Judges chapter 6 verses 1 through 24. Be careful how you listen, this is the Word of God. The people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord gave them into the hand of Midian seven years. And the hand of Midian overpowered Israel and became Midian, the people of Israel. made for themselves the dens that are in the mountains and the caves and the strongholds. For whenever the Israelites planted crops, the Midianites and the Amalekites and the people of the East would come up against them. They would encamp against them and devour the produce of the land as far as Gaza and leave no sustenance in Israel and no sheep or ox or donkey. For they would come up with their livestock, and with their tents they would come like locusts in number. Both they and their camels could not be counted, so that they laid waste the land as they came in. And Israel was brought very low because of Midian. And the people of Israel cried out for help to the Lord. When the people of Israel cried out to the Lord on account of Midianites, the Lord sent the prophet to the people of Israel. And he said to them, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, I led you up from Egypt and brought you out of the house of slavery. And I delivered you from the land, from the hand of the Egyptians and from the hand of all who oppressed me and drove them out before you and gave you their land. And I said to you, I am the Lord your God. You shall not fear the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But you have not obeyed my voice. Now the angel of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth at Ophirah, which belonged to Joash the Abizard. while his son Gideon was beating out the wheat in a winepress to hide from the Midianites. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor. And Gideon said to him, Please, my Lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us, saying, Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt? But now the Lord has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian. And the Lord turned to him and said, Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian. Do I not send you? And he said to him, Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house. And the Lord said to him, but I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midians as one man. And he said to him, if I have now found favor in your eyes, then show me a sign that it is you who speak with me. Please do not depart from here until I come to you and bring out my present and set it before you. And he said, I will stay to your return. So Gideon went into his house and prepared a young goat and unleavened cakes from an ephaph of flour. The meat he put in a basket, and the broth he put in a pot, and brought them to him under the cherubim and presented them. And the angel of God said to him, take the meat and the unliving cakes and put them on the rock and pour the broth over them. And he did so. Then the angel of the Lord reached out the tip of the staff that was in his hand and touched the meat and the unliving cakes. And fire sprang up from the rock and consumed the meat. and the unleavened cakes, and the angel of the Lord vanished from his sight. Then Gideon perceived that he was the angel of the Lord, and Gideon said, Alas, O Lord God, for now I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face. But the Lord said to him, Peace be to you, do not fear, you shall not die. Then Gideon built an altar there to the Lord and called it, The Lord is Peace. To this day it still stands at Ophrah, which belongs to the Abiza rites. This is the word of God. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God shall endure forever. In the book of Joshua, which immediately precedes the book of Judges, we see there the historic inspired account where God commanded Joshua and his armies to go into the land of Canaan and to slew every man, woman, and child. In order to cleanse the land of their idolatry, judgment was upon them, and God used the Israelites as instruments of His wrath. to destroy every living thing that breathed. In the middle of the book, we observe that the lands are being distributed to the tribes of Israel. And in the last chapter, we see the death of Joshua. Mission accomplished, or so it seems. Because when we move to the book of Judges, which immediately precedes and follows Joshua, we see the death of Joshua, but we also see that the conquest was incomplete. The Israelites, they mingled with the Canaanites, and they were caught up with their idolatry, and now we're descending in a spiral of the deceitfulness of sin, that by the end of the book, It is evident not only have they broken every covenant law, but on top of that they have committed some of the most egregious acts known to man. The book of Judges serves to show the consequences of adultery. The threatenings of the law serve to show what their sins deserve and what afflictions they may expect from them. But the Lord, the covenant Lord, our God, he is gracious. And from time to time, he raises up judges for the sake of his elect and to preserve a line to a future king. I'd like to propose the teaching of this passage. The Yahweh has not forsaken his covenant people, but takes care of them after a most special manner. Yahweh has not forsaken his covenant people, but takes care of them after most special manner. Follow with me on three teaching points. Number one, Yahweh has not forsaken his