Reclaiming the Ground, we have Surrendered.

Reclaiming the Ground We’ve Surrendered.

Reclaiming the Ground, we have Surrendered.

God helps Gideon defeat the Midianites

Jeff Pagel / General

Gospel through the Prophets /

Kids you are dismissed to Children’s Church

Next week our middle school class will begin. This is for going into 5th Grade to 8th Grade. They are meeting the 2nd and 4th Sunday mornings during our worship time. They are discussing the message from the week before

Today is the first message in our summer series; Gospel in the Old Testament Prophets; today we look at Gideon from the Book of Judges

[They] did evil in the eyes of the Lord.

We enter this story, this cycle that has been going on for 200 years and has two hundred years to go.

The alternating sin, death and abandonment with righteousness, life and confirmation of God’s presence begin about 1400 BC lasted until 1000 BC.

For 400 years God kept reminding his chosen people that He was God and there was no other.

Fast forward 3000+ years it is 2019. Look around us. God continues to bless our nation despite the evil that is going on in our boarders. Is this alternating part of the cycle where we in the United States turn our back on God? Allowing and in many ways encouraging every abomination, every evil and every sin. When does it stop, how does it stop, who stops it?

I pray for our nation that we listen when the next Billy Graham, Hudson Taylor, Dwight Moody, Charles Spurgeon, or Billy Sunday comes to our nation. That we would listen and change our evil ways.

Jack Cooper and I have begun to pray for revival in our community, our state, our nation for us to return to God

This idea goes much deeper and gets very personal

• Where am I in this alternating cycle of holiness and listening carefully to God and following his commands and leading in my life.

OR

• Where am I chasing my sin and disobedience and covering it with smiles, handshakes, with giving, serving, attending. I should continue those things, but I should pray to God and seeking for spiritual revival in my own life.

Where do I go for revival in my personal life? Where do I start? Who has any idea what is going on in my life? Who could I possibly share “that” part of my life with? Who would even care that I’m struggling...?

I don’t have all the answers; I don’t even have all the questions to have all of the answers.

Let’s come back to this...

Let’s come back to this...

Open your Bibles, phones, iPad’s if you will to the book of Judges chapter 6 verse 1. In my Bible it starts on page it starts on page 272… but I guess that won’t help you much.

Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, JUDGES

[]

NIV

1 The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, and for seven years he gave them into the hands of the Midianites.

Judges 6:10 NIV

10 I said to you, ‘I am the Lord your God; do not worship the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you live.’ But you have not listened to me.”

The sinfulness of Israel is the primary cause of the ruin in the land...

The sinfulness of Israel is the primary cause of the ruin in the land...

The Israelites had more than enough excuses

• Midianites were so powerful that Israel had to flee

• Whenever Israel planted a crop they were invaded, and the crop destroyed

• The enemies of Israel didn’t spare one living thing; they ravaged the land.

In the end it was their sin that brought ruin on them.

NIV

2 Because the power of Midian was so oppressive, the Israelites prepared shelters for themselves in mountain clefts, caves and strongholds.

The Israelites abandoned their land, given to them by God and sheltered elsewhere because the Midianite problem was too BIG.

NIV

3 Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, the Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern peoples invaded the country.

NIV

33 Now all the Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern peoples joined forces and crossed over the Jordan and camped in the Valley of Jezreel.

The invaders came, without much effort turned over God’s people, took what they wanted and left the land in a ruin. they did not have to “fire a shot” usually, well guns nor gun powder even existed at the time, but it down easily.

NIV

10 “…a hundred and twenty thousand swordsmen had fallen.”

So, we know that the Midianites and Eastern peoples where 120,000 strong because here some 3 chapters later all these men fell.

NIV

5 They came up with their livestock and their tents like swarms of locusts. It was impossible to count them or their camels; they invaded the land to ravage it.

They ravaged God’s land…with no or little fight. It was not a blow the horn, launch the weapons, fire the artillery, send the tanks, then send the infantry.

It was let’s just move a group here and group there and turn over some leaders, scare people away, threaten them and then the remaining Jews looked up and saw they had been invaded and taken over and nothing of them was left.

As a result, Israel was a prisoner in its own land.

Why?

• Because of their failure to honor God

• Because of their idolatry

They have reached the bottom of the cycle; it could not get any worse for Israel. What could they possibly do?

NIV

6 Midian so impoverished the Israelites that they cried out to the Lord for help.

THEY NEEDED HELP!! THEY COULDN’T DO IT ALONE!! GOD HELP US!!!

