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We begin now the fourth and the central oppression in the book of the Judges. So let us read its opening paragraph in chapter six of Judges, beginning in verse one. The children of Israel did that which was 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 Midian, the children of Israel made them the dens which are in the mountains, and the caves and the strongholds.
And so it was, when Israel had sown, that the Midianites came up, and the Amalekites, and the children of the east, they came up against them. And they encamped against them and destroyed the increase of the earth till I come unto Gaza, and left no sustenance in Israel, neither sheep nor ox nor ass. For they came up with their cattle and their tents, and they came as locusts of multitude. Both they and their camels were without number, and they came into the land to destroy it. Israel was brought very low because of Midian, and the children of Israel cried unto the Lord.
This central oppression, central that is to the book of Judges, has as its hero Gideon, who for many Christians, if not their patron saint, yet is a sterling and much loved example, and rightly so. But he fill- fills a large portion of these chapters, and he not only is the central figure in this particular deliverance, but he's a central figure among the judges of Israel, and in one sense is pivotal, in that up to him things are going right.
In the second part of his career, they start to go wrong and eventually go downhill completely. So we must take some time in thinking about this central oppression and the part that Gideon played in it, and take it slowly so that we may appreciate its message. The first thing to notice then is that the enemy this time were Midianites. We notice, of course, that each time the enemies are different.
And our first job, therefore, is to reconnoiter the enemy and find out exactly what they were and what kind of people they were. Midianites were Ishmaelites. That we know from Genesis chapter sixteen verse two. Uh, you'll see, and we know it also From Judges itself, chapter eight and verse twenty four.
Eight twenty four. And Gideon said unto them, I would desire a request of you that you would give me every man the earrings of his spoil, for they had golden earrings because they were Ishmaelites. Now it was said of Ishmael, before he was born, said by the angel of the Lord who sent his mother back into Abram's household, that her child would be a wild ass amongst men, his hand against every man, and every man's hand against him.
These were not the rationalists or the technologists of the northern Canaanites. These were more like Bedouin in the desert. They had cattle, uh, uh, uh, of course. They rode on camels for swift transport in the desert. They often waited until the harvest was ripe in Israel, then they came over the border in numbers like locusts and stripped the land of all its produce and reduced Israel to famine conditions. The result, we're told, was that they left no sustenance in Israel, neither sheep, nor ox, nor ass.
As we observed at the beginning of these studies, the various oppressions deny a fundamental principle of Israel's existence. So, for instance, when God brought them up out of Egypt, he promised to bring them into a land flowing with milk and honey, a veritable earthly paradise of peace and plenty. But now, because of the evil which Israel had wrought in the eyes of the Lord, the Lord allowed Midian to come up against them.
Several years running, apparently. seven years. And the result was that the land, instead of being a land flowing with milk and honey, resembled far more a sheer desert. What is the good of being in the land flowing with milk and honey, if it doesn't flow with milk and honey, and resembles more of a desert? I've often been tempted to think of it, or sometimes been tempted, I better say, when fa- very sad things happen to an assembly, which should be a place where hungry people come and are fed by the Lord's rich supply.
And instead of it, it becomes a place of strife and barrenness. That's very sad. The cause of Israel's plight is given us then in verses seven to ten by the Lord himself. And it came to pass when the children of Israel cried unto the Lord because of Miriam, the Lord didn't at once relieve them. They needed to be taught a lesson. It came to pass that the Lord sent a prophet unto the children of Israel, and he said unto them, Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, I brought you up out of Egypt, and I brought you forth out of the house of bondage, and I delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptian, and out of the hand of all that oppressed you, and I drave them out from before you, and I gave you their land, and I said unto them, I am the Lord your God.
And he had a whole right to say so, didn't he? After all he had done for them. And I said unto you, I am the Lord your God. You shall not fear the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell, but you have not hearkened unto my voice. You can hear God has been offended. Understandably so. So that was the situation because of the sheer ungrateful disobedience of Israel.
In gratitude to their deliverer and savior and redeemer. But when he had done all those things for them, and they were still ungrateful, then he allowed the good things to be taken from them. How else would they learn? But now the text begins a long story. It is a story about the deliverer Gideon, and it spends a long, long time talking of his qualifications and his tactics for putting right this sorry situation.
The angel of the Lord came and sat under the oak which was in Ophrah that pertained unto Joash the Abi Israelite, and his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites. Wise man Gideon. The people had got themselves into distress and into these famine conditions by their ingratitude and disobedience to God. You might have expected, therefore, the reformer and judge Gideon to be introduced to you by some star- strident denunciations preached at his people and calling on them to repent and return to the Lord?
