Weakness in Spiritual Warfare
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Intro:
11 Now the Angel of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth tree which was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon threshed wheat in the winepress, in order to hide it from the Midianites.
12 And the Angel of the Lord appeared to him, and said to him, “The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor!”
Today, as we focus on our Year of Prayer, the title of my message is, [Weakness in Spiritual Warfare].
Weakness. It is not a virtue people necessarily want. People do not go around saying, I am the weakest person alive. They do not give out awards for the weakest in the contest.
People do not like to watch the weakest athlete. People do not listen to a weak public speaker. Weak generally has a negative connotation. For weakness literally means, lacking strength.
I have never considered myself the strongest, but I never thought I was the weakest. However, many people in my childhood begged to differ.
No one ever flat out said, DANIEL YOU ARE WEAK, but I could always tell what they were thinking.
In gym class, they never picked me first for the team. I just always hoped they didn’t pick me last.
Before God showed me that I was not cut out for sports, I played basketball. Well, I should clarify, I was on the basketball team. Once in practice we had a drill where we would pass the ball as fast as possible.
My mom showed up early to pick me up that day and we were still in practice. When it came time for me to start the drill, one of my teammates, Pauncho, said, oh no, not Tidmore.
He thought I was the weakest, but my mom overheard the comment. And in her eyes, I was the second strongest boy alive, after my brother of course!
We got in the car, and she fumed, I can’t believe Pauncho said that. It makes me want to puncho Pauncho. At least ONE person thought I had some strength!
Our culture places a high premium on strength. But in our walk with God, weakness holds a unique position of prominence. Unlike the world where only the strong survive, God has a different plan.
Remember, He uses the foolish things of the world to confound or confuse the supposed wise. So if the world desires people who are STRONG, God works through those who are weak.
In fact, He uses those who are weak to perform supernatural exploits that are often not found in the lives of the strong.
Why?
Because, most weak people know they are somewhat weak.
A weak person will not volunteer to fight.
They will not sign up to do the heavy lifting.
They will not show of strength they know they do not have.
Instead, they depend on those who have more strength than they do.
Likewise, in a spiritual sense, when we feel we are too strong, we will not depend on God. When we think we have enough strength and fortitude to work through our problems or get through our difficulties, we will go through this life on our own.
However, when we come to God in humility and weakness, we convey an important message to the Lord. We show Him, through our weakness, that we need His strength.
How does this connect to prayer?
In our prayer life, the enemy would love to make us feel weak. He wants us to feel ineffective. He wants us to compare how we pray with others. He wants us to put ourselves down, because we are not as spiritually strong as someone else.
If he can get us to buy into this lie, we will never see God work through us prayer. However, if we will admit, yes, I am weak, but His Spirit is strong, nothing will stop us.
Remember, we are in a way with the enemy of our souls. Satan wants to stop us and he will use:
discouragement
confusion
concerns
difficulties
temptations
or various
Who at one time has ever been through this?
The phrase I want to use to describe Satan’s attacks is SPIRITUAL WARFARE.
We are in a spiritual fight with the enemy. On our own, we cannot succeed or win, for we are too weak. The enemy wants to use that fact as a way to get us not to fight.
However, God wants to use the fact that we are weak to our advantage. For in our weakness, we give Jesus an opportunity to help us!
What then do we do in regards to weakness in spiritual warfare?
I want to look at the story of a weak man who came from a weak family. His name is Gideon. By the time he comes on the scene in Israel’s history, God’s people were at a low point.
They lived in the Promised Land, but they turned their backs on God. Therefore, a foreign power, the Midianites, controlled them and attacked them.
The problem wasn’t that Israel was weak. Instead, they became prideful and arrogant. They thought they were strong enough to live life without God.
However, God found someone who knew they were weak to bring deliverance and victory for His people. I want to look at his story and show us a few crucial points about weakness in spiritual warfare.
What do we do when we feel spiritually weak?
We need to remember, we are, [Beloved by God], we can [Build an Altar to God], and we can [Battle with God].
Let’s begin
1. Beloved by God
1. Beloved by God
12 And the Angel of the Lord appeared to him, and said to him, “The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor!”
13 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 forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites.”
14 Then the Lord turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours, and you shall save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Have I not sent you?”
15 So he said to Him, “O my Lord, how can I save Israel? Indeed my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.”
16 And the Lord said to him, “Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat the Midianites as one man.”
Gideon lived in a terrible time in Israel. Joshua was dead. And the people did what was right in their own eyes. With their arrogant, supposed, spiritual superiority, God lifted His hand of protection from them.
Therefore, they were oppressed by the Midianites for seven years. During this time, the people continued to backslide and faced intense oppression.
