Gooding, David: 9 - Gideon - Part 1

Jays chapter six. And the children of Israel did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord delivered them into the hand of Midian seven years. And the hand of Midian prevailed against Israel, and because of Midian, the children of Israel made them the dens which are in the mountains, and the caves, and the strongholds. And so it was, when Israel had sown, that the Midianites came up, and the Amalekites, and the children of the east. They came up against them, and they encamped against them, and destroyed the increase of the earth, till thou come unto Gaza, and left no sustenance in Israel, neither sheep, nor ox, nor ass. For they came up with their cattle and their tents. They came in as locusts for multitude. Both they and their camels were without number. They came into the land to destroy it. And Israel was brought very low because of Midian, and the children of Israel cried unto the Lord. And it came to pass, when the children of Israel cried unto the Lord because of Midian, that the Lord sent a prophet unto the children of Israel. And he said unto them, Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, I brought you up out from Egypt, and brought you forth out of the house of bondage, and I delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of all that oppressed you, and drave them out from before you, and gave you their land. And I said unto you, I am the Lord your God. You shall not fear the gods of the Amorites in whose land ye dwell, but ye have not hearkened unto my voice. And the angel of the Lord came and sat under the oak which was in Ophrah that pertained unto Joash the Abiezrite. And his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press to hide it from the Midianites. And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him and said unto him, The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valor. And Gideon said unto him, Oh my Lord, if the Lord be with us, why then is all this befallen us? And where be all his wondrous works which our fathers told us of, saying, Did not the Lord bring us up out from Egypt? But now the Lord hath cast us off and delivered us into the hand of Midian. The Lord looked upon him and said, Go in as thy might and save Israel from the hand of Midian. Have not I sent thee? And he said unto him, O Lord, wherewithal, wherewithal shall I save Israel? Behold, my family is the poorest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house. And the Lord said unto him, Surely I will be with thee, and thou shalt smite the Midianites as one man. And he said unto him, If now I have found grace in thy sight, then show me a sign that it is thou that talkest with me. Depart not hence, I pray thee, until I come unto thee, and bring forth my present and lay it before thee. And he said, I will tarry until thou come again. And Gideon went in and made ready a kid and unleavened cakes of an ephah of meal. The flesh he put in a basket, and he put the broth in a pot, and brought it out unto him under the oak, and presented it. And the angel of God said unto him, Take the flesh and the unleavened cakes, and lay them upon this rock, and pour out the broth. And he did so. Then the angel of the Lord put forth the end of the staff that was in his hand, and touched the flesh and the unleavened cakes. And there went up fire out of the rock and consumed the flesh and the unleavened cakes. And the angel of the Lord departed out of his sight. Gideon saw that he was the angel of the Lord, and Gideon said, Alas, O Lord God, for as much as I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face. And the Lord said unto him, Peace be unto thee, fear not, thou shalt not die. Then Gideon built an altar there unto the Lord and called it Jehovah Shalom. Unto this day it is yet in Ophrah of the Abiezrites. And it came to pass the same night that the Lord said unto him, Take thy father's bullock, even the second bullock of seven years old, and throw down the altar of Baal that thy father hath, and cut down the Asherah that is by it, and build an altar unto the Lord thy God upon the top of this stronghold in the orderly manner, and take the second bullock and offer a burnt offering with the wood of the Asherah which thou shalt cut down. Then Gideon took ten men of his servants and did as the Lord had spoken unto him. And it came to pass, because he feared his father's household and the men of the city, so that he could not do it by day, that he did it by night. And when the men of the city arose early in the morning, behold, the altar of Baal was broken down, and the Asherah was cut down that was by it, and the second bullock was offered upon the altar that was built. And they said to one another, Who hath done this thing? And when they inquired and asked, they said, Gideon the son of Joash hath done this thing. Then the men of the city said unto Joash, Bring out thy son that he may die, because he hath broken down the altar of bed, and pos- because he hath cut down the Asherah that was by it. Joash said unto all that stood against him, Will you plead for Baal, or will you save him? He that will plead for him, let him be put to death while it is yet morning. If he be a god, let him plead for himself, because one hath broken down his altar. Therefore, on that day he called him Jerub Baal, saying, let Baal plead against him because he hath broken down his altar. Thus begins Gideon's story, and may God