If you want to turn in your Bible,
first of all, we're going to look at 2 Corinthians chapter
4 and we'll read from there. I wish Brad were here. I thoroughly
enjoy when Brad reads the scripture and prays and any comments he
makes. So I'm sorry that you don't benefit
from that today. But I want to look at 2 Corinthians
chapter 4 because this will tie into our message. Throughout
the book of Corinthians first and second, the apostle Paul
not only preached Christ, but he emphasized that that's what
he determined to do. And here he says in verse three,
he says, if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost. So God makes sure that his people
see the gospel that is. It's hid to them that are lost,
in whom the God of this world, that would be Satan, hath blinded
the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious
gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine to
them. Then in verse five, he says, for we preach not ourselves,
but Christ Jesus, the Lord. and ourselves your servants for
Jesus' sake. This is such an admonition to
every child of God, especially those who preach the gospel.
We don't preach ourselves. We preach the Lord Jesus Christ.
And we preach ourselves as servants for Christ's sakes, for your
sakes. For God, who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure, this
treasure of the gospel of Christ, the knowledge of the glory of
God in the face of Christ. We have this treasure in earthen
vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and not
of us. All right, I'm gonna stop there.
And I wanna go now to the book of Judges. Deuteronomy, Joshua,
and then Judges. Judges is before the book of
Ruth. In scripture, if you have a bird's eye view of the history
of the Old Testament, in the book of Exodus, God brings Israel
out of Egypt. In the book of Leviticus, he
gives the ministry of the Levites. That's what Leviticus means,
the priesthood. And Numbers is the sojourn of
Israel and all of their encampments. And then Deuteronomy is the second
giving of the law because there were the people who lived, were
not old enough, they were not above 20. And when the first
time they went to Canaan and refused to go in, God said that
that generation would die in the wilderness. And so their
children grew up, and Moses gave the law to them a second time,
hence Deuteronomy. And then after Deuteronomy, the
book of Joshua. And in the book of Joshua, Moses
had died. And Joshua was chosen by God
to bring Israel into Canaan. And scripture points out that
Canaan was a figure, a type, a picture. It symbolized our
eternal rest, among other things. It symbolized the promises of
God given to his people. And the one who would bring us
into eternal rest, because Joshua brought Israel into Canaan, is
the Lord Jesus Christ. In Hebrews chapter 4, when it
talks about our eternal rest, it uses the name Jesus to refer
to Joshua, because there are two names, Joshua and Jesus,
are just the same name, one in the Old Testament and the other
in the New. So Joshua brings Israel into Canaan, the promised
land, in the book of Joshua. And then in the book of Judges,
Israel is in the land of Canaan. But they're living in this land
amongst the people who are unbelievers. And then there's the book of
Ruth, which follows Judges, which is about another judge named
Boaz, who was actually not merely an important man, a wealthy man,
but he married Ruth, who was a Moabite woman. And he redeemed
all that was given to her because of her relationship to her first
husband. And he did that by redemption.
So sandwiched between Joshua, where God brings his people into
Canaan, and Ruth, where God raises up a redeemer to Ruth and to
recover all of the lands, is this book called Judges. And
as Don Fortner pointed out in his book called Discovering Christ
in All the Scriptures, the placement of judges between Joshua and
Ruth teaches us that Between the time when God promised and
Christ, by his precious blood on the cross, destroyed our enemies
and are actually receiving the land of Canaan, in full consummation
of that promise, lies the book of Judges, which is our sojourn
in this body of flesh. And so you see that even in this
body of flesh we're taught in the book of Ruth that our redemption
is in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now I hope you see that to some
extent that there is this purpose by which God has arranged scripture
and he has brought this series of history so that he can teach
us the gospel. I read in 2 Corinthians chapter
4 that the light of the knowledge of the glory of God is seen in
the face of Jesus Christ, and this is the light that God commanded
to shine into the world. God, who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness in creation, did that in order to foreshadow
that he would one day command the gospel of Christ to be preached,
and that would be the light of the knowledge of the glory of
God. So this is phenomenal that God would shine the gospel into
our darkness, which is the darkness of our heart, darkness because
of sin. Now, the Book of Judges is a
very strange book. And maybe I'll go through the
entire book in time, but it's strange in many ways because
what you see in the Book of Judges is a repeated failure. A repeated rebellion by the people
who were brought by God out of Egypt, through the wilderness,
and into Canaan. Constantly failing, sinning,
rebelling against God in idolatry. That's what Judges is a record
of, constant failure, idolatry on the part of God's people.
