Judges 6 8, Who Rules?

question is from this is who rules? That single question is often behind a lot of conflict in the world, is behind a lot of conflict in these three chapters.

People want to be in control and they will be constantly maneuvering and plotting, politicking, conniving, here, we see, fighting to rule.

Sometimes in a marriage, a lot of conflict revolves around who rules, who's going to be in charge.

Even small issues can explode into big ones struggling over dominance, over who's in control.

Often they don't really care about whether to buy this little thing or not, or they don't care whether the room is painted green or blue, or they want to watch

CSI or Criminal Minds or go to Western Sizzler or Golden Corral. But if their partner, their contender for control, suggests green or CSI or Western Sizzler, and then suddenly they'll want blue or Criminal Minds or Golden Corral just to prove, you know, that they rule.

Often church fights are about who rules. Somebody will pick an issue, maybe decorating, how to decorate something, a budget item, a building project, whatever it is.

Not really because they care about the issue, but because it's an opportunity to flex their muscles, you know, to show that they're in control, that they rule.

In politics, sometimes political differences really aren't about huge, you know, issues of great moral weight.

Sometimes they're just egotistical struggles to show, hey, my guy, he's in control, he rules.

Who rules is the question often that, you know, is the question that constitutions and laws, courts are supposed to answer.

Sure, we can say loftily as we like to, you know, we the people rule. But how?

You know, which of us people rule? How do we exercise rule? Which of us gets to decide what are the rules that other people have to live by?

Today, often secular people will berate us Christians for trying to stop imposing your way on us.

I've even seen people say, you know, God does not rule this country. I once was told that Christians don't even have the right.

You know, we don't even have the right to vote according to our beliefs. We can only vote according to what this secular person says is constitutional in his opinion.

Well, that's, you know, that's what the struggle over who rules. And then some Christians, though, kind of look at all that and think, this whole realm, this whole question of deciding who rules, of authority and of power, it's just too worldly.

It's too formal. It's just too legalistic. Don't even dirty your hands dealing with it.

Real Christians, they think, shouldn't even care about who rules in the world because we should only care about another world.

We really shouldn't care about who rules in the church because we don't need rule in the church, right?

We just spontaneously fellowship. No organizations or constitutions or processes are allowed.

We're a family, right? Not a kingdom. And families don't need someone to rule, do they?

After all, didn't Jesus come as the great enemy of organized religion, opposed by those who rule?

So, doesn't that mean that the whole question of who rules is just wrong?

Don't even put it out of your mind. Now, that's a popular way of looking at things, the illusion of a life without authorities, without government, without rulers.

But then what do you make of the fact that Isaiah celebrates the coming, as he looks into the future, the coming of the perfect capital

S Savior by saying of the increase of his government and of peace, there will be no end?

Or that Jesus came preaching the kingdom of God? Who rules?

Well, Judges 6 to 8 shows us, as we've heard now for a long passage, in three parts, three chapters and three parts.

First, there's the reluctant, and then there's the reliant, and finally, there's the rule. Chapter 6 is about the reluctant.

And here, God brings in his rule through the reluctant. And in six parts, break

Chapter 6 down into six parts. First, the pain. Chapter 6 begins with a now familiar pattern.

Remember this pattern we see going on over and over again in Judges? People of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. Starts that way.

When God's people rebel against God's rule, they get pain. The Lord gave them into the hand of Midian, it says.

He causes them some pain. Now, this time, the Judges... This, I should say, this time, the book of Judges gives more detail about the pain, about what it means, that it's being inflicted on them.

In verse 2, they were being overpowered so much so that the people of Israel made, it says, hideouts, the caves, dens there, retreats in the mountains to flee to whenever the

Midianites would come swooping in. In verse 3, whenever the Israelites planted their crops, the

Midianites then would come and their allies, they would sweep in, they would take everything, and they would let their animals graze in the

Israelite fields, and they would take the Israelite animals. And he compares them to like locusts sweeping in, leaving nothing but destruction in their wake.

