8/4/2018. Rainbow Forest 2018 Theme Displaying God s Goodness

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1 Rainbow Forest 2018 Theme Displaying God s Goodness 1

2 Romans 12:1-2 & 21 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. 2

3 Favor Proverbs 3:3-4 Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you; bind them around your neck; write them on the tablet of your heart. So you will find favor and good success in the sight of God and man. Father, I pray for the members of Rainbow Forest and the guest that are here today, that you would give them your special favor. Cause your steadfast love and faithfulness to well up inside of them, strengthening their confidence in you. Give them minds and hearts for love and faithfulness that would transform their lives as well s the lives of those they touch. May their lives be so clearly marked by your love and faithfulness that favor and success would be their constant companions. Cause them to feel your hand of favor on their lives and remind them that where they go the favor of God goes. For your glory and their good, in Jesus name, Amen! 3

4 Rainbow Forest Mission Statement Connecting the Disconnected to Christ, Community and the Call Our Purpose To glorify God in everything we say and do Connecting Through the Word The Impossible Becomes Possible with God! Judges 6-7 4

5 Judges 6: The people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, and the LORD gave them into the hand of Midian seven years. 2 And the hand of Midian overpowered Israel, and because of Midian the people of Israel made for themselves the dens that are in the mountains and the caves and the strongholds. 3 For whenever the Israelites planted crops, the Midianites and the Amalekites and the people of the East would come up against them. 4 They would encamp against them and devour the produce of the land, as far as Gaza, and leave no sustenance in Israel and no sheep or ox or donkey. 5 For they would come up with their livestock and their tents; they would come like locusts in number both they and their camels could not be counted so that they laid waste the land as they came in. 6 And Israel was brought very low because of Midian. And the people of Israel cried out for help to the LORD. 7 When the people of Israel cried out to the LORD on account of the Midianites, 8 the LORD sent a prophet to the people of Israel. And he said to them, Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: I led you up from Egypt and brought you out of the house of slavery. 5

6 9 And I delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians and from the hand of all who oppressed you, and drove them out before you and gave you their land. 10 And I said to you, I am the LORD your God; you shall not fear the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But you have not obeyed my voice. 11 Now the angel of the LORD came and sat under the terebinth at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites. 12 And the angel of the LORD appeared to him and said to him, The LORD is with you, O mighty man of valor. 13 And Gideon said to him, Please, sir, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us, saying, Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt? But now the LORD has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian. 14 And the LORD turned to him and said, Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian; do not I send you? 15 And he said to him, Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father s house. 16 And the LORD said to him, But I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man. 6

7 Israel was intimidated by the enemy; they were impoverished by the enemy and this happened for seven years. And, the Midianites could come and go. They oppressed the people of God, and God's people were put to terrible shame by an enemy. It was severe, and it was continuous. And, it reminds us what is beginning to happen in America today. The Church of the Lord Jesus Christ is becoming intimidated and becoming impoverished because of an enemy, and it is getting worse. And yet, we find here, in the Book of Judges, the principles of victory, because, God had rather forgive and restore than to judge. Remember the cycle in the book of Judges! Disobedience, Discipline, Despair, Deliverance It s hard not to notice the same thing in America today! Americans have forgotten the Lord God of Israel. We have forsaken our Judeo-Christian ethic. We have forgotten God, and God is turning us over to our enemies. 7

8 The prevailing rhetoric in America is, "Well, all religion is essentially the same. It's only superficially different. That s backward, Christianity is essentially different, and only superficially the same our faith is different. The thing today is not that people don't believe; that's not the problem today. The problem today is what people will believe. Today, people will believe almost anything. Four Changes in America in the last 40 years. 1. We Have Gone from Authority to Relativism There is no fixed standard of right and wrong. Remember the theme in the Book of Judges 17:6: "In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes" That's America today. We have gone from authority to relativism. There is no fixed standard of right and wrong. A man just simply becomes his own sense of what is right and what is wrong. We just pick and choose our morals like it is a cafeteria line. 8

9 2. We Have Gone from Truth to Pragmatism No longer do we ask, "Is it true?" We just simply ask, "Does it work? People are looking for religion to serve them. They're making the whole thing man-centered rather than God-centered. People are looking for religion that brings them health, and wealth, and happiness, rather than asking, "What is right? God is not here to make you happy or healthy. He's here to make you holy and give you hope. 3. We Have Gone from Reason to Feeling In our world today, psychology has replaced theology. And, sin is no longer the enemy sadness is. And, the great thing in America is to feel good about yourself. 9