Sin, it's a horrible book in that sense. If you look at Judges
chapter 1, and in the first part, it says,
now after the death of Joshua, it came to pass that the children
of Israel asked the Lord, saying, who shall go up for us against
the Canaanites first to fight against them? And the Lord said,
Judah shall go up. And so they did. They began to
go up, and God delivered them into their hands, and they drive
out these different people. But look at chapter two. And
an angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal to Bochem and said,
I made you to go up out of Egypt and I brought you to the land
which I swear unto your fathers. And I said, I will never break
my covenant with you. And you shall make no league
with the inhabitants of this land. You shall throw down their
altars, but you have not obeyed my voice. Why have you done this? Wherefore, I also said, I will
not drive them out from before you, but they shall be thorns
in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare to you. You
see, this is why the Lord left these people in this land. Why
did he leave these sinful people in the land of Canaan? Because
the people of Israel were sinners. And God is going to use these
sinners in the land of their inheritance to prove them to
see whether they would obey the Lord or no, and then to cause
them to realize their great need their own wickedness, their great
need of a savior, and to find the all-sufficiency of their
savior by God's grace to give them these different men who
were called judges. So this goes on and on throughout
this book. Strange things happen in this
book. Strange things. And I'm not going to go through
them. I want you to. In your own time, read through
the book of Judges. But what I want to do is I want
to jump right in the middle of the book and visit this man named
Gideon. And what led me to do this was
actually as I was studying Psalm 83 for the Bible study on Thursday
nights. And so perhaps in that way, this
sermon will help supplement the Bible study, because there's
a lot in that psalm, and I won't have time to do it in the Bible
study itself. So I want to look at Gideon today,
Gideon. And I've entitled this message
Gideon. Now, if you were brought up with
the reading of the scriptures as a child, you probably know
something about Gideon, don't you? If you go to a hotel, even
nowadays in the United States or even in foreign countries
perhaps, sometimes you'll find there's a Bible in the room.
And if you look in it, it'll say it was placed there by the
Gideons. And what that society of people
called the Gideons do is they have taken the name Gideon and
they've placed Bibles throughout the world, which is a good thing.
And those Bibles are done that way because of Gideon, because
they borrow his name because of the way that God used him
to deliver the Israelites. And so Gideon is one of these
judges in the book of Judges. And each of these judges in this
book are used to deliver Israel from their enemies. Their enemies
come against them because of their sin. And God, after they
feel the effects of their sin, the consequences of them in horrible
ways, then God raises up one of these judges. And that's exactly
what happened in the case of Gideon. And so his name is familiar
to us not only because of the Gideon Bibles that are throughout
the world, but because as children we've probably heard this story.
I know I read it to my kids many times. I even recorded it and
played it for them when they would go to sleep so they would
get it. I pray the Lord would use that, but it's a weak thing
that we do, isn't it? Our own ability to convey the
gospel is so pitifully weak. We cannot accomplish spiritual
things unless the Lord do it. All right, but Gideon is featured
here. And I want to go through this
with you and point out some things that are wonderful because of
what God has done here. Look in chapter 6, verse 1. And
the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord. So
if you look back up, in chapter 4. Chapter 4 ends with this way.
This is right after Deborah, who was a prophetess, a female,
God gave the insight, the understanding of God's will so that she guided
Barak to overcome these different enemies of Israel. I won't go
into that, it's in chapter four and five. But at the end of chapter
five it says, so let all the enemies, all thine enemies perish,
O Lord, but let them that love him be as the sun when he goeth
forth in his might, and the land had rest 40 years. And then the
next verse, and the children of Israel did evil in the sight
of the Lord. I remember as a child, I would
hear the scripture reading and I would hear those kind of contrasts.
The Lord delivered them, God gave them rest, and then the
children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord. I thought,
what a bunch of dumbheads. Why did they do that? And then
as I grew older, I realized that the same tendency was in me.
and that this kind of a message pertains to me. It's a self-biography,
an autobiography, isn't it? It's falling into sin over and
over again. And that's why it's given here.
