Address—Paul Hadley
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Let's start with #81.
#81.
Arm of the Lord.
And all day.
God.
Our grandson's love and grace.
I pray by people.
Will tell me.
Never play twisted and well done.
Spelling Prayer.
God and Father, we thank you for.
Times that we have had together like before.
Time in thy presence.
Like before the fellowship of our brethren, we thank before the hospitality of those local to here.
Thank You for that which you've enjoyed of Thy things, Thy word, and we ask now Thy help. As we open it again we ask for Thy blessing.
Yes, thou touch hearts and pray in the name and for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
Now #52 One verse of #52.
Second verse And perhaps we could stand for that.
Lord we.
Right now.
We have had yesterday a few references to Gideon and Gideon is.
Something that we have enjoyed very much in Mount Tabor Assembly where I'm from in the past little while. I'd like to talk a little bit about Gideon today, so let's turn to Judges Chapter 6.
And I'm going to read.
Verse 12 and.
Through 14 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, O my Lord.
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If the Lord be with us, why then is all this befallen us? And where be all his miracles, which our fathers told us of saying? Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt? But now the Lord has forsaken us, and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites. The Lord looked upon him and said, Go, and this thy might. So the first thing I want to speak about concerning Gideon is Gideon, the mighty man of valor.
And what was his mightiness?
It was the same as Naomi's mightiness.
Naomi says I went out, the Lord brought me home. That was her mightiness. I went out, the Lord brought me home.
What she recognized and what Gideon recognized is this one simple fact that it was all about God.
It's all about God.
Gideon knew God, but he didn't understand him. He didn't understand why they were going through these difficult times, but he knew it was all about God. And with that one little piece of information, God calls him a mighty man of valor. Is there one in this room who knows about God? That whatever is in your life has to do with God and God alone? There are some.
A lot of that other things in mind.
Well, maybe we should go to Bell.
Seems like people worship Bail did better. Gideon didn't do that.
You know, it was all about God, and that's why God put his finger on Gideon and so and called him a mighty man of valor. So that's Gideon, the mighty mount of valor, just like Naomi.
Next, we find not the mighty man of Gallery valor.
But Gideon the insignificant. And so let's read verse 15.
And he said.
Oh my Lord, wherewith shall I save Israel? Behold, my family is poor in Manasseh. I'm the least in my father's house.
Gideon knew his nothingness. That was another thing that made him useful to God.
He knew that he was nothing.
He recognized that he was from a small tribe. He wasn't from Judah, he wasn't from Ephraim, he was from Manasseh.
He wasn't even the head of his own household. He hasn't had a father that was.
We might say in charge of him.
He was poor.
He was, in his own lives, useless.
And so.
That was something very beautiful to God, and God was able to use them.
You know.
We spoke yesterday.
About barley.
In the next chapter.
Get in is likened to a barley loaf.
After God, we might say.
Uh prepares Gideon and directs him. He encourages him and he sends him down to hear this conversation between.
Some some of the enemy troops, and that dream is recorded. How that uh, the man says to his friend, Behold, I dreamed a dream. And lo, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the host of Midian and came into attendance. Motive that it fell and overturned it, that the tent lay alone. And his fellow answered and said, This is nothing else save the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel.
For unto his hand.
Hath God delivered Midian and all the hosts?
Rather point it out last week, would you be?
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Afraid that a a loaf of bread would come and knock your house down?
If somebody threw a loaf of bread at me, I don't think I'd be even too hurt.
But he didn't say a loaf of bread, he said a barley loaf.
And we learned yesterday that barley was horse food.
Harley was the food of the poor. If we turn to 2nd Kings and read about the, uh, the famine in Samaria, we find out that Varley was half the price of wheat. If we turn to Revelation 6 and read about the famine coming in the future, today we find out it's a third of the price of wheat. Barley was cheap. It's like people nowadays were poor. Looking for nutrition? Eat little dog food.
Varley wasn't something to be proud about.
Neither was a loaf of bread something to be afraid of, but.
This man had a dream and he saw Barley Loaf coming and knocking down that tent.
And, uh, it fell and overturned and he recognized.
That something insignificant was going to come and destroy that which was mighty.
Jerry and the insignificant.
Now if we went back a little bit in that same Chapter 7.
We have another, I believe, reference to Gideon the Insignificant.
You see, it says that's where we have this host of 32,000 being pared down to 10,000.
