Please open your Bibles. Judges chapter 6. Judges chapter 6. We've been talking a lot about reformation, how God is reforming his people. We've talked about the fact that there are things happening today, particularly in the last decade, that you didn't see for 50 years in the American church. And it's happening right before our eyes. And there are many signs of reformation. And Jason started out this conference on Friday talking about tearing walls down. And when you have a defective wall, you have to tear it down to the place where it went off course. And we're in a passage of scripture here where something is being torn down. And I wanted to bring us into Judges chapter 6 because it gives us a framework from which to understand Reformation. It's really a case study in Reformation, specifically Gideon's Reformation. And what you learn from this is what happens to people who tear down their father's idols. And I have a number of objectives for this time this morning. I'd like for us to just affirm the importance of biblical Reformation and that we have become committed to. and that we would continue to humbly pursue them, that we would admit the problems that are part of these kinds of reformations. And then I'd like to draw a number of lessons, lessons learned for those who tear down their father's idols, and they're all here in this text. Judges 6 through 8 gives the whole story, and we will begin in 6, verse 1. And if you look, if you look and see what has just been said at the end of chapter five, so the land had rest for 40 years and then. And the first thing that you notice in verse one is that there were evil days, days of apostasy. Then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord. So the Lord delivered them into the hand of Midian. for seven years. And then you, there's a, an explanation of the chastisement of the Lord that came upon the people. That same chastisement comes upon us when we depart from God's ways in verses two through five. And the land of Midian prevailed against Israel because of the Midianites, the children of Israel made for themselves the dens, the caves and the strongholds, which are in the mountains. So it was Whenever the people of the East would come up against them, then they would encamp against them and destroy the produce of the earth as far as Gaza and leave no sustenance for Israel, neither sheep nor ox nor donkey. For they would come up with their livestock in their tents, coming in as numerous as locusts. Both they and their camels were without number, and they would enter the land and destroy it. And then in verse 6 we see that the people cry out for help. So Israel was greatly impoverished because of the Midianites and the children of Israel cried out to the Lord. And then in verse 7 you see how God graciously intervenes for his people. And it came to pass when the children of Israel cried out to the Lord because of the Midianites that the Lord sent a prophet to the children of Israel, who said to them, Thus says the Lord God of Israel, I brought you up from the land of Egypt. I brought you out out of the house of bondage, and I delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians and out of the hand of all who oppressed you and drove them out before you and gave you their land. Also, I said to you, I am the Lord your God. Do 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 tree, which was in Ofra, which belonged to Joash, the Abyssalite, while his son Gideon threshed wheat in the winepress in order to hide it from the Midianites. And then you find the Lord encourages Gideon through a long conversation. And I want you to notice as we read this, the back and forth dialogue that is reported here. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, the Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor. And then Gideon is amazed at it. And in verse 13, he replies, Oh, my Lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt? But now the Lord has forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites. And then the Lord replies in verse 14, The Lord turned to him and said, Go in this might of yours and you shall save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Have I not sent you? And then Gideon replies in verse 15. So he said to him, Oh, my Lord, how can I save Israel? Indeed, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh. And I am the least in my father's house. And the Lord replies. The Lord said to him, surely I will be with you and you shall defeat the Midianites as one man. And then he said to him, if now I have found favor in your sight, then show me a sign that it is that you talk with me. Do not depart from here, I pray. until I come to you and bring out my offering and set it before you. And he said, I will wait until you come back. So Gideon went and prepared a young goat and unleavened bread from an ephah of flour. The meat he put in a basket and he put the broth in a pot and he brought them out to him under the terebinth tree and presented them. The angel of God said to him, Take meat and the unleavened bread and lay them on this rock and pour out the broth. And he did so. Then the angel of the Lord put out the hand of the staff that was in his hand and touched the meat and the unleavened bread and fire arose out of the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened bread. And the angel of the Lord departed out of his sight. Now Gideon perceived that it was the angel of the Lord. So Gideon said, Alas, O Lord God, for I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face. Then the Lord said to him, Peace be with you. Do not fear. You shall not die. And then in verse 24, we find Gideon worships God. So Gideon built an altar there to the Lord and called it The Lord is Peace. To this day, it is still Oprah of the Israelites. And then what we find in verse 25 is the beginning of the difficulty that he found himself in. And God commands Gideon to tear down his father's idols. Now, it came to pass in the same night that the Lord said to him, take your father's young boy. the second bowl of seven years old and tear down the altar of Baal that your father has