We resume our occupation with this matter of
the recovery of the honor and glory of
the Lord's name in his people.
Just a few words to link up with
what we were saying earlier.
When we were pointing out a certain correspondence
between the time of Gideon and our own
time, on the one hand, a state of
things amongst the Lord's people which is altogether
contrary to the glory and honor of his
name.
That state being weakness before their enemy, so
largely at the mercy of their foes, defeat
and helplessness, then poverty, no
real enjoyment of the wealth of the land
which too was the land of promise and
covenants, flowing with milk and honey, but not
for them in their state.
Food, very scarce and far to be sought.
Confusion, a big question, continually dominating their minds
as to the meaning of it all and
as to the way out.
Disintegration and confusion, no cohesion, no oneness, no
solidity and without leaders to speak with that
finality of authority in the name of the
Lord which would put new hope and new
confidence into them.
These were the conditions of Gideon's time and
as we have said there is something like
that today.
We'll not traverse that ground again to emphasize
or prove, it is true, but on the
other hand God moving in a sovereign way
for his namesake to recover its glory and
its honor by changing those conditions for the
honor and glory of the Lord's name is
in a people who are strong against their
enemies, strong in the Lord and in the
strength of his might.
His glory and honor is to be found
in a people who are enjoying their inheritance
in Christ of wealth and riches where there
is not spiritual poverty all the time.
The Lord's people have not got the resources
by which they flourish in the land.
His glory is found in people who are
really truly enjoying the depth of the riches
in Christ and in people who have food,
who are not starved and miserable because there
is no real provision for them to feed
upon.
A well-paid people is what the Lord
wants for his glory.
A people who are sure, have confidence and
certainty, not all the time dogged and dominated
by Christians which disturb and unsettle and rob
them of their sense of security.
They've got a great answer in their hearts,
that is they know where they stand and
why they stand there.
There is an assured life and further the
Lord's name is personally glorified in a uniting
people.
His honor has been sorely and grievously destroyed
by the breakup of the Lord's people.
All their scatteredness seems that the great great
prayer of our Lord recorded for us in
John's Gospel chapter 17 very largely centered in
that one thing.
That the unity of the Lord's people should
be the great contributing factor to the glory
of his name.
Lord Jesus in that prayer repeatedly referred to
the name, keep them in thy name.
It was for the name's sake.
Now to have a people like that is
not just idealism, a vain hope, but something
very near to the Lord's heart.
For as we said Gideon in the very
first place takes forth the fact that the
Lord wants it otherwise and moves to have
it otherwise.
And Gideon brings into view the movement of
the Lord to change that state of things
for his name's sake.
So we went on to see to look
at Gideon as the kind of instrument that
the Lord will use for the recovery of
the honor of his name by bringing about
these name honoring conditions amongst his people.
That's why we take things up today.
It is a matter then of the recovery
and continuum of the testimony of the name
of the Lord.
While Gideon on one side does set forth
the absolute sovereignty of God as we were
saying, on the other side he indicates the
ground on which that sovereignty works.
It is not a contradiction to say that
while God acts in absolute sovereignty, he does
look for certain things to bring that sovereignty
into action.
Even the sovereignty of God where God's people
are concerned demands certain conditions and
those conditions are to be found indicated at
least in the case of Gideon, this representative
instrument of God's honor.
Now I'm going to take some space to
say some things I doubt if I've ever
said here before but which comes out of
a very real exercise of my own heart
and which I feel to be of very
great importance and it centers in the first
thing about Gideon.
Gideon was a young man.
In saying that and what it implies we
really do get to the point of God's
reactions, God's recovery and continuance of his testimony,
the honor and glory of his name.
What is true in nature is true in
the realm of things spiritual.
The great factor and principle of spiritual youth.
The law of nature is ever fresh reproduction.
As soon as any organism in nature ceases
to reproduce, death has commenced and death
is the law.
The law of life is reproduction.
God having once created does not create a
second time.
He proceeds by reproduction not by fresh creation.
Every new generation is meant by God to
be the past values brought into freshness.
No new generation is a new creation.
Creation and generation are two different words belonging
to entirely two different things.
I think some young people think that they're
a new beginning.
They're not.
They are to be the gathering up and
carrying on of what has been.
But to gather it up and to carry
it on in freshness.
