Gideon and God s Amazing Grace: Judges 6-8

Transcription

1 Leaders: choose some, but not all of the following questions. me with any questions. Mark. Gideon and God s Amazing Grace: Judges Was there anything you found difficult to deal with or understand, or that inspired you in new ways? 2. Chapter 6 verse 1, says, The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, and for seven years he gave them into the hands of the Midianites. If you refer back to 4:1, what do you notice? Why didn t they learn? Only God s grace enables repentance 3. v7 the Israelites now cry out to God for help because of Midianites. God sent them a prophet (see vv7ff). What was his message? 4. Failure to understand the significance of God s rescue from Egypt, resulted in failure to serve and honour God even centuries later. In both our culture and in some parts of the church, what is the result of forgetting the significance of our great rescue through the Lord Jesus? 5. When the Lord (or an angel of the Lord) turns up to call Gideon into his service, what is Gideon s response? (see vv11-16). Do you think his doubts are genuine or is he just looking for a way out? 6. What are some of our typical excuses when we don t think we re up for whatever it is God is calling us to do? Gideon ended up surrendering to God and leading the taskforce to bring Baal worship to an end among his people. Reverential awe led to repentance which led to obedience. When we see God s majesty, we also begin to see the cultural idols around us and distance ourselves from them to walk in greater obedience. Only God rescues sinners 7. Read 7:1-2. Why did the Lord want to limit the number of men to fight against Midian? 8. Read Judges 7:8b-22a. What does this account reinforce? 9. Read Titus 3:3-5 and Ephesians 2:6-9. Why is it important we understand this message? 10. Read Romans 5:8 and 6:23. Read 1 John 4:9-10. Why is God so committed to us? What part do we play in our rescue? Only God is the permanent Peace Maker Judges 8 tells the sad story of how Gideon made this incident about him instead of giving glory to God. Although he rejected the people s request that he rule over them as King saying that God was their king, he seeks to take advantage of his new found fame by gaining fortune for himself and making an ephod (a priest s garment) as if he was a priest. Gideon pours contempt on God s mighty rescue by doing his own thing. 11. In what ways do we pour contempt on our great rescue? 12. How does the Gideon account point us forward to the Lord Jesus? 13. We know God s peace now in part yet we know the best is yet to come. Read Revelation 21:1-4 for a description of the permanent peace which one day Jesus will bring. What difference does this end time hope make to our lives today? Pray that we will never forget the Scriptures and go our own way. Pray that we will never pour contempt on our great rescue or neglect its significance. Pray that we will respond in true heart felt worship of God all day, every day.

2 (Psalm 60:11-12 ESV) Intro: When a man, age almost 40, heard his doctor say, Terminal cancer, he asked me for pastoral help. In the fight for his life he was determined to show the faith of Gideon, and he wanted me to bless his efforts.// Every 2 weeks for 6 months of home visits, I pointed him to the resurrected Jesus as his divine deliverer. But, he was determined to demonstrate heroic faith like he saw in Gideon over his enemy, cancer. It just never occurred to him that he was actually trying to save himself. He believed that trying to be like Gideon was Biblical faith. Eventually he turned me away from his home. When the hospital gave up the fight, he returned to his native country. I ll return to his ending later. The idea that Christian faith is about living up to the example of colourful characters in the Bible is a frequent mistake in the church. Perhaps you experienced this in children s Sunday School past? (not ours of course!) Whatever Biblical characters achieved was because of God s help in their lives. Over and over God uses broken people to accomplish his ultimate purpose: he wants every generation to get to know the one person who isn t broken - his Son, Jesus. Christian faith is about looking for what God is and does - not emulating fallible people to prove our faithfulness. People in the Bible responded with limited knowledge of God, but in our time, God says about Jesus: This is my beloved Son - listen to him! So back in the book of Judges: Excepting Deborah, the faith of the Judges of Israel was so influenced by Canaanite religion that they understood very little of God s character. They had even forgotten their story of deliverance, which can easily be true of us. It s certainly true in our culture. We ll see in Jour series, most Israelites were ignorant of the scriptures handed down from Moses. When Moses died, the Lord commanded the new leader, Joshua: 1:8 Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. And, the Israelites were told to pass the Biblical story on to every generation of their children so they would never lose their meaning and purpose. But, just like our own time, Gideon knew little of this Book of the Law. Gideon s story in three chapters shows us that the pattern of how God gave the world His son Jesus, runs right through the Old Testament. For here we see: 1. Only God s Grace enables Repentance 2. Only God Saves Sinners and 3. Only God is the Permanent Peacemaker. In each chapter we ll see what God does and what Gideon does, which points us to our need for the Divine deliverer. And what matters is what God does! -

