Chapter of the Book of Judges,
we find that there is much said about this problem that Israel
has. And, you know, as we think about
it, the world has gone after Baal, the god Baal, even today. Now, he's a god of fertility. And if I ask someone, What was
it that made them a Christian? And they say, my profession of
faith. So my profession of faith is
the life giver. That's what this word Baal is,
is the God of fertility. Where is our fertility from?
And we're gonna find out that people in religion, and I was
in the same position, that we have our hope in fertility in
all the wrong places. My belief. I heard that today. It's my belief. Well, if it's
my belief, then it's my belief that gave me life. And that's
not true. We never get life out of our
belief. We never get life out of our profession. And it's my
church membership. Well, there's no life in church
membership. We're worshiping Baal if we think that that's
right. We have a God of fertility, and it's called our church membership.
And it's my baptism. I've been baptized and I had
someone really great do that. Well, there's no hope and life
in baptism. And so we're just turning it,
like they did, to Baal, the God of fertility. Our life is based
upon something else besides God. My works. Oh, if my good works
can outweigh my bad works. Well, what does that tell me?
It tells me that I'm worshiping the God of Baal, if that's the
thing. I'm looking at something else that has life in it. There
was no fertility in Baal, he's an idol, but people looked at
him as being the God of fertility or the God of life. Now I know
it meant a lot more there in that term of God of fertility,
but fertility means life and my righteousness. If I'm depending
upon my righteousness for my life, then I am just worshiping
Baal all over. Because he was the god of fertility,
and they believe that he influenced the raising of the grain, he
influenced the cattle. the calves that were born, he
influenced all this stuff, and he had absolutely nothing to
do with it. All of it redounds to the glory
of God. So they had turned aside so greatly
about this. Going back to the book of Judges
again, if you would, in the book of Judges chapter six, verse
28, we find here that this subject is brought up, Judges chapter
six and verse 28, We have this comment made here
in verse 28, Judges 6, 28. It says, and when the men of
the city arose early in the morning, now you know where they're going.
They're going down to that altar. And they get down there and things
are not as they left them. And they are hot. They have had
their holy cow messed with. They have had their Baal messed
with. And he is destroyed. He has been
broken up by Gideon and his 10 men. So they have this idea that
they need, it tells us here, they arose early in the morning.
Behold the altar of Baal. What are they gonna do down there?
They're gonna have their morning devotions. They're gonna be worshiping
at the altar of Baal. Now, just keep your finger in
that place, but turn with me to Judges chapter two and verse
13 for just a moment. Judges chapter two and verse
13. This is earlier in the book.
This has been the issue through the book of Judges. God has brought
on them, the enemy brought to them these false religions and
they've just gone after it wholesale. And then they cry unto him, he
delivers them, they have peace for a while, and then they go
right back into it. And here it is, and they forsook
the Lord and served Baal and Ashtoth. And this is just common
here in Israel at this time. They have forsaken Jehovah. They have forsaken the God of
heaven. They have forsaken the God of real life. He is the God
that gives life, regenerative life. He's the one that gives
us spiritual life. He gave us physical life. And
nothing else, no other God, no God of fertility in any civilization
or culture has produced one grain of grain that grew up. It's out of their hands. They
can't do it. So they have this problem. They forsook the Lord
and served Baal and Ashtaroth, and God sends them judges and
throws off the enemy. And for a while, they say, we'll
never do that again. If you'll just take care of this
problem, we'll never do that again. We'll never go after of
Baal will never go after Ashtaroth again, and we'll continue to
worship you. And it isn't a generation, and
they're back in the pit because they've never had a change of
heart. They've never been born again. Well, they forsook Jehovah
and served Baal and Ashtaroth, and here it is. Now, going back
to our passage there in the book of Judges chapter six, we find
these people, townspeople, where Gideon lives, townpeople where
Gideon's father lives. And they go to this grove, they
go to this place where the idol of Baal is, this god of fertility. They have all placed all their
hope, all their belief, all their everything they have religiously
based in a God of stone or gold. And you know, we read over there
in the 115th Psalm that our God is in the heavens. He does whatever
he pleases. But these gods are gods of gold
and silver and they cannot hear and they cannot do. And everyone
that worships them, is just like them. They don't have ears to
hear. They don't have eyes to see. They don't have hands that
can serve. They don't have feet that can
go. They are just like those idols. So here we have in the
28th verse of the sixth chapter that these people, friends of
Gideon, friends of Gideon's father, all Israelites, all children
of Israel, all in the promised land. Their forebears had brought
them in. They're the ones that came into
that land as led by Joshua, and they had come in under the banner
of God, and it isn't very long that they demonstrate what their
heart has, and that is absolutely nothing. They'll turn aside.
