Gooding, David: 9 - Leading God's Nation

Marvelously good, gentlemen, to see so many of you here this morning. Congratulations on your attendance. In our studies thus far of the book of Judges, we have now arrived at Abimelech, whose story is given us in Judges chapter nine onwards. So just let's remind ourselves of where we are in relation to the book as a whole. Here once more are a list of the judges, starting with Othniel and coming on to Ehud, then Deborah, Barak, and Jael, and then Gideon. We move on now to consider Abimelech, and if we have time today to finish the judges by thinking about, uh, Jephthah and Samson. We've noticed, of course, before, let us now notice it again, because it is of basic importance this morning, that there's an oddity about Abimelech in that list. The historian who wrote Judges, of course, was very deliberate in this, and wants us to see the irony of the situation. Here is a list of judges and deliverers of Israel. And according to the, uh, uh, the organization of the book, you'd expect Abimelech to be another judge and a deliverer. In fact, this man, though standing in the place of a judge, proves to be a tyrant and an oppressor and a destroyer from whom Israel needs to be delivered. That, of course, is a situation not unique to the Old Testament. In the history of Christendom, there have arisen from time to time people professing to be leaders of the church, turn themselves into ruthless dictators, from whom God had to deliver the church. So it was with Abimelech then. Let's put the, uh, another table up. That will point out to us who the true deliverer was on this occasion. And as you see, it was a woman who lived in the town called Thebez. The enemy Abimelech, was the enemy, and she delivered Israel by heaving a millstone over the wall of the city so that it landed precisely on the skull of Abimelech, and that ended his nonsense. You will have noticed before the symmetry of the contents of the book of Judges. If you look, uh, to the, uh, number five here, that stands over in the symmetry over against the story of Abimelech. You see there what scripture itself calls attention to, that whereas God used Barak as commander in chief of the tribes to lead them in the victorious battle over the Canaanites. The final victory was obtained by a woman. Her name was Jael, who similarly dispatched the enemy commander, and with similar tactics, not now with the millstone cracking his skull, but by a tent peg through it, which had the same result, of course. So then we come to consider Abimelech. Let us notice what we have noticed before, that on each occasion, Israel's subjection to the enemy involves a denial of first principles. Abimelech should have been a judge and deliverer. But he acts the tyrant, and Israel have to be saved from their so-called savior. Denial of first principles, therefore. The first principle being that when Israel got into a spiritual decline and under their enemies, God had to raise up a deliverer, and the deliverer was meant to deliver the people, of course. It is ironic that the so-called deliverer himself was the enemy and a tyrant. But now, so that we understand a little bit more deeply what is going on, let us think for a moment back to what we learned on the last occasion about Gideon himself. Let's briefly run through the story of Gideon, and notice certain salient points. And notice how some of those ideas repeat themselves in Abimelech's story. And remind us of the effect that one generation has on the next generation. Either for good... or for evil. Sometimes things that in one generation look innocent enough, or of small importance, become a source of great trouble in the succeeding generation. We shall remember, therefore, from our last occasion, Gideon's basic tactics. The Midianites had come in in their thousands at harvest time and ravaged the land, taking all the crops, so that Israel were being starved out. To protect themselves from slaughter by the Ge- by the Midianites, the Israelites had made themselves caves and dens in the mountain, which saved their skins, but didn't put anything into their mouths. They were still being starved out. The cause of it all was, of course, Israel's departure from the Lord. And they're going over to the worship of Baal. But the first thing that Gideon did was not da- not to cast down the altar of Baal, one of which stood outside his front door. But we met him when he was threshing barley and wheat in their wine press to hide the fu- the food from the Midianites, because the man saw very clearly what was absolutely vital in the struggle. If Midian came in to destroy the food and starve Israel out, the first thing was to to be done was to maintain the food supply. Now that important In fact. fact, we shall hear something more of it when we come to Abimelech's story, and in particular to Jotham's fable. As he denounced and exposed what Abimelech was doing, with his fable about the trees, vine, fig tree, olive tree, who saw their function as being a function of feeding mankind, and weren't interested in ruling over them. Their job was to feed. Whereas all Abimelech was doing was breaking down and trampling down the people of God. Food, therefore, is an important notion. And we shall notice, as we have just noticed, that