Today with Jeff Vines

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
You only truly know who you are, and you only
truly know who the people around you are. When tension
and conflict comes, it is the great revealer. It reveals character, integrity, honesty, courage.
You can talk a good game, but you'll only know
those exists in a person in the midst of tension.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Today Today, Today, Today, with Jeff Fines, pastor, apologist and
Bible teacher.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
Hello, my name is Bill and welcome. This is Today
with Jeff Fines. In this episode, Pastor Jeff continues his
Unpossible series. He's making his way through Judges Chapter seven
and the Lessons we can learn from the actions of Gideon.
Pastor Jeff has identified seven resolutions in these verses that
can help guide our lives. He's up to resolution number

(00:56):
four about learning to solely depend on God. Let's begin
today's message now.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
Now here we come to revelation resolution number four, and
resolution number four says this, if we're gonna take all
these events of our lives and turn them around the disadvantage,
turn it into advantage, and use it for the glory
of God. If we're gonna take all of those external
events and we're not gonna be ruled by them, But
instead We're gonna turn all of them into these incredible victories.

(01:31):
Resolution number four says this God will usually strip us
of everything we depend on other than himself. Now, Resolution
three was God will lead us to do that which
brings him the most glory. It is closely related to
resolution four, but not the same. Resolution four says God
will usually strip us of everything we depend on other

(01:55):
than himself. Let's go to the texts Judges seven sixteen,
dividing the three three hundred men into three companies. He
placed trumpets and empty jars in the hands of all
of them, with torches inside. Watch me, he told them,
follow my lead. When I get to the edge of
the camp, do exactly as I do. When I and
all who are with me blow our trumpets, then from

(02:16):
all around the camp blow yours and shout for the
Lord and for Gideon. Now I'm not certain what the
third meeting between God and Gideon look like. I'd have
loved to have been a fly on the wall. We're given
information about the first meeting and the second meeting, but
what about the third. We're assuming, based on the text
that God would have said to Gideon as he faces

(02:37):
one hundred and thirty five thousand well trained Midianite warriors. Gideon,
you know I told you that thirty two thousand men
is too many, and then I told you ten thousand
is too many. And I realize now you only have
three hundred. But I only wanted those men who would
trust me and who would take the battle seriously.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
Let me just pause here. We're going to do that
a few times.

Speaker 1 (02:59):
You only know, you only truly know who you are,
and you only truly know who the people around you are.
When tension and conflict comes, it is the great revealer.
It establishes and reveals character. It rather not establishes. It
reveals character, integrity, honesty, courage, all of those. You can
talk a good game, but you'll only know those exists

(03:22):
in a person in the midst of tension. The other
thing is coming to the end of yourself does not
mean taking yourself out of the battle. God wanted those
who were serious about the battle. You still got to fight.
You got to keep yourself pure. You gotta fight for
righteousness every single day. You got to resist the temptations
to trust in your own wisdom, power, and strength.

Speaker 2 (03:43):
Make no mistake, God wants to know that.

Speaker 1 (03:46):
You're taking this battle seriously, and that you're engaged in
the disciplines necessary to win the victory, which means you're
meeting regularly with God. You're obeying the hard words, you're
doing all the things we've talked about in the preceding weeks.
God God says Gideon. I've shifted the men. I know
who's serious about the battle. I know who is ultimately
trusting me, and there's only three hundred of them. And

(04:07):
with those three hundred, I'm gonna deliver Midian into your hand.
But Gideon, we're not finished. I've sifted the me in.
Now I need to sift your military arsenal. If I
were Gideon, I would be coming to God thinking that
God had some kind of secret weapon.

Speaker 2 (04:22):
Yeah, we only got three hundred, but we got God.

Speaker 1 (04:24):
There's got to be this secret weapon, this technologically advanced
spear or sword, or bows and arrows and javelins. Maybe
we're gonna get something we don't even know exists. Gideon
has the meeting with God. He's got three hundred men.
It's a helpless little bunch. I guess one hundred and
thirty five thousand Midion Night warriors and God says Gideon,
here's your arsenal. And when he gives get in the arsenal,

(04:45):
there's nothing about swords and bows and arrows or.

Speaker 2 (04:48):
Javelins and spears.

