and an errant word. Judges chapter six, beginning in verse 17. And he said to him, if I have found favor in your eyes, that he is Gideon and the hymn is the angel of Yahweh. If I have found favor in your eyes, then show me a sign that it is you who speaks with me. Please do not depart from here until I come to you and I bring out my present and set it before you. And he said, I will stay until you return. So Gideon went into his house and prepared young goats and leavened cakes from an ephah, a flower, the meat that he brought in a basket and the broth he put in a pot and brought them out and to put them 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. And the angel of the Lord reached out the tip of his staff that was in his hand and he touched the meat and the unleavened cakes and the fire sprang up from the rock and consumed the flesh and the unleavened cakes. And the angel of the Lord vanished from his sights. And Gideon perceived that he was the angel of the Lord. And Gideon said, alas, O Lord God, for now I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face. But the Lord said to him, peace to you. Do not fear, for 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 in Ophrah, which belongs to Abbe Zarek's. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we pray that you would bless the reading and hearing of your word. We pray that it builds up the faith of your people. As this word goes out, Father, I pray that there are those who do not have faith, that you would use these words, these words of yours, to call them to faith. Father, I pray that in all things that you are glorified, that you are honored, that you are praised, and that you are proclaimed. in this pulpit, not just tonight, but forever. And this gospel will go out to every corner of the earth from this place until the very day that your Son returns to us. So Father, bless this time. Strengthen us in our faith. And as our faith is strengthened, strengthen us in the walk that we have brought before you. In all these things we pray in Jesus' name, amen. I suppose that perhaps Samson is the most familiar of the judges. Gideon is arguably a close second, yet because we tend to think about Gideon in the context of his fleece, in the context of the great battle and the things that led up to the battle with his, you know, the calling down of the soldiers and things like that, we sometimes miss parts of Gideon's story. And many of these parts that we sometimes kind of gloss over really have a great deal of meaning to us and teach us a great deal about God and who he is and who we are in and before him. And so we need to pay some attention to some of those passages. And so we've kind of worked through Gideon's account. We're gonna take it step at a time and work through it. So at this point, we've already seen the call of Gideon And here we see the response of Gideon to that call, namely that he asks for a sign. Asks for a sign to make sure, he's talking to the right guy, make sure that this is really a genuine call that is being placed on his life. Now, sometimes people are tempted to criticize good old Gideon for asking for signs like this. And they say, oh no, and things like that. And I think it's unfair and uncharitable to do that because we're called in scripture to test every spirit. That's what John writes in 1 John 4, 1. And we are called to protect ourselves and the flock, arguably, from those who would bring in destructive heresies. That's 2 Peter 2, 1. Okay, and so while Jesus will chastise, you know, a generation that always seeks for signs, He's chastising them largely because they're not looking at the signs he's giving them. He's given them miracles. He's given them teachings. He's given them the scripture where he is fulfilling the scripture. He's giving them Moses. He's giving them the testimony of John the Baptist. And even the Father's verbal testimony is present. So they're still wanting signs. He's like, look guys, the only sign that you're going to receive is the sign of Jonah. And God himself was happy to give signs. He put a sign in the heavens. In time of Noah, as a reminder of the covenant that he had with all creation, they would never destroy this earth again with water. And so even baptism, as we enter into baptism with either the children of our believing parents, yeah, yeah, you know what I mean. We're not just baptizing the world, it's not a kind of form of evangelism, but the children of believers, you know, we baptize their babies. And then when new converts come into faith, we baptize them. Those are meant as signs in addition to seals, but they're signs. Signs that God is at work in their lives and God has made them a part of this covenant body. And so in many ways, what Gideon is doing here by asking for a sign is something that we ought to commend, not criticize. as we come before him. And so there's signs, and there's signs that he is seeking. In particular, we see a very specific sign that he seeks. And so that brings us to this context. In verses 17 and 18, and he said to him, please give me, if you