Good morning. Let's open this
morning's service with hymn number 26 in your spiral hymnal. We
are bound to give thanks. If we could all stand, please. Thank God for love, His sovereign
love. Unchanging is God's covenant
love, Which predestined that I should be one of the chosen
family. Thank God for grace, His matchless
grace Amazing, free, eternal grace Grace chose me and devised a way To save
and put my sin away Thank God for blood, this sunken
blood, effectual sin, atoning blood. The blood of Christ poured out for me, obtained
redemption, told and free. May God pour power, His Spirit
power, regenerating, saving power. The Spirit power called me to
live and made me willing to be Thee. ? Thank God for peace, His perfect
peace ? ? The blood of Christ has brought me peace ? ? With
conscience free my heart at ease I am ? ? Redeemed and I have
peace ? Please be seated. My conscience free, my heart
at ease. I am redeemed and I have peace. How hopeful we are that that
will be not just the words that we speak, but that it'll be the
experience of our hearts this morning, that the Lord will give
us rest in Christ. We're going to be in the book
of Judges again, both hours today. If you'd like to turn with me
there in your Bibles to Judges chapter nine, Judges chapter
nine. Let's go before the Lord in prayer
and ask his blessings. Our gracious and glorious Heavenly
Father, when we approach Thee, we are
so keenly aware of our need for grace, for Your mercy. Lord, we thank You that we have
the promise of Thy Word that tells us that we can come boldly
before Thy throne of grace to find help in our time of need.
Lord, we are a poor and needy people. We can say with David,
our sin is ever before us and Lord, we, we come as mercy beggars and
we are at the same time very thankful. We're very thankful
for the hope of salvation that you've given us and thy dear
son. We thank you for his accomplished work of redemption. We thank
you for the promise of knowing that he is seated there at thy
right hand, alive and making intercession for us. Lord, we
need an intercessor. We need a righteous savior, a
substitute. Lord, we ask that you would open
the mystery of the gospel to our hearts, open our hearts to
thy word. Open the windows of heaven, Lord,
open what no man can shut. Reveal to us your grace and your
glory that we might leave this place today with the hope of
salvation and the knowledge of Christ in our hearts. For it's
in his name we pray, amen. When we think of the various
books of the Bible, we often categorize them as the books
of the law, the first five books of the Bible, or the books of
history, which is where we've been now for the last couple
of months, the Kings and the Chronicles and Joshua and Judges. We refer to those as the books
of history. Or we think about the books of
prophecy, or the books of poetry, and the books of the gospel, and
the books of the epistles. And yet, we're reminded that
all of these books have one end. The books of history truly are
His story. Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness to everyone that believeth. And so everything
that we see in the books of the law, in the Pentateuch, point
us to the Lord Jesus Christ. The gospels, of course, are his
life here on earth. And the epistles are pointing
not only back to what he accomplished at Calvary's Cross, but pointing
to the hope that we have in his return to take us home. And so we know that in the volume
of the book, it is written of him. And I mentioned Wednesday
night, you know, there's lots of allegories in the Bible when
we when we speak of an allegory, we're not suggesting in any way
that the historical events did not take place. There are people
that would say that, and fundamentalists are very concerned when they
hear the word allegory. And yet, every historical event
in the Bible is an allegory. It is a parable. It reveals to
us something about the person and the work of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And so when we look at the book
of Judges, we are reminded of two things. We're reminded of
our own history. We've seen this repeated over
and over again, and history does repeat itself, doesn't it? Has
it not repeated itself in your life? Do you not find yourself,
like the children of Israel, falling into sin? And as you
do, the Lord causes that sin to become a snare, a trap. And in response to that, you
cry out for mercy. And the Lord, just like he sent
the children of Israel, judges to deliver them, the Lord, all
those judges remind us of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so the
Lord, in response to our cry, he puts the cry in our hearts.
