With this matter of the recovery of the honour and glory of the Lord’s name in His people, let me say just a few words to link up with what we were saying earlier.
We were pointing out a certain correspondence between the time of Gideon and our own time. On the one hand, there was the state of things amongst the Lord’s people, altogether contrary to the glory and honour of His name. There was weakness, largely a state of helplessness and impotence.
They had no real enjoyment of the land, though it was still the land of promise and covenant, flowing with milk and honey. But it was not so for them in their actual state. There was food scarce and powerlessness; confusion, questioning, and continual uncertainty as to the meaning of it all.
There was no cohesion, no oneness, no stability, and they were without leaders who could speak with finality and authority in the name of the Lord, putting new hope and confidence into them. These were the conditions of Gideon’s time, and, as we have said, there is something like that today.
We will not go over that ground again to emphasise or prove it. But, on the other hand, God is moving in a recovering way for His name’s sake: to recover His glory and honour by changing those conditions.
The honour and glory of the Lord’s name are found in a people enjoying their inheritance in Christ and His riches—not in spiritual poverty all the time; not in a people who have not the resources by which they flourish in the land.
His glory is bound up with people who are really enjoying the depths of their redemption and who have food. It is miserable when there is no real provision upon which they can feed.
The Lord’s glory requires a people who are sure, who have confidence and certainty—not all the time dominated by doubts and questions that disturb and unsettle them and rob them of their sense of security. They have the great answer in their hearts: they know where they stand and why they stand there. Theirs is an assured life.
Further, the Lord’s name is certainly glorified in a united people. His honour has been sorely and grievously dishonoured by the breakup of the Lord’s people—their scatteredness.
The great prayer of our Lord in John 17 is very largely centred in that one thing: unity. The unity of the Lord’s people should be a great contributing factor to the glory of His name. Jesus repeatedly referred to the name in that prayer:
Keep them in Thy name.
It was for the name’s sake that He would still have a people like that. It is not mere idealism; it is something very near to the Lord’s heart.
As we said, Gideon presents the fact that the Lord wants things otherwise and moves to have them otherwise. 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 look at Gideon as the kind of instrument the Lord will use for the recovering of the honour of His name by bringing about these name-honouring conditions among His people.
It is a matter, then, of the recovery and continuance of the testimony of the name of the Lord.
Gideon, on one side, does set forth the absolute sovereignty of God, as we were saying. On the other side, he indicates the ground upon 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 in sovereignty, God’s people are concerned with certain conditions.
Those conditions are indicated, at least, in the case of Gideon—this representative instrument for the Lord’s honour.
Now I am going to take some space to say some things which, I doubt, I have ever said here before, but which come out of a very real exercise in my own heart and which I feel to be very, very important.
It centres in the first thing about Gideon: Gideon was a young man.
In saying that, and considering what it implies, we get to the heart of this matter of recovery and continuance of His testimony, honour, and glory. That is true in nature, and it is true in the spiritual world.
The great factor and principle of spiritual usefulness is ever-fresh reproduction. As soon as any organism ceases to reproduce, death has commenced and death is at work. The law of life is reproduction.
God, having once created, does not create a second time. He proceeds by reproduction, not by special creation.
Every new generation is meant by God to bring the past values into fresh expression. The new generation is not a new creation.
Creation and generation are two different words belonging to entirely different things. I think some young people think that they are a new beginning. They are not.
They are to be the gathering up and carrying on of what has been, but to gather it up and carry it on in freshness. They are to be the sum of what has gone before, brought back again to its fullest preciousness.
That which is, if you like, old—I hesitate to use that word, but for the sake of explanation I use it—is kept fresh by a new generation.
Now this has two sides: the side of ourselves, we who are a passing generation, and the side of those who are an incoming generation, if you are included in that.
Our freshness in life will be just in so far as we equip the next generation. If we hold things to ourselves—and what tragedy has resulted from systems keeping everything for themselves, old servants of God hanging on and keeping it in their own hands—then we are done, and things die with us. We are bringing things to an end.
This, of course, is the spiritual law behind the blessing of families. Everything has a spiritual law behind it in God’s mind. The blessing of families, on the one side, is to keep old people young.
