Reporting For Duty

November 8, 2009

Morning Worship

Text: Joshua 6:7 – 7:25

Subject: Gideon

Title: Reporting for Duty

On Wednesday of this week we celebrate Veteran’s Day. I want you to stop for just a moment and think about all the freedoms that you have. I want you to think about the lines from the Declaration of Independence that says that we have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Now I would like for all those who have served in the military to stand. We celebrate you today because we understand that if it were not for you and millions of others like you we would not have the freedom that we have now. We applaud you!

Last week I told you that I was not someone who was political by nature. After thinking about that for some time this week I want to clarify what I said. I am not a staunch Republican and definitely am not a Democrat. But I am conservative and I love what our country stands for because it was founded on the very things I believe – the truths from the Bible. At the same time I am greatly disturbed by what our country has become. And it appears that as we sit here this morning that the very freedoms that our ancestors fought for against the tyranny of England are being ripped from us.

Now what we see happening in our country is the uprising of brave souls who are demanding that we move back to the very precepts of the bible that are our foundation. The Conservative party is part of that uprising and I believe that it is something that those who have served in our military would be proud of. Their mission statement is very basic: Our mission is to re-establish the limits and boundaries of Government as framed by the Founding Fathers of the United States of America.

I’m not telling you to join this new “conservative party”. I’m not promoting one party over another. What I am telling you is that it is time that America returns to its roots and that we as Christians have a large part to play in that. It is time for you and me to be proud once again to be Americans and to stand for what we believe in instead of allowing someone else to dictate what we must believe. One person can make a difference when that person will agree to stand on God’s word and the freedom that His word affords us.

Today I will be reading through parts of Judges 6 and 7. Follow along to see what the Lord has for you today.

The first thing I want you to see this morning is the state of the nation of Israel. 1Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD, and for seven years he gave them into the hands of the Midianites. 2Because the power of Midian was so oppressive, the Israelites prepared shelters for themselves in mountain clefts, caves and strongholds. 3Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, the Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern peoples invaded the country. 4They camped on the land and ruined the crops all the way to Gaza and did not spare a living thing for Israel, neither sheep nor cattle nor donkeys. 5They came up with their livestock and their tents like swarms of locusts. It was impossible to count the men and their camels; they invaded the land to ravage it. 6Midian so impoverished the Israelites that they cried out to the LORD for help.

7When the Israelites cried to the LORD because of Midian, 8he sent them a prophet, who said, “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: I brought you up out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 9I snatched you from the power of Egypt and from the hand of all your oppressors. I drove them from before you and gave you their land. 10I said to you, ‘I am the LORD your God; do not worship the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you live.’ But you have not listened to me.” The problem is pretty obvious isn’t it? The reason Israel was under oppression wasn’t because some nation with greater power had attacked. Their problem never was a problem of not being able to defend themselves. It has always been a spiritual problem. Always! If you turn to Deuteronomy 28 you begin to get a picture of the type of relationship that God desires to have with all nations. 1If you fully obey the LORD your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. 2All these blessings will come upon you and accompany you if you obey the LORD your God: then it goes on to list the blessings that God has for the nation that obeys Him. It is followed by what will happen to those who disobey. 15However, if you do not obey the LORD your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you… 20The LORD will send on you curses, confusion and rebuke in everything you put your hand to, until you are destroyed and come to sudden ruin because of the evil you have done in forsaking him… 25The LORD will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will come at them from one direction but flee from them in seven, and you will become a thing of horror to all the kingdoms on earth. All these things will come to the nation that rejects God and that is what was happening to Israel in Gideon’s time. But God called one man to make a difference.