♪ I have been lost when I say goodbye ♪ ♪ I have been repenting but still I cry ♪ ♪ Empty my heart was the one I found ♪ ♪ Glory to his name ♪ ♪ Ever the harkers of heaven and earth ♪ ♪ Glory to his name ♪ ♪ I am so glad that this day has come ♪ ♪ Jesus was with me and I was with him ♪ ♪ There when the crowds were beginning to repeat ♪ ♪ Glory to his name ♪ ♪ Glory to his name ♪ ♪ Glory to his name ♪ ♪ And to my heart is the blood that flowed ♪ ♪ Glory to his name ♪ ♪ For to his blood is so rich and sweet ♪ ♪ His good works will ever say I do ♪ ♪ Watch him today ♪ ♪ Glory to His name ♪ ♪ Glory to His name ♪ ♪ Praise Him on high as the dawn of day ♪ Let's stand together again. Standing and singing 335. 335, a song of proclamation. 335. Oh, baby, it's my promise. Bring me to God. Oh, baby. And I'll sing this song for you, my love And I'll sing this song for you, my love I want to stay, I want to stay, I want to stay. I am Inside, inside there's a river of song. Believe, believe, believe what I'm telling you. Believe, believe, believe, believe. Inside, inside there's a river of song. Let's take our Bibles out this morning and open them up to the book of John. The book of John, please. Let's try Judges. It started with a J. Judges. Judges chapter 7. Judges chapter 7, please, as we continue looking at the life of Gideon. Judges chapter 7. I'm going to begin reading there in verse number 1. Let me have a word of prayer before we do. Heavenly Father, God, thank you. Thank you for this opportunity to look into your word, your thoughts to us. And as we do so, God, I pray that you would help me to present just your thoughts Help us all Lord to accept just your thoughts and then Lord especially help us to apply your thoughts to our Lives so that we can live in a way that would bring honor and glory to you in Jesus name. Amen Judges chapter 7 please beginning at verse number 1 then durable who is Gideon and and all the people that were with him rose up early and pitched beside the well of Herod, so that the host of the Midianites were on the north side of them, by the hill of Moreh in the valley. And the Lord said unto Gideon, The people that are with thee are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel vaunt themselves against me, saying, My own hand hath saved me. Now, therefore, go to proclaim in the ears of the people, saying, Whosoever is fearful and afraid, let him return and depart early from Mount Gilead. And there returned of the people twenty and two thousand, and there remained ten thousand. And the Lord said unto Gideon, The people are yet too many. Bring them down unto the water, and I will try them for thee there. And it shall be that of whom I say unto thee, this shall go with thee, the same shall go with thee. And of whomsoever I say unto thee, this shall not go with thee, the same shall not go. So he brought down the people under the water, and the Lord said unto Gideon, Everyone that lappeth of the water with his tongue as a dog lappeth, him shalt thou set by himself. Likewise, everyone that boweth down upon his knees to drink. And the number of them that lapped, putting their hand to their mouth, were three hundred men. But of the rest of the people, bowed down upon their knees to drink water. And the Lord said unto Gideon, By the three hundred men that lapped will I save you, and deliver the Midianites into thine hand. And let all the other people go, every man unto his place. So the people took victuals in their hand and their trumpets and he sent all the rest of Israel and every man onto his tent and retained those 300 men and the host of Midian was beneath him in the valley. Just hours before the battle with Midian was to begin, Gideon learned a principle. The principle is this, many are called, few are chosen. When Gideon blew his trumpet to call Israel to battle, as we looked at last week, 32,000 showed up. That's amazing. If you've been with us since the beginning of this series, you understand how amazing that is. 32,000 showed up. That's a lot of men. But look at this, Judges 8, verse 10. Now, Ziba and Zalmunna were in Karkur, and their host with them, about 15,000 men, all that were left of the host of the children of the east, for there fell 120,000 men that drew the sword. Now, if we just take those two numbers and do the math, this is after the battle, by the way, 15,000 left. 120,000 men died in the battle that's coming. There were 135,000 Midianites compared to the 32 that showed up for Gideon. There's still a big difference there, folks. Compared to the Midianites, this 135,000, the number that Gideon had is not very many, and God's only going to take 300 of those. Now, most of us would be asking, What is God thinking here, right? I'm undermanned. I'm outnumbered with 32,000 and now you're gonna only leave me 300. That's not even enough to cook for the 32,000 that were here. But notice, I want you to notice Gideon's response to this reduction. He didn't hesitate. God said, first, I want you to ask anyone who's afraid, go home. He did it. I wonder, I wonder, since Gideon blew the trumpet, 32,000 men showed up. Gideon's probably excited. It's like, whoa, because the day before, he had