We're wearing boots to preach as an expectation rather than an exception Our sermon text this morning is judges chapter 7 verses 1 to 23 It's a long one. So if you have bad knees you might want to sit down. That's perfectly acceptable But brothers and sisters, this is the holy and inspired word of the Lord. Give it as full Give it your full attention as it is read Then drew Baal that is Gideon and all the people who were with him rose early and encamped beside the spring of Herod And the camp of Midian was north of them by the hill of Mora in the valley. The Lord said to Gideon, the people with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand, lest Israel boast over me, saying, my own hand has saved me. Now therefore proclaim in the ears of the people, saying, whoever is fearful and trembling, let him return home and hurry away from Mount Gilead. Then 22,000 of the people returned, but 10,000 remained. And the Lord said to Gideon, the people are still too many. take them down to the water, and I will test them for you there. And anyone of whom I say to you, this one shall go with you, shall go with you. And anyone of whom I say to you, this one shall not go with you, shall not go with you. So he brought the people down to the water, and the Lord said to Gideon, everyone who laps the water with his tongue as a dog laps, you shall set by himself. Likewise, everyone who kneels down to drink. And the number of those who lapped, putting their hands to their mouths, was 300 men. But all the rest of the people knelt down to drink water. And the Lord said to Gideon, with the 300 men who lapped, I will save you and give the Midianites into your hand and let all the others go, every man to his home. So the people took provisions in their hands and their trumpets, and he sent all the rest of Israel, every man to his tent, but the 300 men, but he retained the 300 men. Now the camp of Midian was below him in the valley. And that same night the Lord said to Gideon, Arise, go down against the camp where I have given it into your hand. But if you are afraid to go down, go down to the camp with Purah your servant, and you shall hear what they say. And afterward your hand shall be strengthened to go down against the camp. Then he went down with Purah his servant to the outposts of the armed men who were in the camp. And the Midianites and the Amalekites and all the people of the east lay along the valley like locusts in abundance, and their camels were without number as the sand that is on the seashore in abundance. And when Gideon came, behold, a man was telling a dream to his comrade, and he said, behold, I dreamed a dream, and behold, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian and came to the tent and struck it so that it fell and turned it upside down so the tent lay flat. And then his comrade answered, This is none other than the sword of Gideon, the son of Joash, a man of Israel. God has surely given into his hand Midian and all the camp. And as soon as Gideon heard the telling of the dream and its interpretation, he worshipped. And he returned to the camp of Israel and said, Arise, for the Lord has given the host of Midian into your hand. And he divided the 300 men into three companies and put trumpets into the hands of all the men and empty jars with torches inside of the jars. And he said to them, look at me and do likewise. When I come to the outskirts of the camp, do as I do. When I blow the trumpet, I and all who are with me, then blow the trumpets also on every side of the camp and shout for the Lord and for Gideon. So Gideon and the hundred men who were with him came down to the outskirts of the camp at the beginning of the middle watch when they had just set the watch. And they blew the trumpets and smashed the jars that were in their hands. Then the 300 companies blew the trumpets and broke the jars. They held in their left hands the torches and in their right hands the trumpets to blow. And they cried out, a sword for the Lord and for Gideon. Every man stood in his place around the camp and all the army ran. They cried out and they fled. When they blew the 300 trumpets, the Lord set every man's sword against his comrade and against all the army. And so the army fled as far as Beth Shittah towards Zahra, as far as the border of Abaham by Tabath. And the men of Israel were called out from Naphtali, from Asher, from Almanassah, and they pursued after Midian. As far as the reading of our Lord's Word, let's go before him in prayer. Father, we thank you for the book of Judges and all the great things that we learn about Christ and our salvation through. We pray that this Lord's Day morning, we would take this text that some of us might see as on to heart, that we would grow from it, learn from it, and see Christ through it. We pray this in your holy name. Amen. You may be seated. Take a drink of water after reading that. The Protestant Reformation began roughly 500 years ago. In the midst of all of the discussions, all the debates, all the