Hebrews chapter 11, just one
verse there, and then we're going to go to Judges chapter 6. The
book of Judges chapter 6. Hebrews chapter 11, let me read
this verse to you. I've entitled this message, By
Faith Gideon. By Faith Gideon. Since I was a young person, I've
always relished the stories of the Old Testament, and Gideon
is one of those I like to read about these men who were so used
of God, so blessed by God, to conquer such great enemies. And
it's thrilling to listen to the way they did this, when they
were themselves entirely unable to do anything against all outward
odds, they were conquerors. And so it says in Hebrews chapter
11, this wasn't just a story to entertain us as young people
or older people, but it was a story to teach us about God's grace
of faith in Christ in our lives. And so in Hebrews chapter 11
in verse 32, After giving the account of all those who came
before, who lived by faith and died in faith, it says in verse
32, And what shall I more say? For the time would fail me to
tell of Gideon, and Barak, and of Samson, and Jephthah, and
David also, and Samuel, and the prophets, who through faith subdued
kingdoms. wrought righteousness, obtained
promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence
of fire, escaped the edge of the sword out of weakness, were
made strong and waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the
armies of the aliens. So I'll just go back now to Judges
chapter 6. Let me remind you that, as we
read last week in 1 Corinthians 10, verse 11, these things were
written for us, for our admonition, as in samples or as types upon
whom the ends of the world are come. These things were written
in the Old Testament as a figure of the Christian's life in this
world and God's saving grace to us. So when we see it in that
light, it's very, very important to us, isn't it? The Lord is
telling us here, this is your life. Pay attention here. These
enemies are your enemies. This victory is your victory.
God's word is certain. The way they were saved is the
way you'll be saved. Their weaknesses are your weaknesses.
You need the same Savior. You need the same grace. And
so this is what we see in Genesis, I mean Judges chapter 6. And I want to draw your attention
to the fact in the book of Judges, it was after really the close
of Joshua's life. Joshua was the one God had chosen
to lead Israel into the land of Canaan, not Moses, because
when God told Moses to speak to the rock, to bring water out
of the rock the second time, Moses took his rod and smote
the rock. And so God said, I will not allow
you to come into the land of Canaan because of that disobedience.
And all of that was to teach us God's purpose to bring his
people into Canaan, into their rest by Jesus, whose name is
Joshua in scripture. As they came into Canaan, The
people who had come through the wilderness with Joshua were led
by Joshua to conquer their enemies and God delivered the enemies
of Canaan into their hand. And so we see that the book of
Judges now turns to the generations that followed Joshua. Joshua
was faithful because he typified Christ in everything. And those
people who followed Joshua while he was still alive, and even
the generation after Joshua, continued in that grace where
God delivered their enemies in Canaan into their hands. But
then the people forgot. They forgot God's mercies to
them. They forgot all that they had heard and learned before
and seen. These people now in the book of Judges had not seen
God's miracles in Egypt. They had not seen the Red Sea
open up. They had not seen the water out
of the rock. or that God overcame the Amalekites
in the wilderness, or that He subdued Sihon and Og, these two
kings of the Amorites, and that He brought them across Jordan.
They hadn't seen that. They hadn't seen the walls of
Jericho fall down. They hadn't seen all of the conquests
by Joshua. They were the children's children,
the grandchildren of this generation that followed Joshua and that
was Joshua's generation. So what happened was the people
forgot the Lord. And they turned, they themselves
and their children began to intermingle with the people of the land.
And they began to give reverence and show respect to their gods,
to their idols. And they disobeyed God in all
these things. And so the Lord brought upon
them enemies. The enemies came upon them as
a consequence of their forsaking the Lord. And so the enemies
were strong, so strong they couldn't help themselves. God actually
left a lot of the people in that land there to prove them, he
says in the book of Judges. And so constantly, over many
cycles throughout the book of Judges, the people are disobedient
in their rebellion against God, in their idolatry, serving the
idols of that land. They come under the consequences
of that. God allows them to feel the enemies
there in that land as their conquerors. They were completely subdued
by them. And then they cried to the Lord in their trouble.
And the Lord sent them a deliverer, a judge. That's why it's called
the Book of Judges. Each of these people who were
brought in this book to help deliver the people of Israel
were raised up by God. And as long as the judge was
given by God to deliver them, then the people served the Lord.
But when the judge died, then the people turned back to their
idolatrous ways. And they came under the same
cycle. They were under affliction by their enemies. They cried
to the Lord. The Lord delivered them, raising
up another judge. And he taught them. He taught
them about how God had saved them and how he would save them.
So this is the summary of the book of Judges. And we are here
in chapter 6 now, where Gideon is mentioned from Hebrews 11.
Gideon's name means warrior or soldier of God. soldier. And so in these people and in
these events here, what's spoken of here and their enemies, we're
gonna see here the life of the believer. The life of the believer. It says in verse one, and the
children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and the
Lord delivered them into the hand of Midian seven years. Okay, so why were their enemies
against them? Because of their sin against
God. They did evil in the sight of the Lord. And it's really
God's opinion that matters, isn't it? The sight of the Lord. The
Lord saw, and based on what he saw, they were evil. They didn't
think themselves to be that bad. They were simply living like
the people in the land they dwelt, and serving their gods by showing
them reverence. Perhaps they were mingling the
worship of the Lord God with the worship of these idols, or
perhaps they had completely forsaken the Lord and were serving these
idols. Either way. It was evil in the sight of the
Lord, and therefore he delivered them into the hand of the Midianites
for seven years. And we learn something from this.
