I can justify it in your head, but for 400 a month, guess what? Just like you said you could do it here, it's the same thing here. And guess what? You've got one or two choices you'll do in a year from now. In a year from now, you're the refinanced vehicle, right? Go to local credit union, better credit, you'll get lower rates, which will equal what? Lower payment. And you'll keep driving the same car you're in. Or two, you'll trade in the car that you have now, okay, in a year from now, trade it back into me. Guys, hold up and watch this little close I tie in at the end. Remember how I said a minute ago, you know, take that 21 bucks and go take your wife out to dinner and reward yourself, right? This is how I always use this last little part. I'll say, hey, so you basically take and, you know, you're paying your hundred dollars right for your credit, you're paying the 300 for your car, it's a $400 payment. What you do after a year is you talk about the refinance, it's simple, better credit, lower rates, smaller payments, you keep driving the car you're in today, this same car. Or in a year from now, these people are credit people. They probably didn't fall in love with this car anyways, you probably helped land them on it, right? Do you think they'd want to buy a better car? If they could buy a better car with a lower payment? Yeah? So I always fish with that and I say, hey, or in a year you come back in, you trade it in, and then guess what? You see me again, we trade the vehicle in, we buy a nicer car newer with a better rate and even keep a lower payment and just trade out of it.  You see what I mean?  And then I want you to come back to me, is that fair? And that's how you end it and you close them. Does that make sense? You tie it in at the end. Does anybody not understand anything or have any questions? Let's ask right now. Uh huh? I mean, I think 100 and 150 bucks is pretty fair. You got uncomfortable, Matt, you had to get uncomfortable for me?  Come on man. He's like, I just really want to be comfortable. Yeah, Jackie used to teach us in class all the time to guys. Or before you leave today you can make copies for him. Never mind, never mind, get with Jackie. Yeah, Jackie used to go in, she would train stores. So I'd be the GM and I'd bring Jackie in to train the guys, right? Because she was always around me so much, she would hear what I would say non-stop. So what happened is she would go in and I was like, hey, I need you to come close them. What happened? Jackie would come, she would close them and literally these guys would hit the floor the next week and they were brand new, I mean never sold. And they were out there doing the President of the United States clothes and literally, because we're in a subprime store. I remember I worked, I lived in a subprime store. Like five out of ten people that came in were a five-eighty or under. I mean, so that's okay, that was gold. I worked at a Kia store, right? So everybody bought a Kia Forte, like everybody. Like we were sometimes like 800s that wanted to lift the trucks to Kia Fortes because we just, that's what we sold, you know what I'm saying? So it was just our niche. But anyways, people would come in and they'd be like, okay, I want a Tahoe. Well, after about 15 minutes, they would be driving out the gate in Kia Fortes.  I mean you guys can do that right now, the market's there right now. It's not me. It's me telling you that like, listen, this works, this is real. You, look, it's like this. There's a book, it's about a, it's a very short book. It's called As A Man Thinketh. Right? Has anybody read it? It's a very, I mean you can read it in what, 20 minutes? I mean it's the shortest book you've ever read in your life. It's a 15, 20 minute book and it's called As A Man Thinketh with a TH at the end. And what he says is that if you think you can't, like Henry Forte, he says if you think you can, you're right. If you think you can't, you're right. Whatever you think is right, okay? So one of the things that I, I do, that I will, before we take a break here for a second, we talk about this payment, everybody understands this. Is there anybody that can escape? Now look, let's add number seven here. Number seven, number seven, watch this, hold on. Nobody here watching this. Number seven is just called negotiating. You want to get into some real negotiating, right? You guys think you're great at negotiating? You want to get in there? You want to try a piece of that? Do it here at the end. Watch, let's say I get this guy down to 30 bucks, right? And I'm at the very end. You know what I'm saying? Let's say, let's just make a point. Let's say guys says, Andy, here's the deal. I'll go to three, I'll go to 370. I'm not going to penny more than 370 and that's it. You know what I'm saying? That's where I'm done. Okay, where's my difference? 30 bucks. Well, you always learn in this business, like when we first got in is, this is 22 years ago. Break it into a small number, right? Break it into a small number. Break it into a small number. You know what I'm saying? I mean, let me ask you guys this, okay?  Guys, you could fix that by not going to a 7-Eleven and buying a small soda. Do you understand that? Would you give up a small soda for that to get that car? Yeah, yeah. You answer it for them, okay? You just break it down. And you could break it down in different ways. I could say, guys, there's 30 days in a month we're $30 away. Guys, that's a dollar a day. To put the car you love in your driveway for less than a dollar a day, you can't buy this for a dollar. You know what I'm saying? Are you kidding me? This? Give that up and take your new car home. Right? Hey, go to Sam's and buy these now. Quit going to 7-Eleven. Come on, guys. This is silly, okay? And then close them down, okay? That's breaking it down to a small number. That is called negotiating, okay? That is like real negotiating, like true negotiating, okay? Does that make sense? Okay, so I just wanted to tell you, like, that right there, these are the ways to bump people on payments. And dude, we didn't really negotiate even the whole time. Like, you can get into that. You know, you can always ask, like, well, don't you see value in going from a 2012 to a 2018?  But I'm only asking for a dollar. You see? Yeah, remember the trade question? Yeah, what are the two reasons? You said why you wanted to trade out of your car right now. Remember, you said it sits too low to the ground and your back hurts. Guys, do you think that any... Can a doctor fix your back problem for a dollar? No, I can. I just did it. Sign here. What? Does that make sense? Hey, I'm just saying, you want to negotiate? Well, negotiate, right? But if you came out of the gate doing that every time, didn't that sound kind of a little car salesmanist, right? You know what I'm saying? I don't know if that's a word, but it sounds like you're a car salesman coming out of the gate. You know what I'm saying? Like, I can do all this stuff. No, no, no. Wait. Use all this to get down to the small number and then when you get real small, then finish them off with some negotiating, okay? And this is kind of role-playing here because I want to just kind of talk about some scenarios about how things normally go down. Is that cool? Okay? All right. I'm going to be the customer.  Okay. Okay? All right. So I'm buying and you're selling me an 18 Chevy Traverse. It doesn't even matter what this is, okay? It has no value even what I'm buying. The objection I'm going to give is I think the price is too high, okay? Which we hear that all the time, okay? This is inside on the pencil. So that's what you're selling me. This is the price. That's the payment. That's not even worried about cash down or nothing. Okay. So you're cool with the payment? No, no, no. I just want you to present it to me.  Cool? So I'm the salesman. So congratulations, Mr. Customer. I got you approved on the 2018 Chevy Traverse. I got you at $3.99 a month. It's right here. Yeah, I think that price is way too high. This is too high. If I was able to fit that within your budget, would you take me with you today? Sure. Okay. So this price. So you want it lower, right? Exactly. Okay. Yeah, I didn't know how to overcome that. No big deal. Hold on. Let's chill, okay? Somebody come swap out with him real quick. It's okay. No, you did good. So somebody swap out. You want to try? Hold on, Matt. Let's give Lewis and then you run right behind him. Lewis, come here.  Don't be scared. All right, Lewis, ready? All right, Lewis, I'm going to have you pick right back up. So we have to restart, okay? Lewis, I appreciate it, but I think the price is too high. All right, finish that. Oh, it might be a little bit more specific. Why do you think the price is too high? Yeah, I just think it's too high. Definitely. Any second about the sales price or the monthly payment? Well, I think they're both too high. Hold on. This is how negotiations go. Am I right? Yeah. Okay. All right, cycle through. Hold on. You did good. I'm waiting. I'm waiting. I want to hear. Okay. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Come on, Matt. Good price. You've already hit me with it. Yeah, I'm just basically, you presented it, and I'm going to say, hey, I think the price is too high. I just think it's too high. We find it to be pretty dishonest if I hit you at $21.9, and we haggling negotiate, and we get down to $18.9. $18.9 is still the real price. But you may think you've got a great deal, but you're never going to buy a car for me again. Does that make sense? Because I tried sneaking one past you. You're not going to, I don't want to say this car.  You see why $18.9 is the real price? I do apologize. Excuse me. I apologize for that. You're OK? Because I stumbled. You're OK? Listen, to get up here, it's a little bit awkward. It's no big deal. I'm better at the table. Hey, listen, you're doing a good job. Don't worry about it. Hang on. This is where you're at. You wanted to use basically the non-motive negotiation clause, right? Which means the guy's just probing for a better deal. That's all I'm doing. Am I right? Do I have a reason why I think it's too high? No. I'm just hitting him for a better deal. It's all I'm doing, OK? Which happens daily, right? OK? All right, let's circle. Let's decipher out if there's one more person that wants to try it. You want to try, Trayvon? I'll try. Listen, hey, here's the deal. I want to try on five or six guys, and then we're going to talk about it. But I just want to show you what the life of a salesman kind of looks like. And if you have a good little system in place, remember I talk about systems? We all have a payment system now, right? Here, here, here. Here, here, here. We run it like that. Well, this is the exact same. It's no different. It's the same thing, OK? All right, let's go. I think, so here's the deal. I'm buying the Traverse, $18.99, $3.99. I think that the price is too high. I think the price is too high. OK, awesome. So here is what we like to give our best pricing up front, because we believe that it's more honest to give our best price up front instead of raising the price of $3,000 more, and then dropping the price back down $3,000.  Does that make sense? Sure. Awesome. Hey, listen. Hey, you did a good job, but listen. No, you did a good job, OK? This is what role playing looks like, OK? All right, how about this, OK? And I want to do this.  