I was too close to perfection, and he was too laid back, and we had to find that middle ground. Exactly what his strengths are, and mine aren't. On one of the Sundays, when we were still recording our line, I think we were just, we were at ropes, and when we actually did the service, I can't make the flute sound as exposed as possible. That's what we're discussing here. Even though we do it every week. Weird how that works, right? Asked me to sing and I was like. Well, good morning, church. Good morning and welcome to the Lord's Day Assembly of the Evangelical Free Church. We're glad you're here today. Welcome to those that are joining us online, joining us for worship. We're thankful for our sound team for getting our sound issues figured out that we had last week. Hopefully we won't have any today, but we're gonna worship the Lord no matter what. So let's look to God's word this morning as we begin our time of worship. We're gonna be reading from Psalm 100 this morning, which says, make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come into his presence with singing. Know that the Lord, he is God. It is he who made us and we are his. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him. Bless your name for the Lord is good. His steadfast love endures forever and his faithfulness to all generations. What a blessed promise that is. And yes, we absolutely should be coming in this morning to just entering into this this assembly with Thanksgiving and praise and we're gonna do that in just a minute as we as we lift our voices in song so let's pray and ask the Lord just to bless our service this morning Heavenly Father Lord we thank you for this opportunity that we have to gather as your people as your church or to see you exalted and high and lift it up Lord to lift up praises that are due your holy name Lord and we just ask for your hand of blessing and favor Lord upon us as we worship you through the singing of songs and hymns and spiritual songs Lord and as we hear your word opened up read to us and preached to us Lord I pray that we would have hearts that are ready to hear it or we pray for each person that is here this morning we are thankful for all that are gathered both here and online as they hear your word proclaimed and so I just ask for your hand upon each one of us as we worship you today Lord and it's in your name we pray amen So would you stand and sing with us this morning, blessed be your name. Blessed be your name in the land that is plentiful, where streams of abundance flow. Blessed. Blessed be your name when found in the desert plain. Every blessing you pour out, I'll turn back to praise. When the darkness closes and roars, still I will sing. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be your name. ♪ Blessed be the name of the Lord ♪ ♪ Blessed be your glorious name ♪ ♪ Blessed be your name ♪ ♪ When the sun's shining down on me ♪ ♪ When the world's all as it should be ♪ Blessed be your name On the road marked with suffering No pain in the offering Blessed be your name Every blessing you pour out I'll turn back to pray When the darkness closes in, Lord, still I will sing. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be Your name. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be Your glorious name. You gave and take away. You gave and take away. My heart will choose to sing. Lord, blessed be your name. You gave and take away. You gave and take away. My heart will choose to sing. Blessed be Your name. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be Your name. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be Your glorious name. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be Your name. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be your glorious name. ♪ Magnificent, marvelous, matchless love ♪ ♪ Too vast and stubborn to tell ♪ ♪ Forever existing in worlds apart ♪ ♪ Offered and given to all ♪ ♪ O fountain of beauty eternal ♪ ♪ The Father, the Spirit, the Son ♪ ♪ Sufficient and endlessly generous ♪ ♪ Magnificent, marvelous, marvelous Son ♪ The creation is brimming with thankfulness. The mountains exult and they stand. The seasons rejoice in your faithfulness. Life is sustained by your love. You crown every meadow with flower. You paint every shade in the sky. Each day the dawn breaks as I'm not here. How great is His love and His majesty. How great, how sure, His love endures forevermore. What grace that you entered our brokenness And opened the furnace of time How far we have fallen in righteousness Your cross is our door to redemption. Your death is the fullness of life. That day of forgiveness flowed as if. I live for sin and love, and it's my righteousness. Forevermore. United in your resurrection, you lift us to infinite heights. Could anything sever or take us from your magnificent, marvelous majesty? I'll show His love endures forevermore. How sure His love endures forevermore. Magnificent love always matches. And how thankful we are for that magnificent, marvelous, matchless love. Because of that, we as sinners can approach the throne of grace. And so as we continue singing, as we sing this hymn, come ye sinners poor and needy. Just be reminded of the fact that it is the love of God that can draw us to himself. Come ye sinners poor and needy, weak and wounded, sick and sore. Jesus ready stands to save you, full of pity, love, and power. Come ye thirsty. God's free bounty glorified. True belief and true repentance. Every grace that brings you nigh. I will arise and go to Jesus. Well, embrace me in His arms, in the arms of my dear Savior. Oh, there are ten thousand children. Heavy laden, lost and wounded by the fall If you tarry till you're better You will never come at all I will arise and go to Jesus He will embrace me in His arms In the arms of my dear Savior Oh, there are ten thousand children ♪ Let not conscience make you linger ♪ ♪ For a fitness fondly dreamed ♪ ♪ All the fitness he required ♪ ♪ Is to feel your need of him ♪ I will arise and go to Jesus He will embrace me in His arms In the arms of my dear Savior Oh, there are ten thousand children I will arise and go to Jesus He will embrace me in His arms In the arms of my dear Savior Hold their hearts in thousand charms Amen, you may be seated. Good morning, check, check. What a wonderful image to be in the arms of the Savior. That's just such a delight and such a comfort and such a peace to be in the arms of our Savior. And it's a pleasure to be here with you this morning. And just to be amongst such excellent and admirable fellowship. I'm recently reminded of what a blessing it is to be in this fellowship with you guys weekly coming here to be amongst people that love Jesus, that love each other. And I would just encourage you guys to reach out to one another. It could be as simple as a handshake or a fist bump, or even better, an invitation to lunch, an invitation to dinner. The more we fellowship with one another, the more sweet this fellowship really is. So, highly encourage you. Reach out. I know sometimes it's awkward, but that awkwardness really pays off when making deeper friendships with the people here. And let me remind you, all these people here are just wonderful. So, greetings. Greetings. Don't forget that you have an attendance form there at the end of each aisle. Please fill those out, and those will be turned in. You can just leave them on the chairs. We'll collect them after the service. As a reminder, always, thank you for these folks online. What a blessing it is to be able to have what we're doing here. This special fellowship is not just right here in this building. This special fellowship is going out into the world, and that's mind-blowing. But that's the world that we live in, and we're so thankful that we're able to do that. So we have some announcements because this church has things going on and we got some awesome things coming up. We have an awesome vacation Bible school. How many of you have been involved with a vacation Bible school here before? This church puts on some vacation Bible school. I'm telling you, our kids have been going to vacation Bible schools around town, you know, because it's a good thing for our kids to do. And not to be biased, but this church puts on some vacation Bible school right here, and it is good stuff. So July 18th through the 22nd, that would be starting next Sunday. Sign-ups are underway. There's a table in the foyer for more information. Make sure you get your kids, your grandkids, your neighbors, your relatives. Get people signed up. Let