#CoffeeCupKairos - Week 13

Judges 6 - Story of Gideon

1The Israelites did evil in the lord’s sight. So the lord handed them over to the Midianites for seven years. —Judges 6:1

They left the Israelites with nothing to eat, taking all the sheep, goats, cattle, and donkeys. 5These enemy hordes, coming with their livestock and tents, were as thick as locusts; they arrived on droves of camels too numerous to count. And they stayed until the land was stripped bare. 6So Israel was reduced to starvation by the Midianites. Then the Israelites cried out to the lord for help. —Judges 6:4-6

11Then the angel of the lord came and sat beneath the great tree at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash of the clan of Abiezer. Gideon son of Joash was threshing wheat at the bottom of a winepress to hide the grain from the Midianites. 12The angel of the lord appeared to him and said, “Mighty hero, the lord is with you!” —Judges 6:11-12

13“Sir,” Gideon replied, “if the lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? And where are all the miracles our ancestors told us about? Didn’t they say, ‘The lord brought us up out of Egypt’? But now the lord has abandoned us and handed us over to the Midianites.” —Judges 6:13

The Idol of Reason

The Idol of Emotion

The Idol of Passion

14Then the lord turned to him and said, “Go with the strength you have, and rescue Israel from the Midianites. I am sending you!” —Judges 6:14

15“But Lord,” Gideon replied, “how can I rescue Israel? My clan is the weakest in the whole tribe of Manasseh, and I am the least in my entire family!”
16The lord said to him, “I will be with you. And you will destroy the Midianites as if you were fighting against one man.” —Judges 6:15-16

1The lord is my light and my salvation—
so why should I be afraid?
The lord is my fortress, protecting me from danger,
so why should I tremble? —Psalm 27:1

17Gideon replied, “If you are truly going to help me, show me a sign to prove that it is really the lord speaking to me. 18Don’t go away until I come back and bring my offering to you.”
He answered, “I will stay here until you return.” —Judges 6:17-18

25That night the lord said to Gideon, “Take the second bull from your father’s herd, the one that is seven years old. Pull down your father’s altar to Baal, and cut down the Asherah pole standing beside it. 26Then build an altar to the lord your God here on this hilltop sanctuary, laying the stones carefully. Sacrifice the bull as a burnt offering on the altar, using as fuel the wood of the Asherah pole you cut down.”
27So Gideon took ten of his servants and did as the lord had commanded. But he did it at night because he was afraid of the other members of his father’s household and the people of the town. —Judges 6:25-27

1The lord is my light and my salvation—
so why should I be afraid?
The lord is my fortress, protecting me from danger,
so why should I tremble? —Psalm 27:1

36Then Gideon said to God, “If you are truly going to use me to rescue Israel as you promised, 37prove it to me in this way. I will put a wool fleece on the threshing floor tonight. If the fleece is wet with dew in the morning but the ground is dry, then I will know that you are going to help me rescue Israel as you promised.” 38And that is just what happened. When Gideon got up early the next morning, he squeezed the fleece and wrung out a whole bowlful of water.
39Then Gideon said to God, “Please don’t be angry with me, but let me make one more request. Let me use the fleece for one more test. This time let the fleece remain dry while the ground around it is wet with dew.” 40So that night God did as Gideon asked. The fleece was dry in the morning, but the ground was covered with dew. —Judges 6:36-40

“34Then the Spirit of the lord clothed Gideon with power.”

16So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now! 17This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!
18And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. 19For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. 20So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!” 21For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ. —2 Corinthians 5:16-21

COME BACK TO GOD

1The lord is my light and my salvation—
so why should I be afraid?
The lord is my fortress, protecting me from danger,
so why should I tremble? AMEN