Category: Bible studies

Have you ever been plagued by doubt? If you say “No!” I doubt that I can believe you. Do you know why? Because doubt is based on our experience. It is a self-protection mechanism within us. We don’t want to face disappointment anew, so doubt protects us from becoming gullible and being taken in too easily.

Doubt in and of itself is not evil. It helps make you reflective. It slows down your response in the face of danger. At the same time, doubt can lead you to stop when you should be moving forward. Doubt throttles down action that shows trust. Because of that, believers sometimes feel they must hide their doubt from the God they serve. The problem is, God already knows what you are doing. The other problem is such hiding indicates you may not believe God is as He truly is. Let me see if a principle from the life of Gideon helps with this…

Key Principle: The believer who honestly shares with God personal doubts (but continues to follow God anyway) will find God both compassionate and understanding.

God doesn’t get easily ticked off about our lack of faith in Him – as long as it doesn’t stop us from obedience. The lesson today will help us grapple with doubt in an open way before God. In truth, the best single word to recall the whole of the Gideon story in your mind may simply be the word “doubt”.

If you look carefully, you will discover the account of the ongoing dialogue between Gideon and God is one filled with his objections and doubts – yet God was patient and used him. I don’t believe any President would keep a chairman of the joint chiefs if they pushed back so much about so much – but God isn’t like us. Look at Gideon’s track record with God:

First, at the scene of his call to serve, Gideon objected to God’s behavior. What God was doing in his time of history didn’t make sense to him (6:13-14).

Judges 6:13 Then Gideon said to him, “O my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.”

Second, and still in the scene of his call, Gideon’s second objection seemed to be concerning God’s choices. He felt others were more qualified than he to lead Israel to freedom (6:15):

Judges 6:15 He said to Him, “O Lord, [h]how shall I deliver Israel? Behold, my family is the least in Manasseh, and I am the youngest in my father’s house.”

Third, Gideon needed reinforcement on the authenticity of the messenger as from the Most High, or he wouldn’t move forward to rescue Israel. He objected to God’s call without surety that it was from God. It is on this issue that Gideon was stuck over and over.

It is almost as if the story of Gideon in the Bible was mostly about following God through a doubt-ridden time.

The reason it may seem that way when you read it, is because that is EXACTLY what the narrative is designed to teach. Watch as Gideon keeps requesting confirmed authentication, beginning with Judges 6:17:

6:17 So Gideon said to Him, “If now I have found favor in Your sight, then show me a sign that it is You who speak with me. 18 Please do not depart from here, until I come back to You, and bring out my offering and lay it before You.” And He said, “I will remain until you return.”

Gideon got his authentication, and God tapped him for an immediate project that night. He was told to destroy two pagan shrines, and he did so WITHOUT A QUESTION. God used that obedience to spread the name and reputation of Gideon to both his village, and the whole surrounding tribe!

To be fair, Gideon didn’t always object when God moved him to lead or serve. The record shows clearly that when he KNEW without a doubt that God was calling, he was willing to act decisively. He would obey, but he just couldn’t always make sense of God’s direction or God’s selection. Can you sympathize with him?

I am speaking to the man who is sensing that a change is coming in his job. He knows there is more he can and should contribute, but there hasn’t been obvious opportunity to grow in the job in a way that allows him to utilize his abilities. He knows there are better opportunities. How can he know if God wants him to take a chance and make a change?

I am thinking specifically of the young woman who was hoping that, by now, “Mr. Right” might come along. She believes God has tugged her heart to being a mother and a wife, but the prospects have been ever so thin. She wants to follow God’s leading, but she feels a bit stuck where she is.

I am wondering about the man who walked out of the doctor’s office unsure of the meaning of the diagnosis and how it will affect him and his family. He was blind-sided by the whole moment, and is struggling with God to find the meaning behind it all.

The record of Gideon’s struggle was given for all of them. Each one is facing a kind of confusion and disappointment that is hard to work through. Yet, God doesn’t want them to back away from Him and hide. The believer who honestly shares with God their doubts (but continues to follow God anyway) will find God both compassionate and understanding.

Follow the account of his life in the text a bit further. A little later in Gideon’s life (the time is not specified in the passage) the Spirit of God tugged once again on the heart of Gideon. He used a warrior’s trumpet to call the tribal force together (6:33). He sent messengers to the neighboring northern tribes (6:34). After he set the gathering in motion, he had some time to think about what lay ahead… and those nagging doubts rose again in his heart. The writer reminds:

Judges 6:36 Then Gideon said to God, “If You will deliver Israel through me, as You have spoken, 37 behold, I will put a fleece of wool on the threshing floor. If there is dew on the fleece only, and it is dry on all the ground, then I will know that You will deliver Israel through me, as You have spoken.”

The story unfolds TWO separate incidents where Gideon requests signs for authentication. One was a wet fleece and dry ground, the second a dry fleece and wet ground. It appears from the narrative the test took place over two nights, and God obliged his request. On the second morning, the test made clear:

Judges 6:40 God did so that night; for it was dry only on the fleece, and dew was on all the ground.

After Gideon saw the signs, chapter seven reminds us that he swiftly moved on the command to call Israel to war. The chapter began with the fact that he and his men “rose early” and moved into position in the Harod Valley by the spring. If you have been following our story, you know that God tested Gideon back – calling his army too large to clearly deliver them without the possible misunderstanding that the people’s help was integral in the victory. God dismissed all but 300 men from the battlefront.

When we pick up our reading of the story again, the once swollen camp of Israel was now reduced to a skeleton crew, and night was drawing near. As the hundreds of campfires of Midianite and Amalekite warriors lit up on the sloping hill above the tiny Israelite squad, Gideon had yet another fear attack that overcame him. The text recorded it this way:

Judges 7: 9 Now the same night it came about that the Lord said to him, “Arise, go down against the camp, for I have given it into your hands. 10 But if you are afraid to go down, go with Purah your servant down to the camp, 11 and you will hear what they say; and afterward your hands will be strengthened that you may go down against the camp.” So he went with Purah his servant down to the outposts of the army that was in the camp.

Note several important details about the account:

• First, God gave Gideon a command – go down to the camp. God made perfectly clear to him what He expected. Obedience or rebellion appeared to be the choice.

• Second, God made a promise – the victory was assured for His people. He spoke of the victory was a “done deal” – I HAVE GIVEN their camp into your hands.

• Third, God offered an encouragement – if Gideon still needed more reinforcement, God offered a plan to meet his need. In the face of fear he was to find a friend and take a walk behind enemy lines and listen to the men around the camp fires. If he took the time to observe up close what was happening, he would be reinforced and ready to fight.

The way the passage is translated, it sounds like God offered an option only IF Gideon was too afraid – but that isn’t the real picture. The structure of the sentences is such that we should read it this way:

“I want you to go and fight, and I promise that you’ll win. Because you are afraid, I want you to find encouragement by taking a friend on a walk and observing something…”

Don’t skip over the ironic way the passage tell you of the size of the enemy:

Judges 7:12 Now the Midianites and the Amalekites and all the sons of the east were lying in the valley as numerous as locusts; and their camels were without number, as numerous as the sand on the seashore.

The point of explaining the number in terms of locusts and counting camels like sand kernels was simply this: there were too many enemies to even begin to count effectively. Yet, if you look down a few verses (7:16-18) – in the case of Gideon, God pared down his number, and offered the reader a strict inventory of what He used: The weapons blessed of the Lord included:

• 300 trumpets made from rams horns
• 300 earthen water pitchers
• 300 torches concealed inside the water pitchers.
• 300 swords

The size of the problem from God’s perspective isn’t the same as from our view.

• To Gideon’s enemy, with their thousands of Midianites, each with camels and swords, they were an overwhelming force. As he and his servant Purah journeyed into the Midianite camp, Israel’s commander was so insignificant, no one would even ask him why a local was drifting from fire to fire in the dark of the night. The Midianites looked unstoppable!