10 4. We Have Gone from Convictions to Opinions People say, "Well, I feel this..." Or, "What is truth for you may not be truth for me." Every man just simply does that which is right in his own eyes. And, our kids are being told in college, "You can't be certain about anything." The result of all of this is moral confusion! Our young people and the millennials don't know how to play the game. They don't know where the sidelines are. They don't know where the end zone is, and they don't know what the rules of the game are. The word sin is a forgotten word in America. Every man does that which is right in his own eyes. In America, the enemy is not sin; it is guilt. 10

11 Recent magazine articles: "How to Stop Being So Tough on Yourself"; "Guilt Can Drive You Crazy"; "Guilt Mongering"; "Getting Rid of the Guilts"; "Stop Pleading Guilty." "Guilt Letting Go." "Don't Feed the Guilt Monster." Today, we want to live in a no-fault society. Nobody is guilty anymore; Nobody's sinful; everybody's sick. Nobody's evil; everybody's ill. Nobody's wicked; everybody's weak. Guilt is out-of-date, and sin is an old-fashioned word. We reward the criminal and punish the police officer. We defend the perpetrator and accuse the victim. 11

12 We are in a battle today between light and darkness, good and evil, Heaven and Hell, God and Satan. The Midianites have invaded our country and we have been intimidated by the enemy and we are being impoverished by the enemy! Today, this passage in the Book of Judges gives us the principles of victory. They center on a man named Gideon. It starts with the people of Israel crying out to the Lord in verses 6 & 7. The Lord sent a prophet to remind them of how He delivered them in the past and now they were being disobedient. Now the story of Gideon. 12

13 1. The Principle of Vision Judges 5: Now the angel of the LORD came and sat under the terebinth at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites. 12 And the angel of the LORD appeared to him and said to him, The LORD is with you, O mighty man of valor. 14 And the LORD turned to him and said, Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian; do not I send you? Gideon was threshing wheat, hunkered down, hiding away in a wine press, afraid of the Midianites, and God appeared to him. And, he had a vision of the Almighty. Gideon was living in defeat and fear, until he took his eyes from the enemy, and put his eyes, one more time, on God. Proverbs 29:18 "Where there is no vision, the people perish" 13

14 We need a Vision. A revelation! A Word from God. And we have it right here before us! The Word of God!!! Gideon had a vision from God! Gideon needed a new vision of himself. He saw himself as the least of the least and the most unlikely person to accomplish what the Angel of the Lord is commissioning him to do. We need a new vision of who we are in Christ!!!! Romans 8:37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. Everything begins to change. Gideon brings a very precious and costly gift to the Lord. Judges 6: Please do not depart from here until I come to you and bring out my present and set it before you. And he said, I will stay till you return. 19 So Gideon went into his house and prepared a young goat and unleavened cakes from an ephah of flour. The meat he put in a basket, and the broth he put in a pot, and brought them to him under the terebinth and presented them. 14

15 20 And the angel of God said to him, Take the meat and the unleavened cakes, and put them on this rock, and pour the broth over them. And he did so. 21 Then the angel of the LORD reached out the tip of the staff that was in his hand and touched the meat and the unleavened cakes. And fire sprang up from the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened cakes. And the angel of the LORD vanished from his sight. Gideon then Builds an Altar and Worships the Lord in a New Way. Judges 6: Then Gideon perceived that he was the angel of the LORD. And Gideon said, Alas, O Lord GOD! For now I have seen the angel of the LORD face to face. 23 But the LORD said to him, Peace be to you. Do not fear; you shall not die. 24 Then Gideon built an altar there to the LORD and called it, The LORD Is Peace. To this day it still stands at Ophrah, which belongs to the Abiezrites. 15

16 Gideon Tears Down the Altars to the False Gods and Idols. Judges 6: That night the LORD said to him, Take your father s bull, and the second bull seven years old, and pull down the altar of Baal that your father has, and cut down the Asherah that is beside it 26 and build an altar to the LORD your God on the top of the stronghold here, with stones laid in due order. Then take the second bull and offer it as a burnt offering with the wood of the Asherah that you shall cut down. If we are going to successfully face the Midianites of our day. The enemies of our families, our children and our nation, we are going to have to tear down the idols in our lives and find our peace and satisfaction in the Lord alone!!!!!!! 16

