This three-part expository study was preached at Flagstaff Christian Fellowship in 2020. Audio and manuscripts are available for each lesson.
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Gideon, Lesson 1
January 12, 2020
If you keep up with the news, it’s difficult not to get depressed. Every day brings stories of human suffering through war, terrorism, natural disasters, coronavirus or crime. In addition, I get daily emails that tell how the world is attacking our Christian faith from every angle imaginable. Even the news about Christianity reports many stories of Christian leaders and churches falling into sin or defecting from the faith. We live in spiritually dark times that can lead us to despair.
The book of Judges sketches one of the darkest spiritual times in Israel’s history. Joshua had led Israel out of the wilderness and into the promised land. Under his leadership, Israel had conquered much of the land which God had promised to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses. But after Joshua’s death, we read (Jud. 2:10-13):
All that generation also were gathered to their fathers; and there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord, nor yet the work which He had done for Israel. Then the sons of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals, and they forsook the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed themselves down to them; thus they provoked the Lord to anger. So they forsook the Lord and served Baal and the Ashtaroth.
Those verses describe the bleak condition of Israel 11 or 12 centuries before Christ. But they also can apply directly to us today. If you grew up in a Christian home as I did, it is a great blessing, but there is also an inherent danger: Your parents knew the Lord and experienced the power of the gospel in their lives. But the question is, do you know the Lord? Have you experienced the power of the gospel in your life? If you’re only a cultural Christian without a personal knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, you are susceptible to following the idols of our godless culture even as Israel was doing in Gideon’s day.
But the encouraging message of the book of Judges is that God is at work even in the darkest of times and even with the weakest, most mixed up people, to accomplish His sovereign purpose for His glory. Gideon never would have done what he did if God had not taken the initiative. And so, Gideon is not really the hero of this story. God is the hero! But God chooses to work through some weak people whom He teaches to trust in Him. As Paul put it (2 Cor. 4:7), “We have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves.”
In this message, we will look at Gideon’s calling (Judges 6:1-24). In the next two messages, we will see Gideon’s conditioning (Jud. 6:25-7:15a); and, Gideon’s conquering, followed (sadly) by his compromising (Jud. 7:15b-7:25; 8:22-35). Applied to us, the lesson from Gideon’s calling is:
Because God is at work even in the spiritually darkest times, we can trust Him to use us even in our weakness to accomplish His sovereign purpose.
When you look around at the depressing news, it may seem that God has gone on vacation. But He never does. As Paul states (Eph. 1:11), we have been “predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will.” That was true in Gideon’s day as well. The book of Judges contains at least six similar cycles: Israel falls into sin; because of their sin, God brings an enemy that forces them into servitude; eventually, when the suffering seems overwhelming, Israel cries out to God in supplication; in response, God sends a “judge” who leads them to salvation. The judges were not like modern courtroom judges, but rather were leaders who provided military deliverance from Israel’s enemies and political oversight in limited geographical regions of Israel.
The fact that God was willing to repeat the deliverance of His idolatrous people over and over shows His great patience and grace. But the harsh servitude that He brought on His sinning people teaches us that sin never delivers on its promises. It promises happiness and prosperity, but in the end, it brings enslavement and suffering to nations, families, and individuals.
The theme of Judges is (21:25): “In those days, there was no king in Israel. Every man did what was right in his own eyes” (see, also, Jud. 17:6; 18:1; 19:1). Many of the judges were flawed men who showed that Israel needed a godly leader who could unify the nation in the worship of Yahweh. In the story line of the Bible, Judges follows the conquest of the land under Joshua and precedes the short story of Ruth, which shows how a Moabite widow trusted the God of Israel and was adopted into His covenant people. The punch line at the end of Ruth (4:17-22) tells us that she became the great-grandmother of King David. Then 1 Samuel tells how Israel finally got a king: first, the unfaithful King Saul and then David, the faithful king after God’s heart, whose descendant would be Jesus the Messiah.
In Gideon’s day, Israel was being overrun by the Midianites, a nomadic people who lived southeast of Israel. They were descendants of Abraham and his concubine Keturah (Gen. 25:1-2). During Israel’s time in the wilderness, the Midianites had joined with the Moabites under the counsel of Balaam to seduce Israel into immorality and idolatry (Num. 25:1-9). As a result, God told Moses to strike the Midianites in war (Num. 25:16-18).
In Gideon’s day, Midian would stay east of the Jordan River until harvest time. Then, with the Amalekites (another enemy of Israel) they would swarm into Israel like locusts, devour their crops, and steal their farm animals (Jud. 6:4-5). The Israelites did not have the military strength to fight off these hordes, so they had to hide out in dens and caves in the mountains and watch helplessly as the crops they had worked to harvest were consumed by these foreign raiders. This had gone on for seven years. The people were brought very low and finally cried out to the Lord (Jud. 6:1, 6-7).
Before God raised up Gideon as a military deliverer, He sent an unnamed prophet to confront Israel with their apostasy. After rehearsing God’s deliverance of Israel from slavery in Egypt, the prophet reminded them of the Lord’s command not to fear the gods of the Amorites in whose land they lived. Then the Lord added pointedly (Jud. 6:10b), “But you have not obeyed Me.”
Next, we see the Lord at work when He showed up in Gideon’s village of Ophrah as “the angel of the Lord” (not “an angel,” but “the angel”). While some scholars dispute that the angel of the Lord was God Himself, I think that Scripture shows that He was the Lord Jesus Christ in preincarnate form (F. Duane Lindsey, The Bible Knowledge Commentary [Victor Books], ed. by John F. Walvoord & Roy B. Zuck, 1:381). He had the appearance of a man, but after He touched Gideon’s meal offering with his staff, causing it to be consumed with fire from the rock, He then disappeared. At that point, Gideon thought he would die because he had seen the angel of the Lord face to face (Jud. 6:22). Later, Samson’s father Manoah feared the same fate after he and his wife saw the same angel. Manoah calls the angel of the Lord, “God” (Jud. 13:21-22).