Because this, in our life now, notice that in the book of Judges,
they're in the land of Canaan, a land God promised to give them.
And yet, they don't completely have it. And that's exactly the
situation that all of God's people are in this world. Because, see,
the Lord Jesus Christ has purchased us with His blood. He bought
us. And He didn't just buy our souls,
but He bought our bodies. These bodies are the temple of
the Lord Jesus Christ. And yet, these bodies are called
a body of death because of sin. So the body is dead because of
sin. We walk around in a body that's condemned. And we can't
bring good out of ourselves. It's a sinful body. And so our
body has been redeemed, and yet we live in this body that's a
body of death. And that is what Judges is about. It's about the life of a believer,
typically, as a picture, an emblem, a symbol. a corollary, if you
will, a foreshadowing of what it's like to be a believer. We
live in a body of death, plagued by sin, and the flesh lusteth
against the spirit, and the spirit lusteth against the flesh, so
you can't do the things you would. And yet this is a body God has
promised. Christ has redeemed this body.
And it's going to be changed. This vile body will be changed
to be like His glorious spiritual body. Philippians 3, 21. So we
know that God has redeemed our bodies and we live in hope of
the redemption of our body. In Romans chapter 4 it says we
live in hope, but hope that is seen is not hope. If we had what
we hoped for, why would we hope? We wouldn't need hope. We'd have
it. And so that's the state of a
believer in this body of flesh. And all of us have this same
experience who believe on Christ. We're living in a body that has
been purchased and there's a promise of eternal redemption even in
our bodies. And yet we live in the experience
of it's not happening. And it seems like every year,
nothing improves. And we're frustrated. And the
reason that this is that way is in order to keep us low in
our own opinions of ourselves, and to keep Christ high and necessary
for us. We learn of ourselves, we learn
of God, and we learn of Christ and His all-sufficiency. And
we're taught to live in hope of expectation that God is going
to redeem us and fully conform us to the image of God's own
Son. And yet, we will go out tomorrow
and we'll have the same experiences. Low condition we bring ourselves
into because of sin in our mind and in our body. So he says in
chapter six, verse one, 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. Now Midian, as I recall, was
a child of Abraham's second wife, Keturah. And I'm not going to
go into that. Suffice it to say, Midian was
a nation of people who were not the true children of Abraham,
like Ishmael was. I'm sorry, like Isaac was. Ishmael
was not. Isaac was. Midian was not. Isaac was. Abraham sent away
all of his children and he gave everything to his son Isaac.
He gave them gifts, but he gave everything that was his to Isaac
because Isaac was the son of promise. So Midian then signifies
those who were not the Lord's people. Look at the book of Numbers. I want you to see some background
here in the book of Numbers. And you remember this man whose
name was Balaam. Balaam was a prophet, but he
was a false prophet. But God gave Balaam an understanding,
and through Balaam brought words that were true words, even though
Balaam himself was a false prophet. But in Numbers chapter 24, I want you to see, look at verse
15 of Numbers 24. Now, a king of the Moabites named
Barak had hired Balaam and tried to get him to curse Israel. Remember? Barak sends out for Balaam, says,
come here and curse Israel. These people have come up there.
I need you to curse them, because if you curse them, they'll be
cursed. And I really need you to do this. I'll pay you a lot
of money. I'll pay you more than you can possibly use. I'll give
you half of everything. I don't remember what he promised,
but he said, I'll make you rich. Balaam wanted to do that. He
wanted the wealth. But God said, no, you do not
go. Balaam went anyway. Okay, so the Lord gave him these
words. He never did curse Israel. But
Balak hired him to curse Israel. What is that teaching? All of
Satan and his kingdom would like God to curse his people for their
sin. They deserve it. But God won't
do it. Why? God has justified them.