What do we learn? That they were guilty, that they
were sinners, that they sinned against God. That's what's happened.
They did evil. They were sinners. They were
guilty. Notice the next verse. And the hand of Midian prevailed
against Israel. And because of the Midianites,
the children of Israel made themselves, made them the dens, which are
in the mountains and caves and strongholds. So what was the
reaction of the Israelites when the Midianites were afflicting
them these seven years? They hid. They tried to make
themselves shelters and refuges to hide themselves from their
enemies. Is that what God had told them to do? Not at all.
God had told them, you go into the land and you take it, and
you destroy them and destroy their gods, and you do not give
your sons and daughters in marriage to them, but serve the Lord only. Do not serve their gods. Put
no other god before me, and these people were not doing that. They
had been afflicted by the Midianites, and so they built them these
caves and dens. They were guilty, and what was the next thing they
did? They hid. They were afraid. Notice, he
says, they were afraid because they hid in the mountains and
dens and caves. And he says in verse 3, and so
it was, when Israel had sown, that means when they had planted
their crops, the seed had been put in the earth, they had dug
up the ground, they had fertilized it with their animals, and they
had done all this work, that after they had sown, that the
Midianites came up, and the Amalekites, and the children of the east,
even they came up against them. So these people, the Midianites,
Amalekites, and the people, the children of the east that came
up against Israel, they were opportunists. They were pirates. They saw that there was good
there, and they just came in like grasshoppers and locusts,
and they began to eat it up. They did not care about the land.
They didn't care about the people of the land. They were just there
to take advantage of the hard labors of the Israelites. They
had planted. The seed had grown. The crops
were ready to harvest. What did they do? Let's go there
and get their food. Take their animals to be our
animals. So we read that, verse 4. And they encamped against
them and destroyed the Midianites and all these people, the Midianites
and Malachites and the children of the east. They came and encamped
against Israel and they destroyed the increase of the earth. All
that God had blessed Israel with in that land, they destroyed
it. until thou come unto Gaza, and left no sustenance for Israel,
neither sheep, nor ox, nor ass." They didn't have oxen to plow,
they didn't have oxen or sheep to eat, and they didn't have
donkeys to bear their burdens. They took everything. They took
their food that they had raised, and they took their animals,
and they left them without anything. So what we see here is first
guilt in verse one, then fear and hiding in the verses where
these enemies come in and conquering them. And this went on for seven
years. And not only that, but these
men came in, these Midianites and the Amalekites and others
came in and they plundered Israel. They took away the blessing that
was given to them in that land. And so we understand spiritually
what this is referring to. When we sin against God, he brings
against us the consequences of our sin so that we feel the pain
of it, and our natural reaction is to hide because of our guilt
and to seek shelter on our own, not calling on the Lord. For
seven years this went on. And the enemy comes in and takes
away all the blessings that we had formerly enjoyed out of faith
in Christ. When we forsake faith in Christ,
when we live our lives for this world, what are we going to get?
Trouble, trouble, trouble, and all the blessings of the Spirit
of God in us seem to be taken away. The increase of the earth
and the sustenance we have is living upon Christ by faith.
It's removed from us because we're living our lives as if
God was dead. not our God, as if Christ was
not our Redeemer, we forget the Lord, and this is the consequence
of our sin. And so it says here in verse
six, and Israel was greatly impoverished because of the Midianites, and
the children of Israel cried unto the Lord. This is the first
time in seven years there's any mention of the fact that they
cried to the Lord. Whether they did or not, it's
not recorded, but the recorded history is that they didn't.
For seven years, they tried to get by. Can you imagine every
year, for seven years, you're planting and planting, and all
of a sudden, your crops grow up. Bam! Whatever little you
had to get those crops in the ground, whatever animals you
had to subsist on, is suddenly taken away again, seven times
over. and shows that we are so hardened
in our sinfulness that we can beat our head against the wall
a long time before the Lord, by His grace, causes that affliction
to produce in us this cry to the Lord. And so he says in verse
seven, They cried to the Lord, verse seven. And it came to pass
when the children of Israel cried to the Lord because of the Midianites,
that the Lord sent a prophet to the children of Israel, which
said to them. Okay, so what was the reaction
of God here? They sinned, they were fearful,
they were hiding, they had forsaken the worship of Christ. They felt
the pain of it, their enemies came in and took away all the
blessings. And now they're living as impoverished
people, poor. and they suddenly cry, and what
does God do? He sends a prophet. The people couldn't, they couldn't
draw out of their own selves the word of God. God had to send
his word, and this is the way it is for us. We live in our
lives and we feel the pain of our foolishness and our sin,
we feel the affliction of it, and what has to happen? God has
to send a prophet. He has to send his word. And
what is the work of the prophet first here? Why did they cry,
first of all? It says in verse six again, the
children of Israel were greatly impoverished because of the Midianites
and the children of Israel cried to the Lord. And it says in verse
seven, they cried unto the Lord because of the Midianites. Their
enemies had come against them and they cried because of their,
they felt the pain of their enemies. Were they sorry for their sins?
