The 300? - [Judges 6-8]

I don't really care much for traveling, but I've done a lot of it this year and I'm going to be leaving tomorrow morning actually to go to Denver for a few days to visit my mom.

But on a recent trip, I had the good fortune of almost sitting by a Christian. It was close.

We started talking a little bit and then as the Lord would have it, there was some kind of double booking in the seat where next to me and so he wound up moving, but it was a shame.

But he just got through, we just started discussing our text tonight,

Judges 6 -8 and I would invite you to open your Bibles there. We just started talking about it and he said how much he enjoyed the

Bible and how much he had recently been encouraged by reading about Gideon and his 300 men.

And he said something like, isn't it amazing what God can do with 300 bold men?

And I rolled up my sleeves and I was ready to go, you know, and then he went up in the back of the plane, but a whole different deal.

But I've looked it up and pastors have described Gideon as humble, as a mighty man of God.

In fact, Gideon's Bible Society describes him this way,

Gideon was a man who was willing to do exactly what God wanted him to do, regardless of his own judgment as to the plans or results.

Humility, faith and obedience were his great elements of character. I don't know if this is the same guy that we're going to be discussing tonight because it doesn't sound like it, but Gideon, however, is one of the men extolled by the writer of Hebrews in chapter 11, the

Hall of Faith chapter. In fact, in verse 32, it says, and what more shall

I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets.

John MacArthur says of this verse, these men are not listed chronologically, but are listed in pairs with the more important member first.

So there we would have Gideon and Barak, and Gideon would be more important. I'm not after John MacArthur, the

Gideons, and I'm certainly not after the writer of Hebrews, but Gideon? Is he a great man of faith?

Should we challenge our children to dare to be a Gideon? Before we get there, let me just say that there are many ways to summarize

Judges, the book of Judges, but I'll use this one. Yahweh blesses

Israel. Israel responds to Yahweh's blessing with sin, specifically idolatry, and it's often portrayed in terms that would lead us to think of adultery, and we're going to see some of that language tonight.

And then Yahweh, the covenant God of Israel, chastens Israel, using some nation or another to put

Israel in bondage, to enslave Israel. And then finally, when the people call out the fourth step of this cycle, when

Israel repents, when they cry out to the Lord, Yahweh answers their prayer and sends a judge, a deliverer.

And Judges were not like, this wasn't Judge Judy, Judge Wapner. Judge Wapner used to be my hero, by the way, in the people's court, but it wasn't that kind of judge.

These Judges were, they were deliverers. They were part prophet, part general, they were an amalgam of things, but these were not judges the way we would think of judges.

So now, with that, let's look at the story of Gideon, and we're going to see it unfold in three different chapters, and chapter six is defeating

Baal. So that's what we're going to look at first, and we're going to see in verses one to six, the plague of the

Midianites, the plague of the Midianites. Listen as I read, the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the

Lord, and the Lord gave them into the hand of Midian seven years. And the hand of Midian overpowered

Israel. And because of Midian, the people of Israel made for themselves the dens that are in the mountains and the caves and the strongholds.

They were living in caves. For whenever the Israelites planted crops, the

Midianites and the Amalekites and the people of the east would come up against them. They would encamp against them, that is, bring their armies up and devour the produce of the land as far as Gaza, and leave no sustenance in Israel and no sheep or ox or donkey.

For they would come up with their livestock and their tents, and they would come like locusts in number.

Both they and their camels could not be counted, so that they laid waste the land as they came in.

And Israel was brought very low because of Midian. And the people of Israel cried out for help to the

Lord. What better describes the Midianites than a plague?

We think of Egypt. I mean, it just brings up the idea they came in like locusts. They just covered the land.

They were, I mean, basically the Midianites had an annual pilgrimage, and it was all through the land of Israel where they got all the food they needed to eat.

They would return year after year for seven years, and as our text told us, devour the produce of the land as far as Gaza and leave no sustenance in Israel.

When that happens, what do you do? Imagine somebody coming into Massachusetts and taking all the sustenance.

