June 17, 2012
Morning Worship
Text: Judges 6:25-32
Subject: Gideon’s Call
Title: Tear Down Your Father’s Altar
I am excited about what the Lord spoke to us last week and what He has planned for the church. I am excited about the direction that we are headed and the new people that He is bringing in to do His work in His church. I have been praying for clear direction in ministry. Two weeks ago the Lord gave me a list of ten things that we need to be moving into and in the upcoming weeks I will begin to unfold those things to you and ask you to get on board because it is not my ideas that are coming to light but God’s plan for us that He is revealing to me.
Now I know that some of you are uncomfortable with the direction the church is taking. I want to assure you that what is happening in the church is not something new, but it is the plan that God has had for the church from day one. Now having said that, do you remember last week when I said before I gave the prophecy for the church that is said that I am normally a people pleaser. I don’t want anyone to be able to point accusing fingers at me and say bad things. But in the case of the prophetic word that we have received, I am more concerned with pleasing God than I am with pleasing people. Paul experienced this same thing and wrote in Galatians 1:10, Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.
Now, the prophetic word we have received has a contingency clause inserted. If we do not do what the Lord is telling us we will be left to die in the wilderness. That is the reason that I have made up my mind to listen and move upon God’s word concerning this church. I want to please my Father because I know that if I listen and become a doer of His word I will please Him and will have His support behind me. Acts 17:28, For in him we live and move and have our being.
Do you remember a few months ago when I told you that the Lord had spoken to me about my time here? The first five years He was teaching me how to preach. The second five years He taught me how to pastor. And finally, the next five years He will show me how to grow a church. We are in the beginning phases of that five-year plan and God has decided to start it out with a year of harvest.
Today, I want to show you how obedience to the word of God can and should bring approval while at the same time stir up dissension among people. We can have the support of the Father.
Read Judges 6:25-32
I believe this is God’s word…
I believe it is for me…
I accept it as mine…
I appropriate it to my life today…
I. DOING WHAT GOD SAYS… 25 That same night the LORD said to him, “Take the second bull from your father’s herd, the one seven years old. Tear down your father’s altar to Baal and cut down the Asherah pole beside it. In order to understand what the LORD is asking Gideon to do we need to have a sense of the times. Judges 6:1-2, 1Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD, and for seven years he gave them into the hands of the Midianites. 2Because the power of Midian was so oppressive, the Israelites prepared shelters for themselves in mountain clefts, caves and strongholds. What was Israel’s sin? That answer could entail many responses, but the real sin of Israel has always been unbelief. They would believe God’s commands. They didn’t believe God’s promises. All they wanted to believe was God’s blessings and they thought because they were called of God they could do whatever they wanted. God had so removed His hand of protection from Israel that it says that the power of Midian was oppressive. We also see that Gideon threshed wheat in the wine press to avoid being detected by the enemy. Here we see their unbelief in action. Rather than turn to God for their deliverance they gave in to the worship of false gods. That is what makes God’s command to Gideon more radical. You see, as long as there was an altar to Baal and an Asherah pole beside it, the enemy would be less likely to inflict any kind of harm upon them. Those in the town and surrounding areas had grown comfortable with what the enemy had intended for them instead of standing on the One True God who would deliver them from that enemy. 26 Then build a proper kind of altar to the LORD your God on the top of this height. Using the wood of the Asherah pole that you cut down, offer the second bull as a burnt offering. In other words, get back to a right relationship with God… And the only way to stay in that kind of relationship is through the power of God that was poured out on the Day of Pentecost. I want you to look at the Hebrew word that is translated as “Asherah pole” in the NIV. In the KJV it is translated as “grove”. Here is an indication that it wasn’t just one pole but that everyone in town had set up their own. Now you can see what Gideon was dealing with. It seemed that everyone would be against him… Let’s shift gears a bit… Did you know that nearly every mainline denomination had Pentecostal roots. The Methodists, for instance, experienced Holy Ghost manifestations in their meetings through the preaching of the Wesley brothers. But like most others, within five generations the Pentecostal manifestation had ceased. The Assemblies of God, I fear, is headed in that same direction. Since its inception in 1914 the A/G was looked down upon by mainline denominations as a bunch of lunatics or fanatics who were only responding to emotional fervor. Three generations later, in the 60’s and 70’s the Assemblies began to attain a level of acceptance among denominational churches. Now we are at a place where there are basically three different directions the A/G is moving in. 1) the mega church model… this model seeks to draw people by programs and entertaining worship styles and a message that doesn’t offend. The baptism in the Holy Spirit is no longer seen as important. 2) the traditional model… This is the church that gets together to worship. Occasionally there would be a message in tongues and interpretation or prophecy. Sometimes people get healed, or blessed or excited, and then everybody goes home and talks about how good church was that day. 3) the radical model. This is the church that is focused only on seeking God’s face and obeying His word. It is the church that is not concerned with what others think, what tradition says, or what trends are popular. All they want is to seek God, hear from God and then act on his word. That is the place where God has brought Gideon. 27 So Gideon took ten of his servants and did as the LORD told him. But because he was afraid of his family and the men of the town, he did it at night rather than in the daytime. Did you ever wonder about that? Why did Gideon play the chicken and wait till nightfall in order to do God’s work? It was because he knew that if he didn’t, what God had asked him to do would not have happened. But while God’s enemies slumbered, His servants acted. That is where God has called the church today. We have to get past the place of comfort and back to what God expects from us – even if it doesn’t make sense to us.
