Judges chapter 7, our text will
be found in verses 17 and 18. Judges chapter 7, verse 17 and
18, the title of the message is Victory Outside the Camp. Victory Outside the Camp. The Scripture says, Then he 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 ye do." So Gideon now and these 300 chosen men with him have the plan of God. And the plan of God is, go to
the outside of the camp Blow the trumpet, break the pitcher,
shine the light, and say, The sword of the Lord and of Gideon. There's the plan. There's the
plan. And so he goes down to the outside
of the camp. And he does exactly what God
says to do. And guess what? They win. the victory. They win the victory. Now, this victory of Gideon is
truly a message of every believer's warfare in this life. There is
no doubt about this. We could preach, and I have preached,
a message concerning our spiritual warfare and how this battle is
a great picture of the trial of our faith just as it was the
trial of Gideon's faith. Faith in Jesus Christ is for
us as believers a present grace. You're a believer in Jesus Christ,
you have faith right now. Now, I'll tell you what, our
faith is not always the same, is it? It doesn't seem as great
sometimes as it does Most of the time it seems small, doesn't
it? For me, most of the time in my life, my faith seems so
little, so small. But I know this, if you are a
child of God, you have faith. If you are a believer in Christ,
you have faith. True faith is a given grace of
God. It's given by the sovereign grace
of God. And it is kept. by the power
of the Holy Spirit. In other words, God does not
give us faith in Christ and then expect us to keep faith in Christ. No, He gives us His faith and
He keeps us in the faith. In the faith. My faith is not in my faith. And your faith is not in your
faith. Praise God that your faith is not in your faith. Is that
great? That's wonderful. I'm so glad
I'm not running around like these people who have faith only in
their faith. Trying to work out something.
Trying to work for God's privileges. But I know this, if we have true
faith, it is going to be tried, tested, and proven. Proven. Hold your place here. Flip over to 1 Peter 1. In verse 6, Peter says, Wherein
you greatly rejoice? What do we greatly rejoice in?
We rejoice in the election of God, don't we? We rejoice in
the sanctification of the Spirit. We rejoice in the blood of Christ.
We rejoice in the inheritance that is ready to be revealed
to us. We rejoice in these things. These
are great things. We love to hear these things. Wherein you greatly rejoice,
though now for a season, if, need be, ye are in heaviness
through manifold temptations. I love the way that that is written. You rejoice in the salvation
of our God, but for a season. Well, how long is that season?
As long as your life lasts. That's how long that season is.
A very short season. It's not a very long season.
It passes by so quickly. It is but a vapor. It is here
today and gone tomorrow. This little season, God says,
you will if It's necessary. Go through troubles. Many times we think God to be
some angry deity, that he is just looking for an excuse to
cause us to get into a trial. Why do we think that? Because
of our sin. We think that because that's
how we treat others. Because that's how we are by
nature. Because that's how I am as a
parent. We know these things. We assume that He's just always
looking to teach us a lesson. No. We may feel that way because
we know we deserve worse than whatever He gives us. That's
why we feel that way. I'm always waiting for the other
shoe to drop, aren't you? I'm always expecting something
bad is going to happen because I am such a great sinner that
surely God is going to do something to chase it. My scripture says here, if need
be, God does it only when it is necessary. Praise God. Praise God. He's not a dad like
me. Praise God. He is not like one of us who
chasten our children after our own passions. But he is kind
and gentle only to chasten us for what is necessary to try
our faith. And friends, it is necessary
that the trial, verse 7, that the trial of your faith, being
much more precious than gold that perisheth, though it be
tried with fire, might be found unto the praise and honor and
glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. Friends, the trial of
your faith is to be seen just as important as your election,
as your salvation, as your redemption. It is necessary. that our faith
be tried, tested. When I say our faith is tried
by God and tested, is God proving this for Himself? Is God doing
this for His own information because He don't know? No. God gave you the faith. Christ
is the author and the finisher of our faith. He does this so
that we might know. Do you doubt your faith? Tell you what, if you don't doubt
your faith, if you're always confident, you're like that man
in Pilgrim's Progress, Ignorance, I think his name was. He never
doubted at all. He just had it all planned out.