And then in response to that cry, he sends us to Christ and
sends Christ to us. And we have, once again, peace,
At the end of each one of these judges, we read in the book of
Judges, and they had 40 years of rest from their enemy. And
that's what we desire. We desire and need rest from
our enemy. And so when we look at Judges
chapter 9, and we see who Abimelech is and who Jothun is and how
the Lord used them, we're reminded of what the Apostle Paul said
in Galatians chapter six, verse 14, when he said, God forbid
that I should glory save in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ,
by whom, by whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto
the world. Jotham we're gonna see in the
second hour is a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. Delivering
his people, Jotham's name means Jehovah is perfect. And I hope the Lord will enable
us to glory in the perfection of the person and work of the
Lord Jesus Christ. But Abimelech is a picture of
the false gospel, the false religion. man-made religion, works religion.
Abimelech was a son of Gideon by a concubine. And a concubine
is a woman who is in relationship with the man,
but she doesn't have the benefits and the privileges of a wife.
And she represents the false church. And she gives birth to
Abimelech. and all of her children become
enemies of the gospel. And so Abimelech in chapter eight,
well, actually it's prophesied in chapter eight, but in chapter
nine, he murders the 70 sons of Gideon. Now, 70 clearly is
a picture of the church. the church of the Lord Jesus
Christ. When the children of Israel were brought by Joseph
into Egypt, the scripture says that there were 70 souls that
made up that first church, 70 souls. When the Lord in Luke chapter
10 sends the disciples out into the world to preach the gospel,
he sends out 70, two by two, Clearly, this number represents
the church. And so Abimelech murders the
sons of Gideon. He murders the church. And at
the end, at the end of chapter nine, we're going to see that
a certain woman who was in the safety of a tower threw a millstone
out of the tower and crushed the head of a Bemelech. Now we
know who that woman is. That woman is a picture of the
church. And that millstone is the Lord
Jesus Christ himself. And, uh, And so I've titled this
message, A Double Homicide, A Double Homicide. Abimelech kills the
church and the church kills Abimelech. And I believe that's what Paul
was talking about when he said, by whom the Lord Jesus Christ,
by whom the world is crucified. Now, what is crucifixion? It's
death. By whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world. Now, before we look at this any
further, we need to define world. And the world's not talking about
the people of the world. is talking about the values of
this world, the wisdom of this world, the philosophies of this
world, and most particularly the religions of this world.
And so when Paul said, by whom the world is crucified unto me,
he's talking about the wisdom, the values, the philosophy, the
religion of this world is dead to me, is dead to me. And I, unto the world. I'm dead to the world. The world
has no interest in my God, apart from the grace of God. Through
the miracle of the new birth, the world will have no interest
in our gospel. So here we are, brethren. We
live in this world in which, spiritually speaking, there is
an ongoing double homicide. where the church is being murdered
by the Abimelechs of this world. And the Abimelechs are being
put to death by the church in this world. This world is referred to in
the Bible as a dry and thirsty land. The devil himself, Satan,
is called the God of this world. This world is referred to as
a broken cistern, which cannot provide living water. And the water that collects in
that cistern is nothing but stagnant, polluted water. The world is
referred to as Babylon. And we see that. We see that
in the philosophies and the values and the wisdom and the religions
of this world. We see a lot of double talk.
Just babble. It can't be, it can't be understood.
It's, it contradicts itself. It's, it's, it's convoluted. It just, you
cannot make sense of the wisdom of this world. Whereas the wisdom
of God is so clear, so pure, so simple. And it always, it
always points to the Lord Jesus Christ. I like what Martin Luther
once said. He said, not a single word in
the Bible can be understood without reference to the cross. If the Lord gives us grace to
look in faith to the Lord Jesus Christ, we'll understand what
his word is saying. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1,
when the world by wisdom, knew not God. God, through the foolishness
of preaching, saved them which believe. You see, here's where
the Abimelechs of this world murder the 70 sons of Gideon.
