When the Good Goes Bad, Part 2

Today on Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. The human heart has to be changed. Your heart needs to be changed, which means that we need a Savior who can deliver us not only from the curse around us, we need a Savior who can deliver us from the curse within us. We don't just need a Savior to fix our situation. We need a Savior who can fix us. Hey, welcome back to Summit Life with Pastor J.D. Greer of the Summit Church in Raleigh, North Carolina.

As always, I'm your host, Molly Bitovitch. Let me ask you a question. Do you think you have a tendency to take a bit too much credit for your success while at the same time overlooking God's blessing in your life? I know I have. You see, even with the best of intentions, the human heart always defaults towards pride. Beginning in Judges Chapter 8, we see how Gideon's victory as a warrior began to inflate his ego and rather than giving glory to God, he chose to act like a king who deserved special treatment. In a real sense, Gideon became his own broken Savior. Now, if you missed the beginning of this sermon, I just wanted to remind you that you can always hear previous broadcasts at our website, JDGrier.com. Pastor J.D.

titled today's message When the Good Goes Bad. So let's rejoin him now in Judges Chapter 8. When we left Gideon last week, we left him on a high. Gideon had just pulled off what is arguably the most incredible upset in military history. Gideon has assumed that it was his strength that accomplished this and his heart has turned inward and it has begun to spoil. Verse 22, then the men of Israel said to Gideon, rule over us because you have saved us from the hand of Midian. But Gideon said back to them, I will not rule over you. The Lord will rule over you. That was actually a great response on Gideon's part because God had told Israel that Israel was not to have a king because God would be their king.

But jump down to verse 30. Now Gideon had 70 sons for Gideon had many wives. Verse 31, and his concubine who was in Shechem also bore him a son and Gideon called his name Abimelech. Now Abimelech in Hebrew literally means my dad is the king.

What? It sounds like Gideon thinks of himself as king after all. Go back to verse 24, Gideon said to them, every one of you give me the earrings from his spoil. Now Gideon is collecting taxes.

That's also pretty king-like. Verse 27, and Gideon made an ephod out of it and put it in his city and all Israel hoard after it there and it became a snare to Gideon and to his family. Gideon may not be trying to deny God altogether, but Gideon has put himself in the place of God and Gideon has taken onto himself some things that belong only to God and he's now directing people's attention away from God. You see when Gideon was small and weak he was dependent on God.

It was when he got strong that he forgot God and made it about himself. Beware your strengths. Don't bemoan your weaknesses.

Beware your strengths. Beware your prosperity because that is the thing that will woo your heart away from God. I do not want to be Gideon where the whole God gives me great success and at the end I lose everything that is precious to me. Which leads me to part two here, Abimelech the tumbleweed. After Gideon's death Abimelech says, I want to be king like my dad was without the name except I want to have the name. So Abimelech goes out chapter nine and he hires a bunch of worthless vagabonds to be his posse and they ambush and kill all 69 of Gideon's other sons except for one named Jotham who escapes by hiding in a closet. Then Abimelech says, well I guess I have to be king now since my dad has no other sons left. The leaders of Israel who know all of this go along with it and crown Abimelech at Shechem king.

Well Jotham the one brother who escaped comes out of hiding when Abimelech is away on a trip and he gets in front of Israel's leaders and he tells them a parable about a bunch of trees and a forest who are going to choose for themselves one tree to be king. So first he says they go to the olive tree and they say would you be the king over us because you're an awesome tree and the olive tree says no I don't really want to be bothered with that because I'm having making too much money making all this olive oil and so I don't want to get involved in all the politics. And so then they go to the fig tree and they say the fig tree would you be our king?

The fig tree says no the whole fig newton thing just exploded and I got to give myself to that. And they go to every tree eventually they go to the grapevine. Grapevine's not much of a tree but I don't know will you be our king? And the grapevine says no I'm making all this awesome wine I don't want to be your king. And so finally they go to Tumbleweed and they say to the Tumbleweed will you be our king?

And the Tumbleweed says sure but first thing you got to do is I need you to cut down all the other trees and burn them to the ground. And so they do that and the Tumbleweed becomes their king and then Jotham says to the leaders of Shechem this is just what you've done in anointing Abimelech to be your leader. And Jotham says this is going to come back on you.

Sure enough that's what happens. Abimelech turns out to be a terrible leader no surprise there. Eventually all those leaders in Shechem that anointed Abimelech realize what a scumbag he is and they revolt against him. So Abimelech and his army attacks them and so the people there in Shechem flee to the city tower. Abimelech takes ironically enough a bunch of tumbleweeds and he packs it around the base of the tower lights it on fire so that he burns a thousand people alive in the tower. Then he goes on to the next city and he drives all the people of that city back into their tower but as he is about to light that tower on fire a woman in the top floor takes a moderately sized millstone and she drops it out of the top window and it lands on Abimelech's head. And as he's lying there barely conscious with his head all mangled he says to one of his servants quick kill me with your sword so that I don't go down in the book of judges as yet another guy who got killed by a woman with a kitchen utensil. And his servant obliges him and takes a sword and kills him and he dies. Now chapter 9 verse 56 thus God returned the evil of Abimelech which he committed against his father in killing his 70 brothers upon his head literally.

