Jars of Clay, Part One

the following message by Alistair beg is made available by truth for life for more information visit us online at truth for invite you to turn with me to the Old Testament - the book of Judges and to chapter 6 and follow along as I read it's a long chapter but I'm going to read it all judges and chapter 6 people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and the Lord gave them into the hand of Midian 7 years and the hand of Midian overpowered Israel and because of Midian the people of Israel made for themselves the dens that are in the mountains and the caves and the strongholds for whenever the Israelites planted crops the Midianites and the Amalekites and the people of the east would come up against them they would in camp against them and devour the produce of the land as far as Gaza and leave no sustenance in Israel and no sheep or ox or donkey for they would come up with their livestock and their tents they would come like locusts in number both they and their camels could not be counted so that they laid waste to the land as they came in and Israel was brought very low because of Midian and the people of Israel cried out for help to the Lord when the people of Israel cried out to the Lord on account of the Midianites the Lord sent a prophet to the people of Israel and he said to them thus says the Lord the God of Israel I led you up from Egypt and brought you out of a house of slavery and I delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians and from the hand of all who oppressed you and drove them out before you and gave you their land and I said to you I am the Lord your God you shall not fear the gods of the Anna writes in whose land you dwell but you have not obeyed my voice now the angel of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth that Alfre which belonged to joash the abbeys right while his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites and the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him the Lord is with you o mighty man of Valor and Gideon said to him please my lord if the Lord is with us why then has all this happened to us and where are all his wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us saying did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt but now the Lord has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian and the Lord turned to him and said go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian do not I send you and he said to him please Lord how can I save Israel they hold my clan is the weakest in Manasseh and I am the least in my father's house and the Lord said to him but I will be with you and you shall strike the Midianites as one man and he said to him if now I have found favor in your eyes then show me a sign that it is you who speak with me please do not depart from here until I come to you and bring out my present and set it before you and he said I will stay till your return so Gideon went into his house and prepared a young goat and unleavened cakes from an ephah of flour the meat he put in a basket and the broth he put in a pot and he brought them to him under the terebinth and presented them and the angel of God said to him take the meat and the unleavened cakes and put them on this rock and pour the broth over them and he did so then the angel of the Lord reached out the tip of the staff that was in his hand and touched the meat and the unleavened cakes and fire sprang up from the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened cakes and the angel of the Lord vanished from his sight then Gideon perceived that he was the angel of the Lord and Gideon said alas all for now I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face but the Lord said to him peace be to you do not fear you shall not die then Gideon built an altar there to the Lord and called it the Lord is peace to this day it still stands at Ultra which belongs to the abbey has rights that night the Lord said to him take your father's bull and the second bull seven years old and pulled down the altar of bail that your father has and cut down the Asherah that is beside it and build an altar to the Lord your God on the top of the stronghold here with stones laid in due order then take the second bull and offer it as a burnt offering with the word of the Ashura that you shall cut down so Gideon took 10 men of his servants and did as the Lord had told him but because he was too afraid of his family and the men of the town to do it by day he did it by night when the men of the town was early in the morning behold the altar of bail was broke him down and the Asherah beside it was cut down and the second bull was offered on the altar that had been built and they said to one another who has done this thing and after they had searched and inquired they said Gideon the son of joash has done this thing then the men of the town said to George bring out your son that he may die for he has broken down the altar of bail and cut down the asher beside it but josh said to all who stood against him will you contend for bail or will you save him whoever contends for him shall be put to death by morning if he is a god let him contend for himself because his altar has been broken down therefore on that day Gideon was called Jerry Bell that is to say let bail contend against him because he broke down his altar now all the Midianites and the Amalekites and the people of the east came together and they crossed the Jordan and encamped in the valley of Jezreel but the Spirit of the Lord Claude Gideon and he sounded the trumpet