I've got my base. Good morning, EFC. Hope we're all doing well this morning. If you could all make your way in to the auditorium, find a seat, that would be excellent. So exciting to be here with the body of Christ. So let's start out this morning by reading in Ephesians, Ephesians 1, 3 through 10. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love, he predestined us for adoption as sons to Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us in all his wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as our plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. Let's pray. Lord, we're so thankful that you saw in your wisdom to send your son to give us forgiveness and to bring peace on earth. We are so thankful for that gift and we pray that we would live our life every day in remembrance of that, striving for excellence, striving to honor you and to bless your people. I pray that you would be with us through this service. You would bless Brian as he brings the word and we would go out this week refreshed and excited to serve you and to serve your people. In your name we pray. Amen. So let's start this morning with this is amazing grace. If you could please stand and we will sing. Who breaks the power of sin and darkness, whose love is mighty and so much stronger, the King of glory, the King above all kings. Who shakes the whole earth with holy thunder And leaves us breathless in awe and wonder The King of glory, the King above all kings This is amazing grace This is unfailing love That you would take my place That You would bear my cross You laid down Your life That I would be set free Oh, Jesus, I sing for all that You've done for me Who brings our chaos back into order? Who makes the orphan a son and daughter? The King of glory, the King of glory. Who rules the nations with truth and justice? Shines like the sun in all of his brilliance. The King of glory, the King above all kings. This is amazing grace. This is unfailing love. That you would take my place. That you would bear my cross. You laid down your life. That I would be set free. Oh, Jesus, I sing for all that you've done for me. Worthy is the lamb who was slain. Worthy is the king who conquered the grave. Worthy is the lamb who was slain. Worthy is the king who conquered the grave. Worthy is the lamb who was slain. Worthy is the king who conquered the grave. Worthy is the lamb who was slain. Worthy, worthy, worthy. Oh, this is amazing grace. This is unfailing love. That You would take my place That You would bear my cross You laid down Your life That I would be set free Jesus, I sing for all that You've done for me He is exalted, the King is exalted on high. I will praise Him. He is exalted, forever exalted, and I will praise Him. Heaven and earth rejoice in His holy name He is exalted, the King is exalted on high He is exalted, the King is exalted on high. I will praise Him. He is exalted, forever exalted, and I will praise His name. He is the Lord, forever His truth shall reign. Rejoice in His holy name He is exalted, the King is exalted on high Oh and He is exalted, the King is exalted on high Our next song is a new one that I don't think many of you are familiar with, but as I was choosing our songs this week, this struck me as a song that reminds us of our standing before God, reminds us that sometimes we think we can't approach Him, or we think our past holds us back, or something is holding us back from Him, and I feel like this is a reminder that no matter what we do, we're never going to be perfect. It's a reminder we can come to Him, We can call out to him and his grace and his mercy will come upon us. And I think that's really easy to forget with the media and everything telling us we have to be this or we have to be that, or I'm not good enough, I shouldn't even be in church, those kinds of things. Come out of sadness from wherever you've been. Come broken hearted, let the rescue begin. Come find your mercy, oh sinner, come kneel. Earth has no sorrow that heaven can't heal. Earth has no sorrow that heaven can't heal. So lay down your burdens, lay down your shame. All who are broken, lift up your face. Oh, wanderer, come home. You're not too far. So lay down your hurt, lay down your heart, come as you are. There's hope for the hopeless and all those who've strained. Come sit at the table, come taste the grace. There's rest for the weary, rest that endures. Earth has no sorrow that heaven can't cure. Earth has no sorrow that heaven can't cure. So lay down your burdens, lay down your shame. All who are broken, lift up your face. Oh, wanderer, come home. You're not too far. So lay down your hurt. Lay down your heart. Come as you are. Come as you are. Fall in His arms. Come as you are. There's joy in the morning. Oh, sinner, be still. Earth has no sorrow that heaven can't heal. Earth has no sorrow that heaven can't heal. Lay down your burdens. Lay down your shame. All who are broken. Lift up your face. Oh, wanderer, come home. You're not too far. So lay down your hurt. Lay down your heart. So lay down your hurt. Lay down your heart. So lay down your hurt. Lay down your heart. Come as you are. Please be seated. Good morning. Everybody awake this morning, I hope. Yes. Fantastic. Fantastic. Jesus loves you. If you haven't heard that today, You're hearing it from me. Tell your neighbor Jesus loves you. Would you please? All right. Great way to start a Sunday morning, huh? We got to celebrate a couple of things recently. One thing, I see the Lumbergs are back. Great to have you back. Fantastic. They got to go, you know, to spend time with Emily, right? And the birth of a new grandbaby, Cora, four pounds, 15 ounces. Is that right? Oh my goodness. Great to have you back. Congratulations. That's so fantastic. Another grandbaby. That's great. That's great. Another thing is marriages. You know, marriages are so important. And boy, we got to celebrate a wonderful marriage, you know, The Rogers, 50 years of marriage. Isn't that fantastic? Bill and Sharon, way to go. We love you guys. What a great testimony to the church family. I talked to Bill and I asked him, hey, how do you make it 50 years? That's a long time, right? How do you make it 50 years? And you know what? One of the great things that he told me was, you know what, I don't want to fail God. I don't want to fail God. And you know what, we not only in marriage, but even in our own relationships, right, we don't want to fail God. And so that was a great thing for him to share with me yesterday. And so thank you for that. Wonderful, wonderful thing there. So there's that. Hey, welcome, everybody. Good to have you here today. And those of you online, special welcome to you. It's good that we can stay connected online, so that's great that we can connect. So a few announcements here that I want to share. The Women's Ministry will have their next monthly large group meeting on Friday, August 13th at 6 o'clock in the church foyer. There will be a guest speaker, and that's Christy Holman. from REACH Global Crisis Response Missionary. She is, I guess there's dinner and childcare that's gonna be provided. And Peggy Schultz is, if you have any questions, you wanna see Peggy with any questions about that. So that's Friday, August 13th at six o'clock. Women's Ministry will have their next weekly prayer meeting on Thursday, August 5th from nine to 10 a.m. in the church library. Again, Peggy Schultz is the lady to see. So Peggy, so if you have any questions, yeah, it says here, women come and join in the opportunity to pray together. So that's August 5th from 9 to 10. And Awana, Awana is starting up again in the fall, and it will, it starts, that's soon. So now is the time to pray about your participation in the outreach to children. If you ask Tim Giordano, he says that he is in need of lady volunteers. for TNT girls right Mr. Giordano TNT girls yes so but any volunteers I'm sure he'll he'd love to take any volunteers please pray on that Awana is a wonderful ministry if you've never been part of that before it doesn't take too much time to you know to connect with kids it's wonderful where you can you know, spend time with them and listen to them, recite verses and grow in Christ. So that's Iwana. Iwana is a great ministry of this church. And this morning after service, the missions committee will be passing out this month's missionary prayer cards. This month, we're asking you to join us in prayer for the Iwana missionaries, Joel and Virginia Cook. So even after moving to the East Coast to be with their kids, they're committed to serving the Juana Clubs in Northern California and Southern Oregon. So if you can read, there's a lot of information on these cards, but these are great cards to take home, put on your fridge, put in your Bibles, as you open up your Bibles every morning, hopefully, right? Every morning, or when you can. But the idea is to pray for the cooks, great missionaries. And the pastor's class, A Journey Through the Bible, Discovering New Testament, will not be meeting today as Pastor Greg is away. The offering box is back there if you want to designate. And I think the deacons prefer, if at all possible, that donations go in as you come in, right? As you come in. That's all right. OK, very good. But anyway, yeah, we sure appreciate your giving to the church. This church is so blessed with great giving from very generous folks as yourselves. So today, our invocation passage is Psalm 121. I would sure like to invite you to please stand up as we honor God's word. Psalm 121. Stand if you can, I should say. Stand if you can. Let's go to God's word. When you were looking for help, who do you look to? Let's see what God's word has to say about that. I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved. He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper. The Lord is your shade on your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all evil. He will keep your life. The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore. Please be seated. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Oh, Heavenly Father, we are so thankful, thankful to be in your sanctuary this morning, dear God, your church, dear God. It's great to be here amongst brothers and sisters in Christ. Dear God, as we celebrate new births, godly marriages, as we celebrate life and together, dear God, Lord, with that, we have, there are trials, there's times of, of course, temptation and testing, dear God, but as we come together and encourage each other, Lord, we seek you in your face, dear God, Lord, we do know that our help comes from you. We're grateful, dear God. Thank you so much for how you help us. Lord God, we want to lift up the cooks, the Arowana missionaries, dear God, as they serve the north state of California, the southern state of Oregon, dear God. May they reach children in their ministry, dear God. May these children not only recite scripture, dear God, but may they know what it means, apply it to their lives, may they grow in Christ. So dear God, I wanna, staying with the Awana theme, dear God, I wanna lift up Tim and Laura Giordano, commanders of this Awana ministry here locally. Dear God, may you give them joy in their service. May you be with them, Lord, as they prepare for another year. Lord God, please prepare the way. May you raise up a group of volunteers, dear God, that are gonna come alongside them and serve this community of Oroville. Lord, as they serve the children of this town, Lord, may they recite your word and grow in Christ. Lord, we desire that people are saved. So Lord, through that ministry, may you make that happen, dear God. And Lord, we do pray for the lost in Oroville and the surrounding community, dear God. God, give us boldness to share the word of God with them. Open hearts of the lost, dear God. May they be receptive to your word and to the witnesses here, dear God, that go boldly forward. Lord, we think about those who are ill and hospitalized or homebound, dear God. We ask your blessing upon them. A few to think about, Marie Renner, dear God, Phil Peterson, John Stanzik, just to name a few. There's many more. Lord God, please encourage them, strengthen them. Lord, pray for healing. Mostly, Lord, may your will be done in their lives. And Lord, I want to pray for a spiritual awakening, dear God, and revival in this land. Lord, may there be great confession of sin, dear God. May we turn away from idols, grow in holiness, dear God. May we seek your face, unity, joy, dear God. May we have sacrificial service to one another. Lord, we love you. Lord, we know you love us. Lord God, we want to lift up the offering to you, dear God. We're thankful for these faithful servants of yours, dear God, who give selflessly, dear God, to you. So Lord, please may these offerings go forth. Lord, may you multiply them. May you bless your ministry, dear God, in all that is given. And Lord, I want to pray for Pastor Greg as he's not here. Please be with him and his wife, dear God, as you have time of rest. Lord, we want to lift up Pastor Brian as he delivers your word to the hearts and souls of this congregation, dear God. May we be receptive to that word. May you speak truth, dear God. May our hearts be open, our eyes be open, may our ears be attentive, dear God. May we be ready to receive. We give you thanks and praise. And all God's people said, Thank you, Rob. It's always with fear and trembling that I fill in for Pastor Greg, both in preaching and then today as I get to serve communion this morning. So I'm thankful for the opportunity. And this morning as we come to the Lord's table, in our regular observance of communion. We're going to do something just a little bit different. I know people love it when we do things different. But we're going to do something just a little bit slightly different this morning. Because over the past year, Pastor Greg and myself, we have introduced you to some of the catechisms that have shaped our faith and our understanding of scripture, one of those being the Heidelberg Catechism. And we've recited some of the Heidelberg Catechism together with a question and answer and reciting that as part of our worship. And we we've done that from time to time. So this morning, we're going to we're going to recite one of those questions and answers as part of our communion celebration here in just a moment. But before we do that, I have a couple of thoughts that I want to share regarding communion and why we practice this time of remembrance. First of all, we do this as nourishment. Obviously not from just the elements themselves, with a small wafer and a small swallowing of juice or wine, whatever people might choose to use for their communion. It's not the nourishment there, but we know what this represents, and we know that we cannot live without food, without drink. And the use of the bread and wine in the Lord's Supper is to remind us that we cannot survive without the death and the resurrection of our Savior. So as we eat the bread and we drink the cup, we should think on how much we need Jesus to work on our behalf. And moreover, we should thank him that he has provided an atonement to meet the needs of our souls, just as he has provided food to meet the needs of our bodies. And secondly, we do this as a proclamation. In the passage that we typically read from as we observe communion, and we'll read in just a moment, the Apostle Paul writes, for as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. Much like baptism, the Lord's Supper serves as a public declaration of our relationship with Christ, and we are professing the means through which Christ bought and secured us. This meal is for those who have professed faith in Christ, which is why scripture offers warning to those who would take the elements in an unworthy manner. So as we prepare to take the elements, I want to invite us to consider the words of the 75th question and answer in the Heidelberg Catechism. And I'm gonna read the question as it appears on the screen and then the answer will appear and we will recite the answer together. Question 75 of the Heidelberg Catechism says, how does the Holy Supper remind and assure you that you share in Christ's one sacrifice on the cross and in all his benefits? And the answer says, in this way, Christ has commanded me and all believers to eat this broken bread and drink this cup in remembrance of him. With this command come these promises. First, as surely as I see with my eyes the bread of the Lord broken for me and the cup shared with me, so surely his body was offered and broken for me and his blood poured out for me on the cross. Second, as surely as I receive from the hand of the one who serves and taste with my mouth the bread and the cup of the Lord, given me as sure signs of Christ's body and blood. So surely he nourishes and refreshes my soul for eternal life with his crucified body and poured out blood. I'm gonna invite our servers to come forward this morning. And as they serve us, the worship team will lead us in a time of singing as we celebrate this time of communion. And I'm gonna ask Kirk to pray for the elements and then we will sing. Let's pray. Father, we come before you in reverence and in awe. that you loved us so much that you sent Jesus Christ, your son, to die on the cross for us. So along with the awe, we come with gladness as we take this bread and this cup of that gift that you have given us. As we hold the almonds in our hands, Lord, may we praise you and thank you as we Follow the commandment of doing this. Thank you, Father. And thank you for this time that we can praise you through communion. In Christ's name, amen. Behold the Lamb who bears our sins away, slain for us. And we remember the promise made that all who