All right, if you'll take your
Bibles and turn me to Judges chapter 7. Judges chapter 7. Tonight we'll
be dealing with verses 7 and 8. Maybe 7 and 8. They're so full. I tell you, I've never seen Judges
so full, but I've been blessed in the study of Gideon. this last couple of months, few
months we've been studying. The title of the message this
evening is the trial of our faith. The trial of our faith. Tonight
I want us to see that Gideon's trial of faith is exactly as
our trial of faith. Now, the Lord said to Gideon
and to these 300 men that had left, you remember there were
32,000, and then there were 10,000, and now then there are 300. And God has brought them down
to such a low degree because they were about to boast. And
so the Lord said unto Gideon, by the 300 men that lapped, will I save you? and deliver the Midians into
thine hand, and let all the other people go every man unto his
own place." Now, the Lord has proven already, proven Himself
to Gideon many times. We've seen this when Gideon was
threshing wheat cowardly behind the barn, and the Lord came to
him and said in chapter Look over at chapter 6, and it is verse 16. The Lord said unto Gideon, Surely
I will be with thee, and thou shalt smite the Midianites as
one man. This was his promise from the
beginning. From the time he came to Gideon,
this has always been his promise. He was going to deliver them.
He was going to use Gideon and he was going to deliver them
from the Midianites that oppressed him. God was with him when he
cast down that altar of Baal so that the man of the city wouldn't
kill him. The Lord was with him and saved
him. The Lord was with him when he asked about the wool and the
dew. You remember the blessings. The
wool and the dew. The wool is Christ and the dew
is the blessings of heaven. And all around it was dry and
there was no blessings anywhere else. Only in Christ. And then he did the opposite.
He said, well, now then, make the wool dry and the land wet. Well, we know this, that Christ
is risen and poured out His blessings by pouring out His Spirit. The
Lord had affirmed Himself The Lord had proven Himself to Gideon
time and time and time again. He's been long-suffering with
Gideon. But now, the Lord will try the
faith of Gideon. The Lord promised Gideon that
He would deliver them And all his promises thus far have come
true and the Lord proved himself and now then it's time for Gideon
to be tried. The Lord revealed to Gideon that
not all who come were chosen. That's what he reveals first.
Not all who come are chosen. If you go over to Matthew, flip
over to Matthew chapter 22, the Lord himself says this. Matthew
chapter 22, and this is concerning the wedding
feast, and after they had beat the hedges and got everybody
to come in and was furnished with guests. Verse 11 says, And
when the king came in to see the guest, he saw there was a
man which had not on a wedding garment. And he saith unto him,
Friend, how comest thou in, hither not having a wedding garment?
And he was speechless. Then said the king to the servants,
Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer
darkness. There shall be weeping and gnashing
of teeth. Many are called, but few are
chosen." This man came in his own road. This man came in his
own righteousness. He had heard about God. He had
heard about righteousness. He had heard about the wedding
feast. He came to the wedding feast,
but He came with His own garment. And friends, if any man comes
to God by his own works, he will be cast into outer darkness.
Why? Because we have no good works. You see, here in this,
Gideon sounded the trumpet. He sent out messengers with this
message. God has said He'll deliver us. And 32,000 men show up. What a sight. Gideon was all by himself just
yesterday. And here it is. 32,000 men show
up. God said that's too many. You tell those that are afraid,
go home. Those who are not willing to
lay down their lives and hazard their lives for the gospel, go
home. You see, God doesn't take part
of you. It's either all or nothing. This matter of faith is all or
nothing. And then He has 10,000, and then
He brings it down to 300 men. God did this to keep Gideon's
eyes on the promise. And that's why God tries our
faith. That's one of the many reasons
God tries our faith. To keep our eyes off of this
world and on His promise. To stop looking at what we can
see and look at what God has promised. God said, I will save
you. I will deliver you. Gideon was looking at the number
of men. And God said, Nope, you won't
look at the number. You'll look to Me. The result
of his faith in the promise of God was very successful. We know that the Midianites were
delivered into his hand. We know the end. We know that
God saved Israel. So his faith in God was a successful
one. But I'll tell you this, it was
not successful in the eyes of the world. It is not successful. Imagine, just if you will for
a moment, use ourselves as an illustration. Next Sunday morning, 32,000 people
show up. Don't know why? Somebody said
something. Somebody said something to somebody
else. Next thing you know, you've got 32,000 people waiting out
there. We've got to preach outside. It's so many people. And then after the first message
concerning the sovereign grace of God, 22,000 leave. 22,000 say, well, that's just not it.
