Okay, turn with me to Judges
chapter 6 tonight, if you would please. Judges chapter 6. Israel's enemies were physical. Ours are not. The weapons used
against Israel were physical. They were carnal, fleshly weapons,
but not ours. The Apostle Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians
10, verses 3-5, he said, For though we walk in the flesh,
we do not war after the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare
are not carnal, but mighty. Mighty through God to the pulling
down of strongholds. casting down imaginations and
every high thing that exalted itself against the knowledge
of God, who God is, what God has done, and bringeth into captivity
every thought to the obedience of Christ. And the preaching
of the gospel is the power of God to destroy the strongholds
of Satan. We don't wrestle against flesh
and blood, but against principalities, principles, against powers, against
the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual
wickedness in high places, Ephesians 6, 12. And Israel's battles was
against wicked people, but our battles are against wicked spirits. Israel's battles were against
fleshly opponents. Ours are against supernatural
adversaries. Israel's foes were against those
who outwardly hated God, but our enemies are lies and pride
and lust and covetousness and self-righteousness within us. And in hearing the gospel, which
revealed to us that repentance is the gift of God. There's no
sinner that's ever repented of their sin that God didn't give
them or bid them that repentance. It's God's gift to us, repentance
is. And the gospel teaches us that
faith is the gift of God. For by grace are you saved through
faith. That's not of yourselves, it's a gift of God. If we have
faith at all, it's God's gift to us. We can't brag about our
faith, a lot of folks do. Oh, he's a man of great faith.
Well, if he is, God gave him the faith. And the gospel teaches
us that eternal life is a gift of God. For God so loved the
world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth
in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Eternal
life's a gift. And through the preaching of
the gospel, it's revealed that salvation is the work of God
in us, through and by and for the glory of our Lord and Savior. And all that we do, everything
that we do is in response to what God has done in us and for
us. Not for God to save us, but because
God has saved us. And yet our warfare, is no less
real than Israel's was. If anything, it's more difficult
to fight an enemy you cannot see. And this is the reason why
we must walk by faith and not by sight. We don't fight against
a physical opponent, we fight against spiritual wickedness
in high places. And again, that's why we study
these old testament scriptures they were written for our learning
to teach us something about us about our sin our idolatry and
our disobedience that we through paul said patience and comfort
of the scriptures do you find comfort in the scriptures well
i do i do and I know you do too. But it's through the patience
and comfort of the scriptures that we might have hope, that
is hope in seeing that God is who again and again and again
delivers us from our enemies. I find comfort in knowing that
if God was continually gracious and merciful to Israel of old,
who are pictures of you and I the believer today, that we too can
have hope that God will be the same to us. And that's why we
see over and over again, that's why God recorded these things
in the scriptures. When I began to study for this
study tonight, this lesson tonight, chapter six, I looked at the
first verse, and it says, and the children of Israel did evil
in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord delivered them into
the hand of Midian seven years. So we see again tonight that
this pattern is repeated over and over again with Israel. But
sadly, it also is with us. We cannot not sin. And I know folks think, well,
that's a cute little saying, we cannot not sin. It's the truth.
We cannot not sin. But there's no excuse for it.
No excuse for our sin. Paul asked in Romans chapter
six, verse one, he said, shall we continue in sin that grace
may abound? And of course the answer was
an emphatic, emphatic no. God forbid. In and of ourselves,
we're dead in sin, but with Christ as our substitute, we are dead
to sin. And my question is, how can men
and women actually think or believe that if we're justified by the
grace of God and that alone, apart from any works of our own,
that God's grace abounds and is glorified when we continue
to sin? Sin of itself is not the cause
of glorifying God's grace. Sin's the cause of wrath and
judgment and eternal condemnation, not grace. And God's been pleased
to magnify His grace in the pardon of sin. God is glorified in His
unmerited favor to us found in Christ alone. It's not by the
committing of sin that grace is glorified, but by the forgiveness
of sin. And grace is glorified by putting
a stop to the reign of sin in our hearts, not by encouraging
it. Brother Mahan once said, grace
enables men to hate sin and to be done with sin, not to love
and pursue it. And I've heard professing believers
excuse their willful sin by saying things like, well, we're just
sinners, and sin's what sinners do. That's a sad excuse to continue
in sin, thinking that in doing so, that grace abounds. A believer
hates their sin. That's why Job said, I abhor
myself. We feel guilt over our sins.
