All right, brethren, Judges chapter
9. Let's go to the Lord. Our God and our Father, we thank
You for bringing us here this morning. Lord, we ask You today
if You would send forth Your Spirit, bless the Word, cause
us to Come to Christ and enter into Him. Whatever it is, Lord, that Your
people need, that You would bless us today and make us behold Him. Forgive us
our sins, Lord, in Christ's name. Amen. Alright, Judges 9 verse
50. and then went Abimelech to Thebez
and encamped against Thebez and took it. But there was a strong
tower within the city, and thither fled all the men and women, and
all they of the city, and shut it to them, and got them up to
the top of the tower. And Abimelech came unto the tower
and fought against it, and went hard unto the door of the tower
to burn it with fire. And a certain woman cast a piece
of a millstone upon Abimelech's head, and all to break his skull. Then he called hastily unto the
young man, his armor-bearer, and said unto him, Draw thy sword
and slay me, that men say not of me a woman slew him. And his
young man thrust him through, and he died. And when the men
of Israel saw that Abimelech was dead, they departed every
man unto his place." This chapter is quite lengthy
and tells the story of Abimelech. He was the illegitimate son of
Gideon. He was the son Gideon produced
with his Shechemite concubine. And Abimelech rejected God. He rejected Gideon's God. And
his desire was to make himself a king. And so he went to Gideon's
children and he deceived them. He beguiled them. Told them what
a good king he would be. And so they made him a king.
And afterwards, he murdered every one of them. Seventy sons of
Gideon. And one day, on one stone, he
murdered them all. The devil entered the garden
and beguiled Eve. He entered the garden and beguiled
Eve. He would be the king. He would
be the most high. I will be the most high. I'll set my throne on high. And he entered the garden and
beguiled Eve. He tricked her. he put a question mark in her
mind on God. That's how the devil, the accuser,
works. And it resulted in Adam sinning
against God, which resulted in us all falling in Adam, becoming
totally dead in sins. And so the result of that fall
is men do what Gideon's Children did. They looked to a man rather
than to God. They wanted a man to be their
king. And by nature we come forth wanting
to be the king. We want the glory that belongs
to God only by nature. And the whole course of our life
from the first day God calls us to the last is God showing
us who the true king is and making us see that we're not the king.
We're not the king. He is. He is. But when Gideon, I mean Abimelech
slew Gideon's children, Gideon's youngest son, Jotham, survived. He was not slain. His name means
Jehovah is perfect. That's what Jotham means. And
he stood on the Mount of Blessing. And he declared, he prophesied
Abimelech would be destroyed. He prophesied that Christ Jesus
is Jehovah the perfect one. He's the only one who ever walked
this earth since the fall that's perfect. And we have to be perfect
for God to receive us. And he's the perfect one. And
he's been declaring from the Mount of Blessing from the beginning,
from the garden all the way Then we came into the earth and did
it. Now he's doing it from outside. He's been declaring from the
Mount of Blessing the devil's defeat. The devil's defeat and
the triumph of all his people. That's our gospel. So toward
the end of Abimelech's murderous reign, it says in verse 50, then
went Abimelech to Thebes and encamped against Thebes and took
it. Now, first of all, this city
called Thebes means conspicuous. It means conspicuous. Apparently
this town was white, and it stood out from all others. Conspicuous. The root word means a fine white
linen made in Egypt. It was a fine white linen made
in Egypt. That's where the name came from.
The Son of God came down and took flesh. He came down and
took flesh like his brethren in this cursed Egypt, that's
where he came to. And he came to make a precious
snow white linen garment for his people. And our Lord Jesus walked this
earth, the conspicuous one. He was the conspicuous one. None
ever walked this earth like him. Nobody was ever like him. Snow
white and sinless perfection, perfect in his righteousness.
