This story about Gideon is about
the Lord Jesus Christ. It turns out that there's a message
throughout, as we try to summarize the Book of Judges, and there's
a message throughout the Old Testament. That message is given
to us in the New Testament. And as I also mentioned last
time and at the Bible study, the last two Bible studies, in
Galatians chapter 4, the Apostle Paul explains the Old Testament
scriptures using the the Old Testament, and he calls
it the law when he refers to Ishmael and to Isaac, the sons
of Abraham, and he explains in Galatians 4 that Ishmael represented
the children of the flesh. those who were not children of
promise, those who were born merely after the flesh. And they
were also, because Ishmael was a son of a slave woman, they
are children of the bond woman or children of the works of the
law. All who are of the works of the
law are under bondage. They're under the curse of the
law. They're under the bondage of sin because of the law holds
them under that. It won't let them go. It only
holds over them a curse, and they're under the curse of that
law, too. But the apostle Paul in Galatians 4 calls the history,
the actual history of Ishmael being born by Hagar, his mother,
to Abraham, the father, an allegory, an allegory meaning there's a
meaning in that history and the meaning is the gospel versus
the law of God. Now there's nothing wrong with
God's law. The law is holy, just, and good,
but the problem is with us. And that's what the New Testament
reveals is that the Old Testament, the law of God was given to us
in order to expose our guilt and to show our helplessness
and our sinfulness to do one thing that God has required of
us in order to gain his approval and be justified before God. And also the fact that the law
causes us to sin more because it holds before us a requirement
we can't keep. And so we're hostile in our minds
toward God. And this is just our nature.
It's a terrible situation. It is a terrible situation. And
it's all our fault. And the law is good. And because
the law creates this realization and actually enhances the exceeding
sinfulness of our sin because we sin against something that's
holy and just and good. Therefore, it shows just how
bad we are. Now, that's the law aspect of
the Old Testament. And then there's the gospel,
which is foreshadowed in the Old Testament. And the gospel
teaches us that what we could not do and would not do, God
has done in the Lord Jesus Christ. There's nothing better, gladder
news than that to a sinner who stands before God. There's nothing
better than that. In fact, if you understand then
that the message of the Old Testament is the gospel of Jesus Christ
in contrast to the law, and it's set before us here in the book
of Judges over and over again, repeatedly, as these people who
were God's people departed from the Lord in idolatry, and they
served the idols of the nations in the land God had promised
to them, as this teaches us how even God's people in this body
of flesh are under this warfare, are in this warfare between the
flesh and the spirit, and this is a constant battle. And there's
constant defeat, but overall there's a success because the
grace of God is what we're under now, not the law. And so it says
in Romans 6, 14, that sin shall not have dominion over you, for
you are not under the law, but under grace. And so, because
we're under grace, therefore, we're given all that Christ earned
for us. And grace means that God gives
us his riches of righteousness and eternal life and eternal
glory all at Christ's expense. And when I was younger, much
younger, there was an acrostic. grace, God's riches at Christ's
expense. And that stuck with me and I
think it's a very good synopsis of what the word grace means.
It's unmerited favor on our part. It's favor from God in spite
of our sin because he has found a savior in his son to deliver
us from our sins and to bring us to God. All right, so if you
understand the Old Testament message, therefore, to be the
gospel of Christ being foreshadowed out of the context of this deplorable
wickedness on the part of man, then you can see that all of
the stress then is taken off of the believing sinner when
we look to Christ. because we see that it's all
been answered in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so, because the Apostle
Paul in Galatians 4 calls that history between Abraham and Hagar
and Ishmael an allegory, and Isaac being the son of promise
and all that goes with it, and read that explanation given in
Galatians 4, it shows us that everything in the Old Testament
was given to us to teach us the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And that's wonderful. When you see that then, when
you go back and look at these things, and you look at this
with the eyes, with New Testament eyes. Henry Mahan wrote a book called
With New Testament Eyes. I think it's something like that.
