Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayer for attention to Judges chapter 3 and verse
1. Judges chapter 3 verse 1. Now these are the nations which
the Lord left to prove Israel by them, even as many of Israel
as had not known all the wars of Canaan. And what is upon my
spirit this morning is the proving of God's people. Judges chapter
three and verse one. I'll just read from verse 20
in the previous chapter, which brings a bit more into context
the word of our text. And the anger of the Lord was
hot against Israel. And he said, because that this
people hath transgressed my covenant which I commanded their fathers,
and have not hearkened unto my voice. I also will not henceforth
drive out any from before them of the nations which Joshua left
when he died, that through them I may prove Israel, whether they
will keep the way of the Lord, to walk their inn as their fathers
did keep it or not. Therefore the Lord left those
nations without driving them out hastily, neither delivered
he them into the hand of Joshua. So we have the background to
the words of our text, find Israel, really, you might say, like we
are as a people here, in a nation today. We, in our generation,
have not known war on our shores. In fact, with the world wars,
it wasn't actually known on our shores, hand-to-hand fighting
in our land, but in Europe, and elsewhere. But we are a nation
that has not known this, although we of course didn't have the
fighting, the enemy came to us and I know many of the events
my father spoke of, of the doodlebugs and of the bombers and of the
devastation left by them and those that did lose their lives
and his uncle that he was very Von Doff, dying in his early
20s and buried over in France. And so there is a nation there
that knew and saw what it was to have war and the threat of
war, that sought the Lord in prayer, that had many wonderful
deliverances of Dunkirk, of Normandy, and where the Lord fought for
us as a nation. And the children of Israel were
like that. When they first went into Canaan,
God fought for them. He even used hornets to drive
out the enemy. He used hail from heaven to cast
down upon them. He fought for Israel in remarkable
ways. And this is what is referred
to in the close of chapter two, that God would not do that anymore
in that same wonderful way that he drove them out. They would
have to learn more, they would have to fight in that land and
so they had not this word of our text. The nations were left
and it was to prove Israel, especially those people that had not known
all the wars of Canaan. They could hear of them, they
were living in the promised land, but they hadn't known firsthand
of those wars. And so those nations were still
around them, as it were. Of course, Israel was unique,
a nation that was chosen of the Lord, given His judgments and
His ways and His laws, and they were to serve His laws and not
the laws of the nations round about them. But they have a tie
in God's chosen people, those that are His spiritual Israel,
that are to be in the world but not of the world. And the Lord
still uses where they are placed and those round about them to
prove or test them in the same way as he did to Israel. And it is a great blessing to
be the Lord's people, to be converted, to be born again of the Spirit,
to know the teaching of the Lord, to be brought to willingly desire
to walk in His ways, to acknowledge that the Lord is our God, that
He has quickened us into spiritual life. The Lord at Calvary, He
suffered, bled and died to put away sin by the sacrifice of
Himself. He died for the sins of His people. and then rose again for their
justification that they might be free from guilt and free from
condemnation. And so in their lifetime the
people of God are quickened into life, made alive by the Holy
Spirit of God. He uses those means to bring
them into a concern for their soul, know and realize that they
are sinners and under the condemnation of a broken law, realise that
without Christ they must die eternally. That without a saviour,
without a redeemer, without one to die in their place, they must
die. That hell is real, that heaven
is real, and the salvation of the Lord delivers from hell and
saves to heaven. But when the Lord so then plucks
a people from the nations and brings them to serve Him and
to obey Him and to regard the Word of God as the true Word
of God, authoritative in their lives. He doesn't immediately
take them out of this world. They are in the world. The nations
around about them, the ungodly around about them. They can see
their ways. They can learn their ways. They
are just like, in a way, Israel in their promised land with these
nations round about them. We read in Hebrews that if those
people that are the Lord's people had opportunity, they could easily
return. They could easily return to be
just like the heathen. They could cast away their religion,
their faith, their trust. their belief. They could go back
to desecrating the Lord's Day, to deserting the houses of prayer,
to disregard the Word of God, to walk in the ways of those
that have no fear of God before their eyes. That opportunity
is always there, it's right around us. And we have here one reason
why God's people are where they are and why they have those round
about them that they do have round about them and that it
is to prove them or to test them. What a solemn thing it would
be to think that we truly were serving the true and living God
and then get to the end of our life and the other side of the
grave and find that really we did not have the true faith.
