 The title of our sermon tonight is called A Poor Steward of Manifold Grace and I'm afraid that that begins to describe Gideon our would-be hero from chapters 6 and 7, A Poor Steward of Manifold Grace. Judges chapter 8 continues our consideration of the life and exploits of Gideon, the judge that God has raised up to deliver his people from the Midianite menace. And as the Lord has patiently and compassionately now built up the faith of this would-be hero, Gideon has become the mighty man of valor that the Lord said he was back in chapter 6. By the hand of God, by the mercy and grace of God, Gideon tore down the altar to bail that his father had put up in Ophra. He had gathered an army together from the northern tribes of Israel. They rallied behind him at Mount Gilead, prepared to attack the Midianites, the Amalekites, the people of the east, and have once again, as they have for each of the last seven years, settled in the Jezreel Valley like locusts, innumerable, and it was there that the Lord put Gideon's fledgling faith to the test as he cut down the Israelite army to a mere 300 men and then determined to send those men into battle, not with swords and shields, but with trumpets, pitchers and torches against the Midianite horde numbering 135,000 men. We've seen in detail how the Lord, every step along the way, was at work in Gideon to bolster Gideon's faith, how he was gracious to Gideon in that way. By the time the Lord is done with Gideon, the once timid, fearful, and faithless Gideon is now faith-filled. He's a confident and skillful soldier, a confident and skillful, faith-filled servant of God, and with his lapping 300, this mighty man of valor has set the armies of Midian to flight. Chapter seven ends with Gideon sending messengers throughout the mountains of Ephraim to ask for help with the mop-up operations. They want Ephraim to help to block or to head off the escape route of the armies of Midian, and so they send into the mountains of Ephraim to ask for help. Chapter eight then takes a tragic turn. After this tremendous victory and the obvious deliverance given by the hand of God himself, we see both a growing contention in the heart of Israel, and there is growing compromise in the heart of Gideon. Grace and mercy have been poured out by God in delivering His people. Peter says, the grace of God having been given, Peter says we're to be good stewards of the manifold grace of God. We can't receive the grace of God in vain. We have to be good stewards of the grace that God pours out on us, and we're grateful for it, but we find here both the nation and Gideon to be poor stewards of that grace, poor stewards of manifold grace. In other words, they may have started well, but they didn't finish well, and that's the problem, right? We are to finish. We must finish well in sin, in pride, but we'll see as selfish ambition, Gideon and the nation fail to acknowledge the goodness, the forbearance, the long suffering of God, not knowing that the goodness of God should lead them to repentance. And as we work through the text, there's a warning here in this passage for us to remember, a very important warning for us to remember. As professing Christians, this is a warning that we are called throughout the Bible to remember, let him who thinks he stands, take heed lest he fall, let him who thinks he stands, take heed lest he fall. Andrew Bonarm said, let us be as watchful after the victory as before the battle. I think that is profound insight. Let us be as watchful after the victory as before the battle. We can, after the battle is waged, the war is won, God has given us the victory and God pours out his grace on us. We can find ourselves languishing in comfort and ease, letting our guard down. We can become prideful. We can become imagining to ourselves that our strength and our might has won this victory for us. We must be as watchful after the victory, maybe even more so as before the battle. There are dangers, you could say, on the far side of faithfulness. And we'll see why that's so important as we work through the text together. After a great victory in chapter 7, our account then begins in chapter 8 with contention in the heart of Israel. Look at verse 1 with me. Now the men of Ephraim said to him, why have you done this to us by not calling us when you went to fight with the Midianites? And they reprimanded him sharply. The ESV says they accused him fiercely. They contended against him forcefully. The Ephraimites were mad. They were angry, right? It means the Ephraimites weren't happy and they read Gideon here, the riot act. They didn't get invited to the original battle. They didn't get to participate in the original route. And it was only when Midian was escaping through their territory that then Gideon called them in to mop up. And they took this action on the part of Gideon, this neglect they would say, they took it personally as if they had been insulted. And you might think that, well, they were the tribe that Joshua