th th th And he was strong. He was so strong. Okay. ♪ Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light ♪ ♪ What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming ♪ Yeah. Okay. so Well, good morning. All right. I don't know. Are we getting any of the dusting? Is that what we're calling? Better than what Tennessee got, right? We got relatives down there in Nashville. They got a snow day on Friday, so. Of course, if you don't have snow plows, that's what you get, right? All right. Hope you folks are praying for the people out there in California. Thousands of people without a home to go back to. Not sure where it's going to end. There's got to be some believers out there. We don't have a clue at this point, you know, how many good churches went up in flames. But if it was the other way around, we want people praying for us. So keep praying for them. Keep praying for those folks down there. In North Carolina, I heard that FEMA is booting some of them out of their little homes that they had provided for them. How long has it been? A couple months? You're going to kick them out of your house when it's 20 degrees out? I don't know. But hopefully some of this stuff will change in another week. But sometimes it's hard to undo what's been done. Okay. Hope you're ready to sing here. One that we haven't sung for a while. And Tyler's going to come and lead us. It's number 74, number 74, Majesty. Oops. Morning, everyone. If you want to stand, we'll sing 74 Majesty. Majesty, worship his majesty. Love from His throne unto His own is in the praise. And then if you'll turn ahead to 395. Teach me thy way, O Lord. 395. We'll sing all verses here. Teach me. When earthly joys depart, teach me thy way. Powers of loneliness, in times of dire distress, in failure or success, teach me thy way. When bouts and fears arise, teach me thy way. When storms, walls, and heavens rise, teach me thy way. Shine through the cloud and let your sorrow toil away. Make thou my pathway through, and teach me thy way. Long as thy light shines, teach me thy way. Where'er my lot be cast, teach me thy way. Amen. You may be seated. Okay, thank you. Alright, do check your mailboxes today, please, and you'll find a nice yellow report in there, and I've got a Deakin's report, my report, financial for the fourth quarter, October, November, December, and then looking back the whole year. as much as you want to know or maybe more than you wanted to know. Anyway, put some time and effort into this. Look it over this week. I like to try to get it to you a week ahead of time so you do have an opportunity to look it over and then we'll try to answer any questions you might have. Next week, next Sunday, we'll have our regular Sunday school morning service. Then we get to have a potluck. or pot lick, whichever, okay? And there are always some good things to eat. We probably don't have room for that, but sometimes it'd be nice if there was a label on. You know, like, who made this? He said, wow, that was really good. But you don't know who to ask for, where's the recipe? You know? Oh, it's a family secret. Can't tell you. But anyway, we'll have our potluck. And after we're done with that, we'll try to keep things moving. And then we'll have our annual business meeting. There is a sample ballot in your mailbox. It's pretty quick and easy. There's one choice for each office, so it ought to speed things up here, okay? And you don't have to wait until somebody dies or retires around here to find something to do, so. Okay, so anyway, we'll take care of that next week, just so you're kind of planning. I think it's in your bulletin there somewhere, if you're wondering, haven't been a part of the potluck, that Okay. Maybe it doesn't say that. Okay. Well, anyway, if you bring a main dish and either a salad or dessert, you know, if that works for you, okay, that, there's always plenty of food to eat. And what we don't eat, you can work on Monday and Tuesday at home. So, okay. All right. You just got to take all the desserts home with you. As you guys stuff that in the fridge. I know you're trying to be good to me. I'm running out of notches here, so. Yeah, the doctor goes, hmm. So, oh, he actually was pleased. Was it last Monday? Yeah, I tried to be at least where I was the last time, and he said, wow, you lost a pound. But he says, but you also had Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year's in there. So he seemed to be pleased. He's pleased, I'm pleased. But anyway, I do want to thank you folks for your generosity and the Christmas gifts that you've given to us. We appreciate it very much and we're thankful for that. We did get some Oh, there she is. I was thinking, where is Warren today? She's hiding. There she is. So anyway, did get some good news back from the scan. Said it came back good. Go in tomorrow for blood tests and stuff. And so we appreciate your prayers for that. Just so you know, because sometimes people have gotten, and I don't wanna spend the whole morning talking about this, but maybe I'll catch everybody at the same time. Okay, it comes back clean. So that doesn't mean no cancer forever, all right? That just means up till this point, three months later, there's no cancer. But we're gonna go through this every three months. So, you know, it doesn't mean you quit praying, but every three months, there probably won't be a scan, you know, but there'll be blood tests and so on. So for the next five years, all right, or maybe Laura will come back between now and then. But anyway, so we appreciate your prayers, but it's one of these things that can and does come back. And so we're trying to kick that can down the road a little bit. Lord's in charge of that though. Do pray for Mark's and Allie's daughter, Jenny. She went through that and seemed to be in good shape. And then she's found out that the cancer's come back. They don't know exactly where, but the blood tests are saying there's something in there somewhere. So pray for the doctors that they'll be able to figure that out. And also for her sister Sue that's in hospital, out of intensive care now, but still in pretty rough shape with liver cancer. And so continue to pray for Sue. Let's see, what else we got here? Anything else? I guess that's it. End of the month teen winter blast. Okay, they get excited about going out and playing in the snow. Enjoy it. Okay, all right. I think that's probably it for now. So let's do a little more singing. There we go. I will sing of the mercies