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Preached at Deforest Evangelical Free Church on 6/12/22
It seems like in some ways the darkness is all around us. It feels that way. I think there's a sense of angst and wondering where is this all going? What's happening to our country? What's happening to the church?
Where has God gone? And in that vein I have been convicted. I have been humbled, convicted, challenged, and encouraged by the story of Gideon. And I know this is probably a familiar story to many of you, but I want to go over it again.
I want to look at some of the things that the Bible has to say, and really it's an example of God's grace. That's why these stories in the Old Testament are given to us as examples, as warnings to us, things that patterns of sin and behavior that we should avoid, and also encouragement to us.
This is what God does with broken individuals, sinful individuals, flawed individuals, and I am the first among them. And so if you feel like you're inadequate, like you're flawed, how can God use you?
The darkness seems overwhelming. Well, this is a story for you this morning. So if you would turn with me to Judges chapter 6. We're going to be reading from Judges chapter 6 and 7. We're probably going to be doing a lot of reading this morning.
And I want to give you a title, and I want to give you a thesis. So my main point, what I'm trying to convey, and the title here is The Hand of the Lord on Gideon. I thought of calling it what conservative evangelicals need to know and do.
What conservative evangelicals need to know and do, whether it's here or really any part of this world. What do we as believers in the Bible, as the inerrant and fallible Word of God, Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven, what do we need to know, what do we need to do in the situation currently afflicting us?
My thesis is this. God equips the weak for mighty tasks. He took Gideon from a desperate and depressed man and transferred him through faith into a devoted and determined man. And he will do the same for you.
He's the same God yesterday, today, and forever. And today God is no different than he was 3 ,000 years ago during the time of Gideon and the people of God and the challenges that they faced. Let's start by reading in Judges chapter 6.
Let's read from verses 1 through 11 to start off here. It says this in Judges chapter 6, starting in verse 1, then the sons of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. And the Lord gave them into the hands of Midian seven years.
The power of Midian prevailed against Israel because of Midian the sons of Israel made for themselves the dens which were in the mountains and the caves and strongholds. For it was when Israel had sown that the Midianites would come up and with the Amalekites and the sons of the east and go against them.
So they would camp against them and destroy the produce of the earth as far as Gaza and leave no sustenance in Israel as well as no sheep, ox, or donkey. For they would come up with their livestock and their tents and they would come up like locusts for number.
Both they and their camels were innumerable and they came into the land to devastate it. So Israel was brought very low because of Midian. And the sons of Israel cried to the Lord. Now it came about when the sons of Israel cried to the Lord on account of Midian that the Lord sent a prophet to the sons of Israel and he said to them thus says the Lord the God of Israel it was I who brought you up from Egypt and brought you out from the house of slavery.
I delivered you from the hands of the Egyptians and from the hands of your oppressors and dispossessed them 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 live but you have not obeyed me.
Then the angel of the Lord came and sat under the oak that was in Ophrah which belonged to Joash the Abizite, Abizrite, as his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress in order to save it from the Midianites.
Now there's two crises that manifest themselves these first 11 verses and I think they are crises we can relate to in our own time. They look familiar. There's an economic crisis first of all and it's caused most directly by the invasion of this group called the Midianites and they were nomadic.
They're actually distant cousins of the Israelites. They are the actually sons of Abraham through his second life and they they had come up with their camels which this was a new technology in warfare in a sense using camels and they could strike fast and they could strike far and they overwhelmed the Israelites.
Obviously it says numerically they overwhelmed them but they had superior technology in their camels and they would take from the Israelites their food. And so you have Gideon threshing wheat in a winepress.
Now that's not actually normal to do that. This time of year it would actually be probably the time of year we're in right now late May early June so just a few weeks ago would have been this time and that was the time that in in this region people would go up to the mountains through the hills to thresh wheat because that's where the wind was and you'd throw the wheat up and the chaff which was the the part of the wheat that you didn't want would be blown away by the wind and then you would be left with what you could grind up and make flour out of.
Well you would stick out like a sore thumb if you were on top of the hill at this point. And the Midianites could see you and then they could go take your food, take your wheat, and probably kill you.
I know gas is high. We're not quite there though. All right? We're not. It can get worse. They were living in caves. They were hiding. They were trying to hoard whatever food they had. Now I know that where we're at right now in the United States we've enjoyed a lot of prosperity over a great many years and there's a lot of concern right now.
Obviously we do have a high price of gas. We have high inflation. We have our enemy China set to overtake us in gross domestic product meaning the size of their economy very soon within the next few years.
