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This evening in the book of Judges in chapter six. The Book of Judges in chapter six, beginning there in verse eleven. The angel of the Lord came and sat under the oak which was in Ophrah that pertained unto Joash, the Abi- Abi Israel. And his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress 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 valor. And Gideon said unto him, O my lord, if the Lord be with us, why then is all this that fallen us?
And where be all his wondrous works which our fathers told us of, saying, Did not the Lord bring us up out of Egypt? But now the Lord has cast us off and delivered us into the hand of Midian. The Lord looked upon him and said, Go in this by night and save Israel from the hand of Midian. Have I not sent him? And he said unto him, O Lord, wherewith shall I save Israel? Behold, my family is the poorest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house. And the Lord said unto him, Surely I will be with thee, and thou shalt smite the Midianites as one man. In our study on Tuesday night, we were concerned with reconnoitering the enemy that oppressed Israel in this fourth captivity.
We found him to be a mixture of the Midianites and Ishmaelites. And we notice that at this particular time in history, the Midianites became a perfect test to the Israelites because they were and acted as a kind of nomad. The historians will tell you at this time the Israelites suffered from very large invasions by hordes of Midianite nomads. Nomads, of course, being peoples that, uh, either haven't learned to or have given up living in settled towns and villages and wander around, uh, all over the place as the fancy takes them, following perhaps the supply of grass for their herds and cattle, and when it dries up in one place, going on to another.
But as any of us can see, such behavior, when carried on amongst other peoples that have settled down in towns and villages and farms, is going to create a lot of difficulty. We notice too that Abraham at one stage had been, as the historians would count him, a nomad. He had left the settled cities of Ur of Chaldees to live a life of a pilgrim in a tent with no fixed, certain settled abode. Similarly, his descendants, the Israelites, had passed a time of pilgrimage across the wilderness when they left Egypt. But they were different from Ishmael and Midian in that Abraham and his descendants were only temporarily in this state.
They were pilgrims, not just wanderers. They were going to their inheritance with a fixed determination that once they got to their inheritance, they would settle down. Ishmael and Midian were in part nomads then, not that they were going to any inheritance in particular. They were wanderers without a go. Moreover, when Abraham and his descendants, Israel, were on their journeys, they were careful to respect the, uh, governments and the private property of the land through which they passed. There is record in the Book of Numbers, for instance, that when Israel came to Eden, they sent messengers ahead and said, let us pass through your land, and we will pay you for everything we drink and everything we eat.
They were careful to guard the sovereignty and the private property of the nation through which they went. Not Midian, nor Israel, for that matter. They just came up with their camels, asses, donkeys, and everything else. They came out like, came up like locusts for number and locusts in habit. They waited until the grass was green and the crops were nearly ready for harvest, and they came in and took the lot. They didn't mind who it belonged to. They were in desperate trouble, as the angel had said long ago to Ishmael's mother, he shall be a wild ass of a man, his hands against every man and every man's hand against him. And we ask ourselves to try and imagine last time the kind of quarrels, disputes, arguments, blows, strikes, and battles that would have ensued when vast hordes of Midianites came up into the countryside of Israel.
But in addition to all the strife that the Midianites would cause themselves, we had to observe why it was that God allowed these people at this time thus to afflict Israel. We found it explicitly stated it was because of Israel's deliberate disobedience to the word of God. Moreover, we notice that because it was so, Israel were not going to get deliverance simply by waging battle against the Midianites. That was to wage battle against the effect.
But if you really want to cure the trouble, you must get rid not only of the effect, but of the cause. And if here the cause was plain disobedience to the word of God on the part of Israel that had brought this discipline upon them from God, then to get rid of the trouble, to get rid of the effect, you must get rid of the disobedience. And that, we noticed, was going to cause another kind of strife in Israel, and did verily so. For when eventually Gideon, at the command of God, set about casting down the altar of Baal and undoing the disobedience of Israel, he brought a hornet's nest round his ears in the form of his own Israelite fellow national, who most sorely objected to the destruction of Baal's images and altars in this fashion.
