In this sermon, the speaker shares stories of their experiences preaching the word of God in villages. They mention a man who was a practicing witch doctor but got saved after attending their services for two years. The speaker then transitions to discussing the story of the Israelites escaping from Egypt and being pursued by Pharaoh's army. They highlight the fear and desperation of Elisha's servant when faced with the enemy army surrounding them. However, Elisha reassures him that those with them are more than those with the enemy. The speaker relates this story to the challenges we face in our own lives and encourages listeners to trust in God's strength even when the odds seem against us.

Hello, welcome to Charity Ministries. Our desire is that your life would be blessed and changed by this message. This message is not copyrighted and is not to be bought or sold. You are welcome to make copies for your friends and neighbors. If you would like additional messages, please go to our website for a complete listing at www.charityministries.org. If you would like a catalog of other sermons, please call 1-800-227-7902 or write to Charity Ministries, 400 West Main Street, Suite 1, Ephrata, Pennsylvania, 17522. These messages are offered to all without charge by the freewill offerings of God's people. A special thank you to all who support this ministry. Greetings in Jesus' name this morning. And what a blessing it is for us to be gathered together with the saints to join our individual walks with the Lord in a corporate praising and learning and growing together. I'm grateful for that opportunity. Christie and I are also grateful for the months that we've had to bring our lives together with yours on furlough. And you will see us one more Sunday, but this is probably my last opportunity to speak to you. And I do want to take the opportunity to thank you for the encouragements and blessings and support and prayer that we've received from all of you during these months. It is kind of a strange cycle of life that missionaries live. Here and then gone for two and a half years and then here again. And when we're here, we try to be here. And that means that we start joining our hearts with yours and that makes it somewhat hard to leave again. But on the other hand, our hearts are also in Africa and so it's difficult to be here. And we are very much looking forward to going back to Ghana and continuing with God's calling on our lives there. But thank you again to each one of you for what you've meant to us during our time here. I'd like us to sing another song. Sorry if you just finished one, but I'd like us to sing number 329. This song fits very much the heart of what I'd like to share this morning and I'd like for us to sing it. 329. I'd like for us to focus, while we sing this song, focus on all the things that we know not and then focus on the chorus, what we do know. 329. I know not why God's wondrous grace to me He hath made known, nor why unworthy Christ in love redeemed me for His own. But I know who I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to give that which I have to Him. I know not how this saving faith to me He did impart, nor how believing in His word brought peace within my heart. To keep that which I've committed, I know not how the Spirit moves convincing manner, revealing Jesus through the Word, creating faith. To keep that which I've committed, when my Lord may come at night or noonday fair, nor if I'll walk the veil with Him in the air. To keep that which I've committed, I know not how the Spirit moves convincing manner, or if I'll walk the veil with Him in the air. I know not how the Spirit moves convincing manner, or if I'll walk the veil with Him in the air. I know not how the Spirit moves convincing manner, or if I'll walk the veil with Him in the air. I know not how the Spirit moves convincing manner, I know not how the Spirit moves convincing manner, I know not how, I know not what, I know not when. You're right. I don't know. I don't know the why's, and I don't know the how's, I don't know the what's, and I don't know the when's. But I know the whom. And you don't need to know the why's, how's, what's, and when's if you know the whom. And the fact is that the devil can beat us day by day with the why's, how's, what's, and when's. But the whom gets him every time. Doesn't it? Think about it in your own experience. When you finally acknowledge that you don't know the answer to those questions, and you're, so to speak, up against the wall, you find that you're up against Christ, and you know the whom. I don't know the answers to all those questions, but I know the Person to Whom I've committed my life, and I believe and have a settled opinion that He is able. And because I know the whom, I don't need to know the what's, why's, when's, and how's, because I know the whom. That really lifted my faith this morning as I meditated on it. Because I don't know. I don't understand. I cannot explain to you in a philosophical way how God's grace works. I don't know how that saving faith was made known and imparted to each one of us. I don't know what of good or ill is coming. I don't. Sometimes the devil attacks us with that. I don't know when the Lord is coming. I don't know whether I'm going to be one of those who gets to be picked up into the clouds still alive, or if we're going to die and be resurrected. I don't know that. And I really do not need to know that. Because I know the Person to Whom I've committed my life. And I know that He's as good as His Word. And I know that every single promise that He has made to me, He will fulfill. Try answering the devil that way. Don't try arguing with him. Don't try showing him that you actually think you do know the what's, why's, when's, and how's. Don't try that. Tell him I know the whom. And because I know the whom, all those other things really don't matter. What is faith? What is faith? Faith is that confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen. Faith is that confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen. It is the evidence of the things that we cannot yet see. That's faith. We'll refer back to that later on. Let's turn to 2 Timothy 1. 2 Timothy 1 and verse 7. Very familiar verse. For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. I've been meditating on this verse again this week, thinking towards this message and realizing that one of the great temptations of my own life and one of the temptations that the devil places in front of the church in this generation is for us to give in to a spirit of fear or a spirit of despair. And the Bible tells us here that God is not the one who gives us that kind of a spirit. God has given us a spirit, but it is not the spirit of fear. It is rather the spirit of power and of love and of a sound mind. I think every one of us here this morning would say we have a sound mind. If you don't have a sound mind, that means you're not normal. Right? That would mean that you're not able to think. You're not in control of your mind. The latter doesn't reach all the way, some people say. In Africa, we refer to people who are not mentally sound as being crazy. Mentally handicapped. This verse says that God has given us the spirit of power and of love and of a sound mind. A sound mind is a mind which is able to think through things and arrive at conclusions based upon facts. That's a sound mind. It's stable. It's sound. It's all there. God has given us not a spirit of fear, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of a sound mind. I'm still leading up to the message here. If you'll just follow me a few more moments. I was thinking of how often fear is based on the opposite of a sound mind. Because God says He has not given us a spirit of fear, but on the opposite side of a spirit of fear, He has given us a spirit of power and of love and of a sound mind. And I was thinking about how much those two are related as in being opposites. If God has given us a sound mind, the ability to make right decisions based upon things which are true, that counters the spirit of fear. I was reminded of my childhood during the first war in Iraq. I think it was referred to as Desert Storm. I was a young man. That was around 91, I believe. My father was in Africa, visiting Africa when that Desert Storm broke. And that was the first war that I had known in my life. And I remember as a young man, I think I was probably 12 or 13, I remember the unsettledness that came into my heart as I realized that America was at war. And I remember being outside, mowing the