And he summarizes many of these accounts in the Old Testament
in that book. And it's meant to be done that
way. The book of Hebrews is a perfect, not just an example, but it's
a perfect explanation of the Old Testament in terms of Christ
and him crucified. And so this was always, and if
you think about it, in the early church, before they had all of
the epistles, the preachers would have to preach from the Old Testament. Peter, Paul, James, they all
used the Old Testament, and they explained the Old Testament in
terms of the gospel. The gospel was the explanation
they gave. And so that's why we know that
that's what that message is. Jesus said in Hebrews chapter
10, in fulfillment of Psalm 40, in the volume of the book, it
is written of me, I come to do thy will, O God. And so that's
a summary of the Old Testament. Now given that as a background
here, I want you to see in this story many things that point
us to the Lord Jesus Christ. Last week we began, we saw that
the Lord came to Gideon by this messenger who was an angel, and
we saw that the angel was an incarnation, a pre incarnate
form of the Lord Jesus Christ, because he was called a messenger,
which is what the word angel means, messenger. And also because
when he spoke to Gideon, it says the Lord looked upon him and
the Lord spoke to him. And so when the angel was speaking,
the Lord was speaking. because that's the truth, that's
the mystery of godliness. Remember 1 Timothy 3.16, great
is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh.
and all that follows, justified in the spirit, seen of angels,
preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up
into glory. So here we have the mystery of godliness unfolded
to us in this angel. And then we saw that when the
angel or the Lord Jesus Christ, as we understand, spoke to Gideon,
Gideon found no strength in himself. He said, I'm the least in my
father's house. And we're in the smallest of
tribes, the tribe of Manasseh. His father was Joash. Joash was
a son of this man named Abiezer that we read about just now.
And so when you see that name in this account here, Abiezer,
it means the father of Joash who was a descendant of Manasseh.
And Manasseh was a small tribe compared to Ephraim. And so he,
when Gideon speaks of his own abilities, he sees no reason
why God would choose him. No reason why God would send
him. Send someone else. I don't have the ability. And
the Lord gave him that ability when he looked upon him and he
said in verse, chapter 6 and verse 14, the Lord looked upon
Gideon and said, go in this thy might. and thou shalt save Israel
from the hand of the Midians. Have not I sent thee? So the
strength, the ability that was Gideon's was because the Lord
looked upon him, because the Lord said, go and this thy strength,
because the Lord said, have not I sent thee? And the Lord said
he would save Israel from the hand of Midian. Now, the Midianites,
as we also summarized last time a little bit, they were a strange
people. They were the enemies of Israel
because it was of them, remember, Balaam taught Israel to worship
the idols of the Moabites and the Midianites. And so the Midianites
were a people. Balaam was of that people. And
when Moses was still in the book of Numbers, when Moses was still
alive, God told Moses, because the Midianites have caused the
children of Israel to serve these idols in the way that Balaam
intended for them to do that, since God prevented Balaam from
cursing Israel. So he snuck around the back,
as it were, and said, we'll get God to curse them. And so Balaam
was of the people of the Midianites, and God told Moses, now you go
avenge the Lord of the Midianites, and God sent Israel out. And
at that time, in Numbers chapter 31, we saw that the priest went
out with the 12,000, 1,000 from each of the 12 tribes, and the
priest blew the trumpet, and they killed all of the males
of the Midianites. So the Midianites really were
a conquered people. What happened here? Well, they
seem to have gotten big again. There's thousands of them. If
you noticed, and I had Brad read all the way through here, even
though it was a long reading, in chapter 8, it says that the
people that fell In chapter 8, verse 10, Gideon and his, notice,
300 men are chasing these two kings of Midian, who are called
Ziba and Zalmonah. And these two kings still had
15,000 men with them in chapter 8, verse 10. And there were a
total, it says here, In, let's see, where is it? In which verse
is it? I thought it was 11. It says there were 120,000 that
fell. Oh yeah, it's in verse 10 still. So 15,000 with these
two kings still alive. Gideon has just, you know, he's
followed these men through the night. And he's catching up to
them. And 120,000 of those who had
swords, these were fighting men, had died in this battle. Incredible. Incredible. As I was reading this yesterday
and thinking of it over and over as I do, I was thinking, can
you imagine what this was like? Here you are. You're coming up
on this hill. The Lord has said, you have too
many with you, Gideon. He's got 32,000. But there's
120 plus 15, 135,000 Midianites. He has 32,000. He's got less than a third. There's
like one-fourth. He's got one for every four of them. Too many? And the Lord says, yeah, you
send home. Ask him, whoever's afraid, you
go home. 22,000 leave. And he has 10,000
left. And the Lord says, still too
many. You're going to have to send home. In fact, you just
keep the ones that I tell you to keep. Every one of them is
going to do this test, drinking the water as he had them do.
