Gideon #3: The Manifestation of the Lord Jesus Christ — Ed Miller

Well, good evening, brothers, again. As we come to the study of God's Word, there's a principle of Bible study that is absolutely indispensable, a principle we can't take for granted, we can't live without.

And that principle is total reliance upon God's Holy Spirit. I'm going to ask you to turn just for a moment, please, before we pray and ask the Lord to guide us to Matthew chapter 11, if you would. Matthew chapter 11, please.

Learning Scripture Through the Holy Spirit

And beginning at verse 25. At that time, Jesus said, I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants.

Yes, Father, for this way was well-pleasing in your sight. All things have been handed over to Me by My Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.

Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. My yoke is easy.

My burden is light. As you've probably heard many times, those precious verses at the end of Matthew 11 are applied to the sinner who has never come to know the Lord. Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden.

And there's no question about it. God's truth can be applied to everybody. It can be applied to the sinner who's never come to know the Lord. But I think it's precious to realize that the context is not inviting sinners who have never come to know the Lord to come to know Him.

The context is Bible study. Context is how to understand this book. Jesus looked up to heaven and He said, I thank You, Lord. I thank You, Father, that You've hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and the prudent.

You've revealed them unto little babes. It was good in Your sight. It was Your way. You took pleasure in that. Then He said, Nobody knows the Father, only the Son. Nobody knows the Son, only the Father.

Then He adds, Whoever the Son will reveal Him. And it's to understand this book that He says, All you who are weary and heavy-laden, come to Me and learn of Me. I'll be your teacher. That's what He's saying.

If you will come to Me, if you're weary of studying the Bible and not seeing anything, not hearing the voice of God, not having the Lord revealed, Jesus invites you to let Him be the teacher. Come unto Me, all ye that are weary and heavy-laden.

I'll give you rest. Learn from Me, Jesus said. My yoke is easy. My burden is light. He wants to be our teacher. Now, we can't work up some attitude of childlikeness. He's got to work it in us. But He's promised He would.

If we could come as dry ground, He'd rain His fresh water on us. If we would come with our mouths opened wide, He would fill us. If we would come as little babes, He'd reveal these things to us. We are fools if God tells us the hiding place and then we can't find the treasure.

All these things, all the treasures of wisdom and of knowledge are hidden in Christ Jesus. We know the hiding place. Shame, shame on us if we don't go to that hiding place in order that God might reveal His treasures.

Refreshing From the Presence of the Lord

We're talking these days about the presence of the Lord. Let me read without comment one verse on the presence of the Lord. It's from the book of Acts. I told you I've been going through Acts and how God has been cleansing my heart as I've gone through this book.

But Acts chapter 3, verse 19, Repent and return so that your sins may be wiped away in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord. And isn't that a glorious truth? Times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord and that He may send Jesus the Christ appointed for you.

Let's pray together. Our Father, again this evening, we thank You so much for Your precious Holy Spirit who lives right inside of us, who lives in our heart, the life of God. Thank You that it's Your pleasure to reveal the Son of God to us.

We know that it's not possible to know the Father unless You will to reveal Him unto us. Create in us, we pray, that attitude of child-likeness that receives from You. Deliver us from sophistication in all of its subtle forms.

Show us Yourself. Unscale our eyes. Take the veil away. You who dwell between the cherubim, shine forth. We ask in the all-prevailing name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. I know Wayne wasn't here for the early part.

Anybody else that wasn't here for any of the studies? We've got a couple of brothers that were not here. I'll try to give just a little of the flow. Are you familiar with the Gideon story? That's what we're looking at.

We're looking at the Gideon story. Just bear with me as I just pick up the flow so these brothers can walk through right in step with us as we enter into the heart of the Lord. We're discussing the glorious truth that's expressed in Psalm 1611.

You will make known unto me the path of life. In Your presence is fullness of joy. At Your right hand, pleasures forevermore. Gideon discovered the truth that in the presence of the Lord is where the blessing is.

And Gideon had a great burden that God would bless his people. And God had to teach him what he knew so well, that the blessing is found in the presence of the Lord. And the deeper you go into the presence of the Lord, the more the blessing will come and will flow.