Everything was working fine for him. It was Christian that was
having the doubts. It was Christian that when he
come to the river, it was him that was struggling to breathe.
Surely he would have been crushed. Surely God won't let him in.
How many of us thought that way? What does God do? God tries our
faith. He proves our faith so that we
might have confidence in Him. So that our hope and our experience
and our patience may grow He does this for us. Tribulation, work of patience. Do you think you have enough
patience? Silly question, I know, but no. Tribulation is how you get patience. Experience. Experience in what? Experience in God saving you. In God delivering you. In God
giving you faith to believe in the midst of your trials. And
experience hope, anticipation of what you believe. Anticipation
works. The confidence, assurance in
Christ. And so this can definitely be
seen as a trial of our faith. No doubt tried is gold in a fiery
furnace. You know, gold is not just put
in the furnace once to purify. It's put in often. And the more
often it's put in, the purer it is. The more valuable it is. One thing about this, I've said
it before. One great difference between material gold that is
put in a fire and tried and spiritual gold of our faith or the spiritual
value of our faith is this. When you take the dross off of
the regular gold, the weight of the gold goes down. In other words, you have less.
But when God tries our faith, it gives us more faith, greater
faith, a greater understanding of the faith that He has given
us. It grows. And friends, it is more valuable
than gold, because gold perishes. This faith never perishes until
it's lost in sight. That's it. It won't go away.
And God tries this. And so as Gideon was tried by
faith to go down to battle, even so every believer will be tried
by faith. There is no question concerning
this. Do you face troubles then? Do you rejoice? in Christ. Do you trust Him no matter what
it costs you? You'll find peace and you'll
find assurance in Him. And believers know this, that
whatever our trial that comes our way, it was our Savior that
brought it to us. There is no accident with Him.
Nothing happens by chance. Everything is designed for his
own glory and our good. And we can be encouraged by this. Now, as regards to going down
to outside the camp, This is also a picture, Gideon here is
not just a picture of a believer being tried, he is also a picture
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Where did they go when they went
down? When they went down from the
mountain to go to the battle, they went to the outside of the
camp. And this is significant because
of what is said in Hebrew. Flip over to Hebrews chapter
13. Hebrews chapter 13. Starting at verse 10, it says,
we have an altar. If you're going to approach God
with a sacrifice, you need an altar. You need an acceptable
altar to offer a sacrifice on. Well, we have an altar. You have
an altar. "...whereof they have no right
to eat which serve the tabernacle. For the bodies of those beasts
whose blood was brought into the sanctuary by the high priest
for sin are burned..." Where? Without the can. Wherefore, Jesus also, that he
might sanctify the people with his own blood suffered without
the gate. Let us go forth, therefore, unto
him without the camp bearing his reproach. The apostle reminds
us concerning our altar. That our altar is not made of
brass. Our altar is not some earthly,
physical piece of furniture that you offer a physical sacrifice
on. No. The altar, the sacrifice,
and the high priest are all Jesus Christ Himself. He is our whole
worship. He is the anti-type of all of
those pieces of furniture. Of all those things. In the law,
when the blood was shed, it was brought before God, and they
entered into the presence of God with the blood. But we know this, that Jesus
Christ, our Savior, has entered in with His own blood. He has
entered in once with His own blood. How many times did they
enter in with their blood? How many times do people enter
in with a bloodless sacrifice? Offering on no altar at all,
they offer a bloodless sacrifice to God of their works or their
free will. And how many times do they offer
that? How many times do people rededicate themselves to Jesus,
huh? How many rededications did they have last week? You see,
they're having to rededicate. They're having to re-sacrifice
something. We don't have to re-sacrifice anything. Christ suffered once. He entered in once with His own
blood before God for our sins, and He paid, He redeemed us with
His own blood once. But this also pictured Christ
Not only what he did with the blood, but what they did with
that body of the animal. When they cut that animal, they
shed his blood, his blood poured out, they grabbed it, they put
it on the holy place. Do you know what an animal does
when he's being killed? It's a stench. Their bowels release, and it's
all over the place. The dung, the blood, the guts,
it's all over the place. Bloody sacrifice. When it's all done, they take
the carcass of that animal, they take the dung of that animal,
they take the entrails and all of the remaining things, and
they take it where? To your home? Would you like
that? Would you like somebody to take that to your house? No.
