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[0:00] Judges chapter 6, Judges 6 verses 14 through 32 will be our text this evening. Judges chapter 6 starting in verse 14 and going to verse 32.

[0:13] We will not make it through this sixth chapter yet. We kind of touched on it a little bit last time we were together, but we'll get a little further into it as we just continue to make our way through the Word of God.

[0:27] But let's pray. Lord, we thank you so much for just allowing us the opportunity of gathering. We thank you for times of fellowship. We thank you for times of laughter and times spent together as a family.

[0:43] Lord, we pray you'd be with us now as we open up the pages of your Word, and we pray, God, that your Word would speak to our hearts and minds. We pray that we would come to a greater understanding, Lord, of the truth that it contains, and, Lord, that that understanding would be what shapes and molds our lives.

[1:03] Lord, would we grasp not only our position but your greatness, your wonder. Lord, may we worship you through our study of the Word, and we ask it all in Christ's name.

[1:15] Amen. We are in the portion of the book of Judges that we shared last time we were together is that which is the judge in particular, which the most time is spent on within the book of Judges itself, and that being the judge Gideon.

[1:33] More verses are dedicated to the account of Gideon than any other judge found within the pages of this particular book.

[1:45] Now, most of our memories of Gideon really surround that one battle, the battle where he goes down with so few men, and all they have are trumpets, torches, and jars, right?

[1:59] And they rout the Midianite army. But there is a substantial amount of time spent before that in preparation for the battle, and then there is a substantial amount of time after that battle, and we kind of see the result.

[2:13] Unfortunately, after that great battle, the battle of faith, his story kind of takes a downhill slide, and that shouldn't surprise us a whole lot because it seems like everywhere we go within the book of Judges, we very quickly hit a downhill slide, and we start spiraling back down.

[2:29] It spirals very quickly following Gideon, even with his son, who really leads the nation astray rather than leading them towards the Lord their God.

[2:41] But we're still in the good part of his story, as we have recorded for us in Judges 6, starting in verse 14. If you remember, a couple verses prior to this, Gideon is threshing wheat in a wine vat.

[2:54] That is a depression in the ground. It's not a really good place, not even a very productive place to thresh wheat, because to thresh wheat in that time, they would have had a pile of wheat, and they would have thrown it up in the air.

[3:06] The wind was to catch the chaff, blow the chaff off, and what fell to the ground was the wheat that they would keep. The problem with being in a depression like a wine vat is there's not a lot of air stirring, so you don't get the separation of the wheat and the chaff as you would out in the open air.

[3:23] But the reason Gideon is here is he's scared. He is hiding from the Midianites who would come in and raid, riding on their camels and would ravage the land.

[3:33] He's not necessarily very strong, at least from all outward appearances. He's scared. He's trying to save what wheat he can. And the angel of the Lord shows up there and greets him in a most unlikely way.

[3:50] And Gideon doubts him, says, the Lord is with you, O mighty one. And Gideon says, well, if the Lord is with us, then why are all these things? Why don't we see the miraculous events? Why don't we see the things that we've heard about from before?

[4:03] Why don't we see his presence being manifested? And that gets us to about verse 13. So we pick up the story in verse 14 where the angel of the Lord continues after Gideon's question.

[4:17] Now, I want you to pay attention to this verse in particular because when we were together Sunday night, we looked at the reality that this angel of the Lord is so much more than an angel. This is not like Gabriel or Michael, which are the archangels or any other angelic being.

[4:32] It seems clear from Scripture that this is a theophany, which is a manifest presence of God, theo being God.

[4:44] So a manifest presence of God, God revealing himself to man. More than likely, and we don't want to make it get too deep, but I think we need to have a great understanding here because this helps us to understand what Scripture tells, just one great grand narrative.

[4:59] This is a Christophany. This is what we would call a pre-incarnate manifestation of Christ. Okay? So pre-incarnate means before he became flesh.