• To Gideon, there was no way he felt significant in front of the sprawling encampment that spread across the valley onto the lower slopes of the Hill of Moreh. He stood no chance taking on such a massive number of enemies. If they chose to turn on him in the camp, he was finished.

That’s what insurmountable problems do. They make us feel small, overwhelmed and defeated.

Now stop and consider the view the Lord of Creation had of the same event. From beyond the quintillion galaxies, He peered to one tiny solar system. He focused on one small planet spinning around a star. On a tiny speck of that rock in space, He observed a minuscule landscape on which His people were dwelling. Bearing down further, He saw the sloping hillside and watched two men walk from the Israelite camp to the Midianite one.

I am not being poetic. The point is that is how God sees your problem. It looks HUGE to you – but not to Him. You cannot imagine how much greater God is in size than your insurmountable issue! The vastness and magnificent power of God should help balance you in times of depression against an unstoppable foe.

Don’t lose track of what God did. In a story where a hero saves his people, you’re usually dealing with a person of strength, great intellect, personal charisma and beauty, or enormous material resource. Gideon was none of these. At the beginning of the story he seemed a bitter and weak farmer, but in God’s hands he was transformed into an effective warrior and leader. One chapter into his story, you can easily forget that he really wasn’t that different. What changed was God walking with him through his days and nights. What changed wasn’t new muscle – just new trust… and that wavered constantly. What he experienced was a personal revival of sorts.

Underlying Gideon’s constant need for assurance was his basic temperament. Think about what he said when God first met him, because it revealed the kind of man he was at his core. He hid in a hole, because he felt overwhelmed by the size of a problem around him. Yet, it was more than that. Two things appeared to contribute profoundly to his cowardice: bitterness and timidity. Locked into a situation he couldn’t control, Gideon expressed open frustration because God was not coming through for him. Worse than that, Gideon felt that he had little or nothing to offer to help improve things. Have you ever faced a time when the problems were so large, and your resources so outmatched, that you honestly wondered what God was thinking putting you into something like that? God is always doing the very same thing – He is telling His story.

His view is greater, and His purposes are more vast and interconnected than we can perceive from where we are.

Take a walk with Gideon and Purah. Notice that God didn’t tell Gideon to go alone. The sheer size of the enemy camp couldn’t have meant that God intended Purah to protect his commander. That wasn’t the reason he went with a friend. The truth is, most of the deep lessons of God are learned within, but bonded more firmly to our hearts when a friend can remind us of what God did later. Taking a friend on a journey to the place where God overcame your doubts will help both of you!

This week I read about one of the dynamic preachers in America from my school years – Dr. E.V. Hill. I first heard him when I was in Bible college. He was an energetic African-American pastor who had a congregation in Los Angeles. Since those days, just a few years ago he lost his wife of many years of marriage after her battle with cancer. Hill often describes his wife as a partner that made him a better man. He makes the point by telling some stories of how his wife made a difference in him:

He noted that in their early years of marriage he was a struggling preacher and had trouble earning a living. At one point, he decided to invest his family’s scarce resources over his wife’s objection in a local service station. His wife was right and eventually the station went under. It was a critical time in the life of E.V. Hill and his wife would have been justified in saying: “I told you so.” But when E.V. Hill told his wife what happened she just replied; “All right.” When he came home he was expecting his wife to give him the business. Instead she said: “I’ve been doing some figuring. I figure that you don’t smoke and you don’t drink. If you smoked and drank, you would have lost as much as you lost in the service station. So it’s six in one hand and a half-dozen in the other. Let’s forget it.” She could have shattered her husband’s confidence, but she told her husband what he needed to hear: “I still believe in you.”

A few nights later E.V. Hill came home and his wife had prepared a candlelight dinner. She said, “We’re going to eat by candlelight tonight.” He went to the bathroom to wash his hands and the light would not turn on. He felt his way to the bedroom and flipped another switch. Darkness prevailed. He went back to the dining room and asked his wife why the electricity was off. She began to cry. She said, “You’re working so hard and we’re trying, but I didn’t have enough money to pay the light bill. I didn’t want you to know about it, so I thought we would eat by candlelight.”

On another occasion Dr. Hill said his wife was his protector. He had received death threats due to his working with gangs in the inner city. One night he received notice that he would be killed the next day. He went to sleep and woke up thankful to be alive. But he noticed his wife was gone. He looked outside and saw the car was also gone. His wife came driving up and he asked where she had been. She said it occurred to her that the bad guys might put a bomb in his car and if he got in it the next morning he’d be blown away. So she got up and drove the car all night. E.V. Hill’s wife demonstrated unconditional love in marriage. She practiced the marriage covenant, “In good times and in bad times…sickness and in health, richer or poorer.”

Sometimes we need a friend to journey with us as God leads us to change…

Stoop and warm your hands beside the fire while men eat a meal and wait for the sunrise sounds of a battle breaking forth. Some men had eaten hours before and drifted off to sleep. Others were standing beside the fire pits talking. Apparently, one man awoke in his sleep roll and came back out to the fire…The account continued:

Judges 7:13 When Gideon came, behold, a man was relating a dream to his friend. And he said, “Behold, I had a dream; a loaf of barley bread was tumbling into the camp of Midian, and it came to the tent and struck it so that it fell, and turned it upside down so that the tent lay flat.” 14 His friend replied, “This is nothing less than the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel; God has given Midian and all the camp into his hand.”

Two men discussing a dream doesn’t seem like enough to erase the sense of enormity of the Midianite camp. Their discussion together did NOTHING to add soldiers back to Gideon’s command. The barley cake dream wasn’t anything of strategic value. No secrets were uncovered, no dramatic weaknesses of his opponents were exposed. Yet, in spite of all of that, Gideon was renewed, encouraged and strengthened. God told him the same thing the men concluded – Gideon would win. Somehow, when he heard it from the mouth of a sleepy Midianite it was more powerful.

God knew that His power was easily able to topple the Midianite coalition forces regardless of their size. God didn’t intend to leave the task to Gideon – He intended to do it WITH him and THROUGH him. That is the way God works. What needed to change for Gideon to lead the troops was his perspective. Pastor Joey Nelson reminds us of that perspective change:

Do you remember the four-minute mile? They’d been trying to do it since the days of the ancient Greeks. Someone found the old records of how the Greeks tried to accomplish this. They had wild animals chase the runners, hoping that would make them run faster. They tried tiger’s milk: not the stuff you get down at the supermarket, I’m talking about the real thing. Nothing worked, so they decided it was physically impossible for a human being to run a mile in four minutes. Our bone structure was all-wrong, the wind resistance was too great, our lung power was inadequate. There were a million reasons. Then one day one human being proved that the doctors, the trainers, and the athletes themselves were all wrong. And, miracle of miracles, the year after Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile. And the year after that three hundred runners broke the four-minute mile!

I don’t want to seem trite and I don’t want to be dismissive of your fear and frustration if you are facing an enormous challenge. You aren’t Gideon. You don’t have a promise that you will get good news from the next doctor’s visit, that your son’s addiction problem will instantly evaporate, or that your debts will somehow be forgotten. Here is what I do know God has promised you…

2 Peter 1:3 “…seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. 4 For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.

Listen closely, and if you let them, you will hear the sound of these words growing courage within you.

• God HAS given to Jesus followers what you need to navigate life in a godly way. You don’t have to win every fight – you have to follow Him through every fight.

• God HAS given to Jesus followers a deep and real knowledge of Himself. He is not sadistic or cruel, and He has shared within you even some hidden things of Himself.

• God HAS given to Jesus followers an escape from the “living for today” rat race world we come out from – and helped us see the vast eternal landscape.

Take courage, dear one. God has given you something that will get you through the darkness. It is not a complex plan. It is nothing more than grasping His hand and following His directions – but that is more powerful than a non-believing world can imagine.

