As many other sections of the book of Judges, this is a history of apostasy, of bondage, of crying out to God, and of deliverance. Here we have the Midianite bondage and the deliverance through Gideon. Here now the reading of God's inspired, inerrant, and infallible word, Judges 6, starting at verse 1. And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord. And the Lord delivered them into the hand of Midian seven years. And the hand of Midian prevailed against Israel. And because of the Midianites, the children of Israel made them the dens which are in the mountains and caves and strongholds. And so it was when Israel had sown that the Midianites came up and the Amalekites and the children of the east, even they came up against them. And they encamped against them and destroyed the increase of the earth till thou come unto Gaza and left no sustenance for Israel, neither sheep nor ox nor ass. For they came up with their cattle and their tents, and they came as grasshoppers for multitude. For both they and their camels were without number, and they entered into the land to destroy it. And Israel was greatly impoverished because of the Midianites. And the children of Israel cried unto the Lord, And it came to pass when the children of Israel cried unto the Lord because of the Midianites, that the Lord sent a prophet unto the children of Israel, which said unto them, thus saith the Lord, God of Israel. I brought you up from Egypt and brought you forth out of the house of bondage. And I delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians and out of the hand of all that oppressed you and drave them out from before you and gave you their land. And I said unto you, I am the Lord your God. Fear not the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell, but ye have not obeyed my voice. And there came an angel of the Lord and sat under an oak, which was an ofrah that pertained unto Joash the Abiezrite, and his son Gideon threshed wheat by the wine press to hide it from the Midianites. And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him and said unto him, the Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valor. And Gideon said unto him, oh my Lord, If the Lord be with us, why then is all this befallen us? And where be all his miracles which our fathers told us of saying, did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt? But now the Lord hath forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites. And the Lord looked upon him and said, go in this thy might, and thou shalt save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Have not I sent thee? And he said unto him, O my Lord, wherewith shall I save Israel? Behold, my family is poor in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house. And the Lord said unto him, surely I will be with thee, and thou shalt smite the Midianites as one man. And he said unto him, if now I have found grace in thy sight, then show me a sign that thou talkest with me. Depart not hence, I pray thee, until I come unto thee and bring forth my present and set it before thee. And he said, I will tarry until thou come again. And Gideon went in and made ready a kid and unleavened cakes of an ephah of flour. The flesh he put in a basket and he put the broth in a pot and brought it out unto him under the oak and presented it. And the angel of God said unto him, take the flesh of the unleavened cakes and lay them upon this rock and pour out the broth. And he did so. And the angel of the Lord put forth the end of the staff that was in his hand and touched the flesh and the unleavened cakes. And there rose up fire out of the rock and consumed the flesh and the unleavened cakes. Then the angel of the Lord departed out of his sight. And when Gideon perceived that he was an angel of the Lord, Gideon said, alas, O Lord God, for because I have seen an angel of the Lord face to face. And the Lord said unto him, peace be unto thee. Fear not, thou shalt not die. Then Gideon built an altar there unto the Lord and called it Jehovah Shalom. Unto this day it is yet in Ofrah of the Abiezrites. And it came to pass the same night that the Lord said unto him, take thy father's young bullock, even the second bullock of seven years old and throw down the altar of Baal that thy father hath and cut down the grove that is by it. and build an altar unto the Lord thy God upon the top of this rock in the ordered place, and take the second bullock, and offer a burnt sacrifice with the wood of the grove, which thou shalt cut down.' Then Gideon took 10 men, of his servants, and did as the Lord had said unto him, and so it was, because he feared his father's household and the men of the city, that he could not do it by day, that he did it by night. And when the men of the city arose early in the morning, behold, the altar of Baal was cast down, and the grove was cut down that was by it. And the second bullock was offered upon the altar that was built. And they said one to another, who hath done this thing? And when they inquired and asked, they said, Gideon, the son of Joash hath done this thing. Then the men of the city said unto Joash, Bring out thy son that he may