JUDGES 8
It is not always enough to get a signal victory over the enemies, for other testings come along. If we have found the secret of victory we are tested whether we are ourselves in the good of it. We find here that the men of Ephraim were not happy about the way things had been done. These brethren did not recognise the great principle which had so much to do with the victory — the principle of sovereignty. They felt they had been overlooked or passed by. We have to be prepared for that. The Lord works by whomsoever He will, and we have all to be prepared to be overlooked; it is a real test.
Gideon took a lowly place in meeting what was really self-importance. The way to meet self-importance is to exhibit the opposite spirit. Gideon meets it by making much of what they had done, and little of what he had done. The spirit he showed was the divine corrective of the spirit that marked the men of Ephraim. They had taken two princes, and Gideon makes the most of what they had done. We should always go on that line; not to minimise, but to make the most of what the brethren do. Paul says to the Philippians: “regarding not each his own qualities, but each those of others also”. Philippians 2:4. We take account of all that is good in the brethren. If we all moved on this line, the self-importance would die a natural death. J.N.D. was a wonderful example of this; he always spoke as if he admired and envied the gift of an evangelist; and in describing his own labours he felt he was only a hewer of wood and a drawer of water. That is the right spirit. If you can only serve, you do not want any importance. Gideon says, I have done nothing; your gleanings are better than my vintage. So he won the brethren. It is just as important to win the brethren as to defeat the enemy. “A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city”; if you can win an offended brother, you have done more than great military exploits.
Gideon still goes on with his three hundred men, though they were faint. Then he gets another test by brethren of even a worse character than the men of Ephraim, that is, the men of Succoth; and at Penuel he finds Israelites with no interest in what is going on. They were quite neutral; they were totally unsympathetic with those fighting the Lord’s battles. That is another test. Are we prepared to go on in spite of that?
[p. 154] Gideon had a right to count on sympathy and support, they were Israelites, and his men were faint and weary; but he finds a total lack of sympathy. Nothing is more trying to the spirit than to be engaged in the Lord’s battles and to find no support from those who profess to be His people. Such represent people who look at what is going on in connection with the Lord’s interests in a natural way, and, one might say, prudentially — thinking that there was little chance that 300 men, faint and weary against 15,000, would come back victorious. If we look at divine things in that way we shall be entirely unsympathetic with everything God is doing. The question was not whether they were faint and weary, or whether there were 300 against 15,000, but the only question was, Is Jehovah with those three hundred men? They did not take any account of where the Lord was. In times of conflict there are a great many who look at things from just a prudential point of view; they do not consider where the Lord is, so they miss their opportunity, and they come under the Lord’s retributive ways. A solemn retribution comes on these people. The Lord never gives up His retributive rights. The Lord has a right to serve out to people what they deserve, and He retains that right. The New Testament is full of it. Paul says, “I have declared ... that if I come again I will not spare”, 2 Corinthians 13:2 That is the principle of retribution. If people fail the Lord in a crisis, they suffer for it. John says, in speaking of Diotrephes, “if I come I will bring to remembrance his works”, 3 John 10. He holds the rod over Diotrephes; he does not say what he will do. I have no doubt that the coming of Paul to the Corinthians, and the coming of John to Diotrephes, were a kind of anticipation of the Lord’s coming. The Lord would come representatively, and when the Lord comes He will give to everybody what they deserve; there is no mistake.
There is a great principle brought out in connection with all these things. The men of Succoth are not quite in the place of Zebah and Zalmunna, who represent antichristian opposition, and the power of antichrist. There is a power that would destroy the features of Christ, and these two kings of Midian represent that. They had killed all Gideon’s brethren. That is positively antichristian. In Zebah and Zalmunna we see a deadly, murderous hatred of what is of Christ, and that is antichrist. There is a power that is against everything that is like Christ. They represent such influences as the religious [p. 155] world is full of today. John could say, “even now there have come many antichrists”, 1 John 2:18. He said it at that time, when Christianity was not more than sixty or seventy years old. There is that working that is in deadly opposition to Christ, and all the features of Christ. We ought to be concerned lest we exhibit these features.
Succoth and Penuel were not sympathetic with the testimony of the Lord. Gideon and his men represent those who are maintaining the testimony of the Lord in the face of tremendous odds. It is a great thing to be sympathetic; if we cannot do much fighting we can be sympathetic. These things show the kind of testing and conditions that we shall sooner or later come up against, and if we can move through these things with God it will be very good for us. It is those who are seeking to maintain for God who come up against these things.
