Judges chapter 7. Judges chapter 7. Our text will
be found in verse 17. The scripture says, And he, which
was Gideon, said unto them, 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 you
do. Here in this passage of Scripture,
Gideon is given to us to be a picture, a type, a representation of the
Lord Jesus Christ, who is the champion of our salvation. Jesus is the champion as Gideon
here is the champion over the Midianites. Even so, is Jesus
Christ the champion and captain of our salvation. Now, as Gideon
was about to go down to the host of the Midianites, the Scripture
tells us that the Lord, knowing his fear, sent him down to hear,
to hear of the dream of the barley loaf. That is taking place in
verses 9 down through verse 14. In verse 11, he said, I'm sorry, in verse 10 he said,
But if thou fear to go down, go with Phura thy servant down
to the host, and thou shalt hear what they say, and afterward
thou shalt be strengthened. What did he hear? He heard the
dream of the Midianite. He had two guards out there and
he heard them talking and one of them said, Man, I had a dream,
it troubled me. I don't know what it is. He said there was
a barley loaf, Bread. He said there was some bread.
And this bread was rolling down the hill. It rolled in the middle
of our camp. And it just laid us flat. It
laid the tent flat. I don't understand. And the other
guy said, Well, I know what that is. He said, That's Gideon. That's Gideon. You see that in verse 14. And
his fellow answered and said, This is nothing else. Save the
sword of Gideon, the son of Joash, the man of Israel. For into his
hand hath God delivered Midian and all the hosts." They were
scared. They were more scared of Gideon
than Gideon was of them. They feared Gideon. They knew
that God was going to fight for him. And so God strengthened
his hand. And I'll tell you, this is a
picture of the Lord Jesus Christ in the garden. You remember,
before His crucifixion, our Lord prayed in the garden and was
in great agony. In great agony. And He sweat,
the Scripture says, as it were, great drops of blood. The Son
of God, knowing that He was to accomplish the salvation of His
people, that He must bear their guilt. He knew He must bear their sins
in His own body on the tree. You see, Jesus, who was only
good and righteous, must have been made sin. Made sin for us. That's what the Scripture tells
us in 2 Corinthians 5 and verse 21. God, for He hath made Him, Christ,
to be sin for us who knew no sin. What was the reason of that? That we should be made the righteousness
of God in Him. You see, we by nature are full
of sin. And by being full of sin, we
are absent of righteousness. By nature, we have no righteousness
of our own. And therefore, what do we think
of sin? We think lightly of sin. This
is a sad thing, but it's true. We think lightly. We think nothing
of sin because that's all we are. But Jesus had never sinned. He knew no sin. He felt no guilt. He knew no guilt. And yet He
was about to be made sin. The Scripture says in the New
Testament that Jesus feared. He was afraid. Now, can you imagine
that? The Son of God being afraid?
But yet the Scriptures tell us that He feared. And this was His fear, that He
was to be made sin. He was about to bear the guilt
of all His people at one time. Have you ever felt guilty to
the point of despair? Well, I tell you, listen, you
felt nothing compared to what He felt. Because He was about
to bear all of the sins of all His people at one time. He was to bear that guilt at
one time. He was going to suffer like no
man had ever suffered since before or ever shall suffer again. He
suffered like none other. He was rejected and despised
of men. He was outcast by everyone, hated
of everyone. And worst of all, he was to be
rejected of God. My God, my God, why have you
forsaken me? Jesus in the garden said, my
soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. Over in Leviticus, Leviticus chapter 1, I'm sorry, Lamentations chapter
1. In verse 12 it says, Is it nothing
to you? All you that pass by, behold
and see. Is there any sorrow like unto
my sorrow, which is done unto me? Wherewith the Lord hath afflicted
me in the day of his fierce anger. From above hath he sent fire
into my bones. and prevaileth against me. He hath spread a net for my feet,
he hath turned me back, he hath made me desolate and faint all
the day." The yoke, listen, the yoke of my transgression. The Lord Jesus Christ even calls
this transgression His own. My transgression is bound by
his hand. They are withered and come up
upon my neck. He hath made my strength to fall. The Lord hath delivered me into
their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up. The Lord Jesus
Christ despaired above all despair. Jesus prayed. He said, Father,
if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. What cup was this?
