In Judges chapter six, as we
look at this message, Christ is our victory, and we're gonna
be talking about Gideon. Everybody mostly knows a lot
about Gideon. He's mentioned in Hebrews 11
in the list of the Old Testament believers, Hall of Faith, Gideon's
mentioned in Hebrews 11, 32 through 34. In fact, just to give you
an idea of that, In Hebrews 11, it's said here,
as the apostle writes about this listing of Old Testament believers
who by the grace of God stood for the gospel, stood for the
truth, stood for the glory of God against all opposition, and
many of them suffered greatly for it. And he says in verse
32 of Hebrews 11, what shall I more say? For the time would fail me to
tell of Gideon, and then he mentions Barak, and then Samson, and then
he mentions Jephthah, those were all judges, and then he mentions
David, and Samuel, and of the prophets, verse 33 says, who
through faith, that is by believing God's promise, specifically,
who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, they dealt
justly, what that means. They didn't work out a righteousness
of their own before God because none of us can do that. And we'll
see that in Gideon's case because he was like us. He was a sinner
saved by grace. But when they acted according
to the word of God, they acted justly is what that means. And
so it says, they wrought righteousness and obtained promises and stopped
the mouths of lions. And of course, you know, that's
talking about Samson. Verse 34, quenched the violence
of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were
made strong. And certainly Gideon is an example
of that, out of weakness made strong. But aren't we all examples
of that? How weak we are, how sinful we
are, but the Lord in his grace and his mercy and power has saved
us and he keeps us. It's not our power, is it? If
it were, we'd have something to boast in, but it's God's power. And it says, out of weakness
were made strong and waxed valiant in fight. They grew courage,
courageous in fight. And we know, we're going to see
that that's because the Lord was with them. Then the Lord
show grace, and it says, turn to flight the armies of the aliens. Well, Gideon's an example there.
If you look back in Judges 6, look at the first verse there. It says, the children of Israel
did evil in the sight of the Lord. How many times are we going
to see that as we go through the Old Testament? Well, that's
the common way of man. As we talked about under Joshua,
there seemed to be a short period of time where the leaders and
the majority of the people were in obedience to the Old Covenant. Now that doesn't mean they were
sinlessly perfect. Doesn't mean they kept the Ten
Commandments perfectly. That Old Covenant had the provision
of the sacrifices that make atonement for the people. And those sacrifices,
those earthly sacrifices, they did separate the people and preserve
the people in a temporal ceremonial way. The blood of bulls and goats
sanctified through the purifying of the flesh. That's what that
means. The blood of bulls and goats didn't take away sins.
It takes the blood of Christ to take away sins. But that blood
of bulls and goats ceremonially, typically, and temporally gave
them an existence under the old covenant law. And there was a
few periods of time in their history when the leaders of the
people and the majority of the people were in obedience, but
it didn't last. They were always turning back
to idols. And that's what happened here
in the book of Judges. You know how the book of Judges
ends, it talks about everybody did what was right in their own
eyes. That's the way it is today. That's
the way people act today, even in religion. Whatever seems good
or feels good to them, that's what they do. And that's the
way it was. So the children of Israel did
evil in the sight of the Lord. And it says, and the Lord delivered
them into the hand of Midian seven years. So they were under
God's judgment through this foreign nation, Midian, which the Midianites. And God punished them. And it
says in verse two, the hand of the Midian prevailed against
Israel And this is the same nation now that wandered in the wilderness
and conquered other nations, conquered Jericho. But here the Midianites, they
prevailed. Because of the Midianites, the
children of Israel made them the dens which are in the mountains
and caves and strongholds. They had to flee into the caves
to live, to keep safe from the Midianites. And verse three says,
so it was when Israel had sown in their farms, that the Midianites
came up and the Amalekites too, they were together, these two
foreign nations, and the children of the east, eastern nations
in that land of Judea, that they didn't get out of the land. Even they came up against them,
and what it tells us there, they were always stealing their crops,
they were always stealing their livestock, and they left them
desolate. And that's what was happening.