of the Lord. Aren't you glad that God's mercies don't run out? They're renewed every morning, you know, and he's faithful. All right, let's stand. These are short. Won't keep you up long. of the world. Oh All right, Lord, I need you. Is there a day go by that we don't need the Lord? No. Hopefully we don't take the Lord for granted. You know, you wake up in the morning. We ought to start thanking him then. You could have not woke up, right? So, well, it could be in the presence of the Lord, but I think most of us are ready to hang around for a little while longer. All right, I will, I need you. Let's sing this together. The shadows darken, and I search to fear. My anxious voice cries out, Lord, I want you all to hear. Lord, I need you. And the city of my dreams, Lord, Lord, I need you. I need You, Lord, Lord, I need You. Lord, help me to remember when we were newborn sons. So I remember You, Lord, I need You. Where the sea of life is calm, Lord, I need You. Where the wind is slow and soft, where the children smell the trees. In the arms of my peace, All right, why don't you greet those around you. th th th Okay, let's pray before we get started here. Gracious Heavenly Father, we thank you for loving us. We thank you for the provision of salvation that you provided there upon the cross. Thank you that Jesus Christ was willing to go to the cross to be our substitute, to die, to shed his blood, to provide forgiveness of sins for all who would believe. Lord, we pray that each one here today might have come to that point where they have recognized their sin in need of a Savior. We pray that you would continue to work in their hearts and lives, that if there be some that don't know you as Savior, that you would soon draw them unto yourself here soon. Lord, we do pray for those that are going through some intense trials there in California, some still dealing with it in North Carolina, and others on a smaller scale elsewhere. Lord, we pray that you might cause the believers to be comforted and encouraged, and that you will provide those needs that they have, and they are no doubt many at this point in time, with some lost everything they own except the shirt on their back. So Lord, we pray that you'd even use this tragedy, human perspective, to cause some to recognize, again, the need for a Savior and come to know Christ. Help the believers to be able to share with those who don't know you and that we could rejoice in those that did come to know the Lord through it all. We thank you, Lord, for the good news from Maureen Scan. Pray that we continue to keep her healthy and strong. We do pray for For Jenny, as she's dealing with cancer again, not knowing exactly where it's at, give the doctors wisdom as they run tests, try to figure it out, how to deal with it. Pray for the doctors too, as they work with his sister Sue and this liver cancer and the physical shape that she's in. We pray that you'll continue to give them wisdom. Pray for the spiritual needs there as well, that you'd help them to be in their right minds and thinking clearly and be assured of their salvation. We do pray too, as even though we didn't mention it here, as shared in Sunday school, this young lady, blind, they're going to college in Holland with Allie and others that was hit by a train this last week. Pray that you would comfort the family, friends, schoolmates. And sometimes we don't realize how fleeting life is. Here today, maybe gone tomorrow. Help us to be wise stewards of the time that you give us. You've got a new year ahead of us. Help us to use it wisely, a day at a time. Pray that you guide us in our time here in the word, that we might profit from our study. Thank you for your word to us that we're not just kind of going blindly through life, but we have direction and your Holy Spirit can help us to understand what we need to do and why with the right motivations. We thank you for your help now, in Jesus name, amen. So we're talking again, you might say, when's he going to quit talking about the new year? Pretty soon. Next year, next year, next Sunday is Sanctity Human Life Sunday. And so we'll be switching gears and talking about the Sanctity Human Life, you know, why we believe what we do. But talking about preparing for the new year ahead of us, ready or not, here it comes, you know, we're chugging away at it already. For some, it might be with a little bit of apprehension, maybe a little bit of fear unknown. Some things we might get excited about, you know, we're going to get a new president a week from Monday. Not that's going to cure all of our nation's ills, but might head us in a different direction. Saw something the other day that sounded pretty good. Yesterday it was 70, so I guess that's 69 days today till what? Okay, we can't complain, right? I mean, if it stayed like this all winter, we wouldn't dream about going to Florida, right? Maybe. Anyway, yeah. How is January any different than June? It's another month on the calendar. You know, it's January 1st. Why is that different than June 1st? For whatever reason, I guess we've kind of grown up with that, but mentally, emotionally, it seems different. We're usually not thinking about new goals, resolutions, whatever you want to call them, how to do things differently in June as much as maybe we are in January. And things seem different. And so why do we face things differently at times? Well, possibly it's kind of, it might be like the dentist, okay. I don't know, I had my dentist call me the other day and said, I just had a cancellation. And if you want to come in, no. I had a half hour where he says, maybe that would have been a good thing. You didn't have time to worry about it. But I opted out of it. I'll wait till she gets back from India. You know, I got another month here. So yeah, you never know when you go in for that exam what they're going to come up with, you know You might not feel any pain or anything else. But oh, yeah, this has got a crack here or there you need With these x-rays show something's coming on you need to we need to do a little bit of drilling here and there and You know other things that come to mind too, you know, we don't know for sure what's what the the Lord has in store for us, what's coming up. There can be unknowns, all right? Another flu bug, the bird flu, or some other kind of flu, you know? I don't know. Maybe, is bird flu any better than hippopotamus flu or something? I don't know. Maybe it's a smaller version. I don't know. But