Judges chapter 6. I'm going to start reading from verse
1. I think I'll read down to verse 24. The Word of God says, And the
children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord. And the
Lord delivered them into the hand of Midian seven years. And
the hand of Midian prevailed against Israel, and 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 that the Midianites came up, and the
Amalekites and the children of the east, even they came up against
them. And they encamped against them
and destroyed the increase of the earth till thou come unto
Gaza and left no sustenance for Israel, neither sheep nor ox
nor ass. For they came up with their cattle
and their tents, and they came as grasshoppers for a multitude.
For both they and their camels were without number, and they
entered into the land to destroy it. And Israel was greatly impoverished
because of the Midianites, and the children of Israel cried
unto the Lord. And it came to pass, when the
children of Israel cried unto the Lord because of the Midianites,
that the Lord sent a prophet unto the children of Israel,
which said unto them, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, I brought
you up from Israel and brought you forth out of the house of
bondage. And I delivered you out of the
hand of the Egyptians and out of the hand of all that oppressed
you and draved them out before you and gave you their land.
And I said unto you, I am the Lord your God. Fear not the gods
of the Amorites in whose land you dwell, but ye have not obeyed
my voice. And there came an angel of the
Lord, and sat under an oak, which was in Ophrah, that pertained
unto Joash the Abbazarite, and his son Gideon, threshed wheat
by the winepress, to hide it from the Midianites. And the
angel of the Lord appeared unto him, and said unto him, The Lord
is with thee, thou mighty man of valor. And Gideon said unto
him, O my Lord, if the Lord be with us, Why then is all this
fallen us, and where be all the miracles which our fathers told
us of, saying, did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt? But now
the Lord hath forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of
the Midianites. And the Lord looked upon him
and said, Go in this thy might, and thou shalt save Israel from
the hand of the Midianites. And have I not sent thee? And
he said unto him, O my Lord, wherewith shall I save Israel? Behold, my family is poor in
Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house. And the
Lord said unto him, Surely I will be with thee, and thou shalt
smite the Midianites as one man. And he saith unto him, If now
I have found grace in thy sight, then show me a sign that thou
talkest with me. Depart not hence, I pray thee,
until I come unto thee, and bring forth my present, and set it
before thee. And he said, I will tarry until
thou come again. And Gideon went in, and he made
ready a kid, and unleavened cakes of an ephiph of flour, and flesh
he put in a basket, and he put the broth in a pot, and brought
it out unto him under the oak, and presented it. And the angel
of God said unto him, take the flesh and the unleavened cakes,
and lay them upon this rock, and pour out the broth. And he
did so. Then the angel of the Lord put
forth the end of the staff that was in his hand, and touched
the flesh and the unleavened cakes. And there rose up fire
out of the rock, and consumed the flesh and the unleavened
cakes. Then the angel of the Lord departed
out of his sight. And when Gideon perceived that
he was an angel of the Lord, Gideon said, Alas, O Lord God! For because I have seen an angel
of the Lord face to face, and the Lord said unto him, Peace
be unto thee, fear not, thou shalt not die. Then Gideon built
an altar unto the Lord and called it Jehovah Shalom, unto this
day it is yet in Ophirah of the Abba Ezraites. All right, we'll
stop reading right there and we'll go back through some of
these verses here. Brethren, whenever we look in the Old Testament,
we know the Bible teaches us in the New Testament that the
things that are written in the Old Testament were written for
our profit, for our learning, for our understanding. And when
we look in the Old Testament we see that even though these
were real life situations that happened, I mean this is a real
event that really happened, it was a historical event that happened
with Gideon. However, Uh, everything throughout
the Old Testament, God and his providence, his perfect orchestration
of bringing forth his purpose, um, has made everything the lives,
the everyday lives of all the people upon this earth and all
the things upon this earth has brought them forth to show forth
his glory. We read that in the scripture
that the heavens declare the glory of God and the earth declares
the glory of God. Everything that here is here
for the glory of God and it displays the glory of God All things were
made by him and for him The Bible says that up of him and through
him and to him are all things be glory to ever forever So God
has created all these things that we see For his glory and
they bring forth glory into you and me We're down here right
here in the middle of everything and a lot of times we don't see
and understand it We don't see the purpose of it. We don't see
what the outcome of it is. We have an idea of it. You know,
we we know in part, we know that it's to bring glory to God, but
we don't see that. Well, in the Old Testament, we
see the lives of all these people from Adam clear on down to the
time Jesus came. This whole record is given to
testify of the glory of God, who is Jesus Christ. All these
things were written. Jesus said in the volume of the
book, it is written of me. Now, whenever he said that, there
wasn't a New Testament. Okay. It was just the Old Testament.
