come thou and reign over us.
And the bramble sat under the trees. If in truth you anoint
me king over you, then come and put your trust in my shadow.
And if not, let fire come out of the bramble and devour the
cedars of Lebanon. Now, therefore, Now this is Jotham
speaking. Now therefore, if you have done
truly and sincerely in that you have made Abimelech king. Now,
the men of Shechem have made Abimelech king and that's what
this parable is all about. They wanted Gideon to be their
king and Gideon said, no, the Lord is your king. I'm not going
to take that place. And so, Abimelech, anxious to
exalt himself and to be in power, convinces the men of Shechem
to make him king. And in doing so, he slaughters
all the sons of Gideon. Now therefore, verse 16, if you
have done truly and sincerely in that you have made Abimelech
king, and if you have dealt well with Jerubabal, which is another
name for Gideon, and his house and have done unto him according
to the deserving of his hands. For my father fought for you
and adventured his life far and delivered you out of the hand
of Midian. And you are risen up against my father's house
this day and have slain his sons, three score and 10 persons upon
one stone. And a maid of Bemelech, the son
of his maidservant, king over the men of Shechem, because he
is your brother. If ye then have dealt truly and
sincerely with Jerubael and with his house this day, then rejoice
ye in Abimelech and let him also rejoice in you. But if not, let
fire come out from Abimelech and devour the men of Shechem
and the house of Milo and let fire come out from the men of
Shechem and from the house of Milo and devour Abimelech. And Jotham ran away and fled
and went to Beer and dwelt there for fear of Abimelech, his brother. Now, this parable is about men
wanting to choose their king. And we really can't appreciate
the impact of the meaning of this parable unless we go to
John chapter six. You remember in John chapter
six, the Lord fed the 5,000 with five barley loaves and two fishes. And after the feeding of the
5,000, the men wanted to make him king. They wanted to make
the Lord king. And the scripture says in John
chapter six, that when the Lord perceived that they wanted to
make him king, he departed unto a mountain by himself. Here's the picture. that these
men think that they have the ability to make God Lord over
their lives. And that's such a clear picture
of what we see in religion today. that men want to say, you can
reign over us. And the Lord says, no, I'm not
going to allow you to make that choice. You did not choose me,
I chose you. but men want to glory in the
fact that they have the ability to determine the outcome of their
salvation by the power of their own choice. These trees, now
the Lord Jesus Christ is never presented in scripture as an
alone person. He's always presented in terms
of his union with the Father, when he told the disciples, do
you not know that if you've seen me, you've seen the father for
I am the father of one. He's presented as the son of
God. And he's also presented as the covenant head of his church. And so the Lord Jesus Christ
is never seen apart from his church. His church is the scripture calls
us his seed and we are in him and he is in us. And so this
parable, which relates to these trees, not only relate, not only
speaks of Christ, but it speaks of his church as well. And men, Turn with me to Romans chapter
5. Romans chapter 5. You know, I was thinking about, at
the end of the Gospel of John, where John says in concluding
his gospel account, he says many other things did Jesus in the
presence of his disciples that are not recorded in this book.
But these have been written that you might believe that Jesus
is the Christ, the son of the living God, and that believing
you might have life through his name. I mention this Wednesday
night because I've always understood that only in the context of the
Gospel of John, but it applies to all of Scripture. Many of
the things the Lord has done in this world, but these are
recorded. These are recorded that you might
believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, and
that believing you might have life through his name. So we
know that all of scripture is written in order to reveal the
glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, and it's given to us because
faith comes by hearing, and hearing comes by the Word of God, that
we might believe what these scriptures mean about the person and the
work of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that believing we would have
life through his name. So These parables are to that
end, that the Lord would make his word alive and effectual
and reveal to us the living word, the Lord Jesus Christ himself,
and cause us to find our hope and our salvation in his glorious
person and in his accomplished work. You have your Bibles open
to Romans chapter 5. Look with me, if you will, at
verse 17. For it by one man's offense,
death reigned by one. Now this is speaking of Adam. And every believer feels the
presence of their Adamic nature every day in their in their struggle
with the flesh and with sin. And so if by one man's offense,
death reigned by one, the sin of Adam didn't just make it a
struggle to live in this world. The sin of Adam killed us. We
died in Adam. Spiritually, we died. Much more
then, they which receive the abundance of grace and the gift
of righteousness shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
last Adam. He's the second Adam. He's the
one who came to bring life and the first Adam brought death.