COVID sped that up and the size of your economy really does determine the size of your military so there's consequences there. We can see that there's a housing bubble. We can see that there's supply chain issues and I think a lot of us are feeling that.
In fact, my whole plans for this trip that I'm on right now got rerouted because of supply chain issues. One of the people I was gonna meet with to do a project with, a film project, couldn't meet with me because it was to promote a book that he couldn't get the paper for because he had to wait a few months because of COVID which I thought that was over but apparently not because the supply chain issues are still affecting us.
And we can look at all these things and we can think, man, it's getting bad. Maybe I better go buy all that Patriot food supply that I hear about talked about on talk radio or something, right? Maybe maybe so you don't have to raise your hand maybe some of you have basements full of this, right?
You don't want people to know that though because when things really go south they're gonna be knocking at your door and you won't have it anymore. Kind of like the Midianites and Gideon but I digress.
There was an economic crisis at this time and it was caused by most identifiably the Midianites but what was it really caused by ultimately? It was caused by their disobedience. God was judging them and they weren't supposed to mistake that.
They were they were supposed to see that this was the hand of God judging them and they did see it and they cried out to God because of that. Do you think the hand of God is judging the church? Judging the people of God today?
Judging people in in the United States perhaps? A formerly Christian country in the sense that we basically honored in general the principles of the Bible? Not anymore. It's obvious this June. More than I've ever seen it.
Do you think God might be doing something similar? Now I don't think we're Israel as far as the nation of the United States at all but I do think these stories are given to us for a reason and God's character is represented in them and if the people of God at the church and I'm talking about primarily the upper echelons of evangelical Christianity, those who represent people like you and myself, if they are weak, if they are not taking strong stands against the evil of the day, if they are participating in idolatrous worship in some ways or syncretizing that, do you think God's going to turn a blind eye?
I don't. I just don't. I don't think that what's happening to us is necessarily a mistake or just the result of cause and effect of economic issues. I think there's moral issues connected to it and I think there's always moral issues connected to economic issues.
So that's the economic crisis but there's a moral crisis also going on here or a spiritual crisis. It's caused by judgment specifically for the worship of the false gods of Baal and Asherah. They were fertility gods.
Baal, often depicted as an ox and oftentimes in the worship to Baal, even things as horrific as child sacrifice would take place. We shut that up in a building called Planned Parenthood today. We don't really see it as overtly but it's still going on.
Similar things are going on. Asherah was the mother god of fertility and we're gonna find out later on as we read that Gideon actually, he strikes a blow to both of these idols. But Asherah was worshipped as a pole.
There would be basically a carved image in a tree surrounded by usually a grove of trees that was a holy place and in a desert climate that was a nice place to go. There'd be shade and that's where you would worship Baal and that's where you worship Asherah.
And so they had these holy places, these new churches substitutes, new temple substitutes popping up in their land and that's where they would go to get blessing, to get produce, to say we're not making it economically, help us, bring rain, bring bring the prosperity that we once enjoyed.
Prosperity wasn't coming. These false gods were just broken cisterns and their enemies had basically enslaved them. They were slaves living in the lands of their fathers but not enjoying any of the blessings, not reaping any of the harvest promised to them because of their disobedience.
And we see the same kind of thing today. We have an economic crisis, we also have a spiritual or moral crisis in our own land. And connected to this is a leadership crisis. And we see that in the very next section.
Let's read verses 12 and we might go on to 24. I might stop in the middle there but let's start at verse 12. It says this, the angel of the Lord appeared to him, that is to Gideon, and said to him, the Lord is with you, O valiant warrior.
Then Gideon said to him, O my Lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? Where are all his miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?
But now the Lord has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian. I want to stop there, actually, right there. Does that echo the cry of your own heart sometimes when you see what's happening around you?
God, where is the glory which we once had? I read about great awakenings in this land. I knew there was once a stronger, more vibrant church. Where is all that, Lord? I know that you've done miracles.
Where are the miracles? Maybe some of you can raise your hand and say there have been. And I want to remind you that God is still at work. He is still doing miracles. We should expect miracles. And the greatest one is saving an individual soul, conquering sin.
That's one of the greatest miracles you can imagine. But as I even look outside, and by the way, the music this morning was beautiful, and the passages we read, because they reminded us of the power of God as seen even in creation.
That's a miracle. It's hard to sometimes focus on those things when there's evil around you, but it's right there in front of us. The Lord's still at work. But even as he's at work, when there's evil and it's affecting our lives, we're prone to ask the same questions Gideon's asking here.
