♪ There's not a friend like the Lord
with Jesus And He
is not near us But
He's close and near us Near
us No
Near us
Near us No Near us Near us Only
Jesus That's right ...
once again,
is our brother, Robert Clark from Houston, Texas.
Brother Clark.
I'd like you to turn to your Bibles,
please, to the book of Judges, chapter six.
From the book of Judges, chapter six, we
progress now to the life of Gideon And
a familiar one.
Gideon has the largest bulk of material in
the book, and as a result we want
to more scan his life and draw some
important parallels we trust, and make some applications
to our own lives.
Chapter 6, the first ten verses, accord for
us the subject of planned discipline.
It's an extensive description of the need of
the nation and their failure and their sins.
The book has had two movements, one general
movement going through chapter 5, and now commencing
a second thrust through the book.
We begin in chapter 6 through 16, and
what makes this portion unique is the personal
detail that is given concerning attitudes, dispositions, temperaments,
personalities, and it merits careful study and reflection
upon the information that is given to us
concerning this man and those that are to
follow amongst the deliverers.
Again, the pattern is followed, and the children
of Israel did evil in the sight of
the Lord.
The Lord delivered them into the hand of
Midian seven years, and a description of the
prevailing Midianite oppression.
There's a phrase that occurs a little bit
later in the paragraph that says that the
Midianites greatly impoverished the nation of Israel.
It would seem to fit in my calculations
that this is the great famine that was
going on that possibly provoked Elimelech and Naomi
and their two sons to leave the land
and journey into the land of the Moabites,
and the story of the book of Ruth
evolved from that.
So, while the nation is going through great
impoverishment, they're quite a distance away from the
arrival of David the king, yet God is
working even now behind the scenes in his
own secret, quiet and sovereign manner to raise
up another place of testimony, a vehicle, a
witness to God's grace and his provision for
God's people.
The Midianites were, from the origin of a
child born from the relationship of Abraham and
Kethurah, and these close, physical, natural ties keep
coming back as a source of problem.
The word Midian, we understand, to mean strife
or contention, and there shall be strife and
contention when that which is natural in our
lives is fed, and I know of no
better means than to expose the natural is
through the written word of God.
So, once again, we are driven back to
the importance of careful perusal and study of
the Holy Scriptures.
The deepening need of the nation is emphasized
here, where the first half of our paragraph,
verses 1-6, give us the discipline, and
particularly the failure of the nation, and then
verses 7-10 afford for us a unique
illustration of God's care.
It would appear that the cry of the
nation was not adequate.
It was a cry for a desire for
relief, rather than a conviction of their sin.
God knows the difference in your life, as
well, and so he raises up an unknown
prophet to give a penetrating exhortation to the
people, and that's recorded in verses 7-10.
Now, our thoughts are about the person of
the deliverer.
It's rather interesting that God affords to us
details concerning this man, and it's very important
to those of us particularly amongst the young
people.
There came an angel of the Lord, which
is the appearance of the second person of
a Godhead, and sent him to the oak
which is in Oprah, that pertained unto Joash
the Epheserite, and his son Gideon, brashly by
the winepress to hide it from the Midianites.
The angel of the Lord appeared unto him,
and said unto him, The Lord is with
thee, thou mighty man of valor.
Gideon said unto him, O my lord, if
the Lord be with us, why then is
all this befallen us?
Where behold his miracles which our fathers told
us of, saying, Did not the Lord bring
us up from Egypt?
But now the Lord hath forsaken us, and
delivered us into the hands of the Midianites.
And the Lord God looked upon him, and
said, Go in this thy might, and thou
shalt save Israel from the hand of the
Midianites.
Hath not I sent thee?
And he said unto him, O my lord,
wherewith shall I save Israel?
Behold, my family is poor 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 make
the Midianites as one man.
And he said unto him, If now I
have found grace in my sight, then show
me a sign that thou talkest with me.
Depart not hence, I pray thee, until I
come unto thee, and bring forth my present,
and set it before thee.
And he said, I will tarry until thou
come again.
And Gideon went in, and made ready a
kid, and unleavened cakes, and he put a
flower in the flesh he put in a
basket, and he put broth in a pot,
and brought it unto him under the oak,
and presented it.
And the angel of God said unto him,
Take the flesh in the unleavened cake, lay
them upon this rock, and pour out the
broth.
And he did so.
The angel of the Lord put forth the
end of the staff that was in his
hand, touched the flesh in the unleavened cake,
and there arose a fire out of the
rock, and consumed the flesh in the unleavened
cake.
Then the angel of the Lord departed out
of his sight, and when Gideon perceived that
he was an angel of the Lord, Gideon
said, Alas, O Lord God!