[5:12] Now, that's important because there is no point in time where Jesus began. He has no beginning. Because in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we call him Emmanuel.

[5:28] In the book of Revelations, Jesus says, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. Which, if you read that in John in the original language, what John is saying is, if you go all the way back to the beginning, in the beginning was the Word.

[5:44] If you go all the way back to the beginning, and you're standing on the brink of the beginning, and you look past that, there's Jesus. In the science world, they call it just a macro nanosecond with the Big Bang.

[6:01] Scientists cannot hardly argue the reality that creation has a point of existence. We don't need to really get into all the technicals. You look at it now, there is a place where it started.

[6:12] Even though people refute that, they have a hard time refuting it, it seems as if science has our universe as a starting point. The question is, how do we get to that starting point?

[6:26] The answer is, well, when you get to that starting point, you go all the way back and you look past that, there is one there. So what we have when Christ appears, even in the Old Testament, should not be surprising to us.

[6:41] And the reason I feel like this is Christ is because no one has seen the Father, but the Son, and He whom the Son has revealed to them. So we also know in Scripture, I know this is a little technical, but just stay with me, we'll get deep real quick, right?

[6:53] You got some foods, now we can get deep. Scripture says no man has seen the face of God and lived. Right? So we have to reconcile that. Because then there appears to be all these people who have an encounter with God, and yet they live.

[7:07] Gideon is one of them, we'll see that in just a minute. Samson's mother is one. So how do we reconcile that? Well, because if it is Christ manifesting Himself in the flesh, He is God.

[7:22] He is the Son, right? He is fully man, fully God as well. So those who have seen Christ live. So we have this great picture of the Old Testament that we're going to see, where this is more than just an angel showing up in a wine vat in Judges 6, talking to a man named Gideon.

[7:44] This is Christ Himself coming and calling. Now this is why I want you to have all that, because prior to this it's been referred to as the angel of the Lord, the angel of the Lord, the angel of the Lord. Our starting verse is verse 14, and notice how the word changes.

[7:59] The Lord looked at him. The Lord looked at him and said, Go in this your strength and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian. Have I not sent you?

[8:13] He said to him, O Lord, how shall I deliver Israel? Behold, my family is the least in Manasseh, and I am the youngest in my father's house. But the Lord said to him, Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat Midian as one man.

[8:26] So Gideon said to him, If now I have found favor in your sight, then show me a sign that it is you who speak with me. Please do not depart from here until I come back to you and bring out my offering and lay it before you.

[8:40] And he said, I will remain until you return. Then Gideon went and prepared a young goat and unleavened bread from an ephah flour, and he put the meat in a basket and the broth in a pot and brought them out to him under the oak and presented them.

[8:53] The angel of God said to him, Take the meat and unleavened bread and lay them on this rock and pour out the broth. And he did so. Then the angel of the Lord put out the end of the staff that was in his hand and touched the meat and the unleavened bread, and fire sprang up from the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened bread.

[9:08] Then the angel of the Lord vanished from his sight. When Gideon saw that he was the angel of the Lord, he said, Alas, O Lord God, for now I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face.

[9:19] The Lord said to him, Peace to you. Do not fear. You shall not die. Then Gideon built an altar there to the Lord and named it The Lord is Peace. To this day it is still in Orpherah of the Abysrites.

[9:31] Now on the same night the Lord said to him, Take your father's bull and a second bull, seven years old, and pull down the altar of Baal, which belongs to your father, and cut down the asher that is beside it, and build an altar to the Lord your God on top of this stronghold in an orderly manner, and take a second bull and offer a burnt offering with the wood of the asherah, which you shall cut down.

[9:50] Then Gideon took ten men of his servants and did as the Lord had spoken to him. And because he was too afraid of his father's household and the men of the city to do it by day, he did it by night. When the men of the city arose early in the morning, behold, the altar of Baal was torn down and the asherah which was beside it was cut down, and the second bull was offered on the altar which had been built.