We must not let a one-sided notion of grace predominate over everything else. We must hold the balance between divine grace and divine government. We are tested, not only by what we do, but by what we do not do. These people did not do anything actually against Gideon, but they became guilty on account of what they did not do. They did not give their support to what was of God at the moment. There are those who fail in that way; they wait to see how things are going to turn out. These people said, If you had got the victory, that would be another matter, we will wait and see how things are going to turn out. They looked at things prudentially; there was no vision of faith. Gideon’s men were “faint, yet pursuing”; they did not give in because they were faint. It is faint people that can do wonders: “He giveth power to the faint”, Isaiah 40:29. It is very serious to have bread — something that can support the present needs of the testimony of the Lord — and to withhold it. We are sure to come under retributive dealings.
Then Gideon gets another test. They say, “Rule over us, both thou, and thy son, and thy son’s son also”. They would set him up as head of a royal line; they would make a great man of him. Gideon appears in the character of an overcomer until the last stage of his history, and then he fails, and that makes it very solemn for us, especially for those who have gone through a certain amount of testing and come through it, through the mercy of God, perhaps more or less faithfully. Here is a man who is an overcomer; he walks worthily of the [p. 156] Lord to all pleasing up to a certain point, and then he breaks down. He had shown such a beautiful spirit; he would not rule over them, but said, “Jehovah will rule over you”. He kept his place as a servant, as a vessel chosen for service, but, immediately after, another test comes along, internal, not external. It is one thing to overcome an external test, and quite another to overcome an internal test — something springing up in one’s own heart. The desire to have the Midianitish earrings and ornaments sprang up in his own heart. He said, “I would desire a request of you”; and they said, “We will willingly give”. It is something that springs up in his own heart now an imitation of what is divine. It is a man who has been a great success as a leader, and he fails on the priestly side; so he desires and constructs an imitation of the priestly ephod of Exodus 28.
Gideon is like many of those who have been much used for the deliverance of the people of God all through the history of the church. Many who have been extraordinarily used have failed in what is priestly; they have brought worldly elements into the service of God. It is remarkable that this failure begins at the top; it begins with the leader. It is a warning not to commit yourself absolutely to any leader. A man may be divinely and spiritually a leader up to a certain point, and then he may entirely miss what is suitable to God at the moment. We have seen men marvellously helped up to a certain point and then there may be some kind of assumption. It is a very solemn thing to make an ephod; it represented the priestly thought in Israel. The ephod as an object was nothing; the value of the ephod was dependent on the person who wore it. An ephod without a priest was simply the form of godliness without the power of it, and that is what christendom has fallen into, and largely under the influence of men who have been wonderfully blessed and used of God.
The preservative is to cultivate a deep sense of the spiritual character of approach to God; otherwise we may have the marks of what is Midianitish. There is nothing living about it. An ephod without a priest is a most solemn thing; it is but an outward form of what is priestly. Gideon in a certain sense prepared the way by his ephod for what was idolatrous; he put it there in his city, and they went after it. It really had an idolatrous character. The priestly idea was all perverted. So, as soon as Gideon died, they were ready for positive idolatry.
[p. 157] and it is solemn that so much of what is idolatrous has developed from men who laboured for the deliverance of Israel. They have perpetuated things in the public profession that are idolatrous in character, and not spiritual at all. They have been great as leaders, but they have failed as priests.
In the Reformation there was a great deal secured for man; it was a divine deliverance, but it did not secure much in a priestly way for God. It led to the setting up of what is Midianitish in a permanent form in the midst of Israel. We should be always watching against what is Midianitish being set up among us. It is one thing to be used of God for the deliverance of His people and the public defeat of the enemy, but quite another to consider for God. We can be supported by God in a wonderful way in service, and even after that fail to consider for God. If Gideon had considered for God he would never have thought of this ephod; it would never have come into his heart. The only man who is carried through safely is the one who always considers for God. The apostles all went right through; they did not break down, because they considered for God, and never a thought arose in their minds of substituting what was natural for what was spiritual. The moment of victory becomes the test. As long as we have to face the enemy we are kept on our knees in dependence, but when the enemy is defeated for the moment, and things are relaxed, we are off our guard and we rest on our oars. These things are very exercising; they show the elements which we have to deal with, and they show us the secret of power, and the secret of departure and decline. There are certain features in Gideon which can be viewed as typical of Christ, but in a general way he represents a leader raised up of God amongst His people, marked by certain features of God; but he is liable to be betrayed in things not of God. In all things God is to be glorified. “To him be glory in the assembly”, Ephesians 3:21. Glory all belongs to God. If we kept that before us, we should never make a Midianitish ephod.