The Deliverance Of God - [Judges 6]

It says in that song, grace that is greater than all of our sin. I ask the question, how many sins would keep us out of heaven?

Of course, the answer would be one. Just one. And just think, in our lives so far to this day, how many sins we've committed, and how great the grace of God has been bestowed on our behalf to keep us and not only to forgive us, but also to keep us from falling, as we read in the

Book of Jude this morning in the benediction, that God is able to keep us from falling and to present us faultless before His presence of His glory with exceeding joy.

It is always a wonder when the child of God will look back upon their lives and they will consider exactly what it is that God has done.

In many of the songs that we sang tonight, even what can wash away my sin?

Nothing but the blood of Jesus. I need no other argument. I need no other plea.

I mean, what are the arguments that people come with? Tell me. Some of the arguments people will come with is say, buy this,

I am saved. What do they say? They're a good person. I'm not like the bank robber.

I'm not like the murderer that you see on the news. What others? What other arguments? Mark? I give.

With that is good works, is it not? But when it comes to I'm a good person, what is it the

Bible says? There is none that doeth good, no, not one. There is not a just man upon the earth that doeth good, and sinneth not, says

Job. When it comes to giving, it says not by works of righteousness, which we've done, but according to God's what?

Mercy. He saves us. What's another argument? Going to church every

Sunday? That's one of the good works, is it not? What was the other one I heard? Infant baptism, right?

Infant baptism, any type of, or any way, I mean, that is taught as baptismal regeneration.

Being able to be changed by that baptism, and that's exactly what the doctrine says in the church, and yet, when it comes to salvation, when it comes to being regenerated, the only way that that can take place is not by being dipped in water, but by the powerful working of the

Holy Spirit of God upon the soul of a sinner. One of the things that I was thinking of when it came to, and we're talking about Brother Tom had read out of the book of Hebrews, when it comes to the working in the

Roman Catholic Church, I can remember as a young boy attending that church, and over and over and over again, you would see the priest up front, and he would be performing the ritual the same way every

Sunday, after Sunday, 52 Sundays of the year, for all the years of your life, and the

Bible says that those priests who stand daily ministering and offering, oftentimes, those sacrifices which can never take away sins.

Can't do it. But this man, speaking of Christ, I'm quoting from Hebrews 10, but this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God.

Done. It's over. It's finished. I need no other argument. I need no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died, and that he died for me.

And that is our hope, brothers and sisters in Christ. That is our only belief.

That is where Christ is the object of our faith, which has been given to us, the faith, the repentance that God has given, the work of regeneration upon us.

And we have a desire to worship God, because God made us so. God remade us so.

And we have a desire to look at the Word of God, and I'd like to do that with you this evening, out of the book of Judges, if you turn with me there to Judges chapter 6.

Judges chapter 6, you might ask, and sometimes it's good to let you know where a message comes from.

I would say over the past two to four weeks, there have been things that I have seen, there are things that I have heard that have been very discouraging.

You know how it is when you're a child of God, and we're not of this world, and we're not in our home yet.

We're pilgrims and travelers in this world below, and our world is up above, and there are so many things that are like sandpaper upon our souls.

And we get discouraged, and we can get distressed, and we can get frustrated at the things that we see around us, and the news that comes our way.

And I was just considering, I needed an encouragement from the

Word of God, and I just opened the Bible, and I just began to read, and I needed to hear, and I needed to see the goodness, and the greatness, and the power of the

Lord in the life of an individual. And I was thinking, okay, here I am below, I am insignificant,

I am obscure, I am unknown when it comes to those that would be in the so -called limelight of society.

And where in the Bible does God use the obscure, and the unknown, and weak vessels?

And I need to find somebody. So I began to think of all the different people, and as I began to go through the characters in the

Scriptures, just to see what great things God had done in their lives, I came to this conclusion.

They're all obscure, they're all unknowns, they're all weak, they're all feeble and frail, and it didn't matter who

I picked. And any of them would be a great encouragement. I think of Moses. I think of the shepherds that God chooses.

I think of the young shepherd boy, David, that God chose. I think of the fishermen in the New Testament when you go to the life of Peter.

You think of Paul, who was a great persecutor of the Church.

As far as the Christian world was concerned, he was an unknown. He was known in his world, but as far as God and the things of God, and for good and for the spiritual matters, he was an unknown.

And on and on I went, and then I thought, okay, I need to find somebody just to pick, because it would be great for us to be able to have a text to be able to go to.

So I ended up in Judges, Chapter 6. You come to the life of this man named

Gideon. A little bit of a background of this book. You understand that this is after the time of Joshua, when

God powerfully allowed the children of Israel to go into the

Promised Land and to take it. And they conquered it, and they divided it, and there was a bit of rest in the land.

But then, not all the enemies were dealt with. We have this time in the book of Judges that is so typified by the very last verse in this book, where it says in Judges 21 -25,

In those days there was no king in Israel. Every man did that which was right in his own eyes.