It was the dregs of our sins that He was about to drink. It
was the cup of indignation. It was the wrath of God that
He was about to be put under because of our sins. And He suffered
bearing our sins so that He should satisfy justice. Oh, the love
of Christ. That He should willingly do this. Willingly lay down His life.
I cannot begin to understand how greatly He suffered. I tell
you, you should meditate on it. We should meditate on the sufferings
of our Lord. And our suffering should be light
then. If we would meditate on his suffering,
surely ours would be much less. Meditate on his suffering, but
even as God strengthened Gideon. That's what happened here. God
said that at the very beginning. He said, you fear, you go on
down, and afterward, verse 11, shall thine hands be strengthened. Even so it was with the Lord
Jesus Christ after God had put that on Him. Remember how the
angels came and ministered unto Him. And the Scripture says He
was strengthened. He was strengthened. To do what? He was strengthened to do the
will of God. This is what Christ came to do.
He came not to do His own will, but the will of Him that sent
me. And this is the Father's will.
That of all He hath given me, I should lose nothing. This was
the will of the Father. That Christ should sanctify. Christ should redeem. Christ
should justify His people. and save them from their sins.
Isn't that the reason for His name? His name, Jesus, means
Jehovah saves. And what was the message of the
angel? He said, Thou shalt call His name Jehovah saves, for He
shall save, shall save. Who? His people. His people from
their sins. Now, in being found in fashion
as a man, Jesus, the Scripture said, humbled Himself and became
obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. So we see
Gideon is a type of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now then, now that Gideon was strengthened,
he says this in our text. Now that he knows for sure this
is all set, He says this, look on me, look on me and do likewise. That's the first point. Look
on me. After he was strengthened, after
he worshipped God, after he was faithful in obedience, Gideon
then tells his men what is necessary for victory. The first thing
for victory is that they should look on him, that they should
behold what he does, and then after he has done his work, all
the soldiers were to do the same. This is what he did. Very simple
little thing he did. He said, this is, we're going
to divide up into three groups, 100 soldiers per group. And we're going to go on the
outside of the camp. And when we do, all I'm going to do, and
we'll give you a picture, clay pot, on the inside is a candle. Then the other hand, you're going
to have a trumpet. That's kind of strange to go to battle with
a candle and a trumpet, isn't it? I just don't, I don't make
much sense. Most of the time we want weapons
of some sort. But no, this is our weapon. A
candle in a pot. and a horn. And he says, you
go down there, and when I do this, you do whatever I do, and
we'll win. What'd he do? He gets out there,
and he breaks the clay pot. Lamp is shining, grabs his trumpet,
he blows a trumpet, and he shouts. And so they do the same thing.
And then all the Midianites began to kill one another. And victory is won. Now then,
what a blessed picture this is of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
told His disciples, as He now tells us who believe on Him,
first of all, look on Me. And second of all, do what I
do. First of all, look on me. Is this not the gospel of Jesus
Christ? This is the gospel of Jesus Christ. And truly, it's much like the
picture of the brazen serpent. You remember that brazen serpent,
how they were bitten by those serpents, and God instructed
Moses to lift up a brass serpent in the middle of the camp, and
he said, look and live. We know this is a picture of
the Lord Jesus Christ because in John chapter 3, it says, even
as Moses lifted up in the serpent in the wilderness, even so must
the Son of Man be lifted up. So Christ is a picture of the
brazen serpent. And everyone who is bitten by
the fiery serpent should look and live. And I want to be clear. I want to make this as plain
and as simple as I can. What was the purpose of Jesus
coming into this world? Jesus said, I am not come to
call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. The Scripture says this is a
faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ
Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Sinners of whom
I am chief. This is the call then of Jesus
Christ. Look on me, you sinners. Sinners. The call of Jesus is
to look if you have been bitten by the deadly venom of sin. The remedy is simple. The remedy
is plain. Look on me and live. I think
it interesting that he didn't say chop the heads of the serpents
off. He didn't say kill the snakes.
What did he say? Look on me and live. Look on me and live. You see,
it's not how much you chop off sin because another one's going
to pop up. You chop off one, another one
comes up. You chop off another, the other one comes up. That's
never going to save you. That's never going to redeem
you. The only hope is you look to Christ and live. Look and
live. I preach to sinners. I preach
to those who are in need of mercy. Mercy, free mercy, without merit. That's who Christ preached to.