lawn, and seeing military planes going overhead and thinking in my mind, I wonder if those are Iraqi planes. I wonder if maybe Saddam is going to bomb the United States of America. And there was an element of fear which came into my mind. Now, several of you chuckle, and all of you would chuckle if you would realize that Saddam did not then and did not in the current war have any planes capable of flying to Europe, definitely not to the United States. Which shows us that the fear which I was experiencing was not based upon facts. It was in fact a fear based upon disinformation. If I would have known that he didn't have any planes that could fly as far as the United States, then there's absolutely no fear that those planes were Iraqi planes. Think of another example. The Africans in my village, the Konkomba tribe, are absolutely terrified of toads. Now there is fear which is based upon right information, a respect which comes, for instance, from knowing that snakes can be poisonous. But sometimes there are fears based upon superstitions that have absolutely no ground at all. In the village of Bumbun where we live, Christy is known as being, my wife, is known as being one of the brave women in the village because she's been known to pick up toads with her bare hands. They like to come to the light during the rainy season and we'll have 50 or 60 of them just clustered around the front of the house and we get rid of them. We pick them up and we throw them over the wall. But the children will stand there and watch my wife and they'll chatter among themselves and say, wow, Madam is a brave woman because she's not afraid of toads. It's not that my wife has overcome a fear for toads. We have no fear for toads. Sure, we don't like them. Nobody likes them. But we don't fear them because there's no such thing as a poisonous toad and toads don't have teeth and we've never heard of anyone who's been bitten and hurt by a toad. So we don't really overcome our fear there. We simply have a sound mind based upon the facts which tells us toads do not have poison and they do not have fangs. So when you pick up a toad, you don't need to overcome your fear by bravery. You need to overcome your fear by a knowledge of the truth. But our village people soundly assure us that toads are poisonous. They believe them to be poisonous. We don't believe them to be poisonous. We're not overcoming fear when we pick them up. Well, God has not given us a spirit of fear. He has given us a spirit of power and of love and of a sound mind able to think based upon the facts. And that casts out fear. I stood in the Ephrata National Bank the other day and when you stand there at the teller, there's little plaques that are placed at every bank teller's window that I've been in anyway. They're placed there by the FDIC. Do you all know what the FDIC is? Federal Depositors Insurance Corporation. That is the federal government's corporation that they have set up to back up your bank deposits. And for many years, they have backed up your bank deposits to the tune of $100,000 per depositor. About a year ago or a year and a half ago when the financial situation in America started to shake and banks started closing down and people started losing money, in an effort to shore up that confidence in the banking system of America, the FDIC changed their rules. And I think for about one more year from now, they now back each person to the tune of $250,000. Which means that if you have $250,000 in the Ephrata National Bank and the Ephrata National Bank goes bankrupt, the federal government will step in and pay you back your money. In an effort to shore up confidence in the institutions, the banking institutions of America, they raised that deposit guarantee to $250,000. That really doesn't make any difference to me and it probably doesn't make a difference to most of you here. The fact that it's now guaranteed to the tune of a quarter of a million instead of $100,000. But the fact remains that I stood there at the bank counter and looked over and read that little sticker and realized that they have guaranteed this money to a degree which is way far above anything they'll ever need to guarantee for Daniel Keniston. But they did that to shore up my faith and to encourage me to believe that the money that I have placed in the Ephrata National Bank is safe and secure. That goes back to the song that we just sang. I know whom I have believed and I am persuaded that He is able to keep and safely maintain and protect all that I've committed unto Him against that day. The federal government doesn't want people like you and I showing up at the banks and saying, I'd like everything I have in cash, please. That would ruin the banking system overnight. You realize that. If all of you showed up and said, I want it in $100 bills. It's going into my mattress this afternoon. The banking system would fall apart in one day. So in order to encourage people to continue trusting their banks, they've upped what the FDIC insures. And I'm not at all holding up the federal government as an example of real security. I am holding up the Lord Jesus as an example of real security. And the fact is, is that as Scripture tells us, there is a sure recompense of reward. There is a sure guarantee of blessing and reward for all that you've committed unto Him against that day. So cast not away your confidence, because it has a sure recompense of reward. Don't pull your money out of your local bank. The government insures that your money will be there for you. Well, that promise can be pretty empty these days. But cast not away your confidence, the Bible says, because there is a sure recompense of reward. Never once has God failed. And I thank God for that. Let's turn to the book of Judges in chapter 7. We'd like to share this morning from this title, Whispers of Victory. Whispers of Victory. I think you're familiar with this story. This is the story of Gideon. God is raising up Gideon to deliver the children of Israel from the oppression of the Midianites. And God desires very much to be glorified by the battle, which is just about ready to follow here. And God is weeding out the numbers so that Gideon will be left with a number which God will use to glorify Himself and give victory to the children of Israel. And God has gone through a few processes here with Gideon removing people. And as we break in here, there are 300 people left. We'll start reading in chapter 7, verse 7. And the Lord said unto Gideon, by the 300 men that left, will I save you and deliver the Midianites into thine hand, and let all the other people go, every man unto his place, So the people took vittles in their hand and their trumpets, and He sent all the rest of Israel, every man unto his tent, and retained those 300 men. And the host of Midian was beneath him in the valley. And it came to pass the same night that the Lord said unto him, Arise, get thee down unto the host, for I have delivered it into thine hand. But if thou fear to go down, go thou with Purah thy servant down to the host, and thou shalt hear what they say. And afterward shall thine hands be strengthened to go down unto the host. Then went He down with Purah His servant unto the outside of the armed men that were in the host. And the Midianites, verse 12, and the Midianites and the Amalekites and all the children of the east lay along in the valley like grasshoppers for multitude. And their camels were without number as the sand by the seaside for multitude. And when Gideon was come, behold, there was a man that told a dream unto his fellow and said, Behold, I dreamed a dream. And lo, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the host of Midian and came unto a tent, and smote it that it fell, and overturned it that the tent lay along. And his fellow answered and said, This is nothing else save the sword of Gideon, the son of Joash, a man of Israel. For into his hand hath God delivered Midian and all the host. And it was so when Gideon heard the telling of the dream and the interpretation thereof that he worshiped, and returned unto the host of Israel and said, Arise, for the Lord hath delivered into your hand the host of Midian. And we'll stop reading there. You know the story. You know how he gathered those 300 men. The instructions that he gave to them and the victory that God also gave to them in the rest of that chapter. It's a beautiful story. But it's from this story that I draw the title, Whispers of Victory. My desire this morning is to whisper to you what God has been whispering to me. You know, you sit with the