Our God Of Peace

And I just have a message for you tonight that I hope really encourages you, just simply titled Our God of Peace, because we see a lot of war and crazy outside and I just want to focus in on God tonight with you and just let the Word of God wash over us and wash out all of that junk, encourage, give us courage for the days ahead.

And so let's do that together, starting just in Romans 15, 13,.

I want you to just let again let these scriptures about peace wash over you quickly, and then we'll dig in a little bit.

It says verse 15, 13 in Romans now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Isn't that good Hallelujah, I'll pray that over y'all tonight.

Second Corinthians, 13, 11 says finally brethren, farewell become complete.

Be of good comfort.

Yes, lord, we'll be of good comfort.

Be of one mind, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you.

Wow, that's encouraging.

Tonight I think I'm going to put that one on my mirror at home.

Second Corinthians, 316, now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace always, in every way, and the Lord be with you.

All, you know, because peace is such a guidance system in your life.

You know, pastor has been speaking, my dad's been talking about following the witness of the Holy Spirit, and one big element of that, yes, is reading.

The word yes is in prayer, but is let the peace of God rule and reign in your heart, act as an umpire, in other words, when I'm going to consider this plan of action or this decision over here, what is my peace on the inside, my reading?

Am I getting peace in this direction from the Holy Spirit, or do I have a hesitancy?

Do I have a stop?

And so it's so important for us to really dig in on peace, especially tonight.

I just wanted to hit that so that we would really be have an accurate connection to the Holy Spirit and an accurate guidance system.

So so, and I like this one, romans 16, 20, as I see all of the controversy right now, you know, should we support the Olympics?

Should we ban, boycott it?

Should we this or that?

And the Christians are all fighting each other.

Listen, romans 16, 20,.

And the God of peace will.

The God of peace will cause you to hold hands and hum together.

The God of peace will.

Is that what it says?

Is anybody actually reading their Bible tonight?

And the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly, and the grace of our Lord, jesus Christ, be with you, amen.

So the God of peace is also, even in this scripture, a God of war against evil, and I want you to see that tonight.

It's really, it's awesome.

Back in the 80s, you know, under President Reagan, I was a kid and that, but I remember that doctrine of peace.

You know, america would have peace through strength and we're going to build up our defense systems.

We're going to build up or we're going to make our country so strong that no one will want to attack us through strength, and that's something we can have in our life.

Let's build up our knowledge of God, let's build up our relationship with him, so we're so one with him that the devil will be scared.

He will be scared, and the God of peace is what crushes the head of the devil.

And so I just we're going to dig in a little bit to Gideon, because he is a warrior, and yet he is the guy in the whole Bible that God reveals himself to Gideon as Jehovah Shalom or Yahweh Shalom.

God didn't appear to Enoch.

You know who was the man who walked with God and was so close to God.

Yet God didn't appear to him as Jehovah Shalom.

God didn't appear to Solomon, who had the most peaceful reign of any king in the history of the Old Testament, solomon prosperous and peace in his kingdom.

God didn't appear to him.

God chose a warrior to uh to talk to about his peace.

And so, since we're in a time of such conflict and such division and such strife, I just want to focus in on that.

What did God, uh, what did God show Gideon about that peace and um?

And so let's go ahead and turn to Judges, chapter six and umleaned.

You know I'm into victory stories lately.

The last time I ministered last week, I talked about King Jehoshaphat and I talked about how remember, the battle is the Lord's, how they were being come against by two different armies, three different people, groups actually coming against Israel at that time, and God said don't worry, I've got this, the battle is mine.

They sought the Lord, they stuck with his plan, they trusted in him.

It was hard, it was scary, but they trusted in God.

And then he gave him.

And then how did he give him the victory.

You'll remember that the other people, groups, began to infighting and they actually destroyed themselves.

And so the Israel just got to stand and see the salvation of God.

Just stand and see the salvation of God.

And so I've been meditating on other passages in the Bible where the enemy destroys itself from within.

What an awesome thing.

Isn't that what we want?

We want the enemies of God, the ones who will not be saved, the ones who will not receive salvation.

We don't want them to drag the whole earth into chaos with them, as the plan of the devil is.

We want them to.

We want the God of peace to crush the head of the devil.

And so Gideon is one of those stories where and spoiler alert, that is what happens at the end.

The enemy destroys itself.

But how does that happen and what can we learn from Gideon?

And first of all, you're going to probably be very surprised at how modern this story is going to sound when we read it today.

