Please open to Judges 6.
As we come to the study of God’s Word, there is a principle of Bible study that is absolutely indispensable—a principle we can never take for granted. We cannot live without it.
God will use many, many principles as you study the Bible. He will use many helpful tools and helpful aids. But there is only one thing indispensable: total reliance upon God’s Holy Spirit.
The Lord desires to reveal Himself. Let me give you a couple of verses—first, one verse concerning the Lord, and then a prayer request that I have, and I will ask you to join me in it.
Isaiah 30:18 says:
The Lord longs to be gracious unto you;
Therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you.
How blessed are all those who long for Him.
What a glorious verse: Isaiah 30:18.
Sometimes I do not know what to pray, and so I pray in the very words of Scripture, because I know I am on inspired ground when I pray in the very words of Scripture.
Paul asked for prayer, so this is inspired. Two times he used the expression, “as I ought to speak.” He said, “Pray that I might speak as I ought to speak.”
One time he said—and I am paraphrasing now; I will give you the verse in a moment—“When I speak, I will be speaking the mystery of the gospel. Pray for me that I might speak as I ought to speak when I talk about the mystery of the gospel.”
The second time, he said, “Pray for me because I will be speaking about the mystery of Christ.”
Ephesians 6:19-20 says:
Pray on my behalf,
that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth,
to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel.
And then, in Colossians 4:3-4, he says:
Praying for us, that we may speak forth the mystery of Christ,
that I may make it clear in the way I ought to speak.
Two times: “as I ought to speak.” When he came to the mystery of the gospel, he said, “Pray that I might say it boldly, as I ought to speak.” When he came to the mystery of Christ, he said, “Pray for me that I might make it clear, as I ought to speak.”
Brothers, I am asking you to pray as Paul requested: that utterance may be given to me as I open my mouth, and as I touch on the mystery of the gospel, that I might speak it boldly, as I ought to speak. And as I touch on the mystery of Christ, that I might speak it clearly, as I ought to speak.
Now, we are not going to understand the mystery of the gospel because I shoot straight. And we are not going to see the mystery of Christ because I make it simple. We are going to see it if God opens our eyes, opens our hearts, and lets us hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches.
It is the Lord who must show us Christ. There is no way in the world that all the academics in the world are going to unveil Him. Only He can unveil Himself.
He delights; He waits on high to have compassion. He longs to reveal Himself. It is His pleasure, He said, to reveal His Son.
So, with those encouragements, will you bow with me and let us ask the Lord to meet with us?
Our Father, we thank You again that we are not on our own as we come to this precious Book. But Thy Holy Spirit lives in us, in our hearts, to search the depths of God and to make known to us the things of Christ.
Lord, I ask that You would give me utterance as I open my mouth, that I might speak the mystery of the gospel boldly, the mystery of Christ clearly.
We do pray for Your anointing on our hearts, on our ears, and on this precious Book. Watch over Your Word to perform it.
We ask in the precious name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
I am going to ask you to turn to Judges 6 as we continue our archaeological dig. When you look into these Old Testament histories of redemption, and you begin to sweep off the facts, you see that God has fossilized everlasting, true treasures in some of these old histories.
For the brothers who were not here last night—and there are quite a few—let the other brothers bear with me just a moment as we review a little of what we looked at last evening.
We are looking at a very precious truth from God’s Word, illustrated from a very precious portion of God’s Word. The truth, in a sentence, is this: there is blessing in the presence of the Lord.
That is the great truth and theme we are looking at this weekend.
The illustration of that truth, at least for our purposes, is the fifth judge in the book of Judges. We are looking at the life of Gideon. We are looking at the hand of the Lord in the life of Gideon, this son of Joash from the tribe of Manasseh.
Gideon was a man whose heart beat hot for the body—for all the tribes, for the people of God, for God’s flock, for God’s children.
Because of sin, they had forfeited the presence of the Lord. And when they lost the presence of the Lord, they lost the blessing of the Lord, because there is no blessing apart from the presence of the Lord.
Judges 6:1-6 describes the pitiful condition into which God’s people fell because they lost the sensible presence of the Lord.
Because they turned away from Him, God had raised up a rod, a chastening—a strap of three cords: the Midianites, the Amalekites, and the sons of the East.
God used that oppression in order to bring God’s people low, and they were brought low. If you look at the first six verses of Judges 6, you see that God’s people had been reduced to living in caves, in holes in the earth, in the ground like animals—like rodents.
They were running into the hills, away from the enemy. They had become scavengers just to exist. They had turned from living to surviving.
Gideon knew that the redeemed were redeemed for a higher life than that. As he looked around and saw the people of God, it broke his heart. He did not know what to do. He wanted to help them. He wanted to serve them.