Lord and you're reading your Bible, or you're meditating on life, and you just hear the Lord sort of whispering into your heart. Whispers of Victory. And that's what I would like to share with you this morning. I also draw the title from the fact that God had Gideon and his servant kind of sneaking down there to the outskirts of the enemy camp to listen in on the nightmares of the Midianites. And I'm sure that it was done in quiet. We can notice several things from these verses. We can note that Gideon had a need for a strengthened heart. And I think if you put yourself in Gideon's shoes, you won't have any hard time acknowledging that you would also need a strengthened heart in Gideon's circumstances. Gideon is taking on an army which is spread out in the valley like grasshoppers. And he thought that he had a tiny army to begin with, and then God took the paring knife and just sort of started eliminating his numbers until he's down to only 300 men. And then God says, okay, Gideon, with these 300 men, I will give you victory. And God says, get up, Gideon, tonight's the night. But, if you need to be reminded, He says here, but if thou fear to go down, but if you fear to go down, and Gideon did fear to go down, surely he had seen God's hand in calling him. He had seen the hand of God in gathering the tribes of Israel around him. He had had the dry fleece and the wet fleece, but now God is asking him to step out with only 300 men. And God says, tonight's the night. But, if you fear to go, yes, Lord, I fear to go. You see Gideon's need for a strengthened heart. Secondly, you see the heart of God desiring to encourage Gideon and us. Now, God could have said to Gideon, you know, Gideon, I've given you about four different miracles. I've showed you My hand in various ways. Now, I'd just like you to get up and do what I say. No, God looked at Gideon. He saw that he was stretching his faith. And He said, Gideon, if you're still afraid, I will arrange a private viewing for you. I will arrange a private showing. I will let you listen in on the dreams of the Midianites. And your heart and your hand will be strengthened. Do you ever feel like you're taking on the Midianites with 300? Whether your challenges are the challenges of shepherding God's people, whether your challenges are shepherding your own family, whether your challenges are taking on those Midianites, those enemies of your own personal walk with God, which seem to be, yes, stretched out in the valley like grasshoppers. Whatever your challenges are, do you ever feel like Gideon? Lord, I'm supposed to take on this enemy with these 300 people. Lord, the odds seem incredible. Do the odds ever seem incredible to you? You look at yourself. You look at your own abilities. You look at maybe the grace of God that you sense on your life. You look at your own spiritual strength and you say, Lord, You mean for me to take on this enemy, this battle, this challenge, with these 300? I think the beautiful truth this morning is that God doesn't say to you, Yeah, get on with it. God says to you and I, like He said to Gideon, Tonight's the night. And yes, with these 300, I am going to help you to win a victory. But if you're still afraid, if you're still afraid, God has a heart to encourage us. And I thank God for that truth this morning. The heart of God to encourage Gideon. Gideon, if you're still afraid, if these odds seem unusual to you, I'll allow you an opportunity to catch a glimpse, sort of look over the next mountain, sort of take a telescope of faith and see what's coming. I'll let you listen in on the whispers of victory if you're still afraid. Thank God that He does that. We also notice Gideon and his servant, Pura, listening in on the whispers of victory. Can you imagine them creeping up now? This is not 300 men now. This is two men creeping up on a camp of hundreds of thousands of soldiers down there in the valley. And Gideon and Pura, his servant, creeping down there very quietly, trying to get within earshot of the camp without obviously raising an alarm. Can you imagine how they crept down there? Quietly. Real quiet. Hearing every stick that broke, every grass that swished. And I don't know whether Gideon heard it first or Pura heard it first, but you can imagine them. Listen. Listen to that. And they heard the Midianites recounting their nightmares to each other. Whispers of victory. Listen to that, Gideon. Listen to that, Pura. A barley loaf. Dreams can be strange things, can't they? But the Midianites knew that barley loaf is none other than Gideon. That barley loaf that just came rolling down the mountain and smashed over the tent, that's none other than Gideon. And Gideon was listening. Yes! Whispers of victory. God let Gideon see over the hilltop. God let Gideon look ahead and know that the victory was certain. Listen, Gideon. They already know what's going to happen. They're already terrified. They're already having nightmares. They already know about you and they already know that I'm going to use you to conquer them. Listen, Gideon. God said to Gideon, He said, verse 11, you will hear what they say and afterwards shall thine hands be strengthened. Verse 15, and it was so when Gideon heard the telling of the dream and the interpretation thereof that he worshipped. Would you worship? Yes, you would. It would be quiet worship. Right? You're right beside a quarter of a million soldiers. It would be quiet worship, but it would be worship. It says, Gideon worshipped and returned unto the host of Israel and said, Arise! Gideon, the man who is to lead 300 men to take on a massive army. Gideon, the man who God said, you'll listen to their talking and your hand will be strengthened. He listened to the dreams of the Midianites and he went back up to the host and said, Arise! For the Lord hath delivered into your hand the host of Midian. God said, you'll listen to their dreams and it will strengthen your hand. Do you need a strengthened hand this morning? Do you need to say to God's people, Arise! God has delivered them into your hand. Whispers of victory. You know, I believe that God does this for us. I don't believe God only does this for Gideon. There have been times in my life where maybe not in quite as dramatic a way, because the battles that I fight are not with the Midianites, but certainly in just as clear a way, I feel like God has said, Here, Daniel. You're struggling right now? Come and listen to this. And you listen to whispers of victory. You look ahead. Sometimes through stories or situations that God allows you to observe. Sometimes through looking at the Word of God. God points up the road ahead and says, this is where you're going. This is the victory which is going to be won. Whispers of victory. And God strengthens our hand and enables us to go back to the host of Israel and say, Arise! I desire to share with you some of those whispers of victory that the Lord has used in my own heart, because I surely do need them sometimes. We're going to just flip through a few portions of Scripture here. Turn to Exodus 14. Maybe these are not very well arranged, and maybe there's dozens that could be included and are not. I'm simply walking you through some of the whispers of victory that God has been putting in my ears, literally, during the last week or two. Exodus 14. Children of Israel have escaped out of the slavery of Egypt, and Pharaoh has finally released them, and they're marching towards the Red Sea. And suddenly, Pharaoh changes his mind and decides to chase them. We'll start reading in verse 10 of chapter 14. And when Pharaoh drew nigh, the children of Israel lifted up their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians marched after them, and they were sore afraid. And the children of Israel cried out unto the Lord. And they said unto Moses, because there were no graves in Egypt, hast Thou taken us away to die in the wilderness? Wherefore hast Thou dealt thus with us to carry us forth out of Egypt? Is not this the word that we did tell thee in Egypt, saying, let us alone that we may serve the Egyptians? For it had been better for us to serve the Egyptians than that we should die in the wilderness. And Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not. Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will show to you today. For the Egyptians whom ye have seen today, ye shall see them again no more for ever. The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace. And the Lord said unto Moses, Wherefore crieth Thou unto Me, speak unto the children of Israel that they go forward. Have you ever felt cornered just like the children of Israel did? You've got the sea in front of you and you've got the armies of Egypt massing behind you. And God's people were just being herded into a trap. And they saw it. And they said, Moses, why did you do this to us? You couldn't find enough graves to bury us in Egypt, so you brought us all out here so we could die here. We'd rather have been slaves than to just die and be left laying here in the wilderness. And Moses said, Hey, listen. These Egyptians that ye see today, ye shall see them no more for ever. Take a good look at them, guys, because you're never going to see them again. These Egyptians that ye see today, ye shall see them no more for ever. What, Moses? How? We're unarmed. These enemies which are massed behind you, which seem to be forcing you into a trap, God's people, listen, you're never going to see them again. Ye shall see them no more for ever. The Lord will fight for you and ye shall hold your peace. God will fight for you. We don't have any weapons. God will fight for you. There's no way we can take on a trained army. God will fight for you. There's many more of them than there are of us. God will fight for you. Ye shall hold your peace and the Lord will fight for you. This is a whisper of victory, brothers and sisters. Those enemies which mass against you, those doubts, those discouragements, those temptations, those things which make you feel like you're trapped, God wants to whisper in our hearts this morning, hey, these Egyptians that ye see today, ye shall see them again. You'll never see them again. You will see them again no more for ever. They're about to be eliminated. God's people saw the Egyptians trapping them up against the sea. Moses and God had the sound minds. They had made decisions based upon the facts. And what Moses and God saw was an army that was never going to be seen again. You get that? God's people saw an army that looked to God's people like they were about to be eliminated. But God and Moses knew that the army of the Egyptians was the one about to be eliminated. You're never going to see them again. Then the Lord said to Moses, Moses, why are you crying unto Me? Tell the people to start moving forward. Forward, really. Forward. There's water in front of us, Lord. Tell the people to go forward. It's time to stop crying, Moses. It's time to get the people moving. You're never going to see this Egyptian army again. And of course, you and I know the story, right? We know what happened. And so, we read this, and it's very easy for us to say, that's right, children of Israel, get walking, because the sooner you get walking, the sooner God can trap the Egyptians in the sea behind you. So, get moving. It's easy for you and I to stand on this side and say, of course, it's time for you to move out. But that's just the point, isn't it? God's people had to act in faith. And you and I also have to act in faith this morning. Tell the people they should move forward. These enemies that are now massed behind you, you will never see them again. Turn to 2 Kings 3. Again, it's a time of war again, and God's people are going up against enemies. Lots of enemies. And the king of Moab is going up against Israel and Judah. And we'll start reading in chapter 3, verse 14. These kings have gathered together and they come to Elisha and say, Elisha, we want you to tell us what's going to happen. We want you to prophesy over us. And in verse 14, Elisha said, As the Lord of hosts liveth before whom I stand, surely were it not that I regard the presence of Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, I would not look toward thee nor see thee, but now bring me a minstrel. And it came to pass when the minstrel played that the hand of the Lord came upon him and he said, Thus saith the Lord, make this valley full of ditches. For thus saith the Lord, ye shall not see wind, neither shall ye see rain, yet that valley shall be filled with water, that ye may drink, both ye and your cattle and your beasts. And this is but a light thing in the sight of the Lord. He will deliver the Moabites also into your hand. And ye shall smite every fence city and every choice city and shall fell every good tree and stop all wells of water and mar every good piece of land with stones. And it came to pass in the morning when the meat offering was offered that behold, there came water by the way of Edom and the country was filled with water. Here's the children of Judah and the children of Israel gathered together out in the wilderness trying to fight, but there's no water. There's no water for the animals. There's no water for the people. And suddenly they're terrified, not by the fact that the Moabites might wipe them out, they're terrified that they might be wiped out by thirst before they even get a chance to fight the Moabites. And they come to Elisha and say, Elisha, what's going to happen? And Elisha says, God's command is that you dig ditches all over this valley. Ditches? No, Elisha, we already tried that. If there was water under here, we would have found it, because we've been digging. Believe me, we've been looking for water. No, God says, dig this valley full of ditches. You're not going to see wind and you're not going to see rain, but this valley will be filled with water. That's the Word of the Lord. You're not going to know where it comes from, but this valley will be filled with water. You're all going to need to be able to drink at the same time. I don't want to flood this valley. I want to flood the ditches. So you dig the ditches. And they dug the ditches, and the next morning it says, there came water by the way of Edom. In this ditch digging, I see all of those faith choices that you and I must continually make to obey the Word of the Lord, though it makes no sense to us at times. God's people are starving for water, trying to conserve their energy to fight against Moab, and God says, fill this valley with ditches. It seems to make no sense. But God says, you dig the ditches, and I'll send the water. And I don't even have to send it in the normal ways. You don't have to see a storm. It doesn't have to rain. I can send water into this valley. It says that the next morning, when the meat offering was offered, there came water. It doesn't say how it came, where it came from. There came water. That's enough. Whispers of victory, brothers and sisters. Do you need something from the Lord? Are you crying out to God, asking for something? God says to you this morning, dig this valley full of ditches. You keep acting upon the belief that I am going to meet your need and I will meet your need. You dig this valley full of ditches and then expect the unexpected because you won't see wind and you won't see rain, but this valley will be filled with water. Think of that especially for you young people. You're in the ditch-digging part of life. Keep digging your ditches and the valley will be filled with water. Keep obeying God. Keep acting upon His Word. 2 Kings 6 Just a couple of pages over. Familiar stories here. Different prophets, different people's lives, but threaded together by the common theme of victory. 2 Kings 6 Okay, in this story, Elisha is in Dothan and the king of Syria has been trying to capture Elisha for some time. And he finally gets a clue that Elisha is in Dothan. And in the night time, he sends an army to take out a prophet. He sends an army to surround the city and cut off any possible means of escape. We are going to get Elisha. Verse 14 of chapter 6 And he, the king of Syria, therefore sent he, Thither, horses and chariots and a great host. And they came by night and compassed the city about. And when the servant of the man of God was risen early and gone forth, behold, and a host compassed the city, both with horses and chariots. And his servant said unto him, Alas, my master, how shall we do? Have you ever risen up early or rose up early in the morning? And in the early light you started contemplating the enemies which surround your life. You know, sometimes the period in which you try to seek God and worship Him, read the Word of God and pray, sometimes the devil seeks to use that as a time to attack you. Does that ever happen to you? You wake up early in the morning like Elisha's servant did, and in the early light of the morning he looked out over the city wall and he said, oh my, we're surrounded. We're cut off. There's no way of escape. They've surrounded this city. And he went to his master and he said, Alas, my master, how shall we do? And I know that in your heart you're already