Hello, this is Janice reading with him, and I'm so glad you're here with me tonight.
We're going to be taking a look at Gideon, and this is actually, believe it or not, going
to tie in with Psalm 91, which is the basis for everything I do, but once again, I found
it in this as I was studying the scriptures, and I just had a laugh because we will never
get away from that. That is where we live from, so we will see it again later this evening
as I do this teaching, but we're going to start with Gideon, and I will give you a little
background on this. For those of you that are following in the Word, you can turn to
Judges chapter 6, and we will be looking at verse 11 after I kind of just lay out the
story a little bit. So here we are in a situation that Israel got themselves in again, and what
always happened after God would deliver them, then they would get their eyes off of him,
and they would start worshiping other gods, and they'd get themselves in a pickle, and
he would step back. When they started worshiping other gods, they were out from under his authority.
They were out from under his protection, which means they were fair game to all the nations
around them. So here we have that situation, and the Israelites were crying out for him to
deliver them. It had been seven years they'd been dealing with this. The Midianites, Amorites, were
so numerous that when they would come in to the Israelites' land, they would come in at harvest
time. So it had been seven years of this. They would come in harvest time, and they would take
the harvest. They would bring all their animals. They would bring their camels, and they would just
let them go at it and just eat everything that they had not picked up themselves. And so it was
decimated. Their land was decimated, and the crops were decimated, and Israel was starving. Not only
were they starving, but they would run to the hills. Literally, they would run and they would
hide out in caves during this time. So here we have them calling out to God. He sends a prophet
to them, an unnamed prophet. We don't know who this is, which I had a laugh at. I just found
that funny. And he went and said, well, you know, basically he said, you know, you did this due to
your choices. You haven't been worshiping God. This is what happens when you're not under his protection.
And so here we are, and you did this to yourself. And they cried out, and they asked for deliverance
and for help. And so the next scene we see is Gideon, who, this is very interesting because
he's usually presented, at least in what I have heard taught, he's been presented as someone that's
frightened, someone that's scared, someone that is kind of a wimp hiding out. This man was not
that at all. He was amazing. As a matter of fact, I have decided I very much like him. Let's first
look at his name. Amazing. Now this name was given to him at birth. It wasn't something that the angel
of the Lord, which was Jesus, gave to him in that moment. He had this from birth. And this is amazing.
Now remember, Israelites went before God, they sought him, and they named their children
with a name that represented their destiny and what they were called to do.
So he was named Gideon, which means feller, which means warrior. Now you need to understand
what feller means. It is, a feller is someone that chops down a tree, that takes a tree down,
that destroys it, that hews it, which means to take your hand, take an implement in your hand,
and chop into pieces. It means to destroy something. So that's where the word warrior
came out of feller. And from the time that he was born, Gideon had said over him, whenever he was
called Gideon, it was like saying, warrior, warrior, come here. Warrior, let's do this.
Warrior, always spoken over him, released over him prophetically. And he knew that's who he was,
and that was called to be. And I think that's why he was not afraid. He was amazing. I think
that's why he was able to...
do. Even before he saw Jesus, he was able to do what he did. Now consider this.
All the rest of the Israelis, they were hiding out. They were in the caves.
They were. They took their livestock and they ran for the hills. Here's Gideon.
He is taking a step, taking a step into his destiny. He is a warrior. He is doing what is
necessary to provide for his family and those he loves. He is thinking out of the box.
You don't thresh wheat in a wine press. You thresh wheat on the top of a hill
and you go out there and you shake it and you let the wind pass through it. The wind
takes the chaff and blows it away and the wheat falls because it has the weight to it.
