No Time for Second Guessing When it's Time to Move Forward - Judges 6:33-8:3

Sermon Series: In Need of a Greater Rescue

Last week we were introduced to the next God-appointed deliverer for the Israelite people in the book of Judges – a man named Gideon. As chapter 6 began we discovered that the Israelites once again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and that this time God gave them into the hands of the Midianites. The text told us that the Midianites (as well as the Amalekites) would come into the portion of the Promised Land where the Israelites were residing and that they would come in in numbers so great that they and their livestock couldn’t even be counted. Then they would settle in the land and remain there until they had consumed all of the land’s produce, leaving the Israelites weak, feeble, and starving. Having endured the Midianite oppression for seven years the Israelites finally became distressed enough to call out to God for help. And last week our examination of the text revealed to us that God sent the angel of the Lord to announce to Gideon that God had raised him up and appointed him to deliver the Israelites out from under the Midianite oppression. What we were expecting to find next was an account of the battle between Gideon and the Midianites, but the narrative was interrupted by a very important assignment that God needed Gideon to accomplish first - the destruction of Israelite idols and places of false worship.  We noted that the interruptions to the narrative as we expected, in order to first have Gideon pursue this assignment was of incredible importance. God was pointing out to us (the readers) that the Israelite’s greatest problem wasn’t foreign invaders, it wasn’t the physical oppression that they were facing, nor was it the starvation they were suffering from. The Israelites’ biggest problem was their sin problem – their problem with continual idolatry. We also noted that the focus of the interruptions in the first part of chapter 6 seemed to be directed more towards the Israelites’ sin and idolatry than it did on Gideon. In the text this week the focus is clearly shifted back onto Gideon.

We come out of the interruption to the text that we ended on last week to resume the narrative account of Gideon delivering the Israelite people from the Midianites in verse 33. The text picks up where we expected it to go following 6:24 – with the author and narrator setting the stage for the battle between two opposing forces. 6:33 tells us that the Midianites and the Amalekites, coming from east of the Jordan River, crossed over the Jordan River and entered into the Promised Land as had been their custom for the past seven years to make the Israelites’ harvest and produce their own. So it was up to Gideon to gather an Israelite force to oppose and overpower these intruders, and 6:34-35 tells us that he begins the process by sounding the trumpet among his own clan (the Abiezrites). Remarkably, the clan that only 5 verses earlier had wanted to put Gideon to death (see 6:30), consented and followed after Gideon. Additionally troops came from the far northern tribes of Manasseh, Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali to lock arms with Gideon and to go to battle with him. The total number of troops that consented to fight with Gideon was an amazing 32,000 (see 7:3). This is an unbelievable number for several reasons: (1) Gideon was a fearful and reluctant leader, (2) Gideon had enraged his clan just verses before by tearing down the places and objects of their false worship, and (3) because approximately two-thirds of the troops who consented to fight were incredibly fearful (we’ll touch on this in just a moment). So what makes so many fearful and angry men consent to go to battle with Gideon? His clothes! No, seriously – it’s his clothes! Listen to how the first part of verse 34 describes Gideon, “But the Spirit of the Lord clothed Gideon.” The response of the Israelites to follow Gideon and to consent to fight with him seems to be solely the result of the Spirit of the Lord resting upon him. It wasn’t his courage, it wasn’t his confidence in God’s plan and calling (as we are getting ready to see), and it wasn’t his charisma – Gideon doesn’t seem to possess any of these things. But when the Spirit of the Lord arrived on the scene and ‘clothed’ Gideon it inspired those around him to be a part of what God was doing through him. This is absolutely amazing!