So in the volume of the book, it is written to me. So everything
in this Old Testament is written to reveal Christ Jesus. And of course, we learned the
New Testament comes along and it comes along and it has a greater
revelation than those who in the Old Testament had. And therefore,
We are able to see even more clearly the Lord Jesus Christ.
So the revelation of Jesus Christ in the New Testament is a little
bit more clear for us. But brethren back here in the
Old Testament, we see that everything that is written in here is to
tell us and to speak of Jesus Christ and his work and the Lord
does that. through different types and foreshadows. It's kind of one of the reasons
why I wanted to sing that last song that we did is to maybe
not only to sing forth the praise unto God for what we just sang
about, but also maybe to bring to your mind to see there was
18 stanzas in that verse and each one of those stanzas had
to do with the revelation of Jesus Christ in something in
the Old Testament of something that was foreshadowed or was
typified by something that was just ordinary thing here on earth
and Whenever we begin to look at scripture and we begin to
read through here we ought to if enabled by the Lord as We
read through these things read them with an eye for Christ looking
for Christ in all of this and Christ work and what he has done
for his people and see the relation of Christ and his people in all
these things. We can just read these things
as face value, as stories about historical events, and we can
still glean a lot of things out of that, brethren. But whenever
we see the complexity of God's purpose and work and providence
in bringing forth historical everyday life that displays His
glorious work of Christ Jesus dying for His people and saving
and redeeming them, it's an amazing thing. And so, As we look here in Judges chapter
6 I see many many many Gospel nuggets in here that we can draw
out from it some things about Christ and his work and about
his people and their reception or what they receive in that
work that God has done on their behalf now One thing that I probably
ought to bring forth in Speaking of the types and foreshadows
and especially whenever you're digging in to a historical event
like it is a Lot of times the types and foreshadows they overlap
each other Sometimes, you know, we look and we see, you know,
like with Noah we see that Noah was and the ark that was a picture
of of of God being gracious to his people. Noah found grace
in the eyes of the Lord. And so we see Noah typified as
a child of grace. But then we see in that picture
also that we see Christ and his work. We see the ark as representing
Christ Jesus and we see our union with Christ Jesus and his people
being in him. And we see that we are sealed
in him by the pitch that was put on the outside of that ark
and how that God shut the door to the ark, meaning that man
didn't come in and man doesn't go out and man can't bring himself
in and man can't bring himself out, take himself out and that
God is the one who is secured all things for the safety of
his people and the redemption of his people. So we can see
some overlapping of symbols and typology. And in here we see
the same thing. One person can typify Christ
and one person can typify the child of grace. David was an
example of that, many examples in the Old Testament that we
find. And so whenever we come here,
keep that in mind, Because I'm just concerned this morning with
bringing out these nuggets that we find in this story of how
God calls Gideon to be his man and how we see his interaction
with this angel of the Lord. Now, whatever we see here, of
course, we've seen the backdrop. The children of Israel had been
taken into and overcome by the Midianites and was in there for
seven years. And God is about to call Gideon. And Gideon is going to be the
man who who governs his army as he fights against all the
Amalekites and all the people in the land. And but we're not
we won't get into that. But let's look here, especially
starting with verse 11. He says, and there came an angel
of the Lord and. Whenever I read that, and as
I have heard throughout the years, you know, the angel of the Lord
that, you know, this was some angel like Gabriel or Michael
or somebody that came down and, you know, was talking with Gideon
here and telling him all the things that he was about to do.
Well, brothers, I'm convinced that that wasn't Gabriel or Michael
or some just stray angel that God sent down. This was, in fact,
Jesus Christ who came and talked to Gideon here. This was Christ
himself who came and talked to Gideon. And I think that we have
proof of that within our context. Number one, Christ is the angel
of the Lord. The word angel means the messenger
of the Lord. Christ Jesus is the word incarnate. He is God's word to man. He is
God's messenger. And so Christ is an angel considered
an angel of the Lord or the capital T. the messenger of God. He sends forth his spirit into
the hearts of his people to bring the news of the gospel, to bring
the truth about Christ, to bring the truth about himself. He sends
his spirit into our hearts to give us assurance of hope. So he is the word incarnate. He is the messenger of God. But the reason I say that is,
if you'll notice there it says, and there came an angel of the
Lord, but when this angel of the Lord begins to speak to Gideon,
if you look down to verse 14, it says, and the Lord looked
upon him and said, go in thy mind. If you notice there, the
word Lord there is in all capitals, that refers to Jehovah. So he
is the angel of Jehovah or the messenger of Jehovah. And in verse 14, It clarifies
and says He is Jehovah Himself. Now brethren, whenever Jehovah
is ever seen, whenever Jehovah is ever heard, whenever Jehovah
has any interaction with sinful men, it's always in the face
of Jesus Christ. There's only one mediator between
God and man and that is the man, Jesus Christ. So if there's any
mediation between God and men, Whether it be in word or physical
appearance or whatever it is, that is the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, you can run to your theological books and listen to all your
seminary professors, and they're gonna say, well, yeah, but that
was just a theophany. That wasn't God incarnate. It wasn't God in true bodily
form. This was just a form that he
took on to convey some things. It was what they call a theophany
or a Christophany, okay? I don't know about those things.