zero. Several days before that, they were trying to kill him. Now he has 32,000 standing behind him, ready to go. He's excited. And God says, okay, now, anyone that's afraid, send them home. So Gideon makes his announcement, thinking, all right, I got all these brave men. They've answered the call to battle. They've showed up. There are probably a few that'll go home. 22,000 turned around and walked away. Now, what is happening to your heart right at that moment? Oh, I'm in trouble. Gideon's faith is growing stronger here by the moment, because then right after that, God says, okay, Gideon, we got rid of those 22,000 men that were afraid. Now, I want you to take them down to the water, and I'm gonna peel a little bit more away for you here. Now by this time you're thinking, okay, how many are going to leave this time, right? But he still does it. He doesn't hesitate to do what God is telling him to do because his faith is growing stronger. He's doing what God says even though, and here's where many of us struggle, even though it doesn't make sense, he still does it. So why reduce the size of the army anyway? Well, the answer for that is found in verse number 2. The Lord said unto Gideon, The people that are with thee are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hands. Here's why. Lest they vaunt themselves against me, saying, We took on the Midianites, and we beat the Midianites. All 32,000 of us. Aren't we something? That's that classic underdog syndrome. Like in the sporting world, the underdog. Everyone's rooting for the underdog. And when they win, the underdog gets lifted up. God said, no, not on this one. Not on this one. At the root there is pride. And God is trying to tell Gideon, no, I'm not going to do this with 32,000 because there's gonna be a pride issue. Pride, folks. Nothing develops a nation's pride quite like military successes We in America certainly can understand that and God viewed pride as such a threat to Israel That he ordered the army to be reduced in size Folks it's it's interesting that only God gets this concerned about pride How many of you woke up any day last week and prayed, God, please don't let me be proud today. Oh, I don't want to be proud. Well, it's not really on our concern radar, is it? Oh, we don't like proud people. We don't like being around them. Those that are always bragging about themselves, right? But then there's the opposite end of the pride spectrum too. Like, oh, poor me. I'm no good. Nobody likes me. Everyone hates me. I'm gonna eat some worms. You know how the children's story goes, right? Poor me, poor me, poor me. And then they open up Facebook. Oh, poor me, poor me, poor me. I don't have any friends. Nobody likes me. Life is rough. I'm struggling. Where's all the attention for that person? Just like the one who's bragging about themselves. We don't put much emphasis on pride. We don't think it's that big of a deal. Not the way God does. We don't always see the threat in this either. God looks on it as great evil. Look how he addresses this. He puts his emphasis on pride and he uses that phrase, vaunt themselves. That is always an emphasis on pride. It delights in exalting self. Whether in our words bragging about us, whether in our words, which is this false humility pulling attention in on us, or whether it's making sure we're maneuvering and finagling in our lives to make sure we come out on top and my needs are met. After all, I got to take care of me first, right? I'll say more about that tonight, but that's that humanistic philosophy that's pervasive in our world. I can't reach out to others until I take care of me first. And that's exactly the opposite of the way God says it. God says, you love me, and then you love others. And he didn't ever tell us to love ourselves, by the way. The world has taken God's order and flipped it around. I have to love me first before I can love others. And it's that emphasis on vaunting themselves to the top of the pyramid, if you will. A person with that view, that vaunted view of self, has a perverted view of salvation. Can you see that? What can I do? to get God to like me. Or, I've done all of this in my life. Surely God will like me and let me into heaven. It has a perverted view of service. Imagine serving for a group of people and you serve them and you serve them and you serve them and you never see any improvements and you never see any appreciation at all for your service. What do you do? If you're a teacher, you praise the Lord for summer, right? And you're gonna get a new group next year. What do you do? You get discouraged, you can. You can get disheartened. Some people will say, forget it, I'm not doing this anymore. Perverted view of service, it's not about me. It's about what we can do for God and how he can use this. When it comes to salvation, it's a universal problem of man. We all have the same problem. And it's pride which causes us to think that we can work our way to heaven. Ephesians chapter 2, verse 8 and 9, for by grace are you saved, through faith, not of yourselves. It's a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. When it comes to service, now think about it. The Midianites, 