Sermon Tone Analysis

GIDEON TURNS SOUR

We left Gideon last week on a high… he had just pulled off the most incredible upset in military history… with only 300 soldiers he had defeated a Massive Midianite army of probably about 100,000 soldiers without so much as a single casualty on his side.

You picture this scene of people opening champagne bottles and carrying him around on their shoulders…

But he goes back and, as often happens after a great victory, his people are backbiting and bickering with each other, so the next chapter opens with him in conflict with 2 clusters of Israelites…

The first is Ephraim, a large, wealthy tribe in Israel, who seems to have had their pride hurt because they got left out… so they ream Gideon for not calling on them to lead in battle.

The second group is a couple of smaller townships called Succoth and Penuel… they just refuse to help because they don’t take Gideon that seriously.

Their offenses are similar; what is striking is how differently Gideon responds to each.

To large, wealthy Ephraim, Gideon responds with flattery; he woos them over; to the smaller towns of Succoth and Penuel, however, he responds with harshness—actually going so far as to torture the leaders of Succoth by wrapping them in briers and beating them, and he levels the town of Penuel and kills its inhabitants.

His response is inconsistent… and seems based more on what is best for him than what God wants.

Gideon needed the tribe of Ephraim, you see, and he knew he couldn’t beat them anyway, so he flatters them to get them back on his side; Succoth and Penuel, however, are weaker than him, and he didn’t need them, so he just wipes them out.

Maybe the bigger point is that in neither case did he consult God to ask what he wanted.

He simply did what he felt like doing, based on what he had the power to do.

What you are seeing is that something is happening in Gideon’s heart.

Fresh off of this incredible victory over the Midianites, he’s already forgotten whose battle it is… his heart has turned inward and gone sour.

He used to say, “Success is joining Jesus wherever he is.”

Now he says, “Success is doing whatever I want.”

This was actually a great response on Gideon’s part, because God had told Israel they would not need a king because he would be their king.

So, so far, so good… but jump down to vs. [30]

He has a harem and 70 sons, which is pretty king-like.

Only kings in those days had a wife-pool like that.

Now, Abimelech, in Hebrew, means literally “My dad is the king.”

What?

Kind of sounds like Gideon sees himself as king...Go back to vs [24]

Now he’s collecting taxes.

That’s also pretty king-like.

An ephod was the vest worn by the high priest into the presence of God when he went in to make requests to God on behalf the people.

The ephod, per God’s instructions, was only to be worn by the tribe of Levi and only at the tabernacle.

He may not be trying to deny God, but he’s put himself in the place of God and taken upon himself privileges that belong only to God, and is now directing people’s attention away from God.

Gideon creates his own version of that… He may not be trying to deny God, but he’s put himself in the place of God and taken upon himself privileges that belong only to God, and is now directing people’s attention away from God.

What’s happened to Gideon?

His victory, evidently, has given him a taste for glory.

And that leads him to blasphemy and he becomes a curse to Israel.

So now, instead of being the deliverer of the people, who taught them to have faith in God; he has become a stumbling block to the people that kept them from faith in God.

No leader in the Old Testament provides a better example of faith-filled, courageous leadership… he led God’s people to such incredible things.

But at the end he sours, and he makes it about himself, and ends up leading Israel astray.

You see, with Gideon we see something that we have never seen before in Judges

the people fall away from God while the Judge is reigning, not after.

In every other case the people fell away after the Judge died.

Gideon’s generation fell away while Gideon was in power, because of how Gideon used his power.

You see from Gideon’s life some clear indicators that you have made it all about you.

When you see these things in your life, you can know it’s become about you, too:

INFREQUENT PRAYER

When Gideon was desperate for God, he prayed instinctively.

May leaders are type-A enough that they pray as a matter of discipline, and that is good; for someone who is really dependent on God, prayer is involuntary, because it comes from desperation.

INFREQUENT PRAYER

Like breathing.

