Clean Transcript

Dealing With Tyrants - 3

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• 2 Kings 11, verse 13. And when Athaliah heard the noise of the guard and of the people, she came to the people into the temple of the Lord. And when she looked, behold, the king stood by a pillar, as the manner was, and the princes and the trumpeters by the king. And all the people of the land rejoiced and blew with trumpets, and Athaliah rent her clothes and cried, Treason, treason!

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• But Jehoiada the priest commanded the captains of the hundreds and the officers of the host, and said unto them, Have her forth without the ranges, and him that followeth her, kill with the sword. For the priest had said, Let her not be slain in the house of the Lord. And they laid hands on her. And she went by the way by which the horses came into the king's house, and there she was slain.

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• Now, for the last two weeks, I have been dealing with methods of dealing with tyrants. And I showed you, first of all, that the first and most fundamental and basic method was that of deception, where over and over in the Bible, when tyrants were entrenched and already in power, it was proper and lawful to deceive them in order to protect your family, your life, and your property. And then last week I showed you the second tactic, and that was avoidance, where you literally just stayed out of their way, literally speaking.

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• Now, I'm going to be giving you the third method today, but let me give you a caution. I'm going to give you this caution at the beginning and also at the end of this message. And my caution is this. Do not take the message that I'm going to be preaching today independent from the one that is going to be following it. I cannot preach both at one time, but I want you to make sure that whatever you hear today, you weigh in the context of what I'm going to be saying next week, because next week I'm going to be giving some considerations that I think will bear very heavily and very weightily upon what I say today.

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• Now, very obviously, deception is the very first form that we may use against tyranny. Avoidance is the second. And the third, and the most recognized form of resistance to tyranny, is what we know as violent self-defense. In other words, it is open war against tyranny and against tyrants.

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• Now, many people erroneously term resistance rebellion. In fact, there are some people that talk about the American War for Independence as the American Rebellion. The American Rebellion is an improper term. Why? Let me explain. Because it is impossible to rebel against tyranny. Let me say that again. It is impossible to rebel against tyranny. Rebellion is only to lawful government. Rebellion cannot be, quote unquote, toward tyranny because tyranny is not now or has it ever been a lawful form of government. God never ordained tyranny as a form of government. So you may resist tyranny, but you are not in rebellion to tyranny because you can only be in rebellion to lawful authority.

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• For instance, let me just show you. If I were to look at Allison and say, Allison, go get me a glass of tea. She could look at me and say, now, Pastor, wait a minute. If you ask me, I'll be glad to get you a glass of tea, but don't go commanding me. And I look at the rest of you and say, well, the trouble with her is she's just rebellious. Well, she's not rebellious to me. Why?

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• Because I have no lawful authority over her. I'm not her husband. You understand what I'm saying? She can only be rebellious, quote unquote, to a lawful authority. So rebellion, then, is impossible for tyranny because tyranny is never a lawful form of government. Tyranny is the perversion. It is the abuse. It is the misuse of government which God has ordained.

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• Now, there is another term that could be used if you understand the term, and that is revolution. Now, when I use the term revolution, I'm not talking about a revolt against a lawful government. Once again, it would be a revolt against an unlawful government. And in that sense, you're trying to revolutionize the government to make it a biblical one and a godly one and a lawful one. So you could refer to the American War for Independence as the American Revolution, if you understand the term revolution.

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• Now, I just read to you 2 Kings chapter 11, where Athaliah, who happened to be the queen and who was reigning in the land, she came upon the temple because she heard the people shouting and she went to check it out and see what was happening. And there her grandson, Joash, was being ordained king by Jehoiada, the high priest, and the people. And when she saw the king being ordained and anointed, she cried, Treason, treason. And what did Jehoiada do? He said, Have her forth without the temple and kill her. Now, she said it was treason.

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• But God says her death was justice. Why? Number one, God never appointed Athaliah. Number two, He never ordained her government. And if you look in chapter 11 and verse 1, you will also find that Athaliah was a murderess. Notice the Bible says that when Athaliah, the mother of Ahaziah, saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all the seed royal. What did she do? She murdered her grandchildren. But Jehoshaphat, the daughter of King Joram, sister of Ahaziah, took Joash, the son of Ahaziah, and stole him from among the king's sons, which were slain, and they hid him, even him and his nurse, in the bedchamber from Athaliah, so that he was not slain. So here was a murderous—here was Athaliah who murdered her own grandchildren in order that she might be queen and that she might reign over the land. So very obviously, God never ordained Athaliah. He never ordained her government. She said it was treason, but God declares that it was justice.

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• Now, let me just take a few moments and read to you a document which I hope everyone is familiar with. I hope you understand that the Declaration of Independence was written in order to show the facts of why the American colonists were resisting George III and his tyranny. In other words, this is a document that establishes beyond any shadow of a doubt that George III and his government was a tyrannical government. Now listen carefully as I read this.