So even though Gideon lived in dark times politically and spiritually, God was at work. He was at work in disciplining His wayward people. He was at work to raise up a prophet to confront the people with their sin. He was at work to show up bodily in Gideon’s town and then to call Gideon to deliver His people. No matter how dark the times and even if you can’t see how the Lord is working, you can be sure that He is working to accomplish His sovereign purpose for His glory. How does He do it?
God didn’t look for a man with renowned military skills, who was already a recognized leader in his community and nation. Rather, He picked a weak man who remained somewhat weak through the whole story and who (at the end of the story) finally failed. We see Gideon’s weakness in our text in at least five ways:
First, Gideon was defeated and cowardly. He was threshing wheat in a winepress. Normally, farmers would thresh wheat (to separate the wheat from the chaff) by using oxen pulling a heavy threshing sledge over it in an exposed area where the wind would blow the chaff away. But Gideon was down in a winepress beating the wheat with a stick “in order to save it from the Midianites” (Jud. 6:11).
Second, Gideon was dense spiritually. He either had not heard or not understood the message of the prophet, who attributed Israel’s abysmal situation to their sin. Gideon rehearsed for the angel how the Lord had delivered Israel from Egypt through mighty miracles. But he mistakenly concluded (Jud. 6:13), “But now the Lord has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.” He was right about the Lord giving Israel into the hand of Midian, but he was wrong in saying that the Lord had abandoned them. As we’ve seen the Lord was working even in this spiritually dark time.
Third, Gideon was depressed. We see this in his complaint that God had abandoned Israel. Gideon had lost hope for any deliverance from this oppressive enemy that was literally eating Israel’s lunch!
Fourth, Gideon was down on himself rather than being focused on the Lord. When the angel tells Gideon (Jud. 6:14), “Go in this your strength and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian,” He was not implying that Gideon had the strength in himself to deliver Israel from the Midianites. Rather, Gideon’s strength was to be found in the angel’s rhetorical question, “Have I not sent you?” and in the angel’s promise (Jud. 6:16), “Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat Midian as one man.” But Gideon was focused on his own incompetence rather than on the Lord’s power and presence. In verse 15, Gideon tells the angel (note the repeated “I” and “my”), “O Lord, how shall I deliver Israel? Behold, my family is the least in Manasseh, and I am the youngest in my father’s house.”
Fifth, Gideon was doubtful of God’s promises. The angel promised to be with Gideon and that Gideon would defeat the enemy. But Gideon needed a sign to confirm the angel’s word. God graciously complied with His weak servant’s request, first by incinerating Gideon’s offering; and then by making Gideon’s fleece first wet and then dry. Finally, knowing Gideon’s remaining doubts about attacking the Midianites, God graciously provided a final sign by allowing Gideon to overhear an enemy soldier telling about a dream in which Gideon was victorious over the Midianite army (Jud. 7:9-14). But up to that point, Gideon was marked by doubts.
Perhaps you can relate to one or more of these forms of weakness. Maybe you are defeated by some sin that robs you of the fullness of God’s blessing in your life. Or, you’re spiritually dense. You don’t see how God can possibly be at work in your dark situation. Maybe you’re depressed because of your circumstances. You’ve lost hope for any kind of deliverance. Or, perhaps you’re focused on yourself rather than the Lord. You feel as if you’re too weak and insignificant for God to use you. And maybe you’re doubtful of God’s promises to be with you and to give you victory over the enemy. In other words, you’re a lot like Gideon!
What’s the solution? It’s not, as the world tells us, to believe in yourself. It’s not to build your self-esteem or to follow some best-selling author’s steps to success. Rather, as C. H. Mackintosh wrote (Miscellaneous Writings [Loizeaux Brothers], 2:21), “If we can do nothing, self-confidence is the height of presumption. If God can do everything, despondency is the height of folly.” Or as the apostle Paul wrote (2 Cor. 1:8-9), “For we do not want you to be unaware, brethren, of our affliction which came to us in Asia, that we were burdened excessively, beyond our strength, so that we despaired even of life; indeed, we had the sentence of death within ourselves so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead.” Trusting in God is the solution for weak people who want to see Him work in their dark situation.
Paul wrote (1 Cor. 1:26-29):
For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before God.
Paul also told the Corinthians (2 Cor. 12:9-10),
And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.
Besides Paul, throughout Scripture we see God using weak people who trust in Him. Abraham and Sarah were barren and beyond their ability to bear children when God promised Abraham that he would be the father of nations. Jacob had to trust God to protect him from his stronger brother, Esau. Moses had to spend 40 years in the wilderness tending sheep to break him of his self-confidence. When the Lord then called him to deliver Israel, Moses complained that he was unable to speak well. He asked God to find someone else. Peter failed terribly by denying the Lord before the Lord used him to bring 3,000 to faith on the Day of Pentecost.
But trusting God can be sort of nebulous. Our text reveals five requirements of trusting God that helps bring it more into focus:
First, trusting God requires repenting of compromise with the world. The prophet whom God sent confronted Israel’s idolatry (Jud. 6:10). But their crying out to God for help was not the same as repentance. As we’ll see (Jud. 6:25-32), Gideon had to begin at home by tearing down his father’s idols before God could use him to rout the Midianites. At the heart of idolatry is using spiritual powers for your own advantage. In this sense, many professing Christians try to use God for personal success or to gain whatever blessing they’re looking for. If He comes through, they thank Him and put Him back on the shelf until the next time they need Him. If He doesn’t come through, they look for another god who can deliver the goods. But trusting God means repenting of trying to use Him for our own agenda and submitting to Jesus as Lord, even if it means suffering and martyrdom.