the final blow for freedom against Abimelech was made by a woman. She was very much like Jael, but unlike Jael, she didn't pierce the enemy commander's skull with a tent peg. She used a millstone, naturally, because she was a woman anyway, and in those ancient days it's the woman's job to grind the corn, to make the flour, so that you could bake the flour into food and feed the family. Absolutely basic number one in society. She was at her job, using the old millstones to grind the, the grain into flour to feed the family and anybody else. And in the end, she couldn't put up with this nonsense of an elder, I mean, I mean, uh, I mean, uh, uh, uh, a deliverer, who was merely out to exercise power and rule over people and never fed anybody. She hit the millstone over the wall onto his head and stopped his nonsense, and then presumably went back to feeding the family. Let us notice, however, the second half of Gideon's story, what you may call his decline. As far as the literary structure of the book is concerned, Gideon is the turning point, the height of success, from which, of course, alas, the decline began. We noticed on our last session that Gideon not only fed the people, but there came a point when he had to face Baalism and throw down the altar of Baal. For Israel's compromise with Baal and with idolatry was the cause of the trouble, so it had to be faced. But we noticed how positive Gideon's attitude was. The angel of the Lord had appeared to him and told him not to throw down the altar of Baal so much as to direct an altar to the Lord. And Gideon, of course, had to obey the Lord and positively worship the Lord. And now he had positively to build an altar to the Lord. Well, he knew what, uh, strife that might, uh, cause if he threw down the altar of Baal. And it did happen. The men of the town came, uh, crowding around his door and were intent on having him executed. So he was scared to do it, to cast down the altar by, uh, Baal by day. He did it by night, he did it anyway. But notice the succession, how positive the thing was. Not just I'm against Baal, cast down his altar, and that's okay. No, positively, I'm for the worship of the Lord. I'm for doing what the Lord commands. Oh, he found an altar in the altar of Baal in the way. Well, that had to go, of course. Gentlemen, let us be known by what we're for, not by what we are against. Uh, so when the, um, battle against Midian was won, we We read read eight four onward. Gideon came to Jordan and passed over, he and three hundred men that were with him, faint yet pursuing. And he said unto the men of Succoth, Give, I pray you, loaves of bread unto the people that follow me, for they be faint, and I am pursuing after Zeba and Zalmunna, the kings of Midian. And the princes of Succoth said, are the hands of Zeba and Zalmunna now in thine hand, that we should give bread unto thine army? And Gideon said, therefore, when the Lord hath delivered Zeba and Zalmunna into my hand, then I will tear your flesh with thorns of the wilderness and with briars. And so he did. When he came back, he got a young man to show him who the elders were, and took them out, and he plowed them with thorns and briars. That was a very cruel bit of discipline, wasn't it? When we come to the story of Abimelech, we shall read again about thorns and briars in Jotham's parable, can't we? To use the emblems of the curse to a- affect discipline in Israel was a rather sorry business, wasn't it? You said, well, you say perhaps all the men of Succoth should have been loyal and joined Gideon, and they didn't. Why didn't they? Well, they were dead scared, of course. They said, those princes, they're not in your hand yet, are they? They were scared that if Gideon went out to attack them and Gideon was defeated, the aforesaid kings would come and deal with them. They were cowards. They were Israelites. And thus to scratch them and tear them, the flesh of his fellow Israelites, was a very cruel discipline. And similarly with the other men, you'll see, uh, he went up, verse eight, to Penuel and spake unto them in like manner, and the men of Penuel answered him as the men of Succoth had answered. And he spake also unto the men of Penuel, saying, when I come again in peace, I will break down this tower. And so he did. You'll read about Abimelech breaking down towers and cities. Wow, won't you? The seeds of that wrong attitude are to be found in Gideon's, the late years of Gideon's reign. Thirdly, we notice what we briefly noticed last week, how Gideon's victory over the kings of Midian contained certain dangers. Jose. He questioned the captives about the men that they had executed. And of course, the captives, fearing for their lives, are now in the hands of Gideon, did a little bit of flattery. They said every one of them resembled the sons of a king. And Gideon said, they were my brothers. Ideas of kingship. Look what he now says in verse twenty two, chapter eight. Then the men of Israel said unto Gideon, Rule thou over us, both thou and thy son and thy son's son also, for thou hast saved us out of the hand of Midian. And Gideon said unto them, I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you, the Lord shall rule over you. It's worthwhile pondering that again, because it comes to the heart of