God's Faithfulness (Gideon) 3

I want to take the opportunity this morning now to thank Brian and the Davis family for his service. Our world is too full of bad examples of leadership, of leaders who do not leave well. Our own denomination's news is full of it right now. And so it's a very encouraging opportunity to actually look to a man who has led and is still faithful. Brian joined the church in 1998, that's 20 years ago. For most of you, or some of you, you're thinking, well, that's not too long ago, I've been here for 50 years, but for most of us, that's like a lifetime. For 10 plus years, Brian served in various capacities as one of the leaders of the church. As a deacon, when we did not have elders, Then he was a deacon during a very difficult time when a pastor had to leave under difficult circumstances. And from everything I can tell, I wasn't here. He led through that transition well. Then he was on the search committee that brought me on to be a pastor. Then on his year off, he served on the Constitution Committee as the chair, which took as much time as being a deacon. And then after we voted in the new constitution, he was one of the first elders, and he's recently just rotated off after five years of faithful service as an elder. Having served with Brian since I've been here closely, I think one of the things that marks Brian is a love for the word. He has a strong commitment to God's word. He believes what God has said is true, and he believes it is sufficient and authoritative. I am a big picture thinker, I'm an eager, zealous, let's do this, what can we do? And Brian is, let's think through how to do that and what it'll cost us. So it took me some time to appreciate that about Brian. But he's diligent, he's careful. He wants to see a church grow in Christ. And so it's very encouraging. A lot of the younger members, you've come and I hear the testimony you say of how the church is committed to the word and the gospel and you see things going on. It's because men like Brian stuck it out. He put his plow in the ground and he didn't pull it out so that this church would remain faithful to the word of God. The fruit we get to bear right now is in due part to other men, but to Brian for 20 years. So what you see in God doing now through Brian still, but it's because of a long, long season of faithfulness and commitment. So thank you, brother. Louise, Amanda, Noah, thank you for the sacrifice you've made. I feel the burden of having to apologize that we as members of Jefferson Park have been rascals that have caused a great amount of burden on Brian and you. Forgive us for not being as obedient as we ought to be to make the service that he gave to us more enjoyable and less stressful. But I also want to encourage you to look to that sin and recognize that he serves and we serve a great savior. Rejoice in Christ. Brian, your father and your husband has been a faithful under-shepherd who has committed himself to the noble task of leading a church. Thank you. As we turn from Brian, and I wanted to use that as a clear example of a faithful, self-sacrificing leader, we're going to learn and look to Abimelech, who is the opposite of that. We're looking, you've heard the story read by Hannah. This morning we're finishing the first half of Judges. We're gonna take a break in the middle and focus on Jesus and the I Am sayings. There's a little blue card. Take that, put it in your Bible. Read those beforehand because we're skipping around in the Gospel of John a little bit. Today we're looking at Gideon, and this is really the ending of Gideon. We're looking at Abimelech. This is really the ending of Gideon's story. Abimelech isn't really the same kind of character we've had. He's not a judge. Israel needs to be delivered from him. So this morning we're looking at Abimelech. He's the son of a judge. He's really the villain. And it's really interesting how God brings about his justice here. If you're looking for that one line, what are we looking to study this morning is this one truth, God is good and he conquers evil. That's the one clear truth. God is good and conquers evil. And if you want to look for the application of that, live with hope. Live with hope, because God is good, and He conquers evil. I just want to walk through the story, so I'm going to be giving headings as we walk through the story to try to give it some structure. The first little section here, we're going to go back to chapter 8, verse 29. And this is really the setup for Abimelech. We've had Gideon, who was called by God, He's a bit of a, looks like a coward, even though he's called a mighty man of valor, because God is with him. He has a victory, then he leads Israel to whore after the ephod, and to not make him a king, but to treat him like one. And then chapter eight, verse 29, Drubabel, that's Gideon, his name changed because he contended with Baal. The son of Joash went and lived in his house, Now Gideon had 70 sons, his own offspring, for he had many wives. And his concubine, who was in Shechem, also bore him a son, and he called his name Abimelech. And Gideon, the son of Joash, died at a good old age and was buried in the tomb of Joash, his father at Ophira of the Ebersites. As soon as Gideon died, the people of Israel turned again and whored after the Baals and made Baal-barith, their god. And the people of Israel did not remember the Lord, their god, who had delivered them from the hands of their enemies on every side. And they did not show steadfast love to the family of Drubal, that is Gideon, in return for all the good that he had done to Israel. So to give us some