Okay, back to Judges 7 if you
would. In verse 1 we're told that when
Gideon and all the people that were with him rose up early and
pitched beside the well of Herod, so that the host of the Midianites
were on the north side of them by the hill of Morel in the valley. And the Lord said unto Gideon,
the people that are with thee are too many, for me to give
the Midianites into their hands. And then he gives the reason,
lest Israel vaunt themselves against me, saying, mine own
hand hath saved me. I grew up in a Baptist church
which advertised themselves. I've told you this before. They
advertised themselves as the church where everybody was somebody. Well, I suppose they did that
to make everyone feel like they were special. And I remember
right before I stopped going, the pastor there once taught
a series of messages titled, It's All About You. And that would be funny if it
wasn't sad and pathetic. Anymore, it seems that the majority
of the religious world has embraced this way of thinking. Come here, where everybody's
somebody, like that would be enticing or encouraging or bring
messages. It's all about you. But according
to the scriptures, it's actually just the opposite. Every true
believer considers themselves to be nobody. They're nothing,
they have nothing, and can do nothing to save themselves. Do
you remember there in Judges chapter 6 when Gideon said this
family was poor, that they were poorer than any of the tribes
in Israel? That word poor there means weak. Weak. His family, he said, was
the weakest, and he himself was the weakest in his family. Salvation
is not at all about, is not about us. Salvation is not at all about
us. It's not about what we do for
God. It's about what God has done
for us. We say that all the time, but
it's so true. A dead man or woman can't do
anything. And that's what we are by nature.
We're spiritually dead. We have no life in us. And when
men and women say things like, I gave Jesus my heart, and I
made Jesus my Lord, or I let go and I let God, or I got saved. In reality, what they're saying
is, my own hand had saved me. Ever since mankind's sin, men
and women have themselves endeavored to do something to save themselves. Adam and Eve covered themselves
with fig leaves. The scripture is very specific.
It says they sewed fig leaves together. They had been naked
since they'd been created, and sin came into the world, and
all of a sudden they saw they were naked, and what did they
do? They sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves. The scripture says they made
themselves aprons. They made themselves a covering.
That's what an apron is. You ladies put on aprons in the
kitchen to cook. You're covering yourself. You
don't want to get grease or anything on your clothes. That's what
an apron is. It's a covering. They sold and
they made aprons for themselves. God wouldn't have it. God will
not accept the covering that we make for ourselves. I was
thinking today, would the Lord curse that fig tree? He said,
no fruit will ever grow from that tree. And no fruit will
ever grow from man's self-professed righteousness of a fig leaf covering. Cain, the firstborn of our first
parents, found this out the hard way. He brought the best his
hands could bring, didn't he? I've often said I would have
loved to seen the tomatoes or whatever it was that he brought.
I'm sure they were just top notch. He was a tiller of the ground,
the scripture says. He was a master gardener. But God didn't have any respect
to Cain's offering. He had no acceptance. That's
what the word respect means. He didn't accept it. He had no
regard for his offering. God accepted the offering of
Abel, which was the sacrifice of a lamb and the shedding of
blood of a lamb, which pictured the Lord Jesus Christ. And Cain
was angry and jealous because God accepted his brother's sacrifice
and not his. And God's not gonna accept the
work of any man's hands. My hand and your hand cannot
save us. Now tonight we have the story,
the account of God cutting down the size of Gideon's army from,
as we've already noted, from 32,000 to just 300 soldiers to
battle against 100,000. Now when Israel was at 32,000,
when their army numbered 32,000, they were already outnumbered
four to one. And God said, it's too many,
too many. We're outmanned by 4 to 1 now. And when it was cut to 10,000,
it was 33 to 1. They were outnumbered. And then
when it was cut to 300, that's 333 to 1. The Lord's gonna see to it that
Gideon, everyone in Israel, everyone among the Midianites, and every
man and woman whom God gives us to see that salvation, deliverance,
is of the Lord. None are gonna be able to argue
that. Is that your argument? Is salvation
of the Lord or is it not? Salvation with man is impossible. You remember when the rich young
ruler came to the Lord Jesus and said, what good thing must
I do to be saved? And the Lord told him to keep
the commandments. He said, well, all those I've
done. He met him where he was and he said, well, then go and
give all you have to the poor. And he was a wealthy young man
and he went away sad. And the Lord Jesus said, and
the disciples said, how then can anybody be saved? And the
Lord said, with men, it's impossible, but with God, all things are
possible. God told Gideon that there are
too many for me to give the Midianites into your hands. And even being
outnumbered four to one, he said, you're gonna vaunt, and that
word means you're gonna take pride, you're gonna take glory,
you're gonna think of yourselves too highly, and you're gonna
say, mine own hand hath saved me. Even with 10,000, and outnumbered
33 to one, it'll be the same response from the Lord. Too many,
too many. And then in verse four, the Lord
still claims too many, and it's reduced to 300, and now outnumbered
333 to one, all are gonna know that I, the Lord, delivered you
out of the hand of the Midianites. Not gonna be any doubt about
it. The Lord makes this great truth obvious throughout the
scriptures. That's what the Lord told Joshua.