Speaker 1 (04:50):
Instead, assuming the text, they're giving trumpets, trumpets. I remember
your three hundred men, and they're passing out your arsenal. Okay,
you're getting the goods. You receive a trumpet, a clay jar,
a torch to light your way, and your voice. Basically,
you're told those are going to be the weapons of

(05:11):
the arsenal to go up against these Midianites. Listen to me,
God will usually strip us of everything we depend upon
other than himself. Again closely related the resolution number three,
but not the same because in resolution three we're talking
about the glory of God. He's jealous for you. He
has everything you need for the extraordinary life. He fills

(05:33):
every void, meets every need, and grants every victory. He
wants you to glory in Him, to hold him in
the highest regard, and come to him for wisdom, power
and strength that carries into revolution Resolution four. Resolution four
asks this simple question, in the heat of battle.

Speaker 2 (05:52):
What is your go to?

Speaker 1 (05:55):
What is the first thing you go to when your
life starts to fall apart. When the kids, Delaney and
see On, my kids were little, they'd like to have
wrestling matches, and I'd get down on the floor of
the carpet and we would wrestle. And Delaney would get
down on the floor. And he was smart because when
I would get him in a bind, he couldn't get out.

Speaker 2 (06:12):
He wouldn't fight, He'd just say, Dad, let me go.

Speaker 1 (06:15):
But my daughter, I would get her in a bind
and I would tie her up, and she refused to quit.

Speaker 2 (06:20):
She would continue to.

Speaker 1 (06:22):
Scratch and pill and fight and make a fist and
try to hit me in the head or whatever she
could find to get loose, and I would have to
tell her again and again, relax. If you relax, I'll
let you go. I want to tell you something. Our
go to is often demonstrated by my daughter's se On.

(06:43):
When we hit difficult times, we start kicking and screaming
because listen, this is so important, because most of us
want out right now, and we're gonna do whatever it
takes to get out right now. In fact, we refuse
to stay in the valley long enough for God to
complete what he's trying to do in us.

Speaker 2 (07:05):
I've mentioned numerous times that when.

Speaker 1 (07:07):
I went through my valley of anxiety disorder, after I'd
been going through this horrific experience, my buddy Dan Johnson
came to me and he said, look, I've been through
something like this, and I want to tell you something.
This will not leave until you go to God and say, God,
don't take this away until I have learned what you
want me to learn, until you builded me what you're

(07:30):
trying to build in me. When Dane said that, I
was looking for a loophole, and then he paused and
he said, but wait a minute. You can say it,
but when you say it and mean it.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
The trials will be over. He was so right.

Speaker 1 (07:43):
I said it very often, but it was more of
a manipulation and coerce and for God to get me
out of this and get me out it now. But
when I was serious about it, when I said, God,
you must be doing I've been in it so long.
You've got to be doing something extraordinary. So God, keep
me in it until I've learned the less that you
want me to learn.

Speaker 2 (08:01):
He did.

Speaker 1 (08:02):
I did, And now I've said to you oftentimes, while
it was the worst time of my life, it was
also one of the best. Your trials have a designed purpose,
the battles that God brings it or allows into your life.
What's your go to? You don't know if God caused
it or allowed it. You just will never know. But

(08:22):
when the trial comes, most of us do not want
to wait on God to accomplish what he's trying to accomplish,
and as a result, we take hold of something that
we've given to God. Think about all the things we
go to. Here's how the world deals with it. If
we have any addiction in our life, that addiction is
heightened when the battle comes. We pour ourselves into that,

(08:44):
trying to numb the effects and the fear. When God's
trying to do something amazing, anything that has taken God's
place to bring relief, we go to that thing. We
preoccupy ourselves with sport, with some kind of recreation. We
enter into an unhealthy relationship of codependency, thinking some person
who's going to solve our problems, rather than going to God.

(09:06):
Sometimes we turn to money, some people's stress shop, some
people's stress eat.

Speaker 2 (09:12):
The point is we.

Speaker 1 (09:14):
Try to engage in something that will help us either
numb the effects of what we're going through or get
us out of it as soon as possible. I've seen
people that I really respect in the midst of trials
become horrific people gossiping and slandering somehow thinking that they
can slander all the enemies that are causing this battle

(09:34):
to happen, that their life will be better. But what
ends up happening is they themselves end up being destroyed
with bitterness. Some people go into pity parties. They just
start feeling sorry for themselves, and they go from one
person to the next person wanting pity and sorrow when
that's not gonna help them.