Second, trusting God requires knowing His power on behalf of His people in the past and His promise of power for what He calls us to do. The prophet rehearsed the familiar story of how God had delivered Israel from Egypt. Gideon knew that story, but he didn’t yet see how God would work in the current gloomy situation. The angel promised that he would “defeat Midian as one man” (Jud. 6:16), which either meant “all at once” or “as easily as one man could be defeated.” Repeatedly in Scripture God reminds His servants that nothing is too difficult for Him to do (Gen. 18:14; Jer. 32:27; Matt. 19:26; Luke 1:37).
Third, trusting God requires knowing God’s purpose for your future. I’m not talking about knowing all the details of how He will direct your future! Rather, I’m talking about knowing in some way how God wants to use you in His kingdom purposes. The angel first told Gideon (Jud. 6:12), “The Lord is with you, O valiant warrior.” Gideon probably looked around to see if He was talking to someone else! At that point, Gideon wasn’t a valiant warrior. He was a defeated coward, threshing out wheat in a winepress. But God calls His servants by what He will make them, not by what they are when He first calls them. Jesus called fickle Peter “a rock” and promised to build His church on Peter’s confession (Matt. 16:16-18). Paul called the carnal Corinthians “saints,” or “holy ones,” even though at that point they were far from holy (1 Cor. 1:2). In Ephesians 1-3 he sets forth our glorious position in Christ before he exhorts us (Eph. 4-6) how to walk in light of that position. He tells us, “Here is who you are in Christ; now, live that way.”
The angel specifically told Gideon that He was sending him to defeat the Midianites (Jud. 6:14). You might wish that God spoke directly to you like that to clarify what He wants you to do. But in general terms, He says to us (1 Pet. 4:10), “As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.” If you don’t know what your gift is, start serving somewhere and the Lord will direct and refine you in the process. Your gift will be something you enjoy doing (not that it’s always easy!) and it ministers to others.
Fourth, trusting God requires knowing His presence in your daily life. Twice (Jud. 6:12, 16) the angel of the Lord promised Gideon that He would be with him. If God is with us and He is for us, then who can stand against us (Rom. 8:31)? Both David Livingstone, the intrepid missionary to the interior of Africa, and John Paton, who lived among the cannibals of the New Hebrides Islands, relied heavily on Jesus’ promise in the Great Commission (Matt. 28:20), “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Livingstone said, “On these words I staked everything, and they never failed!” Paton buried his wife and a short time later, their infant son, not long after they arrived in the South Seas. He said that in danger and in grief, he was sustained by Jesus’ promise, “Lo, I am with you always.” (Both stories are in A Frank Boreham Treasure [Moody Press], compiled by Peter Gunther, pp. 107, 127-129.) Today the New Hebrides, now known as Vanuatu, is one-third Presbyterian, making it the most Presbyterian country in the world!
Fifth, trusting God requires knowing that we are at peace with Him through the sacrifice of His Son for us. It is not clear what Gideon intended by bringing the food offering to the angel. Perhaps at first he viewed it as a hospitality gesture. But when the angel touched the food and it was burned up and then the angel disappeared, Gideon was afraid that he would die, because he had seen the Lord. But the Lord told him (Judges 6:23), “Peace to you, do not fear; you shall not die.” Then we read (Jud. 6:24): “Then Gideon built an altar there to the Lord and named it The Lord is Peace.”
You cannot trust God to use you in serving Him until you know that you are at peace with Him through trusting in the sacrifice of His Son. Paul wrote (Rom. 5:1), “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” If your faith is in Christ and His sacrifice for your sins, then you are at peace with God. Even in the darkest of times, He wants to use you in your weakness as you trust Him, to help accomplish His sovereign purpose for His glory.
Our world, our nation, and our community are spiritually dark. Perhaps you’re going through a spiritually dark time personally. You can know that God is at work even if you don’t see immediate evidence of it. He wants you to trust Him to use the gifts He has entrusted to you as a part of His plan to be glorified through His church. Hudson Taylor, the pioneer missionary to China, said (goodreads.com/author/quotes/4693730.James_ Hudson_Taylor), “God uses men [he meant women, too] who are weak and feeble enough to lean on him.” That’s how God works in spiritually dark times!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2020, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
Gideon, Lesson 2
January 19, 2020
There is a common misconception in evangelical churches that when you become a Christian, you have two optional plans. The most popular plan by far is the Convenient Plan. In this plan, you agree to go to church when it’s convenient, drop a few bucks in the offering when you can afford it, and live for the American dream of accumulating enough money and stuff to live a comfortable life. Under this plan if you have time, you may volunteer to serve at church, but only if it’s convenient. Your goal under this plan is to enjoy yourself, live a good life, and someday to retire and spend your last years finishing your “bucket list.”
The other plan is the Committed Plan. It’s far less popular than the Convenient plan. The Committed plan is only for gung-ho, “Green Beret” types. In this plan, you give up the American dream and any right to your own will for your life. You become a slave of Jesus Christ. Your aim is to seek first His kingdom and righteousness. You give away gobs of money to support the Lord’s work. You may even be called to give up the comforts of America and go live in a difficult or dangerous place to reach people for Jesus. It can be a hard way to go. But, remember, you signed up for the Committed Plan! You’ll have more rewards in heaven!
But Jesus was clear: there is only one plan. He summarized it in Luke 9:23-24: “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it.” The cross was not a piece of jewelry that you wore around your neck. It was a grisly instrument of death. Jesus meant that those who follow Him must die daily to self as they live to serve and glorify Him in whatever circumstances He chooses for them. To put it in other terms, there are no convenience volunteers in Jesus’ army. There are only conscripts who serve because Jesus has bought them and saved them from God’s eternal judgment with His blood. Now they belong completely to Him. They are His slaves.
