We all want power – of one sort or another. Power to be free, power to live life to the full, power to overcome difficulties and obstacles. But God’s power – the sort He promises to each person who places their life in His hands through Jesus His Son – is so much better than anything this world has to offer.

The Power We Already Have

It’s an exciting thing for me; the beginning of a new series of messages today and I’ve called this series, “Discovering the Power of God”. Anyone who believes in God knows that not only is He all loving, He is also all powerful, by definition. If God is indeed God; if He created the whole universe, then look around at this creation – He must be all powerful. Powerful in fact, beyond anything we could ever imagine. The question is: if this God is so powerful, can He, will He bring some of that power to bear in order to address the problems in our lives – my life and your life?

Because as huge and as mighty and as awesome as this God is supposed to be, you and I have a life to lead, down here on this earth – on this tiny rock, hurtling through space at eleven thousand kilometres or six and a half thousand miles each second. We have problems that confront us in life that are simply too big, too overwhelming for us to deal with. Now how does a mother deal with the loss of her child? How do a man and woman cope with the breakdown of their marriage? What do we do when there isn’t enough money to pay the mortgage or put food on the table?

It’s great to talk about the power of God – fantastic God, that You are so powerful – but sometimes we need some of that power. Is it accessible to us? Is it open to us and if so, how can we get it when we need it? Because when we are confronted by circumstances way beyond our ability even to cope, let alone to overcome, then God’s power is precisely what you and I need.

So, exactly how powerful is God? Well, consider this about God’s power: the universe is so big that with all our technology we simply can’t see to its outer limits, in fact, it may not have any outer limits. It may well go on for ever. But so far, given what we can see, what we know, what we can deduce, scientists calculate that from one side to the other side of the universe – the known universe – is about one hundred and fifty billion light years. Now that’s a big number to be sure, but what exactly does it mean?

Well, if you were to fly in the fastest rocket ship that we have invented so far, which rockets on through space at fifty thousand kilometres per hour, it would take roughly three thousand, two hundred and thirty eight trillion years to go from one side of the known universe to the other, which is pretty much forever.

So this God who created the universe has power that we can’t begin to comprehend. And then there’s little old you and me, fighting the battles of life here on this earth, that we fight, struggling through the struggles, wondering whether this God would ever, could ever give us just one little smidgen, one little drop of this immense, this infinite power. Well? And here’s the thing about our battles and our struggles – so often we are fighting against the odds. And it doesn’t seem to matter at all how powerful God may or may not be because our problem; our issue; our adversary; our dilemma is so close and it seems so big – and it seems that either God has forgotten about us or He is too busy to help us or maybe, just maybe, this problem of ours is even too big for God.

Ever felt that way? I have! And laying hold of the power of God has been one of the great challenges in my walk with Jesus. I’ll tell you why – because in this ministry that produces the radio programmes just like the one that you are listening to right now, even though these programmes are heard by millions of people each week, we started out with nothing; no money, no radio stations to take the programmes that we produced. Me, I had never done this before! And can I tell you, as I have travelled this journey over a good many years now, my natural instinct from time to time, has been to panic. Because I am human just like you and so as we do God’s work, the obstacles we confront seem so great. How are we ever going to deal with this one, or that one? Oh, panic!! Isn’t that what we do?

And I’m sharing this with you because I never, ever want you to imagine that just because I’m the guy on the radio, I don’t have any of these problems or frailties. And so I have had to learn and I’m still learning to lay hold of God’s power in the realities of life, just the same way as this is something that you need to learn too. We are human, we want to rely on the things that we can see and touch and feel but God … God wants us to rely on Him.

And so over these next few weeks, we are going to discover precisely how to do that … how to lay hold of the power; the awesome power of God, when we are confronted by insurmountable odds. And we are going to do that through the story of Gideon in the Old Testament.

But before we go there, I would like to share with you something the Apostle Paul wrote to his friends in Ephesus. Ephesians chapter 1, in the New Testament. Have a listen to this:

I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power. God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places. (Ephesians 1:17-20)

So what Paul is saying here to the Ephesians is that his prayer for them as they get to know God better and better; as He reveals Himself to them more and more and more, is that they would know the hope, the riches and the immeasurable greatness of His power that they already have because they believe in Jesus – the very same power that raised Jesus from the dead.

As one of my lecturers years ago at Bible College said, Barry Chant, he said those original Greek words which we now translate into the English – “the immeasurable greatness of His power”, if we were to take those Greek words and kind of anglicise them just a tad, they would come out sounding something like this: the hyperbalistic, megathonic, dynamic power.

So here is the starting point in laying hold of God’s power when we are facing incredible odds. We don’t need to ask God for the power because we already have it. We need to ask God to give us the Spirit of wisdom and revelation to open and enlighten the eyes of our heart so that we can see the hyperbalistic, megathonic, dynamic power that He has already given us through our faith in Jesus Christ.

And that my friend, when I realised that, it blew me completely away! All this time, I’d been moping around wondering whether God would lend me just a bit of His power, when all along, there it was, right under my nose.

Just in the Wrong Place

Okay, great! God’s power is right here under our noses but how do we lay hold of that power amidst the struggles of life – that’s the question? And that’s a problem that Israel, God’s chosen people, faced over and over again. So let’s explore that question through the story of God and Gideon because Gideon was called by God to fight a battle of absolutely impossible odds. And it’s a battle in which he had a great victory but whilst victory is always fantastic to celebrate in hindsight, a great victory invariably involves impossible odds. In fact, God specialises in impossible odds! And so, there it was that the Israelites found themselves facing impossible odds.

There they were, God’s chosen people, being oppressed by another nation. It wasn’t fair; it wasn’t what God had promised them. Why was this happened? Why is it that God is not showing up in power to deliver us? Well, the answer was simple: the Israelites were just in the wrong place. Let’s have a listen. This comes from the Book of Judges chapter 6:

The Israelites did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord gave them into the hand of Midian for seven years. The hand of Midian prevailed over Israel; and because of Midian the Israelites provided for themselves hiding places in the mountains, caves and strongholds.

For whenever the Israelites put in seed, the Midianites and the Amalekites and the people of the East would come up against them. They would encamp against them and destroy the produce of the land, as far as the neighbourhood of Gaza, and leave no sustenance in Israel, and no sheep or ox or donkey. For they and their livestock would come up, and they would even bring their tents, as thick as locusts; neither they nor their camels could be counted; so they wasted the land as they came in.

Thus Israel was greatly impoverished because of Midian; and the Israelites cried out to the Lord for help. When the Israelites cried to the Lord on account of the Midianites, the Lord sent a prophet to the Israelites; and he said to them, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I led you up from Egypt, and brought you out of the house of slavery; and I delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians, and from the hand of all who oppressed you, and drove them out before you, and gave you their land; and I said to you, ‘I am the Lord your God; you shall not pay reverence to the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you live.’ But you have not given heed to my voice.

What were the Israelites doing? They were doing evil in the sight of the Lord. The covenant; the contract between God and His people back there in the Old Testament was really simple: God had laid down a Law, the Torah, the first five Books of what we today call the Old Testament and the first and the greatest commandment in the Law was this: God said:

I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, you shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God. (Exodus 20:1-5)

So when they cry out to their God, God sends them one of His prophets to tell them precisely what they had done. They did precisely what you and I so often are prone to do – they had a foot in both camps. On the one hand, they wanted God to bless them; to protect them. But on the other they were worshipping other gods. And the one true, living God comes to them and says, “Look, I’ve told you this before – you can’t have your cake and eat it too.” They were simply living out the consequences of their rebellion against God.