and the abbe has rights were called out to follow him and he sent messengers throughout all Manasseh and they too were called out to follow him and he sent messengers to Asher Zebulun and Naphtali and they went up to meet him then Gideon said to God if you will save Israel by my hand as you've said behold I am laying a fleece of wool on the threshing floor if there is do on the fleece alone and it is dry on all the ground then I shall know that you will save Israel by my hand as you have said and it was so when he rose early next morning and squeezed the fleece he wrung enough Jew from the fleece to fill a bowl with water then Gideon said to God let not your anger burn against me let me speak just once more please let me test just once more with the fleece please let it be dry on the fleece only and on all the ground let there be do and God did so that night and it was dry on the fleece only and on all the ground there was do thanks be to God for his word a brief prayer father what we know not teach us what we have not give us what we are not make us for your son's sake Amen well the theme of the conference as you know from I having registered is taken from Paul's statement in 2nd Corinthians chapter 4 this priceless treasure we hold so to speak in a common earthenware jar to show that the splendid power of it belongs to God and not to us that is Phillips paraphrase of that verse what Paul says there in chapter 4 follows what he has already said in chapter 3 and what he said before that in chapter 2 he had inquired as he thought about the reality of being an aroma on the one hand to some of the savour of death and the other of the joy of life he remarks to himself who is sufficient for these things and as he proceeds he then affirms the fact that our sufficiency is from God and so we have chosen as the title and as the theme for this conference very very purposefully and I think that the fact that you're here is an indication of the fact that you understand just why it would be that we would remind ourselves of these things we are tempted far too easily to be jealous of others on the one hand or proud of ourselves on the other and when we are confronted by those unsavory factors it is wonderfully helpful to have a realignment of our thinking in light of the straightforward instruction of the Bible and not least of all to say to ourselves when we awaken in the morning or when we prepare to go about the duties of the day I am an old clay pot I am an earthenware vessel I am on my best day as reminded by Jesus an unprofitable servant that doesn't mean that I'm useless it just means that I don't get bonus points for my service and some of us perhaps today come with a very necessary reminder of that to remind us of the fact of our own weakness and of our own in capacities it actually comes across as rather strange because of the culture in which we live because unashamedly we have to admit that we live in a culture of self aggrandizement a culture that is not simply outside of the church but if we are honest is within it also some years ago Peggy Noonan writing in the walls street journal remarked about this in relationship to a certain category of individuals in the society and she wrote for 30 years the self-esteem movement told the young they're perfect in every way it's creating something new in history an entire generation with no proper sense of inadequacy with no proper sense of inadequacy which of us does not hear in that appeal of conscience in The Wall Street this morning there was an article in the business section on the difficulties that certain news programs are having because they have invested very very heavily in news anchors known for their style known for their glamour known for all kinds of things and in this particular article that it pointed out the inconsistency and the difficulty of this referring to it as the golden age of broadcast news when networks routinely awarded so-called star actors huge contracts believing the fact that the delivering of the news and the face that delivered the news was as important as the news itself so we've got to get the right face up there we've got to get the right person there's not the news that is so significant oh that's why we have basics we're going to be vibes little convinced of other basics of the message and at the same time absolutely convinced about the basic nature and stature of we the messengers and it is in light of that that I offer to you as an antidote to that particular poison jar of clay exhibit a if you like or exhibit number one namely gideon son of joash the a BS right i decided that a suitable title for this would be jars of clay one and I thought perhaps on Wednesday jars of clay - I'm not one to miss the chance to seize a wonderful title for further talk but that's exactly where we are now let's say two things one this is a huge chunk of material therefore much of the homework will be done by you on your own that means there are certain parts of it I don't really understand secondly this is familiar territory for many of us and therefore I suggest it is dangerous territory any time that we come to a passage like this with which many of us have been familiar from infancy the dangers are are quite staggering and the biggest danger is that we fall foul of a kind of devotional preaching which is really very poor so it's the kind of thing that says my subject this morning from judges 6 is blow your trumpet Gideon blew his trumpet and you should too or dealing dealing with the locusts in your life some of you are not smiling because that