We want it gone. I want my sin gone. And we've
said it many times, we're not dead to sin's influence. Paul
said, what I hate, that do I, and the good that I would do,
I don't do. The evil that I would do not,
that I do. That's the influence that sin
causes in us. And we're not dead to sin's presence.
Paul said, when I would do good, evil is present with me. So we're
not, excluded from sin's presence, and we're not dead to sin's effects. Paul went on to say, O wretched
man that I am. You see, the effect of sin is
seen in our wretchedness, our inability to stop sinning. But we're dead to sin's penalty
and guilt. And we're dead to sin as our
master that rules over us. And we're dead to sin as a course
of life And we see, by God's grace, that sin is not our friend,
but our enemy. How can anyone with this attitude
toward sin actually live in sin? You see, to live in sin is to
give ourselves to it. To live in sin is to find pleasure
and delight in our sin. There was a time that was the
case with me. To live in sin is to justify
sin, which is contrary to the Spirit of Christ, and to be just
like the world. The beloved John wrote this,
he said, Love not the world, neither the things that are in
the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father
is not in him. For all that's in the world,
the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride
of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. Now, Again
tonight, we see the pattern of Israel of old, as we have so
far in the study of judges. We saw it in Joshua too. Joshua
died. The people of Israel fell into
idolatry and unbelief. God sent the enemy to oppress
and afflict them. Israel cried out unto the Lord
for help. God sent them a deliverer. He
sent them a savior, a judge. They are delivered. and are so
for a period of time, and the judge is removed by death, and
the pattern begins over and over again. Is that not our story? Christ, our Joshua, came to save
us and deliver us. He died to put our sin away.
We bow to Him as our substitute and our Savior. But very soon,
and we're all guilty of it, idols out of everything and worship
them, and the Lord sends us trouble, and the Lord sends us tribulations,
and we cry unto the Lord for deliverance, and He sends us
the Holy Spirit to deliver us, we experience peace and rest
for a while, and then the pattern starts all over again. Will we ever learn? Will we ever
learn? It's so worrisome to see the
people of God follow the same pattern over and over again. And that's the people of Israel
in our studies, but it's even more worrisome to me. and discouraging
to me when we ourselves fall into this pattern ourselves again
and again. And as we see these redundancies,
may God enable us to embrace these Old Testament lessons and
pray that we ourselves learn from them. That's the reason
they were written for our learning. Israel had experienced 40 years
of peace. the longest that they had in
the time of the judges, when this ugly pattern started again. Yet, in Christ, we experience
continual peace by his shed blood, but yet, on the other hand, that
old man within wars against our knowledge of this peace continually
so that it's with much tribulation that we enter into the kingdom
of God. You remember that old song, I
beg your pardon, I never promised you a rose garden? And that's
what a lot of people promise. Oh, you become a Christian, you
become, you fall in love with Jesus and your life will be a
bed of roses. No, no, that's not, the scriptures
don't teach that. They say with much tribulation,
with much trouble, we enter into the kingdom of God. Don't expect
anything but trouble. But the wonderful thing is, is
that God is with us every step of the way. And God continually
sends us help and shows us again that we're shut up to Christ.
There's no salvation apart from Him. May God be pleased to teach
us that Christ, our Deliverer, our Judge, our Savior, is our
only help. And may He also be pleased to
make us forsake the pathetic efforts of our flesh, and that's
what they are, and flee to Christ more quickly than we do. Why
do we always wait till we just can't bear it anymore to run
to Christ? Lord, enable me to Stay close, stay close. Now these
stories of Israel's sin reminds us that the grace and mercy of
God is abundant and long-suffering to stiff-necked and rebellious
people. We look at Israel and we see
ourselves. These Old Testament patterns
teach us that we are always in need of Christ our Savior. That's
something that I've seen. I'm thankful for that lesson.
I've titled this message, Here We Go Again. Here We Go Again. Okay, Judges chapter 6 verse
1 again, And the children of Israel did evil in the sight
of the Lord. And the Lord delivered them into
the hand of Midian seven years. Someone once asked, or once said,
excuse me, that the definition of insanity is to repeat the
same mistake over and over and over again and expect a different
result. Well, that is insane, isn't it?
