Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / February 15, 2026 | Judges - The Test of Victory

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February 15, 2026 | Judges - The Test of Victory · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
0:01
SPEAKER_00: Good to be with you.
0:03
SPEAKER_00: How many of you have been watching the Olympics?
0:06
SPEAKER_00: A lot of cross-country skiing fans in here.
0:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
0:08
SPEAKER_00: I see it.
0:09
SPEAKER_00: See it.
0:11
SPEAKER_00: Well, if uh if you've watched any of the Olympics, seen any of the clips, or just have a fan for athletics in general, you know that uh I mean the whole thing is built around who's gonna win, right?
0:20
SPEAKER_00: Who gets the gold, who gets to walk home with the medal.
0:24
SPEAKER_00: And uh as exciting as that is, uh, we don't often talk about what happens uh when you get home with the medal, right?
0:32
SPEAKER_00: A lot of times the the narrative and the story and all those like videos that we watch um are about, hey, what did it take to get to first place?
0:42
SPEAKER_00: But the question that we're gonna look at this morning is uh kind of related to that is okay, well, now what?
0:48
SPEAKER_00: When you have victory, when you have success, when things are going well, what happens afterward?
0:55
SPEAKER_00: Uh, because that can be just as much of a test for you as walking through the valley.
1:03
SPEAKER_00: As we're gonna look in uh Judges chapter seven and eight today, we're gonna continue the story of Gideon.
1:11
SPEAKER_00: And excuse me, and the question that we're gonna look at is um how does he handle the test of victory?
1:18
SPEAKER_00: He's gonna experience great victory in chapter seven, and chapter eight will kind of give us the answer to that question there.
1:25
SPEAKER_00: Uh, if you're new with us this morning, I want to welcome you first of all, and also apologize a little bit.
1:31
SPEAKER_00: Gideon's story is a little too long for us to cover in one week, and so uh we split it into two.
1:38
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna have to move fast anyway through chapters seven and eight.
1:41
SPEAKER_00: And so this is a great story for you that you know later this week to go back and read on your own after we've gone through it together.
1:48
SPEAKER_00: But the question that we're looking at wholly applies to you.
1:53
SPEAKER_00: When life is going well, when there are many blessings, when the hardship seems, or the worst of it seems to be behind you, the little warning bell that is sounding off is if you have begun to notice that your relationship with God has begun to wane during that time.
2:13
SPEAKER_00: Why does it seem to be that our closest time with God is during hardship, and yet when the good times come, he seems distant.
2:23
SPEAKER_00: Does that have more to do with him, more to do with us?
2:27
SPEAKER_00: Well, Gideon, I think, is going to give us an answer for what not to do, how to handle this test of victory.
2:34
SPEAKER_00: And at the end, I want to share with you a couple things, a few things, that can help us sort of walk through both the hills and the valleys of life with our focus on the Lord.
2:44
SPEAKER_00: But as we pick up in Judges chapter 7 here, what's happening is Gideon has been raised up as a judge.
2:53
SPEAKER_00: Um, and not a judge with a gavel, right, but a deliverer for the nation of Israel.
2:58
SPEAKER_00: And God has appointed him to be the person to lead the nation of Israel and overthrow their oppressors, the Midianites.
3:05
SPEAKER_00: Midianites have been on Israel for about seven years, and Israel has suffered greatly at their hands, and they cried out to the Lord, and he has brought them Gideon.
3:15
SPEAKER_00: Now, Gideon in chapter six has a bit of a difficult beginning because he struggles to have faith in God's plan.
3:23
SPEAKER_00: And so he asks multiple times for the Lord to reveal to him miraculously, give him proof and signs over and over again that this, no, really, this is God's plan.
3:35
SPEAKER_00: But as chapter six ends and chapter seven begins, Gideon has gathered the Israelite army and they are ready to face off against Midian.
3:45
SPEAKER_00: That's where we're picking up the story.
3:48
SPEAKER_00: And the momentum is building, but really, before we even get very far at all, God puts the brakes on the story.
3:56
SPEAKER_00: And what he says is he says, Gideon, a problem that nobody has ever had before.
4:01
SPEAKER_00: Gideon, your army is too big to go to battle.
4:04
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
4:05
SPEAKER_00: Gideon, the Midianite forces, they're gigantic, they're huge, they're they're like the stars in the sky, they're the sand on the seashore, you can't even count them, and yet, Gideon, you've got too many men to fight them.
4:17
SPEAKER_00: I need you to make your group smaller.
4:21
SPEAKER_00: The Lord said to Gideon, You have too many troops for me to hand the Midianites over to them.
4:26
SPEAKER_00: Why?
4:27
SPEAKER_00: Or else Israel might elevate themselves over me and say, I saved myself.
4:33
SPEAKER_00: So Gideon sent all the Israelites to their tents, but kept the three hundred troops, who took the provisions and their rams' horns.
4:40
SPEAKER_00: The camp of Midian was below him in the valley.
4:43
SPEAKER_00: You can make an entire sermon almost out of verse two alone, right?
4:47
SPEAKER_00: What does it mean for God to make the situation a bit more dire so that we will not think we were the reasons for success when it is all said and done?
4:56
SPEAKER_00: But God has motivation here, and that is look, Israel, you've struggled for a really long time to give me the glory, and so I'm going to make this the difference between your army and Midian.
5:08
SPEAKER_00: Israel's already the underdogs.
5:10
SPEAKER_00: We're going to crank that up a couple notches, and then you're going to go to war.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: Such that when you defeat them by my hand, which is going to take place, when that happens, nobody can look to themselves and say, This is on me.
5:23
SPEAKER_00: Alright?
5:24
SPEAKER_00: We'll give our praise where it is due to the Lord.
5:27
SPEAKER_00: And so God ends up reducing their number down to 300 people.
5:32
SPEAKER_00: 300 men are going to be all those that go against the forces of Midian.
5:37
SPEAKER_00: In verses 9 through 14, we also see that God gives Gideon a sign, this time unprompted, right?