The story of Gideon and his 300-man army poised to take on 135,000 Midianites (Jud. 8:10) provides some important truths about victorious service for the Lord. These truths are especially important in a time when many pastors drop out of the ministry due to burnout, moral failure, or other reasons and when most churches lack committed workers in various ministries. We need to know how to serve the Lord in victory over the overwhelming forces of darkness that surround us.
In our last study, we looked at Gideon’s calling and saw that he was an unlikely hero to lead Israel in victory over the Midianite horde. Although the angel of the Lord addressed him as a “valiant warrior” (6:12, which he would become), at that spiritually dark time in Israel’s history he was defeated, dense, depressed, down on himself, and doubtful of God’s promises. But God chose him and began to work with him to build his faith. In this section we see Gideon’s conditioning. The principle is:
To serve the Lord in victory over the forces of darkness, obey God’s Word, trust in Him, and seek His glory.
First, we need to understand what this story clearly illustrates:
To review, the Midianites were a nomadic tribe that lived southeast of the Jordan River. Because of Israel’s idolatry and disobedience to the Lord, He sent this vast horde into Israel every harvest season. They would devour Israel’s crops like locusts and take their farm animals. Israel was reduced to hiding in dens and caves in the surrounding mountains. After seven years of this, Israel finally cried out to the Lord. He raised up Gideon to deliver them.
Midian is a picture of the evil forces of darkness that we face as we seek to serve the Lord in our current spiritually dark times. We still have it relatively easy in America as far as persecution goes. In the past few years our nation has grown noticeably more hostile toward our faith. But at least we do not face almost certain persecution or martyrdom if we take a stand for the Lord as many of our brothers and sisters in Muslim countries do. And yet we still are surrounded by unseen evil forces that oppose the gospel. The apostle Paul wrote (Eph. 6:12-13):
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.
If we try to battle these unseen spiritual forces of wickedness with human strategies or schemes, we will not win. And we won’t see victory if we volunteer to serve the Lord in a rush of emotional excitement without counting the cost. When Gideon sounded the trumpet to call Israel to battle, 32,000 signed up. But when they saw the enormity of the enemy, 22,000 had to admit that they were afraid and returned home. One of the biggest mistakes a general can make in warfare is to underestimate the power of the enemy. Our enemy is evil and he is strong. If we dabble in spiritual compromise or sin, we will be defeated. Our enemy is like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour (1 Pet. 5:8). So these principles of how to defeat him are essential for your spiritual survival!
This is the main lesson in Judges 6:25-35. The Lord begins with a difficult command to Gideon (6:25):
Now on the same night the Lord said to him, “Take your father’s bull and a second bull seven years old, and pull down the altar of Baal which belongs to your father, and cut down the Asherah that is beside it; and build an altar to the Lord your God on the top of this stronghold in an orderly manner, and take a second bull and offer a burnt offering with the wood of the Asherah which you shall cut down.”
Gideon’s father, Joash, had built an altar to Baal. Next to it he had erected a pole called an Asherah that represented a Ugaritic goddess who was the consort of El and mother of Baal. But this wasn’t just a private altar because when Gideon destroyed it, the men of the city demanded that he be killed. It was a community worship center for the false gods of the Canaanites. According to Deuteronomy 13, the men of Gideon’s village, not Gideon, should have been put to death because of their idolatry. Gideon’s obedience teaches us five things about obedience:
In verse 26, the Lord commands Gideon to build an altar “to the Lord your God.” Gideon apparently had resisted the example of his father and the townspeople to worship false gods. Following the Lord must be a personal decision, even if it means going against the beliefs and practices of your family or your culture. But following the Lord as your God means obeying Him.
Gideon had to overcome his fear to tear down the family idol. If he had done it in broad daylight, the men of the town would have stopped him, so he did it at night. An altar to Baal discovered by archaeologists near Ophrah was 26 feet square and four feet high, made of stones cemented by mud (Gary Inrig, Hearts of Iron, Feet of Clay [Moody Press], p. 100). So Gideon needed the help of ten servants to tear it down. God also commanded him to erect an altar to the Lord and to sacrifice his father’s seven-year-old bull on it.
Obedience to God’s Word is often a radical action because your example confronts the idolatrous ways of the world around you. Gideon’s obedience could have resulted in his being disinherited, kicked out of his family, or killed. But genuine obedience always must begin at home. As C. H. Mackintosh put it (Miscellaneous Writings, “Gideon and His Companions” [Loizeaux Brothers], 2:36), “Those who see most of us should see most of Christ in us.”
Thankfully, Gideon’s father had a change of heart and came to his defense when the men of the town demanded his death. From this bold act of obedience, Gideon got a nickname, Jerubbaal, which meant, “Let Baal contend against him.” Since Baal didn’t do anything when Gideon tore down his altar, the men of his town probably joined Gideon when he gave the call to battle against the Midianites.
Gideon didn’t compromise by building an altar to the Lord next to the altar to Baal. That would have sent the message to the town, “Both are legitimate options; take your pick.” The Lord is the only true God; He demands total obedience, which means destroying all our idols.
When you confront the sacred idols of our culture, you will catch flak. I’ve written numerous letters to the editor of our local paper against the abortion movement. Invariably, I catch flak for it from someone because I’m tearing down his or her idol. The same is true when you call the LGBT movement what the Bible calls it: sin. They hate you when you tear down their idols! But we cannot obey God without confronting the idols of our godless culture.
Verse 34 reveals the power for Gideon’s actions: “The Spirit of the Lord came upon him.” (Literally, the Spirit clothed him.) That Hebrew phrase is only used one other time when the Spirit clothed Zechariah to confront King Joash’s idolatry (2 Chron. 24:20-21). He was stoned to death as a result. The Spirit’s clothing these two men was a special anointing for a specific task. While we cannot do anything to obtain such a special anointing, we are commanded to walk by means of the Spirit (Gal. 5:16) and to be filled with the Spirit (Eph. 5:18). We do this by yielding to the Holy Spirit on a moment-by-moment basis, allowing Him to control our lives.
