GIDEON
Judges 6: 11-21; 7: 4-7, 16-22
We were hearing yesterday about the town of righteousness and the faithful city, features we were reminded, which the Lord looks for in every locality—righteousness and faithfulness. It is well for us to take account of our localities, the 2nd and 3rd chapters of the Revelation are given to us that we may understand that the Lord is walking in the midst of the seven golden lamps, that is, that He is moving in a scrutinising way amid all the local assemblies. He judges of the conditions He finds there in strict impartiality, but the Lord is no respecter of persons, He is always considering for God, and He would have us to learn to be considering for God always. And this is to work out in the local position because it is in the local position that there is some representation of the truth in a concrete way, and therefore the Lord is particularly jealous of the conditions He finds in every place, because He is concerned that God should be rightly represented, and also that He should be served acceptably. Now the history of Gideon deals with the local assembly; you will notice it says that “an angel of Jehovah came and sat under the terebinth that was in Ophrah, that belonged to Joash the Abi-ezrite”. That is, a particular place is in view and the responsibility attaching to it is in view, for we are told that it belonged to “Joash the Abi-ezrite”, as though to remind us that someone was responsible for the conditions found there. In point of fact of course, dear brethren, every one of us is responsible, and all of us are responsible together, for the conditions that are found in the place where the Lord has set us, but at this time conditions in Israel were very bad indeed; the influence of Midian was felt everywhere. Midian usually stands in scripture for that which is social. Midian was a son of Abraham by Keturah, that is he represents those who have some link with the truth and yet are not morally consistent with it, and the influence of Midian was very extensive, so that there was no sustenance in Israel and it says, “Israel was greatly impoverished because of Midian”. Now in those conditions there was one man who felt things. Joash apparently did not feel things, but his son Gideon did; there was no recognition of responsibility with Joash, but there was with Gideon and he was threshing wheat in the winepress. Now wheat I understand in scripture always refers to the heavenly One seen in the heavenly ones; that is to say, it refers to the saints as of the order of the second Man out of heaven, that is, as taking character from Christ Jesus. Abstractly that is what all the saints are, so that the apostle Paul writes to the Corinthians and addresses them as “sanctified in Christ Jesus”, that is, set apart to God in Christ Jesus. Now ‘in Christ Jesus’ is not merely a matter of status, although there was very little at Corinth really that corresponded with the ‘in Christ Jesus’ position, but there were some there who did. I think we may be sure that Chloe and Stephanas did and that the household of Stephanus did, and that Fortunatus and Achaicus did—Paul mentions these and says that he was glad of their coming, so evidently they were consistent with the truth, and where there are any who are exercised to be consistent with the truth, we can count on the Lord giving His support to such, and in a sense giving support to the whole company on account of such. Now Gideon was threshing wheat; threshing is an energetic process, it has in mind getting rid of the chaff in order that the pure wheat may be secured, and each of us should be concerned to be constantly engaged in threshing wheat. We are to take account of what the saints are as set apart to God in Christ Jesus. We have in fact been set apart before God from all that we are as after the flesh, for the Lord Jesus actually died. He did not die for Himself, He died for us, and His death was actual and His burial was actual, and we are under obligation to take the truth home to ourselves, for the Lord did it for us and before God we have been put to death in the death of Christ, and before God we have been buried, and now we have received the Holy Spirit, that is life in Christ Jesus, life in the second Man who is characteristically out of heaven, and in Him we are set apart for the service of God.
