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Judges 7:16-21

INTRO
God takes great pleasure in doing unlikely things through unlikely people. 

6:15 Gideon was very unlikely! > > > 7:13-14Barley was considered an inferior grain, used by the poor.  God is looking for available people to use.

1)     THERE WAS A BLARING – “trumpets” 
What kind of message does your life give off? What tune emanates from the trumpet of your life? Notice in v. 15 that the first thing Gideon did was “worship”!

 The Lord did not tell Joel “Let the strong say, I am strong.” He said in Joel 3:10, “Let the weak say, I am strong”!
God takes great pleasure in doing unlikely things through unlikely people!

• It made absolutely no sense to march around Jericho’s walls for 7 days. But on the 7th time around on that 7th day, there was a blaring, and the walls came down!
• It makes no sense at all to come to church and raise your hands and sing of “The Goodness of God” while your world is falling apart all around you—but your blaring will just as surely bring you victory as did the trumpets of Gideon’s 300!

 2)     THERE WAS A BREAKING – “broke the pitchers”
Light is revealed through brokenness.
The willingness to break determines the extent of your usefulness.

Please hear this: The breaking of your life may very well be the preparation for the greatest shining of your life! But, God just might be preparing you for the greatest shining of your life! 

In and of itself—the pitcher was nothing and the breaking was nothing. But, at the right time, for the right purpose, the right kind of breaking caused the enemy to flee! Only God may decide the right time and the right purpose and the right way to use our brokenness to put the enemy to flight!

Ps: 60:12 “Through God we shall do valiantly: for He it is that shall tread down our enemies.”

3)     THERE WAS A BLAZING – “lamps”
When the pitchers were broken the light of their lamps shone all around the camp of the Midianites, causing confusion, fear, and uncertainty. 

Please notice how any one aspect of this unusual victory would not have had any impact by itself—but together it accomplished its purpose.

• If all they did was blow the ram’s horns—they simply would have awakened the enemy.
• If all they did was break the pitchers—they would have gone unnoticed by the enemy.
• If they lit the lamps—they would only have alerted the enemy.
• But the blaring and the breaking and the blazing all together routed the enemy!

This is why it is so absolutely vital and critical that you surrender every area of your life to the Lord, because full surrender leads to complete victory over your enemies!

Can God set you on fire for His glory? Can He set you ablaze?

Jim Elliot placed these thoughts in his journal the summer before his Sr. year at Wheaton (’49). “He makes His ministers a flame of fire. Am I ignitable? God deliver me from the dread asbestos of other things. Saturate me with the oil of the Spirit that I may be aflame--but flame is transient, often short-lived.  Cans’t thou bear this my soul--short life? Make me Thy fuel, Flame of God!”

Are you ignitable?
Matt. 5:16 “Let your light so shine before men . . .”

• Less of me, Lord. Less of me!
• Dispel the darkness through me, Lord.
• Drive back the prince of darkness in my heart, my home, my community!
• Let your light shine through us, Father. Set us ablaze!
• Ablaze with righteousness!
• Ablaze with Holiness!
• Ablaze with your glory!

ASSIGNMENT: This week I will relentlessly pursue what God wants me to do—regardless of how unlikely it seems.