Once Gideon obeyed the Lord by destroying his father’s idols, he had to rally the troops to go against Midian. This shows us that victorious service is not just individual. We must serve in conjunction with all the saints as we each use our gifts for God’s kingdom. Victorious service begins with obedience to God’s Word.
As Hebrews 11:6 puts it, “Without faith, it is impossible to please Him.” Remarkably, three very flawed judges, Gideon, Samson, and Jephthah, are all listed in Hebrews 11:32 as men of faith. Gideon’s story teaches us that …
When the angel of the Lord first met Gideon, he was fearful of the Midianites and wondering why God had abandoned His people (Judges 6:13). The angel commanded Him to go and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian, assuring him that God would be with him and that he would defeat Midian as one man. But now, Gideon says to God (Jud. 6:36-37), “If You will deliver Israel through me, as You have spoken, behold, I will put a fleece of wool on the threshing floor. If there is dew on the fleece only, and it is dry on all the ground, then I will know that You will deliver Israel through me, as You have spoken.” God graciously granted Gideon’s request on this and on his second fleece request, even though Gideon acknowledged that the Lord had grounds to be angry with him (6:39).
Suffice it to say that putting out a fleece is not an approved method for determining the will of God! This is especially true when God has clearly spoken in His Word. I’ve had young women tell me that it was God’s will for them to marry an unbelieving man (even though God clearly forbids it) because they had prayed about it and felt a peace about it! Just because God was gracious to Gideon’s weak faith does not mean that we should imitate him!
God also built Gideon’s weak faith by gradually reducing his army from 32,000 down to 10,000 and finally to 300 men. This also would have built the faith of the remaining 300 as they saw the odds against them grow beyond any human hope for victory! Then the Lord graciously gave Gideon an unasked-for sign to strengthen his weak faith. He directed Gideon and his servant to go to the outskirts of the Midianite camp where, in God’s gracious providence, they heard a soldier recounting a dream about a loaf of barley bread upending and crushing a Midianite tent (Jud. 7:9-13). Barley bread was the food that poor people ate. And, as C. H. Spurgeon humorously observed (Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit [Pilgrim Press], 31:657), “If I had to cannonade an encampment I should not try to bombard it with biscuits.” The dream pictured impoverished, weak people conquering a powerful foe. The Midianite soldier’s friend rightly interpreted the dream (Jud. 7:14), “This is nothing less than the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel; God has given Midian and all the camp into his hand.”
The Bible has many examples of the Lord graciously working with His servants to build their weak faith. With the conniving Jacob, He gave the dream of the ladder reaching into heaven. Later, the angel of the Lord wrestled with Jacob and disabled his strength so that he had to trust the Lord in his fearful encounter with his powerful brother, Esau. The gospels reveal how Jesus patiently worked with the often dense and unbelieving apostles to bring them to stronger faith in Him. I confess that when I began to follow the Lord, it was for the very immature and selfish reason of wanting Him to give me a satisfying marriage. But He took me in my weakness and has progressively revealed more of Himself to me over the years.
B. God has to teach us that our trust must be in Him, not in any human methods or techniques.
At first, Gideon probably thought that 32,000 was an insufficient army to battle 135,000 Midianites. But God told him that they were too many. He needed to send the cowardly home (Deut. 20:8). They had their focus on the huge enemy, not on the all-powerful God. And, fearful unbelief is contagious. Gideon probably watched with growing alarm as the ranks dwindled to 10,000. But maybe he still thought, “With God’s help and a good strategy, we can still win.”
But God said, “You’re still too many.” So He had Gideon test the soldiers by the way they drank water from the brook. There is debate about the meaning of this test as to whether it was purely arbitrary or whether it winnowed out the less vigilant. But whatever the meaning, by reducing the army to 300, the Lord was teaching Gideon and the remaining troops that they could not trust in any human methods or techniques. They had to trust in God alone. We are all prone to trusting in the latest methods or techniques, whether for success in ministry, marriage, child-rearing, or whatever. While some methods and techniques may be helpful, be careful to put your trust in the Lord, not in the method.
So to serve the Lord in victory over the overwhelming forces of spiritual darkness, obey His Word and trust in Him. Finally,
It’s easy to get excited about some ministry or cause for Christ and sign up as a volunteer, especially when many others are doing the same. Perhaps the 32,000 hoped to be heroes when they returned home after winning the war. But it’s another thing to persevere over the long haul in the face of huge and frightening opposition. So all the fearful returned home. They probably had reasonable excuses to give to their hometown people about why they returned: “Gideon is crazy to think that he can win with a poorly armed and untrained army against 135,000 experienced Midianite warriors. It’s a suicide mission!” But their focus was not on God and His glory; it was on self-preservation.
To serve the Lord in victory over the forces of darkness, you can’t ride on group enthusiasm. You can’t be focused on protecting yourself. You have to realize that serving the Lord is spiritual warfare against the unseen forces of darkness. Your focus has to be on seeking God’s glory, even if you end up getting wounded or killed in battle. Otherwise, when the battle heats up, you’ll run for cover.
Numbers or human methods don’t matter to the Lord. He can win the battle with no soldiers, as He would later do when King Hezekiah prayed and the Lord killed 185,000 of Sennacherib’s troops in one night (2 Kings 18-19). Or, He can use 300 courageous, trusting men to rout 135,000 Midianites. But however He does it, He wants the glory to go to Him.
