain because they have violated the commandments of the Lord. So come down if you would after the parable and look at verse 16. Now therefore, if ye have done truly and sincerely, in that ye have made a bimilech king, and if ye have dealt well with Jerubel and his house, and have done unto him according to the deserving of his hands, again we're talking about Gideon, for my father fought for you and adventured his life far and delivered you out of the hand of Midian, and ye have risen up against my father's house this day, and have slain his sons, killed his sons, three score and ten persons upon one stone, and have made a bimilech the son of his maidservant king over the men of Shechem, because he's your brother, because he's their relative on the mother's side. If ye then have dealt truly and sincerely with Jerubel and with his house this day, then rejoice ye in a bimilech, and let him also rejoice in you. But if not, let fire come out from a bimilech, and devour the men of Shechem and the house of Millo, and let fire come out from the men of Shechem, and from the house of Millo, and devour a bimilech. So he puts this burden upon them and says, if you've done right, hey, God's going to bless you, because he's in Mount Gerizim, he says if you've done right and truly in making a bimilech your king and killing seventy innocent people, he said, then rejoice in your king and let him rejoice in you, but, he puts this curse upon them, he says if not, he says then let fire come out of a bimilech and destroy you, and let fire come out of you and destroy a bimilech. He says let both of you be devoured by fire. Now of course then he has to go flee away, because remember, if they killed the rest of them, they'd probably want to kill him too. And so it says in verse 21, and Jotham ran away. He made his speech and then he gets out of there. That's why he does it from the mountaintop, where he's basically away from anybody that can grab him and lay hold of him, and his voice can carry. Jotham ran away and fled and went to Beer and dwelt there. He turned to alcohol in his life, no I'm just kidding, this is a place called Beer. He said he went to Beer and dwelt there for fear of a bimilech, his brother. Verse 22, when a bimilech had reigned three years over Israel, so we see he is a king over Israel as a whole, not just Shechem only, then God sent, watch this, then God sent an evil spirit between a bimilech and the men of Shechem, and the men of Shechem dealt treacherously with a bimilech. So God's not going to bless this kingdom, God's not going to bless this usurper, a bimilech, who takes this kingdom and rules over it. So God sends an evil spirit. Now notice, three years go by, isn't three years kind of a long time? I mean 365 days a year, three years, so don't you think that these people for a long time probably thought, hey this is working out great, everything's fine, I don't know what that idiot Jotham was talking about, everything's great, God's blessing us. You know what, God's judgment upon sin does not always come immediately. And a lot of times people commit a wicked sin that the Bible says is wrong, but then they seemingly get away with it and they think, see, I don't know what Pastor Anderson's talking about because I did this and it's working out great for me, everything's going fine. God's not cursing me, everything's going well, therefore what I did must be okay and God must condone of it. But wait a minute, God's judgment is coming eventually, sometimes it just takes a little while to get there. You know, when you sow a seed, you don't reap the next day, do you? Whether that seed be good or bad, you reap later and you reap more than you sowed. But it's a delayed reaction, God's judgment upon sin is always delayed and here it's delayed by three years, but of course it comes. And after three years, God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the men of Shechem and the men of Shechem dealt treacherously with Abimelech, treason, treachery, the same word there. It says in verse 24 that they basically are turning against their king now. They don't want him as king anymore, they don't like him anymore. God sent this evil spirit between them, basically an evil attitude there between the two to not be pleased with one another. It says in verse 24 that the cruelty done to the threescore and ten sons of Jerubel might come and their blood be laid upon Abimelech their brother which slew them and upon the men of Shechem which aided him in the killing of his brethren. Verse 25, so they're both going to be judged. And the men of Shechem set liars in wait for him in the top of the mountains and they robbed all that came that way by them and it was told Abimelech. And Gael the son of Ebed came with his brother and went unto Shechem and the men of Shechem put their confidence in him and they went out into the fields and gathered their vineyards and trode the grapes and made merry and went