KEEPING ON IN THE SPIRITUAL WARFARE
Chapter 8
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IN this chapter, we are going to look at the first twenty one verses of Judges chapter 8 under the title of "Keeping on in the Spiritual Warfare". As we read this chapter surely we are struck by the fact of sin in the world then, just as it is in the world today. Doesn't this illustrate it - 120,000 swordsmen fallen. That was the battles they had, and cannot that be called genocide. Just like today, people were fighting and squabbling, not considering the awful suffering and loss of life that resulted. We have not learnt any better today. How much do we need Christ!

If I have a text for this study, and I think it does actually sum up what God wants me to share with you in this chapter, it is verse 4 - "Gideon and his three hundred men, exhausted yet keeping up the pursuit, came to the Jordan and crossed it."

As I have said, our theme in this chapter is "Keeping on in the spiritual warfare". Gideon was a soldier, necessarily so. He was called at that time to deliver Israel out of the persecution, and domination, of the Midianites. They had ground Israel down. They had caused Israel to be in poverty. They had chased the Israelites from their homes to take refuge in caves. Gideon had been called to deliver them. For this he had to be a soldier, and here he is pursuing his soldiering.

We are soldiers too in the spiritual army of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul tells us that we must put on the whole armour of God in the spiritual battle. There is the spiritual battle that is personal to ourselves as we fight the world, the flesh, and the devil in our own spiritual lives. Then also, as this passage relates more specifically too, there is the spiritual battle in the ministry of the church. We are working for Jesus in one particular way or another. We are seeking to serve him in the way that we are fitted for, and so we are engaged in this spiritual warfare.

What Gideon experiences here is what we will experience in the spiritual battle. We can learn one or two things from Gideon's experience to encourage us, to help us, to spur us on, and so forth, in our Christian lives. Notice Gideon was exhausted. We may sometimes be exhausted in the work for God, but we must go on.

A great and tremendous battle had been won. We saw that in the last chapter. There Gideon with the three hundred had routed this enormous number of one hundred and thirty five thousand men in the Midianite army. Now they had all dispersed, but though the battle had been won, and Israel were all exalted with the victory, the warfare had to go on. The war was not over, even though the battle had been won. If Gideon and his men had stopped after that victory, they would have lost most of the ground that they had won in the battle.

If they had not pursued in order to finally rout the enemy, then the enemy would have consolidated and come back and oppressed them again. That is also true in our private spiritual lives. If we don't pursue and root out those things which prevent us from serving Christ in the best way we are able, then they will return and pursue us. We need to go on in the spiritual warfare.

We have our moments of great exaltation and triumph. Actually they are quite few. Most of the time we have to do what Gideon was doing here - "exhausted, yet pursuing." Sometimes we feel very exhausted, but we must go on. Therefore this scripture illustrates the spiritual warfare as much as the physical one. The same things happen in the spiritual warfare as effected Gideon in this temporal warfare, though Gideon's warfare was, in essence, spiritual in as far as he was leading the people of God against those who were opposed to the people of God.

The first thing I would like to share with you is how honest the Word of God is. It hides nothing, and what I am particularly effected by is, that in this passage at least, the Word of God makes no judgements. Here is Gideon, and he has all sorts and various things to do. Various events in his warfare, and various decisions he has to make, and he acts in a various ways. We have the fact that other people are effected by his decisions, people in the Israelite nation, and we see how they reacted to Gideon. We have people who did not support him. We have him pursuing the enemy, and putting the enemy to death. We find him punishing those who did not support him. We find him executing those who killed his brothers.

I am interested in the fact that the Bible doesn't actually make any judgement about those events. The Bible does, in many places, give us principles by which we govern our actions, but here the Bible just records the facts. It tells us that Gideon is a man of God, but that he is not a wonderful man. It tells us that he is what he is by God's grace, but he is still a weak sinful man. It tells us he is seeking to do God's will; that he has to make decisions; that he has to do certain things, and he may get it wrong on occasions. It tells us of things which he does which we may think are awful. However we need to remember that we do not know all the circumstances that he was in, or all about the culture in which he had grown up, and so on.

