Listen to God Even When it Doesn't Make Sense

Introduction

Good morning my friends, I hope and pray you are well and I hope your week has been a good one.

Today is the day that the Lord has made, rejoice and be glad in it.

Let me ask you a question....

How challenging is it to follow God when it doesn’t make sense to you? When you can’t see or know how He is going to accomplish the task set before you?

Truthfully, its challenging. Why?

2 Reasons come to mind. (1.) It pulls us out of our comfort zone, it challenges us more than we have been before. (2.) It requires us to exercise great faith.

Now mind you, we can expect this, we talk about this in classes, in Bible studies but when God is doing it in our lives, well it gets tougher.

Yes indeed it does, but as we return to our series on being a excellent servant for the Lord Jesus, it requires that we listen and follow God even when we don’t understand His ways.

Its a faith challenge, just like the disciples when they had fished all night but then Jesus tells them to drop their nets again on that one side of the boat. The were tired, they didn’t understand, and they were uncertain… but they did. And God provided an incredible catch of fish.. and they knew it was the Lord.

What is your faith challenge at the moment? Where is God leading that you are uncertain about?

So this morning lets go check on Gideon and see the lessons the Lord can teach us through His life.

So lets find the OT book of Judges and lets look at chapter 6, verses 11-18

Judges 6:11–18 ESV

11 Now the angel of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites. 12 And the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, “The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor.” 13 And Gideon said to him, “Please, my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian.” 14 And the Lord turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian; do not I send you?” 15 And he said to him, “Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.” 16 And the Lord said to him, “But I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man.” 17 And he said to him, “If now I have found favor in your eyes, then show me a sign that it is you who speak with me. 18 Please do not depart from here until I come to you and bring out my present and set it before you.” And he said, “I will stay till you return.”

So Israel has fallen into sin, they have followed after other gods and the Lord has allowed the Midianites to war over them for 7 years, verse 1. Now the Midianites were the descendants of Abraham, and even Moses own father in law was a priest of Midian. But over time these clans began to war and they hated Isreal.

It’s a sad time for the nation, its people are downcast and this cycle of sin is a hard one to break.

But at the right time, God always reveals himself to His people to bring them back to His side and blessings.

So this morning I want to have you consider a few thoughts we can discover as we walk through this text..

Being a servant of God means knowing and doing the will of God, but how can this happen when we don’t understand. it requires we pay attention when God shows up and then following even when we don’t understand.

1. Tear Down Your Idols....

Consider this my friends, there are items that are easily stored up in our hearts and lives that become idols and keep us from walking with God.

Now an idol can be almost anything, in truth it is anything we worship, that we serve, that we give ourselves too more than God.

And this might step on our toes a bit right here, but idols develop so easily in our lives and they slip in when we are not aware… And suddenly its the natural parts of life.

This is what we find during the days of Gideon, the children of Israel have fallen into sin. They have abandoned the ways of the Lord, I’m sure it wasn't a mass exodus to take up the practice of idol worship. But it happened and now it seems to be the norm.

For 7 years God has given them over to the hand of Midian, but now the Lord is once again calling the Israelites to come and follow Him. And he shows up in perhaps a unlikely place, in the presence of Gideon.

Gideon is a good man, but like humanity, he is full of doubts, uncertainties and truthfully Gideon sees himself as weak, his clan the smallest of Israel and honestly unable to do anything for good let alone God

** Gideon represents so much of humanity, for how often do we consider our life to be similar.

But here is some truth for you… God always knows different. (GYSOT)

God has a special mission for Gideon and it begins withe the command to tear down their idols...

Lets jump ahead and look at verses 25-27 here in chapter 6

Judges 6:25–27 ESV

25 That night the Lord said to him, “Take your father’s bull, and the second bull seven years old, and pull down the altar of Baal that your father has, and cut down the Asherah that is beside it 26 and build an altar to the Lord your God on the top of the stronghold here, with stones laid in due order. Then take the second bull and offer it as a burnt offering with the wood of the Asherah that you shall cut down.” 27 So Gideon took ten men of his servants and did as the Lord had told him. But because he was too afraid of his family and the men of the town to do it by day, he did it by night.

So the Lord asks Gideon to do three things…

1. Tear down these altars of false worship

2. Build a New Altar for the Lord

3. Make a Sacrifice to me....

It doesn’t seem like a lot, but for Gideon, The Lord is pushing him toward greatness. He is pushing him to be a servant.

Here is where the rubber hits the road my friends, If we are going to serve the Lord, if we are going to be his servant, we must listen even when we don’t understand and when it seems beyond our ability.

The beautiful part is this, He obeys. He goes by night because he is afraid. even going at night, the Lord doesn’t object… Not at all that we can see in the text, the Lord if blessed by our obedience.

Gideon tears down the altars of his father, the altar to baal and the asherah poles, and uses that material to build a new altar to the Lord and there He sacrifices his Father’s best bull (the second one) unto the Lord.