In other words, if you're there, an Israelite, you see these waves of Midianites and Amalekites and desert

Bedouin raiders flooding into the land and consuming or stealing everything that you have.

And verse 6 says that Israel was brought very low. And so, after enough pain was inflicted on them, they again cry out.

This is the pattern, right? Cry out to the Lord. After the pain, well, this time the

Lord does something a bit different. First, he says, he sends a prophet. The pain, this time it's a prophet.

Before, they would repent and he would send them a judge. This time, a prophet though in verse 8.

Then tell us the prophet's name or anything about him. This is his message. Verses 8 to 10, the prophet. And the cycle that they've had, they've had this apostasy, then a punishment, and then repentance, and then deliverance, and then rest, and then apostasy again, and it all starts over again.

Well, that's getting a little old, isn't it? It's getting a little old for the Lord apparently.

And what they need is a prophet to remind them of who rules, to break that cycle, to change their heart.

Political outer deliverance for them, it isn't working. You know, they just, as soon as they're delivered from their oppressor, they go back, as soon as the judge dies, they go back to the same problems.

They cry out like they've done in the past for a small s, savior. But this time first,

God sends a proclaimer of his word. You know, really what they want, people like they've had in the past, like Ehud, they want a deliverer to relieve them of the

Midianites who were causing them so much pain. But first, the Lord reminds them of the grace that he has already shown them.

You know, he rescued them from slavery, from Egypt, and he tells them again in verse 9 how he, quote, he delivered, the

Lord speaking to them, delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians and from the hand of all who oppressed you and drove them out before you and gave you their land.

And then the Lord reminds them of his command. In verse 10, the Lord commanded them not to fear, in other words, don't revere, don't worship the gods of the people of the land.

And then the Lord's verdict, but you have not obeyed my voice. The Lord is talking like he rules, doesn't he?

And like he's getting tired of being disobeyed. Now, the answer to their pain is a prophet who causes them some more pain, you know, to their conscience, you hope.

Only after the pain and then the prophet comes, the third thing, the peace. In verses 11 to 24, we are first introduced to Gideon.

Who will, one more time, like the judges in the past, bring peace to Israel? Now, he's busy, it says, when we're first introduced to him, he's beating out the wheat, says in a wine press.

In other words, this isn't the normal place you beat out wheat because he's hiding. He's trying to hide the wheat from the Midianites.

And a strange man approaches him and surprises him with, in verse 12, the Lord is with you, oh, mighty man of valor.

Notice that Gideon, once he hears that, doesn't just now rise up and go out and lead a great revolution and throw out the

Midianites because he's been, he's heard that greeting. No, he doesn't. He's very reluctant.

Indeed, he's so reluctant, he questions the very greeting at first. It seems ridiculous. I mean, here he is in hiding, beating out this wheat.

How is the Lord with us? In verse 13, he asked, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us?

Where are all his wonderful deeds that our fathers recount to us? The Lord has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian, he complains.

He's not buying that the Lord is with him or even with the nation.

It's like the question that some atheists, you know, like to throw at Christians these days, probably have for a long time.

You know, how can God be all -powerful and good? And yet, there's so much evil in the world, people dying and murders and wars.

God can control all these things. He's all -powerful and he's good. Why are all these things happening to us?

And so, they call it the problem of evil. Either God, and so the logical conclusion they say, they say there's only two logical conclusions.

Either God is good, you know, he doesn't want these things to happen, but he's not all -powerful, so he can't stop them.

In which case, of course, he's not worthy of worship. Or he is all -powerful and he can stop all these horrible things, but he just doesn't want to because he's not good.

In which case, he's an evil tyrant. That's called the problem of evil. Oh, but there's a third choice.

Is it the one that Gideon forgot here? You know, maybe we're sinful and deserve the pain being inflicted on us.

Well, Gideon is wondering, like a lot of people today, where is God in my pain?

