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Man, Judges Chapter 9 is a really interesting chapter because it sort of breaks from the pattern of the rest of what we've seen in the book of Judges. Up to this point, we've seen where the children of Israel will do evil on the side of the Lord, and then God will send the judge, and he'll rally the people back unto the Lord. First of all, they have to get right with God spiritually in the first place, and then after that, they have a victory, they defeat their enemies, and so forth. Well, this chapter is the aftermath once Gideon is dead, and as we would expect, once Gideon dies, the children of Israel do evil on the side of the Lord, and they turn away from him, and he's angry with them, and so punishment comes. But this time, instead of God sending a judge, there's this other situation where instead of a judge, they have this guy, Abimelech, who becomes a short-lived king, and when you read this chapter, the one thing that just jumps out at you is just how everybody is on the wrong side, it seems like. Like nobody's right in this chapter. It's just chaotic, and it's just infighting, and God's people are fighting against each other, people are being killed, and that's one of the main themes of the book of Judges, is just the spiritual state of people when they get away from the Lord, just the chaos that ensues, and when there's a lack of a good, strong leader, everything falls apart. Everything rises and falls on leadership, and that's one of the main messages in the book of Judges. So we're going to have to back up just a little bit into chapter 8, because we didn't get to this last week, and this kind of, as if this chapter weren't already long enough, you know, we're going to tag on a little bit at the end of chapter 8 here. But in chapter 8, verse 29, it says, and Jerubel, and of course that is Gideon, the son of Joash, went and dwelled in his own house, and Gideon had three score and ten sons of his body begotten, for he had many wives, so he has 70 biological sons. And his concubine, you know, it wasn't enough that he had all these wives. He's also got to have something else on the side, so he's got the concubine, and she was in Shechem, and she also bare him a son, verse 31, whose name he called Abimelech. So he has 70, quote, unquote, legitimate sons that he has from his multiple wives, and then he has this other bastard son that he has with the concubine named Abimelech. Verse 32, and Gideon, the son of Joash, died in a good old age and was buried in the sepulcher of Joash's father in Ophrah of the Abiezrites, and it came to pass as soon as Gideon was dead that the children of Israel turned again and went a whoring after Baalim and made Baal beareth their god. So notice, just immediately, when Gideon's dead, just right away, they go a whoring after other gods. Well, that's pretty similar to what we've always seen in the book of Judges. But instead of a savior coming and a judge coming right away, first we're going to have this drama with the sons of Gideon. Now if you remember back in chapter 8, they were begging Gideon to reign over them and become their king, and it was not God's will for them to have a king. And even when we get all the way to 1 Samuel, chapter 8, it's not God's will for them to have a king. God wanted them to be under the system of the judges, but eventually God relents and he gives them King Saul. But King Saul is hand-picked by God. And even the one who was hand-picked by God, Saul, who was known for his humility, and that's one of the reasons why he was picked to be king, still, once he becomes king, the power goes to his head, and he literally goes crazy. And he wants to kill David, and he consults the witch, he ultimately commits suicide. We all know that story. But what we see here is another attempt at a kingdom. They want Gideon to be their king, and Gideon wisely says, I will not reign over you, neither will my son reign over you. The Lord will reign over you. So he says, look, we need to stick with the biblical system from the book of Deuteronomy, we need to stick with the judges. We don't need a kingdom. And so he said, I'm not going to rule over you, and my sons aren't going to rule over you. Now he has, of course, 70 sons, and then he has the other bastard son. So it says in verse number 33, it came to pass, as soon as Gideon was dead, that the children of Israel turned again and went awhoring after Baalim. Of course, Baalim is the plural of Baal. So multiple Beils that they're worshiping, and specifically they make this particular Baal, Baal beareth their God. And the children of Israel remembered not the Lord their God, who had delivered them out of the hands of all their enemies on every side, neither showed they kindness to the house of Jerubal, namely Gideon, according to all the goodness which he had showed unto Israel. We're going to see why they were not kind to Gideon. Look at chapter 9, verse 1. And Abimelech, the son of Jerubal, went to Shechem unto his mother's brethren, and communed with them, and with all the family of the house of his mother's father, saying, Speak, I pray you, in the ears of the men of Shechem. Weather is better for you, either that all the sons of Jerubal, which are threescore and ten persons, reign over you, or that one reign over you. Remember also that I am your bone and your flesh. There's a lot in these couple of verses to talk about, but let me point out a few obvious things. First of all, there's the false dichotomy, right? The false left-right paradigm. And the devil will always try to do this to you, to give you these two choices that are both bad, they're both wrong, and to try to tell you, you have to pick one of these. If you're not for Trump, then you must be for Biden. If you're not for Obama, well then you must be for Mitt Romney. And if you're not for McCain, well I guess you're supporting Obama then. This is what the devil wants you to do. He wants you to choose, are you Calvinist or Arminian? They're both false doctrine. So Coke or Pepsi, Republican or Democrat, are you Protestant or Catholic? Which is basically Catholic or Catholic light. And so he wants to put these false choices in front of you that are both wrong, like you have to pick, you have to do one of these, and the answer is neither. So don't fall for these kind of false dichotomies, white magic and black magic and all the other different false choices, left, right, that the devil will put in front of you to try to get you, you know, just on one of his wrong programs. So it's like, well hey, should we have all 70 of Gideon's son's reign or just me, right? Because you don't want to have 70 kings, that's too expensive. The bigger the government, the more you're going to get taxed and the more rules they're going to make, and so it's better if we just have one.