Is that cool? Yeah, I'll do it. OK, but I want to show you something, OK? I want to tell you a three-step system, OK? And I'm going to share this with you. I'm going to go through number one, which actually, I'm going to let him play the salesman here in just a second. I'm going to play it. Actually, I'm going to let him play the salesman for just a second one more time. I'm going to tell you, number one, I'm going to give you a three-step system. I want to tell you, because we're going to role play it, OK? One is you always want to check the payment, OK? Let me explain what I mean. People don't always say what they mean. Does that make sense? They say something, but that's not really what they mean. They just say it. So if I say that the price is too high, am I saying that the price is too high? If I think the price comes down, the payment might come down with it, right? But did I say the payment's too high or did I say the price is too high? Right, but what I meant to say was the payment's too high, but I didn't say that. So what happens is now you're trying to overcome a price objection, which really isn't even a price objection, it's a true payment objection. Does that make sense? That could be said, or I could do this, which I like that, but I try to pull that out for a minute, right? Like, it doesn't matter what the price is as long as the payment's right. That could be said. But I'm afraid that there's salesmen that have said something in another store, right? And that could be like, at the end, when they're like, well, I still don't want to pay that price, but I'm okay with the payment. Then you could be like, honestly, you know what I'm saying? Like, at the end of the day, you're not writing a check for it, right? And then you could go back into the payment part. Go ahead. Let's say they got great credit. Yeah. Listen, let's say they have wonderful credit. Do you have the best credit you've ever seen in your life? Okay? So there's no credit closed. Here's what I would tell you. Remember what I said about finance penetration? About people like financing most of their cars? Most people that are financing are worried about payments, not price. They might ask about the price, but your goal is, is it easier to close somebody on price or payments? Which one? Payments. We always want to take them to payments, okay? So what do I do? Watch this. You be my customer, and you tell me the price is too high, right? So great news. Buy in this. Here's your price. There's your payment. Sign here. Let me get your new car cleaned up for you. I think the price is too high. I think the price is too high. I like the vehicle, the test drive is great. I love it. Listen. Trayvon, other than price, right? Other than the price. Are you okay with the $3.99? Yes or no? Not really. Okay. Awesome. And how close to $3.99 can you come? I was thinking, because my buddy, he bought one in two weeks. What are you paying now on your Trayvon? I'm paying $3.50. Cool. $3.50? Awesome. So basically, you want to pay $3.50 or $3.99. Is that right? Yes. Let me show you how affordable your new vehicle is. I flip the piece of paper over and I go straight into a payment close. Does that make sense? Like, I'm not talking about price anymore. I'm never going to bring up price again. I'm just moving. Just move, okay? Number one, you want to do a payment check, okay? What did I do? I took my hand and I covered it. I say, look, other than the price, are you okay with this? And I said, and then I looked at it, and he kind of paused. So I made him make a move. I said, yes or no? Yes. Awesome. So when you say the price is too high, now I go back to the price. You see what I'm saying? Remember how I said have a system? The first thing is check the payment. When he says the price is too high and don't get lost with me. Do you know what I'm saying? Are you following me? Okay, you're giving me some crazy. You're looking at my left eye. Am I right, Brandon? And Brandon was telling me a left eye trick last night. Okay, but listen. So check the payment number one, which means this. Anytime somebody says the price is too high, if you have a payment on the paper with it, if there is a payment with it, if it's a dual pencil, price payment pencil, you always say take your hand, cover the price, and say other than price, are you okay with the payment? No, I'm not. Awesome. How close to this payment can you come? What are you paying now? Let me show you how affordable your new car is. Boom, I'm straight into a payment close and I'm gone. David, are you following? You feel okay? Anybody not, anybody lost at this point? Tell me if you are, please. And you don't have to be weird to tell me that you're lost. Is anybody, everybody feel okay with this? It's pretty simple, right? It's a smoke screen. That's what it is, okay? All right, two, okay? There's motive. And then three, there's no motive, okay? Let me explain what I mean. Motive means that like, there's a real reason, okay? You might put real reason, no real reason, right? Like, or maybe, how about this? Motive would be like real reason. And then no motive would be like probing, right, for a better deal. Okay, let's just say probing for a better deal. Does that make sense? Like the dude's just trying you on for a better deal, which there's lots of those guys out there, okay? What's up? You ever seen, what is that movie called? Where that, is it Step Brothers? Where the guy gets shot in the throat with a dart? Old school. That's how I go, man, you crazy, right? You know when he got shot in the throat, like right before he went out, has anybody seen that? Yeah, look up Step Brothers, and I would bring that up. I'd say have you seen that Step Brothers deal? Or that old school where that dude got shot in the neck, and then right before he went out, he's like, man, you crazy. You're crazy, man. All right, and then move past it. Make something funny, make a joke, and then push past it. And say, but going back to the deal, right? Okay, so we can get you out of here, okay? You know what I'm saying? Are you wanting to set your first payment due towards the beginning of the month, the middle of the month? What's going to work best for you and your family? You know what I'm saying? You have your title of your trade in? I mean, I do a diversion question. Get off of it. Don't stick.  Don't do it. Move, okay? That's okay. I'll handle that with you separately, okay?  Yeah, that's okay. We'll talk about that. I'll help you with it, okay? But anyway, I'll say most of the times it's the car or trade, you know, the front end stuff. They usually don't send out stuff like that. Now, some of you guys have dock fees. Who's got the biggest dock fee in here? That's still low. 49 is low. Yes, I'm saying what's the biggest dock fee? What would you guys have? 599? Okay. Yeah, I was going to say most stores are 599 now in dock fees. Okay? Dude, so you need to be telling people that the national average dock fee, right, is 599. So with that being said, how much is your dock fee? 78 bucks. So you know that I'm $500 less in every store, so I can afford to be $500 higher in price and still beat my competitor's store because my dock fee out the door, right? And at the end of the day, it's the real money that you're spending. Am I right, would you agree? So I can afford to be 500 more, can I? See? Put it back on them. You need to find your leveraging tools and punch them.  Does that make sense? You know what I'm saying? Like, have the info, okay? But anyways, all right. So look, let's do motive, okay? You can go and sit back down. That's okay.  That way you can take notes, okay? But I just want to tell you, so motive means a real reason. So number one, just do a payment check, okay? Look, when you say the price is too high, are you okay with the 399? Yes or no? Man, I'm not worried about the payment. Let's say that's what they say. Man, I'm not worried about the payment, right? Guess what? Okay, that's a real price objection. Like, this guy's not worried about the payment right now. Like, he don't want to talk about it yet or he truly isn't worried about it. Whatever that is, I just need to keep moving. You know what I'm saying? So when you say the price is too high, here's my first thing. How will I know whether there's really a reason why he thinks it's too high or no reason? Well, you guys said the right deal. You said, when you say the price is too high, would you mind being more specific why you think the price is too high, right? That's like hot potato, okay? So Diaka says the price is too high. I say, Diaka, when you say the price is too high, would you mind being more specific? Why you think it's too high? Watch. Just throw it back to you. Cool. That is a real motive, okay? Saw another vehicle down the street, 1500 or less, right? Okay. What about this? What if I say, you know, hey, Diaka, when you say the price is too high, would you mind being more specific? Why you think it's too high? Diaka says, I just think it's too high. Guess what? That guy's probing for a better deal, right? You've locked him up. He didn't hand something back to you in return. And that's what Singer and Trayvon were going over, right? The reason why I talk about word tracks, so in this word track book, it specifically has word for word every word that I use when I close. But every word matters, because if you change one word, how much does it change? Think about it. You wrote a book, right? And that one book says I've always had, or not had, Jesus in my life, right? Remember that one word? Changed everything. Yeah. It's supposed to be with him. But that out is what changed everything, right? Dude, listen, one word, I mean this when I say this, one word can cost you yourself. I want you to understand that. One word. And when I say this like Singer, right? You made 10 grand, right? When you dial in these word tracks deadly, you'll go to 20 grand. Like money will be made that much faster, because here's the deal, okay? Anybody that's got good credit in this room, they could buy what they want, they can go in and buy something. Remember how I said the guy that looks like he's 85%, right? The customer clings on to the 15% of uncertainty in leaves, or says no. If you're 100%, they buy. That's it. Live by these rules your entire life, okay? Is it okay to be 85%? Listen, when you started out with nothing, being 85% is a gift. You'll be closing more deals, you'll be making more money. That's called progress, okay? I don't ever want to shoot you guys down with progress. But when you're on your own, like I want you to be so good at this stuff that like you're deadly at doing it. Does that make sense? Okay? So that says no motive? No motive? Sorry, that looks bad. Look, let's do no motive. So let's close both of these real fast. And then basically what we'll do is we'll have a quick feeling because I want to move to the trade. I need to think about it and I'll get back with you. I'm going to nail those three fast because those are really easy. But I'm going to have Bubba talk to everybody probably maybe 30 minutes, just about Facebook for a minute. The reason why is because I honestly say there's two ways to make more money, right? Raise your gross or sell more cars, okay? Some people are like, I don't need to post on Facebook. I don't need to do this. Look, I'm going to tell you this, okay? It's one of the biggest and best things in the world. It brings in traffic massively, okay? I don't care who you are or where you're at. Guys right now are crushing it off Facebook. You know what I'm saying? Just like we just talked to him. He said he sold three last week off it, right?  Alex, Jackie's little brother, right?  He's the top salesman in the store. They don't get any fresh traffic.  