He's in pain, right? He's in hiding, trying to beat out the weed, trying to hide it from these people that are going to take it from him. Where is

God in it? And here he is, Gideon, here he is. You know, Gideon, you understand, is

God speaking right to you and you don't even know it, and he doesn't know it. Gideon doesn't realize that he's complaining to the

Lord himself and he should know the answer. Gideon should, because the prophet told him what the answer was already.

Why the pain? The prophet explained it. Despite all the grace shown to them, you have not obeyed my voice.

That's why the pain. But then the man does a strange thing. This man is talking to Gideon.

He speaks for God. Instead, Gideon doesn't yet know this is God himself, so he speaks for God.

In verse 14, now, never minding Gideon's complaining and his reluctance, he speaks to him. He says, Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian.

Do not I send you. That sounds good. Gideon is being called to be the next, small s, savior, the next judge.

But Gideon is reluctant in verse 15. How can I save Israel? You know, he says he's from the weakest clan and he's the least member of it, basically saying,

Hey, I'm a nobody. Look at me. I'm doing this work. I'm beating out weed in the wine press.

But the Lord likes nobodies. And so he answers, I will be with you.

But Gideon is not sure he should believe this guy who's speaking for God. He's reluctant.

So he asks for a sign for the man to accept his present. He's going to give a present, accept it. And so he goes and prepares a meal, some goat meat and some unleavened bread.

And if you do it with curry, it is really good. Goat is really good. And the man is really the angel of the

Lord, tells him to put the meal on a rock, soak it in broth, nice and moist, and not at all likely to spontaneously combust.

Right? And then the angel touched the soaked meal with the tip of his staff. Immediately it was engulfed in flames, a whole burnt offering, such as you only give to God.

And then he disappears. And verse 22 says Gideon finally perceives that it was the angel of the

Lord. Good perception. He's sharp, right? And the guy wasn't just a pious talker, you know, with his head in the clouds, fantasizing about throwing out the

Midianites. This was God himself. And so Gideon exclaims, alas, oh,

Lord God. The NIV put it as a red sovereign Lord.

Adonai, Yahweh, the Hebrew words, Lord, sovereign, Yahweh.

For now I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face. He's terrified.

And rightly so. And so we're so used to thinking that the presence of God is something that we can take for granted, even when we belong in the presence of God.

There's nothing to be afraid of. But here Gideon is right to react like this.

Alas. He's frightened. He knows the holiness of God, and he trembles that he's been in the presence of the

Holy Lord. He fears that God's perfect holiness because he's aware of his own imperfect sinfulness.

Alas, Lord God. When sin meets holiness, we tremble.

And so the Lord assures him in verse 23, peace to you. Do not fear. You shall not die.

Peace. What he feared he didn't have. They've had the pain. They've heard from the prophet.

And now he's given peace despite his sins. And so he builds an altar there, calling it the

Lord is peace to mark this astounding event. You see, the real puzzle, you know, look what

Gideon has learned here. He begins with this problem of pain. Why is God, he's powerful. Why is he allowing all these bad things to happen to us?

But the real puzzle is not the problem of evil, but the problem of good.

If God is all powerful, if he rules over everything and he is good, he's perfect, which means also he is just and punished sin.

And we are as sinful and as doubting and as rebellious as we are.

You know, the real puzzle is why does he do us good? Why does he give us peace?

That's the great mystery. Well, that night Gideon is told to do the purge, that is to purge his father's estate of their

Baal altar and cut down the Asherah pole, some kind of superstitious thing. And in verses 25 to 32.

Now, think about that, though. He's not going to the local town, going to the

Baal temple there. It is properly pronounced Baal. He's not going there. This is on his own family's property.

So, it tells us pagan Canaanite religion is now so widespread in Israel that even

Gideon's family has it on their property. Gideon reluctantly obeys.

Obedience was essential. Apparently, bravery wasn't. Gideon is so afraid of his own family and of the men in the town, he did it at night.

Got some servants and went out and did it while no one was looking. When the local men wake up, they see first thing in the morning, the pagan altars on Joash's property,

Joash, Gideon's father, they're demolished. So, they're indignant. This is outrageous.

