Stirred...And Victorious

Amen.

If you got your Bibles, turn on this morning to Judges chapter 7.

Judges 7 · chapter mention

Judges chapter 7.

Judges 7 · chapter mention

If you're catching up with us, the people of Israel, uh in the time of Judges, it says that everyone chose to do that which was right in his own eyes.

And they kind of came into a real crisis situation, so they needed leadership, so God would allow them a judge, a ruler for a time.

And uh Israel would uh fall apart, they would go into sinning, they would serve idols, and and then God would um give them oppression, they would have a cycle of oppression, and then they would repent, and then God would restore them, rinse, recycle, repeat, and then we get to the story of Gideon, which we looked at last week.

Uh Gideon, in a time where there was a need of stirring, God rose up a judge named Gideon who was doubtful, insecure.

He said, Who, me?

I'm gonna lead this army of people, my clan uh doesn't fight.

And so we kind of met up with him last week as he came to terms with God could use him.

And he began to believe that.

And so this morning in Judges chapter 7, we're gonna catch up with him there.

Judges 7 · chapter mention

Let me pray.

Lord, we love you.

We thank you for the opportunity we have to be here this morning to be under your word.

Lord, we know that your word uh changes lives.

Lord, it can peer into our hearts and show us what we need.

Lord, I pray that during this service that our people would be stirred.

God, that uh, Lord, I know, I know that there are people here who are in a battle right now.

And as we look into this scripture and see, Lord, there's either a battle or there's one coming.

The enemy doesn't take days off.

And Lord, we need to be an army of people who are stirred and ready.

So, God, I pray that you prepare our hearts, Lord.

I pray for the next few moments you would allow our minds the freedom just to focus on what you have.

And God, uh, whatever we came carrying in, I pray for a few moments that, Lord, it would just be behind us.

Let us experience your presence and move us, Lord.

We love you in Jesus' name.

Amen.

And so in Judges chapter 7, before I say anything about it, Benji, I want y'all to do make room during the invitation.

Judges 7 · chapter mention

That was good and timely, and you're gonna see why as we get close to the end.

But in Judges chapter 7, look at what it says.

Judges 7 · chapter mention

Then Jerubel, that is Gideon.

So before we even get into anything, we see something that's changed, and that's his name.

Point number one this morning is this the building of a brigadier.

In military terms, how many men or women do I have in the house tonight today that have been in the military?

You know that a brigadier is right under the general, the major general, and so we have a brigadier, the building of a brigadier in Gideon.

And letter A is this it starts with the breaking down of Baals in your notes.

The building of a brigadier starts with the breaking down of Baals.

What does that mean?

Well, we see Gideon's name change.

Jerubal.

What does Jerubale mean?

If you go back to verse 25 and chapter 6, and we're gonna look at a couple, that means let Baal contend, or let Baal fight for himself.

And so, oh why why is that important?

Well, look at verse 25.

We're gonna build from here.

It says, Now it came to pass the same night, remember Gideon's been called to the Lord, the same night the Lord said to him, Take your father's young bull, the second bull of seven years old, and tear down the altar of Baal that your father has, and cut down the wooden image that is beside it.

And so we see a risky requirement that's been given.

He says, Tear down your father's, tear down daddy's altar.

Now there's a risk in that.

Any of you here ever had to take a risk about something that your parents might find out?

Anyone here?

You've had that?

I got a picture I want you to see up here, and then I'll explain it.

This was a risk.

Picture of a beautiful, look at that.

I mean, anybody here lusting after that car?

Somebody yelled it out.

1988, Ford Tempo.

Well, uh, we thought that my dad had left to go fishing and that he was good and down the road.

And my sister at age 14, not licensed, wanted to go down to the convenience store that was down the road, Wawa, and we were gonna go over there, and I don't remember what we were gonna get, but I thought at 14, I was eight, and I thought that was a great idea.

So Jen jumped in behind the wheel of that tempo, and we took off and we went down to Wawa, the convenience store.

And when we pulled into Wawa, that's funny, there's a big old boat connected to a truck.

And who's walking out of Wawa?

My dad.

And he's like, What are you doing here?

You can't drive.

And here's the funny thing about the story: my dad heading to fish and tells her, take this thing and drive on home.

Like, you just told her to do what you told her wasn't good to do.

But I remember thinking about that risk of getting in that car and going to Wawa.

We might get found out, and we sure did.

And dad was hot when he got home.