It doesn't appear so yet, but the prophet who comes is going
to do the very thing they need. He's going to convince them of
their sin and of God's goodness in Christ. Notice in verse eight,
that the Lord sent a prophet to the children of Israel, which
said to them, thus saith the Lord God of Israel. He reminds
them who their God is, the God of Israel. the God of Christ,
and they are called Israel because that's the name God gave to Jacob
after he, Christ, wrestled with Jacob and touched the hollow
of his thigh, made him weak, and then he gave him that new
name, a prince with God, Israel. That's the name of every believer
in the new man, the new nature. Before that, he was just Jacob,
just Jacob the scoundrel, Jacob the cheap. Jacob the one who
tried to manipulate all the circumstances to get things good in his life.
But after that, after Christ came and wrestled with him, he
was called Israel. And so it is with all of us who
believe Christ. We have these two natures. The
first one, Jacob, that's what we are by nature. The next one,
Israel, that's what we are by the Spirit of God in us. All
these things, there's multiple ways in which God teaches us
this fundamental basic truth, and we're gonna get to those
in a minute. And so the prophet says, first of all, thus saith
the Lord God of Israel. I brought you up from Egypt.
What is he doing here? He's telling them what God has
done, his works for them. I brought you up from Egypt and
brought you forth out of the house of bondage. I delivered
you out of the hand of the Egyptians and out of the hand of all that
oppressed you. And I draved them out from before
you and gave you their land. God redeemed them by blood from
Egypt. God brought them through the
Red Sea, that baptism in the sea. where they're in symbol,
in emblem, they died with Christ, they were buried with Christ,
and then they exited the sea, they rose with Christ, and they
looked back, all their enemies were dead, God destroyed their
enemies, he destroyed Pharaoh, and there they were, their bodies
on the seashore. And they go into the wilderness,
and they immediately encounter thirst for three days, remember,
And God shows them water, but it was bitter, because like their
thoughts toward God, they were bitter in their unbelief. They
were bitter in their offense against God. And God told Moses,
cut down the tree and cast it into the bitter water. Christ
and him crucified makes the wrath of God against us sweetness and
makes us sweet toward the Lord. And they go from there. That
was called Marah, the bitter waters. And there the Lord proved
them. He said, I'm the Lord that healeth
thee. Remember? And he brought them
out. Then he gave them the manna.
And then he brought them to the rock. They had no water again.
What did God tell Moses to do at the rock? He said, you go
stand on the rock. I'll stand there on the rock
with you. And you smite the rock. And when Moses smote the rock,
he hit the rock with the rod of God. What happened? The waters
gushed out of the rock. And all the nation of Israel,
all those years, drank from that water, from that rock. And what
does that teach us? that because of Christ, the rock,
crucified for us, smitten by God's law, under the curse, the
waters of the Spirit of God come to us and we live our lives depending
on Christ through the Spirit. The Spirit of Christ in us bubbles
up in us this well of everlasting life, so that we're constantly
drinking upon the wells of salvation because of Christ, crucified
for us. And immediately after that, what
happened next? Well, then Israel was in the wilderness and the
Amalekites came. And the Amalekites snuck up behind them and started
to attack the whole nation of Israel, starting from the weakest
and the feeblest of them. And they entered into this war
in Exodus 17. And in this war, Joshua led Israel
to fight against the Amalekites. Moses sat up on a rock. He sat
down. And he held up his rod with his
hands, both of them. And as he held up the rod with
the hands, Joshua was winning. All the children of Israel were
overcoming the Amalekites. But when his hands got tired,
what happened? The rod went down, and the Amalekites were winning.
And so Aaron got on one side of him, and Hur, H-U-R, got on
the other side, and they both held up Moses' hands so that
the rod was held up. And as long as the hands of Moses
were held up, Joshua prevailed for Israel over the Amalekites.
And again, we learn about our own lives as believers. We learn
about the truth of how God saves us. First, he saved us by the
blood in Egypt. Second, he brought us to the
Red Sea and our baptism with Christ. Third, He shows us our
bitterness of soul and how that even that bitterness against
God and in our souls is taken away by Christ and Him crucified.
And then, that we live upon the Lord Jesus Christ in that manna
from heaven. But then, through the rock smitten,
we have the Spirit of God in us so that we have a new man,
a new nature. And the old nature is still there,
but the new nature is now and we're living upon Christ. And
so, that old nature rises up as the Amalekites. That's the
old man, the flesh. Amalek was the grandson of Esau,
and you know Esau was a profane person. He despised the birthright.
He didn't care about justification by the Lord Jesus Christ, the
promised seed of Abraham. He didn't care about eternal
salvation or eternal glory by the Lord Jesus Christ, the promised
seed of Abraham. He despised the birthright. He
despised the blessing of the firstborn. He valued it less
than a bowl of soup, one meal. And so Esau was a profane person,
a fornicator, it says in Hebrews chapter 12. And Amalek was his
grandson. And later on, when King Saul
was told by Samael, you go to the Amalekites and you destroy
them, all of them, in 1 Samuel 15, and you know what happened.
