Parables 4: The One Lamb Nathan and King David

They wear people sit that they absorb the most of the teaching okay. I'm not picking on anybody or anything like that

but so if the if the pastor is the one doing the teaching and

This is the teaching tone

So it's about a 45 degree angle straight out on the right and on the left

Which means everybody in this little section over here is outside the teaching code and everybody's this little second here

Thanks to the outside

Come the brother Chris the teaching come goes right through your head. So half your head is in a teaching cone and half your head is out

All right, so that's the worldly concept of the teaching come you will hear more you will absorb more

You will remember more all that is true and that's actually

There's more to it than that okay, so in the words if you go to class, so this is what happened to me

I was going to

right next Christian college

for my Bible college degree and

And when I went there when I started going there, I bet you know who told me to go there

Who do you think was?

That's right. God told me to go there. I'm gonna real quick and just like 90 second 30 this story

Okay, so I'm driving home and on the side of the road. I see a huge bulletin board for greatly Christian college

I've been praying about where I can go to school at and as I'm right

I said all this great Christian college right and I and I started thinking about praying on some board

Am I supposed to do that and God told me just like

Oddly urged me audibly that to look into that's where I want you to school at so I get home and Sherry says to me

I want to talk to you about something really excited really important. I'm like, okay

Well, I'm really excited before I was gonna tell her was gonna go to Bob. I was that right and and I said well you go ahead

And she said so

Today I found out that she got fried. She was working in the feedback right that's how I'm fishing manager

I know as a restaurant manager restaurant manager in Lansing. She said today

I found out that our restaurant partners with great late Christian college

And I think you should look into that to find out whether or not God wants you to go there

And I said well, let me tell you what just happened to me. So that night I went out with my application in and I

Immediately the next day whatever I accepted into a pretty elite program for people who you had to be 30 years old and

You had to be changing careers and calls like on the preach and teach

So and then they would talk to you and talk to your wife and figure out whether or not God was really calling you

It's a pretty big deal

So I was accepted right away in that program

And I went sat down with the counselor and he said you don't look old enough to do this and I said well

I am 31. Thank you very much

And I get that a lot

But anyway the point is this God called me to go to Bible Cards

So now if God called me to go to Bible Cards, I'm gonna do this

Right. I'm gonna

Supposed to do everything you do a different one for God

But if you know what you're doing God called you to you gotta do that a little different

I mean you got a really so in every class I sat in the front row right in the middle and from the professor

Because I've heard the world teaching of the teaching cone

but

That is a world we keep

That's true on a psychological level on a social level and all of that is true that geographically in this room

When I stand up here teach everybody that's between this line. I'm sorry training here just outside the line baby

Okay, or over here to write about we're highly interested like that line if you're in that line

You're going to absorb us if you're a person who struggles to learn you want to be in there

Your person can't remember week to week what was said you want to be in there that's psychosocial true. That's true

But guess what the Christian teaching cone is?

It's not physical. Oh, it's not physical. It's spiritual. Okay, so really you need to come ready

You need to be so you should be praying you should be reading your Bible

You should be serving you should be given doing all those things and if you're doing all of those things

Then it's not really a geographical thing so much anymore

It's spiritual so people could be outside of line if you did the work before you came today. You'll be perfectly fine outside the line

Right, but if you didn't do the work

As you I get in the line because when you're in there, you'll hear more you'll see more you'll remember more

Okay, so sometimes like we have have a bunch of teenagers a kid over here and they're like what did he say?

What was the line?

What was the line whatever and and I might say and I'm just kind of warning you all they might not be here

So if you're a teenager you can warn this might happen right I might say get in the teaching cone move to the middle

Right, we're not gonna make a rule or anything

We say move to the middle because you ask that's the third time you asked me

What that was and I'm not saying I don't want that I do want you to ask

But I also realized if you're in here, you're gonna get more

psychole psychologically socially

analytically to that end I have an object lesson

Somewhere I'm sorry for this. I didn't tell I didn't give anybody warning somewhere inside the teaching cone

There's a five dollar Walmart gift card under somebody's chair

So if you're sitting inside the teaching cone Chris you can check you're sitting inside the teaching cone check under your chair

It's tucked up under your chair

Looking everybody only and only the chair you're in it's in another chair. You can't have it

Emily's you check under your chair

Check better check good. I think it's you're pretty close. You're right in the right area

It was randomly done

Right in this area somewhere

Okay, give it to Emily that was randomly placed so that might happen again sometime

Nothing negative is meant if you choose to sit outside

I'm not gonna pick on you or anything like that, but spiritually listen listen

spiritually you've got to prepare you got to come in at the case time to worship

It's time to learn time to grow and you might go like you know what my learning curve is not what somebody else

I might not pick up as much as somebody else does. It's okay, right? You get what you get out of it and if you get

40% of what's being dealt from the pulpit from the inspirational moment or whatever hold on bud

All right, if you get 40% you have grown a lot

Right and we have to give a lot more than the average person can get can pick up

Because some people can pick up more than other people right or some people might need something