It isn't so. When you first meet him, he is, uh, beating out wheat. He's doing it in a wine press because he has to hide it from the Midianites, and they wouldn't thought, wouldn't have thought of looking in the wine press to find somebody beating out wheat. What was he doing that for? Well, gentlemen, he denied a strategy. The effect of the Midianites was to starve out God's people. The first thing you have to do if God's people are starving is to feed them.
To feed them. Not to enter into long discussions and arguments and turmoils about the rights and wrongs of this and that and the other. If you do that, they'll be so spiritually impoverished they'll die on your hands. The first absolute necessity is to feed the people of God. Yes, there is great need to instruct the people of God in the facts, but then not merely to instruct them in the facts and the doctrines of the faith, but so to minister God's word as feeds them with bread convenient for them.
How else shall they go strong in mind and spirit to tackle the wrongs around them? I say to myself sometimes, when I have tried to hold forth, and I get home, and I say, Gooding, what food was there in that for anybody? Ah, but you see, it wasn't, um, simply feeding the people and his own family and himself, of course.
For the angel of the Lord appeared unto him, verse twelve, and said unto him, The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valor. Mm. That was a nice word spoken by the angel of the Lord, indeed. Oh, but Gideon was a realist. Nice phrases didn't cut a lot of ice with him. Trite phrases. You do hear a lot of them sometimes in Christian communities. Phrases repeated so many times that they cease to mean very much.
Gideon's reply was, oh my Lord, if the Lord be with us, excuse me, you say the Lord is with us, but if the Lord be with us, why then is all this befallen us? When you say the Lord is with us. Where be all his wondrous works which our fathers told of us, saying, did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt? But now the fact is simply that the Lord has cast us off and delivered us into the hand of Midian. You notice the first argument that Gideon had was not with his brethren, but with the Lord.
If you're gonna have arguments, that's a better place to start, you know. Reason with God. Not in lack of faith, but in realism. Not forgetting humility, but facing facts. The use of saying the Lord is with you. When we're in the hand of our enemies like this. And where be all the stories we've hold- had our fathers tell that you delivered them out of Egypt? The contrary is now, you've delivered us into the hand of Midian. How can you say the Lord is with you? What does it mean?
The Lord looked upon him and said, not foolish man for daring to talk to me like that. But go in this thy might and save Israel from the hand of Midian. Have not I sent thee? Gideon said, O Lord, it's no good talking to me like that. Wherewith shall I save Israel? Behold, my family is the poorest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house. What's the good of your talking to me and saying, go in this thy might? I don't have any might. Honest man, eh what? Realist in his prayers.
Not rude, of course, or irreverent, but realist. And verse sixteen: and the Lord said unto him, surely I will be with thee, and thou shalt smite the Midianites as one man. And then something occurred to Gideon. How would he know this was real? This wasn't just talk. Uh, he said unto him, if now I have found grace in thy sight, then show me a sign that it is thou that talkest with me, and not just my imagination.
Depart not hence, I pray thee, until I come unto thee and bring forth my present and lay it before thee. And he said, I will tarry until thou come. Gideon went in and made ready a kid and unleavened cakes of an ephah of meal. The flesh he put in a basket, and he put the broth in a pot, and brought it out unto him under the oak and presented it. The angel of God said unto him, take the flesh and the unleavened cakes and lay them upon this rock, and pour out the broth, and he did so. Then the angel of the Lord put forth the end of the staff that was in his hand and touched the flesh and the unleavened cakes.
And there went up fire out of the rock and consumed the flesh and the unleavened cakes, and the angel of the Lord departed out of his sight. Gideon saw that he was the angel of the Lord. Gideon said, Alas, O Lord God, for as much as I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face. And the Lord said unto him, Peace be unto thee, fear not, thou shalt not die. And then Gideon built an altar there unto the Lord and coho- and called it Jehovah Shalom. Unto this day it is yet in Ophrah of the Abbe Israel. And now a very significant thing. Gideon had been beating out his wheat and obviously looking after the family's cattle and so forth and so on.
Good, wasn't it? Because he not only had something to feed himself and his family, when God came, he had the wherewithal to entertain God, you know. Ah, now this is a big important point, isn't it? When our Lord was here on earth, he often gave Mary and Martha the indescribable privilege of entertaining him. And Martha cooked for him. She'll never forget it, you know, not to the bounds of eternity.
When she sees our Lord in all his glory. And she'll say to Mary, remember Mary? He sat at our table once, and we served him a meal we'd cooked. The risen Lord says to us, behold, I stand at the door and knock. Any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and I will sup with him, and he with me. God grant us to know what it is to entertain Christ...
in our home and heart. That not only may we sup with him, but he sup with us, and we are allowed to minister to him. One of the things that happens when strife like midianite camels comes into a church is that the meetings for remembrance and praise get very thin. Mere cliches of endlessly repeated phraseology instead of hearts talking out freshly and entertaining the Lord.
