Gideon and the Real

300

(Judges 6-8)

“The people of Israel did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord.”  (Judges 6:1)  Have you ever been around a little kid when they get into this mood where everything that they do is exactly opposite of what you say.  “Don’t touch the remote!”  And then they casually walk over, look at you with this look like they own the world, and they go, “Hmmph,” and proceed to pick up the remote and walk around the room like you weren’t standing there.  I’m not saying that Sophie would ever do that during the week, but it’s just an example.

This is how I picture the people of Israel, and they are very well defined as being “children” of God because that’s what they were behaving like…children!  God would tell them, “Have no other gods before Me!  Make no graven images of gold or silver or any stone!”  And then the children of Israel would look up at the sky and say, “Hmmph,” and they would build idols and follow after various other gods of the land.

Well, like any good parent…God got tired of His children not heeding His voice, so He taught them a lesson.  God is the Master teacher when it comes to getting the point across.  If they won’t listen to my words when I talk to them…then they will listen when they see their crops taken away, their livestock stolen, and their land laid waste!  This is where we pick up on the story of Judges 6 THROUGH 8.  “The people of Israel AGAIN did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord!” (6:1). So, the Lord punishes them by letting the Midianites run all over them for 7 years!  For 7 years the hand of Midian prevailed over Israel!  For 7 years whenever they would put out a crop, when harvest time came around the Midianites would come and steal their harvest.  For 7 years when their livestock would produce offspring the people of Midian would come and steal them!  For 7 years the lands of Israel produced very little food!  Their seed was planted so that Midian could be fed.  Their livestock was fed so that Midian could feast on their flesh!  There was never a sheep or and ox or a donkey that lasted very long in the land of Israel because it was always taken from them.

So, for 7 years the Midianites flourished!  The enemies of Israel multiplied and multiplied!  All they had to do was go into the land and steal from the Israelites when they were hungry or thirsty or just felt like it.  They didn’t have any expenses…they didn’t have to work the land…they just took from the Israelites.  After that 7 years was up, the Midianites had herds of camels and livestock that couldn’t be counted, and the army of Midian was as countless as the sands of the sea!  They were like locust when they came through the land!  They devoured it all!  Everything was gone, like a tornado just passed through!  Israel was in bad shape…they were getting pushed around and bullied by these Midianites!  They were being taken advantage of…they were being used! 

And the people were scared for their lives.  They didn’t live in houses near pastures… they didn’t plant fields out in the open where any and everybody could see it.  They lived in caves and in rocks…they made their homes in holes in the hill sides.  The children of Israel, who 40 years before this sang songs of praises when Deborah and Barak were victorious over Sisera and his 900 chariots of iron, are now hiding in caves afraid that the Midianites might find them!  What went wrong?  Why the change?  “The people of Israel did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord.” 

After 7 years…they apparently realized that they were doing something that the Lord despised.  They cried out to the Lord…they let their voices be heard that they needed the Lord’s help.  So, the Lord sent a prophet…apparently the first prophet that has spoken to the people since the days of Deborah and Barak some 40 years before.  This prophet gave them a message.  He said: ‘You remember how the Lord brought you out of Egypt back in the day?  You remember the power and might that he used to rescue you from the slavery of Egypt?  Of course you do!  But do you also remember that you made a vow to the Lord when you came out of Egypt that you would NEVER bow down and serve the gods of Amorites?!  You did agree to not bow down to other idols and other gods, right? Well, you have not HEEDED the Lord’s voice, and you have disobeyed HIM! That’s why for the past 7 years you have had nothing and the Midianites have taken all your stuff!”

APPLICATION:  When I was little, I knew when I transgressed my father’s will.  I knew what it was that I did wrong and what I was going to get for it (I just didn’t know if it was going to be the belt, open hand on the rear, or the peach tree switch.  I knew what I did was wrong, but I needed to be reminded that it was wrong, over and over again. 

I was told some good advice by one of the father’s in this congregation.  He said, “If you’re kids aren’t a little afraid of you, then they won’t respect you.”  And that’s true because look at Israel at this time.  They didn’t fear God…they weren’t afraid of breaking His commandments…they knew what they swore, yet they didn’t do it.  So, they needed to be reminded who was in charge! God shows us that discipline is necessary.