your friends and neighbors know about this opportunity because it is something that you do not and they do not want to miss and there are many opportunities to serve in the VBS this summer. How about stand up if you're already working with VBS. Stand up if you're already involved with the VBS. Anybody involved with the VBS already? Look at this. This church gets involved in their VBS, right? Yes. So there's more to do. There's signups. There's lots going on. So please, please, we need you because, you know, it takes a Community to raise a child, it takes a church to put on a VBS. It takes everybody in the church to put on the quality VBS that we do here. So please, there's posters and flyers to put around town, but we need you guys to help that, you know, to spread the word. We want people to know, we want people to come. There's plenty of opportunities. There's a clipboard in the foyer. Alyssa Bell is the person to go to, and I'm just so thankful for Alyssa. This is a huge endeavor to put on this VBS. Could we just give her a quick hand clap? I mean, I think that's, that is well worthy of a hand clap. She puts in a lot to this. So thank you. And we want to make this the best VBS ever. There's more going on. We got the women's ministry. They have their weekly prayer meeting this week on Thursday, July 15th from nine to 10 in the church library. Please see Carol Hensel or Peggy Schultz if you have any questions. Women, come and join in the opportunity to pray together, because we need your prayers, always. Awana. Does anybody know what Awana stands for? We got any Awana kids that can tell me what Awana stands for? I know we got an Awana kid right here, but you're not a kid anymore. Any kids want to remind me? I see the wall boards know. Do I have a kid that can stand up and tell me what Awana stands for? Christina, you're going to do it, aren't you? Carissa? No? Elena? All right Brent in the back. That's right. And that's what Iwana is all about is getting involved. So but again it's a huge endeavor and so we need lots of help. Now is the time to to get involved to pray about your participation in this strategic outreach to children. And as a volunteer myself. Let me tell you, it doesn't even take a lot of time. It could be as much as 15 to 30 minutes. If you're a small group leader and you got three kids and they're reading Bible verses to you, that is powerful. That is just powerful. It's not a lot. It doesn't take a lot. But boy, the reward on that is just tremendous to hear these little kids memorizing God's word. It's beautiful. Get involved. Please see Tim Giordano or contact the church office to learn how you can participate in the ministry. We need lots of people. We get a lot of kids in Iwana. Pastor's class, a journey through the Bible, discovering the New Testament. Be held today during the discipleship hour in the church library. The library has been changed from the music room because there's VBS stuff going on in the music room. So please go to the library for pastor's class. The continuing in the gospel of John, and there is plenty of room for you and whoever else you want to bring with you. Reminder, the offering box is available in the back of the room, that silver box back there. If you want to designate your giving to any of the church ministries, indicate that on the blue offering envelopes that are there in the pews. And as always, thank you for your generous giving to this church. We are truly blessed thanks to all of you. And now, drum roll please. Anybody got a drum roll for me out there? Ministry moment, moment, moment, moment, moment. We have the EFC youth group coming to talk about, yes, woo is worthy. The EFC youth group coming to talk about their missions trip to paradise and youth camp. Come on up, our youth. You, you, you, come on up. Hello, my name is Becca, and I'm going to be talking about our mission trip that we just went on. So last month, our youth group was able to go to Paradise and stay at the EV Free Church there. They had partnered with Reach Global Crisis Response, and they were taking teams. It was really unique for us because I was able to go a couple years ago, recently after the fire had happened. And we actually stayed in the same church and we were able to help paint so that they could get the church ready for teams. And then last month we were able to go as a team and stay in the church. We helped a family there, and it was really cool. And we got to learn a lot of new things. Some of us got to go under the house and put in insulation, which I'd never done before. The picture just showed our suits. That's me on the picture. And yeah, there were some pretty stylish outfits that we got to wear. And we dug trenches. We hit a really big rock. I went back under the house after they hit the rock. It was a lot cooler down there, too. It was very hot outside. And yeah, we just helped people with whatever they needed. And we also got to go on prayer walks, which I had never done before, which sounded very scary. And we even walked up to some of the houses and knocked on the doors and just asked if we could pray for them. I remember the first time Chris and I walked up to a house, and we were terrified to go up to them and talk to them. But as soon as they opened the door and talked to us, it was just really cool to hear their story and their experience. Hi, I'm Charles Johnson. And well, this trip was wonderful, fantastic, and extraordinary. Let me tell you why. So when we first got there, we were two hours early, and one of the staff members told us that the church, that when the flames, when they had the Paradise Fire, that the flames were twice as high as the trees, and that they were like about 20 or so feet away from the church, and the church didn't even get burned. So from the very start, I saw that God was in control and is in control no matter what happens. And we would have the same, whenever, if we would complain or anything, we would say, it's just the way I like it. And so we would have that mindset on whatever we were doing. And I wrote Colossians 317 on the bed that I was sleeping on. And it says, whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks through him to God the Father. And I also wrote that at one of the houses that we worked at. But that verse really stood out to me during that week. And it's one of my favorite verses. And then when we had worship on Monday night, I really felt the Lord's presence. I felt the Lord's presence more than ever before. And then as we were prayer walking, I never done prayer walking before, but it's just, you just walk and pray. It's so simple as that. And I really grew in the Lord from this trip. Because God will always be in control, and he always has everything under control. No matter what the temptations and trials and storms may be, he is here for us. Thank you. Good morning, everybody. My name is Ryan Lacho, and I'll be talking about the youth camp, Hearts to Bible Camp. For a lot of students that went, including myself, it was the first time. And I can say it's going to be a very memorable experience for a lot of people. And I loved the worship, we had an amazing worship team come up from Southern California. And they were just amazing, amazing songs they did. And Pastor Brian, I loved his messages. One of the things that really stood out to me was the small groups. And a lot, you can get some really, really good stuff from the sermon and from the worship, but it's just a different type of knowledge that you can get from small groups. And I really appreciate Mr. Cooney as our small group leader, thank you. And I was with a group of great guys. And we really, really got down to some great core ideas. And that's probably one thing I was most thankful for. But we had a lot of fun there. We did something called Squad Wars, which is very, very, very fun. And you can see that's the high school team, that we were the blue team. And we came in second. What Squad Wars was is basically I believe every cabin was a different color, different team, and we did a lot of water activities. I believe some of them were like the balloon toss or water balloon toss. And I want to say the whipped cream where one member of your team goes up to have their face covered in whipped cream, and the rest of the team has to take turns trying to clean as many faces off as they can. And that was pretty interesting, because then you couldn't smell it for the rest of the day. But that was our worship team right there. I want to say they came up from college about eight hours away, so a very great sacrifice there. But we had an amazing experience with that. And they really, really enjoyed them. The food there was pretty good. If you ask Chase Reinhart next time he's here, probably the one thing he will talk about is, what other camp do you know serves ribs? So the food there was pretty good. And it was just generally a really, really good time. And I really learned a lot more about our theme, undivided. Basically, you can't love God, and you can't love the world at the same time. And it just really, a lot of the things that I learned stood out to me. And now that I'm up here, I'm blanking on everything. But yeah, thank you. I would just like to echo Ryan's sentiment that the small group time I was blessed to be there and these young men opened up like I couldn't believe. You know you don't always expect young men to open up and talk about deep issues but these young men were willing to open up and talk about deep issues. I was impressed and blown away. So it was a blessing to me as well. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Pastor Brian for Hearthstone Bible Camp. That was amazing. Let's go ahead and switch gears. We're gonna go ahead and do our invocation. We're gonna turn to Psalm 107, verses one through nine. If you can and are able, if you could please stand for the reading of God's word, that would be much appreciated. Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he has redeemed from trouble and gathered in from the lands, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south. Some wandered in desert wastes, finding no way to a city to dwell in. Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted within them. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. He led them by a straight way till they reached a city to dwell in. Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man, for he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things. You may be seated. Thank you. Let's go ahead and turn to the Lord in prayer. Lord, we give you thanks. You have blessed us so much over and over. This church has been blessed with provision, with people, with ministry. We see your fingerprints and your work all throughout. We're so thankful for the growth in our ministries and the new people that are joining us. Thank you. We thank you for the ministries that are here at the Evangelical Free Church and May your spirit guide and direct each ministry and each ministry leader and each person involved in the ministry so that all is done according to your word and for the building up of the saints here at EFC. Lord, we want to lift up our global missionary partners who are serving in Asia and Africa and Europe and around the world. Lord, may they be refreshed by your spirit. May they be protected in their ministries, and may they be fruitful in all their labors. And may God grant them wisdom in the use of their resources, and may they be used for his glory. Lord, we lift up the Carlisles, our missionaries of the month, as they minister to those in jail in Butte County. Lord, may they bring hope and conviction of sin to those who are currently incarcerated. And Lord, may the gospel put them on the pathway to healing and restoration. Lord, we lift up the deacons and the deaconesses here at the church. And may God grant them wisdom and a spirit of unity as they serve to meet the needs of the saints here at the church. We pray for the women's ministry. as they mobilize and study your word, Lord, together over the summer. And may the hunger for your word grow among them, among the women of our church and among all of us, Lord, let us hunger for your word. We pray for the persecuted church in Iran, in China, in North Korea, in Afghanistan. And may the Lord encourage and strengthen his children to stand firm in the face of great hostility and persecution. And Lord, right here in our church, we want to lift up the precious families and marriages here in our church. May the healing balm of Christ flow into all of these relationships. And may Christ be the Lord of every life, every marriage, every family, and every friendship. We pray for those currently ill or hospitalized or recovering from illness or surgery or injury. Lord, we pray for those that are homebound in our church and Lord, we just pray that they would be able to continue to feel connected to the church through our online services or through communication and connection with those here at the church, Lord. We pray, God, that you would use this church to ignite spiritual awakening and revival in our land. May the Lord stir our hearts to confess our sins, to turn from our wicked ways and our idols, and to seek his face more and more. May our church grow in holiness, in unity, in joy, and sacrificial service for one another. May the Lord bless the offering this morning. And may all the resources of this church be used for his glory and for the blessings of his people. And Lord, we want to lift up Pastor Greg as he brings your word this morning. We pray that you would grant him wisdom and just grant him full access to your spirit this morning. And may you open our hearts to your word, Lord, and open up your word to our hearts. And we pray all this in your name, Jesus. Amen. As our children are dismissed to their classes. I would echo some of what John just said as far as this is a church that likes to serve. We do have a lot of people that make things happen. From VBS, we're so thankful for all of you that are signed up already to help. As John mentioned, there's still room for others. So if you'd like to help out, I'm thankful for Alyssa, probably more so than you are. But I'm thankful for all she's doing. She did ask me to remind everybody that is helping with VBS that there is a meeting that she would like everybody to attend right after church after the fellowship time over in the music room. So if you are helping with VBS, please go to that meeting. And then I just want to echo again about what they said about camp and just say I'm so thankful for those volunteers that helped with camp and mission trip. John Cooney, Bev, Christina, Patrina, and then for mission trip Michael Ferretti and Diane Berkwist. I'm so thankful for you guys for being the leaders to our students in those weeks and I appreciate it. I couldn't do camp without our adult leader so I'm so thankful for all you guys. So let's continue in our worship before pastor comes and brings the message to us and so stand with us as we sing Oh God our help and ages past. Help in ages past, and hope for years to come. I'll shelter from the stormy blast, and I'll return home. Sufficient is Thine arm alone, and our defense is sure. For the hills in order stood, for earth received her frame. From everlasting Thou art God, to endless years the same. You may be seated. Good morning, everyone. What a joy we have to be with the people of God, be in the house of the Lord, be in his presence, to have his spirit guiding us. Special greetings to all of you joining us online, thank you. And we hope you'll follow along in your copy of God's word at home as we get into the word this morning and our message from Judges chapter six. So we learn something about a people based on how they describe themselves. The unofficial motto of Missouri is the Show Me State. It's on their license plates, it's part of their heritage, it's part of their advertising campaign. And according to the Missouri Secretary of State, The most widely known legend attributes this phrase to U.S. Congressman Willard Duncan Van Diver, who served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1897 to 1903. While a member of the House Committee on Naval Affairs, he attended a naval banquet in Philadelphia And in his address, he said, I come from a state that raises corn and cotton and cocklebirds and Democrats and frothy eloquence does not satisfy or convince us. I am from Missouri. You've got to show me. And there's a certain bravado in that expression. I won't believe it until I see it. And at times, of course, such an attitude is necessary. After all, we don't want to be taken for fools. We've been given minds to learn and to understand. We've been given eyes and ears to perceive. Sometimes we do need to see things in order to act upon them. But I want to challenge our thinking this morning and ask, is that really the wisdom that should be guiding our lives as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ? Is it possible that we can reach a point that to demand to see something actually becomes a hindrance