It's sacrilegious. It's unlucky. You know, this was the land of Baal.

This is his land. He rules here. What happens when Baal comes and sees that his altar is torn down?

You know, crops will fail. Animals will die. Our wives will have miscarriages.

They've got to rise to the defense of Baal and Asherah. And so, they demand that Joash hand over his son for execution.

But he wisely responds in verse 31, will you contend for Baal or will you save him?

If he's a god, let him contend for himself. And so, Gideon's father challenges

Baal. If he's really ruling, let him stick up for himself. See what you can do for yourself,

Baal. And in case the men have any ideas of putting themselves in charge, he threatens anyone who tries to contend for Baal.

You touch my son, I'll kill you basically is what he says. And Gideon has now contended, fought with Baal.

He's purged his altar. And so, he gets a nickname, Jerob -Baal, meaning let

Baal fight against him. Now, soon after the purge, then comes the power.

The Midianites with their allies come back into the land again. And then in verse 34 says, the spirit of the

Lord clothed Gideon or perhaps better, the spirit of the Lord put on Gideon.

In a way, Gideon was the Holy Spirit's clothing, empowering

Gideon to save God's people. And you think when the Lord Jesus began his ministry, he read from a passage at the very beginning.

He read from a passage in Isaiah, the spirit of the Lord is upon me. And so,

Gideon sounded the alarm from his clan, from his tribe, from other tribes to people to come.

And they followed him because the Holy Spirit was with him. God's power is necessary.

Now, but Gideon is still reluctant. So, he asked for proof. Six point, chapter six, proof.

He asked God to make some wool, fleece, make it wet with a dew overnight, leaving the rest of the ground around it dry.

And when that happens, or even wring it out in a bowl, a lot of dew. When that happens, he's still reluctant. He's not exactly the most courageous character in the world.

And so, he ups the ante, make it a little more difficult for God, see if he can handle this. Even though, you know, make the wool dry, even though he would be much more likely to absorb the dew, and the ground around it wet.

Aha. And even when that happens, God managed to pull that off. He has his proof.

He's out of excuses for his reluctance. He knows that the one who rules the dew has told him to bring

God's rule down on the Midianites. Well, chapter seven, the reluctant then becomes the reliant.

And we see that in four parts. First, the excess. 32 ,000 men respond to Gideon's call.

32 ,000, that's pretty good turnout, it seems to me. Most generals want more soldiers, all more, more, more.

They never have enough. 32 ,000 is good, but if Gideon were like most generals, he would still think, that's not enough.

Let's see if we get more. But Gideon isn't in charge. The Lord is. And so, he challenges

Gideon. He says to Gideon something most generals would never say. You have too many troops.

Verse two is key in chapter seven. The people with you are too many for me.

Now, why? Maybe they're too many to feed. They don't have enough provisions on hand for them. Too many to maneuver.

Too unwieldy. They don't have the administrative structure in hand. No, it says they are too many. They are in excess because if you go into battle with 32 ,000 troops and win, then

God says Israel will boast over me. God says in verse two, saying, my own hand has saved me.

God wants to save them in a way that everyone will know that God did it.

Like in 1 Corinthians, where God says, you know, my power is most fully displayed when my people are weak.

And people today, people want to be saved often in a way that allows us to boast.

You know, we mustered 32 ,000 troops. That's pretty good. Or maybe today.

We made the right decision. We exercised our free will in the right way.

We prayed the right prayer. We believed the right thing. We got baptized in the right church.

But God wants to do it in a way that glorifies him. So, get rid of the excess.

First tell those who are too afraid, you know, why don't you go home? That's one way to sift a lot out. That eliminates 22 ,000 of them.

That's still 10 ,000, and he says that's too many. 10 ,000 is not weak enough.

I want you weaker. And so he takes them down to a stream, and he watches the way they drink, and most get down on their knees and drink right from the stream.

A few scoop it up with their hands, and they drink that way. Now, some have totally missed the point of this whole exercise and think that Gideon is sifting out kind of the unwary who would kneel down and not be, you know, wouldn't be observing their surroundings from those who would be standing up and still able to see if the enemy is coming.