So God's judgment was on this. And so whenever we go to these
times in the Old Testament where it talks about Israel doing evil
in the sight of the Lord, the thing that I believe we're to
take away from that is to realize the nation Israel is a true picture
of all of us by nature in our sin and our depravity. In other
words, if we're not doing what they're doing, it's by the grace
of God. Isn't that right? It's not because
we're better than them. And I think, you know, modern
day false Christianity is, I think, is man's boasting that he or
she is better than them. It's almost like somebody saying,
well, if I'd have been there, I would have been different because
You remember Joshua told him, he says, if you're not going
to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you'll serve. And man
by nature thinks that he has the capacity to choose the true
and living God, and he doesn't, the natural man. Receiveth not
the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them. So
when I look at passages like this, my mind always goes to
passages like Psalm 32. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord imputeth not iniquity. It's the grace of God that God
does not charge us with our sin, that he saved us from our sins
by his grace through the blood of Christ, that he's given us
a righteousness that cannot be contaminated. Because by nature,
we're no better than these children of Israel who did evil on the
side of the Lord. And you'd be amazed at some of
the things in the Old Testament that they did. Later on, they're
turning to the god Baal, the god Ashtoreth. That was the one,
I believe, that some of them gave up their children to, to
be burned. Things like that. And you say,
well, how in the world could somebody do that? You're not living back
then. You're not in that mindset. but
we're all sinners. And if God would, listen, what
do you think would happen if God were just to open up to me
personally or to you personally and show you what, and show me
what we're capable of? I'm going to tell you, it would
shock you what we're capable of apart from God's grace and
power. And that's the truth. Well, It
says here that these Midianites, look at verse five, it says,
for they came up with their cattle, their tents, they came up as
grasshoppers for multitude. It's like the locust. How many
are there? For both they and their camels
were without number. You had so many, you couldn't
even count them. This was a big army. And it says, and they entered
into the land to destroy it. But verse six is, and Israel
was greatly impoverished because of the Midianites. And look here,
it says, and the children of Israel cried unto the Lord. Now,
before they were worshiping idols. And you're going to see something,
they're going to continue to worship idols. And I don't know
how many of these people actually cried unto the Lord. This is
just a statement in scripture and I'm not going to speculate
on it. Well, did they all get together as a nation and do this?
It doesn't seem like that because when we get to Gideon, we're
going to find out that he had to go in and tear down their
idols. But somebody here, some group, some people cried unto
the Lord. Now this is the issue and it
says, verse seven, and it came to pass when the children of
Israel cried unto the Lord because of the Midianites. Now look at
verse eight, that the Lord sent a prophet unto the children of
Israel. Now this is an unnamed prophet.
We don't know his name, but that's not important. A prophet sent
from God is a man who had the word of God. So God has a word
for the children of Israel. And here's what he said unto
them, thus saith the Lord God of Israel, I brought you up from
Egypt and brought you forth out of the house of bondage. God
is reminding him of what he has done. Remember the former things
of old, for I'm God, there's none else. He says in verse nine,
listen, I delivered you out of the hands of the Egyptians and
out of the hands of all that oppressed you and drove them
out from before you and gave you their land. This is what
God has done. And that's why we preach the
gospel, because in an eternal sense, that's what God has done
for us. See, that's what we're doing in worship. I'm gonna be
talking about worship today. The title of the message is When
Worship is Ruined. That's a strange title, but I'm
gonna talk about real worship. Well, what are we doing in worship?
We're remembering what the Lord has done in our salvation. We're not remembering what we've
done. We're not applauding what we've done. We're applauding
what God has done. Salvation's by grace. We're not
gonna applaud you for the choice that you made, because we know
that the choice you made was the power of God to convict you
of your sin and my sin. So it's all God, and that's what
he's saying. Verse 10, he says, I said unto you, I am the Lord
your God. Fear not the gods of the Amorites,
they're idols. in whose land you dwell, but
you've not obeyed my voice. And it says in verse 11, there
came an angel of the Lord and sat under an oak, which was in
Ophrah and pertained to under Joash, the Abizaite, and his
son Gideon. Now here's Gideon. And he says,
and his son Gideon threshed wheat by the wine press to hide it
from the Midianites. Now what that's saying is Gideon
was a little smarter in that sense than the rest of them.
