Land was at rest for 40 years following Deborah and Barak. Then the people did evil in the site of the Lord (Judges 6:1)

Judges 6:7-10
(English Standard Version)

7When the people of Israel cried out to the LORD on account of the Midianites, 8the LORD sent a prophet to the people of Israel. And he said to them, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel:(A) I led you up from Egypt and brought you out of the house of bondage. 9And I delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians and from the hand of all who oppressed you, and(B) drove them out before you and gave you their land. 10And I said to you, ‘I am the LORD your God;(C) you shall not fear the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell.’ But you have not obeyed my voice.” (But you didn’t listen to me.”-The Message)
-I feel our problem may not be in the listening but in the acting, there is no obedience. I believe you can hear God all day long but choose to not act.
-Often though we hear God, refuse action, but still expect God to come through, we are blinded by our “expectation of God” and His only just response to us.

SO ONCE AGAIN WE FIND OURSELVES (I MEAN ISRAEL, NO I MEAN OURSELVES IN A FAMILIAR PLACE)

GOD RAISES UP ANOTHER.

EPIC LIFE Gideon.

(THE MESSAGE) 11-12 One day the angel of God came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, whose son Gideon was threshing wheat in the winepress, out of sight of the Midianites. The angel of God appeared to him and said, “God is with you, O mighty warrior

-Just like that God Calls Gideon, I AM WITH YOU.
-I don’t know about you but I say this is what I want what I would respond to, if God just shows up in my life im Gone!
-But that is not your nature, not as the sin corrupted vessel you are.
-And You and Gideon are no different.
-Didn’t even have enough faith to believe God liked him.
-Circumstances as an excuse as we go to verse 13.

13 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.”

14 But God faced him directly: “Go in this strength that is yours. Save Israel from Midian. Haven’t I just sent you?”

- Gideon is Blaming God for the wages of sin.
Romans 6:23[For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.]
-God is not swayed by His excuse
-I AM WITH YOU…..Haven’t I just sent you. THAT is the strength that is with Gideon.
-Some of you are so busy and content with going it alone, even in failure, that you would choose it “SIN”
[SIN=missing the mark= separation from God,] over God being with you, because as painful as it is to fail, there is a perverted satisfaction in us to cultivate the illusion of “control”

-its why so many of you seek relationships, drugs, gossip, achievements, instead of allowing God to develop you. Waiting on God to correct your junk and in turn bring the right things into your life is paralyzing to your flesh, which strives to be the leader in your life.

-God is not concerned with or moved by your own grandeur but the fulfilling of His will by those whom He loves, all Glory and power and honor to him.

-Our self actualization in not impressive to God, Although like a good father whom son or daughter says with innocent enthusiasm states “look daddy I have ten fingers and ten toes!” he rejoices when we grow and define ourselves as full and whole persons. That’s great you have all your digits my child. That will come in handy.

-But just how that will come in handy we are not sure how would you know as that small child that those ten fingers could be the ticket to your destiny attending Julliard school of arts as a cello player.

-See our self-actualizations will always be limited to our field of view, its either self-consumed or God consumed.

-This is what God is seeking.

15 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.”

{14And the LORD[b] turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian;(R) do not I send you?” 15And he said to him,(S) “Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold,(T) my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.”} (ESV)

16 God said to him, “I’ll be with you. Believe me, you’ll defeat Midian as one man.”

17-18 Gideon said, “If you’re serious about this, do me a favor: Give me a sign to back up what you’re telling me. Don’t leave until I come back and bring you my gift.”

He said, “I’ll wait till you get back.”

19 Gideon went and prepared a young goat and a huge amount of unraised bread (he used over half a bushel of flour!). He put the meat in a basket and the broth in a pot and took them back under the shade of the oak tree for a sacred meal.

-This had to have taken more than 5 min, there was no Marie calendars 5 min Micowave goat meals, and a bushel of flour is about…are you ready for this? 8 gallons…so he used 4 gallons of flour . either this was the driest loaf of bread in history of it was a ton of bread.
-I get the feeling when I read this like Gideon was stalling.
-I bet this guy aint gunna wait than I just got a good meal for me and the homies to munch.
-Do we string God out like that? Sure God just wait right here ill be “right back”

20 The angel of God said to him, “Take the meat and unraised bread, place them on that rock, and pour the broth on them.” Gideon did it.

21-22 The angel of God stretched out the tip of the stick he was holding and touched the meat and the bread. Fire broke out of the rock and burned up the meat and bread while the angel of God slipped away out of sight. And Gideon knew it was the angel of God!

-Oh yeah Now you know!

Gideon said, “Oh no! Master, God! I have seen the angel of God face-to-face!”

