Let's Do Better Than Gideon
"But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;" (King James Version).
Gideon was not a very confident person in himself or the Lord. Yet, the Scripture begins his story with him trying to destroy the winepress of the enemy of the land – the Midianites – by threshing wheat in their winepress (Judges 6:11).
Enter the Lord – “When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, ‘The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.’” (Judges 6:12) Allow me to dissect the Lord’s introduction, albeit a simple and short greeting, the approach is loaded with significance.
After the Lord introduces Himself (“The Lord”), Jesus, “The Angel of the Lord”, comforts Gideon by stating He, The Lord “is with you”. Then Jesus not only gives him a grand title but within this title declares His vision for Gideon’s life “mighty warrior”.
However, as anyone who reads the story of Gideon can observe from here forward Gideon’s response to God’s calling and further instructions in life lacks much confidence and belief in God as he journeys as Israel’s deliverer.
Right away, in Judges 6:15, similar to Moses, we see Gideon thinking God must have the wrong guy for the job claiming his clan is the weakest and he is even least in his family.
"But lord, " Gideon asked, "how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family."
Notice the “L” for the word “Lord” in the previous verse is not capitalized. This is purposeful. Gideon does not know the true identity of this person yet, but gives him some respect.
Gideon continues to show confusion and trust issues by replying to the Lord with “sir” and the complaint of abandonment.
"But sir," Gideon replied, "if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our fathers told us about when they said, 'Did not the LORD bring us up out of Egypt?' But now the LORD has abandoned us and put us into the hand of Midian." (Judges 6:13)
For a second time, Jesus states that He will be with Gideon and that is all you will need.
The Lord answered, “I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites, leaving none alive.” (Judges 6:16)
Here is when Gideon’s asking-for-a-sign quest begins, but the eyes of his understanding are slowly opening. Gideon gets a lightening bolt of an idea that this could be The Lord.
"Gideon replied, 'If now I have found favor in your eyes, give me a sign that it is really you talking to me. Please do not go away until I come back and bring my offering and set it before you.'
And the Lord said, 'I will wait until you return.'” (Judges 6:17)
When Gideon returns and places the food before the Lord on a stone table, the Lord touches it with his staff and consumes it in fire as a sacrifice, then vanishes.
Gideon was afraid of dying because of seeing God face-to-face and that the Lord did not correct him about seeing Him (as opposed to seeing another angel). The Lord simply told Gideon, "Peace! Do not be afraid. You are not going to die." (Judges 6:23) This proves that this was indeed the pre-incarnate Christ in the form of The Angel of the Lord.
After Gideon had his Divine Encounter and memorialized it, God returned to him that same night and instructed him to clean house of all his family's gods (their respective physical idols), especially the altar to Baal and the Asherah pole beside it (Judges 6:25-26). Gideon's response was one of obedience, He did clean house BUT in the wrong spirit or attitude.
"So Gideon took ten of his servants and did as the LORD told him. But because he was afraid of his family and the men of the town, he did it at night rather than in the daytime." (Judges 6:27)
God had been supporting Gideon by giving him signs and revealing Himself to Gideon but with no track record of courage to speak of in his life, fear paralyzed his faith and confused his thinking. Gideon could have easily followed God's instructions during the daytime. There was the emotional response from the community, then the response from religious tradition.
"The men 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." 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." (Judges 6:30-31)
Their religious tradition told them that Baal could and would defend himself in the face of a challenge or opposition and it did not matter whether it was day or night. In truth, it was not Baal that Gideon was "afraid" of, it was "his family and the men of the town". So, now in addition to lack of confidence, confusion and doubt – fear is added into mix.
This attitude check led Gideon to a point when suddenly the Holy Spirit moved on him in such a way that God provided Gideon with the confidence he had been missing and Gideon marshaled the troops for the Lord. A quick display to Gideon, under the Lord’s power, of what Gideon could accomplish.
However, this waned quickly as afterward Gideon’s dependency on signs returned in full force. The very next verse starts a section with Gideon requesting from the Lord for two signs proving God meant what He said about him being a warrior-leader. God was gracious and merciful and answered Gideon’s requests.
“Gideon said to God, ‘If you will save Israel by my hand as you have promised-- 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." And that is what happened. Gideon rose early the next day; he squeezed the fleece and wrung out the dew--a bowlful of water. 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. This time make the fleece dry and the ground covered with dew." That night God did so. Only the fleece was dry; all the ground was covered with dew.’” (Judges 6:36-40)
This asking for signs, as Gideon did, should not happen every time one needs to make a major decision in life. A sign for every major decision in life does not define the true nature of Faith.
"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." (Hebrews 11:1)
If believers relied on signs all the time we would not move very far in life because God desires for us to learn and grow from life, each other and “what we do not see”.
A big part to this Faith Walk is prayer for guidance, obedience, steadfastness, and the rebuking of doubt. The other huge factor in Faith is a life-long development process with God, called Trust.
