Gideon - Faith and Faithless!
June 16, 2013
Judges 6:1-8:35
What if God came to speak to you? What would you do? Would you fall flat on your face knowing you’re not worthy of His presence? Would you jump up and down and celebrate His presence? Would you question Him, not trusting and believing it’s really God? Maybe a good friend arranged this hoax, and they’re secretly video-taping you.
What would you do? Now, let’s take it a step further. What if you really just didn’t believe very much in yourself and God was calling you to lead His people to victory against a vicious enemy?
Well, that’s the story were looking at today. It’s a great story about a man named Gideon. And his story is found in the Old Testament book of Judges. As we prepare to look at what Gideon was going through and how he reacted, let’s take a quick recap of what was going on in the nation of Israel. This is the time before the land had kings.
The period of the judges is known as one of the lowest times in Israel’s history. The last verse of the book says it all: 21:25 In those days Israel had no king. Each man did what he considered to be right.
The nation would go through the same cycle over and over. They would turn from God and be disobedient and sin. Then, God would send an opposing nation to come against them. The people would be oppressed and cry out to God. God would be merciful and raise up a Judge, usually a military leader to lead the people and they would defeat their enemy, they would repent of their sinfulness and that judge would lead them for many years. But after the judge would die, the people would return to their sinful and disobedient ways. And the cycle would start again.
In some ways, I don’t think we’ve learned too much from their mistakes and sinfulness. We often go through those cycles in our lives. Well, the people are in one of those cycles and they are being oppressed by the Midianites. We read ~
3 For whenever the Israelites planted crops, the Midianites and the Amalekites and the people of the East would come up against them.
4 They would encamp against them and devour the produce of the land, as far as Gaza, and leave no sustenance in Israel and no sheep or ox or donkey.
5 For they would come up with their livestock and their tents; they would come like locusts in number — both they and their camels could not be counted — so that they laid waste the land as they came in.
6 And Israel was brought very low because of Midian. And the people of Israel cried out for help to the Lord.
Well this went on for seven years (Judges 6:1) and it was starting to get a little old, and so the people cried out to God to deliver them, and He called someone to lead His people, firstly out of military oppression and secondly out of moral oppression. And that person was a man named Gideon. Now, let’s look at Gideon.
There is so much scripture, and I’m going to summarize some of it. But this is where it starts for Gideon.
11 Now the angel of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites.
12 And the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, “The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor.”
14 And the Lord turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian; do not I send you?”
15 And Gideon said, “Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house.”
16 And the Lord said to him, “But I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man.”
17 And Gideon said to him, “If now I have found favor in your eyes, then show me a sign that it is you who speak with me.
The scripture gives us some clues into Gideon. There’s not much self confidence in him. He admits he’s from the weakest clan of the tribe of Manasseh, and he’s the least or maybe we could say he was the runt of the litter. He doesn’t think he can accomplish what this angel of the Lord is asking him to do. Even though the LORD says to him, I will be with you. So, what does Gideon do? He asked the LORD ~ show me a sign that you are who you say you are.
So, Gideon went and prepared food for the angel of the LORD. After putting the food down on a rock and pouring broth over it, the angel of the LORD touched the food with the tip of his staff and fire came up from the rock and consumed the meat. Then the angel of the LORD vanished from his sight. Gideon said, 22 “Alas, O Lord God! For now I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face.” So, Gideon believes this is an angel of the LORD – and he built an altar to worship the presence of the Lord. All should be good now. But you know it’s not, right?
So, the angel of the LORD comes back to Gideon and tells him to destroy the idols that his father and the people of his town worship. And after you tear them down, build a new altar, dedicated to the LORD. Gideon decided to wait until it was night to do this, because he was afraid. He gathered 10 men and they did exactly as they were told.
The people wanted to kill Gideon, but his father said, let the idols fight their own battle. So, Gideon was free. Now the Midianites were moving into the land and the angel of the LORD had Gideon call out to form an army to battle their enemy.
At this point in the story Gideon did something because of his lack of faith, belief and trust in the LORD. He put out a fleece, which is nothing more than a piece of wool from a sheep. He told God, if the only the fleece has dew on it and is wet, and the ground is totally dry, then I’ll believe it’s you who will save Israel. In the morning, Gideon picked up that piece of wool and got a bowlful of water, while all the ground was dry. Now we’re ready for war! No . . . not yet.
