Memorials (part 1)

Yesterday at LCM church (Anglican) in Sydney one of the pastors said as an aside, "God wants us to remember." It was almost a throw-away line, but seriously made me think about how often in the Scriptures the word is used and the theme of it running throughout. 168 times in 163 verses (32 in the Psalms alone) the word is used in the Bible and that's nothing to dismiss. Why the serious memory challenge? Why so much looking backwards?

Consider holidays. The Jewish people celebrate Passover and the Christians celebrate Easter each year about March/April. Each is a memorial of God's activity in the human dilemma. Jewish people escaped slavery after 400 years in Egypt and Christians note the salvation brought about by the death and resurrection of Jesus, the God-man Savior.

The first one who actually does 'remember' in the Bible though is the Almighty. He says, "I will remember My covenant, which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and never again shall the water become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the cloud, then I will look upon it, to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” (Genesis 9.15-16) This has to do with rainbows and what we see as a natural phenomenon of beauty or scientifically as mist and sunshine and right angles, God sees as a string-around-His-finger to remind Him of the flood of Noah and His own decision to "never again" do that flood thing to the whole planet.

Memorials are set up worldwide in cemeteries and on plaques in musea and in text books to help us get a glimpse of time then and for a future consideration as well.

For instance, “But lest some unlucky event should happen unfavorable to my reputation, I beg it may be remembered by every gentleman in the room that I this day declare with the utmost sincerity, I do not think myself equal to the command I am honored with.”- George Washington, first president of the USA.

Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh had a brief convo about this: "Pooh, when I'm--you know--when I'm not doing Nothing, will you come up here sometimes?" "Just me?" "Yes, Pooh." "Will you be here too?" "Yes Pooh, I will be really. I promise I will be Pooh." "That's good," said Pooh. "Pooh, promise you won't forget about me, ever. Not even when I'm a hundred." Pooh thought for a little. "How old shall I be then?" "Ninety-nine." Pooh nodded. "I promise," he said." AA Milne in House at Pooh Corner

And one more from Stephen King, “Writers remember everything...especially the hurts. Strip a writer to the buff, point to the scars, and he'll tell you the story of each small one. From the big ones you get novels. A little talent is a nice thing to have if you want to be a writer, but the only real requirement is the ability to remember the story of every scar. Art consists of the persistence of memory.” ― Stephen King, in Misery

So memories have purpose and a call to remember things and events and people and such has a purpose as well. If we don't remember we are destined to repeat mistakes. If we don't remember, we will think that all of life just began today and miss opportunities. We will fake our way into insignificance. Whatever it is in our lives which help us remember, and whatever sudoku and puzzling we can play to strengthen that, is for our good and the good of society in general.

Listen to these words from the Scripture, "Remember, do not forget how you provoked the LORD your God to wrath in the wilderness; from the day that you left the land of Egypt until you arrived at this place, you have been rebellious against the LORD." (Deuteronomy 9.7) Most parents would remind kids to forget their mistakes, but the Lord tells us to remember how we blew it and thus understand our un-deserved-ness. In other words, if you think you are doing ok, if you are sure that your compliance with biblical standards stands you in good stead with the Lord, you will miss out. "What!" you say?

Yes, when you establish a checklist system by the which you think you are afforded God's reward of heaven or at least a heavenly life on earth, then you miss out. Why? Because you are sinful. Because you fail Him. Because you are ever falling short of God's standards and thus deserving of God's punishment. But if you remember your own sin, and remember that EVEN SO, God amazingly loves you and desires to be with you, then you begin to understand GRACE. That's what the Bible calls God's unmerited favor. Unmerited in that you cannot merit or earn it.

Forgetfulness is endemic to a people, unless we set up memorials in calendars or in locations. For instance, in the book of Judges, we read, "as soon as Gideon was dead, the sons of Israel again played the harlot with the Baals, and made Baal-berith their god. Thus the sons of Israel did not remember the LORD their God, who had delivered them from the hands of all their enemies on every side; nor did they show kindness to the household of Jerubbaal (that is, Gideon) in accord with all the good that he had done to Israel. (chapter 8.33-35) Forgetting who we are, and whose we are, and who has helped us in the past, caused us to dishonor the past, and break God's command of forbidding idolatry.

