“Learning From Gideon”

The Appomattox Court House Presbyterian Church Pulpit
Rev. Cameron S. Smith
The Lord's Day, September 25, 2005
Judges 21:25
1 Corinthians 6:19

Our preaching text comes from Judges 21:25, "In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes."

Often times, especially in the Old Testament, the last verse in the book highlights an important theme in the book. The last thing you read is often the very thing that God wants you to remember about the book. Let me give you a few examples:

In Exodus 40:38, "For the cloud of the Lord was on the tabernacle by day, and fire was in it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel throughout all their journeys…."
God not only delivered His people from Egyptian bondage; He never left them, day or night.

In Ecclesiastes 12:12, "Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh. The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil."
Here is the answer to all of the philosophers and wisdom seekers of the world: Fear God and keep His commandments!

In Jonah 4:11, "And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left...?"
Who can forget this memorable line, expressing the love of God for the people that have been created in His very image?

In the book of Judges, the last words are truly sobering: Everybody did what was right in their own eyes. What you're supposed to take from this is: Don't do what's right in your own eyes! You have the Words of God in Scripture. You should know what God wants you to do!

What a sad commentary in these words on God's people during the period of the Judges. Judges is, without a doubt, the most depressing book in the entire Bible.

1) Israel rebels, turning away from God to worship other gods;
2) God sends an enemy to punish and oppress them;
3) Israel gets down on its collective knees and asks God for deliverance - "Please God, we'll do better, we promise!";
4) God hears the request and saves them by raising up a specially gifted "judge" (i.e. a leader) He especially endows for the crisis. As a result of God's intervention, they enjoy peace for a while.

However, the peace never lasts, for soon God's people are returning to their faithless ways, and the cycle repeats itself all over again: Sin; Servitude; Supplication; Salvation. Doesn't that sound familiar? For most of us, this cycle is the story of our lives! We spend most of our time running from God and wallowing in the muck of our sin; coming under conviction eventually; crying out to God for deliverance and determining to do better. God always hears from heaven and answers our prayer. But as time passes, we slip back into the mire of our sin again and again.

In the book of Judges, this vicious cycle of Sin, Servitude, Supplication and Salvation is framed against the backdrop of seven major "judges" - hence the name of this book. These judges (or leaders, if you will), are presented in varying degrees of detail. The first three judges - Othniel, Ehud and Deborah -- are relatively good leaders. They're presented in a mostly positive light. The last three judges, Abimelech, Jephthah and Samson are not so good. Their portrait is largely dominated by their waywardness.

But the "judge" at the center of the book, in between the good and the bad judges, is a man named Gideon. He serves as a bridge or a hinge if you will, from the better judges to the worse judges. Ah, Gideon! We can all identify with this guy; and this ought to profoundly disturb us! But, and here's the point of the matter: God uses this far from perfect "judge" to reveal your need and show you what He desires from you and for you.

Here then, are three lessons from the life of Gideon:

I. Lesson One: God wants you to walk with Him.
This is to say that God desires obedience from His people. "Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams" (1 Sam 15:22). Paul says in 2 Cor. 10:5, that "we [are to] take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."

At the beginning of the story of Gideon (Judges 6), the people have gone astray once more, and are being tormented by the Midianites. But when they cry out to God for deliverance, He sends them a prophet who says, and I paraphrase, "God has bailed you guys out so many times, why don't you listen to Him?" (6:7-10). The beginning of Judges tells us that Israel's enemies "were left [in the land] to test the Israelites to see whether they would obey the LORD's commands" (Judges 3:4). Jesus affirms the importance of obedience when he says, "If you love me, you will obey what I command" (John 14:15).

Gideon's own life demonstrates that he is hesitant to obey God. He does offer obedience in his own defiant way. He behaves like the groom who is being dragged, kicking and screaming to the altar!

You and I well know that our own attitudes towards authority mirrors both Israel and Gideon. We want to do our own thing. Never mind that it gets us into trouble more often than not! Maybe God leaves many obstacles and thorns in your life to see if you will obey Him or not. It's just possible that the difficulty you're experiencing right now - whatever that may be - is God's way of finding out how much you love Him? How are you doing, are you passing or failing?