Everything he did was perfection. Perfect obedience to God. And this root word means a linen
bleached as by a fuller. A fuller was somebody who washed
clothes and made them white. And you remember in the Mount
of Transfiguration, his raiment became shining, exceeding white
as snow, as no fuller on earth can white them. He's the conspicuous
one. Christ is unlike any other. He's the holy one, the faithful
one, the righteous one. the conspicuous one, and he's
like a refiner's fire and like fuller's soap. He came to purify
the sons of Levi. He came to make pure all God's
elect people. He came to get the glory for
making all God's children to be kings and priests unto God,
to purify us. That means make us absolutely
perfect. Perfect. And he does it by his
blood, he does it by his spirit, he does it by his gospel. Now
Bimelech encamped against Thebes and took it. Our sovereign substitute,
when the time came, he permitted the devil to use men to encamp
about him. to besiege him and nail him to
the cursed tree. And it looked like the devil
took it. It looked like the devil took
this conspicuous city. It looked like he defeated our
Lord Jesus. But he only bruised our Lord's heel. But in the process,
the Lord Jesus, in putting away all the sin of his people, in
making his people thoroughly righteous and holy in him, sanctifying
us forever by His one offering. Our Lord Jesus Christ crushed
the devil's head, just like He said He would in Genesis 3.15.
He said, I will put enmity between thee and the woman. We're going to see the enmity
here between the devil and the woman. And I will put enmity
between thy seed, the Lord Jesus, and her seed. That's his people. It shall bruise thy head, thou
shalt bruise his head. He bruised the Lord's heel, the
Lord bruised his head. Took all the ammunition away
from the accuser of the brethren. For as much as the children are
takers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part
of the same, that through death he might destroy him that had
the power of death. The power of death is sin. The
strength of sin is the law. Christ fulfilled the law, put
away the sin of his people, and took all the power away from
the devil. He delivered them who through
fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.
Child of God, rejoice in this. Rejoice in this. The great accuser
of the brethren has been cast down. He has been cast down. It's God that justified His people.
It's Christ that laid down His life and rose for us and intercedes
for us so that when any accusation is brought, He intercedes for
you before God and God will not lay a charge of condemnation
to His people. That's great reason to rejoice.
Now by his obedience, by the Lord's precious blood, by what
he accomplished for his people, our Lord Jesus made for everyone
of his elect a snow white linen garment. His perfect righteousness,
His obedience. By one man's obedience, many
shall be made righteous. By that obedience, that is the
righteousness. He is the righteousness, that
snow white linen garment. And he sends this gospel. He's
like Jotham, the Jehovah, the perfect one, crying from the
Mount of Blessing. And he sends this gospel, and
by the Spirit of God, using nothing in you and me whatsoever. He comes to these lifeless dead
bodies, spiritually dead in trespasses and sin, and He creates something
out of nothing. He creates a new man in His image
that is perfect just like He's perfect, without any sin. Peter called it the inward man
which is not corruptible. born of the incorruptible seed,
a new man perfect by Christ's doing, and he robes you in that
snow-white garment of righteousness. That's a beautiful picture of
what it is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. It's for God
to robe you in Christ's perfect righteousness. so that you're
not like anybody else in this world. You're righteous, perfectly
righteous. That's who of all gods elect
that he calls. And he keeps purifying your heart. He keeps sending this gospel
turning you to him only, to Christ only. He's the purifier. He's
the one who is purifying us full of soap. He is the sanctification. He's the sanctifier. And he keeps
turning you to him And through faith, He keeps sanctifying you.
Through faith, He makes you quit looking at you. Through faith,
He makes you quit hearing the devil. Through faith, He shuts
your ears to everything around you but Him. And when that's
the case, you're conspicuous because you
don't trust anybody but the Lord Jesus. You don't look to anybody
but the Lord Jesus. That is so different from this
world and its religion. The world and its religion is
doing exactly what the sons of Gideon were doing. They're trying
to make a man a king, namely each one trying to make themselves
a king and trying to triumph by their own beguiling. And the
Lord takes his people from that, makes you perfect. and will not
let you again trust in the arm of your flesh. He will not again
let you perish due to you. He just won't do it. And that
makes you conspicuous. That makes you conspicuous. But
because His people look to none but Christ, because Christ's
people are kept looking to none but Him, trusting him alone as
our wisdom, our righteousness, our sanctification and our redemption.
That makes his people, his church, this holy city conspicuous. And the devil wants nothing more
than to attack it and destroy it. That's what he wants to do. He wants to scatter the sheep.