And God let that happen because He doesn’t want them doing that. When we rebel against God it always brings us pain and pain is a sign there is something wrong. That’s what pain is for in our bodies and that’s what pain is for in our lives. Rebellion against God which has a name – it’s called “sin” – always at the end of the day, involves pain because that pain is God’s means of showing that this rebellion is not going to work. It’s God’s way of having us come to our senses and turn back to Him. Just like the story of the Prodigal Son that Jesus told all those years later.

None of that should be any surprise to us at all. But will you notice something else with me here … will you notice that God’s chosen people, the Israelites, were completely powerless. The Midianites and the Amalekites roamed free and plundered Israel mercilessly. They wasted the Promised Land. They were like locusts, they trampled over it, they destroyed the crops, they brought hunger and poverty and misery to God’s people. And all the Israelites could do was to run and hide in the caves up in the mountains and in holes that they dug for themselves. How pathetic is that? These were after all God’s chosen people who had been promised this land through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It was their inheritance from God.

And friend, here’s the thing: even though today you and I aren’t under the same law as them – the Old Testament Law, the Torah, because when we put our faith in Jesus we come under grace rather than under the law – there’s a principle here that every parent will understand. When our children rebel against us, we simply can’t bless them. When our children go their own way, as much as we love them, there comes a point when we have to let them suffer the consequences of their actions. And if we don’t do that, we are being lousy parents.

And you and I, we can be facing insurmountable, absolutely impossible odds; being plundered in life by our own version of the Midianites and the Amalekites, whatever those things may be and we cry out to God but He doesn’t answer because we’ve set up other gods in our lives, ahead of Him. We are off chasing the god of wealth or of recognition or of worldly success. whatever … and we are surprised when our lives are ravaged and attacked and destroyed? Shouldn’t be any surprise at all. It’s just simple, natural, predictable, unavoidable cause and effect.

Before we can expect the power of God to be on our side, we need to tear down the altars on which we have sacrificed our lives to all those other gods. It’s as simple as that!

The Call of Gideon

Earlier we saw that the Israelites, God’s chosen people, were being ravaged by the Midianites and the Amalekites for no other reason than the fact that they turned their backs on God by worshipping Baal – a false god; a false idol of another nation. And so God let them live through the consequences of their sin but … here’s the thing: as much as they were being punished by God for rebelling against Him, God’s punishment is always redemptive. The pain that they experienced was meant to bring them back to their God.

I mean, given the choice between the pain of our rebellion and the blessing of God, hopefully, we eventually come to our senses – just like the Prodigal Son and turn back to God. So God heard their cry after explaining to them why they were being ravaged by these other nations, knowing that His people were at a turning point, ready to turn back to Him, He stepped in and He did something about it. Let’s have a listen because there’s a clue here; well, it’s more than a clue. There is clear instruction here of what to do to lay hold of God’s power in our lives. Judges chapter 6, beginning at verse 11:

Now the angel of the Lord came and sat under the oak at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, as his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press, to hide it from the Midianites. The angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon and said to him, “The Lord is with you, you mighty warrior.”

Gideon answered him, “But sir, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our ancestors recounted to us, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has cast us off, and given us into the hand of Midian.” Then the Lord turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian; I hereby commission you.”
Gideon responded, “But sir, how can I deliver Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.” The Lord said to him, “But I will be with you, and you shall strike down the Midianites, every one of them.”

Then Gideon said to God, “If now I have now found favour with you, then show me a sign that it is you who speaks to me. Do not depart from here until I come to you, and bring out my present, and set it before you.” And he said, “I will stay until you return.” So Gideon went into his house and prepared a kid, and unleavened breads from an ephah of flour; the meat he put in a basket, and the broth he put in a pot, and brought them to him under the oak and presented them.

The angel of God said to him, “Take the meat and the unleavened cakes, and put them on this rock, and pour out the broth.” So he did. Then the angel of the Lord reached out the tip of the staff that was in his hand, and touched the meat and the unleavened cakes; and fire sprang up from the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened cakes; and the angel of the Lord vanished from his sight. Then Gideon perceived that it was the angel of the Lord; and Gideon said, “Help me, Lord God! For I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face.”

But the Lord said to him, “Peace be onto you; do not fear, don’t be afraid; you will not die.” Then Gideon built an altar there to the Lord, and called it, The Lord is peace. To this day it still stands at Ophrah, which belongs to the Abiezrites.

This is the story of God calling Israel back to Himself through this one man, Gideon. Now there is a reason that God chose Gideon, because he was a man of strength. In other words, he was a natural born leader and what Israel needed right at this point was a leader; someone who trusted God but someone who was strong and who could inspire a nation and lead an army.

But, will you please note with me the turn of events because it tells us so much about of our God. Here were God’s chosen people turned against Him by worshipping a foreign god, Baal, and as a result were ravaged by foreign nations. But they cried out to God and so God acts … God acts by sending an angel to Gideon – just the right man for the time – in order to redeem Israel; in order to call them back to Himself.

And friend, God always acts to draw us back to Him in the midst of our rebellion because He loves us. Did you hear how Gideon reacted to the angel? ‘Why is this happening to us? Where’s God? Why doesn’t He show up like He used to? Gideon was still confused and in the midst of the pain and the confusion, God just acted … God stepped out; God reached out; God spoke. Now so distant was Gideon from God that he needed proof; evidence that this angel was indeed from God. So the angel gave him the sign: the fire that consumed the meat and the cakes. And the moment Gideon realised this angel was from the Lord, what did he do? He built an altar to God and worshipped Him, right there in that place.

Friend, maybe you have been listening to God’s Word today as we have been talking together about Israel’s rebellion and God’s power and now about Gideon and perhaps through this word you can hear God reaching out to you, just as He did to Gideon. Because frankly, that’s what He does when His Word is proclaimed. Perhaps you have been sitting there squirming a little because you can feel the Spirit taking the Word of God and laying it on your heart.

Well, that’s okay; we all squirm a little when God is convicting us of something. Well, let me say this: if you are in that place right now, the very first thing that happens is that God reaches out to us in our rebellion in the middle of all the consequences and He call us back to Him and our natural response … well, our natural response should be to worship Him; to put Him back in His rightful place in our lives; to sacrifice our lives to Him on His altar rather than to the other gods on their altar.

And as we will see next week on the programme, there are two parts to that transaction – but that’s next week. In the meantime, can I encourage you: if you heard the voice of God through His Word today, it is time to respond. It is time to worship the one true God because friend, we can sit there with the Midianites and the Amalekites trampling all over our lives – whatever that happens to look like in your life or my life. We can sit down and say, “Aw, God my life is such a mess.” We sit there in our dung heap and our mess, amongst the smell and the yuck and we imagine somehow that God wouldn’t possibly reach in that place for us.

We imagine that we are so far away from God that God has written us off. Let me tell you this: through Jesus, God never writes anyone off! Jesus died for me, He died for you and He died for each person whose life is in a mess; whose life is so dark. He loves us, He reaches into that place and He acts even when we are confused, even when we are complaining.

Friend, stop, listen and hear the voice of God today. God came to Gideon right in the middle of Israel’s mess … a mess that came from their rebellion against God. And as we are going to see over the coming weeks, God did some amazing, powerful things to redeem His people, to fulfil His promise.

So many of us want God’s power but on our terms and not His. Let’s be honest about that. And so we carry around baggage in our lives that deep down we know doesn’t honour God, but hey – we still want His power when we’re in a difficult spot. What it comes down to …. is a question of priorities.