When God redeemed Israel out of Egypt, it was not merely a question what Israel got out of it, the question was what God got out of it. Said he to Israel, if you keep my covenant, then I'll make you a kingdom of priests, a peculiar treasure to me, what Christ got out of him. It's an inspiring thing, but it is true. If we're going to feed the people of God, we need to know what it is to feed the Lord himself and minister to his pleasure and desire in the privacy of our lives.
My brother, I'm sure you are. When you send- stand up to give thanks to the Lord in the assembly. You're not saying exactly the same thing as you said thirty years ago, are you? Is there not something fresh that you've seen in the Lord, that what you want to express back to the Lord, so that the thanksgiving is not just routine, the same phrases for forty years over, but changing according to the way the Lord has revealed himself to you, and to do something new to say to the Lord when you entertain him.
It was a time of famine. But when the angel con- of the Lord consented to stay there while Gideon went and got what he had to offer to the Lord, and he was told to put it on a rock, and the angel of the Lord touched the rock, and the whole thing went up as a sacrifice to God. First of all, Gideon was overwhelmed that he had seen the very face of the Lord. But the Lord said to him, peace be unto thee, fear not, thou shalt not die. And as a result, Gil- Gideon built an altar unto the Lord, and he called it Jehovah Shalom.
Shalom being Hebrew, in the first place for peace, but not just peace, peace and plenty, health, soundness. And he got that from the presence of the Lord himself. And can't meet the Lord, but what has a s- one has a sense of the superabundance of his grace. Shalom. Jehovah Shalom. We know, of course, Jehovah under his names, don't we?
Jehovah Tsidkenu, the Lord our righteousness, and in that we rejoice, justified by faith, and we talk endlessly about it. He's also Jehovah Shalom, the God of peace and plenty. And Gideon is about to be a minister of that peace and plenty to his ravaged brethren under the Midianites. Good place to start. Then, of course, he had to begin to act.
It came to pass the same night the Lord said unto him, take thy father's bullock, even the seven, uh, second bullock of seven years old, and throw down the altar of Baal that thy father has, and cut down the Asherah that is by it, and build an altar unto the Lord thy God upon the top of this stronghold in the orderly manner. And take the second bullock and offer a burnt offering with the wood of the Asherah which thou shalt cut down. Then Gideon took the men of his servants, ten men of his servants, and did as the Lord had spoken unto him. And it came to pass, because he feared his father's household and the men of the city, so that he could not do it by day, that he did it anyway, he did it by night.
And when the men of the city arose early in the morning, behold, the altar of Baal was broken down, and the Asherah was cut down that was by it, and the second bullock was offered upon the altar that was built. And they said one to another, Who hath done this thing? And when they inquired and asked, they said, Gideon the son of Joash hath done this thing. Then the men of the city said unto Joash, bring out thy son that he may die because he hath broken down the altar of Baal, and because he hath cut down the Asherah that was by it. Joash said unto all that stood against him, will you plead for Baal, or will you save him? He that would plead for him, let him be put to death while it is yet morning.
Now notice again the order in which Gideon is led to go about his task. The trouble was, of course, their Baal worship and their Asherah at an altar to Baal right outside his father's home, home and a high place in the Asherah sacred affair, Dulzi, right inside his home. But typical of the whole nation, how should he go about it? It is a good practical lesson to learn how he did it. You'll see. He didn't go around storming, all these altars are terrible wrong, I'm going to cut them all down.
That was what they deserved to be, and in the end they, they did cut them all down. He adopted a far more positive role. You know, the Lord told me I've got to al- uh, uh, put an al- build an altar here, so I must build an altar. What's that? You've got an altar to Baal. Well, that's funny. It's just where I've got to build an altar to the Lord, you see. So I can't help it. I shall have to take your down your altar. I must build an altar to the Lord. Not bad tactics, is it? He was like me, he was a bit of a coward, you see. So he's afraid to do it by day, but he did it anyway, did it by night, and when he came in the morning, it was done.
Sometimes I'm accused of being schismatic, dividing the people of God. My reply to that is, my attitude is it, I don't know about schismatic, but there are certain things in scripture that the Lord tells us to do. I must do those. If your ecclesiastical methods get in the way of that, well, too bad for your ecclesiastical methods, because I must do this because the Lord commands it, you see. That seems to me a sort of a positive. I'm not wanting to be schismatic, if you see what I mean. I'm not trying to be. But on the other hand, one is responsible to do what the Lord commands.
Yes. So if the Lord commands us to remember him in the breaking of the bread and the drinking of the cup, I got to do it. If some churches organization don't allow me to do it, well, too bad. I'm not wanting to be schismatic, but this I must do because the Lord says I must do it. Let's be positive, and not just negative. Yes? But in this case, it put the Baal worshippers on the wrong foot, didn't it? They came around storming and said, uh, Gideon must be put to death.
