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... like to read verses one through twenty four.
We're in a series of studies in this
marvelous book,
and we've now come to the
story of Gideon.
Judges chapter six beginning with the first verse
Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD, and for seven years he gave them
into the hands of the Midianites.
Because the power of Midian was so oppressive, the Israelites prepared shelters
for themselves in mountain clefts,
caves and strongholds.
Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, the Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern
peoples invaded the country.
They 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.
They 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.
Midian so impoverished the Israelites that they cried out
to the LORD for help.
When the Israelites cried to the LORD because of Midian, he 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.
I 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.
I 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 angel of the LORD came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah
that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat
in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites.
When the angel of the LORD appeared to Gideon, he said, "The LORD is with you, mighty
warrior."
"But sir," Gideon replied, "if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us?
Where are all his wonders that our fathers told us about when they said,
'Did not the LORD bring us up out of Egypt?'
But now the LORD has abandoned us and put us into the hand of Midian."
The LORD turned to him and said, "Go in
the strength you
have and save Israel out of Midian's hand.
Am I not sending you?"
"But Lord ," Gideon asked,
"how can I save Israel?
My clan is the weakest in Manasseh,
and I am the least in my family."
The LORD answered,
"I will be with you,
and you will strike down all the Midianites
together."
Gideon replied,
"If now I have found favor in your eyes, give me a sign that it is really you talking to me.
Please do not go away until I come back and bring my offering and set it before you."
And the LORD said, "I will wait until you return."
Gideon went in, prepared a young goat, and from an ephah of flour he made bread without
yeast.
Putting the meat in a basket and its broth in a pot, he brought them out and offered
them
to him under the oak.
The angel of God said to him, "Take the meat and the unleavened bread, place them on this rock,
and pour out the broth."
And Gideon did so. With the tip of the staff that was in his hand,
the angel of the LORD touched the meat and the unleavened bread.
Fire flared from the rock,
consuming the meat and the bread.
And the angel of the LORD disappeared.
When Gideon realized that it was the angel of the LORD, he exclaimed,
"Ah, Sovereign LORD! I have
seen the angel of the LORD face to face!"
But the LORD said to him, "Peace!
Do not be afraid.
You are not going to die."
So Gideon built an altar to the LORD there and called it
The LORD is Peace.
To this day
it stands in Ophrah
of the Abiezrites. This is the word of the LORD.
I've already been reminded of this
memorial day weekend and very sobering ...
the purpose of memorial day for those of us who are Americans where we are encouraged
to remember
the more than one million
men and women who paid
the ultimate sacrifice for the freedoms
and privileges that we enjoy.
It's a horrific price
uh... along with the treasure,
the inestimable value of the blood
that has been shared for us,
and also the many tears. It's appropriate to add to that price the suffering of loved
ones who were
left
grived because of the glorious
engagements and wars in which our young men and women have fought.
It's also appropriate to add to this
by extrapolation those who are even now living
in situations where they've been placed in harm's way whether in the theaters of Afghanistan
and Iraq or elsewhere.
And you know it.....
when you think about it , and I know that most of us
in a way try not to,
but it does
press upon us the question of
what kind of life, what quality of life,
would be worthy
of this
terrific sacrifice.
Uh... what quality of life corporately and individually,
how do we respond,
do we just, you know, toss the frisbee and say thanks, you know, just kind of
go about life's business or is there something more that's required of us? And I think there
is
a kind of a personal assessment that most of us
uh... undertake as we think about
the ways in which our lives have been benefited so much by those who've gone before.
There is of course more trivial purpose for memorial day weekend and that is the
unofficial start of the summer. It's the excuse to
bring out the barbecue and put on the bathing suits and
make final plans for any vacations that you may have in mind.
and that may seem to in fact
be an insult to this other purpose but in a interesting way it always occurred to me that
There is a kind of parallel.
Uh... for most of us,
we do some of this
personal reflection in connection with
new year's eve I guess because assume you're going to make some resolutions, but
in practice for those of us who were students
I always found that much more natural
to do all the resolutions
on memorial day weekend
after final exams.
Uh... it's then that I began to think about
the imbalance of my life, or why it was as I didn't seem that I don't know I have more discipline
to do
all that homework back when they ought to have been done.
Uh... it is also a time where on the other side of
graduation that
most of us
give thought to
the priorities of our lives and want to reprioritize based on
the fact that well we've been cheating ourselves and cheating our loved ones,
perhaps cheating the wife or husband if you're married by
being married to your job. You're thinking of all the
things that you've left undone, all the responsibilities set at there at the workplace and
well you can't wait to kind of get it right
with that's long overdue trip up to Acadia National Park where they
be and been that's your favorite spot to renew your love.
it's also a time frankly for me and public for many of us where we
think about our spiritual lives
and make plans and resolutions to
get that right,
Uh... to be more faithful in prayer, more faithful and
the reading of God's word and fellowship with these people.
Anyway, I think it's not at all surprising that... that's the way memorial day weedend works
for so many of us because it actually coincides
with massive transitions in our lives.
According to airline movers this is the
beginning, well, in fact, May is apparently national moving month I didn't
realize a research of a thing, but apparently that it
it's so
it begins as a season where the vast majority of Americans that they're going to move that's
when they move well over half during
the summer period of time.
it's a time where of course there's moving connection in connection with of the student
life. Uh... I don't know high school graduates, and college graduates, and
graduate school graduates do we have in our midst and fellowship? Don't be embarrassed,
professional school where we're be... look at all the sea of hands
of those who're
just about the commence. That's why they call those graduation exercises commencements
to commence the life for which they've been preparing,
preparing all this time.
Uh... to begin this new chapter that's the time for reevaluation if ever there was one,
and oh by the way we are also heading into the top months for weddings.
Uh... there's another reorienting of our lives. Isn't it?
Uh... more than half of all
weddings taken place between now and the end of summer.
So there you have it