Outside of the presence of the Lord is the opposite of fullness of joy. There's no joy outside of His presence. In the time we're looking at, Judges chapter 6, because of the sin of God's people, God had sent an oppressor and they had been reduced to living in caves and in dens like animals.

Like rats, they had to be scavengers for their provision. They weren't saved to live like that. They weren't redeemed from bondage to live in the dark holes and the damp caves. They were redeemed to enjoy the land, enjoy the Lord in all of His fullness.

And Gideon wanted so to be a blessing to the people, but he didn't know what to do. And so Gideon came up with a plan to help his people. And he began to beat the wheat against the rock at the wine press, in the foothills, in the lowland, so that the enemy couldn't see.

If he was on the highland, then they would see all of the chaff, the clouds of chaff, and come in and confiscate it. And so down in the lowland, he kept beating, but there was no wind to carry the chaff.

And the chaff would fall with the grain and he'd have to separate it. And he labored and he labored from dawn till dusk in order to have a provision for himself and his family and his neighbors and so on.

God looked down from heaven and God saw Gideon and his heart, beautiful heart that man had. God saw him in his service beating his wheat against the rock, getting nowhere, just surviving. And the angel of the Lord came down and talked to Gideon.

And he said, the Lord is with you. And Gideon said, I know He's with me, but look at my people. Look at your people. And the angel of the Lord taught him what he knew so well, and that is that in His presence, there is blessing.

God began to draw Gideon into His presence. The Lord said, if you really want to be a blessing, I'm not going to deal with them. I'm going to deal with you, Gideon. God began to deal with Gideon, not the people.

And He said, you must come into My presence. Deeper and deeper, God brought him into His presence. And the deeper Gideon got into the presence of the Lord, the more the enemy started to fall apart and the more the blessing started to come on the people.

And Gideon was learning that as he went into the presence of God, then God would bless the people. That's what we've been looking at so far. Gideon being brought into the presence of the Lord. Now, this morning I shared with you how God began by taking Gideon into the truth of the preeminence of Christ.

And remember the difference between preeminence and prominence. Preeminence is a one and only. Prominence is one among many. You can have many prominent things in your life, but the Lord doesn't want to be prominent.

The Lord wants to be preeminent. And Gideon was taken into the presence of the Lord. And by the mighty power of God illustrated by the bull, he pulled down the bale and all the competing lovers that were vying for the affection of God's people and established in the high place a picture of himself, a symbol of himself.

At the gore of blessing is the finished work of our Lord Jesus Christ. And he pictured all of that in the Gideon story. Along with the truth that Jesus was a one and only, God began to reteach Gideon the truth of Zechariah 4, 6.

It's not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord. And that's about where we left off. When we left off, I was trying to show you how God was teaching Gideon that truth. He knew it, but he didn't know it.

It's one of those things that you know and God has to reteach you what you know. And he asked for that sign. Lord, I'll know if you put the dew on the fleece. And God did it. And then all of a sudden Gideon said, I'm not sure even then, because there's too much possibility that that's nature.

And I don't want it to be nature. I want it to be God. And so he flipped over the sign. He said, Lord, don't be angry, but do it another way, just so I can be sure. It's not by might nor by power, but by your Spirit.

And so God honored it. And now Gideon said, now I know. And then God said, let's see if you know what you know. And then God began to reduce the troops. It's not by might. Not by power. And God began to reduce the troops.

And Gideon said, oh, wait a minute. I know it's by your Spirit, but don't touch my troops. That's where we left off. God was teaching Gideon what he already knew. And so the first revelation to the Lord is the preeminence of Christ.

And then it's not by might or by power, but by my Spirit. Now this evening, I'm going to ask you to turn back to Judges 6, if you would. I want to back up a little and discuss the sign again of the dew on the fleece and so on.

Gideon's Fleece: Confirming God's Will

And then we'll move into our new material. For the full blessing that Gideon desires for the people of God, he needs to go deeper into the presence of God. Once he has seen Him as preeminent, once he knows it's not by might or by power, that's a good starting point.