I remember studying the life of the great reformer Calvin at college. Calvin was reformer at the time of the reformation in the sixteenth century. He was a contemporary of Martin Luther in Germany, and Thomas Cranmer in this country. In his position of authority in Geneva, where he was the chief pastor, there was a person who was teaching things that were totally wrong according to the Scriptures. This was not only from the reformed view, but also the Roman Catholic view. The name of the man was Michael Servetus. Calvin warned him and warned him that he must change his view and cease to teach this error. Then in the end he was judged by the judiciary in Geneva, and he was put to death for his heresy. We hold up our hands in horror at this, and say what a dreadful man Calvin was for sanctioning such an execution, but we were not there in that culture, and we do not know the things that governed that culture, nor the effect on the reformation from the Catholic Church if the heresy was not punished. It is not for us to judge in such situations. Here in this passage we have things which, perhaps, would raise questions in our minds, but the passage does not judge them.

We need to affirm people who are seeking to do God's will. We all make mistakes, and so we should affirm more than criticise. Yet we tend to criticise rather than to affirm. Let us take that to heart at least as it is presented in this passage. The spiritual warfare thrusts decisions upon us. We can't avoid them or shirk them. We have to make decisions and act, and we may get it wrong, but we don't make those decisions, and Gideon did not do it, easily, lightly or without consideration. We need support rather than condemnation. As we see others in similar situations we need to give support rather than criticism.

Then next we see that the spiritual warfare brings tribulation and difficulties where we would least expect it - in this case they came from Gideon's own people, the people who should have supported him.

This is one of the things which in the ministry of the Christian church we find so difficult. We are looking for help and support, and then people, from whom we would expect to get that support, somehow they let us down. Yet we must go on. The Lord is with us, and he gives us strength, but it is not easy.

Look at the two incidents. First of all the Ephraimites. Now these ask Gideon, '"Why have you treated us like this? Why didn't you call us when you went to fight Midian?", and they criticised him sharply' (verse 1).

If you have been on the receiving end of criticism you know that it is not particularly nice to receive that sort of treatment. There was no justification for it. God had been leading Gideon in the way that he was going. Gideon had had no option but to go into battle with just his three hundred. God had said that he must go with this three hundred men, and, no doubt, the Ephraimites had not been to forthcoming in offering their services anyway. They had come in at the last when things were going well, and in the back of their minds, it wasn't so much that they wanted to serve but rather they wanted the glory.

Now Gideon gives a wonderful example of grace here. "He answered them, "What have I accomplished compared with you?" (verse 2). He is willing to humble himself. There he was taking the whole responsibility. He could have returned criticism with criticism. He could have returned anger with anger, but he didn't. He humbled himself - "Aren't the gleanings of Ephraim's grapes" - the things you have done - "better than the full grape harvest of Abiezer?" - that is of the whole harvest of my family of Abiezer. Look how he is willing to humble himself. "God gave Oreb and Zeeb, the Midianite leaders, into your hands. What was I able to do compared with you?" (verse 3). A soft answer does actually turn away wrath. I find myself not too good at that, but it does. Gideon is willing to humble himself, and to build up these people, even though they were in fact to be blamed.

That is part of the spiritual warfare. It is part of what Christ would have us do.

Then when Gideon is exhausted and when he is continuing in pursuit with his three hundred men - they had borne the brunt of all the campaign - he then comes to Succoth. In verse 5 we read Gideon saying, "Give my troops some bread; they are worn out, and I am still pursuing Zebah and Zalmunna, the kings of Midian. But the officials of Succoth said, "Do you already have the hands of Zebah and Zalmunna in your possession? Why should we give bread to your troops?". Then when Gideon came to Peniel and made the same request, the people of Peniel answered in the same way as the people of Succoth (verse 8). So from the jealousy and grumbling of the Ephraimites, Gideon comes to people who lack the spirit to give him and his soldiers the support and help they so desperately need.

We find the same in the church of God. People are afraid to commit themselves in case the Lord's work comes to defeat. I guess that that was behind the fact that Succoth and Peniel were not going to stick their necks out, when they see Gideon with his three hundred men, exhausted and weary. They knew that the Midianites still had a vast number of soldiers, in fact fifteen thousand men. The likelihood was that Gideon was going to be defeated. They argue to themselves that if Gideon was going to be defeated, and they had supported Gideon, the Midianites would come down hard upon them. So they decided they were going to stand back. They were not going to risk getting involved.

