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1:07And then we're going to see the process that God takes him through so that he can become effective. And again, that's what he wants to take us through, too. But first of all, the background. So what happened here that God calls Gideon? Well, Israel has done what is evil in the sight of God again, it says. And so God uses Midian as an instrument of chastisement. They came in and they brutally oppressed Israel. They stole their crops, they took their livestock, and they just ground them down until they were living in fear and they were living up in the mountains in caves. Eventually, they cry out to the Lord. What the Lord does is he responds to that cry by raising up Gideon to deliver them. Now, to feel the weight of that, again, to be able to relate to this, we need to see who Gideon was so that we could say, well, I'm like that too. Maybe God can use me. Maybe God can do the same thing with me. Because the glory of this story is not Gideon's greatness, it's God's grace. What he did in Gideon's life to raise up an ordinary man and use him like he did. So what that means is, he can use us, right? If he can use Gideon, he can use us. And so that's what I want to show you. So let's look at the character of Gideon first. Then we'll move into how God then changes him, transforms him. So first of all, we have the first thing with Gideon is that he was timid. Timid. Look at Judges 6, 11.

2:42It says, Then the angel of the Lord came and sat under the oak that was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash, the Abiazite, as his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press in order to save it from the Midianites. You see a problem there? It says, Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press in order to save it from the Midianites. You don't beat out wheat in a wine press. You thresh wheat out in the open so that you can throw it up, and the wind catches it, and it separates the chaff from the kernel. But he's beating it out in a wine press. Why? Well, it says he was afraid. Other translations say he was afraid of the Midianites, so he was hiding from them. So, the first thing I see here is Gideon is not a spiritual giant. He's not one of these ultra-charismatic individuals, you know, the Rambo-type who's not afraid of anything. He was timid and he was hesitant. But notice what the angel says, and I love this. Judges 6:12. The angel of the Lord, when you see the angel of the Lord, I believe that that's a theophany. That's Jesus Christ, an appearance of Christ in the Old Testament. So it says, the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, The Lord is with you, O valiant warrior. Other translations say, mighty warrior. God calls him a mighty warrior here, even though he was just hiding in a wine press threshing wheat. He's anything but a mighty warrior. So what's happening here? See, God is not naming him based on his present condition, but on what he will become through God's work in him. That's what God's looking at. You are going to be a mighty warrior. You're not yet.

4:30But when I'm done with you, you will be. And I wonder how many in this room, as I was studying this, I thought, I wonder how many people at Emmanuel, you know, how many people that God is looking at you right now and saying, oh, mighty warrior, oh, valiant woman, oh, valiant man. And you're going, me? Me? And God says, oh, if you only knew what I'm going to do in your heart, if you only knew what I was going to do in setting you afire and leading you and guiding you and transforming you, oh, mighty warrior. I pray this room is filled with future mighty warriors.

5:11So Gideon was timid. Next, Gideon was spiritually apathetic and bitter. Listen to the bitterness in his words after the angel tells him the Lord is with him. Look at verse 13. Then Gideon said to him, Oh my Lord, if the Lord is with us, then why has all this happened to us? I think there's this bitterness. If the Lord is with us, then why has all this happened to us? And where are all his miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt? But now the Lord has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian. If the Lord is with us, why is this happening? We've learned how the Lord took care of Egypt. Lord, Lord, Knocked Egypt down, drove it to its knees when he was with our forefathers. When they were oppressed by Egypt, the Lord acted in mighty works. Now we're being oppressed by Midian, and where is he?

6:16We're abandoned. We feel forsaken. I wonder how long it had been since Gideon had experienced God, if he ever had. I mean, he's at the point now where I think he just doesn't expect anything. The angel says, the Lord is with you. And Gideon's heart responds, yeah, right. The Lord with us. Good one. So Gideon was timid. He was spiritually apathetic and bitter. Next, Gideon's focus was misplaced on self instead of God. That's in Judges 6, 14 through 16. Look at verse 14. God commissions Gideon. I like this. God doesn't even listen to his complaint. He's just like, yeah, I know what I'm going to do. And he commissions him anyway. Verse 14, 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? This, your strength, doesn't mean Gideon's natural strength. This is the strength God supplies. And so the key here, the key phrase is, do not I send you? So he's saying, Gideon, go in the strength I am going to give you. Go in my strength. Depend upon me. Look at Gideon's response. Verse 15.