But now God invites him into the deeper blessing. Chapter 6 and verse 36, Gideon said to God, if you'll deliver Israel through me as you've spoken, behold, I'll put a fleece of wool on the threshing floor.

If there's dew on the fleece only and it's dry on all the ground, I'll know that you will deliver Israel through me as you've spoken. And it was so. And when he arose early the next 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.

And God did so that night. It was dry only on the fleece and the dew was on the ground. Now remember, I told you the chief reason for the sign and then the repetition of the sign was to give Gideon the assurance that it's really God.

Gideon did not doubt God, but he had a lot of doubts about Gideon. Gideon doubted Gideon and he just wanted to make sure that it was not natural, that it was not physical, that it was not man. Now there may be a lot more to it than I'm going to say, a lot of commentators spend a lot of time on this fleece.

And I don't know if you've meditated on this wonderful section of Scripture. Was the fleece an emblem of the people of God? Was that God's people? God's flock? God's sheep? Was it a fleece because they had been fleeced by the enemy?

Was there some symbolic meaning in the laying down of the fleece? Was he saying, I'm laying down my burden as he laid down the people of God? Some say a fleece is the beauty of the Lamb. In some way, does that represent our Lord Jesus Christ?

Does that represent His beautiful flock? Does the fleece represent one thing and the dry land another thing? And then the reverse of that is the land of Gentiles? I read one commentator who said that Gideon was prophetic and he saw it to the end of the age.

And he saw Israel rejecting Christ. And when their fleece went dry, then God sent His dew on the whole land. Did Gideon see all of that? I don't know if he did or not. Some have made a big deal out of some of these facts.

Now, you've got to pay attention to the wringing out of the fleece. That's what's important. Because in order to be redemptive, we've got to be willing to have God wring us out and become dry. And then the bowl is important.

And the size of the water in the bowl, fullness in the bowl is important and all of that. I incline, because of the balance of Scripture, to believe that Gideon didn't just choose an arbitrary sign. I think he knew that the dew represented the blessing of the Lord all through the Scripture.

And I think he's saying, Lord, are You really going to bless Your people? Are You really going to send down Your dew? I think that was his heart. Now, I ask all these questions, not to answer them, because I can't, but so that we don't miss the main thing.

You see, the chief concern Gideon had was, I don't want to miss God's will. Did he send me or didn't he send me? Did I hear him right or didn't I hear him right? Lord, I thought You said, You're going to bless.

Are You going to bless? I don't think necessarily that laying down the fleece was Gideon laying down his burden. That sounds spiritual and maybe that will preach, but it's a little fanciful for me. The bottom line is, I don't think there was any power in Gideon laying down the fleece or choosing a fleece or the threshing floor or the full bowl or something like that.

The power is the Lord's. It's always the Lord. Before we leave this wonderful section, I want to settle on one misconception of the passage. Many have looked at Gideon as a great sign seeker, as somebody who was very subjective and always asking God, was full of doubts and asking God to give signs, a person who used physical signs in order to determine the will of God.

In fact, through this story and because of it, there's an expression called putting out a fleece. Have you ever heard that expressed? Have you ever done that? Putting out a fleece. I've met people who use that method to find God's will all the time.

They just put out a fleece. I remember in my early days when the Lord was beginning to dawn some of His light on this thick head. I remember sitting in my bedroom with my head bowed. I'd say, Lord, if You're real, blink the lights.

Do something so I know that You're real. Someone says, Lord, I'm going to know Your will if You provide the funds. Then I'll know. If You make my interview go well, then I'll know. If I get the raise, then I know for sure.

If You bring a certain person into my life that has the same burden, then I'll know for sure. Lord, just tell me. If the house sells, then I know it's God's will. If the car sells, if I find the car within my budget, then I know this is God's will.

So, Lord, let the phone ring. Or let someone come. Or let someone say a certain thing. Now, I'm not trying to judge whether that's legitimate or not legitimate. God knows the heart. But what I want you to see clearly is that is not what Gideon did.

I want you to see that. That's not what Gideon did. I'm not saying it's wrong to do that. That's a question all its own and needs to be answered somewhere else at another time by someone else. Go see your elder.

