I want to turn with me to Judges
chapter 6. I had thought last week that
I wouldn't continue with Gideon, but my wife encouraged me to
go ahead and finish the account of Gideon in scripture, and I
appreciate that. Judges chapter 6. We're going to look at Gideon.
This is the third part actually in this study of Gideon. It springs from Hebrews chapter
11 where it says, by faith these people, they received all these
things. They received testimony from
God that they were righteous by the blood of Christ. So many
things. And he gets to Gideon and he
just says, and what shall I more say? For the time would fail
me to tell of Gideon. Well, we just happen to be taking
that time. So I'm thankful that we can. The book of Hebrews just
didn't have enough space to expound all of the Old Testament scriptures,
and sometimes I wish that it had, but it gives us enough to
be able to know. The important point there is
that faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is how we live. Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ
is how we come to God. Everything has to do with what
God has received, what he has provided and received for us
in the Lord Jesus Christ. And I was thinking about, I often
turn these things over in my mind that are familiar to us,
the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you do that? It says in Romans
chapter 10, that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord
Jesus, And in Titus chapter two, it says that he is our God and
Savior, the Lord Jesus. It's quite amazing to think about
that the one who is our Lord has become our Savior. The one
who is God himself. This is our hope. The one we
offended has himself become our Savior. And this, as we sing
together, as we meet together, as we remember these things together,
it just draws our hearts out, doesn't it? In love for God,
our Savior. And so it doesn't matter whether
we open this place in scripture or that place in scripture, we're
always looking for God, our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. And so
we want to do that here in the book of Judges. And since we've
covered a good part of this, I want to focus on going forward. I want to focus on what we have
here. I've got to change my glasses. And if you'll just remember,
Gideon, whose name means soldier or warrior, soldier of God. And
this immediately brings to our recognition that all of God's
people are soldiers. We're warriors, and we fight,
and we have an enemy, and there's a victory. But in this fight,
the battle is not ours, it's the Lord's. It is ours in the
sense that it's our enemies, but we don't actually, we're
not capable of fighting against our enemies. We wrestle not with
flesh and blood, it says in Ephesians 6. but with principalities and
powers, things that we have no strength against, but our victory
is faith. And that means that Christ, the
one who shed his blood for us and offered himself to God for
us and sacrificed for our sins to satisfy God, to satisfy his
justice against our sins, to make propitiation to God in order
that he might cleanse us and present us in the very presence
of God in all of His glory. In order for Him to do that, that is our salvation, that is
our victory, and that is the way that we overcome our enemies,
is by what Christ has done. And so we're gonna see that today
amplified here in this account of Gideon in the book of Judges. But his name was Gideon, which
means soldier of God. But here in the 31st verse of
Judges 6, it says that his father, Joash, had this amazing wisdom
given to him to speak against the idol worshipers, the false
religionists of that day, those who promoted Baal worship. the worship of the Dunghill God,
because that's the worship of man's religion, the Dunghill
God. And so, Joe Ash, Gideon's father,
said to those worshipers, they were pleading for their God. They were trying to save their
God. They had to find out, they had
to search out who had offended their God. And Joash said to
them, will you plead for Baal? Are you going to take the role
of God over your God and plead and save your God? You see, the
rhetorical answer to that question is our God pleads for us. Our
God saves us. Our God knows His people and
He doesn't need man to search out. He finds them, He finds
them, He seeks them, and He finds them, and He brings them, and
He saves them, and He pleads for them, and it's all in the
Lord Jesus Christ. What a contrast, isn't it, to
reverse the roles of God in men, and put men in the position of
making their God, or men, their works of making, saving themselves,
and pleading for themselves. What a pitiful thing that is.
And so we see that in the name of this soldier of God, Gideon,
whose father said, Jeroboam, let the shameful thing plead
for himself if he's a God. That's what it means. And so
in verse 33, after this account of him throwing down the altar
of Baal and cutting down the grove there and offering a sacrifice
to God on the rock that God appointed on that altar he built there.
