Let me get there. Judges 6. We are going through this study on the book of Judges. And the title of the series that I titled it was, Doing What You Think Is Right and Where That Gets You. And this is taken from the verse in the book of Judges, which declares that everyone did that which was right in their own eyes. And because of that, they ended in the position that they were. Now, we started off looking at the first couple of chapters and showing that there's a cycle that happens. First, Israel leaves God's worship and they adapt to some kind of paganism or idolatry. And in doing so, God sends punishment for their sin and the form of oppression by another people. In this, they then are experiencing this oppression, and they cry out to God for mercy and for salvation. And then God, in His grace and mercy, then raises up a deliverer, a judge, and then delivers them from this oppression. gives them a time of rest, and then they sin again. And God raises up an oppressor. And it's a cycle that continues. And we establish that cycle in Judges 1 and 2. And then from chapter 3 and so forth, we've been watching how that plays out. Now, the interesting thing that I don't know if you've noticed, but this is something to notice as we continue through this. Yeah, the cycle can get a little boring. But the intensity of the cycle increases as it goes. The intensity of the sin. The Israelites going more into pagan practices, sinning worse than they were before. The intensity of the oppression. Whatever peoples are coming up and oppressing them at the time, each time that happens the oppressor is even more cruel and more harsh. And then we see another progression happen, and that is the integrity and the authenticity of the deliverer. Because what you're going to see as we move on is that a downward progression happens at the people that God continues to use to raise up to deliver and judge Israel. First you have an Othniel, then an Ehud, then a Deborah, a Barak, and then Gideon, and we're going to get down to this guy Samson. And you're familiar with Samson and all his problems. And it continues to get worse and worse and worse. So we're gonna cover sort of a three-part miniseries, maybe four-part miniseries of one of the most familiar characters in the Book of Judges, and that is a guy named Gideon, a guy named Gideon. Now, I've played along with, I've played around with my outline up until like the point of, you know, actually beginning the service and the title, so I don't know what I put up there. God's will be, okay, so that's a different title than I have on my notes, all right? So, God will be glorified. Let me ask you a question this morning. Does it matter how God is worshipped? Does it matter? You say, well, as long as the person is sincere in their heart, then God can be worshipped. Is that the case? Is that the case? Here's a sentence I want to carry through about this text. God's grace and desire to use us always overcomes our weakness and unworthiness. Let me read that again. God's grace and desire to use us always overcomes our weakness and unworthiness. As I studied this, this is an interesting character, Gideon, because as I studied this, I found that there's a unity in understanding this guy in the commentators. But it seems like there's a disconnect between what the overall evangelical church has come to see Gideon as. See, many people approach this text, this chapter specifically of Gideon's life, as using somebody who's weak. And you find many sermon series, if you did a search online about sermon series on Gideon, you will find that a lot of sermon series have to do with God's using you when you're your lowest, God using the weak, God using you in your weakness. Gideon, the story of Gideon. And that can be maybe a way that we approach the story. I chose not to, simply because I don't necessarily see Gideon as someone that we are to emulate. See, Gideon's life sort of is like an arch, all right? He starts off low. Then God raises him in chapter seven to achieve a great victory, and that's a high point. But he ends not very good. Now this is an interesting thought that we could have maybe a back and forth debate if you wanted to after the service. But God in His sovereignty chose Gideon. We wouldn't have. See, if we knew how Gideon was going to end up, I wouldn't choose him. I don't think I would have. But God does. And so as we see this, I think that I want to point out a couple of things. There's a lot of application that goes through there. And then you have at the end of the chapter, something we're going to come to, that is actually practiced a lot in churches. And that is this, how many of you know the part of the story of Gideon about putting out the fleece? Putting out the fleece. And many people will use that and will even teach people to do that type of thing to find out what God's will is. But as I studied and read the commentators, and I already had this sort of position before I came to it, but as I read and studied these commentators, they were all unified on this position that that was not a good idea. So let's jump into this passage. First, let's begin reading. Let's read chapter 6, beginning at verse number 1. So the Lord delivered them into the hand of Midian for seven years. And the hand of Midian prevailed against Israel because the Midianites