5:44
SPEAKER_00: A sign to comfort Gideon, who surely is feeling a little bit nerves for having his army taken down to 300 people before going to battle.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: And God gives him a glimpse into the camp in Midian.
5:58
SPEAKER_00: Gideon and his servant sneak close to the Midianite forces, and they overhear a conversation that is taking place.
6:07
SPEAKER_00: Somebody in one of the tents has had a dream, and this dream does not bode well for them.
6:14
SPEAKER_00: The Midianite soldier answered, This is nothing less than the sword of Gideon, son of Joash the Israelite.
6:21
SPEAKER_00: God has handed the entire Midianite camp over to him.
6:24
SPEAKER_00: Not a good rumor to be spreading on the eve of battle in the camp, right?
6:29
SPEAKER_00: And but these Midianite forces, they have no reason, earthly reason, to be afraid of Gideon.
6:36
SPEAKER_00: And yet the troops are terrified because they see that Gideon has something else behind him, which is the Lord.
6:44
SPEAKER_00: God has handed the entire Midianite camp over to him.
6:48
SPEAKER_00: And so in response to this, Gideon bows down and worships God.
6:54
SPEAKER_00: God, thank you.
6:55
SPEAKER_00: You've delivered us.
6:56
SPEAKER_00: You've shown us once again how good you are and bringing us out of our circumstances here.
7:02
SPEAKER_00: You are the true deliverer, Gideon will say.
7:06
SPEAKER_00: And God has confirmed his divine plan to this uncertain Savior.
7:11
SPEAKER_00: After Gideon is done praying to God, he thanks the Lord, instructs his army, if that's what you want to call 300 men, to go down and attack the Midianites.
7:21
SPEAKER_00: In verses 21 through 22, we see that much like God did with, if you remember the story of Barak and Sisera, and how the Lord intervened, and there's sort of this heavenly event that took place when the battle actually commenced, that God took things into his own hands so that Israel's forces couldn't get the credit.
7:42
SPEAKER_00: It would be all to him.
7:44
SPEAKER_00: Same thing takes place here.
7:46
SPEAKER_00: Each Israelite took his position around the camp, and the entire Midianite army began to run, and they cried out as they fled.
7:54
SPEAKER_00: When Gideon's men blew their three hundred ramshorns, the Lord caused the men and the whole army to turn on each other with their swords.
8:00
SPEAKER_00: They fled to Acacia house in the direction of Zarera, as far as the border of Abel Mahola, near Tabath.
8:08
SPEAKER_00: So what happens is Gideon plays into this fear that is in the camp, and he gives each one of his men a ram's horn, okay, that they would have gathered from the rest of the army.
8:20
SPEAKER_00: And so each one of the they take a position around this massive camp, just 300 men, right?
8:25
SPEAKER_00: And they blow their horn all at once.
8:27
SPEAKER_00: It almost evokes memories of Jericho as well, blowing the horn.
8:31
SPEAKER_00: But what this does for the Midianites who are terrified and have rumors spreading around camp that they're done for is they get the sense in the middle of the night, during one of the late watches, that they are completely surrounded by Israelites.
8:44
SPEAKER_00: And they um jump up from their tents, jump up from their sleep, and in their confusion, in their terror, they begin to attack one another.
8:52
SPEAKER_00: And so the force, I mean, the end there with all the different names that we don't recognize is basically saying they ran off, right?
9:01
SPEAKER_00: The Midianites attacked themselves, defeated themselves.
9:05
SPEAKER_00: Umtice that it is the Lord who caused this to take place, so that the Midianite oppression was relieved without an Israelite soldier taking out a sword.
9:19
SPEAKER_00: The Midianites attacked themselves.
9:22
SPEAKER_00: So not just that the Israelite army was small, but not a single one of them had to take out an enemy soldier on their own.
9:30
SPEAKER_00: The Midianites did it themselves.
9:32
SPEAKER_00: How can you look at this situation and uh draw any other conclusion than God was the one who brought it about for them?
9:41
SPEAKER_00: And so as chapter 7 wraps up, we see that uh the Israelites are going to go off in pursuit of the Midianite forces, right?
9:51
SPEAKER_00: They're wounded, they're weary, but they're gonna chase them across the Jordan River back to their homeland on the east.
9:57
SPEAKER_00: And so this is where they're going.
9:59
SPEAKER_00: And during this time, we get some details.
10:02
SPEAKER_00: There are a few more tribes that join the fight, right?
10:04
SPEAKER_00: Now that the enemy is weakened and bleeding and they're running away, they're like, oh, now this is a good time for us to attack, and they come in, but ultimately it's a complete and resounding success.
10:15
SPEAKER_00: And in fact, two of the Midianite generals, in your translation, they might be called princes, um, are captured and beheaded, okay?
10:23
SPEAKER_00: And so if you need an even greater sign that this force has been put to rest, this is it.
10:30
SPEAKER_00: They bring to Gideon these two heads, and this is nothing less than victory, a resounding victory, a victory that should glorify and honor the Lord.
10:43
SPEAKER_00: And in fact, this should be the end of Gideon's story.
10:48
SPEAKER_00: This should be where it finishes and wraps up.
10:52
SPEAKER_00: If we were following along with the other, if or if this story was similar to the ones that we've seen in the past, you would hear something like this, or read something like this in the text.
11:02
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit of the Lord came on Gideon, and he judged Israel.
11:06
SPEAKER_00: He went out to battle, and the Lord handed over the Midianites to him, so that Gideon overpowered them.
11:12
SPEAKER_00: Then the land had peace for forty years, and Gideon, son of Joash, died.
11:17
SPEAKER_00: That is what you should be reading at the end of chapter seven, because the call upon Gideon's life to be the judge and to deliver Israel from the hands of Midian was complete.
11:28
SPEAKER_00: Right?
11:29
SPEAKER_00: They are running away, they're fleeing across the Jordan, their generals have been taken out.
11:35
SPEAKER_00: Um Israel is no longer suffering under their oppression.
11:39
SPEAKER_00: The job is finished.