7:30He 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. He hears the call, and instead of going, great, thank you, Lord, he says, you know what? No, thanks. Because he was looking at himself. That's nothing new. Do you remember what Moses did in Exodus 3 and 4 when God called Moses at the burning bush? God hears the cries of his people in Egypt, and he then calls Moses to be the deliverer. I'm going to use you, Moses, as a spokesman. Moses does the exact same thing Gideon does.

8:14He looks at his ability to fulfill the task and then turns it down. Look at, I mean, go over to Exodus 4, verse 10. I'll have you turn a little bit. I mean, see if you can relate to this when the Lord calls you to do something. Exodus 4:10. This is after God has called him, told him he was going to send him to Egypt to deliver the children of Israel, even showed him the power that he was going to give Moses so that he could convince people that the Lord was with him. Now, here it is. Then Moses said to the Lord, please, Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither recently, nor in time past, nor since you have spoken to your servant, for I am slow of speech and slow of tongue. Now many believe Moses stuttered. And so he says, God, you want me to be your spokesman? I don't talk so good.

9:27I think you would do a lot better if you went and found somebody else, somebody more eloquent. So, hey, thanks, but no thanks. God answers with a verse I think everybody who teaches the word or speaks should memorize. Look at verses 11 through 12. The Lord said to him, who has made man's mouth? Or who makes him mute or deaf, or seen or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now then go, and I, even I, will be with your mouth and teach you what to say. Isn't that good? He says, in other words, Moses, this isn't about you at all. It's about me. I don't need your ability. What I'm looking for is your availability. Trust that I will enable you to do what I'm calling you to do and go.

10:22That's our hope, isn't it? That's our hope, is that God gives us everything we need. To answer the call, that when God calls us to do something, he goes with us and enables us to fulfill that calling. So, if God is calling you to something, but you feel inadequate, you know what? Right on. You are. You're inadequate. So am I. But God's not going to remove the calling just because we feel weak. What he will do is teach us to look to him and trust him to supply what we need to be successful.

11:04Watch how God answers Gideon's objection. Verse 16 in Judges. Go back to Judges 6. You're not there, right? Judges 6:16. But the Lord said to him, Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat Midian as one man. What does he say? He says, Gideon, change your focus from you to me, from your weakness to my strength. When we do that, you know what happens? We end up doing things that we never thought we could. God enables us to do what he calls us to do, and we just sit back and go, man, Lord, that was good. That was so exciting. That's the exciting Christian life, isn't it? When God calls you beyond yourself and then enables you to do that, and you sit back, you're kind of a spectator of what he's doing in your life, and you're just thinking, Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord.

12:01Martin Lloyd-Jones said this, the answer to spiritual inadequacy is not a better view of self, but a clearer view of God. All I've got to say to that is, amen. Amen. So Gideon was timid. He was spiritually apathetic and bitter. He focused on himself and his weaknesses rather than God and his strength. I mean, there's nothing impressive here at all yet. Next one, Gideon was not a man of great faith yet. And that's Judges 6, 33 through 40. God has already promised Gideon, he says, I'll be with you. I'll give you the victory. Those were promises. But Gideon is still struggling. His faith isn't strong enough yet to simply trust God's word. So he asked God to confirm his calling with two fleeces in Judges 6, 33 through 40. And I'll just remind you of those because of time. At first, he has at night, he sets out a fleece, which is probably a goat's skin, and says, God, can you do this? Can you make the fleece wet and the ground around it dry? And so when he woke up, the dew had just soaked the fleece. God did that. And here's the problem with fleeces. I found, at least in my own life, is you go, was that a coincidence?

13:17And so that's what Gideon does. Gideon thinks, you know what? Is that what always happens with fleeces? So he says, hey, God, how about this? Let's reverse that. This time, make the fleece dry and the ground. Around it wet. And God did that. See, have you ever been there? You believe God is calling you to do something, but it's just scary. And you need to be convinced. When he called us to go to England, like Pastor Tom said, to plant a church, I mean, I needed confirmation, you know, and more confirmation, and even more confirmation. Because it was frightening to leave everything behind and take my wife and my young four-year-old son and just move to another country that we had never, well, we had visited there once for a few days. Like with Gideon, God was just so patient with me, so kind. You know what? He's a loving father, and he understands we haven't arrived yet, that we're still growing in faith, doesn't he?

