So on. So we have the time, and
so we're going to look at Gideon. Gideon is the story today, and
that's found in Judges chapter 6. Judges chapter 6. While you're turning, let me
remind you that this chapter deals with faith. Faith is not
an act of man, an act of the human will, but it's a gift of
God, an act of God upon human beings, a miraculous, supernatural
work of God upon mere, ordinary human beings to cause them to
see the unseen. believe the unbelievable. It
caused them to believe God, believe His Word, look to Him. And this faith is a gift of God
that enables ordinary people to do extraordinary things. Ordinary
people do extraordinary things. So faith glorifies God that gave
it. It's not of yourself. It glorifies
God. We're not glorifying these people.
Are we? No, this glorifies God, which enables men to do the things
that they do. And all of these are types of
Christ. And we've looked at all of these many times before and
looked at them as types of Christ, like Gideon. Gideon represents
the Lord Jesus Christ. But this chapter is given to
tell us about ordinary people. who by faith did what they did. So that's how we're looking at
this now. By faith. Gideon. He's just a man. He's
just an ordinary man, Gideon. Yes, he walked. But when the
Lord comes and reveals himself to him, he does an extraordinary
thing. And so there's several things
we're going to look at here. And Gideon represents every believer.
God comes to him, reveals himself to him. He becomes zealous for
God. He's among the chosen few. And
he's a preacher, like all God's people are preachers. That's
right. That's right. All God's people are preachers.
He's a defender of his brethren and he's a humble man. He seeks
the Lord's glory only. All right? Gideon, chapter 6. Gideon was known by God. And
God came, the Lord Jesus Christ came and revealed himself to
Gideon. Scripture says, for whom he did
foreknow, he did predestinate. Whom he did predestinate, he
called. That means he came to them, revealed
himself to them, called by the gospel. Gideon in chapter 6,
verse 11, There came an angel of the Lord and sat under an
oak, which is in Oprah. that pertained unto Joash the
Abizrite, and his son Gideon. The Lord came to this particular
place, to this particular man, at this particular time, because
this was one of the Lord's own. His name was Gideon. What was
Gideon doing? Threshing wheat. He was just
a laborer. Not many mighty, not many noble
are called, not many wise. You see, you're calling me. Just
a common man. The Lord came and revealed Himself
to Gideon. Verse 12, the angel of the Lord
appeared unto him and said unto him, The Lord is with thee. A mighty man of power. The Lord
is with you. Look at verse 17. This is the
Lord Jesus Christ, and Christ makes himself known to his people.
This is the Lord Christ who Gideon knew, the angel of the Lord. Verse 17, Gideon said unto him,
If now I have found grace in thy sight, show me a sign. Show
me a sign. What did the angel do? Well,
Gideon had a kid, a young goat ready, an unleavened
bread, and he brought it there. In verse 20, the angel of God
said, Take the flesh, unleavened cakes, lay them on a rock, pour
out the broth. He did so. The angel of the Lord
put forth the end of the staff that was in his hand, touched
the flesh, unleavened cake, and rose up fire out of the rock,
consumed the flesh, unleavened cakes, And the angel of the Lord
departed out of his sight. Gideon perceived that he was
an angel of the Lord, and he said, Alas, O Lord God, I have
seen an angel of the Lord face to face. And the Lord said unto
him, Peace be unto thee. Fear not, thou shalt not die.
Gideon saw the sacrifice of God. And Gideon, the Lord spoke peace
to his heart. Now what's that? Come on, what is that? Christ
and Him crucified. Every sacrifice is Christ and
Him crucified. Everyone the Lord comes to reveals
Christ and Him crucified to. Christ who made peace by the
blood of His crop. That's who Gideon saw. That's who Gideon knew. So all
of God's people are known of God. And everyone that has heard
and learned of the Father comes to Christ, knows Christ, sees
Christ. Then Gideon became zealous for
the true God after the Lord revealed Himself to Gideon. He found grace
in His sight and saw Christ lifted up. He became zealous for the
living and true God and a destroyer of idols. Look at verse 25 and
26. "...came to pass the same night,
the Lord said unto Gideon, take your father's young bullock,
even a second bullock of seven years old, and throw down the
altar of Baal that your father hath. Cut down the grove at Statues,
that is, by it, build an altar unto the Lord thy God on the
top of this rock in the ordered place. Take a second bullet and
offer a sacrifice with the wood, that is, those statues that you
tore down, take them and burn them up and offer a sacrifice
from the fire of that wood. Tear down your father's idols and worship the living and true
God. And isn't that exactly what Paul
said of the elect of God in 1 Thessalonians? I know your elect, he said, brethren,
beloved of the Lord, because our gospel came unto you. And
he says, you turned from your idols to serve the living and
true God. And those idols of Gideon's father,
you know they were his too. He was born and raised that way.