Speaker 2 (09:50):
What is your go to? What are the weapons of
your warfare?

Speaker 1 (09:55):
God is trying to make sure with Gideon that his
go tos are completely erratic, and he's gonna go to God,
what on earth are you possibly going to do against
one hundred and thirty five thousand Midian nights with trumpets,
clay jars, torches, and your voice. And this is where
passages of Scripture are spoken out of context. Philippius four

(10:19):
says I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.
I had a big poster when I was in college
playing university basketball of Chris Molin who played with Saint
John's and it was an a Fellowship of Christian Athletes
poster and at the bottom of the poster, Chris Johns
was in the poster taking a jump shot, one of
many incredible athlete credible score in the game of basketball,

(10:40):
and the caption read, I can do all things through Christ,
who strengthens me. So I put that on the back
door of my dorm room, and every time I was
walking out to go to pregame warm up or getting
ready for a big game, I would touch that poster,
and here's what was going on in my mind. I'm
gonna have a good game tonight. I can do all
things through Christ who strengths to me. I'm gonna shoot
lights out. I'm gonna be the star. We're gonna win.

(11:02):
God's gonna give me the victory. Do you think that's
what that passage is about? What we found understand is
the context of the verse in verse thirteen is verse twelve.
I know what it is to be in need, I
know what it is to have plenty. I have learned
the secret of being content in any in every situation,
whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or

(11:23):
in want. He's saying that I can endure all things
through Christ, who strengthens me. I can stay in this
battle until God achieves what he's trying to achieve in me.
Because of the power of Christ in me, I can
do the thing that he can do through Christ who

(11:43):
strengthens him. Is remain with poise and silence in the
battle while God completes his work. I went on to
read Second Corinthians eleven. There's a pastor. If you're a
pastor in ministry, I want you to listen to what
Paul says in Secwod Corinthians eleven twenty three. I have
I've worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been

(12:03):
flogged more severely, and have been exposed to death again
and again. Five times I received from the Jews forty
lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods,
once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked.
I spent a night and a day in the open sea.
I have been constantly on the move. No, he's running

(12:24):
for his life. I have been in danger from rivers,
in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews,
in danger from Gentiles, in danger in the city, in danger,
in the country, in danger at sea, and in danger
from false believers. I have labored in toil and have
often gone without sleep. I have known hunger and thirst,
and have often gone without food. I have been cold

(12:45):
and naked. And it's this last line that got me
that I see in a whole different way now, he
says in verse twenty eight. Besides everything else, I faced
daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches. Wow,
his concern earn for all the churches would have been
enough stress in his life that they weren't being led astray,
the gossip and slander among them were not dividing them.

(13:08):
He would have lost sleep just over that. The unity
of his church or church is more than one. And
yet in all of that, he also has to face
being flogged, being chased, being pelted with stones, going without sleep,
being hungry, being thirsty. That's why when I complain sometimes
my wife will say to me, I think, Jeff, you
need to suck it up. Comparatively, my life is so easy,

(13:32):
even with the struggles that I have. It's nothing like
the apostle Paul. It's nothing like hage Law that visited
us not too long ago. The point is Paul is
saying I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.
He's saying I can do all things. I can endure.
The powerless spirit gives me the ability to stay in
the place that I am while God accomplishes his work,

(13:54):
and remain faithful to him in the process. The Greek
word is a skua, which means I can do or
when I reached the limit of my own resources and strength,
even to the point of death, I know that I
will be infused with the power in the strength of
Jesus Christ, that he will give me supernatural inner strength
to endure what I never dreamed I could now.

Speaker 2 (14:16):
Please stay with me.

Speaker 1 (14:17):
I know it feels like we're hitting different places, but
this is so important for us to grapple with.

Speaker 2 (14:22):
Okay, what is God doing in all of this?

