“AND all the men of Shechem gathered together, and all the house of Millo, and went, and made Abimelech king, by the plain of the pillar that was in Shechem. And when they told it to Jotham, he went and stood in the top of mount Gerizim, and lifted up his voice, and cried, and said unto them, Hearken unto me, ye men of Shechem, that God may hearken unto you. The trees went forth on a time to anoint a king over them; and they said unto the olive tree, Reign thou over us. But the olive tree said unto them, Should I leave my fatness, wherewith by me they honor God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees? And the trees said to the fig tree, Come thou, and reign over us. But the fig tree said unto them, Should I forsake my sweetness, and my good fruit, and go to be promoted over the trees? Then said the trees unto the vine, Come thou, and reign over us. And the vine said unto them, Should I leave my wine, which cheereth God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees? Then said all the trees unto the bramble, Come thou, and reign over us. And the bramble said unto the trees, If in truth ye 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.”
What a solemn narrative of incessant failure and rebellion is the book of Judges! How truthfully “it holds the mirror up to nature,” and rebukes the insensate folly of self-righteous man! But, dark as is the picture thus presented to our eyes, there is a bright side too; for if the continual ingratitude and iniquity of the Lord’s people present a fearful portrait of man to our contemplation, the untiring patience, the unwearied grace, the wondrous goodness of the Lord shine out most sweetly. How could he bear with such a people? How indeed, if he were not what he is? Read all that has been the subject of our meditations for the past nine months; think how the Lord sought out, found, and fitted a deliverer for Israel; swept their countless oppressors from the land, and gave them peace and then read this, “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-berith 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 Jerubbaal, namely, Gideon, according to all the goodness which he had showed unto Israel.”
Ingrates to God and man, they forget both the grace, mercy, and goodness of the One, and the services of the other, and, burying in Gideon’s grave all that they should have learned of Gideon’s God, they set up again, in a viler form than ever, that “shameful thing,” against which Gideon’s testimony had been raised, and which (as is implied in the inspired narrative) was “yet in Ophrah of the Abi-ezrites.” Nor did they stop there. If God be forgotten, and all his ways of grace despised, what wonder if his servant, and his faithfulness to the Lord and them, should be forgotten also? Nor only forgotten, but his memory outraged in the slaughter “upon one stone” of all his legitimate children save one. Yes, even so far could the “men of Shechem” go in sinning against Jehovah, and his chosen and fitted instrument and channel of goodness to them. Yet God bears with them still, and, instead of instant and overwhelming judgment, rebukes and warns them, in gracious words, by the mouth of the only one that had escaped the slaughter, namely Jotham.
The appeal might well have touched their hearts; for if Gideon were indeed an olive tree, a fig tree, an a vine to Israel — if he were in any measure an instrument of grace, sustenance, and fruit to them, it was only by God’s grace; and so far as they reaped blessing through him, or brought forth any fruit God-ward, it was because Jehovah loved them, notwithstanding all their rebellion against himself. But, as the subsequent history shows, it was all in vain; as was also the warning contained in the closing figure of the parable, meant in grace to turn them back again ere they should fully reap where they had so fearfully sown. But although it failed to reach their consciences, this interesting parable is full of instruction to us, viewing it as we can do in the light of the truth which we possess. Gideon was but a type of One who in all things has the pre-eminence, and who, above all others, is to us the alone source of all blessing. Forever blessed be his name! It’s very mention
“Shall bow our hearts to worship him;”
and without pronouncing positively as to the Spirit’s mind in the parable, we may take the opportunity which the figures employed afford us of meditating upon some of the moral glories of Gideon’s great Antitype. Let us, then, as the Spirit shall enable us, “consider him.”
“The trees went forth on a time to anoint a king over them.” This is true as to Gideon. The men of Israel had sought to make him king, but, as we have seen in former meditations, he preferred the more lowly place of service to rule — he would rather glorify Jehovah than exalt himself; he would be servant to, not king over, the Lord’s people; he would not suffer them to thrust him into the place belonging to the Lord alone. Happy would it have been for the people of the Lord in the present dispensation, if those who profess to be God’s servants, had always been of the same mind — happy both for them and those they profess to serve. Alas! how many thrust themselves into that place which belongs alone to our glorified Head! And many love to have it so; for religiousness must have an object visible to sense, or all would be confusion in its estimation. How little do the dear children of God consider that in suffering this they are practically disowning the Lordship of him, “who loved them unto the death”! Consciously, intentionally, they would not do this, we are persuaded, for they love him — and well they may; but whenever a man is permitted by them to take a place belonging to our LORD, those who, even by silence, allow it, are so far virtually denying him who alone is Lord over his on house. It is truly said that “silence gives consent.” In this case it does so most fully: and sad it is to think that the Blessed One should be thus requited for all his love. Gideon would not suffer it in his day — “I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you [neither I, nor any other, however dear to me]: THE LORD SHALL RULE.” Memorable answer! may those who serve, and they who are served, remember it!