And God is pleased with His worship and obedience.

You see, there is always a challenge is tearing down your altars, in getting rid of those things that have swamped your time and talents and kept you from giving your best to God.

It pulls at us, it challenges us and it makes us choose. I am reminded of Joshua, our response must be “As for me and my house, I will serve the Lord.”

If that your response today?

Do you have anything that keeps your best, your first, you from God?

Tear it down and offer it up to the Lord.

Now this takes us into our second thought.

2. Don’t Be Afraid to Ask God.....

I want to remind you of this my friends, as the Lord leads your life, when you have questions, ask God. He is there for you. The Lord will help you, strengthen you and bless you as you walk in obedience to His ways.

Now Gideon does as the Lord has told him, soon there after the Midianites and the Amalekites have joined forces and come up against God’s people and we see something wonderful in Gideon's life. Look at Chapter 6, verse 34

Judges 6:34 ESV

34 But the Spirit of the Lord clothed Gideon, and he sounded the trumpet, and the Abiezrites were called out to follow him.

The Spirit of the Lord came upon Him. The Lord is empowering Gideon for the task ahead and the men from various clans respond to His call of the trumpet to come and fight...

Now here is the most wonderful thing in all the world. The Lord’s patience with us.

Let me ask you a question… How many of you second guess yourselves all the time? You know what you should do or how to do, but then you worry about it… what if this or that???

We do it, Gideon is a person who is unsure and so he asks of the Lord for help in believing, in faith, and the Lord is patient with him.

Look with me at verses 36-40

Judges 6:36–40 ESV

36 Then Gideon said to God, “If you will save Israel by my hand, as you have said, 37 behold, I am laying a fleece of wool on the threshing floor. If there is dew on the fleece alone, and it is dry on all the ground, then I shall know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you have said.” 38 And it was so. When he rose early next morning and squeezed the fleece, he wrung enough dew from the fleece to fill a bowl with water. 39 Then Gideon said to God, “Let not your anger burn against me; let me speak just once more. Please let me test just once more with the fleece. Please let it be dry on the fleece only, and on all the ground let there be dew.” 40 And God did so that night; and it was dry on the fleece only, and on all the ground there was dew.

Gideon asks for a sign of confirmation that the Lord is truly with him. If you truly intend to save Israel by my hand.. I am going to lay this wool fleece on the threshing floor. If in the morning it is wet but the ground around it is dry, then I will have my answer...

Wow… He is asking God to help him believe, to have faith that this can be accomplished. And it happens...

The beginning of verse 38 tells us all we need to know.... V.38 “And it was so....”

** Can I just interject a WOW here....

But..... Gideon asks for the Lord’s patience to do it one more time, to make the fleece dry and the ground around it to be wet with dew.

Man.... Listen God is patient with His people. In our text here Gideon is not trying to determine God’s will… No. He is asking for help with his unbelief, his doubts.

He is struggling with the assurance that he is able and that God is powerful and can use him in spite of all that he feels and believes about himself.

The truth of the matter is this…

(A.) God has already empowered him by clothing him in His Spirit.

(B.) The people have responded to his call to come and fight.

(C.) God has made him the divinely chosen leader in the nation at this time.

We struggle all the time with the ideas of are we able… My friends, we are never able… But God is....

In His unbelief He asks God for help believing, Remember that Gideon has a limited experience with God. Do you remember back earlier in the text.. around verse 13… He asks the Lord if he was with them, why were they under such conditions. The people of Israel haven’t sought God for a while and it shows, the under generation is having a crisis of belief…

When I look around I see a generation arising that is having a crisis of belief.. why, because they haven’t always witnessed the Lord presence and power in the generation before them...

That’ a whole different thought…

But remember when we are uncertain by what we see or by what we sense in God’s directions, We can ask Him for help. We can ask His for wisdom, for what we need to overcome.

My friends, don’t be afraid to ask God.... He will answer you.

God’s faithful reply gave Gideon the courage to continue in this new direction in His lfie..

I would as you a question, where do you sense God’s direction in your life?

Do you have trouble at times in believing what He is asking of you? talk to him, ask Him and believe!

God can and will do more with your life as you follow Him.

Now this leads me to my next thought, follow His commands..

3. Follow His Commands....

All that the Lord has done in Gideon’s life thus far to is prepare him for the journey forward.

To bring him from unbelief to belief so that Gideon might respond to the Lord’s direction and will for Gideon and the men with him.

The Lord is about to teach Gideon something wonderful, he is about to teach him that the He is all powerful and faithful in all His ways.

Now the Bible tells us that there were 32,000 men with Gideon, they have encamped by the spring of Harod, and the enemy, they are just north of them.

And listen to what the Lord says to Gideon...

verses 2-3, chapter 7

Judges 7:2–3 ESV

2 The Lord said to Gideon, “The people with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand, lest Israel boast over me, saying, ‘My own hand has saved me.’ 3 Now therefore proclaim in the ears of the people, saying, ‘Whoever is fearful and trembling, let him return home and hurry away from Mount Gilead.’ ” Then 22,000 of the people returned, and 10,000 remained.

