ABIMELECH: A REBEL USED BY GOD

Judges 9

We’re in a series of messages from the Old Testament book of Judges.  If you have your bible with you this morning, I invite you to turn to the 9th chapter of Judges with me.  We’ve been examining some of the biographies of a number of the Bible characters that appear in the book of Judges.  We’ve studied the life of Gideon and saw how God worked through his life.  Gideon was, in the beginning, a fearful, backward and unwilling man when it came to trusting God.  But once Gideon decided to put his trust in God and obey his commands, God did some pretty amazing things through Gideon.  In fact, Gideon took 300 soldiers and routed and army of over 135,000 Midianites.

We learn at the close of chapter 8 of judges that Gideon had 70 sons.  So, evidently he did overcome his shyness.  And the nation of Israel was so thrilled with the leadership of Gideon and the 40 years of peace that they enjoyed in the land that they looked to Gideon’s sons for leadership as well.  And following his father’s death, one of Gideon’s sons rises to become the next leader of Israel.  Unfortunately, he was not like his father.  Gideon’s son, Abimelech, was arrogant, selfish and rebellious towards God.  And unlike the other leaders who preceded him, Abimelech was not chosen by God to lead.  Abimelech appointed himself as leader and king.  And although Abimelech’s story is one of rebellion and disobedience, we find that God used him, not because of what he had done, but in spite of what he had done.  

And I want to remind you today that God’s plans and God’s purposes are greater than the evil plans of Satan. And even when Satan manages to get his people in places of leadership or influence, God still has the power to accomplish his will.  Sometimes Christian people panic when evil people rise to positions of prominence. Whether it’s corrupt politicians, on any level; local, state, national or in world leadership positions.  Maybe it’s even closer to home. 

¨      You’re parents may not be godly people, and yet they’re placed by God in that position of influence over you in the home. 

¨      Do you work for a tyrant? God hasn’t forgotten you. 

¨      Do you live with a jerk?  God can help you to deal with that. 

¨      Are you frustrated with certain aspects of our government? God can work through anybody to get done what he wants done.

So, don’t panic. Trust him. And one thing we’re going to learn by studying Abimelech’s story today is that God’s will will be done. 

I.                   ABIMELECH MANIPULATED PEOPLE

I want you to notice, first of all, in Judges 9 that Abimelech was a bad example.  And “bad” is an understatement. This guy was terrible.  He was rotten to the core.  And there are several sins enumerated for us in the text that accentuate his evil nature. 

First, he manipulated the people.  Look at verse 1 of Judges 9, “Abimelech son of Jerub-Baal (that is Gideon) went to his mother’s brothers in Shechem and said to them and to all his mother’s clan, ‘Ask all the citizens of Shechem, Which is better for you: to have all 70 of Gideon’s sons to rule over you, or just on man?’   Now it’s back in verse 30 of chapter 8 that we read that Gideon had 70 sons by many wives.  But he also had a son named Abimelech through his concubine, named Abimelech.  And his concubine lived in Shechem.   

Now, a concubine is not some type of farm implement, okay.  If this is a new term for some of you, let me explain what it was.  A concubine in the days of Gideon was a legal wife, but a concubine was considered a secondary wife.  They weren’t even looked upon by the rest of the family as being a legitimate part of the family.  They were often times acquired, at first, as slaves. But having concubines was not God’s design - that was man’s own doing. And Abimelech was the son of a concubine.  So in the eyes of society, he was a second-class citizen. 

And to make matters worse, his mother was from Shechem.  Now in that day, Shechem was a city in the Promised Land that had been occupied by the Canaanites. And when Israel had reclaimed the Promised Land, it’s believed that they established a treaty with the people of Shechem rather than deriving them out of the land as the Lord had commanded.  Now, that’s significant because the people of Shechem were idol worshippers.  And as was often the case, the idol-worshipping people of Shechem had more influence on the Israelites than the Israelites had on the people of Shechem.  And it wasn’t long before those Israelites who lived in the area were joining with the people of Shechem in the worship of false gods. 

So Abimelech goes to his mother’s side of the family and says to them, “Hey, you don’t want 70 different people ruling over you, do you?  Why don’t you choose just one of Gideon’s sons to be your king.  And remember, I’m your own flesh and blood.”  Now that’s a significant move on the part of Abimelech because his father Gideon had made it quite clear before his death that he didn’t intend for any of his sons to rule over Israel.  Look back at Judges 8:23, “But Gideon told them, I will not rule over you, nor will my son rule over you. The Lord will rule over you.”  But through deceptive manipulation Abimelech convinced the people to side with him. 