And then down to 300.
I know that I and many others have envisioned this as something happening by a Riverside.
God says go down to the water.
And you can picture people go down to the water and some drink in one way, some drink in another way.
But notice how it says in verse one of Chapter 7.
So Dribble of all who is Gideon and all the people that were with him, rose up early and pitched beside the well of Herod.
Wasn't a river, it was a well.
Now there's different kinds of wells. There's wells like what we're pretty familiar with and they had those in those days.
I think a couple of spies hit out in one and they put a cloth over the top of it.
But then there's the wells. Like Rebecca went down into you go down and by steps and.
Uh, you go down to the water, that's down.
At the bottom, kind of funnel shaped thing with wine and staircase going around the bottom. I think that must be what we have here.
I can envision Gideon up there at the top of that thing and watching his men go down those stairways down to the water.
I can imagine and.
I'm sure it never happened, but uh, I could imagine for the sake of illustration, a couple of guys going down, down those steps to get their drink.
They get down there and one guy Stoops down and he puts his face in the water.
The other guy.
Drinks another way.
My God, one guy says. My shoe, what are you doing? You're drinking like a dog.
You're drinking like a dog. That's not how you drink. Put your face in the water. Oh, this is the way I drink.
And so then.
They go up the stairs and go and, uh, Gideon says. Young man, what's your name? My name is Bashum.
Send over here, the other guy says to him. I told you you shouldn't drink that way.
You see, Gideon wasn't instructed who was going to go. He just says divide them.
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Someone over there. Someone over there.
And then what happens?
God says by those over there, by those 300 that drank like dogs.
Those are the ones that I'm going to use now. I know there's lots of nice thoughts people have brought out about this.
The, uh, the readiness.
Of not being down on your knees.
The fact that.
It's a thought that I've enjoyed myself, that there were those that vowed to the knees needs of the flesh. Everybody needs to drink. They put their knee, they bowed down to the needs of the flesh.
We all need to.
Pay attention so much to our human needs. It's a nice thought.
But I'd like to bring out today that perhaps it was not because those 300 were the mightiest, not because those 300 were.
The most watchful?
Not because they're the best.
But that God might have the glory he took the ones that drank like dogs.
And he used them.
The insignificant ones get in the insignificant with his insignificant army and they broke their insignificant little.
Vessels of clay let their light shine out.
And there was a great V1.
Get in the insignificant.
Now we have next, we might say Gideon the worshipper. So let's read some more.
Chapter 6.
Verse 19.
And Gideon went in and made ready a kid.
An unleavened cakes of an EFA of flour the flesh. She put it 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 the Lord 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. There rose 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.
So we have here Gideon.
Worshiper.
But you know what?
He worshipped in a defective way.
He brought flesh that was sodden.
He brought something that was very nice. A kid speaks of Christ, a sacrifice.
He brought something else very nice, and IFA of Flower tells us in Exodus 16 that it Ephah was 10 omers and Homer was enough to feed a man for a whole day.
10 omers. That's a lot of cakes he brought.
He brought a worthy sacrifice to the Lord.
But you know, he made a little mistake here. What does the Angel do? Does the Angel say, uh, Gideon, you know better than that.
Go back and do this right please.
No, he says. You put the, uh, put the flesh there.
Put the put the cakes there. Now pour out the broth.
You know, you and I.
Often don't worship right.
But isn't it nice to think that?
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The broth is poured out.
The broth is poured out and God takes what?
Is for him.
And uses it. I love to we sing. We sing that hymn sometimes about Christ adding his sweet perfume to our prayers. It's based on Revelation 8, verse 3.
Our prayers are so often wrong.
We make mistakes.
What do I do when I hear a brother pray and make a mistake in his prayer? You know what I do? I say Amen because I know that that prayer.
It's filtered, filtered before it gets to the throne of God. And I know it's I can say Amen to the prayer that ascends to that throne. Now some of you young folks are afraid to to pray.
Sometimes you're afraid you make a mistake.
I want to know if you pray and make a mistake, I'm going to say Amen.
Because I know what's in your heart and God knows what's in your heart, in your heart.
You know, sometimes.
There's long silences at the end of the meeting.
Perhaps you have a rating meeting and.
The singer Hammond.
And there's a long silence.
What's that all about? I'll tell you what it might be all about.
It might be about that one. Who?
Took a good bit of part of the meeting waiting for you to close it.
Or somebody else to close it?