Verse 57 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 Jerabal which was the other name of Gideon. What is this teaching us? What does this generation of judges teach us?

Let me give you three brief things here. Number one this story teaches you that God's judgment is slow it is sometimes subtle but it is always sure. Now I told you a few weeks ago that that in this life we may not see every wrong righted but every once in a while scripture records stories like this one to show you that what is not happening here on earth will indeed happen in eternity. And the more important point listen is this you must not let the slowness of God's judgment you must not let his apparent absence lull you into complacency because the apostle Peter says that throughout human history mankind has repeatedly made the mistake of assuming that God's patience, his long suffering, and his subtlety and judgment equate with his absence. And the example that Peter uses is Noah. Did you know that between the time God said there would come a flood and the time it came there was nearly a hundred years? And then Peter says in Noah's generation they assumed that that hundred year gap meant that Noah was a fool and that God had not really spoken. They said but the flood came upon them when they weren't even expecting it and they misused that time. They thought that the Lord was slow concerning his promise second Peter chapter 3 but the Lord is not slow concerning his promise Peter said one day with him it's like a thousand years. The reason he did it Peter said is because the Lord is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. He'd given them that hundred year space to allow them to repent and they confused the the sign of God's patience with the fact that he wasn't there.

In fact let me give you another cool thing that that Genesis shows you. You know there's one other prophecy about the flood that people always overlook. Methuselah. You know what the name Methuselah means in Hebrew?

