Judges 8:22-28

Well, good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Welcome to coffee and devotions. We're going to continue on in Judges. Sorry we missed yesterday's coffee and devotions. Uh just was out of town. Things got busy. And so I hope you'll show some forgiveness there. I'll try to repent. Maybe maybe I need to give have some penance for that. What should I should I pay them some money or something for it? I was thinking you could like go to this website and I'll give you a free pen. Right. Okay. Well, let's have some coffee. We'll pray and we'll talk about Gideon. What what's happening with Gideon? Uh it's kind of a epic rise and fall of this guy. So, let's have some coffee. We'll pray and we'll get into God's word. Yep. Someday you're going to say, you know what, Dad? No. I want to be a man. I'm just You don't have to be a man to drink coffee or you don't have to drink coffee to be a man. That's what I meant. Okay, let's pray. Father, we thank you so much. Uh Lord, we pray that even as we've kind of had some fun silliness and and enjoyed just hanging out, Lord, we pray now that you please uh turn our hearts to your word, Lord. We could read your word, but it's only by your Holy Spirit that we'll understand it and definitely only by your Holy Spirit that we'll actually live it. So, please help us in Jesus's name. Amen. All right. So, we are at Judges 8 22- 28. Judges chapter 8, beginning at verse 22. So, we're just going to do like six, seven verses, something like that. All right. Judges chapter 8, beginning at verse 22, somewhere somewhere right here. Oh, I'll read to 22 to 25. Okay. Best. Yeah. Go for it. Then the men of Israel said to Gideon, "Rul over us, both you and your son, your grandson also, for you have delivered us from the hand of Minion." But Gideon said to them, "I will not rule over you, nor shall my son rule over you. The Lord shall rule over you." Then said to them, "I would like to make a request of you that each of you would give me an awning from his bundle." "Oh, give me an earring from his bundle, for they have golden earrings, because they were." So they answered, "We will gladly give them." and they spread out their garment. And each man threw into it the earning the earrings from his plunder. Now the weight of the gold earrings that he requested was 1,700 shekels of gold. Beside the crescent ornaments, pendants, and purple robes which were on the kings of Midian, and besides the chains that were around their camels necks. Then Gideon made it into an ephod and set it up in his city Ofra. And all the Israelites played the harlot with it there. It became a snare to Gideon and to his house. This Midian was subdued before the children of Israel, so that they lifted their heads no more, and the country was quiet for 40 years in the days of Gideon. All right. So, we have Gideon and he has rescued the people from the Midianites. That's what's been going on and going on. And now we get to this place and what happens here? Like, you should be a king. Yeah. And what's he say? Nope. No. Right. King. That's that's that's how it works, guys. Well, interesting. He did. Yeah. So, the Lord shall rule over you. Yeah. Right. So it's it's Jehovah. It's the Lord who's supposed to rule over them. But he's got one thing. He asks for them. And what's he ask for them? Give me all your earrings. Give me all your earrings from your plunder. Right? So they had plundered the Ishelites. Right? And so the Ishelites wore earrings. They also had pendant necklaces. They even had necklaces on their camels. Did you read that? Right. And so what's he do with all this gold and this these purple robes and stuff like this? What's he do with all that neat stuff? He melts it. Yeah, he melts it. And what's he make out of it? An Yeah. Interesting. What is an an ephod, right? He made an ephod. What's an ephod? Yeah. So if you went to the book of Exodus and Leviticus, you would have the sons of Aaron and the high priest himself and they were to wear a linen ephod. It's a it's a priestly garment. Oh, so it's like almost like a a serum a ceremonial chest put over. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So it's it's a ceremonial garb, right? but specifically religious. And so what do the people start doing? What do the people of Israel do? Uh they set it up in the city of Ora. Yeah. Gideon city, right? And what do they do with it there? And all Israel play the harlot with it there. What's that mean? I don't know. Yeah. So harlot's a prostitute, right? So the picture in the Old Testament and in the New Testament is that God's people like he's the husband and they're the bride. And so the people are going and they're prostituting themselves. They're going and having they're committing spiritual adultery, going after other gods. And so even though Gideon told them, the IshRaelites