The Path of Self-Destruction

Most of us have probably seen one of those like spy type movies. And the main character finally breaks into the bad guys’ secret lair. The hero bursts into the control room and it sends the bad guys into a panic. While the hero fights through all the poorly trained henchmen, someone hits this big red button labeled self-destruct. All of a sudden you here the very calming voice say “5:00 minutes until self-destruct” the leaders of the bad guys grab the most important information and heads towards their escape tunnel while the hero is now battling the poorly trained henchmen along with an earthquake that has everything falling down around him. All the while that lady with the calming voice is counting down “4 minutes to self-destruction, 3 minutes to self-destruction, 2 minutes till self-destruction, 1 minute till self-destruction. 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2, 1” and just before the timer hits 0 the hero dives out of the building and avoids this huge explosion. You seen that movie? Ya I know it happens in every movie. Bur we are suckers for it.

Now, maybe it’s just me. But I’ve never actually seen a self-destruct button in real life. There’s not one in my house, there’s not one in my car, we don’t have one at my job. Maybe if you’re part of some type of government organization you have seen some type of self-destruct device, but for normal life self-destruct is extremely impractical. Like there is no reason for us to blow up something that we have worked hard to earn. The natural human tendency is to preserve one’s self and one’s possessions. Anyone who would be intent on hurting themselves or blowing up their own stuff we would consider to be mentally unstable.

But when it comes to our spiritual lives, many of us self-destruct. The Bible says in Proverbs 14:12.

Proverbs 14:12 ESV

There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.

Choosing to go our own instead of following after God leads us to destruction.

In our text this morning in Judges chapter 9, we will see that the nation of Israel had hit the big red button, and self-destruction was underway. This chapter is kind of a break from the normal Judges cycle. Typically Israel would rebel against God, God would send a foreign nation to conquer them, after some time they would call out to God, God would send a deliverer, they would get victory and revival for a period, and then right back to their rebellion against God. But this time, it didn’t go down like that. After God raised up Gideon, and gave them victory over the Midianites, they almost immediately went back to idolatry.

Instead of sending another foreign power to oppress Israel, to get them to come to their senses, God just left them alone. The story that we will cover this morning took place inside of the nation. It’s an internally struggle. Filled with self-inflicted wounds. As we look together this morning at Israel’s path to self to destruction, I believe that we will be able to see some warnings that may indicate if we are on the path to self-destruction in our own lives.

Transition: Before we even get into chapter 9, there’s the first step.

I. Israel rejected God

I won’t spend a whole lot of time here because we talked about this last week, but Israel did not want God as their king because they did not want to be under his authority. If they accepted God as their king and their God, that would mean they were also accepting God’s law. And it seems that Israel just did not want to follow God’s commands. Let me remind you again of what the Bible says about Israel in Judges 8:33-34

Judges 8:33–34 ESV

As soon as Gideon died, the people of Israel turned again and whored after the Baals and made Baal-berith their god. And the people of Israel did not remember the Lord their God, who had delivered them from the hand of all their enemies on every side,

When the Bible says that Israel forgot God, it’s not saying that they no longer remembered Him or the things that He had done, the enemies he had delivered them from. No this was saying that what they knew about God no longer exercised control over them.

This would be like after a breakup when all your friends are trying to comfort you because your boyfriend or girlfriend did you wrong, and they say, “Just forget him or her and move on”. Well it’s not that you no longer remember what that person did, but that you no longer let what that person did have control over your emotions. This was a psssh “Forget God! moment for Israel”

And maybe some of you listening this morning have that same mindset. For some it maybe overt. You openly reject God for whatever reason. Maybe there is something in the Bible that you just don’t agree with. Maybe something bad happened in your life, and you feel like God shouldn’t have allowed it to happen. Maybe you don’t believe that God exists at all.

But there are some of you, probably a much larger majority who reject God more subtly. It’s not that you don’t believe in God or you’re angry at God. You may even claim that the God of the Bible is your God, but you still refuse to live under his authority. You reject God by the way that you live your life. You can tell the Bible stories and quote some Scriptures. You may go to church on occasion, but your actions, your speech, your thoughts, your worldview all say - “Forget God, this is what I think, or what I want”

Whether it’s overt or subtle, rejecting God is rejecting God.I urge you this morning don’t reject God! That’s pushing the red button and putting you on the countdown to self-destruction. This goes for both those who wouldn’t consider themselves to be a Christian and those that do. If you don’t know Christ, rejecting God has eternal consequences. Scripture tells us that if you die rejecting Christ, you will spend eternity separated from God in a place called hell. You may be a good, moral person, but being a good person isn’t enough to secure your place in heaven. The Bible says 1 John 5:12

1 John 5:12 ESV

Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.