Judges chapter six and verse 28. We read about them coming. It says there, and when the men
of the city arose early in the morning, behold, the altar of
Baal was cast down and the grove was cut down that it was by it. And the second bullock was offered
upon the altar that was built. So we have an altar with a sacrifice
that God prescribed, probably, maybe still smoking. and they
come into this place and they are hot. There's nothing worse
than a person that has his religion attacked. And these people have
had their religion attacked. They've been turned upside down.
All of their existence, their basis for life has been destroyed. And they said one to another.
Now, in one of the translations, it appears that they had, they
went kind of and searched out who had done this. Well, it didn't
take very long to find out who had done it. It says in verse
29, they said one to another, who have done this thing? And
when they inquired and asked, they said, Gideon, the son of
Joash, has done this thing. You know, they don't know that
Gideon had been told to do this. Not only told, but commanded
to do this. And so they're going to go over
to to Joash, that's Gideon's father's place, and they're going
to confront him. Now, there appears to have been
some change of heart with Gideon's father because that altar is
called his altar. And now he's going to bring up
the subject. He says, let Baal defend himself. All right, here it says, then
the men of the city said unto Joash, bring out thy son that
he may die. Now that is, they just flip-flopped. Over time they have absolutely
flip-flopped because we read in the book of Deuteronomy, turn
there to Deuteronomy chapter 17. They're going to, they want
to execute Gideon for destroying the altar of Baal and that grove
to Ashdod. And here in the book of Deuteronomy,
not that long ago, comparatively speaking, this passage of scripture
was given to them and it had been repeated When every time
on the Sabbath, you know, as they reviewed the law, passages
like this had been reviewed. In the book of Deuteronomy chapter
17, verse two, if there be any found among you within any of
thy gates, which the Lord thy God giveth thee, man or woman,
that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the Lord thy
God in transgressing his covenant. Deuteronomy 17, now verse three,
and hath done and served other gods and worshiped them, either
the sun or the moon or any of the host of heaven, which I have
not commanded, "'And it betold thee, and thou hast heard it,
"'and inquired diligently.'" What did they do? They inquired.
What did they say to Gideon's father? Bring your son out here
so we can kill him because he's destroyed the altar of Baal.
And now we find out God's instructions on this matter. They have completely
flipped away from God's purpose. And we find that that's just
natural man. They will not serve this God. And it tells us, and
it betold thee, thou hast heard it and inquired diligently, and
behold, it be true, and the thing certain, then such an abomination
is wrought in Israel, that thou shalt bring forth that man or
that woman which hath committed that wicked thing unto the gates,
and even man and woman, and thou shalt stone them with stones
until they die. It's just so so flagrantly in
error when these people, Israelites, say, we're going to kill this
man because he destroyed. that altar of Baal when God had
instructed them that if anybody brings any other God in here,
take them out to the gates of the city and stone them to death.
So there was no toleration. God had no toleration on this
thing, but here we have these men coming up to Joash and saying,
bring your son out here because he has destroyed your altar,
Joash, bring him out here. in the book of Deuteronomy 13,
back up just a little bit there in Deuteronomy chapter 13, and
we find these other instructions that are brought out. Deuteronomy
13, there, well, let's read verse
five. That prophet, or that dreamer
of dreams, shall be put to death. if any prophet comes in among
you and brings anything else besides what I have given you."
