JUDGES 1-7 THE SIN CYCLE2012 Teaching by Jerry B Simmons

Teaching Transcript: Judges 1-7 The Sin Cycle

So Judges 1 through 7 is our portion. Now as we look at the book of Judges, the author of Judges is believed to be Samuel the prophet, who we'll study a little bit more in detail in the next couple of books.

The time period that's covered is about 300 years from about 1350 to about 1075 BC. And the theme that we'll see over and over in this book is the Lord raises up judges who saved them. And that's from Judges chapter 2 verse 16. And so we'll see this cycle, this repetition of these judges that God raises up.

Now, the idea of a judge, we think of someone, you know, who sits and decides cases, but really a judge used here in the book of Judges is really intended to be like a heroic leader. It's someone that is a deliverer that God raises up to lead the armies or to, you know, lead the people to set them free from the oppression that they have come under.

Well, on our timeline, as we continue looking at the timeline of the things that we're studying, we finished up Joshua, and that was the beginning of the historical books. Now we're moving into the book of Judges. Again, it's about 300 years of time that we're covering through the book of Judges. And in fact, this evening, the portion we're looking at there is kind of

circled in blue, it's about 200 years that we're looking at this evening in these first few chapters of the book of Judges. And then the timeline slows down a little bit for the later portions of the book of Judges. And then after that, we'll be heading into the kingdom years with King Saul, King David, King Solomon, the divided kingdom, and so on and so forth. But right now, there's no king. There's just these judges that God raises up and

up as the people are in need. Here's a quick list. I'm not going to go through all of these, but you can take a glance at them of the specific judges that are mentioned here in the book of Judges. So we'll see a few of them this evening. In fact, we'll see the first five of them, Othniel, Ehud, Shamgar, Deborah, and Gideon. And then the rest we'll see later on as we continue through the book of Judges.

You could also add on to this list of judges Eli the priest and Samuel the prophet. They're not actually included in the book of Judges, but they are referred to as Judges later on in the scriptures. And we'll be looking at those guys in the book of 1 Samuel. So those are also two more Judges that were raised up within Israel.

Well, as we consider the geography of the book of Judges, this is the nation of Israel. Joshua has led them into the promised land. He's divided up the land to all of the different tribes. And that is basically the way that the nation stands at this time. It is not united in the sense that there's one king or one leader. It's all these different tribes that are closely connected and, of course, related to one another.

And so sometimes they work together. Sometimes they don't get along so well. It's all these different divisions that are there between the tribes. And so this is what we're looking at. The land of Israel divided between all of the different tribes. And the look at the book of Judges, specifically here in the beginning, is their endeavor to possess the territory and the land that had been given to them. And so we will see that here in Judges 2.

chapter 1. The key verse of Judges chapter 1 is verse 1. It says, And so we're looking at

Joshua has just died and the nation is asking the Lord, which is the right thing to do, for direction. Who do you want to send in, Lord, to possess their territory, to take over and finish driving out the inhabitants that are there? You might remember under Joshua, they had some military victories and they conquered some major kingdoms there in the land of Israel.

However, they didn't drive out all of the inhabitants. They just, you know, they won the war, but there was still a lot of little battles that needed to take place. A lot of pockets of those who, you know, were inhabitants of the land that God was asking them to drive out.

And so here in verses 1 through 20, we have Judah and Simeon taking possession of their land and driving out the inhabitants of their land. We also see here that they were not able to drive out all of the inhabitants. Some of them were more difficult to drive out, and so they were unable to do so.

We also see that with Benjamin in verse 21, that Benjamin had trouble with the Jebusites who had taken up residence in Jerusalem. And they were unable to defeat the Jebusites and drive them out of the land. And so that's recorded there in verse 21.