For seven years, the Midianites invaded, attacked, and inflicted
Israel. And as I said a moment ago, the
Midianites came from without, and our Midianites come from
within. That's the difference. The Midianites made war with
Israel in a different way than Israel's other enemies did. The
Midianites were not an organized army. They were nomads. They didn't come to subdue Israel
and rule over them. They were a nomadic people who
lived southeast of where Israel lived on the other side of Jordan.
And they didn't come and exact tribute or taxes from Israel,
for seven years, they would make returning visits during the growing
season and during the time of harvest, and they would take
Israel's crops from them, just steal their crops. And they'd
steal Israel's herds of livestock. And when they had taken and consumed
all they could get their hands on, they moved on. leaving Israel
without much and in dire straits. I look at verse two, and the
hand of Midian prevailed against Israel. And because of the Midianites,
the children of Israel made them dens which are in the mountains
and caves and strongholds. And so it was when Israel had
sown that the Midianites came up and the Malachites And the
children of the east, even they came up against them and they
encamped against them and destroyed the increase of the earth. Till
thou came unto Gaza, coming to Gaza and left no sustenance for
Israel, neither sheep nor ox nor ass." They stripped their
garden dry, their crops dry, and then they took their sheep
and their ox and their asses and their camels and everything
else. Verse five, well, they came up with their cattle and
their tents, and they came as grasshoppers. That word is locust. Have you ever seen what locusts
can do to a crop? Oh, in just a matter of minutes,
it seemed like, they can just consume the whole thing. They
came as grasshoppers, locusts for multitude, for both they
and their camels were without number, and they entered into
the land to destroy it. and Israel was greatly impoverished
because of the Midianites. And the children of Israel cried
unto the Lord. Now under this Midianite domination
for seven years, things had gotten as bad for Israel as they probably
had ever been. And they cried again unto the
Lord for help. Why do we wait to that point
in time to call upon the Lord? God did not immediately raise
up a judge to deliver them as he had before. Instead, this
time, God sent a prophet to rebuke them. Look at verse seven. 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,
which said unto them, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel. This
was God's message to them. That's all a prophet does, he
delivers God's message. That's all a preacher does, delivers
God's message. It's not his message, it's God's
message, or it better be. And this was God's message to
them. He said, I brought you up from Egypt and brought you
forth out of the house of bondage. And I, God, delivered you out
of the hand of the Egyptians and out of the hand of all that
oppressed you. And I drove them out or drove
them out from before you and gave you their land. And I said
unto you, I am the Lord your God. Fear not the gods of the
Amorites and whose land you dwell, but you have not obeyed. My boys. And that's why they
were in this trouble again. Now this unnamed prophet was
not Israel's judge or deliverer. That would be Gideon, who's not
yet introduced to us. In the next study, we'll see
something of Gideon. But this prophet, this unnamed
prophet, is sent to remind Israel that God was their ultimate deliverer. That's what a preacher does.
We point men to Christ, Jesus Christ, God the Son, and we say,
this is your deliverer. This is the one that delivers
you out of bondage. This is the one who delivers
you from all your oppression. This is the one who delivers
you from your sin. He is your deliverer. There is
none other. God's the one who gave Joshua
and Israel victory over all that they drove out of the land of
Canaan. And the first thing we need to
strive to understand is that when we speak of Israel, they
don't represent unbelievers. Though they displayed much unbelief,
they picture and typify the believer. And their attitude and character
is a very proper and true reflection of ours. Many times I've read
the account of Israel's actions, And my first response is to shake
my head and go, how could they do this over and over again?
And then I realized it's the same concern in myself. How could
I, over and over again, act this way, be so unbelieving, untrusting,
looking to everything other than Christ? You know, was there really
any difference in Paul's cry of, O wretched man that I am,
who shall deliver me from the body of this death, and the destitute
cry of the Israelites unto the Lord for deliverance? No. No,
they cried out over the same thing. Their wretchedness, their
sinfulness. For the most part, Israel was
no different from the Midianites and the Malachites and the Jebusites
or any of their enemies, time and time again. They fell into
idolatry, worshiping the same gods of their enemies. Their
enemies would rule over them, they would be in servitude to
them, and they would just pick right up with them and worship
the same idols and little G gods that they did. Yet they were
the chosen people of the true God and they differed only because
of their election. Only because God chose them.