They are to be the sum of what
has gone before but brought back again to
its final freshness.
That which is past.
You like old.
I repudiate that word but for the sake
of explanation I use it.
It's kept fresh by new generations.
Now this has two sides.
The side of ourselves we who are a
passing generation.
Some of us are a passing generation.
But if you're included in that our freshness
and life will be just in so far
as we equip the next generation.
If we hold things to ourselves but all
what tragedies are resulting from old Christians keeping
everything to themselves.
Old servants of God still hanging on keeping
it in their own hands.
If we keep everything to ourselves things will
die.
And die with us.
And we are bringing things to them.
This of course is the spiritual law of
the blessing of family.
See everything has a spiritual law behind it
in God's mind.
The blessing of families is on the one
side to keep the old people young.
Find the old people who have no young
people around them and they're old indeed.
They're older than they ought to be.
You might sometimes feel that you must qualify
that.
They have a way of wearing you out.
But nevertheless the principle holds good.
It's a divine principle.
The blessing of families on the one side
is to rob old people of their age.
To stop them getting old.
That's the principle.
That's the law.
That's the divine principle.
The mark that God has not come to
an end is not finishing up but means
to go on is that he brings young
people in.
My older friends take note of that.
Don't you be jealous of the young people.
Don't feel that they're getting in your place.
You are having to hand everything over to
them and they're being too much made of.
Talk to them in a minute.
Let me talk to you first.
No.
You see we're getting old some of us.
And we are we are seeing the day
of our departure.
Joy dear.
And we can become weak.
We can lose our precious.
That thing can creep on us and over
us and begin to bring us into a
severe limitation.
We we need something to save us.
We need to be delivered.
Or as I have said we may cling
and cling and if so good bring in
death.
What is our salvation?
What is the renewing of our youth?
What is the way out of that sense
of an end?
Pending end and growing limitation.
What is the way out?
It is it is to equip and provide
for the generation that follows.
To do everything in our power.
To see that the thing is passed on
to them and that they are ready to
take it up.
Not to suspect their youth.
Not to criticize them because they are young.
Not to do what certain evidently were inclined
to do over Timothy.
The apostle had to say let no man
despise thy youth.
When I first started ministry I was quite
a young man.
And I had to assume the responsibility for
a church.
And there were some old men who were
saying but he's so young.
But I had a chap here among them
who said but he's getting over that every
day.
Better attitude isn't it?
Yes let me repeat.
A mark that God is going on and
needs to go on is that he brings
on young people.
That he brings in young people.
Thank God.
They are not going to die if this
gathering is true for them.
But you see it is not years after
all that govern.
Years are not the criteria.
Spirituality is the criteria.
And that need not be a matter of
years at all.
There are some people old in years who
are bathed spiritually.
There are bathed spiritually who are far ahead
of many of their time elders.
It is not that.
But let's turn over to the other side.
A new generation must succeed in an inward
way to that which is possible.
I underline certain words in an inward way
to that which is possible.
The young people the followers on must succeed.
Those who have carried the testimony of the
Lord before them they must succeed.
Not officially.
They must succeed spiritually.
Inwardly.
Here is the rigid law of the Bible
and its principle again.
For there is always something deeper than what
is on the surface of anything that's in
the Bible.
That rigid law of the Bible in the
penalty of dishonoring and repudiating parents.
There were fewer any more rigid laws and
penalties in the old dispensation than those connected
with children dishonoring or disparaging or repudiating their
parents.
In those days you had only to do
that as a son to your father and
stoning was the penalty.
Your life is finished.
I say behind that there's a divine principle.
The divine principle is this.
That a father, a mother, a parent from
the divine standpoint is supposed to have a
knowledge of the Lord which is indisputable to
their children.
And let the children despise or set aside
the parents and to despise what they have
seen that they need for their own life.
And their life is forfeit if they despise.
That's strong but it's true.
See the Lord does not just take account
of any rebellion against parents or disobedience to
parents as in itself.
He looks at the principle behind it.
For when things are on the divine pattern
and level it is like this.
That the children cannot live without the parents.
They die without the parents.
In this sense that they are absolutely dependent
upon what the Lord has already developed and
stored up for them in a previous generation.
Yes it's a very very strong law there
in the bible.
You see as I said before young people
are not a new created humanity but they
are generated a fresh expression of humanity with
the good that has been before.