What did Gideon do when he heard the story of the rampaging barley cake? He left the campfire, dropped to his knees in the dark of night, and bowed his face to the ground. He met God again. He saw his smallness. He was surrounded by his overwhelming enemy. None of that changed. HE changed inside. He took a moment to see the whole situation from God’s lofty place. The text shares:

Judges 7:15 When Gideon heard the account of the dream and its interpretation, he bowed in worship. He returned to the camp of Israel and said, “Arise, for the Lord has given the camp of Midian into your hands.”

You can hear the urgency in Gideon’s voice. He was now sure that what God told him, God would do. His view of God’s faithfulness was bolstered by his experience. He apparently devised a plan on the walk back, and shared it with his men when he returned. Look at Judges 7:16:

Judges 7:16 He divided the 300 men into three companies, and he put trumpets and empty pitchers into the hands of all of them, with torches inside the pitchers. 17 He said to them, “Look at me and do likewise. And behold, when I come to the outskirts of the camp, do as I do. 18 When I and all who are with me blow the trumpet, then you also blow the trumpets all around the camp and say, ‘For the Lord and for Gideon. 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 posted the watch; and they blew the trumpets and smashed the pitchers that were in their hands. 20 When the three companies blew the trumpets and broke the pitchers, they held the torches in their left hands and the trumpets in their right hands for blowing, and cried, “A sword for the Lord and for Gideon!” 21 Each stood in his place around the camp; and all the army ran, crying out as they fled. 22 When they blew 300 trumpets, the Lord set the sword of one against another even throughout the whole army; and the army fled as far as Beth-shittah toward Zererah, as far as the edge of Abel-meholah, by Tabbath. 23 The men of Israel were summoned from Naphtali and Asher and all Manasseh, and they pursued Midian.”

There are many ideas about what he was doing, but I suspect the one put forth by some Israeli military leaders about the scene is the most accurate. The theory is that the normal army would not attack at night (as the hazards increase between the various squads), but if they faced extraordinary circumstances and did attack, they would issue their men similar torches to identify various squads. If each squad were numbered at one hundred fighters, one torch would represent one hundred men. In that scenario, the exposed torches would confirm to the Midianite and Amalekite forces they were facing some 30,000 men. That probably seemed reasonable to those who saw the army before it was paired down by God!

Look at what he instructed the men to do.

• First, he told them to spread out around the camp in three focal positions and keep an eye on what he was doing. They were to mimic his actions fully.

• Second, he told them to respond to his trumpet blast by blasting their own from their various positions. This would give the impression of a vast force, as the trumpets are used to direct men. The Midianites and Amalekites didn’t know there were no men to go with the trumpets!

• Third, he told each man to cry out: “For the Lord and for Gideon!” There is no way he did this to bolster himself to the men. The point of the saying came from what he heard from the man with the barley cake dream. If that is what people were fretting, that is what his men needed to be saying!

• Fourth, he told them to smash the pots and show their torches. The appearance produced a scramble in the camp. Men took out their swords and began swinging into the darkness. This is the reason night attacks weren’t normally directed – people hurt their own comrades by accident. As the tumult grew, the Midianites and Amalekites – men who were trained in “raid fighting” and not standing warfare – tried to break ranks and flee into the dark. Even doing that caused others to be trampled and crushed.

Some escaped the valley, and Gideon didn’t want their leaders to get back to the desert and re-form for another raiding party. The text continues for the rest of the chapter and tells of how the other tribes joined the search, found and executed the enemy leaders (7:24-25).

The point of the story was that God not only gave the tribes of Israel victory, but He did it while dealing with a doubting and questioning leader. Gideon asked questions and was honest about his fear and doubt – but he didn’t turn and walk out on God. He kept pressing ahead even when doubts plagued him. Here is what we learn…

The believer who honestly shares with God personal doubts (but continues to follow God anyway) will find God both compassionate and understanding.

Author Gayle Thompson wrote this past summer:

Hillary Scott, one-third of the hit trio Lady Antebellum, surprised fans when she announced the release of “Thy Will,” the first single from her and her family’s faith-based album, Love Remains, in April of 2016. The song, Scott later revealed, was written with Emily Wiseband and Bernie Herms following her own personal tragedy, when a much-wanted pregnancy ended in miscarriage. Below, Scott recalls the emotional day on which the trio of tune smiths penned “Thy Will.”

When we were on tour [in the summer of 2015], my husband Chris [Tyrrell] and I just decided we wanted to expand our family. We got pregnant in July and then miscarried in September. And so, “Thy Will” is about me talking to God and asking Him why — like, “Okay, I thought this was a go. We prayed about it. We were going to bring Eisele a sibling,” and for all of it to just kind of not happen. It was my honest conversation with God about, why do bad things happen? But, ultimately, I trust Your will for my life and that it’s all going to be okay…Truly, I believe, [the song] became a pass-through for a message that was a lot bigger than just my own specific thing that I was going through…

The song is called “Thy Will” by songwriters BERNIE HERMS, HILLARY SCOTT, EMILY LYNN WEISBAND.

I’m so confused – I know I heard you loud and clear. So, I followed through. Somehow I ended up here – I don’t wanna think I may never understand that my broken heart is a part of your plan.

When I try to pray – All I’ve got is hurt and these four words… Thy will be done, Thy will be done, Thy will be done.

I know you’re good – But this don’t feel good right now. And I know you think of things I could never think about. It’s hard to count it all joy, Distracted by the noise, Just trying to make sense of all your promises.

Sometimes I gotta stop – Remember that you’re God and I am not, So… Thy will be done, Thy will be done, Thy will be done. Like a child on my knees all that comes to me is Thy will be done

I know you see me. I know you hear me, Lord. Your plans are for me Goodness you have in store. So, thy will be done. Thy will be done.

It sounds like Hillary got peace, even though she didn’t get an answer to her question as to why this happened. In the end, she learned that God could handle her doubts. She took her pain to God, and He gently held it in His hands.

In Toronto, (Ontario) Canada, the “CN Tower” stands today as a city icon. It towers at a height of over 1800 feet, and functions as a concrete communications tower, as well as a visitor’s observation deck. The massive structure was completed in 1976, becoming the world’s tallest freestanding tower at that time. Attracting millions of visitors annually, the tower features a glass floor allowing the visitor to view down to the street level many stories below – something the Eiffel Tower has now opened because of the obvious popularity of such things. It seems there are many who wish to test themselves by walking out onto a clear glass floor high above the landscape, overcoming their God-given sense not to walk into thin air. Their trust in the engineered glass, the installer of the floor and the architect must be very strong to walk out onto something even a child knows is perilous.

I mention these modern “towering attractions” with their glass floors simply because, at least for someone like me (with an intense respect for gravity that unenlightened persons many call a “fear of heights”), the buildings help me picture in my mind’s eye a true test of confidence. When there is a steep drop beneath you, the reliability of whatever is holding you from that “plunge to your death” must come immediately into question (if you have any sense at all).

Let’s face it: a perilous cliff is a great mind clarifier.

If you have been following the series, the story of Gideon has been our subject for a few lessons. As the seventh chapter of Judges opened, a man selected by God was in peril – as was his whole nation! He was facing a battle with an army that out-manned and outgunned that of his countrymen. He was new (and largely unannounced) to his post as commander in chief of the tribal forces. The coming fight required God’s miraculous help for success because Israel was so weakened they had little to draw on in their own resources.

Looking back in the story to chapter six, Gideon began his relationship with God with a very weak faith, but was slowly bolstered by testing the Holy One. In patience, God encouraged the young “would be” hero as God met the requirements of each test. The point wasn’t to teach us to test God, as much as it was to show that such testing brings its own problems.

First, when we test God, our immaturity makes cloudy God’s Sovereignty and we are liable to see “coincidence” at play. Though God is always in control, our struggle is our own surety of that control, and personal confidence that we know what He wants us to do to fit in His plan.

