We welcome you to another Bible study in the Old Testament. Last broadcast, we opened our Bibles to the Book of Judges, the seventh book of the Bible. By the way, a book that's often neglected. We found a circle or cycle of events running through the book. You've heard of people going in circles. This can also happen to nations. The cycle went something like this. Sin, slavery, sorrow, or repentance. and then salvation, as the Lord sent a deliverer or a judge. And after this, they usually had a time of serving the Lord. So it was sin, slavery, sorrow, salvation, and serving the Lord. On this broadcast, we'll take a specific case and follow it through. Turn, please, to Judges chapter six and verse one, and we read, And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord. There it is, sin, evil. wickedness or whatever you want to call it. They had been delivered from the oppression of the kings of Canaan, and Deborah and Barak had been used of the Lord as deliverers. Chapter five records their song of salvation, but now all of this is forgotten, and they have turned from the Lord to the idle bale, as we read a little later in the chapter. Right away we see the results. Again, verse one. This time the latter part of the verse. and the Lord delivered them into the hand of Midian seven years. That's eighty-four months and around two thousand five hundred days. The Midianites were descendants of Abraham, as also were the children of Israel. They hardly treated them like relatives. Israel was driven from their homes into dens and caves. The children of Israel should have been enjoying this land of milk and honey. But because of sin, they had to live in the limestone caves of Palestine. When they sowed grain, the Midianites, the Amalekites, and others would come and harvest it. And thus the children of Israel were in a very difficult situation, both in regard to housing and food supplies. A combination of circumstances had put them in dire straits. And it was at this point that they called upon the Lord. Chapter six, verse seven is the turning point. And it came to pass when the children of Israel cried unto the Lord because of the Midianites. The Lord was just waiting for their call. From this point on the picture changes. Let's note verse eleven. And there came an angel of the Lord and sat under the oak which was in Ophra that pertaineth unto Joash the Abrazzite. And his son Gideon thrives tweet by the winepress to hide it from the Midianites. In our cycle, we've come to the point of the deliverer or judge. The time of salvation. Gideon is the man God was going to use for this great task. He was an unlikely fellow. His family was poor. He was the youngest in the family. In this verse we have just read, we're not impressed with his bravery. He's very quietly threshing wheat, hiding from the Midianites. We don't usually think of a wine press as being used as a threshing floor. But remember, Gideon is hiding. God had chosen a man not for what he was, but for what God was going to do through him. The angel said to Gideon, The Lord is with thee thou mighty man of valor. In himself he was not a mighty man of valor. But with the Lord he was that and more. Gideon had some questions. And in verse fourteen we learned something very interesting. Before it was the angel of the Lord who was identified as the one speaking to him. But now we read, the Lord looked upon him and said, This was the Lord himself, come to Gideon in the form of an angel. The Lord said, Go in this thy might, and thou shalt save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Have not I sent thee. The Lord had called him to do a great work. The Lord had commissioned him. Gideon could hardly see himself as a great leader. He said, 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. And none of these are problems with the Lord. Gideon was poor. The Lord owns the cattle on a thousand hills. Gideon was least in his family. He was probably the youngest, the smallest, the weakest. But the Lord answered him with these reassuring words, Surely I will be with thee. That was all Gideon needed. Gideon prepared an offering. And because of the special revelation of the Lord to him that day, he called the place Jehovah Shalom, meaning the Lord my peace. What a great thing had taken place. The Israelites were a defeated people under the power of an enemy, knowing no peace. Against that backdrop, we see Gideon learning to know the Lord as his peace. Gideon had met the Lord and the whole direction of his life changed. At this point I feel we should pause and reflect a moment. Does your life seem to be going around in circles? No direction to it? Is it a life of sin and unrest? Then you need to know the Lord, the one who can take away your sin and give peace. The Lord Jesus is the Prince of Peace. He's able to bring peace to your troubled heart as you trust Him. I've seen people on this side of the ocean and the other side, enmeshed in sin. Turn to the Lord Jesus and receive this peace. This is real. This is the peace that passeth all understanding. Then began a training course for Gideon. The Lord always trains his servants. He trained Moses on the backside of the desert. David out on the hills of Bethlehem caring for sheep. Jonah was trained inside of a great fish. The place of training, the kind of training, even the length of training may vary. but always the Lord gives his servants adequate preparation. First Gideon was to throw down the altar of Baal, and he was to build an altar unto the Lord. So there was a negative as well as a positive side to the task before him. Gideon obeyed the Lord. He performed the job at night. Some might criticize him for waiting until it was dark. But the fact remains that he threw down the altar of Baal, and he built an altar unto the Lord. He obeyed the