When God Encounters The Youth

Living Seed Media brings to you God's Word, which is his comprehensive equipment for changing lives. May the Lord impact your heart as you encounter his Word. For further enquiry or counsel, contact Peace House, PO Box 971, Boko, Benue State, Nigeria.

Telephone numbers 0703 03636 59, 0703 76811 98. Email address lsmedia at livingseed.org or visit our website at www.livingseed.org. Let us sit back and listen as the servant of God brings forth the Word of Life. The theme of this meeting is Go In This Thy Might.

And we are now going to start, first of all, to establish the context of that theme that God is allowing us to look into. Now, even though Gideon is dead and gone, God allowed his stories to be written as an admonition to those of us unto whom the ends of the earth has come. So even though we are talking and studying about Gideon, what I wanted to note is that it's not about Gideon that we are talking today, it's about you.

We are only using the story of Gideon as an illustration. There are certain biblical principles we have seen in that story that is applicable to us now. There are principles that we have touched in that story that if we will give ourselves unto it, we will also get the kind of result that that man brought about in his own life.

So please turn your Bibles with me to Georges chapter 6. And meet me just to lay a general foundation this morning on when God encounters a young man, when God calls forth the might in a young man, when God encounters a young man, or when God encounters you in your youth, what do you do? What do you do? There are a few things that the word of God says about a young person that is very, very critical for me as I look at the story of Gideon today. Before you read that chapter 6 of Georges, I want to just allude to something that I see God saying about a young man. In 1 John chapter 2, I just felt that it is important for me to talk to you, why does God appear to the young people? There are so many people in Israel.

At the time of Gideon, why was God going to look for a young man, Gideon? Where are the old fathers? Why is God not talking to the fathers? After all, all of them were in the land. The father of Gideon was actually alive, he had not died. Why didn't God go to his family and call the head of the family, which is Gideon's father? Why would God come to speak to the son and not to the father? There are a few things there, and I want to just highlight that as I return back to the story of Gideon.

In 1 John chapter 2, it said in verse 12, I write unto you little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake. Verse 13, I write unto you fathers, because you have known him that is from the beginning. I write unto you young men, because you have overcome the wicked one.

I write unto you little children, because you have known the father. I have written unto you fathers, because you have known him that is from the beginning. I have written unto you young men, because you are strong.

And the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the wicked one. Now, I wanted to see God speaking to the young man there. He said, I have written unto you fathers, because you have known him that is from the beginning.

So when God speaks to fathers, he alludes to what they have known from the beginning. He alludes to their history. He alludes to their experience.

He alludes to their past. You have known him from the beginning, which is great. But when he writes unto the young man, unto the young men, young women, what did he say? He said, I have written unto you young men, because you are strong.

So when God says go in this your mind, it's because God himself recognizes that there is a strength in the youth. There is a strength, a capacity in you as a young person to do something. Listen, the devil also knows this.

That's why the battle for the young is very fierce. The devil also knows that if he wants to push his agenda on the face of the earth, the people he needed to look for are not the old men, are not the old women. The people he needed to look for are the young people, young men, young women, who are energetic, who are strong.

He says, I write to you young men, because you are strong. This is God saying you are strong. But what you use your mind for is a different matter entirely.

But to look at young people, the truth of the matter is that young men, you are strong. But now the peculiar things that I saw that was drawing God unto Gideon, and that is drawing God unto you and unto myself, particularly at this time, are the issues I want to highlight. Now he says, because you are strong.

If you want to act for God, you are strong to do so. And if you want to act for the devil, you are strong to do so. If you want to pursue an agenda, whether good or bad, the young man is strong to do it.

Whether you are going to fight for the right or you are going to fight for the wrong, the young man has strength and capacity to do it. The question is, for whom are you going to pour your valor? For what are you going to engage your youthful strength? For who are you going to pour the strength of your youth? That's the major issue. And so when God encounters a man while he was young, what is God wanting to get out of his life? Some of you might think that God just wants to save you so that you can go to heaven.

If it is only that, God could have just waited until you are 70, like the thief on the right hand of the cross. He was saved. He went to heaven.

But you see, we are saved not just to go to heaven. We shall go to heaven by the grace of God. We are going to heaven.

But before we go to heaven, there is an assignment to do on the earth. Before you arise to get to heaven, to glory, there is something heaven wants you to accomplish on its behalf and in the name of the Lord while you are still young. That's why God engages you now that you are young.

And if you ask, why does the devil also want to quickly engage a young person? Why is it that all the courtesans, boys that you find in your schools, they are young people? Why is it that all those that are running and shaking and shouting about the kind of lifestyle they are living, why are all those that are pushing drugs, why are they young? It's because when time comes, when you have left the age of being young, your interest, your zeal, your exuberance, your power of action have diminished and there's not much you can do. So those of you that are hearing me, if you are ever going to be useful to the kingdom of God, if you are ever going to do something that heaven will remember you for, God expects that right early, right early, with the dew of your youth, before the sun goes up and your inner strength melts away, God expects that you will engage yourself, you'll be involved in that which heaven is concerned about. You will understand me as you go on and as we study the Bible.

You will see that all the people that God focused upon and used, he engaged them while they were young. You'll be surprised that David went and confronted Goliath when he was 17 years of age. You'll be surprised that somebody like John the Baptist, they did their exploits just when he was about 30.