And his father plucked up enough courage to say, are you really standing there, gentlemen, and pleading for Baal? Really? Yes. And it remained, you'll see, a saying. Therefore, on that day he called him Jerub Baal, saying, let Baal plead against him because he has broken down his altar. In other words, said his father to the complainants, well, if your Baal is such a good god, why didn't you get your Baal to destroy my son? Baal didn't do much about it.
Baal, gentlemen, doesn't exist. He's a figment of the idolaters' imagination. You'll see. Now at length, and notice what a time we've spent on God's preparation of Gideon and God's, uh, uh, Gideon's initial tactics to deal with the problem. First, keeping the food supply going, not only to maintain himself and his family, but to have enough to use in entertaining God at the worship of the Lord and the fellowship with the Lord, leading in into an experience of the very face of God and the sense of s- of shalom, of of peace and health and well-being and riches that come by converse and fellowship with God.
Strengthening now, of course, for what lay ahead. So then we read verse thirty three: Then all the Midianites and the Amalekites and the children of the east assembled themselves together, and they passed over and pitched in the valley of Jezreel. But the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon, and he blew a trumpet, and Abiezer was gathered together after him. And he sent messengers throughout all Manasseh, and they also were gathered together after him. And he sent messengers unto Asher, and unto Zebulun, and unto Naphtali, and they came up to, uh, to meet them. And Gideon said unto God, If thou wilt save Israel by mine hand, as thou hast spoken, behold, I will put a fleece of wool on the threshing floor.
If there be dew on the fleece only, and it be, and it be dry upon the ground, then shall I know that thou wilt save Israel by mine hand, as thou hast spoken. And it was so, for he rose up early on the morning and pleased and pressed the fleece together and bring the dew out of the fleece, a bowl full of water. And Gideon said unto God, let not thine anger be kindled against me, and I will speak, but this once. Let me prove, I pray thee, but this once with the fleece. Let me prove thee. Let it now be dry only upon the fleece, and upon all the ground let there be dew. And God did so that night, for it was dry upon the fleece only, and there was dew on the ground.
Famous incident that, that has given its name to a process that very many Christians adopt, you see. Facing decisions in life. Missionaries, I've heard, adopt it, you see. They want to be sure that the Lord is guiding them, and they tell how they put out a fleece, and the Lord guided them by the fleece, so to speak, uh, whatever the fleece was in their case. And then they say, well, just to make sure, they ask the Lord, they put out another fleece, and the Lord guided them, you see. As a young man, I used to listen to missionaries like that and thought, absolutely marvelous, and it was marvelous, of course, the direct guidance of the Lord. And I, I thought to myself, well, of course, old boy, you wouldn't get guidance like that yourself.
You didn't me. You're too low down the list, you are, for special guidance like that, you see. Times when I asked for guidance and I didn't get any. You'll probably not like that, but, um, you'll see. I found great comfort myself, uh, when I came across a passage in the Acts of the Apostles. You'll see, on Paul's first missionary journey, while they waited on the Lord in Antioch, some of the leaders of the church there, the Holy Spirit spoke direct guidance, separate me Paul and Barnabas for the work I have chosen them, you see.
So that was done. And they commended them not to the work, gentlemen. You'll notice that, won't you? Paul and Barnabas were not commended to the work. They were commended to the grace of God for the work to which God had called them. And they went forth, and God did mighty things through them. And eventually they came back to Antioch with a marvelous story. After some time, Paul said to Barnabas, Barney, old chap, he says, you'll see, um, you remember all those converts that we made in these various places?
Yes. Well, what, isn't it time we went to see after them? There's no mention of any direct guidance of the Holy Spirit just at that point, is there? Well, I couldn't see it in Acts. I'm tempted to say, what need was there for special direct guidance? You imagine a, a Christian mother, and she has a four-month-old baby. Would you expect her in the morning to get down on her knees and say, dear Lord, now give me your guidance. Shall I feed the baby today or not? Well, if she were living in prayerable persecution, she might ask that, but normally she doesn't need special direct guidance as to whether she should feed the baby.
The fact that the Lord has given her a baby means guidance. She is to feed it. You don't have to ask the Lord whether you should feed and tend your converts, gentlemen. The very fact he's given them to you means you have a guidance from him to feed them. What we may call general guidance. It is a very important thing to distinguish between general guidance and special guidance. Well, Paul fell out with Barnabas, or Barnabas with Saul, or both of them, and so eventually Paul went off with Silas.
And the text of Acts tells us that he attempted to go here, and the Spirit of Jesus didn't suffer him to go there. Which shows me this, that Paul didn't have any special guidance. For he wasn't in the habit of having special guidance from the Holy Spirit and then doing the direct opposite. He had general guidance to look after his converts and preach the gospel, so he got on with the job. And in that job, he he he tempted to go here, and then the Holy Spirit guarded him there. No, not there, Paul, and prevented his going there.