That's not contained in there until we get to that 91st percent percent

Right, we might not say the thing that you really need to hear you might only you don't get when we do it like this

100% you don't just get the bottom 40% you get some here some here some here some here all the way

You can turn sideways if you want and make it a pie shape if you want whatever you get some all over and that's the stuff

That God really wants you to remember so come prepared come ready, and you'll be in the spiritual teaching tone

Yes, you have a question

Yep, there's a lot of Bible floating around because if somebody needs to borrow my way to read it they can

Okay, when you go to classroom, there's something in the class. We're pretty doing

All right, so we're gonna do one more song and then you're gonna go in there and there's finals in classroom so you can

Reload your classroom. Okay. Yeah, so you don't get to take them home with you today. That's another day

All right, you'll have one girl

All right, so we're gonna pray together and then we have one song and then the kids are going to the classroom

And they're gonna have a lot of fun learning more about Jesus

And we will eat candy. I don't know about that. We'll eat candy. All right, calm down. We're gonna pray and when we go to the classroom

We're gonna listen to our leaders and be well behaved, right?

Miss Sherry, my wife and brother Tommy.

Okay, and that information is in the bulletin on Sundays if you're on Sunday

You can know who's teaching on Tuesday and all of our teaching parents are excellent. So let's pray

Father in heaven, I do thank you so much that you lay it on our hearts to want to hear from you

To learn everything we can from you. You know so much

You know everything, you know all the future pulls in store

You know what's going on in every state in the different states in every country in the world

You know every Christian that's aching right now

You know the number of the hair in our head scripture says you put this time together so that we might be early for you

That might desire to know me more. That's exactly what we want

And then as we go around for you find you never far away in the first place

You are always lingering near loving on us and wanting us to be in fellowship

Thank you for sending us on Jesus. Thank you for letting us be here

Thank you for the chairs and the carpet and the lights and the instruments and the heart of this people

To be together learning and growing in you if there is somebody in this place

Young or old who is not truly given their life over you and said I'm living for God through Jesus

I pray that they will do that before they leave the building today that they will not put it off

It is too important to delay and that they will live their entire lives thinking what does young look like today and doing exactly that

I pray Lord that we'll be able to find it because you give it to us and we'll be ready to hear it

This worksheet was one of the more challenging worksheets that I have made

Because I ran into something unexpected while I was doing it and hopefully I'll be able to help you see that

By the time we're done

So we are still looking at parables we will be looking at parables for a while

We're looking at a variety of different parables so that we we want to get fluent in the language of parables

We want to get used to this method of

Communication that God uses for us to understand as you'll recall

The parable serves a purpose it is to get to to elicit a response and a request from the hearer

And so when we hear the actuals

When we hear a parable we should go to God

And so we're going to hear a parable another one

Today from the Old Testament and it is used in a very kind of unique way

That even even more unique and it kind of caught me off guard a little bit as I was studying it in preparation for today

So if you look right at the top of your page right above the first arm of that there

That's a bramble that they're bramble bramble is like a low-lying foreign bush that kind of creeps along and grabs on to everything a bramble and

Right at the top there. It should say judges

The references chapter 9

Judges 9 beginning in verse 5 and we actually will go through verse 20. So it's 9 5 dash 20

It's what you have at the top that was pretty much the easy part and then if you'll go right down across the brambles

You'll see it says parables six

parables six and

Then under that it says the fable of the trees fable of the trees

And so what we have is a person in this story and I'll clue you in as to who he was why he was the occasion of all

We'll do all of that

That was a telling the fable of the trees and it is a parable and the things in the parable kind of represent something

So that people can learn what it is that he's trying to

Get them to learn they should theoretically respond and request more information, but you'll see they don't

And that's interesting and it goes very poorly for them because of that

And so that was really neat that I was able to kind of make that connection myself and hopefully I'll be able to help you see it

Okay, so this is judges chapter 9 beginning in verse 5 and we'll be reading it

Judges 9 · chapter mention

You see it says read start I start reading there and we're working down the page and I'll clue you in

And then we have some things off to the side and those things are about that thing

so like it says location and then the arrow off the side is gonna talk about the location and

Then it says spoken by and those blanks on the right are gonna talk about the person who spoke it

And then the occasion is gonna be down and so on so we're just working down the page

You very much sir. Okay, so here we go. This is

Judges chapter 9 verse 5

Judges 9:5

Hold on one second

Okay, there's four five right

so

Then he the he is a bimalek, okay

So I'll go back and give you a little bit more about that in a minute

But the he is then he a bimalek went to his father's house at Ophrah and killed his brothers

The sons of Jerobal here's an interesting trivia question

Does anybody know who Jerobal is by a name that everyone would recognize or most people would recognize?

Who had the alternate name Jerobal does anybody remember?