The Lord Jesus Christ himself, he was 30 when he stepped out to do what God wanted him to do. So when you look at Jeremiah, when you look at people that we are going to be talking about, you will notice that God encounters and engaged them while they were young. So why does God want to engage you now that you are young? He said, because you are strong.

And the word of God abides in you. And you have overcome the wicked one. I'm trusting God that in the course of this meeting, the Holy Spirit will give me such liberty of sharing with you.

And because the Lord is going to guide us throughout this Congress, we are going to have testimonies of different persons whom God began to engage while they were young and the exploits they are doing and they are yet doing for God. We are going to see that as time goes on in the course of the meeting. But this morning, when God engages and encounters a man or a woman in his youth, what is it? What is it for? So he said, you have overcome the wicked one.

And it looks to me as if all the rest of the chapter was actually focusing on the young people. But I will leave it at that point so that you can follow me back to the man, the character we want to study in the course of this meeting and see how the Lord will lead us and permit us to go. Hallelujah.

Now, chapter 6 of Georges, from verse 1 to the end, will be our text for study. But with Georges 6, from verse 1, I wanted to see the situation in which God was calling a man. And I wanted to see that not just because we are describing their situation, I wanted to be able to look at the situation in your country, the situation on your campus, the situation in your area, the situation in your workplace, the situation around you, so that you can have an understanding that there is actually a need for God to engage and to encounter you for a divine assignment.

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 Danes, which are in the mountains, and caves, and strongholds. And so it was, when Israel had sown, and 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 let 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.

Now, that verse one to six already paints the picture of the situation of the people. It paints a picture, and this picture came because of their sin, because of their disobedience, because they have departed from the word of God, because they have gone away into the things of the world. And so they broke their relationship with God, and God gave the upper hand unto their enemy to oppress them, to torment them, to ravage them, and to impoverish them.

Now, dear brothers and sisters, I said, because we are not talking about the Midianites of that time, we are not talking about the Israelites of that time, we are talking about you, we are talking about your own community, we are talking about where we now are in the purpose of God and in the calendar of events. And one of the things you will see is that there is a lot of ravaging in our land. You will see that there is a lot of disorderliness in our time.

You will see that the life of young people, the life of young ladies, have been impoverished. Different challenges have come. The challenge of viruses, the challenge of infection, infectious diseases that is killing several.

When it was HIV AIDS, several became orphans, several countries were in trouble, several young girls were infected, and they are just there hopeless, nothing to do. Some of them dropped out of school. There was poverty at every level.

Yes, when a man turns away from God and gives himself to sin, the Bible says sin is a reproach to any nation, any nation at all. Even if that nation has been a superpower before, when they give themselves to sin and turn away from the principle of righteousness by which they were built, I want you to watch it, that nation is going down. That nation is going down because sin is a reproach to any people.

You cannot be living in sin, living in sin and expect that you will continue to grow. No, sin cuts men short. Even if you are a great man, God has been using you, when you go down to sin, the Bible says sin will make you a piece of bread.

Sin of immorality, it will cut you down and make you just a piece of bread with no effect. You will just be an empty talker. Nothing will be found in your life again.

Now this was the situation. Now the people began to cry. The people began to cry to God.

The Bible said, and the children of Israel cried unto the Lord. And in verse 7 it came to pass, when the children of Israel cried unto the Lord, because of the Midianites. I perceive that several challenges have come to our nations, several challenges have come to your campuses, several things have come to some of us in our schools.

You have been off campus, your school has been closed for several months, and you are not even sure when you are going to graduate again. For some of us, we have had serious conflict. We have seen underfunding, when funds are diverted out of wickedness onto private pockets.

The things that was meant for the common wealth of the nation, of our people, have been diverted by wicked rulers. And they seem to be perpetuating themselves. When you think that their tenure will finish, they will quickly bring up another set of themselves, so that they can be perpetuated in wickedness.

All of this is going on, and several young people are asking, is there any hope? Is there any hope? In several of our countries, unemployment is at its highest. You've gone to school, you've read, you've got your degree, but you are not sure you are getting anything. And so, several of our graduates, they are doing many things that actually is demeaning.

And you are asking, is there any hope? Is there any future? These are questions. The people cried to the Lord. And the Bible said the Lord, when they cried unto the Lord because of the Midianites, that the Lord sent a prophet unto the children of Israel, which said unto them, Thus says the Lord God of eight, I brought you all 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 oppress you, and drove 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 night ye dwell, but you have not obeyed my voice. Every time God is going to intervene, people have to be brought to the place where they can recall what wrong they did. There can be no revival where there is no repentance.

There can be no restoration unless people are willing to restitute the wrong thing they have done in their lives. There can be no renewal when that which was lost has not been acknowledged so as to recover it. But this moment, when God has listened to the cry of his people, the next thing is for God to look for who to use.

God is responding to the many, many tears, many, many cries, many, many agonies of several hearts. There are people that were slaughtered, like I said, right in the presence of their own families. And people went away just like that.

There was no way to bring them to justice. All of that, when God is about to respond to the cry of his people, which I perceive we have come to that point now, God looks for men to use. But I said as I went on looking at scriptures, I found that when God is about to arise to respond, he looks for a vessel.

