THE DIFFICULTY OF FINISHING WELL Judges 8:22 35

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1 CORNERSTONE BIBLE CHURCH November 8, 2015 THE DIFFICULTY OF FINISHING WELL Judges 8:22 35 Introduction: Things that start out well As you know, Halloween was last week. I have noticed one thing over the years. It seems like candy is getting smaller each year. When I was a kid, there was a glimmer of hope when the candy manufacturer s came out with the King Size bar. That was great. But then they soon came out with the snack size. And now they have the bite size. It s really small. One of the things that I remember as a kid getting that nobody gives any more is gumballs. I think people gave them out because they are the cheapest candy possible. I remember going to the store and getting one out of the penny candy machine. Yes, a penny. Do you know why they cost a penny? Because they are horrible. Just kidding. They are so cheap because they flavor of the gumball can t be talked about in terms of minutes, but seconds. It is something that starts off really good, but quickly loses its flavor. And when it loses its flavor, it loses its purpose. The only purpose of a gumball is the sugary flavor, but it doesn t last very long. Unfortunately, this characteristic of not lasting long is what we find in the life of one of the judges. Two weeks ago, we studied the calling of Gideon into action by the Lord. He is the one the Lord calls to save the people of Israel from the pillaging hand of the Midianites. He is timid and scared, but we know that God never calls us to do something that He does not enable us to do. And so Gideon prepares to do what God wants him to do because he realizes that God is going to enable him to do it. Last week, Pastor Luke shared how God used Gideon in the defeat of the Midianites, as he is dependent upon the Lord to accomplish what God wants accomplished. In fact, because God wants to make sure there is no mistake as to who is accomplishing the victory, God takes the army of 22,000 down to 300 men who take down this enormous army. It s an amazing account of how dependence upon God leads to bold action for Him. At this point, we could say Gideon has been faithful. He is fulfilling His calling; worshipping God in the process of all God wants to do in his life. The book of Hebrews includes him in the list of those who live 1

2 by faith. But it isn t long before we start to see some cracks in the armor. At the beginning of chapter 8, we find that Gideon going off on his own, outside of the direction of God. While he once was timid to lead, after he experiences the leadership of Israel, it seems to go to his head and he becomes forceful in his authority and leadership. It doesn t take long for him to forget the lesson of the 300 and he begins to think that God needs him and even more, he needs the recognition and honor for what he does. He goes after these kings in chapter 8 because he is seeking revenge. He takes things into his own hand. Success has gone to his head. And as he begins this slow fade away from the Lord, we see how difficult it is to finish well in life. This is where we find ourselves in... Vs ! Over the years, the Israelites have been dominated and oppressed by foreign kings. While these other nations have a physical king they can see and touch and hear from, the political structure of Israel is one of a theocracy... where God is their king. And at some point, the people, maybe only a small group of them, have the grand idea that they need a physical king like the other nations who will rule over them. As we often experience, it is easier to follow a physical person than an invisible God. And so they approach Gideon and call him to be their king. Don t miss what they say of Gideon. They want him to rule over them because he is the one who has saved them. But what s missing here? The entire purpose why God directs Gideon to only take 300 men with him is so that none of them would get the credit. The credit is never intended to go to Gideon or anyone who is part of the army. The credit for the victory is for God alone. But they don t even mention God in their invitation to Gideon, but they build him up as the one who saved them from the hand of Midian. God is their King and eventually in His perfect timing, will be the One who will anoint a King over them. Gideon s response seems good. I suppose we can give him some credit in what he says. His words are good. He says, I will not rule over you, my son will not rule over you; the Lord will rule over you. He acknowledges at the beginning that God is the One who is to rule. Not him. Not anyone else. Not his children. But God. Now there are some who say that this statement by Gideon is not a denial of his desire to become king, but a statement of how the kingship should be set up. That even if or when he steps in to be their king, it 2

