House Cleaning
Judges 6 :17-32
Last week we started learning about Gideon, and how he was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites. How his situation and fears were not too different than ours today. We live in works where modern Midianites consume our resources and leave us with fear for our children and our future.
The angel of the Lord spoke to Gideon and informs him that God has answered the prayers of the people and that Gideon is being sent to deal with the problem.
Gideon gave a series of excuses when he heard the plan. We ended last week with Gideon asking how could he save Israel? The answered was that God was with him.
Gideon was being asked….called ….to respond with the little bit of strength that he had and that God would go with him…
Basically, God was calling him to leave the winepress. I suggested that we are also called to stop thrashing around with worry and go into the world.
Let’s pickup with our scripture this morning,
Judges 6:17
Gideon replied, "If now I have found favor in your eyes, give me a sign that it is really you talking to me. 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."
Gideon went in, prepared a young goat, and from an ephah of flour he made bread without yeast. Putting the meat in a basket and its broth in a pot, he brought them out and offered them to him under the oak.
The angel of God said to him, "Take the meat and the unleavened bread, place them on this rock, and pour out the broth." And Gideon did so. With the tip of the staff that was in his hand, the angel of the LORD touched the meat and the unleavened bread. Fire flared from the rock, consuming the meat and the bread. And the angel of the LORD disappeared. When Gideon realized that it was the angel of the LORD, he exclaimed, "Ah, Sovereign LORD! I have seen the angel of the LORD face to face!"
Gideon is out of the press and hears that God wants him to do something and most importantly is promising to be with him. His response, If and I mean IF, you are talking to me, hold on for a few minutes and let me make an offering…Wait Right here.
Gideon is not at all sure that he is the right guy.
Have any of you ever thought and maybe even said out loud, if I really knew that it was God talking to me I would do exactly what He said. I know I have. In my case I often have thoughts or ideas that seem to come from nowhere. I think they are some kind of small revelation form God…But I am not really sure.
I think if God would just speak to me with a human voice I would be sure. This scripture proves that God already tried that and his test subject failed to respond immediately and with conviction. Gideon had to come up with his own set of assurances. A prophet..an angel sitting by the oak tree was not enough.
Gideon wants to make an offering, a special meal.
A young goat and an e path of flower, they say that a epath was about 3 /5 of bushel. A bushel of wheat would weight about 60 pounds. A bushel of flower would probably weigh less. If it is 50 pounds then 3/5 is 30 pounds of flower to make bread.
The amount is not as important as the idea that Gideon was making a sizable sacrifice to this representative of God. Last week we heard about how the Midianites were taking everything of value from the Israelites.
When times are hard it is not easy to make a generous offering to God. In Gideon’s case, even if it were only 10 pounds of flower; it could mean feeding a family for one or two days.
This bread and meat were a lot more than one or two men could eat.
He brings the meal and the angel gives him instructions.
Put the meat and the bread on that rock over there then pour that gravy all over it. And Gideon does as he is told.
All this looks to me like a test. This fella, was just sitting there by the winepress talking really big. He is claiming to be speaking for God. It looks to me like Gideon, decides to test the messenger.
-----He is saying make me believe. Make me really know that God is with me, that God wants me to do something.
He demonstrates the God’s prophet, an angel is not enough to make him respond. However, he is curious enough to investigate the claim.
The angel takes the end of his staff and touches the meat and bread and flames jump OUT of the rock and consume the offering.
This is not like when the grill flares up and threatens to burn the hamburgers. This is a just a big rock, sitting a daytime temperature. The bread and meat have been covered in gravy and are soaking wet. And the flames flare up and instantly consume everything.
While Gideon is staring with his mouth open, the angel disappears.
Gideon gets it.
God has been present. God was with him.
However, instead of joy and excitement - he panics.
“I have seen the angel of the lord face to face.” From what he knows from the old stories, he is gonna die. That is the deal, If you see the face of God - you die.
But God responds in the next verse,
But the LORD said to him, "Peace! Do not be afraid. You are not going to die." So Gideon built an altar to the LORD there and called it The LORD is Peace.
Gideon seems to be pretty impressed. He marks the spot. He makes an altar, which is a decent size stack of rocks. I am guessing the centerpiece it he rock that the flames jumped from.
Gideon does what the people of the OT did when ever they met God or his holy representative. He marks the spot so that when people pass by, they ask, what is the story that goes with this altar?
Gideon has had a very interesting day. He is met an angel of the lord and did not due. He has received the message that God has a big job for him and has promised to go with him and be the strength that is required. He has made an offering which was supernaturally received by God as a sign that this was something real.
Wow, what a day! That does not happen very often. It would seem like he could take it easy for a while. To take some time to soak all of it in and reflect on the event.
Gideon is not finished. You see, when God says he is going to be with you, and you listen and respond. You will never be done.
God calls people to be in service and as long as they respond, He has plenty for them to do. And He will stay with them and give them…us …. direction.
25 That same night the LORD said to him, "Take the second bull from your father’s herd, the one seven years old. Tear down your father’s altar to Baal and cut down the Asherah pole beside it. 26 Then build a proper kind of altar to the LORD your God on the top of this height. Using the wood of the Asherah pole that you cut down, offer the second bull as a burnt offering."
