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El Cajon SDA

Lessons From Gideon

Vincent Bujor

Do You Need A Sign From God?

Father in heaven, Lord, we thank you so much for your amazing promise, your word that stands fast though the heavens fall.

And Lord, as we dwell upon a powerful story this morning, a story of encouragement and faith, We pray that you draw us nearer to your throne, to your heart, and that we may see you face to face.

Give us your Holy Spirit, we ask in Jesus' name.

If you have attended the Bible study seminar that we had just recently, you might remember that I said that there are 2 different ways how to preach a sermon if you make it very broad.

Okay, there is the topical sermon, which means You preach about a topic like forgiveness or the Holy Spirit or something like that.

And then there is also the text-based or the textual sermon.

Now, for this Sabbath and next Sabbath, we're going to look at a story that is just found.

It's a text and we're gonna look at that text together Here's why I love text based sermons so much.

First of all, they're easy to follow you can read through them Once you get home again, you can you can study them by yourself And the cool thing about textual sermons is that when you hear them, you gain tools how to study scripture so you can do that at home as well.

When evangelists and preachers prepare a topical sermon, it requires a lot of research, a lot of more work, but a textual sermon is very powerful because you take the text, you do exegesis, that's how you call it, you dive into the text and you find out what you can get there.

Now I want to kind of set the stage here for this story that we're going to look at It's going to be a little serious, we're going to look at it not only this morning, but also next Sabbath Judges chapter 6, You have to remember that the book of Judges is dealing with probably 1 of the craziest periods that was ever recorded in history about God's people.

I mean, in the book of Judges you find remarkable stories, incredible stories, crazy stories.

Stories that make you think, oh man, what did these people do back then?

Like stories, for example, of a guy who had 70 half-brothers, not 17, but 7-0, 70 half-brothers, and 1 day he decided to kill all of them together at once.

Stories of a woman who found, who basically had made up this plan to kill her enemy and she murdered him with a tent peg.

Stories of civil wars happening, people dying, up to 10, 000 people dying at once.

And you might think to yourself, why is that stuff in the Bible?

Why do we have these stories in the book of Judges?

Well, first of all, the Bible is such an incredible book that when you are reading it, you realize that it doesn't paint a beautiful, sunny picture of how things ought to be or how the people were back then.

The Bible is inspired and it is also, you know, 1 evidence that you can also receive from, because, you know, to learn that it is inspired is that the stories are so accurate and raw and honest and sometimes even brutal that you realize the Bible is telling you straight up how wicked and selfish we humans are.

And then the Bible says in Judges 21, verse 25, that during this period, it was about the period of 1400 BC until 1050 BC, right after the Israelites had gone into the promised land, they had, you know, conquered the enemy, at least most of them, and settled in the promised land.

During This time, those about 350 years, 400 years, everyone was doing what was right in their own eyes.

If we study the context of this story here, we realize that people have become lazy.

God's people came into Canaan and God still had a work for them to do.

But they were like, you know what, now we're comfortable.

There were still people out there that were making their lives hard, but they didn't bother, they didn't care, they didn't drive them out, and God's people became kind of complacent.

Worshipping idols and graven images and all these kind of things, and there was sexual immorality, people didn't really know, The moral standards sunk lower and lower.

There was no spiritual leadership during this time.

And God, the Bible tells us, raised up judges, singular people, individuals who had to help in the case of emergency.

Let me tell you something there were some cases of emergency.

I mean it is so crazy when you read through these chapters and you have some time in the next coming months and all 1 family in this church is reading through the book of Judges at the moment.

If you haven't read through it, maybe you should do that at 1 time and just kind of read how God is delivering his people over and over and over again.

A couple years later, They fall back into idolatry.

A couple years later, they do what's wicked in God's sight again.

A couple of years later, they're becoming selfish and selfish again and again.

And by chapter 6, Israel had messed up 5 times.

5 times, at least 5 times, that's what the text says.

They were doing evil in the sight of the Lord at least 5 times, willingly leaving God, rebelling, doing evil.

And then we had an enemy, and the enemy was called the Midianites, okay?

A group of people who also lived in that region.

And the Midianites, you know, were oppressing the Israelites, so the Israelites had to flee, And they had to live in caves.

I mean When God took Israel out of Egypt That was taking them out of slavery into the land that God had for them And now we get to a point just a couple years later that Israel had to not only like not only were they oppressed by the Midianites but they had to live in caves in the land that God had chosen for them.

The Midianites and the Amalekites they destroyed the livestock and all the agriculture that the Israelites had.

So in other words they had problems getting food, they had problems with their economy.

And God's people waited 7 years before they cried out to God again.

It makes me wonder Sometimes how long are we waiting until we cry out to God when there is trouble coming?

We call our friend, we call our pastor, we call our mom, we call our siblings, we call everyone but instead of God.

It would be good to call God first, to go to prayer first and then ask God for help.

And it's so interesting, if you go to chapter 6, and open your Bibles please, we're going to follow along here.

