And and actually, we're going to try something different here
tonight. So let me give you this,
brother. Josh, are you already on?
Oh, yeah. There you go.
That's not what I'm looking for. Let's try this again.
Very good. All right.
I've got the control of it from up here.
So we're going to try to do it that way just to make it a
little bit easier for them in the back.
And and or at least I thought it was, I think it's actually
making it more complicated for them because now they got to do
more things, but it's going to give us more control with the
live stream and everything else. So, all right, so let's get into
this. Judges, Judges, Chapter 6 is
where we're going to start. But let me let me give you
inherited Spring is what we're going to talk about and maybe
you don't recognize it by that name, but you will recognize
that pretty soon here I think. But this is, in fact, let me
just go ahead and get right into it.
Harrods spring, It's also known as Gideon's Spring.
If you look at it on the map, it's known as Ayn Harrod.
Does anybody remember what Ayn is?
We talked about it with Ayn Getty.
I think we had a couple other places.
Do you remember what AYN means? Yes.
Spring, good job. Spring or fountain is what it
means. Let me make sure that.
All right, we got some battery here, so let's, let's do a
little bit of a review. It's been a few weeks.
All right, So let's start with this right here.
What is that, Sea of Galilee? What's this at a training sea?
We're going to go out of order and see how much you actually
know it. All right.
I don't want you to just memorize an order as if you're
doing that. What is this, the Dead Sea?
What is the river that goes from the Sea of Galilee to the Jordan
River? Very good.
What valley is this? Wow, very good.
The are of a valley. What body of water?
Red Sea. All right.
Here's a question for you. What's the city down there at
the tip of the Red Sea? A lot.
Very good. He can see it.
No, I'm kidding. It's a lot.
Very good. What is it called on the other
side? Do you remember anybody?
Aquaba. Very good.
So it's called the Gulf of Aquaba on the map.
But that's the Jordanian side, essentially the Gulf of E lot on
the Israel side. All right.
What is this whole triangle called the negative, which means
S very good. The top half is called the
Wilderness of Zen and the bottom half.
All right. What is this area right here
around the Dead Sea? Judean Wilderness.
Very good. Trying to think if there's
anything else? That's probably it.
All right. So what we're talking about
today is Herod Spring or Gideon's Spring or also known as
and Getty, by the way, Herod King Herod is HEROD.
This is not the Herod as in King Herod Spring, All right.
It's just called the Herod Spring.
We're going to talk a little bit about that.
But the Herod Spring, and it's actually very hard to see on
this, very tiny, but it's right here, okay.
So see if Galilee and all of this and this is what we're
going to. I didn't want to get into all of
this tonight because I knew it's going to take us a while.
But Megitto, does Megitto ring any bells to you?
What's going to happen in Megitto?
It almost took me out again. What is it?
Right. Which is called the Battle of
Armageddon. And that's where it's going to
take place, is right there. Very good.
So all of this area, and I'm going to show you some maps
actually here very, very shortly.
But all of this area is the Jezreel Valley.
It moves into actually the Herod Valley, but Mount Moray is
there. Very significant to to Israel,
but let's get into this. All right.
So here at Spring, it's also known as Gideon Spring.
It's located in the fertile Jezreel Valley and it is a very,
very fertile valley. I'm going to show you some
pictures, maybe not too many this week, but when we start
talking about the Jezreel Valley.
And by the way, that's something that you can look up a little
bit this week as you study through your devotions or
whatever thing and you think about it, see if you can figure
out what happened. There's a lot of things that
happened there that we're going to end up talking about, but the
the period of the judges, so just to finish then the the
Jezreel Valley, it's about 26 miles from Mediterranean Sea,
about 17 miles from the sea of Galley, which remember I told
you that the nation of Israel is not very big.
So to find out that right here is is harried spring and from
there to there is only 26 miles and from there to there is only
17. So you're not talking about a
big area at all. And that's one of the things
that really is, you know, sometimes it's hard to
comprehend because you think of all these places in the Bible
and they're all crammed into this tiny little spot.
But the topography and the, the geography, if you will, of
Israel is so varied that you, I mean 5 miles you can be in in a
different world. It feels like so.
But anyway, let me show you on the map here.
So some of these may be a little bit hard to see, but Mount
Tabor, that's the one that I'd like you to look up.
Cuz we're gonna talk about that, Find out what happened at Mount
Tabor. A very, very significant thing
happened, or at least during the time of the judges that you
should remember. But then you see, Mcgitto is
right there. You know what?
Here I'm pointing. I got my little pointer tonight.
All right. So right here, this is Mcgitto.
All right. And that's where the, the battle
of Armageddon is going to take place.
We're going to talk about that next week.
But this is all the Jesreel Valley.
Here's the Harrod Valley. Okay, the Hill of Moray.
Mount Tabor is up here. Beth Sheehan, hopefully you'll
recognize that We talked about that last time.
Tell Jesreel what happened at what is, what does it tell?
Do you remember? It's a hill.
It's a manmade hill, essentially, right.