Well, that really speaks to us today. We find the apostle Paul,
in most of his books, was warning the church about people coming
in with another gospel. And that other gospel is Baal
worship in the sense that people are depending upon that for their
life. This is what gave me my life. And it's inanimate. Now, God
is not inanimate. He is all-powerful. He's the
one that gives life. Life is in Him. I am the way,
the truth, and the life. Life is in Him. So to turn to
something else, an inanimate thing, and say, this is where
I get my life, if any prophet brings that in among you and
says these things, take him out. Verse five. shall be put to death,
because he hath spoken to turn you away from the Lord your God,
which brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you
out of the house of bondage, to thrust thee out of the way
which the Lord thy God commanded thee to walk in. So shall they
put the evil away from the midst of thee. So it is incumbent upon
the church to be mindful and notice and careful about these
things. And so, as it was in the Old
Testament, now we don't go out and stone them to death, but
we just say, we can't hear that. We're not going to put up with
that. Well, here we have, going back to the book of Judges again,
Judges chapter six, as we follow this account, Judges chapter
six, as we follow this account, we have Joash's response to these
people. Now, you know, among the people
in that city, you could almost guess that most of them were
related. I grew up in a very small community
and you didn't talk about anybody because you were related to all
of them. and you're gonna offend somebody.
I just almost feel that same way about these men that were
coming up against Joash and against Gideon, that they were family,
that they're uncles or cousins, some relationship here, and they
bring this up against Joash, the father of Gideon. Judges
chapter six, verse 31. We read these words, Judges chapter
six, Well, there's no 31, is there?
What chapter? I'm in Joshua, excuse me. Let
me go to Judges chapter six, verse 31. All right, it says
right here, and Joash said unto all of that stood against him,
will you plead for Baal? Now, in the original, it is very
emphatic. Will you plead in earnest for
Baal? Are you kidding me? Now there appears to have been
something happen to Joash. because that was his altar, and
that was his grove, and it's been destroyed. Now, something
had blessed Gideon too. I'm convinced that in his early
days, at least, he was a worshiper of that same idol. It was his
dad's, why not? We generally do what our parents
tell us to do. They were going to Sunday school
down at the altar of Baal in the grove of Ashdod, and they
went along. Well, here we have, something
has happened. You know, in the book of 1 Thessalonians
1, and I refer to that so often because it's such a blessing
because it is God that turns us from worshiping idols to the
living God. 1 Thessalonians 1, it is God
that turns us. So something had happened to
Gideon. God came to him, revealed himself to him, speaking to him.
God to man, what a blessing. And then I'm convinced that Gideon
came home and says, there's something that's going on here. So he said,
are you kidding? Will ye plead in earnest for
Baal? And the next one there, will
you save him? Will you really save him? If
he be God, and you know that word God in that verse is little
g-o-d, verse 31, if he be God, you know what that is in the
original? Elohim. Mike was bringing that up on
Sunday. This is Elohim. The times that
is capitalized, he's speaking about the God of heaven, but
they had this term represented all kinds of gods and Baal is
referred to as Elohim. What reverence they give to him. and how wrong that is. And yet
by nature, we will fall into that trap and we'll worship anything
that we think gave us life. Inanimate objects, water, a piece
of paper, some wine or crackers, any of that stuff that we are
depending upon and say, this is what gave me life, that's
so It's so phony, there's no hope in it. There's only one
that can give us life, and that's the life giver, the Lord Jesus.
So he is our way, he is our truth, and he is our life. So here he
goes on, Joash responds to this. His words are very emphatic to
these people. And he says there, if he be a
God, let him plead for himself. because one hath cast down his
altar. If he can't take care of it,
we have a problem. If our God can't take care of
even falling down, we have a problem. And that's the problem of Baal.