theological topics that they were discussing, there was one overarching but penetrating question that the reformers sought to answer. And that question is who saves? Who saves? Are you saved by doing enough good work so that you work your way into heaven? That your good works might perhaps outweigh the bad on the scale of life? Are you saved by a priest holding up a piece of bread and proclaiming salvation to you and giving it to you, and then you partake, thereby getting salvation like a mechanism, just being granted to you by the work having been done? Or, For the Reformers, are you saved by the grace of God alone? Are you saved through the work of Christ and Him applying it to you by the Holy Spirit, giving you faith that you would rest on Christ for your salvation? Who saves? That was the question of the Reformation. And it wasn't just a theological question either. It was very pastoral. Think about it for just a moment. What would the principle that God alone saves by grace do to pride? It cuts its legs right out from under it. We're going to talk about that a lot this evening in Judges chapter 8, where the pride of Gideon becomes kind of central place in the narrative. But also think of the opposite effects of this doctrine. Think of someone who's anxious. depressed, someone who's struggling with their salvation, what does the doctrine, our God saves, say to them? Well, it says that your salvation rests not on your own works, not on your own emotions, not on your own feelings, but on the Lord who saves. See, Judges chapter seven is all about answering that question. And Judges chapter seven unequivocally answers it saying, our God saves. That our God is the God of salvation. That there is no work that we can do to earn our salvation, but the Lord alone is the one who gives it to us. But before we get into how this works out in Judges 7 in particular, I think it's important to note the context of Judges as we begin. See, we're kind of parachuting into the middle of a book, so I want to summarize a little bit for you what's been happening. See, the book of Judges is structured around a downward spiral of sin and rebellion. That throughout the various generations of Israel, the people of God were getting worse and worse and worse. And it was illustrated by a repeated pattern in the life of the people, and that pattern goes a little bit like this. A new generation rises up, They sin against the Lord, pursuing idols rather than the Lord himself, and so God in judgment hands them over to foreign oppressors. After a period of time, it varies between the different patterns in the book of Judges. The people cry out to the Lord. He raises up a judge to deliver them. The judge delivers the people of Israel from a foreign oppressor, and then the people have rest and pursue the Lord for the life of the judge. Well, that's a pattern that is represented in the Gideon narrative itself. This narrative actually begins in Judges chapter 6, where Israel has sinned again against the Lord. And the Lord raises up an oppressor to come and oppress the people of Israel, to judge them for their sin. And their oppressor is Midian. Judges 6, verses 4 and 5, they, that is Midian, would encamp against Israel. They would devour the produce of the land. They would come up with their livestock and their tents. They would come against them like locusts in number. Both they and their camels could not be counted, so they would lay waste to the land when they would come in. The Lord raised up Midian against the people of Israel to judge them for their sin, and the rebellion against them. But the people of the Lord cry out to the Lord, and the Lord raises up Gideon as their deliverer, as their judge. And when the Lord does this in Judges 6, verse 12, the narrative progresses in a little bit of an interesting way. See, the Lord proceeds to address Gideon, and he calls them as the judge, and he says this in verse 12. The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor. A great statement, isn't it? How would you like the angel of the Lord, who is the Lord, to come before you and say, the Lord is with you, almighty man of value? How would you respond? Well, here's how Gideon responds. His first response is, no, he's not. Verse 13 of Judges chapter six, if the Lord was really with me, would Midian even be here? The Lord's not with me, angel of the Lord. He doesn't stop there, does he? Verse 14, he not only confronts the first thing, the Lord is with you, he continues to say, I'm not a man of valor at all. In fact, verse 15, he says he's the youngest and the weakest of the smallest clan and the least family of that clan. Lord, you're not with me and I am no mighty man of valor. He confronts everything that the angel of the Lord just said to him. But what does the angel say in response? And it's not, but Gideon, you're such a wonderful guy. You're so strong. You're so disciplined. You can do this, Gideon. Get after it. That's not what he says. See, there's a refrain throughout this little narrative