Gideon represents the countless thousands of believers who just cannot be satisfied with a powerless religion.
Let me take a moment here to define what we are calling power.
We are not saying that it is emotionally charged and exciting services; even though emotion and exciting almost always accompany a move of God.
Yet what has happened to this generation is that we have identified these types of services as always carrying the power of God and that is not necessarily so.
When I am talking about the power of God I am speaking of transformation of our personal life, families, churches, cities and nations.
I recently held a conference in which I entitled it "Beyond Revival".
The reason I did so was a result of our confusion concerning what constitutes the power of God.
To revive usually means to bring us back to where we were.
Dear ones, we must get beyond where we were to where God is! I called back after the conference and found that both the Church and Pastor had taken to the streets of their city in order to reach adults and teenagers with the Gospel.
That is what I mean by "Beyond Revival".
I once asked the Lord how He could define the last day Church as the Laodicean "lukewarm church".
His reply was startling.
He said: "Anytime a church will settle for great and emotional services, excellent preaching and singing, great attendance and more than adequate tithes, while their children are lost and the world is going to hell it is "lukewarm"! Should we not rather fill our alters with weeping and crying until salvation flows like a river? Dear one, who is going to intercede for your children if you do not care enough to fast and pray for them? Worship is a wonderful thing, yet if we can be satisfied with what we call true worship and still not see God's transforming power at work we have not really worshiped at all.
We have only fallen in love with our own idol that we call worship.
You see, we have learned how to manipulate and control our church services in such a way that we are often emotionally moved but spiritually bankrupt.
I once pastored a church that demanded every service be what they called a "Holy Ghost Revival Service".
Yet this church was one of the most carnal and self-centered churches I have ever seen.
Thankfully the Lord changed this body into a loving and caring ministry that touched and blessed many.
The good news is that there are many hidden warriors who have seen this kind of so-called faith and it is not enough.
Thank God the Lord has kept them hidden from the praises of men and the attention of wealth and fame; for these are the very traps that our Spiritual Fathers have fallen into.
We should be very careful about how we deal with this issue.
For David, the man after God's own heart would not dishonor the King that God had put on the throne.
Even though that King had grown carnal and loved the praise of men more than the presence of God.
Although we must not dishonor these men we must not fall into the trap that they have.
Remember this; Saul was catapulted to position and fame too soon.
He did not have the spiritual preparation of Joseph or David.
The time we spend as one of the hidden ones must never be rushed.
Only the Lord knows when you are ready to be a Gideon who will cast down the idols of the fathers.
Judges 6:25 25 And it came to pass the same night, that the Lord said unto him, Take thy father's young bullock, even the second bullock of seven years old, and throw down the altar of Baal that thy father hath, and cut down the grove that is by it.
KJV It is said that there are three levels of leaders; those who can identify what is wrong, those who can identify what is wrong and want to do something about it, and those who can identify what is wrong and have the desire, knowledge, position and anointing to change it.
There are many young Gideon's who know what is wrong but have not yet been spiritually prepared to know what they must do and endure to see the change that God wants.
These Gideon's can be a danger both to themselves and to the work of God.
Often in their frustration they fall into a spirit of criticism and keep seekers from finding the little good that is left in many churches.
When do we know that we are ready? When we can labor alone with no outside encouragement and not become critical; passionate-yes, uncompromising-yes, determined and committed-yes, but not critical.
A critical spirit is often more destructive than the false idol we are seeking to overthrow.
Gideon was very careful to be sure that his time had come.
He tested the waters so to speak as he sought the Lord for confirmation that he indeed was being sent by the Lord.
It is my experience that the Lord delights to confirm His call to us with many supernatural events.
Let us learn patience and faith during our season of hiddeness.
There is a very subtle difference between passion and criticism and many cannot tell that difference.
It is my experience that we can discern this difference by the patience and love we can show to those who have not caught our vision.
When we have been properly prepared by the Lord we understand very well our own faults, failures and sinfulness.
We end up having little desire to judge others because we have seen their sin in our own hearts.
The difference is we have come to the place that we can longer stand it! All of the men the Lord used to bring freedom and deliverance were able to identify with those they were called to correct and change.
The pattern of Nehemiah, Esther, Zerubbabel, Hezekiah, Joash, David and Zechariah are all men and women we should study if we are going to be used of God to change a lukewarm, materialistic church.
Notice the passion as well as the brokenness of Nehemiah.
God is going to use him mightily to restore the nation of Israel but first he must be broken and humbled.
Remember he was just a cup-bearer.