give us good understanding of the same. We begin tonight the study of the fourth captivity under which Israel came, and as is usual with us now, we turn first of all to Rekanoiter, the enemy, to ask what it was about this particular enemy that made them such a particular trouble to the children of Israel. As you see from our reading, the main enemy was Midian, though Midian at this time brought with him the Amalekites and the children of the east. We shall find that Midian is somewhat of a mix-up of a people, and that you frequently find them in Holy Scripture's record in conjunction with other nations. For instance, in the book of Numbers, you will read that at the time when the Moabites proved such a stumbling block to Israel, they were joined in their deceptions and enticements by the Midianites. Or again, you may remember that when Joseph's brethren were holding their conflabs together to decide what to do with Joseph, whom they had put down the pit. There passed by the certain Ishmaelites, and Joseph's brethren decided to sell him to the Ishmaelites, but it came to pass, as the time, uh, comes round for the verses to tell you that they actually sold him to the Ishmaelites, that you read in the text of scripture that they sold him to Midianites. And that little puzzle is solved for us here in the book of Judges, for in chapter eight of the book of Judges, uh, we read that the Midianites were Ishmaelites. The verse is verse twenty four. Gideon said unto them, I would desire a request of you that ye would give me every man the earrings of his spoil, for they had golden earrings because they were Ishmaelites. Now that again is interesting from the point of view of, um, ancient nationality, because in Genesis chapter twenty five we are told that Midian was a descendant of Abraham through one of the, uh, sons of Keturah, the wife that Abraham took after Sarah. Whereas, of course, Ishmaelites were descended from Ishmael, descendant, of course, of Abraham, but by his wife Hagar the Egyptian. So originally the Midianites, those sort of blood, uh, or or so that related to the Midianites, Ishmaelites, they were of separate origin, though both nationally descendants of Abraham. But they appear to have intermixed, so that by this time in history, Ishmaelites and Midianites are one and the same thing. Geographically, the Midianites lived somewhat to the southeast of Israel. That accounts for the records here that say that they brought Amalekites and the children of the east with them when they came to invade Israel. But then, even so, tying them down geographically is a little bit of a problem. Because while in some sense they were based to the southeast of Israel, yet nevertheless, the thing that made them such a tremendous pest to the nation of Israel at this particular time in history was that they were nomads. That is to say, their lifestyle was the lifestyle of a people that don't regard themselves as altogether restricted to one particular area there permanently to settle, but roamed around the place with their flocks seeking pasture. And as the early verses of chapter six tell us, the damage they did to Israel was precisely in this fashion. From time to time, they would come up in their thousands with their camels and asses and everything else they had, not so much as regular armies, but as vast hordes of nomads. They would spill over the border, if spill is the right word, because these nomads in their wandering, always looking for food, always looking for pasture, knew exactly when to come into Israel. The Israelites by this time were settled in the land. They were no more pilgrims. They had reached their goal. They had settled down. They were trying to occupy the land, and being settled down, they had taken to farming. And if you're a farmer, of course, you've got to settle down. You can't be here today and there tomorrow. As a farmer, you must settle down. You sow the crops in the ground that you've plowed, and you stay around until harvest time, and you develop a settled way of life with all that goes with a settled way of life, the springing up of towns and villages and institutions of one kind and another. Whereas nomads do not travel to, to, to plant crops themselves. They live by wandering here and wandering there, now a while here, now a while somewhere else. But because they are always looking for pasture and food, they knew exactly when to come. Indeed, when Israel had plowed, sowed, and the harvest was nearly ready, then in came the, the Midianite hordes and gobbled up everything that they could possibly lay their hands on. It made them a fearful pest to a nation like Israel that had now settled down and trying to attain to an ordered, settled, organized way of life. Now, all that is very interesting, because if you will go back in history a moment, you will remember that the Israelites themselves and their forebears had once been nomads, hadn't they? At least so the social anthropologists would have a c- would have counted them. Abraham, for instance, he had once been a city dweller in Ur of Chaldees, with all that goes along with city life and permanent housing and city organization and the arts and the crafts and the ordered way of life, and up catching the eight twenty five to the factory in the morning and that kind of thing, and coming home for your tea at six o'clock at night. Ah, do see. And then he left all that. With his protest against that way of life, he