Pretty desperate times when they're taking all of your food, your livestock. All year long, the

Israelites toiled to feed themselves, and here come the Midianites to just take it all.

It was like a scene from one of those old Western movies where, you know, the village or the town is paralyzed because of these new marauding bands.

They want somebody to come and save them. How bad was it?

One writer imagines how a wheat farmer might have thought, wouldn't it be wonderful to throw your wheat up in the wind, out onto the threshing floor, as a free man should, just to be able to do the normal things of life, just to be able to harvest our grain and then go out and take care of it.

All of this is from idolatry, as I said in the opening. Verse 1, again, the people of Israel did what was evil on the side of the

Lord. This doesn't mean that they were breaking the Sabbath. This isn't that they were, you know, not looking both ways before they crossed the street.

They were worshipping a false god. They were worshipping specifically Baal. Finally, after seven years, they repent and they call upon the

Lord. And so now we're going to see in verses 7 to 12 what I've called a seemingly incomplete deliverance.

Often in this sort of situation, God would recount his faithfulness, their sinfulness, and then he would tell them that he was going to deliver them, but things are a little bit different here in our text.

Verse 7, when the people of Israel cried out to the Lord on account of the

Midianites, the Lord sent a prophet to the people of Israel. He said to them, thus says the

Lord, the God of Israel, I led you up from Egypt and brought you out of the house of slavery.

And I delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians and from the hand of all who oppressed you and drove them out before you and gave you their land.

And I said to you, I am the Lord, your God. You shall not fear the gods of the

Amorites in whose land you dwell, but you have not obeyed my voice.

Now the angel of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the

Abizarite, while his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press to hide it from the

Midianites. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, the

Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor. Now why do I call this a seemingly incomplete deliverance?

Did you see it? Did you notice what was missing? He says, you have not obeyed my voice.

And then it just cuts off. There's no, but now you've repented and I'm going to deliver you.

It just stops. And here near a mighty tree, that's what a terebinth is, beating out wheat in a wine press, not on a proper threshing floor, we meet

Gideon, but we don't just meet Gideon. We also meet the angel of the

Lord. That is, we have a Christophany, an appearance of the pre -incarnate

Christ, who shows up as Gideon is doing this work. And it's kind of interesting what it says here, that he's really hiding from the

Midianites. Why? Because he's got some food. He's got some wheat and he needs to separate it out.

He knows if he goes to any of the typical places, they'll find him. So he's got a little camouflage sites.

And so he's doing this work there and the angel of the Lord appears to him there. But we'll see that certainly

Gideon didn't think of himself as a mighty man of valor. And now we come to the

Gideon or the calling of Gideon in verses 13 to 24. 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 the

Lord not bring us up from Egypt? But now the Lord has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian.

In other words, Gideon wasn't feeling too mighty. He wasn't feeling too valorous and he wasn't too confident in the

Lord. He had no confidence whatsoever that the Lord's favor was with Israel.

Verse 14, and the Lord turned to him and said, go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian.

Do I do not I send you like my wife often says, the language here is buck up, buck up Gideon, get it done.

If I'm sending you, trust me, you have all the strength you need. Verse 15, and he said to him,

Gideon said to the Lord, please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh and I'm the least of my father's house.

I'm no one of significance. No one's going to listen to me. Verse 16, and the

Lord said to him, but I will be with you and you shall strike the Midianites as one man.

And he said to him, if now I have found favor in your eyes, then show me a sign that it is you who speak to me, who speak with me.

Please do not depart from here until I come to you and bring out my present and set it before you.

And he said, the Lord said, I will stay until you return. This reminds me so much of the story of Samson, but I don't want to muddy that.

But this is, this is not a sign of faith. This is a sign of doubt. He knows he's addressed him as sir and Lord, and he knows that this is someone special, but it still hasn't quite clicked for him exactly who he's talking to, even though the writer of Judges makes it very clear to us.

Moving on to verse 19. So Gideon went into his house and prepared a young goat and unleavened cakes from an ephah of flour.

The meat he put in a basket and the broth he put in a pot and brought them to him under the cherubim and presented them.

