SPEAKER_00: Just a little bit of context, you may know a little bit about Gideon, and so his most famous story is the story of his 300 men, when God widows his army down to just 300 men in order to fight the Midianites.
SPEAKER_00: But he actually has more to his story than that, and so we're gonna be looking at his overall story, and so we won't get to that kind of classic one until a couple weeks from now.
SPEAKER_00: But just to give us a little bit of context of the story is that Gideon is what is called in the Old Testament one of the judges, and so it's in the book of judges.
SPEAKER_00: And so that's not a judge like in a courtroom, but you should think more of something like the Western lawman.
SPEAKER_00: You think about your Western, kind of the lawman, something like the judge, jury, and executioner.
SPEAKER_00: Because the judges in the Old Testament, they were rulers, but they were heroes, and they were complicated.
SPEAKER_00: Kind of long before the kind of modern, kind of complicated hero in Hollywood.
SPEAKER_00: We we have it here in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: And so the story of the judges, it's a story about struggle that it comes at a time when the people of Israel, they are in the promised land, and so in some sense, they have made it because of God's promise.
SPEAKER_00: They should have everything they need.
SPEAKER_00: They've been rescued from slavery in Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: They've traveled to and now settled in the land of Canaan, a land that is described as flowing with milk and honey, and yet they're struggling to live the life of faith.
SPEAKER_00: That actually following God in real life is more difficult.
SPEAKER_00: And so, because of that, then, the story of the judges, it is a story about God's grace.
SPEAKER_00: That despite the struggle of the people, God keeps showing up in incredible grace.
SPEAKER_00: And so, in that way, it's a helpful story for all of us because this is what we experience: the struggle to live out a life of faith in real life, and the need for God to continue to show up to give us his grace.
SPEAKER_00: And so, with that in mind, let's pray, and then we're going to give our attention to God's word.
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we ask that you would be with us as we look together at the story of Gideon.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, would you meet us in our struggle and give us your grace as just you can?
SPEAKER_00: We ask this in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: So, Judges chapter 6, we'll be reading verses 1 through 24 this morning.
SPEAKER_00: It can be found on page 242 if you're using the church Bible.
SPEAKER_00: And so Judges chapter 6, beginning in verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: The people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord gave them into the hand of Midian for seven years.
SPEAKER_00: And the hand of Midian overpowered Israel, and because of Midian, the people of Israel made for themselves the dens that are in the mountains and the caves and the strongholds.
SPEAKER_00: For whenever the Israelites print planted crops, the Midianites and the Amalekites and the people of the east would come up against them.
SPEAKER_00: They would encamp against them and devour the produce of the land as far as Gaza, and leave no sustenance in Israel, and no sheep or ox or donkey.
SPEAKER_00: For they would come up with their livestock and their tents, they would come like locusts in number, both they and their camels could not be counted, so that they laid waste to the land as they came in.
SPEAKER_00: And Israel was bought brought very low because of Midian, and the people of Israel cried out for help to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And when the people of Israel cried out to the Lord on account of the Midianites, the Lord sent a prophet to the people of Israel, and he said to them, Thus says the Lord the God of Israel I led you up from Egypt, and I brought you out of the house of slavery, and I delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians, and from the hand of all who oppressed you, and drove them out before you and gave you their land.
SPEAKER_00: And I said to you, I am the Lord your God, you shall not fear the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell, but you have not obeyed my voice.
SPEAKER_00: Now the angel of the Lord came and sat under the Terabinth at Ophrah, which belongs to Joas the Az the Azarite, while his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press to hide it from the Midianites.
SPEAKER_00: And the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor.
SPEAKER_00: And Gideon said to him, Please, my lord, if the Lord is with us, then why has all this happened to us?
SPEAKER_00: And where are his wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us, saying, Did not the Lord bring us out up from Egypt?
SPEAKER_00: But now the Lord has forsaken us, and given us into the hand of Midian.
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord turned to him and said, Go in this might of yours, and save Israel from the hand of Midian, do not I send you.
SPEAKER_00: And he said to him, Please, Lord, how can I save Israel?
SPEAKER_00: Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house.
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord said to him, But I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man.
SPEAKER_00: And he said to him, If now I have found favour in your eyes, then show me a sign that it is you who speak with me.
SPEAKER_00: Please do not depart from here until I come to you and bring out my present and set it before you.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, I will stay until you return.
SPEAKER_00: So Gideon went into his house and prepared a young goat and unleavened cakes from an ephah of flour.
SPEAKER_00: The meat he put in a basket, and the broth he put in a pot, and he brought them to him under the terabinth and presented them.