Our store is slow. We haven't seen enough people this week. I hear that from you guys all the time. Dude, let's fix it right now, okay? Bubba's going to talk to you about Facebook remarketing, but I just want to tell you like, Facebook in general marketplace is huge. Like you need to own every avenue that you can do to create yourself being your own internet department, okay? And your managers, they don't even know what this looks like. This guy I'm talking about, like they don't know what you look like. If Frankie was my manager and I worked for him, Frankie, if I could drum in 30 car deals a day, like 30, or I'm sorry, a month. Yeah, 30 would be great a day. But if I could drink in 30 car deals a month and you didn't have to spend any advertising money and it was my own stuff, what would you give for that guy? Anything, right? That guy exists. Jackie's little brother's doing it. You guys can all do it. We're going to teach you how to do it. And here's the cool thing. When you go back home, if you don't know how to do it, right? You know what I'm saying? Like let's just say you go home and you're like, man, I can't figure this out. Yes, you can, because I'll help you figure it out, okay? We'll set a 24-hour plan with you. I would start out by saying, let's post five cars a day to Facebook. Every time you post one to Facebook, send me the ad. Guys, I got a cell phone. It's real simple. You send me the ad? Boop, I look at it. And I'm like, dude, that ain't going to work. You know what I'm saying? Change this. Okay, now you change it. Now you change it. Now you're getting deadly, and now leads start coming in constantly. You know what I'm saying? Some of you guys on Facebook, when you post, you don't know it, but your ads aren't even going out to Facebook, right? Your ads aren't even going out, okay? There's this little deal, like sometimes Facebook won't serve your ad. Am I right, Alex? And I know some of you guys know this, but Alex, every time you post something on Facebook, I haven't sent it to me. And sometimes it'll say redirecting. You know what that means? Facebook found something in it that it doesn't like, and it's not going to serve the ad to anybody. Dude, you want to know that it's redirecting your ad because that means no one else can see it. So every time you post something on Facebook, you want to send it to someone else, okay? To me, you know what I'm saying? Just send it to me. And I'll say, it looks great. That simple response is perfect. That way you know I'm getting them. Because if I can't see it and it says redirecting, I'll be like, hey dude, your ad isn't showing. It says this item is no longer for sale. Like that's a bad deal. Does that make sense? Yeah, so I just want to tell you you want to know if that's happening, okay? All right, so look, let's move through these two real quick. All right, so first of all, real motive, okay? And then Diaka, you need to get out here in about three minutes, okay? Okay, cool. All right, so check this out. If somebody says that they saw a car $1,500 less down the road, what is the first thing you do? Well, number one, you always negotiate on the backside of your sheet of paper, okay? This right here, this is our whole sheet of paper right here. Now I'm going to erase this stuff just so we can ride on it, but everybody's got it. Motive, no motive. Check the payment at first. Okay, so if I'm sitting here and check this out, I say $3.99 a month signed here, $18.99. Guy says the price is too high. I say okay, and everybody should have a piece of paper. I want you to write this down. I want you to show you how to write down the backside of your sheet of paper. All right, so sign here, let me get your new car cleaned up. Hey, there's no way I can do that. I think the price is too high. Okay, when you say the price, and I obviously do the payment check, other than the price, are you okay with the payment? He says I'm not worried about the payment. I say okay, when you say the price is too high, would you mind be more specific? Why you think it's too high? And then I'd be quiet, and then he says, I saw $1,500 down the street. That's fair. Let me show you how affordable your new vehicle is. I flip the paper over. This will be our backside, and just like I did old car, new car, guess what I put? I put, let's put our price. That's fair. You can label these however you want. You could put the name of your dealership, right? It would be, I don't know, wherever you work. Kniepelmeyer Chevrolet, ABC Motors, whatever. I put our price here, which is $18.99. Okay? And then over here, I'll put ABC Motors, which I'll ask them obviously where the other car is they saw. Does that make sense? I'll say hey, where's that other price you saw? They'll say those at ABC Motors. Now I'll always do the apples to apples, right? You know what I'm saying? Like is it the same car? Did it have the same equipment? Did it have the same miles? Did it have all that stuff? You know, like what all did it have? But at the end of the day, if it's kind of like close to the same truck, guess what? Our same car or whatever. These are for pre-owned, okay? Guess what? I'll take that or even brand new. I guess you could use it because you take your dealership benefit over the other store. And you basically take, and what you're going to start out with is you're going to start by saying, hey, this is our vehicle right here. And obviously when you said the price is too high, now listen, I want you to write this word down. When you said the price is too high, I said, let me show you how affordable it is. I flipped it over. I write our price, ABC Motors price. And I say, and this is how it starts up the ownership. Frankie was talking about how you turn everything into ownership, ownership, ownership, ownership. When I say this, when you say the price is too high, Matt, are you talking about the purchase price or the ownership price? Which price was too high? Most people don't know what that even means. So you know what they'll say? What do you mean? I'm glad you asked. And I'm actually setting you up to say what do you mean? I actually want that response out of you, okay? So, so David, check this out. So 18.9 is ours. You said ABC Motor has one for 17.4. Is that right? Is 1,500 or less down the street, right? Cool. And when you said the price is too high, were you talking about the purchase price or the ownership price of the truck?  So the purchase price is the price you pay today, okay? So you see the 17.4 and the 18.9? Well, at our store, our service inspection, let me explain this to you. We do 127-point service inspection, right? From A to Z, we go through these scores. NADA, they had a convention last year. I'll kind of always talk about something. The national average to spend on a car in the reconditioning department is like 300 bucks per car. Our store's averaging 1200 bucks per car. That's a lot of money, right? So the deal is, is that we don't just want to be like great in price. Like we want to be high in all the critical areas that are important to you and your family. Like you need to find something about your store. Like what service inspection does your store do? What does it do? Hey, how many point? But you said what? 160. Well, watch this. Forget I said that. And I'm just going to use your example. Watch. We do 160-point service inspection. Do you know the national average service inspection for a store is a 27-point service inspection? Now, I'm going to tell you this. So at 160-point service inspection, we do everything the eyes can and cannot see. I'm going to explain this to you. See this car, right? When you put the two cars next to each other, they look the exact same. They're not the exact same. From the outside, tires shined up and clean. They look the same. But under the hood, right? Transmission flushes, making sure the cars are perfect. Do you know in the owner's manual, it talks about all the inspections that are supposed to be done? 160-point service inspection covers everything. Guess what? Great businesses, right? What they do is they want to be high in all the critical areas. But it's hard for them to be high and not just a little bit higher in price, but we are the lowest in cost. At the end of the day, if you work hard for your money and put your money in the bank, when your money leaves the bank, that's really the real money spent. Over here at ABC Motors, guess what happens? A lot of these guys do small 27-point service inspections. That means they do this. They just do everything the eyes can see. You know why? Because they want to be the lowest in price, right? But guess what? In the end, they're going to be the highest in cost. Why? Because they don't service the things that need to be serviced today down the road. You're the one that ends up spending that money. Does that make sense, David? And guess what?  Am I right? So here's the deal. Our goal is to be high in all the critical areas that are important to you and your family. Whatever it is that you have that are your deal or benefits or the things that you do special in your store, you need to name those things here. Okay? Does that make sense? Everybody has a different store, okay? Everybody has a different system, but you have to name these benefits right here. And your whole goal, why you label it this way, is that check this out. Your whole goal is to get here and to say it's real simple. The normal trade cycle is anywhere from two to three years. Let's say at three years. Well, on my car, if you spend $18.9 today, which is the purchase price, okay, Doug, that's the purchase price, that's how much you spend. If you spend zero money over the next three years, other than oil changes, right, and the car has been wonderful, well, the purchase price is $18.9 and the ownership price was $18.9. And the ownership price, 90% of our customers have agreed that that's the real price that matters if money's your biggest concern, which you said that the price was too high, so I'm guessing that that was money. Well, over here at ABC Motors, since obviously they didn't take care of everything that was important to you and your family and they're not high in all those areas, well, guess what?  Guess what? Not only to mention time inconvenience that is inconvenient for you and your family, if I take the $17.4 plus $2,000 spent, I'm not the best at math, but the purchase price is $17.4, but the ownership price is $19.4. Well, at the end of the day, how much does the real money spend? The real money spends the $18.9. I'm still cheaper plus the time and inconvenience. This is called, just like we did the purchase payment, like the payment versus the ownership payment, right? This is called money justification on cars, okay? When somebody says that the price is too high, you always have to go for the ownership price. You see all this scribble in between? This is for you and you only. Look, David, you're different than him, okay? He's different than you and we're different and all of us are a little bit different, okay?  That dangling carrot? It doesn't mean anything. Like, literally, it means nothing. It's a one-time bite. See you, brother. Thank you. Nice seeing you guys. Have a good plane flight, man.  See, they want you to get a bite on that dangling carrot. Can I explain this to you? Our store, we do these reconditionings, right? That are 160-point inspections. You know why we do 160-point inspections? They cost more money than the normal inspection, because when we sell you something today, we want you to drive it for as long as possible without spending any money, okay? But over at ABC Motors, their goal is to have the dangling carrot and be the cheapest in price. So guess what happens? They can be cheaper in price, but they know in 30 days that they don't sell it, they're going to take the car back to the auction, right? And they're going to give it to the auction. So what they do is they bait you with this lower price, and guess what? In the end, you're stuck with all the ownership cost in the end. Does that make sense? So I want to tell you that what you have to realize is that does ABC Motors have your best intention about being high in all the critical areas and important in your family? No, they don't have that best intention. You know what they have?  