I was.

It's been a little minute since I read Judges 6.

It says verse 1, then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord.

Ah, so frustrating, because right now they had just had a bunch of peace Deborah, the prophetess and Barak the war, the leader of the of the army had had gained peace for Israel, had delivered them from their enemies and they had praised God and they hadn't had all of this peace.

But then again, israel turns from God, and how many of you know that in our own lives?

Sometimes it's easy.

In a time of peace and the time of victory, we cannot turn our eyes away from God.

We have to stay focused on him.

He is awesome, he is the source of all goodness.

So Israel turned away from the Lord and then he delivered them into the hand of Midian.

For seven years, midian was a rival people group that descended from Abraham and his other wife, his late wife Keturah, and so this was a people group that was a nomadic people group and it says the hand of Midian.

For these seven years, the hand of Midian prevailed against Israel.

Because of the Midianites, the children of Israel made for themselves the dens, the caves, the strongholds which are in the mountains.

In other words, the people of Israel, the God's people, left their houses, they abandoned their houses and let these squatters come in and live in them, and instead the people of Israel went and hid in the caves and in the mountains and they thought, oh, the people of Benin won't bother us up here.

And so it was that wherever Israel had sown, you know, they were a planting people, they were settler people, they were people who were agricultural in nature and they had sown crops, and the Midianites would come up, and also the Amalekites and the people of the East.

So, again with a three front war here, three people groups, and they came up against them and encamped against them and destroyed the produce of the earth as far as where, as far as Gaza.

And they so that that land is still to this day a land of contention, and as it was then.

And so the, these people groups were coming into Israel's land, they were taking the crops away and they left no sustenance for Israel, neither sheep, nor ox, nor donkey.

They would come up with their livestock and their tents, coming up as numerous as locusts, both they and their camels, which were without number, and they would enter the land to destroy it.

They weren't just there to play nice, they were there to take it down.

There was an antichrist, anti-israel.

I mean.

Remember, now Israel represents the seed of the Messiah, not yet born into the earth, but carrying that seed, and so the same devil that hates Jesus now hated Israel.

Then it is that same antichrist spirit.

So they came in to destroy it and they were listen to this.

They were greatly impoverished because of the Midianites, and what did they do?

Finally, they cried out to the Lord, and it came to pass that, when the children of Israel cried out to the Lord because of the Midianites, that the Lord sent a prophet.

And so there is something that we need to call out right there God's word.

Back then, the prophets stood for God's Word.

Prophets stood for what was God saying to the people at that time?

And so, in times of strife, in times of struggle, darkness, lack, poverty, oppression what do we most need to do?

We need to cry out for God and we need to look for his word.

What will his word say?

And even before any good thing happened and this is a pattern in your life, you'll see before God is about to move listen for what he says.

If you need God to move in your life right now, read his word, find out what he already said.

Let something out of the word pop out to you and speak to you and encourage you in this time.

And so this is the way God did it for them.

He said, the prophet said to them thus says the Lord, god of Israel, I brought you up from Egypt.

In other words, remember me.

I'm the powerful God.

I've delivered you before.

I brought you up out of the bondage of the house, a house of bondage, and I delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians and out of the hand of him who oppressed you and drove them out before you and gave you their land.

God gave that land to his people, israel, and I said to you I am the Lord, your God.

Do not fear the gods of the Amorites.

In other words, they were worshiping the God.

Do not reverence the gods of the Amorites.

In other words, they were worshiping the God.

Do not reverence the gods of the Amorites.

They were.

They had, god had given them this new land, but then they worshiped the gods that were already there, frustrating.

Why do we sabotage ourselves?

Why do we set up idols?

Why do we stop looking to God?

Why do we start looking at our own selfish desires and pleasures?

So so this was that pattern.

And God said stop that.

I'm here to help you now.

Just turn away and turn to me and I'm gonna fix it.

And so then he comes Now, the angel of the Lord.

Imagine now, I mean, gideon has an encounter with Jesus.

How many of y'all could stand that Hallelujah?

You have the Holy Spirit living on the inside of you.

But the angel of the Lord came and sat under a tree where here's Gideon threshing wheat in the wine press in order to hide it from the Midianites.

He's hiding.

He did find a little bit of a crop, he did, and he managed to get this one little, some wheat, you know, and he's threshing it and he's processing it so his family can make a little bread.

And the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him the Lord is with you, mighty man of valor, the Lord is with you.

I hope you hear that tonight.