In the church, when we ask for support in the spiritual battle, people stand back in case by standing with us they get tarred with our brush, and if the work collapses they fear they will be caught in the collapse and suffer for it. They are not willing to give themselves to Christ and trust him. They have no faith, you see. That is their trouble. They would rather sit on the fence. When the going is clear and certain then they will follow, but not until then, and not when their is any danger of failure.

Then people are reluctant to give sacrificially. Here were three hundred men. The people of Succoth and Peniel realised that the resources of their town and their community would be seriously depleted if they supported Gideon. No! they argue to themselves, we can't give that much. If it was just a little bit, that would be alright. If only Gideon had asked for a meal, they would have been happy to give just that, but to give food for the whole of the army, no! they could not give as much as that. They were not going to give sacrificially. People often argue like that. They are not willing to give sacrificially to God's work.

Then it may be that we are too lazy. Perhaps the people of Succoth and Peniel were looking at the tremendous amount of work and trouble it would cost to provide meal for all Gideon's army. This is a problem that I have to wrestle with, laziness. Or it may be that to give ourselves to God's work will mean that other cherished activity that we have in mind will have to be given up. In the ministry of the church, so often, few are working. Then we look around for others to support and help, and we find that they are not there. People make all sorts of excuses. They don't want the sacrifice or the cost. The spiritual ministry means that we have to suffer that.

So Gideon went on with his troops exhausted and unfed. This is necessary also in the spiritual warfare. People may fail us, and we may feel exhausted, but we must go on.

However, although they had to go on, and it was hard for them, yet the Lord was still with them, because when they came up with Zebah and Zalmunna, they were able to defeat those fifteen thousand men, and capture both Zebah and Zalmunna. God is with us in the exhausting times, and if we do go on we shall find that he is bringing the victory, bring the blessing, giving us grace as we trust him. Let us not be discouraged.

Then thirdly, let us see that Gideon had to face difficult decisions. Should he have forgotten all about all the lack of support of Succoth and Peniel? What should he have done when he came back? And then what should he have done about the killing of his own family by these two kings of Midian? Should he have let the matter rest? What should he have done? I don't know what he should have done. They are difficult decisions. I would not like to have to have been there and to have to make those decisions. Gideon also had natural human feelings which caused anger to rise within him against Succoth and Peniel. Then at gut level he had anger against Zebah and Zalmunna for the destruction of his family. There was no judiciary as we know it, so how could these people be brought to trial. What should he have done?

These are difficult decisions. Now I do not know whether Gideon made right ones or wrong ones. I am not prepared to say, but they were difficult decisions. We shall have difficult decisions, and when we make them we may be wrong or we may be right. We may be criticised or we may be praised. That is part of the trial that is in ministry, trial of the Christian life in our service for Jesus. We need to take that on board, and when we come to these decisions all we can do is to cast ourselves on the Lord.

If others reject us because they feel we have done the wrong thing, the Lord does not reject us. Whatever other people felt about Gideon, the Lord was with him throughout the whole action, and of this we can be sure.

Lastly we learn, from our text, that we shall find the spiritual ministry sometimes, if not frequently, exhausting. Not only physically; not only in a moral sense; but spiritually exhausting, because we are giving out all the time, with no time, perhaps, to take in. Our spiritual resources are being drained from us as we have to relate to so very many situations, and to so many people. We will find it exhausting.

It was the same for Jesus, for instance in that passage where he says of his ministry that it meant going to the cross. Having told his disciples that he was going to the cross, his disciples come with pride in their hearts. They indicate that they want to be tops in his kingdom. They arrogantly say that they could do everything, be baptised with the baptism Jesus was baptised with, and follow Jesus, even when an accurate understanding would say that they couldn't. How grieved the Saviour must have been at the attitude of his own disciples, when he was seeking to do so much for them to save them. What added burden this put upon him.

In the spiritual warfare we are following Christ and taking up his cross. As Gideon found, we will sometimes be exhausted. We will have these trials. We cannot escape them. This is part of the cross bearing, when Jesus says, "Take up your cross and follow me". This is what it is all about. The cross bearing is not the normal human trials, like sickness, or poverty, or whatever, it is these specific trials that come to us through our service for Jesus. But as we take up the cross then Jesus is with us. We cannot actually expect this warfare to cease until this life is over, but, just as Gideon found that God was with him and the victories came on the way, so we will find that all is worthwhile as God works his purposes out, and his church is blest and grows.