Jehovah Shalom, the Lord is Peace, is presented as the Lord's provision for Israel's distress as described in Judges chapter 6. The sermon details the oppression of the Israelites by the Midianites, Amalekites, and the Children of the East, leading to widespread poverty and fear. Through the prophet and the Angel of the Lord, God calls Gideon to deliver His people, highlighting Gideon's humility and diligent work ethic as qualities God uses. Ultimately, Gideon builds an altar and names it Jehovah Shalom, signifying God's peace amidst turmoil, a peace that the sermon urges believers to cultivate by avoiding strife and fleshly divisions.
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In some of the Jehovah titles in the Old Testament scriptures, there are seven of them all together, and we have already covered three of them. The first one is Jehovah Jireh, the Lord saw and the Lord provided. That is the foundational Jehovah title. Jehovah Jireh. Then we were looking at another one, Jehovah this time. yesterday. We were looking at that, the Lord, my banner. This morning I want to look at another one. It is Jehovah Shalom, the Lord Sam Peace.
I shall read the passage please in Judges chapter six. Children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord delivered them into the hand of Midian seven years. and the hand of Midian prevailed against Israel, and because of the Midianites the children of Israel made themselves Danes which are in the mountains and caves and strongholds. And so it was when Israel had saw that the Midianites came up, and the Amalekites and the children of the east, even they came up against them. And they in kept against them, and destroyed the increase of the earth, till they come unto Gaius Giza, and left no sustenance for Israel, neither sheep, nor ox, nor ass.
For they came up with their cattle in their tent, and they came up with grasshoppers, for multitude. For both they and their camels were without number, and they entered into the land to destroy it. And Israel was greatly impoverished. because of the Midianites. And the children of Israel cried unto the Lord. And it came to pass when the children of Israel cried unto the Lord, because of the Midianites, that the Lord sent a prophet unto the children of Israel, who said unto them, Thus said the Lord God of Israel, I brought you up out of Egypt, and brought you forth out of the house of bondage. And I delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians.
and out of the hand of those who oppressed you, and drove them out from before you, and gave you their land. And I said unto you, I am the Lord your God. Fear not the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell, and ye have not obeyed my voice. And they came an angel of the Lord, and sat unto Nook, which was at Orphra, that pertained unto Joach, the Abba Esarite, and his son Gideon. thresh tweed by the wine-breast to hide it from the Midianites. And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him, and said unto him, The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of father.
And Gideon said unto him, O my Lord, did the Lord be with us? Why then is all this the fallen us? And where are all his miracles which our fathers told us of, saying, Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt? But now the Lord hath forsaken us, and delivered us into the hand of the Midianites. And the Lord looked upon him and said, Go in this thy might, and thou shalt save Israel from the hand of the Midianites, hath not I sent thee? And he said unto him, O my Lord, wherewith shall I save Israel? Behold my family is poor in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's heart.
Now further down the chapter, please. Verse twenty-two. And when Gideon perceived that he was an angel of the Lord, Gideon said, Alas, O Lord God, for 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. Then Gideon built an altar there, unto the Lord. and called it Jehovah Shalom. On to this day it is yet an offera of the anti-Isarites. Again may God add his blessing to the reading of his word.
I'd like to have read the whole chapter to get the context of what we want to talk about for a few minutes this morning. Jehovah Shalom, the Lord, said, peace. The Book of Judges is one of the most bleak. and aren't books in the Old Testament. It has been called the book of the third generation and wherever you get the third generation is generally deterioration and departure. It covers a period of three hundred years and during that three hundred years there was steady deterioration from the things of the Lord and God had to commit a judgment upon them.
When we turn to the last chapter of the book of Judges we get the secret or we get the solution to the condition that you get in the book of Judges. There was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eye. You know, for there's no leadership, any effective leadership among the people of God, there always is deterioration. I thoroughly believe in the Church of God today, one of the greatest needs is men that have been raised up by God for leadership on guidance and counsel among God's people. Some people don't believe in elders and have told me that the fact that the church is in ruins today, therefore we don't have any.
I don't believe that. I believe that the secret of blessing among the people of God are good men that is raised up by God, that have wisdom and are able to counsel and help. But on the book of Judges there was no king in Israel. Every man had that which was right in his own eyes, and there were four little pictures at the end of the book describing the religious life, their social life, their family life, and their tribal life. And at every single case there was deterioration and there was trouble. You know, right through the book God stepped in and he raised up men.
