When the Good Goes Bad

Today on Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. Christians most often pass the test of adversity. It is the test of prosperity that we fail. 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. Welcome to Summit Life with Pastor J.D.

Greer. As always, I'm your host, Molly Vidovitch. Today's teaching is something that's going to hit home for many of us, I think. You see, being successful can sometimes be dangerous.

Once we've scored a few victories and our leadership produces a bit of notoriety and fame, we're tempted to give ourselves far more credit than we've ever done. Well, today Pastor J.D. shows us that even our biblical heroes fell into this same trap. As we trace the footsteps of Gideon, we'll discover how this successful warrior began to get puffed up and proud.

That sounds like a recipe for disaster, doesn't it? Now, if you've missed any of the previous messages in this series, remember you can always find them free of charge at jdgreer.com. Today Pastor J.D. titled his message, When the Good Goes Bad.

If you have a Bible, I'd invite you to open it to Judges 8. I think one of the worst experiences in life has to be when you take a big swig of milk only to find that it has gone bad. It happened to me not too long ago. I actually felt the lumps of the curdles before I tasted the taste. It is one of the scariest moments to me is when you are, you know, when the date is just a couple of days past and you are bringing it to your nose to smell if it's gone bad because, I mean, you don't want to throw it out because milk's expensive.

And so as you're, it's right before it gets up there to your nose, it's like that moment right before you get, they take blood. It's like, I know it's not going to be that bad, but just please get it over with because I just hate this. But anyway, we are going to look at a good leader this weekend who turns sour, who spoils. He never becomes an evil man per se. He just goes bad. He spoils and he's going to end up ruining his ministry.

He's going to end up ruining the people that follow him and he's going to spoil his kids in the process. We're going to see today three generations of judges that come off of the spoiling of Gideon. So here we go. We're going to do it part one, part two, and part three. Here's part one, Gideon turns sour.

That's chapter eight. 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.

With only 300 soldiers, he had defeated a massive Midianite army of probably, scholars say, about 100,000 Midianite soldiers without even a single casualty on Gideon's side. You picture this scene of them carrying around Gideon on their shoulders and opening champagne bottles and chanting, go biscuits, go biscuits. But when he gets back to Israel, as often happens after a great victory, Israel is backbiting and bickering with each other, arguing about who should have gotten credit and who got snubbed and all that kind of stuff. So the next chapter opens up with Gideon in conflict with two different clusters of Israelites.

The first cluster is Ephraim, which is a large, wealthy tribe in Israel. They seem really to have had their pride hurt because they got left out. Gideon only took 300 soldiers, and a lot of people weren't represented. Ephraim had their feelings hurt because they were the biggest, baddest, most important tribe in Israel, and they weren't represented, so they weren't miffed. The second group is a couple of smaller townships called Sukkoth, but they just refused to help Gideon because they just don't take Gideon that seriously.

They don't really think of him with that much gravitas. When you look at it, really the offenses of Ephraim and thou, Sukkoth, and Penuel are actually pretty similar. They're both snubbing Gideon as a leader, but what is striking is how differently Gideon responds to each. To large, wealthy Ephraim, Gideon responds with flattery.

He tries to woo them back over because they're rich. To the smaller towns of Sukkoth and Penuel, however, Gideon responds with harshness. He actually goes so far as to torture the leaders of Sukkoth by wrapping them in briars and beating them, and he just levels the town of Penuel and kills all of its inhabitants.

His responses are inconsistent. They really seem based more on what is best for Gideon than really an ascertaining of what God wants in the situation. You see, Gideon needed the tribe of Ephraim because they were wealthy and because he knew he couldn't beat them anyway, so he flattered them to get them back on his side.

But Sukkoth and Penuel, they're small and insignificant, and they're weaker than he is, so he just wiped them out. Maybe the biggest point here is that in neither case did he consult God to ask what God wanted. Gideon simply did what Gideon felt like doing because Gideon had the power to do it, so now it's about what he does. What you're seeing is that something is happening in Gideon's heart. Fresh off this incredible victory over the Midianites, Gideon has already forgotten, it seems, whose battle it was to begin with.