23 But God reassured him, “Easy now. Don’t panic. You won’t die.”

24 Then Gideon built an altar there to God and named it “God’s Peace.” It’s still called that at Ophrah of Abiezer.

25-26 That night this happened. God said to him, “Take your father’s best seven-year-old bull, the prime one. Tear down your father’s Baal altar and chop down the Asherah fertility pole beside it. Then build an altar to God, your God, on the top of this hill. Take the prime bull and present it as a Whole-Burnt-Offering, using firewood from the Asherah pole that you cut down.”

27 Gideon selected ten men from his servants and did exactly what God had told him. But because of his family and the people in the neighborhood, he was afraid to do it openly, so he did it that night.

28 Early in the morning, the people in town were shocked to find Baal’s altar torn down, the Asherah pole beside it chopped down, and the prime bull burning away on the altar that had been built.

29 They kept asking, “Who did this?”

Questions and more questions, and then the answer: “Gideon son of Joash did it.”

30 The men of the town demanded of Joash: “Bring out your son! He must die! Why, he tore down the Baal altar and chopped down the Asherah tree!”
-I want you to realize here that in the times we live in. Its not always glorious to God to flaunt your calling.
-See I don’t believe Gideon was unwise in going at night he was using wisdom to accomplish what God had asked him. Now there are time in scripture where God has his people do something right out in the open. But other times you need to listen to Gods voice and decern the right way to represent HIM.
-Had Gideon went in the day he would have been killed most definitely

31 But Joash stood up to the crowd pressing in on him, “Are you going to fight Baal’s battles for him? Are you going to save him? Anyone who takes Baal’s side will be dead by morning. If Baal is a god in fact, let him fight his own battles and defend his own altar.”

32 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.”

Our God is no slack, not a punk. But the God of this world this self-indulgent world has come to lie, steal , kill, and destroy. The wage and payment of sin is delegated out according to your own faith or lack thereof.

I will stand here as long as I have breathe and declare the will, justice, truth, and law of God to you all without apology without waiver. And I will tear down every alter you have built to this world and yourself, and sin. And say to you let your God prove himself. I dare your God to manifest as my God will. I dare your God through perversion, Addiction, fear, abuse, violence, lies and hate and confusion to give you the fulfillment your heart cries out for!

Let your God prove he works.

SEX and SEXUAL PERVERSION, VANITY, DRUGS, VIOLENCE, DEPRESSION, BROKEN HOMES, AND SECOND GUESSED VOWS.

GO AHEAD STAND UP FOR THE GOD OF THIS WORLD!
WOW, HE SURE HAS PROVEN HIMSELF.
RAPE, MURDER, PHYSICAL AND EMOTIONAL ABUSE
COME ON MY ATHEIST BROTHERS AND SISTERS WHERE IS YOUR SECULAR HUMANISTIC UTOPIA.

SAVE A WHALE, HUG A TREE, TEAR A BABY FROM THE WOMB PIECE BY PIECE.

LET THE GOD OF THIS WORLD DEFEND HIMSELF

HE CANNOT.

Do not buy the lies of your culture:

God is the only Soverign, the evil ruler of this world the real satan can never trump God. Everything else is a vain substitute.

Jerub-baal :
Let sin prove itself as more healing more fulfilling, more true and righteous and just than GOD.

EPIC//LIFE

GIDEON:Part 2

Judges 6:
33-35 All the Midianites and Amalekites (the easterners) got together, crossed the river, and made camp in the Valley of Jezreel. God’s Spirit came over Gideon. He blew his ram’s horn trumpet and the Abiezrites came out, ready to follow him. He dispatched messengers all through Manasseh, calling them to the battle; also to Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali. They all came.

36-37 Gideon said to God, “If this is right, if you are using me to save Israel as you’ve said, then look: I’m placing a fleece of wool on the threshing floor. If dew is on the fleece only, but the floor is dry, then I know that you will use me to save Israel, as you said.”

38 That’s what happened. When he got up early the next morning, he wrung out the fleece—enough dew to fill a bowl with water!

39 Then Gideon said to God, “Don’t be impatient with me, but let me say one more thing. I want to try another time with the fleece. But this time let the fleece stay dry, while the dew drenches the ground.”

40 God made it happen that very night. Only the fleece was dry while the ground was wet with dew.

If your gunna call God out for a sign you better be ready to act upon it. Gideon was but still needed that.
-are you ready to act?
-or do you call God out fully intending to not really listen?

Judges 7 (The Message)

Judges 7
1 Jerub-Baal (Gideon) got up early the next morning, all his troops right there with him. They set up camp at Harod’s Spring. The camp of Midian was in the plain, north of them near the Hill of Moreh.

2-3 God said to Gideon, “You have too large an army with you. I can’t turn Midian over to them like this—they’ll take all the credit, saying, ‘I did it all myself,’ and forget about me. Make a public announcement: ‘Anyone afraid, anyone who has any qualms at all, may leave Mount Gilead now and go home.’” Twenty-two companies headed for home. (22,000) Ten companies were left(10,000).