They would consider what we're talking about right now and what
we're doing right now foolishness. I waste my time with that. And
the Greeks love wisdom. And the Jews are always looking
for a sign, aren't they? But we preach Christ and Him
crucified. To the Jews, a stumbling block,
to the Greeks, foolishness, but to them that are being saved,
He is the power of God. Turn with me to 2 Corinthians
chapter two, 1 Corinthians, I'm sorry, 1 Corinthians chapter
two. Look with me at verse 12. Now we have received, not the
spirit of the world. When we're talking about a double
homicide, we're talking about the world being crucified unto
me and me unto the world. If we have Christ, then we're
going to find ourselves at odds with this world. Now we have
received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit, which
is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given
to us of God, which things also we speak, not in the words which
man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing
spiritual things with spiritual." Now, all that means is what we're
doing right now. We're comparing scripture to
scripture. All of the Bible points in the
same direction. And so when we go from scripture
to scripture, we're comparing the spiritual to the spiritual
to reveal the spirit of God in the person of the Lord Jesus
Christ. But the natural man The natural man, the man who has
not the Spirit of God receiveth not the things of the Spirit
of God, for they are foolishness unto him. Neither can he know
them because they are spiritually discerned." We've said this before
and how true it is that holy men of God wrote as they were
moved by the Holy Spirit and the same Holy Spirit that gave
them the words to pen gives us the spirit of grace to see and
to understand and to believe on Christ through what they wrote. But he that is spiritual judgeth
all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. We fear not the criticisms that
come from the world for us resting in Christ and believing on the
word of God. Let them call us a Bible-thumping
backwoods Neanderthal if they want. We just believe God. And we're not threatened by those
kind of personal attacks. We know Christ. We know the truth. And we see the foolishness of
this world in standing firm on Christ. So we're judged of no
man. We're not intimidated. We're
not threatened. For who hath known the mind of
the Lord that he may instruct him? We have the mind of Christ. If we have Christ, we have his
mind. We have his spirit. We have his understanding. So this is the world. Now, I want us to, I've told you the
story of Judges chapter 9. There's a lot of details to it,
but basically that's it. Abimelech kills the church, the
false son of the concubine who is threatened by the 70 sons
of Gideon. He goes to the men of Shechem
and he says to them, do you want me to rule over you? Or do you
want the 70 sons of Gideon to rule over you? Gideon's sons
never show any interest in ruling over anybody. Gideon had already
said that he wasn't interested in being their king. God would
be their king. And we're led to believe that the 70 sons of
Gideon felt the same way. They had no interest in being
king. But Abimelech did. Abimelech wanted to be God. He
wanted to rule. And this is always the root cause
of man's sin. It goes all the way back to the
garden. God doesn't want you to eat the
tree of the fruit of knowledge of good and evil because he knows
that the day in which you eat of it, you're going, your eyes
are going to be open. You can become like God. And man's wanted to
be God ever since. Second Thessalonians chapter
two, a man under the authority of Satan sets himself up on the
throne of God, Satan himself in Isaiah chapter 14. I've written
this passage out. Listen to what Satan said in
Isaiah chapter 14. I will ascend unto the heavens. I will exalt my throne above
the stars of God. I will sit upon the mount of
the congregation. I will ascend upon the highest
of the clouds. I will be like the most high. So there we have the words of
Satan. And our Lord makes it clear that outside of Christ,
we're under the domain and the authority and the values and
the wisdom of Satan. So man, left to himself, the
natural man, who's not able to receive the things of the Spirit,
wants to be like God. He wants to be in control. He
wants to be in charge. Is this not the conflict that
we see between Cain and Abel? Cain was threatened by his brother
Abel, and he had to kill him. So this scenario is played out
time and time again, and it comes to its pinnacle in the life of
the Lord Jesus Christ, who was a threat to the self-righteousness
of the unbeliever. And We'll get to that. I'm getting a little ahead of
myself. We'll get to that in a moment. I wanted to turn to Psalm 139
because I want to make something very clear here before we go
any further. Psalm 139. We're talking about a double
homicide here. We're talking about the world, not the people
of this world. We're to love our enemies. We're to do good unto them that
despitefully use us, and, you know, we'll look at that in a
moment as well. But the values, the religions
of this world, the self-righteousness of this world, the systems of
this world that are contrary to the gospel of God's free grace
in the finished work and glorious person of the Lord Jesus Christ,
that's what we stand in conflict with. And that's what we say,
the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world. Here's
what Abimelech and Jotham represent in this story. You have your
Bibles open to Psalm 139. Look with me at verse 21. Now
remember, David, is speaking prophetically for
the Lord Jesus Christ. And so when he says, do not I
hate them, O Lord, that hate thee? And am I not grieved with
those that rise up against thee? I hate them with a perfect hatred. I count them mine enemies. And then he goes on to say, search
me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts.