SPEAKER_00: And the angel of God said to him, Take the meat and the unleavened cakes, and put them on this rock, and pour the broth over them, and he did so.
SPEAKER_00: Then the angel of the Lord reached out the tip of his staff that was in his hand, and he touched the meat and the unleavened cakes, and fire sprang from the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened cakes.
SPEAKER_00: And the angel of the Lord vanished from his sight.
SPEAKER_00: Then Gideon perceived that he was the angel of the Lord, and Gideon said, Alas, O Lord God, for now I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face.
SPEAKER_00: But the Lord said to him, Peace be to you, do not fear, you shall not die.
SPEAKER_00: Then Gideon built an altar there to the Lord and called it the Lord is Peace.
SPEAKER_00: To this day it still stands at Orphrah, which belongs to the Aborites.
SPEAKER_00: This is the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: So we're looking at the story of Gideon.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to have four sermons, and they're going to cover four different questions of basically questions of insecurity.
SPEAKER_00: These questions are really about idolatry.
SPEAKER_00: And so maybe you know this story from Sunday school, or at least some of it.
SPEAKER_00: If you know the Bible, you know that kind of you might think of idolatry as worshiping a statue or what the Bible calls false gods.
SPEAKER_00: But more basically, an idol is anything or anyone that we center our life around instead of God.
SPEAKER_00: And so in the Bible, the heart is the center of our lives, the command center, if you will.
SPEAKER_00: And our hearts were designed to be loving and trusting God alone.
SPEAKER_00: And so for the Israelites, their idolatry looked like this: that they knew God had rescued them from Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: They knew he had brought them into the promised land.
SPEAKER_00: But once there, it seemed like God wasn't really enough.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe God was okay for certain situations in certain parts of life, but maybe in the Canaanite land, the Canaanite gods had to be dealt with to play the game, so to speak.
SPEAKER_00: But what they found is that the false gods of the Canaanites kept letting them down.
SPEAKER_00: They made it feel like they were on their own.
SPEAKER_00: And so this is our first question of security.
SPEAKER_00: Do I have to do it on my own?
SPEAKER_00: In other words, do I have to figure it out for myself?
SPEAKER_00: You know, we kind of have an interesting relationship with that type of question.
SPEAKER_00: On the one hand, I think most of us, if pressed, we would say that we don't want to be alone.
SPEAKER_00: But on the other hand, we kind of have this fascination, this longing to be okay on our own, to be independent, the self-made man, to make it our way.
SPEAKER_00: And so just think about our kind of fascination with survivor shows.
SPEAKER_00: There's the classic, Survivor.
SPEAKER_00: You know, Survivor, it's been around since 2000.
SPEAKER_00: They've aired over 40 seasons.
SPEAKER_00: I will say I've never seen a single episode, but I know some people are huge fans.
SPEAKER_00: All I know is that you have to survive.
SPEAKER_00: Not just the elements, but of course the competition as well as people vote you off.
SPEAKER_00: You need to survive.
SPEAKER_00: Make it on your own.
SPEAKER_00: If that's not your style, there's other ones as well.
SPEAKER_00: There's the show alone, a similar type of survival show, but in this case, you're all alone, dropped in the wilderness with 10 survival items, and the point is simple: survive longer than anyone else, but do it alone.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe the strangest one yet: naked and afraid.
SPEAKER_00: I won't recommend that one.
SPEAKER_00: I doubt any of us really want to be naked and afraid, but you see, these survival shows, they do have a draw.
SPEAKER_00: We want to watch and imagine that we could.
SPEAKER_00: We could make it our own.
SPEAKER_00: We could survive.
SPEAKER_00: One of the interesting things about trying to make it our own is that we typically do it by making ourselves a slave to something else.
SPEAKER_00: And so think about the example of someone who's trying to make it in their career.
SPEAKER_00: And so at their core, they might be driven to prove themselves, to make it in their career, but in actual experience, they have to commit themselves almost religiously to their career, to their job, to their boss, to please their coworkers or clients.
SPEAKER_00: It takes everything.
SPEAKER_00: To prove ourselves, we end up enslaving ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: That's really the afraid part of survival.
SPEAKER_00: We want to make it on our own, but in order to do it, we're often driven by fear.
SPEAKER_00: The fear of being alone, of having to make it ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: And this fear-based survival technique is really what is at the heart of idolatry.
SPEAKER_00: The reality of idolatry is the temptation of humanity, often driven by fear that we cannot trust God.
SPEAKER_00: We are on our own and we need to figure it out.
SPEAKER_00: And instead of that being a position of power, independence as we expect, it turns into a position of fear and insecurity.