And layers and layers and layers of civilization.
What? What happened at Tell Jesreel?
Do you know what happened or what was there, I should say
Ahab's palace. Ahab's palace.
And we're going to talk about that too.
But that's where Jezebel got thrown out of the palace and all
that stuff. Remember those stories?
And with Elijah, it, it brings it all together.
That's what I'm saying. It's it's kind of hard sometimes
to think about these things as being part of the Bible when
you're looking at it here. We separate those things a lot.
And they shouldn't be separated because they're part of it.
They're part of the geography of Israel.
So this year is the the Sea of Galley, all of this is the
Jordan River and then basically right here if you could, if you
could drop the TV down about one inch, you'd see the the Dead Sea
right there. So that's how that's how close
we are to that. So but to to kind of put this in
perspective here, the period of the judges is, is what we're
talking about. And of course the nation of
Israel was experiencing really a national crisis because they
were on this, they were on this cycle that they just seemed like
they couldn't break. They would send, God would judge
them, they would repent, God would send a deliverer, They
would be freed, they would sin, God would judge it.
And they just went in this never ending cycle, it seemed like.
And that was the period of the judges.
And so one, in fact, you know that one verse that that we see
several different times we actually find in Judges chapter
17 and verse number six. In those days there was no king
in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own
eyes. And we see that verse a couple
different times. We see it again in in Judges
chapter 21 of verse #25. And so in order to bring the
nation of Israel back to himself, God would send them
their oppressors, make their life difficult.
They would say we can't handle this anymore.
They would repent. God would send a deliverer.
And Gideon was one of those delivers that God raised up and
delivered Israel out of the hand of the Midianites that were
pressing Israel at the time. We're going to talk about
Midianites in just a little bit, but it was a total of Does
anybody know how many judges there were?
Gideon was #5. If that's any kind of hints.
Probably not. There were 13 judges total.
And who was the last judge in Israel?
Samuel. Very good.
Samuel was the last judge who was the first Athanil.
Whoever somebody said it, it was Athanil.
Very good. So get in was #5.
Let me give you a little bit more of this.
This kind of brings it in a little bit closer here.
All right. So and and this, that whole area
that we're looking at right here, See that little thumb
right there? That's Haifa.
That's right here. So this, this entire area, the
Sea of Galley, this entire area that we're looking at is
basically like this area right here.
OK. So it's not it, It's there's
just so many things packed into it.
Mount Gilboa. Does anybody remember what
happened at Mount Gilboa? You should, because we talked
about it maybe 2 weeks ago or times ago.
Been a couple weeks. Saul was killed right here.
I'm using my pointer finger. Great job, very good.
But yes, Saul was killed on Mount Gilboa and they hung his
body and his son's bodies headless wear on the wall of
Beth Sheehan. Very good.
You're remembering. All right?
Very good. And Beth Sheehan is right here.
OK. So I mean, we're not far from
there. There's Mount Gilboa.
And if you remember, I showed you a picture of Mount Gilboa
from Beth Sheehan. Remember that.
So you're not talking about a big distance at all.
And that's here to here. I mean, see that distance on
this map. So right around the corner, in
fact, basically part of Mount Gilboa is Ain Herod, which is
right here. Here's the Harrod Valley, here's
the Jezreel Valley. And and you can actually see,
see the mountain, the mountain area is here.
The mountain area is here, right?
And then you have this big valley and it's a very, very,
very fertile valley. Like I said, I'm going to show
you some more pictures of that next week as we get into it a
little bit more. But just to the South of the
Herod Spring are the Guild Bowl Mountains, and you saw that
there and that that gives you kind of a little bit of a
picture of where those are at. This may help you a little bit.
The Hill of Moray, the Midianite Camp Okay, this is.
And I'm. I'm setting the table here
because we're going to read this in the Bible here in just a
minute. But then right there is getting
in spring. So you have the Hill of Murray
and and where the Midianites are camped out.
You have the Jezreel Valley and then the area where the battle
actually took place, you have getting in spring and then you
have the Guilboa Mountains. And all of those are within just
a very short distance of each other.
OK. So what we've done is we started
out here, then we moved in here a little bit and now we're very,
very close. And so again, you can look at it
after after we finish up tonight and I'll point it out to you,
but but Hwy. 71 runs through there and right above Hwy. 71,
if you're looking for it is aint herod okay.
So that's they're all right in that same general area.
So Gideon was one of the deliverers that got raised up to
deliver Israel out of the hands of the Midianites.
They were the ones that were pressing Israel.
And there is Midian. All right.
You see and this is, this is actually a pretty good map to
show you. I just found this online, but
it's a pretty good map to kind of show you where everything is
at. So obviously, you have Egypt,
You have the Gulf of Suez. You have the Sinai Peninsula,
the wilderness of Paran, the wilderness of Zen.
That's where Israel wandered for those 40 years.
And then they crossed the Red Sea, probably in the Gulf of
Aqaba area, into the land of Midian.