And the angel of God said to him, take the meat and the unleavened cakes and put them on this rock and pour the broth over them.

And he did so. 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 and the angel of the Lord vanished from his sight.

Then Gideon perceived, I love the understatement here, then Gideon perceived that he was the angel of the

Lord. He finally understood that this was an angelic being, the

Lord God. This was no set up. The angel of the Lord had performed a mini miracle before Gideon's eyes, just enough for him to believe, to understand.

Then in verse 22, moving on, and Gideon said, alas, oh

Lord God, he knows finally. For now I've seen the angel of the Lord face to face.

He thought he was going to die. No one could see God and live.

But the Lord said to him, peace be to you. Do not fear. You shall not die.

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 Abizrites.

So he knows that he is dealing with a personage who is God. And he knows that because of the way the

Lord took his offering and everything that he's done so far. But the Lord takes his fear and gives him peace.

He was afraid he was going to die and now he's got peace. And now we come to Gideon's first mission in verses 25 to 32, his first mission.

That night the Lord said to him, take your father's bull and the second bull, seven years old, and pull down the altar of Baal that your father has and cut down the

Asherah that is beside it. And build an altar to the

Lord God on top of the stronghold here with stones laid in due order. Then take the second bull and offer it as a burnt offering with the wood of the

Asherah that you shall cut down. Now this is some kind of altar here.

If it takes one bull, two bulls, some other men to pull it down, this is quite a construction here.

But it wasn't just enough to destroy this pagan altar, this altar set up to Baal. Gideon was commanded to build an altar suitable for sacrificing to Yahweh.

Well, why not just build another altar somewhere else? You know, you can have your altar over there for Baal and we'll just build one over here.

You know, kind of like the Baptist church on this side of the street and the Presbyterian church over there.

God is not going to coexist with Baal. The creator of the universe will not share his glory with some construction of craftsmen, some false idol.

And so Gideon goes as he's commanded, but not without fear. Look at what it says in the text, verse 27.

So Gideon took ten men of his servants and did as the Lord had told him. But he was too afraid of his family.

Why? Because it's his dad's altar. And the men of the town to do it by day.

He did it by night. So valorous. Verse 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.

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. The local CSI came out.

They checked the hoof prints, canvassed the neighborhood. I watched too many cop shows. They figured out that Gideon was their man.

He was their suspect. Look at verse 30. Then the men of the town, they all kind of round, they get rounded up and they go to Joash and they say, bring out your son that he may die.

For he has broken down the altar of Baal and cut down the Asherah beside it.

Just think how steeped in idolatry, how much really rebellion and hatred they had for the

Lord to do all these things. And then to say someone else must die for taking it down. Verse 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.

Baal can take care of himself if he's so tough. Joash doesn't sound very heartbroken that his altar has been torn down.

Verse 32. Therefore on that day Gideon was called Jerubbabel. That is, let

Baal contend against him because he broke down his altar. It's a good thing dad had his back.

No one else did and he was afraid. What if Joash had turned him in? But now we get

Gideon's kind of legend is growing. He's even got a nickname, you know, a kind of a nom de guerre, a name of war,

Jerubbabel. But now even after being strengthened by the

Holy Spirit, Gideon wants another sign. We'll see that in verses 33 and 40. Now all the

Midianites and the Amalekites and the people of the east came together and they crossed the

Jordan and encamped in the valley of Jezreel. But the Spirit of the

Lord clothed Gideon and he sounded the trumpet and the Abizrites were called out to follow him and he sent messengers throughout all

Manasseh and they too were called out to follow him and he sent messengers to Asher, Zebulun and Naphtali and they went up to meet them.

Then Gideon said to God, if you will save Israel by my hand as you have said, behold,

I am laying a fleece of wool. In other words, he's already assembling the troops, but now he's going to put

God to the test. 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. And it was so.

When he rose early the next morning and squeezed the fleece, he wrung out enough dew from the fleece to fill a bowl with water.

Done deal. Let's go get him. Wait. Then Gideon said to God, let not your anger burn against me.