And they think it's some kind of clever way to separate the crack troops from the average ones.

But that's not it at all. That's nothing to do with it. God has already told them what's going on. He wants to know in verse 2.

He wants them to know that salvation is from the Lord, so they can't boast in themselves.

And that is the fact that so many people today still forget. We forget.

Thinking of salvation, maybe it comes from something they did, something they mustered in themselves, maybe from their family or their morality or their religion, their baptism or something about them, their free will.

But here the Lord is insisting, be reliant on me.

So get rid of the excess that makes you trust in yourself. Well, after the excess comes the distress.

I'm very proud of my rhymes and my points today. With only 300 troops, Gideon is in distress.

And so the Lord tells him that he can go spy on the Midianites, and he'll hear how they are actually in distress.

And he overhears one Midianite soldier telling another of a dream he's had of a huge loaf of barley bread rolling into their camp and destroying it.

Now, since the Midianites were getting a lot of their bread from the Israelites by stealing it, so they knew that that meant that Israel was going to roll over them.

Now, after that, the third becomes the process. Gideon's distress is gone, and so third, he concocts the process.

His plan was to give each of his 300 men a jar with a flame in it, some kind of torch or whatever thing, and a trumpet to blow.

Now, relying on God, and you think about that, he's been told to pare down to 300. You think, well, you just go, and don't worry about strategy.

But he does think about strategy. It shows us relying on God does not mean not using your head.

It doesn't mean you shouldn't make plans and do everything you can and strategize.

Learn. Here, God wants them to be pared down to 300 troops so that they'll know that he gave them the victory, but he still wants them to use a process, to think, strategize.

Then comes the success. In verses 19 to 25, the plan works when suddenly at night, the already fearful

Midianites, imagine they're sitting there in camp. They're nervous. They've got this suspicion that things are going to go badly for them, and suddenly 300 lights appear in the darkness, and then 300 trumpets blow, and they panicked.

At the end of verse 21, they cried out, and they fled, and they started lashing out in all directions with their swords, and they're fighting amongst themselves, and they're fighting, they're fleeing, and they're falling.

And then Gideon gets the word out to all the men of Israel back home, come out, seal off their escape, and eliminate them.

And they do, and capture two princes of Midian, bringing their heads to Gideon, and the reluctant has become the reliant, and so now they have success.

In chapter 9, the reliant is offered the rule, and we see that too, chapter 9, in four parts.

They also rhyme, by the way. You're impressed, I can tell. We see that in four parts.

First, there's the jealous. Gideon, the former nobody, now after his great success, he was the least young man from the weakest clan, now has to deal with, you know, when you have success, you often have to deal with politics.

People are struggling over who rules. Now, the men of Ephraim don't like the fact that Gideon started the stampede with only 300 men, and they're all shouting, by the way, for the

Lord and for Gideon. Gideon got his name in there, and they want to share that glory. That's probably why the

Lord sent them home, because they want to share their glory, and they're jealous. And so, as is often the wisest way to handle prideful, jealous people, he flatters them.

What have I been able to do in comparison with you? Not exactly a lie, because he does a lot more in comparison with them, but enough flattery to soothe their egos.

Oh, okay, he appreciates us. After dealing with the jealous, Gideon has to deal with the nervous.

He and his 300 men are chasing after the two Midianite kings who got away, and when they come across the

Israelite town of Sukkoth, he asks them for bread to refresh his men, so they'll have plenty of dinner, keep fighting, keep pursuing.

But the men of Sukkoth think about it. They look at Gideon. They look at 300. That's all you got.

What's that? And they probably know the Midianites say they got 15 ,000 more waiting for them, and they begin to calculate, you know, make a rational decision.

It's not smart right now to take sides. Not a good idea. Gideon loses, and the

Midianites come back. We'll be in trouble. Never mind about what's right.

Never mind about God's promises to Israel. Never mind that they should believe that the

Lord is with them and with Gideon, that they should have faith and trust God for protection and side with Gideon, even if he only has 300 men.