into the house of their God and did eat and drank and cursed Abimelech. And Gael the son of Ebed said, who is Abimelech and who is Shechem that we should serve him? Is not he the son of Jerubel and Zebel as officer? Serve the men of Hamor the father of Shechem for why should we serve him? And would to God this people were under my hand. Then would I remove Abimelech and he said to Abimelech, increase thine army and come out. Come on Abimelech, bring your army, come fight against me. Now here's what's funny here. You see a guy, he goes where? To the house of his false god and what's he do? He starts drinking. You notice that? They go in there and they start drinking and sometimes the Bible uses the word merry with wine to talk about people who they're drinking and they're having a good time, woo, you know their party. Now look, drinking gives people boldness that they don't normally have. We see it in Daniel chapter 5. Remember when Belshazzar takes the vessels from the house of the Lord and drinks wine in them and he starts praising all these false gods and desecrating the temple of the Lord and if you remember he was emboldened by liquor, okay? Have you ever heard of people drinking up the courage to do thus and so? Now the Holy Spirit gives us boldness to do right. The Bible talks about it in Acts 4 31 and when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and they spake the word of God with boldness. Boldness is an evidence of being filled with the Holy Spirit. Boldness to preach, boldness to do right, boldness to fight the Lord's battles. That's why in the Old Testament the Spirit of the Lord would come upon them and they would fight with boldness and fight with courage and valor. But you see the Bible says, be not drunk with wine wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. So what we see is that the two are contrasted. The Holy Spirit giving boldness to do right, alcohol giving the boldness to do wrong. Have you ever heard alcohol called spirits? Wine and spirits? You'll see that. That right there, that's pretty creepy in and of itself. But see, the Holy Spirit gives boldness to do right, liquor gives boldness to sin and do wrong. And people when they're under the influence of alcohol will be emboldened to commit sins they wouldn't normally commit. Things that they would usually think are weird or disgusting, they'll do it. People who normally wouldn't be a brawler and getting in a lot of fights, they will think that they're tougher than they really are. And they'll pick a fight with a bigger, tougher, stronger, better adversary because they're emboldened by alcohol. And so Gael here, he gets drunk and he's blowing off his mouth, curse you Abimelech, who are you to rule over us? You're nobody. Why don't you bring your army down here and come fight against me, buddy? And I like what Zebel says. Now Zebel, you say, well who's right in this battle though? Is it Abimelech? Well they're all wrong. They're all going to be destroyed. Remember, fire's going to destroy both of them. This guy Zebel, he's the ruler of the city. Basically this guy Zebel is a government official under Abimelech because Abimelech's the king, right? Well Zebel's like the mayor of the city. He's working under orders from Abimelech. He's part of Abimelech's government here, ruling over the city of Shechem. So Zebel, he hears Gael blowing off his mouth and he's angry. So he sends a secret message to Abimelech warning him saying, hey, this guy's blowing off his mouth, this guy's taking over the city, this guy is producing an insurrection and a revolution. And so he warns Abimelech and he tells Abimelech, come real early in the morning and attack and you're going to win. Why? Because they're all drunk. So the next morning they're probably not going to be feeling too well. And so he warns Abimelech, well look at this. It says in verse number 34, Abimelech rose up and all the people that were with him by night and they laid weight against Shechem and four companies. So they come at night, they set up all their armies, they're going to attack the city and destroy this insurrection led by Gael. And it says, and Gael the son of Ebed went out and stood in the entering of the gate of the city and Abimelech rose up and the people that were with him from lying in wait. And when Gael saw the people, he said to Zebel, behold, there come people down from the top of the mountains. He's taken by surprise by these armies that are coming. And look what Zebel says, thou seest the shadow of the mountain as if they were men. He's basically just trying to buy Abimelech a few more moments by stalling and telling Gael, no, that's not really an army, you're just looking at shadows. But of course, he eventually realizes it's not a shadow. He said, thou seest the shadow of the mountain as if they were men. Verse 37, and Gael spake again and said, see, there come people down by the middle of the land and another company come