Gideon - Part 1
Notes
Transcript
Exegetical Point:
Homiletic Point:
Intro
Intro
The year is 724 AD. We’re in Germany.
This isn’t the Germany we know today - it is a forested land full of superstitious tribes. The Germanic people are enslaved to a pagan religion that included venerating certain great trees and groves .
One such tree was called Donar’s Oak. Or we may be more familiar with the Scandinavian name Thor. Thor’s oak was a tree dedicated to him, and off limits.
Boniface was a missionary who was seeking to convert those germanic people, to free them from fear and superstsion, leading them to the light of Christ!
One day, Boniface came to that great oak dedicated to Thor, and he chopped it down!
The people were probably horrified, and expected that Thor would bring his vengeance of Boniface for such a offensive act against Thor.
Yet, Boniface was not struck down. He served the God of Gods’s, YHWH Elohim!
The story goes that he only had to notch the tree, and then a great wind blew the tree down, and it split into four parts. The people were astounded, and many became Christians.
He took the timber of that oak, and he used it to build a church, so that the tree once dedicated to pagan worship, was now dedicated to the worship of God.
Boniface was not afraid of Thor. He knew that their god was no God in the fullest sense of the word.
Boniface wasn’t afeared of the people. He probably had a group with him, but not enough to drive off a rioting mob. Boniface demonstrated great courage, assuming the story is true, at proclaiming the true Christian faith that will triumph over all other faiths.
Boniface wasn’t afraid to go into a foreign country and proclaim the true Gospel, knowing that God could save people, and protect his own life as long as was needed. 30 years later, Boniface would die on the mission field at the hands of those he was trying to help. He was martyred.
The story of Boniface reminds us of a much older story, back hundreds of years before the birth of Christ in the days of the Judges.
There was a man named Gideon who was called by God do do something very similar, and to work hard in spiritual warfare for the sake of God. Yet this man was afraid, he was afraid to do what he was called to do. He was afraid to stand up and be counted as one of God’s people.
Yet, despite this man’s cowardice, despite his weakness, God chose to work though Gideon, and save a great number of people from the oppression of the Midianites.
We have too much text here to make our way through every nook and cranny, so feel free to send in your questions on stuff we gloss over.
Lets follow the story of the fearful man, used by God to save God’s people.
The Same Old Cycle
The Same Old Cycle
If you are familiar with Judges, or you have been with us in over these past weeks, you will know what to expect in a new story in Judges - the people who had previously been saved by God, and given property and prosperity, and who had promised to stay faithful to the LORD, they rebelled.
The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, and for seven years he gave them into the hands of the Midianites.
Not quite as long as last time, but the general pattern...
...comes as no surprise. We’ve seen this all before! Judges is a perpetual cycle of Apostasy (Kids, that means turning away from God), suffering or servitude under foreign powers, supplications (calling out to God) and the God providing salvation through a Judge figure.
What did their apostasy look like? They turned their back on their covenant Lord, and they joined in pagan worship. They particularly worshiped the Baals and the Asherah of the Canaanite religion.
So on this occasion, the oppression came from Midian primarily, but they were joined by Amalekites and “people from the east”.
They would encamp against them and devour the produce of the land, as far as Gaza, and leave no sustenance in Israel and no sheep or ox or donkey. For they would come up with their livestock and their tents; they would come like locusts in number—both they and their camels could not be counted—so that they laid waste the land as they came in.
Midian was way down south from the area where Gideon lived, but i seems there was a nomadic mass of Midianintes and others roaming the land stealing all food and supplies that the Israelites had.
Imagine that, every time you grew something, you had to worry that some midianites might come by and take it before you could eat it. Or in a more modern similarity, imaging getting your pay packet put into your bank account, but the Midianites would often hack in and take it all.
This was a bit sad. Midian was a “brother” nation to Israel. They were Abrahamic, like Ishmael, Midian was a son of Abraham and he founded a new nation. They weren’t the promised line, chosen by God, but they were still blessed by him. They were distant cousins oppressing God’s people.
Once again, Israel realizes the desperate situation they’re in, and so they cry out to God! God sent a prophet to announce their judgement:
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.”
