Risk
Judges 6:11-16; 7:9-11, 13-15
There was peace in Israel for 40 years after King Jabin and his people were defeated. The Israelites began to worship other gods, and God let the Midianites oppress them. The Midianites were so cruel that the people fled to the mountains to escape. The enemies destroyed their crops and took their animals. Finally, the people had had enough and they cried out to God.
God sent them a message reminding them of His care, from their deliverance from Egypt to the present. God had kept His promises, but they had not been obedient and faithful to Him. God still loved His people and He was waiting for them to come back to Him.
God sent an angel to tell Gideon, an ordinary working man, that the Lord was with him. Gideon questioned this. He asked why Israel was suffering under Midianite oppression if God was with them. Do we sometimes ask the same question when we are going through difficult situations? The angel told Gideon that he had been chosen to save Israel from the Midianites. Gideon felt inadequate. He could not image defeating anyone, but with God working through him he could do the seemingly impossible task.
Like Gideon, sometimes we wonder where God is and why we are going through tough times. It is then we should surrender our will to Him and let Him work through us to accomplish His purpose. Gideon accepted the task and offered a sacrifice to the Lord. God told him to destroy the altar of Baal and the Asherah idol that were on his father’s property. He replaced them with an altar to the Lord.
The Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon and he sent messengers to call the troops together. Thirty-two thousand men responded. The Lord told Gideon he had too many men and to send the timid and frightened men home – 22,000 left.
The Lord said that he still had too many men. The troops were reduced to 300, so there would be no question that God had delivered the Israelites. Gideon and his 300 men, under God’s leadership, went down the mountain to the enemy camp. They blew their trumpets, broke their clay jars so their torches would blaze up, and shouted, “For the Lord and for Gideon.” Then they stood back and watched the Lord work. The enemy troops panicked and began killing each other and fleeing.
When God calls us to a task, He prepares us and provides the necessary resources for us to accomplish the task. He sends people into our lives to encourage and lift us up when doubts assail us. When we trust God to lead us, we will be amazed at what He can accomplish through us.
Johnston– Lessons in the ETB series for the summer quarter are being written by Virginia Johnston, a member of First Baptist Church, North Charleston, where her husband Dan is pastor.