So you have a group of people who will do that which is right in their own eyes. And when they do that, of course, they sin, they're disobedient to God, and you have the judgment that comes upon them.

You have the consequences of their sin, and God is going to deal with them. And they are distressed, they are oppressed, they are attacked.

And then they get to the point where they cry out to God. There's this cycle. They cry out to God. God hears them.

God sends them a judge. God sends them a leader. God sends somebody who will stand in the gap for the people of God and fight and deliver them out of the hand of the enemy.

And then they get complacent. Then they go on in life, and they forget God, and they forget what God had said for them to do, and they sin again, and then the consequences, and you have this cycle through the book of Judges.

Well, we come to chapter 6, and we have the enemy that is going to plague them and oppress them are the

Midianites. We see in chapter 6 and verse 1, The children of Israel did evil in the sight of the

Lord. Now, that is a point for us to remember because when you read the next portion of these verses and you see that they are in a bad way and that their situation is one in which they are so distressed, it is because of their sin.

It is because of their disobedience to the Lord. They did evil in the sight of the Lord. And it says at the end of verse 1,

The Lord delivered them into the hand of Midian seven years. The hand of Midian prevailed against Israel.

Because the Midianites, the children of Israel, made them dens which were in the mountains, and caves, and strongholds.

So we see, I mean, they are not living the normal life. They are powerless against their enemy.

They are afraid of their enemy. They were suffering the consequences of their sin, as mentioned back in verse 1, and they had to hide.

And they had, they should be, where should they be living? They should be living in the open.

They should be living in the land that flows with milk and honey. They should be enjoying that.

They should have no fear of man. And they should be able to go about and partake of all the blessed fruit that God gave them of that land.

But because of their sin, they are hiding from the enemy which is oppressing them.

In verse 3 it says, And so it was when Israel had sown, that means when they sowed their seed, the

Midianites came up, and the Amalekites, and the children of the east, even they came up against them, and they encamped against them, verse 4, and destroyed the increase of the earth, till thou come down to Gaza, and left no sustenance for Israel, neither sheep, nor ox, nor donkey.

So we see that the enemy comes in and robs them, and plunders them, and ruins their crops, and puts them in a place where they are without.

It says also in verse 5, For they came up with their cattle in their tents, this is the enemy, and they came as grasshoppers for multitude.

For both they and their camels were without number, and they entered into the land to destroy it.

So they've come in to obliterate the land. They've come in to do harm, to put the pressure on Israel, and of course

God is allowing this because of their sin. And they're in a terrible way.

And of course we know that the scripture says when it comes to sin, that if we regard iniquity in our heart, the psalmist said,

God will not hear us. And there is a wall of separation, a fellowship that is broken between God and His people when they sin, when they do that which is evil in His sight, when there's disobedience, when there's rebellion, when there is a pulling of the shoulder away from God, and Israel is in that place now.

And this enemy has come as a consequence of their sin, and they are numerous.

And you look at this situation, and with man, the odds are impossible that Israel can overcome this enemy.

They are destroying their possessions. They are ruining their land. They are taking their food.

They are humiliating them. These are the people of God who are to be victorious, and God is to be their

God, and they are to be in this land, and they are to be with their heads held high, and walking through this land. This is the land of promise, and it ought not to be so.

And yet it is because of their sin, and they are so cast down. They are so, verse 6 says, greatly impoverished because of the

Midianites. What do they do finally? They get to the place they need to be at. The children of Israel cried unto the

Lord. And there we see that, as they've come through to this place of poverty, they've come to this place of destitution, of being so distressed, and so humiliated, they come to this place where they are in such a great need, and they are in such poverty, that they cry out to God, and aren't you glad that God is a

God who is full of mercy, and of great kindness, and of compassion. And he hears the cry of his people, when they repent, when they turn to the

Lord, and they cry out to God for help. And verse 7, And it came to pass, when the children of Israel cried unto the

Lord, because of the Midianites, that the Lord sent a prophet unto the children of Israel.

You would think, my first point for this message, and I can't even come up with a title.

Maybe by the time I'm through with it, we'll have a title for this. Some of you can help me out with a title for this message. But we're going to see, in the life of Israel, and particularly in the life of this man,

Gideon, as God uses him, that God glorifies himself. He glorifies himself with the obscure, with the unknown, by using weak instruments, and it is

God who is to be the focus, when it comes to these passages such as this.

It is not that we go in the passage, and we see how great this guy is, this man or this woman are.

Although they may be a man or a woman of God, and you cannot deny what it is that they did, in their sacrifices, in their focus upon the

Lord, in the spirituality of their lives, in the hunger, in the desires that they have for God, to do that which is right, in the sight of God.

And yes, they chose to go on with God, and to persevere, as God had of course called them, and used them over and over again, if you look at the lives of these people.

And there's much to be encouraged by. But there's even more to be encouraged by, when you think of, not the man of God, or the woman of God, or you think of the

God of that man or woman. Because we can think today, that we serve the same

God. We serve the same Heavenly Father, who is as much as concerned with us, who thinks upon us.

