Judges 9:7-15 – Don’t Trust the Wrong Things
7 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.
8 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?
10 And the trees said to the fig tree, Come thou, and reign over us.
11 But the fig tree said unto them, Should I forsake my sweetness, and my good fruit, and go to be promoted over the trees?
12 Then said the trees unto the vine, Come thou, and reign over us.
13 And the vine said unto them, Should I leave my wine, which cheereth God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees?
14 Then said all the trees unto the bramble, Come thou, and reign over us.
15 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.
Honestly, we all probably read this the first time through and thought “What??”. Let me explain what is going on here! Jotham, the only surviving son of Abimelech’s massacre, rebukes the city for choosing his older brother as their king. He tells a story to illustrate this. He tells compares the whole ordeal to a bunch of trees trying to place another tree as the tree-king (it sounds absurd, but that is his point.) Ultimately, all the trees get the Bramble (its related to the trees that make raspberries and blackberries, so nothing too impressive). However, that is the new “tree-king” and it even offers to protect them against the cedars of Lebanon, some of the biggest trees in the Middle East!
Clearly, a berry tree is nothing compared to something the size of a red wood, bu that is what the people were doing. They had replaced God with Abimelech, someone who really could not protect them. The same is true for us. It is important that we trust in things that are actually trustworthy (like God and his word) and not in the things that cannot offer us what we really need (people, things, etc.)
Life Step: Think about it…
What kind of not trustworthy things do we trust in?
What kind of things should we trust in?
Study the Scriptures with Ben Jennings 
We trust in all kinds of things. I know for example that older folks trust a lot of the junk mail they receive telling them of all kinds of “cures” for medical ailments and ways to protect their money. Most of the time these promises are only helping to line the pockets of the people making the claims. We tend to believe the person saying what we need to hear at that particular moment. If anything in our lives cannot be backed up by scripture it is probably time to take a second look. I would much rather put my trust in God than man. I know God always had my best interest in mind.
A lot of people trust in a lot of stuff like: there electronics, things, fake gods, and etc. but the things we should trust in are the people who love us and care for us like our friends and family but the most important person we should trust is God because he never lets us down even if we don’t sometimes see it that way, he is always there to talk to 24/7 and loves you even though we are sinners. This is the man to trust.