11:42
SPEAKER_00: At the end of Judges 7, the forces of Midian have been defeated.
11:46
SPEAKER_00: This should be the end of Gideon's story.
11:50
SPEAKER_00: And this is also where we say that victory has come for Gideon.
11:55
SPEAKER_00: All of the things that he had been told, if you were with us two weeks ago, right, when God came to him and he was threshing wheat in the wine press and was terrified of the Midianites and said, Lord, not me.
12:06
SPEAKER_00: I can't do it, I'm not that guy.
12:08
SPEAKER_00: And God said, You are going to be that guy, because I will be with you, I will deliver them over into your hand.
12:15
SPEAKER_00: We found the end of that story here.
12:19
SPEAKER_00: But how does Gideon respond to the test of victory?
12:23
SPEAKER_00: How does he handle all of this momentum?
12:26
SPEAKER_00: Where does he go with it?
12:27
SPEAKER_00: What does he do?
12:28
SPEAKER_00: Well, chapter 8, as we go into that one, it begins to tell a different story, one not of victory, but one of failure to follow God's command.
12:41
SPEAKER_00: Gideon and the 300 men came to the Jordan and crossed it.
12:45
SPEAKER_00: They were exhausted, but still in pursuit.
12:50
SPEAKER_00: The forces are fleeing.
12:52
SPEAKER_00: The battle has been won.
12:53
SPEAKER_00: The Midianites are decimated.
12:56
SPEAKER_00: Their forces are still large, they still have a lot in their army, but they are, you know, tail is tucked between their legs and they're running away.
13:03
SPEAKER_00: Gideon, what are we doing?
13:05
SPEAKER_00: He's gonna take his 300 men and they're gonna become almost like a special forces unit.
13:11
SPEAKER_00: And we also see in chapter 8, there are only two places where the name of the Lord is invoked here.
13:19
SPEAKER_00: It is way different than chapter 6 and 7, where God was present in every single movement of the story, right?
13:25
SPEAKER_00: Everything was God said, this needs to happen, and then this will happen, and then this will happen.
13:30
SPEAKER_00: And in chapter 8, none of that is seen.
13:34
SPEAKER_00: Instead, Gideon is going to walk forward under the belief that God is present and with him in this journey, and yet what we'll see is that he does not pay attention to the warning bells that should be going off in his head that are going on around him, and he's going to wreak destruction here.
13:55
SPEAKER_00: As he becomes, moves from this righteous judge, this sort of unlikely figure, into an overbearing dictator.
14:05
SPEAKER_00: And it begins here by him crossing that physical boundary, but what is so often in Scripture a spiritual and a symbolic boundary, too, which is the Jordan River.
14:18
SPEAKER_00: As he goes east, Gideon is going to take his exhausted, undersupplied forces on foot, 80 miles into Midianite territory, to chase after this army that is already defeated.
14:32
SPEAKER_00: We don't know yet what his motivation is.
14:34
SPEAKER_00: We'll find out in a little bit.
14:36
SPEAKER_00: But as Gideon is going after these guys, the only explanation you have is that he has turned this into a personal vendetta.
14:44
SPEAKER_00: There's some sort of objective that he is chasing after that has made him go beyond God's call on his life.
14:52
SPEAKER_00: And on this journey, he goes through two towns that will play a big role in chapter 8.
14:58
SPEAKER_00: One is named Suchath and one is named Penul.
15:01
SPEAKER_00: In these towns, they're Israelite towns.
15:03
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
15:03
SPEAKER_00: There are some Israelites who live on the east side of the Jordan River.
15:06
SPEAKER_00: You might remember from uh Numbers in Deuteronomy that not everybody crossed over into the promised land.
15:11
SPEAKER_00: Some people stayed on the east side.
15:13
SPEAKER_00: Well, Gideon goes into this friendly territory and he says, Hey, I need some help.
15:18
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
15:19
SPEAKER_00: My troops, they're exhausted, they're tired, they're weary, they've been in battle, and uh we need we need some provisions.
15:26
SPEAKER_00: We need bread and we need water.
15:28
SPEAKER_00: And the leaders of these two towns, they say, I don't think so.
15:33
SPEAKER_00: What if you fail in your journey?
15:35
SPEAKER_00: What if you don't get these individuals that you're after?
15:39
SPEAKER_00: We find out that Gideon is looking for two people, one named Zeba and one named Zalmana, but these two kings of Midian that he's chasing after, individuals.
15:49
SPEAKER_00: And they say, What if you don't get Z and Z?
15:52
SPEAKER_00: What if you fail in your journey?
15:54
SPEAKER_00: We're far more vulnerable to the Midianite attack and their retribution than those of you who are across the Jordan River.
16:01
SPEAKER_00: If you come back with them, then we'll help you.
16:05
SPEAKER_00: And this is this is a whole nother topic, but this is kind of a shocking breakdown, right?
16:09
SPEAKER_00: These are countrymen, they should be on one another's side here, but we're seeing kind of personal interests begin to take precedence.
16:17
SPEAKER_00: And Gideon responds to them in a way that is, seems uncharacteristic and very violent.
16:25
SPEAKER_00: This is not for him something about uh uh just a breakdown in communication.
16:32
SPEAKER_00: He goes, This is personal.
16:35
SPEAKER_00: Very well.
16:36
SPEAKER_00: When the Lord has handed Zeba and Zalmuna over to me, I will tear your flesh with thorns and briars from the wilderness.
16:43
SPEAKER_00: He also told the men of Penul, who had a similar response, When I return safely, I will tear down this tower.
16:50
SPEAKER_00: And so Gideon is invoking God's name here, right?
16:54
SPEAKER_00: Um, but it's an oath to hurt people.
16:57
SPEAKER_00: Uh and you can make the argument that these guys, the leaders of the towns, did not do what they should have done, but what he is prom what Gideon is promising to do to them goes far beyond what we might call justice.
17:11
SPEAKER_00: He's becoming the judge, the jury, and soon will be the executioner for those who disagree with him.