Sometimes we have the same thing happen to us.  The Lord may cause something to happen in your life that causes you to sit down and think about what you’ve been doing with your life.  Whether it be a pretty pointed sermon, whether it be near death accident, whether it be losing someone close to you…the Lord uses those things to open our eyes to see who is really in charge.  And we’re not!  The Israelites weren’t in charge of their own lives….they were supposed to follow the Lord (and they swore to) but they weren’t, so the Lord punished them!  We’re not so different from the Israelites here.

Look at Gideon…there he was, trying to get some wheat stored up for himself and his family…he’s trying to hide it from the Midianites who were eager to devour it.  He’s in a hard place in his life!  And when we get to a place in life where the goin gets tough…from the deep recesses of our souls we cry out, “I wish God would send me some peace….I’m tired of this conflict or that trouble!  Lord, help me!”

And we can see from this OT example that we will never find peace or know of peace till we make our peace with God.  We have to surrender to the Lord and to His will for our lives…we have to renew our loyalty to Him.  We must confess our sins and have faith that the Lord will never leave us, or forsake us. I’m sure that the ancient promise of the Lord is just as good today as it was in Dt. 32:30: “One will chase a thousand, and two men will put ten thousand to flight.” If Israel returned to God and forsook their sinful ways, then God would send peace. If God is for us, who can be against us? We know how sweet this assurance is for us as God’s people!  When we are justified by faith, we have peace with God (Ro. 5:1). Everything in life could be a storm of turmoil, but it’s well with our soul because we’re assured that the Lord is with us!  He is our helper, our shield, our portion forever and ever!  That’s our promise!

And when we get into any situation that we don’t like, whether we got ourselves into our not, what would we do?  We call out for help!  And that’s exactly what the Israelites did!  They cried out for help! 

BACK TO THE STORY: So, God decides to raise up a deliverer for Israel to deliver them out of the hands of the Midianites…His name was Gideon, a mighty man of valor.  Gideon was a humble farmer (I like him already) with an apparent flair for fighting courageously against the Midianites.  He had a reputation of being courageous.  But…he was also one that was hit pretty hard when the armies of the Midianites came around (he was a farmer). And one day, Gideon was hiding inside of a wine press beating the heads off of wheat, so that the Midianites wouldn’t find him.  He was hiding in a wine press trying to hide a few grains of wheat from the Midianites!  That’s how bad things were for the Israelites!  And as Gideon is threshing out the grains of wheat…the angel of the Lord appears to him (in verse 12) and says, “Gideon, you are a mighty man of valor (compliment much)…I want you to go and deliver Israel from this plague of Midian.”

Gideon is a little hesitant though….and his reaction has some shades of Moses in it when he says, “But my clan is the weakest in all of Israel…and I am the least man in my entire family.  How in the world am I going to go against an army that outnumbers the sands of the sea?”  The angel of the Lord said, “I will be with you, that’s how!  YOU are going to kill the Midianites as ONE man.” (6:16)  BUT Gideon is still a little confused and hesitant to believe all of this so he asks the angel of the Lord for a sign.  He goes to his house and gets a baby goat (probably hidden in his house because of the Midianites) and some bread cakes and some meat and some broth and he brings it to the wine press under the oak tree where he was working.  Gideon is told to put all those things on a rock.  The angel of the Lord then reaches out his hand and touches the offering and all of it was immediately consumed by fire.

Gideon sees this, and he realizes that this is for real.  He knows that whatever this angel wants him to do is what God wants him to do.  So, that night, the Lord comes to Gideon and sends him on his first errand.  Gideon was to take a bull from his father’s house, and pull down the altar that they had set up to Baal.  And after he pulls down the altar, he was to cut down the image of Asherah (a Canaanite goddess) that was beside the altar of Baal.  Then, he’s told to build an altar there to the One true God of Israel.  So, pretty much, God has told Gideon to go against the rest of his clans beliefs and tear down everything that has to do with the idols that they serve.

And like any of us would be….he was scared to death!  He was tearing down something that had great significance to the other people of his own tribe!  They were going to be ticked when they came and saw what he did!  And because he was afraid, he did all these things by the cover of darkness with ten of his servants.