135,000 of them. I'm pretty sure that God could have whipped them without Israel. Aren't you? God could do that. If the army wasn't reduced, the soldiers would begin thinking they got the victory. They did the work. Because, why? Pride views our service as needful. God needed me to do this for him. That's the spiritual spin on it, right? I'm doing this for God, and God really needs me to do this. Saying, without me, God couldn't have gotten this done. Pride views our service as needful. Can I say something here? God doesn't need your service. God doesn't need my service. But He chooses to use us to accomplish what He wants done. You see, pride forgets that service, it's a privilege. No one deserves to serve. Everyone gets to serve. It's a privilege to serve God. It doesn't matter how long you've been a member of this church or whatever church you go to, you are not entitled to a position. Serving is not a privilege. That's what pride gets us to think. God, as I said earlier, God does not need us at all. We need to get rid of the idea that we are indispensable to God. When we serve, we're not doing anyone any favors when we serve. but rather God is doing us a favor by letting us serve. Let me illustrate it to you this way. Those of you that have had children before in your homes, maybe still do, There's always that moment when you, as the big person, has something that big people need to do. Whatever chore it is, whatever job it is. And the little person in your life comes up and says, me help, me help. Okay. So you want to be the good big person and let the little person help. Whatever it is, whether it's washing the car, raking the yard, vacuuming, washing dishes, whatever it is. Now, you don't need their help, do you? No. In fact, if they would just get out of the way, you could get it done a lot better and a lot quicker, right? In fact, their help kind of slows you down. But you let them help, don't you? That's what God does with us. God lets us help, lets us serve Him. And so, God being concerned about this pride because of the way pride factors into man's salvation and service, he pared down the army of Israel down to just 300. Something else about pride, though, folks, pride divides. It divides because pride is against God. Pride always opposes God. Satan, full of pride, opposed God. Adam and Eve, full of pride, feeling that they deserved more. Imagine that. The Garden of Eden. Perfect environment. No crime. Okay? No liberal news media. Everything is perfect. They thought they needed more. They thought they were something special, I guess, and they needed more. They needed to be like God, that God was holding out on them. And it divided them with God. Pride divides in our home. Pride divides in all of our relationships. The Bible says, by pride cometh contention. Anytime there is a separation in a relationship, there's pride in the middle. Oh, there's probably lots of other things, but there's definitely pride because God said so, it's there. So the danger of pride justified the reducing of the army. So how did God do it? Well, if you're familiar with this story, you know there was two tests that God gave them. One was the fear test. This isn't the very first original fear factor, okay? This was God's test of fear. This was easy. Anyone who's afraid, go home. 22,000 left. God wasn't just stopping pride by reducing the size of the army. He was also stopping the crippling effect of fear during a battle. Now, this is where we need to be careful, because the same crippling effect of fear can find its way into our church, and it's contagious. As you can imagine, on a battlefield, I don't believe they do this anymore, but years ago, if you had a deserter, there was no court case. Their life was ended quickly. so that it wouldn't spread and cause others to fear and leave their areas of responsibility. It can be very damaging in a church. And it's contagious, just like the spirit of disunity, or the spirit of bitterness, or the spirit of murmuring. It starts with one, and I'll say this, one weak brother or sister who has to speak dissension or bitterness or complaint to someone else, and then it spreads. It does, and we know that. And when it spreads, it divides. Those that are timid, those that are sluggish, the naysayers, the ones that believe they have this self-appointed gift of seeing the negative in everything, of always seeing what's wrong with something instead of the solution. Instead of being a part of the solution, naysayers, cowardness in the church, dressed up, sometimes it's dressed up as, we're just being cautious. There's wisdom in being cautious. Proverbs address that, dresses that, okay? The wise man, it doesn't say the wise man doesn't make a decision. Proverbs says a wise man gets both sides and then makes the decision. Cautious, wise caution, biblical caution has nothing to do with time. It has everything to do with having facts. And then you make your decision. That weakens the effectiveness of the army when there's cowardness in the church. What can we fear, folks? We can fear persecution. We fear scorn. We do fear what the world will say, don't we? What will people think? We do fear what our