17:20
SPEAKER_00: Now, after the rejection from the towns, Gideon continues the pursuit with his 300 men, and he eventually runs down the Midianite forces.
17:29
SPEAKER_00: Ziba and Zalmuna fled, and Gideon pursued them.
17:33
SPEAKER_00: He captured these two kings of Midian and routed the entire army.
17:36
SPEAKER_00: He routed the entire army because the Midianites were not expecting 300 men to chase 80 miles inland deep into Midianite territory.
17:45
SPEAKER_00: They were comfortable.
17:46
SPEAKER_00: They thought they had made it back to home base, and then Gideon surprises them and takes them out.
17:51
SPEAKER_00: But he captures Ziba and Zalmuna, the two kings, right?
17:56
SPEAKER_00: The two individuals that bear apparently a personal interest for Gideon.
18:03
SPEAKER_00: And as he's on his way back with these two kings in tow, because he's going to take them back to his homeland to do something with them, he walks back through with his troops, uh, Suckath and Penul.
18:17
SPEAKER_00: And what he does to them, which we find in verses 13 through 17, is he makes good on his promises to hurt them and abuse them, to humiliate them in a way that strikes us as being both calculating and far and very excessive for the crime that was committed.
18:40
SPEAKER_00: And actually, when he gets to Penul, the part about you know throwing down their tower and their stronghold, when he does that and he tears it down, he ends up killing a number of the men.
18:50
SPEAKER_00: And so you're looking at this story and you're going, Gideon, what are we doing?
18:57
SPEAKER_00: Um Ziba and Zalmana are with him.
19:00
SPEAKER_00: Gideon is um supposed to be, right, this righteous leader for the nation of Israel, and yet instead of that, he is going off on his own.
19:13
SPEAKER_00: After capturing the Midianite kings, Gideon goes back to Succath and Penul and exacts his revenge.
19:19
SPEAKER_00: This is not the same Gideon as before, right?
19:22
SPEAKER_00: This is one of the signs that we should be picking up on, that his test of victory is not going well.
19:30
SPEAKER_00: Now to back up one slide here.
19:36
SPEAKER_00: He asked Zeba and Zalmunah, what kind of men did you kill at Tabor?
19:40
SPEAKER_00: They were like you, they said, each resembled the son of a king.
19:44
SPEAKER_00: So Gideon says, They were my brothers, the sons of my mother.
19:49
SPEAKER_00: We find out his motivation here, which is that Ziba and Zalmuna were personally responsible for the death of his brothers.
19:56
SPEAKER_00: And while we can extend, I mean, understandably, you know, some empathy here for wanting to pay back those who had hurt his family, had killed those in his family, the context, the overall story that is surrounding it, we're asking ourselves, at what cost?
20:15
SPEAKER_00: At what cost are your are you pursuing these things?
20:18
SPEAKER_00: Because by this point in time, right, not only have we taken things into our own hands, but we have killed our fellow countrymen in fits of anger and revenge.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: And that isn't even to say that this situation with Z and Z is finished yet.
20:34
SPEAKER_00: So as we move on here, Gideon gets Z and Z back to his home base, and he speaks with them.
20:43
SPEAKER_00: It is time for them to die.
20:46
SPEAKER_00: As the Lord lives, if you had let them live, I would not kill you.
20:50
SPEAKER_00: Then he said to Jether, his firstborn, Get up and kill them.
20:54
SPEAKER_00: The youth did not draw his sword, for he was afraid, because he was still a youth.
20:59
SPEAKER_00: Zeba and Zalmuna said, Get up and strike us down, for a man is judged by his strength.
21:06
SPEAKER_00: So Gideon got up, killed Zeba and Zalmunah, and took the crescent ornaments that were on the necks of their camels.
21:15
SPEAKER_00: Notice again that God's name is invoked here.
21:22
SPEAKER_00: And Gideon is clearly in the belief that he is executing the Lord's will.
21:27
SPEAKER_00: And yet, unlike the other parts of the story with Gideon, God has not said anything to him.
21:34
SPEAKER_00: We have received no indication that this is part of the plan.
21:37
SPEAKER_00: And in fact, the only time when God has been mentioned is a reminder when Gideon is about to kill somebody, and he makes an oath in the name of the Lord.
21:47
SPEAKER_00: Okay, this is not the kind of thing that we want to be seeing.
21:50
SPEAKER_00: And Jether, Gideon's son, is introduced now as a character almost as we we would call him like a narrative foil, or he's like a mirror that's.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Being held up to Gideon.
22:01
SPEAKER_00: If you were here two weeks ago when we met Gideon for the first time, how did he respond to God?
22:08
SPEAKER_00: I'm afraid, right?
22:11
SPEAKER_00: I have nothing in me that I can go on and do the task that you've set before me.
22:16
SPEAKER_00: And so now his son, Jether, gives those same responses.
22:21
SPEAKER_00: I'm too young, right?
22:22
SPEAKER_00: I can't do this.
22:24
SPEAKER_00: I'm afraid.
22:25
SPEAKER_00: And in that instance, right, and we don't hold that against Jether.
22:29
SPEAKER_00: Apparently he's young.
22:30
SPEAKER_00: Also, there's a lot of problems just with this situation anyway, that he doesn't go through with it.
22:36
SPEAKER_00: Jether is sort of set up here up and against his father, Gideon, and it gives us a greater sign of how far Gideon has fallen.
22:46
SPEAKER_00: That he has moved so far beyond that humble, sometimes struggling in faith individual, but obedient person that we began with in chapter 6.
22:57
SPEAKER_00: And now we have somebody who is overconfident, who has personal vendettas, who's taken things into his own hand, who's overbearing, and he is killing people seemingly with abandon.
23:10
SPEAKER_00: Not a good thing.
23:13
SPEAKER_00: And so as this wayward figure now needs to head home, he's facing one final test.
23:21
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
23:22
SPEAKER_00: This is the return home of the great victor.
23:28
SPEAKER_00: And though we have seen all of these things that have taken place over in Midianite territory, and we have great questions about Gideon's character at this point and his obedience to the Lord and all these things that are present in the text.