All right. And we'll see a little bit of
that, I guess. I guess not too much, maybe as
far as that goes. But God gave the Israelites into
the hands of the Midianites because they they abandoned and
they disobeyed him. So let's look at Judges chapter
6 and we're going to read a good portion of this story tonight.
Okay. The Bible explains it way better
than I can, and and the Bible is its its best explainer.
I don't know if that's the right word.
But anyway, Judges chapter 6 and verse #1 and the children of
Israel did evil. Okay here.
We're back into that cycle again in the sight of the Lord.
And the Lord delivered them into the hand of MIDI in seven years.
That's short compared to some of the delivering, some of the
times that he sent them into captivity.
The hand of Midian prevailed against Israel.
And because of the Midianites, the children of Israel made them
the dens which are in the mountains and caves and
strongholds. Now you think about this again.
I want you to, I want you to to get this picture in your mind.
OK. We saw the Kumran caves, right?
Remember what those look like up there in the mountains?
You saw the caves at and Getty where David was hiding and that
whole area, all this mountainous area, which I guess I have to go
back and and show it to you a little bit.
Let me see here on the actual map itself.
But you see I mean mountains everywhere around there.
So they're being and and not just there but but Midian.
The entire the entire nation of Israel was was being held
captive by Midian. But mountains everywhere in
Israel with caves and all those natural.
Remember Wadi Kelt that was the one that went to Jericho and all
the caves and everything they're just natural caves everywhere.
Well, Israel is not free to just live their lives the way that
they want to live because they're being.
They're they're they're in captive to Midian.
So they're being forced to live in caves, and they're being
forced to go into the mountains and find strongholds and
everything else. And so it was when Israel had
shown that the Midianites came up, and the Amalekites and the
children of the east, even they came up against them and they
camped against them and destroyed the increase of the
earth. What does that mean?
Destroyed the increase of the earth.
Yeah. Burned all their crops.
I mean, so they're really, really oppressing them.
Well, what's an oppressor if you can live and eat and do
everything you want to do? Right?
But Midian took what they wanted and burned what they couldn't
eat. And so now they're really
getting to a point where Israel is what they're trying to do.
And what you see this happening all all throughout, what they're
trying to do is get them to the point where they have to crawl
on their hands and knees and beg them for help, beg them for
whatever they can get right. Midian came up.
The Malachites, the children of the east, even they came up
against them, and they camped against them, and destroyed the
increase of the earth, till thou come unto Gaza, and left no
sustenance for Israel, neither sheep, nor ox, nor ass.
For they came up with their cattle and their tents, and they
came as grasshoppers for multitude.
For both they and their camels were without number, and they
entered into the land to destroy it.
That's why they came up there. Their job was literally just to
destroy as much of the land of Israel as they can destroy.
If that doesn't get your attention, I don't know what
will, right? And Israel was greatly
impoverished because of the Midianites.
And the children of Israel cried unto the Lord.
So here's the cycle coming back again, right?
They they sin. God delivers them into captivity
to the Midianites. 7 years. I don't think it would have
taken me seven years. Maybe it would have maybe if my
head was as hard as the Israelites.
But seven years they're they're dealing with this.
And finally they say, OK, OK, God forgive us, we're sorry.
So God heard the prayer of the Israelites and decided to
deliver them verse number 7. And it came to pass, when the
children of Israel cried unto the Lord, because of the many
Knights, that the Lord sent a prophet unto the children of
Israel, which said unto them, Thus said the Lord God of
Israel, I brought you up from Egypt, and brought you forth out
of the House of bondage. And I delivered you out of the
hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of all that
oppressed you, and drave them out from before you, and gave
you their land. And I said unto you, I am the
Lord your God, Fear not the gods of the Amorites, and whose land
you dwell, but ye have not obeyed my voice.
So. And by the way, I've got a lot
of different angles, a lot of different pictures.
This is Gideon Spring or Herod the Herod Spring.
So as we go through there, just keep those in mind.
We're going to get to it at the very end talking about the
spring itself. But God visited get in through
an Angel and chose to deliver Israel through him.
That's a that's a painting that I found that somebody had done
of that. But anyway, judges chapter 6 and
verse #11. And there came an Angel of the
Lord and sat under an oak which was in Ofra that pertained unto
Joe Ash the Abiez, right? And his son Gideon threshed
wheat by the wine press to hide it from the Midianites.
And the Angel of the Lord appeared to.
Now think about this. OK, you've heard the story many
times. Why is Gideon hiding threshing
wheat? If the Midianites found it,
guess what they would have done? They weren't going to kill him
and take it. They were just going to burn it.
And now his family has nothing to eat, right?
So he's hiding behind a wine press, threshing this wheat.
So verse #12 and the Angel of the Lord appeared unto him and
said the Lord is with the the almighty man of valor.
Now I think that's pretty funny. I think it's.
I think what the Angel is doing is kind of doing reverse
psychology a little bit on Gideon because he didn't really
come across as a mighty man of valor.