In verse 33 it says, then all the Midianites and the Amalekites
and the children of the east were gathered together and went
over and pitched in the valley of Jezreel. Three different groups
of people are mentioned here, there. And that tells us that
we have a lot of different kinds of enemies. But they're fighting against
the Lord and against his Christ. And the way that we win over
our enemies is the same. And so that's what we're going
to see here. But the spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon. And
he blew a trumpet, and Abiezer was gathered after him. This
is the name of a man who was in the tribe of Manasseh, from
which Gideon came. Verse 35, and Gideon sent messengers
throughout all Manasseh, who also was gathered after him,
and he sent messengers unto Asher, and unto Zebulun, and unto Naphtali,
and they came to meet them. These are different tribes, different
people within the nation of Israel. Verse 36, Gideon said to God,
if thou wilt save Israel by mine hand, as thou hast said, behold,
I will put a fleece of wool in the floor, and if the dew be
on the fleece only, and it be dry upon all the earth beside,
then shall I know that thou wilt save Israel by my hand, as thou
hast said. And so it was that, for he arose
up early on the morrow, and thrust the fleece together, and wringed
the dew out of the fleece a bowl full of water. 39. And Gideon said to God, let not
thine anger be hot against me, and I will speak but this once.
Let me prove, I pray thee, but this once with the fleece. Let
it now be dry only upon the fleece, and upon all the ground let there
be dew. And God did so that night, for it was dry upon the fleece
only, and there was dew on all the ground. Gideon is seeking
assurance. He was a man who didn't have
any self-confidence. And this is the way it is when
God comes to us and convinces us of the gospel. The Apostle
Paul says, we are the circumcision which worship God and rejoice
in Christ Jesus. We worship God in the spirit
and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh.
in what we are by nature. We have no confidence in that.
In fact, we have good reason to doubt, and that's our problem,
that our flesh and our old man and our carnal mind and all these
things will overpower us. Now this is the point here, is
that even though Gideon doubted, He looked to God to assure him
of the victory in the battle for which God had sent him by
the angel. The Lord Jesus Christ had sent
him. And he had assured him by the accepted sacrifice as we
saw last time. But here again, Gideon is seeking
assurance. He needs God to assure him. And
so he first says, I'll take this wool, this fleece of wool, and
I'll put it on the ground, on the ground of the threshing floor
where he had threshed wheat, near the wine press, remember?
Where he had hidden and threshed the wheat near the wine press,
the beading out of the wheat near the wine press, and God
had appeared to them there in the angel, the Lord Jesus Christ.
And it was there that he also put the fleece, that wool fleece,
on the ground. He said, if truly you're going
to be with me, if truly you're going to deliver the many nights
to my hand, then let the dew be on the fleece only. And in
the morning it was dry everywhere except the fleece. And again
he said, well, maybe I need you to reverse it now.
Can you make the fleece dry and the ground wet? I want to sew
it up all together. What does it mean? It means that
assurance comes from God only concerning the Lord Jesus Christ,
the one who is the Lamb of God. You see, all of God's assurance
to us comes concerning Christ. Everything God has to say, every
sign that He gives His people will be concerning the Lord Jesus
Christ. The wool, the one whose skins,
whose fleece, whose wool, His righteousness covers us, and
that righteousness in His shed blood, His offering of Himself
to God for us. That's our assurance. It's the
same thing in the accepted sacrifice. We don't look to ourselves for
assurance because we can't find assurance in ourselves. If we
do, we're looking in the wrong place. We have to look away from
ourselves to Christ. And thank God that he has spoken
concerning his son to us. That's the good news of the gospel.
Let's go on. In chapter seven, then Jerob
Baal, who is Gideon, Jerob Baal meaning let the shameful thing
plead. who is Gideon, and all the people that were with him
rose up early and pitched beside the well of Herod, so that the
host of the Midianites were on the north side of them, by the
hill of Moreh in the valley. And the Lord said to 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 has saved me. This is our
problem. Whenever we're involved in the
work We can't help it. We're going to have some tendency
to think that we contributed in a way that we have to boast.
That we made a difference somehow. It was by our intellect, by our
diligence, by our commitment, by our gifts. And our eyes are
turned away again from the Lord Jesus Christ. And so God protects
us from that. He says, no, no, too many, too
many. You gathered all these people
together. Verse three, now therefore go, go to proclaim in the ears
of the people saying, whosoever is fearful and afraid, let him
return and depart early from Mount Gilead. And there returned
to the people 22,000 and there remained 10,000. So 32,000 started
out, 22,000 left and only 10,000 remained. How many of the Midianites were there? How many of the enemy were there?
Well, over in chapter eight and verse 10, it says, Ziba and Zalmunna
were in Karkur, and their host with them about 15,000 men, all
that were left of the host of the children of Is for their
fell 120,000 men that drew the sword. Add those two numbers
together, 120,000 plus 15,000, that's 135,000. Gideon started out with 32,000.
