So the next thing you’ll find this man handling is an ax. Now what is this ax? This ax is the ax of obedience because it’s going to be the instrument that shows his obedience to the wish and the will and the purpose of God. God says here,

“You’re a mighty man of valor, you’re going to take the Midianites. You’re going to be involved in all this great battle that’s down in here. But, before you can venture in there, before I can make you a conqueror in these Midianite camps and bring to pass what I want; before you do that, there is something you will have to do. Lay down your flail! Get adjusted to Me as you should and pick up an ax.”

Now your ax is obedience to destroy these wrong things in the father’s house and home and place. I’ll show you in another place where God speaks of the father’s house and his children—it’s spoken of in Psalms the forty-fifth chapter—the Bridal Psalm. Do you know what it says concerning the Bride?

The Adamic Nature

“Forget thy father’s house and your people. Forget your father’s house and your people.”

The Bride has to come to a place where her faith’s house and people are negation. That’s put aside if she goes on. Now when Eleazar came to get Rebecca, do you remember she has to make the choice herself? She has to voluntarily stand and say to the man actually, “I will go.” Well if I go, then I am leaving some thing. You can’t go from this place without you leave! You can’t be in two places at once! And that bride, Rebecca, has to say, “I will go.” And those were her words. It was a voluntary surrender to go. But when she did that, she left her father’s home and her people and all that that pertained to—everything. There was a definite cutting off. A definite detachment. Now you will find it in different places in the Bible—the household of God;—her own people. I think I’ve got three or four places in the Word of God and every time it refers to exactly this same thing.

In his (Gideon’s) father’s house, in his father’s setup—it was the father who had made that. The father had made the image! It doesn’t say Gideon did it. But you know he is under the influence and power of it because he belongs to the home that sustains it. He is a partaker in that home where that thing is indulged in—that idol stuff. And He says,

“Take an ax, (now ax will be your obedience) you will have to cut down that grove (images) and tear down that altar, though you didn’t build it, but you are involved in it. It’s an inheritance that you’ve had. It is something that has come to you because you are identified in this home and that’s your father’s.”

Do you know what the father’s house is? Your whole Adamic nature—that’s your father’s house. What are your people? All those who are subject to it. Your father’s house is your Adamic nature that you are born in. Exactly. All right, what does He say?

“That has to be dealt with before I can handle you down here with the Midianites. You’ve got to deal with that thing. You have to find out who you are, whence you are, why you are involved in this, I want you to deal with that. Now take the ax of obedience. Don’t start talking to Me about, I didn’t make the idol.”

He didn’t condemn him for making an idol. He didn’t condemn him because it was there. He didn’t condemn him about a thing, because He knows it is a part of the arrangement in which he is now found. But He says,

“That has to be dealt with. Now take your ax and destroy it.”

We have to do that with our whole Adamic nature. It has to be taken in hand—in obedience. Have you ever found that out yet? Yes, we find it out. That’s your Adamic setup that has to be judged and taken in hand. Why? Because if we don’t learn how to handle the ax of obedience here, we can’t carry on there. It starts at home here. They are all anxious to get in the battle—in the fray, you know. It’s exciting and wonderful to win a great conquest for the Lord. But my dear, the biggest enemy we have is right home here. That’s the biggest enemy we have. If we can deal with him, very often the lesser ones come along alright. I’ve said it to the Lord many times after I’ve had a revelation of who I am and what—I’ve said,

“Lord, I fear this thing more than I do the devil! I fear it (self) more than I do the devil.”

It was so strong on me. I remember, oh it was years ago He was thrashing this stuff out in me and I knew that He wanted to make a conquest in me and the Holy Spirit was on me and I was surrendering to it. I remember I fell over on the bed, my face down like that on the bed. If I said it once, I don’t know how many times I repeated in the Spirit (the Spirit was on me),

“Oh God, triumph in me; Oh God, triumph in me; Oh God, triumph in me, Oh . . .”

I just laid there it seemed like to me, oh a long, long time. I never prayed anything more because it was the prayer of the Spirit: “Oh Lord, triumph in me”—not over there where I am fighting a battle for the Lord. That wasn’t the point at all. And I knew there was a conquest to be made in my whole life and temperament and it would be God Who made that con quest. And I was yielding myself as a battlefield and I just spread out there. I couldn’t get up because I was in the Spirit and I couldn’t move and there I laid fairly paralyzed from my face down. And that’s all that would pray out of me. “Oh God, triumph in me; Oh God, triumph . . .” I knew that HE was making a conquest. Those things have to happen in us and we might just as well face it; we might just as well face it. Our greatest difficulty is WHO WE ARE! That’s our greatest difficulty and we have to have—these terrifically personal dealings and conquests and slayings and axings if we get anywhere. But nobody wants to preach it, you see, it’s hard, but it’s truth.