Now it is for every one of us to take up the exercise of threshing wheat, so that only what is according to Christ remains, and all that is not according to Christ is discarded. Nothing that is not of Christ has any place properly in the assembly of God. Alas, in the public position, much that is not according to Christ may appear, but those who fear God and desire to answer to His thoughts will be concerned to be threshing wheat. God has great regard for those who thresh wheat. At the time when David numbered the people and a plague came on the people accordingly, and an angel of Jehovah had his sword unsheathed over Jerusalem, the position was saved by Ornan who was threshing wheat. God had great regard for Ornan as over against the pride that had marked David in numbering the people. Over against the condition of self-complacency that probably was found with the people at that time, Ornan was threshing wheat, and God greatly honoured Ornan, the plague was stayed there. It is true that David came to repentance and took humble ground before God, and God had regard for that, but you will find that God greatly honoured Ornan and told David to go to him and build an altar on Ornan’s threshing floor, and eventually the whole place was secured by purchase and became the site on which David built the house. All that is to remind us, dear brethren, of the importance and value of threshing wheat. And an angel of Jehovah appeared to Gideon as he was doing this and said, “Jehovah is with thee, thou mighty man of valour”. We might have thought there was no particular expression either of might or of valour in threshing wheat, but God calls him a mighty man of valour and he was a great overcomer in the presence of this terrible Midianitish influence which was robbing the people of their food.
So Gideon answers very humbly, he says, “Ah my Lord, if Jehovah be with us, why then is all this befallen us?” The angel of Jehovah had said, “Jehovah is with thee”, Gideon says “us”, he is not attaching things to himself, he has all the people of God in mind and his activities and exercises had in view the salvation of God’s people and an order of things that might afford pleasure to the heart of God. So he recalls what Jehovah had been to them in the past. It is quite a good thing for us to look back over the past; indeed we want to know something of church history so that we may understand the great importance of the recovery of the truth which the Lord began to bring in about a hundred and thirty years ago; and then the different conflicts that have arisen since, as one feature after another of the truth was brought out and established in the presence of opposition. We want to take account of these things and to see how the Lord has been with His people just to the extent that they were with Him, as the prophet said in the days of Asa, “Jehovah is with you while ye are with him” (2 Chron l5: 2), and here was one man who was with Jehovah and Jehovah was with him and used him for the help and deliverance of His people. Now Gideon protests his inequality for the matter; he says, “behold, my thousand is the poorest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house”, and Jehovah said to him, “I will certainly be with thee; and thou shalt smite Midian as one man”. Now take notice of that, dear brethren; it is just a question of one man. That is the whole point in the apostle’s mind in Corinthians; it is a question of the displacement of one man in order to bring in the Man of God’s choice, and that is really what is going on all the time in the different exercises that arise, it is just the setting aside of one man in order that Christ, and Christ alone, may come in. I know it is easy enough to say it, but I think if you will examine your exercises, whether individually or in relation to the assembly, you will find that it all comes down to this, that one man has got to be set aside in order that the Man of God’s choice should be brought in. When Paul approached Corinth, he approached it as a military leader, he had his plan of campaign before him; he says, “I did not judge it well to know anything among you save Jesus Christ, and him crucified”, that is, he determined to go there with just one Man in his heart and to bring in the cross as the power of God for the setting aside of every other man, and he knew nothing else among the Corinthians. He had ability to open up all the counsel of God, but he would not do it because of their state; he simply devoted himself to the need of the moment, that was the setting aside of every other man, however amiable his qualities might appear in the eyes of others. You remember how, when Agag came before Samuel, it says he came gaily saying, “Surely the bitterness of death is past”, 1 Sam 15: 32. He would come in a way that would be attractive to the flesh; he was inclined to make light of the matter; but Samuel was faithful, and he hewed him in pieces before Jehovah. That was really the spirit in which Paul approached the Corinthians, he determined to know nothing among them save Jesus Christ and Him crucified, and that really lies at the basis of this threshing of wheat.