17 2. The Principle of Courage After receiving and believing the Word from God, Gideon gathers an army of 32,000 men, but God doesn't seem to be interested in numbers. Judges 7:1-3 1 Then Jerubbaal (that is, Gideon) and all the people who were with him rose early and encamped beside the spring of Harod. And the camp of Midian was north of them, by the hill of Moreh, in the valley. 2 The LORD said to Gideon, The people with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand, lest Israel boast over me, saying, My own hand has saved me. 3 Now therefore proclaim in the ears of the people, saying, Whoever is fearful and trembling, let him return home and hurry away from Mount Gilead. Then 22,000 of the people returned, and 10,000 remained. 17

18 God cannot and God will not use cowards. Fear suits you for failure and not for fighting." Why did God want the cowards to go home? Because fear is infectious. Deuteronomy 20:8 "And the officers shall speak further unto the people, and they shall say, What man is there that is fearful and fainthearted? let him go and return unto his house, lest his brethren's heart faint as well as his heart" There is something about fear fearful people that infect other people. When Joshua sent the 12 spies out, 10 came back and gave a fearful report, and nobody wanted to go into the land. In churches today, we are always faced with people who are fearful, who don't believe God can do what God wants to do. 2 Timothy 1:7 "God has not given us the spirit of fear. God has given us the spirit of power, and of love, and of a sound mind" 18

19 The Bible says we are "in nothing to be terrified by our adversaries" (Philippians 1:28). "Greater is he that is in us, than he that is in the world" (1 John 4:4). There are some people today who could teach, but you don't teach because you're afraid. There are some people here today, who ought to tithe, but you don't tithe because you're afraid. There are some people who ought to witness, but you don't witness because you're afraid. Some of you could sing, but the icy fingers of fear would grip your throat; and you cannot sing as you have been gifted to sing. Fear and faith don't live in the same heart. Fear will conquer faith, or faith will conquer fear; but one will conquer the other. There's the principle of vision. Then, there is the principle of valor, of courage. 19

20 3. The Principle of Vigilance of being Alert, of being Aware! Judges 7:4-7 4 And the LORD said to Gideon, The people are still too many. Take them down to the water, and I will test them for you there, and anyone of whom I say to you, This one shall go with you, shall go with you, and anyone of whom I say to you, This one shall not go with you, shall not go. 5 So he brought the people down to the water. And the LORD said to Gideon, Every one who laps the water with his tongue, as a dog laps, you shall set by himself. Likewise, every one who kneels down to drink. 6 And the number of those who lapped, putting their hands to their mouths, was 300 men, but all the rest of the people knelt down to drink water. 7 And the LORD said to Gideon, With the 300 men who lapped I will save you and give the Midianites into your hand, and let all the others go every man to his home. 20

21 There were two categories. The People Who Put Their Mouths in the Stream There were those people who got down on all fours, put their mouths in the stream, and began to drink down in the mud. You talk about being vulnerable to the enemy. You'll be vulnerable to the enemy down there on all fours, your belly in the slime, and your snout in the water, sucking up the water. That's the way some were drinking 9,700 of them drank that way. The People Who Lapped Up the Water Like Dogs There was another group there that got down on their knees like this, and they took the water to their mouths and just kind of lapped it up like a dog not putting their mouths in the water, not down on their bellies drinking up the water, but vigilance watching for the enemy 300 of them. God said, "Those are the 300 that I want." They were not cowards, and they weren't careless. 1 Peter 5:8 "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour" 21

22 4. The Principle of Vitality What kind of people does God use? People of vision, people who've seen god; People of valor, people who are not afraid; People of vigilance, People who know to watch and be sober and be vigilant People of vitality, people who have the life of God in them. Judges 7: That same night the LORD said to him, Arise, go down against the camp, for I have given it into your hand. 10 But if you are afraid to go down, go down to the camp with Purah your servant. 11 And you shall hear what they say, and afterward your hands shall be strengthened to go down against the camp. Then he went down with Purah his servant to the outposts of the armed men who were in the camp. And the Midianites and the Amalekites and all the children of the east lay along in the valley like grasshoppers for multitude; and their camels were without number, as the sand by the sea side for multitude. 22

23 Judges 7: When Gideon came, behold, a man was telling a dream to his comrade. And he said, Behold, I dreamed a dream, and behold, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian and came to the tent and struck it so that it fell and turned it upside down, so that the tent lay flat. 14 And his comrade answered, This is no other than the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel; God has given into his hand Midian and all the camp. 15 As soon as Gideon heard the telling of the dream and its interpretation, he worshiped. And he returned to the camp of Israel and said, Arise, for the LORD has given the host of Midian into your hand. Gideon and his servant go down there. They sneak closer and closer. There's a campfire, a couple of fellows talking. One of them said, "Man, I had a dream. It was a nightmare. It's the awfulest thing." He said, "I saw a piece of barley bread." Barley is the cheapest, the coarsest, the poorest bread; it's what the absolutely impoverished people would eat is barley bread. 23