along by the plain of Mionium. Then said Zebel unto him, where is now thy mouth? Wherewith thou saidst to his Abimelech that we should serve him? Is not this the people that thou has despised? Go out I pray now and fight with them. He's saying, now that you're sober buddy, where's your big mouth now? He came with that army, in fact he brought four of them. Go face him, go fight him. Let's keep reading, let's see what happens in this battle. And Gael went out, verse 39, before the men of Shechem and fought with Abimelech. And Abimelech chased him and he fled before him and many were overthrown and wounded even unto the entering of the gate. And Abimelech dwelt at Aruma and Zebel thrust out Gael and his brethren. So basically, he's being attacked from the outside and then Zebel's fighting him from the inside. And it says Zebel thrust him out. What verse am I in? Let me find my place here. 42. It says, it came to pass on the morrow that the people went out into the field and they told Abimelech and he took the people and divided them into three companies and laid weight in the field and looked and behold the people were come forth out of the city and he rose up against them at Smodum and Abimelech and the company that was with him rushed forward and stood in the entering of the gate of the city and the two other companies ran upon all the people that were in the fields and slew them. And Abimelech fought against the city all that day and he took the city and slew the people that were therein and beat down the city and sowed it with salt. So Abimelech wins a decisive victory here. I mean, he slays the people, he wipes out the buildings of the city, I mean he levels the city, he collapses all the buildings, and then he sows their fields with salt. Basically salt will destroy their crops and destroy their earth and destroy their wealth in agriculture. So he has a decisive blow here, I mean it just demolishes the men of Shechem. And it says, when all the men of the tower of Shechem heard that, they entered into and hold of the house of the god Beareth. Now remember this is Baal Beareth as the Bible calls it because we know it's of the devil. So they go to this devil's false god and they go there and that's where they're going to fortify themselves, that's where they're going to hide, in the house of their false god Beareth. And so they go into the hold and it says it was told to Abimelech that all the men of the tower of Shechem were gathered together. So Abimelech's not satisfied, he wants to wipe out all these guys who rebelled against him. So he's even going to pursue them under the house of Beareth. Verse 48, and Abimelech got him up to Mount Zalman, he and all the people that were with him. And Abimelech took an axe in his hand and cut down a bough from the trees and took it and laid it on his shoulder and said to the people that were with him, what you've seen me do, make haste and do as I've done. So he grabs an axe, he chops down a tree and Abimelech carries a big giant log and he takes it and throws it next to the house of the god Beareth and he says, what you've seen me do, I want everybody to do the same thing. Everybody grab an axe, everybody chop down a tree and they pile up all these trees all the way around this house and they light them on fire and just burn the place down. Look what the Bible says here, and all the people likewise cut down, verse 49, every man is bowed and followed Abimelech and put them to the hold and set the hold on fire upon them so that all the men of the tower of Shechem died also, about a thousand men and women. All these people that are in this tower, they probably died of smoke inhalation, let alone the fire that's consuming. It says in verse 50, verse 50, then went Abimelech to Thebes and encamped against Thebes and took it. So he goes and he's fighting against more rebellious people in Thebes. But there was a strong tower within the city and thither fled all the men and women and all they of the city and shut it to them and gapped them up to the top of the tower and Abimelech came under the tower and fought against it. Now look, he wants to try the same thing that he just succeeded in doing with the house of Beareth. So it says that he went there and he went hard onto the door of the tower, meaning he goes right up to the door of the tower, to burn it with fire. You know, he says well hey, it worked once, let's do it again. And a certain woman cast a piece of a millstone upon Abimelech's head and all two break his skull. So he's up there, he's got his idea, he brings his log, he throws it next to the house of this devil, or no, I'm sorry, that's what he did the first time. This time he goes to the strong tower of Thebes. He throws down his log and while he's doing it, a woman takes a big chunk of a millstone and drops it right on his head. And I mean think about having a big chunk of a millstone dropped on your head from a tower. It lands on his