I can never read this passage without intense yearning for personal confession and repentance.
How about you? Neh 1:5-11 5 And I said: "I pray, Lord God of heaven, O great and awesome God, You who keep Your covenant and mercy with those who love You and observe Your commandments, 6 please let Your ear be attentive and Your eyes open, that You may hear the prayer of Your servant which I pray before You now, day and night, for the children of Israel Your servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel which we have sinned against You.
Both my father's house and I have sinned.
7 We have acted very corruptly against You, and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, nor the ordinances which You commanded Your servant Moses.
8 Remember, I pray, the word that You commanded Your servant Moses, saying,'If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations; 9 but if you return to Me, and keep My commandments and do them, though some of you were cast out to the farthest part of the heavens, yet I will gather them from there, and bring them to the place which I have chosen as a dwelling for My name.
' 10 Now these are Your servants and Your people, whom You have redeemed by Your great power, and by Your strong hand.
11 O Lord, I pray, please let Your ear be attentive to the prayer of Your servant, and to the prayer of Your servants who desire to fear Your name; and let Your servant prosper this day, I pray, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.
" For I was the king's cup-bearer.
NKJV Nehemiah was a hidden one until the time came for God to use him to restore a nation.
How about you? Has the Lord driven out all the criticism from your heart? Do you know how difficult it is to walk in humility and brokenness? Do you understand how wicked your own heart is? Do you know how to continue laboring as a cup bearer and hidden warrior until the Lord calls your name? There are many who no longer labor in the field, they have given up and fled from the mundane job the Lord assigned them.
Dear one, if that is you, you are not ready.
Go back to work in the Kingdom.
You have identified what is wrong but you have not waited for the Lord to build the character into your life that is needed to bring about change.
The Lord takes His time in preparing us.
Yet I do believe the time is here and the hour is upon us.
My heart is bursting with the excitement and faith that a generation of Gideon's, Nehemiah's, Joshua's, David's, and Esther's are being readied.
Dear one, the result of what I am teaching will bring about a Civil War in the Church.
There is nothing quite as ugly and as brutal as civil war.
When brother must fight against brother for the cause of true freedom in Christ it is a sad and terrible thing.
If we fight this war with the wrong spirit we will only create a bigger mess.
When God calls us to tear down the idols of our fathers we better be ready to be judged and know that only the Lord can deliver and protect us.
Let me take a moment here to define what we are calling power.
We are not saying that it is emotionally charged and exciting services; even though emotion and exciting almost always accompany a move of God.
Yet what has happened to this generation is that we have identified these types of services as always carrying the power of God and that is not necessarily so.
When I am talking about the power of God I am speaking of transformation of our personal life, families, churches, cities and nations.
I recently held a conference in which I entitled it "Beyond Revival".
The reason I did so was a result of our confusion concerning what constitutes the power of God.
To revive usually means to bring us back to where we were.
Dear ones, we must get beyond where we were to where God is! I called back after the conference and found that both the Church and Pastor had taken to the streets of their city in order to reach adults and teenagers with the Gospel.
That is what I mean by "Beyond Revival".
I once asked the Lord how He could define the last day Church as the Laodicean "lukewarm church".
His reply was startling.
He said: "Anytime a church will settle for great and emotional services, excellent preaching and singing, great attendance and more than adequate tithes, while their children are lost and the world is going to hell it is "lukewarm"! Should we not rather fill our alters with weeping and crying until salvation flows like a river? Dear one, who is going to intercede for your children if you do not care enough to fast and pray for them? Worship is a wonderful thing, yet if we can be satisfied with what we call true worship and still not see God's transforming power at work we have not really worshiped at all.
We have only fallen in love with our own idol that we call worship.
You see, we have learned how to manipulate and control our church services in such a way that we are often emotionally moved but spiritually bankrupt.
I once pastored a church that demanded every service be what they called a "Holy Ghost Revival Service".
Yet this church was one of the most carnal and self-centered churches I have ever seen.
Thankfully the Lord changed this body into a loving and caring ministry that touched and blessed many.
The good news is that there are many hidden warriors who have seen this kind of so-called faith and it is not enough.
Thank God the Lord has kept them hidden from the praises of men and the attention of wealth and fame; for these are the very traps that our Spiritual Fathers have fallen into.
We should be very careful about how we deal with this issue.
For David, the man after God's own heart would not dishonor the King that God had put on the throne.
Even though that King had grown carnal and loved the praise of men more than the presence of God.
Although we must not dishonor these men we must not fall into the trap that they have.
Remember this; Saul was catapulted to position and fame too soon.