to our faith? instead of a help to it. We do well to at least to consider that possibility. Well, in the passage that we will look at this morning, we will encounter Gideon, a man called of God to bring deliverance to his people. And over the next three chapters, we're going to look at this model of a man who is given to faith and obedience, but also one who is more bent toward skepticism, doubt, and even selfishness. And so what can we learn from that example? We live in a world where seeing is believing. But what if the opposite were true? What if instead of saying seeing is believing, we were to say believing is seeing? I think it was the great Saint Augustine who said, I believe in order that I might understand. He understood that we must first believe in God in order to understand the ways and methods of God. He understood that God ultimately owes us nothing, but we owe him everything. And so first we must believe in order we might truly see, we might truly understand. And so beginning this morning and over the next couple of weeks, we're going to look at the life of Gideon as the Lord led him and look at how he responded to the call of God. And we're going to see both good and bad. We're going to see things we should emulate and things we should certainly eliminate. So we need the Lord to give us eyes to see, ears to hear, minds to understand, hearts to believe, hands to act out of obedience. Now we're going to be a little aggressive this morning. We're gonna try to cover all of Judges 6. We won't cover it all evenly, verse by verse, but we will look at a lot of it. And so I'm going to invite you, if you would, just to stand as we read the first part of it, the first 10 verses, as we prepare to get into this passage this morning. And in Judges 6, the Holy Word of God says, the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord gave them into the hand of Midian seven years. And the hand of Midian overpowered Israel. And because of Midian, the people of Israel made for themselves the dens that are in the mountains, and the caves, and the strongholds. For whenever the Israelites planted crops, the Midianites and the Amalekites and the people of the East would come up against them. They would encamp against them and devour the produce of the land as far as Gaza and leave no sustenance in Israel and no sheep or ox or donkey. For they would come up with their livestock and their tents. They would come like locusts in number. Both they and their camels could not be counted, so that they laid waste the land as they came in. And Israel was brought very low because of Midian. And the people of Israel cried out for help to the Lord. When the people of Israel cried out to the Lord on account of the Midianites, the Lord sent a prophet to the people of Israel. And he said to them, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, I led you up from Egypt and brought you out of the house of slavery. And I delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians and from the hand of all who oppressed you and drove them out before you and gave you their land. And I said to you, I am the Lord your God. You shall not fear the gods of the Amorites and whose land you dwell, but you have not obeyed my voice. Now, Father, as we turn to you, thank you that we can trust you to be our teacher this morning through your spirit. Guide us that the word might open up before us. Give us great understanding. In Jesus' name, amen. Please be seated. We begin this morning as you follow along in your sermon outline with our first point this morning, impoverished and fearful. Impoverished and fearful. We'll get this out of the first 10 verses. Now as we begin this new section in Judges, the Israelites are facing yet a new set of enemies and a new type of oppression. After a period of rest for many years, after the victory over Jabin and Sisera that we've seen over the last two weeks, the Israelites are back again in difficult times. And the reason for that difficulty is given right away in verse one. In what has now become a very familiar refrain, the people of Israel did what was evil. And as a result, the Lord gave them into the hands of their enemies. In this case, Midian. And so we see raided and brought low. Raided and brought low. Now let's take a look at this land that we know as Midian. It was an area that covered parts of the Sinai Peninsula in Western Arabia. And today it would include Saudi Arabia and Yemen. The Midianites were descendants through Abraham's second wife, Keturah. You'll recall that Abraham had a second wife after Sarah died, it was Keturah by name, with whom he had six sons. The fourth of which was named Midian. Now Midian for his part, so this would be the grandchildren of Abraham, Midian for his part had five sons who formed the tribes of the Midianites. And so as they grew in number, Abraham was eager to protect the line of promise through Isaac, and so he sent away the sons that he had through Keturah, as well as what he had through his concubines. We see all of this in Genesis 25. And this would not be the last time that the descendants of Isaac would cross paths with the other sons of Abraham. Decades later, Joseph, Jacob's son, was sold by his brothers into the hands of the Ishmaelites, the descendants of Abraham through Hagar. So we see Abraham all over the story. Descendants through Keturah were the Midianites. Descendants through Hagar were the Ishmaelites. All of them surrounded the children that he had through Sarah, who were the sons of Israel. So these Ishmaelites, they take Joseph because Joseph's brothers sold him into their hand. They turn around and sell him to the Midianites who then take him on to Egypt. And so you see how God has providentially arranged that Joseph would end up in Egypt through the other sons of Abraham that he might be used as a deliverer for the descendants of Isaac. The prophet Moses, for his part, also had contact with the Midianites. In fact, he married one. Her name was Zipporah, who was the daughter of a Midianite named Jethro. We see this in Exodus 2. Now, we've seen Jethro in Judges already, but his name is Hobab, and this is often common in the scriptures where someone will have more than one name. Moses, you recall, had fled from Pharaoh and ended up in Midian, where he was a shepherd. And that's how he met Zipporah, who would become his wife. So Moses began to tend the sheep of Jethro, who was a Midianite. And it was during the time he was a shepherd that God appeared to him in the burning bush and called him to deliver the hands of Israel out of Egypt. And the Lord did. And then as they're preparing to leave Egypt, Moses asked Jethro, his father-in-law, the Midianite, and his family to at least go with the people of Israel into the exodus, into the wilderness, because they knew the area. We see this in Numbers 10. But they didn't stay very long, it seems, because later on, Jethro reappears to the children of Israel in Exodus 18. Now that's all just a little bit of a history lesson, but so that we know the players. So we have the scorecard now. We know where the Midianites came from and the Ishmaelites. We know who Jethro was and Abraham and how it all fits together. But wait, there's more. Because as the Israelites now are approaching the promised land, the leaders of Moab and Midian sought to lead them astray. So they invoked a prophet whose name was Balaam or Balaam. Now, he wanted to bring curses upon Israel, but God would not allow him. Instead, he ends up blessing Israel. But what he failed to do, the women of Midian did not. And the Israelites began to intermarry with the Midianites, the very thing that they were told not to do. In fact, it got so bad, and you can look at this in Numbers 22 to 25, It got so bad that while they are gathering, and Moses is saying, separate from the women of Midian, that one Israelite has the audacity to walk in front of the entire congregation with his Midianite wife, and they go into the tent. And while they are busy, Phinehas runs in and runs a spear through both of them to end the judgment of God against Israel for intermarrying with these Midianite women. So, we're told here in Judges 6 that they've been under the heavy hand of Midian for seven years, and not only the Midianites, but they are also under the Amalekites. We won't go into a long discussion there, but the Amalekites came through Esau, And they were under the hand of the people of the East, who were the Bedouin tribes that roamed the Arabian desert and would cover much of what