Destroying Altars

Power, as it turns out is one of the most precious, seductive, alluring commodities in the world. The reason people chase so hard after wealth is so they can have power. Power is why wars are fought. Power is why domestic violence happens. Power is one of those things that everyone wants. And this week on the programme we are talking about power, but not the sort of power that this world has to offer – not the sort of power most people hunger for – we are talking about God’s power.

The Apostle Paul wrote to his friends in Ephesus:

I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, one of the riches of his glorious inheritance amongst the saints and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power. God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in heavenly places. (Ephesians 1:17-20)

So what Paul is say here to the Ephesians is that his prayer for them is that, as they get to know God better; as He reveals Himself to them more and more, that they would know the hope and the riches and the immeasurable greatness of His power that they already have because they believe in Jesus. The very same power that raised Jesus from the dead – that’s the sort of power we are talking about on the programme today – God’s power.

And if you were able to join us last week on the programme, you may remember that we have been taking a look at God’s power through the story of Gideon – an Israelite who, back in the Old Testament times was called on by God to fight a battle against the Midianites and the Amalekites who were ravaging the Promised Land, oppressing the people of Israel, God’s chosen people.

Why were they being oppressed? Because they had rebelled against God! But God heard their reply and was about to come in power, through this leader, Gideon, to set His people free, yet again. But the problem was that God’s people had been worshipping foreign gods and if there is one thing that really kindles God’s anger, it’s this one thing – worshipping other gods. Remember the first and second commandments:

I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me. You will not make for yourself an idol, you will not bow down to them and worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God. (Exodus chapter 20:3)

And that’s exactly what Israel had been doing, so before God could come in power to deliver them, there was a bit of unfinished business that needed to be taken care of. See, God is a God who loves us and longs to be with us and so if you and I are off worshipping other gods – I mean, it’s easy to do, chasing after this and chasing after the that and the other thing in this world – and He just kind of parachutes in each time we cry out to Him when we are living through the consequences of our rebellion and we are in the doodoo and we cry out to Him, you know what’s going to happen? Well, He fixes the problem and we go straight back to our old ways again!

Now, God loves us and He longs for us to be close to Him and to live in His blessing and that’s what this unfinished business was all about. Let’s have a listen:

That night the Lord said to him, “Take your father’s bull, the second bull seven years old, and pull down the altar of Baal that belongs to your father, and cut down the sacred pole that is beside it; and build an altar to the Lord your God on the top of the stronghold there, in proper order; then take the second bull, and offer it as a burnt sacrifice with wood of the sacred pole that you shall cut down.

So Gideon took ten of his servants, and did exactly as the Lord had told him; but because he was afraid of his family and the townspeople to do it by day, he did it by night. When the townspeople rose early in the morning, the altar of Baal had been broken down, and the sacred pole beside it was cut down, and the second bull was offered on the altar that had been built.

So they said to one another, “Who has done this?” After searching and inquiring, they were told, “Gideon the son of Joash did it.” Then the townspeople said to Joash, “Bring out your son, so that he may die, for he has pulled down the altar of Baal and cut down the sacred pole beside it.” But Joash said to all who were arrayed against him, “Will you contend for Baal? Or will you defend his cause? Whoever contends for him shall be put to death by morning. If he is a god, let him contend for himself, because his altar has been pulled down.”

Therefore on that day Gideon was called Jerubbaal, that is to say, “Let Baal contend against him,” because he pulled down his altar. Then all the Midianites and the Amalekites and the people of the East came together, and crossing the Jordan they encamped in the Valley of Jezreel.

But the spirit of the Lord took possession of Gideon; and he sounded the trumpet, and the Abiezrites were called out to follow him. He sent messengers throughout all Manasseh, and they too were called out to follow him. He also sent messengers to Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali, and they went up to meet them.

It’s a great story – to see how the hearts of God’s people were wedded to this foreign god, Baal. They were absolutely horrified that Gideon had torn down Baal’s altar. In fact, Gideon knew he was taking his life in his own hands which is why he snuck out at night to do the deed. And so often, our hearts are equally wedded to the things that we chase after in this world: success, career, recognition, wealth, comfort, control, power. This is the unfinished business that God wants to deal with before He comes in power to deliver us.

No, I’m not saying that we have to work and work and work our way at cleaning up our act before God will help us. I mean, ultimately, Israel was not the one to fight against the Midianites and the Amalekites in order to deliver themselves – not at all, God did that. As we will see later on today and in coming weeks, God did the fighting for them. But what God was looking for was a change of heart amongst His people.

An altar is something that we sacrifice on and just as the Israelites had an altar to Baal in their midst that had to be torn down so that they could worship the one true God, so we can have an altar in our hearts, in fact, multiple altars, on which we sacrifice our very lives in order to chase after the trinkets and the baubles this world dangles before us.

It’s tragic, but it’s true! And what I believe God is saying to you and me is that if we are living through the painful consequences of sin and rebellion, today is the day that He wants the altars to those imposter gods, torn down. Today is the day, where through His Spirit and His Word, He is calling us to a turning point – each one of us – to destroy those altars and turn back to Him. To knock over the altars to the foreign gods; to cut down the sacred poles in our lives, because it is not until we do that, that He will come in power to set us free.

Look at what happened again to Gideon when he took his life into his own hands to tear down the altar of Baal and the sacred pole beside it. Have another listen. In the face of overwhelming numbers of the Midianites and Amalekites that he was about to have to fight, the Spirit of the Lord took possession of Gideon and he sounded the trumpet. All of a sudden Gideon was equipped for the battle – not in his own strength but with God’s power; with the Spirit of the Lord.

You see, it’s a question of priorities really.

Anointed by God

Earlier we saw how this leader, Gideon, was called by God to do something outrageous. He was called to tear down an altar that stood in the midst of God’s chosen people, Israel, an altar to the foreign god Baal. It was a gutsy thing to do because God’s own people had turned against Him – their hearts were set, not on the Lord their God, who delivered them from Egypt; their hearts were set on worshipping this Baal.

And for Gideon to tear down this altar was an outrageous act; it was radical. The people turned against him, they accused him, they asked him what the blazes he thought he was doing and yet Gideon honoured God. He took a stand for God in the face of public opinion that was completely against him, despite what everyone else thought about him and even, given that his stand could have cost him his life, never the less, he took that stand for God.

I want to take a look at that in a bit more depth right now because, taking a stand for God is something that can be very, very hard to do. Some of the people listening to this message right now, in different parts of the world, well for you, taking a stand for Jesus can cost you your life. For others, it’s their reputation. Whatever it is, taking that stand can be so difficult.

And yet the rewards, the blessing from God is something that begs belief. That’s why I want to scratch around in this issue some more right now. So God had called Gideon to destroy this altar; something that he did in the middle of the night for fear of retribution. So when the town’s folk woke early in the morning to find their altar was gone – let’s have another look at it – they were not happy:

So they said to one another, “Who has done this?” After searching and inquiring, they were told, “Gideon son of Joash did it.” Then the townspeople said to Joash, “Bring out your son, so that he may die, for he has pulled down the altar of Baal and cut down the sacred pole beside it.”

People, let me tell you, often are very unhappy when we take a stand for God. Forget that in their heart of hearts they may well know that what we are doing is right. This was Israel; this was their heritage – the Lord their God. Their history was the history of God reaching out to them through Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and leading them through the wilderness and bringing them safely into the Promised Land.

But make no mistake about it, when we take a stand for God, the forces of hell are arrayed against us. I for one, need to know that because here I am sometimes doing the right thing – maybe I’m honouring God by trying to bring peace into a situation, let’s say, and you can’t believe the people who want to attack you for trying to live your life God’s way and not theirs.