II. Lesson Two: God wants you to keep the faith.
When God tells us something, He wants us to believe Him! When God commands Gideon to go to battle against the Midianites, Gideon replies, "If you will save Israel by my hand as you have promised -- 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" (Judges 6:36-37).

Of course God is patient and answers the silly request; but Gideon then turns around and asks that the ground be wet and the fleece dry. Then he'll really believe! An angel of the Lord had told Gideon at the outset, "The LORD is with you, mighty warrior" (Judges 6:12). That's pretty blunt: "Gideon, I'm with you and nobody will be able to stand against you!" But Gideon didn't believe God!

Just before the big battle, Gideon has 32,000 men with him. God pares the army down to just 300 men to take on a huge enemy fighting force. Again, Gideon wavers so God tells him to go down to the camp at night, and listen in to conversation buzz in the enemy camp. He happens to overhear a soldier telling his friend about a dream he had the previous night. The friend interprets the dream to mean that "This can be nothing other than the sword of Gideon son of Joash, the Israelite. God has given the Midianites and the whole camp into his hands" (Judges 7:14).

Gideon then runs back to his camp and shouts, "Get up! The LORD has given the Midianite camp into your hands." Gideon wouldn't believe God, but he's ready to accept the dream of the enemy as gospel truth! Never mind that God was the author of that dream!

When Jesus says, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6), God wants us to believe Him.
When the Psalmist says, "Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him" (Psalm 34:8), God wants us to know he's not lying.
When Isaiah proclaims, "How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace…who proclaim salvation…." (Isaiah 52:7), God's really not kidding.

In a book called, The Gospel According to the Simpson's, the creator of the show, Matt Groening, tells of a time when as a boy, he stole a Gideon's Bible from a motel room. When he got caught and chastised for the offense, he said he later prayed to God and said, "I know you'll forgive me for not believing in you." I do like the Simpson's in my own twisted way, but Groening is dead wrong!

Belief is important to God, and He wants us to take Him at His word. How are you doing? Are you keeping the faith?

III. Lesson Three: God wants you to cultivate devotion.
The great affirmation of the Old Testament is "Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one! You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might" (Deut. 6:4-5). God wants to be at the center of our affection. But as we look at the life of Gideon, not only do we see him half-heartedly offering obedience; not only do we see him disbelieving God at every major juncture of his public career, but after God has given him victory over his enemies and peace in the land, Gideon responds by fashioning a fancy gold ephod (some kind of coat or vest) which ultimately leads Israel back into the idolatry that got her in trouble in the first place!

Aren't we like Gideon? We see God constantly doing great things in our lives, and yet we make our own little gold ephods to share the spotlight with God. God knows that we're by nature into idolatry pretty big. It's so true that in the Ten Commandments, the first three deal largely with idolatry. 3 out of 10, that's a high percentage.

Have you stopped to consider your own commitments? What are your gold ephods? Is it the job? Is it your leisure time? Is it your standard of living? Anytime the things of God become second or third place in your life, then you have a gold ephod.

If you were to see my father's yard in Virginia, the beauty would blow you away. He's a master gardener. He not only has a green thumb; he's just flat out green all over! He's been planting and trimming for well over 40 years on that lot. He makes it look easy. But, if he ever took a summer off to relax, he'd have a jungle on his hands. My father has had to cultivate his lawn over many years, and it is a process that is ongoing. Devotion to God is somewhat similar to that. We too must cultivate it over a long period of time. It doesn't take much neglect to let our devotion turn into a jungle!

"In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes" (Judges 21:25). We can see from our brief look at Gideon this morning that the statement was accurate. How heartbreaking it is! Obviously, God doesn't want us to do what's right in our own sight.

1 Corinthians 6:19 provides a succinct wake-up call to everyone of us: "[Don't you] know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?" We're not our own, we are in fact bought with a price to glorify God. He wants us to walk with him in obedience; He wants us to keep the faith by believing whole-heartedly in His truthfulness; and he wants us to cultivate our devotion to Him and Him only.