All right, let's get started.
Go to Judges chapter 6. Judges 6. I want to look at verses 11 through
16 for the first hour. Now in the last message in this
chapter, verses 1 through 10, The scriptures showed us how
that through repetition, our Lord teaches his children that
he shows us our sin. He shows us that we are sinners
and that he shows us our sin in our need of his grace and
the sufficiency that he has provided for us in his son, the Lord Jesus
Christ. And he does this repeatedly over
and over as often as is necessary. And now we come to Gideon. Who's
Gideon? Gideon is an Israelite of the
tribe of Manasseh. And Gideon is a type of the believer,
one whose hope, one whose faith is made by God to rest in the
Lord Jesus Christ alone. Now, for every child of God,
the scriptures teach us that there is a purpose. For every child of God, there
is a purpose, and this is because our God is a God of purpose. Just as God created the heaven
and the earth according to purpose, so you and I are created according
to God's purpose. Proverbs even says this, The
Lord hath made all things for himself, yea, even the wicked
for the day of evil. So even the wicked have a purpose. Paul speaks of God's wisdom in
Ephesians 3.11, calling it the eternal purpose which He purposed
in Christ Jesus our Lord. And then, more specifically for
the believer, is that God's purpose includes the salvation of his
children in Christ Jesus our Lord. Paul, writing to Timothy,
2 Timothy 1.9, speaking of Christ, said, Who hath saved us? and called us with an holy calling,
not according to our works, but according to his own purpose
and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world
began. And he adds, when writing to
the Ephesians, Chapter 1 verse 11 said, In whom also we have
obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the
purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his
own will. And so it is that God has a purpose
of grace for his child. And this is witnessed in Gideon
whom God saves and uses in his kingdom. not because Gideon is
righteous, not because he's righteous in himself, not because his works
are righteous, but because it's the Lord our God who sanctifies
him, who sets Gideon apart and will be gracious to Gideon because
God will be gracious to him. God has a gracious purpose for
Gideon. And it's through the blood atonement
of the Lord Jesus Christ that God is just to do this. And God makes Gideon to be what
God will have Gideon to be. that he may use him according
to his purpose in his kingdom, just as we see God doing with
all his ministers who serve in the kingdom. Paul said that he
hath made us able ministers of the New Testament. So while we're
looking at Gideon today, I want you to remember this, you that
believe the Lord God, to understand the following about what we're
seeing when we're looking at Gideon in this chapter. For the
first message, we see that God will be gracious to his child,
so that whatever it is that comes to pass in your life, in my life,
whatsoever it is, God has a purpose in it. Nothing happens by chance. Nothing happens unexpectedly
to the Lord our God. And we have the comfort of knowing
that whatever it is, that this is happening according to God's
will and purpose for me and for his kingdom. And then the second
thing we see, which will be in the second message, is we see
why God may be gracious to his children. How it is that God
can justify us who are sinners by nature. And so we see that
God is just to forgive us of our sins because Christ Our Lord
and Savior made himself the just sacrifice, sent to the Father,
come to put away our sin by the sacrifice of himself. And in doing that, he obtained
eternal forgiveness and reconciled us to our God. So this message
is titled Purposed for the Work. Purposed for the Work. So the
first thing that we're seeing here is that God is gracious
to his people according to his purpose of grace. Let's look
at verse 11. Judges 6-11, And there came an
angel of the Lord, and sat under an oak, which was an ophrah that
pertained unto Joash the Abba Ezra, And his son Gideon threshed
wheat by the winepress to hide it from the Midianites. Now, there's a couple things
that I want to notice here with you as it relates to God's purpose. First, we're told that there
came an angel of the Lord and sat under an oak. Why is this detail included?