When you see his answer, right, Verse #15, Gideon responded by
saying that his family was the least in the tribe of Manassa
and that he was the least in his family.
Verse #15. And he said to them, Oh my Lord,
where with shall I save Israel? Behold, my family is poor in
Manassa and I'm the least in my father's house.
Now. I don't know if it's because he
was afraid and he was trying to find an excuse or if or if he
just felt like I'm not worthy. I don't know which one it is,
but you think of that exact same response that Moses had, right?
Wasn't all that long before that.
And they probably had already heard the stories and everything
else cuz they were not that far removed to getting into the land
and getting out of Egypt and all of that stuff.
And God's reminding them of all this too, right?
But he gives the same response. I can't.
I'm the least in my father's house and our tribe is the least
in Israel. He's from the tribe of Manassa,
which you can probably see it, but it's this big yellow one
right there in the middle. So all of this, all of the tribe
of Manassa crossed into both sides, which you know, the the
eastern side of the Jordan River does not belong to Israel
anymore. All of that is the nations that
have come in and and taken over and and you know, assume that
land for themselves. But then God respond.
Gideon responded by saying that his family was the least.
And God commanded Gideon to tear down the altars to bail that his
father had erected into erect an altar to the Lord in its place.
Now again, when Israel turns away from God and when when we
get to talking about the Israel Museum, I'm going to show you
some of these, some of these different little idols of bail,
basically goofy looking little things, I mean tiny little
things that they would have used.
And you know, you remember the story of of Laban and Rachel and
he was they were trying to move out and he said somebody stole
my gods and where they at and everything else most of the time
they were very, very small. It would have been hard to find
them. They had these things setting up
on, you know, in places in their homes and things like that.
And bail was depicted by a lot of different things.
He was picked, depicted as a man with like a staff with a spear
on the end of it. He depicted as a bull.
I mean there's a lot of different ways that bail was
depicted, but they had altars to bail.
And I'm going to show you, when we get to Dan, and talking about
Dan the the altar that was erected to bail one was in Dan,
one was in Beersheba. It was to keep them from having
to go all the way to worship at the temple.
And they they they erected these these gods, and essentially they
worship them the same way that they worship bail by verse 21 it
says. And the Angel of the Lord put
forth the end of the staff that was in his hand and touched the
flesh and the unleavened cakes, and there rose up fire out of
the rock and consumed the flesh and the unleavened cakes.
Then the Angel of the Lord departed out of his sight.
So God allowed the Angel to show giddy and a couple miracles to
say, hey, this is not something that you need to be worrying
about. This is not something that
you're going to have to do on your own.
This is something that I'm going to do for you.
And here you you can read a little bit more into the story
for the sake of time. I'm trying to make it a little
bit quicker, but not reading every single verse in this
passage. But the Angel, the fire comes up
out of the rock and and and. Consume the the food and the
unleavened cakes that were there.
And so then the Angel disappears, and then God
commands him to tear down those altars, and we find this in
verse #28. And when the men of the city
arose early in the morning, behold, the altar of bail was
cast down, and the Grove was cast down that was by it.
And the second bullet was offered upon the altar that was
built. And they said one to another,
who has done this thing? And they And when they inquired
and asked, they said Giddy. And the son of Joe Ash hath done
this thing. And the men of the city sent
under Joe Ash bring out thy son, that he may die because he has
cast down the altar of bail, and because he has cut down the
Grove that was by it. And Joe Ash said all that stood
against him. Will you plead for bail?
Will you save him? He that will plead for him, let
him be put to death, whilst it is yet mourning.
If he be a God, let him plead for himself because one hath
cast down his altar. Therefore, on that day he called
him Jared Bale saying let Bale plead against him because he had
thrown down his altar. I think that's very interesting.
Joe Ash Gideon's father stands up for him, but obviously not
everybody in Israel was was ready to repent, right?
There was a good handful that work as God said and they so
there was a good handful in Israel that were ready to pen,
repent, but not all of them. And Joe Ash Gideon, obviously it
was one of them that was. And he said you have to go to
bat for bail. Bail's not strong enough to do
it on his own. If bail can, if bail's strong,
let him do it on his own. And so then shortly thereafter,
the many nations gathered together to try to wipe out
Israel. And this is something that
Israel has been dealing with since the very beginning of the
nation of Israel. All the nations around them just
trying to destroy them. Verse 33 Then all the MIDI
Knights and the Amalekites and the children of the east were
gathered together, and went over and pitched in the valley of
Jezreel. But the spirit of the Lord came
upon Gideon, and he blew a trumpet.
And Albi Azar was gathered after him.
And he sent messengers throughout all Manassa, who also
was gathered after him. And he sent messengers under
Asher and under Zebulon, and unto Naftaline, and they came up
to meet him. So you can see all of those, all
of those different, the tribes all the way around him, and he's
just, he's sending out the word. We need people to help us fight
against the Midianites. And so the Midianites were the
descendants of Midian, and so they were, they were children of
Abraham, but they, they settled in the land of the East, the
Bible says. And so when Moses fled from the
wrath of Pharaoh, he traveled to Midian.