But the issue with Gideon is not how can I find God's will. That's not the issue with him. You know how I know that? Because Gideon knew God's will. There's no question about it. Go back to chapter 6, verse 14.

And the Lord looked at him and said, Go in this your strength and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian. Have I not sent you? And he said to him, O Lord, how shall I deliver Israel? Behold, my family is the least in Manasseh.

I'm the youngest in my father's house. And the Lord said to him, Surely I'll be with you. You shall defeat Midian as one man. Gideon knew the will of God. Nothing could be clearer than that. Gideon's fleece was not to find God's will.

It was to confirm God's will. That's not the same thing. May God help you see the difference. It's not at all the same thing. As I said before, Gideon is not doubting God. Gideon is doubting Gideon. And that, my brothers, is healthy.

Gideon was doubting Gideon. Chapter 6, verse 17, Gideon said, If now I found favor in your sight, show me a sign that it's you who speaks with me. In other words, he's saying, Lord, am I imagining this?

Am I dreaming this? Is this a hallucination? Is it really you? I need a sign to know that it's really you. He needed confirmation. Call attention to this. As I said, not to judge anybody who might try it the other way and use signs to find God's will, but to illustrate a wonderful truth.

And that wonderful truth is this. Brothers, faith is walking in light. Faith is walking in light. You hear so much about blind faith. There's no such thing as blind faith. That is not in the Bible. This idea of faith is a leap in the dark.

Bull feathers. It's not a leap in the dark. Faith is walking in light. It's walking in the light. Gideon had a word from God. Now, he needed that word confirmed. But he had a word from the Lord. God often confirms His will after He's made it known, before someone takes the next step.

That's very healthy. We've got to be men of God that move from light to light. From revelation to revelation, God gives us a word. God has never called us to believe in ignorance. That doesn't mean there's no mystery in a clear word.

I mean, God might tell you to march around the city seven times. And you'll have to scratch your head as you march. Because you say, what are you doing having me go in circles? You might not understand, but it's clear.

Walk around seven times. You might not know all that that means, but it's a clear word. He might say, get out of the boat and walk on the water. There's mystery in that. You don't know what that means.

But it's clear. You know what you're supposed to do. God says, hamstring the horses. Why would you incapacitate the fighting forces? Doesn't make sense. But it's a clear word. And so God speaks clearly.

And He asks us to believe His Word. Gideon's request for a sign was that he would be sure that it's God. Sure that it's the Lord. I know what you said. I've heard what you said. But is that my imagination?

Am I making that up? Is it just a feeling inside? Is it a dream? Is it a vision? Or is it really you? If you have a Word from God and you need that Word confirmed, God will not be angry at you if you ask God for a sign.

He wants you to know His will. That's different than asking to find God's will and you dictate to the Lord a sign. It's healthy always to distrust yourself. It's sin to distrust Him. But it's not sin to distrust yourself.

Gideon's fleece was not to find God's will. Gideon's fleece was to confirm God's will. I don't see any evidence in the whole record that Gideon ever doubted the Lord. But Gideon had an awful lot of doubts about Gideon.

And all the way he said, Lord, is this me or is it You? I don't want it to be me. And I think that's what that's all about. Well, enough. I've given you enough for my entire satisfaction. On that issue, let's move on.

The Remnant Chosen by God

That brings us to the next step in the development of this heart that will be a blessing. If Gideon is going to be an instrument of blessing, into the presence of the Lord, Gideon must go. He saw the Lord already in grace unveil Himself as the One and Only.

He's starting to learn it's not by might or by power, but by my Spirit. And now God says, Gideon, if you really want them blessed, come again into My presence. And you must learn that this One who is everything, this One who is a One and Only, who is the entire list, the first and the last, the Alpha and the Omega and everything in between, there can be no blessing until He who lives within as the Preeminent One is released.

He's got to come out. He's got to be manifest. He is the One that blesses. And so God now begins to teach Gideon what it means to release the life of God, to manifest the light through broken vessels.

And that's what we're going to look at tonight. Let me sort of reveal this truth to your heart as I think it broke on the heart of Gideon. I'm going to read two passages and ask you to follow along, please.

