LWF: Four Principles of Victory - Judges 6:1-22 part 1
A Bible study adapted from a sermon once preached by Adrian Rogers.
When a person, a people, a nation forget God, they loose all reference points, no longer having any fixed standard of right or wrong. As they go from authority to relativism, truth to pragmatism, revelation to feeling, and conviction to opinion. As Owen Benjamin says they reject The LOGOS for a lie.
LWF: Four Principles of Victory - Judges 6:1-22 part 1
How is it that hopelessness and godlessness now prevail in our once great land called America?
Well whether you want to believe it our not, we're in a battle today; a battle of true light against darkness, truth against error, The LOGOS vs the lie and Satan AKA Lucifer against The Most High God.
Now first of all, we MUST realize how subtle this battle truly is. That is understanding what "The Mystery of Iniquity" is or how Satan plays both sides of an argument.
On the one side of the coin, he appears as The Angel of Light, Lucifer, and on the other side of the same coin as The Sinister Minister of Darkness, Satan.
This is what "Doing the right thing for the wrong reason." is all about and we must avoid it!
But today we will discover how God, who gave Gideon victory, wants to do the same for you and me!
I believe with all my heart that America is/was a God formed, God blessed, God decreed and God protected nation, BUT America IS in dire trouble today.
DIRE TROUBLE!!!
No nation has ever had such a Christian beginning as America, but with all sadness I must say that America has lost her glory, she has turned her back on God. And unless America repents, the consequences for this nation and her people WILL BE DIRE!!!
The Book of Judges tells how Israel who was blessed by God and given so much also forgot God, got into trouble and was judged by God.
See Judges 6:1 And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of The LORD: and The LORD delivered them into the hand of Midian seven years.
Did you notice WHO delivered Israel into the hands of Midian, was it the enemy? No! It was God!
God is our only hope and also our biggest threat!
Now look at Judges 6:2 And the hand of Midian prevailed against Israel: and because of the Midianites the children of Israel made them the dens which are in the mountains, and caves, and strong holds.
This means they were terrified by their enemies and they sought hiding. Yet the Bible tells us that we are to fear no man, only God!
Now look at Judges 6:3-6
3 And so it was, when Israel had sown, that the Midianites came up, and the Amalekites, and the children of the east, even they came up against them; 4 And they encamped against them, and destroyed the increase of the earth, till thou come unto Gaza, and left no sustenance for Israel, neither sheep, nor ox, nor ass. 5 For they came up with their cattle and their tents, and they came as grasshoppers for multitude; for both they and their camels were without number: and they entered into the land to destroy it. 6 And Israel was greatly impoverished because of the Midianites; and the children of Israel cried unto the LORD.
So not only were the Israelites intimidated, but they were impoverished by their foes, and oh what a parallel we face here in America today!!! Especially with Biden’s open boarder invasion.
We have our wars on poverty, drugs, cancer, terror, Covid and MAGA, and now we're witnessing the final economic collapse as all of our great wealth, resources and manufacturing ability are stolen by the bankers and China.
Our foes and troubles seem to be so great in number and so great in power and here we are as a people, full of pride, bread and circus. We have no regard for the poor and we live in the midst of abominations calling them "alternative lifestyles."
It reminds me of what Ezekiel said in 16:49-50 concerning the sin of Sodom.
Ezekiel 16:49-50, Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. 50 And they were haughty, and committed abomination before Me: therefore I took them away as I saw good.
So there was a pride and sinfulness in the land that lead to fear and impoverishment.
Now look at Judges 6:7-10
7 And it came to pass, when the children of Israel cried unto The LORD because of the Midianites, 8 That The LORD sent a prophet unto the children of Israel, which said unto them, Thus saith The LORD God of Israel, I brought you up from Egypt, and brought you forth out of the house of bondage; 9 And I delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of all that oppressed you, and drave them out from before you, and gave you their land; 10 And I said unto you, I am The LORD your God; fear not the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but ye have not obeyed My voice.
So God said "I did ALL of this for you! This is your history in My Story. Now the similarities to America today are amazing aren't they?
God did all of this for us too, yet we have forgotten Him.