Saul goes there, he gets the armies, and he destroys all but
the king, King Agag, remember? And all the sheep and oxen they
brought back that were good. And Samuel meets with Saul and
he says, what are you doing? What is this sound of oxen and
sheep and so forth I hear? Well, the people saved those
to offer for the Lord. And Samuel said, does the Lord
have as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in
obeying the voice of the Lord? Rebellion is as a sin of witchcraft
and idolatry. So he rebuked him strongly. And
then here's Agag, he's standing there going, And he thinks all
is okay, and Sambo takes his sword and cuts him in pieces.
Agag was a descendant of Amalek, because all the Amalekites Saul
was supposed to destroy. So the Amalekites, in both Exodus
and throughout their wilderness journey, were afflicting Israel.
And then we see him again popping up with Agag. And all of them
were destroyed by King Saul, except the king. And then Samuel
whacks him and cuts him in pieces. And then later in the book of
Esther, we hear about this man named Haman, who was, guess what,
an Agagite, or Agite. In other words, he was the son
of the Amalekites. And you know what happened to
Haman? He devised a way to destroy all the Jews. And he made a gallows
some 50 cubits high to hang Mordecai on, but it was ultimately Haman
who was hanged on the very thing he thought to destroy Mordecai
and all the Jews. And Haman's household was destroyed,
and Mordecai was exalted, and Esther, and all the Jews were
saved. Now, I give you that brief history to show you that in God's
use of the Amalekites being the grandson of Edom and his descendants
being Agag and finally Haman, God was fulfilling that word
he told to Moses in Exodus 17 that he's going to have perpetual
war with Amalek. And here we see in Judges 6,
that it's the Midianites and the Amalekites with the Children
of the East who are coming there like pirates to plunder and take
the spoil of all that belongs to Israel in the land of rest.
And so we see in this that after we receive the Spirit of God
as the water from the rock, trusting Christ and Him crucified, we
enter into a conflict in our soul. And that conflict is between
the flesh and the spirit. And here in Judges 6, that's
what we see here. This conflict is going on because
Israel, in the first few verses, is disobedient and idolatrous.
They forgot the Lord. They forgot His salvation. They're
guilty. They're fearful. They're hiding.
They're subject to the enemy. They lose the blessings that
they had by faith. And then God sends a prophet
to remind them of God's deliverance of them from from Egypt, and
of his salvation of them from Egypt by the redeeming blood
of Christ, and then he convinces them of their sin. Don't you
see this is the pattern of the believer? Constantly being reminded
of our sin and unbelief. Constantly being reminded under
the burden of it so that we cry to the Lord first just to get
relief from our circumstances and then he convinces us from
his word of our sinfulness and how much we need the Lord Jesus
Christ and he tells us this and he shows us this through Gideon.
So now, look at this. I'm going to pick up where the
prophet left off here. He says in verse nine, repeating
that, I delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians and
out of the hand of all that oppressed you, and draved them out from
before you and gave you their land. Speaking about what God
did, not only did I bring you out of Egypt, but I gave you
eternal blessings and rest because of Christ, your Joshua. Because
of the promise God made to Abraham in covenant concerning Christ. Remember? God gave all the blessings
to Christ and he told Abraham about it. He says, in Christ
all the nations of the earth shall be blessed. That's the
gospel of justification. That's the gospel of the Spirit
of God given to his people in Galatians 3, 5 through 14. And
that's the gospel of our eternal inheritance in Christ because
of his righteousness. And now he says in verse 10,
And I said to you, I am the Lord your God. Fear not the gods of
the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But you have not obeyed
my voice. I told you don't respect the
false gods. What is an idol? What is an idol? Well, an idol, first of all,
is something men make, isn't it? God didn't make them. Men
make idols. But what else about idols? Well,
they have no life, right? They don't have any ability,
they can't talk, they can't speak, they can't hear, they can't act,
they can't do anything. They're carried about by people,
by men who make them. I'm thinking back about Psalm
115 where it talks about these. And not only that, but idols
are opposed to the truth. Idols are not real. They're fictitious,
imagined gods. They're not real. But you know,
God says something more, there's something more insidious about
idols than just the fact that we make them up. And this is
what it says in 1 Corinthians 10, in verse 20. He says, I say
that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to
devils and not to God, and I would not that you should have fellowship
with devils. So it's not just that men make
these things of gold and silver and stone and wood and that sort
of thing and bow down to them in the Old Testament. People
don't generally do that today. You don't see people on the streets
lined up bowing down to some stone or that sort of thing. But idols are the false. They
are the opposite of the truth concerning Christ and God's salvation. And so the false teachers teach
a false doctrine. And to embrace that falsehood
as truth is to embrace the doctrine of devils. And to bow down to
mix the worship of Christ with this false doctrine of man is
to try to mix or compromise the truth with devils. The devil
says in the same, in 2 Corinthians chapter 11, it says the devil
appears as an angel of light and his ministers all the same
thing. They come as if with the truth,
but they're compromising the truth. They do not teach the
gospel from scripture concerning Christ and our salvation in him. And so what happens is, is that
we begin to compromise the truth in our hearts. We think, well,
yes, somehow my own hand saved me. Or are these things, these
other things, are also valid? And the one thing that the world
hates most is that when you tell them, no, Jesus Christ is the
way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father
but by Him, and what do they do? Well, you're just an arrogant
jerk because you think you have the only way. No, the Lord's
the one that said that. So if you have a problem with
it, take it up with Him, right? That's what the believer says.
