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If you have your Bibles with
you this morning, brothers and sisters, please turn with me
to Judges 6. We're returning to the book of
Judges, back to that downward cycle of idolatry before the
Lord, oppression at the hands of the nations and the peoples
around them, the cry for deliverance, the raising up of a deliverer,
a savior. We've looked at Hothniel and
Ehud, Quick look at Shamgar, Deborah, and Barak. Now to famous
Gideon, who has been accused of cowardice, foolishness, the
fear of man, and unbelief. And hopefully we can clear his
name of a few things this morning and get our focus where it belongs,
not on Gideon, but on the God of grace. We'll read most of
this chapter. It is lengthy. We're taking a
big bite today out of these chapters about Gideon and the people and
then the Midianites. But follow, if you have your
Bibles, I haven't been able to print the whole passage, but
if you have your Bibles, we can begin at verse 1 through verse
10. Hear the word of God. The people
of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and the
Lord gave them into the hand of Midian seven years. And the
hand of Midian overpowered Israel. And because of Midian, the people
of Israel made for themselves the dens that are in the mountains
and the caves and the strongholds. For whenever the Israelites planted
crops, the Midianites and the Amalekites and the people of
the east would come up against them. They would encamp against
them and devour the produce of the land as far as Gaza and leave
no sustenance in Israel and no sheep or ox or donkey. For they
would come up with their livestock and their tents. They would come
like locusts in number. Both they and their camels could
not be counted so that they laid waste the land as they came in. And Israel was brought very low
because of Midian. And the people of Israel cried
out for help. to the Lord. Let us pray. Father grant me grace. Grant me your spirit to be able
to open your word this day that its truth its beauty and power
might be set before us might stir our hearts might bring us
to bow before you in wonder and praise. Hear us, I ask, in Jesus'
name. Amen. I am not fond of books and stories
and plays and things that are predictable. You know what's
going to happen when. And you know right from the start,
oh, who's going to end up with who? And you've got the whole
thing figured out. I don't like those. I like stories that have
twists and turns. I like mysteries that you're
expecting one thing and suddenly something else takes place. And
there are many of those. Some children's books are wonderful
in that regard. And some children's books that
really aren't children's books do that as well. We have been
looking at a familiar pattern as we return to judges. They
were fine under a judge. In this case, they had 40 years
of rest. before this cycle started. The judge dies, and in verse
1, they did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. That was,
they returned to the idolatry of the past. They cry, they're
brought under oppression, and they cry for deliverance. And
God sends a deliverer, but wait a minute, this time it's a little
different. This passage takes some turns, some twists that
are totally unexpected. And in them, we see repeated
demonstrations of God's mercy and graciousness. What's set
before us is God's response. He is a jealous God. They did
what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and they were brought
into dire straits. Now, this time, it's economic
oppression. It's not political oppression.
They did evil. And we get the worst description
of oppression that we have seen yet. in the book of Judges. The
people were carving out caves and holes to hide in the mountains,
to store anything that they could to keep them away from the Midianites
and the Amalekites and the people of the East, who would probably,
with spies in the land, wait until everything was ready. Wait
for them to do the threshing. Wait for them to gather in the
crops and the produce. Wait till the land is really
abundant. And then they would just sweep in like locusts. and
their camels and the peoples and their tents couldn't even
be numbered. And for years, year after year after year, they stripped
the land bare. And so the people finally cry
out. Now, the expectation, ours would
be, since the pattern has been very consistent, and they cried
out and the Lord raised up a deliverer, a savior for them. It's our expectation,
it may very well have been their expectation, but what happens
this time in verse 7 through verse 10? When the people of
Israel cried out to the Lord on account of the Midianites,
the Lord sent a prophet to the people of Israel. And he said
to them, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, I led you
up from Egypt and brought you out of the house of slavery,
and I delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians and from
the hand of all who oppressed you, and drove them out before
you and gave you their land. And I said to 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 obeyed
my voice." They're expecting a savior. They
get a sermon. These people didn't even know
why they were being oppressed. And the Lord graciously sends
them a prophet to describe to them their situation, their syncretism. What have they done? They have
not obeyed the word of the Lord. They have turned to those gods,
those idols of the nation. And so they're worshiping the
Lord. We talked about this earlier.