I love the idea of God remembering even when we forget. Nehemiah was a court official and became a prophet to the Jewish people. His words help in this regard, “They refused to listen, and did not remember Your wondrous deeds which You had performed among them; so they became stubborn and appointed a leader to return to their slavery in Egypt.
But You are a God of forgiveness, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness; and You did not forsake them. (9.17)

How awesome is the Lord who remembers even when we refuse and forget.

But if we remember and keep the memory of others and their deeds, of others and their hopes, of God and His plans in our minds, then we are benefited, and we are going to make a difference in the world. The choice is yours. What's on your mind today?

Abimelech: Failed King, Guard your hearts

Our 8th lecture in a series on the book of Judges:

By Bob Mendelsohn

Given in Moscow, Russia

8 June 2014

All around us here in Moscow are memories of times past. Look at Red Square and the Kremlin. Look at historical markers like the churches that were built as far back at the 11^th century. Pushkin’s statue, Mayakovsky’s square, Yesterday we saw the statue of Peter the Great on the ship near Gorky Park. By comparison, Australia became a white man’s world in the end of the 18^th century, when Captain Cook arrived into Sydney harbor. So for us, history is about 240 years old. To you in the Former Soviet Union, that’s almost modern history.

And history should inform us. Remember the great quote by George Santayana:

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” So that’s why we read the Bible, which itself is thick with history. That’s why we listen to older people who recount stories from their past, so that we can learn. So that we don’t have to learn the hard way. We can learn from the mistakes of others, and not make the same mistakes.

Listen to what the author said:

2Sam. 11.21 ‘Who struck down Abimelech the son of Jerubbesheth? Did not a woman throw an upper millstone on him from the wall so that he died at Thebez? Why did you go so near the wall?’

The mockery of the writer of Samuel is clear. A woman kills a Jewish king, not with a sword but with a big rock. By the way the word Rechev is almost always translated “chariot” but for this episode with the millstone of the woman in the tower against the horrible king Abimelech.

Today we don’t look at a judge, but rather a king, the son of Gideon named Abimelech.  Let’s ponder his name and his life and his ending and see what we can learn so that we can be better, and we can avoid the same mistakes he made.

It may be that Gideon named his son Abimelech (“my father is king”) as witness to his faith in the fact that God himself (as “his father”) was the true king in Israel. Abimelech apparently chose to interpret the meaning of his name differently: “my father was (asked to be) king” and now I will take his place as king. Abimelech like so many madmen in history chose a life of deceit and evil masquerading as harmony and civility to get his own purposes.

Let’s look at the three stages of this man’s evil life and learn to guard our hearts. Remember what Solomon said

Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flows the springs of life. (Prov. 4.23)

I. THE KINGDOM TAKEN

Abimelech was a clever politician and devised a plan to secure the loyalty of his family first, then the people of Israel second. He used his relationship with Gideon only as suited him.

His ‘selfish ambition’  is clear.  He is the son of Gideon, as we know, but his mother was the slave woman/ concubine who was not one of Gideon’s many wives. Maybe he had a 2^nd class idea of himself. I’m no psychologist however.  Abimelech’s ambition is obvious. He mounts a political campaign with the relatives of his mother’s family. (.1) Not with the relatives of his father. He is an outsider and lives like one.  He uses Shechem as his location to begin which makes sense since his mother was from there.

Remember what James the apostle says,

For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing. (James 3.16)

Abimelech invited the Shechemites to consider who should be king, although I doubt he advised them of the desire of the Almighty that Jews would not have a king. They thought, “One of our own should be king.” (.3) That would make sense in their political world as well. So he had them in his hand.  They were however uninformed about the 10^th Commandment “thou shalt not covet” which Abimelech clearly violated.

The story unfolds with Abimelech hiring hit men from the Baal temple worship center. (.4) The money is dirty money given to him from evil men and with it he hires evil men. The Bible calls them RAKA (empty heads).  They begin a military campaign to kill his 70 brothers. And with one exception they are successful. One escapes by the name of Jotham, who was the youngest of the 70.

Finally he seizes control of government and is heralded as king  there in Shechem (.6) What a sad day in Israel’s history as their new leader is anything but a kosher man. He’s a failed and failing man in direct contrast to his father Gideon and to the others who have made a difference in the life of Israel.

Jotham tells a parable, and I think it’s the first parable in the Bible. (.7-15) The trees all talk and invite others to rule over them, but the thorn bush, the bramble is Abimelech and is useful only to make the fire bigger. Jotham uses the story to highlight the uselessness of his half-brother. And like I see all over Australia every summer, the bramble bush would only cause more fires and not be able to protect the other trees at all. (.15) It’s irony; it’s laughable; it’s sad!