Speaker 1 (14:25):
God began this journey of stripping Gideon of everything he
depended on other than himself all the way back in
chapter six. Let me read it. In the morning, when
the people of the town got up, there was Bell's
altered demolished, with the astipole beside it cut down, and
the second bull sacrificed on the newly built altar. So
God had told Gideon before I before I give the

(14:49):
Midian I send to your hand, you got to tear
down those false idols. You gotta go, and you got
to tear down Bell, and you got to tear down
the astorothpole. So the people got up and notice it
had happened in verse twenty nine, to ask each other
who did this. When they carefully investigated, they were told Gideon,
son of joe Ash, did it. The people of the
town demanded, joe Ash, bring out your son. He must

(15:09):
die so you can see how committed the Israelites are
to God, right because he has broken down Belle's alter
and cut down the asheripole beside it. But joe Ash
replied to the hostile crowd around him, are you going
to plead Bell's case? Are you trying to save him?
Whoever fights for him shall be put to death by
the morning. If Bell really is a god, he can

(15:30):
defend himself when someone breaks down his altar. So because
Gideon broke down Bell's altar, they gave him the name
Jeru Bell that day, saying, let Bell contend with him.
The first thing God tells Gideon to do on this
journey of his greatest victory, if one of the Israel's
greatest victory in their history. You got to go first
of all and tear down that older of Bell, and

(15:50):
you got to destroy the astropole. Now, let's go back
to a series we did earlier in the year called
Under the Influence. Who is Bell and what is the
Asterith Pole? Bel is a false god that still is
in the Western culture to this day. Bell is the
king of the gods, the leader of the spirits. He

(16:12):
is the god of economic wealth and prosperity. You worship
and pray to him when you want your crops to grow.
He's called the Lord of Rain. He's often portrayed with
a lightning bolt in his hand. He's also referred to
as the Chief God, the Lord, the master of the gods.
In short, Bel is the god of prosperity, and the
Israelites were praying to him, worshiping him.

Speaker 2 (16:34):
Asterith.

Speaker 1 (16:35):
She is referred to as the seductress, the enchantress ishtar
and in the Bible she's called Asterith. In short, she's
the goddess of all sexual immorality and fertility. So if
you want fertility, you pray to her, you worship, you
engage in sexual immorality as a demonstration of your trust
and faith in her. Now, because Israel had not kept

(16:57):
their covenant with God and had allowed the gods the
Canaanites to infiltrate to enter their land, the Hebrews now
had blended their religion with the religions of the Canaanites.
So their go to now for prosperity was both Bail
and Yahweh to see which one would deliver. Their go

(17:17):
to when they wanted fertility and reproduction was the asterisk
and Yahweh. Stay with me, get a little history lesson.
It'll all come out to me, and we'll put it
all in the funnel.

Speaker 2 (17:26):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (17:29):
In the Torah, there is something called the principle of
shah Nez, which is I guess best described as a
principle of illicit mixtures. You're taking two things and you
blend them together and ultimately at least to confusion and destruction.

(17:50):
So Gideon and the Israelites had mixed the worship of
Bail and the worship of Yahweh.

Speaker 2 (17:55):
And now they're being destroyed.

Speaker 1 (17:58):
And as a result of being destroyed, they also so
because they've confused the gods, they don't know, and they
can't recognize the voice of God. And worse yet, that
kind of a secretism limits one's ability to distinguish between
the voice of God and the voice of the evil one,
because the evil one works through the false gods and
can in fact communicate when you worship the false gods,

(18:20):
when you serve them, that God of the demonic world
can communicate and speak things into your life. And so
you've got him speaking into your life, You've got Yahweh
speaking in your life. And if you're not totally committed
to one or the other, there's confusion and destruction. Now
let me give you an example of what I believe
the toy is trying to express here. The closer that
I draw to my wife, the more I understand her,

(18:44):
the farther I go away from my wife toward other things.
The less I understand her. The relationship at that point
has become confused because I don't know what she's thinking
and I don't understand her actions. So there's confusion and disintegration.
I also, because I'm not closely related to her or
intimate with her, I also start making assumptions about her

(19:05):
that are not true.

Speaker 2 (19:06):
Pure conjecture.

Speaker 1 (19:09):
And the assumptions are based on a lack of relationship
and intimacy. So here's listen, it's important. Here's what the
modern church has done. We have attempted to serve all
the gods we want yahweh, but we want power, money
and sex as well, so much so that we think
we can use yahweh to get our false gods and idols.

(19:30):
These are the gods of our time. These have become
our go to. Now think about this our peace, happiness
and significance. When we lose our peace and our happiness
and our joy. We think the more money we have
in our bank account, the more happy will be.

Speaker 2 (19:44):
But it never works.

