Gooding, David: 11 - Contending for the Faith

And now, gentlemen, it gets late. And I have worked you unconscionably hard throughout the day, and many of you will be tired. Some indeed in danger of falling off to sleep against their will. If you should feel such a fate overcoming you, you'll certainly have my permission and encouragement to stand up. Nobody will think you're odd if you should gently take such precautions against falling asleep in this final session. The passage for our consideration comes in Judges chapter three verses twelve to thirty and is the account of the second major oppression and of Israel's deliverance from it. The enemy on this occasion that the Lord allowed to oppress Israel was Moab and its king Eglon. And the deliverer whom God raised up to deliver Israel was a certain Ehud. Our first task then, perhaps, is to try and reconnoiter the enemy. To ag- assess, if we can, what his culture was. What were those features within that culture that were so hostile to God's people and dangerous for their spiritual welfare? In this matter, we have the advantage because we have the Holy Spirit's own characterization of this nature and some of their outstanding features through a number of Old Testament books. Of course, if you do not believe in the inspiration of the Old Testament, you will not accept these descriptions therein given, and you will say that the whole thing is a biased slander against Moab written by narrow-minded Israelites, but that you will do if you are a liberal or an atheist. If you should happen to believe in the inspiration of scripture, you will count the Holy Spirit's description of this nation and some of its features as being perfectly reliable. You will not only see it's reliable, but you will see that the description is consistent. So, as we reconnoiter the enemy Moab and its culture now, we remember, first of all, the Holy Spirit's record of the national origin of Lot, and perhaps the least said of that, the better. Moab nationally was the son and simultaneously the grandson of Lot. That righteous but very unfortunate man who had started with Abram, his uncle, out from Ur of Chaldees, drawn by the vision of the true God, and let us hope, like Abram at the beginning, fired with the vision of the city that hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Leaving, therefore, the bright and brilliant civilizations of Ur of Chaldees, and stretching forward first to the land of inheritance to be theirs and their descendants here on earth, and then to the eternal city with its indescribable glory. Lot set out with Abraham, but there came a time when, for sundry reasons, they parted ways. Lot, because he had many sheep, chose him the well-watered plains around, uh, Sodom and Gomorrah, which in those days was like the very garden of the Lord. Got entangled in the affairs of, uh, uh, Jeric- uh, of Sodom. Lost thereby his daughters and, uh, uh, uh, his sons-in-law and the girls they married. They ended up living in a cave and behaving like a caveman. Nonetheless, the New Testament, uh, delivers its verdict. He was a righteous man. Before God brought down his judgments on Sodom, the angels insisted they could do nothing until they had dragged Lot to safety. Would somehow that the story had ended there. But in the cave, Lot's two daughters became concerned about the continuation of their family. Just in some way, I suppose, as Abram and Sarah had been continued about the preservation of seed. Story how God did a miracle to provide Abraham and Sarah with their seed, Isaac, and through him innumerable descendants, is a glorious and a happy story. The story how Lot's daughters, fearing that there was not left a man in the earth after the destruction of Sodom, the story how they set about perpetuating their father's seed deserves to have the veil of decency smother it in obscurity. Suffice to say, they got Lot drunk. Lot was the father and simultaneously the grandfather of two boys that continued his progeny, the one called Moab and the other Ammon. An ominous start. The next we hear of them prominently is in the book of Numbers, when Israel were footslogging their way across the wilderness and doubtless very tired. When Balak, king of Moab, becoming frightened of this advancing army of God's people, called in Balaam the false prophet to use his dark black magic and satanic powers to try to make God Jehovah change his mind and curse Israel. When Balaam failed in that objective and was in danger of forfeiting the promised salary, not a small consideration for prophets of Balaam's ilk. He hit upon a different scheme for defeating Israel, and he taught Balak to cast a stumbling block before the men of Israel, teach them to commit fornication and to eat things sacrificed to idols. The Merbites, like other Canaanites of that part of the world, had a religion that not only permitted fornication, but made fornication an integral part of the religion. So that men might go to the te- the temples, the Moabite temples, and take them a temple prostitute, and in their