How does this detail relate to God's purpose? Well, what do
you do when you sit under a tree? What are you doing there? You
have some time, right? Sometimes we're just sitting
there to rest, but generally, you have some time when you're
sitting under a tree, and you're just observing and taking things
in. So what does this say about the
angel of the Lord who sits under an oak tree? Well, it shows the
patience and the contentment of our God. God is patient, and
God is perfectly content in himself. He's not in haste. So that in
other words, the Lord our God is in total, perfect, complete,
sovereign control. Nothing is going out of the way. Nothing's gone askew. And you
think about what's going on. We're told already that the Midianites
have come up into the land. The Midianites and those with
them are wreaking havoc in the land, which is the Lord's people's
land. That's where they live. And they're
trampling on their crops, and they're destroying things, and
taking from them, and making a mess of everything. And yet
God is content. and imperfect sovereign control
of everything. It's going just as God has purposed
it to go. Now, when I think of myself,
and you might think of yourselves this way, and how we do things,
we often have plans and we have goals. And we have targets that
we're trying to reach and attain for ourselves. And we go about
them quite diligently, working ourselves often into a frenzy
about it. We go about it with great haste. Sometimes we grow fearful. Sometimes
we worry about the things. We have these goals that we want
to achieve, and we're not so sure that they're going to be
achieved. And so we begin to account for
all the risks that we can think of, and we start making plans
to counter and mitigate those risks and keep things under control
and make it go exactly the way that we think it needs to go. Because we're afraid, right,
when we come to a why in the road, we think, I've got to make
a choice here. I've got to make the right decision
here. And if I make the wrong decision, my plans and my goals
are going to fall apart. And people are going to be affected.
And things are going to go all wrong, and I'm going to be the
one who messes it all up because I've made the wrong decision. But notice the Lord your God. He's not worried. He's not being
hasty. He's not fearing and fretful.
He's in perfect sovereign control. You see, the Lord has a way of
letting us wear ourselves out till we are made ready to hear
his word, to hear what the Lord is saying to me personally, to
hear what he's saying to us personally. So here's Gideon, and he's threshing
away at the wheat, and the angel is sitting there for a time.
Just sitting there for a time. It makes me think of a scripture
in Isaiah 30, verse 18, that describes our wearing ourselves
out. It says, therefore will the Lord
wait, that he may be gracious unto
you. And therefore will he be exalted
that he may have mercy upon you. For the Lord is a God of judgment. Blessed are all they that wait
for him. So our God who is patient with
us, He is able to bring to pass and accomplish in us as we behold
the patience of our God, and the wisdom of our God, and the
sovereign control of the Lord our God, we learn something of
Him in it. whereby we learn to wait patiently
upon the Lord. We learn to wait for Him to do
and to fulfill His will according to His good purpose. He teaches us through experience
to wait on Him. Those things that He's taking
you through and has taken you through, He's teaching you and
me patience. to behold the Lord our God is
in perfect control. Rest in Him. And so our experience
in grace, it often contains warfare. It has conflicts of various sorts. There's adversities and troubles.