Our great Savior, the Lord Jesus, has us as the apple of His eye. And when we think, and we look back in the

Old Testament, and we see how God dealt with, and how God helped, and how God moved, and worked in such a way, we can be encouraged too, by the principles that we glean from the pages, even of the

Old Testament. And we see in this case here, that God does not send, wagon train fulls of grain.

First thing, you would think, here they are, here they are in a great distress, and great trouble. God doesn't send the physical to them.

He doesn't send the grain. He doesn't send a great army. Sometimes, when we're in distress, sometimes when we're in a place, where things are not going well, and we're humiliated, and we're cast down, and we're discouraged, and we're frustrated as the people of God, sometimes what we think we need, isn't what we need at all.

And what we really need, is what God says that we need, and what we need, is the word of God.

The prophet comes, and the prophet comes to Israel, in verse 8, and says unto them, these words,

Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, I brought you up from Egypt, and brought you forth, out of the house of bondage, and I delivered you, out of the hand of the

Egyptians, and out of the hand of all that oppressed you, and draved them out from before you, and gave you their land.

And I said unto you, I am the Lord your God, fear not the gods of the

Amorites, in whose land you dwell, but you have not obeyed my voice.

What they first needed to hear, and as the prophet is speaking, the first thing that he is doing here, is he is reminding them, of the past mercies of the

Lord. He goes back, and this is of course God, speaking through this prophet, to remind them of the tender mercies, and of the strong hand of God, who delivered them, out of Egypt, out of that bondage, the 400 years that they spent there, and God raised up Moses, and used him as an instrument of his hand, to lead the people, to go before Pharaoh, to plead for the people to be released, and God with a mighty hand, scoops them out of Egypt, and then brings them of course, through the wanderings, and into the promised land, to the place where they are now, and their land where they are, and the victories that they have experienced, so far in their life, can only be attributed to the

Lord. And here they are being reminded of that.

But I want you to remember, all these things that they were reminded of, and see what it is that Gideon says, because he asks a question, and I think that is pretty pertinent for today, and pretty relevant for us, because sometimes we kind of think along the same lines.

But not only did the prophet remind them, of the Lord's past mercies, but he also reminds them, of how they have failed to keep the covenant, with the

Lord, and they must be brought to repentance, in that. Because he says to them, when he spoke of how

God delivered them out of the land, then he says in verse 10, I am the Lord your God, fear not the gods of the land, in whose land you dwell, but you have not obeyed my voice.

They have been disobedient, they have not done that which God, had called them to do, to be holy, and to be separate, and to be set apart for God, and for God alone.

And yet, they mix and mingle in the land, and they rebel against the

Lord, and they do not obey the voice of God. So the first thing that God does, when it comes to this account that we have here, is that God sends a prophet, to remind them of his past mercies, and of their disobedience.

And I want to state it again, that in difficult times, when it's very stressful, and when we are oppressed, when we are in the heat, or the middle of the battle, as children of God, as the church of God, even today, when you feel the attack, when you feel the pressure from without, when it is difficult, because there are those that label us, there are those that come against us, to interject falsehood, to tear down the name of our great

God and King, and when we feel the pain of it, and maybe at times, when we are the ones who are to blame, for the circumstance that we find ourselves in, because of our sinfulness, and things are not well, and it's almost as if the heavens are shut, and the prayers are not getting through, and we feel as if, like Gideon asks later, abandoned of the

Lord, and although we know that we cannot be, we're all alone, what we need is not more money in the checkbook, and what we need is not more food on the table, or we don't need a better job, that's not going to handle the situation, it doesn't mean that we need a newer, a better environment, we need to get out of this place, we need to get some place, and so many times, what people don't understand is, when you transport yourself from here, point

A to point B, all you have done is, you've brought your problems with you, all you have done is, if you don't deal with it, if you're not taking care of the situation in your life, your heart, where it may be askew from the things of God, and there is rebellion, or sinfulness, we just transport that to another place, and it's until we repent, and it's until we get things right before the

Lord, or it is until the point we get to the place, where we understand what God's doing, in our lives, and in our families, we're not going to learn the lessons, that have been coming our way, through the circumstances, that we find ourselves in, and we're just going to transplant them elsewhere, and it's going to start all over again, so that's not what we need, what we need is, the perfect and pure word of God, that comes to us, thus saith the

Lord, what it is that God would have us to do, in our day to day lives, step by step, and we know that it goes, just like the children's song, obedience is the very best way, to show that you believe, doing exactly, what the

Lord commands, and doing it happily, action is the key, do it immediately, and joy you will receive, obedience is the very best way, to show that you believe, and Israel is disobedient, disbelieving, doubting

God, they're in a mess, and yet God in his mercy, sends the prophet, and isn't it good of the

Lord, to bring us his word, when we're distressed, oppressed, discouraged, frustrated, cast down, and we open the pages of scripture, and it just glows for us, it just burns in our hearts, as we hear the word of the