You may be saying to yourself, “I’m not following Jesus and my life seems to be going pretty well.” And that may be true, but I assure you. If you gave your life to Christ you would find new joy in fulfilling the purpose you were created for - glorifying God.

To the believer. You may be rejecting God in a particular area of your life. It may be subtle, but you can identify an area of your life where you are not totally submitted to God’s way. Again, this could lead to destruction in your life. God chastens his children, which means if you claim to be a child of God, but you act like a child of the devil, God will send things into your life to straighten you up. Trials will come in our life regardless of our behavior, but we don’t need to add unnecessary complications into our lives that are the result of our own self-destruction. Don’t push God out of any area of your life. Ask God to show you areas of your life where you may have rejected God, and allow Him to have complete control.

Transition: Well, since Israel rejected God , God let’s Israel experience what they wanted, life without God.

Let’s read together Judges 9:1-6

Judges 9:1–6 ESV

Now Abimelech the son of Jerubbaal went to Shechem to his mother’s relatives and said to them and to the whole clan of his mother’s family, “Say in the ears of all the leaders of Shechem, ‘Which is better for you, that all seventy of the sons of Jerubbaal rule over you, or that one rule over you?’ Remember also that I am your bone and your flesh.” And his mother’s relatives spoke all these words on his behalf in the ears of all the leaders of Shechem, and their hearts inclined to follow Abimelech, for they said, “He is our brother.” And they gave him seventy pieces of silver out of the house of Baal-berith with which Abimelech hired worthless and reckless fellows, who followed him. And he went to his father’s house at Ophrah and killed his brothers the sons of Jerubbaal, seventy men, on one stone. But Jotham the youngest son of Jerubbaal was left, for he hid himself. And all the leaders of Shechem came together, and all Beth-millo, and they went and made Abimelech king, by the oak of the pillar at Shechem.

Worth noting is that the central location of this story is Shechem. For reference sake, you could call Shechem Israel’s spiritual capitol at this time. Shechem was where God appeared to Abraham and promised that his descendents would inherit this land. It was at Shechem the people of Israel made a covenant with God when they crossed over Jordan into the promised land. This was like the spiritual center of Israel. It was like a thermometer that gave the temperature of the spiritual climate in Israel.

Them main character of chapter 9 is Abimelech one of Gideon’s sons. Remember Gideon had accumulated a bunch of wives and had 70 sons. But Abimelech was not the son of one of his wives, his mom was a concubine so basically, she was just a side chick, likely a Canaanite slave from the city of Shechem. Since Abimelech wasn’t a legitimate son, he probably wasn’t treated the same as his half-brothers. He wasn’t going to be entitled to an inheritance like the other brothers. As you can imagine. Abimelech resented resented his dead-beat dad Gideon and his 70 brothers. But the apple doesn’t fall to far from tree. Like his father, Abimelech’s pride, jealousy, and selfish ambition drove him to do some unthinkable things.

Remember, Gideon said that neither him or his sons should rule over Israel, but so much for that. It seems that Gideon’s 70 sons were ruling over Israel at this time. So Abimelech has his family raise some questions to the leaders of Shechem. He suggests that it would better to have one person rule over them than 70, and it would be good if that one person was from Shechem, and of course it would be best if that one person was him.

Well the leaders of Shechem fell for the okie doke and put their confidence in Abimelech. They took 70 pieces of silver from their church budget and give it to Abimelech to fund his plan. With the silver, Abimelech hired himself some thugs to do his dirty work.

They went to Gideon’s city Ophrah, captured all of Gideon’s sons, and began to execute them one by one upon a stone. Many scholars believe that this mass execution was done as a human sacrifice to their new god Baal-berith. Only Gideon’s youngest son, Jotham, was able to escape.

Well, after his brothers were dead, the leaders of Shechem held a ceremony to crown Abimelech as king. But there was an interruption . Jotham heard about the coronation, so he went to the top of Mount Gerizim to deliver a curse upon Abimelech and the leaders of Shechem for what they had done. He delivered the message in the form of a parable about trees.

The trees are looking for a king. So first, they go to the olive tree. But the olive tree refuses to be the king of trees because he would be leaving his purpose of producing oil that is used to honor gods and men. Next, the trees go to the fig tree to be king, but the fig tree refuses because he has the purpose of bringing forth valuable fruit. The vine was next, but the vine had the purpose of creating wine. Finally, the trees come to the bramble - a thornbush. Thorn bushes had no significant purpose. They were too short and scraggly to provide shade, and would often catch fire that would spread to land of around. But of course, the bramble, despite its worthlessness, accepted the position of king and boasted that the other trees could take refuge in his shade, even though it provided none.