Nope not Jeremiah. It's Gideon

Gideon okay, and he got the name Jerobal early on because he was basically warring against the prophets of ball and the false teachings of

Ball, okay, and so this guy Gideon you remember Gideon Gideon's the guy with the 300 right?

So Gideon has a huge army guys that you got too many people if you do it now

It's not big enough to win

But if you do it now everybody'll think you did it because you had a big army so

We're gonna let all the men who are afraid to go home

They all bunch of them went home and now we're all gonna have them all down to the water

If they bend over to drink or if they keep looking around then that'll determine whether you get to stare

I got down to 300 men and then those 300 men went in with the pitchers and the torches

Right and they scared the camp and the camp got up and they all killed each other

Basically is what happened and God delivered them that day through the hands of Gideon that army was a Midianite army

So that's the background story for Gideon's an awesome dude, right? He's a judge. He's a judge for God

He's a leader for God, okay?

And now he's got all these sons and a bimalek who was his son the bimalek was his son

Goes and kills all of his brothers all the sons of Gideon you could put him there if you want

70 men on one stone so a bimalek

Takes a bunch of higher cretins basically and kills his 70 brothers all on one stone

All right now there that word there is not on your page but that word there where it says on one stone

It could be a sacrificial stone to the to the false God ball

And so what he may have sacrificed all of his brothers to ball at that time

But they don't know for sure if that word means that so they just say on a stone on one stone

But Jotham the youngest son of Jerbal was left for he hid himself

So there was one youngest son that survives so he is a brother

Kind of a half brother right because not same mother but a brother to a bimalek who just killed all 70 of their other brothers

in verse

6 says and all the men of Shechem and all Beth Milo

Assembled together now the word Beth Milo is a weird word and they have a hard time translating it

We don't really know for sure what it's referring to

but

It could have been a town it could have been a clan could because it could mean the house of Milo

Right, so they're not 100% Beth is house in

Hebrew and so it could be the house of Milo or it could have been a town called that or whatever

So they really don't know for sure, but all the men of Shechem that they do know and and Beth Milo assembled together

And they went and made a bimalek king

I

Did this by the oak of the pillar which was in Shechem?

so Shechem was a big city and

It was kind of between two or like a key point where a valley comes through and like all the merchants would come through

Okay

Now when they told Jotham he went and stood on the top of Mount Garazim and lifted his voice and called out

Okay, so I'm gonna stop there for a second. So the location is what?

Mount Garazim, okay now Garazim is spelled G-E-R-I-Z-I-M

There's two I's it sounds like there's an A in there, but there's not it's G-E-R-I-Z-I-M

So it looks like Garazim

Okay, so that's the location

So now we're gonna follow the arrow over for a second to the left follow your arrow over to the left big fat arrow there and

The first word starts with an M and it is

We're talking about the location M is what?

Mountain that's correct. So

Mount Garazim

Was a mountain

Okay, and it was one of two

Does anybody know what the other one was it was one or two and it's the W is with and the other one starts with an E

And it is Bible scholars

Anybody no clue

Nope, that is real

Okay, it's Ybal E-B-A-L

Okay

I'll give you a little bit more in a second

But right now just go with me as we get through the rest of these blanks. Okay, so it's a mountain one of two with Ybal

And then it is the M-O-B

I'm gonna take a stab at it. If you don't know the history you might have trouble with this part

How about if I fill in the history and then you'll see if you get it, okay?

So these two mountains Garazim and Ybal sit side by side and there's a pass that runs in between

Okay, and when the Israelites came into the promise line since I start telling the story

Oh, I kind of vaguely think I remember this when the Israelites came to the promise land and I think it's Deuteronomy 27

Moses told them that once they went in there

They were supposed to form all the men up on both mountains one on one side at one mountain and one on the other and

One side they were going to tell all the blessings that God was going to give them as they went into the land and the other

Mountain was going to tell all the curses that God was going to give if they didn't do it

I remember this whole story. Maybe maybe not if not it's in the book Joshua highly recommend you read

It's really good stuff. Okay, so they got up there and they cried out the blessings and they cried out the curses and

Mount Garazim then was the now look at the blanks Mount of blessings exactly

So Mount Garazim was the mount of blessings

So now realize that this is this story that we're reading is taking place a little over a hundred years

After that story. I just told you

When Joshua had them all go up on the mountain they actually did it right Moses look before that

You know almost 200 years really that they were told to do it

But then only a little over a hundred years later this

What event that we're studying today was taking place this parable is being told

Okay, and so they were up on this mountain a little over a hundred years ago

pronouncing blessings and

the Israelites stood here to

SL and we stab at it. I think it could be they stood on the mountain

They did follow the commands of Moses and they stood there to do to SL

Not that's really close a shout is right. So the S is shout. It's not literature. It was loud, but that's not the right L

loyalty

Okay, remember that they were given the blessings that they would get by God when they went into the land

They would the curses that they would get if they did not remain loyal to the Lord

So the blessings were all about loyalty there if you go back and read them

You'll see they were like yes, we're for God and God's for us and these things are awesome things are gonna happen

It's gonna be great the people over here are like well

We're for God too and these are the horrible things that are gonna happen if we don't follow God and we're for God too, right?