was the title that you use anybody ever preached a sermon from judges it's called squeezing the fleece that kind of thing now the way to ensure that we don't do that is context now simply the immediate context of the surrounding passages but context in the whole panorama of God's purpose from all of eternity so that the real question as we read this record needs to confront us with a focus which is actually upon the people of God and what God is doing with his people and when we read judges we discover that there is a recurring cycle of their rebellion against God's purposes God's angry intervention a kind of repentance of a sort on their part and then finally some kind of rescue notably here in the form of a judge and then back it goes again what I found very important in trying to tackle this myself is to remind myself that the lessons that Gideon has to learn here are lessons that the people of God have to learn as a whole and it is in that sense that his personal story then may hold lessons for us in other words if you take the end of Joshua where we've had that great amazing moment where Joshua said if you're not going to do this then choose who you're going to serve and then the people all affirm and we will serve the Lord and it closes in that way and then judges opens and when judges opens we discover that the people who had made such an amazing affirmation have now begun to drift away from their profession there's a recurring story not only of the church in the Old Testament but the church itself if you fast for although and all the way to the end of the book of Judges what did we discover it says that the people had no King and the everybody was doing what was right in his own eyes and pointing forward to the fight that they were looking for a king and they were needing a king but then we go forward from that and when they had their king then they realized that there is no king here who can deal with all of this therefore they needed a king to out King their kings so this is what God is doing so always what God is doing calling Abram out of ur and working in and through all of these variety of circumstances so it is not it is not that a Gideon is somehow irrelevant but he is incidental he's incidental and when we understand that he fits within this far larger panorama then we will at least be saved from the the worst of tendencies along the lines that I'm suggesting so the question is what are the people doing and were told that immediately in the first verse the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and what is God doing verse 7 tells us when the people of Israel cried out to the Lord the Lord sent a prophet sent a prophet to them an unnamed prophet who is dispatched not to relieve them of their predicament but to provide an explanation as to why they're in the predicament in the first place you have not obeyed my voice that is essentially the message that the Prophet is given to convey you see that they are done in verse 10 I said you I am the Lord your God I told you not to fear the gods of the amorite in whose land you dwell but you have not obeyed my voice now just at the point where we might have expected that since that was true God might unleash his anger we actually have the appearance of an angel is one of those passages where we wish we could read it for the first time so that we could sense the wonder of it as we read the tenth verse and then into the eleventh now the angel of the Lord came now this business of angels and the Lord and the angel of the Lord then the Lord it's hard isn't it it's hard for us to usually understand it and then to teach it in a way that doesn't confuse our people it's pretty clear from the dialogue that follows that in one moment it would appear to be something and then it appears to be something else I take it that it is a pre-incarnate revelation of the Lord Himself it takes Gideon a little while to grasp this so we are not to be too surprised if we find it difficult to now with all of that said essentially by way of introduction I would like to gather my thoughts around three words I will spend an inordinate amount of time on the first word and then I'll try and finish on time with the other two and the first word is simply called called now the angel of the Lord came and sat under the tearin when that opera and so on and he calls out Gideon in fact any ESV we have the title there the call of Gideon now clearly his circumstances as we know are inauspicious to say the least they don't find him in a very wonderful spot living in significance but an actual fact he is representative of the entire predicament of the nation he's no longer able to win over the wheat in the open air in full view of everyone in a context where the breeze would catch it allow the chaff to blow away and allow the grain to settle now what we're told is that he is working away in a hollow in the ground in a tiny circumstance in obscurity he is along with the rest of them impoverished he's impresses oppressed and he embodies their predicament I just pause there and say perhaps you have arrived today and you say wow that's pretty well where I'm you you ought to see where I work I work in a hollow in the ground as well and and I've been working in obscurity for a number of years well that may well be the case but God always knows where we are and who we are and what he's doing now these folks were in this position we learn from the text because they were torn and they were torn between the paganism of the surrounding culture that is represented in this ashtray appalled and the