It's not that they abandoned Yahweh, but they're trying to
satisfy the gods of the region. as well. And so what happens
then is they fall into disunity as a people and they become an
easy target for the people of the East, the Midianites and
the Amalekites to just come in, take what they want and head
on out. They don't even have to hang around to make sure that
the work is done because Israel is going to have to plant something
to try and stay alive. They hadn't abandoned Yahweh.
We know a little further in the passage, Gideon knew the deliverance,
knew very well of the deliverance of Israel from Egypt. He cries
out regarding it. And he knew of God's mighty works
on their behalf. But he had an altar to Baal and
an Asherah pole in his front yard at the same time. And so God sends a prophet. They hear a sermon. You ever
done that with your children? You know, what they need is rescue.
What they get is a sermon. One of my grandkids one time
who was not supposed to be going up in the climber out in our
woods, you know, about eight foot up, up the ladder, he's
not supposed to be up there. And I turn around, he gets up and
I hear this, well, of course, he had gone up and tried to come
down false and God in his mercy allowed his foot to get caught
between the rungs there. So he is hanging completely upside
down with his foot hanging about seven feet off the ground. So
of course I run to rescue him but the first thing he got before
I even disengaged him was the sermon. But you've never done
that with your children, I know that. So God comes to him in
this message and in this messenger to say, thus says the Lord, and
he recounts the blessings of God, how he led them, how he
delivered them, how he cared for them and gave them the things
that they needed, how he commanded them, fear the Lord, not the
gods of these Canaanites. But you have not obeyed. They didn't even know what repentance
was. This is a jealous God who is not content to be added to
the pantheon of the gods of the nations. He is to be worshipped
exclusively. Now, when you hear that message
in the scriptures, what do you expect? But you have not obeyed. What do you expect? Therefore,
go back and read Isaiah. In Isaiah 5, the people are not,
they're walking in disobedience. Therefore, he says, I am driving
you away. I am giving you into the hands
of. Think of David and Nathan when
Nathan finally confronts David. And he says, you are the man,
this is what you have done. And he says, therefore, yes,
God will receive your repentance, but that child is going to die.
And when we hear those words of the prophet, but you have
not obeyed my voice, what we expect is judgment. What we get
instead is God's grace. They had cried out, not because
of their sin and their offense. They had cried out because they
were uncomfortable because of their oppression. But they didn't even know why
they were being oppressed. Now the word comes, we expect judgment.
Instead, God asks, God acts graciously. The angel of the Lord comes.
This is printed for you. If you don't have a Bible, you
can turn to our passage beginning at verse 11. Israel needed to give up the
worship of the nations. But they hadn't actually repented
yet. I'll get to my passage in just a section. I thought here
I don't want to pass over. They hadn't repented. They regretted
the situation that they were in. It was uncomfortable. But
they hadn't yet turned away from that false worship. They haven't
cut down the Asherah poles. They haven't torn down the idols,
the altars built to Baal. No, they were uncomfortable and
they cried out to the Lord. We have good friends of ours
have a daughter who is in the wilderness right now, claiming
Christ, but not walking or living in any way that affirms that
quote-unquote testimony. And so over the Christmas holidays,
she called and said she was going to come and join them for worship.
