You know, it causes us to focus
on what we all treasure and hold dear, that the Lord Jesus Christ
is all of our salvation. When we gather together and sing,
With that in our heart and with our voices together, it's very
delightful. And when we do it in faith, it
pleases God because by faith, we please God. Faith looks to
Christ and God is pleased with him, so we are also pleased.
So thank God for his mercy to us and he's given us the fellowship
of one another, this precious faith to look to Christ and this
common this common faith, the Spirit of God giving us this
look to Christ and knowing He is all of our salvation. I want
to bring a message today, the second part of Gideon in Judges
chapter 6 and 7, if you want to turn to the book of Judges.
Gideon was a man of faith. In Hebrews chapter 11 it says
that by faith Gideon, or what shall I more say, Considering
all the other examples of faith God has given to us, time would
fail me to tell of Gideon. And so Gideon was a man of faith.
If we keep that in mind, we'll understand the claims that God
made and spoke to Gideon that it was all through faith. Don't
lose sight of this. Don't lose sight of this. This
is a big takeaway lesson, that it's faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Let me read this verse of scripture to you in the book
of 1 John, in chapter 5. He says this in 1 John, chapter
5, verse 4. Whatsoever is born of God overcomes
the world. Whoever is born of God will overcome
the world. And this is the victory that
overcometh the world. even our faith. Everyone born
of God therefore believes, and through believing, through looking
to Christ, we're saved. We overcome the world. The world
is our enemy. The world opposes God. Everything
that's in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the
eyes, the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the
world. And the world passes away. And so God is, Christ has overcome
the world. He gave himself for our sins
that he might deliver us from this present evil world. Galatians
1 verse 4. Jesus said, in the world you
shall have tribulation. You shall have tribulation in
the world, but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world. And
the world. So when we talk about our enemies,
let's think about this for a minute. What does scripture say is our
enemies? Whatever scripture says our enemies are, know this, Christ
has overcome our enemies, and faith knows that. Why did God
send his son into the world? To save his people from their
sins. What's his name? Jesus. What
does Jesus mean? He shall save his people from
their sins. What are our enemies? Our sins.
and all the consequences our sins bring upon us. We have disobeyed. We have not believed God. God
in mercy has saved us from our sins by the death of his own
son. And now he tells us, believe
him. You will have tribulation. The world will oppose you. That's
one of our enemies. What are our other enemies? What
other enemies do we have now in this life as a wilderness
We're living as in a wilderness, going to the promised land, our
eternal inheritance in Christ. What other enemies do we have?
Well, everything really that opposes that. And what is it
that most opposes our trusting Christ and walking with him by
faith? What is it? Our sinful nature
and Satan and his kingdom. Now these enemies are so much
more powerful than us. It's like when Gideon was in
the place where we're about to read here in the Old Testament,
the enemies had come into their land. They were taking everything,
their crops, their animals, their goods, and carrying them away,
eating them, plundering, ruining their land. They would wait until
they had labored and planted the seed and plowed the field
and they were about to harvest it and just then, boom, the enemies
came in and gobbled it all up like grasshoppers. It would be
like in history, this has happened, where people work their whole
lives and someone takes their money that they work for, for
them and their children, and gives it to someone else, takes
it for themselves. You know what that feels like?
My mother used to say her father was bitter in his old age. He
grew up in the time of the Depression in this country. He was a farmer.
He married his wife and together they had, I think, a couple of
hundred acres where they grew wheat. But at that time in the
economy of the United States, the price of crops dropped. They
spent all their days and all the time, and every day they
could. My mom said that her father woke up at 4.30 in the morning
and went to bed at 10 at night, working the whole time as a farmer. And you know what that's like.
