Let's be turning to Judges chapter
7. In this chapter, Judges chapter
7, the Lord gives us a picture. We have a picture of our salvation
in the Lord Jesus Christ. Salvation is by the blood redemption
of Christ for his people who through his sacrificial Death
on the cross shed his blood for the remission of our sins, the
forgiveness of our sins. And it's by his redemption that
we have, we are saved of God. We are forgiven by God through
Christ Jesus, through his death, through his burial and his resurrection. And because of what he did for
us, this ensures the salvation of God's elect. We shall not
come short of it. This ensures that we shall hear
the gospel and believe the Lord Jesus Christ. All that pertains
to life and godliness is given to us by the Lord Jesus Christ. We shall not come short of it.
Now, this brings us to Judges chapter 7. I'm going to begin
with something that Paul wrote to us in Philippians 3, because
this sets us up for what we're going to see first. In Philippians
3, verses 2 and 3, Paul reminds the church, he says to the church,
to beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the concision. These are all descriptions of
the same people, the same legalists that were coming into the church
and trying to bind the people with circumcision and bring them
into the law. And Paul says, don't do it. Don't
do it, for we are the circumcision. And he's talking about a spiritual
work which the Spirit of God does in the heart of God's people. It's not a circumcision of the
flesh, it's a circumcision of our fleshly heart. It removes
the enmity, the fleshly enmity that's in us by nature. We are the circumcision which
worship God in the Spirit. And it makes me think of what
our Lord tells us about a husband and wife. They too shall be joined
and become one flesh, or one flesh. And that makes sense because
husbands and wives, in this life, in this flesh, we are married
and we serve one another in the flesh. We do things for one another
that could be considered fleshly things. We take care of one another
in the flesh. But he that is joined to the
Lord is one spirit. One Spirit means that we minister,
well, we do things in the Lord in the Spirit, and the Lord does
things for us in the Spirit. He blesses us in the flesh too,
but it's spiritual things. And so Paul says we worship God
in the Spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence
in the flesh. We have no confidence in the
flesh. The reason that the children
of God have no confidence in the flesh is because the flesh
cannot save us. The flesh is in our salvation. It's not by our works. It cannot save. And so the Lord
provides salvation for us freely. Freely, by grace, through our
Lord Jesus Christ. And what he does in that salvation
is he strips us, he strips his people of vain confidences, of
fleshly vain confidences that we by nature trust in. We do,
we're all guilty of it. We trust in fleshly things by
nature and the Lord strips us of those confidences which we
see them, we see them in ourselves, pride and arrogance and boastings
and fleshly things, but primarily we see them in the gospel, we
see them as the wicked religious works that we are turned to by
nature. All right. That's what the Lord's
stripping us from. Well, the Lord pictures the stripping
of vain confidences of this flesh with Gideon here. This chapter
seven in Judges speaks of Gideon and how the Lord brings a great
victory for his people with Gideon here. And he first strips Gideon
down. He has an army of 32,000 men
that are ready to go and fight against Midian. And the Lord
knocks that number down by 22,000, bringing them down to only 10,000
people. He strips him down to 10,000,
and the Lord says, that's not enough. Strip him down further,
and he goes all the way down to only 300 people with Gideon. And it's a picture of our stripping.
Now look what he says in Judges 7, verse 2. And the Lord said
unto Gideon, The people that are with thee are too many for
me to give the Midianites into their hands. lest Israel vaunt
themselves against me, saying, Mine own hand hath saved me."
And so the Lord, He cuts down this flesh. This is a picture.
And though it doesn't say it everywhere in the scriptures,
wherever you see the weakness of man, it's because God has
cut down the flesh. He's whittled down the strength
of this flesh. He's removed that from us, lest
we would vaunt ourselves, exalt ourselves, and think, maybe it
was my own hand that did that. Maybe it was me. Maybe it's because
I did this or I did that. Well, the Lord is wise, and he's
stripping us down of the things that we naturally trust in. and say, well, maybe it was just
something because of what I did. So the Lord takes that from us.