3 still should be seen as a kingship through which God is the ruler. Many say this because of what he does right after this. He says one thing (I don t want to be king) and then begins the steps to do exactly the opposite (set himself up to be king). Vs ! It s impossible to read this section without thinking of Aaron at the base of the mountain as Moses is getting the Law. If you know that story in Exodus 32, Aaron asks the people to throw in their gold into a pot and he makes a resemblance of God that they can worship, which ended up being the golden calf. Here, right after saying that he does not want to be their ruler, Gideon asks them to give up their gold earrings, 1700 shekels in weight (that is 49 pounds) of gold. He asks them to give it up so that he can make a golden ephod and then set it up in his hometown. The ephod of the high priest... was made of costly material worked with gold, blue, purple, scarlet and precious stones; it reached from the breast down to the hips and was secured by two shoulder-bands and a waist-band. With it were associated the urim and Thummin... which were used for oracular purposes. 1 In Exodus 28, we learn that the ephod is a piece of clothing used by the high priest for knowing and discerning the will of God. Throughout Israel s history, it is to be associated with the high priest near the tabernacle or temple. At this time in Gideon s history, our best guess is that the tabernacle is located in Shiloh (18:31). What we know for certain is that it is not located in Ophrah, Gideon s town. And so essentially what Gideon does in this act is to set up a rival place of worship so that he can hopefully discover God s will. This ephod is probably set up with the intentions of being a symbol of divine governance for the people. After all, his hometown is the place where God first comes to him and speaks to him. And it is set up on some form of altar instead of being worn by the high priest. We don t know; his intentions may have been good. It may have been that he did this as a reminder that God is to be recognized as the leader and not him or any man. But it is certainly is not received this way. It is received as something to be worshipped. It is a relic. And we are told that the people whored after it. Again, its just one of the strongest terms that could be used to describe their idolatry. The people begin to worship this item instead of simply trusting in the One greater than the 1 Cundall, Arthur E. and Leon Morris. Judges and Ruth. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2008), 3

4 item. And it becomes a snare to Gideon and his family. This act by Gideon is one of the first indications that he is trying to set himself up as king, even though he said he didn t want to be king. And please note that this is the first time in the Judges Cycles that the slow fade begins while the judge is still alive. The people of Israel begin the move towards idolatry specifically because of the actions of this judge. And yes, we are told in vs. 28 that the land has rest for 40 years. But this is the last time we are told this in the book. We will not see rest like they experienced before for the remainder of the book. This rest they are experiencing is a compromised peace; a peace without worship and obedience to the Lord. And so while his words of not being king are good. His first action is to set himself up as the one people come to looking for the advice of the Lord through this ephod. But that s not it. Vs ! It seems like Gideon retires from public life, or that is at least what we are to think. He goes to his own house and then we are told that he has 70 sons because he has many wives. Why are we told about his harem of women and many sons? Could it be that this is exactly the actions of a king? A king has many women and many offspring. He builds and creates a huge family. But the account is not generically about all of his wives and sons. We are directed towards one specific son. Abimelech. We will study his life story next week. But when we are first introduced to him, we are told he is not born through one of the many wives of Gideon, but through one of his concubines. Why are we told about this specific son? Did you know that the name Abimelech means, The King is my father. Subtle. This is why we look back at what he says about not wanting to be the ruler over Israel and think, does he really mean it? After that statement, he lives and acts like he is king, even to the point of naming one of his children as a declaration of his kingship. The people begin the slide towards apostasy with the slide of the judge who God used to save them. When it becomes about him and not about the Lord, he initiates the slide for the entire nation away from the worship of God. And in so doing, they begin worshipping other gods. And after his death, they fully give themselves to it. They worship and whore after the Baals once again. They forget the Lord, again, not that they forget His name or what He has done. They forget in the sense that they do not live as if He means anything to them. It is only stories. 4