intercourse with her, imagine that somehow they were copying the deity Baal and Estasi, his wife. And somehow this fornication was pleasing to the gods and a cooperation with the gods of nature, for Baal and his supposed consorts were but deification of natural processes. That kind of sex in the course of religion, of course, was strictly forbidden by the law of Moses. You might understand what a grievous stumbling block it was to foot-weary soldiers in Israel's army, pushing across a desert, some parts of which had a landscape like the moon. And now they were beginning to get weary, longing for a certain comfort and the softer side of life, when they met these butterfly Moabite girls and said, what's wrong with it? And they were asked home to meet Papa and Mama. And then, of course, they had a little religious ceremony in the house, and the boys were asked to join in. And before they knew where they were, they were not only worshipping idols, but engaging in the ritual prostitution that went with it. It looks as if Moab is running dangerously true to type with its early origins. It was a fearful blow to Israel, such that our risen Lord still has not forgotten it when he comes to address some of the seven churches in Asia Minor and rebukes some of the Greek churches because they had there some who taught the doctrines of Balaam, who cast a s- taught, who taught Balak to cast a snare before the children of Israel and encouraged Christian men to commit fornication and to eat things offered to idols. Perhaps it was that these teachers were straightforward, permissive teachers. Both Jude and Peter are witness that in the early churches, towards the end of the apostolic era, false teachers had go- walked in and advocated permissiveness, sexual permissiveness among Christians. You might be thinking that some of the phenomena now to a- now appearing in the world in various places are modern. Gentlemen, they are exceedingly ancient. And they who now argue that, uh, homosexuality and lesbianism are perfectly okay, and fornication normal, such that ministers of the Church of God may be homosexuals and indeed lesbians if they want to be. And fornication is the natural thing. That modern phenomenon is but a resurgence of the ancient attitudes of ancient people. It may be that what our Lord is talking about to the seven churches is a little bit more sophisticated. You'll say in ancient Greek cities, tradesmen like goldsmiths or silversmiths would normally belong to the trade guild. And the trade guild would hold some from time to time dinner parties for the members of the guild. At the dinner party on the guild's premises, there would be a statue of the patron deity of the guild. It certainly wouldn't be Jehovah. Moreover, at the dinner party, there would be ladies aplenty, but not the men's wives. Wives didn't attend such things. They would be women provided by the hostess, as was the normal routine in such things in an ancient Greek city. When the dinner started, the food would first be offered to the heathen god, then partaken of. Before the evening was out, each man would have known what to have done to entertain the woman that was given him. Question would arise in Christian churches. Ought Christian businessmen to attend such dinners? There were some who said yes. And our Lord sternly rebukes. The next passage, eh, that I would like to quote from Old Testament comes from a few hundred years later, from the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah chapter sixteen and verse 6. We have heard of the pride of Moab, that he is exceeding proud, even of his arrogancy and his pride and his wrath. We notice that element prominent in the culture of Moab at the time of Isaiah. And from that I pass on to Jeremiah's description. Jeremiah chapter forty eight and verse eleven, where God through Jeremiah says as follows: Moab hath been at ease from his youth, and he hath settled on his lees and hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel, neither hath he gone into captivity. Therefore his taste remaineth in him, and his scent is not changed. Politically, over the centuries, Moab had had a comparatively peaceful existence. He had not been dragged hither and thither by different conquerors. He'd had a settled life, and with it had settled down like wine that isn't disturbed, settled on its lees, at ease from From his Israel. youth. When therefore we meet the king of Moab in Judges chapter three, we shouldn't perhaps be surprised at where we find him. He is in Jericho. Doesn't call it Jericho, calls it the city of palm trees. That had nice associations, at least. But it was a luscious city down there in the hot, lush Jordan Valley. And because it was very hot, he was sitting in his summer parlor, taking his ease. And he was, says the historian, a very fat man. Can happen to you, gentlemen, if you take too much E. The description that builds up from these sundry, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, chapters of scripture is of a nation whose origins were in indulgence of the