The Bible doesn't use that terminology, for one. So I don't know how
to explain that. If Christology is Christ in human
form, well, why not just say it was Christ incarnate? Because, I mean, what's the difference?
What's the difference in saying that? It's because people don't
want to deal with the issue of Christ's
manhood. that he has come forth from the
foundation of the world before the foundation of the world and
has been brought forth and that he is all God manifested in the
flesh and they don't want to deal with the fact because they
want to look at Bethlehem and see the little baby in the manger
and this is when God came and became incarnate and this is
the beginning of Jesus Christ. But Jesus Christ, brethren, has
been from all eternity. Jesus Christ has been the display
of God, has been the manifestation of God from all eternity. And so whenever we look here
and see that the angel of the Lord is Jesus Christ himself
coming to speak to his people on behalf of God and in relation
to his people, he comes in that mediatorial form as a man. And so he looks upon Gideon,
he talks with Gideon, he speaks and sits and fellowships with
Gideon, he eats, I guess they ate some of whatever Gideon made,
but they sit down and had communion together face to face. That's
what it says in verse 22. And when Gideon perceived that
he was an angel of the Lord, Gideon said, alas, oh, Lord God,
you see that. That word, alas, there, sometimes
we use that a little bit wrong than how it's actually supposed
to be used. That word, alas, is a word that is used as as
kind of something of horror. You know, It's something of fear,
you know. We've kind of started using it,
meaning, you know, so be it or, you know, alas, as in some sort
of, you know, positive thing or just a transitional thing.
But brethren, the word alas is a term that means sorrowfulness.
Fear and so he says alas Oh Lord God whenever Gideon realized
that this was God himself He said before because I've seen
an angel of the Lord face to face Why because he know he knew that
Moses was told that no man can see God and live and No man can
see God and live. And here he is talked with God
face to face. And so now Gideon's afraid. Am
I going to die that I've seen God? But here, brother, I just
wanted to point this out, that this was the Lord Jesus Christ. This was Jehovah manifested in
flesh that had come to talk with Gideon. But notice a couple of
more things here. Back to verse 11. He said there
came an angel of the Lord and sat under an oak tree If you'll
notice the word oak there, he mentions an oak tree there in
11. He mentions the oak tree again
later on in our passages. He mentions a staff. The Lord Jesus came and he rested
underneath an oak tree. Now I think that's kind of fitting.
We just sang that song that talked about Christ being a tree. The Bible all over the place
talks about Christ being the tree of life and that from his
leaves we are nourished. The Bible talks about Christ
going and dying on a tree. But that tree was the very place
where God came down and judged all of his people in the man
Jesus Christ. So it's fitting that Christ came
and sat under a tree and was discussing all these gospel nuggets
to Gideon, these typological things to Gideon concerning his
own death, and it was underneath a tree where his very work that
he was telling Gideon would be happening was going to happen. Jesus Christ is also known as
the root out of the dry ground. He's also known as the branch
of David. So we see that there is some
symbology here to the Lord Jesus Christ and His work on the cross. Look at verse 12. I see something
else here. It says, And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him
and said unto him, The Lord, or God, Jehovah, is with thee. So God was with Gideon. And here Gideon was out there
working, threshing wheat and hiding. And this angel comes
up and says, the Lord is with thee. And of course, we've seen
his response. Well, how do I know the Lord's
with me? I'm out here hiding from the Midianites, trying to
thrush some corn. And we've been in here for seven
years. And it doesn't seem like the Lord is really with me because,
you know, where are all these miracles that our forefathers
got to see and experience? And Jesus here said, the Lord
is with the brethren a lot of times it doesn't seem that the
lord is with us but he is with us all the time he will never
leave us nor forsake us and as we talked about last week he
has a purpose and even in these hardships like the the children
of israel and union specifically are going through the lord bringing
us through some things for our perfection or maturing for our
uh... for our learning and understanding
But notice if you would, he says, thou mighty man of valor. Up
to this point, Gideon hadn't done anything. Matter of fact,
he said, man, I'm just a lowly man out of poor in Manasseh. And I'm even in my father's house. I'm the least of my father's
house. But yet this angel of the Lord said, thou mighty man
of valor. Now, when did Gideon become the
mighty man of valor? It was on in the future, wasn't
it? It was whenever he went and battled. in battle and destroyed
the armies that were before him. And that's whenever he was the
mighty man of valor. But here the Lord is telling
him something that hadn't taken place yet. He's called him the
mighty man of valor. I see the Lord's omniscience
here. I see God's purpose and predestination here. Gideon was
