Welcome to Wisdom Today with Bill Kelley. Today we will be going over Proverb 5. I will then key in on verse 18 -Let your fountain be blessed, And rejoice with the wife of your youth. Friends, if you are married, you have no need to look outside of your marriage for other women. Your wife is all you will ever need. Take good care of her! On today's lesson, we will be introduced to a man named Gideon. He was called of the Lord and given an assignment - and yet, he hesitated. We will learn that Moses also had hesitated when God had called him to deliver the Israelites from the oppression of Pharaoh. We also learn that the great prophet, Jeremiah, also hesitated when he was called. Friends, when God calls you to step out and fulfill a mission he calls you to, may I encourage you to simply answer, Here am I, Lord - as Isaiah did in Chapter 6 of his book, when called into the ministry.
[00:00:00] Welcome to Wisdom Today. My name is Bill Kelley and I'll be your host. In this podcast
[00:00:12] we will be exploring the book of Proverbs. Let's open in prayer. Father God, I thank
[00:00:23] you for anyone listening to this podcast today. Lord, I pray that you would reveal to everyone
[00:00:30] listening today how much you truly love each and every one of them. I ask this in Jesus name,
[00:00:37] Amen. This is Proverbs 5 beginning in verse 1. My Son pay attention to my wisdom, lend your ear
[00:00:48] to my understanding that you may preserve discretion and your lips may keep knowledge. For the
[00:00:55] lips of an immoral woman, drip honey and her mouth is smoother than oil but in the end she is
[00:01:04] bitter as wormwood sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death. Her steps lay hold
[00:01:13] of hell. Lest you ponder her path of life. Her ways are unstable, you do not know them.
[00:01:22] Therefore hear me now, my children and do not depart from the words of my mouth. Remove your way
[00:01:30] far from her and do not go near the door of her house. Lest you give your honor to others
[00:01:38] and your years to the cruel one. Lest aliens be filled with your wealth and your labors go
[00:01:46] to the house of a foreigner and you mourn at last when your flesh and your body are consumed
[00:01:54] and say, How I have hated instruction and my heart despised correction. I have not obeyed
[00:02:04] the voice of my teachers nor inclined my ear to those who instructed me. I was on the verge of
[00:02:13] total ruin in the midst of the assembly and congregation. Drink water from your own sister
[00:02:22] and running water from your own well. Should your fountains be dispersed abroad, streams of water
[00:02:30] in the streets, let them be only your own and not for strangers with you. Let your fountain
[00:02:38] be blessed and rejoice with the wife of your youth as a loving deer and a graceful doe. Let her
[00:02:46] breasts satisfy you at all times and always be enraptured with her love. For why should you,
[00:02:55] my son, be enraptured by an immoral woman and be embraced in the arms of a seductress.
[00:03:03] For the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord and he ponderes all his paths. His own
[00:03:12] iniquities entrap the wicked man and he is caught in the cords of his sin. He shall die for lack of
[00:03:21] instruction and in the greatness of his folly, he shall go astray. Friends today I'd like to take
[00:03:30] a closer look at verse 18 and proverb 5 verse 18 says this, let your fountain be blessed and rejoice
[00:03:42] with the wife of your youth. Friends today we will take a closer look at that verse prior to closing
[00:03:50] but what I'd like to do right now is to encourage you and I often say that the Lord has called
[00:03:59] each and every one of us to perform some type of duty for him and many people don't know exactly
[00:04:09] what that is. But I want to talk about a man today and we're going to go to the book of judges
[00:04:17] and in the book of judges if we go to chapter 6 I am going to introduce you to a man named
[00:04:25] Gideon. And we are going to begin reading in chapter 6 verse 11. Now the angel of the Lord came
[00:04:36] and sat under the terabins tree which was in Ophra which belonged to Joash the Abyss right
[00:04:45] while his son Gideon threshed wheat in the winepress in order to hide it from the midi-nights
[00:04:54] and the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, the Lord is with you. You mighty man of valor.
[00:05:05] Now friends I am reading out of the Nelson study Bible and I'd like to go over the commentary
[00:05:13] for verse 11 of chapter 6. The Palestinian terabins tree is a large tree with a thick trunk and heavy
[00:05:24] branches sometimes confused with the oak. It can grow as high as 25 feet. The terabins figures in
[00:05:34] the stories of Abraham who pitched his tent near the terabins trees of mammary and of Jacob
[00:05:42] who hid a treasure beneath a terabins tree. The exact location of Ophra is unknown but it was
[00:05:52] a city somewhere in the territory of Manasseh. It is not the same as the Benjaminte city of the same
[00:06:01] name. So friends what I'd like for you to consider is what would you do if an angel of the Lord
[00:06:12] came to you and said the Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor. That is kind of a strange
[00:06:23] greeting but Gideon was taken off guard. Gideon didn't quite know what to do. Let's go to verse 13.
