Satan tells us sinning is about having fun. Satan is a liar who seeks to lead us to destruction. He does not want us to know the truth, and he uses pleasure to camouflage and hide the awful truth about sin from our eyes. Sin is primarily about relationships broken by deceit, distrust, betrayal and violence. Sin takes all the very relationships that are intended by God to be sacred, and shatters them. That is why the Bible calls sinners “unrighteous.” The unrighteous choose to be un-right in their relationships.

In his old age, Gideon failed in his relationships. Even though that failure had not been by malicious intent, it had devastating consequences because it gave rise to deliberate unrighteousness on the part of Israel as a whole and Abimelek in particular. Almost immediately, once Gideon had been placed in the grave, Israel willfully broke their relationship with God and once again chased after false gods. Israel was transforming from a nomadic herdsman lifestyle to a settled agricultural life. Their neighbors who had been farming for centuries were much better at it than the Israelites. Rather than learning to be good farmers, the Israelites switched to their neighbors’ gods. They betrayed both God and Gideon’s family.

When the Israelites drove the Canaanites out of the land, they formed a covenant with the people of Shechem. It was a non-aggression pact that allowed them to remain independent rather than being driven out with the rest of the Canaanites. Abimelek, driven by ambition, convinced Shechem to aid him in the slaughter of Gideon’s children and they gave him 70 pieces of silver. He hired thugs to help him kill his stepbrothers, and Shechem made him king.

The sins of Israel, the men of Shechem, and Abimelek were not about pleasure. They were about greed, power, jealousy and envy. Their disobedience did not take the form of harmless fun; their disobedience was destructive and violent; relationships were betrayed and people died. Sin is not fun; sin is deadly.