That's a lot of work. And he was an old man. Well, in the Depression,
they couldn't sell enough to pay for their basic needs. So he borrowed money from the
bank. bought more land so they would
have enough to provide, but you know what happened? They couldn't
afford to pay the taxes, and all their land was taken. That's
what it feels like. You work all your life, and it
was taken from these people. The Midianites came in, the Amalekites
came in, the Children of the East came in, and they just took
away whatever these people had labored for. But you know why?
It says in Judges chapter six, the children of Israel did evil
in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord delivered them into
the hand of the Midianites seven years. For seven years, these
people just came in, year after year, seven years in a row, and
took everything that they saw for themselves. They didn't care
about the Israelites. It says in verse two, in the
hand of Midian prevailed against Israel, and because of the Midianites,
the children of Israel made them dens, the dens, which are in
the mountains, and they made caves and strongholds. That's
what they did. They were sinning against God. God brought their enemies on
them and they hid. They were guilty and they hid.
They were in fear of their enemies. We talked about that last time.
Isn't that what our sins do? They make us guilty before God. We're afraid and we hide. The
very enemies that come against us, we're afraid of. We cannot
stand up against our own sinful self. We can't stand up against
Satan and his kingdom and anti-Christ religion. We're weak, we're helpless,
and it's our own fault. It's our own dumb fault. And
so what do we do? Well, at the end of seven years,
they finally cry to the Lord. That's a mercy, isn't it? It's
God's mercy to us that we cry. It's like when a child is being
disciplined by their mom and dad. Finally, they break down.
In the process of discipline, the child finally breaks down
and says, whatever, I've done wrong. And they embrace mom and
dad, and then there's this sweet reunion. That's what God is doing
here. He's bringing us to himself to
cry to the Lord. It hurts. I don't know what to
do. I have sinned against you. Lord,
help me. My enemies are too strong and
too many. And so he says in verse three, it was so that when Israel
sown, the Midianites came up and the Amalekites and the children
of the east, even they came up against them and they camped
against them and destroyed the increase of the earth till thou
cometh to Gaza and left no sustenance for Israel, neither sheep nor
ox or ass. And they came up with their cattle and their tents,
and they came as grasshoppers for a multitude, for both they
and their camels were without number, and they entered into
the land to destroy it." That's why they came, to completely
destroy the land, like a marauding band of robbers. They didn't
care about all the fact that you have children to feed, you
don't have any clothes, and they chased them into the mountains
and they hid there. In verse six, it was, and Israel was greatly
impoverished. They were made poor because the
Midianites and the children of Israel cried to the Lord. Here's
the cry, and now it came to pass when the children of Israel cried
unto the Lord because of the Midianites that the Lord sent
a prophet to the children of Israel, which said to them, thus
saith the Lord God of Israel. Notice, God sends a prophet.
He sends a man, and he's gonna tell them about what God did,
and he's gonna tell them about their own sin. He says, I brought
you up from Egypt. I brought you forth out of the
house of bondage. I delivered you out of the hand
of the Egyptians and out of the hand of all that oppressed you.
And I drove them out from before you, and I gave you their land.
And I said to you, I am the Lord your God. Fear not the gods of
the Amorites in whose land you dwell. You have not obeyed my
voice. That was it. That's what the
prophet said. You're sinful. You're a sinful people. You know
what that feels like to be told that you were wrong and the troubles
that you have are all your fault? It makes you feel helpless and
weak. Your knees are weak, your hands hang down, your head hangs
down, and you can't look up. Like the publican, God be merciful
to me the sinner. And they cried, and then God
sent an angel. He sent his son. Verse 11, there
came an angel, which is a messenger of the Lord, and he sat under
an oak, which was an ophra, that pertained unto Joash the Abiezrite,
and his son Gideon threshed wheat by the winepress to hide it from
the Midianites. Gideon was the son of Joash, and Gideon was
taking the wheat from the field, and he was beating it out at
the winepress, on the threshing floor by the winepress. They
don't normally thresh wheat by the wine press. The wine press
is where you crush grapes. But here he's beating the wheat
in order to get the grain out of the wheat so they would have
something to make bread with. He's beating the wheat to make
bread by the wine press. It's significant. And the angel
of the Lord appeared to him. Christ appeared to Gideon when
he was in this place. And he said to him, the Lord
is with thee, thou mighty man of valor. Why was he called a
mighty man of valor? Was Gideon this huge, strong,
burly guy that people were afraid of? He could just do what he
wanted to do? No, that's not why. It says, the Lord is with
thee, thou mighty man of valor. The reason that God said to Gideon,
you are a mighty man of valor, is because the Lord said, I am
with you. There's only one way we can be
strong, is if Christ is our strength. The Lord Jesus Christ has to
be our strength. Our strength has to be in Him.