14:26So he will often stoop down and he'll help us step into the task we're struggling with. I mean, not to honor unbelief, but to support our fragile faith, to help us learn how to trust him. And we learn to trust him when he does encourage us and he does confirm things and we do step out and we see him move and that's how we grow in our faith. So the next time he calls us to something, we answer a little quicker. We have a little bit more courage. We got to the point, I mean, he was so kind to us. We got to the point that his Confirmations were so great that we knew if we didn't go to England, we'd be disobedient. He's just patient and kind. So, Gideon was ordinary, wasn't he? He's nothing special at all yet. He was timid, spiritually apathetic, and bitter, self-focused rather than God-focused, and weak in faith. Now, we move to the next section. Now, we're going to see how God is going to take that ordinary man and turn him into one he can use in an extraordinary way. So, here's steps to effectiveness are how God develops ordinary folk. Step one: I want you to notice where it begins. It begins at home. Look at verse 25. See, before God gives, let me just introduce that. Say, before God gives Gideon victory in public, he demands holiness in private. There's an idol in the house where he lives that must be dealt with. Look at Judges 6:25. 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 asherah that is beside it. God is concerned with our home life, God is concerned with how we live behind closed doors when we think no one can see. He cares about how we treat our spouse, what we look at. He cares about how we handle our money and temptation. John Chrysotom said this, the true measure of a man is what he is when no one is watching. Isn't that good? The true measure of a man is what he is when no one is watching. See, the person God uses cares about personal holiness, not just here at church. I mean, we all know how to play church well, right? I mean, I could be fighting with my wife like cats and dogs on the way in here. As soon as I hit that door, I'm like, how are you guys doing?

16:57How are you doing, Bill? Great. If I was any better, I'd have to be twins. We know how to do church. But the person that God uses is the one who cares about holiness in their lives, not only at church, but behind those closed doors at home when they're on vacation, when they're away from the church hundreds of miles. They still care about holiness. That's important. Look at Gideon's response, verse 27. Then Gideon took 10 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. Notice he was afraid. So he did it at night. But he did it. That's the thing, isn't he? He obeyed. He passed the test. See, God is going to call you to do things that you're going to be afraid to do. But you just got to do it. You've got to obey and trust the consequences to him.

18:00So, to become effective in the kingdom of God, holiness in private is necessary. Second thing, self-reliance must be broken. Gideon must learn that his wisdom wasn't wise enough and that his strength wasn't strong enough. Soon he's going to face a massive enemy force of 135,000 well-trained, well-equipped men. So he does what we would probably do. He does the common sense thing. He sends out the call throughout the land to gather an army. And I'm sure what he's saying is, 135,000 I'm going to face. I need 136,000. So he puts the call out, and the best he could do was 32,000. 32,000 men against 135,000. Epic fail. See, with his wisdom, his planning, and his scheming, the best he could do was woefully inadequate. And I can relate back to England. Go with me back to England. Before we went to England to plant a church, I had enjoyed several years of successful ministry in a large church in Southern California. And I believe, listen, I believed I knew what I was doing. I had experience. I had success. So I devised a plan, what I called from day one. What that meant to me was I was going to hit the ground running. I had it all mapped out. I had pages of my plan, my scheming.

19:30I really thought, you know what, I had heard England was tough. I really, this is how proud we are and deceived. I really thought, you're in trouble, England. Oh, I got a plan, and I got experience. And so I was going to hit the ground running. So I arrived and immediately put that plan into motion. And after one year of my brilliance, the church grew from eight to five. And that included me, my wife, and my son. So we had just swept in two others after a year. You know, nothing was working. And I'll never forget going into my bedroom, falling on my face, and in desperation crying out to God, God, this was your idea to send me to England. See, I wanted to go to Asia. I'd done a lot of pastoral work in Asia. I wanted to end up in Asia. I didn't think England needed a missionary. They do. I said, God, this was your idea to send me to England. I've left everything. I'm 6,000 miles from home, and nothing is happening.

20:43Why aren't you blessing this? But God was doing something. I was learning that first he must work on the minister, the minister, before he can bless the ministry. He was working on me. I was his project. I had to be reduced to the point. Where I would depend upon him rather than myself. See, I was trusting in my experience. I was trusting in my training. And I thought for some reason I was sufficient to plant a church and pastor it in England. I wasn't. Not even close.

