When Lust Has Conceived, It Bears Sin

1Abimelech the son of Jerubbaal went to Shechem to his mother’s brothers, and spoke with them, and with all the family of the house of his mother’s father, saying,

2“Please speak in the ears of all the men of Shechem, ‘Is it better for you that all the sons of Jerubbaal, who are seventy persons, rule over you, or that one rule over you?’ Remember also that I am your bone and your flesh.” 3His mother’s brothers spoke of him in the ears of all the men of Shechem all these words. Their hearts inclined to follow Abimelech; for they said, “He is our brother.” 4They gave him seventy pieces of silver out of the house of Baal Berith, with which Abimelech hired vain and light fellows, who followed him. 5He went to his father’s house at Ophrah, and killed his brothers the sons of Jerubbaal, being seventy persons, on one stone: but Jotham the youngest son of Jerubbaal was left; for he hid himself. 6All the men of Shechem assembled themselves together, and all the house of Millo, and went and made Abimelech king, by the oak of the pillar that was in Shechem.

Gideon was the judge who governed Israel for forty years. When God called him, he was a fearful man, full of doubt, yet he took up the work of a judge as God led him. Even so, Gideon did not serve God wholeheartedly to the very end.

As soon as Gideon died, the children of Israel turned their eyes back to the world. They had served Baal, and still God and Gideon had rescued them from the hand of their enemies; yet they gave thanks to neither, and they threw away the grace they had been shown as if it were rubbish. They forsook Gideon, and in doing so they forsook God himself.

Gideon, too, turned to idols once the war was over, and he took many wives. What grieves me most is this: God had poured out his love and grace on him, and yet Gideon did not live by faith but gave himself to a life of sexual immorality. Had he served God with an upright heart, the people would have followed his example and lived by faith, and his sons would have done all they could to hold fast to the faith and serve God. As it was, he probably looked at his wives, his concubines, and his dozens of children with quiet satisfaction, thinking how richly God had blessed him. With no war in the land for forty years, he must have overrated his ability, and with wealth in abundance, he likely felt no need of God.

But the house and the children Gideon labored all his life to build vanished in a single moment, and in that we see how fearful God’s judgment is. Our honor, our power, and our wealth seem to be ours, won by our own effort. Yet if God calls us home this very day, everything that seemed to belong to us must be left behind in this world.

When Gideon left this world, he must have closed his eyes content that he had lived well: he had many sons, and the nation was at peace. But there was something he did not know. In God’s sight those dozens of sons were vessels that could hold no blessing, and Israel, peaceful as it looked without a war, was steeped in idolatry and stood under judgment. People judge by what they see. They would have reasoned that a man with dozens of sons was blessed, and that a man whose nation was at peace had done great things.

Yet the troubles, circumstances, and events of this world can be judged rightly only when we look at them from God’s point of view and in God’s time.

Judges 9:5-6

5He went to his father’s house at Ophrah, and killed his brothers the sons of Jerubbaal, being seventy persons, on one stone: but Jotham the youngest son of Jerubbaal was left; for he hid himself. 6All the men of Shechem assembled themselves together, and all the house of Millo, and went and made Abimelech king, by the oak of the pillar that was in Shechem.

The woman of Shechem whom Gideon took as a concubine bore him Abimelech. Because of his position, Abimelech would have had low self-esteem and a good deal of resentment toward his brothers. When his father died, he saw his chance for revenge, and for that reason he went to his mother’s family in Shechem and asked his relatives for help. His father had seventy other sons, he told them, but they were his own bone and flesh, so would they make him king? His relatives calculated how much they stood to gain if Abimelech became king, and they began to win over the men of Shechem. It is true that, born the son of a concubine, Abimelech must have suffered many wrongs and felt wretched each time. He struck down seventy brothers without a moment’s hesitation, and that tells us how deep his bitterness ran. Stung by those wrongs, he wanted revenge, and he very likely craved the throne as well; and so he fell into sin.

Shechem in those days served Baal and was sunk deep in idolatry. That Gideon married a woman from such a city shows how dissolute his life had become. Shechem was also the first town Abraham visited when he came into Canaan; Jacob lived there, and Joseph’s bones, carried up from Egypt, were laid to rest there.