flesh, perversions of the flesh, whose religion encouraged sexual perversion in the name of religion. Culture that produced a very proud nation, arrogant nation suffering from too much ease. And if you want a vivid, physical emblem representing such a nation, I don't know that you could do better than take the very fat man that was their king. When God had him killed, he had him killed, gentlemen, through the lower half of his body, by a dagger through the belly. Not so did God have Sisera killed. He was killed through his brain. And if it be true that God goes for his enemy's strongest Strongest point. point. The observation that God had King of Moab killed through his belly is not insignificant, while Sisera was killed through his brain. Just let us review the tactics Ehud used. Ehud was one of those amongst many chosen to bear a present to the king of Moab from time to time. Euphemism for tribute, of course. For this very fat king, as he sat indulgently in his summer palace, demanded his tribute, and Israel had to give their tribute. But on this particular occasion, Ehud had have enough of yielding tribute to the demands of this insatiable king. He made himself a dagger, sharp two edges, and because he was a left-handed man, he strapped the dagger on his right thigh. That was very helpful, because when subsequently he came into the king of Moab and went to draw his dagger, the king of Moab would not have been alarmed. Ancient kings, of course, were very observant of men who came into their presence, lest they should be bringing daggers and what have you. But they would be expecting a man to put out his right hand, to clutch a sword or dagger that might be on his left thigh or side. That's why in ancient cities, if you watch them, the roadway up to the gate of the city follows the outside of the wall, but is always so arranged that any strangers coming to the city are obliged to go up with their, uh, uh, right hand exposed to the guard so they can see what is going on. Ehud came in. When he reached for his dagger, he put out his left hand and grasped something that was on his right thigh. The all king, all unsuspecting, paid for his inadvertence. He had made his dagger, his sharp two-edged sword, and proceeded with the crowd to take in the normal present of tribute to His Majesty. But then, as he went back with his colleagues, he himself turned back. So we read. Verse nineteen of chapter three: he himself turned back from the carved images that were by Gilgal. Notice that, if you have a King James, an old King James translation, it will there read that he turned back by the quarries that were by Gilgal. That is a mistranslation. The things were not quarries. They were images that had been carved by the carver's knife. So he turned by, by these carved images that were by Gilgal. Carved images could well have been boundary stones, marking the extent of Moab's recent encroachments. Being boundary stones for the Moabites, they would have been religious objects and venerated as such, and they were carved for that reason. Here was the use of the carver's knife to carve these religious objects of boundary stone, according to Moabite religion and superstition. They were the boundary stones in this direction by Gilgal. What memories surround that name, gentlemen? It was there when Israel had recently crossed the River Jordan, that God commanded Israel, Joshua in particular, to make sharp knives of stone, and use these knives, not to carve images, to be sure. Carving images was nothing to be done in Israelite religion. It was to use these sharp flint knives to circumcise the people and cut away the flesh. The two different usages of the knife, both in part religious. One to carve religious objects to form boundary stones, the other cut off the flesh in circumcision. At that point, Ehud turned round. It was, so to speak, the turning point in this particular operation. And went back into the king's presence, cried, I have a message from God to thee. The king commanded his servants to go out, and as Ehud, Ehud draw- drew near, the king rose in honor of the fact that it was a message from God, pagan though he was, in the nature of pagan religion, they would have respected other people's gods as well as their own, and never could imagine why Israel wouldn't respect other people's gods but owned only one god. And he rose from his seat as best as his rather big belly allowed him, and as he wobbled forward, Ehud repeated his remark, I have a message from God to you. The message turned out to be a dagger that unhesitatingly went straight through his belly and out the other side. Man collapsed, and Ehud escaped, shut the doors, and eventually took the fords of Jordan. And as Moab, in its now panic, came running to escape back to its proper territory east of Jordan, knew no other way across Jordan but to, uh, cross by the Fords. They weren't Israelites. They were expecting no miracle that would allow them to go through the waters of the Jordan, down and up, without getting drowned. These were Moabites, and they tried