A second issue that arises when we test God, is God may respond by testing us – since that is how we think we will learn best. In Gideon’s case, God turned the tables and tested the man – and that is where we will pick up our reading of the story in Judges 7:1-8. The story is one that can be found throughout the Bible…God placed Gideon in the crucible of trouble, and met him in the desperation of that moment.

There is a truth we can see revealed in this passage that seems like it can only learned under the pressure of troubles… and Gideon is really under intense pressure…

Key Principle: In stormy circumstances or perilous moments, trust is the key to boldness.

I learned this truth early in life. Growing up, when I fully trusted my older brother to defend me, I could walk in front of that bully in my class with great confidence. I didn’t worry about being punched – my brother would take care of me. If I didn’t know he was there, or wasn’t convinced that he would come to my rescue – my boldness would have evaporated. Trust makes you bold.

Gideon was about to face the battle that defined his life and career! He didn’t arrive in that place without some significant learning from God. The last chapter made clear some tests that are common to believers when they believe God is pulling them to a specific service for Him:

• First, Gideon struggled to be sure it was really God Who was pulling him to that special service of leading Israel, as recounted in Judges 6:11-24. This was a test concerning DISCERNMENT.

• Second, Gideon was challenged in Judges 6:25-32 with a test of CONSECRATION. He had to remove the idols that marked the village, and place his trust solely in God to protect him against an angry mob of neighbors.

• Third, Gideon fleece tested God for some additional assurance that God’s promises truly were ENOUGH to bring miraculous victory in Judges 6:33-40. This was a test of ASSURANCE.

Now we unfold the story of yet a fourth test – this one from God to Gideon.

As some early successes began to fall into place, the issue of sole trust in God’s strength (as opposed to our own) came into view. Gideon encountered this fork in the road in Judges 7:1-8. This is the test of SUFFICIENCY.

Judges 7:1 Then Jerubbaal (that is, Gideon) and all the people who were with him, rose early and camped beside [a]the spring of Harod; and the camp of Midian was on the north side of [b]them by the hill of Moreh in the valley. 2 The Lord said to Gideon, “The people who are with you are too many for Me to give Midian into their hands, for Israel [c]would become boastful, saying, ‘My own [d]power has delivered me.’ 3 Now therefore [e]come, proclaim in the hearing of the people, saying, ‘Whoever is afraid and trembling, let him return and depart from Mount Gilead.’” So 22,000 people returned, but 10,000 remained. 4 Then the Lord said to Gideon, “The people are still too many; bring them down to the water and I will test them for you there. Therefore it shall be that he of whom I say to you, ‘This one shall go with you,’ he shall go with you; but everyone of whom I say to you, ‘This one shall not go with you,’ he shall not go.” 5 So he brought the people down to the water. And the Lord said to Gideon, “You shall separate everyone who laps the water with his tongue as a dog laps, as well as everyone who kneels to drink.” 6 Now the number of those who lapped, putting their hand to their mouth, was 300 men; but all the rest of the people kneeled to drink water. 7 The Lord said to Gideon, “I will deliver you with the 300 men who lapped and will give the Midianites into your hands; so let all the other people go, each man to his home.” 8 So [g]the 300 men took the people’s provisions and their trumpets into their hands. And [h]Gideon sent all the other men of Israel, each to his tent, but retained the 300 men; and the camp of Midian was below him in the valley.

Look with me at the Sufficiency Test: (i.e. “Will I trust GOD to provide the victory?” (7:1-8). I noted a moment ago that God initiated this test, so that He could instruct an anxious general before a fight. Look closely at the details as the story opened…

First, note that God knew Gideon well. He didn’t unfairly test an unarmed man.

Judges 7:1 opened with the simple word: “Then…”

This test occurred only after God made clear pronouncements of both His plan and His power to Gideon. God told him he would be mighty and victorious. God showed him that the Almighty could meet any test placed in front of Him.

In following God, there are really only two issues. First, I must know what He wants me to do and believe that God is able to do through me what He called me to do. Those are intellectual issues – problems of knowledge. Second, I must be willing to DO what He called me to do – a problem of my will.

Whenever people are doing the wrong thing in life, it really comes down to two issues: either they cannot do right or the will not do right. If they cannot – they need training to know HOW to do right. If they WILL not – they need discipline to soften their stiff neck. No amount of training will change one who has their will set to do wrong. That isn’t the issue – surrender is. Gideon was willing, and he was informed – chapter six made that clear. The “then” in the text was to mark those facts as learning experiences now behind him. Don’t fear that God will throw you in the deep end until you have learned to spiritually doggie paddle. He won’t. He doesn’t do it that way.

Second, note the public reputation God gave Gideon quickly took hold. The text says:

Judges 7:1b “…Jerubbaal (that is, Gideon) and all the people who were with him, rose early and camped beside the spring of Harod; and the camp of Midian was on the north side of them by the hill of Moreh in the valley.

Clearly the people of the region knew about Gideon’s night of tearing down the Asherah pole and Baal shrine as unfolded in the story of chapter six. Gideon obeyed God, and God built his reputation – and with that his ministry effectiveness. Remember, in the natural world, Gideon was the WRONG AGE and from the WRONG FAMILY. He could have spent years trying to be noticed by his tribe or others from the tribes of Israel. It wouldn’t have worked. God gave him what he couldn’t attain apart from God. That is how it works for one who would serve the Most High. We aren’t called because of our ability, but because of His plan. Any ability we do have was created for us and birthed within us. At the same time, God will add to us what we need to do what He called us to accomplish.

Because that is the case, in the story of God’s work through you, let’s “take off the table” the things that God will not accept as excuses that you may pose to keep yourself from serving Him:

• I am not old enough or too old.
• I don’t have the right credentials or background.
• I don’t have an opportunity to be used by God where I am.
• No one will listen to me.

All these and many more objections evaporate when we look at Gideon. He found God’s call in hole. He wasn’t the obvious choice, but he was God’s choice. God told him what to do in the next step – even though he couldn’t see where it led. He obeyed. God made his name a household word. Imagine, he became a celebrity merely by obedience to God. The truth is, that is the best way to get to such a status! Follow God and trust what He tells you – and He will enable you.

Third, note that God is not at work in us to build our reputation as an end in itself.

God makes much of us so that we can make much of Him. You can see that as the account continues:

Judges 7:2 The Lord said to Gideon, “The people who are with you are too many for Me to give Midian into their hands, for Israel would become boastful, saying, ‘My own power has delivered me.’

Just as we have the tendency to feel inadequate before we have God’s empowering in our work, we can have the tendency to believe we have become deserving after we have received some level of success from God’s call. Though the issue in verse two appeared to be primarily about an arrogance that would come upon the people, Gideon was to understand this essential lesson at the same time.

Why do we come so quickly to believe we are worthy of the blessings God brings our way? That is an important question for any Jesus follower, and a VERY important question for an American. Let’s face it: even our poor people have more than people in most places on the earth. We have had extravagant wealth, unimaginable comfort and a saturation of good things in our society. Complain as we do about all the issues of our lives, we have to admit there is no better time in which to live if we want to measure by convenience. There is no place better to live if we want to speak about hope and a future.

I want you to know that as I stand and watch young people grapple with God’s Word, I become more and more hopeful about the possibility of a sixth revival for our nation. There have been five revivals, beginning with the “Great Awakening” during colonial times. Think back to the time at the birth of our nation. The “Age of Reason” so gripped a generation that many thought they were watching the very sunset of belief in God. Sin and rationalization reigned – and then, almost without warning, a revival began. It didn’t begin with the old – but with the young.

• Jonathan Edwards, the minister from Yale, became concerned that New Englanders were leaving God for materialism. His hardened sermons were delivered with un-tempered fury and conviction – and God used them.

• George Whitefield was a British minister who traveled the American colonies and shared God’s Word. An actor by training, his dramatic presentations of the Word were something to behold!