That's what he wants to do. So he attacks the holy city,
he attacks the church, this conspicuous city. But here's the good news. Here's the good news. There is
a strong tower in this holy city. Look now at verse 51. But there
was a strong tower within the city, and there they fled all
the men and women, and all there of the city, and shut it to them,
and got them up to the top of the tower. They ran into this
strong tower, and they shut the doors up to Abimelech, and to
all his men, and they went up to the top of the tower. Our
Lord Jesus Christ is the strong tower in this conspicuous city,
in His church. He's the strong tower. He's the
strong tower. That's another reason the Lord's
church stands out in this world. We have no other place of refuge
but Christ. We have no other means and flee
to none other but the Lord Jesus Christ. He's our strong tower. When the devil attacks, when
he fires his darts, The Lord is going to make you do what
the people of Thebes did. This is what he makes his children
do. He finds us attacked, encamped, cast down, like Elijah, hid in
the back of a cave, and in the wilderness, running, not able
to do a thing for ourselves. And he speaks with a still, small
voice through this gospel, and he turns you back to Christ.
And you go into the strong tower. Into the strong tower. The name
of the Lord is a strong tower. The righteous runneth into it
and is safe. We run into the name of the Lord.
He's the strong tower. And we're safe. We're safe. I pray the Spirit of God today
will give us faith to run into this strong tower. Because when you behold Christ
and you're looking to Him, that's what purifies the heart. That's
what shuts out the enemy. The Lord Jesus is salvation for
every need His people have. That's what His name being a
strong tower means. He is salvation in every way
you and me need salvation. He is. He meets every need. If you have any mighty enemies
like Abimelech, you're not going to defeat them by the strength
of your hand and by your wisdom and by what you try to do. The
best thing you can do is run to Christ into the high tower. Because the God of my rock, that's
who He is. He's Almighty God. In Him will
I trust. He's my shield and the horn of
my salvation, my high tower and my refuge, my Savior. Thou savest
me from violence. Do you need direction? His name's
a strong tower. His name is the Counselor. Cast yourself on Him and His
mighty name and ask Him to lead you. He promised he would lead
his people by the Spirit of God. He promised that. Do you need
mercy and pity and compassion? His name is the Everlasting Father. That means he'll never stop being
your father, child of God. He'll never stop having pity
and compassion on his children. He pities us And He keeps drawing
us to Him. He's the strong tower. His people
run to Him. Do you need a wonder? Do you
need a miracle of grace to save you? We get in situations where
we think, this is going to take a miracle. That's the only thing
God does. That's the only thing He does. The fact that you still believe
after however long it's been since He first called you, that's
a miracle. That's a miracle. You just think, it dawned on
me last night, I got to thinking about how many people in this
world, to come in here and sit down and hear this message would
gall them. They just couldn't, they can't
do it. It's just all just like, might
as well be Aesop's fables to them. And God's given you a heart
to believe him. That's a miracle. And He's kept
you through every storm, every hill, every valley, your own
sinful self, and every enemy around about you, and He's kept
you. He only works miracles. His name is Wonderful. That's
what it means. Do you need peace? His name is
the Prince of Peace. Run into this strong tower. You
won't have peace looking to you. You won't have peace looking
to the world. You won't have peace looking to your bank account.
You won't have peace. You won't have peace in this world. He
said in this world you'll have trouble. He said in me you shall
have peace. Go to him. Go to him. The name of the Lord's a strong
tower. The righteous runneth into it
and it's safe. His name's Jehovah Rapha, the
Lord that healeth thee. You need to be healed. He's the
great physician. He healed his people with his
stripes. We're healed. And he healed you when he called
you, and he keeps healing you, keeps healing you, keeps healing
you. Apply the balm. Do you need pardon for your sins?
You need to be justified for your sins. His name is Jehovah
Sid Canoe, the Lord our righteousness. He is the justification of His
people. The only justification we have.
We can't justify ourselves. We can't clear ourselves. He's your righteousness. And
in Him, you're righteous. Run to Him. Does the way seem
impossible to you? His name is Jehovah Jireh. In
the mouth of the Lord it shall be seen. The Lord will provide.