Well, they were thrilled to have that. But the day came and went,
and she called a little later and said, oh, I forgot. I'm really
sorry. And of course, what she meant
was, I'm really sorry. And mom figured out in a hurry,
I'm really sorry I hurt you. And what mom said was, the problem
is not the offense against me. The problem is the fact the offense
against the Lord. I'm not so concerned about these
horizontal relationships right now. I'm concerned about the
vertical one. And of course, when God sends the prophet, that's
exactly what his concern is about. There's no repentance on their
part, but God acts in grace. Verse 11, now the angel of the
Lord came and sat under the terebinth at Ophirah, which belonged to
Joash the Abiezrite. with his son Gideon while his
son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press to hide it
from the Midianites. Now, that explains the kind of
oppression they're under. Everybody here I think knows
you don't thresh wheat in a wine press. The object is to beat
it, throw it up, the breeze catches the chaff and it blows away and
the seed comes down. Now, if you're in a wine press,
there might be a little circular, you know, breeze blowing through
there but ain't nothing blowing out. So the bread you're going
to make with that mix isn't going to be so good. But if there are
spies in the land and they're watching, how in the world do
you protect the little bit that you can get from here before
you try and run to the hills and hide yourself? So he's in
a wine press threshing wheat. And that's where the angel of
the Lord finds him. And he appeared to him and said, the Lord is
with you. Oh, mighty man of valor. Now, I do not believe that the
angel of the Lord was mocking him. Not in the least. He sees him and declares him
to be the man he is, if indeed God is with him. Here is grace
at work. But Gideon has a question. And
Gideon said to him, verse 13, Please, sir, if the Lord is with
us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his
wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us, saying, did
not the Lord bring us up from Egypt? But now the Lord has forsaken
us and given us into the hand of Midian. And the Lord turned
to him and said, go in this might of yours and save Israel from
the hand of Midian. Do not I send you? And he said
to him, please, Lord, If I can save Israel, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest
in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house. And the
Lord said to him, but I will be with you, and you shall strike
the Midianites as one man. And he said to him, now, if I
now have found favor in your eyes, then show me a sign that
it is you who speak with me. Please do not depart from here
until I come to you bring out my present and set it before
you. And he said, I will stay until you return. If you are with us, why has all
this happened? Where is our deliverance? And of course, the angel says
to him, you are the means of deliverance. It is you that I've
chosen. And his response is like Moses.
Well, why me? We are an insignificant clan,
we're an insignificant house, Manasseh, we're the least in
that particular house and I'm the youngest in my household.
Why me? And the angel says to him again,
because I am with you. How gracious of the Lord. A presence
that he certainly doesn't deserve and what more could he possibly
need? Now Gideon needs to know it really is the word and the
work of the Lord. And so he asks for assurance.
And again, I am not going to impugn Gideon in this. As we'll see when we come to
the fleece, we have the word of God. We have the history of
God's people. We have the spirit at work in
us. We have the means of grace that the Lord has set before
us in order to be able to discern these things clearly. Gideon
doesn't have that. Where's the nearest priest who's
opening the word to him? Nowhere to be seen. And he has
probably heard some of the words of the prophet here. Gideon needs
to know this is really the work and the word of the Lord. And
so he asks for assurance. Will you stay here and let me
prepare you a meal? And God graciously says, yes, I will prepare it.
And he goes and pulls a roast out of the freezer and some broth,
and he sticks them in the microwave. And ten minutes later, he's back
to present the meal to the angel. No. No, it says he prepared a
goat. Now, it started living. This
is going to take a while. And so the angel stays. Finally,
it's all prepared. He brings it. The angel of the
Lord says, set it on the rock. Pour the broth over it. And he
takes his staff, reaches out, and it says, the angel at verse 21 here, the
angel of the Lord reached out the tip of the staff that was
in his hand and touched the meat and the unleavened cakes and
fire sprang up from the rock and consumed the meat and the
unleavened cakes. And the angel of the Lord vanished
from his sight. Then Gideon perceived that he
was the angel of the Lord. Yeah, that might clue you in. And Gideon said, alas, oh Lord
God, for now I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face. He knew, and this is helpful
to us, Gideon got his answer. He knows he's seen God and he
fears for his life because you cannot look on God and live.