23:41
SPEAKER_00: The people back home, they only know him as the one who took out the Midianite forces.
23:47
SPEAKER_00: They love this guy, okay?
23:49
SPEAKER_00: He's coming home.
23:51
SPEAKER_00: This is the reunion tour, all right?
23:53
SPEAKER_00: This is the Super Bowl parade, okay?
23:55
SPEAKER_00: He is coming home with these 300 individuals who are going to receive all of this recognition for finally overthrowing the Midianite forces.
24:06
SPEAKER_00: And they have a question for Gideon when he comes back, a third and final test of his faith.
24:15
SPEAKER_00: Rule over us, you as well as your sons and your grandsons, for you delivered us from the power of Midian.
24:24
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to ask you a question, okay?
24:27
SPEAKER_00: Did Gideon deliver the nation of Israel from Midian?
24:34
SPEAKER_00: No, he did not.
24:36
SPEAKER_00: He did not.
24:36
SPEAKER_00: Good job.
24:36
SPEAKER_00: Everybody passed.
24:38
SPEAKER_00: He did not.
24:38
SPEAKER_00: That was the beginning of chapter 7.
24:40
SPEAKER_00: God said, We're going to reduce the size of the army down to 300 people, and none of you are going to draw a sword because I am the one who is doing this.
24:48
SPEAKER_00: And now Gideon returns and they say, Will you be our king?
24:53
SPEAKER_00: You are the one who rescued us.
24:55
SPEAKER_00: And in fact, not just will you be king, will can we name a put a dynasty in place with your family so that your son and his son, who had nothing to do with this situation and with this deliverance, so they can rule over us as well?
25:12
SPEAKER_00: We're struck in one sense by how little the Israelites need in order to name a king, and yet how much the Lord God has done for them and their rejection of him as king.
25:23
SPEAKER_00: This is a great test for Gideon.
25:25
SPEAKER_00: And up to this point in time, we might think that he would have a bad answer, but actually, he says, I will not rule over you, and my son will not rule over you.
25:35
SPEAKER_00: The Lord will rule over you.
25:38
SPEAKER_00: Let's go.
25:39
SPEAKER_00: Way to go, Gideon.
25:40
SPEAKER_00: This is a great answer.
25:41
SPEAKER_00: This is what we're wanting from you.
25:43
SPEAKER_00: This is the kind of attitude that okay, we're getting back to it here a little bit.
25:48
SPEAKER_00: This is the person who understands and knows where true glory rests.
25:52
SPEAKER_00: He's not allowing their praise of his victory to go to his head, so we think.
25:57
SPEAKER_00: And this is great.
25:59
SPEAKER_00: We're moving forward.
26:00
SPEAKER_00: Nothing else is going to happen.
26:03
SPEAKER_00: Wait, then he said to them, Let me make a request of you.
26:08
SPEAKER_00: Everyone give me an earring from his plunder, from the Midianites.
26:13
SPEAKER_00: Gideon made an ephod from all this and put it in Aphra, his hometown.
26:18
SPEAKER_00: Then all Israel prostituted themselves by worshipping it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and his household.
26:26
SPEAKER_00: Okay, um, real quick.
26:28
SPEAKER_00: An ephod, it's um like a breastplate, and it belongs to the high priest, okay?
26:35
SPEAKER_00: This is a very weird thing for Gideon to make.
26:39
SPEAKER_00: Uh, this is not an arts and crafts project that you do at home, okay?
26:44
SPEAKER_00: This is something specific, it has a function, and it's supposed to belong on the chest of the high priest who is not here and is not an offer.
26:54
SPEAKER_00: And so Gideon makes this thing, and furthermore, it doesn't even go on somebody.
26:58
SPEAKER_00: He sets up this piece of clothing, which has ceremonial meaning, but he just sets it up like that is the thing that people are supposed to look at and eventually worship or bow down to.
27:11
SPEAKER_00: And you want to give him some like benefit of the doubt here that he's at least drawing from a tradition of the one true God, but it just, it's weird.
27:22
SPEAKER_00: Like this is not, it reveals that we are struggling at this point in Israelites' history to even remember how we truly worship the Lord.
27:31
SPEAKER_00: This is not it at all.
27:33
SPEAKER_00: And so he takes the gold from the Midianites that his army had captured, and he makes this thing, and then we see this really sad sign, right?
27:44
SPEAKER_00: It says that all Israel began to prostitute themselves by worshiping it there.
27:52
SPEAKER_00: Let me tell let me just add to that sadness by saying, if we remember in chapter 6 where Gideon came from and what his first test of obedience was, it was to tear down his father's idols and offrah, the Baal and Asherapol, right?
28:08
SPEAKER_00: And we're like, let's go, Gideon.
28:10
SPEAKER_00: Good work, man.
28:11
SPEAKER_00: Like you're gonna follow the Lord.
28:12
SPEAKER_00: We're struggling a bit, but you've got it.
28:14
SPEAKER_00: Great sign, great start.
28:16
SPEAKER_00: But that was just a regional thing, right?
28:19
SPEAKER_00: That was a local deal where people would go to his dad's backyard and worship these gods.
28:25
SPEAKER_00: And now, Gideon, in I think effort, confused efforts to try and do something good, ends up creating a situation where now all Israel is bowing down in idolatry to this false thing.
28:43
SPEAKER_00: It reminds us of the golden calf incident at the base of Mount Sinai.
28:47
SPEAKER_00: It's just this terribly sad sense of irony that in the life of the judge, not after he died, which is how all of the stories before this have gone, but during the lifetime of the judge, Israel walked back into idolatry.
29:03
SPEAKER_00: They did not get the message.
29:04
SPEAKER_00: They were supposed to recognize God, and instead they're doing something else entirely.
29:11
SPEAKER_00: So, as chapter 8 wraps up, we are left wrestling with the mess of Gideon's final years.
29:18
SPEAKER_00: Some of it is good.
29:19
SPEAKER_00: So Midian was subdued before the Israelites, and they were no longer a threat.