Gideon has assumed that it was his strength that accomplished this, and his heart has turned inward, and it has begun to spoil. You see, Gideon used to say, success is just joining Jesus wherever he is. Now, Gideon says, success is me doing whatever I want to do. Gideon used to say, I am so desperate for you that I can't go anywhere without you, Jesus, because it's your power, not mine. Now, Gideon says, I'm a man of power, and I can do what I want to do. Verse 22, then the men of Israel said to Gideon, rule over us, you and your son and your grandson also, because you have saved us from the hand of Midian. But Gideon said back to them, I will not rule over you, and my son 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.

So, so far, so good, but jump down to verse 30. Now, Gideon had 70 sons, his own offspring, for Gideon had many wives. Gideon has a harem and 70 sons, which is pretty king-like, because only kings in those days had a wife pool like that. 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? 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 foil. 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. An ephod was the vest that was worn by the high priest into the presence of God when the high priest went in to make requests on behalf of the people.

God had given very specific instructions that it was only to be worn by the tribe of Levi and only at the tabernacle. Gideon has now created his own version of that. 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. What has happened to Gideon? Well, it seems that his victory has given Gideon a taste for glory, and that glory leads him to blasphemy, and instead of being a blessing to Israel, the deliverer of Israel, he has become a curse to them.

He has become a stumbling block that keeps them from having faith in God rather than leading them to faith in God. You see, with Gideon, we see something that we have yet to see in the book of Judges. The people fall away from God while the judge is reigning, not after. You see, in every other case, the people fell away after the judge died. Gideon's generation fell away while Gideon was in power and because of how Gideon used his power. You see, from Gideon's life, you're going to see some clear indicators that you have begun to make it all about you. It never happens all at once.

It just starts to happen. By the way, I'm going to list those out for you. These kind of apply more to those of us that are in leadership. Usually, I stand up here and I yell at you. You want to sit there and listen to me yell at me for a while. So, JD's going to preach to JD.

You just get to listen. Here are the signs that it's become all about you. Number one, infrequent prayer. Whenever it becomes about you, prayer becomes infrequent. Gideon, at the beginning, didn't have to be told to pray to God. He was desperate for God. So, he would no sooner have gone anywhere without asking God what he wanted than he would have done it. There are many of us who are leaders who pray as a discipline.

We're just type A and alpha. We get up every morning and we do our time with God. It includes a prayer time. Prayer as a discipline is great. Prayer as desperation is better. Because when you really understand your dependence on God, you don't need to be disciplined to pray.

You do it. I describe it like breathing. The least disciplined person in here does not need to be reminded to breathe. Nobody has to call you and say, Hey, just want to check in on you, man, and hold you accountable. Are you breathing today? Nobody has to have that happen.

Why? Because your body craves air. When you understand how dependent you are on God, nobody's got to discipline you to be able to pray. You just do it because it's instinctive and you could not do it.

One of the signs that you have begun to make it all about you and operate in your power is prayer becomes more of a discipline for you than it does desperation. Here's the second thing that happens. A failure to consult others. Not only does Gideon fail to consult God, he doesn't really consult with anybody.

I've seen this so many times where you get a leader that begins to get successful, and all of a sudden he's on a different plane now. He doesn't really need to listen to anybody. He kind of thinks higher than everybody else.

He's an island. He doesn't need to humbly listen to other people. He's the one that always knows best. I have seen this more times than I can tell you, and it always destroys. Proverbs 18, 1. It is begun to become about you when you quit humbly listening to people as if you are wise and God is not even able to speak to you through other people and you just quit listening. Here's number three, when you begin to have resentment in your heart.

Number three, resentment. When it's all about you, you resent those who get in your way. You become harsh and cruel to those who challenge you. You fly off the handle of people. You lose your temper. You can't forgive people who challenge or obstruct you. You can't forgive people who challenge or obstruct you because that's an insult to you and your leadership, except for the rich people, by the way, like Gideon. You've got to flatter them.

You've got to keep them on your side because you need them. Number four, materialistic excess is a sign. Gideon takes people's jewelry and makes a suit of gold for himself. You all know I'm not a poverty guy. God is a generous God. God gives us things he wants us to enjoy, but you can see a sign of a Christian leader that has made it all about himself when he or she begins to live excessively, on a different plane than everybody else. And so what they drive and what they wear and how they vacation is just something so far above people because now they are taking from people and they said, it's all about me.

