Judges chapter 6, Gideon, an example of faith. Gideon, an example of faith. All these examples that we are given in Hebrews 11 are men and women of like passion, just like me and you. Sinners saved by grace, like we are. And here we come to Gideon. His story is well-known, especially to the Hebrews. They knew these stories. That's why the Apostle brings all these people before them and us. All of them acted in faith. and all that they did, not perfect faith, not perfect faith. The Lord Jesus Christ is the only man who had perfect faith, who possessed perfect faith. He had perfect faith. He believed God perfectly. He acted perfectly. The reason he could sleep on that boat when the storm was raging, and the disciples were losing their mind. They were trying to bail the water out of the boat. And they went and woke him up and said, CARESTHAL NOT THAT WE PERISH? Why are you back here asleep? They are CHIDING HIM! Can you believe that? That is what PERFECT FAITH enables you to do. Sleep in the storm. REST in other words. REST. We can find PERFECT FAITH finds PERFECT REST in all troubles, it doesn't matter what it is. And our Lord possessed that, and we see that in the Gospels. Now Gideon is a type of Christ in this story. He was meek and lowly. He said, My family is one of the meanest here, that is one of the lowest here, and I'm nobody. Our Lord was meek and lowly, wasn't He? He was meek and lowly. He did not go about and make Himself a reputation. He was meek and lowly. That's what He said. They said, We know you. You're the carpenter's son. His family was poor. They were poor. And then He was sent. Gideon was sent. He said, Have not I sent thee? The Lord Jesus Christ was sent from heaven. He was sent from heaven. But remember this. No type, in the Word of God, no type is perfect. It's not perfect because sinful men and types are used. You know, sin has touched everything in this life, but we are given types that we can see Christ in these types. And Gideon, the Lord says to him, are going to deliver Israel, just like Joshua. It says, Joshua discomfited the Amalekites. He gives all the credit to Joshua. And here the Lord says to Gideon, you're going to deliver Israel. Our Lord delivered Israel. All the glory, I told you this Sunday, all the glory goes to Him. It all goes to Him. Now this story starts in Judges 6 and it goes through, I believe, chapter 8. And I wanna just, I know what I wanna do, but I don't know what I'm gonna do until it's done. I've learned that in preaching. I have an outline, I have a beginning, and I have an ending. I don't know if I'll get there or not. I've learned that. And I've learned, I've learned, it takes a while to learn, I'm a slow learner. But I've learned, just stop. Stop whenever you know that you've basically delivered the message. Just learn to stop right there. So I'm going to try to do that. I'm going to go until until I need to stop. And so here we have this story of Gideon and it's held up. It's held up to the Hebrews here by the apostle and to us. But as I said, he's a he's a type of Christ in many ways. But these these people mentioned in Hebrews 11, they are given that the Hebrews may see that their ancestors were just men like them, just people, men and women like them, men and women of like passion. And they lived by faith. They didn't live by works. They didn't seek acceptance by work. It was a life of faith, even back then. And He's given all these examples of these people here tonight. He's given Gideon as an example. He gave it to them and given it to us tonight of what faith looks like. in a believer. This is what faith looks like in a believer. That might be a better title. But this is what it looks like in a believer. So back in, now I want you to know something here. Let's go back to chapter 5 and verse 31. And it says, So let all thine enemies perish, O LORD, but let them that love him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might. Now listen, And the land had rest, Forty years. God gave them rest for forty years. It just appears to me that sin and rest, ease, don't really go together. Because we read in the next verse, and the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord. You know, when the Lord sends us trials, it drives us to Him, doesn't it? Trials drive us to Christ. They drive us to our needs. They drive us to Him and we learn our dependence on Him. We learn our need of Christ under trials. But boy, when Zion is at ease, she usually gets in trouble. She usually gets in trouble. because this very thing happens again. God gave them rest