That's not it. I don't want any part of that.
And they leave. Well, that's OK. We're still left with 10,000. Hey, we're still doing pretty
good at 10,000. So they come back the next Sunday. And they actually hear what I
say this time. And they go away. And say, instead of 300, we're
left with 3. We're left with three. The world
would call that a failure. The world would call that a failure. And I'm sure that it would shake
our faith. I'm sure that our faith would
be shaken. I know this, that many times
I make sure I'm preaching the gospel to you. I want to make
sure that I'm preaching the gospel to you. I don't want any question
about it. I don't want to add anything
to it. I'm not trying to get 32,000 people and I'm not trying
to keep 32,000 people. I'm not even trying to keep three
because I couldn't do it. Surely, our faith would be shaken
and we'd start questioning ourselves and doubting ourselves. But God's
people, we don't live by numbers and we don't live by what we
see. We live by the promises of God. We live by the promises
of God, not by signs, not by circumstances. God's people are
faithful to stand fast. Where? In the promise of God. What's God's promise to you,
believer? I will save you. I will save you. Does not the Scripture say concerning
our Master, our Savior, Jesus Christ, he shall save his people
from their sin? I'll tell you this, if one of
God's people, if one of God's elect people were lost, then
Jesus Christ is a failure. And there's no hope for us. But
we know that just ain't going to happen. He will save us from
our sins. We rest by faith in His promise. And that's what the Lord is doing
here with Gideon, is He is causing him to rest in trust in His promise
rather than what he sees. I want us to see then the great
faith of Gideon. We know this is great faith because
the scripture tells us concerning this in Hebrews chapter 11, chapter
12. It tells us of Gideon's faith. Let me make sure I got that right. I think it's 11. I think it's
11. Hebrews 11. And he said the tale
of Gideon would take too long. He said of Gideon, of Barak,
of Jephthah, all these and the judges. He said Gideon was a
man of great faith. And here we're going to see how
great his faith was. See how great his faith had grown
from the time he was behind the barn, hiding, to now. You've got to realize this just
was a few days. a very long span of time at all. He had grown in faith. You see,
in this text, he is no longer asking for signs. He is no longer
complaining of his weakness. He hears the promises of God
and simply obeys. Read this with me. And the Lord
said unto Gideon, by the three hundred men that lapped, I will
save you and deliver the Midianites into thy hand, and let all the
other people go, every man into his place. So the people took
their food in their hand and their trumpets, and he sent all
the rest of Israel, every man to his tent, and retained those
three hundred men, and the host of Midian was beneath him in
the valley." You see, he was ready. He wasn't seeking God
to perform any more miracles. He was ready. Whatever you say. His faith had grown. And believer
in Christ, I know this. The Scriptures exhort every believer
to grow in the grace and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, this grace that we grow
in, of course, is not His saving grace. We know this, that we
have His grace from eternity to eternity. He chose us in Christ
before the foundation of the world. He redeemed us in Christ
when He died on the tree. We rose again with Christ when
He ascended to the throne. And I know this, when we came
to Christ and realized what He had done, He imputed His Spirit. He imputed His righteousness
to us. And that grace is settled. In
other words, I've got just as much of that grace as you do.