Well, what would happen if Gideon did that? If he went to the wheat fields,
because this is where they did it. This is where they threshed the wheat. It was
right there by the fields. What if he went to the fields and went to a hill
and stood up there while the wind was blowing, threshing the wheat, beating this stuff,
shaking it in the wind? All of the Midianites would see him. They'd all come running. He would
be in the open. They not only would take what he was doing and take those resources and that food,
but they would have killed him at the same time. That was not an option for Gideon. He actually
was very smart and instead of hiding like everybody else in the caves, he's like,
I have an idea. I'm going to go to the vineyards. Now, the vineyards were not where
the wheat was. It was not in the same area. It was at the vineyards that you find the wine press,
which was hewn out of rock. It was down into the ground. They cut it out of limestone
and then they actually built wooden walls around it on the outside that also would kind of cover
it on the top because they wanted to keep the sunlight off the grapes and off the men because
they would dump all the grapes in there. The men would be the ones dumping on it, pressing it
because they were trying to separate the juice from the rest of the grape. If there was too
much pressure then the bitterness of the pips would be released and they did not want that
to happen. They wanted something nice and sweet. So, the men would tread on it. They would stomp
on it with their feet and they would hold on to these ropes above down in this hole in this wine
press in this like a little room made specifically for this in this area in the ground that had
covering. So, he was thinking out of the box. He was doing what had not been done before
so he could provide for his family. So, instead of hiding like everyone else, instead of going
to the back of the cave and pulling a sheepskin over his head and what was me, he actually was
a man of great courage in doing what he needed to do. He needed to get that wheat. He needed
to get sustenance for his family and for others and he was taking the grand amazing out-of-the-box
idea he had and making it work. In the middle of being surrounded by his enemies, in the middle
of being surrounded by this vast uncountable army and nation, he was doing what was unthinkable
and he was being successful. So, this is not a man of fear. This is actually a mighty warrior
just as he was named from the very beginning. Now, there's also something else interesting I
learned in all this that I'd like to show you share with you. His father was named Joash.
So interesting! Have you ever seen how things can pass down generationally good or bad?
And there's also, especially in the Hebraic
situation and with Hebrew families, but I've seen this. I saw this in my own family with my mother.
You can see it with other ministers and other people you see. There could be mantles passed down.
Mantles passed down in
the Spirit from one generation to another. I actually even see that. I watch it with
one of my pastors and her daughter. One of her daughters is functioning under one of her
anointings and I can sometimes see in the Spirit an overlay where there is an overlay of the two
and it's like, wow! I've seen it a few times and it's like, wow! That is cool. That is amazing.
Her daughter will go beyond, as always is meant to happen, that you take what you've been given,
you take that mantle, but then you are mantled and you go beyond what the one that came before
you ever did. So anyway, here is Joash. I want to just take this. I was shocked when I looked
up his name. I'm just like, oh, let's just look it up and see what it means. I wasn't prepared
for this. His word comes from a word that is actually a spinoff of Jehovah. It comes from
number 3101 and that comes from 3060 in the Hebrew and you would find that in Strong's
and that means Jehovah. That specific word for Jehovah comes from two words, one being Jehovah,
one being Jehovah as we know it, and the other one being Esh. The prime root of that means to be
fire. So, fire or fire hot. So, Joash's name is a spinoff. It's kind of like you have Jonathan
and then the son is called John. So, you have Jehovah. Well, Joash is like the John of Jonathan.
So, he's like a spinoff of Jehovah. Joash is a spinoff of Jehovah. Very interesting
because Jehovah means deliverer. Jehovah also has a component in it. The first time we see
that in the Old Testament has to do with sowing and reaping and it also means fire. It also means
burning off, burning hot. So, here is Joash. He carries that as a mantle. He carries that
in his name. He has Gideon who is a son and now Gideon warrior has that mantling extending from
his father to him and I believe there was like a deposit in him. He was not only a warrior,
but he ended up being used by God as a deliverer and I think that mantling for that
partly came from his father. I just found that extraordinarily interesting. It was just right
there in a word and I was like, wow, God, here again we see how you work legacy and generations.
