Sermon Central
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Gideon’s Fearful Faith? -Part 2 Series
Contributed by Thomas Fortini on Oct 26, 2020 (message contributor)
Summary: Fear is often our first reaction to the tests and trials of life, but God has called us to live by faith! A study of Gideon shows us how God transforms fear to faith
Dr. S. Lewis Johnson - We’ve not really learned that in the accomplishment of the tasks of the Lord it is much better to have order, fervency, dedication, than to have the weakness and apathy of large numbers with neutrality. It’s plain from the instance before us that the church or a believing body may lose in numbers and yet gain in strength.
Q: Why?
Warren Weirsbe –“A faith that can’t be tested can’t be trusted!”
G. Campbell Morgan -“The fearful and trembling man God cannot use.”
Judges 7:2 The Lord said to Gideon, “You have too many men. I cannot deliver Midian into their hands, or Israel would boast against me, ‘My own strength has saved me.’
C) Cutting?
1. How does he cut down the size of this “apparent army?”
a) By that I mean those who looked like soldiers outwardly but there was something else inwardly that proved they were not!
D) Confronts them!
Judges 7:3 Now announce to the army, ‘Anyone who trembles with fear may turn back and leave Mount Gilead.’” So twenty-two thousand men left, while ten thousand remained.
1. FEAR!!
2 Timothy 1:7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
Romans 8:15 The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father."
Q: Why fear?
2. Fear is contagious – it is a spiritual cancer!
3. Fear is the spiritual equivalent of COVID -19
4. Fear contaminates faith
5. Fear debilitates the faithful
6. Fear creates panic in times of pandemics and political unrest
“Fear paralyzes the arm because it unnerves the heart!”
Dr. S. Lewis Johnson – Do you know that this is the trouble with the church today. The 22,000 fearful are still with us. They haven’t left. They’re still in the midst of the congregation.
D) Cutting #2!
Judges 7:4 But the Lord said to Gideon, “There are still too many men. Take them down to the water, and I will thin them out for you there. If I say, ‘This one shall go with you,’ he shall go; but if I say, ‘This one shall not go with you,’ he shall not go.”
Q: What is this meant to prove?
1. Who is fit and unfit for battle!
Judges 7:5 So Gideon took the men down to the water. There the Lord told him, “Separate those who lap the water with their tongues as a dog laps from those who kneel down to drink.” 6 Three hundred of them drank from cupped hands, lapping like dogs. All the rest got down on their knees to drink.
2. 9,700 men prove that are unfit for battle!
E) Concept?
1. Here are 10,000 men at a brook which over on the other side it is an enemy army of 135,000 men.
2. 9,700 of them just stick their face in the water, taking their eye off the enemy and were just consumed with quenching their thirst.
3. BUT 300 OF THEM CUPPED THE WATER IN THEIR HAND AND NEVER TOOK THEIR EYE OFF THE ENEMY!
4. Concept here is that you are never to take your eyes off of your spiritual adversaries and purpose in this world, or your eyes off the prize!
Hebrews 12:1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