It’s just the simple things – but someone who sets their heart like flint on following this Jesus through thick and thin, through up and down, is going to be attacked. And in fact that’s exactly what Jesus told His disciples, John chapter 15, verse 20:

Remember the word that I said to you, ‘Servants are not greater than their master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also.

So here was Gideon, he has taken a stand from God; he has torn down the altar to Baal which has sent shock waves through the community. They are baying for his blood and right in the face of that, Joash, Gideon’s dad, completes God’s work in the hearts of people. He asks God’s people the question that needed to be asked in that place and in that time.

Joash said to all who were arrayed against him, “Will you really contend for Baal? Will you defend his cause? Whoever contends for him will be put to death by morning. If he is a god, let him contend for himself, because his altar has been pulled down.

These were God’s people – they were behaving so badly and yet, deep in their hearts, they knew it. So Joash asked them, ‘So what, are you actually going to stand up for this false foreign god? Are you really going to stand against your God – the God who set you free from Egypt – against the man your God has sent to set you free from the Midianites and the Amalekites, my son Gideon, on behalf of Baal? Are you really going to do that?

And it seems that was precisely what was required! The hearts of the people turned back to God. And as we saw earlier – as a result of this turning, both in the heart of Gideon and in the heart of God’s people, the power came upon Gideon; a power that would deliver Israel from the oppression that they were suffering under the attacks of the Midianites and the Amalekites. Look with me againat what happened:

The spirit of the Lord took possession of Gideon; and he sounded the trumpet, and the Abiezrites were called out to follow him. He sent messengers throughout all Manasseh, and they too were called out to follow him. He also sent messengers to Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali, and they went up to meet him too.

Do you see? Instead of contending on behalf of that false god Baal, they now rallied to God’s cause because the Spirit of the Lord had been sent in power to take possession of Gideon. It happened through Gideon because the Spirit of the Lord fell on him. There was anointing where God appointed Gideon in power and might to lead God’s people into battle.

Now this concept of anointing is one that happens throughout the Bible. In the Old Testament, Kings and priests were anointed – Aaron, the first High Priest, was anointed. Exodus chapter 29, verse 7:

You shall take the anointing oil and pour it out of his head and anoint him.

It’s the idea of God pouring His Spirit out on someone – represented there by the oil – and empowering them and appointing them for a specific task to which He has called them. It was precisely so with Jesus. Acts chapter 10, verses 37 and 38:

That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.

An anointing is an appointing; an anointing involves power because the Spirit of God comes upon someone to empower them to do God’s work. And so far as I can discover in the Bible, Old Testament and New, God only anoints people in this way with His Holy Spirit and with power when they are completely sold out to Him. The only one, of course, whoever executed that in complete perfection was Jesus Himself.

But Gideon was anointed, empowered by God only after he had taken a stand for God at great personal risk. Will you note that with me? Do you see that? Gideon was a strong man from the start – he was a leader – but the power of God only came upon him; the people only rallied and followed him to the battle, after he had taken an outrageous and dangerous stand for God – completely against public opinion; knowing totally that they may in fact, lynch him for doing it. And as is so often the case, God used that stand to change the hearts of His chosen people – to turn them away from Baal and back to the One true God; the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob.

Friends, that’s how it works! God’s kindness towards us, through Jesus, is meant to lead us to repentance. And that turning away from imposter gods, whatever they might be in your life and back to the one true God, brings power. It’s a power … the power of God that’s available to each and every person who will put their faith in Jesus and trust their lives into the hands of God, as Gideon did. That’s where the power is.

A Personal Challenge

It’s all well and good for us to talk about Gideon and what he went through all those thousands of years ago – fabulous stuff, great story. He heard from God and so he tore down the altar to the foreign god and then the one true, living God did some might things through Gideon. We are going to see over the coming weeks the powerful things that God did. He gave Gideon victory over absolutely impossible odds.

But we are not just churning through this Gideon story for the fun of it. We are not just here to listen to some nice little story that may or not have happened way back then. Why? Because it’s not a myth; it’s not a fable; it’s not a piece of entertainment that we consume and forget about. What we are looking at here is the living Word of the living God – it’s mighty and powerful and sharper that any two edged sword, able to discern the attentions of our hearts. And discerning the attentions of our hearts is precisely what we are doing right now, because I truly believe that God wants to challenge us through His Word.

We have all heard the Ten Commandments and perhaps we can rattle off a few of them but I would like to take us back again to the one we looked at earlier; in fact, the two, the first and second Commandments of those ten, because they take us to the very heart of this story of God and Gideon and what God is all about. Exodus chapter 20, verses 1 to 5:

I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me. You will not make for yourself an idol, you will not bow down and worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God.

I believe the challenge that the Lord is laying down to us – to you and to me – right here now, this moment, is this: what if any false gods do we have in our lives that we are putting before God? How can we know that? Of course, we all have to earn money, of course, we need a roof over our heads, of course, we need a job and there is nothing wrong with any of those things, even having a career and enjoying that. You know, that’s a fabulous gift from God. Of course, we need human relationships – we need family and friends.

How do we know when any of those good things have become gods in our lives? How do we know when we have stepped over that fine line, when all of a sudden we have started to put those things before our God? Because truly, if we are worshipping other things ahead of God; if we are sacrificing our lives to them; if they are higher up on our list of priorities than God Himself, then we are no different to the Israelites who were worshipping on the altar of Baal.

An altar, as I said before, is something that we sacrifice at. And can I tell you, we have a great propensity to sacrifice our very lives at these altars. We sacrifice our lives to career or to relationship or to reputation or to money or to status and then … then we wonder, why is it we can’t seem to lay hold of God’s power. I’m not doing anything wrong – I’m just living my life. God, why don’t you show up? Friend, God is not going to show up in power while we are serving other gods.

And how do we know when we are doing that? Well, the way I have learned to figure that out in my life is to think through the things in my life that are important to me and ask myself, ‘Which of them would I not give up if God asked me to?’ Now other than God, the most important thing in my life is Jacqui, my wife, my kids are pretty much up there too and God is never going to ask me to give them up because they are my flesh and blood. But what about my house? What about this ministry that I’m involved in? What if God ask me to walk away from that and give it up?

Easiest thing to do is to take something that we are doing for God – it might even be something really, really good and then it becomes so big in our lives; we put it ahead of Him. We make the ministry more important than God Himself. And as we work our way through that list, the moment we run into something that we would seriously struggle to let go if God ask us to, well, we know we have a problem with the first and second commandments.

I want to encourage you today to go through that exercise in your life; in your heart. What is there in your life that you would struggle to lay down for God? Because those are the very things … the very things that He wants us to lay down. He won’t necessarily always take them away; they just need to sit well below Him and His will in our life’s priorities. Because when they do, there … right there we will discover as Israel did when Gideon destroyed the altars, we will discover the power of God … the awesome power of the living God.

Friend, I ask you to take this very seriously in your life. We look at some of the good things in our lives and we really never weigh our priorities – we really never ask ourselves, “Have I taken this good thing in my life and put it ahead of my God?”

I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt; out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.

Sometimes when we’re journeying through life, a “bridge out” sign appears on the road ahead. We’re faced with an impossible situation. The road is blocked. So what do we do? Which way do we head? Are we hearing from God, or are we on a fools errand?

Gideon and the Fleece

We are continuing this week on the programme in our journey of discovery to discover the power of God in our lives. Power is an amazing thing – people want it and when they have it, they want to hang on to it and never let it go.