important background, it's really setting up this next transition. He had 70 sons. One is named Abimelech. Abimelech is literally my father is king. Now this is kind of confusing. Gideon refused to receive the honor of king, but yet names his son my father is king. Okay, it's a boasting kind of name. Kind of like my name is my dad will beat up your dad. It's also important Abimelech is the son of a concubine, not one of the wives. He is a son of Shechem. His mother being a woman of Shechem, not Israel. Shechem is a key city. It's a very important city throughout the Bible. Abraham's sacrifice to the Lord there in Genesis 12 Levi and Simeon they go in and they convince the whole city to be circumcised to pretend to be making a covenant with them so that they can murder all the men because of the rape of their sister in Genesis 34 Joshua rallies the people of Israel there in Joshua 24 and declares to them choose this day whom you will serve very important northern city politically and powerful, but it's also been a very important city in the Bible. Gideon dies and he's given a hero's death kind of here. It's a good old age. He was blessed in many ways. He died. He was old. He lived a full life. And then we see he had a son, Abimelech. He stands out. And then we have 33. It looks like we're gonna start a new cycle here, right? The people of Israel, they return to their ways. They again go after and whore after the Baals. The reason that language keeps coming up, the whoring language, is because God has committed Himself to be the covenant God. He is the faithful husband of His people. He has cared for them. He provides for them. He protects them. They remain unfaithful. They continue to go out and play the harlot. They continue to go out and want an open relationship so that they can go after any other God that pleases them. They committed specifically to Baal-Berith. Berith is the word for covenant. They did not remember the Lord their God. They have short memories. They've already forgotten the one God who's delivered them, and they even have forgotten Gideon. They did not consider how to care for him and his family. That sets the stage significantly. Now I want you to notice here that we typically go from verse 34, or 35 of chapter eight, and all the other cycles, or other times this has been introduced, it'll go straight to, and then God raised up an oppressor, and that man oppressed Israel for so many years, then Israel cried out. That's not what happens. This isn't a typical cycle. This is odd. This is a different kind of story. Israel whores after gods, and then he lets this king from within rise up and exercise great cruelty. We do not see the regular cycle, but we see a great setup. What is going to become of the Sebimelech? So we see the return to idolatry. The next stage of the story, our heading, the rise of a cruel king. That's chapter nine, verses one to six. The rise of a cruel king. Now Abimelech, the son of Jeroboam, went to Shechem to his mother's relatives and 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 70 of the sons of Druval would rule over you, or the one rule over you. Remember also that I am your bone and your flesh. Abimelech is cunning. He's strategic. He's really making it clear, I want you to choose sides. I want my mother's side to fight against my father's side. He's creating an old family battle by the way he's putting this in the ears. And then his relatives go and say, yes, this is good. Let's have this young man, let's make him king and not those other men king, because they would all have a claim to the throne. So his mother's relatives spoke all these words on his behalf in the ears of the leaders. And their hearts inclined to follow Abimelech. They said, he is our brother. You see, he was convincing. I'm one of you, I'll take care of you if you make me king. And they gave him 70 pieces of silver out of the house of Baal-barith, with which Abimelech hired worthless and reckless men. I wanna be careful in talking about human beings, made in the image of God as worthless. The Hebrew word here means light. They lack ballast, they lack weight, they lack any kind of a glory, they lack anything you would esteem. God designed them with great worth, but they have chosen a way of life with light. Who followed him, he attracted men like him. And he's paying them, they're mercenaries. Verse five, and he went to his father's house at Ophrah. His own brothers. 70 of them on one stone. I don't know if this means it looks like they're all lined up so they all have to watch it. It looks gruesome, it's terrifying what kind of evil this man is capable of. He's going to go and kill his own brothers. All but one. Jotham, the youngest son. He was hiding, and then verse eight, or verse six rather, sorry, and all the leaders of Shechem came together, and all, Beth Milo, and they went and made Abimelech king. He's gone and he's put the word in their ear. You want me to be your king? Now those other 70 guys, they pay him money, he hires mercenaries, he murders his own brothers so that they cannot claim to be king. And because of this great victory, they make him king. Our next heading, our next section, warning about a cruel king. Jotham appears. If you're taking notes, the third point, warning of the cruel king. Jotham, the youngest brother, he escapes and he comes and he's going to give a parable, a fable, sorry. A fable is a story that captures a real moral lesson. A popular fable, the ant and the grasshopper. It's summertime and the ant is laboring to gather food for the winter and the grasshopper, he's kicking it by the pool, he's having