But listen, there was a risk involved for Gideon to go and tear down his father's altar.

In fact, if you look down at the middle of verse 27, we'll go back and cover some area.

It says, 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.

And so Gideon goes down and tears down this altar, does what God says.

Now, I want you to understand something this morning, church.

God's standard always has been no idols.

It's always been God's standard.

It was the standard in the Old Testament, it's the standard now, no idols.

In fact, funny enough, there's a book written by Kyle Eidelman, God's at War.

And I want you to hear what he had to say.

He says, God is not interested in a hierarchy.

God does not want to sit atop an organizational flow chart in our life.

He wants to be the organization.

God does not want to be president of the board of your life.

In fact, Iderman says that for your life, if there is a board of directors around your table, every one of them needs to be fired.

He is the board.

He is our life, and until everyone else is out of it, then God cannot be God in the way that he wants to be.

There's no honorary gods, there's no assistant gods, there's no interim gods.

That has always been God's standard.

You see, Gideon's family had something interesting, though.

They had what I'll call instead of gods, or not instead of gods, but I'm sorry, addition to gods.

They had not forgotten Jehovah.

It's obvious in the time of Judges, every time that there's a major setback in oppression, they fall back into repentance and prayer.

They had not forgotten, they still had the knowledge of Jehovah, but they, on the day-to-day, while the knowledge was over here, their daily life was filled with in addition to gods.

They had an addition to gods.

And today we might acknowledge, yes, there's a God, but there is a major, listen to me, church, a major idolatry issue in addition to.

Things that look like entertainment.

I will sacrifice my time with God for entertainment.

The idol of success.

If I can climb the ladder and be something, God can kind of take a sidestep for the idol of success.

Money, obviously.

You know one that's a really good one, that's a tough one?

The idol of family.

I've got to do certain things so that my family appears to be a certain way in society.

I have to take my family out once every six weeks so that I can stay up with the Joneses, or I don't look like a good dad.

I've got to put my kids in travel ball so that they can have the afforded opportunities that every kid should be, the 1% that makes it to free college.

And I'll push God aside.

That's hard to hear, but it's the truth.

They sound good.

A lot of idols today sound good.

Self sounds good.

But they're in addition to, we haven't forgotten God.

And if somebody gets cancer, we'll certainly need God.

And that's what was happening with Gideon and his family.

So God says, You got to get rid of Baal.

You have to get rid of Baal.

And this was a proving ground for the soldier that was going to become the brigadier.

You got to get rid of Baal's.

And so, letter B to make brigadier, there had to be a burnt offering for the beloved.

God wanted to see that Gideon meant business.

And so he wanted him to continue.

Don't just burn down bales, but I want you to give an offering of it.

And so look at verse 26 and 27 of chapter 6.

It says, 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, listen to this, a burnt sacrifice with the wood of the image which you shall cut down.

And so he says, not only tear it down, but then build up an offering.

There's three church necessities for a proper offering, a proper sacrifice.

Number one is this there has to be the death of something.

For there to be a sacrifice, there has to be a death of something.

The idol needed to be totally destroyed.

Why?

Why would it be important that it's totally destroyed?

What if we just halfway broke it?

Well, here's why.

Any of those things I mentioned, if there's an opportunity for them to creep back into our life, there's a problem.

And so he says, totally dismissed.

It's like when I was 17, 16 or 17, I went to teen camp, and at the end of camp, I came back home, and God had gotten into my heart about some things in my life.

And not all of these were bad, but I came back home and I was a DJ at the time.

And so I had a master collection of CDs, children, that's compact discs.

Okay.

Used to buy them.

They're real cheap now at Walmart, like frisbees.

And so, and then I had albums.

How many of you have some records still?

Anybody?

Look at this.

Whew, okay, okay.

Wasn't going to say what I was thinking, but anyways, uh, so I had albums, CDs, and I came home after camp, and God had so invaded my heart.

And we're talking thousands of dollars worth of stuff, and I broke them.

I just broke them one after the other.

I broke them, CD after CD.

Every single CD that I had that was in that collection broke.

I left like Elvis' greatest hits, uh The Righteous Brothers.

Like I had a few oldies.

I'm like, well, that probably won't.

That I probably won't go way far from God if I'm listening to Elvis.

And so I'm breaking, I'm breaking albums.

And I just broke them all, sat at my table and broke them.

Why?

There needn't not be one area where it could squeeze back into my life.

There had to be a death of something.