So that made him an idolater like Abraham. But God chose him
to reveal himself to the living and true God. Christ crucified. And one of the first things that
the Lord told Gideon to do was tear down your daddy's items. Tear them down. Everyone in here whom the Lord
revealed Himself to, what did you do? When the Lord said, you
go home and tell them what great things the Lord has done for
you. Go home to your family, your father, your mother. What
did you do? You went home and told them. Dad, Mom, That old
gospel that we used to believe? Not the gospel at all. That God
that we believe? That's not God at all. It's an
idol. Now, I love that verse in Hosea
14, verse 8. He said, Ephraim shall say, what
have we to do anymore with idols? We've heard him. When you hear
the living and true God, you can't tolerate Idols anymore. And you hate idols. You hate them. The idol of free
will. Man's made an idol out of that,
hasn't he? People worship the creature rather than the Creator,
don't they? You hate that. Why? Because God
alone is to be worshipped. God's very jealous of His name,
and so are His people. You hate the idol of this powerless
God, you know, the idol of a poor, pitiful Jesus. And you'd destroy
them all, wouldn't you, if you could? Tear them down. Gideon's
name was changed to Jeroboam. We'll look at it. Verse 28 and following. The men
of the city arose and saw the altar of Baal was cast down.
They said, who did this? Verse 29. And down in verse 31,
Joash, that's Gideon's father. I believe the Lord revealed Himself
to Gideon's father through Gideon. Because Joash is the one who
said this. His father said unto everyone,
Will you plead for Baal? Will you save him? You're going
to have to save your God? You couldn't keep your God from
being destroyed? Why couldn't he plead for himself?
Verse 31, He that will plead for him, let him be put to death
while it is yet more. If he be a God, let him plead
for himself. Somebody tore him down. Therefore
on that day he, that is Gideon's father, called his son Jeroboam. That means let Baal plead. You remember that story I told
you about that Walter Gruber gave you, that little Mexican
boy that his daddy had all those idols, remember? The Lord revealed
Himself to that young Mexican boy. One day he came home and
took a hammer and busted every one of those idols that belonged
to his dad, every one but one. He left that one idol standing,
left that hammer laying there. He left and he came back and
his dad was screaming bloody murder, you know, somebody who
busted my idols. And the boy came in and said,
well, there, that idol, he did it. He's the one that did it,
did all that. And that father said, silly boy,
that idol can't do anything. He said, Dad, that's what I've
been trying to tell you. And this God that men have made
up, who wants to and can't, who tries and fails, who can't be
God unless men let him, who can't save you unless you let him,
can't even come in your heart's door unless you open it, he can't
save anybody at all. They're praying to a God that
cannot save. Let him plead for himself. Is
this God? Our God is God. Our God will
work and who's going to let Him? We're going to let Him do anything.
Free will is not God. God is God. He said, I will and
you shall. That's God. Whoever has free
will is God. Whoever does according to his
will is God in heaven and earth. Man isn't, God is. So Gideon
became a destroyer of idols. And you know why we hate false
gods so much, why we hate all of this so much? Because it dishonors
our Lord. It's in His name. All that men
say and do is in the name of our God. And it brings Him down. What they say about God, can't
this, can't that, wants to, that brings our God down. You that
make mention of the Lord, make mention of His name is exalted.
When we talk about God, we mean God. Even the name Jesus. When we say the name Jesus, it
means Savior. He didn't try to do anything.
He didn't make a down payment on anything. He saved His people.