But Mount Garzim was the mount of blessings and the people stood on the mountain to shout their loyalty

So this scene that we're studying there today

If you follow the arrow down a little bit

Actually, let's leave those blanks for a minute because you'll get a better idea as we actually look at what happens during the scene

So you can leave those there. We'll fill them in later. Okay, it's gonna be H

HD when the time comes but okay, so going back up to location

We just talked about Mount Garazim

So if anybody asked what Mount Garazim was it's one of the two mountains

It was the mount of blessings and the Israelites stood on that mountain to shout their loyalty to God now

He's standing there. Who's he help me? Correct. Very good Jotham. He Jotham is one standing there

Okay, and so if you'll see spoken by charge of the J Jotham, okay?

And I follow over to write we talk about Jotham for a minute

And this is a little tricky, but if you're listening closely, I can read it again if nobody gets it

Why s the youngest son? That's good. Somebody was listening very good. He's the youngest son

That's tough detail to pick out if you weren't paying close attention and he was also the OS very good only survivor

So he's the youngest son and the only survivor of the massacre because he hid yes, that's right

Which is what I would have done. I think at that point if your 70 brothers aren't good enough to hold it

You're the youngest hold up to it. You're the youngest son

I think hiding is about your only option unless you've got a good course to run away

Okay, and then so he's standing up there. This is a little trickier

It's not really in what we read but it's kind of you kind of see what's coming, right?

He stands up there in Mount Garazim and his purpose. Why is he doing it? Cs?

Okay, so let's go back into the text and you will get it. All right, that's how far we've gotten so far, okay?

So we're just gonna go back for one second to you verse

Seven at the top the very top judges nine five to twenty and I'm reading in verse seven right now

I'm sorry fuck yeah nine five to twenty and I'm reading in verse seven now when they told Jotham

He went and stood on the top of Mount Garazim. So what did they tell him now?

Be why he that's why he went there, but what did they tell him the verses right before right?

They made past tense actually abimilek king by the oak of the pillar which was in Shechem

Okay, so so Jotham heard that they made abimilek king. That's what he heard. Okay now listen

It says now when they told Jotham he went and stood on the top of Mount Garazim and lifted his voice and called out thus

He said to them we don't have to go very far

Listen to me. Oh men of Shechem that God may listen to you. Okay, so okay good enough

You could put called out technically called out his two words. I put confront Shechem

Okay, so he did this to confront Shechem

Notice he leaves out s H E C H E M or okay

Anyway, he leaves out that other group or city or whatever it was right the Beth Milo, which we don't really know for sure

What it was he leaves them out. He calls out. Oh men of Shechem right and he confronts them now

If you follow the arrow down for one second, you'll see that Shechem and we already talked about this a little bit

So you might be filled in is an emcee. What's Shechem? It's a major city. Shechem is a major city in fact

Almost no trade was being done in that region unless it went through Shechem

So if you needed something that was not made in your hometown, you couldn't get it unless it came through

Shechem

Very powerful city big lots of people and it so happens that a bimilek was from Shechem

Okay, and we'll get into that in a second here

So we're back in the middle. Let me let me recap

So we have the location Mount Garazim

Spoken by Jopham who was the youngest son the only survivor to confront Shechem, which was a major city and now we're on

occasion occasion so we have the big capital a which of course is a

Bimilek. Yep. It's a bimilek and then we have the big capital S which of course is

Shechem right and we have a little a you can put accepts

Anoints what's that?

Yeah, anoints and then we have an IK and we're gonna take a stab at that one. Okay, so King is correct

What kind of King is this a bimilek? He does turn out to be one and that is correct. He's not an idiot

In fact, he was a master craftsman politician at this point, but he's on the wrong side of the battle

You always lose when you go against God, right? So

He's illegitimate

He's illegitimate. He does not actually have any claim to be king

The only claim he has to be king is you will see it before we're done. Okay

All right, so a bimilek Shechem anointed an illegitimate King and now

MGS

I'm gonna give you the G is Gideon's

Gideon apostrophe s Gideon as in Gideon's possession. So the M is what?

Massacred Christ on Mount yep massacred Gideon's sons

Okay, so they the bimilek and Shechem go together they massacre his sons and he becomes an illegitimate King

So we're gonna take that arrow if you see where you wrote a bimilek right there

Take that arrow down to the left the arrow down to the left and it says judges 831

Judges 831 says

This talking about Gideon will go back up as far as 29 just so you get the run up to it

Then Jerobo the son of Joash went and lived in his own house now Gideon had 70 sons

Who were his direct descendants where he had many wives now 31 and his concubine who was in Shechem?

Also bore him a son and he named him a bimilek is not Shechem son of

So does anybody tell me what a concubine is compared to a wife? What's the difference?

Not married typically and what?

