{"id":27460,"date":"2023-08-07T22:00:07","date_gmt":"2023-08-08T05:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/judges-8_13-21-copy\/"},"modified":"2023-07-25T19:53:16","modified_gmt":"2023-07-26T02:53:16","slug":"judges-8_22-35","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/judges-8_22-35\/","title":{"rendered":"Worship The Creator, Not the Creation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Judges 8:22-35\u00a0 <\/strong>Click here for Bible Verses<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Hi GAMErs!<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is Judges 8:22-35.\u00a0 Let’s go!<\/p>\n

Judges 8:22-27 (NIV)<\/strong>
\n22\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0The Israelites said to Gideon, “Rule over us–you, your son and your grandson–because you have saved us out of the hand of Midian.”
\n23\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0But Gideon told them, “I will not rule over you, nor will my son rule over you. The\u00a0LORD\u00a0will rule over you.”
\n24\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0And he said, “I do have one request, that each of you give me an earring from your share of the plunder.” (It was the custom of the Ishmaelites to wear gold earrings.)
\n25\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0They answered, “We’ll be glad to give them.” So they spread out a garment, and each man threw a ring from his plunder onto it.
\n26\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0The weight of the gold rings he asked for came to seventeen hundred shekels, not counting the ornaments, the pendants and the purple garments worn by the kings of Midian or the chains that were on their camels’ necks.
\n27\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Gideon made the gold into an ephod, which he placed in Ophrah, his town. All Israel prostituted themselves by worshiping it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and his family.<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 22-27:\u00a0 In response to being rescued from the Midianites, the Israelites offer to make Gideon and his descendants their ruler (v22).\u00a0 Gideon refuses the offer, saying that it is the LORD who will rule over them (v23).\u00a0 Notice that in verse 22 the Israelites do not credit God as having anything to do with their rescue.\u00a0 Their focus rather is man-centered.\u00a0 This shows our sinful tendency as people to want to worship and focus on created things over and above the Creator.\u00a0 This tendency to worship created things over the Creator is highlighted even more in the verses that follow: Gideon asks the Israelites for gold, makes an ephod with the gold, and the Israelites worship it.\u00a0\u00a0Beware the tendency to direct your focus and worship on created things over the Creator.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>It\u2019s this very tendency that would keep getting the Israelites in trouble and causing them to be in bondage throughout the book of Judges.<\/p>\n

Judges 8:28-35 (NIV)<\/strong>
\n28\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Thus Midian was subdued before the Israelites and did not raise its head again. During Gideon’s lifetime, the land enjoyed peace forty years.
\n29\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Jerub-Baal son of Joash went back home to live.
\n30\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0He had seventy sons of his own, for he had many wives.
\n31\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0His concubine, who lived in Shechem, also bore him a son, whom he named Abimelech.
\n32\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Gideon son of Joash died at a good old age and was buried in the tomb of his father Joash in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.
\n33\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0No sooner had Gideon died than the Israelites again prostituted themselves to the Baals. They set up Baal-Berith as their god and
\n34\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0did not remember the\u00a0LORD\u00a0their God, who had rescued them from the hands of all their enemies on every side.
\n35\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0They also failed to show kindness to the family of Jerub-Baal (that is, Gideon) for all the good things he had done for them.<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 28-35:\u00a0 Despite God using Gideon to rescue the Israelites from the Midianites, the Israelites fail to honour God or Gideon\u2019s family and return to idolatry soon after Gideon dies.\u00a0 Like gravity, the tendency to turn away from God and His commands relentlessly pulls the Israelites down.\u00a0 It is becoming clearer and clearer that\u00a0the salvation that the people ultimately need is salvation from themselves and their sin, and not just from any external oppressor<\/strong>.\u00a0 It is for this reason that God would send His Son Jesus to do what no other judge or saviour could do.\u00a0 Jesus would come not to rescue us from an external oppressor, which is only a symptom and not the root of the problem.\u00a0 Jesus would come to rescue us from our sin.\u00a0\u00a0All the imperfect judges and saviours that we meet in the book of Judges, including Gideon, are ultimately pointing to this perfect Saviour that God would one day send.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Father, You know the tendency in us to want to focus on and worship created things over You the Creator.\u00a0 Thank You for sending Your Son Jesus, the perfect judge and saviour, to save us from the root of the problem, our sin.\u00a0 Please fill me today, that my focus and hope would be on You and nothing else.\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 8:22-35.\u00a0 Let’s go!<\/p>\n

Judges 8:22-27 (NIV)
\n22\u00a0\u00a0The Israelites said to Gideon, “Rule over us–you, your son and your grandson–because you have saved us out of the hand of Midian.”
\n23\u00a0\u00a0But Gideon told them, “I will not rule over you, nor will my son rule over you. The\u00a0LORD\u00a0will rule over you.”
\n24\u00a0\u00a0And he said, “I do have one request, that each of you give me an earring from your share of the plunder.” (It was the custom of the Ishmaelites to wear gold earrings.)
\n25\u00a0\u00a0They answered, “We’ll be glad to give them.” So they spread out a garment, and each man threw a ring from his plunder onto it.
\n26\u00a0\u00a0The weight of the gold rings he asked for came to seventeen hundred shekels, not counting the ornaments, the pendants and the purple garments worn by the kings of Midian or the chains that were on their camels’ necks.
\n27\u00a0\u00a0Gideon made the gold into an ephod, which he placed in Ophrah, his town. All Israel prostituted themselves by worshiping it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and his family.
\n\u00a0
\nOn verses 22-27:\u00a0 In response to being rescued from the Midianites, the Israelites offer to make Gideon and his descendants their ruler (v22).\u00a0 Gideon refuses the offer, saying that it is the LORD who will rule over them (v23).\u00a0 Notice that in verse 22 the Israelites do not credit God as having anything to do with their rescue.\u00a0 Their focus rather is man-centered.\u00a0 This shows our sinful tendency as people to want to worship and focus on created things over and above the Creator.\u00a0 This tendency to worship created things over the Creator is highlighted even more in the verses that follow: Gideon asks the Israelites for gold, makes an ephod with the gold, and the Israelites worship it.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27464,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27460","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\/27460","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=27460"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27465,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27460\/revisions\/27465"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}