And after many trials, which work to strip us of our vain
confidences, and work to wither us down in the flesh. These things
result in our being made ready to hear what the Lord is saying
to His people. It makes us to know something
of what Paul meant when he said in Galatians 5.5, For we through
the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. And so the Lord your God uses
trials. He uses trials and he uses difficulties
and troubles in your life and it's certain that the Lord your
God is the one who sent those trials according to his good
will and purpose. Just as we see it was the Lord
who raised up and sent the Midianites into the land to accomplish his
purpose. Another thing we see is that
we're not going to hasten it. We're not going to make it come
any sooner, and we're not going to make it pass any sooner. We don't cause its effect, and
we don't make it happen any sooner or later than what God's good
will and purpose has intended it to do. He's gonna bring it
when it's time to bring it, and he's gonna cause it to stay as
long as it needs to stay, and he's the one that brings it to
pass in order to strip us down and make us so that we can hear
what the Lord is teaching us, what we have need of hearing
because he has a purpose for us and a purpose in using us
in his kingdom. And so the angel of the Lord
sat under an oak. Secondly, we're told Gideon threshed
wheat by the wine press to hide it from the Midianites. Okay,
so then Gideon was a partaker of the works of his fellows there
in Israel. And you'll remember in verse
2 that it said the children of Israel made them the dens which
were in the mountains and caves and strongholds. They were busying
themselves trying to keep and hang on to what they could, lest
the Midianites would destroy it and take from them what they
wanted. And the Midianites, we know,
are a picture of the sin of our mind, the thoughts of our heart. It's the sin of this flesh, warring
against us, warring against what the Lord our God is doing for
his people. And so the angel of the Lord
sees everything that Gideon is doing because nothing is hid
from his sight. He sees all. He sees even into
our hearts, the thoughts that we think, before we even think
them, the Lord your God knows. He knows what we have need of
and sends it our way to accomplish His purpose. And so seeing here
Gideon's sin, this makes it all the more amazing when we behold
the patience and the grace of our God toward Gideon. Look at
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. Now, we know it's coming. We know that the Lord is going
to use Gideon to overthrow the Midianites with a very small
army, a very small number of men. And the Lord calls him here
a mighty man of valor. But there's nothing to this point
that indicates that Gideon was a warrior or knew anything about
battle. He was hiding himself up in his
dens, threshing the little bit of wheat that he had. So how
is it that Gideon is qualified for this work? How is it that
Gideon is qualified? It's because God said so. God made him qualified for that
work, and God declared it to him. And in declaring it to him,
God equipped him and qualified him for everything that he needed
in order to do that work which the Lord sent him to do. And so in speaking these things,
the Lord is revealing that very thing, declaring to him that
he is qualified for that work. And so when the Lord our God
makes something known, when he declares his will and purpose,
there is nothing that's going to stop that will and purpose
from coming to pass. It says in Isaiah 14, 24, The
Lord of hosts hath sworn, saying, Surely, as I have thought, so
shall it come to pass. And as I have purposed, so shall
it stand. And so the Lord is saying here
that nothing, not even our sin, not our ignorance, not our unbelief,
is going to stop God from fulfilling and accomplishing His purpose,
to be gracious to you and to all His people who are called
by Him. And so God has a purpose, and
He's the one who's going to fulfill it. Turn over to Isaiah 46. Isaiah
46. We're gonna go to verses 10,
well, we're gonna pick up in verse 12 and 13, but I'm gonna
quote something from verse 10 and 11. In verse 10, he says, my counsel
shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure. In verse 11, he
says, I have spoken it. I will also bring it to pass. I have purposed it. I will also
do it. Now, I said nothing's going to
stop God from fulfilling his purpose, not even your own sin.
If God will be merciful and compassionate and gracious to you, not even
your own sin is going to stop that. Look at verse 12. Hearken
unto me. You listen up. You stout-hearted. that are far from my righteousness."
We're far from God's righteousness. By nature, in this flesh, we
are far from the righteousness of God. Verse 13, he says, I
bring near my righteousness. It shall not be far off. We're far, but God's the one
who says, I'm going to bring it near. I'm going to do it because
I am pleased to do it. And my salvation shall not tarry. It's not going to wait. In other
words, God's not waiting for you and me to get it right, to
get ourselves right. He says, I'm not waiting around
for you. I'm going to bring it near. And
I will place salvation in Zion for Israel, my glory. So God is gracious because God
will be gracious. He's purposed to be gracious
to you, his people. So in spite of what we are in
this flesh, in spite of what we do in this flesh, God is going
to be gracious to his people. Just as he showed us In other
examples, throughout scripture, he shows us this truth. Even
to Jacob, we're told that the children, being not yet born,
neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of
God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him
that calleth. And so your calling isn't because
you're a good person. Your calling isn't because you
stopped sinning and repented. Your calling is because God will
be gracious to you in the Lord Jesus Christ. And your repenting
and your believing are the gifts of God, the power of God, the
glory of God, which he works in his child because he is gracious
to his child in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so just as God chose
to be gracious to Jacob, so he is gracious to all his saints
according to purpose. Therefore, we go on and we see
this repeated, how that Gideon does not believe. He's full of
unbelief. He's full of questions. But not even his unbelief and
not even his questions and pushing back on what the Lord is saying
here is going to turn the Lord from his purpose to be gracious
and using and calling Gideon, equipping Gideon, giving him
what he needs and putting him into the ministry, sending him
in to do that work of salvation by his hand to deliver the people
of Israel. So Judges 6, 13, And Gideon said unto him, O my
Lord, You're telling me that God's with me. Lord, if the Lord
be with us, 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? But now the Lord hath forsaken
us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites. You know, we can often relate
with Gideon, because to our natural eye, when things aren't going
the way we think they should go, we say the same things and
we think the same things. You're telling me that the Lord
is for me, that he's with me, that he's being gracious to me?