And when a person, a people, a nation forgets God, they loose all reference points, and they no longer have any fixed standard of right or wrong.
Then they go from authority to relativism, from truth to pragmatism, from revelation to feeling, and from conviction to opinion. In short, as I heard Owen Benjamin say they reject The LOGOS for a lie.
Here is the theme in The Book of Judges, see Judges 17:6 In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes.
That is every man just decided to do what he thought was right and what he thought was wrong.
That means what may be right for me may not be right for you and what may be wrong for me may not be wrong for you. It is just a relativistic mush.
A professor was actually heard saying in a local university, "We can be sure of nothing.". A student asked, ”Professor, are you sure about that?” and the professor replied, "I am certain!"
Do you see the absurdity of our present post modern stinkin’ thinkin’?!?
In these days, King (Jesus) is no longer on the throne in our hearts here in America and every man does that which is right in his own eyes.
Can you see it?!?!
We can know some things for certain, we have The Word of God, but we have forsaken Jesus and His Word, The LOGOS, and so we are living in a time of moral confusion!
In a survey given some years ago to teenagers they were asked who their number one male role model was, the unanimous answer was Magic Johnson, followed in by a distant second of "my dad".
Magic Johnson! The former NBA star who has no moral scruples and has written that he has slept with hundreds of women and has even boasted that once he was with six women at once!
That is the role model for our youth?!?!
Our youth have no guidelines, they don't know what the rules are, where the out of bounds are, where the goal lines are, who the umpires are and what the purpose is!
As a matter of fact, in a recent interview in The New York Times, a 17-year-old from Lakewood, California high school student who was arrested for rape told the reporter, “They pass out condoms. They teach sex education, and pregnancy this and pregnancy that; but they don’t teach us any rules.”
That’s from a 17-year- old! We have lost our sense of morality and the word sin is a forgotten word in America.
Every man does that which is right in his own eyes. In America, the enemy is not sin; it is guilt.
We have abandoned the tried and proven absolutes of Our God and His Word, The Bible, and instead have run with open arms to the synchronistic gods of the ancient pagans and the new age! That’s rejecting The LOGOS for a lie!
As you walk through the checkout in a grocery store there’s always magazine articles like this:
“How to Stop Being So Tough on Yourself”
“Guilt Can Drive You Crazy”
“Guilt Mongering”
“Getting Rid of the Guilts”
“Stop Pleading Guilty.”
“Guilt—Letting Go.”
“Don’t Feed the Guilt Monster.”
I even hear Christians in Bible studies saying "I had to stop feeling guilty, I had to learn to forgive myself.". Forgive yourself?!?! What?
What we’re saying is, that today we want to live in a no-fault society.
Nobody is guilty anymore; nobody is sinful.
We may be sick, but nobody is sinful. We may be weak, but no one is wicked.
And that’s what happens when we reject The LOGOS for a lie.
The America we’re living in no longer has any moral absolutes, today right is wrong and wrong is right. Light is dark and dark is light, everything is upside down.
Like the Luciferians' motto says, "Ordo ab Chao". Order out of chaos. Remember this is all part of their plan.
So my point here is that God is in control. The point is that the very same God who ruled and reigned in the time of Gideon, rules and reigns today.
Just look at what happened at the Trump Rally in Butler, Pa on July 13, 2024.
And so we as a nation CAN regain our glory if we only repent and believe the Gospel and do what is RIGHT!!!
There are four principles at play here and they are all centered around the person of Gideon.
1) The Principle of VISION
2) The Principle of VALOR
3) The Principle of VIGILANCE
4) The Principle of VITALITY
What helps lead us to victory?
Well it's not our fame, it is The F.A.I.T.H. of Jesus Christ working through us, and it's not our abilities, its our availability and obedience to God.
Now that's because it's God's plan to take ordinary obedient people do extraordinary things.
So we’ve seen how the Israelites turned from God and then faced certain judgment and then we compared this to our current horrible mess we face in America.
Now let’s look at four Biblical principles of one man named Gideon who saved Israel from certain destruction. Those four principles are vision, valor, vigilance, and vitality.
To be continued tomorrow!
Sent from my iPad