Let me speak just once more. Double check. 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. And God did so that night and it was dry on the fleece only and on all the ground there was dew.

Now I just have to take a minute out to say when somebody says they set out a fleece, I just go, why?

Reminds me of the prayer of Jabez. This is not only not commanded, it's not encouraged and really is a sign of what?

It's a sign of doubt, of faithlessness. Gideon had been visited by God.

During that visit, God performed a miracle. His life had been preserved by God when the people of the town wanted to kill him.

And yet he wanted further confirmation that God was really in this. And then he gets the first answer to prayer, the first fleece answered.

And he asked for a second one. Dare to be a Gideon. No. How amazingly gracious is the

Lord to answer Gideon's presumptuous prayer because that's what it is. Not just once, but twice.

So that's chapter 6, defeating Baal. Chapter 7, defeating the Midianites.

This first part I call it special forces. This is pretty good stuff. Verse 1 of chapter 7.

Then Jerubbabel, that is Gideon, and all the people who were with him rose early in a camp beside the spring of Herod.

And the camp of Midian was north of them by the hill of Moreh in the valley.

The Lord said to Gideon, The people with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand, lest Israel boast over me, saying,

My own hand has saved me. Now therefore proclaim in the ears of the people, saying, Whoever is fearful and trembling, let him return home and hurry away from Mount Gilead.

Then 22 ,000 of the people returned and 10 ,000 remained. So let's just kind of understand this.

There were 32 ,000 total. The Lord says that's too many.

The Midianite army, as we'll see later, was something, I'll forget the exact number, but somewhere around 130 ,000.

That's a one to four or so disadvantage if they took everybody. That's pretty big.

And we already know that the Midianite army was pretty impressive. Why? Because for seven years they'd risk starvation to avoid fighting these people.

But Yahweh knows, God knows the hearts of sinful people. If 32 ,000 had carried the day, they would have taken credit themselves.

So he says, Get rid of the people who are afraid, and more than two -thirds of the army vanishes. To me, that would be not good.

And it's about to get worse. Look at verse four. And the Lord said to Gideon, The people are still too many. Take them down to the water, and I will test them for you there.

And anyone of whom I say to you, This one shall go with you, shall go with you. And anyone of whom

I say to you, This one shall not go with you, shall not go. Now I'd want it to be, you know, whoever could do 200 push -ups or something like that.

I'd want the really tough guys. So he, being Gideon, brought the people down to the water.

And the Lord said to Gideon, Everyone who laps the water with his tongue as a dog laps, you shall set by himself.

Likewise, everyone who kneels down to drink shall be separated. And the number of those who lapped, putting their hands to their mouths, was 300.

But all the rest of the people knelt down to drink water. The more

I thought about this, the more I just thought this was incredible. Only 300 drank with their hand, and all the rest of them just got down there like dogs, like animals, and lapped out of the water with their tongues.

And the Lord said to Gideon, With the 300 men who lapped, I will save you and give the Midianites into your hand, and let all the others go, every man to his own home.

So the people took provisions in their hands and their trumpets, and he sent all the rest of Israel, every man to his tent, but retained the 300 men.

And the camp of Midian was below him in the valley. This is the way they used to fight.

You know, you get your camp, and I get my camp, and then we go out and line up in the morning. We scream at each other.

I mean, it's like the movies, you know. We scream at each other, and we go rushing in, and, you know, we take care of business.

32 ,000, too many. 10 ,000, too many. 300, just right.

Special forces indeed. Now we have a special dream, verses 9 to 15. That same night, the

Lord said to him, Gideon, Arise, go down to the camp, go down against the camp, for I have given it into your hand.

But if you are afraid to go down, look at how gracious the Lord is over and over again to Gideon. But if you are afraid to go down, go down to the camp with Purah, your servant, and you shall hear what they say, and afterward your hands shall be strengthened to go down against the camp.

Then he went down with Purah, his servant, into the outposts of the armed men who were in the camp.

In other words, he was afraid. And so he did as the Lord said. If he was afraid, he could do this.