21:19And God couldn't bless that. You know what? If God blessed that where I was at that point, he would just reinforce that deadly self-reliance and pride I was carrying around. So he brought me to the place that broke me. And I had to humble myself. I had to say, Lord, I surrender. I surrender all this to you. This is your church, not mine. If anything is going to happen here, it will have to be done in your way. I admit I'm not wise enough. I'm not strong enough. I'm not gifted enough. And I just cried out, God, please help me. Please help me.

22:02When I got out of the way and started to depend on God, the church started to enjoy blessing and growth. And it's still going strong today. Our little baby is still growing strong. So God must get us to a place that we depend upon Him, right? And watch how He does it with Gideon. This is really interesting to me. Gideon's done his best, and He has failed. Epic failure. He's only got 32,000 men to go up against 120,000. 35,000, but it's going to get much worse. God's going to make it much worse for him. Look at Judges 7, go to chapter 7, verse 2.

22:42The Lord said to Gideon, The people who are with you are too many for me to give Midian into their hands. Why does God do things like that to us? Well, he tells us, for Israel would become boastful, saying, My own power has delivered me. I mean, isn't that unbelievable? Even with those odds against them, they still would somehow find a way to take the glory. They say, that was because of us. We did it. What a plan we came up with. You should have seen us on the battlefield. We were amazing.

23:20See, we don't like seeing ourselves as weak, though, do we? We want to feel capable. We want to be impressive to everybody else. We want to believe that our abilities are good enough for whatever life throws at us, even whatever God wants us to do. So God, in his wisdom, must bring us to these places that force us to see our weakness, that force us to depend upon him instead of ourselves. Let's see how God does that with Gideon. Look at verse 3. Now therefore, come, proclaim in the hearing of the people, saying, Whoever is Afraid and trembling, let him return and depart from Mount Gilead. So 22,000 people returned, but 10,000 remained. Gideon says, if you're afraid, you can go home and 22,000 people say, praise the Lord, and they leave. Can you imagine? Put yourself in that spot. You're one of the 10,000 that remain. I can imagine there was that slow clap. A great job of leading, Gideon. We were already just so minimal in our numbers, and you've driven away two-thirds of the soldiers. Good job. Great leading. But God's not done yet, which tells me that even with only 10,000 people, they'd still take the credit. Look at verse 4. Then the Lord said to Gideon, the people are still too many. The people are still too many. He must be thinking, you're kidding, right?

25:00He says, bring them down to the water, and I will test them for you there. Therefore it shall be that he of whom I say to you, this one shall go with you, he shall go with you. But every one of whom I say to you, this one shall not go with you, he shall not go. How many does the Lord say, take them with you, Gideon? I'm sure Gideon's going, big number, big number, big number.

25:23Here it is. Ready? 300. 300 to face 135. thousand. Really? God has sovereignly arranged circumstances so Gideon must depend upon him and only he will get the glory. This has got to happen. It's got to happen for Gideon to grow and become the man God could use, you know, effectively. And it's got to happen in your life. It's got to happen in my life. Anybody that God chooses to use, He's got to do this too. Like with the children of Israel, right? God will intentionally lead us up to our Red Sea obstacles where we look at it looming before us and we go, this can't be done. That's insurmountable. That's impossible. Why does he do that? Well, it's so we can see God's faithfulness and power. So our faith will increase. So we learn to rest in him.

26:25You may be facing an obstacle right now. I don't know what you're going through, but you might have come in here and just gone, man, you wouldn't believe what we're going through. Our finances, I mean, it's just falling apart. I don't see how we're going to make it. You know what? God's in control. Trust him for that. He's sovereign. Trust him for that. And he has allowed that in your life for your good. Not to ruin you, but to develop you. Trust that he has arranged circumstances. Why? So you can see his greatness. Your adversity is his opportunity to show you how great he is, right?