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• "The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let the facts be submitted to a candid world." Now here's the facts. "He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained. And when so suspended, he is utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only."

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• "He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused for a long time after such dissolutions to cause others to be elected, whereby the legislative powers incapable of annihilation have returned to the people at large for their exercise, the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without and convulsions within. He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states for that purpose, obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners, refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands. He has obstructed the administration of justice by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers."

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• "He has made judges dependent on his will alone for the tenure of their offices and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of new offices, and that almost sounds like Congress, doesn't it? He has erected a multitude of new offices and sent here their swarms of officers to harass our people and to eat out our substance. He has kept among us in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislatures."

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• "He is affected to render the military independent of and superior to the civil power. He is combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution."

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• Now that does sound like Congress. "...and unacknowledged by our laws giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation, for quartering large bodies of armed troops among us, for protecting them by a mock trial..." Oh, that does sound familiar. "...by a mock trial from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states, for cutting off our trade with all parts of the world, for imposing taxes on us without our consent, for depriving us in many cases of the benefits of trial by jury, for transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses, for abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province,"

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• "establishing therein an arbitrary government and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies, for taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments, for suspending our own legislatures and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever."

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• Now that is Congress, okay? "He has advocated government here by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages and totally unworthy of the head of a civilized nation."

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• "He has constrained our fellow citizens, taken captive on the high seas, to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions." And then he goes on and on.

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• So this document was just written to prove the tyranny of George III. Now, what form of resistance did our forefathers use? They used armed resistance. Why? Because they could no longer use deception, and they could no longer use avoidance. Now, our history is replete with examples of armed resistance to tyranny. But what saith the scripture? Does God ever use force to overthrow tyrants? Well, let's look at the scripture. Turn in your Bibles very quickly, if you would, to the book of Deuteronomy, chapter four, and let's read just verse thirty-four. Deuteronomy four, verse thirty-four. I've read this passage once before in this study, but let me allude to it again. Deuteronomy 4 and verse 34, and I want you to understand that God used force to overthrow Pharaoh when he brought Israel out of Egypt. The Bible says in Deuteronomy 4 and verse 34, "Or hath God assayed to go and take him a nation from the midst of another nation, by temptations, by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by a stretched out arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes."

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• Now let me ask you a question. Why did God use force to overthrow Pharaoh and the Egyptian army? You must remember that the Israelites were unarmed, outnumbered, and helpless. God sovereignly and powerfully delivered Israel out of Egypt by His own hand. But when God delivered them out of the land by His own hand and put them in Canaan land, guess what God did? God ordered the militia formed in Numbers chapter 1. And every able-bodied male from 20 years upward was to present himself for military service. Now watch this. God delivered Israel by force out of Egypt by His own hand when they were helpless and unarmed. But now that they're in the land and they're no longer helpless and now they're armed, God expects them to wage war by their own hand. God instituted this militia. Now, I want you to understand that the book of Judges is replete with illustrations of the overthrow of tyranny by force.

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• Now, let me make a statement before I go any further. We're going to be looking in the book of Judges at a lot of illustrations. These are not the only illustrations in the Bible. There are a multitude of others. I'll mention some others before I close. But I do want you to understand this, that the reason a tyrant was over the people in the first place was because of the people's sin and rebellion against God. Had the people been obedient to God, had they honored and worshiped the one true and the living God, their enemies would have never prevailed over them to begin with. Before we look in the book of Judges, look in Deuteronomy 28. Deuteronomy 28. And let's read, first of all, verse 15.

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• Note, if you would, this curse. Deuteronomy chapter 28, verse 15, the Bible says, "But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day, that all these curses shall come upon thee and overtake thee." Now skip down to verse 25 and let's begin to see what some of these curses are. "The Lord shall cause thee to be smitten before thine enemies. Thou shalt go out one way against them, and flee seven ways before them, and shalt be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth. And thy carcass shall be meat unto all the fowls of the air, and unto the beasts of the earth, and no man shall fray them away. The Lord will smite thee with the botch of Egypt, and with the emerods, and with the scab, and with the itch, whereof thou canst not be healed. The Lord shall smite thee with madness, and blindness, and astonishment of heart. And thou shalt grope at noonday, as the blind gropeth in darkness, and thou shalt not prosper in thy ways."

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• Watch, "and thou shalt be only oppressed and spoiled evermore, and no man shall save thee." God said, if you disobey me, you can look out. Tyranny is on the way.

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• Now, the Bible says, and I'll deal with this more next week, but the Bible says in Proverbs 16 and verse seven, "When a man's ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him." The opposite is also true. When a man's ways displease the Lord, his enemies are not at peace with him.