Kind of yeah, typically they were of lower station a slave woman

Okay, so she was a slave woman a

Bimilek was the son of a slave woman now as a slave woman who became

Intimate with Gideon and so she is the mother of a bimilek. Okay, then we're gonna go down the arrow down and it says

And this is judge. This is judges 823 now that I'm reading judge 823

It says 22 says then the men of Israel said to Gideon rule over us both you and your son

Also your son's son or you have delivered us from the hand of Midian, but Gideon said to them

I will not rule over you nor shall my son rule over you the Lord shall rule over you

So Gideon the G is Gideon what?

Refused he refused to rule he would not be king. He said I will not be your king. He refused

Yep Gideon refused or refuses

but and this is where it gets the kind of soap opera sloppy, okay

But I'm just gonna fill in the blank. So go with me here. He named

Son and you know what the capital A is a Bimilek, but do you know what the translation is?

You can look at the letters on the bottom line M F I K M F I K

Exactly

The word of Bimilek means my father is king interesting, isn't it?

So if you had a slave one if you were Gideon you had a slave woman who lived in another city away from you

And you had a son with her. Why would you name him a Bimilek? Especially if you're not king

Why do you think you would do that as a slave woman? She had nothing

She had a son that belonged to Gideon that they he did not move her and her son to come live with him

You follow he left them and check them. What do they have going for them? Not a whole lot

He probably sent them some money, right?

So they were taken care of but what was their social status very low

But if you name your son a Bimilek you elevate his social status. He gave him a gift, right?

Remember the old I may or may not remember this old song by Johnny Cash boy named Sue, right?

And the whole song is about a name my dad named me Sue and I never met him

And I was I grew up hating him and fighting and in all this trouble and in the end he runs into a bar

There's a knife they they knife fight each other and they come up and they

They finally come to peace over it

He said I had to name you Sue because I had to make you tough, right?

Because I knew you were gonna be there without me

I had to make you tough and at the end of the song Johnny Cash says and if I ever have a boy

I'm gonna name him Bill or George or John or Paul anything but Sue, right?

So the whole point of naming him my father as king was to give him something

Because he couldn't give him his father. That makes sense. He couldn't give him his dad

He wasn't gonna go there let me check him and he wasn't gonna bring him to live with him

So that being said this problem that we're having in this story

Starts a little bit with Gideon having a concubine and so many wives

How many kings do you think it has been throughout Israel's history and he Gideon was not a king?

He was a judge, but how many kings had too many wives and got into trouble?

All of them, right? They all of them all the kings they all had too many wives

They all got in trouble as far as I mean

We don't know for sure that that was some of the trouble for some of them

But we know that they most of them had multiple wives and it always didn't work out well

And so that was not the and you know by the way that is not the way God set it up

One man one woman for life is the way God set it up

So there God hates divorce not getting on that topic, but it literally says that God hates divorce

Right, that is not what God prefers

But we do it what there is a reality of it because the hardness a hard betrayal things like that

There's a reality of divorce. So God does not hate divorcees

Right if you were divorced, but he hates that divorce even exists

That being said Gideon had a concubine had a son and gave him the name my father is king

King and it did indeed elevate his position in Shechem didn't it

Because now he's able to rally all the people in Shechem around him

And then what did they use that power for they went and killed Gideon's 70 other sons. That is terrible

That is tragic

Okay, all right. So that being said then we've gotten all the way to the bottom except for my little note there

So you're going to go back up. So you're back up under occasion a bimilek Shechem

A illegitimate king anointed an illegitimate king massacred Gideon's sons

Bram, okay, and then we're you got to be there, but you haven't heard the parable yet all of that and you've not heard the

Parable yet. So now we're gonna hear the parable. Okay, so here we go

So he stands up and he's going to tell the fable of the trees and we are in chapter nine of the book of judges

And we are in however again in eight

And this is the actual parable once the trees went forth to anointed king over them and they said to the olive tree

Rain over us, but the olive trees said to them shall I leave my fatness with which God and men are honored

And go to wave over the trees. Okay, so and if you'll look straight down on your page right in the middle of the bottom

You see that thing that looks like a twisted

Has a twisted

Trunk and goes up into a kind of very oddly shaped tree head that is an olive tree

Okay, and so the blank says olive tree and right after there's a little blank and what did the olive tree say?