6:36-40 represent another interruption to the narrative as we expect it. Once again we see the fear and reluctance of Gideon as he continues to put God to the test. In these verses Gideon asks for not one, but two different signs to confirm that God is really going to do what He says He is going to do. “Then Gideon said to God, ‘If You will save Israel by my hand, as You have said . . .” (vs. 36). We noted two weeks ago in our examination of the Barak narrative how he failed to believe the promise of God to work through him to deliver Israel. It was ultimately Barak’s lack of faith and reluctance that became his legacy - for it was because of his lack of faith and reluctance that God gave Sisera into the hands of a woman, Jael. Sadly this is the same path that Gideon sets out on - a path of lack of faith and reluctance. In 6:11-18 he failed to believe the declaration of the angel of the Lord and put the angel of the Lord to the test. Now Gideon is up to more of the same. Gideon tells God that he was going to put a fleece of wool out on the threshing floor overnight and asked God to cause the dew to rest solely on the fleece in the morning and for the ground around the fleece to be dry, if God was really going to do as He had promised. The author and narrator tells us that the next morning Gideon arose and found the fleece just as he had asked to find it. Amazingly though this doesn’t satisfy Gideon’s need for re-assurance because yet again Gideon asked God to confirm His promise through another sign. This time Gideon tells God that he was going to do the same thing, only this time he asked God to cause the fleece of wool to be completely dry and the ground surrounding it to be covered with dew. And once again God confirmed His promise through the sign that Gideon had asked for.

Now we need to stop here and make an important observation about what has just transpired. What Gideon has done with the fleece to test God is not a good or commendable act! Some have wrongly taught that Gideon’s requests with the fleece were acts done with the motivation of determining the will of God. That is wrong! Gideon already knew and understood what God’s will was and what God had raised him up to do. In other words, God’s will was perfectly clear in Gideon’s mind. So we have to understand that Gideon’s requests for signs were completely and totally acts of unbelief. Gideon did not believe that God would do what He said He would do. Biblical commentator Daniel Block puts it this way, “Despite being clear about the will of God, being empowered by the Spirit of God, and being confirmed as a divinely chosen leader by the overwhelming response of his countrymen to his own summons to battle, he uses every means available to try to get out of the mission to which he has been called” (emphasis my own). 

It’s astounding that God responds so favorably to these acts of unbelief and that God consented to Gideon’s requests each time that he made them. What that reveals to us is that God is more concerned with the deliverance of the Israelite people than He is with Gideon’s faithless testing. God has heard the Israelites cry for help, He has raised up and appointed Gideon for the task of delivering them, and time is of the essence. The Midianites had entered into the Promised Land, so waiting around for Gideon to figure out that God’s promises are true and sure could take too much time. God needed Gideon to act and He needed him to act right away, so God consented to fulfill his ridiculous requests for divine confirmation.

This brief interruption concludes and chapter 7 begins by stating that the Israelites set up camp south of the Midianite invasion. But having set up camp the reader is informed that there are too many Israelite soldiers who have assembled to fight the invading Midianites and Amalekites. “The Lord said to Gideon, ‘The people with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into your hand, lest Israel boast over me, saying, ‘My own hand has saved me’’” (7:2). In 6:5 the author and narrator tells us that the invading people and their camels were so numerous that they could not be counted. So in our minds it would seem that the more Israelite soldiers there were to fight, the better. But this isn’t what God had in mind. God looked at all the Israelites who had assembled and recognized the potential of this vast army trying to take credit for the victory they were going to have for themselves. So God instructs Gideon to find out which of the Israelite soldiers are scared of going to battle and to allow them to return to their homes. Gideon does so, and surprisingly 22,000 of the 32,000 soldiers who had assembled left camp and headed home. Two thirds of the gathered Israelite army departed, leaving only 10,000 soldiers to fight under Gideon’s direction. Can you imagine what must have been going through the mind of the already fearful Gideon at this point? The fear and anxiety must have increased exponentially. But the reduction of the Israelite army wasn’t done yet! “And the Lord said to Gideon, ‘The people are still too many’” (7:4). God had instructed Gideon that the 10,000 remaining soldiers were still too many to take on the invaders who were so numerous that they could not be counted. So God instructs Gideon on how He is going to reduce the size of the Israelite army even more. God tells Gideon to take the 10,000 remaining soldiers down to the spring where He is going to differentiate between those who are to go with Gideon to fight and those who are to return home. God tells Gideon to have the soldiers drink water from the spring and to pay particular attention to how the soldiers drink. God says that any of the soldiers who lap water from the spring like dogs (i.e. kneeling down and putting their faces to the water) is to be set aside in one group. All the soldiers who scoop the water with their hands and lap the water from their hands are to be put into another group. Gideon was then to have all those who knelt down and lapped the water directly from the spring return to their homes, while those who scooped the water and lapped the water from their hands were to accompany him to battle. The author and narrator of the text then reveals to the readers that only 300 men lapped the water from their hands and that God says to Gideon, “With the 300 men who lapped I will save you and give the Midianites into your hand” (7:7).

