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FLEECES AND FAITH #6
JAWS II
I’d like for you to imagine a personal crisis that’s
happening in your life right now: January 12, 2004. And maybe you’re going
to say to the radio: “Pastor Lonnie, I don’t have to imagine – I’ve got
one!” Maybe a financial need, a marital challenge, a dilemma at work.
But something out there is very hard to face, and you just don’t know
how it’s going to get fixed. In a way, you’re like our friend Gideon,
here in Judges chapter six, who’s hiding in a dusty winepress, threshing
his grain down in the dirt where the invading Midianites can’t find him.
But then someone comes along and says to you: “Remember that faithful
friend, that champion, twenty years ago, who stepped in and bailed you
out? He wrote you a check for $5,000 and covered the expenses when you
had that uninsured accident on the freeway. He sat down with you and your
husband and helped the two of you rekindle the romance, work out the communication
problems you were experiencing. When things looked hopeless at work, he
made a couple of phone calls to powerful people and helped you get a great
job transfer to a new location where you got a 20% raise and a whole new
lease on life.”
And you say: “Yes, of course, I remember HIM. He was wonderful. He was
great. He was my hero.” And I tell you: “Well, guess what? He’s here again,
and he wants to help you just like he did last time.”
It’s kind of a goofy illustration, and you’re going to maybe drive your
Aston-Martin right off the freeway as I bring it up, but I’m going to
borrow a story from none other than the Ian Fleming spy series, James
Bond. Now, we’re not going to play the 007 theme music here, but maybe
you Roger Moore fans will recall a villain going way back to the late-70s
story, The Spy Who Loved Me. Ironically, Richard Kiel, the seven-foot-tall
giant with the iron teeth, also known as “Jaws,” is a born-again Christian.
Some of us have met him at gatherings like the annual National Religious
Broadcasters convention. He’s absolutely huge, with a gentle handshake
that makes you feel like a little boy looking up at Goliath. By the way,
there’s a fascinating testimonial story on his website, where he struggled
with alcoholism for years, and finally, with the Lord’s help, gained the
victory. Some time later, a beer company offered him fifty grand for one
day’s work shooting on a commercial. He turned it down, much to his agent’s
chagrin, but soon was blessed with paying gigs that were much more noble.
Anyway, this mountain of a man played the bumbling but indestructible
hit man, “Jaws,” in Roger Moore’s third outing as James Bond. He never
gets his quarry, of course, because Bond never dies, but he has quite
a reputation in the shadowy world of super-villains as a relentless pursuer,
a guy who never gives up, who survives plane crashes and collapsing pyramids
and shark attacks and just keeps coming at you with those silvery dentures.
Next time out, when James Bond has to save the world from a Moonraker
poison attack launched by another would-be global dictator, the megalomaniac
Hugo Drax is hunting through the Yellow Pages for a new thug to replenish
his ranks. He’s on the phone, trying to recruit someone, and suddenly
says: “Well, of course, if you can get HIM . . .”
And a few scenes later, the iron teeth come into view. Because if “Jaws”
is available, then that’s the guy you want. He comes with a reputation.
You already know what he can do.
Well, let’s hasten quickly from this tongue-in-cheek world of gadgets
and goons and gorillas and rejoin our lonely friend Gideon down in the
winepress, who could use a seven-foot-tall hero of his own. But after
the angel of the Lord – or actually the Lord, as we discover – says to
him, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand.
Am I not sending you?” we have a glimmering moment of hope. As we’ve already
studied, Gideon remonstrates: “No way, Lord. How can I save Israel? My
family’s nothing, and I’m the nothing-est part of my family.”
But now verse 16:
“The Lord answered, ‘I will be with you, and you will
strike down the Midianites as if they were but one man.’”
And in the New RSV study helps for that promise, we find a very encouraging
note. Here it is:
“‘I AM will be with you.’ The name ‘I AM’ is also used
in Exodus 3:14. God was saying that the same one who appeared to Moses
and saved Israel from Egypt would now deliver Israel from Midian.”
