In Friday evening Mr. Eardley, in the cottage of Holdich, went on with the history which he had chosen as his theme.
LECTURE III.—FAITH IN OBEDIENCE.
We are to-day to examine faith in a further state of development. If only the green leaves of hope appear, if—as with the barren fig-tree in the parable—there be no fruit, or promise of fruit, hope itself becomes but self-deception. Why call ye Me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? asked the Saviour; If ye love Me, keep My commandments. Faith must blossom into obedience, as we see the fruit-trees in our orchards now bursting into brightness and beauty. Yes; obedience is the blossom, and the essence of its fragrance, self-denial. In heaven obedience is ever a source of delight; but in a world of sin like this, it must, sooner or later, involve a sacrifice of the human will to the divine. Sweet to our Lord is the fragrance which rises like incense when the lips of his servant—tempted and tried—can echo the words once breathed from His own to His Father in heaven, Not as I will, but as Thou wilt.
Gideon had received a promise from the Lord: it was linked, as God’s promises ever are, with a command. That night the Lord thus spake to the son of Joash: “Take thy father’s young bullock, even the second bullock of seven years old, and throw down the altar of Baal that thy father hath, and cut down the grove that is by it; and build an altar unto the Lord thy God upon the top of this rock, in the ordered place, and take the second bullock, and offer a burnt sacrifice with the wood of the grove which thou shalt cut down.”
Many difficulties lay in the way of the execution of such a command, and obedience to it must be fraught with great danger. We should not have marvelled had we found that Gideon had pleaded to be spared a part at least of the painful task assigned him. He was not of the tribe to which pertained the service of the sanctuary; he had, under ordinary circumstances, no right to offer such a sacrifice to God. His own father was an idolater: was it for Gideon to destroy what a parent had set up, to draw down upon himself, as might be expected, the severe displeasure of that parent, and perhaps involve Joash in the peril to which he himself would be certainly exposed? Then—as Gideon might have anxiously reflected—as it would be impossible for him by the strength of his single right hand to cut down a grove, destroy an altar, and build another as God had commanded, where was he to find comrades trusty enough and bold enough to help in the perilous work?
Gideon is not represented in the sacred narrative as a man likely to rush heedlessly upon an enterprise of difficulty and danger, and such thoughts as I have suggested are likely to have passed through his mind. They would have led many in his place to frame excuses, or at least to interpose delays. But we hear not of Gideon doing either. A direct command had been given; simple, unquestioning obedience followed. Gideon took ten men of his servants, and did as the Lord had said unto him. Conscious of danger to be apprehended, not only from the Midianites and the men of his own city, but even from the household of his father, the son of Joash chose the night-time to accomplish his task. Under the cover of darkness, when other eyes were closed in sleep, Gideon and his companions felled the trees of the grove, cast down the altar of Baal, and raised another to Israel’s God. They led thither the appointed sacrifice, slew the bullock, and set fire to the wood, from whence the smoke of the burnt-offering rose towards heaven. That was a busy, an eventful, and must have been an anxious night to Gideon. By so decisive an act, he had indeed drawn the sword and thrown the scabbard away.
THE ALTAR RAISED.
The deed was done, the match was laid to the train, and Gideon must have awaited in anxious expectation the explosion which was certain to follow. The morning’s light revealed the work of the night; the idolatrous men of the city beheld the altar of Baal laid low in the dust, and from mouth to mouth passed the question, “Who hath done this thing?” If Gideon had entertained any hope of concealment, that hope was a brief one; either one of his comrades had turned informer, or some lurking spy had witnessed his act, or, as seems more probable, he had already won such a character for uncompromising fidelity to his God, that suspicion instantly fixed upon him as the man who had dared to cut down the grove, and destroy the idol-altar. “Gideon, the son of Joash, hath done this thing.”
Then rose the furious cry for blood from the enraged worshippers of Baal. They demanded the life of the man who had dared to insult their god.
The Almighty raised up a protector for Gideon. It was the altar of an idolatrous father which he had cast down, and we might have expected the fury of Joash to have been turned against him; but the hearts of all men are in the hand of the Lord, and we find Joash suddenly in the character of a defender of his son’s bold act. Many a prayer may have risen from the depth of Gideon’s soul when he beheld his father, a descendant of Abraham, debasing himself by worshipping Baal. His own noble deed seems to have had the effect of opening the eyes of his parent to the folly of bowing down to an idol that could not protect his shrine from insult. With spirit and courage Joash faced those who would have sacrificed to vengeance the life of his son. “Will ye plead for Baal?” he cried; “will ye save him? He that will plead for him, let him be put to death whilst it is yet morning; if he be a god, let him plead for himself, because one hath cast down his altar!” and Joash called Gideon Jerubbaal, “let Baal plead,” in mockery of the false god to whom he himself had once bowed down.