head and basically breaks his skull. He knows he's going to die, he can't survive that. So look what the Bible says. And he called hastily, verse 54, unto the young man, his armor-bearer, and said unto him, draw thy sword and slay me, that men say not of me a woman slew him. You know, he's like I don't want that to go down in history. He was killed by a woman in battle, what an embarrassment. And his young man thrust him through and he died, so his armor-bearer kills him. So that, you know, basically technically he was killed by the armor-bearer. That's not how it went down in history and I'll show you that in a moment. And when the men of Israel saw that Abimelech was dead, they departed every man unto his place. Thus God rendered the wickedness, listen, this is the key verse, listen, thus God rendered the wickedness of Abimelech, which he did unto his father in slaying his seventy brethren, and all the evil of the men of Shechem did God render upon their heads, and upon them came the curse of Jotham, the son of Jerubel. So you see here that both the men of Shechem and Abimelech are both defeated here. They're both killed. They're both punished. Now I want to tie in one other thing. But before I do, let me say this, you know, there's a famous quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and people will say, oh you're racist if you're against Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. You know what? I'm not, because didn't Martin Luther King Jr. himself say that we should judge a man according to his character, not the color of his skin? And you know what? I believe that every single person on this earth is created equal in the sight of God. Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight. In fact, the Bible says that God has made all nations of the earth of one blood. The concept of race is not even found in the Bible. The only time the Bible used the word race is when it says run the race. So obviously you can look around and see there's a diversity of people in this church because the Bible says that God's house is a house of prayer for all nations. And so we should all be coming together in God's house of all nations and kindreds and peoples and tongues. But let me say this, Martin Luther King Jr. was a false prophet. He was a Baptist pastor who denied the Lord Jesus Christ. I mean imagine this, he was a pastor of a Baptist church and yet he said that Jesus Christ was a man, he did not rise from the dead, are you listening? All you have to do, there are websites on the internet that basically are promoting Martin Luther King Jr. and they basically have a repository of all of his writings. They're not attacking him. There are universities who want to preserve his writings under posterity and I have gone in and looked at those writings, I read his paper where he says the Bible is not inspired by God, I read his paper where he did not believe in the virgin birth, I read his paper where he did not believe in the bodily resurrection, and this man claimed to be a Baptist pastor and yet he denied the Lord Jesus Christ and he's in hell today. That's the fact. And it has nothing to do with race. I love all black people, white people, Chinese, I love them all that are God's people. But he's a false prophet so I'm exposing that today right now. And do the research on your own before you get mad at me. But there was a time when Martin Luther King Jr. attacked the word of God in one of his famous speeches and if you go on a website of quotes from Martin Luther King Jr. he attacks the word of God in one of his most famous quotes and here is one of the most famous quotes that he has. He said this, an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind. Who's ever heard that quote before? Few people, yeah I'm seeing hands go up all over them. An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind. Hey I got news for you, God is the one who said an eye for an eye. That's what the Bible says but he says no I'm smarter than God and an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind. But wait a minute, let's apply Martin Luther King Jr.'s quote to this story. I mean an eye for an eye pretty much wiped out both sides, did it not? But guess what, that's what God did because that's what God does because God is the one who set an eye for an eye. And so we in our human logic would say oh man let's not let people reap what they've sown or else everybody's going to get wiped out. I mean but that's what we see. We see Abimelech destroy the men of Shechem down to the last person and we see Abimelech destroyed in the process. We see everybody who worships Baal getting wiped out and so that's why we need to be careful not to latch onto the world's heroes. Are you listening to me? Let me explain something to you. Woe unto you when all men speak well of you for so they did unto the false prophets. And when you see somebody who's being exalted and lifted up by the world