Interestingly, there is no recorded assurance from God here. It is only a pronouncement of their history, and God’s Law. No comfort. No consoling words. So just for a moment we might wonder, will this be the time that God doesn’t deliver His people? Have they finally gone too far?
Calling A Fearful Deliverer
Calling A Fearful Deliverer
If we read the next lines of the story, we quickly find out that God will call Gideon to deliver Israel from their plight.
The Angel of the Lord came to meet Gideon:
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. When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.”
So with the Midianite horde on the prowl, Gideon is threshing his wheat in a winepress. No usually you thresh wheat on a threshing floor, and press wine in a winepress, but Gideon is hiding.
Now this seems like a good strategy, and it is! But this introductory picture introduces us to a guy who is associated with fear. From the opening verses about him, he will find it hard to shake off that connection.
And so, almost funnily, the Angel of the LORD addresses the man hiding in a winepress as a mighty Warrior! Sure, he may be, but he doesn’t look like it right now! Nevertheless the Angel says “the LORD is with you”
Gideon's response is to respectfully make some inquiries. You see it becomes apparent that Gideon is, in some measure, a worshipper of the LORD. His follow up questions make that clear
And Gideon said to him, “Please, my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian.”
Gideon knows the history, he knows God is powerful, he knows that they have been given over to the Midianites, he is looking for the hand of the LORD.
He is not, however, taking responsibility for sin that got them into that situation. He doesn’t confess their failures, he is almost accusatory! Why have you forsaken us? forgetting that they first forsook the LORD to go after the Baals and Asherah.
God’s answer is basically “You want to see my wonderful deeds? I’m sending you to save Israel”
The Lord turned to him and said, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?” “Pardon me, my lord,” Gideon replied, “but how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.” The Lord answered, “I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites, leaving none alive.”
The Angel of the LORD just gave Gideon a mission, and reminiscent of Moses before him, Gideon suggests that someone else would be better for the job!
Yet the LORD does not make mistakes - he chose Gideon because he wanted Gideon.
He calls Gideon to go and use the strength he has and God will go with him to accomplish it.
This is the way God’s people always accomplish great things. Whether it be the defeat of midian, the conversion of the germanic peoples, planting of churches, the discipleship of children, or the triumph over sin in your own life - whenever you act in obedience, using the resources that you have, God goes out to accomplish his purposes. GOd can use the miraculous, but most often he uses regular people walking in obedience. Even now God is with you by His Spirit, calling you to use your strength supplied by Him to serve Him.
Friends how many of us look at the world around us and bemoan the awful state of affairs? We may ask “where is God?” “are we forsaken?” “where are his mighty deeds?”, I want to ask, where are his people? Where is their obedience to the LORD?
Perhaps they are hiding, and wishing that someone else will take up the task of standing against the oppressive forces. Brothers and Sisters, we have everlasting life garunteed to us, what have we too loose? Stand forth be counted among the Lord’s people and them move forward under the Lord’s guidance.
Do we seek healthy churches? let us put our hand to the plow and build a healthy church under Christ.
Do we seek to save people from the fires of hell? Go forth and pronounce the Gospel that saves sinners.
Do we desire joyful Christian homes? Work for it.
Do we desire Christian schools? Build them!
Do we desire a Christian spouse? Find them!
Do we desire Godly politicians? Go into politics.
Do we desire Godly doctors and nurses? Go train.
I fear that too many Christians think that christian meekness means passivity. Christ did not save you so that that you could try and skate through life hiding from the worst of it, and get home to Jesus. He saves you by grace, but he saves you to something - you are representatives of Jesus in this world, and the ones through whom he will work and accomplish His mighty deeds!
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
Smashing Altars, Worshiping God
Smashing Altars, Worshiping God
So God called Gideon, and gave him the first task in his mission to save Israel - get rid of the false worship in your home town!
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. 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.”
Like Boniface would later do, and we would do with celebrating Christmas & Easter, Gideon was called to take something dedicated to worship of false gods, and replace it with something for worshiping the true God.
He wasn’t to merely take these things and repurpose them, he was called to tear them down, and replace them! But the spot wasn’t forever tainted, nor was the materials, but there was something powerfully symbolic in using the Asherah timber to fire a sacrifice to God..
It is an awful truth here that it’s Gideon’s own father who had set up these altars. This was a problem in their own household.
