“300”
Pt. 2 – The Pick-Up Line
The real 300 took place about 800 years before the story of the Spartans which was made famous last year by the movie. The Spartans had help. As many as 6100 other soldiers came to their aid when they took on the enemy. However, the real 300 were the 300 who joined Gideon to take on the Midians. You will remember some of the lessons I taught you last week.
Don’t be surprised if the enemy seeks out your most precious for an attack!
You can’t hide forever!
We must start with us.
Did not fear insurmountable odds.
Convenience doesn’t lead to conquering.
Text: Judges 7:2-8
2GOD said to Gideon, “You have too large an army with you. I can’t turn Midian over to them like this—they’ll take all the credit, saying, ‘I did it all myself,’ and forget about me. 3Make a public announcement: ‘Anyone afraid, anyone who has any qualms at all, may leave Mount Gilead now and go home.’” Twenty-two companies headed for home. Ten companies were left. 4GOD said to Gideon: “There are still too many. Take them down to the stream and I’ll make a final cut. When I say, ‘This one goes with you,’ he’ll go. When I say, ‘This one doesn’t go,’ he won’t go.” 5So Gideon took the troops down to the stream. GOD said to Gideon: “Everyone who laps with his tongue, the way a dog laps, set on one side. And everyone who kneels to drink, drinking with his face to the water, set to the other side.” 6Three hundred lapped with their tongues from their cupped hands. All the rest knelt to drink. 7GOD said to Gideon: “I’ll use the three hundred men who lapped at the stream to save you and give Midian into your hands. All the rest may go home.” 8After Gideon took all their provisions and trumpets, he sent all the Israelites home. He took up his position with the three hundred. The camp of Midian stretched out below him in the valley.
KJV
8So the people took victuals in their hand, and their trumpets: and he sent all the rest of Israel every man unto his tent, and retained those three hundred men: and the host of Midian was beneath him in the valley.
Introduction:
OK. I will be the first to admit that pick-up lines are lame. Guys use them and they make us look stupid. Come on wives turn to your husband right now and refresh his memory by saying to him the pick-up line he used on you.
Here are the top 10 silly/lame pick-up lines that I came across this week.
1. Is that the sun coming up... or is that just you lighting up my world?
2. Is your last name Gillette cause you’re the best a man can get.
3. If you were a pill I’d overdose.
4. Are you a parking ticket? Because you got fine written all over you.
5. All those curves! And me with no brakes!
6. Look, I’m either going to your place with you or behind you..... Your choice
7. Remember me? Oh, that’s right; I’ve met you only in my dreams.
8. If looks could kill you would be a weapon of mass destruction.
9. If I told you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?
10. I got skittles in my mouth... wanna taste the rainbow?
II. The Pick-Up Line
What in the world does that have to do with today’s message? Well, I don’t know if you caught it, but in the text that I read to you there was a pick-up line. Of course this pick-up line isn’t like the pick-up lines I just read to you. It is a different kind of pick-up line. Let me read it to you again because it is this line that speaks great truth and direction to us today. Here it is. Verse 8.
KJV - 8So the people took victuals in their hand, and their trumpets:
NAS - So the 300 men took the people’s provisions and their trumpets into their hands.
Did you catch it? The 300 picked-up the provisions and the trumpets of the thousands that went home.
III. Provision
The first thing I want you to see this morning is that the 300 picked-up the provision that was dropped by the others.
a. When you are involved in the battle God will provide.
I just wanted to remind some of you this morning that God is still Jehovah-Jireh. God is our provider. Jehovah Jireh actually means “God sees to it.” I am convinced that as long as we stay in the fight, as long as we don’t give up when others give up, as long as we remain faithful God will see to it that we have provision.
The fact is that God will see to it that you have the provision you need to accomplish His will. You may be empty handed right now. However, if you will get in the fight God can fill your hands with provision. God knows that soldiers must have provisions.
God declares in Proverbs 13:22 that He has laid up the wealth of the wicked for the righteous. I believe that God is calling together an army that has an abundance of provisions that will enable us to move forward in excellence. I don’t believe He wants us to go into battle scraping by and in bondage to debt.
