FOREWORD
THE eleven chapters which comprise this short book represent a series of sermons on the life of Gideon preached in St. Paul's Church, Throop, Bournemouth between the 31st January 1993 and the 16th May 1993. They were preached to the relatively small congregation at the evening service, and were consecutive except when interrupted by special Sundays, such as festivals and missionary occasions. They have been committed to writing simply because many of those who heard them indicated that God made them a blessing to them, and if God is pleased to make them so to others who may read this book, the committing of these sermons to writing will be amply rewarded.
I would like to take this opportunity to express my thanks to one of my Church Wardens, Jean Moores, for her encouragement in the committing of these sermons to writing, and her painstaking reading of the chapters as they were written, and for the helpful corrections and suggestions that she made. I also wish to thank her husband, Paul, for providing me with the recordings of the sermons when they were preached. The recordings, originally made for the tape ministry we have to members of our congregation that are sick or housebound, have been of great value in the writing of this book.
In fact I have sought to reproduce the sermons as they were preached, and have transposed the preaching to paper. Only two alterations to this have been observed. Firstly to alter such words and references as had merely local reference, and secondly to clarify the incoherence of the preaching caused by the mind racing ahead of the speaking. This caused stumbling and the omission of sentences necessary to clarify the train of thought. It is of God's goodness that he made the meaning reasonably plain at the time.
The reasoning behind this method was first to try and preserve the spontaneity of the preaching, and avoid a more rigid prose. The other was to preserve the inspiration of the moment which I have found God graciously gives while waiting upon him and depending upon him in preaching. I have found that not only does God cause me, often, to alter the way of presentation and expression, from that which I had used in my notes; but also thoughts are given during preaching, which are not in the sermon notes, but which help to enlarge, clarify and enhance the meaning of what God has given me to say.