The Lord did not leave you.

You might be in a hard place right now, but the Lord is with you and he sees you as someone who is victorious.

Lord did not leave you.

You might be in a hard place right now, but the Lord is with you and he sees you as someone who is victorious, as someone who is mighty, as someone who has the means to overcome, not in your own self, but in Him and he wants to partner with you to drive out the oppression from your life.

And so that's what happened to Gideon.

He heard from God, praise God.

He heard a word from the Lord, and so I would just call out on that one that we need to see like God.

God doesn't look on the outside.

The Word says, he looks on the heart.

So you need to see yourself the way God sees you, and you need to see other people the way God sees them.

See like God and Gideon.

So then Gideon argues with him I'm not, you know who, a mighty man of valor, I'm hiding over here.

And he said to him Lord, if the Lord is with us, then why has all of this happened to us?

And where are his miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, did you not bring us out of Egypt?

And but now the Lord has forsaken us.

Have you ever felt like God has forsaken you?

He was just honest with God.

He just had that conversation with God.

You know, I think there's a time when we're first serving God and God is so patient and merciful and he loves us so much.

But I don't know about you.

I, I love God.

He's so precious to me and he's done so many things for me and I don't ever want to forget those and I will never, ever.

I remember a time or young, younger, like younger time in my life where I was tempted to blame oh God, I, why would I do this?

But maybe this is relating to you where I would blame God, I would have these problems and it would be somebody else's fault other than me.

And, oh God, why, why have you done this?

Why have you, you, you, and God is so merciful.

I don't have that attitude now because I know that he's not to blame.

He's my only way out.

He is my only strength and my hope.

I was telling somebody yesterday who was having a struggle and was tempted.

They knew somebody who was tempted to give up on God and I was reminded you know, the equator is really hot.

The equator, the sun shines closer to the sun at the equator on the earth, and so if you're in the equator, you're going to have a tropical climate, you're going to sweat, it's going to be hot, and but that's where you can feel the heat of the sun.

If you go to Siberia, there's less sun.

In Siberia, it doesn't shine as long.

It's farther away and it's cold.

It's cold in Siberia, and so I was likening that.

You know, when we move to Siberia, we move away from God.

He's still there, he still loves you, he still wants to bless you, but you moved away and he's saying come back and feel my warmth again.

So, anyway, the Lord turned to him and said go in this might of yours, look I, you, I'm going to ignore all that doubt.

You just said.

God says to Gideon, and he says you've got might and you shall save Israel from the hand of the Midianites.

Have I not sent you?

And so he said to him oh my Lord, how can I save Israel?

Indeed, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh and I am the least in my father's house.

Have we all, any of us, ever argued with God?

Have we argued with God?

Well, we need to stop arguing with God.

Stop looking.

This is a point.

Stop looking for someone else to do it.

Oh, there's a bigger clan, a more important person over there.

They have more status, they have more money, they're better looking, they're smarter than me, they're better connected, they, they, them, and though they'll do it, they'll deliver Israel.

But God has called you to do something.

And when we look for someone else instead, we have ignored God's call on our lives and is God's arm short that it cannot save, even using you?

Even using you, so stop looking for someone else.

And so the Lord said to him surely I will be with you, I will be with you and you shall defeat the Midianites.

And and so then this.

Then then, what is?

What is the first thing Gideon does?

He realizes okay, god's not playing around, he is serious, and I'm going to give him an offering, I'm going to honor him.

And so he honored him with an offering Don't leave here, god, don't leave here, angel of the Lord, you're here under this tree and I stay right here.

I'm going to get you an offering.

And so he brought God an offering.

He honored God with something real, with flour and some broth, and he presented that.

And then they had an experience together.

Him and God communed there over that offering.

And that is when God appeared to him and showed him something that he'd never seen before.

Here is a man who does not look like a mighty man of valor.

He is a man who is hiding, he is a fearful person, he is an oppressed person.

But in this moment the Lord said to him.

Peace be with you and do not fear you shall not die.

Do not fear you shall not die.

Do not fear you shall not die.

You know, jesus tells us we will never taste death if we believe him, and that we will never die.

And he told that to Mary and Martha after Lazarus had appeared to die.

But you know what A Christian, you can't kill us.

You can only move our spirit to heaven.

So there is.

We have absolutely nothing to fear, amen.

And so he said don't die.

And so Gideon built an altar there to the Lord and called it the Lord is peace.

And I just love the irony here.