and cut down the wooden image that is beside it and build an altar to the Lord your God on top of this rock in the proper arrangement and take the second bowl and offer a burnt sacrifice with the wood of the image you shall cut down. So Gideon took ten men from his servants and did as the Lord said to him. But because he feared his father's household and the men of the city too much to do it by day, he did it by night. And then the unforeseen problems arise from tearing down your father's idols beginning in verse 28. And when the men of the city arose early in the morning, there was the altar of Baal torn down and the wooden image that was beside it was cut down and the second bull was being offered on the altar, which had been built. So they said to one another, who has done this thing? And when they inquired and asked, they said, Gideon, the son of Joash has done this thing. Then the men of the city said to Joash, bring out your son that he may die because he has torn down the altar of Baal. And because he has cut down the wooden image that was beside it. And then an amazing thing happens that doesn't always happen when you're tearing your father's idols down. A father stands beside his son. Verse 31. But Joash said to all who stood against him, Would you plead for Baal? Would you save him? Let the one who had plead for him be put to death by mourning. If he is a god, let him plead for himself, because his altar has been torn down. Therefore, on that day, he called him Jerobel, saying, let Baal plead against him, because he has torn his altar down. Then all the Midianites and the Amalekites, the people of the East, gathered together, and they crossed over and encamped in the valley of Jezreel. So the nations are beginning to gather to make war against Gideon and Gideon prepares for war as well. Verse 34. But the spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon and he blew the trumpet and the Abyssalites gathered behind him and he sent messengers throughout all Manasseh who also gathered behind him. He also sent messengers of Asher Zebulun and Naphtali, and they came up to meet them. And then Gideon seeks affirmation from the Lord because of the fearfulness of his heart in verse 36. And Gideon said to God, if you will save Israel by my hand, as you have said, look, I shall put a fleece of wool on the threshing floor. If there is dew on the fleece only and it is dry on the ground, on all the ground, then I shall know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you have said." Then it was so. When he arose early the next morning, he squeezed the fleece together. He wrung the dew out of the fleece, a bowl full of water. Then Gideon said to God, do not be angry with me, but let me speak just once more. Let me test, I pray. Just one more with the fleece. Let it now be dry only on the fleece, but on all the ground, let there be dew. And God did so that night it was dry on the fleece, but there was dew on all the ground. And then we move into chapter seven and we find how Gideon has gathered an army of 32,000. And then God begins to totally deconstruct Gideon's army. And the Lord said to the Gideon, the people who are with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel claim glory for itself against me, saying, My own hand has saved me. Now, therefore, proclaim in the hearing of the people, saying, Whoever is fearful and afraid, let him turn and depart at once from Mount Gilead. And 22,000 of the people returned, 10,000 remained. But the Lord said to Gideon, the people are still too many. Bring them down to the water. So he brought the people down to the water and the Lord said to Gideon, everyone who laughs from the water with his tongue as a dog laughs, you shall set apart by himself. Likewise, everyone who gets down on his knees to drink. And the number of those who left putting their hand to their mouth was 300 men. But all the rest of the people got down on their knees to drink water. Then the Lord said to Gideon, by the 300 men who left, I will save you. and deliver the Midianites into your hand. Let all the other people go, every man to his place. So the people took provisions and their trumpets in their hands, and he sent away all the rest of Israel, every man to his tent, and retained those 300 men. Now the camp of Midian was below the valley. And then we turn to chapter 8, and I just want to read it short. section in chapter 8, which tells of a tragic end of this. As apostasy returns, there was a great revival. The idols were torn down, but there was no resolve to continue. And there's a reason. Now, Gideon, the son of Joash, died at a good old age and was buried in the tomb of his father, Joash, in Ophrah of the Ebbezerites. So it was, as soon as Gideon was dead, that the children of Israel again played the harlot with the veils and made veil their wreath, their God. This, thus, the children of Israel did not remember the Lord, their God, who had delivered them from the hands of all their enemies on every side. Nor did they show kindness to the house of Jeroboam Gideon in accordance with the good he had done for Israel. So we are in a passage of scripture that speaks of a time of reformation. We too, I believe, are in a time of reformation. And here we have heard the importance of reformations. We acknowledge in this passage the tensions. the difficulties, the fears, the resistance, the problems that happened as a result of it. And there are many lessons here. And what we learn from this passage is that is that the heart of God is revealed. And that is that that scripture teaches us that God, God is willing to bring refreshment to his people and reformation to his church. We need reformation because We adopt so many worldly practices and they just whoop us. They beat us to death and then they beat our children to death and they beat our children's children to death. And lest we turn, we get so roughed up by our ignorance and sin and the judgment of God comes upon us. But this passage tells us that God does indeed desire the reformation and the sanctification of his church. And he does respond to the cries of his people. And so what we find here