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Advent Productions

Benjamin Ng

The Little Things

Father in heaven, thank you so much for this time.

Thank you, Lord, that we have an opportunity to come and study your word together.

And Lord, we just ask for a blessing once more.

We ask that you'd please be with us, guide us and lead us with your spirit, oh Lord, and inspire these words that we're about to look at.

And please guide us, we pray, into all truth.

Okay, so I'm just pushing the comments to the side.

You know, I want to look at little things this evening.

You know, what we choose to do in those seconds that we wait for a bus amounts to big things in life.

This may seem funny but how long you spend on the toilet or in the bathroom, it matters, it really adds up.

It's the things that are in between the big things that really add up.

It's like the pause, the intermission between when you're at an opera, those minutes that you have add up very quickly.

It's the life that's lived in between in these small pockets of time that really add to the big things in life.

A speck on the lung can become a big issue.

A little mole on your leg can become something bigger than just that mole.

You know, friends, it's these little things in life that really add up to really big things in our lives.

And I want to look at a familiar story this evening, Gideon's army, you know, it wasn't a big army.

Let's turn the Bible to Judges 7 and verse 16.

You know, Gideon's army, they represent the work of the 3 angels' messages going forward at the end of time.

And Judges 7 and verse 16, they're about to attack the enemy.

And here it talks about how he divides them.

It says here, and he divided the 300 men into 3 companies.

And He put a trumpet in every man's hand with empty pitchers and lamps within the pitchers.

With a lamp in their hand with a pitcher, the lamp is the Word of God.

So when the lamps are all lighted up and there's 3 companies running down the hill, God's glory accompanies them and fights for them.

It is represented by the fourth angel in Revelation chapter 18 that comes down with power and great glory and lights up the whole earth with its glory.

But how did these soldiers get to this point?

You know, how did it whittle down all the way down to 300 men?

I mean, they're going into battle already.

And I believe that that time when they're running down the hill and they're alight with God's glory, they are already filled with the Holy Spirit, the latter rain.

That's the timeline that I see in our day that applies to us when we study Gideon's story.

And it's not so much what happens beyond that because the rest is history.

The rest is God is going to be victorious and He will fight for us.

But the most important thing that we look at really is the preparation that Gideon had with his army in order to prepare them to fight.

For us, it is the preparation of the latter rain.

What can we do to receive the latter rain to ensure that we are victorious and that we are the head and not the tail and God will fight for us and be with us at the end of time.

Let's go back a bit earlier in Judges chapter 7.

You know, There is even a whole lot to study in Judges chapter 6, but we're just staying in Judges chapter 7 this evening.

At the beginning of that chapter, Judges chapter 7, Gideon, he makes a trumpet sound and rallies the soldiers of the Israelites.

And out from the woodworks come 32, 000 men ready to fight with Gideon, alongside for battle.

And when Gideon, he's ready to move forward, God says, wait, wait, wait, first you got to do a call that is pretty standard.

If anybody is afraid, please just go home.

Because your army is as strong as your weakest link.

And so he says, look, whoever is afraid, just go home, it's fine.

And of the 32, 000, 22, 000 people left, only remaining 10, 000.

And the Lord said unto Gideon, the people are yet too many.

Bring them down unto the water and I will try them for thee there and it shall be that of whom I say unto thee this shall go with thee the same shall go with thee and of whomsoever I say unto thee this shall not go with thee the same shall not go.

So God says look you still got too many men 10, 000 is too much and so we're gonna have a test And he doesn't even tell Gideon what the test is so that Gideon cannot, you know, tell his closest friends or the ones that he thinks is the most valiant man.

Verse 5, So he brought down the people unto the water and the Lord said unto Gideon, Every 1 that lappeth of the water with his tongue as a dog lappeth, him shalt thou set by himself.

Likewise, everyone that boweth down upon his knees to drink.

And the number of them that leapt, putting their hand to their mouth, were 300 men, but all the rest of the people bowed down upon their knees to drink water.

This 300 men is the ones that I'm going to go to battle with.

You know friends, what was the difference?

To get on your knees to drink, which means you'd have to put off your shield and your sword or your spear and you get down and you have to scoop up the water.

But the people that lap the water, they would scoop it up with their hand and drink.

Where the Bible says we have to watch unto prayer when it comes to the second coming of Jesus.

We have to be ready and alert at all times.

And so God says, this is the group of people that will go with me.

300 men with Gideon, they would go off to battle together.

Friends, it is by the little things that God prepares us for the bigger things in life.

And it's not only with Gideon and his army.

When you look throughout scripture, you look at Samson.

Even though he was in this ungodly relationship with Delilah, even though he had done all these things and it was out of passion, yet God had not forsaken him so long as he did not cut his hair.

God said, Abraham, in order for me to bless you, I need you to leave your country.

It's in these little things that God tests us, determines whether He can bless us, determines whether he can trust us.

It's in these little things, in the pages of scripture in between.

You know, Abraham is most well known for sacrificing his son Isaac, amongst and many other stories, but Many of us, we don't realize that if he had not left, God could not have blessed him.

Consider Daniel, of course the most famous of all the characters, about little things.

Don't eat the meat or drink the wine he purposed in his heart.

It is in these little things, even yes, friends, what we eat, and in the case of Gideon, what or how they drank.

It's these little things that are a big deal to God.

Joseph, he was faithful as a slave in the house of Potiphar.

You know, he was also faithful when he was in the dungeon, unfairly and unjustly put there.

But yet it's in these little things of life that God is training him for the bigger affairs of life.

It was in the dungeon that he learnt to be a merciful and faithful Prime Minister for the whole of Egypt.

Friends, it's in the dark corners of our life when no 1 is watching that it's then that God is moulding us.

Not when you're standing on a stage before 1, 000 people.

Not when you're singing a wonderful song to 100, 000 people.

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The Little Things

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