[10:09] And they said to one another, Who did this thing? And when they searched out and inquired, they said, Gideon the son of Joash did this thing. Then the men of the city said to Joash, Bring out your son that he may die, for he has torn down the altar of Baal, and indeed he has cut down the asherah which was beside it.

[10:25] But Joash said to all who stood against him, Will you contend for Baal, or will you deliver him? Whoever will plead for him shall be put to death by morning. If he is a god, let him contend for himself, because someone has torn down his altar.

[10:42] Therefore on that day he named him Jerubbabel, that is to say let Baal contend against him, because he had torn down his altar. Judges 6, 14 through 32, I want you to see this evening the call of Gideon.

[10:57] The call of Gideon. It tells us that the angel of the Lord appeared to him, and then in verse 14 there is this great transition, because it says, Then the Lord looked at him, or other translations, I believe the New King James says, Turned towards him.

[11:12] The wording there is to turn with an intent to look upon. So the Lord turned to look at him, and then God said to him. So now all of a sudden we have, being attributed to the angel of the Lord, the personality of God himself.

[11:28] Okay, this just reaffirms this reality, that this is a theophany, more than likely a Christophany, an appearance of Christ in the Old Testament. We also get this because he accepts worship.

[11:41] He says, when Gideon says, I want to know who I'm talking to, wait here while I go prepare something for you. And what he prepares is a very typical offering, and he prepares it in a very typical way.

[11:52] Unleavened bread, meat, and even the broth, which would be a poured offering, a drink offering, which was poured out around the altar. And the angel of the Lord here accepts this offering. We'll get to that in just a minute. Not only accepts it, but he also consumes it.

[12:04] For anyone other than the Lord God himself in heaven to accept worship would be an abomination. So we understand that. Angels are not to be worshipped.

[12:15] You say, well, how do you know that this wasn't an angel? Well, all throughout scripture, we find men who have encounters with angels, and they fall down before them. Namely, we see in the book of Revelation twice, when John is on the island of Patmos, and he has an angel around him, and John falls on his face.

[12:29] And both times John falls on his face, the angel tells him to get up. He says, get up. Worship God. For I am your fellow servant. Because the word angel there just means to be a servant.

[12:41] As a matter of fact, it says in the book of Revelation, when it talks to the preachers or pastors of the churches, the seven churches, is to the angels of the seven churches, the servants. So the fact that we have being attributed to it, the character of God looking at, and God speaking to, and even accepting worship, just reaffirms the reality that this is a divine being who is, in my estimation, Christ himself, issuing a call to Gideon.

[13:10] A theophany. Christ is the ultimate theophany because he is the appearance of God in the flesh. And this is him issuing a call. Now, I know we have business meeting tonight, so I'll try to make my way through these rather quickly, but I want you to understand some particular aspects about the call of Gideon.

[13:29] The first thing we see is that this call is confirmed. Now, we notice it says, so the Lord looked at him, and God said to him, go in this strength of yours.

[13:39] Now, we understand that Gideon did not see himself strong. He doubted much like Moses. My family is the least, and Manasseh and I am the smallest of my family. Who am I? What strength do I have?

[13:50] We also understand that he's not necessarily the model of a strong faith even throughout because he's always testing and trying and putting all the, literally the fleeces out to see.

[14:01] And he's doing all these number of things. But God says to him, go in this strength of yours, what he's giving him. Because the wording in the original, it says the angel of the Lord appeared to him back in verse 11.

[14:13] It says, O valiant warrior. Sunday night, we looked at that. There's some uncertainty in the exact wording because in our English translation, it seems to impart being a valiant warrior to Gideon.

[14:25] In the original, it could go either way. Either the angel of the Lord saying that Gideon is a valiant warrior, or it could say, the Lord, the valiant warrior is with you. Which makes a big difference, right?

[14:38] Because then the valiant warrior is not Gideon, it's the Lord God. Which we see him, the Lord is a warrior. That's one of his names.