die, because he hath cast down the altar of Baal, and because he hath cut down the grove that was by it. And Joash said unto all that stood against him, Will ye plead for Baal? Will ye save him? He that will plead for him, let him be put to death whilst it is yet morning. If he be a God, let him plead for himself, because one hath cast down his altar. Therefore on that day he called him Jerubbaal, saying, let Baal plead against him, because he had thrown down his altar. Then all the Midianites and the Amalekites and the children of the east were gathered together and went over and pitched in the valley of Jezreel. But the spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon and he blew a trumpet and Abiezar was gathered after him. And he sent messengers throughout all Manasseh, who also was gathered after him. And he sent messengers unto Asher, and unto Zebulun, and unto Naphtali, and they came up to meet him. And Gideon said unto God, if thou wilt save Israel by mine hand, as thou hast said, behold, I will put a fleece of wool in the floor. And if the dew be on the fleece only, and it be dry upon all the earth beside, then shall I know that thou wilt save Israel by mine hand, as thou hast said. And it was so, for he rose up early on the morrow and thrust the fleece together and wringed the dew out of the fleece a bowl full of water. And Gideon said unto God, let not thine anger be hot against me, and I will speak but this once. Let me prove, I pray thee, but this once with the fleece. Let it now be dry only upon the fleece, and upon all the ground, let there be dew. And God did so that night for it was dry upon the fleece only and there was dew on all the ground. Thus far the reading of God's holy word from Judges chapter six. A very powerful passage in the Word of God, may the Lord bless us in the reading and hearing of it and now in consideration of it. Verses 1 through 6 we have the evil and degraded condition of Israel by their sin and the invasion of the Midianites. Verse one, the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord. There is our A, A, B, C, D. A for apostasy. The Lord delivered them into the hand of Midian seven years. B for bondage in verse one. It says the Lord personally handed them over. He granted them freely to them. He said, here's my slave. I'm not gonna sell him to you. You can just have him. I don't want him anymore. Verse two tells us that the children of Israel made them dens, which are in the mountains and caves and strongholds. This is alluded to in Hebrews 11, verse 38, saying that the people of God wandered in deserts and in mountains and in dens and caves of the earth. So though there was much apostasy, you might say a national apostasy, there was a remnant of faithful believers, even at this time, one of whom is Gideon. I note then in times of universal apostasy, even among God's visible kingdom, there's always a core or remnant. Remember when Elijah said he was the only one left, God said, I've reserved for myself, how many? 7,000 that have not bowed the knee to Baal. Now among a kingdom of millions, that's not much, but still God preserved his people. Let us then be as those faithful believers who hid in those dens and caves of the earth. Let us not mind numbers, but scripture. Let us mind God, not man. Now note there in verse four, when the Midianites came, that they would ransack and steal and camp and destroy the increase of the earth till thou come unto Gaza. Now they were coming from the east with the children of the east, with the Amalekites and with the Midianites. That means Gaza is the west coast of Israel. So the whole land from the east to the west is ransacked. Everything is stolen. They left no sustenance, it says, for Israel, neither sheep nor ox nor ass, no bread for man, no provender for your sheep, for your oxen or your asses, nothing for you to live off of or your animals to live off of. They came up, it says, with their cattle and their tents, that is the Midianites. Now, why do you come up with cattle and tents? You know what we call this? A border invasion. They came up with their houses, that is their tents. They came up with their own cattle. They intended to stay around a while. They weren't going to come, raid, and leave. Take your stuff and take it to them. No, they brought their stuff with them. A domestic invasion. And they were as grasshoppers for multitude, for both they and their camels were without number. Now this is according to the ease of counting without number, meaning if you tried to sit there and count them, it would be impossible. You start counting and you get to about 20 and you'd have to start over again, because there's so many of them and their camels. A vast, innumerable host. They couldn't be counted and they couldn't be reckoned with either. Israel was helpless. And we see in our day a vast innumerable host invading our borders, eating out our substance. Let us trace to the same evil as Israel did and let us look to the same remedy as we'll see. The remedy was repentance of destruction of idolatry. Verse six tells us Israel was greatly impoverished. They had no crops. They had no store. They had no seed for