And who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? God
will not charge them with their sin because he charged Christ
with their sin and justified them, having received from Christ
full satisfaction for it. Balaam cannot curse Israel because
God has blessed them. But notice in verse 15. So Balaam
took up his parable, this is Numbers 24, 15. Balaam took up
his parable and he said, Balaam, the son of Beor, has said, and
the man whose eyes are open has said, here's his prophecy. He
has said, which heard the words of God and knew the knowledge
of the Most High, which saw the vision of the Almighty falling
into a trance and having his eyes open, Here's the prophecy,
I shall see him, but not now. I shall behold him, but not nigh. There shall come a star out of
Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite
the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Seth, or
Seth, Noah's son Seth. And Edom shall be a possession. In other words, Edom is also
going to be held captive by this one who would rise, called the
Star of Jacob. Edom shall be a possession. Seir,
which is the place of Edom, also shall be a possession for his
enemies. And Israel shall do valiantly. Out of Jacob shall
come he that shall have dominion and shall destroy him that remaineth
of the city. Okay, so this is a prophecy.
Balaam is given this prophecy, and he's speaking of one who
would come, come out of Israel. It would be a star that would
come out of Jacob, a scepter that shall rise out of Israel,
and he's going to smite the corners of Moab, and he's gonna possess,
he's taking possession of the Edomites. Who is this one that's
the star of Jacob? Well, in Revelation 22, the Lord
Jesus said, I am the root and offspring of David, the bright
and morning star, the Lord Jesus Christ. So Balaam is prophesying
now of the coming of Christ and how he would bring destruction
to the enemies of Israel, okay? And in this particular historical
context, they're called Moab and Edom. Now, look at verse
25, chapter 25, numbers 25. And Israel abode in Shittim,
and the people began to commit whoredom with the daughters of
Moab. Now, Balaam, or Barak, had just hired Balaam to curse
Israel. Barak was the, not Barak, Balak. was the king of the Moabites.
And now, notice, Israel is committing whoredom with the daughters of
Moab. How did this happen? Well, if you read Revelation,
it says that Balaam taught Israel to commit fornication. So even
though Balaam couldn't curse Israel directly, he and Balak,
I think his name is, the king of Moab, they concocted this
scheme. This is the way we'll do it.
We'll get Israel to commit fornication with the Moabites and to serve
their idols through that. And therefore God himself will
curse them. That's a good way to do it. That's
a much better way to do it. But guess what? God is not going
to curse them. because he said in the previous prophecy there's
going to arise a star out of Jacob and he's going to smite
the corners of Moab and possess the Edomites, okay? So I'm giving
you this as a background here. So in verse 2 and 3 of Numbers
25, they called the people to the sacrifices of their gods,
the Moabite gods. And the people did eat and bowed
down to their gods, and Israel, God's people, joined himself
to Baal Peor, and the anger of the Lord was kindled against
Israel. Okay? Now look at verse 16, same chapter,
number is 25, 16. And the Lord spoke to Moses saying,
vex the Midianites, do you see that? And smite them. You give
them trouble. Why? Because they vex you, verse
18, they vex you with their wiles, wherewith they have beguiled
you in the matter of Peor and in the matter of Cosbi, the daughter
of the prince of Midian, their sister, which was slain in the
day of the plague for Peor's sake. So what happened is God
plagued Israel because they worshiped Moab's gods, and he killed 24,000
of them, and he's referencing that here. He says to Moses,
now you go trouble them. Look at chapter 30. Number is
chapter 30. I'm sorry, not 30, but 31. Number is 31. And the Lord spake to Moses,
saying, Avenge the children of Israel of the Midianites. Afterwards
shalt thou be gathered to thy people. And Moses spake to the
people, saying, Arm some of yourselves to the war, let them go against
the Midianites, and avenge the Lord of Midian. So God is taking
vengeance on Israel's enemies. You see that? Moses goes on,
of every tribe, a thousand throughout all the tribes of Israel shall
you send to war. So there were delivered out of
the thousands of Israel, a thousand of each tribe, 12,000 armed for
war. And Moses sent them to the war,
a thousand of every tribe, them of Phinehas and so on. He gives
the list there. And verse 8, and they slew the
king of Midian beside the rest of them that were slain, namely
Evi, and Rechem, and Zur, and Hur, and Reba, five kings of
Midian. Balaam also, the son of Beor,
they slew with the sword. So they killed that prophet.
And the children of Israel took all the women of the Midian captives
and their little ones and took the spoil of all their cattle
and their flocks and all their goods and burnt their cities
and so on. Now, he goes on and describes
a problem with what they just did there. But notice here, Israel
has complete control over the Midianites here at that time.