3 1. ONLY GOD S GRACE ENABLES REPENTANCE: Chapter 6: (preacher & presence)//// After Deborah s life time, God allows his idolatrous people to suffer an even worse oppression than Sisera s enslavement of Israel s women. In v.1 Each time the Midianites invade Israel it s like locusts stripping the land bare. It means starvation and cave dwelling for many Israelites. God responds to their cry for help in the same way he still responds: He provides a prophet/preacher to remind each generation of God s purpose in scripture. For Gideon s day, scripture is at least the first five books of our Bible delivered to them by Moses. Only by knowing this story can they truly know their God and savior. And, the LORD wants them to know who he really is so they can truly repent - change their hearts and minds - and know his blessing again. Vv.8-10 This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: I brought you up out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 9 I rescued you from the hand of the Egyptians. And I delivered you from the hand of all your oppressors; I drove them out before you and gave you their land. 10 I said to you, I am the LORD your God; do not worship the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you live. But you have not listened to me. (Judges 6:8-10) But God isn t waiting for their change of heart in order to provide a deliverer. Vv While reminding this lost generation of his Word, He anticipates their need of a deliverer from the Midianites. So he pays a personal visit to Gideon and shows great patience. Our text is mysterious here, alternately calling the person in front of Gideon, an angel of the Lord, and The Lord. When this visitor says to the furtive farmer: The Lord is with you o mighty man of valour, it certainly has a Gospel ring about it. What does Gideon do? In v.12. He contradicts God! He is literally saying what some of us might say today: It sure doesn t look like the Lord is with us. We re really dwindling in numbers! How can you say the Lord is with us? We feel abandoned! Please explain! But the Lord calls him out to (V.14) Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian s hand. Am I not sending you? And when he argues he s not equipped, doesn t have what it takes, God persists, I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites, leaving none alive. Now, Gideon is almost sure it is the God of his ancestors and offers a gift of food, as people did before the image of Baal. When the Lord receives the offering by consuming it in fire from the rock on which it was placed, Gideon knows he is more powerful than Baal and he repents. With new obedience to the God of Israel he dares to reform the worship of the village - and with cunning. God protects him from village backlash. He s off to a good start. When the Spirit helps us see God s majesty, and his desire to bless us, we can also dare to reject cultural idols which hid God from us. Inordinate desires for good things master our lives and hurt us badly: like ambition for wealth or prosperity, education, career, status, for spouse or children

4 When we allow any of these legitimate passions to be ultimate goals - ahead of God - we have rejected God, losing his intended blessing. On the other side of this idol coin there are the more obvious addictions, like gambling, sex or substances. But when any of these eclipse God in our lives, we will find ourselves serving a tyrant. To receive eternal life, to enjoy God s presence, we are compelled by God s Spirit to face our heart s disordered desires, admit our sin and let him help us place them in right order in our lives. This is what repentance does. Repentance is what we see Gideon do here in the presence of God, and it frees him to fulfill God s commission. As with the food offering, Gideon needed re-assurance that the God of Israel was greater than Baal, as God over nature. God graciously provides him reassurance, and will do so again! 2. ONLY GOD RESCUES SINNERS: Chapter 7:2-11 The scene now shifts to the assembled armies out of sight of one another. Gideon s 32,000 men are on a mountainside and the Midianites with Amalekites occupy the valley. Again we re told like swarming locusts v.12. They re outnumbered, but God says there s too many men and instructs Gideon to cull the numbers - all the way down to 300 men. How he did it is not as significant as why God did it: V. 2 - The LORD said to Gideon, The LORD said to Gideon, You have too many men. I cannot deliver Midian into their hands, or Israel would boast against me, My own strength has saved me. (Judges 7:2 ESV) From this point, the only way Gideon s band can win the battle is by a miracle. And that s God s point. This is his battle to deliver his people just like He did with Deborah & Barak, and with Moses from the Pharaoh of Egypt centuries earlier. Now, God knows that Gideon feels like he s on a suicide mission so, He tells Gideon to sneak down to the Midianite camp and hear for himself the fear and trembling of the locust army. Gideon obeys. Hidden in the dark, Gideon hears the word on the street is that he s a formidable general with a great army. Then a sentry interprets another s dream saying Gideon will triumph! Gideon goes back to camp utterly reassured, his mind freed from fear, and full of trust in God. What does Gideon do now? He worships God! He s in awe of God - how mighty is He! He makes a battle plan that shows the cunning we saw before. He waits for the right moment - the beginning of the middle watch - at the change of the guard while the sentries are heading into position or heading to their tents. It s the middle of the night: the sight and sound of breaking jars, lights, trumpets along with the fear of Gideon, makes such a panic that in the dark, warriors set upon one another. Gideon s army doesn t have to land a blow. We leave the chapter on a highpoint.