[00:06:35] Gideon said to him, O my Lord if the Lord is with us why then has all this happened to us and where
[00:06:47] are all the miracles which our fathers told us about saying did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt
[00:06:55] but now the Lord has forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites.
[00:07:03] Then the Lord turned to him and said, Go in this might of yours and you shall save Israel from
[00:07:13] the hand of the Midianites have I not sent you so he said to him, O my Lord how can I save Israel?
[00:07:25] Indeed my clan is the weakest in Manasseh and I am the least in my father's house.
[00:07:35] So friends this is an example of God preparing someone for a great work. He is called Gideon, he has
[00:07:46] a plan for Gideon, he has given him instructions and yet Gideon is not wanting to do this.
[00:07:57] What I'd like to do at this time is go back to the book of Exodus and in chapter 3 of Exodus we find
[00:08:06] out that God has just called Moses to the land of Egypt and he has asked Moses and told him that
[00:08:16] he is going to deliver all of the Israelites out of the hand of the Egyptians through Moses.
[00:08:25] Let's look at verse 11 and see how Moses reacts.
[00:08:29] That Moses said to God, who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and that I should bring the children
[00:08:39] of Israel out of Egypt? So he said, I will certainly be with you and this shall be a sign to you
[00:08:50] that I have sent you when you have brought the people out of Egypt you shall serve God on this mountain.
[00:08:59] Now I'd like to go to another example in the Old Testament, a major prophet and this is the book
[00:09:08] of Jeremiah. Let's go to chapter 1 beginning in verse 4. Then the word of the Lord came to me saying
[00:09:18] before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born, I sanctified you.
[00:09:27] I ordained you a prophet to the nations. Then Jeremiah replies, all Lord God, behold, I cannot speak
[00:09:41] for I am a youth. So friends, the point I am trying to make here is that God has called each of us
[00:09:54] to do something. He specifically called Moses to take all of the children of Israel out
[00:10:03] of the land of Egypt from under the oppression of Pharaoh. He called Jeremiah a prophet and he told
[00:10:12] him he was going to be a prophet to the nations and Jeremiah did not want to do it. So now in today's
[00:10:21] lesson we're going to learn about this man, Gideon. Let's pick back up in verse 16 and the Lord
[00:10:31] said to him, surely I will be with you and you shall defeat the Midianites as one man. So God is
[00:10:42] promising Gideon that he would be with him just like he did with Moses, just like he did with Jeremiah.
[00:10:55] God is for us and if he asks you to do something, he will be with you. Then he said to him,
[00:11:06] if now I have found favor in your sight then show me a sign that it is you who talk with me.
[00:11:15] Do not depart from here, I pray until I come to you and bring out my offering and set it before
[00:11:25] you and he said, I will wait until you come back. So Gideon went in and prepared a young goat
[00:11:34] and on 11 bread from an epha of flour the meat he put in a basket and he put the broth in a pot
[00:11:44] and he brought them out to him under the tear of the tree and presented them. The angel of God
[00:11:53] said to him, take the meat and the unleavened bread and lay them on this rock and pour out the broth
[00:12:02] and he did so. Then the angel of the Lord put out the end of the staff that was in his hand
[00:12:10] and touched the meat and the unleavened bread and fire rose out of the rock and consumed the meat
[00:12:20] and the unleavened bread and the angel of the Lord departed out of his sight. Now Gideon perceived
[00:12:30] that he was the angel of the Lord so Gideon said, alas, O Lord God, for I have seen the angel of
[00:12:39] the Lord face to face. Then the Lord said to him, peace be with you. Do not fear you shall not die.
[00:12:51] So Gideon built an altar there to the Lord and called it the Lord is peace. To this day
[00:13:00] it is still in Ophra of the Abyss rights. Now it came to pass the same night that the Lord said
[00:13:07] to him, take your father's young bull. The second bull of seven years old and tear down the altar
[00:13:17] of bail that your father has and cut down the wooden image that is beside it and build an altar
[00:13:25] to the Lord your God on top of this rock in the proper arrangement and take the second bull
[00:13:33] and offer a burnt sacrifice with the wood of the image which you shall cut down.