II. KINGDOM DEFENSE  (.22-29)

Abimelech was king for 3 years. (.22) Then God sent an evil spirit on the situation. The men of Shechem began to be thieves and steal from passing travelers all their goods or to levy taxes on them, which was the same as thievery.  A man named Gaal came onto the scene and the men of Shechem put their trust in him, as opposed to Abimelech.  How did he do it? Gaal told the Shechemites that Abimelech’s father was a Jew. (.28) The very anti-Semitic Gaal used Abimelech’s history against him.

Gaal and his troops were defeated (.34-41) by some clever almost Gideon-like strategy thanks to Zebul, his lieutenant, some ambushing, and Abimelech was king again.

Abimelech had to punish the people of the city, so he set them into a trap, and blocked the city gate and killed many of the people of the town who were trapped inside.  The king poured salt over the city after burning it down. This was also done to the Jewish city of Jerusalem some 800 years later when the Romans kicked us out in 135 AD under Hadrian

III. KINGDOM LOST (.50-57)

Finally the kingdom is going to be taken from Abimelech in a most unusual way.  He chased some enemies to Thebez, about 16 kilometres from Shechem. Those people had joined in the hostility to him as king, and thus they needed to be punished. They, like almost everyone in those days, went to the ‘strong tower’ in the center of town, which was a worship center to the false gods. Abimelech set an ambush against the town as he had done successfully in the past, only this time it didn’t end so well.

A woman threw a millstone out the tower and it landed on the king, killing him in an instant. Think about it. A king should die in battle, but he did not. A king should die by a sword, but he did not. A king should die by a man, not by a woman. What a sad ending on so many levels. The unnamed woman is a hero in a certain way and she actually fulfilled the prophecy of Jotham in her stone throwing.

The story is a history and if that’s all it is, then ok, we have learned a little today. But if we can learn from it more deeply, we can take away much more.

What a man sows, that he will also reap.

Ill-gotten gains do not profit.

Abimelech didn’t even know the God of his father.

Pride goes before a fall.

Paradise gained wrongly will lead to paradise lost.

Be like Gideon and live a life of faith in the Almighty, not trusting yourself, your cleverness, you deception, and your machinery of making things happen. Honor God and He will honor you in due time.

Today we go again to the park and the streets and we will look for people who are open to hear from us. Don’t make it happen. Don’t connive and threaten and coerce. Proclaim the truth of Yeshua, and live for him and He will draw people to Himself, even through us. We are asking for 100 contacts today. Many will approach us. Many will be looking at us and wondering…”who are those people?” Be used by God today. In faith, not in manipulation. Ask and let’s see what great things the Almighty will do. Amen?

Finishing well? Gideon, the compromiser (Part 3 of 3)

By Bob Mendelsohn

Given in Moscow, Russia

5 June 2014

There are three levels of operations in most activities: planning, executing, debriefing. We certainly do that when we go to the streets. Ilya along with the team plans our sorties, we travel to them and evangelize, and then we come back sharing the stories of what God did while we were out there. In a way, our stories help Ilya frame the future as well, since our discussion tells him where we might go, and the all-essential reality of who gets along with whom, and who works well with one another.

When a military operation like the battle with the Midianites is recorded in Scripture, you can imagine that similar planning, execution and debriefing happens there. And today’s story, the final in the series on Gideon, is at times encouraging and at other times heartbreaking. The coward in chapter 6 became the conqueror in chapter 7, but he ends being a compromiser in chapter 8 and that’s not a good ending by any means.  Maybe we have to guard our hearts and minds as well, after victories gained, after prayers answered, after we see the Lord make a difference in our little world. We have to be on our guard lest we fail in this same way.

Let’s unpack the story in chapter 8, and then let’s consider the Bible and the many warnings there so that we don’t come up short ourselves in this matter of faith. Remember, though, no matter how far Gideon fell, that he is still listed in the book Hebrews, chapter 11, and thus still is considered a man of faith. He turned out ok, although by his compromises he fell short of God’s best for him. And we want the best for ourselves. And we want the best for each other, amen?

The story begins with controversy (.1-3)—the tribe of Ephraim, which was the 2nd largest of the 12 tribes, wants some of the spoils of the war. They want to gain some land that Israel had just gained against the Midianites. They are actually angry that Gideon didn’t include them. Maybe some of the ones who were dismissed, the 22,000 or the 9,700 were Ephraimites. We don’t know. But what we do know is that Gideon handled their complaint very well.