come in faith find forgiveness at the cross. in this bread of life and we dream of this sacrifice as a sign of our bonds of peace around the table of the King. the body of our Savior Jesus Christ torn for you. Eat and remember the wounds that heal, the death that brings us life, paid the price to make us one. So we should In this bread of life and we dream of His sacrifice as a sign of our bonds of love around the table of the King. the blood that cleanses every stain of sin shed for you drink and remember he drained death's cup that all may enter in to receive the life of God so we share in this bread of life and we drink of his sacrifice as a sign of our bonds of grace around the table of the king And so with thankfulness and faith we rise to respond. and to remember our call to follow in the steps of Christ as a body here on earth as we share in this bread of life we proclaim Christ will come again and we'll join in the feast of heaven around the table of the King. As we share in His suffering, we proclaim Christ will come again and we'll join in the feast of heaven around the table of the King. I would invite you this time if you haven't already to peel back that top layer. And this is the first time I've had to lead this and of course I can't get mine open. I'm going to get another one. We're reading from Paul's letter to the Corinthians. He writes that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, this is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. Let's eat together. And if you'll peel back the second layer. And continuing, Paul writes in the same way. Also, he took the cup after supper saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. Let us drink together. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. At this time, our children can be dismissed to their classes as Zach and the worship team will lead us in one more song. So I invite you to stand as the children make their way out. If you could stand as we sing our final song before the sermon. We fall down, we lay our crowns at the feet of Jesus. The greatness of mercy and love at the feet of Jesus. We cry holy, holy, holy. We cry holy, holy, holy. We cry holy, holy, holy is the Lamb. We fall down, we lay our crowns at the feet of Jesus. ♪ The greatness of His mercy and love ♪ ♪ At the feet of Jesus ♪ ♪ And we cry holy, holy, holy ♪ ♪ We cry holy, holy, holy ♪ ♪ We cry holy, holy, holy ♪ ♪ Is the Lamb ♪ And we cry holy, holy, holy. We cry holy, holy, holy. We cry holy, holy, holy is the lamb. Please be seated. A good morning again, and welcome. As I said just a minute ago, it's always an honor to be able to stand here and present God's Word to you whenever I'm able to fill in for Pastor Greg. We certainly want to just keep him in our prayers as he's away this morning. Can we get the lights back on just so we can, if people need to see in their Bibles? There we go, that'd be great. Thank you. And before we begin, I want to recognize that Andrea Bamford is back with us after a few months in Ireland serving the Lord. And I'm sure we'll have a time where we can hear more about how that time of service went, and we don't have to wait until she's up here in some formal setting. Go ask her after the service this morning. Ask her, how was your time in Ireland? I'm sure she would love to tell you all about that. So if you have your Bibles this morning, I'm gonna invite you to turn them to the book of Judges as we continue our series that Pastor Greg has been leading us through this period of deliverance, of judgment that we see for the people of Israel. And we're gonna cover a large section of scripture this morning, as we look at the end of chapter eight, going all the way through chapter nine, all 57 verses of chapter nine. But as we begin this morning, I wanna remind us about one of the major themes that we see running throughout the book of Judges. And that is the danger, and in some cases, the sin of forgetfulness. I'm not talking about forgetting where you left your keys or forgetting where the items that you were supposed to pick up when you were at the grocery store, okay? And I can tell that some of you are probably relieved at that point to know that that's not a sin, okay? If you forget where you parked or you've left something you can't remember where you put it, that's not a sin. That's not what I'm talking about with the sin of forgetfulness. So let me clarify. Because if it was, if forgetfulness was a sin, some of us would have to spend a lot more time in prayer asking for repentance. But what I'm referring to and what was the detriment of Israel during this time period was forgetting God. This cycle of God's people turning their backs on God, of God raising up enemies to punish Israel, of God sending a judge to rescue Israel, Israel then praises God Israel then turns their back on God again. All of this is centered around this idea of forgetfulness. If we go back to Judges chapter 2 and verse 10, after the death of Joshua, we are told that there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel. Now you may read this and think, well that doesn't say forgot God, it says they didn't know So if they didn't know, can Israel be blamed for their ignorance? And we ask that question because we wouldn't want to be punished for our ignorance either. But as anyone who has ever been pulled over for speeding can tell you, and whether you're telling the truth or not, you know that the excuse, I didn't know what the speed limit was, that doesn't work. Ignorance is no excuse. But that doesn't even apply here, because when it says that there was another generation that did not know the Lord or what He had done, that doesn't mean that they were not familiar or that they had never heard of what God had done. So when you study Old Testament culture, we know that the traditional method of teaching was oral communication, passing down. They didn't have history books. They couldn't go, they didn't go sit in class and learn about the history of their nation, of their forefathers. They didn't go and read about Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. This would have been passed down to them at home through stories that were passed down. Now, of course, now the further that they were removed from the previous generation, then the stories, yes, they may have become muddied or watered down. But when we are told that they didn't know the Lord, what we mean is they didn't understand or they didn't care. And so when we talk about forgetfulness, we're not saying that they legitimately could not remember who God was or what He had done, but more likely, they just didn't care. So when I said that one of the major themes of this book was the danger and the sin of forgetting God, the warning is for us to take care that we don't hear about the holiness, the majesty, the awesomeness of God, and simply shrug it off or dismiss it. In his letter to the Romans, Paul writes, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. That's Romans 1.18. It wasn't that or it's not that the truth cannot be found or known. It's that the truth is suppressed. It is pushed aside. It is rejected. Israel didn't want to remember the truth about God, because if they did, they would see how God punishes wickedness, how God expects holiness of His people, and that would conflict with their own agenda, which was to do what was right in their own eyes. It's the same reason why people reject truth today. It conflicts with their agenda, which was the same as Israel's, to do what they feel is right regardless of what God says. So rather than be convicted by the truth, the truth is suppressed. We say things like, that may be true for you, but it's not true for me. That is not, that may be your truth. That's not my truth. There is no your truth or my truth. There is only truth. And it is what is contained in the pages of scripture. So my prayer this morning as we encounter God in his word is that we would not suppress the truth, that we would not reject it, but receive it and then align our lives and our hearts accordingly with it. As the author of Hebrews wrote, quoting Psalm 95, today if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart. When we read the book of Judges, we encounter some hard truths about God, some hard truths about the human heart. And we have to decide, how are we going to receive these truths? Just as Israel had to decide what to do with their knowledge of the nature of God. We're nearly halfway through the book of Judges at this point. We have seen a variety of people whom God has used to deliver his people. We've seen Othniel, the brother of Caleb. We've seen Ehud, the Benjamite. Shamgar, the son of Anath. We've seen Barak and the prophetess Deborah. And then for the past few weeks, we have looked at the story of Gideon. Now, some of these you have probably heard of. while others you were