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Look at verse 1, the Bible reads, The men of Ephraim said unto him, Why hast thou served us thus, that thou called us not? Well, now when is the fight with the Midianites? And they did chide with him sharply. Now this is an interesting verse here, because in verse number 24 of chapter 7, we see it says, And Gideon sent messengers throughout all Mount Ephraim, saying, Come down against the Midianites. Isn't that interesting, where Gideon actually did call for these people to come and to fight with him. Yet, he didn't do it initially. Initially, their first group of 300 that was whittled down, they went and they had the first skirmish, as it were, with the Midianites. They're going down and defeating the Midianites, but he does end up calling other people to come help him. He does call the Ephraites, and right here, they're coming and they're chiding with Gideon, or they're arguing with Gideon, or they're upset with Gideon. That's what it means to chide with somebody, is to be upset with them. Now, why is it that they're really upset? Why are they coming and making this accusation against Gideon? The reason is because they want all of the glory. They can't stand it that Gideon would have this special battle that they got to win and have this great victory that they weren't a part of. And so that's really the only motivation, really the only reason, because they actually did get to fight against the Midianites. They did see victory. And why would you be upset if your enemies have been destroyed, even though you per se didn't do it yourself? The only reason we pride would be the pride of that enemy being destroyed. Look, I don't care who destroys our enemies today. As long as they get destroyed, I should be happy. I should be grateful that that happened, especially if my oppressor was taken out. I mean, I don't have to be the one that puts every sodomite to death in America. You know, I don't have to. Well, I was the one that got to do it. If it happens, it happens. That's great. I don't have to do anything. I can take zero credit. You can say my pastor Shelly's preaching didn't even help the cause at all. Okay. And I'd be like, that's great. At least it happened. Okay. But there's some people, they just have to get the recognition for the battles that are won. And we see this from those of Ephraim. They're coming and they're chatting with Gideon because they just want to get the glory. They're upset. They don't get all of the glory. And there's people like this. Verse number two, the Bible says, and he said to them, what have I done now in comparison of you is not the gleaning of the grapes of Ephraim better than the vintage of Abiezer. God has delivered in your hands, the princes of Midian or Ebenzib. And what was I able to do in comparison of you? Then their anger was abated toward him when he had said that. Now what's interesting here is how Gideon handles this situation. Now keep your finger, go to Proverbs chapter 15, Proverbs chapter 15. I want to show you verse and then give you my thoughts about this verse here. But Proverbs chapter 15, look at verse number one. The Bible says a soft answer turneth away wrath, but grievous words stir up anger. Now here's the thing. Gideon immediately recognizes why they're upset with him. Why is it that they were upset? Because they wanted pride. They wanted the glory of being the greatest, you know, warriors or having done the greatest accolades. So Gideon immediately appeals to and caters to that idea with them and points out the fact that they've actually won some great battles. They defeated Ored. They defeated Zeb. And so he humbles himself and he says, what could I do in comparison of what you've done? Now Gideon had said, well, you know what? I did take out that big host with just 300. And I know you guys took out Ored and Zeb, but you guys are little. You guys aren't as strong as we are. So we didn't think you could handle it. You know, you're not as big and tough as we are. That would have ended up causing it to be a bigger fight, to be a bigger conflict. But rather Gideon just decides to just humble himself. Look, Gideon's fight is easily provable that it was a much more impressive fight. He took 300 people against an innumerable company. He didn't have anything but just those people. He didn't already have basically the bandwagon to jump on of all the Midianites going and already defeating themselves and getting to jump into the fight. I mean, Gideon called for them to get into the fight. He's the one to encourage him. He's the one that provoked him. He's the one that started. Look, if we're going to just quantify from a carnal perspective who deserves the most glory here, it's easily Gideon. Yet Gideon decides to say, you know what? Who am I to say that I'm better than you guys or for whatever reason? Look, y'all defeated Ored. You defeated Zeb. And in comparison, you know, I think that that's even better. Now we could look at this from two approaches. We could say that Gideon was flattering them or Gideon was being sincere. I think from the context, he was probably being sincere. He just was humble. He thought little of himself and he was just saying, look, you guys took out two great people, two great princes. You've done all these great accolades too. Why are we sitting here trying to figure out who's the greatest, who's the best? And so anytime there's someone that's coming to you and essentially they're trying to gain recognition, they're trying to gain some kind of accolade. There's a temptation in the flesh to want to one-up them, to want to outdo them. To say, oh yeah, you took out Ored and Zeb. Well, look what I did. Or try to say, yeah, you can make it from a three-pointer. I can make it from half court, you know, with my, with one arm tied behind my back. Oh yeah, when I was in high school, I won all these trophies and I was the starting quarterback and oh yeah, if the coach had put me in in fourth quarter, we would have won the state championship, I know it. You know, it's like people just have this idea of always one-upping other people. Man, when I was out soul winning, I had the toughest case and I got them saved. No, I got one tougher than that brother. Let me tell you about it. There was 10 Jews, sodomites, and I got them all saved. You know, it's like, no, you didn't. But there's just this idea that people have that just one-up everyone. And really what you should do is you should just let people be prideful. If people want to be prideful, you can just let them be prideful. You can just humble yourself and just graciously bow out and a soft answer can turn away, wrapped. If someone wants to come around and puff their chest at you, you can just say, yep, you're the big man. Yep, you're great. And just move on. There's no point in contending with a prideful person. There's no point in trying to one-up this person and prove how great you are. Just let them be prideful. Let them have their accolades. And I would never say something insincere. So I'm not saying that you just need to butter them up. Oh yeah, you're so great, buddy. No, but if there is something positive you could say about them, then say it. Whenever someone has a problem with you, just point out the things that you like about them that are true and sincere and oftentimes that can help deescalate the situation. If you decide to humble yourself, if you decide to have a soft answer, and really if someone comes to you and they're angry and they're upset, we need to try our best not to match their emotion. Because whenever you match their emotion, it usually gets worse. You want to try and deescalate the situation by saying, hey brother, why are you upset? You know, what's going on? Hey, you