During my years of serving as a pastor, I’d often get ads inviting me to some conference put on by a megachurch promising similar results if I used their method for church growth. But if you use a “proven method” that works for others and it works for you, guess where the glory goes? The method gets the glory! If you obey God’s Word and trust in Him when there is no human explanation for victory, then He gets the glory. So my “method” for church growth was to try to do what the apostles did (Acts 6:4), “But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”
Years ago, Stacey King played on the Chicago Bulls with the legendary Michael Jordan. One night, Jordan scored 69 points and King scored one. He facetiously said later, “I’ll always remember this as the night that Michael Jordan and I combined to score 70 points” (Reader’s Digest [10/1991], p. 22). Well, the Lord is pleased to use weak people to win the victory. As Gideon’s army would shout (Jud. 7:20), “A sword for the Lord and for Gideon!” But we need to make sure that everyone knows, “The Lord scored 69 points; I only scored one. He should get all the glory!”
To apply this message, the first question to ask is, “Have you put your trust in Jesus Christ and begun to walk with Him as your Lord?” Is the Lord your God? You can’t serve Him rightly until you first have come to the cross as a guilty sinner and trusted in His sacrifice for you.
Then ask yourself, “Where and how am I serving the Lord?” It’s more of a mindset than a formal position of service. Each day, whether it’s with your family, at work, at school, or wherever the Lord has you, yield yourself to His Spirit and ask Him to use you as a channel of His grace to others. As 1 Peter 4:10-11 states,
As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. Whoever speaks, is to do so as one who is speaking the utterances of God; whoever serves is to do so as one who is serving by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
You are a steward or manager of God’s manifold grace. You don’t have to be perfect or have arrived at some high level for Him to use you. Begin where you’re at. Do what His Word commands as it pertains to your current situation. Trust Him, even if what He is calling you to do is way beyond your ability. As you see Him work, your faith will grow to trust Him more. To serve the Lord in victory over the forces of darkness, obey Him, trust Him, and seek His glory above all. He is gracious to work with us in our weakness!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2020, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
Gideon, Lesson 3
January 26, 2020
I enjoy reading Christian biographies, but some biographies from the late 19th or early 20th centuries read more like eulogies than biographies. The authors did not want to expose any of their heroes’ flaws. They thought that to reveal any of their shortcomings would somehow detract from the shining example that they wanted readers to emulate. I read one such biography last year where you got the impression that the missionary walked on water!
But thankfully the Bible paints its heroes’ warts and all. It gives us the glowing stories of their victories, but it also relates the grim reality of their failures. In the story of Gideon, we see him worshiping and then winning a great victory. But the story doesn’t end there. We also see him wandering off the path spiritually, resulting in defection for the people whom he previously had led out of idolatry. Here Gideon is worshiping (7:15); he is winning (7:16-23); but sadly, he ends up wandering (8:22-35). To summarize:
God uses worshipers who trust and obey Him to win great victories, but even worshipers must be vigilant against wandering spiritually.
Gideon’s worship began when he realized that he had seen the angel of the Lord face to face. He was afraid that he would die, but the Lord said to him (Judges 6:23), “Peace to you, do not fear; you shall not die.” As a response, Gideon built an altar to the Lord and named it, “The Lord is Peace” (6:24). You cannot truly worship God or serve Him until you have peace with Him through trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ (Rom. 5:1).
We next encounter Gideon worshiping after the Lord told him to go down to the Midianite camp just prior to the battle. Because He did not want Israel to think that they had won the victory by their own power, the Lord had directed Gideon to reduce his army from 32,000 warriors first to 10,000 and then to a mere 300 to fight against 135,000 Midianites. With each reduction in forces, Gideon’s faith and the faith of his remaining men had to grow, but the Lord knew that their fear was also growing. So, knowing Gideon’s fear, the Lord directed him to take his servant and go down to the edge of the Midianite camp.
There, in God’s gracious providence, Gideon overheard a Midianite warrior relating to his friend a dream where a loaf of barley bread tumbled into the Midianite camp and demolished one of their tents. His friend interpreted the dream (7:14), “This is nothing less than the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel; God has given Midian and all the camp into his hand.” In response (7:15), “When Gideon heard the account of the dream and its interpretation, he bowed in worship. He returned to the camp of Israel and said, ‘Arise, for the Lord has given the camp of Midian into your hands.’”
This incident shows that worship can and should take place anywhere and at any time. It does not need to be reserved for religious services. Jesus told the Samaritan woman (John 4:23-24),
“But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
The Father seeks those who worship Him in spirit and truth. Since that is what God seeks, it should be what you seek. Is your main goal in life to become a worshiper of God in spirit and truth?
But what does this mean? Should we all join a monastery where we spend hours every day in prayer and worship? Obviously, if that were the requirement, few could be true worshipers. In my opinion, one of the best books on worship is John MacArthur’s The Ultimate Priority [Moody Press]. His full definition of worship is (p. 127), “Worship is our innermost being responding with praise for all that God is, through our attitudes, actions, thoughts, and words, based on the truth of God as he has revealed Himself.” His more concise definition is (p. 147): “Worship is all that we are, reacting rightly to all that He is.” He also (ibid.) cites William Temple’s eloquent description of worship: “To worship is to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God, to feed the mind with the truth of God, to purge the imagination by the beauty of God, to open the heart to the love of God, and to devote the will to the purpose of God.”
My own definition, which I worked out before I read MacArthur, is: Worship is an attitude and/or feeling of reverence, awe, gratitude, and love toward God resulting from a realization of who He is and who we are. I came up with that definition after reading A. W. Tozer’s excellent sermon, “Worship: The Missing Jewel of the Evangelical Church” [Christian Publications]. At first, I resisted Tozer’s contention (p. 8) that “worship means to feel in the heart.” But by the end of the sermon, he convinced me. True worship, as MacArthur defines it, is the response of our innermost being (which includes our emotions) to who God is. And when we see who He is as revealed in His Word, we instantly become aware of who we are in His holy presence.