I love the irony of God, how he would call.

Irony here.

I love the irony of God, how he would call he would reveal himself as the God of peace to someone who is known.

Now, gideon is famous for war.

And Gideon, let's just talk about him for a minute.

He is not a one hit wonder here in the Bible.

He appears in the hall of fame of faith in Hebrews 11.

The apostle Paul maybe, who wrote, who, I believe, wrote the book of Hebrews, but he's enumerating all you know Enoch and Abel and Noah and Abraham and Sarah and Moses, and here are these lions of the faith, who, who subdued kingdoms and shut the mouths of lions and and women, received their dead back to life again.

I've got all of these stories and Paul says I can't even write them all.

There's so many.

And and he talks about Gideon and and Gideon and his great victory.

And then if you read in Psalm, you know Gideon lived in.

Some of us don't know.

You know all of all of the order of things that happen in the Bible and it's confusing because sometimes people say, well, the Bible's not chronological.

Well, it kind of is.

The books of the Bible are very orderly.

God's a God of order, he's awesome.

But Gideon comes.

He's a judge, he's not a king.

He comes before the era of Israeli history where they're ruled by kings.

In this time where Gideon is ruling Israel and delivering Israel, it's during a time when Israel has no king.

They just, literally, they look to God as their king in the good times.

God is their king and they have a judge that helps them apply the word that they know and apply that in their society and in their lives.

And that's how they're ruled and governed.

How awesome, how freeing is that.

And as long as they serve God and worship Him.

It all works.

But, as you know, in life today, in our nation today, as when we turn away from God, nothing works anymore.

Nothing works.

That's why only a revival will help our country today.

And should we work and do everything we possibly can on the practical side to save our country?

Yes, we should.

We should speak out, we should do everything because history right now is falling upon us and it's time for Christians to rise up and act.

And we need to pray and speak and act but at the same time, look, our God is.

He is mighty and he's working through us and we need to look to Him.

So their society worked when they looked to God and so the very first thing.

So now God has revealed to Gideon that I am a God of peace.

Peace is my whole peace.

You know, jesus is called the Prince of Peace.

His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, almighty God, everlasting Father, prince of Peace.

Before Jesus was ever born, that's what the prophet Isaiah prophesied that Jesus would be called that and he is our Prince of Peace.

So it's so comforting to us and to know that, no matter what is going on in the world, no matter what crazy that we see on our social media or on TV or whatever.

We can always trust that our same God, he's an ancient God, he is before the foundations of the world, he exists forever in eternity and he is our God of peace and stability and he's ours, he's the love of our heart and he's never going to leave us, he's never going to go away.

So that's an anchor.

That's an anchor through these times, and Israel certainly needed that.

So the very first thing Gideon does after he is God shows him he's a God of peace.

What does he do?

Well, he goes and commits violence.

It's awesome.

You know, the fear of the Lord is to hate evil and every false way.

So what is Gideon this wonderful?

He's got peace with God and he goes.

The same night the Lord said to him take your father's young bull verse 25, and the second bull of seven years old and tear down the altar of Baal, the false God that your father has Okay, that's personal there and cut down the wooden image that is beside it and build an altar to the Lord, your God, on top of this rock in the proper arrangement, and take the second bull and offer a burnt sacrifice with the wood of the image which you shall cut down.

I love it.

I love how bold is that.

God tells them to do the hardest thing first.

Okay, you trust me.

You and I had a moment.

Now I'm going to call it to account to see if you'll really do it.

You know, when God tells you to do something, and even in times of worship in our church, you know it's easy for you and God to commune and you'll have like, ooh, I'm just ooh, it feels so good in here, I'm just singing and singing.

But you know, james says that faith without works is dead and those promises that we make to God when we're in that time of worship.

There's a time for Him to cash in on those things and it doesn't have to be.

It doesn't have to turn out bad.

It turns out good when we obey God.

So listen to what happens.

So yes, now he has to cut down his father's special altar.

That, and he does that.

So Gideon took 10 men from among his servants and did as the Lord said to him.

Everybody say he did it.

He obeyed God.

But because he feared his father's household and the men of the city too much to do it by day, he did it by night.

So my call out there would be just to, even if you're scared, obey God.

Scared, if you've got fear in your head, you can still have faith in your heart, and that's what Gideon had.

He had faith in his heart to obey God.

He might have had to do it by night and not by day, but by God he did it.

He found that courage that he needed to obey God.