And there rose quite a heated argument, while some of Gideon's own fellow nationals urged that Gideon should be put to death because he had overturned the altars of Baal. And it is the fact, of course, even to this present day, that is strife and division and spiritual poverty have been brought in amongst Christian people because of some earlier disobedience to the plain word of God. Very often, that strife and trouble and poverty will not eventually be overcome until that, uh, disobedience be faced and people be brought to repentance over it.
And that, alas, will itself involve quite a bit of striving very often. So therefore, let us notice again, as we begin our study this evening, the order of the tactics that Gideon adopted. Yes, presently it would have to come, that he would have to face his Israelite brethren and face them manfully and stand up against all their arguments and contentions, their strife and disagreements. In fact, he would have to stand against them and risk his very life, so bitter and heated the strike would become.
As we noticed on Tuesday, he didn't begin there. More sense than just to rev Shashin headlong to dispute with his brethren the evil wrong of worshiping Baal. But there was something more urgent and more important. The disobedience of Israel, their going after Baal had brought God's discipline, made them weak, and let in the Midianites. But the Midianites had the effect of consuming all the harvests and leaving Israel desperately poverty-stricken and hungry. And Gideon, with a clear eye of a skillful tactician, was aware that the first necessity would be to maintain the food supply at any cost.
It's lovely to have a whole nation full of perfectly loyal, obedient Israelites, but if these obedient Israelites are starved dead to a man and like carcasses on the ground, their obedience isn't very, of very much practical use, is it what? Therefore, Gideon, first of all, set himself, whoever else didn't, to husband and garner and thrash and prepare the food supply of himself and his family, to maintain themselves alive during these unhappy days. And if ever you should be in a church or a community that is plagued by strife for whatever cause, you would be wise to follow those same tactics and make sure whatever else happens, you maintain your own spiritual food supply.
There is nothing so witheringly impoverishing as strife. Make sure first you maintain your food, food supply and your spiritual health. And not only your own spirit- spiritual food supply, but as we noticed on Tuesday last again, he had not only wherewith to feed himself and feed his family, he had food enough to feed God himself. Ah, one of the saddest things about strife is that it not only impoverishes our own souls, but leaves us barren when it comes to the worship and enjoyment of God.
As you will know well, if you have ever sat at the Lord's Supper in a church that has been raked and is being raked by disharmony and strife, there enters into the worship a barrenness and an emptiness of spirit. Gideon, by maintaining the food supply, had enough so that when the angel of the Lord visited him, he had something to put before the Lord and together enjoy the wonder and sacredness and the enriching of fellowship with divine persons.
But you say, yes, that's right, Mr. Preacher, yes, that's right, but you'll have to face the trouble, you'll, you'll have to start arguing. You will indeed, and he did presently, but not yet. Oh yes, one day he would eventually face his disobedient brethren and argue the case with them or get somebody else to do it for him. But I do notice that before he start argue- started arguing with men, he learned first to argue with God. I don't know that a man is safe arguing with men if he hasn't learned first to argue with God.
The angel of the Lord came upon him in the winepress, and the angel of the Lord said unto him, the Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valor. Oh, but I do like the man's temper. I'm glad he wasn't one of those folks that, uh, always think everything in the garden is wonderful. So long as they've got a happy little phrase or a text that they can quote, they solve all problems that they are. My, never mind, brethren. Uh, everything, well, oh no, all things work together to, for good to them that love God. Never mind how things are in a shomozel and anything like that. Uh, just a little verse, and that solves it all. Amen. Not Gideon. The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valor.
Very respectfully and reverently he said, but oh my Lord, that can't be so, can it? The angel of the Lord he was talking to. God himself. This a theophany. Oh, but no, Lord, he said. You see, if the Lord be with us, well then, why is all this befallen us? Was he being a little bit crafty, do you think? Or was he acting out of the normal generosity of his own heart? The Lord had said to him, the Lord is with the singular.