And that's the first thing we see. The Lord withers this flesh. He withers this flesh down. Second,
we see a picture here of what the Lord promises us in salvation,
to give us the Holy Spirit. The Lord promises that he gives
his people the Holy Spirit, whom he calls the Comforter. Let's
see this in verses 10 and 11. So Gideon wasn't sure. He wasn't
sure how is the Lord going to defeat the Midianite army with
only 300 men. How is this possible? He says,
well, if you're afraid, verse 10, if you fear to go down, Go
thou with Pura. It looks like Fura, but it's
pronounced Pura. Go down with Pura, thy servant,
down to the host. And thou shalt hear what they
say. And afterward shall thine hands
be strengthened to go down unto the host. Then went he down with
Pura, his servant, unto the outside of the armed men that were in
the host. Now, Pura's presence. Going with
Gideon seems like a small, insignificant thing. What does Pura going with
Gideon have to do with it? If he's afraid to go down there
now, why is he going to want to go down there with just Pura
alone? Well, Pura is a picture of what
the Lord does in giving us the Holy Spirit. who attends us,
who comes and comforts us, who is a comforter to the people
of God, who goes with us through the darkness, through the trial,
through the difficulty, and sustains us, and strengthens us, and opens
our ear to the Word of God and the promises of God, to hear
and be reminded of what Christ has accomplished for us. That's
what the Holy Spirit does. He takes the things of the Lord
and shows them unto you to comfort your hearts. to remind you of
His promises, to keep you, to keep you in the Lord. And so
that's what Pura pictures here, the comforter. And our Lord said
in John 14, verse 16, He said, I will pray the Father, and He
shall give you another comforter. Christ is going to go to the
cross and accomplish redemption and return to the Father. And
He says, I will pray the Father, give you another comforter, that
he may abide with you forever. Forever. Even the spirit of truth,
whom the world cannot receive. Right? The natural man doesn't
receive these things. How is it that God saves by grace? How does he save me without me
doing something for him? Why would he do that? How can
he do that? Well, he does, through Christ, because we can't save
ourselves. He gives it freely by the Lord Jesus Christ, whom
the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth
him, but ye know him, for he dwelleth with you, and shall
be in you. I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you. the natural
mammal. We're just left to ourselves
in this carnal nature of ours. We don't know God. We don't know
Him. We don't understand how God can
do this. But His grace, His gift of grace,
is to give us the Spirit who shows us that Christ is all. And He gives us faith to believe
that Christ is all and to rest in Him. to rest in him. He does,
he works that in us because by nature we wouldn't. There's no
way we would just rest on the words of another because we don't
see him, we don't believe him. But the Spirit knows him and
takes the things of Christ and shows them, gives them unto you,
reveals them in your heart. So the Spirit is going to comfort
us and reveal Christ to us. And then third in this part of
the chapter, Gideon is given faith to believe the word that
God unravels and shows him the mystery. It's a picture of the
gospel being unraveled. It's a picture of the mystery
being made known to us. And he gives faith in the heart
that believes God's word of promise unto us in Christ. So Judges
7, 13, and when Gideon was come Behold, there was a man that
told a dream unto his fellow and said, behold, I dreamed a
dream, and lo, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the host of
Midian, and came unto a tent, and smote it that it fell, and
overturned it that the tent lay along. And his fellow answered
and said, here's the interpretation, this is nothing else save the
sword of Gideon, the son of Joash, a man of Israel, for unto his
hand hath God delivered Midian and all the host." Now, barley,
something about barley, that's what stood out to me, is this
barley bread that tumbles into the host and destroys this tent,
lays it all along. Barley is a humble grain. Barley is the grain that poor
people eat. They can't afford the more expensive
grains like wheat. They eat barley. It's a humble
grain. And that humble grain pictures
the bread of heaven, the Son of God who humbled himself, who
emptied himself and became poor to make his poor people rich
in him. He is the humble grain, the barley
bread sent from heaven to accomplish the salvation of his people by
his redemption, all by himself, doing for us what we cannot do
for ourselves. And Gideon here is hearing the
gospel. He's hearing, this is a picture
of your hearing the gospel of what Christ has done, humbled
in his flesh. going to the cross and accomplishing
your redemption. And he's hearing this and faith
is given. He's encouraged by this word.
