The Heart of a Hero
Have you ever noticed, how some people just naturally seem to have a “heroic gene” and others wouldn’t know the meaning of the word hero if one of them pulled a train wreck off of them? Of course, some people are more heroic than others by nature, and some, through training and study become heroic.
What exactly is a hero by definition? Well…
According to Wikipedia, the word hero, from the Greek: ρως hērōs, was originally a “demigod”… the offspring of a mortal and a diety. It wasn’t until later that the word hero (male) and heroine (female) came to refer to characters that, in the face of danger and adversity or from a position of weakness, display courage and the will for self-sacrifice – that is heroism – for some greater good, originally of martial courage or excellance but extended to the more general “moral excellance”. Politicians, ancient and modern, have employed hero worship for their own apotheosis”.
When I dissect that description of a hero in the original Greek format, I begin to see the birth of Christ in that He was the offspring of a mortal and a diety. Reading further,it is easy to discern that He also fits the other description by reason of His “moral excellance”, and His willingness to make self-sacrifice for the greater good of all mankind.
This is how Webster’s dictionary defines a hero:
1. (Myth.) An illustrious man, supposed to be exalted, after death, to a place among the gods; a demigod, as Hercules.
2. A man of distinguished valor or enterprise in danger, or fortitude in suffering; a prominent or central personage in any remarkable action or event; hence, a great or illustrious person.
Even in the mythological sense one can see the image of Christ unfolding in each description of the word “hero”. He took a position of weakness that gave Him power as a martyr, and He saved the entire world by self-sacrifice. It is easy to understand how to think of Jesus as a “hero”, but how does one ever find a hero in their own heart?
Many of the heroic acts of the Bible were performed by “mighty men of valor”, but even more of them were carried out through faith by less-than-likely heroes.
For this particular discussion, I’ve chosen Gideon as an ensample. The suggested reading is from Judges chapters 6 through 8, but some of the verses will be paraphrased.
In order to understand where we are in the Bible, the children of Isreal have had forty years of peace after the victory of the judge, Deborah. After turning to idol worship and falling into the ways of the people whose countries they’ve inhabited, they find themselves overthrown by the the Midianites and the Amelekites.
God chose Gideon, a lesser son of an unremarkable clan of the house of Mannesah to lead His people to claim their freedom from the Midianites. Gideon related these facts about himself and his family to the holy messenger but was instructed in Judges 6:16:
And the LORD said unto him, Surely I will be with thee, and thou shalt smite the Midianites as one man.
In Judges 6:12, He had already called Gideon a “mighty man of valor”, or hero. The Lord knows who can and cannot be turned into a hero by circumstance, even in the most unlikely of people.
Gideon, realizing that he was conversing with an agent of heaven, asked this person to stay right where He was until he could bring Him a present. He needed to know that this truly was an angel of the Lord come down to deliver his people.
This is what happened in Judges 6:19-21:
6:19 And Gideon went in, and made ready a kid, and unleavened cakes of an ephah of flour: the flesh he put in a basket, and he put the broth in a pot, and brought it out unto him under the oak, and presented it.
6:20 And the angel of God said unto him, Take the flesh and the unleavened cakes, and lay them upon this rock, and pour out the broth. And he did so.
6:21 Then the angel of the LORD put forth the end of the staff that was in his hand, and touched the flesh and the unleavened cakes; and there rose up fire out of the rock, and consumed the flesh and the unleavened cakes. Then the angel of the LORD departed out of his sight.
Well, the Lord had instructed Gideon to throw down the altar of Baal, and to cut down the grove that was beside it. (The altar was to the god Baal, but the grove was the symbol of the goddess “Asherah”, a fertility goddess.)
Fearing for his life should he be caught, Gideon waited until the long watches of the night to destroy the altar and the grove, and by the dawn was making the second required sacrifice before the Lord upon the new altar he built for God. When the Midianites discovered their altar had been thrown down, they demanded that Joash, Gideon’s father, allow them to reconcile with the young man for the offense. Now normally in those times, it was not uncommon for a parent to hand over a child who had done something unlawful, particularly the lesser of the sons, but Joash took a heroic stand and told the men who came for Gideon, that if Baal was upset about his altar being thrown down, let him do something about it himself.
Word got out, and while the war was brewing, Gideon sent out messengers to gather together men from the tribes of Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali, as well as his own tribe Manasseh in order to meet an armed force of the people of Midian and the Amalek that had crossed the Jordan River, and were encamped in the Valley of Jezreel.
Apparently, he was so fervent in his desire to please God, that he got too many people to come, and God didn’t ever want it said that they beat the Midianite and Amelekites by their own hand. He saw a hero in the the heart of Gideon and wanted to make miracles through him.
He told Gideon to let everyone who was afraid, go home. They lost twenty-two thousand people that day, leaving them only ten thousand, but God still felt this was too many people to make a statement with. The truth is, that the Lord Himself appeared to Gideon and said outright that He would deliver the children of Israel from bondage by Gideon’s own hand, and the Lord never lies. It wouldn’t be possible for Him to do that with a large force at hand to slay the bad guys.