Therefore, verse 18, as by the offense of one judgment came
upon all men to condemnation, even so by the righteousness
of one, the free gift came upon all men unto justification of
life. So we died in Adam and we're
made alive. in the Lord Jesus Christ. For
as by one man's disobedience, verse 19, many were made sinners,
so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. Moreover,
the law entered that the offense might abound, but where sin abounded,
grace did much more bound. That as sin has reigned unto
death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal
life. by Jesus Christ. Here's the union that Christ's
church has with him. These trees, this olive tree,
this fig tree, and this vine tree, all speak of Christ and
his church. And so what's true of one is
true of the other. The Lord Jesus Christ is our
life. And so we have all of our hope by virtue of the fact that
we have union with Him. We have union with Him in the
covenant of grace and the choice of God. So this is not a decision
that man makes in order to be able to have the life of Christ. It's a work of grace. Here's
these men of Shechem. And Shechem means shoulder or
burden. And so what we have a picture
of here is religious men bearing the burden of their own sin and
thinking that they can choose for themselves a savior. And And the Lord says, I'm not
going to give up the fatness of my oil, I'm not going to give
up the sweetness of my figs or the gladness and the joy of my
wine in order to come serve you. I'm going to give those things
to my church. And the church says the same
thing. The church sees its hope of salvation by its union with
Christ. And when men do get what they
choose, what did they end up with? A thornbush, a fruitless
thornbush. That's what they get. You know,
the word to choose and the word heresy both mean the same thing.
And all the heresies in false religion are based on free will. Man believing that he has the
power to choose for himself the eternal destiny of his soul and
who his God will be. But in every case, when men are
left to their own choice, they end up with a bramble bush. This
is a picture of a Bemelech. And fire came out of that bramble
bush and consumed the men of Shechem. And fire came out of
Shechem and consumed the bramble bush of Bimelech. This story
is fulfilled in this chapter. And it's a picture of a false
religion. These trees, no doubt, trees
are very significant in the Bible, aren't they? first reference
to the Lord Jesus Christ is the tree of life, the tree of life. The first reference as a tree
in the garden is that he's seen as the tree of life, and that
tree of life is also seen in Psalm 1 as the the blessed man who's planted
by rivers of water, and his leaf does not wither, and in due season
he produces his fruit. And so this is Christ as the
tree. We see him in the Song of Solomon,
Chapter two and verse three, the church calls him a sweet
apple tree under which she finds her safety and her shadow. And so when we think of these
trees, certainly the olive tree is a picture of Christ, but the
trees also represent man. or at least those men who are
found in Christ. Turn with me to Genesis chapter
one. Genesis chapter one. Verse 11, and God said, let the
earth bring forth grass the herb yielding seed, and the fruit
tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself
upon the earth. And so it was so. And the earth
brought forth grass and herb yielding seed after his kind,
and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself after
his kind. And God saw that it was good." The Lord Jesus Christ, as the
tree of life, has the seed of his church in him after his own
kind. So as he is, so are we in this
world. He that sanctifieth and them
that are sanctified are all as one, whereby he's not ashamed
to call them his brethren. So we have hope salvation that
that as the Lord Jesus Christ is this tree and he has the seed
in him and God saw that it was good left to ourselves the only
thing we can produce is our like kind sinners can only produce
sinners we have the seed of Adam in us and unless Unless the Lord makes us alive
in Christ, we'll have no hope but to produce seed after our
own kind. Turn with me to Isaiah chapter
six. And here's that chapter where
the Lord calls out the prophet and says to him, comfort ye,
comfort ye my people, and speak ye comfortably unto Jerusalem,
and tell them their warfare is accomplished. Tell them their
iniquity has been put away, has been cleansed. And Isaiah says,
Lord, where do I start? Tell them they're grass. Tell
them they're grass. Tell them they can't do anything
for themselves. They're completely dependent upon me. And then the
Lord tells the prophet, he says, They will have ears, but they
will not hear, eyes they will have, but they will not see.
You're gonna preach this gospel to them, but they're not gonna
believe you. And Isaiah says, Lord, how long
shall I do that? And the Lord says, until the
cities be wasted without inhabitants and the land be utterly desolate,
you just be faithful. Because in this world, look at
verse 13, in this world, but in it shall be a tenth and it
shall return. and shall be eaten as a teal
tree and as an oak, whose substance is in them." Joe put it like this, he said,
the root of the matter is in me. The root is that, root of
that tree, isn't it? And here's our hope, Christ in
you, your hope of glory. Not in anything in ourselves.