planting. They had no bread for man. They had no provender for their animals. Their wealth was dissipated by the foreign invaders. Then what do they do? Verse six. This is the C, A, B, C. And Israel was greatly impoverished because of the Midianites and the children of Israel cried unto the Lord. Now verse seven informs us, why did they cry? Because they were wicked and ungodly and disobedient? No, because of the Midianites, because of the misery, because of their suffering, because of the problems. That's why they cried, not because of their sin, but because of their misery, because of their poverty. This is a worldly sorrow. We must learn to lament our sins, not our bonds. Not our misery, not our open borders, not our foreign invasion, not our national debt, not our disarmament as we'll see in this passage and we saw in the prior passages. Why are people disarmed? Why can't they defend themselves? Because they're under the judgment of God. And what should we lament? All the problems that we have, all the miseries we suffer because of our sins? That's the answer of a fool. I won't deal with the root cause, I'll deal with the symptom. The misery is the symptom. The cause is the sin. What are we lamenting? We ought to lament our sins, that we have displeased the Lord, that we have not done his will, that we've not feared him and worshiped him and honored him. As he says, we have not kept his day holy. We've not honored the authorities he's placed in our lives. We've not regarded the life of our fellow man as we ought to. We've not kept the marriage bed undefiled. We have not said that others' property is sacred. It is theirs. It is set apart for them. We have not honored the good name of others or truth. We are a covetous people, a lawless people, an idolatrous people, and what do we expect? Now notice, they cry to God for deliverance from the Midianites. What does God do in return? Verses 7 through 10. He sends a prophetic message to convince them of their sin. That's what God does. You cry out to me for your misery. I cry out to you because of your sin, God says. The Lord sent a prophet unto the children of Israel. He didn't this time immediately send a judge. Sometimes he did that. They'd cry out. And what happens? The judge shows up. The judge clears out the civil or political problem with also the reinforcement of God's law. But here God waits. Here God says, you need to listen to me for a minute. You keep crying out to me in all your misery, but you won't listen to what I say. So I'm going to wait. I'm going to send a prophet. God says through his prophet, a very simple message. The same message at the beginning of the 10 commandments. Remember the preface to the 10 commandments, it's in these words, I am the Lord thy God, which what? Have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. What does he say? I brought you up from Egypt and brought you forth out of the house of bondage. That's what the Lord said to them. And furthermore, I delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians and out of the hand of all that oppressed you and drave them out from before you and gave you their land. Here, look how gracious I am to you. Hear now my pleading, the Lord says, my mercy and redemption, my grace to you, my driving out your adversaries. And I said unto you, based off of what I had done for you, God says, I said unto you, I am the Lord your God. Fear not the gods of the Amorites in whose land ye dwell. There it is. I require allegiance, God says, because of my grace and my mercy, because of my redemption, you owe me this duty. And this is an application of the first commandment. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Now he specifically names the gods of the Amorites. Your particular circumstances. Take the general rule of nature and apply it to your specific circumstances in this land. You're around the Amorites. Don't adopt their gods. Don't fear their gods. And did they obey? Ye have not obeyed my voice. You want to know what your problem is, Israel? Disobedience. You don't believe in my promises. You don't thankfully return obedience for all the good I've done to you. That's why you're suffering. That's what he's saying. Your misery is because of your sin. Verses 11 through 24, we have God's mercy in calling Gideon to deliver them. first by a commission with the angel who is also the Lord and a sign. Verse 11 tells us that an angel of the Lord came to Gideon. Now we'll see also that this angel in verses 14 and 16 refers to himself as the Lord. So he's an angel, he's a messenger that comes from God, from Jehovah, and he's also Jehovah. This is the same one that met Joshua, you'll recall. This is the same one that met Abraham, if you'll recall. This is the same one that met Jacob, if you'll recall. Penuel, the face of God, he said when he wrestled with what? An angel. Here is God, angel. The Lord, angel. Verse 11 tells us that Joash is the Abiezrite. He is a descendant of Manasseh, the son of Joseph, and Abiezar is one of the sub parts of the tribe of Manasseh. We've read of Abiezar in Joshua 17 verse two. We'll also see that there's a dispute in verse 34 between Ephraim and