know, you killed Oreb and Zeed. That was really great. Good job. I'm glad you took them out. Tell me about it. What did it look like? How did the battle go? You know, and then that person can start to deescalate and start to calm down. Now, I'll give you a tip. I failed this. If you want someone to calm down, don't tell them to calm down. It doesn't really work, okay? You know, just calm down. And it's just like, what do you mean calm down? I am calm. You know, it usually doesn't work very well. Don't always point out the obvious. But if you can point out something positive in somebody, then that's going to help them. Now, this group though, it's frustrating because they're a bunch of late comers riding on his coattails and they just want all of the glory. We should not want that glory. We can look at their example as bad, but Gideon was good at deescalating this situation. Look at verse four, the Bible says, and Gideon came to Jordan and passed over he and the 300 men that were with him, faint, yet pursuing them. And he said unto the men of Sukkoth, give I pray you loaves of bread unto the people that follow me, for they be faint than I am pursuing after Zeba and Zalmunna, kings of Midian. And the princess of Sukkoth said, are the hands of Zeba and Zalmunna now in thine hand, that we should give bread unto thine army? Now what happens is Gideon is continuing to still pursue the Midianites, still trying to go out and defeat the enemy. And it's interesting. He still has a small squad. He still has his 300 men. And even though he's faint, he's still going to pursue the enemy. Now I think you could look at a church like ours and say, are we gonna ever just finally quit chasing the enemy? And the answer is no. You say, but man, it just seems like enemy after enemy after enemy. Yeah, I'll stop when they're dead. You say, which ones? All of them. Unfortunately, new enemies keep getting added to the list every single day, it seems like. So you know when it'll stop? When Jesus comes. That's the real, that's the real answer. But even when you're faint, you have to take Gideon's example here and say, you know what, we're gonna continue pursuing. Now in his pursuit, he comes across someone that should be friendly. That is the men of Succoth. Now we probably don't know who the men of Succoth are, but keep your finger, go to Joshua chapter 13. He doesn't necessarily immediately ring a bell for me. But if you look it up in Joshua chapter 13, and you look at verse number 24, we'll get an idea of who the men of Succoth are. But it says in verse 24 of chapter 13, Moses gave inheritance in the tribe of Gad, even unto the children of Gad according to their families. And the coast was Jazer, and all the cities of Gilead, and the half the land of the children of Ammon, unto Aror, that is before Rabbah, and from Heshbon, unto Ramath, Mizpeh, and Bentenim, and from Mahanim, unto the border of Dabir, and of the valley of Betharim, and Bethnimra, and Succoth. So notice that the children of Gad were the ones that were to inherit Succoth. So this is the Gadites. Gadites are still their brethren, and they're chasing the enemy. So for Gideon to ask of his brethren help for them to provide them food or some kind of assistance in their pursuit of the enemy should be a no-brainer. If you have a brother in Christ pursuing an enemy, and in their pursuit they need some kind of assistance, we should help that person. We should give unto that person. Now you say, when? How often? Well, keep your finger here and go to Matthew chapter number five. Go to Matthew chapter five. Let's get some commentary from the Lord Jesus Christ, and let's figure out what his opinion is when someone asks you for something. Matthew chapter number five, and look at verse number 42. The Bible reads, Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee, turn not thou away. The Bible says, Ye have heard that it had been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thy neighbor, but I say unto you, Love your enemies. So in this context, he's saying, of course you should love your neighbor. You should even love your enemy. And the person that comes and asks something of you, he says, Give, give of him that asketh thee. Hey, if he wants to borrow something, don't turn him away. You say, well, what if it was my enemy? Well, the Bible just said in the next verse to love your enemies too. So in fact, you should try to assist, and you should try to help those that ask for your help. Now, obviously there's caveats to this. This is not the sermon. I can't give you every single caveat. The Bible does clearly tell us to consider the cause of the poor. So that would be one reason why I would not necessarily give money to somebody because they're not deserving of it. They need to go out and work for it themselves. Another reason would be they're an enemy. You know, if someone comes under me transgressing the doctrine of Christ, I'm not, that's not my personal enemy. That's an enemy of God. Okay. So while the Bible says to love your enemies, we don't want to get too extreme with that viewpoint and say, Oh, you know, the sodomite rapist, he's my, you know, I'm supposed to love him too. No, there's certain people that hate God or a false prophet, and we would never want to assist them either. Yet those that are not in those categories, not in those few caveat type scenarios, which is a very small remnant of people, we would be required of Christ to help those that come to us and ask. Now there's also scams. Okay. Now I think good Christian people, they get a little bit zealous in this and they just want to help people. And they don't realize that there's a lot of scams out there, but that's considering the cause of the poor too. Okay. If someone's trying to scam me and you say, what does the scam look like? Pretty much every derelict on the corner. Okay. They're going to come with some story. Oh, brother, you know, my sister's cousin's dog, you know, bit my hand. And then when I was going to work, I couldn't work cause my hand was hurt. And so they ended up laying me off unjustly. And then when I went home, you know, I mailed my rent check in, but you know, it got lost in that mail and you know that USPS service, you know, it's not that reliable brother. And so then I got kicked out and then because I got kicked out, my wife left me. And then because she left me, you know, the only food I could find was this drugs on the street corner. And I started taking drugs. And then I got in my car and I was trying, you're just like, what do you want? How much money do you have? That's the end of, that's the end of the story. Can you spare some, a few bucks? And when you, if you hand them $2, they'll probably criticize you. They mean like 50 or a hundred probably. That person's scamming you. Okay. So that's not, again, what this is talking about, but a normal person, just your average person down on their luck and they need some help. We should help them, especially a brother in Christ, who's pursuing the enemy. And he comes to you and he asks for help. What should our response be? Of course. Hey, I'll not go one mile with you. I'll go twain. Hey, you want my coat? How my cloak also? Hey, you want, you want some bread? How about a steak? You know, that's a good thing to offer to people. Go back, go back to judges. And let me give you a few more thoughts though, about this verse as, as we're thinking about it and kind of digging in. So Gideon's coming to these people. He's asking for their help. They should help him, but what is their response? Do they say, of course, brother, here, let me help you. No, they ask this question. Are the hands of Ziba and Zalmunna now in thine hand that we should give bread in the army? What are they doing? Well, they're