Go back to Judges chapter 6. These were bad people. They taught
Israel to serve the gods of the Moabites, Baal Peor. And for
this cause, God killed 24,000 of the Israelites. And now look
at chapter 6 of Judges. The children of Israel did evil
in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord delivered them into
the hand of Midian seven years. Seven years. And the hand of Midian prevailed
against Israel, because of the Midianites, the children of Israel,
made them the dens which are in the mountains, and caves,
and strongholds. And so it was, when Israel had
sown, when they planted, that the Midianites came up, and the
Amalekites, and the children of the east, even they came up
against them, and they camped against them, and destroyed the
increase of the earth, till they'll come unto Gaza, and left no sustenance
for Israel, neither sheep, nor ox, nor ass. So the people of
the east, Think of China. Think of far beyond Jordan. And then the Midianites and the
Amalekites, who were the children of Esau, by the way. And all
these people come like hordes of grasshoppers or locusts across
the land. And they're just gobbling up
everything and feeding it to their cattle and all of their
animals so that there's nothing left. They cut down the grass
and the fruit off of the vines. They rip up the vineyards. They
tear down the olive trees. They're like locusts are just
consuming the land, and it says they come to Gaza, which was
on the west coast, near the Mediterranean Sea, where the Philistines are.
So they've mowed down all the land of Israel, from the outside
of Jordan, crossing Jordan, through that land, all the way through.
That's what is happening. Seven years. Year after year. And so whatever the Israelites
sowed, planted, they gobbled it up. And this went on for seven
years. the Midianites. And notice in
verse six, verse five, continuing, for they came up with their cattle
and their tents, and they came as grasshoppers 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. Notice, and the children of Israel
cried unto the Lord. Seven years, and then finally
they cried to the Lord. These people were forgetful people,
weren't they? These people were spiritually
stupid people, weren't they? These people were not only spiritually
ignorant, but they stupidly departed from God who had saved them.
And now these Midianites are coming in. And God has brought
them to this point that finally, after seven years, they say,
Lord. They cry to the Lord. And verse
seven, and it came to pass when the children of Israel cried
to the Lord because the Midianites that the Lord sent a prophet
to the children of Israel, which said to them, thus saith the
Lord God of Israel. What is the first thing that
God does after he brings affliction to his people? Well, he causes
them to cry. And then he sends his word. He
sent a prophet. And he said, in his prophecy,
he tells them what he did. He says, thus saith the Lord
God, in verse eight, I brought you up from Egypt. I brought
you forth out of the house of bondage. I delivered you out
of the hand of the Egyptians and out of the hand of all that
oppressed you through the wilderness and drave them out from before
you in this land, Canaan, and I gave you their land. And I said to you, I am the Lord
your God. Fear not the gods. Don't worship them, in other
words. Fear not the gods of the Amorites. That's just a, they
were Canaanites, but the Amorites were the most populous, the most
prevalent of them. So he names the whole country
by naming the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But you have
not obeyed my voice. You see, now they know their
enemies are against them. And they finally, after seven
years, call on the Lord. And the Lord says, this is what
I did, and this is what you did. And he convinces them of what?
He convinces them of their sin. You know, we're so hard-headed
and it takes a long time, doesn't it? It takes a long time to learn
our weakness. And I'm talking about a spiritual,
sinful weakness. Because we're proud. We're proud. It says here in verse 11, now
notice this grace, gracious word after God first shows their behavior,
which reflects their character, their sinners. Then he shows
their idolatry. Then he finally brings them under
the affliction, the consequences of their idolatry. And then they
cry to the Lord and he sends his word and he convinces them
of their sin. But notice in verse 11. And there
came an angel of the Lord, one sent by God, a messenger. And
he sat under an oak which was in Ophrah, Ophrah. that pertained
unto Joash the Abiezerite. Joash is going to, we're going
to see this as he's the father of Gideon. Joash the Abiezerite,
Abiezer was a son a descendant of Manasseh, one of Joseph's
two sons, his twin sons, Ephraim and Manasseh. Only Manasseh was
the oldest. Ephraim was the youngest, but
Ephraim was promoted before Manasseh. So Gideon was the son of Joash,
who was the son of Abiezer, who was the son, a descendant of
Manasseh. He was of the tribe of Manasseh.