We're just going to stay in chapter 6 this morning.

Judges chapter 6, and there you read how all of this stuff is happening and then comes this unnamed prophet This guy doesn't even have a name in scripture in verse 9 Or verse 8 and verse 9 and 10 The Lord said the prophet unto the children of Israel which said unto them thus saith the Lord God of Israel I brought you up from Egypt and brought you forth out of the house of bondage and I delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians and out of the hand of all that oppressed you oh There were many people that oppressed the Israelites and attacked them and all sorts of things, right?

God says, I did all of that for you, and I drove them out from before you, and I gave you their land, and I said unto you, I am the Lord your God.

Fear not the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell.

Some people today try to twist the story, try to make it look like the God of the Old Testament was a cruel God and a God who indulged in violence and he loved to torture people.

Are you listening to what's happening here?

God has always been loving, just, and merciful, and it was his people, it's us, that make the mistakes.

He came out of nowhere, he disappeared again, 3 verses, then he's gone.

There was a man named Gideon, and he was threshing wheat, the Bible says in the wine press.

Now if you know anything about agriculture and most of us don't, which is why I take the time now to explain this, This might really seem confusing.

The way you do it, the way you usually thresh the wheat, and by the way, threshing wheat, if you don't know what that is, right, it's separating the grain, the edible part, from all that other stuff that grows, okay?

So you take the, you know, if the grain grows, you take the grain and you want all the husks and the stalks and all that, you want that to go away.

You go into an open surface area, ideally outside where you have wind blowing, and then you thrash the wheat, you hit it, okay?

That's how you actually separate the edible part from the rest that you don't want to eat.

And once you've done that, there's still a lot of mess there.

You throw up the wheat, and usually the wind is blowing away the edible, I mean, the stuff that you don't need, right?

And the grain that's actually edible, that's the 1 you want to use for your sandwich you want to eat, okay?

That thing is falling down to the ground and you have the edible part right there.

All right, so you hit it, open surface area, you throw it up, there's some wind coming usually, right, that's ideal, and then it goes away and then you have the stuff left that you will need to eat, okay?

Now The Bible says that Gideon was threshing wheat, where?

Won’t Be The Same

Father God, Lord, we thank you and praise you so much for your faithfulness in our lives, for your love that is rock solid.

And we praise you that that faithfulness is even displayed in sinful human beings as we look into the history of faithful men and women standing up for what's right though the heavens fall.

Father may we be encouraged this morning by another story of what looked like a weak man stepping up in faith, being obedient, and being used by you, Father.

May this story become our story, and may we crush the enemy because of your power that you give us through the Holy Spirit.

Give us focus, remove distractions and temptations, and let us receive your word as you have it for us this day in Jesus name amen if you were here last week you remember that we started the story on Gideon and this was a remarkable story just the first part of it And we're gonna now cover the second part of the famous story of Gideon.

We were talking about a time period in the Bible that is kind of crazy, where a lot of crazy things happened.

People didn't know God, they didn't know what was right and wrong, and so people were kind of doing whatever they thought was right in their own eyes, the Bible says.

And so the Bible, and this is powerful about the Bible, it is an inspired book because it tells you right on point how sinful and even wicked some of the people were back then and still are today.

It's just because the Bible doesn't try to mask it and hide it, but tells you straight up how this world is like.

And we can see that in the faithful records of this book.

And I want to just say another word here on last week's sermon for those of you who were here.

Some of you are not sure what I mean by that, but We were preaching on the danger of idolatry and there's a story where Gideon throws away his father's idols.

And maybe to some of you it might have been a hard message to receive last Sabbath, but I want to tell you that you need to hold the people who stand up here accountable, that they preach the word of God.

He's sharing these things with you because there is power and freedom and joy and peace when you put your idols away.

There's nothing wrong with having a house, there's nothing wrong with having a car, there's nothing wrong with having these kind of things, but when it becomes more important than God, then God says, that's an idol, and I don't want you to have that.

And if we want to be used by God, if we want to experience wonderful peace and joy, He says, put that thing away.

You know, I'm in the same boat with you and you some of you think I'm preaching here as I have already figured everything out.

I remember many moments these last couple years where God told me hey this thing is becoming an idol.

What you're watching over and over again, this is becoming an idol.

So we're all in the same boat together and we use the word of God as a standard.

We don't want to put the standard lower, we want to rise higher and meet God where he is amen okay good that we have figured that part out I want you to open judges chapter 7 and we're gonna continue again this is a text-based sermon so this is very great for anyone who has a Bible at home and wants to kind of read again what we have covered, you can just read the story again and you can find the points that I'm sharing with you here this morning.

We're gonna just stay in Judges chapter 7 and if you don't have a Bible with you, pull out your phone or look in the pews, there is a Bible in front of you, and we're gonna pick it up right where we left it off.

Gideon had asked God for a bunch of signs, and God, in his mercy and his grace, he gave him the signs.