And so back to Judges chapter 6. Idols are man-made. Men have
to hold them up. They have to give them life.
They have to carry them about and speak for them. They have
to defend them. Idols can't do anything. God
is exactly the opposite. He gives us the truth. He made
us. He pleads for us. He saves us. He gives us life. And he doesn't
change, though we are fickle and forgetful. So back in Judges
chapter 6, he said in verse 10, I said to you, I am the Lord
your God. Fear not the gods of the Amorites in whose land you
dwell. Don't fear them, not in so much
as a sense of being afraid of them. But they saw the success. They saw what appeared to be
ease and prosperity of the wicked, like in Psalm 73, when Asaph
confessed that he did that. And so they looked at that and
they said, well, they're prosperous. They're not having difficulties
like I always seem to have. They don't always bemoan the
fact that they're sinners and they can do nothing at all. They're
strong. Look at that. They have self-confidence. Or
they have confidence in science and philosophy and all the pleasures
of this world and the prosperity of this world. They just live
their life for today. Eat, drink and be merry. For
tomorrow we die. And they can accuse God and they
don't seem to have any problems with it. And here I am, laboring
under the burden of my sin, and it feels like I don't make any
progress. And so we begin to look with some thought that somehow
we need to take on the false doctrine of the false gospels
of this world and serve the works of our own hands. So in verse
11, Judges 6, verse 11, And there came an angel of the Lord, Notice
what happened. People sin. The people are fearful. They're hiding. They're afraid.
Their blessings are taken away, it seems. The enemies come in
and plundering, just making a mess of things. All their labors are
for nothing. It's all taken away before they
get to eat the fruit of it. And then the Lord sends a prophet,
he tells them about God's redeeming grace, he tells them about God's
works for them, and he tells them about their idolatrous ways
and their sin. He convinces them of their sin
and God's goodness. And notice in verse 11, then
what happened? Did God say from the prophet,
okay, because you did this, You're gone. You're gone. No. No, he didn't do that. He did
not forsake his people. Because God's relationship to
his people doesn't depend on them, but on his covenant promises
in Christ. And so when you see this throughout
scripture, it's always God saved them for his name's sake. Let
me give you just this one text of scripture in Isaiah 43. For example, in Isaiah 43, he
says this in verse 24. He says, thou hast brought me
no, this is God talking to this disobedient people, thou hast
brought me no sweet cane with money, neither hast thou filled
me with the fat of thy sacrifices, but thou hast made me to serve
with thy sins. Thou hast wearied me with thine
iniquities. Then the next verse says this,
I, even I am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine
own sake, and will not remember thy sins. You see the faithfulness
of God? Those God foreknew, He predestinated
to be conformed to the image of His Son. And those He predestinated,
He called. Those He called, He justified.
Those He justified, He also glorified. God doesn't change. He doesn't
take back His gifts of salvation. He's consistent. He's the rock.
But He was smitten by his own law in order to shed forth his
spirit that we might know salvation in Christ and live our lives
that way. So he says in the next verse
of Isaiah 43, put me in remembrance. Remind me of what I've done.
Remind me where your salvation is. That's what he's teaching
us. Look to Christ. So back to Judges. God did not
forsake his people, Israel. God did not destroy them by their
enemies. He afflicted them. He chastened them. Have you ever
thought about the fact that why were these people the enemies
of Israel anyway? I mean, they were all happy together,
the Amalekites and the Midianites and the Children of the East.
They seemed to be one big party. They're all sitting on the tailgates
in the parking lot watching the Super Bowl. and they're not having
any problem. Smoke is ascending just like
a furnace. They're getting ready, you know,
they're all happy. Meanwhile, the poor believer who's fearful
that he cannot be saved because of his sins is over there with
the saints crying out to the Lord and trying to find out how
in the world such a sinner can be saved by Christ and he hears
it again and again and again and he finds comfort and rest
in that and assurance and strength. because he knows then that Christ
is his all. See the contrast? And so that's
the way the world is. They're happy together. They're
not at enmity with one another in the doctrines they believe.
The only reason we have enemies is because we have Christ. We're
his. If we weren't Christ, we wouldn't have enemies. The only
reason the old man is a problem for us is because we have Christ
in us, the new man. We've been created in Christ
Jesus. So the afflictions are actually
a blessing because we see God's chastening hand, whom the Lord
loveth, he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
So these struggles we have, and most of them are internal, And
the ones that are external are simply the frustration that we
have because of our unbelief and not just simply trusting
Christ, being thankful in all things, rejoicing evermore, and
praying always without ceasing. It's because of our unbelief.