They were outnumbered one to five. And yet God sent 22,000 home. Only 10,000 left. Now it's a
10 to one odd. You'd think that'd be small enough,
it's not. He says, verse four, the Lord, chapter seven, verse
four, the Lord said to Gideon, the people are yet too many.
Bring them down to the water. And sometimes we think that,
you know, We need a large number because we can't accomplish it. But here, look at this. Here
we are with the Lord's people. The angels of God in heaven desire
to look into the things that we are now looking into. Here
we are together, gathered as the people of God, called out
from this wicked world by the blood of Christ, called to Christ
by the gospel, the Spirit of God giving us life and faith
in Him. And here we are gathered together.
We are collectively the temple of the living God. Each individual
believer, Christ dwells in us by His Spirit. And the angels
are here now looking. They desire to look into those
things that God has shown to us in the gospel of his son. And Jesus said, when two or three
are gathered, I am there in the midst of you. It's astonishing,
isn't it? In the bulletin today, God's
tabernacle is in heaven. God's tabernacle is the body
of the Lord Jesus Christ, his physical body, the fullness of
the Godhead dwells in him. God's tabernacle is where his
people are gathered in each individual believer. Amazing, isn't it? Amazing. The Lord said to Gideon,
the people are too many, bring them down to the water. I will
try them for thee there, and it shall be that of whom I say
unto thee, this shall go with thee, the same shall go with
thee, and of whomsoever I say unto thee, this shall not go
with thee, the same shall not go. It's not the number that's
important. not by might, not by power, but
by my Spirit, saith the Lord." From Zechariah 4, verse 6. Here he says in verse 5, So Gideon
brought down the people to the water. And the Lord said to Gideon,
everyone that lappeth of the water with his tongue as a dog
lappeth, him shalt thou set by himself. Likewise, everyone that
boweth down upon his knees to drink. And the number of them
that lapped, putting their hand to their mouth, were 300 men. But all the rest of the people
bowed down upon their knees to drink water. So the Lord chose
those that he would send in this battle. The Lord did. It's good. I would have wanted to be one
of those 300 men. But to tell you the truth, I
probably would have left in the first 22,000. There's 135,000 men out
there, like bees. I'm not going there. I honestly
have to say I'm scared. Thank you for letting me go home.
Or, you know, these now that are stooping down to drink with
their mouth against the water rather than lapping it up like
this. Those were the ones sent home
and the Lord did that. He set that sign in place and He didn't
tell them beforehand how He was going to distinguish them from
the others. He just did it. God is sovereign and whatever
He does is right. Can we trust Him? He's the only
one who has mercy. David said, don't let me fall
into the hands of man, let me fall into the hands of the Lord.
Trust Him at all times, you people. Put your trust in the Lord. He saves those that trust in
Him. And even if you weren't one of the 300, trust that God's
gonna save you. We, Don't exclude ourselves because
of our, in our consideration of ourselves. We should not exclude
ourselves from God's ability to save us. Should we? His hand
isn't shortened that He cannot save. He's able to save to the
uttermost those that come to God by Him, the Lord Jesus Christ. So we should come to Him. We're
gonna get into this more. So he says here in verse seven,
and the Lord said to Gideon, by the 300 men that lapped will
I save you and deliver the Midianites into thine hand and let all the
other people go every man to his place. All the way down to
300. 300 against 135,000 plus. Verse
eight, so the people took vittles in their hand and their trumpets, and he sent
all the rest of Israel, every man to his tent, and retained
those 300 men, and the host of Midian was beneath them in the
valley." Isn't that amazing? 300 men. It's insignificant,
really. I don't know how big a place
it takes to hold 135,000 men, plus their camels, and their
sheep, and their oxen, and all this. Huge spread. 300? You couldn't
even begin to surround them, could you? Verse nine, it came
to pass the same night that the Lord said to him, arise, get
thee down to the host, for I have delivered it into thine hand.
Now, I don't want you to miss this, what God has said here.
