Go In the Strength You Have - the Promise of Peace in the Book of Judges - Episode #157

The Burt (Not Ernie) Show

Well hey there, welcome to this episode of the podcast. As always, I am so thankful you are listening and we are continuing our look at promises in every book of the Bible. Today we are in the Old Testament book of Judges, and what we are going to find in this book is suitable to apply to our everyday lives, here and now, even though the events in the book of Judges happened thousands of years ago. Isn’t it great that God’s Word is helpful for us today, and isn’t dusty and crusty and inapplicable for us?

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You’re listening to The Burt (Not Ernie) Show, part of the Spark Network, which now plays in the Edifi app. This is episode number 157.

So first off, before I start on today’s promises from the book of Judges, I have to make a correction to the last episode on the book of Joshua. I misspoke and was wrong when I mentioned aspects of Biblical womanhood that could be found in Joshua. The references I was thinking of are actually found in the book of Judges, not Joshua, and so sort of like a newspaper when they run a misprint, this is a correction of my misprint or mis-speak, I guess. Totally my mistake, I was thinking the story of Jael was one book earlier than it actually is. And I certainly never want to share anything unbiblical, so the corrected info is that you can read about her in the book of Judges, specifically chapter 4.

In this episode, we are going to look at a few verses from chapter 6, Judges 6:14 first of all, then 24a and 34.

In the NLT, Judges 6:14 reads this way:

Then the LORD turned to him and said, “Go with the strength you have, and rescue Israel from the Midianites. I am sending you!”

This is the true story of Gideon being called to a huge task, a bigger than him assignment, by the Lord. The Lord told Gideon to go in the strength he had and to rescue Israel from their oppressors. God ends this verse by saying, “I am sending you!”

Ever have a moment like this? Where you feel like the thing God is telling you to do is just so big, how can you be the one to do it? How can you get this thing across the starting line, let alone across the finish line? And you may want Him to tell you He is sending you all sorts of folks to help you out, or to give you some kind of power or ability to do this work, or to maybe do something different than just tell you to go in the strength that you have (cuz man, I know at times my strength can seem like it’s so minimal, so miniscule, so minute…how can I do anything for the Lord?) God says go in the strength you have and firmly tells Gideon, “I am sending you.” The go is kind of reiterated here.

When God tells us to go, do we go? Or do we delay? Just for your own personal thought, do you go or do you sort of hang tight, hold off for a bit, maybe even be slow about going when you know the Lord means for you to go right away and to obey Him immediately.

In my life, I have found that when I obey the Lord and go when He says to get moving on something, He takes my small strength and He blesses me and my work, giving me what I need to accomplish His will. But I have had to get started in order to find out that He will supply what I need as I need it. Not sure if that is encouraging at all to you, but it has been true for me at times.

Verse 24 part a, the first part of this verse, says:

And Gideon built an altar to the LORD there and named it Yahweh-Shalom (which means “the LORD is peace”).

So between verse 14 and verse 24, what happened exactly? In verse 16 God promised to be with Gideon, in verse 22 Gideon realized he was not talking with any angel, but with the Lord (there was an offering Gideon made and verse 21 says the angel of the LORD touched the meat and bread with the tip of His staff and fire flamed up from the rock and consumed it - an angel cannot accept a sacrifice, so in this passage the angel of the LORD seems to indicate a preincarnate Christ appearance. Gideon cried out, “Oh, Sovereign LORD, I am doomed! I have seen the angel of the LORD face to face!”) The Lord told him that he would not die and then Gideon built an altar to the LORD there and named it Yahweh-Shalom, the Lord is peace.

Is the Lord peace for you today? Do you have the peace that Jesus promised in John 14:27? If so, praise God! What a gift! We can face so much and not be moved or shaken, our cages don’t get rattled and our stress is just right around nil when we are living with the Lord’s peace in and on our lives. But when we aren’t peaceful because we aren’t peace filled, I guess you could say, we can get rattled and stressed and live under life’s circumstances instead of being more than conquerors through Him who loved us, as it says in Romans 8.

God is today, this very day, Yahweh-Shalom. It is one of the names of God we find in the Bible, and it really is who He is. The Lord is peace. If you need peace today, peace of mind, peace in your heart, peace in your workplace, peace regarding a prodigal or a health diagnosis or peace in a relationship, peace at all, then God has what you need. You know one thing that I really love about podcasts is the ability to hit the little pause button right there on my phone and take a moment if I need to. Sometimes to jot down something, make a note in my phone, or to hit pause so I can literally pause and pray. This may be a good time to pause and pray and ask God to give you the full amount of the peace that Jesus promised to you in the book of John. Ask Him for what you need, do that regularly, and if you need peace, this is a really great time, the perfect time, to ask for it. I do believe He will give it to you, because it was promised by Jesus and God keeps all of His promises. Peace be unto you, and as I say that, I really do mean it and I have prayed for that to be your reality. Peace be unto you today, in Jesus name, my friend.

