VIII. Gideon’s Confirmation’s!
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.
A) Reason?
1. Gideon desired a sign; because revelation was so rare and wickedness so prevalent that he they desired full assurance. God graciously gave it.
B) Request?
Judges 6:18a Please do not go away until I come back and bring my offering and set it before you.”
1. Offering - ??????? - min·khä
a) gift, tribute, offering, present, oblation, sacrifice, meat offering, and offering to God!
C) Response?
1. Gracious!
Judges 6:18b And the Lord said, “I will wait until you return.”
John Gill – This was a wonderful instance of divine condescension!
2. God had to wait some time for the preparation of this offering.
D) Represent?
1. The heart of Gideon!
a) Food was scarce at that time, right?
E) Reveal?
1. The sincerity of Gideon!
Judges 6: 19 Gideon went inside, 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.
Judges 6:20a The angel of God said to him, “Take the meat and the unleavened bread, place them on this rock, and pour out the broth.”
2. The sacrifice of Gideon!
a) Pour out the broth, burn up the meat and bread, in a time of scarcity?
i. Libation – ??????- necek
ii. A drink offering, something poured out,
Judges 6:20b And Gideon did so.
Judges 6:21 Then the angel of the Lord touched the meat and the unleavened bread with the tip of the staff that was in his hand. Fire flared from the rock, consuming the meat and the bread. And the angel of the Lord disappeared.
F) Realization?
Judges 6:22 When Gideon realized that it was the angel of the Lord, he exclaimed, “Alas, Sovereign Lord! I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face!”
1. The sudden appearance of the fire and disappearance of the visitor convinced Gideon that indeed he had seen God and spoke to Him, and this frightened him!
2. The Jews believed it was fatal for sinful man to look upon God, Gideon was sure he would die.
IX. Gideon’s Consolation?
Judges 6:23 But the Lord said to him, “Peace! Do not be afraid. You are not going to die.”
A) Pronouncement of peace!
B) Point?
Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges - Jehovah cherishes no resentment, nothing but good-will.
John 20: 26 A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!”
1. You to Thomas!
2. God had to give Gideon a message of peace to prepare him for fighting the battle.
3. Unless we’re at peace with God, we can’t face the enemy with confidence and fight the Lord’s battles.
C) Promote?
Judges 6:24 So Gideon built an altar to the Lord there and called it The Lord Is Peace. To this day it stands in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.
Warren Wiersbe - For a man with a worried heart, “The-Lord-Is-Peace” was just what he needed!
X. Gideon’s Consecration.
A) Consecration
1. Act of dedicating to the service and worship of God.
Judges 6: 5 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.”
B) Cause?
1. God is saying, “I will not deliver Israel as long as they are in a state of Idolatry.”
a) Baal must go before Midian could go!
2. God is testing Gideon’s dedication to Him by asking him to tear down his father’s altar to Baal, and to build his own to Him!
J. Sidlow Baxter – It was here that Gideon became consecrated. He yielded his own will to the will of God…The command that he should "throw down the altar of Baal" reminds us at once that Gideon lived in a time of widespread religious apostasy. To wreck Baal's altar was to run counter to the popular will, and to invite death, but Gideon did it. And how remarkable was the result!
XI. Gideon’s Coyness
Judges 6:27 So Gideon took ten of his servants and did as the Lord told him. But because he was afraid of his family and the townspeople, he did it at night rather than in the daytime.
A) Coy
1. Someone who is shy, reserved, tentative, and hesitant!
2. A man who saw the Lord, heard the Lord, was affirmed by the Lord, commissioned by the Lord, is still tentative!
3. He doesn’t do it in the daylight, he did it at night, under the cloak of darkness!
Warren Wiersbe – “Gideon was an unlikely candidate for God’s “Hall of Fame” (Heb 11:32-). When God called him, he was hiding. When God spoke to him, he raised problems instead of trusting promises. When Gideon did start to obey God, he worked at night…but God saw the potential in Gideon… God sees the potential in you and says to you as He did to Simon, “You are...You shall be.”He knows your weaknesses and will accommodate Himself to your needs so that He might develop your faith
a) It worked out well, what did it…
B) Cause?
Judges 6:28 In the morning when the people 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.”