And Gideon could have said, yes, I know that, the Lord is with me because I'm a very good boy, you know. It's very questionable whether he's with the neighbors next door, but he's with me. Oh yes, Lord. No, no. He said, Lord, but if the Lord is with us, why is this befallen us? Guilty and disobedient as were his fellow nationals, in his heart he stood with them. They were God's people. And he was politely telling God that, uh, if God would be with Gideon, then he must be with the rest because Gideon wouldn't be separated from the rest.
Right? Oh Lord, if the Lord be with us, why is this, uh, befallen us? Where be all these wondrous works which our fathers told us of, saying, did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt? It's no good you're saying you're with us if we're in this pickle. Not content, you see, this man Gideon to rest on his oars. You know, to remember the good old days and say, ah well, everything's gone to pot now. What can you expect? No, if you did it in the past, he says, you can do it now.
It's no good you're saying you're with us unless you do it now. And the interesting thing is that when Gideon stood there and politely and reverently argued with God and gently pleaded his nation's cause, it didn't pre- displease the Almighty, for the Lord looked upon him and said, go in this thy might and save Israel from the hand of Midian, have not I sent thee? And that would have pleased many a lesser man, wouldn't it? I think I know some men that would have said, yes, Lord, I always thought I was the man to settle this.
Not Gideon. Lord, he says, no good talking like that, if you don't mind my saying so. No good telling me to go. What use would I be? I'm the least in Israel. My family, my thousand, is the poorest in Israel. What's the good of your saying to me, you go and do it? And as we listen to that, surely we begin to see wherein this man's strength was. He didn't suppose that he was so marvelously wonderful himself that he had all the answers to all the problems his brethren had, easily set them right.
But deeply and instinctively conscious that nothing was of any use unless God did the delivering. It is a man that has first learned to argue for God's people, with God. Then will you notice, please, where his eventual protest against Israel's idolatry had its roots.
When the Lord appeared to him, he suggested that he be allowed to make God an offering, and made his offering upon the altar and had an experience of the presence and reality and the richness of God, and called that place Jehovah Shalom, God of peace and plenty. You notice here, not God of battles, God of peace. And it was as his heart was engaged with the living God, God of peace and plenty, that he heard the voice of God saying, now look here, take thy father's bullock and offer it as a burnt offering to the Lord.
And I want you, Gideon, says the Lord, to build, uh, an altar unto the Lord, thy God, on 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. The matter is simple. What made, uh, Gideon in the end cut down the overthrow the altar of Baal? What made him cut down that sacred grove that had been planted, uh, in honor of Baal? It was no negative carping criticism, was it?
It was because, and simply because, God had given him a positive order to build an altar unto Jehovah, and the other thing got in the way. Well, too bad for it. It had to go then. It was no like thing, as the sequel tells us, for Gideon to cast down that altar of Baal, build an altar to Jehovah right on top of it, cut down the grove and use the wood to make the flames go to burn the offering to God. It was bound to bring a hornet's nest round his ears. But please notice how important the thing is that his motivation was right.
He was now positively obeying a positive injunction of the Lord. If Baal's altar got in the way, well, it would have to go, because you must obey what the Lord says. He was a bit scared, like a good many others. He didn't do it by day, so he did it by night. Well, nine marks out of ten, if not ten out of ten. I know the feeling. But when the, uh, men came round the door the next day, his father had, uh, a difficult question for them, didn't he?
Really, gentlemen, he says. All my son has done is positively to obey God. Will you stand there and argue that my son mustn't obey the Lord? And will you positively stand- stand there and plead that Baal is to take precedence over Jehovah. And that made it very difficult to reply, didn't it? Notice the tactics, because it's not without its lesson for us. We live in a Christendom that is exceedingly confused, do we not?