And our store, when we do 160-point inspection, do you think we do it just because we want to spend money with ourselves? No, we do it because we want to be high in all the critical areas and important in your family. Notice how I keep circling back around. I'm saying the same things. I'm just circling back around in them. Until the customer moves and they get my point, that's how I do it. So I just want to share with you that, look, you have to, and just rolling into this, you have to break down your point that this is your price, that's their price. And then you have to take this right here and make all your points. I could right here, look, we keep our cars for six months until they sell. We don't care because we make them perfect. Over here, they keep them for 30 days and take them back to the auction. Their biggest concern is the auction, right? Not you. So they can afford to price them a little bit cheaper, but guess what? In the end, they're not going to be the lowest in cost. I can be the highest in price as long as I'm the lowest in cost. Because at the end of the day, that's your real money spend. You just need to get really comfortable talking about these words, okay? I mean, like, really comfortable. So as I talk to you guys, like, you need to find your lingo the way that you talk, the way that you work this stuff. So I was just sharing with you that at the end here, your ultimate goal is to make a presentation of your vehicle and all the things that your store has. So we're basically, you can show where the customer isn't going to spend any money here. So this price is going to be the same price here. And then over here, you want to go into, hey, this price, it may look lower, but in the end, it's actually going to be much higher because you're going to end up paying the maintenance on it. Does that make sense? Yeah, everybody get it? You just got to find your avenue of it, okay? You don't want to negotiate down. Here's what most people do, okay? When I remember I had Brandon get up here, right? Where's Brandon go? Oh, there you are, right? Remember, Brandon, remember how you said this? I said, 18, nine. And you said, cool. So what you're saying is, if I can make the numbers right, you do business today. And I said, sure. You know why? Because that's usually what most salesmen do. And then what happens? You say, well, you know, I mean, obviously, NADA says this, Kelly Bluebook, we put our first best price up front and you end up going through all this stuff. And then in the end, what happens? You end up dropping it down and saying, well, if I could do 18 grand, would you, you know, would you do that? Would you do this? And then all of a sudden, man, you've started with true negotiations. And I just want to stop you from getting into true negotiations, okay? Look, I'm telling you, when you get into true negotiations, there's a little bit of logic in it, but not a bunch of logic, okay? That's when you get personal, like emotional, like he said, a guy trying to give you a 6,000 less. You don't want to get into that. Do you want somebody to try you on with the best price they think that they want to spend? No, dude. That's a losing battle. Try to live and play in this area and practice this to death. If I knew your dealership you were in, I could tell you what to say here. So that's why I was talking to David. I was like, hey, what's your service inspection? 160. Okay, cool. Do you know most stores, like, do a 10-point, 20-point service inspection? Well, if you've got a big service inspection, like, you're going to smash out the other place, right? Just use it, okay? Anyways, with that being said, that's how you handle the ownership cost of somebody, like, really having a true reason why they think the price is too high. Write it down, get your pin, and negotiate it. And then what we were talking about is when somebody has, when I said members said no motive, right? No motive, which basically means this, the customer's probing for a better deal. I always do the empathy close, you know what I'm saying? Who has a better relationship with your customers than you? Nobody, man. And there's a word track that I put in that overcoming objection book and it's really long and you're like, man, that's just a lot of words. But dude, like, when you're getting, like, punked on in there and you're in the office, you don't want to leave, right? You don't want to sound like a car salesman. Remember how I said in the beginning, the meet and greet, the relationship you build with them, the way that you work with them, you know what I'm saying? How kind you are to them, the way that you handle yourself. All of those things are going to come play out when you're negotiating because I don't use the empathy close a lot, but think about this. If you're around, let's say a girl and a guy you're dating, if a guy hasn't cried in 10 years, right? And he's been around his girl the entire time. The first time he cries, she's like, oh my God, he has a heart. You know what I mean? Like, she's just blown away.  You know what I'm saying?  I'm not trying to say that, but I'm just saying like, you know what I mean? I don't want you to feel weird. Some of you guys are really like, you know what I'm saying? I don't know. Anyways, with that being said, I just want to make a point to you that an empathy close is something that you can only pull off once during a sale. Just once.  It needs to be something when you pull it out and it needs to have a massive effect. And you may think that this is like bullcrap and like this won't work, but like it works all the time. I use it all the time. So I would memorize the word track in there and use it even a little bit different as you want.  They say, yeah. I just think the price is too high. I'll say, all right, other than price, or I mean, my bad, I'll say, when you say the price is too high, would you mind being more specific why you think the price is too high? And at that point, I kind of look at them, look, never break eye contact, like ever, like always keep eye contact. And I can tell, like if somebody swallows why they're talking to you, like if I'm talking to you and I go, am I lying? Yes. Those are like signs. You're like those watch those FBI shows and they like tell you when somebody's lying. If somebody looks the other way when they're talking to you and they haven't normally broke eye contact, but all of a sudden they're breaking eye contact, you're like, that guy's lying. You know what I'm saying? And customers are liars, right? They're liars. A lot of times we force them to lie. You understand what I'm saying? Okay. I was just saying like they're lying. Okay. And what happens is we trap them to lie. So what I like to do is they have to ask for a better deal. Would you agree that a lot of the times when you buy something, whether you get a better deal or not, if you've got your mind made up, you're going to buy it, you're not at peace until you ask for a better deal. Would you would you agree? If you're not going to give me a better deal, that's fine. But if I don't ask for it, I'm not at peace. For my kids and for my wife, I level up, level up, level up, level up, let's get to work. I don't want to just say this, call you by today.   No. And I shake my hand just like I say no. You see, I want a further relationship than just today. Mr. and Mrs. Customer, have I offended you and your family in any way by giving you my best price up front? Have I offended you in any way? They'll always say no. It's the response they will give you and when they do, say thank goodness. Thank you so much for your business. Guys, if you'll sign right here, let me get your new car cleaned up. And when did you want to set your first payment? Do you have you guys talked about that towards the beginning? And I'm moving. I'm divert and I go into a close. That phase, that little script right there has made me so much money. I haven't memorized. I always say tattoo it on your heart, right? If you guys can memorize that little line right there, it sounds like a lot, but it's really not a lot. Okay? Not if you want to make 100,000. If you memorize that, you would never get stuck in the box on your own with the guy telling you he thinks the price is too high. And then guess what? You not knowing what to say. You can always go into that. Don't we put our first best price up front? Don't most dealerships put their good pricing on the internet? Okay. Guess what? Do you go in and honestly tell your customers constantly that, hey, we put our best price up front, we put our best price up, but we put our best price up front? Yeah, so does every other dealership. You know what I'm saying? So guess what you have to do? You have to break in and put empathy in them. And guess what?  Does that make sense? Like that's the main deal. Like I want to share with you. That's the whole power move.  When we're sitting down, like I've got my hand on you and look, contact, I love making contact. Okay. So anytime I'm doing closing, I mean I'll say this, we'll talk like this, but when I'm about to close you, I'll say, listen, let me explain this to you. And I will put my hands on somebody even if he's 10 times bigger than me. I don't care. I need to calm people down. When you're negotiating and you're dealing, you may say like, man, this sounds like it won't work. It's all based off your personality. Like if you have zero relationship with these people, you can't be putting your hands on. You know what I'm saying? But because me, because I'm always like, you know, like, guys, do we have a deal? You love the car, right? And give me a hug, dude. We're like family. Dude, I'll hug Doug. I don't care. And he's like, what? This guy's like, I'm a hugger, dude. That's what we do. I love you. We're family. Man, that's weird, dude. I don't tell guys I love them. You know what? We do now. That's it. Like that's how I am. I know people want to make stuff awkward. I know they want to. I won't let them. Does that make sense? Does anybody understand where I'm coming from? Do you know how badly they don't want you to get close to them? I mean, I'm serious when I say this. Like people don't want you to be that cool with them. You know why? Because if they're extra cool with you, they know you're going to take their money. So they want to be as cold as possible to you. So if you mirror match them, you're screwed, man. You have got to break the mold of the way that they have dealt with car salesmen. And you know, Doug may be like, yeah, I really don't hug people. That's not my deal. Yeah, it is. It is your deal because you like people, right? You know what I'm saying? We talk about Christians. Christians love people, right? Treat them like you're in church. Love on them. Make this your environment. Do you know the one thing you can control? You can control your own environment, your own atmosphere, okay? I can walk into a store that's dead. You know what that means when I say dead? I'm talking like dead. No music on.  And all of a sudden, I can crank it up in just two minutes. Do you know why? Because I bring that energy into that place. You have to carry your own individual atmosphere into every area that you go in. And guess what? You can't just be that dude that's just walking through life. There has to be something magical about you. Remember this. Guys, people can go and buy a car from anybody, right? They can buy from any dealership. There's nothing special about you. You know what I mean? I'm glad that everybody is like working really hard and all that stuff. But your customers don't care. You know what they care about? They care about the way they feel when they're around you. Okay? What do people want to do with their best friends? Can two best friends guys give each other a hug when they're going through a hard time? Yeah? Guess what? Hug them. Make them do things with you that they would only do with the people that are closest to them. You have to be the one to initiate that. It's like thinking success is going to come to you and knock on your door. It ain't going to come to you. I'm just telling you.  That's what life's about. So when I talk about like building close relationships with people and like making a lot of money, remember I said in the meet and greet like the relationship is everything? Do you know what closers are great about? They don't look like normal people. You walk into an office and you see a guy sitting across the desk talking to a man. That guy's not making any money. I'm positive of it. I know that because I've been in dealerships my whole life.  He's up on a desk. He's got his arms around somebody. He's talking to him and he's doing this and this and this. You know what I'm saying? And he's like, listen, I got this and that guy's making money. You can tell. He's not like anyone else. Does everybody understand that? That's the way I want you guys to be. You may not have anyone else in your store that there's to look up to, but I want to share this with you.  They are, when I say like the one percenter, they are the one percenter, which means if I was to take a hundred salesman, we could pull one man out and we could call him the one percenter. You know what I'm saying? If I got a thousand salesmen, a thousand, we could pull 10 out. And I want to tell you this, out of every hundred sales people that line up, would you say that one of them is going to be making three, four hundred thousand dollars? Yep. And the rest of them, they're going to be fighting for the rest of the change. The reason why that is and the reason why you guys can all be the one percenters, it's because here's the test and here's the answers to the test. I'm telling you how to do it. Now look, can you be an introvert? Yeah. Franky said he's an introvert, right? Cool. You guys all have talked to each other, right? You've all been here for a little bit, right?  