Episode 46 of the “No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe” podcast, hosted by Greg Ryan, explores the biblical theme of the power of spoken words through the story of Gideon in Judges 6‑7. The episode opens with a sponsor message for 1211 Apparel, a Bible‑based clothing line that offers free training for the Great Commission. The host then reflects on Gideon’s fear‑laden circumstances—hiding in a winepress, confronting the Midianites, and receiving divine instruction—and draws parallels to his own struggle with negative self‑talk and low self‑esteem. He emphasizes that meditating on Scripture can silence the “punk” voice of criticism, and that hearing encouraging words—whether from God, the Bible, or other believers—strengthens faith. The host highlights key verses (Judges 7:7, 7:9, 7:20) illustrating how God uses a small group of 300 men and the power of spoken proclamation to achieve victory. He urges listeners to replace fear with action, trust God’s personal knowledge of them, and discern whether words come from God or from the enemy. The episode concludes with a call to subscribe and a reminder that the Bible is the source for hearing God’s voice.
Welcome to episode 46. You know how it starts.
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 46. If you've been listening to me the last week or so, you will have realized that my sponsor is wearing me out. I have not had him on in over a week and I'm tired of listening to him. So without further ado, if you've ever struggled with the Great Commission, I have just the thing, 1211 Apparel, and I'll let my sponsor take it from here. 1211 Apparel, the most powerful clothing line in the world because it's —based on the Bible and gives glory to God. Jesus gave his followers a Great Commission before he left, and that Great Commission includes you and me. But if you have ever struggled with sharing Jesus, 1211 Apparel created Prayer Wear and Share to help. It's a free training on how to fulfill Jesus' promise of light and easy, found in Matthew 11:28-30. Since 1211 Apparel is Bible-based, they start out with giving first. Give and it will come back to you. This is not a theory, it's the truth. 1211 Apparel wants to give you access to unlimited Christian tracts and free training to help you get off the pew and into the battle for the souls of your friends and family. Use our special link, nodoubtonlybelieve.com/battle, to get started today. Well, I'm glad I remembered to do that. He has been wearing me out in the last few days, the week or so. He's been wearing me out saying, "Look, when am I going to get back on?" So now he can leave me alone for a week or so, and we'll, we'll let him go. We'll put him away. If you've listened to the previous episode, you will know that we're still talking about the power of your spoken words, and I was in Judges 6, and I think it's 6 through like 8, all the way through Judges 8. It's the story of Gideon and how Gideon was hiding in his father's winepress, and he was grinding out the wheat because the Midianites would— whenever they saw them harvesting or saw the Israelites, um, getting, getting their crop, they would come down and they would steal all of their crops from them. So they had to hide, and that's what Gideon was doing. And then the angel of the Lord appeared to him and started speaking to him. And I'm not going to go back through all of that, but it It's kind of, it's kind of neat to look at how the angel of the Lord, or Jesus, talked to Gideon and how Gideon talked back. And I think a lot of that parallels, maybe, maybe not you, but with me, I, I have a— I don't know about a low self-esteem, but I, I don't have a high opinion of myself. And the punk inside my head just reiterates that same thing. He, he continuously just berates and belittles and all of the things that, that goes with being negative and condemning. It's— he's all about that. So if you got that going on in your head, I want to encourage you to get into the Word of God. You know I'm gonna— you know I'm gonna tell you that it's all about the Word of God, and that's why I'm here. But it truly is. If you start reading the Word and you start getting and meditating on the things that God's Word says about you It'll be harder and harder for the punk to make you believe some of the garbage that he's spewing into your head. And, and he's continually talking to me, and I've heard some people tell me, ah, you know, you're not this, you're not that. And he sometimes uses other people to speak instead of speaking into my head. He'll speak out loud using other people, which is fine. I told God a long time ago I wasn't going to fight with any of his kids, any of his children. And then he showed me that all of y'all are his children. So I really can't fight with anybody. So when someone lashes out irrationally at me, the best— my best recourse is he's told me to turn the other cheek. So I've just got to move on. But what I listen to more and more is that voice of truth that Casting Crowns talks about, but it's found in the Bible. I start reading about what God says about me and how he loves me and he wants nothing but good for me.. And so I just meditate on those things and I just look for the good in everything. And I try to look for the good in everybody. If you know me, I, I'm, I'm an encourager for the most part and try to encourage people, but enough about that. I just wanted to, to compare what was going on in Gideon's head when he was talking to God. I mean, he's been beat down, he's hiding and he's fearful. You know, he didn't have a podcast like this to turn on. And get him encouraged. So he's in that winepress, and then the angel of the Lord comes and talks to him, and he's still got a little bit of negative in him. And the reason I picked this story, or Gideon as the character that I wanted to talk about, the power of your words— you know, you talk to yourself in your head. There are— and I've, I've alluded to this, for a big fancy-pants word, I've alluded to this in a previous podcast, but I'm I'm going to speak on— there's at least 3 voices that I hear in my head, and they all sound the same, but I believe they come from 3 different sources. Gideon had an expectation of what was going to happen if he just did everything that he normally did. The Midianites were going to come down and storm everything. So Gideon was coming at this from fear. He was fear-minded. And that's one of the other reasons why I wanted to pick this, is because we are walking around in the— in my podcast is