What should Ephraim have said to Gideon after the war? Hallelujah! Thanks be to God! But no, they wanted something for themselves. Shame on them. But Gideon was more righteous than I would have been.

The scene shifts east of the Jordan river where Gideon was chasing two more kings of the Midianites. You should think of them as lieutenants or generals and not kings like political leaders of countries. The Jewish city of Sukkot is in the territory of the tribe of Gad. (.5) Gideon asks for hospitality for his men and the leadership in Sukkot denies his request. What!? A Jew in the Middle East turning down his brothers in need of hospitality. What is that about?

My guess is that the leaders of Sukkot did not believe that Gideon would defeat the two chased kings. They were hedging their bets, thinking, “If Midian turns and conquers Gideon, then they will come back and beat us up. So we had better be neutral and not help our brothers in need, for safety’s sake.”

That’s terrible, but did you hear the reason? It is a matter of faith! They did not believe in Gideon and in the God of Gideon. No wonder they sent no one to the battle; no wonder they did not receive the team. Remember Rahab, the harlot, the prostitute in the Joshua story? She did receive the spies and was rewarded with salvation and with honorable mention in the Hall of Faith in Hebrews 11. And she is an ancestor of King Messiah as well.

So the people of Sukkot are going to receive punishment when Gideon returns. You might think, “Wait, the people of Ephraim were not so good either. Why do the Gadites receive punishment?” Good question. The difference in the two tribes’ behavior is that the Sukkot and Peniel people were directly resisting the name and power of God; they were (in NT terms) blaspheming the Holy Spirit, even assisting the enemy. It was not personal in their case; it was rebellion and treason against the Almighty.

Gideon was chasing these two kings Zebah and Zalmunna, because they had killed his own brothers (.19) and when he found them they were with 15,000 men, as the other 120,000 had been killed. By the 300!! Gideon came upon the camp when they were (.11) unsuspecting, and the Hebrew uses the term “Betach” meaning “trusting.” Really we could say they were over-confident. The leaders ran away and Gideon and his men chased Zebah and Zalmunna and caught them. As well as the entire army!

Gideon brings back the two kings through the territory of Sukkot and says to the 77  men  (.14) that their taunting him was in vain. He exacts punishment on the people of Gad that day with thorns and briers from the field and the hills. He lays his brothers to ruin. Wow…the punishment was deep and vivid and clear.

Gideon returns to the camp on the west side of the Jordan River and kills the two kings Zebah and Zalmunna, and the people of Israel want to make him a king. He refuses.

If I read it right, and if this were the end of the story, it would be a very normal fairy tale story. And for many of us this is where we stop reading. God chose an available man, not very bold, and made him into a general and hero. Good ending.

Except that’s not the ending.

Remember the pattern of life in Israel in the book of Judges about which we spoke a couple days ago? I quote it to you from my lesson on Monday:

There is a pattern in the book of Judges, which you must see. Read chapter 2 later, but for now, here is the cycle:

1)    Israel is disobedient

2)    Israel cries out for help

3)    God delivers us from our enemies by means of available men and women

4)    We forget God and fall into sin again

If that pattern were to hold true, then we would see it in the life of Gideon and Israel here in chapter 8. And that’s exactly what we see.

The people ask Gideon to be their king (.22) and show their unbelief in the plans of God by this. Gideon well reminds them that God is to be their only king (.23) showing his faith again! Moses had warned Israel about this (When you enter the land which the LORD your God gives you, and you possess it and live in it, and you say, ‘I will set a king over me like all the nations who are around me,’: Deut. 17.14) but it was a warning/ prophecy, not God’s plan from the beginning.

Look what the Psalmist writes about this time in Jewish history in Psalms

They did not destroy the peoples, as the LORD commanded them, but they mingled with the nations and learned their practices, and served their idols, which became a snare to them. (106.34-36)

That’s what we learn from the ephod that Gideon made. It might have been something like the garment the priests wore, but it was most probably an idol of gold to which the people came to worship. What a terrible ending to the coward turned conqueror. He had a good idea in refusing to be the king of the Jewish people, but he began living like a king. He had the people bring him gold and he collected over 40 pounds of it besides whatever he collected from the kings of Midian himself. $795,904 in today’s valuation with today’s price of gold. Yes, that would get me through the weekend.