And the Lord says, keep that one, not that one, not that one,
not that one, not that one, yes, that one, that one, no, no, no.
So only 300 left. And Gideon, with these 300 men,
chases these two kings with their 15,000 after 120,000 of them
fell in the battle. But can you imagine Gideon and
his men? Now, they're creeping up. It's
the night. They're creeping up. They're
looking out over this hill. As they rise up over this hill
through the brush, and they look, and the valley is covered. with
these men and their camels and all their animals, donkeys and
sheep and camels. And there's just like a million
of them, unbelievable number of men. And they have 300. And after the 120,000 die in
the battle, Gideon and his 300 men, weary,
chased after these two kings who had 15,000 men. And they killed them. They killed
the two kings. And they discomfited, it says,
the 15,000 men. They weakened them. Amazing.
So this story is beyond belief, isn't it? It's beyond belief.
It's meant to be. It's meant to be. Imagine what
it was like for Gideon. It's like, and he had some sense
of this, right? Gideon, it says in the beginning
of the book here, the children of Israel did evil, this is chapter
6, in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord delivered them into
the hand of the Midianites seven years. And then after seven years
of this, and they're coming like grasshoppers or locusts, they're
just eating up everything. They ate up the grain. They ate
up the vine, the grapes, the vines. They ripped them up, the
trees, the olive trees, everything. They just consumed it. And they
gave it to their animals. And they just, they were horrible
people. These were the people that Israel
had already conquered once. And now here they are again.
Because they're serving their idols. And so God brings them. And this teaches us that we have
in the experience of our life as believers, we have this constant
warfare. We live in a body that has been
redeemed and yet is under sin. The body is dead because of sin,
and yet the Lord has us in this body. Christ in you, the hope
of glory, in the promised land of eternal rest with Christ in
this body, soul, and spirit, and yet we walk now with his
warfare. And all these enemies are all
our fault. They're consequences of our sinful nature. And we
only can be delivered if the Lord himself delivers us. Okay,
so that's kind of a summary here. But I want you to pick this up
in verse 22. He says in chapter 6, and Gideon
perceived that he was an angel of the Lord. And Gideon said,
alas, O Lord God, because I've seen an angel of the Lord face
to face. And the Lord said to him, peace
be to thee, fear not, thou shalt not die. Now that is a comfort,
isn't it? Peace be to thee. This was such
a significant statement. Don't just pass over it. The
Lord, he had seen the Lord Jesus Christ in his pre-incarnate form. He had seen God. He had seen
him touch the end of his staff to what Gideon had provided,
this kid, and the broth, and the unleavened cakes, and it
had been consumed in fire. And when he saw this, he knew
he had seen God in Christ. And he knew he should die. because
he was a sinner. And yet the Lord said, peace
be unto thee. Fear not, thou shalt not die. We were seeing a minute ago,
arise my soul, arise. And one of the phrases in there
says, God is reconciled. But scripture doesn't say God
is reconciled. It says, we were reconciled to
the Lord by the death of his son. It's important that we understand
the distinction. There was wrath against us from
the Lord because of our sin. His justice demanded the curse
be upon us. That's the outpouring of his
wrath. And yet God himself has taken away the reason for his
wrath. our sin in the death of his son. And so he reconciled us to himself
by removing the offense that our sins caused him. So it's
not Him being changed, it's God being propitiated, providing
for Himself in the blood of His own Son a propitiation, a satisfaction
to Himself in order to bring us to Himself. Having removed
the barrier of our offenses, now God pours out His Spirit
to cause us to see Christ, and then in our hearts, He causes
us to believe on him, and we're reconciled to the Lord. And I
can see why the hymn writer, Charles Wesley, thought of it
that way, but it's not quite right, and I wanted to clarify
that. Here, the Lord is referring to that reconciliation. Peace
be unto you, you shall not die, don't fear. And Gideon built
an altar there to the Lord, and he called it Jehovah Shalom,
or Shalom. And so that means Jehovah, our
peace, or my peace. Jehovah is God. God the Father,
God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. Jehovah is made, is at peace
with me. I'm at peace with God because
he made my peace. How? In the blood of his Son.
