Prayer (1) Gideon’s Prayer Regarding A Fleece

Today we’re starting a short series on prayer, and looking at a prayer which Gideon prayed. It’s in Judges 6:36-40.

Introduction

First, let’s look at the situation Gideon was in before we look at his prayer. We may think, ‘We pray, God answers. Simple.’ But when we look at what was going on at the time of Gideon, we’ll see that it isn’t quite so simple!

It’s about 1200 BC, give or take. Perhaps 200 years previously, Moses had led the Israelites out of Egypt to the land of Canaan. On the way they had fought and defeated a group of people called the Midianites. The Midianites were living in north-west Arabia at the time, as shown on this map. Archaeologists have found some evidence of the Midianites in the form of pottery, for example.

So, there was no love lost between the Israelites and the Midianites. The Midianites were still on the border of Canaan and after the Israelites settled in Canaan, they regularly raided them. In fact, they did a bit more than simply raid. At the beginning of chapter 6 we meet Gideon beating out wheat in the wine press to hide the wheat from the Midianites. In other words, the Midianites were all around. They had occupied the land of Canaan.

Why? Can you look at 6:3-4? It says:

…the Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern peoples invaded the country … They came up with their livestock and their tents like swarms of locusts … they invaded the land to ravage it.

The Israelites were in a crisis. Their situation was unbearable and unsustainable. But Gideon had a low expectation of God doing anything and a low expectation of God doing anything through him.

God has a condition!

Why should Gideon not expect God to act? That sounds funny, doesn’t it? Can you flip back to the beginning of chapter 2? I’m starting from half-way through verse 1. God says:

I brought you up from Egypt, and brought you into the land that I had promised to your ancestors. I said, “I will never break my covenant with you ...”

Go on to verse 2:

For your part, do not make a covenant with the inhabitants of this land; tear down their altars.

THIS WAS GOD’S INSTRUCTION: ‘Do not make a covenant with the inhabitants of this land; tear down their altars.’

Now verse 3:

But you have not obeyed my command. See what you have done! So now I say, I will not drive them out before you; but they shall become adversaries to you, and their gods shall be a snare to you.

God has told the Israelites, ‘I will not drive them out before you.’ In other words, ‘I’m not going to help you’! That might seem extraordinary to some of us. We just assume that God always helps. Why is God not going to help? (I’m just checking you’re following!) Because ‘you have not obeyed my command’. What was God’s command? ‘Do not make a covenant with the inhabitants of this land; tear down their altars.’

How do you suppose this situation could be fixed? Is anyone thinking, ‘Tear down some altars’?

There’s a very basic lesson here. God is telling the Israelites, as plain as day, ‘You get my help as long as you keep my covenant.’ I can’t emphasise strongly enough how important this is. It’s key to the whole concept of prayer. When we pray, we hope God will answer our prayers; we hope that God will help us. But, as in the case of the Israelites, God might not want to help us!

At the heart of God’s relationship with man is a covenant. God gives his people many wonderful promises. Preachers love to tell congregations God’s wonderful promises. But God also makes demands. Preachers are not always quite as good at telling congregations about God’s demands. But just like those ancient Israelites, we have to do what God demands if we want to experience his promises.

God affirms Gideon

The Israelites, in short, were in a mess. They were not obeying God and God was not helping them – for very good reason.

The Israelites cry out to God. That’s a good start. An angel of the Lord comes and sits under an oak near to where Gideon lives. It seems like a kind of relaxed thing to do. No one recognizes him as an angel at this stage. Then the angel says to Gideon, ‘God is with you, mighty warrior’.

The angel says: ‘God is with you’. God may be annoyed with the Israelites. But he hasn’t abandoned them. Then the angel says ‘mighty warrior’.

God doesn’t start by telling Gideon to do something. God starts by telling Gideon who he is. He affirms Gideon.

I’ve looked at quite a number of sermons on this passage. Most of them take the view that Gideon was a coward. They assume Gideon was threshing wheat in the wine press because he was afraid. I imagine we’ve all heard the saying ‘Fools rush in where angels fear to tread’. Sensible people avoid danger. If Gideon was threshing in such a way as to avoid a confrontation, it does not make him a coward, it makes him sensible. We are not called to place ourselves in harm’s way. Since most of the preachers on this passage think Gideon was a coward, they assume that the angel means that Gideon will be a mighty warrior. I prefer to think that Gideon already was a mighty warrior. He had the courage and skill for a fight. But he needed some encouragement.