Judges 10:14 Go and cry unto the gods which ye have chosen; let them deliver you in the time of your tribulation
Perhaps you know the experience of being up to your knees in the surf on some ocean front and thirty minutes later you are a hundred yards down the beach from where you began. You didn’t even notice it, but very strongly, very slowly the surf and pull of the ocean began to move you down the beach away from your beginning position. You began to drift. A lot of times we don’t just drift, we make choices that result in changing our position from where we were before. You don’t know the strength of the current until you try to swim against it. That is true of life, yet there is a similar principle in play here as well, that is trouble reveals the strength of your God.
In Judges 10 when the people of Israel cried unto God when they were being defeated by their enemies, God basically responded, “I have delivered you from Egypt. I have given you victory over your enemies. When you cried, I delivered.” Verse 13 says, “Yet ye have forsaken me, and served other gods: wherefore I will deliver you no more. Go and cry unto the gods which ye have chosen; let them deliver you in the time of your tribulation.”
So, you don’t know how strong the current is until you try to do something differently and you don’t know how strong your god is until you face trouble that reveals that. If I am serving a “little g god,” then I am only as strong as the god I serve. If I am serving the God of creation, then I am up to whatever it is that I face.
The Bible says the children of Israel “cried unto the LORD” in verse 10, and then in verse 14 He says, “Go and cry unto the gods which ye have chosen.” This is a choice. These were supposedly small decisions they made, but they brought consequences. So, trouble reveals the strength of your god. In peaceful times when everything is going fine, you may not think about the strength of your god, but when there is a difficult time, trouble reveals the strength of your god.
This should encourage you if you are serving God or should enlighten you if you are not. There are a lot of things money can buy, but there are a lot of things money cannot buy. You are only as able as the god you serve. There are some things knowledge can’t reveal. There are some things charm cannot change. In short, you are only as able as the god you serve.
When push came to shove for God’s people, they realized they had false gods that could do no good. What was needed was not just surrender and not just surrender to the power of God but surrender to the goodness and wisdom of God. Verse 15 says, “And the children of Israel said unto the LORD, We have sinned: do thou unto us whatsoever seemeth good unto thee; deliver us only, we pray thee, this day.
They came to a point where they were surrendering. They had oftentimes said, “God, help,” but I think this would have been a little bit different. They were confessing what they had done. They had sinned. Then they surrendered. They said, “Do whatever you want to, whatever seems good to You.” They were surrendering not just to the power of God that their idols did not have, but to the goodness and wisdom of God. “Do whatever seems good unto you.” That would require wisdom and goodness. When you forsake God, the God who loves you, you serve the god who hates you.
Verse 6 says that the children of Israel served the gods of the Philistines and the gods of the Ammonites. Verse 7 says, “And the anger of the LORD was hot against Israel, and he sold them into the hands of the Philistines, and into the hands of the children of Ammon.” So, whenever it comes in my life where I forsake the God who loves me, I am going to serve gods who do not care about me. Yet, our God cares. Our misery grieves God. Verse 16 says, “And they put away the strange gods from among them, and served the LORD: and his soul was grieved for the misery of Israel.”
What about you? What are your gods? Are you trusting in your money, knowledge, charm, or power? You are only as able as the god you serve, and trouble reveals the strength of your god.