Many scholars believe the Great Awakening not only pushed back the influence of the Enlightenment, but it was a likely long term cause of the Revolution in the colonies. Turning to God, people began to see the need for broader return to the Bible than the Church of England seemed to desire. In America, the church of God was no longer filling pulpits strictly with the intellectuals of the upper crust, but rather men of fire and Spirit who knew God’s call on their life. The Awakening had the effect of binding the colonies together in a common belief they could share, helping to break down differences between them. England was passing through this experience with the colonists – making them seem “different.”

That wasn’t the only revival that came through the hands of the young in America. In fact, no sooner had that revival cooled into a secularist reaction, when another revival blew in the American winds. This one was called the Haystack Prayer Meeting. It started with five students in Williamstown, Massachusetts, in the hot days of Summer in 1806, and has come to be viewed by many scholars as the spark for the birth of the fire of Protestant missions over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Five college students gathered to pray for the lost people of Asia. From that group grew the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM). By 1812 they sent the first American missionaries to India. After that, they followed with outreaches to China, Hawaii, and south east Asia. They built hospitals and birthed schools at various mission stations. They undertook translation of the Bible and continue in until today in groups like Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship, and many others.

They started with a few people who appeared to be the wrong age in the wrong place. God made much of them, so they could make much of Him.

Fourth, note the first people “cut” from participation in God’s work, were those who relied more on their feelings than God’s promises.

Did you notice the way Gideon was to “thin out” the group gathering to fight? Look again at verse three:

Judges 7:3 Now therefore come, proclaim in the hearing of the people, saying, ‘Whoever is afraid and trembling, let him return and depart from Mount Gilead.’” So 22,000 people returned, but 10,000 remained.

God told Gideon to reduce the size of the army. Gideon grabbed the bull horn and made an incredible announcement to the small army of God’s people. God told him what to say, and he obediently shared it exactly as God told him. The announcement was direct and simple: If you feel afraid, go home. Feeling a license to decide by their feelings, two-thirds of the people left.

How disheartening do you think that was for both Gideon and those who were left among the 10,000?

It was disheartening, but that was the point. In one moment, God removed from the people who would fight any sense that victory would come because of them. They were going to KNOW the blessing of the Lord. What would the people who went home feel? In the short run, relief would come. They didn’t have to fight. Yet, in the days ahead, they would always know they decided to walk away from the moment God showed His power – because they relied on their emotions to make their choices. The Bible is replete with stories that warn against following one’s heart. Without trying to insult you, may I simply repeat what the Bible says (Jeremiah 17:9): “”The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?” Trust your heart and not God’s call – and you will live to regret that decision.

Life doesn’t really get thrilling until you know you are riding a wave on the waters that God gathered to carry you!

Don’t spend all your time so in touch with your feelings that you don’t seek God on the direction you should take. If He directs you toward something different than you thought you would experience, take your time to HEAR from Him, and not just from your own emotional reactions. We don’t grow up until we are in charge of our choices – and our responses are controlled.

The longer I live, the more I become aware of the many who seem unable to choose and then act on their choices. They seem like Zodes to me. To those who may not know what a “Zode” is, they are the creations of Dr. Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel). Consider the Dr. Seuss’ poem: “The Zode In The Road”:

Did I ever tell you about the young Zode?
Who came to a sign at the fork of the road?
He looked one way and the other way too –
the Zode had to make up his mind what to do.
Well, the Zode scratched his head, and his chin, and his pants.
And he said to himself, “I’ll be taking a chance.
If I go to Place One, that place may be hot
So how will I know if I like it or not.
On the other hand, though, I’ll feel such a fool
If I go to Place Two and find it’s too cool
In that case I may catch a chill and turn blue.
So Place One may be best and not Place Two.
Play safe,” cried the Zode, “I’ll play safe, I’m no dunce.
I’ll simply start off to both places at once.”
And that’s how the Zode who would not take a chance
Went no place at all with a split in his pants.

Yes, beloved, some of us are like paralyzed Zodes, unable to choose and unable to own our choices when we make them.

We want God’s blessing without choosing to trust God’s promises. We want victory without a fight and wealth and security without work and sweat. For the 22,000 who went home that day, they trusted their fear more than their God. Sadly, years later they would recall that choice. That is what happens when we won’t trust God’s promises.

Fifth, take careful note that God doesn’t fill the ranks of His Kingdom with those the world would choose.

I don’t want to seem uncomplimentary here. If it helps, I consider myself one of those with whom God has chosen to work – and I know more intensely than any of you (perhaps) my huge number of flaws and weaknesses. To be honest, there are a number of ways to understand the test that God set up next in the story, but I will tell you what I honestly believe is the heart of this account as best I can discern.

First, note that God set this test up apart from Gideon. Commander Gideon was to pass on instructions from God and take the ones God sent His way. The writer said it this way:

Judges 7:4 Then the Lord said to Gideon, “The people are still too many; bring them down to the water and I will test them for you there. Therefore it shall be that he of whom I say to you, ‘This one shall go with you,’ he shall go with you; but everyone of whom I say to you, ‘This one shall not go with you,’ he shall not go.”

Now watch the test as God shared it with His people:

Judges 7:5 So he brought the people down to the water. And the Lord said to Gideon, “You shall separate everyone who laps the water with his tongue as a dog laps, as well as everyone who kneels to drink.” 6 Now the number of those who lapped, putting their hand to their mouth, was 300 men; but all the rest of the people kneeled to drink water. 7 The Lord said to Gideon, “I will deliver you with the 300 men who lapped and will give the Midianites into your hands; so let all the other people go, each man to his home.” 8 So the 300 men took the people’s provisions and their trumpets into their hands. And Gideon sent all the other men of Israel, each to his tent, but retained the 300 men; and the camp of Midian was below him in the valley.

I have been on a battle field, and I have seen war. Here is one lesson I learned on the first day the shooting started – stay down below the wall at all times. People shoot at what they can see. They don’t distinguish between people fighting them and anyone else. They will shoot at you if they see your movement!

Look at the scene that day at the spring near the Gilead Mountain called today “Ma’ayan Harod.” The spring comes out of a cave on the south side of the Jezreel Valley in a spur called the Harod Valley and creates a short stream with pools. I have been their many times in the heat of the summer to cool off. Standing at that place, it is clear the stream bed is the low point of the sloping valley, and that meant that Israel’s enemies were north of them, looking down a long slope to that spring. Behind the troops of Gideon there was a steep cliff lifting upward to the Gilboa Range. The people couldn’t easily escape, and had little strategic advantage from that place. IN fact, it was a terrible place for a small army to encamp.

Two kinds of men approached the water in the scene. Some – the majority – slinked over close to the ground until they came upon the water and drank. The term “kneel” in Judges 7:6 is a form of the Hebrew word “kawraw” which is to bow to the ground. It is often used to denote bowing to the ground in worship. It appears the writer was sharing these men moved low to the ground and stuck their head into the water below the line of sight of their enemies.

There were the others – the 300 – who appeared to haplessly approach the water and reach down with cupped hand to take water up in their hands – while they stuck up on the plain and could be seen from across the plain. As they brought the water up in cupped hands, the enemy could watch their every move. These were the “lappers” – and their actions showed either incredible bravery, or (more likely) unequaled stupidity.

Remember the rule: “When in battle, never, never, stick up!” Lay down. Stay close to the ground! Try NEVER to be seen. Don’t move in the open. Apparently the three hundred didn’t get the memo.

Yes, beloved, it appears that God sent off all the smart people and left Gideon with the clueless and incompetent. It may not sound complimentary, but it seems as though that was EXACTLY what God had in mind!

God doesn’t think like the world does. In their fallen state, when the world needs to be saved, who do they call upon? They would, without hesitation call on a superhero! First, that is because that is the business of such characters. Second, they are intrinsically better than the rest of us. They are characters that are larger than life.

• Aquaman could send telepathic signals to get fish to help him. I can barely keep them alive in an aquarium tank!

• Superman could leap tall buildings in a single bound. I can’t even get myself to look over the side of tall buildings!