27 So Gideon took ten of his servants and did as the LORD told him. But because he was afraid of his family and the men of the town, he did it at night rather than in the daytime.
28 In the morning when the men of the town got up, there was Baal’s altar, demolished, with the Asherah pole beside it cut down and the second bull sacrificed on the newly built altar!
29 They asked each other, "Who did this?"
When they carefully investigated, they were told, "Gideon son of Joash did it."
So, God tells Gideon to go get the second bull, the 7 year old one. That means full grown, full size, healthy piece of live stock.
Go down to your father’s altar to ba’al, and cut down the asherah pole.
Ok, we mentioned last week that the people of Israel, had gone away from God. Here we learn that Gideon’s father had an altar to ba’al….
For some reason God had and HAS a problem with false idols. God had a problem with people giving an offering to another god.
It is not that the Israelite people stopped worshiping YAWAH. They just added to their worship the god of fertility. He was the one that brought rain in the spring and made the crops grown and children to come. Ba’al is god who is represented with power and strength in the sign of a Bull.
No wonder God removed his protection from Israel. No wonder God had Gideon to defile the worship site with the ritual destruction of the symbol of ba’al’s power.
It seems that Gideon’s father was the keeper of the ba’al altar. They probably had the highest hill around and the community came together to build the site.
The asherah pole could have been many things. Simply a large pole or number of poles stuck up in the ground. They could have been carved and even had human shapes or figures. Some say it was a certain kind of tree or trees specifically placed by the altar and dedicated to ba’al.
So we have Gideon, the least in the family, told to challenge his father’s authority. His to tear down the place of “community” false worship and to take a valuable bull from his father’s herd and to offer it as a burnt offering.
God is putting Gideon in a very awkward position.
What are the altars that separate us from God? TV, Money, cars, relationships…
-- What things do we, Christians place on the hill of our attention that we add in addition to and sometime above God in our lives?
We live in a Canaanite world. We are exposed to all kinds of idolatry that everybody says is o.k.…..And most of it looks harmless, it does not hurt anyone.
Some of it feels good and makes us feel good.
An idol is any object, idea or relationship that shifts our focus from God.
Anything good or bad the redirects our focus and faith from God can become an IDOL or FALSE worship in out lives.
Gideon is called to start his work for God with a little house cleaning.
He is still a coward, and works at night. But he does as he is instructed.
He destroys the unacceptable to God and builds a proper altar.
He offers the exact sacrifice that God calls for and uses the wooden idols as fuel to meet God’s expectations.
Even though Gideon is afraid of what his family and the men of the town would say, he did it anyway.
A coward can do anything when he or she knows that God is with him or her.
If that is true then, what can a brave person do?
The men of the town saw the destruction, and started an investigation. They had a bone to pick with somebody.
Well even though they worked at night, in secret, some one gave Gideon the credit.
One of the servants blabbed and ruined the whole deal.
30 The men of the town demanded of Joash, "Bring out your son. He must die, because he has broken down Baal’s altar and cut down the Asherah pole beside it."
The men of the town came to kill Gideon, they see the least man of the least important family in Manasseh has gotten too big for his britches.
They don’t yet see anything wrong with their IDOL worship. They fail to recognize that they could have been doing anything wrong and that the previous 7 years were a hint form God that they were responsible for the loss of god’s protection.
They are after the one man God used to get their attention.
Whenever, someone points out the foolishness of IDOL worship, people get offended. People get angry. People get aggressive and sometimes violent.
When people are involved in idol worship they can never change their view until something on the outside happens to change that view.
They can only be changed when life rearranges their values. Sometimes that is a person giving correction and other times it is a life event or situation that changes a person’s focus.
When Gideon destroyed the idol and replaced it with a proper altar the people did not want change.
For a brief time they were more worried about this change instead of worrying about all the other attackers that had plagued them for 7 years.
Since the Ba’al altar was probably on Joash’s property, you would think that he would turnover his son to the mob. But he doesn’t. Listen to his reply.
31 But Joash replied to the hostile crowd around him, "Are you going to plead Baal’s cause? Are you trying to save him? Whoever fights for him shall be put to death by morning! If Baal really is a god, he can defend himself when someone breaks down his altar." 32 So that day they called Gideon "Jerub-Baal, " saying, "Let Baal contend with him," because he broke down Baal’s altar.
It appears that the only person that understood what Gideon did was his father. Not only did he support him but he seems to have been in favor of what happened.
I wonder if he realized the change in his son. If he saw the humble farmer, that would not hurt a fly, suddenly acting out.
But not against his father and family, instead acting out on behalf of YAHWAH.
Gideon was not the mastermind of some great plan that he came up with. He was a timid at the least and coward at worst. God approaches him to bring the people of Israel back to God.
God approaches the least of the nation and even of the family to call the people into line.
The only way to make that come about was to do some house cleaning. He had to make a statement that in order to have a relationship with God, you have to take away the distractions.
You have to take a little risk.
You have to set priorities that are pleasing to God.
You have to trust God for direction and strength.
Folks house cleaning starts with the individuals and moves to the family and ultimately the community.
God is calling all of us to recognize his presence and to trust His strength…How have you responded? How will you respond?
All Glory be to God!
