Live Free with Josh Howerton - Demo Day of False Gods | Ep. 433 | Wednesday, October 2, 2024

Episode Date: October 2, 2024

The nation of Israel endured seven years of oppression and cried out to God for deliverance. In response, God raised up Gideon to lead them. God instructed Gideon to construct an altar and demolish the false gods worshipped by the rebellious Israelites, emphasizing the need to remove false gods and idols. Similarly, we are urged to eliminate anything in our lives that does not reflect God's image. Reflect on the idols or false gods that may be exerting control over your life today, and consider what aspects you need to surrender to God. For more information, visit lakepointe.church/dailydrive

Thanks for tuning in to today's Daily Drive with Lake Point Church, a daily dose of God's word for your morning drive. When the word, not the world, becomes the majority of your week, your life will start to change. For that reason, our prayer is that God will speak to you through today's devotional. For more digital content to feed your faith, visit lakepoint.comit.com slash daily drive. And now let's dive in to today's devotional. Hey, welcome to the Daily Drive. My name is Bro, and we're kind of, I don't know, binge watching an underdog story about a guy named Gideon. The nation of Israel has been in this spiritual death spiral for a lot of years, and as a result, the big bad bullies on the block, the Midianites have oppressed them for seven long years. Well, the Israelites finally remember God and they cry out for God's help, and God promises to move on their behalf. And he begins by coming to a simple farmer named Gideon. and he calls him mighty warrior and tells him that he has chosen him to deliver the people from the hand of Midian. And that's where we stopped yesterday. So let's pick up episode three. We're calling episode

three Demo Day. Y'all ever watch those Home Improvement shows? We'll get all excited about Demo Day. It's Demo Day today. Well, episode three begins by God encouraging Gideon, telling him, don't be afraid. You're not going to die. I will be with you. And then God comes to him at night and says, let's get started. It's Demo Day. He tells him, before I can really work through you, these other gods, they got to go. I want you to tear down your father's altar to that false God Baal and that other phony, that Asher a pole that stands beside it, got to get rid of all that stuff. The worship of these other so-called gods have gotten your people in this mess, and if I'm going to move in, they got to go. I want you to build an altar to me, sacrifice a bull on it,

in that phony Ashruth pole that you cut down, you can use it for the firewood. It was pretty cool the other day. I was reading through this part of the story, and my phone rang. It was a new friend on the other line. He'd been sober for 11 days when he called me. He had so much stuff in his life,

and he wouldn't mind me telling you either. He's such a great guy, humble guy with a huge and generous heart, but he had been deep in alcohol, drugs, material stuff, porn, jail time, you name it. But he knows that God has been perceived. suing him his entire life. And he knows that God loves him and really wants to, he really, really wants to walk with God and he wants to walk free.

So he starts telling me about some stuff that he just gathered up and gotten rid of. In fact, he said he burned it all. And I told him what I was reading. I said, man, I'm right in the middle of reading this story where God tells this dude named Gideon that if he was going to move, there was no room for phony gods anymore. See how you're doing it. You're finally tearing down. All those false gods used to word.

You're cleaning house, man. You're giving the true and living God a chance to move into your life. And man, he's moving and it's so cool and I'm so proud of you. And listen to me, gang, we all got to do the same. Whatever is grabbing all your attention, your devotion, your energy, your resources, your time, your worship has become your God. Now, you and I wouldn't call it that, but that's truly what it is. And if we bow down to it, if we pursue any other image in the image of God, then we end up empty and frustrated and we rob God of an opportunity to set us free. And that's why we have to get on us. That's why we have to take inventory often and clean house and tear down the altars and burn them up and offer our lives as a living sacrifice

for the true and living God. So Gideon, because he was afraid of his family and the people in town, he goes and pulls this demo off in the middle of the night. And so when people wake up the next morning, discover that someone had torn down the altered to Bahal and built a new altar and their other god is nothing but glowing embers, the people go off. And they say to each other, who did this? Who did this? And after asking around and making a careful search, they learned it was Gideon, the son of Joash. So let's show up at Joash's house. And they say, we want the boy. Bring out your boy. He's going to die for destroying the altar of Baal and cutting down the Asherapole.

But Joash, Gideon's dad, who's obviously deeply moved by the courage and conviction of his son, he stands up and says, if Ba'all truly is a God, let him defend himself. If he's so powerful, let him deal with the one who tore down his altar. And it says this, from then on, Gideon was called Jerob Baal, which means let Baal defend himself because he broke down his altar. when God's spirit begins to move in Gideon and makes him respect it as a leader among the people he kind of becomes like a general among the

quote unquote troops but there's still some doubt in his own mind verse 36 of chapter 6 then Gideon said to God if you truly are going to use me to rescue Israel as you promised once again going to need a sign prove it to me in this way I will put a wool fleece on the threshing floor the night If the fleece is wet with dew in the morning, but the ground is dry, then I will know that you're going to help me rescue Israel as you promised.

Well, God agrees to play along, and that's what happens. Gideon puts out the fleece. Next morning, ground is dry, fleece is sop and wet. So Gideon says, Okay, two out of three. You ever do that? Kind of like, bet you can't do that again. This time reverse it, God, ground wet, fleece dry.

and it happened exactly that way. God was like saying, there's your sign. Let's just push Paul's today. Let me encourage you today. Tear down any false gods that might have been dominating your life lately. And just walk with the true and living God. He's with you.

He's for you. Longs to do life with you today. Just listen to him and do whatever he asks you to do and the big things and the small ones today. And I hope you have an awesome day walking with him. And I'll see you back here tomorrow for episode number four. Have a great day. Thanks for tuning in today.

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