It was just something of our own manufacture. We took up with
religion and we made our own laws and our own way. But God
has seen fit with those that are truly His. He has said this,
the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. The hymn writer says, grace,
though the smallest, shall surely be tried. And God will test his
people, not to destroy them, but to show them that they have
a wicked evil heart, they need God's keeping power, and to show
them that they have the Lord on their side. and He will keep
them. We think of the children of Israel
through the wilderness and what the Lord says in Deuteronomy
8. He says, Thou shalt remember
all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years
in the wilderness. He gives the reason to humble
thee and to prove thee to know what was in thine heart, whether
thou wouldest keep his commandments or no. And he humbled thee, and
suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna which thou
knewest not, neither did thy fathers know, that he might make
thee know that man doth not live by bread only, But by every word
that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live. And so right through the wilderness
God proved his people and proved many a times they rebelled, they
learned the ways of the heathen, but the Lord brought them back
again and corrected them, chastened them and did not cast them away. And so then in land of Canaan,
there he proves them again. And we are told specifically
in our text as the manner of how the Lord proved or tested
his people. And I do want this morning, if
we really are able to take this on board and really realise it,
and realise the Lord still does test and try, and prove his people
and what the Lord uses to do that and just to be mindful of
it because sometimes we can get very discouraged by all the things
that are happening around us and not actually realize what
the Lord is doing and realize the most precious thing for a
child of God is their faith, that is what God has done for
them, and that they are to serve the Lord in this world. With all its sin, with all its
opposition, with all its godlessness, with all the nations of the earth,
God's dear children are to serve the Lord in the midst of that.
And may we be able to look on things that come upon us or that
we hear and we see and view it in the way of our text. These
things are there, they are pointed, they are left to prove Israel,
to test God's children. So I want to just look firstly
and really go through and firstly I'd I want to, instead of having
three points, just go through where God's people are placed
and how God uses those things that they are placed in the midst
of to prove and to test them. The first is this, that we are
in the world but not of the world. We read there in Deuteronomy
about man living not by bread only, but by every word that
proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord. Now Lord told a parable
in Matthew 13 of the sower, which is the word of God that is cast
into ground, prepared ground, brings forth fruit. Unprepared
ground does not bring forth fruit to God's honour and glory. And
we read how that seed in one sense was tested and it was all
to do with fruit bearing. But the things that caused it
to fail, the Lord is very clear of that. He says, Hear ye therefore
the parable of the sower? When any one heareth the word
of the kingdom and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked
one and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart, which
this is he which receives seed by the wayside. The word caught
away immediately, but it is the second too. that is specifically
upon my spirit, because we have those that receive the seed into
stony places. The same is he that heareth the
word, and anon with joy receiveth it, yet hath he not root in himself,
but dureth for a while. And it is when these things come,
when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word,
by and by he is offended. So here is the nations around,
here is the people around about one that has received the word
of God, and they receive it fast, intending to go on to believe,
to be a Christian, to be a follower of the Lord. But then there's
trouble. Then there's things because he
is a Christian. The Lord says in John 17, I have
given them thy word and the world hath hated them. A people that
are in the world but not of it. And the Lord makes this difference. His people have the word of God. They live by the word. They govern
their lives by the word of God. They seek to live by the word
of God. The Lord said, they that will
live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. And it is
by reason of those that are living right around them, like Israel
in the midst of Canaan and the nations round about them and
through their history. And when we think of those like
the Jews in Esther's time, those like with Daniel and the three
children. The persecution that they had
was because of their faith, because of what they believed. And so,
in the parable, it proved that those that had received the seed
in that unprepared heart, that which truly wasn't the Lord's
work, was just an imitation of it, they could not stand. They were offended because of
that. Then there are those that receive
the seed, the word of God, among thorns. And the Lord says of
those, it was like those that hear the word and they have then
the care of this world, the deceitfulness of riches. It chokes the word
and it becometh unfruitful. Again, no fruit. And it's the
world round about that really has an effect upon that person's
faith and belief so that it is proved not the word of God, not
the true work of God. Then he speaks of the one that
received the seed into good ground, heareth the word and understandeth
it, and brings forth fruit. Now, when we think of it in a
spiritual way, God's dear children that truly received that word
into good ground, they have the world around them, they have
tribulation, they have persecution, they have that which really tries
their faith, is really a trouble to them. And yet amazingly the
Lord keeps them alive and keeps them still so they're not offended
and they press through it, they're still found in all those discouragements
and difficult paths, still cleaving to the Word of God, still holding
the faith of God. And then, though they may be
tempted with riches, with a good job, with employment, with the
pleasures of this world, yet in the midst of all those they
still go on and serve the Lord. We read, in the latter days men
shall be lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. And this
world is fully given to pleasure and to be without God and we
are told without God is to be without hope in the world. But may we view it, if we have