So he did. Look at verse 12. And the Midianites and the

Amalekites and all the people of the east lay alone the valley like locusts in abundance, and their camels were without number, as the sand that is on the seashore in abundance.

Two guys, they look down the hill, they see all these people, all the trappings of war.

I don't think that was really going to make them feel too good. If you were

Gideon and you had 300 men, they were smart enough to cup their hands instead of drinking like animals, and your enemy was like locusts in abundance, would you be getting just a little bit nervous right about now?

They're looking down at this camp, and I don't think that Gideon is taking out the time to just kind of sketch out a battle plan.

We're not talking about Napoleon or Alexander the Great. We're just talking about a guy who was hiding out a few days before.

Look at verse 13. When Gideon came to hold a man, someone in the camp was telling a dream to his comrade.

And he said, Behold, I dreamed a dream, and behold, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian and came to the tent and struck it so that it fell and turned it upside down so that the tent lay flat.

And his comrade answered, This is no other than the sword of Gideon, the son of Joash, a man of Israel.

God has given into his hand Midian and all the camp. Well, that would be pretty encouraging.

Because he had no reason to expect to hear anything like that, and here it is. The Lord says, Hey, if you're still worried, go on down there and check out the camp.

And then he hears this. Verse 15. As soon as Gideon heard the telling of the dream and its interpretation, he worshipped.

I can imagine. He was probably wanting to go back and sing some of his favorite hymns, but it wasn't quite time for that.

And he returned to the camp of Israel and said, Arise, for the Lord has given the host of Midian into your hand.

God sent him down there, and now he hears this dream. It's not a coincidence, and he's not lucky.

This is the Lord working, and he knows that. Now we're going to see what

I've called 300 divided by 3 equals chaos. 300 divided by 3 equals chaos.

Verses 16 and 25. And he divided the 300 men into 3 companies. Again, this is something you might see great generals do, but they did it for great tactical reasons, and here it just kind of seems almost crazy, but look what he does.

He divides the 300 men into 3 companies and puts trumpets into the hands of all of them and empty jars with torches inside the jars and said to them,

Look at me and do likewise. When I come to the outskirts of the camp, do as I do. Follow my lead.

When I blow the trumpet, I and all who are with me then blow the trumpets also on every side of all the camp and shout for the

Lord and for Gideon. So Gideon and the 100 men who were with him came to the outskirts of the camp at the very beginning or at the beginning of the middle watch when they had just set the watch.

Right as they're changing guards. And they blew the trumpets and smashed the jars that were in their hands.

It's just loud, cacophonous, crazy sounding. They held in their left hands the torches and in their right hands the trumpets to blow.

And they cried out a sword for the Lord and for Gideon. Every man stood in his place around the camp and all the army ran.

They cried out and fled. They're trying to sleep. And all of a sudden all this noise breaks out and there is absolute chaos.

There's bedlam. They're running every which way. When they blew the 300 trumpets, the Lord set every man's sword against his comrade and against all the army.

In other words, the Midianites and the Amalekites and the men of the East all started killing each other. There's mass confusion here.

Nobody knows what's going on. And they're all scared and they all start reacting as if they're scared. They panicked.

And the army fled as far as Beth Shittah toward Zeriah, as far as the borders of Abelmola by Tabith.

I like history. In fact, I love history. I played a lot of war games. And the games are usually designed to almost force you when you're attacking to have at least three to one odds.

If they don't force you to do that, it's usually because you have some massive technological advantage or you have some massive surprise advantage.

But in this case, they were outnumbered by hundreds to one. The Midianite army was at least 135 ,000 strong versus 300.

And so what the Lord does here is he uses the darkness, the surprise, the noise, and he confuses the

Midianites into killing themselves. And there's so much tumult and so much confusion that eventually they all just break and start running.

They don't want to be killed, and so they just start running. They don't know what's going on. Verse 23,

And the men of Israel were called out from Naphtali and from Asher and from all Manasseh, and they pursued after Midian.