bandwagon type Christians. And what I mean by that is they're not willing to help somebody until they tell that they're going to win. There's certain people, you know, their best, their favorite sports team is the one that's in the Superbowl. It's not at the beginning of the season. When you have no idea, it's, it's whoever makes it to the Superbowl. That's their team. And then whoever starts winning the Superbowl, that's their player. And that's the, you know, they're just a bandwagon sports, you know, sports person, whatever. And everybody gets annoyed by them. They're like, you're not real. You're just, you just want to be on the winning team here. Okay. And that's kind of what these people are like. They don't want to support somebody unless they know for sure it's going to benefit them back or they know for sure nothing bad is going to happen to them for assisting. Because if you assist Gideon and he loses, and now these princes that have been ruling over you and oppressing you, how do you think they're going to treat that, treat that transaction that you had with them? Are they going to be favorable towards it? I mean, we can think of like Saul. Saul gets very angry at the priests for giving bread and David. And he sends Doeg the Edomite to slay them all. What does this tell me? This tells me that the men of Sukkoth had no morals. They have no principles because they don't already have in their heart decided if someone comes under meaning assistance, I'm of course going to help them. And how could you not want to help your brother in Christ against the enemy? Is it really zalmunah? Is it really a conflict between two good parties here? No, it's the person that's oppressing you that's wicked and evil versus their brother in Christ who's trying to pursue the enemy, trying to relieve them of oppression. And they can't even help him until they know for sure that he's won the battle until they know for sure that nothing negative is going to happen from them. Or there are some other type of obligation. This is because this person has no principles and no morals. And so what we can extract from this situation is this. Whenever there's a conflict and someone's not willing to provide a judgment or an assistance in that conflict, it's because they themselves have no morals. They have no principles. They are like shifting sand. They want to wait until the dust settles to make some kind of an opinion. Well, I don't really know how this Adam Fannin and Pastor Shelley thing is going to shake out. So I'll just kind of stay away until the dust cloud settles. And then maybe I'll give my opinion. Then I'll pick sides, right? Because it's not that I can just look at the Bible, decide what I believe about it, and then just give my judgment whenever. I have to wait and see who's going to end up winning that battle to then decide how I really feel about the situation. These people are weak. They're unprincipled. They're not a man of God. Look, a man of God can tell you what God says no matter when, whether it's popular or unpopular, whether it's favorable or unfavorable, whether you're going to win the battle or you're not going to win the battle, you say, hey, this is what God said. Thus saith the Lord. It's not, well, who's going to win? Have you already won? Have you already proven that Adam Fannin is as wicked as you say he is? Because I'm not willing to get involved. I'm not willing to make any kind of assessment or any kind of a judgment in that situation. This person has no principles. This person is not a person of integrity. Frankly speaking, someone of integrity can give you God's word at a moment's notice. And now I'm not talking about getting involved with things, you know, meddling and strife not belonging to you. I'm saying very clearly you can identify a situation. You can see who's wicked. You can see who's not. And you're just unwilling to get involved. You're unwilling to make a judgment. Hey, the apostle Paul, not even being president in the Corinthian church can already tell you who's wrong and right in chapter five with the guy committing fornication. Well, let's just let the dust settle on that one. Is he the biggest tither or, you know, how's it going to work out? He doesn't care about that. He's already judged. He already knows what the problem is. He's just going to fix the problem. Go to verse number seven now. Let's get, let's keep going because we have another group that's like this. Verse seven and Gideon said, Therefore, the Lord hath delivered Ziba and Zalmunah in mine hand. Then I will tear your flesh with the thorns of the wilderness and with briars. And he went up thence to Penuel and spake unto them likewise. And then Penuel answered him as the men of Succoth had answered him. And he spake also unto the men of Penuel saying, When I come again in peace, I will break down this tower. Now, what does Gideon promise unto them? He says, Well, because you wouldn't help me after I win because we're going to win because I'm on the Lord's side, I'm not going to forget that. And I'm going to punish you guys. I will punish you. And I will remember the fact that you are not willing to partner with me. You're not willing to assist me. You're not willing to do that which is right. You're not willing to stand on the word of God and look in a heat of battle. And we're in there, you're being tested when you can't really know the outcome. That's when you get to see what people are really like in their heart. And when you see the person just not willing to take a stand in the moment of battle, you have to keep that in mind. You have to say, All right, this is a person who when they get tested again in the future, they're not going to just side with the Lord. They're going to kind of, you know, see what's popular, see how it affects them, see if it's going to be positive or negative before they get involved, before they make what decision they're going to make. This is not what we should do. We should always partner with God's people. We should always be on the Lord's side no matter what the situation, what the outcome, no matter how positive or negative it could be for us, we should just have our principles already decided. We set our landmarks and we don't move them. Now look at verse number 10. The Bible says, Now Ziba and Zalmunah were in Karkor and their hosts with them, about 15,000 men, all that were left of all the hosts of the children of the east, where there fell in 120,000 men that drew sword. So when we talked about that innumerable company, this gives us some insight. It says that they had lost 120,000 men and they had left 15,000. So that's about 135,000 men. Can you imagine 300 versus 135,000? What's crazy to me is it's still 300 versus 15,000 and the 15,000 are still running away. Why? Because when God's fighting for you, it doesn't matter how many you're going against. And do we see that the majority are right or the majority are wrong? Notice there's 135,000 wicked warriors against 300 good warriors. God always has a remnant. It's always the few that are saved. It's always the few that are going out and serving God. It's always the few that are willing to take the stand. It's always the few that God uses. Show me in the Bible where it's just this huge innumerable company of God's people against a small enemy. It's always the opposite. It's always a small number of God's people fighting a huge number of the enemy. And they're chasing them down. They're going to get them. Verse 11, And getting went up by the way of them, that dwelt in tents on the east of Nobah and Jogbeihah, and smote the host, for the host was secure. And when Zebeselmunah fled, he pursued after them and took the two kings of Midian. Zebeselmunah and discomfited all the host, and Gideon