So the angel is sitting under this oak tree in this plot of
land that belonged to Joash, the father of Gideon. And Gideon,
it says, threshed wheat by the winepress to hide it from the
Midianites. So the winepress is not where
you thresh wheat. And because the Midianites were
gobbling up all the grain and giving it to their cattle, And
just robbing Israel these last seven years, Gideon is snuck
around in a place they wouldn't expect it at this time, and he's
beating out the wheat at this threshing floor near the wine
press, which would not be noticed by the Midianites. And the angel
of the Lord, it says in verse 12, appeared to him and said
to him, the Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valor. The
Lord is with thee. Notice the order. The Lord is
with thee. Secondly, thou mighty man of
valor. Now, God didn't come to Gideon
because he was a mighty man of valor. He was a mighty man of
valor because the Lord was with him. And it's important that
we see this. If the Lord uses us in any way,
it's not because of us. It's because of him. He does
it for his own sake. He does it for his own glory.
And therefore, he's going to use the most unlikely and incapable
vessel. Just like we read in 2 Corinthians
4, we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency
of the power may be of God and not of us. And so when Gideon
is identified here as being of the tribe of Manasseh, that's
important. The angel, that's important.
And he's going to show how these things come together. How the
angel is speaking to him and what he's speaking of. So he's
the angel of the Lord. We're going to see exactly what
that means in a minute. Verse 13. But first I want you to see
that because God said the Lord is with you, therefore Gideon
was enabled at that point in time going forward to be a mighty
man to accomplish the will of God in this matter. God raised
up this man. And now what we're going to see
here is the character of Gideon. When God comes to a man like
he did to Moses or Isaiah or to whoever it was in scripture,
the first thing we see is that when God comes to a man, that
man will know, I am not able to do what you have told me to
do. I am not worthy to do what you've
told me to do. I'm incapable. I'm unworthy.
Moses said that to a point of fault. And that's what Gideon's
attitude is. It's not in me. What do you mean,
I'm a mighty man of valor? Because the Lord is with you.
It's not in you. And Gideon said to him, oh my
Lord. At this point in time, Gideon wasn't sure, I don't think,
that this was an angel, but he did He did discuss it with him. He says, oh my Lord, if the Lord
be with us, why then is all this befallen us? Now as a believer,
we often wonder that. If I'm the Lord's and he's with
me, then why is my life seem to be such a decimation of ruin
all the time? And it seems like I can't produce
any fruit. It seems like it's just empty
and barren and void and fruitless. That's the attitude, right? That's
what's happening here. Sin and its consequences leaves
us barren. All the fruit of the land was
gobbled up by these Midianites. Why has all this befallen us,
then, if the Lord is with us? And where are all his miracles,
which our fathers told us of? Did not the Lord bring us up
from Egypt? But now the Lord has forsaken
us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites. Isn't
that what we experience? The Lord has forsaken me, and
we're ready to give up. Maybe we have given up. Obviously,
we've been sinning. You see, the first thing we learn
is that God's people are prone to backsliding. This is what
it says in the book of Hosea. They're prone to backsliding,
prone to wander. Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave
the God I love. Here's my heart, Lord. Take and
seal it. Seal it for your courts above.
That's what he's saying here. And yet God sends a prophet to
convince them of their sin, and an angel to speak of salvation. And he chooses a man and says,
the Lord is with this man. I'm going to deliver you. He
says, and the Lord said in verse 14, the Lord looked upon him.
After Gideon said, well, if the Lord is with us, why is it like
it is? And the Lord looked upon him.
The Lord looked upon him. This angel was the Lord in human
nature. The Lord looked upon him and
said, go in this thy might, and thou shalt save Israel from the
hand of the Midianites. Have not I sent thee? You see,
here's where all of the salvation is coming from. Because the Lord
looked upon him, the Lord saw him, and saw him in might. Because he imputed this strength
to him, he gave it to him, he enabled him, and promised that
he would not only save Israel, but the actual tense here is
in the past tense. Thou hast saved Israel from the
hand of the many knights. Have not I sent thee? So Gideon is receiving here the
word of the gospel from this angel who is the Lord himself
in the appearance of a man. Do you see this? Out of all this
ruin, out of Gideon's expectation that if the Lord is with us,
why is it like this? God says to Gideon, you go and
you will have the strength because God is sending him. Now who else
was sent in scripture? Can you think of anyone else?