He threshed wheat by a wine press to hide it from the Midianites
so that they wouldn't steal from him. But this angel of the Lord,
now this angel of the Lord is the messenger of God. Again,
this is a pre-incarnate visitation of Christ. You see that in the
context. Verse 12, the angel of the Lord
appeared unto him and said unto him, the Lord is with thee, thou
mighty man of valor. Now, if you read Gideon's biography
here, sometimes it's hard to look at him as a mighty man of
valor. Apparently he was a leader And
he was appointed to be a judge in Israel. But the Lord's gonna
use him in a way that shows Gideon's weakness and the Lord's strength. So what I'm saying is this, the
Lord didn't choose out Gideon because of his strength or his
power or his goodness. We're gonna see a segment here
where Gideon kind of treads a little bit too much, but the Lord is
merciful. And it's of the Lord's mercies
that any of us are not consumed. Isn't that right? How many times
do we try the Lord's patience, as we would say it, in our own
lives, in our own thoughts? But God is merciful, and his
mercies for his people endure forever. And it says here, verse
13, and Gideon said unto him, oh my Lord, if the Lord be with
us. Now he's addressing this angel
of the Lord. Who's he talking to? Talking
to Christ. He says, why then has all this
befallen us? In other words, Gideon's asking
the question, well, if you're with us, if you're for us, then
why has all this befallen us? Why are we going through all
this trouble with the Midianites? Well, he told them. He said,
you've not obeyed my voice. He told them the children of
Israel did evil on the side of the Lord, that's why. What was
their problem? It was that little three-letter
word that has caused every problem that's ever come on this planet.
S-I-N. Now that's it. Isn't that your
problem? Isn't that my problem? When I
get down and thinking of myself and get my eyes off of Christ,
that's the problem. I'm a sinner. I'm just one sinner
speaking to other sinners. And your pastor and your elders,
we're just sinners saved by grace. And that's what he says here.
And so it says in verse 14, and 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? Now there's
where Gideon becomes a type of Christ. You know, when you think
about types of Christ in the Old Testament concerning men,
like David, like Gideon, like whoever, you have to understand
that not everything they did or thought typifies Christ. Okay? Not everything they did. They're
just certain avenues or certain areas of their life that they
are types of Christ. And when the Lord calls Gideon
the savior here, he's speaking, we see Gideon as a type of Christ
there. And we know the reality of it.
Gideon, out of his own strength and power, didn't save anybody,
not even himself. but it's God through him and
he appointed him to do this. He says, have not I sent thee? Look at verse 15. He said unto
him, oh my Lord, wherewith shall I save Israel? This is Gideon
speaking. Behold, my family is poor in Manasseh and I'm the
least in my father's house. So Gideon knows his frame. Verse 16 says, the Lord said
unto him, surely I will be with thee and thou shalt smite the
Midianites as one man. You know, all these thousands,
numberless Midianites, he says, I'll be with you, and you're
gonna smite them. You're going to overpower them
and defeat them as if you were fighting one man. How many are
out there? More than one. But this is, and
what's the key? The key is, he says, I will be
with thee. And look at verse 70, here's
the next key. And he said in him, if now I have found grace
in thy sight, then show me a sign that thou talkest with me. If
I found grace. There's your keys. The power
and the grace of God. That's how Gideon defeated the
Midianites, and later on you'll see that. But all of this is
showing the strength, the power, the grace, the mercy, the goodness
of God in Christ. And so Gideon says, just like
Moses, you remember Moses when he was praying to the Lord, and
the Lord said, you know, go down and get the children of Israel,
and later on he says, take them to the promised land, and Moses
said, Lord, If you don't go with me, I'm not going. The presence
of the Lord. The grace of the Lord. Now where
do we find that? We find that in Christ today.
Spiritually, eternally, we find the presence of God. For in him
dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And you're
completing it. Outside of Christ, there's no
grace, there's no goodness, there's no mercy from God, no power from
God. Without Christ, we're nothing.
And that's when Gideon says, I'm the least in my father's
house. I don't know exactly what he meant by that. Maybe he was
the youngest, but he's saying, Lord, you're telling me I'm gonna
do something I know I can't do. I've often, you know, when we
talk about salvation by grace, and we talk about how by nature,
sinful, depraved men and women will not choose Christ. We know
that. Again, the natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God. And false Christianity,
that's what everything's based on, your choice. And a lot of
times when you're talking to people who are in that delusion,
they might ask you this question, why would the Lord command us
to do something we can't do? Well, my friend, the Lord's been
doing that all along. He's commanding Gideon to do
something that Gideon can't do and Gideon knows he can't do
it. So how am I going to do this? How am I going to choose God?