SPEAKER_00: To put it this way, whatever we turn to ends up turning on us.
SPEAKER_00: It drives our decision making, defines our hopes and fears, almost determines how we relate to everything.
SPEAKER_00: And so ultimately our idols oppress us.
SPEAKER_00: Ultimately, our idols oppress us.
SPEAKER_00: But thankfully, what we're going to see through the Gideon story is that God will not leave us to be oppressed by idols.
SPEAKER_00: He shows up himself graciously to set us free.
SPEAKER_00: Not to be independent alone, but to be impactful.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we were made for.
SPEAKER_00: Not the freedom to do whatever we want, but the freedom to be who God created us to be.
SPEAKER_00: And so I hope through these four weeks in Gideon that God will grow us to experience the freedom he has against the idolatry and oppression around us.
SPEAKER_00: So this is what the story of Gideon is all about.
SPEAKER_00: He's the representative of the people who will grow to become the hero that God would make him.
SPEAKER_00: And so just two points this morning to get us started in this story.
SPEAKER_00: First, the oppressive reality of idolatry, and then the gracious presence of God.
SPEAKER_00: And so, first, the oppressive reality of idolatry, that God wants us to know and in some ways to experience the oppressive reality of idolatry.
SPEAKER_00: That our idols, they promised the world, but they ultimately lead to oppression.
SPEAKER_00: And oppression is really how our story starts.
SPEAKER_00: And in particular, it looks like insecurity and isolation.
SPEAKER_00: And so if you look down at our passage in verse 1, the story begins in a classic way that happens in the book of Judges.
SPEAKER_00: It's called the S cycle.
SPEAKER_00: And so it's basically this cycle that happens over and over again.
SPEAKER_00: And so the people fall into sin.
SPEAKER_00: And so God gives them over to suffering.
SPEAKER_00: The people call out for help, supplication, and then God sends a savior, a judge.
SPEAKER_00: And so the S cycle, it happens over and over again.
SPEAKER_00: It's repeated in the book of Judges.
SPEAKER_00: And if you want to know the overall story, it kind of goes down and down and down.
SPEAKER_00: It downgrades.
SPEAKER_00: All these things get worse.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're not given much detail about the evil that the people did.
SPEAKER_00: We're only told that they once again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: We are told later that at least a big part of it was idolatry with the Canaanite gods.
SPEAKER_00: And so other parts of judges, they give us more detail about what this looked like.
SPEAKER_00: Things like child sacrifices, violence among themselves, sexual immorality.
SPEAKER_00: But in this story, in the Gideon story, the author, the writer, he gives us more detail about that second step of the S cycle.
SPEAKER_00: Not so much about the sin, but instead about the suffering.
SPEAKER_00: Because look down in verse 2.
SPEAKER_00: The hand of Midian overpowered Israel, and because of Midian, the people of Israel made for themselves the dens that are in the mountains and the caves and the strongholds.
SPEAKER_00: The writer assumes that people knew these places.
SPEAKER_00: He says, You walked past these in the mountain.
SPEAKER_00: When you're out for your jolly hike, you see the caves and the dens.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to tell you the story about how they got there.
SPEAKER_00: And the story is one of overwhelming insecurity.
SPEAKER_00: And so in verse 3 and 5, we're told the story that each fall, whenever it was time to harvest the crops that the Israelites had planted, just when the time was right to finally see the fruit from all their hard work, just when the time was right to need to see the fruit to be able to make it through the winter, what happens?
SPEAKER_00: The Midianites and the Amalekites and the people of the East, they would come up and they would devour the produce of the land.
SPEAKER_00: And so basically, the Israelites, they lived in this fertile valley, still there in the Middle East, between the Jordan River and the eastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea.
SPEAKER_00: The valley was called then the Valley of Jezreel.
SPEAKER_00: It literally means God will sow.
SPEAKER_00: God will sow, the place of the promised land.
SPEAKER_00: God would sow.
SPEAKER_00: But each harvest, instead of it being a season of feasting and thanksgiving, it was a season of oppression.
SPEAKER_00: And instead of just kind of a military conquest or even kind of enslaving the people, the Midianites instead they would ravage the land, leaving nothing behind.
SPEAKER_00: And notice how the storyteller, he kind of fills up the details for us.
SPEAKER_00: They would devour the produce of the land.
SPEAKER_00: They would leave no sustenance.
SPEAKER_00: They would take all the livestock.
SPEAKER_00: The result was like the land had been devoured by a horde of locusts.
SPEAKER_00: You know, we don't experience this in our time.
SPEAKER_00: I think the closest we can get is maybe kids, you remember that movie, The Bug's Life.