Find old people who have no young people around them, and they are old indeed. They are older than they ought to be. You may sometimes feel that you must qualify that statement, for young people have a way of wearing you out! But nevertheless, the principle holds good. It is a divine principle.
The blessing of families, on the one side, is to keep old people young—to stop them getting old. That is the principle, the law, the divine thought.
The Lord has not come to an end; He is not finishing up. That means He goes on, and He brings young people in. My older friends, take note of that. Do not be jealous of the young people. Do not feel that they are getting in your place, that you are having to hand everything over to them, and that too much is being made of them.
I will talk to them in a minute. Let me talk to you first.
You see, we are getting old somehow, and we are seeing the day of our departure. We can become restricted, and we can lose preciousness that has been upon us and over us, beginning to bring us into severe limitation.
We need something to save us. We need to be delivered. What is our salvation? What is the renewing of our view? What is the way out of that tendency toward ending and growing limitation?
The way out is to equip and provide for another generation: 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.
Do not suspect them or criticise them because they are young. Do not do what some evidently were inclined to do over Timothy, so that the apostle had to say:
Let no man despise thy youth.
When I first started in ministry, I was quite a young man and had to assume responsibility for a church. There were some old men who were saying, “He is so young.” But I had a champion among them who said, “But he is getting over that every day.”
That is right, is it not?
Yes, I repeat: God is going on and needs to go on. He brings on young people; He brings in young people. Thank God. They are not going to die—it is true for them.
But, you see, it is not years after all. Years are not the criterion; spirituality is the criterion. That need not be a matter of years at all. There are some people old in years who are spiritually far ahead of many who are younger than themselves.
But let us turn to the other side. A new generation must succeed in an inward way to that which has gone before. I underline those words: in an inward way.
The young people, the followers on, must succeed those who have carried the testimony of the Lord before them. They must succeed, not officially, but in a succeeding spirit—inwardly.
Here is the rigid law of the Bible and its principle again. There is always something deeper than what is on the surface of anything that is in the Bible.
Consider the rigid law in the penalty of dishonouring and repudiating parents. There were few more rigid laws and penalties in the old dispensation than those connected with children dishonouring, despising, or repudiating their parents.
In those days, you had only to do that as a son to your father, and you soon knew the penalty. But behind that there is a divine principle.
What divine principle is this? A father or mother, from the divine standpoint, is supposed to have a knowledge of the Lord which is indispensable to their children. When the children despise or set aside the parent, they despise that which they need for their own life and spiritual prosperity.
The Lord does not just take account of rebellion against parents or disobedience to parents as things in themselves. He looks at the principle behind.
In the divine order, the children cannot live without the parents. They die without the parents, in this sense: they are absolutely dependent upon what the Lord has already stored up for them in a previous generation.
Yes, it is a very, very strong law in the Bible. Young people are not a newly created humanity; they are a fresh generation, an expression of the good that has been before.
It is significant, is it not, in this connection, that when Gideon became an old man, the men of the country came to him and said, “Rule thou over us.” Gideon would have nothing of it, but they wanted his sons to rule over them. Instead of the father who did it, they looked to the sons. The principle is there.
Age cannot be treated merely in terms of years; it means spiritual maturity. Young people, if you have got that, and older ones as well, we are on the way to the recovery of something: the recovery of the Lord’s name.
That which is spiritually old and finished with takes from the glory and honour of the Lord. Put another way, the Lord’s glory and honour are expressed in perennial youth.
I do not mean, on the other hand, that young people, simply as young people, are to repudiate the older ones, take over, put them aside, and begin to govern and rule things as though everything began with them and ended with them. How much dishonour has been brought to the Lord by that.
No, these are spiritual things to be taken hold of. Perhaps they will be helped by what I have yet to say this evening. I would like to look at some of the qualities in Gideon upon which the divine sovereignty operated—some of the qualities that marked Gideon as a young man.
Here we find a tremendous amount of spiritual maturity. What were the marks of spirituality and spiritual maturity in this young man?
The first—and it underlies everything else—was humility. His humility.