How am I going to choose Christ? How am I going to make a decision?
I'll tell you how. It's by the power and the grace
of God who changes our hearts or gives us a new heart and brings
us to see our weakness, our sin, our spiritual death and brings
us to Christ. And that's how. Well, it says
here, Gideon wanted a sign. And you know, later on at the
end of chapter six, we see where Gideon, you know, you remember,
you've heard the term throwing out the fleece? You ever heard
people use that? It's kind of like today, you
might hear some false religionist or false prophet, and they'll
want to do something. And they'll say, well, I'm going
to go throw out the fleece. And that was a sign that God
gave Gideon, and it doesn't really ring good for Gideon himself,
but it does show forth the mercy and grace of God. But people
today, they say, well, I want a sign from God. Lord, show me
a sign. Well, back in the Old Testament,
there were all kinds of signs and wonders. that God gave, and
why did he give signs and wonders there? Well, it's because they
didn't have the full revelation of God that we have in this Bible,
in the scriptures. Today, and Christ said this,
you remember what he said to the Pharisees? He said, a wicked
and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign. And what he was
telling them, he says, all that he had done and all that he had
spoken should have been enough for them, but it wasn't. They
weren't gonna believe him. That's why we know we won't believe
him unless he gives us a heart to believe him. Paul wrote in
1 Corinthians 1, the Jews seek after a sign. The Greeks seek
after wisdom. The Lord told the Pharisees,
he said, you're looking for a sign. Everybody's looking for a sign.
Well, you have something better. Peter called it a more sure word
of prophecy. And you remember what the Lord
said in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus about the rich
man who's looking up from his torture? He said, send Lazarus
back to go to my brothers so they won't end up where I am
because I know they'll believe somebody who's risen from the
dead. Remember what Christ told them? Though one be risen from
the dead, they will not believe. They have Moses and the prophets,
the written word of God. They had some of the written
word of God then. And that's more powerful than signs and
wonders. Now Gideon didn't have that.
Gideon couldn't say, well, let's go over to Genesis and look to
see what God says there. But we do. And there's another
point I want to make on that. The giving of signs and wonders
today, if you look at passages like 2 Thessalonians 2, is attributed
to Satan. Lying wonders, remember that? God will send them strong delusion
that they would believe a lie, that's God's punishment, so understand
that. But back here, there were all
kinds, throughout the Old Testament, before the completion of the
written word of God, God gave signs. And he says, and what
happens here, Gideon, he's told to prepare a meal and set before
the angel of the Lord. And he says in verse 19, Gideon
went in, made ready a kid, that's a goat, and unleavened cakes
of an ephah flower, the flesh he put in a basket, and he brought
it and presented it to the angel of the Lord. But the angel of
the Lord didn't eat it. The angel of the Lord told him to pour
broth over that meal, sop it with broth, put it on this particular
rock, And the angel of the Lord made fire come out of the rock
and it consumed the meal. He didn't need it, but he made
fire come out and consume it. And it says, verse 22, it says,
when Gideon perceived that he was an angel of the Lord, Gideon
said, alas, oh Lord God, now listen to this, for because I
have seen an angel of the Lord face to face, and the Lord said
unto him, peace be unto thee. For fear not, thou shalt not
die. When Gideon said, alas, what
he's saying there is, I ought to be dead. You remember when
God told Moses, nobody shall see the face of the Lord and
live? And of course, he hid Moses in the cleft of the rock and
he passed back and he saw his hind parts. And of course, that's
a picture of the only way, what the lesson is this, however you
parse all that down and all that, here's the lesson. To go to God
without Christ is death. And that's what Gideon's saying
here, alas, I've seen an angel of the Lord face to face, why
am I not dead? And it says in verse 23, the
Lord said unto him, peace be unto thee, fear not, thou shalt
not die. That's when the Lord speaks peace. You know that's what we do when
we preach the gospel to God's people. If you know Christ, if
you've been brought to Christ, every time you hear the gospel
message, it's the Lord speaking peace to you. It's not a false
preacher who speaks peace where there is no peace. Because in
Christ, the Prince of Peace, through the blood of the covenant,
we have peace with God. We've seen the face of God in
the face of Jesus Christ. And to approach him in any other
way is death. And what did Gideon do? Verse
24, Gideon built an altar there unto the Lord, and he called
it Jehovah Shalom, the Lord our peace. And unto this day it is
yet in Ophrah of the Abizurites. So then the Lord instructed Gideon
this, look at verse 25. And Gideon built an altar for
sacrifice. Now that's what an altar's for,
to shed the blood. Because without the shedding
of blood, there was no remission of sins. And that's a picture
of Christ. Well, look at verse 25. It came
to pass the same night that the Lord said unto 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.