What did God say to Gideon? You get down to the host, notice
the words in verse nine, for I have delivered it into thine
hand. God always speaks of the victory
as having already been accomplished. And this is significant as we
go forward. You see, the gospel, and this is the point, the gospel
is not a message of what God will do. Not even a message of
what God is doing. What is it? It's a message of
what God has done in Christ. Even from the foundation of the
world, it says in Revelation 13 verse 8, that Christ was the
Lamb slain. And in 1 Peter 1.20, He was ordained
for you before the foundation of the world. Known unto God
are all His works from the foundation of the world. Everything God
does is according to the counsel of His own will. And that's the
only thing that guides God. And he knows his mind from before
the foundation of the world. So that's why he says in Romans
8.33, who can lay anything to the charge of God's elect. Because
they are elected by God, no one can lay anything to their charge
because God justifies them and God has already justified them.
Even before Christ died, he justified them on the pledge of Christ
that he would lay down his life for the sheep. He was the lamb
slain according to the foreordained will of God for his people. It's
always referenced, God always speaks concerning a salvation
accomplished. And this is, as we get into this,
this is the issue. This is the issue. It says, I
think it's in Psalm 11, it says, if the foundations be removed,
what will the righteous do? The enemy always attacks the
foundation of our faith. And what is that foundation?
The point of attack is here, it's right here. It's concerning
what Christ has done and who did it. This is the issue. Remember in the garden? Eve was
tempted. God had already spoken. And yet
the devil is wrangling over the fact that, has God said? And
if he did, that you should really not eat of every tree of the
garden? And so there was this debate and finally she said,
well it seemed good to my eyes, it seemed good for my flesh,
and you know, something to be desired to make one wise. She
relied on her experiential knowledge rather than the objective truth
of God revealed in his word. That was the temptation of Satan
with Jesus, remember, in the wilderness? He had gone to the
River Jordan, John baptized him, the Father himself spoke from
heaven, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased, and
the Spirit of God descended from heaven like a dove and lighted
upon him. And then he goes into the wilderness
and Satan says, why don't you turn these, if you're the son
of God, turn these stones to bread. After he had been without
food for 40 days and 40 nights, do something. Prove that you
are the son of God. And what did Jesus do? No, I
was just baptized by John. And the Father spoke to me from
heaven. And the Spirit of God descended upon me like a dove.
Did he say that? No. He said, behold, it is written. It is written, man shall not
live by bread alone, but by every word which proceeds out of the
mouth of God. So the Lord Jesus Christ not
only was not ashamed to be called man, but he said, as a man, I
rely upon God's revealed truth of scripture. And so God speaks
from scripture concerning his work in Christ already accomplished. And this is the foundation which
is always attacked. It's the word of God. The truth
revealed. Something else. Something else
that we can dream of. I just received a word from God.
Or I had an experience. I was able to heal this sick
person. Or cast out this devil. I was
able to do many wonderful works. No, you set all that aside. Because
it's just a deception. It's the devil's tactic to attack
the foundations, the word of God and the work of Christ, the
person and work of Christ. And so the enemies here, the
Midianites, the Amalekites, the children of the east, they represent
all of our enemies, our sin and our sinful nature, this world
and the kingdom of Satan and Satan himself. And everything
that would oppose us and keep us as a barrier from God and
keep Christ and his glory in our salvation from being lifted
up as the truth that we look to, the one we look to and the
truth of his salvation. And so he says, I have delivered
it into thine hand. And so verse 10 of Judges 7,
verse 10. But if thou fear, God says to
him, if thou fear to go down, did Gideon fear? Clearly he did. God sent home 22,000 that feared. But here Gideon is feared. He
has what? Lord, I believe. Help thou my
unbelief. Isn't that what he's saying here?
Is faith in any believer perfect? No. then how can any believer
be saved? Because we know that it's by
faith that we're saved. But the point is not in our subjective
faith. It's in the one we believe. It's
in the strength of the one we believe. And I've given this
illustration many times before, but it's like the man who has
never, I've never walked on ice, to tell you the truth, on a lake.
My brother has, and his family has. They do it all the time. I would be nervous getting on
a lake and hear the cracking of the ice underneath me. But
it's not how much I'm convinced the ice will hold me up that
actually holds me up, is it? It's how thick the ice is. that
holds you up. It's the outside of me, strength
of the eyes, not my own strength. It's like I heard a kind of a
humorous story. One of these people who said
they could heal, he said he went to a meeting where people were
gathered to be healed of all their sicknesses, and there's
a man there who had no legs, and he was in a wheelchair. And
this man comes up, says, be healed three or four times. And he grasps
him by his hand and he lifts him up out of his wheelchair.