another 40 years and they do evil in the sight of the Lord again. But here, listen, we come to chapter 6. We find that the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord. I don't know exactly what they did. It doesn't say. I do know something of what they did. THEY FELL INTO IDOLATRY. THEY FELL INTO IDOLATRY. THEY FELL INTO THE WORSHIP OF BELL LIKE THE CANAANITES AROUND THEM. THEY FELL INTO THE SAME FALSE RELIGION THEY WERE IN. AND THAT'S A DANGER. THAT'S A REAL DANGER. THAT'S SPIRITUAL FORNICATION IS WHAT THAT IS. SPIRITUAL ADULTERY. THAT'S WHAT THAT IS. THEY HAD MADE AN ALTAR TO BELL Gideon's father His father was guilty also Because that when he was later on here, we'll see he's told to tear down His father's altar he had to go out and tear down his father's altar now You got to think and think of this that Gideon was raised up in idolatry It wasn't until God called him and God revealed himself to him and God sent him that he came out of that idolatry and It wasn't until then, because he was raised up in that house of idolatry, of Baal and all that mess that was going on. And these Israelites did evil in the sight of the Lord, so God delivered them into the hands of the Midianites for seven years. You go back over to Deuteronomy 8. Let's go over there. Let's go to Deuteronomy 8. Deuteronomy chapter 8. Let me see where I want to start reading. I'll just start reading Verse 7, For the LORD thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks, of water, of fountains, and depths, that spring out of valleys and hills, a land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates, a land of oil, and olive, and honey. Now they had nothing to do with this. The Lord brought them into this. This was just given to them. A LAND WHEREIN THOU SHALT EAT BREAD WITHOUT SCARCENESS, THOU SHALT NOT LACK ANYTHING IN IT, A LAND WHOSE STONES ARE IRON, AND OUT OF WHOSE HILLS THOU MAYEST DIG BRASS, WHEN THOU HAST EATEN AND ART FULL, THEN THOU SHALT BLESS THE LORD THY GOD FOR THE GOOD LAND WHICH HE HATH GIVEN THEE. that thou forget not the LORD thy God, and not keeping His commandments, and His judgments, and His statutes, which I command thee this day. Lest when thou hast eaten, and art full, and hast built goodly houses, and dwelt therein, and when thy herds and thy flocks multiply, and thy silver and thy gold is multiplied, and all that thou hast is multiplied, then thine heart be lifted up. And thou forget the Lord thy God, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage, who led thee through that great terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents, scorpions, and drought, where there was no water, who brought thee forth water out of the rock of flint, who fed thee in the wilderness with manna which thy fathers knew not, and he might humble thee, that he might prove thee, and do thee good at thy latter end. But they forgot, didn't they? They forgot. They had 40 years of rest and they fell into idolatry. And they forgot all that God did for them. And there's a real danger in that. There's a real danger. I tell you, there's a real danger when we are blessed and things are comfortable, we are in danger of falling into these things. We don't think we worship anything but God or anyone but God, do we? And I pray that we don't. But I tell you what, when God takes things from you, you realize, you realize how much it had a hold of your heart. That's when you realize what's got a hold of you, when God takes it away from you. And then you realize, oh, it had a stronger hold on me than I thought. That's why we walk softly before God. Henry said that to me one time over a situation. He said, doesn't that make you want to walk softly before God? It does. It does. Well, I tell you, when the Lord blesses you, when he blesses you, I tell you, it makes you want to walk softly before God because he sure don't owe it to me. I do enough for him to do the opposite. That's for sure. But these Midianites, they oppressed Israel, destroying crops and livestock, forcing their people to hide in caves. And I thought of this about those Midianites, our sins are oppressive. Do your sins bother you? I tell you what our sins do, they rob us of many blessings. Oh, they rob us of many blessings. They rob us of joy. David said, Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation. They can rob us of our interest in Christ. We get interested in other things and the Lord has to send, like the Midianites, He has to send trouble or trial to bring us back. He has to do that because that's who we are. And the Israelites cried out