Oh no, are you one of those prosperity preachers? As opposed to being what? A poverty preacher. I just know that God provides where He guides.
I am reminded of the story of Ruth. Remember that she had no provision. But Boaz began to drop handfuls on purpose so that Ruth could be provided for. I am telling you that if you will remain faithful in your tithe, faithful in your life, faithful in your walk God will drop handfuls of provision on purpose.
That is why I can say like David, “25I have been young, and now am old; Yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, Nor his seed begging bread.”
b. We need to learn that the provision that they received was provision for war not for waste.
God can’t trust some of us with provision because He knows we won’t steward the gift He puts in our hands. Provision is given to us for war not for us to squander on ourselves. Most of us use all of our provision on us. God wants us to understand that the provision He gives us for the advancement of His purpose and His army.
Are you saying we can’t have nice things and can’t have fun? No, I am saying that we must recognize that when God places provision in our hands we are responsible for using that gift properly. Check your checkbook. What you are spending your money on reveals where your heart is and where your focus is. Are you spending it all on you and your entertainment and enjoyment or are you using provision to advance the kingdom?
I can tell you now if you are not helping His kingdom advance provision will dry up and will not continue.
c. Provision should prepare us for battle, not distract us from it.
The provision that the 300 received prepared them for the battle. It didn’t distract them from battle. How many of us allow provision, material goods, and the love of things to become a distraction from our purpose. Too many of us are no good to the Kingdom because all our focus is on big houses, faster cars, more clothes, and more things. We have become distracted.
You can separate the men from the boys when you challenge folks to give up some of their things for the sake of the kingdom. We have become distracted by what is in our hands.
It is time to refocus. Those things have been entrusted to us so that we are able to do battle. I have no problems with you being blessed. I just want you to make sure your focus is on the blesser rather than the blessing. This is the balancing act. We need provision, but we can’t become consumed by the provision.
Matthew 6:24-25 says, 24“You can’t worship two gods at once. Loving one god, you’ll end up hating the other. Adoration of one feeds contempt for the other. You can’t worship God and Money both. 25“If you decide for God, living a life of God-worship, it follows that you don’t fuss about what’s on the table at mealtimes or whether the clothes in your closet are in fashion. There is far more to your life than the food you put in your stomach, more to your outer appearance than the clothes you hang on your body.
I Timothy 6:17 – “17Tell those rich in this world’s wealth to quit being so full of themselves and so obsessed with money, which is here today and gone tomorrow. Tell them to go after God, who piles on all the riches we could ever manage— 18to do good, to be rich in helping others, to be extravagantly generous.
Hebrews 13:5 – “5Don’t be obsessed with getting more material things. Be relaxed with what you have. Since God assured us, “I’ll never let you down, never walk off and leave you.”
So if you are here and you are empty handed I would declare to you that God can and will give you provision. As long as He knows He can trust you with it He will bless you.
PRAYER for financial breakthrough.
IV. Praise
Notice the second thing they picked up. Trumpets. Here is a group of 300 men that are getting ready to go into battle against 135,000 men and they pick up trumpets. No weapons of war, unarmed except for an instrument of praise. I want bazookas, machine guns, and smart bombs and all they are issued as a sidearm is a trumpet. And yet what we discover is that they in fact are armed and dangerous.
A. Your praise is a weapon.
The reason so many of us are defeated is because we have dropped our weapon of praise. In order for us to be a part of the 300 we must learn to pick up our praise. In other words we can’t let anyone else do our praise for us!
That is why having a polished, professional praise and worship team so that you can come and enjoy a concert each week is not what we are after. I want the very best musicians and the very best singers (and I think we have them). I want them to practice and perfect their praise. However, I don’t want them to do that so that you can sit back and watch them praise. Pick up your trumpet.
Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that their praise is your praise. Their praise is no more your praise than my prayers are your prayers. Their praise won’t win your battle. Don’t become a spectator and marvel over their gift. Join them in the war. Some of you laid your trumpet down years ago. Pick it back up. I don’t like the songs. Pick it back up. I don’t like the style. Pick it back up. I have been hurt. Pick up your praise. I have been discouraged. Pick up your praise. I have been defeated. Pick up your praise!