5 That s the historical account of the end of Gideon s life. It s a sad indictment of a man God calls to lead who does not finish well and the results are tragic. It s painful to read and study. As a reader of the text, I sit there and think, No, Gideon, don t do it. It s almost as if you feel embarrassed for him. But now after looking at what happens, I want to go back through it again giving some attention to practical implications that should impact us. I want to give us FOUR REASONS WHY IT IS DIFFICULT TO FINISH WELL THE DANGER OF VICTORY It s hard to finish well because when we win, we are so tempted to think it is something about us instead of bowing our knee and giving all the glory to the Lord! We want a bit of the glory. Pastor Luke mentioned this last week, but I wanted to dig a bit deeper this morning. Winning well is such a lost art in our culture today. I see this in the sporting events of my children. When you win a lot, it becomes way too easy to get complacent. It becomes way too easy to become overly confident. When a team gets too confident, they are probably on the road towards a loss. The entire point of the lesson of the 300 for Gideon and the people of Israel is that God doesn t need them to secure the victory. It is about Him, not them. And so I don t know why they would respond with overconfidence in themselves. But they do. It doesn t take long for that victory to go to Gideon s head and the people s head. It doesn t take long for Gideon to think that he is big stuff. His attitude of humility and timidity quickly changes from chapter 6 to chapter 8. Why? The victory that God enables him to experience is a dangerous foe in his life. It is easy to cry out to the Lord when things are tough. It is much more difficult to cry out to Him when things are going well. When I was a youth pastor, we ministered in a fairly well to do suburb of Chicago. The students we ministered to had good families; good schools; good houses; good friends; good neighbors... everything seemed to be going well in their life. All of the goodness and victories in their life masked the real issues they had deep inside of them. Everything is good, why do you keep telling me I m a sinner and need Jesus? What do I need Him for? For many of us, we only cry out to Jesus when things go bad. Why? Because in the heartache and pain and suffering, we hope He will come and secure the victory we long for when in reality we should be crying 5

6 out to Him to do a work in our heart. We need Him. The victory we need is a life change, not a good comfortable life. As Luke mentioned last week, success can be difficult which leads us to forget God s blessing and His grace in our life. We need to be reminded of His grace in our failures and especially in our successes. Friends, when we come to saving faith in Jesus Christ, let us not boast and become arrogant that we are better than other people who are not yet saved. The entire point of salvation is to rip us of our pride so that we don t think it is something about us. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast (Eph 2:8 9). Friends, when we stand in the moment of temptation and are able to say no to sin and walk with Jesus, let us not puff our chests out thinking how strong we are. When we do, we will fall the next time. We thank the Lord in those moments for his abiding grace. Let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall (1 Cor 10:12). Why should we not think it s about us in the moment of temptation that can overcome that sin? " 1 Corinthians 10:13! No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. He is the faithful one. He is the one who will restrain the temptation to be only what we can handle. He is the One who will provide the way of escape. We often quote these two verses in 1 Corinthians 10, but do you know what the next verse says? Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. Run away. Don t stand there. Use the way of escape that has been provided for you. And then when you run away and have victory, go back to vs. 12, Let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. Don t stand there patting yourself on the back. Get ready for the next battle around the corner, which leads us to the next reason it is difficult to finish well THE CONTINUAL TEMPTATION TO SIN When we win, there s always another battle around the next corner. After Adam and Even took of that fruit and ate of that which they were told not to eat, sin enters and continues to stand at the door of our life enticing us to eat once again. This temptation doesn t end until we 6

7 leave this earth or the Lord Jesus returns. It s going to be a continual battle that we cannot let our guard down for one minute. Not long after being kicked out of the garden, we have the account of Cain and Abel bringing their offering to the Lord in Genesis 4. If you remember, God accepts Abel s offering but not Cain s offering. In turn, he gets mad and God comes to him and says, Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it (Gen 4:6 7). There s no break when it comes to what sin wants to do to you. Gideon starts humble and then after the victory, he tends to let down his guard and what happens? We see him going outside of God s commands in chapter 8 by chasing these kings and treating his own countrymen with contempt. We see him making a golden ephod. We see him taking many wives. We see him having concubines. At every turn in chapter 8, we find this good, timid man facing temptation and losing. This all falls on the heels on the great victory in chapter 7. One of the most dangerous times of our spiritual life comes right after a spiritual high. I know I am most susceptible to sin on Sunday afternoons. It s like a spiritual high, being at church, opening God s Word with you, spending time with the body of Christ, and then I go home and if I let my guard down, it can be a difficult Sunday afternoon and evening (especially when the Bears are playing bad, which tends to happen a lot this year). Why is this? Because sin doesn t take a rest and if we do, we will lose. " 1 Peter 5:8 9a! Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith. It is hard to finish well because the older we get and the more we are victorious in Christ, you would think the easier it would become. But it becomes harder. The enemy of God comes at us with more attacks. Sin becomes more enticing. And it doesn t stop. It just keeps coming. We can never let our guard down or we are dead. Until the Lord comes again or we finish our time on this earth, there will be a continual temptation to sin we will face. Let us face it well. But there s a 3 rd reason why it is difficult to finish well in life THE DECEPTION OF OUR OWN HEART 7