APPLICATION: There are times in our relationships with others that they have something that they hold dear….something that they think that they need in this life to survive (whether it be their sincere, but wrong, beliefs…whether it be their status in life or some idol they have set up before God), and we have to be the ones that are strong enough to stand up to them and say, “You don’t need that…that’s not what life is all about.”  And it’s going to be a scary thing to do…there are going to be some people that are mad at you and upset with you.

I was told once by an older preacher, “If you never make anybody mad at you in the ministry then you’re not doing your job.”  And that’s the truth!  There are going to be times that you have to go and get that bull…hook it up to whatever needs to be torn down and start yankin!  I’m not saying that we should always have a bull in a china shop approach to spreading the gospel…or that we have to make people feel uncomfortBULL…but we do have to take the BULL by the horns when it comes to helping others get to Christ.  And that’s no bull!

BACK TO THE STORY:  Gideon has just torn down the idols of his clan (his family), and they were up early the next morning (probably to go give an offering to Baal) but when they get there they see that their idol has been broken and their statue was cut down!  Not only that, but Gideon had sacrificed his father’s bull (which was probably hard to come by during those 7 years) on an altar to God.  They find out that Gideon did it, and they want to kill him.  He tore down their idol….he stole his father’s bull…he’s desecrated their idol.  He has to die!

But Gideon’s dad steps in and says to all the clan that wants to kill his son, “Baal is a god…if someone pulls down his altar and desecrates his place, then let him defend himself.  If Gideon did do this to such a powerful god as you say, and Baal is such a great god, then Gideon should be dead already!”  Well, Gideon didn’t die, but his clan made up a name for him because of his actions.  Just like we do today when someone does something peculiar, or has a unique trait, or they just do something down right dumb…we give them a nickname like my uncle Gary, we call him Lightbulb because when he was growing up he played basketball in the seed warehouse over at the farm, and the ceileing just happened to be a little low.  Every once in a while, they would bust out a light in the seedhouse, and my uncle would go up the road to the little store at New Providence to buy a light-bulb.  It got to the point where every time he went in the door, they would say, “Lightbulb,” and it stuck.  Gideon’s family did the same thing, but they renamed Gideon Jerubbaal because he pulled down the altar of Baal and contended against him.

Gideon has had to go through a lot…he had to go through the 7 years of Midian stealing all his crops.  He had to go and tear down an altar to Baal that his family worshipped.  He has to go through his family wanting to kill him.  He had quite a bit on his plate, but the worst was yet to come.

I. THE FIGHT

The Midianites had apparently run short on food and supplies so they came together (with two other armies of the East) and they camped on the Israelite side of the Jordan River in the valley of Jezreel (16:33).  Gideon sounds the war trumpet, and he sends for aid throughout Manasseh, Asher, Zebulun, and Napthali.  But Gideon is still pretty doubtful that the Lord is on his side…I mean come on, there’s an army that outnumbers the stars that has just crossed into his territory, and what does he have to fight them with?  Some farm equipment and a few people from other tribes? So, in his quivering faith, he asks the Lord to perform two signs.  Gideon places a fleece of wool on the threshing floor, and he asks the Lord to wet the fleece with dew that night, but leave the ground around it dry.  The Lord does that, but Gideon needs another sign.  The next night he lays out the fleece, and he asks the Lord to make dew to drop on the ground, but leave the fleece dry.  The Lord does it, and Gideon is ready to go…for now.

Refreshed and renewed…Gideon gathers his troops makes camp just north of where the massive army of the Midianites, Amalekites, and the people of the east.  It’s there that the Lord visits Gideon, and says something that is no doubt strange to the ears of someone who was leading an army into battle: “You have too many soldiers in this army.”  TOO MANY!  I thought that the more soldiers, the merrier!  I thought that the army that had the most soldiers won the battle!  But not in the Lord’s army, oh no!  The Lord doesn’t want this victory, in any way, to be credited to Israel’s strength in numbers.  It was going to be God’s victory!

God told Gideon to tell everyone in his army that’s scared to go home.  I don’t know about you, but if I saw an army that was like a swarm of locusts (as numberless as the sand), and they had been terrorizing my land for the past seven years….I would probably have a strong feeling to go home, too.  I don’t know what I’d do in that situation, but 22,000 men out of a 32,000 man army turned around and went home!

