during the night. And as we think, there are periods in life that we go through that someone is always holding our hand. And you see the young teenagers that are in love and the new bride and the mother that's had her first child. And as we get older, I remember when Bible school was going on and we had the carnival, Jason came over and he said, I'll help you walk across the field. And I thought there's always a time that someone can reach out to someone by holding their hand. And it's wonderful to know that Jesus is always there to hold our hand. And we just have to reach out and he's there. ♪ Jesus my Savior is able to guide ♪ ♪ The poor in love ♪ ♪ Nothing can harm me for He's by my side ♪ ♪ And holds me by my hand ♪ ♪ He holds my hand ♪ ♪ Jesus holds my hand ♪ ♪ Safely to heaven he leads the way ♪ ♪ He is my saver from day to day ♪ ♪ He holds my hand ♪ ♪ Jesus holds my hand ♪ You may be young, but my Savior is strong, and He holds my hand. Danger surrounds me, and dark is the way, but Jesus leadeth me. I sing for the long weary day, No matter what may be. Eve holds my hand, Jesus holds my hand, He is my keeper from day to day. He holds my hand. Jesus holds my hand. The road may be long, but my Savior is strong, and He holds I am so sorry. He is the one who can keep every hour along our stoilsome road. Trusting my all to his wonderful power, I'll reach that blessed abode. He holds my hand. Jesus holds my hand. Safely to heaven he leads the way. He is my keeper from day to day. He holds my hand. Jesus holds my hand. Let's take our Bibles this morning and open them to Judges chapter 6. Judges chapter 6. We've just been getting started on our series of The Life of Gideon, and so we've been in Judges 6 for a little bit. We're getting ready to finish that up. But I wanna talk to you first this morning about cereal. Cereal. Breakfast cereal, yes. It's in here, okay? It'll fit, I'll show you how. Now how many of you are cornflakes kind of breakfast person? Raise your hand. corn flakes, wheat flakes, healthy flakes, whatever they are, right? But some of us, some of us, self-proclaimed sugar cereal lover that I am, we love the good stuff, right? The stuff that is, the first ingredient is sugar. Oh, that's just good cereal. You know you have healthy cereal versus unhealthy cereal when you look at the box and and one of them says like Total okay total that cereal. I mean, it's got everything you need. It's already in there But then you look at the stuff I eat and there's this word fortified with essential vitamins and minerals or something like that now, you know, there's a there's something inherently wrong with that cereal that they have to Fortify it and I want to just chat for a minute about what that means to fortify your cereal has been fortified with vitamins it means that Your chocolate-frosted sugar bombs have no nutritional value by themselves whatsoever. Absolutely nothing of value there. They can do nothing for you until they are fortified. And in that process, they are somehow infused with those elements that are necessary to make them beneficial. Gideon was fortified by the Spirit. A lot of parallels that we can draw here. If we're gonna look at verse 34 here in just a minute, but one commentator wrote this about Gideon being fortified by the Spirit. The Holy Spirit, he said, clothed Gideon, descended upon him, and laid itself around him, as it were, like a coat of mail, or strong equipment, so that he became invulnerable and invincible. God had called Gideon to an unusual task. And it was not all in a day's work either. So God also gave Gideon two assurances that he needed. One of them was the Spirit. That was an assurance that God, you have to keep in mind folks, this is before Christ came to the earth and died for sins, it was before his, Transfiguration, it was before the day of Pentecost. It was before the Holy Spirit came and dwelt within believers. They didn't have the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament, not living in them. And God fortified, He infused Gideon with the Spirit. In other words, He infused him with what he needed to make himself beneficial because prior to being fortified by the Holy Spirit, Gideon was useless. without the Holy Spirit. And so God gave him the Spirit as an assurance that, yes, Gideon, I need you to do this, you can do this because I'm going to do it through you. Look at what Gideon is doing here in this chapter. Let's back up to verse 11. Before the Holy Spirit came on him, there came an angel of the Lord and sat under an oak which was in Ophrah that pertained unto Joash the Abba's right and His son Gideon threshed wheat by the winepress to hide it from the Midianites now We've talked about all of that in the beginning Gideon's hiding This is what he's doing before the angel of the Lord comes. This man that we know as Gideon, the leader, this leader of Israel, he's hiding in verse 11. Now, go to verse 34. But the spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon and he blew a trumpet And Abiezer was gathered after him and he sent messengers throughout all and then it goes on He basically sent messengers throughout all the land Verse 11 he's hiding verse 34. He's blowing a trumpet Those get attention folks