In this Youth With A Mission Teaching Podcast we will hear from Brother Andrew as he shares about "Challenges of the Impossible".
Based on the story of Gideon in Judges 6, Brother Andrew emphasises that God has faith in people, and man has faith in God. Throughout the teaching that was recorded in 1976, Brother Andrew uses life illustrations which are still relevant today.
When Brother Andrew was only 12-years old he was passing secret messages during World War II to help his home country of Holland to come out from the Nazi occupation. After the war he fought for his country in the Dutch East Indies and then after returning to Holland he discovered a new life following God.
After dedicating himself to God and his call, Brother Andrew became a messenger of hope, smuggling Scripture through closed borders and equipping persecuted Christians behind the Iron Curtain. The ministry that he began,
Open Doors, continues to shine the light of Christ in the world's darkest places.
You can read more about Brother Andrew, and the ministry to persecuted Christians around the globe, in his book "
God's Smuggler".
Judges 6 (NIV)
Gideon
6 The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, and for seven years he gave them into the hands of the Midianites. 2 Because the power of Midian was so oppressive, the Israelites prepared shelters for themselves in mountain clefts, caves and strongholds. 3 Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, the Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern peoplesinvaded the country. 4 They camped on the land and ruined the crops all the way to Gaza and did not spare a living thing for Israel, neither sheep nor cattle nor donkeys. 5 They came up with their livestock and their tents like swarms of locusts. It was impossible to count them or their camels; they invaded the land to ravage it. 6 Midian so impoverished the Israelites that they cried out to the Lord for help.
7 When the Israelites cried out to the Lord because of Midian, 8 he sent them a prophet, who said, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I brought you up out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 9 I rescued you from the hand of the Egyptians. And I delivered you from the hand of all your oppressors; I drove them out before you and gave you their land.10 I said to you, ‘I am the Lord your God; do not worship the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you live.’ But you have not listened to me.”
11 The angel of the Lord came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshingwheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites. 12 When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.”
13 “Pardon me, my lord,” Gideon replied, “but if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our ancestors told us about when they said, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up out of Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.”
14 The Lord turned to him and said, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?”
15 “Pardon me, my lord,” Gideon replied, “but how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.”
16 The Lord answered, “I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites, leaving none alive.”
17 Gideon replied, “If now I have found favor in your eyes, give me a signthat it is really you talking to me. 18 Please do not go away until I come back and bring my offering and set it before you.”
And the Lord said, “I will wait until you return.”
