Sermon Cloud

WPM, 1-9-07, CLC

 Gideon – Mighty man of valor

Summary:  Gideon was a man called of God to do great things.  He thought so little of himself, and was so filled with doubt and unbelief, but God was patient with him.  He was still them man for the job, in spite of his weaknesses.  God had a big plan, that he accomplished through a small group of men.  (their army went from 22,000 to 300)  God had a specific plan that they had to follow in order to be victorious.  Ultimately, because he obeyed the plan God gave him, he became what God knew he was all along, the “Mighty Man of Valor”.  If we will obey God like Gideon did, even when the plan sounds crazy, we will become what God desires and sees us as already.

 
Israel had a covenant with the Lord to protect them.  At this time, they did not know about it.  They didn’t know that their actions were what had kept God from delivering them.  If they had been taught these things, they would have known. 

Deuteronomy 11:22-25

22  "For if you are careful to keep all this commandment which I am commanding you to do, to love the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways and hold fast to Him, 23  then the LORD will drive out all these nations from before you, and you will dispossess nations greater and mightier than you. 24  "Every place on which the sole of your foot treads shall be yours; your border will be from the wilderness to Lebanon, and from the river, the river Euphrates, as far as the western sea. 25  "No man will be able to stand before you; the LORD your God will lay the dread of you and the fear of you on all the land on which you set foot, as He has spoken to you.

Deuteronomy 28:47-51

47  "Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joy and a glad heart, for the abundance of all things; 48  therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the LORD will send against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in the lack of all things; and He will put an iron yoke on your neck until He has destroyed you. 49  "The LORD will bring a nation against you from afar, from the end of the earth, as the eagle swoops down, a nation whose language you shall not understand, 50  a nation of fierce countenance who will have no respect for the old, nor show favor to the young. 51  "Moreover, it shall eat the offspring of your herd and the produce of your ground until you are destroyed, who also leaves you no grain, new wine, or oil, nor the increase of your herd or the young of your flock until they have caused you to perish.

Judges 6:1-6

1 ¶  Then the sons of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD; and the LORD gave them into the hands of Midian seven years. 2  The power of Midian prevailed against Israel. Because of Midian the sons of Israel made for themselves the dens which were in the mountains and the caves and the strongholds. 3  For it was when Israel had sown, that the Midianites would come up with the Amalekites and the sons of the east and go against them. 4  So they would camp against them and destroy the produce of the earth as far as Gaza, and leave no sustenance in Israel as well as no sheep, ox, or donkey. 5  For they would come up with their livestock and their tents, they would come in like locusts for number, both they and their camels were innumerable; and they came into the land to devastate it. 6  So Israel was brought very low because of Midian, and the sons of Israel cried to the LORD.

Some things had happened to Israel to weaken them.  They had not been serving God.  They were routinely being attacked and oppressed by their enemies.

Judges 6:7

    7 ¶  Now it came about when the sons of Israel cried to the LORD on account of Midian,

Finally they prayed, and as always, the Lord heard.  Once they had given Him permission to get involved, He was able to move, until then, His Arms were tied.  God couldn’t move until they asked Him to.

Judges 6:8-10

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."’"

The Lord sent a man of God to bring the Word to them.  He reminded them that He was still the same God who had delivered them in the past.  He told them where they had missed it.

Judges 6:11-24

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. 12  The angel of the LORD appeared to him and said to him, "The LORD is with you, O valiant warrior." 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." 14  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?" 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." 16  But the LORD said to him, "Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat Midian as one man." 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." 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.

He called a man, an unlikely man, to use.  Gideon wasn’t as weak as he let on.  He was mostly weak in his own mind. 

Judges 6:27

Then Gideon took ten men of his servants and did as the LORD had spoken to him; and because he was too afraid of his father’s household and the men of the city to do it by day, he did it by night.

He had servants.  Poor weak people don’t have servants.

Judges 8:18-19

18 ¶  Then he said to Zebah and Zalmunna, "What kind of men were they whom you killed at Tabor?" And they said, "They were like you, each one resembling the son of a king." 19  He said, "They were my brothers, the sons of my mother. As the LORD lives, if only you had let them live, I would not kill you."

The kings of Midian said that Gideon was a “son of a king”.  It was only Gideon that thought so lowly of himself.  God still used him, even though he doubted, even though he still had a low self image.  He obeyed God.  That was what finally made him a “Mighty Man of Valor.”  Stop making excuses and obey God!