The Midianites were so cruel, that the Israelites hid in the mountains and caves. Every time they would plant their garden or get some cattle, the enemies would come and destroy their crops and steal their livestock.
Eventually, they cried out to God and the Lord sent a prophet to explain, “you have disobeyed God by worshipping false gods.” But the Lord heard their cry.
In a state of weakness, God found the weakest of them all. When we meet Gideon, he sits under a tree and hear something surprising.
GIDEON, you are a mighty hero, God is with you!
Gideon asked a genuine, if God is with us, where are the miracles of yesterday and why do the Midianites control and oppress us?
The Lord answered, God in STRENGTH to the Midianites. What was Gideon’s response?
I cannot do that. My tribe is the weakest and I am the least in my family. Gideon felt unwanted. But God in His great love showed Gideon how He viewed Him.
God saw Gideon’s weakness as a strength, not a liability. Therefore, God promised to go with Gideon, helping him to destroy the Midianites.
Gideon was unsure, so he wanted to make a sacrifice to God. A sacrifice was a form of worship. He ran home, prepared a sacrifice and returned, and the Angel of the Lord was still there.
21 Then the Angel of the Lord put out the end of the staff that was in His hand, and touched the meat and the unleavened bread; and fire rose out of the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened bread. And the Angel of the Lord departed out of his sight.
22 Now Gideon perceived that He was the Angel of the Lord. So Gideon said, “Alas, O Lord God! For I have seen the Angel of the Lord face to face.”
23 Then the Lord said to him, “Peace be with you; do not fear, you shall not die.”
The Angel of the Lord touched the sacrifice and it caught on fire. Remember, fire represents the presence of God. At that point Gideon’s eyes were opened.
The Man standing in front of him was an Angel of the Lord, who I believe to be God. Overwhelmed, he thought he would die. Talk about weakness and humility.
God’s response was, you will not die, have peace! What great love. God loved Israel so much, He went to the weakest to show the strong plan He had for His people.
When it comes to prayer, we MUST remember, we are God’s beloved. Gideon could move forward in the love of God. Likewise, we can wrestle in Spiritual Warfare, knowing God’s love will never leave us!
Understanding and experiencing God’s love is monumental in our spiritual walk. When we grasp the depths of God’s love, we see His strength and our weakness.
God’s love revealed to Gideon changed his life. After realizing he was beloved by God, he then...
2. Built an Altar to God
2. Built an Altar to God
24 So Gideon built an altar there to the Lord, and called it The-Lord-Is-Peace. To this day it is still in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.
25 Now it came to pass the same night that the Lord said to him, “Take your father’s young bull, the second bull of seven years old, and tear down the altar of Baal that your father has, and cut down the wooden image that is beside it;
26 and build an altar to the Lord your God on top of this rock in the proper arrangement, and take the second bull and offer a burnt sacrifice with the wood of the image which you shall cut down.”
With deep understanding of his weakness, Gideon built God an altar.
Why did he build an altar?
Altars in the Old Testament signify a religious allegiance. Altars did not appear, they were always built. It took time and energy to built an altar.
The purpose of the altar is WORSHIP. In Gideon’s case, he had peace with God because he knew the love of God. Therefore, he built a place where he could praise and worship God.
However, there was a problem. Gideon had an altar to the Lord, but his father, Joash, had an altar to Baal.
Baal, which means lord or master, was the god of the Canaanites. When the Israelites entered the Promised Land, they were in Canaanite territory.
They were instructed to rid the land of their false gods. Instead, over time, they began to worship these idols. Joash was so committed to Baal he built an altar to him.
Gideon, who worshipped God, had a dad who worshipped a false god, and that will not work. So that night, Gideon destroyed the altar to Baal and built an altar to God.
The next morning, people in town noticed the difference. Their altar to Baal and their pole to Asherah was down and a new altar was up and there was evidence of a sacrifice to God.
Gideon had his first encounter with spiritual warfare, which often surfaces through people. The people were livid once they found out Gideon was the culprit.
They demanded to Joash that he kill Gideon. But Joash told them, if Baal is really god, pray to him and let him defend himself. If Baal really has that much power, he will destroy the one who destroyed his altar.
As this happened, the Midianites and the other armies came against Israel. Now, Gideon faced warfare on two fronts. Those in his town were against him and the enemies wanted to kill him.
God saw Gideon’s weakness as an asset to win the battle.
34 But the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon; then he blew the trumpet, and the Abiezrites gathered behind him.
God’s Spirit rested on Gideon, but he still needed confidence. So he spoke to God. He put a fleece of wool outside and asked the Lord, if you really think I am capable, in the morning, let the fleece be wet and the ground dry.
And it happened just like that. Too make sure, the next night, he asked God to let the fleece stay dry and the ground get wet. And it happened just like that.