became, as the, uh, some historians would call him, a nomad, though he wouldn't have owned to the title himself. For Abraham would have maintained that there was a vast difference between being a nomad, just wandering here and there and here and there, and being a pilgrim. Indeed, Abraham didn't leave Ur of Chaldees particularly because he thought it was a wicked or bad place, but rather for the excellency of the glory of that goal which God had, uh, ho- holden out before him. Abraham was a pilgrim, and though for many years he and his descendants lived in the land of Palestine without possessing so much as to put their foot on, and went up and down the land, journeying through it as though he was some kind of gypsy or nomad, yet all the while there burned in the heart of Abraham and his descendants the sense that they were pilgrims. They were marching to their goal. And by this time, his descendants, having passed four hundred years in Egypt, took to the desert again, marching still until they had arrived. Now was the time to settle down. Now the time to plow and to plant. Now the time to reap the full benefit of their glorious inheritance. And adopt the life of the village and the city dweller. That ain't a perfect pest. If you're trying to settle down with your house and your bit of front garden and back garden and your field around you, the crops all nicely there, to have all of a sudden, one Monday morning, a whole host of rootless people coming up down the street, settling on your land, eating your carrots, knocking the barns over and ruining everything, and then going on and leaving you in beggary. Such were the Midianites. They liked it that way. Do you remember that, uh, not only is that true of them, but, uh, in some sense God prophesied it would be true of Ishmael. No wonder Ishmael and Midian, related both of them to Abraham, formed such close bonds in later years. Of Ishmael, it was said thus. The angel who found her mother Sarah fled from Abraham and sa- uh, found her mother Hagar fled from Abraham and Sarah, said this. Behold, thou art with child and shalt bear a son, and thou shalt call his name Ishmael, because the Lord hath heard thy affliction, and he shall be a wild ass among men. His hand shall be against every man, and every man's hand against him, and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren, or over against his brethren. Difficult fellow, Ishmael, even personality-wise, wasn't he? Never agreed with anybody. His hand against everybody else, everybody's else hand against him, and it wouldn't have been so bad if he'd have then gone and emigrated to Australia and left the rest of us in peace. That he wouldn't do. He dwelt over against his brethren. A awkward cuff of a fellow. I was against you, and you against him, disturbing the peace. So was Midian too. Of course, they developed some civilized arts. Ishmaelites, like the Canaanites of whom we talked last week, were merchantmen, because in their semi-nomadic state, yes, they would have their wares that they picked up here and sold somewhere else. But for all that, they weren't settled, technological, economically based as the Canaanites, but as I say, nomads that found or that made themselves such a disturbance among people that were trying to settle down and live an order. And you can imagine the squabbles, can't you? I fancy it would happen again if it happened on your back garden tomorrow, and you came back and found a lot of squatters all sitting on the garden and ruining the lawn and, uh, uh, digging up the winter potatoes, running off with them. Oh wow! What an argument of words there would arise as to who owned what and us and us. His hand shall be against every man, and every man's hand, uh, against him. It takes, doesn't it, quite a lot of, um, give and take, organization, mutual understanding to live a settled life, the life of a settled community. Respect for other people's property, respect for other people's rights. And if you get folks that don't have those basic respects in their form of life, you are bound to have trouble and problems and strife. You begin, I suspect, to form your opinion of these ancient people, the Midianites. As you do so, let me, uh, now remind you of the times when Israel in particular, both nationally and individually, came in contact with them. Times when Israel, so to speak, were weak and eventually fell under their domination. There is the famous occasion, is there not, that I have already mentioned, when, uh, Joseph got sold to the Midianites. Yes. Remember the occasion. Joseph had told his dream, and his brethren conceived a bitter hatred and a jealousy for Joseph. Some of them were nearly to the point of murder in their anger and jealousy against Joseph. Reuben and others put in a voice of moderation, and in the end, uh, this fraternal strife led them to sell him to the Midianites. So many centuries later, Israel were in Egypt, according to the book of Exodus in chapter two. They were hard pressed by the Egyptians when Moses, who had been taken into Pharaoh's household and reared as the son of Pharaoh's daughter, decided one day to go out and visit his brethren. And he saw an Egyptian smiting a Hebrew. And he looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no man, he smote the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. And he went out the second day, and behold, two men of the Hebrews strove together. I wonder what it was all