(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

All right, we're in Judges chapter number nine and tonight we basically conclude the series of the life of Gideon. Now chapter number nine doesn't deal with Gideon directly, but it's more indirectly through his sons. And so that's why a couple of these chapters together as being a highlight of Gideon because of the fact that chapter nine deals primarily with his sons, the 70 sons that were slain, Jotham, as well as the main character that we see here in chapter number nine, which is Abimelech. Now the, the principle or the moral of the story of chapter number nine is basically to show us what happens when there is a vacuum of leadership, when there's not a proper judge to take the reins, when there's not a proper leader, a righteous man to come up and judge the people, what happens is it really, that, that space really attracts the worst kind of people to try to take over. Okay. And when you don't have a strong leader, as we see here, we have an entire chapter dedicated to a man, a very malicious, a very, um, a very, uh, a conspiratory type of a man, murderous man who wants to take the reins, wants to be the leader. And he does it by evil gains by the name of Abimelech. Now that's really the moral of the story. And if you remember the cycle that we constantly see in the book of Judges is that the children of Israel go into idolatry. God raises up a judge to judge them of their idolatry and deliver them from the hand of the oppressors that God is using to chastise them. What happens then is that they're delivered. They have peace for a space of however many years, and then that judge dies. The people go back into idolatry and then the cycle continues again. Now if you remember in Judges chapter number eight, Gideon dies at the latter end. People are already involved in idolatry prior to him dying because of the ephah that he created. But what we see here is that when he dies, another judge is not raised up yet. So we don't see another judge until chapter number 10, which is the judge Tolah. Now what happens between Tolah and Gideon while you have an Abimelech and Abimelech comes in the scene. He tries to take over for his dad. He tries to be the ruler and the judge of Israel, but he does it by wicked means. He does not have the nation's spiritual benefit in mind. He can care less where Israel is going spiritually. He doesn't care if they love the Lord, if they want to be righteous. He just wants to lead it for whatever wicked gain that he wants for selfish reasons. And we see that throughout this chapter. So the main characters of chapter number nine, of course, is Abimelech, which is a son of Gideon through the maid sermon that he had. Then you have his son Jotham who escaped when they were murdering the 70 sons. And then you also have the 70 sons, but then you also have the men of Shechem. And there's other characters that are scattered throughout this chapter, but the main characters are those. And these are the ones that we're going to focus on today. And if you read, I mean, we just read the chapter, the chapter is pretty lengthy, right? It's pretty lengthy. So we're not going to necessarily cover everything because some of it is very self-explanatory. But let's go ahead and start in verse number one, and we're going to give some commentary here. It says in verse number one, and Abimelech, the son of Jerubel went to Shechem unto his mother's brethren and communed with them 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, whether it's better for you, either that all the sons of Jerubel, which are three score and 10 persons reign over you, or that one reign over you, remember also that I am your bone in your flesh. So right off the bat, you see Abimelech come up and he's, he gives this exaggerated option, right? He says, all right guys, we need a leader here and here are your options. You could either go with 70 guys to rule over you, or you can go with one. And by the way, just remember, I'm your flesh and your blood. So notice he doesn't say the 70 people or myself. He says the one, and then he throws in that reminder, by the way, just remember, I'm your flesh and your blood. Now this is such an exaggerated contrast because of the fact that 70 people would not rule over Israel, right? 70 people are not going to be like the king over Israel. They're not going to be the judges over Israel. He's just doing this to make it look better. The fact that he's trying to be that leader, he's making it easier on them for them to choose him as their primary leader, instead of having the so-called 70 who are just chomping at the bits to be the leader there, right? But that's not really the case. He's using this exaggerated contrast so that he could basically take the kingdom by flatteries. He said, how is he taking the kingdom by flatteries? Because he's saying, hey, just remember, I'm your flesh and your bone. Okay. And he says, you can get the 70 or you could get the one and just remember I'm part of your family. Now keep this in mind. Here's the ironic thing about this because Shechem pertains to the tribe of Manasseh and Manasseh was one of the tribes who were part of the 300 that helped Gideon deliver Israel from the hand of the Midianites. You had Manasseh. You had, let me look here because I don't want to, I think we had, oh Neftali, Asher and we also had Manasseh. So there's three tribes and ironically, one of those tribes ends up being Shechem and Shechem are the ones who actually promote this wicked ruler to rule over them. So he comes here with the flatteries. He comes here with this whole thing about, hey, I'm your family. Just choose me. What he's telling them to do is be a respecter of people, right? Let's read on here. Verse number three. And his mother's brethren spake of him in the ears of all the men of Shechem, all these words and their hearts were inclined to follow Abimelech for they said, he is our brother. So notice they're not following him because he's a righteous leader, right? They're not following him because he loves the Lord. He's going to lead them in the way of righteousness. You know, he's going to teach them the word of God. He's going to judge them. He's just qualified to be the leader. It's just because he said, well, hey, he's our brother. So what does this show? This shows that these people, this group of people who are following Abimelech are only doing it because they're a respecter of people. They don't have any deep rooted convictions of what kind of leader they should have. This is not good, okay? So they're being a respecter of people and they're only, they're basically promoting them simply because they're his flesh and blood. They're related to him. And that's the only reason. And by the way, I mean, that's probably the only reason they can find. I mean, he's taking the kingdom by flatters. He doesn't necessarily have good righteous