introduced to for the first time during these messages over the past few weeks. And I imagine it will be much of the same as we go through the rest of the book. No doubt, most of us have heard stories or sermons preached on Samson, but I would agree that, or I would wager that not too many of us have heard sermons on Ibzan, Tola, or Jayar. And it may be that some of you have never heard much about Abimelech, who we will be focusing our time on this morning. So as we look to this historical narrative, this true historical count, it would serve us well to remember that these judges that we read about, these deliverers that are raised up, these men and women are not the heroes of the story. In fact, many of them are what we would call antiheroes. While they may accomplish a good purpose, some of their methods are undesirable and they're not to be emulated. We saw that with Gideon, as Pastor Greg reminded us, that some of Gideon's actions reflected his reluctancy to believe and trust God. The hero of these stories, as well as the whole of Scripture, is God. Time and time again, we see God deliver his people, a people that continually reject him, who continually turn away from him. And because God is holy, he must punish this wickedness. But in the midst of that, he is still there to redeem his people. A theme that we will see when we get to the book of Ruth as we see this notion of God being, this reflection of God as kinsman redeemer. When we get to the book of Ruth and we see that that's taking place, this story of Ruth is taking place right in the midst of this time of the judges. So when we get to that point, we're going to see that God still had a plan to redeem his people. But it's a good reminder to remember that God is always the hero of the story. There's a popular preaching technique these days that's particularly common and popular among prosperity gospel preachers to insert ourselves into the pages of Scripture to make the stories all about us. Now, are there applications for us within the pages of Scripture? Absolutely. But too often people are being taught to insert themselves into the story of David and Goliath, of Daniel in the lion's den, of Lazarus being raised from the grave to say that we can be just like these people or this is a story about us and our relationship with God. No, these are written, these stories are not about us, they are about God. They are written that we might believe in the mighty power of God and his holiness. And that is, of course, my hope for this morning as we read the story of Abimelech. Even though, as you'll find out as we get into this, I don't think many of us would say, I want to be like Abimelech. But this will hopefully serve as a reminder that we need to make sure that we are not putting ourself in God's place as we read scripture. It's not all about us. It's about him. He is the hero of the story. And as I mentioned, we're going to be covering a large portion of the scripture this morning. So we're going to be looking at the overall narrative and we might read most of the verses, but we're not going to cover every single verse as we look at the overall story of what is happening through Judges 8-29 through 9-57. But let's begin this morning by looking at the introduction of Abimelech as we are told of the death of Gideon. So we're going to be in Judges 8-29. And I'm just gonna begin this morning by reading from 29 to verse 35, and I'd invite you to stand for the reading of God's word this morning. And the holy infallible word of God says, Drubal, or Drubal, the son of Joash, went and lived in his own house. Now Gideon had 70 sons, his own offspring, for he had many wives. And his concubine who was in Shechem also bore him a son, and he called his name Abimelech. And Gideon the son of Joash died in a good old age and was buried in the tomb of Joash his father at Ophrah of the Abbezrites. As soon as Gideon died, the people of Israel turned again and whored after the Baals and made Baal-barith their god. And the people of Israel did not remember the Lord, their God, who had delivered them from the hand of all their enemies on every side. And they did not show steadfast love to the family of Jeroboam, that is Gideon, in return for all the good that he had done in Israel. May the Lord bless the reading and the preaching of his eternal, inherent, and holy word. And may the Holy Spirit write its truth on our hearts. You may be seated this morning. And our first major point that we're going to come across just in these first few verses is Abimelech's broken family. You see I have a very minimal outline for you this morning, but I left plenty of room in there for you to take your own notes as we go through God's Word. So we're looking at Abimelech's broken family, and chapter 8 ends with the death of Gideon And these last few verses give us a picture of the legacy that he is leaving behind. And we saw last week that despite Gideon's refusal to accept the title as king, the people came and wanted to make him king and he refused, saying God is meant to be the ruler of his people, but his actions didn't match his words. The words of the Apostle John in his second epistle would have been good advice for Gideon as John wrote, watch yourselves so that you may not lose what we have worked for but may win a full reward. Now this caution to watch yourself that you may end well is a good reminder for us and we can certainly see an example of not finishing well as we look at the end of Gideon's life. For starters, the writer, the narrator here in the book of Judges prefers to refer to Gideon as Jerubael, suggesting that the Canaanite in him is now what is most reflected. And Pastor Greg showed us how Jeroboam, or how he requested the gold spoils of war be brought to him and how he made an ephod that was placed not in Shiloh, which is where they worshiped, where Israel worshiped, where the tabernacle was, but in his city in Ophrah, not only creating a false object of worship, but also creating a false place of worship. And Gideon, or Jeroboam, has given us a lesson, as author Lawson Younger writes in his commentary on Judges, that those who are called to leadership in the kingdom of God face constant temptation to exchange the divine agenda for personal ambition. We must be careful that our prayers of thy kingdom come do not become my kingdom come. And I point this out not to scare anyone away from a desire to serve in leadership in God's kingdom, but as a caution. And also to serve as an exhortation to pray for those in leadership. Pray that God would keep them from this temptation to exalt themselves. This is what became of Jeroboam and his actions led to great sin for God's people. And his actions led to further idolatry for Israel. and it also led to great sin within his family. We're told that Gideon had 70 sons coming from his multiple wives. Now it must be understood that while polygamy was a common practice in the Old Testament, even among God's people, that this was a sinful act. God never ordained the act of having multiple wives. And if that wasn't bad enough, Jeroboam's son Abimelech, the next main character in our story, doesn't even come from one of these wives, but from his concubine. All these wives weren't enough for Jeroboam. He had to have another woman on the side. And it was from this woman that Jeroboam had a son whom he named Abimelech, whose name literally means the king is my father. I believe Pastor mentioned that in his sermon last week, just the irony of Gideon rejecting the title of king, but then turns around and names his son, the king is my father. The egotism that is reflected in Gideon giving his son such a name was passed on from father to son, and we will see the same egotistical behavior on display as chapter 9 is going to show us, as one commentator writes, the conduct of a person who is driven by a ruthless passion to prove himself the heir of the human monarch, Gideon. But don't think that this story that we come to in chapter 9 is some sort of parenthetical aside from what is happening in the overall story of Judges. This isn't, we got to Gideon, and then this happened, and so the narrator's like, we know how we tend to get when we tell, some of you are really bad at this, I'm probably bad at this. You know, you tell a story, and that reminds you of another story, and you're like, oh, well, I gotta tell you this part, because that goes along with this, but then we circle back around to the overall story. That's not the case here. This isn't just something that the narrator's thinking, oh, that reminds me, I should probably tell you about Abimelech. No, this is part of the story, and it's part of the narrative that we see in the book of Judges. It's a continuation of Gideon's story, and it certainly fits in with this cyclical theme of Judges, of God's people rejecting Him, God raising up an