and it goes a little bit like this. The Lord is with you. The Lord is with you. Verse 16, but I will be with you. See, Gideon, in one sense, was right. He was the weakest son of a weak clan, of a minimal family. But he forgot this principle. The Lord is with you. See, these two things are what work out in Judges chapter 7. It is the Lord working through weakness. It's the Lord working in such a way where he reverses the expectations of man's wisdom. Instead of working through strength and might, he works through a weak man like Gideon to redeem the people of Israel. We can summarize Judges chapter 7 this way. We could say that we see the Lord working through weakness as he comes and wins an unexpected salvation through a weak servant and a weak army and all to his glory. We're going to see this in three parts this morning. First, we're going to see the dwindling down of Israel's armed forces. Second, we're going to see the assurance of the Lord. And then finally, we're going to see the victory of the Lord. You know the Gideon narrative probably pretty well from some of your childhood Bibles. You probably know it from the various tests that Gideon offers up to the Lord in Judges 6. Judges 6 ends at the most famous one. The Lord tells Gideon, go out and encamp against the Midianites. And what does he do? He's like, I'm really not sure if you're with me, so I'm going to test you with this fleece. Of course the Lord being very patient with Gideon abides by him. But then in Judges chapter one, Gideon is finally at least a little bit encouraged and he gathers up the armies of Israel and they go and they encamp on this hilltop by the spring of Herod. And Judges chapter seven verse one says the camp of Midian is down in the valley below the camp of Israel. I think this introduction to Judges 7 is really important because what it does is it sets up a context for everything that happens in the next eight verses. Because what it does is it sets Gideon and the army of Israel from a vantage point where they would look down and they would see the army of Midian that was like locusts on the ground. an army that couldn't even be counted. There was no way to count it because there were so many. So here's Gideon and his army and they're looking down on this insurmountable foe, this incalculable foe. You could say that Israel at this point was looking out and they were seeing that they were outmanned and outgunned at every point. You can almost think about what this less valiant Maybe a little bit questioning Gideon was thinking, probably thinking something to the effect of how on earth can we go against a foe like that? This army is too many. The Midianites are too many. How are we supposed to go out to war against that? Here comes the Lord in verse 2 and he says the opposite of what you would expect. He doesn't say Gideon the Midianites are too many for you. He says this, that people with you Gideon are too many for me to give the Midianites into your hand. The situation is the opposite of expectation. Israel is too strong to go against this much greater, much more powerful Midianite army. Why? The Lord continues, he's seeing into the hearts of this people and he knows that if Israel would go against this force, even with 32,000 men, that they would say, look what we can do. We are so great. See verse 2 continues that the Lord is going to reduce the army of Israel lest Israel boast over me saying my own hand has saved me. My own hand has saved me. You see what God is doing here is he wants to make it absolutely clear. He is wanting to say that he is the deliverer of his people. He is presenting a situation where they cannot possibly say, look what I did. So what the Lord does is he continues to reduce the army of Israel down. And he does it in two phases. The first phase of dwindling the armed forces of Israel begins with the Lord's telling getting to send away all who are fearful and trembling. As Gideon does this, 22,000 of the original 32,000 leave, leaving 10,000 in the camp. There's a little bit of very interesting wordplay here, because the word for trembling in Hebrew is Herod. Where are they camped in verse 1? The spring of Herod. This trembling army of Israel is encamped at trembling springs, you could say. Now that the Lord would command Gideon to send away all who are fearful and trembling in the army of Israel isn't much of a surprise. Because that's actually what the Lord commanded Israel to do back in Deuteronomy chapter 20. Deuteronomy chapter 20 is where the Lord reveals to Moses and to Israel for how they're supposed to live throughout the ages. And it gives how Israel is to work in warfare. And one of the things that the Lord says that Israel is to do when they go out to war against a foreign nation is that they are in Deuteronomy chapter 20 verse 8, to send away all those who are fearful and trembling. Direct quote from Deuteronomy chapter 20. But not only are they to send away all of those who are fearful and trembling, but if you've built a new