Passing The Test
To pass any test you will have to learn to pray, the cross called for Jesus’s Life, your Altar is your cross, Jesus said Take Up Your Cross and Follow Jesus
Mathew16:24-26
24 Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25 For whoever would save his life[g] will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. 26 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?
When a man takes to the Horns of the altar it can have several meanings. The symbolism can’t be overlooked, those who get on the cross have died because the cross brings death.
Six of the longest hours of Jesus life was on that cross, 33- and one-half years of preparing to walk Calvary’s Road bearing His cross.
The cross didn’t bring instant death, the cross couldn’t kill Him, He laid down His life, He was fully surrendered to God’s plan.
And don’t be discouraged when your prayers don’t get answered, because you’re dying to the will of God.
Passing the test God set before you is about prayer. Take up your cross, they nailed Jesus to the cross, fasting, bring flesh into subjection to Jesus will, killing the fleshly desires. Crucify the lust of the flesh, kill the old nature who rules your life.
In Genesis 22:1-18 Abraham offered his Isaac, tell me about your Isaac. Yes, all of us have an Issac. You tell me you love God with all your heart but you’re unwilling to lay your Isaac on that altar.
After 25 years of waiting and praying and fasting, Sarah and Abraham got there Isaac. You would think Abraham was the humblest man to walk the earth but then the test came. Abraham had to offer the success of Isaac being born. In the kingdom of God, the Lord will not allow you to take the Glory without taking the shame. But if you give God the Glory, He will also take the shame.
Tonight, God is going to dig into this church, He’s dealing with the pride in our hearts, renewed prayer lives, renewed passion of the word of God. Getting rid of laziness, coming back to your first love, you used to serve Him. Now you wait and you feel it’s time they serve you.
Ministries boast of what they are doing and the minute they get a little recognition they stop praying, they stop serving. They stop fasting, remember when the church was so small we visited every Saturday.
In the west, churches worship success. We worship a checking account, when we get enough money, we don’t pray all night anymore, we become stingy, save it for a rainy day. God’s been pouring out the Holy Ghost rain since Pentecost and I say feed the hungry, cloth the naked, have some all-night prayer meetings. Get hungry before the Lord!
Judges 6:1
The people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord gave them into the hand of Midian seven years.
When you become stagnant in your prayer life, you will repeat the sins of the past because the gods of the past will come again.
God sent a no-name prophet who delivered the hard news 7 years you will be in bondage to the Midianites.
The Call of Gideon
Judges 6:11-12
11 Now the angel of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites. 12 And the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, “The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor.”
{God was prophesying to his future not his present!}
Judges 6:13-16 Passing the test
13 And Gideon said to him, “Please, my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian.” 14 And the Lord[a] turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian; do not I send you?” 15 And he said to him, “Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.” 16 And the Lord said to him, “But I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man.”
A question is the seed for an answer. In prayer you can ask God the questions. Do you need a miracle in your life? Seek the Lord and don’t be afraid of the hard questions. Let me tell you something about prayer you may find hard to understand. God doesn’t always answer your prayers as you like. Having faith in God when you pray is a must, if God doesn’t answer that shouldn’t sway you. You thank him and tell God I will be back this afternoon.
When Jesus was on the cross he asked Father why He had forsaken Him. When in prayer faith is being built, you can’t see roots growing because they are underground. Stay with your prayer life, even when you can’t get an answer. The roots are growing. A dependence upon God will glorify him.
Judges 6:34-35
34 But the Spirit of the Lord clothed Gideon, and he sounded the trumpet, and the Abiezrites were called out to follow him. 35 And he sent messengers throughout all Manasseh, and they too were called out to follow him. And he sent messengers to Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali, and they went up to meet them.
Gideon put the shofar in his mouth and with the blast from the shofar 32,000 people came ready to end this occupation. God knows us better than we know ourselves.
We cross over to chapter 7 of Judges. The Test
Judges7:2-3
2 The Lord said to Gideon, “The people with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand, lest Israel boast over me, saying, ‘My own hand has saved me.’ 3 Now therefore proclaim in the ears of the people, saying, ‘Whoever is fearful and trembling, let him return home and hurry away from Mount Gilead.’” Then 22,000 of the people returned, and 10,000 remained.
The first thing God dealt with is fear, and the trembling, when your fearful and trembling you don’t want to go to war with those who are untrained and untested. They will leave you in battle.
2nd Timothy 1:7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
“The test of success” – 10,000 had made the first cut, many ministries worship a little success, and they plateau. This is as far as they go because they don’t worship God they worship success.
Stagnation happens so easily because we forget God. Success has a way of stealing the Glory from God and putting it upon us.
Why do we forget about prayer? Why do we get so busy? We don’t have time to pray. We don’t fast, we stop seeking God, flesh is full of pride. Self seeks its own glory not God’s Glory.
The test revealed those in fear and trembling. They have not fought one battle but they were fearful, the devil always bring the spirit of fear to battle. Fear kicks doors down so defeat can do his job.
When the roots of prayer have grown the devil will meet a warrior who has put on the full armor of God.
When God brings weakness to your life its to make you strong in him, not yourself.
Gideon is about to go from 10,000 to 300 men
The test of the water
Judges 7:4-6
4 And the Lord said to Gideon, “The people are still too many. Take them down to the water, and I will test them for you there, and anyone of whom I say to you, ‘This one shall go with you,’ shall go with you, and anyone of whom I say to you, ‘This one shall not go with you,’ shall not go.” 5 So he brought the people down to the water. And the Lord said to Gideon, “Every one who laps the water with his tongue, as a dog laps, you shall set by himself. Likewise, every one who kneels down to drink.” 6 And the number of those who lapped, putting their hands to their mouths, was 300 men, but all the rest of the people knelt down to drink water.