oppressor as punishment, and then God sending a deliverer or a judge to redeem Israel. The difference this time is that the oppressor comes from within Israel. not from without. Every other oppressor to this people group that was not part of Israel, this time it's one of their own that is going to rise up and oppress the people of God. The sin of Gideon led to the sin of the people of Israel, which ultimately led to their oppression through the sinful acts of one of their own. How dangerous it is when sin is left unchecked. when sin is not dealt with, when sin is never mentioned. It may be tempting to look at the book of Judges and to want to skip over it in our Bible reading plan. Or for some pastors to neglect teaching through the book of Judges except for the stories that we're familiar with, the stories of Samson, the stories of good Gideon. And again, trying to insert ourselves into that narrative. You won't often hear prosperity gospel preachers preach on the dangers of sin or the need for repentance. Bill Johnson, the pastor of Bethel Church in Reading, who is a false teacher, has said this, that God is not preoccupied with sin because he's already dealt with it. As if to say, because of what Jesus did on the cross, that sin is no longer a concern of God's or ours. If that were the case, then why is sin mentioned so often after the Gospels? Because we still struggle with sin. Because God's people are still tempted to sin. And when we read the book of Judges, we read it as a reminder that God is holy, He desires holiness from His people, and we see that there are consequences for our sin. And for the people of Israel, their rejection of God and the embracing of false deities such as Baal Berith, mentioned in verse 33, was a result of the sin of Jeroboam and the idol worship that he left as a legacy. And then his own son picked up where he left off. We're told that Jeroboam, he had 70 sons from his wives, and then there was the son from his concubine, Abimelech. And then acting as a prologue to the events of chapter nine, by giving us here at the end of chapter eight, he gives us only one name of Jeroboam's sons. The narrator mentions that he had 70 sons, and as if he were telling a story, and we see this as a way to, in storytelling, bring about anticipation to help us, draw us into the story. He says he had 70 sons, including Abimelech. You're like, oh, something's gonna happen with this guy. He's the only one whose name we know. What's gonna happen to, what do we need to know about Abimelech? And so that's where we get to in chapter nine, and it leads us to our second major point, and that is Abimelech's broken plan. And we see that from chapter nine, Verses 1 through 22. Let me read for us now, though, just the first six verses that get us started in chapter 9. It says, now Abimelech, the son of Jeroboam, went to Shechem, to his mother's relatives, and said to them and to the whole clan of his mother's family, say in the ears of all the leaders of Shechem, which is better for you, that all 70 of the sons of Jeroboam rule over you, or that one rule over you? Remember also that I am your bone and your flesh. And his mother's relatives spoke all these words on his behalf in the ears of all the leaders of Shechem, and their hearts inclined to follow Abimelech, for they said, he is our brother. And they gave him 70 pieces of silver out of the house of Baal-berith, with which Abimelech hired worthless and reckless fellows who followed him. And he went to his father's house at Ophrah and killed his brothers, the son of Jeroboam, 70 men on one stone. But Jotham, the youngest son of Jeroboam, was left, for he hid himself. And all the leaders of Shechem came together, and all Beth Milo, and they went and made Abimelech king by the oak of the pillar at Shechem." So in these verses, we are told that Abimelech goes to Shechem, the home of his mother, with ambition to rule as king. Why shouldn't he think that this is what is owed to him? If his father professed himself to be king, so Abimelech goes there with a plan. After all, he had 70 siblings who might just want to rise up against him if he declares, I'm going to be the one to take up my father's mantle. Abimelech goes to Shechem most likely because this being the home of his mother, he would be able to find relatives and those who would help him carry out this plan. And we see how despicable of a person Abimelech truly is as his rise to power is built with murderous deception. He goes to the leaders of Shechem, beginning with his family, and he whispers his conspiracy, saying, wouldn't it be better if you only had one ruler? If my father was king and he had 70 sons, do you really want all 70 of these people to rule over you? Wouldn't it be better if there was just one? Now, first of all, we aren't told that any of Jeroboam's other sons aspired to rule, so this plan was born out of sheer evilness. He had no idea or there was no inkling that his siblings were also going to come for this title of king. He just had it in his mind, I'm going to get rid of him anyway. And then secondly, there's this false insinuation in stating that it would be better if there was only one ruler. Now we certainly have the benefit of history to base our understanding on, but you don't necessarily need history to teach you the dangers of dictatorial rule. But just in case his logic doesn't work with these men by saying, you really should only have one ruler, in case they don't really agree with that, he plays the family card. say that they should listen to his plan because he is, as the scripture says, he says, I am your bone and your flesh. I like how Dale Ralph Davis describes this reasoning, stating that blood is thicker than brains. Well, it worked. What began as a whisper spread throughout the leaders of Shechem who no doubt thought it would be good that their city be the royal city. If this guy's going to be king, this would be his home, and this is good for us. And so they decided to go along with Abimelech's plan, and it's in the plan itself that we find the depth of wickedness in the heart of Abimelech. The leaders of Shechem gave 70 pieces of silver from the house of their false god, which was essentially a hitman's fee, as the plan was to murder all the other sons of Jeroboam. We're told that Abimelech goes and hires worthless and reckless fellows to help him carry out this heinous act. And I will say, just as, I'll just step aside here and say, I'm going to say reckless is probably a fitting description for these men and is probably not a good descriptor of God, despite what some contemporary worship music might lend us to believe, okay? We can debate that point later, but I'm just going to say reckless, one time I see it in scripture here, talking about these men. It's never referred to God as reckless. So, but these men, followed Abimelech back to Ophrah, where his brothers were, and then killed all of them. And it's told they killed all these men on one stone. What does this mean to say that they were killed on one stone? It's unclear, but there is a reference in Scripture to another one stone, and it's when Saul and 1 Samuel was using that stone to make sacrifice, a stone that would be used to slaughter an animal that would be prepared for sacrifice. And so they would have had to draw these men in and kill them all on this one stone, which means this was not some surprise ambush attack. This was carefully planned out, villainy, to draw these men in one by one to kill them. But it wasn't a complete success, as one of his siblings, the youngest son of Jeroboam, Jotham, was able to escape and hide himself. But 69 out of 70 was good enough for the leaders of Shechem, so they came together to make Abimelech king. It should be pointed out that this does not make Abimelech the first king of Israel. We know that to be Saul, who we're introduced to in 1 Samuel, which introduces us to the period of the kings, which follows this period of the judges. But there are some similarities that we see between Saul and Abimelech, and we're going to see a couple of them a little bit later in the story. But I think it would be good to point out right now that both Abimelech and Saul were the king that the people wanted. It was the king that they asked for. The main difference is that God did not authorize Abimelech as king as he did with Saul. But he did allow both of them to be in the position that they were in because it was exactly what Israel was asking for. Now, they may not have had the outright cry here in Judges that they did in 1 Samuel. In 1 Samuel 8, when they cried out to Samuel saying, we appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations. But the actions of Israel here in Judges were such that they were wanting to be like the rest of the world at that time. They were rejecting God's rule over them. They were seeking to do