Look at Colossians chapter 1. This is so significant because
this is part of this entire account here. It lays the foundation
for it. In Colossians chapter 1, and this is not the only place,
but I'll mention a couple of others after this one. But look
at this here. Colossians is after Philippians.
He says in chapter 1 and verse 14, notice, He's talking about God's dear
son in the previous verse, and he says, in whom, in God's son,
we have, this is verse 14, Colossians 1.14, in whom, Christ, we have
redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins. Redemption, amen, a redemption. We have been purchased, bought
out from under the curse, set free, not only from the curse,
but to eternal life, forgiven all our sins by the blood of
God's own Son. That's the way God made our peace.
Notice he goes on. Who is this one who made our
peace? Verse 15. Who is the image of the invisible
God, the firstborn of every creature? He's the expressed image of God. He's God himself, God the Son.
And he is the firstborn of every creature, meaning the Lord Jesus
Christ is both God and man. He has the preeminence because
of that. Verse 16. Him, and He is before all things. Notice how this is lifting up
and revealing the manifest glory of the Lord Jesus Christ as God
and man. He is before all things by Him.
All things consist, verse 18, He's the head of the body, the
church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead,
that in all things He might have the preeminence, not only as
God, but as man. For it pleased the Father that
in him should all fullness dwell." Notice, he's going back to verse
14, and having made peace. through the blood of his cross,
he removed our sins, that's the way he made peace, by him to
reconcile all things to himself, by him, I say, whether they be
things in earth or things in heaven, and you that were sometime
alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now
hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death to
present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable in his sight. Isn't that amazing? Jesus Christ,
by himself, who is God and man, has removed our sins against
God in his own blood. And made us holy and blameless
and without reproof in the very sight of God. That's what he's
saying. That's what Gideon is saying.
Jehovah Shalom. God. our peace. The angel that appeared to me
has declared peace to me." Now, Gideon had asked the angel to
confirm that the Lord was speaking to him. Gideon wasn't sure. I can't believe that God is speaking
to me and telling me to go fight Midian and save Israel from the
Midianites. And so he asked him to stay and
Gideon had prepared the gift. his gift, his present, and he
put it on the rock and the angel touched it with the end of his
staff and was consumed by fire. So what we see here in the beginning,
as I brought out last week, is that Gideon's question, is the
Lord really speaking to me, was answered by what? The sacrifice,
the accepted sacrifice, and then Having accepted the sacrifice
and Gideon now is afraid again that God is going to take his
life, the Lord speaks again of his peace that he made by sacrifice. So that we know through the development
of this chapter here that God continues to bring us back to
the gospel, the Lord Jesus Christ and him crucified. And we're
going to see this. And remember what he said that
he was poor in Manasseh. He said in verse 16, the Lord
said to him, surely I will be with thee and thou shalt smite
the Midianites as one man. Okay, so and that's when Gideon
couldn't believe it. He's just a man and he can't
believe it. And how can I as one man smite
this great host of Midian? God is with you. God has seen
you. God has looked upon you. He has
said you're a mite. You could go in this mite because
God had strengthened him. And he would send him and he
would actually save Israel from Midian. Alright, so we see this. First, Israel is sinning. God
sends a prophet. The angel appears to Gideon.
Gideon doubts God is talking to him. Gideon brings a present.