the principles upon which Israel was governed during the period of the judges. Israel didn't yet have a king. They were a direct theocracy. There were elders in the tribes. There was no one central king ruling over all the tribes. Because they believed that the Lord was their king. There was the tabernacle, of course. And there, at the appointed feasts, all the tribes would come. There was the symbolic throne of the Lord. There was his covenant. You will remember from, uh, Exodus onwards, how that God invited the Israels to enter into, Israelites to enter into a covenant with him. And And God God pro- proposed to them the terms. Moses heard the terms, he brought them and spoke them to Israel. Then he wrote them in a book, and he read it in the ears of Israel. These are the terms of the covenant. And Israel, being the other party to the covenant, replied, all that the Lord has commanded we will do and be obedient. This was the old covenant, and the word for it in Hebrew is barit. And it was, it's an important thing to get hold of this basic concept, con- concept, it was an instrument of government. That has been impressed upon us this last thirty, forty, fifty years. Since the archaeologists dug up the remains of certain Canaanite emperors. And the discovery showed us all that there had been great empires under the Canaanites that we knew very little about. Some of the Canaanite emperors were exceedingly powerful men. They established themselves not only over their own country, but they developed an empire, all the little states around, you see. And the great emperor would demand that the king, the vassal king, the little king of each state, in the name of his people, would enter into a covenant with the great emperor. The archaeologists dug up thousands of clay documents, many of which were forms of these covenants. We have them over a long period of time. They vary from time to time. But the form of these covenants, covenants surprised everybody because they were so vividly similar to the covenant God made with Israel at Sinai. The old emperor Suppiluliumu, he had a covenant with Israel, with the, with his, not with Israel, with his vassal kings. And the form of it was generally, first the emperor would name himself, I am Zopiluliumu, you'll see. That's good to know. And then all the benefits he had done for them, generally bashed them up and subdued them, you'll see. Ha ha. They would follow the prohibition. You will not have any other emperor save me. Then came a list of do's, thou shalt, and a list of thou sh- uh, thou shalt nots, the prohibitions. And being an old pagan, he would call upon the gods to witness this covenant and to curse those who broke it and to bless those who kept it. And then there would be a demand that the covenant documents be kept in a safe place, and every now and again the vassal king would take out the documents and read them before his assembled, uh, citizens to remind them of the covenant relationship with the great emperor. It doesn't take the most profound of biblical scholars to see the similarity between those Canaanite covenants and the covenant God made with Israel. I am the Lord your God, and what I've done who brought you out of the house of bondage. The prohibition, thou shalt have no other god but me. The do's and the don'ts, thou shalt, thou shalt not. Now, not calling upon, uh, uh, uh, the gods, uh, to, to, to witness. But the solemn reminder that they make this covenant before the one true God. The pronouncing of the blessings, his blessings on them if they kept it, his curses if they broke it. The provision that the covenant documents be kept in a safe place. They were put in the ark in the center of the tabernacle. And that they should, from time to time, take them out and read them. That is what Deuteronomy is. Moses now not only just reading word for word the covenant, but expounding the covenant before Israel, before they entered into the Promised Land. You will see, gentlemen, both similarities and contrasts between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. The New Covenant is altogether of grace, isn't it? And as its third term has the phrase, their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. It is a one party covenant that depends upon what God does in his mercies to us. But it is his covenant. And we are commanded by the Lord Jesus to remember him. And as we remember him, he reminds us of his covenant. And every time we take the cup at the Lord's Supper, gentlemen, we are meant to hear the Lord saying, this is the blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the forgiveness of sins. The Lord's Supper, so-called, is also an instrument of the Lord's government of us. That is why it is very necessary, says Paul, that we discern ourselves before we come to eat of the supper. We are to discern ourselves. And where the Holy Spirit shows us we are astray or have done wrong, we are to repent of it, of course. But not keep away from the supper, but to come and partake of it under the assurance their sins and iniquities I will remember no more. But should we ever grow into a careless state of mind and imagine it doesn't matter how we behave because we have eternal security, and we sin and have wrong attitudes and come to the supper as if it