He instructed Gideon to lead his people to the water to drink and He would test them for him there. Those who knelt on their knees by the river to drink were let go, and only the ones who lapped the water like a dog got to stay.
After the Lord tested the people by the water, Gideon was left with three-hundred men. It’s not the only time in history that three-hundred men stood before a force beyond reckoning, but people don’t tend to glorify Christian heroes in films if they can help it.
In Judges 7:7, And the LORD said unto Gideon, By the three hundred men that lapped will I save you, and deliver the Midianites into thine hand: and let all the other people go every man unto his place.
Later, the Lord comes to Gideon and tells him that it’s time for him to go down to the enemy camp. He says that if the man is too afraid to go alone, he can take his servant, Phurah, and that the Lord would put the strength in his hands to defeat the enemy.
Now the first thing Gideon did, was go wake up his servant. Why? Because he was terrified. Who was he anyway? One man. A lesser son of a lesser house… but the Lord saw the heart of a true hero.
I think it is important here to mention that being a hero does not mean that you have no fear. Fear is often our greatest companion because it reminds us that no human being is invincible but by the hand of God himself. Gideon feared God but did exactly what He said.
The Bible mentions that the host that lie in the valley asleep that night was like a swarm of grasshoppers, and their camels like the sand of the sea in number. This was a massive strike against the children of Israel.
While Gideon and his servant were prowling about the enemy camp, they heard one soldier telling another of a dream he’d had. This is what he said in Judges:
7:13 And when Gideon was come, behold, there was a man that told a dream unto his fellow, and said, Behold, I dreamed a dream, and, lo, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the host of Midian, and came unto a tent, and smote it that it fell, and overturned it, that the tent lay along.
7:14 And his fellow answered and said, This is nothing else save the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel: for into his hand hath God delivered Midian, and all the host.
I personally find it ironic that the symbol in the dream that brought the destruction of the Midianites was cake, the very thing that Gideon had offered the Lord as a gift. This was something the Lord used to prove that He was delivering these people into Gideon’s hand. No one knew about that conversation but Gideon and God, so to hear it here between a couple of heathens only steeled his resolve. The Bible says that Gideon, having heard this, became so excited he began to worship.
He went right back to camp and roused his men, telling them that God had delivered the host into their hands. He divided his men into three companies of one hundred, and gave them all a trumpet and an empty pitcher, which they placed over their torches. He told them to watch him and do what he did.
They snuck into the camp at three pinnacle positions, and when Gideon blew his trumpet, everyone did the same. As they did this, they broke their pitchers making a shattering sound. Then they all shouted: “The sword of the LORD, and of Gideon.” If you don’t think this was enough noise to startle and confuse an army, think about the sound of just fifty children trying to sing the words of “My Country Tizza Thee”, and you’ll have a fairly good grasp of how loud it would have been to hear those words from the mouths of three hundred men all at once.
The enemy people were a superstitious lot and scared to death of the Children of Israel if the truth were told, so when they heard this they all began to run. In the commotion, many of the Midianites killed one another. The children of Israel killed as many as possible as they ran by, and then chased them down. They killed the two princes of the enemy country and during the days that followed, they chased after the kings, whom also they killed. Gideon’s success brought the people to ask him to be their king, but he refused, believing that only God could be King. Even heroes are humble before God.
It has been my experience that people in general tend to think of God as an outside force, something universal that we must send prayer out to. The reason that the Word tells us to go into our “closet” to pray, (see Matt: 6:6), is that God wants us to shut out the rest of the world, and go inward to talk with the Lord. The Lord is the spark of life that exists inside all of us. In the book of John, the Bible says that God and the Word are the same,
John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
John 1:2 The same was in the beginning with God.
and in Hebrews 8:10…
For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:
(This is also stated in the Old Testament in Jeremiah 31: 33-34 if you would like the opportunity to cross-reference that.)
The Word itself is etched into the fiber of our being, so the Lord surely is inside a pure vessel. Gideon was a “hero” in the rough, a “mighty man of valor” in the deep places of his soul, where only God can go.
What makes a hero isn’t a single self-defining act of kindness or bravery, or even the ability to act quickly and effectively in times of emergency, but a lifetime of self-sacrifice for the greater good of others. Sometimes when we think of heroes, we get a picture of some muscular man in tights and a cape, flying around the globe seeking out death, doom and destruction. But my hero conquered hell, death and the grave and didn’t need a pair of tights or a fancy cape to do it.
When you consider that the Lord lives inside the pure of heart, those who profess to be Christians and love Him with their whole heart, then you have to believe that there’s a hero inside of everyone, “dying to get out”.
When the battle is too big, when the fight in you is too small, there is one constant, one truth… and that’s the love and support of Jesus Christ at all times, and especially in dire times.
When the world seems dark and dreary and your candle seems too small a light to make a difference, remember that in the darkest corners of the world, there’s a candle conquering the night. He is the truest hero. His name is Jesus Christ, and He lives inside of you.
1 Corinthians 14:25 And thus are the secrets of his heart made manifest; and so falling down on his face he will worship God, and report that God is in you of a truth.