the son of Joash returned from the battle before the sun was up. Now that's really terrible for the men of Sukkoth. I mean it's saying like basically less than 24 hours of him coming and asking for help. They already are going to be on the end of the losing stick here. He's already coming back before the sun is up. That's not how you wanted that to turn out. He didn't forget. Now let's read verse 14. It says, And caught a young man of the men of Sukkoth, and inquired of him. And he described unto him the princes of Sukkoth and the elders thereof, even threescore and seventeen men. And he came unto the men of Sukkoth, and said, Behold, Zebeselmunah, with whom ye did upbraid me, saying, Are the hands of Zebeselmunah now in thine hand? That we should give bread unto thine men that are weary? And he took the elders of the city, and thorns of the wilderness and briars, and with them he taught the men of Sukkoth. Now that's not a lesson that I want to learn. I want to learn it through the Bible's lens, not in reality. Okay, that sounds terrible. Now what can we learn from this? Because we see a lot of different people in this story, and we have to understand all the different groups involved. First of all, we have Zebeselmunah. Who do they represent? They represent the wicked, ungodly, you know, evil enemy. Who does Sukkoth represent? It represents backslidden, weak Christians. Backslidden, weak Christians. Who does Gideon represent? He represents the godly, faithful, Baptist. Okay, and what we have to understand is that when you are backslidden, even though you're saved, you will receive punishment for your sins in this life. God will punish you when you do not follow his commandments. When you don't assist the man of God. Hey, if the man of God comes and asks you to help him, I've already learned the lesson. You help him, right? You don't say, well, is it going to work out? Are you really going to move into the building, Pastor Shelley? I'll wait. I'll wait to help out until after we move in the building. I wouldn't do that. This is not an advertisement. It just works, okay? But notice the application here. Hey, what are you waiting for to help somebody? I mean, if you could think of all the people that I could help on the planet, right? Who better than Gideon, right? At that time, if you could say, because sometimes you give money to somebody and they turn out to be a bozo, right? And they're really frustrating. But if you give money to Gideon, you're like, wow, that was a great investment. I'm glad I helped out Gideon. I'm glad that I had Gideon on my side. And of all the people that turned down, that would be the worst person who turned down because in less than 24 hours, he came back and then he punished you in a really brutal way. I mean, the thorns of the wilderness. And what we have to understand here is that God will punish Christians today. Go to Proverbs chapter three. Proverbs chapter number three. Well, Pastor Shelley, you don't understand, I'm saved. Okay, I'm glad you're on your way to heaven, but let me give you a rude wake up call that if you continue in sin, God will punish you until you get home. He'll punish you until you get to heaven. So if you want to be continually punished by God, don't follow his commandments. Proverbs chapter three, verse 11. My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord, neither be weary of his correction for whom the Lord loveth, he correcteth even as a father, the son whom he delighteth. God promises to correct you. He promises to teach you lessons in this life today. And when you will not follow his commandments, I don't care who you are. He will punish you. He will chastise you. God is a loving father. He's never going to go without punishment. And you say, how do you know that, Pastor Shelley? Because nothing can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. And as much as we use that verse from a positive sense, let me give you another application. Since he will never stop loving you, since nothing will separate you from his love, when you screw up, he will punish you because he loves you. It's hand in glove. So therefore, you say, why do I have to go to church, Pastor Shelley? Why should I read the Bible? Why should I keep helping God's servant? Why should I keep doing good? Well, there's a lot of reasons why. Rewards, God's pleased with you. Here's another one. So you don't get punished. So you don't get chastised. So you don't get beaten with the thorns. Why in one group is Gideon destroying them in another group he's chastising them? Because there's a difference between the unsaved and the saved. But notice there's still a punishment. The punishment's much more severe for those that are unsaved. But there is a punishment for not following through with God's commandments. Go back to chapter eight and look at verse 18. That's a proof that you are saved because God is not going to chasten unsaved people. He will chasten his people, though. And it says in verse number, I'm sorry, I think I didn't quite read a few verses here. Let's get Penuel, too, because he says in verse number 17, and he beat down the tower of Penuel and slew the men of the city. Now, Penuel, they get a much harsher punishment. They get the tower and their people are destroyed. Again, you'd say, well, God would never kill a saved person. Wrong. God kills saved people. And that can even be a punishment. God takes the life of even his own anointed. King Saul was punished with death because he had broken God's commandments. He had gotten so severe and so far away from the Lord that God took his life early. Now, at the end of the day, God is going to take your life whenever he sees fit. I would much rather die chasing after the enemy than die having not helped Gideon, having not helped the Lord. And you know, we're all going to die someday. Unless Jesus comes forth. I mean, then you could get raptured, I guess. But you got to die some way. Don't you want a glorious death? And when you kind of think about it, wouldn't you want to die going out with a bang rather than, oh, I broke God's commandments and, you know, we just got destroyed because of it. You know, I decided to forsake God. I decided to just stay home and not get involved. And I ended up just getting taken out by a hurricane or a fire. You know, you live in the West Coast, I guess. It could happen. God kills people every single day and he can kill Christians today. Look about Ananias and Sapphira in your Bible. They come. They were they were killed at church. Now they came with bad motives, but. There's there's no restraint from God's punishment, even on the safe, except for going to hell. I'm saying in this life, though, you can receive the same similar type of punishment as the unsaved. And so it's just a strong enough rebuke for us to follow his commandments, even though all my sins have been forgiven, even though I've been washed in the blood. Look at verse number 18. Now he's going to deal with Zeba and Zalmunah. Then said he unto Zeba and Zalmunah, what manner of men were they whom he slew at Tabor? And they answered, as thou art, so were they. Each one resembled the children of a king. So the wicked evil people, when they came and they had persecuted them, they had killed many people and he's avenging them. And he asked this interesting question. He says, what were those people like that you ended up killing? And notice they were like a children. They were like children of the king. Now there's a couple of things we could pick out of that. First of all, we could pick out that God's people are kind of, you know, good looking or they have some kind of charisma about them or anything like that. But I like to look at it from maybe a spiritual perspective because we're children