Title: The Lord is with You Mighty Warrior

Series: Going Against the Flow: The Paradoxical Christian Life

Text: Judges 6:11-24a

I. The Novice and the Master

A long time ago, a little boy was taking piano lessons.

His mother hoped to encourage and inspire her young son's progress, so she took him to a concert of the world-renowned pianist, Paderewski.

Paderewski, who was born in 1860, is reputedly the "most famous and popular pianist of all times." (http://www.usc.edu/dept/polish_music/composer/paderewski.html)

The mother and her son arrived at the concert and were seated.

A few moments later, the mother spotted a friend in the audience and walked down the aisle to greet her.

Her son decided to explore the magnificent concert hall.

Eventually he walked through a door marked, "NO ADMITTANCE."

The house lights dimmed and the concert was about to begin, the mother returned to her seat and discovered that her son was missing.

Suddenly the curtains parted and spotlights focused on the impressive Steinway on stage.

In horror, the mother saw her little boy sitting at the keyboard, innocently picking out "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star."

At that moment, the great piano master made his entrance.

He quickly moved to the piano, and whispered in the boy’s ear, "Don't quit. Keep playing."

Paderewski reached down with his left hand and began filling in a bass part.

Soon his right arm reached around to the other side of the child and he added a running obbligato.

Together, the old master and the young novice transformed a frightening situation into a wonderfully creative experience. The audience was mesmerized.

That's the way it is with God and His people!

God chooses and uses the weak.

You are that little boy and God is the Master.

It is the Master who surrounds you and whispers in your ear, time and time again, "Don't quit! Keep playing!" And as you do, He works with you to accomplish what you could never do on your own.

Darrel L. Anderson, Leadership, Vol. 4, no. 2.

II. Gideon and God

The same was true with Gideon in our reading from Judges chapter six.

Gideon lived during the Old Testament period of the Judges, roughly 1100 years before Christ:

After Moses and then Joshua led God’s people out of Egypt and into the Promised Land.

But before the period of the kings.

 

According to the previous verses in Judges chapter six, the nation of Israel, due to their sins, had been decimated by their enemies. Verses 2-6 tell us:

2Because the power of Midian was so oppressive, the Israelites prepared shelters for themselves in mountain clefts, caves and strongholds.

3Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, the Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern peoples invaded the country. ⁴They camped on the land and ruined the crops all the way to Gaza and did not spare a living thing for Israel, neither sheep nor cattle nor donkeys. ⁵They came up with their livestock and their tents like swarms of locusts. It was impossible to count the men and their camels; they invaded the land to ravage it.

6Midian so impoverished the Israelites that they cried out to the LORD for help.

Judges 6:2-6 (NIV)

It was a time where it appeared:

That God was not in control.

That God’s people would be wiped out, destroyed.

That the promised Messiah would never come.

 

Sometimes, we have to become weak before God can get our attention.

Sometimes, we have to become weak before God can choose and use us.

Gideon knew he was weak. He knew he was incapable of leading the Israelites to victory against their enemies.

In verse 11 we find Gideon threshing wheat, in of all places, a winepress:

No one threshed wheat in a winepress. You threshed wheat on a threshing floor.

A winepress was a small enclosed hallowed-out stone structure. Almost no wind could get in to blow away the chaff.

On the other hand, a threshing floor was a much larger structure in an open windy area. It would have been visible for miles.

It would have taken Gideon two to three times longer to do his threshing work in a winepress.

Why in the world was he hiding in a wine press?

He was clearly terrified of his enemies, the Midianites.

He dared not thresh his wheat where all could see him, for fear of the Midianites steeling his grain or attacking his family.

So when the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon and said,

12..."The LORD is with you, mighty warrior."

Judges 6:12 (NIV)

He knew God must have made a mistake:

He knew he was not a might warrior.

He knew the Lord was not with him.

He even told the angel, "...the LORD has abandoned us..." (Judges 6:13).

He wasn’t really a coward. He was a realist. He was not a mighty warrior.

Why in the world did the angel of the Lord tell Gideon,

12..."The LORD is with you, mighty warrior"?

Judges 6:12 (NIV)

The answer is in verses 14-16:

14The LORD turned to [Gideon] and said, "Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?"

The strength you have – as little as it may be – is enough when it is the Lord who chooses and uses you.

15"But Lord," Gideon asked, "how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family."

How can I save Israel? You can’t! You can’t!

Your weakness, will show clearly that it is God who will save Israel through your obedience.

In First Corinthians chapter one, St. Paul said,

27But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.