Have you ever heard someone say God loves the sinner, but he
hates the sin? That's not what the Bible says.
The Bible says God loves Jacob and he hates Esau, period. God knows who the reprobates
are. We don't. We don't. And God's hatred is
not like our hatred. God's hatred is holy. It's perfect. So when God says, I hate them
that hate thee with a perfect hatred, the Lord Jesus Christ
has the sovereign right and the holiness to do that. And yet we can enter into this,
especially when David says, search me, oh God, and know my heart
and try me and know my thoughts and see if there'll be any wicked
way in me and lead me in the way of everlasting. Lord, give
me a perfect hatred for Abimelech. We hate the false gospel. We
hate the false gospel, number one. Why is the world crucified
unto us? Number one, because it robs God
of his glory. That's the number one reason
we hate a false freewill works gospel. It robs our God of his
glory. The second reason we hate false
gospel, because it robs me of my salvation. If I'm going to
concede to that gospel being true, then I'm robbed of my hope.
Because my hope is in the finished work of Christ. And if anything
else is needed for my salvation, or if anything else is possible
for the salvation of anyone, then I lose my confidence. I
lose my salvation. The third reason we hate the
false gospel is because it sends so many people to hell. So many people, people that we
love are deceived by it. And we hate it with a perfect
hatred, a perfect hatred. And that's when we say, Lord,
search my heart and know my thoughts and see if there'd be any wicked
way in me. Lord, I don't wanna have any sinful hatred toward
individuals. I want a holy hatred. toward, I want the world to be
crucified unto me and me unto the world. This is what, this
is what's going on. If you haven't read Judges chapter
nine, read the whole story. Now, turn with me to Luke chapter
six. I have to make this point very clear before we talk any
more about us hating the world. Luke chapter six, beginning at
verse, at verse 27, but I say unto you, which here
you have ears to let him who has ears to hear, hear what the
spirit sayeth unto the churches and hear the spirit of God is
speaking through the son of God. And he's revealing The truth,
and so he says, I say unto you that have ears to hear, love
your enemies, do good to them that hate you, bless them that
curse you, pray for them which despitefully use you. And unto
him that smiteth thee on the one cheek, offer also the other.
And to him that taketh away thy cloak, forbid not to take thy
cloak also. Give to every man that asketh
of thee, and him that taketh away thy goods, ask them not
again. And as ye would that men should
do to you, do you also likewise to them. There's the golden rule. What do you want men to do to
you? I tell you, the most loving thing that we can do for anyone
is tell them the truth. If I'm deceived, I want somebody
to tell me the truth. And don't leave me in a, in a
lie. For if you love them which love
you, what thank have ye? For sinners also love those that
love them. And if you do good to them which
do good to you, what thank have ye? For sinners also do even
the same. And if you lend to them who you
have hoped to receive, what thank have ye? For sinners also lend
to sinners to receive as much again. But ye love your enemies. and do good and land hoping for
nothing again and your reward shall be great and you shall
be the children of the highest for he is kind unto the unthankful
and to the evil. So here's, here's what our Lord
saying, is this, is this an inconsistency? No. The Lord said friendship
with the world is enmity with God. Um, So we're not suggesting in any way that
we treat anyone, anyone, with anything other than kindness
and grace and love. And let me say this, you know,
someone's thinking right now, well, you know, there's people
I don't like and there's people I don't trust. That's not a lack
of love. That's a good discernment. That's
good discernment. You know, love, child of God,
would anything thrill your soul more than to have your absolute
worst enemy receive Christ? and be brought to faith in the
Lord Jesus Christ and receive the gift of grace and love and
forgiveness and for you to be able to fellowship with them
in the gospel, with anything. You see, that's love. I want
what's best for that person. It doesn't mean I trust you.