in this whole context of scripture, in the book of Judges, is that God gives judges to deliver the people from the collapse that they're experiencing. And the experience in the days of the judges mirrors and parallels our own day, where you see reformation and collapse, reformation and collapse. It's a picture. of the constant cycle of victory and apostasy, repentance and renewed victory and tragic loss of the next generation. This is the pattern of history. History is there to teach us things. And God has put this here for our instruction so that in our own time of reformation, we would understand what has happened so that we might avoid those things. This is a case study, really, for our instruction. To help us think about, think biblically about what has happened and then how we ought to handle our own times. Now, the period of the judges spanned 390 years from the days of Joshua to Samuel. And it was a time of rejection of the word of God. And it was during this time that Gideon was raised up. There's more written about Gideon than any of the other judges. There are 100 verses written about him. So a significant amount is dedicated to him. And so the story here displays many of the issues that call for reformation as well as what happens to those who are involved in reform. Now, what you find here too is really the secret of failed revivals. and the importance of the recovery and the applications of the wisdom that's here in this passage. I hope they're helpful. Now, I'd like to just talk about the historical setting a little bit more before we dive into the text. And then I want us, before we do, to pray and ask for help that we would understand. But the historical context is really found in Judges chapter 2, verses 6 through 10. Because during the generation before Gideon, Joshua said, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. And to everyone's joy, all the people embraced that same principle until the next generation. It only took one generation to forget this. And the sons and daughters who were alive in the time of Gideon were continuing to reject the reforms of Joshua. They were saying, as for me and my house, we'll serve whatever we please. We'll do whatever is right in our own eyes. And so this call of Joshua to do all according to the law of Moses, to not turn from the right or to the left, all of this was rejected during the period of the judges. was told, this book of the law shall not depart from your mouth and you shall meditate on it day and night and you shall observe to do according to all that is written in it. And then Joshua died. And in verse 10 in chapter two, we read, there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord, nor yet the work which he had done. in Israel. They did not remember. That was the problem. That was the problem after Joshua died. And that was the exact same problem after Gideon died. We need to mark that. We need to understand how important that is. And so verse 10 says, there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord, nor yet the work that he had done for Israel. So how long did it take from Joshua, from the death of Joshua for an entire generation to reject the Lord? One generation. As Peter Braggart has said many times on this road trip, God has no spiritual grandchildren. And so we find the theme of judges is communicated in Judges chapter two. Nevertheless, the Lord raised up judges who delivered them out of the hand of those who plundered them. Yet they would not listen to their judges, but they played the harlot with other gods and bowed down to them. And they turned quickly from the way which their fathers walked in obeying the commandments of the Lord. They did not do so. Fathers are critical to this whole disconnect that takes place over and over and over again in history. And it's going to happen again in this reformation. if we don't pay very close attention and return to the Lord and the fundamentals that he's called us to. So in each crisis of the people of God, the people adapt practices of the pagans around them and they become ensnared by them. And the root of the problem is fatherly disobedience, because there's a generation that doesn't know, that doesn't remember. Fathers have not told. Sons have not asked. And that's the problem. That's the problem with every failed revival. You know, there's so many of them in history, but they all fail for the same reasons. Because fathers get lazy, they get fat, they have 40 years of peace, and they do what's ever right in their own eyes. And that's the secret to every failed revival. It's a fatherhood problem. Now, I'd like for us to just bow and pray. As we look to the to the scriptures here for for what happens when you tear down your father's eyes, let's pray. Oh, Lord. Oh, Lord, help us understand. That you would open up our eyes to see wonders things from your law, that you would teach us how how we might not follow the patterns of our own fathers who forgot you. That there would not be a flash in the pan in our generation. Jesus. Okay, so what happens in times of reformation? What happens when you tear down your father's idols? Number one, in verses one through six, we learn that in times of reformation, you recognize the wounds and the scars from your disobedience and You humble yourselves because of it. That's the beginning of all reformation. In verse one, the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and God began to chastise and punish his people. And they began to see bad fruit, devastation all around. And that's in times, in times of reformation, you recognize your sins and your scars from your sins. And you recognize that you just cannot take it anymore. You see the chastisement of the Lord. Here, the children of Israel were living in caves. They were fleeing because of this terrible chastisement that God Almighty had brought upon them. And they recognized their wounds. And then number two, the second thing that happens to people who are being reformed, is that it dawns on them that they have gone astray. The children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord. We see how we see how far we've