what was right in their eyes. So God gave them over to a leader who would rule them with the same mindset. And what we have here is a physical representation of what Paul wrote in Romans 1.24 when he said, The people of Israel were content to live in their sin, to be ruled by the desires of their own flesh. And we learn from Paul in his letter to the Romans, and we learn it here from the story of the judges, that there are consequences to unrepentant sin. And that is why we still preach on sin today, because we... We know that God, yes, he has dealt with the eternal consequence of sin, but there are still temporal consequences to sin. And we still preach on sin because there are some people that haven't had that eternal consequence dealt with in their own life. And we don't know who has come to the Lord for salvation. May we never be afraid to talk about sin if it means that someone may turn to Christ. After all, you cannot preach the whole of the gospel if you do not explain the need for grace. But when we do preach on sin, when we do confront sin, when we call others to repent, we do so with a trembling heart knowing that it was grace that was shown to us that led us to repentance. And it is grace that is now present in our life that sustains us and keeps us. I'm sure that most of you are familiar with the phrase there, but for the grace of God, I go. That phrase is in our minds when we preach on the danger of sin, knowing that sin is crouching at our door seeking to devour us. But let us preach that those may know the truth that they might have the opportunity to repent. And we see that boldness in the parable that is given by Jeroboam's lone remaining son who managed to escape the murderous plot of Abimelech. Let's continue in the story in verses 7 through 15. It says, when it was told to Jotham that Abimelech was going to be made king, when it was told to Jotham, he went and stood on the top of Mount Gerizim and cried aloud and said to them, listen to me, you leaders of Shechem, that God may listen to you. The trees once went out to anoint a king over them, and they said to the olive tree, rain over us. But the olive tree said to them, shall I leave my abundance by which gods and men are honored and go hold sway over the trees? And the trees said to the fig tree, you come and rain over us. But the fig tree said to them, shall I leave my sweetness and my good fruit and go hold sway over the trees? And the trees said to the vine, you come and reign over us. But the vine said to them, shall I leave my wine that cheers God and men and go hold sway over the trees? Then all the trees said to the bramble, you come and reign over us. And the bramble said to the trees, if in good faith you are anointing me king over you, then come and take refuge in my shade. But if not, let fire come out of the bramble and devour the cedars of Lebanon." Now imagine this scene here. It's an event of solemn pomp and ceremony as Abimelech is made king. They've all gathered under this giant oak tree for this solemn ceremony. And then from a nearby mountain, we have a young man who starts shouting at everybody. Now, in my mind, as I'm reading this story, I thought about making a reference to Ernest T. Bass from the Andy Griffith Show, but I'm not sure who all would get the joke, because this is what I almost picture. If you're familiar with the old Andy Griffith Show, you know who Ernest T. Bass is, and you know how he would come and yell and interrupt important things that were happening. But the only reason I didn't use that was just because Jotham shows that he had more wisdom than Ernest T. Bass. As he interrupts this coronation, he shouts a parable to them. He actually has something good to say when he interrupts it. And he begins telling them this story, a parable that seems to have been ripped out of the pages of a Tolkien novel. A good preacher can move seamlessly from an Andy Griffith illustration to a Lord of the Rings reference just like that. And he tells a parable of trees. He starts talking about these trees that have come together to appoint a king over themselves. They need to anoint a king. We first have three fine candidates for the job, the three most prized species of plants and trees in ancient Palestine, the olive tree, the fig tree, and the grapevine. Now all of these plants have something to offer, and the people listening to this parable, they would have understood, but Jotham makes sure to spell it out clearly in case they didn't. The olive tree declines because it doesn't want to give up the abundance that it provides. Olive trees were extremely valuable and provided a great many services to the people of that day, just as they do for the people of today. Then the fig tree is offered and declines, not wanting to deprive the world of its sweetness, which I'm sure many of you could vouch for if you enjoy figs. I don't, I'm not a fan, much to the detriment of my late grandfather who loved figs, but the analogy would have been understood. And then third is the grapevine. who also was offered and also declined, so as not to prevent others from being deprived of the good cheer with its wine." Now these three plants, they didn't represent any person that had been offered, and that wasn't the point of the parable of saying that these other people were offered, other worthy people, but it was meant to serve as a contrast to the next plant. the bramble, the thornbush. Compared to the first three, and even without comparing it to the first three, this plant has nothing to offer, nothing positive to contribute. But he's willing to accept this position and says that if they are asking him in good faith to be their king, come, take refuge in his shade. Now how many of you have ever been out in the hot sun and thought, oh, look at this thorn bush. That would be a good place to climb into and get some shade from the sun. This parable is dripping with irony and sarcasm. But of course, the bramble doesn't realize this and goes on to say that if they aren't willing to accept his shade, then let fire come out and destroy all the cedar trees of Lebanon. And then we go to verse 16 and we find Jotham's explanation of the parable. Although it doesn't seem like it'd be that hard to understand. I think these people probably got the point. I mean, they are after all about to appoint a king. And then he shares a parable about trees wanting to appoint a king. He's like, now let me explain what I'm going to say. And they're probably like, we get it, we get it, we get it. But let's go ahead and read the explanation anyway. Let's look in verses 16 through 21. And Jotham continues talking to the people, he says, And you have risen up against my father's house this day and have killed his sons, 70 men on one stone, and have made Abimelech the son of his female servant, king over the leaders of Shechem, because he is your relative. If you then have acted in good faith and integrity with Jeroboam and with his house this day, then rejoice in Abimelech and let him also rejoice in you. But if not, let fire come out from Abimelech and devour the leaders of Shechem and Bethmelo, and let fire come out of the leaders of Shechem and from Bethmelo and devour Abimelech." And Jotham ran away and fled and went to Baal and lived there because of Abimelech, his brother. Now this section includes a conditional clause that is given rather tongue-in-cheek that says, if the people are acting in good faith, if they are acting in integrity, if they have dealt well with Jotham's father, Jeroboam Gideon, and his house, he says, if you have dealt well with Gideon's house, you know, the 69 men you just killed, my brothers, if you feel like you've dealt well with them, then go ahead and make Abimelech king and let him rejoice in you. Now, if this isn't the most sarcastic rhetorical question ever asked, I don't know what is. Of course they haven't acted with integrity, and of course they haven't dealt well with Jeroboam and his family. And Jotham goes further to remind them that all his father had done for them, how he had risked his life to save them from the Midianites. Yes, the Lord had to prod him, but he still did it. And how did they repay him? By killing off all his sons and making the son of his concubine rule over them. So Jotham invokes a curse upon the people of Shechem, saying that if they have not acted with good faith and integrity, which they haven't, then let fire come from Abimelech that will come out from Abimelech that will consume both the leaders of Shechem and Bethmelo, and then let fire come from the leaders of Shechem and Bethmelo and consume Abimelech. In other words, they are to destroy each other. And then after declaring this curse, Jotham does what anyone would do, he gets out of Dodge. No one likes to hear a curse given to them. And of course, he knew what kind of person Abimelech was. I