Lord, wasn't there a time when there was more power manifested? Didn't you bring us up from Egypt? What happened? He remembers stories. He knows something of the truth. Even with all the false pagan worship, there's a shadow, there's a remnant of the truth that's been passed down to him, and he's wondering if the Lord's left the building.
Is there any hope left? To put it bluntly, Gideon is depressed. He's depressed. And I could, you know, stand here and say everything is sunshine and roses, don't worry about what's happening, but let's deal with reality.
Depression's out there right now more than I've ever seen it, and even affecting sometimes the people of God. Depressed at the circumstances of our own lives, depressed at the circumstances sometimes of the world around us, and where things could be going, and just the sin that entangles us.
This is a fallen world. If you think about it too much, if you think about even the sin in your own soul, it'd be natural to be depressed. And that's where Gideon's focus is. And he's just trying to survive.
How do I just put my right foot in front of the left to get through another day to feed my family so I can just live one more day and the Midianites won't kill us this time. That's what life looks like for him.
It's all his energy is being channeled into survival. There's no leaders. There's no one to look to, to hope in, to follow, to lead a revolt or some kind of way out of the problem that they're in. It's hopeless for Gideon.
And yet, the Lord calls him a valiant warrior. You think Gideon was a little surprised by that in the wine press hiding from the Midianites? Like, what? Who? Is it looking around? Is there a valiant warrior around here?
It's you, Gideon. You're the valiant warrior. And even though you're in survival mode right now, pretty soon you're gonna be in a wartime mode. And you're gonna be channeling your energy into something else.
You just have it channeled into a different place. So, the Lord responds to Gideon in verse 14. He says, and by the way, this is the word Yahweh. This is the Lord. It starts off an angel of the Lord and then the text changes and it's the Lord is speaking to Gideon.
And says, go in this your strength and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian. Have I not sent you? Wow. This is a habit the Lord has. I'll tell you what, you start reading through all the stories of the Old Testament, you start seeing something similar, don't you?
Think about Moses at the burning bush, right? He sees a burning bush. He walks up to it. The bush starts talking to him. I think I would have had a heart attack right there. He takes off his sandals. It's holy ground.
He steps into the holy ground and the Lord says, go deliver the children of Israel from the hand of Pharaoh. What's Moses's reply? Me? I just spent 40 years building a comfortable life here with my family in the desert, away from those people.
That was my old life. You want me to go back there? Man, I can't even speak. You got the wrong guy. Maybe my brother, he can speak. Not me. The Lord wanted Moses. What about David? David wasn't an obvious pick for king.
He wasn't the tallest in the land like Saul. He was a little shepherd boy. Yet there is something David had and there was something Moses had that the Lord used. There's something that we can have that the Lord can also use.
It's not perfection. That would disqualify everyone, wouldn't it? Except the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the only perfect being. It's something else. The Lord wants someone who does not rely on their own strength.
Humble enough to see that if all hope rests on them, it ain't happening. But also with the knowledge, as Gideon had, that there's a powerful God out there and there was a time he did miracles and he could again.
I don't think what Gideon asked here is actually all that unreasonable. Some commentators have tried to say that this is God being sarcastic. He's, oh valiant warrior, ha ha ha, you're in a wine press.
I don't think God's lying here. I think what God, God is looking at Gideon and he's saying that is who Gideon is, actually. And I think Gideon, when he asks these questions, these are actually, yeah, you can see the doubt, you can see the struggle to some extent, but there's actually a faith there.
Because he knows that God did at one time do some miracles that saved the people of Israel and he could do it again. That's what God's looking for. Looking for someone just with a little bit of faith.
With the faith of a mustard seed, you can move mountains. That's what Jesus said. It doesn't take perfection in every area. So Gideon was a mighty, valiant warrior. Let's keep reading. What does Gideon say?
Oh Lord, how shall I deliver Israel? Behold, my family is the least in Manasseh and I'm the youngest in my father's house. A familiar response to the Lord, right? He's heard that one before. No one would expect me, Lord, but the Lord said to him, verse 16, surely I will be with you and you shall defeat Midian as one man.
So Gideon said to him, if now I have found favor in your sight, then show me a sign that it is you who speak with me. Please do not depart from here until I come back to you and bring out my offering and lay it before you.
And he said, I will remain until you return. So then Gideon went in and prepared a young goat and an unleavened bread with an ephah of flour. He put the meat in a basket and the broth in a pot and brought them out to him under the oak and presented them.