and he's sending messengers throughout all the land Something happened in between there But the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon made all the difference. God is in control of his life now. He is obeying God with confidence. We sometimes lack that, don't we? But we can do this. When God asks us to do something, we will also be equipped to do it. He promises us that. I could have one of my ushers go ahead and shut the back doors to the auditorium. We seem to be getting some sound coming in from out there. Thank you. All right, it's done. Thank you guys. Gideon, folks, Gideon could not have fulfilled this work if not for the filling of the Holy Spirit. It would have been impossible. He wasn't equipped to do what God was asking him to do. Listen to what he didn't have, okay? And I want you to listen to what Gideon didn't have because I think it describes many of us. He didn't have the training to do it. He didn't have the courage for it. He didn't have the position and respect of the people to be a leader. That sounds like us, doesn't it? We would never have picked Gideon for this job. Looking at his resume, he didn't have it. But, when God gives an order, he gives the Spirit to fortify us for the job. And this fortifying endowed him with the gifts and the abilities, the savvy, the courage, the inspiration, the desire to do the job. Now, you all know there are some, we'll call them jobs in the church. There's not a lot of desire to do them. Am I right? Okay. And if you're curious as to what those are, see me afterwards because we always need people in those areas. But when God fortifies someone to do a job, He also gives them the desire for it. It was absolutely necessary for the Spirit of God to come upon Gideon. Because if the Spirit of God hadn't, by this time in Gideon's life, he would have been running from his father. Just prior to verse 34, what did he do? He tore down the altar of Baal that was his father's. He tore down the grove, the woods of trees, off to the sides of this altar of Baal, which belonged to his father. He built an altar of God. He took two of his father's bulls and sacrificed them and offered them there on the altar. And the people, the men of the city came out and they saw, these were his people, by the way, his relatives, they came out, they saw what had been done, and they wanted to kill him, all right? Now, we all need the Holy Spirit if we're going to adequately serve God. It doesn't matter how much training anyone has had, or how charismatic they may be, what their personality is or isn't, In order to serve God effectively, we need the Holy Spirit serving through us. The greatest of men will be ineffective against the enemy without the power of the Spirit. Likewise, the weakest of men will be able to overcome the greatest of enemies when the Spirit of God rests on him. In Zechariah chapter four and verse six, it says, then he answered and spake unto me, saying, this is the word of the Lord unto Zerubbabel, saying, not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts. Folks, that's how God gets things done. God gets things done in a home, not because there's a super spiritual dad at the home. God gets things done in a church, not because they've got a good leader and a good pastor and he does everything we want him to do and he doesn't do anything we don't want him to do. And since everyone has a different opinion about what that is, he is somehow magically able to do that for everyone and keep everyone happy. And because of that, we have a great church. He's an awesome leader. God's doing something here, not because of him. It's because of the Holy Spirit. And in your home, dads, you don't have to be a super spiritual giant to see God work in your homes. You have to be a man who's willing to say, I need God to do this through me. We need fortified by the Spirit. Why else do we need the Spirit? Well, it says in Romans 8, 26, likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities. For we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered." Do you see that word, infirmities? He helpeth our infirmities. That means we can't do it all. That means we have weaknesses. We have negatives about us. You know, those things that we don't like to admit or talk about. We have those. We need the Holy Spirit. But if we are unwilling to surrender, we will hinder the work of the Spirit in our lives. That is why it's written for us in Ephesians 4, it says, grieve, not the Spirit. In 1 Thessalonians 5, it says, quench, not the Spirit. Can you get a picture in your mind of what that looks like? I like to picture it this way. He is the vine, we are the branches, and the Holy Spirit is the sap that's running through to the end of the branches. We need that life-giving juice, if you will, in this metaphor. And when we grieve the Spirit, when we quench the Spirit, it's like we're choking it off and not letting its full power work through our lives. Surrender and let the Holy Spirit work through us God gave Gideon that assurance of the Holy Spirit But he also gave him another one and that's the following of the soldiers the men They followed him. So he blows a trumpet the call is sounded now and the men come Now think about this now All