a good time, and he's making fun of the ant for all the hard work he's doing. And then come winter, the grasshopper comes and knocks on the ant's door and says, I'm starving, can you please help me? And the ant says, sorry. I worked for this. Go out in the cold and die. That's pretty harsh, but it's teaching you a lesson. If you play when you should work, you're going to die. Here we see a real lesson being presented in a very interesting way with trees and vines. It never says Jotham is a prophet, but the way this story here presents him and the way it ends, he is clearly speaking the truth of God. And it even appears that he presents himself that way at some level. Listen to me, you leaders of Shechem, that God may listen to you. Maybe he's here referring to the time they're gonna cry out because of how evil Abimelech is. Notice he doesn't go to confront Abimelech, he goes and confronts the leaders of Shechem. Verse eight. The trees once went out to anoint a king over them. And they said to the olive tree, rain over us. But the olive tree said to them, shall I leave my abundance by which gods and men are honored and go hold sway over the trees? And the tree said to the fig tree, You come and reign over us. But the fig tree said, shall I leave my sweetness and my good fruit and go hold sway over the trees? And the tree said to the vine, you come and reign over us. But the vine said to them, shall I leave my wine that cheers God and men and go hold sway over the trees? And the tree said to the bramble, you come and reign over us. And the bramble said to the trees, If in good faith you're anointing me king, then come and take refuge in my shade, but if not, let fire come out of the branches and devour the cedars of Lebanon. Now the fable has, there's trees, and they're looking to anoint a king. So they first go to one of their own, another tree. They saw the olive tree, and will you come king? And he says, no, I produce. oil that says pleasing to the gods and men. I have a productive role in society that's very honorable. Why would I leave that to go hold sway over men? They go to the fig tree again. We see that no, I have fruit that's sweet. I have a productive role in society. I have an honoring. I have a role that is full of honor. Why would I leave that? Then they go to a vine. Not a tree. No, I produce wine. That makes God and men cheerful. I already have a job. And there's the first three options. They already have jobs. They're doing something that's productive for the rest of society. Therefore, they decline. We will not leave our work to go hold sway over the trees. So finally, all the trees go to the bramble. and reign over us. And to make sure we capture how odd this is, the bramble says, if you anoint me king in good faith, come and take refuge in my shade. Now just in case we're not really sure what the bramble is in a tree, the bramble is a thorny little vine that grows up on the outskirts of the tree line or wherever it can get some sunlight through the trees. It is in no way able to give a tree shade. The bramble is useless. It has no job in society. It has no production. It has nothing valuable. It's a thorny bush. If anything, it is only good to be burned up. And so here you see the trees, who are productive and good and doing good things, they're looking to the bramble because no one else would take the job. The bramble. The Bramble says, come and take refuge under my shade. Go home and try to find a little vine somewhere and pretend what it looked like to find shade there. It's ridiculous. The Bramble has nothing to offer. It's nothing but a nuisance. Actually, we could go back to Genesis three and see that this is probably a result of the curse. The thorny vine that just grows up and causes the gardener great frustration. Here are the trees, beautiful, powerful, fruitful trees, looking for shade from a bramble. We see there, the bramble says, if in good faith you're anointing me king over you, then come and take refuge in my shade, but if not, let fire come out of the bramble and devour the cedars of Lebanon. Here it's interesting that the cedars of Lebanon come up because those are considered royalty. The cities of Lebanon were used to build temples and palaces throughout scripture. Now, the fable's perfect. It captures that Shechem, the leaders of Shechem, they have connected themselves to Abimelech, who's a bramble. He's a worthless and reckless fellow. He's light. He has nothing. to offer that that's actually good. But in case they missed the point, in case they've not understood what's going on yet, he wants to take the sword of this fable and pierce it in and twist it to make sure they really get what's going on. Verse 16. Still that warning. Now therefore, if you acted in good faith and integrity when you made Abimelech king, and if you have dealt with Drubal and his house and have dealt with Sorry, I've lost my place. His offspring have done to him as his deeds deserve. For my father fought for you and risked his life and delivered you from the hand of Midian. And you have risen up against my father's house this day and have killed his sons, 70 men on one stone, and have made Abimelech, the son of his female servant, king over the leaders of Shechem because he is your relative. If you then have acted in good faith and integrity with his house this day, then rejoice in Abimelech and let him also rejoice in you. It's challenging them. Have you done this in good faith? Do you have integrity in this action? I'm obviously loading it up. You have forsaken Gideon and killed his sons because he's supposedly your relative. Verse 20, but