Judges chapter 8 and verse 22. Then the men of Israel said unto
Gideon, Rule thou over us, both thou and thy son and thy son's
son also, for thou hast delivered us from the hand of Midian. And
Gideon said unto them, I will not rule over you, neither shall
my son rule over you. The Lord shall rule over you.'
And Gideon said unto them, I would desire a request of you, that
ye would give me every man the earrings of his prey, for they
had golden earrings, because they were Ishmaelites. And they
answered, We will willingly give them. And they spread a garment
and did cast therein every man the earrings of his prey. And
the weight of the golden earrings that he requested was a thousand
and seven hundred shekels of gold, beside ornaments and collars
and purple raiment that was on the kings of Midian, and beside
the chains that were about their camels' necks. And Gideon made
an efod thereof, and put it in his city, even in Ophrah. And all Israel went thither,
a-whoring after it. Which thing became a snare unto
Gideon, and to his house? Thus was Midian subdued before
the children of Israel, so that they lifted up their heads no
more. and the country was in quietness
forty years in the days of Gideon. Amen. May the Lord bless to us
this reading from his word. I decided we would spend a third
week on Gideon so we all might learn a little bit more about
the remainder of Gideon's life and his death. And I include
myself in that. I think we probably all are more
or less familiar with some of the earlier parts of Gideon's
story, perhaps more so than the end of his life. But I think
there are some lessons here to be learned as well. We didn't
read the whole chapter, but in this chapter 8 we learn that
Gideon continued to pursue the Midianites after his victory
over them. You'll remember how the Lord
prepared him for the battle and then how he took his 300 men. They had a torch, a flaming torch,
they had a trumpet, they had their torch inside a vessel,
a clay vessel, and they shouted and they revealed their torch,
they blew their trumpets, and the Midianite army was thrown
into such confusion that they started to fight amongst themselves
and to slay one another. And the Lord gave Gideon and
his 300 a great victory that day and we discover as well that
other parts of the army and other tribes indeed, they came to the
assistance of the 300 after that when the Midianite army started
to flee and there was a general rounding up of these people. But we also discover that a certain
number and quite a large group 15,000 I think it says, managed
to escape including several of the kings and Gideon and his
soldiers pursued them. So while we didn't read it particularly
in the chapter, we discover that here we are going to also encounter
a pursuit that takes place by Gideon and his 300 soldiers.
And the force that they were chasing was still a lot bigger
than the force that Gideon had with him. But we do remember
that that army, the Midianites, was an army in retreat. It was
in enemy territory. and the soldiers were desperate
to get home, so they were in no mood for fighting. And we read of also the men of
Sucath and the men of Penuel, who in this set of circumstances,
they refused to help Gideon and his soldiers with food and with
refreshment even although they were pursuing the army of their
enemies. And in this chapter, we discover
that afterwards, those cities suffered judgment by Gideon for
refusing to help and assist his soldiers. He slew some of the
leaders of those towns, and we learn from that that Gideon's
actions were not vengeful or cruel. in bringing this judgment
against his own people. Because we remember that Gideon
was judge in Israel and he fulfilled this role not merely by delivering
Israel from her enemies, the Midianites, but also by dispensing
justice and correcting sin and ingratitude and misbehaviour
amongst the people as well. And this is good for us to note
because our great judge, the Lord Jesus Christ, of whom these
ancient judges are types and pictures, he rules in his church
as our deliverer, In the same way as Gideon delivered out of
the hands of the Midianites, the Lord Jesus Christ is our
deliverer from the enslaving power of sin. But just as Gideon
was a judge amongst his own people, so the Lord Jesus Christ also
corrects his people when we sin and misbehave. because the Lord
loves us. The Lord loves us and just as
a careful parent, because of their love, corrects and disciplines
their children, so the Lord Jesus Christ chastens and disciplines
us when we wander away from him. after the defeat of the Midianites
by Gideon, Israel had peace for 40 years. And this is probably,
those 40 years are probably the remaining duration of Gideon's
life. But in that period, two incidents
are worth mentioning, I think. The first is an attempt by the
children of Israel to crown Gideon king. over the nation. And in this matter, Gideon showed
great wisdom. The second incident that I want
to draw to your attention was the making by Gideon of a golden
ephod, which seems to have been a serious error because it proved
to be a snare and it proved to damage the people of Israel. So let me just take those two
things one by one and that will be our thoughts for today. The
children of Israel were very keen to have a king. All the nations around about
had kings and Israel resented the fact that they didn't. They
resented that God alone was to be their king. We call that a
theocracy where God is the head and the religious leaders are
the head of a society. And the children of Israel didn't
want that. They wanted to have a king of
their own. They wanted their king to be
a man just like them. And after defeating the nation's
enemies, Gideon seemed like a good choice. So the tribes of Israel
offered Gideon the position of king. And they said, you can
be king, and your son can be king, and your son after him
can be king. And this might have been a very
attractive prospect, but Gideon refused. He told the people,
I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you, the
Lord shall rule over you. and it was a wise decision by