Won over by Abimelech, his kinsmen gave him seventy pieces of silver out of the house of Baal Berith, and with that money he hired vain and light fellows. Abimelech and his mother’s family shared the same greed, and because of it they could carry out even so wicked a deed together. If just one person in that family had told him that his plan was evil in God’s sight, he could not have murdered his brothers so easily. So it is a blessing, when our thoughts turn to evil, to have someone beside us who will tell us what is right before we act.

Abimelech took his hired band of ruffians to Gideon’s house at Ophrah and, without hesitating, killed his brothers on one stone. Such is the terrible power of a sense of inferiority. Every one of us measures ourselves against our circumstances and against the people around us, which is why any of us can feel inferior or think little of ourselves. Yet that kind of inferiority is like a mist that vanishes when the sun rises. If we do not learn, in God, to recognize both our neighbor’s strengths and our own, to shake off our inferiority and live alongside others, we will collapse as Abimelech did. While his brothers were suffering, Jotham, Gideon’s youngest son, survived because he got away from that place.

The men of Shechem and all the house of Millo, who had killed Gideon’s sons, rejoiced greatly as they made Abimelech king. Like the crowds who celebrated Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, they were delighted because they themselves had helped put him on the throne.

Judges 9:7

7When they told it to Jotham, he went and stood on the top of Mount Gerizim, and lifted up his voice, cried out, and said to them, “Listen to me, you men of Shechem, that God may listen to you.

At the place where Joshua had proclaimed God’s blessing over the whole assembly of Israel, Jotham pronounced a curse on Abimelech and on the men of Shechem who followed him. This is the story he told.

One day the trees, looking for a king to rule over them, asked the olive tree to reign over them. The olive tree refused: its oil was used to honor God and man, so how could it abandon so precious a calling to become their king? Next they asked the fig tree to rule them, but the fig tree also declined; it would not leave its sweetness and its good fruit to be king over them. The vine, too, turned them down, asking why it should give up its new wine, which cheers God and man, to be their king. These trees could refuse the throne because they knew how precious it is to serve God and how dear their fruit was. They knew what they had to guard in life; that knowledge is what made their refusal possible. The gifts they had were for revealing God’s glory and nothing else; they would not sin against God out of a greed that reached beyond their station. When we know our place in this way, we do not sin, and what matters is discerning which choice makes for a right life. The olive tree, the fig tree, and the vine were all fit to be king of the trees, yet they chose instead the work that pleases God.

Turned down by every tree they had expected to say yes gladly, the trees went to the bramble. When they asked it to be their king, the bramble accepted at once: if they really meant to make it king, they should come close to it. Otherwise, it threatened, it would burn up the cedars of Lebanon with fire. The bramble invited them to draw near, but even up close it gives no shade; whoever comes near will only be pierced by its thorns.

Jotham was telling the men of Shechem, then, that in making Abimelech king they were making a wrong choice that would pierce them like sharp thorns, and that if they ever refused his orders, they would be stripped of everything they had, just as the bramble threatened to burn up the cedars. His father had risked his life to save them, Jotham said, and yet they had killed his seventy sons on one stone and made Abimelech, the son of his female servant, their king; they would certainly come to regret it. As he foretold, Shechem and Abimelech fell into strife and destroyed each other.

Our hearts, too, are full of the grace God has given us and the love our brothers and sisters in the faith have poured out on us, as many as Gideon’s seventy and more sons. Yet just as Abimelech, one of those sons, killed them all and tore apart an Israel that had been at peace, so in our hearts, full as they are of grace and love, a single greed, a single envy or jealousy or lust is tearing everything down.

James 1:15

15Then the lust, when it has conceived, bears sin; and the sin, when it is full grown, produces death.

Those who stand on the road to ruin choose greed and complaint before anything else. Only when we listen to what the Holy Spirit says and live as the poor in spirit does God, in his time, work good things for us. Yet people fail to master the desires of the flesh and their own righteousness, and they end up walking the road that leads to death.