We find that in Exodus chapter 2.
And Moses met, married his wife. What was Moses his wife's name?
Do you remember Zapora? Very good.
And so he served his fatherinlaw.
What was his fatherinlaw's name? Jethro, as a shepherd for how
many years on the backside of the desert?
40 years. And I've said this before, but
Moses grew up in Pharaoh's house, right?
He spent 40 years learning how to be a somebody and then got
sent him to the backside of the desert, spent 40 years learning
how to be a nobody. And then the last 40 years of
his life he spent learning how God can take somebody who thinks
he's a nobody and use him to do his work.
And that's exactly what God did with Moses, leave the children
of Israel out of the wilderness. But that's that Midian where
Moses was that for those 40 years.
So the children of Midian were actually children of Abraham,
Lord many years before that, obviously.
And then the the Amalekites were the first ones to attack Israel
when they when they crossed over the Red Sea from Egypt.
Genesis 36 talked about the descendants of Amalek, the son
of Elifas, the grandson of ESA, as a Malachites, and so they're
the descendants on that side from from Esaw.
But the Malachites were somehow related but but also distinct
from the Edomites. What you remember was was also
descendants of of Esaw. So anyway, as a result of all of
these things, they gathered together and God commanded
getting to choose 300 men for the battle so that God would get
all the glory for the victory. And he says that we're going to
look at that in Judges Chapter 7.
So turn over to there next page, if I guess it is but God gave
Gideon a sign. In fact, before we get to Judges
chapter seven, we need to look at this in verse 36.
Gideon said unto God, If thou wilt save Israel by mind hand,
as thou has said, behold, I'll put a fleece of wool in the
floor. And if the dew beyond the fleece
only, and it be dry upon all the earth beside, then shall I know
that thou wilt save Israel by mind hand as thou has said.
And it was so For he rose up early on the Morrow, and thrust
the fleece to get ringed, the dew out of the fleece a bowl
full of water. That wasn't enough getting.
And said unto God, Let not thine anger be hot against me, And
I'll speak but this once, Let me prove.
I pray thee, but this once with the fleece.
Let it now be dry only upon the fleece, and upon all the ground
Let there be do And God did so that night, For it was dry upon
the fleece only, And there was dew on all the ground.
And you can, you can imagine getting, you know what?
That could have been a fluke. Maybe that maybe it was possible
that somehow I dropped the bowl of water on that fleece or
something. God, please don't get mad at me.
I'm just going to ask you one more thing.
Can you please reverse it tonight and make the ground be
wet and that fleece be dry? And God was trying to prove to
get in. I'm with you.
I'm here to use you. And so he did it.
He he gave him that what he asked.
And so honestly, I think that the sad thing is though, is that
it revealed the lack of faith and what God said he would do if
God said he would do it. Gideon should have believed.
And now it's easy for us to say hard, hard for us to do many
times. But look what happens here in in
Judges Chapter 7. Then Jared Bale, remember his
name was changed. Let Bale, let Bale plead right.
Who is Gideon? And all the people that were
with him rose up early. And here we have it, And pitched
beside the well of Herod, so that the host of the Midianites
were on the north side of them by the hill of Moray in the
valley. And there you have it again, the
hill of Moray, the Midianite camp.
You have the Jezreel Valley. And where the battle ends up
taking place. And there is the Gideon spring,
or the Harrods spring, or the Well of Herod, as the Bible
calls it here. But the Lord said on the Gideon
verse #2, the people that are with the are too many for me to
give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel vaunt
themselves against me. Saying mine own hand has saved
me. Now think about that.
Here's Israel begging for God to help them, begging for some
relief from the MIDI nights. And God has to do something
drastic because he knows that they're going to try to take the
credit for it. But that's what happened.
So verse #3, Now therefore go to proclaim in the ears of the
people, saying whosoever is fearful and afraid, let him
return and depart early from Mount Gilead and they return to
the people 20 and 2000. And there remained 10,000.
So out of all of the ones that he had, he only had 32,000 and
22,000 of them leave. I'm scared.
I don't want to go fight against Middian.
Now we we get on these guys a lot, but we're going to look at
it in just a little bit. But the middy night camp, the
Bible says there were so many middy nights that it looked like
grasshoppers, so many that you couldn't even count them.
I think I'd probably be the same way.
There's no chance that we have against these guys.
I mean, I mean, what are they just going to keep sending wave
after wave after wave, till there's none of us left?
Again, a lack of faith in God, if you, if you think about it
from that perspective. But verse #4 and and and the
Lord said unto Gideon, the people are yet too many.
Bring them down onto the water, and I will try them for thee
there. And it shall be that of whom I
say unto thee, this shall go with thee.
The same shall go with thee. And of whomsoever I say unto
thee, this shall not go with me. The same shall not go.
And I can imagine that Gideon's probably thinking, all right,
he's going to split my arm in half.