[14:48] He is our mighty warrior. So he tells him, go in this strength. So what we understand first and foremost about the call of Gideon, the call is very, very specific, right?

[14:59] Go in this strength of yours and defeat Midian. God's call is very specific. Very clear.

[15:12] Now this bears paying attention to because one of the realities that we understand throughout Scripture is that God does not call people to generalities.

[15:25] God calls people to specific matters. His call is not a general call. Christ says, follow me. We say, well that's general.

[15:36] Well, he says, follow me and I will make you fishers of men. You're going to follow me and this is what you're going to do. And then he gives them the great commandment, the great commission.

[15:47] Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and all your might. Love your neighbor as yourself. Great commandment, great commission. Go and make disciples, right? The call of God is a specific call. We like to operate in generalities.

[16:00] We like to operate in kind of the, oh, well I'm following him and you know, I know he's called me to, but we need to understand in Scripture, God's call is always particular to the individual, go in the strength of yours, and specific for a purpose.

[16:14] God calls us. This is so important. God calls us for a purpose. For a purpose. Each one of us.

[16:25] A purpose that only we can do. So Gideon hears this and he doubts. There's a lot of doubters in Scripture and we're thankful for that because it shows our humanity.

[16:38] But in his doubt, he also is pretty wise because he says, now we'll paraphrase a little bit, do me a favor and wait here while I go and prepare something so that I may know who it is that is speaking to me, so that I may know that it is you.

[16:50] Now that's important because he wanted certainty that the call he was hearing was a call from the Lord God, not a call from someone else.

[17:01] We call that testing the spirits. He said, just wait. If you don't mind, just wait. And the Lord is gracious because he's not on a timetable, by the way.

[17:11] God's never on a timetable. He's got all the time in the world. He created it. He says, okay, I can wait. That's great because one thing we need to understand is every time God calls his people to a specific calling, we need to be wise and at least go with some discernment to make sure that's God calling us and not ourselves or our friends or even Satan.

[17:39] Because Satan can call us to do good things that are the wrong things and all of a sudden it becomes a disastrous thing. So we need to make sure we go with discernment.

[17:50] So Gideon says, if you'll wait, he says, I'll wait. So he goes and he prepares this offering and he brings it to him. And the Lord says to him, pour out the broth, which would have been customary.

[18:01] He didn't just take it and drink it and eat right there. You know, Gideon's bringing it to him. Here's the testing, right? Gideon wants to know with discernment, is this man hungry and going to eat what I bring him or is he going to treat it like a sacrifice?

[18:11] He says, pour out the broth, put it on a rock. The angel of the Lord never touches it here. Then reaches out his staff, touches the meat and boom, fire comes up from the rock. Fire in the Old Testament is always, always a symbol of God accepting it.

[18:25] When Elijah prayed and fire ran down, he who answers with fire is the real God, right? So boom, fire comes out of the rock, consumes the meat, consumes the bread. Understandably, the broth would have been poured over top of the meat and bread.

[18:40] So same picture that we get with Elijah, drenching the offering and it's consumed and then the angel of the Lord disappears. And then another reason we can confirm that this is not just some mere angel because all of a sudden, Gideon is overwhelmed with woe and grief because he says, I've seen God.

[19:00] And to any Jewish people, even in this day, to be face to face with God was to have a sentence of death. He says, woe is me. He clearly understood.

[19:10] So this is a confirmation of the call because God accepted the offering, the sacrifice. So his call was confirmed.

[19:23] That's great because once we have had proper discernment, we go before the Lord God in prayer, he confirms our call. We need to move forward because there's confirmation.

[19:34] The second thing we see is his call was established because to have a call confirmed is one thing, but to be established in that calling is a whole other thing because we can know. I know a lot of people, a lot of people, I've met a lot of people who know 100% that God called them to a particular thing.

[19:53] They know, but they never did it. They never did it. I'm not saying they're not saved. I'm not saying that they're not going to spend eternity in heaven.