Well, everyone that God gave his word to was sent in that
sense. But do you know who is the most sent one? The word sent
in Hebrews chapter 3 verse 1 applies to the Lord Jesus Christ, where
it says, we have an apostle, a sent one. We have an apostle and high priest
of our profession, Christ Jesus. Christ the Lord was sent of God. In the book of the Gospel of
John, over and over again, the Lord Jesus says, I have been
sent of God. In fact, he tells the man born
blind, go to the pool of Siloam, which is sent. He sent him to
the pool, which represented himself being sent of the Father, in
order to have his eyes opened. And so the Lord Jesus is the
one who was sent, and yet the angel is sending Gideon here.
And he tells him, you're going to go in your might. God has
enabled him. You're going to save Israel.
God's going to save Israel by you. And I have sent you. So in these words here, we see
something very compelling about Gideon, don't we? He's a man
who's threshing wheat. He's beating out the wheat. He's
doing it in the area where it's a wine press, where they normally
would press out the grapes to get the wine or the olives to
press out to get the oil from them. Now it's the wheat to thresh
the wheat, to beat it out. And all of these things pertain
to the Lord Jesus. He's the one who was crushed
in order that we might have the wine of his blood that fulfilled
the covenant of God's grace in order that we might have eternal
life. He's the one in the Garden of Gethsemane that all was pressed
without measure, beyond measure. And so from him came life to
us. The Spirit of God was given to
us that we might know Christ and live. by him, and here the
threshing of the wheat in that place of the winepress, all of
this points to the fact that Christ would be threshed. He's
the bread of life, and he would give himself, he would fall into
the ground and die like a seed in order to bring forth much
fruit. It all points to him, doesn't it? Because when God
saves his people, he only saves them by the Lord Jesus Christ. And so, in verse 15, Gideon goes
back to his low opinion of himself. He said, oh, my lord, wherewith
shall I save Israel? Behold, my family is poor in
Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house. Manasseh
was a small tribe. They were a nobody tribe. And
his household was the poorest of Manasseh. And he was the least
in his own household. Doesn't that sound like the apostle
Paul? When he said, I'm the least among the saints. I'm the least
of the apostles. I am the chief of sinners. I
am, I am, I am. But it pertains even more to
the Lord Jesus, doesn't it? Because he was made lower than
the sons of men, bearing our sins in his own body on the tree.
And so he says in verse 16, And the Lord said to him, Surely
I will be with thee. Here he is, reaffirming his word.
And thou shalt smite Midian as one man. Now we can understand
that as saying, all the Midianites together are going to be just
like one man and you'll be able to conquer them. Or, which is
the way I understand it, is you, one man, as one man against an
entire army are going to destroy all the Midianites because the
Lord is with you. You see, that is exactly the
way we were saved, isn't it? The Lord Jesus Christ, one man
was chosen. God's spirit was put upon him.
God gave him his work to do to destroy our enemies. His name
will be Jesus. He shall save his people from
their sins. And verse 17, and he said, Gideon
said to the angel, if now I have found grace in thy sight, then
show me a sign that thou talkest with me. He needed assurance that God
talked with him. He needed assurance that God
sent him and that he would be with him and that he would do
all that he said he would do for them. And so he said, stay
here. He didn't say that. He said,
if I have found grace, then show me a sign. And then he says,
this is Gideon talking to the angel, depart not hence I pray
thee until I come unto thee and bring forth my present and set
it before thee. And the angel said, I will tarry
until they'll come again. Now that is super grace, isn't
it? I'm sure the Lord had other things to do and other places
to be. You ever feel impatient with people? Why am I sitting
here with you now? I got a lot of things to do.
You ever feel that way? I'm just a person who's kind
of antsy and it's hard for me to sit still. But the angel said,
I'll wait. The Lord said, I'll wait. And
so Gideon, verse 19, went in and he made ready a kid, a small
goat or a lamb, and unleavened cakes. He had to make some bread
of an ephah of flour. That's a large amount. The flesh
he put in a basket, and he put the broth from seething probably,
this kid boiling it, in a pot, and he brought it out to him.