of a king too. And notice he was harming his brethren. That's why he went after him. That's why he pursued him. You say, why is Gideon so hot and pursued against these people? Because he was destroying God's people because he was attacking God's people. And you know, those are the people that we should go after. The wolves in sheep's clothing or just the wolves in wolves clothing that are out there devouring God's people, hurting God's people. And what is Gideon's response when he tells this and he said, they were my brethren, even the sons of my mother as the Lord liveth. If you had saved them alive, I would not slay you. So notice why he's coming after them, why he's pursuing them, because he was destroying God's people. And when you notice someone destroying God's people, that is someone that we should go after. You say, how are we going to go after them? You know, you got an AR, sawed off shotgun or brass knuckles. No, spiritual armor. The word of God. And there's a lot of wicked people today. There's too many false prophets in the name. And we need to go after them. We need to attack them. We need to bring out the spiritual warfare and not let up either. Not just say, well, we kind of drove them away. Why do you keep bringing them up, Pastor Shelley? Why do you keep chasing them down? Why do you keep trying to find them and seek them out and then just destroy them in front of everybody? Because they're still hurting God's people. Because they did hurt God's people in times past. And you know what? I know they're capable of doing it again in the future. So I don't want to even let this creep stay alive, spiritually, physically, whatever. I'm just going to hunt them down and take them out a hundred percent. And you know what? It's my job to take them out. It's your job to take them out. It's all of our job to go and to seek them out and to hunt them down and to take them out because they're hurting God's people. If you love God's people, then you're going to go to protect them. Verse 20, And he sent an ejithr his firstborn up and slayed them. But the youth drew not a sword, for he feared because he was yet a youth. Then Zibunzalmunna said, Rise thou and fall upon us. For as the man is, so is his strength. And Gideon arose and slew Zibunzalmunna and took away the ornaments that were on their camel's necks. So we see that his son is not able to perform the task because he's youth. Notice because he feared because he was afraid. And there's a lot of people. They're not willing to slay false prophets because they're afraid because they are youth, but not physically spiritually. People that don't know the Bible, people that are ignorant of the scriptures, people that are a babe in Christ don't like it. They're afraid of slaying a false prophet. But those who are spiritually mature, those that are strong in the Lord, they have the capability to slay the false prophets. They don't have any problem with slaying false prophets. They like slaying the false prophet. They want to get them out of the way. They're tired of the trash existing. They say a man needs to just get up and take care of business. And notice the man, his strength is a picture of his manliness. If you want to be a man, it's through strength. No one thinks of you as being a great man if you're weak. Like, you know, if you're going to talk about the manliest men, it's not the weakest men, it's the strongest men. And if you want to be like that spiritually, if you want a spiritual madness, it's going to come through strength. But what kind of strength? Having faith in God's word, believing every single verse, not just the easy to believe ones like love everyone. You know, that's not even a verse in your Bible, but. Hate the sin, love the sinner. That's not hard. Everyone likes that. Everyone that's palatable for everyone. You know, you know, it's not palatable for everyone. Do not, I hate them. Oh, Lord, that hate thee. Do not, I hate them. Oh, Lord, that hate thee. That's not palatable for everybody. Some people are in fact, they're kind of like, do not, I hate them. Oh, Lord, I hate thee. You know, they're kind of like, well, I can't sing that with a lot of string. Why? Because they're a babe in Christ. How can you have a Bible, God's word, and be ashamed of singing any of the words in it? Any of the lyrics? I don't care what it says. Break their teeth in their mouth. Oh, Lord. I mean, I hope they melt like a snail. I mean, just any lyric. We should be excited to sing it. We shouldn't be like, oh, I don't know about that. That's a little extreme. You know, these people that take hating facts to an extreme. Well, it sounds great to me. I feel like God burned them with fire and brimstone. I feel like God called them brute beasts. How can you take that to an extreme? I can't even take it to the extreme. God does. God's going to burn them in hell for all of eternity. Oh, he's so loving. That's not love. You know what? I can't hate them as much as God does, but I'm going to try my best. And you know what? I'm going to renew my mind with God's word. But those that are spiritual babes in Christ, they would be offended at that song. They're that youth. They're like, I can't slay him. And it's like, it's Ziba. It's a fag. It's Zac Efron, you know? Come on. It's like, it's like, what? Who is this person that you can't slay? It's Kevin Spacey. The guy who's molesting child after child after child. He's a faggot pedophile. How can you not be like killed Kevin Spacey? And it's just like, I don't know. God loves everyone. Not him. Not even for a second. Just put the sword of the Lord through his heart already. But we see that there's too many spiritual babes in Christ today. There's too many Jethro Baptist churches out there. Hey, we need some Gideon Baptist churches. We need some people that say, hey, I know you guys won't get the job done. We'll do it. And you know what? Suck off Baptist church can just keep sucking. All right. They can keep losing and getting chastised. But at the end of the day, we need to be steadfast in God's word, whether it's popular or unpopular, whether it's positive or negative. I don't care if it's positive or negative. I've already decided I don't care. I just want to know what it is. You know, people that love the truth, they don't really care what the truth is. They just want the truth. They just say, hey, just tell me what's right. Just tell me what God said. Whatever God said, let's just do that. I just want to be on God's side. I just want to do that, which is right today. And we should stop worrying about if it sounds good or not, if it sounds too extreme or not. Who cares what you think? Just what does the Bible say? That's what we're going to do today. Now look at verse 22. It says, then the men of Israel said in Gideon, rule thou over us, both thou and my son and my son's son. Also, that thou has delivered us from the hand of Midian. Now I get the first part, like, yay, rule over us, the son. You just saw him kind of fail, but all right. But we see through great strength, people want to follow that type of leadership. They like Gideon's leadership and they're ready to follow in a battle. They like the fact that he's a strong leader. It says in verse number 23, and Gideon said to them, I will not rule over you. Neither shall my son rule over you. The Lord shall rule over you. Now, what I want to take note of is this. When Gideon is propositioned with a pretty tempting offer to rule over the people, I mean, who doesn't want to be in charge from a carnal perspective? I think everybody does. Everybody wants that position or that authority or the rewards or whatever comes with that position. A lot of people would like to be in charge, or a lot of people would like to be the king or served