Humility is the primary hallmark of spirituality and spiritual maturity. Oh, how long it often takes before the Lord gets humility in His people and in His own.
Look at Gideon. No pride of person. He did not think anything of himself; he thought very little of himself. Read the story again.
No pride of family:
My family is the least in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.
Yet he could take ten servants out of his father’s house. There was, evidently, some standing, recognition, and influence there. Joash had the altar of Baal and the Asherah; the men of the city came to worship there early in the morning. But there was no pride of family in Gideon.
The point is this: if you had ten servants, you had something. You had position, recognition, influence. One might say, “Well, of course, it is only becoming under such circumstances to become something.” But Gideon said, “I am least.”
There was no pride of achievement. He could point to no accomplishments, no degrees, no success in the military, academic, scientific, or any other realm. No pride of achievement; no pride of ambition; no trace of any of these things.
And certainly there was no spiritual superiority. He did not point his finger at other people and say, “Look at them. Look at the mess they are in. Look at their condition.” He was involved in their condition. There was no superiority.
Young men and young women, it is not because you are young that you are going to assume responsibility for the Lord’s testimony. It is not because you have life before you that you are going to push in for recognition and place. No; it will be like this.
I have often heard people say, when expecting something more from young people, “We must not put old heads on young shoulders.” But the Lord does, and He requires it.
You have got to take up that which has gone before. What the Lord has been doing in a spiritual way has been to bring about this state of things: humility. You have got to begin there and go on there.
If there is any mark of personal pride, achievement, position, or spiritual superiority—looking down on others, criticising, judging, and condemning—the Lord will not do as He did with Gideon, of whom it is said that the Lord looked upon him.
No, the Lord will not look upon us if it is like that. We will not come into His view. That cannot bring glory to His name.
May I appeal to you: guard against criticism born of superiority as you would guard against a plague. It is not our business to let people know that we disapprove of them.
Our business is to find the basis upon which we can help them—help. We may, in our own heart of hearts, feel badly about certain things, but let that remain there, not expressed in our influence, attitude, looks, words, arguments, or attempts to prove where people are wrong.
That is not our business. Humility is finding a point of spiritual helpfulness and working on it.
The next thing we find in Gideon was his industry—his industriousness.
He was threshing wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites. Very little seemed possible. Most people had fled to caves, and the whole situation seemed hopeless.
One could have looked at the situation and said, “Oh, what can we do? We cannot do it.” Because of the situation, one could simply draw back and say, “What is the use?”
But Gideon was not like that. He did not deny the strength of the enemy or the little that could be done. Yet he 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 said, in effect, “At least I can pick out some corn here, up in this corner. At least I can do something over against the situation.” The Lord took note of it.
It was there, at the winepress, while Gideon was doing that, that the Lord came and looked upon him. I wonder if it was because of that that the Lord said, “The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valour.”
It is a very great thing with the Lord: “Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord.” That may be in a very limited and cramped capacity, but it is the spirit that the Lord looks upon.
It was the spirit of Gideon which was doing all that could be done, however little that might be. Take note of that, my dear friends. A gesture is enough with the Lord—not a mere outward gesture, but the indication that you are alive, alert, and ready for responsibility.
The Lord looked upon Gideon. The Scripture says, “The Lord turned toward him.”
Gideon’s concern for others was part of this same matter. He looked at the state of the people. The enemy was taking away their means of life, seeking to keep them in such poverty and bondage that they would never be able to lift a hand for their own salvation or deliverance.
Gideon had a real concern about the state of other people—their needy condition. You know how much Paul has to say about that: do not look every one on his own things, but also on the things of others.
Gideon was not one of those introverts always occupied with himself and his poor situation. He was a young man in a difficult situation, but he never sat down to nurse the adversities that had come into his life as a young man.
He was not sorry for himself, smothering himself with self-pity and drawing attention to himself in his own misfortunes. 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 will not find the Lord turning toward you. But He will turn toward those who, though their lot is difficult—and God knows that better than anyone else—turn outward in real concern.
See Gideon’s secret activity and exercise concerning the state of the name of the Lord—secret activity, secret exercise.