Joshua 24, 11, the Lord said, and you went over Jordan and
you came into Jericho and the men of Jericho fought against
you and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Canaanites
and the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Habites and the Jebusites
and I delivered them into your hand. I did. I did. Well, they took Jericho by just
walking around the city and blowing a trumpet and shouting. God's
the one that tore those walls down. And that's what the Lord reminded
Israel just as we saw last week or the week before in Judges
chapter 6 verse 9. He said, and I delivered you
out of the hand of the Egyptians. It was God that did that. The
Israelites didn't have anything to do with those plagues. God
sent them. And he said, and out of the hand of all that oppressed
you, and I draved them or drove them out from before you, and
I gave you their land. I did, God said. That's the tenor or the theme
of the whole Bible. What do we do? We do the sinning,
God does the saving. We get ourselves into bondage
by our own disobedience and then God must deliver us because we
ourselves can't. It was as we've seen so vividly
in these studies of judges, the Lord would send a judge and deliver
them, the judge would die, they'd fall right back into idolatry
and bondage, and they'd be under oppression again, and the Lord,
they'd cry unto the Lord, and the Lord would send another judge,
same thing, over and over and over again. And because of this, there's
nothing for man to glory in. There's nothing that you and
I can take credit for except our sin. God said, you're outnumbered
four to one. That's too many. It won't take
that many, so we need to cut the number. And in verse three,
now therefore go to proclaim in the ears of the people saying,
whosoever is fearful and afraid, let him return and depart early
from Mount Gilead. And the return to the people,
20 and 2,000, and the remain 10,000. And when the people gathered
at the well of Herod, it was interesting. to find out or to
see that that name Herod means fountain of trembling. Fear and
trembling is what that place means. And then now we see in
verse three why it's called that or it was there that God gathered
them and because of the size of the armies, Israel was, of
the Midianites, Israel was in fear, 100,000. And they're going,
you know, there's just about 30,000 of us and they got 100,000.
And the Lord said, that's too many. Too many of them, no, too
many of us. Then left 10,000 and verse four,
God said, still too many. You know, that goes against all
the thoughts of the art of war. The more troops, the better,
especially when you're already at such a disadvantage. But God's
thoughts are not our thoughts, and God's ways are not our ways. I was thinking today, many of
you know Doc Stone. Doc now worships at Lantana Grace
Church where Donny Bell pastors, and Doc played on the Grand Ole
Opry for seven or eight years. We went to church together in
1986 down in Franklin, Tennessee, and Doc, knowing that I loved
music and played music, he said that the saying among professional
musicians was always, less is more. In other words, if everyone just
played their part in a group or in a recording session, played
their part simply when all the parts were played together, each
part complimented the other, and you would easily understand
the words and the message of the song. Less is more. Kind of like what Brother Mahan
used to tell those young men in his preacher's class, he said,
kiss, K-I-S-S, keep it simple, stupid. That is a good rule of
thumb. Teresa reminds me of that occasionally. Really, and I need to be reminded
of it. Keep it simple, stupid. Friends, with God, less is always
more. The reason God keeps cutting
this number is this. If Israel won the victory with
the larger number, they would not credit God for the victory.
They would credit themselves. If God left their army at 32,000,
they'd credit the size of their army for the victory. They would
have claimed that their victory was by the power of their might.
Why, look what we did with 32,000 against 100,000. And they would
vaunt, they would boast, they would glorify themselves and
say, mine own hand hath saved me. Why do men endeavor to rob
God of the glory that belongs to only Him? The character of
man by nature is to take credit for the work of God. And I know
a lot of folks think that the preaching that's preached in
most circles today is innocent at best. Well, they just don't
know better, but it's much more serious than what you think.