qualities, right? Look what it says in verse number four, and they gave him three score and 10 pieces of silver out of the house of Belbereth. So they're paying him 70 pieces of silver from this wicked pagan house of idolatry where with Abimelech hired, look what it says, vain and light persons which followed him. Strike number two. So you got one group who's following him just because they're respecter of people, just because they're related to him. And then who are the second group of people who are following him? People that he has to hire to follow him. That's a sad statement on your part if you're the leader. If you can't get a volunteer to follow you, you have to pay people to follow you. And look, if you're paying people to follow you, this is the exact type of people that you're going to get. Vain and light people, right? Which followed him. So he doesn't have anybody following him because they love the Lord, because they love righteousness, because they want to be delivered from the idolatry of Belbereth, no, they're following him for money. Like, hey, you pay, I go ahead and follow you. As long as you put it in the paychecks, I'll follow you wherever you want to go. So it's this artificial leadership that we see here, right? Artificial leadership because he's paying them, he's leading these guys because he's related to them. And really the biblical principle that we can learn here is that, two things that we can learn here, one is that when you have a wicked leader, you eventually will also have wicked followers. That organization will be corrupt from the inside out. Why? Because it trickles down from the leadership all the way down to its followers. If you have a wicked leader, you're going to have people who follow that person, not because of the Bible, but because they're a respecter of people. You're going to have people who follow the leader, not because of their biblical convictions, because they're vain and light people. And this is the kind of leadership we see today where you have a wicked ruler and then it's no wonder that their servants are all wicked as well. Now the second thing that we can learn from this is that we as followers, because we're always going to be following someone for the rest of our lives, we never want to be vain and light followers, right? What is a vain and light follower? Well, we could simply define what a vain and light follower is based upon its contrast. So someone who is vain is someone who is empty rather than someone who is actually filled with the spirit, right? Or they have depth to their beliefs, they have depth to their Christianity. It means something to them, right? And today we have a lot of people who go to churches like for example, these liberal churches, they go to church, not necessarily because they love the Lord, it's because they're vain. They're empty. These people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. These are the kind of people that talk to talk, but they don't walk the walk. You're running to even independent fundamental Baptist churches that they'll say, you know, they have the label as Christian or as Baptist, or they even say, Hey, we got to preach the gospel to the ends of the world and missions programs and all this, you know, let's evangelize the world and all these things. And they have all these, all these beautiful graphics and presentations and you know, they have these great swelling words of vanity, right? But it's vain. Why? This isn't James chapter two, but what will thou say, Oh, vain man, faith without works is dead. So a vain person is those who say they have faith, but they don't have works to accompany that faith to prove that faith, right? That man's religion is vain because at the end of the day, if we're going to have depth to our religion, there has to be some substance to it. If we're going to say, we're preaching the gospel, we have to see people saved. And if we say we believe in the Bible, we actually got to preach the entire Bible, right? If we say we believe the word of God, that means we're going to talk about it. We're going to talk about that which is not popular, that which is no matter what it is, we're going to talk about everything, the entire council of God. We don't want to be vain followers, but we also don't want to be light followers either because it says vain and light persons. Well, someone who is light basically makes light of the things of God, right? They lightly esteem the rock of their salvation. You know what that means? The doctrine is not important to them. They could be in a church and maybe they're saved and, and, and you know, they believe in the King James Bible and they have all these things right, but they have all kinds of false doctrine in the church and they're like, ah, you know, whatever. It's like, it's light to them. I just got a phone call today by someone who's an independent fundamental Baptist church and he specifically told me, he's like, brother Bruce, I'm just like tired of this. I'm like, he's like, I can't find one person in our church. He says, I can't find one person who even cares that there's people in our church who believe in hyper dispensationalism. He's like, I can't find one. You know why? Because they're light followers. That's why. He says, he'll go to the young people of the church. He'll go to the, the, the, the, the young people will go to the young adults who go to the adults. He'll go to the older people and no one cares. If there's someone in the church who believes in a different salvation, they believe in damnable dispensational, uh, salvation and different gospels. They believe in all these weird teachings. You can bring it to somebody and say, can you believe this person believes this? They're like, you know, whatever. That's a light person. We never want to be light people. Look, we need to be grave and serious about doctrine. Amen. And in our church, look, if I wouldn't have named the church first works about this church, it would have been sound doctrine about this church. That'd probably be the name of the next church plan or something, you know, because that's what we believe in sound doctrine, doctrine that is grave. We take doctrine serious and look, we're not just gonna, ah, you know, he believes this by repenting your sins, but you know, whatever. That's a light, that's lightly esteeming salvation right there. You know, this is what we do when someone has a false doctrine in regards to salvation. We kindly correct them on that. We give them two admonitions and if they reject them and say, no, that's not what I believe. And we say, there's the door, don't let the door hit you where the Lord split you. Because this is not the church for you. Oh, that's too mean. No, you're just too light is what it is. You know, I used to drink my coffee with creamer. Not anymore. Drinking dark. I don't use light cream, you know, anymore. I'm just trying to wake people up. All