The Wisdom Of The Olive Tree

Judges 9:8-9 KJV The trees went forth on a time to anoint a king over them; and they said unto the olive tree, Reign thou over us. [9] But the olive tree said unto them, Should I leave my fatness, wherewith by me they honour God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees?

I. INTRODUCTION—BACKGROUND OF THE PARABLE

-Leading up to the text that we read is a miserable tale. Gideon is dead and Israel almost immediately reverts back to her idolatrous ways. Prior to Gideon’s death, his victory made the people offer to him the role of a king. However he insisted that Israel remain a theocracy instead of becoming a monarchy (8:22) and then promptly went and acted like a king.

• He amassed a fortune—8:26.

• He acquired royal robes and took an ephod to consult God—8:27.

• He made his worst mistake when he formed a large harem and begin to have children—8:30.

-Gideon’s ephod was what created the difficulty. You would think that after Gideon had torn down his father’s altar to Baal, he would have recognized the danger of putting something before Israel that could be served for idolatrous purposes.

-His dangerous device was formed from gold and contained all of the trappings of the ephod. His son, Abimilech, was carefully taking notice of his actions and what his father took in moderation; the son took in excess and took Israel a long way down the wrong path.

-Abimilech sets himself up as an impromptu leader over his seventy brothers. There is a maddening hungry ambition about him to be a king. He will resort to all manner of mayhem to capture the place of ruler-ship that his father had achieved.

-To eliminate the competition from his brothers, he hires some mercenaries and they go out to kill his brothers and manage to wreak a bloody calamity on them. All of the brothers are slain except for one named Jotham who manages to barely escape.

-Jotham takes flight to Mount Gerizim which had been a place to pronounce blessings but on this day the opposite would occur. Apparently an amphitheater of sorts, Jotham climbs its eight hundred feet to the summit and then uses the great acoustics to address Israel.

-He tells them a story of the trees in the forest that want a king. They approach the olive tree that turns it down, and then fig tree that turns it down, and then the grape vine turns it down leaving only a bramble bush to be the king over the forest.

-The bramble is a far lesser plant than all of the other trees. In fact it is a menace to agriculture and its only good use was to be burned. Yet it was to be crowned as the king of the trees.

-The point of Jotham’s parable became clear in that all of the other brothers would have served in the role Gideon had vacated rather than Abimilech who had bramble bush qualities about him. But despite that speech, Abimilech became the “bramble king” for a short period of time over Israel.

-Just in passing, notice that the least qualified are generally the most ambitious. It is the under-equipped who often think they have the capacity and power to rule those who really ought to be leading them. Small men are often the most ambitious and for what they lack in character they make up in noise and overt displays of raw power.

-This little bramble king wouldn’t last very long. He would die after a three year reign when a millstone was dropped from a tower by a woman (Judges 9:50-57) and fractured his skull.

II. THE OLIVE TREE

-So our text picks up with what the olive tree says during the conversation among the trees, vines, and the bramble. This parable is literally loaded with sermons for those who are willing to diligently work them out. I would like to isolate one part of this parable for now.

Judges 9:9 KJV But the olive tree said unto them, Should I leave my fatness, wherewith by me they honour God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees?

-There is great wisdom that comes from this olive tree in its reply. Our generation has a need for faithfulness like it never has before.

A. The Lessons of the Faithful Olive Tree

-There are several lessons that are gathered from the actions of the faithful olive tree.

1. Don’t Give In To Every Whim and Urge—Should I?

-The olive tree raised a question to the response to the request to be the king of the trees. ‘Should I?’ is a wonderful response to the opportunities that life will sometimes throw in our direction.

-Just because the opportunity is there doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to pursue it! If you aren’t careful you can make a choice on a whim that will put you five or ten years behind as you try to live through the fallout of that choice.