If you have your Bible with you, I wonder would you open it with me at the seventh chapter of the book of Judges. Judges, chapter seven. I have entitled this message, A Kick Too Strong for the Lord's Enemy. And as we go down the chapter, we will see something of this king that was too strong for the Lord's enemy. You know, friends, as Ulster continues in a crisis situation, as we see betrayals and treacheries all around us, as we see the darkness of apostasy and the power of poverty running riot in our land. It's just possible that the people of God should lose heart and should think that as far as they are concerned, the fight is over. The battle is over. The enemy has triumphed, and the powers of darkness are here to rule the land. Don't you believe it, friends? God is still upon the throne. Don't you, my friends, be discouraged this morning, because the greater the enemy, the greater the victory. the enemy, the more glorious the triumph. And there is no situation, my friend, too great that God cannot deal with. And there is no problem too mighty that our God cannot solve. Now the children of Israel were in a bad state here in this passage of Scripture. You will notice that they were the mark for the rage of hell. My, the enemy had come in all right, and they had come in at the time of the harvest, and they had completely, absolutely made a wilderness of a fair and fertile land, a land flowing with milk and honey. And the children of Israel became the mark and the target of the enemy's activity. And it's the same today. The true church of Jesus Christ will be the target for the rage of hell. There will always be opposition to the church. There will always be opposition to the preaching of the gospel. This opposition, you will notice, was numerous. My, there was a great crowd here. The top here, look at verse 10, of the hosts. There's twelve the Midianites and the Amalekites, and all the children of the East lay along in the valley like grasshoppers for multitude. How numerous were the enemies that were attacking Israel! And how numerous are the enemies attacking the Church, the true Church, the Separate Church of Christ today. You have the old harlot Church of Rome, not changed one iota in her doctrine, and she's on the march across the world. I received a special letter from India, from the Crusader movement there, a dear man who came out of the Roman Catholic Church and fought the battle with Potpourri, and he has been standing in glorious triumph against the enemies of the cross and against Rome from which the Lord delivered. And he sent me a special letter, received it yesterday morning, asking for special prayer. The Roman Catholic Church has conspired against them, and they have filed something like a hundred and twenty-four court orders against them in the courts of the land. And he says, Brother Paisley, it's a conspiracy just to stop our work. My Rome hasn't changed. Don't you think that Papa has got converted? For he hasn't. Don't you believe that? And then we have modernism and apostasy and the false ecumenical movement. And we have a great confederacy all against you. I was reading the ecumenical press service yesterday, and they said the Free Presbyterian Church is just a tiny, a tiny thing in Ulster. I said, thank God, God blesses tiny things. Hallelujah! The Lord's people never were in a majority. The Lord's people have always been a remnant. You know what a remnant is, my dear woman, you know. It's what's left over after the garment's finished. And we're the Lord's leftovers, hallelujah. That's what we are. We're just a lot of nobodies. But God blesses the remnants. So there's a great confederacy against us. And we're under attack! Now, you know, if we were going to fight this battle with carnal methods, we would try and match our strength to the strength of the enemy. We would try to get our numbers up to the numbers of the enemy, but this isn't God's way. You see, in this chapter, God shows us His method to deliver His people. The first thing you will notice is the depleted crowd. Oh, Joyce, you blew a trumpet and 32,000 people responded to the trumpet blast. And I'm sure Gideon, or rather Gideon blew the trumpet, and 32,000 responded. I'm sure he stuck out his chest and he said, I have 32,000 volunteers. My, we're going to give Midian the greatest licking that Midian ever got. And the Lord had a word in his ear. He said, you know Gideon, those 32,000, there's a lot of people with heart failure among They're not good recruits. They wouldn't pass the medical. They're no good. Gideon says they're volunteers. They're good people. They left their farms and their flocks and their homes. The Lord says, all right, make an announcement. Look at the announcement he was to make. He said, you say, whoever is fearful and afraid. All the people with heart failure, go home. And Gideon said, not by many, go home. And Gideon stood there, 32,000, can you imagine it? And Gideon says, every man here that's afraid and that's fearful, the Lord says, you're discharged. Go home. And poor old Gideon thought everybody was going home. Twenty-two thousand went home. Twenty-two thousand. If you have 32,000 people and 22,000 people quit, you would have thought everybody was going home. And poor old Gideon learned that the volunteers were not all that they pretended to be. And the Lord looked at the 10,000 and Gideon said, Well, I've got 10,000 people that