27:07See, that is what you want to. See, what he is doing in your life is he is transforming you into something you want to be. It takes pain, it takes trials, it takes circumstances we don't think we're big enough to handle. That's what it takes. But what we learn in each one of those is God is big enough. And we learn trial after trial after trial to learn. We learn to look at him. We learn to trust him instead of ourselves. All right, that brings us to the third step. Through the work of God, one step at a time, we're watching Gideon become a man God can use. Third step, God's continued presence and providential encouragement. Now, I love this. In verses 9 through 15 in chapter 7, Gideon has obeyed every step of the way. He's passing each test, and now he's out on the battlefield. And as God said, I will be with you, he stands there with him. He wasn't lying. He's there with him. Look at verse 9 through 15. Now, the same night it came about that the Lord said to him, Arise, go down against the camp, for I have given it into your hands. But if you are afraid to go down, go with Pura, your servant, down to the camp. And you will hear what they say. And afterward, your hands will be strengthened that you may go. Down against the camp. So he went with Pura, his servant, down to the outpost of the army that was in the camp. Now the Midianites and the Amalekites and all the sons of the West were lying in the valley as numerous as locusts, and their camels were without number, as numerous as the sand of the seashore. When Gideon came, behold, a man was relating a dream to his friend. And he said, Behold, I had a dream. A loaf of barley bread was tumbling into the camp of Midian. And it came to the tent and struck it so that it fell and turned it upside down so that the tent lay flat. His friend replied, This is nothing less than the sword of Gideon, the son of Joash, a man of Israel. God has given Midian and all the camp into his hand. When Gideon heard the account of the dream and its interpretation, he bowed in worship. He returned to the camp of Israel and said, Arise, for the Lord has given the camp of Midian into our hands.

29:31No coincidence that Gideon arrived right when that man was saying, that is it. That's providence. God sovereignly took him at the perfect time to hear the dream and the interpretation. And a quick note on that. I know some of you, maybe you're looking for ministry or whatever. I love ministry. You know, when you're used by God, when you serve him, you just become addicted to it. You know, you want to minister all the time. You minister the rest of your life. I've learned is that I don't have to strive for ministry one bit. All I've got to do is walk with God and love Him. Make Jesus Christ my treasure. Put Him first, and He will lead and guide. You'll run into the person you need to run into. You know, you'll hear the things you need to hear. He's just guide. I love that about walking with God. He'll open the doors that need to be opened to bless you, and He'll close the doors that need to be closed to protect you. Just trust Him and walk with Him. So exciting to be a Christian, isn't it? I mean, Christianity, I'm a fan.

30:39So He will sovereignly get us where we need to be. And look at Gideon's growth. I mean, this time, this is kind of the final encouragement before the battle. And He gets it this time. He no longer needs a fleece. God has just showed him. And He's like, Okay, I'm ready now. Let's go. Let's do it. And so here's the transformation from winepress to worship. Look at verse 15. When Gideon heard the account of the dream and its interpretation, he bowed in worship. He returned to the camp of Israel and said, Arise, for the Lord has given the camp of Midian into your hands. So through the work of God, this spiritually bitter man is now worshiping. I can see him just his hands raised there on the battlefield.

31:29He's now. Fearlessly confident, or he now fearlessly confronts those that he was hiding from in the winepress. He's ready to go. God has changed him from winepress to worship, from weakness to warrior. And God loves doing this kind of work in our hearts. And I want to just say to you, if he could do it with Gideon, he can do it with you. He can do it with you. So one more lesson. We've seen effectiveness for God begins at home. God must break our independent spirit so we trust in him. We can trust his continued presence and providential encouragement as we walk along. I mean, I love that. God calls us to be his, and then all the way into glory, he walks with us and encourages us. And we need that. We need that all. I don't care how long you've walked with the Lord. I've been walking with the Lord since 1977. And you know what? I still need that encouragement. I still need his presence. And he's still faithful to meet me when I do. He's such a good father. The final lesson, where God guides, God provides. Gideon's going to war against this well-equipped army. He'll need something to fight with, right?

32:44But look at the strange weapons they're sent into battle with. Look at verse 16. He divided the 300 men into three companies, and he put trumpets and empty pitchers into the hands of all of them with torches inside the pitchers. So, uh. Here's what we're going to go to fight with, guys. Here's your trumpets. Here's your torches. And here's your jars. I wonder if they're going, you know, a sword would be nice. Can we have a sword?

33:15But you know what? God's going to provide the swords in an amazing way. The battle plan is this. Blow the trumpets, smash the jars, and shout. And watch what they do. Look at verse 22. When they blew 300 trumpets, the Lord set the sword of one against another, even throughout the whole army, and the army fled. See that? God says, I've got swords for you. I've got 135,000 swords for you. As the enemy army turns on itself, it starts cutting each other up.