It's simpler than that. No, no

He said no the olive tree said no, I will not be your king. Okay. All right

Continuing on then the trees said to the fig tree you come rain over us

But the fig tree said to them shall I leave my sweetness and my good fruit and go to wave over the trees

Okay, if you're looking the upper right hand side

You'll see a tree that has a straight shoot and then it has a like a branch off

You can see the branches and you can see kind of round things hanging by the way figs don't look anything like you think they look

By the way, they look almost more like oblong pomegranates is what figs look like unless you've seen them before

Okay, and then

It's so that is a fig tree f t is fig tree

And there is a blank there at its roots and the fig tree said no

Okay, so he's telling them their first choice for king the trees first choice for a king over them would decline

Their second choice for a king over them decline now. We're in verse 12

Then the trees said to the vine you come rain over us

But the vine said to them shall I leave my new wine which cheers God and men and go to wave over the trees

Okay, and if you look down on the bottom right, you'll see in the bottom right corner

You'll see a grape vine and the word in the blank is vine

and the and the vine said

No

All right, so they tried now they tried three times to get a king if somebody tries three times to get a king

What does that say about them? Yeah, probably not but they want a king

All right, they are at the point where they really want a king

They didn't settle for the one big one that they thought would be perfect

That one wouldn't do it and went on to a second one

They didn't settle for the second one because that'll the second one wouldn't do it

They go for the third one the third one is now said no finally all the trees said to the bramble

That's your bramble that goes all across the page up top. So just we got thorny useless

Good for making fires basically

Finally all the trees said to the bramble you come rain over us and 15 it says and the bramble said to the trees

If in truth you are anointing me as king over you, you know, do you really mean this?

If this is for real

Come and take refuge in my shade now. It's a comical thing. Isn't it because how much shade do you get from a bramble?

None brambles don't give shade the the thickest they ever get is like

Like that thick and they're hard right and the sun just goes right past them

And even if they overlap and overlap and overlap you still don't get any shade from it

I'd have to really grow densely and they don't because they're always spreading out. So that's the joke

He says come and take refuge in my shade

But if not in other words, if you're not really anointing me as king if this is some kind of dirty joke, right

May fire come out from the bramble and consume the cedars of lebanon which were like the kings of trees

They were the great trees of lebanon right that everybody desired for wood

And so he's saying like destroy the whole kingdom of trees if I cannot be king

If you're not really earnest and asking me to be king then let the whole kingdom of trees be destroyed

See that okay

16 now therefore so now he's going to give them a little bit. So by what should they have done at this point?

Response

Request there is no response. There is no request

Okay, now therefore if you have dealt in truth and in integrity in making abimilek king

Which of course we already know they did not right?

and it

And if you have dealt with jerobal and his house and have dealt with him as he deserved

Which they did not right. So we already know his two checks are

Definitely not the case and then he goes on to explain kind of parenthetically says for my father

fought for you and risked his life and delivered you from the hand of midian

But you have risen against my father's house today and have killed his sons

70 men on one stone and have made abimilek the son of his maid servant

King over the men of shekham shekham because he is your relative which is true. He was

He came from shekham. So he had a lot of cousins there and all that kind of thing

First 19, if then you have dealt in truth and integrity with jerobal remember that skidion and his house this day

Rejoice in abimilek and let him also rejoice in you

But if not let fire come out from abimilek and consume the men of shekham and beth millow

And let fire come out from the men of shekham and from beth millow and consume abimilek

Then jotham escaped and fled and went to bethir and remained there because of abimilek his brother

Okay, so now we're on the right hand side

under

Massacre gidian sons we have bdngs and we take a stab at it

That's right brambles do not give shade so one of the primary takeaways is their fourth choice for king

Is not going to give them any rest. It's not going to give them any protection any provision

They really if if this story holds true if the parable holds true. They've really blown it rather what they've actually done is our ag

What do you think?

in choosing a king

After gidian told her I will not be your king my sons will not be your king rather god will be your king what they've actually done is

Revealed against god so what they've actually done is rebelled against god and they may think that this

Bramble which is abimilek can provide them some kind of protection, but actually he cannot

Okay, and then it says ca which is just chose abimilek

So they rebelled against god they chose abimilek

And then here is the lesson

Of the parable for them that they probably didn't get okay

and it is

Say it again

Our ag rebelled against god then chose abimilek

Okay

And I'll give you the first f is false

And the k is

Kings false kings the a is and ff

It's poetic kind of sort of say it again

False followers

False followers, that's right

False kings and false followers

CEO remember the parable

Nope

What do they do consume each other?

And so the lesson of the parable is false kings and false followers consume each other

So what you go after that's not god it will chew you up in the long run you'll probably chew it up too

That's the way it works false kings and false followers consume each other

Now it's interesting because we have a reference there

And I'll give you the results and watch this

9 23 to 26

Then god sent an evil spirit

Who sent the evil spirit god did

God sent an evil spirit between abimilek and the men of shechem

And the men of shechem dealt treacherously with abimilek

In order that the violence done to the 70 sons of jairabal might come

And their blood might be laid on abimilek their brother who killed them and on the men of shechem who straightened

strengthened his hands to kill his brothers

And the men of shechem set men in ambush against him on the tops of the mountains

And they robbed all who might pass by them along the road and it was told to abimilek

Now gael the son of ebed came with his relatives and crossed over into shechem and the men of shechem put their trust in him

so god sent an evil spirit between

Job between abimilek there we go between abimilek and shechem and then now shechem is betraying him

And they've actually chosen another

I've never heard this or not, but if you're there's a married man for example, and he cheats on his wife with a woman

And then she manages to talk him in to leave in his wife for her

Then they get married and then what happens?