And one of the greatest is the one that I want to talk about for a few minutes this morning. That is Gideon. He was a man of courage. We read here about a combination of enemies that were attacking the people at that time. First of all, there was the Midianite, and then the Amlachite, and then thirdly, the Children of the East. So I think that that term, the Children of the East, described the bit, what we call today the Bedouin. those nomads that wander all over the desert. So this combination of power that came into the land and it destroyed everything that the people were cultivating.
It meant that there was poverty, it meant that there was hunger, and there was oppression in the land, and it lasted for seven years. You know, this combination, I believe, was the spiritual meaning behind it. If you look at the chapter, you'll find the Midianite mentioned very frequently. I haven't counted the number, but in nearly every other verses, the Midianite, the Midianite, the Midianite. But along with the Midianite was the Amlachite. We were speaking about Amlach. Yes, the morning. Amlach stands for the flesh, but the Midianite, that means strife. And strife, on the flesh, That combination.
And then these nomads wandering all over the place, these were the people that came into the land and impoverished it. They ate up everything that was in the land. And the result was that the Israelites, the people of Israel themselves, they had to go underground. They were meeting in caves and in the mountains and in strongholds. And for seven years, they were in this condition. But God had a man. and his name is Gideon. And he was determined that although everybody in the country was starving, I'm not going to starve. And the first time we get a mention here, we find a flashing wheat in the wine press to hide it from the Midianites.
Flashing wheat. And first of all, we're either but a prophet coming and speaking. Now here's the voice of God to the people, reminding them of their sin. It was an account of their departure under sin and going into idolatry, the Lord had brought this upon them. First of all, the prophet. But then second, we get the angel of the Lord. And if you look at the passage, you'll find that the angel of the Lord here is mentioned seven times. I believe we get here the theopathy. I believe it was the Lord himself. And pre-incarnate form.
And seven times he's mentioned here in connection with this situation. And he speaks to Gideon, and he encourages him. And he calls him the mighty man of valor. Oh, he said, mighty man of valor. He said, look at the country. And he reminded the Lord of the condition of the country. And he said, go in this thy shrine. And the fact that he was thrashing wheat in the wine press to hide it from the Midianites. meant that he was a man that the Lord could use. Oh, this is the type of man that God is looking for today. The man that hashes weak, that not only to feed himself, but feed his family.
What does it mean? I believe it's a careful, systematic study of the Word of God as far as we are concerned. Many years ago in Chicago, there was a brother He spoke to me and it made a complete revolution in my life. I had been seven years of Africa at the time, home of my first furlough. And this brother, the same age as myself, walking down the street, he said, Brother, I want to give you some advice. He said, when you go back to Africa, he said, you'll be very busy from morning till night with all kinds of all kinds of work that you have to do, manual work, building and so on.
But he said, make up your mind. that every single day you're going to set apart a time for the careful, systematic study of the Word of God. And he said, if you do, you'll be of some use to God's people. That was Gideon. Fresh and weak. The undergrass. And then the angel of the Lord appeared to him and he gave him a call. You notice that Gideon, as soon as he got that call, he said, Why? He said, my family is poor and he said we have no count whatever and he said find the least in my father's house well this is humility there was no swelled head here for anything of that kind and people that are as proud as they can possibly be God can't use that individual not only was their courage but there was humility And there were the conditions that God used in that man to do this wonderful, wonderful work that's described in three chapters here in the Book of Judges.
Now, I don't want to continue on that because I want to apply it to ourselves in a practical way. The Midianite and the Amliteite and the Children of the East. First of all, strife, and secondly, the flesh, and thirdly, these wanderers. but no settled home. These were the people that came into the land and completely destroyed all the produce of the land. And the word that used it here in connection with them, they were just like grasshoppers. In the nineteen thirty-one, the country where we were living at the time, there was an invasion of Locus.
It lasted for two years. And you'd hardly believe that when these Locus came in, they actively darkened the sky. On the settled down at night, there were about three and a half inches long, these locusts, grasshoppers, on the settled down. And in the morning, when the sun came up and they got up from where they had been settling, everything was completely eaten right down to the ground. Actually, the banana plants were eaten down to the ground. on every bit of produce in the country was completely destroyed, every green thing.