They take it outside. Get that out of here. We don't
want any part of it. And burn it. Wherefore, Jesus also, that He
might sanctify me. with his own blood, suffered, was counted as dumb, and suffered without the gate. Christ our Lord was taken outside
the temple, outside of Jerusalem, and hung on a cross and God poured out my sin on him. God imputed my sin so
that he bare the guilt of it. How much is a sinner worth? Christ was made sin for us, and that's more horrible
than I could possibly imagine. I can't even imagine how much
suffering the Son of God bore in His body when He bore my sins. See the great mercy then of our
Lord who suffered outside the camp. He was despised and rejected,
a man of sorrow, acquainted with grief. We hid, as it were, our
faces from Him. Why? He was so despicable. He
was despised by man and rejected by God because He had our sin
in His own body, forsaken. We beheld him stricken, smitten
of God, and afflicted." What we didn't understand, it
was for us he was doing it. But he was wounded for our transgressions. Truly, he bore the guilt of it,
but truly, it was mine. I don't understand that. He was crushed for our iniquities. And the chastisement of our peace
was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. Grace upon grace
that the righteous, sinless Son of God was cast out of the camp. He was cast out and rejected
like a bloodied, slain beast. Galatians says he was made a
curse. He was made to be a curse and
sin for us. The Scriptures tell us that he
says, I bore the reproach of them that reproach thee. The reproach of them that reproach
thee has fallen on me. He bore the guilt of our sins. I cannot begin to understand
that. He who knew no sin, did no sin, always pleased the Father, and yet the Holy Son of God was
made sin for us. Who could understand that? But
I believe that with all my heart as my only hope. We're born dead
in sin, so that's not so much for us to understand what it
is to be guilty. You've felt some twinge of guilt,
haven't you? Is it comfortable? Do you like
it when you get caught? Now, I'll tell you, we sin, but
when we get caught at it, it's the most uncomfortable, shameful
thing in the world to us. How do you think he felt who
was righteous? And he bore the wrath and hail
of God to justify us. We who deserved to be treated
like dung and burned up, he did that in our place. He did that
in our place. That's what it is to go outside
the camp. It's to bear the reproach of our sins. And praise God that
Jesus Christ has went out of the camp before us. He has went
out before us. As Gideon led the charge, as
Gideon went out down there, he said, as I do, so do you. He went out to the camp first.
Went to the outside of the camp. Even Christ was cast out first. What did Christ accomplish by
this? Well, first of all, go back to your text and you'll
see the order of Christ's accomplishments in what He did outside on the
cross, what He did in His humiliation. Verse 18 says, when I blow the
trumpet, well, that's the first thing Christ did, blew the trumpet.
He told men the truth. He told them the Word of God.
He said, I am the bread of life. I am the way, the truth, and
the life. No man comes to God but by me. All that the Father
giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will
in no wise cast out. I am the bread of life. He that
eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood shall be saved. He said all these things. And
yet, what did they want to do when he said that? They either rejected him and
walked away, or they wanted to kill him. He said, I'm a man
that's told you the truth, and you want to kill me. He blew the trumpet. He was the
prophet of God. And truly, his words were spirit
and truth. You see, the reason men can't
understand what we're talking about is because they only understand
physical things. They don't understand spiritual
things. We're talking about a new birth.
