Nothing Is Impossible

Text: Judges 6:1-18

Place Preached - (Mississauga International Baptist Church)

Date Preached - (01/06/02)

Introduction:   

Have you ever been in an “impossible” situation?

Have you ever experienced God’s deliverance in an “impossible” situation?

At the time Sarah Laughed, God said to Abraham…

Genesis 18:14  Is any thing too hard for the LORD?

As the Lord spoke with Jeremiah of His impending Judgment of Judah…

Jeremiah 32:27  Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh: is there any thing too hard for me?

The angel who brought word of Christ’s conception to Mary…

Luke 1:37  For with God nothing shall be impossible.

I. An Unrelenting Enemy vs.1-6

Forty years  (A Generation) has passed between chapter 5 & 6.

Israel is again bound up in the cycle of sin. (Vs.1)

This time worshipping the gods of the Amorites (vs.10).  She has forgotten the True God of Israel.

God raises up a formidable foe in the Midianites, to be a thorn to Israel.

Now Midian has an interesting background.  Came from Keturah, Abraham’s second wife. (See Gen. 25).

By this time Midian had joined in an informal alliance of Nomadic peoples with the Amalekites and other nations of the east, thus forming a powerful force of marauders against which Israel could do little to resist.

It is apparent that they came against Israel in annual predatory raids.  Vs.3-5 describes these raids.  The Midianites were like a swarm of locusts, sweeping in just before harvest, destroying and devouring everything in their path.

At these times the crops and livestock of God’s people were completely plundered.

This forced Israel to flee to the mountains and become cave-dwellers (vs.2).

The result throughout these seven years of Midianite oppression was extreme economic hardship.

In response the people cried unto the Lord. Vs.6

The people were driven to their knees, but not likely due to any true consciousness of sin, only for want of relief from their oppressors.

II. An Unnamed Prophet vs.8-10

In response to the people’s cry the Lord send them a prophet.  Vs.7-8

There is significance in the fact this prophet remains unnamed.

God had sent Him – That was important.  People were to hear the message and not the man.

His Message:

Remind the people of the Past Works of the Lord vs.8-9

Primarily their deliverance out of Egypt and their occupation of the promised land.

Reestablish the rightful place of the Lord.   “I am (STILL) the Lord your God”.

“Fear not the gods of the Amorites”

The Amorites were once a great dynasty, as a people they predated Abraham and the Babylonian empire.  They were in the days of the Judges a mountain-dwelling people.

Reprove the people for their Disobedience to God’s voice. Vs.10

III. An Unlikely Deliverer vs. 11-18

It is Gideon

God, in His mercy to Israel, raises up a judge.

Gideon is one of the most fascinating of the judges, not necessarily the most outstanding.

Gideon was from one of the smallest villages of Israel and was the youngest of, and only remaining son in his family.  Which shows that God works through ordinary people to accomplish extraordinary things.

He was the son of a man named Joash, whose other sons had been killed by the Midianites.

They lived at Ophrah near the plain of Esdraelon to the south.  Ophrah was apparently a center of Baal worship (vs.25).

Explain circumstances that find Gideon Threshing wheat in the winepress.

It was not yet harvest.

Threshing wheat by hand was slow and tedious work yielding very little result.

The reason for these actions was of course fear of the invading Midianites.

NOTE the following Characteristics of Gideon’s life which are immediately apparent.

A. Fear vs.11

This account merely reveals Gideon’s humanity, not character flaws for the purpose of our criticism.

He, after all, had not bowed the knee to Baal, though all around him including his family had adopted the worship of the heathen.

B. Focus vs.11

What It Was

His concern was his own meager existence and the welfare of his family.

He is busy doing what he can to meet the legitimate need of those who depend on him.

Nothing is wrong with that, but God had more for him to see!!

ILLUS: Fear of losing our job, pressure of unpaid bills, anxieties of child-rearing/family relationships etc.  Are all legitimate concerns,  But God calls us to look above, to expand our horizons of reality.

What God would have it to Be

The Plight of the nation – The Salvation of the nation.  God’s plan was bigger than Gideon!!

Our focus should not be regional when God would have it Global.  Not temporal when it ought to be eternal!!

John 4:35  Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest.

Colossians 3:2  Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.

C. Faith vs.12-14

1. The Lord’s Appearance vs.12

2. Where is the Lord now? Vs.13

LOOK UP & READ II Corinthians 4:7-10

3. The Lord’s Commission Vs.14

“Have not I sent thee?”

D. Humility vs.15-16

Gideon’s humility is genuine.

This is just the sort of man God is looking for.

2 Chronicles 16:9  “For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him…..”

Isaiah 66:2  For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the LORD: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.

The point at which we doubt our own sufficiency is the point at which God begins to use us.

Conclusion:     (Review)