Gideon: the Transition of Power

Gideon: The Transition of Power

Introduction

I wanted to start off by saying thank you for having me out here.
Although I suppose it is not really your choice that Kipp is gone this week and you got stuck with me, I have felt welcomed here today so far, so thank you for that.
Secondly, you’ve probably already guessed it by now, but I am not Kipp.
Kipp asked me to preach a week or two ago and I was very honored that he thought of me.
However, since I am not Kipp, I would ask for a little extra grace from y’all- especially since this is my second time ever to preach.
(Why Kipp thought of me and asked me, I am not really sure).
However, I will try my best, so please bear with me.

Gideon- Intro

So Kipp told me that y’all were working your way through the book of Acts, and that you’re currently on Acts 8 today.
However, in an effort to keep everyone guessing, I am going to jump back to the Old Testament, and talk about part of the story of Gideon.
Today we will be in Judges chapters 6-8.
Unfortunately we do not have enough time to cover the whole story of Gideon in our time together this morning.
I would, however, like to highlight some major points in his life, and hopefully end on a message from his story that I think is really powerful.

But first of all, let me tell you why I like Gideon.
Gideon seems, at least to me, to be someone that I can relate to.
You see, the other judges that we find in the book of judges are all described as mighty and powerful and wise.
Now, I like to think of myself as a pretty intelligent person, but I cannot stand up in the least bit to the categories of “mighty and powerful.”
I mean, look at me. I am not an intimidating presence.
I am 5’ 10”, maybe 5’ 11” on a good day. I have light eyes, light brown hair, and muscles that are non-existent unless I strain myself pretty hard flexing them.
I do have a beard, though, and maybe that helps my chances.
But I do not think people look at me, size me up, and consider me a threat.
In fact, I would be surprised if they do.

And this is the same story for Gideon.
The Bible describes Gideon as weak. In Judges 6:15, an angel of the Lord comes to Gideon, and Gideon says, “‘With all due respect, my Lord, how can I rescue Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I’m the youngest in my household.’”
So here we see that Gideon is basically the least of the least.

I don’t know if y’all can relate to that, but I know that I can.
And the fact is that I’ve been compared to others who are stronger and more powerful than myself…namely my younger brother Corey.
You see, my younger brother, who is currently 15 but will be turning 16 in August, is 6’ 9” (at least last I checked he was), and probably weighs 230 lbs or so, and weighs a size 19 shoe.
If I were going out for the part of David, Corey could definitely play the part of Goliath.
In fact, he has played Goliath in some of the skits his youth group has done before.
But I have not, nor will I probably.
I am more like Gideon here than the other judges described in this book.

Because, you see, Gideon is not a powerful judge like the other judges that proceed him in this book.
Gideon is no Othneil, or Ehud, or Deborah, or Barak, or even Shamgar.

He is, instead, to quote Jesus, “the least of these.”
So Gideon is a scrawny-little-wimpy-kid, from the family of scrawny-little-wimpy kids.
Like, if Gideon was in elementary school, he would be the one to be picked last at recess.
Gideon, this Rudolf of the group who isn’t allowed to play any of the other “reindeer games,” is the new hope for Israel.

So we are introduced to Gideon as he is beating out wheat in a wine press to hide it from Israel’s current foe, the Midianites.
If you aren’t familiar with the story of the book of judges, it goes a little something like this:
Israel falls into sin;
God sends a judge to bring Israel back
Israel reconciles itself back with God
The judge dies, time passes, and the cycle repeats itself.

So Israel is currently dealing with these treacherous people, the Midianites.
It says that because Israel had relapsed and done evil in the sight of the Lord, the Lord gave the Israelites into the hand of Midian for seven years.
The Midianites were both powerful and ruthless.
They would destroy all of the crops of the Israelites, and kill their livestock, by riding into the land of Israelites and running over their crops.
An angel of the Lord appears to him and reveals to Gideon his calling to rise up against the Midianites.
But Gideon objects and is fearful, because he feels powerless.
He feels like a weak person, being the least in his week family and clan.
Nevertheless, God says that he chooses Gideon.

