In episode 45 of the "No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe" podcast, the hosts open with John 1:1 and frame the series on the power of spoken words. Building on previous episodes that examined Proverbs 18:20‑21, Mark 11, and King David, this installment focuses on Judges 6 and the story of Gideon. The hosts contrast God’s affirming speech to Gideon—"The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor"—with Gideon’s self‑deprecating responses, highlighting how divine words empower while human self‑talk can undermine. They discuss the concept of an inner “punk” voice that condemns, referencing Romans 8:1, and propose that recognizing and rejecting this voice aligns believers with the Spirit. The episode interprets the capitalized “Angel of the Lord” as a pre‑incarnate appearance of Christ, emphasizing the authority of God’s spoken word. Listeners are urged to read Judges 6, reflect on how they would answer God’s call, and join a Bible study where differing perspectives are examined. The overall message is that speaking in line with God’s word activates spiritual power, especially when one overcomes internal condemnation.
Welcome to episode 45, Gospel of John 1:1.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Spending time in the word of God is the best way to spend time with God. Welcome to No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast, where we will encourage inspire, and empower you to live your best life in Christ. Here's Greg.
Welcome to episode 45. We are staying on the power of your spoken word, and we're going to stay in the Old Testament and another story that I really like and one I think you've probably— may be familiar with. It's the story of Gideon, and that's found in Judges 6:11. It starts out in 6:11. But I just kind of want to give a little bit of preface. If you've just now— if you're tuning in for the first time, I, I started in episode 40, which was 4 episodes, 5 episodes ago. I started talking about the power of your spoken word, and we, we're building on— and we're only here for about 10 minutes, so we're kind of building on precept upon precept. And we talked about the power of your words in Proverbs 18:20 and 21. And then we talked about in Mark 11— love those scriptures. And then we started talking the last two episodes, we talk about King David, and now we're going to talk about Gideon. And I want to see the compare and contrast because I want you to see— and I don't know if you've ever even looked at the story of Gideon, but I want you to see the, the words that God speaks over Gideon and then the words that come out of Gideon's mouth. And so I want to, I kind of want to show you the power of your words, and we look at both how God speaks and how man speaks. And I think it's a pretty good contrast, and it'd give you an idea kind of how, you know, that we do have a punk inside our head, and the punk is, you know, he's very condemning, And I think it's in Romans 8:1, it says, "Now therefore there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit." Now that does not mean that people or Satan or demons or whatever are not gonna condemn you. That just, the way I read that is none of that condemnation should stick. And so when you start listening, if you start listening to the punk that's inside of your head In one of our upcoming episodes, and it may be in our little private Bible study group, we're going to talk about the 3 voices that talk, that speak to you. And one of these voices is the condemning, the negative, the 'you're no good,' the one I hear a lot in my head that I am choosing to ignore. And that's why I'm on this podcast, is I'm still hearing the punk telling me, you know, why are you even doing this? You're worthless, you're this, you're that. But you know, I'm a child of the King and I can do anything I want. And if I can do this, and I can't see in my mind, I cannot see how me opening up the Bible and reading the Bible and talking about what I see and how I see the Bible, I can't see how that's gonna hurt God. And, and when I say this over and over again, I tell, tell you and have told you, if you've listened to any, any episodes, I've never written one word in this Bible. That none of these words, not one word, not one 'and' or one 'the' I put in there. So I'm not any part of this, uh, book. I read this book, I study this book just like you do. I also say I make a horrible Holy Spirit So do not go by what I say, but just what I'm— what I'm here to do is just to make you think and encourage you to get into the word for yourself, to read what I'm reading. And then with what I've said and how I kind of see it, ask the Holy Spirit, is this guy crazy or is this close? Or maybe the Holy Spirit will open it up something totally different from you. And that's when we have our Bible study where iron sharpens iron, and we're going to talk about different you know, different times with this in mind. When you start reading the Bible with these different thoughts in your mind, like the power of your words, and when you see people speaking in the Bible and then see what happens after they speak, then you can kind of see where, you know, where there is power in your words. And it's not all just doing things. It's mostly the power in the spirit realm, I believe, is mostly done by speaking it and, and getting in line with the word of God and what the word and what the Holy Spirit and what Father God are trying to accomplish. And instead of trying to figure out some new way of doing, figure out what God's doing and get involved in what he's doing. And that's how you're going to win. And that's kind of why I want to get into Gideon, because with, with Gideon, God had something he wanted to get done through Gideon. And in the beginning, Gideon was not on board. And so we're going to pick up Judges 6:11. Now the angel of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth tree which was in Ophath— whatever, I, I don't do English real good, it's not my first language— which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon threshed wheat in the winepress in order to hide from the Midianites. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, the Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor. So I want you to— I want to stop right there. I want you to hear what the Lord— now when it says the angel of the Lord, the Angel, that it's a capital A. So there's people, and I've been taught that whenever it's capitalized like the Angel, that was Jesus, or the angel of the Lord, that represented God. So this was not just no ordinary angel, this was the angel of the Lord. And so we're gonna call this the Lord himself when he comes and talks to Gideon. So this is Jesus speaking to Gideon, and I want you to hear the first thing that he says to Gideon is, "The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor." I mean, how cool would that be to have God speak that over you? Well, now let's listen to what Gideon says. And then Gideon said to him, this is in Judges 6:13, And then Gideon says to him, oh my lord, if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? And where are all his miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, did the Lord bring us up from Egypt? But now the Lord has forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites. All right, so that's, that's Gideon in 13 speaking that the Lord just said, you mighty man of valor, And so now Gideon said, "Oh, where— oh, why has the Lord forsaken us?" You know, he just got spoken over by the Lord. And then in 14, the Lord's going to speak again, and I want you to listen to what the Lord says. Then the Lord turned to him and said, "Go in this might of yours, and you shall save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Have I not sent you?" Then Gideon goes back and says, So he said to him, "O my lord, how can I save Israel? Indeed my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house." I, I'm going to stop right there for a minute, and I just want us to think all this comparing and contrasting. God's saying, "You mighty man of valor, go in this might of yours and you shall save Israel." We hear Gideon say, "Oh Lord, I How can I save Israel? I am— my father's house is, is the— we are this— we are the worst clan in all of Israel. And oh, by the way, my father's house is the weakest clan, and I'm the weakest of the weak. So we're talking about a worm here. Gideon sees himself as nothing. So that— I mean, I really believe Gideon's in the right position to do mighty for God. He don't know. I mean, if as we read it and as you think about, you know, God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. God gonna— God's gonna give grace to Gideon because Gideon's own words tell you what Gideon thinks of himself. Gideon is very humble, but not the humble that I'm about to be used of the Lord. It is like, I am a worm I am the worst of the worst. I am the weakest of the weak, and I— there's no way I can do this. So then we're going to pick up what, what the angel of the Lord says to— now it's, now it's God's turn to talk in 16. And the Lord said to him, surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat the Midianites as one man. Now that's pretty powerful. If God is with you, you can defeat a whole army. As one man. I mean, you just got to make sure God's with you. And Gideon's going to get into that, you know, he's not going to just go out there with this one word and say, oh my gosh, here I go. Because now we're going to pick up what Gideon says. And then he said to him, if now I have found favor in your sight, then show me a sign. So Gideon's starting to— maybe, maybe he's believing this, maybe, I don't know. But if If I'm going to do this, I need to know that you're going to be with me because I know I'm the weakest of the weak and there's no way I can defeat the Midianites. In fact, I'm in this winepress, you know, grinding out grain, hiding from the Midianites because every time we show ourselves, they come and steal our harvest and do all this. So I'm going to stop it right there. I just kind of want to— in fact, I would really like for you to get into Judges and, and it's in Judges 6, and pick up the story of Gideon and read that back and forth and kind of think about how you would answer. If, if the angel of the Lord appeared to you, how would you, how would you answer him? And then I want to tell you that God's word is power, and he's told you you can do an awful lot. And how are you answering that call? So that's enough for right now. Let's just go to the next episode. I want to thank you for being a part of this, and I look forward to talking to you in the next episode.
Thanks for listening to the No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast at www.nodoubtonlybelieve.com.