didn't matter, we shall find that the Lord's covenant is a covenant by which he governs us, because he has promised and signed the promise in his blood that he will write his laws on our hearts, and on our minds he will inscribe them. And therefore, if we are careless, he will still fulfill his covenant, though it might mean he will have to chastise us and discipline us, to show us our foolishness and bring us to repentance. Though if he has to do it, Paul adds, he does it so that we shall not be condemned with the world at the final judgment. Why all this about covenant? Because we're going to read under Abimelech of a perversion of the covenant of God, specified in the history. But now just to come back to Gideon for the moment. Gideon still, even after his victory, he is to be congratulated for it. When the, um, elders came and said, you be our king, so to speak. No, says he, I will not rule over you. The Lord your God is ruler. The Lord is king. Maintaining that sense of the government in those days, which was a direct theocracy, with each tribe looking to the Lord as king and lord. So he said, I will not be king, therefore. But he had a son by a concubine. And who I was, I don't know, that, uh, called the lad Abimelech. My father is king. Abimelech. Wonder who gave him that name. Hope it wasn't Gideon, don't you? But you see the devastating effects of it. When Abimelech pushed himself into authority and became absolute tyrant, and they under him losing their sense that they were really subject to God as king, and so ought Abimelech to have been. Gentlemen, let me talk bluntly. The vision that our Lord left us in Revelation one to three were of the churches around him, and he in their midst. And the conviction of many of God's people that it is the Lord who is king. And a sense in all his people of the reality of the government of the Lord Jesus. The reality of which the Lord's Supper speaks is covenant. And that elders in the church, as elders in the ancient Israelite tribes are merely his executives. They are shepherds. Christ is the chief shepherd. And to lose that sense of the reality of God as king, of the Lord as king, and each of us and each assembly and church responsible to the Lord as king. To lose it is a dangerous thing to do. And to set up organizations that are substitutes for the rule of Christ is by definition a bad thing, isn't it? Notice one other thing in Gideon's last years. That is the danger of idolizing a great servant of God. I will not be king, he says. But the men brought the spoil, all the golden crescents that were on the, uh, princes of Midian that they had now executed, and they brought the gold to Gideon. And he made an ephod of it. And what exactly that was, who knows? The ephod in Israel that Aaron wore was, we know this at least, a means of determining the will of God for his guidance and his government. Now, this was an unscriptural ephod, and it became a snare and turned into an idolatrous Relic. relic. There has been from time to time, there always remains the danger, that when a man has been greatly used of God to deliver the people of God, a danger in the tendency of the Lord's people to idolize him. For the best of men are only men at the best. They serve their day and generation and pass away. The church always needs to maintain its sense of direct dependence upon the Lord. But with that, we come to Diotrephes himself. As not like, well, he was a Diotrephes, Abimelech himself. And as introduction, let's look at chapter eight and verse thirty three. And it came to pass as soon as Gideon was dead, that the children of Israel turned again and went a whoring after the Baalim, and made Baal Berith their god. Baal in Hebrew means a lord, or it can mean a husband. And originally in Israel, Israel was happy to use the term Baal in the sense of, uh, uh, uh, uh, lord referring to God. And in the Old Testament, you will find names of Israelites, good and godly men, the second part of which is Baal. But then there were other Baalim. Baalim is simply the plural of Baal in Hebrew, other Baals. And as time went on, the net word Baal, Baal became associated in particular with one pagan god. He was the god of fertility, the god of the storm, worshipped by many of the surrounding nations, surrounding Israel, that is. So that by Elijah's time, Baal was the chief opponent, so to speak, of Of Jehovah. Jehovah. Ahab, with the encouragement of Jezebel, ceased the worship of Jehovah, built a temple to Baal, instituted priests of Baal. When you come to Hosea the prophet, you will find Hosea's God in the prophecy of Hosea is commenting on this situation. Israel's going after Baal, the false Baal, the false lord, to paganism. And God dwells upon the double meaning of the word Baal, meaning lord, but also meaning husband. And God bitterly complains in Hosea as to what Israel have done. I was your husband. I came down into the wilderness to seek you and to win you. In Jeremiah chapter two, God says to Israel, I remember the day of your espousals. This is God talking to Israel. I remember how I courted you in the wilderness. I, the living God, brought you out into the wilderness and came down to seek you to be my wife. For I loved you, and I remember the joy of it all, the day of your espousals, when