are not afraid. Courageous man, they had an offer to be discharged. And they wouldn't take it. My, these are the men. I've got the quality now. The Lord said, get in. There are too many yet. Bring them down to the water. I'm going to test them. So He brought them down to the water. And 9,700 got down on their knees and put their lips to the stream to suck in the water. But you know, There was 300 that kept their hand and their sword, and they didn't get down on their knees into a position where they could have been easily defeated. They just put down their hand and lapped the water up. The Lord said, those 300 will do the job. Those are the men. Those are the real men! 32,000 to 300! lest Israel would bump themselves and say, mine own hand deceived me. My friend of Ulster's going to be saved, and I believe she shall be saved. It's the Lord that's going to do it. And I'm glad God has taken away our confidence in man. I'm glad God has taken away our confidence in organization. I'm glad God has taken away our confidants and parliamentarians. I'm glad the people of God are now trusting in the Lord himself. This is where we're going to get the deliverance. A depleted crowd. God widows them out, puts them through a sieve, and there's 300 of them. 300 men. By the 300 will I deliver. Then the next thing, the unusual method of God is in this dreamed-up cake. This fellow had a dream, and he dreamed about a cake. You know, it was a cake of barley bread. That was the most common bread. It was the bread of the laborer. It was the coarsest type of bread known in the East. It was the cheapest type of loaf that you could procure. And this little cake of barley bread, it came into, we have in our authorized version, it came into a tent, but the word in the original is the tent. Speaking of the tent of the general, the commander of the army, the man in charge of the whole host. And this little cake of barley bread came tumbling in. And it hit the center pole of that tent, and down the tent came. And the man that dreamed of this cake, he woke up, and he said to his companion, he nudged him, and he said, wake up there, I want to tell you I've had a dream. He said, what were you dreaming about? Oh, he said, he said, I dreamed A dream, and lo, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the host of Midian, and came into a tent, or into the tent, and smote it that it fell, and overturned it that the tent lay along. And this fellow answered, This is nothing else save the sword of Gideon, the son of Joash, a man of Israel. For into his hand hath God delivered Midian, and all his host. And there were two fellows outside the tent, eavesdropping. Gideon and Furah had served. And you know what Gideon did? I love this. He worshipped. He worshipped. He said, Lord, we're going to get the victory. You've taken away the confidence of these people. Do you know, friend, what God can do in this land? He can take the confidence from the civil rights people. He can take the confidence from old Cardinal Conway. He can take the confidence from the ecumenical movement. And, friend, He can deliver us with the hint of barley bread. That's what our God can do. That's the God I believe in. I'm looking for a miracle in this land. I'm looking to see God working a delivering miracle. And all these enemies from Wilson and Callaghan and the British cabinet, and he's the leader of the Conservatives, and that slanderer of Protestantism, Mr. Thorpe of the Liberal Party, the whole lot of them, God can take the confidence from them. Our God is evil. It was only a dream, but friend, it reflected the state of mind of these people. Here was a cake that was too strong for the Lord's enemy. It was only a common cake. God takes the common thing. You know, over in the New Testament, there's a great portion of Scripture. I often read it and praise God for it. What a portion of Scripture it is. Let's turn to it this morning. Let's have a look at it, verse 26 of I Corinthians chapter 1. For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called, but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. Hallelujah. 1 Corinthians 1 and verse 27. 1 Corinthians 1 and 27. But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world. That's what we are. Reckoned by the world's education, reckoned by the world's attainments, reckoned by the world's ecclesiastical establishments. We're just a bunch of foolish people. Praise God. That's the people God can use. God can use. You see, the Free Presbyterian Church is God's laugh at the apostasy. God's laughing at the apostasy. Says, I'll take a bunch of people despised, hated, criticized, slandered, lied about, smeared across the world, and I'll use them for my glory." And that's what the Lord does, hallelujah. Foolish things, that's all we are. My, there's hope for us, isn't there? God can use us, the foolish things. Let's look at it again. God hath chosen the weak things. My, we're mighty weak today. We haven't got the tanks of the British Army. We haven't got the authority of starmen that are back. We're just weak. But praise God, it takes a weak thing to confound a mighty. It's wonderful, isn't it? And be a saint! And that's how we are. We're a beast. And we're a beast. And we're hammered and battered and maligned. We're a beast thing. the object of the spits of the world, and the slanders of the slanderers of God's church. And even our own brethren, ma'am, that