to God and He sent a prophet to remind them of how He had delivered them from Egypt and all that He had done for them. Now they had not obeyed His voice. You know, God speaks from this pulpit. You believe that? You believe God speaks from this pulpit, from His Word? Well, I tell you, when I listened to Henry when I was young and growing up, that's one of the things I did realize. I realized it. I realized when he opened that Word and read the Word of God and when he preached, I wasn't just listening to a man standing in a pulpit, I was listening to God speak. I was listening to God speak. I read the Word of God to you, that's God speaking. He said to them, you didn't obey my voice, you didn't listen to me. You didn't listen to me. But oh, how merciful God is to send them a prophet. He could have left them alone and meet Him in judgment, but He sent them a prophet to tell them the truth. what he did it our God is merciful oh how merciful thou art to me and then he calls Gideon in in the verses 11 through 24 Gideon the son of Joash he was threshing wheat in a secret he was in a secret place hiding from the Midianites because if they saw him they would take what he was they would take his food they would take what he was threshing I mean they took everything from Israel they just took everything from him And the Lord met him there. If God's going to save you, He's going to cross your path. He'll meet you there, wherever that there is, He'll meet you. There'll come a time, if the Lord is pleased to save a sinner, there's going to be a confrontation between that sinner and the Lord. The Lord is going to reveal Himself and make Himself known in a powerful way to that sinner. It's not going to be anymore the preacher in the center, it's going to be Christ in the center. He's going to do business with God is what's going to happen. And the Lord, He meets him, look here in verse 12, And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him, unto Gideon. And he said unto him, The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valor. The Lord's with thee. Here he's a type of Christ, the Lord's with Christ, a man of valor, a man of courage and might and strength. But this is the way we are in Christ. This is the way we are in Christ. But now listen, Gideon doesn't yet know exactly who this person is. Not until the not until the sacrifice is offered and it is accepted and that fire comes up out of that rock Well, we have water out of a rock now We've got fire out of a rock and it comes up and consumes all of that and the Lord disappears then then he realized I Have seen the Lord. He said calls him an angel, but he's the translation is I've seen the Lord face to face I'm gonna die Because he knew that the Lord had said to Moses, No man can see My face and live. And so Gideon thought, I'm going to die. I'm going to die. But here the Lord meets him, and He calls him a mighty man of valor. And Gideon here, and you can see his spiritual ignorance here. He shows it right here. If the Lord be with us, why then is all this befalling us? In verse 13. You know when the Lord saves you and you grow in grace and the knowledge of Christ, you know why these things befall you, don't you? They're appointed of God. All our chastenings, all the chastenings that we will experience in this life is appointed of God. It's appointed, not punished. He punished Christ on Calvary's tree. He chastens His children. He chastens us, He punished Christ. But here He is, He questions why Israel is suffering. If the Lord is with us, why is it thus? See there in verse 13, Why then is all this befallen us, and where be all His miracles? If He is with us, where are these miracles at? Show us the miracle! How do we know the Lord is among us tonight? That's why you have so many of these false religionists, preachers standing there trying to act like they're doing a miracle to make people think that God's among them. You know how you know God's among you? The gospel's being preached and it's being preached in POWER! It's not just a repeating of an outline, it's being preached in POWER! That's how you know the Lord is among you. It's when the gospel is preached empowering Jesus Christ is lifted up and glorified and honored in the preaching. That's how you know it. Where be all the miracles which our fathers told us of, saying, Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt? But now the Lord has forsaken us? No, no, no, no, no. YOU FORSOOK THE LORD! Let's get this right. He didn't forsake us. He said, I'll never leave you nor forsake you. The problem is