That present is accepted as a sacrifice. Therefore, he knows God has accepted
him, but he's afraid. God speaks peace to him. He's
speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so what does Gideon do? This
was no insignificant thing in his life. He builds an altar. This is unbelievable. God appeared
to me and he spoke peace to me. And he builds an altar. He worships God. He worships
him because the Lord appeared to him. God in Christ appeared
to him and accepted the sacrifice and by that sacrifice he was
accepted. And so it came to pass in verse
23. came to pass the same night that the Lord said to him, take
thy father's young bullock, even the second bullock of seven years
old, and throw down the altar of Baal that thy father hath,
and cut down the grove that is by it, and build an altar to
the Lord thy God upon the top of this rock in the ordered place,
and take the second bullock, and offer a burnt sacrifice with
the wood of the grove, which thou shalt cut down. And then
Gideon took 10 men of his servants, and did as the Lord had said
to him. And so it was, because he feared his father's household
and the men of the city, that he could not do it by day, that
he did it by night. And when the men of the city
arose early in the morning, behold, the altar of Baal was cast down,
and the grove was cut down that was by it, and the second bullock
was offered upon the altar that was built. And they said one
to another, who has done this thing? And when they inquired
and asked, they said, Gideon, the son of Joash, has done this
thing. And the men of the city said to Joash, the father of
Gideon, bring out thy son, that he may die, because he's cast
down the altar of Baal, because he has cut down the grove that
was by it." Unbelievable. Unbelievable. The men of Israel,
openly, without any shame, wanted to kill Gideon because Gideon
destroyed the altar of their idol god, Baal. Unbelievable. And what does that tell us? That
the wickedness that is in the heart of man is unfathomable. It is horrible wickedness. It's so openly opposed in hostility
to God that it is enmity itself. That's what this is teaching
us here. And notice how God, through his father, through Gideon's
father Joash, addresses this. This is phenomenal. Verse 31, Joash said to all that
stood against him, and I'm not sure why Joash had this altar,
this grove, and so on. His whole household, they were
idol worshipers. Joash, Gideon's father, Gideon
and these people, the people of Israel, were idol worshipers
here. And God is delivering them from
this, and so he tells them to destroy this idol and the grove,
and to build an altar, not in that place, but on the top of
the rock where the angel had appeared to him. But anyway,
notice what Joash says to them, verse 31. Will you plead for
Baal? Will you save him? Amazing. I'm going to ask you two questions.
Can a man destroy God? Only if the God is no God, right? Can God save a man? Only if that
God is the true and living God, you see. What Joash is telling
them, you're reversing the roles. God alone can plead and save
a man. And now you are pleading and
trying to save your God. This is the work of your own
hands. This epitomizes all of false religion. Idols are the
work of men's hands. They're the imaginations of their
own perverse, idolatrous heart. And men are so at enmity with
God, so wicked and perverse, that they make a God, and then
they try to save their God, and they plead for their God against
those who are the true believers. Incredible. What this teaches
us is that only God can save us. Only He must plead for us. Because our sin is trusting the
work of our hands. And that's why they named him
after this, Jerob Baal. It means, let Baal plead. Here
Gideon is walking around, they give him a new name. Gideon means
warrior. And now he's, let Baal plead.
If you want to defend him, you want to kill me, then let Baal
plead for himself. And Robert Hawker calls Baal
the Dunghill, or the Dunghill God. And I'm not sure why he
says that. There must be some connection there to the name
Baal. Amazing, isn't this? And it says in verse 33, so this
happened in verse 33. Then all the Midianites and the
Amalekites and the children of the east were gathered together
and went over and pitched in the valley of Jezreel. But, notice,
the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon. The Spirit of the Lord
came upon Gideon and he blew a trumpet and Abiezer was gathered
after him. Abiezer is just another man who
was a descendant of Manasseh. It just means the tribe of Manasseh
who were born through Abiezer. And these men were gathered after
Gideon. But notice, and don't let this
slip, Gideon was the one God said, go in this thy might. Have not I sent thee?" And he's
the one that said, the Lord will surely be with thee, and you
shall smite the Midianites as one man. And Gideon said, if
I have found grace in thy sight. And the Lord said, peace be with
you. His name was called Jerob Baal, or let Baal plead, and
also Gideon the warrior, which is what Gideon means. And he's
the one that the spirit of the Lord came upon in order to perform
what God had given him to do. Now I say all that because we're
building up to this. The story here is to unfold the
gospel of God's saving grace to us. So he says, And after
he gathered these people out of these tribes, Manasseh, and
Zebulun, and Naphtali, and he says in verse 36, Gideon said
to God, if thou wilt save Israel by my hand, as thou hast said.
Verse 36, now verse 37. Behold, I will put a fleece of
wool in the floor, and if the dew be on the fleece only, and
it be dry upon all the earth beside, then shall I know that
thou wilt save Israel by my hand, as thou hast said. So what is
Gideon asking for here? Confirmation. I need assurance,
I need confirmation that you will save Israel by my hand. And so what does Gideon do? Well,
he asked the Lord to make this wool fleece wet with dew and
everything around it dry. He was in that area where he
was threshing grain. It was a wine press. He was doing
it at the wine press to hide from the Midianites. And he's
threshing this grain in the wine press, obviously the place of
crushing of grapes. And now it's the place of threshing
of grain. And now he's asking God in this
floor of this wine press where they were threshing the grain
to cause the dew to fall only on the wool fleece and leave
everything else dry. And so it says in verse 38, it
was so. For he rose up early in the morrow
and thrust the fleece together and wringed the dew out of the
fleece a bowl full of water. And Gideon said to God, Let not
thine anger be hot against me, and I will speak but this once.