Call His name Jesus. Why? He shall save. Who? Whoever lets Him. His people. From what? their sin. That's why it came. That's the
Lord Jesus Christ of Scripture. We hate these false idols because
they destroy people that believe in them. They're destroying our loved
ones, aren't they? They almost destroyed us, didn't they? Had
we continued to believe in these false gods, we would have perished
with them, wouldn't we? So we hate them. We hate them
idols. And that's what Gideon was. He
was a terror down of idols. Gideon was a chosen man among
men. In chapter 7, if you know this
story, there were thousands 32,000 to be exact, 22,000 men. It says
in verse 2, the Lord said to Gideon, the people that are with
thee are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand,
lest Israel vault themselves against me, that is, be full
of pride, saying, mine own hand hath saved me. Isn't that what? The majority? 22,000. Isn't that the majority
of people? Isn't that what the world is
saying? The world of professing Christians? Isn't that what they
say to a man? I will. Mine own hand. My own
decision. I let Jesus... No, no, no. We're going to whittle this thing
down. There's a remnant according to the election of grace. And
every one of them are going to know we had nothing to do with
it but salvations of the Lord. Look at it. Verse 3. Go, proclaim in the ears of this
people, whoever is fearful and afraid, let him return to power.
And the return of the people, 22,000. And there remained 10,000. That
means there were 32,000 people. 22 of them departed. Okay? You remember how the vast multitudes
used to follow our Lord? And He'd turn to them and say
this and say that? And He kept offending them and
kept offending them? They said, these are hard to
say. Do you remember that? Until it was whittled down to
just a handful, wasn't it? It's the same today. The same
today. God hasn't changed. Man hasn't
changed. The truth hasn't changed. The truth of an elect people
according to the remnant of grace. And it got down to 300 people
out of 32,000. It came down to 300 men. And it says in verse 4, the Lord said unto Gideon, if
people are yet too many, bring them down to the water, I will
try them for thee there, and it shall be of whom I say unto
thee, whom I say, whom I choose, this shall go with me, and the
same will go with me. Of whomsoever I say unto thee,
this shall go with me. That's who's going to go. See
that? Who's that talking? The Lord
Jesus Christ. There's a scripture in Mark's
Gospel that says he went up into a mountain and called to him
whomsoever he would. Whoever he chose. And you know
what it says? And they came. Simon, Andrew, follow me. James,
John, follow me. Matthew, drop your money, follow
me. Zacchaeus, come down. He came
down. Follow me, follow me. My sheep,
hear my voice. My Father which gave them me,
all that the Father gave me shall come unto me. That gives glory
to Him. That doesn't exclude anyone.
No one would come if He didn't call them. Remember that? Will you also
go away? Simon Peter said, Where? To whom? Why? He said, Had not
I chosen you. You know why he wouldn't go back?
Because the Lord chose him. Nobody and no thing is going
to pluck them out of his hand. He'd say, I'm going to have what's
mine. Gideon was one of 300 out of
32,000. Look at this little sparse little
group of people here. You know I'm not saying we're
the only ones. There's at least 7,000 that haven't
bowed the knee to Baal. I know that for a fact. At least around these parts.
This God, this gospel is not believed by many. If you do,
blessed art thou, John Barshesley. Flesh and blood didn't reveal
it to you, but your Father which is in heaven. Thank the Lord. Gideon, and these men were known,
I told Gabe, I'm going to take a few extra minutes. These men
were known by the way they drank water. I'll tell you the story. It says
they went down in verses 2 through 7. We'll look down at verse 6. Verse 5, He 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, set
him aside. Likewise, everyone that bows
down upon his knees to drink. And the number of them that lapped
put in their hand to their mouth, were 300 men. All the rest of
the people bowed down upon their knees to drink water. And the
Lord said, by these 300 men that leapt will I save you and deliver
the Midianites into thy hand. Let everyone else go. In other
words, it was the ones who who reached down and drank water
like it, whom the Lord you went with. The others that were so
thirsty that they fell on their faces and put their face in the
water and just started guzzling water. He said, they're not going. Now, let me tell you what this
represents. There's guzzlers and there's
lappers. These guzzlers, there are 9,700 of them, 300 leopards. These guzzlers fell on their
faces. With their face in the water,
they never looked up. They just started guzzling. That
means they were unmindful of danger. They're in the middle
of a battle, a war. They're unmindful of danger.
They're unwatchful. They've got their heads down. That's the people of this world
who are just guzzling the water of this world. Unmindful of the
danger. God's people watch. Have their
heads up. Where were they watching? What
were these 300 men watching? Where were they looking? To get
in. To get in. They were ready to go. They're
not going to stay there and drink all day. Up! Our Lord came and
said, don't sleep. Get up! These guzzlers were ready to
halt. They were going to stay a while.
