FBC Daily Devotional – August 20, 2021

Well, a good Friday morning to you. Let me ask you this from the book of Judges. Who are the most famous judges that you can think of?

Who stands out as the most common, most familiar, most famous? I would suggest probably the top two would be

Gideon and Samson. And which is the top one? I suppose that depends on the individual.

I mean, I can remember as a child hearing both of those stories, but I don't remember any songs written about Samson.

I do remember songs about Gideon. But nevertheless, I think

Gideon is probably one of the most famous judges in the book of Judges.

And in Judges chapter 6, we're presented with his call, the call that comes to him to serve and lead the forces of Israel against the

Midianites and Amalekites, these raiders that have come into the land and are tearing up the crops and stealing them and so forth.

They've been doing this for a number of years now. You read about the oppression of the

Midianites in the early verses of chapter 6, and the people of Israel have just become distressed.

They're full of fear. They have to go hide in the mountains and all this kind of stuff. And they finally cry out to the

Lord. And in previous occasions in the book of Judges, when they've been oppressed and they cry out to the

Lord, the next thing you know, we read about the Lord sending a deliverer. But in this case, he does something before sending a deliverer.

He sends a prophet. And the prophet comes to the people and says to them, this is why you're in a mess.

This is why you're in oppression. And you know, it might be good for us to listen to that message when we're in periods of times of distress.

This is not a universal statement. But sometimes the distress has come as a result of or as a consequence of a pattern of sin that we have engaged in.

In Israel's case, they had forsaken the Lord and they'd gone after idols. And they were worshipping idols instead of worshipping

God. And even Gideon's own family had an altar to Baal set up on their property.

And you can read about that in Judges 6, if you haven't already. And you know,

God eventually tells Gideon, you need to tear that altar down before you're going to go and lead my people against the

Midianites. And he does so. But nevertheless, this is the problem. This is the root of the problem, idolatry.

So he confronts the people with that. But then God in his grace calls a messenger or calls a deliverer.

And that call comes to Gideon. I want to take just a moment and just kind of zero in on that call and how it came.

It came, we read, by the angel of the Lord. Now, we have preconceived notions about what that must have looked like, right?

Well, the angel of the Lord came. So this personage came that was kind of ethereal and probably had a glowing aura about him and maybe even had wings.

I hope we know better than that. But anyway, he was a very obvious supernatural being.

That's a wrong perception. Instead, we should think of this angel of the

Lord who came to Gideon as looking like a typical man on the street, if you will.

Nothing spectacular about him. Nothing that would make us say, oh, this must be some kind of divine personage.

No. And this happened often in these angelic appearances that we read about.

You read them in Genesis, for example. How the angel of the Lord came to Abram and these other individuals, the patriarchs.

But anyway, so this would have been someone who looked just like a man. And he comes to Gideon and he says, the

Lord is with you, mighty man of valor. And Gideon is right away expressing a bitter kind of skepticism.

Well, the Lord is with us. Why are we in such oppression? Why are we in such a mess? Well, the prophet had told him why they were in such a mess.

But nevertheless, the angel of the Lord is not detracted by that.

He says, no, I'm going to be with you. You are going to lead the people and you are going to conquer the

Midianites. Well, I can't do that. Gideon says,

I'm a nobody. I'm in the least family in my tribe and I'm the youngest kid in the family.

I can't lead anybody like this. And the angel reassures him and says, no, here's what

God says. I am with you. I will be with you. This is the call to go.

He's sending him to go and lead the people. And Gideon doesn't just say, okay, here am

I, send me. He doesn't have a vision like Isaiah had.

In Isaiah 6, where he sees the Lord God sitting upon his throne, high and lifted up, and the cherubim around him saying, holy, holy, holy is the

Lord God almighty. No, Gideon sees a man. And this man has told him,

God's with you. And then what Gideon does is he first of all asks for confirmation of the messenger.

How can I know that you are really a messenger from God? And he presents this offering and the messenger that looked like just an ordinary man consumes that offering.

He has a staff in his hand, just like a walking stick. In his hand, he reaches that walking stick out and he touches the sacrifice, the offering that Gideon had brought.

And it immediately from the rock, fire spontaneously erupts and consumes the sacrifice.

And that man, the angel of the Lord, disappears. And what

God did in that was confirmed to Gideon that this is a divine call.

You can do this. I will be with you. And from there,

God further confirms him by giving him a job to do, to tear down that altar to Baal and the

Asherah pole, places of worship on Gideon's own property, property of his father.

He does so. And the Lord confirms the choice of Gideon by changing the father's heart, his own father's heart, who had set up this altar in the first place.

And when the men of the city come and they want to kill Gideon because he tore down their altar,

Gideon's dad says, no way, no way. Let Baal contend against him if there is such a person.

And God also changes the hearts of the people. So that when

Gideon says, we're going to go fight against the Midianites, they say, okay, let's go fight against the

Midianites. What God is doing here with Gideon in this chapter is confirming you are the choice.

You can do what I've equipped, what I've called you to do. I will equip you to do it. And the same is true with us, whatever our calling, it might happen to be.

God has a job for us to do, a calling that he's given us, whether it's a head of the household, as a husband, in your work, your job, your occupation, you're a housewife, you're a mother, you're a homeschool teacher, you have your career as well, that you're working and supporting of the family.

Whatever God's given you to do, he's called you to do, he equips you for the doing of it.

And you can trust him, you can trust him to use you in that capacity.

Well, this is an encouraging word from Judges chapter 6, in a dark time in Israel's history.

A good encouraging word for us in our day. Whom God calls, he confirms, he equips, he'll use.

Father, thank you for this encouragement from your word today. And I pray that we would see in this passage, your kindness, your compassion, your long -suffering, your patience, that you confirm those whom you've called to do a work for you.

And Lord, I pray that we would be encouraged by that today. We ask it in Jesus' name, amen.

All right, well, have a good rest of your Friday and a wonderful weekend. And again, if you can get out to God's house on Sunday in Sterling, we'd be glad to have you join us for services this