should be with us, so-called evangelicals, the worst word that they can write about us, they'll write about us. And the worst thing they can say about us, they'll say about us. We have a woman in this province, she's campaigning at the moment, Miss Monica Farrell, and she's been writing, lying slanders to Australia, maligning this church and its testimony. I received a letter, Mr. Wiley received a letter from a good friend of ours, James White, and he says, you know, Miss Farrell has been sending slanders back to Australia concerning the testimony of the Free Presbyterian Church. I rung her up, I said, I'd like to meet you. She says, I don't think we should meet. I said, I think we should. She said, all right. She says, I'll not meet you except Mr. Porter's with me. She says, I'll bring everybody you like. I'll meet the whole lot of them. I'm not afraid of anybody. When God filled me with the Holy Ghost, he saved me from the fear of man, woman, or devil. Praise God for that. I said, I'll meet him. And I said, see, and you're bringing Mr. Porter, I'll bring Mr. Wiley, an old jillbird friend of mine. That friend, as many months ago, she was to arrange a meeting. It's never been arranged. Do you know why? Because people that do these things can't stand up, you know. That's why. Pious things, all right. Let the evangelicals malign us. The Baptist pastor down there in Bangor, he has been writing articles to the evangelical tide. And to Christianity today, that our gospel is the gospel of the upriest clump maligning this church and its testament. Do you think, friend, these things will stop this church going on? Never, friend. God in the midst of her doth dwell. Nothing shall her remove. The Lord to her a helper will. And that right early proves God is going to look after us. A lot of people have tried to stop this church in the past, to put the preacher into prison twice, and to say, it's finished, it never was better. Put me in a third time, we'll be building another cathedral somewhere else. My friend, let me tell you, you can't stop the work of God. Be a saint, that's what we are. We're the offscourings of the evangelicals of our today, they don't want us. But God chooses these things. Look at it! Things that are not! Now, that's getting right done, isn't it? People that are not. As far as the world is concerned, we don't exist. In fact, I read a statement from the Presbytery of the Root. The Irish Presbyterian Church said the Free Presbyterian Church doesn't even exist. I said, hallelujah, we're the are-nots now. We don't even exist. It's good to be that. To bring to naught the things that are, here's the principle God works out, that no flesh shall glory in His presence. I'll tell you something, there'll be no glorying in the flesh. When this church starts glorying in this building, and in its crowds, and in its money, it's finished. Finished. You can put it upon where this tax of Scripture stands. But when this church humbly before God says this building is God's gift to us, we are stewards of His good things, we love the Lord, and we're going to live for Him, and we're going to be pure and holy and separated from sinners, and we're going to win man for Christ. You give me a church like that, it'll carry the wrong parts of the devil any day. The dreamed-off king. Well, there's something more in this chapter. There's the discarded crockery. I like that. These pictures were all thrown away by the 32,000 or the almost 32,000 people that left them. Discarded crockery and Gideon gathered them all up. He said, I'll make use of them. And he put a torch into every one of them. And he gave every man a trumpet and every man a picture. Discarded crockery. And he put these men, he brought these men to the camp and he said, now you're not going to do anything. You're just going to do what I do and you're going to stand in your place. I want you to look at this. This is very important. Verse 21, And they stood every man in his place. Every member of this church has a place to stand in. My place is not your place, and your place is not my place. I have a place to stand, you have a place to stand, and if all God's people took up their proper position for God, we would have a mighty victory. The trouble in the church of Christ, we have people who want to stand in somebody else's shoes, and other people who want to stand in someone else's place. And this discarded crockery was taken. I'll tell you something else, it was smashed. And the vessel of clay has got to be smashed that the light might shine. God wants to break us before we can be torches for His glory. God wants to smash us until we're emptied and broken and finished. And when I learn I'm finished, then God can use me, and not before. We could get God's people to the place where they're absolutely at wit's end, cornered until God works through them, then we'll get places. But if we think we can do it, and we have arrived, then we're finished, discarded. You say, well, preacher, I'm very weak. You're saying, Preacher, I haven't much of a contribution to make. Neither have I, friend, but God will take the weakest contribution and He'll make it mighty. He doesn't despise the day of small things. Would you give yourself to the Lord, believer, this morning? And when the crockery is smashed, the light will shine. I want you to notice something else. There's a double cry here. You know, some of the