we call Jordan and northern Saudi Arabia today. So these three great enemies of the people of God, we are told in the first few verses of Judges 6, were the ones that would come together and raid into Israel and steal their crops. And in order to hide from them, the Israelites had to resort to hiding in dens and caves and strongholds which were probably some type of fortified cities. For seven years this went on. It was probably not so much that it was occupation as much as it was economic oppression. But I want us to notice right from the get-go here in Judges 6 the effects of sin and disobedience. The Israelites were to live freely in the land, and yet they are forced to live in hiding, while the nomads can roam freely across their land, taking all their stuff. The Israelites were reduced, as it were, to living like animals, living in caves, while their enemies are coming and stealing everything, including their animals. So the Ammonites, the Amalekites, the people of the East were not occupiers, but they were plunderers. They were economic oppressors. They would wait till all the hard work had been done of all the planting and tending of the crops. And then, right when they're ready to be harvested, over they would come like locusts over the hills and devour everything. And since they came on camels, they had a great strategic advantage over horses or over footmen. That's the history of warfare in the Middle East. Better to have a camel than a horse. The result as we see then in verse six is that the Israelites were brought very low. Literally this could be translated they were made to be small. They were made to be tiny. The continuous raids of the Midianites and company over these seven years left them impoverished on the verge of being wiped out with nothing left in the land. If only they had listened to God, who promised these very things when they were on the cusp of entering the promised land. He said to them in Deuteronomy 28 that if they would not listen, that the Lord would send to them a hard-faced nation who shall not respect the old or show mercy to the young. It shall eat the offspring of your cattle and the fruit of your ground until you are destroyed. It shall not leave you grain, wine, or oil, the increase of your herds or the young of your flock until they have caused you to perish. So they had been promised that this is exactly what would happen if they did not obey. And so we see a reversal of the blessings of God. When they came into the promised land, God said, you will reap what you have not sown. And now it's been reversed, that others will reap what they have sown. We cannot play games with God. When he says, follow me, when he says, obey me, he sets the conditions that will bring blessing and the conditions that will bring cursing. We must never presume upon the grace of God, though we should always be tremendously thankful for it. And so the people of Israel are reduced to meager living. And so they cry out to the Lord. But we've seen this song before. They cry out, they plea, they make emotional appeals, but it's as if they're still trying to manipulate God through the emotions and their pleas. You know, friends, just because we are in need does not require God to respond positively to our prayers. There's no hint here that they've repented. There's no hint that they're turning away from their sin. There's no hint that they actually want to obey. There's no hint that they want to do it God's way. They're just crying out to be relieved. And I wonder if how often we're not tempted to do the same. You know, it's very common, and I enjoy the fact that we have a prayer chain that goes out. And I get prayer requests from other places as well. And it is interesting in our therapeutic culture, our biggest fear is of pain. And so how often on the prayer requests we have, please pray that so-and-so is delivered from pain. Now, it's certainly understandable that we want to be delivered from pain. But if God is in control, Maybe we need to ask him first the reason for the pain and what he wants to teach us through the pain. Maybe it is not the greatest need that Israel had to be delivered from pain and suffering. Maybe it was listening to God forsaking their idols, forsaking their sinful desires, forsaking their own ways of doing things. I was impacted a number of years ago by an article by Pastor John Piper, who the evening before he was going in for surgery for prostate cancer, wrote an article saying, don't waste your cancer. And his whole point was God is still sovereign in the midst of struggle, in the midst of difficulty, as he is when times are doing well. And so it is good for us to say, blessed be your name in a land full of suffering. because he still is in control. Maybe the best thing we can do is say, not just relieve the pain, but, God, how would you use this to draw me closer to you? How would you use this to break sinful habits in my life? How would you use this that I would turn away from that which, till now, has kept me from you? As Pastor Tim Keller says, too often we essentially say, Lord, why don't you remove this problem instead of saying, Lord, would you please make me the person I need to be in you as I move through this problem? So in that, we move on to our next point where we find the pitiless prophet, the pitiless prophet. Now if you were the Lord in this situation, how would you respond? Well, how did the Lord respond? Usually in the book of Judges, in His mercy, in His kindness, when the people cry out, He sends a deliverer. But here He does not. He sends a prophet. They have a very real, physical famine. But He sends a prophet to remind them of their actual famine. Their famine of not walking with the Holy God. He sends them a prophet. It's interesting, this is the only time that a prophet appears in the book of Judges, apart from Deborah, who is called a prophetess. And this prophet doesn't come to comfort him, he comes to remind them that they have no right to expect deliverance from God just because he's God. But they actually need to understand why they are in this difficult circumstance, or what God might want to teach them in the midst of this, to be repentant over sin, not just remorseful over the pain perhaps caused by it. And this idea continues on through the Scriptures. Years later, when the Apostle Paul is writing to the church in Corinth, he says there are two kinds of repentance. 2 Corinthians 7.10, for godly sorrow produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death. It is not remorse and regret over sin that produces life change. Oftentimes, all remorse and regret produces bitterness and sorrow. Whereas godly repentance, turning away from that which has offended him, actually involves the removal of sorrow and grief and regret because it's washed away by grace. Worldly sorrow emphasizes how much we have been hurt and brings on an attitude of woe is me. But godly sorrow focuses on the greatness of grace and the greatness of God in his deliverance that brings ultimate joy. Where God then is lifted up and shown to be great as truly the great deliverer. So the prophet of the Lord here is speaking to the Israelites in the name of the Lord. He says, I brought you out of slavery. I redeemed you. I drove away those who would oppress you. I am the Lord. I told you, do not be afraid of these people. I am in a covenant relationship with you, and you are to go and cut them off. And then in verse 10, he pronounces the painful verdict. But you have not obeyed my voice. And here ends the words of the prophet here in Judges 6. And we notice that there's no response given by the people. I pray that's not the case for us. May those of us who are in Christ, who have experienced a measure of His grace, and the fact that it is Godly sorrow that leads to salvation, we know this to be a work of God, not a work of the flesh. Because we know it is the work of God that operates the new birth in us. Before we ever repented of our sins, before we ever even desired to repent, God worked in us and gave us a heart of flesh, taking away the heart of stone. And the result then is, not only do we want to repent and turn away from our sins, we desire the things of God. We want to grow in the things of God. We want to grow more in the joy of the Lord and the joy of our salvation. Secondly, we see in our next major point, called but reluctant. Called but reluctant. And now we're going to meet this man, Gideon, that we're going to encounter over the next three chapters. He will not be perfect. And he will reveal that God alone is our true deliverer. He's going to show us some interesting encounters. He's going to meet a being that has divine authority. He's going to show the good and the bad of Israel. He will show reluctance but yet bravery. He will show us courage yet fear. He will show us victory yet ruthlessness. He will both serve God and abandon God. And I think what we'll find as we get to the end is not, oh, I wish we had more men like him today, but, oh, for a good king to come and rule over us. But first, we need to consider strange visitor. Strange visitor. Verses 11 to 18. Now, the angel of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abizrite, while his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, the Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor. And Gideon said to him, please, my Lord, If the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us? Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt? And now the Lord has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian. Sorry, I lost my screen in the back, and so I'm trying to figure out how to advance the slides. And the Lord turned to him and said, Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian. Do not I send you? And he said to him, Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house. And the Lord said to him, But I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man. And he said to him, And he said to him, if now I have found favor in your eyes, then show me a sign that it is you who speak with me. Please do not depart from here until I come to you and bring out my present and set it before you. And he said, I will stay until you return. So we notice that the text changed abruptly. It went from the prophet comes and speaks, and then he disappears. And now we have this new encounter, this strange visit. the angel of the Lord. He's sitting under a tree watching Gideon work. And as the conversation unfolds, it's clear that this angel is an envoy from heaven. There's something interesting that's going to happen. Now there are parallels that we see here between the calling of Gideon and that of Moses. In each situation, there is a manifestation of the presence of God who comes and speaks to Moses out of the burning bush and here to Gideon as he sits under a tree. But the man protests that he's inadequate for such a calling. And so God assures him that he will be with the man. The man asks for a sign, proof that God will be with him. Then there's a display of fire to show that it is God who is truly speaking. And so we see parallels in what happened to Moses, and what is happening here to Gideon. We're told in the text that he is the son of Joash, of the tribe of Manasseh. The Abbas writes, we're a tribe of Manasseh on the western side, so the Israeli side, if you will, of the Jordan River. What's interesting is what his name means. As you know, in the Bible, names always have an important meaning. His name means hacker, or to cut to pieces. And that becomes important as we consider the story of what it is that Gideon does. We find him, in these verses 11 to 18, threshing the wheat in a winepress. Now, you don't have to know very much about agriculture to know that a winepress is not intended to thresh grain. But think of the context. He's doing this in a way that is hidden, in a method that is not known, hiding under a tree, because after all, the eyes have hills. How about the hills have eyes? And they can see what's going on. And so he's doing it in a way that is hidden. And the angel says to him, the Lord is with you, mighty men of valor. And so we have to ask ourself with this quote point, is this a statement of fact? Is this an act of encouragement? Is this a prediction of what he will become? Because after all, he's hiding, he's sifting wheat in a wine press, hiding under a tree. It is the Lord who calls him a mighty man of valor. And so we need to take that seriously and then find out later what it is that God intended to say. But he would do probably what any of us would do. Living under this constant oppression, secretly harvesting what little crops he could save, the angel appears to him and said, the Lord is with you. He would respond like we would, right? What do you mean he's with us? Yeah, we heard about the miracles he did in the past, but where is he? And we're tempted to do that, aren't we? Well, God, what have you done for me lately? And we forget the stories that have gone on before. That's what he has done here. Yeah, I've heard about the promises. But why are we under such oppression if the Lord is with us? Now, the prophet had already pronounced why in the previous interaction. Gideon must not have been there because he doesn't put the blame where it belongs. He blames God. He says that God has given us over, God has forsaken us, and evidently he hadn't read the book ahead of time, because in chapter two we saw clearly that it was the people who had forsaken God, the people who had abandoned God. And it's interesting then, we see the angel of the Lord, the angel of the Lord, the angel of the Lord, then we get to verse 14 and it says, the Lord turned to him and said, go in this might of yours. So that brings up an interesting question. What's going on here? Who is speaking? Is it the angel of the Lord? Or is it the Lord? Or is there just a foreshadowing and a hint of something greater that goes on? Because at times it is the angel, at times it is the Lord. Both speak with divine authority. And if you're scratching your head and wondering, well, I think God in His goodness is giving us hint of the reality of the Holy Trinity, and that what we have here is an appearance of God the Son before the incarnation. That he is the ultimate angel, which means messenger of the Lord, who comes and speaks with divine authority, and says, this is what I'm going to do. So he says, go in this might. Well, what might? Is that in the might of Gideon, or is that in the might of God? The ambiguity is left in the text. You see, this is a drama that unfolds all throughout the book of Judges. But since God is the one who says, I am sending you, Gideon, and later on the Spirit descends and empowers Gideon, it would seem that this is divine power that is referred to here, that he is to go and obey. And yet we notice that Gideon didn't really respond in a way that we might expect. It's as if he doesn't really know yet who it is that's speaking to him. Yet he understands that things are not the way they should be. Because after all, look where he has to harvest. Look what he has to do. He has to do it in hiding. And he says, well, I don't want this calling. My family is the smallest one in our clan. And I'm nobody in my own family. And strictly speaking, that's not true. Because in just a few verses, we find out that he has at least 10 servants working for him. So if he has at least 10 servants working for him, he's not the smallest in his family or the smallest in his clan. He just doesn't want to obey right now what God is calling him to do. And he'll have to learn a lesson that we all learn because we tend to evaluate each other by what we see and think, oh, I wonder if God could use that person or that person, or boy, God could really use this person, and it has it all backwards. Because God does not call the qualified. He qualifies the called. And even if he was from the smallest tribe or the smallest clan, it didn't matter. God had chosen him and that would be enough. God had commanded him and he should obey. And he had been given a whole bunch of promises in this interaction. I will be with you. You will win. Very similar to what God said when he called Moses. I will be with you, God says, which means I will be with you as creator, redeemer, sustainer, judge, savior, ruler. What more do you need, Gideon? And as the story unfolds, it's hard to see exactly, but something's going on in his mind because he recognizes, I need to make an offering to the one who is here. And so he says, wait while I go and prepare an offering. And so he does, and thus we get to a peaceful offering. And we'll read from 19 to 24. So Gideon went into his house and prepared a young goat and unleavened cakes from an aphid flower. The meat he put in a basket and the broth he put in a pot and brought forth to him under the terebinth and presented them. And the angel of God said to him, take the meat and the unleavened cakes and put them on this rock and pour the broth over them. And he did so. When the angel of the Lord reached out the tip of the staff