[00:13:40] Now friends I'd like to read the commentary for verse 25, the Hebrew word for wooden
[00:13:47] image here is a shearer, the name of the K night goddess. Sacred wooden poles were erected at places
[00:13:58] where she was worshiped. The widespread worship of this goddess is attested to in chapter 3 and
[00:14:07] elsewhere. The second bull is not a second animal but a phrase by which the Lord was specifying more
[00:14:16] clearly to Gideon, which bull should be sacrificed. The need to specify the bull underscores Gideon's
[00:14:27] continued reluctance. Let's go on to verse 27, so Gideon took ten men from among his servants and did
[00:14:37] as the Lord had said to him but because he feared his father's household and the men of the city too
[00:14:45] much to do it by day he did it by night. Let's go on and when the men of the city arose early in the
[00:14:55] morning there was the altar of Bale torn down and the wooden image that was beside it was cut
[00:15:04] down and the second bull was being offered on the altar which had been built. So they said to one
[00:15:12] another who has done this thing and when they had inquired and asked they said Gideon the son of
[00:15:21] Joe Ash has done this thing then the men of the city said to Joe Ash bring out your son that he
[00:15:29] may die because he has torn down the altar of Bale and because he has cut down the wooden image
[00:15:38] that was beside it. The Joe Ash said to all who stood against him, would you plead for Bale?
[00:15:48] Would you save him? Let the one who would plead for him be put to death by morning. If he is a God
[00:15:58] let him plead for himself because his altar has been torn down. Therefore on that day he called him
[00:16:08] Jurib Bale saying let Bale plead against him because he has torn down his altar. Then all the
[00:16:19] Midianites and Amalakites the people of the east gathered together and they crossed over and encamped
[00:16:28] in the valley of Jezreel but the spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon then he blew the trumpet
[00:16:37] and the Abbees rights gathered behind him and he sent messengers throughout all Menace
[00:16:45] who also gathered behind him. He also sent messengers to Asher, Zebulin and Naftalai and they came
[00:16:55] up to meet them. Now this story doesn't end here. Gideon still is not convinced that he should be
[00:17:06] doing what the angel of the Lord had told him to do. He ends up asking for a sign and we know this
[00:17:15] as the fleece. He actually tests God two separate times but what I'd like for you to do is we are
[00:17:25] going to close for today and what my call to action for you is to read the rest of this story.
[00:17:35] Gideon goes on in chapter 7 and chapter 8 and he dies at the end of chapter 8 but Gideon does indeed
[00:17:48] save the Israelites from the Amalakites and not only does he save them but he saves them with only
[00:17:59] 300 people and the Midianites numbered in the tens of thousands. It's a wonderful story. One I'm sure
[00:18:11] that you will enjoy. Friends before we close today I'd like to go back to our verse of the day in
[00:18:18] Proverbs 5 verse 18 it says, Let your fountain be blessed and rejoice with the wife of your youth.
[00:18:28] Friends chapter 5 of Proverb talks about the peril of adultery. It talks about the immoral woman
[00:18:38] who is going to try to entice you and try to lure you into her trap and friends if you
[00:18:48] are married and in a good marriage you do not have to look outside of your marriage. Look at the
[00:18:59] wife of your youth always be satisfied with her. She is the one that God has put in your life
[00:19:09] and she is the one that you should rejoice with all the days of your life. Friends prior to closing today
[00:19:18] I'd like to just kind of review what we did today and there are people in the Bible that we know well
[00:19:28] people who did great exploits and yet when God first called them they were reluctant to do what
[00:19:38] God had asked them to do. We can go back to Noah and Noah did exactly what God asked him to do.
[00:19:48] Abraham did exactly what God asked him to do but Moses was reluctant we found out about that today
[00:19:58] the great prophet Jeremiah hesitated and did not comply directly when he was called into the ministry
[00:20:07] to be a prophet and in today's lesson a man named Gideon also was reluctant and friends if God
[00:20:18] has called you to do something may I suggest that you simply say here am I Lord send me
[00:20:31] that is what Isaiah did in chapter 6 of his book when he was called of God. Friends we should be ready
[00:20:42] and willing to obey the call of God in our lives. Friends I will never end the podcast without giving
[00:20:53] anyone an opportunity to receive Jesus as their Lord and Savior. If there is anyone listening
[00:20:59] today and you've never taken that step I invite you to repeat a simple prayer after me today.
[00:21:06] Jesus I recognize that I am a sinner and I have need of a Savior. I believe that you are the
[00:21:14] Son of God. I believe that you came to earth and died on a cross for me. I believe that you were
[00:21:22] buried and you rose on the third day by doing that I believe that all of my sins have been forgiven.
[00:21:32] Jesus thank you for that I invite you to come into my heart I ask that you lead me and guide me
[00:21:39] from this point forward I ask this in Jesus name amen. Friends this is the weekend I pray that you take
[00:21:50] out your family take out your spouse take the kids let them know how much God loves them and how
[00:21:58] much you love them now may the Lord bless you and keep you the Lord make us stay shine upon you and
[00:22:07] be gracious to you the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Friends please
[00:22:15] rejoin me on Monday as we further explore wisdom today