going, that's right, read the next verse. Read the next verse. The fact is that you and I know the next verse, so this story is exciting to us. But place yourself where that servant of Elisha was for a moment. It was not an exciting story. It was a tragedy. Alas, Master, how shall we do? They got us this time. We've been running from them for a long time, but they got us. Here we are in this little city of Dothan and here's an army all the way around this city. How shall we do? And he, Elisha, answered, Fear not, for they that be with us are more than they that be with them. Pardon me? Pardon me, Elisha? I'm not sure if I understood you. Those that are with us are more than those that are with them? Elisha, it's just you and I here and I'm your loyal servant, but that makes two. And there we are. We're cut off. They're surrounding us. And you say those that are with us are more than those that are with them. And Elisha prayed and said, Lord, I pray Thee, open his eyes that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man and he saw. He finally saw. He really saw. He saw reality. And behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha. And when they came down to him, Elisha prayed unto the Lord and said, smite this people, I pray Thee, with blindness. And he smote them with blindness according to the word of Elisha. And Elisha said unto them, this is not the way, neither is this the city. Follow me and I will bring you to the man whom ye seek. But he led them to Samaria. And it came to pass when they were coming to Samaria that Elisha said, Lord, open the eyes of these men that they may see. Two prayers just a couple of verses apart. Lord, open their eyes. Very different effect. Lord, open the eyes of these men that they may see. And the Lord opened their eyes and they saw. And behold, they were in the midst of Samaria. Again, I'd like to point out to you the fact that we know the victory end of this story and that's why this story is exciting to us. We read it and your mind says, let's jump to the next verse. Because we know what happens next. We know the final end. We know the victory that God won in this situation for Elisha and his servant. But a lot of times, you and I are just like the servant, aren't we? Master, how shall we do? I don't see any means of escape. They have got us totally surrounded this time around. Elisha said, Lord, open the eyes of this young man. He's not really seeing reality. He's seeing one of the realities. He sees the army of Syria surrounding us. But there's another reality that he's not seeing. And if he could see that other reality, he wouldn't be afraid anymore. Instead of saying the Syrians have us cut off, he would see like Elisha said. You know what? I think we just captured the entire Syrian army. Because we're here and there's chariots of fire all around the Syrian army. I think we got them. Hallelujah! Can you see that? Elisha stood there and said, I think we've got them surrounded. The servant stood there and said, I think we're surrounded. There's a ring out beyond, servant of Elisha, that you don't see. And brothers and sisters, this morning I would like to say, hey, let me whisper some victory into your ear. There's a circle of soldiers, fiery chariots, out beyond the circle of enemies that you now see around your life. You've got them trapped. They've not got you trapped. You've got them trapped. Provided we are willing to walk by faith. I said to you at the beginning that a sound mind is a mind that is making decisions based upon reality, based upon facts. Well, you and I are believers in Jesus Christ. We love Him and He loves us. That is our reality. Our reality is a future victory. That is what we must base the decisions of our life upon. I said to you that at the basis of much fear is disinformation and lies. Right? There's a lot of lies and disinformation that creates fear. I've been hearing everywhere I go in America, I've been hearing people talk about swine flu. H1N1, I think it is, or something like that. You know, I think the media has an interest in creating a hype. They desire to create a fear. They want all of us to be saying, oh my, what's going to happen? There was recently a statistic released which says 75,000 people will die of swine flu in the next year. That sounds pretty bad. Except that that's actually disinformation. Because most of those people are people who would die already this year. That's just they will die of swine flu this year. That needs to be put in a context. How many people die from car accidents? How many people will die from pneumonia? How many people will die from the common cold this year? All those things must be laid in context. And suddenly say, oh, okay, well, that's not quite as frightening as it sounds. Fear is often based upon lies and disinformation. And the fear that the devil desires to put into our hearts is often largely based upon lies and disbelief and disinformation which makes it appear to us as if we're surrounded, when the fact is that they're surrounded. Hallelujah. And God has not given us a spirit of fear this morning. He has given us a spirit of power and of love and of a sound mind. A mind which is able to make decisions based on real realities. Reality means real, but you know, there are so many different realities in the world today. Eternal realities. Elisha saw an opportunity. He said we can take on the entire army of Syria. What a switch it was. A few minutes later, Elisha and his servant leading the now blinded army of Syria into the city of Samaria. Do you see that irony at all? Unbelievable. From waking up in the early morning believing that it's all over, we're surrounded, to maybe an hour later, two men leading an army. Elisha acted upon eternal realities. He did not respond in fear. He responded it with a sound mind. And a sound mind for a believer is a mind which is making decisions based upon the victory of Christ in the past and the future victory of Christ and the church in the future. My wife and I were sharing about this message this morning some, and I said to my wife, I said, you know, I think many times we are using the grace of God and we're using our own human tenacity to try to not be afraid of the toads. Going back to the story of the concubines being terrified of toads. We are using the grace of God to try not to be afraid of the toads when what the Word of God would desire is to tell us that toads are not poisonous. And if you can believe that toads are not poisonous, you will no longer be afraid of them. Right? The future victory is assured. And God desires to use that to strengthen our hearts. Or as He said to Gideon, your hand will be strengthened. Let's turn to Romans 8 and to the New Testament. As believers, we must be committed to believing what God says in His Word about us, about the church, about our relationship with Him, about His commitment to us. We must believe what He says. That is reality. And basing your life upon what God says is a sound mind. Romans 8, verse 31. What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all. How shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is He that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? As it is written, for Thy sake we are killed all the day long. We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Now the answer, nay, in all these things, all those terrible things that were just listed, nay, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. Hey! We are more than conquerors through the power of Him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. A sound mind, a Christian sound mind is a mind which makes decisions based upon these concrete realities. Remember the song we sang? But I know whom I have believed. It's not based on the what's and when's and how's. It's based upon the whom. It's based upon His faithfulness. Hallelujah. The Scripture tells us none of these things will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. That is the eternal truth that we must make our decisions on. That is a sound mind. A couple of pages over. Romans 16. Verse 20. Paul is saying goodbye to the Roman church. And as he does in some of these epistles, he sort of signs off. It's almost like he had a list of things he still wanted to cover, and he just sort of hits them one verse at a time in the last chapter or two of the epistles. He does this in several of them. Verse 20 says, And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen. The Cucumber language does not have a word for bruise. So when the Cucumbers read this verse, it comes out more like