It's significant isn't it in this connection that
when Gideon became an old man and the
men of the country came to him and
said be our king and rule over us.
Gideon would have nothing on it but his
seven sons were to rule over him.
Instead of the father should be the children.
It's the principle again.
Age giving place to youth but not you
in terms of sonship.
That means spirituality.
Now young people got that.
You've grasped that and all of us.
We are we are on the way to
the recovery of something.
The recovery of the Lord's name.
You don't need that I stay to discuss
with you how on the one hand that
which is spiritually owned and worn out and
finished with takes from the glory and honor
of the Lord.
Let me put that another way.
The Lord's glory and honor is expressed in
perennial youth.
You do not need me on the other
hand to argue that if young people just
as young people repudiate the older and take
hold and put themselves in and begin to
govern and rule and arrange the things of
God's house as though everything began with them
and ended with them how much dishonor has
been brought to the Lord by that.
No these are spiritual things to be taken
note of and perhaps they will be helped
out by what I have yet to say
this evening.
Let us look at some of the qualities
in Gideon upon which the divine sovereignty operated.
Some of the qualities which marked Gideon.
A young man and here we find a
tremendous amount of spiritual maturity and what were
the marks of spirituality and spiritual maturity in
this young man.
And the first and it shall set you
everywhere was his humility.
His humility and humility is the the primary
mark the hallmark of spirituality and the spiritual
maturity.
Oh what a lot of history is so
often required before the Lord gets that in
his people and in his servants.
Humility.
Look at him.
No pride of person.
Far from thinking anything of himself.
He thought very little of himself.
Read the story again.
No pride of family.
My family is the least in the natural
and I am least in my father's house.
Now he could take 10 servants all the
same out of his father's house.
No.
With all.
And it seems to me that from the
story about the men of the city and
Joash.
All that Joash did stand for something.
He had a position.
He had an influence.
It was Joash who had that altar to
Baal.
It was Joash who had that Asherah.
It was to Joash's Asherah altar that all
the men of the city came to worship
in the early morning.
Yes.
Did you?
No pride of family.
Whatever there was there.
The point of course is this.
If you hadn't 10 servants you hadn't won.
You hadn't anything at all of place, prestige,
recognition, influence.
You might say well of course.
It's only becoming under such circumstances to be
humble.
But no.
It was there.
But I'm least.
I'm least.
No pride of achievement.
He could point to no accomplishments, no degrees,
no successes in the military, the academic, scientific
or any other realm.
No pride of achievement.
No pride of ambitiousness.
No trace of any of these things.
And certainly no spiritual superiority.
He did not point the fingers at the
other people and say see, see.
Look at them.
Look at the mess they're in.
Look at their condition.
Look, I am different.
He just put himself amongst them all.
He was one with them in their faith.
He was involved in their condition.
There was no spiritual superiority.
Young men, young women.
Not because you are young are you going
to succeed.
To the responsibility of the Lord's testament.
Not because you've got life before you are
you going by the law to be pushed
in.
Given recognition and place.
No.
It'll be like this.
Of course we've all often heard people say
well perhaps we've expected something more of the
young than we should.
We mustn't put old heads on young shoulders.
But the Lord does.
And requires.
You have got to take up that which
has drowned before.
And what the Lord has been doing in
a spiritual way has been to bring about
this state of things.
This humility.
And you've got to begin there and go
on there.
If there is any mark about any of
us of pride of person, of achievement, of
position, any spiritual superiority in looking down at
others and criticizing and judging and condemning.
The Lord will not do as he did
with Gideon when he said the Lord looked
on him.
No.
The Lord will not look on him.
It is like that.
He will not come into his view.
That can never bring glory to his name.
Or may I appeal to you to guard
against criticism which comes from a spiritual superiority.
Guard against it as you would guard against
a plague.
It's not our business to let it be
known that we disapprove of people.
It's our business to find the basis at
which we can help them.
Help them.
We may in our own heart of hearts
feel bad about certain things with their concern.
But that's to stay there.
Not to come out in our influence and
our attitude and our looks and our words
and our arguments and our attempts to tell
them where they're wrong and wrong wrong in
their associations and connections and all the other
things.
That's not our business.
Humility is find a point of spiritual helpfulness
and work on that.
If you will take that to heart you
may be found within the view of that
divine power and action to bring glory to
the Lord's name.