He's going to say, you go this way, you go this way or line
everybody up and 121212, all the twos go home ones.
You're in the battle, right? I don't know.
I don't know what Gideon thought.
But either way, he just trusted God.
So he brings all the people down to the Gideon spring.
And God tested the men there at the herd.
Spring. Now this is actually very
interesting. Again, Ain means fountain and so
Ain herd. So the spring or the fountain of
herd. This is the Gideon Fountain
between 1898 and 1914, somewhere in there.
So I don't know exactly where they were camped out, but the
Bible says that Gideon brought them down to this.
The spring, to the well, to the well of Herod.
So I don't know if they were camped in the mountain.
Makes sense because naturally if you're if you're lining up in a
battle, you're not going to be where the enemy can just rush
you and you can't run back uphill.
So more than likely they were up there in the hills somewhere.
Now, it doesn't look anything like this today, and I'm going
to show you some pictures of that in just a little bit.
But do you know who Horatio Stafford is?
Does that name sound familiar to you?
Horatio Stafford is the one who wrote it is.
Well, with my soul. And Horatio Stafford spent a lot
of time in Israel after that whole tragedy happened and his
wife and kids were killed and all or his children were killed
and he wrote it as well and everything else.
But he started a group, I guess, if you will.
And actually if I zoom in or if I look at it, it's called the
American colony Jerusalem. And so all of the ones that
their group took are labeled with that in the bottom corner
there. But they decided that they were
going to try to preserve as much as they could preserve through
pictures. And what ended up happening
because they did that from about 1880 to about 1920.
Well, what ended up happening is they preserved for us to be able
to see what everything looked like before it got, you know,
touristized, if you will. What's the word?
That's not the right word. But before everything became a
tourist destination in Israel, and actually a lot of the places
that they took, I mean, really, a lot of the archaeological
excavations and things like that did not happen until in the 60s
and the 70s and even into the 80s.
And and even today, they're still doing archaeological
excavation. So they have a lot of these
pristine places to let you see what it looked like before
anybody touched it. But that's probably about what
it would have looked like when Gideon and his men were there.
Here's a few other pictures of that.
Obviously a shepherd bringing his sheep down there.
So you'll see this in the pictures, and I'm gonna point
this out a little bit more. This little cave right here.
OK. And if I go back one picture,
you want to see it a little bit better.
That little cave right there is actually.
So these are the Guilboa Mountains, OK?
Mount Gilboa is where where Saul was killed.
But the Guilboa Mountains is actually the that's the base of
it. And it is actually a bubbling
spring that comes out from underneath the mountain right
there. So you're going to see this in
the pictures as we get closer. But there it is again from
somewhere between 1900 and 1920. There it is again from 1900 to
1920. And you can kind of see how it's
all blocked off and everything like that, but very, very
different than it looks today. But God, God said so let's see
in verse #5. So he brought down the people
unto the water, and the Lord sent him to Gideon.
Everyone that lappeth of the water with his tongue as a dog
lappeth him, shout thou set by himself.
Likewise everyone that boweth down upon his knees to drink.
And the number of them that lapped, putting their hands to
their mouth, were 300 men. But all the rest of the people
bowed down upon their knees to drink water.
And the Lord said in the Guinea and by the 300 men that lapped
will I save you and deliver the Midianites into thine hand and
let all the other people go, every man into his place.
He was down to 10,000 and 9700 of them stuck their head in the
water to drink. And I probably would have done
the same thing. But basically what God said is
they're not prepared because they they were not ready with
their sword, with their hand on their sword.
So I had to try it when we were there.
And I was telling my wife I was like that doesn't look like a
very that looks like a pretty vulnerable position if you ask
me. You know I'm.
I'm not, you know, I'm. I got my head stuck in between
two rocks. All someone has to do is push me
from the back and I'm a goner. So But anyway, that's what
lapping the water is talking about.
One hand on your sword, one hand reaching down and sipping the
water. But this is what it looks like
today. In fact, I believe this is a
video. Yeah.
Here we go. We have no sound with this.
Do it, brother. Josh we're working on that.
But this is what this is. What the.
I mean, look how beautiful and pristine and all that stuff is
now. It wasn't like that when Gideon
was there. They put these nice little rocks
and everything else, I believe. Actually, I think this one's a
video too. Let me see if I can get it to
play for you. There we go.
So this is so that little cave is, is is what I pointed out to
you. That little cave right there is
actually where all the water comes out from and it just flows
down. If if we actually had some sound
on it, you could hear it's just the way it bubbles and it looks
like it's this deep. It's actually just such clear
spring water. It's probably a bottle foot
deep. It looks like it's an inch
because of how clear the water is.
But you can see there that's the base and that's where the spring
comes out of. So that's where Gideon's men,
probably right there in that same area.
And of course, again, as I told you, all those rocks and
everything like that, we're not there.