Because of the Mennonites, the children of Israel made for themselves the dens, the caves, and the strongholds which are in the mountains. So it was. Whenever Israel had sown, Minyanites would come up, also Amalekites, and the people of the east would come up against them. Then they would encamp against them and destroy the produce of the earth as far as Gaza and leave no sustenance for Israel, neither sheep nor ox nor donkey. For they would come up with their livestock and their tents, coming in as numerous as locusts. But they and their camels were without number, and they would enter the land to destroy it. So Israel was greatly impoverished because of the Midianites. And the children of Israel cried out to the Lord, And it came to pass, when the children of Israel cried out to the Lord because of the Midianites, that the Lord sent a prophet to the children of Israel who said to them, Thus says the Lord God of Israel, I brought you up from Egypt and brought you out of the house of bondage, and I delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians and out of the hand of all who oppressed you, And you drove them out before you and gave you their land. Also I said to you, I am the Lord your God. Do not fear the gods of the Amorites and whose land you dwell, but you have not obeyed my voice. Now the angel of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth tree, which was in Aphra, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon threshed wheat in the winepress in order to hide it from the Midianites. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor. Gideon said to him, O my Lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? and wear all his miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt? But now the Lord has forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites.' Then the Lord turned to him and said, Go in this might of yours, and you shall save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Have I not sent you? So he said to him, O my Lord, how can I save Israel? Indeed, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house. And the Lord said to him, Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat the Midianites as one man. Then he said to him, If now I have found favor in your sight, then show me a sign that it is you who talk with me. Do not depart from here, I pray, until I come to you and bring out my offering and set it before you." And he said, I will wait until you come back. So Gideon went in and prepared a young goat and unleavened bread from an eave of flour. The meat he put in a basket, and he put the broth in a pot, and he brought them out to him under the terebinth tree and presented them. The angel of the Lord said to him, take the meat and the unleavened bread and lay them on this rock and pour out the broth. And he did so. Then the angel of the Lord put out the end of his staff that was in his hand, touched the meat and the unleavened bread and fire rose out of the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened bread. And the angel of the Lord departed out of his sight. Now Gideon perceived that he was the angel of the Lord, so Gideon said, Alas, O Lord God, for I have seen the face of the angel of the Lord face to face. Then the Lord said to him, Peace be with you. Do not fear, you shall not die. So Gideon built an altar there to the Lord and called it, The Lord is Peace. To this day, it is still an offer of the Abiezrites. Now it came to pass the same night that the Lord said to him, Take your father's young bull, the second bull of seven years old, and tear down the altar of Baal that your father has, and cut down the wooden image that is beside it. And build an altar to the Lord your God on top of this rock in the proper arrangement and take the second bull and offer a burnt sacrifice with the wood of the image which you shall cut down. So Gideon took ten men from among his servants and did as the Lord had said to him. But because he feared his father's household and the men of the city too much to do it by day, he did it by night. And when the men of the city arose early in the morning, there was the altar of Baal torn down, and the wooden image that was beside it was cut down. And the second bull was being offered on the altar which had been built. So they said to one another, Who has done this thing? And when they had inquired and asked, they said, Gideon, the son of Joash, has done this thing. Then the men of the city said to Joash, Bring out your son, that he may die, because he has torn down the altar of Baal, and because he has cut down the wooden image that was beside it. But Joash said to all who stood against him, Would you plead for Baal? Would you save him? Let the one who would plead for him be put to death by morning. If he is a god, let him plead for himself, because his altar has been torn down. Therefore on that day he called him Jerob-baal, saying, Let Baal plead against him, because he has torn down his altar. Then all the Midianites and Amalekites, the people of the east, gathered together, and they crossed over and encamped in the valley of Jezreel. But the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon. when he blew the trumpet, and the Abiezrites gathered behind him, and he sent messengers throughout all Manasseh, who also gathered behind him. He