Lord, and the encouragement from God, and we hear verses that we're, there is therefore, now no condemnation to them, which are in Christ Jesus, we hear words that we are justified, through faith in Jesus Christ, we hear words that, that we are made the children of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, we hear words that, where Jesus said, that all that the father giveth me, shall come to me, and him that cometh to me,

I will in no wise cast out, there is eternal security, there is as our brother Steve, preached this morning, a great salvation, that God has visited us with, and we are encouraged, by those promises, and like in the day here, where the prophet comes, not only to get them straight, but also to bring, some fresh mercy from the

Lord, and having the word of God, to encourage them, it also encourages us today, so first and foremost,

God sends his prophet, but I want you to see, what else that God does here, when it comes to getting, and accomplishing his will, and in the deliverance of Israel, you'll notice it says, not only did the prophet come, in verse six, but what does it say in verse 11, and there came, an angel of the

Lord, and sat under an oak, which is in Orphra, that pertained to Joash, the

Abba Israel, and his son Gideon, fresh wheat by the wine press, to hide it from the

Midianites, this angel comes, this messenger comes, and we are going to see, in verse, if you'll just look with me, it says in verse 11, the angel, in verse 12, it says the angel, and then in verse 14, it says, and the

Lord looked upon Gideon, and then you notice in verse 16, and the Lord said unto him, and you look in verse 23, and the

Lord said unto him, in verse 25, and it came to pass, that same night, that the Lord said unto him, we see that this is none other than a pre -incarnate appearance of the

Lord Jesus Christ, and the Lord coming to visit Gideon in his time of need,

God coming to help him, not only does he send a prophet with a message with the word of God, but God himself comes, and that's the second point of the message, not only does

God send a prophet to deliver his people, and to glorify himself, but God himself comes, in our time of need, it is so wonderful when we sense the presence of God, when we sense that God truly, as we open the pages of scripture, as we're on our knees in prayer, and God, as it were, visits us, and we're so greatly encouraged by his presence, knowing that he is in us by his spirit, but also that he is round about us, that underneath of the everlasting arms, we are compassed about with the

Lord's mercies, and God is thinking about his people, even in the time of his need, but there's got to be, and always is, when you look back in the history of God's people, there's got to be an instrument that God chooses, the

Lord chooses a man, the Lord chooses a woman to use for his purposes, and here it says that God particularly comes to this place, this location, this geographical region, where Gideon is threshing wheat by the winepress, and he's hiding it from the

Midianites. Of course, he's doing this because we just heard before that if they find any food, they just totally annihilate it.

They either rob them of it, or they ruin it. And it says in verse 12, the angel of the

Lord appears to him, to Gideon, and sometimes you just smile when you read verses.

This is one I smile at. The angel of the Lord appears unto him, and said unto him, The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valor.

There's Gideon threshing wheat, not on the threshing floor out in the open, where it normally is done with the wind going through, and sometimes it was on a wooden floor that they would make, or sometimes it was just on the ground itself, but it was open where the wind was, and he's hiding it out of fear of the enemy, and the

Lord comes, this angel of the Lord speaks to him and says, The Lord is with thee. That's greatly encouraging.

Of course, that always is, and we'll kind of cover that as we go along. But thou mighty man of valor. And can't you just, seeing

Gideon, maybe he didn't say it openly, but can't you just see him thinking, are you talking to me? I'm the one that's in here,

I mean, hi, he's obscure. Gideon is a nobody. He just comes on the pages of Scripture.

Here it is, right before us. He's somebody who's just trying to get a little bit of grain together so that he can feed the people that are around him, and he's hiding it from the enemy.

He's just doing his job. They're taking care of that, and there's this great divine visitation.

It says, Thou mighty man of valor. Verse 13, And Gideon says unto him, And here's his question or questions.

O my Lord, if the Lord be with us, because he just heard that. The angel says,

The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor. And he says, O my Lord, if the Lord were with us, why then is all this fallen upon us?

Or why is this happening to us? And of course, I want to just stop there right for a moment.

I think MacArthur says in his commentary, there's a little bit of weak theology right here. Because this is that question, you know, why is it that bad things happen to good people type of question?

Why is it that bad things happen to good people? Well, good things happen to good people also.

As we heard this morning, our brother mentioned that God works all things together for good to them who love

God and are called according to his purpose. Just because we are the

Lord, just because we are the people of God, just because we have been saved and forgiven of all our sins does not mean that we will never go through the fire.

Doesn't mean that there will never be a storm in our life. I mean, certainly we're hearing this in the book of First Peter as our brother is aptly going through.

What is that book about? It is about the trials of faith. It is about suffering.

It is about hard and difficult times that Christians go through and that you and I will go through.

And just because we're God's doesn't mean we're going to escape those things because if you were really honest with me, as a brother and sister in Christ, you would admit that the times that you learn the most were the most difficult.

And if you haven't learned that lesson yet, you'll get that lesson because it's going to come our way.

Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. The trials of our faith will prove the genuineness of that faith and we will find that at times that we grow in leaps and bounds, in great dependence upon the

Lord. We see the beauty, the power, the awesomeness of God more brilliantly, more clearly in a time when we are so low and so cast down in the midst of a great difficulty, in a loss, a death of a family member, or death of somebody close, a real pressing health type situation, a financial situation where things are upside down.

We're just distressed. We're just discouraged because of just the normal things of life, the pressures, the schedule, everything that's coming our way or maybe we've made a mountain out of a molehill or whatever it is and yet we see

God arise on our behalf in the middle of that and we grow so greatly because God uses that as Steve said this morning to heat us up a bit and when you heat up that gold the impurities go to the surface and they get skimmed off.

And God is doing that all throughout our lifetime. The fire gets turned up of trials and distresses and persecutions and the things that come our way so that we will be purified, so that we will be more holy, so that we will be made more like Christ.

And in our text we see Gideon doesn't understand this.

He says, I mean, it's this thought that okay, if we're Christians or if we're the Lords then there will always be blue skies and green grass and every time we pull up to a building they're going to roll out the red carpet for us.

It's just going to be so hunky -dory and there will be absolutely no problems whatsoever. And it could not be further than the truth.

I believe that God is so glorified in the lives of a believer, in the lives of a

Christian church, in the life of a Christian marriage between a husband and wife when they are pressed in on every side when things are very, very difficult

God is so glorified when He delivers us out of that situation. And He teaches us in it to trust

Him more. And we look to Him with such greater dependence and our love for the

Lord deepens when we see that truly as His Word says we live it out. He says underneath of the everlasting arms and when our life is falling and we're tumbling

God catches us and brings us back up and strengthens us. Gideon did not get this because he was thinking oh, if the

Lord's with us then the Midianites would not be causing this situation.

It's almost like Joshua when they went into Ai you remember they got defeated at first?

And Joshua makes the complaint to God God, why is this happening to us? And God tells him well, there's sin in the camp.

Achan had stolen the cursed thing or the thing that was devoted to God he was not supposed to take the clothing or money or anything all the spoil belonged to God in Jericho it was the people's fault not

God's fault. And when it comes to this situation that Gideon and Israel is in it's not

God's fault that they're here it's their fault because they had done evil in the sight of God they had not obeyed.

God said that if they would obey if they would walk in the way of God then God would bless them and God would keep the enemy away from them but as soon as they disobeyed

God the enemy would come in like a flood and of course God would use that to squeeze them to put them in distress to have them get to the place where they see that they're not where they're supposed to be at and they cry out to God and God would deliver them.

Again, and so Gideon doesn't see that in verse 13 notice what else he says and where be well, let me go back

Oh Lord, if the Lord is with us why then has this happened to us? And where be all his miracles which our fathers told us of saying, did not the

Lord bring us up out of Egypt? But now the Lord has forsaken us or the Lord has abandoned us and delivered us into the hands of the

Midianites totally misunderstanding what's going on totally not seeing it kind of shifting the blame back to God and not looking that it is their fault that it is their sin that has put them in the situation that they are in.

And in this particular case here he asks the question not only, you know, if God is with us why is this happening to us?

But in this second part he says where are all the things that we heard of that you just reminded us the messenger, this angel

I mean the prophet who just came reminded us that God with a strong hand brought us up out of Egypt and he did these mighty things and led us out of bondage and he snatched us and delivered us from the hand of the

Egyptians and he brought us into this land I mean where is all that? We haven't been seeing any of that and yet God in his mercy before we are through tonight is going to show him just that.

God is going to arise on the behalf of Israel and he is going to do wonders and he is going to display his power and he is going to deliver them from the

Midianites and Gideon is going to get his question answered. And sometimes, and this is just an aside sometimes as the children of God I mean don't we find ourselves sometimes asking the question why?

Why is this happening? Why is this happening to me? Why is this going on in the church?

How could this possibly happen to that person? I mean we just see that all they do is that they devote themselves to the

Lord. Gideon is thinking with his limited mindset.

He is not seeing the whole picture. He absolutely cannot comprehend what

God is doing what God is orchestrating what God is planning and yet he speaks from his authoritative position not knowing the whole story.

And I think it's a warning to us maybe just a little bit of a warning to us that before we are ready or before we are quick to come with these types of questions before we question

God before we question God's motives before we ask those questions why maybe we ought to step back and the question ought to be or the thought process ought to be

I don't know the whole picture. I really don't know what's going on. Maybe I've been thinking that the reason why these things are happening to me or my family or the church or whatever

I've been thinking that it's outside of us but maybe it could be us. It could be because of our sin.

It could be because of our disobedience. Or it just could be that God has a purpose behind the stirring of this pot of our lives this pressing in upon us.

We find ourselves caught between as it were the rock and the hard place and it's a very difficult place to be in but don't come out quickly with the question why or question the motives of God before you wait and you see what it is that God's going to do in your life.

And maybe as time goes on you will understand more. I think it's important. Brother Steve brought this up in Sunday School class.

It says of the person who is wise what do you think? He's a wise person.