XII. Gideon’s Covering?
Judges 6:30 The people 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.” 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.”
A) Covering?
1. Was his father!
Q: Why?
B) Conversion?
1. Gideons stand, led to his dad’s conversion?
Judges 6:32 So because Gideon broke down Baal’s altar, they gave him the name Jerub-Baal that day, saying, “Let Baal contend with him.”
XII. Gideon Competency?
A) Competence?
1. Adequacy, capability?
Judges 6: 33 Now all the Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern peoples joined forces and crossed over the Jordan and camped in the Valley of Jezreel. 34 Then the Spirit of the Lord came on Gideon, and he blew a trumpet, summoning the Abiezrites to follow him. 35 He sent messengers throughout Manasseh, calling them to arms, and also into Asher, Zebulun and Naphtali, so that they too went up to meet them.
1. The Spirit of the Lord, “came upon” upon Gideon = The Spirit of the Lord clothed, dressed, arrayed, Gideon!
2. But the Hebrew text translates it this way – The Spirit of the Lord clothed Himself with Gideon!
ASV -the Spirit of the LORD took control of Gideon
B) Concept?
1. The Spirit of the Lord took hold of this man and used him for His glory!
2 Corinthians 4: 7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.
XIII. Gideon’s Confirmation?
Judges 6: 36 Gideon said to God, “If you will save Israel by my hand as you have promised— 37 look, I will place a wool fleece on the threshing floor. If there is dew only on the fleece and all the ground is dry, then I will know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you said.”
The Living Bible – 36 Then Gideon said to God, "If you are really going to use me to save Israel as you promised, 37 prove it to me in this way: I'll put some wool on the threshing floor tonight, and if, in the morning, the fleece is wet and the ground is dry, I will know you are going to help me!
Bruce Hurst – It is worth noting that although the Holy Spirit had come so powerfully upon Gideon, yet he was still very weak in faith and clearly daunted by the prospect before him. Who would not be? This is a reminder to us that grace does not delete or destroy nature. When God comes into our lives He takes the temperament which He has created and begins to refine and empower it
A) Point?
1. God provides it!
Judges 6: 38 And that is what happened. Gideon rose early the next day; he squeezed the fleece and wrung out the dew—a bowlful of water.
Judges 6: 39 Then Gideon said to God, “Do not be angry with me. Let me make just one more request. Allow me one more test with the fleece, but this time make the fleece dry and let the ground be covered with dew.” 40 That night God did so. Only the fleece was dry; all the ground was covered with dew.
B) Problem?
1. With this?
a) Gideon already knew God's will but he sought another sign to confirm it. His "faith" seems to have been eclipsed by fear. Requests for signs are often the product of unbelief
b) Gideon was actually putting God "in a box", telling God what to do; i.e., what conditions had to be met before he would obey His previous orders.
c) Who are we to tell God what conditions He must meet, especially when He has already spoken to us in His Word? “Putting out the fleece” is not only an evidence of our unbelief, but it’s also an evidence of our pride. God has to do what I tell Him to do before I’ll do what He tells me to do!
Charles Spurgeon - Twice Gideon reminded God of what He had said , and twice Gideon asked God to reaffirm His promises with a miracle. The fact that God stooped to Gideon’s weakness only proves that He’s a gracious God who understands how we’re made.
d) “God is the God of slow learners like Gideon and like you and me and we are all thankful for His longsuffering when I refuse to believe His clear Word in my life!”
XIV. Gideon’s Conquest
A) Confusing?
Judges 7:1 Early in the morning, Jerub-Baal (that is, Gideon) and all his men camped at the spring of Harod. The camp of Midian was north of them in the valley near the hill of Moreh. 2a The Lord said to Gideon, “You have too many men. I cannot deliver Midian into their hands,
1. Too many men?
a) 135,000 verses 32,000?
i. Ratio of 4 to 1!!
B) Challenge that presents to us today?
Dr. S. Lewis Johnson - The Christian church has carried on a love affair with numbers, numerical additions to the body for a longtime. It’s the rare assembly that can surmount the stumbling block. How large was the crowd at the meeting? That is the invariable question that we hear. That’s the old math of churchianity, to be interested in numbers. If the buildings are large and the crowds are big, then we are sure that God has been blessing us. That’s the reasoning I think it’s true to say of the common professor of the faith. I think that the emphasis upon numbers in the Lord’s work is vastly overdone. We’ve not really learned the superiority of quality to quantity.