The angel of God said to him, take the meat and the unleavened bread and lay them on the rock and pour out the broth. And he did so. Then the angel of the Lord put out the end of the staff that was in his hand and touched the meat and the unleavened bread and fire sprang up from the rocks and consumed the meat and the unleavened bread.
And the angel of the Lord vanished from his sight. Then Gideon saw that he was the angel of the Lord. He said, alas, O Lord God, for now I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face. The Lord said to him, peace to you.
Do not fear, you shall not die. Then Gideon built an altar there to the Lord and named it, The Lord is Peace. To this day it is still an ophrah of the Abizrites. Now, what's all this about Gideon making lunch, giving it to the angel of the Lord?
There's some speculation on this, so I don't know a hundred percent, but this does seem to parallel in Leviticus chapter 4 verses 27 through 28, the unintentional sin offering. When you've committed a sin you don't really know exactly, it wasn't intended, but you did something to violate God's law, you would offer a female goat.
And some think that that's what Gideon is doing here. It's the same thing that Moses did when he took off his shoes. It's an acknowledgment that, wow, you're holy, I need to repent, I need to humble myself before you.
I am not holy, I am sinful. And that this is the process by which Gideon started the transformation from someone who was afraid, who was in the wine press hiding from the Midianites, to the valiant warrior that the Lord knew that he was.
Started with repentance. That is a very big possibility and I believe that's probably what's happening here. It's a demonstration of his own humility in the circumstance. Which, by the way, that is the primary thing God wants.
He resists the proud, he gives grace to the humble. God can use someone who's very flawed, but humble. Someone who doesn't think they have a problem, that's someone that God resists. Gideon is humble here.
Now one of the things that I think it's important for us to ask as we look at this, is that you can see Gideon's efforts, as I said, are being put into surviving. Escaping the Midianites. And one of the things that I thought, and this is for myself, but I want you to ask the question for yourself as well, is what are we ultimately living for?
Is my goal, and you can personalize this for yourself, is your goal ultimately maintaining your temporal existence or making an internal impact? Now, the day-to-day grind, getting up, going to work, providing for your family, these are important things.
These are things that are necessary. These are things that we must do to be responsible before God, but where's your ultimate purpose in life? Your sense of mission for the Lord? Where do you think it's all going and why do you think God has you here on this earth?
Is it just to do that daily grind? Is that it? Just to get up and repeat the process every day? Or is there something maybe more to this? In Luke 9, Jesus talks about denying oneself. If you want to follow me, deny yourself.
If you want to gain the world, you'll lose your soul. Living for the things of the world as ends in of themselves instead of means to an end, which is to glorify God, is wrong. And what we see in the life of Gideon here is a transformation, I think.
We see in him a man living through the daily grind, still being responsible, doing the right thing as far as providing for his family, but not seeing the true mission the Lord had for him. And this is what I want us to focus on to some extent and think to yourself, what is the mission God has for you?
Now it may not be this great big thing like Gideon did in the eyes of the public. It may be something smaller, but it may be just as significant in the eternal scheme. Guess what? Ephesians says, Ephesians chapter 2, that he actually created us for good works.
There's things, specific things, God predestined you for. And Gideon was no exception to that, neither are we. And so what are we living for ultimately? And I think in this process of humility and trusting in God, we see a transformation in Gideon.
He goes from desperate to depressed and then he makes a decision. He is decided. Desperate, depressed, to decided. Verse 25 through 35 says this, Now on the same night the Lord said to him, take your father's bull and a second bull, seven years old, and pull down the altar of Baal which belongs to your father.
Full stop. The what? Yeah, your dad's the issue here Gideon. That's one of the reasons you're in the wine press. Your dad has an altar to Baal. Cut down the Asherah that is beside it and build an altar to the Lord your God on top of this stronghold in an orderly manner and take a second bull and offer a burnt offering with the wood of the Asherah which you shall cut down.
Okay, the Lord is telling Gideon to completely overturn the family religion at this point. Now this is what's interesting to me. Gideon had heard about the Lord and his promises and what he had done in the past.
He knew something of the true God. He would have gotten that from where? Probably his dad. But his dad is also the one who owns the local idol shrine. What's going on here? Well there's certainly some kind of a synchronization.
There's some kind of a remembrance of the true God and a wanting to worship idols at the same time. And I want to submit to you that this is how idolatry has always looked. It's never a clear-cut thing where there's a, well I shouldn't say never, there are times, but often it is not a clear-cut thing where there's a complete rejection of the truth and a full embrace of lies.
