Judges
Faith of the Ancients • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Faith of the Ancients: Judges
Faith of the Ancients: Judges
Intro: unlikely hero
Spiderman, superman, alter ego’s
Matthew, Simon the Zealot, David, fisherman, Abraham
David Ring (born 28 October 1953) is a Christian evangelist and motivational speaker who has cerebral palsy. Ring has, since 1973, challenged thousands of people with his signature message: "I have cerebral palsy... What's your problem?" He currently resides in Nashville, Tennessee, with his wife and four children.
Dave Roever grew up in a minister’s family in South Texas. At the height of the Vietnam War, Dave received his draft notice. Rather than serving in the infantry, he joined the U.S. Navy and served as a riverboat gunner in the elite Brown Water Black Beret in Vietnam.
Eight months into his tour of duty in Vietnam, Roever was burned beyond recognition when a phosphorous grenade he was poised to throw exploded in his hand. The ordeal left him hospitalized for fourteen months, where he underwent numerous major surgeries. His survival and life are miraculous.
Read: Hebrews 11:32-34
And what more shall I say? For time will fail me if I tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets,
who by faith conquered kingdoms, performed acts of righteousness, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions,
quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight.
Main idea: God loves to show His power by using the unlikely
Main idea: God loves to show His power by using the unlikely
Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah
1. Gideon - wimp to warrior
1. Gideon - wimp to warrior
a. Judges 6:11-16
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 angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, “The Lord is with you, O valiant warrior.”
Then Gideon said to him, “O my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.”
The Lord looked at him and said, “Go in this your strength and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian. Have I not sent you?”
He said to Him, “O Lord, how shall I deliver Israel? Behold, my family is the least in Manasseh, and I am the youngest in my father’s house.”
But the Lord said to him, “Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat Midian as one man.”
b. What we aren't, don't have, and can't do
- Who He is, He has, He can do
c. Insecurities
2. Barak - Loner to Leader
2. Barak - Loner to Leader
a. Judges 5:1-3 , 4:4-10
Then Deborah and Barak the son of Abinoam sang on that day, saying,
“That the leaders led in Israel,
That the people volunteered,
Bless the Lord!
“Hear, O kings; give ear, O rulers!
I—to the Lord, I will sing,
I will sing praise to the Lord, the God of Israel.
Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, was judging Israel at that time.
She used to sit under the palm tree of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim; and the sons of Israel came up to her for judgment.
Now she sent and summoned Barak the son of Abinoam from Kedesh-naphtali, and said to him, “Behold, the Lord, the God of Israel, has commanded, ‘Go and march to Mount Tabor, and take with you ten thousand men from the sons of Naphtali and from the sons of Zebulun.
‘I will draw out to you Sisera, the commander of Jabin’s army, with his chariots and his many troops to the river Kishon, and I will give him into your hand.’ ”
Then Barak said to her, “If you will go with me, then I will go; but if you will not go with me, I will not go.”
She said, “I will surely go with you; nevertheless, the honor shall not be yours on the journey that you are about to take, for the Lord will sell Sisera into the hands of a woman.” Then Deborah arose and went with Barak to Kedesh.
Barak called Zebulun and Naphtali together to Kedesh, and ten thousand men went up with him; Deborah also went up with him.
b. We feel anonymous and obscure
c. Step into your calling
3. Samson - wrong to right
3. Samson - wrong to right
a. Judges 16:25-30
It so happened when they were in high spirits, that they said, “Call for Samson, that he may amuse us.” So they called for Samson from the prison, and he entertained them. And they made him stand between the pillars.
Then Samson said to the boy who was holding his hand, “Let me feel the pillars on which the house rests, that I may lean against them.”
Now the house was full of men and women, and all the lords of the Philistines were there. And about 3,000 men and women were on the roof looking on while Samson was amusing them.
Then Samson called to the Lord and said, “O Lord God, please remember me and please strengthen me just this time, O God, that I may at once be avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes.”
Samson grasped the two middle pillars on which the house rested, and braced himself against them, the one with his right hand and the other with his left.
And Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines!” And he bent with all his might so that the house fell on the lords and all the people who were in it. So the dead whom he killed at his death were more than those whom he killed in his life.
b. Past failures and patterns
c. We disqualify ourselves. Never too late
4. Jephthah - rejected to recruited
4. Jephthah - rejected to recruited
a. Judges 11:1-3
Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a valiant warrior, but he was the son of a harlot. And Gilead was the father of Jephthah.
Gilead’s wife bore him sons; and when his wife’s sons grew up, they drove Jephthah out and said to him, “You shall not have an inheritance in our father’s house, for you are the son of another woman.”
So Jephthah fled from his brothers and lived in the land of Tob; and worthless fellows gathered themselves about Jephthah, and they went out with him.
b. History and background don't define us
c. God wants you when no one else does
Conclusion: who me? God wants you!
Conclusion: who me? God wants you!
who by faith conquered kingdoms, performed acts of righteousness, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions,
"through faith" rather than by faith
Wimp to warrior
loner to leader
Wrong to right
rejected to recruited