He cheats again, right?

That's the way it works

And so what what shechem did was they went on and they chose another king

They already know they can do that they have the authority there a big city lots of money lots of manpower

Right, they already know they can choose a king

So when they start to think well gosh, we don't want to be lumped in with abimilek

Which happened why because god sent an evil spirit

Right, they've rebelled against god. He sent an evil spirit now

They say well, we don't want to be lumped in with him. So they choose another man gael to stand up against

Abimilek, okay, and then if you go 953

I'm not reading the whole story

I've got a certain woman through an upper millstone on abimilek's head crushing his skull

So they were sieging the city of the bez

And he got too close and all that was left was the tower

And they were going to tear the tower down burn it like he did with shechem

And she threw a stone down possibly a millstone and crushed his head

And now he's dying

And he says I don't I can't die to a woman

And he has his sword bearer killing

And then in verse 57 it says also god returned all the wickedness of the men of shechem on their own heads

And the curse of jotham the son of jeribal came upon them. Yes, ma'am

I judge the aetheryms son of a slave woman

Oh to the left of that we have to do that yet. Okay. That's the only thing we have left to fill out

So you didn't miss it. You're with me. Okay, so the point is

The parable

Comes true

It becomes a curse against the people who heard it and what was their failing now they already sinned

Right, but the the parable becomes a curse when they

fail to

Respond

Yep, so at that moment time if they had repented let me think about men of that think about others who received a

Letter of destruction god's going to destroy you right they could have repented turn back to god and said, okay

No, wait, we don't want to anoint king a bimalic king, right? We don't want to do this

Well, we shouldn't have done that right they could have made sacrifices

They could have done all it could have been just for the rest of their lives

But we're hoping that god would forgive them they could have done anything

But what did they respond? No, did they make a request? No, they didn't do anything

In fact, they continued for a little while until god sent an evil spirit amongst them and then they sought out to kill

a bimalic

So they just kept being the same evil people that they were all the way through the entire story searching for a king

All right, so that bring that brings us back over to

This scene where jotham is giving that parable

Right the occasion is what a bimalic and shechem have done

Masked her and getting his sons naming him. He tells the parable brambles did not give shade

Rebellion against god they keep searching for a king. So what do you think the hd is? What is this scene teaching?

What is god's point?

What have they done?

I guess gave you the first word. I apologize have

They have what?

Do you what?

Kind of but this is the process by which they get to death in this case

They have denied god

That's what they've done. They disobeyed they denied nobody. They've walked away from the king

Who is the lord and they're choosing a king for themselves?

All right, now if you look all the way down in the bottom left hand corner

There's a kind of a lesson to take away

Right it says everything we do is provision for one kingdom or another

You ever hear that old pair that old story? It's kind of a parable basically it says that inside every person

There are two wolves or two two wolves struggling which one it basically is which one are you going to feed?

Right well everything we do is provision for one kingdom or another

Are you going to be a blessing to god's kingdom? Are you going to be a blessing to the enemy kingdom?

Right, so if everything we do is prevent provision for one kingdom or another

Then we must not devalue

our

impact

You can't forget so you go have sex with a concubine and make a baby don't name him

My father is king when his father is not king

Wait, don't go have sex with a concubine and make a baby

Wait, don't take 20 wives, right?

So he was he started out this guy who was afraid to work on behalf of god

On behalf of god and then he saw god. He finally said okay god. It's really you

I'll really do what you say and then he embraced god so fully in the war

And following him like that that he was doing everything

On the battle side that he was supposed to do and meanwhile his house was kind of a mess

Right so out here. He's doing great, but he forgot that what goes on here

Still fuels one kingdom or another so all this while he's saving god's people. He's defeating the midianites

He's bringing it home, right? He did everything that that they needed done and even refused to become king

Refused to name somebody king. He refused to do that. That was all the right thing

But the whole time he was doing that his house was a mess

And that was pouring into the kingdom of the enemy so much so that they

Chose a bimalek king and murdered his 70 other sons to do it

Be aware that the choices that you're making on a daily basis you are like well that doesn't seem to affect anything

That's not bothering anybody. That's not making any real impact or difference

Your choices are making an impact. You're feeding one kingdom or another

Every time you don't pick up your bible feeds the wrong kingdom

Every time you don't pray when you think you should feeds the wrong kingdom

Every time you eat too much sweets and you go, oh, I think I had enough

And you keep going anyway feeds the wrong kingdom. Every time you are snippy to somebody say something nasty feeds the wrong kingdom

And you say well, I made it through that no apparent negative effect

Nothing really bad happened

But if you're feeding the wrong kingdom

Ultimately it will come out right all things that are hidden will eventually reveal and I don't just mean

When it comes in front of Jesus and he'll reveal right but in this case

Kidian's 70 sons

all because he had to have one more

pretty girl

One more son and then couldn't bring him to live with him couldn't govern him couldn't teach him grow him upright