It’s an interesting fact that here in my own country, Australia, a true democracy where Governments are elected by the people every three years or so, the last Prime Minister to leave office at a time of his own choosing was Sir Robert Menzies way back in 1966. Now that’s over half a century ago – all those who followed him have clung onto power for too long and they have been ousted, either by the people or a general election or by their own parties. I mean, it’s crazy isn’t it? Why would you do that? Why wouldn’t you go at a time of your own choosing? Why? Because they clung onto power for too long!

The sort of power that we are talking about on the programme again this week isn’t human power; it’s the power of God. The power of God which is available to every man, woman and child who trusts their lives in Jesus, God’s only Son, sent to set us free from the devastating impacts of sin. Now the power to be free, the power to honour God, the power to make a difference in this world – that’s the sort of power that really matters and the only place it’s to be found – the only place – is in Christ.

Over the last couple of weeks on the programme, we have seen how God’s power was promised to a man named Gideon, a man who had honoured God. A strong man in his own right but one now called to overcome an enemy of his people, against absolutely impossible odds. The Midianites and the Amalekites were ravaging the Promised Land of Israel. They were trampling on the land, they were destroying the crops and so keeping God’s people oppressed and in poverty and in famine.

There was a reason for that: God was punishing Israel, His chosen people, for worshipping other gods. But the time had come for God once again, to redeem His people, because that’s the whole purpose – to draw His people close to Himself because He loves them. And He chose to do this through the man called Gideon. As we have already seen, the first thing that had taken place was to turn the hearts of the Israelites back to God. And so God had destroyed the altars built to the false god Baal.

Now, that caused a stir but it had the desired effect. But when God called Gideon to lead an army to overcome oppressors, he for one, wasn’t entirely sure whether he was actually hearing from God. Have you ever had that problem? I certainly have. Let’s have a look. Judges chapter 6, verses 14 to 16:

Then the LORD turned to him and said, ‘Go in this might of yours and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian; I hereby commission you.’ Gideon responded, ‘But sir, how can I deliver Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.’ The LORD said to him, ‘But I will be with you, and you shall strike down the Midianites, every one of them’.

Well, you know, I understand how Gideon felt. God was asking him to do a huge thing. Not only to risk his own life, but the lives of all his countrymen. And so God gave him the sign – literally fire from heaven. Let’s go on and read Judges chapter 6, beginning at verse 20:

The angel of God said to him, ‘Take the meat and the unleavened cakes, and put them on this rock, and pour out the broth.’ And Gideon did. Then the angel of the LORD reached out the tip of the staff that was in his hand, and touched the meat and the unleavened cakes; and fire sprang up from the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened cakes; and the angel of the LORD vanished from his sight. Then Gideon perceived that this was the angel of the LORD; and Gideon said, ‘Help me, Lord God! For I have seen the angel of the LORD face to face’.

Now, you would think, wouldn’t you, that this would be enough to convince Gideon, but as the reality of this ask from God – fighting the Midianites and the Amalekites, who vastly … vastly outnumbered Israel – as that reality sunk in, the old Gideon got to thinking, “Wow, what if this isn’t from God? What if … ?” And so he asked God for one of what is, these days, one of the best known signs in the Bible. Gideon had to be sure – Judges chapter 6, verses 36 to 40:

So Gideon said to God, ‘In order to see whether you will deliver Israel by my hand, as you have said, I am going to lay a fleece of wool on the threshing floor; if there is dew on the fleece alone, and it is dry on all the ground, then I shall know that you will deliver Israel by my hand, as you have said.’ And it was so. When he rose early next morning and squeezed the fleece, he wrung enough dew from the fleece to fill a bowl with water.

Then Gideon said to God, ‘Do not let your anger burn against me, let me speak one more time; let me, please, make trial with the fleece just once more; let it be dry only on the fleece, and on all the ground let there be dew.’ And God did so that night. It was dry on the fleece alone, and on all the ground there was dew.

There’s a pretty specific couple of asks of God, pretty detailed, very much your “belts and braces” approach. “Tonight, Lord, listen, stick dew on the fleece but not on the ground and tomorrow night, put the dew on the ground but not on the fleece.” Let me ask you, isn’t this putting the Lord our God to the test? And isn’t that something that we are not supposed to do?

I’ve heard people say that Gideon just did absolutely the wrong thing here, he didn’t have enough faith; he should have just have gone forward and done what God had asked him to do through the angel and not ask God for any signs. Ha, poor old Gideon!

Well, maybe there is a bit of truth in that but I put myself in Gideon’s shoes and well, wouldn’t you want to make sure that it is definitely God calling you to do this crazy thing, against impossible odds? The future of the whole nation was at stake.

And you know something, I kind of understand that. From time to time, I have been called by God into impossible situations, nowhere near as dire as that of Gideon and Israel but you know tough spots, tough places. And when I sit down in the morning early and I pray (as I do most mornings) and I read God’s Word and I think about that and I sense God leading me in this direction or that – to start our ministry in Africa before we had the funds – absolutely impossible! And to tell you the truth, before I race off into the way blue yonder and do something foolish, you know what, I want to know that this is definitely coming from God.

It’s not so much that I am afraid of failing, because I decided a long time ago, I was prepared to fall flat on my face in order to follow after God. No, if I’m to invest energies and resources into something, I want to know it’s definitely God’s call, it’s definitely God’s will, because more than anything I want to honour God. I don’t want to race off and do something I think needs doing if it wasn’t part of God’s plan. And whilst I have never thrown a fleece out on the balcony and ask for God to put dew on it and then off it, I have asked Him for signs: a word through someone else; supernaturally inspired; an event; something else that I read in God’s Word, some form of confirmation that I am indeed heading down a path that God has ordained and anointed for me

Because God’s power – the power to overcome impossible odds – that sort of power is only found in that place; when we are in the centre of His will. Not when we are racing off somewhere, wherever our fancies take us, doing things that we think need doing. Jesus said, “Apart from me, you can do nothing,” And as I have learned the hard way, He is absolutely right.

When Less is More

Now, I know that sometimes in life I can be a bit of a slow learner. Really, I can! But fortunately, God sometimes puts brick walls there in my way for me to run into, so that I can learn. And one of the things I’ve had to learn is that when God wants something done, not only does He want it done, but He means it to be for His glory. Not for mine, but for His. So the way He tends to do things is that He achieves them through His power, not through ours. Sure, He involves us through our gifts and abilities and our natural motivations and the desires of our hearts and our resources and our energy – sure He does that.

But when God is up to something good, it happens in His power, in His time, often, let me say, despite thee and me. Whether it’s something huge like defeating an army against impossible odds, or whether it’s more on the micro level; changing a person’s heart or healing a difficult relationship. I have to tell you, time and time and time again, I’ve had to learn this lesson: when God is up to something, it happens in His power and His time, not mine – albeit, that He may give some small role to play.

As I said, I can be a slow learner – how about you? How often do we kind of think to ourselves, “God needs a hand here. I need more resources, more effort, more involvement. Without me God can’t get this done!”

Come on, we have been journeying with Gideon these last few weeks on the programme and we have seen that God called him to do something impossible – to raise up a small army from amongst Israel in order to defeat the mighty armies of the Midianites and the Amalekites, who were oppressing God’s chosen people. So finally God deals with the Israelites by having Gideon tear down the altar to the false god Baal who stood in their midst. Finally, God gets Gideon to the starting line here. The old Gideon wasn’t too sure, as we have seen, that he was the man for the job and that he was actually hearing from God.