also sent messengers to Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali, and they came up to meet them. So Gideon said to God, If you will save Israel by my hand, as you have said, Look, I shall put a fleece of wool on the threshing floor. If there is dew on the fleece only and it is dry on the ground, then I shall know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you have said. And so it was, when he rose early the next morning and squeezed the fleece together, he wrung the dew out of the fleece, a bowl full of water. Then Gideon said to God, do not be angry with me, but let me speak just once more. Let me test, I pray, just once more with the fleece. Let it now be dry only on the fleece, but on the ground let there be dew. And God did so that night. It was dry on the fleece only, but there was dew on all the ground. Let me say this before I get started. Some may say, that was a long reading. Why do you read so much? Can I say this? Let's, I hope that we can cultivate a attitude of we enjoy when the Word of God is being read. This is not a lot of reading. If you go back to the Puritan days, they would read for lengthy periods of times words of scripture. You go back further than that, you go back to the, I believe it's the book of Nehemiah, they read the scriptures for Six hours? I know one pastor in Washington, D.C., Mark Dever, was preaching through Psalms and came to Psalm 119 to preach through the chapter, and he had an outline to preach through on the whole chapter, but before he did, he read the entire Psalm 119, and it took 20 minutes of his message to read it. I want to encourage you. Let's enjoy the reading of God's Word. Now, let's jump into this and see what God has for us out of this chapter. The first thing I see in the first ten verses is the cry of sinful Israel. I mentioned the cycle that we see. Herbert Wolfe said the Gideon cycle extending to 100 verses is the longest segment of the book with four more verses than those given to the Samson episodes. So our story of Gideon is actually the longest character study, the longest sort of event surrounded by one person in the entire book. So when we cover the story of Gideon, this is the most the book has to say about one person. The first thing we see is in verse 1, transgression. It says this, which we are used to by now. The children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, so the Lord delivered them into the hand of Midian for seven years. The Midianites were a semi-nomadic people of the Sinai Peninsula and Western Arabia. According to Genesis 25, they were distant relatives of the Israelites, being descended from Abraham by his second wife, Keturah. Midianites were involved in the sale of Joseph of Egypt. Where do we see Midianites in the Bible? They were involved in the sale of Joseph to the Egyptians where his brothers sold him to slavery. They provided Moses with a haven when he fled Pharaoh. You remember the story where Moses left Egypt and then he found the men bothering the ladies at the well and he saved them and they took him back to his dad and he married... Those were Midianites. And so Moses became a Midianite shepherd for 40 years. Indeed, his wife was a daughter of a Midianite priest. In Numbers 25, because of Midianite initiative in leading Israel away from Yahweh, the anti-Midianite stance became official. An official divinely sanctioned policy later expressed in a full-scale war against them in Numbers 31. From that point on, The Midianites are only shown in the Old Testament as an enemy or a thorn in the side of the nation of Israel. So this is the transgression. Next we see the oppression, verses 2 through 5. So here's the kind of oppression they had. They couldn't even stay in their homes anymore. If they wanted to feed their families, they started digging out holes in caves. They started excavating, if you will. Finding places where they could live, survive, and then plant crops. We see that Gideon is doing something similar to this when we come to him in verses 11 through the rest of the chapter. And this is actually something that is mentioned in the book of Hebrews. In the book of Hebrews chapter 11, you see the roll call of faith, by faith this person, by faith this person. And when you get to verse 37, it talks about those that had faith that God used and the judges. And then verse 38 talks of whom the world was not worthy, wandering about in deserts and mountains and in dims and in caves of earth. Look at verse 4. This is another prophesied punishment. Leviticus 26.16 says, I've been listening to a seminary course on covenant theology, and the professor was talking about how these covenants were basically God stayed true to his word, because whenever he made the covenant with Israel, And he told them, you, this is your responsibility and you don't, this will be the punishment. You go through the entire Old Testament, you find time after a time after time again, that God kept his word in that. And those punishments that were mentioned back during the law, Deuteronomy, Leviticus, happened later to them as a nation. Next petition, verses six to seven. So Israel was greatly impoverished because of the Mennonites, and the children of Israel cried out to the Lord. And it came to pass when the children of Israel cried out to the Lord because of the