Prove it!

I want to share this story about Gideon in the book of Judges before I explain my Prove It! title.  Gideon is found in chapter 6-7 in the book of Judges.  The Israelites have once again been disobedient.  They started living like the people of the land, the Midianites, and serving false idols, worshiping things of this world, and just plain being disobedient.  They were told by Joshua to drive out all the inhabitants of the Promised Land and to not let one person live.  They didn't listen and therefore they will face trouble for the rest of their lives.  This is yet another encounter and when they got to their worst they cried out to God.  God sent them a prophet.  Then an angel of the Lord appeared Gideon, a farmers boy.  Here is the story:

Judges 6:11-24

"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. ”   “Pardon me, my lord,” Gideon replied, “but if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our ancestors told us about when they said, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up out of Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and given 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?”  “Pardon me, my lord,” Gideon replied, “but 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, leaving none alive.”  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 inside, 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.  Then the angel of the Lord touched the meat and the unleavened bread with the tip of the staff that was in his hand. 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, “Alas, 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 isn't all of it.  He went and did what the Lord has asked of him.  At night, he got some men together and tore down the Asherah pole and broke down Baal's altar.  Then he made an altar for the Lord and sacrificed a bull on it.  The towns people demanded who did all of this.  They found out Gideon did and wanted to kill him, but his dad stepped in and told the guys they were crazy for sticking up for those fake gods.  They didn't really like that response, but decided to leave it and let Baal deal with him.  Now we have the Midianites and the Amalektes and other eastern people coming to join forces to kill off the Israelites when the Spirit of the Lord comes upon Gideon.  He blows a trumpet summoning the Abiezrites for folow him and all the other tribes around him.  Here is the rest of the story.

Judges 6: 36-40

Gideon said to God, “If you will save Israel by my hand as you have promised look, I will place a wool fleece on the threshing floor. If there is dew only on the fleece and all the ground is dry, then I will know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you said.”  And that is what happened. Gideon rose early the next day; he squeezed the fleece and wrung out the dew—a bowlful of water.   Then Gideon said to God, “Do not be angry with me. Let me make just one more request. Allow me one more test with the fleece, but this time make the fleece dry and let the ground be covered with dew.”  That night God did so. Only the fleece was dry; all the ground was covered with dew.

WOW!  Just to sum this up, Gideon saw an angel who told him what God wanted him to do and then he questions God about even makes some demands of the angel.  Then the Spirit of the Lord comes upon him and he again makes some demands of God as if to say PROVE IT to God!  Does this make you get fired up like it does me?  

Then I stop and think, how often do I make demands of God or how often do I now follow through with something God has asked of me?  We have something that Gideon didn't have.  We have God's word!  They didn't have that back then.  They were taught and in most cases memorized the first five books of the Bible if their parents taught them, but they didn't have an actual copy of the Bible yet.  

Next time I want to make demands of God or tell God to prove it, I hope that I come into God's word and find where He has already proven it before and I act out of obedience!

Lord, help me to not question Your authority or to ask of You things in which need not asking.  Help me to be obedient to what You are asking me to do or to wherever You are calling us.  I want to be a woman of great faith, Lord.  'Not by my might nor by my power, but by Your spirit' (Zechariah 4:6).  Help me to live like this.  Amen.