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Strategy - Gideon
Strategy - Gideon
When Life Is Running You Low....
The people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord gave them into the hand of Midian seven years. And the hand of Midian overpowered Israel, and because of Midian the people of Israel made for themselves the dens that are in the mountains and the caves and the strongholds. For whenever the Israelites planted crops, the Midianites and the Amalekites and the people of the East would come up against them.
“The people of Isreal did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.”
They would encamp against them and devour the produce of the land
They would leave no sustenance in Israel and no sheep or ox or donkey.
They came up against their livestock
Their enemies would arrive on multitude of camels and stayed until the land was completely ravaged.
And Israel was brought very low because of Midian. And the people of Israel cried out for help to the Lord.
They were so low Gideon was threshing wheat at the bottom of the winepress
A Winepress
A winepress is a pit or large vat where grapes were collected and the juice is pressed or squeezed from them and channelled into a large container.
Winepresses were usually dug in vineyards
A Threshing Floor
A flat surface prepared for the threshing of grain.
The threshing floor was usually located at the edge of a village, frequently on a large flat rock outcropping. When no flat rock was available, the threshing floor would be prepared by leveling the ground and pounding the earth to create a hard surface.”
Threshing, which was the removal of the kernel grain from the its stalk, was done by different methods, including the beating of the grain by the farmers in the case of small quantity of grain, using the animals to tread over the grain again and again and using animal-drawn machines for large quantity of grain such as the threshing sledge mentioned in Isaiah 41:15.
After the wheat stalks had been threshed, the grain was separated from the chaff with the aid of winds. As the threshed wheat was winnowed, i.e. thrown up against the wind, the chaff was blown away. The farmer would burn the unwanted things – the straw and chaff.
The time Gideon was threshing his wheat was not the best of time, and the place he was threshing wasn’t the right place, but he discovered he had to do something.
The angel of the Lord comes to a tree owned by Joash Gideon Father…
Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites
And the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, “The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor.”
The Angel of The Lord”
There are 34 times that angels are mentioned in the Bible (17 NT & 17 OT)
There are Old and New Testament references to “angels of the Lord,” “an angel of the Lord,” and “the angel of the Lord.”
It seems when “the” is used, it is specifying a unique being, separate from the other angels.
The angel of the Lord speaks as God, identifies Himself with God, and exercises the responsibilities of God.
This can be consider a “Theophany” - Theo (God) / Phany ( to Appear)
An Old Testament theophany was a manifestation of God in a physical sense.
The Angel Of God visited Abraham (Gen 18) / Moses / Joshua / Gideon / Daniel
But the Angel of the Lord is not mentioned again after the birth of Jesus.
“The Lord Is with you, O mighty man of valor.”
This is such an empowering statement.
But I can relate to Gideon response (For many you feeling about 2020)
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.”
If the Lord is with me:
Then why am I in a winepress. threshing wheat…
Why am I struggle...
Why are we going through this pandemic...
Why am I in the winepress “called life”
Because clearly I am in the wrong place trying to do the right thing!
Have you ever wondered WHY?
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?”
God was going to use Gideon to lead Isreal to strike down the Midianites
(We have to come back and deal with insecurities in Gideon leadership)
Strategy
God wanted to bring the people back into relationship with him.
God will give us the strategy to remove idols that we have built…
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 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.”
“Pull down the altar”
Gideon faced opposition for what he did…
But Gideon brings the men together to fight against Midian…
God Strategy…
He had 32,000 Men...
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.’
22,000 men dropped off....
10,000 men was ready.... - God said its still to many…
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.” 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.
This would mean that the “lappers” are not lying on their bellies but rather crouching down, still standing on their feet.
They remain alert and unexposed, which is crucial on the battlefield.
The “kneelers,” by contrast, are fully prostrated, down on their knees beside the spring.
300 Men remained!!!
God said I need some people who knows how to hold their position!
Strategy
#1 Remove Idols
#2 God’s Hand over My Hand
“lest Israel boast over me, saying, ‘My own hand has saved me.”
He wants all the glory...
He wants us to stay humble...
He wants us to rely on him...