shrine that was essentially if you like in Gideon's back garden they are confronted on the one hand by this and they are aware on the other hand of the authority and of the demands of Yahweh himself and so it is that as we read through the opening chapters of Judges they find themselves so strikingly on the wrong side of offense with successive occasion and in the midst of all of that the call comes to this man Gideon now what is striking about Gideon as he's given to us is that there is nothing striking about him at all that's what's striking he clearly does not fit the description or the designation with which he is greeted by the angel the Lord is with you or mighty man of Valor now every so often we get these dreadful telephone calls don't we where we can't recognize the number and we say shall I take it shall I not take it and then we take it because we're curious and it says something like and this call is for and and we have to say well you got the wrong number well I imagine that that's exactly what's happened to him this call is for Gillian the mighty man of Valor I'm sorry you have the wrong number that is not who I am well God sends his angel not because he has the wrong number but because he has the right man and the initiative here and we want to make sure we understand this the initiative is with God in response to the rebellion of the people he has sent a prophet to speak to them now he sends an angel to this servant in order that he might in turn be useful in God's purposes let's just note that this is not a volunteer position let's just pay attention to the fact that this is not an individual who's got a lot of large view of his own significance and who said you know I know we've got a lot of trouble here but I'm definitely the man for this no he's not a volunteer he's a conscript as I understand gospel ministry as I understand the task to which we've been called there's another volunteer position this is a conscription this is a call charles bridges in his masterful book on the christian ministry devotes an entire chapter to what he refers to as the want of a divine call as a main cause of failure in the christian ministry the want of a divine call as a main cause of failure in the christian ministry in other words to proceed without having been said to the task is presumption or stupidity or sinfulness and it is clear just from the reading of church history that many have a few like bumped up against a pulpit who apparently had no divine initiative behind their actions says bridges the ministry as a matter of pure grace and favor who then will dare to enter it without a divine call wow that's the call that comes to Gideon and we might think that as a result of that he would have been just immediately up and ready for action and yet what did we discover and the Lord is with you a mighty man of Valor and Gideon said to him please my lord if the Lord is with us pardon me I just send an angel to you I've come to address you myself and tell you that I the Lord I'm with you and your responses if I'm with you don't be too hard on him the Lord has seen us in our studies he knows us in the nighttime if as you say the Lord is with us I have a question he says why is it then that all of this has happened to us well of course the answer has already been given at the end of there Stan you have not obeyed my voice but Gideon is not putting the pieces of the puzzle together and if you are if the Lord is with us why then is this happen to us and furthermore here's a second question where are all the wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us when they were telling us about how they came up out of Egypt why is none of this going on now this is port and acknowledge this is not an uncommon kind of dialogue between the heart of many of us in God himself if you really called me to this place why in the world is it like this and if I really am the cold of God in the servant of the gospel and where's all the stuff that's supposed to be happening where's all the good stuff where's all the church history and the drama and the outpouring and the conversions where is it that's what he's saying and it gets worse actually he and he is actually in informing the Lord he wants the Lord to know that this is that the problem is this didn't the Lord bring us up out of Egypt now the Lord he says let me tell you what the problem is Lord the Lord has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian so now he's telling the world what the issues the Lord has come to him and I he's going to give the Lord was he a young man I don't know I looked in vain see how old he is maybe he was young because when you're young you tend to be rather foolish some of us have not escaped this even with the passage of time but in the second volume of lloyd-jones ian murray courts a fellow called tailor who makes this observation a young minister is prone to try to attain by one jump the height which others have reached by a long series of single steps in the labor of a quarter of a century you see gideon does not emerge out of a bubble somewhere already made fit kitted out amenable to the challenges and observably the obvious fellow for the task no his dad has a pagan shrine in the garden he's working in a hollow in the ground he doesn't pay attention to the word that he's spoken to him by the lord himself and he is gods where did we get this idea that god is searching the universe for the high school quarterbacks for the big tall handsome guys for the people who are so obviously the find who can take charge of things well I suggest