THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 3
Scripture: Hebrews 11:32, Judges 6:1-6, 15, Psalm 121:1-8

Verse 32 says, “And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets:” How did Gideon frame the world in which he lived through faith? The situation Gideon faced was dismal. Judges 6:1-2 says, “Then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord. So the Lord delivered them into the hand of Midian for seven years, and the hand of Midian prevailed against Israel. Because of the Midianites, the children of Israel made for themselves the dens, the caves, and the strongholds which are in the mountains. So it was, whenever Israel had sown, Midianites would come up; also Amalekites and the people of the East would come up against them. Then they would encamp against them and destroy the produce of the earth as far as Gaza, and leave no sustenance for Israel, neither sheep nor ox nor donkey. For they would come up with their livestock and their tents, coming in as numerous as locusts; both they and their camels were without number; and they would enter the land to destroy it. So Israel was greatly impoverished because of the Midianites, and the children of Israel cried out to the Lord.” Sin impoverished the nation. And it seems that is exactly what is happening in our nation right now. Years of perverse leadership and the promotion of sin have filled the land with iniquity, and we see the nation being financially impoverished at the same time. Gideon was called by God to confront the sin of the nation before he could change anything about the poverty. God told Gideon that he could save Israel, but Gideon argued in verse 15 and said he couldn’t do it. The Lord responded in verse 16, “Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat the Midianites as one man.” Gideon had to accept what God called him to do by faith. He had to wrestle with the fact that God had called him to go against the enemy of the land and to set Israel free. So, by faith, he had to believe that God would show up in his behalf. He had to walk by faith in order to change the poverty of the land. What do we have to do to change the poverty of the nation?