Oh, to say mine own hand hath saved me is to say that God hadn't. It's to say that I did something
in order to be saved. And friends, God will not share
his glory with another. Many are gonna stand on the day
of judgment and do just that. They're gonna take the credit
for what God has done. Lord, Lord, haven't we done many
wonderful works? None of us are capable of doing
a wonderful work. None of us. Man can only work out what God
has worked in. When the Lord said, work out
your own salvation with fear and trembling, he went on to
say, it's God in you that work it. We can't work out what God
hadn't worked within us. It takes the sovereign grace
of God to bring a man or a woman to the place where they give
God all the glory for the great things that He has done. Only
a child of God sees that the Bible gives no grounds on which
a man can glory in himself. And man in his depravity, is
delusional if he thinks that he deserves some kind of credit
or acknowledging in the redemption of his soul. To seek such glory for ourselves,
it's not just merely error, not just error in thought, it's
a crime against God. God grants salvation by His power,
His mercy and grace alone. And it can never be attributed
to anyone but Him. Self-glory is to attack God.
The chief attribute of depravity is pride. It's the first thing
on the list of things that God hates, pride. Pride goes before
destruction. a haughty spirit before a fall. According to the Psalms, it precedes
shame and it comes with contention. Nothing good about it. The reason
the Lord kept reducing the size of Israel's army was to keep
them from glorying in themselves. It's the same today. Christ must
increase, we must decrease. That's what, well folks today believe their
strength in numbers. They just do. I've heard men
and women alike say of multitudes and majority and number, not
that many people can be wrong. There must be something to what
they say and what they believe because not that many people
could be wrong. The same ones don't believe that
the small minority can be right. Well, that little handful, that
little group over there, they can't know anything. It wouldn't
be so few of them if they did. And that kind of thinking actually
goes against the teaching of Scripture. Because the Bible
says, wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction
and many there be that find it. And the Bible also says, straight
is the gate, and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life, and
few, few there be that find it. So I wouldn't put any stock in
numbers. The Scriptures say, who hath
despised the day of small things? It was David, a small shepherd
boy. a young boy that defeated the
giant Goliath. It was a single prophet of God
named Elijah who put to shame and killed the 450 prophets of
Baal. It was Abraham and 318 men that
chased down and defeated the four kings of the plain to rescue
his nephew Lot and those of Sodom that had been captured and all
their goods taken. Abraham and 318 men. Immediately comes to mind the
foolishness of God. The foolishness of God is wiser
than man. And the weakness of God is stronger
than man. 1 Corinthians 1.25. Friends, God's grace is sufficient. It says, for His strength is
made perfect. When and how? In our weakness. In our weakness. Not in our numbers,
but in our weakness. Not in our strength, but in our
weakness. 2 Corinthians chapter 13 verse
4, you don't have to turn there, let me read it to you, and I'll
make some comments as I read the verse. For though he, Christ,
was crucified through weakness, and he's talking about the nature
that Christ assumed, He was tempted in all things like we are with
the exception of sin. He says, yet he liveth by the
power of God. That's how we live, by the power
of God. He was raised from the dead by
divine power. He was declared to be the Son
of God with power. He reigns at the right hand of
God in power. And he has power over all flesh. And Paul went on and wrote, for
we are For we also are weak in Him." You see, like Christ, and
for His sake we are subject to infirmities and reproaches and
persecutions and distresses. Humiliation, being dead with
Christ and crucified with Him. And then Paul goes on to say,
but we shall live with him by the power of God towards you.
We who are mortal are gonna be raised immortal. Our corruption,
these dying bodies are gonna put on incorruption and our mortality
will soon be immortality and we'll live forever with Christ.