right. But what I'm saying is, hey, we should not take these things lightly, right? We should not take the music in our church lightly. That's important. Hey, the preaching of God's word is the most important thing, the most important facet of our church. But you know what? The music's also important. We're not gonna have, oh, what's the problem with having hoochie mamas up here, shaking their rear ends and singing praises unto the Lord. You're a light person if you don't think there's a problem with that. Okay, well, we're not gonna have the hoochie mamas up here, but we'll just have the women in tight skirts singing specials unto the Lord, and they don't slide or anything. It's just, you know, they're just dressed a little hoochie mama-ish. No, that is something that you think is light, but we take it serious. You know, we think we should be holy, not just in conversation and the way we speak, but also in the way we conduct ourselves, right? You say, well, you know, what's the problem with having, you know, nurseries, and what's the problem with having Sunday school classes? You know, there may be churches, good churches that do that, but we don't want to take that lightly. You know, we don't want to take the training of our children lightly. We want to make sure that we are serious about these things. Oh, you know, what's wrong with an evangelistic service and just doing track drops and, you know, handing out 15,000 tracks? You know, what's the problem with that? Well, the problem is because we don't take it lightly. We don't want to take so many lightly, okay? We want to make sure that we're serious about everything that we do because this is the work of the Lord. Hey, we must be about our Father's business, and if our Father's business is the greatest business, we can't take it lightly. So here we see that we have vain and light persons. And look, there's churches out there that take church lightly, you know. They come to church, and the pastor's preaching, and the people are just like on their phones, on Instagram, Facebook, playing video games, you know, just not paying attention to the Word of God. And look, to a certain extent, I don't blame them because they're probably getting more doctrine from that stupid video game than they're getting from that pulpit, right? But you know what? Still, if you're in like some watered-down church where the preaching is crappy, then try to get as much out of it as you can. But just have some respect for the house of God, at least. You know, especially if you're a married man, be an example unto your children to pay attention as best as you could and get whatever, you know, meat you can get from that tofu. I know there's no meat in that tofu, but I mean, act like it or something. You know, you don't want to take church lightly, and some people do that when they go to church. They just talk, they laugh, they're on their phones, they do all these things other than actually listen to the preaching of God's Word. They're not ready to hear when they come to church. You know, we believe that when we come to church, we ought to give attendance to reading, attendance to exhortation, attendance to doctrine. You come to church to hear the preaching of God's Word. And look, at our church, we preach, I preach for sometimes 50 minutes, almost to over an hour. So I understand some people, it's hard to like pay attention, but I'm helping your attention span. These churches that I'm talking about, they preach for like 15 to 30 minutes, 20 at the most. They lose them on the first five minutes, you know, literally, 20-minute sermon. And some of you guys, I know what church you're talking about, look, this is the majority of IFB churches, okay? You know, it is commonly reported that they do these things, a 20-minute sermon. And it's funny, because they spent all this time studying all these extracurricular books on the Bible, you would think they would have enough content to fill up an hour. But you know what? You could make a mound of whipped cream, but at the end of the day, has no substance whatsoever. You could eat an entire plate full of whipped cream, and it's not gonna fill you up. Because it doesn't matter how big it is, doesn't matter how much you think they're putting into it, it's not much substance. I'd rather have like an 8-ounce steak, I mean, I'd rather have like a 12-ounce or a 15-ounce. But let's say a 6-ounce steak is better than a plate of whipped cream. So we wanna take these things lightly. And look, there's pastors out there that take their preaching lightly as well. You know, they go to Paul Chappell's sermondownload.com, literally, I'm not kidding you, there's a website out there where pastors can pay to get a sermon from Paul Chappell. Yeah, I mean, talk about lame. Talk about being a loser, that you would have to pay to go online to find a sermon. You're so lazy, you can't even open up the Word of God yourself and get the content yourself. You have to pay someone else, and the worst part of it is you're going to Paul Chappell's. Good night. I mean, just whatever you can make is probably better than that. But you know, there's pastors that take preaching lightly like that, you know. And we don't wanna be vain and light people. Those are the type of followers that we don't want our church to have, we wanna be serious about the things of God. Now give it, throughout the lifespan of our church, we're gonna have people who are vain and light. So here are the two things that we wanna do when we have them, either grow them, or tell them to get going, right? Because I don't mean verbally tell them to get going, but you know what, when they hear the preaching of God's Word, it's gonna bother them, and eventually they'll get going. So they can only change, or they can hit the exit, you know. Because we wanna make sure that our church is not filled with vain and light people like Abimelech had here. And look, there's organizations out there, as I mentioned, that when there's a vacuum of leadership, if that position is not quickly filled by a righteous person, a wicked leader will come through the ranks. It's fact, it's always gonna happen, okay. And that happens in churches too, where a pastor who's doing a great job, for whatever reason, God takes him out of that position, for whatever it may be, and then you have another leader rise up, and you know what that leader does? He destroys the organization. He begins to destroy that church. Why is that? Well, aside from the fact that he's just a bad leader, two, he's having vain and light people follow him. That's why he can make all kinds of stupid decisions. He can disobey God's Word, disqualify himself over and over again, and the people don't even bat an eye on it because they don't care. They take it lightly. So an organization, yes, is destroyed by a leader, but it's propelled by those who follow him, okay, because that's the kind of people that