When he dies it will come. If you add up the years Methuselah died the year that the flood came. He was 969 years old the longest man scripture records living as a sign that God's patience is what holds history together and you must never confuse his space that he's given you to repent as the fact that he is not there. You see Peter says this is what you do with the coming of Christ it's been 2,000 years and many of you say well I got time I just wait till next week next week will be just like this week tomorrow will be just like today next year will be just like this year I'll get to this later and Peter says don't be a fool. God has simply done this to give you a space to repent but in the moments you don't realize it's happening the flood comes the coming of Christ comes your death comes and you will have abused what God intended for patience towards you. When I lived in southeast Asia I lived in this place where the tsunami came through in 2004 and killed 180,000 people. I was gone before it came but I went back in 2004 just three weeks after the tsunami had come to visit that area and I talked to a guy that I knew there who told me the most remarkable story he said I was on the beach I spent the night on the beach with eight friends of mine we were doing a camp out the night that the tsunami came it came up I think about eight o'clock that morning and he said that we spent the night there on the beach and he said something woke us up in the morning none of us knew what it was looking back now I realize it was the earthquake he said but we got ourselves up and we walked outside and we saw the most unusual thing the water you've seen the pictures had receded back several hundred yards he said we never seen anything like that he said and so my eight friends thought it was the strangest thing so they just went walking out on the ocean bed to see what was going on he said I felt like something was not right so I got on my motorcycle and I drove back to my parents house because I wanted to check on them he said that's the last we heard from any of those eight friends he said I sometimes wonder what it was like for them as they got out there and then suddenly they see a 70-foot high wall of water that is coming that not only killed them but would destroy 180,000 people in our country you see the cross and resurrection of Jesus are like the receding of that water the cross and resurrection show you that God is indeed in charge that God is the judge and that God will one day return and God has given you a space to repent do not use this moment to treat it like a curiosity where you say well I'll get to this when there's time it assures you that it is coming that God's judgment is coming and he's giving you right now a space to repent don't confuse his patience with his absence God may not be as obvious right now but God is every bit as present and God is working history and he commands you to repent you are listening to Summit Life with J.D. Greer you can always find more resources online free of charge by visiting jdgreer.com we'll return to our teaching in just a moment you know our mission here at Summit Life is very simple to help people dive deeper into the gospel message every day and then once they've embraced it to then spread it far and wide into the world deep and wide just remember those two words you can join us in that mission today with a one-time gift or by joining with us as a monthly gospel partner gospel partners are an integral part of our team helping us boldly proclaim the gospel through our radio and tv ministry as well as our online and print resources they commit to a regular ongoing monthly gift which helps immensely as we seek the Lord's direction for the future and plan accordingly if you sign up today as a monthly gospel partner for the first time we'd like to send you a special welcome gift as well it's Pastor JD's book titled gospel you can become a partner today when you make your first ongoing monthly donation at jdgreer.com or by giving us a call at 866-335-5220 thanks for joining with us to be ambassadors of the good news in a world with great needs now let's finish up today's teaching once again here's Pastor JD here is number two the second thing we learn from this story is that the problem is not out there our problem is in here you see this story is the first one in judges where the actual oppression comes not from outside of Israel the oppression comes from within them it's one of their own people the son of one of their greatest leaders that is the oppressor this time and so finally in the book of judges it is made clear that foreign nations are not Israel's problem Israel is Israel's problem as I've told you that's always kind of been the case but now you see it clearly in fact think about this there's really no special outpouring of judgment in this story is there God just allows Israel to experience the results of their own sinful choices it is Gideon's self-centeredness and glory lust that produces a son who murders his brothers so that he can be king it is Shechem's disregard for God's commands and their self-interest that lead them to selecting an opportunistic man like Abimelech who will betray them it is Abimelech's treachery and backstabbing that lead to his downfall what is it showing you listen sin is its own curse it's not that God curses your family because of your sin you curse your family because of your sin C.S. Lewis said to those people who object to the idea of God's judgment oh I don't like God's judgment it makes God mean Lewis said said in the long run the answer to all those who object to God's judgment is a question what are you asking God to do are you asking God to wipe out people's past sins and to give them a fresh start are you asking him to offer miraculous help in their new life that is exactly what he's done to the cross are you asking him to forgive them they refuse to be forgiven are you asking him to leave them alone alas that is what I'm afraid he does in the end you see there are only two kinds of people those who say to God thy will be done and those to whom God says thy will be done sin is its own curse Israel is its own problem you wonder why doesn't God take everyone into heaven look at what this race of people have done to the earth God doesn't want heaven to become hell and he knows if he just takes us there the way that we are we will turn heaven into hell which leads me to number three we need a new king we need a better judge like the Israelites we come to God thinking we primarily need him to deliver us from some bad thing the Midianites of pain or broken relationships or a lack of money we need him to give us a new marriage or to fix our family and we might need those things but see that's not what we most need what we most need is freedom from our own heart because we are our own curse thus any salvation that fails to deal with the human heart is not a real or sufficient salvation think about it what if God cured all of the prayers of the human race what if he answered them all in kind of one fell swoop and gave us everything that we as a race have asked for what if we had prosperity do infinite amounts of money make people virtuous I saw a study that showed that drivers of luxury cars are less likely to stop for pedestrians at a crosswalk those people in higher brackets of wealth and education are four times more likely to cheat at a card game when any money is at stake so no money does not make people virtuous in fact it usually perverts virtue what if we were all educated would that take away evil Stalin and Lenin were the most well-educated men of their generation so they didn't keep them from being two of the most evil murdering men that have ever walked the face of the earth what if we were all perfectly governed would good government guarantee goodness in people one of the best answers to that came from Alexander Solzhenitsyn who was imprisoned under Stalin Stalin thought that good government would make everybody virtuous if we made everybody equal well Solzhenitsyn and 20 million other dead Russians said that's not true then Solzhenitsyn who wrote the most remarkable thing in the gulag in the prison he said I entered into the gulag thinking that the communists were the problem if we could ever shake off communism then everybody would be okay if we could get back to democracy he said we always thought evil was somebody else listen to this if only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds then we could separate them from the rest of us and destroy them but the line dividing good and evil cuts to the heart of every human being who is willing to destroy his own hearts you see we always think the evil is the communists no the evil is the capitalists the evil