That's all by the power of God. For if we suffer with Christ,
we shall live and reign with Him and be glorified together
with Him. Isn't that good news? Small things,
men don't care much for them. I remember a time you see a penny
on the ground, you'd bend down and pick it up. Most people today
won't even bend over and pick up a penny. Small things, small
things. Men associate the miraculous
with the multitude. The destruction of mankind was
by one man, Adam. The salvation of God's elect
was by one man. That man was the God-man, the
Lord Jesus Christ. In Acts chapter 17, verse 6,
it was just a small band of people that were said to have turned
the world upside down. The gospel is the power of God
unto salvation. Brother Tim wrote in his commentary,
today's salvation has been reduced to a decision, a walk down an
aisle, and a simple plan. That's true. That's true. John Gill said men translate
numbers to power. Only a few look to Christ's death
on the cross as the means and the reason for salvation and
righteousness and justification and sanctification and redemption. I heard a man say not long ago,
I don't preach those things anymore because people aren't much interested
in them. You ought to get out of preaching. You're not preaching
anyway if you're not preaching those things. Now verse four
again, and the Lord said unto Gideon, the people are yet too
many, bring them down into the water, and I'll try them for
thee there, and it shall be that of whom I say unto thee, this
shall go with thee, and the same shall go with thee, and whomsoever
I say, this shall not go with thee, the same shall not go.
So he brought down the people into the water, and the Lord
said unto Gideon, every one that lappeth up the water with his
tongue is a dog lappeth. You've seen a dog at a bowl.
laps up the water with his tongue. He said, every one that lappeth
up the water with his tongue is a dog lappeth. Him thou shalt
set by himself, and likewise every one that boweth down upon
his knees to drink." Or in other words, and I've done this very
often, you get water in your hand and you drink it like this,
but you're standing up and you're looking out. and maybe you're
motivated by fear or something else, but this was the distinction
that God made. It was God that made this distinction.
He said, set those that do this, drink water this way, here, and
set these here. And the Lord said unto Gideon,
verse seven, by the 300 men that lapped will I save you and deliver
the Midianites into thine hand and let all the other people
go, every man, into his place. Brother Paul, he has called me
this afternoon to ask what our text was tonight. Him and Anna
listen when they aren't able to be here, and he likes to read
the verses before him. I gave him the verses, and I
told him what the story was about, about the Lord using 300 men
in Gideon's army to defeat 100,000 Midianites. And Paul said, it
wasn't 300 men that defeated them, was it? And I said, no,
Paul, it wasn't. It was the Lord. It was the Lord. And He could have done it with
three if He had so chosen. It was their God who delivered
them. That's always been the case. That's the lesson here
tonight. The mass multitudes today think
way too little of God and way too highly of themselves. I had
someone tell me a few years back that the message of Christ and
Him crucified was important, but that I needed to move on
to the deeper things of God. You're telling me that God becoming
a man, dying in my room instead, shedding
His blood to cover my sin, is not deep? And what the man meant was the
gift of tongues, the gifts of healing, because I know how he
believed, the gifts of prophecy, the gifts of interpretation.
You know, I once believed that I had those gifts. That might
shock you, but that's the honest truth. And I practiced them. I guess that'd be the way to
say it. I sure didn't... I sure didn't have them down,
but I did them openly, so I'm not a novice concerning these
things. I know a little bit about what
I'm talking about here. But they're not the deeper things
of God, far from it. I'm not sure they're the things
of God at all. The scripture says they've ceased.
No, I am sure they're not the things of God. And one day those
who are convinced that I am wrong are gonna find out for themselves.
And I feel strongly enough about these things based upon the scripture
alone to say that if I'm wrong, then hell is what I deserve and
what I should experience. But I have assurance and confidence
in what Christ has done for me that I don't lose any sleep over
being ashamed, I don't. I rest at night, I rest in the
day, I'm resting right now in the fact that Christ has done
for me what I could never do for myself. Is there more to
life eternal than preaching Christ? Is there more to salvation than
resting in Christ's finished work? Leaving men and women with
something to do? It leaves a righteousness that's
got to be worked out and a holiness to be improved upon. And if that's
the case, then I don't wanna be right. No man can say my own
hand has saved me. Can't do it. You'll go to hell
thinking it, but it's not true. All glory goes to God, all of
it. He'll not share it with another,
because man cannot save himself. Now, I want to turn you to one
place before we finish, and that's Isaiah chapter 42. And I want
to just begin in verse 5 and just read 3 or 4 verses here. Turn there with me, Isaiah 42.