never with Him, ever, ever, ever. It's never with Him. It's with us. We forsake Him. Our hearts go a-whoring after other things. And our hearts have done that. Yes, we're guilty of it. It's done that. We've got interested in other things that took our interest from this. Be sitting here and that's on your mind. You can't get your mind off from it. Oh he's forsaken, no he hasn't forsaken, what a slap in the face of God. No he hasn't, but this is spiritual ignorance and this is YOUTHFUL ignorance too. He hasn't learned anything yet, he's going to. Oh he's going to learn who God is. And delivered us into the hands of the Midianites. Well, you know, you might want to step back and find out why. Why is all this befalling us? You know, when a trial is, and these are things I've learned, I'm giving them to you, and now something befalls me, I sit back and I think, Lord, why is this happening? What's going on? Not questioning His judgment, but is it me? What have I done? We should always ask, Is it I? He said, One of you is going to betray me. They didn't say, Well, I know who it is. You, you, you and you and you. No. Is it I? Is it I? That's scary. You know, the Lord says, If I said, Here's the night that one of you are going to leave the gospel, one of you is going to leave it. Would you say, is it I? Or would you say it's this one or that one, huh? Oh, if you know your heart, if God's given you any understanding of your heart, you're gonna say, Lord, is it I? Don't let it be me. Don't let it be any of us, but don't let it be me. And the Lord looked upon him and said, go in this thy might. What mights he going in? The Word of the Lord, what the Lord said to him, I'll be with you. I'll be with you. We go in the strength of the Word of God. We go in the strength of Christ who is the Word of God. Go in this thy might and thou shalt save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Have not I sent thee? I sent you. You know if a man's called to preach, God sent him. If God's put me here, He sent me here. Our Lord was sent from heaven. God sent His Son from heaven to come into this world and redeem us from our sins. Redeem all those given to Him. He says here, you go in this thy might, which is the Lord, and thou shalt save Israel. This is not an IF, AND, or BUT. When Christ came into this world, His sin of God to come into this world, He came into this world to save God's Israel, and all Israel shall be saved, all of them. And He said unto him, O my Lord, wherewith shall I save Israel? Behold, my family is poor in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house. I'm nobody. I'm nobody. I'm nobody. I tell you what, everyone whom God saves becomes a nobody. God saves nobodies. I'm the least in my father's house. Who am I but a dead dog? Is that what Mephibosheth said? I'm just a dead dog. Who am I? But the Lord assures his presence. He said, Surely I'll be with you. Surely I'll be with you. Look here in verse 15, And he said unto him, O my lord, wherewith shall I save Israel? Behold, my family is poor and menacing, and I am the least in my father's house. And the LORD said unto him, Surely I will be with thee. You're not going to do this by yourself. I'm not sending you out there by yourself. No, I'll be with you. The Lord's always with His people. You know, we're never alone. We're never alone. I heard Henry say in a message to a lady that she was leaving the service and her husband had died. I forget how many widows he named was in that congregation, a bunch of them. And this one lady came out and Henry said, you know, I know it's tough being alone. And she said, I'm not alone. He said, you're right. I'm not alone. The Lord's with me. Oh, I wish that would become so real to us. I'm not alone. If you stick me in a nursing home, I'm not alone. The Lord's with me. The Lord's with me. He says, Surely I'll be with thee, and thou shalt smite the Midianites. Listen, as one man. Christ by Himself purged us from our sins. It says in Hebrews 1, He's purged us from our sins. by Himself. He said, I'll be with thee, and thou shalt smite the Midianites as one man. I wrote that from that Christ in my Bible. I wrote Christ. One man delivered us. One man saved us. One man stands before God on our behalf. One man! And that man is Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ. Like Joshua, you know, it says Joshua discomfited the Amalekites. It was all credited to him. And here it's all going to be credited to Gideon. But they point to the Lord Jesus Christ. All the victory goes to Him. He called Gideon. I mean, He called