Gideon—the Lord is With Him: Judges 6

                                

The pattern continues, Israel turns back to God each time God raises up a deliverer to save them from their enemies who God is allowing to oppress his people because they love other gods more than they love their own God, but as soon as their deliverer dies, the Israelites turn back to the gods of the nations, worshipping them beside God. God then allows those nations to oppress his people so that when they experience the failure of the other gods to give them what they want, they’ll turn back to the only God who has committed to being their God and who chose them to be his people. 

Augustine said that sin is ultimately a lack of love, either for God or for your neighbor. He wrote that “The essence of sin is disordered love.” Disordered love is about loving less-important things more, and the most important things less than we ought to, and this backwards arrangement of loves leads to unhappiness and chaos in our lives. Think about what James says in his letter to the church, “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.” James is telling them that they love the wrong things more and Jesus and God too little; this is sin, this is chasing after other gods, just like the Israelites in the days of the Judges.

Now God does something a little different. After Midian cruelly oppresses the Israelites for 7 years, God first sends a prophet to Israel who tells them, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I brought you up out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. I rescued you from the hand of the Egyptians. And I delivered you from the hand of all your oppressors; I drove them out 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.” What a devastating accusation against God’s people!

God reminds them of who they are; they’re his people, their identity lies in God, not in their ethnicity or the other gods they keep chasing. This is a reminder to us that our identity is not found in things or people, it’s not found in ideologies or political parties, in our own bodies and sense of self, but in having been created in the image of God, given life by him, and called by Jesus to follow him and be his disciples. Our identity is found in belonging to Jesus and being part of his body.

After sending his prophet to remind Israel of who they are and how they’ve broken covenant with God, God then shows he refuses to break his covenant with them by calling Gideon to go and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. The Lord comes to Gideon with these words, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.” God tells Gideon who he is, that his identity is as a man God is with, a mighty warrior. The Lord’s presence makes Gideon a mighty warrior, but Gideon’s response is fascinating, he goes straight into blame mode, “Pardon me, my lord, but if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? where are all his wonders that our ancestors told us about when they said, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up out of Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.” Gideon’s grumpy, but his words show that he’s heard the words of the prophet. Instead of being repentant about following other idols, he blames God for abandoning them.

Gideon doesn’t even consider that it’s Israel who abandoned God, trading their identity as God’s children for something false. Gideon makes me wonder how often I’m so blind to my own sin that I can’t even recognize it and blame the hurt on God instead of recognizing my own sin? This is part of the reason so many followers of Jesus fail to recognize just how deep their need for a saviour and deliverer is; we’re too comfortable with our disordered loves and don’t even see it.

The Lord doesn’t even bother answering Gideon. The Lord commands Gideon to go in the strength he has, challenging the objections Gideon’s getting ready to offer about coming from a weak clan and being least in his family. Gideon fails to see himself through God’s eyes and words, instead embracing his own image of himself, an image that gives him permission to hold back, to not engage in what and who God is calling him to do and be. Gideon shows a lack of trust in God’s power and presence; something many people still wrestle with today when things are difficult and Jesus and the Spirit feels far away. They doubt themselves as they see only their limitations instead of who Jesus makes them.

We don’t take Paul seriously when he says in 1 Corinthians 1:26–31, “Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.” When Jesus is with us, there’s no need to doubt even if things don’t work out the way we expect or want them to because we’re chosen by Jesus to be his.

The Lord answers Gideon with words of reassurance, “I will be with you.” The Lord is still faithful to his covenant promise to be Israel’s God. Gideon’s still unsure and asks for a sign that the Lord is truly with him. Gideon chooses a good sign, he seeks the Lord’s acceptance of his offering, asking for the Lord to wait while he gathers together his offering. Gideon gathers his offering and brings it to the Lord and the Lord accepts it. Finally, it sinks into Gideon, “I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face!” The Lord offers him a blessing and word of reassurance, “Peace! Do not be afraid. You are not going to die.” Gideon builds an altar and calls it The Lord is Peace, the Lord is health, hope, fullness, and having a relationship with his people, all the images that rest in the Hebrew word “shalom.”

Now the Lord demands another offering on proper altar dedicated to God after Gideon tears down his father’ altar to Baal and the Asherah pole beside it, using the wood of the Asherah pole to give the Lord a burnt offering. Gideon obeys; doing it at night with the help of 10 servants to make it safer for himself so that his family and the townspeople don’t know about it until after it’s done. Imagine their surprise when they all wake up and Baal’s altar is torn down and a new altar is in its place! They quickly discover that Gideon’s behind it and demand his death. People hate it when you mess with their gods!

I love Gideon’s father’s response, “Are you going to plead Baal’s 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.” He recognizes a God battle when he sees one and recognizes that if Baal cannot defend himself against Gideon, then he probably isn’t able to do a whole lot for anyone else. God’s Spirit comes on Gideon and he calls the men from Israel to fight the Midianites, but Gideon seeks reassurance from the Lord one more time to make sure that God is more than simply a force of nature, that he has true power. He sets out fleeces twice, both times asking that the fleece is kept different from the elements and affects of nature and God provides the reassurance Gideon is seeking; Lord hears his people and is with Gideon. Gideon finally accepts his identity as a mighty warrior for God.

What kind of God battles are going on in our culture, in your own personal lives right now? What altars do you need to tear down to find your identity and strength in Jesus? Do you truly believe that any of the things you love more than Jesus can do more for you than Jesus has done in washing your sin away on the cross, offering you a new life, giving you the ability to leave your old life with all its brokenness and hurt behind while being enfolded by a family of Jesus followers who are here to encourage you and build you up? When you embrace your identity in Jesus, the Holy Spirit fills you with strength and hope as you journey through life, giving you what you need, no matter who you were before, because your foundation is now on Jesus instead of the weak gods of this world!