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• Now, let's turn in our Bibles to the book of Judges, Judges chapter three. And let's begin by letting me show you from Scripture armed resistance to tyranny. Now, in the book of Judges, in fact, the reason it is called Judges is because God raised up a judge or a deliverer or a savior for his people to deliver them out of the hand of the tyrants. Look in Judges, chapter three, and let's begin reading with verse five. And the first judge mentioned is Othniel. Judges, chapter three. And notice verse 5, "And the children of Israel dwelt among the Canaanites, Hittites, and Amorites, and Perizzites, and Hivites, and Jebusites." Watch verse 6, "And they took their daughters to be their wives, and gave their daughters to their sons, and served other gods." So they married outside of God's will, they worshiped false gods, verse 7, "And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and forgot the Lord their God, and served Baalim and the groves." Asherah. "And therefore the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel."

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• Watch now, "and he that is God sold them into the hands of Cushan-rishathaim, king of Mesopotamia, and the children of Israel served Cushan-rishathaim eight years. Verse 9. And when the children of Israel cried unto the Lord, the Lord raised up a deliverer to the children of Israel, who delivered them, even Othniel, the son of Kenaz, Caleb's younger brother. And the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and he judged Israel, and went out to war. And the Lord delivered Cushan-rishathaim, king of Mesopotamia, into his hand, and his hand prevailed against Cushan-rishathaim. And the land had rest forty years, and Othniel, the son of Kenaz, died." Now, God raised up Othniel. And the Bible says that he waged war against the king.

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• So here was armed resistance. Note, it was not rebellion, for Cushan-rishathaim was not a lawful king, nor did he have a lawful government over Israel. And so he used armed resistance.

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• Now, the period of peace that followed Othniel was a period of 40 years. Now, I want you to note what happened. I could ask this question, what marred, what disturbed, or what broke that 40 years peace? Well, let's get down to verse 12. "And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord strengthened Eglon, the king of Moab, against Israel, because they had done evil in the sight of the Lord."

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• Ah, what do you see God doing? Raising up another tyrant. God says, you're disobeying me. God says you're sinning against me, you're not worshipping me. And so he raised up Eglon.

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• Now watch verse 13, "and he gathered unto him the children of Ammon and Amalek, and went and smote Israel, and possessed the city of the palm trees." Who can tell me what that was? City of the palm trees. Los Angeles? No. No, I'd say Jericho, but I wouldn't say Los Angeles. All right. "But Ehud made him a dagger which had, let's see, verse 15, and when the children of Israel cried unto the Lord, the Lord raised them up, delivered Ehud the son of Gerah, a Benjamite, a man left-handed, and by him the children of Israel sent a present to Eglon, the king of Moab. But Ehud made him a dagger which had two edges of a cubit length, and he did gird it under his raiment upon his right thigh. And he brought the present to Eglon, king of Moab, and Eglon was a very fat man." When he had made an end to offer the present, he sent away the people that bare the present.

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• But he himself turned again from the quarries. By the way, the word quarries there literally means graven images. He came to these graven images were by Gilgal, and he said, I have a secret errand unto thee, O king, that is, he went back to the king, and all that stood by him went out from him. And Ehud came unto him, and he was sitting in a summer parlor, which he had for himself alone. And Ehud said, I have a message from God unto thee, and he arose out of his seat. And Ehud put forth his left hand, and took the dagger from his right thigh, and thrust it into his belly. And the haft also went in after the blade, and the fat closed upon the blade, so that he could not draw the dagger out of his belly, and the dirt came out. Then Ehud went forth through the porch, and shut the doors of the parlor upon him, and locked them. When he was gone out, his servants came, and when they saw that, behold, the doors of the parlor were locked, they said, Surely he covereth his feet in a summer chamber.

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• And they tarried till they were ashamed, and behold, he opened not the doors of the parlor. Therefore they took a key and opened them, and behold, their Lord was fallen down dead on the earth." And he had escaped while they tarried and passed beyond the quarries of the graven images and escaped in Seirath. It came to pass when he was come that he blew a trumpet.

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• in the mountain of Ephraim. And the children of Israel went down with him from the mountain, he before them. And he said unto them, Follow after me, for the Lord hath delivered your enemies, the Moabites, into your hand. And they went down after him and took the fords of Jordan toward Moab and suffered not a man to pass over."

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• Now, let me just stop there. Of course, verse 29 says they slew that day about 10,000 Moabites.

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• Now, Ehud has used not only armed resistance, he is also used deception. And assassination.

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• Now, most men are right handed, and when a man would be going in to check to see the king, they would invariably check his left side, because that's where usually a right handed man would keep his dagger where he could get to it very quickly. But he was left handed. So he girded the dagger on the left side and they didn't think to check there or didn't notice.

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• And when he went back and he said to Eglon, and I want you to note this, Eglon was a wicked, ungodly reprobate. But I want you to note, as wicked and as ungodly and as tyrannical as Eglon was, he had more respect for God than our modern day politicians. Because when Ehud said, I have a message from God for thee, at least Eglon arose out of his seat to receive it. I want to hear what God has to say. And when he arose out of his seat, Ehud drew out that dagger and stuck it in.