God told Gideon, destroy that altar. Gideon did that. He made no friends with the rest
of the family members. And here we have Joash's father
saying, let him contend for himself. Let him present himself. You
know, when we read about that case of Elijah and those prophets
of Baal, it's kind of comical and yet
so serious when he says, It came to pass at noon, he says, he
mocked them. Is he in a far country? Can he
not hear you? And you know, they went to the
extent of cutting themselves with knives, thinking that this
would invite Bale to come back from his far country and take
care of the problem. It is a mockery what happens
in religion. And here we have this passage
of scripture sharing that with us. In the Psalm 115, I mentioned
that verse four or five, six and seven, part of that says,
their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands. And
this is Baal. the work of men's hands. What else is the work of men's
hands? Our golden works that we're depending upon. Psalm 115. Let's just go over there. We
read it last week, but it's such a powerful psalm that shares
with us so much about God because there in the very first verse,
where is our God? He's not in gold or silver. Psalm 115, verse one, it says,
not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name. Give glory
for thy mercy and for thy truth's sake. Wherefore should the heavens
said, where is now their God? But our God is in the heavens. He hath done whatsoever he pleased. Now what's going on here in Israel
at this time of Gideon? God has purposed it. He has purpose
every minute of it. You know, it's interesting that
God said about himself, I create evil. And you know, people just
cannot handle a God that does what he wants to do. And they
have this idea that they are better off and they can instruct
God in how to do things, that their righteousness is better
than God's righteousness and they want to instruct God on
how to do his business. And God is not going to do that.
He does not bend. He does not bow. He does not
give in. None shall say unto him, what
doest thou? Stop his hand in its activity.
So here in there in verse three, our God is in the heavens and
verse four, their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands. Now, we deal with people that
have that idol every time we visit with someone that doesn't
know Christ. The work of men's hands. Now, they may not worship
a golden idol or a silver idol or a stone idol, but when we
are worshiping what we have done, over what Christ has done. We're
doing the same thing that those people were doing when they worshiped
an idol Baal. He was the God of fertility,
the God of life to them. He didn't have any life in him,
but they worshiped him as such. And we find out we're doing exactly
what they were doing, worshiping the God Baal. We're trusting
something besides the living God, and that's no different. And it doesn't matter whether
you're Shittu, Mohammed, Baptist, Presbyterian, if that's our bent,
if that's where our hope is in things that we have done, we're
no better than these Israelites in this time that God's gonna
overthrow Get rid of this worship of Baal for a season. You know,
that's one thing about the Lord Jesus. He gets rid of our worship
of Baal. We say, He is my Savior. He has saved me. We agree with
Jonah. Salvation is of the Lord. There is a translation on that
passage of scripture there in the Judges chapter six and verse
31 that I enjoyed. It says, do you really intend
to rescue him by ordering that whoever fights will be executed
by morning? If Baal is a God, let him fight
for himself. After all, it was his altar that
was torn down. Let him fight for himself. God
speaks up for himself. God speaks for himself. God speaks
for his own glory. And going back to the book of
Judges again, chapter six, Judges chapter six, and there in verse
32, Judges chapter six, verse 32. Therefore, on that day, he called
him Zerubbabel. Did you notice the last four
letters of that name? Saying, let Baal plead against
him because he has thrown down his altar. Let him plead. Change, Gideon is given another
name that is let Baal plead. Let Baal plead. So he's given, the names are
roomable. You know, we find a number of
times in the scriptures that people's names were changed.
I really like it when we read about Jacob becomes Israel. Jacob means supplanter. Israel means a prince. Same person
God gave a new name to. And you know that is also promised
to every believer. A name that they know alone.
Book of Revelation shares with us. Jacob is a heel holder or
supplanter. Israel is a prince. And we find
these, the truths of this carried throughout the scriptures that
when God saves us, he gives us a name. And it is, and we read
that it is the Lord, our righteousness. That's it. All right, verse 33,
verse 33. Then all the Midianites and Amalekites
and the children of East were gathered together and went over
and pitched in the Valley of Jezreel. What are they doing
here? It's about harvest time. They're going to take care of
the harvest again. that has been their business
for the last seven years. They've taken care of the food
that Israel has produced. They arrive at harvest time.