SPEAKER_00: It's a story about these bugs who are gathering in, um, the ants who are gathering in the seeds each time to prepare for winter.
SPEAKER_00: And then we have the bullies, the grasshoppers who fly in and oppress the ants each fall.
SPEAKER_00: In Africa, they still have plagues of locusts like this.
SPEAKER_00: Except for a gang of grasshoppers.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine a horde of locusts three times the size of New York City, flying in and leaving no green thing left.
SPEAKER_00: That's what it was like for the Israelites.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't a question of if, but when.
SPEAKER_00: Every time, inevitably for seven years until in verse six, Israel was brought very low because of the Midian.
SPEAKER_00: So it's incredible insecurity.
SPEAKER_00: Almost like living under terrorism.
SPEAKER_00: No safety, no food, no way to make plans for the future.
SPEAKER_00: And the way the author describes it is that this insecurity then led to overwhelming isolation.
SPEAKER_00: You see, in the face of this type of insecurity, society and community couldn't function.
SPEAKER_00: There wasn't enough to go around.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone else was competition for the little bit of food you had.
SPEAKER_00: And really, any large gathering of people meant a large gathering of resources.
SPEAKER_00: It'd be like waving a target in the air.
SPEAKER_00: Come steal it.
SPEAKER_00: And so what did people do?
SPEAKER_00: Verse two, they made for themselves the dens that are in the mountains and the caves and the strongholds.
SPEAKER_00: They went underground.
SPEAKER_00: Their communities fractured into splinters.
SPEAKER_00: Alone.
SPEAKER_00: But without the film crew to document to show how brave and independent you were, without the prize at the end to make it all worthwhile.
SPEAKER_00: What we're meant to understand here is that this physical experience of oppression, it's meant to reveal the spiritual oppression of idolatry.
SPEAKER_00: You see, for the Israelites, this is what was going on, and so look down to verses 8 through 10.
SPEAKER_00: When the prophet comes and explains what's going on, he says, despite God rescuing the people from slavery and oppression, where they had been, what happened?
SPEAKER_00: The people had not obeyed His voice, and instead they feared the gods of the Amorites in whose land they dwelled.
SPEAKER_00: You see, fearing the gods of the Amorites is the core issue of idolatry.
SPEAKER_00: Instead of centering their life around Yahweh, the covenant Lord, they allowed the false gods of the land to take over, to infringe as a center of influence.
SPEAKER_00: Kind of to put it in modern terms, they they feared that a life centered on God wouldn't be sufficient for real life problems.
SPEAKER_00: On the ground, when it came to real issues, they had to do it on their own.
SPEAKER_00: But instead of the ingenuity and independence that we often expect, they started to make decisions to orient their lives around following and pleasing these new gods.
SPEAKER_00: Notice it probably was not outright rejection of God.
SPEAKER_00: Rather, the fear that God wasn't enough, wasn't close enough, wasn't involved enough, and so they needed to kind of play the game of the local gods as well.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe this is still their land, and so we need to deal with them.
SPEAKER_00: And so what did God do?
SPEAKER_00: He gave them into the hand of Midian.
SPEAKER_00: That God makes their physical experience match their spiritual one.
SPEAKER_00: They feared and served the gods of Midian, so the Lord gave them over to the hand of Midian.
SPEAKER_00: See what life is like in that world.
SPEAKER_00: And so that they and we then could see the reality of idolatry.
SPEAKER_00: That although the idol promised everything, and out of fear the Israelites believed it, the reality is that idolatry would lead to oppression.
SPEAKER_00: And so I just want to take a moment to help us consider that this is the truth of all idolatry.
SPEAKER_00: And so think again of the example of work.
SPEAKER_00: If work becomes an idol in our life, we do, we make it the most important thing, the central part of who we are, then all other decisions get made in relation to work.
SPEAKER_00: Our hopes will be work-related, and so our fears will be as well.
SPEAKER_00: And just like in judges, the oppressive reality of idolatry is most easily seen in the extreme.
SPEAKER_00: And so what happens to the workaholic?
SPEAKER_00: The hopes of work always demand more, the fear of work drives everything else, or else you're gonna be a failure, and so ultimately it costs everything.
SPEAKER_00: And it gives oppression.
SPEAKER_00: The end result?
SPEAKER_00: The workaholic almost always ends unfulfilled and alone.
SPEAKER_00: There were always more career dreams that could have been met.
SPEAKER_00: And the cost is usually everything, especially family.
SPEAKER_00: You see, idolatry, it promises everything, but the reality is oppression, insecurity, never having enough, being enough, and isolation.