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• I don't know if you know what the haft is. Most of you have seen these hunting knives and they have the little thing sticking out where your hand will not slide down on the blade. That's called the haft. And so Ehud plunged that knife in so deeply that the fat closed up around the haft and Ehud couldn't even pull it out. And of course, the Bible said the dirt came out or the fundament or the contents of his bowels spilled out.

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• He literally ripped him open is what he did. And then he just simply locked the door and left. Well, very obviously, his servants then came when they saw the door locked. They said, surely he covereth his feet in the summer parlor.

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• Now, I have a friend who really messed up that phrase. He was showing through the Bible where Saul went into a cave and covered his feet and talking about how Saul had cold feet, you know, and I went up to him afterwards. I said, brother, it's very obvious you have never been raised on a farm. He said, what do you mean? I said, Saul did not go into the cave and cover his feet because his feet were cold. He went in there to use the bathroom.

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• That's what happens when you drop your pants. And that's what he was doing. That's what they thought Eglon was doing. And so they said, we're going to stay out of there. And guess what happened pretty soon? He stayed and stayed and stayed and they didn't have Reader's Digest in those days and they knew something was up. And they found him dead. Now, Ehud was a left-handed man. And God used this left-handed man who was a Benjamite.

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• And don't you remember, by the way, what the word Benjamin means? It means son of my right hand. But Ehud was a left-handed man. And so God used assassination and God used armed resistance.

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• Now, once again, I could ask this question. What marred—you see, the Bible says that, in fact look in verse 30, "Moab was subdued that day under the hand of Israel and the land had rest four score or eighty years." And once again, after an 80-year period, sin came in. Watch verse 31. "And after him was Shamgar, the son of Anath, who slew the Philistines 600 men with an ox goad, and he also delivered Israel." So after the Moabites, after 80 years, God allowed the Philistines to come in. Here is Shamgar with an ox goad, and the Bible says he killed 600 men. I want you to note, first of all, that Shamgar was using armed resistance. Note, secondly, the weapon that he used was a highly inferior weapon. It was an ox goad. An ox goad was nothing more than a stick about that large in diameter.

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• It was probably six or eight feet long and it came to a sharp point. That's all it was. And God allowed Shamgar to use this ox goad to kill 600 men.

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• Now I want you to note this. This highly inferior weapon was quite superior to anything that the Philistines had when it had the blessing and the power of God upon it. You understand what I'm trying to say? It doesn't matter how many machine guns or bombs or planes or tanks that the enemy has. When the enemy is wicked and wrong, and when God's blessing and power is upon his people, even the weakest and the most inferior instruments of war become superior to whatever the enemy has. So God used Shamgar. Note, if you would please, Judges chapter 4.

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• Now I don't want to take time to read all of this. I've got a lot of ground to cover. Here in Judges 4 are Deborah and Barak. Chapter 5 is the song of victory. Let me read just a little bit. Judges 4, verse 1. Once again, look carefully. "And the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord when Ehud was dead." Isn't that interesting?

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• Have you noticed that whenever God raised up a man, and that man ruled with godly authority, when that man died, the people usually went back into sin and rebellion. Have you noticed that in our country? When our country had godly leaders, we had a godly people. When the godly leaders died, the people went back into sin. And now we have ungodly leaders and ungodly people. So watch what happens.

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• "And the Lord sold them in the hand of Jabin, king of Canaan, that reigned in Hazor, the captain of whose host was Sisera, who dwelt in Harosheth of the Gentiles. And the children of Israel cried unto the Lord, for he had nine hundred chariots of iron, and twenty years he mightily oppressed the children of Israel."

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• Now, you know the story how Deborah told Barak, God said, you go with him. I'm going to get him into your hands. And he said, I'll go, but I'm not going to go unless you go with me. Deborah said, all right, I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to go with you. But because you're not man enough to do it alone like you're supposed to, God's going to give the honor to a woman.

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• And that's when Jael, remember, took that nail and drove it through Sisera's temples and then cut off his head. What was God using? God was using armed resistance and assassination. Literally, that's what Jael did to Sisera, who was the captain of the host of Jabin, the king of Hazor. She assassinated him while he was asleep. So God used armed resistance, and God used assassination. I read this to you just a little bit ago, a few weeks ago, but look in verse 24 of chapter 5. Once again, let me show you the praise that God heaps upon Jael. "Blessed above women shall Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite be. Blessed shall she be above women in the tent."

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• "He asked water, and she gave him milk. She brought forth butter in a lordly dish. She put her right hand to the nail and her right hand to the workman's hammer. And with the hammer she smote Sisera. She smote off his head when she had pierced and stricken through his temple. At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down. At her feet he bowed, he fell, where he bowed, there he fell down dead."

