Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Evening Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/ev/ev20050724.htm

FEASTING ON THE NAMES OF JEHOVAH
Part IV: Applying The Name Of "Jehovah-Shalom," God Our Peace
(Judges 6:24)
  1. Introduction
    1. Due to sin in our lives, we can experience a wide variety of unsettling circumstances in our lives.
    2. If this unsettledness becomes intense, we can become so despondent that we doubt God is even willing to restore our lives to a level of wholesomeness again.
    3. Gideon faced this challenge, and went to some length to seek a signal from God that He would indeed restore him and his people to wholesome blessing. In so doing, God became Gideon's "peace," his "shalom", the God of Gideon's wholesomeness (as follows):
  2. Applying The Name Of "Jehovah-Shalom," God Our Peace, Judges 6:24.
    1. Gideon faced a host of unsettling, unwholesome stresses due to sin in Israel's experience, Judges 6:1-15:
      1. Gideon suffered an unsettled life due to sinful rebellion on the part of his nation against God, 6:1-6:
        1. The people of Israel did evil against the Lord particularly in departing from the worship of God to worship false gods like Baal and Baal's consort, the Asherah ("grove" KJV), 6:1a with 6:25 ESV.
        2. Accordingly, God kept His promise in the Mosaic Covenant to deliver them into the oppressive domination of the Midianite hordes, Judges 6:1b with Deut. 28:15, 25. The people of Israel saw these marauding bands so badly afflict them that they hid in mountain caves and strongholds for protection and suffered economic impoverishment, Judges 6:2-6b.
      2. Gideon's people had cried unto God for help, and God had sent a prophet to announce Israel had failed to heed His will in driving out the Canaanites with their idols; so, regardless of God's having delivered them from Egypt, God had brought them under the affliction of the Midianites, Jud. 6:7-10 with 6:25.
      3. Gideon himself faced personal duress and spiritual disillusionment in the process, Judges 6:11-15:
        1. Lest the Midianites find him and take his grain, Gideon threshed wheat by a winepress, Judg. 6:11b.
        2. The Angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon to announce God was with him and would use him to deliver Israel from Midian, but Gideon voiced his disillusionment: he could not see how God could be with him when God had allowed all the trouble to come to Israel that she faced, Judges 6:12-13.
        3. God replied that Gideon would achieve victory since the Lord would be with him, Judges 6:14.
        4. Gideon still objected, claiming he was too insignificant to be thus used of God: (a) his clan was the weakest in Manasseh, (b) that tribe being a lesser one (Gen. 48:17-19), and (c) he was the youngest son in his father's house and thus least likely to lead Israel to military victory, Judges 6:15 ESV.
    2. When the Angel of the Lord persisted in encouraging Gideon, claiming He would be with him and equip him to conquer the Midianites "as one man," Gideon asked for a sign that this message that seemed too good to be true was really from God, Judges 6:16-18a. The Angel of the Lord consented to wait for Gideon to bring him a gift food so the Angel could show him such an approving sign, Judges 6:18b.
    3. When Gideon had prepared the food, the Angel directed him to place it with its broth on a nearby rock; then God's Angel touched the food with the end of His staff, causing the rock supernaturally to produce a fire that burned up the food as a sacrifice to God, and the Angel disappeared from his sight, Jud. 6:19-21.
    4. Realizing (since He had accepted Gideon's food as a sacrifice) that God HIMSELF was the Angel with whom he had talked, Gideon was terrified, fearing no man could see God and live, Jud. 6:22; Ex. 33:20!
    5. God told Gideon would not die, comforting him with the words, "Peace be unto thee; fear not: thou shalt not die," Judges 6:23 KJV. God had accepted Gideon's food as a sacrifice, so God had also accepted Gideon; all would be "shalom," or, "peace," or wholesome for him, Theol. Wdbk. of O. T., v. II, p. 931.
    6. Gideon thus built an altar there to God, calling it "Jehovah-shalom," God is Peace, or the Source of wholesomeness, Jud. 6:24! The acceptance of Gideon's food by God's act of lighting it signified that all the problems he and Israel then faced and that God had promised to reverse through His use of Gideon would occur! God was Gideon's Source of restoring full wholesomeness to him and Israel!
Lesson: By his interaction with God, Gideon learned God intended to restore the wholesomeness of life that Israel and he had lost due to the nation's rebellion against God; God was his "Jehovah-shalom"!

Application: May we repent and trust God to restore us to wholesomeness following discipline for sin!