Here was Jotham’s point with this story. Abimelech was the bramble. If they had acted in good faith and integrity making Abimelech their king, who had killed all the sons of the man who had delivered them from their most recent oppressors. If making him their king was the right thing, then he hoped that they Abimelech enjoyed being their king, and they enjoyed having him a king.

But if they had done wrong in killing Gideon’s sons and making Abimelech king, (which obviously, it was wrong) then Jotham wished that worthless thornbush would catch fire and consume the leaders of Shechem and let the fire spread and consume Abimelech as well.

Here is the second step on the path to self-destruction.

II. Poor Choices

Shechem’s poor decision was to make Abimelech their king. This was highlighted by Jotham’s parable that pictured Abimelech as a thornbush ready to burst into flames and take down everything around him.

Abimelech had a huge chip on his shoulder being the rejected son. He was jealous of his brothers, and he was determined to make something of himself to prove his worth. He was a raging fire of jealousy and selfish ambition. If the leaders of Shechem had James 3:16, maybe they could have made a better decision.

James 3:16 ESV

For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice.

Like to most of us, it seems like common sense. If this guy would kill all of his brothers to become king, what made them think that he would be the type of king that they wanted? The only explanation they gave for wanting Him to be king was that He was their brother. Abimelech’s jurisdiction didn’t go much further than Shechem, but I’m sure they thought his kingship would eventually spread through all of Israel, so they wanted one of their guys in control to make sure they were taken care of. But that’s really the only explanation. They could have made any of the men of the city the king. Abimelech was a poor choice.

Here’s what I believe happened. When Israel rejected God as king, it left a void that Israel was desperate to fill. Although Gideon and his sons ruled over them, they would never officially take that title of king. They really wanted a king, so they took the first person who was willing to step up and take that role.

And for us, this is the natural progression. When we reject God, we will choose something else to take His place. Something will fill that void. It’s something that we believe is better. Something that gives us more immediate satisfaction. Something that fuels our pride, or the feeds our flesh, something driven by our selfish-ambition. Because ultimately what we choose to place on the throne is ourselves. Shechem choose the first man that rose up from among their people because they wanted to be preeminent in Israel. If the king was a Shechemite, it made them look better. They wanted to put themselves on the throne.

And as we saw in James, that type of selfish ambition can lead us into disorder and all types of evil.

When explaining the we have a choice in whom we will serve, in Romans 6:16, Paul breaks is down this way.

Romans 6:16 ESV

Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?

We will either be servants of sin and self or we’ll be servants of God and righteousness. The choice is ours. God never forces us to choose Him, but we must know that our choices always have consequences. Choose God! Choose Righteousness!

Transition: After making this declaration, Jotham went into hiding, so he would not be the next victim on his half-brothers kill list, but this curse upon Shechem and Abimelech forshadowed what would happen next. The final step in self destruction was

III. God’s Judgement

Let’s now look at Judges 9:22-24

Judges 9:22–24 ESV

Abimelech ruled over Israel three years. And God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the leaders of Shechem, and the leaders of Shechem dealt treacherously with Abimelech, that the violence done to the seventy sons of Jerubbaal might come, and their blood be laid on Abimelech their brother, who killed them, and on the men of Shechem, who strengthened his hands to kill his brothers.

So after three years, the leaders of Shechem began to regret that they had made Abimelech king, and were even remorseful about what they had done to the sons of Gideon.

So first, the leaders of Shechem put men in the mountains to rob all those who travelled on that road. This was to give Abimelech’s administration the black eye of not being able to protect the people traveling through his territory.

Next a man by the name of Gaal moved into Shechem, and he soon became popular with the leadership of Shechem. During one their harvest festivals, Gaal and the leaders of Shechem gathered in the temple of Baal-berith for party to eat, drink, and talk trash about Abimelech. As often happens, when Gaal got good and drunk he started to speak a little more boldly. He suggested that they should no longer follow Abimelech, and he should be the king. He said that men of the city would follow him, he would tell Abimelech to gather his army and they could battle it out.

Well, word got back Zebul who ruled for Abimelech in Shechem, and Zebul told Abimelech who lived in a nearby city about the growing uprising.

So Abimelech put together his army and set an ambush around Shechem in the night. As Gaal was out taking his morning stroll, Abimelech and his army came out of their ambush and surrounded the city. Zebul taunted Gaal because he wasn’t speaking so boldly now, and told Gaal to come out and back up all those things that he had been saying before.

