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THREE YEARS LATER
A Sermon on the Sovereignty of God and the Certainty of Divine Judgment
Primary Text: Judges 9:22 — ”When Abimelech had reigned three years over Israel.”
Supporting Texts: Judges 8–9; Romans 13:1–4; 2 Peter 3:8–10; Psalm 75:6–7
I. INTRODUCTION — A Tale of Treachery
Beloved, the account before us is one of the most shocking narratives in all of Scripture. It is a story of ambition, murder, and the slow but certain justice of God.
Abimelech — the son of Gideon by a concubine from Shechem — slew seventy of his own brethren, not strangers, on a single stone. He murdered them all at the same time, sparing only Jotham, the youngest, who managed to hide.
This was not a battle against enemies. This was fratricide. This was the slaughter of family. And it was done, as the text tells us, ”on one stone” — a calculated act of elimination to remove any potential rivals to his claim to leadership.
Now, that is amazing. That a man could rise up against his own blood, against the house of his father, and destroy it utterly — this reveals the depths of human depravity. And it sets the stage for a profound lesson about the nature of evil, the patience of God, and the certainty of divine judgment.