They should see that the Lord is with them. But, no, they won't do that. They won't believe. So they refuse, and Gideon promises that he'll come back, and he will teach them a lesson.

They probably waved him off. Yeah, like, sure, go away. A little further down, another town, Penuel does the same thing.

They're nervous instead of believing. But Gideon catches up to the Midianite kings with their 15 ,000 -strong army, and he defeats them.

He captures their kings, and then he comes back to the nervous, unbelieving Israelites, and he teaches them a lesson.

And you look. Here they are, the two kings. He's captured. Midianite kings. They were afraid of them instead of believing the

Lord. And so he flayed the elders of Sukkoth with thorns, scratched their skin with the thorns of the desert, went to Penuel and tore down their tower, says executed some of the men there, probably the unbelieving leaders.

The penalty for unbelief, even when that unbelief seems very rational, like a cost -counting decision, the penalty for unbelief is severe.

Well, after the jealous and the nervous, Gideon deals with the zealous, and three groups of the zealous.

The enemy was zealous to steal, kill, and destroy, and Gideon asked the kings why they killed some

Israelite men. Gideon says he would have spared them if they had spared.

But the enemy doesn't spare. There's no compromise with the enemy, and so Gideon won't compromise, and he wants to instill that in his eldest son

Jether. Be zealous. Don't compromise. That's what Joshua tried to do in the book of Joshua, the leaders.

But he's too young. He's kind of scared. The Midianites taunted Gideon about it, and so he does it himself.

He was zealous, zealous to bring God's judgment on earth. Now the people, the people are zealous for Gideon.

He's proven to be their small s savior, and so they appeal to him.

They want something new this time, not just to judge, but for him to rule over them, to be their king.

They'll start a dynasty. They don't have this problem, and when he dies, they'll go back to the problem before. So his sons will rule, and they'll have a king like other nations had kings.

But Israel was supposed to be different. It was supposed to be ruled by the Lord through his word.

I mean, isn't it odd? You think about it. You read all through the law, the first five books of Moses. There's nothing about telling them to have a king.

Moses doesn't appoint a king, but other nations have. But Israel was supposed to be different.

Every person was supposed to be believing in and obeying the Lord for themselves.

It wasn't just supposed to be something a king imposed on them that made them obey. Obedience was supposed to come from their heart because each of them believed

God and was pursuing him and loving him and worshiping him, but it wasn't working.

They were going astray, and they weren't letting God rule their hearts. They weren't seeking first his kingdom.

And so they are eager to make now Gideon their king and impose God's way on them so they won't go astray.

But Gideon refuses, and there's the answer to our question. Who rules?

Judges 8, verse 23. The Lord will rule, Gideon says.

He believes in that great ideal. The Lord alone is their king, and he apparently is zealous for that ideal.

This ideal of a nation of people organized not by a government imposing its way on them, but by every member of it living with God as the ruler of their life in their heart, seeking first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.

It's a lofty ideal. It's a great ideal worth being zealous about.

Now zeal is good, but zeal needs to be married to knowledge.

And that's what the incident with the ephod from verses 24 to 28 shows. Gideon makes an ephod.

An ephod is a priestly garment. It kind of covers the torso, sleeveless, kind of you save a shirt without sleeves.

He uses some of the loot from the kings of Midian and takes earrings that they gave to him and fashions this into a beautiful breastplate for the ephod, this sleeveless thing covering the torso used for the priest to worship

God, to seek God's will with using the urim and the thummim that kind of go in combination with that, ask

God questions. It probably began innocently, even zealously. You know, this would be a great way for us to worshipfully celebrate the victory

God gave us, but they forgot that they're not supposed to add their own inventions to the worship of God.

They had zeal without knowledge, and that led that thing, that ephod, to becoming a snare, it calls it, a trap, in verse 27.

That is something superstitious, that instead of being a way to worship God with, it probably is something they began to worship itself.