if not, let fire come out from Abimelech and devour the leaders of Shechem and Beth-Melo, and let fire come out from the leaders of Shechem and from Beth-Melo and devour Abimelech. Let your own ruthlessness and ruthlessness devour each other. This is a curse now. And Jotham ran away and fled and went to Be'er and lived there because of Abimelech and his brothers. We see here a powerful fable a powerful curse. He's pointing out very clearly, how could you have done this? There is no integrity in your actions. Therefore, you will be cursed. There'll be vengeance. And then before we go on, I wanted to say there's three things we can actually look and learn from this fable. First, be careful about having ambition in prosperity. There's a warning about an ambition in prosperity. The trees and the vine that already have a good role and a good job, they don't take on something more. They understand their actual limits. Gideon was called by God and was reluctant, and God said, no, I'm with you. And finally he committed. Abimelech, he's his own initiator. He takes the initiative and he takes on his kingship. It's important to understand one's place in life and society. Not to strive beyond that. The book of Job is actually a warning against taking a position not fit for you. So be careful about ambition. Second, be careful to whom you commit yourself. Shechem is now guilty of the murder of 70 sons. Because they paid Abimelech to do it. And then they rejoiced over it because they made him king afterwards. As Paul will say, bad company corrupts good character. Here, they're actually guilty of this same sin, even. And then finally, be patient in adversity. As we see next, Abimelech reigned for three years. Jotham, he went, he warned them, he declared this judgment, and then three years' silence, waiting for the Lord to bring about the judgment that he declared. The next thing we see is the king's cruelty. Our fourth section, our fourth point, the king's cruelty. And this is where we start seeing it get fairly interesting. We have Abimelech who's killed his brothers. He's ruled over Israel for three years, verse 22. That's a short rule. Especially compared to Gideon who had a long life and a long rule. Look at verse 23. We see immediately God stepping in as the one who is perfectly sovereign over what's taking place. And God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the leaders of Shechem. And the leaders of Shechem dealt treacherously with Abimelech. So Jotham just said, Abimelech's fired of our Shechem, a Shechem's fired of our Abimelech, and now God has brought an evil spirit between the two to bring about the curse. God is perfectly sovereign here because he does not step back, he is not just a watcher of evil, he is a conqueror of evil. But he brings in an evil spirit. These two words are difficult to translate. We're not really sure what they mean because it could go from evil spirit to bad wind. Yeah, it could be a demon that God has said, you go and torment these men in this relationship. That's a possible interpretation. It's also possible he's just aggravating the relational friction that's already there because they're all ruthless and reckless and worthless men. Whatever's going on here, we see God proactively bringing about his will, which is a judgment, which is basically handing both of these parties over to their own sin, which will lead to them devouring each other. Look at verse 24. A purpose clause. God initiates the difficulty in the relationship, the dealing treacherously for a purpose. that the violence done to the 70 sons of Drubal might come, and their blood be laid on Abimelech their brother who killed them, and on the men of Shechem who strengthened his hand to kill his brothers. God has a purpose. It's justice. He's going to avenge this murder. He's going to deal with this evil. God is not silent. He is active with a purpose to bring justice. And then we see the following action. Because God has purposed it, because God has done it, And the leaders of Shechem put men in ambush against him on the mountain, and they robbed all who passed by along the way, and it was told to Abimelech. And so they're frustrating Abimelech. They're kind of being thorns in his side. There is a bit of an irony there. And then we see, ah, the son of Abed coming. And this is another kind of funny, interesting character. This is kind of a subplot here, verses 26 to 41. We see this kind of macho guy come in and he says, who is a Bimelech? Actually, they first go out and they get drunk together, so of course you're gonna boast a bigger game when you're inebriated. You kind of see a drunken boasting. Who is a Bimelech? Let him come out and we will fight. The leader Shechem, they don't like this. Zabul, there's some kind of still desire to have Abimelech rather than Gaal. So he goes and tells Abimelech. And then we see this kind of odd scene where Gaal goes out in the morning and Abimelech and his army, they're coming up from the mountains. And he says, what's going on in the mountains? And Zabul says, oh no, there's something wrong with your eyes. That's just a mountain shadow. Don't worry about it. And then they come closer and it's obvious it's Abimelech and his army. And Zabul says, Go out. You who said that you would defeat Bimelech. Verse 38. Where is your mouth now? You said, who is a Bimelech, that we should serve him. Are not these the people whom you despised? Go out now and fight them. And notice what happens next. The Bimelech runs them off. God has to flee after talking the big game in the bar. Then you see him right here to being told, where's