They've made it nice and touristy and beautiful and
there's a nice little park around it and everything else
now. But that that very cave right
there is probably where Gideon and his men, 10,000 of them, had
an opportunity to be part of that little 300, that little
band of 300 men. So, but the size of the opposing
army was enormous. In fact, the Bible says in
Judges Chapter 7, verse #12 and the MIDI Knights and the
Malachites and all the children of the East lay along the valley
like grasshoppers for multitude. And their camels were without
number as the sand by the seaside for multitude.
I mean, could you imagine? No wonder 22,000 of them went
home. They're up on this mountain
looking over there and seeing these camels, and it probably
looked like a beach because there were so many of them.
And he said there was so many and you couldn't even count.
It was like, I mean you can't even wrap your your head around
how many camels that is. And of course the men as well.
So God allowed Gideon to visit the camp of the opposing army so
that he would be assured of the victory.
And we find that in verse #13. And when Gideon was come,
behold, there was a man that told a dream unto his fellow.
And so Gideon, Gideon sneaks down into the camp.
And here this this MIDI night is telling his MIDI night friend
about a dream that he has. And Gideon overhears them.
Behold, I dreamed a dream, and lo, a cake of barley bread
tumbled into the host of Mideon, and came into a tent and smote
it, that it fell and overturned it, that the tent lay along.
And his fellow answered and said, This is nothing, nothing
else save the sword of Gideon, the son of Joe Ash, a man of
Israel. For into his hand hath God
delivered Mideon and all the host.
Amazing that that guy had sight, but that it was.
And now God gave Gideon one more assurance.
So he had the assurance that, you know of the Angel getting
fire out of that rock. He had the assurance of the
Fleece being dry and then being or being wet and then being.
And now we hearing these over these men, overhearing these men
talking about this dream and they all the guys saying that's
nothing but God delivering the Midianites into the hand of
Gideon. And so God delivered the nation
into the victorious hands of the Israelites.
And we find that, and this is a little bit of a lengthy passage,
but this is the end here. So look what happens in verse
15. And it was so when Gideon heard
the telling of the dream and the interpretation thereof, that he
worshiped and returned into the host of Israel and said Arise.
For the Lord has delivered into your hand the host of Midian,
and he divided the 300 men into three companies.
How many would that be in each company?
Good job. And he put a trumpet in every
man's hand, with empty pictures, and lamps within the pictures.
And they said it to them, Look on me, and do likewise.
Behold, when I come to the outside of the camp, it shall be
that as I do, so shall ye do. When I blow with the trumpet I,
and all that are with me, then blow ye the trumpets also on
every side of all the camp, and say, the sword of the Lord and
end of Gideon. So get in.
And the the 100 men that were with him came into the outside
of the camp in the beginning of the middle watch.
And when they were but newly set the watch and they blew the
trumpets and break the pictures that were in their hands.
And the three companies blew the trumpets and break the pictures
and held the lamps in their left hands and the trumpets in their
right hands to blow with all. And they cried the sword of the
Lord end up Gideon. And they stood every man in his
place round about the camp. And all the hosts ran and cried
and fled. And the 300 blew the trumpets.
And the Lord said every man's sword against his fellow.
Even throughout all the host and the host fled to Beth Shita in 0
wrath, and to the border of Abo Mahola unto Tabath.
And the men of Israel gathered themselves together out of
naftaline and out of Asher, and out of all Manassa in pursuit
after the MIDI nights. And Gideon sent Messengers
throughout all come down nights and take before them the waters
unto Beth, Barra, and Jordan. That all the men of Ethereum
gathered themselves together and took the water waters into Beth,
Barra, and Jordan. And they took 2 Princess of the
Midianites, Orab and Zieb, and they slew Orab upon the rock,
Orab and Zieb. They slew at the wine impressive
Zieb and pursued Midian and brought the heads of Orab and
Zieb to Gideon on the other side of Jordan.
An amazing story. So basically what happens here
and and and I think this is, I mean, this is nothing but God,
obviously you're going against an army full of men that there's
so many of them, there's no way they could ever be overrun.
And there's no way that 300 men can slay all of these people,
right? But a trumpet was a sound to run
into battle, right? And if you think about 300
trumpets being blown, they would think that there must be
companies of people everywhere. Because you don't.
I mean, you don't have a whole group of people trumpeting.
You have one trumpeter that sounds the charge or whatever
else. You have 300.
It must have sounded like there was people everywhere.
And you hear the sound of these pictures breaking and they think
it's an army moving toward them. And then you see the lights and
and and everywhere you look there's lights.
And so they get up and hear there in the it's the middle of
the night. It's the middle watch.
So you have a new group of guards that just got out there.
They're not expecting anything to happen.
And now all of this noise in this pandemonium, when these
guys jump up and they run out and they see somebody else
running at them and they think it's the enemy.
So they start stabbing each other.
Now that guy just got stabbed, so he's going to fight back and
next thing you know, the entire army of many and is fighting
each other, get in. His men are just standing there
watching everything take place. They didn't even have to do
anything because again, God did that for them.
And had they tried to do it on their own, had giddy and said,
Nah, we need at least 32,000 men, this wouldn't happen.