We have here no continuance. Look up, your redemption draweth
nigh. Watch unto prayer. And these
guzzlers were trying to get their fill of that water. Trying to
get all the water they could get in their body. The lappers
were taking only what they needed. Are you with me? Are you understanding
that? God's people take only what's used in this world, but
not abusing it. How the people of this world
can't get enough. Until these guzzlers became so
full of water, who's ready for battle? A man full of water? What's he going to do? He's going
to lie down and take a nap. Let us not sleep as two of them.
We're living from hand to mouth. Hand to mouth. We are poor and
needy, dependent, looking to our Lord. And we're going to
get thirsty. These men got thirsty again.
A little while later, they were faint. They became faint. The
Lord provided for them again. See, we're not trying to get
all we can, because this is where we get all our sustenance and
all our strength. And this is where we're going
to stay. Oh, no, no, no. Up. Watch. Up. Let's go. A guzzler or a lapper? All God's people are lappers. Well, Gideon was a gospel preacher.
Look at verse 16 and 17. He divided 300 men into three
companies and put a trumpet in every man's hand. Gideon was
a preacher and so was everybody else. He had a trumpet in their
hand. Our women, our preachers. And I've heard some greatness.
They can't stand in a pulpit. They can't teach or usurp authority
over the man. I don't know. But they can bear
witness to whomever, like Anna the prophetess. She spoke of
redemption to whoever looked for it. She was always around
the temple, and somebody came around and talked to her. They'd
hear the gospel from her. Trumpet. Every man had a trumpet
in his hand. All 300 of them did. One time,
Joshua came to Moses and said, the two fellows prophesying in
the camp, shall we stop them? He said,
oh, I wish everybody was a prophet. Let them alone. So they had a trumpet. That's
the gospel. Remember that? Remember the trumpet? Walls come down. It's the only
way they do. They had pitchers with lamps in them, fire in them.
Empty pitchers. Earthen vessels. We have this
treasure. Fire is the light in it. Fire
is the Holy Spirit. All God's people have the Spirit
of God. If you have not the Spirit of
God, you're none of Him. Fire and fiery creatures and
people on fire for the Lord. Not wildfire, mind you, but taught
of the Spirit, led of the Spirit. And verse 18 says, when I blow
the trumpet and all that are with me, you blow your trumpets.
And everybody say, verse 18, here's the cry of everyone. Everybody
say, the sword of the Lord and of Gideon. We preach Christ,
the gospel of Christ. This is God's gospel. The sword
of the Lord. We preach the Word of the Lord,
don't we? The gospel of Christ, don't we? And you know what?
It's my gospel, too. The sword of the Lord and Gideon.
The gospel of Christ and this your gospel, Stan? We're not
ashamed of it. This is my gospel. Do you all
believe that stuff? Yes? You don't believe that sovereign
grace, do you? Yes, I do. Who's on the Lord's
side? Me! Paul said, don't be ashamed of
me, the gospel, or me. This is my gospel. Soar to the
Lord and get him. My sword too. This is my gospel.
This is the only sword I have. The only defense I have. This is it. There is no other. And it says in verse 19, so Gideon
and the hundred men that were with him were outside the camp. Oh my, God's Word is so perfect,
isn't it? Let us go therefore unto him
without the camp, bearing his reproach. All of God's people
with Christ, all of God's people are outside the camp of modern
religion. Broken vessels, verse 20, they
broke their vessels, the pictures, they broke the pictures until
all you could see was the lamps. We're broken vessels. We have this treasure, but it's
not the best of its treasure. The fifth thing that he is, Gideon
was a defender of his brethren. In Judges 8, verse 18. A Gospel preacher. So much we're
passing over, but we're going to go on to Barak next week. Verse 18 and 19, he came to Ziba
and Zabunah, these kings, and said, What manner of men were
those that you slew at Tabor? And they said, As you, as thou
art, so were they. Each one resembled the children
of the king. And he said, Those were my brethren. sons of my
mother, as the Lord liveth, I'm going to kill you. You've offended my brethren. You offended my brethren. And
I'm going to defend them. Defender of the brethren. Our
Lord did, didn't He? If you seek me, you let them
go. The Lord said, you pray for them that despitefully use you,
but now you misuse my brother. That's another thing. Right? Turn the other cheek. And they
do it to you. When you're abused and miss you,
you go ahead, take it patiently. The Lord did. But did the Lord
tolerate abuse of His people? Neither love won't do that. Won't
allow it. If you hate yourself, but you
love your brethren and you defend them. Don't talk that way. That's
my brother. That's good in it. Get in. Defender
of his brethren. Getting was meek and humble.