[20:04] I'm not saying they're not forgiven. I'm just saying that they know God called them and they never did it. They were never established. The call was confirmed, but they were never established.

[20:15] You'll be surprised how many men I have met that had a clear leading and a clear calling to ministry, but because of fear or pressure from the outside or uncertainty never went further than having it confirmed.

[20:31] Never were established in it. Because just because we've confirmed the call doesn't mean we're living in the call, right? We're trying to get to that. The Midianites were still present.

[20:44] God gave a very clear call to Gideon here. So now he's confirmed it for him. Now he needs to be established in it. We see that he begins to be established because now all of a sudden his view changes. Look at what he says in verse 22.

[20:57] When Gideon saw that he was the angel of the Lord, he said, Alas, O Lord God. Now, that's how it reads in the New American Standard, that's how it reads in the English, but we have to kind of break it down to his original wording here because we see his transition.

[21:12] He has been referring to him as Lord, as Lord, as Lord, as Lord, as Adonai, Adonai, Adonai. Adonai is like a sir or master or Lord, right? That's capital L, lowercase O, lowercase R, lowercase D.

[21:24] That's like Adonai. That's not Elohim. That's God. That's general God. So even the bells were Elohim. They were lowercase G. They were not the God, but that's the word for God.

[21:36] He calls him Lord God, Lord being Adonai. That second word there, God, is not Elohim. He's not calling him Adonai Elohim. He says Adonai Yahweh.

[21:49] Alas, Adonai Yahweh. This is the first time Gideon refers to him by his covenant name. We know he's beginning to be established in his calling because now his relationship with this being is changing.

[22:07] Now he's no longer just an Adonai. Now he's an Adonai that I'm in a covenant relationship with. He is Adonai Yahweh. And he refers to him as such because now we're beginning to be established.

[22:23] God has chosen me. He's called me out. He's going to use me. And the reason is, is because I am in a covenant relationship with him. Adonai Yahweh.

[22:35] And he's stricken by grief because he's certain he's going to die. God in his grace and mercy speaks to him and says, you know, peace be with you. He says, peace to you.

[22:46] Do not fear. You shall not die. And it had to be just this overwhelming sense. And we get a little bit of a glimpse of how overwhelming it is because it says then to further be established in his calling.

[22:59] Gideon does something amazing that only a few people in the book of Judges do. But only a few even in the Old Testament. He builds an altar. Right?

[23:09] He builds this altar and he establishes this altar and he gives the altar a name. And the altar's name is Yahweh Shalom.

[23:23] The Lord is peace. Yahweh Shalom. He named it. Now, this is good because now not only is he referring to God by his covenant name, he knows a new name of God.

[23:37] He's no longer just Adonai Yahweh, the Lord I'm in covenant relationship with. He knows another name of God. The Awanas, their memory verse, Psalm 910.

[23:53] Working on it with Braden last night. For those who know your name, it says in Psalm 910, those who know your name put their confidence in you for you will not fail them.

[24:07] Those who know your name. Because when we know the name of something, we begin to be a little bit more established. If I run into someone in a very formal setting, I know we've said this before, and they refer to me as William.

[24:23] I know they know my legal name. They're reading some legal document that's got my legal name on it, or they're looking at my license and they're referring to me as William. If they're looking at a legal document that has William Joseph Corlett Calvert on it, and even though they're looking at William Joseph Corlett Calvert, they refer to me as Billy Joe, all of a sudden now, I know they know me a little bit more.

[24:42] Are our relationships a little bit more established? If they're looking at that document and it says William Joseph Corlett Calvert, and they don't refer to me as Billy Joe, but they just say, hey, what's up, Joe? Not that many people call me Joe.

[24:54] It's probably someone in this real small group of my family that for some reason, even though they gave me a double name, thought it was too hard to say all the time, so just started calling me Joe. Because the more of my names you know, the further established we are in our relationship, the longer we go back.