He's strengthened by this word. He hears exactly what he needs
to hear because the mystery, the confusion he had is unwrapped. He now understands it. He hears
the mystery and he believes it. He believes it and he rejoices
in this word. Look at verse 15. And it was
so when Gideon heard the telling of the dream, when he heard the
interpretation thereof, when the gospel was made plain to
him, that he worshipped and returned into the host of Israel and said,
Arise, for the Lord hath delivered into your hand the host of Midian. Brethren, we declare unto you
that Christ has accomplished your salvation. It's done, brethren. The victory is yours in Christ. Believe Him. Trust Him. That's where the worship of God
comes from in spirit. Hearing what Christ has done
and knowing it's done. It's done. The victory is ours,
brethren. He has saved us, is saving us,
and shall save us. It's the promise of God made
unto us in Christ. And if you can trust any man's
word, you can trust the word of God. God. I shouldn't say
he's a man, but if you can trust anyone's word, it's God's word.
God's word. And so he heard and he believed.
Now, by Gideon here, the Lord is picturing for the church that
he strips us. He strips us of vain fleshly
confidences. And the Lord tells us that he
gives us that comforter, the companion, the Holy Ghost, to
attend, to go with us through the darkness, and to comfort
us and strengthen us, and to open our ear when we hear that
word of the gospel. That's the third thing. We are
made to hear and understand the meaning of God's mystery hid
throughout ages, but now made known to us in the face of Jesus
Christ. That's what's being pictured
there. Now, the church here is pictured in this 300-man army
led by Gideon, their captain. And they go forth bearing this
testimony. They're bearing this testimony
in the confidence of God's Word. And the confidence of the Word
being spoken to them, and it serves to, you're going to see,
they rejoice, they're glad, they're seeing the victory, they're seeing
this Word worked out before their eyes. They're seeing God accomplish
what He promises to accomplish for His people. And the enemies
which hear that Word, they're terrified. They don't rejoice
in it, and they flee away. They go away. In Judges 7, 16,
it says, and Gideon divided the 300 men into three companies. And he put a trumpet in every
man's hand with empty pitchers and lamps within the pitchers. Now, these are not typical weapons
of warfare. A trumpet, an empty pitcher,
and a light, a torch that goes inside that empty pitcher. normal
weapons of warfare, because this is not a fleshly war that we're
in. This is a spiritual warfare. This is concerning spiritual
things. And Gideon is among those spoken
of in that great chapter in Hebrews chapter 11, the chapter of faith. And after it speaks of Gideon,
it says in verse 33, the next verse, who through faith through
faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises,
stopped the mouths of lions, right? And that's a picture of
Daniel and the silencing of your accuser. That line, that seeketh
to devour whom he may, by the gospel, by faith, all these things
are accomplished. You've got an enemy, by faith
they're subdued. You need righteousness by faith.
Righteousness is wrought in your hearts by Christ. You need to
trust the promises of God by faith. The promises of God are
obtained. And the accuser of the brethren,
his mouth is silenced. It's shut. It's shut. Our Lord
doesn't rely on our flesh. on the strength of the flesh.
He doesn't need our strength. He shows how he can do all things
through Christ, which strengtheneth us. It's all by Christ. And so the Lord himself gives
the victory to his people through faith. Through faith. That's
how we see and obtain the promises of God, through faith. Gideon
here now is a picture of Christ, the captain of our salvation,
and what he wills, what God wills, he sovereignly works in the hearts
of his people. He's going to accomplish this
very thing by his power and his grace. Look at verse 17. And Gideon said unto them, Look
on me, look on me, and do likewise. And behold, when I come to the
outside of the camp, it shall be that as I do, so shall ye
do. That is the promise of our sovereign
God. I will, and you shall. I will, and you shall. You will
not come short of the victory promised to us in Christ, because
it's the will of God. And you shall. He will work this
in you. He strips you down of your vain
fleshly confidences. He gives you the Spirit, and
He reveals faith in your hearts. I will, and you shall. Look on
me. Look on Christ, your Savior. He is our triumphant captain. He is our triumphant Savior. He cannot fail. He's almighty,
mighty God, robed in the flesh. He cannot fail. That, brethren,
looking to Christ is the very obedience of faith that our God
calls us to, that he commands his children to do. Believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Believe him. We are looking unto
Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Look on me. Look on Christ, brethren. Look
on Christ, your captain. Now, the instructions which follow
here picture the ministry that our Lord has commissioned to
his church. That is, this is the commission
he's given to his church. That commission is to proclaim
these things, to witness these things, to testify of the victory
of Christ, that he is wrought, that the bread of heaven, who
has come down from heaven, has come down to the earth and obtained
the victory over all your enemies, over all his enemies and yours.