crush or smear out like this. And when they read that verse, they usually do this, because it's a picture. Paul says, The God of peace shall snuff out or bruise Satan under your feet shortly. That's an eternal reality. It may not feel that way at times, but Paul says to the Roman church and God says to you and I this morning, God is going to rub out, snuff out Satan. He's going to bruise Satan under your feet, and it's going to happen shortly. Brothers and sisters, take courage. It's going to happen shortly. I love that picture. Are you familiar with the expression, I've read the last chapter of the book? Familiar with that expression? Have you read the last chapter of this book? The last chapters? Have you read the book of Revelations? Have you read the future victory of Jesus Christ? My wife and I have two different reading styles. For Christi, if she reads the last chapter of the book, she doesn't read the book, because she already knows what's going to happen. Do you know, I like to read the last chapter of the book. It kind of makes the rest of the book make sense. And in life, we must read the last chapter of the book. I don't think without reading the last chapters of this book and believing in the realities that the last chapters of this book lay in front of us, I don't think we could make it through life. But we have read the last chapters of the book. We have them. The future victory of Jesus is assured. And that makes it possible for us to walk through what's going on in our lives today. You know, you read the last chapter of a book and you realize that the hero is still alive in the last chapter. That means in chapter 6, where I'm reading today, he must not die, even though it looks like he's going to die. Right? Well, if you've read the last chapter of the book, no matter how much your faith may shake at times, and no matter how much you may wonder whether right is going to win, and no matter how much you may wonder if Satan is not going to succeed in his battle against your soul, it's not going to happen. Because the last chapter has already been written. And it is a chapter of victory. Whispers of victory. I desire this morning to just whisper in your ear, brother, sister, this is the victory of Christ. It is a victory which is assured. It is a victory which is meant to strengthen your hand as you fight the enemy. God has been using these very portions of Scripture to do that in my heart these weeks. Read the last chapter of the book again. Let's do that here. Let's read in Revelation 21. Second to the last chapter. Revelation 21 and verse 1. And I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the first heaven and the first earth were passed away, and there was no more sea. And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away. And He that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And He said unto me, Write, for these words are true and faithful. And He said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto Him that is a thirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. He that overcometh shall inherit all things. And I will be His God, and He shall be My Son. That's the second to the last chapter. The victory of Christ is assured. This comes as an application from a verse of Scripture, but you're all familiar with the verse that says, At the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that He is Lord. You're familiar with that verse? Do you believe that verse? Do you believe that every means every? I draw courage from that verse. You know, I oftentimes feel like I'm in the minority. You walk the streets of Tamale on a Friday afternoon around 1 o'clock, and at 1 o'clock the prayer calls go up all across that city, and basically the city goes into the mosque. And now you're one of the few who's not in the mosque. Thousands of people pour in and out of the mosques between 1 and 2 o'clock on a Friday afternoon. You see them in their rows. Hundreds of people just lined up in perfectly straight rows praying in unison, bowing. And I think of this verse. Every one of those knees is going to bow. God has already promised it. At the name of Jesus, all of those knees that now fill that mosque, they will bow. And every one of those tongues is going to confess Jesus Christ as the Son of God. God has already promised that. That's living a life based upon the last chapter. I feel like the minority. I feel like one of the few. I feel like I'm one of the only ones whose knee is bowing, and whose tongue is confessing Jesus as Lord. But God has already promised that all of those people will one day join Me. That encourages my heart. In the Concomitant setting, I don't think we have any villages that are more than 30% Christian. And maybe you think, wow, I don't know if 30% of my neighbors are born again. I don't know if they are either. But to live in a village in an African context where most of the people around you are all idol worshipers, and you're one of the few people who chooses to worship God, that's living in the minority. But the Bible says, at the name of Jesus, every one of those knees will also bow. We get the privilege of being ahead of the prophecy. But the fact is that the prophecy will come true and all of those knees are going to bow. Well, then I'm very happy and proud to be in the minority that gets to bow ahead of time. That's living based upon having a sound mind based upon these whispers of victory. Looking ahead to the future victory of Jesus Christ and basing my life upon it now. I realize that every one of us has different battles. I think I understand yours a bit. I've been here for six months now. Seven months. And I know some of the battles that you face, some of the victories that have been won. I don't understand all of your battles. But I would like to share with you just a few of my specific whispers of victory. Specific situations in Africa where I feel like God has said to me like He said to Gideon, Daniel, if you're still afraid, if you're still having a hard time trusting, if it's still hard for you to believe that I can win a victory with you, why don't you come down here into this valley and listen to what's going on among the Midianite camp. My desire here is to encourage you two ways. Number one, I want to encourage you in your own walk with God. Whatever Egyptians or Syrians or enemies surround your life, future victory has been assured. That says to you and I, let's strengthen our hands. Let's put our faith in God. Let's reaffirm our conviction that everything that we've committed to Him, He's able to keep. And let's get up and fight again. Secondly, we work together with you in Africa. And it's only right that as you walk with us through many challenges and trials and difficulties, it's also right that I would say to you, hey, you should hear what they're saying over here. About a year ago now, maybe a year and a half ago, a 70, maybe 75-year-old soothsayer, witch doctor, however you want to say it, a 75-year-old soothsayer from one of our villages became a Christian. We don't have very many 75-year-old men in the Concomitant churches. So the fact that he was 75 years old was thrilling. To have the wisdom and strength of an old man sitting in the meetings there with the men and bringing wisdom and bringing his context in, that has been a strength. To see an old man who feels like he has just a few years left to live, to see an old man now following Christ and the joy of his salvation on that old man's life has been absolutely delightful. This old man shared his testimony with us in a leaders' meeting about a year ago and he told the Concomitant church brothers there that we have been thinking that there's no one listening to the gospel in his village. Several of the brothers had been going consistently about once a month to preach in this old man's village. And so far there had only been three people who had believed. Three people is not a very large church. They would go and they would sit there under the tree and share the Word of God together and sing a few songs and pray. It was hard going to keep going back to a village where there are three people. And then this old man got saved and he told us that for two years he had been coming to the services, but he was a practicing witch doctor renowned in about maybe a 70 or 80 village area. People came to him from a large area like a county, the size of a county. Eighty villages would come to him at times and ask to have their future foretold, tell them why someone died, tell them what they need to do, what sacrifices they need to make in order