But you know what? The spirit of the Lord drew them
this time. brought them into the valley
this time, and this time they are going to be destroyed. In
years past, they've taken advantage of Israel. They've harvested
their crops. They've taken their food. They've
just left Israel in a shambles. It's been a terrible place for
Israel. You remember where we find Gideon?
He's down there in a wine press. He's getting some grain, harvesting
grain or breaking it out of the sheaves, the heads because of
the Midianites. If they knew what he was doing,
they'd be there taking his food away from him. What did he do
with the bread that he made from that grain? He brought it out
of that house and gave it to the Lord and it was offered on
that altar. And God consumed it by fire along
with that goat or that lamb and the broth that was there. Fire
came out of the rock. What did God say? I am happy
with this. I am satisfied with this. This
is what I want. I want sacrifice to me and not
sacrifice to Baal as we have here. The Midianites and the
Amalekites and the children of the East are gathered together.
Isn't that interesting? We have them all in one place.
We have them centralized. We're not going to have to go
after them. They're right here. And we're going to follow Gideon
as we go into the next chapter of him dealing with this by the
grace of God. They are gathered together. This
is their custom. Every year they've been there.
But this particular year, the year of Israel's deliverance,
therefore the Lord inclined their enemies to gather together. The Lord moved in them to be
here at the right time because he has someone who is a picture
and a type and a shadow of the Lord Jesus Christ. His name is
Gideon that is going to deliver these Israelites from the hand
of the taskmaster. He is going to have Gideon go
and destroy those folks. Now, We know just as well as
Jericho, the walls of Jericho did not come down at the command
of Joshua. They came down at the command
of God. God used the means of Joshua, but the walls of Jericho
came down by the hand of Almighty God. We're saved by the hand
of God. We're not saved by the hand of
the preacher. We're not saved by our hand. We're saved by the
hand of Almighty God. I use that metaphorically. God
delivers us from the pit we're in. So we're gonna have that
happen here. We got all the enemy gathered
together. I'm thankful that the Lord knows where his people are.
He knows, and there's a point in time when he'll get the gospel
to them and he'll bring them out of the pit. Well, in the book of Micah, turn with
me to the book of Micah. Chapter four, verse 12, those Amlekites and those Canaanites
gathered together and said, well, boys, got one more year to gather
the free harvest. We're just glad to be here. Good
to see everyone having our rendezvous right here. And had no idea what
was going to take place that year, but in the book of Micah,
chapter 4, verse 12, it says, but they know not the thoughts
of the Lord, neither understand they His counsel. For he shall gather them as the
sheaves into the floor. He shall gather them. He gathered
this mess of infidels, unbelievers, to a group of unbelievers. Israel,
look at what they're worshiping. They're no different. Those Amalekites
and those Canaanites are worshiping the same God that these folks
have been worshiping. That's where they adopted it
from. And then it goes on, arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion,
for I will make thine horn iron, and I'll make thy hooves brass,
and thou shalt beat in pieces many people, and I will consecrate
their gain unto the Lord and their substance unto the Lord
of the whole earth. They know not the thoughts of
the Lord. Now Zion, the only thing that Zion does, only thing
the church does is preach the gospel. And as a result, the
Lord makes the harvest. One man plants, another man waters,
God gives the increase. But this whole host of people
have been gathered there on purpose. They know not the thoughts of
the Lord, neither understand they his counsel, for he shall
gather them as the sheaves into the floor." So we're going to
have a harvest, and God's going to purpose to harvest them, and
there's going to be a lot of people enter eternity. at the hand of Gideon and his
small army. We're gonna find out that he
brought together several thousand men, and the Lord says, mm-mm-mm,
too many, and cut it down to 300, and they had very little
to do with the victory. They just were faithful. That's
what we read about Gideon. And going back to the book of
Judges again, this is such an important thing happens to Gideon.