But didn't give him now any special and direct guidance as to where he was to go. So up the road he went, and then he tempted to go somewhere else, and the Spirit of Jesus didn't suffer him. Which shows me again, he didn't have any special guidance. Or had he, it wouldn't have been like Paul to go in the face of the Holy Spirit's guidance and attempt to go where the Holy Spirit said don't go. The gen- general following his general guidance to go and look after converts and preach the gospel. The second time he tried to go somewhere, and the Spirit of Jesus didn't suffer him. So he carried on. And he got eventually round to Troas.
And there one night he had a vision, a man of Macedonia cu- saying, come over and help us. And at breakfast time, do you do notice, they discussed it together. We, says Luke, discussed it. We gathered. It was a team decision. We gathered the Lord was calling us to Macedonia, you see. And I cite these things because they were a comfort to me. You'll say, oh boy, you were just, uh, grasping at the straw to comfort your unspirituality. That's what you're doing. You'll say you should have special guidance every moment along.
Well, thank God if you have it. It's not necessarily a sign that we are unspiritual if the Lord doesn't always give us direct special guidance, but leads us by general guidance. When there came need for special guidance, of course, Paul knew it from time to time in a spectacular fashion. And Gideon was in a crisis, wasn't he? He had to commit the armies of Israel to a battle. That's a very heavy responsibility.
Would it help? Would it make matters worse? Would it ravage the land still further? Before he would commit the army of Israel to fighting these Bedu- these Bedouins, the Midianites, he had a test to see if by his praying he could, in that sense, control the dew. I can't help thinking with my fanciful mind that the test he proposed was more significant than might appear on the surface.
Perhaps it wasn't so arbitrary after all, for the dew. In a country like the Middle East, it is, of course, exceedingly important. It is a secret of the growth of your plants, and is associated with good food, good crops, and prosperity. Could he control the dew as a result of his prayers? In the later Psalm one hundred and thirty three, the dew is used.
It's like, how pleasant it is, says the psalmist, for brethren together to grow together and live together in unity. It is like the dew. Have I not to ask very carefully whether what I do and say among the people of God will come like a dew upon them and promote unity amongst God's people instead of arid division. Before Gideon would commit the armies of God to war against the enemy, he sought to know by his prayers whether in answer to his prayers God would control the Jew as Gideon suggested.
Uh, then there was the next thing. So I better repair my remissness. Could we have another slide? Learning next, the next lesson that God taught him, learning not to put his faith in numbers.
Now, this is a very interesting because in the previous battle, when Deborah commissioned Barak to lead the armies of God, she told him to gather no less than ten thousand of Israel to go up after him against the enemy. This time, when Gideon collected his army, the Lord taught him not to put his faith in numbers, but diminish his army, and then diminished them again.
So that verse seven tells us, the Lord said unto Gideon, by the three hundred men that lapped will I save you, and deliver the Midianites into thy hand, and let all the people go, every man unto his place. So the people took victuals in their hand and their trumpets, and he sent all the men of Israel, every man to his tent, but retained the three hundred m men, and the camp of the Midian was beneath him in the valley. And that is extraordinary, surely, because we have earlier been told that the Midianites came up like locusts in number.
Surely, if Gideon is going to deal with them, he shall need a vast number of people to deal with them, to counter their great numbers by even greater numbers. But not according to God. It's not numbers that would win the battle. So it was with the men that leapt. And some people, it is suggested to some commentators, hasn't it, that this last lot, when they went to water, some bowed down with their mouths in the water and took their eyes off the enemy down in the valley. The other chaps leapt.
They kept their eye on the enemy and put up the water by their hand to their face and kept their eye on the enemy all the time, be that as it may. It wasn't to trust in numbers to do the job. It's not always the more people you can get on your side, you're more likely to win. Wins what the battle is about. Then came a tremendous encouragement. The Lord said that same night to Gideon before the, uh, uh, uh, the battle occurred, Arise, get thee down into the camp, for I have delivered in it into thine hand.
But if thou fear to go down, go thou with Purah, thy servant, down to the camp, and thou shalt hear what they say, and afterwards shall thy hands be strengthened to go down into the camp. So he went down to the camp, to the outermost part of the armed men that were in the camp. You'll see. And there they were, says verse twelve, without number for multitude, like the sand on the seashore. And behold, when Gideon came, there was a man that told a dream to his fellow, and he said, Behold, I dreamed a dream, and lo, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian and came into the tent and smote it that it fell, and it turned upside down that the tent lay along.