And you have just as much of that grace as I do. And that
grace doesn't go anywhere. That grace is as high as it possibly
can be and it never moves. This grace that He's talking
about are the graces of the Spirit that come to us, the gifts. of
the Spirit that come to us. Love, joy, peace, meekness, temperance,
faith. Are you fully grown in any one
of those categories? Because I'm not. And faith is
one of those. So we are not fully yet grown in these graces. We all have room that we may
grow in these graces. And we grow by the grace and
knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, how? How? How do you suspect to grow? I
know this, if I lay on the couch and eat potato chips and donuts,
I'm going to grow. I'm going to grow, but just not
in the right direction. No, if we're to grow in the grace
and knowledge of Jesus Christ, God has promised us this, we
will always be by trouble and tribulation, not so much in prosperity. Believers barely grow in prosperity. They always grow in tribulation. And God uses these troubles,
these sorrows, these tears of our life, and by these we learn
the experience of God's grace. We learn by these troubles. We learn His tenderness, His
compassion, His grace, His kindness, His love, His mercy. These troubles teach us and we
grow in humility. We loathe more of ourself and
love more of Him. That's what it's to grow in the
grace and knowledge of Christ. You want to know how you're growing?
How do you feel about yourself? How do you feel about him? That's
in opposite directions, isn't it? Absolute opposite directions. And this is our promise. Believer,
you want to see your promise, go to Romans chapter 5. I want
you to see several promises here that you and I may take to heart
that we may grow. Here's the promise of God, first
of all, Justified by faith. Wow. Justified. You all know what that means?
That means absolutely, completely innocent. That doesn't mean just
as if I never sin. No. It means I never sin. That's
what justification means. In the eyes of God, I've never
sinned. Isn't that something? You see, I've never seen that.
Because all I see is my sin. But God says, I'm justified.
And how? By faith. Not the act of faith, but friends,
the object of faith. It's not the act of faith that
justifies us. There's no action that justifies
us to make us innocent. No. That is an object. Christ the Lord. He is the object
of our faith that justifies us. And we have, look at this, peace
with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Is that not a promise?
You, believer, are justified and because God has justified
you, you have peace with God through Jesus Christ. Scripture
says He has made peace with God by the blood of His cross. Peace. Not this worldly peace where
they get people to sign papers and they break it. I'm talking
about eternal peace with God Almighty. Scripture says, "...by whom we
also have access by faith into the grace wherein we stand and
rejoice in hope of the glory of God." We have access. right now. You got access right
now. You won't wait. There's no line.
I like that about our Lord, there's no line. I don't like lines. Especially when it comes to prayer
and I need something. I don't want a line. I have direct
immediate access to my Father at any time. What a promise. You believe that? I didn't say, did you see that?
You believe. You trust. You see, we're not
walking by sight. We're walking by faith. I have
access to God because God said so. I'm justified because God
said so. I'm saved because God said so. We have access to God and we
rejoice in hope of the glory of God. In other words, we're
waiting here in confidence. We have hope. We have confidence
in this, that we will see the glory of God in the face of Jesus
Christ when we see Him face to face. We have that anticipation. Hope is not a wish. It's an anticipation. We have a hope. We have a good
hope. We have a solid hope. And not only so, verse 3, not
only do we have these promises, they just keep on going. The
hits just keep on coming. Look at this. And not only do
we glory in this, but we glory in tribulation. Wait a second. Did he just say that? You know
he did. We glory in tribulation. Why? Paul, would you say such
a thing? Knowing that tribulation worketh
patience, and patience experience, and experience hope, and hope
maketh not a shame, because the love of God is shed abroad in
our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. Now let me tell you what he did
not say. Paul is not saying we are happy in tribulation. No. Matter of fact, in Hebrews,
he tells us that this is not joyous, but grievous. Nobody
is trying to make light of our grief. If you have grief, if
you have sorrow, if somebody's grieving, it's all right that they grieve. It's all right. We're always
trying to stop people from grieving. It's alright to grieve. It's
not going to be comfortable. It's not going to be joyous.
