(Judges 6-8)
The thing that amazes me about the book of Judges is that even though God’s people prostitute themselves to idol worship again and again, and even though He rightly allows them to suffer at the hands of their enemies because of their disobedience, every time they cry out Him in their misery and oppression, He hears their cries and delivers them. The patience and lovingkindness that the Father shows to such a stubborn and obstinate people is astounding.
In Judges 6-8, we find a beautiful story of God’s grace to not only the nation of Israel, but to an individual; a man named Gideon.
Once again, the Israelites have done what is evil in the eyes of the LORD, and given their hearts to false gods. And God has allowed the Midianites to plunder and oppress them for seven long years. Their livestock has been stolen, their crops have been ruined, and the entire land is impoverished. In desperation, Israel cries out to God for mercy.
When Gideon comes on the scene, he is trying to thresh wheat in a winepress to hide it from the Midianites. Which immediately speaks of how desperate Israel’s situation was, and shows us that Gideon is afraid. Because it doesn’t make any sense to thresh wheat underground. One typically threshes wheat in wide open spaces where the wind can blow the chaff away. But Gideon is so fearful of the Midianites taking his grain, that he’s hoarding it in a pit in the ground.
And that’s where the angel of the LORD (the pre-incarnate Christ), appears to Gideon and says to him, “Yahweh is with you, mighty warrior.” I am sure that in that moment, Gideon didn’t feel anything like a might warrior. He was literally hiding in fear of his enemies! He was probably feeling discouraged, hungry, desperate and terrified. And his response shows us that he also felt forgotten by God. “Pardon me,” he replies, “but if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us? ...the LORD has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.”
The LORD replied, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?” Once again, Gideon protests, “Pardon me, my lord, but how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.” Gideon wasn’t a warrior. He wasn’t a leader. He wasn’t even important in his own family. He felt weak, inadequate, and unqualified for the task that God was asking him to do. Surely He had the wrong guy!
But God reassures Gideon with the promise of His presence: “I will be with you.” He promises that He will give Gideon victory over Midian. But Gideon isn’t convinced. He wants God to give him a sign to prove that it’s really the LORD who is speaking to him. So he brings a sacrifice, and Yahweh consumes it with fire.
Then God gives Gideon a test of obedience. He asks him to tear down his father’s altar to Baal and cut down his Asherah pole, and to build an altar to the LORD in its place. This would have been a very bold and brazen thing for someone to do; it was a clear declaration against the gods that everyone was worshiping, and a clear stand for the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And Gideon did it...but he was too afraid to do it in broad daylight. Because of his fear of his family and the townspeople, he did it at night when no one was around. Once again, we see that Gideon is timid and fearful, and not confident in what God has asked him to do.
When the townspeople see what was done to Baal’s altar, they are outraged. They do a careful investigation to determine the culprit and find out that it was Gideon. And they want him put to death! But Gideon’s father tells them off by saying that if Baal is really a god, he can defend himself.
Then the Spirit of the LORD comes upon Gideon and he summons the Israelites to battle. But he’s still not confident in God’s promise, and asks for yet another sign. God graciously gives him exactly what he requests: first dew on a wool fleece, but not on the ground, and then dew on the ground but not on the fleece. It’s amazing how patient God is to assure Gideon that He really is on his side, and that He really does have the power to do what He promised.
But then God puts Gideon’s faith to the test yet again. He says 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.’” So little by little, God cuts the numbers of Gideon’s army down, until he has gone from 32,000 soldiers to a mere 300 men. For the sake of brevity, I won’t tell the rest of the story in great detail, but God fights on behalf of Gideon and his little army and creates fear in the Midianite camp, so that the Midianites flee and Israel wins an overwhelming victory.