Now the next thing that arises is the thought of the service of God; Gideon says, “Depart not hence, I pray thee, until I come unto thee, and bring forth my present”; that is a great matter in relation to the local position. The first thing to bear in mind is that God is to be served and every brother and sister is to have a living part in it. If we can keep the idea of the service of God before us, it will be very preservative to us, for God requires holiness in those who draw near to Him. In Leviticus 10, when two of the sons of Aaron died through offering strange fire, Moses said to Aaron, “This is what Jehovah spoke, saying, I will be hallowed in them that come near me, and before all the people I will be glorified”. So if we take up the idea of the service of God, which involves our drawing near to God, then we are immediately faced with the need for right moral conditions, for God says, “I will be hallowed in them that come near me”, and that is the first thing that should be before us in the local position, that God is to be served. So Gideon made ready a kid of the goats, he was there in the humble recognition of the poor conditions publicly. He did not assume to be any more than he was, or than the people of God were at that time; he brought a kid of the goats, not a bullock, he brought what was expressive of his own recognition of his own small measure and the measure of the people. At the same time, it was an acceptable offering, as speaking of Christ. And then he brought, it says, “an ephah of flour in unleavened cakes”. Now that was a very large measure. According to Numbers 15 the measure of unleavened flour to accompany a kid was one-tenth of an ephah, but he brings a whole ephah of unleavened flour, showing that he recognised that that was the great need of the moment, that is, what is unleavened. That is what the apostle emphasises in Corinthians, he says, “our passover Christ, has been sacrificed; so that let us celebrate the feast” (1 Cor 5: 7, 8), that is, the feast of unleavened bread, “not with old leaven, nor with leaven of malice and wickedness, but with unleavened bread of sincerity and truth”. That is the apostle was insisting on right moral conditions in Corinth. I need scarcely say that the feast of unleavened bread goes on throughout the whole of our lives, the basis of it is the passover, the way sin has been judged in the Person of Christ on our behalf, but now what follows upon that is the feast of unleavened bread, and this covers the whole of our life, that is, there must be moral consistency with what took place at the cross of Christ. So Gideon brings this kid and these cakes of unleavened flour, and it says, “the flesh he put in a basket, and he put the broth in a pot”, that is, he has regard to the vessel in which what is offered to God is to be presented, that is the assembly. The assembly is the great vessel in which offerings to God are to find expression, and so the Spirit of God here pays attention to the vessel. Now he is told to lay these things upon the rock, and he did so. The rock speaks of that which we can rely upon and build upon, it is the faithfulness of God. In fact the title ‘rock’ is applied to God several times; in the book of Deuteronomy we find it that God Himself is the Rock, and the apostle enlarges on the faithfulness of God in Corinthians, in the first chapter of the first epistle, in the tenth chapter of the first epistle, and in the first chapter of the second epistle he reminds us that God is faithful. Therefore, if we are concerned to provide the conditions that God can approve of, God will be faithful, so to speak, to take us on, as He did here with Gideon. It says, “And the Angel of Jehovah put forth the end of the staff that was in his hand, and touched the flesh and the unleavened cakes; and there rose up fire out of the rock; and consumed the flesh and the unleavened cakes. And the Angel of Jehovah departed out of his sight”. That is, there was the evidence before Gideon’s eyes that he was accepted by God Himself in the value of his offering.
Now as we continue the history of Gideon, we find he is faced with a test in regard to his own father’s house, he is called upon to overthrow the altar of Baal and build an altar to Jehovah his God. God immediately begins to take account of conditions in the home, and He will have conditions in our homes right. The houses of the saints are the great support of the assembly, and there was something in the house to which Gideon belonged—although Joash his father was responsible for it—which had to be overthrown, and God calls upon Gideon to do it, and he did it by night with ten of his servants. In doing so he proved the support of the Lord in an unexpected way. The men of the city proposed he should be put to death because he had overthrown the altar of Baal, but unexpectedly his father takes his side and Gideon is delivered. It is just an illustration of the way God may come in for us most unexpectedly as we are faithful to His command. Well now, in chapter 7 he has to face an exercise as to reduction. We are facing reduction in numbers now. Reduction in numbers does not necessarily mean reduction in spiritual substance, rather the reverse, but as we go on in the truth it is more than likely that reduction in numbers will have to be faced. And Gideon had to face this in a most definite way. He starts with thirty-two thousand and then is reduced to ten thousand, and when he has less than a third of those he started with, Jehovah says to him, “Still the people are many”; that is, Gideon is not to trust in numbers, and so he has to submit to having the people brought down to the water so that they may be tried there, and the result of the test of the water is that his number is reduced from