Warrior

When God calls you a warrior, you can bet you are going to live like one, because His power is with you, and

that is how you have victories as a warrior. God called Gideon, and he was located cleaning up a winepress when the angel of the Lord came and sat under the oak that was in Ophra. Here is the story as written in the book of Judges. Judges 6: ¹¹ Then the angel of the Lord came and sat under the oak that was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite as his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press in order to save it from the Midianites. ¹² The angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, “The Lord is with you, O valiant warrior.” ¹³ Then Gideon said to him, “O my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.” ¹⁴ The Lord looked at him and said, “Go in this your strength and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian. Have I not sent you?” ¹⁵ He said to Him, “O Lord, how shall I deliver Israel? Behold, my family is the least in Manasseh, and I am the youngest in my father’s house.” ¹⁶ But the Lord said to him, “Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat Midian as one man.” ¹⁷ So Gideon said to Him, “If now I have found favor in Your sight, then show me a sign that it is You who speak with me.¹⁸ Please do not depart from here, until I come back to You, and bring out my offering and lay it before You.” And He said, “I will remain until you return.”

What would you do if an angel sit under an oak tree and told you that you will deliver Israel from the Midianites? I would probably do what Gideon did and question God about how it could be done. But then. But then, a decision would have to be made and the commitment to become the warrior that Almighty God called you would need to be followed through. Gideon asked for a sign and God made a commitment to give him a sign. Judges 6:¹⁹ Then Gideon went in and prepared a young goat and unleavened bread from an ephah of flour; he put the meat in a basket and the broth in a pot, and brought them out to him under the oak and presented them. ²⁰ The angel of God said to him, “Take the meat and the unleavened bread and lay them on this rock, and pour out the broth.” And he did so. ²¹ Then the angel of the Lord put out the end of the staff that was in his hand and touched the meat and the unleavened bread; and fire sprang up from the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened bread. Then the angel of the Lord vanished from his sight. ²² When Gideon saw that he was the angel of the Lord, he said, “Alas, O Lord God! For now I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face.” ²³ The Lord said to him, “Peace to you, do not fear; you shall not die.” ²⁴ Then Gideon built an altar there to the Lord and named it the Lord is Peace.

Then God gave some very specific instructions to Gideon about the altar in his father's house and the instructions were as follows Judges 6: ²⁵ Now on the same night the Lord said to him, “Take your father’s bull ^[r]and a second bull seven years old, and pull down the altar of Baal which belongs to your father, and cut down the Asherah that is beside it; ²⁶ and build an altar to the Lord your God on the top of this stronghold in an orderly manner, and take a second bull and offer a burnt offering with the wood of the Asherah which you shall cut down.” ²⁷ Then Gideon took ten men of his servants and did as the Lord had spoken to him; and because he was too afraid of his father’s household and the men of the city to do it by day, he did it by night.

Gideon got rid of that which was a part of Baal worship and took his stand as the warrior God had called him to be, and everything was hunky dorey after he did that! WRONG. Judges 6:²⁸ When the men of the city arose early in the morning, behold, the altar of Baal was torn down, and the Asherah which was beside it was cut down, and the second bull was offered on the altar which had been built. ²⁹ They said to one another, “Who did this thing?” And when they searched about and inquired, they said, “Gideon the son of Joash did this thing.”³⁰ Then the men of the city said to Joash, “Bring out your son, that he may die, for he has torn down the altar of Baal, and indeed, he has cut down the Asherah which was beside it.”

Gideon was still unsure, and he asked God to do the following in Judges 6: ³⁶ Then Gideon said to God, “If You will deliver Israel through me, as You have spoken,³⁷ behold, I will put a fleece of wool on the threshing floor. If there is dew on the fleece only, and it is dry on all the ground, then I will know that You will deliver Israel through me, as You have spoken.” ³⁸ And it was so. When he arose early the next morning and squeezed the fleece, he drained the dew from the fleece, a bowl full of water. ³⁹ Then Gideon said to God, “Do not let Your anger burn against me that I may speak once more; please let me make a test once more with the fleece, let it now be dry only on the fleece, and let there be dew on all the ground.” ⁴⁰ God did so that night; for it was dry only on the fleece, and dew was on all the ground.

How did Gideon know God was with Him? Because the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon, and God's power protected and propelled Gideon into the battle for the Lord. If you know this account of Gideon's life, then you also know that Gideon and His 300 men defeated a much larger force of Midianites and Amalekites, and Israel was delivered and led by Gideon, the warrior. Gideon only won the battle because God's Spirit was on his life, and God came through when Gideon needed Him the most. God has called and empowered a group of warriors to share the gospel of Jesus Christ, and we are "the sent." The enemy has great power, but God's power is with us, and we must march forward in faith. We can hear the echoes of the prayer of the writer of Hebrews, where he says. Hebrews 13: ²⁰ Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, even Jesus our Lord, ²¹ equip you in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

It is only through the blood of Jesus that we can fight as warriors, and the clarion call was made the moment Jesus defeated death, hell, and the grave. Are you listening? God is calling all warriors!!! What is your answer?

The Pilgrimage Continues,

David Warren