In Psalm 27, in verse four, it says this. The Lord is my light
and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength
of my life, of whom shall I be afraid? Who is our strength against
our sin? Who is our strength against our
sin? People will say, well, now, if
you haven't been able to get rid of your sin, then you can't
be a child of God. What are you gonna do when you
hear that? You can't be a child of God if
you're a sinner. What are you gonna say? What
are you gonna think in your heart? You're gonna say, yeah, what
am I going to do? If I have to overcome my sin
and sin is still with me, what hope do I have? Well, the only
hope you have is that Christ came to save sinners, that his
name is Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. Our
only hope is in the Lord Jesus Christ. And faith overcomes the
world because faith causes us to see, yes, I am a sinner. Yes, I have no strength against
my sin. My own fault brings all the trouble
upon me. And yet, crying to the Lord,
Lord, you are Jesus. You save your people from their
sins. And so we keep calling upon him. It says, when we were
yet without strength in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. What's the description of a person
that Jesus saves? What's the description? Ungodly,
without strength, sinners. In due time, God sent forth his
son. He made known his love toward
us when we were yet sinners. And when we were enemies, God
reconciled us to himself by the death of his son. How does he
save sinners? By the death of his son. He gave
his son. When we were without strength,
when we were sinners and ungodly. If that's the way he saves us,
that's the way we live. As sinners needing a savior,
Jesus is our only hope of being saved from our sins. And so that's
what faith does, and faith overcomes the world. We keep coming again
as sinners needing salvation that only Christ can give us.
And so we have this. And so he says, the Lord is my
strength. Thou mighty man of valor, the Lord is with you.
The Lord is with you. If God is with us, he says, the
Lord said, I will not leave thee nor forsake thee, so that I may
boldly say, the Lord is my helper. He's my strength. What can man
do to me? What can man do? The Lord is
my helper. If men accuse me, and they like
to do that, especially religious people, they try to rob us of
our salvation in Christ by saying, see, see, you are such a sinner. You cannot be one of God's people.
Isn't that what our conscience does? Isn't that what religion
does? They try to rob the poor from their inheritance in Christ
and they plead against them. They try to make them appear
as fatherless. How can you claim to have God
as your father? How can you claim to be a child
of Abraham? What are you going to say? Lord, plead for me. That's all you can say. You're
fatherless, you're helpless, you're oppressed. Lord, plead
for me. And here God sends his angel, the Lord Jesus Christ,
to Gideon. And Gideon said to him, O my lord, if the Lord be
with us, why then is all this befallen us? And where be all
his mercies, or his miracles, which our fathers told us of,
saying, Did not the Lord bring us from Egypt? Now the Lord has
forsaken us, and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites.
And the Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ, the messenger sent by
God, the Lord looked upon him. When God looks upon us in the
Lord Jesus Christ, what does he see? He sees our need and
he sees to it. He provides the need he sees
we have. And what is that need? We need
the blood of his son. We need the righteousness of
his son. We need his obedience to be our obedience. We need
his blood to cleanse us from our sins. The Lord looked upon
him in grace, in saving grace. And when the Lord looks upon
us in saving grace, then we can be confident we will be delivered
from our enemies. So the Lord looked upon him and
said, go in this thy might. What was his might? What was
his strength? The Lord. The Lord is with him. And thou
shalt save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Have not I
sent thee? You see, our enemies are strong.