or have people serving them. But he gives a good response. He says, no, I'm not going to rule over you. That's not for me to take that type of position. That's not right for me or my son to rule over you. We're supposed to have God ruling over us because it's the book of Judges. We haven't had the kings yet. And in the time of Judges, God is supposed to rule over them. They're supposed to have judges that basically make determinations amongst the people and their governance is supposed to have God at the top, not a man to worship and to serve. And so Gideon gives a good response. But here's the problem with this chapter. It doesn't end here. And what I want to really point out, and then this is kind of be the focus of our sermon this evening is this. There's a lot of people that will say the right thing, but then they don't do it. They will say the right thing. And I think Gideon honestly believes that that's right. He wants to do that, but he just doesn't do that. OK, let's keep reading. He says, and Gideon said to them, I would desire a question. He's like, hey, we should let God rule over us. But let me ask something. All right. That you would give me every man the earrings of his prey, for they had golden earrings because they were Ishmaelites. And they answered, we will willingly give them. And they spread a garment and did cast there in every man the earrings of his prey. And the way to the golden earrings that he requested was a thousand and seven hundred shekels of gold besides ornaments and collars and purple raiment that was on the kings of Midian and beside the chains that were about their camel's necks. And Gideon made an ephod thereof and put in his city even an ophrah. And all Israel went thither, a whoring after it, which thing became a snare unto Gideon. Now we have here into his house, so we have here Gideon. He's asking for some money, in a sense, gold. He's asking for the gold for to make a particular thing. He's going to make an ephod. Now, what's an ephod? Ephod is just a piece of a garment. It's a garment that the priests would wear in the Bible. Let's get an idea of this. Keep your finger here and go to Exodus chapter 28 for a second. Go to Exodus chapter 28. Now, I, you know, the Bible gives us some, you know, descriptions of these garments. We don't know exactly the length or some other attributes of it per se. It kind of seems like maybe an apron to some degree as far as its shape. It's typically a sleeveless garment. Now it could be made out of multiple types of fabric. Could be a linen garment or it could be made out of other jewels or something. This one is going to be made of gold. But in Exodus chapter 28, we have a description of the ephod. It says in verse 4, And these are the garments which they shall make a breastplate and an ephod and a robe and a broidered coat, a mitre and a girdle. And they shall make holy garments for Aaron thy brother and his sons, that he may minister unto me in the priest's office. Now what do we have here? We have several pieces of garment. And when it talks about the breastplate, the breastplate would be put on the ephod, okay? And they have the curious girdle would also be talked about as being on that ephod. Now in the New Testament, you know, the breastplate is a picture of righteousness, is what the Bible says. The ephod, or I'm sorry, the curious girdle could be like having your loins girt about with truth, okay? So when I think about the ephod, this is what I think about. I think about it being just a picture of service to God. It's a garment that's picturing the service to God. Now here's the thing. The Levites are supposed to wear this. But when did God say, Oh yeah, Gideon, make a golden ephod for you too? He did. But what's the ephod represent? It represents service to God. So what is Gideon doing? Well, it's really a picture of man-made religion. Man-made religion, his way of serving God. Now he gave lip service to the right thing. He said, let's let the Lord rule over us. But then in the next breath, he's asking to make this golden ephod, which is now going to be a snare unto him and to his house, and all the children of Israel are what? They're going to go whoring after it, okay? Let's finish this chapter, and then I want to give you a few more thoughts on this topic that we're talking about. It says in verse number 28, Thus was Midian subdued before the children of Israel, so they lifted up their heads no more, and the country was in quietness forty years. In the days of Gideon and Jerusalem, the son of Joash went and dwelt in his own house, and Gideon had three score and ten sons of his body begotten, three had many wives, and his concubine that was in Shechem, she also bare him a son whose name he call Abimelech. And Gideon, the son of Joash, died in a good old age, and was buried in the sepulcher of Joash's father. And Ophrah of the Abiezrites, and it came to pass, as soon as Gideon was dead, the children of Israel turned again and went whoring after Balaam, and made Baal-Biroth their god. And the children of Israel remembered not the Lord their god, who had delivered them out of the hands of all their enemies on every side. Neither showed they kindness to the house of Drubel, namely Gideon, according to all the goodness which he had showed in Israel. Now here's the thing about Gideon. We pretty much concluded the life of Gideon, and he has a lot of good in these chapters that we read about. He does a lot of good things. He's greatly used by God, and he has this great victory. We see he destroys a lot of the Midianites. He rescues the children of Israel out of oppression. And all the days of his life, even, they are escaped from that type of oppression. It says that they had rest in those days. But what did Gideon do in the end of his life? Well, in the end of his life, he had the golden Ephod. Additionally, we notice he had 70 children. That's a lot. You think that the Cardonas have a lot of kids. I mean, 70, 70 kids. That's a lot of birthdays. I don't even know if I can remember all their names. I mean, 70? Was that a good attribute? No, that's a bad attribute of Gideon. He obviously, while he didn't want to be king, he still took a lot of the benefits that a king would get, didn't he? He still got that gold. He's still kind of a position of power. He still gets all the women. So he's getting all those benefits from that king. He was just kind of like, yeah, but I shouldn't be the king. Wink, wink, nod, nod. But just give me the women and gold anyways, though. Okay, I'll take those two things. Now, what I want to say about this is the fact that saved people can do bad things. Saved leaders can do bad things. Saved teachers of the Bible can teach bad things. Godly men that were used greatly by God can set up golden ephods today. And here's the thing. What does the ephod represent? The ephod represents something taking you away from real worship of God, the real service of God to worship something man-made. And you know what people love? They love that. They love the stuff that's not really of God, but just kind of feels like it kind of looks like it. You say, what is that? How about Bible college? Where's that said in the Bible? And it said it could be a snare unto Gideon. Why? Because Gideon should have preached against that. He should have said, we don't need a golden ephod. Let's use the ephods for Aaron. Let's do the ephod that God set up. But here's the thing. After you make the golden ephod, it's harder to preach against it. You know, it's hard to preach against Bible college when you have a Bible college, isn't it? It's hard to preach against things that you set up that you end up building that people all like. I mean, when you build the Bible college and then you have thousands of