For because I have seen an angel of
the Lord face to face, the Lord said
unto him, Peace be unto thee, fear not,
thou shalt not die.
Then Gideon built an altar there unto the
Lord, and called it Jehovah Shalom.
To this day it is yet an opera
of the Byzerite.
We read this portion because it is of
great moment and importance to Gideon.
It describes to us inner characteristics by suggestion,
from which we can draw some parallels, and
I pray that the Spirit of God would
press it upon your soul.
Gideon was a man of perception and patience.
The most important thing in Gideon's life, as
our outline suggests, is that God gives us
details concerning the person of the deliverer, his
private life first.
Then there is room for immediate action that
same night in public activity.
Young fellas and girls, somewhere amongst you there
may be one or two to whom God
is addressing himself.
If the exercise are part of each parent,
I'm sure that you might respond to God's
word.
But you shall never be any more useful
to God, never more spiritual healthy, and proportionate
to the degree to which you determine to
do something with God's word, to labor over
it, to thrash wheat and get something for
yourself.
Mr. Terrath, in suggesting to you the importance
of personal, private Bible study, more than devotional
reading, but effort made in studying the word
of God, I would urge upon you the
great importance that you start now.
If you wait till you're into college, you're
going to have reasons and excuses.
If you wait until you're married, you shall
always have extra pressures.
Then after that, you're in your 30s, and
your family life begins to press upon you,
and your own indifference sets in, and you
become deeply involved in your business.
Once you become into the 40s, you feel
that it's already past, and you'll pray for
the young people, and those of us who
are 50 have given up Bible study.
You are now browsing through devotional books, and
leaning back on what you received at conferences.
You must start now to do what you
are able to glean from the word of
God.
It is of tremendous importance that you sacrifice
now in your youth, and you set aside
an hour every evening and contemplate the word
of God.
Pray over the word of God.
Read it.
Enjoy it.
Soak your soul in it, for there is
no other way for you to atone your
heart to the mind and the purposes of
a living God.
God exercised my soul as a young man,
concerning my own life and its need for
a restoration into fellowship with Him.
It was necessary for Him to cripple and
disable my father, and I left playing professional
baseball to go home and seek to care
for my parents and be in some way
a respectable and useful son.
Hours of evening were sometimes spent reading the
word of God.
It became a habit.
It became a necessity.
Various pressures came in because of business and
schooling and other things.
It was imperative that I arise very early
in the day, which is not my convenient
pattern of life, and to discipline myself to
read and to pray and to study and
to expect God to give me something.
When the angel of the Lord appeared to
Gideon, Gideon had something to give back to
God.
He was a man who had gleaned, and
when all the rest of the people of
the land were impoverished, starving to death, Gideon
had a sufficient to offer it up and
burn it on a rock and give it
back to God.
It's so important that you take time to
read, to study, and to devotionally apply the
word of God to yourself.
There is nothing that shall empower you in
your future life quite like any kind of
grasp of Holy Scripture.
You then have the tool that God can
use, whether it's to the salvation of souls,
to the feeding of God's people, or to
the comforting and encouragement of those that are
tried and burdened and heavy-hearted.
We must be familiar with the word of
God, and Gideon was threshing wheat, and he
had wherewithal to give back to God, but
more than that, he had a care for
God's people.
A deep concern, and the angel appeared to
him and said that you're the man that
God desires, you're a mighty man of valor.
Why?
Because he persisted.
He did not surrender to his environment or
his circumstances.
He was not defeated.
He might have gotten a little bit of
grain, and it might have been just a
little bit of wheat, but it was sufficient
for this man to do what he could
for God's people.
He had something to feed himself and his
loved ones.
Father, shame on us.
Newspapers, business magazines, all the other periodicals read
necessary for work, and the word of God
gets set aside.
The television must be turned off.
The newspaper must be set aside.
You need something to feed your children.
You need something for that business associate.
You need something to share with God, the
Lord's people, at the Lord's supper, and it
shall not just be imbibed in casual reading.
This young man said, Oh Lord, if the
Lord be with us, you notice that how
he changed the pronoun?
Not at all self-occupied, deeply concerned with
God's people.
If the Lord be working and caring for
us, what's happened to us?
The Lord has delivered us into the hands
of the enemy.
You show me a young man in his
teens that has enough sense to see the
need of the church.
My, I'll bless the Lord and spend time
with him in any way possible.
So easy to be critical, so easy to
be forefinding, so easy to be involved in
the things of the world, engulfed deeply in
our sports and recreation and our fellowships with
the opposite sex, all of which are in
some degree reasonable activities.