your mouth now? Well, he flees. Abimelech wins. It doesn't feel right yet. This guy should stop winning. He's evil. Well, we see Abimelech, his cruelty increases on the following day that people Notice it doesn't say the leaders of Shechem, the people, the average citizen farmer. They got into the field, and Abimelech was told, and he took his people and divided them into three companies and set an ambush in the fields. And he took and saw the people coming out of the city, so he rose against them and killed them. Verse 44. Abimelech and the company was with him, rushed forward and through the entrance of the gate, while the company's rushed up all who were in the field and killed them. And Abimelech fought against the city all the day. He captured the city and killed the people who were in it. He razed the city, that's complete destruction, and poured salt on it. You put salt somewhere where you don't want anything to grow. It kills any opportunity for vegetation. No one puts salt in a garden. He is ruthless. He's now killing even citizens. We continue to see the cruelty of this king, verse 46 to 49. Then all the leaders go up into a tower. They're gathered there together. And so Abimelech takes brush, the bramble. Says, everybody, you grab it too. We're gonna put it down at the bottom of the tower. We're gonna burn them out. They killed them there in the tower. Our last heading, the cruel king killed. Verse 50. And Abimelech went to the next city, the Bez, and he camped against the Bez and captured it, but there was a strong tower within the city, and all the men and women and all the leaders fled to it, and they went up the roof of the tower, And Abimelech came to the tower and, hey, I've done this before, let's go get the bramble, let's go get the bush, and let's bring it over here to start a fire, we've done this before. Verse 53, and a certain woman threw an upper millstone on Abimelech's head and crushed his skull. Kind of an abrupt ending here. Couple questions. How strong is this woman? The upper millstone was a very large stone. The lower millstone was kind of a circle. You'd use the upper millstone to crush the grain. So how strong is she to carry this up to the top of the tower? Second, why would she be carrying the upper millstone which is completely useless without the lower millstone? That would be like you in the middle of a flood or some emergency grabbing your bowling ball because it's fun to carry something heavy on your way out of an emergency. It makes no sense unless God is active bringing about his judgment through this woman who was strong, grabs the upper millstone and at the right time drops it and crushes the skull of the villain. This is our second Jael. Maybe that's vicious. Jael takes the tent peg and takes it right to his skull. Here she just drops the millstone and watches it crush his skull. The language is exactly the same. And Abimelech, he's still somewhat conscious, he's still somewhat aware, at least there's a woman has dropped something that crushed him. Verse 54, draw your sword and kill me lest they say a woman killed him. There could be irony here in that his appeal to become a king to begin with was an appeal to a woman, his mother. I'm bone of your bone, my mother is one of you, make me your king, and now here it is, a woman, crushing him. And while he wants his legacy to go on as being killed by his own bear, no, we have God's Word that will forever leave this great irony. His head was crushed by a woman. However macho he wants to end his life, no, he was killed by a woman. Verse 56. Thus God returned the evil of Abimelech. He killed 70 brothers on one stone. He is killed with one stone. While we can rejoice for a moment that God brought the evil back on Abimelech, we have to also be terrified. Because God is just and powerful, and He always punishes all evil as it deserves. Thus, because God planned this, he sent Jotham to give the fable and the warning, he then sent the evil spirit to bring about this, and now we see his will is always accomplished, his will is good, and his will hates evil. Thus, God returned the evil. This is frightening because we have to realize that God will always judge all evil as it deserves. And if we understand ourselves at all in light of what God has said, we are evil. We've not worshiped God as He ought. Plain and simple, we could talk about lying and stealing and adultery and murder and hate and slander and gossip. We could talk about all these other sins, but the primary sin is we whore after other gods like Israel. We have not been honoring to the one God who has been faithful to us. God is always just. He always punishes sin. Now in other passages we've seen God be very merciful. We have to understand that every time God is merciful, every time when God does not see someone suffer the consequence of their own sin, it's because Jesus Christ suffered the consequence of that sin. Every sin is punished perfectly. Every sinner is not punished perfectly. If you're not a believer in Jesus Christ, you are going to have to stand before God, and you're going to have to see Him face to face, and there will be no questioning what kind of evil you've done. And there you will have your evil returned. But, You can believe in Jesus Christ. You can look to him who died and cried out, why have you forsaken me? And realize that at that moment, the father had sent his son and he was crushing him for all the evil of those who believe in him. So that every sin has been paid for, for those who believe in him. Every sin is punished. For those who believe in Jesus Christ, They see Christ. And they receive