house, if you've planted yourself a vineyard, maybe a garden nowadays, or if you're about to get married, go away. They're sent away from the army. This is odd, isn't it? Think of the ancient world, where warfare is done by swords and bows. How are most battles won? It's all in the numbers. But in Deuteronomy 20, the Lord says, when Israel goes out to battle, dwindle your forces. Send people away. Why? Deuteronomy chapter 20, verse 1. When you go out to war against your enemies and see horses and chariots, you could also insert camels there if you want to, and an army much larger than your own. You are not to be afraid of them, because the Lord your God is with you." Again in verse 4, the Lord hammers down this point. The Lord your God, He is the one who goes with you to fight against your enemies to give you victory. What is the Lord illustrating by reducing the armed forces of Israel? He's driving home this point. I am with you. I am the one who goes with you to give you victory. That's a central point of our passage. Just as the Lord is sending away the army of Israel in droves, two thirds of the army just left. His message to Gideon and to Israel is fear not for the Lord your God is with you. You see, the basis of Israel's warfare against their enemies was not the strength of their military. It was the strength of their God. The Lord is teaching them to trust in the God of salvation, that the Lord is the one who saves. And brothers and sisters, the ground for your confidence, the ground for confidence in this life is not in your own strength, but it's in the same place as Israel is being taught here to place their confidence. It's in the Lord. You should have no confidence in your would-be good deeds. You should have no confidence in yourself. You should have every confidence in Christ. I think we could also make the point of when you're in need of confidence, when perhaps you're doubting a little bit and you're struggling in your faith, put on the eyes of faith and turn to Christ. Gain confidence by focusing on your Savior by focusing on the God who saves. You see, confidence as a Christian is very much unlike that of the world. See, confidence in the world's eyes goes something like, I'm a pretty strong guy, so I guess I'm okay to go out and do X, Y, and Z activities. I have really good self-confidence, so it's okay to stand in a pulpit and talk to people. By the way, I don't know any pastor that comes up here and goes, you know what, I'm just a really great public speaker. I'm just so confident in myself." See that's not confidence as a Christian. Confidence as a Christian is one that turns and rests exclusively on your Savior. Confidence in the Lord alone. It's a lesson that the Lord is going to teach Gideon very particularly here in a few verses. But before that, the Lord has a little more reduction of arms to do. You could say by this point in verse 4, Gideon has a Deuteronomy 20 army. He has an army that has been reduced in accordance with the word of the Lord. They should be ready to go. But the Lord comes in again in verses 4 to 8, and he does some more reducing of arms. It's like the Lord is stepping in and saying, I really want to make the point with Deuteronomy 20 that I am with you, and I'm really going to make the point here in Judges chapter 7. Gideon, I am with you. Fear not. The Lord does this in verses 4 to 8 by sending away all of those who kneel down at the stream to drink and keeping those who lap like a dog. You probably know this little section of scripture really well. And I would say it's one of the places in Judges where commentators really go crazy. You've probably heard an interpretation that's what's going on here is that the Lord is setting aside for himself the 300 mightiest of mighty warriors. These are Gideon's mighty men, just like David's mighty men. The true men of valor of Israel's army. These are those who are really prepared to go and fight the Midianites. I'd submit that really the only way to reach that conclusion is by submitting it into the text. Go read it. It says nothing about that whatsoever. It says nothing about these 300 being the most alert. It says nothing about these 300 being the most prepared for battle. In fact, all it says about them is they lap like a dog from a stream. See, these aren't the Navy SEALs. They're not the Green Berets of Gideon's army. Let me make that clear. See, the point of this passage is not on the quality of those who remain, but on the Lord being with his people. It's on the Lord continually to dwindle down the numbers of the army to illustrate that point. God is with you. Your salvation cannot be won by might of arms. It must be won by the Lord. That's what he's illustrating by these points. And then verse 8 ends where verse 1 began. It's almost a direct repetition. Gideon now has his 300 men. They're situated at Trembling Springs, and they're looking down on the camp of the Midianites. But now, the army of Israel has been reduced by more than a hundredfold. Finally, in verse 