about, this strife they had. We're not told, but we are told that he said to him that did the wrong, wherefore smitest thou thy fellow? And he said, Who made thee a prince and a judge over us? Thinkest thou to kill me as thou killest the Egyptian? And Moses feared and said, Surely the thing is known. Now, when Pharaoh heard this, he sought to slay Moses. Poor Moses, like a good many before him, trying to put right family quarrels and, uh, strife among brethren, he got the worst end of the stick himself, and he fled and came to Midian. It was not so far off Egypt, was it? And coming from this, uh, abortive attempt to try and solve the strife of his brethren, he got down to the land of Midian, and he sat down by a well. And, uh, the priest of Midian had some daughters who came out to water their father's flock, and the shepherds came and drove them away. But Moses stood up, and he helped them. Do you see the pattern that is beginning to emerge? You will find Midian close at hand as a kind of harbor of refuge when the Israelites are suffering from strife among themselves. And when he got to Midian, then he had to, um, deal with the shepherds who tried to force the daughters of Midian away, and he settled that bit of unpleasantness. The years passed, and Moses had by this time, says Exodus eighteen, delivered the Israelites out of Egypt, and, uh, they had begun their journey across the wilderness. And though they were redeemed, you know, by the blood of the Passover lamb and led by the pillar of cloud, uh, and the pillar of fire, like a good many saints since that day, didn't always see eye to eye. In fact, they were quite constantly falling out with each other about this and that and t other, and when they fell out, they were in the habit of bringing their quarrels and their disagreements before Moses. Well, Moses was very busy from day to day, from morning to night, in fact, so we're told in the record, solving the litigation among his brethren. When one day it was announced to Moses that Jethro, his father-in-law, the Midianite, had arrived. My dear boy, he said, when at last he got five minutes after waiting I don't know how many days to have a word with his son-in-law. My dear boy, you can't go on like this. You'll wear yourself out. All this sitting in the law courts. Wow, sensible solicitors and judges take it in very, very small doses. They don't sit here from morning to night trying cases. Man, you'll have a nervous breakdown. Now, said Midian, you listen to me, for I'm an expert in these legal matters and settling strife and law courts and all that kind of business. Uh, now appoint lesser judges to deal, you know, county court judges kind of thing, uh, to deal with the, uh, lower cases. And then when you have a real good puzzler and it's got to come to the Lords of Appeal, well, you sit yourself, Moses. Yes. And we seem to be in the same kind of context, don't we? Context of strife and litigation and unrest. That it was in Gideon's day. And we shall see it, in fact, in the last paragraph that we read this evening at the beginning. Will you not notice that the Israelites themselves were divided? And so seriously divided that the men of the city clamored outside the door to have Gideon brought out and put to death. And his father Joash had to dispute the issue with them. It was a sad kind of disobedience. Whatever it caused, and we shall presently deal with it. It brought upon them God's discipline in the form of these massive invasions by the nomad Midianites. And it had the effect, we're told, that the Midianites came up by their thousands, camels, asses, and everything else you could fi- mention. They came up like mo- locusts from altitude. And when Israel had sown, they came up, destroyed the increase of the earth. I wonder, can you see that this enemy too had the effect of cancelling out one of the basic principles of the nation's existence? They had been slaves once down in Egypt. When Moses had come to them in the name of God with a glorious gospel, that God had come down to deliver them, that was glorious, but also that he might take them to a land flowing with milk and honey, so that the goal set before them was a pilgrimage to an inheritance, and they were promised that when they got to the end, the inheritance, it would be a rich land, full of marvelously good things. Beautiful Jersey cows, if not Friesians, giving milk with cream on the top, such as you never did see, and luscious foliage and beautiful flowers in which the bees buzzed and eventually produced gorgeous honey, enough to make any man's mouth water. It was worth trudging all the way across the wilderness to get an inheritance so rich and marvelous, where you then might sit in your bower and eat your honey and drink your milk and enjoy your vine. Yes. And there were some in Israel who'd actually known that. Call, they used to say to the youngsters, you know, when we first came into this land, we do remember the big farmers, and cool if you had gone to them on a Saturday night, what a display they put on their board, pears, apples, oranges, lemons, grapes, nuts, honey, milk. Ah. It was some years now since they'd had a feast like that. Indeed, there were some of them whose only concept of an inheritance was bitter internal strife and the hordes of Midian eating up every bit of food that they could lay their mouths on. You wouldn't, I hope, know what I, uh, what crosses my mind at this moment, would you? It is