SPEAKER_00: There's an old famous quote by, I think it's um uh Warren Buffett.
SPEAKER_00: How much money do you need?
SPEAKER_00: Just a little bit more.
SPEAKER_00: You see, this is the reality of idolatry.
SPEAKER_00: It's why Jesus picks this up when he talks about the love of money.
SPEAKER_00: He says you can't serve both God and money.
SPEAKER_00: One will be central, one will be at the heart of your hopes and your fears, and everyone and everything else will be considered in relationship to what is at the center.
SPEAKER_00: The idol always needs more, more sacrifice, more time, more compromise.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus says there's no middle ground.
SPEAKER_00: There's not just too much of a good thing.
SPEAKER_00: If a thing takes the place of God as the central thing in our life, it will be used by the devil to take the place of God.
SPEAKER_00: If a thing takes the place of God as the central place in our life, it will be used by the devil to take the place of God.
SPEAKER_00: You see, the reality behind idolatry, the wizard behind the curtain, so to speak, is the devil.
SPEAKER_00: And for the Israelites, instead of playing the system, they got played.
SPEAKER_00: You see the old question of insecurity.
SPEAKER_00: Are you on your own?
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's the question the devil had for Adam and Eve in the garden.
SPEAKER_00: You can't really trust God, he's holding down on you.
SPEAKER_00: You better take it for yourself.
SPEAKER_00: It's the question the devil had for Jesus in the temptation in the wilderness.
SPEAKER_00: You can't really trust God, he's forgetting about you, you better make bread yourself.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus tells the truth in John 10.
SPEAKER_00: The thief comes only to steal and to kill and destroy.
SPEAKER_00: So if you're curious, if there's some idolatry in your life, just look for the signs.
SPEAKER_00: Insecurity and isolation.
SPEAKER_00: And we need to pay attention here, because sometimes we can excuse it as in just a period of stress, a season of pressure where you need to prioritize other things for a while, play the game for a while, and then later you can get things right with God again.
SPEAKER_00: But the identity behind anything that would take the place of God in your life is the devil.
SPEAKER_00: And what we fear, we will feed.
SPEAKER_00: And what we worship can wipe us out.
SPEAKER_00: You see it in the extremes.
SPEAKER_00: See it in the extremes.
SPEAKER_00: See the road you're on and let the extreme lesson spare you.
SPEAKER_00: For the alcoholic, everything is about the next drink.
SPEAKER_00: Never enough.
SPEAKER_00: For the workaholic, everything is second to work.
SPEAKER_00: Even some good things.
SPEAKER_00: For the person who has made an idol out of their family, everything is about the child or the spouse, sometimes even if they're not there.
SPEAKER_00: For the people pleaser, your identity, your personality, your character, it's all worth sacrificing for the proof.
SPEAKER_00: Of those around you.
SPEAKER_00: So, do you see any signs in your life of the oppressive reality of idolatry?
SPEAKER_00: We describe it in detail here, not to be ashamed.
SPEAKER_00: If we've already kind of found ourselves having sacrificed so much, maybe lost seven years, don't despair.
SPEAKER_00: You see, if God has given you over to an experience of the oppression of idolatry, he has done it because he has the freedom of his grace waiting nearby.
SPEAKER_00: One commentator has said it this way he says, No one could ever invent a God like this.
SPEAKER_00: It would be too much for guilty, sane people to hope for.
SPEAKER_00: A God who bridles his judgment to hold us in his grace.
SPEAKER_00: A God who bridles his judgment, who would give you over to suffering in order that he could hold you, sustain you, restore you in his grace.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what happens to begin the story of Gideon.
SPEAKER_00: So our second point: the gracious presence of God.
SPEAKER_00: That God rescues us from the oppression of idolatry by his gracious presence.
SPEAKER_00: And really, we see it in three ways in this story.
SPEAKER_00: God sends his prophet, his promise, and his peace.
SPEAKER_00: And so, first, the prophet is God's gracious presence.
SPEAKER_00: Notice that in verse 6, after seven years of oppression under the hand of Midian, the people, they cry out for help to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And then in verse 7 and 8, seemingly without delay, even when the repeated S cycle in the book of Judges continues on, without delay, God sends an answer and he sends his prophet.
SPEAKER_00: I think we're meant to say that before God would save his people, he needed to speak to them.
SPEAKER_00: Someone has said it this way that we may want to escape from our circumstances, but God wants us to interpret our circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we need more understanding than relief.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the message of the prophet, beginning in verse 8.
SPEAKER_00: It's basically in the form of a lawsuit or complaint.
SPEAKER_00: And so verses 8 and 9, what God has done for the people, He rescued them from Egypt, He took them to the promised land.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 10, what did God expect from the people?