We have no power against them, and yet the Lord Jesus Christ
sends us against our enemies. That doesn't seem fair, like
a fair fight at all, does it? Why does he do that? Why does
God require more of us than we can give? So we come to him, to receive
from him the very life we have to live. That's the principle
of scripture here. He's sending them to these enemies
that are much more than they are, much stronger than they
are. And he says, I'll be with you. I'll deliver you. And the
Lord said, surely I will be with thee. And thou shalt smite the
Midianites as one man. And the Lord Jesus Christ, one
man. And he said to them, if for now I have found grace in
thy sight, then show me a sign that thou talkest with me. Gideon
said, You know, I've heard about the truth from you, and I think
I see you, but I'm not quite sure. It's easy for me to deceive
myself, and I'm easily deceived by others. I need you to show
me a sign. That's what Gideon is saying. Have you ever wondered that?
Is it really true that God could save a sinner like me? Is it
really true? Has God really said it? Or did
I just think this up? Or did somebody else who was
like me, a sinful person, think this up and try to convince me? Did God say this? Does the Lord
Jesus Christ really save helpless sinners? without no strength,
as bad as I am, will God accept me because of what He thinks
of Jesus Christ? Did He really raise me from the
dead when He raised His Son from the dead? Did He really say about
me justified because of His obedience? And did He make me holy in His
blood when He did that? Did God really say these things?
And so he asked for a sign. Show me a sign. And so he waits. He says, the Lord, the angel,
which is the Lord Jesus here, Gideon says to him, depart not
hence, I pray thee, until I come again and bring forth my present
and set it before thee. And he said, I will wait, I will
tarry until thou come again. And Gideon went and he made ready
a kid, a goat, a baby goat, and unleavened cakes of the ephah
of flour, and the flesh he put in a basket, and he put the broth
in a pot, and he brought it out to him under the yoke, and he
presented it." He presented the offering to the Lord Jesus. And
the angel of the Lord, again, the Lord Jesus, because he's
the one who's the Lord that looked upon him. He said, the angel
of the Lord said to him, take the flesh and the unleavened
cakes and lay them on the rock and pour out the broth, and he
did so. He lays the bread here, he lays the flesh of that goat
that he had prepared, and he poured the broth on it. and then
the angel of the Lord put forth the end of his staff that was
in his hand and he touched the flesh and the unleavened cakes
and fire rose up out of the rock and consumed the flesh and the
unleavened cakes and the angel of the Lord departed out of his
sight. What happened? What happened here? There was
an offering. In fact, there was a burnt offering and it was completely
consumed. But what was it that Gideon asked
for? He asked for a sign that God
talked with him. And what was the answer to his
request? What did God do in order to assure
him the Lord was with him? He accepted the sacrifice. He consumed the sacrifice. He
accepted not only the sacrifice, but he accepted Gideon. And he
said here, when Gideon perceived that he was an angel of the Lord,
Gideon said, oh, Lord God, because I've seen an angel of the Lord
face to face, he thought he was going to die because he was a
sinner. And the Lord said to him, peace. Be unto thee, fear
not, thou shalt not die. And then Gideon built an altar
there to the Lord and called it Jehovah Shalom, which means
the Lord is at peace with me. He made peace. How? In the offering. Peace in Christ's blood. God
has reconciled us to himself by the death of his son. He satisfied
his just requirements for our death in the death of his son. We should have died. We should
have been beaten for our sins. And God in his great mercy took
his son and put him to death, laid our sins upon him, put him
to death. And the chastisement for our
peace came upon him. The beating we deserved for our
sins came upon Christ. That was the sign. And Gideon
looks upon the sign. What was he then? He was completely
convinced that God was at peace with him, and he said, Jehovah
shalom, the Lord my peace. God at peace with me, a sinful
man. If God is at peace with us, what
does that do? It produces this effect in us,
quietness. and peace and assurance. It says in Isaiah 32, 17, this
is the work of righteousness shall be peace and the effect
of righteousness quietness and assurance forever. Remember that
verse? How do we have peace? Through
righteousness. How do we have righteousness?
