In the past weeks, we have talked about decisions, courage, and patience - all dependent on God. But the reality is none of that matters we don't have faith in God.
John 20:29
Jesus saith unto him, Thomas,
because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not
seen, and yet have believed.
Read Judges 6:1-10 together, then ask...
What kind of shape is Israel in? Why?
- (vs. 1) They were doing in evil in the sight of the Lord
- (vs. 1-2) God allowed their enemies to attack invade them continuously for seven year
- (vs. 2) As result the Israelites lived in “dens” hidden in mountains and caves and walled cities
- (vs. 3-5) Every time the Israelites harvested their crops, the Midianites came like grasshoppers and took all their stuff or destroyed so they had no food left for themselves (reminds me of the Disney movie “A Bug’s Life”)
- (vs. 6) As a result of their food and their land being destroyed constantly for seven years, all of Israel’s money was gone and they were very, very poor
- (vs. 6) So poor that they cried to God for help
Basically, Israel was not doing
well here. At all.
In the next verses, we see that
God answered the cry of the Israelites by sending a prophet to speak to them
for Him. This prophet quoted God saying, “I made it possible for you to leave
Egypt, and delivered you from bondage. I lead you safely through the wilderness
and gave you a pre-defeated land ready for you to move right in. And even
though I did all of this for you, and even though I am your God, you have
chosen to worship the gods of the Amorites. This is your punishment.”
Do we worship the gods of foreign nations today?
Read 1 Peter 2:9-16 together as a class. Verses 9-12 shown below.
9 But ye are a chosen
generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye
should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into
his marvellous light; 10 Which in time past were not a people {just like the Israelites were
slaves in Egypt}, but are now the people of God {now they are freely dwelling
in the land that God graciously gave them}: which had not obtained mercy, but
now have obtained mercy. 11 Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from
fleshly lusts, which war against the soul; 12 Having your conversation honest among the
Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your
good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation.
Ooo… What are fleshly lusts?
Things that you desire – the
kinds of things that pull you away from God. They are the things that you
desire so much that you forget to honor God with your actions and you are no
longer being a good example to the unsaved world so that they can see Christ
through you.
Example – I have an iPad 2. My
husband bought it for me as wedding present. I love it. It does all kinds of
neat things, like takes videos of my student's oral presentations; keep track of my calendar. I
can listen to music or look at my pictures; sometimes I can even write my blog
from here; I can play games. Cool stuff. Not to mention, it is a special gift
from my husband. He sacrificed his hard earned money to get this for me.
{Just like my ipad is special,
my relationship with God is even more special. He sacrificed His only Son so
that I could have an eternal relationship with Him.}
Recently, the ipad mini
got an update. And it is awesome. It is smaller, faster, cheaper, better. It is
more convenient because it fits in all of my purses, not just the big ones. It
is faster and can do things better than my ipad 2. And more importantly… The camera is better. The
cases are a lot cuter.
{ASK} What would happen if I decided
that I wanted the ipad mini instead of my ipad 2. If decided that I wasn’t going
to use this precious gift from my husband anymore, because I desired something
else, something seemingly better?
- It would hurt me because I can’t afford an ipad mini, so I am obviously not getting one.
- My husband sacrificed to get this one for me. Wouldn’t he be hurt that I didn’t want it anymore? It was a special gift from him, a gift that he expects me to treasure and value.
In some ways, Israel did the
same thing with God. He gave them the land. He made it entirely possible that
they could live in an perfect relationship with Him. But Israel desired the
newness, the freshness, the ease of the Midianite gods. They craved what seemed
better.
When I desire something more
than I desire God, it is an idol in my life. It might not be a statue of a fat
little man or a funny looking animal carved in stone, but it is still an idol –
because it is taking the place of God in my life. We know that idols can be
really bad things, but idols can be things that seem good too – like wanting a newer iPad, or a nicer car, or
different friends, or to be able to do a certain thing. Anything that takes
away from our relationship with God is an idol.
Israel had a problem. They
always liked what the other nations around them had – whether it was better
horses or more fertile land or a king or a funny looking stone god. Israel
always wanted it. But God had told them that they were to love Him and live for
Him only. So Israel was disobedient and allowed the Midianites to attack and
frustrate them like grasshoppers would always frustrate the ants.
Well, during this time, there
was a guy, who didn’t want his crops to be stolen by the Midianites anymore. He
was done with this nonsense. So he hid his crops in a winepress. Now this
wasn’t like bad wine – it was more like juice or flavored water. But the fact
is you can’t make bread in a juicemaker… and definitely not at night, but that
is what this dude was going to do because he decided that Midian was absolutely
not going to steal from him again.