He preached to sinners without merit, without hope, with no
righteousness of their own. Today I stand in need of free
mercy. I personally, myself, need free
mercy. I need mercy today more than
I needed yesterday. I need it today. I need free
mercy. I know this, that in my flesh
dwelleth no good thing. I have nothing with which to
please God. I have nothing with which to
offer God for my sins. I have nothing Christ is my everything. He is all I have. He is all I
want because He's all God requires. Therefore, my only hope is to
hear the voice of the Son of God. My hope is for Him to speak to
my heart now and say, look on me. Look on me. And you know what? When I hear
His voice, I look. I look. I look by faith. I look. To look is to believe. That's what it means to look.
When He says, look on me, He says, believe on me. Trust in
me. Rest your soul in my care. Look on me by faith, believe
on Christ alone. As all your acceptance with God,
we must look to Jesus Christ or else we will never be saved.
We must look and live. And everyone who looks continues to look. The Scripture says this, the
just shall live by their works. Is that what it says? The just
shall live by the law. Is that what it says? No. The
just shall live by faith. That's why we live by. I live
by faith. In Scripture, it is interesting
to note that every place faith is mentioned, it is in the present
tense. Do you know that? Faith 10 minutes ago, or faith
10 minutes from now, will not help my soul. I must believe
now, and now, and now, eternally now. I must believe now. People get caught up as to, well,
you know, I don't know when I was saved. Do you believe now? That's
the only thing that matters. Do you believe now? That faith
you had is not going to give you any comfort or confidence. Believe now. Trust now. Look to Christ right now. Believe
on Him. He says, look on Me. Look unto
Me and be ye what? Saved. all the ends of the earth. I am God, and there is none else."
I'm so thankful. I'm so thankful. Look and live. You know what? You don't have
to move a muscle, not even your eyeballs, because this is not
an outward look. It's a faith. Faith, you don't
have to do anything. You don't move anything. You
don't have to come down to the front. You don't have to jump
up and down. You don't have to go out the door. You just do
it now, look, without moving. You don't get any glory for this.
Faith is a gift of God. It's something God gives, and
when you got it, it's a gift of God who gets the glory. God
does. God does. Paul says that it's by faith.
and that by grace. For what purpose? That you should
not boast, that you should not brag. And second of all, what
do we look to Christ for? When I say look to Christ, what
are you looking for? I'll tell you, there's a lot
of people look to Christ for physical healing, a lot of people look
to Christ for deliverance from this sin or that sin because
they're in trouble, not because. Because sin has consequences,
that's why men want to be free from it. Natural man want to
be free from the consequences of sin not sin, but consequences
No, when you look to Christ what you are looking for is altogether
important. I am looking for perfect righteousness
Perfect righteousness why? Because God will accept nothing
less I Want you to understand this
God cannot and will not accept your best efforts. Why is that? Because your best
efforts are nothing but sin. Isaiah makes it plain. He says, Righteousnesses. I like that. He uses the plural in it. All
our righteousnesses are as menstrual clothes. Bloody rags that stink in the
nostrils of God. Now, that's your best stuff.
That's not even your worst stuff. That's your best. So God don't
want your best. Your best just ain't good enough. Matter of fact, it's altogether
sin and worthy of hell. That's what our best deeds are
for. So what do I need? I need righteousness that I cannot
provide. False religion. I'm gonna tell
you about this because it's very important. I don't care what
name you put on the door. You call it what you want. There
are only two religions. Works and grace. That's it. Works and grace. False religion is works religion. They always add something to
Jesus Christ. They say, believe on Jesus Christ
and be baptized. They say, believe on Jesus Christ
and take the Lord's Supper. They say, believe on Jesus Christ
and give your tithes. They say, believe on Jesus Christ
and obey the law. No, that is false gospel. That
is not true. If you add one thing to Jesus
Christ, the Scripture says you've defiled the sacrifice and it's
no value to your soul. It's no value. You touch it and
it ruins it. You put your hand to it, it defiles
it. Salvation is completely and absolutely
of the free and sovereign grace of God Almighty and nothing else.
That's the Gospel. And anything adds to Christ is
a false gospel. Most false religions see God
as some old grandpa. in the sky and he watches and
he says, oh, look how good they're trying to be. And then he says,
oh, look, I'm going to give out some quarters. My grandpa used
to give us my my mom gives them 20s. I didn't get 20s. I got I got quarters. So but
they think God is much like man, that God just gives out rewards.