Gideon. And He said, I'll be with you. He called him. He used him. But the victory is of God, isn't it? GOD USES US, HE USES US TO PREACH THE GOSPEL, BUT THE POWERS OF GOD, IT'S NOT OF US. I know I'm not going to get to that last part of it, but we can see that when over in chapter 8, they've got the trumpet, I'm getting way ahead of myself, but they blow the trumpet like they did Jericho, they have the light, they have a light torch, and it's put in a picture. an earthen vessel, and they blow that trumpet, I'm getting way ahead of myself, they blow that trumpet, you know what they do when they blow that trumpet? They break the picture. And you know why? That light just shines out. That the gospel just goes right out. God's put that light and that treasure in earthen vessels. here in this broken picture of flesh, the light of the gospel goes forth. Well, I'm way ahead of myself. But anyway, beginning in verse 17, verse 21, He asks for a sign. This is typical of unbelief, isn't it? This is typical of unbelievers, but he doesn t know, he really doesn t know who he s talking to yet. He really doesn t know. And he wants a SIGN and he asks for a MIRACLE and the Lord tells him here, and He says in verse 17, And he said unto him, If now I have found grace in thy sight, show me a sign that thou talkest with me. Depart not hence, I pray, until I come unto thee, and bring forth my present, and set it before thee. And he said, I will tarry until thou come. Now here comes the important part of this whole thing. The acceptable sacrifice. He, listen here, and Gideon went in and made ready a kid. He killed a kid, a goat, a lamb, whatever it is. He killed a kid. It says here over my margin, a kid of goats and unleavened cakes of an ephah, a flower, the flesh he put in a basket and he put the broth in a pot and brought it out unto him under the oak and presented it. And the angel of God said unto him, now this is a pre-incarnation of Christ, this is who this angel is, I have no doubt about that. And he said, Take the flesh and the unleavened cakes, he's not going to sit there and eat that, he's going to show to Gideon, I'm the Lord, and the sacrifice is accepted. And you'll notice this, He doesn't speak peace to Gideon until the sacrifice is offered and burnt and accepted. And the Lord goes back, He goes out of His sight, just like He did with the disciples, went out of their sight, back to heaven. And the angel of God said unto him, Take the flesh and the unliving cakes, and lay them upon this rod, and pour out the broth, And he did so. Then the angel of the Lord put forth the end of the staff that was in his hand, and he touched the flesh. He just touched it. And the unleavened cakes, and there arose fire out of the rock and consumed the flesh and the unleavened cakes. Then the angel of the Lord departed out of his sight. The first thing I thought of that just struck me when I read this was our God is a consuming fire. The sacrifice is laid on the rock and when He touched that rock with that rod, that staff in His hand, I could just picture in my mind the Lord Jesus Christ hanging up on Calvary's tree and God's wrath, the fire of God's wrath descending upon him. And up out of that event came a sweet savoring to God, a sacrifice of our Lord on our behalf, accepted, accepted. And the angel of the Lord went, he went up out of his sight, accepted. And when Gideon perceived that he was an angel of the Lord, Gideon said, Alas, O Lord God, for because I have seen an angel of the Lord face to face, I've seen God face to face. And the Lord said to him, the Lord said to him, Peace be unto thee, fear not, thou shalt not die. IT SHALL NOT DIE BUT HE SEEN CHRIST, THE ONLY MEDIATOR BETWEEN GOD AND MAN, THAT'S WHO HE SAW. And peace was spoken after the sacrifice was offered and accepted. That's when peace was offered. Then Gideon built an altar there to the LORD and he called it Jehovah Shalom. Over my margin that is, the LORD send peace. The Lord is our peace. We have several names of God in the scriptures. God has revealed Himself in several names. I'm going to give you a few of them because in His names we find our needs met. Whatever our need is, it is met in His name. He is that to us. Jehovah Nisi, we looked at that Sunday. The Lord is our BANNER. He's our MESSAGE. For sure, He's our MESSAGE. He's the BANNER which we UNITE UNDER and FIGHT UNDER, the GOOD FIGHT OF FAITH and WORSHIP UNDER. And then the next one is Jehovah-Jireh, the Lord will provide. Remember Abraham going up the mountain and Isaac said here's the wood, here's the