Mennonites, that the Lord sent a prophet. So they cried out to God. Wiersbe said this, and this is, understand, the quote I'm about to read from Warren Wiersbe is in the context of the suffering because of your consequences. So there's a couple types of suffering, right? There's suffering that we take on as a trial. God sends it divinely. We are suffering at the hands of somebody else's sin. But there is also a suffering that comes because of our own sin. Now, a lot of times in the past, conservative Christians, fundamentalists have put this idea out there that what you're going through is because of your own sin. That's folly. In fact, it's actually proven folly biblically because this is the same concept that is given by one of Job's friends to Job and saying that all the things that he was going through was because of his sin. which is proven in the book not to be true. Amazing how we continue to spout the lies that are disproven already in Scripture. But there is a suffering. That kind of truth does not negate the fact that there is a suffering that is related to our own sinful choices. Galatians 6 says, Whatsoever you sow, you will also reap. Those that sow sin and death will reap death and corruption. So there is a consequence, there is a suffering to our mistakes. And what Israel is facing, and what we're covering, is the suffering brought about because of their sin. This is not an ignorant suffering. It's not an ignorant consequence. Because did not God inform them time and time again, if you do this, this will happen. So Weersbe says unless our suffering leads to repentance, it accomplishes no lasting good. Unless our repentance is evidence of a holy desire to turn from sin, not just escape from pain, repentance is only remorse. And I think one of the big problems we have in churches is that we interpret remorse as repentance. And we can't do that. Now, what's the catch with that? What's the sticky situation that we find ourselves in those kind of situations? The common thing, we don't know a person's what? Heart. You're absolutely right. We cannot look into their heart. Meaning we can never really fully know if repentance has taken place. I was talking to a biblical counselor, friend of mine in Murfreesboro, and he was talking to me about the hardest case he ever had working with somebody was an alcoholic. He said he had so many sessions with this person and they got to the root of the issue time and time again and the guy lost everything. He lost his family, he lost his job, had a great six-digit career, six-digit income career, and he lost it because So many times, time and time again, he said, John, I thought this guy had repented. And what it was was simply remorse. We don't know. Now, are there things that we look for, things that even the Bible teaches us that we can look for to find true repentance? There is. And there is that risk factor that we can say, all right, we can see this. But let me tell you something, there could be manipulation of that time and time again. So there's a tension there. There's a tension in how we judge that. Now, God does know. God does know. And so when we go to Scripture and we see God's assessment of this, God knows that Israel has not repented. So, time and time again, he continues with the punishment. Accusation, verses 8-10. He sends the prophet. Now, the prophet tells them straight. Verse 8, "...who said to them, Thus says the Lord God of Israel, I brought you up from Egypt and brought you out of the house of bondage." What does he tell them first? First, he tells them what he has done for them. Verse nine, I delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians and out of the hand of all who oppressed you and drove them out before you and gave you their land. Look at all this that God's done for them. They have no excuse. They have no excuse. Verse 10. And also I said to you, I am the Lord your God. Do not fear the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell, but you have not obeyed my voice. Now, here's something that we're going to be hitting through the rest of this message. What was the thing that God said to them was the major sin issue he had to deal with? Obedience in what? Worship. Obedience and worship. What was the major sin that they committed? They left the worship of the God who had done this and done this and done this for them for the false fake gods and idols that the other peoples were bringing in. And he tells them, you have not obeyed my voice. I told you not to go worshiping these gods. I told you not to worship idols. And you left it. You know, obedience and worship go hand-in-hand. This goes all the way back to Genesis with Cain and Abel. What was the issue there? Cain did not worship how God had instructed. Abel did. And so obedience and worship goes hand-in-hand. So this idea of just having a sincere heart is acceptable worship is fallacy to the Word of God. because God does have something to say with how he is to be worshipped. Alright, so this brings us to number two. The cry of sinful Israel, now the call of simple Gideon. So here we have this guy Gideon. Verse 12, And the angel of the Lord appeared to him, and said to him, The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor. A couple of things we need to identify. First, the angel of the Lord. I believe there's a theological