4-5 God said to Gideon: “There are still too many. Take them down to the stream and I’ll make a final cut. When I say, ‘This one goes with you,’ he’ll go. When I say, ‘This one doesn’t go,’ he won’t go.” So Gideon took the troops down to the stream.

5-6 God said to Gideon: “Everyone who laps with his tongue, the way a dog laps, set on one side. And everyone who kneels to drink, drinking with his face to the water, set to the other side.” Three hundred lapped with their tongues from their cupped hands. All the rest knelt to drink.

7 God said to Gideon: “I’ll use the three hundred men who lapped at the stream to save you and give Midian into your hands. All the rest may go home.”

1. God calls all Glory to Himself
-God will be the only one to ever get glory in any circumstance He will not share, and is not obligated to do so.
• -God has to be first priority in all we do and the reason why we do it
• -God knows we will overlook him, and overlooking God will always breed fear because its only with him we can succeed,
• -This inevitably causes us to shrink away from any risk in our faith, and it will always be risky
• -So we naturally build ourselves up in our own schemes and pride
• -So God naturally sets us aside and chooses other ways and other people.

2. God calls you to Faith
-You will always find a reason to desert the cause of Jesus and the cross.
• -But though a religious society may be made fewer in numbers, it will gain in purity, and may expect an increased blessing from the Lord.
• -God chooses to employ such as are not only well affected, but zealously affected in a good thing.

3. Have Faith in your Call
-Do not pay attention to others actions before God’s call to action
• - we cannot just look at the forwardness/backwardness of others, or what/how they’re doing, but what God has called us 4.
• Its hard to endure when other people excel you in gifts or blessings, or in liberty, but look to your purpose not theirs: Faith

8 After Gideon took all their provisions and trumpets, he sent all the Israelites home. He took up his position with the three hundred. The camp of Midian stretched out below him in the valley.

9-12 That night, God told Gideon: “Get up and go down to the camp. I’ve given it to you. If you have any doubts about going down, go down with Purah your armor bearer; when you hear what they’re saying, you’ll be bold and confident.” He and his armor bearer Purah went down near the place where sentries were posted. Midian and Amalek, all the easterners, were spread out on the plain like a swarm of locusts. And their camels! Past counting, like grains of sand on the seashore!

13 Gideon arrived just in time to hear a man tell his friend a dream. He said, “I had this dream: A loaf of barley bread tumbled into the Midianite camp. It came to the tent and hit it so hard it collapsed. The tent fell!”

14 His friend said, “This has to be the sword of Gideon son of Joash, the Israelite! God has turned Midian—the whole camp!—over to him.”

4. God works behind the scenes
-your enemys will be put to fear by Him
• Are we seeing its always Gods first
• How arrogant would Gideon have been to not be privy to this conversation and on battle day think “He had struck fear into the army”

15 When Gideon heard the telling of the dream and its interpretation, he went to his knees before God in prayer. Then he went back to the Israelite camp and said, “Get up and get going! God has just given us the Midianite army!”

5. Be confident in Gods construction
-He is working out for your victory
• Once again stay in confidence of Him

16-18 He divided the three hundred men into three companies. He gave each man a trumpet and an empty jar, with a torch in the jar. He said, “Watch me and do what I do. When I get to the edge of the camp, do exactly what I do. When I and those with me blow the trumpets, you also, all around the camp, blow your trumpets and shout, ‘For God and for Gideon!’”

19-22 Gideon and his hundred men got to the edge of the camp at the beginning of the middle watch, just after the sentries had been posted. They blew the trumpets, at the same time smashing the jars they carried. All three companies blew the trumpets and broke the jars. They held the torches in their left hands and the trumpets in their right hands, ready to blow, and shouted, “A sword for God and for Gideon!” They were stationed all around the camp, each man at his post. The whole Midianite camp jumped to its feet. They yelled and fled. When the three hundred blew the trumpets, God aimed each Midianite’s sword against his companion, all over the camp. They ran for their lives—to Beth Shittah, toward Zererah, to the border of Abel Meholah near Tabbath.

6. When Faith and Call Meet there is no doubt God moved.
-This entire story was all God, Hes the MAN.
• In the moment there could be temptation like man everythings going our way
• Back at the camp fire recounting the deeds:
• Once again Like God had done for their previous generations:

Judges 6:13 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.”14 But God faced him directly: “Go in this strength that is yours. Save Israel from Midian. Haven’t I just sent you?”

• Once AGAIN IT WAS ALL HIM (GOD)

The substance of a life that is EPIC in faith, looks like this.
-Doing something big
-Doing something beyond imagination
-Realizing when it all goes down you were the vessel but no the power. A bowl only serves its purpose because its filled.
-You are only fulfilled when you are filled and God is head in your life.

1. Stop our planning for once
2. Surrender any thought of our future to God
3. Listen for His direction
4. Obey