I was saying the other night, many people are trying to live here and make conquest and get somewhere in God when they’ve never had an ax in their hand yet. They have never had an ax in their hand, really, to hew down the idol—that’s the devotion of the old flesh life, and the grove—that’s the whole setting.

“Forget your house! Forget your father’s house!”

That was a command to the Bride! What?

“Forget that whole thing. Step out of that, come out of that. Now live with Me. Move with Me. Move with Me.”

And so He says,

“Take this ax.”

The Ax of Obedience

Now the flail is the first thing. Next we will have an ax. I don’t know, I guess I can make an ax (drawing on the board) doesn’t look like it has a very sharp edge on it but how many of you get the idea? Now in this second episode you have a key to it. The ax! The ax of obedience to destroy the thing that God sees is going to be a snare and a hindrance to you. Don’t start excusing it or telling God anything about it. He never said anything to him about it being his fault. He says,

“You have become ensnared in it. You are a part of it. I want you freed from this. I’m not condemning you.”

God never condemns us for what we are. He only condemns us when we don’t make our escape as we should. He doesn’t come and say,

“Why do you have blue eyes or red eyes or green eyes?”

He doesn’t say that because that’s the law of inheritance.

“Why did you have that idol?”

“Well, Adam, my father built it.”

“Why do you have all of this?”

“Because, Adam, my father made it, and I was born in that, and this is my home.”

“Well,” He says, “you’ll have to tackle that; take care of it.”

(So now after Gideon does this—we’ll have to hurry along and see how it all turns out when he gets into this place of obedience.)

Verses twenty-six through twenty-eight: “And build an altar unto the Lord thy God upon this rock in the ordered place, and take the second bullock . . . Then Gideon took ten men of his servants and did as the Lord had said unto him: and they cut it down. And when the men of the city arose in the morning, behold, the altar of Baal was cast down, and the images were cut down that were by it, and the second bullock was offered upon the altar that was built. And they said one to another, Who hath done this thing? And when they inquired and asked, they said, Gideon, the son of Joash, hath done this thing. Then the men of the city said unto Joash, Bring out thy son, that he may die; because, he hath cast down the altar of Baal, and because he hath cut down the images that were by it."

Look at the surprise! God is with him, you see. God is with this obedience. You know He’ll make the enemy perform for Him. He’ll give you all kinds of people. God gets in there and takes this old Joash and causes him to see a thing or two.

Verse thirty-one: “And Joash said unto all that stood against him, Will ye plead for Baal? Will ye save him? He who will plead for him, let him be put to death while it is yet morning. If he be a god, let him plead for himself, because one hath cast down his altar."

Verse thirty-two: “Therefore on that day he called him Jerubbaal, saying, Let Baal plead against him, because he hath thrown down his altar."

I want to tell you a little incidence just like this. You know I was talking to you about these colored people this morning. When I was at Daisy’s and John’s, (missionaries in Africa) you know what they call a houseboy—a boy they bring in from the fields to train that he will help do the service in the home; he sets the table, washes dishes, cleans up the bedrooms and all like that. While I was at Daisy’s they were breaking in a new boy and his name was Falah. One day I was talking to him and I said,

“Where were you born, Falah? How did you come down here?”

He could speak English. He’d had some schooling. He said,

“You see, my father is a chief and I was next in line as a chief, and my father is a heathen of course. He is a Mohammedan.”

But he said,

“I got converted; I got saved.”

And he had gone down to the coast to the city. And he said,

“I got saved—really saved—converted. And when I went home to tell my people about it, of course, there was no reception. And they have in those villages an idol, a house for the spirit to live in that governs the village. Sometimes it is a little house like that with a little gray roof. And in that house, at the edge of the village, that’s where this spirit lives who governs this village-the god. My father was heathen and the people were heathen even though they were Mohammedan stock. They only do that for name. They are still heathen.”

He said,

“We had a god made, a wooden god like that for our village. My father was chief and he had his god. So I talked to my father and he wouldn’t listen. And I thought (this was zeal in him and he smiled) I would just get them all converted and I would go in and kill their god. So I took an ax (just exactly this thing) and I would cut that god all to pieces! And there it lay, a lot of kindling wood. And when my father came out to look at it, of course he was terribly disturbed.”

He didn’t have the Lord like Joash did. So Falah said,

“My father had me arrested. They arrested me and took me down to the village and beat me. They beat me until I thought tney would kill me.”

They beat him and tormented him until he was all bloody, just a mess. But he said,

“I wouldn’t give up, because I knew what I had was real. Goa was real to me.”