type of leader is gonna attract. Anyways, so Abimelech, he has people who are following him who are just a respecter of people, people who are vain and light, which follow him, look at verse number five. And he went into his father's house at Ophrah and slew his brethren, the sons of Jerub-baal, being three score and ten persons, upon one stone, notwithstanding, yet Jotham, the youngest son of Jerub-baal, was left, for he hid himself. So what do we see here? He goes to Shechem and he obtains the kingdom by flatteries by saying, I'm your family. He hires vain and light people with the money that he got from the house of Baal-beareth. Strike two. Strike three, this is what he does. Okay, now time to get rid of all my opposition. That's what he's doing. So he goes and murders his brothers, 70 people. No small number. It says three score, score is 20. Three score and ten people, sons of Jerub-baal. So basically what he's doing here is saying, look, I don't want, what he didn't want was for any opposition to come. You know, he's afraid that these so-called 70 that want to rule over Israel, as he said, might try to dethrone him or cause an uprising. So what he does, because he's a psycho, is he just kills off all his brethren, all 70 of them, save one, which is Jotham. So he kills them all. And it's interesting that they give him three score and ten pieces of silver and he kills three score and ten brothers, 70 brothers there. But except for Jotham, Jotham hides himself. By the way, this shows you that Abimelech is very insecure. And that's a leadership quality that no leader should ever have, to be insecure. You know, obviously a leader should be humble, obviously they should depend upon the Lord, but humility and insecurity are two different things. Often people who are insecure are just thinking too much about themselves. You know, he's insecure. He's feeling like people are going to cause an uprising. And so he gets rid of the people who he thinks might potentially do that. Now again, this is another leadership principle right here. You know, we as leaders should not be threatened by other leaders. You see, for example, in our church, next Friday I'm going to be the ordained pastor. But you know what, God forbid if something were to happen to me, a couple of years from now, five years from now, if I die, get in a car accident, I would hope that there's a good amount of leadership here. So no vacuum is left and some wicked people just take over the reins. See, the goal is not to just have one leader, the goal is to have one leader that makes all the decisions. But the goal of a church is to have one leader, but also many leaders even within the congregation. Men who love God, they fear the Lord, they hate covetousness, they're godly, they're ready just in case something happens. You know, I'm hoping to be here until Christ returns, you know, until after the tribulation. I hope this church stays around until after that. But God forbid if something were to happen to me, you know, the goal would be is that there would be other leaders who are as strong, if not stronger than I, who can take over the organization. Oh man, are you, what are we, they're just going to take over everything that you build and work for? Yeah. What's wrong with that? Because at the end of the day, the main leader is Jesus, amen? He is the chief shepherd, and an insecure leader would say, well, no, I'm going to make sure no one takes this place, you know. I don't want anybody to be stronger than I. I don't want anybody to have any more stronger qualities than I. I don't want anybody to be more qualified than I. No, look, it'll be good for men in our church to be qualified, leaders, pastors, why? Because that just strengthens the church and it secures the church to have more longevity of life, you know, and it also secures us in case, God forbid, something were to happen to me, we don't have a bunch of wicked people trying to take over the pulpit, you know, we can have some men who can just say, all right, I'll take over and you know what, let me just serve until we can figure these things out and so on and so forth. Someone who can lead the church in the way of righteousness. And this is the kind of attitude we need to have all of us, you know, don't be threatened by people who are stronger than you. You should never be threatened by people who are stronger than you. Whether physically, spiritually, emotionally, or mentally. That should motivate you. You should want to get around people who are stronger than you spiritually, stronger than you emotionally, stronger than you physically. And you say, why physically? Because that means if you're getting jumped, man, that guy's going to help you out, man. If you can't open the jar, he's there to help you open it up. If you can't lift the box, he's there, man, I'm just kidding. It's always good to have someone stronger than us around us. Why? Because they make us better. If you're always around the same people who are less strong than you or as strong than you, you're not going to get anywhere. Our goal should be to grow, right? And we do that by having stronger leaders, but not like a bimilech. A bimilech is just like, nah, just wipe them all out. I want to be the best one here. It's like Hitler, when he was looking for a chauffeur, he got a guy who was literally, he couldn't find it because he was really short. He got like the shortest guy, you know, that he can find. And like, he did everything possible to try to look head and shoulders above everybody who, because he was so insecure, you know, look, I'm short, but I'm not going to put high heels to make myself, you know, look tall or whatever, whatever, who cares? You know, and there's pastors that are like this too. You know, when they have strong leadership that are in their church, they want to get rid of these people because they're threatened by them. You know, my father-in-law, I remember he used to say, man, he used to say, I want to surround myself with strong leaders because we compliment each other. He goes, and strong leaders don't threaten me. They just make the organization better. See, it's not about you. It's not about me. It's not about what glory we can get. It's about glorifying the Lord, amen? Don't be like a bimilech who is threatened. And then he goes off and kills all 70 of his brethren. Look at verse number six. It says, and all the men of Shechem gathered together in all the house of Milo and went and made a bimilech king by the plan of the pillar that was in Shechem. Now verses seven through 15, Jotham comes and he, and he gives this very almost sarcastic parable to basically show the men of Shechem how bad of a decision they made of allowing a bimilech to be their leader. Let's read through, we'll talk about it as soon as we're done with these verses here. It says in verse seven, and when they told it to Jotham, he went and stood in the mount of, the