purposed to be this man for this time. God raised this man up,
caused him to be born of his parents in the house of Manasseh
in this time period to be captured and to be brought in and to be
under the control of these Midianites during these seven years. He
purposed him to be threshing this wheat beside this winepress
at this exact amount of time whenever the angel of the Lord
came down and sat underneath this oak tree. We see God's purpose stands from
the beginning clear to the end. God's purpose stands. And God
has done all these things and everything that's in this world
has been set up by God for a purpose as I said, for his glory. And
here he has set Gideon at this point for a specific time for
a specific purpose. And God declared unto him that
he would be this mighty man of valor, even though it had not
yet been done. Remember the Bible verse that says that that he
declares those things as done as though they are. He claims
those things that are not yet as though they are done. And
here we see God doing that. God had raised up Gideon for
this and purposed Gideon for this. There was no way that Gideon
was going to get out of doing what he was going to do. And
listen, it's the same way with all of us. It's the same way
with Judas. Judas was raised up for the exact
purpose that he was raised up for. All those people in Peter
that we learned about, those false prophets that came in and
crept in unawares, they were ordained to that condemnation. God purposed them and raised
them up for that. All those men that laid on wicked hands, God
ordained that that would happen. And they were there for that
specific time. God had made them for that time. And here God has made Gideon
for that time. So, brethren, we see the perfection of God
in his predestination, his omniscience. We see him in his purpose. Look
at verse 13, it says, and Gideon said unto him, Oh, my Lord, if
the Lord be with us, why then is this befalling us? Now, isn't
that truly the heart of The Lord's people, we really are your people,
Lord. Why are we going through all
this? Why are we going through all
this, Lord? You know, we talked about that last week, you know.
How often do we sit and we question God's wisdom in bringing us through
trials and tribulations, putting things on us harder than we can
bear. And here he is, Gideon is no
different than the rest of us. His nature is crying out, well,
if we be your children, why are we going through this? As a side
note, brethren, that ought to tell you something a little bit
about the doctrine of the health and wealth preachers on TV. You
know, the health and wealth teachers say, well, if you're a child
of grace and you have faith, then you're never going to be
sick. You're never going to be poor. You're never going to be
without. You're never going to have hard times. Everything is
just going to be hunky dory for you. But yet the doctrine of
God is just the opposite, isn't it? So you guys need to run from
those doctrines, those TV preachers and those radio preachers that
you hear and everything. You need to be careful what you
listen to and you compare those things with the scripture. Those
men are telling you that your faith is lacking if you're experiencing
all these things. And so if you want your faith
to increase, what do they have you to do? Well, give to me and
that will show your faith. That will be your faith. You
see the faith. And if you sow that seed into
our ministry, God's gonna bless you. God's gonna keep you well. See, it's just a Ponzi scheme,
brethren. That's all it is. It's a giant Ponzi scheme. Here we see that the children
of grace are brought to a place, not only are they brought through
things, but they are brought to a place where they realize
their insufficiency. They realized their trouble.
They realized their need for help. And here Gideon, he realized
they were in trouble. They were underneath the hand
of the Midianites because of God. And they were being suppressed
by the Midianites. And he wanted to know, hey, if
we are in favor with you, then why are we experiencing these
things? And so that's the place of God's
children. We come before His throne whenever
the Spirit of God gives us understanding of our sinfulness, gives us an
understanding of our destituteness and the things that have been
placed upon us under the curse of the law. Whenever we come
before God, we feel unworthy. We feel like we can't do it.
We feel that we're not enough. And we aren't. We aren't. Reassures
us as he does here with Gideon. Look what he says He says and
the Lord looked upon him and said go in thy might and thou
shalt save Israel from the hand of the Midianites Have I not
sent thee so brethren don't think that Gideon went in his own might
even though it says go in thy might the the might of Gideon
is actually Revealed at the very last of that verse look at it
Have I not sent thee? Gideon's might came from the
Lord. Gideon went because the Lord
gave him the strength. Christ was his might. Whenever
we go before the throne of grace during these times of hardships
and trials and pressure and the wakefulness of our sin, who is
it that is our strength? Christ Jesus is our strength.
We go boldly to the throne of grace because Christ is our strength. We can go boldly because Christ
has gone before us with his blood and our sins have been forgiven.
All of our unrighteousness is not seen anymore before God.