mean, he just killed all his family. So as soon as he pronounces this curse, he leaves, he flees, he hid. So in these verses here, we see Abimelech, the bramble king, we see his broken plan. And again, I like how Dale Ralph Davis puts it. He says, bramble makes good fuel, but poor kings, they burn better than they rain. And we saw his plan to become king by sneaky underhandedness, by murder, a plan that would be discovered, much like all sin is discovered, which never remains hidden and leads to both his destruction and the destruction of the people of Israel. And we see that in our final section after Abimelech's broken plan, after his broken family, his broken plan, we now come to Abimelech's broken skull. Now I guess the title kind of spoils what's going to happen later in the story. But we knew from Jotham's parable that things were not going to end well for Abimelech. But it's not just my outline that spoils the ending. Let's look at the text and we'll see some spoilers as well. Picking up in verse 22, let's read down to verse 25. Abimelech ruled over Israel three years. And God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the leaders of Shechem, and the leaders of Shechem dealt treacherously with Abimelech, that the violence done to the 70 sons of Jeroboam might come, and their blood be laid on Abimelech, their brother, who killed them, and on the men of Shechem, who strengthened his hands to kill his brothers. And the leaders of Shechem put men in ambush against him on the mountaintops, and they robbed all who passed by them along the way, and it was told to Abimelech. Now there are a few things of noteworthy things that are in these first few verses of this section. First of all, the narrator appears to show his bias again, much like he did by referring to Gideon as Jeroboam, by the use here of the word ruled. Now the NIV translate this word governed. Because if we look at the book of 1 and 2 Kings, whenever a king is mentioned and how long that they reigned, the word that is used is malach, which is a derivation of the word melech, which means king. And it just so happens to be a part of Abimelech's name. So you would think if he's telling the story, he might point out he would use the same word for rule that he gets his own name from, Abimelech. But he goes, you can almost see the purposefulness in avoiding the use of that word, and he uses the word sarar, which comes from the root sar, which is referring to a captain or an overseer. So he's purposely not using the word that refers to him as reigning like a king, but more of a governor. So the narrator of the story doesn't recognize this man as king any more than God does. And then secondly, in the same verse, in verse 22, we're told that Abimelech ruled for three years. Now, in most cases, when referring to the length of a person's rule or reign, if you look at other stories of kings, we're usually told at the end of their life how long they ruled for, not at the beginning of their time. By giving us this information here, it's letting the reader know that Abimelech's days are short and numbered. And then we are told what caused his days to be short. Now, you would think that being a murderous, conniving individual would be enough to garner you some enemies. And at the very least, it would cause the people that put you in power to kind of sleep with one eye open. This is the kind of guy we're putting the rule over. He's a guy that would go and kill his own family, and we don't want to keep an eye on him. But we see that what actually puts them at enmity with each other is God himself. God says, God put an evil spirit between the two. And this is one of those similarities that we find between Abimelech and Saul. In 1 Samuel 16 and chapter 16 and in chapter 18, we learn that it was an evil spirit that tormented Saul that caused him to hate David. And the Hebrew phrase that is used both here in Judges 9 and in 1 Samuel 16, this ruach ra'ah, when it's referred to as an evil, it says our Bible translates as an evil spirit, but we mustn't think that this is a demonic spirit, lest we think that God is sending demons as his agents of causality. But what God has done here is he has broken the air of amity, of goodwill between Abimelech and the leaders of Shechem. And this only serves further as a reminder that God is the central character of the story. He allowed Abimelech to come to power to show his judgment on Israel and he will be the one to bring about the end of this evil ruler. And this is the focus of the remainder of chapter 9. The beginning of his downfall was here in these verses as the leaders of Shechem they devised a plan to set up highway robbers who would ambush travelers and this lack of safety and well-being that was promised to the people would cause the people to turn on Abimelech. And then in verses 26 through 29, we're introduced to a man named Gaul, who we will see has a lot of Gaul, in that he decides, with some help of the leaders of Shechem, that he is going to be the one to take down this king. Let's look at 26 through 29. It says, And Gaal, the son of Ebed, moved into Shechem with his relatives, and the leaders of Shechem put confidence in him. And they went out into the field, and gathered the grapes from their vineyards, and trod them, and held a festival. And they went into the house of their god, and ate and drank, and reviled Abimelech. And Gal, the son of Ebed, said, Who is Abimelech? And who are we of Shechem that we should serve him? Is he not the son of Jeroboam, and is not Zebul his officer? Serve the men of Hamor, the father of Shechem. But why would we serve him? Would that this people were under my hand, then I would remove Abimelech. I would say to Abimelech, Increase your army and come out. This man, Gaal, comes to Shechem and immediately the leaders seize their opportunity to build some confidence in this man. And what do they do? They get him drunk. They take him to the vineyard and give him loads of liquid courage. And Gaal begins to question the leadership of Abimelech and thinks that it would be a good idea to lead a revolt against him. Like a scene out of a movie, these guys are drinking in a bar, complaining about the government. And then one of the men stands up and shouts out with slurred speech, let's take them down. And then the crowd cheers, yeah, let's take them down. But what they don't realize is that their conversation is overheard. Not that drunk people have a notion for being quiet and discreet. But word gets back to Abimelech, and we see that in chapter, in verses 30 through 41. And with this being a longer section, I'm just going to kind of skip over it. But we hear of Zebul, is the one, the right-hand man to Abimelech, overhears this plan and reports it back to his leader. And so they came up with a plan of their own to ambush these men and meet them on their way. And they sent four companies of men, and when Gaal arrived, they sprang out to Gaal, or they sprang out on him, and he had to come up with this alternate plan. They've ambushed him. His original plan's not gonna work. And so he tries to deceive them, and he says, In verse 36, it says, when Gaul saw the people, he said to Zebul, look, people are coming down from the mountaintops. And Zebul said to him, you mistake the shadow of the mountains for men. He tries to tell them, look, you see that dark spot up on the mountain? That's not a shadow. That's a bunch of people coming down to come and hurt you. And they don't fall for the ruse. He said, no, no, you're just trying to trick us. And he said, look, there are people coming from the forest. He says, no, that's not the case. So his plan there doesn't work either, even after doubling down and telling him to look at the men coming from the center of the land. And so these descriptors, he tells them where they're coming from, probably just so the people reading would understand. They're like, oh, I know what you're talking about. I've been there before. But again, he doesn't fall for this. Zebul doesn't fall for this. It's crazy that the plans of a drunken mob don't go as they hoped. But verses 42 through 49 describe how Abimelech has a brief victory as he fought against Gaal and his followers and killed them and destroyed their city. Then the leaders of Shechem fled to the stronghold of the house of El Barith. And we're told Abimelech grabs an axe, cuts down a bundle of brushwood and tells all his men to do the same and then commanded them to lay their pile of brushwood against this stronghold where the leaders have fled to and proceeded to set it on fire. And we see a portion of the curse that Jotham had pronounced coming true. As Abimelech burns the leaders of Shechem to further illustrate his evilness, we are told also that the number of those whom he killed, which was about 1,000, included not only men, but women as well. But this victory