And at that time, there were many, many people died of starvation. Now, there were grasshoppers, there were locusts. And wherever these three things that are mentioned here, or the spiritual meaning behind them, when they come in, it completely destroys any sustenance for the people of God. the Ammonite on the Midianite, strife on the flesh, and then these wanders in combination with it. You know, I believe there's one thing that destroys the work of God today.
It's just what we find here. The combination of strife on the flesh, on people that have no settled convictions about anything. a very very dark bleak picture but here was a man who was determined that he was going to have food not only for himself but for his family as well now that's the picture that we get here but when the angel of the Lord appeared to him he offered an offering and when he offered the offering the angel of the Lord spoke to him and he told him go in this line He built an altar, and he offered a sacrifice to God, and he called that altar, Jehovah Shalom, the Lord said, Peace.
And I wonder why this is in a practical way. I don't know of anything that has destroyed the testimony of the Lord and the work of God. And these two things that are represented here by the Amla type, and the Midianite, strife and the flesh. I want to quote a few things from church history, an answer from the Bible, just to illustrate what I mean. Wherever you find harmony and love and fellowship among God's people, you'll find the foundation of this.
But the one tool that the devil uses today in destroying the work of God are these two things, strife and the flesh. You can use many, many illustrations not only in the Bible, but in church history to illustrate what I mean. As far as the Scripture is concerned, to me one of the most pathetic situations that we get in the Bible, or in the New Testament, is what happened between Paul and Barnabas. Now Paul was the Apostle of the Gentile. One of the greatest men in the history of the church.
Paul the Apostle. And the other man is a beautiful, beautiful commendation of him in Scripture. Barnabas, a good man, full of the Holy Ghost and the faith. And really much people were added to the Lord. Now here are two individuals. And I think the record that's given... of what happened between them, I believe it's given for our instruction. The first missionary journey, when they went off to evangelize, a wonderful work was done. Young man, John Mark, went with them, but John Mark, I don't know the reason for it, but at a critical point, in that first missionary journey, he turned in the seal and left them and went back home.
I wonder what his mother, Mary, thought when he turned up. But in their case he had planted them. That is the word that is used. And he went home. And then on the second missionary journey, Paul said to Barnabas, Let us go again and visit the brethren and see how they do. And Barnabas said, Let's take John Mark. Apparently there was a family relationship there. Likely Barnabas was the uncle of John Mark. And he said, let's take John Mark with us. Paul said, no. He abandoned us. He's not going.
You know, it developed into a heated arguments. The word that's used there is a very strong word. I think in Darby's translation it says, a very warm feeling developed between the two. And you can see how one thing would pull another until finally. The two men they parted coming. It all later on, the Apostle Paul, when he wrote First Corinthians chapter thirteen, and outlines love and the different qualities of love. She said, love is not revoked. That's the same word that's used in Acts chapter fifteen.
That heated argument, that strong feeling between the two. read that part of something. As far as the word of God is concerned, they never met again. That word warm feeling in Acts chapter fifteen is a medical word that means to get into a fever. I know a little bit about that experimentally. Malaria, you know what, it does some funny things to a person. You're bitten by a mosquito. Nine days later, if it's infected, first of all feel very cold and you shiver. Then the next thing that passes and you get hotter and hotter and hotter and hotter and your temperature goes up to about a hundred and five or a hundred and six and then you start talking nonsense.
That's the word that's used here. It was a feverish condition and these two dear men over the argument over John Mark They've heard it coming, and you'll never find them again on Scripture. But Paul, I think, and looking back at it when he's writing that description of love, that beautiful, beautiful description of love, and first Corinthians chapter thirteen says, love is not remote. It doesn't get into a condition like that. Did you ever see anybody in the condition? Well, I have. And whenever it happens, it's a very, very sad thing.
two men, part of a company, and never being linked in service again. Now that's a scriptural illustration of it. And it has happened again and again in church history. I was thinking today of Luther, from Old Rick Swingley. The other day we were talking about three great revivals in church history. The first one was the revival of the Reformation. Martin Luther was a man that was raised up by God, I believe, to be responsible and to the leaders in that tremendous Reformation and the recovery of truth that had been lost for centuries.