He did not have the spiritual preparation of Joseph or David.
The time we spend as one of the hidden ones must never be rushed.
Only the Lord knows when you are ready to be a Gideon who will cast down the idols of the fathers.
Judges 6:25 25 And it came to pass the same night, that the Lord said unto him, Take thy father's young bullock, even the second bullock of seven years old, and throw down the altar of Baal that thy father hath, and cut down the grove that is by it.
KJV It is said that there are three levels of leaders; those who can identify what is wrong, those who can identify what is wrong and want to do something about it, and those who can identify what is wrong and have the desire, knowledge, position and anointing to change it.
There are many young Gideon's who know what is wrong but have not yet been spiritually prepared to know what they must do and endure to see the change that God wants.
These Gideon's can be a danger both to themselves and to the work of God.
Often in their frustration they fall into a spirit of criticism and keep seekers from finding the little good that is left in many churches.
When do we know that we are ready? When we can labor alone with no outside encouragement and not become critical; passionate-yes, uncompromising-yes, determined and committed-yes, but not critical.
A critical spirit is often more destructive than the false idol we are seeking to overthrow.
Gideon was very careful to be sure that his time had come.
He tested the waters so to speak as he sought the Lord for confirmation that he indeed was being sent by the Lord.
It is my experience that the Lord delights to confirm His call to us with many supernatural events.
Let us learn patience and faith during our season of hiddeness.
There is a very subtle difference between passion and criticism and many cannot tell that difference.
It is my experience that we can discern this difference by the patience and love we can show to those who have not caught our vision.
When we have been properly prepared by the Lord we understand very well our own faults, failures and sinfulness.
We end up having little desire to judge others because we have seen their sin in our own hearts.
The difference is we have come to the place that we can longer stand it! All of the men the Lord used to bring freedom and deliverance were able to identify with those they were called to correct and change.
The pattern of Nehemiah, Esther, Zerubbabel, Hezekiah, Joash, David and Zechariah are all men and women we should study if we are going to be used of God to change a lukewarm, materialistic church.
Notice the passion as well as the brokenness of Nehemiah.
God is going to use him mightily to restore the nation of Israel but first he must be broken and humbled.
Remember he was just a cup-bearer.
I can never read this passage without intense yearning for personal confession and repentance.
How about you? Neh 1:5-11 5 And I said: "I pray, Lord God of heaven, O great and awesome God, You who keep Your covenant and mercy with those who love You and observe Your commandments, 6 please let Your ear be attentive and Your eyes open, that You may hear the prayer of Your servant which I pray before You now, day and night, for the children of Israel Your servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel which we have sinned against You.
Both my father's house and I have sinned.
7 We have acted very corruptly against You, and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, nor the ordinances which You commanded Your servant Moses.
8 Remember, I pray, the word that You commanded Your servant Moses, saying,'If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations; 9 but if you return to Me, and keep My commandments and do them, though some of you were cast out to the farthest part of the heavens, yet I will gather them from there, and bring them to the place which I have chosen as a dwelling for My name.
' 10 Now these are Your servants and Your people, whom You have redeemed by Your great power, and by Your strong hand.
11 O Lord, I pray, please let Your ear be attentive to the prayer of Your servant, and to the prayer of Your servants who desire to fear Your name; and let Your servant prosper this day, I pray, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.
" For I was the king's cup-bearer.
NKJV Nehemiah was a hidden one until the time came for God to use him to restore a nation.
How about you? Has the Lord driven out all the criticism from your heart? Do you know how difficult it is to walk in humility and brokenness? Do you understand how wicked your own heart is? Do you know how to continue laboring as a cup bearer and hidden warrior until the Lord calls your name? There are many who no longer labor in the field, they have given up and fled from the mundane job the Lord assigned them.
Dear one, if that is you, you are not ready.
Go back to work in the Kingdom.
You have identified what is wrong but you have not waited for the Lord to build the character into your life that is needed to bring about change.
The Lord takes His time in preparing us.
Yet I do believe the time is here and the hour is upon us.
My heart is bursting with the excitement and faith that a generation of Gideon's, Nehemiah's, Joshua's, David's, and Esther's are being readied.
Dear one, the result of what I am teaching will bring about a Civil War in the Church.
There is nothing quite as ugly and as brutal as civil war.
When brother must fight against brother for the cause of true freedom in Christ it is a sad and terrible thing.
If we fight this war with the wrong spirit we will only create a bigger mess.
When God calls us to tear down the idols of our fathers we better be ready to be judged and know that only the Lord can deliver and protect us.
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