Sun.’s Devo - Israel’s Fourth Judge

Read: Judges 6:1-40; Luke 22:54-23:12; Psalm 95:1-96:13; Proverbs 14:5-6
Israel sinned so they fell into the hands of the Midianites for 7 years. Israel were farmers so every time they worked their fields and were ready to harvest their crops, the Midianites would come down and destroy their harvest driving the nation to starvation.
The people cried out to the Lord and God called Gideon to be their defender. Gideon was the least likely to be a mighty warrior. He thought God had surely made a mistake when he chose him because his family was the least in their tribe and his father was the Baal priest.
The angel of the Lord convinced Gideon of who he was then told him to destroy his family altars and make them into an altar to the Lord and sacrifice a bull on it. Gideon did it at night for fear of his own family. In the morning, the family rose up to find their altar burnt and the remains of a bull (which would have been a great sacrifice during a famine) on the altar.
They wanted to kill Gideon but his father stepped up to his defense and told the people to let Baal defend his own altar.
Nothing happened to Gideon so God defended him.
When the armies of Midian gathered against them, Gideon called the men of Manasseh, Asher, Zebulun and Naphtali to him with a ram’s horn. They all came and Gideon needed some confirmation from God. He asked God for two signs and God gave him both of them.
Asking for a confirmation doesn’t make God mad. God was asking Gideon to do something he had never done before. God didn’t mind him asking for assurance. That is what prayer is all about.
In Luke, Peter denied Jesus three times just like Jesus said he would. Peter couldn’t stand because he didn’t have the power of the Holy Spirit. Once he received the Holy Spirit he would be able to stand in front of a huge crowd at Pentecost and preach 3,000 to salvation.
Jesus was questioned by Sanhedrin. They questioned him about whether he claimed to be the Messiah. Jesus told him that he would be seated in the place of power at God’s right hand and they went into a frenzy. They took him to Pilate with their weak accusations. Pilate couldn’t find fault in him. But, when he saw how upset the crowd was, and they said he was a Galilean, Pilate decided to turn him over to Herod Antipas since Galilee was his jurisdiction. Herod just happened to be in Jerusalem at that time.
Herod had heard about Jesus and was happy to be able to meet him for himself. He put on his judicial robe and went to sit in the seat of judgment.
Lord, I thank you that you don’t send us to do things we can do; you send us to do things that you can do. We avail ourselves to whatever you want to do through us.