Gideon: a tale of a coward warrior
The awful lesson in the Book of Judges is that Israel seemed absolutely incapable of learning that when we dishonor the Lord, we lose the right to claim His protection over us. That is why Israel is constantly under oppression. At certain times, God raised up Judges to lead Israel. Gideon was one among them.
The angel calls Gideon a “mighty man of valor” but that is either irony or faith because at the point of his call, Gideon is trying to thrash grain secretly as he is afraid of the Midianites. He needs an extraordinary amount of reassurance before he is willing to act and when he finally does move to obey, he acts in secret, under the cover of darkness and then hides out and lets his father speak out to protect him from the angry mob!! There was nothing – absolutely nothing, in Gideon that qualified him for the job God called him to do!
God chooses very average, nondescript kinds of people to accomplish His mighty work!
Why does God so often chooses such unimpressive and unspectacular vessels. In I Corinthians chapter 1, tells us straight out – ‘God chooses the weak over the strong, the foolish over the wise, the things that are not in order to confound the things that are so that no flesh should glory in His presence.’ God chose Gideon then for exactly the same reason that He chose the battle plan that reduced the army to just 300 men before they engaged the enemy in conflict – so that when the day was done and the victory won, everyone would know that it was God and God alone who had done it and the glory would be His alone.
Gideon showed a unique way of discerning the will of God. There is a fair amount of debate about whether Gideon provides us here with a model of an acceptable way to solicit the will of God for our lives. Is it ever God's will for a Christian to “throw out a fleece?” Or is that the evidence of an unacceptable lack of faith? On the negative side of that question it may be observed that before Gideon asked for a faith building sign, God had already clearly told him what he was to do. It may also be observed that Gideon on a later occasion (just before the battle) needed yet another faith injection. This we are told is not a model to emulate. On the positive side of the ledger, it can be observed that God gave Gideon the signs for which he asked and never rebuked him in any way.
Laying out fleeces is a practice calculated to strengthen the discernment and faith of a weaker Christian. The better we know the Word of God and the more mature our faith becomes, the less we will find ourselves in need of fleeces.
There was a pretty important phrase used in verse 34 of chapter 6. In describing what happened to Gideon we are told that the Spirit of the Lord “came upon Gideon” – that's the New International Version rendering. But the Hebrew language actually says that the Spirit of God clothed Himself with Gideon. One old poet has suggested that “Gideon was just a suit of working clothes that the Spirit put on that day.” That revealing bit of language which is mirrored in two or three other places of the Old Testament helps us with a couple of important things. The first is that the ability to do the work of God – the wisdom, the power, the understanding and even the faith – are not inherently resident in Gideon or any other servant of the Lord for that matter. They are given – endowments that come from the Holy Spirit of God.
Christianity is not a self-help religion (although that is what a good many speakers and writers of our day are trying to make it). It is not a matter of coming to faith in Christ and thereby unlocking all of this talent and ability that was there all the time but being “blocked” by our lack of oneness with the Creator and ourselves. Being filled with the Spirit of God does enable us to use what was already there more effectively, but primarily it has the effect of “connecting us” to resources, gifts and power that are resident not in us, but in Christ who through His Holy Spirit has come to dwell in us.
The awful lesson in the Book of Judges is that Israel seemed absolutely incapable of learning that when we dishonor the Lord, we lose the right to claim His protection over us. That is why Israel is constantly under oppression. At certain times, God raised up Judges to lead Israel. Gideon was one among them.
The angel calls Gideon a “mighty man of valor” but that is either irony or faith because at the point of his call, Gideon is trying to thrash grain secretly as he is afraid of the Midianites. He needs an extraordinary amount of reassurance before he is willing to act and when he finally does move to obey, he acts in secret, under the cover of darkness and then hides out and lets his father speak out to protect him from the angry mob!! There was nothing – absolutely nothing, in Gideon that qualified him for the job God called him to do!
God chooses very average, nondescript kinds of people to accomplish His mighty work!
Why does God so often chooses such unimpressive and unspectacular vessels. In I Corinthians chapter 1, tells us straight out – ‘God chooses the weak over the strong, the foolish over the wise, the things that are not in order to confound the things that are so that no flesh should glory in His presence.’ God chose Gideon then for exactly the same reason that He chose the battle plan that reduced the army to just 300 men before they engaged the enemy in conflict – so that when the day was done and the victory won, everyone would know that it was God and God alone who had done it and the glory would be His alone.
Gideon showed a unique way of discerning the will of God. There is a fair amount of debate about whether Gideon provides us here with a model of an acceptable way to solicit the will of God for our lives. Is it ever God's will for a Christian to “throw out a fleece?” Or is that the evidence of an unacceptable lack of faith? On the negative side of that question it may be observed that before Gideon asked for a faith building sign, God had already clearly told him what he was to do. It may also be observed that Gideon on a later occasion (just before the battle) needed yet another faith injection. This we are told is not a model to emulate. On the positive side of the ledger, it can be observed that God gave Gideon the signs for which he asked and never rebuked him in any way.
Laying out fleeces is a practice calculated to strengthen the discernment and faith of a weaker Christian. The better we know the Word of God and the more mature our faith becomes, the less we will find ourselves in need of fleeces.
There was a pretty important phrase used in verse 34 of chapter 6. In describing what happened to Gideon we are told that the Spirit of the Lord “came upon Gideon” – that's the New International Version rendering. But the Hebrew language actually says that the Spirit of God clothed Himself with Gideon. One old poet has suggested that “Gideon was just a suit of working clothes that the Spirit put on that day.” That revealing bit of language which is mirrored in two or three other places of the Old Testament helps us with a couple of important things. The first is that the ability to do the work of God – the wisdom, the power, the understanding and even the faith – are not inherently resident in Gideon or any other servant of the Lord for that matter. They are given – endowments that come from the Holy Spirit of God.
Christianity is not a self-help religion (although that is what a good many speakers and writers of our day are trying to make it). It is not a matter of coming to faith in Christ and thereby unlocking all of this talent and ability that was there all the time but being “blocked” by our lack of oneness with the Creator and ourselves. Being filled with the Spirit of God does enable us to use what was already there more effectively, but primarily it has the effect of “connecting us” to resources, gifts and power that are resident not in us, but in Christ who through His Holy Spirit has come to dwell in us.
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