If I go back in thought to the medi- medieval times, to the outbreak of the Reformation in Europe, for instance, I shall find not merely a straightforward division between Roman Catholic and Protestant. Life is never so easy as that. But on the side of the Protestants, of Christendom, a vast variety of different viewpoints, and in the end, a tremendous confusion. And what was often charged against dear believers was that they were guilty of schism and division among the people of God, that is indeed a very serious charge.
I pray God that none can lay it at my door. And he would proclaim his own unspirituality that would lightly cause division among the people of God. You say, what then shall be our attitude? We would be wise men and women. If in our hearts there is not a negative carping criticism, but a sense of our bound and prime duty to obey God's word.
Then, if that be my motive. Charge me, if you will, with being schismatic, but please, you won't ar- ever charge me, will you? You won't ever argue that I mustn't obey the Lord Jesus. It was thus that our Lord acted, did he not, in his own day. In Mark's Gospel, chapter seven we read how on one occasion the Pharisees came against our Lord and his disciples. And the Pharisees were mightily put out, says Mark seven, because our Lord's disciples ate their bread with defiled, that is, unwashed hands.
For the Pharisees and all the Jews, except they wash their hands diligently, eat not, holding the tradition of the elders. And therefore, when the disciples didn't wash their hands before they ate, they were breaking the tradition of the elders. Now, perhaps you won't immediately see what the seriousness of that was, but if you'd been brought up as a little tot, right from the word go, to respect the rabbi as someone that stood nearly, uh, in the place of God, and had lived all your days for fear of breaking the rules of the synagogue, lest they cast you out. If you had lived in a society that regarded the rules of the rabbi and anything the rabbi said as binding on you, the very thought of disobeying the tradition of the elders will have been frightening indeed.
What does our Lord say about it? In his answer to these men, he charges them with two things. First of all, he says, you have, you leave the commandment of God, and you hold fast the tradition of men. And secondly, full well do you reject the commandment of God that you may keep your tradition. Two things, and one worse than the other. First, these Pharisees, he said, they have left God's commandment and gone and done their own tradition. That's bad enough.
But then they went a stage further. In order to keep their tradition, they had to cancel out the word of God. Our Lord was not perturbed. When such men came against him and charged him with breaking the rules and the traditions of the fathers. Oh, but gentlemen, the word of God says. I say again, we do well to develop that positive attitude. We must obey the law. And if you won't let me obey the Lord in your church, well then, sorry, I don't want to cause any division, but I must be free to obey the Lord.
And I can't allow you to erect your altar in my life if it's going to displace the Lord's altar. And I can't allow you to enforce on me an attitude or a practice that will stop me doing what God's word tells me I must do. Gideon then began the whole business, himself positively obeying the Lord, and he let the other side begin the argument. Wise men.
In God's fear, I leave it to you, for those that are younger particularly, as a recipe. In this confused world, make it your business to put first positive obeying of the law. As I say, the hornets came round Hithiath, but even apostate Israel didn't quite summon up the courage to tell him that he mustn't obey the law.
His brethren dealt with, it was now a matter of going out and facing the enemy. Yet still he lingered. No small responsibility to take his brethren out to face the thousands of Midian, with all the strife and battle that that should mean. And before Gideon would join forces and fight, he sought assurance from God. In the quiet of night, therefore, he made God a proposition.
First of all, he said, if thou wilt save God by mine hand, as thou hast spoken, behold, I will put a fleece, fleece of wool on the threshing floor. If there be dew on the fleece only, let it be dry upon all the ground, and it be dry upon all 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 mor- morrow and pressed the fleece together and wringed the dew out of the fleece, a bowl full of water. Gideon said with unto God, let not thine anger be kindled against me, and I will speak this once. Let me prove, I pray thee, but this once with the fleece. Let it now be dry only upon the fleece, and upon all the ground let there be dew.