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• So once again, God is using assassination and armed resistance. And if you look in verse 31, the song goes on. "So let all thine enemies perish, O Lord. But let them that love thee be as the sun when it goeth forth in his might." Watch. "And the land had rest for 40 years." So for 40 years now, after Deborah and Barak, the land rested. But if you look in Chapter six, beginning with verse one, hear those all too familiar phrases, "and the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord delivered them in the hand of Midian for seven years." Isn't that interesting?

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• Do you see the picture? Whenever the people serve God and are obedient and worship him, they're free. Whenever they disobey him and fail to honor him, they're in bondage. They're oppressed. They're under tyranny. Is that giving you a clue as to why we're so oppressed today as a nation and as a people? Very obviously, it should be plain. Well, what does God do? I want to read this. This to me is so funny because God raises up—and I hope every one of you in here are familiar with the life of Gideon.

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• Let's begin with verse 2. "Now the hand of Midian prevailed against Israel, and because of the Midianites, the children of Israel made them the dens which were in the mountains and the caves and the strongholds."

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• Now what tactics are they using? Avoidance and probably some deception too. You're fixing to see both of them are used. Now, why were they using avoidance and deception? The answer is because they were not able to overthrow them with armed resistance at that particular time. Verse 3, "And so it was when Israel had sown that the Midianites came up and the Amalekites and the children of the east, and they came up against them, and they encamped against them, and destroyed the increase of the earth, till thou comest to Gaza, and left no sustenance for Israel, neither sheep, nor ox, nor ass." So every time they planted a harvest, when the harvest time came, they just came in and ate everything up. Made everybody starve. Now watch verse 5, "for they came up with their cattle and their tents, and they came as grasshoppers for multitude."

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• "For both they and their camels were without number, and they entered into the land to destroy him. And Israel was greatly impoverished because of the Midianites, and the children of Israel cried unto the Lord. And it came to pass when the children of Israel cried unto the Lord because of the Midianites, that the Lord sent a prophet unto the children of Israel, who said unto them, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, I brought you up from Egypt, and brought you forth out of the house of bondage. And I delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, out of the hand of all them that oppressed you, and draved them out from before you and gave you their land. And I said unto you, I am the Lord your God."

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• "Fear not the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell, but you have not obeyed my voice. And there came an angel of the Lord and sat under the oak, which is in Ophrah, that pertained to Joash, the Abiezrite, and his son Gideon, watch now, and his son Gideon, threshed wheat by the winepress, to hide it from the Midianites." So here is not only avoidance, but deception, pretending like we don't have any. Watch verse 12. What is Gideon doing, someone tell me? He's threshing wheat, but he's what? He's hiding. Now watch verse 12. "And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him and said unto him, The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valor." Thou mighty man of valor? What was this most courageous man doing? Hiding. And now watch what Gideon says in verse 13, "Gideon said to him, Oh my Lord, if the Lord be with us."

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• "Why, then, is all this befallen us? And where be all his miracles? Which our fathers told us of, saying, Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt? And now the Lord hath forsaken us, and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites. And the Lord looked upon him, and said, Go in this thy might, and thou shalt save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Have not I sent thee?"

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• Now, everybody knows the story how Gideon had this vast army. And now what God did, if you would, I want you to note what he said to get in skipping down, if you would please to Chapter seven and verse four. In fact, let's begin reading with verse two. Judges seven, verse two, "and the Lord said in the beginning, the people that are with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into your hands, lest Israel vaunt themselves against me, saying, my own hand hath saved me. Therefore, go to proclaim in the ears of the people, saying, Whosoever is fearful and afraid, let him return and depart early from Mount Gilead. And there returned of the people twenty-two thousand, and there remained ten thousand." So two-thirds went home. "And the Lord said unto Gideon, The people are yet too many."

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• "Bring them down into the water, and I will try them for thee there. And it shall be that of whom I say unto thee, This shall go with thee, and the same shall go with thee. And of whomsoever I say unto thee, This shall not go with thee, and the same shall not go with thee."

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• Now you know the story how he made them lap water, and finally he cut Gideon down to three hundred men. Now the truth is, Gideon and those three hundred men thoroughly, totally defeated the thousands of Midianites. He slew their princes, Oreb and Zeeb.

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• Now, here's the point I want to make. Listen carefully. Shamgar had an inferior weapon. Gideon had an inferior force. You know, we always think, well, boy, if God would just let the American people band together, we always think in terms of majorities. Listen, folks, God has never used majorities. He's always used minorities. The majority is not always right. Usually the majority is always wrong. The minority is the ones that are right. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were in the minority. Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth were in the minority. Daniel was a minority. We're not in the majority.

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• Do you realize when George Washington was fighting for our independence, the most he ever had at one time, the most—the Battle of Brandywine was 8,000 men. Usually, he had 3,000 or less. We have the idea, well, we've got to have a lot. God says, no, Gideon, I can take 300 men and with my blessing, I will overthrow the tyrants. So God used Gideon and armed resistance to destroy the Midianites.

