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Wednesday Night Bible Study May 16, 2007
Corporate Prayer
*/GIDEON THE COWARD/*
*Judges 6*
You have a garden you work hard all spring and summer to make that garden produce what you need.
But every year, when you’re ready to pick the harvest, your neighbors from a near town come down and take *ALL* of your harvest by force.
Not just your harvest but every harvest in your town and every animal in your town.
This has gone for 7 years everyone in your town is destitute.
This is what the Jews experienced every harvest when the Midianites made their annual raids.
God allowed these raids because the Jews had disobeyed Him.
But this year was going to be different.
God called a farmer from Manasseh named Gideon to become the deliverer of His people.
Gideon started his career as somewhat of a coward.
There are 100 verses devoted to Gideon in the Book of Judges than any other judge.
Gideon was the only Judge whose personal struggles with his faith are recorded.
Gideon should be a great encouragement to us who have a hard time accepting ourselves and believing that God can make anything out of us or do anything with us.
Before the Lord could use Gideon, He had to deal with 4 doubts that plagued Gideon and were obstacles to his faith.
1.
*/“Does God really care about us?” Judges 6:1-13/*
Gideon’s response to the Lord’s message was */“The Lord has forsaken us!”/*
Even though the Lord had given Israel proof of His love for them.
*/Proverbs 3:11-12 says, “My son, do not reject the discipline of the Lord or /*
*/ loathe His reproof, for whom the lord loves He reproves, even as a father /*
*/ corrects the son in whom he delights.”/*
God does not permit us to sin successfully.
God is not a */“permissive parent”/* who allows us to do as we please.
His ultimate purpose is that we might be */“conformed to the image of His Son.”/*
*/Romans 8:29-30 says, “For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become /*
*/ conformed to the image of His Son.”/*
Just as it says in Matthew, our Father wants to be able to look at each one of us and say, */“This is My beloved child, in whom I am well pleased.”/*
Discipline is evidence of God’s hatred for sin and His love for us.
Obedience to the Lord builds character, but sin destroys character; God cannot sit by and watch us destroy ourselves.
Israel had already experienced 43 years of suffering under the harsh rule of the neighboring nations, but they hadn’t yet learned their lesson and turned away from the heathen idols.
Unless our suffering leads to repentance, it accomplishes no lasting good; and unless our repentance is evidence of a holy desire to turn from our sin, not just escape from pain, repentance is only remorse.
Discipline assures us that we are truly God’s children, that our Father loves us, and that we can’t get away from rebellion.
God had already sent someone to rebuke Israel for her sins.
Now He was going to use a farmer to come and repeat the message.
God had delivered them from Egypt.
He was generous in giving them the land and helping them over come their enemies.
If the Jews were suffering from bondage, it wasn’t God’s fault.
He had given them everything they needed.
We need to remember that God saved us so we could live and serve the Him faithfully.
As God’s children we are to walk worthy of our high and heavenly calling, live like people who are seated with Christ in glory.
The motive for Christian living is not that we might gain something we don’t have but that we might live up to what we already have in Christ.
The reason we get disciplined is to make us willing to listen to God’s Word.
God speaks to us, either through Scripture or the heavy hand of discipline and if we ignore the first, we will experience the second.
One way or the other, the Lord will get our attention and deal with us.
The people were crying out to the Lord for help, as we usually do when we are in trouble.
The Israelites gave no evidence of real repentance, but their trouble moved God’s loving heart.
*/Psalm 103:10 says, “He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according /*
*/ to our iniquities.”/*
God in His mercy doesn’t give us what we do deserve; but in His grace, He gives us what we don’t deserve.
Why did God choose Gideon for this job?
God often chooses the */“weak things of this world”/* to accomplish great things for His glory.
Gideon’s family worshiped Baal /bail/.
Gideon wasn’t a man of strong faith or courage, God had to patiently work with him to
prepare him for leadership.
God is always ready to mold us into what we need to be if we’re willing to submit to His will.
Gideon’s negative response to the Lord’s words indicates his lack of faith and spiritual insight.
Here was Almighty God telling him that He was with him and would make him a conqueror, and Gideon replied by denying everything God said!
God would have to spend time with Gideon turning his question marks into exclamation points.
Gideon was living by sight, not by faith.
*/ /*
*/2.
“Does God know what He’s doing?”
Judges 6:14-24/*
Gideon’s first response was to question */God’s concern for His people./*
His second response was to question */God’s wisdom in choosing him to be the nation’s deliverer./*
It is often said that */“God’s commandments are God’s enablements.”/*
Once God has called and commissioned you, all you have to do is obey Him by faith, and He will do the rest.
God cannot lie and God never fails.
Faith means obeying God in spite of what we see, how we feel, or what the consequences might be.
The modern */“practical”/* world laughs at faith without realizing that people live by faith all day long.
Once God has revealed His will to us, we must never question His wisdom or argue with His plans.
God had promised to be with Gideon.
God called Gideon a courageous warrior.
God promised that Gideon would save Israel from the Midianites as if he would do it single handed.
*/Romans 10:8 tells us God’s Word is “the word of faith.”
/*
*/Romans 10:17 tells us “and faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.”/*
Gideon didn’t receive that Word, he needed added assurance.
Gideon asked for a sign to assure him that it was really the Lord who was speaking to him.
The Lord was gracious to accommodate Gideon’s unbelief.
Gideon prepared a sacrifice, which was a costly thing to do at a time when food was scarce.
An ephah of flour was about a half a bushel, enough to make bread for a family for
several days.
It probably took him an hour to dress the meat and prepare the unleavened cakes, but
God waited for him to return and then consumed the offering by bringing fire from the
rock.
The sudden appearance of the fire and disappearance of the visitor convinced Gideon that indeed he had see God and spoken to him, this frightened him even more.
Jews believed it was fatal for sinful man to look upon God, Gideon was sure he would die.
The human heart is indeed deceitful.
Gideon asked to see a sign, and after seeing it, he was sure that the God who gave him the sign would now kill him.
*/Romans 15:13 says, there is always “joy and peace in believing.”
/*
Unless we are at peace with God, we can not face the enemy with confidence and fight the Lord’s battles.
Gideon built an altar and called it */“The Lord is peace.”/*
Whenever God calls us to a job we think is beyond us, we must be careful to look to God and not to ourselves.
God asked Abraham in */Genesis 18:14, “Is anything too hard for the Lord?”/*
Luke 1:37 says, */“For with God nothing shall be impossible.”/*
Job discovered God could do everything.
Jeremiah admitted that there was nothing too hard for God.
Jesus told His disciples, “With God all things are possible.”
Paul testified, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
*/2./*
*/“Will God take care of me?” Judges 6:25-32/*
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