concept of this thing called a theophany. or a Christophany. What is that? That's just a fancy way of saying that God or Christ had appeared in the Old Testament for certain times and is many times identified as the angel of the Lord. We saw it, I think, earlier in Judges at the end of chapter 1 and chapter 2. There's other places throughout the Old Testament that this happens. And there's speculation on this. There's actually disagreement on which ones are theophanies. The most common one that is known is Genesis 18 when Abraham was hanging out at his house and then three visitors showed up, one of them being God. and Abraham cooks a meal for him. And then after that, the main visitor, which I believe was a theophany, was God in human flesh, came and took Abraham and they had this conversation about destroying Sodom and Gomorrah. That's Genesis 18 and 19. What is this? Is this just simply an angel or is this a Theophany or Christophany? If you want my opinion on it, I believe it is a Christophany. I believe that this is not just a regular angel and angelic form that showed up because of Gideon's reaction. I think Gideon's reaction shows that this person looked like a normal person. And then when Gideon finds out later, he's scared to death because I believe, I know this is this is Johnology here, but I believe the reason why Gideon freaks out afterwards and says, oh my goodness, I just messed up, is because he was talking to this person in such a disrespectful manner, thinking they were just some other person. And then when he realized, wait, that was God that was right there with me, he'll strike me dead for the irreverence that I talked to him to. And so that's why I believe that this is. And then later on in the text, instead of saying the angel of the Lord, some translations do it, but some other translations just interpret it, the Lord said, the Lord said, the Lord said, okay? So we have that. Then in this we have where Gideon is. He was the son of a guy named Joash and he threshed wheat and the winepress in order to hide it from the Midianites. We saw this as this is what the whole nation was doing. To hide the wheat and himself from the Midianites, Gideon was threshing in a winepress. It is a pit carved out of a rocky ground. Normally threshing floors were located in an exposed area so that the wind could blow easily away the chaff. I talked about this whenever I preached through the book of Ruth. They would have flat landing places that they had built and this is where they would bring all of, they would bring, you know, buckets loads, basket loads of this stuff and they bring it on this flat plain and they would do it at a certain time of day and wait for a windy day because they needed the wind as they throw it up and let the wind blow it, blow the chaff away and have the grain fall. To have him doing this in what was actually a wine press makes this job extremely difficult, but this is what he was doing. Why? Generally, wine presses involve two excavated depressions in a rock, one above the other The grapes would be gathered and trampled in in the upper while the conduit would drain the juices to the lower. The present location would have been satisfactory for beating out the grain, but separating the grain from the chaff in these circumstances would have been much more difficult. But this is what they were having to do. So then we see Gideon's crying in verse 13. Gideon said to him, Oh my Lord, if the Lord is with us, Why then has all this happened to us? Where are all His miracles, which our fathers told us about, saying, Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt? But now the Lord has forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites." So here's this attitude like, where's God? Have you ever said that? Have you ever been in your situation and thought, how can it get worse? And think, where's God? I think it can be easy for us. Now, let me say this. I do not believe, I said it once, I'm gonna say it again, I do not believe Gideon is someone that we should emulate. But I do think Gideon is someone that we can identify with. Because we're sinful as well. We're weak as well. We have moments where we are so low, we may ask the same question. The Lord's command, verse 14. Now, this is God saying to Gideon, and Gideon is not registering that this is God saying it to him. He's saying, listen, don't worry about it. You just go. You do it. I have sent you. And in our times, we need to remember that as well. We need to remember that. That it's not in our weakness, that's where God does His work. Because God is saying, I have sent you. Gideon's excuse, verse 15. So he said to him, O my Lord, how can I save Israel? Indeed, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house. Gideon does here another thing that I think that we do as well. What is that? Fibs exaggerates. He said, why do you say that? Well, when we are low, when times are really bad, we tend to make them worse than what they are in our minds. And that's what Gideon's doing. What did he say? He said, my family's the least in Israel and I'm the weakest in my house. Really? Look at verse 27. So Gideon took 10 men from among his, what? Servants. I mean, that must be a pretty profitable place if the least house in Israel has at least 10 slaves. When Gideon goes to tear down this