Therefore, since our praise is a weapon:
1. Your praise must be continual.
This account teaches us that our praise must be continual. Even when faced with overwhelming odds and defeat is staring us in the face.
David challenged us about praise. He set the standard that we should strive for when he declared in Psalms 34:1 “1I will bless Jehovah at all times: His praise shall continually be in my mouth.” David wasn’t some supernatural freak that was just so overcome by praise that he always praised. No, he made a conscious choice to praise. In the good times, he praised. In the bad times, like when Uzzah was killed, he praised. Stop six steps and make sacrifice and praise.
Job understood that even in the tough times we should praise. Lost everything. You think you’ve got it so bad that you can’t praise. He lost every child. All tragically killed. All of his possessions lost. All of his friends naysayers and pessimists. A spouse who would not support him. And yet hear the choice Job makes. “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord.”
Our situation and our feelings don’t diminish His worthiness and the necessity of our praise.
2. We have to realize that sacrificial praise produces the sweetest fruit (victory)!
I am reminded of the account of Jehoshaphat in 2 Chronicles 20. It parallels the account of the 300. Jehoshaphat, facing impossible odds, outnumbered three to one and facing imminent danger. He is given a ludicrous battle plan by God. Send the praisers out before his army. Armed with instruments, 2 Chronicles 20:22 says, "22As soon as they started shouting and praising, GOD set ambushes against the men of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir as they were attacking Judah, and they all ended up dead." The worshipers were sent out front. They had to sacrifice security, logic, strategy to win. Sacrificial praise produced victory.
Some of you have some situations that you need the Lord to step into and ambush and confuse the enemy! What am I saying?
3. This account and the account of the 300 teach us that praise precedes victory! As long as you stay silent your stay defeated! Defeat may look immanent – open your mouth and praise. Your relationships may be falling apart – pick up your trumpet and praise. Your life may feel like it is in shambles – praise. Your finances may look dismal – praise.
B. Others are counting on your praise!
The second element of this is that they picked up praises dropped by others.
You can’t praise for someone else, but you can encourage others with your praise.
That is why we are commanded in Colossians 3:16 to “16Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts unto God.”
Your praise teaches and admonishes those around you. You give direction, wisdom, and encouragement to those around you as you praise. You can’t praise for them, but you can help them find their way as you praise!
Some of you are assigned to help others get out of their problems by your praise. Your praise instructs them. Someone standing next to you right now needs to hear the praise that is inside of you! Someone standing 3 rows up from you will hear your praise and be encouraged and refuse to give up because they hear what is in you.
In other words, there are people around you that will remain in bondage and will remain broken and remain defeated if you refuse to pick-up your and their trumpet and praise!
Come on haven’t you ever been in a situation where you just couldn’t muster up enough strength to praise. But then you hear the person standing next to you praising and somehow some way you get enough courage to open your mouth and sing.
It doesn’t matter if you can carry a tune or not. What matters is your praise! Someone may find hope in your praise. Someone may find guidance in your praise. Someone might find comfort in your praise. Pick-up the trumpet they have dropped and praise.
We praise because He is worthy. But we must also praise because we understand that our praise magnifies God. How do you make a God that is bigger than the universe bigger? We don’t make Him bigger our praise makes our perspective of Him bigger. We remind ourselves just how big God is! So we praise because He is worthy. We praise because it changes our perspective about our situation. We praise because it leads us and others to victory!
I want to challenge you this morning pick up their trumpet and your trumpet. I am challenging you to praise more. I am challenging you to praise more passionately. I am challenging you to do something in praise that you have never done before. I am challenging you to go deeper, become more intimate, more lost in His presence than you ever have. I am challenging you get involved in warfare praise. Your victory is in it. Others are counting on you! Maybe you laid down your trumpet on purpose or maybe it was just something that you didn’t even realize took place over a period of time. It is time for you reach down or reach back and pick up your trumpet.
