Fat Kings and Swords

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Where’s Your Gilgal?

Judges 2:10 ‘Eventually that entire generation died and was buried. Then another generation grew up that didn’t know anything of God or the work he had done for Israel .’ or insert the work he had done for the United Kingdom (Judges 2:10 MSG)

That folks is what has happened to our country! And now just like the people of Israel in Egypt, we have become enslaved to another god! (Pharaoh was seen as the ‘son of god’). There is a strong man who thinks he is in charge of the UK, he thinks he has us in his grip and that he can’t be defeated! He gives the people no rest and just works them till they die, hoping then to feast on their flesh and become fat (just like Eglon in the story below) and send them straight to hell! Can that strong man be defeated? God calls us to rise up in an anger that won’t go away until we do something!

Click Judges 3 or read the story below

So what happened was that Ehud had a thought, he was probably scared and never believed he would actually carry out his half formed plan. He had strapped that sword there, to his inner right thigh, hiding it, and it went undiscovered. After paying the tribute to the King of the Moabites, Eglon, Ehud got back as far as Gilgal, and something happened there. He snapped, is what happened. We read earlier in Judges that the memorial stones, marking where the people had crossed the Jordan into the Promised Land, had been replaced by stone idols. When Ehud saw that, he suddenly got very angry! I’m talking red hot anger, the kind that won’t go away, the kind that leaves you wondering what to do with yourself! So he went back, slaughtered the King of the Moabites, then went to the top of a mountain and blew a trumpet calling all the men to himself. Then he led those men, defeating the Moabites at the fords to the river Jordan, which they also secured against the enemy

Angry people are not popular. So we suppress our anger. In fact we are not that keen on ‘passion’, unless it’s about children in trouble or something! So what is your Gilgal? Is it when you see porn or lads mags displayed at eye level in your local news agents? Is it the hurt people you see every day? People without hope. People dying and going to Hell? What’s really getting your goat?

I would encourage us all to think of that one thing that’s getting us angry. If you can’t think of something, then ask The Lord to point it out. Then I would ask us us to strap on our swords and go out and plunge that sword deep into the enemy! Go on strike a blow!

Pray:
“Come on my soul, rise up in the name of Jesus! Let me grasp with a firm hand, that never tires, the sword Father has given me. Rise up, oh my soul! Rise up!” Amen, let it be so.

Let’s secure the fords of our Jordan, our land. And the only people we will bring in will be the captives, let’s usher in the captives, the rescued ones!

Thanks for reading and don’t be frightened about getting angry – it’s righteous, it’s sanctified!

Andy
Great website for men here

Judy Jacobs – Days of Elijah – No God like Jehovah – great song!

The Story:
There was a man called Ehood in Judea at the time of the Judges who suddenly came upon the realisation that the ‘strong man’ could be defeated. He came to this realisation at Gilgal, a red hot anger began to burn within him there. So what’s the story?
“But the People of Israel went back to doing evil in God’s sight. So God made Eglon king of Moab a power against Israel because they did evil in God’s sight. He recruited the Ammonites and Amalekites and went out and struck Israel. They took the City of Palms. The People of Israel were in servitude to Eglon fourteen years. The People of Israel cried out to God and God raised up for them a savior, Ehud son of Gera, a Benjaminite. He was left-handed. The People of Israel sent tribute by him to Eglon king of Moab. Ehud made himself a short two-edged sword and strapped it on his right thigh under his clothes. He presented the tribute to Eglon king of Moab. Eglon was grossly fat. After Ehud finished presenting the tribute, he went a little way with the men who had carried it. But when he got as far as the stone images near Gilgal, he went back and said, “I have a private message for you, O king.” The king told his servants, “Leave.” They all left. Ehud approached him-the king was now quite alone in his cool rooftop room-and said, “I have a word of God for you.” Eglon stood up from his throne. Ehud reached with his left hand and took his sword from his right thigh and plunged it into the king’s big belly. Not only the blade but the hilt went in. The fat closed in over it so he couldn’t pull it out. Ehud slipped out by way of the porch and shut and locked the doors of the rooftop room behind him. Then he was gone. When the servants came, they saw with surprise that the doors to the rooftop room were locked. They said, “He’s probably relieving himself in the restroom.” They waited. And then they worried-no one was coming out of those locked doors. Finally, they got a key and unlocked them. There was their master, fallen on the floor, dead! While they were standing around wondering what to do, Ehud was long gone. He got past the stone images and escaped to Seirah. When he got there, he sounded the trumpet on Mount Ephraim. The People of Israel came down from the hills and joined him. He took his place at their head. He said, “Follow me, for God has given your enemies-yes, Moab!-to you.” They went down after him and secured the fords of the Jordan against the Moabites. They let no one cross over. At that time, they struck down about ten companies of Moabites, all of them well-fed and robust. Not one escaped. That day Moab was subdued under the hand of Israel. The land was quiet for eighty years. (Judges 3:12-30 MSG)