basically it's unknown. And sometimes the unknown's a little bit fearful. And that's often why I think that so many people fear death, especially those who are unbelievers. They have no idea what's ahead. You know, here we are in America. They say, you know, the Bible's still number one bestseller kind of thing, but how many people have no clue what's in it? and what's beyond that flat line, you know, in our lives. Where are we going to spend eternity? And what should we do? Do we just kind of sit down and put our face in our hands and woe is me for 2025? I don't think that's the way the Lord wants us to face it. And so we're going to invite you to turn with me to the Old Testament. We're going to look at a personality here that also faced some unknown future. And his situation looked a little bit bleak, unknown. And yet we, in his response, we see how God worked out, not the whole story, but at least partially how God worked it out for the people in his day. And this is some 3000 years ago. And we're talking in Judges chapter six, we're talking about Gideon. And they believe Gideon lived somewhere around 1150 to 1200 BC. BC, okay, so we got 3,000 years between Gideon and us here today and in many ways things aren't all that much different. Oh, we got electric lights and all that central heating and stuff like that, padded pews, but there's a lot of things that are still similar. People are the same. And so we find Gideon, and he's experiencing some hard times in Israel. And unfortunately, the reason was that they had done evil in the sight of the Lord, and God had brought trouble into their lives. God had sent the Midianites into Israel to create a trial for them, to, in reality, drive them back to the Lord because they had strayed away. And they were overrun by the Midianites. They were scarfing up any food that they could find. They were cleaning up the harvest fields, and anything and everything that they could take, they were grabbing ahold of. Israel was reaping what they had sown, the consequences of their sin. And they were caught up in, I was going to try to put something on the screen here, but you might be familiar with it anyway. It's maybe called different things. I refer to it as the circle of sin. And okay, I'm always doing things the opposite way for you, so I'll turn around. Okay, so here we got a circle, all right? And we start over here. Things are pretty good relationship between us and the Lord. And then we go on in life a little bit and we start drifting away from the Lord. And that drifting away ultimately leads us to sin. And so God, you know, we don't seem to be wanting to do anything about it. We don't want to repent. We don't want to change. So God sends in some opposition. And for the people in Israel, it was often bringing somebody else in from the outside. The Philistines, the Midianites, some other ites of some kind. and termites, I don't know. Anyway, and they would oppress them. And sometimes that went on for years, okay? Well, you bring it on, you're over here to about seven o'clock here. And then they put up with it for a while. They finally get smart and cry out to the Lord. They're willing to repent of their sin. and they ask God for deliverance, and God will send in a deliverer. And in this case, it ends up being Gideon, but he sends different kinds of deliverers at different times. And he comes in and God brings a deliverer, and they get back in a right relationship with the Lord, and that usually lasts about as long as that person lives, that prophet, that king, whatever, but it's usually prophets, they're in judges. And then once that person dies, they tend to drift away from the Lord and that same cycle, you know, and that's a study in itself. Cause it happens over and over again. They don't seem to learn. Well, it doesn't just happen to Israel. The same thing can happen in our own lives, you know. And only for us, we may not be thinking about a circle, that maybe it's that graph, you know, we're following the Lord and maybe not so much, you know, we dip down here and, you know, and finally realize, you know, I need to get things straightened out between me and the Lord and we get things headed back in the right direction, you know, hopefully there's a continual climb to it, but we're progressing in our Christian life. And, but here we see here, There are consequences for Israel. Folks are still consequences today. And so we want to look at several principles today that might help us in the new year. And these are probably not anything you don't already know, but maybe haven't thought about in a form like this. So first thing to notice here is that sin has consequences. It pays dividends. And that means troubles, that means trials. Here we find Gideon, he's going through hard times with his country. They're facing trouble due to the fact they were reaping what they had sown. And the same thing will happen to us 3,000 years later. We can't live as if God doesn't exist and expect things to go well for us. Sometimes about the only spiritual input anybody gets is for an hour on Sunday. There's not much input spiritually into their lives for the rest of the week. None of us try to live on one meal a week physically, but yet we try to get by with that spiritually. And the thing is, we expect God to keep on pouring out the blessings on us, even though maybe we have little or nothing to do with Him for a good part of the time. And so this, we ought to be wise enough to go to the Lord at times of difficulty. And there, another familiar passage that I just read from you, for you there out of Psalm 27. to remind us, he says there, first three verses, the Lord is my light and my salvation, okay? And whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid? When the wicked, even my enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell. And though a host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear. The war should rise against me. In this will I be confident." So he's constantly looking to the Lord, you know, not just in hard times, We ought to be looking to the Lord regularly, good times or bad. And Israel had been doing evil, the result, and that is the fact that they had been controlled by the Midianites for seven years. Can you think back seven years ago? You know, that's cranking the clock back a little bit, isn't it? What's happened in your life during the last seven years? There's a lot going on, wasn't there? Well, they put up for seven years, but they