With only 300 Israelite soldiers remaining God wastes no time moving things forward. 7:9 says, “That same night the Lord said to him, ‘Arise, go down against the camp, for I have given it into your hand.’” However, the text reveals that once again God had to make provisions for Gideon’s continual lack of faith and reluctance to act. “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 afterwards your hands shall be strengthened to go down against the camp” (7:10-11). So this is what Gideon did. The author and narrator tells us that Gideon and Purah went to the outposts of the invaders’ camp (where we are again reminded of how numerous the invaders were) and that while they were there they overheard one man sharing a dream he hadhad with another man. When he was done sharing his dream with his friend the friend provided an interpretation for the dream, and what he concluded was that the dream was a revelation that God had given the Midianites (and all those encamped with them) into the hand of Gideon and the Israelites.

In verse 15 we discover that God’s most recent promise to Gideon has been fulfilled. In verse 11 we heard God say to Gideon, “And you shall hear what they say, and afterwards your hands shall be strengthened to go down against the camp.” Verse 15 tells us, “As soon as Gideon heard the telling of the dream and its interpretation, he worshiped. And he returned to the camp of Israel and said, ‘Arise, for the Lord has given the host of Midian into your hand.’” Gideon’s hands had been strengthened just as God had promised. Amazingly this reluctant and fearful leader is instantly transformed into a deliverer on mission. And then the author and narrator reveals both God’s plan and its implementation. Gideon evenly divided the 300 men into three different companies, each consisting of 100 men. Then Gideon gave them instructions regarding what they were to take with them to the enemies’ camp. He didn’t tell the Israelites to take a sword, a spear, or a shield – he instructed them to take a trumpet in one hand and an empty jar with a torch inside of it in the other hand. Then the Israelites were to spread out around the outskirts of the enemies’ camp at midnight, and following Gideon’s lead, they were to blow their trumpets and smash the empty jars onto the ground. Now, can we agree that this sounds like an absolutely absurd plan?!? 300 soldiers armed only with trumpets and clay jars with torches in them surrounding a heavily armed enemy camp with more people than can be counted, and the strategy for victory is to sound the trumpet and throw the jar on the ground. That’s crazy! But while this sounds absurd it reminds us that God often uses unconventional methods to accomplish His plans so that He alone gets credit for the mighty work that He does. Then pay particular attention to what happens when Gideon and the Israelites act in obedience, “When they blew the 300 trumpets, the Lord set every man’s sword against his comrade and against all the army” (7:22). I have no idea what this would have sounded like, but apparently when you’re sound asleep and this is the noise that you are awakened by and the noise that God chooses to work through, it’s enough to send a massive encampment of people into complete and utter chaos. The Midianites, the Amalekites and the people of the East all woke up startled, they all grabbed a hold of their swords, and then they all started killing one another.

