Gary Gleans

People often mistake the tolerance of God for the blessing of God.  God is very patient and merciful which is the only reason that any of us are alive.  There are things that He allows to happen that are an abomination to Him, yet He tolerates as He waits for us to repent.  Micah and his mother are a prime example of the idolatry that was running rampant in Israel and God seems to do nothing about it.  This is misinterpreted as God’s blessing and Micah rejoices in his sin.  When people order their lives according to their own desire and experience as opposed to knowing and obeying the Word of God, they run the great risk of living an abominable life before the Lord.  The saddest thing is that they do not even realize it and thing that God is somehow pleased with this and giving them a blessing. MICAH CONFESSES HIS ROBBERY  Micah had stolen money from his mother and she had pronounced a curse on the person who took it.  Micah is worried ...

Samson was a blind man in more ways than one.  The Philistines gouged out his eyes and made a spectacle out of him, so he was physically blind.  However, he was also blinded by his lust for women.  The desires of his flesh were so strong that he was somehow unable to see that the women he “loved” were simply using their bodies as a means to subdue him and make profit off of him.  Unfortunately, his most serious form of blindness was a spiritual blindness that kept him from fearing and serving the Lord with his heart.  He had a potential to be used of God in amazing ways and could have done much to further the work of God in the lives of the children of Israel.  Instead he ran around like a bull in a china closet and his great power was essentially wasted.  His lack of fear for the Lord made him proud, indulgent and basically useless.  God has given all of us potential for serving Him, but we too often waste these blessings on self promotion and ...

Samson has a physical strength that we have never seen before.  God empowered him in a way that he did not need to lead the armies of Israel into battle against the enemy, he simply went up and faced thousands of men and was able to be victorious over them alone with the strength the Lord had given him.  The life of Samson is heroic and tragic all at the same time.  He is able to accomplish amazing things, but he is also so flawed in his character and controlled by the lusts of his flesh.  It truly would have been amazing to see what this powerful man could have accomplished had he been able to match his spiritual strength to his physical strength.  The reality is that all of us have been given gifts that God would have us use under His strength and for His glory but we often are lured away from serving Him to our full capacity because of the lusts of our own flesh.  We too are tragic stories of God’s provisions being wasted or underutilized because of th...

All of us want to be strong.  We like to think of ourselves as strong and able to be powerful and take care of ourselves.  However, there is a different kind of strength that is even more valuable than physical strength; that is spiritual strength.  When we are strong spiritually, we have the ability to withstand strong temptations and live in a way that is pleasing to God.  Samson was a man who had great physical strength, but was spiritually weak.  God had blessed him with a strong body and his parents had consecrated him to the Lord from his conception; but he was still unable to face the temptations of his flesh and lived a careless and sinful life. SAMSON WAS WEAK IN OBEYING THE LAW: As a Nazirite, there were some very specific laws that Samson was to follow.  He was not to marry outside of the children of Israel, he was not to cut his hair, he was not to eat certain foods and he was not to touch anyone or anything that was dead.  In this ch...

God is a God of promises and He graciously makes promises to His people in order to give them hope in the midst of difficult circumstances.  Israel has once again strayed from the will of the Lord and has begun to be oppressed by the Philistines.  Despite the fact that they have been through this cycle over and over again, they find themselves in difficult times due to their own sinfulness.  God, once again, steps in and brings them hope by announcing the birth of a prophet whom He plans to use to set Israel free.  God has continually revealed promises to us so that we can have hope in the midst of the difficult circumstances in which we live.  God begins to prepare the life of Sampson through his parents and He reveals to them part of God’s plan for them and their son. MANOAH’S WIFE RECEIVES NEW INFORMATION: This couple was barren and seems to be older in years to the point that they had lost hope of being able to have children.  God always seems to us...

Jealousy is a very dangerous thing.  The people of Ephraim seem to have a great problem with this and they rose up against Jephthah because they claimed that they had not been called to be a part of the battle against the Amonites.  They had done the same thing with Gideon and now they were at it again only threatening to attach Jephthah and his family for having overlooked them.  When people become jealous and they begin to care more about who gets the credit than they do about what was done it reveals a corrupt heart before the Lord.  I must be very careful to protect my heart from jealousy and pride.  It is easy to slip into the desire for recognition and begin to care more about “my” ministry than the kingdom of God as a whole. THE CONSEQUENCES OF JEALOUSY: Ephraim’s jealousy led them to threaten violence against Jephthah, but unlike Gideon, Jephthah called them on their treacherous ways and reminded them that he had called them to the battle, but that t...

Israel faced the invasion of the Amorites with much fear, but this was really the hand of God bringing them to Israel in order to free Israel from the oppression that they faced.  Israel had repented of the idolatry that had brought on this domination in the first place so God began to liberate them.  We do not normally think of an army invading Israel as God’s plan for liberation, but that is exactly what it was.  Israel may have been content to simply pay tribute and be oppressed for many years, but when they cried out to God and put away their idols; God responded by bringing the army of the Amorites against Israel in war so that Israel could be set free.  The path to freedom is usually always through conflict and battle.  We must begin to view the difficulties in our lives as God’s means of bringing us freedom from the sin that constantly oppresses us. JEPHTHAH BECOMES AN UNLIKELY VICTOR: Jephthah was driven from his own home by his brothers be...