God did so that night, for it was dry upon the fleece only, and there was dew on all the ground. And you say, do tell us what the fleece represents. Don't know. I leave you to tell me. But at least we can say this, can't we? That night Gideon sought as a sign from God this question of the dew, sought to discover whether by his prayers he could control the dew. If I speak to any farmer here, he'll know what a vast blessing the dew is in a country that is very hot, to have in the evening and throughout the night the dew coming with its amazing refreshment.
What a lovely thing that silent dew is, to revive and refresh. But at least we can say this, can't we? That night Gideon sought as a sign from God this question of the dew, sought to discover whether by his prayers he could control the dew. If I speak to any farmer here, he'll know what a vast blessing the dew is in a country that is very hot, to have in the evening and throughout the night the dew coming with its amazing refreshment.
What a lovely thing that silent dew is. To revive and refresh. And the Israelite poets were not, uh, uh, uh, long in in using the dew as a picture and a parable and a metaphor. They knew it in their daily life. They'd experienced the refreshing after the heat of the day, the cool dew and the refreshment in the morning when the little dewdrops were glistening in the light of the sun and the world looked so sparklingly beautiful. And as I say, their poets had their imagination fired by the dew, and one of them wrote like this: Oh, how pleasant a thing it is, behold it, for brethren to ge- to dwell together in unity, it is like the dew.
Ah, yes. Beautifully refreshing, isn't it? To be able to come in from the world with all its toil and its strife and its unholy ambitions and its rat race, into a church of Christians that are dwelling together in unity with an ungrieved Holy Spirit. It is veritably like the dew, and it refreshes and it revives, and it begins to put back some of the sparkle into life. Sad thing, isn't it, when the opposite happens, and after having lived the world, you come to the church, and it's in the church where you get parched.
And what am I going to do, says Gideon? What is this that I'm about to do as I commit Israel to this battle? Make matters ten thousand times worse? Or can I be sure that God is with me, and that in answer to my prayers, the dew will come here and the dew will come there? I say, can you control the dew? Can you say like Paul, brethren, when I come, I'm sure I shall come to you with a blessing from God. Pray God that I become a man or a woman through whose prayers and ministry the dew of God's Holy Spirit comes upon his people and tends to cause them to dwell together in unity.
Pray God make me one of those, that when my fellow Christians come into my company, they don't get filled with the recital of all the strife, differences, and disagreements that there are throughout the whole world in Christendom, and going away feeling parched and sad at heart. Not mixing with me. Find a certain refreshment. Find that life takes on its sparkle once more. Because I'm touch- touched with God. And his Holy Spirit.
For my brother, if you can't be sure in your heart that, uh, that's what the overall effect of your activities is going to be, don't you start fighting for any cause, will you? You might make matters ten thousand times worse. Hmm. Well, that little bit of assurance given. Now he got to actually face the enemy. They came up in their thousands. And Gideon was busy marshalling his battalions. So would you have been.
When God said of something that must have stricken dismay to the very roots of his heart. Said he, Gideon, the people that are with thee are too many for me. Send a lot of them home. You say, no, no, that can't be the right tactics. No, no. I mean, if you're going to have an argument with anybody, it's always the man that's got the most people on his side that wins, isn't it? Surely, if it's a question of strife, you want the big battalions on your side. Isn't it numbers that's, that settles these things? What do you mean, send them home?
More, they're like, they're like locusts, those Midianites over there. You want every man you've got on your side. No, no. No, send them home, says God. And first of all, start with those that are afraid. Go through the camp and tell any- anybody here that's afraid, get home. You see, we must be realists. There comes a point when you'll have to stand and fight. Oh, our dear brethren, I talk of them in the Middle Ages.