Here again we see the wonder of what you do in the families. Here again you see the wonder of
what you do when one is mentored under another like Elisha mentored under Elijah and that mantle
and that anointing was passed on. So, once again we see an element of that with Joash and his son
Gideon. So, let's look at Judges chapter 6 verse 11 and I am going to actually read this
from the New Living Translation and then we're going to examine this. I'm just amazed. I learned
so much doing this and I could just sit there forever. So, it says chapter 6 verse 11,
the angel of the Lord came and sat beneath the great tree at Ophrah. Okay, we're going to start
with, we're going to stop with that. The angel of the Lord. This, the angel of the Lord, this is
actually Jesus. Angel. Where's my notes? I wanted to give you the specific. The angel here means it
dispatches the deputy. It means a messenger. It means a teacher. If you coordinate that word with
Hebrews 1 verse 4, it talks about the angel of the Lord there as well and it's a term used for God
for implying his presence, the presence of deity, the presence of an uncreated being that becomes
present in a situation. But the interesting thing
that I learned from Wilson's is that it is a messenger of God, but it has to do
more with the office than the nature. So here is Jesus' office. Jesus, Son of God,
Jesus, Deliverer, Jesus, Jehovah, Jesus, Salvation, the Angel of the Lord. And
remember, Lord, this is capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D, and we have
discussed this in other teachings, that this first came out in Genesis chapter
2, and whenever you see Lord, all capitals, it is talking about sowing and
reaping. It's talking about harvest. So here we have Jesus appearing, the Angel
of the Lord, but Jesus of the sowing and reaping, Jesus of harvest. He is there
because there has been sowing against Israel, and now there is going to be a
harvest, a multiplied harvest, back to the Midianites, back to this
nation that stood against Israel. They are going to reap in multiplication,
because remember, sowing is always multiplication. Whenever you sow, whenever
you put a seed on the ground, you always get back more than what you put in. So
just as the Midianites, just as this nation sowed against Israel, they are now
going to reap more than they ever sowed. They are going to reap their own
destruction of an entire nation. And Jesus, the Angel of the Lord, Jesus
himself, Jehovah, is on the scene to do this. And it said there that Jehovah, it
says there, the Angel of the Lord came and sat beneath a great tree. So here is
Psalm 91, verse 1. It says, those who dwell in the secret place. That word
dwell, remember, it means to sit as royalty in judgment. Remember that?
Remember that teaching? Go back and listen to it. It's like episode 2 or
something like that. This is the exact same word. It says, the Angel of the Lord,
Jesus sat. He was sitting there. So we have the Angel of the Lord. Here is
Jehovah of the harvest. Jehovah of sowing and reaping. Jehovah, now, that's gonna
call us out. It says he sat. He is sitting in governmental authority. He is sitting
as royalty. And he is about to judge what has taken place here. He's about to
call forth. He's about to declare. And he's about to set into motion judgment
over these people. And the interesting thing is, he not only sat, but he sat
under a big tree. Well, what is important about that? That's why I said to the Holy
Spirit, I'm like, okay, you did not put this in just by accident. Because there's
nothing coincidental. There's nothing by accident. So, you could have just said, oh,
Jesus, the Angel of the Lord, came and sat. Why did you need to let us know he sat
under a big tree? Hmm. So, this is what I believe that tree stood for. Let's go back
to the garden. Genesis chapter 1. In the garden, he had the tree of life and he
had the tree of knowledge of the good of knowledge and evil. So, we're gonna set
that second tree aside. They ate of it. That was a bummer. We know what that got
us. But we have the tree of life. The tree of life. Jesus was slain before the
foundation of the earth. He chose, he said, when they had a council, when Elohim
had a council, Jesus has said, I will go. They're gonna mess up. I will go. I will
redeem them. I will be crucified on a tree. I will die. And in that garden,
prophetically, God put that tree of life. Prophetically, that Jesus would hang on
and bring life to us. Bring redemption. Bring freedom. Bring deliverance. And that
tree of life was in the garden, right there, declaring what was to come. So, here
we have Jesus, once again, in a horrific situation. He is sitting, about to declare
from his place of royalty, from his government,
mental authority. He is going to declare judgment on the nation of the Midianites
in deliverance and freedom for his people. And he's doing it. He's sitting there in that position
under a great tree. I think it's a picture. I think it's a prophetic picture of what was to
come in the moment, but what was to come for us all those many years later.
That once again, Jesus would be on a tree and it would give us our deliverance and our freedom
and give us life. So let's go on. It says, he sat beneath a great tree at Ophirot,
which belonged to Joash, the clan of Edbezer. Gideon, son of Joash, was threshing wheat at
the bottom of the winepress. Now we've talked about, we need to talk about the threshing.
We've talked about that he was mighty. He was smart. He did this and threshing of the wheat.
They did this in, they would go where the wheat was grown to the top of the hill.
