Gideon part 2 Laying Down A Fleece June 17 07
Laying Down A Fleece
Gideon Series, part 2
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Introduction: Last week we began our study of Gideon, the fifth deliverer in the Book of Judges. We learned four lessons from the our first section of study about Gideon: Lesson 1: Abandon the Lord and loose your productiveness. Lesson 2: God cares about every aspect of our lives. Lesson 3: Call upon the Lord and He will hear your call. Lesson 4: He will take our fears and give us peace. This morning we will look at Gideon’s faith, and in doing that we will also look at our own faith—what do we learn from Gideon about faith?
"Then Gideon said to God, “If you will save Israel by my hand, as you have said, behold, I am laying a fleece of wool on the threshing floor. If there is dew on the fleece alone, and it is dry on all the ground, then I shall know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you have said.” And it was so. When he rose early next morning and squeezed the fleece, he wrung enough dew from the fleece to fill a bowl with water. Then Gideon said to God, “Let not your anger burn against me; let me speak just once more. Please let me test just once more with the fleece. Please let it be dry on the fleece only, and on all the ground let there be dew.” And God did so that night; and it was dry on the fleece only, and on all the ground there was dew." (Judges 6:36-40, ESV)
1. When we will carry out (are obedient) what the Lord says to us in the way that is most natural for us. (Verse "So Gideon took ten men of his servants and did as the Lord had told him. But because he was too afraid of his family and the men of the town to do it by day, he did it by night." (Judges 6:27, ESV)
2. The Lord sees the heart of a man—He knows us on the inside—who we are—what we are made of—what we can do—even when others around us can not see our value and our contribution to the Kingdom of God—God sees it (He addresses Gideon as “a mighty man of valor”—look at Gideon’s name (to cut off—hacker) and the town changed Gideon’s name to Jerubbaal—Let Baal contend—a derogative name that meant that Baal would take care of Gideon and they would not have to take care of him—that may be what the town saw but it was NOT what God saw—God saw an obedient man.
3. Obedience to the Lord may set us against what others (family) would have us do—Jesus and his family—see verse 27 for this also!
4. When God calls us to do something for Him, He equips us for the task—see verse 33—"But the Spirit of the Lord clothed Gideon, and he sounded the trumpet, and the Abiezrites were called out to follow him." (Judges 6:34, ESV) The verse reads literally, “the Spirit of the Lord clothed himself with Gideon.” We are told that the Holy Spirit put on Gideon like a suit of clothes, much as we might dress up for a special occasion, such as a wedding, or put on overalls to crawl under the car. Gideon is the clothing in which God is going to appear, the instrument that He is going to use. The stress is therefore entirely on the power of God and not on the faith of Gideon. He was capable of the great deeds that follow only because the Spirit of the Lord took hold of his life and gave him power.
5. What about laying a fleece before God? What characterizes Gideon—he is characterized by weakness, inexperience, faltering faith, and uncertainty—and yet he is God’s choice.
In a very helpful analysis of the passage contained in Garry Friesen’s book, Decision Making and the Will of God, the author points out that Gideon’s requests were the fruit of doubt and unbelief, rather than faith. There are also other crucial differences between his situation and ours. Friesen reminds us that Gideon was seeking a miraculous sign, not a circumstantial one. What he wanted was supernatural and therefore divinely given proof of his call. It could have no other explanation, unlike the “fleeces” to which many of us are addicted.
Also, he was not using the fleece to obtain guidance, but to confirm guidance already given. Note the phrase in verse 36, “as You have said,” repeated in verse 37. He was not looking for a right decision, but for enough faith to believe that God would do what He had promised through Him. Furthermore, he was putting God to the test, rather than trusting Him. Gideon is himself aware of that and his remarks in verse 39, “Do not be angry with me, but let me speak just once more …,” surely revealed this. This is hardly a robust faith. Rather than wanting to do God’s will, he betrayed his reluctance to follow God’s guidance because of his own doubts.
When we look at the incident in this light we can identify very readily with Gideon’s problem. For us, too, finding God’s guidance is not so difficult. Our problem is in obeying what He tells us to do. We want to find all sorts of circumstantial reasons why we can navigate around the clear instructions of Scripture. So it does not seem that we are being encouraged to follow Gideon’s example.
The request for signs is not a sign of faith but of unbelief. 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.
We should not take God’s patience with Gideon as a sign that it is ok to test God. Scripture does not bear this out. Faith means following God even when we cannot see the results of our obedience.