Lesson 5<\/p>\n
Whiner to Reluctant Hero Part One<\/p>\n
Judges 6:1-40<\/p>\n
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One of the characteristics of growing older is that one gets somewhat bolder as the years pass.\u00a0 I have never been one to put myself in an awkward position if I could help it.\u00a0 There have been many a time when I would make myself as small as possible hoping that the teacher would not spot me and call on me to answer a question. \u00a0I have also not been one to volunteer.\u00a0 I can remember one time in middle school when the music teacher ask me to sing a solo in an assembly before the whole school.\u00a0 Before I got up on the stage with the rest of the choral group I was soaking wet from fear.\u00a0 Even the tops of my hands were sweating.\u00a0 Fortunately, I made it through that day unscathed.\u00a0 I have never sung solos without the same feeling.\u00a0 It is a strange phenomenon that I can speak before people about the Bible but am scared to death to sing.<\/p>\n
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Often there have been things I might have liked to have done but felt that it would appear to be self-promoting to have done so.\u00a0 Being an introvert will seldom put a person at the front of any group.\u00a0 We tend to stay in the background.\u00a0 Having said above what I did about speaking before people, going back to when I began to teach even that was done reluctantly.\u00a0 After many hours of study I am more comfortable standing before people and sharing what I have learned. I have to remember one thing. God has gifted me and has given me a specific personality.\u00a0 He expects me to use those qualities within the areas of ministry for which he has gifted me. \u00a0We will see how that idea fits what we will be studying for the next two weeks.<\/p>\n
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There are all kinds of books out and articles written that talk about the fact that churches do not want to risk making changes.\u00a0 This reticence quite often can lead to a body being ineffective in its impact on the community in which it is located.\u00a0 Even if we look at the congregation as a whole and its unwillingness to venture out into places it has never gone before it all starts with the people who make up the church.\u00a0 How often have members been asked to participate in a ministry for which they are definitely gifted and have the skill set to perform it use the excuses of I will think about it or let me pray about it.\u00a0 This quite often is a way of saying that I do not want to pay the price for whatever time and effort it takes to actually do the ministry.\u00a0 We have become so accustom to being comfortable as a consumer of what we want from the church that it is difficult giving back those things, like time and talent that belong to God. No matter how bad the situation becomes we prefer to maintain the status quo until there is nothing left.\u00a0 Israel faced a difficult situation and only when things got so bad that they were intolerable did they cry out to God.\u00a0 Let us watch out for the danger signals that this could happen to us.\u00a0 Gideon had to step away from the safety of his situation and do what God commanded him to do.<\/p>\n
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Judges 6:1-6<\/p>\n
There are a couple of major differences between the previous oppressors and the ones that Israel faced when they once again reverted to their evil ways.\u00a0 Unlike Eglon and Jabin who just seemed to dominate the people, the new enemies of Midian and the Amalekites did everything to completely devastate the land leaving nothing for the people to eat or feed their animals. \u00a0One can only imagine how those actions would destroy the economy of any country. They brought in their livestock to graze on the land leaving no place for the people of Israel to feed their animals.\u00a0 In many cases the Midianites actually stole the flocks and herds belonging to the Israelites.\u00a0 The people feared the Midianites to the point that they hid themselves in mountain caves and strongholds.\u00a0 The writer said, \u201cSo Israel was brought very low because of Midian, and the sons of Israel cried to the Lord.\u00a0 Their cry was not out of repentance but one for relief from their misery.<\/p>\n
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Judges 6:7-10<\/p>\n
When the Israelites cried out to God, instead of sending them a judge like Deborah, He sent a prophet.\u00a0 God had a word for the people that they did not want to hear or had forgotten.\u00a0 He laid out before the people what He had done previously.\u00a0 His promise to them had been fulfilled.\u00a0 They had been given the Promised Land.\u00a0 He had also defeated their enemies.\u00a0 After all He had done for them they had broken the command not to worship the false gods of the Amorites.\u00a0 His last statement to them was a condemnation of all they had done.\u00a0 He told them that they had disobeyed God.\u00a0 It is interesting that he did not offer them any hope at that point.\u00a0 They were left wondering if they were to remain in their dire circumstances from that point on.<\/p>\n
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Judges 6:11-12<\/p>\n
Out of all the people of Israel God sent a messenger to Gideon the son of Joash.\u00a0 They were of the clan called Abiezrites of the tribe of Manasseh. As has been discussed before the angel of the Lord was probably a theophany, a pre-incarnate visit by Jesus to earth. He found Gideon threshing wheat in a winepress to hide what he was doing from the Midianites.\u00a0 Normally, the process used to harvest was to break the husk and then to toss it in the air to separate the good grain from the chaff.\u00a0 His actions showed the desperate measures the Israelites used to provide food for themselves.\u00a0 If Gideon had used the normal procedure the Midianites would have seen what he was doing and stolen the wheat from him.<\/p>\n
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In His first words to Gideon the messenger from God described him as a valiant warrior.\u00a0 This would have been a strange greeting observing the way he was going about preparing the grain.<\/p>\n
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Judges 6:13<\/p>\n
Gideon\u2019s response would have been a natural one given the circumstances.\u00a0 It is interesting that he did not question what the messenger meant but began to give a litany of the problems of the Israelites.\u00a0 He wanted to know if God was really with them why were all the bad things they were experiencing happening to them.\u00a0 He had only heard that once upon a time God had worked miracles and how He had brought them out of Egypt.\u00a0 In his mind things had definitely changed and God had abandoned them and allowed the Midianites to enslave them.<\/p>\n
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Judges 6:14-15<\/p>\n