The Bible says that Israel ‘played the harlot’ (.27) with the ephod. It says that Gideon had 70 wives and concubines, had a son whose name was “My God is king” and that son Abimelech later tried to rule the Jewish people. The ending sounds fairly bad, doesn’t it?

Look at the ending of the chapter. Israel falls and falls hard. No matter what God did for us; no matter how we saw Him work and supply and save us, no matter what the 300 did against the 135,000, we still turned away.

Then it came about, as soon as Gideon was dead, that the sons of Israel again played the harlot with the Baals, and made Baal-berith their god. Thus the sons of Israel did not remember the LORD their God, who had delivered them from the hands of all their enemies on every side; nor did they show kindness to the household of Jerubbaal (that is, Gideon) in accord with all the good that he had done to Israel. (8.33-35)

Brothers and sisters, the Word of God is clear. We are a chosen people. He chose us, not because we were so great, but in fact, because we were NOT so great. (Deut. 7.7) and chose us to represent him in the earth among the nations. We respond and we find eternity in Messiah. Then He uses us to go and proclaim Him to others and we ‘win the victory’ now and again. And the warning is clear. Listen carefully:

Do not be like the men of the tribe of Gad who played to win, even against their own brothers, not demonstrating hospitality, not living in faith, and chose to live apart from the rest of the community of faith.

Do not be like the 22,000 who were afraid and went to their homes missing the battle and the glory of seeing first hand God’s work.

Do not be like Israel who chose to live like the nations around her, and even though she saw God’s handiwork, Israel turned victory to idolatry, living for immorality and false worship.

Even though Gideon ended as a bit of a compromiser, and didn’t finish as well as he might have, his story is told us in 100 Bible verses to remind us that God uses ordinary people like us, who keep our eyes on God, and who trust Him to win victories.

Today we go out to share Messiah.

We go out to bring many to believe in Yeshua.

When we return and tell stories of victories, and you have been doing that every day, remember, don’t turn your stories and victories into an idol. He alone is King. He alone is our Focus of Worship. He alone is Lord, amen? Slava bogu!

Coward turns Conqueror: Gideon (Part 2 of 3)

By Bob Mendelsohn

Given in Moscow, Russia

4 June 2014

I love Yeshua and know that you do too. And we love because He first loved us. I want to experience His love today and I want Him to find you and share that love with you as well. And I want each of us to go from this chapel, after rest, to share that love with everyone out on the streets and in the metros and wherever else Ilya sends us.

We have spoken these last few days about hindrances to our relationship with the Lord, principal among those being our allowing sin and unbelief particularly to creep in and block our faith. And that’s hard work. For us and it was hard work for Gideon as well.

Especially as Gideon had an enemy, which was very real, with whom God wanted him to wage war and to win the battle. God was going to use Gideon to lead the Jewish people, from their various tribes, against the Midianite invaders and to lead them to victory. Amazing…the cowardly Gideon was going to be a hero. Do you remember the movie “The Wizard of Oz?” There was a character in the movie, the Cowardly Lion who only ‘needed a heart’ to have success. That same attribute is missing in Gideon, but in today’s story he gets one!

Oswald Chambers lived in Scotland 100 years ago and his writings have been collected into the classic “My Utmost for His Highest” which for over 40 years I’ve read regularly as a daily devotional. Gideon needed faith to accomplish his work, amen? Chambers said this: “Faith is deliberate confidence in the character of God whose ways you may not understand at the time.” In other words, you don’t know how God will work it out, but you believe He will do so.

In relation to the victory over the enemy, Chambers also said, “The remarkable thing about God is that when you fear God, you fear nothing else, whereas if you do not fear God, you fear everything else.”

So let’s look at our story in chapter 7 and a bit of chapter 8 today (Please read this section first if you are reading online)

Let’s talk about faith that really is our victory in modern days.

First thing to notice in chapter 7, verses 1—8 is that God will test our faith. If you have faith, good, so do demons, but real faith in God is not evident, it’s not shown, until it’s put to the test.

God will cause us to trust him, more and more, as we grow in our faith. That means we have to do with less, not with more, of natural things. That may be why 22,000 men walked away from the battle to come. (verses 1-3) The reason God initiated this is in verse 2:

The LORD said to Gideon, “The people who are with you are too many for Me to give Midian into their hands, for Israel would become boastful, saying, ‘My own power has delivered me.’  We cited this Monday in Jeremiah chapter 9, “Let not a wise man boast… but let him boast in …Me.”