That answer that Abraham gave to Isaac, that is the wisest
answer we can give to anybody. When people are troubled like
Isaac was, Dad, we've got to do something. We've got to get
a lamb. We've got to put our hand to this and fix this. My
son, God will provide himself. That's faith. That was a work
of faith to comfort his child with that word and not listen
to anything else. He ran into the strong tower,
and he was urging Isaac, run into the strong tower. Do you need his presence? His
name is Jehovah Shammah, the Lord is there. He's Emmanuel,
God with us. That means at all times, in every
situation, and he's saving for his namesake. Do you need comfort? His name's the consolation of
Israel. Run to Him. You know, this doesn't
seem practical to a worldly man. This is the most practical thing
that you can ever tell anybody. Christ is salvation for every
need you have. That means every need you have,
He's the only salvation that's saving you from it. The Lord is my rock and my fortress
and my deliverer. Listen to that now. He's my rock
and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my strength, in whom
I will trust, my buckler and the horn of my salvation, my
high tower. Brethren, the Lord Jesus is our
high tower. He's wisdom to guide you. He's
power to keep you. He's mercy to pity you. He's
holiness to sanctify you. He's righteousness to justify
you. He's grace to adorn you. He's glory to crown you. That's
who He is. The Lord is my light, David said,
and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is
the strength of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid? But, you remember Elijah. Elijah started thinking. He had
done some, Lord, he didn't do anything. The Lord used him to
do some mighty things. And Elijah started thinking,
I've been jealous for God. And look at everybody in Israel.
They stoning the prophets that nobody's standing with. I'm the
only one. I've been jealous for God. And
with that, he became strong in his flesh, and his faith vanished. And when Jezebel said, I'm going
to kill you tomorrow just like you killed my 400 prophets, Elijah
tucked his tail like a dog and ran away into the wilderness
and hid in a cave. David said, the Lord is the strength
of my life. And when the Lord comes to you,
and He has to come to you, and renew you in the spirit of your
mind, and renew faith in you, and make you put off your old
man and put on your new man, you don't mortify your flesh
yourself. You do it through the Spirit,
and He gets all the glory. Because if we do it ourselves,
we're cleaning a dirty floor with a dirty mop and it just
gets twice dirty. Because then we're proud of what
we've done. I've been jealous for God. God
has to bring us down and make us see, I'm your salvation. None other. None other. But look at this now, male, female,
young or old, go to Christ, get into the tower, go to the top
of the tower. There was a strong tower within
the city and there they fled all the men and women and all
there of the city. And this is true, our Lord is
going to make everyone that's of His theebeds flee into this
tower and they're going to be saved. You're going to be saved
child of God. It's just all there is to it.
You're going to flee into this tower, and you're going to wait
till the indignation be overpassed, and you're going to be safe. Abimelech came to that tower
and he fought against it. He went hard into the door of
the tower to burn it with fire. This thing is, this is a real
battle. This is a real warfare we're
in, brethren. It's a spiritual warfare. We're not wrestling
against flesh and blood. We're wrestling against the devil
and powers and principalities and wicked spirits and high places. And we're no match for them.
We are no match for them. The devil and every enemy of
our Savior is going to come hard against the door of the tower
to try to burn it with fire. But Christ is the door. And He shut the door. And no
man can open it. This is the beauty of this. When
the Lord draws you into Him and He's got you strengthened in
faith so that you trust Him and you hope in Him and you really
know He's the righteousness that's got your heart secure. He's the
truth that makes you put on bowels of mercies. And you know everything's
going to be fine. The Lord is salvation. He's strength. He's going to save us. Nobody
can open that door. When the Lord has shut it to
the enemy, the enemy can't open it. He can't open it. He already consumed the fire
of God's justice for his people, so when Abimelech comes hard
at the door and tries to burn it with fire, he can't burn it
up. The Lord already consumed the fire of God's wrath for his
people and put our sin away. The devil just has no ammunition.
He can't cast you down. All right, why do we, as his
church, as the woman, Why do we preach this gospel of Christ?
Why do we preach this message? Why don't we start telling, why
don't we preach morality like the world does? Why don't we
start turning men to themselves and preach moral stories and
show Andy Griffith features? Why don't we do that? Because
Christ is the rock. who has crushed the devil's head
and he's the rock who's going to crush every enemy's head.
Verse 53, and a certain woman cast a piece of a millstone upon
Abimelech's head and all to break his skull. This certain woman
dropped a millstone out of this tower and it landed right on
Abimelech's head and broke his skull. God's elect that make up this
city is the certain woman. You that he's called, you're
the certain woman. You're his church, male and female,
young and old, rich and poor, strong and weak. Shut up safe
in Christ our high tower. And Christ is the rock we preach.