It doesn't even mean I like you, but I do love you. So when the
Lord's talking about loving your enemies, that's what he's talking
about. And I am going to be kind to
you. So when we're talking about crucified, we see the church
at the end of chapter nine in the book of Judges killing Abimelech. She's in a tower, she's in a
strong tower. And the scripture says, the name
of the Lord is a strong tower and the righteous The righteous
flee to it and it's safe. So Christ is that tower and he's
the millstone that was thrown out of the tower that crushed
the head of the Bemelech. We're not talking about treating
individuals with anything other than mercy and grace and love,
but we're talking about being crucified to the world. and the world being crucified
to us. This is truly a double homicide. This is the believer's life.
If we have life in Christ, then we are dead to the world and
the world is dead to us. The systems of this world With our love of the truth comes
a hatred for a lie. Abimelech, let's look at this
text. Go back with me to Judges chapter
9. Look with me at verse five. And
he, this is Abimelech, this is the child of the concubine. This is the enemy of the gospel.
This is, this is a man who wants to reign. He goes to the men
of Shechem and he says, make me king. You don't want those
boys being your king. I'll be your king. And uh, And
so in order to remove the threat of his reign, you see the gospel
here, don't you? You see, men want to reign over
God. And every, you know, the gospel
of God's free grace in the accomplished work of the Lord Jesus Christ
is the only message of salvation that declares God to be God.
And strips man naked. of any contribution that he can
make for his salvation. It gives to Christ all the glory.
But men hate it because they want some glory for their salvation. And so they want to reign, they
want to be king. Verse five, and he went unto
his father's house at Ophrah and slew his brethren, the sons
of Jerubbabel. Now, Jerubbabel is another name
for Gideon. And Jeroboam translated means
the enemy of Baal. The enemy of Baal. We are at... God said to the Lord Jesus Christ,
I made thee a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.
Sit thou here at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy
footstool. There was a time when we were
at enmity with God and God in his mercy and his grace brought
down that wall of partition between us and God and reconciled us
unto himself. And in doing so, we become the
enemies of that which we were taken out of. And so Jerubabel, the enemy of
Baal, Baal, the Old Testament representation of all that speaks
against Christ and all that denies him his glory and salvation.
being three score and 10 persons. Notice, we looked at this Wednesday
night, so I was gonna briefly comment on it. He killed them
all on one stone. On one stone. And we know who
that one stone is. And isn't that the accusations
that they make against us? Don't they say Christ is all? Surely, surely there's more to
it than that. And so they write books on how
to live the Christian life. How is the Christian life to
be lived, scripturally speaking? The just shall live by faith. If you define the Christian life
with anything else, you're gonna find yourself in a works gospel. If you define the Christian life
with the way, certainly if we're walking in faith, there's things
we're going to do and things we're not going to do, but you
start looking at those things you do and don't do. And now
you're, now you're measuring your salvation by your life. The just shall live by faith,
but no, they're going to, you see, if you don't have the eyes
of faith, then you have to have something that you can see with
the natural eye. And so that's what the false
gospel does. It's always looking for some evidence of salvation
instead of looking for Christ. I like what one brother said, look to Christ and live like
you want. And the unbeliever who's living
under the law will hear a statement like that. And they said, that's
antinomianism. If I lived like I want, I would
just indulge myself in all sorts of horrible things. And the believer
in looking to Christ says, oh, I wish I could live like I want.
I wish I could live like I want. The just shall live by faith. Everything else. is dead to us. Man being under the dominion
of Satan is still saying, away with him, crucify him. We will not have that man reign
over us. The fool has said in his heart,
no God for me. No God for me. I'm already, I
got that position already. I don't want my position threatened.
And the believer who's under the authority of Christ puts to death those gods every
day. Paul said, I died daily. I died
daily. We have no king but Caesar. Isn't
that what they said to Pilate? Crucify him. We have no King
but Caesar. This has always been the case
and nothing's changed. Which of the prophets, the Lord
said, did they not persecute? Turn with me to John chapter
eight. John chapter eight. Look with me at verse 39 in John
chapter eight. They answered and said unto him,
Abraham is our father. And Jesus said unto them, if
you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham.
But now you seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the
truth, which I heard of God. This did not Abraham. You do the deeds of your father.