But majorly speaking, the vessels that God looks for, he looks for them in their youth. He looks for them when they are strong. He looks for them when they are agile.

He looks for them when they are exuberant. He looks for them when their emotion will tally with their passion. There's nothing you can do for God if you are not passionate.

And if your passion does not mobilize your emotion, then you are demobilized. You can't do anything. But the youth, the young person, you know sometimes you are going to challenge an old man who is old.

His heart is burning, but his body is tired. He wants to do something, but his mind is already weak. He says, oh, I know this is what I should do, but I cannot run anymore.

So God particularly focuses on you as a young man because you are strong, because you are agile, because you are exuberant, because you can be passionate, and because you can have sufficient emotion to make you mobile. These are the things that God has packaged in the life of the youth. But I want to tell you that all of those things, they are expendables.

What do I mean by that? They can be finished. They can be used up. Don't ever think that your strength will be inexhaustible.

No, you don't have inexhaustible strength. There is a quantity of strength that you can carry. It's only as you are using it, as you are engaging it, that it will seem to be renewed every day, as God said, those who wait upon the Lord.

He said even the youth, they will faint because their energy is not inexhaustible. Now, don't think that your emotion is endless. No.

A time comes when you will say, according to Ecclesiastes chapter 12, when you say, I have no more pleasure in them. It's because emotion, as wonderful as it is, has a life span. And when you have expended your emotion, you don't have anything for motion again.

Many people want to move, but because their emotional capacity is finished, they cannot move because what creates motion inside has finished. And I want to ask you this moment. As we go ahead, you are going to be saying, Lord, why do you want to engage me and encounter me now that I'm young? All I'm concerned about in this meeting is that when you will rise for God, I want you to rise now.

When you will do anything for God, I expect you to do it now, now that you are young. If you are going to run and turn the situation of your generation, of your country around, I want to charge you. It is now that you are going to do it.

We talk so much about Martin Luther, but when you go back to check, they were young people. We talk so much about Charles Spurgeon. When you go and check their stories, they were young.

He was 21 when he began to do exploits for God. When you want to talk about people like Billy Graham, all those people that God used to shake the nation, go and read their story. You will notice that they did not start doing what they are doing when they enter 40s.

No. Right when they were teenagers, they were affected, they were engaged by God, and they began to run. So let me never hear any of you say, but I'm still young.

I'm still young. Banish that kind of language from your mouth because it is now that you are strong. You are strong for your assignment.

It is now that you are passionate. You can carry a passion for your call. It is now that you are emotional or you are exuberant.

That's when you can have the inner move, inner motivation for doing what heaven has called you to do. And I want to tell you, this is also the time when your body is strong, flexible, agile, and it can be adapted to do what God wants it to do. A time is coming when your body will become lethargic.

When you want to move, your body is simply saying, sorry, sorry, the time to run up and down like that has passed. A time is coming when you want to bend, bend like this, bend like that. Your back is telling you, brother, brother, carry me gently.

You are no more sweet 16. Your bones are beginning to announce to you, we have been here for you for long. Why didn't you use us when we were strong and young? Why didn't you engage us when you were fresh? Why is it now that you want to be doing acrobatics when everything about me has become tortured and rigid and cannot move again? So why does God want to engage you? Because now you are young.

Now you are strong. Now you can be passionate. Now you can be exuberant.

Now you can be emotional. In order to have motion for what heaven wants you to do. Now God came.

And he was looking for who to use. And there was this young man. So let's quickly now look at the life of Gideon and what are the attractive issues to him.

I want all of you to please take your Bible now as we run through that, trusting that God will give us opportunity to push to any extent we can go at this point. Hallelujah. Now, the Bible said, all of you please follow me to verse 11.

Verse 11, verse 12. In fact, from that point I'll be just drawing issues for you. I will not spend time on them.

Because it's an elaborate story. And there came an angel of the Lord and sat under an oak which was in Ofra that pertained unto Joash the Abuserite. And his son Gideon threshed wheat by the winepress to hide it from the Midianites.

Now, what do I want to note about that? The angel of the Lord came and sat under the oak which was in Ofra that pertained unto Joash the Abuserite. That's the name of the father of Gideon. Now, I don't know whether you are thinking the way I think.

But I want you to know that when God wants to engage and encounter a young man or a young woman or any life at all, he knows where to locate him. And so let me inform you that it is not by chance and it is not by mistake that you are in this meeting particularly. God is the one who is locating you.

And it is not a mistake that God has allowed student congress which we used to hold centrally in Boko or in Pakamisa in South Africa or we have tried to do it somewhere in Accra in Ghana. It is not by chance that God decided and said, look, because of what I want to do and because of the young lives that I need to locate to engage for this assignment, let the student congress be happening concurrently in their localities where I can locate them. The fact that you did not need to travel 1,000 kilometers to go and hear God, you must never take that for granted.

The angel came all the way from heaven and came and sat under the oak tree that was, you know, in the vicinity in the area that pertained to Joash, the Abbezzerite. And look at Gideon threshing wheat by the winepress. At that same moment, were you thinking it's coincidence? No, there's no coincidence with God.

He's the one locating you. Where you are, that's where God is meeting you. God is actually targeting you.