In their cry to Lord they finally recognized their situation and turned to Jehovah God for help.

What could help them…what could get them on the right track, how could they see the error of their ways

NIV

7 When the Israelites cried out to the Lord because of Midian, 8 he sent them a prophet, who said, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I brought you up out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

“I [God] brought you out of the land of slavery.” - I brought out of your Egyptian slavery and now I’m giving you opportunity to come out of your personal slavery.

NIV

9 I rescued you from the hand of the Egyptians. And I delivered you from the hand of all your oppressors; I drove them out before you and gave you their land.

This a rebuke, God delivered Israel time and time again. Which you would have thought they would have remembered, but instead they returned to a life of sin.

NIV

10 I said to you, ‘I am the Lord your God; do not worship the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you live.’ But you have not listened to me.”

We see what the Israelites did…What can we do?

Do not return to worship of the false gods…they offer and empty promise

Where have we, where have I given my land, my body, my mind to the Midianites.

The Midianites represent evil in the land and in our minds, our hearts, our souls...

Are we caught in a cycle where we find ourselves falling far away from God…allowing satan or his minions to push us away, causing us to be prisoners in our own bodies, in our own minds?

This is a “man-thing,” this is a “woman thing,” As much as parents and grandparents try to protect and shield their kids, this is a “kid thing” … Each of us man, woman and child have given ground to our own personal Midianites and people from the East. Warriors who make their ways into our lives not by overwhelming power and takeover but in the little and “innocent” ways.

At some point we look, and we have nothing left, we are just a shell. An empty shell. The devil has convinced us that whatever we have given up is gone forever, we will always be a shell… we can never reclaim it.

satan is telling our country that individual liberty means everyone can do whatever he/she wants. The only rule is that there are no rules, no guides, no standards, morality is whatever is right in your own eyes.

And where has that gotten us…I don’t care if you are conservative, liberal or something in the middle. What is currently going on the hallowed halls of government in our nation, in our state and in our community, has gotten us ruin and a huge mess!

Let me remind you

NIV

7 When the Israelites cried out to the Lord because of Midian, 8 he sent them a prophet, who said, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I brought you up out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

God is saying, to them, I’ve got you. Christ is saying to you, to you, “I’ve got you,” “Your mine,” “I’ve already died for that sin in our life.” “I’ve already covered that sin with my blood.” “I’ve forgiven you as far is the east is from the west.”

God is saying I’m a big God. I love you enough that I sent my only son, one just like myself so that anyone and everyone has the opportunity to leave our caves where we are hiding from our own personal Midianites and follow Jesus, follow God.

Judges 6:10 NIV

10 I said to you, ‘I am the Lord your God; do not worship the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you live.’ But you have not listened to me.”

Judges

NIV

13 for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

I suspect that this has hit at least one nerve...

• If you have never really accepted the Lordship and Salvation that is available and only found in Jesus Christ.

• If it’s drugs/alcohol

• If it’s the internet and porn

• if it’s gossiping

• If it’s shopping and spending

• If it’s a vengeful, vindictive attitude and behavior.

• If you are just stubborn with your parents, grandparents

• If you are just not engaged in life there is a solution

God send a prophet to Israel found it in the form of Gideon, they “called” Gideon a savior (with a small “s”).

We now serve a great big God in the form of Jesus Christ.

No matter how far away you are

NIV

But NOW [by Grace of God that is found only] in Christ Jesus, you who were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

But NOW [by Grace of God that is found only] in Christ Jesus, you who were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

That is the Gospel…even in the depths of the Old Testament we see Jesus and His once-for-all work on the cross.

If you need Saving…this is the time

There is good news for the captive Good news for the shamed There is good news for the one who walked away There is good news for the doubter The one religion failed For the good lord has come to seek and save

For the one’s mind, heart and body is enslaved

He is beauty for the blind man Riches for the poor He is friendship for the one the world ignores He is pasture for the weary Rest for those who strive For the good lord is the way, the truth, the life

HE IS OUR RESCUER!!!

Dear God, create in me a clean heart…We are now going into a time of communion. Before we do, I’d like to take this time for silent prayer as we ask God to search our hearts and search our minds and to bring any sin to mind so that we confess it and He will be faithful and forgive us

If you are holding and issue between you and another brother, take that time right now to go to them and to ask forgiveness.

Finally, we practice open communion here at First Baptist. If you are a believer welcome to our table.