Gideon in preparation for all of this, in the book of Judges
chapter six and verse 34, notice this with me if you would. Judges
chapter six and verse 34, but the spirit of the Lord came upon
Gideon. Now, in most of the translations,
and it could have been easily translated that way here, it
is he was clothed with the Spirit. He was clothed. The Holy Spirit
came on, of the Lord, came upon Gideon, and he blew a trumpet,
and Abizar was gathered after him. So he is the Spirit of the
Lord, the Spirit of Jehovah. came upon him, he is clothed
with the Spirit. Now we go over to Acts chapter
two, we find some of that happening right there. The Spirit came
upon them, the Spirit blessed them, and we're gonna have this
blessing given to Gideon, the Spirit clothed Gideon. And we're
gonna have him prove what we read over in the book of Zechariah
chapter four and verse six. Not by might, nor by power, but
by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts. Not by Gideon's power,
not by our power. We cannot produce life. It is
an impossibility. And when we produce children,
it's a miracle. It's just an absolute, I don't,
anyway. We cannot get life. And here
it tells us Gideon was divinely endowed with wisdom and energy
to perform the tasks laid out by God. When God calls his lost
sheep, he provides all the requirements. When he called Gideon to do this
task, he provided all the necessary requirements. And it's based
upon the Lord, the Holy Spirit coming up and clothing him. Isaiah
mentions about being clothed with the robe of righteousness.
It's imputed to us. I used to think that it was kind
of put on us, but it is imputed to us in a miraculous way that
cannot be lost. A coat may be lost, a robe may
be lost, but His imputed righteousness is never lost. It is with us
for time and for eternity. And it tells us He blew a trumpet.
He blew a trumpet. Well, so often we find that as
a symbol of the gospel. Over there, we read about the
trumpet in Joshua. He blew the trumpet there at
Jericho. We find out there was a silver trumpet that was to
be made for announcing different things that were going on. It's
such a picture, the silver trumpet, such a picture of the pure tune
of the gospel. And that trumpet was made out
of one piece of silver. It was not joined in any way.
And the gospel is not in parts, it is a whole, and it was used
in the Old Testament, New Testament, and in our day. The trumpet was
to be used, and it went out there in verse 34. He blew the trumpet,
and in verse 35, and he sent messengers throughout all Manasseh. We got some messengers, what
are those? Evangelists. We have messengers of the Lord
going up and speaking to people in Manasseh, and in Asher, and
Zebulon, and Naphtali, and they came to meet Him. Effectual call. They came. There was no resistance. They came to meet Him. Now, we're
gonna stop here, but in verses 36 through 40, He does something,
he asks the Lord to really show him his will and he uses a fleece
to do this. And I'm not gonna say in any
way that he did wrong in doing that. That's how God answered
him. But I think in our day, we have the whole word of God
and we don't need to lay out fleeces. But we'll talk about
that later. So here we have, Terrible, terrible
oppression has come upon Israel. God sent a deliverer. His name
is Gideon. Gideon is instructed by the Lord.
The Lord appears unto him. And in fact, Gideon says, I saw
the Lord and I'm still alive. And the Lord says, peace, you're
whole. And he says, tear down that wall,
tear down that wall. altar to Baal. Well, there's
probably tens and thousands of altars to Baal throughout Israel.
But the one that meant something was that one that he had at one
time worshipped. Tear down that altar and tear
down that grove and burn that grove up and offer a sacrifice
that I am well pleased with. And he does all of that. He's
in hot water by the neighbors. His dad comes to his defense
and says, let Baal defend him. And just, you think for a moment
that you're gonna take him out and kill him? You should die
for worshiping Baal. That's the problem. All right,
and then we find out he's clothed with the spirit of God. He is called to do a task. He answers that call and we get
over in the book of Hebrews, he says, by faith, Gideon. Well, we just mark right there,
believer, saved one, in God's hand. All right, we'll stop there
and we'll pick up this last five verses of this chapter, Lord
willing, next time. And you pray for us as we study
that out. Is there any thoughts or comments from anyone before
we're dismissed? Thank you for joining us, each
one. Thank you. Perfect sense. Yeah, a very pleasant
sound. Yeah, and clear and as crystal. Yeah, alright. Thank you. Be free. Yes, she is. Crystal or right
here. All their methodology for skirting
the cell phone blew up in their face. Thank you for joining us
each one. Bye bye now.