The Lord tells the prophet Isaiah, yeah, they're not going to hear
you, but there is a remnant. There is a 10th and they're going
to be like a teal tree. And they're going to be like
a, like an oak tree whose substance is in them. The substance, the
substance of God, the righteousness of God is in you. Here's what
our Lord said. When the disciples were looking
for a kingdom, he said, the kingdom of God is in you. It's Christ
in your heart. The light of the gospel in the
face of the Lord Jesus Christ. When they cast their leaves,
so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof. The promise was made to Abraham
and his seed Not seeds, but seed and that seed is Christ. And
so the seed of God is in us and we are in him. There's our hope. That's what this parable of the
trees is all about. For man to think that he's going
to be able to somehow make that happen by his own choice. Man
left to himself is going to be like those who the Lord told
the prophet Isaiah, they're not going to hear you. They're not
going to believe you. They're not going to bow. They're
not going to be saved. But in this forest of trees,
there is a tent. You know, I was thinking about
Adam and Eve hiding among the trees in the garden when the
Lord came and said, where art thou Adam? and how men hide from
God today among the trees of humanity, particularly in religion. The bigger the denomination,
the bigger the religion, the more influential and the more
people that are involved in it, the bigger draw it has to those
who are hiding among the trees, they're hiding. But the trees
of God are different. The scripture calls them the
trees of righteousness, which are the plantings of the Lord. These are the, this is the tree
that's being referred to here. Listen to Psalm 104. The trees
of the Lord are full of sap. The cedars of Lebanon, which
he had planted. These trees said, come and reign
over us. We're going to make you Lord.
And the Lord Jesus Christ said, no, he departed and went into
a mountain by himself. You're not going to make me Lord.
I'm already Lord. I reign over the living and the
dead. This idea that man can make Jesus
Lord, that's what's being said here. The men of Shechem who
are bearing the burden of their own sin said to the olive tree
and to the fig tree and to the vine, come rain over us. We're going to, we're going to
let you have dominion over us. No, you're not. I'm not going
to leave my fatness, nor my sweetness, nor my gladness. That's for my
people. Those are the trees I'm interested
in. Psalm says they shall flourish
as a palm tree. Men want a God of their own choosing,
don't they? If we could title this message,
Who Chooses Who? You know, I love that passage
in Luke chapter four where our Lord begins his public ministry
and he goes to Nazareth, his hometown, where he grew up, where
he lived for 30 years, knew everybody in this little village. And he
goes into the synagogue as was his custom every Sabbath day. And they handed him the scroll
and he opened it up to Isaiah chapter 61. And he read from
Isaiah chapter 61. which everybody in that synagogue
knew this is a prophecy relating to the coming of the Messiah. And then our Lord closed up the
scroll and he said, this day, this prophecy has been fulfilled
in thy sight. And they wondered at the gracious
words that proceeded out of his mouth. They thought, could this
be the Messiah? That's what he's saying. He's
telling us that He's fulfilling this prophecy in our sight. Could
it be that we've lived with the Messiah, the Son of God, for
30 years and we didn't know who He was? And then our Lord, He defined who He was. When He said, in the day of the
prophet Elisha, there were many widows in Israel. But God showed mercy
on none of them, except on the widow of Sarepta, who was a Gentile. And in the days of the prophet
Elijah, there were many lepers in Israel. But God showed mercy
on none of them except the leper Naaman, the Syrian, who was a
Gentile. Now, what does our Lord say?
And they changed their tune. Well, that's an understatement. They that wondered at the gracious
words that proceeded out of his mouth now were enraged at him. and wanted to take him out of
the city and murder him, kill him. This is the Lord that they
had lived with and known and now they're wanting to murder
him. Why? Because what is he saying? You don't choose me,
I choose you. I'm sovereign. The trees of the
forest wanted to make their choice as to who was gonna reign over
them. And the olive tree and the fig
tree and the vine tree said, you're not gonna choose me. I'm
gonna choose you. And I'm not gonna share my fatness
and my sweetness or my gladness with the trees of the forest.
Those are the trees of righteousness, which are the plantings of the
Lord. Those are by virtue of their union with me. That's the
fig tree. That's the olive tree. And that's
the vine. the fatness and the sweetness
and the gladness of the gospel are reserved for my people whom
I choose. Whom I choose. What a difference. This is a different gospel. It's
a different God. And what do men say about that?