It's an amazing thing that he died in his bed, that he wasn't burned at the stake, but God preserves his dear servant, and he recovered the great truth of justification by faith without work. And then he gave the world an open Bible. And there are other things connected with the Reformation that one would love to speak about. But there's another brother in Switzerland. His name was Ulrich Zwingli. And he too was a reformer. There was another man in Scotland. His name was John Knox. These men were giants. But there was a discussion among them about the Lord's Supper. And O Riggs-Wingley, he decided to go to Germany and have a little talk with Luther about procedure of the Lord's Supper.
And in the castle of Marburg in Germany, O Riggs-Wingley, he arrived there, and he and Luther sat down at the table to discuss the procedure of the Lord's Supper. Now Martin Luther did not believe in transubstantiation, but he did believe in what he called consubstantiation. And he believed that while the bread was upon the table, that actually beside it and pondered it, and with it was the actual literal body of Christ. Of course, Ulrich Zwingli, he had further light than he believed it. The bread was just a symbol. There was no presence there, the actual presence of Christ himself.
I don't need to tell you the transubstantiation it means that when the priest elevates the horse, and pronounces it, that pronounces the... the words that they used that had actually changed into the actual body and blood and singers of the Lord. That is the doctrine. It was formulated at the Council of Trent. And Martin Luther, he didn't go that far, but he believed that the actual body of Christ was there under and with and beside the bread upon the table. So swingly he said, my dear brother Martin, the word of God, it says, about the Lord, I am the door.
And he said, that didn't mean a door that was made by a carpenter. He also said, I am the true vine. He didn't mean that a real actual plant. But it was a symbol. He said, there's such a thing as symbols and metaphors and scripture and illustration. And when the Lord said, this is my body, it simply meant that the bread represented it. It was bread, but it represented the body. Martin Luther lost his temper. And he said, he shouted at the top of his voice. He says, Zwingli, he said, you're trying to twist the word of God. The word says, this is my body.
He said, that's what I believe. Zwingli got up, and he went round the table, and he stretched out his hand to Martin Luther, and he said, dear brother Mark, I see that we're not going to agree on this matter. But he said, at least we're brothers in Christ. Give me your hand. Martin Luther put his two hands behind his back. And he shouted at the top of his voice. He said, Twingly, you're no brother of mine. And he left the room. And the two dear men never met again. And from that table where they met, there came the Lutheran churches of Northern Europe and the rest of the world. And also...
the Presbyterian churches of Switzerland and Scotland and the rest of the world. That was a division that never has been healed of the present day. This happened right there. Luther and Swingley. The same thing happened at the great evangelical revival. You remember we were speaking about it. John Wesley, George Whitfield, William Carey, giants. We thank God for that. John Wesley, was a real evangelist. And for fifty years, all over England and other parts of the world, he preached to God. He thought if he didn't preach at six o'clock in the morning, he was a backslider.
And on horseback, all over the country, that dear man evangelized. And saw a wonderful work of revival done at that time of the preaching of the gospel. But he was an Arminian. He didn't believe in eternal security. And he stretched that. He believed in entire sanctification. That is, that it's possible to eliminate sin completely from the heart and life of a believer. He was an Arminian. But his friend, George Whitfield, tremendous evangelist. A man who preached on Bristol, commented, twenty thousand people, and without any of these gadgets that we have today, and everybody heard every word that he said.
He died in Uburyport. in Massachusetts. And the night, just before he died, he preached to a crowd that was out on the street. But he was a hyper-Calvinist. He went to the other extreme. And those two near men, that the Lord widely used, one an Arminian, the other a hyper-Calvinist, said all kinds of unkind things together. They parted common. And at the end of their life, they were bitter at it. Okay, awfully sad. Bring it a little bit further, nearer home. There's two men that I have more respect for than another as far as Bretton are concerned.
It's John Nelson Darby and George Mueller. Sad, sad story. I'm not going to repeat it. I feel too sorry about it. I have all of Darby's writings, all of his collected writings, and I've read them. not far easy to read, but I believe that that man was a man that the Spirit of God used in recovery of truth that had the most for centuries, particularly along prophetical lines, and also along the lines of the church. A giant of a man, John Nelson Darby. There are a lot of people today that are sucking the spoon on the truth that he recovered at that time.