Gideon sent messengers throughout all the hill country of Ephraim, saying, Come down against the

Midianites and capture the waters against them, as far as Beth Barah and also the

Jordan. And so all the men of Ephraim were called out, and they captured the waters as far as Beth Barah and also the

Jordan. And they captured the two princes of the Midian, Oreb and Zeb, and they killed

Oreb at the Rock of Oreb, and Zeb they killed at the winepress of Zeb. Then they pursued

Midian, and they brought the heads of Oreb and Zeb to Gideon across the Jordan. So the three hundred have routed the

Midianites, and they fled in a panicked mob. And Gideon is calling on the tribe of Ephraim to kind of cut off the retreats.

The Midianites are all running for dear life, and what a great opportunity to put an end to this whole

Midianite problem. If you let them go, then they reorganize and they come back, and you're right back where you started.

So they call for these reinforcements to cut them off. So, so far we've seen, number one, defeating

Baal. Number two, defeating the Midianites, which is what's just happened. And now we're going to see something a little different, defeating

Israel. Chapter 8, beginning in verse 1 through 3, turning away the pride of Ephraim.

In other words, they do this, and we'll see this in the text. They accomplish what Gideon wants them to accomplish, but they don't really respond all that well.

Then the men of Ephraim said to him, to Gideon, What is this that you have done to us, not to call us when you went to fight against Midian?

And they accused him fiercely. They're upset that they didn't get in on the initial attack. And he said to them,

What have I done now in comparison with you? Is not the gleaning of the grapes of Ephraim better than the grape harvest of Abizir?

God has given into your hands the princes of Midian, Oreb, and Zeb. What have

I been able to do in comparison with you? Then their anger against him subsided when he said this.

In other words, he's saying, Look, what are you guys worried about? You've got all the big trophies. You've got the heads of these guys.

You guys are the big shots now. You get all the glory and all the credit. He appeals to their pride, and they're happy.

We come to the second section here, where it's overcoming the fears of Sukkoth and Penuel, which are two towns, two villages in Israel.

Look at verse 4. And Gideon came to the Jordan and crossed over.

He and the 300 men who were with him, exhausted yet pursuing. So he said to the man of Sukkoth, Please give us loaves of bread to the people who follow me, for they are exhausted.

And I am pursuing after Zeba and Zalmunna, the kings of Midian. And the officials of Sukkoth said,

Are the hands of Zeba and Zalmunna already in your hand, that we should give bread to your army?

So Gideon said, Well then, when the Lord has given Zeba and Zalmunna into my hand,

I will flail your flesh with the thorns of the wilderness and with briars. And from there he went up to Penuel, and he spoke to them in the same way.

And the men of Penuel answered him as the men of Sukkoth had answered. And he said to the men of Penuel, When I come again in peace,

I will break down this tower. Now Zeba and Zalmunna were in Karkor with their army, about 15 ,000 men, all who were left of all the army of the people of the east, for there had fallen 120 ,000 men who drew the sword.

And Gideon went up by the way of the tent dwellers east of Noba and Jogbeha and attacked the army, for the army felt secure.

And Zeba and Zalmunna fled, and he pursued them and captured the two kings of Midian, Zeba and Zalmunna, and he threw all the army into a panic.

Then Gideon, the son of Joash, returned for the battle by the ascent of Heres.

And he captured a young man of Sukkoth, and he questioned him. And he wrote down for him, that is this young man wrote down for Gideon, the officials gave him a list of the names of the officials and elders of Sukkoth, 77 men, the leaders of the town.

And he came to the men of Sukkoth and said, Behold, Zeba and Zalmunna, about whom you taunted me saying,

Are the hands of Zeba and Zalmunna already in your hand that we should give bread to your men who are exhausted? And he took the elders of the city, and he took thorns of the wilderness and briars, and with them he taught the men of Sukkoth a lesson.

And he broke down the tower of Penuel and killed the men of the city. Then he said to Zeba and Zalmunna, Where are the men whom you killed at Tabor?

They answered, As you are, so were they. They're just fine.