He wanted the enemy driven out and God’s people allowed to come back from the darkness into the light of God. He longed for that.
And because he did not know what to do, he came up with a program. From dawn to dusk, every day, he began to beat wheat against the rock and try to eke out an existence for himself, for his family, for his neighbors, and for the people of God.
But as the story goes on—glorious day—God looked down from heaven and saw this man with a burden for God’s people. He wanted to be a blessing, but he did not know what to do.
So the second Person of the Godhead, the One who is now at the right hand of God, came down in the Person of the Angel of the Lord and stood by this man as he was beating wheat against the rocks at the side of the winepress, in the foothills.
The Lord—the Angel of the Lord—addressed Gideon with these words: “The Lord is with you.”
And he knew that, and that is why he was blessed. But he looked around at all the people and acknowledged to the Angel, “Yes, the Lord is with me, but, Lord, You have withdrawn Your presence from them.”
Though he knew that the Lord was with him and was not with them, and that he was blessed because he had God’s presence while they were not blessed because they did not have the Lord’s presence, though he knew that, he did not know it.
He knew it, but he did not know it. God had to teach him what he already knew, as God often has to teach us what we already know.
He knew the facts. He knew the principle. But God had to teach him again.
I am convinced in my heart of hearts that this weekend the truths I am going to share—the concepts, the realities, and the principles—you already know. You are not going to hear them for the first time today. I think you have heard them many times and probably have taught these very truths.
But sometimes God has to teach us again what we already know.
I am talking about truth in its organic form: the truth as it is in Jesus, not truth in an abstract way, separated from the Lord Jesus.
God knows how to quicken us to the truth that God’s presence is the secret of God’s blessing. That is so obvious. Well, it is not so obvious. Gideon had to relearn that truth.
God, in His grace, was teaching him that if he was ever going to be the channel through which the Blesser could bless His people, then he must allow God to take him deep into that truth—the truth of the presence of the Lord.
I tried to show you last night that the starting point for Gideon’s instruction was the grace he was given to lay down every attempt to bless in any other way than through the presence of the Lord.
Gideon did that. He took that which represented his service, his work, his ministry, his labor, and his burden for the people of God. You know the story: he laid it down on a rock before the Lord, before the Angel of the Lord.
Then the Angel of the Lord reached out the rod—the staff that was in His hand—and touched that ministry, that offering. In a cloud of smoke and in a moment of time, everything Gideon had tried to do to bless God’s people was a pile of ashes.
It has to start there. Gideon began by laying it all down before the Lord.
He was burdened for the body because they had been reduced to cave-dwelling and living in darkness. He wanted them blessed. He wanted God to send down His dew from heaven. God answered his prayer.
This is where we left off last evening. How does God answer? You would expect, since Israel—the people of God—had the problem, that God would begin by dealing with Israel.
But Gideon was the one with the passion to bless, the burden to see something happen so that God’s people could be delivered from the oppressor and come out and live as they were redeemed to live.
So we see in the story that God does not begin by dealing with Israel. He says, “Gideon, you want to be a blessing. Then I must deal with you.”
God begins to deal with this precious man, Gideon. And I am suggesting, brothers, that if we are ever to be channels of blessing, we must have a burden for the body. It is sad how they are living. It is sad. It is pitiful. It should break your heart.
If you have that burden, then, like He did to Gideon, He is going to call you and say, “Now you come into My presence.”
I want us to watch this weekend how the Lord deals with this precious brother and invites him into His heart. The closer Gideon gets to the Lord, you look back and something is happening to the enemy.
Gideon goes further into the Lord, and something else happens to the enemy. Gideon goes further into the Lord, and something happens to the people, and they start coming out of the caves.
This is the great message on my heart that I want to discharge, God assisting.
Let me review the simple outline we are following for those who like logical connection, and then we will move to our new material.
In Judges 6:25 through Judges 7:8 is what I would like to consider this morning. God invites Gideon to come into His heart, into Himself, into the truth of the preeminence of Christ.
Then Gideon says, “All right, I have laid hold of that truth. Now will Your dew come down from heaven? Now will You bless?”
God says, “Not yet, Gideon.”
Then God invites Gideon to come deeper into His presence. We will look at Judges 7:1-21. “Gideon, you have to know about My life and the release of My life through broken vessels. You have to know about the manifestation of Christ.”
God takes him in, and he begins to learn this. Marvelous things happen as he presses into God. Then he says, “Now will the dew come down?”
The Lord says, “Not yet, Gideon.”
Then, Lord willing, tomorrow night we will consider Judges 7:22 through Judges 8:35. God says, “You need to come into My glory.”
As Gideon walks into the glory of God, the problem is dealt with and God’s people are set free. That is how to bless: you have to be in the blessing if you are ever going to be a blessing.