Rather than answer Gideon\u2019s complaints the messenger told him what God planned to do. He was to go in the power of God to deliver Israel.\u00a0 God was the One sending Him.\u00a0 From his next series of complaints he would not have gone on his own.\u00a0 In essence he was using the same argument that Moses had tried on God earlier.\u00a0 He was saying send someone else who is more prepared and qualified to carry out the task for the tribe from which I come is inconsequential and my family is even less important and, finally, I am the youngest in the family.\u00a0 All that was said to try to convince God to use anybody but Gideon.<\/p>\n
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Judges 6:16<\/p>\n
Again the objectives of Gideon are ignored. The messenger responds by promising that he will be with him as he went into battle with the enemy.\u00a0 Not only was he to be victorious because of God\u2019s presence but, the victory was to be an easy one. It was going to be as if the victory was the accomplishment by one person.<\/p>\n
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Judges 6:17-24<\/p>\n
Here begins the tests that Gideon put before God.\u00a0 It is almost as if he was saying if all you are saying is true, prove it.\u00a0 He began by asking Jesus to stay put while he prepared an offering.\u00a0 The messenger agreed.\u00a0 The offering was prepared and brought to the angel of the Lord.\u00a0 Gideon was commanded to place it on a rock and pour the broth over it.\u00a0 When it was done the messenger touched it and set on fire.\u00a0 At that point the angel disappeared.<\/p>\n
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Gideon realized that the messenger had truly been sent from God and actually was God.\u00a0 To comfort and reassure him the Lord spoke and offered him peace. At that point Gideon built an altar and called it the \u201cLord is Peace.<\/p>\n
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Judges 6:25-27<\/p>\n
Now God turned the tables on Gideon.\u00a0 He did not delay in determining Gideon\u2019s newfound knowledge of Him.\u00a0 Gideon was commanded to destroy the idols that were located on his father\u2019s land. With His command he was telling him that He would not allow any competition in the life of the Israelites.\u00a0 Those idols had to go because they were coming between God and His people.\u00a0 Although fearful Gideon took ten of his father\u2019s servants and accomplished the task.\u00a0 Of course he did it under the cover of darkness because he knew there would be repercussions fro his actions.<\/p>\n
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He was then commanded to build an altar over the place where the other idols had stood.\u00a0 Again by doing so the people would see that God is superior to any man made god.<\/p>\n
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Judges 6:28-32<\/p>\n
As expected the men of the city were quite upset that their gods were destroyed.\u00a0 They wanted to kill Gideon.\u00a0 His father however stood up for him.\u00a0 It is meaningful that Joash appeared to begin to understand that God was greater than any Baal and Aserah.\u00a0 He told the men if the gods were so great then they could defend themselves. If they could not they definitely would not be worth worshipping.\u00a0 At that point Gideon received a new name, Jerubbaal.\u00a0 He was the one who contended with the gods but in reality Joash was calling on the gods to contend with his son if they had the power to do so.\u00a0 His words protected his son from sure death at the hands of the worshippers.<\/p>\n
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Judges 6:33-35<\/p>\n
The Midianites and its allies once again came into the land of Israel to ravage as before.\u00a0 When that occurred the Spirit of God came upon Gideon and he called the clan of the Abiezrites to follow him into battle.\u00a0 Other tribes received a call to join them in facing a common enemy.\u00a0 They included the tribes of Asher, Zebulon and Naphtali and all of them heeded the call.<\/p>\n
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Judges 6:36-40<\/p>\n
Even after all that had occurred Gideon still had his doubts about God\u2019s call.\u00a0 He then tested God twice more.\u00a0 He used a piece of fleece to determine if God really wanted him to proceed into battle.\u00a0 The first night he wanted dew to be on the fleece.\u00a0 The second night he asked that fleece be dry while the ground was wet.\u00a0 God complied.\u00a0 The defeat of His enemies was more important than the games Gideon continued to play.<\/p>\n
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God does not call us to comfortable.\u00a0 We will have plenty of time to rest when we get to heaven. Right now there is a world that needs us to step up and out of our comfort zones to serve Him with all of our ability.\u00a0 We can make all kinds of excuses to keep from spending our lives for God\u2019s kingdom. As we have seen in today\u2019s lesson He is not about hearing our lame reasons for not doing what He has called us to do.\u00a0 There is a place in His kingdom work for each and every one of us introvert, extrovert and on and on the list goes.\u00a0 No longer do we have time for the 20% doing 80% of he ministries.\u00a0 The enemies are at the door trying to steal the sheep and destroy the harvest.\u00a0 Jesus said, \u201cThe harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few, therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.\u201d (Matthew 9:38)\u00a0 If we want to see the church grow we must be part of that team of workers willing to expend ourselves that not a single person who is waiting to be saved will be lost.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lesson 5 Whiner to Reluctant Hero Part One Judges 6:1-40 One of the characteristics of growing older is that one gets somewhat bolder as the years pass.\u00a0 I have never been one to put myself in an awkward position if I could help it.\u00a0 There have been many a time when I would make myself […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-judges"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalmastery.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalmastery.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalmastery.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalmastery.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalmastery.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=453"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalmastery.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":454,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalmastery.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453\/revisions\/454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalmastery.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalmastery.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalmastery.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}