June 3, 2001
Moving from Cowering to Courage. Judges 6:1-16, 7:1-24
Reading: 2 Tim. 1: 7 For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline. 8 Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, or of me His prisoner; but join with me in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God,
9 who has saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity, 10 but now has been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, 11 for which I was appointed a preacher and an apostle and a teacher.
Background material: Today, as we begin our new quarter, we will be looking at Gideon, the 5th Judge of Israel. Gideon means “cut down or cut asunder.” 15 Judges follow after Joshua’s death before Israel has a king. The book of Judges covers 400 years plus or minus. No one knows when it was written, or who wrote it, but look at chapter 18:30 for a second. It mentions the captivity, which occurred after the kings. That would make the writing of Judges at least after 586 BC. Chapter 18:1, 19:1, and 21:25 repeat the statement: “In those days, Israel had no king…” We can assume that whoever wrote Judges is reflecting back on the time before the monarchy.
The religious pattern.
1. Israel turns away from God to idols,
2. God sends an adversary to oppress them,
3. They repent and turn to God,
4. God sends a deliverer to save them.
Morals (“immorals”) of the times:
1. Idol worship (constantly referred to)
2. Human/child/infant sacrifice (see Jephthah)
3. Sacred prostitution (Baal and Asherah)
4. Homosexuality (Benjamites ch. 19)
Lesson:
There was a man named Fred who had fallen off the edge of a high cliff but managed to grab on to a small bush. He couldn’t get back up. There he was dangling 200 feet above a rocky canyon calling out for help. Finally a voice answered, “Fred, Fred, this is the Lord, would you like me to help you?” Fred answers, “Yes! Thank-you Lord. Please help me!” The Lord says, “I will help you, Fred. But you must trust me.” Fred says, “Oh, yes! I will trust you, Lord. Just help me get back up.” So the Lord says, “OK, Fred, I will help you. Now, let go of the bush.” Fred looks down below him, and looks up at the top of the cliff. The Lord says, “Fred, if you want me to help you, let go of the bush.” Fred calls out, “Is there anybody else up there?”
Gideon is a great Old Testament example of learning to trust God. He moved from cowering to courage, but it was a process. A process that involved letting go of fear and growing up in faith.
In a similar way, the Christian faith that conquers fear has to be developed and it has to be maintained. If someone came to me and said, “Greg, drop and do a hundred push ups.” I could drop. I could do the first 30 or so, but I can assure you that short of God’s power, 100 push ups is beyond my ability today. But 3 years ago if someone told me to do 100 push ups I could drop and do them, no problem. Why? Because I exercised to build up to it and did it every day. Built and maintained…
About a year and a half ago, if you asked me to quote Matthew 5,6, and 7, I could do it. I was quoting it every day in my head as I walked to work here. Today I’m real rusty. I haven’t gone over it in a long time and just remember the outline. There was a process that I had to go through to learn these verses and there was a process that I had to do to maintain them. Built and maintained… The same is true of faith. We must exercise our spiritual mind and muscles to become strong and must continue using them to maintain strength.
Judges gives us a picture of the faith cycle of Israel. We see their road away from God. It was from strength to satisfaction to decline to disobedience to disorder. We see their road back to faith. God intervened with punishment allowing an invader to conquer them. They would cry out to God and he would respond with prophecy and a deliverer. That move from fearful cowering to faithful courage is demonstrated right here in Judges 6 and 7 with Gideon. If you were here for Bible class this morning Gideon’s story should be fresh on your mind. But the road back to God actually started with the Midianites invasion.
When we meet Gideon, the country is in a crisis. Israel has once again turned away from God to worship idols. God has allowed the Midianites, Amlekites and eastern peoples to invade their land and destroy their harvest for 7 years. People are getting hungry and desparate. Many are going into hiding. Imagine life before grocery stores. If they had a farmer’s market it was empty because the enemy came and ruined everyone’s garden. In Judges 6:11 Gideon is threshing wheat down in a wine press to hide from the Midianites so he can have a little food. So, by the time we meet Gideon, besides being idol worshipers the people of Israel are hungry, scared and powerless.
To analyze this, lets start by looking at what God is doing for Israel through their enemies.
First, what purpose does the Midianite army serve in God’s will for Israel?
Enemies have a purpose in God’s plan. Even Satan himself is used by God to accomplish his eternal purposes. God doesn’t sit idly by and let us ignore him. He never has. The Lord never forces our faith or obedience but he certainly desires it and will work in mighty ways to obtain it. Midian is one of the ways God got Israel’s attention back and began to turn them back to himself.
What is your Midian? When you struggle, I hope you will remember that God loves you and is working to get your attention. The process of developing faith requires certain elements. Struggle is a part of that. Don’t miss this! When you go through hardship, keep three principles in mind.