had come from. So they were the great military leaders of the nation of Israel. Joshua, their great military leader, had come from Ephraim. Maybe they believed that any military action that was to be taken should be led or should at least involve them. And they were missing out on the honor they perceived, they were missing out on the honor that Gideon and the other tribes were getting. Whatever the case, this serves to show how factious and how contentious Ephraim was. And this would be an ongoing problem with them. Jephthah essentially does the same thing in Judges chapter 12. He leaves them out of a battle with Ammon and the Ephraimites threatened to burn down his house with him inside it. They were very contentious, very angry. God here delivers his people, let's keep this in context. And you've got the kids squabbling about it in the front yard. Ephraim is upset about it. And it just illuminates what ingratitude they had. How ungrateful Ephraim was, how selfish, how prideful. And that ingratitude combined with pride, maybe envy and selfishness, selfish ambition leads to contention, here contention in the heart of Israel. Like the Israelites grumbling against God when he brought them out of Egypt, here Ephraim is grumbling against God ultimately, grumbling against Gideon. Well, Gideon here in this context gets to practice his diplomacy now. He's got some new diplomatic skills. So in verse two, he said to them, what have I done now in comparison with you? He's going to build them up, isn't he? It's not the gleaning of the grapes of Ephraim better than the vintage of Abbe Ezra. God has delivered into your hands the princes of Midian, Orab and Zeb. And what was I able to do in comparison with you? Then their anger toward him subsided when he said that. You know, what could they say as a result of that? Proverbs 15-1, a soft answer turns away wrath. We see that exemplified here in Gideon's answer to Ephraim. And it's interesting, isn't it? Formerly timid, formerly fearful and faithless Gideon, and now Gideon is the confident politician, the confident diplomat, and he quells the anger of Ephraim. Here apparently he quells the anger of Ephraim with flattery. Look at what you've done and how is what I've done even in comparison with what you've done. Proverbs 29-22, an angry man stirs up strife and a furious man abounds in transgression. We see that in Ephraim, don't we? Ephraim is stirring up strife, stirring up or abounding in transgression. But on the other hand, look at how far Gideon has come. The work of God's grace in the life of Gideon has had a tremendous transformative effect. Gideon has obviously matured. He credits the Lord in verse 3 with delivering the princes, right? It was God that did that. He sets aside any pride, any personal ambition, and he credits the Ephraimites with their contribution. He diminishes his own contribution and exalts or magnifies theirs. Gideon appears to humble himself for the sake of making peace, and that's a good lesson, something commendable that Gideon does here. The Ephraimites, however, as we can see, were ungrateful. They were envious, the sin of envy, and we'll see that sin again in Judges chapter 12. Desiring the glory of victory for themselves, they ultimately were envious that Gideon appeared to have it. Right? And this is exactly, exactly in keeping with the warning of Judges chapter 7 verse 2. This is what God was concerned about when he decided to humble the Israelites. He says, the people with you are too many, Gideon. They're too many. Lest Israel claim glory for itself against me, lest they boast against me, I'm going to cut down the armies of Israel, and he cut them down to 300 men. It was this very concern, right? You can see how the Ephraimites would have fallen prey, did fall prey to this very sin, the sin of boasting in themselves. And because they missed out on the boasting they could have had, they were angry that Gideon went into battle without them. The sin of boasting in themselves for the glory in battle is simply replaced by the sin of ungrateful envy that they couldn't have had the glory for themselves. Richard Rogers, Puritan says, an envious person would willingly pull out one of his own eyes on the condition that the one against whom he grudges loses both of his. And you see what a wicked, self-destructive sin envy actually is. Gideon may have been the immediate object of their wrath, but that sin is ultimately against God. You know, envy, if you consider that sin, envy drove the wicked cane to murder his brother Abel, right? Envy drove the sons of Jacob to plot the murder of their brother Joseph. Envy drove the Pharisees to murder the Lord of glory. Their envy, envy drives the Ephraimites in their contentious spirit against Gideon. We should be grateful, shouldn't we, for all the ways in which the Lord has blessed us, but in particular our brothers. When the Lord blesses someone that should fill our heart with joy, should fill our heart with gratitude to God. Look at