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Gideon
Reluctant Warrior
Lesson 44
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The book of Judges
describes the first 350 years of Israels
experience in Canaan. The narrative begins during
the time of Joshua (around 1398 B.C.) and ends
just before Saul becomes Israels king
(around 1043 B.C). During this period, the Lord
Himself was Israels king. Unfortunately,
His people did not give Him much respect. In
fact, the last verse in the book of Judges closes
by saying, everyone did as he saw
fit. (Judges 21:25) After Joshua died, God
called various men and women to be judges to
guide and govern His wayward people, but they had
limited success. Israel vacillated between
submission to the Lord and rebellion against Him.
Israels inclination toward rebellion was a
constant problem. In fact, the Bible suggests
that there were seven periods of apostasy, seven
periods of servitude and seven restorations
during the time of the judges! God is changeless
and the carnal nature is predictable. The history
between God and Israel was preserved in the book
of Judges for thousands of years and like a
mirror, it reflects how He deals with all nations
and people. In the same way, Israels
treatment of God reflects, like a mirror, how
most of the human race treats God. Actually,
the Bible tells the story of our lives, only it
uses different names! If you and I had lived
in those days, most of us would have fit right in
with Israels on again and
off again relationship with the Lord!
If God had destroyed Abrahams offspring at
Mt. Sinai as He proposed to do (Exodus 32:10),
and replaced Israel with the offspring of Moses,
the results would have been the same only
the names would have changed. The Bible is an
amazing book. It describes the present human
condition with a thousand parallels from the
past! When I study the Bible, I realize my own
human nature is not that different from the
antediluvians that scoffed as Noah built an ark.
Sometimes, I am rebellious, like Israel. In some
ways, I am blind, like the Pharisees. Other
times, I am like the disciples and I do not
understand the words of Jesus. In some ways, I am
like doubting Thomas and impetuous Peter. When I
am totally honest with myself, I realize that I
have a lot in common with many Bible characters.
In good ways and bad ways, they are like me and I
am like them.
Two Nasty Problems
Seven cycles of
apostasy servitude
restoration in 350 years says much about
the longsuffering of God, and also the inherent
rebellion of humanity. Two problems plague the
human race: Mans first and greatest problem
is his innate rebellion against Gods
authority. The second problem is the ignorance
between generations. On the topic of rebellion,
we are spring-loaded from birth to reject
everything that God wants of us. (Romans 8:7) For
example, God insists that we rest on His Sabbath.
Wow! Look at the wonderful benefit God has
set up for us! A day of rest each week. Thanks
Lord! Actually, our hearts respond with
just the opposite reaction. It typically goes
like this: Whoa! I dont know about
the Sabbath rest thing. I have a job, family and
friends to consider. Israel was no different and
constantly struggled with their desire to abandon
Gods Sabbath rest! (Ezekiel 20) Truthfully,
before you break any of Gods commandments,
you break the first commandment before any of the
others! So, how is Israels apostasy
different from our own apostasy? Refusing to obey
God or justifying behavior that is contrary to
gods commands is the same as Israels
rebellion. God knows that mans propensity
toward rebellion can be moderated through
punishment, just as a good parent disciplines a
child. In fact, if we were truthful, almost
everyone will give in and say uncle
if tortured long enough.
During the times of the
judges, Israel experienced Gods judgments seven
times and repented seven times, each time for the
wrong reason! Have you ever heard someone say,
Lord, I will do anything you want, just
answer my prayer? This is the religious
equivalent to saying uncle. Again,
this response indicates submission to god, but
for the wrong reason. When suffering accomplishes
its highest calling, suffering from God brings us
into humble submission. We pray as Jesus did when
facing death, Father, if you are
willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will,
but yours be done. (Luke 22:42)
Of course, God knew that
the people of Israel repented because they
experienced the hardships of His judgments. This
is why Gods punishments were redemptive for
many centuries. God designed His wrath to bring
the nation of Israel to her knees so that she
might look up and consider the wisdom of her
King. Good discipline may be punitive, but it
should also be instructional! No
discipline seems pleasant at the time, but
painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest
of righteousness and peace for those who have
been trained by it. (Hebrews 12:11) Did
you notice those last words, for those who
have been trained by it? Some people are
punished, yet they never get the point or learn
the lesson. For example, more than 90% of certain
classes of felons return to prison after being
set free! In this case, discipline does not help
if the lessons are not learned. This is why God
has a second type of punishment called
destructive punishment. When redemptive judgments
fail, destructive judgments terminate the
problem. For example, the worlds
inhabitants went beyond the point of redemption
in Noahs day. If a worldwide, waist deep
flood could achieve redemptive results; god would
not drown the whole world and started over. God
knew the cancer of sin and the redemption was out
of the question, so He killed all but eight
people and started over. God disciplined Israel
with redemptive punishments for many centuries
because He wanted Israel to wake up and observe
the deadly consequences of sin. Eventually, God
gave up and destroyed Israel as a nation in A. D.
70. God has a message for everyone on Earth about
rebellion: Rebellion begins with forbidden
pleasure or profit, which produces a harvest of
sorrowful consequences and broken relationships.