29:24
SPEAKER_00: The land had peace for 40 years during the days of Gideon.
29:28
SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's good.
29:30
SPEAKER_00: We like that.
29:31
SPEAKER_00: That's the kind of thing we would have liked to have heard at the end of chapter 7 when this took place.
29:37
SPEAKER_00: But forty years, a generation free from oppression, another sign of God's grace and mercy.
29:44
SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
29:45
SPEAKER_00: Surely.
29:47
SPEAKER_00: This is the end of Gideon's story.
29:51
SPEAKER_00: Well, Gideon had seventy sons.
29:53
SPEAKER_00: What are you doing in retirement, right?
29:54
SPEAKER_00: Gideon had seventy sons, his own offspring, since he had many wives.
29:59
SPEAKER_00: His concubine, who was in Shechem, also bore him a son, and he named him Abimelech.
30:05
SPEAKER_00: Okay, this is the last verse we're looking at today.
30:07
SPEAKER_00: Let me let me give you a piece of information that's gonna be, it's gonna change how you view this man.
30:16
SPEAKER_00: Um, so first of all, Abimelech is going to be the main focus of next week.
30:23
SPEAKER_00: He is not going anywhere.
30:26
SPEAKER_00: In Israelite culture, what you name your child means something even more than it does in our culture, right?
30:34
SPEAKER_00: There's a meaning associated with names that often gives us clues and hints into how to understand a story.
30:42
SPEAKER_00: The name Abimelech means my father is king.
30:47
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
30:48
SPEAKER_00: So what we have here with Gideon is that in the end, he failed the test of victory.
30:55
SPEAKER_00: Publicly, he declared that God was king.
30:58
SPEAKER_00: In private, and might I add, because his many wives were not enough, with his secret child in another city, he names him Abimelech.
31:10
SPEAKER_00: And so in private, Gideon is saying, I am the king.
31:14
SPEAKER_00: And it undercuts that great moment where he's going, No, no, no, no, please don't give me the crown.
31:19
SPEAKER_00: Don't give me the crown.
31:21
SPEAKER_00: God is the king, God is the one that you worship, he's the one that you should follow.
31:25
SPEAKER_00: And yet, in the internal life, in the faith that Gideon had as he lived many more years, we see that there was a pride that he never really overcame because of the victory that God had given to him.
31:42
SPEAKER_00: It's a reminder to us of how fragile victory can be, what a test it can be to our life, and what it means to walk through it with a greater devotion to God instead of allowing the glory to come back on ourselves.
32:00
SPEAKER_00: He refused the crown with his lips, but he reached for control with his life.
32:06
SPEAKER_00: Gideon's story shows us how spiritually dangerous sometimes the best parts of our life can be.
32:14
SPEAKER_00: I would hazard a guess that defeating the Midianites and rescuing Israel from years of oppression was one of the high points of Gideon's life.
32:23
SPEAKER_00: And yet, ironically, it became a pivot in his faith and a downhill slope from that point.
32:32
SPEAKER_00: Reminds us how incomplete human deliverers always are, and as is the case with every single judge, and it only grows each time we hear about another one.
32:40
SPEAKER_00: We are looking forward to a time when there is a deliverer and a savior who will not fail in their judgment.
32:49
SPEAKER_00: But let's talk about us, right?
32:51
SPEAKER_00: What does this mean for us?
32:52
SPEAKER_00: Because Gideon's story is instructive, it is one of those what not to do kind of stories.
32:58
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but what does it mean for us when we are going through seasons of great blessing, right?
33:05
SPEAKER_00: Why is it sometimes that those can be the beginnings, lay the seeds, and become a trap for us, such that our relationship with God only becomes weaker when we are doing well, and then once we go into the valley again, then it becomes stronger.
33:23
SPEAKER_00: That's not a faith that we want.
33:26
SPEAKER_00: What are some lessons that we can learn from his life?
33:28
SPEAKER_00: Three of them for you.
33:30
SPEAKER_00: The first is that we must have a devotion beyond emotion.
33:35
SPEAKER_00: What I mean by that is that if your relationship with God, and you can test yourself here with this, if your relationship with God has waned and reduced and sort of retreated into its shell, now that things are going well, or now that things are going poorly, by your estimation, all of a sudden we're deeper in prayer, we're in the word more consistently, we're doing these things, right?
34:03
SPEAKER_00: None of that is bad, but what I want you to recognize is how much you are following the ups and downs of your life in your relationship with God.
34:12
SPEAKER_00: A question that we can ask is if crisis is what drove you to prayer, what is driving you now?
34:18
SPEAKER_00: From the hilltop, from the position of victory, success, whatever you want to call it, what is driving you forward in your relationship with God?
34:26
SPEAKER_00: Because if we're not careful, we create an on-demand type of prayer life that just says, God, I'm gonna talk.
34:34
SPEAKER_00: We wouldn't say this, but this is what our actions reveal is God, I'm just gonna talk with you and hang out with you when things aren't going well.
34:40
SPEAKER_00: When I really need something, that's when you'll hear from me.
34:44
SPEAKER_00: And then when things are going well, it's often not conscious, but we go, oh yeah, I haven't I haven't talked with the Lord in a while.
34:51
SPEAKER_00: It's been a while since I've been in the Word.
34:54
SPEAKER_00: Since I've been going to church, since I've been loving my neighbor well.
34:59
SPEAKER_00: All of those things I was focused on during the valley.
35:02
SPEAKER_00: Not so much now.
35:05
SPEAKER_00: So our action is that we need to build spiritual disciplines that do not depend on how you feel.
35:10
SPEAKER_00: And hear me well, I am not advocating for some kind of like, you know, disenchanted, boring, robotic kind of faith that has no emotional appeal to it.
35:22
SPEAKER_00: Not at all.
35:23
SPEAKER_00: You are supposed to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and it is going to wax and wane with the things that go on in your life, right?
35:31
SPEAKER_00: You read the Psalms, okay?
35:33
SPEAKER_00: Their devotion does not sound the same and changes based upon what is going on in their life.
