85 - "Don't Regard the Forwardness or Backwardness of Others" Judges 6-9

A Dream Changes Things for Gideon.

It is the Gospel that really Changes Us!

God reduces Gideon's army to 300 people---No Way on Earth they could win this battle without God. No way on earth we can either. 

I am "taken" by a quote from Matthew Henry about this story: "In doing the duties required by God, we must not regard the forwardness or backwardness of others, nor what they do, but what God looks for is at our hands. He is a rare person who can endure that others should excel him in gifts or blessings, or in liberty; so that we may say, it is by the special grace of God that we regard what God says to us, and not look to men what they do."

God speaks to Gideon. “Arise, go down against the camp of Midian, and afterward your hands will be strengthened that you may go.” Judges 7:11. And, then, another confirmation. A dream interpreted ... that God would give the camp of Midian into their hands. That's it! Arise! Go take your spoil. "For the Lord." The dream was simple---a cake of bread rolls and knocks over a tent. Nothing special there. It's the interpretation that is Divine! "There is nothing else save the sword of Gideon." The sword is not in his hand. The sword is the Gospel in his mouth. Judges 7:14. Gideon takes this interpretation as a sure thing. He worships! Oh my soul! Can we worship God in the circumstances before us? Wherever we are. This moment. Providence is on our side! God's intervention may be a small event, maybe seemingly accidental. What is God speaking to you? What divine appointment encourages your faith today? 

As soon as Gideon died, the people of Israel turned again and whored after the Baals. And the people of Israel did not remember the Lord their God, who had delivered them from the hand of all their enemies on every side, and they did not show steadfast love to the family of Gideon in return for all the good that he had done to Israel."  Judges 8:33-34. What do we want more than the Love of God?  Life is not like a spicket that you turn off and on thinking you want to decide the distance between you and God.  

PHOTO:  No way on Earth we do this life well without God. Edited sun photo.