He doles out rewards just based on your best effort. No, God
does not do that. God is nothing like that. God
doesn't want your best. God doesn't want you to give
Him your best. It's full of sin. I'll tell you,
our nature is like that. Our nature does that to our own
children. My son, he mowed the grass out here. Guess what? He
got something. He did his best. Now, I'll tell
you, was it perfect? No. But I overlooked that because
he does it. I'll gladly overlook those imperfections. Otherwise, I have to do it. So,
we do that by nature. But God is nothing like that.
Oh, friend, God is nothing like that. God demands righteousness. Perfect righteousness. Who can do that? Which one of us has done that? All have sinned and missed the
mark. All have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. There is no Difference. May God the Holy Spirit show
us there is no difference. We judge men differently, don't
we? We look at a successful businessman and he works hard and we say,
well, that's a successful man. And then we look at a man who's
religious. He's dressed up in the garbs of religion. He feeds
the hungry. He takes care of all these kinds
of things and does religious good. And we say, well, that's
a good man. And then we look at a drug addict
or an alcoholic and we look at them and we say, oh, those are
bad men. We say, those are evil men, murderous men. They're evil
men. But even those, what we would
consider bad people, you know what they're doing? They look
and they try to find somebody worse than themselves. They say,
oh, I may not be good as that religious dude, but look, I'm
better than this guy. Do you not see that's all self-righteousness?
All that is is a facade. It's a mirage. Why? Because all men are equally worthless. Preacher friend Houston put it
this way very vividly, and I love the illustration. Your righteousness and your goodness
are as worthless as a warm bucket of spit. Now that's your best. That's all you got. And it's
worthless. Man looks on the outside, but
listen to me, God looks on the heart. Now you can dress up this
corpse all you want to, but if you're not righteous, you may
be righteous in my sight, but that don't matter. I'm not your
judge. God is. And you must be righteous
in his sight. So why is it that we are to look
for Christ? Look to Christ. Because He is the only righteous
man. Do you not get that? He was not
born of the same nature we were born with. He was not born with
the Adamic nature. You and I inherited our sin from
our father Adam. Wherefore, as by one man sin
entered into the world, and death by sin, so death passed upon
all men. For all have sinned in our Father,
we inherited that. But Christ was born of the seed
of the woman for a reason, to escape the Adamic nature, but
yet He was made man. He was a man, He was truly a
man, but He was a righteous man, a holy man, the only righteous
man that ever lived. The only one. And because He
is the only righteous man, He is the only one who can give
us what we can't do ourselves. This is the gospel. This is why
you should look to Jesus. Because you need a righteousness
you can provide, and He's the only one that can give it to
you. He's it. He's the only one that obtained
righteousness by His perfect obedience to the law of God in
every thought, in every word, and every deed. And He gives
this righteousness to those who look to Him. That's it. Look to Him. Look to Jesus because
He is the only perfect righteousness of God. Jesus said, look on Me. You come to me, you that are
weak and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Man, the law is
a burden. I saw a sign one time that said
this. It said, the Ten Commandments,
God's road to happiness. You've got to be kidding me.
You know what I see when I see the Ten Commandments? Guilt. Guilt. Guilt. Guilt. Guilt. Guilt. Guilt. Guilt. Guilt. Guilt. That's all I see. That
don't bring me happiness. There's no joy in that. The joy
is Christ has fulfilled the law. And Christ gives to me his very
own righteousness. This is what we look for. You
remember those two that prayed, the publican and the Pharisee? All men looked to this religious
man. They thought, surely God will
hear him. He's a religious man. But this publican was considered
a bad man. He was an evil man. And he wasn't
allowed where all the good people were. So he went off in the corner. The people thought that God would
hear the Pharisee, but I tell you the truth, he heard the sinner
and rejected the religious man. Why? Because he said, God, be
merciful to me, the sinner. I like that. The sinner. Not
just a sinner. Not just one among many. He said,
Lord, I don't know about anybody else, but I am the sinner. Be
merciful. What does that word mean? Propituitous. It means a sacrifice. Lord, give me a sacrifice that's
acceptable. Give me a mercy seat. And this
is the second thing you look to Jesus for, a sacrifice. You need righteousness. But I'll
tell you, if God gives you righteousness without a sacrifice, what does
that do? It contaminates it. So He must deal with sin. God
cannot give righteousness unless He first punishes our sins. Therefore, look to Jesus Christ
who has put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. Look at your text again in verse
17. Gideon said, Look on me, and
Duke likewise. And behold, when I come to the
outside of the camp, the camp of the enemy. Notice
this is again against human wisdom. The human wisdom is, you've got
to go in the camp to defeat the enemy. Isn't that right? If the
enemy is there, you've got to go in and defeat him. No! This victory takes place outside
the camp of the enemy. Outside the camp because the
victory was to be won by God and not by man. This victory
was supernatural. Friends, behold that this is
a picture of the victory of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross.