He says now in verse 18, when I blow with the trumpet, I and
all that are with me, then blow ye the trumpets also on every
side of all the camp and say, the sword of the Lord and of
Gideon So Gideon and the hundred men that were with him came unto
the outside of the camp in the beginning of the middle watch,
and they had but newly set the watch. I believe that newly setting
of the watch is a picture which describes the commission of the
Church by Christ, who preaches, who ministers the New Covenant. Declare it unto you, it's a New
Covenant. It's newly revealed to us of what Christ has done.
It's not the oldness of the letter, but the new covenant, the new
covenant of his grace. And they blew the trumpets and
break the pictures that were in their hands. And the three
companies blew the trumpets. and break the pitchers, and held
the lamps in their left hands, and the trumpets in their right
hands, to blow with all. And they cried, the sword of
the Lord, and of Gideon." Now there's four pictures here in
this, four pictures that describe our Lord's work in accomplishing
the ministration of the Spirit unto the people of God. It's
the ministry which God has given to us, the church, here in this
world. The first is the trumpeting of
the gospel of Jesus Christ. We are to proclaim the gospel,
to declare the gospel, to preach the gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ. This is how God turns the hearts
of the people from dead fleshly works that cannot save unto him
who alone saves his people by grace. He turns our hearts through
the preaching of the gospel, blessed to our hearts. For after
that, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God,
it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that
believe." Through the foolishness of preaching, brethren, God has
ordained that we preach this word. This is the trumpet we're
blowing. We're declaring, the victory
is won! and by the Lord Jesus Christ
look to him look to him the 300 soldiers doing as Gideon does
is a picture of what we read in Isaiah 52 verse 8 it says
thy watchmen This is the church, the pastors and preachers of
the church. I watch him shall lift up the
voice with the voice, the voice of him who has called us. We
shall lift up the voice together shall they sing. What are we
singing? The song of redemption. We sing
the song of the redeemed. That's our joy. That's our gladness. We're rejoicing that Christ has
redeemed us, that sin is put away, that we have eternal life
according to the promise of God. It's the song of the redeemed.
For they shall see eye to eye when the Lord shall bring again
Zion. By his grace and power, we stand
eye to eye with our Savior because we see things now as he sees
them by his grace and power not as man sees it but as our Lord
sees it and what he's accomplished for us that's our boldness to
come unto the throne of God is the blood of Christ it's what
he's done for us brethren now the second is the pitcher which
hid that light the light couldn't be seen until that pitcher was
broken it was an empty pitcher and It was empty, but it had
one thing of value placed in it. Otherwise, it was just an
empty vessel. Just an empty vessel, until one
thing precious, that light, was put inside that vessel. You see,
God hath chosen weak things of the world to confound the things
which are mighty. This Midianite army, this mighty
Midianite army, was stupefied. by the light which they saw,
by the blowing of the trumpets, by the light, the sudden light
that they saw, and the shout of the people. They were confounded
by it. And when those pictures were
broken, that's when the light shone forth. That's when they
saw the light. Well, the gospel reveals the
light of Christ to us. That's when we see the gospel.