Manasseh, and it refers to Abiezar in chapter 8, verse 2. We'll read that, God willing, next week. Now here Gideon is hiding away from the Midianites, threshing his father's grains behind a wine press. There he is, cowardly, not open in the public arena, but hiding, it says, or taking flight, running away from the Midianites. And notice how does the angel who is the Lord address him? The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valor. Was Gideon a mighty man of valor? No, he's hiding. He's running away from his adversaries. And yet the Lord says, you are this. Why? Because God's thoughts produce reality. God's thinking, his knowledge makes things come to be. So if God says, you're a mighty man of valor, Gideon, that's what you are. It's not our thoughts, the power of my narrative, the power of positive thinking, the spin that we put on politics or science or medicine, just trust the science. In other words, just trust our thoughts and words because we can make reality. No, God makes reality. And if he says to Gideon that he is a mighty man of valor, he is. Now this word valor means strength. Is Gideon strong? He's weak. It means wealth. Was Gideon wealthy? No, he's impoverished. It means to be efficient, to get things done. What's Gideon doing? Putzing around behind a wine press, trying to get a little bit of grain out of the deal. Is that efficient? Of course not. So God calls those things that are not as if they were, and there are strong parallels between Gideon and Abraham. We'll see this as we go through. Abraham is going to have a son. Can he do it? Is he a man with that power? Can he accomplish that efficiently? No! But God says, Thou shalt have a son from thine own loins, Abraham. Here you are a mighty man of valor. Hebrews 11.34 Out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. You know what that's talking about? Gideon. Out of weakness were made strong, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. God's salvation then makes strong from the weak. And this is part of the point of the book of Judges. Our Lord Jesus Christ died in weakness, but rose to reign with almighty power. He died in mortality. He rose immortal. So we who are united together with Christ, we have been called the weak things of the world, the foolish things of the world, the off scouring of the world, but God chose the weak things to confound those things that are mighty. And that's the message of the gospel. It's not my power. It's not your power. It's the power of God through faith in Jesus Christ. Trust then in God's power. Trust in his salvation. Your inability will make you into a mighty man of valor. Oh my Lord, Gideon responds. Now you'll notice there it's not all capitals when he says Lord, is it? Gideon does not believe yet, he doesn't understand yet that this angel is no mere man. Maybe he thinks it's another prophet. Maybe he thinks, okay, we had a prophet, he said these things, here's another one. My Lord, my master, my owner. That's the idea, it's a term of respect. If the Lord, all capitals, if the Lord be with us, why then is all this befallen us? As with Beric, so with Gideon, his faith was what? Was it strong? No. He interprets the events, the direct inverse of what God says. Why are all these things befallen us? Because we're wicked. because God loves us and is chastening us to call us to repentance, as we'll see from Hebrews 12. But does he interpret it properly? Isn't that what the angel said? Or the prophet said? The prophet had said, God has forsaken you because what? You forsook him. Now, do you know why all these things are befalling you? Sometimes our hearts are hardened. We hear the word of God and it doesn't quite make its way in, does it? Where be all the miracles which our fathers have told us of saying, did not the Lord bring us up? You know what he's doing? He's quoting the prophet, the prophet that just came and spoke to them. He's quoting his words, but he doesn't really believe them. He doesn't understand them. He doesn't grasp them just yet. Let us not hear as Gideon heard at the first. Let us be good hearers of the word. Let us not be distracted by our experiences, by our sufferings, by our circumstances. That's why Gideon didn't hear. He's there hiding away with the grains, impoverished with a foreign invader. He can't hear the word of God. The word of God was clear. It's your fault. You have done evil. You have not obeyed the voice of the Lord, though he did all these miracles for you. You are unrighteous. God is righteous. Repent of your sins. That's the answer. And Gideon did not yet understand it. The Lord, then, it says, looked upon him. This is Christ before his incarnation. We call these Christophanies. When Christ, the angel or messenger of the Lord, is also the Lord, appears to the people of God, as he did, I said, to Abraham, mentioned before, to Jacob, and also to Joshua. Go, the Lord says, in this thy might, and thou shalt save Israel. Not your power, but this might is granted to you. I'm giving you this power, you mighty man of valor. The power of God graciously granted the power of Christ to shadow forth the redemption of Christ through the actions