And for some of us here, there's some things we're sort of, we still got a little bit of grasp.

And we say we want God.

I want to be close to God.

I want to be full of the knowledge of His presence.

And I love it when I come into worship and I feel God's presence.

But when I go home, I still got a little bit of space.

And he says there has to be the death of it.

Second thing, it has to be about brokenness for sacrifice.

The sacrifice preparation, an animal would have to be killed and dismantled, and it was a picture of brokenness over sin.

Psalms 51, 17 says this, listen.

These sacrifices does God delight in.

These sacrifices.

A broken spirit and a contrite heart.

God can build up from brokenness.

And so God wants us to be broken.

And the third part, the necessity of sacrifice, is that it had to be completely consumed.

Fire had to completely consume that dismantling, that brokenness, that death.

It had to completely consume it.

Kind of like the immersion of baptism.

We're supposed to be completely immersed, completely consumed on that altar, and then the smell of an offering unto God.

God loves that offering.

God loves our sacrifice.

Why do you think God responds well to fasting?

God loves when we're willing to sacrifice.

It's a sweet aroma.

He knows.

And he sees that this was Joash's altar.

This was Gideon's father's altar.

And it had to go.

Why?

God would not get rid of the oppression of Midian until the root problem of the oppression was addressed.

And that was idolatry.

He said that back in Deuteronomy.

Excuse me.

He said, I will not allow this.

There will be cursing.

If you serve other idols, then you're going to be cursed.

And so he says, they gotta go.

Look down at verse 31 and 32 and see what happens.

Again, how do we get to this name, Jerobel?

31 says, But Joash said to all who stand against him, Would you plead for Baal?

Would you save him?

Let the one who would plead for him be put to death by mourning.

If he is a God, let him plead for himself.

Because his altar has been torn down.

Therefore, on that day he called Gideon Jerobael.

Let Baal plead against him because he has torn down his altar.

He says, if he's a God, if the God of your life is providing so much, well then let it provide.

Go to it with your prayer needs.

Go to that thing.

Go to money the next time somebody gets a disease and just see.

Can it provide?

Go to your success and your trophies the next time that you need a touch of the Lord and see what those things will do.

He says it has to be torn down, has to be gone.

And so that action, look at verse 34.

The action of tearing down his father's altar was the last thing that prepared him to be a brigadier.

Look at verse 34.

But then the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon.

That word there that came upon means literally the Spirit of the Lord clothed himself in Gideon.

Wow, now Gideon is ready.

That takes us to the second point this morning.

The boot camp producing a battalion.

Our military people will like this this morning, but a battalion in my study is a military unit that can subdivide into companies, a hundred to three hundred men, and they would subdivide for a purpose.

And so this boot camp starts out.

I want you to turn to chapter 7, verse 3.

Letter A.

It started with the cut of the cowardly and the careless.

Look at what it says here.

Now therefore, proclaim in the hearing of the people, saying, Whoever is fearful and afraid, let him turn and depart at once from Mount Gilead.

And listen to this.

Can you imagine that Exodus watching it?

Watching 22,000 men who are admitting fearfulness.

And I was thinking about different things that, you know, boot camp weeds out things, and I just I started doing some searching, and I just put in, I think, the word boot camp, and some funny things popped out.

What will happen?

Some of you that have been to the military like this, what will happen if you cry in boot camp?

Answer, nothing.

It is designed to make you cry.

It's designed to show your breaking point and that it's not actually your breaking point.

What happens?

Some of you I'd like to know your stories here.

What happens if you get upset and you yell at your drill sergeant?

It said they will kindly stop what they are doing, take you aside, and help fix your emotional issues.

Next one said, How can I get ahead when I start boot camp?

How can I get ahead?

And it says, You can't.

The first two weeks you will not be able to do anything right.

And the last one that I thought was funny, are drill sergeants really angry?

Simply, yes.

Yes, they are.

And so, anyways, he's into this boot camp and they get started, and immediately an Exodus of 22,000.

It's crazy.

Verse 3 said, Whoever is fearful and afraid, get out.

And I want you to understand there were laws, and you can see it as they go back.

In Deuteronomy chapter 20, verse 8, for a cross-reference, it gives us some strategy, principles governing warfare.

Deuteronomy 20:8

Look at what Deuteronomy 20, verse 8 says.

Deuteronomy 20:8

The officers shall speak further to the people and say, What man is there who is fearful and faint-hearted?

Let him go and return to his house.

And so they're just doing what God has said was a proper part of war.