[25:15] Right? Because we know. We know each other. Same thing in Scripture. Gideon knows a new name of God. He's established.

[25:27] He's no longer just Adonai. He's no longer just Elohim. He's not even Adonai Yahweh. Now, He's Yahweh Shalom. He's the God of the covenant that I have peace with.

[25:43] Which means the further and the further and the further and the further we go in to God, the further and further we lean in and we're establishing our calling, the more we know of Him. There are things being revealed to us as we live out our calling and we live out our commands to Him and the further we lean into Him, the more we understand that there are things that are revealed to each one of us in particular.

[26:07] There are things when Carrie and I sit down and we read the Bible together, she sees things different than I do. God reveals things to her more than He, or in a different way, not more, in a specific way to her in her calling.

[26:18] There are things that speak to her. There are things that speak to me. Right? And we're just further and we're further and further. And iron sharpens iron when two or more get together and say, you know what God showed me?

[26:29] You know how I know that over 834 times the Bible tells you God hears you? Not because I counted them. It's because my wife needed to know that God heard her and in that calling, God showed her one year she took in her daily reading plan and she counted every time in Scripture the Bible says He hears us.

[26:51] I've used that in so many sermon illustrations, but it was never me. Iron sharpening iron, right? She wrote down every one of them, count them, on one of these daily reading things.

[27:02] She's got one with a tally mark each day. How many times the Bible says she counted it into here? Because that's what she needed to hear and the further we lean in, right? So the question is is how are we established in our calling?

[27:14] What are we learning in that moment? How are we growing because we're established in our calling? So the calling was confirmed, it was established.

[27:28] Now it comes with the hard part, right? Number three, calling is matured. Now Gideon's calling was specific. Go in the strength of yours and deliver the nation of Israel from the Midianites.

[27:39] I will lead you to defeat them as one man. That's a very specific calling, right? So the moment he gets established in his faith he builds this altar and he's like, yes, yes, I'm growing, I'm growing, I know more of God.

[27:50] And it says, on that very night the Lord said to him, on that very night the Lord said to him, take a bull and another bull seven years old and go tear down the altar of Baal and the Asherah that's beside it.

[28:02] That's not his calling. His calling is not to destroy all of the altars of Baal. His calling is to deliver the nation of Israel from the hand of Midian. But God is going to mature him to be able to fulfill his calling by challenging him to do something close to home.

[28:18] because this altar happened to be his dad's altar. Now I want you to pay very close attention because this account, we could probably preach a whole message over this, I'm not going to do it anywhere justice, but pay very close attention to this account.

[28:34] Number one, altars of Baal, do you know what they were? They were bulls. He tears down a bull with a bull. That's pretty cool, right?

[28:45] And that second bull, how old was it supposed to be? Seven years old. Do you know how long Midian had ravaged the land? Seven years. Aha. So more than likely that altar had been erected for seven years, so we're going to take a bull that's as long as, and old as that altar is, and we're going to pull that altar down, and then those altars of Baal had sacrifices on them.

[29:06] We're going to burn that bull on top of that sacrifice with the Asherah pole, which was to help go along with the worship of Baal. That literally is just like a wooden stake.

[29:16] It's kind of like a totem pole. It could be Asherah or a grove. We don't really know, but more likely it's like a totem pole. So you're going to take the very wood from the thing that was to help people reach up to worship Baal and all of their wickedness.

[29:28] We're not going to get into how they did it because it doesn't bear repeating how they did it, this hideous event of things that went on there and all this promiscuity and all these things, but you're going to take the thing that was to help you worship this bull Baal, and you're going to set it on fire and you're going to burn a bull that's the same age as that altar that you just tore down.

[29:45] That's pretty good. That's pretty good. But he matures his faith even more because he says, go and tear it down. Pay attention to this.

[29:59] Tear it down. And on the top, it says in verse 26, and build an altar to the Lord your God on the top of this stronghold in an orderly manner and then offer that burnt offering.