of Gideon, as we shall see. But my family, he says, is poor in Manasseh. Now the word for family is my thousand. In fact, I think there may be something to this that the word military comes from the same idea, thousand. We are a thousand in my nation. We're reckoned as an army corpse and we go forth to war as such. But my family, he says, is not mighty. We are not wealthy. We are not valorous. We are poor. That's what he says. But what does the Lord say in return? You will smite the Midianites as one man. All you gotta do is knock out one guy. It's that easy. That's how easy I'm going to make it. It's quick, it's gonna be efficient, it's gonna be with valor against all odds, against all probability, against the power of man or the stacking up of numbers. I will accomplish this. That's what the Lord is saying. Show me a sign that thou talkest with me, Gideon requests. He's not sure. Is this actually the Lord speaking to me? Is this true, what I'm hearing? That I will deliver Israel, me, the least of my father's house and the weakest and poorest of the tribes? Depart not hence, I pray thee, until I come unto thee and bring forth my present. The Dutch annotations note he still thinks him to be but a man and a prophet, and therefore according to the manner and custom of the patriarchs, he desires in haste to entertain and welcome him with meat and drink. Did you know that Gideon entertains angels unawares? We saw this, or we will see this, God willing, in Hebrews 13 verse two. He comes back with this after he's prepared the meal. He pours out the broth. Broth will not cause things to catch on fire, so we'll see the miraculous nature of the angel's deeds shortly. The dampness of these hard providences makes the miracles of fiery deliverance more illustrious. Go ahead, Elijah said, pour water on the sacrifice. Why? So that the fire of God would be more illustrious in licking up all of the water and the altar and the sacrifices. And there arose up fire out of the rock, and consumed the flesh and the unleavened cakes. Here the words of Christ are confirmed to Gideon. And his response is thus. He's finally awakened. Alas, O Lord God, for because I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face, Now he's relived the visitation of the angels to Abraham, hasn't he? He's entertained an angel unawares. He prepared a meal for him. He has the Lord, who's an angel, speaking with him. And now notice, he saw God face to face. Who did that? Jacob. Jacob wrestled with the angel. He called the place Penuel, which means the face of God, because I have seen the face of God and have not died. Here, notice the same. Having relived the angelic visit to Abraham, now he's relived Penuel of Jacob. What follows those? The Exodus, Genesis, Exodus, the patriarchs and Moses. God's going to redo in the days of Gideon the deliverance that he did at the Red Sea. That's what he's saying. He's confirming to him. Your question Gideon is where are all the works that God did for the fathers? Here's your answer. I'm coming, I'm delivering, I'm saving, I'm empowering. Thou shalt not die, he is told, verse 23. As Jacob's life was preserved, Genesis 32, verse 30. God pronounced peace to Gideon, so he calls the place Jehovah Shalom, Jehovah of Peace. God, in other words, he believes, will fulfill his word of peace to him. Then verses 25 through 32, we have the first fruits of Gideon's government. He starts where? At home. He reforms his father's house. Verse 25, he throws down the altar of Baal that his father had made. He's commanded to do this. And furthermore, all those trees that surround the altar, cut them all down. What? Didn't God make trees? Why cut them down? Because these stand there to remind the people of the idolatrous worship. Paul says, if your heathen neighbor offers you a steak in the name of Zeus, don't eat the steak. Why? Because it's a monument to idolatry. You cannot participate in those meats sacrificed to idols when they present it to you. Why? Because they've changed the composition of the meat? No. because it reminds the worshipper, the idolater of his God. And it makes him think you approve of his God. Throw down the altar, he is told. Cut down the trees. Hate your father and your mother. Destroy all monuments to idolatry. This is the evil that Israel had done. Remember that in verse one. The children of Israel did evil. What, they weren't nice people? They were stealing from each other? Well, possibly. But here's the evil. They were idolaters. And on the heaps of rubble of that destroyed manner of worship, I want you to show that I hate idolatry and that I will be worshipped as I have commanded. "'Build an altar unto the Lord thy God "'upon the top of this rock.'" Shove it in their face, Gideon, that you will worship as God appoints, not as man borrows from the heathen. You cannot borrow heathen idolatry, bring it into Christianity and say, ha, we have triumphed over the heathen gods. No, you haven't. You've borrowed from the heathen gods. You can't take Samhain and call it All Saints Day and say, we triumphed, we have Halloween now, All Hallows Eve. No, you are idolaters who hate God. God says if you want to triumph