We look at this and go, why would 22,000 exit?

And I need you to understand, there was estimated 132,000 Midianites to fight.

Now, all these men leave, the cowardly, right?

Whoever is fearful and afraid.

I want you to understand something.

We're called as Christians, church.

Not to fear what's happening in society.

We're not to fear the oppression that comes from the outside world.

We're not to fear what men are saying.

We're not to fear political correctness.

We are called to be stirred.

We said that the first week, stirred and not shaken.

Luke 137 says, nothing is impossible for our God.

2 Timothy chapter 1, verses 6 and 7 says, stir up the gift of God.

2 Timothy 1:6

It says, stir up the gift of God.

And then it says, For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but a power, love, and sound mind.

This is what I know.

I know that life is a battle.

And I know that Satan is a real enemy.

And this is not for the faint of heart.

That's what he says.

If you're afraid, look, church, if you're afraid to stand up for the cause of God, he basically says, Well, go ahead and leave.

Because you're not going to like this as it continues.

If you're afraid.

I want you to hear something that's really hard.

Revelations chapter 21.

Revelation 21 · chapter mention

There's a cast of characters, Revelations 21, verse 8.

Revelation 21:8

It says these characters are going to exist in the lake that burns with fire.

Let me give you some of the characters.

You can look it up if you want to.

It says, murderers.

We say, okay, I'm with that.

The sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, liars.

We can go with all that.

But the first two characters it mentions, before all them, you know what they are?

It says the cowardly and the faithless.

They will have their place.

Say, wow, man, that's tough.

He says, Go on, boot camp.

We're gonna cut the cowardly.

There's a great theologian, maybe you've heard of him, named Bert Lar.

Anybody heard of Bert Larr?

Maybe if you hear what he said, you'll remember him.

This is what Bert Larr, the great theologian, said.

What makes a king out of a slave?

Courage.

What makes the flag on the mast to wave?

Courage.

What makes the elephant charge his tusk in the misty mist or the dusky dusk?

You getting familiar to anybody?

What makes the muskrat guard his musk?

What makes the sphinc a seventh wander?

What makes the dawn come up like thunder?

Courage.

What makes the hot and tot so hot?

What puts the ape in apricot?

What have they got that I ain't got?

Say it with me.

Courage said who?

Anybody?

The cowardly lion, that's Bert Lawr.

Some of y'all need to catch up.

Got a movie to watch this afternoon.

Proverbs 28:1 says, This church, the wicked flee when no man pursueth, but the righteous are bold as a lion.

Proverbs 28:1

You can't be a lion and be cowardly.

Okay?

You can't be that.

And so he says, We need courage.

Well, the next phase of boot camp takes place.

Look at verse 4 through 7.

And if you're Gideon here, you're probably thinking, This is not going how I perceived it would go.

Verse 4 through 7.

But the Lord said to Gideon, The people are still too many.

What?

Bring them down to the water, and I will test them for you there.

Then it will be that of whom I say to you, this one shall go with you, the same shall go.

And of whomever I say to you, this one shall not, the same shall not go.

So he brought the people down to the water, and the Lord said to Gideon, Everyone who laps from the water with his tongue, as a dog laps, you shall set apart by himself.

Likewise, every one who gets down on his knees to drink.

So we'll pause there for a second.

I want you to see this photo of the boot camp situation here, this test.

And so you see some men over here that are face down, and they were called the kneelers.

And then there was others who came and they would put their hand in the water and they would lap the water.

And look, there's a lot of back and forth by commentators about what this meant.

And it is obvious if you're going into battle, you would want somebody, you would choose somebody that's going to be more aware.

They might have your back because they can lap water, look around, versus somebody who goes in face first.

And so we'll call those people for this the careless.

Right?

It seems like a strange time for God to say, they're going to drink like this.

Some people face it.

It seems like a weird time for God to be pointing out table manners, right?

Right?

In premarital counseling, Heather and I had to come up with something that was wrong with our mate, or our soon-to-be mate, which was an awkward position to be in.

Can I get an amen?

Men, right?

Something wrong with your mate.

And I'm like, nothing.

She's amazing, beautiful one.

She's an angel.

And she had something for me.

She said, Rick has really bad table manners.

And I was appalled.

I was like, what?

I am very dignified.

And everything that I what do you mean I have bad table manners?

And I think I've improved.

Okay, thank you.

I do not know why this thing is doing this, guys.

My wire in the back.