This weekend, as we follow Gideon, we are considering what it means to press into the Lord, into the knowledge of the Lord, to go into His presence. The deeper, brothers, we go into His presence, the more the Lord can use us to bring His dew upon His sheep.
Before we get to the principle I want to share, I want to say a word about Judges 6:6-7.
So Israel was brought very low because of Midian,
and the sons of Israel cried to the Lord.
Now it came about when the sons of Israel cried to the Lord on account of Midian,
that the Lord sent a prophet.
That expression, “the sons of Israel cried unto the Lord,” looks like cause and effect. It looks like they cried, and therefore God answered. But their cry describes when God moved, not why God moved.
He did not move because they cried.
When I first read this, it looked like they were crying out in repentance. In fact, the last time I taught the book of Judges, I had “the seven times Israel repented.” Well, I crossed those notes out fast. If you have those notes or those tapes, mark that out, because they did not repent here.
I thought they repented, and so God heard them. They cried in repentance, so He sent a prophet, bowed the heavens and came down in the Person of the Angel of the Lord, and then raised up a judge in the person of Gideon.
Oh, that is not what happened.
If you look carefully, you will see they were far, far, far from repentance. At this time—and we will see it—they were worshiping Baal. When God used Gideon to tear it down, they wanted to kill him. That is not repentance.
There was a long way to go before repentance was in their hearts. The Bible tells us in Judges 6 why they were crying: because they were oppressed. It was not repentance. They were burdened because of the Midianites.
They were so much like the unrepentant thief on the cross. He cried out for salvation, but it was salvation from nails, not from sin. That is what he wanted: “Get me out of this mess. Get me out of this situation.” That was their cry.
When you study the Old Testament, let me encourage you: what the epistles are to the New Testament—that is, explanation and heart—the historical books are to the Old Testament. They explain the history.
Over and over again in the Psalms, God explains history from Genesis, Exodus, or elsewhere. The cry is explained in the historical psalms.
Look at Psalm 106:43-46:
Many times He would deliver them;
They, however, were rebellious in their counsel,
and so sank down in their iniquity.
Nevertheless He looked upon their distress,
when He heard their cry;
and He remembered His covenant for their sake,
and relented according to the greatness of His lovingkindness.
When He heard their cry, He remembered His covenant. That is a different thing altogether.
It was His covenant that moved Him, not their cry. It was His heart, not their voice. They did not repent first. God remembered His covenant, and it was when He began to act that they came to repentance.
It is New Covenant repentance. Jeremiah describes it in Jeremiah 31:18-19:
Bring me back that I may be restored,
for You are the Lord my God.
After I was turned, surely then I repented;
after I was instructed, then I was ashamed.
You do not repent first. God turns you. “After I was turned, surely then I repented.”
I just did not want you to put too much stock in their cry. Praise God, they cried, but it was His heart, His love, His compassion, His grace, and His covenant that moved Him to deliver them.
Now let us get back to Gideon. Let us follow God’s heart as He draws this wonderful saint into His presence.
If Gideon is ever to satisfy the burden on his heart to bless the people of God, he must be brought into the presence of the Lord. That is where the blessing is.
God begins at the beginning. When He remembers His covenant, Judges 6:8, the Lord sends a prophet.
This was actually before He appeared to Gideon. He sends a prophet, and he always sends the prophet with the problem. It is not clear whether this prophet had to go in and out of all the caves and dens in order to reach these people. Perhaps they did not have an open square for a meeting. Maybe he had to go in and out of those caves. I do not know; the Bible does not say.
We do not know if the enemy was there all the time or if they came only at harvest to invade the people. I am not sure. I think they probably stayed a lot longer than most people realize.
The prophet said:
Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel:
It was I who brought you up from Egypt
and brought you out from the house of slavery.
I delivered you from the hands of the Egyptians
and from the hands of all your oppressors,
and dispossessed them before you and gave you their land.
I said to you, “I am the Lord your God;
you shall not fear the gods of the Amorites in whose land you live.”
But you have not obeyed Me.
As I pointed out yesterday, they were not saved to live like they were living. He said, “I redeemed you from the house of bondage. I brought you to live on the land, which pictures My Son—to live in abundance and to live on the land, not to hide away in some cave.”
When this unnamed prophet said, “You shall not fear the gods of the Amorites,” he was not talking about fear in the sense of trembling. He was not saying, “Do not be afraid of them. Do not cower. Do not have your knees knock together.”
He was using the word as we say, “Fear the Lord.” He was talking about reverence, worship, and service. They were fearing the gods of the Amorites.
With that message, the prophet disappears from the pages of the Bible.
Do you notice what the prophet did not say? He did not say, “Turn or burn.” He did not say, “Repent.” He did not say, “Look to the Lord.” He did not say, “Pray.” He did not say, “Fast.” He did not say, “Hang in there. God is going to send you a judge.”