friends will say. We do fear what it might cost us. We do fear we might have to give some time out of our schedule. And then, think about this, because of all of that fear, fearing what the world's gonna think and our friends are gonna think and what it might cost us and how we might have to give up some time in our schedule and maybe even actually have to cut something out of our schedule, At that point we are not ready for God to use and we have to stand aside. Because the battle is still going to take place. God's purpose is still going to be accomplished. He's just not going to use us. And yes, folks, many a church member, many a pastor, many parents in their homes, many young people in their circle of peers, their friends, have let fear dictate their convictions. They let fear dictate what stands they're gonna take. They let fear dictate the message that they're going to speak. And as we see with Gideon, God believes God believes that we would be better off without them, even if it severely reduces our numbers. You've heard perhaps the saying, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. If you want a really strong chain, get rid of the weakest link, is what that means. Strengthen the weakest link or the weakest link has to go but you're never going to be as strong as the weakest link and This is what God's doing here with the army before he uses them He's getting out those that are fearful Getting them off to the side just sent them home. He didn't rebuke them. He just said I can't use you He didn't say this but we could add this perhaps. I hope I can use you later, but I can't use you right now Folks, in our homes, parents, please, don't let fear dictate what your convictions are in your homes. Let me just say that again. Parents, don't let fear dictate what your convictions are going to be in your homes. Now, can I just, I'm gonna take a couple more steps away from that, because conviction is one of those churchy, Sunday schooly sounding words. Don't let fear, because from convictions, okay? Those come from biblical principles. Those are in the Bible. We can't change those. We have principles. We develop convictions. Based on those convictions, then we develop standards in our home. Parents, don't let fear dictate what your standards are going to be in your homes. Let's take another step away from that. Parents, don't let fear dictate what your rules are going to be in your home. You see? And it all stems back from biblical principles. Fear keeps us from making convictions sometimes. Oh, not me. I'm the man of my house. I have standards in my home. Okay, now implement them. Fear keeps us from implementing them because our son, our daughter, they'll get mad. They'll run to their bedroom and slam their door. Okay, take the door off. It's your house. Store it in the garage until they're mature enough to know how to use a door. Hang a curtain. Let them try to slam a curtain. It's not going to make any noise. Don't let fear dictate those things in our home. Don't let fear of our children. Don't let fear of what people are going to think of our children if they don't do this or they can't do that. Young people, don't let your peers dictate your boundaries. Whether you're sitting here in this room or we have young people joining us through live streaming, if your parents won't set up boundaries, you set them up. Be a Daniel. Take a stand. God gave the Israelites here a second test, a test of drinking. They had to drink some water. Now, just like the fear test, this test had some practical purposes as well. On the surface, it seems kind of odd. What it did is it identified those that were careless. One group got down on their knees, slammed their face in the water and were drinking out of the water like a dog would, okay? The other group got down on their knees and they brought water up to their mouth so they could still be looking. Two different approaches to drinking water. Drinking water was not bad, but it identified some key characteristic that God was looking for in those that he was wanting to use. The cautious ones were aware of the closeness of the enemy. They're not going to let their guard down. Imagine sitting in your home in the evening, okay? And you're by yourself. And the curtains are pulled back a little bit on the window. And you hear sirens in the neighborhood. Depending on your neighborhood, that might not be an unusual thing. I don't know. And then you hear yelling and screaming a couple of doors down. And then you know you saw someone walk past your front window. What do you do now? Your senses are heightened. They're on alert. You're on guard, so to speak. That's how we need to be. That's what God was looking for in these men. See, the other people, the other men, it revealed something about them. Because Gideon said, hey, hey, hey, guys, guys, don't do that. There could be enemies right now sneaking up on us. You gotta be looking for them. But see, it revealed something else about them. These men, they were thirsty. Nothing wrong with being thirsty, is there? We all get thirsty. And when you get thirsty, really thirsty, and you want that ice cold glass of water, you just take that