Why is all this befalling me? Why is all this happening? Why
is everything contrary and against me? And so we say these things
because we don't understand the Lord. We're not believing that
the Lord has a purpose to be gracious to his people. But notice
the comforting, kind, and patient words of your God to Gideon. And these are the words that
he speaks to you and me. Verse 14, and the Lord looked
upon him. It's so sweet. Gideon's there,
the Lord's promising, telling him, and Gideon's pushing back
and saying, Lord, what's going on? You're telling me that you're
for me? And the Lord looked upon him.
Gideon. Gideon, he says, go in this thy
might, and thou shalt save Israel from the hand of the Midianites.
Have not I sent thee? You know, the Lord shows us in
his word that he's going to make use of the faith that he gives
you. He's given you faith and that means you're going to go
through trials and difficulties which are going to make use of
the faith that he gave you. But the battle is the Lord's. It is going to be a walk of faith.
We're not going to find it all easy in a cakewalk. There's going
to be adversity and difficulties because he's given us that faith
for that purpose. But the battle is the Lord's. It is the Lord's battle. It's
his work. And so you think of what sinners we are and how slow
we are to believe the Lord, and yet he looks upon us with love
and pity. He looked upon Gideon with love
and pity. And I'm reminded of Joseph Hart's
hymn that says, come ye sinners, poor and wretched, weak and wounded,
sick and sore. Jesus ready stands to save you,
full of pity, joined with power. He is able. He is able. He is willing, doubt no more. So the Lord gives His Word, and
when the Lord gives His Word, when He's declaring His Word
to you, He's giving it to you to strengthen you. He's giving
it to you to hear. And he's the one who makes it
effectual in our hearts and effectual to our hearing. He's strengthening
his people by his word. And through his word, he turns
us from our objections. And he turns us from our unbelief. And he makes us to see what a
gracious and merciful, kind, loving Savior we have. whose we are. In Psalm 103 verse
13 and 14, it says that, like as a father pitieth his children,
so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. Yesterday, Michelle,
mostly Michelle, but even I was there for some of it, had the
opportunity to watch some children that were brought to our house.
We had our grandkids and we had some other children, and there
was this one little girl there, I'd say maybe 13 months, 14 months,
somewhere right around there. Hadn't been walking very long,
but we had these little vehicles out there, these little cars
that the kids can climb onto or climb into. And she got herself
climbing up into that car and got herself in a mess. Her legs were like swung up on
the side of the car. She couldn't get it over. And
you could see she had no strength in her triceps to push herself
up. And so in pity, I went over there
and I helped set her straight. Because there was no way she
was going to get out of that. She didn't have the strength
for it. She couldn't do it. That's the pity that your father
has for you, who are his children. We get ourselves into fixes just
like that, and we don't have the strength, we don't have the
ability to get ourselves out of it, and yet God in pity cares
for you. It says, the next verse, he knoweth
our frame. We don't have that strength.