24 This man said "I saw a piece of barley bread, a loaf of barley bread. It's rolling along the ground. And, here's one of our tents, and inside are our warriors. And, this piece of barley bread hits the tent, and it all caves in." The other man said, "Boy, that's Gideon that's Gideon. That barley bread that's Gideon." When Gideon heard that, he said, "Hallelujah! Hallelujah!" What is the principle? Gideon was that piece of barley bread. Gideon, in himself, was nothing nothing. When the Lord said unto him, "Hail, thou man of valor," he looked behind to see who God was talking to. "He couldn't be talking to me," he said. "I'm the least in my father's house. My family is the poorest in Manasseh, and I'm the least in my father's house." He said, "Of all the tribes, Manasseh is the poorest of all the families; my family's the worst. And, of all the kids, I'm the runt of the litter. I mean, I'm the least in my father's house." And, God called him a man of valor. He's just a piece of barley bread, but God said, "You go down there, and I will show you what the enemy thinks." 24

25 The devil knows more about you than you know about you. And, the dread of Hell is that you'll wake up to the power that God has given you. That is the dread in Hell that we will understand just who we are in the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the army of Gideon. God wants to put His life into you. Remember Judges 6:34 "But the Spirit of the LORD came upon Gideon" The literal translation is this: "The Lord clothed Himself with Gideon." It's not the man; it's God in the man. The Bible says in this verse verse 34 that "God clothed Himself with Gideon" "God wore Gideon like a suit of clothes." Gideon is just that barley bread. 25

26 How the Battle was Won It's not your scholarship; it's your relationship. It's not your ability; it's your availability. It's not your fame; it's your faith. It's not who you are; it's whose you are. Remember 1 Corinthians 1:26 "For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not may wise men after the flesh, not may mighty, not may noble, are called: but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty" Judges 7: And he divided the 300 men into three companies and put trumpets into the hands of all of them and empty jars, with torches inside the jars. 17 And he said to them, Look at me, and do likewise. When I come to the outskirts of the camp, do as I do. 18 When I blow the trumpet, I and all who are with me, then blow the trumpets also on every side of all the camp and shout, For the LORD and for Gideon. 26

27 19 So Gideon and the hundred men who were with him came to the outskirts of the camp at the beginning of the middle watch, when they had just set the watch. And they blew the trumpets and smashed the jars that were in their hands. 20 Then the three companies blew the trumpets and broke the jars. They held in their left hands the torches, and in their right hands the trumpets to blow. And they cried out, A sword for the LORD and for Gideon! 21 Every man stood in his place around the camp, and all the army ran. They cried out and fled. Three Things Boldness blow the Trumpets and shout Gideon only has 300 people. God doesn't have to have a lot of people. God doesn't win with numbers. He doesn't have to have a lot. He's got people of vision. He has people of valor. He has people of vigilance, and He has people of vitality. They understand they have the anointing the life of God upon them. These were ordinary men, but they were obedient men. 27

28 Brokenness When they broke those vessels, that's brokenness. What does that vessel represent? That's us. "We have a treasure in an earthen vessel" (2 Corinthians 4:7). We are that earthen vessel. That's brokenness. Men throw broken things away; God only uses broken things. We are to be broken before God. A broken and a contrite spirit... thou wilt not despise, O God. (Psalm 51:17), Brightness What about the light? "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works" (Matthew 5:16). That's brightness to let the light shine. The Bible says, "They stood every man in their place" (Judges 7:21) and shouted, The sword of the LORD, and of Gideon" (Judges 7:20). 28

29 Boldness, Brokenness and Brightness and God gave the victory. What would happen if everybody stood in their place? Everybody, ordinary people, barley bread? What would happen if with no uncertain sound we blew the trumpet, bold for the Lord Jesus? What would happen if we laid our pride in the dust with brokenness? And, what would happen if we let our light shine with brightness? This book is not only an old book; it's as fresh as tomorrow's newspaper. These are people of victory, people of vision, people of valor, people of vigilance, and people of vitality. God wants to wear us like we wear a coat, and then with boldness, and brokenness, and brightness, we'll give God the glory. When God's people begin to do that, we don't have to fight the enemy; they'll turn on themselves. It's a biblical principle: God sends fear into the camp of the enemy. 29

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