We have a victory recorded in verses 22 through 26 with Ephraim conquering the city of Bethel. And they have victory there. But then in verses 27 through 36, you can see Ephraim is listed among the other tribes that failed to drive out all of the inhabitants within the territory that had been given to them. And so their commission from the Lord was, you know,

to drive out the inhabitants of the land. Wherever you put your foot, you know, that you will obtain that land that God says, I'll be with you. I'll give you victory. I'll help you drive out the inhabitants. But they had to go out in faith. And unfortunately, here in verses 27 through 36, we see that they did not, they were not able to drive out all the inhabitants. Now,

On the one part, we say, well, they didn't have the faith. They didn't obey God and drive out all of the inhabitants. But on the other side of that, it was also okay that they didn't drive out all the inhabitants. Not that it was okay that they shouldn't drive out the inhabitants, but it was okay in the sense that it was foretold. Back in Deuteronomy chapter 7 verse 22, God says he's going to drive out the inhabitants because he's going to drive out the inhabitants.

But he also says,

The problem begins in verse 28 here of Judges chapter 1. It says, Now God's command to his people was drive out the inhabitants completely. They were unable to do so. They weren't strong enough. Which is okay. God told them that was going to happen. But as they grew in strength...

They should have then gone back to that battle and driven out the inhabitants. But instead what they did is they began to make deals, negotiations, treaties with the people and put them to tribute, made them pay taxes or pay rent. They put them to forced labor in some cases, depending on the tribe. And so we see them making deals with

the inhabitants of the land when God had instructed them to drive them out. Now this is really important for you and I as believers today because it's a really good picture of our Christian life. You know, we've looked at in the past the picture of the promised land being the victorious life that we have in Christ. The Romans chapter 8 life where we're led by the Holy Spirit, where we have victory.

Well, at the same time, you and I understand that although we have victory in Christ and we have victory in the Holy Spirit, that as we walk in the Spirit, we don't gratify the lust of the flesh. At the same time, we understand we still fall short. We still have struggles in our lives. We still have difficulties that we face and those sin issues that we have.

And Judges is a good picture of that for us. Because it is okay, it is appropriate that you are not perfect. It's okay that you still have issues, just in case that was bothering you. Sometimes it bothers us. Man, why do I still struggle with things? Why do I still have these difficulties? Why do I still have these problems?

You are in the promised land in Christ and there are still battles and there's victories as well as losses and that is okay. You're going to have struggles. You're going to have those fights. But here's where the problem really starts. The problem isn't so much that you might fail or that you might lose a battle. The problem is when you begin to make deals with the flesh.

When you stop fighting against it, when you stop driving out those things that are not of God, when you start saying, well, I guess I'm just going to have to live with this issue. You start making compromises. You start making deals. You make allowances. You, you know, give certain portions of your life to these sin issues. That's the problem. That's where, well, you'll begin to really experience some difficulty.

In verse 28, it tells us that the Canaanites were determined to dwell in the land. And you and I can identify with that in regards to our flesh. Man, sin is determined to dwell in our lives. And it needs to be a continual battle, a continual struggle that we involve ourselves in.

But what often happens to us, like in the book of Judges, is as we grow strong, instead of going back to that battle, we just make allowances for those things instead of dealing with them.

I like what David Guzik had to say about that. He said, once we satisfy ourselves with less than God's best for us, we will never be what God wants us to be. Once we satisfy ourselves or we settle for these compromises with the flesh, we will not achieve the fullness of what God desires for us. And so I want to encourage you this evening, and we'll see this throughout the book of Judges.

to continue in the battle against sin. Don't just give up. Don't just make compromises. Don't just make deals and agreements that, hey, we'll live peaceably. You got this portion sin and Lord has this portion and we can, you know, be neighbors together. That's not going to work. God wants our whole hearts devoted to him. Well, that brings us to chapter two of Judges. Verse 19 is the key verse.

It says,

The angel of the Lord comes to the nation and rebukes them for those things that we've just been talking about. In verse 2 it says, You shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of the land. But he says, But you have not obeyed my voice. Why have you done this? He says, Look, this is what God said. Don't make covenants. But you've made covenants. Why have you done this? The Lord is rebuking the nation of Israel at this time.

Well, then in verses 7 through 10, we have the death of Joshua recorded. We also saw that at the end of the book of Judges, but it's recorded here again. And then we have verses 11 through 23, Israel forsaking the Lord. So once Joshua has died...

And then those leaders who were along with him, when they died, the next generation of leaders, the next generation of people forsook the Lord. And so they didn't have that strong leader Joshua any longer. And they begin to worship the false gods of the people around them, specifically Baal and Ashtoreth.