Speaker 1 (19:46):
There's a vast number of young people in our culture
today who are being sold a bill of goods that
can never deliver. And the bill of goods is this
sex is the ultimate, that's where you get everything, identity, meaning, significance.
In fact, a local social commentator says this sex has
become a metric of one's self exploration or measure of how.

Speaker 2 (20:07):
Liberated they are.

Speaker 1 (20:08):
It's become an identity marker. So what we've done is
we've combined the gods. The modern church is so weak
in its theology, that we are confused and as a
result are disintegrating.

Speaker 2 (20:21):
We don't know the Bible, and as.

Speaker 1 (20:23):
A result, we don't know God, because the purpose of
the Bible is to reveal the heart and nature and
doings and workings of God. So what we've done is
we've combined God and secular humanism. And humanism tells us
that life is all about us. The Bible tells us
life is all about God. So obviously we're confused and

(20:43):
we're disintegrating inside the soul. Every day we're told by
churches even that God is the genie in the bottle,
rub the lamb three times, He'll give you whatever you want.
That God is about you, the life is egocentric. That
God would never allow I've heard this. God would never
allow you to suffer or experience any pain. That God

(21:04):
wants you to be rich and be wealthy, and God
will help you. His purpose is to help you get
the desires of your heart. And we define those desires
of our heart as the other God's wealth, power, sex.
Whatever it is, well, false, false, false, and false again.

Speaker 2 (21:22):
Stay with me.

Speaker 1 (21:23):
There's a lot of debate right now surrounding the Temple
Mount in Jerusalem. There are many who believe that, according
to the Bible, the temple will be rebuilt and will stand.
It's an original place, and that'll be a sign that
the end is near. The problem is the Golden Dome
of Islam stands there right now, so it would have
to be destroyed in order for the Temple to be rebuilt.

(21:44):
So some suggest that, well, there's going to be an earthquake,
and the earthquake will knock it down and then.

Speaker 2 (21:48):
We'll be able to rebuild the temple.

Speaker 1 (21:50):
However, politically, the an earthquake that destroyed the Dome of
the Rock would not change anything. The world's demand to
keep peace with Islam would always remain.

Speaker 2 (21:58):
They just rebuild the rebuild a dome.

Speaker 1 (22:02):
Some other people, theologians, suggest that the Islamic Dome of
the Rock has dominated the Temple mount for well over
a thousand years, but it's just a few meters south
of where Herod's temple originally resided. So it's feasible that
if there's a peace cord signed between the two groups,
that the two edifices could exist side by side. But
the problem goes back to the Torah shah Anet's the

(22:26):
principle of illicit mixtures. What we find in the scripture
is the Lord is not willing to share his standing
or his land with pagan deities or secular gods. One
has to go one or the other. So in Judge's six,
stay with me as we build this. In Judge's six,
God speaks to get it. That same night, the Lord

(22:47):
said to him, take the second bull from your father's herd,
the one seven years old. Tear down your father's altar
to bell and cut down the asher pole beside it.
Then build a proper kind of altar to the Lord
your God on top of its height, using the wood
of the ashra poll that you cut down off of
the second bull as a burn offering. Now here's what's

(23:07):
interesting about this text. The Lord tells Gideon to destroy
the false gods. We can't stand by side byside. You
got to get rid of them so that your go
to becomes God, Yahweh and Yahweh alone.

Speaker 3 (23:22):
You've been listening to today with Jeff Vines. Thanks for
joining us. Next time we'll bring you the rest of
this message from Past to Jeff.

Speaker 1 (23:30):
Not only does God want to lead Israel to do
everything that brings him the most glory.

Speaker 2 (23:34):
He also wants to strip away their go tos when
the odds.

Speaker 1 (23:37):
Are stacked against them, whatever they think will save them,
whatever they think will provide safety and security and salvation,
whatever they're banking on for the victory.

Speaker 2 (23:44):
That thing has to be stripped away.

Speaker 1 (23:46):
So he's gonna strip everything away that you go to
till the only thing left is him, and he's the
only thing you can go to.

Speaker 3 (23:53):
You can listen to more messages like this, just search
for Today with Jeff Vines wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 1 (24:01):
You make me a bond a day, saying with every
single bird, I won't bring this up. You you with
your

Speaker 3 (24:18):
One Today, Today, Today, Today with Jeff Fines