After God validates His call of Gideon as His champion warrior for Israel with signs, God decides to whittle down the number of Gideon’s troops least anyone should claim the glory but God Himself.
"In order that Israel may not boast against me that her own strength has saved her, announce now to the people, 'Anyone who trembles with fear may turn back and leave Mount Gilead.' "So, twenty-two thousand men left, while ten thousand remained." (Judges 7:2-3)
Wow! Thirty-two thousand fighting (32,000) men were at Gideon's disposal! Then twenty-two thousand (22,000) were allowed to go home simply on the basis of "anyone who trembles with fear". Guess God doesn't want pansies in His army (another message there)!
But Wait There's More! The Lord had some more whittling for Gideon to do. The Lord gave Gideon a method, down by the river, to separate out those who would leave and those who would stay and be used from the remaining. When the dust settled, three hundred (300) men were chosen to aid Gideon in defeating the Midianites (Judges 7:4-7).
If Gideon did not have a confidence issue before, he sure does now and I would too. But God knows all of us inside and out, as well as the situation at hand. With this comforting and encouraging thought, the Lord said to Gideon –
"'If you are afraid to attack, go down to the camp with your servant Purah 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." (Judges 7:10)
“If” Gideon is afraid? Observing that Gideon now has 300 soldiers instead of the 32,000 he started out with and the enemy - "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 7:12) – Gideon took the Lord’s advice and went down to the enemy’s camp with his servant Purah, listened to what they said and was incredibly encouraged. This awesome encouragement led to Gideon’s obedience of the Lord’s instructions on how to fight these people and the Midianites were killed.
The next forty years, the land experienced peace, but the people’s spiritual condition headed back down the wrong road. The Israelites offered Gideon the position of rulership over them and Gideon rejected their offer. In the place of being their leader, he offered The Lord as leader – however that would manifest.
Then in place of their offer, for himself, he asked for every gold earring that was taken as plunder, which he promptly made into a gold ephod or image and placed it in his town of Ophrah.
This was a huge stumbling block for Israel, Gideon and his family – “All Israel prostituted themselves by worshiping it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and his family.” (Judges 8:22-27)
Instead of continuing to be a great Ruler for God, Gideon's focus was corrupted. His eyes got off the Provider and got on the Plunder. Gideon's focus was so much on the gold earrings that he made it into an idol where not only did it become "a snare" to him and his family, but because he placed it "in Ophrah, his town" the whole nation of Israel became snared or "prostituted" to it by "worshiping it there".
Take Away: My challenge to me and all my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ is loaded in this example of Gideon’s life. Christians should try their best to hear, trust and obey the calling that is on their life from The Lord.
Also within our journey with the Holy Spirit, believers should strive to not allow negative history to repeat itself like Gideon’s huge mountain of lack of confidence and lust for signs and material things.
To me, Thomas, the disciple of Jesus, could not begin to compare to – the amount of doubt, lack of confidence, fear, confusion, lust and idolatry that Gideon possessed.
God attempted to work with Gideon in person through all these weaknesses with the patience that only God can bring. However, through all the pulling and pushing of Gideon’s faith in God we observe a positive and negative outcome. The positive outcome was that God raised up a deliverer like He was known to do for Israel when they cried out to Him and He saved Israel from the Midianites.
The negative outcome was that God's selection who helped restore peace to the land, forfeited his soul by worshipping something else than Yahweh. Plus, he returned his family and the nation back to idolatry. Scripture accounts the end of Gideon’s story like this –
“Thus Midian was subdued before the Israelites and did not raise its head again. During Gideon's lifetime, the land enjoyed peace forty years. Jerub-Baal son of Joash went back home to live. He had seventy sons of his own, for he had many wives. His concubine, who lived in Shechem, also bore him a son, whom he named Abimelech. Gideon son of Joash died at a good old age and was buried in the tomb of his father Joash in Ophrah of the Abiezrites. No sooner had Gideon died than the Israelites again prostituted themselves to the Baals. They set up Baal-Berith as their god and did not remember the LORD their God, who had rescued them from the hands of all their enemies on every side. They also failed to show kindness to the family of Jerub-Baal (that is, Gideon) for all the good things he had done for them.” (Judges 8:28-35).
What kind of legacy are you building? Do you want to go out in life on a high note? Do you want to finish the "race of life" strong? If you do not steer away from the old, unsuccessful ways and not learn from your mistakes, then the "end note(s)" of your journey – your life, loves and legacy - could be soured or even forgotten, like in the case of Gideon.
At the conclusion of Gideon's story, after forty years of peace to the land, Gideon dies and he, his family and God were forgotten by Israel. Let us, as believers in Christ, strive to show our full confidence is in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit. Let us as Christians be transparent enough that people around us see the kind of faith-based legacy we are building. Gideon went from nobody to somebody to nobody again – Let’s Do Better Than Gideon.
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