He's a foolish person. One of them is known for their many words and one of them is known for their few words.

Which one do you think goes with which? Let's do a little quiz tonight. A little match up here. Who do you think goes with the few words?

The wise. That's right. And those with the multitude of words. I think it's

Ecclesiastes 5 .3 says that the fool is known by the multitude of his words.

In Proverbs I think it's around 29 -ish 10 or 11 or someplace around there it speaks of that the fool speaks all his mind.

I mean he's got running mind and mouth disease. It just comes out. Whereas in Proverbs 10 it says that the wise refrain their lips.

I don't know if you heard this. I'm going off on a big rabbit trail and I hope I get back on where I was.

But did you hear this this week about the entertainment industry? There was an actress.

I think her name was Kathy Griffin. And there's Emmy Awards or some type of awards going on. I don't know if they played yet but on the cable they played some of the things that they're going to edit or cut out of the main channels when they broadcast it.

These were her words. You tell me if she's wise or foolish because she's running her mouth on and on.

I already gave you the answer. And she's saying some people get up when they take these trophies and they attribute their success or this award to Jesus.

These are her very words. Not exactly. Or they win a sporting event and they attribute it to Jesus.

And these are her words. I want you to know that Jesus has nothing to do with me winning this award.

That's pretty strong. And that's very foolish. She has not come to the place where the law...

She went on in that and I can't even repeat some of the things that she said in there. What is the purpose of the law?

In Romans chapter 3, the law comes to show us that we're guilty before God and that every mouth will be stopped.

Every mouth will be shut closed. And if a person is running and rambling and talking like that, it just proves that they are not a

Christian. They have not been regenerated. They are not a wise person. And yet the person who is wise refrains their lips.

And I only went there and I only said that. Sometimes we need to be careful when we take a position.

We need to be so careful to examine our own hearts and to make sure when we're helping someone or counseling someone that we are coming from a position where we are absolutely humble.

We're open. We've been as honest as we can with the Lord. We don't think we have any motivation behind what we're doing for our own self -gratification or for pride or whatever.

And carefully go and speak to people and not come in such a way where we think we are absolutely 100 % correct when it comes to knowing every single detail of what's going on because we don't know what

God is doing. Think about in the book of Job. I mean his friends come to him. His friends come to try to help him and they have absolutely no clue what

God is doing and yet they're speaking for God. That's what I'm saying. We need to be careful. Gideon spoke here and I believe that in a way he spoke not knowing everything that God was doing and yet God is going to be merciful to show it to him.

Let's go on and see what that is. I want you to see first and foremost God sends a prophet to remind them of their past mercies and of their disobedience.

And then we see that God comes and he visits. And what he does is

God chooses and looks upon weak instruments to accomplish his purposes. God chooses and looks upon weak instruments to accomplish his purposes.

You will notice and it is very evident to see that Gideon, like us, very weak. He is hiding in verse 11.

He has got these questions in this bit of weak theology in verse 13. In verse 15 we're going to see that he says unto my

Lord wherewith shall I save Israel? Behold my family is poor in Manasseh and I am the least of my father's house.

I mean not only that he's poor, not only that he's insignificant, but he begins to offer up these excuses.

How can I possibly do this? And then we see here of course in verse 15 also he's not a person of prominence or he's not a person of confidence either.

In verse 17 we see that he asks for a sign and he says unto him if now

I have found grace in thy sight then show me a sign that thou talkest with me. I mean here's his first request for a sign.

And sometimes when we start off and God is dealing with us in our lives sometimes we don't rest upon the sure foundation of the

Word of God. And you see it in the lives of some people. They want something more than that.

They want to see something visible, something that's miraculous. And I've shared this story with some of you before that there was a woman who was deciding whether or not she should take a flight someplace.

And she's laying in bed looking at the digital clock. And she says to the

Lord, Lord if you want me to go on this trip show me a sign.

And I'm recalling this story I heard this from someone else. Well on the clock all of a sudden she looks over there and it says 747 and she says she's all set, ready to go.

Now you might smile but some people actually make decisions that way by signs, by seeking these outward types of things.

And the person who recalled this story said now it would have been another thing if the digital clock had said

DC 10. Then she would really have known because there's only supposed to be numbers on those clocks.

But that's a whole other thing. But sadly some people look for signs. Gideon looks for a sign here.

What's remarkable not only here but also at the end of the chapter when he asks about the fleece for it to be wet and the ground dry and then the ground wet and the fleece dry

God never rebukes Gideon. But yet we see that he has to do it not only just once but he has to do it twice.

He has to do it three times. He's not assured. What he wants is assurance. And how is it that we gain assurance?

Well I would encourage you brethren not by looking for some type of thing where the wind blows the tree over and then you know you're supposed to do something where it comes to branches in your life or just spiritualizing and reading all kinds of things into everything that you see.

What else would be so much better than to do this than to get into the

Word of God to see what is it that God has for us objectively the truth and the will of God for us and then as we pray and we seek the

Lord's will and we're tender before the Lord looking for the leading of the Lord and we ask counsel, good wise counsel of other people we go in that direction.