you stood under Sinai and pledged me your love and devotion and loyalty. Remember it. And what has Israel done? They've left their true Lord, Baal, and gone after other husbands. Worshiping the process of fertility, be it of crops, or of animals, or of human beings, worshiping the process as distinct from the God who created it. God is not prepared to put up with the ménage à trois, as the French call it. The marriage in which there are three people. God and his people and a third Lord, stealing their affections away from the true and living God. But you see, here it was, when Gideon was dead, the children of Israel turned again and went to whoring. Notice the phrase, gentlemen. After the Baalim, and there were many such lords, and made Baal Berith, the Lord of covenant, their God, but not God's covenant. A sad and sorry thing fit to break the heart of God. The disloyalty of his people, forsaking him and giving their love and loyalty to pagan gods. Baal Berith, Baal of the covenant, but not God's covenant. A false system of gov- of government then. And since Israel had lost that sense of God being king and were prepared to grant their favors and loyalties to false lords, you mustn't be surprised that God allowed the consequent discipline that Israel should fall under the heel of an Israelite who pretended to be a deliverer, but proved an absolute tyrant and a despot in his government of the people. Now, will you notice the first step in his argument? Abimelech, the son of Jerubbaal, went to Shechem unto his mother's brothers and spake 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. Which is better for you? That all the sons of Jerubbaal, which are threescore and ten persons, rule over you? Or that one rule over you? Notice the option he puts before them. Notice, incidentally, that Jerubbaal got his name because he was against Baal. He strove against Baal. He was the enemy of Baal. He cast down Baal's altar along with his father, and that's what the people called him, therefore. But now, uh, you see, um, the proposition. Abimelech goes to them and says, now which is better? That, uh, you have seventy sons of Jerubbaal rule over you, or that you have one? Wouldn't that be like the European common market if you had too many countries in it in chaos, unless you had one president with the name of Chirac or Blair. You know the sort of argument. And of course, the people having pondered that felt, well, yes, there's a lot to be said to having just one chap rule over us instead of all the possible difficulties of having seventy. It was a cunning ploy of argument, gentlemen. It is to be noticed the falsity of the logic. What the Romans would say, tertium non datur. The third option is not given. You see, the choice wasn't between do you have one man rule over you or seventy men. The choice was, will you have God rule over you or Abimelech. Of course, he doesn't mention the other possibility. Hmm? Notice that trick of argumentation. People don't always use it as a trick, of course, they've forgotten what the real issue is. Is it, are we to be subject to the lordship of Christ, active, real, recognized, practical, in our midst? Or is it merely a question of ecclesiastical politics, shall one rule or a pl- plurality of elders? Secondly, notice his tactic, end of verse two. Remember also that I am your bone and your flesh. And his mother's brothers spoke of him in the ears of all the men of Shechem all these words, and their hearts inclined to follow Abimelech, for they said, uh, he is after all our brother. Second appeal to family pride and loyalty. It nearly tempts me to say, and I won't say it, but if I had been going to say it, I would have said, woe betide the assembly that is formed of two or three families all intertwined. Because when little disputes arise, as they will do inevitably, then the whole family gets involved, and it becomes a family affair, instead of remaining as something to be settled as a church. Uh, so, verse four: they gave him threescore and ten pieces of silver out of the house of... uh, Al-Bareeth. Oh dear. That idolatrous Baal, that false covenant, paid for what he was about to do. You'll see. Bimlek hired vain and light fellows which followed him, and he went unto his father's house at Ophrah and slew his brethren, the sons of Jerubbaal, being threescore and ten persons upon one stone. So he was able to pay for his entourage of these light fellows that supported him because it paid him to do so. And then he slaughtered all the others of his family so that he might be king. They were all killed except the one son, Jotham. It's a very sorry story, gentlemen. I am grieved at heart of having to tell you this story, particularly early on a Saturday morning, to increase, increase the gloom of the situation. But it's all too true to life. And, uh, we shall find, after the break, how the New Testament talks of it. How that we're warned of it by our Lord Jesus himself. How that Peter warns us of it. And John warns us of it. It's been a cause of much distress to the people of God, even in our Christian dispensation. But bitter pills should be swallowed, uh, in small quantities. So let's cease there and have our morning coffee and revive our spirits to face what, after all, is something quite ugly. Good.