His fellow answered, This is nothing else save the sword of Gideon, the son of Joash, a man of Israel, into his hand God hath delivered Midian and all his host. What confirmation for his tactics, gentlemen? Barley cake Gideon. You meet him first in his action against the enemy. He was beating out not barley but wheat, in fact, in a wine press. He had kept the food supply going. That was the end of the enemy, in principle.
We need to know it. When Satan stirs up strife in an assembly, his aim is not just to stir up strife. His aim is to starve God's people out, weaken their strength. We need to go for the vital thing and keep the food supply going. Maintain the spiritual health of the people, if at all possible. It was the secret to the battle, and God wanted Gideon to hear it before the battle began.
That sign of God to Gideon, gracious, wasn't it? Uh, to encourage Gideon, you're on the right track, my boy. You'll see, you're seeing after the food supply is now going to pay its dividends. Good, wasn't it? Well, what was the secret, and what was the strategy that won? Well, as you now will perceive, it was altogether independent of the numbers. For he told them to take their pitchers and a, and a torch, that is a f- a, a, a ancient torch, pine wood dipped in oil and flaming, and put it in their side their pitcher, approach the camp and encircle the camp.
Well, there are only three hundred of them anyway. To encircle the whole camp, they would be spread a bit thin, wouldn't they? But then in the pitch darkness of night, they were to break the old, uh, picture and show out the light. And as you know, when you're going along a dark road and your Buick comes up against you with its headlights gazing, you can't see whether it's a Buick or a tomahawk or what it is you see. See the thing. And how many passengers it got, you haven't got a clue. The light has blinded you. And when these dear Midianites woke up with this hullabaloo outside, the sword of the Lord and Gideon, and looked at all these lights in the pitch darkness all around them everywhere, they hadn't got a clue how many men were behind.
Dazzled by the light. They fell to Gideon's sword, of course, in their panic retreat. That too may talk to us by its simplicity. It's the light of the Lord, isn't it? That according to Paul in two Corinthians, settles the business. We have this treasure, says he, in earthen vessels. Our commission is this, that he who commanded originally at the da- time of creation, commanded that the light shall shine in our hearts, has shined in our hearts to give the glory of the knowledge of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
This is Paul, the strategist in missionary work. He was not careless. He told another group of believers that he had planned, systematically planned all the way round from Jerusalem, all round in a circle, right to what we nowadays call Yugoslavia. He had aiming at this, but always subject, uh, to the Holy Spirit's, uh, intervention. But in the actual preaching, he preached his heart out. It was in the sense that God had shined into his heart to give the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Doubtless the conditions of his original conversion stayed with him to the end, for a light above the brightness of the sun had shone around him and brought him to his knees and brought him to repentance and then to faith. But it was the glory of the gospel message that was to triumph, the glory of the risen Christ and his word, to triumph. This treasure we have, says Paul, in earthen vessels, and the earthen vessels wear away, get broken and cracked, and this body of ours, of mine, he says, you're getting very broken, that the glory might shine out.
God grant us that same sense of proportion. Our commission, if the glory of God is going to shine out from our earthen vessels, it's trite, isn't it, but it's true to say it'll have to be shone in first. I pray constantly. I suppose you do. But when Paul talks in his epistle in terms of wealth and riches and glory. Saying, I pray that God would give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, that you might know what is the exceeding riches of his grace, the glory of his inheritance.
But that would not be for me mere words, but that God would help me to understand it, the wealth of Christianity, the wealth of the glory of God, the sheer riches, not just in word, but in actuality, that I might be able to begin a little bit to pass on, not just a few facts. God's glorious facts, of course, but the wonder and the glory and the wealth of God's grace in Christ.
We need it, brethren, in this famine-stricking, stricken world. Lest even the things of God should appear to us to be commonplace, and lose their sense of riches, be just the grinding necessities of spiritual life. We're in a battle where the people of God need, amongst their first necessities, to be fed and to be enriched and enter into that experience of the face of God that is summed up by Gideon as Jehovah Shalom.
And now it is ten minutes past twelve, and I'm told our question time can go on, if you please, till twenty minutes past twelve. so we have at least ten minutes for questions, and my conscience is troubled to have left you so little, but then we did manage to get a lot of questions into the first session, didn't we? But I'm conscious again that many of you here are experts in Gideon's story, and you enjoyed it for years and years and years, and I'm sure you're not niggardly, nor afraid that somebody might steal one of your sermons, so let's hear from your con- uh, your contributions to start with. I thought that, uh, it's not only important, I noticed you mentioned many times that they were left impoverished without any food, the fact that they had attacked their grain, but it also means that they attacked the sheep.
Mm-hmm. And the ox and the donkey. Mm, I did, yeah. I thought that, uh, the sheep w- would be used es- especially for sacrifice and for worship. Yes. And the ox and the donkeys would be used for service. Mm-hmm. So I noticed that being impoverished as far as their sustenance also would lead to being impoverished in their worship and their service for the Lord. Yes. Spiritually, if we're starving because we're not feeding on the word of God, well, that would affect our worship and it would affect our service as well.