You know what, and we'll kind of end here and I'll let Bubba talk and we'll kind of take a break for maybe two, three minutes and then we'll jump right back into it. But I want to tell you this. I was in a meeting when I was like 18 years old and I was in this dealership and there's like a hundred sales guys and I walk in and one of the GM said what is the one thing that we never stop doing? Like ever.  Like we're trying to think of everything, you know? Always do a walk around, you know? Everybody's just like naming stuff. He's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All that's right, okay? You guys are all right. But the one thing you never stop doing is being an actor, okay? I got to explain this to you. This is Joe, okay? When Joe's here and when Joe's at home, Joe acts a certain way. When Joe goes to work, Joe cannot act the same way that Joe acts when he's at home. If he does, he's not going to be successful. And I'm not asking you to be different like morally or unethically. I'm saying, let's say Brad Pitt. He walks into, he's probably at home, right? Chilling in his underwear, hanging out, just a normal dude, right? Right? And then he goes and what happens? That they tell him how to act. They hand him a script, right? You know what I'm saying? Where's Dennis at? Dennis, you know how acting works? Dennis was worked with actors. Dennis, they hand him a script and they say act this way. Am I right? And you take that and you're like, all right, cool. So I'm crazy. I'm like a drug dealer now. And like, you know what I'm saying? Like this is what I have to do. And like this is the energy I have to have. And you have to memorize the script too, right? Which is your training, which is everything we just went over. You have to memorize everything that I just told you. But watch this. If you do it right, you can make millions, okay? That's it. And you memorize it and then you act it out. And when you guys go into work, okay? You cannot be the same youth. Are you married? You got a girlfriend? Okay. She thinks she knows you, right? When you're at work, she needs to be like, what in the hell is he in there doing? You know what I'm saying? Like she doesn't need to recognize you. Like if Jackie was at work, right? And she was watching me work. I don't want her to identify who I am because when I'm at work, I am a beast. You know what I'm saying? I am a beast. Yeah, I mean, I'm an animal. When I go into stores and I train, I flip the switch completely. Anybody that's hung out at my house, dude, I'm chill, man. I don't even want to talk about work. You know what I'm saying? I just want to hang out, talk about family, kick it, hang out. Let's go swimming at the pool. You know, like let's do whatever, right? But once I put my shirt on, I put my coat on, I'm ready to go. By the time I walk into work, I'm a cold closer. I'm ready to go. I motivate. I encourage. I walk like 10 times faster than I walk when I'm at home. Like something inside of me starts like churning. It's like a machine. That's what I need you guys to understand. That's what made me all that money. And what still makes me money is I turn into an actor. I never stop acting. So as I'm like an introvert, when I go to become an actor, I become an extrovert. You know what I'm saying? Like I press full court. So I'm telling you guys this, that I need you to turn into that. Do I know what? Well, the trigger is that honestly, you create your own environment. And this is my environment. Okay, like this is my space, right? Like I can't control any space that isn't around me, right? But I will share with you that no matter how he's feeling, no matter how he's feeling, if I can do this, if I can put my hands on him and I'm in my actor mode, he's done, I'll own him. And I don't mean that out of like arrogance or cockiness. I mean that out of confidence. I've been doing it for so long that when I go into a customer and I'm in my zone, see, because when I got my coat on, I'm in my zone. I know what, right? Am I, you know what I'm talking about? Frankie, you take your jacket off, right? Okay? You put on a t-shirt and put on some shorts. There's like Frankie and then there's like Frankie. You know what I'm saying? That's it. That's why I tell people to dress nice when they go to work because when you go to work and you're wearing the same clothes at home and then leaving and going to work and wearing the same clothes at work, like there's got to be like a costume change. You've got to switch. And some of you, you may say, ah, you know, I don't like doing that. I know it's comfortable to not change anything, but I'm telling you, right? You know, like, you guys got to understand the value in like seeing yourself differently. Okay? I was sitting there training in store. Okay? And literally, all the salesmen are way underdressed. They don't look like business people at all.  If I had, if I took the whole room right now and I was like, all right, let's take a test.  And you may not even like what I say, but you don't have to love everything I say to understand and tell you why it works for me. If I was to go into Chick-fil-A right now, let's just say you work Chick-fil-A. And I was to say, hey, how are you doing? This is what I want to order. Hey, can you guess what I do for a living? I don't know. Would you think that I'm a business person? So you'd say that I probably look like I have something to do with business, right? Awesome. Thank you.  I'm cool with that. I'll take that. They don't have to guess it right.    If you were to be like, hey, what do I look like I could do? Teacher? No, I don't want to be a teacher. I'm actually trying to take somebody out of their budget, right? And show them that I can manage their money. Does that make sense? Aren't you guys' goal to manage their money? Is that your deal? I mean, watch. David, when you go to work, right? Do they have a certain dress code that you have to wear? What's a dress code like? A shirt and tie. Shirt and tie? When you put that tie on, does David change up here a little bit? Feels good, doesn't it? That's my point. So I just want to tell you, never stop acting. That's where we're going to finish off on this price point, but never stop acting, okay? And if your management staff doesn't require you to dress nice, who cares? Look, if you guys really want to change, don't they say that nothing changes until you change? Weren't we talking about that last night? I mean, like, what did Jim Rohn say? There you go. We were talking about Jim Rohn last night, right? Which I'm going to start digging into like crazy, because I love, I mean, he was talking about that's one of his mentors where he started, right? That's where it all started for you. And he said, for people to change, what was it? I'm not writing it down. You know I'm a hard learner, okay? What is it? For things to change, you have to change. Okay? So Austin, do you have to wear a suit and tie to work? Okay? I'm going to ask you this. If you did, would you think differently? Do it. Do it. For things to change, you have to change. Now does that mean that everyone else, right, has to like, want you to change? No, no one else wants you to change. Okay? Everybody wants you to stay right where you're at, because they don't want you to ask them to do more. Okay?  So I just tell you this, right? I share my advice with you. In life, when I worked and I honestly didn't dress really sharp, that's when I made the smallest paychecks I ever made in my life. I didn't grow, I didn't want to learn more because I wasn't in a learning mood, okay?  You can have three suits and you can just rotate them. When it's 100 degrees outside, take it off. Roll your sleeves up. It's okay. You look like a businessman who's getting to work. You know what I'm saying? And it doesn't work for everybody, but it works for me. So you have to figure out who you are, right? Everybody saw Brandon yesterday, right? Brandon, you came last night. Last night, did you have your suit on? Look. Huh? Yeah, look nice and clean. But today, you put a white shirt on, right? It looks even sharper. You see how you can always elevate it one more time? And I know this we're all together. We're not inside the dealership. So, you know, it is what it is. But I just want to tell you that dress sharp and you feel sharp.   If you don't, elevate your game.


Amen. All right. So we're in Judges chapter 8. So this is the third chapter that we're talking about the same judge. Gideon has three chapters dedicated to him in the book of Judges. So that's, you know, not too many men have three entire chapters in the Bible dedicated to them. So of course in the first couple of chapters, the first chapter in Judges chapter 6, Gideon was called by the prophet and by the angel. And then of course in Judges chapter 7, you know, we saw in Judges chapter 6 that Gideon tested God. He asked for a sign several times. And then we saw that in Judges chapter 7, God tested Gideon. He got rid of his entire army of 32,000 men and makes him go forth and fight the battle with only 300 men, which we also see here.  The Lord wins the battle for him. That was the point of cutting it down to 300 men, so the Lord could show that it was me that gave you that victory. So they would not forget that. And then of course in Judges chapter 8, we see the battle continuing. The Midianite army is in retreat and Gideon is pursuing after them. Now in Judges chapter 8, I believe that we see the reason that Gideon is mentioned for three chapters in the Bible. I believe Judges chapter 8 shows the greatest aspect, the greatest character trait of Gideon. And I'll explain that to you towards the end of the sermon. But let's go through Judges chapter 8 and then we'll look at the application of Judges chapter 8 in, you know, the life of Gideon. Look at Judges chapter 8 in verse number 1. So we see the Midianite army, they're in retreat and the children of Israel now. There's more than 300 now. There's several tribes of Israel. They're now involved in this battle that are chasing the Midianite army out of the Promised Land. In verse number 1 the Bible says, And the men of Ephraim said unto him, Why hast thou served us? Served us thus, and thou called us not when we went to fight, when thou wentst to fight with the Midianites. And they did chide with him sharply. So here the men of Ephraim, they, the Midianite armies on the run and the men of Ephraim, of course in the first couple, the last couple verses of Judges chapter 7, you know, they basically were chiding Gideon here for not calling them right away. And of course Gideon had this great victory with his 300 men. And the men of Ephraim here are saying, How come you didn't involve us in this? Basically, and it says they chided him sharply. So they were very upset about this.  Look at verse 23. It says in Judges chapter 7 verse 23, the Bible reads, And the men of Israel gathered themselves together out of Neftali, out of Asher, and out of Manasseh, and pursued after the Midianites. So here we see three tribes that do come to help once the Midianite army starts running, starts retreating, and it was not Ephraim. And then in verse number 24, the Bible says, And Gideon sent messengers throughout all Mount Ephraim saying, Come down against the Midianites and take before them the waters unto Bethbara and Jordan. And the men of Ephraim gathered themselves together and took the waters unto Bethbara and Jordan. So Ephraim gets involved in the last part of the battle here. Okay, and it says that they slew these two Midianite princes. So on its face, it kind of looks like Ephraim kind of is kind of like that guy that comes when the fight's over.  