to go across the Fords back to Moab, and as they went across, Ehud and his troops slaughtered them. Thus was Moab subdued. That is the story, gentlemen. Now, for the rest of our study, I want to put alongside the story of Judges three a passage from the New Testament, and I have listed certain, um, similarities, if you would have it so, between the two stories. Let me put them up here in my own fair script. On the left hand side, I have summarized five details from the Judges story, that Master Ehud was a Benjamite, the tribe of Benjamin. Secondly, this matter of the right and the wrong use of the knife. What I mean by that quaint expression is this, that Ehud turned back by the carved images, those old idolatrous carved images that were the boundary stone of Moab. The carved images that were by Gilgal. The right use of the knife, the flint knives used in circumcision at Gilgal. I have picked out Ehud's announcement to the king. I have a message from God to you. The message, you remember, turned out to be, as item four records, a dagger through the belly. And the final remark, so Moab was subdued on that day. That'll do for the present. In Philippians chapter three, we meet another Benjamite. His name was Paul. He refers to the right and wrong use of the knife. The right use he calls circumcision, and the wrong use he calls concision. Warming to his theme in chapter three, he says, well, gentlemen, this is the way I walk, but if any of you thinks differently, God shall reveal even this to you. It's not long after that that Paul warns his believers that there are some whose God is their belly. The chapter ends on a triumphant note. We wait for the Lord from heaven, the Savior, who shall change the body of our humiliation, transform it like to the body of his glory, according to the energy of that power by which he is able to subdue all things unto himself. I commend the similarities to your attention. Did I hear you say that you're not going to suggest on such flimsy evidence, are you, that there's any connection between Philippians three and Judges three? Surely not. That would be impossible allegorization and fancifulness in the extreme. Ah, I thought you might say that. So, no, I'm not. I've repented at this late stage. No, no, no, gentlemen, there's no, there's no significance in it whatsoever. Uh, forget, if you will, forget, if you will, mm, any comparison between Judges three and Philippians three. forget it entirely, of course, but no, it's nothing to do with each other. But just to round out the evening, I would take leave to expound Philippians three to you anyway. That might atone for my sins, mightn't it? And Philippians three, standing by itself, is good, solid word of God, free from all fancifulness. So if you will now forget Judges three completely, sorry I mentioned it, and concentrate for a moment on uh, Philippians three. And it becomes very obvious very soon as we read Philippians three that Paul is beginning to do battle against some very dangerous enemies of the people of God. So dangerous are they that Paul does not hesitate to call them evil workers. Indeed, dogs. And to use the word dog is an exceedingly extreme term when used on the lips of a Middle Easterner. The dogs in the Middle East were not pet lap dogs, they were beastly, dirty, filthy pariah dogs. To call anybody a dog was an extreme measure. Mark the depth of feeling in Paul and his assessment of the enemies that at this time endangered the people of God. You'll see that his concern in Philippians three, verses, verse three onward, verses one to three, is over what I might call, if you allowed me that little bit, the right and the wrong use of the knife. The true circumcision, in other words, and the perversion of circumcision that Paul contemptuously calls the mutilation or the concision. We will say the rite of circumcision had many significances, did it not, right from its inception. Abraham was justified before he was circumcised, and he received the outward, uh, uh, writ- rite of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness which he had by faith. That is one of its usages. Circumcision thereafter was also a token of physical descendants from Abraham, so that every man physically descended from Abraham had a right to this sign of circumcision, and also a duty to have it performed. At the same time, circumcision was a symbol of willingness to say no to hardness of heart and to the lust of the flesh, and a willingness to walk pleasingly to God, walk before God and be perfect. So that in the book of Deuteronomy, you will hear Moses complain at the people that they, though circumcised in flesh, are uncircumcised in heart. What use the outward ritual and rite if it is not matched internally with a circumcision of the heart that removes disobedience and lust and arrogance and is, uh, and shows a willingness to obey God and to walk in the steps of their father Abraham. Insofar then as it was a symbol, it was also a symbol of cutting off the flesh. And as you hear Paul eventually say, this is true