That is precisely so. Thank you very much for the observation. It is very important. Mm-hmm. Yes. Some other? Yes, good man there somewhere. Here's your whole sermon outline. Oh, good. In chapter six, verse one, they had a spiritual problem. Israel did that which was evil in the Lord's sight. And spiritual problems can't come without a physical consequence, and the physical consequence was the curse came upon them, the deuteronomic cycle we've seen throughout Judges. In verse four, the physical problem was that they, uh, their produce was destroyed and so forth.
Now, you said some good things. I, I never really had seen the, uh, the positive thing about, uh, our brother hiding in the wine press to beat out the, uh, the weeds. But he was looking for a physical solution to a spiritual problem. Sometimes in the assemblies, we, we're putting out fires, trying to find a physical solution, and the real problem is a spiritual one. And in looking for a physical solution, he misses the fact that, uh, there's a covenant disobedience. Verse thirteen of chapter six, uh, it's explained to him.
He says, he says, oh my Lord, if the Lord is witness, why is all this happening? Very common question. Nine one one. Everybody says, where was God when this happened? He's saying the same thing. It's nothing new. Yet, uh, God had sent a prophet to tell him. And he's still looking at the physical, even though the Lord has come to him. In verse fifteen, he says, how shall I deliver Israel? I, my family's the least, I'm the youngest. He's still looking at the physical. And because of that, verse sixteen, the Lord says, I will be with you. And once he reaches the point where he has an encounter with the Lord, that episode of worship, from that point on, God does not allow him to use the physical.
That's why God says, okay, we're only going to use three hundred. Everything that you think you should do, I'm going to show you, because the problem is not physical, the problem is spiritual. When you understand that the problem is spiritual, I'm going to give you a spiritual solution to it. So, uh, God allows him to conquer without using physical force. Thank you very, very much for that, sir. I intended to join in the discussion with you because I agree wholeheartedly that to seek a physical solution to a spiritual problem, of course, gets one nowhere.
Um, all I think I would, uh, argue, uh, uh, for the position that, uh, the physical maintenance of food was strategically important, was that, uh, when the Lord appeared to him, the Lord required a physical sacrifice. He had to take the second bullock and offer it up to the Lord, and he had to put, have a cake by it too. So these were physical, and the bullock couldn't have survived unless Gideon had provided it with the necessary food, you see, which in times of famine was difficult to maintain your animals.
So I think, yes, we mustn't, uh, try to solve spiritual problems by physical solutions. They never work. But in this case, I think the, uh, the his maintain- maintaining a food supply proved ne- uh, uh, uh, uh, very necessary, indeed vital, for his worship of the Lord under the terms of ancient Israel's system of worship. Yes, uh, you, sir. Yes, the same verse, uh, Gideon, uh, let me read it in, uh, chapter six. If the Lord be with us, then, uh, why then is all this befallen us, and where be all his miracles which our fathers called us of?
Uh... Sometimes we might be reluctant to speak about the miracles of the Lord and the miracles of God throughout history for fear they be disbelieved. Uh, maybe more often today, it's not the presence of miracles that, uh, bothers people, but their absence. Mm. Uh, Sir Robert Ames writes about that in the Silence of God, and an apologetic defense of that in his book, and it's also, uh, addressed in your book, Opium or Truth. You know, why do we not see the miracle? Why this apparent silence of God? Why the suffering of God's people? Uh, I think it's an important topic today, uh, something to be brought before.
Oh, surely, surely. Oh yes, surely, i- in that very broad sense. The two problems, one of, uh, a problem of evil, why doesn't God stop all the evil in the world, and the problem of pain, why does God allow such natural disasters to overwhelm so many people who are no worse sinners than we are? Yes, they are real problems, you see. I would have to confess feeling like Gideon in a more limited sense. I used to hear my grandfathers and things like that talk about the times of great revival, Torrey Alexander and Moody and Spurgeon and, and others less known but equally used of God men.
I conclusion, came to the conclusion I'd been born too late or something. Why don't I see it now? Do you see? Let me ask you, uh, uh, uh, as my spiritual counselors, is that a wrong question to ask, do you suppose? Would it be my fault or... that I don't see the great revivals that came with Moody and Sankey and other folks in my day, and folks queuing up to be saved. Is that our fault, gentlemen? Let me say, brother.
Yeah? That question you're asking, I just want to put before, is a critical question in the direction that amongst us, nationally here in America, the force or pressure is being put on God's people by the, uh, popular magazines and so on of our day, that it is our fault that we are not seeing revival, and that it is our fault that we're not seeing revival because the assemblies are dying, and we need to get out there and do this and do that and get involved with this vision of men.