Yet, here is a man that's got to
care for God's people, and it's a blessing
to see his concern and interest.
He's timorous, he's a humble man.
I'm the lease of my father's house, how
can I deliver?
God says, but your might is in your
perception, your care for God's people, your earnest
concern.
You know, in your local assembly to which
you shall return, there are many things to
be done around the building, many things to
be done for God's people, many a widow
that needs her screens changed, and many a
child or a fatherless boy has need of
somebody to take him out to go fishing,
go for a walk with him, teach him
how to hold a bat, talk with him,
pray about his needs.
There are so many things that we can
do for others.
Do you care about God's people at all?
Measure yourself in the light of historical accounts
of those who sacrificially gave everything that they
had.
What do you do for the believer sitting
next to you in your local church?
What is your care?
It's not sufficient to stand at a pulpit
and preach.
Gift does that, but something must come from
you, something of sharing of your person, something
that you labored over, something that you love
and care for.
And dear child of God, it's that compassion,
it's that love, it's that squeeze in yourself
that you become broken bread and poured-out
wine for God's people.
Then you become a holy sacrament, and it
means self-sacrifice.
Now, we are not predisposed to that, and
God knows your tolerance level, and for some
of you it may be just enough of
a sacrifice just to pray for somebody, or
it may be to knock on the door
and visit them as a real challenge for
you, but do whatever you are able.
Gideon had a care for God's people, and
as a result he had a personal experience
with the living God.
You can study all you want and become
an active division, but God does not make
theologians.
God makes saints.
The seminary will make a theologian, but God
the Spirit makes saints, and God wants to
take his word and permeate your soul.
He wants the truth to soak in and
begin to control our lives, and give us
the spiritual impetus to yield ourselves and put
our faculties and our interests and our desires
and our affections at the disposal of the
indwelling Spirit, yielding ourselves to God.
And then we can do something public.
But long before he took his stand in
his family's house, long before he became a
bold testimony openly, he had dealings with God.
Personal, intimate dealings with God.
He heard God himself say, "'Peace be to
thee.
Fear not.'" How that solidified and strengthened his
soul!
What sobriety and dignity it gave to him!
What a sense of commitment and purpose in
his life!
Jehovah Shalom!
God is my peace.
Yahuwah himself ministered it to my soul.
Then he became a worshiper, a man who
had something to give to God and bless
God and honor God.
Have you turned your bedside into an altar?
I don't mean to solicitate from God.
I don't mean to be asking.
I mean just to be in communion prayer
with God and bless Him and praise Him
and worship Him.
His loving kindness causes us to just lift
up our hands and bless the Lord in
his holy name.
David knew what it was to turn a
wooded area, a simple tent, a cave, into
a sanctuary of quiet prayer and worship.
You can do the same for your office
during your lunch hour.
You can do the same thing in your
automobile.
You can do the same thing when the
children are out to school by the ironing
board.
Wherever it is that you find a quiet
moment, become a worshiper.
Pour out your heart to Him.
Have personal dealings with God, for this is
the purpose of this discipline that you're going
through.
The planned discipline was to stimulate and exercise,
to enrich and strengthen the person of a
man that God was going to use as
a deliverer, first in private and then in
public.
And where?
Just as the Lord commissioned in Acts 1,
right there in Jerusalem.
Gideon, go to your father's altar of Baal.
Gideon was afraid of the men of his
city and afraid of his own family, because
he stood for God.
Some of you teenagers have unbelieving parents, possibly,
or a teasing, carnal or unbelieving brother or
sister.
You don't want to commit yourself, but be
exercised and be concerned.
I believe in a large measure, an older
brother of mine was very instrumental in the
hand of God to shade me and to
exercise as a soul that I long should
have had before as a believer in Jesus
Christ.
I am thankful for those in my own
family that were used as goads to probe
and excite and provoke me into some kind
of care for God and his people in
the word of God.
You do not realize how influential you are
with your loved ones and others in your
young people, or others in your prayer group,
if only you would venture to expose some
of your care and put it into words.
Now, that's not the major problem of a
young lady.
They are very free to communicate verbally, but
a lot of us men have difficulties.
It starts when we're about five or six
years old, and we fall down on our
knees, and we're told, don't cry, what's the
matter with you?
And it hurts, we're not supposed to cry.
So you learn easily from that that you
never show any kind of emotion.
And everybody mocks and makes fool of the
person that talks and gets stammered and tongue
-tied, but the boy very quickly learns that
it's no competition to his little sister to
correct at the dinner table, and that you'd
best just keep your mouth closed and be
busy eating, and we build it into him.