we never got it from our Bibles we certainly don't get it from judges chapter 6 I'm encouraged by this and I hope you are that the one who is about to be greatly used by the Lord is tolerated when he asks these questions and he has another one up his sleeve in verse 15 and he said to him please Lord how can I save Israel well clearly you can't save Israel you rascal I just told you in verse 14 you can go in this might of yours and save Israel this might of mine that's what I mean I don't have any might how can I save Israel and now once again he's letting the Lord know you might not know this Lord but my clan is the weakest in Manasseh you don't understand and I am the least in my father's house it's like it's like he meant enough you've got this football team that through an entire season has never won a game okay just imagine just imagine and and and the fella that we're gonna put in position he couldn't even get a tryout for this team let alone any other team do you realize Who I am I can't even get a tryout for the team that has lost every single game in an entire season Lord you need to know who you're dealing with here you really want me to go ahead and do this I can I find that helpful unless of course you're walking around your room going hey I just and so clearly the person I just I'm sure they're all waiting to hear from me yes I guarantee you they're not no he was the light the least likely to be picked it was the last for every game now again remember what's happening here God is dealing with his people he is incidental to the huge project that is going on he is a piece of it what is God doing he has a plan he's going to unite tribes and languages and peoples and tongues in a great celebration you have been faithful to a thousand generations and here in the midst of that this amazing encounter you see what we have here in a statement of the Lord to Gideon is a statement that is at the same time both ironic and prophetic it is ironic in that he is not a mighty man of Valor but he is about to show himself as a mighty man of Valor because that is the way that God works so what does he do well he asks for a sign he asked for a sign so that he might be really sure that this is really the Lord and that this is really his promise verse 17 and he said to him if now I have found favor in your eyes show me a sign that it is you who speak to me well what what a patient Lord and God we have who listens to this kind of drivel from us routinely it's amazing isn't it if I found favor in your eyes then show me a sign that issue and please don't leave until I come back here I'm gonna get to set I'm gonna get a meal for us and he said I will stay until you return now I'm going to leave you with that next section there I don't want to I don't want to camp on it it is it's a dramatic moment isn't it if you felt microwaves were fantastic then you realize way before then the tip of the staff was able to touch the meat and burn up the and consume the cakes and then so you have the consumption of the meal you have the vanishing of the angel and you have a terrified Gideon he's not ready to go on on Christian TV and and explain Wow why did we have a weird an evening the other evening I just wanted to tell you about it yes it was an angel he came to me yes Gideon and I said to him a number of things some good questions and and and then em and we had a meal and I I knew you'd be impressed by this no no this is like the disciples on the lake isn't it this is Isaiah in the temple the dramatic display of the intervention of God that brings the servant of God to his face on the ground he was terrified alas Lord I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face he knew that if ever you were to save God face to face you would surely die but the Lord said some peace don't be afraid you won't die so Gideon built an altar they are to the Lord and called it the Lord is peace I'd love to have seen him just putting it all together talking to himself under his breath I shouldn't have asked all those questions after putting it in place so this day it still stands an offeror which belongs to the Abbey as writes whoa the Abbey has rights yes it's like saying belongs to the Scots or something and people say they're who are they really now this terror is again I love it when when we read to our grandchildren now from from The Lion the Witch in the war of and see their eyes get larger as we introduce them to Aslan the lion the great lion and like Susan they say who is he quite safe I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion safe said mrs. beaver who said anything about safe course he isn't safe but he's good he's the king I tell you twas grace that taught my heart to fear and grace my fears relieved says ralph davis don't aren't you envious of how much he can put in a sentence listen to this there is nothing amazing about grace as long as there is nothing fearful about holiness that's good now I wish I could tell you that that was mine but it isn't and you would have known anyway you would have said he got that from somewhere so from the sign to the assignment we're still under the call if in case you've ever wondered we're still under the call the book of Joshua as we've noted has ended with the determination of God's people to put away the foreign gods from among them to serve the Lord and now here we have a direct encounter with this and so this is what I want you to do I want you to tackle the enemy that is right here among us now once again I'm not going to camp on this it's familiar territory you understand what's