And we go in the might that Christ has brought before us. And that's
exactly what Gideon did. He went in the might of the Lord. Matter of fact, if you remember,
whenever Gideon's army went, Wasn't that when they gathered
this great army and God began to whittle it away down to almost
nothing? And they ended up winning that
battle by breaking some lamps, some clay pots with some candles
in it, and the lousy army down there Everybody got up in the
middle of the night when they heard all that commotion and
seen all the that those light those Pots being broken that
those lights and I'm just I'm sure all the you know Sparks
and the things coming off of whatever it was that was burning
in those things. They seen all that thing They
thought a great army was up there and they got up and start killing
each other Now brethren who went before them was a Gideon in his
strength or was that God in his? Oh He said unto him, O my Lord,
wherewith shall I save Israel? I see an overlapping type here
as well. I see the Lord Jesus. I see the
Lord Jesus here. Who's going to go before his
people? Who's going to go to save his people? It's going to be the Lord Jesus,
but he's brought forth as a man. But God is with him. Jesus said
through his whole entire thing. I don't do anything of my own
accord. Everything that you see me do, I do because of the Father. Because of God. My works are
God's works. Everything that happens is because
God is at work in me. And as the Father has sent me,
I do whatever I'm told. I do whatever he tells me to
do. And I am empowered by God because God is in me. He was
God. But in conversation with them,
in human terminology to them, he was expressing this dependency
upon God that all of who he was was because of the work of God
in him. Same thing with us. There is
nothing in us. We don't do good works. God does
do good works in us. If any good works are found within
this vessel of clay, it is the work that God has done in that
vessel of clay. And here we see the Lord Jesus
Christ goes for His people, and He goes in the power of God.
He doesn't come as a mere man. He comes as God manifested in the
flesh. Verse 15, 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. Does that
not sound like the Lord Jesus Christ whenever He did come in
that body prepared for Him that should die? He came born in a
stable, born in Bethlehem, born in Galilee, nothing special whatsoever. Jerusalem was the big city, right?
Bethlehem, not so much. Galilee, can any good thing come
out of Galilee? That was the phrase, right? And
here Jesus was, born to human parents that was a carpenter,
and a virgin who give birth to a child who now was the talk
of all the town. Shame, shame, everyone knows
your name. You had a child outside of marriage. Can you think of
the burden that Mary carried around with that? I just kind
of come to me there. You know, can you think of the
burden that Mary probably carried around her whole life among all
the people there? Now, the people of God probably
didn't give her much guff about that, but can you imagine? those
religious zealots that brought the woman out to be stoned in
front of Jesus. How they not every day that they seen Mary
in town. Probably give them the nose up
and walked on the other side of the street. But here we see
a picture of Christ Jesus. He came lowly out of nothing. The Bible says that God has chosen
the weaker things of this world. That God has chosen the baser
things of this world. And when God brought Christ Jesus
into the world, He didn't bring Him into a palace. He brought
Him into a stable where they feed animals. And He was laid
in a trough where they feed animals. And that's how He came in. He
came of low esteem. The Bible says that when people
looked on him, that he was comely, that he didn't look like he was
of any value, of any worth, that he was not of any importance.
He was a man of sorrows and stricken. The Bible said that he didn't
have any place to lay his head, that his clothes were just plain.
That whenever they looked upon him, he looked just like the
plainest of men. There was nothing in there that we should desire
him, the Bible says. But yet he was the King of kings,
the Lord of lords, the crown of glory of God. And so we see
here a beautiful picture that Gideon posed, not only of the
child of grace, but of their head, of their father, Christ
Jesus. Gideon was of no reputation.
He was nothing. He was poor. At the least, even
within his own father's house. And yet God called Christ to
this uh... work though lowly he came into
this world verse sixteen and the lord said unto him surely
i will be with thee and thou shalt smite the medians as one
man i didn't really pick up on that phrase as one man at first
as i was studying this and reading through this and everything hit
me this morning as i was reading through it i was sitting over
here drinking some coffee or was uh... reading and everything,
waiting on my coffee. Thou shalt smite the Midianites
as one man. The Midianites was an army, a
great army. And here he is telling Gideon,
you're gonna go and you're gonna smite those Midianites as one
man, one blow, and you're gonna take out all the enemies. One
blow. Now, brethren, I don't know if
you can see the gospel in that or not. But it sure did speak
volumes to me when I looked at that. First of all, we've seen
that there is only one person who can take away our problems
and deal with our enemies, sin, death, hell. There's only one
person that can do that. One man comes and deals the death
blow to all of our enemies. And that's the Lord Jesus Christ.