33:52They got the swords. I mean, can you imagine being there at that moment? I always try to put myself in these kind of situations. You know, you go out with Gideon. He says, we're going to give you torches and jars and shout. And you're going, I don't know, man. I don't know. And you're watching, and all of a sudden, you do that, and you watch the enemy army turn on themselves, and they start cutting each other up. And you go, oh, okay. Wow. Did not see that happening.

34:25See, where God guides, he provides. We step into his call, trust. Him to provide all that we need. All the resources, all the wisdom, all the strength, all the encouragement, all the rent money, all the food money. He's faithful, isn't he? He always provides. The result in the rest of Judges 7 is Gideon routs the enemy and join a complete victory. God said he would give him the victory because he would go with him, and he does. Let me just try to apply this real quick. I've just got a couple points here, real quick. If you feel weak, you know, if you're out there and you're going, I don't know, just feel ordinary. Good. You qualify. God loves to begin with weakness, doesn't he? So everyone knows the strength is his. The victory is his. He loves using ordinary people like all of us to do extraordinary things with. So ask him to use you for his glory. Whatever it takes, just say, Lord, use me.

35:35And he will. He will. But you must deal with the sin at home, in the private life. This is where so much of it stops. We think we can get away with sin at home, and God will still use us in the public. You know what? He won't. Effectiveness demands holiness there. If God is putting his finger on something right now in your life, I imagine with this size congregation, there's somebody. Out there that God's going, I've been talking to you about this.

36:05I've been telling you, I've been whispering. If that's true about you, turn from that sin, repent. Sin promises pleasure, but all it can bring in the end is pain. So turn from that sin, give it to Him. Then the last one is this, and I think this is good, it's simple. Pass the test, just pass the test. We grow one step of obedience at a time. Gideon didn't go from wine press to worship, from weakness to warrior in one leap. God trained him steadily, passing one test after another, obeying one time after another, even though he was afraid.

36:48See, pass the test in front of you today, and God will move you to the next. And you will grow in grace, and you will grow in effectiveness. Let's just make it as simple as possible. Just say yes to God, one yes at a time. Simple. I like simple. That one's simple to me. One yes at a time, and you'll be amazed at what he'll do in your life. Now, all of that was for those who belong to God. Maybe you came in here tonight and you don't belong to God. Judges 6 and 7 teaches us that we're not saved by our strength, our numbers, our resolve, or our performance. Gideon is a picture of the kind of deliverance God provides, which ultimately points us to Christ.

37:38The one who left the glory of heaven and came down to rescue mankind from the oppression of sin. If you have never met our Lord, I just want to say you can today. You can tonight. If you will acknowledge your sin and admit you can't save yourself, if you will turn away from trusting in your own goodness, in your own religious effort, in your own performance, and trust in Christ and his finished work on your behalf, if you will turn from that sin and repentance and turn to Christ by faith, the scriptures say he will save you. He will save you. And everything will change. The one you faced as a judge will receive you as a father. Isn't that good? The one you faced as a judge will receive you as a father.

38:29And your eternal residence will change from hell to heaven. You know when I think of that, that's the offer. It's a no-brainer, isn't it? If that's what God is offering us, eternal life, to escape judgment, to go to heaven instead of hell, that's the best deal going. And you can do that tonight. Listen, if you don't know the Lord, go and find somebody to talk to. And say, you know, I want to meet your Savior. I want him to be my Savior, too. And I'm sure there's many people in this church that would love to introduce you to our King. All right, guys, let's pray.

39:11Father, we do thank you for the example of Gideon. We do thank you that ordinary folk like us can be used by you. We do thank you that you're willing to transform us. Lord, you're willing, even though we're so weak, so insufficient. But God, if we'll just look to you and just trust you to be our sufficiency, to trust you to be our strength, who knows what we can do? If you could use Gideon like you did, you can use us too. Lord, I pray that Brian, that college station, would not be the same because this church is here.

39:58That you would turn us into mighty warriors that do damage to the kingdom of darkness. Lord, I pray we would see many be saved. And that you would be glorified. Lord, if any here, you've been putting your finger on a sin that they're toying with, that they're embracing, I pray tonight would be the night that they just give it to you, surrender it to you, Lord, so that they can know. Your love, know your fullness, your presence again.

40:36And Lord, if there's anybody here that doesn't know you, Lord, all let this be the night of their salvation. Let this be the night where the judge becomes father, where their residence becomes heaven, and where they begin to live for your glory. In Jesus' name, amen.