circumcision. What is true circumcision? We are the circumcision who have no confidence in the flesh. So from becoming a symbol, the thing has, to use the popular term, become a type. My apologies for this multi-level of significance, gentlemen. I will, I'm not responsible for this. I really report what I find. By Paul's time, circumcision had become for him a type. I repeat, we are the circumcision who have no confidence in the flesh, but worship by the Spirit of God. But now he observes that that significance in Judaism has been utterly perverted. Instead of circumcision indicating man's no confidence in the flesh, but all his confidence in God, circumcision had been perverted into a ritual by which men thought they earned salvation and merited justification. So alas, many of them who put their trust in circumcision and such like things for salvation, their lives were anything but circumcised lives. They were lives of arrogance and pride and pleasing in the flesh. That used even relig- ritual circumcision as a thing to boast in and parade their religiosity. Those who would compel you to be circumcised, they themselves do not keep the law, says Moses, but they insist that you be circumcised, that they may glory in your flesh. And there is worse to come. But per first, Paul shows us that in denunciation, denun- in denouncing this wrong use of the knife in what he calls concision, this perversion of true circumcision. He is not, uh, crying, uh, sour grapes. Said, come to that, I've a right, if I were going to, I've a right to boast in the flesh, if anybody did. For I, says he, who circumcised the eighth day of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, as touching the law of Pharisee, as touching zeal, persecuting the church, as touching the righteousness which is in the law, found blameless. Anybody has a right to boast in the flesh, in his own unregenerate natural powers, to be religious and to pile up merit by keeping the outward, uh, laws of Judaism. If anybody's a right to have confidence in the flesh, I have, gentlemen, says he. Look at my strict u- upbringing. Look at my diligence in the law of Moses. So as far as touching the law is concerned and the righteousness which comes by it, I am blameless, not perfect indeed, but blameless. Who of you could point a finger at me? And as for downright zeal for the Jewish religion, who of you could match me in my zeal for religion? I persecuted the church. What a horror it became to haunt his nightmares. What he thought was religious zeal for God was but a display of unregenerate flesh, if ever there was one. Man proud in his fleshly attainments in religion, boasting in his circumcision, promoting his ego, and in fits of unregenerate arrogance and fleshly zeal, persecuting not only the church, but the incarnate Son of God himself. Ah, what a deceptive, cruel thing is the flesh. It is not to be seen merely in the brothels and the questionable religious prostitution in the temples of the pagans. It could be found nestling in the brightest young rabbi in Judaism's religion, parading itself in the temple of God where no prostitute ever came. Nonetheless, an exhibition of unregenerate flesh. But while things were gained for me, says Paul, these I counted loss for Christ. Do count them as worse than nothing, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness wi- of my own, which is of the law, but that which is through faith of Jesus Christ, the righteousness of God through faith. Not the product of my fleshly activity and merit, but the sheer gift of God's grace. The difference between true spiritual circumcision, that worships in the spirit of God and has no confidence in the flesh, and that perversion of the right of circumcision, which Paul contemptuously calls concision. The right and wrong use of the knife, gentlemen. You will say, doesn't this attitude on the part of Paul lead to carelessness? I mean, if a man thinks that he has to merit righteousness by his religious deeds, will he not always be on his spiritual toes and up to scratch, so to speak? And wouldn't this doctrine of justification by faith without works lead to laxity in a man? And indeed, would it not eventually lead to indulging the flesh? Well, it didn't with Paul. Confidence in his acceptance with God, confident that he had a righteousness which was of God through faith. So far from leading him to indulge the flesh, it led him into a life of constant, unrelenting determination to make progress in spiritual life and to lay hold of that goal for which Christ himself had laid hold of him. For to attain that goal, he was prepared for experiences such as he now describes. My ambition, he says, is to know him. After that, he has two couplets, the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings. Notice the order, resurrection first and sufferings next. You might have thought it would have been the other way round, wouldn't you? Sufferings first and then resurrection, but not so. Paul wanted first to be sure of the resurrection. Thus, what's the sense of enduring