9, the Lord is ready. He says, Gideon, go down to the camp of the Midianites, for I have given them into your hand. But then there's a pause in the narrative. You'd almost expect through all this work that the Lord is doing to reassure, I am with you Gideon, that Gideon would be ready to go. But no. There's another pause here. In verse 10 and 11, the Lord comes in what I can only describe as a pastor. The Lord comes in a way that I can only describe as one who cares for Gideon and for his people. See, the Lord comes and says, but, he's just given a command and he says, but if you are afraid to go down, go down to the camp with Parah, your servant, and you shall hear what they say. And afterwards, your hands will be strengthened to go down against the camp. See what's happening here? In the midst of warfare, the Lord pauses and takes a chance to strengthen his servant. He had just illustrated over and over again in chapter 6 and again in chapter 7, I am with you, you need not fear, but he pauses yet again. Gideon, if you are afraid, do this. I will reveal something to you that will strengthen you. What's really interesting is that the Lord had just commanded Gideon to send away all those who are afraid. But here's Gideon again, and you know from the rest of the narrative where he does go down that he is afraid. You don't really know if there is perhaps a change in Gideon's manner. You can feel pretty confident if you have 32,000 men at your back and 300 is a little less reassuring. Perhaps that's the case. I think it just might be. But it reveals a really interesting situation that I think is common to all of our lives as well. And it's this sort of argument. It says, at least I have enough strength for the Lord to use me. At least I have enough faith. At least I have enough discipline. At least I'm good enough in my own process of sanctification for the Lord to use me in the life of the church, to use me in proclaiming the gospel, to use me in X, Y, and Z way. Have you ever thought that way? Imagine that you have because I know I have as well. At least I'm strong enough to do this. So anytime you have that mindset, it's evidence of trusting in yourself rather than in trusting in the Lord. You know what happens when that thing is removed here at Gideon's army? You're afraid. You're afraid because the source of your confidence is ripped right out from under you. And here Gideon is afraid. But here comes the Lord and the Lord comes and he steps in to comfort his fearful servant. And he does this by commanding Gideon and his servant to go down, kind of an expeditionary force, you could say, to go down to the camp of Midian, and they're going to hear something. And what they hear, I can only describe to you as weird. See, they go down to the camp, they're kind of at the outskirts, they're by the outer guard, and a Midianite wakes up and he goes and tells his buddy, hanging out by the campfire probably, I've just had a dream. That dream is that a loaf of bread came rolling down a hill into the camp and knocked down a tent. What is going on? Now, if Kelly woke me up in the middle of the night and said, well, I just had a dream and a loaf of bread just rolled down a hill and knocked down a tent, I'd probably say stop eating Indian oven before you go to bed. You know, don't drink anymore Dr. Peppers. That's weird. And to be truthful, I don't think there's any way that we can know exactly what's going on in this dream. A possible interpretation is that, you know, Midian in chapter 6 had come into the land to do what? To take all of Israel's grain. To take it for themselves. And so now that grain is being used as the instrument of their destruction in the dream. But here's what we can be sure of. In verse 14, the Lord gives an interpretation through another Midianite. That interpretation is this. This is none other than the sword of Gideon the son of Joash a man of Israel for God has given into his hand Midian and all the camp. See this passage may be somewhat strange but don't miss the point. The point is that the Lord is coming to comfort his servant, to give him assurance that the Lord is with him, that he will win the battle. That's what this paragraph, this little pause in the narrative is all about. It's that in the midst of warfare against a seemingly insurmountable foe, the Lord comes and he comforts his servant. And I think this narrative reveals a central way of how the Lord works in the life of his people. It's how he works for Gideon and it's how he works for you. He works as a comforter. He works as an encourager, one who draws his people to himself and proclaims through the power of the Holy Spirit, revealing in his word, his promises. I also want to be clear that today the mode of comfort is not a weird dream. You're not to go out and try to lay a fleece in your yard and try to test the Lord. See, today, the way that this comforting is done is through the spirit working in the word of the Lord. It's through working through texts like this that tell us of the