One Action To Transform Your Nation

0:00Last week, we untangle what is probably the most famously misread passages in the Bible. The two fleas of Gideon. We saw that Gideon was not a coward, not a faltering believer, not a man putting God to the test. He was a man clothed by the Holy Spirit in fellowship with the Lord, leading thousands of men into battle against peoples who held to the bowel cycle, the methodological fairy tale in which bowel dies and is resurrected through the Jew and the Rhine. Gideon's alter smashing in chapter 6 made it look in the eyes of every bowel worshipper, including the man in his own army that bowel had died. The next question was, would bowel come back?

1:02So Gideon, by the Spirit, asked the Lord to demonstrate publicly before going into battle that the Lord governs the Jew, not bowel. Twice in opposite directions, the Lord answered, bowel was finished. And we said this teaches us something deeper. There is no such thing as nature, per se. There is only the creation of God, governed moment by moment by the Lord of creation. The Lord can pour out blessings on your fleas while the grind around you is dry because he governs the Jew. So trust him to pour out that sweet Jew on your life in due time. Are you despairing of your nation, whether it's the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland, the Republic, Scotland, England, or the United States, Australia, or New Zealand? Are you losing hope because you look around you and you see hordes of people who read the Guardian newspaper, or watch CNN, and actually believe it's propaganda?

2:03Again, you see hordes of people who watch the BBC still, hordes of people who voted for Nat Zero, and don't see anything wrong with it. Are you losing hope because you see, again, hordes of people who turned up in the last five or ten years from the other side of the planet? And you see the political class is busy giving them houses while telling you to be quiet. Are you discouraged because the end of the answer is you used to follow. The strong voices you trusted are buckling, going off the rails, going soft on the religion of peace, going strange in the head, going captured by money or fear, or just plain weirdness. Are you watching the so-called warriors of your generation tremble in the face of pressure? If you are, today's passage is for you, because what you're watching is not the defeat of the people of God, what you're watching instead is the Lord assembling His remnants.

3:07What you're watching is Gideon's army going from 32,000, down to 10,000, down to only 300. I'm Nathan F. Conkey with God's World's God's Way, sponsored by cr101ridio.com in association with Gris Community School and Nicene Covenant Church. Please visit cr101ridio.com where you'll find free Christian audiobooks, e-books and podcasts, for the Christian who can't accept the easy answers. So we're in judges seven versus one to eight. Let's get into it. Verse one. Then Jerry Ubal, that is Gideon and all the people who were with him rose early and then can't beside the well of Harrod so that the camp of Median was on the north side of them by the hill of Mure and the valley. So set the seal in your mind. Median has tens of thousands of men with him at this point, 32,000 chosen fighting men. The man who had come up from Manasa, Asher, Zebulan and Naptalai in response to his trumpet

4:12and the messengers. These are not draftees, they're not conscripts. These are men who left their fields, left their wives, left their farms, their workplaces, and walked, perhaps for days, to put their lives on the line. Like with the choice men of the age, they were true warriors and they had just looked across the valley. The camp of Median is on the north side by the hill of Mure. The Medianites, the Amalakites, fierce people and the children of the East are described later in the chapter as locusts on the land for multitude that camels without number as the sand on the seashore for multitude. Now, try to picture that. The 32,000 choice men of Israel are looking across at a horde so vast, it's like the sand on the seashore. We find out later that the number at least 135,000, those are the ones who were killed or captured, granted that some would escape for everyone Israelite.