• Batman can make words appear when he hits people – works like “Biff” and “Pow” and “Zowie.” When I punch someone, I can’t even get a bruise to appear!

When a superhero comes onto the scene – criminals hide. They fear these mighty masked men and women.

That is what the world thinks – someone can get the job done because they are intrinsically more capable than the rest of us. Anyone who knows the Bible knows that isn’t the truth. The book is filled with incredibly dumb and unbelievably dull people who do incredible things – BECAUSE GOD ENABLED THEM.

Here is the painful truth: I CANNOT be invisible. I barely fly when the airplane does all the work! No criminals are terrorized by my presence. I am not indestructible nor am I bullet proof. Yet, here is the blessing: My ability is not the key to my usefulness. I don’t need to be a superhero – I just need to serve a powerful and limitless God.

The sufficiency test isn’t about MY capability – it is about my trust in a God who is always able.

Paul noted the source f confidence, but made clear it wasn’t from within. He wrote in 1 Corinthians 1:26:

1 Corinthians 1:26 “For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble…”

The clear implication is that God didn’t choose you for His family because YOU brought superhero skills or unusual abilities. The words wise, mighty and noble cover the three areas of unique understanding, unusual physical prowess and remarkable pedigree. Paul simply said that when we consider our calling as God’s children, we should recall it isn’t because of any of these.

Why then, was I invited to be a part of the family of God?

1 Corinthians 1:27 “…but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, 28 and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, 29 so that no man may boast before God.”

God calls those He has invited to join Him the foolish, the weak, the base, the despised and those who “are not” –

There is an old Chinese proverb about an elderly peasant who had two large clay pots. One of the pots had a crack along its side from the brim to a point about half way to the base of the pot. The other pot was perfect, entirely without cracks or leaks! Each had been securely attached on opposite ends of a pole made up of several thick pieces of bamboo that had been bound together. In the middle of this pole he wrapped numerous layers of muslin and wool to create an area of padding. The peasant laboriously carried this cane and the two water pots across the back of his neck to get water. At the end of the lengthy hike from a mountain, freshwater spring to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half filled. The intact pot delivered its contents of fresh water chocked-full in volume. For several years this went on day after day; the water-bearer only delivering one and a half pots of the precious fluid to his home. Of course, the perfect pot was swollen with pride in achieving its fullest potential. But, the poor cracked pot was outright embarrassed of its imperfection, feeling miserable that it was only able to accomplish one half of its intended task. After these years of despondence, it finally speaks to the water-bearer one day as they nearing the mountain spring. “I am ashamed of myself! This horrendous crack in my side allows me to leak a portion of my contents all the way back to your house.” The water-bearer responded, “But haven’t you noticed all the beautiful flowers on your side of the path? And were you not aware that on the opposite side of the path there is nothing but wild grass, briars, and weeds? That’s because I have always been aware of your so called ‘flaw.’ For this reason, I took time to plant and cultivate those lovely flowers as to allow the water that leaked from you to water them each day. This makes our trip so pleasant and charming. And for all these years I have been able to return to the path time and time again to gather a bouquet of vibrant, aromatic flowers to brighten up and fragrance the gloominess and foulness of our home.” (From A-Z Sermon Illustrations).

The proverb reminds us that when we realize our weakness, we may take away the wrong message. We seem inadequate because we don’t recognize the full purpose of our lives. God knows. He called us because He knows what He wants to accomplish. Our confidence must be in HIM, His plan, His wisdom. That will cause us to keep going with great boldness.

When we trust Him, we gain confidence – and in stormy circumstances or perilous moments, trust is the key to boldness.

• God isn’t asking you to come up with a great plan for your life today – only to trust Him and invite Him daily to lead you.

• God isn’t expecting your confidence to grow as you look at your life and abilities – only that you would look more carefully at His power based on the things He has created.

• If God truly made all you can see; and God said He has a purpose for all that surrounds you – can you not see He has a purpose for you as well? Trust Him. He will walk with you through the storm.

Whether you have ever considered it seriously or not – God has a call on your life. He wants to walk with you and He wants to lead you through the path of your life to accomplish what He designed for you while you BECOME what He intends you to be. This lesson is about discovering that process (of His call) and responding properly to it.

Our last lesson focused on the resistance of believers to invite God on the daily journey of their lives. We were reminded how heavy life is when we try, even in Christ, to walk the road in our own strength and for our own purposes. Life lived intentionally with Jesus as my daily invited partner is life lived with a touch of Heaven’s promise. The story was a simple application of Judges 6 as the writer of Scripture set up the rescue God brought through Gideon.

• It was taken from a time when Israel returned to doing evil (6:1).

• As a result of their choice, God placed them under a physical bondage that offered them a graphic picture of the “heart bondage” to other gods and other agendas that come with the dulling of a believer’s rebellion (6:1b).

• The result of drifting from God into self-life left Israel without the power to pull off life, and they ended up hiding in their own land of promise (6:2).

• They were subjected to cruel treatment of the world around them, and they found themselves in perpetual pain and lack, overwhelmed and discouraged (6:3-5).

• Their state finally pressed them to the point they cried to God from the bottom of their hearts (6:6).

If they were like most of us, the cry probably wasn’t so much about the loss of their sense of relationship with God – but their loss of the natural blessings that overflow from that daily and intentional invitation to walk with Him. When troubles roll in like a flood, we may cry out to God, but it is more about the flood than about our desire for Him.

One of the greatest problems a believer faces is the deception that we are competent to take on the world and navigate successfully on our own. Even though we know that we invited the Savior into our heart and received both His Spirit and His salvation, the old nagging thought that God isn’t really essential today haunts us. It is an OLD deception that came from the very Garden of Eden – when Eve believed that intimacy with God wasn’t the “only way” to have a good life. How do I know this is the case? The answer is simple: many believers, when being honest, report they move through large blocks of time in their lives when they don’t deliberately engage God beyond the occasional “saying of grace” at the food table.

Back to Judges 6

Go back to the wayward people in Judges 6. Don’t forget that before God sent to Israel a rescuer and a renewed time of blessing, He sent a prophet to completely expose and answer the charges that their current misery and peril was somehow His oversight. The writer reminded:

Judges 6:7 Now it came about when the sons of Israel cried to the Lord on account of Midian, 8 that the Lord sent a prophet to the sons of Israel, and he said to them, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘It was I who brought you up from Egypt and brought you out from the house of slavery. 9 I delivered you from the hands of the Egyptians and from the hands of all your oppressors, and dispossessed them 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 live. But you have not obeyed Me.”’”

We must be very careful when we find ourselves in difficulty and trouble, not to swallow the tempter’s lie that God is the One responsible for our trouble. He isn’t; yet we know that many of us have gotten angry with Him because of a stubborn rebellion in US. God reduced all the troubles down to the single issue: “You walked away from ME, and when you did, blessing slipped away into the darkness!”

God’s invited presence and deliberate worship brings a sense of confidence to your life that whatever you are passing through, He is right beside you. At the same time, can we not admit that if we are inviting Him to journey with us, His very presence will likely change some of what we pass through? Aren’t there problems we encounter BECAUSE we chose to walk alone? I think we all know there are.

Inviting the Lord to walk with you isn’t so much about getting Him in step with you as it is is getting in step with Him. We refer to that “getting in step” as “finding” and then “following” your CALL by God. Let’s say it this way: Your job isn’t to choose your ministry as much as it is to follow the direction of God and His Word on the path HE has chosen for you. God gifts, enables and calls you – but He requires that you trust Him and follow Him. Gideon’s experience will teach us something about following our call…

Key Principle: God offers basic steps to listening for and responding well to His call in your life.

Pick up your reading in Judges 11 as the messenger of the Lord Most High is encountering Gideon. We learn something from the beginning of the encounter…

There are two parts to our record. The first is about grasping God’s call. The second is about responding properly to God’s call.

Look at how to grasp the call of the Lord in your life.