people whoring themselves to it. Now it's a lot harder for you to preach against that. Now, if you only set up things that are biblical, you don't have to worry about preaching against them. But when you create things that aren't really in the Bible, that are your just man-made version of servicing God or worshiping God or doing these other things, then you end up creating these man-made pictures that can take people away from God. Now notice, Gideon still served God pretty much to some degree the rest of his life. He doesn't like go and worship false gods or whatever. But at the end of his life, the people immediately do. This is what I would say. There's a lot of people, they do something great for God. They get a church going, then they set up their golden ephod, their Bible college, and then when that generation passes, you know what the next generation does? They just forsake the Lord. Look, there's a lot of churches out there today that they have plenty of golden ephods out there. But you know what? They're killed, their children are going to hell, and their children are going to the world, and their children don't want to serve God. And instead of preaching against the golden ephod they set up in their churches, they're going to go down with them. It becomes a snare unto them. All their excess programs, all the things that have nothing to do with the word of God, they forsaken the real worship of God, the real service of God. They don't want to go out soul winning. They don't want to get back to hard biblical preaching. They don't want to do the bare necessities. They want to just chase their golden ephod. They want to chase their building. They set up their building and everybody just loves a great building, you know. But then it's like, well, I can't preach the Bible because then how am I going to afford the building? And I mean, we all love the building. I mean, the building's great. Have you seen the golden ephod? It's beautiful. Don't you love how it's set and all the stones in it and how beautifully it was crafted? Look, I don't want to set something up for this church that would cause us to get away from what makes us Steadfast Baptist Church. I don't want to build something that would get us from, well, now we can't go soul winning because we have this beautiful building, you know, that's too far away from the soul. Or, well, we have this beautiful building. I want to preach people out the doors. Then how are we going to fill it up? You know, I don't want to preach hard on Sunday morning because I don't want to offend all the visitors. Who cares? We've got a tighter building. So then I'll want to preach people out the door. No, I'm just kidding. It doesn't matter. We want to just follow God's commandments. We don't want to set up man-made religion. And let me warn you, Christian, there's a lot and lot of saved preachers preaching golden ephods today. They get up and they just preach their personal opinion. They just preach personal stories. And then it's like no Bible. And they just misuse the world's logic today. Well, the golden ephod just sounds good. They're just Fox News, Baptist, you know, they're golden ephods of the Constitution. And they just, well, we just love the Constitution. We have to uphold the Constitution. And whenever there's a conflict between the Bible and the Constitution, well, they can't throw out the Constitution because they've already built that up as being so golden. It's just so wonderful. And those founding fathers are just so great. You know, whenever somebody just sets up a golden ephod like Jack Treiber, like Paul Chappell. And in their mind, they're just so good. They're just so righteous. They can't do anything wrong. They send all their students to the Bible College of Jack Treiber. So therefore, if they do anything wrong, they can't preach against them. Because they've already made them this golden ephod. Look, we don't want to set things up in our lives that could not be torn down, that are going to take us away from the true service of God. We don't want to worship a man or a personality. We don't want to worship a document called the Constitution. You know, we worship is this document, the King James Bible, the word of God. We don't want to set up a golden version of this. No, we already have the word of God. It's his words that we, you know, attribute ourselves to. But people who are themselves are a man-made religion. Go to a few more places. And we've done good Ephesians chapter four, Ephesians chapter number four. Don't follow a great man off a cliff. Don't follow a great man off a cliff. And, you know, whenever I would go and I would listen to sermons or I was looking for a church several years ago, the most important thing to me was this. When I would listen to someone's preaching, if I could go back to the Bible and check and everything they said was actually found in the scriptures. Everything that I heard in the sermon was actually something I found in the Bible. That's what attracted me to Stephen Anderson's preaching is every time I'd listen to one of those sermons, I'd be challenged with what the Bible said. And I'd go and I'd look at the Bible and I'd say, wow, this actually lines up with what the Bible says. Whereas I had listened to lots of other people and they just were preaching all kinds of weird junk. And then I would go look at the Bible. I was like, that's not what the Bible's saying. That's like the opposite of what the Bible's saying. And so, you know, that's why I moved to that church. That's why I still love listening to pastors and sermons because he's so consistent. You know, I don't go and I listen, but look, if I started listening to sermons and they weren't lining with the scriptures, well, then I'm just going to stop listening. But I don't think that's ever going to happen. Okay. And I don't have to worry about that. But there are people that are saved. Let me tell you this. There's plenty of people that are saved. They've done great works for God in the past. You know what? When I listen to their preaching, it does not match the scriptures one iota. It's the exact opposite of what the Bible is saying. Look what it says in Ephesians chapter four, verse 14. That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, carried about with every wind of doctrine by the slight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive. Now in this verse, the Bible's saying that we should not be children. We need to grow up, that we need to learn the scriptures, that we need to be taught the Bible so that whenever false prophet says something, we don't just jump for that and then jump for the next guy and jump for this guy and jump, you know, oh, I'm just hearing all these different sermons. I just believe all these different things. Who cares what they're saying? This is the only thing that matters. Period. The only thing that matters. And look, God gave us teachers. He gave us evangelists. He gave us pastors. He gave us all these different people. And I'm not against listening to sermons, but I am against this. If your only spiritual time is listening to sermons, you're not right with God. You have to read the Bible. Go to Acts chapter 17, the last place I'm gonna have you turn this evening. Acts chapter number 17. And if they were checking, if the men were checking Gideon's actions with the Bible, they would have said, you know what? We need to stop following Gideon. We need to throw this golden ephod in the trash. We need to burn it with fire. And look, 70 kids. What's going on, Gideon? What are you doing? When you notice the great man of God's actions, not lining up with the scripture, there's a problem. Yeah, but he said we should let the Lord rule over us. Isn't that right? Doesn't that sound