Not a discipline.

Many of you pray each day as a discipline… Prayer as discipline is good; prayer that grows out of a desperate realization of your need for God’s help us better.

Infrequent, non-desperate prayer is a sure sign…

FAILURE TO CONSULT OTHERS

Not only does Gideon fail to consult God, he doesn’t really consult with anybody.

I’ve seen this so many times… They become an island; they see themselves on a higher plane; they always know best.

No longer humble enough to recognize they don’t know it all… I’ve seen this… and it always destroys.

RESENTMENT

When it’s about you, you resent those who get in your way; you become harsh and cruel to those who challenge you: you can’t forgive anyone who challenges or obstructs you.

You come down like a hammer… Except for the rich, because you need them.

MATERIALISTIC EXCESS

Gideon takes people money and makes for himself a suit of clothes made of gold.

I’m not a poverty guy… God loves to give us nice things.

But for leaders who have made it all about them, they start to live on a higher plane… they deserve it… newer; bigger, flashier…

CONSTANT WORRYING ABOUT YOUR NAME

When it’s about you, you are always guarding your reputation.

Building your platform, elevating your name.

You can’t handle criticism.

You crave praise and need constant affirmation.

Christians most often pass the test of adversity; it is the test of prosperity we fail.

So I’ll say what I said last week: Christians most often pass the test of adversity; it is the test of prosperity we fail.

When Gideon was small and weak, he depended on God.

It was when he got strong that he forgot God and made it about himself.

Beware your strengths, don’t bemoan your weaknesses; beware your prosperity.

Those are the things that woo your heart away from God.

Does this mean Christians shouldn’t save?

No, it means that if you do have excess, you must

Plead with God to protect your heart.

Be as surrendered to him when you’re wealthy as you were when you were poor and desperate.

Be extravagantly generous.

Nothing cures the love of money like giving it away.

Don’t take God’s blessing of success in your life and make it all about you.

Don’t let that good thing God has done in your life spoil!

Gideon accomplished so much in ministry… but what good is that if your heart spoils, you lose your relationship with God, your joy, and then you spoil your family after you?

Which is where we turn next.

Abimelech the Tumbleweed

Well, after Gideon’s death, Abimelech (remember, he was the son Gideon named, “My dad is the king, y’all”) said, “I want to be king like my dad sort of was without the name except I want to have the name” and he hired a bunch of worthless vagabonds to be his posse and they ambushed and killed all 69 of Gideon’s other sons… except for one named Jotham who escaped by hiding in a closet.

Abimelech the Tumbleweed

Then, Abimelech said, “Well, I guess I have to be king now since my dad has no other sons left” and the leaders of Israel, who knew all of this… crowned him king at Shechem.

Abimelech the Tumbleweed

This was a terrible SCANDAL.

First of all, as I told you they were not supposed to have a king; God was supposed to be their king.

Abimelech the Tumbleweed

Second, they have chosen a brother-murdering scoundrel to be their king; And to top it all off, this all goes down at Shechem, which was a holy place for the Jews: It was the birthplace of their nation, where God had given Abraham the promise and renewed it with Joshua. 1 One scholar said that would be like Americans reinstituting slavery at a meeting in Gettysburg or restoring the Jim Crow laws in Montgomery.

JOTHAM

Well, Jotham, the one brother who escaped, comes out of hiding and gets in front of Israel’s leaders and tells them a parable about a bunch of trees in a forest who decide they want to choose a king:

JOTHAM

First they go to the olive tree and say, “Will you be our king?”

And the olive tree says, “No, I’m getting too rich off my olive production to be bothered with being your king.”

Likewise the fig tree… fig newtons.

They approach every kind of tree, eventually even asking the grapevine….

Nobody wants to be bothered with the burden of being kind.

JOTHAM

So eventually they find a tumbleweed and say, “Will you be our king?” and the tumbleweed says, “Sure, but first you have to burn down all the other trees” and so they do.