a part of our redemption, isn't it? That not only have we been redeemed from the wrath of God and the penalty of sin, but we've been redeemed that we may might be brought out into an inheritance. An inheritance that in one sense lies beyond, incorruptible and undefiled, and that fades not away, but an inheritance that we are meant to be enjoying in part even now. And not only enjoying it individually, but as Paul would put it, that you might be strengthened, that along with all the saints, you might know what is the length and breadth and height and depth of the love of God, which part of knowledge. Yes, and uh, Christian folks have known it, haven't they? I hope you still do. The superb spiritual richness of being a member of the redeemed people of God, with God dwelling in their midst, the very earnest of the inheritance already possessed in the person of the Holy Spirit. To know unitedly as redeemed people together, the wealth and riches of those, that spiritual inheritance that is ours. Haven't you known it? When, as you were by the lathe, carving out that bit of metal, or dealing with obstreperous children in the schools, or difficult customers, awkward and odd and difficult to satisfy, your mind went to the fact how it was the meeting of the church tonight, and the very fact lit up your heart with expectation of the wonderful spiritual sustenance and food and richness that you might expect in the gathering of the holy nation. But you know we should be less than reali- realists if we weren't aware of the fact that sometimes things go wrong. And there enters in such internal strife and external enemies. Instead of the experience of God's people being a delightfully rich spiritual inheritance, the very thought of the meetings of the believers conjures up interminable squabbles. That has the inevitable result of parching the place, dry of spiritual moisture. And folks come, and instead of being fed are distressed, and go away hungry. What a sad contradiction it was. In the land, robbed virtually of almost all the good of their spiritual inheritance. Faced with that kind of thing, the Israelites did what I suppose is very natural. They made them the strongholds which were in the mountain. Well, naturally so, I suppose, because their first thought was for survival. If you saw ten thousand and one camels coming up the road, backed by ten thousand and one, uh, Midianites, plus asses and goodness knows what else, though you had a crop of beans in your back garden, you probably thought that, uh, uh, uh, safety lay in in flight, and you ran as hard as your legs could carry you up the mountains and and got in a cave and shut yourself in, and you say, I'm going to survive any rate. But that was a tactic of limited use, wasn't it? Because the Amalekite gob- gobbled up your stuff, and then when he'd gone, you had nothing to live on. It might appear to be a tactic for survival, but only short time survival, wasn't it? If that was the only answer you had to it, you were already defeated. Necessary, therefore, to look at the cause and see whether something could be done about the cause that had let in these Midianites under the discipline of God. And the cause is spelt out for us in chapter six, verses seven to ten, Where God reminds the Israelites that he brought them up out of the house of bondage, and he delivered them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and said unto them, I am the Lord your God, you shall not fear the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell, but you have not hearkened unto my voice. The cause, as always, but here expressly said, disobedience to the plain word of God, now so habitual that folks think it is obedience to the word of God. For as we read, when Gideon rose up, cast down the altar of Baal, the men of the city came clamoring around his house and demanded that he be put to death. You judge how far they had gone in their plain disobedience to the word of God, when they would have executed the very man that would have obeyed it. And jealously guarded the men that were perpetrating the disobedience. It is one of the sorry and inevitable results of disobedience to the word of God, that it does and will introduce strife among the people of God. We needn't confine our minds to what you might call petty things. Let's try and think big for a moment, and think of those very big things that, uh, so scar the outward appearance of Christendom. A Christendom that advertises to the world at large that it is divided into a thousand and one splinter groups. How has it come to be? Well, this much you can say, however it's come to be, one simple and obvious thing is evident at once. Holy Scripture explicitly forbids us to announce to the world that Christian folks are divided by calling ourselves denominational names. Doesn't it? I was in the drawing room in the early summer, where I had been asked to give a talk about the church's relation to evangelism. And among some of the things I said, radical, I suppose, in their simplicity, that we did well in our evangelical campaign, in our presentation of the gospel to the world, to be careful about our advertising. I said, you know, in the country of Spain, the Roman Catholic Church has taught the people that if you give people at large the Bible into their own hands and let them get on with interpreting it, it will divide them into a thousand and one sects. And I said we have now reached the stage