You see this throughout Scripture. When the Lord appeared to Job after all of Job’s trials and rehearsed His mighty power and sovereignty over all creation, Job’s response was to repent and humble himself before the Almighty (Job 40:4-5; 42:1-6). When Isaiah saw the vision of the Lord on His throne with the seraphim crying out (Isa. 6:3), “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory,” Isaiah’s instant response was (6:5), “Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.” When the Lord Jesus provided the miraculous catch of fish, Peter fell at His feet and said (Luke 5:8), “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!” When the apostle John, who had laid his head on Jesus’ breast at the Last Supper, saw the risen Lord Jesus in His glory, he said (Rev. 1:17), “I fell at His feet as a dead man.” When we get a true glimpse of who God is, who we are, and His grace for us at the cross, we are overwhelmed with reverence, awe, gratitude, and love for Him. That’s worship!
In our text, Gideon saw God’s mighty power in bringing him into the Midianite camp at just the moment that the soldier was relating his unusual dream. At the same time, Gideon saw how he had been doubting God by asking for repeated signs that would confirm that the Lord meant what He had clearly promised. His immediate response was to bow right there in worship. God wanted Gideon to worship before He sent him to work.
Many years ago, before I began to serve the Lord as a pastor, Marla and I were privileged to hear the godly pastor, Alan Redpath. Dr. Redpath told about a time in his fifties when his ministry was thriving as never before. He had many important speaking engagements lined up. But then he had a major stroke. As he lay in the hospital, he kept asking the Lord, “Why? Why did You allow this to happen to me just now, when I have all of these wonderful opportunities to serve You?” I don’t recall if he heard an audible voice, but he said that the Lord clearly told him, “Alan, you’ve gotten your work ahead of your worship!”
That statement impacted me for life! Although I haven’t always practiced it and there is a sense in which we’re always growing to know more of who God is and who we are as we study His Word, I have always come back to that profound insight: God is more interested in my worship than in my work. I pray that the Holy Spirit will burn that priority into your heart as well!
It’s interesting that up to this point, the Lord has given specific instructions to Gideon regarding his initial sacrifice (6:20); tearing down his father’s idolatrous altar to Baal and constructing an altar to the Lord in its place (6:25-26); calling together his troops and then thinning them out (6:34; 7:2-7); and, going down to the Midianite camp to hear the prophetic dream (7:9-14). But now, regarding the specifics of how to conduct the battle, there is no specific word from God. Many commentators assume that the Lord told Gideon to use the pitchers, torches, and trumpets. Maybe He did, but it’s not recorded in the story.
My observation from this fact is that the Lord is willing to work with a man who is a worshiper. He allows His holy name to be placed beside that of a man who worships Him. When the 300 warriors smash their pitchers, blow their trumpets, and wave their torches, they cry out (7:20), “A sword for the Lord and for Gideon!” Probably the Midianite warrior’s dream and its interpretation had spread through the camp to such an extent that there was some fear among them at the name and reputation of Gideon’s God and of Gideon.
So the startling wakeup in the middle of the night with smashing pitchers, blowing trumpets, waving torches, and the war cry of 300 men surrounding the camp sent the Midianites into full panic mode. In the dark of night and utter confusion, God set the Midianites’ swords against one another (7:22). Thousands were slaughtered. The survivors fled into the night. Gideon sent out the call for more soldiers to pursue them. By the time they had crossed the Jordan River, only 15,000 of the 135,000 remained (8:10).
What can we learn through this great victory story? Some commentators spiritualize it by observing that we are the pitchers who must be broken before God can use us. When we are broken, the fire of the Holy Spirit and the light of Christ shines through us and the trumpet of gospel preaching sounds forth. While those are all biblical truths, I doubt that the Lord meant for us to read all those insights into this story. The main point, as I stated in the heading of this section, is that God can work great victories for His people through a remnant who worship, trust, and obey Him.
God could have brought about this victory by striking all the Midianites dead in the night, as He later did in response to Hezekiah’s prayer with Sennacherib’s army that was surrounding Jerusalem (2 Kings 19). But normally, God uses His weak, outnumbered people who worship, trust, and obey Him. We see this in Israel’s history when King Asa with an army of 580,000 men faced a million-man Ethiopian army (2 Chron. 14:11):
Then Asa called to the Lord his God and said, “Lord, there is no one besides You to help in the battle between the powerful and those who have no strength; so help us, O Lord our God, for we trust in You, and in Your name have come against this multitude. O Lord, You are our God; let not man prevail against You.”
In response the Lord routed the Ethiopians (2 Chron. 14:12). But the Israelite army had to fight to win the battle. In the story of Gideon, after the Lord brought confusion and had the Midianites slaughtering off each other, Israel still had to rally more troops and pursue them in the mop up operation. So God uses means, but we should never trust in the means. And, we often tend to overrate numbers. The Lord can deliver great victories through a small remnant of those who worship, trust, and obey Him.
So never discount what the Lord can do through you as you trust in Him! A familiar quote from E. M. Bounds (1835-1913) is relevant (by “men,” I’m sure that he would have included women; from: goodreads.com/author/quotes/942850.E_M_Bounds):
What the Church needs today is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men whom the Holy Ghost can use—men of prayer, men mighty in prayer. The Holy Ghost does not flow through methods, but through men. He does not come on machinery, but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men—men of prayer.
The most effective prayers come from hearts of worship, trust, and obedience to the Lord.