But despite the people, despite the leader, despite all us human beings who think we are so vital, so indispensible in God’s cause, despite us God is ready to do His great and mighty work. But there is still another thing that He has to deal with. Of course, given these impossible odds, Gideon does what he thinks he should do: he assembles the strongest and largest army that he possibly can. But, slow learner that he is, what he doesn’t realise is that this battle, by and large, is God’s gig, not his.

Have a listen to the absolutely crazy thing that God does next, because friend, from where you and I sit; from where Gideon sat; from our limited tiny, narrow, human perspective, the thing that God did next was just plain nuts. Let’s have a listen – Judges chapter 7, verses 1 to 7:

Then Jerubbaal (that is, Gideon) and all the troops that were with him rose early and encamped beside the spring of Harod; and the camp of Midian was north of them, below the hill of Moreh, in the valley. The LORD said to Gideon, ‘The troops with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand. Israel would only take the credit away from me, saying, “My own hand has delivered me”. Now therefore proclaim this in the hearing of the troops, “Whoever is fearful and trembling, let him return home”.

Thus Gideon sifted them out; twenty-two thousand returned, and only ten thousand remained. Then the LORD said to Gideon, ‘The troops are still far too many; take them down to the water and I will sift them out for you there. When I say, “This one shall go”, he shall go with you; and when I say, “This one shall not go with you”, he shall not go.

So he brought the troops down to the water; and the LORD said to Gideon, ‘All those who lap the water with their tongues, as a dog laps, you shall put to one side; all those who kneel down to drink, putting their hands to their mouths, you shall put to the other side.’ The number of those that lapped was three hundred; but all the rest of the troops knelt down to drink water. Then the LORD said to Gideon, ‘With the three hundred that lapped I will deliver you, and give the Midianites into your hand. Let all the others go to their homes.

So, let’s get this straight: even with the greatest army they can muster, Israel is still facing completely impossible odds. We find out later that there are around one hundred and thirty five thousand Midianites and Amalekites. Just stop and think, one hundred and thirty five thousand soldiers! But now, God reveals His hand because above and beyond winning the battle, He has another purpose – to glorify Himself so that His chosen people will see Him, honour Him, give thanks to Him and worship Him. God is in the business of restoring His throne amongst His people.Have another listen to His thinking here – Judges chapter 7, beginning at verse 2:

The LORD said to Gideon, ‘The troops with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand. Israel would only take the credit away from me, saying, “My own hand has delivered me”.

Do you see it? God wants His people to know that He delivered them by His might and His power. And so first He weeds out the weak hearted; those who rather wouldn’t stand on God’s behalf. “Send them home”, He says to Gideon. But then the strangest thing, get them to drink! Those who kneel down and cup the water with their hands, get rid of them. Take the ones who crouch down like dogs to lap up the water. Take the minority; the weaker ones; the ones that behave more like dogs than human beings.

“You see, Gideon, with this remnant,” says God, “I will deliver you.” As I said, completely nuts from a human perspective but not from God’s, because God was in the business of winning this battle on Israel’s behalf and in order that they should understand that and acknowledge that they had won in God’s power and not their own, He pares back their strength so that there can be absolutely no mistaking that it was His power that overcame the enemy.

Have you ever found yourself in a place where things aren’t going well, where you are facing impossible odds, things aren’t going your way? So you pray and you pray and you pray and instead of things getting better, they go from bad to worse and we kind of wonder, “What the blazes is going on here, God? What are You doing? Didn’t you hear my prayer? Aren’t You going to deliver me? What You are doing here, God, is nuts, it doesn’t make sense.”

That’s how it looks from our narrow perspective, but more often than not, God is testing our hearts. He is teaching us His ways; He’s knocking our support mechanisms out from under us. No more leaning on this crutch or that one because He wants us to trust Him – not anyone or anything else and especially not ourselves. We want more and more, He wants less and less, because less is more. Why? Because when we have nothing left in our arsenal, when we have no one else to turn to, then God is our only One.

And friend, it is in that place, that apparently lonely wilderness place that God comes in His power to deliver us. We will look at that together another time – how He delivers us. Today though … today I want to encourage you in the knowledge that however impossible the odds appear; however big the problem is, He is in that place with you; He is at work in your circumstances, even the ones that appear so negative and He will … He will deliver you. And when He does, blind Freddy will be able to see that it was His power, not yours, that won the day. That is something He never, ever, ever wants us to forget.

We’re Not Alone

Next week on the programme we are going to conclude our look at God’s story of Gideon and what it means to truly have victory over impossible odds; what it means to lay hold of the awesome power of God in the middle of an impossible situation in our lives.

I was tempted frankly, to continue on with that story right now, in the few minutes that we have left together today. But I just felt to pause because I know that there are many, many people listening today who are facing impossible situations in their lives – frightening situations. Perhaps they are financial, perhaps it’s health and maybe you are just one of those people who is going through something right now. I have had those times in my life and let me tell you, the more God involves me in His work of sharing this fantastic news of Jesus with other people, seemingly the more frequent these impossible situations become.

You see, I had this crazy notion that when I gave my life to Jesus a decade and a half, almost two decades ago – okay, I was young in my faith, I had lots to learn – as soon as I discovered there were many things in my heart – attitudes and behaviours – that God had to deal with, but I thought that, ‘Well, in a few weeks or a few months or at worst, a couple of years, they will all be sorted out and I will be on Easy Street with God. My life would just be, well, you know, fantastic! Isn’t that what it’s meant to be like? And perhaps I’ll have the odd little pothole in the road, here or there … But the last thing I ever expected was a ‘bridge out’ sign up ahead.

But the more I walked with Jesus, the more I discover that life – at least the life He has called me to lead – is crammed packed full of ‘bridge out’ signs – impossible situations. Situations that don’t appear to have any resolution to them. And I wondered often, ‘Why is that, God? Why can’t You just put me on Easy Street for a while – at least for a few years – just to give me a break from all of this?’ And as I thought and prayed and pondered that question, God gave me this response, straight from the lips of Jesus, His Son. Comes from Matthew chapter 11, verses 28 to 30:

Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

All along I have been expecting a destination – over the next rise, around the next corner – but what Jesus had been calling me to was a journey … a journey alongside Him, over hill, over dale, wherever He may lead, yoked next to Him, living through things in His time, in His way. And time and time and time again, He’ll lead me down a road that has a “bridge out” sign.

At first and still sometimes, a little bit now, I’d struggle and pull against Him and say, “No Lord, no, let’s not go there, there’s a “bridge out” sign. Can’t You see the sign? This is an impossible road You have asked me to walk.” And so often I’d feel desperately alone as though … as though He had deserted me, as though He had evaporated from next to me, when all along, His promise is that He would never, ever leave me or forsake me. His promises are true! He was of course, always there waiting, often silently and I struggled and complained – waiting for me to learn to follow His leading.

And so far, this is what I have discovered: there is not one “bridge out” sign – not a single, solitary one – that Jesus hasn’t been able to deal with in my life. Now, often He doesn’t deal with things the way we expect. Often He deals with them through my pain and my suffering, made worse as I struggle against Him. But then Jesus knows all about pain and suffering; He knows all about being misunderstood and ridiculed; He knows all about what it means to be completely alone on this earth in the midst of suffering.

Maybe that’s why He never leaves us alone; maybe that’s why His love warms our hearts; maybe that why He brings His power to bear in each and every situation to bring victory over impossible odds! Not so that we can always be comfortable – not that, but so that we may glorify God on this earth through all that we do.

I just want to encourage you today, that when you are travelling in a place where the odds are impossibly stacked against you, listen to me, Jesus is in that place with you. Jesus is on that journey with you. Jesus has the “bridge out” sign covered. He knows about it, He knows what to do about it. He is there with you!!