going on and what is what is so striking and so important is that here in verse 24 he builds an altar to the Lord and then in 25 and following he is told to tear down the altar that exists in his father's yard to bail himself in other words the the call of God to the people of God is a call to obedience it is a call to do what is clearly and plainly the right thing to do and to take a stand against that which is clearly the wrong thing to do we could expand on that but I won't you see the issue as you read judges is that the people really didn't want to change their loves the people didn't really want to get rid of their idols they wanted both and they wanted to be able to say yeah I really love God and I'm really prepared to obey Yahweh but I just just want to make sure that I know clearly the church in every generation faces the battle doesn't and we could again I say expand on that perhaps in Q&A now Gideon's obedience is straightforward and it is impactful he does as he's been directed we recognize the fact that he was too afraid of his immediate family were told and he was too afraid to do it in broad daylight but he went out and made sure that it all happened during the night but he got it done he got it done and the reaction that is then to that is there for us in the text and it is an immediate reaction that is revealed in the life of his father Joe Ashe and this is a very humorous little piece I suggest to you with a kind of foretaste of Elijah and the prophets of bail when the folks tracked down in the morning the culprit responsible for the tearing down of the altar they get it to Josh's house they find out that it is Joe Ash's son and so they said well why don't you bring him out here and we'll take care of him and then to ask whether this was a great moment of conversion for him or whatever it was we don't know but he comes on pretty strong he says listen if Bale is as mighty as you say he is then let him take care of matters himself he'll be able to do it he doesn't need he doesn't need the local the local council to make sure that this happens and of course they are left speechless before that that would be fine except that what is there within them is also around them and the record tells us that in verse 33 and following the hosts that were surrounding them were large and as we've seen earlier in the chapter is significant and so having dealt with that they now are going to have to deal with this as numerous as appearing like locusts their camels couldn't even be counted and that's my second word in verse 34 I think it's almost the turning point in the whole passage but the Spirit of the Lord clothes Gideon so that not only was Gideon called but he was at the same time clothed he has listened to the Word of God as it has come to him he has been promised the presence of God you go and I will be with you he's about to learn that one plus God actually equals a majority and he discovers on what basis it will be that he the least in the last servant of God can anticipate victory over the overwhelming tide of opposition that has so clearly impoverished God's people the Spirit of God closed Gideon literally the Spirit of God clothed himself with Gideon clothed himself achillion so Gideon now is so clearly God's man the Spirit of God taking hold of his life giving him the Grace and the power necessary to do what he'd been asked to do brothers this is our only basis for what we do this is why at the end of the Gospels and at the beginning of Acts when the followers of Jesus come to him and say are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel and remember Jesus says what kind of question is that no no let me tell you what I'm going to do I'm gonna send you fellows out to the ends of the earth to declare the reality of who I am and what has happened here and what will yet be but you shouldn't plan on going without the promised power of the Holy Spirit whom I will send to you who remember in that amazing moment in John is it we're in that private encounter with him it says it says that he breathe on them he breathed on them if you like give them us an inkling of what was to be what was to take Peter and transform him from the the the more than diffident character that he was into this amazing preacher how did he manage to come up with this amazing sermon on Pentecost the power of God it was so clearly that when they looked at them in the Andes and they took knowledge of them that they that they were unlearned and ignorant men and they took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus and that Jesus who then equipped them by the giving of his spirit and so filled and clothed with the Spirit he put the trumpet to his lips what a moment that was have you tried to play a trumpet it's jolly difficult it's embarrassing actually trying to blow a trumpet you imagine him hmm mm-hmm come on now Gideon give it a good blow and he sounded the trumpet can you imagine what he saved himself this is ridiculous we've gone through all of this and now I'm just supposed to stand here in glory trumpet are you kidding me and who are the first people that come his own folks the Abbey has rights Wow and then the numbers begin to increase until the army reaches 32,000 what a wonderful end to the chapter but no it's not because not only is this fellow called and clothed he is finally constantly in need of reassurance constantly in need of reassurance in fact when you read this passage one of his favorite words is if if it's full of this the Lord is with you if the Lord is with us if now I have found favor if you