and that's a hero that we should all be following, there's probably something wrong with that person in the eyes of God big time because if they were a righteous person this world would not rally around them. When you see a preacher that's really popular, everybody loves him, all denominations are rallying behind him, that's a sign right there that he's not of God because the Bible says that's what they do unto the false prophets. He said they hated me, they'll hate you if you preach the truth. You know you look at these political figures that are lifted up in worship today and you know yeah okay Martin Luther King Jr. name whoever you want, John F. Kennedy. You know the most popular, I mean who are the most popular presidents? You know Bill Clinton, I mean Bill Clinton was one of the most popular presidents ever. I mean today he goes down in history as being one of the most successful presidents. He was an adulterer and a whoremonger and he was abusing a young person really that was under his power and under his paid role, he should have gone to prison for that. He denies the Lord Jesus Christ and the word of God. You know you look at other popular presidents, John F. Kennedy, these guys are, I mean look the most popular president of all, Franklin Delano Roosevelt who brought in socialism into our country and you know we could go on and on, but I'd stay away from the world's heroes. I don't rally around the world's sports heroes, are you listening? You know who my heroes are? They're characters of the Bible and Bible believing preachers and Bible believing men and women who serve God and love the Lord with all. That's the role model I want for my children. I want my daughters to emulate godly women of our church and other like minded churches. I want my sons to emulate John the Baptist and Elijah and people like that or people that are living today that are men of God and men in this church who might work a blue collar job not necessarily in the ministry, but they're in the ministry because they're out soul winning and they're preaching the word of God from house to house as God. Those are the role models that I want my sons to grow up and emulate, men who are masculine, men who preach the word, men who are soul winners, and I want them not to follow the world's heroes, the unsaved heroes. And so again, he wasn't saved and go down the list and they weren't saved. But anyway, let me say this. God will recompense sin, he will punish the sinful in this life. Be not deceived, God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. But let me just show you a little symbolism here in this passage very quickly. Let me turn you just to two passages. First of all go to 2 Samuel chapter 11. And I hope everybody has a good handle on the story today. You probably haven't heard this story. I've read this story my whole life reading the book of Judges. I've read it many times, but I've never really heard a sermon preached on this passage of Abimelech and Gael and Zebol. Those are not really characters that you hear a lot about. And in fact, Abimelech, probably most people when they hear the name Abimelech they're thinking of a different Abimelech from Genesis that's a little more common. Look at 2 Samuel chapter 11. Let me show you part of the reason why I preach this chapter today. 2 Samuel 11 18. The Bible says, Then Joab sent and told David all the things concerning the war, and charged the messenger, saying, When thou hast made an end of telling the matters of the war unto the king, if so be, now this is Joab coaching his messenger. If so be, that the king's wrath arise, and he say unto thee. So is the king saying this? No. Joab is speculating. This is what the king is probably going to say to you. When you bring him the tidings of the battle, this is what the king is probably going to say to you. His wrath's going to arise. He's going to be mad when he hears that we lost the battle. Wherefore, this is what he's probably going to say, verse 20, Wherefore or why approached you so nigh unto the city when you did fight? Why did you get so close to the city when you're fighting? Knew ye not that they would shoot from the wall? Who smote Abimelech? Now look, he's referring back to the story in Judges 9. He says, Who smote Abimelech, the son of Jerubasheth? Now you say, Jerubasheth? Who's that? Well, remember Jerubael was the name that was given unto Gideon. Well Jerubael means, remember, the one that pleads against Baal, or the one who Baal pleads against, the one who strives with Baal, or strives against Baal, Baal strives against. Well this word, Jerubasheth, means he who strives against confusion, or he who strives against shame. And what's interesting, obviously this is a name that had evolved over time because of the fact that these gods are gods of confusion or shame. But what's interesting is, that's a really cool name, just to be known as the one who fights confusion, the one who fights