It’s part of life that from time to time we’re going to face impossible circumstances. And there we are, we believe in God. But … can we rely on His power? Can we really believe that He would possibly give us victory over impossible odds.

The Heart That Wavers

As I read the story of God and Gideon in Judges chapters 6, 7 and 8 – a story that I really encourage you to read for yourself – what stands out for me the most is that God wants us to lay hold of His power, even in the midst of the most impossible of circumstances. In fact, let me say, especially in the midst of the most impossible circumstances.

And over these last few weeks on the programme, we have seen how Gideon had, at God’s behest, mustered the biggest army that he could, to fight against the army of the Midianites and the Amalekites. Even so, it was something of a “David/Goliath” affair – a minnow of an army, the Israelites, against one hundred and thirty five thousand of the Midianites and the Amalekites. Crazy, but then God … God pared Gideon’s army down to a mere three hundred fighting men. Why? Well, Judges chapter 7, verse 2:

The LORD said to Gideon, “The troops that are with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand. Israel would only take the credit away from me, saying, ‘My own hand has delivered me’.

I often wonder what Gideon was thinking and feeling in those days and weeks as God reduced his numbers and sent him, on what was almost certainly a kamikaze mission – a suicide mission. Surely no one could win this battle. And from a human stand-point, that’s often how it feels. Things in our lives are going from bad to worse, instead of our prayer making things better, things often tumble downwards and we left wondering, “What is God up to?”

Now maybe Gideon was made of sterner stuff than thee or me but even so, he needed to be certain that God was in this, so God, by His grace, gave Gideon an insight into how He had already gone before this tiny rag-tag band of three hundred men to assure victory. Let’s have a listen. We are reading Judges chapter 7, verses 7 to 15:

Then the LORD said to Gideon, “With the three hundred that lapped I will deliver you, and give the Midianites into your hand. Let all the others go to their homes.” So he took the jars of the troops from their hands, and their trumpets; and he sent all the rest of Israel back to their own tents, but retained the three hundred men. The camp of Midian was below him in the valley.

That same night the Lord said to him, “Get up, attack the camp; for I have given them into your hand. But if you fear to attack, go down to the camp with your servant Purah; and you shall hear what they say, and afterward your hands shall be strengthened to attack the camp.” So Gideon went down with his servant Purah to the outposts of the armed men that were in the camp. The Midianites and the Amalekites and all the people of the East lay along the valley as thick as locusts; and their camels were without number, countless as the sand on the seashore.

When Gideon arrived, there was a man telling a dream to his comrade; and he said, “I had a dream, and in it a cake of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian, and came to the tent, and struck it so that it fell; it turned upside down, and the tent collapsed.” And his comrade answered, “This is no other than the sword of Gideon son of Joash, a man of Israel; into his hand God has given Midian and all the army.”

When Gideon heard the telling of the dream and its interpretation, he worshipped; and he returned to the camp of Israel, and said, “Get up; for the LORD has given the army of Midian into your hand.”

Do you see what was going on here? God is about to move in Israel’s favour with incredible power through this tiny band of no more than three hundred men, God is about to rout one hundred and thirty five thousand Midianites and Amalekites. Just stop and think about that – the sheer and utter and complete impossibility of that proposition, as you or I are standing there in that night in the middle of our band of three hundred men! I mean, it’s nuts! And so Gideon’s heart is wavering. Gideon is afraid. Why? Well, because what he is being asked by God to do is completely unnatural.

We humans have a strong sense of self preservation and so when God asks us to do something that from where we sit, looks completely mad, our hearts waver. It simply isn’t natural for us to be in a dangerous place and wait for God to move in power. It simply isn’t natural for us to rely on the fact that God has already gone ahead of us to ensure victory. Because, through our sense of saving our own skins, we look at the problems and the risks and the dangers that loom so hugely and ominously before our very eyes and we are afraid. I mean, in the scary things that you and I face here and now.

Do you see how this isn’t just some myth from the past? I wonder if sometimes we miss out on seeing God’s power because we just run away from the impossible, way too early. Gideon didn’t, because he asked God for signs as his heart was wavering, as any man’s heart would do, facing almost certain death. And then, not once but twice, Gideon throws out the fleece.

“God, tonight put the dew on the fleece but not on the ground, then I’ll know this call is from you.” So God does that and the next night, Gideon is still wavering, just to make sure, asks God to do it the other way round – “Put the dew on the ground this time, God, not on the fleece.” And God does that!

And here he is again; about to attack this huge, HUGE enemy camp and again God gives his a sign – the two men talking on the boundary of the camp in the middle of the night, about the fear in their hearts, of Gideon.

That same night the Lord said to him: “Get up, attack the camp for I have given it into your hand. But if you fear to attack, go down to the camp with your servant Purah and you will hear what they say and afterward your hands shall be strengthened to attack the camp.

Don’t you love that? God knows our frailties. He understands our fears and so by His grace He leads us through the difficult times. But you and I, so often we are so afraid; we are so dejected; we are so busy panicking and running around in circles, flapping and running away – man, we couldn’t hear God if He shouted! We want to see God move in power in our lives; we want to understand what He is up to; we want to be encouraged by God and yet we run away instead and then we wonder: “Why didn’t we experience God’s power? Why didn’t God speak to us?”

Listen to me today; by definition, if we are going to see God’s power in full flight, in our lives, then it’s going to be in an absolutely impossible situation, against impossible odds. And that place, for a time – perhaps a short time or maybe even a long time – that place is going to be uncomfortable and dark and scary. That’s the place where God does things through His power so that we can be in absolutely no doubt that it came from Him and not through us.

And friend, in my experience, really, it’s only as I look back on those times that I can truly see, and truly comprehend, how amazing the power of God is. Just because you or I or Gideon are afraid, it doesn’t mean that God has lost His power or that God is not going to show up. Fear is natural and I believe what God is speaking to us today, is just to get still and to listen and to let Him lead us and show us what He would show us and then like Gideon, our hearts will be strengthened.

And when Gideon heard the telling of the dream and its interpretation, he worshipped God. He returned to the camp of Israel and said, “Get up! For the Lord has given the army of Midian into your hand.

Let the Enemy Flee

This awesome power of God is available to each man, woman and child who puts their trust in Jesus. Don’t believe me? Well, here’s the way the Apostle Paul puts it – writing to his dear friends in the Ephesian church – Ephesians chapter 1, verses 17 to 20. He says:

I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power. God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places.

So what the Apostle Paul is saying here to the Ephesians is that, his prayer for them, as they get to know God better; as God reveals Himself to them, more and more and more, is that they would know the hope and the riches and the immeasurable greatness of His power that they already have because they believe in Jesus. The very same power, says Paul, which raised Jesus from the dead.

And as one of my lecturers at Bible College, Doctor Barry Chant taught me, those original Greek words, which we now translate into the English “immeasurable greatness of His power” – if we were to take those Greek words and kind of Anglicise them just a tad, they would come out sounding something like this: “hyperbalistic, megathonic, dynamic power.”

So, here’s the starting point in laying hold of God’s power when we are facing incredible odds. We don’t need to ask God for the power because we already have it. We need to ask God to give us a spirit of wisdom; a spirit of revelation to open and enlighten the eyes of our hearts so that we can see the “hyperbalistic, megathonic, dynamic power” that He has already given to us through our faith in Jesus, His Son.

And maybe you remember me saying this very same thing a few weeks back, but the reason I’m saying it again here, is that it is just so easy to forget this when we’re afraid – and not just you and me, Gideon too. As we have journeyed together with Gideon through Judges chapters 6, 7 and 8, we have seen how his heart wavered; how he suffered from uncertainty and panic attacks in the face of impossible odds – but God was in that place. God had gone on ahead of him.