the grace and mercy of God and how the Lord blesses our brother, blesses our sister. Give no place to envy. Give no place to envy. Envy produces strife, produces contention. Envy is fueled by pride. Envy is fueled by ingratitude, fueled by selfishness, fueled by selfish ambition, all of which is just evil. Well, the contentious spirit among the people of Israel is only exacerbated in Gideon's next encounter. Look at verse 4. Then when Gideon came to the Jordan, he and the 300 men who were with him crossed over, exhausted but still in pursuit. I like that, exhausted but still in pursuit. Put that on a T-shirt, that's what we want to be said of us. I was involved in the Lord's worthy cause. I am exhausted but I'm still in pursuit. We've labored to the point of exhaustion but we're still in hot pursuit of the goal of the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. I'm exhausted but still in pursuit. That's a worthy thing to have said about you. But to learn from Gideon here, to learn from Gideon, when you think that you have routed the enemy, don't stop, right? When you think that you have the victory won, don't stop. The fight is not over. The fight's not over until Jesus Christ comes back. The fight isn't over. Remains a necessary and needful work to be done. There are 15,000 Midianites left. 120,000 fell by the sword in the battle. 120,000 died and Gideon and his 300 hardly even had to lift their sword. They crushed their pitchers, they blew their trumpets and those men turned on each other with their own swords and 120,000 men died in the field. But there are 15,000 Midianites left. The Israelites are exhausted but still in pursuit. Those 15,000 men can easily regroup and come back, right? That's a pretty large number of men. They can easily go back, regroup and then invade once again. The place swept and put in order. Those demons come back with seven of their buddies. More wicked than themselves and the last state of that man is worse than the first. They just stop, keep fighting until every last Midianite is dead. That was the problem with Israel from the beginning, wasn't it? The Lord had put the nations, those wicked pagan nations in Canaan, under the ban. And when Joshua and the army, when the Israelites went in to take possession of their inheritance, they failed to completely drive out the Canaanites from the land and those Canaanites became ensnares to them, right? They were ensnared by them. You could say their state was worse than it was at the beginning. This action is commendable of Gideon. He's exhausted but still in pursuit. Don't stop the battle until every last enemy is dead. However, despite what is commendable here of Gideon, we find again more contention in the heart of Israel. Gideon is pursuing Midian for the peace and well-being of his own countrymen. Gideon is doing this to see the people delivered from the hand of Midian. And he goes to his own countrymen then, the Israelites, these are Jews, Israelites. He goes to them for help and he says to them, essentially, we're exhausted, we're hungry. Give us bread so we can keep going. And he doesn't get the response to that that he would expect. Look at verse 5. So he said to the men of Sukkoth, Please give loaves of bread to the people who follow me for they're exhausted. I'm pursuing Zeba and Zalmune, the kings of Midian. And the leaders of Sukkoth said, Are the hands of Zeba and Zalmune now in your hand that we should give bread to your army? Now, this is a cowardly, unbelieving, faithless response on the part of the Israelites who are living in Sukkoth. Certainly they heard about the victory, 120,000 dead on the battlefield. And now Gideon in pursuit of the remaining 15,000 Midianites. And here the men of Sukkoth, cowardly, unbelieving, faithless, will not come to the aid of Gideon and his men. Gideon here is fighting for their benefit. First John chapter 3, verse 17 sort of calls to mind or illuminates this particular evil. Whoever has this world's goods and sees his brother in need and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him? And the answer to that rhetorical question is it doesn't. The love of God does not abide in him. Here we've got Gideon's own brothers, these Jewish, these Israelites living in Sukkoth, living in Penuel who fail to come to his aid. They see the remaining 15,000 Midianites in flight. They see Gideon with a mere 300 men. They are faithless. They are unbelieving, right? They see Gideon and his men exhausted. The answer to them appears clear, we're not giving any aid to you. So Gideon said to them, verse 7, for this cause, when, not if, right? That's faith on the part of Gideon. When the Lord has delivered Zeb and Zalmune into my hand, that's faith, right? Then I will tear your flesh with the thorns of the wilderness and with briars. Here Gideon's faith in the Lord and in the Lord's deliverance is unwavering. He doesn't shake here. He doesn't tremble. He says, when, not if, but there's definitely something disconcerting