God did an amazing, amazing thing for them.
And I think there's a couple lessons as we close here.
Number one, God often puts us in difficult situations so that he
gets all the glory when he helps us with our problems, right?
How many times have you been in a situation where there was no
way out unless God did it? And God puts us in those
situations on purpose, to help us realize, and I've said this
many times before, hit it somewhere, or maybe hurt it
somewhere. Maybe I came up with it.
I don't know, but I've I've said it so many times that I've lost
the source. But sometimes God lets us hit
rock bottom so we can realize that he's the rock at the
bottom. And that's exactly what he did
with Gideon. 300 men against an army that's too many to count is
rock bottom. And God let him get there so he
could realize that he was the only way that he could do it was
with God helping him. Number two, we, like the
Israelites, can also worship idols.
And idol is anything that distracts us from our time and
attention on God. So the question for us then is
what's distracting you away from God at this time in your life?
We don't mind we're going to have an idol sitting there on
the shelf. You may not have something that
you bow down and worship every day, but how often do we get
distracted by things that keep our attention and our time away
from God #3? We should look at the size of
our God rather than the size of our difficulties.
I think Gideon did that. I think when he got down to 300
men, he realized that I've got to have a pretty big God if
something's going to happen. But Gideon got excited.
You see what happened after he went down there?
That's all. That that last time when he
heard those guys talking and he heard them say, God's giving us
into the hand of Gideon, Gideon got excited and he said let's
let's go watch what God can do. And they went out there and they
they defeated those men with three God Delights in our faith,
but he's grieved by our lack of it.
And I think that's the way that he was with Gideon too.
Can you Can you imagine God that wants to do some giddy?
And I'll pick you. Oh, no, you don't want me.
No, no, I do want you. Okay.
Well, if you want me, then you got to prove that you want me.
You got to prove that it's me that you want.
Do this with the fleece. Okay.
That was good. Now do this.
Do this with the fleece. Oh, that was good.
All right, Okay. Well, I guess I'll go then.
Right. God, God.
God delights in our faith, but sometimes he's grieved by our
lack of it. #3 God chooses the weak things to show his glory.
We find this in First Corinthians chapter one and
verse 27. But God has chosen the foolish
things of this world to confound the wise, and God has chosen the
weak things of the world to confound the things which are
mighty God. God chooses weak things to show
his glory. I don't know if you've ever, you
know, I've seen this from time to time where you see God using
somebody in a great way and you look at the guy and you think,
how in the world is God using him, right?
You just wouldn't think that he'd be a guy that that God
would be using in any kind of great way at all.
But God chooses the weak things, and and weak doesn't mean that
oh you have to be ugly or you have to be worthless or you have
to be whatever, but you have to be willing to be made that way,
right? The humility aspect of it is
what God's looking at. I believe 100% of God uses your
talents and your abilities, and God gave you those talents and
those abilities. So you don't have to be
worthless and talentless in order for God to use you, but
you have to be willing to be used by God, and you have to be
willing to be the bottom. You have to be willing to be the
low man on the totem pole. You have to be willing to be
humble if God's going to use us in any great way.
And then the last thing is this. Even if we have weaknesses, God
can use us if we trust and we follow, right?
Gideon's weakness, at least According to him, was that he
was from the least tribe and he was the least in his family and
oh, you can't use me. And he had a lack of faith,
honestly. But God can use us the same way
that he used him if we trust and if we follow.
Let me end with this picture then.
This is what it looks like today.
Far cry from what it looked like in the in the pictures from
1900, right? It's beautiful.
It's a nice little park and all of that kind of stuff.
But just think about what happened right there in that
place. As that water bubbled out from
the bottom of Mount Gilboa, God whittled an army of 32,000 down
to 300 and did an amazing, amazing thing with them to show
that he's powerful and that he doesn't need us, but he does
want to use us, right. God could have used one person.
God could have used Gideon. Why he chose to have 300 and not
3000 or 30, I don't know, but he just did it that way because he
was trying to prove that he is all powerful and he wants to use
us. Not that he has to, but he wants
to. And what an amazing, amazing
story that is. We're done.
Let's pray we'll be finished. Father, we love you.
Can we thank you for your goodness?
Thank you for the stories that we find here in the word of God.
And what a tremendous thing that is God.
I pray that you'd help the Bible to come alive to us.
Every time we read this passage here in Judges God, I pray that
you'd help us not to be like the Israelites.
I pray that you'd help us not to have idols in our lives, not to
have things that come before you and God.
May you use us because we have faith to believe that you can
and that you will. Thank you again for all that you
do for us. In Jesus name.
Amen. Go and stand, if you will.
We'll close with our song. There we go.
This could be the day that the Lord returns in glory.
This could be the day that all these children hold.
So be faithful in service as you watch it.
This could be the day you can come up here and look at the
map. We've ordered those maps.
The problem is, their website crashed and they're still trying
to get everything figured out. So as soon as we get those maps
in, we'll make sure we get them to you.
All right. Very good.