There's usually a mix. There's a rejection of the true God, sure, but there's also this kind of tipping one's hat to the true God and saying, well we still have a place for him. And that's the same thing I think we're going through today.
It's the same thing that the Reformers went through with the Roman Catholic Church. It's the same thing that was taking place at Jesus's time with the Pharisees. There is a mixture of worship with the true God with some kind of a man's tradition mixed in, with the demonology mixed in, with false worship mixed in.
And God's telling Gideon, no more. He's a jealous God. He's not going to share his worship. And so Gideon takes out these idols, as we're about to read. So it says in verse 27, Gideon took ten men of his servants and did as the Lord had spoken to him.
And because he was too afraid of his father's household and the men of the city to do it by day, he did it by night. So Gideon's still kind of, I saw the fire, I saw what happened, but you know what, still let's be a little cautious here.
Let's not be too brazen. I'll go in at night and do it. So when the men of the city arose early in the morning, behold the altar of Baal was torn down and the Asherah which was beside it was cut down and the second bull was offered on the altar which had been built.
And they said to one another, who did this thing? And when they searched about and inquired, they said Gideon the son of Joash did this thing. The men of the city said to Joash, bring your son that he may die, for he has torn down the altar of Baal and indeed he has cut down the Asherah which was beside it.
Now I'm gonna summarize a bit of what happens next. Joash defends his son here, actually. He basically says, look, if Baal wants to defend himself, Baal can defend himself. He doesn't need you to do it.
And so Gideon's name is changed to Jeroboam, which is let Baal contend against him. So he gets a nickname because of what he did here. And then Gideon starts sending out messengers throughout Israel. He's gathering an army together to go against the Midianites.
His faith, look, he inches out one little step of faith, he's scared, he does it at night, propels him into the next big step. How many of you are afraid to share your faith with others? I don't need a show of hands.
Just think about it. How many of you are afraid to share the gospel of Jesus Christ? Man, I'll tell you what, I can be afraid. I really can. There's times even in this past week I can think of where I thought, man, I should share with this person and I didn't do it because I was afraid.
I didn't know how it was gonna be accepted. But I tell you what, when I do share my faith, when I do things that are maybe a little bit risky, but in obedience to God, what does that do to my faith? It grows.
Because I can see the faithfulness of God. We have a public walkway where I live in upstate New York where a lot of people from New York City come up. If you ever meet anyone from New York City, they're not like here.
They can be a little more direct, we'll say. And so my first, the first person I had some gospel tracks and I gave one to someone and this person basically blew up in my face with just within about 30 seconds immediately flipped and started accusing me of all the hateful things.
I hadn't said a word yet. Just said, here. He saw what it was. And I talked to him for about 15 minutes. And yeah, he went away and guess what, it wasn't the best encounter that I've ever had in a witnessing.
He was shouting at me, I still hadn't said anything, and I'm like, okay, we'll go to the next person. But guess what? Even that little encounter, which maybe from an outside perspective looked like it was a failure, boosted my faith.
I thought, wow, you know what? God's at work. Because guess what? The demons here, they're convicted. The flesh here, it's convicted. The world, it's convicted. It's running from the light. Let's see who else needs to hear about the light.
And so I witnessed to another person, talked to them for about 20 minutes or more. Maybe it was half an hour. And we talked about all kinds of things. He wanted to know why God was a male and not a female.
I mean, these are the kind of questions we're getting now in that area. And we had a wonderful conversation. I'm hoping maybe I'll go back and see him again. We can continue it. Guess what happened that day?
I mean, I was ready to witness to everyone. And it wasn't because I saw lightning come out of heaven. It was just because I was obedient. I think the same thing is true for you. The little steps of faith, the doing what's right before the Lord, even when it costs us a little bit, it does something to us.
That valiant warrior comes out. Because we know it's not us who's going to provide the bravery or the increase or the result. It's God. He's the one protecting us. And we can start to see him at work, whether that's convicting people of sin or whether that's saving people, that's making people more conformed to the image of Christ.
We see God do miracles. That's what Gideon does here. He takes a little step and it leads to a bigger step. Well, then we have Gideon still a little bit doubtful. He's taking these steps, but he's on a tightrope over the Niagara Falls.
He's like, I don't know. I'm still a little scared. And so he he asked God for a sign in verses 36 through 40. He says to the Lord, I'll put a fleece of wool out on the threshing floor. And in the morning, if there is dew on the fleece and it is dry on the ground, then I will know that you will deliver Israel.