He sought God's glory only. Verses 22 and 23, the men of
Israel said to Gideon, Rule over us, you and your son, and my
son's son also, for you have delivered us from the hand of
Midian. Gideon knew he didn't deliver. He was threshing wheat like Moses following sheep, like
David following sheep. He didn't deliver anybody. God
did. Salvation is of the Lord. No true gospel preacher takes
any credit for anything. People of God who are witnesses
don't take any credit for anything. Gideon said, I will not rule
over you, neither my son shall rule over you, the Lord shall
rule over you. See that? Now that's a man you can follow.
That's a man you can follow. It's not unto us, not unto us.
All God's people say this, especially His preachers and leaders. Not
unto us, but unto Him be all the glory. I didn't do anything. Peter, Paul, all of them, James,
John, all of them, when people would bow down to them, they'd
perform miracles. The Lord through them would do
the miracles. And people would want to worship
them as gods, and they'd rip their clothes and say, this is
how you know a true prophet. They won't let anybody give them
glory. John, they came to John and said,
you're a great man. He said, he wouldn't even tell
them his name. No! No! It's not me at all. I'm just an empty vessel. I was a fisherman a few days ago.
Not unto us. Not unto us. Unto Him be the
glory. Vessels were tools. You don't praise a tool, you
praise the one that uses it. And Gideon, like all of God's
people, is liable to err. He's just a man. If you read
the rest of this, beginning with verse 27, Gideon, with all the
earrings, by the way, here's a footnote, the children of Israel
came out of Egypt, they were wearing earrings. That's where
they came from. Men. He said Aaron had them jerk
them out of their ears and made an idol out of them. Well, when
they came out of captivity to Midian, they were wearing them
again. Go ahead and say I said that. I remember my dad years ago when
all this started said, who would have ever thought of it? Men
with earrings and women with tattoos. Who would have ever
thought it would come to that? Where did it come from? Egypt. A pagan, idolatrous land. They got thousands of pounds
of gold from these earrings and chained them around the camel's
neck. And verse 27, Gideon made a commemorative figure, an ephod
out of it. and put it up. And you know what
the people did? Verse 27, it became a snare under Gideon.
The people of Israel went a-whoring after it. They started worshiping
it. Oh, this is just a... I don't
mean anything by this cross around my neck. It's just something
to remind... a commemorative... it's just a
symbol, a graven something, an image. Is that what it is? A
graven image to remind you? Truth be to worship God in spirit. They don't use flesh. God said
don't make an idol of anything in heaven or earth or under the
earth. That's a fish in the sea. Don't do that. Why? God's a person. Unseen God. There's nothing you
can use to commemorate Him. To whom will you liken me? He
said. What will you liken me to? No picture can convey Him as
the sun that shineth in His strength. Well, those are idols. Oh, but
it's not. Oh, we don't do that. We don't
worship these things. Well, let's see. Do like Hezekiah
did. He found the pole upon which
the serpent of brass was. Remember that? Hezekiah found
it, didn't he? Do like he did and see what people do. He found
that serpent of brass and he ground it to powder. He said,
that's a worthless piece of brass, he said there about it. What
do you reckon they were doing? They were worshiping at that
time. What do you reckon the people were doing when he was grinding
it to powder? Oh, you're desecrating. That's exactly what I'm doing.
Tearing down these idols. Desecrating these things. There's
nothing but idols. Worship God. The living God. The true God. Our Lord said,
little children, keep yourselves from idols. The world is full
of them. And if you want to know if people
worship these things, treat them with contempt. See what happened. And my mother gave me that. Gideon's dad, Joe Ash, did. I
said, I don't know. But Gideon was a man, you see.
He was just a man and he did great exploits and he evidently
got a little Does that ephod commemorate your battles? Yeah,
it is. Oh, man. Get in. You know better than that. He
died shortly thereafter. So, he's just a man. Liable to
err, liable to fall, and so are we. So are we. Don't look to any man. Don't
hold up any man. He'll fall right before your
eyes. OK.