The work of God. The work of Jesus Christ. Can
we make peace with God? No. It can only be made by righteousness. And who makes that righteousness?
Christ obeyed His Father by laying His life down for us in submission
of obedience that sacrificed Himself to God for us. That's
the obedience that makes our peace. And that righteousness
has an effect on us when we believe it. It's quietness and peace
and assurance. Our peace with God is made and
we have assurance that God has accepted us because of the sacrifice. Where is our assurance? Is it
in what we feel? Is it in what we do? No, it's
in God's acceptance of the sacrifice, you see. And so then it came
to pass that night that the Lord said to him, take your father's
young bullock, even the second bullock of seven years, throw
down the altar of Baal that thy father has, and cut down the
grove that's by it, and build an altar to the Lord thy God
upon the top of this rock in the ordered place, and take the
second bullock, and offer a burnt sacrifice with the wood of the
grove, which thou shalt cut down. And Gideon took the ten men of
his servants, and he did as the Lord had said to him. 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. God told him to tear down the altar of the idol. and cut
the wood down that they had built. They grew these trees and these
bushes around their altar so that when they were doing their
sacrifices to their idol, they could do all kinds of perverse
things they wouldn't want others to see. And so they built these
groves around their idol altars. And God said, you cut that down,
and you take the wood, and you offer to me your father's ox
on this rock, not in the place where the idol was, but another
altar on this rock where the angel of the Lord had consumed
that sacrifice. And so Gideon was afraid to do
it at daytime, so he did it at night. But he did it. Why? Because he believed God. You
see, God had visited these people, the Israelites, because of their
sin. They were suffering under the hand of the Midianites. God
sent his prophet to convince them of their sin and remind
them of his redemption. And then he sent his angel, the
Lord Jesus Christ. He accepted them because of the
sacrifice. And then what does he do? Tear
down the altar. Tear down the idol. and you set
up a place of worship to the only true and living God, an
offer there. By faith, look to Christ and
you live upon him. Next he goes and says, and when
the men of the city, notice what's gonna happen. What do you think
the men who worship this idol god would do when Gideon tore
down their altar? What do you think they would
do? What do you think they would do when he cut down their trees
and their bushes and burnt up an altar, an offering to God
with that? They would be pretty mad, don't
you think? He says here. When the men of the city arose
early in the morning, behold, the altar of Baal, which means
the dunghill god, the altar of Baal was cut down, and the grove
was cut down that was by it, and the second bullock was offered
upon the altar that was built. And they said one to another,
these idol worshipers said to one another, who has done this
thing? And when they inquired and asked,
they said, Gideon, the son of Joash, has done this thing. They
found out who did it. Gideon did that. Oh. Then the
men of the city said unto Joash, Gideon's father, bring out thy
son that he may die, because he has cast down the altar of
Baal, and because he cut down the grove that was by it. And
Gideon's father, Joash, said to them, notice what he says.
God said to Gideon, you go tear down that altar to that idol,
and you cut down the trees, and you burn up the burnt offering
to God on an altar. I'll tell you where to build
it, on the rock. And so then they come to Joash,
Gideon's father, and say, you bring your son out, we're gonna
kill him. He tore down our altar. He cut down the grove. He destroyed
our idol. And you know what Joash said?
This was his own place where it was. Joash said, will you
plead for Baal? Will you save him? Now, this is amazing. He reverses
the role of men and God. What does God do if he's God?