altar, what does he do? He takes 10 guys with him that he can just say, come with me, and they'll jump and say, hi. I mean, he's got 10 servants. Really? You're in the least house of Israel? Now was he the weakest in his house? Was he the lowest? Probably. But his house was not something that we would have been like, come on, man. You're exaggerating that a little bit. I know some poorer people than you. The Lord's assurance, verse 16. And Gideon's request. Gideon says, okay, I'll play along, I'll play along. So Gideon decides to test this person, test God. Then he said to him, if now I found favor in your sight, then show me a sign that it is you who talk with me. Do not depart from here. I pray until I come to you, bring out my offering and set it before you. And he said, I will wait until you come back. So what does he do? The next few verses lay out what Gideon does. He goes and he cooks a meal, cooks a goat, gets unleavened bread, cooks a pot of soup, takes it out there. And as he brings this entire meal all the way to to the person sitting out there, to God, and then he tells him, set it on this rock. So Gideon sets it on the rock and he's probably sitting around like, alright, let's see what happens. Consumed in fire. Gone. Just like that. Fire from the rock. I had something wrote down here. When deity, Daniel Block said this in his commentary, when a deity consumes the meal of a worshiper that a worshiper has brought, this is a sign that the latter, the deity, has found favor in their sight. Now, is that what Gideon felt? Did he felt like after the fire consumed the meal that he had found favor in God's sight? No. The opposite. Fear struck him. Look at verse 22. He says, now Gideon perceived that he was the angel of the Lord. So Gideon said, Alas, O Lord God, for I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face. He thought he was going to die. He probably had read when he was young and knew the story and account of Moses saying, God, let me see your face. And God said, no one can look at my face and live. And Gideon is probably now making that connection and saying, Oh, oh, I just talked to him the way I did. He's going to kill me. I'm a dead man. And that's probably what Gideon's, that's what I believe is Gideon. Now I may be wrong on that, that sort of understanding of Gideon's mind frame during that time. I'll, you know, admit that. But that's what I believe where Gideon's mind frame is at at this point. So the encouragement or the comfort of the Lord comes right away in verse 23. The Lord said to him, Peace be with you. Do not fear. You shall not die. What is that? It's grace. Because he should have killed him. We just sang this morning, holy, holy, holy. You're going to talk to the holy of holies like that? You deserve death. God came back and said, whoa, whoa, whoa. Shalom. Peace. Don't fear. You're not going to die. That was grace. So then we have the consecration of a sovereign God. Really, this is the worship part of the passage, but I couldn't think of a C word. We were looking up synonyms for a C word that goes along with worship, so consecration was the best I could come up with. I'm telling you, I'm really bad at outlines, okay? So first, Gideon's worship, verse 24. So Gideon built an altar there to the Lord and called it the Lord is Peace, or Jehovah Shalom. To this day, it is still in offer of the Abiez rites. Now, it came to pass. Now, here's a little interesting. Let's see. The Lord's instructions. He tells him what to do. Some of your translations may call it an Asherah. You may see that in your translation, an Asherah. An Asherah was a female deity that went along with wherever a Baal altar was. I don't want to be inappropriate, we do have young ones in here, but you can probably use your imagination. This was a fertile deity, this goddess of fertility, and so all kinds of wicked pagan practices were practiced. So anywhere there was a Baal altar, they had an Asherah that was there as well. Verse 26, he said, Then build an altar to the Lord your God on top of the rock in the proper arrangement. Take the second bull, offer a burnt sacrifice with the wood of the image, which you shall cut down. So Gideon took ten men from among his servants and did as the Lord had said to him. But because he feared his father's household and the men of the city too much to do it by day, he did it by night. That is an interesting note. The Bible says that Gideon did this at nighttime out of fear. Out of fear. I don't know how to understand that. Part of me wants to say, well sometimes fear brings wisdom. I don't know if this is to lead us to believe that Gideon was doing proper actions, wise actions, because these guys would have attacked him in the broad daylight and he wouldn't have got it done. or if this is showing us the cowardice of Gideon, and he didn't want to make any stink, even though it was going to be happening the next day when they saw this. I don't know how to interpret that, okay? I'm coming to that text, and I can see two ways of understanding it, but I think the one leads me more to the cowardice of Gideon, because the Bible deliberately tells us the reason he did it was not out of a wise action, but out of a fearful action. And quite honestly, if God wanted this done, there's nothing that the men of the city could have done to Him to