They thought it had power, that they would give whatever, something that they thought they could use to manipulate God with.

Like some people today think crosses or pictures of Christ, you know, icons, that such things have, we should give respect to those images, and that will give us power.

Such things often begin with a zeal for God, but zeal without knowledge of God's word, and the result, then the people become trapped.

It's a snare, it's a trap in superstition, even led into idolatry.

That's why you should have a zeal that leads you to have a desire to get more knowledge of God's word, a passion that wants to know more of how to live under God's rule.

What has he said? That's about how I want to worship God. Well, finally, after the jealous and the nervous and the zealous are the rebellious.

In verses 29 to 35, same song, different verse. They had rest for 40 years.

This is the last rest in the book of Judges. While Gideon was alive, they had the rest. As soon as he died, it says they turned again.

This is getting kind of towering, isn't it? Same thing. Verse 33 says they whored. The NIV we heard said they prostituted after other gods.

It's a strong sexual kind of term, showing that the Lord feels toward our unfaithfulness, like we might feel if our spouse was sexually unfaithful to us.

It elicits that kind of passion and hatred in God himself. They went after the

Baals. And think how irrational that is. I mean, Gideon had contended with them, had mocked them, had defied

Baal. And soon after he's dead, they go right back to it. This time it calls them to the

Baal Berith, means Baal of the covenant, Lord of the covenant. Their covenant is supposed to be with the

Lord, Yahweh, with God, not with Baal. But they turned away. They didn't remember the

Lord. They didn't remember that he saved them. They forgot. Again, they were rebellious.

And they were even unfaithful to the family of Gideon. You know, faithlessness leads to unfaithfulness.

Well, who rules? Now, these people show that they do not want the

Lord to rule over them. But that's the way all people are when left to themselves.

You know, people today love to debate about whether we have free will, right?

Theological debate. Do we have free will? Often insisting that we do.

We must have free will. Demanding that we rule our own choices. They think it's just necessary for anything to be right or wrong or love or anything.

We have to have free will. Well, who rules? Well, they say we do. We rule our own will.

Now, the problem with free will is what we do with it. Now, yes, our will is free.

It's free of outer compulsion. You know, God does not force people who do not want him to choose him.

And he does not pull the strings of people to rebel, make them rebel, who would otherwise, if left to themselves, have chosen to believe and to obey.

That never happens. Okay? Here, we see what happens with people when they're left to themselves, when they're left to their free will.

They are free of outer compulsion. You know, no dynasty making them obey the

Lord. But they're not free of inner corruption. They freely go back to their gods here, to Baal, the now discredited

Baal. But they still go back to him. Maybe today they'll go back to immorality, to intoxication, to pride, whatever it is, to asserting that they rule.

They do that because they are slaves of sin. Who rules? Sin does.

And they gladly obey without God's grace. Remember that?

The grace Gideon took for granted when he's beating out the weed in that wine press? The grace we take for granted when we self -righteously ask

God, you know, if you're all powerful and good, why are you allowing these things to happen to us? The problem of evil is, though, we aren't sinful and needing grace.

Without grace, sin rules. That means that then, whenever anyone turns from sin, rebels against sin, believes the

Lord and is faithful, that's not how they got God's grace, by making the right choices.

It shows that God already has had grace on them.

The amazing thing is still, the problem of good. Why is the

Lord good to us? Why does anyone believe and repent and obey the

Lord? Because they're better, they're smarter, raise in a better family, more noble, better character.

If that were the case, we wouldn't have to be reliant.

We just muster our own forces to make ourselves do good. We should then be encouraged to apply everything we have to do good.

But it doesn't work. We're still slaves of sin. The problem of good is that we are so sinful, so reluctant to trust, so rebellious, so naturally opposed to God's rule over us, and yet God saves us anyway.

Why? Because God gives us grace, peace, a heart that wants, finally, for Him to rule over us.

Finally, we seek first the kingdom of God. How did the

Lord do it? Well, that's what Jesus was born for, of the increase of His government and of peace.

There will be no end. Who rules? Jesus does.