Every one of them resembled the son of a king, mighty. And he said,

They were my brothers, the sons of my mother. As the Lord lives, if you had saved them alive,

I would not kill you. So he said to Jether, his firstborn,

Rise and kill them. But the young man did not draw his sword, for he was afraid, because he was still a young man.

Then Zeba and Zalmunna said, Rise yourself and fall upon us, for as the man is, so is his strength.

In other words, do us the honor of killing us yourself. And Gideon arose and killed

Zeba and Zalmunna, and he took the crescent ornaments that were on the necks of their camels. Sukkoth and Penuel, as I said earlier, were villages, they were towns, and they should have cooperated with Gideon, but they were afraid.

They thought, Look, you and your men, when you're gone, what's going to happen? The Midianites are coming back.

We're not going to help you, even though you are our kinsmen, even though you are our same nation.

From an earthly perspective, it makes sense. Why would anyone fear? Because we're reading it, and we're going,

Wait a minute, didn't they just see what the Lord did? No. They have no idea.

They didn't have the Internet or anything else. And they certainly didn't have the Bible. They didn't have this account.

They're looking at it, and they're thinking, Wait a minute, 300 men versus 15 ,000 men.

We'll take our chances with the 300. Now, after all this, it's not surprising that some kind of fuss would be made over Gideon.

But look at verses 22 and 23. We see him refusing to rule, refusing to rule.

Verse 22, Then the men of Israel said to Gideon, I mean, after all this great victory, after throwing off the yoke of the

Midianites, after seven years of living basically in caves and looking for scraps of food to eat, then the men of Israel said to Gideon, Rule over us, you and your son and your grandson also.

In other words, establish a kingly line to rule over us. For you have saved us from the hand of Midian.

Gideon said to them, I will not rule over you, and my son will not rule over you. The Lord will rule over you.

Now, it's interesting, commentators take different twists on this. It may have been false humility, or it may have been a genuine refusal.

And by the end of the chapter, it's going to be really hard to tell. But nevertheless, the appreciation of Israel for what

Gideon had done, notice they don't say, because of what God has done. Obviously, God's hand is upon you,

Gideon. Because of that, we want the blessings that the Lord has blessed you with. And so, would you be our king?

It's nothing like that. They don't say Yahweh has saved us. They say you have saved us. But he declines, at least apparently.

But he goes on to create, here he is, the guy who tore down the altar of Baal, and he creates yet a new idol.

Look at verse 24. And Gideon said to them, let me make a request of you.

Every one of you give me the earrings from his spoil. Do you think they were going to say no? Absolutely not.

For they had golden earrings because they were Ishmaelites. And they answered, we will willingly give them.

And they spread a cloak, and every man threw in the earrings of his spoil. And the weight of the golden earrings that he requested was 1 ,700 shekels of gold, besides the crescent ornaments and the pendants and the purple garments worn by the kings of Midian, and besides the collars that were around the necks of their camels.

And Gideon made an ephod of it, and he put it in a city in Ophrah.

And all Israel hoared after it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and to his family.

An ephod was what a high priest would wear when he was performing his priestly duties. It was extravagant, expensive, and it had a lot of symbolism attached to it, including a breastplate that had 12 precious stones, one for each of the 12 tribes.

And it appears that in some way, Gideon had set himself up as some kind of religious authority.

And the people, it says there, worshipped it, thus hoared after it.

The same idea of idolatry, that language used of idolatry.

And he leaves a very sad legacy. Look at verse 28. So Midian was subdued before the people of Israel, and they raised their heads no more.

Midian was done. They just lost an army of 135 ,000 men. And the land had rest 40 years in the days of Gideon.

Finally, no having to worry about starvation, no living in caves anymore. No wonder they wanted to make him king, right?

Verse 29, Gerubbabel, Gideon, the son of Joash, went and lived in his own house.

Now, Gideon had 70 sons, his own offspring, for he had many wives.

This gives us some conflicting information with regard to whether Gideon became king.

It says that he went to his own house, which would kind of give us a picture of retirement, which would be very odd behavior for a new king.