received the word of God, if we believe and hope that we are
his children, may we look upon what persecutions we endure because
of the word, and the allurement of riches and pleasures and things
of this world as those things which God has given us to try
our faith and to test it. Those things that will pull and
tug and will be too much for us. If ours was a natural religion,
we would have given up. gone the way that countless millions
go, every one of God's children must prove that they are kept
not by themselves, but by the power of God through faith and
through salvation. God is the keeper of their souls. We might be able to look back
this morning to many occasions and times when He could say with
the psalmist in Psalm 73, my steps were almost gone, almost
slipped when I beheld the prosperity of the wicked. There's no bands
in their death. And how many times it may be
of us we've been tossed to and fro and really tried. But the blessing of holding on
our way, you must never underestimate it, how good that is to be kept
and to not go back. There is a reason why we're in
the place where we are, why we're surrounded with what we are surrounded
by, why there are those opportunities and temptations that are around
about us, Those children are chosen out of the world, they
are in the world. The Lord says that they are not
of the world even as I am not of this world. The Lord came
into this world and in this world he wrought the salvation of all
his people. His people are brought into this
world by birth, they are called by grace, given a spiritual birth,
And it is in this world that this happens, and it is in this
world that they're tried and they're tested and they're proved
that they have a faith that will triumph over the world and over
death and bring to glory. The Lord says through John in
his epistles, this is the victory that overcometh the world, even
your faith. And the Lord says of Peter, I
prayed for thee that thy faith fail not. And yet we think with
him how that he denied his Lord those three times, he couldn't
stand the ridicule, he couldn't stand the persecution. and to be numbered with the people
of God. And yet, brought through that
trial, the Lord said, when thou art converted, strengthen thy
brethren. After that test and trial, he
was still one of the people of God. So we have a people, like the
children of Israel, that are in the midst of the world. And the Lord has ordained that
that should be so. Over the history of the world
we have the Church, the Roman Catholic Church, that thought,
well, we'll have the monasteries, we'll put our people away from
the world, and then they'll live godly lives, and then they'll
be upright. You can't take the sin out of
man, and they were places where much sin and wickedness was. The Lord has ordained that his
people should be kept in the world, and in that way their
faith truly tried. It's not we shouldn't deliberately
put ourselves in situations where we'd be tempted, But in our lawful
calling, our lives, and where the Lord has appointed us, we
will have our faith really tested. Another aspect of what we should
bear in mind, that we are in the midst of a people in whom
Satan is king. He is king. over all the children
of pride. But the Lord is our King. The
children of Israel often struggled with this and in the end they
wanted a king like the nations round about them. And they asked
Samuel to get them a king. The Lord gave them King Saul
in his wrath. He took him away in his anger.
then there was given David a godly king. But Israel wanted to be like
those nations round about. But God said that even though
he gave them a king, the Lord was still to be their king, and
they were to obey his laws. There's one thing that Naaman
falsely accused in the days of Esther, as to why those people
should not live, in that they had different laws, diverse laws,
and that they wouldn't keep the king's laws. Well, the word of
God is very clear that as far as the laws of the nation are
in accordance with the laws of the word of God, we obey them.
But when there is a conflict, and when there is a difference,
then we ought to obey, as said the apostles' God, rather than
men. But we should be very mindful
of this. In the midst of a people that
are serving a different master, you have a different king, who
are under a different kingdom. Instead of the kingdoms of this
world God's children is numbered amongst his kingdom and his spiritual
kingdom and that which shall endure forever and ever. And we are to be mindful of that
difference when God puts us into his kingdom. We would remember as well that
God has placed his people, like his ancient people Israel, in
the midst of the heathen, those that do not know God and worship
many other gods. When God wrote to his people
through Jeremiah, he said this to them, learn not the ways of
the heathen. The heathen had many different
ways how they served their gods, how they served the gods of heaven,
and the Lord forbade them from learning those ways. Sometimes
someone will ask, well, should we really know? Should we learn
to know the gods and how they worship round about us and false
religions so that we can reason with them and point them to the
truth. Well, the Lord says, no, you
don't spend your time learning false doctrine, false religion. You learn the truth. The Lord
says, if you continue in my word, you shall know the truth. The
truth shall make you free. If we were to think, well, we
want to have a standard to measure something by its flatness, or
whether it's straight up and vertical, all you need is a plumb
line or a spirit level, and if you know that that is right,
everything that doesn't come up to that standard is wrong. And in the world that is how,
in the midst of the heathen, that we are to walk, and to try
the spirits, whether they are of God or not. If they are not
of God, if they speak not according to these things, according to
the word of God, there is no life in them. That is not the
word of God. They are false. And so the word
of God is the last authority and standard because it is God's
word. And we should be mindful of this,
we live in the midst of those that have a different standard,
the heathen. The apostle Paul, when he was
at Mars Hill, he saw all the altars to those other gods, and
then one, an unnamed god, the unknown god, and he began there. He who thou dost ignorantly worship,
I declare unto you, and he preached unto them, the true and the living
God. Well, the children of Israel,
even including King Solomon, went after the gods of the nations
round about. They mixed in marriages. This was the sin. Immediately,
the children of Israel went into it. May we always remember that.