But in choosing the lowly place of service to that of authority, power, and pomp, Gideon did but faintly shadow forth him who, when he “perceived that they would come and take him by force to make him a king, departed into a mountain himself alone” (John 6:1515When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him by force, to make him a king, he departed again into a mountain himself alone. (John 6:15)) —taking a place far above their carnal thoughts, alone though he might be in it, as to all human sympathy or fellowship; for even his disciples were unable to understand or feel with him in this. Blessed Jesus! at all cost he must do his Father’s will. The path he took might lead to suffering, scorn, and death; but what was that to him, who never for a moment thought of himself? It was the path of obedience, and illimitable submission to his God and Father, as well as that which would result in infinite blessing to us, and that was enough. Alone — yet not alone, for his Father was with him — he chose the way — the toilsome way, the steep and lonely path, which, if it led far above and beyond all the thoughts of men, led also to deeper suffering than tongue can ever tell out, or heart of man conceive. Think, dear reader, of the blessed Man, Christ Jesus, preferring such a path. What must have been the love! And yet how little can we estimate or measure it as we should! To us who believe, the tale of Jesus’ sufferings is a subject of continual meditation; and the more we think thereupon, the more our admiration grows. But, after all, it is so faintly that we can apprehend it. Now and then some one feature in those sufferings strikes us more powerfully than another, and then we bow in wondering adoration. What he endured in the unceasing “contradiction of sinners against himself,” who shall ever tell? The very tenderness of his gracious heart, the love and compassion which dwelt so richly in him, must have enhanced this species of suffering to a degree our poor selfish hearts can in no wise enter into. Nor can we forget how oft his holy soul must have shrunk from much which his all-seeing eye witnessed even in those who were the constant companions of his pilgrimage, and who if, as he graciously said, they had “continued with him in his temptations,” had not unfrequently increased them.
But, more than this, there was the unceasing sorrowing over his much-loved people Israel. Go where he would, this followed him. Their very need of his healing, delivering power, every time he stretched forth his loving hand to heal, or spoke the word that drove the tormenting spirit of evil from the racked and wretched object of his compassion, this sorrow was revived, intensified, and struck home to his heart of hearts, until he sighed for very anguish (Mark 7:3333And he took him aside from the multitude, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spit, and touched his tongue; (Mark 7:33)); for why were they, his beloved Israel, thus subjected to the power of evil? Was it not because of their departure from himself? (Deut. 28) This was a sorrowing that sometimes would not be restrained, so that on one occasion, as if the fountain were too full to be controlled, “when he beheld the city, he wept over it.” And when for the last time “he went out, and departed from the temple,” his words, full of burning love and infinite compassion, form one of the most pathetic and beautiful passages in the Scriptures — “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children tether, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.” Is it not like the last pleadings of a breaking heart? Nor could he forget them even in the hours of his great agony, when, forsaken of his own, and followed by the malicious, triumphant Pharisee, the howling multitude, the brutal soldiery, he turned to the weeping women, and cried, “Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.” No nor even when quivering in anguish, as they nailed him to the tree, he cried, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”
How constantly he had mourned over Israel, how oft he had wept for them in secret, how unceasingly he had grieved, utterly forgetting all they did or could do against, himself (for when did he ever think of self?) who shall say? Well might the Spirit pronounce him “a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” Yes, it was LOVE that intensified his sufferings, and made them what they were. And, if all through and over all this deep path of sorrow the deeper one of Calvary’s dark hours loomed; if the end of this path were ever present to his blessed mind if the way in which his loved people would at last requite his patient love, pressed constantly upon his spirit (and who can doubt it?), can we wonder that “his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men”? O patient suffering One, how the remembrance of all thou didst endure for us should win our hearts to thee But there was yet a sorrow deeper far than all that could spring from man’s double-dyed ingratitude, and without doubt pressing always upon that pure and spotless heart. Of that, let the mysterious agony of “dark Gethsemane” speak. It is too deep for words, too terrible for comment. Enough that he, the holy Jesus, foreknew that he would on Calvary be “made sin for us,” that he would bear our sins. “in his own body, on the tree,” that HE whom he loved as never man loved, must forsake him there! If, reader, you would attempt to measure the weight of this sorrow, you must first measure his purity, holiness, and abhorrence of sin, and, harder even than this, HIS LOVE TO GOD. Who shall attempt this? Who, then, shall adequately comment upon the path of sorrow in which he walked, and which, be it remembered, he chose, and took, and kept right onward to the dreadful climax, that so his God and Father might be glorified, and we, enemies to him by wicked works, eternally blessed in himself? Eternal ages shall sound his praise, and countless myriads bless his name and tell of his infinite love; but not all the hearts that shall be gathered through his precious blood around the throne, shall fathom what he suffered willingly for them.
“Yet, Saviour, thou shalt have full’ praise;
We soon shall meet thee on the cloud,
We soon shall see, thee face to face,
In glory praising as we would.”