Lessons from Gideon
A couple had two little boys, ages eight and ten, who were excessively mischievous.
The two were always getting into trouble and their parents could be confident that if any mischief occurred in their town, their two young sons were involved in some capacity. The parents were at their wit’s end as to what to do about their sons’ behavior.
The parents had heard that a clergyman in town had been successful in disciplining children in the past, so they contacted him, and he agreed to give it his best shot. He asked to see the boys individually, so the eight-year-old was sent to meet with him first. The clergyman sat the boy down and asked him sternly, “Where is God?”
The boy made no response, so the clergyman repeated the question in an even sterner tone, “Where is God?”
Again the boy made no attempt to answer, so the clergyman raised his voice even more and shook his finger in the boy’s face, “WHERE IS GOD?”
At that, the boy bolted from the room, ran directly home, and slammed himself in his closet. His older brother followed him into the closet and said, “What happened?”
The younger brother replied, “We are in BIG trouble this time. God is missing and they think we did it!”
That perhaps gives us an idea of what the Israelites were feeling at the times in the book Judges- they had “lost” God! In fact the very last verse in Judges really sums up the fundamental problem Israel was experiencing in the time of Judges
Judges 21:25 NKJV
25 In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
Do you know what, I don’t think we are any different today. This world will think you are a bit unhinged if you said something like “In this day and age, and with all our knowledge and training we have, this is the right thing to do…. but I’m not going to do that”. They will say well that does not make sense. Our knowledge base, our understanding, or perspective of life, our wisdom is not only not the gold standard , its highly questionable, its more like the morning mist that you see for a while, you cannot grasp it, then its gone. There is only one gold standard the word of God, not what we think in this day and age.
And so its this thinking of doing what seems right to us at the time, or generally and more often what makes us feel good at the time, that creates trouble for us that can last a life time. And Im not exaggerating. Lets see what happened to Gideon.
Judges 6:1-10 NIV
6 The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, and for seven years he gave them into the hands of the Midianites. 2 Because the power of Midian was so oppressive, the Israelites prepared shelters for themselves in mountain clefts, caves and strongholds. 3 Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, the Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern peoples invaded the country. 4 They camped on the land and ruined the crops all the way to Gaza and did not spare a living thing for Israel, neither sheep nor cattle nor donkeys. 5 They came up with their livestock and their tents like swarms of locusts. It was impossible to count them or their camels; they invaded the land to ravage it. 6 Midian so impoverished the Israelites that they cried out to the Lord for help.
7 When the Israelites cried out to the Lord because of Midian, 8 he sent them a prophet, who said, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I brought you up out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 9 I rescued you from the hand of the Egyptians. And I delivered you from the hand of all your oppressors; I drove them out before you and gave you their land. 10 I said to you, ‘I am the Lord your God; do not worship the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you live.’ But you have not listened to me.”
(The prophet-Jewish legend says that he was Phinehas, the son of Eleazar. Their Hagadah (legendary information) generally enables them to name these nameless prophets.)
So the Midianites were descendants of Ketura, Abrahams third wife. Just on the point of having many wives, multiple wives throughout the bible always causes serious problem. Even though the bible in the Old Testament, to my knowledge does not say you specifically cannot have multiple wives the consequences of doing so were always detrimental. The negative consequences of the union Hagar and Abraham are still seen to this day! In this case the Midianites were more than just a thorn in the flesh. Israel at this time was terrorised by these camel riding Midianites, they hid in caves from them, they lived in fear and their way of life was dramatically changed
Israel had also at this time turned away from God and even resorted to Baal worship. God had warned Israel about this.
Deuteronomy 28:15-34
15 However, if you do not obey the Lord your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come on you and overtake you:
Now we don’t live under this covenant of curses, but there are consequences to sin including in our own lives. And we know this from Hebrews
Hebrews 12:5-8 NIV
5 “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline,
and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,
6 because the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.”[a]
7 Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? 8 If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all.
Because Israel had turned away from God and done what they felt was right in their own eyes, the Midianites were able to completely disrupt their lives. God was not in their lives to guide and keep them. The Midianite problem got their attention and they turned to God for help. For us to change, God needs to get our attention. So if we sometimes feel like we are being invaded by the Midianites, and we don’t have the peace of God- maybe God is trying to get our attention? These were tough times but God was drawing His people to Him. It took 7 years for them turn to God. And when they did, it would transform Israel in a very positive way- but they had to defeat the Midianites. And the only way to do this, was first to turn to God! That is always the first step in defeating the Midianites
But let me say right up front as we discuss the Midianites and Gideon, not everything that goes wrong in or lives is God’s discipline! If I have to go to the dentist three times this year and get root canal treatment, it’s not God disciplining me- it’s probably because I didn’t brush and floss as I should have! Or if I get COVID three times-It’s just the environment I’m in- not God’s discipline. So let’s not confuse life with what the word of God is telling us and what the Holy Spirit is speaking to us about!
Getting back to Gideon.
Judges 6:11-13 NIV
11 The angel of the Lord came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites. 12 When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.”
13 “Pardon me, my lord,” Gideon replied, “but if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our ancestors told us about when they said, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up out of Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.”
So like many of us when we face these difficult times we say where is God in all this, why is He not protecting us and looking after us- just like Gideon did. We assume that God would protect us from all these negative consequences, that with His power we wonder how God could still be on our side working for good? We never seem to learn this fact that this is not how God works. To overcome we need to turn to God- completely! God had not left them! Like He does not leave us. Maybe if they had been asking why did God allow this, or what is God telling me, maybe they would not have had to endure 7 years of hardship? I should be asking myself those questions sometimes- what is God telling me here or is there something that God wants me to learn from this? So in difficult times we should be asking the right questions, not “where is God in all this?” but maybe “what is God teaching me in all this?”