to succeed. For two years, this old witch doctor had been coming to the services in this village, but he was afraid to come into the glow of the kerosene lamp. He didn't want people to know that he was coming. And so for two years, this man had been out in the shadows, out there in the darkness listening to the services. That's a whisper of victory. And it surely was to the Concomitant leaders. Now when they pray, I hear them say, Lord, we don't know who might be out there in the darkness tonight listening to this service. It feels like we just have a few people here tonight, but it could be that the witch doctor of this village is out there in the shadows. That's a whisper of victory. And the testimony of this old man has strengthened the church. He says to the younger men, he says, you know, I've lived 75 years, all of my life, I've lived for Satan. And now God in His mercy allowed me before I die to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to believe it. But you young men, he says, and he's an old man, and in Concomitant culture, when an old man talks, everybody listens. He says, you young men, can you imagine what God would have done with my life if 40 or 50 years ago I would have believed the Gospel and lived for Christ for the last 40 or 50 years? That's a whisper of victory. And it has encouraged my heart to pray for more old men, to pray for more witch doctors, to pray that those who have worked against the church and cursed its leaders would get born again. That's a whisper of victory. Specific to the Concomitant, specific to my life, but specific to our lives because we're all laboring together there. Oh, this is three or four years ago now. I remember biking into a village early in the morning. This has happened more than once, but one of them is seared into my memory. Early in the morning, maybe 6 o'clock, biking up to visit a church leader and pulling into this little African village and hearing the sound of preaching at 6 o'clock in the morning. I thought, wow! It's not Sunday and it's not Friday, so I wonder why they're having a service at 6 o'clock in the morning. But I went towards the sound of the preaching and pulled up to the house of the church leader there. And there's a Concomitant leader who taught himself to read four or five years ago, who now reads at a second, maybe third grade level. And he's standing outside of his house and he's got his three children sitting there on the ground in front of him. And he's preaching. They don't really understand that you can preach to your family in a different tone of voice than you preach to the church. He's reading the Word of God. And that means preaching. And his wife was over there making breakfast and he's preaching to his children. And God tapped me on the shoulder that morning and said, Hey, Daniel, look at this. Remember it. This is going to keep happening. This is My whisper of victory in your ear, Daniel. This is the future of the Concomitant churches. This is just beginning. My Word is going to keep working out until this becomes normal. Hallelujah. And I needed that whisper of victory that morning and I need it still today to just step back and say, okay. Wow. Yes, we have an uphill battle sometimes. But if God's Word and the labor of a life poured out for God's work and God's Word can equal that, that's nothing. Let's do it. That's where it's going. That's a whisper of victory. Just two months or so before I came back here on furlough, so about eight months ago now, we had our first Christian funeral. I don't mean by that that the first Christian passed away. We've had numerous believers who've passed away and died with it. Sweet Christian testimony. But in most situations, you have a Christian who dies, but the family is unbelieving. And so the church is limited in what it can do for that person because the family is unbelieving. So you come in and you try to stop them from making sacrifices and all the things that they do when someone dies. But the church has limited power to do that. But in this situation, we had an old woman who died, maybe 70 years old, 75 years old. She died with a sweet Christian testimony on her lips. She died with a testimony of even in those final weeks when she knew she was dying, she still refused the witchcraft and the juju which her relatives would bring to her on an almost daily basis. You're dying. You need to wear this. You need to do this. You need to drink this. You need to take a bath in this. You need to sacrifice this. And she would just hold her line. And this old woman passed away, but in this situation, all of her sons are believers. And that's the first we've had that an old person died and all the children were believers. And so, at 7 o'clock, 8 o'clock at night, they came and informed me she's passed away. And there were the sons. And they were all just all in a buzz. Mr. Daniel, our mother was a Christian. We are Christians. We must act fast. If we can quickly pull together enough church leaders, we can bury our mother as a Christian, Mr. Daniel. But if we don't move quickly, the uncles and aunts and all the in-laws will gather and then we won't be able to stop them. They'll do the sacrifices and all those things and it won't be in our power anymore. So we've got to act quickly. So we all kicked into gear and started biking and motorcycling here and there. And by 11 o'clock at night, out in a village, in the middle of nowhere, there were about maybe 60 of us, 60 or 70 of us believers gathered there. Most of the top church leaders and then believers from the surrounding villages that could be gathered quickly in the middle of the night. There were about 300 other people there. That's the relatives, the village, the chief's family, all the in-laws, all the people who are connected to this person's life. But they agreed to step aside and let us bury this woman as a believer. I think it took until 2 in the morning, maybe 3 in the morning, they bury immediately. But you know, in some ways, this is my work. But in other ways, I got to stand back and watch about a half a dozen of the top Concumba leaders as they prayed together, talked together. How are we going to do this? Okay, now what do we do here? Is this allowed? Is this not allowed? How shall we bury this woman? Okay, let's tell them we're going to sing. Okay, now we're going to pray. Now somebody's going to preach a little bit about following Jesus. Okay, now we're going to bury her. And by no means was I leading that first Christian funeral. That's a whisper of victory. What a testimony. Hundreds of heathen people sitting there as they do in their culture, spending the night awake, watching a family bury their dead. I mean, I said fuck myself that night. Lord, is this the first person in hundreds of years in a 50 mile radius to be buried without witchcraft? Wow! That's exciting! A believer dies with believing children. And a body is committed to the ground with the children standing around knowing that their mother is in heaven. Wow! That's a whisper of victory. And I pray to experience it many more times. But while I labor and work to experience it more times, just let that whisper of victory settle into our hearts, into your heart, into my heart. Cell phones are getting more common. I'm almost done. Cell phones are getting more common in Ghana. Getting cheaper. So I've had the opportunity to talk to my leaders several times since I've been on furlough. It's an extremely strange feeling to talk to one of them in the village and you can hear the guinea fowls in the background and you can hear the particular birds that we have in Africa. And they're up in the top of a tree trying to get a connection with Mr. Daniel. But I spoke with them a few months ago and one of the leaders said to me in a very excited voice, Mr. Daniel, you know how you always gather us for the leaders' meetings. You know how you always organize the people and send out the information and gather the food and just organize all the details of having a weekend of meetings for the leaders. Well, we did it without you. We did it for the first time without you. And Mr. Daniel, we've always known that the people were coming because of the Word of God, but we never knew because we never did it without you. But we did it without you and they still came. And we did it. Just like a child who rides a bicycle without training wheels for the first time. Or a child who walks for the first time without holding onto someone's hand. Or the first paycheck for a young man. I did it by myself! And I sense their delight and I rejoice in