greatest victories in the Bible came by crying or walking around the walls of Jericho. And how did the walls fall when everybody shouted? I believe in a shout in the church. And if you don't like it, you can buy cotton wool and fill your ears, but we'll be shouting in this church by the grace of God. Some time ago, we had a man came to Christ and he's very fervent in prayer. And when he prays, you'll have no bother hearing him. And a woman came to me and she said to me, I think, Mr. Pleasley, you should silence some of the young men. They pray far too loud. I said, it takes me all my time, madam, to get them to pray. And do you think when I've got them really going, I'm going to stop them? I said, not likely. I wish you would get started. She never came back again. She went to a quiet church where they have a quiet minister and quiet prayer. We believe in a shout in this church. And they shouted, they cried. You know what will deliver Ulster from? The fearful cry of God's people to heaven. You know, this was a cry of assurance. There was nothing uncertain about the cry. They cried, the sword of the Lord and of Gideon. They were assured God was going to give them the victory. There wasn't one of those 300 men who thought they were going to be defeated. And when the Christian church, marching in ranks and in companies divinely ordained, with God's command and blessing on them, they'll not be one of us think that we're going to lose, we're going to win. I'm absolutely confident we're going to win. I'm absolutely confident that God's going to make this church the cradle of revival and the center of blessing. I'm sure of that. It was a cry of dependence, the sword of the Lord. But you know, it was something even more than that. It was the cry of fellowship. Gideon and the Lord. The Lord didn't need Gideon. Gideon needed the Lord. But the Lord deigns to enter into fellowship with His people. God wants you. He can raise a testimony of the stones, but He doesn't do it. He wants the people of God. the sword of the Lord and of Gideon. And the last thing I want you to notice was the divine confusion. My, this is lovely. I love this. My, I'm looking for the day when this happens to Popery and to the old apostates. Look at it. It says, when the three hundred blew the trumpet, the Lord set every man's sword against the spell. You know, the Lord's doing that in the Church of Rome at the moment. are rebelling. I had one of them with me the other day. He came from America. He came to see me. And he said to me, he said, I'm an ordained priest of Rome in good standing. I'm not excommunicated. But he says, my, I want to take the Pope down, he says. I want to bring him down. He says, well, I never say amen to a papist priest, but I could say amen to that. I want to bring him down too. He says, you know, Mr. Paisley, Rome is Babylon. You're getting places now. You just keep at that and you'll be excommunicated, all right? You just keep at it. Let me tell you something that the Lord's raising confusion in the ranks of Rome. And the Lord's raising, you know the Pope said the other day, the Church is going two ways, but we're all one. That's a good one. That's a papal conundrum. That's what that is. We're going two ways, but we're all one. There's confusion in the ecumenical movement. And I'm glad that the apostate churches of this city are emptying. May God empty every one of them. I was at a wedding the other day, and there was a dear woman there. And I was speaking to her. She says, I'm from Macrafeld. I go to the Free Presbyterian Church in Macrafeld. And she says, all the old churches are empty, she said. And my, she was smiling. She says, they're all empty, nobody going to them. And our wee church, we're building additions to it all the time to get the people in. I said, hallelujah. I was past a great church the other day in the city, and there was a man standing outside it, and he said, You know, Mr. Paisley, that church is almost empty. He says, It's very sad. I said, It's not a bit. Hallelujah! He says, The stuff that that fellow preaches there sends people to hell. The sooner it's empty, the better. Man! Confusion! I saw a letter written by the moderator of the General Assembly yesterday, Dr. Carson. And he was trying to tell the man he wrote to what a great regard he had for me and the free Presbyterian. My, they don't know what they're talking about. They're in confusion, the ecumenists, and they're going to be in greater confusion. The Lord set every man's sword against his fellow, even throughout all the host. God's people never struck a blow, you know. They just stood and watched. Stand still and see the salvation of God. Keep your hand off it. It is not your business. Let the Lord do it. That should be our attitude. Let the Lord fight for us. He will fight for us and we shall hold our peace. God is going to do it. And it was not very long before Israel had a great and a glorious victory. And let me tell you, friend, he's just the same today. May the Lord make us willing to do His will for His name's sake. Let's all stand to our feet. Gracious Heavenly Father, we thank Thee for Thy Word. We thank Thee for Thy blessing. We thank Thee for Thy help. Now bless those that go and those that remain. And bless those that shall be received into fellowship today. And Lord, strengthen the church, and lengthen our cords, and strengthen our stakes, for Jesus' sake. Amen.