Gideon's Call

Introduction

Most of us have had to deal with a bully. That person who through words and acts of intimidation make us shrink back in fear. Usually it is someone who is bigger and stronger than we are. And for most of us such took place during our school years. Being forced by someone bigger and stronger to give up something which we value leaves us feeling powerless and insignificant. Whenever Israel forgot about God, they were attacked by enemies who were stronger and bigger. They felt powerless, betrayed, and forgotten. It was during one of those down cycles when God called Gideon to be his leader among his people.

Judges 6 tells us something about the desperateness of the situation. The passage describes Israel’s situation with words like oppressive, hide, invaded, ruined, swarms, ravaged, and impoverished. These terms capture Israel’s defeated state—they were powerless in the face of stronger and bigger enemies. But verse 6 tells us they cried out to the Lord. He answered them as he has already answered them before. This time he calls a man, Gideon, to be his leader. But Gideon may not be what you call a leader. Notice 6:11. Gideon is in a winepress threshing wheat. Now there is something wrong with this picture. A winepress is a fairly large dug out hole in the ground. A threshing floor is usually on top of the ground so that when the wheat and chaff are thrown up into the air the wind can catch the chaff and blow it away. Trying to thresh wheat in a winepress would not have been easy. No wind. No where for the chaff to go but back on top of the wheat.

What does this say about Gideon? He is hiding from the Midianite raiders. He is trying to protect his harvest. He is trying to make sure the bully doesn’t find him. His life is miserable. This is no way to live. Gideon is not out campaigning for leader. He isn’t making speeches in burned out fields trying to bring an army together to go against the Midianites. He is in a large hole covered in wheat dust from his beard to his feet. He is throwing heads of grain up into the air knowing that he is going to have to get on his hands and knees to retrieve every kernel of wheat picking through the chaff which will cut him. All to provide for his family, but all done in fear as well. But God sees something in Gideon that Gideon himself does not see. Could it be that the same can be said about us? Does God see something in us that we don’t see in ourselves? Let’s look at Gideon’s life and learn.

Wrong Thinking

Gideon is in the winepress threshing wheat. An angel of God appears to him. “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.” Notice Gideon’s response in verse 13. “You must be joking. If the Lord is with us then why has all this stuff happened to us. We heard about the great things he did long ago, but now there is nothing. God isn’t near us any longer.” Based on the way Gideon is living, what else is he to think. If God is with us, why are we living in the caves, threshing wheat in a winepress, and completely powerless in the hands of our enemy? If we are God’s people, how could such things be happening to us?

Gideon’s reaction is common. He is not responding in a way which is unfamiliar to us. It’s like the child who must be punished and is told by the parent that he loves the child. The child’s response: “Yeah, sure.” It’s like our response when the preacher says ‘God loves you,’ and you feel your own loneliness and isolation with a depth that far exceeds words, and you respond, “If God loves me, then why do I feel so empty?” You have been there. You know what it is like to feel distance between you and God. Don’t tell me that God is near; tell me why he left me is the better statement. Although we have been there, and felt those emotions, we must hear the truth. For if we do not hear the truth, then we are relegated to believing lies which will indeed separate us from God.

Gideon heard the truth, but he doesn’t believe it. Three things have clouded Gideon’s heart so that he cannot hear the truth.

First: Gideon Equates Suffering with the Absence of God

What Gideon failed to realize was that God’s people had sinned and it was their sin which had brought the suffering. Their sin had brought separation from God. Sometimes we want consequences of sin to be voided on our behalf and at times they indeed are. After all, we don’t always get caught when we do the wrong thing.

But when we do sin, and the sin brings suffering, why do we want to blame God for not changing the natural consequence of sin. We shouldn’t expect God to produce a world which is foolproof against our misuse of it and as a result of sin produces only joy and fellowship with Him and others.

Innocent suffering exists and because of such innocent suffering there also exists pity, compassion, sympathy, sacrifice, and heroism. If it took the cross to redeem the world, then we can’t expect immunity from the fellowship of suffering which Paul discusses in Philippians 1.

As Christians we ask for courage and endurance as we go through suffering, because God has not left us alone. Consider the example of suffering: God touches our lives in the midst of suffering. He doesn’t always take it away, but he never leaves us.

Second: Gideon Failed to See That What God Had Done in the Past Could Be Done Again

Gideon had heard the stories of the Exodus, the protection and care during the Wilderness wanderings, and the conquest of the very land he was living in. But he believed that those things represented a God who had changed. He didn’t believe God would act in such ways again. The truth was the past demonstrated what God could do. It was Gideon’s faith which was lacking, not God’s power.

Most of us don’t have to go very far back into our past to find those times when we know that God was actively involved in our lives. We can point to those events in our lives which demonstrates God’s active and beneficent intrusion into our lives. It is those events which should remind us what our God can do.

What we fail to do is to relive those events. We forget to tell the stories. We fail to remind ourselves, our families, our friends of the faithfulness and providence of God. And when we forget the past or act as if it is no longer important, then we see God only as one who is supposed to help us now. We talk with God with the tone of “what have you done for me lately.” When we look behind at what God has done, such events steady us for the present and brings us hope that God is still interested in us.

Third: Gideon Thought God Couldn’t Use Him

Notice in verse 15 that Gideon finds excuses for his not being God’s leader. Like Moses, Isaiah, and Jeremiah, Gideon is full of excuses. Since he doubts God’s presence, then he certainly doesn’t believe he has the power to do anything. That is just the point, this was not about Gideon it was about what God was going to do through Gideon. The call was for Gideon to lead God’s people by God’s power to do God’s will. But instead of faith, Gideon responds with excuses.

We can come up with all kinds of excuses not to listen to the truth. Now go back to verse 12. What does the angel of God call Gideon? “Mighty warrior.” Was Gideon acting like a mighty warrior in that winepress? Was Gideon chomping at the bit to take on these Midianites? Yet, God calls him “mighty warrior.”

Here’s the truth. God knows you better than you know yourself. And when God calls you something it gives you a purpose and reason to go forward. If God called a scared, intimidated, isolated, weak son of Benjamin a mighty warrior, then that is what Gideon was. Now he had to decide if he was going to live like it.

That’s what we need. We need for God to declare the truth about us and then it is up to us to live like it or deny it. If you are not a Christian, God says you are a sinner and in need of his grace. In this particular instance, God has provided for you an alternative. You don’t have to continue to live like a sinner, you can be his child. In faith expressing itself in baptism it is possible.

Christian, God declares you to be his child. Live like it. God declares you to be a saint. Live like it. God declares that you are saved. Live like it. God declares that you are holy. Live like it. God declares that you are his ambassador for good in this world. Live like it. He knows you better than you know yourself. Don’t make an excuse. Hear the truth and respond.

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