No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe. I believe a lot of us are, are walking today in fear and we're not walking in faith and we're walking in unbelief. And that's why I think we just need to get in this word. That said, I want to pick back up into Judges 7:7, and it— in, in that it says, then the Lord said to Gideon, by the 300 men who lapped, I will save you and deliver the Midianites into your hand. Let all the other people go, every man to his place. And I— when, when I was talking about faith, I just wanted you to see, and I, and I've skipped over a lot of the story because I kind of want to get to the place where I want to go with this. It is Gideon was given strength. He, you know, he— God showed himself faithful. If you read from Judges 6 to this place right here, Gideon you know, had tested God and God showed himself faithful. And then Gideon, he— there was just a bunch of people that came out to hear the call. Look, they got tired of getting beat up. And I think that's where a lot of us are right now. We're tired of all of this COVID stuff, all this lockdown stuff, all the government stuff. I mean, it is all of the stuff that's going on. Many of you that I've talked to, and myself included, I mean, we're just tired of being told what to do. By people that aren't running our lives. They're trying to run our lives, and they're, they're not, they're not the person. You and I are the people in charge, or I'm in the— I'm the person in charge of my life. You're the person in charge of your life. And to have anybody else tell us what to do, it just kind of goes against the grain a little bit. And the reason I started here is because God had told it— God had told Gideon, look, there's too many people here. I'm not going to get the glory for this thing. So God wants the glory. You know, one of the early, early back into the— I can't even remember, 1 or 2 or 3 episode where it said, you know, the reason that I'm here is in 1 Corinthians 1:26-29. And, and verse 29 in there is, is that no flesh should glory in his presence. God will not share his glory with anyone, and he wasn't going to share it with Gideon. He wanted Gideon to know that it was God, and all of the people around Gideon to know that it was God who delivered them. So God gives him instructions and tells him, look, we're gonna— you're gonna take these 300 men and then you're gonna go and destroy the Midianites. But God also knows who he was dealing with, and Gideon had some self-confidence issues, and I had And he— God is so faithful. God knows that I had self-confidence issues, and there's nothing that destroys fear more than action. And he's gotten me into this podcast thing, and I want to encourage you, just take some action, get after something. And Gideon started moving his feet, and, and God said, hey, in verse 9, it, it happened on the same night that the Lord said to him, arise and go down against the camp. For I have delivered it into your hand. But if you are afraid to go down, go down to the camp with Purah your servant, and you shall hear what they say; and afterwards your hands shall be strengthened to go down against the camp. Then he went down with Purah his servant to the outpost of the armed men who were in the camp. Now God is so awesome, he knows you by name. The Bible says that he calls his sheep by name. It's a personal relationship. He knows if you're too scared to do this on your own, he's got to encourage you a little bit. And that's— he knew Gideon. He, he made Gideon, so he looked into Gideon's heart and knew that Gideon's still just a little bit nervous about this, taking these Midianites. And I mean, the camp, there were thousands and thousands, or hundreds of thousands, there was a bunch of Midianites, and Gideon had 300 people. So Gideon, of course, was a little bit skeptical. And so he go— God says, look, if you're skeptical, go on down to this camp. Well, I'm not going to read all that. You can read this in, in Judges 7. But Gideon goes down to the camp and he hears this story. In fact, I am going to read this because it, it's kind of— it's funny if you just think about, you know, Gideon's going down there to, you know, he don't know what he's going to hear. And then when Gideon had come, there was a man telling a dream to his companion. He said, I have had a dream. To my surprise, a loaf of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian. It came to a tent and struck it, and it fell and overturned, and the tent collapsed. Then his companion answered and said, This is nothing else but the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel. Into his hand God has delivered Midian and the whole camp. And you may be thinking, now how does that have anything to do with the power of your words? Well, it's kind of a left-handed thing that the power of words, of people's words, mean things. And when Gideon heard these people talking, it strengthened, just like God said, it strengthened his hands. And so then if you'll continue to read on, that Gideon did, and it was, it was miraculous. It was, you know, there's 300 men against thousands and thousands and they had a clay pot and a candle and a trumpet. And I mean, and then they just shouted, and they used, you know, the, the sword of Gideon and the Lord, I think, or, um, let me see what he did. The sword of the Lord and of Gideon. And that is found in, in verse 7:20. It is incredible, the power of words. And in the next episode— this one's kind of running on a little more than I want, but I wanted to get to this point that it's not always— it's not always God's word, and it's not always your words, but other people can speak. And Gideon then had to just act on what he heard. The power— and those— the power of those words strengthened him. And, and, you know, sometimes words will strengthen you, and sometimes they'll discourage you. And that's why you got to make sure you, you know if it's God sending you to these words or if it's Satan.. And then we're going to get into the, you know, the physical and the spirit realm. And if you want to be certain that it's God speaking to you, again, I'm going to say it, you got to go to God's Word. If you want to hear the Word of God, you have to be in the Bible. Well, that's enough for this episode. I want to thank you for being a part of this. And if you haven't subscribed, hit the subscribe button, and I'll see you in the next episode.
Thanks for listening to the No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast at www.no-doubt-no-fear-only-believe.com. Www.nodoubtonlybelieve.com