So the Lord does it. And then he reverses it. He says, oh look, okay, I know you did that one, but look, please don't be angry with me. Let me get one more sign. Can the fleece be dry this time and there be dew on the ground?
And the Lord does that. The Lord was very gracious with Gideon here. I don't recommend people do this necessarily. I think it borders on putting God to the test here, but God was gracious with Gideon.
And he's gracious with us when we lack faith. Again, look at Gideon. He's a valiant warrior. He's got flaws here. He's got issues with trusting God, and yet the Lord is gracious to him. And as he steps out, the Lord gives him more and more reason to trust him.
I think it's the same for us. We step out, the Lord gives more and more reason to trust him. Well, then we get to the climax of this entire story, and we find out Gideon's true nature as a valiant warrior.
He becomes devoted. He goes from desperate and depressed, he makes a decision, he becomes decided, and now he's devoted. Chapter 7, starting in verse 2, it says this, the Lord said to Gideon, the people who are with you, he calls an army, people are with you are too many for me to give Midian into their hands.
For Israel would become boastful, saying, my own power has delivered me. Now therefore, come proclaim in the hearing of the people, saying, whoever is afraid and trembling, let him return and depart from Mount Gilead.
So 22 ,000 people returned, but 10 ,000 remained. Then the Lord said to Gideon, the people are still too many. Bring them down to the water, and I will test them for you there. Therefore, it shall be that he of whom I say to you, this is the one who shall go with you, he shall go with you, but every one of whom I say to you, this one shall not go with you, he shall not go.
So he brought the people down to the water, and the Lord said to Gideon, you shall separate everyone who laps the water with his tongue as a dog laps, as well as everyone who kneels to drink. Now the number of those who lapped, putting their hands to their mouth, was 300 men, but all the rest of the people kneeled to drink the water.
So the Lord said to Gideon, I will deliver you with the 300 men who lapped, and will give the Midianites into your hands. So let all the other people go, each man to his home. Now, there are some who think that this was all strategic.
The Lord is really narrowing it down to the cream of the crop, because we know that the people who lap, they're more on their guard. They're looking around, and the people who just bend over all the way and drink, and they're not paying attention.
I don't really buy that. I don't think that's what God's doing. I don't think, I don't know if there's necessarily a rhyme or a reason as far as strategy. It doesn't seem like it's a good strategy to go from 22 ,000 people to 10 ,000 people to 300 people.
Just me, I don't think so, because we look in chapter 8, and we can see the size in verse 10 of the army they're against is 15 ,000 men and 120 ,000 swordsmen. So 135 ,000 men. Yeah, God's not playing strategy here from a human perspective.
You know, it's better if you go against 135 ,000 with 300. That doesn't make any sense. So God reduces significantly the size of the army. In fact, the Midianites at first, after the first reduction, were 13 times larger.
After the second reduction, they're 400 times larger. So in other words, one Israelite would have to defeat 400 Midianites in order for this to work, in order to just break even. Those aren't odds that I like.
I'll tell you what, and as our own society gets darker and darker with sin and rebellion against God, the odds can seem insurmountable, can't they? It can feel like, Lord, where are the righteous? How can we stand against this?
Man, I think that if I weren't Gideon, if I hadn't heard from the Lord directly like Gideon, and I was one of those 300, I'd be shaking in my boots right now. I'd be wondering, how is this going to turn out?
But we know how it turns out, and the Lord, once again, is gracious to Gideon. We see that Gideon, in verse 10, he goes down with his servant, Purah, to the camp of the Midianites, and he hears the Midianites talking about a dream that they had, that one of them had.
And this is interesting to me. This isn't the locker room talk that I expect from, you know, armed soldiers, like, hey, you want to hear about the dream I had last night? It doesn't happen too much among men, but this is what's happening.
It says in verse 13, there was a man relating a dream to his friend, and he said, behold, I had a dream. A loaf of barley bread was tumbling into the camp of Midian, and it came to the tent, and struck it so that it fell, and turned it upside down so that the tent lay flat.
And his friend replied, this is nothing less than the sword of Gideon, the son of Joash, a man of Israel. God has given Midian and all the camp into his hand. They knew who Gideon was. They probably heard about the story of him destroying the idols.
And they said out loud the Lord's plan so Gideon could hear it, so it could give him the faith he needed to continue on. And the Lord is gracious like that. He gives us, it's still scary, but he gives us the grace we need.
He gives us the promises we need when we need them. So Gideon heard the account of the dream. He bowed in worship. That was his reaction. He returned to the camp of Israel, and he said, arise, for the Lord has given the camp of Midian into your hands.