This life is never meant to be joyous for the believer. It's
meant to be a struggle, a battle. It's meant to be hard. But afterward it yields a peaceable
fruit. Always. Always. Christians, God has promised
us trials and tribulations and they're not joyous, but they're
never meant to hurt us. They're never meant to destroy
us or bring us to despair. God never intends one trial to
destroy us or push us away, but rather He uses them to draw us
to Himself. Have if we had no trials none
of us would be here tonight Why we have it all handled we
got it all that we don't need this I Need this You realize
something you need this you need this You have troubles And God says
I'm using them for your benefit Every single one of them. And if they're not necessary,
I won't give them to you. Is that a promise you can hang
on to? You bet you. You can hang on to that. It's in our trial of faith that
we are not to look at what's going on around us. We're not trusting what we see
or what we feel. We're trusting what God says.
We're trusting in the finished, accomplished work of Christ. See, I'm not trusting my works. That sure makes his life a whole
lot easier. I'm not trusting in my obedience
to the law. No. I'm resting on Christ and
Him alone. He's all my salvation. We're
rather trusting the promises of God. And we must see that God is blessing
us in our trials. Knowing this, that tribulation
worketh patience. The result of Gideon's trial
was a blessing, and so will the result of every trial that you
face in this life. Trusting God always requires
patience. If we are not waiting on God, we are not trusting Him.
We're trying to do it ourselves. And let me let you in on a secret.
that you may know, if we do it, we just screw it up. That's just
so. If we take it in hand to do it
ourselves, we'll just mess it up. I was talking to Todd Nybert
this week, pastor, and I found something to be true.
I said, you know, Todd, It seems like the more I try and meddle
with people, the worse it gets, not the better. And I've just
determined to leave it alone." And he said, well, that's good.
That's good. That's good. He said, it's true.
The more we meddle, the more we try, the worse it gets. Friends, God is faithful to do
His work, to do His will. We need to wait on Him in faith,
believing and trusting Him. Gideon was in tribulation. He
was going to war with 300 men. When I was in the military and
they told us that we were going to war, now I didn't go. Praise
God, I didn't go. But when they told us we were,
You could have shown me every military man in the world that
we had on our side, and I still would have been just as scared.
And now you're telling me that Gideon stood over the top of
these men that could not be numbered with 300 men, and he wasn't scared? He had 300 men, and he waited on God patiently. to fulfill his promise. You know,
when he was standing over me, he didn't have any tactical plans.
He had 300 men, and he was waiting for God to tell him what to do. Is that not patience? Did Gideon
not learn patience? Wait. Friends, if you're in trouble,
your family's a mess, your job's being threatened, you're sick,
or someone you know is dying, What are you as a believer to
do? The same thing you always do. Be faithful and wait. We don't demand anything of God.
I cannot stand the person to tell me, well, I'm just going
to claim this. What an idiot. If you don't have a promise,
you've got no claim on anything. And I've seen people do it. They
say, oh, I'm just going to claim the promise and my uncle is going
to be healed. And sure enough, he's dead in
the next week. What does that mean? That God was slacking his
promise? No, they were an idiot. They didn't have a promise. We live by faith, friends. You know what my faith is? That
God will do what's right. Whether God kills or God makes
alive, God does good. Whether God saves or God damns,
God does good. Whatever God does is good. Now,
can I see that with my eyes? Absolutely not. I look out there
and I see chaos everywhere I go. But by faith I see order. I see
everything moving according to God's purpose. And He does what
He wills. Faithfully live no matter what
occurs around you. Every day living by faith in
prayer, in study, and especially worshiping, hearing the gospel.
Be faithful to these things. That's how we wait on the Lord
to do exactly what we've been doing before the trouble came. If we were faithful before, we
should still be faithful now. Have you ever noticed when people
get in trouble that that's the first thing they leave off? Man, why would we do that? Why would we leave off being
faithful when God is the only one that can help? So in trouble, we wait faithfully,
patiently. on the promise of God. Tribulation yields to us patience,
humility. And what does patience yield?
It yields experience. What is your experience concerning
your troubles and God's promise? I'll tell you, I'm at 100%. He has been faithful every step
of the way, even when I'm not. He's been faithful. He's always
faithful. I want to show you this by one
of God's people, a woman that I know. She believed on the Lord Jesus
Christ and her husband didn't. And for many years, she struggled.