shamefulness, the one who fights Satan. You know, I think of the verse in Acts where those that are demon possessed say unto the seven sons of Sceva, they say, Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are you? You know, Paul was one that strove against the kingdom of darkness in this world, and the devils, they knew him. He was their enemy. They said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know. What a great name to be known by, the one who strives against Satan, the one who strives against confusion. Just look up the word confusion in the Bible, it's an interesting study in and of itself. So who smote Abimelech the son of Jerubasheth, meaning the son of Gideon, in verse 21? Did not a woman cast a piece of a millstone upon him from the wall that he died in Thebes? Why would he deny the wall? Then say thou, thy servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also. Now what this tells me is that this is a story that was commonly known in those days, because Joab brings it up right away and he says this is probably what David's going to hit you with. He's going to bring up Abimelech. He's going to bring up that woman who threw the millstone. Now what's funny is, remember Abimelech said to his servant, kill me. I don't want people to say that a woman killed me, and what are they saying about him? They're not even bringing up that armor bearer, they're saying yeah, remember that woman killed him? You see, it wasn't right for Abimelech to commit suicide. That wasn't right. But he did it so that they wouldn't go down in history that way. Well guess what, it went down in history that way anyway. Your sins are going to find you out. And so we see here that this story was commonly known to where Joab knew the story very well and he knew that David knew the story very well and he assumes he's going to bring it up. Let's turn to one other place, Psalm 61. Because there's a little bit of symbolism in the story, let me break it down to you. Actually there's a lot of symbolism in the story, but I'm only going to focus on one quick aspect. If you remember, the men of Shechem were the ones that God wanted to punish. He wanted to punish two parties, Abimelech and the men of Shechem. Is there any indication in the scripture that God wanted to punish the men of Thebes? Or that the people of Thebes had sinned against God in any way? No indication whatsoever. So we see here the evil men of Shechem destroyed, the men of Thebes, which we have no evidence that they've done anything wrong, they defeat Abimelech. They don't get killed. They survive. But the wording in Judges 9 is very interesting. Because where did the men of Shechem, where did they go to hide out? Where did they go? The tower of Baal, Beareth. They went to the house of Baal, Beareth, and actually they went to the stronghold. They went to the hold in the house of their god, Beareth. That's where they hid out. But in Thebes, the Bible uses a different wording. Instead of saying, oh they went to the house of Beareth, oh they went to the hold there of their false god, it says that the men of Thebes, they went into a strong tower that was in the city. They survived. The ones who went into the strong tower, they made it. They lived. They defeated the enemy. Those who went into the house of Satan, the house of Baal, Beareth, they were destroyed, men and women both. Look at Psalm 61 verse 1. The Bible reads, Hear my cry, O God, attend unto my prayer. From the end of the earth will I cry unto Thee. When my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the rock that is higher than I. For Thou has been a shelter for me. And watch this, he's saying of God, you've been a strong tower from the enemy. I will abide in Thy tabernacle forever. I will trust in the covert of Thy wings, Selah. So in this Psalm, the Bible here is comparing God unto a strong tower, a shelter from the enemy, a strong tower that we can run into and hide, and he also refers to it as God's tabernacle, which is representative of the house of God. Now a very famous verse, you don't have to turn there, but in Proverbs 18, 10 a famous verse says this, The name of the Lord is a strong tower. Did you get that? The name of the Lord is a strong tower. The righteous runneth into it and is safe. And so what that tells us is that safety is of the Lord. You know, going into the strong tower of God's house, going into the strong tower of the tabernacle of the Lord, going into the strong tower of the Lord's shelter there, he says that will keep you safe. The righteous runneth into it and he's safe. It's a shelter in a time of storm. It's a place of refuge and protection, whereas did the house of Baal do that for them? And how did they die? They were burned. You know, that's symbolic there. Those who trust in the Lord versus those who trust in another god, a false god. Those who trust in another god will be tormented in hell. They will be in the fires of hell. Those