5:17They faced at least at the very least five confederated foreigners, men of war. And their knees knocked so loudly that the well that supplied the camp is called the well of Harrod, which means the well of trembling. The first sifting of the fearful, verse two, the Lord said to Gideon, that people who are with you are too many for me to give the Medianites into their hands, less Israel clinging glory for itself against me, saying, my own hand has saved me. So stop and take that in. The Lord didn't say Gideon, you don't have enough men. The Lord said, you've got too many, far too many, why? Because if Israel won this battle with 32,000 men against an enemy of around 150,000 at the very minimum, that's a ratio of about one to five, which is winnable in human terms,

6:20with a bit of quote-unquote luck. And if it is winnable in human terms, they are guaranteed to say, well, we do do. But the Lord refuses to share the glory of salvation, that is the glory of deliverance and victory. He will not allow his people to win on terms that make him look optional. So he says, now therefore proclaiming the hearing of the people, saying, whoever is fearful and afraid, let him turn and depart at once from Mount Gilead. And this is straight out of Deuteronomy 20, the law of war, which states that the Lord does not permit the fearful to fight. There's no punishment for being fearful, there's no court-martial, no shaming, no chiding. Just go home, we don't need you. So 22,000 men turned around and went home. Oh, imagine if you were one of the third, what are you thinking?

7:21Two thirds, fully two thirds have gone. Two thirds are the choice, fighting man, the warriors, the tried and the true ones, who knew how to use a sword and a spear and a bow. Two thirds of them just walked away. Now let's apply this. Maybe you've watched men you respected and who you thought were strong men with platforms and followings and reputations buckle under the pressure. Maybe it was during the whole COVID business when pastors closed their churches with hardly a whimper. Maybe it's a politician you backed who settled the right things until the moment of pressure came and then he wobbled. Maybe it's an influencer, a podcaster, a YouTuber you followed who now is drifted and gone strange, gone soft, gone just plain wrong. You watched him tremble and you thought, if they're falling away, what hope is there

8:21for me? What hope is there for the cause of God? For liberty. Now here's what you have to understand. When the Lord is preparing to deliver His people, the first thing He does very often is to sift out the fearful. He doesn't need them. He will not use them. Not at the moment. If they find their courage, well then it's a different story. If they walk away under pressure, that's not a tragedy for the kingdom. That's the Lord clearing out the deadwood. That's the Lord saying, I will not win this war with men who are looking for the exit. So when you watch the influencers fall away, the two-thirds of your apparent allies drift, don't despair, you're not going backwards, you're accelerating, forwards, full speed, the army of the Lord is being purified, the Lord is closing on and the man he actually

9:21intends to use. The second sifting, the lapping, verse 4. But the Lord said to get in, the people are still too many, bring them down to the water and I will test them for you here. 10,000, that's still a lot, you're lying, 10,000 people, you try to feed them at dinner, my goodness, that is a lot of men. But 10,000 men against an army like locusts on the land is still humanly conceivable at the margins, one against 15. The Lord wants the ratio of godly to wicked so impossibly grit that no man can claim credit so he sets up the second sifting. Everyone who lapsed from the water with his tongue as a dog laps, you shall set apart by himself, likewise everyone who gets down on his knees to drink. And the number of those who lapsed, putting their hand to their mouth, was 300 men, but all the rest of the people who got down on their knees to drink water.

10:24Isn't this a big headscratcher? What's the test and what does the lapping mean? Now, I've heard it's fun to say that this is a tactical test and maybe it is the 300 laps because they kept their eyes up alert watching for the enemy in the 97 was at 97 hundred got their faces down in the water and were there for an alert. I think it's that's respectable, but I don't think it's what the text actually emphasizes. What the text emphasizes is the comparison to a dog. One who lapsed from the water with his tongue as a dog laps. No, that's confusing because in scripture dogs are usually negative, they're unclean, they're scavengers, a dog returns to its vomit, and the most disgusting and repulsive men imaginable are rightly called dogs by the Holy Spirit. But there is also another usage and this is, I think, where the key is, the Hebrew word

11:27for dog is kelev, kelev. What does that make you think of? Well, kelev, despite the man who with Joshua came back from the land and said, we are well able to take it a man of faith. And a man who, at 85 years of age, said to Joshua, give me this mountain. The man who was a kenezite and outsider, a gentile by backgrounds and yet became one of the most singularly faithful men. That is, full of faith in the entire history of Israel. Now, kelev means dog, as we've said in one of its meanings in translations in the older Bible encyclopedias, is faithful servants. A dog is dogate, a dog comes when called, a dog does not stand on dignity. A dog will roll up his sleeves so to speak and do what needs doing. So when the Lord watches 10,000 men come down to the water and 9,700 of them kneel down