We are not directly told what was the effect of Joash’s speech on the men of his city, Abiezer, but we can easily gather what it was from the recorded fact that on Gideon’s blowing a trumpet they were the first to rally around him; they who had demanded his blood now acknowledged him as their leader. A spirit of patriotism appears to have been suddenly roused in Israel, and the people, in throwing off the bonds of superstition and idolatry, rose also to shake off the fetters of their earthly oppressors. Messengers were sent by Gideon throughout Manasseh, and to Asher, Zebulon, and Naphtali. From the slopes of Hermon and Tabor, from the shores of the Lake of Gennesareth, from the banks of the Jordan, from that northern portion of Canaan in which, in after times, the Saviour spent the years of His boyhood, hastened the liberators of Israel at the call of their Heaven-appointed chief. Nor was the enemy idle. The Midianites, the Amalekites, and the children of the East gathered together, and pitched in the valley of Jezreel. That valley and the country adjacent are full of historical associations of deep interest. Jezreel appears to have been in the centre of the great plain of Esdraelon, or Megiddo, which is bounded on the north by the mountains of Galilee, on the south by those of Samaria, and in which flow the water of Kishon, “that ancient river” which swept away Sisera’s hosts. Well might the triumphant song of Deborah here recur to Gideon, to brace up his soul for the coming conflict. He saw around him the warriors of Zebulon and Naphtali, the tribes who, under Barak, jeoparded their lives unto the death in the high places of the field. Joash himself may have been one of the heroes who had willingly offered themselves to oppose the might of Sisera, and may have heard from the lips of the prophetess the strain of triumph which closed with the words, So let all Thine enemies perish, O Lord: but let them that love Him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might.
And now we behold the young Manassite, who was so lately threshing corn alone by the wine-press to hide it, a general at the head of an army of thirty-two thousand men. Such success, such a blessing had followed on faith shown in obedience! And here let us leave Gideon, and apply to ourselves the lesson conveyed in his marvellous story.
Every command of our heavenly Master, my brethren, is as a treasure-casket, to be opened by the key of obedience grasped in the hand of faith. The casket may to our eyes look hard and repulsive, the tempter may seek to persuade us that we shall either find it empty, or filled with bitterest gall. But wait on the Lord, and keep His way, and He shall exalt thee. The blessing of the Lord it maketh rich, and He addeth no sorrow with it. Look at Noah, employed during a hundred and twenty years, amidst the mocking and scorn of a most wicked generation, in building an enormous ark in obedience to God’s command. What did he find at last in it to reward his labour of patience, his obedience of faith. Present deliverance from death for himself and his family, and the sceptre of a renovated world! Remember Abraham and his anguish when he received the mysterious command to sacrifice his son—the son whom he tenderly loved. Did not the tempter urge him in that awful hour to cast away his obedience, to turn from a command which to human nature appeared so hard? The hand of faith might tremble, but it refused not the awful task; and what lay enclosed within the dreaded command? A treasure compared to which earth’s crowns are but baubles, and all its riches dust. The promise of a Saviour to spring from Abraham’s line, in whom all the families of the earth should be blessed!
We also have before us commands enclosing blessings reserved for those to whom grace is given to obey God’s will through the power of faith. In the difficult task appointed for Gideon we may trace an emblem of that set before every individual who bears the name of Christian. There is first the altar of Baal to be thrown down; self must be dethroned from its shrine, the heart’s idolatry must be renounced; and who can say that to yield up self-will is not as difficult a duty as that which Gideon performed on that eventful night at Ophrah? There is also the grove to be cut down, a type of those things lawful and even beautiful in themselves, but which become to us snares if they stand in the way of duty, if they hide from us heaven’s light. God hath given to us all things richly to enjoy; but if the gifts make us forget the Giver, if they cause us to neglect appointed duties, they are as the goodly trees by the altar of Baal, whose wood was to be used as fuel, and not reserved for shade.
Thirdly, there is the altar to be raised, the appointed sacrifice to be offered. I need scarcely remind you, my friends, that in this sacrifice there is nothing of atonement—the blood of Christ, and that alone, has power to cleanse from sin, or to reconcile the sinner to God; yet is the Christian permitted, yea, commanded, to offer himself a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God. As Gideon was not of the priestly tribe, and yet was given special grace to perform the priestly office, so the Lord deigns to make of His ransomed servants a royal priesthood as well as a peculiar people. Christ’s sacrifice was the Sacrifice of Atonement; the sacrifice of His saints is that of thanksgiving. The offering of a free heart will I give Thee, O Lord, and praise Thy name.
To each one amongst us to whom a present Saviour has been revealed by faith, the word of the Lord hath come as to the son of Joash. We may have rejoiced in the promise, but have we obeyed the command? Let us be honest with ourselves, my brethren; if the altar of Baal be yet standing, can we hope to drive the Midianites out of the land? Faith, if real, must appear in obedience; show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my works, saith the inspired apostle. I commend the subject to your earnest attention. Let each search and try his own heart, and compare his life with the law of his God. Let each remember that even every thought must be brought captive to the obedience of Christ, through the aid of the Holy Spirit, without whom we can do nothing pleasing to the Lord. I cannot better close our meditation on this subject than by repeating the words of our Redeemer in His Sermon on the Mount:—Whosoever heareth these sayings of Mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth these sayings of Mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.