You know, I would have been here. And you know, but the fight's pretty much, you know, the army's running at this point. And the men of Ephraim were upset that they weren't involved in the beginnings. But they did get involved at the last part of the battle. Okay, now it's interesting is how Gideon handles this. Look at verse number two of Judges chapter eight. So here you have the men of Ephraim. They're very upset over this. They're chiding him sharply. They're upset. And if you know anything about Ephraim, we'll talk about it in a little bit. You know that that's something that's serious. That's something that could go wrong quickly. Look at verse number two. This is how Gideon handles it. And he said unto them, What have I done now in comparison of you? Is not the gleaning of grapes of Ephraim better than the vintage of Abbe-Azer? God hath delivered into your hands the princes of Midian, Aura bin Zeb, and what was I able to do in comparison of you? Then their anger was abated toward him when he had said that. So he basically tells them, he tells Ephraim how great they are and what a great victory they had by slaying these two princes at the end of the battle. And he says, you know, who am I compared to you? He says this twice. He basically flatters them and it appeases their wrath. So it's very interesting how he handles that and how he diffuses this situation, but it seems to work. Now look at verse number four. And Gideon came to Jordan and passed over. He and the 300 men that were with him, faint yet pursuing them. And he said unto the men of Succath, Give, I pray you, wows of bread unto the people that follow me, for they be faint. And I am pursuing after Zeba and Zel-Mune, kings of Midian. So basically Gideon quickly diffuses the situation with the men of Ephraim. So what? So you can continue pursuing the Midianite army. And he goes across the river into what is, you know, we see these two cities here, but they're basically in the tribe of Gad. If you remember, there were some tribes that settled on the other side of the river that didn't want to cross the Jordan. They're just like, hey, we're happy here. You know, the half tribe of Manasseh and Gad were those tribes. So here we see Gad on this side of the river. And it's interesting because I did preach a sermon about, you know, the other side of the Jordan. I forget the actual title, but it basically talking about how, you know, they were disconnected from Israel. And we certainly see that here. We certainly see that they were not, you know, in unison with the children of Israel. At least Ephraim, when they were called, even at the end of the battle, what did they do? They came to the battle. And many of the other tribes came down and fought the battle right away when Gideon sent word out after he defeated the army with his 300 men, with the pitchers and the trumpets. So we see the tribe of Gad across the river. It shows the separation that they felt or the separation that they had towards their brethren. So, you know, they didn't consider the fight personal, basically. Look at verse number six. So he is, he's tired. These men have fought a battle. They're chasing this huge army. They're dealing with these situations like the situation with Ephraim and they're tired. It says they're faint. And look at verse number six and they ask for some bread, for some, for some, you know, some food and water. And the princes of Sukkot said, are the hands of Ziba and Zalmuna now in nine hand that we should give bread unto thine army? He's like, well, how come you don't have them yet?  Look at verse number seven. And Gideon said, therefore, when the Lord had delivered Ziba and Zalmuna into mine hand, then I will tear your flesh with the thorns of the wilderness and with briars. And he went up thence to Penuel, another city, and spake unto them likewise, and the men of Penuel answered him as the men of Sukkot had answered him. And he spoke also unto the men of Penuel, saying, when I come again in peace, I will break down this tower.  Now, Ziba and Zalmuna were in Kokar and their hosts with them, about 15,000 men, all that were left to the host of the children of the East for their, for their fell and 120,000 men that drew the sword. And Gideon went up by the way of them that dwelt in the tents on the east of Noba and Jogabah, and smote the host for the host was secure. And when Ziba and Zalmuna fled, he pursued after them and took the two kings of Midian, Ziba and Zalmuna, and discomforted all the hosts. So he destroys them and just like Orab and Zeb, here's more. So basically this Midnight Army and all these children of the East were made up of all these different princes and kings that were, that were brought together. And they were, they were not a monolithic army, if you want to think about it that way. They weren't all one. They were all these different nations. So he's just hunting down, you know, these different kings one at a time. And Bible says, and Gideon the son of Joash returned from the battle before the son was up. So he basically defeats their army. And he caught the young man of Sucketh and inquired of him and he described unto him the princes of Sucketh. He caught a young man, I'm sorry, of Sucketh. And he described unto him the princes of Sucketh, the elders thereof, even three score in 70 men. So they find a man of Sucketh to kind of, kind of tell them, you know, how the, the decision was made to not help them. So now the battle is over. He has these kings of Midian and he grabs this man of Sucketh as he's coming back now to execute judgment on, you know, these two cities that didn't help him.  And he explains to him, you know, how this worked and how the decision was made to not help him. And he came unto the men of Sucketh and said, behold, Zeba and Zalmuna. So what did they say to him when he first came through? So it's interesting that he didn't kill these two kings before he comes back to Sucketh. So what does he do? They said to him, oh yeah, you're chasing these two kings. Whoa, where are they? Talk to me, you don't have them yet.   Just to kind of, you know, put it right in their face, they're, to show their error, he has these two kings with him. And whom did you up braid me saying are the hands of Zeba and Zalmuna now in a nine hand that we should give bread unto thy men that are weary? And he took the elders of the cities and the thorns of the wilderness and briars, and with them he taught the men of Sucketh. And then, so basically, what does that mean? So it probably means that he killed those men, okay?  And you can probably say that he killed those men because of what he does to Panuel in the next couple of verses where it says, and he beat down the tower of Panuel and slew the men of the city. So basically, he comes back and he slays the men of these two cities. And then he said, now he turns to the two kings that he took after he defeated their army, the two kings of the Medianite army or the armies of the east, as the Bible says, then said he unto Zeba and Zalmuna, what manner of men were they whom ye slew at Tabor? Now, this is something different. And they answered as thou art, so were they each one resembled the children of a king?  As the Lord liveth, if ye had saved them alive, I would not slay you. So basically, at Tabor, this army of these two kings has killed Gideon's family, has killed his brothers.  So, you know, it's not going to work out well for them. So then Gideon tells his son to get up and kill these men. And he said unto Jethar, his firstborn, up and slay them. But the youth threw not a sword for he feared because he was yet a youth. So, I mean, talk about, you know, growing up as a man and having your dad tell you something to do. I mean, we talked about on Sunday morning on holding a flashlight. I mean, he basically tells, if he's yet a youth, that means in the Bible that you're somewhere south of 20, okay?  This boy is a youth. That means he was probably in his, I would guess in his early to mid teens. And his dad basically tells him to get up and kill these two kings with a sword.  And he doesn't wanna do it. He's afraid, okay? But we see more, you know, masculinity in the type of men that were in the Bible. We see even from these two kings of the East. Look at verse number 21. So the two men that were told to be executed, the young man, just picture the scene here.   They killed your family. They killed your dad's brethren. So get up and kill these two men. And the son, you know, he doesn't wanna do it.  But these two kings, they chastise the boy and they're basically saying to him, be a man. Be a man about it.  Whatever you wanna say about them, they're not cowards. Then Zeba and Zalmunah said, rise thou and fall upon us. They're saying, just be a man and do it. For as the man is, so is his strength.  And Gideon arose and slew Zeba and Zalmunah and took away the ornaments that were on their camel's necks. And the men of Israel said to Gideon, rule thou over us both thou and thy son and thy son's son also, for thou has delivered us from the hand of Midian. So we see this whole chain of events. Gideon chases down this army. He punishes the two cities that would not help him. And then at the end of this whole thing, the children of Israel ask Gideon. And I mean, you can totally see this happening. He's pretty much a hero of the nation at this point. He's freed the nation. Of course, it was the Lord that did it. And Gideon knew that, especially in the beginning of chapter eight, Gideon knew that. Gideon was a very humble person. We'll talk about that in a little bit. But this is the first time that you see the children of Israel ask for a king. They ask Gideon to be their king. And they ask not only for him to be a king, they ask for a dynasty. So the children of Israel right now, think about this, they're not under a dynasty. They're not under a monarchy. They're not being ruled by a king. They're being ruled by this system of judges. Okay, and the judges, they have two things that they're doing. Number one, they're judging the people. They're interpreting the word of God to the people. They're settling disputes, using the word of God. They're prophesying the word of God. And then of course, they're freeing, they're raised up, God raised up these judges to free the children of Israel from captivity, from whoever was keeping them in servitude at the time, whoever had conquered them. So turn to first Samuel chapter eight. So the difference is, is that Gideon is asked to be a king, but a judge is not a king. And you say, what's the difference, really? Well, the difference is this. When the children of Israel ask again for a king from Samuel, the last judge, I guess you could say, what Samuel tells them is what the difference is and what a king will do, aside from what a judge will do. And he's saying, basically Samuel here in first Samuel chapter eight is telling them, you don't want this. God basically says, hey, I'm gonna give it to him. They haven't turned their back on you. Samuel was really disappointed. He's like, they've turned their back on me because God set up the system of the judges. It wasn't men that did that. God raised up the judges for the children of Israel and they rejected that and they wanted a king. They saw all these nations around them. So not only did they turn constantly away from God onto the other gods of all these nations around them, is it becoming more clear as we read the Bible more, as we study the Bible more, why God wanted them to get rid of these nations? Because they just kept wanting to adopt all of these wicked things that these other nations had ruling them. They adopted their gods and now they want to adopt their form of government. So they want a king. And where did they get the idea of a king from the nations around them? Is where they got the idea of a king. But look at what Samuel says in first Samuel chapter eight and verse number six. But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the Lord. Skip down to verse number 11. And he said, this will be the manner of king that shall reign over you. He will take your sons and appoint them for himself for his chariots to be his horsemen and some shall run before his chariots.  He's like, you don't want a king. This is what a king's gonna do. He's gonna take your sons. He's gonna take your sons and use them for his army.  Is what the Bible is what Samuel is warning them about. Look at verse 13. And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries and to be cooks and to be bakers. And he will take your fields and your vineyards and your olive yards, even the best of them and give them to his servants. He's gonna take your livelihood, he's saying. He's gonna take your businesses.  Look at verse 17.  Look, he basically says he's gonna take your families. He's gonna take your businesses.   