these men, they're all living in fear, just like Gideon was back in verse 11. They're all living in fear of the Midianites. And they're hiding. And Gideon blows a trumpet, and he sends messengers saying, come on! And the men come. Just like that? Would you? If you were living in Nazi Germany, and you hear a trumpet, and a messenger comes and says, hey, come on, let's go! We're gonna take them on! Would you go? And these men came. Isn't that strange? But not if you consider the Holy Spirit's at work. When the Holy Spirit is at work, things happen that can't be explained. But wait, this gets even more strange, okay? Look at who all comes. Look at verse 11 there. The Abiezrites. Who are they? Well, Gideon is an Abiezrite. Back in the beginning of the chapter, it mentions his father, Joash the Abiezrite. It was the Abiezrites who wanted to kill Gideon just days earlier for tearing down their altar to Baal. Now he blows a trumpet, sends messengers, and these same men are coming. A few days earlier they wanted to kill him, and now they're rallying behind him. What happened? The Holy Spirit happened. Gideon must have been thinking right there, try to put yourself in his shoes, okay? He just did something he never thought he would do. A few verses earlier, remember, he's hiding, and then this angel of the Lord comes to him, and gives him some assurances, bolsters up his confidence, and then one night, he takes 10 of his servants, and he tears down his father's altar to Baal, cuts down the trees, cuts them up into firewood, uses those to offer sacrifice unto God. Okay, right away, I'm thinking, something's going on with me, right? And then he blows the trumpet, he sends out messengers, and all of these men that a few days earlier were wanting to kill you, now they're showing up ready to follow you. Gideon must have thought, okay, something bigger than me is going on here. That is a great place to be, folks. I would love to see God work in this ministry in such a way that we all just have to step back and say, okay, something bigger than us is going on here. Wouldn't that be awesome? Something that we can't explain, something that can't be explained away because of our great planning and organization for this ministry or this event. Something that can't be explained away because of our marketing, or because of our nice building, or because of the fact that when you come into this church, your hand will get shook by at least 20 people, okay? I'm just warning y'all that are live streaming, if you come here, get ready. Bring lots of hand sanitizer or something. But something that takes place that we can't explain. Something that I like to call, that's a God thing. That's a Holy Spirit thing working right now. So with one accord, they're unified. The men stood together to oppose the enemy as the enemy should be opposed, folks. not tolerate it like they were doing, but oppose it. And there's a lesson here for us. It's very difficult for one person to stand against wrong, to successfully get the enemy out of God's land or out of the church or out of the home unless God's people are united to rise up against it and oppose it. In the church, it's difficult for one to do that, unless God's people unite and arise up against the wrong and say, no, not in here. In the home, it's difficult for one parent to do it. Both have to be united. Gideon was fortified by the Spirit, and he now had something that wasn't there before to do something that he couldn't do before. We have that same something, folks. What is it, what is it that we are to be doing? Well, individual details of all of us may be different, but God's Word has many things that we can be united in doing. Listen, whatever our past, whatever we've done, God can, if we confess and forsake, He can cleanse us from all unrighteousness and use us. God showed His grace in giving these signs to Gideon. fortifying of the Holy Spirit. The men suddenly following him showed Gideon that, yes Gideon, you're on the right path. This is good. Keep going. Now hindsight is always 20-20, isn't it? Or it seems like that. I know many of you, you can look back at something you decided like a month ago or three years ago and think, oh man, that was stupid. What was I thinking? Right? When we look back, we always see things a little bit more clearly. So looking at this, as we go on through this chapter, we come across Gideon. He still wants some more signs from God. He wants some more assurances. I mean, he got the Holy Spirit. No one ever got that, hardly, in the Old Testament. All of a sudden, all these men are following him. That's some pretty good assurances, but he wants more. And we think, what is Gideon's problem? Gideon, how much more do you want? He's still needing more assurances. We're gonna talk about that here in just a minute. But a lot has been said about this, about Gideon's lack of faith. Shame on him, right? How he is such a weak Christian, such weak faith to have to ask God for more signs. and wanting to throw out that fleece to get more assurances. Gideon has been condemned for doing that. He didn't just follow in faith like Abraham did. Gideon shouldn't be totally condemned though in this action. We're going to look at the good and the bad in this