Anyhow, um, and so my table manners became the topic of discussion.

And I need you to understand something.

If you went to my house today, and I did clear this with my mother, if you went to my house today, my father, when he eats, head down, close to the receptacle, shovel in or fork in shovel position, right?

I didn't even know that it was wrong, that you're supposed to hold a fork and it was supposed to dangle all pretty, like you know, the British or whatever.

And so I thought you had to hold it like a weapon.

And when I'm finding this out before we get married, I'm like, what?

This is crazy.

That doesn't even seem right, but head down, shovel, right?

And just going right till you're done.

My dad at the table, if he needs something, he does not ask in a polite manner.

Ask my kids.

If he wants salt, he goes, salt.

They were ready.

And so it seems like this is a weird time for a talk on table manners.

But Gideon needed an elite, 300 alert soldiers.

So he could have, now listen to me, this will mess with your mind when you think about warfare.

So he could have the minority.

Rarely in battle would you think less is more is a good strategy.

But CCW, I want you to hear me.

When God is good and ready to reveal himself, there has to be no doubt.

There has to be no doubt that it is God.

In fact, John 3.30, it says, He must increase, I must decrease.

There's a slide that I want you to write down.

This next slide, I want you to write down.

I found this quote this week.

Put this up here.

Look at this.

People are never too small for God to use.

But often they get too big.

Y'all need to write this down.

Remember this.

Man, we get too big.

Our schedule gets too big.

Our stuff gets too big.

But we're never, ever.

Never once in scripture have I read.

And they were too humble.

They were so humble, but God could not even use them.

They were so humble.

They were just too small.

But we often get too big.

I want you to see this next slide so we can see the military strategy that's going on.

I don't know if you can see that real well, but I'm going to break this down as I was thinking about this strategy and Gideon finding out that I'm getting smaller and smaller.

It starts out with 135,000 versus 32,000 Israelites.

That's in a battle, in a fight, that's 4.21 Midianites to every one Israelite.

Now maybe you are some kind of elite warrior.

And maybe 4.5 men you could take.

You might be someone who can really battle, like uh Mr.

Garrett Proper.

I saw him, he does a lot of bull watching right.

Okay.

Maybe you could take 4.21 in a fight, but then God says, you know what?

I'm cutting out 22,000 cowards.

So now we got 135,000 versus 10,000.

Now, 13.5 Midianites to every one Israelite.

It went from not good, right, to ridiculous.

The only person may be in here, I think maybe Harry Duro.

He was a soldier.

Maybe 13.5 men against Harry, Niva, but not too many.

I mean, we're insanity, right?

If we're lining up outside, I'm not looking for 13 and a half, right?

I'm looking for Joe and two more.

I can take them.

But 13 and a half?

That's ridiculous.

It goes from ridiculous to the table manner competition.

And God says, let's cut out 9,700 careless.

Now we go down 135,000 versus 300.

That is 450 Midianites to every one Israelite.

It goes from ridiculous to impossible.

And I think that's key.

When impossibilities show up, I think that's key.

And so the impossibility shows up, and that's when God has to show up.

I got one more slide I want you to write down.

This is important.

Every Christian should have a God-sized impossible goal.

We call this faith, audacious faith.

If you don't have a God-sized goal in your life right now, maybe we're missing it.

This is the type of thing God needed for the 300.

Every Christian.

You say, Pastor Rick, where is the logic in this battle?

Church, tell me one time, in all of this book, where you find the word logic, somebody please show me logic in Scripture.

Oh, I know where.

Hebrews 11:6, right?

Hebrews 11:6

It says, without logic, it is impossible to please God.

Is that right?

No, it says, without faith, it's impossible to please God.

Faith is a substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

And so it takes faith.

Just when you think Gideon might be on the brink as the new brigadier of total and utter discouragement, God shows up in a dream.

I want you to look down further in the scripture.

And so look down at verse 13, chapter 7, verse 13.

And when Gideon had come there was a man telling a dream to his companion.

He said, I have had a dream.

To my surprise, a loaf of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian.

It came to a tent, and it stuck it so that it fell and overtent, and the tent collapsed.

Then his companion, this is a Midianite, answered and said, This is nothing else but the sword of Gideon, the son of Joash, a man of Israel.

Into his hand God has delivered Midian and the whole camp.

And so it was, listen to this, verse 15.

When Gideon heard the telling of the dream and its interpretation, he fell down in worship.

And so, right when you think Gideon, he's got to be discouraged.