Only because they were God's chosen people. May we always
remember that the Midianites along with all the other enemies
of Israel were simply instruments in the hand of God. That's all
they were. Yet these enemies, they were
ruthless, they were ungodly idolaters, but their wrath praised God,
did God's bidding, and the remainder of their ruthlessness, God restrained. That's what the psalmist wrote
in Psalm 76, 10. Surely the wrath of man will
praise God, praise thee. Men's wrath praised the Lord.
and the remainder of wrath He restrains." You see, God's in
control. He's in control of our enemies.
He's in control of everything. And as we saw in verse 2, the
assaults of the Midianites were so great, the people of Israel,
well they fled to the mountains and they hid in caves. Some believe
that They planted secret gardens so that the Midianites wouldn't
find out about them and steal them. They might plant one down
here, knowing that the Midianites would come and take it, and then
up in the mountains somewhere plant another crop, hoping that
the Midianites would be too busy taking the one crop so that they'd
have one themselves left. I have no doubt about that. That's
what I'd do. Oh my, but the Midianites, they
laid in wait until harvest time and they descended, as we say,
upon Israel like a plague of locusts, according to verse five.
Israel tend their gardens at night, hoping not to be seen.
And friends, our enemies are the same. They endeavor to steal
our food and our sustenance, which is the word of God. and
they leave us without any fruit or nourishment. That's their
desire to do. Oftentimes when the seed is sown,
some of it falls by the wayside, as the Lord told us in the parable
of the sower and the seed, and the fowls came and devoured it
up. That's what the Midianites did.
No doubt much of the seed of God's word fell by the wayside
when it concerned Israel and it was lapped up by the locust
of Midian. But our Lord said in John chapter
10, the thief cometh not, but to steal and to kill and destroy. And that's what Satan, that's
his main occupation, to steal, kill, and destroy. But the Lord
said, I'm come that you might have life and that you might
have it, life, more abundantly. You know, when Israel served
idols and gods, they, They could not save. They were simply depending
upon themselves. Anytime we make an idol, we're
just basically making ourself that idol. We know the idol can't
save. Idolatry requires the work and
merit of men, and our biggest idol is often ourselves. We make
many things our gods, but mainly we make ourselves out to be our
own god and savior. And that's why I have great difficulty
when men credit their salvation to their will, their work, their
way, their doing, their words. It's simply making themselves
their own savior and their own God, their own deliverer. And like the Israelites, We,
by nature, labor in our depraved hearts under the cover of darkness,
just like Israel did, with hopes of saving ourselves. And this
is the condemnation, that light has come into the world, and
men did what? They loved darkness rather than
light. That's our problem. By nature,
we love darkness rather than light. And why do we do that?
He tells us, because our deeds are evil. Oh, I know that's not
a popular message, but it's the truth. We are by nature evil. Our deliverance only comes when
God reveals to us that there's nothing left but God, who is
plenteous in mercy, whose ear is always inclined to the cries
of his people. And when we are delivered, the
Lord sends his word, as we saw in verse eight, he sent a prophet.
God this time sent a prophet unto the children of Israel,
and that prophet preached unto them. And thank God that he sends
preachers. I'm thankful that God crossed
my path with a preacher, with words of God's faithful deliverance
in Christ. It's not the preacher who's important,
this prophet's not even named. We don't even know who he is. God can cause stones to cry out
for him. You remember when the Lord said
God's able to raise these stones up to worship him? Well, God
can do the same with preaching. Preachers are expendable. That's
what Paul said. Who's Paul? You're over here
saying, oh, I like the way Paul preaches, and I sure like the
way Apollos does things, and Peter's our man. Who are these
men? But ministers, preachers, by
whom you believe. They were just mouthpieces, just
voices that God used to speak to your heart. It's their message that's important,
not them. It's not, thus saith man, is
it? No, it's thus saith the Lord. And I encourage you, and I have
since I've been your pastor, to don't put me up on a pedestal
because I'll let you down. Preachers are but voices crying
in the wilderness, but reporters reporting what God has done for
sinners in Christ. A gospel message is found here
in verses eight and nine. The prophet of God speaks of
a finished work. The preacher of God speaks of
an accomplished salvation. God said, I brought, already
brought you. I delivered, passed in. Not I'm
gonna deliver, I delivered you. I drove, I drove out your enemies. Not I'm going to. I gave. I'm not gonna give you, I've
already given it to you. I gave. It's a accomplished message. It's the message of deliverance
out of the hand of the Egyptians and the house of bondage. That's
our message to sinners. God has already delivered you
in the Lord Jesus Christ. And our deliverance from sin,
it's our deliverance from sin, the law, Satan himself, and it's
a message of free grace. God says, I gave you their land.