I remember her brother once said to me.
Speaking of dear brother **** who was our spiritual leader in Mount Tabor.
Is that he was complaining, Uh, Brother **** didn't get us to our knees early enough in the prayer meeting. Is it Brother Dick's job to get us to our knees in prayer meeting? Is that not something that one of you young people could do? Shall we pray go to our knees?
You know some of the silences are because.
Maybe the Lord has his finger on one of you young people.
To say something.
To give a hem. To give a prayer.
It may be that.
There's a resistance there.
Oh how how encouraging it is for me and for others when we.
Hear questions from the young people when we have a hymn or a prayer from one of the younger ones.
You know Gideon had a dad.
God could have put his finger on his dad, but he didn't.
A lot of you young folks have a dad or a mom.
God could have put his finger.
To one of them, to one of the older folks, but.
You didn't maybe?
So we have here Gideon the worshipper, and he made a little mistake. You know, there's no, there's no sacrifice except for one.
Where the sacrifice was to be sodden.
That one exception.
Is when a Nazarite was to give up his Nazarite ship.
It wasn't to give a sudden sacrifice when he took it on, but when he gave it up.
That was a sodden second sacrifice.
Well, you might, Ponti. What about, uh, in Samuel there where the sons of Eli were sitting greatly?
That's right. They had sudden sacrifices. They were wrong.
And the sons of Eli were insisting on the rightness.
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We might say.
Of having their of not doing it the wrong way.
And they were doing it for their own benefit.
And God looked upon that.
As very wicked, you and I can insist on what's right for our own benefit and be like the sons of Eli.
They were not to have a sudden sacrifice.
They had a tradition. They had a tradition where they took that pork in there and whatever came up, that was not the way God ordained the sacrifice to be made. You can read all about the instructions, it's just not the way it was meant to be done. And Eli's son's.
Insisted that they might, that that they get it before it was, uh, offered. You're right, but they were wrong.
So then we have.
After getting the worshipper, we have Gideon's alter. Uh, of course we.
Of that in verse 24. Then Gideon built an altar there under the Lord, and called it Jehovah Shalom. Unto this day it is yet in Ophira of the Abias rights.
There's lots of different altars in the word of God. Abraham built an altar at his home.
And I hope each one of you have an altar in your home.
And.
I remember the one thing I remember from the hour long message at my wedding day was Albert Hey Ho telling me.
And all others.
To build the altar in your home.
I'm not going to tell you how to build an altar. Maybe your altar will be the two of you.
Reading.
A chapter in silence, together.
Or maybe you're gonna do something for two minutes or an hour.
Maybe you're gonna.
Pray with your hands held. It's not what I do, but I know a lot of people do.
However you do it.
That's.
What you need to do, because you need to build your own altar, not mine. I'm not to tell you how to do it.
You build your own altar and have your altar in your home like Abraham did.
Then there was.
Joshua, He built an altar after a victory against the.
Who was it? Somebody help me? Umm Malachites.
Well.
Might have been.
It left me, but uh.
There's times of thankfulness and there's times of victory when we turn to God and worship. An altar is a place of worship. Then there was another altar made by David. He built his offer altar.
At a place of mercy.
You know, David.
Was given a choice of three things.
Either seven years of famine, 3 months being chased about by your enemies.
For three days.
Of pestilence.
David chose the worst possible one.
We're talking about an Angel that could go through the host of the Seneca ribbon, wipe out 185,000 people in one night. We're talking about an Angel that could go through Egypt in every first born of every man.
Animal.
An animal would be dead in the morning.
But then David did one thing right. He fell into the hands of the Lord, and he fell into the hands of mercy. And so he did what was the worst possible choice, And it was the best, the best possible choice because he fell into the hands of God rather than God into the hands of man.
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And that Angel went about for perhaps three days, I'm not sure. There's kind of indicates that there might have been three days.
But it comes to Jerusalem and his sword is stopped.
And in the place where that sword is stopped, in the place of mercy.
He builds an altar.
And it's very interesting to me that in that place.
In the place of mercy is where God wants his house to be built.
This house is to be built in the place of mercy.
But then this altar is a little different. This altar is like the altar that Jacob built.
It's like the altar that Manoa built.
This altar.
Is in the place where God appeared to man.
And so.
We have.
Divine presence, we might say, in this place. And it wasn't as I used to erect, uh, vision it that the altar of bail was knocked down and, uh, the altar into the Lord put in his place. That's not what happened.