SPEAKER_00: Exclusive loyalty.
SPEAKER_00: He would be their God, and they would not fear the gods of the land.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 10, the verdict.
SPEAKER_00: And so if you're in a courtroom and this is the argument being presented, what do you expect next?
SPEAKER_00: It would be the decree of judgment or punishment.
SPEAKER_00: And that's really what the oppression of idolatry would say.
SPEAKER_00: You haven't been enough.
SPEAKER_00: The gods are angry.
SPEAKER_00: But instead, notice what happens next.
SPEAKER_00: God sends his ultimate prophet with a promise.
SPEAKER_00: The promise of God's gracious presence.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, the people have failed to obey God's voice.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, they had feared the gods of the land, and they needed to know that.
SPEAKER_00: Notice that there's no overlooking that fact, no sugarcoating the truth.
SPEAKER_00: God isn't just the old man upstairs, you know, just happy that people are doing their best.
SPEAKER_00: No, this sin cycle is serious, but it is met with God's gracious presence.
SPEAKER_00: Because here's the key when God sees his people, he doesn't just see their sin, he sees their salvation.
SPEAKER_00: The end of that cycle.
SPEAKER_00: You know, and faith is often the life of faith.
SPEAKER_00: Faith requires of us to share God's perspective of what he has promised to do.
SPEAKER_00: God sees us as we are and as he is remaking us to be.
SPEAKER_00: And for him it is good as done.
SPEAKER_00: And so the life of faith is often the future promise unseen, but pulled into the present by faith.
SPEAKER_00: So look down in verse 11.
SPEAKER_00: The angel of the Lord comes to visit Gideon.
SPEAKER_00: Just notice the details.
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of a funny scene.
SPEAKER_00: And so the angel of the Lord comes down and he's sitting under the tree.
SPEAKER_00: And where is Gideon?
SPEAKER_00: He's down in the winepress.
SPEAKER_00: So verse 11, the angel comes to Gideon while Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press to hide it from the Midianites.
SPEAKER_00: And so I just want to explain a little bit of the process of winnowing here and why we might want to get some humor here.
SPEAKER_00: And so, winnowing, you know, you might imagine the process.
SPEAKER_00: You have a basket and you're shaking the produce of the field, and you're meant to kind of get the chaff to rise up and blow away, while the seed, the kernel, will stay in the basket.
SPEAKER_00: And so you shake it until all this happens.
SPEAKER_00: And so ideally, this is meant to be done on a high platform so that the wind will sweep by quickly.
SPEAKER_00: And so you would have kind of winnowing platforms, and so plateaus where you would do this.
SPEAKER_00: But where is Gideon?
SPEAKER_00: He's in the winepress.
SPEAKER_00: Down.
SPEAKER_00: Down kind of in like the cement cage, if you will.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because he's hiding.
SPEAKER_00: You see, Gideon is one of the people.
SPEAKER_00: He is oppressed by idolatry.
SPEAKER_00: He is insecure and isolated.
SPEAKER_00: The angel Lord comes and he sits under the tree, and you can imagine he kind of looks down to see Gideon down in the winepress.
SPEAKER_00: Gideon, what are you doing?
SPEAKER_00: But notice that's not what he says.
SPEAKER_00: What does he say, verse 12?
SPEAKER_00: The angel Lord appeared to him and said to him, The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor.
SPEAKER_00: And you might be tempted to think this is sarcasm.
SPEAKER_00: Like, doesn't he see what we see?
SPEAKER_00: A lone Israelite trying to winnow what little wheat he has, hunkered down in a wine press.
SPEAKER_00: Gideon seems to be weak and oppressed, just like everyone else, both physically and as we'll see later, spiritually.
SPEAKER_00: And certainly this is how Gideon felt about the situation, right?
SPEAKER_00: Because verse 13, how does he respond?
SPEAKER_00: Please, my Lord, if the Lord is with us, then why is this happening?
SPEAKER_00: Where are the wonderful deeds?
SPEAKER_00: The Lord has forsaken us.
SPEAKER_00: You know, Gideon, he's respectful, but he's not naive.
SPEAKER_00: He's kind of like kind of like, uh, come on now, let's not be sentimental.
SPEAKER_00: Don't give me any of that religious stuff.
SPEAKER_00: You see, Gideon, he seems to have known some of the stories from the good old days when God was with them, but now the story is different.
SPEAKER_00: Did you catch the key question?
SPEAKER_00: Gideon, are you alone?
SPEAKER_00: Gideon, do you have to do it on your own?
SPEAKER_00: The Lord has forsaken us.