So Gideon stes to work on this task God gave him. But, that whif of fear we have noticed before, starts to become a strong smell...
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.
He had been visited by the Angel of the LORD, and given a direct mission objective, and yet he was still afraid of humans. Because he was afraid - he acted out of fear, not out of trust in God.
Once again, fine strategy, but his heart was out of place.
Nevertheless, he did obey! And that is to be applauded! People find the destruction the next day:
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! They asked each other, “Who did this?” When they carefully investigated, they were told, “Gideon son of Joash did it.”
Gideon is found out, and he is given a new nickname - Jerubaal
God started his campaign to rid the Israelites of oppression by starting with the issue that caused it - faithlessness.
We too, I would suggest, need to start with these basic principles. We need to drive out any false worship, starting with our own house.
You may be called a zealot, or a fundamentalist, or ultra-conservative, but it is far better for you to offend the sensibilities of others to be faithful to God, than to pretend that it’s ok to mix in ideologies and spiritualism that are opposed to God.
Start at home - Purge your house of idols, real and metaphorical. Create homes and communities dedicated to the worship of the true God LORD. Particularly in our day, the internet is a conduit of all the anti-god filth of the world - piped right to your home. Not saying you can’t use it, but saying what is it doing in your house. Has it become an altar where you sacrifice time and devotion?
Wavering Faith
Wavering Faith
So, the first mission is accomplished. They’s driven out false religion from their home, now to drive out the oppressors from their land. God’s spirit is on the move!
Then the Spirit of the Lord came on Gideon, and he blew a trumpet, summoning the Abiezrites to follow him. 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.
Map - where did they come from.
Gideon’s smell of fear becomes a stench. God had promised already, yet Gideon takes it upon himself to test the LORD:
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 he did the opposite.
“You shall not put the Lord your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah.
God did not punish Gideon, even though I would suggest this was not the right thing. He was gracious, and overlooked this testing.
Are you afraid of obedience? Are you holding back, looking for a sign before you heed the call?
Conquest through Weakness
Conquest through Weakness
Now we come to the most well known section.
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.’ 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.
Too many!
A natural response - Look what I did! No, it’s God’s work.
Wittled down the numbers with the drinking to 300 men.
But there was still fear in Gideon. Understandable considering there was 300 against 10,000! Yet even so, this was a sign that Gideon was not fully trusting God. God acts once again to assure him:
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.
Gideon was afraid, how do we know? He went down!
He went down and overheard a dream that assued him of victory.
He needed His enemies to tell him of his own victory...
And the Midianites and the Amalekites and all the people of the East lay along the valley like locusts in abundance, and their camels were without number, as the sand that is on the seashore in abundance.
Vast horde
Yet God would use 300 men of God to set them all to flight! Strategy to cause chaos.
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.
Assembled in 3 companies
“For the LORD and Gideon”?
When the three hundred trumpets sounded, the Lord caused the men throughout the camp to turn on each other with their swords. The army fled to Beth Shittah toward Zererah as far as the border of Abel Meholah near Tabbath. Israelites from Naphtali, Asher and all Manasseh were called out, and they pursued the Midianites.
The LORD used the natural response to drive them to start slaying each other!
God uses 300 men to defeat an army of 10,000. It was God’s victory!
God works through apparent weakness to win, like through a coward like Gideon. Like a carpenter from Nazareth.
He Conquered sin, death & the devil through the apparent weakness of the cross. He was captured and submitted to the whole process, but God was bringing about a huge victory through it!
Even now ours is a “weak”faith in the eyes of the world. People call it a crutch, for the weak-minded, opiate for the masses,
Even some people who call themselves Christian will balk at the freeness of grace, and quickly try to cover it up with good works. But that is the scandal - there is grace - free, unmerited merciful grace. A gift given for no pay. And this changes lives!
How can forgiveness create freedom, obedience, righteousness, justice? How did forgiveness create the blessings of western civilization that we enjoy here today?
So What?
So What?
God uses flawed deliverers, but he has used a perfect deliverer in Jesus
God uses apparent weakness to overcome the strong! Like with Jesus.
We ought not waver in our faith - fear God not man!
Cast down altars and raise up true worship, Drive off the enemies in the Strength of God, with the Spirit!
Drive home conclusion