And then it says in verse number 17, it says he'll take a tenth of your stuff and that will make you his servant. Now, what are we then? When I read this, I'm like, okay, this king is gonna come here.  Well, I mean, hasn't that happened here? I mean, that's happened to people in my own family where sons were literally taken and said, you know, you have to go to war now. You know, what do I have to do with this? I'm on a farm in the middle of North Dakota but no, you have to go to war now and they take your sons and they go to war.  Now, if you're to the making a living point in your life as we talked about a few weeks ago, you know that the government today, our government takes much more than one tenth of what you make, okay?  Let's just move on past this so we don't get too wrapped up in this. But you know, I don't know what to tell you. This is what the king, he's saying, this is not what you want. But look, it speaks volumes of Gideon here. Go back to Judges chapter eight. It speaks volumes of Gideon. You say, why? Because he didn't want the power. Because they offered him everything.  We'll give you our families. We'll give you our money. We'll give you our businesses. And he's like, I don't want the power. We'll give you that power to you and to your sons. He's like, you can be, your family can rule Israel. And he's like, I don't want the power. Because look at verse 24. And Gideon, well, so basically Gideon says no. He says no in verse number 20, I'm sorry. He says no in verse number 23. And Gideon said, I will not rule over you. Neither shall my son rule over you. The Lord shall rule over you. That is the system of the judges. The Lord is ruling. It is the word of the Lord that is speaking through the judges and the prophets. And that is the system that they have. So you could say in the book of judges and in the system of the judges that it was still the Lord ruling over Israel. All right, it wasn't a king that they put in power over them. All right, so look, Gideon's doing so well at this point. He gives up that power. I mean, this is the kind of leaders that you want. The leaders that step in to lead, but they don't want control and they don't want complete power. You know, theoretically we used to have leaders like that. I mean, not in my lifetime, but I've read about it. Okay, so look, look at verse 24. Then things kind of go south here. And I'm gonna explain to you why things go south.  And they answered, we will willingly give them and they spread the garment and did cast there in every man the earrings of his prey. In the weight of the golden earrings they requested was 1,700 shekels of gold besides ornaments and collars and purple raiment that was on the kings of Midian and besides the chains that were about their camel's necks. And Gideon made an ephod thereof and put it in his city, even an ophra. And all Israel went a whoring after it which thing became a snare unto Gideon and his house. So what does he do? They just defeated this army of hundreds of thousands of people of tens of thousands of people. And what did they have? They had all the spoil. They had all the gold. They had all the chains. They had all the jewelry of these people of the east, the Ishmaelites. They wore earrings apparently.  It's a, they make a trophy. They make a trophy of the battle of the victory, okay? And look, here's what's interesting is it doesn't say necessarily that it was the ephod itself that became a snare but all Israel went in after this, after this trophy and it lifted Gideon up with pride because basically this was this trophy of Gideon's, you know, battle, his victory but it really wasn't Gideon's victory, was it? It was the Lord's victory that he gave him. Basically it took away his humility. It became a snare unto him. Look at verse 28. Thus Midian subdued before the children of Israel so they lifted up their heads no more. And the country was in quietness 40 years in the days of Gideon. And Drubabal, that's Gideon, the son of Joash went and dwelt in his house. So he goes home and they had peace for 40 years. And Gideon had three score and 10 sons of his body begotten for he had many wives. In his concubine that was in session, also she also bear him a son whose name he called the bimilech. This will be important coming up in the next chapter but basically, you know, we see this word concubine here. What is a concubine? Okay, so look, a concubine is basically, it's still a monogamous relationship in the Bible when you see this word concubine. But it's basically, it's not the full status of a wife if you wanna think about it that way. It's think of it of a wife as a lesser rank in the Bible. Okay, a servant or lesser relationship. Exodus 21.7 gives rules for how to treat concubines Deuteronomy 21 the same. But look, these are pragmatic laws in the Bible. There's other pragmatic laws in the Bible. Like Matthew 19 explains that Moses suffered, you know, you to put away your wives because of the hardness of their hearts. These were pragmatic laws to take care of people because people were doing the wrong thing, if that makes sense. Since it was happening, there was rules put in place to make sure that people were treated properly. So a concubine is like a lesser wife in the Bible. Now look, we have to, as we're reading the Old Testament and especially the Book of Judges as we continue forward, you have to remember something about stories in the Bible. Stories in the Old Testament are exactly that. They're stories of things that happened. It doesn't, you know, a story in the Old Testament, I'm gonna give you a methodology tonight on how to handle reading the Old Testament. A story in the Old Testament is not doctrine.  So if you hear somebody preaching, there's two things you have to look at. Okay, because here's the thing. Men in the Old Testament did the wrong things. You know, and they did things that were not correct. They're just stories that actually happened. Okay, so look, especially in the Book of Judges, we're gonna see a lot of these stories where you're like, man, that's messed up. That's a messed up story in the Bible. But like, look, men did messed up things in the Old Testament and the Bible is telling us the history of those things. These are historical books in the Bible. So what we have to do, excuse me, is you must pair, when you hear preaching about stories in the Old Testament, here's what you have to do. You have to pair the story in the Old Testament with a biblical concept and put those two things together. Okay, and because look, I mean, couldn't you just preach any, you can't just read an Old Testament story and just preach whatever you want about that story. It must match up with biblical doctrine on that thing. A good example is, you know, I could just, I could just read this story of Gideon and his sons and I could say, see, Gideon, Gideon was a great man of the Bible. Gideon was a judge. Gideon, he was raised up by God and Gideon had all these wives. It's okay to have all these wives, but that's a misapplication of that story in the Bible because the Bible teaches against polygamy, okay? So look, I mean, a good example is in Deuteronomy chapter 17, the Bible says, neither shall he multiply wives to himself talking about a king or a ruler that his heart not turn away, neither shall he greatly multiply himself silver and gold. So basically the Bible is warning kings here not to take many wives because why? Because their heart will turn away from the Lord. What happened to Solomon? The same thing happened, okay? So we have to take stories and we have to make sure that when you hear preaching on an Old Testament story that the concept from the Bible is applied correctly. So that's a good check for yourself, just those two things. So when you hear a story in the Old Testament, you're like, man, that's messed up. What's just a story? It's what happened. It's what somebody did. These are men. These are women. These are sinners in the Bible that did certain things, okay? Look at Judges chapter eight and verse 32. So we see that, you know, Gideon, I mean, he did a lot of good things. I mean, he had great humility. He did a lot of good things. He raised up, he followed God. He had great faith in God. He tested God at the beginning. You know, his faith was kind of wavering at the beginning. He tested God. God tested him and he passed. And then God gives him this great victory. He has great humility which helps him get through the rest of the battle. And, you know, but then he kind of falters at the end. You'll see that with many kings, by the way, in the Bible, many of the good kings. There's so many kings in the Bible that they started out really well and they just ended badly. It's very rare on a king of both Judah and the Northern Kingdom of Israel. I think it's, I did the math on it one time. It's like 10% or less. That actually started well and ended well in their rule. Okay, it's very, very, it's the minority that does that. So I mean, look, these are men. They make mistakes. So when we hear stories in the Bible, we just need to make sure you don't have to sit there and think, oh, this is terrible. All these wives and this concubine and all these things. Look, that's not what God wants. That's not God's plan. Okay, that wasn't God's plan for marriage. This is just what these men did. Okay, look at Judges chapter eight and verse 32. The Bible says, And Gideon the son of Joash died in a good old age. He was buried in the sepulchre of Joash's father in Ephra of the Abazurites. And it came to pass as soon as Gideon was dead that children of Israel turned again and went a whoring after Balaam and made Bel Bereth their God. And the children of Israel remembered not the Lord their God who had delivered them out of the hands of their enemies on every side. Neither showed their kindness to the house of Jerubbabel namely Gideon according to all the goodness which he had showed on to Israel. So we see the end of Gideon's life and of course the people turn away quickly and that leads us into chapter nine. But I just wanna give you this evening, I wanna give you two lessons from Judges chapter eight. Turn back to verse number one of Judges chapter eight. Let's go back to the people of the children of Ephraim and look at how Gideon handled this. Let me give you two lessons from Judges chapter eight that we can apply to our lives. So I'm gonna apply, so here we go. I'm gonna apply some biblical concepts to this story. So we need to take concepts from the Bible that the Bible teaches us and apply it to the story. So I want you to just imagine, let's just read these three verses. And the men of Ephraim said to him, why has thou served us that thou callest not when thou wentest to fight the Medianites and they did chide with him sharply? Now think about being there and being one of these 300 men that was with Gideon when these guys say this, imagine what you must have been thinking.  Instead of saying, hey, good job and praise God for you and all this stuff. I mean, these men are tired, they've won this great victory. And then Gideon says this to them in verse two and he said unto them, what have I done now in comparison of you? Is not the gleaning of grapes of Ephraim better than the vintage of Abbe-Azer? God hath delivered into your hands the princes of Median, Aura and Zeb. And what was I able to do in comparison of you? Then the anger was abated toward him when he had said that, turned to Matthew chapter five. Two lessons from Judges chapter eight. The first one is this, turn to Matthew chapter five and look at verse number nine. The first lesson is this, blessed are the peacemakers. Blessed are the peacemakers is the first lesson from Judges chapter eight. The Bible says in Matthew five and verse number nine, blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God. Now what's interesting, what Gideon did here was at the expense of himself, he made peace in this situation. Himself and his 300 men had just won this great victory and he says, he says twice. He says, who am I in comparison to you? He says to them to appease their anger and their wrath. So by all intensive purposes, Gideon could have claimed one of the greatest military victories probably in the history of the world up to that point. Yet he says, who am I in comparison to you? To diffuse this situation.  