The Series of Signs and the Fear of Gideon:

And Gideon, being fearful and feeling powerless and weak, asks God to prove it- to prove that it is truly God who is coming to him and calling him.
So Gideon goes and grabs some bread, (unleavened cakes), meat, and broth and brings them back to this spot where he was talking to the angel.
The angel instructs Gideon to put the meat and bread on a rock and to “pour the broth out,” which Gideon does.
The angel then reaches out, touches these with his staff, and the meat and bread are then consumed by fire that springs up from the rock.
Gideon is afraid, once again, because he realized it was an angel from the Lord.
The angel reassures him and calms him down.

That night, the Lord tells Gideon to pull down the altar to Baal and to cut down the Asherah pole that belonged to his father.
So Gideon did this, but we are told he did it by night rather than by day, because he was afraid.
The townspeople are upset that their altar was just destroyed.
Once they figure out it was Gideon, they want to kill him for his actions.
But his dad pleads with them and says, “If he made Baal mad by this, let Baal deal with my son.”
So, Gideon then gets a new nickname that day- Jerubbaal, which means, “Let Baal contend against him.”
Then we are told that the Midianites as well as the Amalekites return to camp in this land
And we are then given this very interesting verse in Judges 6:34
“But the spirit of the Lord took possession of Gideon and he sounded the trumpet, and the Abiezrites were called out to follow him.”
Thus, God is seeming to reverse this idea of Gideon being “powerless,” but sends his own spirit to take possession of Gideon.
Yet, Gideon is not fully on board yet.
In the next section, Gideon asks God to perform two more signs in order to make sure it is truly God who is leading him.
He lays a wool fleece on the ground, and says to God, “In order to prove yourself to me, if I come back tomorrow, make the ground completely dry, but make the fleece covered with dew.
So, he comes back, and it is just that.
Then, he says, “Do not let your anger burn against me, let me speak one more time: let me, please, make trial with the fleece just once more.”
He says, this time, make the fleece dry, but make the ground covered with dew.
When he comes back the next day, it was like that.

Gideon- the army general

Gideon gathers the forces of Israel to go against the Midianites.
He starts out with a combined force of 32,000 troops
God, however, says, “Gideon, you have too many troops.”
“Too many troops?” I’m sorry, what?
Now, I do not know too much about battles and military strategy, but I would think that “too many troops” would be a good thing, not a bad thing.
It isn’t like having too many bugs in your house, or too many volunteers at an event, or too many books that you have to pack up and move.
This is one party going up against and fighting against another.
Again, I’m not a military strategist by any means, but it would seem that the side with more troops, with “too many troops,” would be the winning side
God says that there are too many troops, and that if they beat the Midianites with that amount of “too many troops,” they [Israel] would take the credit for it.
So God tells Gideon to talk to his troops in Judges 7:3
Read Judges 7:3
Now, we’ve established I’m not a military strategist. I’m also not a mathematician. However, I did a little math on this.
Correct me if I’m wrong here, but the army of Israel goes from 32,000 to 10,000.
Right? Because we are told 22,000 went home, and 10,000 remained.
Now, again, if I’m Gideon here, I’m thinking, “God, do you really know what you’re doing here??!!”
But God is not finished.
God tells Gideon that he still has “too many troops.”
WHAT?!!!
So he tells Gideon to take them to water, and look at how his troops drink water.
300 troops lap the water with their tongues like dogs; the rest of the troops, (the other 9,700), drink it by cupping it with their hands.
God says, those who lap the later with their tongues like dogs- those 300 are your army
WHAT?!!!
Now, God wants Gideon to whittle it down from the 10,000 that he had to just 300 troops.
But God says, “300 is enough. You’re good. You no longer have ‘too many troops.’”
But at the end of chapter 7, verse 8, we are told that the Midianite camp was below them in the valley.
Now, I’m going to skip ahead a little bit and reveal something to y’all because I read ahead.
The Midianite army is numbered at 120,000, we find out in 7:10
So I’m sure Gideon is once again a little scared at this point.
I mean, I know I would be. I can see the number of troops that are in my army.
In fact, I could probably count up to that number
But looking out over the Midianite army, I know that I would be freaking out!
We’re talking 120,000 versus 300.