mercy rather than justice. You must believe in Him. God is just. If He's not just, He's not worthy of worship. If you're a believer, you need, you must believe in Him. If you're a believer, rejoice in Christ and trust Him. Two takeaways from our passage First, good news. Evil cannot win. Evil cannot win. God is the great victor and he is good and he will overcome evil. Abimelech reigned for only three years. God set it in motion that he would be overcome and he won. He interferes. We see here Evil doesn't win. This is good news because we live in a very evil world where evil looks like it's constantly winning. Be of good hope. God wins. One of the ramifications for this could be seen in Romans 12. Because God wins because he is risen because we know God will be the ultimate and final judge We can trust and obey what we hear the words of Christ Romans 12 verse 17 Repay no evil for evil but give thought to what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. The Lord says, vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. To the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink. For by doing so, you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Now, we could interpret the Ebelimek story as one where you should always be armed with some kind of weapon in case somebody does something to you, you can slash them in the head. That's a way to interpret the story. It's a really bad way to interpret the story. The way we interpret the story according to God's word is to realize that God has his vengeance. God is the one who will bring about judgment, and if we look to the ethic of Jesus, we are not the tools of God's vengeance. Please, do not consider yourself a tool of God's vengeance. Let God do what God does. To the contrary, if your enemy's hungry, feed him. If your enemy's thirsty, give him something to drink. Do not overcome, do not be overcome by evil. Do not let evil have victory over you. The word overcome is the KO, Nike. victory. Do not have, do not let evil have that victory over you by consuming you. No. Fight evil. Fight evil. Have a victory over evil by doing what is good. We do not take justice and vengeance in our own hands. We trust God, as Jotham did. Second. The second takeaway. Again, good news. Praise God, we have a good king. Praise God, we have a good king. God desires to rule his people, to lead them to blessing, joy, long life, prosperity. We see Gideon did not rule well, his son is worse. And when we come back to Judges after the I Am series, it's gonna get worse. If you read the rest of the Old Testament, it gets worse. The history of the kings is that it keeps getting worse. The only high point we might have is David, but David isn't the right king because he commits adultery, then he murders somebody to cover it up. But that David, this is what he says about what God's king should be. 2 Samuel 23. Now these are the last words of David. These are significant words. The oracle of David, the son of Jesse, the oracle of the man who was raised on high, the anointed of the God, the sweet psalmist of Israel. Trying to draw our attention. This is important. The Spirit of the Lord speaks by me, his word is on my tongue, the word of Israel has spoken, the rock of Israel has said to me, when one rules justly over men, ruling in the fear of God, he dawns on them like the morning light. Like the sun shining forth on a cloudless morning, like rain that makes grass to sprout from the earth. For does not my house stand so with God? For he has made me with an everlasting covenant, order and all things secure. For he will not cause to prosper all my help and my desire. But worthless men are like the thorns that are thrown away, for they cannot be taken with a hand. One who rules justly over men, ruling in the fear of God. He is like the morning light. The sun shining forth on a cloudless morning, like rain that makes the grass spout from the earth. He's a blessing. No king in Israel ever was that blessing. Until Jesus Christ came. It's interesting, as we continue to see the history of Israel get worse and worse, it finally comes this culmination in Ezekiel 34, where God looks and He says, you kings, all you do is feed yourselves. Therefore I say, I will come down, I will be king, and I will feed my sheep. I will be the good shepherd. Jesus comes. And he says, I am the Good Shepherd. I know my sheep by name. I lay down my life for them. When we usually see that picture of Jesus as the Good Shepherd, it's usually very sweet and tender. And for those who believe him, it is. It's the sweet, tender, pierced hands that comfort and care. He also uses that staff to correct and discipline, but we always feel that comfort, the healing. We also see that shepherd who is a fierce vengeance for anyone who messes with his sheep. He, see, is a king who will bring about a fierce judgment cause of his love for the church and his flock, any attack on it will face a judgment. And what we're supposed to do, church, when we feel that evil pressing in, it isn't to take up the cause of justice in our own hands, it's to say, come Lord Jesus, come quickly, put an end to my evil, put an end to this evil. This story leads us to rejoice that our King is good and that all he provides for us is good. Will you pray with me? Father, we thank you that you are a good and gracious God. We thank you that we can know you as our true King. You lead us into your blessing. You lead us into your prosperity. Help us, Lord, to be obedient to the call, not to be a vengeful people. but to trust you, the God who is just. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.