request he made of God. But first I want us to consider what he asked, he asked unnecessarily. He didn't need any more signs to confirm what God was calling him to do. He had already been given many signs. I think we could all agree on that. He had been given the angel of the Lord, the men answering the call to arms. He was indeed at fault for asking for another sign. He was at fault for that. Folks, before we begin asking for signs about whether we should do this or whether we should do that, we need to ask ourselves, do we really need more confirmation? Sometimes, instead of more confirmation, we need to just sit down and consider what we already know. What we've already seen God do. What do we know about Gideon, the angel of the Lord, the man answering? God has given us many precepts and principles in the Word of God. Much more than Gideon ever had. We need to sit down, perhaps, and just apply those principles to know what God's will is for us. Many times we will seek more signs instead of just looking at the obvious indications we already have. Like last week, remember I had something growing out of my forehead? I've gotten some comments about that. It was an illustration, folks, for those of you that weren't here last week. Oh, what do I do? What do I do? I wonder if I should go see a doctor. Yeah. But a lot of times we approach life that way. God's word is clear. It's obvious what we should do. But yet we're still asking for what should I do? What should I do? But I do want to say this about Gideon. He asked reverently, and I want to explain why I think that's important. He showed a healthy respect for God in how he asked. Look at verse 39 with me. And Gideon said unto God, let not thine anger be hot against me, and I will speak but this once. Let me prove I pray thee, but this once with the fleece, let it now be dry, only upon the fleece and upon all the ground let there be dew." This is the second request. The first one was, let the fleece be wet and the ground be dry, and now he's flipping it. Folks, in the New Testament, Christ denounced those that sought signs unnecessarily. Meaning they weren't necessary. Romans 12, 39. He calls them an evil and adulterous generation that seeks after a sign. But those remarks were directed to the unsaved whose every request they made was full of scorn. I had read a story about a college philosophy professor. Every year he denounced God in his class. And he denounced those that believed in God. And he would teach the year attempting to destroy anyone's belief in God that might be sitting in his class. And he would illustrate it by taking a piece of chalk and saying, if there is a God, When I drop this chalk, he will stop it from hitting the floor and breaking into a bunch of pieces. And he would then go ahead and drop that piece of chalk. By the way, this is an old story, because they don't even make chalk anymore, do they? And he would drop that piece of chalk, and sure enough, it would hit the floor and shatter into a bunch of pieces, thereby proving to his class there is no God. And he would do that Every year he would challenge any student on the last day of class to stand up and now defend God. No one would. One of them did. And so he pulled out his chalk. He said, you cannot prove that there is a God. I can prove that there isn't. And he then proceeded with his dropping of the chalk test. Full of scorn. He dropped it. Somehow by the way he dropped it, it rolled down his pant leg and into the cuff of his pants. And of course, didn't break. But see, I think that's demonstrative of a lot of people in our world today. They request signs from God and it's just scorn. Gideon was different. He approached God with reverence. Now we may not always make requests for the right things. Christ even said you have not because you ask not and you ask amiss for what you are asking for. But we can make those requests of God in the right way, can't we? Lack of reverence for God is going to hinder a legitimate request. If our reverence of God is right, our requests will eventually become right, too. Gideon asked with reverence, but he also asked impartially. Now, here's what I mean by that. A second request was just a test of the first one. Wool is naturally going to attract moisture before anything else. To make sure the first test was not a natural occurrence, he then flipped it to do the second one. It showed impartiality. Now here's how that applies to us. He wasn't trying to ask for a sign that would normally happen in the way he wanted it to happen. God, I know tomorrow, let's say this is Saturday night. God, I know tomorrow is Sunday, and you want me in church, but my friends invited me to go fishing with them, or I have this family function, or I have this, or I have that, and if you really want me to go with my friends, because that would be an awesome ministry opportunity, okay, You know how we start justifying and spinning things. And God, it's going to be an awesome ministry opportunity. And if you want me to do that instead of going to church, then God, I pray that tomorrow morning when I wake up, the sun will be shining. That's not a partial request, is it? It's a natural occurrence. It's going to happen, right? So he asked it a second