God's dear children are not to be unequally yoked with the ungodly. We are not to be joined with
those that do not fear the Lord. It's a different thing if two
people are married while they are in unbelief and in ignorance
of the Lord, and then the Lord calls one by grace and the other
is happy to remain with them as an unbeliever with a believer,
then that is what is commanded. They should stay with each other
in that way. And who knows, says the Lord,
that the godly life of the one that is walking according to
the fear of the Lord may be a means of conversion of the other one
as they observe their ways. But if we already are a believer,
if we fear God and walk in His ways, we're not to join in marriage
with one that is not one of God's people. We are to know the difference
that there is, and what concord have Christ with Belial, and
that we are not to be unequally out together. Come ye out from
among them, touch not the unclean thing, then I will receive you. You shall be my sons and my daughters,
saith the Lord Almighty. And so this is another way that
the Lord proved his people Israel and will prove his people still,
whether they will serve him, whether they really know the
difference that has been worked in their own heart, whether they
value it, whether they truly thank the Lord for working a
miracle of grace and making them to believe when others round
about them do not. And this is a way of proving
the people of God. Is it true faith? Is it this
separating grace? Is it a miracle of grace? Is
it that which does really make a difference in our lives? Not
just in our head, but in how we live and act and move and
how we interact. So did not I because of the fear
of the Lord. The Lord's Word is an unctuous
lie to all that is right, a bar to all that is wrong. Another way of testing the children
of Israel, when they had their troubles, when they had their
wars, there was those times instead of trusting in the Lord, They
trusted in Egypt or another nation. We read twice in the Psalms,
Psalm 60, Psalm 108, that give us help from trouble,
for vain is the help of man. Through God we shall do valiantly,
for here it is that shall tread down our enemies. Israel knew
that literally. God's spiritual Israel, they'll
know it spiritually. Why? Instead of trusting in an
arm of flesh, we trust in the Lord. But God often proved his
people Israel in that. Would they go to an arm of flesh? Would they rest in man? Would
they trust in man? Or would they trust in the Lord? Now we need that tested. Where
is our trust. Where are we leaning? That is
what faith is, that trust in the Lord God. And I think it
is in Psalm 146, happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for
his help. whose hope is in the Lord his
God, which made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that therein
is, which keepeth truth for ever. And the exhortation early on
in that psalm, put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of
man, in whom there is no help, his breath goeth forth, he returneth
to his earth, in that very day his thoughts perish. And so God
will have his people to trust in the Lord, he says, with all
thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding. Another way the Lord uses in
testing and proving his people in a situation like Israel had
with those nations round about them, is that he'll use them
to chastise his people. The rod that the Lord uses, he
ye the rod and who hath appointed it. We read in this chapter how
the Lord used those nations round about. He used Moab. We read in verse 12, because
Israel had done evil in the sight of the Lord, the Lord strengthened
Eglon. He strengthened an enemy. He strengthened one of the nations
round about, Moab, related through Lot to Israel. because they had
done evil in the sight of the Lord. And the Lord then used
them as his servant to chastise his people. And we should be
mindful of that as well. Do we suffer at the hands of
those round about us? Do we see the hand of the Lord?
