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Gideon: An Unlikely Hero

THE CYCLE OF JUDGES:

© Mark Barry 2012 | visualunit.me | Please do not republish without permission, but feel free to copy for personal use.

REJECTION & RESCUE

3

4

5

6

1

2

REJECTION

REACTION

RETRIBUTIONRESCUE

REPENTANCE

RELAPSE

Israel rejects God and turns to serve

false gods

God reacts to Israel’s idolatry with

righteous anger

God hands Israel over to the oppression of

her enemies

Israel repents and cries out to God for

mercy

God raises up a judge to rescue Israel from

her enemies

The judge dies and Israel returns to her

idolatry

JUDGES 2:11-13

JUDGES 2:14

JUDGES 2:14-15

JUDGES 2:18

JUDGES 2:16-18

JUDGES 2:19


Judg. 6:1 ¶ The people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, and the LORD gave them into the hand of Midian seven years.


Judg. 6:10 And I said to you, ‘I am the LORD your God; you shall not fear the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell.’ But you have not obeyed my voice.”


I.  God’s grace is sufficient for our disillusionment (vv. 13-14).


Disillusionment- A feeling of disappointment resulting from the discovery that something is not as good as one believed it to be.

Gideon: An Unlikely HeroJudg. 6:11-12 ¶ Now the angel of the LORD came and sat under the terebinth at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites. And the angel of the LORD appeared to him and said to him, “The LORD is with you, O mighty man of valor.”

Gideon: An Unlikely HeroJudg. 6:13 And Gideon said to him, “Please, my lord, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us, saying, ‘Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the LORD has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian.”

Gideon: An Unlikely HeroJudg. 6:8-10 the LORD sent a prophet to the people of Israel. 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 fear the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell.’ But you have not obeyed my voice.”


Judg. 6:10 And I said to you, ‘I am the LORD your God; you shall not fear the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell.’ But you have not obeyed my voice.”


Judg. 6:14 And the LORD turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian; do not I send you?”


II.  God’s grace is sufficient for our insecurities (vv. 15-16).


Judg. 6:15 And he said to him, “Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.”


“Even if we lack status and position, we are to trust God to use us to carry out his work in this world.”

– Gene Getz


Judg. 6:16 And the LORD said to him, “But I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man.”


III. God’s grace is sufficient for our lack of spiritual perception (vv.17-24).


Judg. 6:17 And he said to him, “If now I have found favor in your eyes, then show me a sign that it is you who speak with me.


Heb. 5:14 But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.


IV.  God’s grace is sufficient for our fear (vv. 25-27).


Judg. 6:27 So Gideon took ten men of his servants and did as the LORD had told him. But because he was too afraid of his family and the men of the town to do it by day, he did it by night.


V.  God’s grace is sufficient for our skepticism (vv. 28-40).

Gideon: An Unlikely HeroJudg. 6:36-37 ¶ Then Gideon said to God, “If you will save Israel by my hand, as you have said, behold, I am laying 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 save Israel by my hand, as you have said.”


Judg. 6:36 ¶ Then Gideon said to God, “If you will save Israel by my hand, as you have said,

Gideon: An Unlikely HeroJudg. 6:12 And the angel of the LORD appeared to him and said to him, “The LORD is with you, O mighty man of valor.” Judg. 6:14 And the LORD turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian; do not I send you?” Judg. 6:16 And the LORD said to him, “But I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man.”


Trust in God’s abundant sufficiency for our ample

deficiencies.


2Cor. 3:5 Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God,


Next Steps 1.  Detect your deficiencies. 2.  Disrobe your deficiencies.

Gideon: An Unlikely HeroCol. 3:8-10 But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.

Gideon: An Unlikely HeroCol. 3:12-14¶ Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

gideon: an unlikely hero - forks community church...gideon: an unlikely hero judg. 6:11-12 ¶ now...

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