He just lost all but 300 of his men.

He's getting ready to go into battle.

He has got to be discouraged.

And I'm telling you, I know some of you have been in some battles.

And it feels like one thing comes and then another thing comes, another thing comes, and then you get hit over here.

And it's like, when God is this stuff gonna stop?

And then God shows up with a little bit of worship for him.

Let her be there is the contemplation that brings conviction.

He overhears a man's dream about bread, barley bread, knocking over a tent.

Alright, that's what it says.

Bread that causes some damage.

Must have been wonder bread.

Because it rolled that tent over.

That's a good dad joke for you kids, right there.

Rolled that tent right over.

And so this is Gideon.

That's what the man says.

This must be Gideon.

This must be Joash's son, Gideon.

And then, verse 15, just what he needed.

Even in the biggest of impossibility, God comes in a whisper.

You ever felt that, church?

Man, somebody just passed, and God comes in a whisper.

You're in the middle of a financial crisis, and God refills your heart.

You're in the middle of a family situation that you can't seem to get right, and you get in his word, and God says, Child, it's gonna be like bread rolling over a tent.

God, just just just, child, listen to me.

It's gonna be okay.

God sees we need encourage.

Kyle Eidelman again wrote this.

You must learn in the midst of sickness, tragedy, attack on your family, uncertainty and schedules, that a meeting with God is always mandatory.

You gotta stop while the enemy is plotting, planning, and you're in crisis, and respond to God's intimate call.

You have to have times for that.

Because the battle is coming.

This is vital because we know if we're not in it right now, the battle is on its way.

That takes us to the third point this morning.

The battle that bewilders.

I want you to go to verse 16.

I want you to see what happens as we pick up.

Then he divided the 300 men into three companies, and he put a trumpet into every man's hand, empty pitchers of torches inside, and pitchers, and he said to them, Look at me and do likewise.

Watch.

When I come to the edge of the camp, you shall do as I do.

When I blow the trumpet, I and all who are with me, you shall also blow the trumpet on every side of camp and yell, the sword of the Lord and Gideon.

So we see, letter A, a peculiar plan for protection.

Okay, I want you to see this.

Now it's the battle planning session.

And imagine with me if this is your general, if this is the man you're listening to, your elite soldiers, but he says, All right, boys, I want everybody to gather in and we're getting ready to have a battle planning session, and you're gonna find out how we're gonna take out these Midianites.

And he says, Look at what we got.

Every man, get your weapon.

You're like, what do we got?

Alright, okay.

What are we gonna 300 versus this army?

This is what we got?

You're like, I don't know.

I had questions about Gideon, but man.

And so that's the first thing he pulls out.

He says, Every man, come on, get your trumpet.

And then, right?

He says, and now every man gets you a pitcher.

You're like, what?

What is he doing?

Trumpets and pitchers?

What am I gonna do with that?

These guys got bows, they got arrows, they got swords.

What am I gonna do here with this, right?

He says, everybody gets a trumpet, everybody gets a pitcher.

And then he says, and everybody gets a torch, right?

Maybe that works.

Maybe not.

And so he gives everybody a non-working.

There we go, we got fire.

And so he says, put the torch inside the pitcher.

This is the battle plan, this is what we're going with.

300 elite, and he reveals this artillery, right?

He says, Team Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, everybody come in, get your trumpet boys.

Look, I imagine the first guy going up like, man, I didn't even attend choir.

Like, I don't even know.

What am I supposed to do with this?

Are we having a midnight musical?

What are we doing?

Literally nonsense.

Those of you that were in the military, really, if you were getting ready to go into battle and you saw that wouldn't you say, like, he's lost it.

He has lost it.

He's done for.

Like, bring it, he has lost his mind.

Nonsense.

Uh, I heard some nonsense recently.

Uh, Heather called me one night and uh she got pulled over by a policeman.

And uh if you know Heather, you know why I went like this.

As soon as I found out she was telling me on the phone, I went, yes, she was going 109 and a 50.

Maybe not that big, right?

That's not true.

I don't know.

It's just it's probably like 58.

But anyway, she was speeding and she calls me, and the cop comes back to her, you know, whatever they do.

They go over to the car, make you sweat things out for a little bit.

I don't know what they do back there.

Maybe they call her, you know.

But he's back there and making her sweat, and he comes back to her and he says, Give me two reasons why I shouldn't give you this ticket.

And uh she laughed and she said, I deserve that ticket.