and you close your eyes and you just drink the whole thing down. Focusing on how good that coldness feels on your throat. The taste of the water. And you're focused on that need that you have, right? This test revealed that these men were more focused on fulfilling their own personal desires. They could care less that the scripture told us, just down in the valley, 135,000 Midianites. Oh, and by the way, 22,000 of your people already left and went home. And you are more concerned about your wants You're not even looking for the enemy. They decided fulfilling their flesh was more important, and they were willing to let down their caution in order to satisfy their flesh. Now keep in mind, they're not doing anything sinful. Flesh gets thirsty. We have to fulfill that. But they were letting down their caution in order to satisfy their flesh. See, a good soldier is able to command oneself, keep oneself in check. The military teaches self-discipline. Every one of you that have been in the military, you know that. You didn't have an alarm clock in basic training, did you? Because you didn't have that choice. Someone decided when you got up, when you could take a shower, if you could take a shower, when you were going to eat, how much time you had to eat. when you would be able to go to bed if they let you go to bed that night. Discipline, discipline, discipline, discipline. Why? Because there may come a point in time in that soldier's life when he is out there and his drill sergeant mama isn't there and he still has to function and get the job done. He's thirsty, he's tired. You can't take a nap in your foxhole, folks. That's not a good soldier. Discipline is needed to be taught. We need discipline in our spiritual lives, folks. In our daily lives, we need discipline. And this test revealed that these men were more concerned about fulfilling their physical desires. They weren't wrong, and they were willing to let their guard down, let down their caution. A Christian soldier doesn't let down their spiritual guard either. One commentator put it this way, we don't live to eat and drink. We eat and drink that we may live to the glory of our God. And I do apply that to Krispy Kreme donuts, folks. I'm so looking forward to that buffet after church today. I'm so looking forward to Thanksgiving dinner. I'm so looking forward to this food or that cup of coffee. And sometimes people live for their desires of their flesh, but actually, as this commentator put, we eat and drink so that we can serve God. Try serving God and don't eat or drink anything for a week. You're dead. What does that mean? You have to eat and drink so you can continue to serve God. Sometimes, and some of you are like this, you're like me, you get so busy during the day, you're too busy to stop for lunch. You just work right through it. In a way, sometimes it's kind of a nuisance. It gets in the way. You mean I gotta take 15 minutes to stop and eat? I can't, I got too much to do. But we have to do this in order to work, not the other way around. And folks, it's the same with work. Yeah, our jobs that we have. Some people say, oh, I can't serve. I can't serve in this ministry. I can't be here for these services. I can't do that. Understand, some places of employment require you not to be here. I get that. I can't serve. I have to work. Besides, that's why God called some into full-time ministry, isn't it? So we have someone there to do the work. Folks, if you don't work, you may say to me, if you don't work, you would starve and then become sick and not be able to serve. So you have to work so you can serve God. And yet we flip that around. I can't serve God because I have to work. We take care of our bodies, don't we? We should. Now, some people, some people, worship their bodies. Okay? And you can see them. They walk around like they're monsters or something. I have to be careful I don't flex because I bust the seams in my suit. You know what I'm talking about. They're in the gym hours a day. They're trying for that perfect body, that perfect male specimen. Muscles all in the right place and the right size. And they can flex them and do funny little things with all their muscles. I mean, they just spend all this time on their bodies, eating the right things, weighing out everything that they eat so that it all goes to muscle development. And they've got to have that perfect shape male body. Whoa, wait a minute. Ladies do the same thing, don't they? We take care of our bodies. Not so that we can be the most physically fit specimen in our age group, or fit for guys some ideal look of what a man's supposed to look like. We take care of our bodies so that we can use this body to serve God. Sick bodies can't do as much either, folks. So we have to take care of our bodies. But it would appear that in some areas today that a lot of church members would be a part of that second group in the test. Their highest goal seems to be satisfying their fleshly appetites. Not bad. They're not bad things. But those become more important. The desires of the flesh are made more important than spiritual pursuits. Sports, recreation, pleasure-seeking are given priority, popularity, is