We'll not have that man reign over us. We're going to decide
who's going to reign over us. We're not going to submit to
one who is absolutely sovereign and chooses for himself whom
he will save. We're going to maintain our position
of power and authority and deity. We're going to set ourselves
up on the throne of God. And so in the end, what do they
do? They choose a bramble, a worthless, fruitless, Briar
Bush. That's what it was. Just very quickly, the olive
tree is first mentioned in Genesis chapter 8. when the waters begin
to assuage after Noah's flood, and the ark is on Mount Ararat,
and Noah sends the dove out of the ark, and the dove comes back
with an olive leaf. And Noah knows that that's a
symbol of life. That's the newness of life. That's
what that olive tree first is used to represent. In Exodus chapter 27, the Lord
said the oil that was to be used in the lamp, in the tabernacle,
was the oil of the olive tree. Why should I share newness of
life with the trees of this world. I choose which trees I'm going
to share that with. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
light of the world. his light it comes from the from
the fullness of the the word Christ means the anointed one
the Messiah and what's he anointed with the oil of gladness above
his fellows he he's anointed with the Spirit of God and so
this olive oil which oils the lamp in the tabernacle And then
in Zechariah, the scripture says, there's two olive trees on each
side of this lampstand and they pour their oil into the lampstand. And that olive tree is the spirit
of God and the word of God. So this is the Lord Jesus Christ
saying to his people, he said, God's not speaking to these unbelievers
who think that they have the power of choice. He's speaking
to us. He's saying to us, those who
think they have the authority to decide whether or not I'm
going to reign over them, no, I'm going to share the fatness
of my oil with my people. When the apothecary in the book
of Exodus was instructed on how to make incense, the olive oil
was part of that formula. And the Lord said, if anyone
tries to duplicate this incense for their own personal use, they
are to be cut off from Israel. And that's exactly what men do.
They think that they can duplicate the formula of salvation themselves
by deciding who's gonna reign over them. And the Lord said,
no. I'm not sharing my fatness or
my light or the sweet aroma. What was the purpose of the incense? It was a picture of the prayers
that go up into heaven. Mostly the prayers of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Peter, be a good cheer. I prayed
for you. Father, I pray not for the world. I pray for them, which
thou has given me out of the world. So this olive tree says, no,
the light of the gospel, the fatness of my oil, the anointing
of the spirit of God, the prayers of the saints, those are reserved
for my people. Those are the reserve for the
ones that I have chosen, not for those who think that they
have the power to choose me. And the church is likened unto
an olive tree in Romans chapter 11. Well, John the Baptist, when
he was preaching the gospel, he said, the ax is laid to the
root of the tree. In other words, God's fixing
to cut down this olive tree called Israel, and he's going to graft
into the olive tree Romans chapter 11, a wild olive tree. But the root of that matter is
going to be in them. The root of the tree will be
in them and they will produce the fruit of God by virtue of
their union with it. So this tree, you see, the tree
is a picture of Christ. The tree is a picture of a church.
We can never separate the two. We can never separate the two. And so the church agrees with
their Lord in saying to our religious friends and family members who
think that they have the power of choice, we say to them, no, this is,
this is not in your hands. This is in God's hands. This
is his sovereign will and his sovereign choice. And we had
the fig tree. they go to the fig tree and they
say come rain over us and the fig tree says no why should I
leave the sweetness of my fruit in order to rain over you and
when when Nathaniel was under the
fig tree And his brother Andrew came to him and said, we have
found the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth. And Nathanael said, what good
can come out of Nazareth? Come and see. And when Nathanael
comes to the Lord Jesus Christ, Nathanael says, the Lord says
to Nathanael, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile. How
could Nathanael? was just Jew. But the Lord said,
you're one of mine. There's no sin in you. There's no guile in you. And
Nathaniel said, Lord, how do you know me? I saw you when you
were under the fig tree. What was Nathaniel doing under
that fig tree? God had put it into his heart
to cry for mercy. The fig tree is a picture of
Christ and a picture of his church. And the Lord's saying to those
who want to say to the fig tree, come and reign over us. We're
going to give you power over us. No, you're not. The sweetness
of my fruit is for my people. It's for my church. Adam and Eve took leaves from
the fig tree and sewed them together and made aprons to try to cover
their nakedness, didn't they? That wasn't what the fig tree
was for. The fig tree is for the sweetness of its fruit. And
that fruit is Christ. That seed is in the tree. You remember when that fig tree
that was without fruit and the Lord passed by it and saw it
without fruit and he cursed it and they continued walking and
they came back the next day and the tree was already withered
and the disciples were amazed that it died so quickly. The
Lord cursed the fig tree. This was Israel that had no fruit
within it because it was dependent on its own righteousness and
its own free will for its own salvation and treated God with
hatred who said no. I have mercy upon whom I will
have mercy and whom I will I will harden. Does not the potter have
right over the clay to make of the same lump of clay some vessels
of honor and some of dishonor? That's not fair. We'll not have
that man reign over us. We'll choose the bramble tree.