She faithfully attended worship. She faithfully endured the verbal
abuse of her husband. She faithfully served him. And
one day, God put him in a position where he couldn't do anything.
He was paralyzed. He depended on her completely,
so he had to go to church. And she faithfully took care
of him, patiently took care of him, patiently brought him to
service. And the Lord finally saved this
man. Now tell me that that's not an
experience that she'll ever forget. It's not even my experience,
but I won't forget it. Tribulation, work of patience,
endurance, faithful endurance, and endurance when it's brought
out. God, by experience, will teach us he's faithful. He's
faithful. And not only that, one of her
sons is just taking a pastry. Preacher of the gospel and her
other son is a believer in Christ leading the singing at another
church. This has been my experience and
I know it's yours. And the more troubles we have,
the more faith and patience are needed and the greater our experience
is when he delivers us from our troubles. Gideon's faith was not in 32,000. It was not even in the 300. Gideon's
faith was in the promise of God. And this, too, is our sure ground
and rock of salvation because God has shed abroad in our hearts
His love. His love. Believer, is Jesus Christ all
your righteousness? Is He all your atonement and
redemption? Is He all your strength? He is to me. And it's His love for me. that
gives me strength in every trial, in every trouble. And friends,
He doesn't just give it a little. He sheds it abroad in our hearts. Be faithful. Trust God. And the last thing I want to
mention is Gideon's trial of letting go. Look at this. In your text, go back to your
text. Look at the last part. He says,
And let all the other people go, every man to his place. And notice at the second part
of verse 8, And he sent all the rest of Israel, every man, to
his tent. He sent them home. Let them go. Is it not your heart's desire
and prayer to God that your family and friends be saved? I know
it's mine. We should, without compromise,
declare the gospel of God's grace that Christ is able to save the
vilest of sinners. I'm not ashamed to say that.
I'm not ashamed to say that there's not one that is beyond his hand
to save. I know that. But friends, once we've declared
the gospel to people, let them go. Once we've declared the gospel
to people and they have rejected the gospel, let them Go. You're not going to educate them
to heaven. Not going to do it. You're not
going to be able to take your Bible and beat them into submission
to believe the truth. If men will not hear us and let
them go their way, And we cannot convince them,
we cannot save them, we cannot educate them to believe on Christ. That's the work of God alone. I know this, God's been delighted
to use weak, insignificant men to preach the gospel. You're
looking at the most insignificant man. in Louisville. Ask anybody. They don't know who I am. Insignificant. But if we go after people who
declare that they do not believe the gospel of God's grace, if
we go after them, we're going to compromise. We're going to
compromise. You know that this, the most
loving and caring man that ever walked the face of the earth,
the Lord Jesus Christ, what did He do when they walked away from
Him? He let them go. Remember when it says His disciples,
no more! He said, He said that no man
can come unto me except the Father which hath sent me draw him.
And many of his disciples went away, not following him. Now,
he didn't walk after them saying, well, let me re-explain that.
Let me just try to explain that in a different way, so maybe
you guys would come back. No, he didn't do that at all.
He let them go. He let them go. To compromise the gospel for
the sake of keeping men in the church or keeping friendships
is a travesty and it's treason. It's treason. If men turn to the gospel, it
won't be because of us. God does it. God does it. Let them go. And I guarantee you, we'll be
more surprised at what God does than what we thought we could
do. God doesn't need us like we think he does. There's plenty more here. I'm
sure I've got plenty more to say on this. I pray that God help us in our
troubles and trials. I pray that he would always let
us remember that they're for our good and not for our hurt. And that we should always look
to his promise and not at what we see, but what he says. I will save you. When you can't see, walk on that. You'll find solid ground. You
can't walk on it, crawl on it. You can't crawl on it, lay on
it. It's solid. It won't move. Preach the gospel. Be faithful. And when men will not hear it,
don't compromise it. It's too precious. Too precious. Let's stand and we'll be dismissed
in prayer.