Does it make us search and try our ways? Is it an evidence of
being truly a son of God? We read in Hebrews 12 that the
Lord chasteneth every son whom he receiveth. If ye be without
chastisement then are ye bastards and not sons, ye are not really
a child of God. If we just go through this world
and it doesn't matter what we do, what we think, what we say,
how we act, If we're still a Christian, the Lord seems to take no notice
whatsoever, then we do not have any evidence of being a child
of God. But when he uses those things
round about us, and he uses them to correct us, And yet it was
in measure and it was for a time. And we read how the Lord again
and again raised up a deliverer. I thought as we read through
this, and I thought of our nation and the Prime Ministers and those
that have been raised up, individuals for time of war. And almost as
soon as the war was over, then they were deposed from office
and another took over. But they were raised up for that
time, their characters and how they acted. And it's good to
notice that, to see especially, we see the Lord's blessings,
as we did in the war years, delivering us from being invaded. Here with Israel, the Lord, when
there was to be a deliverance, he raised up Ehud with Moab,
and then we have others that were raised up as well. You have Caleb, you have Shamgar,
you have those that were used by God, and right through the
history of Israel, command deliverances, for Israel, we read, and the
Lord does use means, but we look above them and we see the hand
of the Lord. And so we see what the Lord says
here, that the very reason why he left these nations round about,
the very reason why God's people have those round about them that
are not his people, and we know Of course, in this Gospel day,
that his people are to be salt and light in the world. We know
if we put salt on a meal, then you see it as it's shaken on,
but it very soon disappears. And you can't see it at all.
But it's left a savour in that meal. It's had an effect. And that is how God's people
are to be in this world. They're not the greats of the
world. They're not the preeminence. They're not, as we look upon
the scene of the world, those who immediately come to view.
They're like those grains of salt, the nobodies, as it were. And yet in each place where they
are, they have an effect. They leave a savour. They are
under God, that which brings a saviour in this world to the
Lord. The Lord knows where his people
are. He knows where those little grains
are. He knows where they're tested,
they're tried, where they, like loss, vex their soul from day
to day with the unrighteous deeds of those round about them. Those
that are like Daniel and his friends, are in captivity and
in a foreign land and yet still serve the Lord and still pray
to Him three times a day, still bow before Him even though it's
commanded that if they do they'll lose their lives, and will not
bow down to the gods of Nebuchadnezzar but rather be thrown into the
fiery furnace. God's people then are to be a
witness, they are left in the world by the Lord, and to show
forth his praise. This people have I formed for
myself, they shall show forth my praise. But maybe especially
with the word of our text here, think of the proving, the proving
of God's people. If we are the people of God,
The Lord will prove us. And what is it proving? Whether
we will serve the Lord or no. Whether we will obey his word. Whether we will be a complete
Christian or just an almost a Christian. Whether we will serve him from
the heart or just a token serving. The very sad day in which we
live, in which There's so little even outward gathering together,
so little appetite for the prayer meetings, so little appetite
for worship in all of the Lord's day, so little desire to serve
the Lord and to be seen to be doing so. Many empty chapels,
many empty places of worship, And those that do still continue,
just one service on the Lord's Day, or a short service, and
much of the world creeps in to the Church of God, in its thinking,
its ways, its practices, and all the time we need to be so
aware of that. When the world is round about
us, trying the spirits, whether they are of God or not, learning
not the ways of the heathen. And it's a blessed thing to walk
close to the Lord, that our aim should be not just to have grace
to walk right, outwardly, but to have that inward close communion
and fellowship with the Lord, and that will set everything
right. outwardly. You know we may spend
many a time praying to have the fear of man taken away, or praying
to be able to walk in a certain way, but how much better it is
to pray that we might have the Lord with us and really enjoy
Him and love Him and serve Him and that our heart be fully taken
up with the Lord, that when we wake in the night we are like
David, that we prevent the night watchers, that we might meditate
on his word, that we delight after the law of God in the inward
spirit and mind, and yet feel like Paul did, that we have another
spirit warring against our mind, bringing us into captivity to
sin. But he says, I thank God, through
Jesus Christ, my Lord, that is where the deliverance should
be. And it is in that close fellowship
with him. One day we hope, when death comes
like a narrow sea dividing that heavenly land from ours, to be
absent from the body and present with the Lord. And if that is
so, the apostle says, when Christ, who is our life, shall appear,
then shall we appear with him. We may ask ourselves, how much
is Christ our life? How much do we live upon him,
feed upon him, or how much does the influence of the world and
the situation that we're in, like Israel of old, have such
an effect on us that we are almost like the world, just a name to
live, but that is all. How have we fared under God's
proving? Have we been mindful to be proved? Have we been feeling to be in
the crucible, to be tested, to be tried? and to fear at times
how the outcome shall be may we be truly exercised in this
and it be proved that the work the Lord has wrought in us is
a true work and we shall continue by God's grace and by His mercy
and by His keeping kept by the power of God unto salvation ready
to be revealed at the last day. May the Lord add his blessing
to these remarks and may we find that we have truly proved to
be God's people. Amen.