And then suddenly he gets married, and you
need to stand with him and say, what
do you think, dear?
And he knows you don't care, because you've
never asked him to proceed in five years.
We don't fool each other.
He gets into that habit when he's 35,
and you're wondering why he's not on his
feet, sharing his inner feelings, because you've never
allowed him to, and you've never condoned him,
and you've never urged him.
When was the last time you ever sat
down with a little boy, just a little
boy, and asked him how he felt about
anything?
I think we'd be ashamed if we had
to raise our hand to acknowledge we don't
even know the names of the children that
are around here on the ground.
Am I wrong?
Yes.
Somebody else's?
That's the urchin that puts my child.
Beloved of God, we need a care, and
Gideon has to take a stand right there
in his home, tear down his father's altar,
force his father into revival, which is the
issue.
But now the story goes on very familiar.
You know Gideon's priest, you know all about
Gideon's battle and the men that joined him,
and we need not take time there, but
we move for the sake of time to
the end of the story, to the presence
of discouragement.
The last little paragraph.
There shall always be discouragement among those who
seek to take a stand.
In chapter 7 and verse 24, the battle
is in its progress.
The enemy has been disseminated, they're running, they
are killing themselves, there's mass confusion because of
a clever device of attacking them right during
the change of the mid-watch, and when
the enemy sounded, they rose up and they
began slaying their own guards that were walking
back and others that were going out, and
in that massive confusion that's what God was
using for the very clever and divinely-powered
victory.
Now Gideon sent messages throughout all Mount Ephraim
saying, come down against the Midianites and take
before them the waters of Bethphara and Jordan.
Then all the men of Ephraim gathered and
fell together and took the waters of Bethphara
and Jordan, and they also took two princes
of the Midianites, Horeb and Zeeb.
They flew Horeb upon the rock, Horeb and
Zeeb they flew at the winepress of Zeeb,
and pursued Midian and broke the heads of
Horeb and Zeeb to Gideon.
But the Ephraimites, remember them in scripture, they
were blessed, providence of God blessed them above
Manasseh, even though he was the oldest.
Father had crossed his hands and said, oh
boy, I tell you the Ephraimites, they're going
to announce us something, and they've lived in
the backwash of that kind of slavery and
commendation.
It was the blessing of God, but they
lived in the light of it, and expected
constantly special consideration.
Joshua had to say to them, well, if
you are somebody, go ahead and prove it,
and take your part in the land.
If you think it's too small, make yourself
more room.
Here they come back, jealous brethren.
Gideon is baffling, he's tired, he's involved in
the service of God, and we find jealous
brethren at Strayman.
Why didn't you call upon us in this
victory?
Why did you only use 300?
Now, a brother offended is harder than a
fenced city, so that sole answer turns away
wrath.
He quietly answers them, well, what's my victory
compared to yours?
You've killed the enemy, you've done and you've
served.
The Ephraimites are not going to fare so
well when they get with a carnal man
by the name of Jephthah.
He'll answer them in their own way, and
they'll put to him, see they never learn,
sometimes kindness to jealous people and carnal people
is not the best thing.
In the solicitous, tender way he dealt with
them, but there are constantly an irritation in
the sides of God's people.
Beloved of God, won't you please not be
jealous about whatever God is doing in another
brother or sister?
For if he's using a person, if you
don't feel that you can encourage him, do
not be as he's heard.
Use wisdom in what we say to whomever
is serving the Lord, and grace, words that
are seasoned with grace.
So often a young person will express some
sentence in a prayer meeting, or in a
discussion group, or offer their heart in prayer
in a sentence or two, and they're doctrinally
corrected, or guided, or added in some fashion,
and possibly cut down.
The first problem that Gideon faced is a
serious one, but it's going to get worse.
The first is jealous brethren.
Then we find a little bit further on,
he comes to Jordan and passes over, and
runs into some indifference brethren who will not
encourage him.
He's faint, and he's pursuing.
He's struggling to go on, but he will
not get the cooperation of those men, and
so divine retribution must be needed out to
them.
But that's not the serious problem.
Those are only the beginnings of his opposition,
the discouragement.
Instead of thriving in a spiritual victory and
a deliverance from the Midianites, he finds jealous
brethren, and then indifferent brethren, and then he
runs across flattering brethren.
Verse 18, then said he unto Ziba and
Zalmonah, these are the leaders of the enemy
that have been captured, what manner of men
were they whom you slew at Tabor?
And they said, as thou art, so were
they.
Each one resembled the children of a king.
That was a pretty good idea.
Why, there is.
Tell him that he looks like a king.
Everyone that I kill, why, they look just
like you, just like a king.