Unfortunately Gideon doesn’t stick with the plan. God’s plan was to deliver the Israelites from the Midianites, the Amalekites, and the people of the East through Gideon and these 300 soldiers alone (see 7:7) – and that’s exactly what God was doing in verse 22. But in verse 23 the author and narrator tells us that Gideon called on those Israelite soldiers who had been sent back to their homes to return to the battle and to help pursue the enemies. Verse 24 also tells us that Gideon called on the tribe located just to the south – the tribe of Ephraim – whose eastern boarder was a portion of the Jordan River. It seems that Gideon wanted to make sure that none of the invaders were able to escape the Promised Land by crossing the Jordan River to the wilderness on the east. So the text tells us that the tribe of Ephraim joins in on the pursuit and that they successfully capture and kill two Midian princes, Oreb and Zeeb. So by the end of chapter 7 it appears that the invaders have been destroyed and Israel has been delivered – all of which seems like good news. But the sad and devastating news is that the voice of the Lord disappears from the Gideon narrative at this point. When Gideon abandons God’s plan, God abandons the Gideon narrative.

We’ll conclude our examination of the text this week with the first three verses of chapter 8. After the invaders have been destroyed the tribe of Ephraim comes to Gideon frustrated and angry. The Ephraimites understood that they were not initially invited to join the Israelite forces in 6:34-35, they understood that they had not been involved in the initial route of the enemies in 7:22-23, and they understood that they had only been called upon when Gideon feared the enemies might escape. In the mind of the Ephraimites this was more than just an oversight, this was an intentional jab that Gideon had directed towards them. And the author amplifies the intensity of the Ephraimites frustration by revealing that they “accused him fiercely.” But Gideon is able to abate the situation by minimizing his role and his clan and building up the role that their own tribe had played in the defeat of this enemy. So the text ends by telling us that the Ephraimites’ anger towards Gideon subsided.

After the interruptions to the narrative that we examined last week focusing on the Israelites’ sin and idolatry which they needed to be delivered from the author and narrator turned his attention back to Gideon in the portion of the narrative that we examined this week. In this portion of the narrative the emphasis was on Gideon’s consistent failure to believe God and to partner with God in the risky mission of delivering Israel from the Midianites. In 6:36-40 Gideon failed to act on the revealed will of God and twice tested God with a fleece of wool in the hopes of finding some way out of God’s call to deliver Israel. In 7:9-14, after the Israelite army had been reduced to 300 people, God told Gideon to go down against the camp of the Midianites and the Amalekites because He had given them into Gideon’s hand. But Gideon was still fearful and needed to hear another affirmation of God’s deliverance through the dream of one of the invaders. And after God began to do His work of destroying the enemy in 7:22, the text tells us in 7:23-25 that Gideon fails to continue to carry out God’s plan of defeating the enemy with only 300 men by calling in re-enforcements. Every step of the way, as God was making His risky plan known, Gideon was looking for ways to back out or play it safe. Gideon was looking to altogether avoid the risks if possible and to minimize them as much as possible if they could not be avoided. Here’s the problem with Gideon’s outlook though - always playing it safe while on mission with God isn’t a “good” idea. Always looking to play it safe or always looking to minimize the risks fails to recognize that God sometimes calls us to risky tasks. Always playing it safe and only committing to doing what can be done in one’s own strength also prevents God from putting His mighty hand on display – instead it only highlights our own abilities. Always playing it safe isn’t a sign of a good ministry leader – it’s a sign of a faithless ministry leader.