have found grace in your eyes, you know, will you give me a sign to know that you're speaking to me? And please don't, and here's the thing, please don't depart from this place until I come back to you. And I will bring forth my, I don't like the English standard, King James is actually better, not a present, but an offering is a better translation of the text here. My offering and set it down before you. And the angel of Yahweh then responds by saying, I will remain until you return. Okay, now the sign is being sought out. Essentially, Gideon is going to prepare an offering. He's gonna prepare a sacrifice, a food sacrifice to the Lord, to kind of set the context, to give thanks, arguably, for the call that's been placed on his life, to affirm that this is something that is special going on. It's something that God's people historically have always done. We see this in Abraham's life. We see this all the way back in the life of the children of Adam and Eve. Not that one of them did a very good job at it, but when we talk about Cain and Abel in Genesis 4.3 bringing their offerings before the Lord, the same word, same word in Hebrew that is being used here as we find here, used there as we find here in the text of Gideon's account. He's bringing an offering. He's like, look, wait for a little bit. Give me a chance to gather this stuff so that I can make an offering to the Lord. And the Lord's response is to give Gideon the opportunity to gather together those things so that that can take place. In other words, what is the response of Gideon ultimately to this call that is placed on Gideon's life and that is worship? And I just want to take a step away from that just for a moment. Because I wonder sometimes whether that's our first response when it comes to a call being placed on our life. It doesn't matter whether it's a call to the ministry or the mission field. It might be a call to serve as an elder or serve as a deacon, to serve as a Sunday school teacher, to serve as the vacation Bible school leader in the church. Whatever it happens to be, what is our response to that? Or is there a response to kind of say, hey, I'm going to be the perfect guy for that? Or is there a response simply to say, let me worship God? Is there a response to say, look at me, look at my qualifications and attributes? Or is it simply to say, look at God? I think we can learn a lot about how we are to live our lives in light of our callings, respectively, by looking simply at Gideon. and looking at how he responds to this call that God is placing on his life. Is your response to God's call on your life a response that is marked by worship? It should be. And if it isn't, then maybe you need to rethink that. So that kind of sets the context. Verses 19 and 20 continues what is taking place. So Gideon went, and he prepared a kid goat, an ephah flower. The flesh he put in a basket, and the broth from the goat, that is, he put in a pot. And he went with him back into the Terebinth and presented it to him, that is the angel of Yahweh. Look at what the angel of Yahweh does. And the angel of Yahweh said to him, take the flesh and the unleavened cakes and rest them upon the rock. This one. I love that in the Hebrew, it actually says this one, not any rock, this one. I'm telling you where to put it. And I'm telling you the way to put it out. And then pour on the broth. And I love Gideon's response. And he made it so. Gideon didn't say, well, you know, it might look prettier if we went to this rock instead of that rock, because this rock is bigger, you know, and it might look nicer there. Maybe we shouldn't pour so much of the broth on it because, you know, that just makes it all soppy wet and makes a mess and stuff along those lines. He did it exactly as God, the angel of Yahweh, commanded. Let me make a couple observations here. First of all, as I mentioned Samson earlier, this is essentially the same offering that Samson's father, Manoah, makes to the angel of Yahweh when they hear about God's call on their new son. The second thing to notice is the specific way that God has called for the items to be placed, or to be arranged specifically on a rock, on a specific rock. And isn't it wonderful to see Gideon's faithfulness in doing what God has instructed him to do, in the way He instructed him to do it? how much of a contrast that is to Nadab and Abihu as we read in Leviticus 10. Here's an illustration, not the definition of, but here's an illustration of what we would call the regular principle of worship. We worship God as he prescribes, not as we please. We worship God by bringing what God has called us to bring and doing what God has called us to do. But sadly, that's not the case with much of the church in the West, is it? Look at Gideon. Gideon brings the elements of worship. Just as you and I, we bring our lives, we bring our gifts, we bring our offerings, we bring our languages, we bring our whole person to gather to worship God. We bring our voices to lift them before God. All of those aspects of who we are and who we can offer, but the actual