First, a call begins with the truth as it is revealed by God. Remember, God picks the time and place to call you (6:11,12).

Judges 6:11 Then the angel of the Lord came and sat under the oak that was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite as his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press in order to save it from the Midianites.

Look closely and you may begin to apply truths found in the details of the scene in three simple imperatives:

Get moving! Notice in the case of Gideon, that God sought him out, and found him busy and working. That’s an important little note. God doesn’t want you to sit idly until the perfect opportunity to minister drops into your back yard. He desires to move in the life of someone who is already showing movement in solving issues! It is far easier to steer an automobile that is moving rather than re-directing the wheels of one that sits still.

Set proper expectations! When God called Gideon, it may have seemed profound – but the actual picture that day was a guy relaxing under a tree and talking to a guy steadily working in a hole beside him. There was no recorded thunder in the sky or angelic choir. Get a grip on your expectations. God’s call in your life is not necessarily a dramatic event – but it always causes dramatic events. He calls you to make a difference as you walk with Him, not “hold a spot” on the bench of His Heavenly team full of “wanna be” followers. The truth is God called you because He intends to use your life in the lives of others. Jesus said: “You didn’t choose Me; I chose you to bring forth fruit!” to His first followers. Paul noted the same was true of later believers. God’s call may not be dramatic, but He has a plan to use you – and how can that not be an exciting prospect?

Keep listening! God’s Word contains God’s call for you both in general terms, and very often in specific ones. Though for some in the Word He used a dream, an angel or some profound prophetic device, for most it was the routine engagement with His revealed truth that brought the clarity of His direction. The same is true now! He may use the extraordinary, but for most of us the key will be absorbing His Word and walking with expectancy that when we invite Him on the daily journey, He will take the lead and offer us direction.

There are times when God will direct you within. I may go to a hospital and the person I came to see is out of the room for tests. Because I get pressed in the number of hours I have to get things done, if I am wise, I will stop and ask God: “Is there someone else I am here to see?” He has often indicated there was by whatever happened next. I don’t live life that way; but I do see it happen from time to time. Let me also post this warning to those who think that is ALL there is to following God… God is with you in the planning time as well. Messages aren’t spontaneous. Preparation of teaching the Word takes time, effort, prayer and seeking. God is there during that stage as well, and isn’t just swooping down on the perpetually unplanned to carry them through His work. Don’t get hung up on either extreme.

Second, remember that God called you because He knows what He is going to do in and through you.

Your calling is about the surrender of your present self so that God can take you on the journey to your future. Judges 6:12 says:

Judges 6:12 The angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, “The Lord is with you, O valiant warrior.”

In our last lesson I made the point that Gideon was hiding in a hole when these words were uttered. We noted that God knew He would make much of Gideon, so He spoke in glowing terms to the man long before the man could see what God was saying in his own life.

It is important for us to remember the success of our call isn’t dependent upon our ability – but rather our faithfulness to follow our Master. If we listen to His call, if we follow His Word – we will reach the destination He planned as the one He desires us to become. Over and over we must repeat the truth that God is more interested in what we are BECOMING than what we are accomplishing. We cannot DO anything positive toward that goal that He doesn’t enable us to do – so our accomplishments and abilities are NOT the primary reasons for our call.

I was talking recently to a man who took his son hunting for the first time. They like to supplement their freezer with some deer meat, and the family looks forward every year to hunting season and fishing season, because they are times when they go camping, and dad graphically supplies the needs of the family in a way that even the youngest of the children truly understands. It has been their family practice since before the children can remember. In any case, the dad had opportunity to take his son as the young man began his own tradition of provision. The boy brought home his first kill, and he couldn’t stop talking about an experience that actually was a long time of sitting in a blind silently, waiting for a deer to happen by. Stop and think about that father for a moment. Do you believe he brought his son because he felt that would improve the chances for the family to get meat this year? Of course, you don’t. The man brought his son for the sake of his son – not so much for the ability of his son. That is how God calls you to a work or task. You and I don’t bring much to it at all – but He delights in walking out into the work with us, and coming home to celebrate with us when the day is done.

Third, don’t battle an Almighty God and not expect to get bruised.

Let’s allow for the fact that Gideon probably had no clue of the exact identity of this messenger when he made his less than educated remarks about God. I suspect if he recognized the angel was what he was, Gideon might have tailored his remarks a bit better. The text recorded:

Judges 6:13 Then Gideon said to him, “O my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.”

Gideon was probably tired and no doubt disgusted with the state of affairs reported in the local newspapers. Do you know what he felt like? At every turn, he felt like times were tough, and there didn’t seem to be good reasons to hope things were about to get appreciably better. Look at the verse again. He uses words like “abandoned” and “given us into the hands” when he spoke of HIS DAY, but words like “miracles” when he spoke of the days of his fathers. Gideon believed the PAST was when God was busy, and the present is when God is disengaged. When we lose hope, we tend to think that way.

Here is the problem: Every moment we spend trying to figure out God instead of following Him is a wasted moment. That isn’t our job, and we don’t have the faculties to do it very well at all. It is promising to note that God doesn’t only work with those who have great understanding of His plan, but we have to remember that He works with those who aren’t consumed with second guessing Him.

If you need to see the end from the beginning of the call – you don’t trust Him enough to really follow Him. Let Him lead with His view of things. He knows where He is going.

When Jesus called His disciples, some were sitting and listening to His cousin John. Others were cleaning our nets or working in their tax offices, etc. They didn’t know what their life would entail. Many of those men eventually went to far flung places in the Roman world to carry the message of the Gospel. They couldn’t have had any concept that God would do that through them when Jesus walked by and said “Come, follow Me!” They didn’t know where life would take them – but they followed the Savior. You don’t know either, but the requirement is the same. Follow Him. Don’t figure Him out before you begin – follow Him.

When you listen to the words of Gideon, can you pick out how incredibly depressed he sounds? I think he had good reason to feel beat down, though his theology was a bit cobbled together and confused. If he showed anything, perhaps it was this: It is reasonably useless to try to define truth by your feelings in the middle of a conflict where you are regularly getting beaten up. Let me say it another way: No one I know well can clearly reckon how things are actually going in the middle of raising teen agers. There are moments of uncertainty in life… and “conflict periods” are prime among them.

If you have faced reversals, it may not be the best time to evaluate the goodness of God – and you aren’t in the right emotional place to make broad stroke judgments about His character based on your experiences and your feelings about those experiences. General George Patton, in “War as I Knew It” reminded men to “never try to get an accurate assessment of the battle from a wounded soldier who was being carried off the field in a stretcher.” You and I cannot, cannot, cannot trust our feelings about God’s power when we aren’t relying on it.

Fourth, keep it simple. Draw the whole argument in your mind down to what it is really about: “Will you do what God told you to do?”

That is God’s question in the text…

Judges 6:14 offered the Lord’s simple reply: The Lord looked at him and said, “Go in this your strength and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian. Have I not sent you?”

Note the messenger offered no response to Gideon’s ridiculous charges made out of Gideon’s deep disappointment of God’s performance (as he saw it). The messenger spoke past the false statements and cut the whole message down to the simplest imperative: “Will you follow?”

You have been on the highway for hours. The traffic has been a nightmare and you pull off into a gas station in a small town because the highway resembles a parking lot. After pumping gas, you walk into the store and get one of the hot dogs from the hot metal rollers, stick it in a bun and walk to the check out. The man takes your money and asks you how your day is going. You grunt an answer of discontent and are ready to walk back to your car. The man says: “Sir, you may want to use the road to the left for the next ten miles. It runs parallel to your highway and reconnects, and most people won’t know about it – so it will surely be faster in this traffic!” What do you do next? Do you complain about how bad the last few hours have been? Do you explain to the man that you have really had a rough time, and you don’t know if you can keep going? No! You thank him for the direction, and follow the new route. Why? Because whatever you have been through is irrelevant. The only issue now is whether or not you will take the direction and change the next hours of your life.