Gideon becomes a war hero, and the Israelites want to make him their king. But Gideon tells them, “I will not rule over you, nor will my son. The LORD will rule over you.” Israel did not worship foreign gods for the rest of Gideon's lifetime, and so the land had peace for forty years. And yet, sadly, Gideon makes a golden ephod with some of the Midianite plunder and it becomes an idol that his family and all of Israel worship. So while Gideon seems to give most of the glory to God, insisting that Yahweh alone is King over Israel, it also seems that he lets some pride sneak in and his indulgence in his plunder becomes a stumbling block to others. And as soon as Gideon dies, the nation once again turns away from the LORD and prostitutes themselves to Baal worship.
I think we can all relate to Gideon in some way. I know I certainly can!! Have you ever felt alone in your misery and forgotten by God? Maybe the Enemy has plundered your soul, and you feel like everything you cared about has been taken from you. Or have you ever felt small and afraid? Perhaps you feel inadequate and unqualified for what God is asking you to do. Maybe you feel like anything but a mighty warrior. Maybe you’re facing an enemy that is exponentially larger than your ability to handle it. Or perhaps God has been humbling you, and removing the things that you would ordinarily rely on. Maybe you are unsure whether God is really going to do what He says, and you’re desperate for a sign that you’re heading in the right direction and that He isn’t going to let you down.
Or maybe you’re more like Gideon at the end of our story. Maybe you’ve been brought through an impossible battle, and are struggling to give God all the glory. Perhaps you’ve become a little too prideful of your accomplishments, or clung a little too tightly to your gain. Or maybe you have just come out of a time of struggle where you had no choice but to depend on God, and now you’re struggling to keep depending on Him when things are going well.
If you can relate to Gideon in any of these ways, there’s good news for you:
1) The LORD is with you!!! The first very thing the angel of the LORD said to Gideon was that God was with Him. No matter how desperate your situation may feel, God has not and never will abandon you. He promises us His abiding presence. And the manifest presence of Jesus Christ changes things! His presence is holy, powerful, loving, beautiful, life-giving, pure and good. The greatest, sweetest, most precious, most profound, most valuable, most miraculous, most life-changing gift we could ever receive is the presence of the Most High God in our midst. And we are free to receive that gift every single day! We can find comfort knowing that our Heavenly Father loves us and wants to be with us.
2) God sees you as a mighty warrior. In Gideon’s lowest moment, God chose to see him as who he could be, not who he was. If you are in Christ, God chooses to remember your sins no more (Jeremiah 31:34). He no longer sees your faults and failures, but rather He sees the blood of Jesus that covers you. God sees you as the righteousness of Christ, as forgiven and redeemed, as mighty and victorious. He sees you as His beloved child and the apple of His eye. Your identity is not how you feel, what you’ve done, or what others think or say. Your identity is what your Father says about you. And He looks at you in all your fears and weaknesses, and calls you a mighty warrior!
3) God is faithful, patient, and abundantly gracious! God didn’t chastise Gideon for his lack of faith or rebuke him for asking for signs. Rather, He lovingly and continually reminded Gideon that He was both near and able, and He faithfully showed Gideon His power and goodness. The Israelites had done nothing to deserve deliverance, and Gideon had done nothing to deserve being chosen to deliver them. But God was gracious. We have a God who is long-suffering. He is slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness. He will be patient with us when we stumble and fall. He knows we are flawed, and He chooses us anyway. If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself (2 Timothy 2:13).
4) When you are weak, God is strong. Gideon actually had good reason to feel inadequate: he was a weak coward who was completely unqualified to do what God was asking him to do, especially with what could hardly be called an army. But God didn’t need Gideon’s ability, nor was He hindered by his inability. He only asked for Gideon’s willingness and trust, and God did the rest. God’s power is made perfect in our weaknesses (2 Corinthians 12:9). Apart from Jesus, we can do nothing. But when we abide in His love, His Spirit in us will produce much fruit (John 15:5). We don’t have to be strong and fearless, we just have to receive the gift of God’s strong and fearless Spirit. When we are not enough, Jesus always is.
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