Baal was the god that they worshipped. It was the god of agriculture. The idea was if you worship this god, then you'll get lots of rain, lots of produce, you'll make lots of money, you'll have lots of prosperity. So worship this god and you'll be prosperous was the general idea. Ashtoreth was another god that was worshipped there in the land of Canaan. And this was the goddess of love or the goddess of sex.

And the way that you would worship this God was usually by engaging in sex with a prostitute of that God, of the Ashtoreth God. And so it was, you know, something of great immorality. And so they began to worship these gods and to practice these things which the people around them were practicing. And so they forsook the Lord. And this begins a cycle that we will see throughout the book of Judges.

I call it the sin cycle, or you can maybe call it the spin cycle, because it's round and round and round they go. They forsake the Lord and begin to worship these gods. Then as a result of their rebellion against God, they begin to experience oppression from surrounding nations. And as the nations come in and lay a heavy hand upon them and begin to conquer them and rule over them,

Well, after some time, then the nation will cry out to the Lord. So first they forsake, then they're oppressed, then they cry out to the Lord, and then they

Then God sends a deliverer and the people are set free as God raises up deliverance for them. And it's this cycle that repeats because then after that deliverer dies, then they forsake the Lord again. They become oppressed. They cry out. And then God raises up another deliverer. And we'll see this repeated over and over again throughout the book of Judges.

It's an important pattern to recognize because it's a pattern that still does exist today. That you and I, as we talk about, you know, putting up with those sin issues in our life and making deals with them, as we begin to allow those things into our lives, we begin

Well, guess what it brings? Oppression and bondage and difficulty. That's what sin brings in our lives. And we put up with it for a little bit until we cry out to the Lord. And then he sends a deliverer. He sets us free from those things that we're wrestling with. And it's a cycle that, well, we need to break and not continue the pattern that the nation of Israel experienced.

Now the angel of the Lord is found here in the first part of chapter 2. This is an interesting phrase, the angel of the Lord, because it refers to, we believe, an appearance of Jesus in the Old Testament.

Not an appearance of him like, you know, as when he was born, not as a full human being, but as an appearance of the Lord, a revelation of Jesus in the Old Testament. Not every angel in the Old Testament is Jesus. That's not what this means. But there's a specific phrase, the angel of the Lord, that's used throughout the scriptures. And here's a list of them.

that indicates to us, as you look at these different passages, you can see this is God speaking to his people and it's the angel of the Lord. And so we understand this to be Jesus. And so we see it here in chapter 2 of Judges as Jesus addresses the nation. We'll see it again in Judges 6 and then again in Judges 13 as he deals with Gideon and then Samson's parents.

Well, that brings us to chapter 3 of Judges. Verse 1 is the key verse. It says, Now these are the nations which the Lord left, that he might test Israel by them, that is, all who had not known any of the wars in Canaan.

So here in chapter 3, God now begins to talk about those nations that were left behind and the struggles that are going to exist between them. In verses 1 through 6, we have the nations that were left. You had the Philistines. We'll be talking about them a lot here in the historical books. The Canaanites, the Sidonians, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.

These are the specific peoples that are mentioned here that God says he left them in the land. They were unable to drive them out because he's going to be testing Israel and growing Israel through these battles that are going to take place. Well, now we begin to look at some of the judges that were raised up within Israel. And so verses 7 through 11 deals with Othniel, the first judge.

Then verses 12 through 30 talks about Ehud and his deliverance. And then verse 31 gives us some insight into Shamgar. And so let's take a quick look at these. Othniel was a member of the tribe of Judah.

And he was raised up by the Lord during a time of oppression from Mesopotamia. Now Mesopotamia was kind of far east. It was the area of Babylon or modern day Iraq. But because Israel forsook the Lord, they were persecuted.

bondage to this king of Mesopotamia for eight years. And so for eight years they're paying tribute, they're you know suffering under the oppression of this king of Mesopotamia. And so God raises up Othniel as the people of Israel cry out to him.

And this is a picture for me. I always like the book of Judges for this. It can be a little bit sad to see the repetition of, you know, how they continue to go back to sin. But if you look at the other side of the coin for just a moment, you can see the amazing grace of God. Because we see here Israel cries out to the Lord. And what does he do? He sends a deliverer. And that's going to happen over and over again.

