Today’s Scripture – Judges 6:11-16
Continuing on from yesterday, we see in our scripture reading how the Israelites were in such a pitiable state spanning over seven torturous years
characterised by:
Oppression
Toil
Hardship
Fruitless Labour
Poverty
After 7 years of suffering, the Israelites finally wised up and cried out to Jehovah for help!
But there is something very critical that happened between God appearing to Gideon to make the promise of deliverance to him, and in Chapter 7 when
the promise was fulfilled and the victory realised.
Let’s pick up the story from Judges 6:25 reading on to verse 29—
In ancient Israel, the people worshipped Baal because he was thought to be the god of fertility, weather, rain, wind, lightning, seasons, war; and
they relied on him for agricultural prosperity.
In the hard economic times because of the Midianite oppression, the people worshipped Baal all the more – not understanding that they only made things
worse by not turning to God.
God called Gideon to get his own house in order first — he was ordered by God, to first tear down the altar of Baal.
But did Gideon not already build an altar in Judges 6:24?
Yes; but because there was an existing altar speaking against the people of Israel, and empowering the oppression of the enemy in their lives, until
that altar is taken down, there would be no deliverance for them!
Though Gideon didn’t partake in the sins, he was suffering the consequences with the people who did!
An altar serves to activate covenants. It also serves existing covenants —Everywhere there is an altar, the covenant it represents will always
be in active operation because the altar activates it.
In other words, wherever you find an altar, there is a covenant in existence over that place.
That was why God asked Gideon to first take down the altar of Ba‘al before going into battle. Gideon had to first break the power and influence that
the existing covenant exerted on his people before they could be liberated from the oppression of the enemy.
Today’s Prayer Focus:
- • Renounce every Satanic altar that has been entrenched in your family or lineage.
- • Renounce and remove yourself and your family from the demands of every ungodly covenants that are associated with the altar, and had empowered
the devourer against your life. - • Pray for the fire of God to consume and destroy all these family and ancestral altars and bring their effects in your life to an end.
- • Raise an altar of praise and worship unto God in the Name Of Jesus.
May God strengthen your hands in battle and give you the victory in Jesus’ Name.
Pastor Wale Ola