And so when the men arose in the city early in the morning, there was that altar, a bale torn down and the wooden image that was beside it.

It was cut down and the second bull was being offered, the smoke was coming up and they said to one another who has done this thing?

And when they had inquired and asked, they said oh, it's Gideon, the son of Joash.

So Gideon's been found out.

How many of you know, like when you serve God, somebody's gonna call you out for it.

There are those times when we have to fearlessly stand up for God and do what's right in the face of.

And they wanted to put him to death, but his dad stood up for him.

And right after that, because of his boldness, I'm gonna skip down to 34.

It says but the spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon, notice, when he obeyed God, when it was hard, but he did that thing anyway.

That's when the spirit of the Lord came upon him.

When did the spirit of the Lord come upon Jesus, the Lord Jesus, when he walked on the earth.

It was when he had just been tempted in the desert for 40 days and 40 nights.

But then the spirit of the Lord came on him and um, and from that day on he began his, his earthly ministry.

We need the spirit of the Lord to come on us and we can't settle for anything less than that.

And the, the Old Testament that looked a little bit different than it does in the New Testament.

But the Spirit of the Lord came upon.

My Bible has a note there that says in the Hebrew it literally says the Spirit of the Lord clothed himself with Gideon.

So it's not the other way around, that he puts on this garment.

That's like God, no, no, god puts him on.

Will you let God put you on?

Will you let God wear you to do his work on the earth?

Will you have that courage to stand up for him and let him come upon you?

And so the spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon and then he blew the trumpet and all of his clan, the Abizarites, gathered behind him.

And then he blew the trumpet and all of his clan, the Abizarites, gathered behind him, and then he starts building his team.

He's got his family first, and then he's got he sends throughout all of his tribe, the tribe of Manasseh, and they gathered behind him.

And he sent messengers to other tribes Asher, zebulun, naphtali and they came and met up with him.

So he's got this whole team of this concert of warriors.

Now that's coming to him and you know they're surrounding him.

The righteous shall surround me, for I have loved your name.

There is a time when your boldness for the Lord will draw people around you for a purpose that God has on you, and that's what happened with Gideon.

Let him do that, and I'm going to skip over the part about the fleece, because he's not sure if God's really talking to him or not.

My dad talks about that every now and then.

I don't think that is a valid way to hear from God today, that we would have some sigh God from God today, that we would have some say if God, if this is really you, do this, do that, do that thing.

You know, make, uh, make a dog appear.

I used to pray that when I was a child.

You know, oh God, I really want a cat or a dog, but my parents said, no, will you please have one just appear in my room?

No, god did not answer that, not answer that prayer.

Um, first, there's many reasons why, but anyway, anyway, fleeces are not how we hear from God.

That's what he did, though, but then he actually.

The reason everyone talks about Gideon is because he ended up driving out the people of Midian, and that might be a story for another night, but I will.

I will shorten it here.

He started out, he blows that trumpet, he sends for help, and, and all of the people who are with him, rose early and encamped beside the well this, this particular well and the Midianites were on the other side, and they could all see the Midianites.

Remember, the Midianites were nomadic, so they had tents, and they were in their tents, and he proclaimed whoever is fearful and afraid, let him turn and depart at once from Mount Gilead.

So, in other words, so he had all of these people come, and he sent 22,000 of them home at once because they were fearful and afraid.

And so I think I'm going to probably close on that.

The whole reason you know what happens with Gideon but the whole reason that I'm ministering to you about peace tonight, that I'm encouraging you, that I want you to focus on God's peace and His strength in you, is because fear the fearful side, always loses and losing is not an option.

Losing is not an option in this election.

Losing is not an option in your financial life right now, where there's such a struggle and fight for us.

But man, god, god is so much bigger than that and he has such an awesome plan and he is able to even work through that to bless your life and bring you into something higher, Amen.

And so I want you to see do not fear, because the fearful people had to go home.

The fearful people could not.

God knew that they were gonna bring this army down.

It's better to have 300 people who are vigilant, who are engaged and who are mighty in their God than it is to have 22,000 people who are trembling and shaking in their boots and look, god sees it.

If you've been tempted to do that, I want you to take heart today.

Your God is stronger, he's bigger than your enemy, and, and so why is fear?

So if you fast forward, you know and then God even took the, the, the people that were left, and more of them went home that he, he said, gideon, I'm going to deliver Israel by the people that I say.

And it turns out it was the people who were also vigilant when they drank.

They were drinking, they knew how to refresh themselves, but also still be looking around.