He divided the 300 men into three companies, and he put trumpets and empty pitchers into the hands of all of them with torches inside the pitchers. And he said to them, look at me and do likewise. And behold, when I come to the outskirts of the camp, do as I do.
When I and all who are with me blow the trumpet, then you also blow the trumpets all around the camp and say, for the Lord and Gideon. This was the battle plan. 300 people making a bunch of noise. That's what's gonna defeat this incredibly big army with camels.
God's Spirit was with Gideon. The Lord's power was with Gideon. It wasn't in his strength. It could not have been in his strength. And if you see this passage, it pleases the Lord to get the glory and the credit.
Sometimes that's the way he wants it. If we were able to overcome sin and evil on our own, or it could look like we did that because of the strength of ourselves or our church or resources we had, we would brag about it.
We would get to thinking that it was our own strength that did it. But that's not the way the Lord wants it. The Lord wants to get the glory himself. He wants people to look to him, not to man, because man is weak.
Trust not in chariots, but in the Lord your God. Look to the hills. Where does your help come from? It's from the Lord your God. Trust in the Lord, not in self. And that's what this story perfectly illustrates.
Now what we see, I think, in Gideon here is that the Lord uses a man that does not have perfect bravery. He uses a man that does not have perfect faith, but he uses a man who has humility, who is willing to worship God and humble himself before God.
And Gideon is somewhat of a reluctant leader. It used to be in our own country that the template for a political leader was George Washington. He was the main person you'd look to as an example of what a true leader looked like.
Guess what? George Washington was kind of a reluctant leader. He did what needed to be done for his people, and then after the war for independence, they wanted to make him king, and he said, no, I'm not going to be king.
I'm going to go back to my farm, basically. And he became president, but he was never after high political office and power. And that was the template for every leader, the reluctant leader who does what's right, but isn't in it for their own glory and aggrandizement.
Compare that to some of the leaders that we have today, Republican or Democrat. Trump. I mean, and look, I'm not saying that you shouldn't have voted for President Trump. I did last time. But President Trump, Joe Biden, Barack Obama, I mean, look, those recent presidents we've had, are they anything like George Washington?
The Lord chooses, and we see in Gideon here, the reluctant leader over the ambitious narcissist. You got to watch out for the person who is willing to take risks, but does so because they're arrogant, because they are so cocky, they don't think that they'll ever get harmed because they're the best that's ever been.
That's the person to watch out for. The person to elect to public office, the person to hope in, the person to lead you, not just in political office, but everywhere, really, is the person who says, I don't want the position for the position's sake.
I just love the people. That's what a public servant is. I want to do what's right. I want to serve the Lord. That's who Gideon was. That's why he was a valiant warrior he was. That's what made him a good leader.
We see that in this passage. Gideon's confidence was not in himself, but he was growing in confidence in God. God uses people without perfect faith. Let's read the end of this story. Confusion of the enemy.
So Gideon, verse 19, and the hundred men who were with him came to the outskirts of the camp at the beginning of the middle watch, when they had just posted the watch, and they blew the trumpets and smashed the pitchers which were in their hands.
It's 10 p .m. at night. That's the time he's doing it. And there's a fresh watch. So these people, they're not tired. They're not sleeping on the job. They have fresh eyes, and they can see what's happening right before them.
When the three companies blew the trumpets, they held their torches in their left hands and the trumpets in their right hands for blowing and cried a sword for the Lord and for Gideon. Each stood in his place around the camp, and all the army ran, crying out as they fled.
When they blew 300 trumpets, the Lord set the sword of one against another throughout the whole army, and the army fled as far as Beth Shiddoth toward Zerathoth, as far as the edge of Abel Nahola by Taba.
And you all know where those are, I'm sure. The men of Israel were summoned by Naphtali and Azur and Ammonasa, and they pursued Midian. Gideon sent messengers throughout the hill country of Ephraim saying, come down against Midian and take the waters before them as far as Beth Barah and the Jordan.
So all the men of Ephraim were summoned, and they took the waters as far as Beth Barah and the Jordan. They captured the two leaders of Midian. They won. And then the Lord gave them a reprieve for 40 years from their enemies.
They were oppressed for seven years. The Lord gave them a reprieve. Now the end of the story is, they forgot eventually and fell right back into veil worship. Can you believe that? After seeing something like this, they fell, 40 years later, they're right back to where they were before.