that was in his hand and touched the meat and the unleavened cakes and fire sprang up from the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened cakes. And the angel of the Lord vanished from his sight. Then Gideon perceived that he was the angel of the Lord. And Gideon said, alas, O Lord God, for now I've seen the angel of the Lord face to face. But the Lord said to him, peace be to you. Do not fear, you shall not die. Then Gideon built an altar there to the Lord and called it, The Lord is Peace. To this day, it still stands at Ophirah, which belongs to the Abizrites. This is not a small offering. To get a small goat and to get all this flower together, it would have been for a good-sized group. It's possible something is happening in Gideon's mind that he's dealing with a great creature. And finally, when he comes, the angel takes charge. You're gonna present the offering this way, put it in this way, pour this over this, set it in just the right place. The offering that God will accept must be done according to the ways of God. And then the angel of the Lord reaches out the tip of his staff, as we've said, touches it. And notice it throughout this text, back and forth. The angel of the Lord speaks, the Lord speaks. The angel of the Lord speaks, the Lord speaks. And here it's the angel of the Lord who touches the sacrifice and burns it up. This is a unique figure who is able to accept offerings and sacrifices and consume them. And then suddenly, the sacrifice is gone. And suddenly, so is the angel. And now Gideon's eyes are opened, as it were, and he knows he is doomed. He has seen the Lord. And I think only now he is aware of the danger that he has been in all along. He's not had a proper attitude towards the Lord. He showed an attitude of disrespect and doubt. And our God is a God who deserves reverence and fear and respect always. We're called to live in the fear of the Lord, not in a sense of condemnation, but in a sense of reverence and awe that he is greater than us and worthy of our best and our devotion. But notice it's the angel of the Lord that has now departed, but it's the Lord who is still with him, and he speaks to Gideon and says, peace be to you, you will not die. He has accepted this offering. He has shown mercy to Gideon and extended peace to him. The Lord is our peace. And in response, Gideon builds an altar to Yahweh Shalom. The Lord is peace. He could have destroyed him because of his sin and rebellion, but he didn't. He accepted the sacrifice, allowed it to be burned up, and Gideon was not destroyed. And my friends, do we not see a picture of the gospel here? where Jesus stood in the gap and bore the brunt of God's wrath, that he was the sacrificial lamb and the bread of life who endured the hellfire of God's judgment on our behalf. And I think that's what Paul was getting to when he wrote to the church in Rome and said, therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. the one who became the true altar, the true sacrifice on the altar, and the true high priest who offered himself on our behalf, and as a result, who becomes the true prince of peace, because he is the Lord our peace. But after this peaceful offering, after this display of the mercy of God, there needs to be a response of obedience. And so we have the command, tear down this altar. That night, the Lord said to him, take your father's bowl and the second bowl, seven years old, and pull down the altar of Baal that your father has and cut down the usher that is besides it. And build an altar to the Lord your God on the top of the stronghold here with stones laid in due order. Then take the second bowl and offer it as a burnt offering with the wood of the usher that you shall cut down. So Gideon took ten men of his servants and did as the Lord had told him. But because he was too afraid of his family and the men of his town to do it by day, he did it by night. When we have seen a display of God's mercy and grace, when he is declared our God, the Lord our peace, it requires a response from us. We know that we are already commanded to love him first and foremost above all things. But if we are to have a love for Him, which we are, that means we need to have a hatred towards all that opposes Him. And so we should have as our motto, love God, hate sin. That's why for over a year I've been praying for revival to come to us, that we would have this desire for the Word of God and a hatred for sin, so that His holiness, His righteousness, His purity would shine through us. Because we are at peace, We have a new devotion, a new affection, a new focus of our obedience and our service. The sign has been given. The sacrifice has been accepted. The peace has been granted. Now what will Gideon do? Will he seek the favor of his father or will he seek the favor of God? He knows that in that culture to lose his father's favor would be disastrous. But to lose the favor of God would be even more costly. He has just encountered Yahweh Shalom. So now how can he put peace with his family above peace with his God? To quote another commentator, Judges 6 and Matthew 6 agree, no one can serve two masters. On the property of his father was an idol. an altar to Baal and an Asherah, the male and female deities of the Canaanites. And God commanded him to destroy them because all idols must be destroyed. And then after he destroys that idol, he is to build an altar to Yahweh to show that Yahweh is greater than Baal. This would have required some work to tear down the altar, to build a new altar, to sacrifice a bull, seven years old, which would have been at the height of its strength, the height of its quality. God is requiring of Gideon that he offer the best of what he had, not just from the rest of what he had. Now, Gideon did this at night, but we must not ignore the fact that he did it. It was a brave act. Courage is acting in the face of fear, not acting without fear. But Gideon is learning a tough lesson here. He learns that to follow God can mean that one can no longer follow the ways of the family. He cannot be sure of how his family will react, but at least he obeyed. Friends, we need to recognize even today that the follow of the Lord may mean we do not follow our own family. I had the tremendous grace and privilege to be the first believer in my family. My mom was the youngest of 14 on one side. My dad was one of five on the other. I have more first cousins than I've actually ever met. Very entrenched in a particular tradition and religion. But when I came to know Jesus Christ, I knew that my first calling was to follow the Lord Jesus Christ wherever he would lead me, standing against my own family, which I had to do at times. That's what Gideon is learning here. Because there is nothing that we can give up that even compares to the greatness of God and his ways. When God causes us to be born again, and brings us into his family and adopts us as his children, we now have a new family, one with whom we will spend eternity. An allegiance to that family must supersede any other allegiances. That's what Jesus said. That's what Gideon did. Next, we get to our third point, the tale of two altars. The altar of Baal needs to be replaced by the altar of God, and so we ask the question, was it all in the family? When the men of the town rose early in the morning, behold, the altar of Baal was broken down, and the Asherah beside it was cut down, and the second bull was offered in the altar that had been built. And they said to one another, who has done this thing? And after they had searched and inquired, they said, Gideon, the son of Joash, has done this thing. Then the men of the town said to Joash, bring out your son that he may die, for he has broken down the altar of Baal and cut down the Asherah beside it. But Joash said to all who stood against him, will you contend for Baal or you save him? Whoever contends for him shall be put to death by morning. If he is a god, let him contend for himself. because his altar has been broken down. Therefore, on that day, Gideon was called Jerubbaal. That is to say, let Baal contend against him because he broke down the altar. So you see the scene. This is happening in the land of Israel, where the altar of Baal has been broken down. And now the Israelites say, whoever did this must die. How far they have fallen. They were the ones who were commanded to destroy all who opposed God, including the worshipers of Baal. And now they're the worshipers of Baal who want to destroy someone who actually is following the one true God. Oh, sin