The Lord told him he has to many men.... talk about a crisis of belief… what?? That is the last thing Gideon expected to hear, they are a small group compared to the armies opposing them… what do you mean to many Lord.

Here is what we know… The Lord didn’t want Israel falling back into their own way of thinking, no, God wanted to ensure the people knew He has delivered them himself.

Friends, when you examine the times the Lord has worked mightily in your life.. if there any doubt that you could only say… The Lord did this, or provided that… the Lord is the one who did it all for us..

It keeps us humble in some ways that we don’t get the big head...

Now the Lord gave Gideon a plan, tell anyone who is afraid they can return home, and we see that 22 thousand people returned to their homes leaving only 10 thousand.

Wow…

and then verse 4, the Lord tells Gideon, you still have to many? What?? I’ve allowed 2/3 of my men to go home at your command Lord and you tell me I still have to many..

I’m sure Gideon is having a crisis of unbelief at this point.. Wouldn't you??

And the Lord tells Gideon, take them down to the water to drink, I have a test for them to show you the right number you need for the battle ahead.

Look at verses 5-8

Judges 7:5–8 ESV

5 So he brought the people down to the water. And the Lord said to Gideon, “Every one who laps the water with his tongue, as a dog laps, you shall set by himself. Likewise, every one who kneels down to drink.” 6 And the number of those who lapped, putting their hands to their mouths, was 300 men, but all the rest of the people knelt down to drink water. 7 And the Lord said to Gideon, “With the 300 men who lapped I will save you and give the Midianites into your hand, and let all the others go every man to his home.” 8 So the people took provisions in their hands, and their trumpets. And he sent all the rest of Israel every man to his tent, but retained the 300 men. And the camp of Midian was below him in the valley.

Gideon’s fighting force has been reduced from 32,000 to just 300… but my friends the battle is never won by the size of the army, the Battle is won with the Lord’s help.

7,700 men returned to their homes and the Lord told Gideon with these 300, I will give the Midianites into your hand.

I love verse 7, the focus us back upon the Lord. He will do this…

I am sure that all of this troubled Gideon, I am sure His doubts were flying high, but He was obedient. He was obedient in follow the Lord’s commands.

My friends if we expect to see the blessing of the Lord, if we expect to win the victory, we must be obedient to his command. Even we we do not understand all that is happening..

32,000 men seemed like enough, but 300 is what God wanted and His ways are right...

Gideon listened to the Lord and that is what matters my friends, that is what matters...

Now just one last thought… can you guess?

When we tear down our idols, when we are not afraid to ask, when we follow His commands, we will see that the Lord is with us.

4. See that the Lord is with Us....

The Lord called for Gideon to prepare to go down against the camp. And I love this.. if you are afraid… verse 10, you and your servant Purah do down and sneak to the camp and see for yourself what I have done..

Gideon and Purah go down and listen to what they find...

Let me share these verses with you..13-15

Judges 7:13–15 ESV

13 When Gideon came, behold, a man was telling a dream to his comrade. And he said, “Behold, I dreamed a dream, and behold, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian and came to the tent and struck it so that it fell and turned it upside down, so that the tent lay flat.” 14 And his comrade answered, “This is no other than the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel; God has given into his hand Midian and all the camp.” 15 As soon as Gideon heard the telling of the dream and its interpretation, he worshiped. And he returned to the camp of Israel and said, “Arise, for the Lord has given the host of Midian into your hand.”

Now consider this, Gideon heard a man telling of a dream of a barley cake coming and rolling into camp, destroying a tent, the kings tent most likely.. and the other man said… this must be the sword of Gideon…

Do you remember where the Lord first appeared to Gideon, on the threshing floor, where the barely was separated from its chaff… The barley cake is Gideon, whom the Lord had given victory too over the enemies of Isreal.

Gideon returns to his camp and divides his men into 3 parties, there Gideon put trumpets in one hand and glass jars with torches in the other hand of these three hundred men.

They came at their enemy from 3 different side and at once they blew their trumpets and smashed the jars and it brought such confusion into the camp that the enemy turned on themselves… In desperation the enemy fled and Israel went in pursuit driving them out of the land and killed the princes of Midan.

What the children of Israel learned that day was that the Lord was with them, He gave the enemy over into their hands.. He would always be with them, he only sought for them to live in obedience to Him.

My friends in todays world and trouble, we can find hope, we can find peace and we can certainly find the Lord’w presence. But He asks us daily to examine our hearts, he asks us daily to search ourselves for anything that is impure

This morning exclaim your hearts… is there any idols that you put in front of God.

Tear them down, lay it at his feet and say no more Lord will I serve these things, I will serve you and you alone.

Ask Him when you are uncertain, seek His face and will, as a loving Father, He will guide us.

Follow His commands and see the victory He has for us as He is with us.

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