But here it just seems at least at first when I'm describing the weakness of this instrument we see that in some measure he doesn't fully depend upon the

Word that's been spoken to him. I mean notice in verse 12 it says the Lord is with you,

Gideon, from the angel. And then in verse 14 where the Lord looks upon him and he says,

And go in this thy might and thou shalt save Israel verse 14, from the hand of the Midianites have not

I sent you. That's coming from the Lord. He's got the very Word of God the assurance of God.

Verse 16, And the Lord said unto them, Surely I will be with you. And you will smite the

Midianites as one man. They're a host. We read back in verse 5. They're a number that no man can number.

I mean they've got camels galore. They're like the sand on the seashore. Yet God says

I'll be with you and you will smite them as one and that still wasn't enough. And I would encourage you to be people of the

Word and be so assured and confident as you read the Word of God and God speaks to us and God leads us by that word that we stand firm upon those promises of God.

What about the description of Gideon? Not only does he seek the sign but he's one who fears man.

We're going to hopefully see that in a very short while as we try to close up the message this evening.

But he seeks another sign. There's another opportunity at the end of the chapter where he does that.

Well, what is it that takes place here? Not only does the prophet come.

Not only does God come to him. And God looks upon Gideon in verse 14.

It says God looks upon him. That means God turns toward him. God turns his face as it were.

It comes from a root word which means to turn but also it's God turning his face or regarding Gideon.

And God looks at him and there is that look like the look that has changed others when

God visits people and uses them in a great way. If you think about people that God came to and visited in such a way, we have

Abraham. We have Jacob who God visited.

We have Moses at the burning bush. We have Joshua in Joshua chapter 5 where the captain of the host comes to see him before that great victory in Jericho.

We have Peter when he betrays the Lord and he is in such a distressing case in such a horrible condition he had to be and his heart ripped.

Do you remember it says that the Lord looked upon him? And it says Peter went out and wept bitterly. And then the

Lord comes and he sends word back and tell Peter too that I've risen from the dead. God still used him.

God was so merciful. But the look of God, when God thinks upon us, when God regards us, and isn't that wonderful that God does that in the lives of his people?

When he wants to get something done, when he is going to accomplish his purposes, in this case here, the children of Israel are going to be delivered and he is going to use

Gideon to do this. And he says to him in verse 14, Go in this thy might.

And again, Gideon is one who is afraid, he is hiding, he is weak, and he is a very unlikely candidate for this mission, for this position of leadership.

He has got no experience. He is a poor specimen. He doesn't consider himself a mighty man of valor.

And aren't you glad that God chooses weak, frail, beggarly instruments to accomplish his purposes?

And we see that in the New Testament that I was thinking of when I was studying was 1 Corinthians 1.

You don't have to turn there. I'm just going to read you a few verses there. But in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, we read these words.

For you see your calling in verse 26, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called.

But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. And God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.

And the base things of the world and the things which are despised, God has chosen, yea, the things which are not, to bring to naught the things that are that no flesh should glory in his presence.

And really isn't that what it's all about? God choosing the obscure, God choosing the unknown so that he will be glorified.

It was said of Lady Huntington, who was a supporter of George Whitefield, that when she would read verse 26 where it says not many mighty, not many noble, that she was one who praised

God for the letter M. Because if the letter M was not before not many noble, she would never have made it.

It would say not any noble. And she was a noble person of noble class who God had saved and God had used.

And she was so happy for that. The world calls those who are qualified.

But God qualifies the people that he's going to call for his purposes. Think about that.

When you want to play a game, when your kids play baseball, who is it that you pick first?

You pick the ones that are good, the ones that are qualified. That's how the world operates. But when God picks, he picks the nobodies.

He picks the broken vessels, the ones who have no notoriety.

And here he's choosing Gideon. God calls this man to be the leader. God is going to use him.

And we can't get into the whole account, but we see here that God takes him and he calms his fears.

He assures him that he's going to be with him. He prepares him for the big responsibility of delivering the nation from the hand of the

Midianites by sending him to his father's grove that his father had set up.

His father was an idolater. He sent him there to chop it down. And he was going to test him with that small responsibility and prove him there.

And Gideon did it. He hid from other people. He couldn't do it during the day because he was afraid.

And I was thinking of that. It says in verse 27, Gideon took ten men of his servants and did as the

Lord said to him. Go do this. Tear down this grove. And so it was because he feared his father's household and the men of the city that he could not do it by day, but he did it by night.

And Gideon is human. And aren't you glad this verse is here because we can identify with Gideon.

Though he is afraid, he still does what God calls him to do. Though he's afraid of his father and the people and what could happen, the consequences that would come to him, he still obeys

God anyways. He counts the cost. He's willing to lose his life. He walks by faith, not by sight.

He believes what God says. He steps forward. He's faithful. And in being faithful in this small task to clean up the hands of the

Israelites, God uses Gideon to deliver them from the hand of the

Midianites. God takes this obscure man and he uses them. And here there's just so much we can't get into this, but God strengthens him.