He's a peacemaker. So let me ask you a question. Do you do this? Do you do this? Look, it's a sign of great maturity and humility to be a peacemaker. Do you take issues and make them small? Or do you take issues and flare them up and make them bigger? Okay, do you deescalate situations? Turn to Proverbs chapter 28. You say, how is that a sign of humility? Well, I don't know, the Bible, I'm gonna show you. You say, that's your opinion. I'll show you. We know that Gideon was humble. Turn to Proverbs chapter 28 because of what the Bible says about humility. This is why Gideon was so great, folks, because of his humility and the way he handled this situation. Look at Proverbs 28 and verse 29 or verse 25, I'm sorry. So Proverbs, we see a lot of opposites in Proverbs, right? He that does this is this, but he that does this is this. One thing, the opposite of that thing. So look at Proverbs 28, 25. He that is of a proud heart stirs up strife. We're just gonna look at the first part of that verse. So it says, somebody that's proud stirs things up. Somebody that's proud takes a small thing and whips it up into a big thing. So what can we infer from that? We can infer that somebody that's humble takes a small thing and just makes it, makes it puts away strife. He doesn't kick up strife. Especially, look, these were brethren. The children of Ephraim, these were brethren. They were all the children of Israel. Turn to Galatians chapter five. Turn to Galatians chapter five. Look, it takes a humble heart to put away strife, especially with what Gideon did at his own expense. And I mean, look, if Gideon could be humble here, anybody could be humble because Gideon had some things to be proud about here. Or it would have been very easy for him to be proud about what had just happened. Look at Galatians five in verse number 15. But if you bite and devour one another, take heed that you be not consumed one another, of one another. Be not consumed one of another. This I say then, walk in the spirit you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. Look, that's very interesting right there because I am sure Gideon's flesh was just like, when those guys said that. But what he did was he didn't fulfill the lusts of his flesh. He didn't do what his flesh wanted to do. Instead, he humbled himself, he walked in the spirit, and he just put it on himself. He's like, I'm nothing compared to you.  You guys said that battle over there? I was like, that was awesome. He basically tells them how great they are at his own expense. Look, these were his brethren and to fight in this situation would have been a travesty.  So he makes peace to avoid fighting and he moves on with the mission. He thinks about the mission and he moves on even at his own expense. Lesson number two about judges eight. Lesson number two about judges chapter eight. Pride will completely blind you. Pride will completely blind you. This is why, turn to Proverbs chapter 29. This is why pride is super dangerous. You should all be afraid of pride. As you move forward in the Christian life and as you grow and mature as a Christian, you should be scared to death of getting prideful. Because pride will completely blind you. You will see things different than everybody else. It's scary, you need to pay attention to these situations in the Bible because look, that's how you can learn from these stories in the Bible is see when people get prideful how they're blinded. They're examples for us. They make you vulnerable to manipulation. So here's two major dangers of pride. First of all, flattery will work on you if you're prideful. Look at Proverbs 29. The Bible says in verse five, a man that flattereth his neighbor spreadeth a net for his feet. Look, you will fall if you get prideful. In Proverbs 16, the Bible says, pride goeth before destruction. So look, pride comes right before you get destroyed and it says you'll fall for flattery. Well, what happened to the children of Ephraim? Did they, it worked on them. Gideon flatter them. In his case, he wasn't spreading a net for their feet. He was just trying to make peace in the situation. But look, there's gonna be people, and I've seen this so many times in my life, it works.  You're so great. And they're just like, well, I am great. Thank you for saying that.  I've seen it so many times in life and work and career, whatever. And if you're prideful, it works on you. You wouldn't think, but you see things, you're blinded when you're prideful. And you won't see these things at all. You won't notice it. That's scary. You do not want to be prideful. Everyone around, Ephraim, I can't imagine those 300 men, when they were saying that, they must have been thinking, what in the world? It's like you guys did nothing. And yet Gideon says that to them and they're like, well, thank you, we know we're great. Well, okay, great, thank you. We are great and you're forgiven as long as you think we're great. Turn to 1st John chapter two. Look, it speaks volumes of Ephraim. It speaks that they're a very prideful people. And we will see that throughout the Bible. They're constantly wanting, first of all, what does a humble person do? They're a peacemaker, a humble person's a peacemaker. What does a prideful person do? They stir trouble. Ephraim stirs trouble in the Bible. We'll see that in later chapters. They're just constantly stirring trouble. They're constantly trying to cause problems with the brethren to the point of war in later chapters. And we'll see, so Gideon diffused it here, but somebody doesn't end up diffusing it so well in a couple of chapters down the road. But look, all over small things, all over small things. And it's not handled this eloquently in later chapters and judges. So look, they were willing, they were absolutely willing to fight with their brethren over this situation in the first couple of verses. And we can see that because of who Ephraim is in what happens in later chapters. But look at 1 John chapter two. So we see that they're prideful and they're just, they're willing to stir up trouble in any small cause against their brethren. But look at 1 John 2, 11. The Bible says, but he that hateeth his brother is in darkness and walketh in darkness. And knoweth not whether he goeth because that darkness has what? Has blinded his eyes.  They stir up trouble. And what do they do? They fall for flattery.  We know exactly who Ephraim is and what their problem is. And Ephraim, many times they were the first ones the prophets tell us to turn on God. The split kingdom, Jeroboam, was from Ephraim. He set up his capital, he built sesham in Mount Ephraim. They were quick to turn on their brethren, they were rebellious and they were blinded by darkness, the Bible says. Pride, it all starts from a place of pride. So look, I mean, it's scary when there's things happening around you that everybody knows that are completely obvious to everybody else. But you don't see it, you will not see it if you're prideful. That is why this story about Ephraim should scare us and warn us about pride. Because you're like, I mean, we're reading this story. Aren't we reading this story? We're like, what were they thinking? We read about Gideon in the first two chapters and all of a sudden these guys, like who do these guys think they are? They're prideful.  Look, it's common, it's common, especially military situations, military leaders throughout history, prideful. I mean, Hitler invaded Russia in the winter.  I mean, Gettysburg, General Lee, marches his whole entire army across a mile of open ground when all his generals told him, you can't do it. His second in command, General James Longstreet, told him, I am sure that this charge will fail. But General Lee was so prideful. He thought he couldn't be beaten. He thought that he could not lose. Well, I mean, it's common. But look, this is one of the powers of humility. God granted Gideon the victory and Gideon knew it. And that's how he could come to Ephraim with such humility even after that happened. Because he knew that God gave him that victory. And then what happens at the very end of the chapter? He gets lifted up. He gets lifted up. But he knew it was God's doing. And that's how he was able to be the peacemaker at the beginning of this chapter. So again, are you a peacemaker? Let's focus on yourselves. Are you a peacemaker? I mean, at work, look, at work, did you know that it's the peacemakers that find solutions? Did you know that in your careers, men, it's the peacemakers? Look, if you make small problems go away, it's those types of people that find solutions. Look, those getting involved in strife and kicking up strife, they're always hindering progress. They're always hindering for, I mean, they're the ones, look, Proverbs 26, if there's no wood, right? If there's no wood, there's no fire. But these are the ones that are fanning the flames, these people, the peacemaker is putting situations out. At home, at home, are you a peacemaker in your home? Think about that. Or do you add or create chaos in your home? Strife in your home.  Who would ever come to you for solutions? Nobody is the answer. Let me go ahead and just give that to you. But think about this, when Ephraim was creating strife, when they were kicking up these flames and Gideon put them out, let me ask you this, where was the army? Where were the Midianites? They were getting further and further away. As they were kicking up these small strife with Gideon and the enemy was getting away. Yet they chose to create and sow strife at that time. You think about the home, the education, the goals, the raising of the children. Look, as you're sowing strife and you're not putting out fires, but you're kicking up fires and you're not being that peacemaker in the home, those goals are slipping away. These kids are not getting younger every day. These goals are slipping away day by day by day. It worked the same thing. As you kick up problems, as you just, you're part of the problems, the goals, they're slipping away from you. And you will be known as someone who has no solutions. They may not know why. They may not think the strife is your fault because there may be so many people mixed up in this strife but you will certainly not be the one creating solutions and fixing problems. I mean, it's for sure. But look, to be a peacemaker, to be a peacemaker takes humility. It takes humility.  Just take it on yourself if you have to. So all this problem just, it's fine. It's my fault. I won't let that happen again. Let's just move forward. Let's get this thing moving. That's what Gideon did. I mean, it will be tremendous.  And then you will become that peacemaker. You will become that person that has solutions, that people come to for solutions. You'll be the person that people just see. They're just like, you know what? They might not exactly know how, but they'll be like, you know what? That guy just, he just gets things done. He just makes things happen. Whenever we give something to that guy, it just gets done and it gets done well because you're a peacemaker. You don't get wrapped up and kick wood on small fires. Pride will be your destruction, humility, your deliverer. And that was the greatest characteristic of Gideon in the last three chapters. So we see the great story of Gideon, but we see that his humility really is what carried him through. It was his greatest character trait that kept this battle going and allowed them to prosecute this battle to the end. So don't forget that.  Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.


First impression of the State Fair, what do you think, huh? Uh, you know, it's one of the better, but, uh, not a par.  Yeah, they're not using the space well, dude. I mean, you could fit like eight more hot dog stands next to this. Hot dog stand. Yeah, people smoke it super. Yeah. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Woo-hoo! You can't blame the ghost. It's you who needs a break every two hours. They've been working this day. Dude, no, he's super sponsored, bro. Is that open school now? Medium-grade. Medium. At best. That's the one. That's the one. Still loudest. Making a case for himself. Yeah, he's really letting everyone know. Everyone knows. He's with anybody. He's hanging in there. Hey, hey, hey, guys. Action tag. Action tag. Action tag. Now let's take a look. Uh, Klaus D. Lysons. Barely made it. That's chicken I ever saw.