who trust in the Lord will be safe. They'll be safe from the enemy. They will be in that strong tower and sheltered in the times of storm. Now let me quickly say this. You know, this sermon is all about reaping what you've sown. You know, you go out, you commit sin, you sow the wind, you're going to reap the whirlwind, the Bible says. But let me say this, when it comes to salvation, you know, salvation's not based on any good that you've done. The Bible says that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life. The Bible says very clearly what must I do to be saved and they said believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. And obviously the greatest part about salvation is once you're saved you can never lose your salvation. Jesus said, I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish. Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. And let me say this, when you trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, I'm not talking about living a good life, I'm not talking about getting baptized, I'm not talking about turning over a new leaf, I'm not talking about repenting of all your sins, and I'm not going to do this anymore, and I'm not going to. I mean when you just believe in the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and put your faith in His blood, His righteousness, His salvation, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, when you put your faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, let me tell you something, that is salvation, that is a strong tower. That will never fall. You will be saved forever. But let me tell you something, you put your trust in anything else, and I don't care whether it's Baal Beareth, Baal Zebub, Baal Ekron, Baal Belial, Baalim, it doesn't matter what you call it, whether you call it Islam, or whether you call it Mormonism, or whether you call it Catholicism, or you could call it Hinduism, or you could call it Buddhism, or you could call it Sikhism, or you could call it Atheism, you could call it whatever you want, but let me tell you something, you're going to be burned. You're going to be burned. It cannot save, it cannot protect, and that's what the Bible is teaching here today, that's a little bit of the symbolism in the chapter, because it's not a coincidence that the term strong tower is only used a couple times in the Bible, and it has to do with this story, then it has to do with Psalms and Proverbs about how God's salvation is a strong tower, the Lord is strong, and by the way it said the name of the Lord is a strong tower. You better get that name right, the name that's above every name, neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. That name is Jesus. That name is above every other name, and so there's a lot we can learn from this story about life, isn't there? A saved man, Gideon, he made some big mistakes though, didn't he? Multiple wives, golden ephod, he made a big mistake, he paid for it. Unsaved people made big mistakes, they paid for them. You reap what you sow, whether you're saved or unsaved. Salvation just affects whether you're going to heaven or hell. That's what salvation affects. But in this life though, the saved will reap consequences, you know if I go out and kill somebody today, just because I'm saved I'm not going to get away with it, I'm still going to prison, God's going to punish me, and so forth, but I'm not going to hell. Because once you've believed on Jesus Christ you'll never go to hell, you're saved, you have everlasting life. But you will be punished in this life, just like Gideon was. And you know what's funny, let me just quickly say this, you know Gideon wanted to have all these sons, right? 70 sons, so he has all these multiple wives, they all get slaughtered, but you know what else is interesting? His sons were nothing like him. You can't raise 70 sons to be like you. And maybe God gives you two kids or five kids or seven kids, ten kids, he gives you what you can handle and train and teach. Let God's wisdom guide that. Because you know what? His son Jether, Gideon was the mightiest man of valor around, Gideon was tough, I mean he had strength and might and courage, and his son Jether was a big wimp. We read it, I didn't touch on it in the sermon, but we read it in Judges 8, nothing like Dad. Wimp. Why? Because you can't raise 70 kids the way you can raise what God gives you. And so trust the Lord for salvation, number one. Trust God for salvation. Number two, trust God for the decisions of life. Trust God with giving you the children that he sees fit and giving you what he sees fit. And not only that though, just trust one thing. Be sure your sins will find you out. Don't play with sin. It's going to come back and bite you, you can trust that. Trust the fact that good that you do, you'll reap the good, and evil that you do, you'll reap the evil. Whether saved or unsaved, and this story is a perfect illustration of that.