Judges
7 – 11
Verse 7:2 is one of those verses we have to consider in
everything we do:
You have too many
warriors for Me to allow you to defeat the Midianites. As it is now, the people
of Israel would just deny Me the credit and claim they had won the
victory on their own.
So often we start taking credit for what
God has done in our lives we stop giving thanks. I know I tend to get a case of
the “I”s when talking about things that have happened in my life. It quickly
goes from look what God has done to look with I did, with God’s grace, to just
I did. It is easy to do since giving God glory in today’s culture is difficult.
Sure when we are talking with our friends at Church, giving Him credit is easy;
it’s going to work and doing the same with your “Flying Spaghetti Monster”
friend (an atheist).
This was the same for Gideon; He wanted the
people of Israel to know it was God who conquered the Midianites. Even then as
you continue in the readings the people drifted from God quickly after Gideon
died. Verse 8:33 shows this change:
As soon as Gideon
died, the Israelites turned away from the Lord, and they began to
prostitute themselves again to the Baals. They made Baal-berith their chief
god.
Notice how often Baal comes up in the
writings. Often we look at Baal as a false god, or none existent. But think of
this, could Baal be one of the fallen angels when Satan (and/or Lucifer) was
cast out of heaven? They would want to be worshiped like God and could do some
amazing things to get the people on board. Notice how debauchery and “the
flesh” seems to be the theme of Baal worship throughout the Bible.
Today Aleister Crowley, an occultist and
author, preaches “do as thou wilt” giving everyone into just having fun. Those
of us who followed that path in life and now follow Jesus know the lack of
fulfillment one gets just having “fun”. Real joy is not found in Satan, Baal,
Asherah or whomever, but rather in Jesus.
It’s interesting to watch God perform
public miracles; bring the people back only to drift again within a generation.
Has me think of the people I debate in science asking for proof of my God and
me only being able to give evidence that they can explain away as chance. Now I
know that “chance” is one thing, but “chance” over and over is proof, but that
does not work.
As story from a friend is enough for me,
but not for them. In a nutshell the family had been trying for 2 years to have
children. They had been prayed over and the like from their friends and small
group. One week, some visitors from Africa” who had the gift of praying for
fertility came to their small group. One had a “prophecy” that they would be
holding a son in 9 months. In 9 months they were holding a son … note they had
just been giving the bad news two weeks earlier from their doctor that this was
most likely not going to work.
How many generations will that story build
faith before it is forgotten? No wonder God gets so upset with us, since He is
doing this over and over.