SPEAKER_00: We're on our own.
SPEAKER_00: We have to scrape by.
SPEAKER_00: We have to do what we can to survive.
SPEAKER_00: And what must have started out just as a little dabble with the gods of the Midianites has real has now turned into real and full oppression.
SPEAKER_00: The old stories are just too old.
SPEAKER_00: And yet the Lord persists in verse 14.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord turned to him and said, Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian.
SPEAKER_00: Do not I send you.
SPEAKER_00: And we're meant to start to think, well, maybe he's serious.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe this is the next guy.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe he sees something in Gideon that we don't see.
SPEAKER_00: In verse 15, not to be easily deluded, Gideon kind of pushes back again.
SPEAKER_00: Please, Lord, how can I save Israel?
SPEAKER_00: My clan is the weakest, and I am the least.
SPEAKER_00: You notice that the Lord doesn't lose patience with Gideon.
SPEAKER_00: It's because our God is slow to anger.
SPEAKER_00: But he does get down to the most basic point, the promise.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 16, I will be with you.
SPEAKER_00: It's the trump card.
SPEAKER_00: It's really the best that God can give.
SPEAKER_00: So Dale Ralph Davis, he's a pastor in Mississippi.
SPEAKER_00: He says it this way.
SPEAKER_00: He says, basically, God has nothing else or more to offer you.
SPEAKER_00: You can go through a lot with that promise alone.
SPEAKER_00: It does not answer your questions about the details, it only provides the essential.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing about when or how or where or why, only the what or better the who.
SPEAKER_00: I will be with you.
SPEAKER_00: And that is enough.
SPEAKER_00: And in some ways, that is enough for Gideon.
SPEAKER_00: Because there's a subtle change here where he changes from kind of what you might say is the doubt of disbelief to the doubt of belief.
SPEAKER_00: A small shift.
SPEAKER_00: What a small shift.
SPEAKER_00: And yet it is striking that it is one God will honor.
SPEAKER_00: Because in verse 17, it's no longer a denial.
SPEAKER_00: Now it is a request for confirmation, a sign of acceptance.
SPEAKER_00: If I have found favor in your eyes, then show me a sign that it is you who speak with me.
SPEAKER_00: And Gideon, he kind of falls back into what was probably his kind of life in idolatry, that he'll give the idol a little something, and the idol will repay him.
SPEAKER_00: And so God says, I will be with you.
SPEAKER_00: And Gideon's like, give me a minute.
SPEAKER_00: Give me a minute.
SPEAKER_00: So he says, don't leave.
SPEAKER_00: And then notice what he does.
SPEAKER_00: He's like, he goes and bakes bread and prepares a goat.
SPEAKER_00: Who knows how long he's gone?
SPEAKER_00: It's like when you get invited over to somebody for dinner, and dinner is a long way off.
SPEAKER_00: That's what's going on here.
SPEAKER_00: We don't want to be too hard on Gideon.
SPEAKER_00: He now's no, he knows now that he's not alone, but he's wondering if that's okay, if it's a good thing.
SPEAKER_00: Because remember, he hasn't exactly been living the straight and narrow.
SPEAKER_00: He hasn't exactly been serving Yahweh alone.
SPEAKER_00: And so he wants to confirm that if God is going to be with him, it's going to be for favor.
SPEAKER_00: That's the key question.
SPEAKER_00: Are you going to be for favor?
SPEAKER_00: Have I found favor in your eyes?
SPEAKER_00: He asks for acceptance.
SPEAKER_00: And so God is gracious to give assurance, both to Gideon and then to us.
SPEAKER_00: I think this is true of God, that he is so patient with our doubts of belief.
SPEAKER_00: There are two types of doubts, the doubts of denial that could take us away, but there are doubts of belief that could lead us to God, to wonder and to hope.
SPEAKER_00: And in response to that, God gives Gideon a sign of his peace.
SPEAKER_00: And so, verse 20, the meal was prepared.
SPEAKER_00: The angel of God said to him, Take the meat and the unleavened cakes and put them on a rock and pour the broth over them.
SPEAKER_00: And he did so.
SPEAKER_00: It seems as though Gideon, he remembered a little bit of the stories.
SPEAKER_00: He remembered there were supposed to be sacrifices.
SPEAKER_00: I think unleavened bread is important.
SPEAKER_00: And so he kind of brings it out.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what he expects, probably for the angel to eat it.
SPEAKER_00: Like, hey, let's have a meal together, and you can I can know you're on my side.
SPEAKER_00: But instead, verse 21, the angel of the Lord reached out the tip of his staff, touched the meat, and a fire sprang from the rock and consumed it.