top of the mount of Gerizim, excuse me, and lifted up his voice and cried and said unto them, hearken unto me, you men of Shechem, that God may hearken unto you. The trees went forth on a time to anoint a king over them, and they said unto the olive tree, rain thou over us. But the olive tree said unto them, should I leave my fatness? For by me they honored God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees. And the tree said to the fig tree, come down, reign over us. But the fig tree said unto them, should I forsake the sweetness and my good fruit, and go be promoted over the trees? Then said the trees unto the vine, come down and reign over us. And the vine said unto them, should I leave my wine, which teareth God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees? Then said all the trees unto the bramble, come down and reign over us. And the bramble said unto the trees, if in truth he anoint me king over you, then come and put your trust in my shadow. And if not, let fire come out of the bramble and devour the cedars of Lebanon. So what is he saying here? This is a straight out diss to Abimelek and to the men of Shechem. Why is that? Because he basically, the comparison that we're seeing here, he's basically illustrating a point by comparing the trees to the men of Shechem. The trees come and they're looking for a leader. They go to the olive tree. The olive tree says, I'm not going to leave my fatness. They go to the fig tree. The fig tree says, I'm not going to leave my sweetness and my good fruit. They go to the vine. The vine says, I'm not going to leave my wine. So all these trees have something to offer, don't they? You have the olive tree that can offer fatness, the fig tree that can offer sweetness and good fruit. You have the vine that can offer wine. So what's the next best thing? Well, you get the bottom of the barrel, which is the bramble, okay? Now what is the bramble? Well, a bramble is simply a dried up bush. The Bible would more frequently call it thorns and briars. So basically that which is rejected. So they're choosing the lowest of the low, right? They're choosing that which is rejected to reign over them. They're not getting the fig tree. They're not getting the olive tree. They're not getting the vine. They're choosing just the worst leadership there is out there to reign over them. Now here's the thing. If they would have gone with the olive tree, you know, they would have gotten fatness. If they would have gone with the fig tree, they would have gotten sweetness and good fruit. If they would have gone with the vine, they would have gotten wine. Those things have something to offer. What is the bramble have to offer? Nothing. And in fact, not only does the bramble have nothing to offer. The Bible says that fire will consume, will come out of the bramble. Why? Because the bramble just as the thorns and briars are ordained unto fire. Okay. Now go with me if you would to Micah chapter seven, hold your place there in Judges chapter nine. I'm going to read to you from Luke chapter six and verse 43 says, for a good tree bringeth forth, excuse me, for a good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit, neither that the corrupt tree bring forth good fruit for every tree is known by his own fruit. For a thorns men do not gather figs nor a bramble bush gathered they grapes a good man out of the good treasure of his heart, bringing forth that which is good and an evil man to the evil treasure of his heart, bringing forth that which is evil for out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. So what is, what is Jotham saying? He's basically saying this guy is going to destroy you because he doesn't have anything to offer. He's actually going to burn you. Don't, don't we say that today? You know, that guy burned me. He did, he did me wrong. Well, that's exactly what I put me like this. He's the bramble that's going to burn them. Now look at Micah chapter number seven and we're going to read a couple of verses here. Now this chapter primarily has to do with end times Bible prophecy, but it can be applicable to what we're talking about right now. And as we read it, read it through the lens of Judges chapter nine and what we're talking about in context of Abimelech. Look at what it says in verse number one, woe is me for I am as when they have gathered the summer fruits as the grape gleanings of the, of the vintage, there was no cluster to eat. My soul desireth the first stripe fruit. The good man is perished out of the earth and there was none upright among men and there is none upright among men. They all lie in wait for blood. They hunt every man, his brother with a net. So what do we see here? We see that just as in Micah's day in Judges chapter nine, there's not a good and upright man, a leader, right? You know, the fig tree is gone, the olive tree is gone. The vine doesn't want to rule over them. And in fact, the only people who are there, those who lie in wait for blood and they who hunt every man, his brother with a net. Can someone tell them that I'm a, I'm busy here? There we go. Tell them I'll call them back. That's not my phone. I'm just kidding. How about that? Where was that, man? I was on a roll here. Verse two, they all lie away in blood and they hunt every man, his brother with a net. I mean, doesn't that sound like a biblic? Isn't that exactly what he did with the 70 brothers? It says here in verse number three, they that do, excuse me, that they may do evil with both hands earnestly, the prince asketh and the judge asketh for reward. So the so-called judge Abimelech in like manner, they didn't get the 70 pieces of silver from the house of Belbeareth, right? Asketh for reward and great man, he uttereth his mischievousness desire, so they wrap it up. The best of them is as a briar. The most upright is sharper than a thorn hedge. The day of thy watchman and thy visitation cometh now shall be their perplexity. So look, you know what this is saying, man, the best we got is like a reprobate. It's like a briar. And you know what? Because the olive tree, the vine and the fig tree didn't want to rain over them. The best that they can find was Abimelech, which was the bramble, okay? And look, the principle that we see here is that sometimes people, followers get who they deserve. They get who they deserve. You know, we're just talking about this on the way over here, talking about Kenneth Copeland and some of these other TV evangelist idiots, these wicked false prophets. And you listen to some of the stuff they say is like, what in the world? How can anybody be so stupid to be in those churches? And then it hits you. Actually, that's where they deserve to be. If they fully embrace that, they get the leader that they deserve. Because no one's holding a gun to their head, telling them to stay. No one is threatening their lives so they can't leave. They're willingly choosing to be under