It says that the Angel told him to build it in on this rock. The R. Where is that?
Umm verse 26 Build an altar under the Lord thy God upon the top of this rock.
And so in the place where that Angel had appeared and touched his staff to the rock, and fire came out of the rock, that's the place where where he built his altar.
You know, I believe that's.
Kind of alter that we have.
Read about it in the next chapter 2.
We find that in the place where God met His people appeared to his people.
We have our altar.
You see, the Jews had a Everything that the Jews had was physical and natural. Everything that you and I have is spiritual.
And heavenly.
Because it was said yesterday, we have a heavenly heritage. We have heavenly hopes.
Our hopes aren't on this world like a Jews hopes.
Our hopes are heavenly.
We don't have a plot of land on this earth that's passed on from generation to generation like the Jews. Our our heritage is heavenly.
We don't have a priesthood that's.
Descends from Aaron and can go into something like what?
Came down to the days of Eli.
Our priesthood is a priesthood based on something that's real and spiritual and heavenly. We don't have a physical.
Testament.
Which the Bible describes as a ministration of death.
Graven and stones.
We have a spiritual testament.
And it says it exceeds in glory we don't have a physical Cir. circumcision.
Bible says made with hands. Our circumcision is not made with hands. It's a spiritual thing.
It's made without hands.
We don't have a Tabernacle or an altar.
Or sacrifices like they did. The Bible says that in Chapter 9 of Hebrews that that that's a pattern of things that are heavenly.
Our worship.
Is.
Heavenly, spiritual, not ritualistic, not natural.
Not physical.
We don't have a physical gathering center. You ask the Jews where their physical, where their gathering center is, they say right here, right there in Jerusalem.
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We have a spiritual gathering center, Christ our center.
We don't have.
A natural.
Physical ground of gathering. If you ask a Jew what the ground of gathering is, it's very simple. You have to be.
Of the family of Israel.
And it almost cost Paul his life when they thought he brought somebody outside of the family of Israel, they thought, into the temple.
Ours is a spiritual ground of gathering.
We gather as to Chrysler's center, but the ground upon which we gather is that which we have in Acts chapter 2, the unity of the body of Christ.
This is a spiritual thing. It's a heavenly thing. It's not defined.
By anything here on Earth, it's not defined by a list of gatherings.
For the Darby.
Mentioned.
An assembly that was in.
We might say the list of gatherings in those days.
He said before he'd be willing to break bread there, you'd have to find out what ground to gathered on.
Because he had heard about them.
They weren't receiving believers.
We have.
A spiritual ground of gathering. You can read about that in his letters.
The spiritual ground of gathering the unity of the Body of Christ.
And so everything that we have is spiritual. And so that's a little.
Sideline about this altar and the different altars.
Let me go on and find Gideon.
Now a worship, uh, an encourager and so.
Chapter 6 and verse 34.
But the spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon, and he blew a trumpet, and abuse, or was gathered after him.
The spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon.
He drew a blew a trumpet. Who was it that was gathered after him?
The very ones that we're about to put them to death, Avi Azar, those are the people that he in his town.
Days or minutes, I don't know.
Before they were gonna put him to death and now.
He takes a stand and they are gathered after him. It's kind of like what it says in Hebrews 11 about Moses.
It says I'll read it.
It says about Moses.
By faith, no, for he had respect under the recompense of the reward. Remember Brother Barry pointing this out to us? Moses, he had a he had respect under the recompense of the reward. I think he forsook Egypt.
Not fearing the rest of the King, for he endured us seeing him who is invisible.
Through faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, lest he that destroyed the first born should teach them.
Then what does it say?
By faith they passed through the Red Sea as by dry land.
He did it, he did that, he did the next thing.
He did something else.
And then they passed over the Red Sea, you see, because one person took a stand, one person followed the Lord.
They were all brought into blessing. And so this is the case here with Gideon. He did this. He tore down the altar. He did. He blew the trumpet.
They were gathered after him and we find that the the uh.
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Circle of blessing went out even further, then we NE next find that Gideon.
The encourager is the encouraged.
And so it is that God encouraged Gideon and he, and it cannot be that you can be an encourager without God encouraging you. And so those two things go together. And we have this famous story about Gideon's fleece.
It's been pointed out that the police was not for guidance. He already had guidance.
He didn't need any guidance.