To recover his testimony.
The next thing we find about Gideon was
his industry or his industriousness.
Gideon was pushing out corn in the wine
press to hide it from the Midianites.
Very little seemed possible.
Most people had fled to caves and a
whole very little seemed possible.
Looking out on the situation question might have
been asked, so what can be done?
We can't do anything.
And because of the situation just join them
and say well it's no use.
Looking out on the situation question might have
been asked, so what can be done?
We can't do anything.
And because of the situation just join them
and say well it's no use.
No use trying to touch this.
The enemy has got so strongly entrenched, so
widely spread over.
There's so little for the Lord and so
little that can be done.
Paralyzed and impotent because of the appell impossibility
of doing anything.
But Gideon was not.
Not much could be done.
But Gideon set himself to do even the
least that could be done.
He did not give up.
He did not abandon it all.
He gave himself to doing what could be
done.
He looked out on the situation so difficult,
hard.
He said well at least, at least I
can beat out some corn here up in
this corner.
At least I can do something a little
over against the situation.
The Lord took note of that.
You see it was right there over against
the winepress where Gideon was doing that that
the Lord came and looked on.
I wonder if it was because of that
that the Lord said the Lord is with
me.
Thou mighty man of God.
I am certain the Lord is with no
slothful person.
Diligence is a very great thing with the
Lord.
Not slothful in business says the Apostle.
Firm and in spirit serving the Lord though
that may be in a very limited and
cramped capacity.
It's the spirit that the Lord looks upon
and it was the spirit of Gideon which
was doing all that could be done however
little that might be.
The Lord takes note of that my dear
friend.
See a gesture is enough with the Lord.
Whether you make for the armchair directly you
enter the room.
That's enough.
The Lord doesn't look in that way.
See what I mean.
I don't mean that literally.
It's a gesture.
Whether you are inclined to be a shirker,
to evade, to get out of, to skirt
round some responsibility or whether you're alive and
alert for anything.
The Lord takes note of gestures.
The Lord looked upon him.
The margin says the Lord turned towards him.
Further Gideon's concern for others.
Of course it's a part of what we
just said.
Concern for others.
He looked and he said my these people
are starving.
The enemy, the enemy is taking away their
bread, their food.
The enemy is doing all he can to
say that these people are undernourished, underfed and
so weakened that they'll never be able to
lift a hand for their own salvation, deliverance
and Gideon had a real concern about the
starved fate of other people.
Their needy condition.
You know how much Paul has to say
that look not every man on his own
thing but on the things of others.
The outward look.
Gideon was not one of those introverts.
Always occupied with himself and his poor, poor
situation.
A young man, a young man.
Think of a young man and his profit
in a situation like this.
What kind of a life lies before Gideon?
A young man.
But he doesn't sit down and nurse the
adversities of the coming to his life as
a young man.
He's sorry for himself.
Snuggling himself with with self-pity.
Drawing attention to himself and his own unfortunate
loss.
He was not that kind of man and
the Lord does not look toward that kind
of person.
You can go on like that and you'll
not find the Lord turning toward you if
you like that.
The Lord will turn toward those who it's
quite true their lot is a difficult one.
No doubt about that and God knows that
better than anyone else.
But nevertheless who are turned out for the
sake of others.
Really concerned for others.
See his secret activity and exercise to defeat
the enemy for the sake of the name
of the Lord.
Secret activity.
Secret exercise.
In his heart Gideon seems to me to
have been saying I'll beat them if I
can.
I'll outwit the enemy if I can.
I'll spoil their plans if I can.
I'll see that they have as little success
as in new life as the spirit.
Further Gideon betrays a real soul perfectly and
stubbornly.
Which it seems to me is the outcome
of real heart exercise.
When the Lord comes and says the Lord
is with thee.
Thou mighty man of valor.
He instantly answers if the Lord be with
us.
Why does all this come upon us?
Why does all that which our fathers told
us are the formal activities and wonders of
God.
Why is none of that today?
There was a big cry in his heart
about the situation.
He was exercised about this.
He was concerned about this.
He was trying to find some explanation.
He was reaching out to get the key
to this thing.
And the situation was creating real pain.
I was going to say real bitterness.
And you know there's a kind of bitterness
of the spirit that is permissible.
That is not wrong.