Gideon. God had made Gideon a judge over
Israel. He had not made him a king and
it would have been wrong for Gideon to take the throne when
the Lord had not authorised this change. The second thing that
we learn about Gideon at this time is that he made an effed,
or a garment, a sort of waistcoat garment that was decorated with
gold. Now, we've heard about ephods
before. We heard about an ephod at the
time of the making of the tabernacle when the high priest was being
dressed in all of his splendid garments for his work in the
tabernacle. We learned there about an ephod
that was sewn and was beautifully crafted. But why Gideon made
an ephod Well, I just don't know. Perhaps it was intended simply
as a memorial to mark God's deliverance of the nation. That would be
a good idea, but a monument of some kind, like Joshua had set
up or some of the other tribes had set up would have been a
very adequate way of establishing a memorial. I think that it's
likely that this ephod had a deeper meaning. An ephod was a religious
garment worn by the high priest. Israel, as we've already seen,
had an ephod. It was with the tabernacle at
Shiloh, which is where God was to be worshipped by the children
of Israel. The high priest's ephod contained
Again, something we have heard of, the Urim and the Thummim. And these, this device was used,
the Urim and the Thummim, was used to seek God's will on a
particular subject. And I wonder if perhaps, and
I am speculating a little bit, but I wonder if perhaps following
the experience of the Fleeces, where God gave an encouragement
to Gideon by the use of the fleece, it being dry on one day and wet
on the other, that Gideon felt that he had the ability to discover
God's will and that that ability now being vested in him, he used
this effort in his role as judge in Israel over the next 40 years. Now whether he did that or not,
it appears that the children of Israel began to place superstitious
trust in Gideon's effort. And we're told that it became
a snare both to Gideon's family and to the wider nation. If Gideon
did well in the matter of being called to be king, he did not
do well in the matter of the effort. And it all goes to remind
us that Gideon was just a sinful person who made mistakes like
the rest of us. He was certainly a man of faith,
but sometimes those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ do some
very foolish things that cause a lot of trouble. These incidents
in the history of the judges They don't have a lot of continuing
significance for us today, except insofar as they teach us spiritual
lessons about the Lord Jesus Christ. These things happened
a long time ago and far, far away. But they do teach us truths
about the Saviour, as does the whole of Scripture. And here's
what it teaches us. In a believer's heart, the Lord
Jesus alone is to be king. He is king and he has a kingdom. However, Christ's kingdom is
not of this world. The Lord Jesus told Pilate that
when he was being accused of being a king and of being a threat
to the Roman Empire and to Caesar. And the Lord Jesus Christ said,
yes, I am a king. What you say is right, and I
have a kingdom. but it is not of this world. It's a spiritual kingdom and
it is populated by spiritual men and women and boys and girls. Men and women, boys and girls
who have been brought into Christ's kingdom by the conquering power
of the Holy Spirit and who have been subdued by grace. When Christ is our King, we are
children of the King and we are subjects of his willing subjects
of the Lord Jesus. And we seek opportunity to serve
and to honour him as King in our lives. And what God or what Gideon,
I'm sorry, what Gideon intended by this effort is not certain. So perhaps we shouldn't be altogether
too critical of him. And yet it appears that where
he was wise with respect to the kingship of Israel, here he was
foolish with respect to this effort. Again, spiritually speaking,
Hebrews tells us that our Lord Jesus Christ alone is our High
Priest. One High Priest was made, one
effort was given, one way of approaching to God and finding
His will. And it was inappropriate, if
this indeed was Gideon's practice, for another way to be set up. The Lord Jesus Christ alone fulfilled
that role and fulfils that role and he alone at the cross accomplished
our access into the presence of God. Gideon had no authority
to meddle in such matters. Our Saviour serves both as High
Priest who offers a perfect sacrifice and that perfect sacrifice itself
that is offered. Our Lord Jesus offered his own
precious blood, the blood of Christ, to purge our sin and
to cleanse our conscience from dead works to serve the living
God. So what does that all mean? Just
this. As sinners we have one spiritual
head and one spiritual sacrifice. No more We look to Christ alone
as our King and we look to Christ as our substitute and offering
for sin. We have in Jesus Christ everything
we need for peace with God and everlasting life. When we read
these Old Testament histories we find men and women who were
used by God but no one, no one measures up to the God-man. Jesus Christ alone is fit and
able to bring salvation to our souls. These Old Testament judges,
they pointed to Christ and we are wise always to follow their
finger and to look beyond the type to the true object of our
faith. Gideon himself was a man of great
faith, we're told that in Hebrews. And he tells us, Gideon tells
us to look to Jesus and by God's grace that is what we shall do. We're told in this chapter that
Gideon died at a good old age. That's what it says. He died
at a good old age. I don't know exactly what age
that was. But I do know that only three
people in scripture are described as dying at a good old age. One of them was Abraham, one
of them was David, and one of them was Gideon. I take that
to mean, given the individuals concerned, I take that phrase,
a good old age, to mean that they died trusting in the Lord
Jesus Christ. under a clear sense of God's
mercy and grace, despite all the trouble that they had seen.
And that is a lovely picture with which to finish our thoughts
today. May the Lord bless these things
to us. Amen.