Dr. S. Lewis Johnson - We’ve not really learned that in the accomplishment of the tasks of the Lord it is much better to have order, fervency, dedication, than to have the weakness and apathy of large numbers with neutrality. It’s plain from the instance before us that the church or a believing body may lose in numbers and yet gain in strength.
Q: Why?
Warren Weirsbe –“A faith that can’t be tested can’t be trusted!”
G. Campbell Morgan -“The fearful and trembling man God cannot use.”
Judges 7:2 The Lord said to Gideon, “You have too many men. I cannot deliver Midian into their hands, or Israel would boast against me, ‘My own strength has saved me.’
C) Cutting?
1. How does he cut down the size of this “apparent army?”
a) By that I mean those who looked like soldiers outwardly but there was something else inwardly that proved they were not!
D) Confronts them!
Judges 7:3 Now announce to the army, ‘Anyone who trembles with fear may turn back and leave Mount Gilead.’” So twenty-two thousand men left, while ten thousand remained.
1. FEAR!!
2 Timothy 1:7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
Romans 8:15 The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father."
Q: Why fear?
2. Fear is contagious – it is a spiritual cancer!
3. Fear is the spiritual equivalent of COVID -19
4. Fear contaminates faith
5. Fear debilitates the faithful
6. Fear creates panic in times of pandemics and political unrest
“Fear paralyzes the arm because it unnerves the heart!”
Dr. S. Lewis Johnson – Do you know that this is the trouble with the church today. The 22,000 fearful are still with us. They haven’t left. They’re still in the midst of the congregation.
D) Cutting #2!
Judges 7:4 But the Lord said to Gideon, “There are still too many men. Take them down to the water, and I will thin them out for you there. If I say, ‘This one shall go with you,’ he shall go; but if I say, ‘This one shall not go with you,’ he shall not go.”
Q: What is this meant to prove?
1. Who is fit and unfit for battle!
Judges 7:5 So Gideon took the men down to the water. There the Lord told him, “Separate those who lap the water with their tongues as a dog laps from those who kneel down to drink.” 6 Three hundred of them drank from cupped hands, lapping like dogs. All the rest got down on their knees to drink.
2. 9,700 men prove that are unfit for battle!
E) Concept?
1. Here are 10,000 men at a brook which over on the other side it is an enemy army of 135,000 men.
2. 9,700 of them just stick their face in the water, taking their eye off the enemy and were just consumed with quenching their thirst.
3. BUT 300 OF THEM CUPPED THE WATER IN THEIR HAND AND NEVER TOOK THEIR EYE OFF THE ENEMY!
4. Concept here is that you are never to take your eyes off of your spiritual adversaries and purpose in this world, or your eyes off the prize!
Hebrews 12:1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Mat 6:22 “The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. 23 “But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!-NIV
Dr. S. Lewis Johnson - I think it was a significant test because it revealed indifference. It revealed zestlessness. If a person can go down in the presence of the Midianites, and mind you, they were just over this little stream, take his eyes off of the enemy, get down upon his knees and drink water for his own satisfaction, forgetting the struggle that they faced. That man does not have the zest for the battle, that the man does who comes and who drinks, but keeps his eyes wearily upon the enemy while he does.
Dr. S. Lewis Johnson - In the work of God it is quality that counts, not quantity. It is quality because in the final analysis it is God who does the work of God. And he can do the work of God whether there be one or whether there be many. He is not restrained so that he must save by the many, he can save by the few. The Scriptures tell us.
Matthew 22:14 “For many are called, but few are chosen.
Anyway the narrative continues in this fashion:
Judges 7:7 The Lord said to Gideon, “With the three hundred men that lapped I will save you and give the Midianites into your hands. Let all the others go home.” 8 So Gideon sent the rest of the Israelites home but kept the three hundred, who took over the provisions and trumpets of the others.