If we become bitter and sour against the
Lord in rebellion that's a wrong kind of
bitterness.
But there was a bitterness in the heart
of Anna.
Do you remember when she prayed at the
temple?
And Eli misunderstood the moving of her lips
in prayer and charged her with drunkenness.
No no my Lord thy handmaid is a
woman of a sorrowful spirit.
A bitterness because of the situation in Israel.
Have you got anything that corresponds to that?
It's so different from a theoretical position.
Isn't it?
We've got all the doctrine and all the
teaching and we know how what people ought
to be like and what they ought to
do and what they ought to know.
We've got the answer to it all.
And I said oh no if it does
not come out of the wine press it's
a no-go.
It's got to come out of the wine
press.
It's got to come out of the soul
traveling where we've had deep exercise in this.
To such the Lord will look.
Do believe me.
Whether you may be old or young it's
got to be like this.
Don't you go out and think that you're
going to save the Lord's name and honor
and deliver his people by doctrines, by theories,
by wonderful interpretations of truth, wonderful vistas of
spiritual things.
Not at all.
The Lord is looking for hearts that are
brittled over spiritual conditions.
Irian was so distressed and perplexed and was
suffering inwardly and his crying was not the
cry of a recalcitrant, the cry of a
man in trouble.
Why?
Oh why are things like this?
My last word this evening is here.
Irian destroying the enemy in his father's house
will never destroy Satan and his kingdom.
Will never destroy the Midianites if privately behind
the scenes in the background there's some complicity
with Satan's kingdom.
And sometimes I may always, always the father's
house is inside him.
Adam has his residence here and Adam brought
about complicity with Satan.
And that's inside our own soul.
You and I know it.
How easy it is, how easy it is
to listen to Satan, to agree with Satan,
to be carried away by his arguments.
There's something inside of us which seems to
be in alliance with the very devil himself.
Father's house is here and until, until that
is dealt with and overthrown and in the
place of Baal's altar, the Lord's altar is
erected.
And more than that, the very thing that
belongs to Baal is brought and made the
thing for the glory of God.
That's being more than conquerors, not only conquerors.
It's taking the enemy's strength and bringing it
to the Lord.
Well, if you don't understand that, don't worry.
But here it is.
Before Irian could go to save Israel and
recover the honor of the Lord's name, something
had to be done in the background of
his life.
He did it.
He did it fearfully.
He did it in no strong, high-handed
way of self-confidence and self-assertiveness.
No.
In the same meekness which is characterized in
him all along, he takes ten men, ten
servants and under cover of the night does
it.
It may, it may want something, be wanting
in something.
You may say it's wanting in courage.
Well, let it be what you like, but
it was done.
That's the thing.
Day or night it was done.
The thing is it's got to be done.
But when we have said all, what is
the motive?
The motive of all this?
The motive of all.
Because these are not just things in themselves.
They are all motivated, done by a tremendous
dynamic.
What is it?
Jealousy for the name of the Lord.
It's the Lord's name.
This state of things is dishonoring to the
Lord.
This, whatever it is, however little that can
be done, must be done for the sake
of the name of the Lord.
It is not honoring to the Lord for
me to accept this situation and sit down
and be passive and flaccid about it.
The name of the Lord requires that I
do something to be governed by the honor
of the Lord's name.
Oh, have a heart for that name.
We must see the Lord's people saved.
We must see them enjoying the wealth of
their inheritance.
We must see them on their feet standing
up.
We must see them brought together.
We must see them in a state that
glorifies His name.
Not because we want to be in Christian
work in a great enterprise and undertaking.
Not because we want to see something flourishing
in which we have a part.
But for the sake of the name.
Oh, the Lord give us a heart for
His name.
Looking on everything and through His name.
Does this honor the Lord's name?
Is this glorifying the Lord's name?
Is this worthy of the Lord's name?
My relationships with others.
Everything.
Is this glorifying the name of the Lord?
If not, then.
If we want the Lord to be with
us.
And the Lord to make use of us.
Individually and together with others of His people.
As a vessel.
We must be after this kind.
A vessel after the order of Gideon.
Gideon and looking at Gideon.
You might, if you took his estimate of
himself, feel that he is rather a poor
thing.
But, remember there were those things which the
Lord regarded as of tremendous importance upon which
His sovereignty could encamp.
These were the things.