And we've got to be able to refresh ourselves in God and stay full of the joy of the Lord and also be looking, be watching.

What is the devil's strategy right here?

What is he, what is he doing that other people are not noticing?

And how can I come against that?

And how can God use me?

So we're vigilant, we're refreshed, we're not miserable warriors, we're happy, joyful warriors.

And so that was Gideon's army.

In a nutshell, these were the people, but the fearful side always loses.

The Midianites were having nightmares, it turns out, even though they are way more numerous.

It says that they came, that they looked like, they were as numerous.

They were without number.

They were as numerous as locusts and their camels were without number as the sand by the seashore.

In multitude they were.

The enemy was vast, it was humongous.

Imagine a desert horizon and all you can see is other people's camels, other people's tents, and these are people of war.

I mean, it did not look, it did not look possible to win.

And I think our side feels that way a lot of times.

We look around and say, man, the deck's stacked against us, it doesn't look possible.

But it's not because we have God.

The God factor is the difference maker and if we will have faith and rise up in him, he will cause us to have victory.

So the fearful side loses.

Even though they were numerous, they were having nightmares.

It turns out Gideon, in verse 13 of chapter seven, sends a spy and he hears them talking and one of them's like oh, I had this bad dream, had this nightmare.

A loaf of bread came and knocked down our tent and then the tent fell over.

Ah, it doesn't sound scary to me I know y'all laugh, it's not scary.

But for them they thought oh, it's, there's meaning to this.

You know, because we're nomadic people, we kill and eat our food.

We don't, we don't have crops unless we steal them from other people.

So the barley loaf, you know, that's a, that's a food of the Israelites and that means the Israelites are going to beat us.

And oh my, now they got all scared and they're worried.

And then when Gideon's plan materializes, it just involves doing a scary thing in the middle of the night, breaking some pitchers.

And when they had a, and they had a lamp, they had a torch, a fire under that pitcher, and so it made a lot of noise and it shined a lot of light and they blew some trumpets and they shouted, and so they made a lot of noise.

They had light, they had sound, they had shock and awe, but they only had 300 people.

300 people and the fearful side.

Because there was fear, there was confusion, and because there was confusion, there was infighting, there was a destruction and the enemy literally verse 21, every man stood in his place all around the camp and the whole army ran and cried out and fled, and the 300 blew the trumpets and the Lord set every man's sword against his companion throughout the whole camp and the army fled from Beth Acacia toward that other place and as far as the other places, and then the men of Israel gathered together.

So then here's the team all coming together again and they chase them down, and so first they start killing each other, and then Israel is able to chase them down, and they killed them all the way out.

They found their kings and killed them and brought them back, and it was a mighty victory that still then, the people of Israel talked about that victory through the generations, through the ages, generation after generation after generation, until David the shepherd boy Will.

David the shepherd boy must have been so motivated, so empowered, that he knew his God was a God of victory, by many or by few.

He knew that his God could beat Goliath.

He knew.

So this is a hallmark of people of faith that we know that, no matter how few people, how much the odds are against us, they're never against us, because the giant is never the opposing army, the giant is never Goliath.

The giant in this picture is always our mighty, awesome God, and we will look to him to have victory in every situation, amen.

And so I realize it is getting late.

The God factor yes, sylvia, thank you.

The God factor is getting late.

The God factor yes, sylvia, thank you.

The God factor is with us.

And so so I'll just close by saying that, there, this is a pattern.

This is a pattern of how God wipes out and he uses fear in the enemy camp.

So don't let him use fear in your camp, don't let him use division or infighting in your camp.

That's for the enemy's camp, amen.

That's how he brings them down, but he's not going to bring it in our camp and we're going to be unified together.

You know God is a God of love, but he's also a God of peace.

Jerusalem literally means foundation of peace.

Shalom in the Old Testament means the peace that comes from wholeness and we're told to pray for that peace for Jerusalem and for Israel.

But also we need to pray for that for ourselves.

Listen to the New Testament meaning of the word peace.

It is the tranquil state of a soul assured of its salvation through Christ and so for fearing nothing from God and content with its earthly lot of whatsoever, sort that is.

It is also security, safety, prosperity and felicity or happiness, because peace and harmony have they have a way of making and keeping things safe and prosperous when they're working together.

So we're going to have peace.

That's God's will for us.

We're not going to leave that on the table.

We're going to have our Prince of Peace always with us and we're never going to give that up.

Amen.