make it happen. Now, verse 27. Okay, so He did this, did it by night. Now, outrage over Gideon's actions, verses 28 through 30. Man of the city arose early in the morning, as an altar of Baal torn down, the wooden image that was beside it was cut down, and the second bull was being offered as the altar which had been built." Now understand this, this is all instructions from God. Why? Before he decided to drive out the Midianites, he thought it was important to do what? remove the pagan worship and install or reinstate his worship. Worship matters. Now there's a couple threads that run through there and I think they come parallel and one of these things that come through this text is the importance of worshiping God in this. And then, so, Herbert Wolfe said, they demanded Gideon's death. How different from Deuteronomy 13, where Moses commanded that even close relatives must be stoned for idolatry. The heresy had become the main religion. Let me repeat that. The heresy had become the main religion. Let me say it one more time for a modern day application. The heresy had become the main religion. One of the fascinating things that I find as I delve into church history time and time again is finding out how much the heresies that they fought during their days have now become mainstream in ours. And that's important to note. Remember what I said during the song service, the singing time, I said that we need to strive for a big God theology. The majority of the evangelical church today has seen the supremacy of man, the thing that brings them the more money and buildings and people. Not the supremacy of God. Protection from Gideon's father, verses 31, Joash said to all who stood against him, Would you plead for Baal? Would you save him? Let the one who would plead for him be put to death by morning? If he is a god, then let him plead for himself, because his altar had been torn down. Way to go, father. Way to go, dad. He did a good job there. He knew it was his son. He probably was not happy with his son, noting that this pagan altar was actually on his property. But he thought that his son was someone that needed to be protected over than the pagan worship. And, let me say this, he probably, this is one commentator pointed this out, Joash might have had a little bit of incense with the pagan gods because they were still being oppressed by the Midianites. Apparently their worship of the pagan gods had not got them very far. So he's probably a little bit about that. So that comes with his idea of saying, listen, if Baal's really the god and his altar was torn down, why don't you let him contend for himself? Let him fight that. Let him take care of Gideon. Stop trying to defend your god. Let him take care of it. So they renamed him Jerob Baal. And then we have an interesting transition. We go from this entire story of Gideon meeting God and his calling, and then we go back to the Midianites. And this is verses 34 through 35. So he's gathering the troops. And this interesting thing that says that the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon, so he did this out of a Holy Spirit work through Gideon during this time, and they're gathering the troops, they're gathering the coalition to go against the nation of the Midianites. So this brings us to the last four verses, and probably the most popular part of the story, the call for a sign from God. Now, there's some things we have to keep in mind as we approach this part of the story. Number one, what was the problem that Israel had? What was the main sin that Israel had done? They disobeyed in worship. Obedience was a major factor. God had already proven Himself. He was already gracious to Gideon not to kill him by the way that Gideon spoke to him. He was already gracious to Gideon to entertain the sign that He asked him to burn up the food. And now what does Gideon do? Let me say this. We could also interpret that the fact that the nations were coming together at the call of Gideon's trumpet was a divine miracle. And what does Gideon do? Verse 36. This is his doubt. So Gideon said to God, if you will save Israel by my hand, as you have what? Said. That's important. That is hugely important. As you have said. Because what does it show? It shows the wickedness of Gideon's heart in the moment. Because why won't he just obey? God's already given him the word. God's already told him. Verse 37, look, I shall put out a fleece of wool on the threshing floor. If there is dew on the fleece only and it is dry on the ground, then I shall know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you have said. Now we say this all the time. What is this? God's Word. And whenever we find it in God's Word and it disagrees with the way we are, what do we do? We change. We adapt to it. We obey God's Word. Gideon had God's Word and he admitted that he had God's Word. He said it twice, as you have said. And what is he doing still? Asking for a sign. God, prove it to me one more time. This is not something that we need to be looking at as an example to do. The problem is, is I think many people approach this text very shallowly and then they come away with the fact that God appeased Gideon with His grace that they say this is an acceptable practice. Absolutely not. In verse 38 it says, And it was so, when he rose early the next morning, and