Gideon
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1 What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?
2 By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?
As we go through the message today, I want us to think about these verses in Romans. Today we’re going to spend the majority of our time together in chapter 6 in the book of Judges. Now I know many of us don’t read the Old Testament a lot but I like to read the Old Testament because I think we can find Jesus on every page.
Today we’re going to read the story of Gideon so we’ll be in chapter 6 of the book of Judges. While you turn to Judges chapter 6 I would like to give you some context and see if we can sort of catch up to the story up to this point.
The book of Judges starts off right after the book of Joshua. Our hero Joshua was a great man but as great as he was, he passed away.
According to the book of Judges, the people of Israel had 12 judges for many years before having a king. These 12 Judges are not like today's judges that hand out sentences in court. No, these judges were prophets or military leaders who represented Israel while they were leaders.
At the beginning of the book of judges chapters 1 to 2 we see that Israel was doing a good job at fighting off the Cannanites. But after a while they forgot about God and neighboring countries began to take control of God’s people. But the people of Israel didn’t lose to neighboring countries because they did not have a large enough army to defend themselves.
16 Then the Lord raised up judges, who saved them out of the hands of these raiders.
17 Yet they would not listen to their judges but prostituted themselves to other gods and worshiped them. They quickly turned from the ways of their ancestors, who had been obedient to the Lord’s commands.
Because of their disobedience, the people of Israel could not enjoy God's promise. The following chapters: 3,4,5 we see three different judges, one of them was a woman named Deborah. But we are going to start in chapter 6 with another judge named Gideon.
The beginning of chapter 6 begins with how the people of Israel are being mistreated by the Medianite people because they did wrong in the eyes of God. They worshiped other gods as we saw in chapter 2.
Now that we are caught up to this part of the story, it brings me to my first point:
Our sin vs God’s mercy
1 The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, and for seven years he gave them into the hands of the Midianites.
2 Because the power of Midian was so oppressive, the Israelites prepared shelters for themselves in mountain clefts, caves and strongholds.
3 Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, the Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern peoples invaded the country.
4 They camped on the land and ruined the crops all the way to Gaza and did not spare a living thing for Israel, neither sheep nor cattle nor donkeys.
5 They came up with their livestock and their tents like swarms of locusts. It was impossible to count them or their camels; they invaded the land to ravage it.
Now, the oppression that the people of Israel were facing was not like the slavery they went through in Egypt. This was much different. The Medianites would stel and destroy all of the crops the Israel had. They also killed all of their cattle and they would leave them without anything to eat. I wanna spend some time on these verses because it teaches us two things about our sin.
Number 1: Our sin Humbles us
Number 2: Our sin robs us of the hard work we've done.
Number 1: Our sin humbles us:
We see the people of Israel could not eat nor could they live as they used to live with beautiful houses or strong cattle because of their disobedience to God.
Number 2: our sin robs us of the hard work we’ve done:
Israel had everything they needed. Cattle, food, but they lost everything because of their disobedience. Sin robs you of the great work you have done.
I want to clear up a few things because I read this portion of Scripture and I have to ask the question: “does this mean God is punishing the people of Israel?” and a lot of the times we fall into this trap of believing: “oh man i’ve been having a rough week its probably because I’ve missed church for a few weeks. God must be mad at me.” or we could be going through a tough time at home with the family and we say “God’s punishing me for something I did wrong” because lets be honest, we think that to ourselves all of the time. But that’s not what’s happening here.
Verse 1 tells us that God gave them into the hands of the Midianites. And check this out, It is the same language that we see in
25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones.
When people want to live in sin God allows it. He calls us to be with him or to return to him, but if we do not want to, God gives us or in other words, allows us to continue in sin. This is not punishment from God, it is the consequence of our sin that makes things go wrong. God does not want you and I to be with him by force. God wants you to love him and follow him because you want to.
Going back to what I mentioned earlier, Sin humiliates us and robs us of the work we do.
(Pascal story)
Don't turn away from God to get closer to sin. God saves you from sin but allows you to deal with the consequences out of mercy.
How is it merciful that God turns us over to the consequence of our sin?