I'm the one who deserves the treasure. You are listening to Summit Life with Pastor J.D. Greer. To learn more about this ministry, including how to partner with us financially, visit jdgreer.com. Did you know that Summit Life is featured on radio stations all over the country and even overseas? We love hearing from listeners around the world and we'd love to hear from you. Has this program impacted your life? Has Summit Life become a trusted source of spiritual encouragement for you? Do you have a story of how God has used this program in your walk with him? Can I boldly ask you to share it with us? You can call us at 866-335-5220 and follow the prompts to leave us a voice message or visit jdgreer.com to record a message right from your phone or computer.

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Thanks for your support and your story. Now let's return to our teaching. Once again, here's Pastor JD. Number five, constant worrying about your name. When it's all about you, you're always guarding your reputation.

Any chance you have to put your name forward, you're going to do it. That's why you can't handle criticism. That's why you crave praise and you need constant affirmation because this is about the exaltation of your name. Those are signs that it has become about you. And maybe you were a great leader and maybe you led God's people to do such great things, but at the end, you use that success to substitute yourself for God. You make an ephod so that people begin to look at you and give you the attention. God gave you that success not to turn their attention to you. God gave you that success simply so that you could point people to Jesus. In fact, the Bible describes it like a wedding.

And you think about this. I mean, the wedding, this is the bride. You are the bride of Christ.

As a servant of the church, that's all that I am as a servant. A servant is never to take the attention off of the bride. It is between the groom and the bride.

And the best thing I can do is stay invisible as much as I can. I've used this with you before, but you've been to a wedding and you know that moment, the greatest moment of the wedding is when those back doors open and there she stands in all her resplendent glory, the bride who's going to walk down the aisle to that groom. At that moment, every eye turns and looks at that bride. But as they're watching her walk down, everybody kind of starts cutting eyes between the bride and the groom because they want to see if he gets a tear. Because if he gets a tear, that's a sign the wedding's going to be awesome. Or the marriage is going to be awesome.

Like, is it going to happen? Now, I told you, imagine in that moment, you've got the best man who's standing right here beside the groom. Imagine that as she's walking down and their eyes are locked, he kind of leans over around the groom and he starts making eyes at her. And he starts, you know, making kissy face with her or whatever, I don't know, however he's going to flirt with her. And he's trying to steal her attention away from the groom onto himself. I've asked you, what would the groom do if he saw that? Well, he's going to turn around and punch the best man in the throat. Why?

Right? Because the best man traditionally, all his role is, is to make sure the wedding happens, to make sure the bride gets to the groom safely. Now he is using his position to steal her attention away from him onto himself. What a horrible offense that would be. What a horrible offense it is to God if I take you, his bride, and instead of knitting your heart in affection to Jesus Christ, I jump in the way and put on the ephod and say, you ought to pay attention to me too. What a horrible offense to God.

What a disservice to you. And God help me, God help your leaders, that at no point if God gives us success, should we ever stand in the way or ever try to direct your attention to us, because you need to be in love with Jesus Christ, not us. So I will tell you what I said last week. This is what happens to Gideon. Gideon's success lets him, makes him stand in the place of God. Christians most often pass the test of adversity. Gideon passed it.

It is the test of prosperity that we fail. 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. Let me give this to you one other way, one that may be even more applicable to you. Proverbs chapter 30, verse five. This verse has always haunted me.

Listen to this. Give me neither poverty nor riches. Give me only my daily bread. Otherwise I may have too much and disown you and say, who is the Lord, or I'll become poor and steal and so dishonor the name of my God.

You see what he's asking? God, don't make me poor, because if I'm poor, then I might be tempted to steal. But if you make me rich, I'll probably forget who you are altogether, and I'll just say, you know, who is the Lord? I don't really need him. Give me just enough for today so that I am dependent on you and not on how much money I have.

Now, how do you apply that? Does that mean it's wrong for Christians to have savings accounts? Is it wrong to be rich?