And you know what happened? He fell down. Why? Because he
had no legs. It didn't matter how much he
or the man who purported to be a healer, could do. The fact is that it requires
something else. The object of our faith is Christ
and Him crucified. It's not how strong we believe,
but how strong He is. What does God think of Him? That's
what's important, you see. We come to God how? What is it
that scripture says we come to God by? By the blood of Jesus. That means it's all sufficient.
We come by the blood of Jesus, having therefore, brethren, boldness
to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. Hebrews chapter
10, verse 19. If that's enough, if it weren't
enough, then he would add something there, but he doesn't, because
it's enough. They overcame him by the blood
of the Lamb. by the word of their testimony,
which is the gospel. They didn't love their lives
even unto death because their lives were secure. They were
in Christ. Anyway, Judges 7, verse 10. But
if thou fear to go down, then go thou with Phura thy servant
down to the host. Take your servant Phura, go down
to this great company of enemies. And thou shalt hear what they
say, and afterward shall thine hands be strengthened to go down
unto the host. So what is God saying to Gideon
now? You go down to your enemies and listen to what they have
to say. And when you hear what they have to say, you'll be strengthened. How do we gain faith? How does
faith come to us? Well, we don't acquire it. It
doesn't come from ourselves. It comes from God. Faith is God
opening our eyes. Faith is God persuading us. Faith
is God giving us this confident trust, this glad embrace of the
Lord Jesus Christ. That's what faith is. These all
died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen
them far off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them. And
they confessed, therefore, that they were strangers and pilgrims
on the earth. Here, Gideon is doubtful. Lord, help my unbelief,
and what does God do? He said, I want you to go down
there and hear something. And when you hear it, then you'll
be strengthened, because faith comes by hearing. God's gonna
put the message in the mouth of his enemies, and Gideon is
gonna hear it from them. So then he went down with Phura,
his servant, to the outside of the armed men that were in the
host. And the Midianites and the Amalekites and the children
of the east lay along the valley like grasshoppers for multitude,
and their camels were without number as the sand by the seaside
for multitude. And when Gideon was come, behold,
there was a man that told a dream to his fellow, and this is what
he 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, and the tent lay along. So the dream was that this man
had a dream and a little tiny biscuit rolls into the camp and
knocks over this tent. And his fellow answered and said,
this is nothing else save the sword of Gideon, the son of Joash,
a man of Israel, for into his hand hath God delivered Midian
and all the host. Wow. And it was so when Gideon heard
the telling of the dream and the interpretation. You can see
him and his servant Furah. They're outside this tent. They
walk into one tent right there in the entire camp of all these
people. And they hear this guy talking in the tent. That tent that got knocked over
by that rolling biscuit of barley into our camp, That's the sword
of Gideon. God's given, notice he says it
here, because into his hand hath God delivered Midian and all
the host. Verse 15, And it was so, when
Gideon heard the telling of the dream, and the interpretation
thereof, that he worshipped. That's what faith causes us to
do. Worship God. for what Christ has done for
us. And he returned to the host of Israel, and he said, Arise,
now he's repeating it, for the Lord hath delivered into your
hand the host of Midian. And he divided the three hundred
men into three companies, and he put a trumpet in every man's
hand, and with empty pitchers, and lamps within the pitchers.
So each man is carrying these three things. He has a trumpet
in his right hand, he has a pitcher in his left hand, and inside
the pitcher he has a torch or a lamp. And he said to 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. When I blow with a 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 this is very significant,
isn't it? So Gideon and the hundred men that were with him came to
the outside of the camp in the beginning of the middle watch,
and they had but newly set the watch, and they blew the trumpets
and break the pitchers that were in their hands, and the three
companies, these three companies of 100 men, 300 total, These three companies of men
blew the trumpets, break the pitchers, and held the lamps
in their left hand and the trumpets in their right hand to blow with
all. And they cried, the sword of the Lord, end of Gideon. They had one enemy, they had
one savior, and the Lord who saved them had put that sword
into Gideon's hand. And what is that sword? But the
sword of the spirit, the word of God, isn't it? When we read
these things in the Old Testament, we see physical swords, and armies,
physical armies, and tents, and camels, and all these things,
and horses. But look at this in Ephesians chapter 6. He says in Ephesians chapter
6, verse 10, Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in
the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God,
that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities
and powers, I'm sorry, against principalities, against powers,
against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against the spiritual
wickedness in high places. Wherefore, take unto you the
whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the
evil day, and having done all, to stand Take all the armor of God to
be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all and taking
that armor, stand. What is this armor? Notice he
goes on, verse 14, stand therefore having your loins, that's this
middle part of your body, gird about with truth and having on
the breastplate of righteousness. and your feet shod with the preparation
of the gospel of peace, above all, taking the shield of faith,
wherewith you may be able to quench all the fiery darts of
the wicked, and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of
the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying always with all
prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto
with all perseverance and supplication for all saints. And for me, not
only all saints, but for me that utterance may be given to me
that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of
the gospel." You see no physical armament here, do you? You see
truth. You see Christ's righteousness,
the truth of the gospel, the righteousness of Christ, which
the gospel tells us of. You see the gospel of peace.