time to just have some impartiality there. Too often the signs that we're asking for, people ask today, is carnal because we come up with a sign that would normally occur anyway. It's not a fair test. It doesn't validate anything, certainly. And then Gideon asked appropriately. It was appropriate because it was related to what he was being called to do. So let's say God wants you, you think God is wanting you to get involved in a ministry at church. Let's just say that, okay? And so you say, okay God, I will get involved in that ministry at church if when I open up my box of cereals, I've got the prize in there that I want. Totally unrelated. Gideon's request was related to what he was going to be doing. To illustrate, it was related, actually I got that back mixed around, it was unrelated to his calling. He wasn't trying to cook the books or spin it or twist it in some way. Listen to what we find in Genesis chapter 24, Abraham's servant. Verse 12, it says, And he said, O LORD God of my master Abraham, I pray thee, send me good speed this day, and show kindness unto my master Abraham. Verse 13, Behold, I stand here by the well of water, and the daughters of men of the city come out to draw water. and let it come to pass that the damsel to who I shall say let me or let down thy pitcher I pray thee that I may drink and she shall say drink and I will give thy camels drink also let the same be she that thou hast appointed for thy servant Isaac and thereby shall I know that thou hast showed kindness unto my master." Now, look at verse 14. That is an appropriate sign. Why? Because it would reveal the character of that woman. It revealed her unselfishness. It showed her consideration of the needs of others. It showed that she could keep her word. She kept watering until all the camels had their drink. The sign was related to the case and it was appropriate. Okay? Now, let's recap just a bit here. God had already given Gideon confirmation, giving Gideon the Spirit of God, causing the men to respond to Gideon's call. These were logical, practical signs. The fleece was illogical. It was unrelated. It's not a proper pattern for us to follow when we're seeking confirmation of God's will. But now, we also have to point out that even though it was inappropriate, God still answered his request and gave him his sign. It was successful. God gave Gideon the sign that he requested, but it doesn't show that the request was without fault. We've pointed that out. It does show this. I think it shows God's grace being extended to someone whose faith is weak. And that's where we find ourselves a lot. His faith is weak and he's seeking to just strengthen that faith. Now the difference between him and us sometimes is in his heart. He's not looking for a way out of it. He's not looking for a way to get out of what God is asking him to do. God asks us to tell others what we already know about how we're going to heaven. And we come up with so many reasons why we can't do it. Gideon's not saying, God, I don't want to do this. God, I just need to be really sure that you're going with me on this one. He wasn't looking for permission to do what he wanted to do. This was a picture of God's grace to a new Christian, we might say. Matthew 12, 20, Christ said there, a bruised reed shall he not break. That's a picture of God, folks. A lot of times, people either view God as, oh, God's all love and everyone can do everything they want because we're just all love. And sometimes they view God as this mean, cruel taskmaster, and if you mess up, you're going to hell. Christ said, a bruised reed shall he not break. Someone who is struggling in their heart, they're trying, They're not putting on a show, they're sincerely trying in their heart. God's grace goes to that person. By the way, so should ours. Many times, I don't know if it's just our denomination, but many times in our denomination, we kind of are known for eating our own. When there's someone injured, devour them and kick them to the curb. A bruised reed shall he not break. That's where grace needs to come in. No matter what they've done or how weak they are. Grace. We have to be careful here, though, because Gideon was a new believer. We'll just call him that. He was weak. Now, baby talk is cute in babies, isn't it? Don't you just love to hear a little baby talk? We've got a two-year-old in our house again. I'm having to learn a whole new language, folks. I've been out of that for a while. Baby talk is cute in babies, but not in adults, right? How long would you hang around your friend if that's how they talked all the time? I don't think so. Now, the same is true spiritually. If we have been saved for any amount of time, folks, we should be past this. Our faith should be so strengthened by now, we don't need signs anymore. We just, we see God's word, God says do this, we say okay, and we do it. We don't have to think about it and pray about it. God already said do it, what's to pray about? Imagine you, adults, those of you that have been saved for a while, at home, as a child, and your dad says, you know, I need you to do this while I'm at work today, I want you to take the garbage out, I want you to cut some wood, I want you to clean the garage, whatever, and