That's why you are in this meeting. That's why the Holy Spirit is bringing you to where you are sitting. Because heaven, some of you say, well, I would have gone for a student congress.

I didn't have money for tickets. I didn't get visa. I didn't, I can't get money.

I can't get permission to travel much. But here you are. What else do you have as an excuse? What do you want to say why you will refuse God? What will be your reason for not responding? God has come down to your locality.

God has come down to your location because he wants to locate you. And I pray that the Holy Spirit will help you to respond to God personally. There may be 100 of you in your center.

There may be 1,000, whatever number. But God is not dealing with numbers. God is dealing with you as an individual.

God is encountering you as a person. God is reaching out to you just as you are. And I want you to take note of that.

Now, what are the issues that I wanted to mark? Apart from the fact that when God wants to encounter a life, he locates him. Don't think it was only for Gideon. When it was time for God to locate Moses, you remember? He was going about with his business where God met him.

When God wanted to engage and encounter the woman of Samaria, Jesus went and stayed by the well, knowing that that woman is coming to that well where he will encounter him. God has arranged places where he can locate you. And I want to thank God that God is not asking you to climb to heaven before he can speak to you.

He sent heaven to come down. An angel came all the way from heaven and sat under the oak tree. Angels don't do that if they don't have an assignment.

Angels don't just go about sitting under trees, if not because they have an assignment. That's how it has always been. There's no time for me to explore that over the scripture, but you should know that.

Now, the Bible said, and the angel of the Lord appeared unto him and said to him, The Lord is with you, thou mighty man of valor. I spoke yesterday. I said, when God speaks to your life, he's not speaking to your past.

He's not speaking to your history. He's not speaking to your old experience. God comes to meet a young man and speaks to his future.

So when God saw Gideon and said, The Lord is with you, thou mighty man of valor. And I noted yesterday that Gideon has not fought a battle. Gideon has not led an army.

Gideon has not done anything. Are we saying he's a mighty man of valor just for threshing the weeds? Is that what God saw? No. When God comes to a young man, please listen to me.

He comes to you because of the future he has seen about you. He speaks to you about your future. I can remember when God came to encounter me, many, many years ago when I was young like you.

And God came and was speaking things. I was wondering, I said, can he be talking to me or he's talking to someone else? What has God seen about me? I'm a man with no backbone. I have no body, no connection.

I'm coming from the bush. How could God be saying this kind of thing to me? How could God be saying I will use you to affect the world? I will use you to change things. I said, God, no, no, no, no, no.

I know you are making a mistake. You are talking to someone else. Whenever I read the scripture and say, I will make you a new sharp threshing instrument of vintage, I say, no, no, no, no.

That passage is not meant for me. That passage is meant for maybe Jesus or for some big man somewhere. Only for me to discover that the Lord will say, that scripture is written concerning you.

I am the one speaking to you. Even though you are a worm, I'm not looking at you as a worm. I'm seeing you as a man I'm going to use to affect your generation.

It took me time to be able to accept that God would be speaking to an ordinary man like myself. He had to use different scriptures to show me. He had to show me that was the difference between me and Joseph.

What is the difference between myself and Mary the Virgin? Where did she come from? What is the village name where she comes from? How is that different from my own village where I came from? Anybody can come from anywhere. What matters is what God does in their lives. What matters is what God says to them.

So listen to me now. It doesn't matter where you are coming from. It doesn't matter your background.

It doesn't matter your father, your mother. It doesn't matter who they were. It doesn't matter whether you were born in a palace or you were born on a downhill.

That's not the matter. You are already born. And the fact that you are born and you are living.

God is saying, I am with you. You are a mighty man of valor. I am preparing you for something that you will do in your generation.

So that's the first thing. When God encounters a young man, God encounters him for the future. God speaks to him about the innate, unexplored, untapped potential that is inside him.

That if he will yield it to God, it will be used of God. It will be used for his glory. So when the angel said, thou mighty man of valor, the Lord is with you.

But that is one side. Permit me now to go to the side of Gideon. Because there are a few things about that man that I want to ask you to look at before we tie up what we need to say about him this morning and before we take a break to go and pray.

Now look at Gideon. Look at Gideon in verse 13. And the things I want to study with you, we start from verse 13, maybe almost towards the end.

The Bible said, But now the Lord has forsaken us and delivered us into the hand of the Midianites. What am I going to say to you about that man? Can you imagine that this is not in the church? All of you, please take note. This is not happening in the church.

It is not happening in the sanctuary. Where is this happening? It is on the farm. Where this brother was only threshing the wheat in order to carry some to hide it from the Midianites so that they would be able to have something to eat in their family.

So we are not talking about people that are particularly doing religious activity. So whether you are an engineer, whether you are an ICT specialist, whether you are a laboratory scientist, whether you are a researcher, whatever area of calling you are in, actually, listen to me, it is people that are engaged, people that are enterprising, people that are involved in doing something practical that God looks for. God does not in any way look for, I do people.

Some of you are thinking that those that go into the work of God is because they are not brilliant, is because they are not going anywhere, is because they have no job. No. Perish that thought from your heart.

God looks for the best. Whenever God is picking any man, any woman, young or old, God looks for the best. So if you are a first class student, or if you find that, yes, oh, I have an enterprising career, and you think, yes, ah, look, the way I'm going.