Let me prove, I pray thee, but this once with the fleece. Let
it now be dry only upon the fleece, and upon all the ground let there
be dew. So reverse it. It was wet only on the fleece.
The dew had fallen only on the fleece, and the ground was dry.
Now let it be dry on the fleece, and let the ground be wet with
dew. And this would be a confirmation to him that God was going to
truly save Israel by his hand. And a lot of people have called
this fleecing God. Have you ever heard that? Don't
fleece God. You know, don't put God to the
test. And I agree. If you're doing it in order to
put God to the test, it's wrong. But was it wrong for Gideon to
do this? I don't think so. And here's
why. What was this? First of all,
it was a wool fleece. Wool obviously comes from a sheep.
And this wool fleece was the focus of his assurance. He wanted assurance by God doing
something with the wool fleece from the sheep. Gideon wasn't
sure that God would truly save him or save Israel by his hand. He wanted God to confirm it.
And how would he have that confirmation made? Through the wool fleece,
first being wet with dew and the ground dry, then the wool
being dry and the ground wet with dew. And to understand this
now, understand that When the Bible talks about dew falling,
it talks about God's favor and God's blessing. In Psalm 133,
for example, in Psalm 133 and verse 3, let me read this verse
to you. It says, In verse 1 of Psalm 133, behold
how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together
in unity. It is like the precious ointment
upon the head, ointment meaning oil, upon the head that ran down
upon the beard, even Aaron's beard, that went down to the
skirt of his garment. as the dew of Hermon, and as
the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion, for there
the Lord commanded the blessing, even life forevermore." So what
does this dew represent? The blessing of God, even life
forevermore, just like the dew on Hermon that fell, descended
from God upon the mountains of Zion. We know Zion is God's title,
the title of the mountain of God's people, which is the church.
and this is entirely talking about the outpouring of the Holy
Spirit upon the high priest, Aaron was representative of Christ,
and it went down to the skirts of his garments, meaning it flowed
down to all of Christ's people, just like the dew. So, what this
is saying then is that the dew upon the fleece signified the
blessings of eternal life coming which were on Christ alone, right?
Because he was the sheep, the lamb slain from the foundation
of the world. Look at my, uh, uh, Hosea, Hosea
chapter 14, if you want to, or you just listen, Hosea, it says
in chapter 14, verse 5, a similar thing, he says, I will be as
the dew, this is the Lord talking now, In verse 4, he said, I will
heal their backsliding. I will love them freely, for
my anger is turned away from him. I will be as the dew unto
Israel. He shall grow as the lily and
cast forth his roots as Lebanon. The dew is Christ. I will be as the dew. to Israel. And so, what we learn from these
verses is that the fleece being wet then with dew signifies the
Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, upon whom all of God's blessings
were put. There's only life in Him. All
of God's blessings are only in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so
Gideon, as a believer then, viewed as a believer, is asking the
Lord, preach Christ to me again in order for me to know that
you're going to deliver Midian into my hand to save Israel.