Our feet are shod with the gospel of peace. To declare it broadly,
to make it known to kings and to princes that they would consider
what they had never considered and that the day star would arise
in their hearts and would dawn upon them that this is the very
truth of heaven concerning our salvation. And the helmet of
salvation, everything has to do here with Christ's work and
his provision for us, God's provision for us in him, doesn't it? Salvation,
righteousness, faith, the shield of faith God has given us in
Christ's precious blood. Everything has to do with him
and praying, always. Now look at 2 Corinthians chapter
four. What did these men do? How did
they overcome? the enemy. It was God's work, obviously,
but they were given the task of going to battle. And how did
they do this? Well, they had in their right
hand a trumpet, in their left hand a pitcher that was empty,
and in that pitcher they had this light. Notice what it says
here in 2 Corinthians 4, Verse 1, therefore, seeing we
have this ministry, this gospel ministry, not the law, but the
Spirit of God, the gospel, as we have received mercy, we faint
not. We have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking
in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but
by manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to every
man's conscience in the sight of God. We're bringing to you
the message of what God has done in Christ, and we ourselves,
like you, are justified in the same way by what Christ has done. This is our hope. This is our
salvation. This glorifies God. It takes away, it strips us of
all glory. In fact, if you were to look
back, well, we won't do that right now. Let's go ahead. Verse
three, but if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost,
in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them
which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ,
who is the image of God, should shine to them. What is the light?
The gospel of Christ. For we preach not ourselves,
but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus'
sake. We don't promote ourselves. In
fact, we make ourselves the servants of Christ and you in the gospel. Verse six, for God, who commanded
the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure. in
earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God and
not of us." What is the power of God unto salvation? The gospel. What was in the earthen vessel
here? The gospel. What did the men hold forth?
They had an empty pitcher. The preacher, as it were, he
comes telling them, there's nothing in me. The only thing I have
is the gospel, Christ and Him crucified. And we direct men
like John the Baptist away from ourselves to Him. I must decrease.
He must increase. And so the picture is broken.
We're broken. Notice how he says this. We're
troubled on every side, yet not distressed. We are perplexed,
but not in despair. Persecuted, but not forsaken.
Cast down, but not destroyed. Always bearing about in the body
the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might
be made manifest in our body. We in our daily lives live as
those who are being broken. being brought down by all these
things. But that only serves to make
known the light of the gospel of Christ as all in our salvation. We're just earthen vessels, empty
pitchers. The light in the pitcher is Christ
and Him crucified. And the trumpet is the blowing
of the gospel. It's the announcing of Christ
and Him crucified. So we see that here, and that's
the way these 300 men According to God's purpose, according to
what God sent them to do, they did. The sword of the Lord and
of Gideon. The gospel that is our salvation, that is Christ,
and Christ's work is our sword. It's the only thing we have to
fight with. We hold forth Christ and Him crucified. We look to
Him, we look for Him, we proclaim Him, and the Spirit of God does
the work, doesn't He? It's not by might nor by power,
but by my spirit, saith the Lord. The words that I speak unto you,
Jesus said, are spirit and they are life. And so the knowledge
of the glory of God is made known in the face of Jesus Christ through
that light that the Spirit of God commands to be shined in
our hearts. And that's the thing here. And
so in verse 19, so Gideon and the hundred men that were with
him came to the outside of the camp at the beginning of the
middle watch. And they had but newly set the watch, and they
blew the trumpets, and broke the pitchers that were in their
hands. And the three companies blew the trumpets, and broke
the pitchers, and held the lamps in their left hands, and the
trumpets in their right hands, to blow withal. And they cried,
The sword of the Lord and of Gideon, Jesus Christ, and Him
crucified, the power of God unto salvation. It's the salvation
of his people. It's the destruction of his enemies.