those wicked leaders. Why? Because the best of them are briars, right? And they're choosing to be under that wicked leadership. You think of churches who have wicked pastors who do all kinds of crazy stuff and they're content with being under that leadership. That's what they deserve. Don't try to get them out of that church. That's the kind of leadership they deserve. Hey, Trump is the president that we deserve as a nation. Because our nation is just as wicked as he is. The best of them is a briar. Why don't we get like an olive tree for a president? Why can't we get a vine or why can't we get a fig tree for a president? Because none of them want to be presidents over you. A bramble is what you get, okay? The bramble is the rejected garbage that you get. You know, there's people who are under these false teachers and false prophets, so what about those poor dispensationalists, poor people in those dispensational churches under, you know, Slutter and all these other fools? The best of them is a briar. And they get the leader that they deserve. And that's what we see here, you know? These other fruitful trees, they didn't want to be over Israel, it's polluted. So instead, what's the best of the briars? A bimilech. Which is pretty sad because this goes to show you that there probably wasn't a fig tree, there probably wasn't an olive tree around. Because it was probably guys who weren't ready to take on that. Tolah doesn't come until afterwards. Even Gideon and Tolah, there's a bimilech. But you know, he's the best of the briars, and that's all they get, unfortunately. Now let's keep reading here. So that was a pretty funny little parable that he throws out there, he's just like, you guys get the bramble. He's throwing this curse out there for them. Look at verse 16, it says, 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, for my father fought for you, and adventure his life far, and delivered you out of the hand of Midian. And ye are risen up against my father's house in this day, and have slain 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 is your brother. So what do we see here is just like, man, my dad, when he was here, delivered you people out of the hand of the oppressors. And this is how you repay the former leader, is by destroying his children, destroying his family. This is how you repay them? Well, good, then you get a bimilech then. You know, sometimes people wonder is like, man, why is this pastor still pastoring? Why doesn't God just remove him? Maybe because that's what the church gets. Maybe because God wants to destroy that church. And he's using that fool of a pastor in that position to destroy it. You know, that's what it is. You know, maybe because the pastor is so weak and compromising, God says, you know what, I don't, I'm not going to put you anywhere else but here. Here is where you belong. And I'm going to use you to destroy this organization. That's what I'm going to do. You say, well, how do we know that you're not destroying our organization, Brother Mejia? Because we're seeing people saved. You can judge what I'm saying from the preaching of God's Word. Jotham, I mean, he's pretty bold here to say this. I mean, he ran and left and hid and stuff like that. But if you had a whole army against you, I think it would be wise to run and hide too, amen. That's why he got on top of Mount Gerizim and just sat from top of the mountain. You know, said all these things here. Verse 19, if you then have dealt truly, verse 19, and sincerely with Jerubel and with his house this day, then rejoice he in Abimelech and let him also rejoice in you. So he said, look, if this is what you guys want, be happy about it then. Be happy with Abimelech, Abimelech can be happy with you. Verse 20, but if not, let fire come out from Abimelech and devour the men of Shechem and the house of Mylo and let fire come out from the men of Shechem and from the house of Mylo and devour Abimelech. So he's saying, look, if this is what God wants, then you guys can just rejoice and just lead, but if not, I hope you guys just destroy each other. He's like, I hope Abimelech burns you and I hope you burn Abimelech and you know what, we read the entire chapter, that's exactly what happens because it wasn't of God and because it wasn't of God, he caused the leader to turn on the followers and the followers to turn on the leader and they just self-destruct. Look what it says here, and Jotham ran away and fled and went to Beer and dwelt there for fear of Abimelech his brother. By the way, this happens in churches too, where you have a church split and sometimes a church split is necessary because there is a righteous remnant there that can basically, you know, keep the work going. We saw that at steadfast Jacksonville and there's still a righteous remnant are still doing the work of the Lord. They're going to celebrate their one or a couple of years, two years, one year anniversary. They're still doing a great work there, but sometimes what God will do is turn the hearts of the followers against the leader and vice versa, just so they can fight with each other. You know, let them fight or whatever. Just let them fight, let them destroy each other, let them just devour one another, okay? And there's no unity at that church. There's just people gossiping and just, you know, just a bunch of nonsense going on. The church is in disarray. You know, here at Archers, we have unity, amen? And that's how we want to keep it. Verse 22 says, when Abimelech had reigned three years over Israel, then God sent an evil spear between Abimelech and the men of Shechem, and the men of Shechem dealt treacherously with Abimelech, 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. So we see here that God sends this evil spirit between Abimelech and Shechem, so they can basically destroy each other, so God can recompense them back on their head for that which they've done. And by the way, this shows us here, this proves what the Bible says, that we should not only obviously not be the ones who are doing the evil deeds, but we should not be partakers with those who do either. Because Shechem aided them, aided Abimelech in destroying and killing those 70 brothers, and now they're going to suffer the consequences because of it. You know, shouldest thou help the ungodly and love them to hate the Lord, therefore wrath is upon thee from before the Lord. Someone asked me today, hey, you know, I'm replacement theology, but what's the danger? Can you just tell me what is the danger if I were to believe a little bit about dispensationalism, like, you know, the Jews, maybe God still has a plan for them, or the pre-tribulation rapture, or some of these, not hyper-dispensationalism, but just this, you know, this kind of surface dispensationalism. What's the danger? I told them, here's the danger. The danger is that if you favor the Jews, you're helping the ungodly, and you're loving