12:29with their faces in the water and 300 of them lap with their tongues like dogs, what's he doing? I think he's choosing the dogate faithful, the man who don't stand on dignity, the man who will lap up what is in front of them and keep on moving. The man who aren't too proud to look like a dog if that's what the Lord wants them to do. So I think there's also one more clue here. The Hebrew word for lap only appears in two places in the entire Old Testament, here in Judges 7, and in 1 Kings 22, where Ahab's blood is licked up or lapped up by dogs after its death. And the curious thing is that both passages are about bill worship centrally. Judges 7 and 8 is a climax of Gideon's war against bill. Most Kings 22 is the death of the grids, byl promoting King Ahab, married to Jezebel, the Cydonian princess. So I'm suggesting that a connection is being etched out in Scripture.

13:33The Lord uses the dogate faithful servants to bring down the pride, bill worshipers. He uses the lapping feud to take down the bile saturated many. He uses Caleb-like men to break the back of the Ahab's of the world. Now, look at who Gideon was. When the Lord met him, was he in a position of power, did he have a great name? Was he at court giving orders? No, he was in a wine press, thrashing wheat, hiding from the Minionites. He was already a faithful servant, doing what needed to be done in obscurity. He was already a Caleb-like man. And rewarded by all human accounts, neither came from power or prestige, and the Lord uses men like that. He uses men with no platform, no following, no reputation. He uses men who will lap from the stream like a dog if that's what the work requires them to do.

14:35So you don't need the influencers. If you're sitting there watching Tucker Carlson go strange on Islam and the Gulf states, watching kind of so-and-stripped somewhere in the dark side of the moon, watching one big name after a laugh fall away, fall sideways, fall off, don't lose heart. The Lord is sifting his army. He doesn't need them. He never needed them. He needs the dog at faithful, or he will use by his grace the dog at faithful. He will use men with no platform. He needs the farmers. The hallier is perhaps the quarry man. The man working in obscurity. The man in the wine press. He needs the Caleb-men, or will use the Caleb-men, the faithful servants. So if you think to yourself, well, I have no platform, no influence, I have nobody in a small tongue. Brother, this is exactly the man the Lord uses.

15:36It's the man who laughs from the stream and was kept, was retained, part of the 300. So stop looking at the dealers, stop wishing you had a following, they're following, stop measuring the work of God by the size of the audience. The Lord doesn't need a majority. The Lord doesn't need a viral video. The Lord uses faithful servants who will go, or he sends them, and do what he commands. So Caleb was a cannazite. That means he was by background in Edomite, a descendant of Issa. He was, in the strictest of senses, an outsider. He wasn't born into the covenants by ethnic Israelite descent, he had been brought in. He was a Gentile who was grafted in. And yet who, among all the men who came out of Egypt, did the Lord singleite as having a different spirit? It was Caleb, Numbers 1424. But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit in him, and has followed me fully.

16:42I will bring into the land where he went, and his descendant shall inherit it. He had a different spirit, he followed the Lord fully, and that's the Caleb signature. 45 years later, Joshua 14, an 85-year-old Caleb walks up to Joshua and says, Now, therefore, give me this mountain of which the Lord spoke in that day. Give me this mountain at 85, that's Caleb, that is the dog-ed spirit. And that is the dog-ed faithful, unstoppable servants, who did not get distracted, did not retire, did not soften, did not buckle, did not ask for a quiet life. Now, I propose that Gideon 300, the Lappers, are the same kind of man. And can I suggest that the Lord is gathering Caleb's once again? Maybe he's always gathering Caleb's, gathering men with a different spirit, gathering