would be short-lived as we come to the conclusion of the story in verses 50 through 57. Let's read that. It says, Abimelech went to Thebes and encamped against Thebes and captured it. But there was a strong tower within the city, and all the men and women and all the leaders of the city fled to it and shut themselves in it. And they went up to the roof of the tower. It's very similar to what had just happened. The leaders of Shechem went to the tower, the stronghold at Shechem, and Abimelech surrounds them. He's captured them. He thinks this is happening again. Oh, I've got it all ready to go, just like it happened the last time. So Abimelech came to the tower, fought against it, and drew near to the door of the tower to burn it with fire. And a certain woman threw an upper millstone on Abimelech's head and crushed his skull. Then he called quickly to the young man, his armor bearer, and said to him, draw your sword and kill me, lest they say of me a woman killed him. And his young man thrust him through and he died. And when the men of Israel saw that Abimelech was dead, everyone departed to his home. Thus God returned the evil of Abimelech, which he committed against his father in killing his seventy brothers. And God also made all the evil of the men of Shechem return on their heads. And upon them came the curse of Jotham, the son of Jeroboam. If anyone ever tells you that they think the Bible is boring, just tell them to read the story of Abimelech. This one, and there are certainly others like it in the book of Judges, you can go back and read. Remember the story of Ehud and Eglon? that they're not for the squeamish. And we were told that after their victory at Shechem, Abimelech and his men move on to Thebes, capture it. And when the leaders went into a stronghold, they thought their previous plan of attacks worked so well, they're just going to burn this tower down. But what they weren't expecting was that a woman would throw a millstone out the window, which would hit Abimelech in the head and crush his skull. He didn't die right away. He survived that long enough to ask his armor bearer to come and kill him. He didn't want the shame of being known as a man that was killed by a woman. And here we have a final similarity between Abimelech and Saul. Saul wasn't killed by a woman, but he did ask his armor-bearer to kill him so he wouldn't suffer anymore at the hand of his enemy. Both of these men, Abimelech and Saul, were used by God to bring judgment upon a people who had rejected him. And through Abimelech we see a foreshadowing of the king that God would give the people, a king that they would ask for. And thus the chapter ends with the curse of Jotham complete. Abimelech received the justice that he was owed for the evil that he had committed against his father and his brothers and the people of Israel. And the people of Israel received the justice that they were owed for their sin of their rejection of God and their installation of this man Abimelech as their bramble king. So as we consider what the application for this passage is for us, I know I've already mentioned that the prevailing theme throughout not only this chapter, but the whole book and the whole of the Bible for that matter, is the sovereignty of God. God is in control. God is the hero of the story. And I may have mentioned it several times, but it would do us well to be reminded again. And no matter how dark the times may seem, no matter how much wickedness seems to prosper, God is always in control. God was in control during Abimelech's time. God was in control when the evils of Nazi Germany were happening. God is in control now during the Holocaust of abortion as millions of unborn lives are murdered every year. Christians, we must not lose heart and we must not lose faith. God is in control and he will always get the victory. And secondly, it would serve us well to remember that our sins will always be found out. We may think we can keep our sins a secret, that we can hide them from our family, our friends. We may be foolish enough to think that we can hide them from God, but they will always be exposed and there are always consequences for our sin. And it was those sins for which Christ went to the cross. That should be in our minds every time we are tempted to choose our way over God's way. that the pain of the cross was endured because of our sin. But that doesn't mean we won't experience consequences now. So sinner, there is still time to repent. And the beauty of repentance is that God grants forgiveness. A forgiveness that we are not owed, but a forgiveness that is freely given. God still has a plan to redeem His people despite their wickedness and rebellion. This story in Judges signals a slope where Israel will slide only further and further away from God. It's only going to get worse from here for the people of Israel. The rest of the book of Judges, there's no more joy in Mudville. If you don't get that, I'm sorry. They're going to slide so much further away from God, but God is still there to redeem His people. And He may be calling you today to repent of sin. He may be asking you to trust His hand in the midst of darkness. Whatever He may be calling you to do today, respond in faith. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your Word, God and Lord, and sometimes that Word is tough for us to hear. But God, we know that you are in control. God, you have prepared this word for us that we might come to a deeper understanding of who you are, a greater appreciation for your love, your holiness, Lord, and you are pointing us in a direction of repentance, Lord, that you desire, Lord, that we would confess our sins before you and turn to you, God. I pray that if there's anyone here today that has never done that, that you would draw them to yourself, God, that we might rejoice over a sinner, over a lost person that has been found and is now a part of your family. God, I pray there's anyone here that just needs to repent of sin. Yes, you've forgiven them, you've forgiven them of the eternal consequences of sin, but God, there may be a sin that is still being held onto. God, I pray that you would just spur in us, Lord, a desire to live in holiness. May we never reject you as the Lord of our life. To always keep our eyes fixed on you. Help us to finish well. God, that we might give you the glory as you are the hero of our story and of the story of all history. God, we give you the glory. It's in your name we pray, amen. Well, thank you, Brian, for bringing us the word. If you all could please stand as we sing our closing song, Come Thou Fount, Come Thou King. Fount of every blessing, to my heart to sing thy grace. Streams of mercy never ceasing, call for songs of loudest praise. Teach me some melodious sonnet sung by flaming tongues above. Praise the mount I'm fixed upon it, mount of thy redeeming love. I was lost in utter darkness till you came and rescued me. I was bound by all my sin when your love came and set me free. Now my soul can sing a new song. Now my heart has found a home. Now your grace is always with me and I'll never be alone. Come thou fount, come thou king, come thou precious prince of peace, hear your bride to you we sing. Come thou fount of all blessing Come thou fount, come thou king Come thou precious prince of peace Hear your bride to you we sing Come thou fount of all blessing Oh, to grace how great a debtor daily I'm constrained to be. Let thy goodness like a fetter bind my wandering heart to thee. Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. Here's my heart, Lord, take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above. Come thou fowl, come thou king, come thou precious prince of peace. Hear your bride to you we sing. Come thou fount of all blessing. Come thou fount, come thou king. Come thou precious prince of peace. Here your bride to you we sing. Come thou fount of all blessing. Come thou fount, come thou king. Come thou precious Prince of Peace Hear your bride to you we sing Come thou fount of all blessing on your way out this morning I would encourage you to grab one of those missionary cards as we were praying for the cooks this month as our missionaries of focus so make sure to get one of those as you as you walk out it might be good to say that we need volunteers to help us with our fellowship time our coffee and snack that we have during this time because I I'm not sure if we have any this morning. So good reminder that we need volunteers, but pastor's class is not meeting today. So we hope that you'll be back with us next week as we close this morning. I just want to read from Colossians chapter three. And above all, These put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony, and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body, and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Go in peace this morning.