Isn't that just like us though? Every generation must kindle afresh the love for the Lord, remembering his stories, seeing him at work. I think in our lives, that takes what Gideon had. It takes humility and then steps of faith.
They might be baby steps at first, but we step out and we're obedient to whatever the Lord has, whatever he's calling you to do. I don't know what that is in your own life. Might be in your family, might be in your work, might be maybe you should run for public office like Josiah did.
We were talking about this last night a little bit. Maybe the Lord wants you to be a leader in your community in some way. But whatever it is that the Lord has, that good work that he's predestined for you, do it.
And see the Lord work. And guess what? That's a testament. A testament to your children and for children, that's going to be something you remember the rest of your life. When you see the Lord at work, even in the small things that you do, being obedient to your parents.
There's a tendency, I think, to get lazy when we see the Lord work and then our enemies are gone and whew, man, we don't have the economic challenges anymore. This is great. We have blessing and our eyes are subtly turned.
Make sure that you keep the Lord in your heart during the times of blessing. He's just as merciful in those times as he is when he throws off the shackles of slavery. Well, God is about his glory we see from this whole story.
I want to give you just a couple closing thoughts, insight into God. We can see Gideon in this story going from desperate, depressed, to decided, to devoted, to determined. We also see God at work in this passage.
Using the weak things to shame the strong. Showing forth who he is. Same thing he did with Moses and the children of Israel and Egypt. Same thing that he's done throughout time. Jesus himself, numerous times, there's so many passages where Jesus says that he sought his father's glory.
He was a perfect man and he sought his father's glory. Gideon is a type of Christ, in a small way, an imperfect type of Christ, but someone who delivered God's people by following God's plan. It's exactly what Jesus did.
Devoted himself to the will of the father. God has a work for you. God has a challenge for you. The challenge is in this life. God uses people like you and me without perfect power, without perfect bravery, without perfect faith, just like Gideon.
God uses the weak, as 1 Corinthians says, the shame, the strong, to deliver people from oppression. The main one is oppression to sin. Don't put your hope in horses or chariots. Put your hope in the Lord.
I can't emphasize this enough. Expect miracles. Expect that God is going to do something great. Gideon knew the stories that he needed to see the reality in his own life, but he could only see that reality by stepping out in faith first.
That's my challenge to you this morning. We worship an awesome God. We worship a God who came to this earth, who, like Gideon, delivered his people from their sin, from their bondage to breaking God's law.
He paid the price for our sin on the cross. He substituted his own life for us. He gave us his righteousness. All he asks for us is to humble ourselves, to repent, to put our faith in him, and then to follow him.
It's as simple as that. Trust and obey. There's no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey, right? There's no secret formula that I can give you. It's very simple. I don't know where the world's going.
I don't know what's going to happen in our country. I know that there's a lot of negative things that we turn on the news. Sometimes I just turn it off. I'm like, I can't listen to this anymore. But I know that the Lord's at work.
I know he's on his throne. I know he put you here for such a time as this. He put you right where he wanted you. Did you know that? God didn't make a mistake putting you where he puts you, in the family that he puts you in, in the region that you live, in the place of work that you have.
That's exactly where the Lord wants you. It may seem like drudgery at times. It may seem like you have to keep your head down all the time. It may seem like you're in survival mode instead of battle mode.
But guess what? I think the Lord can look at each one of you, and he does, and he sees a valiant warrior there because you have taken that first step of faith to put your trust in Jesus Christ if you're one of his.
The next steps aren't so hard after that first one. If the Lord can save you from your sin, he can save you from evil men. He can save you from getting fired from your job. He can save you from economic woes.
He can save you from getting canceled if you say the wrong thing. The Lord can save you from all those things. All you have to do is trust him. And by the way, I've seen this. I just got to say, I've seen this firsthand in the lives of people, real people just like you.
I've talked about some of it even on the podcast. Bobby Lopez, Russell Fuller. I know I'm reached out to by people on a semi-frequent basis who have taken a stand. Usually it's in academia, pretty hostile in academia against Christianity.
And they've said, you know what? I'm going to go with what the Lord says on this one. Sorry. They get fired. And their concern is, I don't know how I'm going to feed my family. Every single time the Lord provides.
Every single time. I've never seen a circumstance where the righteous are hungry. Now, you might be eating beans. I'm not going to say that it's always going to be filet mignon. But the Lord does provide.
And so you can trust him. You can step out in faith like Gideon, and then you can watch the Lord work miracles. He can use you. And he used me in small ways. The weak, the lowly, the fragile. That's what makes it obvious that it's him at work and not we ourselves.