Judges 7:1-8, 2 Kings 18:1-18
Judges 7:1-8
Jerubbaal (that is, Gideon—his other name) and his army got an early start and went as far as the spring of Harod. The armies of Midian were camped north of them, down in the valley beside the hill of Moreh.
The Lord then said to Gideon, “There are too many of you! I can’t let all of you fight the Midianites, for then the people of Israel will boast to me that they saved themselves by their own strength!
Send home any of your men who are timid and frightened.”
So twenty-two thousand of them left, and only ten thousand remained who were willing to fight.
But the Lord told Gideon, “There are still too many! Bring them down to the spring and I’ll show you which ones shall go with you and which ones shall not.”
So Gideon assembled them at the water. There the Lord told him, “Divide them into two groups decided by the way they drink. In Group 1 will be all the men who cup the water in their hands to get it to their mouths and lap it like dogs. In Group 2 will be those who kneel, with their mouths in the stream.”
Only three hundred of the men drank from their hands; all the others drank with their mouths to the stream.
“I’ll conquer the Midianites with these three hundred!” the Lord told Gideon. “Send all the others home!”
So after Gideon had collected all the clay jars and trumpets they had among them, he sent them home, leaving only three hundred men with him.
2 Kings 18:1-18
1 New king of Judah: Hezekiah
Father’s name: Ahaz
His age at the beginning of his reign: 25 years old
Length of reign: 29 years, in Jerusalem
Mother’s name: Abi (daughter of Zechariah)
Character of his reign: good (similar to that of his ancestor David)Reigning in Israel at that time: King Hoshea (son of Elah), who had been the king there for 3 years
4 He removed the shrines on the hills, broke down the obelisks, knocked down the shameful idols of Asherah, and broke up the bronze serpent that Moses had made, because the people of Israel had begun to worship it by burning incense to it; even though, as King Hezekiah pointed out to them, it was merely a piece of bronze.
5 He trusted very strongly in the Lord God of Israel. In fact, none of the kings before or after him were as close to God as he was.
6 For he followed the Lord in everything, and carefully obeyed all of God’s commands to Moses.
7 So the Lord was with him and prospered everything he did. Then he rebelled against the king of Assyria and refused to pay tribute any longer.
8 He also conquered the Philistines as far distant as Gaza and its suburbs, destroying cities both large and small.
9 It was during the fourth year of his reign (which was the seventh year of the reign of King Hoshea in Israel) that King Shalmaneser of Assyria attacked Israel and began a siege on the city of Samaria.
10 Three years later (during the sixth year of the reign of King Hezekiah and the ninth year of the reign of King Hoshea of Israel) Samaria fell.
11 It was at that time that the king of Assyria transported the Israelis to Assyria and put them in colonies in the city of Halath and along the banks of the Habor River in Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.
12 For they had refused to listen to the Lord their God or to do what he wanted them to do. Instead, they had transgressed his covenant and disobeyed all the laws given to them by Moses the servant of the Lord.
13 Later, during the fourteenth year of the reign of King Hezekiah, King Sennacherib of Assyria besieged and captured all the fortified cities of Judah.
14 King Hezekiah sued for peace and sent this message to the king of Assyria at Lachish: “I have done wrong. I will pay whatever tribute you demand if you will only go away.” The king of Assyria then demanded a settlement of $1,500,000.
15 To gather this amount, King Hezekiah used all the silver stored in the Temple and in the palace treasury.
16 He even stripped off the gold from the Temple doors, and from the doorposts he had overlaid with gold, and gave it all to the Assyrian king.
17 Nevertheless the king of Assyria sent his field marshal, his chief treasurer, and his chief of staff from Lachish with a great army; and they camped along the highway beside the field where cloth was bleached, near the conduit of the upper pool.
18 They demanded that King Hezekiah come out to speak to them, but instead he sent a truce delegation of the following men: Eliakim, his business manager; Shebnah, his secretary; and Joah, his royal historian.
Message
As you move on with God this year, one of the greatest challenges you will have will not be the devil, but wrong people. Wrong people are not necessary unsaved people; they are simply people God has not planned for you on your journey in life.
The devil will use wrong people to achieve what he cannot personally do in your life.
God is very much concerning about the people going with you in life. When Gideon was to fight, God instructed him to bring the entire army of Israel to waters.
I counsel you today that you bring men to the river of the Holy Spirit and let them be tried, exposed and defined for you.
You must work in the Master's wisdom of knowing who should go with you. Let me show you some of those that will want to go with you in life:
Those that feel they need what you have: power, wealth, position etc.. They will use you; they have their own focus. Don't allow them around if they cannot contribute to you.
Those that the devil has assigned to distract you from your focus in God, in life and in destiny. They are nice but have corrupting effects on your spirit.
Those that have known your potential, where you are going, your prospect and the likes and want to be well positioned in your life for goodies to drop when you get there.
Who then should you go with? Go with those that God has chosen for you! Let God show you who men really are so that you will not take a friend for an enemy and an enemy for a friend. It shall be well with you in Jesus' name. Amen.