Then said they, we be not born of fornication. For we have one
father, even God. And Jesus said unto them, if
God were your father, you would love me. For I proceeded forth
from God and came from God. Neither came I of myself, but
he sent me. Why do you not understand my
speech? Even because you cannot hear my word. You have your father,
the devil, and the lust of your father you will do. He was a
murderer from the beginning and abode not in the truth because
there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh
of his own. For he is a liar and the father
of it, because I tell you the truth, you believe me not. Which
of you convinced me of sin? And if I say the truth, why do
you not believe me? He that is of God, heareth God's
word. Ye therefore hear them not, because
you are not of God. They call him a Samaritan. killed all the disciples, save
John. And our Lord said, blessed are you
when they persecute you for my name's sake. This being crucified to the world
and the world being crucified to us is still going on. Still
going on. Go with me to back to our text
in Judges chapter nine. I want to close with this. Verse 51, 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. Now the tower in the Bible is
a picture of strength. It's a picture of, well, it begins
with a tower of Babel. The men had bricks for stone
and slime for mortar. And they said, let us build for
us a city and a tower that reaches up into heaven. So the tower
was salvation. And the scripture says that our
Lord is a strong tower. Here's a picture, all the people
in the city, the church, they ran to the tower and they shut
the door just like God shut the door to the ark so that no man
could come in. Noah didn't hang a sign on the
back of the ark as the waters were rising and people were screaming
and dying, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your
life. He didn't do that. God hates with a holy hatred. So they flee to this tower, the top of the tower. And Abimelech
came into the tower and fought against it and went hard unto
the door of the tower to burn it with fire. Now he's already,
if you read the whole chapter, he's already taken out one tower.
He burned it with fire and killed a thousand men and women that
were held up in a tower. And that was a, that was the
false gospel. And so, and so here these, and,
and he's, he's banging at the door, trying to burn the door,
trying to get in. This is a picture of man trying
to force his way into the kingdom of God. And a certain woman, verse 53,
we know who that certain woman was. It was the bride of Christ. It's the bride of the Lord Jesus
Christ. She took a piece of a millstone, and that's all we have. You know,
we just have little pieces of light. You know, we have the,
We have the spirit of God. If you have not spirit of God,
you're none of his, but he has been anointed with the oil of
gladness above his fellows. The Lord Jesus Christ has the
full anointing of the spirit of God. We get pieces of it,
don't we? She takes a piece of millstone
and throws it out and upon Abimelech's head and all to break his skull. And then he called hastily unto
the young men, his armor bearer and said unto them, draw thy
sword and slay me that men say not of me, a woman slew me. And his young men thrust him
through and he died. And when the men of Israel saw
that Abimelech was dead, they departed every man to his own
place. Now, later on in second Kings chapter 11, when Joab comes
back to David with the knowledge of the death of Uriah, David
says, why did you allow Uriah to get up so close to the wall?
And Joab says to David, did not a woman slay Abimelech? And so, Abimelech's desire for
it not to be said that a woman has killed me, what didn't come
to pass? He was always known as a man
that was killed by a woman. We have to go here, I'm sorry.
Just take me one more minute. Revelation chapter 15. Revelation
chapter 15. Verse two. And I saw, as it were, a sea
of glass mingled with fire, and them that had gotten the victory
over the beast and over the image and over the mark and over the
number of the name, standing on the sea of glass, having the
harps of God And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of
God, and the song of the Lamb saying, great and marvelous are
thy works, Lord God Almighty, just and true are thy ways. Here's the church in glory, rejoicing
in the destruction of the beast, destruction of Babylon, the systems
of this world. the religions of this world,
the values of this world, the philosophies of this world, the
wisdom of this world. God's people live in this world. They love the people of this
world. They want what's best for them. They want only good. They can't harbor any bitterness
in their hearts towards anyone. The Lord's forgiven them, but
they hate They hate the ebenelecs of this world. And so we say
with the Apostle Paul, I dare not glory in anything other than
the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world is crucified
unto me and I unto the world. We really do live, spiritually
speaking, killing each other on both sides. Our Heavenly Father, bless your
word. Forgive us of our sin for Christ's
sake. Amen.