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• Now, if you look in your Bibles, by the way, let's look very quickly, if you would please, at Judges chapter 8 and verse 28, and you'll see that the land had rest for 40 years there. The Bible said, "Thus was Midian subdued before the children of Israel, so they lifted up their heads no more, and the country was in quietness 40 years in the days of Gideon." Now, I don't want to take the time in Judges chapter 9 to tell you all of the story, but in Judges chapter 9, Abimelech arises up and does become a tyrant and he murders all of his brethren who were the sons of Gideon just so he can become king. In fact, let's read just the first five verses. "And Abimelech the son of Jerubbaal, who was Gideon, went to Shechem and to his mother's brethren, and communed with them, with all the family of the house of his mother's father, saying, Speak, I pray you, in the ears of all the men of Shechem, whether it is better for you, either that all

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• the sons of Jerubbaal or Gideon, which are of three score and ten persons, that is, seventy persons, reign over you, or that one reign over you. Remember also that I am your bone and of your flesh. And his mother's brethren spake of him in the ears of all the men of Shechem, all these and their hearts inclined to follow Abimelech, for they said, He is our brother. And they gave him three score and ten pieces of silver out of the house of Baal-berith, wherewith Abimelech hired vain and light persons who followed him. And he went unto his father's house at Ophrah, and slew his brethren, the sons of Jerubbaal, being threescore and ten persons upon one stone. Notwithstanding it, Jotham the youngest son of Jerubbaal was left, for he hid himself."

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• So he goes and murders then literally all his brothers, and he becomes a tyrant. And of course he's destroying people left and right, but let me show you how he dies. Look in Judges chapter 9. Beginning there with verse 50. This is very fitting. Judges 9 verse 50. "Then went Abimelech to Thebez and encamped against Thebez and took it. But there was a strong tower within the city and thither fled all the men and women and all the other city and shut it to them and gat them up into the top of the tower. And Abimelech came into the tower and fought against it and went hard into the door of the tower to burn it with fire. And a certain woman, don't know who she was, but a certain woman cast a piece of millstone upon Abimelech's head, and all to break his skull."

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• "Then he called hastily unto his young man, his armor-bearer, and said unto him, Draw thy sword and slay me, that men say not of me. A woman slew him, and his young man thrust him through, and he died." When the men of Israel saw that Abimelech was dead, they departed every man into his place, and God rendered the wickedness of Abimelech, which he did unto his father, and slain his seventy brethren, etc., etc. But note, if you would, here a woman just simply dropped a millstone on his head, and for all practical purposes, she killed him. He was dying, and he looked at his armor bearer and said, You just stick me through. I don't want men to say that a woman killed me. So God has a way of rewarding tyrants.

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• Now, in Judges chapter 10, Tola and Jair are mentioned in verses one through five. We're not told too much about them. But if you look in Judges chapter 10, beginning with verse six, you find this. "And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord, and served Baalim and Ashtaroth, and the gods of Syria, and the gods of Zidon, and the gods of Moab, and the gods of the children of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines, and forsook the Lord, and served him not. And the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel, and he sold them in the hands of the Philistines, and in the hands of the children of Ammon. And that year they vexed and oppressed the children of Israel eighteen years, all the children of Israel that were on the other side of Jordan in the land of the Amorites, which is Gilead. Moreover, the children of Ammon passed over Jordan to fight also against Judah and against Benjamin and against the house of Ephraim, so that Israel was sore distressed."

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• "And the children of Israel cried to the Lord, saying, We have sinned against thee, both because we have forsaken our God and also served Baalim. And the Lord said unto the children of Israel, Did not I deliver you from the Egyptians, and from the Amorites, and from the children of Ammon, and from the Philistines, the Zidonians, the Amalekites, the Maonites, did oppress you? And you cried unto me, and I delivered you out of their hand. Watch now. Yet have you forsaken me and served other gods. Wherefore, I will deliver you no more." Ah! What is God saying? God says, I get tired. You won't listen. You won't listen. Why should I deliver you again?

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• "All you've got to do is turn around and sin against me and forsake me." He says in verse 14, "Go and cry unto the gods which you have chosen, and let them deliver you in the time of your tribulation. And the children of Israel said unto the Lord, We have sinned. Do thou unto us whatsoever seemeth good unto thee, deliver us only. We pray thee this day. And they put away the strange gods from them, and served the Lord, and his soul was grieved for the misery of Israel."

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• And God, being merciful, raised up Jephthah the Gileadite. If you look in verse 1 of chapter 11, now, Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty man of valor, and he was a son of a harlot, and Gilead begat Jephthah.