In the end, sin requires the penalty of death.
If we divide 350 years by
seven apostasy servitude
restoration cycles, the average is one
cycle every 50 years (which is approximately once
per generation). Since generations of people come
and go, the second problem God has with humanity
is the next generation. A
punished generation may repeat and learn from
gods discipline, but the next generation
rarely reaps the benefits of discipline given to
its elder generation! In fact, god has to start
over with the next generation because it
does not understand that god means what He says
and is a powerful force. So, the younger
generation arrives on the scene and makes the
same mistakes as the previous generation and
travels down a rebellious road, yielding to the
temptations of sin. Then, the cycle of
degeneration starts again. History constantly
repeats itself because it is almost impossible
for the next generation to possess the
wisdom and experience of its elder generation!
Therefore, the mistakes and the apostasy of the
former generations are repeated by the next
generation.
God keeps Vigil
With these thought in
mind, I would like you to consider the story of
Judge Gideon that indicates several end time
parallels. The story begins during one of
Israels suffering cycles a time of
servitude: Again the Israelites did evil
in the eyes of the Lord, and for seven years he
gave them into the hands of the Midianites.
Because the power of Midian was so oppressive,
the Israelites prepared shelters for themselves
in mountain clefts, caves and strongholds.
Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, the
Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern peoples
invaded the country. They camped on the land and
ruined the crops all the way to Gaza and did not
spare a living thing for Israel, neither sheep
nor cattle nor donkeys. They came up with their
livestock and their tents like swarms of locusts.
It was impossible to count the men and their
camels; they invaded the land to ravage it.
Midian so impoverished the Israelites that they
cried out to the Lord for help. (Judges
6:1-6)
When the majority of
people in a nation become decadent and
degenerate, the Land-Lord of Earth
moves into action. God hates sin and will destroy
people who insist on rebellion. In Israels
case, God gave His land over to the Midianites
for seven years. (If you want to know why the
promised land is Gods land
rather than Israels land, see Leviticus
18:24,25; 25:23.) God made Israels defenses
weak and her borders porous. Israels
Homeland Defense Minister could not
stop the terrorists from Midian from entering the
land occupied by Israel. The Midianites destroyed
their homes, took their crops and killed their
animals. God allowed the Midianites to decimate
the promised land that flowed with milk and
honey because He was displeased with His
people. When the Israelites cried to the
Lord because of Midian, he sent them a prophet,
who said, This is what the Lord, the God of
Israel, says: I brought you up out of Egypt, out
of the land of slavery. I snatched you from the
power of Egypt and from the hand of all your
oppressors. I drove them from before you and gave
you their land. 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. (Judges
6:7-10) The words of the prophet address the core
problem. Israel had abandoned God and His Sabbath
rest and merged with mainstream religious
practices. Israel worshiped the hedonistic gods
of the Amorites (the Baals) because the Baals,
unlike the God of Heaven, gave people the freedom
to do whatever they wanted. Sexual immorality was
not a controversial issue. In fact, it was
considered entertainment, a popular part of
fertility cult worship. The religion of the Baals
was bewitching; a sensual religion that appealed
to the carnal passions of its worshipers.
Restoration
When the seven years of
Midianite occupation had been served, God
changed Israels desperate situation.
Israel was not allowed to weasel out of the
punishment. They did the crime; they did
the time. The ironic point about this turn
of events is that god used the Midianites to
punish Israel for their rebellion against Him,
and then used Israel to destroy the Midianites
because of their great sexual immorality and
depravity! When the time came to set Israel free
from the Midianite occupation, God chose the son
of a prominent Baal worshiper to be a
Judge for Him. (Imagine that!) Gideon was a
timid, but sincere young man, who refused to
worship the Baals. When the story begins, Gideon
(in his early 20s?) was threshing wheat in
his hideout. 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. But
sir, Gideon replied, if the Lord is
with us, why has all this happened to us? Where
are all his wonders that our fathers told us
about when they said, Did not the Lord
bring us up out of Egypt? But now the Lord
has abandoned us and put us into the hand of
Midian.
[The Lord offered no
explanation to Gideon why Israel was in the hands
of Midian. God had already explained this through
a prophet.]
The Lord turned
to him and said, Go in the strength you
have and save Israel out of Midians hand.
Am I not sending you? But Lord,
Gideon asked, 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 together.
Gideon replied, If now I have found
favor in your eyes, give me a sign that it is
really you talking to me. Please do not go away
until I come back and bring my offering and set
it before you. And the Lord said, I
will wait until you return. Gideon went in,
prepared a young goat, and from an ephah of flour
he made bread without yeast. Putting the meat in
a basket and its broth in a pot, he brought them
out and offered them to him under the oak. The
angel of god said to him, Take the meat and
the unleavened bread, place them on the rock, and
pour out the broth. And Gideon did so. With
the tip of the staff that was in his hand, the
angel of the Lord touched the meat and the
unleavened bread. Fire flared from the rock,
consuming the meat and the bread. And the angel
of the Lord disappeared. (Judges
6:11-21)
Theses verses give me
goose bumps! I can imagine Gideon running around,
trying to get his offering together. Then
returning breathlessly, he puts the offering on a
rock. The Lord stretches out His staff and
poof fire comes out of the
rock and consumes the meat, bread
everything! The Lord suddenly disappears from
view, but not from Gideons presence!