This is the solution to see souls saved. My question then is, where are we going to put the people that get saved if the assemblies are dead and don't have the capacity to then take care of those people that came to the Lord? So where the fault lies is a very important question. That is, yes, it is, yes. And where do you think the fault lies? You'll see you, you are my dear brothers here in America. I speak as an Englishman. You'll see, uh... You have, I think, so it is rumored, a church attendance, nominal church attendance here in America of about forty percent or something.
In England, we have a nominal church attendance of five percent. England is godless. We are beginning to see it in Northern Ireland too, where people who once knew the gospel very well turn away from the gospel and reject it deliberately. And therefore I raise this question, uh, uh, because it comes out of what Gideon said to the Lord, uh, you see. You heard of all the wonderful things done in our father's day.
Uh, why don't we see them now? I do seriously wonder. Uh, yes, it's it's partly my fault. I'm not as keen and practically minded as I should be, getting out to, uh, spread the gospel or my personal witness or other ways and methods. We do what we can in Eastern Europe and Asia, but in Britain, tough, isn't it?
That's why I genuinely ask you, can it be that, as it was, say, in the times of Samuel, because of the breakdown of the priesthood, when Samuel became judge and he judged the people, yes, it said that, yet it says that the time was long. God had to let one or two generations die out before God could begin again. The generation in the wilderness was an evil generation. God himself says so. The rabbis would tell you that. Our Lord preached how comparatively few there were that got converted.
Our Lord's own verdict on that generation was, this is an evil and adulterous generation. And sometimes, perhaps it's an excuse on my part, it seems to me that under God's government, when people deliberately turn away from the truth, then God will al- will let them go their way, and the time is long before God can begin again to reap harvests of souls. It is also a problem, and I stand to be corrected here, but, uh, I confess it because you are my brothers and can put me right, as you'll see.
When the churches, Christian churches in North Africa were thriving, and there were multitudes of them, we in Britain, were primitive savages, painting ourselves blue and all that kind of thing, you'll see. It took centuries before the gospel actually took root in any evangelistic sense. Since the last few centuries, Britain has prospered in the gospel, and the churches of North Africa, where are they now? They went through the persecution under the Romans and were thrown to the lions, but then Islam took over.
The churches of Asia Minor, where are they now? And then sometimes I wonder whether there are necessarily so cycles in God's providential dealings with the nations, and the gospel is preached, and that for some generations. And, uh, then the nation turns away, and it becomes an evil generation like it was that direct- that rejected Christ. I take comfort in this, that whereas Britain these days is godless, with few exceptions, of course, and anti-God, and the BBC i- radio is becoming anti-Christ too as well, I may tell you.
In spite of that, whereas Britain once upon a time, like America has been, but Britain was a wellspring, mainspring of evangelism for missionary work in the world. Partly because of the British Empire. Now Britain is godless. God is transferring the center of evangelism elsewhere. China, India. Numbers of believers getting converting- converted are phenomenal. And Korea as well. God isn't stuck with the English. Thank our Lord. Or America, well, I did say that, but...
Hello? Something at the beginning that I think is critical, which is the positive. In other words, within that situation that you find yourself in, do the positive. Ah, that's right. Oh yes, sir. Get on with it. And s- and Larry there, is it Larry in the corner? That one of the points to me that qualified Gideon to be a judge is found in verse thirteen. Gideon said unto him, O my lord, if the lord be with us. And he begins by identifying himself with the people of God in their weakness.
And in this issue of whether the assembly is dying or not dying, a blanket approach to what we all need, when the risen Christ himself in the book of Revelation didn't say there was one thing that all those assemblies needed. The needs were varied. But as you said, what's helpful to me is that even within the weakness of the people of God, he was willing to identify himself with them. Yes. And feed them in a positive way, rather than denouncing them at the outset for Paul. That's actually so, sir. And I would add, if I may, now the time has really gone, uh, uh, uh, lunch is at twelve thirty and it's twelve twenty nine.
Eh, what I would say to my younger brethren, uh, you'll see many say, ah, but the assembly is no good, or my church is no good, and things are at the bad. Okay, so they are. Now is your opportunity to train with the Lord. You get on with it. Don't use it as an excuse for not going in for the Lord. And what is more, in your next twenty years, you have a chance of enriching your soul with getting to know the Lord and his word and whatnot, with all the responsibilities that will be yours line, twenty years down the line if the Lord hasn't come.
Now is a marvelous opportunity to get on with the Lord, never mind what the others are doing or not doing. Take God seriously now, because, gentlemen, in spite of splendid examples here, when you get married and get, um, forty and a little bit bald, with many responsibilities in the world, in the church, you won't have quite the amount of time to study the word of God to start with, as you have now. Get it now. God, who knows how God will use you in the years to come before the Lord returns.
