BY THE LATE REV. JOHN KENNEDY, D.D., DINGWALL.
“The Sword of the Lord and of Gideon.”—JUDGES vii. 20.
(Concluded from page 296.)
APPLICATION.—I. This is the battle-cry of every true Christian. He has a right to reckon on the Lord’s being on his side. He obtained that when first he came to Christ, for then he was “made the righteousness of God in Him,” and having been justified and adopted, the Lord promised to be his God and Father, to supply every want, to preserve him from every enemy, tenderly to bind up his wounds, and to bring him at last to the rest prepared for His Israel. Friend, you are sometimes afraid that you have no right to reckon on the Lord being on your side. You are afraid of this because of what you remember of unfaithfulness in the past, because of what you presently feel in the state of your heart, and because of how dark the providences are of which you have experience. But did it not look very like as if the Lord had forsaken Israel, when He allowed the Midianites to invade and lay waste their land? Did not even Gideon say to the angel, “O my Lord, 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 hath forsaken us, and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites.” But even in this dark hour the Lord had not forsaken His people, for “the Lord looked upon” Gideon, and said, “Go in this thy might, and thou shalt save Israel from the hand of the Midianites; have not I sent thee?” True, the children of Israel were in a most dreadful plight; but why were they so? It was because of their own backsliding, and not because of any lack of faithfulness or grace on the part of their God. He hid His face till He brought them to acknowledge their iniquity, and then the glory of His power shone forth in their deliverance. Friend, when you fear that the Lord is against you, come as a death-deserving sinner to Him, in whom there is “redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins,” and laying your hand in faith on the head of the “Lamb slain,” confess your sin to the Lord, and anew dedicate yourself to Him, and He will turn your captivity as streams in the south. And always remember that it is an enemy’s work to be keeping a poor sinner away from Christ, or to be trying to induce him to distrust Him by whatever difficulties his hope may be tried. O, trust in Christ at all times and in all circumstances, and follow Him, the New Testament Gideon, to any work, or trial, or conflict to which you may be called, assured that if you are with Him, the God of
Israel shall be with you, and that you may reckon on His gracious help in every “time of need.” Take up, then, the battle-cry, and shout it in front of all you have to encounter.
-
Let this be your battle-cry in the conflict with the sin that dwelleth in you. Weaker in yourself, before the enemies within, you are, than was Gideon before the hosts of Midian. He might, at any rate, have slain a few Midianites before He was struck down, if he went to the battle without the presence of the Lord; but you cannot “mortify” any one sin except “through the Spirit.” This you will feel whenever your desire rises against the power of sin within you. But remember that you have the Lord, with His riches of grace, and His omnipotence, and His wisdom, and His faithfulness to fall back upon. A right to victory is yours in Christ on the ground of His accepted sacrifice, the Lord has promised His sanctifying grace, and He hath said that He will never leave nor forsake you. Seek grace to give you as much faith as shall keep you from fainting, and as much zeal as will keep you from sparing any sin, and you shall have your desire against all the Midianites who infest and oppress your soul.
-
Let this be your battle-cry in view of all that the world and the powers of darkness can do against you, because you are a follower of Christ. Your great anxiety should be to know the path of duty prescribed by the Lord. Let this be your care, and not what you may have to encounter while you walk in it. Be anxious to hear the Lord saying, “Have not I sent thee?” and harbour no anxiety about what awaits you when you go to do His bidding. Know this and you may reckon on the Lord’s being with you. But if He is with you, then be certain that you will find yourself, in yourself, utterly weak before work and conflict. It is the fruit of His presence that you be kept consciously and willingly dependent on Himself for all needed strength. Be careful to see more and more of the greatness of the work to which you are called, and do not neglect to measure the strength of the enemy you are required to subdue; but, as you do so, be leaning your weakness on the arm of the Lord. Let Him have His place of pre-eminence, give Him nothing but yourself and your weakness, be content to be nothing, and then, raising your battle-cry, go forth to meet all that awaits you. In the light of His glory, who is your Leader and Saviour, what puny hosts seem those who have risen against you, and what but victory over them can you expect when “the sword of the Lord” is drawn to destroy them.