ten thousand to three hundred. We can understand, if we put ourselves in Gideon’s place, what an exercise this would be to him, how he would be emptied of all self-reliance, how he would be made to feel that he must trust in God only, and that he must rely on the Spirit of God alone. This is the line of exercise on which the Lord will always bring us. In the apostle Paul it was worked out in a very extensive way, in fact it went so far that, at one time, he said they despaired even of living, but he says they had that exercise that they should not trust in themselves but in God who raises the dead. God will force it upon us that it is only He that can maintain His testimony here, although we are responsible to fill our part according to divine commandment in it, but the power for it is with God and not with men, as the apostle says, “that the surpassingness of the power may be of God, and not from us”, 2 Cor 4: 7. So the people were tested at the river and the number of those that lapped, with their hand to their mouth, were three hundred men and all the rest of the people bowed down on their knees to drink water, that is to say, for the moment they abandoned the attitude of good soldiers of Jesus Christ. You are not ready to fight if you are bowing down on your knees drinking water. Water here, no doubt, is the mercy of God needed for us to go on, but the three hundred would not abandon their stand on their feet; they just lapped what was needed for the moment and went on. They were not overcome by natural comforts, they were not overcome by the mercy that God provided, they received what was needed for the moment with thankfulness, but they held themselves all the time as available as good soldiers of Jesus Christ. So it is those of whom God approves and it is those whom He used in the conflict that followed. And now we find that as Gideon enters on the conflict, he enters on it in a way that is not according to human wisdom—“the arms of our warfare are not fleshly, but powerful according to God to the overthrow of strongholds”, 2 Cor 10: 4. The great thing is to go on with the Spirit and go on in increasing dependence and increasing distrust of ourselves. So Gideon divides his three hundred into three companies and puts a trumpet in every man’s hand and empty pitchers and torches within the pitchers. The light from the torches was only available as the pitchers were broken, and that, as has often been remarked, is worked out in 2 Corinthians (chap 4) where the apostle says that he was always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus that the life also of Jesus might be manifest in his mortal body. God saw to it that the circumstances in which Paul served were constantly rolling in death upon him; he says, “death works in us, but life in you”. It is the great principle of life out of death which God brought to pass in the actual experience of Paul and those who were serving with him, and this is really what is illustrated in this incident that the power came in as the pitchers were broken. Gideon said, “Look on me, and do likewise; behold, when I come to the extremity of the camp, it shall be that, as I do, so shall ye do”. That is, it is the principle of exemplification of the truth, which is a very important matter in any local position, that there should not only be the setting out of the truth authoritatively but the exemplification of the truth; it is that that commends it. And that is exactly how Paul operated at Corinth. We find that they say here, “The sword of Jehovah and of Gideon!”. Now Paul, when he dealt with the conditions at Corinth, when he wrote to them his first epistle, it was an authoritative word, he says, “If any one thinks himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him recognise the things that I write to you, that it is the Lord’s commandment”. It was authoritative, and that is what answers to the sword of Jehovah, it is the authoritative word of the Lord which is to govern us in every locality. But then, in order to make it effective amongst the saints, Paul also resorted to the principle of exemplification, that is, he sent Timothy to them who, he said, shall bring to your remembrance my ways as they are in Christ. It was the sword of Jehovah, so to speak, in the authoritative word of the apostle, but it was the sword of Gideon in the principle of exemplifying the truth which adds power to the authoritative word of the Lord. That was the way Paul went to work at Corinth, and that is the way we are to go to work in every locality, we are to recognise the commandment of the Lord and obey it, but it is to be morally enforced by the exemplification of the truth in any who are available for the purpose. So when Paul sent Timothy to Corinth, it does not say he sent him there to minister, although no doubt he would minister the word, but he sent him there because he knew he could trust Timothy to exemplify the truth in such a way that when the Corinthians took account of Timothy they would be reminded of Paul’s ways as they were in Christ—not his doctrine, but his ways. As he says, I teach everywhere in every assembly. So there is the doctrine, necessary and authoritative, but it is to be supplemented and enforced by the principle of exemplification, and that, I believe, is what was set out in Timothy, the sword of Jehovah being the word of the Lord authoritatively, and the sword of Gideon being the principle of exemplification of the truth.
As the Lord helps us to proceed on these lines, things will prosper in our several localities, the service of God will increase in richness and power, and the testimony of God will be maintained for His glory.
May the Lord bless the word.
GUMMERSBACH
3rd June 1961
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