See, Gideon's father was an idolater. and cut down the grove that is
by it. They usually, when they had these idolatrous idols, like
a statue or something, some commemoration, they would build a grove of trees
or shrubs around it to make it more beautiful. In other words,
they were showing their honor to an idol. And he tells Gideon,
go throw down your father's altar of Baal. Go cut down those trees. You know what Gideon's name means? It means cutter. Cutter of trees. I don't know if he was a lumberjack
or what, I don't know, but that's what his name means. And so he
says, you go cut down these idols. Take them away. And a lot of
speculation when he says, take your father's young bullock,
even the second bullock. It may have been that his father
had already taken the first young bullock to offer to bail. And so he said, well, you take
the second one and offer it to the Lord and tear down the altars
of Baal. So he built an altar on the top
of this rock. He ordered the place, took the
second bullock of his father's burnt sacrifice, which he was
gonna cut down. And Gideon cut down the idols. Down in verse 28, look at this. It says, 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, as
the altar to the Lord, in the place of Baal. And they said
one to another, who hath done this? And when they inquired
and asked, they said, Gideon, the son of Joash, hath done this
thing. And then the men of the city said unto Joash, bring out
thy son that he may die. They wanted to kill him. You
know, you go messing with people's false hopes False grounds. It's what, remember the light
that comes in and men love darkness and hate the light. It says,
because he hath cast down the altar of Baal, because he hath
cut down the grove that was by it. And listen to what Joash
said unto them that stood against him. Will you plead for Baal?
You gonna defend your God? Will you save him? He that will
plead for him, let him be put to death whilst it is yet morning.
If he is God, if Baal be God, let him plead for himself. Let
him plead for himself because one hath cast down his altar. Why do you have to do Baal's
bill? Let him plead for himself. Well, he's a dead God. He's an
idol. What's the Bible say about those
who pray unto a God that cannot save? What'd he say? Baal couldn't save them, let
alone himself. And that's the issue. That's
why every gospel message is to be aimed at repentance. That's
right. You see, not only, and this is
where people get so upset, just like these guys here. You can
preach, listen, you can preach the doctrines of sovereign grace
as a higher doctrine, and usually they may, most people won't even
raise an eyebrow. Oh, I know you're my brother
and my sister, and we're worshiping the same God. This is just a
higher doctrine. But you go telling them, hey,
you're worshiping an idol. This is not the God of the Bible,
the God who's a just God and a savior, who saves sinners based
upon a righteousness imputed, and not your works or your decision.
Then they get angry. Then they hate the light. And
that's what's happening here. Verse 34 says, the Spirit of
the Lord came upon Gideon and he blew a trumpet. And Abizer
was gathered after him, and he sent messengers throughout all
Manasseh, who also was gathered after him, and he sent messengers
unto Asher, and unto Zebulun, Naphtali, and they came to meet
him. And what happened was, they went out proclaiming that Baal
was an idol and worshiped the God. We see a picture there of
ministers of God standing in a idolatrous world for the gospel,
preaching the gospel. And this is the law. Now, the
end of chapter six speaks of what I mentioned about throwing
out the fleece, and Gideon did that, and the Lord was merciful
to him. You can read that. Gideon's story goes through chapter
seven and eight. You read that, but you know what
happened. The Lord, Gideon had an army. Yeah, here
it is. It started out as 32,000 men.
That was his army. But in obedience to God, he eventually
reduced that army to 300 men and went against these Midianites
and the Amalekites who had thousands and thousands of men and defeated
them. Why did God do it that way? Because
he was gonna make sure that people understood that Gideon didn't
do this in his own power and strength. This is the work of
the Lord. This is not the work of man. And that's what we're
doing when we speak of salvation. Our sins are numberless, isn't
that right? We can't defeat them, but God
has through Christ who is our victory over sin and Satan and
the curse of the law. We are saved by his grace through
the blood and the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, the
power of God unto salvation. And that's what Gideon represents
there, okay.