Now, what we need to understand and remember is, why are they in the dilemma that they're in? Because they forsook the Lord. They put themselves in the dilemma. They put themselves in the difficulty by rebelling against the Lord and engaging in sin. Even though they put themselves there, even though they turned away from God, when they cry out to him, he delivers them.

It's amazing. And each time we see, it's different periods of time. And sometimes it's a great length of time. I would consider eight years. That's a long time to be in bondage. And it took them eight years before they realized, we need help. We've got ourselves in quite a predicament. And after eight years, they cry out to the Lord and he sends a deliverer to them. And so as we look at this pattern repeat over and over again, I want to encourage you this evening. Look,

Don't wait so long to cry out to God. Don't wait for eight years of bondage before you finally give in and say, okay, Lord, I'll do it your way. Help me. Again, we all are going to struggle. We're all going to have sin issues. There's battles in our lives that we have to fight. It's part of the way that we grow. It's part of the way that God is working in our lives. We're not perfect. But what we can't do is make deals and arrangements with sin to allow them to continue to exist. If we do,

We're going to experience oppression and bondage. The wages of sin is destruction and death. We're going to experience that in our lives. But the good news is you can cry out to God. And you don't have to wait till you've hit rock bottom. A lot of times that's what we do. That's what Israel does. But we don't have to wait that long. God's grace is amazing. As his people cry out to him, he sends a deliverer to them.

David Guzik says, what we find out about man in Judges is depressing. But what we find out about God in Judges is spectacular. The grace of God. Man, yeah, we're pretty depressing. We turn to sin. We walk away from God. We forsake Him. But God is gracious. And as we cry out to Him, He delivers us. And so that's demonstrated through Othniel and then again through Ehud. Now Ehud was a man from the tribe of Benjamin.

He was raised up by the Lord during a time of oppression from the nation of Moab, there to the south and east of the nation of Israel. And the Moabites, you might remember, that's where, you know, King called Balaam the prophet to curse Israel. It's that area, those people. And so this is a long time later. But now Moab is oppressing the people of Israel. And so Moab is oppressing the people of Israel.

And so God raises up Ehud. Now Moab had been oppressing Israel for 18 years before Israel cries out to the Lord. And so again you see this long period of time where they're just experienced this bondage and this oppression until they finally cry out to the Lord.

Well, Ehud gets victory in an interesting way. And it points out that he was a left-handed man, which is unusual then as it is today. There's not as many people who are left-handed as there are who are right-handed. And so he goes as a messenger, bringing the tribute, bringing the taxes to the king, Eglon. And of course, you know how it is. He asked for a private meeting and then he

Puts in the knife into his belly. And it's quite graphic as it talks about the fat, you know, just kind of folding over the blade. This guy, King Eglon, was a big guy. And so they have victory as the king is now put to death. And then the battle that takes place, Israel has victory in it as well. And it's led by Ehud, this one who was raised up by the Lord.

Now again, I'm going to point out over and over again, because it's the pattern that we see, it's the pattern that we need to hear. The amazing grace of God. Israel put themselves in this predicament because they forsook the Lord. They turned away from Him and worshipped these other gods. And as a result, they were in the midst of this oppression and bondage to the king of Moab.

But as they cried out to God, He raised up a deliverer. Even though they're the ones who put themselves in that situation, when they cried out to Him, He delivered them. Don't wait so long to cry out to God. Don't wait for it to get so bad to turn to Him. Repent quickly. Turn back quickly. There will be battles, there will be struggles, there will be victories, and there will be losses. Turn back quickly.

Don't continue to harbor that sin and rebellion in your life. Well, the next judge that we find here in chapter 3 is Shamgar.

We don't know much about him. Only one verse is given to him here in the book of Judges. We do know that he fought against the Philistines. The Philistines were there on the coast of the Mediterranean. The cities are Ashdod, Ashkelon, and Gaza. Those are the cities of the Philistines. That's where they were dwelling. And so they were oppressing Israel and they will be a thorn in the side of Israel for a long time to come.

And Shamgar takes care of 600 of them. He defeats them in battle by himself with an ox goad. And an ox goad is about...

six to eight feet long or tall, depending on which way it's, you know, oriented. It's fat on one end to be able to scrape mud off of the plows. And then it's sharp on the other end to be able to prod the oxen, you know, hey, keep going, keep plowing my field. Kind of like spurs, you know, for a horse. It's kind of like that. You poke the oxen and keep them going. And so he had this instrument. It's not nothing fancy, but

But with that, he was able to defeat 600 of the Philistines. And so he judged Israel as well. Well, that brings us to chapter 4. Verse 4 is the key verse. It says, Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, was judging Israel at that time.

And so now as we head into chapter 4, we see the next judge is Deborah. She is a prophetess of the Lord and she is judging Israel and leading Israel. In verses 1 through 16, Deborah calls Barak to lead Israel to battle. Now,

They're experiencing oppression at this time once again. This time it's from the king of Canaan who is in the northern parts of the land. We'll look at that in just a second. And so she calls Barak who is a commander within the tribe of Naphtali. And she calls him, hey, you need to lead the troops into battle. And the Lord wants to deliver us from this oppression. But Barak is a little bit reluctant to go. And in verse 8 it says...

He says to her, well, if you go with me, then I will go. If you're not going to go, then I'm not going to go. And so he's really relying upon her and her relationship with the Lord as the support for him to be able to go into battle. And so she goes and they defeat the army. But the commander is named Sisera.

And in verses 17 through 21, he is dealt with as a woman named Jael is able to put him to death. We'll talk about that in just a second. And then verses 23 through 24, Israel is delivered from Jabin. There's a lot of names in here. So let me just run through them real quick. Deborah is the prophetess. She's the judge. Barak is the commander from Naphtali that she says, hey, you need to lead Israel into battle.

It's King Jabin from Canaan that is oppressing Israel. And the commander of his army is Siseraq.

And so Sisera is killed as a result of this battle that Deborah leads and Barak leads. King Jabin is not killed. It says there in the end of the chapter though in verses 23 and 24 that as Israel grew stronger and stronger, they were able to defeat him. So that happened later on, but this battle they win and the commander Sisera is defeated at that time.

Now, as you consider chapter four and Deborah the prophetess, she was there in the land of Ephraim. That's where she was judging. The battle takes place at Mount Tabor, which is in the kind of the northern region. They're a little bit west of the Sea of Galilee. And Hazor there at the top, that's where King Jabin was residing. That's where he lived. And he was there at the top of the land of Ephraim.

And so he was ruling from there and oppressing from there. And then the army comes down and they meet there right at Zebulon and Issachar and have the battle there. And so they're under oppression of King Jabin of Canaan for 20 years until they finally cry out to the Lord. And once again, we see this amazing grace. They forsook the Lord. And so they experienced bondage. They experienced oppression. But when they cried out,

God delivered them. They put themselves there. It was their fault. It was of their own doing. And yet when they cried out to God, He delivered them. Again, don't wait so long to cry out to the Lord. Repent quickly. Turn back quickly. Call out to Him. Don't allow bondage and oppression to continue in your life.

Well, in Judges chapter 5, we have a victory song. Verse 1 is the key verse. It says, And then the rest of the chapter is the song. And we're not going to really go into a lot of detail here. But there's a couple lessons that we can learn from this song. First of all, leaders don't always lead.

People might have the position or the title, but they don't always lead. And verse 2 says, when leaders lead in Israel, it's in

Not always something that happens. Sometimes leaders do not lead. And so it's a good opportunity for us to be reminded, hey, you have responsibility for others. God's entrusted others to you. Make sure that you lead your families. Make sure you lead those that God has called you to disciple. Make sure you lead those that God has entrusted to you. It doesn't just happen automatically. You have to do it. And so...

Bless the Lord when leaders lead in Israel.

we also see a lesson here about fighting battles on our own the lord was with them the lord raised up deborah and barak but they also called for help they called from the surrounding tribes hey guys we're going into battle come and join with us in this battle uh so that we can be victorious and so you could say hey you know as i've faced things in my life as i have these issues that i'm dealing with you know the lord's with me and so i don't need anybody else

But that's not the example that we see in the scriptures. In fact, James tells us to confess your sins to one another that you might be healed. The effective fervent prayer of the righteous man avails much. And so there's great opportunity for us to share with one another those issues, those difficulties, those things that we face that we might join together to experience victory. Well, we also see here the importance of coming to the aid of others. And

And so it's the other side of that. So we need to be willing to call out and say, hey, I need help. Help me engage in this battle. But at the same time, we need to be willing to come to the aid of others who are in need. And we do have many opportunities here in the body of Christ.

to be able to come to the aid. You know, we have people who are in hospice, who are, you know, spending their last moments and need to be encouraged and strengthened. And we have opportunity to come to their aid. We have people who are in the hospital. We have people, you know, who are going through great loss and they've experienced great sorrow. And there's opportunity for us to come to the aid.

of our brothers and sisters in the Lord. We see here from this song in chapter 5 that some of the tribes were called, but they weren't willing to go into battle. They weren't willing to engage. And so it's important for leaders to lead. It's important for us to not try to fight all of our battles on our own. And it's important for us to help others who are engaged in battles as well. Well, that brings us to Judges chapter 6.

Verse 11 is the key verse. It says,

Here in verses 1 through 10 of chapter 6, we have the oppression of Israel described, which was happening by the Midianites. Now, we get a real good picture here of what was going on. This was quite a severe oppression. The Midianites would come through and consume all of their harvest.

And so this is why Gideon is there in the wine press. He's hiding the little bit of wheat that he has so that it's not consumed by the Midianites. It tells us in verse 2, because of the Midianites, the children of Israel made for themselves the dens, the caves, and the strongholds which are in the mountains. And so this oppression is so severe that the people of Israel are hiding in the mountains in caves.

They're not in their cities. They're not in their homes. But, you know, they've relocated because the oppression of the Midianites is so severe. And so they're really humbled at this time. They're really brought low as a result of the oppression of the Midianites. And that's described there in verses 1 through 10.

And so again, it takes some time, but the people of Israel cry out to the Lord. And so now God is going to bring Gideon as their deliverer. Verses 11 through 12, we have the angel of the Lord appearing to Gideon. It's Jesus appearing to Gideon there in the threshing floor as he's hiding from the Midianites. And he calls Gideon to destroy the altar of Baal there in verses 25 through 32. Gideon goes ahead and does that.

And then God says, hey, look, I'm going to use you to deliver Israel from the Midianites. And Gideon says, I'm not so sure about that. How can I know for sure? And so verses 33 through 40 describes his test that he gave to the Lord to kind of confirm that this really was something that God wanted him to do.

What I thought was interesting about chapter 6 is we see a good pattern here that before deliverance is repentance. God is raising up Gideon to deliver Israel from the Midianites, but God says, look, first things first, tear down the altar to that foreign God. Destroy the altar and

And then we'll go through the next step of delivering Israel from Midian. God wants us to deal with those false gods, with those rebellions, with that sin that's causing us to forsake the Lord.

I always like what Peter said. I think it's in Acts chapter 2 when he's talking to the nation that is responding as he's speaking. They heard the tongues. Maybe actually it's in chapter 3. It's one of those, chapter 2 or 3. And Peter says, repent and be converted that times of refreshing may come from the Lord. And that's the idea here. If you want to be refreshed, you want to be delivered, you want to be set free, well what precedes that is repentance.

We must turn from sin. We must forsake sin and turn back to the Lord. And then he does the work of deliverance. Then he does that work of refreshing and setting us free. Well, that happens. And so now God says, all right, Gideon, get ready. You're going to set Israel free. And he says, well, I'm going to do this test, Lord. Let's put out this fleece. And if the fleece is all wet...

But the ground is dry. Then I'll know it's a miracle. You really are calling me to do this. Now he had this great encounter, this amazing encounter with the angel of the Lord, Jesus appearing to him. But he's still wrestling with this. I mean, this is a big task. Again, you understand how strong the Midianites were and how severely they were oppressing Israel. Gideon's like, I'm not a valiant warrior. How is this going to happen? Lord, is this really you?

And so God does the miracle and Gideon says, well, let's try that again. Just reverse it for me, Lord. I just want to make sure this is of you. Now there's a lot of discussion within the Christian world and by Bible teachers, you know, was this okay? Was this not okay? Is it okay for us to use fleeces? And we even talk about, you know, setting your fleece before the Lord. And there's some

you know, possible good things here, but there's also some dangers here because, you know, putting a fleece before the Lord, putting before the Lord, you know, something, Lord, if you do this, then I'll know that you're calling me, you know, to do whatever it is that you have upon your heart. A lot of times that can be an excuse for us to do whatever we want to do to begin with, you know, that we set, you know, some fleece before the Lord and

And it's not really we're intending that, you know, God's going to really answer it, but we're just setting it to try to excuse ourselves to say, well, you know, God didn't do it, so I don't have to do what it is that was on my heart. And it becomes real tricky because you can't put it in a box and define it. So the bottom line is, it's really boils down to you and your relationship with the Lord.

Gideon here, he knew he'd heard from God. God doesn't rebuke him for putting this fleece out before him. He doesn't commend him for it either though. But he does later on bring another confirmation to Gideon. And so he recognizes Gideon, you've got doubts, you've got struggles and I want to help you through that.

And so there's an appropriate place that God will bring confirmation in our lives as we have things upon our hearts and we're praying, God, is this from you? And a lot of times he's going to bring confirmation. But at the same time, there is those times that he's going to speak to you and you know it's him and he wants you just to obey and he's not going to bring confirmation because you already know what he's saying and what he wants you to do.

And so it's not a hard and fast rule. You have to do a fleece. You can't do a fleece. You know, it's always wrong or it's always right. There's none of that. It really boils down to you and your personal relationship with the Lord and the way that he's working with you. And so we can't really come to a conclusion once and for all, you know, for every scenario regarding the fleece.

What we see here, again, the angel of the Lord, we saw it already in chapter 2 and chapter 6 here, the angel of the Lord and appearance of Christ. Because, of course, Jesus being God has always existed. He didn't just begin to exist when he was born. That's the miracle of what we call incarnation, where Jesus being God became God.

became man. He added humanity to his deity. And so this is an appearance of Christ before that addition of humanity to his deity. Well, Gideon was, as we're looking at the geography here, he was actually from the tribe of Manasseh. But what we see happening here in this, where's he at when he's threshing the wheat, is in this city called Ophrah.

Not Oprah, by the way, Oprah. And so that's where he is. And God is relating to him. He's, you know, pulling down the altar that's there. And he's going to go out from here to lead Israel to victory. Well, that brings us to Judges chapter 7. Verse 7 is the key verse. It says, Then the Lord said to Gideon, By the 300 men who laughed, I will save you.

and deliver the Midianites into your hand. Let all the other people go, every man to his place. So here we have an incredible thing take place. In verses 1 through 8, 300 men are chosen to go with Gideon into battle. It started out with 32,000. He blows the trumpet. He calls. He summons Israel. Hey guys, it's time to go to battle. And 32,000 people respond.

It kind of sounds like a lot until you consider the Midianites. Now it talks about them being hard to number or without number, but we do see later on, we'll see referred to that there was 135,000 of the Midianites.

So 32,000 versus 135,000, you can understand the odds are really not in their favor. It's not looking very good for them. But God says, you've got too many men. And so he says, send home anybody who's scared. Now, if I was one of the 32,000 and I'm looking at our numbers and I'm looking at their numbers, I don't really blame, you know, those 22,000 who took off because they were scared. And 10,000 are left now.

And God says, you've still got too many. Just imagine. Can you imagine Gideon's conversation with the Lord? Like, what is he talking about? How is this too many? God says, well, go to the river. Do this test. If they drink this way, if they drink that way, send those ones home. And 300 are left now. 300 are chosen. Because God says, I want to make sure that I get the glory for this. That Israel doesn't say,

Yeah, man, we were outnumbered, 32,000 to 135,000, but we're strong and we were victorious. He doesn't want to give room for Israel to have any kind of glory, and so he reduces it down to 300.

I really like what Warren Wiersbe had to say about this. He said, when God strips away your resources, it is not to impoverish your life, but to enrich your faith. You know, sometimes God does that. He does those reductions in our life. And it's not to remove or impoverish you, but it's to enrich your faith, to extend His glory, to magnify His name.

Well, in verses 9 through 15, now Gideon's shaken up again. And so God gives him some assurance. He sends him down to the camp. He overhears the conversation. They're fearful of Gideon. What an amazing thing. This big army is fearful of Gideon. And so he's assured. And he comes back and he gives the instruction to the people. And in verses 16 through 25, we have his victory there that happens at Jezreel.

So here again is the map of Gideon. He's from Ephraim. He was there in Ophrah. But he goes north to the valley of Jezreel where the Midianite army is encamped.

The Midianites were joined up with the Amalekites, as well as it says the people of the east. And so it wasn't just the Midianites, but it was kind of an alliance of these three groups. They'd been oppressing Israel for seven years. And now finally, they've cried out to the Lord. God has raised up Gideon. And so they meet at the Valley of Jezreel.

Does that sound familiar? You recognize the Valley of Jezreel? Well, it's the place where the city Megiddo is, which is also known as Armageddon. This is taking place in the same place that the final battle will take place at the end of the tribulation period when Jesus Christ returns. So it's a very significant part of the nation of Israel there in the northern part at Megiddo there in the Valley of Jezreel.

And so he surrounds them. They have victory. It's amazing. It's glorious. It's supernatural. God does an amazing work. And once again, we see his amazing grace where with 300 men, God defeats this entire army. Now they're going to pursue this army and we'll see that as we continue on in chapter 8.

and looking at Gideon's life tomorrow as we do our reading. But here we get to see the victory. We get to see the amazing grace of God that as Israel cries out to him, that he delivers them. And again, they put themselves there. They forsook the Lord. They turned away from him and as a result, experienced this bondage and oppression to this great severity where they were in this very humble and impoverished position.

And for seven years they experienced this. But then they finally cried out to the Lord. And once again, this is the fifth time now so far, God has delivered them as they've cried out to Him. Don't wait so long to cry out to God. Don't wait so long. You're going to have battles. It's okay. You're going to have losses. You're going to have issues. You're going to have sin issues in your life.

That you wrestle with. That you struggle with. That creep in. That you long ago forgot about. You conquered them a long time ago. And all of a sudden, where is this coming from? You're going to have those issues. Those battles. Because again, the picture is we're in the promised land. But there's those battles there. We walk in the spirit. And there's battles that we face. And some of them will be victories. And some of them will be losses. The main point is...

don't compromise. Don't make treaties or covenants and say, well, I guess I'm just going to have to live with these issues. I've struggled with them for a while. Or God doesn't seem to be judging me. So, you know, I'm just going to set aside this portion of my territory, of my life, and just allow that to exist. That's not what God wants. We're not going to be perfect overnight. It's not going to happen all at once.

Except for when the Lord returns. Then it's going to happen all at once. And I look forward to that day. But until then there's going to be these battles. He's going to be in the process of setting us apart. And making us holy. And so we're going to be battling all along the way. But the point is we need to keep fighting. Keep battling against the flesh. Keep pursuing holiness. It's not going to happen just automatically. Pursue holiness. But when you do find yourself.

In that place where you've been involved in sin. Don't wait so long. Cry out to God quickly. Repent. Turn from your sin. The times of refreshing may come from the Lord as He delivers you. Let's pray. God, I thank you for this great illustration that you've given for us. Where over and over again we see your abundant grace. As your people call out to you, you deliver.

And so God, I pray for deliverance for those who are in bondage this evening. I pray for those who have found themselves in a place where they've harbored sin or entertained sin or made covenants and just allowed it to exist. I pray God that you would help them to renounce and forsake those things, to turn to you, to lay aside the sin and the weights, those things which so easily ensnare us.

I pray, God, that you would raise up a deliverer. Well, you have. It's Jesus. And in Jesus' name, I pray that you would set them free. You would deliver them from the bondage, from the oppression, from the destruction that sin brings. And I pray, God, that as we draw near to you, that you would help us to have victory, that you would give us strength. And Lord, that you would encourage us, that we wouldn't give up and allow sin to continue.

but that we would keep on fighting, that we would keep on struggling, that we'd keep on pushing forward in our pursuit of holiness. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. We pray you have been blessed by this Bible teaching. The power of God to change a life is found in the daily reading of His Word. Visit ferventword.com to find more teachings and Bible study resources.