They're still thinking about the old one. We're talking about
a new creation. They're talking about changing
their lifestyle. We're talking about God saving
men. They're talking about making
a decision. Jesus' words are spirit, and
they are truth, and no man can come to the Father but by Him. That's His words, not ours. That's the Word of God, and that's
the only word we want to speak, is God's Word. Second of all,
what did they do? The clay pots, look at verse
20, and the 300 blew the trumpets and break the pitchers, these
earthen vessels that they had in their hand. What was Christ
doing on the outside? Cast out. What was He doing?
His body was being broken for us. Is that not what we say every
time we take the Lord's Supper? Because that's the words of our
Lord. He said, take ye, this is my body which was broken. His body was broken. His body was broken. While Christ was in the world,
men reviled Him and hated Him, and He suffered more than any
man. But friends, He was truly broken when God's hand smote
Him. I think that song says, stricken,
smitten, and afflicted. It says that the greatest stroke
was the one that justice gave, the Father gave. And when He broke the picture,
what else took place? They lifted up the light. When
Christ died, He was in that tomb for three days. But on the third
day, He rose from the dead and poured out His Spirit. He lifted up the light. When He was here, nobody could
see Him. Nobody really understood who
He was. He didn't walk around like the picture with a little
halo on His head. You know, little, what is that, hippie Jesus. Hippie
Jesus with the halo, that wasn't Him. You couldn't tell Him apart
from anybody else. But when the vessel was broken,
and He came back, I bet you, you could tell the difference. His disciples, and then, oh,
it's a ghost! Oh, it's a spirit! He said, no,
no, it's Me. Look, I've got flesh and bone
just like you've got. Oh, but it was some kind of different
flesh and bone because they were afraid. Friends, His body was broken,
but now the light shines out of darkness into our hearts. And this is the light, the light
of the gospel shines out. And friends, whatever our Lord
did outside the camp, he did for us. But he also tells us
to do likewise. Gideon said, look on me. Jesus
says, Come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and
I'll give you rest." Friends, our gospel is not for
the righteous. Isn't that so? If you're righteous
in your own works, believe me, you're in the wrong place. But
I see the people that are here, and I know you, and you identify
with me. I'm a sinner. I'm a sinner. And the gospel is for sinners.
I'm so glad the gospel is for sinners. It's not for good people. The gospel is not for people
who obey the law and do good things. The gospel is for those
who are in need of forgiveness. And this is the light that shined
out of darkness that we saw. It was a light that shined in
our hearts, a light of mercy. And friends, Jesus accomplished
salvation for sinners outside the camp. Our salvation is done. The victory is won. The victory
is won. What else do I need to do? The victory is done. I remember
seeing this show. This prince, he never really
wanted to fight in the wars anyway, but he waited until the whole
war was over and he came out riding on his white steed. And
they said, well, you're a little late. The whole war's over. That's how we got to come to
Christ. The victory is done. You come with nothing. Friends, if we're to have salvation,
where are we to go? Well, you've got to go where
salvation is. It's outside the camp. If you're going to be a believer
in Jesus Christ, then friends, you've got to go outside the
camp. Now, that doesn't sound bad,
but remember, that's where the dung is. You must bear His reproach. You must be hated and despised
by this world. Is that not what happens when
we blow the trumpet? When you tell friends and your
family about the gospel of Jesus Christ and that their God is
no God, how do they treat you? Do they invite you back? Come
on back to the house and have supper and explain how their
God is worthless? Do they want to hear that? They
want to hear how their religion, a free will works religion, is
vain and empty and is no God at all? Do they like that? No. They'll test you out if you tell
them the truth. You beat around the bush, they
may keep you around a little while. But if you blow the trumpet,
they'll hate you. Oh, that's good. I'm so glad. What a badge of
honor to bear his reproach. To bear his name. To sound his praise. What an honor to break this clay
pot. I hate this thing, don't you? I hate this nature of sin. And I want to put it off. And friends, that's what we do
as believers. We put off the old. Repent. I was talking to Scott about
repentance. We were talking about people repenting from one particular
sin. No, we need to repent from our
goodness. That's what we need to repent from. We need to repent
from our goodness. Why? Because our goodness is
sin. We need to wholly trust on Christ
alone outside the camp. And friends, when we do that,
this light will shine. This light of the gospel will
shine. Even as the Lord said, He said, Do as I do. Gideon, who was a type of our
Lord Jesus Christ and these 300 men, they did what Gideon did. And guess what? They won. They won without putting one
foot in the camp. Friends, we're not to go into
the camp of the enemy. We're not to go into that camp.