them who hate the Lord, and therefore wrath will be upon thee from before the Lord. Because you're aiding wicked people who hate Jesus Christ. That is the danger. So we obviously, we want to stay as far away from, we can from even doing the evil works, the wicked works, right? But the next step is, hey, let's stay away from even aiding anybody who would be doing those wicked works as well. You know, have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. So it's not just a matter of taking a stand and saying, I'm not going to do it, we need to reprove that as well. So he says he aided them in the killing of his brother, verse 25, and the men of Shechem sent liars and waved for him at the top of the mountains, and they robbed all that came that way by them, and it was told to Bimelech. So man, these guys are pretty shady, they're like, all right, this is what we're going to do, we're going to set some liars, and you know, Bimelech is going to come through here, we're just going to rob him. So they're doing this, and obviously Bimelech doesn't go there, verse 26, and Gail the son of Ebed came with his brethren and went over to Shechem, and the men of Shechem put their confidence in him. And they went out into the fields and gathered their vineyards and trolled the grapes and made merry, and went into the house of their god, and did eat and drink and cursed Abimelech. And Gail the son of Ebed said, Who is Abimelech, and who is Shechem, that we should serve him? It is not he the son of Jerabal, Zebul his officer, served the men of Hamor the father of Shechem, for why should we serve him? And it was to God that these people were under my hand. Then would I remove Abimelech, and he said to Abimelech, Increase thine army and come out. So what do we see here? We see the men of Shechem, they find this guy, Gail the son of Ebed, they go and they start drinking. Obviously it's alcohol. So they're inebriated, they're intoxicated, and what happens when you're a little bit intoxicated? You get a little bold. Right? It's like, Who is this guy, man? I'll beat him up any day, and you know, they should be under my hand, and I'll rule these people. Have you ever met anybody like that, you know, when they're intoxicated? They go from a kitten to a lion, you know what I mean? At least in their eyes, and they think they could just fight anybody. They can talk all manner of evil, talk all kinds of trash to any person, because getting intoxicated emboldens you, and really what it does is just makes you stupid, because your reasoning and your logic flees you, whereas if you were not intoxicated, you would not be talking trash to that six foot five, 250 pound martial artist. You would say, Hmm, that's not a good idea. I want to keep my teeth, I want to make sure I look fine tomorrow, I'm not swollen, but when you're inebriated, you just want to fight. This is Gail, the son of Ebed, this is what they do. So they basically allow him to have charge over them. They get drunk, and he begins to flap his mouth, right? Just flap his lips, talk a lot of trash. Verse 30, When Zebo the ruler of the city heard the words of Gail the son of Ebed, his anger was kindled, and he sent messengers unto Abimelech, privily saying, Behold, Gail the son of Ebed, and his brethren be come to Shechem, and behold, they fortified the city against him. So next couple verses, he basically says, Hey, let's go war with them, because this guy, they're starting a revolt. There's civil war going on now, and Gail the son of Ebed is threatening to come and whoop your you-know-what and do all these things. Not knowing that basically this guy was basically intoxicated, right? Skip down to verse number 35 says, And Gail 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 Gail saw the people, he said to Zebo, Behold, there come people down from the top of the mountains. And Zebo said unto them, Thou seest the shadow of the mountains as if they were men. And Gail spake again and said, See, there come people down by the middle of the land, and another company will come along by the plain of Myonoyim. So what is he saying here? Obviously, we see that now he's sober. What's going on over here, man? Hey, look, there's like all kinds of soldiers over there. Like they look like they're coming to fight us. And Zebo is like, Do you see all the all the armies there? You know, look what it says in verse 37 verse 38, Then said Zebo unto him, Where is now thy mouth? Wherewith thou sayest, Who is a bimilech that we should serve him? What is he saying? He goes, What now? You're all bold when you're all drunk and talking all that trash. Where is now thy mouth? Wherewith thou sayest, Who is a bimilech 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 like, you're talking a big talk. Now it's time to walk the walk. It's like, you know, guys who get drunk and they wake up and like, Why am I in jail? You know, why do I feel why are my wrists all sore? And all these, why do I have these three little points here as though I was hit with a taser and all these things. And it's just like, you didn't remember what you did last night now, did you? You're all big and talking big game. When you're all inebriated, now it's time to face reality. It's time to face the music. Well, this is a good principle here. The drunkenness is for idiots. You should never get drunk. You said, well, I want to be bold to be filled with the spirit. You know, you don't need drunkenness. You don't need alcohol. You don't need any kind of drug to make you bold. Know the Bible, be filled with the spirit and you'll be confident. You'll be bold. You can open your mouth boldly to make known the mysteries of the gospel. You can withstand the forces of evil without a drop, a lick of alcohol in your system. And look, when you are bold in the Lord, tomorrow you wake up and you knew you were bold in the Lord. Remember what you said yesterday? Yeah, I remember and I don't take anything back. I don't take anything back. Whereas the intoxicated fool wakes up, I said, well, I didn't really mean that. Oh, I don't really want to fight. It's an artificial boldness is what it is. Verse 39, and Gail went out 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 until the entering of the gate. And Abimelech dwelt at Arumah and Zebul thrust out Gail and his brethren that they should not dwell in Shechem. And it came to pass on the morrow that the people went out into the field and they told Abimelech. So for the next couple of verses, we basically see that Abimelech is taking them to the shed. Okay. So we're basically whooping this army and the fulfillment of what we see Jotham said prior is coming to pass. So skip down. So we see all this taking place, all this war and going back and forth and the sowing of the salt on the, on the land there. Look at verse 49 or verse 48, excuse me. And Abimelech got him up to the Mount Zalman and he and all his people that were