where Spain is beginning to open up to the gospel, and what is happening? Well, there they are. One thousand and one sects on the borders, so to speak, waiting to come into Spain and prove the Roman Catholic Church right by campaigning in the name of a thousand and one different denominations and putting the name proudly over their door to make sure that the Spaniards understand, look here, I'm a Christian, but not like that chap down the road. Please don't mistake me with him. I'm different. And then I was very bad and wicked and naughty. Do you know, I said if a man from Mars came down to Belfast, not knowing anything about Christian things at all, and he looked round our church buildings, I said, you know, in many of them he wouldn't even guess that we were Christians, would he? He wouldn't know we were Christians. We don't even tell the world we're Christians. Oh. We tell the world we're this and that and other. And so engrossed are we with those things that we forget to tell the world even that we are Christians. And I close my remarks by saying, and you know, when this kind of thing began to rear its head in the Church of Corinth, and they began to call themselves names according to their little group. Paul stamped on it hard. And so should we. And I finished. And two friends present, when they had just, uh, got over the first sentence, which all Irishmen do, congratulating a speaker as though he were the archangel. They said, but you know, we didn't agree with that bit because we think our denominational names are very nice and good. And it's a jolly good thing. All right. But then you must be prepared if you disobey Holy Scripture like that, to perpetuate the state, mustn't you? Of a Christendom divided and advertising its differences and its strifes to the world. Oh, my dear Christian friend, I ask you to take this exceedingly seriously. Nor be content with throwing stones at others, but examine your own heart as I examine mine. Don't you please dare to disobey Holy Scripture and own the name of any denomination, even though that denomination be the brethren. God forbids it. And it were difficult to explain to the Lord if we take the liberty of disobeying his word and adding to the confusion of Christendom by calling ourselves by the name of a circle of churches that has formed itself into a denomination. There are a thousand and one other things, are there not, over which if we don't, uh, agree with God's word, our simple disobedience will have the automatic effect of leading to strife and division. What then is the cure? Well, the cure is not as simple as you might think. We sometimes imagine that if things are wrong, and we can see that they are wrong, well, then it is a simple matter to put them right. That is not necessarily so. The great Saul, who came to be king of Israel, had to be taught a humble little lesson. Certain asses belonging to his father got lost. Silly asses. They wandered here and wandered there. Will anybody see, could see that they got lost and got wrong, said Saul. He would go and find them and bring them back. Stupid asses. We found out it was a more difficult job than he thought. Which perhaps was not a bad lesson before he ascended the throne of Israel. It is easy sometimes to see that folks have gone wrong. But we should be oversimple if we thought it were just as easy, therefore, to put them right. And when a nation as here was sorely divided through their disobedience to God's holy word. It was a long, long time, in fact. For God had brought Gideon, their deliverer, to the point where he was now at last ready to deliver them. What would you have gone for? You say, well, that's a simple question, my dear brother. You are making heavy water of a very simple thing. Look, if they have disobeyed the word of God, what you go in and do is to smite their head with the Bible, knock it in somehow. No, you don't do. It would be a poor tactician if you did. For will you notice what Holy Scripture says about these Midianites that had been let in by the weakness in the nation? They came into the land to destroy it. They did most certainly. Their enemy was interested in filching all their food, which left them in starvation. And I suppose it's a good thing for the people of God to obey the Lord, even if their bones stick through their skin with hunger. But dead people can't obey much anything, can they? And in face of an enemy like this, strategy number one must be, at any cost, to preserve the food supply. Yes? And Gideon knew his job. And we are told in verses eleven and twelve that when the angel first of all accosted Gideon, Gideon was in fact hiding himself out, hiding himself up in a winepress, beating out wheat, maintaining his family's food supply. It was vital. And when at last Gideon stood poised with his armed men to make the final assault upon the enemy and rid Israel of that enemy. He sought assurance from God that he was in the mind of God and the battle would be a success, and he was getting cold feet. So God gave him direction for his encouragement that he was to take a servant of his and go down to the perimeter of the Midianite camp by night. So down he went and did a little eavesdropping over the edge of the Midianite camp, and behold, there was a Midianite that was telling a fellow Midianite of his dream, and he said, I dreamed and I saw of all strange things under the sun. Think you what psych- psychiatric treatment I would need, said