Never you imagine that when God comes to talk to your life, to interrupt your life, that it's a mistake. God actually looks for the best. God uses the sharp sword to cut his word.

God does not use dropouts, so to say. And if at all you are listening to me today, and the word system made you like a dropout, when God talks to you and you gave your life to Christ, it changes you. You're no longer a dropout.

You are going to see a turnaround. You are going to see God bringing you up. Some say, oh, but I didn't go to school.

I couldn't continue my school after the junior, secondary school. I dropped out because there's no money to go to school. No, no, no, let me inform you that you did not press on with your education, and you went into farming, or you went into anything, does not make you a useless man at all.

If you will hand over your life to Jesus, and you are going to hear what God is saying to you in this meeting, you will soon see that you are a mighty man of valor. There's a valor that is inside of you waiting to explode, but it can only be set ablaze when you put your life in the hand of Jesus Christ. Gideon was wondering, why do you call me a mighty man of valor? Now, what is it that is touching me about Gideon? I'm looking at Gideon's heart.

I'm looking at a young man. Even though he's pounding wheat, he's pounding wheat, pounding wheat, something is bubbling in his heart. He is saying to himself, where is the God of our fathers? When will this oppression finish? Who will change the direction of things? Now, some of you are listening to me.

You find that there is quiet agitation in your heart. You are not satisfied. You are asking, why is everything like this? Can't things change? And sometimes when you go and talk to an old man and say, why can't things change? You know what they tell you? They say, well, as it was in the beginning, so it is now and forevermore shall be.

Go and keep quiet. No. No.

The fact that there's something bubbling in your heart that we can change it. We can change the direction of research in our universities. We can change the direction of things, the way things are going in Africa.

We can change things in Europe. We can cause the will of God to come to pass. And you meet some conservative old people.

They say, well, don't worry yourself. We can change it. They forgot that the people that have changed our world in the negative direction, they were not majority.

It only take 2% of a population to change that population. And unfortunately, those 2%, most of the time, they are instruments in the hand of the devil. I wonder why God will not have men like yourself, men, women like yourself, who are saying, oh God, if there is hope, if there is something that can be done, here am I, here am I. Now, Gideon was asking a very genuine question.

How can you say the Lord be with us? How can you say the Lord be with us? Why then is all this befalling us? What you are saying that God is with me is a contradiction to what I'm saying. God can't be with us, and this kind of problem is prevailing in our time. How can you say that? All the scriptures I've read, so I noted that as young as Gideon was, the word of God was in his heart.

Are you listening to me now? The strength of a young man, the might that God was pointing at, we saw it now that we see a Gideon, even though he's doing many things, his heart is asking, is this where I'm going to die? Is this how things are going to continue? Can there be a change? Can there be a change? Can there be a change? Those are the kind of questions that bubbled in my own heart when I was at your age. I was asking God, can there be a change? I was focusing on churches, on denominations. I was seeing denominations where you cannot even clap your hands in those days.

The people that were our pastors and leaders, they are members of Freemasons, and they come to say nothing to the story of grasshoppers. And I'm saying, oh God, when will this change? Can there be a time in my lifetime that this thing will change? And God said, yes, it can change. And I thank God today.

We have not got all that we are looking for, but we have seen something that is different from where we started. We have seen a move of God. We have seen a quiet revival.

We have seen a transformation. I've gone now to such denominations here and there, and I see the Holy Ghost taking over. And I say, yes, Lord, thank you.

Thank you for answering prayer. Thank you for doing what you say you will do. But I'm telling you now as a young man, I'm speaking to you, why is God engaging you? It's because there is a space for you.

There's something heaven wants to do through you. And the questions, the agitation in your heart, the lack of satisfaction that you are having, the dissatisfaction in your spirit about how things are going, they are part of your mobilization. Don't quench it.

Don't quench it because it is needed. It is necessary. God wants to use it.

Now the Bible said, And the Lord looked upon him, and God said, Go in this day and night, and you shall save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Have I not sent you? 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 to him, Surely I'll be with you, and thou shalt smite the Midianites as one man.

Now what have I seen there? I've seen that, yes, it is not about Gideon. It's about that God only needs him to give God space to walk in his life. God is only asking, I will be with you, I will be with you.

You will notice that right from the beginning of that verse 12, the emphasis has not been on what Gideon was in himself. He said, The Lord is with you. The Lord is with you.

When you come to chapter 6 verse 14, it said, And the Lord looked upon him and said, Go in this your might, and thou shalt save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Have I not sent you? And he said to him, O my Lord, wherewith shall I save Israel? My family is poor in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house. And the Lord said to him, Surely I will be with you.

I will be with you. 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 you are the one talking with me.

Now, because of my time this morning, I just want you to come to that point where we can now speak with one another, where we can now begin to ask, if it is not about Gideon we are discussing, because Gideon has come, he has done what God wants him to do, and he is gone. And if we are not talking about history, we are talking about you, what God wants to do with your life. What are the practical response? When you see God speaking to your life, what are the practical response? The first thing I saw that Gideon was responding to, first, he did not want to act on presumption.