You cannot see God and live. It helps us to answer a question
here. Who is this angel of the Lord? Well, the passage goes
back and forth between the angel of the Lord and the Lord. For instance, verse 14 and verses
16, the Hebrew says, the Lord said to him, the Septuagint translates
it as the angel of the Lord. But by the time we get down to
verse 22, Gideon understands. I have been speaking face to
face to the Lord, and I do not deserve to live. And he fears
for his life. And what does the Lord say to
him? But the Lord said to him, peace
be to you. Do not fear. You shall not die. Again, the Lord in his grace
speaks to, reaches out to Gideon. Then Gideon built an altar there
to the Lord and called it, The Lord is Peace. To this day, it
stands at Oprah, which belongs to the Abius Rites. How gracious the Lord is. Peace
be to you. Do not fear. You shall not die. Do the people view or see Baal? Is it gracious? God? Hardly. They are constantly trying to
cajole, to appease this God, God, this capricious God whose
ways and whims no one can really understand, and they will bring
sacrifices continually that cause terrible suffering for the people
in order to try and win his help. No, he is not gracious. Not in
any way. But Gideon would serve a God,
a gracious God and Lord. And so the Lord makes himself
known. And verse 25, now, and again,
not printed, we ran out of, we couldn't print it all. After
that experience, that night, it says, the Lord said to him,
take your father's bull and the second bull, seven years old,
and pull down the altar of Baal that your father has and cut
down the Asherah that is beside it and build an altar to the
Lord your God on the top of the stronghold here with stones laid
in due order. Then take the second bull and
offer it as a burnt offering with the wood of the Asherah
that you have cut down. In other words, he's to consecrate
an altar to the Lord burning up the false gods. So Gideon took ten men of his
servants and did as the Lord told him. But because he was
too afraid of his family and the men of the town to do it
by day, he did it by night. Now, once again, we get this
idea, you know, we're told that Gideon was just weak and fearful.
Yes, he was, but he obeyed. Now, I don't know if it was that
night or the next night. The text doesn't make it perfectly
clear, but the Lord appeared to him in the night, and I think
he got up and did it. Grabbed his servants, got the
bulls, pulled it down, said, we're going to get this built.
We're making this offering now. Burn that thing up. And of course,
the next day, when the people of the town awoke, it didn't
take them long to discover who had done such an atrocity. It
was Gideon. And so they go out to Joash,
his father. Bring him out. We're going to
take care of him. And Joash basically says, why
didn't Baal do anything about it? So if you want to contend
for Baal, basically, he says, who will contend for Baal? Verse
27. Or will you save him? Whoever contends for him shall
be put to death by morning. If he is a God, let him contend
for himself because his altar has been broken down. Now he
was defending his son. You want to come get him? You
come get him. You're going to be dead by morning. And how big is this
God anyway? He drags it down, he burns up,
he destroys the altar, he burns up the poles, he takes the very
wood to make a sacrifice. Where is he? Isn't he big enough
to defend his own altar, his own name, his own territory?
If you want to take him, fine, you put your life at risk. Go
for it. But why don't you let Baal defend
himself? And so Gideon gets the name Jeroboam. Let Baal contend. Let Baal stand up. So now Israel,
now the people have a choice. They can prop up Baal. What will Baal do, it seems?