Does he need a man to build him or make him? Does the true God
need a man to plead against his enemies and find out who his
enemies are, like these men did? Does he need someone to save
him? Of course not. And so what Joash,
Gideon's father, is doing, he is mocking their idol with the
most shameful, in the most shameful
way. He's being very derogatory. He's mocking them. Are you kidding?
Are you going to plead for your God? He's a God, right? You're going to save your God?
So your God doesn't plead for himself? He doesn't save you? What kind of a God do you have?
You see, this is what God is saying about all of man's religion. Men say, you have to do this
in order to be saved. God says, Jesus Christ saves
his people from their sins. There's a big difference there,
isn't there? If you have to do anything to save yourself, then
you have to plead for your God and you have to save your God
because he can't plead for you and save you. But notice the
way that God says it in the book of Proverbs, in Proverbs 22. He says, rob not the poor because
he is poor. It's easy to rob the poor, isn't
it? There he is, the poor guy. I'll send out my servants and
they'll take what he has. He's just poor. Like my grandfather,
my mom told us about the bank would take his land. He's poor,
he can't pay. So we're gonna take everything
he has. Rob not the poor because he is poor, neither oppress the
afflicted in the gate. For the Lord will plead their
cause and spoil the soul of those that spoiled them, or spoiled
him. So the poor people are those
who have nothing and they can't defend themselves. And he says,
don't take from them. Don't lay a stumbling block in
the way of a blind man. He won't see it and he'll stumble.
And don't talk about a person who can't hear. You see, and
don't rob the poor. He doesn't have anything. Because
the Lord is going to plead their cause. You see, God's people
have been given something, an eternal inheritance in Christ,
and they have only one thing, faith. in the Lord Jesus Christ. So don't come around with your
false doctrine and your false gods and your false preachers
and your anti-Christ religion and try to tell them they have
no inheritance in Christ because that's to rob the poor. God's
gonna plead for them and he has done so in the Lord Jesus Christ.
He's going to plead. And God's people know this. In the same book, chapter 23,
Proverbs 23, verse 10, Remove not the old landmark.
Enter not into the fields of the fatherless. For their Redeemer
is mighty. He shall plead their cause with
thee. In Jesus' day, there were people
who came to Jesus to be saved from their sins and to be healed
of all their sicknesses or to have their children healed or
saved. We want our children to know the Lord Jesus Christ and
to be saved. And so we bring them to Jesus.
We pray for them. We bring them to hear about him.
We ask the Lord to save them. But the Pharisees and the scribes
would say, yeah, you know, you don't need to come over here,
you know, you guys are poor, you're sinners and publicans
and harlots and yeah, yeah, we don't want you here. You have
no part with Abraham, you're fatherless, you're orphans, you're
heathen. They would make them fatherless.
But they were actually the ones who were the true children. They
were the ones for whom Christ came into the world and was made
under the law and being made under the law endured the curse
for them that they might receive the spirit of adoption and with
their heart and mind and mouth say, Abba, Father, my Father. Jesus said to his disciples,
I won't leave you orphans, fatherless, I'm gonna come to you. That's
the reason I'm going to the cross and then going into glory to
prepare a place for you. If I do go away to prepare a
place for you, then I'll come again and I'll receive you to
myself that where I am you may be also. The fatherless Christ
pleads for them. The false religion tries to take
from us this landmark, this eternal inheritance given to us in Christ
that we only know and have by faith. And so the Lord says,
He, the Redeemer, will plead for them. And this is the way
we have. Do you ever find it in your own
conscience? Lord, what shall I do about my sin? My sin is
too great. I don't know how to be rid of
it. I don't know how to come to you
because I'm such a sinner. I don't know why you would have
anything to do with me. And so we lose hope. And we're
tempted to leave the Lord. But that's the reason we came.