finally wised up and they asked the Lord for help. Folks, we don't have to wait till we're going down the third time before we ask for help. It's available to us. The Lord's on duty 24 seven, okay? He's not, you might've been looking at me and saying, when's that guy ever going to get a haircut? You know, and well, the week of the 1st, they were closed. And so I called this last week and said, have you got any openings? Nope, fully booked. I said, well, do you ever have cancellations? OK, well, here's my number. Call me if you get one. Nope. So I'm finally going to get my ears lowered on the Wednesday, OK? And I stand up here shivering next week because I need the insulation, you know? But God doesn't go on vacation. He's not fully booked. He's there to help us in times of difficulty. And the thing here is that we can go to him. We can ask for help. Psalm 27, six says, and now shall my head be lifted up above my enemies around about me. Therefore, I will offer in his tabernacle sacrifices of joy. I will sing, yea, I will sing praises unto the Lord." Okay, the Lord was in his focus. He's thinking about the Lord. And we can cry out to the Lord. He's always going to hear. And the thing was, the people of Israel were looking for a miracle of some kind. Someone to remove the Midianites, to get them out of their country. But who does God send? Gideon. We think of him really kind of as a prophet. What they're looking for is a general and an army leader. There's a big difference between a general and a prophet. Have we ever been ungrateful with what God sends us? disappointed that God didn't send us what we think we needed? See, a prophet though is one who does give God's people what God wants them to know. And oftentimes he's there telling them what they're doing wrong. And people back then weren't that much different than they are today. Oftentimes we don't wanna hear about what we're doing wrong. And the thing is, God may send us a response different than what we were expecting. We need to be ready for that. We need to be willing to accept what God sends us or who God sends us. And a prophet, again, told them what they're doing wrong, that they were living in disobedience to the Lord. Back here in Judges 6. And in verse 10, he says, and he said unto them, I am the Lord your God, fear not the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell, but you have not obeyed my voice. They were living in disobedience to God. And people don't always respond well when they're told what they're doing wrong. Oftentimes people want a quick fix. We want the response to be quick and easy and no pain involved, okay? That's then, same thing now. We want a quick solution to the problem. And in reality, there needs to be some changes in our lives. We need to get out of the mess that we're in. And, Do you remember how we change things? How we go about changing our lives? Where does it start? See, and we've talked about this before, but sometimes we think we got some bad habits, okay? I have some, you have some. Maybe we have a habit of having a snack too late at night. Okay, so I'm trying not to eat after six. That hasn't cured all the problems. But it's a start. But yeah, we want a quick fix to it. But the Bible tells us, you know, rather than just trying to come up with an instant fix, tells us we need to change our thinking. If you want to change your habits, change your thinking. Because that's where it all starts. Look with me, if you would, so you think this isn't some kind of modern-day psychology class or something. Look at Romans chapter 12, if you would, please. Romans chapter 12. Many of you probably have memorized at least part of this. Romans chapter 12, verse 1 and 2. He says, I beseech you, or I beg you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies, okay? not fingers, toes, your whole body, your whole life, present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. Notice what he says in verse two, and be not conformed. Don't be pressed into the mold of this world. God's not looking for you to be like everybody else in this world, okay? Because not everybody else in this world are pleasing to the Lord. But he says, be not conformed to this world, but be transformed, be changed by the renewing of your mind. God wants us to change our mind, our thinking about things. Change your mind about sin or whatever it is. But that's, no, that's not a good idea. No, that's not a good habit. This is, you need to change your thinking. And you change your thinking, you view things differently. And that ultimately, if it follows through, can change your behavior. He says, change of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. And so they needed to change their mind. Again, they wanted to get rid of the Midianites. Just, Lord, get rid of them, okay? That may have been their prayer, don't know. And God's saying, no, they're there for a reason. You need to change your behavior and you need to be obedient to me. And for you to be obedient to me, you have to change your mind about how you're living. You stop worshiping these false gods. You stop running after this or that other thing, instead of putting me first in your life. And there might be some changes that need to take place in our lives. And rather than again, kicking the can down the road, you know, manana, maybe one of these days I'll get around to, no, let's say 2025 is the year that I'm going to make some necessary changes with God's help in my life and change our lives to face what's wrong. And rather than just excuse us, well, they're so-and-so, they're a whole lot worse off than I am and so on. And that might be at home, that might be at work, that might be at school, wherever we're at in our relationship to others around about us. to get a realistic view of ourselves, to see ourselves as God sees us, you know? And our spiritual life is a part of that. And one challenge or encouragement we ought to see here is that don't wait like Israel for seven years before you decide to do something about it. Folks, we don't know if we have seven years. There's no guarantee we got seven minutes. I'm not, we do have new batteries in the, you know, but that doesn't always work. But seven, they waited seven years and, but they finally wised up. They came to the Lord. They recognize their sin. They sought for forgiveness. They asked for God's help and God sends them a solution. He sends them the help that they need. And the thing is, he said, don't turn your back