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• Now, guess what his brothers did? The brothers said, You're not the son of our mother. You're the son of a harlot. We don't want you around. And they ran him off. But he was a warrior. He was a fighter. And in their time of need, they come to Jephthah, and they said, Will you lead us against the enemy? Will you fight for us? And Jephthah said, Well, if you make me your captain, I'm going to do that. And of course, they made him the captain. And you know how God delivered Israel through Jephthah.

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• Once again, it was armed resistance. Now, there are other minor judges mentioned, but if you will turn in your Bibles to Judges chapter 13, there's one more that I want to bring to your attention. And that one is the Samson. Notice if you would please verse one of Judges thirteen, "and the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord and the Lord delivered them into the hand of the Philistines forty years."

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• "There was a certain man of Zorah, the family of the Danites, whose name was Manoah, and his wife was barren and bare not. And the angel of the Lord appeared unto the woman and said unto her, Behold, thou art barren and bearest not, but thou shalt conceive and bear a child. Now therefore, beware, I pray thee, and drink not wine or strong drink, eat no unclean thing, For lo, thou shalt conceive and bear a son, and no razor shall come on his head. For the child shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb, and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines."

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• And of course, this is where Samson came into being. Now, what method did Samson use to overthrow the Philistines? He used deception, that is true on some occasions, but usually he used assassination and or armed resistance. Now, an interesting thing is this, when they finally come to get Samson, and if you look in your Bible to chapter 15, when they finally come to get him, he is up on top of the rock, The Bible says in verse fourteen, "And when he came unto Lehi, the Philistines shouted against him,"

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• "and the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and the cords that were upon his arms became as flax, that were burnt with fire, and his bands loosed from off his hands. And he found a new jawbone of an ass, and put forth his hand, and took it, and slew a thousand men therewith. And Samson said, With a jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, with a jaw of an ass have I slain a thousand men."

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• Now I want you to know, that Samson was an average, ordinary man. Every time we think of Samson, we think of someone with muscles bulging everywhere. Samson was not a powerfully built man. No doubt he had some muscles. No doubt he may have been strong, but he was not a Mr. Atlas walking around, a bodybuilder showing off his muscles. What made Samson strong was the power of God. An ordinary, average man with the power of God picked up the jawbone of an ass, watch this, and beat to death a thousand Philistines who had swords and spears and probably bows and arrows as well. Here you have an inferior force and an inferior weapon, blessed by God, to defeat a superior weaponry and a superior force.

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• Evidently, the peace that he brought upon the land was a 20-year peace, for the Bible says in Judges 16, verse 31, "...then his brethren in all the house of his father came down and took him, and brought him up, and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol, in the burying place of Manoah his father, and he judged Israel for twenty years." Let me just try to summarize everything that I've given you so far in the book of Judges.

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• The methods that have been used in violent self-defense were armed resistance, assassination, sabotage, and guerrilla warfare. I did not take the time to develop all of those, but they are plainly taught in the book of Judges. There are a multitude of others in the Bible who used armed resistance to overthrow tyrants. We're not going to take the time to look at them, but I will tell you about them. Samuel, in 1 Samuel 15, verses 32 and 33, used a sword to hew Agag in pieces. Agag was the king of the Amalekites. Saul, in 1 Samuel chapter 11, used the sword. He used armed resistance to destroy Nahash the Ammonite when the Ammonites came against Israel. Jonathan, in 1 Samuel 14, against the Philistines used armed resistance. David in 1st Samuel chapter 17 used the slingshot and the sword against Goliath. Elijah in 1st Kings chapter 18 used a sword and cut off the heads of the 400 prophets of Baal. Remember, they were the prophets of Ahab and Jezebel. They were the prophets of the tyrants.

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• Jehu in 2 Kings 9 used force against Ahab and his house. He killed every one of them. Joash and Jehoiada, the high priest, which we just read about, used force against Athaliah and all who followed her.

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• Now, inevitably, invariably, someone is going to say, but Brother Weaver, everything that you just told me happened in the Old Testament. Isn't it amazing that everybody wants to divide the Word of God? They want to say, well, if we don't see it in the New Testament, then it can't be real. Let me tell you something. First of all, God is not only sovereign, He is immutable, that is, He is unchangeable.

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• In the book of Malachi, he says, I, the Lord, change not. The God of the Old Testament is the God of the New Testament. We only have one God. We only have one Bible, not two Bibles. But I will show you a New Testament passage that endorses everything that I just told you that happened in the Old Testament, by the way. I hope you know that you cannot understand the old of the New Testament without knowing the Old Testament, because all the New Testament is is a further explication and explanation of the truth of the Old Testament. If you will turn in your Bibles to the book of Hebrews chapter 11, please remember that Hebrews 11 deals with the heroes of faith, and I want you to note how God in Hebrews 11 places all of these warriors, these individuals who used armed resistance against tyranny, as heroes of faith. Note, if you would, Hebrews 11 in verse 32.