All he said was, “Look at you. Do you know why you are like that? You disobeyed. See you.”
That was his whole message. He did not give one drop of hope. He did not encourage them in any way.
The prophet came in and said, “You are living like this. You should not be living like this. I did not save you to live like this. I redeemed you for something higher than this. And you want to know why? I will tell you why: I told you not to fear the gods of the Amorites, and you did.”
And he leaves.
The sons of Israel cried, even though they were only seeking salvation from nails. The Bible tells us why they cried: on account of Midian. That was why they cried—on account of the Midianites.
They knew their problem. There were 135,000 of their problems out there: the Midianites, the Amalekites, and the sons of the East. They cried to the Lord, “Deliver us from our problem—the Midianites.”
The purpose of the prophet was to turn their eyes from what they thought the problem was—the Midianites—and to turn their eyes to the real problem.
That is how God always begins: by sending a man of God to tell us that the problem is not the problem.
When we deal with symptoms, we are just chopping off weeds at the surface. Nothing is happening. We cannot beautify the Christian life with peat moss—just put it on the top.
God loves me too much, and God loves you too much, to let us deal with problems that are not problems.
It is a glory thing when the Lord takes your eyes off the problems, plural—the Midianites all over the place—and puts your eyes on the problem, singular.
That is why it is so important, because, brothers, if the problem is not the problem, then the solution is not the solution.
It is not too deep, but it is tragic because God’s people are running after solutions that are not solutions. God will not scratch you where you do not itch. He is going to get to the problem. He is going to touch the heart of it.
Like Jonah, you can throw everything overboard, but until you get to Jonah, the storm is going to keep raging.
They thought the problem was out there: Amalek, Midian, the sons of the East. But they had a problem in here. They had a problem in their hearts.
In Judges 6:16, when the Angel commissioned Gideon, He told him the same thing:
Surely I will be with you,
and you shall defeat Midian as one man.
The Angel was calling attention to the fact that there was one problem.
They would say, “Problem? Do not make it singular. It is problems—135,000 of them. Look out there. They are like locusts all over the land. That is why we are in this mess. It is their fault.”
God says, “No, you do not have many problems. The problem is never the problem, and the solution is never the solution. There is always, ever, only one problem. And there is only one solution to that one problem.”
Gideon had met with the Lord, talked to the God of heaven, laid his ministry down at His feet, watched God receive it and consume it, and come to the place where he did the right thing. He had peace with God. He named it, “The Lord is peace,” because God settled it in his heart.
Now God is ready. “Gideon, come into My presence.”
The same night that God talked to him, He began again. Judges 6:25:
Take your father’s bull and a second bull seven years old,
and pull down the altar of Baal which belongs to your father,
and cut down the Asherah that is beside it.
Build an altar to the Lord your God on the top of the stronghold in an orderly manner,
and take a second bull and offer a burnt offering with the wood of the Asherah which you shall cut down.
Gideon took ten men of his servants and did as the Lord had spoken to him. Because he was too afraid of his father’s household and the men of the city to do it by day, he did it by night.
God homes in not on the problems, but on the one problem: the problem of the heart.
“You shall not fear,” said the prophet, “the gods of the Amorites.” And God’s word to Gideon was, “Tear down Baal. Tear down Baal.”
All this has to do with preliminary preparation for the blessing.
Joash, Gideon’s father, who was the head of the clan, had set up Baal and its female counterpart, the Asherah, in a grove on a high hill in Ophrah.
Let me do a little donkey work with you, brothers. Some of you probably know the background. Let me fill you in a little bit.
Why is there so much in the Bible about Baal? There were other false gods as well, but you do not see them mentioned as much. Yet all the time you read that their hearts went whoring after Baal and that they set up Baal. What is this all about? How did Baal get so famous?
It is the meaning of his name. Baal is a title. It is a legitimate word. It means “husband.”
It means husband in the sense of lord, master, husband. Baal represented in the Bible all idolatry and the chief evil of all idolatry.
Baal worship was supposed to represent a relationship with God. He is a husband. It had to do with relationship.
The intrinsic evil of Baal worship was that it was an imitation of true worship. It was a copy. It is amazing, when you study the background of Baal worship, how close it was to true worship. It was an imitation, an ape, a shadow image.
Would it shock you if, in prayer, I led in prayer and said, “O Baal, will you please?” Would that shock you? It did not shock them. It just meant “husband.” It was a word that meant husband.
They recoiled because God was so holy that they would not use another name for Him. Sometimes they called Him Baal.
In Hosea 2:16, God is speaking. That whole book of Hosea has to do with relationship, knowing God, and the intimacies of the marriage tie. It is a lovely book.