on what God sends you, all right? It may not have been what you thought you needed, but you take what God sends you. And in this case, it was Gideon. If there was some kind of an election, Gideon probably wouldn't have won. It would have been General Schwarzkopf or somebody else, somebody else that they were looking for. And so God sends us what we need. Sometimes we don't know what we need. The greatest need we have in this life, our greatest problem in this life is our sin problem. We can't do anything to fix it. And so God gave us what we really needed. We needed a savior. And so Christ came, he provided the salvation that we need. And yet there were many in Christ's day that rejected him. He was the solution to their problem, and yet they rejected Him. They thought they had a better idea. Sometimes people today do this, yes, but. I know what the Bible says, but, you know, my situation's different. I'm going to handle it different. I think I've got a way to solve the problem. And we miss the mark. We miss out what God's trying to teach us here. And so that brings us to verse 10, where we need to obey the Lord there in Judges chapter six and verse 10. The latter part, he says, you have not obeyed my voice. That's your problem. Now that sounds a little bit simplistic, but could you say that today? As you look over 2024, you can say with confidence that I was obedient to the Lord. You know, maybe it's X percent, okay? But I was obedient to the Lord. And again, there's a lot of people who live in disobedience to God. I'm talking about Christians that live in disobedience to God and yet we still want God's hand of blessing on us. And that's not going to work. Obedience and blessing tend to run hand in hand. If we're disobedient, why should God bless us? So we see here, the Lord sends the Midianites into our lives. Now, Midianites kind of stand for trials, difficulties, okay? Your biggest problem may not be somebody named Midian this year, all right? But you have some form of that coming in. And that Lord uses that to motivate us to make the necessary change, changes in our thinking, ultimately changes in our actions to cause us to become obedient. We recognize our sin. We confess our sin. We don't just cover it up, call it by a different name. and we seek forgiveness. And it comes in different forms. Trials come in all kinds of forms, mental, emotional, spiritual, physical. There's a whole long list of things that God can send. He knows what button to push in our life to get our attention. It's not the same for everybody. And again, often our response is wrong. We just want to get God to take the problem away. without realizing why we have the problem in the first place. Israel wanted to get rid of the Midianites. They wanted to get rid of the trial without realizing that they were sent in to help them recognize their sin and disobedience to God and His word. Okay, now I'm about to touch on something that some people get uncomfortable with. We talk about money, okay? Now, I don't talk about money very often, and it's not because we have a money problem, okay? I just pick that. I could have picked something else, but I picked that one, you know? And some preachers, every January, talk about tithing, okay? I don't do that, but I'm using this as an example. And I think most Christians know that God wants us to tithe, and I'm not gonna chase you through the scriptures to try to prove that right now. We'll assume that, all right? But what reason do we use for not doing so? Well, I've heard people say things like, well, when I get all my debts paid for, then I'll start tithing. The problem is we never stopped buying. Our debts never get any smaller. The balance stays the same. We pay this off, we buy something else to take its place. And, or it's kind of like trying to lose weight and we keep eating little debbies and drinking Cokes and Mountain Dews. Doesn't work, okay? You're never going to get that debt paid off. I looked at, I got some new kind of credit card that I got after somebody hacked me and got into my checking account and they suggested that I, have this credit card instead. You just put everything on that. And that way, if there's a problem, it's the credit card thing to deal with. It's not my money that disappeared, all right? And, you know, I try to pay that balance off every month. But I looked at that thing. I hope we aren't losing this. It keeps dinging at me here. But it would take seven years to pay that off if you just paid this minimum balance. Wow. One month. Could drag that thing out for seven years. The thing is, with this matter of tithe, you know, again, Sometimes people have little or no interest in being obedient. Somebody said the last thing that people tend to surrender in their lives is their pocketbook, their billfold. And I don't know where you're at. You say, I've been doing that for umpteen years. Well, that's great, praise the Lord. Sometimes it takes people a little while to make that next step and be obedient to the Lord. My experience has been, you'll never go wrong doing what God tells you to do. And if I had more time, I'd tell you some of my history, when I thought, this doesn't make any sense, but that's what God said, so I'm gonna do it. And God's been there to meet those needs, and I thank Him for that. But again, stores make it awful easy. I heard some advertisement the other day, you know, no payments till 2027. Oh, good. We don't have to pay anything for two years. Well, two years from now, I'm probably going to be less excited about paying for that thing if it's still working, you know, two years from now than I am now. And so, they make it awful easy for us to get into problems. But we get all, the thing is sometimes our priorities are out of whack. We want what we want and we want it right now. And they made it with, you know, charge everything. You can have it. Have it now. I think maybe we ought to go back to the old days. Remember people buying on time, where you went in and you paid 10 bucks or 20 bucks or whatever a week or a month. And when you finally got it paid for, then you got to walk out the store with it, right? And well, that's another story. But when our desires come before God's desires, and God ends up down the list somewhere along the way, don't be surprised if God brings some trials into your life. It's not just tithe, there's some, all the other areas of our life, our time, our energies. What are we using it up on? Is there anything left for