God allows consequences because in difficult times is when we remember God the most. And that is love. Because the only one who can take away that pain and suffering is Jesus.
Point 2: We ask for help but we do not repent.
6 Midian so impoverished the Israelites that they cried out to the Lord for help.
7 When the Israelites cried out to the Lord because of Midian,
8 he sent them a prophet, who said, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I brought you up out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
9 I rescued you from the hand of the Egyptians. And I delivered you from the hand of all your oppressors; I drove them out before you and gave you their land.
10 I said to you, ‘I am the Lord your God; do not worship the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you live.’ But you have not listened to me.”
God’s people (us) were being oppressed so harshly by the consequences of their sin that they reached out to God. And God responds through a prophet who said: “I brought you up out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 9 I rescued you from the hand of the Egyptians. And I delivered you from the hand of all your oppressors; I drove them out before you and gave you their land. 10 I said to you, ‘I am the Lord your God; do not worship the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you live.’ But you have not listened to me.”
In other words, God tells them: “You are in this situation because you want to.” And sometimes we are like that. I'll give you an example of mine. And maybe some of the young people will understand where i’m coming from.
I was in highschool once, not long ago, and I never studied for my test. Never, and 10 minutes before the test I would come before God and say “God, please help me with this test” I wouldn’t even try to study for the test but I felt God could help me so I would reach out to him. And the more I grow up the more I realize that Adults act the same way too.
I want you to raise your hand and don’t lie to me, we’re in church. How many of you have prayed a prayer like this before?: “God, if you help out of this one…” “God, if you deliver from this one…” and you follow up with a promise?
You know why we pray like that sometimes? Because We don’t want God to change us, we want him to save us from our consequences. God looks down and us and says “Son/Daughter you’re in this mess because you want to be. I didn’t put you through this.” and sometimes God does pull through and pull out of that pit because we can’t do it on our own but sometimes God says: “well now you gotta deal with your consequences. Why? Because I didn’t send my Son to die on the cross to save you from your consequences, I sent him to save you from your sin, I sent him to save you, clean you, change you, sanctify you.”
God is not a get out of jail free card. We need to stop treating prayer as a means to get what we want. If I would’ve studied for all those tests in highschool I would’ve spent more of my prayer time in worship and not begging for a result I didn’t work for.
Part of God allowing us to live through our consequences is so that we can learn to seek his face. Seeking God’s face sometimes will reveal the true nature of our sin. And that’s What God did through this Prophet.
Point 3: Although we sin, God does not abandon us
11 The angel of the Lord came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites.
12 When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.”
13 “Pardon me, my lord,” Gideon replied, “but if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our ancestors told us about when they said, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up out of Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.”
We see that the Angel of the Lord approaches Gideon and tells him that he is sending him to free Israel from everything that is happening to them. Many theologians think that it was not an Angel who came to speak with Gideon but Jesus Christ himself. The reason many believe that is the way the Author addresses the Angel of the Lord in verse 16 where it says: “But the Lord said to him”
Gideon starts a conversation with this angel of the Lord and Gideon asks himself the question, If God is with Israel, why does all this happen to him? Why do you send me if I am nobody?
The problem with Gideon is that he has not realized that the problem is not God, it is Israel. God did not abandon Israel, they abandoned God.
This applies to us in a significant way. Because sometimes because of the pain we are going through, or when a huge wave of doubt comes over us our first instinct is to blame God.
But notice how God works. He calls on Gideon to get Israel out of this dilemma but not because Gideon was strong, but because God was strong.
Gideon thinks that he has no strength and that he can’t do this. And it is there that I identify with Gdeon. Sometimes I’m in ugly situations where I feel bad or alone. But God can handle my problem and my situation and I have to learn to say, God I can't but you can.
Right after this conversation with God, Gideon asks God to give him a sign and then he praises God. The God ask Gideon to do something that was going to put his life in danger.
In verses 25-27 Gideon takes down this altar that was built to the god Baal. He removes this filthy altar and replaces it with an altar for the Lord.