This ought to get our attention, because verse 5 begins, Thus
saith God the Lord. It's funny how when EF Hutton
talks, men listen, but when God does, nobody seems to want to. Thus saith God the Lord, he that
created the heavens and stretched them out, he that spread forth
the earth and that which cometh out of it, he that giveth breath
unto the people upon it and spirit to them that walk therein. That's who's speaking here. That
ought to get your attention. I, the Lord, have called thee
in righteousness and will hold thine hand and will keep thee
and give thee for a covenant of the people for a light of
the Gentiles to open the blind eyes to bring out the prisoners
from the prison and them that sit in darkness out of the prison
house. I am the Lord, that's my name,
and my glory will I not give to another. Neither my praise
to graven images. Now just a quick little review
of what we just read. God created the heavens and stretched
them out. God spread forth the earth. God
did that. You know, we look at this creation,
the stars in the sky at night, the sun in the day, the trees,
the animal life, the flowers. And we can't help but think,
what a God. He just spoke these things into
existence. God created man and he breathed
into man the breath of life and man became a living soul. And
when a man dies, God takes the breath from him. It's the Lord
that killeth, it's the Lord that maketh alive. The Lord does all
these things. It's the Lord that calls His
people in righteousness. It's the Lord that holds their
hand and keeps them. It's the Lord that makes a covenant
with us. It's the Lord that gives light
to the Gentiles like you and I so that we might see. It's
the Lord who gives sight to blind eyes. It's the Lord that delivers
us from our bondage. And the God who does all these
things says plainly and simply, and He proves it from every page
in the scriptures, that He is the Lord. And that is His name. And His glory, He will not give
to another. For us to say that we add one
thing to our salvation is to try to strip God of His glory.
It's a serious, serious matter. You're not gonna share His glory
with man's man-made graven images, and that doesn't have to be a
stump that you carve with a chainsaw or something that you mold, a
piece of clay you mold with your hand. That can be the graven
image that you've created right here in your mind. It's immoral for someone to take
credit for something that he or she didn't do. And I can just
picture old Herod wearing his royal robe, sitting on his throne,
and he delivers a public address to the people, and they shouted,
this is the voice of God, not the voice of a man. And he sat
there in all his pomp and didn't say a word, and he was immediately
eaten up with worms, and he died. Why? Because God will not share
or give his glory to another. Like Lucifer, right before his
fall, he said, I will ascend. I'll make my throne above the
throne of God. I'll do this. I'll do that. God
said, no, you won't. No sir, you will not. He won't give his glory to another.
He's the blessed and only ruler, the only potentate. He's the
King of kings and the Lord of lords. He alone is immortal and
he lives in an unapproachable light and to him be honor and
glory forever and ever. Well, his glory is so bright
that even heaven's mightiest angels cannot look fully upon
him. There's no boasting in His presence. One who brags on what he's done,
is doing, or is going to do for God stands on dangerous ground. In John 17, let me leave you
with this. In John 17, in the Lord's glorious
high priestly prayer, the Lord Jesus noted three things in particular
concerning the glory of God His Father. And you can look at it
sometime in your convenience, but first, he prays that the
Father would give him glory. And secondly, he laid claim to
a previous glory that was his before the world began. And then
thirdly, our Lord asserts that his glory was that of the Father's. Now, what's the significance
of that? Well, God's not gonna give his glory to another, so
this is proof that Jesus Christ, who shared in the divine glory,
is God. He's the fullness of the Godhead
bodily. Jesus Christ is the one who saved
us and called us with a holy calling. And He did so, the Scripture
says, not according to our works, but according to what? His own
purpose and grace, which was in us in Christ Jesus before
the world began. For us in Christ Jesus. There
are too many in this world today that say, my own hand, that saved
me. Men and women are bounting themselves against God. They're
boasting, they're bragging, they're flaunting a glory that belongs
to God alone. And in the end, all their words
are nothing but vain glory. They'll hear these words from
the Lord Himself. I never knew you. I never knew
you. Depart from me, ye that work
iniquity. You see, bragging and boasting
of what you do for God is not just simply error, it's a work
of iniquity. The issue is what God's done
for us, not what we've done for God. Have you ever had someone
ask you, well, what's God doing in your life? I don't know what God's doing.
If I'm one of His, I know whatever He's doing is for my good. It's
for His glory. I don't know what God is doing.
I only know that He's doing whatsoever He's pleased. I do know that. I don't know what God is doing. I only know what God has done. Because the work of salvation
for His people is finished. And He tells us so. When do we
rest? When our work's finished. Work's
finished. Rest. Rest. Well, may God be pleased
to keep us from doing such nonsense for His glory, our good, and
for the Lord Jesus' sake.