-
Let this be your battle-cry as you go down to meet the last enemy in the dark valley of death. You have to go, for “it is appointed to all men once to die.” You have no alternative but to go down. In view of that last conflict, how often has your heart sunk within you, as you thought of being cut in twain, and of being ushered as a naked spirit into Eternity. How much there seemed to be between you and passing into the Father’s house! All your past sins, as unforgiven, seemed marshalled
against you, all the corruption within you seemed to be utterly unmortified, and in unbroken strength, and your heart melted with fear as you looked into the darkness before you. But, friend, you then forgot that there was one who promised to befriend you, even unto death. You looked to yourself and not to Him, and hence your sinking of heart. You forgot that you were called to follow the New Testament Gideon, in whom you have a right to victory over death, who went for you through the suffering of an accursed death, that death might have no sting for you, that He went before you through it to His place within the veil, that by the power of His life He might save you “to the uttermost,” and that His presence and sympathy can be yours, till at last He makes you more than a conqueror. And wonder not, friend, that yours should be Gideon’s experience, who became weaker and weaker the nearer he came to the foe. Thus may you expect to feel the nearer you come to your dying. More and more will you be weaned from all self-confidence by all being removed that would interfere with simple dependence on the Lord. Like the ship which carried Paul, from which its cargo was cast into the sea, you will be self-emptied, as you never were before, as death is approached. And like that vessel, too, which broke up where the two seas met, you will have experience of dissolution when to you time and eternity meet, and your last experience may be to be cast on the further shore, clinging to some word of grace that warrants a sinner to hope for salvation through grace by Jesus Christ. But leave the mode of your dying, and all else that makes up the morrow which the Lord appointed for you, and crying, “The sword of the Lord and of Gideon,” go forward, leaning on the Lord, to the last struggle, and expecting the victory through Him who is “all in all.”
- This is the battle-cry of the true Church of Christ. The Lord is her leader, the Lord is her strength. After Him, and leaning on Him, she goes forth to her work. She cannot but have battles to fight, for she cannot be following the Lord without having to endure persecution from the world. There are churches that provoke not the wrath of the enemy, and that, instead of contending with an opposing world, have all their battles within their own pales. But neither Satan nor the world can sleep beside a faithful church, neither can she sleep while they are busy in persecution. Better, far better, to encounter the fierceness of the foe than to win exemption from suffering by yielding to his demands. But if she is bent on doing the Lord’s work in the Lord’s way, she may reckon on the Lord being with her.
When this is truly a church’s battle-cry, she must be careful to trust only in the Lord. She must be impressed with the greatness of her work, and must wisely count the cost of opposition by the powers of darkness and by the world. Only when her heart is zealous for the glory of the Lord and for the good of souls, can she either realise the greatness of her work, or experience the
mighty power that is at work against her. Only then can she truly feel her need of trusting in the Lord. But, however weak she may feel herself to be before her serving and her soldiering, let her lean on the Lord, and let her be given to importunate and believing prayer.
And she will, like Gideon, ask her people to follow her only to a work to which the Lord hath called her. She has no right to expect followers except in the ways of the Lord. But let her be fully persuaded that she is moving in the path of duty, and then let her take up the battle-cry, and the Lord of Hosts shall be with her.
But there are churches who profess to have this as their battle-cry that are dishonest in their shout. They are not “for the Lord,” and therefore they care not for “the sword of the Lord.” Instead of aiming at doing what is the Lord’s will, they do according to their own pleasure. They pass measures which they dare not ask the Lord to bless. If the thing they propose be what they cannot justify, they proclaim the doing of it to be expedient for the sake of peace. And they expect that the sword of the Lord will be on their side notwithstanding. But let it be remembered that the sword of the Lord was the sword of the Gideon who went because the Lord sent him to do a work which the Lord prescribed to him. Let no one, let no church, dare to say, “the sword of the Lord and mine,” if the path in which the individual or the church is moving is not one which the Lord prescribed.
It would be well if our own Church remembered this. The time was when she seemed willing to do battle for the Lord of Hosts. But, alas, this zeal has waned, a faithful defence of the truth is not attempted, even when error is flaunted before her face, no care to keep pure the worship of God is evinced, and all the testimony which made her position distinctive is abandoned. One step of declension has led to another, till a depth has been reached that marks as almost unique the speed of her decline.
But notwithstanding of all this degeneracy, there is still a claim to use the battle-cry of Gideon. To minds that are more ignorant of the power of godliness than moles are of astronomy, superficial movements called revivals appear as tokens of the Lord’s presence, and these are cast as a vail over the many tokens there are of His departing from us. Thus, in departing from the Lord, they venture to reckon on His countenance and aid. Leading churchmen will put themselves at the head of a band of Midianites to oppress the Lord’s heritage, by introducing what to them is loathsome in the worship of God, and yet they claim a right to use the battle-cry of him whom the Lord sent to deliver his people from the power with which these choose to be allied.
Truth will yet keep the crown of the causey in Scotland. Christ and truth are strong enough. Believe, believe.—RUTHERFORD.