But here God comes after He sends the prophet and convinces them
of their sin and reminds them of His redeeming grace. In verse
11, Then there came an angel of the LORD, and sat under an
oak tree, which was in Ophrah, that pertained unto Joash the
Abiezrite, and his son Gideon threshed wheat by the winepress
to hide it from the Midianites. So Gideon is of the tribe of
Manasseh, and his father's name is Joash, and Joash was a descendant
of this one called Abiezer. So he's called an Abiezerite
here, Joash, the father of Gideon. Now it turns out that Joash has,
he's an idolater too, but keep reading, verse 12, the angel
of the Lord. Who is the angel of the Lord
here? Is it an angel only? Well, it's certainly not a man,
but it turns out it's more than just an angel as we think of
angels, because we're gonna see that in a few verses. Verse 12,
and the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, the Lord
is with thee, thou mighty man of valor. Why was Gideon called
a mighty man of valor? Because that's what his name
means. Because he says here, the Lord is with thee. The Lord
is my strength and song and he has become my salvation. The
reason any of us have any strength, God calls his people mighty and
men of valor. Not because of what they are
in themselves, because Paul himself said, it's when I'm weak that
I'm strong. It's what they are in Christ,
and because the Spirit of God dwelling in us, showing Christ
for us, gives us strength over the old man. The new man is going
to win. That's the message of Scripture. Right? He says in Romans chapter
7 verse 24, Oh, wretched man that I am! who shall deliver
me from the body of this death. I thank God through Jesus Christ
our Lord. So then with the mind I myself
serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. I acknowledge
the fact that I have these two natures. I acknowledge the fact
that in my old man I'm nothing but sin, carnal, and yet I also
by grace In believing Christ, acknowledge the fact that he
is the captain and victor over all my sin. We don't say, well,
I give up. Yeah, there's no reason here.
There's no way I can conquer these enemies. There's not in
yourself, but because the Lord is with you, because Christ is
in you, then he gives us the victory. 1 Corinthians 15, 57. Thanks be unto God, who always
gives us the victory. and is by Jesus Christ. In Romans
5.21, as sin reigned to death, even so might grace reign through
righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. The
wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through
Jesus Christ our Lord. All these things teach us that
because of grace, we reign. Sin has dominion over us, but
that was only under the law. Our relation to the law has been
broken by our death with Christ. The law has nothing to say to
us, not the curse of the law, not the bondage of the law. We
no longer depend on our own ability to keep the law, to obtain God's
favor, or to overcome our sin. We depend on Christ only. And so he says, the Lord is with
thee, thou mighty man of valor. And Gideon said to him, O my
lord, if the Lord be with us, why then is all this befallen
us? It seems inconsistent to me to say the Lord is with us
when we're impoverished by these mongrel hordes, the Midianites
and Amalekites and the children of the East, and we're fearful,
we're hiding in dens and stuff. It doesn't seem like the Lord
is with us. He goes on. And where be all his miracles,
which our fathers told us of, saying, Did not the Lord bring
us up from Egypt? But now the Lord has forsaken
us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites. It is true that the Lord had
brought the Midianites. But he hadn't forsaken them,
had he? But here, Gideon is expressing something by faith, whether we
might not think so at first. He's saying that, look, if the
Lord truly is with us, then we will have power over these enemies.
The Lord won't forsake us if he's with us. If the Lord is
our God, he's gonna deliver us. That was his expectation, and
it was a correct one. But what he couldn't reconcile
was the fact that it seemed like the enemies are strong. And they've
got power over us. And it seems like the Lord has
forsaken us. Because that's the way as believers we do. It seems
like my sin is way too strong for me, and I can't get rid of
it. No surprise there. You never had strength over your
sin. But the Lord is with us. Christ is in us. And so he goes
on. Verse 15. I'm sorry, in verse
14. Now notice, what was the question?
Was he truly just an angel, merely an angel? He says in verse 14,
And the LORD looked upon him, the LORD looked upon him, and
said, Go in this thy might, and thou shalt save Israel from the
hand of the Midianites. Have not I sent thee? Where was
his strength? Because the LORD was with him.
Where was his strength? Because the Lord looked upon
him. Where was his strength? Because God sent him. God is
with us. Our God is with us. Our God has
looked upon us in grace. That's what that look means.
It's a look of favor, a look of pity, a look of tender compassion
and mercy, a look of deliverance and salvation. And he says, and
I have sent you. Sent you what? To destroy the
Midianites. If the Lord sends us, then we
will be victorious. If the Lord hasn't sent us, we
have no hope. But God has sent us, remember?
If you be risen with Christ, then seek those things which
are above, where Christ is. Christ is our life, therefore
mortify the deeds of the body, the flesh, the works of the flesh.
He says, and since the Lord is with us, since the Lord is the
one who sees us, and this was speaking from the perspective
of this one called the angel of the Lord, we know this is
the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
appears in his incarnate form with Gideon. And knowing that
helps us to see Christ sends us. Christ is with us. Isn't
that what it says in Hebrews 13? He says, Jesus Christ is
the same yesterday, today, and forever. He was always Jesus
Christ. He was always our deliverer,
always our captain. And he's the one who's with us.
He says, I will therefore not fear, for the Lord is with me. What can man do to me? What can
man's idols do? What can even my own sinful nature
do if the Lord is with me? In verse 15, he said unto him,
Gideon, speaking to the Lord Jesus, now called the angel of
the Lord, he says, oh my Lord, wherewith shall I save Israel? Behold, my family is poor in
Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house. Was Gideon
trying to pretend that he was humble here? Not at all. He was completely convinced of
the fact that he was poor. His family wasn't great. In fact,
he was the least in his father's house. This is the way that God
convinces us as believers. We might have been strong before,
but when the law comes, what does it do? It puts all of our
legal hopes to death. And we're left with one thing.