about Gideon's response to his countrymen, isn't it? At first blush, someone may read past that and say, well, that sounds justified to me, but there's, when you stop to consider it, there's something disconcerting about it. He aims to give them a thrashing. He is going to come back and tear their flesh with the thorns of the wilderness and with briars. Well, listen, verse 8, they went up from there to Penuel and spoke to them and in the same way. And the men of Penuel answered him as the men of Sukkoth had answered. So he also spoke to the men of Penuel saying, when I come back in peace, not if, but when, again, that's faith on the part of Gideon. When I come back in peace, I will tear down this tower. The tower would have been a symbol of their strength. The tower would have been for their protection. That would have been part of their protective defenses of the city. They may have imagined themselves to be safe because of their tower. When it should have been that they put their confidence and trust in the Lord. Proverbs 18.10, the name of the Lord is a strong tower. The righteous run to it and are safe. Nevertheless, though, Gideon promises to tear it down. And again, something about this seems unsettling. What the men of Sukkoth, what the men of Penuel do is reprehensible. It is cowardly and unbelieving. The Gideon here has to guard his own heart and not be tempted to sin. Delivering Israel, honoring the Lord may have eventually or initially been Gideon's motivation for leading the Israelites into battle, those 300 men, and for pursuing the Midianites. But think with me, what might be his motivation for this action now against the men of Sukkoth and against the men of Penuel? It sounds like a vengeance, doesn't it? Sounds more like a vengeance. Gideon sounds like he thinks he deserves better. He's sounding entitled. The Lord isn't mentioned here. Gideon doesn't pray and inquire of the Lord what he should do. These are his brothers, his countrymen. Even the Israelites went right when they couldn't go in to eat them. They trusted the Lord and they went around. What is going on here? It seems like Gideon is beginning to be concerned about maybe his own reputation, maybe his own feelings, his own hurt here. Let's think for a moment. Who is sovereign over all these things? Who's sovereign over these events? Sovereign even over the response of the men of Sukkoth and Penuel. Humility on the part of Gideon would have paused and prayed, wouldn't it? Humility, faith would have trusted the Lord to supply their need and direct their path. We're not going to get aid this way. The Lord will supply aid and provision another way, would have trusted the Lord to provide another way. But Gideon doesn't do that, right? There's pride involved here. There seems to be personal hurt and what starts as personal hurt leads to a personal vendetta. This is vengeance. When we see contention in the heart of Israel, but we also now begin to see compromise in the heart of Gideon. What happens next in the narrative? How does this begin to play out? Look at verse 10. Now, Zeba and Zalmuna were at Karkor, their armies with them, about 15,000, all who were left of the army of the people of the east, for 120,000 men who drew the sword had fallen. Then Gideon went up by the road of those who dwell in tents on the east of Noba and Jagbaha, and he attacked the army while the camp felt secure. When Zeba and Zalmuna fled, he pursued them, and he took the two kings of Midian, Zeba and Zalmuna, and routed the whole army. Just as the Lord had promised. Despite being overwhelmingly outnumbered, still, Gideon shows great faith, great courage, in the face of overwhelming numbers. They were overwhelmingly outnumbered. And now even great military prowess with a sneak attack on the army while they were resting, while the camp felt secure. And Gideon then takes captive the leaders Zeba and Zalmuna, wipes out the rest of the army. Incidentally, the name Zeba means sacrifice. The name Zalmuna means shade or shelter refused. It would be, I'm sure, later or future Israelites who would have been struck or found interesting or delighted in those names given to those two wicked kings, sacrifice or shade or shelter refused. Orban's Eve, those first ones taken by Ephraim, were commanders, but these were Melechim. They were kings. And in all this, the battle and the glory still belongs to the Lord. So in verse 13, then Gideon, the son of Joash, returned from battle from the ascent of Harris, and he caught a young man of the men of Sukkoth and interrogated him, and he wrote down for him the leaders of Sukkoth and its elders, seventy-seven men. Then he came to the men of Sukkoth and said, here are Zeba and Zalmuna, about whom you ridiculed me saying, are the hands of Zeba and Zalmuna now in your hand that we should give bread to your weary men? And he took the elders of the city, if you can imagine this scene, right? He takes the elders of the city. He takes thorns of the wilderness and