So Gaal gathers an army from the men of Shechem, but they had no chance. Gaal was driven out of Shechem. Now the people of Shechem probably thought this was all over. Gaal was gone and now everything would go back to normal, but this was not over. The next day, the people were about their normal business in the fields, and all of a sudden Abimelech brings out an ambush and starts killing the Shechemites. He tore down everything in city and sowed it with salt so nothing would be able grow there again. The leaders of the city were able to escape into one of the strong towers. Abimelech seized the opportunity with everyone in one place and burned down the tower killing about 1000 people.

Abimelech was still not finished. It seems the people in the nearby city of Thebez were co-conspirators with the people of Shechem. Like the Shechemites, when Abimelech arrived all the people ran into their defense tower. Abimelech thought he would use the same plan and just burn down the tower and kill all the people. But as we he was preparing to burn down the tower, a woman threw a big rock off the top of the tower and crushed his skull. Mortally wounded, Abimelech has his young armor bearer kill him so it wouldn’t be said that he was killed by a woman.

In Judges 9:56-57 God makes it clear that this was his judgement upon them for what they had done.

Judges 9:56–57 ESV

Thus God returned the evil of Abimelech, which he committed against his father in killing his seventy brothers. And God also made all the evil of the men of Shechem return on their heads, and upon them came the curse of Jotham the son of Jerubbaal.

I think we can learn some quick insights about God’s judgement

A. God’s judgement may be slow, but sudden

God allowed three years to pass before all of this went down. But when it went down, it went down! We often look for that immediate punishment when things go wrong, but God is not on the same time as us. Sometimes He allows things to just run their course before He brings swift judgement.

B. God’s judgment may be subtle

You could easily miss this in verse 23, but the Bible says that God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the leaders of Shechem. That’s all He needed to do. No lightning bolts, no earthquake, nothing that they would have been able to discern in a physical sense. It’s not always a traumatic event that God uses for judgement. The people of that day did not have the Scripture to tell them that God had sent this spirit as a form of judgement, and likewise there is no narration of our life telling us how God is rebuking us for our sin. I believe that God’s judgement more often looks like this. It can come in the form of something unseen and our flesh does all the rest of the work.

C. God’s judgement is sure

It may seem like you are getting away with sin, but be sure that your sins will find you out. Judgement is usually just the outworking of our sin. The people of Shechem were disloyal, and it led to their destruction. Abimelech’s self-ambition, lust for power and revenge caused his demise God’s judgement is coming if you do not repent of your sins and turn to God.

This is another one of those stories in the book of Judges that leaves you blank and confused like, what just happened? It’s not one of those stories that you tell in a Sunday school class because the main character had good qualities and came out looking like a hero. No one said at the end alright boys and girls let’s all be like Abimelech!....No this a tragic story without a happy ending and the worst part is that Israel brought all of this on themselves.

Rejecting God plus Poor Decisions, Plus God’s Judgement equals self destruction.

This passage mirrors a passage from Romans 1. I don’t have time to read the entire passage today, but if you are interested you can read verses 18-32. I’m just going to read the last four verses Romans 1:28-32

Romans 1:28–32 ESV

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

They rejected God

They made poor decisions - Here’s what they chose instead of God

God’s judgment was that they deserve to die

Don’t go down this path to self destruction where God’s just let’s you do whatever you want to do and it leads to death.

But let me end with good news. For Israel and for you. Check out Judges 10:1

Judges 10:1 ESV

After Abimelech there arose to save Israel Tola the son of Puah, son of Dodo, a man of Issachar, and he lived at Shamir in the hill country of Ephraim.

Even though Israel rejected God and went through this time of chaos self-destruction, God sent a man by the name of Tola to save Israel not from a foreign power, but from themselves. I wish the Bible gave us more information about what happened here, but it seems during the time of Tola and the judge that came after him Jair, Israel had a time when they turned back to God.

And no matter the chaos that is gong on in your life. Even if it’s a judgment that you brought upon yourself. God has sent a Savior. His name is Jesus, and if you will trust and follow Him, he can bring order out of the chaos. That’s not saying your life will be perfect or without difficulty, but you will have a solid foundation to stand upon when things get tough. If you have chosen to make Jesus Savior and Lord in your life. I urge you, don’t reject Him today. Don’t start down the path to self-destruction. If you would like to know more about how you can become a follower of Christ, please send us a message on our facebook page and we would be thrilled to share with you from Scripture about what it means to have a relationship with Christ.

Christians, maybe you identified an area of your life today in which you are headed down a path to self-destruction. I implore you to repent of your sin and turn that area of your life over to God. There’s nothing that Satan enjoys more than to ruin the lives of Christians and shame the name of Christ through sin. Let’s not give him that satisfaction. If there is something going on in your life that you need help with. Feel free to contact us so that we can pray for you and help you get back on the road to righteousness.