Gideon being a representation of the Lord Jesus Christ is going
to go as a picture of Christ and he is going to take out the
Midianites in one blow. One man. One work. Boom, it's done. That reminds
me of the passage in Heber where it says, with one offering, he
sat down at the right hand of God. That he has perfected his
people for all times by his one sacrifice. His one work of sacrifice
dealt the death blow to all of our enemies. And has redeemed
his people and has saved his people and brought his people
out of oppression. By the one man with the one act
We see our deliverance. Why one man? Why not two? Why
not 50? Why not more? Well, brethren,
again, we're talking about the glory of God here. You know,
with men, you know, we we we see in our world today, you know,
men who stand in high places and tout of their military might
and strength. We can send in the bunker busters
and just minutes destroy years of Iran's nuclear stuff and those
generals and the president and all those men can bow their chest
up and talk about how great a strength we have in military mind and
we do. The United States has great military mind. Probably
the most advanced technologically and strength-wise, number-wise. I've seen a little video the
other day Russia as all the fighter planes that are out there Russia
is the second largest air fleet in their armies and military
forces and they had like 7,000 planes The United States is number
one. They almost had 15,000 planes. We had twice as many aerial things. So the strength is there but
brethren listen It's no match for Christ Christ can come and
obliterate everything by the word of His power. He can just
come and wipe it all out. And so we see here that all the
forces of hell, all the forces of our sinful nature, all of
everything that comes against us was no match for Christ whenever
He came. And Gideon is the picture of
that whenever he went before these armies and the Lord Jesus
went before him and destroyed them all. Verse 17, he says, And he said
unto him, If now I have found grace in thy sight, then show
me a sign that thou talkest with me. Now that sounds just about
like all of us. We want visual confirmation that
Christ is ours, right? We want the visuals. Jesus said
an untoward generation seeks after a sign. By nature, we're
an untoward generation. Now, as a spiritual generation,
and whenever I say generation, I'm not talking about a period
of time. I'm talking about a lineage or
a progeny. My children is my generation,
okay? An untoward generation or an
untoward prodigy, the children of the devil seek after a sign. They're looking for signs. They're
all the time looking after signs. Wanting proof. They want visual
proof. Concrete proof. They want fleshly
proof. They want to see something to
prove something. But the Bible says that we are
children of faith. That we are the children of Abraham, the
children of the promise, who walk in faith and not by sight. And the Bible says that faith
is the Substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not
seen faith is something that we walk in in the in the realm
of the unseen and the spiritual nature that is inside of us is
in the kingdom that is unseen and We are a true people of God
that is unseen yet. We have not been seen and We
have been hid in this body of flesh, this carnal life and nature
that houses that spiritual man. But brotherhood has not yet been
seen. It's something that is not seen.
And so the natural man looks after things on the outward appearance
instead of trusting and having faith in what God has already
done. And so whenever he comes and
he says, you know, show me a sign that thou talkest with me, And
he says depart not, hence I pray thee, until I come unto thee
and bring forth my present and set it before thee. And he said,
I will tarry until thou come again. And he said, I will tarry until thou
come again. So getting here and saying, hey,
let me let me bring you something and offer it to you and everything
so that you will show me a sign so that I'll know. Isn't that
sound like modern day religion to you? What do preachers get
up and do? You need to show your faith somehow.
You need to show God something so that he'll do something for
you. If you show, we just talked about it, you know, if you give
to this ministry or give to that ministry, or if you do 10 Hail
Marys or however many knee bows and cross, you know, cross yourself
however many times, or if you tithe this much, or if you give
to the poor, if you clothe the needy, Whatever it is you do,
then God will be gracious to you and He'll give you a sign
that He is pleased with you and good things will come your way.
It says, And Gideon went in and made him a kid. Now, we're not
talking about a kid like the kids here. A kid is a goat. So he took a goat and he killed
the goat and cut it up and cooked it. And he made some unleavened
cakes of flour. The flesh that he put in a basket
and he put the broth in a pot and brought it out unto him under
the oak tree. So here he brought this. Now,
here again, Brethren, let's think about these things. Let's think
about gospel nuggets here, gospel turn. Gideon went in and he made ready
a sacrifice of a kid, a goat. And he brought forth unleavened
cakes. So here he has flesh to bring forth for him to eat, and
unleavened bread for him." Can you not see the symbology or
the typology here? Christ Jesus talked about His
flesh. He said, the flesh that I give
is food for you. My body is your bread. I'm the bread that came down
out of heaven. So the unleavened cakes speak of His body, His
broken body and shed blood. The shed blood represents the
wine, right? But here we see he brought out
a dill of broth in a pot. He brought out the unleavened
cakes. He brought out the kid. We see a sacrifice here that
is being brought forth. And what does he do? He brings
it out to the oak tree. Jesus Christ came forth as our
sacrificial lamb. He came forth and His body was
broken for us on the tree. The picture of Christ and His
crucifixion is clearly seen here, brethren, in this story of Gideon
and this angel of the Lord. It said, And the angel of God
said unto him, Take the flesh and the unleavened cakes, and
lay them upon this rock, and pour out the broth. And he did
so. Now, I thought that was kind of strange. Okay, here Gideon
had spent all this time cooking this meal for the Lord, and he
brought it out, and the Lord said, put it out here on this
rock, and then pour the broth over it. Now, all of us probably
know one thing, that whenever you get some broth, it can be
hot when you first cook it, but it don't take long and it gets
cold. By the time he probably got this out to the guy and handed
it to him, and especially whenever he poured it out, It probably
got cold. But he said, pour this broth
on top of that meat and on top of that bread. And he poured
that broth out on top of that rock, on top of that meat, on
top of that bread. And then what happened? Well,
look what happened. He said, and there rose a fire
out of the rock and consumed the flesh and the unleavened
cakes. Brethren, do you not see more gospel truth here? Number
one, who is our rock? Jesus Christ. He is God manifested
in flesh. We see the typology of the rock
all through the Old Testament, don't we? Moses, whenever he
went to see God, what did he do? He put him in the cleft of
the rock. Whenever Moses was taking the
children out of Israel, what did he do with the staff to bring
forth water for them to drink? He hit the rock. We see that
all through the Old Testament, there were altars that were built
out of stones, specific stones, specific numbers of stones. And they were built exactly as
God had ordered them to be built. And there the sacrifice was laid
upon the stone. It became the place and then
eventually they took and they built the Ark of the Covenant.