By this point in Gideon’s story, it appears to be becoming more clear WHO was speaking, and WHAT was expected. We should recall that while God doesn’t pretend to tell us our destination, He is usually very clear concerning His demand for our obedience. God challenges his people to commit themselves not just their things (14).

Fifth, never calculate your mission as if it is based solely on your ability.

This sounds like a redux of what we have seen, but it is too important to pass by quickly – because so many fall on that slippery spot.

Judges 6:15 He said to Him, “O Lord, how shall I deliver Israel? Behold, my family is the least in Manasseh, and I am the youngest in my father’s house.”

Most of us know much more about our weaknesses than our strengths. Most of us are much more easily convinced that failure is more likely than success to a difficult venture of obedience.

Most of us think about our day in terms of our own strength, not in terms of God’s. One of the great side benefits of daily inviting God, and then walking in His conscious presence is the size of the resources you can bring to the problems you face. Our biggest problems shrink dramatically in front of an All Powerful God.

Sixth, hear and grasp the promises of God in your mission.

The text isn’t about you, but it is FOR you. It is a story to make an encouraging point…

Judges 6:16 But the Lord said to him, “Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat Midian as one man.”

God wasn’t SENDING him, He was ACCOMPANYING Him. God has never been trying to find people to work for Him, but rather to work with Him. He’s been doing that since He pulled man from the mud of the Garden. The secret of Gideon’s victory was to be the same as yours – the “practiced presence of God”.

After grasping God’s call, let’s keep observing to find how to properly respond to that call.

Admittedly, we are going to learn from Gideon what NOT to do when you know what God has told you to do. His is not a glowing account.

In grasping the call, we saw Gideon questioned God. That isn’t wrong. God doesn’t expect you to just change life’s direction because of a feeling or a whim. If God is seriously calling you to do something, He is prepared to be questioned without becoming upset with you. Three isn’t a problem when you ask mechanical questions, like the Virgin Mary asked to Gabriel “How exactly can that baby happen in me?” The problem comes when our questions come from a heart of disbelief that God CAN do what He said – like the story of Zecharias in the Temple. He essentially asked the same question as Mary: “How can that be?” The difference wasn’t the composition of the question, but the heart from which it came.

Go back to Judges 6 and look at what Gideon DID when God told Him that the Almighty was going to walk with him through the struggles ahead…

Judges 6:17 So Gideon said to Him, “If now I have found favor in Your sight, then show me a sign that it is You who speak with me.

Gideon wanted an identity check. He believed God could break the choke hold of the nations on the Jewish people. He just wasn’t sure this guy lounging under a tree was a true and legitimate spokesman for God – so he asked for a SIGN. Many believers today do the same thing. They need God to do something incredible and reaffirming in their midst, or they can’t believe His Word. They haven’t grown past needing the constant affirmation of the miraculous.

I believe there probably were very few men on earth who were as utterly inept when it came to dating as I was when my wife found me. I missed the cues in relationships. It was like there was a class everyone had in relationships that somehow got bumped from my schedule in school. In our early times together, I was so unsure of how she felt, I NEEDED her affirmations to be sure. When she grabbed my hand as we drove down the road, I would think to myself: “I guess she really does like me!” After many years of marriage, I don’t have the daily need to have her somehow prove she loves me. I still love her doing it; but it isn’t essential after three children, more than three decades together, and an untold number of meals made, dishes cleaned and laundry completed… even I get it eventually.

Here is the truth: The believer that needs another miracle, an additional another sign from God just to keep following, really hasn’t really grown up.

Paul established how important it was for believers to love one another while living out their faith at home, in their community and (in the immediate context) in the local church assembly. He made the point in 1 Corinthians 13 that spiritual manifestations of God and even gifts of the Spirit cannot do what love does. He described the attributes of love, and then turned his attention to the great truth about love: One hundred million years from now, it will be God’s love for us and ours for one another as followers of Jesus that will matter. Our gifts and contributions will fade, but our heart of love for Him, and for one another will not. He wrote:

1 Corinthians 13:8 Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part; 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. 11 When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. 13 But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.

The choice to serve with love brings about more lasting results than any other outworking of the Spirit. It is for this reason the Apostle proclaims that “Love never fails” in 1 Corinthians 13:8. At the same time, the need to have signs and miracles as part of daily service wasn’t nearly as important as some thought it was. You see, as each believer grew in faith, they needed to learn to leave the early things they trusted to discern God’s will and direction – and move on to trusting in God’s Word without the other manifest signs and works of God (1 Corinthians 13:10-12).

Experiencing God dramatically becomes much less important when we trust God more fully.

Believers were to grow out of dependence on overt signs from God and simply rest in God’s Word. The signs of God’s profound presence were there in the early days of their walk, but simply became less important as the people grew up. Gideon was just getting started in his walk, so God was patient. At the same time, that didn’t mean that God wouldn’t expect more from Gideon because He pressed God for signs.

In essence, Gideon needed a burned dinner for the sign that God was calling him to lead Israel to war. The text recorded:

Judges 6:18 Please do not depart from here, until I come back to You, and bring out my offering and lay it before You.” And He said, “I will remain until you return.” 19 Then Gideon went in and prepared a young goat and unleavened bread from an ephah of flour; he put the meat in a basket and the broth in a pot, and brought them out to him under the oak and presented them. 20 The angel of God said to him, “Take the meat and the unleavened bread and lay them on this rock, and pour out the broth.” And he did so. 21 Then the angel of the Lord put out the end of the staff that was in his hand and touched the meat and the unleavened bread; and fire sprang up from the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened bread. Then the angel of the Lord vanished from his sight. 22 When Gideon saw that he was the angel of the Lord, he said, “Alas, O Lord God! For now I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face.” 23 The Lord said to him, “Peace to you, do not fear; you shall not die.” 24 Then Gideon built an altar there to the Lord and named it The Lord is Peace. To this day it is still in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.

The story ends with belief, worship and the smell of a burned dinner. One of the problems of following tests is that they really make little sense when you look at them – but that is for the next lesson. For this time, it is enough if we recognize that…

God offers basic steps to listening for and responding well to His call in your life.

Recently, someone shared with me a story from the book A Man Called Peter by the author Catherine Marshall (who died in the early 1980s). In the book she told of how her late preacher-husband gained his sense of destiny, the serious and enduring sense of call on his life to serve God. He knew the Lord, and he had been considering a path of full-time service to the King. He was struggling with submission – and frankly an enlarged sense of his own abilities. Ego and servant-hood don’t mix. One dark night as a young man debating with his God, he unwisely decided to take a dangerous shortcut across the Scottish moors. He knew there were in the area some deep holes from an old, abandoned limestone quarry along that route, but he was confident that even in the dark a man with his skills and sense could avoid disaster. As he walked along, he heard someone call, “Peter.” There was great urgency in the beckoning voice. Young Peter stopped, turned and responded in the direction from which the voice came:. “Yes who is it? What do you want?” There was no answer. Unnerved but also annoyed, he took a few more steps when the voice called again, with the sound of even more urgency then before, “Peter!” He stopped. He was now becoming afraid. This wasn’t his imagination. He was really quite afraid. As he turned, his foot slipped behind a rounded rock, and he fell to his knees. Turning to place his hand on the ground to push himself back to his feet he realized he was at the very edge of a steep drop into a deep, black, hole. He found the quarry and nearly found his death. He got up, withdrew to the edge of the forest and followed the tree line – a much longer route. No one followed him. He was certain all the days of his life that God preserved his life, and he surrendered.

For Martin Luther it was a terrible storm with thunder and lightning. For Moses it was a burning bush. For you it may be nothing more than the piercing of a hard heart with the arrows of the Word of God. Here is what I know:

• Don’t ignore God’s call when He offers it.
• Don’t worry that you can’t do it.
• Invite the One Who calls you to equip you, guide you, and come along for the journey.