That's the reason we first heard is because we were sinners and
had no help except the Lord was our helper and our strength and
Christ was our savior. And so he says in Micah chapter
seven, rejoice not against me, O mine enemy. When I fall, I
shall arise. When I sit in darkness, the Lord
shall be a light to me. I will bear the indignation of
the Lord because I have sinned against him until he plead my
cause. and execute judgment for me,
he will bring me forth to the light, I shall behold his face
in righteousness. That's all we have. The Lord
did this. And Joash, Gideon's father said,
you know, if your God needs someone to save you, you're doomed. But our God saves us. Our God
actually pleads for us against our enemies. Isn't that what
it says in the New Testament? Listen to these words. See if
this is not the answer to this prayer that God would plead for
us. He says, who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?
Who is going to charge them with wrong? It is God who justifies. Who is going to stand in the
court of heaven and point their finger in the face of the judge,
their judge, and say against us, God's elect, Yeah, well,
they need to be charged with their sin. They're helpless and
they're sinful. They have no reason to hope in
Christ. Oh, yes, they do. They have every reason to hope.
Number one, because they have nothing. And number two, he's
the only one who saves. God sent him into the world to
save his people from their sins. And he goes on. Here's another. pleading of God against our enemies. He says, who is he that condemneth? In Romans 8.34, who is he that
condemneth? Bring him forth. Who's going
to charge? Haman? You're going to condemn
the Jews? Hang him. That's what the king
said. Who is he that condemneth? It
is Christ that died. Isn't that the only hope we have?
Gideon, he had nothing. He said, my father's house is
poor in Manasseh. And I'm the weakest, I'm the
poorest in my father's house. How are you gonna save Israel
through me? He said, you go in this your strength. The Lord
is with you. The Lord sees you. And the Lord
sent you. The Lord is the one who will
fight for you. Think about the accepted sacrifice. and go in
this thy might. Tear down the altar. Know that
God pleads for his people. Who is he that condemneth? It
is Christ that died. I need nothing else, do you? I want nothing else. And I don't
trust anything else. but Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
And that's our strength. It's faith that overcomes the
world. Our enemies are the world, our sinful self, our sins that
accuse us, everything that would deny us this comfort as the children
of God that He has done this for us. And God in our life,
through the experience of our life, He brings us into this
situation of our utter weakness. You see, our problems are our
own fault, and that we have no other recourse, but that the
Lord himself would have mercy upon us and plead our cause,
because our cause is his cause. Our cause is our salvation, and
that's his cause. His name shall be called Jesus.
He shall save his people from their sins. That's not a reason
to be depressed or discouraged. It's a reason for hope. It's
a reason for assurance. Let's pray. Lord, we pray that
you would deliver us from all of our enemies. Our greatest
enemy is our own sinful self. And that you would deliver us
from the hand of all that hate us, Satan and his kingdom and
this wicked world. And that we would find our strength
in the Lord Jesus Christ, our only hope. and you're the only
one you provided to save us, and he has by himself purged
our sins. Though our enemies prevail against
us, we know he is strong and mighty, and none can prevail
against him. He shall bring us to himself,
he shall perfect us, he shall save us to the uttermost by his
intercession, his advocacy, the propitiation of himself which
he offered to God for our sins. And we pray, Lord, that we would
find in our heart that we need nothing else but the Lord Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. And we would also find that we
want nothing else and trust no one else but Him. And we pray,
Lord, that we would live our lives bearing the burdens of
one another, that we would, as Gideon, we would pray for them.
We would pray to the Lord to save them. And Lord, we know
that you will do so, not to the glory of Israel, not to our own
glory, but to the glory of our Savior. For He is our strength,
and by Him we shall defeat all of our enemies. He shall give
us the victory which He has already obtained, and this is our salvation. Bless us now for Christ's sake,
and help us, Lord, in our hearts to truly praise You. Help us
to know that in our lives that we are to live, that we might
live to the thankfulness and praise of our Savior. Oh, that
men would praise the Lord for His goodness and His marvelous
works to the children of men. In His name we pray, amen.