He knoweth our frame, he remembereth that we are dust. We are dust. And so your God
is very patient with you, and He's patient with you because
He loves you. He loves you, and He is caring
for you. And again, we see the need of
Gideon, just like we do this constantly, repeatedly, over
and over again. Gideon has questions and he's
pushing back on God, but God is faithful to repeat that word
of grace to his child once again. Look at verses 15 and 16. And
Gideon said unto him, O my Lord, wherewith shall I save Israel? How am I going to save Israel?
Behold, my family is poor in Manasseh, and I am the least
in my father's house. And the Lord said unto him, Surely
I will be with thee, and thou shalt smite the Midianites as
one man. We see the Lord's grace and pity. We see how oftentimes, just like
Gideon here, the Lord providentially doesn't fit us in the flesh for
everything that we need to do the work that he calls us to
do. We have blind spots and weaknesses. We have problems. We have many
weaknesses, many faults, and yet the Lord is the one who equips
his child. And howsoever it is that we are
called to serve the Lord, we are going to be made to see that
we have this treasure. this gospel treasure, this hope,
this faith, this confidence in the Lord in earthen vessels that
the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. Because we're going to glory
not in ourselves, not because we're so smart and we have all
this ability and we have these talents, but no, in spite of
our lack of these things, we see God's power, that he may
be glorified in our hearts, that we may praise his name, because
that's where it belongs. If we thought we were doing it,
we would glory in ourselves, and we would boast in ourselves. But instead, God wisely does
this, that we glory in him. We glory in him. Now, it may
strike you that the Lord is very gracious to Gideon, who's just
questioning him repeatedly, pushing back and doubting constantly. And I was thinking of other scriptures
where we see others who push back on God. And one of them
was Mary, when the Lord told Mary that she would be with child.
And she said, how shall this be, seeing I know not a man? And the angel did not upbraid
her, but comforted her, told her how it was going to be, just
as we see with Gideon. Gideon wasn't upbraided. He was
just assured of this word repeatedly by the Lord. But then I remembered
Zacharias. Zacharias is the father of John
the Baptist. And he was told, Zacharias, Elizabeth
is going to be with child, or she's going to be with child.
And Zacharias seemed to push back. Well, he pushed back, and
it seemed like he was punished, right? They were told that Gabriel
said, well, he says, whereby shall I know this? For I am an
old man, and my wife well stricken in years. And Gabriel, the angel,
said, Behold, thou shalt be dumb and not be able to speak until
the day that these things shall be performed, because thou believest
not my words, which shall be fulfilled in their season. Now, we're not told specifically
why Zacharias is made speechless in this case, but we look at
Mary and Gideon, who were not upraided for their unbelief.
And I know that some have suggested that it's because Zacharias had
more light, he was a priest serving in the priesthood, and so he
should know better. And I'll admit that sometimes
it does seem that the Lord's patience wears thin with us the
longer we go in grace, and the more we still doubt and don't
believe. But I don't think that's what
the Lord is showing us here in the scriptures. We're told that
God is faithful, who will not suffer you. To be tempted above
that, ye are able. In other words, the Lord your
God prepares you. to bear the burden that he gives
to you according to his good purpose and pleasure, because
he will be gracious to you, and he has a purpose for you in his
kingdom. And so the burdens he brings,
these trials he brings, have a purpose for you in his kingdom. And so Zechariah's loss of speech
was relevant to the work that the Lord was doing there. God
was sending the Messiah. And he was preparing the hearts
of the people to watch, to be waiting, to be wakened out of
their slumber and sleep, and to know that God was actively
doing something there in Israel among the people. He was sending
the Messiah. And so it is that once that child
was born, Zechariah had many months of silence. to reflect
on what the angel said, to pray about what the Lord was showing
him. He had many months being silent
like that. And when that child was born,
it was given as a sign to the people, as a sign, as a harbinger
to the people, so that because he heard now, because he was
stripped down and made to hear, and to obey the Lord by the Lord's
providence, by his power. And what he did when it came
time and he said, well, we're going to call the child Zacharias
after his dad. And Zacharias said, oh, no, no,
his child, just like Elizabeth said, is going to be named John.