Abimelech knew that his seventy brothers were each eager to be king. Seeing this, he ought not to have rushed off to Shechem; he should have waited in faith, trusting that the one God raised up would be king. Gideon’s sons, not even aware that it was a sin against God, were probably quarreling among themselves, and they must have lost the people’s trust. Then the opportunity would have come naturally to Abimelech, who had wisdom. Or if he had held fast to his faith with a humble and gentle heart, careful not to sin against God, God would have called him and made him ruler over Israel, just as he made David king while David quietly tended sheep. But people cannot wait until God acts. Had Abimelech thought that there were plenty of wise men besides himself to govern the nation, God would have come to him, just as he came to Gideon while Gideon was threshing in hiding.

But he believed he had a right to be king, and he set out to seize the throne by any means at all. He went to his own kin, those he ought most of all to have protected, lured them by making it seem that great gain would come to them if they made him king, and drove them all to their deaths. Abimelech’s greed gave birth to sin, that sin bred a greater sin, and because of it they all fell into death. When he hired those reckless men with money and turned them on his brothers, he likely had only one thought: his brothers had to die for him to be king. He never considered that when his brothers died, he too would die. God was watching all of this, yet Abimelech had no fear of God, and that is how he could take lives so easily.

The moment Abimelech struck down his brothers became the moment the sin of Gideon’s misspent life was judged. Even Gideon’s whole life vanished like a mist. Because Gideon loved the woman of Shechem, he probably lavished love on Abimelech, concubine’s son though he was. But Abimelech threw away even his father’s love like rubbish. So bitter was he about his lowly birth that he could not be content, could not be satisfied, and could not give thanks.

Jotham knew all this, and so he said that Abimelech was like a bramble: the more he flourished, the more he would torment others, a tree good for nothing. Jotham’s words tell us what kind of character Abimelech had shown in everyday life. People with an evil heart often make wrong choices. They make a sorry show of insisting that, though others refuse to recognize them, they have outstanding ability and fall behind no one. And every time they open their mouths, they complain and slander, betraying their sense of inferiority.

People of good character, by contrast, are courteous and considerate day by day and earn others’ respect, and that respect brings them honor without their having to boast of their abilities. Those with healthy self-esteem do not compare themselves with others; they are generous with praise, they are not proud, and they do not complain. They sacrifice themselves again and again, roll up their sleeves to help their brothers and sisters in hardship, and give themselves to the community as members of it; and it is for this that God takes notice of them.

Jesus is the example. In obedience to God’s command he went down all the way to death. When he sat on the throne as God the Son, he had a majesty no one could approach; when he bore the cross to make atonement for us, he gave everything he had.

And Jesus Christ, who is coming again as Lord, will work perfectly to invite his precious saints to the marriage supper of the Lamb. Jesus gave his all in every place he stood. If we, like him, give our all to live as children of God, God will keep us from shame.

Even if Abimelech did not love his brothers deeply, he would not have come under judgment had he not killed them. Had Gideon taught Abimelech who God is, the son would not have resisted the Holy Spirit or followed the desires of the flesh. But Gideon was guilty of the sins of Galatians 5:19-21.

Galatians 5:19-21

19Now the deeds of the flesh are obvious, which are: adultery, sexual immorality, uncleanness, lustfulness, 20idolatry, sorcery, hatred, strife, jealousies, outbursts of anger, rivalries, divisions, heresies, 21envy, murders, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these; of which I forewarn you, even as I also forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit God’s Kingdom.

Just as this passage describes, Gideon committed sexual immorality and idolatry in front of his children. He showed them strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, drunkenness, and orgies, and because he did, not one of his sons inherited God’s Kingdom.

Galatians 5:22-24

22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, 23gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts.

Jesus Christ wants us to bear the fruit of the Spirit. If, toward the world, we live as though we had no flesh at all, with no greed whatever, as people who lack a little, the Holy Spirit will make us bear the fruit of life. If we are wise as serpents to fend off Satan’s attacks and keep our faith, and live toward God with a heart as pure as a dove’s, God will set us up on high so that we bow to no one.