He wanted to be sure that this encounter is of the Lord. He wanted to be sure that he is not just going to stand up and be doing things arbitrarily. He wanted to ensure that this experience that he is having is with the Lord.

He said, let me be sure that it is the Lord that is speaking to me. And I would like you to do that. One of the reasons why you are going to go to be alone with God this morning, immediately after this talk, is for you to go on your own.

Don't go in company of someone else. Go and stand there alone and say, God, the things I am hearing, are you speaking to me? Or are you speaking to someone else? Lord, are you speaking about what you want to do with my life? Or is it just these religious talks that I have been hearing over time? Are you speaking to me because a time has come for you to do something eternal with my life? Or is it just one of these empty talks? Don't be afraid to ask God. I saw our brother Gideon was not afraid to engage the angel.

He said, excuse me, so as to be sure that you are the one that is speaking to me, show me a sign. And he told the angel, don't go from here. Depart not from hence.

I pray you until I come unto you and bring forth my presence and set it before you. And he said, I will tarry until you come again. Hallelujah.

Here's a man that was willing to detain the presence of God. Angels don't stay anywhere. But now Gideon is saying, if what you are saying is real, let me see it.

You know the passage that Sunday was reading for us in the morning, if you go further with it, you will notice that brother Moses said, now that you are talking to me, if they ask me, what is your name? Lord, what is your name? Who are you? Tell me who you are. And God is never unhappy to introduce himself to young people that are asking questions. One of the things I want to share with you is the fact that as a young man, I ask questions.

I wasn't afraid to carry Bible and open it to God and say, God, let's open to chapter so-and-so and so-and-so. You said it in your word. Are you the one who said it? Say yes.

Why did you say it? Has he passed? Or can he still be relevant in my time? And I found that God is so gracious to me. He will sit me down and explain the word of God to me and he will show me that he's the one. If you see me being confident in the word of God, it's because I have proved it.

If you see me speaking boldly to you, it's because I'm not following a fable. I'm not following a fiction. I'm following God who is real.

He has proved himself and he will prove himself to you. God is not a fad and he's not a facade. He is real and when you decide to engage him, he becomes real to you.

He becomes personal to you. He becomes your personal teacher. He will teach you.

He will show you what to do. When this brother said, don't go anywhere. Let me quickly go and present, bring my present and stay until I come.

I don't know how long it took. But I knew that brother Gideon was not wasting time. He was rushing to do this.

He wanted to confirm something. Now brother, God is speaking to you in this meeting. I'm not expecting you to procrastinate it.

I wanted to do something to detain the presence of God in your life. I said, father, I'm not going to finish this student congress unless you confirm to me that what you are doing, what you are saying concerning me is real and you are going to back it up. And why not? Why not? And Gideon went in.

He made ready a kid and 11 cakes of an apple flower. You can imagine what he did. He was going to kill an animal.

He was going to make an 11 cake. All of that he quickly was doing because he had an encounter with God, which he wanted to confirm. How many of you will be diligent that the word of God has come into you, you will not allow it to pass? You will not just go and see where we attended a meeting.

How many of you will take it serious and say, today, today, 29th of April, 2021, God spoke to me. And please put the date, put the center where you are, or if you are in your private house, write it down where you are and say, on this particular day, as I was listening to the message from student congress, student and youth congress 2021, the Lord spoke to me from this passage, put a line on it. I'm telling you in another 10 years, you will see God faithfully fulfilling the word I have sent to you today.

Now, look at the word of God. He quickly went and brought everything. And he brought it out onto him under the oak and presented it because danger was still waiting.

God was still waiting because this young man has shown interest in what God is saying. And when he came, he presented it. 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. Now, you may be imagining, oh, that's a very special time. Oh, that's a special, Gideon is very special.

No, no, I want to tell you that God is willing to make manifest himself to whosoever is longing for him. Say, if you seek me with all your heart, you will find me. If you seek me with all your heart, you will find me.

One of the things I'm praying that God will do in the course of this meeting, this Congress, is that God will help you to recognize that this is the time and it is your time. This is the time that God has ordained to move across the earth, to move from nation to nation. And I want you to know that God has selected you and signaled you in the course of this time in your own nation, on your own area, on your own state, on your own country, on your own walk, on your own university campus.

God is speaking to you. Something is there. Something is about to happen.

God is about to do something with your life and that's why he's doing this. And I want to ask you right away, what will you do about that? How are you going to respond to God about that? So when the angel left, Gideon perceived that it 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 to him, peace be unto you, fear not, thou shall not die.

Can I say to some of you, you will not die. You are not meant to die. You have a life to live.

You have an assignment to carry out in your lifetime. You are not going to die, you will live. You will demonstrate the glory of the Lord in the land of the living.

There's something your life is meant for. And I want us to agree together that your life will fulfill the divine purpose for which God has set it in the name of Jesus Christ. So Gideon did something else, which I want to note before I go from there.

Gideon built an altar unto the Lord and called it Jehovah Shalom. Unto this day it is yet an offer of the Abbasidites. What's the meaning of that? Gideon would not allow his experience to pass.

He tied it down with an altar. And we are saying up to today, that altar is still in that place. As if Gideon is saying, God will appear to me, I don't want to lose the experience.

Some of you have gone from one meeting to another. You have been moved. But in less than two days after the meeting, everything has disappeared.