And fire will come out of that tree. Exodus chapter 15. Children of
Israel, after being brought out of Egypt, find themselves in
a place called Mara, which translated means bitter because the water
was bitter. And God showed Moses a tree and
told Moses, you cut that tree down and cast it into the water.
And Moses took the tree and threw it into the water and it made
the bitter water sweet. Our Lord hung upon a tree, bore
the sins of his people in order to bring the sweetness of grace
to our taste, to our lives. This fruit is for God's people. The vine. We know what that's
a picture of, don't we? I am the vine and you are the
branches. And as the branch cannot live apart from the vine, neither
can you live apart from me. And my father's the husbandman.
He's the vine dresser and he's gonna prune the vines in order
to make them produce more fruit. The fruit of faith, the fruit
of love, the fruit of hope, Righteousness. This is, this is our union with
Christ again. And the vine says, I'm not going
to leave my gladness, which makes, which makes God and man happy,
delightful. But it has, he said, look at,
you've had your, your Bibles open to Judges chapter nine. Look at, Look at verse 13. And the vine
said unto them, should I leave my wine, which cheereth God and
man and go to be promoted over the trees? And we know from that
verse right there that he's not talking about an alcoholic beverage. He's talking about the wine.
It cheers God. God's not dependent upon an alcoholic
beverage to be cheered up, but this wine cheereth God and man. What was God cheered with? This is my beloved son in whom
I'm well pleased. And God saw the travail of his
soul and God was satisfied. And God said, when I see the
blood, there's the wine. We, once a month, we celebrate
the Lord's table and we drink a little bit of wine to remind
us of that blood that was shed on Calvary's cross with cheereth
God and man. Why would I leave my wine? No,
that's reserved for my people to go and reign over you. This is the, this is the cup. that our Lord had to drink the
bitter dregs of on Calvary's cross in order for us to have
the wine, wine of gladness that cheer at the heart, gives us
hope. We look to the same thing that
the father looks to. We look to the blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ for the covering of our sin. Why should I leave
the fatness of my oil? Why should I leave the sweetness
of my fruit? Why should I leave the gladness
of my wine in order to come and think you can make me king over
you? No, these are for my people. These are the trees of righteousness,
which is the planting of the Lord. This is the wild tree and
the bramble, the worthless, thorny, fruitless bush. that nothing can come good of
it. Fire comes out of it. These bushes, from what I understand,
were the cause of many wildfires in the wilderness. The heat of
the sun would just cause them to catch fire. And it's a picture of God's wrath
and God's judgment. We know that from the very beginning.
All this traces back to Genesis chapter three, when the Lord,
after Adam sinned, said, from the sweat of your brow, you shall
labor and the earth shall bring forth thorns and thistles. That's what your labor is gonna
produce. Nothing but thorns and thistles. But here's the good
news. That was a bramble bush that
Moses saw burning that was not being consumed. And that was
the Lord Jesus Christ who wore a crown of thorns on his head
and was wounded for our transgressions in order to put away our sin
by the sacrifice of himself. We're not choosing this bramble
bush to reign over us. We've already chosen that in
our free will. That's all free will can choose
is a bramble bush. And we've done enough of that.
We need the one now who must choose us and give us the oil
of gladness and the sweetness of his fruit and the wine of
his vine that we might have life. And I close with this parable,
another parable our Lord told. There's four trees in this parable,
isn't there? There's four trees. And there's four different grounds
that the Lord told about the scattering of the seed of the
gospel. And some of it fell on thorny
ground and was choked out by the cares of this world. and
was fruitless. Some fell on good ground, ground
that had been prepared by the spirit of God to receive the
word of God. And so we go back to Jotham's
first words when he said, hearken unto me, that God may hearken
unto thee. Our heavenly father, thank you
for your word. Lord, speak to our hearts effectually and eternally for
the salvation of our souls. We ask it in Christ's name.