Lord. When the man When the men of the city banged on the door of Gideon's home next morning, demanding that Gideon should be brought out to die, it was Gideon's father who took his stand against Baal and the Baal worshipers. A very definite result of Gideon's obedience was a change of direction in the life of his father. We influence those around us, our families, our friends. Gideon was about to influence a whole nation, but note this. He began at home. The next word we have about this judge is in verse thirty four of the sixth chapter. But the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon and he blew a trumpet. This can also be translated. The Spirit of the Lord clothed himself or wrapped himself around Gideon and he blew a trumpet. Gideon was to be a Holy Spirit-directed man as he delivered the children of Israel from their enemies. And now we come to one of the best known incidents in Gideon's life. Gideon and his fleece. He asked the Lord to give him a sign so that he would know for sure that he was to lead Israel. The sign was to be this. He would put the fleece out in the morning and if the dew was on the fleece and the ground all around it was dry, then he would know that the Lord had called him for this great task. Let's note what happened. Verse thirty-eight. He rose up early in the morning. and thrust the fleece together and ringed out the dew out of the fleece, a bowl full of water. Gideon should have been convinced, but he was like some of us, a little slow to step out for the Lord. And so he asked for another sign. This time he wanted to be dry on the fleece and dew on the ground. The Lord gave him exactly what he asked. Now he was ready. Now he was convinced that the Lord wanted him to be a judge or a general over Israel. Thirty-two thousand men rallied around him as an army. Now, this may seem like quite a few men in the terms of a battle, but Gideon was going out against an army in the valley that were like grasshoppers for multitude, and their camels were without number. Thirty-two thousand men against such an army. The Midianites had a hundred and thirty-five thousand men. Gideon looked over his army. The Lord looked at the army. The Lord said, The people that are with you are too many. The idea being that if they won the victory, the Israelites would pat themselves on the back, claiming that they had done it. The Lord ordered Gideon to let them, let all those that were fearful go home, the cowardly ones. At this point, Gideon just about lost his army, two out of three soldiers headed for home. To be exact, twenty-two thousand went home, leaving Gideon with ten thousand men. The Lord had tested Gideon. Now he was testing his army. Looking at those ten thousand men, the Lord said to Gideon, You still have too many. This time a test was given to the men as to how they would drink, and probably from a little mountain stream. The careless ones who took their time getting their drink as they went down on their knees were putting one group. Those who scooped up a little water in their hands and lapped it like a dog, they were put in the other. Three hundred men used this latter method. The Lord said to Gideon that he would use the three hundred. The others could go on their way. It seems like a small matter, the method of drinking, but there was nothing, there's nothing that's really small in the Lord's eyes. With these three hundred men, one out of a hundred of the original army Gideon gave, God gave Gideon a great victory. The men were divided into three companies. They were given strange pieces of equipment, trumpets, pitchers, lamps. Strange pieces of equipment, but we must remember that the Lord was giving them the victory. The order of battle went something like this. In the darkness of the night, Gideon would give the signal by blowing his trumpet. They would then do likewise. They would then break their pitchers, revealing their lamps. And then they would shout the sword of the Lord and of Gideon. They followed the orders completely, and a great victory was won that night. The Midianites in the valley were awakened by the trumpets, and seeing the lamps were completely confused. They began to kill one another and to run. They were completely routed by Gideon and his little band of men. In one night, the enemy that had oppressed them for seven long years was defeated. It was the sword of the Lord, and of Gideon, the great emphasis being that it was of the Lord. Looking back over this, This cycle in the book of Judges, the question comes to mind, where do I stand? Where do you stand? Am I with the cowardly, the twenty-two thousand who were in that class? There was a job to be done, but they were afraid. Some people hold back, not realizing that God has not given us the spirit of fear. Or do we find ourselves in the careless group, not really afraid, but really not too concerned? We couldn't care less. The Lord didn't need them. But then we have the courageous three hundred. There was a small group of men led by Gideon, led on to victory. The band of men and women who do exploits for the Lord will always be small. But I want to be among that group, don't you? It's for us to find out what the Lord would have us do and then do it. I'm convinced the Lord has something for each one of us to do. But there must be a willingness to do God's will, no matter what it is. Then an obedience in the little things We'll have obedience then in the little things as well as the big. I see one other group here in the chapters. The Midianites. They were the enemy. Until we have been saved, until we've been born again, we are with the enemies. It's true that God loves us. He's made provision for us to be saved, but it's for us to accept. And as we said on the last broadcast, decision determines your destiny. Decision determines your destiny.