presentation both for Gideon and for us is defined by the Lord. That's something that we need to take seriously. God is the one who defines our worship. Worship is the most important single thing we do. And God says, this is the way I want you to do it. Doesn't give us the liberty and freedom to do it any which way we want. He says, this is what I command you to do. This is the offering I command you to bring. Shall we not do that? Third, note also that this is no small amount of food. Sometimes when you read this account, people kind of portray this as, well, Gideon's not really making an offering. He's just getting food for the road for the angel of Yahweh. So as he travels on, he's got something to eat as he goes. It's a form of hospitality. You know, hospitality was a very special thing in the ancient Near East, but that's not the context here. A young kid goat, a full young kid goat, at least according to the websites that I've read, I mean, you dress it out, you're going to get about 20 pounds of meat from that. Some of our farmers can confirm or deny that and go, yeah, it's about right. Hopefully they're going, yeah, it's about right. That's what Google says. And if Google says it, it must be about right. About. But 20 pounds of meat. I don't know about you, I like a good steak dinner. I like good meat roasted over a fire, but 20 pounds is a little bit more than I can handle in certainly in more than a few cities. Okay, we're not talking about a little amount. And by the way, while we're on that subject, an ifa is about three fifths of a bushel. And so we got about three fifths of a bushel of flour, that works out to about 20 pounds again of flour to be mixed into cakes. We're talking about a King's ransom here. We're not talking about little snacks for the road here. This is not provision, but this is offering. This is sacrifice, a food sacrifice that is being made before the Lord. The fourth thing to note is notice the drenching in the meat and the bread with the broth. It should remind us probably of something a few years down the road when it comes to Elijah. And Elijah and having that kind of showdown that he has with the prophets of Baal and Asherah. And again, the pouring of the water over the bowl. This is God's doing. God's basically saying, look, I'm making sure that we understand this is not just some happenstance and an offering. But God is making the offering work. We bring the elements, but God provides the power to that. And it's the same today. We may bring the parts to the worship, but it's God that enables, through His Holy Spirit, that enables us to worship in a way pleasing to Him. It's God, as we prayed earlier, that takes the offerings that we bring and uses them, multiplies them even, to do His work in this world. It's God that's empowering the worship, not just here and making all of this light and fire, but it's God that is empowering the worship. Can man provide the items for the sacrifice? But his power comes from God. Verse 21. Then the angel of Yahweh reached out with the tip of his walking staff. I love that. Which he goes on to say, which was in his hand. Good place for walking stuff, you know, I suppose. And he struck the flesh and the cakes. And fire went up from the rock. I think that's interesting. Fire didn't come down from heaven in this case. Fire went up from the rock and consumed the flesh and the cakes. And again, this is one of those areas where the ESV is maybe not as helpful. It simply says the angel of Yahweh went from this site. It actually vanished as an inference that is being made. He simply went away from Gideon. Let's kind of talk about some of these things because for those of you who still maybe have some reservations about whether the angel of Yahweh is really the second member of the Trinity who is taking on, before he takes on flood, but taking on activity and work within this world, here's the first of two kind of theological observations, points, illustrations, that point to this angel being more than just kind of some divine angel with wings flying around Cherubim or Zerubbim, whatnot. Because here, the angel of Yahweh accepts worship. None but God is able to accept worship, but here we have him accepting the worship and the offering that Gideon brings. And again, like the account of Elijah, It's soaked and there's a miraculous worship or a miraculous offering that is made there. But more importantly, I think we have a lesson that we can gain from the person of Gideon about giving. Remember verse four, going back in the last chapter, it's been a little while since we've been together over Gideon. But if you go all the way back to verse four of this same chapter, you will find that the statement there being made that when the produce was available, the Midianites would come and they would bring all of their armies and bring all of their caravans and bring all of their things and they would seize it up, leaving no sustenance in the land. In other words, the people were poor and food was scarce. Yet Gideon brings a king's offering to God in worship. You know, times