that. I don't want it to be dependent upon me, not for a moment. I want them to have the joy and delight of walking out all the elements of church life without Mr. Daniel. Well, that day God said to me, Hey! Hey! I care about these people. I've done a real work in their lives. They're going to go on and follow Me. They're going to work under their own leadership. They're going to become a strong, solid, biblical church in Concomitant land. Hey! Whispers of victory. We had an election last year the same time you had an election here. Ghana has an election. And I never realized it before, but my leaders are some of the only literate men in an area the size of half a county. Half of Lancaster County. They're some of the only men who know how to read. And so suddenly, a few months before the election, all the political parties started pouring up into our area, recruiting. And it never occurred to me that they would try to recruit our leaders because I just... I didn't think about it. But suddenly there we were, facing this. We'll give you a motorcycle if you'll go around to the villages and recruit, you know. Preach our party politics. Get people to vote for us. All the things that go along with politics in Ghana. You know, those leaders took a rock-solid stand on that issue. I didn't know about it until it was over. I didn't realize it was coming. I didn't see it coming. Maybe I should have. But they just informed me. We had a meeting, Mr. Daniel, and we all agreed that it would be a disgrace for someone who has been called to preach the Word of God to fly the flag of a political party. And I said, well, thank You, Lord. Because I'm not always going to be here, Lord. And if they can't learn from Your Word and apply the principles of Your Word to the challenges that I do not foresee in their lives, then it's not going to work. But if You will lovingly guide them and give them verses and speak to them and help them to apply Scripture, the future of the Concomitant Church is assured. That's a whisper of victory. We have our Friday afternoon prayer meetings with a dozen leaders. Every two or three weeks, we spend the afternoon together, usually in fasting and prayer and Bible study. There are many afternoons where I'm on my knees or standing up, as the case may be, with a group of Concomitant leaders and I'm listening to them pray. They're opening the Word of God and encouraging each other with verses from Scripture. And in my heart, I just sort of step back a little ways and just observe for a while and I think, wow, Lord, it works. Your Word works. The blood of Jesus Christ works. The Word of God can be applied here. These people are growing in grace. They're growing in authority. They're growing in faith. It works. I get to watch God creating a Concomitant church. You and I get to have a hand in the creating of a Concomitant church. Whispers of victory. I don't know what challenges you face today. I'm very keenly aware of mine. May God tap every one of us on the shoulder this morning and just whisper His future victory into our hearts. May we have a sound mind which casts out fear. May we keep our deposits where we've already placed them. May we have the confidence of knowing that the One to Whom we have committed our lives, the One to Whom we have vested our faith in, the One to Whom we've lived our lives desiring to honor and glorify, He is able to keep all that that we've committed to Him. Remember, we don't need to know the what, the why, the when, and the how. We know Who. Use that one to answer the devil this week. I know Whom I have believed in. And may God continue to encourage your hearts this morning in the faith investment that you have made, prayer and financially, and by giving us to the Concomitants in Africa and give you faith and courage to believe that future victory is assured. God is doing His work there. Thank you and God bless you. Let's bow our heads. Father, we thank You for Your Word this morning. It does speak faith into our hearts. We believe You, Lord. We believe Your Word. We believe who You say You are. We believe that You are at work in our lives. And Lord, we refuse to listen to the lies and disinformation of the enemy who desires to plant fear in our hearts. We want to walk by faith. Faith is that substance of the things that we're hoping for. It's the evidence of the things that we don't see. Let us believe You and act upon that belief, Lord. Thank You for every brother and sister here. Father, whisper Your victory into their hearts. We thank You in Jesus' name. Faith is what? The evidence of things not seen. The evidence. The evidence of things not seen. I'd like to just read this in Hebrews 11 here yet. What shall I more say for the time would fill me to tell of Gideon and of Barak, of Samson, of Jephthah, of David also, and Samuel and of the prophets? Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouth of lions? Reunite that man and woman of faith this morning who can stop the mouth of the lion, Satan? Who can wrought righteousness, obtain promises? Will your name be one of those? When your life is over and your story is written, that you have been a man and a woman of faith. You have obtained righteousness, promises by walking in faith. Through the battles, storms, trials, temptations that we all face in our Christian walk, God tests our faith at times to see if we're going to believe Him in the midst of difficult times. Okay, I know it's late. I think we'll take time for one or two testimonies here perhaps. And then I think we need to move on. Slip your hand up if you desire to share something in regards to the message this morning. Anyone care to share? Sisters, brethren, here we have one in the back. We have two mics. Anyone else want to slip their hand up? Go ahead, Tim. I'm thrilled at that. I was doing a lot of thinking as Brother Daniel was going through the message, but it was at the end that it really caught my attention. You mentioned about being thrilled at the fact, at the realization that God's ways, God's Word works. I've often told myself that. I believe that. I don't question that in my mind, and I hesitate to say I don't question it in my heart, though. But I had to think. Those men, when faced with some of the benefits they could have gained by getting involved in this political stuff that was going on. Understood that they are part of a different kingdom. They could not do that. They understood it would be disgraceful to the name of the Lord to get involved in that kind of thing. And my heart just said, that is the clearest evidence that I could think of to prove that those men know the Lord and understand the principles of the two kingdoms. And they believed. I had to sit here and think. Do we believe to that degree? Daniel? I'd like to praise God for that story of Gideon and his 300 men. I was just thinking of those that are going off to the Middle East. And I just praise God for, even though there seems to be just a few with us, yet God is in the hills with reinforcements. So I'd like to praise God for that. Let's just pray for those that went and bless them. Thank God. We have one more up here. I was so blessed with the message. It was just what I needed. I had to think of how Gideon's army was thinned down was that people had fear in their hearts that those were supposed to go home. And you know, there's nobody that is going to walk this narrow way with fear in his heart. Because we can't please God without faith. We cannot please God. And I just had to think of the question, is there anybody here that still has fear in his heart? If he does, maybe he has to get right with God. Maybe he's not born again or something. And you know, in one place it says, on whom this rock will fall, He will grind him to powder. But who will fall on this rock? That's where our fears all pass. I'd like to comment on fear. I think sometimes we maybe do fear, but even then can press on. The Bible says, David says, what time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee. I think Gideon, you know, there was an element of fear there. But even then we press on and believe God to come through in the midst of our hearts, trembling sometimes and trepidations and sometimes, yes, fear. So, I wanted to mention also that, you know, we started with the song, Rise Up, O Men of God. Let's rise up as men and women of faith. Those of us whose hearts are trembling, whose hearts are at a place of, you know, maybe going through a battle in your Christian life, rise up in faith. Believe God. Obtain the promise. The promise of victory in Christ Jesus.