God, as it were in verse 34, clothes himself with Gideon. We see in chapter 7 that God reduces the number from 32 ,000 to 300.

It is not going to be anybody who's going to say it's because of the power of man or because of the ability of man. It's going to be all of God.

And we see that God whittles down the numbers. He assures Gideon later of the victory where there is that going to the outskirts of the camp and the sentinels on the outside of Midian.

They're talking in Gideon with his associate here that they're afraid. It must be the sword of Gideon.

And God is going to give them into the hands, Midianites into the hands of Gideon. And we read in chapter 7 and in verse 25 where it says they took the two princes of the

Midianites, Oreb and Zeab, and they slew them. We see in chapter 8 and in verse 21 they took

Zeba and Zalmunah. These are the kings. These are the leaders of the Midianites.

And they took them there. And it says in verse 22, the men of Israel said to Gideon, You rule over us, both you and your son and your sons also, for you have delivered us from the hand of the

Midianites. How did this take place? You know the story. Because of Sunday school classes or just from reading the scriptures, 300 men go with their pots, with their torches inside, break them, blow the trumpets.

There's this great confusion. The sword in one hand, I mean the pot in one hand, the torch in one hand, the trumpet in the other hand blowing the noise, the sword of the

Lord. And Gideon and the enemy, the Midianites, they hear all this maybe thinking behind every one of those lights there might be a legion.

The enemy is greater than them. God confuses them. And they begin to kill each other as trying to maybe get a path to get out of there, to get out of that area.

And they begin to slay each other and none of them lifts a finger, none of Gideon's men. God fights this battle for them.

And what does Gideon see? And what does Gideon know? In chapter 8, verse 28, it says these words,

Thus was Midian subdued before the children of Israel so that they lifted up their heads no more and the country was in quietness 40 years in the days of Gideon.

Do you remember Gideon's question back in 613? Oh, Lord, if you're with us, why has this happened to us?

Well, it happened to you because of your sin. And where are the miracles that our fathers told us of before?

Did Gideon experience that? He certainly did. He saw the great hand of God on his behalf.

And I want to encourage you, brethren. As you serve the Lord, there will be times when you get to the place where it seems you're just like Gideon hiding away.

And just like there is oppression and the enemy attacks and it's wickedness coming against the church, it's the oppression that comes from just living in this dark and twisted and perverted world where people will come down upon you like a club.

And they will label you and they will look upon you as being very crazy, out of sorts, and yet we must stand in the place where we look to God and we trust

His word and we look to Him to be the one who will fight the battle for us and He will be the one who will be faithful on our behalf and arise and do that which

He does best to deliver His people out of all the circumstances they find themselves in where it is very distressing and very troubling.

And if we don't get out of that situation, at least by the grace of God, we know we will get through the situation and the

Lord will never leave us and the Lord will never forsake us. Our God is doing a work even in the day in which we live, building up His church.

We are a group of people who are to be proclaiming the gospel as we heard this morning. A church who is striving together for unity.

People who are preaching to others so that sinners can be converted to Jesus Christ and sometimes when we do that, the attack will come.

But don't be discouraged. Here the Lord comes to Gideon and He assures him over and over again

I will be with you, I will be with you. He comforts him. He even says in verse 23, Peace be unto you.

Fear not. You will not die after you have seen the Lord. And it just reminds me of the

Lord Jesus coming to the disciples when He is walking on the water and they are afraid. And He says, Don't be afraid.

It is I. In the upper room after you have been resurrected, when they are afraid of what is going to take place, what is happening to them, when

Jesus has been crucified, Jesus comes into the room and He says, Peace be unto you.

Jesus said in John chapter 16, verse 33, These things I have written unto you.

In the world you shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer. I have overcome that world.

And that is the word that comes to us today. When we think of the example of Gideon, it is not so much Gideon, it is the

God of Gideon. It is our God who is strong on our behalf. It is our God who will give us that assurance and that confidence that as we do

His work, as we are believers doing the work of God, being entrusted with the gospel and laboring in the church, we can rejoice that God uses weak vessels.

But press on, learning to worship the Lord in the midst of all that we are doing, as we are working and as we are witnessing and as we are laboring for the

Lord. Our faith rests in the character of God. And sometimes when we ask those questions, don't be surprised if the

Lord doesn't answer them. And He answers them in such a way that He demonstrates His great power and He does that which

He does best to surprise us in such a way that He is glorified in the deliverance of His people.

I trust that you will be encouraged by some of the principles that we looked at tonight because, let's face it, it is a difficult day in which we live.

It is a trying time. There are things that come after us. There are so many fiery, even the fiery darts of the wicked one.

The darts of doubt that will come our way to try to rob us of that dependence, complete dependence upon the

Lord. And I want to encourage you to be encouraged in what you hear and see in the Word of God, how great

God is and how He stands on our behalf so that we can labor and be victorious in Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ alone.