such as these, you know, we would kind of excuse provisions, small amounts of provision, because this kind of provision would have kept Gideon for weeks, if not months. But he offered it in faith and in gratitude before the Lord because of the calling that God had put on his life. Scripture tells us that we are to give cheerfully, that's 2 Corinthians 9.7, and that we, it is more honor, it's more blessed to give than to receive, that's Acts 20.25. And as such, we see a model of blessedness of faith in this giving. Remember, he's seeking a sign. Trusting that the Lord will provide for his needs if he gives all that he has. all the provision that is accessible to him to give an offering suitable to the Lord. As pastor, I oftentimes get asked the question, you know, pastor. What percentage should I give? Should I stop at 10%? Maybe if 10% isn't a tie, then I might give a little bit of giving over top of that. If things go really well, or maybe if things are really tight, I can maybe chop that down to 9% or 6% or whatever. And I get that question, and I think it's the wrong question to ask. Because that question kind of presumes that it's my money, and what part of my money do I give? The folks, your wealth, your resources, is not yours to begin with. It's God's. So the real question we should be asking is not how much of my money do I give to God, but how much of God's money do I withhold for myself? And if we begin thinking that way, I think it puts a little bit different light on how we do. If we begin thinking that way, we can understand the widow's might a little bit better. To begin thinking that way, we can understand Gideon a little bit better. We can understand Nehemiah a little bit better. If you look at the provision that Nehemiah gives to all the people that come to Jerusalem, it's amazing. We can understand this mindset where Gideon's basically saying, you know, praise the Lord. I don't get it, I don't deserve it, I'm not worthy of this call, but praise the Lord, I wanna worship him. and I wanna give him worship that's suitable, and so I'm gonna give him what I can give him, whatever it is. Most of what I can give him, even if it leaves nothing left for me, and we're not told exactly how much he might have left, but we're told this is a huge amount of food that he is offering to God. Shall we not live the same way? Will God not bless us the same way if we give all? and trust Him to provide for the things that we need. Because I think if you kind of look back at your life, you'll find that God has always provided the things that you need. Maybe not always the things that you wanted, but the things that you need, particularly in times where you have stepped out in faith and simply followed Him and trusted Him to work out all of the details. And so, again, This is a lesson that we can draw from Guinea, just a very practical lesson, trusting in that provision. And so we find at the end, the angel of Yahweh departs. Again, people speculate. Some people say, oh, he just disappeared. You know, kind of like a magician in the TV shows and stuff like that. Some speculate that he, like Elijah, went up in the fire to heaven. and disappeared in that way, but you can simply translate the Hebrew there, as he walked away. He was out of Gideon's sight, because Gideon wasn't so focused on that, he was focused on his worship. And so he walked away. The text is not specific on how he departed, just that he did depart. And Gideon remained in worship. That brings us to verses 22 and 23. And Gideon understood that he was, that is the angel of Yahweh, was the angel of Yahweh. And Gideon said, oh, Lord Yahweh, it seems that I have seen the angel of Yahweh face to face. And Yahweh said to him, peace be with you. Do not fear, you will not die. This, of course, reference goes back to God's words in Exodus 33, 20. Words to Moses said, no man may see my face and live. Gideon clearly understands that the angel of Yahweh, again, point two, is the image of the invisible God, that he is the second person of the Godhead prior to the second person's taking on flesh. And as a result, he fears for his life. I have seen the face of the angel of Yahweh, essentially I've seen the face of God, and I'm afraid that I will die. This echoes Jacob's language, even, as after he wrestles with the angel of Yahweh in the tent. If you want to debate whether that was the angel of Yahweh, simply look at Hosea 12.4. The text plainly says, so Jacob called this place Peniel, for he saw God face to face, and his life was delivered. So why did Jacob survive? Why did Gideon survive and why didn't? Why did God shield Moses' face? Well, because God is God and he can make those decisions. It reminds me of the language of Paul in Romans, that it is essentially, you know, not the one who wills it and not the one who runs, but it is God who has mercy. We may see the face of God and live, but only in the grace of God. only as a result of His grace. Because apart from His grace, we have nothing. And that remains today. In the end, it is all about God, and it is all for God, and