will save Israel what a character here's a genius insight Gideon was Gideon what I mean by that his temperament his temperament was not obliterated by the call of God his temperament was not obliterated by the promise of the clothing power of God Gideon was Gideon it was if you like refined it was channeled but he remained Gideon he'd managed to take on the Bale worship he'd managed to summon the army to his site but when he wakened up at 3 o'clock in the morning he lay in his bed and he said to himself I wonder if I'm on the right track I wonder if I really should have got into this I wonder if I should still be doing this I wonder if I wonder and so what do we find and he said to God if I'm so glad he said there's so many times if you will save Israel by my hand as you have said so he's not looking for guidance he's looking for assurance God has already promised that he would do this and he says now I just want to make absolutely sure just before we go any further here and you know the story from there I'm laying a fleece of wool on the threshing floor the dew on the fleece so alone is dry and all the ground then I'll know that you've saved will save his robe on my hat and it was so now the chapter should finish their shipment when he rose early the next morning and squeezed the fleece he wrung enough dude from the fleece to fill a bowl with water that's that wasn't just a wee bit wet that was soaking then Gideon said to God thank you so much I feel a great deal better now and we'll get on with this battle just directly in in a day or two then Gideon said to God please let know your anger burn against me look what let me speak just just once more please let me test just once more please let it be dry on the fleece only I know on all the ground leatherby do and God said you know what I'm sick of you Gideon I've had enough of this we've gone the whole chapter and we've done the prophets of bale we've got the whole thing going and we're coming down to this thank you I'll use somebody else entirely I'm gonna move on No and God did so that night and it was try on the fleece only I don't know all the grounds there was - what an amazing God what a fake God must have a big plan in view something much bigger than Gideon exactly what he is doing with Gideon is not irrelevant but it is incidental to what he's actually doing with his people and what God is doing with you and with me in circumstances that often challenge Jason maybe impoverish there's something far better I I have a real sympathy for Gideon I'm sure you do too because you see what God did was he kept Gideon aware of his weakness so that he might continue to depend upon it and here's my final observation this weakness in Gideon is not some unique thing the show for all I've said about his temperament it's not unique if you've taught second Timothy as I did in my early days and I've stopped it now you teaching Timothy now Timothy was it was a strange duck you know he had a bad stomach he was physically frail he was emotionally and psychologically maladjusted he didn't like crowds he was very young and so on well I know yeah he was all of that but did that make him unique you know what it is to have a sore sore stomach with the overwhelming burden of the challenge that's entrusted to us you know what it is to stand up and feel like the prophet of old I can't speak I'm only a youth what do you mean you're only a youth you're sixty eight years old for goodness sake no I'm only our youth and Gideon too so when he speaks in this way it's not it's not false weakness it's not self deprecation it's his real condition so do you see today we may not feel weak at all it has little to do with how I feel I am weak stripped of all human resources forced to lean on God alone forced to acknowledge that I am an old clay part that I am a jar of clay that I am forced wonderfully to lean on God alone I was thinking about it how we have to do this week by week every time you do this you have to do it again and I thought you know if I just change one vowel then I can make a point so let me try week by week but in the second week ei rather than EE here we go week by week for when I am weak then I am strong that is to set out if you like the foundation for what will follow in these days in these addresses and hopefully it is of help and encouragement to us let us pray God our Father thank you for the wonder of your grace and goodness forgive us Lord when we forget that what you're doing is something far greater and more significant than even our own individual part in it help us Lord to keep the big picture in view help us to understand the wonder of your grace from generation to generation when we think for example of our those early 20th century martyrs Jimmy Eliot and Nate st. and how it just seemed such a waste of life that in 1956 they would be swallowed up and taken away and yet we wonder that they sang before they encountered those who were the perpetrators of their demise about resting on you and finding in you all the strength they require god grant that we might find it - and that you use these days to help us to this end for Christ's sake we ask it amen this message was brought to you from truth for life where the learning is for living learn more about truth for life with alistair beg visit us online at truth for

Channel: Alistair Begg

Views: 35,318

Rating: 4.8354979 out of 5

Keywords: Truth For Life, Basics Conference, BIblical Figures, Pastoral Ministry, Pastors

Id: Ca6fhPS_784

Length: 55min 18sec (3318 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 14 2018