Sometimes you just heard a message, and because you did nothing about it, in two hours, as you start mingling with other people, you forgot what God said to you. That must not happen to you in this meeting. You are going to do something deliberate.

You are going to build an altar. You are going to establish this with a deliberate communion with God. Even though you know we didn't have time, we still have time to create 30 minutes of being alone with God, because it's very crucial for me in this meeting.

I expect that every one of you that is coming here, you didn't come to meet me. You did not come to hear good, good talks. You came to encounter God.

And we must give you space for you and God to discuss, to interact. As soon as I finish, we'll be releasing you to go everywhere you are to be alone with God. You'll carry your chair, or you will go under the tree, or you go somewhere, and just kneel down there and say, Lord, I am here.

I am here for you. I don't understand what others are saying about themselves, but Lord, I'm hearing you speaking to my life. I want to make this a permanent experience between me and you, and this is going to be my reference point.

That was what Gideon did. Now, while Gideon built an altar to the Lord, it came to pass the same night, the same night, that the Lord said to him, take your father's young bullock, even the second bullock of seven years old, and throw down the altar of Baal that your father has, and cut down the groove that is by it, and build an altar unto the Lord, your 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 groove which thou shalt cut down. Then Gideon took ten 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. This is interesting. Now, what is that? God was beginning to take Brother Gideon to task.

He said, there's an idol in your father's house. There's an altar of Baal in your father's house. Now, go there now.

Go and break it down. Take bullocks from your father's pen, and come and offer a burnt offering to God. And that same night, Gideon was not going to procrastinate action.

Gideon decided to arise that same night, that same night. And the Bible said, because he was afraid that if he wanted to do it in the daytime, his father's household would not allow him. He decided to do it in the night, so that by the time everybody woke up, the altar of Baal is finished, the groove is scattered, and then he has made a different altar unto the Lord, and he has offered a burnt offering to the Lord on behalf of his own life, on behalf of his family, and on behalf of the people.

Now, and they said one to another, verse 28, when the men of the city arose early in the morning, behold, the altar of Baal was cast down, and the groove 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 has done this thing? Who has done this thing? And when they inquired and asked, they said Gideon, the son of Joash, has done this thing.

Hallelujah. You are going to put action to your response to God. You cannot say you want to serve God when there's idols in your own life, when there's idols in your own compound, when there are idols in your own bosom.

Gideon could not confront the idols in the land when he had not confronted the idols in his own house. And when Gideon did, something started. People woke up in the morning and said, who has done this? Who has done this? Who has done this? They said Gideon, the son of Joash, the Abiezerite, he's the one that did it.

They quickly gathered. They gathered. They said, go and bring the boy.

We are going to kill him. We are going to kill him. And I want to tell you that day, the Bible said, Gideon stood up there and said, I'm the one who did it.

They called his father. Your son did it. He scattered the altar of Baal and the groove.

And I don't know where unusual boldness came on Joash, the father of Gideon. He said, excuse me, please, are you talking about Baal? If Baal was a god, where was he when this small boy was scattering his altar? If Baal was powerful, why couldn't he deal with him? Excuse me, leave Baal to deal with Gideon. If he can deal with him, let's watch.

You know, from that day, Gideon's name was changed. They gave Gideon another name. What was the name? Jerubah.

What's the meaning of Jerubah? The conqueror of Baal. The man that scattered Baal. And that was the beginning.

I will be talking to you when next we come, the practical step he took to fulfill the call of God. Now I want to ask you, can you make a difference in your house? Can you make a difference in your family? Can you make a difference? Can you go and put down all the things that are contrary to the will of God in your life? All the wrong music that has dominated your life, dominated all the album in your house, can you put them aside and say, now, I am taking position. I'm taking charge of this place.

Only the glory of God will come out. Can you do that? I know there will be noise. Why are you doing this? Why are you doing that? Why are you doing that? So we say you are mad.

Yes. If it is possible to be mad, it's good to be mad for Jesus. They call some of us mad in those days.

I have been mad for Jesus ever since that time. And that madness has done me good, isn't it? That madness has brought me to where I am. They say, don't mind him.

He's a mad man. He's a mad man. They said that to us when we were younger.

When we went from everywhere, village to village, we are burning down idols, preaching the gospel, confronting masquerades, and standing and saying, if your God is God, let him do something here, and nothing will happen. And we have seen God manifest himself. And that same God is saying, can I send you? Can I send you? Can I send you? So you are going to respond to God now.

And we are going to take these next five minutes of prayer. And I want you to stand wherever you are. Have you heard God speaking to you? Are you hearing God speak as if you are the modern-day Gideon? Are you hearing God speak to you as if you are the modern-day Mary that God wants to use? Are you the Esther that the Holy Spirit has been speaking to? Are you thinking you are this small? God says you are a mighty man of valor.

You are a mighty woman of valor. That valor is looking redundant presently because you have not engaged it appropriately. Now, all the idols, the one in your heart, all the idols, the one in your house, all the idols, the one that you have been putting around you, can you gather them this morning and say, today, today, today, today, today is gone.

The idol may be a boyfriend. The idol may be a girlfriend. The idol may be that site that has engaged your life over the time and has rendered you useless.