In his heart, Gideon seems to have said, “I will defeat them if I can. I will thwart the enemy if I can. I will see that they have as little success as possible.” It was a real spiritual concern and suffering, the outcome of real soul exercise.
When the Lord came and said, “The Lord is with thee,” Gideon replied, in effect, “If the Lord is with us, where are all His former acts and wonders of which our fathers told us?” There was a deep cry in his heart about the situation.
He was exercised about it. He was concerned about it. He was trying to find some explanation. He was reaching out to get the key to the matter.
The situation was creating real pain—something like bitterness, not a wrong bitterness of spirit. If we become bitter and sour toward the Lord, in rebellion, that is wrong bitterness.
But there was a bitterness in the heart of Hannah. Do you remember? She prayed, and Eli misunderstood the movement of her lips and charged her with drunkenness. She said:
No, my lord, I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit.
There was a bitterness because of the situation in Israel. Have you got anything that corresponds to that?
It is so different from a theoretical position, is it not? We may have all the doctrine and teaching; we may know what people ought to be like, what they ought to do, and what they ought to know. We may think we have the answer to it all. Oh, no.
If it does not come out of the winepress, it is an empty thing. It has got to come out of the winepress. It has got to come out of travail, out of deep exercise in this matter.
To such the Lord will look. Do believe me: whatever you may think, do not go out and imagine that you are going to save the Lord’s name and deliver His people by doctrines, wonderful interpretations of truth, or wonderful vistas of spiritual things. Not at all.
God is looking for the spiritual condition. Gideon was truly distressed and perplexed inwardly. His cry was not merely the cry of a man in trouble, asking, “Why are things like this?”
My last word this evening concerns Gideon destroying the enemy in his father’s house.
We shall never destroy Satan and his kingdom publicly if, behind the scenes and in the background, there is some complicity with him. The father’s house is inside here. Adam has his residence here, and Adam brought about complicity with Satan—and that is inside our own souls.
You know, and I know, how easy it is to listen to Satan, to agree with Satan, and to be moved by his arguments. There is something inside us which seems to be in alliance with the very devil himself.
The father’s house is here. Until that is dealt with and overcome, until Baal’s altar is overthrown, the work remains incomplete. More than that, the very thing that belongs to Baal is brought and made an instrument for the glory of God.
That is more than conquest: taking the enemy’s thing and bringing it to the Lord. If you do not understand that, do not worry. But here it is: before Gideon could go out and recover the honour of the Lord’s name, something had to be done in the background.
He did it. He did it quietly. He did it in no strong, high-handed way of self-confidence and self-assertion. No, in the same meekness that characterised him all along.
He took ten men and, under cover of the night, did it. You may say there was something lacking in courage. Call it what you like, but the thing was done. Whether by day or by night, it was done.
When we have said all this, what is the motive? The motive of all this?
These are not just things in themselves. They are all motivated and energized by a tremendous dynamic. What is it? Jealousy for the name of the Lord.
Jealousy for the name of the Lord. It is the Lord’s name. This state of things is dishonouring to Him. Whatever it is, however little can be done, it must be done for the sake of the name of the Lord.
It is not honouring to the Lord for me to accept this situation and sit down passive and fatalistic about it. The name of the Lord requires that I do something, governed by the honour of the Lord’s name.
Oh, have a heart that may bring us to see the Lord’s people enjoying their inheritance. We must see them on their feet, standing up strong. We must see them brought together.
We must see them in a state that glorifies His name—not because we want to begin some great enterprise or undertaking, and not because we want to see something flourish in which we have a part, but for the sake of His name.
Oh, may the Lord give us a heart for His name, looking on everything through His name. Does this honour the Lord’s name? Does this glorify the Lord’s name? Is this worthy of the Lord’s name in my relationships with others?
Does this glorify the name of the Lord?
If we want the Lord to be with us and to make use of us, individually and together with others of His people, then we must be of this kind—after the order of Gideon.
You might take Gideon’s estimate of himself and say that he was rather a poor thing. But remember: there were those things which the Lord regarded as of tremendous importance, things upon which His sovereignty could count. These were the things.