you say, okay, dad, I'll pray about that. Yeah, that's gonna go over well, isn't it? And yeah, we do that with God. His word is clear on what we are to do. I'll get back to you on that. I'm thinking about it. I need to grow more in that area. My daddy had a way of helping us grow real quick. We should be past that by now. And what we find is that God is not favorable to us when we ignore the many years of signs and fellowship that he's already given us. But I will say this about Gideon. He asked honestly. When the sign was completed, he got the sign from God. Gideon didn't ask, okay, give me another one. Okay, give me another one. Okay, give me another one. Why didn't he? Because the first sign, he was honestly asking for some confirmation. It wasn't a stall tactic. He wasn't trying to get out of it. Sometimes people will ask me questions about a particular topic or area or issue in their life or a friend's life. Or they come to me and say, you need to go talk to them because they got a problem. And sometimes, they want to know, what does the Bible say about this? Well, that could be an honest question, right? Or it could be a question that is setting up a debate. And a lot of times, I'll tell someone, here's what the Bible says about that. And then the debate ensues, and all they wanna do is argue back and forth to make their position right. So what does the Bible say about that? I sometimes wanna ask, okay, if I take my time and I show you what the Bible says clearly, will you accept it and do it? Will you not go on asking, well, what about this? Oh yeah, well, what about that? Well, what about this situation? The Bible says this, oh yeah, but what about these circumstances? They have no desire to do what God says. And we know there are some things in God's word that are very clear, and we have made them so convoluted in our society because of, well, what about this? Well, what about that? What about this circumstance and this special set of circumstances? Instead of just doing what God's word says, right? Gideon was asking honestly. Many times, folks, we want signs, okay? But when they turn out different than the way we wanted it to, we reject it. That's not being honest. When given the confirmation, what did Gideon do? He obeyed. Gideon was honest. The sign was given, he accepted it. Now, for us, we don't need the signs that Gideon was seeking. We don't need to set out fleece. We don't need to set up special circumstances. Okay, God, you want me to do this. Okay, God, I'm getting the idea from your Bible that you want me to stop this, or that this relationship needs to end, or that this activity needs to end, or I need to start doing those things. So, okay, we're gonna set up a little test here, God, and I want you to, we don't need to do that because we're given signs in the Bible. Remember, Gideon didn't have the Bible. Not like we do. Remember, what does it say in Hebrews? All that Old Testament was given for our examples. There's our signs. We have their experiences. We have a record of signs in God's Word. and promises and stories from beginning to end, the hindsight is 20-20 thing, we get to see what they couldn't see because they were in it. God's faithfulness to the obedient, we see that in God's Word. We have His promises that if we put Him first, He will meet all our needs. And we have the examples in the Bible of him doing that. So when it comes to tithing, when it comes to soul winning, when it comes to trusting him in our priorities in life, and we don't, we're like Gideon getting the signs and then ignoring it. But Gideon was honestly wanting to do right and be in God's right path for him. We've been given the signs. Now, Gideon may be faulted for asking for a sign as a new Christian, but he rises above many of us veteran Christians because he was obedient to what God had revealed to him. Are we obedient? What job that you have been fortified for are you not doing right now? What command of scripture that comes with many promises are you running from? Maybe there's a stand that you need to be taking against sin in some area of your life. Will you decide to follow Jesus as Gideon did? Let's stand please with our heads bowed and our eyes closed. And in just a moment, the instruments are going to begin playing. And as they do, let me invite you to answer those questions that were just asked. I would say Gideon's pretty remarkable because he got the confirmation from God and then he obeyed. Are we doing that though? It comes down to the choices that we make, folks. We've gotten so good in our Christian life of explaining Explaining our way out of Doing what we know God wants us to do and listen what we're doing in our life may not be bad There's good and there's bad But there's another one there's best And what you're doing in your life may not be bad it may be good but is it best and That's what God wants for you, for your home, your family. He wants best. And His plan for your life, His purposes, His will, as we see in the Bible, is all designed to bring His best to us. Life that is more abundant. But we have to, by faith, trust Him and follow His plan. So does your plan line up with His? Let me invite you as the instruments are playing, make that commitment.