So Gideon and his few men won a great victory for the Lord. If the story had ended there, it would be like a fairy tale that ends, “And they all lived happily ever after.” But there is a sad ending to the story that serves as a warning to all who serve the Lord:
After the initial rout of the Midianites, Gideon had to face the unwarranted anger of the men of Ephraim, who challenged him for not including them in the original battle. Gideon could have answered them harshly, but instead, he wisely replied with a gentle word that turned away their wrath (8:1-3). He also had to contend with the Israelites of Succoth and Penuel, who refused to help with provisions as he sought to finish pursuing the Midianites (8:4-17). Commentators are divided on whether he dealt with them properly or too harshly. Then we read (Jud. 8:22-23):
Then the men of Israel said to Gideon, “Rule over us, both you and your son, also your son’s son, for you have delivered us from the hand of Midian.” But Gideon said to them, “I will not rule over you, nor shall my son rule over you; the Lord shall rule over you.”
So far, so good! It would have been a great temptation for Gideon to have accepted their offer. It would have appealed to his pride to establish a dynasty in Israel. He could have reasoned that the people needed a man of strong faith like himself to preserve the victory over Midian and to stop the idolatry in Israel. But Gideon must have realized that the people had not sought the Lord for guidance on this major new proposal. In fact, they wrongly attributed the victory to Gideon (8:22), when he knew that the Lord had given the victory. So he wisely refused their offer.
Later, when Israel asked Samuel the prophet appoint a king for them, their reason was so that they could be “like all the nations” (1 Sam. 8:5). The Lord gave permission to Samuel, but explained (1 Sam. 8:7), “for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me from being king over them.” He directed Samuel to appoint King Saul, who proved to be an unfaithful king. The Lord probably chose Saul to discipline Israel for rejecting God before He finally chose David, the man after His own heart.
But even though Gideon rightly rejected the offer of becoming their king, his subsequent lifestyle looked like that of a king. Against God’s design for marriage, Gideon imitated many pagan kings by procuring a large harem. His wives provided him with 70 sons and no doubt many daughters (8:30). After his death his son by a concubine, Abimelech, slaughtered all but one of his other sons. Abimelech means “my father the king;” He tried to become king over Israel (Judges 9), which perhaps he learned from his father’s lifestyle (Leon Wood, Distressing Days of the Judges [Zondervan], p. 229).
To support that many children, Gideon had to have an income like a king. He may have gotten the start to his wealth when he asked his fellow warriors to give him their gold earrings from the spoil. He collected 1,700 shekels of gold (between 40-70 pounds; 8:26). With some of that gold, Gideon made an ephod, which was like a vest or apron worn by the high priest (Exod. 28:6-14). The Urim and Thummin were in the ephod, which the priest used to determine the will of God.
We don’t know Gideon’s motives for doing this. Perhaps he thought that the high priest in Israel lived too far away at Shiloh and the people needed a priest closer at hand. Shiloh was in the territory of Ephraim, which had been hostile toward Gideon after his victory. So perhaps he didn’t want to go there to inquire of the Lord. Perhaps he sincerely hoped that he would be able to keep the people from Baal worship by acting as a localized priest. The text doesn’t reveal his motives.
But it does tell us the tragic outcome of his ephod (Judges 8:27): “All Israel played the harlot with it there, so that it became a snare to Gideon and his household.” “To play the harlot” is a phrase that refers to idolatry. Perhaps when he wasn’t wearing the ephod in some “worship” capacity, Gideon set it up on public display. Israel began to treat it like an idol. Probably they prayed to it to try to get whatever they wanted. They worshiped it rather than the Lord. But Gideon had no warrant for acting as a priest for his city or tribe. The tabernacle, where God’s presence was manifested, was at Shiloh, not with Gideon and his ephod in Ophrah. Even if Israel’s priests were not acting as they should, Gideon had no basis to offer an alternate place of worship in his town. He should have stopped the people from their idolatrous worship of the ephod.
I conclude with seven lessons that we should take away from Gideon’s sad failure:
(1) Don’t trust in spiritual leaders, even if they have accomplished great things for God. Trust in God alone! While God uses gifted leaders, they are vulnerable to pride, lust, greed, selfishness, and many other sins. If you trust in them and they fall into sin, you may be disillusioned and fall away from the Lord.
(2) Pray for Christian leaders to walk daily with the Lord. There are no spiritual blowouts; only slow leaks. A man who walks daily with the Lord in His Word and in prayer, judging his own sins on the heart level, will not fall into serious sin that leads his family and the family of God into idolatry.
(3) Past performance is no guarantee of future faithfulness. I would like to think that when I’ve followed the Lord and seen Him work great victories through my faithfulness, I build up immunity against sin. But David’s horrible fall with Bathsheba shows that that is not true.
(4) Pray for yourself and guard your heart by walking in reality with the Lord every day. Proverbs 4:23 commands, “Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life.” Sadly, Solomon who wrote that did not follow his own advice. He allowed his many foreign wives to turn his heart away from the Lord (1 Kings 11:4).
(5) Follow God’s Word, not any humanly devised religion. The ephod that Gideon set up lacked a means of atonement for sin, which is at the heart of how sinners must be reconciled with the holy God. It produced an outward form of religion, but it could not provide forgiveness for their sins or lead them to know the Lord personally.
(6) Good things used the wrong way can subtly lead to serious defection later. The ephod was a good thing if used properly by the high priest at the tabernacle, but used wrongly by Gideon it became an idol and snare. It was external religion that people elevated above a heart relationship with God. Even good things like Bible reading, prayer, or evangelism can become external activities that lead to pride because we do these things.
(7) Success is more spiritually dangerous than failure. Gideon had worshiped God when the angel appeared to him. He worshiped again when God let him hear the dream of the Midianite soldier about Gideon’s victory. But now that he won the victory, there is no report of worship on his or the people’s part, except for the false worship of the ephod. Be on guard if you enjoy success!
You cannot serve God before you come to the cross of Christ as a guilty sinner and trust in His death for your sins. Once you’ve trusted Him, He wants you to become a worshiper who wins spiritual victories by trusting and obeying Him.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2020, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation