-- Sunday, 8/1/10 -- SO NO ONE CAN BOAST -- Judges 7:2

[J.R. & Bonnie Ricks]

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SO NO ONE CAN BOAST -- Judges 7:2 NIV

 

The LORD said to Gideon, "You have too many men for me to deliver Midian into their hands. In order that Israel may not boast against me that her own strength has saved her, …”

 

Gideon had finally agreed to do what God wanted him to do, so in normal human fashion, he ran around gathering up every man he could to put together an army.  After all, that would be the logical thing to do, right?  Midian had kept the Israelites quaking in their boots for seven years, so logic would say it was going to take every fighting man Israel could muster to win the war.  So Gideon gathered up 32,000 guys to fight the battle.

 

But God had another opinion.  He told Gideon there were too many men.  God didn't want the men of Israel to think it was they who had won the war, so first he told all the ones who were too scared to fight to go home.  That knocked out two thirds of them in one bunch!  Brave sort, weren't they?  But the ten thousand who were left were still too many to suit God, so he had Gideon take them down to the river to see what method they used to drink.  The ones who drank from their hands were the only ones who would go.  In the end, Gideon ended up with only 300 men to beat the Midianites... a totally – humanly - impossible thing to do.  But because it was God, not man, who would save Israel – no one would be able to boast.

 

Just because several thousand years have passed, God hasn't changed His approach at all.  He wants – and deserves – all the glory for everything in this earth and above it.  None of us deserves credit for anything God accomplishes, which means everything we do.  No matter how great we think we are, our very best is nothing but filthy rags without Jesus.  (Isaiah 64:6 NIV)  God's grace through His Son has saved you and me.  We cannot save ourselves.  There is no possible way that any of us could achieve the perfection that God demands.  No matter who you are… no matter what you do… no matter how great or how small… no matter how bad or how good… no matter how many things you do trying to please God… none of them has any effect on whether you will receive salvation or not.  And that one piece of truth is the glorious thing that sets you and me free... giving us not a license to sin, but the freedom to obey.

 

"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast."  Ephesians 2:8-9 NIV

 

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