covenant people, but chastens them for their idolatry and appoints a deliverer. Number two, Yahweh has not forsaken his covenant people, but is gracious towards their weaknesses. And number three, Yahweh has not forsaken his covenant people, but rather accepts an offering representing fellowship. First, Yahweh has not forsaken his covenant people, but chastens them for their idolatry, and appoints a deliverer. God has not forsaken his people. From all eternity he has chosen them before the foundation of the world, and his number is so certain and definite it cannot be either increased nor diminished. Since the fall of man, this has been God's spectacular theater by He as the master architect is orchestrating a separation between His people and those of the devil. It is a struggle between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. And in our passage this morning, we see an instance of how God appoints a deliverer, Gideon, And we see how God takes care of his people. Israel, they did evil in the sight of God. They mingled with the Canaanites. They were committed to their idolatry. And God, as a loving father, he's going to chasten them. And just as it was before in the book of Joshua, when the Israelites went in to destroy the Canaanites for idolatry, now God is using the Midianites as a hand of chastening on his own people to subdue the pride, to make them cry out to know that they have a need for God. And so the Midianites, they oppress the Israelites and they drive them into the caves destroy their produce leaving them with so little sustenance that the Israelites they remember the God and they cry out in the covenant God he hears their supplications and prayers God comes down Now we know just from looking at the scriptures and having the whole scriptures that this person that comes down, the angel of the Lord, he's God himself because the passage ascribes of him such names and worship as are proper to God alone. And if we believe, and I know we do as Orthodox Christians, if we believe that there's no other mediator between God and sinful man, I'd like to propose that this angel of the Lord is the pre-incarnate Christ, the second person of the Trinity, the eternal Son of God. And he came down. call Gideon with a holy calling for him to deliver his people at that time extra biblical revelation had not ceased and God by his most wise and holy counsel would come down just like he did with Abraham with Jacob with Moses with Joshua and now here with Gideon because of his most wise and holy counsel to give Israel something of lasting significance. Some of you may know who Pat Riley is. He is a legendary name in the NBA, that is the National Basketball Association. He, because of who he is as a player, as an assistant coach, As a head coach and as a president, he has amassed for himself nine championships. In 2010, as the president of the Miami Heat, he decided because of his basketball acumen and because he wanted to build a team, he decided it was best to go down to visit his recruits, to sit down with the families and to persuade them. And from that point on, The Miami Heat will go on to four straight championship games, winning two in the process. It's because of what Pat Riley thought was best for the team, because of his legendary status. The Lord our God, because of his most wise and holy decree, he decided to come down and call Gideon to be a deliverer. and the land of Israel had rest for the next 40 years. We have considered Yahweh has not forsaken his covenant people, but chases them for their idolatry and points to deliverer. Now I would like to consider Yahweh has not forsaken his covenant people, but is gracious towards the weaknesses. Yahweh has not forsaken his covenant people, but is gracious towards the weaknesses and their doubts. Israel was well-versed in the history of their nation. Their fathers recanted to them that they were in bondage to the head of the bondman, that is, Pharaoh, king of Egypt. How the Lord dispatched ten supernatural plagues upon the land, a decreation of Egypt, how the Lord took the waters of the Red Sea and submerged the Egyptian army, and how they were led through the wilderness, a pillar of cloud in the day and a pillar of fire at night, and how they camped out at the base of Mount Sinai, and they received the law, the holy law, to worship the Lord God only. This is the covenant people of God. God will not forsake them. These people were also the fear of the opposing nations. They trembled knowing that there's no God like their God. Though Israel was well aware of their history, they were a nation of weaknesses. We turn to the next chapter, we see 22,000 soldiers trembling in fear. But Gideon, the man himself, this deliverer, he's also a man of doubt. He's extolled as a mighty man of valor, but Gideon pushes back and he says, I'm the weakest in my family. The angel of the Lord stands face to face with them, and Gideon says to show me a sign that you're talking with me. Yes, Israel is a nation of weakness and doubt, but make no mistake, Gideon is also part of the problem. But the Lord, our covenant God, he reviews to Moses in Exodus 34, And he says that the Lord, Exodus 3, 4, 6, the Lord passed by before him and proclaimed, the Lord, the Lord God merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth. Gideon was graciously given a seat of faith as attested in the 11th chapter of Hebrews. But Gideon, because of the weakness of his