You are going to take an action and you are deleting it now. You are going to delete every wrong relationship. That man that you are not married to that is camping you, now, before I finish this message, during your alone with God, you bring him there and slaughter him in the presence of God and say, this relationship from this morning is slaughtered.

I'm not going to go back to that house. I'm not going to go back to that relationship. And as you are there, once you finish praying, you send a text to the man and say, it is finished.

My relationship with you is finished. I have found a reason for living. I have found a savior.

I have found the Lord. You are going to take a decision right away. You are not too young to act.

Don't let them say, no, no, no, you are too young. This youthful exuberance. I want to inform you, if you are not exuberant now that you are young, when will you be exuberant? If you are not on fire now that you are young, when will you be on fire? If you are not mad for Jesus now that you are young and strong, when will you be mad? And when will you be mad for your generation? Have you ever seen anybody who brought change in his life that was not mad for what he was doing? Karl Marx, that brought the theory of communism, he was mad with what he was doing.

How can you have the man of God? How can you have the savior? How can you have the power of the Holy Ghost? And you are not mad to run with him. I want to ask you now, stand on your feet and call on God. Let's pray.

Let's pray. Let's pray. God bless you.

Stand where you are. You are still young and strong. You are going to say to God this morning, you have located me.

You have come my way. You have come to where I am. Spirit of the living God, this morning, I'm putting my hand in your hand.

As you encountered Gideon, and he never remained the same again, today, oh God, I'm responding to your voice. I'm not going to remain the same again. My life is not going to run the drain.

My youthful life is not going to be wasted. Lord, whatever was wasted is enough. Take it up now, oh God.

Set me on fire. You will see as we come back later today, how Gideon single-handedly began to mobilize the land. How he rose and God rose with him.

And I'm expecting that the same God is going to walk with you. Lift up your voice and say, Lord, here am I. Now, for the first step you are going to take, every idol, every relationship that is contrary to Jesus, every habit that is wrong, anything at all that you know is not compatible with Christ Jesus in your life, I want you to carry it now. You are going to bring it to the altar.

You are going to slaughter it at the foot of the cross this morning. You are going to say, oh God, this is enough, enough. Maybe it was when you were 14, you started going to pornographic sites.

Now you are 24, 10 years, you are not free. This morning you are going to carry that thing. Go and slaughter it at the feet of the cross this morning.

Let us pray together. Wherever you are, do it. Take a step.

If you need to hand over your life to Christ just now, say Jesus. I don't know why I'm thinking that my youth can be wasted as it is being wasted. This morning, Lord, I'm coming to you.

I'm taking a step before you. I'm rising to do a new thing. It will look as if, oh, you have become too radical.

This is the time to be radical for Jesus. Thank you, brother. Thank you, my dear sister.

As I pray with you before I release you to go and be alone with God, let me be sure that you are making a decision. If you are standing there, you are praying, you are lifting up your hand, you are saying, oh God, now that you have come to our area, now that you have come to my country, now that you have come to my state, now that you have come to my campus, here am I, Lord. Here am I, Lord.

As you are touching others, here am I, Lord, do something with my life. Can you lift your right hand as a commitment to the Savior and say, Lord, this meeting is turning my life around. This meeting is changing my story.

I'm not going to remain the same again. God bless you. God bless you.

And even your spirit, you just want to carry that idol, carry that wrong relationship, carry that boyfriend, carry that girlfriend, carry that heart. Take it to the altar and say, Lord, today is the end of it. Let's bring down the groove.

Let's bring down the altars. Everything that Baal had fed upon, let's destroy it today and let Jesus have his way with your life. Please do it.

You may step out before God. Before God, you may come to the altar with it. You may say, Jesus, this morning I have come.

I'm giving my heart to you. Let's do it. Let's do it.

Come quickly. I'll pray for you. And immediately after, we are going to go to be alone with God.

All our onsite coordinators, they will do it for us. And those of you that are watching either on Facebook or you are watching, you are following in YouTube or you are in your private Zoom arrangement, you are going to also take a space now to be alone with God in response. Thank you.

Thank you. God bless you. God bless you.

Can I pray with you now? If you are taking a step, a step, you are stepping before God, you are kneeling down before God. You are saying, oh, God, Gideon is not me. He was doing ordinary things like I'm doing, but you came to him.

And, Lord, thank you for coming to me this morning. My life will not remain the same again. Father, thank you for the opportunity of this prayer.

Thank you for my friends that are responding to you. Thank you for brothers and sisters that are saying, wow, my life will not be a waste. Lord, I ask you to step into their lives.

As you did for Gideon that same night, I'm asking all God that this moment you will do something that he will never forget. You changed Gideon's life. Gideon became a different man.

Actually, they changed his name, calling him Jerubba, the man that conquered Baal. Lord, I'm asking that this day there be a transformation first in our hearts because only a changed man can change others. Only a man on fire can set others on fire.

Only a man who is broken can break others. So, Lord, this morning I ask that you will walk in our hearts. Do a deep walk in this meeting now.

And as your children begin to respond to you, to go and be alone with you, please confirm your word in their hearts. Thank you for hearing. Thank you for those that will need further help, further counsel as regards these decisions they are taking.

Lord, you will provide for us as we go ahead. Thank you, Father. In Jesus Christ's name we have prayed.

Amen.