“O my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian” - Judges 6:13.
Audio Sermon: Judges 6:11-21

Christians are prone to blame their God for abandoning them when the truth of the matter is that they have abandoned their God. They have spent the flowers of their days grooming and saddling the warhorses of darkness that are presently pirating their peace. Their armistice with sin robs them of the Lord’s presence and invites worldly Midianites to steal the liberty one can only enjoy in Christ Jesus.

God encourages your warfare against the schemes of the evil one and his guerrilla terrorists (Eph. 6:10-18). The Spirit of Christ gifts you with a mind capable of expansive vistas of righteousness so that you cannot bear the slightest vacancy of godliness. He wants you to synthesize all you read in His Bible with the totality of your experiences and circumstances so you will discover His love for you and His unrivaled presence in your life.

Those living in the Spirit rather than the flesh are colonizers of righteousness refusing to live in fear of Midianite invasions (Gal. 5:16f.). They are reformational revolutionaries taking an active part in God’s Councils of Holy War so that His beloved might be shielded against the arrows of the sons of malevolence. Spirit-led saints ride upon holy horses whose thundering hooves leap into godless breaches setting hearts aflame for the one true God who alone “is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us” (Eph. 3:20).

Scores of Christians forfeit dependence upon the Christ of Scripture preferring instead their own charm and genius. The studied efforts of biblical saints display dependence upon the One from whom they drew their first breath and they are heavenly-powered to face the Lord’s enemies with scriptural sword in hand. They water the tree of holy liberty with their own life-blood so that the commonwealth of Christ’s Church might capture sustained victories.

The guillotine of vice can only be dulled by those saints serving as godly Samsons in their marketplaces and wise Solomons in their counsel chambers. Their prayer is to die as God’s bond-servants, Jesus’ heirs, the Holy Spirit’s temples and the church’s martyrs. They live every day as though life is at its sunset, for they have taken to heart the resolution of Robert Murray M’Cheyne: “I will live so as I shall wish I had done when I have come to die.”

Jesus must come to have an even more exalted position in your life than the position Thomas Jefferson opined President Washington had in the lives of his nation: “One man outweighs them all in influence over the people who have supported his judgment against their own and that of their representatives. Republicanism must lie on its oars, resign the vessel to its pilot, and themselves to the course he thinks best for them.”

If you ever begin to accuse God of abandoning you, look most closely at your own apostasy. Have you left the vineyard of righteousness, the fig tree of godliness or the encampment of holiness? Are you solacing in the tranquility of experiencing the constraining love of Christ? (II Cor. 5:14). Is your watchfulness invested in promoting the well-being of Christ’s Church? Are you taking the position of the Redeemer’s courtier who gazes upon the countenance of his Prince desiring only the graciousness of His smile? Are you pleased with the cadence of Christ in your attitude toward the difficulties you have brought upon yourself by your own rebellion?

“God made men upright, but they have sought out many devices” (Ecc. 7:29).

SOLI DEO GLORIA!