When Gideon
realized that it was the angel of the Lord, he
exclaimed, Ah Sovereign Lord! I have seen
the angel of the Lord face to face! But the
Lord said to him, Peace! Do not be afraid.
You are not going to die. So Gideon built
an altar to the Lord there and called it The Lord
is Peace
.
That same night the
Lord said to him, Take the second bull from
your fathers herd, the one seven years old.
[Evidently, the first bull was their best
breeding bull.] Tear down your fathers
alter 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 you cut down,
offer the second bull as a burnt offering.
So Gideon took ten of his servants and did as the
Lord told him. But because he was afraid of
his family and the men of the town, he did it
at night rather than in the daytime.
In the morning when
the men of the town got up, there was Baals
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. The men of the town demanded
of Josash,Bring out your son. He must
die, because he has broken down Baals altar
and cut down the Asherah pole beside it.
But Joash replied to the hostile crowd around
him, are you going to plead Baals
cause? Are you trying to save him? Whoever fights
for him shall be put to death by morning! If Baal
really is a god, he can defend himself when
someone breaks down his altar. So the next
day they called Gideon Jerub-Baal,
saying, Let Baal contend with him, because
he broke down Baals altar.
(Judges 6:22-32 insertion and italics mine)
The Lord used this
notable incident to let Israel know that He had
chosen the young, timid Gideon as a leader. This
action by Gideon was completely out of character!
However, when Gods Holy Spirit power rests
on a willing heart, there is no limit to what God
can accomplish! Gideons father (a member of
the elder generation) recognized the power of god
upon his son and he successfully defended his
sons behavior! (I believe Gideons
fathers conscience condemned him in his
heart for worshiping Baal.) God chose the weakest
man in town to send a signal through the land
that He was about to rescue His people. A few
days later, this signal made perfect sense!
The Sword of the Lord and
of Gideon
Now all the
Midianites, Amalakites and other eastern peoples
joined forces and crossed over the Jordan and
camped in the Valley of Jezreel. [They were
intent on plundering the possessions of the
Israelites.] Then the Spirit of the Lord came
upon 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, Zebulon and Naphtali, so that
they too went up to meet them. Gideon said to
god, If you 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.
[The ever-timid Gideon
needs assurance, so he asks the Lord for a sign.
God faithfully responds.]
Then Gideon said to
God, Do not be angry with me. Let me make
just one more request. Allow me one more test
with the fleece. This time make the fleece dry
and the ground covered with dew. That night
God did so. Only the fleece was dry; and the
ground was covered with dew.
[Again, the ever-timid
Gideon needs assurance. God patiently responds.]
Early in the
morning, Jerub-Baal (that is, Gideon) and all his
men camped at the spring of Harod. The camp of
Midian was north of them in the valley near the
hill of Moreh. The Lord said to Gideon, You
have too many men for me to deliver Midian into
their hands. In order that Israel may not boast
against me that her own strength had saved her,
announce now to the people, Anyone who
trembles with fear may turn back and leave Mount
Gilead. So twenty-two thousand men
left, while ten thousand remained.
[The ever-timid Gideon
begins to have heartburn. Lord, too many
soldiers? How can an army ever have too
many soldiers?]
But the Lord said
to Gideon, There are still too many men.
Take them down to the water, and I will sift them
for you there. If I say, This one shall go
with you, he shall go; but if I say,
This one shall not go with you, he
shall not go. So Gideon took the men down
to the water. There the Lord told him,
Separate those who lap the water with their
tongues like a dog from those who kneel down to
drink. Three hundred men lapped with
their hands to their mouths. All the rest got
down on their knees to drink. The Lord said to
Gideon, With the three hundred men that
lapped I will save you and give the Midianites
into your hands. Let all the other men go, each
to his own place. So Gideon sent the rest
of the Israelites to their tents but kept the
three hundred, who took over the provisions and
trumpets of the others.
Now the camp of
Midian lay below him in the valley. During the
night the Lord said to Gideon, Get up, go
down against the camp, because I am going to give
it into your hands. 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.
[An ever-timid Gideon
needed more assurance. Notice how the Lord
assures Gideon of victory over the Midianites and
use the enemy to confirm to Gideon what the Lord
is going to do!]
The Midianites, the
Amalekites and all the eastern peoples had
settled in the valley, thick as locusts. Their
camels could no more be counted than the sand on
the seashore. Gideon arrived just as a man was
telling a friend his dream. I had a dream,
he was saying. A round loaf of barley
bread came tumbling into the Midianite camp. It
struck the tent with such force that the tent
overturned and collapsed. His friend
responded, This can be nothing other than
the sword of Gideon son of Joash, the Israelite.
God has given the Midianites and the whole camp
into his hands. When Gideon heard the dream
and its interpretation, he worshiped God. He
returned to the camp of Israel and called out,
Get up! The Lord has given the Midianite
camp into your hands.
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