Nothing. So they can continue to run after
a God who is impotent, who really can't even save himself, or they
can rally to the one whom God has raised up, Gideon, Jeroboam. And so at verse 23, all the Midianites
and the Amalekites and the people of the East came together. Here
they come again. Round eight. And they crossed
the Jordan and encamped in the valley of Jezreel. But the spirit
of the Lord clothed Gideon and he sounded the trumpet and the
Adi-Ezrites who were called out to follow him, and he sent messengers
throughout all Manasseh, and they too were called out to follow
him, and he sent messengers to Asher, Zebulun, Nephthi, and
they went up to meet them. The choice is made. The call
comes through the servant of the Lord. Are we going to follow
Baal and try and prop him up and see if we can build him up
again and make another pole and see how long that one lasts before
that's ripped down and burned up? Are we going to follow the
one who has the power and the glory to destroy all the others? Will they prop up bow or serve
the Lord? They can join Gideon or they can go hide. There's
their choice. And so the Lord affirms Gideon,
this man who he called out of the wine press to lead them into
battle. Gideon's got a question, a serious
question. Is it really your voice? Is it
really your command? Gideon said to God, if you will
save Israel by my hand, as you have said, behold, I am laying
a fleece of wool on the threshing floor. If there's dew on the
fleece alone and it is dry on all the ground, then I shall
know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you have said.
And it was so. When he rose early next morning,
that means he was up before the sun comes up and can dry everything
up. When he rose early the next morning and squeezed the fleece
he wrung out, he wrung enough dew from the fleece to fill a
bowl with water. And as I said to you, children,
it doesn't work that way. It just doesn't work that way.
You can put water on top, but it's not going to sink in. So
when the dew can settle on top, it can settle on top. But getting
a lot of water to stay in that thing, you're going to have to
work pretty hard to do it. The ground is bone dry. God breaks into the
natural order to affirm, to confirm, to support, to uphold Gideon
in his request that it really is God who is speaking to him. Then Gideon said to God, let
not your anger burn against me. Let me speak just once more.
Please let me test just once more with the fleece. Please
let it be dry on the fleece only. and on all the ground let there
be dew. And God did so that night, and it was dry on the fleece
only, and on all the ground there was dew. I worked on a farm cutting
alfalfa, and that was 24 hours a day, they cut alfalfa. And
I can tell you, every night, because we used to work swing
shift, 6 p.m. to 6 a.m., 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.,
so there were plenty of nights when I was out there, And about
four o'clock in the morning or so, things change because that's
when the dew settles. And ain't nothing stays dry.
Not the grass, not the ground, not the roads, not the tractors,
not you, nothing stays dry. When the dew comes, everything
is soaked. And so once again, God says, I can handle this and
does so very simply and very powerfully. Once again, I think we need to
be careful how we judge Gideon because what he was asking was
no trivial matter. He was not saying, are you really
calling me to do this? Should I go here or should I
go to here? Should I take this job or this job? Should I turn
left or right? Should I go to this college or
that college or this school or that place? Should I marry this
person? No, that's not what he was asking, not at all. Is God
really who he says he is? Is it really God who said, you
are my choice to deliver and to judge Israel? Now again, he
doesn't have a Bible in front of him. He doesn't have the means
of grace that we have. He couldn't test that word against some standard. So he didn't want to presume
that he had it right. And how patient God is in our
weaknesses. gentle and loving, and he reassures
Gideon and answers to strengthen his faith, to show that he is
gracious, a gracious God. Don't trivialize this test, I
guess is what I'm saying. We have to be careful that we
don't use the fleece in a manner that really puts God to the test. You shall not put the Lord your
God to the test, Jesus says in Luke chapter 4. He's quoting,
of course, Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 16. This isn't an issue
of, what will you do for me? Gideon wasn't asking for guidance. And that's where we get caught.
We have choices before us, neither of them sinful, both of them
possibilities. And in a way, I think sometimes
we lay the fleece because we don't want to make the decision.
Because if it's wrong, I want somebody to blame. Oh, be careful,
brothers and sisters. that we aren't trying to lay
fleeces like that so that we are exonerated from responsibility. You've got two choices in front
of you. You can't say, this is the stronger by far, this is
the weaker. This has elements of sin. I know it's done. I've
got two choices. Morally, I can go either way.