But the Lord said there were still too many!  A 10,000 man army was too much for an army that couldn’t be numbered?  That’s what God said!  So, Gideon was commanded to take every man of his army down to the water to drink, and if anyone stuck his head down into the water to lap it up like a dog….Gideon was to send them home, but if they dipped their hand in the water and drank out of their hand…they were to stay.  Only 300 men were left in Gideon’s army after that.  300 men to go against a vast army of Midianites.  How many people do we have here this morning Jerry?  You double the size of this congregation and you have the army of Gideon…they are going against hundreds of thousands! The army of the east had about 135,000 (just one army out of the three-8:10)  300 vs. hundreds of thousands of soldiers!

APPLICATION: Gideon used to believe that he was the least, the youngest, and the last one to ever be chosen to play on the playground, but now he gave orders, commanded respect, and demanded compliance. He led family, strangers, and hundreds of people into battle. The young, lowly farmer, who enraged his own idolatrous family just a few verses before, now instructed, organized, and inspired an entire nation of people.

Maybe you think that you’re too young or maybe too old to make an impact? Are you too busy, too tired, or maybe you’re just discouraged? John Wesley had an astute understanding of how God uses men. He said, “Give me one hundred men who fear nothing but sin, and desire nothing but God, and I will shake the world.” Another author said, “I am only one, but I am still one. I can’t do everything, but still I can do something; and because I can’t do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.”  God can and will use you if you’re willing to let Him lead the way.

BACK TO THE STORY:  In Judges 7:16, Gideon has divided the 300 of his army into three companies of a hundred men.  These men weren’t given spears or bows or shields.  Each of these men were given a trumpet in one hand, and a clay pot with a torch inside for the other hand.  These 300 men didn’t have the latest blades or the farthest shooting arrows…they had trumpets and pots!  That’s all they had.  They were going to the camp of a massive army with no weapons!  I’m sure some of them were thinking, “What are we gonna do with a trumpet and a clay pot?”

Gideon told his men to spread around the camp of the Midianites, and when Gideon sounded his trumpet…they all were to sound their trumpets and shout, “For the Lord and for Gideon!”  And that’s what they did.  That night, at the middle watch, they all marched up to the outskirts of the enemy camp with torch filled pots in their left hand, and trumpets in their right.  They smashed the pots on the ground….sounded the trumpet, and cried out, “A sword for the Lord and for Gideon!”

              And the whole army of the Midianites ran away in some mass confusion, and the Lord made their swords kill each other as they fled (I guess because they thought that a huge army was invading them).  Then, Gideon (the lowly farmer) calls for the rest of the tribes to come and finish the job. The other tribes cut off Midian’s retreat back to the Jordan, and Gideon chased after them.  They drove them like cattle into a trap, and once there they captured two of the princes of Midian.  They cut off the heads of these princes and paraded them as they crossed the Jordan.  Once across the Jordan river, they continued to pursue the army of the Midianites out of their land.

              APPLICATION: Gideon’s orders were simple, but absolutely important. No one was to make a move without his direct orders. And all of this success, this victory, was fully dependent on their faith in God.  They were standing outside the camp of an army (that would be able to kill them very quickly) with only a pot and a trumpet.  You might as well say that they had no weapons to defend themselves.  If this plan didn’t work, then they were dead men.  They had to have faith that the Lord was going to be with them, and it would take a tremendous amount of faith for me to stand outside the camp of a killing force and blow a trumpet to give away my position.

But our victory in working for the Lord is also totally dependent on our faith in His power. If we are to build the church…if we want to grow in spirit and number…it has to be under God’s direction. If we’re going to accomplish anything it has to be God’s way. We had better be prayed up and in tune with God’s words or we may find ourselves facing defeat. God’s word will never fail, but our words will.  Psalms 127:1, "Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman watches in vain."  God is the one that gives the victory.  It is not by our power or by our ways.

THE REST OF THE STORY

BACK TO THE STORY: We left Gideon when he had crossed the Jordan pursuing the armies of Midian…this brings us to the not-so-often told “Rest of the story.”  In Judges 8:4 Gideon, and his 300 men, were faint and tired…weary from killing, running, beating, and chasing hundreds of thousands of enemies.  They were tired! (8:4) So, he decides to get off his raging interstate at the city of Succoth.  There he asks the people of Succoth for some food so that his 300 men could be revived and refreshed…get some food in their system.  Gideon says, “I’m chasing after Zebah and Zamunna, the kings of Midian, can you give us some food?”  To which the big wigs at Succoth replied, “Have you caught’em yet? Cause if you haven’t you ain’t getting any help from us!  We just saw 15,000 troops go by here and you have 300.  Good luck!”  They apparently don’t know that that army was running from Gideon’s 300.