suffering? If there be no resurrection, gentlemen, don't start suffering for Christ. You'll be a lunatic. But if there be a resurrection, then Paul longed to know the power of that resurrection, practically worked out in his life, as he was thereby empowered to face and endure and go through persecution, for Christ's sake, the fellowship of his suffering. And then the second couplet, being conformed to his death, if by any means I might attain to the out resurrection from the dead. That couplet should be taken strictly together. People have wondered whether being conformed to his death and attaining to the resurrection of the dead is to be understood literally. Is Paul talking about the literal resurrection? Some say he is, and therefore they say you are to be conformed to his death if you, in order to be attained to the resurrection of the dead. Won't quite work, will it? Because if the resurrection is to be literal, the conforming to the death must be literal. The form Christ's death took was crucifixion. Paul isn't saying, is he, I long to be literally and physically crucified so that I might have a resurrection like the Lord Jesus. Hardly. Resurrection, then, is spiritual. Paul is thinking, of course, not only of the physical resurrection, but of the resurrection life of Christ that eventually shall be demonstrated in Paul to its zenith. The way to be conformed to Christ must be the way of being conformed in life to his death. If ever there was a Jordan experience, it was this, wasn't it? Conformed to his death. One might attain to the out resurrection from the dead. There is no being conformed to the Lord of glory, morally and spiritually, without first being conformed, morally and spiritually, to his death. That's Jordan. That then is my ambition, he says, and let, uh, therefore as many as be perfect be thus minded. And if in anything you are otherwise minded, listen, gentlemen, even this shall God reveal to you. An ominous statement. When Ehud suddenly announced to the king, I have a message from God to you, the dagger was not far behind, but went forthwith into the belly of the king. This is how I walk. If anybody thinks differently, God shall reveal even this to him. Brethren, be imitators together of me and mark them that so walk, even as you have us for an example. For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ. I will not have his cross at any cost. The cross speaks the end of man, the end of the flesh. It speaks of the circumcision of Christ, does away with the body of sin. Religion will not have it, or if it have it, it will pervert the cross into a religious institution in which we may glory in our own religious attainment. They are enemies of the cross of Christ. They like a Christianity or a Judaism that is much easier upon the flesh. They are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is perdition. With that, in goes the dagger in the belly, whose God is their belly. Strong words. Necessary in order to fight this perennial enemy of the people of God. Subtle, sophisticated, that will pervert the very gospel of Christ into a means of glorying in human flesh and attainment. They mind earthly things, their glory is in their shame. But our citizenship is in heaven, says Paul finally, from whence we look for the Savior. Who shall change the body of our humiliation. Seen of so many defeats. One day, the field of final victory, it will change the body of our humiliation, fashion it that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, according to the working whereby he is able even to subject all things unto himself. And so, gentlemen, if I have not been able to convince you that my interpretation of Moab in Judges three is correct, well, so be it. Let me at least convince you, on the basis of Philippians three that one of the potent enemies of the people of God is the flesh. Flesh in its immoral sense, its low, vulgar sense, often in the ancient world associated with religion and made part of its rituals. But flesh also in the higher sense, religious flesh, parading itself and boasting of its efforts to keep the law, building up its ego to pride itself and glory in and put its confidence in its religious attainment, and therefore equally an enemy of the cross of Christ. It says that no flesh is to glory before God. Flesh must be crucified and done away, so that our only glory is in the Lord. That will not lead to indulgence, or at least it shouldn't. Or if we are confident not in our flesh, but in the Lord, and know ourselves to have a righteousness from God, it will induce in us, as it induced in Paul, an unassuageable ambition to be ever more conformed to the Lord Jesus. Though Jordan lies between, and it means a daily and constant being conformed to his death, that we might attain to the final glories of the resurrection from the dead. It is an endless warfare for ourselves and for the Church of God. Be encouraged, one day the victory will come, and Christ shall subdue all things to himself. And thus may the Lord bless our evening studies for his name's sake.