It shall be in that day, saith the Lord,
that thou shalt call Me Ishi;
and shalt call Me no more Baali.
They called Him Baal. What does the word Ishi mean? It is another word for husband. What does the word Baal mean? It means husband.
God says, “Call Me Ishi. Do not call Me Baal.” What is the difference?
Ishi means husband, lover. Baal means husband, master.
God says, “There is going to come a day when you understand. You are not going to call Me husband-master. You are going to call Me husband-lover, the Bridegroom-Lover of your soul.”
Sometimes the Bible gives us compound names of our dear Lord: the Lord Jireh, the Lord Rophe, and so on. Baal had compound names too: Baal-Hamon, Baal-berith, Baal-peor, Baal-zebub, and so on.
What do those mean? Baal-Hamon: gracious husband. Baal-berith: husband of the covenant. Baal-peor: husband of love.
They were using those names—a copy. Close, but no cigar. It was not the real thing. It was an imitation.
Baal worship had temples, altars, a priesthood, and prophets—the prophets of Baal. They did not know they were committing idolatry. They thought it was the true God.
We just read these things, la la la. You have to understand what was going on in their hearts.
The first mention of Baal in the Bible speaks of the high place. They would find the highest place, put up an image of Baal, and then, in order to illustrate relationship, put up the female side of that relationship, the Asherah.
There was a lot more that went with it, and it got pretty twisted and gross. The prophets constantly spoke out against the high places of Baal.
In 1 Kings 14:23, it says:
On every high hill and under every luxuriant tree,
they would have these idols to Baal.
That is what you have here in Judges. Joash, Gideon’s father, had set up an image of Baal and its counterpart in the highest place. It was called the stronghold in the book of Judges. They found the highest place, the best place, and put them up there, praying that somehow, through relationship, they would become fruitful, there would be fruit in the land, and the land would be blessed.
Judges 6:25 records God’s command:
Gideon, pull down the altar of Baal that belongs to your father.
That was the symbol to God of a broken relationship. They had turned to a substitute husband. He had been jilted. He was the brokenhearted Lover.
They had left their first Husband. They played the harlot and ran after imitation husbands. God says to Gideon, “Tear down Baal. I am a jealous God.”
Look up jealousy in the dictionary. The first definition is “intolerant of rivalry.” The second definition is “insistence on exclusive devotion.”
God is a jealous God. He is a Husband, and He cannot have another husband.
Then He says—that is the first part—“Tear down Baal.” But Judges 6:26 says:
Build an altar to the Lord your God on top of the stronghold.
Tear down Baal, and in its place, build an altar to the Lord. Take the second bull and offer a burnt offering with the wood of the Asherah which you shall cut down.
Israel did not have many problems. They only had one. The Angel of the Lord and the prophet of the Lord turned their eyes to that one problem.
It boils down to this: Who is in the high place?
Was the true God preeminent, or was some substitute husband sitting on the throne that belonged to Him?
There can be no deliverance. There can be no dew from heaven. There can be no blessing of the Lord until Christ is in the high place and every substitute husband has been torn down.
God is about to deliver His people from the sin of polyandry. Polygamy means many wives; polyandry means many husbands. They had fallen into that sin.
This is the truth, I believe, of Colossians 1:18:
That in all things He might have the preeminence.
Do you know the difference between preeminence and prominence?
You can have many prominent things in your life. You can only have one preeminent thing in your life.
You can have many prominent things in your life, and good things: family, fellowship, church, ministry, service, vocation, vacation—many prominent things.
But the Lord does not want to be prominent. Many Christians have made Him prominent, and God says, “I cannot send the blessing until He is preeminent, not prominent.”
Jesus does not want to be first and family second and church third. He does not want to be on that silly priority list.
I do not know if you have a priority list—first this, first that, and the other thing. But Colossians 3:11 says:
Christ is all.
Christ is all.
Putting Christ first implies a second, and there is no second to Jesus. He said, “I am the first, and I am the last. I am the Alpha, and I am the Omega. I am the whole list.”
Do not put Him on your priority list. Even if you put Him on top, it is a Baal. It has got to come down. He does not want to be prominent.
Satan does not care if you make Christ prominent in your life. He does not care. But he will hate you with an infernal hatred if God ever dawns on you what He dawned on Gideon: that Christ is preeminent.
When I come to the word preeminent, I like to use the expression “the one and only.”
Christ does not want to be prominent, brothers. He wants to be the one and only. Until He is the one and only, and Gideon sees Him as the one and only, there can be no blessing.
This is the first lesson Gideon had to learn.
There has been a lot of discussion in Judges 6 about whether there is one animal or two animals. It is not at all clear from Judges 6:25. It looks like it could be two animals, and most commentators argue, “Is it one or is it two?”
Some think there was only one, called the second bull to distinguish it from Joash’s other bull—the one seven years old, perhaps because they had been in oppression for seven years.