he. I, I, I dreamed and a barley cake came rumbling into the camp and knocked this tent over and presently knocked all the lot over. And his fellow, who must have been a kind of psychiatrist, said, well, you know what that represents, don't you? That's Gideon. Old barley cake Gideon. Yeah. They had come into the land to destroy it. One man they hadn't been able to destroy, he kept that food supply going for his family for years. And that was the eventual secret of his triumph. If ever such an unhappy situation should come upon you, you could do worse than listen to this bit of advice. Our great enemy Satan is interested in getting us to disobey God for its own sake, but he is very interested in using it to the consequent strife it will bring in order to blot out the spiritual food supply. Sometimes we get things in wrong proportion, don't we? We're so keen on what should be correct, that we'll hammer what we think correct, even if it means everybody starves. Obedience is important. Not if believers get so starved of spiritual food that they fall by the wayside, you won't have any believers left to obey, will you, what? Number one importance, that the food supply be maintained. That Gideon did. And it was in those years, when so many folks were being starved out of their homes, starved out of their inheritance, because of the troubles that were upon the nation at large, that Gideon was maintaining the food supply for himself individually and for his personal family, and more. He so maintained the food supply that when the angel of the Lord visited him, and he realized who it was, none less than God come down to visit him, Gideon had a rich supply to put before the angel in worship and adoration. A man who was in such enjoyment, in spite of what other folks were doing, enjoyment of his inheritance, that when God visited him, his heart full of praise and a lovely surprise to present to the Lord himself. It is a tragic thing, isn't it? It is one of the most tragic results of strife. When it comes and people are starved spiritually and their collective experience is one of mere bitterness and strife, it not only dries them up in their experience, but it leaves them impoverished, and they have very little to give to God. Oh, find a heart that is literally correct last to the very last comma, but is impoverished and hasn't had a good spiritual square meal for months, and has no sense of God's richness, nothing to offer to God in worship, and you find a man that is virtually dead while he lives. And an assembly in that state is tragic indeed to behold. In that moment, as the angel touched the sacrifice and it went up, accepted by God, Gideon felt he had seen the very face of God, and he built an altar there and called the name of the place Jehovah Shalom. Lovely word, Shalom. It means peace. Peace in the sense, of course, of absence of hostility. Peace. It means more than that. It means peace in the sense of health. Even to this day, if one Hebrew meets another, he says, mashalomaka, what is your peace? He doesn't mean, have you been fighting with your wife recently or somebody? He means, how are you? How is your general soundness of health? It means wholeness. It means peace and plenty. That sense of wholeness and richness and peace that comes upon a heart that is in tune with God has not only been redeemed, but is enjoying its spiritual inheritance and the wealth of God's provision. If it should be that ever we came into circumstances of strife and miserable spiritual poverty in consequence. We shall prepare ourselves the better for being used of God to deliver both us and his people. If we are those that have concentrated above all else on keeping the spiritual supplies open, men and women in whose heart there is a sense of the richness of God and the wonder of God. And know what it is to worship God out of the sense of the sheer abundance of the spiritual good he has provided. The Lord help us to be such men and women for his namesake. Shall we pray? O God, we thank thee for thy holy word. We thank thee too for its warnings as to the sad results of disobedience. And we pray, Lord, that thou wilt speak these warnings to our hearts. Grant, O Lord, that we shall not be those among thy people who cause conflict and strife through disobedience to thy word. And Lord, we do pray that in spite of our frailties, in spite of all difficulties that may surround us, thou will keep us in enjoyment of those spiritual riches which are ours in Christ Jesus. We praise thee that our resources cannot be shut off from thee, and that our enjoyment of them need not be slackened except by our own fault and sin. Clear our visions, we beseech thee. Help our sense of proportion. Make us men and women that enjoy God and are in such fellowship with thee that we have enough and to spare for others, that others coming alongside us might not be regaled with the troubles and trials and disputes and jealousies that surround us, but may be fed by the overflowing riches of thy luscious board and be strengthened and be made to feel the richness of being sons of the living God. Grant that great sense of peace and wholeness may enter our beings and make us balanced and spiritually wealthy people, that we may have to give to thee in return and worship, and to our fellow Christians, and to those outside who presently die of eternal spiritual hunger. Hear us and thus bless our evening meditation through Jesus Christ our Lord.