are the republicans all know the evil are the democrats the evil are uneducated people no the evil is on wall street and god says no the evil is you the human heart has to be changed your heart needs to be changed which means that we need a savior who can deliver us not only from the curse around us curse within us we don't just need a savior to fix our situation we need a savior who can fix us we need a king who would not only rule with love and justice we need a king who can make us more like him and that's why all these stories point us through their messiness and their disappointments and their failures to the ultimate king who would come the lord Jesus you see Jesus in many ways would be the opposite of Gideon unlike Gideon Jesus had every right to demand service as a king and unlike Gideon he rightfully could wear the ephod because he was himself the tabernacle of God's presence on earth but unlike Gideon Jesus successfully resisted the temptation to rule over the nations when God had not appointed it so Jesus in the temptation said no to Satan and until the very end of Jesus life Jesus maintained that he did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many Jesus did not take our treasures to make a garment of gold for himself Jesus poured out his blood to clothe us in his righteousness and give us a seat at his table forever Jesus was definitely the opposite of Abimelech unlike the trees of the forest who were too self-interested to rule Jesus was more than willing to be our shepherd but when we chopped him down and killed him he didn't burn us to the ground in his anger he willingly took the fire of God's judgment for us and to himself in love so that we could be saved the millstone of God's judgment was dropped on his head not ours so that we could live he is the true king that we seek in every reform you think salvation comes from a better situation God says salvation comes from being embraced by the savior for whom you were created you think that if God would fix your marriage that he would fix you God says nope I gotta fix you before I fix your marriage you don't need a better situation you need to have your heart changed the problem is not this way the problem is between you and me and if you will come to understand Jesus as the king for who you have been seeking then he will change your heart so that you become like him which leads me to the conclusion of this whole thing you get introduced to the next generation of judges and all it says is this watch this chapter 10 verse 1 after Abimelech there arose to save Israel tola who was the son of pua the son of dodo which those are really tough names tola lived at shamir in the hill country of ephraim he judged israel 23 years then he died after him arose gyre the gileadite who judged israel 22 years and he said well what possibly could we learn that's just a bunch of details no it's it's what's not said that you should learn from two things are not said there number one there's no mention of who the israelites need to be delivered from you want to know why they don't even mention the enemies anymore because the enemy is not the foreign nations the enemy is them the judge needs to deliver them from the curse here the judge needs to deliver them from the curse here not the curse there the second thing that's not mentioned watch this do you see any reference in there to them crying out to god for help no they're not even crying out to god anymore yet god keeps saving them over and over in the book of judges you are confronted with the fact that it's not that israel is getting themselves into a shape where god then feels like he's going to come after them it's that god seeks them when they're not seeking him that god is chasing them he is pursuing them when they're running as hard as they can the other direction and what that teaches you is something that's probably the most important thing for you to learn in the book of judges is that god is not waiting on you to get yourself in a shape before he comes to you god's like a father who's seeking you god came to you romans 5a while you were a sinner while you were as far and as hard as you could the other way god was coming after you and he was saying to you come back come back i can tell you this weekend that if you're sitting here listening to me that in itself is evidence that god has been pursuing you you're like the people in the book of judges you keep wondering and god's not like get yourself together and cut he's god's like i'm here i've turned my face towards you i i pointed this out a couple weeks ago another place in judges where this was taught it was in the first part of the story of gideon you remember this i pointed out that when when israel had wandered from god god sent a prophet who told them about their sin and as we come to the end of the prophet's sermon we are expecting israel to respond in repentance but i showed you that before israel responds god starts raising up gideon god starts working salvation before they ever say i'm sorry there you see it it's that god is coming to us before we are even interested in him he is seeking us like a father seeks a lost son or daughter that night at dinner um i asked my family my two older daughters sit through the service and i asked them i said uh so what'd you get out of the sermon and my second daughter um allie uh she said dad i thought of something while you're preaching i said okay what is it she said you know that show that we like to watch the voice i said yeah uh she said okay um she says here's what i was thinking you know that point that you made about how god comes after us when we're not even searching for him i said yeah she said so what i thought about was on the voice you know how like when you're singing the judges have their backs turned to you but if they like your singing then they turn around their seat and it says i want you in big letters across the bottom i said yeah she said it's like it's like god turns his chair toward us before we ever even start singing now when she was telling me that i kept thinking like she was going to say as a result of our pretty singing and i was gonna have to correct her and then she said that i was like no you pretty much got it that's the gospel the gospel is that you were dead in your trespasses and sins it is because god has been pursuing you that you're here it is because god has turned his chair toward you and the judge has become savior that's the most important thing for you to learn in judges is that god has pursued you and god wants to bring you back to himself without god's help and his work on the cross we are completely lost in our sin thankfully our savior is available and ready for us right now we just need to ask this is summit life with pastor jd greer okay jd we know the whole bible is the inspired word of god but can you tell me again why exactly did you choose to make a bible study and a teaching series from the book of judges of all places yeah you know judges is one of those really enigmatic books that i'd be honest with you a few times i would hit in my bible reading thing i'm not sure what to do with a lot of this stuff but when you really learn kind of the some of the interpretive keys you kind of start to see that there's this kind of beautiful artwork being woven together you know so anyway when you get to a bible book like this and you see some things that are daunting a lot of times that's an invitation for you to see the real depth and beauty of it so that's what we're trying to do is give you some tools that will help you go deeper i mean yeah you can get a commentary and a study bible but but we're just doing these that will go along with the thrust of the messages in a way that will help you apply it some of that beauty to your life and then also share it with your kids or your neighbors whoever good yeah you know as as we do with a lot of things now um molly um we want our audience to know our listeners know that the bible study um we're making it digital so that you can share it like easily with your small group that's how it's formatted your sunday school class neighbor family member kid you know family devotions whatever so anyway take a look now at jdware.com when you partner with us financially you'll be sharing the life-changing truth of god's word in your community and across the us even the world the broken savior's bible study is yours when you give right now to support this ministry call 866-335-5220 that's 866-335-5220 or give online and request your copy at jdgrier.com i'm molly vidovich inviting you to join us again tomorrow for wait for it hot dogs wondering what that's all about well find out thursday on summit life today's program was produced and sponsored by jd career ministries you