II. SEEING WHAT GOD DID… 28 In the morning when the men of the town got up, there was Baal’s altar, demolished, with the Asherah pole beside it cut down and the second bull sacrificed on the newly built altar. 29 They asked each other, “Who did this? When they carefully investigated, they were told, “Gideon son of Joash did it.” Listen, it is true that Gideon did it. He was doing only what God asked him to do. What would happen if everyone in the church would do what God has asked us to do? What if it didn’t even look like what we thought we should do? What if, in doing so, somebody else in the church started pointing fingers at us because it is not the way we are used to seeing something done? Obviously what Gideon did was different, but it wasn’t wrong, because it was from God. Let me read an excerpt from the late David Wilkerson’s newsletter from August 1, 2011. How often have you heard Christians say, “God is doing a new thing in his church”? The “new thing” they refer to may be called a revival, an outpouring, a visitation, or a move of God. Yet very often, this “new thing” dies out very quickly. And once it has faded, it can’t be found again. In this way, it proves not to be a move of God at all. In fact, Christian sociologists have tracked many of these visitations and discovered the average span of life of such an event is about five years. Personally, I believe God is doing a new thing in his church today. Yet this great work of the Spirit can’t be found in just one location. It’s happening worldwide. God will not begin a new thing in his church until he does away with the old. This biblical principle, proven throughout centuries of church history, is found in both Testaments and governs any true move of God. As Jesus put it, he won’t put new wine into old wineskins (see Mark 2:22). That was the messge to Israel then and to the church today. The revival, the Day of the Harvest God has promised us, cannot begin until the old is torn down. If you are of the mindset that unless revival can be like it used to be, I don’t want any part of it, I am sorry. Your revivals of the past were good and of God but they are not adequate for today. You cannot live your life today on yesterday’s anointing. Today’s world has to have todays revival even when it means you may not like it. 30 The men of the town demanded of Joash, “Bring out your son. He must die, because he has broken down Baal’s altar and cut down the Asherah pole beside it.” Matthew 27:21-23, 21 “Which of the two do you want me to release to you?” asked the governor. “Barabbas,” they answered. 22 “What shall I do, then, with Jesus who is called Christ?” Pilate asked. They all answered, “Crucify him!” 23 “Why? What crime has he committed?” asked Pilate. But they shouted all the louder, “Crucify him!” Can you open your spiritual eyes to see what God wants to do in the church today? Can you as a creative child of the creator God imagine what He wants His church to look like? Go back to verse 30. The word that is translated “cut down” literally means “cut off”. That is what God must do in the church before He will bring revival. He must “cut off” any ties that have you bound to the past – even the ties of your own spiritual journey – and especially any ties you have with the world’s false promises. Instead you must be looking forward to what God desires to do right now, regardless of how it looks or feels to you.
III. CONFIRMING WHAT GOD WANTS… You all have heard my childhood story – how my dad was a drinker and a gambler; my step-dad was an alcoholic. I never knew my dad much and it was with my step-dad that I grew up. The one thing that I desired was to have his approval. My step-dad wasn’t very loving or affectionate. He was a hard worker and he and my mom taught me how to work. But I can look back on my life and see that the one thing I really sought after in my childhood was the approval of my step-dad. I have to say that the closest that I ever got to receiving that approval was when he was lying on his deathbed with terminal lung cancer. I would stop on my way home after work every day and check on him as he lay in bed. One day I made up my mind that I was going to share the gospel with him and the Lord had showed me how to do it. Others in the family had tried over the years and had been rejected. But I want you to hear what happened when I made up my mind to be obedient to God. As I went into his room and sat down I asked how he was feeling and then told him, “I’m going to say something to you that I have wanted to say for years but never knew how, and I know you aren’t supposed to talk much so just lay there and listen.” First, I told him that I loved him like a dad and then I just shared the simple gospel message with him. And when I was done I said, “I want to be sure that when I get to heaven that I see you there.” And his response to me was, “I’ll be the one over in the corner working on God’s lawn mowers.” At his visitation I found out that some six months before some men from a Baptist church in Troy had gone out on visitation and had led him to the Lord and no one ever knew it. But in my last days with him I received approval because I was obedient to what God had asked me to do. Gideon’s faithfulness to God’s word also brought his father’s approval. 31 But Joash replied to the hostile crowd around him, “Are you going to plead Baal’s cause? Are you trying to save him? Whoever fights for him shall be put to death by morning! If Baal really is a god, he can defend himself when someone breaks down his altar.” 32 So that day they called Gideon “Jerub-Baal,” saying, “Let Baal contend with him,” because he broke down Baal’s altar. Through his sons radical actions Joash came to his senses and experienced a personal revival.
How many of you remember the tent revival that was held out in the lot in the 1980’s? Who could tell stories of great preaching and manifestations of God’s Spirit in this church? How may remember the revival services we held several years back with Pastor Tim Harrell? Now, tell me, how much of what you remember from the past is impacting what you do in the church today?
Charlotte and I were talking the other day. When you go to the doctor with a problem the first thing they want to know about you is your family history – like what diseases your parents had are the ones you will get. I don’t believe that. I believe that I have been set free from the physical curse of disease that might have been upon my parents. I believe that God wants me to experience an abundant life and not a so-so life. So what has happened in my family lineage is not going to affect my health or length of life or quality of life. God has torn down the altars of my ancestors in that sense.
That is what He is doing in the church today. The altars where you worshiped before, you can revisit, but you can’t dwell there any longer because God is taking you to a new place. You cannot bow down to the altars of the past. You cannot rely on the anointing of your personal revival from 40, 50, and 60 years ago. The old altars must be torn down and replaced with what God has designated for the church today. And until the old is gone the new cannot come. 2 Corinthians 5:17-18a, 17Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 18All this is from God…
So are you willing to tear down the old altars? Are you prepared to accept something or someone different than what you are accustomed to? Are you ready for the year of the harvest?