departed, and it occurs to us progressively over time. And so in times of reformation, people wake up and they realize the things that they did on autopilot were actually totally contrary to scripture. We've just we've just come through a 50 year period of most people going on autopilot, but God has interrupted you in the midst of it, where you are living in a certain way that was completely contrary to scripture. The way you were educating your children was completely wrong, was completely contrary to scripture. The way that you were dressing, the way that you were engaging in your church life, The really big ticket is the way that you structured your whole family life was completely off course. You recognize that and you realized what what is stated in verse one. Then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord. So the Lord delivered them into the hand of Midian for seven years. I grew up in a family with three children. I grew up in in the world of 2.2 children. I actually grew up in a big family in my high school. Three children was a big family. I would go and people would say, you know, Scott, you know, do you have any siblings? Yes, I have three. Oh, that's a big family. I heard that a thousand times when I was growing up. And I was talking to my A mother was speaking, someone was speaking to my mother some time ago and said, Mary, Mary, why did you only have three children? And, you know, she said, that's all that I need to do. And that's how it happens. But yet such a thing is so contrary. To scripture and the admonitions and the principles of scripture regarding regarding all those things that that surround family life. And so, because in times of reformation you finally wake up only by the hand of the Lord, only because he helps you, it should be a time of humility, of recognizing that there is such a great pitfall. of thinking that somehow your reformation has made you acceptable before God, when in reality God's mercy was upon your life, even in the days of your apostasy, when you were unwittingly defying God. You did not know, you did not know the right hand from your left. You were doing what the Gentiles were doing, but then God opened up your eyes. When you're in times of reformation, it dawns on you that you've gone astray. Here's one thing that we need to acknowledge. This just doesn't happen one time. It happens all the time. If you're a real Christian, it'll happen all the days of your life. You're never done. A third, a third thing that happens to those who are reforming is that that they begin to recognize the chastisement of the Lord. And in verses two through five, you see this. How they were a hairy people. Things are not going well. And they turn to God for help. And they ask why. And that's the next thing that happens to those who are tearing down their father's idols. Is that they begin to hear, is that we begin to hear the increasing cries of harassed people. And they cry out to God for help. And it's a humble cry. And it's the same cry that you read in in Chronicles, if my people who are called by my name shall humble themselves and pray, that's so necessary. And that's the way that awakenings happen is when God's people cry out to him. And then we see also that God graciously intervenes in verses seven through 11 in Gideon's day of the devotion to these idols. involved cultural acceptance and depraved sexual practices and even at times the sacrifice of living children. And Gideon here, he pulls down his father's idols through a great and gracious intervention of God. This family was so wrapped in sin, but God was kind to them in the midst of their idolatry. He reached into their hearts and he rescued them. In the midst of all of their bankrupt ways, he came to them. That's how God saves his people. That's how he saved all of us. We were going astray in our own way. We were dead in our trespasses and sins. And he reaches us right where we were and he takes us out and reveals to us his goodness through his intervention. Part of his intervention is that he sends a prophet. In this story here, in verses 7 through 10, God sent a prophet to the children of Israel. who said to them, thus says the Lord God of Israel, I brought you up from Egypt and out of the house of bondage and the angel of the Lord comes in verses in verse 11. And this angel sits under a terebinth tree while Gideon is threshing wheat in the wine press. He was doing, he was, he was trying to hide from the Midianites. He was going about his business, just doing his work, threshing wheat, and God sends an angel to it. God sends voices. He sends prophets. He sends books. He sends various things to rescue his people. It would be interesting to know how God turned so many of you around, how he reached into your life while you were in a car, while you were walking by the side of the road, while you were in a field or wherever it was, but God sent someone to you to reveal what was true about your life and about the glory of God and how you are so contradicting it. And then God is so gracious to call a servant and the servant in this case is Gideon. The angel of the Lord appeared to him, verse 12, and said to him, the Lord is with you, mighty man of valor. I'm pretty sure Gideon's mouth dropped to the floor. When he heard that, I don't think he was thinking that too much. He was hiding. He was beat to death and he wasn't feeling like such a hotshot. But yet God comes and tells him something that's contrary to his own understanding of himself and says, the Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor. What an encouraging thing it is to have God come to us with his promises to show us how we fit in his plan, and he puts us into his service. He gives us gifts. He gives us work to do. He gives us a vision for the things that he's placed in our hands. And he says, you're a mighty man of valor. The devil tells you you're nothing. I don't say that. And that's what happened with Gideon. Gideon's insecurity was so obvious. He says, I'm the least of my father's house. In other words, he has no voice. He's the runt of the clans, is what he's saying, and that the clan is small. He's