So God said, let the fearful men go home. (.3) Note that this was a fulfillment of the biblical commandment found in Moses’ Deuteronomy 20.8: “‘Who is the man that is afraid and fainthearted? Let him depart and return to his house, so that he might not make his brothers’ hearts melt like his heart.”

We spoke yesterday of the way that sin creeps into the camp of Israel, if we allow the nations to remain in the Land, if we permit them and then eventually share our lives with them, then we become infected with them. In the same way, fear creeps into the nation. One person is fearful and if allowed to remain, that fear pervades the entirety of Israel. God doesn’t want us to fear, but rather to trust him. Fear is faith misplaced.  In other words, if we have fear, we have faith in something, but not in the God who can overcome all things. Amen?

The second sifting of the warriors is very odd. (.4-8). Here we see a test happening to the future battalion by drinking at the riverside. Ordinary people are often tested in ordinary ways. I heard about a man who used to take future workers in his office to lunch to see how the candidate treated the waitress and to see if he were a polite person. The candidate didn’t know that this action was part of his examination for the job.

So we see the 10,000 become 300 by ordinary means. I’m not sure what the procedure meant, as the enemy was miles away, so they couldn’t see what was happening and the 10,000 no doubt came to the river in smaller groups, but however Gideon did it, he chose 300. Remember the Bible in Moses (Deut. 32.30) already said this was advantageous: “How could one chase a thousand, and two put 10,000 to flight” And the Midianites were 135,000 people all up. If that statistic were applied to Deuteronomy we only needed 30 people to fend them all off!

The soldiers who left also dropped off some of their equipment that was odd stuff indeed, like jars and torches. But remember God will use ordinary things to accomplish his extra-ordinary purposes. If it’s available!

So we read in verse 7 that God encourages the faith of Gideon.

The LORD said to Gideon, “I will deliver you with the 300 men who lapped and will give the Midianites into your hands; so let all the other people go, each man to his home.”

Maybe that’s what we are doing each day in chapel times. And why it’s important to hear from each other the stories each night in our evening celebrations. That way faith is increased!

Faith Strengthened

Verse 8 tells us that he ‘retained’ the 300 men, but the Hebrew says he ‘strengthened’ them.  And in verse 11, God encourages Gideon again by saying his hands would be strengthened if he heard the words of the enemy and contrasted it with God.

Let me comment on this phrase, “strengthen the hands.” It’s found here and Job 4.3-4 where Job’s friends are telling him in no uncertain words that he has to take the conversation from them, since “Behold you have admonished many, and you have strengthened weak hands. Your words have helped the tottering to stand, and you have strengthened feeble knees.“

Again the phrase is used in the book of Hebrews where we read, “Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble, and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.” (12.12-13)

What is it that strengthens our hands and our feet? It’s God’s Word! Our words have the capacity to strengthen or in the case of the fearful, to weaken others. That’s why we are told to limit the number of warriors going up against the mighty Midianites who have ravished the land the last 7 years. It takes faith, mutual faith, corporate faith, and exercised faith to bring the victory to the Israelites. And we must speak faith and live faith if we are to gain that same victory here in Moscow among the 150,000 Jews or in Odessa or London or Sydney or wherever God leads us.

Gideon heard God speak to him four different times, and finally when Gideon heard from the Midianites and the dream that was interpreted, he knew God was with the Jewish people and came back and IN FAITH proclaimed “Arise, for the LORD has given the camp of Midian into your hands.” (.15)

Now God not only tested Gideon’s faith and thus the faith of the Israelites, but he also encouraged that same faith. As a result he blessed the faith, and accomplished what that faith allowed. The Newer Testament calls this ‘the gift of faith’ and is something I’ve heard you discussing the last few days.

Here’s what I mean. You are encouraging each other with words like, “I prayed for four Jewish contacts. And God gave me four Jewish contacts!” In other words, God is listening to your prayers. That makes other people believe along with you and trust God to hear their prayers as well.  What does the Bible say in Romans 10: Faith comes by what? And hearing by the Word of God.  (.17). Here’s the biblical triangle. Faith comes by hearing. Then we speak what we have heard. And God’s word produces faith in others and in us for more. Heart believes; mouth speaks; ears hear, heart believes; and on and on…ok?

Sometimes as in the biblical story of Gideon, the faith is for a military victory, or to overcome other obstacles. So it was in chapter 7 of Judges as the battle with the Midianites was almost over as soon as it began.

The story is great. The 300 smash their jars and turn on their torches; the Midianites wake up to what they think are hordes of armies surrounding them and they begin killing anything in sight or not in sight, and then running away.

The story ends at the end of chapter 7 with the heads of the princes of Midian being taken from their lifeless bodies and brought to Gideon. I don’t know what they thought he would do with it, but that was the custom of the day.

Do you remember where the story of Gideon began? The angel of the Lord found him. We read yesterday in Judges 6.11: "Then the angel of the LORD came and sat under the oak that was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite as his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press in order to save it from the Midianites."

The story is a classic inclusio, a technical literary term that has the action starting and ending in the same or similar place. We might use the term ‘bracketing.’ Look at the ending in verse 7.25: “They captured the two leaders of Midian, Oreb and Zeeb, and they killed Oreb at the rock of Oreb, and they killed Zeeb at the wine press of Zeeb, while they pursued Midian” The story of Gideon begins and ends in a wine press.

Gideon was no great valiant warrior, but his faith grew and he became a clever strategist and superior leader, a judge in the biblical understanding. The coward became courageous and landed him a spot in the Hall of Faith, in Hebrews chapter 11.The cowardly lion found his heart and this was no children's fairy tale.

His faith grew. My faith can grow. Your faith can grow. We need one another to live out this life of faith, Faith together leads to victory together, amen?

Let us grow it together by speaking faith to one another. Let us encourage one another, while it is still ‘today’ and live our lives for Yeshua in Moscow and everywhere else the Lord is leading us. Amen?

The rhythm of the book of Judges

By Bob Mendelsohn

Given in Moscow, Russia

From Judges 1-2

2 June 2014

When I think about Bible books that I like to teach in new situations, I always prefer John or Genesis, Proverbs or Revelation, you know, where God is active and teaching and helping us who want to learn about His plans. The narratives like John or Genesis where the storyline preaches even without much work from me and Revelation because it’s about so much of God and us together. Proverbs because it’s so informational and great in short thoughts to help us get through the days. But if there is a book I usually avoid it’s Judges. You see, Judges is not only about good judges and we will study them over the next fortnight, but it’s also about disobedient and ever-stubborn Israel.

If I teach that to Jewish people I worry that they will think all I ever talk about is sin, and not about God’s faithfulness or such. If I teach that to Gentiles, I worry that they will get an attitude of “Those stupid Jews who never get it right.” Anti-Semitism doesn’t need me to stoke its flames.

That said, the book of Judges IS in the Bible and IS useful and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and training in righteousness. (2 Timothy 3.16). So I will go there. And especially because the Russian-speaking and Moscow staff have entitled this 21^st Moscow campaign, “The Sword of the Lord and of Gideon.” So we have to take our lessons from the book where Gideon shows us much about God. In fact, Gideon is mentioned in over 100 verses, way more than anyone else in the whole book. And we will get to him and lessons learned from him tomorrow and two more subsequent days.

But today we begin in learning this cycle of Israel’s history.

The book opens with military conquest. That should excite Russian historians. I read much about the history of this country before I came here. You must know that as a child I thought of Russia as our enemy, and thus I’m actually in enemy territory. That’s uncomfortable for many people. This is of course highlighted to me by my lack of ability to read metro subway signs and to discuss anything with almost anyone out on the streets. But I have two more weeks here. We’ll see.

So Israel’s military victories should give us reason to rejoice in God and to honor Him as God our Saviour. We should memorialize our victories with stones and rocks, with trumpets and loud praises. And we should have completed our victories across the country, but if you read the text carefully, you will see some of these things missing.

In chapter one we conquered the enemies around us: Canaanites, Perizzites (v. 1-20) from Dan to Beersheba, including Gaza and Jerusalem. Amazing and quick and powerful overcoming.  God was with the Jewish people. (.18) Then the words drop like cannonballs on our text, “But the sons of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites who lived in Jerusalem; so the Jebusites have lived with the sons of Benjamin in Jerusalem to this day.

  

Living with the enemy was not God’s plan and that allowance, that permission, that disobedience would haunt Israel then, and honestly, to this day. (1.21-36) And the problem is like we see in other Bible stories, like Saul and Agag and the Amalekites, like Eve and a little disobedience, like Ananias and Sapphira, is that a little disobedience is a lot of trouble to the person then and to the people of God in the future. And the problem is not one of obedience first. It’s a matter of faith in God. If God said something, if He tells me something to do, then I must first believe Him and then go to do it. Disobedience is foremost an unbelief issue. Amen?