My only strength is in Christ. And so he says, I have nothing.
How can I possibly go against this people? In verse 16, and
the Lord said to him, surely I will be with thee. This is
the Lord again speaking, Christ. And thou shalt smite the Midianites
as one man. Now there was a lot of people
in Israel. And Gideon is going to send for them. And there's
going to be a bunch of people gathered to him. In fact, 32,000
men. But God, the Lord Jesus says, you're going to smite,
you're going to beat down and win and destroy the Midianites
as one man. Now what does that remind you
of? Remember David goes against Goliath and Goliath said, you
send me a champion and we'll fight. And whichever one of us
wins, that's the one who's gonna have control over the other army.
How did David, I mean, how were the Philistines beaten? One man,
David. He hit Goliath with that stone
from his sling, sunk into his forehead. He took out Goliath's
sword, cut off his head, held it up. The Philistines ran. All
of Israel won because of David. And even so, as a believer, how
do we win this fight? As one man, as the Lord Jesus
Christ. He fought for us. He won the
battle. He gives us the victory. And
now we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. By
one man's sin entered into the world. Even so, by the obedience
of one, many shall be made righteous. We're delivered from sin by one
man. the Lord Jesus Christ, and that's the angel of the Lord
pointing this out to Gideon. I'll be with you, and you're
gonna smite them as one man because the Lord Jesus Christ is that
one man appointed by God to defeat our enemies. Verse 17, and he
said to him, this is Gideon talking to the Lord now, he said to him,
if now I have found grace in thy sight, then show me a sign
that thou talkest with me. You know, you might think, well,
wait a minute, Gideon, didn't he just tell you he's gonna be
with you and all these things? He looked upon him, I'm gonna
be with you, you go, I'm sending you. And he said, well, show
me a sign. You see, God is, the Lord is
queuing up what he's going to do in order to teach us how this
confidence comes to us. He says in verse 18, Gideon goes
on talking to the Lord Jesus. He says, now depart not hence,
I pray thee, until I come unto thee and bring forth my present
and set it before thee. And he said, I will tarry until
thou come again. That's patience, isn't it? I'm
going to wait for you to go ahead and prepare the present. Verse
19, and Gideon went in and made ready a kid, meaning like a little
lamb or one of the sheep or the goats, and unleavened cakes,
an ephah of flour, The flesh he put in a basket, and he put
the broth in a pot, and brought it out unto him under the oak,
and he presented it to the angel of the Lord, the messenger of
God, the messenger of the covenant, the Lord Jesus Christ. And the
angel of God said to him, take the flesh, and the unleavened
cakes, lay them on the rock, and pour out the broth, and he
did so. And then the angel of the Lord put forth the end of
the staff that was in his hand, and touched the flesh, and the
unleavened cakes, and there rose up fire out of the rock, and
consumed the flesh, and the unleavened cakes. Then the angel of the
Lord departed out of his sight." He vanished. What is this teaching
us? Well, the Lord Jesus Christ here,
in his pre-incarnate appearance to Gideon. He tells Gideon, you
take the flesh of the lamb or the goat and you take the unleavened
cakes that you made and you put them on the rock and you pour
out the broth that was used, that was collected when you cooked
that lamb. and you pour it all out, and then he touched with
his rod, and suddenly fire came out of the rock and consumed
all that Gideon had offered. What is this saying? Well, the
rock is Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
one who touched that, and the sacrifice must be his. So he's
both the high priest, the sacrifice, and the altar. He's everything,
isn't he? And it was because God accepted
the sacrifice that he answered Gideon as the sign that the Lord
was talking to him. Remember what Jesus said, there
shall only one sign be given you, the sign of the prophet
Jonah. Three days in, three days out, Christ and Him crucified,
victorious, because He endured the floods of God's wrath. Here,
again, the same sign, Christ and Him crucified. He is the
reason that you know the Lord has spoken to you. How do you
know that God has spoken to you? Because you believe His Son and
Him crucified as all of your salvation. Isn't that true? Jesus
said, when Nicodemus said, how can these things be? How can
a man be born again? He pointed him to himself. crucified. As Moses lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
that whosoever believeth in him, like looking, shall not perish,
but have eternal life. It's in seeing Christ crucified
for us that God tells us we're born of God. God has spoken to
us. The Lord is with us. In fact,
Christ in me, the hope of glory. And that's the reason that we
can now have confidence that the Lord will give us the victory.