35:40
SPEAKER_00: But what I'm talking about is consistency, a consistency that is not based on how you feel, but who you want to follow and worship and who you are calling king.
35:53
SPEAKER_00: A consistency in prayer, in scripture, in confession of sin.
35:58
SPEAKER_00: How often do we do that when things are going well?
36:01
SPEAKER_00: That we would gather together with the church faithfully, and that we would dig the well deep during times of great blessing, so that when the drought comes later, we can continue to draw water from it.
36:17
SPEAKER_00: It is a beautiful thing to go to God during times of hardship, but victory should deepen your worship and thanksgiving, not diminish it.
36:27
SPEAKER_00: Second, is that we would remember it is God's victory and not ours.
36:33
SPEAKER_00: It is important to remember how chapter 7 began with God saying, You're going down to 300 because I am the one who's going to bring you this victory.
36:42
SPEAKER_00: There could have been 12,000 Israelite troops, and it was still God's victory.
36:46
SPEAKER_00: The Midianite forces were huge, way bigger than that.
36:50
SPEAKER_00: But God says, I'm going to make this even more apparent and clear because it's important that you recognize, like not passively, but actively recognize that I am the one who brings victory.
37:03
SPEAKER_00: Question that we can ask ourselves is when people praise your success, what happens in your heart?
37:09
SPEAKER_00: Do you want to reserve just a little bit of that glory for yourself?
37:14
SPEAKER_00: Of course we can praise him publicly.
37:16
SPEAKER_00: Gideon did that.
37:18
SPEAKER_00: Gideon said, I'm not a king.
37:21
SPEAKER_00: He's the king.
37:22
SPEAKER_00: Worship him.
37:23
SPEAKER_00: But what happens in private, in the heart, in the secret place, he goes, I'm going to name a son, and the name of my son is going to be that his dad is a king.
37:35
SPEAKER_00: What happens in private matters more to our faith than what happens publicly, because you can fake what happens publicly.
37:46
SPEAKER_00: Happens all the time.
37:48
SPEAKER_00: So what do we do here?
37:50
SPEAKER_00: Well, is that you would practice praise publicly and privately.
37:54
SPEAKER_00: Get a little Baptist in there with all the P's, but that you practice your praise publicly and privately.
37:59
SPEAKER_00: What I mean by that is I would hazard a guess that all of us, or the majority of us, are pretty good at public praise.
38:05
SPEAKER_00: When somebody comes to you, if you have a faith in Christ and says, Wow, you're absolutely amazing.
38:11
SPEAKER_00: Everything you do is wonderful.
38:12
SPEAKER_00: How are you so good at what you do?
38:14
SPEAKER_00: And you're like, psh, not me.
38:18
SPEAKER_00: It's God.
38:19
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
38:20
SPEAKER_00: Most people get some semblance of that down.
38:24
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
38:24
SPEAKER_00: If you don't, that's a great place to start working, right?
38:27
SPEAKER_00: But uh what really becomes the test though is what is happening in our heart when people say that.
38:32
SPEAKER_00: In your heart, are you going, like, yeah, God gave me the ability and I'm the one who stepped forward.
38:39
SPEAKER_00: Like, I am God's gift to his kingdom.
38:42
SPEAKER_00: I'm doing some pretty great things right now.
38:44
SPEAKER_00: Man, I bet God is just smiling down with how I just handled that whole situation, right?
38:50
SPEAKER_00: And what we do, even if things can sound religious, is we begin to take glory for ourselves that does not belong to us.
38:57
SPEAKER_00: Even if you, let I'm just gonna take one example.
39:00
SPEAKER_00: But even if you are like a shrewd business person, right?
39:03
SPEAKER_00: And you've started a company and you've worked very hard and you've had success that has been through your intellect and not just by chance or something like that, and that's a whole conversation.
39:12
SPEAKER_00: But and you, all of this, you've built it up, the whole bootstraps thing, you have pulled them up, right?
39:17
SPEAKER_00: Even in that situation, all that you have has come from the Lord.
39:22
SPEAKER_00: All of your ability, all of your opportunity, all of your blessings that have come in that way, it is from God.
39:31
SPEAKER_00: Ironically, the greater the success, the more obvious we should be able to see God's hand in it.
39:40
SPEAKER_00: Like the Midianite forces.
39:43
SPEAKER_00: God says, this is going to be so improbable, your success, your blessing.
39:48
SPEAKER_00: And yet oftentimes it is when the success is greatest that we see people in our culture acknowledge God the least.
39:59
SPEAKER_00: It's a sad truth.
40:01
SPEAKER_00: Third and finally, is that we need to beware, be beware of creeping confidence.
40:08
SPEAKER_00: And what I mean by this is that there is a danger that we have to go beyond the scope of God's will for our lives.
40:18
SPEAKER_00: It is clear in chapter 8 that Gideon believed that God was behind all of his decisions.
40:24
SPEAKER_00: And yet, in God's divine word, which every sentence and every detail is perfect, we conspicuously see the Lord absent in chapter 8.
40:37
SPEAKER_00: The only time that he appears or his name is invoked is when Gideon says, God is allowing me, and I guarantee by his hand that I'm gonna kill you.
40:48
SPEAKER_00: I don't know about that.
40:51
SPEAKER_00: Beware of this creeping confidence.
40:55
SPEAKER_00: Has success made you forget your limits?
40:59
SPEAKER_00: At the beginning of his story, remember Gideon is filled with self-doubt.
41:04
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't believe in himself.
41:07
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't think that he is the right person for the job.
41:10
SPEAKER_00: And in this age that we have of sort of self-fulfillment and actualization and positive self-talk, we we struggle with parts of the story where somebody seems to be down on themselves.
41:21
SPEAKER_00: But Gideon actually has a very healthy self-understanding, right?
41:25
SPEAKER_00: He goes, in and of myself, there's nothing that I can do to deliver Israel from Midian.
41:34
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing in me that can bring about victory for my people.
41:39
SPEAKER_00: That is why I am threshing wheat in a winepress.