comforting love of God who even though he had just given a command to his servant has been patient with him over and over again illustrating that the Lord is with him he need not fear that even after that he's patient like a father with a toddler saying I'm with you, I'm with you, I'm with you. It's through texts like Zephaniah chapter 3 verse 14 where the Lord says fear not, why? Because I'm with you. through texts like Romans chapter eight, probably all of you know it well, where he says, nothing can rend you out of the hands of Christ. Or texts like Colossians chapter three, verse one, that since you have been raised with Christ, verse four, when Christ who is your life appears, you also will appear with him in glory. Or texts like Hebrews chapter six, verse 19, where Jesus is said to be the sure and steadfast anchor of your soul. Our God works as a comforter. He gives you assurance for your salvation through his word assurance that he is the one who works out your salvation. Brothers and sisters be encouraged. His promises to you are revealed in his word and his promise is that he will be with you even to the end of the age. Gideon is encouraged. The Lord works this way for him. He hears the interpretation of this dream and his first act is worship. In the midst of preparation for battle, he hasn't moved a muscle. He's still right there on the edge of the Midianite camp and he immediately goes to worship. This seemingly odd little insertion is absolutely vital. Because what the Lord does, and working in your life to comfort you in your salvation in the Lord, to encourage you in faith in Christ, is to His glory. The end of that is not so that we're emotionally stable, as psychiatrists or someone would say today. The end of it is to the glory of the Lord. It leads to worship. The Lord has come. He's reduced the army of Israel. He's revealed an interpretation of the dream, strengthening the hands of Gideon. Finally, Gideon gets the point. God is with us. Our God saves. He goes back to the camp. He gathers up his 300 men and he makes his battle plan. And if you think the dream was weird, Gideon's plan is even more unexpected than that. See, Gideon approaches his troops, and he devises his plan. He says, take a jar, a torch, and a trumpet. We're going to separate into three groups, and we're going to break the jar, sound the trumpet, and raise up a torch. I know we have a number of teenage guys here, so I imagine that this sounds a little bit to you like a Saturday night. Let's go light a few things on fire, break some things, and make a lot of noise. But what does it mean? That's certainly not what's going on here. Why would Gideon tell his troops to go to war in this peculiar, unexpected manner? I'm gonna argue that what these things do is they join together two images that were already prevalent in the Bible at this time. And those images are the presence of God, and then that God coming in war. So as we've seen, the Lord has already made clear in chapter 6 and in chapter 7 that the key aspect of Israel's warfare is that the Lord is with his people. And then Gideon tells his people to grab a jar and a flaming torch. Now there's only one other place in the Old Testament up to this point where these two things are seen together. It's in Genesis chapter 15. I know all of you know that text well, but there, a flaming pot. and a torch go through pieces of animals illustrating the covenant of the Lord. When Gideon tells his army to go armed with a torch and a pot, what he is saying is that covenant God of Genesis chapter 15 is with us. The God who has promised us this land that we're fighting for is with us. This God who has promised us to have a seed more numerous than the sands of the seashore is with us. The flaming presence of the Lord is with his people. Not only do they go armed with this, but they go with a shout and a trumpet blast. What's going on here? You've probably heard of shouts and trumpet blasts in other places of the Old Testament, haven't you? I know a few short years ago, a sermon series was preached by someone, I'm not sure who, through the book of Joshua. And the very first major battle in the Book of Joshua was the Battle of Jericho. How was the Battle of Jericho won? It wasn't through swords. It wasn't through trebuchets or something working like in the Middle Ages. It was by a trumpet blast and a shout. See, the trumpet blast and the shout announced the warrior presence of the Lord. It's like the trumpet blast at the end of ages that do what? They announced the approach of God coming as a judge against his enemies and against the enemies of his people. That's Gideon's battle plan. He's sounding the trumpet of the Lord's approach and he's coming, imaging the flaming presence of the Lord. I think that's emphasized by how the battle plays out. Do you notice when we were reading it that not a single Israelite entered the camp? Not a single one. Notice verse 21, they maintained their place around the camp. But notice also, they don't go armed with a single sword. They have no conventional means of battle here. They don't enter the camp The Lord enters the camp and as he does so he sets every Midianites inward against themselves and he destroys the army of Midian. The Lord descends and he destroys the army of the Midianites. Our God saves. You see no shock and awe can produce this sort of effect. 