Gideon is Fearful…Again

Apparently Gideon is fearful, because God wakes him up that night and tells him to sneak down to the Midianite camp and listen to what they are saying.
So Gideon and Purah, his servant, go down and sneak to the Midianite camp
When they are there, they hear a soldier telling another soldier about a dream he had where, (I’m in verse 13), “a cake of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian, and came to the tent, and struck it so that it fell; it turned upside down, and the tent collapsed.”
“Obviously,” says this soldier to his fellow soldier, “this means that we’re going to lose against these Israelites!”
Finally, Gideon fear leaves Gideon and he feels powerful.
He and Purah return to their camp, arouse their troops, and they all sneak down and surround the Midianite camp.
He lined up his soldiers and equipped them with what we would think we would bring into battle- trumpets, empty jars, and torches inside the jars.
They all went down into the valley, surrounded the camp of the Midianites, surprised them by blowing their trumpets and smashing their jars all at the same time.
Apparently, this scared and surprised the Midianites so much that they had 1 of 2 reactions:
They either got up and fled their camp
Or, they killed one of their fellow soldiers, and then proceeded to flee the camp
Granted, there was also a little help from God in this
The Israelites chased after the Midianites and defeated this oppressive force.

Now, those of us familiar with the story know that this is not the end.
If you keep reading, you know that Gideon eventually creates an idol and this story kind of goes south.
However, I think this part of his life is a great stopping point.
(Not only does it illustrate my point better than the rest of his life, but I think it part of the central message of this story).
See, not only am I able to relate with Gideon in his weakness and in his meekness, but I also find it easy to relate to him in the way of which he had trouble wholly putting trust in God.
That’s probably unique to my own experience, isn’t it?
Y’all probably couldn’t relate to that part, huh?
The fact is, I think it is hard for all humans to wholly and fully put their trust in God.
We see this in the story of Gideon especially when the angel first comes to him and when God first calls him- he asks God to perform a couple of signs to prove that it was truly him.
And although we do not see it as prominently in the section of Gideon with the Israelite forces, I would have to think that he was getting pretty worried and frightened as God slowly dwindled his army down from 32,000 troops to 300.
(And Gideon had not even had the chance to see the movie 300 yet, so I’m sure he didn’t know how to fight with that amount of troops).
But we see that Gideon finally realizes that the one calling him is God, and he is able to fully trust in him.
This is hard for us. (At least it is hard for me).
Our story is probably not the same as Gideon’s.
I don’t know about you, but I do not recall ever having an angel come visit me and call me out to save my nation.
But to put our trust fully in God is the will of God, isn’t it?
We often have a hard time with it because we want to be in control, or we want to have a say.
There is one short skit by The Skit Guys called, “Chisel,” where God comes and chisels away the junk in someone’s life. He works his way around his back and shoulders acting like he is chiseling unnecessary pieces off. When he reaches one spot on the guy’s back, the guy pleads with God, saying, “No, can you leave that spot alone?”
I feel like this is often our approach as well.
God, you can have all of my life and you can be in control of everything…except for this one thing.
But God calls us for more than that, doesn’t he?
God desires us to give our lives fully and wholly to him
God desires us to have complete trust in him.
Like I said in my class, I think part of doing this is to live prayerful lives.
So church, as we continue in our worship, and as we soon depart from this building, looking toward a new week, may we be like Gideon. May we, even though we are weak, find ways to trust completely in our God so that we may be used for great and powerful things.