Heroes and Zeroes
He
was an unlikely hero! He and his family had been under oppression of the enemy
for seven years. It was a time of punishment for the Jewish people because so
many had strayed from worshipping God since they had come out of Egypt. They
tolerated and then participated in the worship of Baal and God wanted to see
change come. God put His finger on one ordinary man, a farmer—Gideon. The story
is found in Judges 6. God sent an angel to Gideon at Ophrah. Like you and me,
he questioned the call God was placing on him. Where was this place where God
sought out Gideon? Ophrah was a small community under Midianite control. Ophrah
means “dusty”. How often do we feel we are just sitting on the dusty shelves of
life, with no hope and no future. But God chose this ‘dusty’ place to seek out
a potential hero. Gideon did not think of himself as a ‘hero.’ He thought of
himself as a ’zero’. He was just trying to survive. He would take a few sheaves
of wheat, go down into this low place where there was a wine press, and there
try to beat the grain with a stick to winnow the grain so his family would have
something to eat. The Midianites would often raid any farm that had grain and
take it for themselves or completely destroy the crop. So Gideon, fearing the
enemy, hiding in this low place, prepared just a little grain at a time.
It
was in this place of fear that God met with Gideon. How often do we find ourselves in a place of
fear that hinders us? It is interesting
to note that God did not pick on Gideon because of his fear. Instead God called
him..."God is with you, O mighty
warrior!" Gideon was in shock, “Me? A mighty warrior?” Gideon replied, "With
me, my master? If God is with us, why has all this happened to us?
Where are all the miracle-wonders our parents and grandparents told us about,
telling us, 'Didn't God deliver us from Egypt?' The fact is, God has nothing to do with
us—he has turned us over to Midian." Judges 6:13 and again he
questions this amazing call: Gideon said to him, "Me, my master? How and with
what could I ever save Israel? Look at me. My clan's the weakest in Manasseh
and I'm the runt of the litter." Judges 6:15 Have you ever felt like that? You look at your skills, your
abilities and feel like there is nothing in you that God could use. But when
God calls us, he not only prepares us, but he enables us to do what he calls us
to do. He takes our weaknesses and makes them strengths. When we feel like
nothing...God makes us something special.
Though we are filled with insecurities, God wants to fill us with
Himself. You may feel like a failure in life but God sees your potential, and
He looks beyond your vision of yourself as the ‘runt of the litter’. He sees
you as a mighty warrior. God wants you to see Him as the Almighty God. When we see God for who He really is, nothing
will be impossible for us.
When
Gideon built the altar God had instructed him to build, he names it (v24) “The
Lord is Peace” Then Gideon built an altar there to God and named it "God's Peace." God’s peace is always waiting for the obedient servant of God. This peace
becomes the source of your spiritual strength.
While Satan throws at you all the chaos he can muster, when we rest in
God’s peace, there is nothing that can disturb or alarm us. God wants you spiritually strong. He tests us
emotionally, physically and spiritually. He is looking for our obedience, our
faith, our total reliance on God. God
and you make a majority. When the fear
comes, we need to remember, 2 Timothy 1:7 (Amp)7 For God did not give us a
spirit of timidity (of cowardice, of craven and cringing and fawning fear), but
[He has given us a spirit] of power and of love and of calm and well-balanced
mind and discipline and self-control. Gideon had such a mindset. When he had his encounter with God, it filled
him with a spirit of power, love and calm. He was well-balanced, disciplined
and filled with self-control. It enabled him to stand against his father, and
to gather a mighty army to fight the Midianites. God will enable you to fight
your battles too. Don’t fear your
tomorrow. Be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit and the peace of God. The
battle is already won.
Now
the story goes on to tell us that Gideon’s father was a high priest of Baal. So
whatever God tells Gideon to do will be in direct opposition to his family and
his father. God tells Gideon to take his fathers prime seven year old bull and
offer it as a whole sacrificial burnt offering, using the Asherah pole to burn
the sacrifice. He was to tear down his Fathers altar, and build a new altar to
God. He took ten of his own servants to help him do what God told him to do.
The zero was becoming a hero! But fear was still in his heart so he did it all
at night and in the morning the people found the old altar destroyed and a bull
sacrifice burning on a new altar. Of
course this was the question of the day? “Who did this?” The answer came
back….”Gideon, son of Joash”. Now it was
Joash’s turn to accuse or defend his son. Instead, Joash chose to make Baal the
scapegoat. He told the people… “If Baal is a god in fact,
let him fight his own battles and defend his own altar." Judges 6:31 From that day onward, Gideon had a new nickname...They nicknamed Gideon that
day Jerub-Baal because after he had torn down the Baal altar, he had said,
"Let Baal fight his own battles." v 32 Every day we fight a battle against the enemy of our soul, Satan. His
desire is to draw us into his web of deceit and doubt. He attacks us when we
are down. He creates chaos in our homes and families. He steals our joy and
peace. But like Joash, we need to turn away from him and recognize that if he
has the power over us that he pretends to have, when we move into his territory
and go on the attack, we need to let him lose the battle and defend his own
‘altars’. We need to see ourselves as
the mighty warrior...the hero in the battles we face daily. We need to let
Satan fight his own battles and loose. He is a looser! With Christ on our side,
we are winners, victorious mighty warriors.
But
God, a most fierce warrior, is at my side. Those who are after me will be sent
sprawling— Slapstick buffoons falling all over themselves, a spectacle of
humiliation no one will ever forget. Jeremiah 20:11 We become mighty warriors because of the most fierce warrior
who stands at our side, who protects us on every side, who fights our battles
for us. Jesus in no wimpy Savior. We need to see Jesus the way John the
Revelator saw him….Revelation 19:11-16 Then I saw Heaven open wide—and oh! a white
horse and its Rider. The Rider, named Faithful and True, judges and makes war
in pure righteousness. His eyes are a blaze of fire, on his head many crowns.
He has a Name inscribed that's known only to himself. He is dressed in a robe
soaked with blood, and he is addressed as "Word of God." The armies
of Heaven, mounted on white horses and dressed in dazzling white linen, follow
him. A sharp sword comes out of his mouth so he can subdue the nations, then
rule them with a rod of iron. He treads the winepress of the raging wrath of
God, the Sovereign-Strong. On his robe and thigh is written, King of kings,
Lord of lords. This is no zero...he’s my hero!
J.
Johnson
Posts