[30:19] Friend, listen to me. We will never mature in our faith until that which holds us back is torn down and the altar of praise is resurrected on top of it. Second Corinthians chapter 10, Paul says, we wage not with the powers of this world but with spiritual forces and we tear down the strongholds in our minds.

[30:41] It says, with the power of heavenly forces we are tearing down strongholds and taking every thought captive. Gideon was told to tear down a stronghold and build an altar to God on top of it.

[30:56] You know what happens in so many believers' lives is they let strongholds stay and try to put an altar beside it. You cannot worship the stronghold and the God who overpowers it. You have to tear the stronghold down and build an altar on top of it.

[31:10] It says, tear it down and on this very stronghold build an altar and praise God. Worship God here. Faith is matured when that which holds us back causes us to stumble is the very root cause of our idolatry of sin is finally of sin is finally torn down and an altar to the Lord God is resurrected on top of that stronghold and our sacrifices of praise are given to him rather than our attention being upon that thing.

[31:39] We can't put an altar of God beside anything. You say, well, we don't worship by the altar. Then don't erect a cross of Calvary beside an Asherah of Baal. They stand alone.

[31:52] They stand alone. Because until we resurrect praise on top of a stronghold, that stronghold still has a stronghold. And it's still there.

[32:05] Some things we need to turn down, tear down, build on top of and set a fire on top of it. Gideon's faith was matured. His calling was maturing, which leads us to the fourth thing and then we'll do our business.

[32:21] His call was confirmed. His call was established. It was matured. Now, he was scared so he did it at night. He said, well, big baby. He did it at night.

[32:33] Smallest of his family, right? He said, well, how little could he be with ten servants? I don't know, but he said he was the smallest of his family so we take it at his word. He must have had a big family. He was scared of his father's servants.

[32:45] He was scared of the people of the town so he tore it down at night. The fourth thing is he was ridiculed because when God has called someone, no matter how silent we try to be about it, other people are finally going to figure it out.

[33:06] When God has called you, no matter how much fear may push us into operating in darkness, it will eventually come to light. And the next morning the town folk woke up and they looked up there and the altar was down and there was a fire going and there was a bull burning.

[33:20] So they did a little hunting around and they found out it was Gideon because God's callings always go public. Gideon was afraid but God had other ways.

[33:36] Very quickly, the town folk wanted to kill Gideon. They talked to his dad, said, Joash, bring out Gideon. We're going to kill him. He tore that altar down. Now we've got to be thankful for Joash even though we don't necessarily understand everything he did.

[33:47] We don't know why he had an altar to Baal. We don't know why he had an astropo but at least he had enough sense to say, are you going to contend for the God Baal? If he is a God, let him contend for himself because someone tore down his altar.

[34:01] That's a whole lot like the story of Elijah, right? The God who answers is the true God. At least Joash had enough sense in a wicked time to say, if Baal can't fend for himself, I don't want anything to do with him.

[34:14] And then they change his name. Now again, in the wording, in the New American Standard it seems to imply that Joash changed his name. Other translations and even in the original language you're not sure if it's Joash or the townsfolk.

[34:29] But they call his name Jerubbabel. Let Baal contend. That's a way of ridiculing and mocking him. Oh, that's the man that Baal's going to contend with right there. That's the one that Baal's going to contend with right there.

[34:41] Friend, listen to me. You live out your calling long enough, people are going to ridicule you, mock you, and they'll point to you and they'll even give you another name. But that's okay.

[34:54] Because God had called him. And that calling was going to be played out in a very unlikely way. Because God had called him. He confirmed it.

[35:06] He was established in it. He matured in it. And then he was ridiculed for it. But God had still called him. It's the call of Gideon in Judges 6, 14 through 32.

[35:18] Thank you, brother. Okay. Thank you.

[36:07] Thank you. Thank you.

[37:07] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.