speaking about his own feelings about himself. And the reality is that whenever God is doing something to reform his people, his people fear because of their own weaknesses. They have trepidation because they know themselves. They know they're sinful and bankrupt people, but yet God, God has placed upon them the responsibility to make a dramatic turn. And they have been appointed for such a time as this to turn around a 50 year period of apostasy. And yet we realize how poor and wretched and naked and blind and lukewarm and bankrupt we are and how much we need. the mighty hand of God to help us. I'll never forget the first Uniting Church and Family Conference we had in St. Louis, Missouri. There were 700 men in the room. It was almost all men. And there was this sense of fear, joy, terror, Men realized they had to make dramatic changes and they weren't sure what was going to happen to them. And they left that place and made enormous changes all across this nation. And hundreds and hundreds of churches ended up getting planted. And tremendous controversies rose up. And the landscape of evangelicalism received some turbulence as a result of it. And the turbulence is still still happening today, and I trust it will continue to happen. But what you had in that room were men who were both terrified and happier than they ever had been in their lives. It was a very strange, strange thing. But what happened was there were men in that room who knew the Lord is with you. And so they departed and they made major changes and they suffered greatly as a result of it. So in a time of time of awakening, God graciously intervenes and he sends, in this case, an angel. He sends words. He sends a servant and his name is Gideon, a man of valor. And then the next thing that happens to those who are charged by God to tear down their father's islands is that they end up in a direct confrontation. Verses 25 to 30 show us this confrontation. Now it came to pass in the same night that the Lord said to him, take your father's young bull, the second bull of seven years old and tear down the altar of Baal that your father has and cut down the wooden image that is beside it and build an altar to the Lord your God on top of this rock in the proper arrangement and take the second bull and offer a burnt sacrifice with the wood of the image which you shall cut down. So Gideon took ten men from among his servants and did as the Lord said to him, but because he feared his father's household and the men of the city too much, he, to do it by day, he did it by night. Now, we need to understand the significance of tearing down your father's idols in the days of Gideon. When you tear down your father's idols, You're tearing down. You're tearing down significant social structures. The high places, the places of idolatry in Israel had a number of things going for them. First of all, they were places of entertainment. They were places where people came and they danced and they danced lurid dances. And there were the great singers of the day would come and they would sing and they would perform immoral acts, much like you see on MTV, much like you see in rock and roll concerts in our own day. I don't think the high places were hardly anything different than a Rolling Stones concert. No different than watching MTV. No different than watching the defiling things on your television set that come over the airwaves. When Gideon was tearing down his father's idols, he was standing fast against a whole immoral social structure that embraced all kinds of sports and entertainments and mingled it all together. It was like the Super Bowl, where you have all these idolaters, and the great idolater Mick Jagger singing, you know, Sympathy for the Devil. That's what you have. When you deal with your father's idols, you deal with massive social systems that are all intermingled. Some lawful things intermingled with unlawful and defiling things. That's what was happening in the high places. They were places of the promotion of success. They were places where people would come to be promised prosperity, the prosperity, fertility. They were like a success seminar. Come and have success. And you couldn't operate your business unless you came to the high places because it was like a guild where you were restricted. from economic activity if you did not go to the high places and watch those defiling things and embrace those bankrupt philosophies of success and all that kind of thing. That's what the high places were. Let's don't think for a second that these high places were anything different than what we see in our own culture today. They really weren't. And so Gideon tears down his father's idols, the wooden sex symbol of Asherah. He cut it down with an axe. And the Bible reports a number of times when this happens, Josiah did the same thing and he tore right down to the bottom, just like Jason spoke about at the very beginning of this conference. He tore the wall down to the very beginning and then began to rebuild. And that's often what you have to do in a bankrupt culture. You have to tear all the walls down because they're all corrupt. And so, like in our day, the idols of our age, the idols of Gideon's age involved cultural acceptance, depraved sexual practices, and Gideon pulled them down. There's so many idols about us. The idols are not only out there, they are in us. You grow up in a wicked and perverse generation, and you grow up as an idolater, and one has to constantly repent of the idols, they never go away. John Calvin said that the human heart is a factory of idols. And so the idols are not just out there, but they're inside of me. And so when you when you are called by God to tear down your father's idols, you end up in a direct confrontation of a massive social system. that have been grinding away and grinding the people of God into oblivion and destroying them. And number seven, another thing that happens is that we experience the tensions and the collateral problems of tearing down your father's idols, because there are many in verses 25 to 34. We read about it in verse 28. We read that the men of the city arose early