From my own study, I incline to the idea that there was probably one animal, but it does not change the principle.
There is no doubt in my mind from Judges 6:26 that the bull offered as a burnt offering, offered on the altar in the place of the substitute husband, pictures our Lord Jesus Christ.
When you see an animal sacrificed on an altar and it is called a whole burnt offering, it automatically takes you to our Lord Jesus and the finished work of the cross.
I think that bull sacrifice, when they woke up in the morning, was to them a picture of the sacrifice of Christ.
I am suggesting that if the bull pictures Christ on the altar, then the bull pictures Christ before it got to the altar. It pictures Christ all the way.
I call attention to that for this reason: the same Bull, the same Christ who died, is the One who must pull down Baal.
We have no power to pull down Baal. That bull was first used to pull down Baal, and then, at the cost of its life—oh, what a revelation of our Lord Jesus.
Brothers, I do not have power in my life to pull down any substitute for Christ. You do not have power in your life to pull down Baal.
Generally, we look at Baal and think of some gross sin that represents terrible sin. I am sure it includes that. Have you tried to pull down the Baal of sin in your life—some Baal of lust and passion?
You say, “Man, I tugged at that thing, pushed at it, used a ramrod, and did everything in the world to get that thing to come down. It would not come down.”
Only Christ can pull down that Baal.
Some Baal of pride, jealousy, vainglory, or all that—you can do anything you want, and it is not going to come down. You need the Lord to pull that Baal down. Some strong habit in your life, some addiction—you need Christ to pull that down.
But here is the other side: you have no power to pull down prominent things in your life that are Baal, any more than you have power to break the chains of abiding corruption.
You have no power, and I have no power. If Christ is to be preeminent and enthroned in the high place, He is the One who is going to pull down all the substitutes.
I asked you to pray, and I prayed, that I might speak boldly concerning the mystery of the gospel and clearly concerning the mystery of Christ. Pray that God will communicate what I am trying to say here.
If any prominent thing has taken the place of the Preeminent One in your life, it has got to come down. It has got to come down.
You say, “Well, missions is very prominent in my life.” It is not Jesus. If you have given missions the high place, it has got to come down.
If you have given Christian service the high place, it has got to come down. If you have given family the high place, it has got to come down. If you have given the local church the high place, if you have given spiritual gifts the high place, if you have given the fellowship of God’s people the high place, it has got to come down.
If you have given the will of God the high place rather than the God whose will it is, it has got to come down.
Only Christ can pull it down. It takes a mighty miracle of God.
Everything must fall that militates against union with the Bridegroom-Lover of your soul. Everything must come down that militates against the union between your heart and the Bridegroom-Lover of your soul.
Little did Gideon know that night, as God was introducing him to His heart and bringing him into the presence of God, that this discovery—that God wants to be the one and only—would draw a line.
He had no clue. He had no idea.
You get the idea that this is just going to be a non-dramatic event in his life: God will teach him that Jesus is preeminent and all false husbands must come down.
It is not like that. This is not academic. This is revolutionary. This transformed his life.
Gideon was afraid, so he did it at night. He did it undercover. But in the power of the bull, he pulled down Baal. He built the altar, put the bull on it, and sacrificed it. It went up, and he went back into his house or cave.
But the line was drawn because of that truth.
Let me mention a couple of ways the line was drawn.
First, it identified Gideon with Christ. Let me use a New Testament expression: it identified Gideon with Christ outside the camp.
Judges 6:30 says that in the morning, when Christ is in the highest place, when Christ is preeminent, they come to the door and say:
Bring out your son, that he may die.
The line was drawn.
What did he do? He just put Jesus in the high place, and the line was drawn.
We are talking about his family. These were his brothers. These were his neighbors. They were not trying to kill Gideon when he was beating wheat against the rock. They were not enemies then.
Do not think, brothers, that if God gives you the revelation that Jesus is the one and only, and you embrace that, then you can challenge prominent things in people’s lives and they will not come against you. They will want to tear you to shreds.
You start talking about “Look to Christ, not missions. Look to Christ, not discipleship. Look to Christ, not stewardship. Look to Christ, not ministry. Look to Christ, not even family,” and they will say, “What are you saying?” They will come right up against you.
The natural heart does not want Jesus to sit on a solitary throne.
Gandhi said one time, “I can accept Jesus, but I cannot put Him on a solitary throne.” That is exactly where He ought to be: the one and only on a solitary throne.
The line was drawn, and Gideon became identified with Christ outside the camp.
But the line was drawn in another way as well. Judges 6:32 says that Joash said to all who stood against Gideon:
Will you contend for Baal, or will you deliver him?
Whoever will plead for him shall be put to death by morning.