God says, I am the Lord your God. God says, serve not the
gods of the Amorites. And the gospel message is a message
of conviction. God says, you've not always obeyed
my voice. And the child of God takes sides
with God against themselves, and they agree with God. You're
right. You're right, Lord. I have not
obeyed your voice. Verse 10 reminds us that this
is a message of divine revelation. God constantly reminds us in
the preaching of the gospel that He is the Lord, our God, and
He is our deliverer. There is none other. There is
no other. And these redundant and repetitious
acts of Israel remind us of our own propensity and inclination
to sin. Do they not? They remind us again
and again of the futility of man's will, man's work, and man's
flesh, man's power. We have no power. We have no
power to accomplish any facet of our salvation. Israel reminds
us of our need and our continual need, I might add, of Christ. They remind us that our hope
is in Him and in Him alone. Do you find any hope anywhere
else? You won't. You won't. What in you gives
you hope of redemption? Only Christ in you. The hope
of glory. The only hope that we have of
ever being glorified, being given a body without sin, is Christ
in you. That's it. That's it. Israel reminds us that our enemies
are but instruments in God's hand, as I've already said, to
serve Him for our good. It's for our good. This was for
Israel's good. They remind us that our depravity
does not prevent God's mercy. Isn't that a great statement?
Our depravity, our sin, does not prevent God's mercy to us. It's unearned, it's unmerited,
it's undeserved. We don't deserve it. We see that
when we call on God, we find Him right where we left Him. Why should that surprise us?
He promised that He would never leave us nor forsake us. We're the ones that left. Beloved, this is why we've got
to hear the Gospel over and over and over again. Faith cometh
by hearing. and hearing by the word of God.
It pleased God by the means of preaching to save those that
believe. This is what we got to hear. And we got to hear it
over and over and over again, or we'll be just like Israel.
Well, we are just like them. That's why we must. We must hear, but not with the
outward ear only. We got to hear with the heart.
God's got to give our hearts ears to hear and understand. We've got to hear with some understanding. We must hear with a need. The
Lord through the prophet Hosea said, my people are destroyed. That word means cut off. They're
cut off for a lack of knowledge. But that's not all he said. He
said, because they have rejected knowledge. Now you think about
that. We're cut off because of a lack
of knowledge, but the reason we have that lack of knowledge
is that we rejected it. That tells me that it's not necessarily
men and women's lack of knowledge that destroys them, but it's
their lack of need of knowledge. Only those without need reject
the deliverance that the Lord Jesus Christ provides. When I
hear about the wondrous grace of God and the salvation of sinners,
how the Christ, God the Son, came into the world to save sinners,
shed his blood to put my sin away, I'm reminded of my great need. And I think that's the most wondrous,
glorious gospel I've ever heard, good news I've ever heard, that
Christ would die for a wretch like me. How can it be, as we
saw? How can it be that God would
die for a soul, a wretch, like I am? And those who come not to the
Lord to find rest, and those who do not take His yoke upon
them and learn of Him, shall not find rest for their souls.
And obviously they have no need of rest, or they wouldn't reject
it. They're resting in their own
work, in their own will, in their own way. Those who are well,
our Lord said. That means righteous in their
own eyes. I'm doing okay on my own. I think
I've got enough righteousness. They gotta be satisfied. No,
you don't. You're well in your own eyes,
but you're not well. You're sick, you're in need.
Those who are well have no need of Christ, the Great Physician.
But you can be assured that if you belong to God, He will, as
He did Israel, cause you to cry out to Him for deliverance each
and every time you go astray. Isn't that wonderful? In spite
of me, God loves me. He loves even me. I love Him
because He first loved me. We can't blame our evil on anyone
but ourselves, but I'm telling you, we cannot credit anyone
else for our deliverance but God. Thank you, Lord, for your
mercy and your grace to us. May you be pleased, Lord, to
continue to deliver us from ourselves for your glory, our good, and
for Christ's sake. I'm thankful for these studies
and I think by God's grace I learned just a little bit more about
myself and about my Lord and Savior when we look at them together. I hope it's the same for you.