Now, it wasn't a stone, but they built the Ark of the Covenant.
And God began to make mercy seat out of gold, which gold is an
iron ore. It comes from the earth. I don't
know if you can consider it a rock. It's a mineral, isn't it? If
I'm not mistaken. But that slab of gold that went
on top of that box, that's where God met his people. That's where
the sacrifice blood was shed and poured out. And that is where
Christ atonement was made is on that. Then we see Christ comes
and He is the rock. The Bible talks about Him being
our rock and the cornerstone. We sung about it just a little
bit ago. And so the sacrifice was laid
upon the altar. Christ is our altar. Christ is
the sacrificial lamb. Christ is the unleavened bread.
We see all this out of this. And then the fire came out of
the rock and consumed the flesh and the unleavened cakes. God
poured out wrath upon Christ on the cross. But wait a minute,
wasn't Christ God too? Yes, Christ was God. But He brought
forth and came forth and dwelt among us in the form of man in
Christ Jesus. And God brought forth and consumed
the sacrifice. He withstood His own wrath on
our behalf. Then the angel of the Lord departed
out of his sight. And when Gideon perceived that
he was an angel of the Lord, Gideon said, Alas, O Lord God,
for because I have seen an angel of the Lord face to face. His
eyes were open to see this. It wasn't until after the sacrifice
was made and it was revealed to Gideon who this was that made
the sacrifice was made. He began to see his inability,
his worth before this holy God. But what did the Lord speak?
Here again we see more gospel nuggets. Whenever our eyes are
opened and we see our sinfulness, we see our destituteness before
God, we see Him as holy and righteous as He truly is. The fear comes
upon us. The guilt comes upon us. The
conviction comes upon us. The dread comes upon us. We know
that we are unworthy. We know that we are that we are
worthy to be to be under the wrath of God. But yet what is
spoken by the angel here and the Lord said unto him, peace
be unto thee, fear not thou shalt not die. I shall not die. We talked a little bit about
last week and some of it the week before last. Christ is our
peace. He's the one who has brought
in peace for us. And it isn't until we feel the
weight of the law and our sinfulness that He speaks peace to us. Right? You know, whenever my kids did
something wrong and I had to spank them and everything, I
spanked them and let them go to their room and cry for however
long they cried and everything and didn't give them any comfort.
I let them simmer in their discipline for a while. But then whenever things was
over, I'd go and put my arm around them and tell them how much I
loved them and what happened to them happened and everything. Well brethren, before we realize
the greatness of the grace of God and His love for us and what
He's done for us, God lets us simmer a little bit in our condemnation
under the curse. He opens our eyes to see our
need for that and the weight of that sin bears upon the heart
of His brethren and we sorrow for the Lord and why we have
sinned against Him and how deserving of wrath that we are and yet
God comes with the gospel and speaks peace to our soul. He
is our peace. So then Gideon built an altar
there unto the Lord and called it Jehovah Shalom. It means the Lord sends peace. That's what that means. Jehovah
Shalom. sins, peace. And to this day
it is yet in Ophrah of the Abba Ezraites. Now there may be a
lot of things within the name Ophrah and Abba Ezraites that
I'm not aware of. More typology that might be there. But brethren, here we clearly
see that this exchange between Gideon and the Lord Jesus Christ
and the overlapping typology that we see between the two shows
forth clearly the gospel of Jesus Christ in this life of Gideon
and this interchange with our God, Jesus Christ, as he dealt
with Gideon. And we see the beautiful nuggets
of Christ's work on our behalf, his going to the cross, his being
our rock, him being our sacrificial lamb, our unleavened bread. The
wine press is probably even something that could be said about that.
The wine press is something that we talk about Christ uh, went
to God and was in the wine press of his wrath. Uh, you know, there's
probably a lot more that was there that I'm just kind of ignorant
of. But, uh, brethren, what a wonderful picture of the Lord Jesus Christ.