He needed confirmation, he needed encouragement, and so God gave it to him. And so we have.
The fleece first put out on the floor and.
The next morning he rings out that fleece and he gets a whole bowl full of water out of it.
The dew is on the fleece.
Now the fleece, I think.
Brings before us picture of the Lamb of God.
The dew always brings before us.
The refreshing blessings from above.
God's blessings and so Jacob.
Blessed his children with the dew of heaven.
Sorry.
Not Jacob, Isaac Quest, Jacob with the dew of heaven.
So we have here a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ.
For the dew.
Wrung out like a whole bowl full. And I love to think of of Jesus in the days of his time here on this earth. How that well, it says, it says to Nathaniel, you're going to see like angels ascending and descending upon the Son of man. What does that mean? From then on he was going to see.
The things that.
The do come down on this earth and and he would be the source of blessing. And so it was that they.
Brought people from all over the place just for him to touch or for him to heal from the bless. And so the cripples were.
They came there on their beds of affliction, and they walked away. The blind were touched and healed.
The dead were raised. Oh, that dew that it says it was so there was dew.
It was so it was due in such an abundance like like getting a roll rung out of bowl full.
You'll never find sickness in the presence of the Lord, except for one occasion.
John chapter 5, where he goes to a place where there's hundreds, perhaps thousands of people, I don't know.
Who are going to a different source for blessing than to himself?
And they were waiting for water to move, and they were gonna all see who could get in. Their first one out of all those people could get healed that day.
And.
The Lord Jesus goes through and there was one person healed that day. One person.
Just like had happened every year before one person healed.
Wasn't the one that got into the water.
I don't believe the water stirred that day, but they found out who stirred the water that day because one person came by.
And healed one person.
That one who had stirred the water in years gone by came by again, but in human form.
And I don't believe that those waters were ever stirred again when we were in Israel, in Jerusalem a couple years ago.
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Had the privilege of seeing those.
That spot strives a bone.
There's no water there at all, and those waters haven't been stirred for near 2000 years.
But he revealed himself that day.
By being the one who came and brought healing to somebody.
The rest of those thousands of people would have their opportunity if they would just take it.
To come and be healed 1 by 1.
At his feet.
So it was there was dew in the fleece and so much that a whole bowl full was was rung out of it. And then we find that the next thing is, uh, Gideon asked again for something else. Is this time make?
To do all around.
And fleece dry.
And so it was true also that.
When Jesus was on the cross.
That one who is a route out of a dry ground became the dry. We might say he was dry.
He suffered.
His blessings.
We finally stopped.
And he hung there.
With his hands nailed across.
And raise them in blushing anymore, the feet that are locked, the hills in search of the sick and the needy nailed to that cross.
Dry.
Make the dew on all around.
And so it is that you and me.
Believers, the dew has fallen on us.
We're not from Israel. The dew has come down in such a wonderful way to the whole world.
And the whole world has been covered with the dew of his blessing. And, uh, it says this time that it doesn't say there was so.
Says that God did it, God did do it, God did do it.
So we have Gideon.
The encouraged we've had Gideon.
The mighty men of valor.
Gary and the insignificance.
Gideon the worshiper.
Getting the encourager and the encouraged.
Is there a Gideon today in this room?
Is there a Gideon that today in this room, somebody who?
Like Gideon?
As that mightiness, knowing that it's all about God.
Is insignificant and small small enough to be used by God?
Because you're not all filled with yourself.
Someone who will come and worship in His presence.
Willing to bring a sacrifice even if you make a mistake.
Because God will bless you.
Someone who will build an altar in their home and in in their place of thankfulness. Someone who?
Worship at the altar that God has set for us. Someone who's going to blow a horn.
Sound and alarm, you might say.
Take the lead and doing what's right.
Somebody who?
Might have to, shall we say, buck the trend of his father's house?
To do what is for the Lord.
Someone will be encouraged.
Sarah Gideon.
Let's sing.
#39 in the appendix.
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Just.
Last two verses.
I remember that only and breathing on.
Our God and Father, we pray they'll give us courage to stand for Thee. Give us a heart for Thee and for Thy word. We pray that Thou raise up those who will.
Be like Gideon.
And though.
They're smaller.
And weak take a stand for thee in this world we.
Pray my blessing on each of us as we part thank you for this time together. Thank you for Thy word and the encouragement of it. We ask in the neighbor, Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.