FBC Daily Devotional – August 20, 2021

Faith Baptist Church

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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?

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

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

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

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

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

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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

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

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

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

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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

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

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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.

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

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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.

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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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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.

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

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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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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

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

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

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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.

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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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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.

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

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

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

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

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

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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.

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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.

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

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

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

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

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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.

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

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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