Why did God want us to remove the Canaanites, Hittites, Jebusites, and all the other nations in the land of Promise? The idolatrous peoples of the land had heard about the Jews, and about their escape from Egypt. They could have turned to the Almighty for forgiveness, but did not. They chose to live godlessly and the Lord knew that if Israel had opportunity to stay with these nations that eventually even the Jews would turn away from Him. That was not good on so many levels and God’s plan was about keeping His people with Him, and thus away from the enemy nations.

The danger is that Israel would imitate the nations around her. And by walking away from the Almighty, we would actually fail God’s promises, thus we would be the tail and not the head. We would comply with idolatrous nations and live their lives instead of ours. Look what happened in chapter two.

An angel of the Lord shows up and reminds Israel to be separate from the 7 nations in the land, and that God will keep His covenant. He tells Israel that it’s personal.

We did not listen to His voice. More on this tomorrow with Gideon.

Then the angel uses a phrase you might have heard before in the Newer Testament. “Thorns in your sides” is sometimes the phrase attributed to the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Corinthians

Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me — to keep me from exalting myself!

You may have been taught that the problem Paul had was something about blindness or weak eyes. You may have heard that this thorn in the flesh was something physical. But the phrase is a clear reference (to me) that is about people.  Consider the three times the phrase is used in the Older Testament.

Num. 33.55 ‘But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then it shall come about that those whom you let remain of them will become as pricks in your eyes and as thorns in your sides, and they will trouble you in the land in which you live.

Josh. 23.13 know with certainty that the LORD your God will not continue to drive these nations out from before you; but they will be a snare and a trap to you, and a whip on your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from off this good land which the LORD your God has given you.

Judg. 2.3 “Therefore I also said, ‘I will not drive them out before you; but they will become as thorns in your sides and their gods will be a snare to you.’”

Here we see God’s warning to the Jewish people in Moses’ day, in Joshua’s day and now told us by the angel of the Lord, that if we don’t trust God, and don’t remove the people from the land, that they, people, they will become like thorns in our sides. And so Paul had people who followed after him, centuries later, who told false gospels, who taught the people wrong things about Yeshua, legalizers, people who insisted that the people needed more than faith to find forgiveness. The thorns in Paul’s sides were people who taught wrong information about God.

OK, back to our story.

There is a pattern in the book of Judges which you must see. Read chapter 2 later, but for now, here is the cycle:

1)   Israel is disobedient

2)   Israel cries out for help

3)   God delivers us from our enemies by means of available men and women

4)   We forget God and fall into sin again

Then the sons of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD and served the Baals, and they forsook the LORD, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed themselves down to them; thus they provoked the LORD to anger. So they forsook the LORD and served Baal and the Ashtaroth. The anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and He gave them into the hands of plunderers who plundered them; and He sold them into the hands of their enemies around them, so that they could no longer stand before their enemies. Wherever they went, the hand of the LORD was against them for evil, as the LORD had spoken and as the LORD had sworn to them, so that they were severely distressed.

Then the LORD raised up judges who delivered them from the hands of those who plundered them. Yet they did not listen to their judges, for they played the harlot after other gods and bowed themselves down to them. They turned aside quickly from the way in which their fathers had walked in obeying the commandments of the LORD; they did not do as their fathers. When the LORD raised up judges for them, the LORD was with the judge and delivered them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge; for the LORD was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who oppressed and afflicted them. But it came about when the judge died, that they would turn back and act more corruptly than their fathers, in following other gods to serve them and bow down to them; they did not abandon their practices or their stubborn ways. (2.11-19)

What do we learn then from today’s lesson?

1)   God’s desire is for us to trust him, no matter what we see

2)   Victory is ours if we do trust him

3)   The enemy wants us to allow for him, to hang out with him, to live a double life

4)   When we fail, God will deliver us, if we call on Him and trust him

So today we go out to battle. We go to claim souls for Yeshua. We go to proclaim Messiah Lord of Moscow and Lord of Heaven and earth. And we go, not in our own strength, but in our righteous Savior. We go because He went. We go to our Jewish people because He came to His own. We trust the Lord to give us people with whom to witness. And our victory is in knowing Him, and sharing Him with others. He loves them much more than we do. Let us go in His name, no matter the cost, no matter the false teachers and other thorns out there. Let us go to proclaim Yeshua, Lord of all. Amen?