It took a long time, I'm sure. Have you ever made a meal that
big? It wasn't a little meal. The whole kid. And an ifa of
flour is, I think, an ifa was ten times as much as one man
could eat in a day. So he brought him a feast. And
it took him a while, and there he comes back. And he brought
this, the flesh he put in a basket, he put the broth in a pot, he
brought it out to him under the oak and presented it. And the
angel of God said to him, take the flesh and the unleavened
cakes and lay them upon this rock and pour out the broth. And Gideon obeyed. He just did
it. It didn't make any sense, did
it? I just labored bringing you all this food when people are
starving around here. And he pours this all out. He
lays it on the rock, just like I said, the meat, and he takes
it out of the basket, and the cakes of unleavened bread, and
then he pours all the broth out on this cold rock. And the angel
of the Lord put forth the end of his staff that was in his
hand, and he touched the flesh and the unleavened cakes, and
guess what? There rose up fire out of the rock and consumed
the flesh and the unleavened cakes, and then the angel of
the Lord departed out of his sight. What happened? What happened
here? I need assurance. I need to be
sure that you're talking with me. He wasn't sure if it was
an angel. He didn't know. But the angel
of the Lord says to you, man of valor, God is with you. And now you go in your might. And you're going to save Israel
from the Midianites. You're going to smite them as one man. I've
got to make sure this is the Lord talking to me. Show me a
sign. I'm going to go bring you something. And he goes and fixes
all this food and brings it back. And he said, now you lay it there.
And the angel of the Lord touches it with the end of his staff.
And fire comes up out of the rock and consumes it all. The sacrifice. It was accepted. And so when Gideon perceived
that he was an angel of the Lord, Gideon said, alas, oh Lord God,
because I've seen an angel of the Lord face to face, he thought
he was going to die. No one can see God face to face
and live. He knew that, and he knew he
had seen an angel of the Lord. And he didn't maybe know that
this was the Lord himself, but it was. And the Lord gave him
a sign. And what was the sign? The accepted
sacrifice. How will I know that you're speaking
to me? The accepted sacrifice. How do
I know that though Israel has sinned, you're going to deliver
us from our enemies? The accepted sacrifice. God has sent you. You're going to overcome because
of the sacrifice. And that's true. All of God's
people are going to overcome because of Christ. And because
of Him alone. And then in verse 23, And the
Lord said to him, Peace be unto you. Fear not, thou shalt not
die. And then Gideon built an altar
there to the Lord and called it Jehovah Shalom, or Shalom.
Unto this day it is yet in Ophrah, Ophrah of the Abyzrites. So that
altar is there when this was still written. And we won't have
time to finish developing this, we'll pick it up next time. But
I want you to see what Gideon said. When the Lord said, peace
be unto you, you shall not die. Why? Because God had accepted
the sacrifice. Why? How did God convey the certainty
of his word? He pointed him to the sacrifice.
How did he convey peace to Gideon when he felt he must surely die
having seen the Lord? Because of the sacrifice. God
sent his son. The word was made flesh. He dwelt among us. And the reason
that we could behold his glory is because of the sacrifice.
You see, God's word throughout is always preaching the gospel.
And that's what Gideon is about. The sword of the Lord. The word
of God. And of Gideon. It's my word too.
The gospel of our salvation. And maybe next time we'll pick
this up and keep going with Gideon here. I just want you to see
how God has put the gospel in the Old Testament. How it pertains
to us. How it applies to us in the walk of faith. in the walk
of faith, trusting Christ, looking only to Christ, even though our
enemies seem to have dominion over us. It's not so. No, because
God has sent his son, and God has accepted the sacrifice, and
therefore we go in this, our might. God has spoken to us.
The sword of the Lord and of Gideon. We're gonna see it next
time. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word. We pray, Lord, that our enemies
which are against us, which are all around us, which are stronger
than us, more number, innumerable, we can't overcome them. We know,
Lord, it has to be a victory that you give to us through the
Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior. He's the one who saves us from
our sins. And only he does, does it by himself. We can't contribute. We have no strength. We have
no inclination. We need you to deliver us all
the way from first to last, save us to the uttermost by Christ
alone. You've told us we overcome by
faith. in the Lord Jesus Christ. This
is the gift we desire. We pray you would uphold us in
it. We pray that you would give us this grace to trust Christ
day by day. Help us not to look upon ourselves
because we see only ruin in ourselves. Help us to look to Christ and
find our assurance in him alone. In his name we pray, amen.