The gospel is the saver of life to life and of death to death
and them that perish. To us who believe, it's a saver
of life to life. It says, and they stood every
man in his place round about the camp and all the hosts ran
and cried and fled. And the three hundred blew the
trumpets, and the Lord set every man's sword against his fellow,
even throughout all the host. And the host fled to Beth-shittah
in Zareph, and to the border of Abel-mehola unto Tabath. And the men of Israel gathered
themselves together out of Naphtali and out of Asher and out of Manasseh
and pursued after the Midianites and so on. Okay, 120,000 men
killed that day. All the enemies of the Lord killed
each other. Isn't it amazing? The very thing
they intended against God's people came upon them. They were caught
in the net that they thought to lay for us. Satan and his
kingdom will be brought down in the very destruction they
thought to bring Christ and his people into. Doesn't that put
some solemnity in your mind, in your heart, as you think about
this? That God would destroy his enemies with the very devices
that they thought to destroy his people. Now it turns out
that these enemies, as I mentioned, are always trying to attack the
foundations. And I want to just give you an
example of some of these things that the enemies of our souls
try to do. And here, as I said, here's the
point. Look at this one verse in Galatians
chapter three, and I'll look at one other verse, and then
I'll try to bring this to a close. In Galatians chapter three, look
at this with me. This is a very significant verse
of scripture. In Galatians chapter three, in
verse eight, I've read this to you before, and we've commented
on it before. It says in Galatians 3.8, in
the scripture foreseen that God would justify the heathen through
faith, preached the gospel to Abraham saying, in thee shall
all nations be blessed. Now I have a question after reading
that. What is the gospel? It says here that God would justify
the heathen through faith. And Jesus Christ and him crucified
in thee and in thy seed, all nations shall be blessed. That's
the gospel. What is the foundation then?
Well, in 1 Corinthians 3, verse 11, it says, other foundation
can no man lay, then that is laid, Jesus Christ. The foundation
is Christ. The gospel is our justification
by the Lord Jesus Christ and everything that comes to us by
that. This is the one issue, this is
the one point of attack above all others that you'll find as
you live your life as a believer in this world. All of false religion will direct
you away from the objective truth of the gospel, which is Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. Now look at 1 Corinthians chapter
15. I'm bringing your attention to these clear statements of
Scripture first, so that then we can show you the attack of
the enemy against them. Look at 1 Corinthians chapter
15, verse 1. The Apostle Paul says, Moreover,
brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached to
you. What was it that Paul preached?
The gospel. Remember he said, I determined
not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified. God forbid that I should boast,
that I should glory save in the cross of Christ by which the
world is crucified to be an eye to the world. Here he says it.
I preached unto you the gospel, which also you have received.
Now here's God's work. You received it. When you heard
it, you received it. This is good news. And wherein
you stand. Interesting. Not only did you
receive it, but the very way that you received Christ Jesus,
the Lord, you walk, you stand in him, taking unto you the whole
armor of God, that you may be able to stand, and having done
all, to stand. in the breastplate of His righteousness,
in the helmet of His salvation, with your feet shod with the
gospel of peace, how God made peace in the blood of Christ,
and the shield of faith, knowing that Christ and Him crucified
is all of my hope. of eternal salvation in life,
because God has accepted him for me. And the sword of the
Spirit, which is the word of God, praying always for all saints. Anyway, you've received it, and
wherein you stand, by which also, the gospel, you are saved. Notice,
he puts this way, and that way, and the other way, and he points
them to this center focus, the gospel. Now, notice what he says. by which also you are saved,
if you keep in memory what I preached to you." Memory. What does memory
refer to? Something in the past, right?
We're going to take the Lord's Supper here pretty soon. Do this
in what? In remembrance of me. That's
significant. Notice. Keep in memory what I preached
to you. What I preached, there was an objective truth set forth
before you, and that truth had to do with what? Notice verse
three. For I delivered unto you, first of all, that which I also
received, I myself am saved the same way, how that Christ died
for our sins according to the scriptures. There's that objective
truth. Notice he underlines it. Jesus
told the devil, it is written. And when Jesus sent out the 70
in Luke 10, and they went out and they cast out devils, they
came back and they said, Lord, even the devils are subject to
us. He said, yeah, I give you power over all these things,
but in this do not rejoice, but rather rejoice that your names
are written in heaven. The God from before the foundation
of the world put your name in the Lamb's Book of Life, of what
He did. People deny election. They think
that they're out of God's control. That's the only way you can be
saved if you're under God's control unto salvation that is in Christ
Jesus. That's the gospel. Christ died
for our sins according to the scriptures and that he was buried
and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.