II. HE SURROUNDED HIMSELF WITH VIOLENT MEN

The second mistake he made was, he surrounded himself with violent men.  The Bible says, “Bad company corrupts good character.”  Verse 3 of judges 9 reads, “When the brothers repeated all of this to the citizens of Shechem, they were inclined to follow Abimelech for they said, ‘He is our brother.’  They gave him 70 shekels of silver from the temple of Baal-Berith, and Abimelech used it to hire reckless adventures, who became his followers.” 

Abimelech hires these merciless mercenaries, and he forges them into a squad of political hit-men.  You see, Abimelech was not a leader because he was gifted.  He didn’t rise through the political ranks on his good merit.  He bought his office.  He led by terrorism.  Verse 5, “Abimelech went to his father’s home in Ophrah and on one stone murdered his 70 brothers, the sons of Gideon.  But Jotham, the youngest son of Gideon, escaped by hiding.  Then all the citizens of Shechem and Beth-Millo gathered beside the great tree at the pillar in Shechem to crown Abimelech king.”  As I stated earlier, to say that Abimelech was a bad example would be an understatement.  I doubt if there are any of us here today who could even begin to imagine taking the life of another individual?  Or how about taking the life of a another family member?  Abimelech slays 69 of his brothers in cold-blooded, pre-meditated murder.  His motive?  He wanted to be king and he wanted to make certain that none of his brothers would threaten his reign so, in the spirit of a Joseph Stalin or an Adolph Hitler, he ordered the execution of those perceived to be a threat to his power. 

III. HE WORRIED TOO MUCH ABOUT HIS REPUTATION

There’s a third reason why Abimelech was a bad example and that is he worried too much about his own reputation.  What happens in verse 7 and following is that, over time, God changes the hearts of the Shechemites who had elected Abimelech as the king.  And a civil war breaks out between those loyal to Abimelech and those who have had a change of heart about following him as their king.  Skip down in Judges Chapter 9 to verse 50.  Abimelech has just overtaken several cities and has burned one tower to the ground.  In that tower there were about 1,000 men and women who had taken refuge from the battle.  And Abimelech heartlessly burned it to the ground.  Then, in verse 50, he moves on to the next city lying in the path of his destruction.  “Next, Abimelech went to Thebez and besieged it and captured it.  Inside the city, however, was a strong tower, to which all the men and women – all the people of the city – fled. They locked themselves in and climbed up on the tower roof.  Abimelech went to the tower and stormed it.  But as he approached the entrance to the tower to set it on fire, a woman dropped an upper millstone on his head and cracked his skull.  Hurriedly he called to his armor-bearer, ‘Draw your sword and kill me, so that they can’t say, A woman killed him.  So his servant ran him through and he died.”  Now how anti-climatic is this next verse?  Verse 55, “When the Israelites all saw that Abimelech was dead, they went home.”

Here is Abimelech the conqueror storming another city, about to burn to the ground another tower full of refugees, when all of the sudden one of the woman on the roof has enough sense about her to employ a millstone as a weapon and dorps it from the roof onto the head of Abimelech.  The injury to Abimelech is fatal.  But before he dies, he cries out to his armor-bearer to finish him off quickly so that he would not die disgracefully at the hand of a woman.  And to show you what compete disregard he had for God, consider that here is a man who knows the remainder of his life on earth is now measured in minutes and instead of remorse for his murderous past, instead of calling out to mercy from the One whom he would have to give an account, this man is worried about what his obituary is going to say.  He was concerned about his reputation.  Now don’t misunderstand me.  You should be concerned about your reputation to a certain degree.  But when you’re on your deathbed and the physical life is draining from your body, you know what?  There’s little you can do about your reputation at that point.  God provides you with opportunities every day to write the legacy you’re going to leave behind through your life and though the choices that you make.  And it’s up to you to be concerned about that now, not then. 

Now that’s a pretty remarkable story.  Obviously God was not pleased with Abimelech’s life.  But God took the malicious, self-serving plans made by this corrupt leader and used them to accomplish his purpose of exacting revenge on the Shechemites.  Look back at verse 22, “After Abimelech had governed Israel three years, God sent and evil spirit between Abimelech and the citizens of Shechem, who acted treacherously against Abimelech.  God did this in order that the crime against Gideon’s 70 sons, the shedding of their blood, might be avenged on their brother Abimelech and on the citizens of Shechem, who had helped him murder his brothers.” 

IV. APPLICATION

Now, from this story, I think there are several lessons we can draw for our lives. 

First of all, remember that God can use anybody, even his enemies to accomplish his will.  God is that powerful.  He can use even his enemies to accomplish his will.  Not because of their lives or because of their choices, but in spite of them.  The citizens of Shechem were punished for their part in Abimelech’s sin.  Joseph understood this principle and declared to his brothers “what you intended for evil, God intended for good.”  