She said, I was speeding.

She said, but I am gonna get a selfie with you if you give me this ticket because I almost made it to 40 and have never gotten a ticket.

And he dropped it.

I'm like, Are you serious?

Nonsense! I got like 15 tickets my first three years of driving.

I had a cop tell me, you caused me to hit my brakes and gave me a ticket, and it said that.

I'm like, what does that mean?

And so, anyways, I'm like, this is nonsense.

How is this possible?

And I imagine these guys looking at him and like, what?

What?

There's probably a few.

This is what I believe from being with junior high students.

There's probably a few that looked at the torch.

They're probably rednecks, and they're like, Yeah, we're gonna get down there and we're gonna burn up some Midianites today.

We'll roll them over and fire them up.

There's a couple of those, but the rest of them are like, what is this nonsense?

Church, listen, it doesn't make any sense to me, but you and I are the chosen activity of God in a generation.

Until we die, we are the activity of God in a generation.

And so maybe you've been wondering as you think about your community and your church.

Why is God missing?

What about my home?

Where's God in my home?

And I want you to know his answer.

I thought about it from this song.

You've probably heard it.

It says, listen to these words, they're penetrating.

I woke up this morning and saw a world full of trouble now.

Thought, how do we ever get so far down?

And how did how's it ever gonna turn around?

So I turned my eyes to heaven and I thought, God, why don't you do something?

Well, I just couldn't bear the thought of people living in poverty, children sold into slavery.

The thought disgusted me, so I shook my fist at heaven and I said, God, why don't you do something?

And he said, I did.

I created you.

If not us, then who?

If not me and you right now, it's time for us to do something.

We are the chosen activity of God for a generation.

We are God's trumpet, even if it doesn't make sense to us.

We're God's torch, we're God's pitcher for a generation.

Well, let me explain these instruments just for a moment.

For a trumpet, there were three purposes.

One, the trumpet would sound the march, a call to battle.

And so a trumpet would give a long blast, and there would be a sound for marching of soldiers, and then a call to battle.

And the third thing a trumpet could be used for was a call to worship.

You know what I like about a trumpet in scripture?

And when I started thinking about this as a weapon, you know, it took a trumpet in the hands of Joshua and some men marching around a wall, and a trumpet shook loose the very foundation of a wall, and they let those blasts go, and God used men with a trumpet, and the walls came falling down.

And one day, Scripture says that the trumpet of the Lord will sound, and Jesus will again do the unthinkable.

So, you know what?

Trumpets aren't so bad.

I like trumpets.

Well, what else did he have?

We're gonna get back to the picture in a second, but the second thing was a torch.

It's a picture of light.

Again, I think maybe a few of those crazies, maybe they got excited about the torch.

2 Corinthians says this.

Chapter 4, verse 6.

For it is God who commanded light to shine out of darkness.

Matthew 5, 16, we know.

Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

It's a picture of light.

Light needed in this battle.

Light that's going to flash across a field in three companies.

It's going to be a bright light, and we're going to see how it was used.

But we see that torch.

Letter B, and we're going to talk about the last instrument.

But letter B is powerlessness leads to the phenomenal.

I want you to see here the powerlessness, the picture of the pitcher.

So Gideon, verse 19, and the 300 men who were with him came to the outpost of the camp at the beginning of the middle watch.

Just as they had posted the watch, they blew the trumpets, broke their pitchers that were in their hands, then the three companies blew the trumpets, broke the pitchers, held the torches in their left hands, and the trumpets in their right, hands for blowing.

And they cried, the sword of the Lord and Gideon.

And every man stood in his place all around the camp, and the whole army of Midianites ran and cried out and fled.

So we see here the last weapon that we're going to look at is this weapon of artillery that kind of renders us powerless.

Powerless.

A broken picture.

Go back to 2 Corinthians.

I want you to hear this.

Chapter 4.

I said that the torch is a picture of light, but in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 7, after that verse of light, it says, But we have this treasure in earthen vessels.

2 Corinthians 4:7

That the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.

We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed.

We're perplexed but not in despair, persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed.

Always carrying about in the body, dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus may be manifested through us.

And so he says it's a treasure in an earthen vessel.

What this represents.

Another version of the Bible says it's a jar of clay.

God only, church, needs a particular vessel.

A vessel that is empty.

A jar that is empty.

A jar that can be broken.

I was thinking about things that are better that are broken.

Everybody ever here ate a peanut before?