This helps us understand that to demonstrate true repentance, we have to remove the sin that is in our hearts. We have to clean house and remove any sin that will hinder our cleansing process. And that is what Gideon is doing in these verses.
The next day many people were upset that Baal's altar was gone. And they found out that it was Gideon who destroyed their altar. So they wanted to kill him but Gideon's Father told them in verse 31
31 But Joash replied to the hostile crowd around him, “Are you going to plead Baal’s cause? Are you trying to save him? Whoever fights for him shall be put to death by morning! If Baal really is a god, he can defend himself when someone breaks down his altar.”
Gideon’s repentance was clear. He had changed his ways so drastically that now even his dad had turned away from this pagan God. Verse 31 explains to us the difference between God and the idols we replace Him with. See God doesn’t need anyone to defend him. He uses us to show the world how great his power is. See Baal needed people to defend him because he could not defend himself, but God goes before his people to defend them.
Finally
Point 4: God is patient with His people.
36 Gideon said to God, “If you will save Israel by my hand as you have promised—
37 look, I will place a wool fleece on the threshing floor. If there is dew only on the fleece and all the ground is dry, then I will know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you said.”
38 And that is what happened. Gideon rose early the next day; he squeezed the fleece and wrung out the dew—a bowlful of water.
39 Then Gideon said to God, “Do not be angry with me. Let me make just one more request. Allow me one more test with the fleece, but this time make the fleece dry and let the ground be covered with dew.”
40 That night God did so. Only the fleece was dry; all the ground was covered with dew.
See, Gideon knew what he was doing. He asked God for a sign knowing it would take God one night to complete. Gideon already believed God could do it. He was just afraid. He was prolonging the inevitable. He knew he was going to have to fight in a war. So he kept pushing back the date. And sometimes we’re like that too. The more we read this story, the more we should identify with Gideon.
As believers we know what God wants from us. And we also know, God is faithful to do the work through us. But sometimes we’re afraid, or lazy. But God is patient with us even when he doesn’t have to be.
After God performs these miracles for Gideon, God uses Gideon and 300 men to fight off the midianites. I encourage you all to read chapter 7 at home with your families. Unfortunately our hero Gideon dies in chapter 8 and his son is the one who takes the role of leader of Israel. But I want us to take a look at what happens right after Gideon dies.
33 No sooner had Gideon died than the Israelites again prostituted themselves to the Baals. They set up Baal-Berith as their god
34 and did not remember the Lord their God, who had rescued them from the hands of all their enemies on every side.
A friend of mine shared a story with me once. He told me that one evening he and his wife decided to make dinner together so they asked their two little girls to go outside and play. They had a sandbox outside so the two little girls are out and about playing and then all of a sudden, the youngest one, she was about 5 years old, had a little accident. To be completely open with all of you, she pooped herself. Well the littel girl thought she was smart and she went inside and took off her little overalls and dumped her poop into the toilet. She put her little overalls back on and went back outside and played with her sister like nothing happened. Later that night right after dinner daddy had to give them both a bath and guess what he saw smeared all in the insides of her pants?
Many, if not almost all of us in this room are saved by grace through faith. And this gives us the freedom to see God’s love and grace everyday. But sometimes, because we know that at the end of the day we’re all good and “i’m gonna be in heaven anyways” we ignore how disgusting and filthy our sin is. We try to put a bandaid on it or give it a quick fix. We run really fast to where no one can see us so we can flush away our sin without realizing two things. Our sin smears, and stains, and stinks and we think our father in heaven isn’t gonna find out.
Church, have we forgotten what our life was like before Jesus came into it?
1 What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?
2 By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?
3 Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
Why is it that we constantly turn back to our sin? Is God not enough? Jesus didn’t die so we could go back to our sin. I want to finish today with verse 4 and 5 of Romans chapter 6.
4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his.
The Good news about all of this is that we don’t have to be like the people of Israel. Do we sin, absolutely, is it gross? Oh yeah. But does God still love me? I have no clue why, but yes he does. He will do Anything to be with you, including sending his one and only son to die on the cross for the salvation of your sin.
Friends, whenever you feel like you want to turn to your sin, seek God’s face.