If he is a god, let him contend for himself,
because someone has torn down his altar.
I think this was the first time Joash realized that he was not worshiping the true God, that this was a false god.
Therefore, on that day he named Gideon Jerubbaal—“Let Baal contend against him”—because he had torn down Baal’s altar.
Not only did Gideon, by embracing the preeminent Christ, identify with Christ outside the camp, but Gideon now had a new name. He would have this name forever: he was a Baal-fighter.
He now had a direction, a destiny, and a ministry. He was the one who spoke boldly and clearly and opposed all false husbands. They had to come down.
He had declared war on Satan. He had declared war on hell. He was a Baal-fighter.
Do you notice in the record how quickly the enemy gathered after Baal came down? Look at Judges 6:33. It begins with the word then.
Then when? As soon as Baal came down, the enemy forces began to gather.
I tell you, the line was drawn.
According to 2 Corinthians 10, Satan does not oppose everything and everybody in the same way. Satan opposes the knowledge of God. With weapons that are not carnal, we pull down everything set up against the knowledge of God. It has got to come down.
May God give us grace.
The line was drawn. Gideon saw the preeminence of Christ: it is Him and Him alone, and all false husbands must come down.
Taking a rugged stand on that, even God’s people came against him. Everybody came against him. But he had a new name now: he was a Baal-fighter—Jerubbaal, against Baal.
One more truth I want us to see before we wrap this up.
Once again, God must teach Gideon something he already knows. It is a simple truth. Let me state it for you, show you how simple it is, and then illustrate it from the text. By God’s grace, we will try to develop it this evening.
Those who come to embrace the truth that Jesus is the one and only—the Bridegroom-Lover of my soul, not one among many, but all by Himself, preeminent and exclusive—almost the first fruit of that knowledge is this:
Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord.
We walk in the Spirit, not in the flesh.
Simple enough, right? We all know that.
That is one of those things we know that God has to teach us. Over and over again.
Judges 6:34 says:
So the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon;
and he blew a trumpet,
and the Abiezrites were called together to follow him.
As soon as he embraces the preeminence of the Lord, he experiences the Spirit of the Lord coming upon him. This is new. This is wonderful for Gideon.
I cannot prove it, but I have an idea what was going on in Gideon’s heart. I think Gideon was thinking something like this:
“Oh, that is it. I just need to embrace the preeminence of Christ. Up with Jesus, down with every other husband. Yes, they are going to be against me. Yes, I am going to fight them. But now it is over. The Spirit of God has come upon me. Blow the trumpet. It is time for the dew to come down.”
I think that is what Gideon thought. “I have learned it. I have seen the preeminent Christ. He is the one and only. Send down the dew. Bring down the blessings.”
“Mercy drops round us are falling, but for the showers we plead.”
He blows the trumpet, and they begin to come. It is marvelous. This is a war cry. Under the guidance of the precious Holy Spirit, they come from the east and the west.
The Bible tells us that volunteers came from Manasseh, Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali. Gideon must have been so encouraged. “Here comes thirty men. Here comes fifty. Here comes eighty. Here comes a thousand. Here comes three thousand.”
He was standing there blowing the trumpet. “It is going to happen. God is going to deliver us from the Midianites. Finally, the blessing is going to come. They are going to come out of their caves.”
His heart was thrilled. They came and came and came by the thousands. When it was all over, they looked around: 32,000 people.
That must have been so encouraging.
Let me ask you this, brothers: in the mind of Gideon, was that a large army or a small army? Thirty-two thousand?
The Bible tells us there were 135,000 armed men in the enemy army. That is four-to-one odds. Besides that, the Bible says they brought their families and servants. From the hill of Ophrah, it looked like locusts all over the place.
Gideon did not see only 135,000. He saw more than that. Then he looked, I speak as a fool, at his paucity of troops. Thirty-two thousand was not a big number.
At first he was so encouraged. Then he looked at the 32,000.
Judges 6:36 says:
Gideon said to God, “If You will deliver Israel through me, as You have spoken,
behold, I will put a fleece of wool on the threshing floor.
If there is dew on the fleece only, and it is dry on all the ground,
then I will know that You will deliver Israel through me, as You have spoken.”
It was so. When he arose early in the morning and squeezed the fleece, he drained the dew from the fleece, a bowl full of water.
Then Gideon said to God:
Do not let Your anger burn against me,
that I may speak once more.
Please let me make a test once more with the fleece.
Let it now be dry only on the fleece,
and let there be dew on all the ground.
God did so that night. It was dry only on the fleece, and there was dew on all the ground.
Next time we gather, I want to speak more about this passage, but let me give you the main point now. Do not miss the main point by arguing about what is meant by the dew, the fleece, the dry ground, the bowl, or the bowl full of water.