You see, Gideon still wasn’t convinced. Now he said to God, and he knew he was treading on thin water here ~ ~ 39 “Let not your anger burn against me; let me speak just once more. Please let me test just once more with the fleece. Please let it be dry on the fleece only, and on all the ground let there be dew.”
40 And God did so that night; and it was dry on the fleece only, and on all the ground there was dew.
Okay, NOW we’re ready for war. Judges 7:3 tells us Gideon had 32,000 men to fight, Judges 8:10, tells us the Midianites had 135,000. Not good odds, but God has a great sense of humor and a great way to call us to trust Him. He told Gideon, anyone who is afraid to fight can leave. So, 22,000 leave. Now Gideon is down to 10,000 men. In number terms, the Midianites have 1,350% more men to fight. Not good odds. The ultimate purpose here was for God to get the glory. The people needed to know this was God’s doing, not theirs. No way a group of 10,000 can beat the group of 135,000.
Well, it’s still not time to fight. God told Gideon he still had too many men. So, their number was reduced according to how they drank water out of the brook. If they lapped the water, as a dog would, they would get to fight. There were only 300 out of 10,000. God told Gideon, now, I’m ready to save you against the Midianites. They were outnumbered 135,000 to 300. The Midianites had a 45,000% man advantage.
You know what? Gideon still isn’t fully convinced. So, God tells him, 9 That same night the Lord said to him, “Arise, go down against the camp, for I have given it into your hand.
10 But if you are afraid to go down, go down to the camp with Purah your servant.
So, Gideon goes down and they sneak into the Midianite camp and eavesdropped on a conversation going on around a campfire. Two guys are talking and the first said 13 I dreamt, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian and came to the tent and struck it so that it fell and turned it upside down, so that the tent lay flat.”
14 And his comrade answered, “This is no other than the sword of Gideon; God has given into his hand Midian and all the camp.”
Now, Gideon was convinced it was time to fight. Gideon broke his army into 3 groups of 100, they surrounded the Midianites, blew trumpets, crashed jars with light in them and the enemy fought against themselves. Some ran away and in the process of finding them and killing them, they found neighbors who were unwilling to help, and they were killed as well.
There’s even more to the story, but I think we’ve hit a lot of the story. Now, what does all of this mean for us today?
God can use ordinary people to do ordinary things in a great way. And God can use ordinary people to accomplish extraordinary things. From the very beginning, Gideon was not overly impressive. The story opens with him hiding in the winepress, threshing wheat. You didn’t beat the seeds out of wheat in a winepress. But Gideon was scared. He reminded God, I’m from the weakest family and I’m the runt of the litter in my family. You don’t want me!! And God let Gideon know, “you’re just the man for the job!!”
So, God calls all of us . . . the weak, the scared, the uncertain, it doesn’t matter who you are. You have gifts from God which you can use to bring Him glory and honor. And God calls us to action. Even if you are called a “prayer warrior” you are still called to action, praying. If you are called to learn, then by like Mary and sit at Jesus’ feet and listen and learn. God calls all of us to follow Him. Even when we’re not sure what we’re called to do, or it seems overly difficult, God promises us He will be with us, He will not fail us, He will not abandon us. Even if the odds are 45,000 to 1, if God calls you to follow Him, then He will see you through it.
Another thing we learn is a small number of people who are following God’s lead can do much more than they imagine. When we have that collective belief and trust in the promises of God, of what He can and will do through us, we can do the amazing. God loves to demonstrate His amazing power when we trust what He can do through us.
When we finally climb out of the winepresses of life and demonstrate without fear who God is in our lives, I believe we will be doing more than amazing things. But we’ve got to believe it’s possible. Gideon struggled with trusting and believing God and another point is . . .
God is incredibly gracious and patient with us, especially when our faith is weak. After the first fleece sign, Gideon told God, “Do not be angry with me. Let me make one more request.” But our God is a merciful, loving and patient God who knows our weaknesses. Jesus said we’re in a generation which seeks signs from false prophets who will supposedly lead us to the Christ, but won’t. Yet, God was willing to let Gideon ask and ask and ask again for signs. God understood Gideon, and in the same way, God understands our weaknesses and insecurities.
When it comes to testing God, we’re told not to test God. Yet, we can identify with Gideon. He wanted to be sure it was really God’s voice he was hearing and that he understood His directions. He asked God for a sign to prove that this was truly His will. If we were to be really honest, I don’t think too many of us are very different than Gideon.