So in light of these truths I want to first address those of you who are believers in Christ. The first thing that I need to do this week is to apologize to you all for the times that I have led us to only pursue “safe” ministry efforts that we can accomplish in our own strength. That is not something that I should ever be commended for – it’s a lack of faith that becomes more about us and what we can accomplish in our own strength and ability. That’s not a commendable trait – it’s a sin for which I need to repent (especially in light of the recent discussions about reductions in financial income – this shouldn’t be a concern that causes us to play things safe). I can assure you this week that God knows about our finances and I can assure you this week that God is still very much aware of the mission that He has called us to. And while we may see the reductions in financial income as a reason for us to play it safe, God is still calling us forward on mission! This is where I have to lead us! Even when it seems crazy and absurd, our mission is to proclaim the kingdom and if God gives us $32,000 to do it with or if God gives us $300 to do it with, we have to believe that He has called us to be on mission with Him and we have to believe that when we respond in obedience He will work on our behalf. The second thing that I need to do this week is to challenge all of you. God will hold me accountable for how I lead Escalate Church, but God is going to hold each of you accountable for how you lead your families and how you respond to God’s call on your own individual life. Sometimes we pull out our “fleeces” and we start asking God, “What would you have me to do?” And then we wait and wait and wait because we are looking for God to answer with all the specifics. Listen! We have to stop waiting around for specifics when we know what God is already calling us to. God may have called you to help lead worship for us – so stop asking God what date He wants you to start on and what songs He wants you to sing. Lead worship! God may have called you to help with our children’s classes – so stop waiting for an invitation or waiting to earn a degree in child development. Help with children’s classes! God may have called you to help with set-up, to help with greeting, or to help lead a small group. God may have called you to give financially. God may have called you adopt a college student to love on and serve. So stop asking God to tell you when to start, how much to give, or what college student to adopt. Start serving, start giving, or find a college student and take him home for lunch. I can also assure you that God has called each and every one of us to share the good news of Jesus with others. So stop waiting for God to tell you where, when, and with whom. God isn’t going to say to you, “Show up at Starbucks on Tuesday night at 7:07pm and find the man with the blue shirt on. Sit down next to him and pull out this specific book or tract and ask him these particular questions.” Just look around you, find someone nearby, and tell them that because Jesus died as a substitute for sin they can have forgiveness of their sin and reconciliation with God if they will trust in Jesus as their Savior and Lord. I know some of you think that God can’t use you to help lead someone to salvation. But I’m also pretty sure that many of those 300 soldiers standing around countless enemies with nothing but trumpets and clay jars were probably doing so more out of obedience than self-confidence. And then God showed up and did the miraculous in His own strength and might. God’s call to each and every one of us has never been to play it safe – He’s called us to obedience (even when the plan sounds risky).

Let me also speak to those of you who are not believers in Christ. Over and over and over in the book of Judges we see God’s chosen people choosing to rebel from God and worship, love, and serve other gods. As a result God gives them into the hands of their enemies. But all of these narratives are telling us of a greater problem that all humanity faces. Like the Israelites, each and every one of us has chosen to rebel from God and chosen to worship, love, and serve other gods. And as a result of our sin we have some very real, very serious, and eternal consequences. The Bible describes us as being “dead” in our trespasses and sins, “enslaved” to sin and Satan, and deserving only of God’s full and complete “wrath.” But the story of the Bible is the story of one, great and ultimate Deliverer sent by God to rescue us not from our physical oppressors, but from our sin and its consequences. All of the Bible is telling the story of this one individual. And here’s the awesome news – the Deliverer that God sent was not like Gideon! He was far greater! You see the Bible tells us that God sent His very Son to be our Delieverer – God sent Jesus. And Jesus was not a coward; He was not faithless; and He was not content with playing it safe. You see the plan that sounds so crazy at times is that God’s plan for deliverance and salvation was going to come through His own Son’s death on a cross. And while that must have been scary for Jesus, there is never a time that Jesus second guesses God’s plan or in fear shies away from it. Instead, with great faith and great resolve Jesus went to the cross where He suffered the full measure of God’s wrath for the sins of humanity poured out upon Himself. He suffered the penalty for the sins that you and I committed – the penalty that you and I alone deserved. But Jesus paid our penalty in full so that we can receive forgiveness for the sins we commit, so that we can receive cleansing from our sin, and so most importantly, we can be reconciled to God. This is the means by which God made available to us deliverance and rescue from our greatest problem – our sin. So God invites us to stop trying to earn His forgiveness and salvation because we can’t. God invites us to put our faith and trust in Jesus alone and to find our rescue through Him alone. He is the great and ultimate Deliverer. He is the rescue that you and I need.