Beware the Bramble King

Hey, hey, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotion. Today we're going to continue on with a story of Gideon through his two sons, Abimelech, one whose name my father is king, has talked to people in the Shechem, letting him be a ruler, and what's going to happen with his brother Jotham, who's stolen away, who's run away, he's escaped the onslaught, the murder of all of his brothers. How will this resolve itself? Let's have some coffee, we'll pray, we'll get into God's Word.
Father, we thank you so much. Privilege it is to get to read your word. Lord, it is such a delight. Even though there are difficult things, even though so often your word shows us how we fail, where we're wrong, how easily it is for our hearts to get pulled aside to the right and to the left and go after our own ways. God, please help us, instruct us, teach us how we are not to go. the ways that we should in Jesus's name. Amen. Here we go. We're at Judges chapter 9 beginning at verse 7.
Now when they told Jotham he went and stood on top of Mount Gerizim and lifted his voice and cried out and he said to them listen to me you men of Shechem that God may listen to you and The trees once went forth to anoint a king over them. And they said to the olive tree, rain over us.
But the olive tree said to them, should I cease giving my oil, with which they honor God and men, and go and sway over trees? Then the tree said to the fig tree, you come and rain over us. But the fig tree said to them, should I cease my sweetness and my good fruit and go to sway over trees? Then the tree said to the vine, you come and rain over us. The vine said to them, did I cease my new wine, which cheers both God and men and go to sway over trees. Then all the trees said to the bramble, you come and rain over us. And the bramble said to the trees.
If in truth you anoint me as king over you, then come and take shelter in my shade. But if not, let fire come out from out of the bramble and devour the cedars of Lebanon. Now therefore, if you have acted in truth and sincerity in making a Bimelech king, and if you have dealt well with Jerubal and his house and have done to him as he deserves, for my father fought for you, risked his life, and delivered you out of the hands of Midian, But you have risen up against my father's house this day and killed his seventy sons on one stone and made Abimelech the son of his female servant, king over the men of Shechem, because he is your brother. If then you have acted in truth and sincerity with Jerubal and with his house this day, then rejoice in Abimelech and let him also rejoice in you. If not, Let fire come from Abimelech and devour the men of Shechem and Beth Milo. And let fire come from the men of Shechem and from Beth Milo and devour Abimelech. And Jotham ran away and fled. He went to Beor, or Sebir, and dwelt there for fear of Abimelech, his brother.
We'll stop there and we'll pick up the rest tomorrow, but we need to ask ourselves our three questions. A. What's this about?
B. What's the best verse to summarize this? And C. What are we called to do in response to this? So what is this about? Well, this is remember what's gone on beforehand. Gideon, also named Drubal, he reigns for a period of time. Well, he doesn't actually reign, although he's kind of leading. They tried to make him king and he said, no, I'm not going to be king. The Lord's going to be your king. And yet he makes his London ephod, he leads the people astray, they commit the spiritual adultery.
And he has one of his sons from a concubine and names that boy Abimelech, Abimelech, my father's king. And so, what did he do last time? He went and he made a treaty with the people of Shechem. And as he's there, Shechem, they give him money and he goes and symbols all of his brothers, slaughters them, murders them, 70 something, kills them all.
Only Jotham escapes. This whole idea of like killing them on one stone, it's very possible that meant almost like this ritualistic sacrifice, right? This is a bloody, gory, ugly mess. And so Jotham is afraid, but he shows up. He shows up on the scene and he stands on top of Mount Gerizim and lifted his voice and cried out, Mount Gerizim is full of significance. Mounted upon which the curses of the covenant were spoken from.
Tells them there's this allegory that where trees go and they're trying to find a king and trying to find a king, trying to find a king, but he wants to be their king. Eventually they go to a bramble bush. What's a bush? The cedars of Lebanon, you mighty men of Shechem, you've gone to a thorny, ugly little bush full of pomp and makes it seem like you're going to get rest, right? Come and sit it in my shade. Bush don't have no much shade. Trample bush.
And that's what you guys have done. Then he calls them to remembrance and he says, right, remember what my father did for you, saved you from Midian. all these good things so essentially what he says is like hey look if you guys have done well great rejoice in your king but if you've not there's going to come civil war the men of shechem are going to turn and they're going to hate abimelech and abimelech's going to turn and he's going to hate you all and he says fire is going to come out of you all then he hightails it gets out of there right because he's afraid of abimelech and rightly so he's watched his brothers get killed He goes to beer, the fear of his brother. We're going to find what happens coming after this. This is the part of this difficult story where somebody finally steps up and says, this is wrong. Shouldn't have done it. So that's really what's going on here is Jotham and his speech to the people of Shechem. So what's the best verse? B, what's the best verse? In my Bible, I have verse 20 underlined. And what are we called to do? Be calling? How does it show us the covenant of grace? Or point us to Jesus Christ, right? Well, Abimelech is nothing like Jesus. Abimelech is nothing like what God's anointed king was supposed to be like.
The Lord himself was supposed to be king, and this is what we find out. When people are power hungry, when people are so drunk with their own passions for their own authority, they're willing to kill people, do anything necessary to just grab hold of the reins.
It's going to cause civil war. It causes heartache. It causes corruption. This is not the way God's people were supposed to be. Go to Samaria and Shechem. You don't want to be ruled by Rubels, Gideon's other boys who aren't their family members. Instead, Nepeta reigns or rules the day.
How often, how often though do we use human reasoning ends up fighting us? How often do we, instead of being patient for the Lord's desire, so often desire things our way to be done, we want, and then we end up finding we've ruined things. way of sin. Our normal where I'm no better than in my heart every time I'm using the authority that God is also that same acts like we love justice. We don't know All this is meant to doke up in the viewer's hearts who are reading Judges.
There's got to be a better key. Got to be a better way than Shacham. About that. Brought out the true Abimelech. Follow me. Father, we thank you so much for what you have shown us in Christ Jesus. And God, we pray that we would please walk in your way. Keep us from following the desires of our own hearts. Father, please let us follow, not some bramble bush, but you, Lord, have given us King of kings, Lord of lords, love and to follow. In Jesus's name. May the Lord bless you. May you walk in the joy and peace of Christ. I'll see you next time. Bye.