While Gideon is working very
hard to thresh his wheat in the juicemaker, an angel appeared to him.
Judges 6:12
And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him, and said unto him, The
Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valour.
Now if you can imagine, Gideon is working hard, sweating, in the middle of the night, making bread in a juice maker, and an ANGEL (that you have never met or seen before) appears to him and says, "Hey, how's it going, Mr. Mighty Man of Valour?" That would be like some coming up to one of us on the hottest summer day after we had run a 5k that morning, and now we are mowing the grass and trimming the hedges and pulling the weeds, and someone comes up to us and says, "Hey there, Miss America! What'cha doing?"
So basically, if that happened to me, I
would be laughing and saying, “Dude, you have the wrong person here.” But Gideon's not laughing… remember making bread in the juice maker in the middle of the night… he is probably too tired,
agitated and frustrated to get the joke or he could be totally shocked at the sight of
an angel… He just cuts to the chase.
Judges 6:13
13 And Gideon said unto him, Oh my Lord, if the Lord be with us, why then
is all this befallen us? and where be all his miracles which our fathers told
us of, saying, Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt? but now the Lord hath
forsaken us, and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites.
Gideon looks at this angel and
says, “Where is the God that I have believed in my whole life. He promised that
he would deliver us, but it seems that He has forsaken us.”
I love what God says next… (Judges 6:14)
14 And the Lord looked upon him, and said, Go in this thy might, and thou
shalt save Israel from the hand of the Midianites: have not I sent thee?
What was Gideon’s might? I
don’t know for sure. So many people will tell you that Gideon was a coward for
doing a woman’s job in the middle of the night in a juicer. But I think that it
took courage for Gideon to do this because he could have so easily been
discovered hiding the wheat from the Midianites. Then he probably would have
been killed, and possibly even his family. This obviously took courage.
But was that Gideon’s might?
No. I think that his might was His faith in God. He was one of the remaining
few that hadn’t rejected or abandoned God. He was one of the few left who was
willing to silently stand up against the Midianites. He had the faith to
believe that God still cared. Although he had questions, he still had the faith
to express them.
Gideon lived in a time, like
today, where we don’t see God work as visibly as He did in the Bible. But where
we have the Bible written down and available to read, all Gideon had were the
stories his grandparents told him.
As God told Gideon that he
would be the one to save Israel from the Midianites, Gideon demanded a sign.
Remember that Gideon asked for the fleece to be dry and the ground wet, then
for the fleece to be wet and the ground dry? Gideon needed to know that God was
real in his life. Ignoring the fact that there was an angel standing in front
of him, Gideon needed to know that this God that He believed in was real and
alive and one who was as miraculous as Gideon had heard him to be.
Today we have the Bible. We
don’t necessarily need God to make our blankets wet in the morning. We can read
about what He has done in the past. We can see how He sealed our relationship
with Him through the sacrifice of His Son on the cross as a payment for our
sins. We have a tremendous number of witnesses who suffered persecution for the
sake of Christ – who exhibited faith in a living God. We don’t need that sign,
so that we can put our faith in God.
Hebrews 12:1-3
1 Wherefore seeing we also
are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every
weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience
the race that is set before us, 2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher
of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross,
despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.3 For consider him that
endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and
faint in your minds.
But it is really nice to see
God work in our lives personally. It is nice to know that He is real to me –
not just to my parents, or my friends, or the people who lived in Bible times.
So how do we see God work? How do we know He is real?
Let me direct you just for a
moment to the day of your salvation. I know some of you know the exact hour and
minute and a few of us only remember the moment, but the work that God did in
our lives – that is our fleece. He paid for our sin. He died on the cross. Our
sin account with God is taken care of, before we even commit them.
Did you know that every time we
sin, we grieve the heart of God. He – as a just God, our Judge – raises His hand to demand judgment.
Satan stands in God’s throne room, accusing us. “Look what she just did. She
doesn’t deserve Heaven, or your love or mercy.” And Jesus sticks out his nail
scarred hands, and says “It is already taken care of.”
Our faith hinges on this. Our
salvation took care of everything. Gideon didn’t have it as easy as we do. He
had salvation, but it just wasn’t as visible.
Does this mean that we can’t
ask questions? Does this mean we should just trust everything that everyone
says? No. Ask questions, but search for the answers in the Bible. Believe what
Pastor says, but confirm it in your Bible. Fervently pray, but rejoice when God
answers prayer.
John 20:29
Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast
believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.
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