Old Dog I
Back to: Armies of God 5 – Strangers and Exiles
Armies of God 6 – The Extent of Duty
Bob Neumann, 1998
Throughout the extent of scripture we encounter stories and images that have been specifically placed there through the direct action of THE MOST HOLY SPIRIT. The Bible is often viewed as a fanciful collection of Hebrew oral traditions, of a historical view of the Jewish people, as a poetic dissertation of antiquated moral imperatives. All three views which are prevalent today in the minds of liberal theologians and educators neglect the aspect of divine inspiration. This of course is the fatal flaw of modern humanism, remove GOD from the equation and things become perfect. Only humanism has no use for GOD and for PERFECTION, preferring self-actualization over MERCY and GRACE.
When the ‘church’ begins to look at things from a “worldly” point of view it will begin to assess and categorize all things to fit the acceptable and proper attitudes of the humanist mindset. Instead of judging by the WORD of GOD we look at size, duration, popularity, and level of affluence of a ministry, when we should be tasting the fruit of a man’s life.
We judge men by these worldly standards and fail to see what pleases GOD.
The image of the ARMY of GOD kicking in the Gates of Hell, “dancing on demons heads”, slicing and dicing ha’ satan in our effervescent ideas of intercessory prayer have no scriptural basis. In other words we have added to the book. And in doing so have taken away the lessons hidden in the WORD just as JESUS spoke in parables. That means we have violated both warnings of the Book of Revelations, and the church roles merrily along.
We give praise and honor to ministries and to men because the man = the ministry.
Being a worldly people we weigh everything by the ‘money’ the ‘‘superstars’’ can command. We merchandise to expand our ministries, to fund our ministries, to even begin our ministries. And because it is “good in our own eyes” and sounds religious it has to be GOD, yet 60+% of American and ‘traditional’ churches do not believe in the power and leading of the MOST HOLY SPIRIT, yet believe they are called and anointed. The 35+/-% of so called spirit filled churches have no manifestation of the GIFTS of THE MOST HOLY SPIRIT, yet they also say they are called and anointed, so where does this leave us,
All in the same boat being thrown about by the storm and JESUS is calmly standing on the water waiting for us to step out and away from the sinking church. All we were ever told to do is to stand by HIM/with HIM/and in HIM. In this case it would have been far better to have missed the boat.
The TRUE ARMY OF GOD can be summed up completely in the life and ministry of the Judge Shamgar, here is his story,
Judges 3:31
31 And after him was Shamgar the son of Anath, which slew of the Philistines six hundred men with an ox goad: and he also delivered Israel. (KJV)
And that is it. Shamgar, Judge of Israel, servant of YHVH,
No ministry to speak of, no exciting docu-drama for the kid’s video ministries, no frills service so to speak, not a character to build a Bapticostal Six Part Sermon series to sell to the stupid sheep, uh, make that “faithful prayer partners”, just a man who GOD used as GOD pleased.
According to Dr Strong “Shamgar” as a name has no meaning, yet the first few letters of his name in Hebrew are similar to that of ‘Samuel’. It is ‘shm (a)’,’’to hear’’, Old Shamgar heard GOD and obeyed. GOD used him to deliver Israel from the enemies that GOD used to get HIS PEOPLE’S attention when they forgot their GOD. Shamgar fitted in between Ehud and Deborah, we have no length of service or great battles won. Nothing to build a ministry on.
And that is the point, GOD used a man to minister as GOD PLEASED,
Shamgar obviously did not fit our criteria, had no real ‘people skills’, which did not seem to bother GOD at all, but look at the middle of that verse again, “which slew of the Philistines six hundred men with an ox goad”, neat trick if you think about it, so please try.
If you have a little problem with it I can understand.
An “ox goad” is a solid stick with a pointed end to “goad” oxen with. Some supposedly had a little hook at the end to what purpose I have not a clue. But as a preferred weapon in hand to hand combat with 600 Philistines fully armed and desirous of my immediate destruction, give me a break.
Talk about a Hollywood testosterone flick, or maybe a Hong Kong kung-fu epic, but GOD put it in HIS BOOK. Before there was Samson and David’s mighty men of valor who served GOD, without any side stories of harlots, sin, and failure, does seem out of place in that regard, .I can just see myself accosted at the mall by two full companies of US Marines in full battle dress, M16’s, M 60 LAW’s, rockets, mortars, ground-air support, naval gun fire, and a couple tanks, and I have a broom handle whittled at the end.
Seems far fetched, about as far fetched as 600 men with swords, armor, spears, javelins, slings, bows with arrows, and a lone man with an ox goad whose only job is to deliver Israel from the hand of the Philistine Nation. Once it was done with pilling up the bodies he probably went back to plowing his field rather than “building his ministry’’.
GOD required a service, and Shamgar obeyed. For all we know he may have led the people for 10-20-30-40 years, but that was not important. Obeying and pleasing GOD was/is/and shall always be,
The ARMY of GOD is one man at the time GOD appointed, anointed, and commissioned. Or it was a King with hundreds of thousands of men. Saul worried about the opinion of men and was bent out of shape when the Canaanite hit parade stopped singing about his exploits and began to sing about David. I wonder what could have sang about old Shamgar, .it probably had a country western melody and went like this,
Why, oh why did you kill those 600, why 600 Philistines in just one day.
With ox goad in hand and the Pow’r of da LORD and I just ran out of Philistines to kill that day.
Shamgar did his duty, all that ABBA required and passed on into history. Maybe we need to learn the EXTENT of our Duty and be compliant
Selah
Bob in Miami