So they thrashed him and he wouldn’t give up. They let that heal up a little and then they put him in wooden stocks with irons on his feet and hands and set him in the sun. And there he sat for days and days. He was just given a little water to keep him alive.

He said,

“I went through that. And they wouldn’t listen. When my father found there was no need of doing it, that I was possessed to holding to my God, he let me out.”

So he said,

“I tried it again.”

I don’t know what he did, but he got them all in an uproar trying to make them believe in real God—that this god was no good god. This was the God. He said,

“I still persisted in thinking I could bring them in:' So his father had him arrested again. They took him down to the police court and this judge did exactly what Joash did. The judge got up and he said, “What kind of a god did you have?”

Well, they had a wonderful god! He said,

“And you let this boy come in and kill your god! What kind of a god have you, if this boy can come in and kill him and smash him up?” Well then, they of course began to reason and the judge said,

“He is not to be convicted and there is no judgment and no punishment to be upon him. In the name of the law you have to let him go!”

This made me think of it all the while I was reading it. “Oh Falah, you just fit right in here.” And they let him go and he came down to the city and Daisy and John have him as a houseboy—lovely fellow.

And so this man (Joash) had the same reaction as that judge. He puts it:

“Will ye plead for Baal, will ye save him? He that will plead for him let him be put to death while it is yet morn ing. If he be a god let him plead for himself because one hath cast down his altar . . ."

Verse thirty-three: “Then all the Midianites and the Amalekites and the children of the east were gathered together."

Now you’re going to have a regular time of it!

“And went over and encamped in the valley of Jezreel.”

Verse thirty-four: “But the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon, and he blew a trumpet; and Abiezer was gathered after him."

Verse thirty-five: “And he sent his messengers throughout all Manasseh, who also was gathered after him; and he sent messengers unto Asher, and unto Zebulun, and unto Naphtali, and they came up to meet them."

Verse thirty-six: “And Gideon said unto God, If . . ."

Poor dear, with all this ‘if business’—this is why I call him ‘Gideon If’.

“And Gideon said unto God, If thou wilt save Israel by mine hand, as thou hast said . . . You’ve said it."

(Well then, why not believe it? Not, let it be said so I’ll know something, for I know. it already. )

“If YOU are going to do it just as YOU have said it . . . Behold I will put a fleece of wool' in the floor; and if it be dew on the fleece only, and it be dry upon all the earth beside it, then shall I know that Thou wilt save Israel by mine hand, as Thou has said."

Poor dear Lord, isn’t He patient!

Verse thirty-eight: “And it was so; for he rose up early on the next day, and thrust the fleece together, and wrung the dew out of the fleece, a bowl of water. And Gideon said unto God, Let not thine anger be hot against me, and I will speak but this once; let me make a trial I pray thee, but this once more with the fleece; let it now be dry only upon the fleece, and upon all the ground let there be dew."

Isn’t that terrible? I think it’s so terrific! Poor Gideon, I feel sorry for him. How many see this thing is his whole disposition being torn up and taken care of? God is pulling it out and dealing with it. These tempermental things that are in us He just pulls them out and deals with them, works with them. That’s what he’s doing with this man, pulling him all apart and let ting him expose what he has.

Now this is another if you see.

Verse forty: “And God did so that night; for it was dry upon the fleece only, and there was dew on all the ground."

We really ought not to go on, it’s late but I’ve marked it again in Judges 7:10.

“But if thou fear to go down."

This was God’s “fear”. This is the only time God says,

“If you’re so afraid, if you’re so afraid, you’ve “if’d” me several times so I’ll “if” you once!”

This is the only ‘“if” the Lord has with him.

“But if thou fear to go down, go thou with Purah, thy servant, down to the host. And thou shalt hear what they say; and afterward shall thine hands be strengthened to go down unto the host."

Now this is a long story, but how many of you remember how it worked out? God says,

“Since you are weak I will humor it a little. IF you are afraid I’ll humor it a little bit. IF you are afraid take this Purah and go down. Now you go down there and see what you will find.”

So they go down and of course you remember the story. They overhear the men talking in the tent. One of the said,

“I had a dream.”

“Well my, what did you dream?”

“I dreamed a barley cake came whirling down the hill and came in and knocked the tent over and everything.”

And then the other one gives the interpretation of it. Why he said,

“That’s nothing but that Gideon!”

Here’s Gideon by the tent doing this, holding one hand to his ear.

“My, I’m the barley cake! I’m the barley cake! Lord thank You, I’m the barley cake!”

And so he goes on back. But the point that I am after—do you see that upon the strength of this obedience—what was the third thing that he holds in his hands? Do you remember? A trumpet