So he had to give him a name like

My father is king

And maybe maybe Gideon meant God

When he gave him that name maybe he was a king

When he gave him that name maybe he meant my father meaning God the father is king and will always be king

But that's not how a bimalek used it

And it's not how the people of shechem used it and so you just be careful

Sometimes you think you're feeding one kingdom and actually you're feeding the other

Right, that's what happens. For example, when you take a young christian or a non christian and tell them to stop sinning

Instead of telling them to draw close to Christ you pick somebody's sin. I say that's a sin

You've got to stop you've got to stop you guys out and they're not ready to stop

That's really hard for them that really puts them in a difficult situation

So

they really wanted a king and as you know, they eventually get one and

It doesn't go very well for quite a while and then they do get king david who will get the promise to be in the line of Jesus

And be on the throne forever. So praise god for that

Gideon's not there got it not in there. He's not in the line. He doesn't make it through unfortunately

All right questions are concerns

We got it. All right, we're gonna go fast on this here

so

All right, so we're gonna do a little differently today

Starting out

teenagers only

I'm going to

I'm going to

Give you the question and then if you know the answer you raise your hand

If the person I call on gets the answer correct then every teenager that has their hand raised will get candy

Got it or something

Because I might throw chips

Depends on the hands there are but if the person I call on gets it wrong

Nobody gets candy

Okay, you got it. So don't raise your hand if you don't know the answer

But if you do know the answer definitely raise your hand because it's the only way to get candy. So you'll get here. All right. So here we go

Ah, ah, see if we got it. See we do candy first. All right

A benelux mother was a

I see one two three four five Natalie. What's the answer? That's correct. Okay, here we go

Okay, pretty good pretty good pretty good. I was like I said that was kind of an easy one. Okay

All right. So this one is on the page, but you have to pay close attention

Uh, Jotham was standing on Mount Gerazine. The other mountain next door was called

See one hand

One two three four

Okay, give it to me. That is correct. Good job

Please okay

All right, do you want more this way? Let's see

Okay name

In 30 seconds or less

All four types of trees who might have been came I see one hand

two three four five Hannah go

Go

One you're going you got 25 seconds left. See you

Yep

Everybody anybody had a hand up that I didn't get okay. All right. Here we go

This is for the pup one person

You for this question only you may shout it out

First person to shout it out gets it if you don't catch it you have to throw it back. Okay

Only teenagers please. All right. Here we go

Jotham Jotham was the youngest son and also

He's rocking one more pup today one more pup. Here we go

Oh, this is an interesting one page. I hope you paid close attention

Gideon had this number of sons

Still waiting

Still waiting still waiting

You did not get it correct

That is not correct

Now you're guessing. Okay. We're gonna it's 72. Are you killed 70 sons Jotham survived?

Obimalak makes 72

You were guessing

I told you you were guessing it was over gotta have the answer. You can't be just like like they were up here like

It's chapter one two three four five six seven eight nine time

Now to be faster than that

Yeah, it was 72. I didn't say actually I said 70 and then there's Jotham and I've been like oh no, he said 71. Yeah, he said

Okay

Trying to find another tough one here

O'darn

Okay

Okay

Uh the problem with the final king chosen in the parable of the trees is what?

It is not in pride shape

Okay

Is that okay? All right. We got three cans of chips and then we're going to eat fruit

What?

Yeah, brown is sticky

I guess if you drop the chips you must give them back. I'm throwing pretty well today. So

Well, then don't drop it

All right

This is the period of time between

Mount Garazim mount of blessings and this parable

100 years

Go ahead 100 years is actually incorrect. You're on the right track

Go ahead

Nice try Jason was over 100 years

Greater than sign not equal than sign equal sign. All right

I guess chips can be for anybody so adults are on the table if you want to win chips

You got competition now

This is what false kings and false followers do to each other

Okay last one for today

Okay, what did Gideon say you can paraphrase when they asked him to be king

No, and also not my son, but you're not that yet

Okay, that's it. He said no, I will not be king my son will not be king. God is the only king

All right, let's pray together. I did bring fruit because we are fighting off this cold season

So we've got a couple different times of fruit whatever in there

And all food stays in the cafeteria including water. All right, let's pray

God and Evan, thank you for letting us do this. I

For me, I was blessed. I was blessed to see that you've been working such a powerful way

And it came to people who live so long ago. I just can't fathom

I feel it I really do but it baffles my mind that in just over 100 years

They he did so much. I mean that means like the walls of Jericho fell

And probably just over 100 years later. They chose a false king

Unbelievable and yet completely

I pray we will not be like that and we'll be busy feeding the right king and making the choices and we won't say

Oh, this one doesn't really matter because the truth is it could be the one that really matters and they all matter

We matter as I said not this week, but last week in the sermon you care about us and you care about this moment

When you put us in this moment together, you have expectations. I pray that we will live

by faith in Christ

strong

Persevere overcome and feed the right kingdom. I pray it all in Jesus name. Amen