Two jobs, two schools, two whatever's. We're not asking God in a trivial
way to make a decision for us. Gideon is asking for God to reveal
himself as the God of creation. And that, I believe, is a legitimate
question. He wasn't asking for guidance.
God, you have commanded this. Are you the one who can fulfill
it? Jesus said, not in terms of guidance. Which way should I go? Should
I go left or right? Should I make this choice or that choice? In Matthew 7,
he says to the people who need to know the living God, he says,
ask, and it will be given. Seek, and you shall find. Knock, and the door shall be
opened to you. Who's he talking about? Ask,
seek, knock. In a sense, he's doing giving
us permission to do what Gideon has done, to show himself as the God of
the universe, the God of all creation, the God of all power
and of all might, the God of all grace and mercy, as he has
shown himself to be over and over and over again in this passage. God does make himself known supernaturally
He came into the world taking human flesh and blood so that
we could know him, so that he could be with us as he promised
to Gideon. I am with you. How am I going
to do this? Well, I'm with you. What do you mean, great warrior?
I'm with you. Great in your own strength? Well,
good luck with that when you can stay in the wine press. But
I'm with you. And I will strengthen you, and
I will guard you, and I will guide you, and I will set you
on my path. and I will use you. And now God comes affirming that
more gloriously than we could ever imagine and sending his
son into the world so that he could be and is with us. He came to deal with the rebellion
and the sin in the hearts of men and women graciously, gloriously,
sacrificially taking the punishment and the weight of sin upon himself.
And in that body, he showed us power over the created order,
over the physical world, over the spiritual world. Again, children,
water into wine, speaks and the forces of nature
stop. Healings, mysteries, wonders,
taking control of all of creation. This is the God who said, I will
be with you. This is the Lord Jesus Christ
who said, I will be with you. He was with Gideon in a way that
allowed him, that empowered him to accomplish all that the Lord
called him to do. And he wasn't with all the people,
all his people in that same way. And we know that he wasn't on
or with Gideon always in that way. Oh, how the people, we long
for a day when we know that he will never depart. And how gracious our God is,
he will never depart. For like those Israelites, we read about us and them in
Ephesians 2, didn't we? When we were dead in our trespasses,
when we were dead in our sins, God sent his son into the world. The point is Israel wasn't going
to repent on their own. The prophet could come and tell
them what they needed to do so that they would at least understand
why the oppression was there. But he doesn't wait until they've
repented and smashed down the idols to come and raise up Gideon
and deliver them. He acted to deliver while they
were still in their bondage to idols and God in His grace, acts
while we are still in bondage, indeed dead in our trespasses
and sins. And He raised up one to destroy
those idols and false gods. He sent one who could deal with
the consequences of sin. And it would take his life, but
he would rise from the dead. You want to see supernatural
power at work? Raised from the dead, the one
who would rob the devil and his angels of their power of death.
He doesn't wait for us to get better to show his kindness and
his grace and favor. As the hymn says, if you tarry
till you're better, you will never come at all. Such is the grace of God. Here set before us, in the midst
of the misery of Israel, with the hand of God at work
in the servant who would walk in faith and obedience. Don't wait until you're all better,
if you've heard and know that you can turn from your sin to
the living God, that you can ask and seek and knock, and he
hears, and he answers, this God of grace. Father, set our eyes
not on the flaws and foibles of Gideon. For Father, if I tried
to match mine up, the list would be a whole lot longer. I am certain,
Lord, I have no doubt. But grant us the grace to fix
our eyes on the grace that you have made known in your Son,
Jesus Christ, in your word of promise that you will be with
us even to the end of the age. And Lord, give us grace and strength
to so walk, hearts stirred by your gracious
acts of mercy and favor and by your wondrous promise of eternal
life and the forgiveness of sins. And the one who you sent to be
with us. Hear us we pray in Jesus name.
Amen.
A Display of Grace
| Sermon ID | 1718185476 |
| Duration | 37:51 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Judges 6 |
| Language | English |