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• "And what shall I more say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthah, of David also, and of Samuel, and of the prophets. Watch who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of the lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens."

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• So God, in Hebrews 11, is endorsing and placing his approval upon everything that these men did. He lists them in the heroes of faith.

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• Now, why is it lawful to use force against tyranny? How can such force be considered just? Well, let me answer that. First of all, because it is part of the Lex Talionis of scripture. You remember the Lex Talionis is Latin for the law of retribution. God says an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. You see, tyrants use force of various kinds and degrees to usurp and abuse power. Therefore, force may be lawfully used against them because it is part of the law of retribution.

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• Secondly, as I have already stated, tyranny is never a divinely ordained form of government. Since God did not ordain it, it may be lawfully and justly resisted.

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• Thirdly, most tyrants are murderers, and therefore they are under the death penalty from God himself. And they may justly be put to death.

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• Now, I want to give you a quote. And I want you to listen very carefully. And then I'm going to give you a word of caution. This quote comes from Dr. Robert A. Morey. In his book, what is it right to fight? On page 32. I want you to see that this is not my opinion, it's not just me saying it, I'm showing you that other scholars have come to exactly the same conclusion from studying scripture. Here's what Dr. Morey says, and I quote, "It should be also noted that the use of assassination to remove tyrants is viewed in scripture as thoroughly just and commendatory. Ehud's assassination of Eglon or the other assassinations committed by freedom fighters to overthrow tyrants throughout biblical history are always praised in Scripture as a legitimate and a just means of force. If one takes the biblical record seriously, assassination to remove a tyrant is not murder."

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• "We must praise Dietrich Bonhoeffer's involvement in an assassination plot against Hitler. If the plot had succeeded, World War II would have been concluded early and many thousands of lives would have been saved. One modern example of a tyrannical power is the Soviet dictatorship. The Russian people never chose these tyrants to be in power, and they would overthrow them if they had the opportunity. Alexander Solzhenitsyn has clearly demonstrated that the Russian people are the oppressed victims of an illegitimate tyrannical power. The same is true for all the oppressed peoples in all captive nations."

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• "The tyranny that is oppressing them is not ordained of God, and it is to be overthrown whenever possible. One cannot but wonder what wonderful blessings would have been bestowed upon humanity if such tyrants as Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Hitler and Mussolini had been assassinated, or if modern-day tyrants were removed by assassination. Certainly the oppressed people whom they are victimizing would rejoice at the fall of these evil men."

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• Now did you hear what he said? If one takes the biblical record seriously, assassination to remove a tyrant is not murder. Isn't it interesting that when George Bush was president and he was fighting against Saddam Hussein, someone suggested, why don't you just kill him? Well, we don't assassinate people. Well, the CIA does on a regular basis. I had rather have one dictator killed, then lose a thousand American boys in a war just because you want to assassinate somebody.

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• You see what I'm saying? I think, to be honest with you, what we really need to do if we want to have a real war is to just put our president and our Congress on an island somewhere with the other country's president and Congress and let them fight it out. I mean, you know, that'll stop it. So Robert Morey is saying that assassination to remove a tyrant is not murder.

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• Now, let me give you a caution. And here's my caution. I cannot complete this message today. This message will be considered next Lord's Day with vital considerations. The only point I was trying to prove today is this: that armed resistance against tyranny is a just, righteous, lawful, and biblical form of resistance. That does not mean that we automatically pick up weapons and start shooting. Why? Because although the Bible sanctions using force, and it is just to use force under certain circumstances, one is foolish and unwise and suicidal to attempt to use force without comprehending the full biblical considerations attached to the use of force.

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• So God gives us some warnings. That is why, for periods of time, the people submitted to tyranny. That doesn't mean they did so with a full heart. They used deception. They used avoidance. They stayed out of the way. They did whatever they could, but they bided their time until force was available and they could overthrow the tyrant. So make sure that you understand that this message today is not to be taken as a whole, in and of itself, it must be attached to the message that I'm going to be bringing next week so that you can see the proper weighty considerations to the just use of force in the Bible. Shall we pray, Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, we ask for your blessing and your help.

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• Lord, we pray that you would teach us that you'd build us up in the most holy faith. We pray that you would prepare us, Lord, let us know that it is indeed lawful to use deception. It is indeed lawful to use avoidance. It is indeed lawful to use resistance by armed force when and wherever necessary. And Lord, just prepare our hearts that we may think scripturally and biblically in every area of our life. In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.

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• This program was produced by Dominion Ministry. For more information about Pastor Weaver's sermons, you may contact Dominion Ministry by mail at 7400 Abercorn, that's A-B-E-R-C-O-R-N, Street, Suite 705, PMD 175, Savannah, Georgia, 31406. Or give us a call at 912-833-7000.

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• You can also visit our website at www.dominionministry.com

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deepseek | deepseek-v4-pro | clean_readable_transcript | 2026-06-06T03:02:05Z