He's the rock we preach, because He's the rock that crushed the
serpent's head on the cross, and He's the rock that's going
to defeat every enemy. The enemies are in our sin nature,
and the enemies without. Jesus said to them, did you never
read in the scriptures, the stone which the builders rejected,
the same has become the head of the corner. This is the Lord's
doing, and it's marvelous in our eyes. Whosoever shall fall
on this stone shall be broken. That's what he's going to do
to his people. He's going to break us. But whoever this stone falls
on, it's going to grind him to powder. And that's what our Lord's
doing to every one of our enemies, brethren. Christ is the smitten
rock. He's been smitten in place of
his people and from him the water of life freely flows. And that
rock follows us everywhere we go through this wilderness. He's
the cleft of the rock. He's the one in whom God puts
his people and covers us with his hand where we see God's glory.
He's the rock from whom we're given honey and oil. And he's nothing like this world's
rock. This world's rock can't do anything unless you let him.
This world's rock needs you to help him out. You gotta help
him sanctify you. You gotta help him make you justified. You gotta help him make you be
born again. You gotta help him... Have you
been in a faith long enough to know that he don't need your
help? He don't. He's doing everything for you
and me. Well, we gotta believe. You can't believe right now without
him making you believe. You can't repent without him
making you repent. Elijah couldn't even, when he
was at that wilderness, he couldn't even sleep unless God gave him
sleep. Sometimes he'll hold your eyes
waking and there ain't no way you can go to sleep. This is
God. Their rock's not as our rock,
even our enemies themselves being judges. You just preach this
gospel and men will tell you, well, that's not the Jesus I
believe. We know that. Their rock's not
like our rock. In all things, we're more than
conquerors through him that loved us. Listen to this from David in
2 Samuel 22 47. He said, the Lord liveth, the
Lord liveth and blessed be my rock and exalted be the God of
the rock of my salvation. It's God that avengeth me. and
it bringeth down the people under me, and it bringeth me forth
from mine enemies. Thou also hast lifted me up on
high above them that rose up against me. Thou hast delivered
me from the violent man. Therefore I will give thanks
unto thee, O Lord, among the heathen. I'll sing praises to
thy name. He is the tower of salvation
for me, David said. He shows mercy to his anointed,
unto David, and to his seed forevermore. That's you, brethren. This is
what our Lord's doing for us. This is why we preach Christ
Jesus the Rock. He's the one that's going to
break the head of the enemy. Verse 54, then he called hastily
unto the young man his armor bearer and he said to him, draw
thy sword and slay me that men say not of me a woman slew me.
He was too proud to say a woman slew him. That's the problem.
That's our problem by nature and that's the problem of this
world. Pride. And his young man thrust him
through and he died. And when the men of Israel saw that Abimelech
was dead, they departed every man unto his place. You keep
fleeing into Christ our tower by faith. I'll do what the Lord made Elijah
do. He said, it doesn't mean Ezekiel,
he said, you preach and you pray and you tell them to live. I'm preaching the rock, and I'm
saying, live. I'm saying, believe on Christ. Flee into the tower
by faith. And I pray for you every day.
And the Lord said, and I'll send my spirit, and I'll make them
alive. I'll make them flee into the
tower. You keep coming in here in the preaching of his gospel,
and you keep looking to Christ only. And Paul said, in the God
of peace, shall brew Satan under your feet shortly. The grace
of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. When he's called all his
own, when he's called all his own, called every one of us into
the tower, then each one of his spiritual Israel are going to
behold all our enemies totally defeated. And we're going to
depart to our place. We're going to go be with him
forever. He's going to win the victory. He has won it. He is
winning it. And he shall accomplish the victory. And that's why he tells you,
in the world you're going to have trouble. The city's going
to be attacked. But he said, you keep fleeing
to the tower. In me you have peace. And I've
overcome the world already. And you'll overcome in him. Amen. Father, we pray you bless this
word and pray you would work these things in our hearts and
make us truly, truly know, be persuaded that your dear son,
our Lord Jesus, is our salvation. Lord, shut out our flesh and
shut out this world and make us hear Christ speak. Make us
see Him so high and lifted up. Sanctify Him so highly in our
heart that we can't fear anybody but Him. We need this peace and this rejoicing
and this confidence to know, Lord, everything we face and
everything we encounter is just part of You saving us and showing
us You are our salvation. Just as needful as a cross. Forgive
us, Lord, for not running into the tower. Thank you for continuing
to make us do so. In his precious name we ask it.
Amen.