So we live our lives that way. And so Gideon's assurance. Gideon's assurance that he was
going to be able to achieve the victory that Christ had promised
him, and that Christ spoke to him, was what? The accepted sacrifice
of the Lord Jesus Christ. It wasn't his own sense of his
strength, was it? Or his own sense of his holiness,
was it? Or of Israel's repentance? No, none of those things. It
was what the Lord Jesus Christ did with the sacrifice. as the
high priest, as the altar, and as the one who was himself offered
on that altar. And so we can see this in all
these things. And let me just try to get a little bit further
here. It says, and when Gideon, verse 22, when Gideon perceived
that he was an angel of the Lord, Gideon said, ah, alas, oh, Lord
God, for because I have seen an angel of the Lord face to
face. In other words, my life is doomed. I've seen an angel. I've seen the Lord face to face,
not just a mere, you know, messenger, but the Lord himself the messenger. Exodus 33, 20, Moses said, the
Lord told Moses, no one's gonna see me and live. And so Gideon
is wondering, how in the world can I live? I've seen the Lord. In verse 23, and the Lord said
to him, peace be with thee, fear not, thou shalt not die. Why? Because the Lord had accepted
the sacrifice and had accepted Gideon. Verse 24, then Gideon
built an altar there to the Lord and called it Jehovah Shalom,
which is Jehovah my peace, or God the Lord is at peace with
me in Christ. How did God make peace with us?
Through Christ. He reconciled us to himself through
the death of his son. It's the blood of the cross. God has taken away his wrath
by providing his son as the propitiation for our sins, the satisfaction.
He's taken away his wrath with the satisfaction of the death
of his own son, bearing our sins and bearing the curse for our
sins. So Gideon knows this. So we see in this, and I can't
go much further because of time, maybe next time we'll pick this
up. You see this? The struggle between
the Midianites and the Amalekites and the children of Yisra'el
all against the Israelites is a picture of our struggle in
the new nature against our old nature by the life of Christ
in us. We're going to win, but we're
going to win through faith in Christ's blood. We're going to
win through faith in his redeeming work. We're going to win knowing
that the victory is his and that he will give it to us because
he says, I am with you. The Lord has looked upon you.
I will send you to this battle. And let me remind you of what
we read in Colossians chapter 3 before we started. He says
this, he's talking from the perspective of an accomplished redemption
and our being seated with Christ in glory, having been raised
with him. Colossians 3, if you then be risen with Christ, seek
those things which are above where Christ sits on the right
hand of God. What are those things? All spiritual blessings in Christ,
everlasting life, eternal glory, to see the face of God in my
Savior, to stand before Him complete. Set your affections on things
above, not on things on the earth. We're strangers, we're pilgrims.
We're like the Israelites in Canaan. with these enemies around,
for you are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God. That
describes us going through the Red Sea, the emblem of our baptism
in Christ and our resurrection. When Christ, who is our life,
shall appear, then shall you also appear with him in glory.
The consummation of this battle is what? Complete victory. We
will see Christ and we will be with Him in glory, triumphant
over every enemy, even our own sins and our own sinful nature. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
one who will deliver us. And we will be seated there because
He fights for us. And he fights in us. He tells
us now, by faith do this, mortify therefore the members, your members,
which are upon the earth, fornication, he's not ambiguous, he lists
them, fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence,
covetousness, which is idolatry. That's what they were guilty
of. they served idols covetousness wanting something in this life
not being satisfied with Christ being discontent complaining
about the circumstances of my life instead of always giving
thanks trusting God that he has it in control he's going to conform
us to his image and all things are working together for our
good Because He's purchased us with His redeeming blood. He's
therefore going to bring us to glory. He's going to give us
our liberty. He has already given it to us
and we're going to experience it, even the redemption of our
bodies. We're going to stand before Him
complete and we're going to be satisfied when we awaken His
likeness. He says, for which things sake
the wrath of God, all these things, come upon the children of disobedience? That's like the Canaanites, in
the which you also walked sometime when you lived in them, but now
you also put off all these, anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy
communication out of your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing
you have put off the old man and his deeds. How did we do that? We just simply
looked to Christ. we look to Christ. This cutting
off, this mortification, it comes by seeing what God has done for
us in Christ. And we stand on that. Stand fast in the liberty
wherewith Christ has made us free. Don't be entangled again
with the yoke of bondage. You died with Christ, you're
risen with him. And therefore put on as the elect of God, holy
and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind,
meekness, long-suffering, forgiving one another, forbearing one another.
If any men have a quarrel, even as Christ forgave you, so also
do you. And above all these things, put
on charity, love, the bond of perfectness. Let's pray. Father,
we thank you that you have revealed to us the hidden mysteries of
what's true in this world and in our life in this world as
believers. That you've shown us that the
Lord Jesus Christ purchased us and brought us out of the bondage
of our taskmasters, Satan and sin, and this world, and you
delivered us through the redeeming work Our death with Christ, our
burial with Him, and our resurrection with Him is all of our salvation. And now we live in this life
to stand upon what He's done for us by Your Spirit, to drink
in all of this salvation, to take of His broken body for us,
and to live upon Him who is crucified for us, and help us, Lord, amidst
all of the disappointments and struggles of this life, to keep
our eyes on Christ. He's our Savior. He's our Lord,
our Captain. He's the one alone who can defeat
our enemies. We have no strength in ourselves.
We are nothing but sin in ourselves and our old man. We are wretched
above all things. But we look to you, to your word,
because by your word we know we have your presence. We know
we have your blessing and your deliverance and your salvation.
Help us not to fail in this faith, but to continue to serve you
and to worship Christ and not to begin to serve the idols of
this world in our mind because we don't believe that you can
actually save us from our sins. But help us to fight on this
battle of faith. We know that by faith we overcome
through the blood of the Lamb. In his name we pray. Amen. Hmm.