You'll find them in the libraries of most of the outstanding evangelical leaders in the world today. Derby, on the one hand. George Wheeler, the man who for fifty years fed thousands of orphans and never asked anybody for a penny. Simple trust and faith in God. That dear man, he proved that God was able to answer prayer. A giant. But it came around. And a softly sad to me to think that one day, Darby, he came to the orphan homes in Bristol. And he wanted to have an interview with George Mueller.
I don't want to go into the sort of details connected with it, but it came to a point when Darby decided to speak to George Mueller to see if there couldn't be a reconciliation between the two. And George Mueller was coming out, walking down the steps, and he saw Darby standing there. And Darby said, Mr. Mueller, I've come to have a little talk with you. See who can't reconcile our differences. And George Mueller, he said, I have an interview that I must meet, responsible that I must meet in ten minutes. I have no time to talk to you. He said, you have acted very wickedly, wickedly, I can't talk to you.
Two men part of that. They never met again. And that's the condition. of many, many of the outstanding leaders of the Word of God, the Amalekite flesh, the Midianite strife. And here this altar that Gideon set up, the word upon it is Jehovah Shalom, the Lord said, peace. Though something happened in Africa many years ago, and I think the stories worth telling, The three men that were responsible for the foundation of the work in Central Africa after Fred Stanley Arnett was an Englishman, an Irishman, and a Scotchman.
The Englishman was with the Fred Lane. I went out to him sixty years ago. He lived in his home. And the Scotchman was the well-known Dan Crawford, the youngest member of the party, nineteen years of age when he went out there, riddled with TB. The Lord cured it. The third man was Mr. H. B. Thompson, the Irish man, a man who had been the editor of a newspaper and an outstanding servant of God. They were the men who founded the work after Fred Stanley Arnett in Central Africa. And on that there was an old chief. His name was Mosheedy, a wicked old man.
His village was surrounded by a stockade. On them each stick in the stockade a human skull sitting there. And those three men, when they went in, every day they saw people executed, their heads cut out. If there's a problem of any kind, they would bring it to the chief, Moshiri. He was sitting on a stool with a deck of constant knees. And any person who came in was a problem. If you put a stone up, well, the person was exonerated. But if you put a stone down, it was an executioner standing behind them. with a large knife, and the person was thrown on the ground and he was condemned.
His head was cut off and thrown on a heap of skulls, or else put on the top of the stock A. Now that was the condition that those men met when they went there. But they came with the gospel of peace, preached the gospel. And the result was that sometime after Moshidi had been killed, in time to go into all this... the details connected with it. But they settled the country. And from that time on, one African that met another, in greeting each other, they would clap their hands, put it to their bosom, clap their hands again, they would say, Mutende, Mutende. And that word means peace.
It was the gospel that settled it. The Lord sent peace. Jehovah Shalom, my beloved brethren and sisters, Well, I do, from the bottom of my heart, I do want to say, never, never allow the Amalekite on the Midianite to get among us. It is one thing that we delight at right here at the heart of the process, at love and affection among those people. There's nothing more delightful than to sit down with fellow Christians and enjoy their company and fellowship. Let's promote it. Let's make it our business. never to allow the Amalekite, the Flesh, on the Midianite, strife, to go in the month.
It has happened again and again and again, almost the devil's sheep too, in destroying the Word of God. But, oh, let's make it our, let's make it our ambition in life. Mentioned us, night, to build, on the vine, on the beautified. That's the only thing worthwhile today. You get the examples not only in the word of God, but also in church history, or the ox. And the devil's chief, too, is the wedge and the sledgehammer, shall knock down and destroy. But oh, let's remember this lovely, lovely Jehovah type. Jehovah shall. I suppose you know that the word of greeting among the Jewish people today, if you can go for Israel, you'll come over and they'll say, Shalom, Shalom.
It's their greeting today, Shalom. Let it be ours as well. Let the Lord send peace for his name. Shall we pray? Our blessed God and Father. Once again we draw near to thee in that worthy name of thy beloved Son. We thank thee for him who preached peace when it was here below. We thank thee that he made peace through the blood of his cross. And we thank thee, our Father, for the power of the God. And we do pray that the peace of God, that passeth all understanding, may garrison each one of our hearts.
Our Father, as we think of these things and happenings that have taken place over the years, we do pray that it may be our ambition in life to promote that love and fellowship and affection among others.