41:45
SPEAKER_00: And yet by the end of his story, Gideon begins to think of himself much differently.
41:51
SPEAKER_00: He is no longer listening to the feedback of his countrymen.
41:56
SPEAKER_00: He is pursuing a personal agenda that goes far beyond the scope of God's command.
42:02
SPEAKER_00: Victory has pushed him far beyond his calling, and he has turned into this overconfident and wayward dictator.
42:09
SPEAKER_00: And we see that the pivot there was he did not handle success well.
42:16
SPEAKER_00: So the final action here is that you would bring accountability and humility back into your life.
42:23
SPEAKER_00: You and I, we've seen it, right?
42:25
SPEAKER_00: Somebody who is in a position of authority or prestige or celebrity, whatever it is, and they have a fall from grace, ten times out of ten, they did not have a system of accountability around them.
42:38
SPEAKER_00: They were lacking in humility, and they thought they could do it on their own.
42:41
SPEAKER_00: And they can't.
42:42
SPEAKER_00: Or you can't for very long.
42:45
SPEAKER_00: So you get the promotion, you accept the award, you receive the praise, those are all good things.
42:50
SPEAKER_00: Those are not bad things in and of themselves.
42:52
SPEAKER_00: But how you handle the victory that God gives to you is very important.
42:58
SPEAKER_00: And if the success and praise has begun to change your personality or your behavior or your willingness to accept criticism, if your heart has begun to change as much as your resume, these are all things that you should be paying attention to.
43:13
SPEAKER_00: And we say, sadly, right, if only Gideon had listened to some of these things and had paid heed to some of these ideas before he crossed the Jordan River in pursuit of his enemies.
43:27
SPEAKER_00: In sum, Gideon's story reminds us, right, of how victory can become, can, not will, can become a turning point into the wrong direction.
43:39
SPEAKER_00: What begins as dependence can drift into self reliance.
43:45
SPEAKER_00: We begin to think that we were the ones who brought about the victory.
43:49
SPEAKER_00: We take some of that glory for ourselves and we remove God from the equation.
43:54
SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you one final thing, and it's the most important thing that I could say.
44:00
SPEAKER_00: Matter the victories, personal victories that you have in your life, in your family, and your relationships, and your health, and your business, and all of these different things, right?
44:09
SPEAKER_00: The greatest victory that you will ever receive is one that you have no hope of accomplishing on your own.
44:20
SPEAKER_00: And it just exemplifies this whole situation that we're talking about, with God being the one who brings victory.
44:28
SPEAKER_00: The greatest victory that you can have in your entire life is victory over sin and death, which comes through the gospel and the cross of Jesus Christ.
44:37
SPEAKER_00: And let me tell you something.
44:39
SPEAKER_00: Far away from 300 people defeating the armies, there is not a single claim you and I can lay at the cross to say that we deserved the gift that God has given to us or we have brought it about by our own work.
44:54
SPEAKER_00: It is entirely a matter of faith that we believe God has given this gift to us by His grace.
45:02
SPEAKER_00: The greatest victory in your life, that you might be reconciled with the Lord and forgiven of your sin, no matter how deep it is, is a victory that you cannot claim for your own.
45:14
SPEAKER_00: And if you struggle to claim, or if you struggle to think and understand that that victory belongs to God, it is going to be very hard for you to look at any other blessing in your life as from Him as well.
45:29
SPEAKER_00: The same one that brought us Jesus on the cross is the one who, because he loves to give good gifts, brings you beautiful things in your life.
45:39
SPEAKER_00: But be careful that you always show in your heart where the true allegiance lies.
45:48
SPEAKER_00: Not to yourself, not to your own power, not to your own giftings or abilities or circumstances or whatever it is, but to the king, the true king, the one who is worthy of praise.
45:59
SPEAKER_00: It's a temptation, I know, and we don't often talk about what happens after victory.
46:04
SPEAKER_00: But if you're in a season right now where things are going well, praise be to God.
46:11
SPEAKER_00: But be careful.
46:13
SPEAKER_00: Let this be a season for you where you are drawing deeper in worship, deeper in thanksgiving, deeper in glory to God, and you are using this as an opportunity to give Him all of the praise that He is due.
46:29
SPEAKER_00: Don't reserve any of it for yourself.
46:32
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
46:35
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we come before you today.
46:39
SPEAKER_00: Lord, the story of Gideon reminds us that victory can be a snare for us.
46:45
SPEAKER_00: Often, Lord, you do work, your greatest works in our lives in the valleys during times of difficulty.
46:53
SPEAKER_00: And yet we thank you for the times when life is easy.
46:59
SPEAKER_00: We thank you for good health.
47:01
SPEAKER_00: We thank you for sweet relationships.
47:04
SPEAKER_00: We thank you for a job.
47:06
SPEAKER_00: We thank you for food in our fridge.
47:08
SPEAKER_00: We thank you for safety at night in our homes.
47:12
SPEAKER_00: Lord, all of these things and far more, we often just think of them as normal.
47:18
SPEAKER_00: And yet, Lord, it is you who has brought us all of these blessings.
47:23
SPEAKER_00: And on top of that, God, we are tempted when things get very personal to take some of the glory that belongs to you and put it on our own shoulders.
47:33
SPEAKER_00: Lord, to say that we're a part of the solution here.
47:36
SPEAKER_00: When in reality we can do nothing without you.
47:40
SPEAKER_00: Help us, God, to follow after you all the days of our life.
47:44
SPEAKER_00: And Lord, if anybody now is on the mountaintop, Lord, they're experiencing the goodness and the beautiful gifts of your kingdom in this life.
47:55
SPEAKER_00: Might they see it as an opportunity to draw deeper in thanksgiving, not to draw away in pride.
48:02
SPEAKER_00: Help us, God, to seek you and most of all, to seek your Son and his victory on the cross.
48:10
SPEAKER_00: It's in his name we pray.
48:11
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
48:12
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
48:13
SPEAKER_00: Love you.
48:14
SPEAKER_00: See you next week.