given priority. And God says, stand aside, I can't use you right now. Look at God's promise. Now, God gives them a promise here, these 300 that are left. Here comes our test. Do we believe in God? Yes, right? We would all say yes. Do we believe that this is God's word that we have in our hand? Yes. Do we believe the promises of God? We would say yes. Look at verse seven, and the Lord said unto Gideon, by the 300 men that lapped will I save you and deliver the Midianites into thine hand and let all the other people go, every man unto his place. There's God's promise. With these 300, Gideon, we're going to get the job done. May I remind you in the New Testament, because a lot of times we think, oh, oh, there's so much work to do in the ministry, we need more people. God took 12 men and turned the world upside down. God promised them, I'm going to save all of Israel with these 300 men. When did he save all of Israel with those 300 men? After their obedience. We can't miss that. They obeyed and then God blessed. Obedience sometimes tests our faith to the limits. You don't have to raise your hand to this because I know there's many of you in here that would have a story to tell. of something in your past where you decided, I'm going to obey God in this matter. It doesn't make sense. The situation looks more bleak if I do obey God, but God said, I'm gonna do this. Or God says, I need to do this. So I say, okay, I'm gonna do this. And I do this and everything gets worse in my life. It got worse, it didn't get better. Sometimes He tests our faith to the limits. Imagine being one of the 300 that are left standing there. I don't know if this was God's design, but when they did the water test, he told Gideon, okay, have them all drink water, and then separate the groups. So he separated the groups, the 300 here, the other ones over here, and he said, okay, now, send that group home. Now imagine if you're over here. Suddenly you're feeling very exposed, aren't you? Versus if they were all lined up along the water's edge, taking their drink, and Gideon says, okay, all of you that did it this way, you guys can go home. And you're one of the ones that did it the right way. And maybe you kind of like start sneaking away with the other group. You're stuck. You're it. You're one of the 300, whether you want it to be or not. Imagine what you're feeling right at that moment. The timing. God's promises is up to him But he promises this He promises that when he promises he will come through on his promise folks Every single time This promise it I think it clearly points out to us that Quality is more important than quantity That's a good principle. It is a principle in God's word. Quality is more important than quantity. And that's a principle that we'll just throw out there and let it sink in. And certainly we could apply that in our church ministries. Quality is more important than quantity. Numbers are not important. How many of you grew up in a church that right up here on the front of the auditorium there was a little wooden plaque and it had numbers on there? Raise your hand. Oh yeah, all of you, just about. Except if you grew up here, there's not one here. Never has been as far as I know since the beginning of the church. But I do know this, as long as I'm here there never will be for this reason, numbers aren't important. When we start focusing on numbers, that becomes what we worship. And then our focus is on how do we get more numbers. And that can lead churches, that can distract churches in what is important and what is not important. The quality of the program is what's important. The quality of the person is what's important. When we consider what God was looking for in this group of Israelites, pride gets in the way of our service. Fear, carelessness, self-indulgence, those things got in the way of these Israelites being used of God. They get in the way of us being used of God. And so we need to ask ourselves this morning, Would we have been one, based on my life right now, if God did these tests right now, would He have sent me home? Not because I'm doing anything sinful, but I'm just not ready to be used by Him. Then the next step is easy. We need to make the change so that we are usable by God. Can you bow our heads, please? I want to ask you again to ask yourself that question. Would you pass these tests if God were to give us a similarly designed test today to point out the same things He was looking for in these tests? Would you pass? What needs to change, folks? Now, we pray many times that God would be honored and glorified through the preaching of His Word. One way that's done is when His Word is preached, truth is preached, and nothing else. But a second way that we honor and glorify God through the preaching of His Word is what we do with it. God's truth has been presented. We take it, we own it, Or we leave it on the table and walk away. That's your choice. Heavenly Father, God, I pray that we would allow the Holy Spirit right now to work in our hearts. God, sometimes obedience is fearful. It can be a fearful thing. That means our faith, our faith is small. God, I pray you would increase our faith, each one here.