Judges 6:34 NLT - Then the Spirit of the LORD clothed Gideon with power. He blew a ram’s horn as a call to arms, and the men of the clan of Abiezer came to him.

Now we see Gideon sort of stepping up and stepping out boldly. He’s done some very brave things just prior to this verse, tearing down the altar of the pagan god Baal and earning the disdain of a lot of people, his own people, those who were Israelites and were said to belong to the Lord, but were upset when their altar to their false god was torn down…if God calls you to be a dismantler or idols in your culture, in your family, and remember Gideon had to dismantle idols among his own people in his own town, so if God calls you to be a dismantler of idols in your ahem maybe your church, you may not be voted “Most Popular Church Member”. Just saying! Gideon was not the popular guy at this point. But he was the obedient guy, and what comes in the next few chapter of Judges reveals that God did a great work on behalf of all Israel via Gideon and his army (but it ended up being a pretty small army…also good to note, you may not have a ton of people in your corner. Maybe that’s uncomfortable, but not abnormal when doing Kingdom work at the Lord’s bidding.) And if you think it is offensive for me to even dare to hint that there could be idols among church people, well of course there can be! Money? Success? Family? Favorite sports team? Love of some kind of pleasure, maybe it’s Netflix binging and when you can’t do your binge you get really hacked off…might have an idol there. A litmus test for me, and I’m just speaking for me, not at all speaking to or about anyone else, hear me on that…I am not pulling a teeny tiny sliver out of your eye while I’ve got a 2x4 sticking out of my own eye. My litmus test for me, for my life, is if I can’t set it aside with total ease, just set it down and walk away, no matter what it is, then I have to take that to the Lord in prayer and ask Him what is going on, is this an idol or on its way to becoming one? The only thing I want to not be able to walk away from is the Lord. And anything that pushes in and starts to try and take over the spot that only God can have, Jesus’ place, the Holy Spirit’s place in my life, well that just has to be dealt with. Jesus said to cut off your right hand if it causes you to sin and so, yeah, He was pretty serious about dealing with things that hinder and hamper us. Anything that is moving into His place in my life, moving the One True God out and trying to move itself in as an idol for me to focus on, spend time and money and attention and give too much of myself to, an idol, well I need to be willing to cut that right out of my life, to deal with it so severely, with such a willingness to die to self and to have less of me and more of Jesus, that’s my own personal litmus test. And the severity with which I deal a death blow to the idols in my life is far faster and far more thorough and complete each time I do it. And the reference I gave of Jesus saying to cut off your hand can be found in Matthew 18 and in Mark 9, I believe.

In the remaining few verses of Judges chapter 6, we have the well known story of the fleece. Or fleeces, since Gideon prayed and asked for a specific answer regarding the fleece two times. Once he asked that God would prove to him that He was going to rescue Israel via Gideon by making a piece of fleece wet in the morning, even though Gideon placed it on the dry threshing floor. Sure enough, it was wet. The second fleece was Gideon praying and asking God to let the fleece remain dry while the ground around it was wet with dew, so likely he placed it on the ground this time and it was dry in the morning, but the ground was covered with dew. I’ve heard different viewpoints on this many times, and I’m not going to get into a this is right kind of a lecture here, that’s for sure not my place, but I will share that there have been times in my life when I have had to make really big decisions, things that could impact me and others in serious ways for the long term, and I have asked God to give me the courage and the ability to do what He was calling me to do, and not to give in to fear or panic or peer pressure or anything that was not His will. But Lord, please show me clearly and make me brave and bold and I’m asking not to avoid doing what You’ve said to do, but I’m asking to make sure I am in the center of Your will. If this isn’t You, please tell me. And if this is from You, please confirm it. My own thoughts are not what I want to depend on, my heart is, as Jeremiah said, deceitful above all things. So Lord, show me plainly and clearly and I’ll obey You. When other people could be harmed by what I do, if it isn’t of the Lord and His hand of favor and protection isn’t on me and on them…well, I’ve at times asked Him to let me know for sure if this is the right way or the wrong way. And Gideon’s two fleeces sort of reminds me of those times in my own life. And if you feel that you have an assurance about something, the kind of assurance that only God can give…cuz Gideon didn’t need man’s approval or assurance, he needed it from God Almighty. If you need that, pray and ask for it. God loves His people so very much, we can go to Him when we need that assurance that only He is able to provide.

Thanks so much for joining me today as we continue discovering what God has promised to us in the Bible, and if you’re interested, I’ll share a link in the show notes to grab the Psalm 91 audio course with some bonus material that goes beyond just the audio sessions, it’s just seven bucks right now. And next week we are going to look at the book of Ruth. Such a powerful true story that holds for us so much hope, it’s nearly too good to be true. Nearly…because our God will truly overwhelm us with His love and His goodness if we are willing to receive it. Next time, Ruth will be our focus and I’d be so honored if you’d join me for that. Hope to meet with ya then! Bye bye.