It's more polite, isn't it, than than to talk about the moderns, isn't it? When it came, for instance, to whether you should or should be baptized as a believer. In the mid- medieval times, in the time of the Reformation, if you had dared to say that the scriptures taught that it was believers that should get baptized, well, not only Rome would have persecuted you, but Luther and Zwingli and Calvin too would have had you persecuted, tortured, drowned, or imprisoned, and would have charged you with being schismatic. And if you had said, but my brethren, God says this, and I must obey it, well, then you stood for the high jump.
Some dear men of God lived in caves and holes, didn't they, for years, going around here and going around there, preaching God's word, teaching God's people what the truth of scripture was. Wow, if you dared obey it, uh, you stood to lose your life. Oh, thank God for the men who dare stand up and fight, not with carnal weapons, not with schismatic empire building motives, dare to get up and preach God's word and adhere to it in the face of all comers. If you're frightened, go home, says God.
There's still too many, said the Lord to Gideon. Still too many. So we'll have to thin them out again. Let's take another test. And they were taken down to the water and invited to drink and refresh themselves. You can't always be fighting, can you? I mean, you can't always be in meetings, Bible readings or prayer meetings. You've got to go home sometime, put your feet up on the fire, on the mantle shelf, haven't you, Watho, and take things easy a bit and potter around the garden and generally relax and refresh yourself. If you don't, you'll have a nervous breakdown or something. You can't always be fighting. Well, take them down to the water and let them drink and refresh themselves, says God. So down they go. And a good many of them went hill and heels almost into the stuff, mouth right down like dogs in the water.
It's a good job the Midianites weren't looking, because while they got their noses deep in the water, if the Midianites had been anywhere near, they would have lost their heads. They forgot. They forgot there was a war on. Wasn't wrong that they took refreshment and recreation. Of course it wasn't. They would be the better soldiers for taking some refreshment and some time off and some for some holiday. Ah, but taking, uh, refreshment and holiday is one thing, and forgetting that there's a war on is quite another thing. There were some men who, even when they took their refreshment, you know, it was hand in the water, one eye on the median, oops, uh, and eye on the median again.
Never for more than a second or two with his eye off the enemy. How do you live? You want to count for God in your day and generation? Nothing wrong, my brother, in having hobbies and recreations and holidays. You need them to remain sane. Ah, but there won't be much use for God if you get so plunged head over heels into that kind of thing that you forget there's a war on, you cannot successfully do the work of the Lord as a hobby that you do in spare time when you haven't got anything more pressing to do.
It's a war. They are successful, who learn never to forget it. Well, that left Gideon in his host, a mere miserable three hundred or so. And Gideon shaking at his knees. So God, to comfort him, suggested that at nighttime he went down with a trusty servant to the perimeter of the Midianites' camp. And when he went down, he heard one Midianite telling his dream to another Midianite. He said, I dreamt and a barley cake came a-tumbling into the camp, and it hit this tent and knocked it over, and that tent knocked the other over, and in the end it laid the camp flat.
And his fellow Midianite, with a great deal of perception not wanted in Midianites, said, well, you know who that is, don't you? That's old barley cake Gideon. Yes. Battle had been won before it was started. These Midianites had come in to destroy the land and take all its produce, and here was a man. And they hadn't been able to stop him maintaining the food supply. Oh, we come back to where we started, don't we? Is it vitally important? It's nice that we have a correct Christianity, but what is it about, my brethren?
What's the good of having a correct church, correct to the last detail, if there's no food there. Christianity doesn't exist so that you can have wars and theological disputes with enemies. It may be necessary on times. That isn't why Christianity exists. It exists that we might enjoy our vast spiritual inheritance. And man has won the battle of life, who can maintain that food supply at all times and in all circumstances. Now at last to the battle, the sore thrust, the blood and the strife.
And God's strategy now begins to show its wisdom. It would not be that the man with the big battalions on his side should win by force of numbers. No, it was going to be this way. The attack was going to be made in the dark. The Israelites, three hundred of them, were to be strung out around the perimeter of the camp. Well, they weren't a man thick, most of the way. Ah, but they were to take earthen vessels, and in the vessels a torch. And when they had surrounded the camp and stood in their position, they were to smash the earthen vessel, let the light shine out, and cry the sword of the Lord and of Gideon.