That's the gospel. Notice, it's not about, I feel
Jesus. What Jesus are you talking about?
Well, the one I feel, the one who goes with me every day. No,
you stand and you're saved. because you heard what was preached
to you, the gospel of how that Christ died according to the
scriptures. It's not the experience. Jesus
didn't refer the devil to his experience of baptism or hearing
his father or the spirit of God lighting on his shoulder as a
dove. He didn't refer to that. He said
it is written three times. The devil tried to do a miracle.
I'm not going to trust a miracle. I'm not going to try to establish
what God has said in his word. It's spoken. It's written. I'm
not going to cast myself off the temple. I'm not going to
try to get around the cross by bowing down to you to receive
that place of honor and glory and authority. No way. It is
written, it is written three times, he said that. And here
we have the gospel is written in the scriptures. And this is
the only way we're saved, the only way we stand, the only way
that we will be saved if we keep it in memory. And so he says,
this is it. Now, false religion, and let
me tell you, it's sneaky. The devil's ministers are ministers
of light and of righteousness. They come preaching to you a
righteousness and a light, but it's not true light and it's
not true righteousness, because they have something other or
in addition to Christ. And the way they do this, fundamentally,
is they point you to your own self, your own experience. It's
what God does in you, that's the gospel. No it isn't. It's
a historical Jesus proclaimed in the scriptures that are written
about what he actually did, successfully accomplished, and is now seated
on the right hand of God. By himself he purged our sins
and sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high. That's
the gospel, isn't it? It is. That's the way we're saved. When the Spirit of God takes
the things of Christ and shows them to us as light shining into
a dark place, through the preaching, the breaking of the pitcher,
and the blowing of the trumpet of what God has done in Christ,
then our enemies are vanquished. We stand and we hold up that
shield of faith in Christ. And all those fiery darts, they're
just quenched. And the enemy attacks us here. They try to get you into, well,
we have an experience in our church. We have this song service,
there's a worship leader, and there's people who have this
daily experience of grace in their lives. Here I received,
here I stand, here I'm saved. It's in the declared truth of
Christ and Him crucified. And that's all my hope. What
does God think of him? What did God do? What did God
provide? What has God said? Listen to
His word, Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And it's the receiving
of that by the power of the Spirit of God in us that causes us to
worship God in Christ Jesus. And so every other attack is
building on that attack. If you get your eyes off Christ,
then you're going to look at your sin and you're going to
say, there's no hope for me. I can't be saved. Look at this
thing that I do, or this thing that I did, or this thought that
I had. Oh, so now you need to look to
yourself for salvation. You don't believe that all these
135,000 men who are about to be slain You know what, not one of Gideon's
men died that day in the battle. Not one. Because not one of God's
elect are ever lost in this battle. Christ is absolutely victorious. And he gives us the victory.
We're more than conquerors through him that loved us. No one can
lay anything to the charge of God's elect. It is Christ that
died. See, he holds him up to us. And so we're not made to, our
arms are not weakened and our knees are not made feeble by
these things that we naturally see when Christ is our hope because
he's in heaven. Our righteousness is in him,
isn't it? We don't look for it in ourselves. We look away to
him. Jesus told Nicodemus when he
said, how can these things be? How can I be born of the spirit
of God? Oh, let me tell you. As Moses
lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, those sin-bitten,
cursed, bearing people had no remedy. When he held up that
serpent and they looked, even so the Son of Man must be lifted
up that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish. It's looking
to Christ that we find our salvation. And this is the work of God.
This is the work of God. Let's pray. Father, we thank
you for your gospel, your son. Thank you for the victory he
accomplished. Help us, Lord, to enter into that by this God-given
faith. It's not of ourselves. We need
to hear it. You need to persuade us of it.
Grant it to us. Cause us to embrace him and to
stand, to stand upon him. and trust no other, look no further,
not expect anything more, not needing anything more, because
God has accepted him for us. And even though we find reason
for doubt in ourselves, direct us to the one whose fleece was
made our covering, whose wool, the Lord Jesus Christ, who was
chastened for our peace, and whose blood washes away our sin,
and whose obedience is all of our righteousness, whose blood
was shed to sanctify and make us holy, and who sits in heaven
because we have been glorified with him. And teach us that you
have delivered our enemies into our hands, in our Savior. In
his name we pray, amen.