in the morning. And they went after Gideon. Okay, it's just that simple. And they're unforeseen problems. They're problems that you can't anticipate when you tear down your father's idols. And in your family. And in your community. And we experience, on the one hand, surprising expressions of support like with Gideon's father. But it doesn't always work out that way. And also, condemnation and threats. And so these times of crisis create all kinds of different leadership problems in the home and in the church. And one of those leadership problems is that there's always there's always a backlash in times like these, because when you touch when you touch established traditions, when you knock down your father's idols, you can always expect some negative collateral damage. People feel threatened. And people don't want to change. And the very presence of your changed life is an offense. And that's the collateral damage. And often love is thrown out. Family problems often come when confronting specific idols. If you don't happen to Jonathan Edwards in Northampton, Massachusetts, as he was a pastor there, Jonathan Edwards was used mildly during the Great Awakening. And we remember him for the Great Awakening. But what we what we often need to be reminded of is that is that all of this awakening caused Jonathan Edwards enormous family problems. And there were family members in his church who constantly worked to destroy him and they finally unseated him in 1750 when 90% of his congregation voted him out. 230 voted against him and 23 voted for keeping him. Jonathan Edwards was speaking against the idols in the family lives among the youth and in many other areas of life and as a result because he was just a little bit too over the top for them. They finally booted him out after 23 years of ministry there. In his farewell sermon, which is both heartbreaking and encouraging all at the same time, that he preached using the text of 2 Corinthians 1.14, he says this, Ministers and the people that have been under their care must be parted in this world. How well, soever, They have been united. If they are not separated before, they must be parted by death, and they may be separated while life is continued. We live in a world of change where nothing is certain or stable, and where a little time, a few revolutions of the sun, brings to pass strange things. Surprising alterations in particular persons, in families, in towns, in churches, in countries, and in nations. It often happens that those who seem most united in a little time are most disunited and at the greatest distance. Thus, ministers and people between whom there has been the greatest mutual regard and strictest union may not only differ in their judgments and be alienated in affection but one may rend from another, and all relation between them be dissolved. The minister may be removed to a distant place, and they may never have any more to do with one another in this world. But if it be so, there is one meaning more they must have, and that is in the last great day of accounts. Ministers and the people that have been under their care must meet one another before Christ's tribunal at the day of judgment. And then Jonathan Edwards began to preach on that passage of scripture that we all must meet on that great day before Almighty God to give account before him. So times of reformation often press the conflict and they press people away from one another and relationships are torn. and and may never, ever be healed in this life. God forbid that it would be that way, but it does so happen in times like these. And in times like these, we need to be so well aware of all of the commands of love in the scriptures, all of the one another is cascading down upon our minds and putting us into service for the Lord Jesus Christ and not letting hatred destroy us. and do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God to bless those who persecute you, to bless and curse, not to repay no one evil for evil. And to not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath, for it is written vengeance is mine, I will repay. sayeth the Lord of hosts. Therefore, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him water to drink. For in so doing, you will heap coals of fire on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Thankfully, though, there are some surprising outpourings of kindness and mercy, as we see with with the father of Gideon, where as a father defends his son and apparently turns away from his bail worship because perhaps of his son's courage. Often it happens that fathers can turn because sons are faithful. How important it is for us to have faithful sons who might help us to be more faithful than we possibly could have been on our own. We also find in times of a reformation when God has appointed us to tear down our father's idols, that our insecurities and our unbelief is exposed for all to see. In verses 36 through 40, you see this, you see that the terror and the fear that came out in Gideon, he was, he wanted to test God over and over again. It was amazing to me that God didn't strike him dead for not believing him, but in kindness, he gives him the due to squeeze out of the fleece. He does such a kindness toward his son, Gideon. But our insecurities are there. Oh, Lord, please help us not to make a mistake. And yet God comes and he helps us. And then we look back also in times of reformation. We see the surprising method God has used to get his work done, how he has done it. Here in Gideon's day, we find that God takes a 32,000 man army and destroys the army down to 300. Isn't that so much like Almighty God to do something that is so contrary to human wisdom? And we think that we're saved by the power of our own hand, our own wisdom, the strength of numbers or whatever it might be, but it's not true at all. And God takes the 32,000. and takes it down to 300. How many times you pastors who are here today have seen that happen? But you've seen God continue to heal and save and rescue whole families from destruction. I do. I believe that a whole generation is being rescued today. And here we find God turning