flesh, because of the remaining corruption, and most likely because of the influences around him, those who worship Baal, heeded something tangible in order to aid his belief. Gideon is a man of weakness and of doubt, but the Lord, he is gracious. Gideon is a man of sin, but the covenant Lord, he is merciful. Gideon requires multiple signs and confirmations, but the Lord, he is patient. He's long suffering. He's not willing for any of his left to perish, but to come to repentance. This unbelief, this doubt is a consequence of the fall. The famous Russian proverb, trust but verify. It's made popular by a former US president. But unless you think that Christians are immune to this, remember Thomas, one of the 12 who walked with Jesus during his three-year ministry. And then when Christ was risen, Thomas was not with those disciples. Those disciples tried to persuade Thomas, but Thomas emphatically negates and says that, unless I put my finger on the print of his nails and thrust my hand aside, I will not believe. church, even our holy supper. The outer elements serve to strengthen and confirm our faith. These outer elements represent the spiritual. And just as surely as we can touch, smell, feel those outer elements, just as surely as Christ's presence in the supper spiritually, by faith. Yes, we can be slow to heed to the Lord. We can be a people of doubt and weaknesses. But God, He is merciful. He's long-suffering. He's not willing for any of His elect to perish, but to come to repentance. We have considered Yahweh as not forsaken as covenant people, but chases them for their idolatry and appoints a deliverer. We have also considered Yahweh as not forsaken as covenant people, but is gracious towards their weaknesses. Thirdly, I would like to consider Yahweh as not forsaken as covenant people, but rather accepts an offering representing fellowship. Yahweh has not forsaken His covenant people, but rather accepts an offering representing fellowship. In the book of Leviticus, we have before us in the first few chapters the procedural order of sacrifices, codified and written by Moses and preserved by our Lord for all ages. Yet, already in the time of judges, that sacrificial system had been largely abandoned, misused, perverted. We see in the later chapters of Judges that there's a Levite that's wandering outside of bounds, looking for employment as our evidence. Though the sacrificial system has been abandoned, it has not been completely forgotten. And Gideon is slowly realizing that he is in the presence of God. And he tells the angel of the Lord to stay while I go and prepare my present. This word present in verse 18 can also be translated as offering, as it is in some other versions like the New American Standard and New King James. But we see that the ESV also translates this word as an offering in Leviticus 2, as a grain offering. Moreover, we see in Leviticus 5 that this grain offering echoes the very same significance as the animal offering that it accompanies. And we see also, and this is important, in Leviticus 7, that all these sacrifices, in addition to the significance that they point to, they also have the significance of an offering of food, food representing fellowship expressed as a meal. Listen to Leviticus 7 verse 25. This is the portion of Aaron and of his sons from the Lord's food offerings from the day they presented to serve as priests of the Lord. Food offerings. Gideon offered a young goat, unleavened cakes, and an ephaph of flour. the angel of the lord he takes the tip of his staff and he touches the offering and it is consumed it has been accepted the angel of the lord vanishes possibly typifying his ascension as a sweet smelling savor unto the nostrils of our god now to get in understand all the significance of this He did not. He did not have the completed canon at his fingertips. Did Gideon, did he offer a proper offering? No, again, he did not. He's not a Levi. But nonetheless, this offering was accepted because it is accepted by Christ. Christ died for him. Lamb slain before the foundation of the world. Listen to this from the Westminster Confession of Faith concerning good works and offerings and how they're being accepted. 16.6. Yet notwithstanding the persons of believers being accepted through Christ, their good works also are accepted in him, not as though they were in this life wholly unblameable and unapprovable in God's sight, but that he looking upon them in his Son, is pleased to accept and reward that which is sincere, although accompanied with many weaknesses and imperfections. The offering, the sacrifice of food, was accepted by God, representing fellowship with his covenant people, expressed as a meal. About 16 or 17 years ago, Ari and I, we performed a concert in one of the universities in Seoul, South Korea. Afterwards, we were ushered into a large dining hall. And I remember not speaking the language, but there was a gentleman next to me who kept on refilling my drink, encouraging me to eat. Arie whispered into my ear and said that this is a good sign because he has accepted you and you're in communion with him. Now isn't this the case that we also see in the biblical narratives? We see in 2 Samuel 9 how when Jonathan's son Mephibotheth, because of the covenant that David and Jonathan made, his son was invited to the king's table daily, fellowship, We see the covenant people of God in Exodus 24, the elders of Israel eating and drink with God