over the idols, burn them with fire. Throw down the altar, He says, cut down the groves. Then, on the ashes of that fire, after destroying the altar, build my altar right there as I tell you. Now Gideon, again, weak in faith, but still a believer, he does it at night. It's like it's an evil deed. That's when people do evil deeds, right? At night, so nobody can see them. He fears his father's household and the men of the cities. He's halting in his obedience, but he's a true believer. God's going to make him stronger and stronger through these trials. And what happens after he finishes obeying God? You think the people of the city are happy? He needs to be put to death. How dare you come against our worship? How could you oppose our longstanding traditions that we received and adopted into our religion? How could you? You have no respect for your father. Well, yeah, he has fear for God. He obeys the Lord. Bring out thy son that he may die, because he hath cast down the altar of Baal. You see how distorted idolatry makes men? That which is evil becomes good in their eyes, and that which is good, the destruction of their idols, what do they think? Is that good? Oh, that's evil. You deserve to die for doing what is right. They are distorted in their view of reality because graven images are teachers of lies. Verse 31, here. He rebuffs them, Joash does. Will ye plead for Baal? Will ye save him? You notice that? He's mocking their idolatry. You're going to save your God or is he going to save you? Are you going to plead his case? Now this is a legal term, to fight, to contend, sometimes in a bodily struggle, as like wrestling back and forth, sometimes in court they would argue back and forth and contend with words. Yeruv is the Hebrew word. Plead, will you plead for him? And then Joash goes on in verse 31. He that will plead for him, let him be put to death whilst it is yet morning. Now this is a man who had an altar to Baal built on his property. You see the change? What affected this change? Well, there are two things I would say. One is the spirit of the living God moving on his son and in that area through the preaching of the word. Two is the example of his son. His son, who dishonors his father's idols and destroys them, puts steel into his bones and makes him as well a man who now realizes, wait a second, we've got this all backwards. God said, if you worship the graven image, you're to be put to death. He didn't say, if you destroy the graven image, you're to be put to death. Let Baal plead against my son, that is Gideon. Jerubbael means let Baal plead. Yerub, let him plead. Baal, Baal, let him do it. Let him make his case against Gideon. Let him strike him dead. Then verses 33 through 40 we have the preparations Gideon makes for war with the Midianites by God's direction and the encouragement given him for a sign. Now you will notice there in verse 33 that they pitched in the valley of Jezreel. You will notice on your maps, the top left corner of your map, there is a hill there by the Mediterranean Sea, Mount Carmel, and then to its right it goes down into the valley of Jezreel. Megiddo is also there where we get Har-Megiddo, the mountain of Megiddo or Armageddon. This is a very similar place to where the battles took place with Sisera in the prior chapters. But there you'll notice the valley of Jezreel. And while all the forces of the heathen are gathering together there at Armageddon in the valley of Jezreel, the Spirit of the Lord comes upon Gideon. Now, the Son of God has been speaking to him as the Lord, so it seems that it is the Son of God who sends forth his Spirit, the Spirit of God's Son, to bring salvation to the people of God. Gideon then, verse 35, sent messengers to Asher, to Zebulun, and to Naphtali. And you'll notice there on your map. Manasseh being the tribe that Gideon is from, there to the lower left, about midway down the map. Then you'll see Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali at the northern point. Toward the top of your maps, Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali. So he's calling them all together, all the surrounding tribes, in other words, he calls to this fight. Verse 37, Gideon then requests a sign. I will put a fleece of wool in the floor. We have a phrase in our English tongue, right out of our English Bibles, to lay a fleece, to put it out, to see if God can direct us by a sign. Again, this is a weak faith on Gideon's part. He does not know still, will God direct him? Will God give him the victory? Will God fulfill his word? But you'll notice though, even though he is halting in his faith, he is still a humble and believing man. Let not thine anger be hot against me, and I will speak but this once. This hearkens back again to Abraham's intercession, Genesis 18, 32, pleading for the inhabitants of Sodom where his nephew Lot was. There God in this passage graciously confirms the sign, even doing it twice, even in fulfillment of this haltering faith, God in grace and mercy confirms his servant's faith by the twofold sign of the dew. And thus far the explanation of Judges chapter six. Let's join together in a prayer of confession of sin.