And right now I would like to share with you what happened when Gideon and his tiny band of three hundred men when up against the Midianites and the Amalekites, who numbered one hundred and thirty five thousand. Judges chapter 7, beginning at verse 15:

When Gideon heard the telling of the dream and its interpretation, he worshipped; and he returned to the camp of Israel, and said, “Get up; for the Lord has given the army of Midian into your hand.” After he divided the three hundred men into three companies, and put trumpets into the hands of all of them, and empty jars, with torches insides, he said to them, “Look at me, and do the same; when I come to the outskirts of the camp, do as I do.

When I blow my trumpet, I and all who are with me, then you also blow the trumpets around the whole camp, and shout, ‘For the Lord and for Gideon!’” So Gideon and the hundred who were with him came to the outskirts of the camp at the beginning of the middle watch, when they had just set the watch; and they blew the trumpets and smashed the jars that were in their hands.

So the three companies blew the trumpets and broke the jars, holding in their left hands the torches, and in their right hands the trumpets to blow; and they cried, “A sword for the Lord and for Gideon!” Every man stood in his place all around the camp and all the men in camp ran; they cried out and they fled.

When they blew the three hundred trumpets, the Lord set every man’s sword against his fellow and against all the army; and the army fled as far as Beth-shittah toward Zererah, as far as the border of Abel-meholah, by Tabbath. And the men of Israel were called out from Naphtali and from Asher and from all Manasseh, and they pursued after the Midianites.

Then Gideon sent messengers throughout all the hill country of Ephraim, saying, “Come down against the Midianites and seize the waters against them, as far as Beth-barah, and also the Jordan.” So all the men of Ephraim were called out, and they seized the waters as far as Beth-barah, and also the Jordan.

They captured the two captains of Midian, Oreb and Zeeb; they killed Oreb at the rock of Oreb, and Zeeb they killed at the wine press of Zeeb, as they pursued the Midianites. They brought the heads of Oreb and Zeeb to Gideon beyond the Jordan.

You see what happened? The impossible – that’s what happened! And why? Was it through the might and the power of Gideon’s great army? No! Three hundred of them against one hundred and thirty five thousand! It was by the power of God who had already gone ahead to unsettle the hearts of the Midianites and the Amalekites. It was because God was in that place in all His power that the Israelites prevailed against completely impossible odds.

My friend, when God is in that place, the enemy must flee. When God speaks; when God moves; when God is up to something, well, let me tell you, nothing, absolutely nothing is going to stand in His way. And that’s exactly what the Psalmist writes in Psalm 46:

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High. God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved; God will help it when the morning dawns. The nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter; he utters his voice, the earth melts. The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge

Friend, that’s the sort of power that we have been talking about and it’s that power that is available to each one of us when we put our trust in Jesus. Let me again encourage you to spend some time over this coming week, just immersing yourself in this story of God and of Gideon because it’s a story that speaks volumes to us, here and now; about who God is, about how He brings His power to bear in our lives. The Old Testament, the Book of Judges chapters 6 and 7 and may God rock your socks off as you receive His Word; His Word of power into your heart.

The Power of God

I have to be honest; I am something of a slow learner. When it comes to laying hold of God’s power in my life which is what we have been talking about together over these past few weeks, I truly am slow learner. Why? Because time and time again I have fallen into the trap of thinking, “It’s all up to me!” Even though I have seen God do so many powerful things in my life; even though in this ministry of Christianityworks that I am so privileged to be a part of – we have seen miracle after miracle … I mean, we wouldn’t exist; I wouldn’t be with you right now had God not delivered this ministry by His power over and over again.

In its fifty three year history there have been so many times when Christianityworks, the ministry, has been threatened, by this or by that. You wouldn’t believe how Satan has arrayed the armies of hell against this ministry that tells people of the saving love of Jesus Christ. And in my short time – just on a decade now – in Christianityworks, I have seen God do so many miraculously powerful things and yet, still each and every time when confronted with a situation where we are facing impossible odds, it seems that my default position is, “Well, it’s up to me!”

In part, that’s my personality type – I’m a leader like Gideon. The gift that God has given me is strength. But as I look around, I’m not alone. We all seem to be like that; we think that it’s all up to us. Well, let’s get a revelation here today: it ain’t! If it was all up to us, what would it mean for God to have power and to use that power on this earth? Gideon was a natural leader; he was a strong man and what I have seen is a man, Gideon, who is a natural leader in this story. He is naturally a strong person.

Some peoples gifts lie more in compassion or in serving or in giving – with Gideon, his natural gift was his strength, which makes him an ideal leader because he is able to crash through things using that strength.

The angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, “The Lord is with you, you might warrior.” And again, “Then the Lord turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian. I hereby commission you.

God knows what He is doing! He picks a strong guy, a leader. You want that sort of guy at the head of an army that’s about to fight a much, much larger army, against impossible human odds.

But as we have seen, if you have been able to join us over this past weeks on the programme, Gideon’s heart wavered. No less than four times did God have to perform miraculous signs in order to convince Gideon that God was indeed in this and that victory was assured.

I love that. I love it because God is saying to us, “Look, don’t care how strong you are, even if you are a leader, even if you have the strongest of all personality types, you can’t do this on your own. You cannot overcome impossible odds in your own might.” Do you get it? God deliberately picks a strong guy through whom to teach us this lesson. Thank You Jesus!!

And the only way that I have learned to let go and let God do the things that only He can do, is by learning His ways from His Spirit through His Word. Leaving room for God doesn’t come naturally to most of us, I have to tell you. It’s something I have had to learn and I am still on that learning journey. It goes completely against the grain to take my hands off the wheel and say, “Okay God, I have done all I can. Anything else I need to do, just let me know, but I’m standing back here because I believe that I am going to see Your power do things that I can’t even begin to dream or hope for or imagine.”

Take the disciples. They had been with Jesus (the eleven that remained after His death and resurrection) for just on three and a half years. What an apprenticeship? What a Bible College – three and a half years with Jesus, on the road, watching, seeing, hearing, experiencing the power of God, first hand? If anyone was equipped to go and start the first century church, it was these guys. But just before He ascends to heaven, Jesus told them, “You’re not ready; there is something else you need.” Luke chapter 24, verse 49:

And see I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.

Friend, they needed power! They had been walking with Jesus for three and a half years. What did they need? Power! Power from on high; power from above; God’s power; the power of the Holy Spirit who comes to dwell in each person who puts their faith in Jesus. The power of the Holy Spirit who, if we will lay our lives down at the foot of the cross, will completely drench us; completely soak us and change us, baptise us with His power. And can I tell you? As someone who, for much of his life, has laboured at things through his own strength, what an amazing blessing that is. What a joy, what a delight it is to see God do things in power in my life.

Am I still like Gideon, a naturally strong person? Yep, of course I am. But what I delight in is when the Spirit of God counsels me to hold my tongue or take my foot of the accelerator or stop worrying about this or that because God has already gone ahead of me. For me, a huge part of God’s power is not only moving impossible mountains or winning battles or overcoming obstacles, a huge part of God’s power is changing me, making me malleable in the Potter’s Hands, taking the selfishness, the anger and replacing it with peace and with joy.

Friend, that takes power; it takes extraordinary power in my case, to set me free from sin. And that’s the power that God would hand to each one of us. Not the way the world gives because the world gives power to the rich and the famous; to those who seize power at any cost. But it is not how God gives power? No!

He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless. Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.