The next stop on our tour through the Faith Hall Of Fame takes us to visit with six well-known (and not so well-known) examples of real Biblical faith…
“Well, how much more do I need to say? It would take too long to recount the stories of the faith of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah and David and Samuel and all the other prophets.
These people all trusted God and as a result won battles, overthrew kingdoms, ruled their people well, and received what God had promised them; they were kept from harm in a den of lions and in a fiery furnace. Some, through their faith, escaped death by the sword. Some were made strong again after they had been weak or sick. Others were given great power in battle; they made whole armies turn and run away” (Hebrews 11:32-34).
The first four guys mentioned here -Gideon, Barak, Samson and Jephthah- all lived during the Old Testament period that is written about in the Biblical book of Judges. Samuel and David also lived near the end of this period and a short time after. Now you may recognize the names of some of these men but others may be unfamiliar to you. Nevertheless, each of these men can tell us something important about what it means to live the kind of life that really honors God. This becomes especially clear when we look at the first guy mentioned here, a man named Gideon.
We find Gideon’s story recorded for us in Judges chapter 6. But before we get to Gideon, let’s check out the opening verses of this chapter first because they give us some very important background information to his story…
“Then the people of Israel began once again to worship other gods, and once again the Lord let their enemies harass them. This time it was by the people of Midian, for seven years. The Midianites were so cruel that the Israelis took to the mountains, living in caves and dens. When they planted their seed, marauders from Midian, Amalek, and other neighboring nations came and destroyed their crops and plundered the countryside as far away as Gaza, leaving nothing to eat and taking away all their sheep, oxen, and donkeys.
“These enemy hordes arrived on droves of camels too numerous to count and stayed until the land was completely stripped and devastated. So Israel was reduced to abject poverty because of the Midianites.
“Then at last the people of Israel began to cry out to the Lord for help. However, the Lord’s reply through the prophet he sent to them was this: ‘The Lord God of Israel brought you out of slavery in Egypt, and rescued you from the Egyptians and from all who were cruel to you, and drove out your enemies before you, and gave you their land. He told you he is the Lord your God, and you must not worship the gods of the Amorites who live around you on every side. But you have not listened to him'” (Judges 6:1-10).
Pretty sad, huh? Actually, this is the kind of bad result that can happen whenever someone starts slacking off in his or her relationship with God. You see, whenever someone starts neglecting his or her relationship with God, it becomes very easy to get off-track spiritually just like we see in the Scripture quoted above. Once that happens, it’s only a matter of time before you start making bad decisions that are sure to hurt you eventually.
One of the very best ways to prevent this sort of thing and maintain a close relationship with God is to follow a few simple principles that the Bible speaks of in Acts 2:42. In this verse, we find that the early church did some basic but very important things…
“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer” (NIV).
We can understand this to mean that the early Christians made sure to concentrate on four things: prayer, Bible study (the apostles’ teaching), communion (breaking of bread) and going to church (the fellowship). If you ask God to help you devote yourself to doing these four simple things like they did, it will definitely help you stay close to God and out of the kind of mess that we just read about in book of Judges.
But let’s get back to our account…
“But one day the Angel of the Lord came and sat beneath the oak tree at Ophrah, on the farm of Joash the Abiezrite. Joash’s son, Gideon, had been threshing wheat by hand in the bottom of a grape press– a pit where grapes were pressed to make wine– for he was hiding from the Midianites.
“The Angel of the Lord appeared to him and said, ‘Mighty soldier, the Lord is with you!’
‘Stranger,’ Gideon replied, ‘if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? And where are all the miracles our ancestors have told us about– such as when God brought them out of Egypt? Now the Lord has thrown us away and has let the Midianites completely ruin us.’
“Then the Lord turned to him and said, ‘I will make you strong! Go and save Israel from the Midianites! I am sending you!’ But Gideon replied, ‘Sir, how can I save Israel? My family is the poorest in the whole tribe of Manasseh, and I am the least thought of in the entire family!’
Whereupon the Lord said to him, ‘But I, Jehovah, will be with you! And you shall quickly destroy the Midianite hordes!’
“Gideon replied, ‘If it is really true that you are going to help me like that, then do some miracle to prove it! Prove that it is really Jehovah who is talking to me! But stay here until I go and get a present for you.’ ‘All right,’ the Angel agreed. ‘I’ll stay here until you return.’
“Gideon hurried home and roasted a young goat and baked some unleavened bread from a bushel of flour. Then, carrying the meat in a basket and broth in a pot, he took it out to the Angel, who was beneath the oak tree, and presented it to him.
“The Angel said to him, ‘Place the meat and the bread upon that rock over there, and pour the broth over it.’ When Gideon had followed these instructions, the Angel touched the meat and bread with his staff, and fire flamed up from the rock and consumed them! And suddenly the Angel was gone!
When Gideon realized that it had indeed been the Angel of the Lord, he cried out, ‘Alas, O Lord God, for I have seen the Angel of the Lord face to face!’ ‘It’s all right,’ the Lord replied. ‘Don’t be afraid! You shall not die.’ And Gideon built an altar there and named it ‘The Altar of Peace with Jehovah.’ (The altar is still there in Ophrah in the land of the Abiezrites)” (Judges 6:11-24).
Ok, so now that you’ve seen a little of Gideon’s personality, what kind of person do you think he was? Do you think that he was a heroic man? A confident man? A daring man of bravery, courage and fearlessness? No way- this guy was afraid! Look again at some of the things that Gideon said to God…
- “…if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? And where are all the miracles our ancestors have told us about…”
- “…how can I save Israel? My family is the poorest in the whole tribe of Manasseh, and I am the least thought of in the entire family”
- “If it is really true that you are going to help me like that, then do some miracle to prove it!”
This guy was frightened, confused and unsure of himself- and surprisingly similar to lot of people that God chooses to work through. To illustrate this, let’s take Moses for example. When God called Moses to lead His people out of Egypt, Exodus 4:13 tells us that Moses’ response to God was, “Lord, please! Send someone else.” Or how about the great prophet Jeremiah? When God called Jeremiah to be His spokesman, Jeremiah responded by saying, “O Lord God… I can’t do that! I’m far too young! I’m only a youth!” (Jeremiah 1:6).
Or what about the men that Jesus chose to be His followers? What kind of guys were they? Well, among the disciples there were four fishermen, a tax collector, a skeptic, a political extremist and four nobodies. Would these people really be the ones that you would choose as your followers if you were Jesus? Well, maybe not but fortunately for us, God doesn’t always have the same opinion of us as we often have of ourselves. We can illustrate this by looking at some of the things that God said to Gideon…
- “The LORD is with you, mighty warrior” (NIV)
- “‘I will make you strong! Go and save Israel from the Midianites! I am sending you!’
- “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand”
How could God make these kinds of statements to frightened man who was hiding from the very people that God was sending him to save the nation from? Well, the answer is found in something that we just read in Judges 6:16: The LORD answered, “I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites together” (NIV emphasis added). Remember, if God is with you then you can accomplish anything that He wants you to do. Of course, this is not only true for Old Testament guys like Gideon- you can find this same idea in the New Testament too…
“When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13 NIV).
The good news is that this is also true for us today. You see, God doesn’t necessarily choose the smartest or the richest or the best looking or the most popular or the most talented people to do the things that He wants to do. He often chooses ordinary people and then does great things through them!