They would shake it. They would beat it, a wind. They would do it when there was a breeze.
So the breeze would come and blow the chaff away. The wheat would fall. I talked to a friend
and I had not even thought about this, but I was just so excited about what I was learning.
And I called her. She lives out of state. I'm like, you're not going to believe what I'm
learning and what I'm seeing and all this. And she's in her seventies and was raised in Kansas,
even went to a one-room schoolhouse, was raised on a farm. And I'm telling her this and she's like,
oh my gosh, that brings back so many memories because that's exactly what we did on the farm.
The men would go out there and the laborers would go out there and they would find the high place
in the fields of wheat. They'd go to the high place. They would take the wheat and they would
shake it in the wind and let the wheat fall. And the chaff would be blown away. And she said,
that's exactly what we did when I was a little girl. That's exactly what took place.
And I was like, yeah, well, here it is in the word. And she, she was astounded. And I was actually,
I was pretty astounded too, that it was like, wow, this is, this is what they did.
And here is Gideon being smart enough to go to the wine press to run there, not because
he was a wimp, but because he was thinking out of the box. He was walking in the wisdom of God
and he went to the wine press. He kept moving. You know how hard it is
to get someone to move when they're standing still. You know, I'm a mom of kids, of six kids.
And if I have a child, like if I have a little child, a toddler, maybe three or four year old,
and they are standing firm and they don't want to do something or they're just not moving, it's real
hard to get them moving, to get them going a direction I want. But if they are already walking
and moving, it's very easy to come behind them, put my hand on their shoulders and go,
oh, we're going to go over here and pick up your toys right now. It's time to pick up the toys.
And it's very easy to adjust and move someone who is already in motion.
And Gideon was not hiding. He was not running away. He was not in a cave. He was in motion.
Therefore, it's very easy for the Spirit of God to come in and give him ideas and move him the
direction he needs to go, making changes, saying, hey, Gideon, here's a great idea. Why don't you
take that weight? Let's go to the wine press. Perfect hiding place. Perfect place to thresh it
perfect place to thresh it out. Perfect way to provide for your family. So he had that continual
movement. He had his heart turned towards God or God wouldn't have been able to lead him because
it says his sheep know his voice and Gideon was able to follow his leading and his guidance.
And we also know he knew his voice because he recognized the angel of the Lord. He recognized
who he was when he showed up, which we're going to find out about in our next verse in chapter in
verse 12 of chapter 6 the next time we get together. So he was moving. He was listening.
He was walking out his name as a warrior, unafraid, doing what he needed to do in a moment.
They had
prayed for deliverance. They had reached out. A prophet had come. They were still reaching out to
God. Please turn your eyes towards us. We need deliverance. We need your help. We have messed up,
but we need your help. And then he was walking forward just like many of us have to do in our
lives. We cry out to God. We say, I need your deliverance. I need direction. I need understanding.
I need you to give me breakthrough. I need to break through out of the situation I'm in,
but we know we need him and his power and his wisdom and his anointing to do it.
And just like with Gideon, he shows up not late, not early. He shows up just in time.
He always shows up and he gives us and provides us what we need. So I'm going to leave you with
that today and we will continue this in my next teaching. Thank you for joining me. And I'm just
going to pray with you. Father, thank you for your word today. Thank you that just as Gideon,
that you have called us out and given us a name that you speak over us. And I thank you that you
call us priests and kings before you, that you call us your children, your sons and daughters,
and your anointed worshipers. And I thank you that you call us courageous and faithful and true.
Father, allow those things to grow. Allow those things to come forth in our lives and allow us to
ourselves the way you see us. And to walk just as Gideon did,
fearless, fearless before the enemy, fearless
knowing what God had called him to be, and fearless in holding on to their faith
in their relationship with God. So Father, I thank you for that. I ask you for your blessing
on everyone that's watching this. And Jesus name, we just thank you for what you're doing.
And just a reminder to all of you that I will have this on my website and I will have
notes to go along this and outline. And there are also resources there. So please go ahead and
subscribe to this YouTube channel if this is where you're watching it. And you may also go to
my website to get other resources there. So I look forward to seeing you as we
continue this journey with Gideon. And I will see you next time. Bye-bye.