Well, any one of you knows the effect of doing that. You're walking down a country lane one night, and you're just about seeing your way down the lane, when along comes Farmer Giles in his Mercedes-Benz or something, up the road with his headlights blazing. But then you can't see anything except the light. You can't see whether it's a Mini Miner or, or, or a Rolls-Royce or what the thing is. Because, uh, it's behind the light, and you can see nothing behind the light. And these poor Midianites woke up in the middle of the night at this inglorious shout, the Lord, the sword of the Lord and of Gideon, and they looked out, they couldn't see whether it was one man or ten thousand men or five million.
Who were alive. And they got dazzled with the light and half slew each other. I think that is the point at which we should, uh, take off for the New Testament, isn't it? To remind ourselves of one actual practical example of what we here see in the history and parable of the Old Testament. There was a church once in the city of Corinth. It had been founded by the preaching of the beloved Apostle Paul.
Converted men and women they were, at least for the most part. The last evil days overtook them. And Corinth was a church, in consequence, that was riddled with strife of every conceivable kind from one end to the other. There was denominational party strife, I'm of Paul, I'm of Apollos, I'm of Cephas, and all that. There was outright litigation, one brother hailing another brother to court before the ungodly. There was social distinction at the breaking of bread, that ugly thing.
The rich parading their wealth and making the poor feel all the more keenly their poverty. And along with that strife, there was a great deal of bitterness and carking criticism, even against Paul himself. They accused him in the matter of money and said that, we know he keeps sending brethren along here to take a collection ostensibly for the poor saints of Jerusalem, but do you know what I think? Well, I think they'll be lucky if those Jews in Jerusalem see much of that, you know. Mm.
You notice he doesn't come himself, sends another chap. Ha, it's just like him. And you know, when you really look at him and listen to his preaching, well, he's crude, isn't he? I mean, his diction is not very polished. Some nights he preaches too long. And then he has a way of getting beside himself, you know, he gets all worked up. A church not only riddled with strife, but exceedingly impoverished.
Those poor believers up in Macedonia, poor as the proverbial church mouse. They had urged upon Paul their gifts of money. They felt so rich in the Lord that they had urged Paul to take the money for the collection to the poor saints at Jerusalem, not the boys down in Corinth. They said, you know, we're suffering from inflation down here, and you can't just dig up money in the back garden. I mean, there's a limit to what you can give. And when I write to you, says Paul, I can't write to you as grown up, mature, vigorous believers.
I have to treat you like little babes. So poor and weak is your enjoyment of the things of God and your capacity to take spiritual food. You're narrow, he says. It ain't in me you're narrow, it's you're narrow in your own, own affections. Poor, poverty-stricken, critical, strife-ridden, carnal Corinth. How do you cope with that kind of stuff? Two ways stand out among the many tactics that Paul used on that occasion.
Who read carefully his second letter, you will find him manfully facing the difficulties of Corinth, and ever and again coming to face the harsh realities and dealing his faithful rebuke, his tender-hearted exhortation, but ever and again he'll turn from those difficulties, and you'll hear him talking like this. God is able. Don't you know that, poor you, poor staff Corinthians? Or perhaps you had a miserable time, but the fact is, God is able to make all grace abound towards you, that you, having all sufficiency in all things, may abound unto every good work.
Yes, the tribulation abounds, but so do the comforts of God abound. Yes, I know that we've a little affliction for the moment, but it worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. Oh, he says, you know, if this old collapsible tent were to come down one day, it's likely to. It's been, it's shaking with the gusts and the storms just recently, liable to come down altogether one of these days when a big puff comes, it'll go. Well, what about that then? We know that if this earthly tabernacle be dissolved, we're a house of God, eternal in the heavens, and we're longing to get there, for it's God, you know, that's done it.