away the fearful and the afraid and coming down to a very small number, 300 men who lapped their water. It's an amazing story. God is able to do mighty things through small groups of people. He's always done it that way. It's not by might, it's not by power, it's by my spirit, sayeth the Lord of Hosts. The flesh profits nothing, but the spirit quickens. And so we see the miracles of God's help in the midst of the conflicts. You know, battles are not won because of strategic advantages or military might or even a strategy. Gideon had a foolish strategy. It was as stupid a strategy as any man ever could have observed. Yet it was God's strategy. He had, what did he have? He had pitchers and trumpets. And the foolishness of man was the winning of the battle. It was not by cleverness. Paul said it in second Corinthians chapter 10 verses three through five. For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing. that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience to Christ. And then finally, the last lesson that we learned, the last thing that happens to those who tear down their father's idols is that they often have to admit that the reformations may not last very long. In chapter eight, we read that when Gideon died and he was buried in the tomb of Joash's father, that the children of Israel began to play the harlot with the Baals again. They only stayed firm until he died. And often what happened there happens with us. The next generation kind of falls off the wagon and they revert to their own life. The reformation that God has begun will die if it is not in the hearts of children. If the children do not remember and then speak of it when they sit in their house, when they walk by the way, when they lie down and when they rise up, the reformation will die. The death of so many other reformation. So the story of Gideon tells us how important it is to pass on the knowledge of God. from one generation to the next. And how important it is, lest all of this progress be consumed by fire and the next cycle of the judgment of God upon the nation. And the question is, when you die, will your children have had the words of truth sweetly sung to them and read to them in happiness? Have they seen you love the words of life? And then it was so appealing and infectious that they too, when their eyes fell upon those words, their hearts were broken and they were filled with happiness because of the goodness of those words. And they said, how sweet are thy words to my taste? Oh, Lord, my God, because their parents were not just blindly going through a process of discipline, but they loved God from the heart and they declared the righteousness of God in their generation. And they loved the words and they fed upon them and that they were parents that would not give their children stones or scorpions, but would give them bread and water and every good thing. And so I'm here really this morning to affirm the importance of a reformation that's taken place in so many of your lives and to continue to cry out, Semper Reformanda, continue to reform. Always reforming is what we need to continue. And to realize that we do live in the midst of a wicked and perverse generation, and God forbid, that our sons and our daughters would be devoured by the devil after he has taken so many pains in us to help us in so many ways as he has. So we should always be reforming and never get stuck in any particular reform, always applying the Word of God, always seeking the Lord, always, always paying the cost that's involved in reformation. And what I really want to just leave us with today is this idea. If you want your life to count, then spend it wisely on the reformation of the heart and of your home and of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that reformation hinges on one single thing. That if you love the voice of the Lord, your God, and you speak about it when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down and when you rise up, I pray that God would give us a mighty energy for those things. Would you pray with me? And now, Lord, we recognize how how far off we are from your holy and righteous standard, how much we are in need of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. God forbid we should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. And now, Lord, I pray that you would empower us to love you. We know that we cannot love you. We cannot do any of these things unless you come and pour your spirit out upon us. And this I pray, Lord, pour your spirit out. Bless your people. anoint and say, Amen. So I understand there's a time of further questions and instruction. So we'll have that time now. Is there a microphone that goes around or just people stand? So just stand and a microphone will be brought to you. I'm encouraged that I needed the message, especially towards the end. I reflect back and I think of Peter, working alongside you, bringing the same message, picking up the same art, picking up the same tools, and pulling out the same type of bag. of course, working from the same scriptures, but 10, 15 years from now, 20, whatever number the Lord has for you, you can fall down, continuing on, and then you can just see how that's supposed to repeat everywhere, all over bodies, in all these different ways. So that the one who lays down, there are others, trying to possibly, possibly even more, so that you've got that depth, the Lord has intended for that depth to be there, not just And it's all we know right now is the shining star, everybody following the shining star, and everybody doing their own thing, and the star is gone, it's done. But it's very encouraging, heartening to me, just to see what is supposed to be happening, you guys are modeling it, you're even taking it around and showing everybody. Whether they can catch it or not, it's being shown. I know it's the heart of our fellowship and for our heritage too, but glory may not be as it was in the people of old. You know, when you were talking, I was thinking about how God's mercy on his people is that he rose up, raises up somebody like Gideon. And that's something that we should constantly be