And once that was done, his mouth was opened immediately, and his
tongue loosed, and he spake and praised God. And fear came on
all that dwelt round about them, and all these sayings were noised
abroad throughout all the hill country of Judea. And so what the Lord is teaching
us here through these scriptures is that these trials, these burdens
that you suffer, these adversities that you go through are given
according to purpose, according to purpose, and they serve the
purpose of God in his kingdom. Believe Him. Trust Him. It's
for a purpose. In other words, when you go through
a trial, don't be so quick to find the exit by fleshly means. Don't be so quick to just try
and find the exit. Behold your Lord sitting under
the oak tree. He's in perfect control. He has
everything going exactly as He has determined and purposed it
so to be. While you're going through it,
seek your Lord in prayer. Ask Him for the grace to bear
that burden that He brings upon you. But you know that you're
waiting for Him to bring to pass His good purpose for you. Now,
I want you to turn to James. Let's go to James chapter 1. James 1, and let's look at verses
2 through 6. James speaks to this very thing.
James 1, 2. My brethren, count it all joy
when ye fall into diverse temptations. knowing this, that the trying
of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect
work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. If any of you lack wisdom, let
him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and abradeth
not. And it shall be given him. God's grace is sufficient for
you except there be a purpose in it. God has a purpose. but
let him ask in faith nothing wavering. All right, hold up,
I have a question. What does it mean to ask in faith? Does it simply mean don't doubt
that God's gonna answer you? Is that what James is talking
about? Just don't doubt that God's gonna answer you. I don't
think so, because he adds in verse six, for he that wavereth
is like a wave of the sea. driven with the wind and tossed. Remember this, that your God
is a God of purpose and nothing random or by chance is happening
to you. He's in total control. And so to ask in faith is to
inquire of the Lord, knowing that your Lord, your God has
a purpose in what you're doing. You're not just some wave out
there being tossed and blown around and all these weird things
are happening to you. No! There's a purpose that the
Sovereign Lord God has in bringing this your way, in bringing you
through this trial and adversity. You may not be able to reason
it out, But we know, Lord, you're sovereign. I know that you are
sovereign, and you have a purpose, and you're working all things
according to your eternal purpose, which you purposed in Christ
Jesus, my Lord. Therefore, in that light, we're
not just a wave tossed about. God's doing this. God has sent
this. God has purposed, in grace, to
bring this to me, to humble me, to strip me, to wither my flesh,
and to bring me to that point where I can hear his word of
strengthening, which he says to me. He has a purpose in it. There is a purpose in what your
Lord is doing. Does it strip you? Yes, it does. Does it knock you down? Yes,
it does. Does it prepare you to hear his
word? Does it make you to want to hear
what the Lord is saying? Yes, it does. Yes, it does. If
you're his child, it does, so trust him in it. Worship him
in it. Show yourselves faithful by his
grace, for faithful is he that calleth you who also will do
it. He'll do it. And so he wisely
brings all things to pass exactly as he purposes to do it. And
I close with Romans 8 28. And we know that all things work
together for good to them that love God, to them who are the
called according to purpose, the purpose of God. Amen. Let's close in prayer, and then
we'll be dismissed for about 15 minutes. Our gracious Lord,
we thank you, Father, that you are the God of purpose, and that
nothing random or by chance is happening, but you bring all
things to pass according to your good purpose. It is for our good,
according to your grace and mercy. Lord, we ask that you would indeed
bless this truth to our hearts. Lord, help us in the trials and
difficulties that we go through to hear your word of strengthening,
to hear your word of promise, which you make to your children
according to your purpose to be gracious to them. Lord, we
thank you for this word. We ask that you bless it to our
hearts and bless your people this hour. It's in Christ's name
we pray and give thanks. Amen. All right, let's take a
break.