In other words, Gideon inherits the same SWAT team,
the same power, the same unstoppable might that Moses and Aaron called
on several hundred years earlier. The military juggernaut that divided
the Red Sea is what Gideon gets now. The same intelligence capacity –more
about this later – that enabled a sheep herder to outsmart Pharaoh and
his vast armies is going to be briefing this humble wheat thresher, as
soon as he comes out of his hiding place.
This wonderful expression, “I AM,” of course, gives us a marvelous picture
of the vast, relentless permanence of God, the always-present nature of
His friendship toward us. He always has been; He always will be. Everything
is always PRESENT for this eternal Jehovah. You can’t go to a place where
He is not, or to a time where He is not. Borrowing from a recent TV ad
campaign, I can just picture a Christian at the very peak of Everest,
and he prays to God: “Can You hear me now?” A scuba diver down in the
murkiest depths calls out to heaven: “Can You hear me now?” A spelunker
in the bowels of the earth: “Can You hear me now?” As King David once
rejoiced: “Where can I go from Your presence?” In the New Testament, John
chapter 8, which happens hundreds of years after this Gideon story, Jesus
faces down His accusers, telling them that “their father Abraham” rejoiced
at the idea of seeing the coming of the Messiah.
“‘You are not yet fifty years old,’ the Jews said to
Him, ‘and You have seen Abraham!’ ‘I tell you the truth,’ Jesus answered,
‘before Abraham was, I AM!’”
That didn’t make the Pharisees very happy, but friend,
it was news that made Gideon happy, and it should make you and me positively
joyous in the year 2004. What a rich blessing to know that the same problem-solving
God who delivered Israel, who turned bitter water into sweet, who rebuked
the snakes and scorpions out in the desert, and who personally decimates
an enemy army of 135,000 men . . that same God is available to help me
and help you right now.
A bit later in this Gideon story, if you’ll forgive a skip in the chronology,
Gideon and some of his friends obey God by going out at midnight and tearing
down the local altar to the pagan god Baal. So the next morning the local
townspeople are mad. “Hey, who did this? What’s going on?” And after sleuthing
around a bit, they figure out that Gideon, son of Joash, is the responsible
party. “Bring him out!” they demand of the father. “Surrender your son
to us so we can kill him. He broke down the altar of our beloved Baal.”
And the dad, this Joash, wisely retorts:
“Are you going to plead Baal’s cause? Are YOU trying
to save HIM? . . . If Baal really is a god, he can defend himself when
someone breaks down his altar.”
It’s just one more reminder, friend, that we don’t
need to worry on God’s behalf. God saves us; we don’t save Him. He defends
our name; we don’t defend His. Oh, there’s a sense in which our loyalty
to Him, our obedience, our fidelity to His kingdom contribute to heaven’s
final victory. But our ever-present God will triumph whether we take a
place in His army or not. He’s the king and we’re the subjects, not the
other way around.
You know, surrounding circumstances can so often make it seem like the
“I AM” of divinity has expired, that God’s ever-presence has one exemption
to it . . . and that’s our own sorrowing neighborhood. To Gideon and his
kin, it seemed like God was gone. Of course, their own rebellion was what
mostly painted that picture. God couldn’t be very active, because their
false worship precluded it. Heaven wants to save us FROM our sins, but
not IN those sins. But let’s notice that even in the darkness of our own
messes, when we’re down in the winepress of our own neglectful lifestyles,
He still comes by. He still shows His face.
Take every miracle story you can find in these 66 books of the Old and
New Testaments, and remember that it’s the same God still. Today, January
12, 2004. The same God who emboldened the great Reformers like Huss and
Luther is standing by our sides when someone attacks His truth. The same
God who has girded up and sustained the missionaries these past two thousand
years is ready to give you a good word to say in your carpool, in your
work place, in your living room. This dusty message to Gideon is bright
and relevant for all of us right now at this moment:
“I AM will be with you.”
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