he squeezed the fleece together, he wrung out to do with the fleece a bowl full of water. Ground was dry underneath it. Verse 39, Then Gideon said to God, Do not be angry with me, but let me speak just once more. Let me test, I pray, just once more with the fleece. Let it now be dry only on the fleece, but on the ground let there be dew. Let the ground be soaking wet and the fleece completely dry. He knew what he was doing. I think he even knew it was wrong. So God did so that night. It was dry in the fleece only, but there was dew on all the ground. I saw this so many times, especially in Bible college. I saw college students trying to figure out where they were supposed to work, who they were supposed to marry, and they'd come back to the dorm room, I'm putting out the fleece, guys. They would even say that. I'm putting out the fleece. And I remember one guy actually said, I'm gonna go ask a girl to marry me. He wanted to marry this girl. And he said, I'm gonna ask, I planned a dinner with her parents. I'm gonna ask her dad this, and her dad's got to say this, this, and this. And if he doesn't, I know that that's not God's one for my life. I was like, dude, you're an idiot. I did. I told him, I was like, why? Because I definitely was not doing that when I was there. I was like, listen, Mary's so much better than me. I'm an idiot if I try to let that go. All right. I was like, why are you going through all this? This girl you're trying to marry is amazing. Just marry her. But he had to do all these little things to make sure it was. Because there was such this fear, there was a fear that was put into the fundamentalism that I came from of, if you don't do God's will, then your life's gonna be a wreck. You better do God's will, find God's will. And so this mysticism that was given with God's will. Now, let's go back just a moment to our text to understand where God's will is found. Did Gideon know what God's will was before he did this? Absolutely. Survey says, yes, 100%. He knew it. He even said he knew it. So where was God's will revealed to Gideon? In his what? In his word. Where is God's will for us today revealed? In His Word. So many people say, what do I need to do? And I say, well, there's seven places in the New Testament that says this is God's will for your life. And I take them one step by one. One verse after the other. Are you doing this with your life? Is this your life characterized by this? Are you doing this? Because it says this is God's will. If you're not, don't worry about this decision. Don't even think about it. Focus on getting this right. If all seven categories are a big check yes, do whatever you want. Because obviously, you're walking in step with God. That's scary to people. That's scary to people. Listen, we serve an awesome God who is... We don't have to look for billboard signs and test Him. In fact, God even told the Pharisees, wicked and evil generation, look for a sign. Testing God is not a good idea. So, our application, I don't have a slide for our application, so let me go to a couple points of application here. Number one, if the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, let me say that again, if the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, then to worship idols is a sin against the divine that must be addressed. If that is our ultimate purpose is to glorify God with our lives, then when we don't glorify God with our lives, it will have to be addressed. Whether by you or by God. And we see that in the story of Israel. Number two. Now this is the sentence, number two point of application is the sentence that I started off with you. It's an incomplete sentence, if you will. God's grace and desire to use us always overcomes our weakness and unworthiness. That's true. God's grace and desire to use us always overcomes our weakness and unworthiness. Number three. God's will for our lives is not to be found in signs or testing God, but to follow and obey His revealed word. All right, I've hammered those out, so I'm gonna move to the final statement. And I said this several times already. God's grace and desire to use us always overcomes our weakness and unworthiness, comma, because it brings Him the most glory. The title of the message this morning was, God Will Be Glorified. God will be glorified. And so, to use us in our weakness. You know, Josh, I was thinking about you this week, because when I was approaching this text, from like the point of, oh, God used Gideon in his weakness, and God can use you in your weakness, I was thinking, I'm going to title this message, Underdog, because that was Gideon. But listen, the whole purpose of God using us in our weakness is so that He receives the most glory in it. That's what it's for. So He will be glorified. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for all that you've done. You are a great, wonderful God, and you are a holy God. Father, let us not forget your holiness. Let us not forget your worthiness. And let that, our remembrance and our adoration of that, bring us to a conscious understanding of our unworthiness. Help us not to become so arrogant to test you. But help us to be those that are available for your service. We thank you for your grace. We pray today that the Word of God will do its work. We love you and give you praise in Jesus' name. Amen.