the Lord or is He kind of get the leftovers? Sometimes we're fearful of the new year because it's unknown. There's an unknown Midianite out there, okay? But one of the ways to head it off, the Midianites, the trials, okay, is obedience to the Lord. Now you don't get a written guarantee. If you are obedient to the Lord, that you're never going to have problems. That's not in scripture, okay? It doesn't come with a written guarantee, but it might help you to know that if you're doing what the Lord wants you to do, in every area of your life, that that's probably not a disciplinary or chastisement from the Lord. Again, not every trial is a result of sin. Sometimes the Lord allows trials to come in our lives to help us to grow, to mature. It doesn't always feel good, but on the other end of it, we're stronger. We've learned to trust the Lord in it. But it might act like a preventative medicine, you know, Kind of like getting, first of all, I was gonna say a flu shot, but I'm sorry. I don't know what's in it anymore. Maybe I'm the one that's wrong, but I don't trust what's in it, so I'm not gonna take one. If I get the flu, Lord will just have to bring me through that one, okay? But, you know, there are other shots that you used to get. See, Mike, I was always getting shots as a kid. Part of it was the fact that my mom had had polio when she was a kid, and she wanted to make sure I didn't. So I took shots. Remember the little sugar cube with some kind of medicine in it, you know, and you take that? I don't know. And then I got shots for measles and all kinds of stuff, all right? Because we had those shots, we don't have that today. I know a lot of people are against all those things, but it's the new people coming in that's bringing those diseases back and they don't have any immune system for it, but that's another story. And the thing is, as I look at this, most of the time, it's not that we don't know what's the right thing to do, it's just that we choose not to do it. And I guess the challenge here in 2025 is to be obedient to the Lord. You're never gonna come up short by doing what God wants you to do. We see here, I want us to notice too, though, that the Lord uses ordinary people. Why? Because they are the ones who are willing to be dependent on the Lord. So where do we find Gideon here? Well, we look here in Judges chapter six, And we look in verse 11, and it says, and there came an angel of the Lord and set up under an oak tree, which was Ophiroth, that pertained unto Joash, Abizite, and his son Gideon, threshing wheat by the winepress to hide it from the Midianites. So where we find Gideon? Is he out leading a commando unit? against the Midianites? Is he the leader of the Green Berets? No fear in him. No, it looks kind of like he's a farmer and he's out back of the barn, if you will. He's hiding so the Midianites wouldn't steal his grain. He doesn't seem to be an out front leader. He's not a general. He's an ordinary folk, kind of like us. And the Lord wants to use people like us. And whether you're a farmer or a carpenter or whatever else, okay, out there, what is it? A baker, candlestick maker, whatever they are. Because we're willing to be dependent on the Lord. We know that we need God's help, whatever it is that God wants us to do. He's not looking for the biggest, meanest person available to lead these people, because that's not what he got when he got Gideon. Why did he pick somebody like that? Because Gideon knew that he didn't have the wisdom, the strength, the courage, everything else you need to be a leader in and of himself, okay? Gideon didn't say, up there beating his chest, vote for me, I'm awesome, I'll cure all your problems. No, God was not looking for somebody that's self-sufficient. He says, I can take care of me, I can take care of my family. If something comes along that I can't handle, I'll let you know, God. Now it's important, we can see here that Gideon, he didn't know what was coming up. He didn't know what was ahead of him. He didn't know what that new year, whatever time of the year it was, here ahead of him, kind of like 9-11. Surprised our country, didn't it? It kind of surprised the people with that flood. Never had a flood like that. Didn't think you needed flood insurance if you're high enough on the mountain, right? Or the fires. Now there might've been some anticipating that. the firemen and other people that were kind of in that business realized the potential for that. But the average guy out there, when he left home that day, wasn't figuring he wouldn't be able to come home to a home. And so God doesn't want us going into the new year, cowering, afraid, but to be able to be bold, to be confident, not because we're so strong and wise and everything and ready to face the enemy, whatever it might be. Again, first of all, we need to identify the enemy. Who is the enemy anyway? Who's the enemy of the Christian? It's not your school teacher that's sending you home with a lot of homework. It's not your boss that doesn't appreciate the work that you do. It's not the other person in the pew with you or your mom or dad or somebody else. Who is the enemy? God's word tells us that it's Satan. And we need to remember that. And he's got some help out there. And again, these are sermons in themselves, but the Bible talks about, we need to be alert for the world, the flesh, the devil, He's got a variety of tools in his tool bag that he'll use on us. Whatever will work, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life. And there would be an enemy for Gideon. And there'll be an enemy out there for us as well. Thing is, we all got a weak spot. It's going to be probably as different as there are people here. Satan's wise enough to know where that weak spot's at. That's what he's going to work on. And we best not fall. But we don't have that strength in and of ourselves. We need the Lord's help. We better be asking him for the help and strength that we need. And when the Lord tells us to go, like he ends up telling Gideon to go, he doesn't want to hear, yes, but. Yes, but. Look there in verse 15. Okay, so the Lord is looking on him there in verse 14, verse 15. He said unto him, oh my Lord, where and with shall I save Israel? Behold, my family is poor in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house. Kind of sounds like Moses who says, I can't talk. You know, what do you want me to do? You want me to go to Egypt and tell Pharaoh to let my people go? I can't