SPEAKER_00: Gideon he brought a supper.
SPEAKER_00: And you're gonna have to notice, God turned it into a sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what made the difference for Gideon.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 22, then Gideon perceived that he was the angel of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And Gideon said, Alas, O Lord God, for now I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face.
SPEAKER_00: He fears it's all over.
SPEAKER_00: But the Lord said to him, Peace be with you.
SPEAKER_00: Do not fear.
SPEAKER_00: You see, he was suddenly a sinner standing face to face with God, and yet somehow alive.
SPEAKER_00: We should notice that the angel of the Lord here is almost certainly the prefigured person of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: This isn't always the case in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: Basically, the angel of the Lord figure shows up several times, and sometimes he's treated as an angel, and so when he gets worshipped, he says, No, don't worship me.
SPEAKER_00: Other times he gets treated as God and he doesn't stop the worship.
SPEAKER_00: And so it is here.
SPEAKER_00: Notice the angel of the Lord comes, but by the end, it is the Lord himself speaking.
SPEAKER_00: And so Gideon, he had asked for a sign of acceptance, and he got a sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: It was exactly what he needed: a pre-figured appearance of the one who had fully face the fire of God's judgment.
SPEAKER_00: And so Gideon, verse 24, he builds an altar there to the Lord, and he called it the Lord is peace.
SPEAKER_00: To this day it stands at Orphrah.
SPEAKER_00: You see, this is the gracious presence of God with his people.
SPEAKER_00: Despite their sin cycle, which led to the oppression of idolatry, God would still be with them.
SPEAKER_00: Not naively, but with grace for their sin and peace with his presence.
SPEAKER_00: Are we growing to see our presence, our present, our day-to-day experience in light of God's presence?
SPEAKER_00: Are you growing to see your present situation in light of God's presence with you?
SPEAKER_00: See, when he is with you, he wants you to be restored to trust his promise.
SPEAKER_00: Through his word, through the great prophet of Jesus Christ, through his sacrifice that demands your peace.
SPEAKER_00: You see, the whole story is there.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, God takes our sins seriously, but he does not just see our sin.
SPEAKER_00: He rather sees us in light of the salvation he has planned.
SPEAKER_00: And oftentimes our growth into the people God wants us to be corresponds with the faith to believe that he is with us for our good.
SPEAKER_00: And so I want you to put yourself in the scene somewhat.
SPEAKER_00: If God were to show his presence to you, what would he call you?
SPEAKER_00: If God showed up when you were at your lowest moment, hiding, in fear, in some ways serving the idols, what would God say to you?
SPEAKER_00: Notice, he would not call you a failure, not disappointment, not struggling.
SPEAKER_00: He would want to say accepted.
SPEAKER_00: Loved, even, delightful, gifted, dare we say, even strong and mighty.
SPEAKER_00: And what he calls us, he will make us.
SPEAKER_00: This is the first of the gracious answers to our insecurity.
SPEAKER_00: We are not alone.
SPEAKER_00: We are not on our own.
SPEAKER_00: Even when we're in the midst of the suffering that comes from our sin and idolatry, God would be close to us through his presence.
SPEAKER_00: And it comes the same way through his prophet with his promise of the gospel, experienced his peace.
SPEAKER_00: And you know, the final prophet, he came again in the fullness of time.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord Jesus Christ, on behalf of humanity, prepared and presented as a sacrifice before God.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus took that sacrifice, not the one we had prepared, but the one the Father had prepared through the incarnation, and he took his body to the cross.
SPEAKER_00: And then through the resurrection and the ascension, as we saw at the end of Luke's gospel, he takes that finished sacrifice and he lifts it up into the very presence of God to intercede for us.
SPEAKER_00: So that we, who see by faith the presence of God in the face of Jesus, we might, like Gideon, say, Alas, we have seen the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Just as God would say, At last, it is finished.
SPEAKER_00: Peace be to you.
SPEAKER_00: Do not fear.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we thank you for this word.
SPEAKER_00: We pray that you would help us to receive it and believe it.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, even as we've talked generally about the reality that so many times we are called on idolatry, we need your help for each of us to be convicted individually where the idols might be oppressing us.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we ask that you would start to invite us into your freedom.
SPEAKER_00: And for this morning, would you just invite us into the reality that even if we are stuck in suffering and sin, we are not alone.
SPEAKER_00: That if you would come to us by your word and spirit, you would come not to condemn, but to save and to give us your grace.
SPEAKER_00: And so this summer, as we look through the story of Get In, would you make these small steps to give us increased freedom and life with you?
SPEAKER_00: And we ask in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.