31Therefore, as it is written: "Let him who boasts boast in the Lord."

1 Corinthians 1:27 & 31 (NIV)

In Second Corinthians chapter twelve, God told St. Paul:

9 ..."My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."

Paul went on to say:

Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. ¹⁰That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

2 Corinthians 12:9-10 (NIV)

God chooses and uses the weak, that those watching may know beyond a shadow of a doubt, that God’s power, not our own is working through us.

After Gideon confessed his utter incompetence in the face of their superior enemy,

16The LORD answered, "I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites together."

Judges 6:14-16 (NIV)

Gideon was not a brilliant military tactician like King David.

He was not a powerful man like Samson.

He was neither rich or wise like King Solomon.

The one thing Gideon had going for him were those five words from God,

"I will be with you."

When you know God is with you:

All your fears,

All your weakness,

All your inadequacies,

Fade away in light of God’s strength, God’s power, God’s sure and certain plans.

As David said in the 23^rd Psalm:

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil, for you are with me...

Psalm 23:4 (NIV)

Even though the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon and said, "The Lord is with you, mighty warrior," he was not convinced that God was with him.

He knew that the only way he could defeat the Midianites was if God was truly with him.

He had to know. He had to know if God was truly with him.

So he asked God to give him a miraculous sign.

He slaughtered a goat and brought the meat as an offering to the Lord. I imagine he planned to offer it as a burnt offering in accordance with the Law of Moses (Numbers 15).

He place the meat on a rock by the angel of the Lord.

However, before he could gather sticks and light a fire, the angel of the Lord reach forth his staff to touch the meat.

Immediately, "fire flared from the rock, consuming the meat...and the angel of the Lord disappeared."

Gideon knew that the Lord was with him.

He could have confidence that he was indeed a "mighty warrior." Why? Because God was with him.

Judges chapter seven tells us, that as they faced the Midianites – who were bound and determined to exterminate the Jews – Gideon and only 300 men utterly destroyed tens of thousands of their enemies.

But not one Israelite lifted a sword or shot an arrow.

That night, in simple obedience to the Lord, they lifted their torches and blew their trumpets.

As they stood by with no weapons in their hands, the Lord caused their enemies to turn against one another in the night.

In Judge 7:2, the Lord told Gideon the reason He gave them this miraculous victory:

"In order that Israel may not boast against me that her own strength has saved her" (Judges 7:2).

 

God chooses and uses the weak, that those around us may know beyond a shadow of a doubt, that God’s power, not our own is working through us.

Are you a mighty warrior? Are you a mighty warrior for God?

If your first response is, "No," you may be the next Gideon.

If you find yourself in fear and despair, you may be the next Gideon.

If you feel there is just no way out of your current predicament, you may be the next Gideon.

If you feel that God has abandoned you and your family, you may be the next Gideon.

If that’s you, you are the kind of person through whom God can do great things, through whom God can receive the glory.

St. Paul had a thorn in the flesh, a physical weakness.

In our reading from Luke chapter five, St. Peter told Jesus to go away from him, for he was a sinful man (Luke 5:8).

Gideon told the Lord that he was the weakest in his clan and family (Judges 6:15).

Moses said told God he was a horrible public speaker (Exodus 4:10).

Yet, God used each and every one of these men powerfully and for His glory.

Back in the mid-1800s there was a man who had been attending a Unitarian church. He was almost totally ignorant of the gospel.

In 1855 he moved to Boston and started attending a faithful church, where the gospel was preached and the Scriptures were revered.

Through this church he accepted Jesus as his Savior and Lord.

He wanted to join the church, but he was so ignorant of the Scriptures, they asked him to spend a year in a special Bible instruction program.

After a year of intense study, he showed only a slight improvement in his knowledge of Scripture.

But since he was obviously sincere and committed, they accepted him as a church member.

Years later his Sunday school teacher said:

"I can truly say that I have seen few persons whose minds were spiritually darker than was his when he came into my Sunday school class. I think the committee of the church seldom met an applicant for membership who seemed more unlikely ever to become a Christian of clear and decided views of gospel truth, still less to fill any space of public or extended usefulness."

And yet, this young man went on to become one of the greatest preachers in North America. His name was Dwight L. Moody.

Gary Inrig, Hearts of Iron, Feet of Clay

James S. Hewett, Illustrations Unlimited (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc, 1988) pp. 48-49.

God chooses and uses the weak.

It is our Heavenly Master who surrounds you and whispers in your ear, time and time again, "Don't quit! Keep playing!" And as you do, He works with you to accomplish what you could never do on your own.