briars, and verse 16 says, he taught them. He taught the men of Sukkoth with thorns and briars. He shredded their flesh with thorns and briars in the wilderness. Verse 17, then he tore down the tower of Penuel and not just tearing down the tower, which is what he said he would do, he also killed the men of the city. Verse 17, now whatever you may think about how the Israelites or the Jews that dwelt in Sukkoth and Penuel may have deserved a thrashing for what they had done, Romans chapter 12, 19 warns us, beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath. For it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay says the Lord. This is very high-handed on the part of Gideon. You know, if the men of Sukkoth or the men of Penuel were Canaanite pagans under the ban, that would have been different, right? The Lord had commanded Joshua and the children of Israel to kill all of those who were under the ban. They were to not leave one alive, but these were not Canaanite pagans under the ban. These were brothers of Gideon, Israelites dwelling here in the nation, the men of Sukkoth and Penuel, and no longer can this be considered the righteous cause of God. We have to view this as a personal vendetta on the part of Gideon. In his rage, Gideon even goes beyond his thread at Penuel and kills the men of the city versus just tearing down their tower. Gideon here is acting like a tyrant, and he's acting like a tyrant. Verse 18, he said to Zeb and Zalmuna, what kind of men were they whom you killed at Tabor? Obviously they had crossed over one time before, and it had a battle, killed men at Tabor. So they answered him, as you are, so were they, each one resembled the son of a king. Then he said, they were my brothers. This introduces something new to the narrative that we weren't aware of before. His brothers had been killed at Tabor by the armies of these two kings. He said in verse 19, they were my brothers, the sons of my mother. And then he takes the Lord's name in vain with an oath, as the Lord lives, if you would let them live, I would not kill you. Gideon's motivation now becomes more and more clear, doesn't it? His great, or given great grace, a tremendous victory by the Lord, Gideon then now forgets the Lord, no longer humbled, now filled with rage, he now turns to settle a personal grudge. He takes the Lord's name in vain, as the Lord lives, and then he takes his vengeance. Verse 20, so he said to Jethar, his firstborn, rise, kill them, but the youth would not draw his sword, for he was afraid because he was still a youth. Jethar, his son now, more resembles Gideon as he was before this account began, doesn't he? Jethar sort of is now a sympathetic figure, the way that Gideon might have been in the beginning, and Gideon is well past being sympathetic at this point. Gideon has begun acting like a tyrant. Seems Gideon's memory is short. He's now intolerant of cowardice, when he was once a coward. He's now intolerant of faithlessness. No fleece is offered here, his pride begins to swell, Gideon is offended, and now having his son Jethar to do his dirty work for him, he's acting like a wicked, dynastic tyrant. And having his son do the dirty work for him here is actually like a dynastic taunt, saying essentially that my son will rule in my stead when I'm gone, and has asked Jethar to stand up and kill his captives in warfare, his backfires, the whole plan backfires with Jethar's fear. It might have hurt Gideon's pride even more. Verse 21, so Zeb and Zalmuna said, Rise yourself and kill us. For as a man is, so is his strength, they taunt Gideon here. So Gideon arose, killed Zeb and Zalmuna, and took the crescent ornaments that were on their camel's necks, the symbol of their kingly authority, the symbol of their rule. And here we have Gideon from a humble, growing, maturing God-given faith to a man of blood, to a man of vengeance, abusing the very strength and power that God had given him. He turns it now for his own personal use. He consumes it, you would say, on his own lusts. Now, Gideon's plummet from what was commendable character at one point, that plummet will continue as we'll see next week. It only gets worse from here. We see contention in the heart of Israel, and we see growing compromise in the heart of Gideon, reminds us of our lesson. Let us be as watchful after the victory as before the battle. Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. It may very well have been, if you think with me, it may very well have been that the Lord himself determined the incidents at Sukkoth and Penuel for the very purpose of cultivating a continuing reliance in Gideon upon the Lord. To humble Gideon, to provoke him, to continue his dependence upon God, and he will often do that for our good. When Paul, in 2 Corinthians, he was raised up, he was elevated, he was taken up, caught up into the third heaven, and lest he be caught up in his own pride, in his own exaltation. What did the Lord do? The Lord gave him a messenger of Satan, a thorn in his flesh, to buffet him. Why? To humble Paul, so that he might not be exalted in himself. It may very well have been that the Lord determined these incidents at Sukkoth and Penuel, to humble Gideon, to provoke him to continue reliance on the Lord. This is the way the Lord often handles us, doesn't he? We can come off just a great, tremendous victory, a tremendous blessing, and then we respond in self-confidence and pride and selfish ambition or selfish interests, and we forget where we were before the battle began. We forget how much we need the Lord. Paul was given an unspeakable blessing. He witnessed things he wasn't allowed to speak of, and the Lord followed that by allowing a thorn in his flesh, lest he be exalted above measure, and the Lord often does the same with us. Paul, like we are, we're to learn that God's strength is made perfect in weakness. We should rather then boast in our infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon us. Success can be perilous. Blessings, if we don't guard our heart, if we don't look to the, not just to the gift, but to the gift-giver, if we fail to look with gratitude and love and devotion to the gift-giver, then blessings can be perilous. Blessings followed by ingratitude will breed rottenness in your bones. Gideon started out weak, and Gideon, frankly, needs to remember that he is weak even now. He needs to acknowledge that the Lord is the one who is strong. Faith is a day-by-day, sometimes hour-by-hour, even minute-by-minute determination. It's often a minute-by-minute decision. Faith is to cast off self-reliance and look to Christ who is our life. And we must remind ourselves of that always, every day, hour-by-hour, even minute-by-minute. In chapter 7, verse 2, the Lord said to Gideon, the people who are with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel claim glory for itself against me, saying my own hand has saved me. The concern was that Israel would take pride in the victory, boast in themselves. When they didn't have the victory, when they were under the thumb of Midian, they were humble, weren't they? They were crying out to God for help. When they did have it, they were prideful, contentious, unbelieving, faithless, boasting in themselves for what they had, even when they didn't actually participate in the battle. And it's often, it's a lesson that we must remember. Often it's only the mature in faith who can well handle prosperity. We need to be mature in our faith. Paul said that he learned how to be abased, and he learned how to abound, something we have to learn. Gideon here isn't handling prosperity well, and he becomes a prideful tyrant. So what's our lesson then? What would Peter say? Be sober, be vigilant. Your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. We all know, we've all heard the stories of seasoned saints that fall. Any saint can stumble, right? Any of us can stumble. The Bible says that Gideon here fell into a snare. He fell into a snare. Whatever your snare, whatever besets you, whatever comes against you, you must fight. And you must fight in the power of God, in his strength, not in your own, in reliance upon him, and you have to remember your place, remember how weak you are. Remember that initial humility with which it caused you to cry out to God, independence upon him for help and aid in your time of need. Remember that initial sense of deprivation, that sense of need. And don't be merely content with starting well, be consumed with finishing well. It's he that endures to the end will be saved. He that endures to the end will be saved. And guard yourself against the snare. Take heed lest you fall. We must depend on the Lord, cry out to him, pray to him for help, always depending on him, even when the battle seems to be won, even more so than this side of eternity. We always have a battle facing us, don't we? Let's pray. Lord, thank you for this lesson. Thank you for this time. Thank you, Lord, for admonishing us from your word with respect to this lesson. Help us learn here from the example of Gideon, not to rest in a prideful self-reliance, not to let our guard down when our enemy can easily regroup, remuster, come again against us. Help us, Lord, to continue the fight, to be watchful, to be sober, to be vigilant, knowing that our adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, knowing, Lord, that we are easy prey when we don't depend on you in faith. Help us to trust you, Lord. Help us to fix our eyes upon the Lord Jesus Christ, who in all ways was tempted as we are, and yet without sin. And help us to follow him, follow his example, follow his lead, follow him by faith, relying upon the power of the Spirit to strengthen us against our enemies. And Lord, we pray, please help us, help us strengthen us, keep us humble, keep us dependent. And we pray, Lord, that you would pour out your blessings upon us and hold us fast as we learn how to be abased and as we learn how to abound for your glory in Jesus' name. Amen.