300 trumpets doesn't make an incalculable army turn in on itself. This is the Lord coming in warfare. Let me put this another way. One commentator calls this plan of Gideon psychological warfare at its best. But I would submit to you that this isn't psychological warfare at its best, it's divine warfare at its best. What Gideon is doing is he's announcing not the presence of Israel's army, but of Israel's God. He's saying our God is with us and our God saves. Gideon has finally got it. He's understood the plan of God to deliver his people. It wasn't through Gideon's valor. It wasn't through the might of arms. It was because the Lord was with him. The message was that God is the God of salvation, that he is the one who saves his people and he does it through a weak deliverer, a weak army, reversing every expectation that you would have for warfare. But if you would think that the Lord's plan for Gideon was odd, if you think this approach of 300 men was a little bit strange, then how much more God's plan to deal not with Midian, but with sin and with death. See, the Lord had a plan. He had a plan to destroy sin. He had a plan to defeat death and to crush Satan. And his plan was for his sinless son to die. That's even more far-fetched than torches and trumpets. You can't say that's shock and awe. You can't say that's psychological warfare. Let's defeat death. How? By death. Let's declare sinners to be righteous. How? By the righteous one dying the death of a sinner. See, no amount of worldly wisdom could hatch such a plan as this. Could hatch such a plan that the God of the covenant, the Lord of Genesis chapter 15, would redeem his people not merely by cutting off their enemies like the Midianites, but by his own son being cut off. Victory over sin and death is won by the warrior God coming against his own son. That's what happened on the cross. The wrath of God against sin was poured out against the Son of God. Jesus bore the wrath of the divine warrior. He bore the wrath of the trumpet-filled, flaming presence of the Lord. Why? so that he might bring you into his presence. So that he would be your God and that you would be his people. That's what Christ won for you in his death. That's what he earned the right to call you in his resurrection. The right to say that you are his and nothing can take you out of his hand. Brothers and sisters that is the basis for your confidence. Like Israel in our passage you have done nothing to earn your salvation. Israel did not lift a single sword against the Midianites and no work can earn your way into the presence of God but the work of Christ. Your salvation is a gift. one granted by God or in his grace, he brings you by the power of the Spirit into his presence. That's the message that the Lord is trying to tell Gideon over and over again. I am with you. I am your Savior. I will save you. Want confidence in life strength as you wage war against sin and the spiritual forces of darkness? Look to Christ. Look to the one who defeated death and his death, crushed the serpent by himself being struck. And by the power of the Spirit, brothers and sisters, my promise to you in accordance with the word of God is that the Lord is with you. The Lord is using the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. Do not fear. Why can you fight against sin? Why can you grow in holiness? Because you're so strong, so disciplined, So prepared and ready for this spiritual battle? No. Because the Lord is with you. Because by the power of the Spirit, He is making you alive together with Christ to live a holy life in Him. Remember the last words of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew? It says, Go out and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. And behold, I am with you even to the end of the age. Fear not. The God of grace has brought you to himself. He's bought you by the price of Christ's blood. He is with you. No foe, no matter how numerous or powerful, can rip you out of his loving embrace. Beloved, he is with you, and he will keep you to the end of the age, and he will bring you into his kingdom where you will find rest forevermore. Amen. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Oh God, you are the God of our salvation. You are our Redeemer. It is based on your work alone that we can have any confidence and faith in life. So we ask this Lord's Day morning that you would cause us to come and wholly rest on you, our Lord, for our salvation, to depend on you alone for all of our confidence and hope in this life. Give us the eyes of faith to look to our Redeemer and to trust in Him in all things. We pray this in the name of Christ. Amen.