fire, but where's the lamb? God will provide Himself a lamb. The Lord has provided for us a lamb, His Son in our place and in Him we are accepted. The Lord will provide everything we need for time and eternity. It's very unbecoming for us to call ourselves believers and then worry about the next thing coming down the road. What are we going to eat? What are we going to drink? What are we going to wear? And I know as we get older we have worries that are different than when we were younger. But the Lord will provide. He'll take care of us. He will. Then Jehovah Rapha, the Lord who heals. You know, He heals us spiritually, doesn't He? He heals us spiritually. We get spiritually sick a lot more than we get physically sick. I was telling Vicki today, I said, you know, after 70 years now, I said, I've, the Lord has given me good health. I said, I have, I'm able to get around and just do anything I want to do. I said, he's given that to me. He's given that to me. And he's given me spiritual healing, which I did, which I need far more than I need physical healing. I need it far more than I need He's physical healing. And then we have Jehovah-Raw. The Lord's my Shepherd. He's my Shepherd. He guided you and me here tonight, didn't He? Who's feeding you tonight? Are you being fed tonight? You getting anything out of this, really? The Lord's giving it to you. The Lord's feeding His sheep. HE ALWAYS FEEDS HIS SHEEP. HE'S MY SHEPHERD. HE MAKETH ME TO LIE DOWN IN GREEN PASTURES. HE LEADETH ME BESIDE STILL WATERS. HE DOES THAT. HE LEADS US WITH THAT UNSEEN HAND. THAT INVISIBLE HAND. HE'S GUIDING AND DIRECTING US CONSTANTLY. CONSTANTLY. AND THEN THERE'S JEHOVAH'S SIDDH CANOE. THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS! HE IS OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS! We don't have any, we know that. Well, we know it, but sometimes we kind of forget it. We do, we kind of forget it. But THE LORD IS OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. You see, the grace of God reigns on us, the scripture says, through the righteousness of Christ. It reigns by righteousness, His righteousness. That's why you sons of Jacob and daughters of Jacob are not consumed. It's because the Lord doesn't change and His grace reigns on you because of the righteousness of His Son, Jesus Christ. The Lord Jehovah, that's capital L-O-R-D, Jehovah is our righteousness. And then there's Jehovah Shama. The LORD is there. Where you going when you leave here in a little bit? Where you going? The LORD's there. Everywhere you go, the LORD's there. He's there. He's always with His people. He's always present. The LORD is there. He's present. HE'S HERE TONIGHT! IN SPIRIT HE IS! The first two or three gathered here in His name, HE'S HERE! HE'S HERE! In Jehovah Shalom, the Lord is our peace. After that sacrifice was offered and the fire came out of that rock and burned all that up and the Lord descended up into heaven. Then He spoke peace. HE SPOKE PEACE, PEACE OF THE HEART. I TELL YOU THIS, WHERE THERE'S PEACE IN THE HEART, WHERE THERE'S REAL PEACE IN THE HEART, THERE'LL BE PEACE IN THE HOME. WHERE THERE'S REAL PEACE IN THE HEART, THERE'LL BE PEACE IN THE CHURCH. WHERE THERE'S REAL PEACE IN THE HEART. WHERE THERE'S BICKERING AND FIGHTING, YOU CAN BE SURE OF THIS, THE PEACE OF CHRIST IS NOT IN THAT. is not in that heart. The Lord is our peace. Jesus is just some of the names and we find in His names all that we need, don't we? We find our righteousness, we find our Great Physician, He heals, we find everything we need. He's He's there. We never walk alone. We never do. I'm going to end it right there. There's no way I can touch this tonight. I want to go ahead. I do want to finish it because WHAT HAPPENS IS THAT HE DEALS WITH GIDEON, MAKES HIMSELF KNOWN TO GIDEON, GIDEON TURNS AROUND AND THE LORD TELLS HIM TEAR DOWN THE IDOLS, THE ALTAR, THE BELL, YOU GO IN THERE AND YOU TEAR IT DOWN. YOU KNOW THAT'S PART OF THE MINISTRY THAT I DO IS IN PREACHING YOU'RE ALWAYS TEARING DOWN IDOLS. You go in there and you tear it down. Here's what happens, just to give you a brief thing. Judgment begins at the house of God. Before they go to war with the Midianites, everything at home has got to get straightened up. Because God's not going to take the Midianites away, and that mess can still keep going on. So what He does is He gets Israel straightened up. And he destroys all these, the groves and the altar of Baal. He gets rid of that worship. And then they deal with the Medianites. And then he whittles his army down. I'm going to stop. We'll look at it.