good? Look, all your pastors will say, we just trust in the Bible. We believe in the Bible. Read your Bible. And they get up for 50 minutes and just lie to you. And they're saved. The old man that was saved, lied to the young prophet. Okay. And I hear lies all the time from the Bible. And typically, you know, you can spot lies. They don't really turn very many scriptures. There's a lot of stories and just their philosophy and their ideas. What does it say in Acts chapter 17 verse number 11? These are more noble than those in Thessalonica and that they receive the word with all readiness of mind and, and search the scriptures daily, daily, whether those things are so. Why listen to sermons daily? You could be tossed to and fro. How do you even know what's right? Because I guarantee if you find 10 saved pastors, you might hear 10 different opinions. You say, well, I listen to only saved pastors. Okay. I hear lots of junk from saved pastors too. I hear lots of weird stuff from, Hey, look, I'm, I'm putting myself on that list. Don't just trust me. You should trust zero things that I say that don't line up with the Bible. Never. And in fact, you should be skeptical until you check the Bible on everything. If you don't know the Bible teaches something, you check the scriptures. And if I'm wrong, then I'm wrong. You know what? Please, please apply that to every other person in your life. Do not blindly follow anyone. I mean, if you could pick somebody about Gideon is a great person. He made mistakes. Gideon end his life in ruin. Why? Because he got complacent after he won the battle. There's people that get complacent after winning a battle. They don't want to keep fighting. They finally got their enemy. And now they get complacent. They get prideful, they get lifted up and they just sit back and they just collect the wives. They collect the gold. You know, they build their church, they build their building and they don't want to lose those things. So they're not going to preach the Bible anymore. And in fact, they're preaching instead of being about the Bible. It's about how they can preserve the building and preserve their fame and preserve their image and preserve their wallet and preserve their money. And so they just preach things that sound good to people. And then the people whore themselves after the man-made golden ephah. You know, I'm not interested in that. I don't want that. I don't want to get some golden ephah. We need to be a church that search the scriptures daily. And if that makes you more critical of my preaching, praise God. I don't want you to not be critical of my preaching. I think there's a history of this church not being critical of their pastor. I'm just throwing it out there. It should never happen again. You should say fool me once. Shame on me. Fool me twice. Really shame on you. I don't know the expression. I messed it up. Shame on you or whatever. But here's the thing. You shouldn't just keep getting fooled by by idiots. And at the end of the day, here, Gideon's a good person. So if we can't learn learn from Gideon's mistake and say, OK, if Gideon can make mistakes, then I bet I could. Am I better than Gideon? No. So does that are other pastors better? No. So if they're not better, then please, please, please check their preaching with the word of God. And when you notice people consistently not preaching the Bible, consistently preaching carnal sermons, you know what that tells me? They're carnal. Let me give you a little illustration. Whenever all of my examples that I use for preaching are all about football, what does that tell you about me? Probably I know a lot about football. Maybe I'm interested in football, right? If all my examples are about golf and you're like, maybe you played a lot of golf, right? Maybe computer programming, maybe soul winning. But if all of my examples are soul winning from 10 years ago, what does that tell you about me? Has he been soul winning the last 10 years? Right. Here's one. When all of my sermon examples are about Facebook, what does that tell you about the preacher? Sounds like all they do is watch and listen to Facebook. When the person's constantly bringing up stories from the Bible, what does that tell you about the preacher? Sounds like they must read a lot of Bible. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh, but we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard. I can tell you a lot about a person by what they preach. A lot. Whatever comes out of that mouth is very condemning. By thy word shalt thou be justified and by thy word shalt thou be condemned is what the Bible says. And let me tell you this. When you hear a bunch of carnal preaching, you know what that tells me about the preacher? Carnal preaching. They're carnal. They're not walking in the spirit. So you need to judge the preaching today. You need to judge what men are doing. And I need to hold myself just as accountable as any other person. That's why I'm teaching you this. Why would I teach you this if it's kind of like progressive whenever they had put out the advertisement, like check any of the other insurance rates. Okay. Because if anybody's lower than, you know, go buy from them. Right. And he's saying, is that because you think you're great? No, it's because if I'm bad, don't listen to me. If I'm preaching junk, check it with the Bible and say, I'm going to believe the Bible. And let me tell you this. I can preach bad sermons. I heard a preacher get up and he said, you know what? I used to be afraid that I would preach a dud sermon, but I've grown past that. I now know I could never preach a dud sermon. And I'm thinking like, what in the world? How do you grow past that? How do you just get to the point where just every sermon is just knocking out of the park? You know, what, how do you even define that? To me, some sermons, it's real quiet. It's usually probably a better sermon because it's hitting home. You know, the fag sermon, every screaming because no one's a fag in here. Okay. But it didn't really change anything. It didn't really, it didn't change anybody's life. You start preaching on money. You start preaching on weight. And it's like, nobody, you know, you start preaching on things that hit home. It's like, what's a dud sermon? I don't even know what you're talking about. So prideful and arrogant. But let me say this. I'm teaching you this because, you know, in our culture, in our world today, people will listen to like 20 sermons a week, 15 sermons a week. And they probably read like 15 words in their Bible. And let me tell you what, you will not grow as a Christian by listening to sermons only. In fact, you're going to get less out of a sermon than you would reading a Bible. I don't care who's preaching. You will learn so much more from reading the Bible yourself. And hey, we need church. God gave it to us on a purpose, you know, for a purpose. And we want it and I love it. But don't fill yourself with just vain words and other men's philosophies. Fill yourself with the words of God. Okay. And don't end your life in ruin like Gideon by getting complacent. Let's close in prayer. Thank you, Father, so much for your word. Thank you for this great church that we can come and worship your name. And I pray that we would not get a spirit of complacency. We would look at past achievements or past victories and feel like we've arrived, but rather we continue to seek you. We would not get weary and faint, but rather we continue to pursue the enemy today. And I pray that we would not trust in man. We'd not trust in man's words, but rather we would continually search the scriptures and make sure that we're a spiritual man in Christ, not just a babe. And in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.