talk. You know, you're asking the wrong guy for this. You know, and he's coming up the same, I'm from the smallest tribe of all the 12 tribes, and I'm the least of my family. I'm the, you know, I'm the poorest of the poor. He could do this. Well, today I've got, I did have four paperclips in my pocket, okay? But he didn't have any, God wasn't asking him to finance the war, to go out and buy swords for everybody. but he wanted him to lead the people. So what's the problem? Well, Gideon thought that was a pretty good excuse. I can get off the hook for this one. And sometimes people, the Lord wants us to do something and we've got 19 questions we want answers for and they better all come out looking good for us or we don't want a part of it. God's not in the business of clearing up all your questions before He wants you to step out. He wants us to step out in faith, to trust Him. If He asks us to do something, He's going to give us the equipment we need to be able to do it. It may be out of our comfort zone. You may say, well, I've never done that before. Well, join the crowd. A lot of things we haven't done before. And so, We're not going to get all the information we might want before we're to respond to obedience to the Lord. He says to obey me. And he says here, trust me, depend on me. God will never steer us in the wrong direction. And he really doesn't want to hear our excuses. He's not going to ask us to do something that we can't do. He's not setting us up for failure. He's not going to give us all the information up front. He just simply wants us to trust him for this. And I was thinking about that. I got to wind this up here, but when we came from Minnesota to Milwaukee, never been to Milwaukee before. We came here, preached for a weekend and talked to people, answered questions and on the ride home, told Maureen I don't ever expect to go back there again. Well, Lord had something else in mind. But the thing is, he will supply our needs. He did then, he will today. He tells, he says there in verse 16, and the Lord said unto him, surely I will be with thee and thou shalt smite the Midianites as one man. God says, I'm going to be with you through this. And apparently that's what the encouragement that Gideon needed. But the thing is, he will not reveal to us ahead of time every little niche along the way. He wants us to be, keep on trusting, keep on trusting me. And we need to rely on his provisions. He's promised to be with us. He'll never leave us or forsake us. Now, so Gideon's finally come to this, he's ready now. He's ready to be obedient to the Lord and to be dependent on the Lord. And we're skipping over a little bit of things here, but his heart was there. Lord knows that he's ready to go. Are we ready to follow the Lord in this new year? Even for the unexpected things? Again, people in North Carolina didn't expect that, floods, people in, California didn't expect fires. I don't know what could happen in Wisconsin. Apparently there's a fault line running through our state somewhere that could open up and things fall in it. We don't know. But he's given Gideon some directions. He's ready, willing, and able to respond. Are we ready, willing, and able to respond to God's directions in our lives? Are we ready to be dependent on him, even to face the unexpected? See, God doesn't, again, reveal His will for us to vote on it or to decide, yeah, I don't know on this one, you know. No, He revealed His will when He knows that the answer is yes. And He gives him an assignment. We'll see there in verse 25 to 27. And I think this, again, is a test for Him. Well, you follow directions. Will you go through what you're supposed to do? And it wasn't gonna be a dangerous mission. He had to go out and destroy the gods that they were following of that day. To cut down the groves, that was all a part of their worship. And so it involved danger. Would we be like Isaiah to say, here my Lord send me, I'm ready. I'm going to trust you on this, Lord. But he gave him an assignment right off. And I really think it was a test just to see, will you follow directions? And I'll try to make this brief, but it came to my mind. Some of you guys can identify with this. When you're in boot camp, you have to do some really strange things. And I didn't even have one of these cans around to demonstrate it for you. But I think most of us, remember, shaving cream can, shake it up, push the button, squirts out, okay? And I'm back to the old brush thing, slap on, you know? But we all had that. But for inspection, we had to take the cap off, Q-tip, clean out the inside. That little part where it comes out, we got to clean that all out. Put it back. Take your soap dish, make sure there's not a stray hair on there somewhere. We had to use the old razors. You take apart, the handle comes off, and the blades had to be all clean. That is stupid. What are you doing? Your underwear, everything had to be folded a certain way. What do we do? Just can you follow directions? Can you follow directions? That was not earth shattering, okay? Somebody's life was not at stake if they found shaving cream in that little nozzle. But if you don't follow directions later on, it might be somebody else's life, all right? You know, in my job as an air traffic controller, If I gave the wrong directions to an airplane and I said, taxi into position and hold, and there's another plane coming in, millions of dollars in people's lives could have gone. And so it makes a difference. Are we obedient? Not just in the little bitty Q-tip stuff, but in the big things too. And so God's looking at our lives. He said, will you be obedient to me? He might send a test just to see, are we willing to obey? If we pass that test, he'll give us something more to do. And that's what he did with Gideon. And the thing is, we see here that Gideon, or that God will provide the help that we need when we need it. Oftentimes, it's other people, okay? He didn't call Gideon to go out there to be a one-man band, to do everything that needed to be done. And he enlisted other people for help. And there's going to be some point in life where we need help. And we've got to be smart enough to realize this is bigger than me. I need some help here. And we might be surprised how much help is available. Some years ago, I had a big tree fall down in my backyard. I thought, wow. You know, they wanted like $3,000 to come and cut it up and haul it away. I didn't have an extra $3,000 laying around. The thing