5 God gave them an astonishing deliverance. Gideon discovered his God given valour. We re set for a period of peace - or are we? 3. ONLY GOD IS THE PERMANENT PEACE-MAKER Chapter 8:22-28 What Gideon does with peace: If you re disturbed at how Gideon behaves after victory, that s exactly what s intended. Gideon made the peace all about himself. He kills the two Kings of Midian not in obedience to God s just wrath, but from his own wrathful vengeance over news of the death of his brothers. He violently punishes elders of a town and destroys another town entirely because they refused to honor him when he asked for their help before the battle. Treated graciously by God, yet he turns on fellow Israelites with mean spirited vengeance. When asked to be King he seems to honor God their true King by refusing. But then he acts like a king by taxing Israel, living like a king with many wives & producing seventy sons. He even names his son of a concubine, Abimelech - My Father is King. How immediately compromised this peace has become! Gideon did even worse. To secure his power in Israel he creates an alternative sanctuary for worship in his hometown, even making a copy of the high priestly vestment - called an ephod - as if it had the power to make him High Priest. Israel's God-given sanctuary for worship was located further north in Shiloh. So, V.27 Gideon made the gold into an ephod, which he placed in Ophrah, his town. All Israel prostituted themselves by worshiping it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and his family. So we see the drift, of a leader doing what is right in his own eyes, with no respect for God s plans in the Book of the Law. Whatever Gideon had in view in his time, God had a way better view: Only God concerned himself with the ultimate deliverer, and the ultimate peace. There was a person for whom this Book of the Law was always on his lips - Jesus who preached and taught the meaning of scripture in its fullness. The story is all about Him, but what He did with that was make it all about us. Looking at Him, all generations can see the glory of God and repent. But his deliverance didn t depend upon our good behaviour. Jesus the true Deliverer and Judge of Israel, fought the Prince of all the powers and authorities ranged against us, that is Satan, and did it one against one. By divine cunning he drew the sting of the punishment for sin, yours and mine, into himself on the cross. This is what has forever destroyed the power of evil over us. Raised from death victorious, Jesus is the promised King who reigns forever. Death was put to death! The peace he established is permanent. And when we serve him by passing news of this victory forward, Jesus provides ultimate reassurance:

6 What does that mean for you & me? Perhaps there is need of repentance for ignoring the Bible, or using it to justify my lifestyle? Imagine what might happen if we sit under the Word of God together even in an age which teaches us to sit above it. One thing s sure, letting the Spirit of Jesus teach us from the Bible is the only way we will discover who he is and our part in the story. And, will we be priestly ambassadors of reconciliation and reassurance like Jesus our great High Priest, or will we be like Gideon railing violently on those who resist us in proclaiming the Gospel? Aren t you repelled when people identifying as Christian are violent in speech and behaviour like Gideon became? Perhaps we need to repent of letting ourselves be like them! With my cancer stricken friend: I pleaded with him to trust Jesus the resurrected Deliverer, instead of proving something about his own religious faith. And there was a moment where he recalled the scriptures, repented and trusted himself into the hands of Jesus instead. His wife told me: In the moment before the nurses wheeled him away from her for the last time, he said to her, I think Chris was right - it is about Jesus resurrection. Minutes later he died. Let none of us leave the decision to trust him so late! In full assurance, let s turn to Jesus, also. The Apostle Paul says it best: For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. Amen.