That night Gideon tears down the alter to Baal
Judges 6:28-33 NKJV
28 And when the men of the city arose early in the morning, there was the altar of Baal, torn down; and the wooden image that was beside it was cut down, and the second bull was being offered on the altar which had been built. 29 So they said to one another, “Who has done this thing?” And when they had inquired and asked, they said, “Gideon the son of Joash has done this thing.” 30 Then the men of the city said to Joash, “Bring out your son, that he may die, because he has torn down the altar of Baal, and because he has cut down the wooden image that was beside it.”
31 But Joash said to all who stood against him, “Would you plead for Baal? Would you save him? Let the one who would plead for him be put to death by morning! If he is a god, let him plead for himself, because his altar has been torn down!” 32 Therefore on that day he called him Jerubbaal, saying, “Let Baal plead against him, because he has torn down his altar.”
33 Then all the Midianites and Amalekites, the people of the East, gathered together; and they crossed over and encamped in the Valley of Jezreel.
Whenever you decide you reject the Midianite way and have had enough of the Midianite lifestyle, I will give you guarantee that there will be opposition. This happens in both the physical and spiritual realm in my experience. And it comes in force. In this case we see a force of 135,000 come up against Gideon!
Just on a separate point if someone decides to make a public spectacle by burning the Bible (or burning the altar of Baal, or in the news last week it was the Koran), we don’t go and try and kill that person. It’s wrong on so many levels, but we put them in God’s hands. (Which is basically what Joash said about Gideon). We don’t need to rescue God-especially by killing others. I’ll touch on that a bit later.
So Gideon blows the trumpet to assemble his troops and he manages to assemble 32,000 men willing to fight. (So 4:1 ratio). Militarily he has problems, besides a 4:1 ratio, the Midianites have all these camels (-IFV’s- Infantry Fighting Vehicles!) they can fight from, and then these Midianites are experienced fighters. So Gideon asks God for a sign that God will give Israel victory and in that well known account Gideon puts out a fleece to God. Which as you know, God confirms and Gideon takes his force of men to the battlefront.
Just on that point of signs. I know I have said to Di, if only God would speak to me through a burning bush just like He did for Moses, then I would know exactly what I need to do in some of the difficult decisions I have had to make. Or any other kind of sign would be great! But do you know, that those prophets of old would exchange all those signs they had, which they had maybe once every 40 years or so, for what we have now. The full revelation of God’s plan , His Son Jesus and the in dwelling of the Holy Spirit allowing us to come into His presence and know His will every single day of our lives! They could only dream of what we have now!
Judges 7:1-7 NIV Gideon Defeats the Midianites
7 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. 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.’ 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.
[So now the ratio is nearly 14:1 then….]
4 …. 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.”
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.
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.”
That ratio is now 450:1. That ratio is so unfair…………… to the Midianites! Because God could do this with one person, or even no people as He did to the Assyrians in Hezekiah’s time! The point being made here is our victory does not come from anything we have to offer, not our abilities, not our strength but only from God. We in fact don’t have much to offer!
And if you look at the people God chooses, it is not the strong, most knowledgeable- look at Gideon
Judges 6:15 NKJV
15 So he said to Him, “O [a]my Lord, how can I save Israel? Indeed my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.”
In fact people being referred to be like dogs is a derogatory term in the bible. Pigs were better than them. So the men chosen as being like dogs when they lapped the water like dogs, was no compliment, if anything they were the lowest of the low! But God uses the lowest of the low!
So any victory we have, or what we have has nothing to do with our own abilities.
Not only that, if you think that God only works through those of incredibly strong faith, think about how many times Gideon asks for a sign from God. Even on the threshing floor Gideon says (6:17)” .. give me a sign that it is really you talking to me”. Then we have all the signs he requests when he puts out a fleece. Then God gives him another sign when Gideon is afraid and God says to Gideon to go with a friend and listen to what the enemy are saying. Asking for a sign is not an indication of the strength of faith, in fact generally it’s regarded as the opposite.
So if we think in anyway, that it is up to our abilities, or up to us being able to work out how to solve a particular problem, or our nation’s problems, or our families problems, or up to our scientists to solve a problem, or up to our military’s strength to defend us, then we will never see the miracles God has in store for us. When we rely on our own skills or strength we are losing out on being blessed by God.
As Ken was doing the communion last week I began to think what would I have done if I was in the crowd that saw Jesus whipped and nailed to a cross I was filled with such anger and revulsion at what I pictured and my first thought was I would grab a sword and I would fight off any soldier that came near Jesus to harm Him. And I would whip off more than his ear! Then I realised just how silly that thought was. Do I really think I can save God!! Me and my sword!
There are many difficult, trying and sometimes debilitating circumstances that face us in life, that sometimes never seem to end. We may even feel we’re in this never ending cycle of drama- lets call it our Midianite experience. We may be the weakest of the least, we may feel where is God in all this, or my faith is weak and I’m even physically weak what can God do in my situation?
Well this is exactly the lesson the lesson from Gideon. God does not need our strength or abilities to defeat the Midianites, but He wants to grow us spiritually and take us out of that Midianite way, but to do so we have to turn to God and burn down those Asherah poles- all those things that are more important to us than being in the presence of God and then let God do what God does- miracles!