{"id":27373,"date":"2023-07-31T22:00:56","date_gmt":"2023-08-01T05:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/judges-6_1-10-copy\/"},"modified":"2023-07-18T15:16:53","modified_gmt":"2023-07-18T22:16:53","slug":"judges-6_11-27","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/judges-6_11-27\/","title":{"rendered":"God Calls Us In Spite Of Us"},"content":{"rendered":"

Judges 6:11-27 \u00a0<\/strong>Click here for Bible Verses<\/a><\/p>\n

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Hi GAMErs!<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is Judges 6:11-27.\u00a0 Let’s go!<\/p>\n

Judges 6:11-16 (NIV)<\/strong>
\n11\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0The angel of the\u00a0LORD\u00a0came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites.
\n12\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0When the angel of the\u00a0LORD\u00a0appeared to Gideon, he said, “The\u00a0LORD\u00a0is with you, mighty warrior.”
\n13\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0“But sir,” Gideon replied, “if the\u00a0LORD\u00a0is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our fathers told us about when they said, ‘Did not the\u00a0LORD\u00a0bring us up out of Egypt?’ But now the\u00a0LORD\u00a0has abandoned us and put us into the hand of Midian.”
\n14\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0The\u00a0LORD\u00a0turned to him and said, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?”
\n15\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0“But Lord,” Gideon asked, “how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.”
\n16\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0The\u00a0LORD\u00a0answered, “I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites together.”<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 13-16:\u00a0 God did not directly answer Gideon\u2019s questions and doubts about why God seemed uninvolved and unconcerned when all this oppression was happening to his people (v13).\u00a0 God could easily have pointed to all the ways that Gideon\u2019s people had broken their covenant with God and how patient God had been with the Israelites up to this point.\u00a0 But instead of focusing on that, instead of explaining anything, God gives Gideon a mission to save Israel from the hand of Midian (v14).<\/p>\n

Like Gideon,\u00a0sometimes we put the blame on God for our problems, not realizing that we are often the cause of our own problems.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Despite Gideon\u2019s questions and doubts about why God allowed this problem, and despite Gideon thinking himself unfit and unqualified to lead (v15), God still called Gideon \u201ca mighty warrior\u201d (v12) and still sent him on a mission to save Israel and promised to be with Gideon (v16).\u00a0 What can we learn from this?\u00a0\u00a0God calls us in spite of us, not because of us.\u00a0 It\u2019s because God wants to show His power through our weakness so that people would see that it is God and not us who can really do things.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Also, God sees us in ways that we might not see ourselves.\u00a0\u00a0God has a vision for the kind of person you will be that is beyond what you think of yourself.<\/strong>\u00a0 Blessed is the person who believes that vision and goes with God on it.<\/p>\n

Judges 6:17-24 (NIV)<\/strong>
\n17\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Gideon replied, “If now I have found favor in your eyes, give me a sign that it is really you talking to me.
\n18\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Please do not go away until I come back and bring my offering and set it before you.” And the\u00a0LORD\u00a0said, “I will wait until you return.”
\n19\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Gideon went in, prepared a young goat, and from an ephah of flour he made bread without yeast. Putting the meat in a basket and its broth in a pot, he brought them out and offered them to him under the oak.
\n20\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0The angel of God said to him, “Take the meat and the unleavened bread, place them on this rock, and pour out the broth.” And Gideon did so.
\n21\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0With the tip of the staff that was in his hand, the angel of the\u00a0LORD\u00a0touched the meat and the unleavened bread. Fire flared from the rock, consuming the meat and the bread. And the angel of the\u00a0LORD\u00a0disappeared.
\n22\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0When Gideon realized that it was the angel of the\u00a0LORD, he exclaimed, “Ah, Sovereign\u00a0LORD! I have seen the angel of the\u00a0LORD\u00a0face to face!”
\n23\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0But the\u00a0LORD\u00a0said to him, “Peace! Do not be afraid. You are not going to die.”
\n24\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0So Gideon built an altar to the\u00a0LORD\u00a0there and called it The\u00a0LORD\u00a0is Peace. To this day it stands in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 17-24:\u00a0 The Israelites grew up thinking that God is holy that if you see Him face to face you will die.\u00a0 That is what Gideon thought when he realized that he had seen the angel of the LORD, whom we have discussed earlier in Judges as possibly being a theophany of Jesus.\u00a0 Yet instead of striking Gideon dead, the LORD proclaimed peace to Gideon and spared his life.\u00a0 Through this experience Gideon learns that the LORD is Peace, building an altar and naming it to that effect.\u00a0\u00a0God is holy and has every right to strike sinners like us down such that we should be separated from Him forever.\u00a0 But, as He did in Gideon\u2019s life through the angel of the LORD, God through Jesus has mercy on us and proclaims peace to us.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Judges 6:25-27 (NIV)<\/strong>
\n25\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0That same night the\u00a0LORD\u00a0said to him, “Take the second bull from your father’s herd, the one seven years old. Tear down your father’s altar to Baal and cut down the Asherah pole beside it.
\n26\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Then build a proper kind of altar to the\u00a0LORD\u00a0your God on the top of this height. Using the wood of the Asherah pole that you cut down, offer the second bull as a burnt offering.”
\n27\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0So Gideon took ten of his servants and did as the\u00a0LORD\u00a0told him. But because he was afraid of his family and the men of the town, he did it at night rather than in the daytime.<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 25-27:\u00a0 Gideon lived in a society that habitually worshiped many other gods.\u00a0 God tells Gideon to tear down his father\u2019s altar to Baal as well as the Asherah pole beside it and in its place to erect an altar to the LORD.\u00a0 I believe God wants us to do the same when it comes to the idols that we otherwise are tempted to worship.\u00a0\u00a0God made us not only to be forgiven by Him, but to be worshipers of Him, not only recipients of His mercy but priests who worship Him above all other gods.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Thank You Lord that You are peace.\u00a0 In You we find our peace, our forgiveness, our reason to worship, and our calling to serve and make a difference.\u00a0 In Jesus\u2019 name, AMEN!<\/em><\/p>\n

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Copyright \u00a9 2021 Justin Lim. All rights reserved.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi GAMErs!<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is Judges 6:11-27.\u00a0 Let’s go!<\/p>\n

Judges 6:11-16 (NIV)
\n11\u00a0\u00a0The angel of the\u00a0LORD\u00a0came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites.
\n12\u00a0\u00a0When the angel of the\u00a0LORD\u00a0appeared to Gideon, he said, “The\u00a0LORD\u00a0is with you, mighty warrior.”
\n13\u00a0\u00a0“But sir,” Gideon replied, “if the\u00a0LORD\u00a0is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our fathers told us about when they said, ‘Did not the\u00a0LORD\u00a0bring us up out of Egypt?’ But now the\u00a0LORD\u00a0has abandoned us and put us into the hand of Midian.”<\/p>\n

On verses 13-16:\u00a0 God did not directly answer Gideon\u2019s questions and doubts about why God seemed uninvolved and unconcerned when all this oppression was happening to his people (v13).\u00a0 God could easily have pointed to all the ways that Gideon\u2019s people had broken their covenant with God and how patient God had been with the Israelites up to this point.\u00a0 But instead of focusing on that, instead of explaining anything, God gives Gideon a mission to save Israel from the hand of Midian (v14).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27376,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gametime-sharing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27373"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27373\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27391,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27373\/revisions\/27391"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}