like, "No, no, no." Or told the people like, "No, no, I'm not going to be your king. The Lord's your king." Then he goes and he makes an ephod and the people's hearts are turned away from what? The Lord himself, right? Well, why why not go to Gideon's house, right? He's got an ephod. We can go worship there, right? And and so this is just once again so as Gideon's sometimes the devil likes to do and they did they had a heart of reverence to the Lord which has them to Yeah. Yeah. Right. So they they have this heart of of what what almost seems like sincerity and maybe even good intent. But was that a was making himself a linen ephod, you know, interlaced with gold and stuff. Was that ever prescribed in God's word? The priest was supposed to wear stuff like that. Yeah. Right. And so this this actually one of those difficult things, right? There are many things that Christians even do today that are I think done in good sincerity, but because they're not in line with what we have revealed from God ends up actually leading our hearts astray. You've never done that before though, right? You you've never thought you were doing something good and found out what you were doing was wrong. Something like that. Yeah. Right. And so this this is God's the one who calls the shots. God's the one who's being worshiped. He's the one who tells us how to worship. But we we kind of need to test our own hearts. Is this the way I'm supposed to go? Is this the way I'm not supposed to go? And how do we know what way we should go or not? We got his word. Yeah. Right. We go we go to the word. Right. So that so that's one of these tensions, right? So Gideon's not like this perfect hero. He's a guy just like us. And here he makes a boneheaded mistake and it ends up leading the people astray. But the Lord uses Gideon. And at the end of the day, what's he got? How long does Israel have of rest? 40 years. Oh, I don't think 40. Yep. Was it 40 years? I was right. Oh, once again, you seem to always be right. And I seem to always be wrong. Yeah. 40 years. Oh, you know what was next? I have a different note in my margin of my Bible. 70 sons. Oh, so I I looked one line down. Okay. Well, anyways, I was wrong. You were right again. Again. Uh, so what's this passage about? You got to tell your grandma and your mom what this passage was about. What is it about? Um, kind of like the downfall of Gideon. The downfall of Gideon. Okay. Yeah. So, what would you underline as the best verse to summarize this? Let's see. I think I want to say 27. I think 27. Okay. Yeah. So, I actually like verse 23. Uh, right. The Lord shall rule over you, right? That that's one of my favorite parts of this, right? The the true thing he said rather than the thing where he fell. Uh, so, okay, let's go ahead and talk about see calling. Where does this show you Jesus Christ? What's this calling you to do? Is there anything in there here of the covenant of grace unfolding? By the way, remember covenant of grace starts at Genesis chapter 3, right? The seed of the woman shall brush the head of the serpent, right? But he'll bruise his heel. Uh and so this this unfolding of the different covenants we find right with Abraham and Isaac and Moses and Noah and uh David, right? And so now we're at the period of the judges. And so eventually it's all pointing us towards Christ. So how does this inform us of the covenant of grace or show us Jesus Christ? I think Gideon was supposed to point us to Christ, but he's not the perfect guy. Yeah. Right. Will we ever find a perfect type or shadow in the Old Testament? Nope. No. Right. They were all pointing us to Jesus, right? And so, yeah. But thanks be to God, right? Did Jesus fall into any of these temptations? Nope. No. You didn't have to go into battle and that. No, he went not that type of battle. Yeah. Right. But do you know how the book of Revelation talks about Jesus when he comes back? Well, like he's in a battle. Yeah. With his robe dipped in blood with a two-edged sword coming out of his mouth. And he'll jud come to judge again the living and the dead. It's pretty pretty severe language that has with Jesus coming back. So, all right. You ready to pray? Yep. You want to pray or you want me to? Okay. Okay. God, thank you so much again for the blessing it is to get to worship you. Thank you, Lord, that you finally sent us the perfect one, Jesus Christ. Gideon failed and we will fail. But Lord, we thank you for sending us our king, the Lord himself, Jesus Christ. And father, we pray that you would please send us your Holy Spirit that we would truly trust in you. Keep us from the foolish in inventions of our own hearts. And let us worship you in spirit and in truth. We pray these things in Jesus's name. Amen. Well, may the Lord bless you. May you walk in the joy and peace of Jesus Christ. And we'll see you next time. Bye bye.