When this flesh is broken, when this flesh is withered by the
blowing of the Spirit upon you, that's when you see the light,
that Christ is salvation. He is the light and life of his
people. Paul said, we have this treasure
in earthen vessels, that the excellency may be of God and
not of us. We're just empty pots, brethren.
with a precious light, which is the Lord Jesus Christ, whom
we declare unto you gladly, knowing that God is able to accomplish
this salvation in your hearts. And then third is that light,
which is the light of Christ, pictured in the torch placed
inside here. 2 Corinthians 4, 6, for God,
who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined
in our hearts. That's where great darkness is,
is in our hearts. But he's shown the light of Christ
in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ. That you would find your all. your righteousness, your comfort,
your peace, your salvation in the face of Jesus Christ, the
captain of our salvation, the author and finisher of our faith. This is the light which Gideon
and his men shone into the darkness with their trumpets blaring.
Second, Peter 119, Peter says it this way, we have also a more
sure word of prophecy. We now understand what the prophets
were speaking of and testifying of under that old covenant, whereunto
ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth
in a dark place. This is the word which shines
in our dark hearts. the word of Christ, the word
of God, until the day dawn, you take heed to this gospel word
until the day dawn and the day star, which is Christ, arise
in your hearts. Till that darkness be driven
away, which it is and it shall, by the Lord Jesus Christ, it's
his promise, I am confident in it, that Christ is able to save
you to the uttermost. And then finally, The message
they shouted, brethren, the sword of the Lord and of Gideon. This
is a simple message that declares the victory of God, which God
had put into the hand of our Gideon, which Gideon himself
heard when he went down to the camp with Pura with him there
in the camp. He heard the mystery revealed.
this is the mystery made known unto us that what what Christ
has done this describes the gospel that we preach the sword of the
Lord and of Gideon right when he was down in that camp what
did he hear the barley bread the cake of barley bread came
tumbling into the host of the Midianites and hit that tent
knock this tent this flesh over and laid it out Destroyed this
flesh destroyed every confidence in this flesh and we see Jesus
We see Jesus made a little lower than the angels we might know
God and worship God in and by him and what he's done for us
and so This barley bread speaks of Christ this sword of the Lord.
That's what they said. I by the sword of Gideon, the
Lord's given Midianite over into the hand of Gideon, our Christ. And so he saw and heard the destruction
of his flesh, the destruction of the devil's works, the destruction
of all our enemies, and delivered us into the presence of our God,
accepted of him. God's people rejoiced in this
message, but when their enemies heard it, They were terrified
and they fled. They scattered and destroyed
one another. Look at Judges 7, 21 and following. It says, and they stood, this
is Gideon's men, stood every man in his place round about
the camp and all the host ran and cried and fled. And the 300
blew the trumpets and the Lord set every man's sword against
his fellow even throughout all the host and the host They just
kept blowing the trumpet, just blowing the trumpet, just declaring
the gospel, declaring the gospel, preaching the victory that is
given unto us in Christ. And the host just kept running
into one another and destroying one another and fleeing away. And it says in verse 23, and
the men of Israel gathered themselves. They heard the trumpet, they
heard that confusion going on and they were gathered unto it.
and they came out of Naphtali and out of Asher and out of all
Manasseh and pursued after the Midianites. You see, God's children
were drawn to the trumpet. God's children were called to
the battle. We are drawn to the victory that
is Christ's. We come and we're given a heart
to support this word, to support this gospel, to support this
victory. We're given that heart, we want
to serve in the body of Christ, because we rejoice in this great
victory that we have in Christ. And so, these who partook of
the victory, to them the preaching of Christ was a savor of life
unto life. The children of God hear this
word and rejoice in the victory of Christ. But those who hated
this word, who were terrified by this word, who hated God and
his Christ, they fled. Because to them, it's a saver
of death unto death. To them, it's just, I don't want
to hear that. I don't want to hear what Christ
has done. Tell me what I need to do to save myself. The wicked
don't rejoice in this work. But God's people were drawn to
it and rejoiced in it and helped lift up the sword of Gideon,
who helped raise up the the ensign of Christ who said if I be lifted
up I'll draw all men unto me I'll draw my people unto me just
preach preach Christ preach Christ crucified I'll draw so I pray
the Lord make the redemption of Jesus Christ of his victory
good news to your heart that you not only flee away, that
you not go away, but that you are drawn to Christ, that you
are drawn to that light, and that He bless your hearts in
Him, revealing faith, stripping you in flesh, giving you His
Spirit, and revealing the faith of Christ in your hearts. Amen.