The victory's outside. I've seen men who thought they
would stay outside. And they said, well, I'll just
go in a little bit. They never came out. To be a friend of God is to be
an enemy of this world. And to be a friend of this world
is to be an enemy of God. Jesus Christ died for the sins
of His people. He's accomplished the victory. His people believe Him. And they bear His name. I pray that God would help us
to go to Him. who's outside the camp. Break this flesh. Blow the horn
of the gospel. And shout the sword of the Lord. And of Gideon. And of Fred Evans. And of Gilbert Burns. The sword
of the Lord God has given us. And that sword is His gospel.
The piercing of the soul. Unconvincing man of sin, righteousness
and judgment. Behold the Lamb of God. I'm so
thankful for Him, aren't you? He is my all. I pray that God blesses to your
hearts. This fan will be dismissed in prayer. Holy and gracious Father, we
thank You for Your blessings of mercy that have brought us
here tonight. And Father, thank You for Your Spirit. Father,
I pray that Your Word, oh, Father, that Your Word might
save sinners according to Your will. Father, I'm so thankful that
You have saved this sinner. And Father, I pray that you would give us peace, that you would give us faith to trust you, that you do all things well. Forgive us of our sins and bless us as we go. I pray
that Pray for our families, those that don't know Christ. Even so, Lord, as you revealed
yourself to us, we know this, that it is not beyond your hand
to reveal yourself to them. I pray that they would come out
to the outside of the camp with us and bear his reproach. We ask these things in Jesus'
name, Amen. Hey, how you doing? I'm Fred Evans. I'm the pastor. What's your name? I've been here
about About four and a half years.
Yeah? You're new here? Okay, in the
area? Oh, don't do that. Don't learn
religion. Salvation's in a person, not
a religion. You've got to know Him, and that's it. There's no
other hope. Hey, babe. It's all about Christ,
and that's it. I'm going to talk, baby. Go in
there. Yeah. What's that? What's that? Well, if He is, then there is
no God, because that's not even the definition of God, is it?
If God is, then God is sovereign and does all things after the
counsel of His own will. If you wish to take this, you're
welcome to it. It's a Bible here. Actually, he knows more about
pain because his son suffered more pain than anybody else.
You see, I don't know what it's like to be without sin and then
suffer for sin. I only know what it's like to
sin, and I get upset when I have to suffer for it. I get upset. Well, his son suffered when he
wasn't even guilty. He suffered the guilt. Absolutely. Yeah. He is God, and he became a man. David? Well, David was the descendant. He's the descendant of David.
And David, he is called David in the Old Testament because
he's the branch of David. He's the seed of David. It's a sin. Everything I do is
sin. I don't do anything but sin.
I'm talking to you and I'm sinning. I sin all the time. Because that's all I am. God says there's none righteous,
no, not one. I don't think so. No, God gave
them for us to eat. We have to eat. Well, you got
to eat. No, no, I don't think it's wrong. I think if you need to eat, you
should go get something to eat. You know, a hamburger is good.
I like a hamburger. Cruel? What's cruel is when they would
rather save an animal than a human. That's cruel. When people would
rather save a baby whale than kill a baby human. That's insanity. Huh? Yes, the Scriptures are clear.
They don't have a soul. Yeah, they return to the dust.
They return to the ground. They don't have, you know, a
moral capacity for understanding. Yeah, the Scriptures are clear.