We would expect him to establish a throne and to start a government and maybe gather some taxes and all that.

But he doesn't do that. At least it's not indicated in the text. However, he also had many wives.

Polygamy was a sin, but it was a sin that was often committed by kings. Why? To show their power.

Look at verse 31. And his concubine, who was in Shechem, also bore him a son, and she named his name, and he called his name

Abimelech. And Gideon, the son of Joash, died in a good old age and was buried in the tomb of Joash his father at Ophrah of the

Abizrites. As soon as Gideon died, the people of Israel turned again and whored after the

Baals and made Baal bareth their god. Another indicator that Gideon may have ruled as king is his son's name.

Abimelech means, my father is king. That's a good indication. Your son's name is, my father is king.

That's a good clue. But as soon as Gideon is culled in the ground, the

Israelites go right back to idolatry. He was the human instrument that God used to deliver them because of their idolatry.

And as soon as he's dead, right back to idolatry. Right back to the same false god, to Baal. One thing is clear about Gideon, whether he was ruling, whatever he did, he didn't turn the hearts of the people back to God.

He may have even prevented the external practice of idolatry. He certainly didn't allow them to build new altars to Baal, but he could not prevent their hearts from wandering.

As soon as he was gone, they were gone too. Look at verse 34. And the people of Israel did not remember the

Lord their God, who had delivered them from the hand of all their enemies on every side, and they did not show steadfast love to the family of Jeroboam, that is,

Gideon, in return for all the good that he had done to Israel. Mark Devers says this,

Gideon, the son of idolaters, remember that altar was Joash's, comes across as presumptuous with God and the religious object he fashions, an ephod, provokes the people to worship it.

His son Abimelech is one of the worst characters in the book. This is his legacy.

Depressing, really. But getting back to the beginning, this is not the story of the 300. The original 300 or the one we think of as 300, the

Battle of Thermopylae, 300 Spartans and their allies held off masses of invading

Persians in 480 BC. This isn't the 300. This isn't the story about Gideon's mighty men.

This isn't the story about the valorous and faithful Gideon. This is not even the story of some brilliant military strategist.

Gideon was a weak and doubt -filled man. Remember, he was hiding when the story began.

He was not some rabble -rousing revolutionary. He wasn't trying to throw off the yoke of the Midianites.

What the story of Gideon ought to make us mindful of is this from the New Testament, 1

Corinthians 1, verses 27 to 31. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise.

God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that as it is written, let the one who boasts boast in the

Lord. The entire story of the Old Testament could be summarized this way. God set out to redeem a people for himself, and they resisted his love and mercy at nearly every step of the way.

No matter how Yahweh blessed Israel, no matter how many times he saved them, she played the harlot, chasing after other so -called gods.

But for us, I think it's helpful to be reminded that although the Lord does not need us, he uses us.

Even though we fail in many ways, our sins are covered by the blood of Christ, and the same is true of Gideon.

Was he a mighty man of faith? No. Was he one who somehow earned sufficient merit to get into heaven?

No, he was a doubter, prodded personally by God. Imagine if you could have God every day saying,

Steve, I want you to do X. He wouldn't say Steve you, but I want you to do X. And by the way, when you get down there, if you're still afraid, then just listen to what's said.

He was fearful. He was an adulterer. He had many, many wives.

He was an idolater. He was all those things, but he was one whose sins were paid for on the cross.

That's why he's in Hebrews 11. The message of Gideon is if you could earn your way to heaven, if there's something you could do to get there, then maybe

Gideon would be there on that basis. But there isn't. Gideon's no mighty man.

He's a man used by God and cleansed by the blood of Christ on the cross.

Let's pray. Father, you are indeed a gracious God, gracious to men like Gideon and women and men like us in this room here today.

Father, we praise you that we are not left to our own devices, that we don't have to earn our way to heaven because we can never do it.

Father, we thank you for sending your son, Jesus Christ, eternally

God. To live a perfect life. To die a sacrificial death on our behalf and to be raised on the third day.

Father, who could ever imagine such a thing that you would save wretches like us and a wretch like Gideon.