8 I have no doubt that if we were able to have a conversation with Gideon after Judges 8:23 when he rejects the invitation to be the king of Israel, he would have said that he made the right decision and that he had no intent on being their king. He would have said that his heart is pure and right. But then he goes out and does everything that makes it look like he is trying to be king. His own heart deceives him. " Jeremiah 17:9! The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? We should be very slow to trust our own heart. It is so deceptive that it will make us think we are on the right path when we may be out for ourselves. We may be acting and thinking for self instead of for God. We may think in the victory we are giving the glory to the Lord when in deed we desire some for ourselves. Proverbs 28:26 says, Whoever trusts in his own heart is a fool. That s serious language that we would do well to listen to in our life. So what do we do if we are not to trust our own heart? We need help from outside of us to discern our actions as an indication of our heart s desire. It seems in Gideon s life, there are no checks and balances. There s nobody there to call him on the carpet. There s no one there to come alongside of him to help him test his heart. And if we have no one to come alongside of us that is a bit skeptical of our decisions, then we could well be on the way to making some really bad decisions. It s hard to finish well in life, especially after major victories, because we so frequently put others at arms length from helping us discern our own heart because we just trust it above all else. The wisdom of God says that s foolish, but we often don t want to listen. Why? Because of our 4 th point of why it is difficult to finish well THE DESIRE FOR A HUMAN SAVIOR I ll end with this one because it s the most difficult. It s hard to finish well because there are always people who want to lift you above Jesus Himself. In vs. 22, we see the people of Israel come to Gideon and ask him to be their king because he is the one who saved them. They want a physical person they can go to. It s easier to go to a counselor instead of praying to an invisible God. And when people want this, it spurs in the hearts of God s leaders a bit of the desire to want to be wanted. Leaders of all kinds want to be wanted. And it becomes really difficult to trust and rest in the fact that 8

9 God doesn t need us. We want to see our impact on people. We want to see how we are making a difference. And when people desire for a human savior, it is easy to step up to the plate to be that for them. But that would be bad for any leader and horrible for all people. But let s resist thinking this in terms of only a spiritual leader like a pastor. It happens in the home when the father needs to be needed. It happens on the athletic field when the kid needs to feel needed by their teammates. It happens when the mom desires to feel needed by her children. When we think that our children are turning out well because we are such great parents instead of trusting in the grace of the One who gives generously... we start to develop a human savior complex. But why is this so bad? It s simple. JC Ryle is famous for saying, The best of men are men at best. There is no father or mother who is perfect who doesn t hurt and let down their children. There is no athlete who doesn t commit error on the field. The best of men are still just men. The best of women are still just human. It means they are not perfect. They will make mistakes. There are godly leaders. I hope one day I might be one. Maybe you already are one. But there is no godly leader who doesn t sin and let down the people to whom they minister. There is no pastor who is perfect. One of the first words I told you on my first Sunday here almost five years ago is that I m not Jesus and will never be your savior. I stand by that even stronger today than I did at that point. I have failed many of you often. I continue to fail you. And it pains me to think about how I have not shepherded you the way I should. And in that, I apologize. I truly desire to point you to the One who will never let you down. Jesus is the only one who ever had the right to demand change and influence and he came to serve, not be served. He is the only one who stands as Savior. He is the mediator before God that we all need. It s hard to finish well when we look for a human savior or when we seek to become a human savior. It moves us away from the cross. It s hard because we need to all fall at the foot of the One who is our savior. We will never find perfection of office except in our Lord Jesus Christ. Realizing this can save us from cynicism that may come from disappointing servants of Christ. 2 2 Davis,