Don't think that didn't sink into him.
The enemy's so nasty, but it's painfully true
that when, in verse 22, after the matter
is taken care of, and the enemy is
slaughtered, then the men of Israel said unto
Gideon, Rule thou over us, both thou and
thy son, and thy son's son, for thou
hast delivered us from the hand of Midian."
Oh, beloved of God flattery!
Ill-advised flattery to be devastating to someone
who is seeking to serve God.
Just to build up what we are in
the natural, and it only takes a little
bit of word there, just a little bit
of thought.
Rule over us.
Why, the enemy said you look like a
king.
Gideon, rule over us.
Now, we had victory in this temptation, but
the seed plot was laid in his mind,
and it began to blossom and mature and
to grow.
And he says, well, I won't take that.
I know, but I can't be your king,
because it was not I that delivered you.
It was the Lord, and the Lord reigns
over us.
But I'll tell you what we will do.
How about putting together some gold?
We've got 42,000 pounds of it.
How about putting together a little bit of
gold, and then what we can do is
I'll make myself a golden ephod.
Now, I won't rule and reign, but he
just couldn't resist the priestly privilege, the importance
of having influence, and the very thing became
a snare to God's people.
And I'm sure none of them ever looked
back and said, boy, did we really blow
it with Gideon.
We never should have offered him to be
king.
No, not one of them said that.
But the flesh had its own evil works,
and Gideon spends his last years in his
life in a most carnal, self-indulgent fashion,
living like an Eastern king, multiplying wives, indulging
the flesh, even going out from amongst God's
people and having a concubine.
Bearing a child by a concubine, he called
that secretly at a faraway place called Shechem,
and called that son of Imalek, which means,
my father was a king.
I don't know how often you have sat
in an auditorium or in an assembly room
and been bored to tears by the things
that you have heard somebody share or speak
about, and then for the lack of anything
else as you walked by them said, I
really enjoyed the work.
That was not honest, and you did no
encouragement or building up of the body of
Christ.
That person was definitely misled by what you
said.
That was not kind.
You fed the flesh with your flesh, and
as a result it breathed, and pretty soon
said to say in all too often, great
damage to God's people.
We need to be very loving and very
honest, and very genuine, because we all have
those natural fleshly instincts.
Now, it's perfectly appropriate that if you enjoyed
God's word genuinely, and you felt that God
was speaking to you, you might say in
appreciation to a brother or a sister, or
someone who would visit your home, or some
teacher that is shared, or something of the
kind.
But just to be filling in and saying
the right thing.
You can impress a person that they have
a gift, or an activity, or a fear
of service, and it's just not there, and
then they'll be heartbroken when some well-advised
and mature elder tries to put them in
check, or to protect God's people from misconceptions.
Let it be mature and sensible.
Gideon can teach us many truths and many
valuable lessons.
The simple outline is meant to stimulate you
for a little bit of thought, and to
go over this man's life which we must
cover so very briefly, but remember at the
beginning he had exercises of soul, perception, patience,
sense of character, genuine, healthy-facing humility, and
a spirit of humble dependence upon God, and
God tenderly and graciously understood his various needs,
even at one time urging them to go
and give him another test, and to go
amongst the enemy and to see what God
was going to do with him.
Never impatient with him, God bore with this
young man, raised him up to deliver God's
people, but his own brethren led him to
his own fleshly indulgence, and the sad destruction
of what could have been a vibrant living
testimony.
The land has rest for 40 years.
God's people are being tested, being tried in
times of prosperity.
I think maybe one of the most important
lessons to learn from Gideon is that here
is a humble, genuine, concerned young man who
is willing to do what God had asked
him to do in the face of real
challenge, in fear, but in humble dependence upon
God.
It might be that God is exercising some
of you young men to undertake activity, to
express yourself to others, to share some kind
of a thought or feeling, or to enter
into a sphere of activity.
Do it in dependence upon God with a
humble spirit, and then make time in our
own personal lives to just be with the
Lord.
The fellowship at the conference is thoroughly delightful.
I pray that it shall turn and exercise
your soul and mind into an increasing personal
law that you might have that private life
that can be used of God in public
in his time.
And see on his work of 192, shall
we say, of
Gideon in his last days.
At his birthplace, the father of so many
times, this is half of his life, and
there will be many ends.
They have suddenly started out as well on
just a wasteful, father-painting-up-Jesus type
of person.
But may we continue on for the Lord
Jesus Christ, and be able to look forward
to his life, for we may serve him,
and may we take instruction from him, and
may as we do it, make him better
service for thy glory.
We ask thee now to be with us,
Jesus Christ, in the living.