He's filled our hearts with the earnest of his spirit. And if it be so wonderful thus now, what shall it be to dwell above and with the Lord of glory reign. What's that you were saying, you, you poor, miserable, criticizing Corinthians? What's this you're moaning about now? Oh, I didn't come to Corinth just exactly when I said so, and I'm the very worst man that there was, am I? And ah, well, you know, I suppose I do get a lot of kicks, but I'll tell you how I comfort myself, he says, isn't God wonderful? You know, God, he leads us in triumph in every place. He's a man was irrepressible, wasn't he?
Saul, you know, irrepressible. Whatever the difficulty came, he was a man whose heart was centered on God. And all that vast and infinite spiritual supply that is in God. Criticize him and beat him how you will, you couldn't manage to rob him of his food supply. And it was that that took him through. You say, ah, ours is a miserable church, I never get anything there. It's lovely to have a church, isn't it?
And to get what God gives us through our fellow believers. Oh, how much we owe to what God gives us through our fellow believers. But my brother, you won't be permanently comfortable if your spiritual life depends in toto on what you get from others. How long would you survive if you had to survive on your own private food supply that you got direct from God? Oh, the Lord, bring us so near him, make himself so real to us that in the end we are men and women of God that can stand on our own feet and have enough for ourselves, and to give to others as well.
And finally, when the criticism got pretty rough, and it got rough, Paul was a man that enda- had endangered his own life for the sake of these Corinthians. Worked by day and by night at his tent so that he might preach the gospel free of charge to them. And now they were criticizing him. And going so far as to criticize his personal appearance and saying that, well, look at him, he bodily presence is weak. That hurt, of course. As his nose wasn't the right shape.
Then he'd been beaten various times in prison in order to bring the gospel to the Corinthians. He isn't bothering too much about that silly talk. He says, look here, you know that the God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness has shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But then, so as to let the light out, we got the treasure in the earthen vessel. And you see, you can criticize that earthen vessel until it breaks in bits.
But the light just shines out more, doesn't it? I tell you, that if you will join this warfare with God, you must expect to get hurt. You will not be a man or woman that maintains for God's people their food supply, be it in Sunday school or Bible class or by whatever means you do it, but what you'll get hurt. And you'll get hurt to the point where you feel like giving up.
Then let's face it, shall we? So that when it happens, it doesn't disconcert us too much. You're bound to get hurt, you will get hurt. And sometimes the keenest hurt and the most breaking things will come from your fellow Christians. Rather, the technique of the battle is this. When the old earthen vessel is broken and shattered, men will see the more clearly what it is that they're facing. It wasn't just an old earthen pot, after all. It was the divine light of God and his word.
He has given to us, says Paul, the ministry of reconciliation. And this is the price, says Paul, that some of us have to pay for being the means in God's hand of men and women being reconciled with God, with one another, and being brought to enjoy the peace and plenty of God's great inheritance. The Lord bless his word for his name's sake. Now, Lord, we pray that thou will take thy word once more and make it meaning- meaningful to us.
We thank thee for the abundant supplies thou has given us in Christ Jesus. Yet we perceive that thou dost call upon us to be soldiers. We pray that thou would give us the grace and the courage and the devotion to stand with thee and with thine apostles and with thy people and with thy cause. Yet, Lord, in all our fighting, grant us thy grace, we beseech thee, lest the good fight become in us a merely carnal ambition and a cantankerousness and a spreader of schism. Help us, Lord, we do beseech thee, therefore, to be men who argue in intercession with thee more than we argue with men.
Make us, by thy grace, men and women in whose hearts there is an overflow of the glorious riches that there are in Christ Jesus. That all our fighting may lead to this end, the deliverance of thy people from strife and their enrichment with the blessings of thy Holy Spirit and the graces of Jesus Christ, thy Son. In his name we ask it with thine evening blessing, giving thee our thanks. Amen.