Gideon, being the cool headed, lowly farmer said, “Well then…when I do catch these two kings…I’m coming back and I’m gonna get some thorns from the wilderness and scourge your flesh like you would scrape food off the bottom of a frying pan. Have a good day.” 

Gideon, a little perturbed at this point, then goes to the next town in Penuel, and they say the same thing!  They don’t give him any bread or hospitality!  They say, “No way are we giving you bread.” So, Gideon says, “When I come back through Penuel, I’m gonna knock down your idolatrous tower that you have built and you’re gonna be sorry!”  (8:9)

We begin to see a change in Gideon’s nature here.  He begins to take matters into his own hands, and it’s looking like he forgets about God. His humility at the wine-press begins to swell into pride. Arrogance begins to smother his submissive attitude.  His flesh is blowing up his faith.  He’s sure that God will give him victory… but he takes it upon himself to punish his cousins across the Jordan for not helping him.

So, now Gideon and his 300 are hungry, tired, and angry…but they have the advantage of surprise. He takes his 300 men down a caravan route (an ancient highway of sorts) and makes good time to catch up with the kings of Midian who are surrounded by the last remains of the once ginormous army.  They catch this 15,000 man army off guard, capture the two Midianite kings, and send the rest packin.

But Gideon’s got some unfinished business with the people of Penuel and Succoth.  He returns from the battle with the 15,000 toward Succoth, and there he catches a young man, and drills him with questions.  He interrogated him, but for what?  Gideon wanted to know the names of the men who were supposedly the leaders at Succoth.  And this young man gave Gideon 77 names of elders in the city of Succoth.  Gideon went back to the city…and he took the elders of that city and whipped them with thorns and briers.  The Bible says, “He taught them with thorns.” (8:16).  Just think about this passage the next time one of your elders makes a mistake…it’s in there for a reason.  Gideon then went back to Penuel and pulled down their tower, and killed the men of the city. 

Apparently, Gideon had taken the kings he captured along on his little journey, riding on their royal camels, and it was time for them to be judged for their crimes.  Gideon called upon his first-born son to strike the kings down, but he was still so young that he didn’t want to do it. So, the kings (defiant to the end) spoke up to Gideon and said, “If you were as powerful as you say….you would kill us with your own hand.”  So, Gideon was much obliged…and he killed the two kings of the Midianites that were responsible for the taking of all the spoils of Israel.

APPLICATION:  Now, we’ve followed Gideon all through his life.  We’ve seen him as the lowly farmer hiding in a wine-press trying to thresh some wheat.  We’ve seen him stand up to his family and tear down the idols of his fathers.  We’ve seen him become a leader of his people, even while being ridiculed by those that were in his own clan.  And this transformation from the fields to the front lines took place because God saw Gideon’s potential.  He looked at his faith.  He looked at his work ethic.  God saw potential in Gideon and he fueled his strength.

In the same way, the Lord looks at you.  He sees your faith.  He sees your abilities.  He sees your potential.  He hears your cries for deliverance…and He will never forsake you.  He is always with you.  Whether it be through the tough years of no gain, no profit, no soybeans in the pods…He is with you.  He’s always with you.  He’s with you through the victorious times of life, just lie he’s with you through the worst defeats.  God is the architect of it all!  He knows when you need to be purged and pruned….he knows when you need to be nourished and fertilized…and that will never change.  You are His child…and He knows just what you need.

But maybe you’re not his child.  Maybe you haven’t yet surrendered yourself to His will.  The ultimate victory, over sin and death, can be given to you though Christ Jesus.  He died on the cross for your sins…and it’s through Him that we are made more than conquerors.  So, come to the Lord, and He will never cast you aside.  “He that believes and is baptized shall be saved…”

But maybe you’re like Gideon’s family…you have let something get in the way of your relationship with God.  Maybe you’re like the Israelites in Judges 6:1, and you have, once again, done that which was sinful in the eyes of the Lord.  This is your time to repent…your time to go to God and ask His forgiveness through prayer.  This is your time to get your soul cleansed again, by His Son’s blood.