Mighty Hero

Ashingdon 15 02 2009 Mighty Hero?

Tonight I want us to consider a passage of scripture that I’ve been thinking about this week, and as I got into preparing for this message I realised that there was so much that could be said that rather than Sermon notes I could end up writing a whole book.

But the Lord has led me to deal with just the key parts that are most appropriate for us today.

I believe this is something from God, I’m not going to say it’s a prophetic message but I do believe it is a message that the Lord has placed on my heart.

I believe we live in a time in history that are interesting times, these are interesting days. There are a number of ministers and churches that right now are preaching end times sermons.

In fact both Peter and Paul preached sermons about the pending return of Jesus. I don’t know when Jesus will come again; the bible says no one knows but God.

But, I am one of those who believes that every day is one day closer to the return of Jesus and so the reason I want us to look at this passage is that it is a passage that was written in interesting times in the history of God’s people.

Let’s look at Judges

This is a time where there was a generation that was around that did not remember what God had done for them, did not acknowledge what God had done for them, and this passage is about a man who was in a generation of people who did not acknowledge God, or the things he had done, much the same as the people in the world today that you and I interact with.

Judges 6:1-6 New Living Translation

The Israelites did evil in the LORD’s sight. So the LORD handed them over to the Midianites for seven years. 2 The Midianites were so cruel that the Israelites made hiding places for themselves in the mountains, caves, and strongholds. 3 Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, marauders from Midian, Amalek, and the people of the east would attack Israel, 4 camping in the land and destroying crops as far away as Gaza. They left the Israelites with nothing to eat, taking all the sheep, goats, cattle, and donkeys. 5 These enemy hordes, coming with their livestock and tents, were as thick as locusts; they arrived on droves of camels too numerous to count. And they stayed until the land was stripped bare. 6 So Israel was reduced to starvation by the Midianites. Then the Israelites cried out to the LORD for help.

Let’s just pause there a moment, just in that little passage there:

“Then the Israelites cried out to the LORD for help.”

I wonder in the World today right across the world we live in how many people are just like that – in a place where they are crying out for help, that they are in a situation or the circumstance of their life has dictated that they are at a place where they are saying:

God if you are real, if you exist, will you come and get involved in my life. In other words, a cry for salvation. I wonder how many people in the world today are crying out and saying God I want you to come and get involved in my life, in my world and I want you to do for me what I can’t do for myself.

Salvation could be put like this, it could be put that it is being rescued from the circumstances that we find ourselves in but also being rescued from ourselves.

The bible talks about Jesus as our salvation and we know that when we put our faith in him, he rescues us from our circumstances, he rescues us from ourselves but more importantly he rescues us from our sin and the consequence of our sin.

I wonder today how many people are crying out the same cry. God will you rescue me? Rescue me? Rescue me from me?

I think we live in a world where that cry is going up all over all day long. Not just in our easy comfortable western culture, and not just in places where because of the circumstances that people are born in they are in poverty or in horrific circumstances – I’m talking right across the board – everywhere.

How many people in this day and age are saying ‘god if you are real – come and rescue me’

I wonder how many of us at church tonight are in that place where we are saying ‘God I need you in this situation, I need you in this circumstance….rescue me.’ Maybe in your life right now, you are actually in a place that has nothing to do with what you’ve done but you’re in it. Or maybe you are in a situation that has everything to do with you. Maybe you’re in a place where you’re saying ‘I’ve had enough of this, how do I get free of it’, or maybe your just saying ‘how do I get free of me and closer to God’