Yeah, I believe the Word of God. Yeah. Yeah, I'll take God's Word
for it. Since he made it, so I'll take
his word for it. What's that? No, they're there. Oh, yeah,
they're there, but they're just because they have life don't
mean that they have a soul like we have. They have no capacity
for moral judgment. In other words, an animal is
instinctive. It does something instinctively. Oh, yeah, they can perceive things,
but they always act in an instinctive way, an interest. You know, it's
not necessarily, you know, they don't go out there and say, well,
man, if I kill that deer, if the lion kills the deer, and
I go, well, the lion says, well, if I kill the deer, I'm going
to feel bad about it. The lion don't feel bad about killing. Because it's his nature. It's
his nature. I don't have anything. No. I've
got water I can give you, but that's all we have. We don't
have anything else. Well, I didn't. I didn't. Normally
on Wednesday, we don't prepare for this. Usually we just kind
of go. But I'll tell you what, let me
go down in the kitchen. I'll see if I got some. Okay. And this is what I got here. Here's some cheesecake and... Okay. Okay. All right. Well, there's some soda for you
then. Well, there's no females or males
in angelic beings, so... Yeah, there are no distinctions
like that in heaven. So... What's a Kabbalah? Well, anything that requires
you to earn God's favor is wrong to read. You ain't ever going
to earn God's favor. Not by working. The only one
that's earned God's favor is Jesus Christ. So we look to Him for all our
righteousness and all my atonement for my sins. He is everything. And so I trust Him. And I tell
you, trust Him and He'll forgive you of your sins. Or you can
keep on trying to work and earn His favor, but you ain't going
to do that. It won't work. You can't do it. I mean, unless you just want
to believe in a God that, you know, is like us. God's not like us. No. He's precious. Not if you believe on Christ.
There is no wrong way. He is the way. If you believe
on Christ, there's hope. There's not any hope in any place
else. Ah, that's nothing to Him. But
you should believe now. Because faith now is the only
thing important. The faith you had doesn't do
you any good. All right, y'all have a good
evening, okay? We'll see y'all, Lord willing,
Sunday. Faith that you had in the past doesn't do you any good.
And faith that you think you're going to have in the future doesn't
do you any good. You've got to believe now. Well, when Christ is your everything,
and you know Him, then you believe. It does. That way it shows that
He controls all things. God does all things well. That's
it. Thank you, sweetie. Yeah. To Him, Not to us. 20 years is 20 years. Bye. Y'all have a good evening. Have a good evening to you. I
bless you, my brother. I bless you, okay? Yeah. Yeah. I will. I gotta close up. You can go
back there and wait for me. I'll be back there in just a
minute. I mean, do you want me to? Do I want you to? Oh, uh, no, no, I'm fine. Yeah. Daddy, I grew up back there. Okay. Well, go on inside before
you get somebody else sick. Oh, man. Well, it was nice having
you. Okay? I hope you enjoy your drink and,
uh... Very simple. Jesus Christ is
all your hope. There you go. The chance? Well, there's no
chances with God. God does whatever He pleases.
If God wants to save you, He will. So I suggest that you, baby,
should beg Him for mercy. And ask Him to show you Christ,
because that's mercy. I've found mercy. I'm telling
you where to find it. I don't have time. I've got to
study. No, I like going to the store
and actually having it already done myself. I'd like somebody
else to do it for me and so I can eat. But other than that, you
know, yeah. Well, the Lord ate fish
and the Lord ate meat. And, you know, the Lord ate all
those things. I mean, the priests, they used
to eat the fat of the animal. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, God's not insane. We may
be, but God isn't. Matter of fact, I know we are.
Yeah, because we won't believe in His Son. Isn't that insane
that God would send His Son and we wouldn't believe Him? That's
insanity. When God says, I'll forgive you
of your sins, and we still want to try to do ourselves, God has to prove that, not you.
Okay? Faith is not something you're
going to see. Otherwise, it's not faith. There's only one. There's only
one, Christ. It's a person. It's not a set
of rules. It's a person. You know Christ. You know life. And when this
life is done, if you know Christ, you have assurance because God
raised Him from the dead. well not with us just with him
just with him I gotta go and lock up so uh it's nice to see
you and our times right there so all right