The first is in chapter 6, verse 34 and 35. And so the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon. He blew a trumpet and the Abizrites were called together to follow Him. And He sent messengers throughout Manasseh and they also were called together to follow Him.

And He sent messengers to Asher, to Zebulon, Naphtali, and they came up to meet Him. Now in chapter 7, please, beginning at verse 1,. Then Jeroboam, that is Gideon, and all the people who were with him, rose early and camped beside the spring of Haran.

And the camp of Midian was on the north side of them by the hill of Morah in the valley. And the Lord said to Gideon, The people who are with you are too many for Me to give Midian into their hands. For Israel would become boastful, saying, My own power has delivered Me.

Now therefore come, proclaiming the hearing of the people, saying, Whoever is afraid and trembling, let him return and depart from Mount Gilead. So 22 ,000 people returned, but 10 ,000 remained. Then the Lord said to Gideon, The people are still too many.

Bring them down to the water, and I will test them there for you. Therefore it shall be that he of whom I say to you, this one shall go with you, he will go with you. But every one of whom I say to you, this one shall not go with you, he shall not go.

And so he brought the people down to the water. And the Lord said to Gideon, You shall separate everyone who laps the water with his tongue, as a dog laps, as well as everyone who kneels to drink. Now the number of those who lapped, putting their hands to their mouth, was 300 men.

But all the rest of the people kneeled to drink water. The Lord said to Gideon, I will deliver you with the 300 men who lapped, and will give the Midianites into your hands, so let all the other people go, each man to his home.

Now in order to understand the truth of the manifestation of Christ, the release of the life of the preeminent One, God selects a remnant. From this point on in our discussion, I will refer to the 300 as the remnant.

I told you the other day that that is the Old Testament word for the New Testament overcomer. It's the same idea. That's what these 300 are all about. Through the remnant, God will manifest Himself, His life.

Glance again at chapter 6, verse 34 and 35. That passage has to do with those who were called. Glance please at chapter 7, 1 to 7, the second passage we read. That has to do with those who are chosen.

If ever a passage illustrated Matthew 22, 14, this one does. Many are called, but few are chosen. 32 ,000 we read responded to the call. And out of that 32 ,000, 300 were selected by the Lord, were chosen to be a remnant.

In order to understand the difference between the called and the chosen, let me focus for a moment on the 300, on the remnant. Let me point out at the start that God was choosing a remnant, not a delta force.

You know, the way it reads sometimes and the way some people understand it, you think that the Lord is selecting Navy SEALs or Army Rangers or Green Berets. He's not doing that. Listen, as I quote the New Testament, this is how God chooses.

1 Corinthians 1, 26, Consider your calling, brethren, not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble. God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. God's chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things that are strong and the base things of the world.

The despised things has God chosen, things that are not that He might bring to naught or nullify the things that are. And the reason He gives is the very reason He gave in the book of Judges, so that no flesh would boast in His glory.

I remember one time how the Lord used that passage in my life. I was reading 1 Corinthians and I stopped as I came to these verses. It said, Consider your calling. So I said, Alright, I'll consider it.

And I stopped. And I took it one word at a time. And God said, Consider your calling, not many wise. And I said, Alright. And I prayed and I said, Alright, Lord, You're right. I'm not wise. Okay, move on.

Not many mighty. I said, Alright. I know I don't have any strength, any gifts, any talent. Not many mighty are called. Not many noble. I said, Alright, no problem with that. I've chosen the foolish thing.

I said, Come on, Lord. Alright, I'm foolish. The weak things. And I stopped again. I said, Alright, Lord, I'll take that. I'm weak. The base things. I said, You're getting tough. Alright, base things.

Things that are despised. Give me a break. And then I came to the next verse. And it says, Things that are not. I don't even exist. I mean, it's one thing to be cut down. And things that are not. That's His calling.

That's who He chooses. God's not trying to select in the 300 the strongest and the bravest and those who are most in shape and those who are the best trained. That's not what He's doing. At first, that's how I read it.