Judges 7:8b Now the camp of Midian lay below him in the valley. 9 During that night the Lord said to Gideon, “Get up, go down against the camp, because I am going to give it into your hands. 10 If you are afraid to attack, go down to the camp with your servant Purah 11 and listen to what they are saying. Afterward, you will be encouraged to attack the camp.” So he and Purah his servant went down to the outposts of the camp.
XV. God’s Confirmation!
Judges 7:12 The Midianites, the Amalekites and all the other eastern peoples had settled in the valley, thick as locusts. Their camels could no more be counted than the sand on the seashore.
Judges 7:13 Gideon arrived just as a man was telling a friend his dream. “I had a dream,” he was saying. “A round loaf of barley bread came tumbling into the Midianite camp. It struck the tent with such force that the tent overturned and collapsed.” 14 His friend responded, “This can be nothing other than the sword of Gideon son of Joash, the Israelite. God has given the Midianites and the whole camp into his hands.”
Matthew Henry - “If Gideon had heard the dream only, and he and his servant had been left to interpret it themselves, it might have done him little service; but having the interpretation from the mouth of an enemy, it not only appeared to come from God, who has all men’s hearts and tongues in his hand, but it was likewise an evidence that the enemy was quite dispirited, and that the name of Gideon was become so formidable to them that it disturbed their sleep.”
A.F. Muir -Gideon’s faith had been tried to the utmost. Now GOD JUSTIFIED HIS WAYS TO Him WHO PUTS THEIR TRUST IN HIM.!
XVI. Enemy’s Confusion
Judges 7:15 When Gideon heard the dream and its interpretation, he bowed down and worshiped. He returned to the camp of Israel and called out, “Get up! The Lord has given the Midianite camp into your hands.”
He does something on his own, no word from God on how to do this
Judges 7:16 Dividing the three hundred men into three companies, he placed trumpets and empty jars in the hands of all of them, with torches inside.
Judges 7:17 “Watch me,” he told them. “Follow my lead. When I get to the edge of the camp, do exactly as I do. 18 When I and all who are with me blow our trumpets, then from all around the camp blow yours and shout, ‘For the Lord and for Gideon.’”
Judges 7:19 Gideon and the hundred men with him reached the edge of the camp at the beginning of the middle watch, just after they had changed the guard. They blew their trumpets and broke the jars that were in their hands. 20 The three companies blew the trumpets and smashed the jars. Grasping the torches in their left hands and holding in their right hands the trumpets they were to blow, they shouted, “A sword for the Lord and for Gideon!”
A) Parallel?
C H Spurgeon -Gideon ordered his men to do two things: covering up a torch in an earthen pitcher, he bade them, at an appointed signal, break the pitcher and let the light shine, and then sound with the trumpet, crying, “The sword of the Lord, and of Gideon! the sword of the Lord, and of Gideon!” This is precisely what all Christians must do. First, you must shine; break the pitcher which conceals your light; throw aside the bushel which has been hiding your candle, and shine. Let your light shine before men; let your good works be such, that when men look upon you, they shall know that you have been with Jesus. Then there must be the sound, the blowing of the trumpet. There must be active exertions for the ingathering of sinners by proclaiming Christ crucified. Take the gospel to them; carry it to their door; put it in their way; do not suffer them to escape it; blow the trumpet right against their ears. Remember that the true war-cry of the Church is Gideon’s watchword, “The sword of the Lord, and of Gideon!” God must do it, it is his own work. But we are not to be idle; instrumentality is to be used—“The sword of the Lord, and of Gideon!” If we only cry, “The sword of the Lord!” we shall be guilty of an idle presumption; and if we shout, “The sword of Gideon!” alone, we shall manifest idolatrous reliance on an arm of flesh: we must blend the two in practical harmony, “The sword of the Lord, and of Gideon!” We can do nothing of ourselves, but we can do everything by the help of our God….
b) Result?
Judges 7:21 While each man held his position around the camp, all the Midianites ran, crying out as they fled.22 When the three hundred trumpets sounded, the Lord caused the men throughout the camp to turn on each other with their swords.
John Trapp- They were smitten by God with a spirit of giddiness, they took their friends for their foes:
Conclusion
1. God calls each of us to walk in a faith that overcomes our fears!
2. If you need confirmation and edification from God – will surely grant it!
3. Keep looking to Him, growing in your faith, and God will give you the victory!