Abimelech’s pursuit of empty glory provoked God to anger, and he too came to taste the betrayal of others. If he had admitted that he was not the stuff of kings and had helped whichever brother became king, God would have given him an opportunity. The three trees knew how precious their fruit was and honored its worth. Had Abimelech likewise known how precious he was in God’s sight, he would never have committed the evil of killing and tormenting people.

Because Jesus knew how precious was the calling for which he had come to earth, the salvation of humankind, he withdrew when people wanted to make him an earthly king. The road before him was the road of death, the road of the cross, of cruel blows and the spear; yet because it was God’s promise, he bore it.

People today still think, as Abimelech did, that only by becoming king can they live in comfort. To seize that seat and to keep it, they do evil, and they do not hesitate to harm even human life.

Satan, too, tried again and again to make Jesus a king of this world. If Jesus became the world’s king, Satan could thwart God’s plan and lead many more people down the road of death. Unless we see through that scheme of Satan’s, we too will accept the throne as readily as the bramble did. We will bear no fruit, and still we will not fear God; we will want the world to exalt us as its kings. This is why we must know why we exist. Only when we know who we are can we know our place and live for God.

Are you a bramble today? Or are you an olive tree, a fig tree, a vine, living with joy for God and for others?

Judges 9:23

23Then God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the men of Shechem; and the men of Shechem dealt treacherously with Abimelech,

The people of this world act strictly in their own interest. Jotham had cried out that a union formed on worldly terms, without sincerity, was bound to break apart in the end, and just as he said, the men of Shechem rebelled. Under Abimelech’s brutal rule they fled to the hills and, to survive, preyed like bandits on those who passed along the roads. While they were in these straits, Gaal the son of Ebed, a man of wicked heart, came to Shechem, and the men of Shechem joined him in opposing Abimelech. When Zebul, Abimelech’s commander, saw this, he sent messengers to Abimelech saying that Gaal and the men of Shechem had betrayed him, and urged an attack. In the end war broke out between Gaal and Abimelech, and Gaal and the men of Shechem were badly beaten and put to flight.

This war was God’s doing; he brought it about to judge Abimelech and the men of Shechem who had betrayed Gideon. When Abimelech heard that those who opposed him had gathered in the tower of Shechem, he set it on fire and killed about a thousand people. He should have stopped there, but he pursued the rest to the tower in Thebez, and those who had fled all went inside the tower to hide. As the enraged Abimelech was about to set fire to it, a woman on top of the tower dropped an upper millstone on him and killed him. A king of this world died, struck by a stone a woman threw down.

If Abimelech had stopped when he should have, he would not have died. But he could not master his rage at being betrayed, and he went all the way. He had been the first to betray; yet when he was betrayed in turn, he could not contain his anger, and it ended in his death. By putting Abimelech to death, God judged the wickedness of human nature. However high a king may lord it over others, when God acts, that king meets death at the hand of a frail woman.

Though Gideon did not keep the faith to the very end, he was a judge who had done God’s work; for that reason God did not forgive those who despised and mocked Gideon and his descendants. The years Gideon spent working for God were devotion and sacrifice. That is why God judged Abimelech and the men of Shechem, who destroyed Gideon’s house.

Abimelech betrayed God and Gideon, and the men of Shechem betrayed Abimelech. This tangle of betrayals is exactly the sin that human greed gives birth to. The greed of those who leave the place God gave them conceived sin at last, and that sin, when it was full grown, produced death.

Your life is not your own; you must place it in God’s hands. We want to live as we please and be king, but that is not the right choice. I hope that, instead of moving by self-interest or acting on your feelings, you will wait patiently until God blesses you in his time, and live according to his will.

Gideon forsook God and lived as he pleased, and he died without fruit. Abimelech used his own flesh and blood to get what he wanted, and nothing was left to him. The men of Shechem, too, set Abimelech up as king hoping to live in luxury, and they all died empty-handed. We think our own judgment is wise, but if God is not at the center of it, it ends in failure. May you never forget that.

If we have the faith to wait patiently until God raises us up, God, who is watching every one of us, will surely act. If you lay down your greed, you will be far from sin; and if you put away sin, neither Satan’s temptations nor the fear of death will be able to shake you.

May you walk wisely by faith and be found faithful, people who fear God.