It's going to have to be through the Lord Jesus Christ. I need
to hear it again. But then the fleece was dry the
second time, and what could that mean? Well, remember that God
has made Him sin for us, who knew no sin, in order that we
might be made the righteousness of God in Him. So Christ had
to be deprived of water, the blessings of God, because He
bore our sins in His own body up to the tree. And so, throughout
scripture, when you hear about the deprivation of water, you
hear the soul of the man of God crying out, I thirst, like Jesus
did on the cross. In John 19, 28, he says, I thirst,
because he had nothing, no moisture, no word from God. God had forsaken
him, because he bore our sins, and God poured out his curse
upon him. Whoever hangs on a tree is cursed
of God. And so we see then, therefore,
that all of the blessings that are in Christ were brought on
all of his people because Christ himself bore our sins in his
own body on the tree. And this is just the preaching
of the gospel, isn't it? And so then Gideon and all of
his men, they saw this and they were confirmed, they were assured
of this. And that's what our assurance
is, isn't it? Listen. If you're ever going
to find peace with God, if you're ever going to be persuaded that
God has spoken to you, if you're ever going to have any assurance
of eternal life, it's going to be if God preaches Christ to
you. If all you hear and all you see
and all you trust and all you know before God is what God has
done in His Son, then you'll have peace with God. But if you
think there's something to do that you have to add to it, to
mix a little bit of your works, or your merit, or your future
potential, and all that you are is a good believer, a good Christian,
then you're never going to be at peace with God. Like I pointed
out in the bulletin today, Todd Nyberg made a wonderful statement. He says, Christ plus anything
equals nothing. But Christ plus nothing equals
everything. Isn't that good? That's the equation
of the universe. That solves all the problems,
doesn't it? It models every problem, and
all of God's glory, and purpose, and work, and word, and promises
are all in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what this account of Gideon
is trying to teach us here. Look at chapter 7. Then Jerob
Baal. Let Baal plead. In 2 Samuel,
he actually calls him Jerob. Besheth, and it means let the
shameful thing plead. But here he calls him Jerob Baal,
who is Gideon. And all the people that were
with him rose up early and pitched beside the well of Herod, so
that the host of the Midianites were on the north side of them
by the hill of Mori in the valley. And the Lord said to Gideon,
my people that are with you are too many for me to give the Midianites
into their hands, lest Israel vaunt themselves against me,
saying, my own hand has saved me. Now what God is doing, obviously,
here is he's whittling down. He's whittling down. Too many,
too many. There were 30, what did we calculate? 135,000 of these enemies that
were killed this day. 135,000. There were 300 with Gideon. That's one. with Gideon for over 100 with
the Midianites. One to 100. Essentially, you
have to say there was no cause in these 300 men that brought
the victory. And also notice, what did Gideon
give these men to go out against the Midianites? A trumpet, a
pitcher, and a lamp. Where's the sword? Take a pitcher
and a lamp, put the pitcher over the lamp, and hold your trumpet,
the pitcher in one hand, the trumpet in the other. And let's
divide our 300 into 100, groups of 100, three groups of 100 each,
and you watch me, Gideon said, and when you hear me blow the
trumpet, then you break the pitcher, and you let the light shine,
and you blow the trumpet. And this is what you're to say.
The sword of the Lord and of Gideon. No swords. And 120,000 enemies of the Lord
destroyed themselves because God fought for Israel. This is a story of faith, isn't
it? What does this signify here? The sword of the Lord and of
Gideon. Why did he say Gideon? Because
great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh. You see, Jesus told Nicodemus,
no man has ascended up to heaven in victory, in glory, in power,
in blessing. No man has ascended up to heaven,
but he that came down from heaven even the Son of Man, which is
in heaven. That's John 3, verse 13. And
as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must
the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him
should not perish, but have eternal life. Now, that's the gospel. We know that's the gospel, the
gospel of substitution, the curse bearing, the sin bearing of our
great Lord Jesus Christ, who is both God and Son of Man. So
no wonder then, in this Old Testament account that is preaching the
gospel to us, Gideon tells his men, now when you break that
picture and you shine that light forth, blow the trumpet and tell
them the sword of the Lord and of Gideon. In other words, God
in Christ, our salvation. And this is all they had to say,
that the trumpet is blowing. And these 120,000 men with all
their animals are completely frightened to death, because
the wrath of the Lamb has come upon them. And all of our enemies,
sin and death, and the corruption of our nature, and Satan, and
the world, and everything that's against us. separated from us
by the almighty grace of God and targeted by the blood of
the Lord Jesus Christ was utterly routed and defeated and put to
shame in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. And all we have
to overcome the enemy is the trumpet and faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ. What an amazing account this
is. And every time in the experience of our life when we think, oh,
it seems like I can't perform what I ought to be. I can't be
what I need to be. You have too many. You have too
many. Get rid of some of them. Because all that the Lord will
use to fight our battles is the Lord Jesus Christ, the sword
of the Lord. He's God. And Gideon, he's man. He's our Savior. What a blessing. Let's pray. Father, thank you
for this account from Scripture of our Lord Jesus. Almighty God,
and yet stooping to take the form of a servant and even take
upon Himself our nature, and in that nature obey by laying
down His life and conquering all of our enemies. Help us to
see Him, to look to Him, to proclaim Him. and help us to see the light
of the knowledge of the glory of God in His face. What a wonderful
Savior, what a wonderful salvation, in His name we pray, Amen.