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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Adrian Zahid

They Came To Win

It is an honor for me to speak to you this afternoon.

And it is true, there is something about Jesus' name that is very precious.

And about that name, about Jesus' name, is what this entire thing is all about.

It was Jesus' name that was attacked in heaven, and it was Jesus' name that was cleared on the cross, and it is Jesus' name that will be vindicated at the end of this earth's history and is jesus will come back to take us home let us pray dear father I come before you this afternoon I ask that you give me the words to speak.

And Lord, you know that I am a sinful man.

But Lord, I know that you have a message for these people today and that you are using me.

And I ask that no glory go to me, but all glory go to you.

And if there are lives that be changed, Lord, may those changes be the start of something that is permanent in their lives for eternity.

Worship is an interesting topic that is consuming people today.

We have churches that spring up every day all across North America and the world.

We have churches that grow in other countries and other parts of the world every day by the thousands.

And yet in North America, we have churches that are actually, either they are huge churches, 20, 000, 40, 000, 50, 000, or there are small churches.

And we have small churches like 10, 15 people, or medium churches which, you know, number in maybe a few thousands.

But In between, most of the churches in North America are in decline.

And 1 of the reasons for the decline is that unfortunately, people are just not getting what they want from the pastor.

And the reality is that it's not the pastor's fault.

It is that people are just not wanting to seek for themselves, wanting to find out for themselves, wanting to read for themselves.

They want to be fed, and they want good sermons, but they don't want to study for themselves And so that is why some of the 1 of the reasons why churches are declining in our country today There was a time in Bible history where God had worked miracles to change the course of history.

He had taken the children out of the land of Egypt, He had brought them across the Red Sea, He had parted the waters of Jordan, He had dropped down the walls of Jericho, He had defeated Ai, the city.

He had done all these things for them, and yet the children of Israel were not happy, they were not getting what they wanted, and their relationship with God was not what it was supposed to be.

And so we find, If you turn in your Bibles to Judges chapter 6, we find a sorry state of affairs in this chapter.

And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord delivered them into the hand of Midian 7 years.

So they were in the hand of Midian for 7 years, and what did these people do to them?

In verse 5 it says, 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.

What they would do is they would come in and they would just totally raise the crops and take it either for themselves or just destroy it if they couldn't use it.

And so the children of Israel, they would plant and they would water and they would weed their crops, and then the crops would grow, but then the Midianites would come, and they would either harvest it and take it by force, or if they couldn't take what they wanted, they would destroy it, they would just raise it to the ground.

And so the children of Israel were planting, but not reaping anything, and as a result there was almost like a famine in the land.

And so they cried out to God, and God heard their prayer.

Verse 11, And there came an angel of the Lord, and sat under an oak, which was in a certain place, and this angel sat there, and there was a man that was doing something at that time, and it is very ironic that he was doing that.

He was in a wine press, but he was not treading on grapes to produce wine.

He was in a wine press because no 1 would find him there.

And he was taking what he had grown with his own hands and he was threshing wheat.

And if you have ever worked with agriculture or plants or wheat, You know that wheat grows and it has those little kernels.

And what you do is you hit the wheat against the ground, or you use a machine to extract it, and you get those seeds, the little kernels, and you mash them together and you get powder.

And from that powder you make your bread and you make your dough and stuff like that.

And so this man was hiding away from the enemy and he was hiding in the winepress where he knew no 1 would look for him, over there because it wasn't the time of grapes.

And he was threshing his wheat against the winepress, against the stones.

And the angel of the Lord met him there and appeared and said unto him, The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valor.

And Gideon said unto him, O 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 has forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites.

So he is saying, look, I know the church history.

I know what the Lord did with the apostles.

I remember the story of fire coming down from heaven for Elijah.

I remember the story of the tongues of fire on the disciples' heads as they spoke different languages and they went out to the world and they changed the world for Christ.

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 I not sent thee?" And so, God gave him his commission, go and I have delivered them into your hand.

There are many people who want to do great things for God, They have all these plans, but God has not sent them on that mission.

And so they go and they try and they fail.

The reason is because God has not sent you on that mission.

And brothers and sisters, God will never send you on a mission to fail.

He will never send you on a mission to fail.

It may seem like you are failing, but He will never from a human point of view, it may seem that you're failing, you may have a pastor, preach to 10, 000 people and have only 1 person convert.

But if that 1 person was Mark Finley, and he went and converted another 10, 000, then that was a success in God's eyes.

Or it could be somebody else over here, or anywhere else.

But in God's eyes, in God's plan, He will never send you on a mission that He expects you to fail.

And so here He is giving Gideon his mission, and He is saying, go and I will be with you and you will succeed.

Gideon said unto him, O my Lord, wherewith shall I save Israel?

Because my family is poor in Manasseh, and I am the least in my Father's house.

He looked at himself and he said, look, I am poor, I am the least of my my family is in the least of the tribes and I am the least of my family.

How can I do anything to save the entire children of Israel from this enemy?

And so the Lord said, Surely I will be with thee, and thou shalt smite the Midianites as 1 man.

And he said unto him, If now, this is Gideon saying, if now I have found grace in thy sight, then show me a sign that thou talkest with me.

So here he is, he's talking with the angel, and he's hearing what the angel is saying, but he's not believing that this is real.

And so he's saying, Just give me a sign to let me know that what you are saying is real.

I'm not wishing, I'm not in a delusion, I'm not focused on just trying to feed my family here, and I'm just thinking grand thoughts.

So Gideon, he ran home, he prepared some food, he brought it back, and the angel, he touched it with his staff and then disappeared.

And Then Gideon, in that same night, verse 25, the Lord said unto him, Take thy father's young bullock, even the second bullock of 7 years old, and throw down the altar of Baal, thy father hath cut down by the grove that is Baya.

And so God gave him a specific thing to do.

You see, if he was going to go and save all of Israel because Israel had left God, he had to show in his life that he was following God.

If you are a church leader today, and your life is not what it should be, if you are not following God, how are you going to be able to get others to follow God?

If God isn't number 1 in your life, how are other people going to make him the priority, the number 1 person in their life.

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They Came To Win

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