Go to Hebrews. Hebrews chapter 13. Hebrews chapter 13 and verse
10. The apostle says, we have an
altar. whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle. For the bodies of those beasts
whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest
for sin are burned where? Outside the camp. Wherefore Jesus
also that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered
where? Without the camp, outside the
gate. Let us go forth therefore unto
him, where? Without the camp, bearing his
reproach. Now, an altar. An altar is a
place where men offer sacrifices. That's what an altar is. The
Jews had an altar in the city of Jerusalem. It was made of
brass. And they sacrificed on that altar. They spilled the blood of those
animals. But what did they do with the
body and the carcass and the blood and the dung of those animals? They took that outside the camp
and burned it. Believers in Jesus Christ, listen,
we have a better altar than the altar of the law. We have a better
altar not made with brass and gold, but an altar that is not
in the camp of the law, but outside the camp where Jesus suffered
for our sins. Jesus was taken outside the city
and crucified. He was taken out like a dead
body of some beast. That's how they saw Him. That's
how they treated Him, as nothing but worthless carcass. They took Him outside the city,
and He suffered without the gate, being burned under the justice
of God. He was cast out as dumb, and
He was burned under the fires of justice as He hung on the
cross. And it was there on the outside of the camp that Gideon
broke the vessel. Remember the clay pot? That's
where he broke the clay pot. Where was the clay pot of God's
Son broken? His flesh, where was it broken?
Outside the camp. Outside the camp. And what happened after the vessel
was broken? A light. When my Lord Jesus Christ suffered
for my sins and God accepted His one sacrifice, what happened
to Him? He cried, it is finished! The trumpet, He blew the trumpet
and He said, it's finished! And God raised Him from the dead
because He had no more sin to pay for. Death could not hold
Him. God raised Him from the dead
and He set Him on the throne of God, ever living to make intercession
for His people. The Lord Jesus Christ's body
was broken and now the light of the gospel shines forth. Behold Jesus. who was sent to
fulfill our righteousness and die for our sins, now behold
Him. Look on Him who is the light
of the world, that He is accepted with God. How do I know I am accepted with
God? How do I know that my sins are
gone? He's risen. That's how I know. God manifested. It's clear. He's
risen from the dead. And all who know Christ and believe
on Him, look on Him, and are accepted with God. Do you realize this? That God, having accepted His
offering, can never demand payment from me. God cannot demand twice payment
for sins. This is the good news. This is
the message of all who look on Him. And I tell you, when Christ
died and rose again, all of my enemies killed are dead in front
of me. and flee before our face, my
sin is gone. Righteousness is established. I have eternal, everlasting forgiveness
and pardon from God. All that comes from a look. All that comes from looking to
Christ. And what do we do? Go back to your text. Look on
me, you that have looked on him. Now what do you do? He says,
look on me and do likewise. Do likewise. What did he do? He put off the old man. He put
off the flesh. What do we do? Put it off. Put
it off. And we shine as lights. Jesus
said to you, you are the light of the world. You are. Not you shall be. You are. And
what did he do? He blew the trumpet. What do
we do? We blow the trumpet. It's finished. Somebody once
taught me a little Latin. It's the only thing I know. Dictum factum. Said, done. God said it. Christ did it. Salvation is done. This is what
it is to believe and look on Christ. It is to be saved. Have you looked? Do you look? What more is there to do? Nothing. This is the gospel message, a
message of rest, a message of peace, a message of freedom.
Salvation is by grace through faith. That faith, not of yourself. It, faith, is a gift of God,
not of works, lest any man should boast. Now what did Gideon and
them have to boast in? Nothing. They didn't do anything. God did it all. And that's what
salvation is. God doing it all. May God give you such grace to
look and keep looking to Christ. Now the men come forward and
we'll partake of the Lord's Supper together.