with him. And Abimelech took an axe in his hand and cut down a bow from the trees and took it and laid it on his shoulder and said unto the people that were with him, what ye have seen me do, make haste and do as I have done. So what is he asking him to do? He cuts a bow and he puts it on his shoulder and he says, Hey, everyone do exactly what I said. Why is he doing this? Because he's the bramble. You remember what the bramble was supposed to do? Set him on fire. So he's fulfilling that curse that Jotham had said prior in verse 20. Look at verse 49 and all the people likewise cut down every man his bow 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. Prophecy fulfilled. And look, he said, well, you know, my pastor, you know, he hasn't burned me yet. He's doing all these things and he seems like he's pretty decent, even though he's not taking a strong stance on divorce and remarriage or whatever it may be. He's going to burn you one day. It's going to get to a point where Shechem will rise up against Abimelech and Abimelech against Shechem. And you know what's going to happen? Abimelech is going to say, everyone cut a branch, put it on you because we're about to burn these people. It's going to happen. Prophecy fulfilled. Now Abimelech gets a little overly confident and he tries to expand his territory and tries to basically overcome other cities and so forth. And but it's okay because he destroys Shechem, which is a fulfillment, but now his turn is coming. Right? Now here's the interesting thing. Abimelech in the Bible is only two. You have Abimelech in the book of Genesis and then you have this Abimelech. But this Abimelech is probably far more known amongst Israel than anybody, any other Abimelech, including the one in Genesis who was a Pharaoh in Egypt. In fact, I personally would believe that this Abimelech became a byword and a proverb in Israel. The reason we know this because in second Samuel chapter 11, verse 21, you have the story of, second Samuel chapter 11, you have the story of David committing adultery with Bathsheba. And if you remember, he's trying to kill Uriah, Urijah, Uriah, Uriah, right? He tries to kill Uriah and he sends a letter to his general to basically slay Uriah. The general gives the letter to the person and he, or excuse me, he gives the letter to basically report to David what's taking place and he uses what's about to happen to Abimelech as proof because Uriah goes into the hottest part of the battle and he dies. That was the plan. And he said, look, when you go to David, if he says, how's it going? You say, well, this, this had this and this happened and we're kind of losing on this front. And if he says unto you, I'm paraphrasing, he says, if he says, why drew so near unto the wall, know ye not of Abimelech, how a woman cast a millstone upon his head. So Abimelech was used as a byword of the prophet for, for, for like battle strategy, what not to do. So in other words, it's like, Hey guys, all right, we're going to go to war. Don't forget Abimelech though. Why shouldn't we go to like the front? We should just, Hey, Hey captain, don't you think we should go to like all the way up to the wall and the door and just try to fight him there? No man. Haven't you ever heard what happened to Abimelech? You know, it wasn't an arrow. It wasn't Goliath. It wasn't a strong man who took him down. It was a woman with a millstone. Look what it says in verse number 52 and Abimelech came until the tower and fought against it and went hard into the door of the tower to burn it with fire. So he's trying to do the same thing. It's like, yeah, let's just burn it with fire. Like we did the other time. Verse 53 and a certain woman cast a piece of millstone upon Abimelech's head and all to break his skull. That's painful. It's like, boom, break his skull. Not an honorable way to die. And that's why we see in verse 54, then he called hastily until the young man is armor bearer and said unto him, draw thy sword and slay me that men say not of me, a woman slew him. Too late. Abimelech, everyone's going to say it from now on. Second Samuel chapter 11, 21, they said it, that a woman killed you, not your armor bearer. This kind of thing is like, man, I just, I had him kill me. How about the armor bearer? I was like, man, I killed this guy. No one even remembers me. Everyone remembers the woman with the millstone, right? That men say not of me, a woman slew him and his young man thrust him through and he died. What an idiot. You know, so he died a dishonorable death. And this is the kind of death that God has for those men who are wicked. A dishonorable death, a millstone. Now what's interesting, here's my last point is that Gideon, if you remember in times past, I believe it was in chapter seven or chapter eight, was a picture of Jesus Christ, right? And we see that Abimelech, just as he tried to take the kingdom by flattery, he's kind of operated almost like an antichrist, did he not? And not only that, but he was slaying those descendants of Gideon. He went to war with those descendants of Gideon in the 70, but what do we see at the end? That the stone which the builders rejected, the same has been coming to the head of the corner, but the stone basically grinded him to powder, broke his skull. Isn't it great that when people do wicked stuff in the Bible, God just uses it to basically illustrate some wonderful truth that we can say amen to? So he was recompensed back on his head for that wickedness that he did into the house of Gideon. Verse 55 says, when the men of Israel saw that Abimelech was dead, they departed every man into his place. Thus God rendered the wickedness of Abimelech. What he did into his father and slain his 70 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 Jerub Baal. Great chapter here, very sad. We see, and it's basically the principle is this, hey, let's not have a vacuum of leadership if something were to ever happen. This is an encouragement to all you men out there. You better start getting ready. Oh, what's the point? Aren't you the leader? Yeah, but you know what? You need to prepare. Prepare if something happens to me or if you know what? If an opportunity opens up for you to be a leader somewhere else in a different church, you need to get ready. Let's never have a vacuum of leadership and let's never be vain and light followers like what Abimelech had. Amen? Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you for your word. Thank you for the exhortation that we received from Judges chapter number nine and all the biblical principles we see thereof. I pray God that you'd help us to continue to be strong leaders and Lord, even when I pass or something happens to me, I pray that a man would stand in the gap to make up the hedge and I pray God that you'd just continue to use our church and help us to give heat into these things and not to allow them to slip and in Jesus' name we pray, amen.