is a terrible master, my friends. it'll lead you to dark and dangerous places. And again, this happened on the property of Gideon's father. That meant that his own family was involved in adultery. But it seems as if something is happening now in the heart of Gideon's father, because he recognizes that his own son is more important and that The God of his son is more important than the God that he has been serving. We'll move quickly on to the gathering storm, and for quickness sake, I'll just simply pass over the reading of the word, and just get to the point that we have, that the drama now changes. The altar's been torn down. It's a sign. Yahweh is bigger than Baal. The altar of Baal has been destroyed. The altar of Yahweh has been built on top of it. It's a sign of a greater victory to come. But first, the armies must gather. On the one side, the Midianites and the Amalekites and the people of the east. And on the other side, the tribes of Israel who will come in response to Gideon, who has now had the Holy Spirit fall upon him, who blast the trumpet, and there's a call to arms. There's the gathering battle. There's more that we'd like to say, but let's just move on and finish this chapter this morning, and we'll have a chance to pick up some of these ideas in a future week. But let's end with the phrase, don't get fleeced. Then Gideon said to God, if you will save Israel by my hand, as you have said, Behold, I am laying a fleece of wool on the threshing floor. If there is dew on the fleece alone and it is dry on the ground, then I shall know that you will save Israel by my hand as you have said. And it was so. When he rose early the next morning and squeezed the fleece, he wrung enough dew from the fleece to fill a bowl with water. And then Gideon said to God, let not your anger burn against me. Let me speak just once more. Please let me test just once more with the fleece. Please let it be dry on this fleece only, and on the ground let there be dew. And God did so that night, and it was dry on the fleece only, and on the ground there was dew. Now, the will of God was clear in this situation, was it not? You are to go and deliver the people of God. I will be with you. I promise you victory. I will strengthen you. I will deliver you. I'm putting my spirit upon you. The people of God are coming. Everything is ready for battle. There should be no further reason for doubt or delay. And that's what makes this section so perplexing. Because Gideon decides that's not enough. And so we get a natural testing. Now, I want to be clear. I've heard it in many books over the years that I've read, in different counseling sessions, where people want to turn to Judges chapter 6 as some type of a test to discern God's will. That is not what the text is telling us here. This is not a text that is instructing us how to seek God's will. It is a narrative. A story that is describing what happened, not prescribing what should happen. God does not approve of what Gideon is doing here. He condescends to what Gideon is doing here. He had already been given all that he needed to know. And so what we really see is the patience of Yahweh, not the face of Gideon. The first test is really a natural test. This is what would have happened. The wool that would have been in the fleece would have naturally drawn the moisture, it would have been wet in the morning, the ground would have been dried. And then, and Gideon knows he's pushing the limits when he says, don't be angry with me. He knows he's pushing the limits and God condescends again. And my friends, we do that to God all the time. We put him to the test when we're called not to put him to the test. He's already spoken. His will is clear. But he condescends to give what I might say is a supernatural test because this goes against what would be expected. Again, this is a text that tells us what did happen, not what should happen. This story shows us the patience of God during a very confusing time. It is not a how-to for discovering God's will. We have the completion of the Word of God that gives us the will of God. The Word of God gives us the will of God. We are told in this word that we have everything we need for life and godliness. We are told in this word that is the complete revelation of all that we need to know about God and how to live for him. And if we would but just obey the commands that are clear in here, we would not be wondering about whether we should go off into some trickery to try to find out something else. Gideon is demanding a sign when he did not have the right to demand a sign. The fact that God was patient with him does not mean it's an example for us to follow today. So today it is good for us to pray, Lord, increase our faith, but then use the means that he has given us for that faith to grow. The word of God, prayer, the fellowship of the saints, church attendance, service among the saints, all that we have, he's given us so that we can know what the will of God is and walk in his way. So what are some lessons very quickly we can learn? First, true repentance leads to life change and hatred of sin. Repentance, if it's true biblical repentance, does not lead to an excuse for sin. Look to offer God your best, not of your rest. It's part of the reason behind the tithe, but really it's the tithe of all of life. We give him the first fruits of our lives, first efforts, first emotions, first actions, first gifts. It is true that we have a God who is long-suffering and patient with us. We sang that in several songs already this morning. But we must take care not to presume upon his grace. If grace is demanded or if grace is required, it is no longer grace. It is the nature of grace that comes from the graciousness of the giver, not the demanding nature of the receiver. Fourthly, we need to tear down the idols in our lives and ask God to do that surgical operation that we all need. Because each of us, when our idols are threatened, we get emotional, we get angry, we get frustrated, and maybe it's at that point where we need to go to the altar and offer those things to the Lord. And then we have the word of God. We do not need to put him to the test by looking for some type of magical sign and wonder for him to prove himself to us. We need to take him at his word. When he has spoken, we are to act accordingly. Let's pray. Father, you have spoken to us clearly again and again in your word that we are to be holy, that we are to be fruitful and faithful, that we are to be obedient, that we are to be humble, that we are to serve one another, that we are to pick up our cross daily and follow Christ. And so forgive us, Father, for those times that we put you to the test because we think we know better. Forgive us for those times that we act more out of fear than out of faith. Forgive us for those times where we have borrowed too much wisdom from this world and not enough of the wisdom from your word. And we thank you But this passage tells us that you are our peace. And so this morning we kneel, figuratively at the foot of the cross, and we thank you for Jesus. And we lay our burdens there, our worries, our concerns, our selfishness, our pride. We say thank you, God, for having mercy on us in Christ. And as we arise to leave this place today, Father, may it be because we have met with you, and because you are our Yahweh Shalom, the Lord our peace, we can walk on in humble confidence that you will lead us. And so we pray for your glory and for our good, in Jesus' name, amen. Would you stand as we close out our time singing, Oh Lord, you're beautiful. ♪ Oh Lord, you're beautiful ♪ Your face is all I see And when your eyes are on this child Your grace abounds to me Oh Lord, please light the fire Oh Lord, You're beautiful. Oh Lord, You're beautiful. Your face is all I see And when your eyes are on this child Your grace abounds to me Let's be praying this week as we advertise for our VBS coming up starting this next Sunday. We look forward to having this whole campus just crawling with kids, being blessed by the word of God and being a blessing to us here. And so let's be praying to that end. Now's an opportunity for us to fellowship with one another. I hope you'll take advantage of that opportunity. And just a reminder, the pastor's class, we will be in the gospel of John today, and we will meet in the library, not in the music room. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you his peace. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, let us go in peace. Have a great Lord's Day.