is, if the tree doesn't hit your house, you get Okay, if it falls on your house, you might get something. But so I called some people that I knew had chainsaws and they came over and for days, split. It was like the month of August was spent cutting up, hauling off brush, splitting wood. It was a lot of work. And I appreciate for those who came to help out. Well, Gideon needed some helpers too. God provided them. And as you know, the story goes, he ended up more than he needed. He had to say, some of you guys can go on home now. But the Lord will help us with our battles too. Again, it's going to be different than the Midianites. But the principles are pretty much the same. So let's just quickly review these and then we'll close. First of all, remember that sin has consequences. It pays dividends. Troubles and trials result as we see in disobedience from God. And again, not every trial is a result of sin, but it ought to be something we kind of run by the Lord is, am I doing something wrong here? Am I missing the mark somewhere? Secondly, we need to be wise enough to go to the Lord in times of difficulty, even as we saw there in Psalm 27. And not just in trouble, but especially then. It's not 10 friends, it's not Facebook, it's not whatever else you might come up with that you're looking for your help. But go to the Lord first. Know here too, number three, know the Lord will send a solution. It might not be what we're expecting. I've talked to people through the years, again, different subject, but they needed finances. Well, it wasn't that God sent him a check in the mail. He sent him a job. Work, you know? Yeah, sometimes that's what we need. God sends a solution. Again, God sends you a solution. Don't turn your back on it. There's a reason for it. Then we need to obey the Lord, his word, his will. Don't get hung up on all the why's. You got to have all your questions answered before you'll say yes. Trust him. If he calls you out to do something, he's going to help you along the way. And remember that God uses ordinary people. And it's like, Lord, you got the wrong guy for the job here. You know, so-and-so has got more talent, more abilities, more this, that, and other than I do. Yeah, they do. But maybe they're dependent on themselves. God wants somebody that will be dependent on Him. And then God will provide the help that we need. And He's uses all kinds of people. We got missionaries that they're out there trying to reach men and women, boys and girls for Christ. They can't work a 40-hour job. Some of them in countries, they can't do anything to earn money. They're totally dependent on what comes in, and we're a part of that. God uses us to help keep them where they're at. We've got some of them that are struggling. Our Macroclans, they're in Germany. It's a tough go for them. Prices are up, you know, and they're coming up short every month. But we can be a part of the help that they need. Our plan is to increase the budget, but it's going to be more in our church that needs to make that happen. And so, you know, God will help us, but we need to be willing to take the help that God provides for us. I trust some of these thoughts might be of help to you in this year to come. Let's pray. Heavenly father, thank you for being there for us. Thank you for being there for Gideon. He was probably the last one he thought that would be the one that would be a solution to the sin problem in the life of the Israelites, in a matter of disobedience, but you used him in a great way. Lord, we pray that you'd help us to be open to be used of the Lord in a great way in somebody else's life and as well as our own in this coming year. This could be the best year of our life. It may not be the easiest year, but it could be the best year. Help us to be tuned into you Help us to recognize our sin and deal with it. Not try to cover it up, call it by a different name, ignore it, hope it'll go away, but to deal with it and do it in a biblical way. And Lord, we just pray that you'd help some of these things that we talked about to stick in our minds, that we don't just live in the same old rut we've been in for the last X number of years, doing the same old thing, the same old way. Maybe there are some changes that need to take place in our life. Do things differently. We thank you for the help that you'll provide to meet those needs, in Jesus' name, amen. I'd like for us to sing a closing hymn, if you would, please. In His Time, 465, 465. Yad Vashem plays according to his clock, not ours, okay? 465. In his time. In his time. In his time. In his time. May we smile in your feet, Lord we shall be every day, as you teaching me your way, that I may do just as you say, all the hours of my life. In our time of need. Lord, my life to You I give, My soul I give to You. Return me, Lord, to my Father, In our time of need. Sometimes we talk about them, but there's a plan and purpose behind, I believe, everything that happens in our lives. And we can trust them for that. Before you leave, I just want to close a prayer here. I'll make this short, but pray for Abby. She's going to be flying back to North Carolina. moved back in with mom. And so now I want to give her a hug. They're going to be praying for her. And we can pray that the Lord will provide a good church home and people who surround her to be a blessing and encouragement to her on the other end. And that's something we can pray for. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your love for us. Again, you ultimately want what's best for us. Sometimes we don't always appreciate We pray that you help us to see things from your perspective. You know what's best for us. You give us what we need, not always just what we think we want. And we pray that you'll give Abby safety as she goes back to North Carolina here tomorrow, and that you'll prepare the way for a safe trip, help her settle in there, back at mom's house, and that you'll Continue to watch over and care for her. Meet those variety of needs that she will have when she gets there. Pray that you'd help provide a good church family, people around her to be a blessing and encouragement to her. And pray you'd give us all safety as we travel to our homes. We thank you for health and strength that you've given us here for another day and another week. You, Terry, help us to serve you as we are. And we'll thank you in Jesus' name. Lord bless you and thanks for coming. Don't forget your mailbox and your report and so on. Yeah.