Voltaire the noted French philosopher and infidel, who died in 1778, predicted that within 100 years of his death Christianity would be swept from existence and pass into history.  What happened?  Voltaire passed into history and the circulation of the bible continues to increase in almost every part of the world, carrying blessings everywhere it goes.  The ironic fact is that 50 years after his prediction of the demise of Christianity, the Geneva Bible Society used his house and his printing press to produce stack and stacks of bibles.  God can use people, in spite of their opposition, for his glory. And he used Abimelech to destroy Israel’s enemies and their pagan worship and to teach us today what not to do.

The second lesson that we learn is that you reap what you sow.  Here was a man who ruthlessly murdered his own family over a stone.  And in the end he was killed by a stone that was dropped on his head.  And the bible even makes the point that when the rock came down on Abimelech’s head that it broke his skull. Why is that important?  That was the same head that had worn the crown.  But God didn’t put the crown in Abimelech’s head.  Abimelech manipulated the people of Shechem to crown him king.  But God ultimately saw that the skull of Abimelech was broken symbolizing that he was not the true king.  The wheels of God’s justice may grind slow, but they grind exceedingly fine.  Galatians 6:7 reminds us, “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked.  A man reaps what he sows.  The one how sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction.  The one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.”

A third lesson that we learn and that is, we need to get control of our ego.  Many of us in this room struggle daily with the sin of pride.  And though we may rationalize our struggle by saying that we have nowhere near the problem with pride that Abimelech had, the Bible does warn me that if I sow pride, then I will reap destruction.  Abimelech couldn’t control his ego. 

In 1884 a young man died, and after the funeral his grieving parents decided to establish a memorial to him. With that in mind they met with Charles Eliot, president of Harvard University. Eliot received the unpretentious couple into his office and asked what he could do. After they expressed their desire to fund a memorial, Eliot impatiently said, “Perhaps you have in mind a scholarship.” 

“Well, to be honest, we were thinking of something more substantial than that...perhaps a building,” the woman replied. In a patronizing tone, Eliot brushed the idea aside as being too expensive. After all, this was HARVARD UNIVERSITY! The couple departed. The next year, Eliot learned that this plain pair had gone elsewhere and established a $26 million memorial named Leland Stanford Junior College, better known today as Stanford University! 

Do you ever need to do a check on your ego?  Several weeks ago I shared an acrostic of the word “ego”.  The letters stand for Edging God Out.  And that’s what happens when pride takes a place of preeminence in our life.  Craig Massey said,

“Two natures beat within my breast,

One is cursed and one is blest.

One I love and one I hate,

The one I feed will dominate.”

The final lesson we learn from the story of Abimelech is something that we always need to remember.  You know what it is?  We already have a king.  So don’t appoint yourself king.  And don’t appoint someone else.  You’ve already got a king.  Abimelech’s story reminds us that there’s no need to look for a king.  Our God reigns and he is still in control. But the place to begin in our relationship with the king is through humble submission him.  That’s why Jesus said, “Unless you become like a little child, you will not enter into the kingdom of heaven.”  That’s why Jesus said, “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”  And all the fame and all the wealth, and all the pleasure and all the accomplishments cannot forgive your sin, or conquer the grave or bring lasting fulfillment in life. But Jesus Christ can.  All he requires is that you humbly admit your need for him and daily submit to his will. 

In the Church of the Nativity that many people visit on their trip to the Holy land I understand that there is a door that is so small, that you have to stoop down to enter in.  But a closer look reveals that there was once a larger entrance that has been filled in to make the opening smaller.  The opening was reduced according to tradition because back in the Middle Ages the knights would come to the chapel seeking the priest’s blessing before they would ride off into battle.  And may would proudly ride right through the door on their horse and expect to receive a blessing without ever dismounting from their horse.  Kind of a drive-through service.  The priest didn’t appreciate the lack of respect so they blocked in the doorway until the opening was so small that no one could come seeking God’s blessing without first getting off of their horse and bowing down when they came into the presence of God.

Maybe it’s time for some for you to get off your high-horse and humbly say to the Lord, “Lord, I give you my heart.  I give you my life.”   

¨      Some of you have never made that commitment personal.  You’ve watched others do it and, perhaps, even thought about your need to open your heart to the Lord Jesus Christ, but you’ve never taken that step. 

¨      Some of you here today may have opened your heart to Jesus Christ privately, but you’ve never publicly confessed his name before others.  Today you could use your mouth to do that in this setting. 

¨      Some of you my have a need to be obedient to baptism.  You’ve confessed Jesus as your Lord, invited him into your heart, but you’ve never obeyed his command to follow his example in baptism.  Everything is ready today if you will humble yourself in obedience to his command. 

¨      For others here, you’re already an immersed believer, but you’re not a part of any local body of believers.  If that’s your situation today, we’d welcome you into our church family upon the confession of your faith. 

Whatever your decision, come today, right now as we stand and sing our hymn of invitation. . .