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When I was waking up to type this, I heard a sermon from Jack Hibbs on the 10th anniversary of 9/11. He said, "Out of the ashes, we found hope... where are we now?" 20 years later, it's the same thing, only worse: God increasingly brings judgment on a sinning world, but who's listening? Hard to listen when all you have is insults. I bring this up to give you a kind of idea of the world our next judge, Gideon, lived in. I advertised this as one of the funnier stories of the Bible; but beyond the almost Abbot-and-Costello routine between our hero and the Angel of the Lord, beyond the ridiculous dream and the even sillier interpretation, God told me, read it backwards. And backwards I saw the darker story of a world and the self-condemnation of a man who needed a prophet, three miraculous signs, the cover of darkness, his father's intervention and the words of God himself, before he could be moved to act- and wonder how much of these I need to act.
Backwards, we start with a man who has cast down an idol, gathered an army, and dined with the Pre-incarnate Christ, and STILL needs not one, but 2 signs to be convinced:
Jdg 6:36 Then Gideon said to God, "If you will save Israel by my hand, as you have said,
Jdg 6:37 behold, I am laying a fleece of wool on the threshing floor. If there is dew on the fleece alone, and it is dry on all the ground, then I shall know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you have said."
Jdg 6:38 And it was so. When he rose early next morning and squeezed the fleece, he wrung enough dew from the fleece to fill a bowl with water.
Jdg 6:39 Then Gideon said to God, "Let not your anger burn against me; let me speak just once more. Please let me test just once more with the fleece. Please let it be dry on the fleece only, and on all the ground let there be dew."
Jdg 6:40 And God did so that night; and it was dry on the fleece only, and on all the ground there was dew.
What does it take to have faith? I remember last week referencing Jesus words to Bethsaida and Chorazin- "Had the mighty works done in you been done in Sodom and Gomorrah, they would yet stand..." And Gideon has seen a boatload of mighty works already. I guess a better way of looking at it, is Gideon recognizes his humbleness- and that's why God picked him...
Jdg 6:15 And he said to him, "Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house."
...but by this time, God's encouragement and acts should have been enough. I don't know that it isn't less of an indictment of Gideon than his era, because next time (hopefully), we'll see how the very act of God winning the victory changed him- not in a good way- and only a base coward like Gideon could have kept it humble long enough to do God's will.
Amazingly, it took not the encouragement of God, but his father's defense of him to finally get Gideon on the stick. Gideon had gathered his army (remember, we're going backwards!), but not before his dad had to stand up for him. You see, there was a little matter of getting rid of the neighborhood idol to take care of, and once Gideon did it, his neighbors weren't happy:
Jdg 6:28 When the men of the town rose early in the morning, behold, the altar of Baal was broken down, and the Asherah beside it was cut down, and the second bull was offered on the altar that had been built.
Jdg 6:29 And they said to one another, "Who has done this thing?" And after they had searched and inquired, they said, "Gideon the son of Joash has done this thing."
Jdg 6:30 Then the men of the town said to Joash, "Bring out your son, that he may die, for he has broken down the altar of Baal and cut down the Asherah beside it."
Jdg 6:31 But Joash said to all who stood against him, "Will you contend for Baal? Or will you save him? Whoever contends for him shall be put to death by morning. If he is a god, let him contend for himself, because his altar has been broken down."
I believe Joash was a godly man himself, but was only a little braver than his son. Thus, he left the neighborhood idol stand on his property all those years, but was glad to see it go. It was only after this that Gideon called the alarm to battle.
But now, here's where we might gain a little perspective if we stretch our imagination a bit. Gideon and Joash lived near the terebinth (oak) of Ophrah. A little digging in 1 Chronicles tells us that Ophrah may have been a grandson of our first judge Othniel- and thus somewhere in the century or so since the defeat of Cushan the Double-Wicked, even this mighty line got corrupted. But the blood of Caleb may have ran, albeit weekly, in Gideon.
Now let's skip ahead (or behind) to the part where Gideon is gifted with the Peace of God, which SHOULD have been enough to carry him through:
Jdg 6:22 Then Gideon perceived that he was the angel of the LORD. And Gideon said, "Alas, O Lord GOD! For now I have seen the angel of the LORD face to face."
Jdg 6:23 But the LORD said to him, "Peace be to you. Do not fear; you shall not die."
Jdg 6:24 Then Gideon built an altar there to the LORD and called it, The LORD Is Peace. To this day it still stands at Ophrah, which belongs to the Abiezrites.
And this is where I said, "God, how do I keep gaining that peace?" and got told, "Read the story backward." I saw in that regression, the revelation that the Angel of the Lord WAS God:
Jdg 6:21 Then the angel of the LORD reached out the tip of the staff that was in his hand and touched the meat and the unleavened cakes. And fire sprang up from the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened cakes. And the angel of the LORD vanished from his sight.
Then I saw that this God was going to be with him through whatever came;
Jdg 6:15 And he said to him, "Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house."
Jdg 6:16 And the LORD said to him, "But I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man."
Then, I saw that this God was gifting HIS strength to Gideon;
Jdg 6:14 And the LORD turned to him and said, "Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian; do not I send you?"
And then I saw the first point of the story- God in us and with us IS our Miracle!
Jdg 6:12 And the angel of the LORD appeared to him and said to him, "The LORD is with you, O mighty man of valor."
Jdg 6:13 And Gideon said to him, "Please, sir, 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."
Jdg 6:14 And the LORD turned to him and said, "Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian; do not I send you?"
Gideon sought the miracles of the past; God showed him he was to be the instrument of the miracle of the future! You need a miracle? Go through these steps: Believe in Jesus; Believe He will be with you; trust in His strength; and let yourself be the tool of the next miracle.
Next time, we'll go back to the set-up, hit the high spots, and look into the battle to come.