And so Gideon was encouraged by God, and we're going to read now verse 1 of chapter 7.

The Bible says, Then Jerobel, who is Gideon, and all the people that were with him, rose up early and pitched beside the well of Herod, so that the host of the Midianites were on the north side of them, by the Hill of Moreh in the valley.

Just for you to understand, if you look at the map in the Middle East, you have Israel here, there's the water on the left, right?

And the Midianites were a group of people that lived on the southeast, kind of like almost where Egypt is but more east right and so this this was a territory where the Midianites were now The Midianites this is the context of the story They went up to Israel to the land of Canaan that the Israelites had just received from God and they were attacking them and the crazy part about this story is the million nights were so powerful and so strong there were so many people the Bible says in verse 12 of that chapter that they lay along in the valley like grasshoppers for a multitude and their camels were without number as the sand by the seaside for a multitude.

A bunch of bugs on the floor and there's just so many you can't count them.

That's how many soldiers were camping in the valley and in fact if you do some research you find out they didn't only have the weapons and all the equipment that they needed for war, they also had animals.

Some people even say that the ratio between, you know, animals and soldiers were sometimes even up to 1 soldier per animal.

So in other words, they had camels, where you read here in the story, and I can imagine if they were the Bible tells us there were at least a hundred and 35000 Midianites in that Valley a Hundred and 30 that's more.

That's I think that's even more than the city of El Cajon right a little more Can you imagine that The whole city of El Cajon coming together, camping in 1 valley, that's how many Midianites were in that valley and they wanted to crush and attack and destroy Israel.

Now Gideon was raised up to protect God's people and to fight against them.

Now the crazy thing is, usually it was a law back then in Israel that before you go to war there's a proclamation that's being made.

If anyone just got married, let him go back to his wife.

If anyone has planted a vineyard, let him go back, let him not go to war.

If anyone has just started a family, so there are a few things that had to be said before the war, before people were going to war, and there was also a proclamation that should have been made, but Gideon wasn't doing that.

If anyone is afraid or faint-hearted, let him go home so that his fellow soldiers will not become this hardened too.

That's found in Deuteronomy chapter 20 verses 5 to 8, this proclamation.

Now Gideon wasn't making this proclamation because he was like, you can look how many Midianites are in the valley.

If I'm going to make that proclamation, oh, whoever is kind of anxious, let him go home again, I'm gonna end up with no soldiers.

Gideon ended up kind of collecting or bringing together 32, 000 soldiers, 32, 000 compared to 135, 000.

I mean, just logically speaking, who would win that war, right?

All the children here can answer that question.

That's simple math that's very easy to understand.

But then God comes to Gideon with his 32, 000 soldiers.

And the Lord said unto Gideon, the people that are with you are what?

Too many for me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel want themselves against me, saying, mine own hand have saved me.

Gideon was astonished at God saying this like are you are you you know is this are you are you meaning this God like there's there's a hundred and 35000 people that I have to fight I'm I'm barely bringing together 32, 000 and God you're telling me this is too much.

But you see in the text here in the verse it's intimated why it is not the right number, why it's too many people for God.

It's because God saw the pride and the unbelief in the hearts of the people.

Many would have been super anxious, you know, going down the valley, seeing the big multitude, oh no, we're not gonna win this.

But if God had given them the victory afterwards, the same people would have probably gone back home and said, oh, you know, we have done an amazing job.

I mean, come on guys, just 30, 000 of us versus 135, and they would have taken the victory and the credits for themselves instead of praising God.

Now 1 thing you got to really admire about Gideon is that Gideon, when the Lord said something, Gideon did it.

When God said, put away your father's idols, Gideon didn't hesitate, he didn't argue, he went away, he destroyed his father's idols.

And when God told him, hey, your army is too big, you got to bring it down, Gideon obeyed.

And he made the proclamation that's found in Deuteronomy 20.

And you know how many people went back home because they kind of got a little anxious, a little afraid?

So from 32, 000, The numbers shrank down to 10, 000 people.

There's another test that I want to give you.

It's so funny because when we read the chapter before, Gideon was testing God.

First, with a sign of his presence, and then there were 2 other tests with the fleece, you know, being wet or not wet, and the floor being wet or not wet, right?

So 3 tests, but now God says, I'm gonna put a test to your people.

We shouldn't be testing God because he's God.

But God can put that test to the soldiers.

And I want you to separate your soldiers into 2 groups how many groups 2 groups 1 group anyone who is kind of like hastily going by and just like almost like a dog grabbing water with his hand or you know and then just drinking it and then and then moving along that's the first group and everyone else who is kind of like you know kneeling down and then taking his time to to drink and putting his face into the water that's the second group does that make sense 1 group just like you know like a dog you know almost like you know eating really hate you know drinking really hastily and the other group kneeling down and just taking their time.

What do you think the better way was to drink that water?

Let me make it very simple to understand.

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Lessons From Gideon

Do You Need A Sign From God?

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