on the holy mountain. And we as a covenant church in our holy supper, it's a commemoration of Christ's one only sacrifice expressed as a meal, communion with one another and with our God. The sacrifice of food by Gideon was accepted. It's God's communion with his people. We consider that Yahweh has not forsaken his covenant people, but chastens them for their idolatry and appoints a deliverer. We have considered that Yahweh has not forsaken his covenant people, but is gracious towards their weaknesses. And we have considered Yahweh has not forsaken his covenant people but rather accepts an offering representing fellowship. The covenant God has not forsaken his people they have been elected before the foundation of the world. The covenant people of God has been given the law to worship only the true God. And this was to conform them to the image of God, to be holy as God is holy for the purpose of fellowship. Yet there are those that were in Israel who are within the covenant nation, but only exteriorly. And they despised law and they went after false gods, after Baal. then there were those who were in the covenant internally circumcised in their hearts God had given them a new heart and they loved the Lord with all their heart in our church here today we have the same we have those who have made other gods and they despise the law We have those who love the law and they love God. But we also have a third class, those who have not yet been regenerated. And that's why the church will continue to proclaim the law to cause you to realize that you have a need for Christ to prick your conscience. The law will ask you if you have regard for its commandments. Do you have any other gods besides the true God? Have you made football your god? Because most of America has. They have made that the idol on the Lord's Day. Have you made sex your god? Well, some people have. Pornography is a multi-billion dollar industry. Do you realize how much an effect that has on your relationship with all those around you, nonetheless your relationship with God? Or have you made entertainment or recreation of God? Do you feel entitled because you worked so hard for six days that now on the first day of the week, it's my time to do what I want? Church, we've all fallen short of this. We have to repent of this. We will proclaim the law, but we will also proclaim Christ, because he's the king that's spoken of in the book of Judges. He's the ultimate deliverer. He's the one that's going to deliver you, not from just oppression of man, but from the oppression of sin from the false gods. this is the second person of the trinity he is eternal son of god very god very god and in the fullness of time he was made man he fulfilled all the requirements of the law It was not a nanosecond when he did not love the Lord as God with all his heart, with all his soul, with all his strength, and with all his might. And then he humbled himself, even to death on the cross. He offered up a sacrifice for our sins, which was accepted by the Father, fully satisfying His justice. He was resurrected on the third day and He gives grace to His people. I do implore, if you are in that third class in the church, that you rest and receive on Christ, that you trust in Him, that by God's grace that you repent in, turn from your idols and believe in the gospel. Turn from your false gods and believe this good news. After the period of the judges move on to the period of the monarchy and there we have also another instance king ahab one of the most wicked and his bride jezebel one of the most sadistic and her deranged mind she went out and slew 150 prophets determined to exterminate the people of god so that her god Baal could reign. And he sent a death sentence to Elijah that you will be just as those prophets by tomorrow. Sending Elijah scurrying into the wilderness for fear of his life. And there Elijah was content to resign to the cause he fought so hard for. Elijah began to entertain doubts that God, the covenant God, has forsaken his people. But our covenant God, in an awesome display of his almighty power, reassures Elijah that he has preserved a remnant of 7,000 Church, whenever you see such things as the rise of dictators, or the assassination of leaders, or the Nazi regime, or 9-11, or whatever things significant or insignificant, take heart that everything has a relationship to God's people. Remember, this is God's masterpiece. He's the one that's orchestrating a separation between His people and those of the devil. The church is at the center of redemptive history. And it might not seem like that always. There's temporal judgments on the churches. God chastens them. But we can't know the secret things of God But what we're commanded to know is the things that are written in the Holy Writ. And we see and have as our assurance that in the next age that God's people will be as numerous as the stars in heaven and as the sand of the seashore will comprise of every tongue tribe and nation and not one that God has chosen from the foundation of world will be lost not one sheep the covenant God cannot forsake his people church we have in our passage this morning just a snippet of the redemptive history an example to give us hope how God, he doesn't abandon his people, but he takes care of them in a most special manner. In our passage, God cannot, he will not, he will never forsake his people. He disposes all things to the good thereof. Let us pray.