Have you had the kind with the shell still attached?

Not my favorite.

Maybe it's yours.

We'll just say for the sake of argument, maybe a pistachio.

A little tougher, right?

Broken.

How about eggs?

Anybody here ate an egg unbroken?

Right?

Alright, ladies, help me out here.

Which genes?

The genes that you've had for three days or the ones that have six months been broken in?

Oh, the old ones, right?

Brand new or broken in shoes.

Right?

Yes, Jesus.

Ever rode an unbroken horse?

I haven't.

I'm not crazy enough to do something dumb like that.

Baseball glove.

Anybody ever played in a game?

Some of our softball team?

Brand new glove.

Terrible.

I had a brand new glove on uh last season, and Ryan threw a fireball across from shortstop.

I don't even know what happened.

I don't know if it hit the glove, but it I couldn't get it open fast enough.

Like this ball's gonna kill me if it hits me.

And so broken, right?

Why a broken jar?

It says they broke it.

I forgot almost.

Almost the most important thing that needs to be broken.

Noisy kids' toys.

Y'all ever heard that popping ball thing?

People give that to you because they don't like you, right?

I'll tell you where it's good for that.

It's good to be broken.

And so, but a broken jar, why would a broken jar be important?

Because you understand the torch was in it.

And a broken jar with a crack emits more light.

Are you with me, church?

A broken jar, that sacrifice of a broken spirit, a contrite heart, a cracked jar emits more light.

All throughout the Bible, we're pointed to empty and broken.

We're pointed to that.

God desires that of us.

It says it in different places about brokenness.

That it's important for us.

Broken bread fed hungry people.

A broken body gave salvation.

A broken will gives life fulfillment.

God wants us to be his pitcher, church.

Broken, empty, usable.

So that takes us back to why Gideon had to remove his father's idols in the first place.

Because, and we're going to sing it in a minute, he had to make room.

He had to make room for that vessel.

He had to empty that vessel so that there was room.

And for some of us, it might just look like something like our schedule.

Can I be very practical this morning and say, we have to get in God's word daily.

We have to feed on his word.

And so we've got to make room, whatever that means for you.

We've got to make room to bear one another's burdens.

We show up, we come in, we come out, and nothing happens because we're not doing what Scripture says.

We've got to make room in our life for prayer.

We've got to make room in our life for God to speak to us and us to respond to what He's asked.

And so we've got to make room.

We've got to be empty and broken about sin.

Gideon had to remove his father's idols.

And it goes back to a verse we purposefully skipped.

Why?

Why did he have to do that before we got into any battle?

Verse 2.

This is why.

And the Lord said to Gideon, The people who are with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel will claim glory for itself against me, and say, My own hand has saved me.

If we're not empty and we're not broken, we'll be tempted to say, You know, I put in the work and I got that success.

I did it on my own and I got that achievement.

Look at all my bank account.

I did that.

I, I, I, I am massed these vacations, I amassed these things, I amassed this power.

Look at what I did.

He said, Israel will be tempted.

If there's any more than 300, they're gonna be tempted.

They'll say, We did this.

And he wants us to know his purpose is to show you that you don't need to do it.

In fact, there's a battle that goes on in 2 Chronicles, and he says, the battle's not yours.

He says, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord.

Again, in Exodus 14, 13, the same thing is mentioned.

Stand still and watch the salvation of the Lord.

And many places in James 4 he says, just resist the devil, and that enemy will flee, like the Midianites did.

And so he says, just watch me.

Romans 8, he says, if God is for you, then what can possibly be against you?

But if you are not making room enough for him, many things can be against you, church.

300 men.

Impossible.

Except it's not in verse 22.

They lined up, long blast of the horn, broke pictures, light emits.

Midianites jump up in their tents because it's after midnight, and this must mean we've been surrounded.

And they grab their swords and they begin killing each other in their tents as God in the background behind Gideon goes, just listen to me, boy.

I got you.

I got you.

Just sound the trumpet for the midnight musical and watch the massacre.

132,000 is no match against 300 of gods.

And CCW, I want you to understand that it may look bleak in ways right now.

Like everywhere you go, that it's hardship and there's a whole lot of secularism and there's a whole lot of this idolatry and this temptation pushed against us.

But he says, listen, if you, church, will stay this course, I'll show you the impossible.

I can do exceedingly abundantly above all you ask or think.

When we are powerless, church, empty and broken, God can go to work.

I'm asking to bow your heads and close your eyes.