Gideon shows a nature of prayer. We can be honest with God when we feel weak, and He will show His strength to us!
In spiritual warfare, we must remember we are beloved by God. Therefore, we can build an altar to God through our prayers. Then, when the enemy comes in like a flood, we can...
3. Battle with God
3. Battle with God
2 And the Lord said to Gideon, “The people who are with you are too many for Me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel claim glory for itself against Me, saying, ‘My own hand has saved me.’
3 Now therefore, proclaim in the hearing of the people, saying, ‘Whoever is fearful and afraid, let him turn and depart at once from Mount Gilead.’ ” And twenty-two thousand of the people returned, and ten thousand remained.
God has attempted to make it abundantly clear to Gideon that He is on their side and they can defeat Midian. In fact, God told him he could defeat the Midianites as ONE man, for God was with him.
But when it came time, to show great strength to their enemies, Gideon called 32,000 warriors together. But God looked at them and determined that was too many.
If they have that many in battle, the will leave assuming they saved themselves through their own strength. Therefore, Gideon gave them an option.
If you are afraid and want to leave, go home. 22,000 men took him up on the offer, leaving 10,000.
But the Lord told Gideon, this is STILL too many. So He created a peculiar test. He was to take the 10,000 to the water and let them get a drink.
He was to observe how they took a sip of water. Some cupped their hands and drank and others got on all fours and drank it like a dog.
This part always gets me. To me, drinking from my hand just makes sense. But 9,700 of the men would not agree, for they all got down like a dog and lapped up the water.
I wonder who the first one to do that was? He started a trend that got the majority of them sent home.
With the 300 left over, God planned to give Israel victory. The Lord allowed Gideon to overhear a conversation in the Midianite camp. They looked strong, but they knew Gideon would defeat them.
Was it because Gideon was so strong?
NO, but because God would fight WITH Gideon. He would not go into battle alone. So they 300 split into groups of 100 and they went to battle.
This group was small, but listen to how small and seeming weak they were in comparison to the Midianites.
10 Now Zebah and Zalmunna were at Karkor, and their armies with them, about fifteen thousand, all who were left of all the army of the people of the East; for one hundred and twenty thousand men who drew the sword had fallen.
300 warriors destroyed 120,000 Midianites. They finished the job and defeated Midian and the armies to the east.
Why did they win?
It was not because of the strength of Gideon, but because God fought WITH Gideon and his army.
Close:
When it was all said and done, Israel looked to Gideon. They asked him to become their ruler and leader. But Gideon knew he was weak and incapable of the task. However, he knew just the person who could lead the Nation.
23 But Gideon said to them, “I will not rule over you, nor shall my son rule over you; the Lord shall rule over you.”
Talk about a keen awareness of one’s abilities and weakness. I love Gideon’s story, because it is not that much different than ours.
When we, as followers of Christ, accept our weaknesses and limitations, we position ourselves for supernatural victory!
Let us never forget, we are in a battle. But the battle we fight is unlike Gideons. The battle is not between people. Instead the war is unseen and invisible.
Paul said of this battle:
3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh.
4 For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds,
5 casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,
The enemy of our souls, Satan our adversary, seeks to steal, kill, and destroy us. One of the ways he does this is to make us feel so weak and incapable as a follower of Christ.
And true to Satanic form, he distorts the truth to get us to believe a lie. It is true that we are weak, but it is a lie that our weakness is a problem.
9 And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
Our weakness, gives God an opportunity to reveal His grace and strength through us. Then with this in mind, coming from a position of weakness, we can:
10 Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.
11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
What joy, what hope, what help just to know that we can be STRONG in the Lord! It is not about our might power, but about God’s strength and ability.
And today, I want it to settle deep within our hearts, spiritual warfare is real. Satan wants to stop us. But we have strength. And true strength in spiritual warfare comes when we realize our weakness!
For in our time of weakness and vulnerability, Jesus comes along side to remind us, we are God’s beloved. Understanding God’s love to us paints a different picture on life.
God loves us so much He sent Jesus to die for us. If He loved us enough to save us, doesn’t He love us enough to keep us until we get to heaven?
So it is with this confidence of God’s love that we build Him an altar. We remove the idols of our lives. And sometimes the worst idol is SELF.
Satan wants us to take care of self, trust in self, brag on self, believe in self. When the truth is, I need to decrease as God’s increases.
When I pray, I build an altar. It is there I worship, I praise, and I call on God. Then from a position of prayer, we BATTLE WITH GOD.
We are not against Him, nor do we fight independently from Him. No, we go into battle knowing He is WITH us.
31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?
37 Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.
38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come,
39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
What hope, just to know, when I feel weak in spiritual warfare, I am RIGHT where I need to be. For when I feel weak, Jesus comes, and then I become bold and strong in prayer, because God fights with me and for me!