17:48men who follow him fully. He's gathering men who, when others are kneeling at the water, for a comfortable drink, will lap from the stream like a dog and keep moving. The practical step, 2 Chronicles 7-14. Ok, Nathan, the Lord uses the few, but what am I supposed to do? I'm not at the front of an army like Gideon was, I don't have a trumpet, I don't have a sword. So what's the equivalent of success today? What can I really do to move the needle? And I want to give you a guarantee. There is a thing you can do today that is the equivalent of Gideon blowing the trumpet under the promise of Numbers 10-9. Numbers 10-9 says, this is when he, before he assembled the army, he says, when you go to war in your land against the enemy who oppresses you, then you shall sign along with the trumpets, and you will be remembered before the Lord your God, you will be saved from

18:49your enemies. Now this is an if-then statement. If you blow the trumpets, then I will save you. So Gideon blew the trumpets, and the salvation was guaranteed in principle, the moment the trumpet signed it. But, and this is important, the trumpet did not mean Gideon got to sit down and watch the Lord do it for him, he still had to fight the battle. The trumpet guarantees the outcome, but it doesn't exempt you from the work. Now I want to give you an equivalent, 2 Chronicles 7-14, you probably know it by heart. If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and heal their lands. That is an if-then, that you can grab hold of with confidence.

19:50But it's so simple, it almost signs insulting, you think yourself, surely it's more complex than that. Surely I need a strategy, a movement, a political party, a campaign, but think of Neiman, Neiman the Syrian, the great commander came to he cleanse the leprosy, the prophet sent word, go in depth seven times in the Jordan, but Neiman was furious, he said, are not the Abana and far, far the rivers of Damascus better than all the waters of Israel? He wanted something more impressive, he wanted a ceremony, a struggle, but the cleansing came through a small, simple humbling act of obedience, and it's the same with us and our nations. The healing of the land does not come through your spicy memes, it does not come through how harsh your invective is on X, it does not come from how many videos you have made about the brawled people, about the Muslims, about climate alarmists, about the WEF, I'm

20:54not saying that memes are useless, but everything has their proper place, I'm saying that none of this is as it were the trumpets, the guarantee of victory, blowing the trumpet is humbling yourself before God, praying, seeking His face and turning from your sin, oh, and that hurts, doesn't it, that's personal, the sin you know about, that you continue to cling to, and if you're gripping that sin tightly with a death grip, you are part of the problem, you are not part of the solution, but if you do this simple humbling thing and turn from it, confess it, put it to death by the Spirit, you become part of the trumpet sign, blowing out the trumpet saying, Lord deliver us from our adversaries, you become eligible to be part of the army, one even of the 300.

21:57So another thing to chew on, the 300, 300, 300 military men facing a tremendous allied force, hostile to God, does that number ring in a bells, we're in scripture, do we find a small elite chosen fighting force going up against a vastly superior enemy to rescue God's people in a night attack, information, come on people, Genesis 14, Abraham, Abraham and his 318 trance servants, born in his own house who went up against the five king coalition, no four king coalition, that had taken lots, attacked them by night information, splitting up their forces and two, winning what would have been without the Lord an impossible victory. So again the Lord is making a connection, he's saying look, I've done this before, I did it with Abraham, I'm doing it again with Gideon, the 300, the 318, that's a pattern,

23:01that's how I work, that's how I work to see if small group were faithful, dogged, obedient, empowered by the spirit, trusting the covenant, they went to war on the basis of a promise that has already been spoken, and of course the pattern continues all the way to the cross where one man alone in the winepress of God's wrath defeats the entire host of darkness and rises again to begin the most ridiculous campaign in human history, 12 men sent to disciple what, the nations, that's a pattern, are you willing to be part of that pattern? So let's build it all together, God doesn't need majorities, he doesn't need the influencers, he doesn't need the impressive numbers, what he needs is committed men who are not fearful,

24:02what he needs is dogged, faithful servants who understand the covenants, men who trust the promise that the trumpet has already been blown, and the trumpet for our day is second current chronicles 714, humble yourself, pray, seek his face, turn from your wicked ways, it's the first step, but once that step's taken then you can enter the battle, we're out of time, if you're any questions contact me at questions at God's world, God's way dot com, and next time we're going to be looking going on to the camp of the many nights at night, with Gideon and his servant Cura, so don't miss it, and I'll look forward to seeing you next week.