I read chapter 7, 3. You're afraid? Can't use you in my army. Where would we be? Think about it. If God said, Are you afraid? Go home. We can't use you. That's not Him. It's not His heart. What's that all about?

Judges 7, 5 and 6. How do you drink? Did you kneel to drink? Why then they say, You violated 2 Timothy 2, 4. You're not a good soldier. You're not alert. And so on. God didn't choose the strong and the mighty when He chose these 300.

He chose the weak and the foolish. I think we need to look again. Did He send home the strong or the weak? Did He retain the strong or the weak? The Lord clearly tells us why He's reducing the troops.

Look at chapter 7, verse 2. The Lord said to Gideon, The people who are with you are too many for Me to give Midian into their hands. For Israel would become boastful, saying, My own power delivered Me.

Here's an amazing thing, brothers. For seven years, they had been under the chastening of the Lord. Living like animals in the holes of the ground. And now they're going to come out and have a victory and think they did it.

It's amazing the pride of man to take credit for something like that. Certainly reducing the troops to 300 would have a humbling effect. I think it'd be insanity to try to take glory after God had made that kind of a reduction.

In chapter 7, verse 3, we find out that it started off with 32 ,000 men. He's mentioned how many enemy there were, fighting forces, 135 ,000. And so before God started reducing the troops, the odds were 4 to 1 against God's people.

When the Lord sent home the fearful in verse 3, 22 ,000 men left, 10 ,000 remained. And the odds are now 13 .5 to 1. 13 .5 to 1 and they'd still be proud, God said, if they had the victory. And so He reduced it again in verse 6 of chapter 7.

And 9 ,700 went home and the odds are now 450 to 1. Certainly there's a humbling effect in reducing the troops down. So the odds are 450 to 1. It's a great illustration of 2 Chronicles 20. 2 Chronicles 20 says, The battle is not yours, but God's.

Oh, exactly so. In fact, God didn't even need the 300. I love that word from Jonathan in 1 Samuel 14. The Lord is not restrained to save by many or by few. He could have done it Himself, but He wanted this remnant.

But it's not only the number that is going to give God His glory, but it's the special people who make up that number. The difference between the called and the chosen. In order to make this intensely practical, let me just give you two characteristics of the remnant illustrated in this story of Gideon.

The first characteristic I find is this. The true remnant are those who have volunteered. Now, everybody volunteered, all 32 ,000. But these are the ones who volunteered to be God's instruments. Volunteered to trust the Lord and let God do His work.

When the trumpet sounded, volunteers came running. 32 ,000 of them. But my question is, what did they volunteer for? See, they volunteered to do the job. They volunteered to go to war. They volunteered to fight.

They volunteered to face the enemy. They volunteered to get the job done. They volunteered to serve. The 300, they were also volunteers. But they didn't volunteer to do the work. They volunteered to let God do the work.

It's not the same thing at all. Here's an amazing thing. When God is searching for a remnant, you don't find this in many churches. He sends the volunteers home. Isn't that an amazing thing? We get so happy when people volunteer.

Is there anybody that's going to help? Somebody, raise your hand if you'll help. And then somebody volunteers. I'll do it. I'll take the class. I'll drive the bus. I'll be an officer in the church. I'll set up the chairs.

I'll teach the class. I'll be a Sunday school superintendent. Pray for volunteers. God sends them home. Volunteers who volunteered to do the work were sent home. And separated from them were the volunteers who volunteered to let God do the work.

That was the First Division. And so the issue is never, do you volunteer? We think that's spiritual when we volunteer. Okay, I'll do it. One robin does not a spring make. And one volunteer does not a remnant make.

It's not, have you volunteered? Are you chosen? Are you selected? And God selects those who are going to trust Him and be selected by faith. The second characteristic of the true remnant is that not only are those selected who volunteer to believe the Lord and to let God do the work, but the remnant are those who are separated.

Separated from and separated unto. Not just from, but from and unto. You say, well, who are they separated from? Well, certainly they're separated from the non-volunteers. But they're also separated from the volunteers who've come to do the job.

They're separated from. God works through separation. You know, when I read this, I thought, wouldn't it be better? The 300 were the same 300 when they were in the big number as when they came out of the big number.