You know, throughout this series of messages, beware of spiritual amnesia that we've been going through.

I have been reminding you again and again and again through the book of judges about the importance of praying for the next generation,

about the importance of modeling godliness and righteousness for the next

generation, about the importance of equipping the next generation for the battle.

In the book of judges, shows us again and again how the failure by one generation to do that

would spill disaster upon the next, that apathy and carelessness on a part of one generation

can severely hamper the spiritual growth of the next.

Someone said that only one in a hundred pass the test of success.

Let me repeat that.

One in a hundred pass the test of success.

And today we find Gideon to be among the 99, and not the one.

He flunked the success test. He had passed many other tests, but he flunked the success test.

The contrast between the man that we met in the book of judges chapter six and that we meet today in judges chapter eight is very alarming to say the least. The contrast

between the man in judges six and judges 8 is a stark contrast. In Judges Chapter 8, you see a man who started well but finished badly. A man who started right but ended wrong. A man who started with humility and ended up in pride. A man who started by seeking

God's glory ended by seeking his own glory. A man who started by being weak, only strengthened by the power of God, a man who began to believe his own

press releases. But even after his success, Gideon did many things right, but he failed in the end.

And this wrong ending of his life caused the misleading and the failure and the despondency

and the backsliding of an entire nation. I'm going to show it to you from the Word of God.

Right after their defeating of the Midianites, which we saw in the last message,

Gideon gets criticized severely by the Ephraimites. Now remember this. Gideon is from the tribe of Manasseh.

Manassah and Ephraim were brothers. They were the sons of Joseph, and they became part of the tribes of Israel

by the sovereign choice of God. So they were his brothers. Although Gideon made sure that he gave

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