What a wonderful picture. And just the love and the compassion
that he give whenever getting came out and said, here, let
me go prepare something for you. How, how patient the Lord is
with our ignorance of trying to offer something to him when
all along he's fixing to do an offering for us. Well, in this
case, the Lord was about to offer something for Gideon. And how
we think we can offer something to God and in patience, the Lord
is so kind to us in our religiousness and how we like to sow up them
fig leaves. only for them to be burned up
before us as soon as the Lord shows us that that wasn't enough.
It's never enough. You know, it's never enough.
I mean, here Gideon, he brought those things out prepared. I
can attest to this, you know, me and Lori, we like to, you
know, Lori is cooks and I barbecue and things like that. And whenever
we make our stuff, we make it the way we think is the best.
You know, we think it's the, We make it to our liking, to
our taste. We make it the way we think it's
going to taste best. And then whenever we take it
and give it to somebody and everything like that. So like for the fourth
this week, you know, we made some pulled pork and some other
stuff, you know, that we made. You sit that down, and you've
put all the time into injecting that pork with all this seasoning,
and you season the outside, and you spend 15 hours with the smoker
smoking it, and then you pull it apart, and you get it just
right. You take it in, you see somebody come in, put a little
bit on their plate, and then they dump about five quarts of
ketchup on top of it. And you're like, oh, you know,
and everything. Well, can you think about getting,
he spent all that time preparing that meal for the Lord, The Lord
comes out and He says, you know what, why don't you go over and
throw it on that rock? And then whenever you're done throwing
it on the rock, just pour all that broth on top of all of it.
Well, get him to try and say, well, that ain't the way it was
meant to be, you know. Number one, it's going to get
nasty. Second of all, the bread's going to get gross because you're
going to pour that broth all over it. But no, the Lord had
something prepared for him. A lot of times we come before
the Lord and we think we can offer something to God and give God
something present to make sure that he blesses us. But God said
the blessing is already there. He already, remember back in
our deal, he already called him the mighty man of valor. He'd
already called him, he'd already blessed him before he blessed
him. He was yet to bless Gideon, but yet he already determined
the blessing upon Gideon. And that speaks of us. Before
the world ever began, God had already blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places, in Christ Jesus, before ever
a blessing even manifested itself to us, or in us, or through us. And so Gideon, coming out to
Jesus like that, probably thought, you know, what kind of act is
this, you know? But yet God said, I've prepared. I'm not going to accept what
you do. I will accept the sacrifice the way I want it. And so he
had him do those things for our benefit. All right, does anybody
have anything you'd like to add or any questions, concerns? Correction. Just a little bit of golden nuggets
of gospel there found in some of the historical accounts of
the Old Testament. I know there's a lot of men way
better than I am that can pull these things out and despise
them, but I know that whenever I read through here and I see
them, they just tickle my soul. I'll be the first to admit, I'm
not very good in the Old Testament. I don't spend a lot of time,
as I should, in the Old Testament. I'm kind of a New Testament guy.
You flip through my Bible, you'll see a lot of writing and marks
in the New Testament, but rarely will you see a lot in the Old
Testament. And I say that to my shame, but that's how the
Lord has led me to study and led me to look. But anyway, whenever
I look in the Old Testament, I begin to see these nuggets
of Christ Jesus in there. It's just a beautiful thing how
God has displayed Christ, has displayed himself in Christ from
Genesis to Revelation. And oh, that the Lord would just
give us the sight to see it. and to understand it and their
glory in it. All right, anybody got anything?
All right, let's pray. Father, once again, we come to
you and we thank you for the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you
for all the things that you've given us in him. We thank you
for the meat and the bread. We thank you for the broth, the
wine. Lord, we thank you for the altar,
the tree, Lord, we thank you for all these things that you
have done on our behalf. That we might be your people
of valor. Not because we ourself did the did the operations that
brought in the victory that brought in the accolades. But father,
because we are in your son. The ultimate man of valor and
father, we are victorious because he is victorious. We are profited
because He has been profitable. And so, Lord, we are so grateful
to be in union with Your Son. We are so grateful to be flesh
of His flesh and bone of His bone. We're grateful, Father,
to be part of all that is Christ Jesus, joint heirs with Him.
So thank you, Father, for giving us to Him and redeeming us in
Him and giving us the Holy Spirit to know him, to love him, to
worship him, and to hope in him. And may you continue to strengthen
our hope as the days go forth, Lord, as things become evil in
this world and this society. As we see it, Lord, seems to
be decaying even more than we've ever seen in our generations. But Lord, we just pray that you
would keep your people's eyes fixed upon Christ Jesus, the
author and the finisher of their faith, the hope that is May we
be kept in safety until we see each other again. May you bless
these brethren. And it's in Christ's name that
we pray. Amen.