Gideon understands that. Though sometimes we don't always understand it ourselves. As we get caught up in our desires, our works, Things that we want for our life, as opposed to maybe what God wants to do with our life. And because of this, you know, sometimes we see, can't see beyond the world. We can't see beyond the flesh in terms of what God is showing us within his word. Verse 24, and Gideon built an altar to Yahweh, to Yahweh there, and he called it Yahweh Shalom, Even to this day, we're told, it is still in Ophrah, the father of the Ezrites. The this day, of course, doesn't refer to necessarily today. The this day refers to the this day when the book of Judges was being written. It's a geographic reference. It's a sign of the historicity of this book to say, look, guys, I'm writing this. This altar still exists. And if you wanna question it, go look for yourself. It's still there. Same kind of language that Paul uses in 1 Corinthians 15, when he speaks about there's all of these 500 people that have seen the risen Christ. And by the way, some of them are still alive. Go find them, talk to them. You know, you want witness and testimony, go talk to them. And I find it fascinating when I talk to people who doubt the resurrection of Christ, you know, and they say, well, you know, that's just, no, I mean, he's putting it before him, says, go look. Look, if you were a judge and, or maybe let's just say you were an attorney prosecuting your defense, and we're trying or working through a case, If you had two or three witnesses, you'd be pretty satisfied. Credible witnesses, obviously. You'd be pretty satisfied with that. If you had 500 witnesses, it'd be kind of an open-and-shut case. I have 500 people lined up, Judge, that testify to exactly what my defendant is saying. The judge would go, okay, why are we still here? Other guys, grow up. Throw away your case, because it's just not gonna stand. Okay? There's historical reference there. Demonstrates authenticity. And the name given, Yahweh, is peace. Beloved, there is no other place that we will ever find peace but in God himself, through the work of his son, Jesus Christ. does something funny. We're given that as a gift, a peace sign from the angel of Yahweh to Gideon, and then Gideon names the place as such. Yahweh is peace. Peace be with you, essentially, is being said. And in many ways, this anticipates the role of Gideon. Because Gideon's job is to overthrow the Midianites, but not just to overthrow the Midianites, it's what comes next. Not in terms of his but in terms of peace being given to the land. Because when the enemies of God, the idolaters of God get thrown out of the land, the land has peace once again. Peace from the effects of sin and the destruction that sin brings. And that indeed ultimately anticipates the work of Jesus Christ. The work of Jesus Christ bringing peace to his elect and eventually in a profound and eternal way, remaking the heavens and the earth in such a fashion that they are free from the defilements of sin. One more thing, the sign. There was a sign. A sign, ultimately, of God's acceptance of Gideon's sacrifice. And folks, you know, that is Gideon's first and foremost concern, right here and there when he's given this call. He wants to know whether this comes from God, because if it's of God, nothing can stop it. He wants to know and make sure that this is God and that God will bless the calling. Because beloved, if God does not bless your sacrifice, if God does not bless your worship, God will not bless your calling. And I wonder sometimes whether that's a message that the church really needs to hear over and over and over and over again. We look at the world and we wonder sometimes why God doesn't bless the work that we do in the broader world. Why God doesn't allow the wicked to rise up and have power over us at times in this world around us. And I think that brings us back to Gideon and Gideon seeking for a sign and that sign in accordance to worship. And that if we are more intentional as a church throughout our country, throughout the world of worshiping, like God would have us worship, regular principle folks, then I think God might find blessings to give to the worship that would overflow into our work in this community, that we might see sin and idolatry put to death, at least in a human sense of the term. Let's pray. Father, we fall short. And we have a tendency to get comfortable. We have a tendency to kind of like to sit on the couch and yell at the TV when it comes to the evils that go on in the world. And we sometimes forget that it's our duty, our calling to engage this world with your gospel, to make disciples of all of the nations, and to tear down every thought that raises itself up against the knowledge of you. And so, Father, help us to engage in doing that. But we know also that that engagement begins with our worship. And so, Father, I pray that our worship would be faithful to you, that it would be true to you, that it would be in spirit and truth, and that your glory would shine not only in us, but through us.