praying for, is that God would continue to raise up mighty men all over the place, in every community, in every church, because It gets down to the, I mean, I think, you know, you have, you know, society's broken up into the family level. You need to, you need a mighty man and a family. You need, and you need mighty men in churches, you know, who are bold to tear down their father's idols as well. And, and then in a broader way as well, this God has arranged his world so that there are these microcosmic centers where God can raise up a man. And we need to pray that God would do that all across, all across the world. I love your talk, and I love this kind of talk, and it's come up a couple of times in keeps coming to my mind is Edward Gibbons, I think his name was, said, all that is human must retrograde if it does not advance. I thought that was really appropriate. If we're not pressing forward, then we will gradually fall apart. Amen. Thank you. Just while my son was sitting in here, I'm thinking, I leaned back and I said, look, if I've got, if you see high places and I've got idols, don't be afraid. You tear them down. You go tear them down. If you need to come talk to me, First, do it in the honorable way he does. And then I put that challenge out to you men. I said, when I'm embracing the beasts of the high places, I want them all torn down. I want them all torn down. I want to give it for you. With giving the example and with going after the example, there's nothing about their sons. Right after him, it all goes apart. And a lot of the reformations have happened in the past in the same way. They're very short-lived and they don't continue on because the sons are not taught that. The Bible tells us we have to teach our sons what our sons have to teach their sons. If we don't continue the teaching, the reformation is one generation or two. Without the continuing and demanding to teach that, they can't grow the big, the big, mighty kingdom. Amen. The simple things are so important. The simple things that happen in a family have enormous leverage in the world. It's amazing that God would do it that way. He would take a regular guy, stick him in a family, and make him the hinge point of the whole nation. Because what happens in homes is the hinge point, for sure. And God has appointed every ordinary man to do that. It's a remarkable plan. Thank you, Scott. It's a privilege to hear you speak God's word. One of the things that you mentioned, the beginning of recognizing the chastisement of the Lord. This is kind of a tough question, I think. Sometimes I wonder what things are going on in my life. Are they a trial from God? Are they chastisement from God? Or is the devil shooting away at me? Sometimes I have a hard time discerning the difference between the three of those. And it's quite, like I said, a very difficult question, and I wanted your insight on how to help recognize those. Yeah, so our trials and troubles are designed for a particular purpose. And we seek the Lord for wisdom upon all those things. Because how can we know if we're not just being chastised for our sins? or whether we're being led into rejoicing in our tribulations for the perfecting of our faith. Those things are probably similar. We won't know, but every time there's a trouble, we might not be able to understand the source of it every time, but we can understand, did our sin participate? Did our sin create any of these problems? And how is it perfecting our faith? That's what we need to ask. What am I going to do now is really the big question. And so anytime there is suffering, we should ask, have I sinned against the Lord? Am I under a time of chastisement? Am I beating my head against the wall over and over again? Why? Why? And many times it's because of our sins. God uses his chastisements to turn us toward himself so that he would hurt us a little bit so that we wouldn't be hurt so much. So our hurts are helpful to us because they show us that something has gone wrong or that we need to endure our trials with joy like James would encourage us to do. I think we too easily set aside our trials as not chastisements from the Lord. I think we err. I err. And in my experience with counseling with men, I believe men err on the side of, you know, everything is beautiful with me, I'm just having trouble, when actually God is chastising you. Ed Cole said that a man without a vision will return to his past. Say that again? A man without a vision will return to his past. Yeah. Because if you've got what you're shooting for, my father taught us here, you know, shoot nothing, you'll get it. And so, one of our biggest failings is setting a vision And I think that's where the Word of God comes in. You know, because it continually takes us on. Our hearts are pierced over and over again. When we take ourselves out of that environment, then we have no hope, because God can't speak to us with clarity like He can in His Word. You see the beginning of a shaking rift in our hearts across the country. And I'm kind of thinking, you might want to think, How long will it take until we think that it's going to take over the whole country? Right now, it's growing. How long will it take, but just at the time, We don't know, but it's in God's hands on changing the hearts of men here. It has to start in our hearts, and we have to be faithful, no matter how big this will be or how small. But we've got to do it in God's hands. Because God's doing His work through here and through our country. It is not a bad thing. He can help. Right. No, it's a good question. No one knows the future or what God will do. I have a suspicion that these fleets of 15 passenger vans constantly being filled up by people will cause progress in time to come. But only God is able. to reform his people. So I don't know how. I do know that wherever there's reformation there's trouble. Still Waters Revival Books is now located at PuritanDownloads.com It's your worldwide online reformation home for the very best in free and discounted classic and contemporary Puritan and Reformed books, mp3s and videos. 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