Not at all. God is showing you something about your heart. It means that when God does prosper you, you have to plead with God. God, do not let these things that you've given me take my heart away from you. God, I want to be as dependent on you as I was when I had nothing.

The other thing you should do, by the way, is give away extravagant amounts of it, because there is nothing that will cure the love and trust of money like giving it away. Do not take the success that God gives you. Don't take his blessings and let it spoil you. Gideon is going to do great things, but at the end he's going to lose his relationship with God.

He's going to spoil Israel, and then his children are going to spoil after him. 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, and I remember him, he was the son that Gideon named. My dad is king, y'all. 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 9, 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 as shechem, king.

This was a terrible scandal. First of all, as I told you, Israel was not supposed to have a king. God was supposed to be their king. Second, when they do choose a king, they choose a brother murdering scoundrel to be their first king, and to top it all off, this all goes down at shechem, which was a holy place for the Jews, because it was the birthplace of their nation.

It was the place where God had given the covenant to Abraham, and where God renewed it with Joshua. 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 in 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 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. The 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. 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. Now, in that parable, listen to this, there is an implicit criticism of Gideon's other sons, because evidently there were a bunch of them that would have been qualified to lead Israel, but they were too self-interested to go away from their life of ease to get involved in leading Israel.

Where do you think they learned that from? They learned that from Gideon, who used his power to serve himself, and now they don't want to be bothered with leading others because they're too rich. Jotham's main critique is of Israel's leaders for anointing an obviously worthless, self-interested, opportunistic politician to lead them. 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. Judges chapter nine records a dizzying amount of scandal and sabotage and mass murder during Abimelech's reign. 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, which was a kitchen appliance used to grind flour, and she drops it out of the top window, and it lands on Abimelech's head. It doesn't quite kill him, but it smashes him up pretty bad. 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 nine, 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. If you're reading the book of Judges, you'll notice that when you get to chapter nine, God's name is noticeably absent. In fact, his covenant name is not used at all between the end of chapter eight and halfway through chapter 10, but the narrator of Judges shows us in chapter nine, verses 56 and 57, which we just read, that God has been at work the whole time, even though he appears to be absent, he's actually been like the invisible hand in the glove using sinful men as his instruments, who have no idea that they're being used by God at all, and what he is showing you is that it may seem for a while like evil is in charge, but stories like this one show you that in the end, God will indeed have the last word, perfect justice will be served, and God's purposes will be fully accomplished. I have heard it said this way, the ideals of God's justice grind slowly, but they grind finally. In subtle and scandalous ways, we often try to appoint ourselves as king. We pretend to know much more than the living God and just like Abimelech, we want to be in charge of our destiny, but God's judgment will catch up with those who ignore his plan.

You're listening to Summit Life. Okay, so J.D., we've been in this study for a while now, but remind us again, what do you hope people will take away from our time in the book of Judges? My hope is that people walk away from this study with a deeper understanding of God's mercy because that's the heartbeat of Judges, and of course it's what we do here at Summit Life all the time. We're trying to take people deeper into the gospel. Things in the Old Testament or the New Testament, frankly, are not written to give you a hero that you can worship as much as it is a savior that you can hope in and adore. So anyway, you're going to see in Judges things that inspire you, and it's hard not to read the story of Gideon or Deborah or Samson and think, man, there's just a lot of there I'd love to be true in my own life.

But then you're also going to see some points of idolatry and some questions. You're going to hear the stories, your own stories of people who've let you down, maybe hurt you badly, or where you've let down and disappointed others. I always say the person who has disappointed J.D. Greer the most is J.D.

Greer. So you're going to see that, that that's true, and there's a hope that is beyond all that, and that hope is in Jesus. So anyway, I actually think this will spark conversations in small groups and families. And anyway, I hope you'll take a look at jdgreer.com. We'd love to send you our companion eight-part digital Bible study called Broken Saviors. Call 866-335-5220. That's 866-335-5220.

Or give online at jdgreer.com. I'm Molly Vidovitch inviting you to listen again Wednesday when Pastor J.D. Greer shares the conclusion to today's message about Gideon. See you tomorrow for Summit Life. Today's program was produced and sponsored by JD Greer Ministries.