1. God is involved.
2. God is up to something
3. God works for good, but for us to enjoy his blessing we must trust and obey him.
Israel needed Midian. Without Midian, Israel was headed for total spiritual annihilation. Midian cut in on that and caused them to begin the road back to faith. The very thing they hated was what they needed at the time.
Instead of hating our trials and troubles, let’s learn from them. Look to God when trial comes. Listen to God’s message. Seek His face. Learn from him. Remember the path from cowering in fear to courage in faith involves struggle.
Second, in the midst of their struggle God speaks his message.
1. I brought you out of Egypt and delivered you from them and gave you this land.
2. I drove out the enemies of this land for you
3. I told you to worship me and not the gods of this land
4. You have not listened to me, I am the Lord your God!
Faith failure begins when we stop listening to God. Faith recovery begins when we start listening again. In our day God has made it so that his Word is available to the point of saturation. How many Bibles do you have in your home? We’ve got dozens. How much time in the course of the week do you spend reading it? Are you listening to God?
Listen, God has a message for you right in the book of Judges. Read it! Spend time this week with your family sharing what God’s Word says and apply it to your own family.
Many families today are listening to everything but God’s word in their homes. One out of two marriages ends in divorce, and the percentage of couples just living together without marriage is skyrocketing. Homosexuals are challenging our very definition of marriage. About a million unborn babies are killed every year by abortion here in our country. Families are in a crisis in America. And what is the church doing to help? Many churches are fighting among themselves over what Paul calls, “Foolish and stupid arguments…” 2 Tim. 2:24
2 Tim. 3:1 But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. 2 For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, 4 treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God; 5 holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; and avoid such men as these.
When people turn away from God, trouble follows like night follows day. Idols have no power to save or serve. People who fail to listen to God and obey him invite the very invasion of that which can destroy them. But in the midst of crisis God speaks to remind us that He is our God, that he is the deliverer, that every good thing we know came from him, and that he demands our worship for his glory and our own good, and we must listen to him.
Third, God can make a faithful leader from a fearful listener. The angel of the Lord calls Gideon. The Lord is with you, mighty warrior! Gideon looks around. Huh? Are you talking to me? Listen to Gideon’s response. If God is with us, why is this happening? Where are all the miracles we’ve heard about? God has abandoned us!
Let me ask you something… Would you have picked Gideon to lead your team? His dad has an alter to Baal and an Asherah pole! God tells Gideon to cut down the pole and tear down the Baal alter and build a proper alter and sacrifice a bull to the Lord on it. Gideon is afraid of the neighbors reaction so he does it at night. Sure enough his neighbors are mad enough to kill him for it!
What does this fearful man Gideon have on his side? He is willing to listen to God.
Are we? The path out of fear starts here. Many of God’s greatest leaders where shaking in their boots when God called them. Moses is a classic example. How about you? Are you willing to listen to God in spite of how scary it seems. Will you listen to God and go tell your neighbor about your faith in him? The path from fear to faith starts with listening to God and doing what he says.
Fourth, God’s presence provides power, creates courage, and produces peace. Listen to the four things God says to Gideon when he meets him that assures him of this.
1. The Lord is with you, mighty warrior!
2. Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand, am I not sending you
3. I will be with you.
4. Peace! Do not be afraid, you are not going to die.
This marks the beginning of Gideon’s leadership, a leadership that brought victory and restored peace for 40 years. But look at Judges 8:33 Then it came about, as soon as Gideon was dead, that the sons of Israel again played the harlot with the Baals, and made Baal-berith their god. 34 Thus the sons of Israel did not remember the LORD their God, who had delivered them from the hands of all their enemies on every side; 35 nor did they show kindness to the household of Jerubbaal (that is, Gideon), in accord with all the good that he had done to Israel.
And the cycle began again. Where are you in this faith cycle?
1. Are you falling? God will discipline you. Hebrews 12: 4 You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin; 5 and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, "MY SON, DO NOT REGARD LIGHTLY THE DISCIPLINE OF THE LORD, NOR FAINT WHEN YOU ARE REPROVED BY HIM; 6 FOR THOSE WHOM THE LORD LOVES HE DISCIPLINES, AND HE SCOURGES EVERY SON WHOM HE RECEIVES." 7 It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons;
2. Are you facing foes? God has a message of hope for you. 1 Peter 1: 6 In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that your faith--of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire--may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.
3. Are you fearful? God’s presence can restore courage. 2 Tim. 1: 7 For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline. 1 John 4:16 And we have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. 17 By this, love is perfected with us, that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.
4. Are you faithful? God encourages you to continue and strengthen one another. 1 Cor. 15:58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord. Gal. 6: 7 Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. 8 For the one who sows to his own flesh shall from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit shall from the Spirit reap eternal life. 9 And let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we shall reap if we do not grow weary.