I have no doubt those questions are precious and lead to the unveiling of the Lord. But what is the main point here?
Judges 6:36: “Gideon said to God, ‘If You will deliver Israel through me, as You promised.’”
The chief burden on Gideon’s heart was that he was beginning to wonder whether he had heard God correctly. He was beginning to wonder whether he got the right message.
He looked at the troops. He looked at the enemy.
“I am not sure. I am not sure I heard You right, Lord. I promise I am not doubting You. I am doubting me. I am not sure I heard right.
“Did You really say what I think You said? I want to be sure. I want to be absolutely clear. I do not want to make a mistake. I do not want to be rash. I do not want to do something stupid and foolish.
“I am willing to go with them if that is Your will, but I want to know it is Your will.”
Why did Gideon flip the sign over? At first, in Judges 6:37, he said:
If there is dew on the fleece only,
and it is dry on all the ground,
then I shall know.
Why did he not know? That is what he said: “If You do this, then I shall know.”
I cannot get into Gideon’s head, but I think it was something like this. When he woke up in the morning and saw the dew—when that fleece was soft and wet, and he wrung out a whole bowl full of water—I think his heart said, “Thank You, Lord. Now I know. I know.”
Then he thought, “Wait a minute. That is pretty natural, come to think of it.”
“If there is dew, it is going to be attracted to the fleece and not to the ground. The ground is going to dry out before that.”
He said, “Lord, do not get angry at me. Do not get angry at me. But I have an idea. I do not want it to be natural. That is too natural. That is too physical. That is too scientific. Somebody can come up with an explanation for that.
“I want to know it is You. I want a miracle. I want something supernatural.”
“I know it is not by might nor by power, but by Your Spirit, and I am not sure that was by Your Spirit. That could just be a natural thing.
“So, Lord, so that I know it is supernatural, so that I know it is not natural, not man, not me, not some physical law—so that I know it is You—again, Lord, I am not doubting You. I am doubting me. I want to be sure.
“Lord, if You are not angry, please do it the other way, because that is not natural. That is supernatural.”
He put the fleece out again, and he woke up the next morning. Brothers, you know the record: the ground all around was soft and wet, and by the grace of God, that fleece was bone dry.
Then he knew: “It is not by power, not by might, but by My Spirit.”
What God does next—and again, we will look at it this evening—I want you to get what is happening. God loves to teach us what we already know.
Now Gideon knows: “It is God. I know it. I know it. I know it. It is the Lord. He did the sign, and I flipped it over. I was willing to let my sign be turned on its head, and it was. God did it. Now I know it is the Lord. It is not man. It is not my flesh. It is not me. It is not a law. It is God. He did it.”
So he said, “Okay, you troops, get ready.”
Then Judges 7:1-7 unfolds.
Do not miss the work of God here. God looks at his paucity of troops, and He begins to reduce them. You know the record.
Gideon knows what he knows: it is not by man; it is by the Spirit of God.
God says, “All right, now, so that you know what you know—it is not by your flesh—I am going to touch your flesh.”
And He begins to reduce the troops.
Did Gideon really know it? His heart sank. He said, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait a minute. I know the principle: not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord. Do not reduce my troops.”
He knows it, but he does not know it. He has to learn it again.
It is an amazing thing, brothers, that we can say, “It is not by flesh,” but let God touch our flesh, and we tremble.
We say we know it is not that, but let God touch that. What are we made of? What vessels of clay are we?
This is the first step. God says, “I need to teach you something. You need to know that Christ is the one and only, and that it is by My Spirit.”
You need to know those two things.
Brothers, I have said nothing new today. You know it. I am standing up here talking about the story again.
Is there anybody here who has never heard that it is Christ who needs to be in the high place? You know that.
Is there anybody here who does not know that it is not by might nor by power, but by His Spirit?
That is all I said today: it is Him, and it is His Spirit.
Gideon says, “No, I am ready. Bring down Your blessing.”
God says, “Not yet, Gideon. You have not begun to know Me.”
After you have made Christ preeminent, and after you have learned it is not by you but by Him, you are not ready to go. God says, “Come on, deeper into My heart.”
God takes Gideon by the hand—we will look at it tonight—and says, “What you need is to see this too.”
God brings Gideon into the presence of the Lord so that he can bring blessing upon the people.
Oh, may God help us, as men of God, to press into His heart.
Let us pray.
Father, we thank You again for Your Word, and we know You constantly watch over it to perform it. If there is something that was not from You, protect Your children. We pray that we might embrace everything that came from You.
Lord, we ask Your forgiveness for the times we have insulted You by making You prominent in our lives.
Lord, pull down all the false husbands, all the copies, all the imitations, that Christ might be the one and only. Teach us what it means: not by might, not by power, but by Your Spirit.
We ask in Jesus’ name.