Judges 6: Flexes and Fleeces

The “Real Housewives” of the Old Testament… that is what the Book of Judges could called. It could also be called “The Tiger King of Canaan.” Chuck Swindoll says the “primary message of Judges is that God will not allow sin to go unpunished.”” I completely agree. The key lesson to be learned is Don’t Be Stupid, follow God. The cycle of sin stinks. Don’t Do Life Your Way. Do Life God’s Way.” In the pages of the book of Judges, we have the most outrageous stories in the Bible. This is what happens we people abandon the Lord and go their own way.

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Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation (NLT).
Copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation.
Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome, Theme, And Setup
• 0:28 Judges 6: Flexes And Fleeces
• 1:22 Calls To Subscribe And Connect
• 1:53 The Judges Cycle And Its Lessons
• 3:20 Gideon In The Winepress: Identity
• 5:20 God’s Commission And Gideon’s Doubts
• 7:35 Sign Of Fire And Yahweh Shalom
• 9:03 Tearing Down Baal At Home First
• 11:20 Gathering Israel: Spirit-Empowered
• 12:45 The Fleece Tests And Caution
• 15:10 God Sees More Than You Do
• 17:21 Prayer And Core Takeaway

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:01

Hey everyone and welcome to the Bible Breakdown Podcast. In this podcast, we will be breaking down the Bible one chapter a day. Whether you are a new believer or have been following Christ for a while, we believe that you will learn something new and fresh every single day. So thank you for joining us and let's get into breaking down the Bible together.

SPEAKER_01: 0:23

Well, hello everybody. Welcome back to the Bible breakdown podcast with your host, Pastor Brandon. Today, Judges chapter six, and I'm going to give this one a title, Flexes and Fleeces. Flexes and Fleeces. We're going to see how an angel just builds up a guy named Gideon, and we're going to see how Gideon wants to test to see whether or not he's heard God correctly. And he's going to use something that from now on everybody acts like is the only way you can tell God's will. And I'm going to kind of get on my soapbox for a moment. But before we do that, if you like what we're doing here, make sure you like, share, and subscribe to this podcast. Make sure you are leaving us a five-star review on, I think I just said all that backwards. Like, share, and subscribe to the YouTube channel. Make sure you're leaving us a five-star review on the podcast. Also, don't forget to go to our Facebook group, the discussion. There's some great devotions coming out about that. And I am curious what they are going to do with this one because there's so much great stuff in this. And remember, that's the whole goal of some of these stories in the Old Testament is God's not always saying do this like this. It's telling you what happened and then letting us learn from it, learn the principles that we can apply, sometimes things to do, and sometimes things to definitely not do, which is most of judges. And I just can see sometimes, you know, in my in my mind's eye, you know, Samuel writing this stuff down. And how many times has he just put his hand on his head and just go, Yeah, yeah, we did that. That's absolutely what we did. And that's what we're gonna see today, and this amazing moment with a guy named Gideon. So if you got your Bibles, you want to open them up with me to Judges chapter six, let me give you just a tiny little bit of background on this, and then we'll go from there. Now, don't forget that the overall theme is don't be stupid, follow God, right? Which is a nicer way to say this is don't do life your way, do life God's way. There is this cycle of sin that keeps happening. The nation of Israel forgets God, God removes his hand of protection off of them, they fall into subjugation under some kind of country, and it's horrible and it's terrible. A lot of times it's either Canaan or Midianites or Moab, all these people, and then they cry out to God. God will raise up a general, a judge to deliver them. And then that person dies and it starts over again. There's this cycle constantly going. And what's amazing is sometimes that cycle of freedom will last 10, 20, 30, 40 years. But eventually, people have a way of forgetting God. So already the amazing lesson we can learn is that's what happens in our life sometimes. We go through cycles of where we we get used to blessing and we forget where that blessing comes from. And then we go through difficult seasons and it causes us to cry out for God again. It was C.S. Lewis that once said that God whispers in our pleasure, but he shouts in our pain. It's because it's when we're in our pain that we go looking for relief and we find God. We don't go looking for relief when everything's going well. And so many times it's those things that happen that cause us to reach out for the Lord. And so we have now a moment where Israel has turned their back on God again. And this time, God is gonna raise up someone named Gideon. And it's a very interesting story. And so we're gonna start reading this at Gideon or Judges chapter six, verse one. We're gonna stop along the way as your friendly neighborhood Bible tour guide, and we're gonna have some fun. Here we go. You ready? Verse one says this the Israelites did evil in the Lord's sight. Who would have thought? So the Lord handed them over to the Midianites for seven years. The Midianites were so cruel that the Israelites made hiding places for themselves in the mountains, in the caves, and in strongholds. And whenever the Israelites planted their crops, the marauders from Midian, Amalek, and the people of the east would attack Israel. And then camping in the land, they would destroy the crops as far away as Gaza. They then would leave the Israelites with nothing to eat, taking all the sheep, goats, cattle, and donkeys. These enemy hordes would come in for their livestocks and tents where they would be as thick as locusts, and they would arrive in droves of camels too numerous to count, and they would stay until the land was stripped bare, and then Israel was so reduced that they would be starving by the Midianites. Then the Israelites cried out to the Lord for help. So what happened is they would, as soon as Israel would clean up from a devastation and start planting uh crops and and and cultivating their herds, they would come back in and destroy it, and then they start over again. So it's just horrible, horrible cycle and have almost nothing for themselves. So here you go, verse 7. When they cried out to the Lord because of Midian, the Lord sent a prophet to the Israelites and said, This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says I brought you up out of slavery in Egypt. I rescued you from the Egyptians and from all who oppressed you. I drove out your enemies and gave you their land. I told you, I am the Lord your God. You must not worship the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you now live. But you have not listened to me. Then the angel of the Lord came and sat beneath the tree at Orpha, Or Orphah, which belonged to Joash and the clan of Abizar. Gideon, the son of Joash, was threshing wheat at the bottom of a wine press to hide in the grain from the Midianites. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said, Mighty warrior, the Lord is with you. To which Gideon replied, Sir. So pause for a moment. So what is Gideon doing? So a wine press is where you would go and you would press the grapes so that it would, you know, that the juice would come out, and you would, you know, that's how you would make wine. A wine press is not where you would thresh wheat. What you would do with wheat is you you would throw wheat up in the air, and the chaff, the part that's not the wheat, would fly off into the wind, and then what would fall to the bottom is the heavier stuff. That that's the wheat. So you would normally do this up where there was wind, right? So you could do this. Well, Gideon is down in a hole because he's afraid. He is afraid that the Midianites are going to come steal what he's got. So the fact that he's doing this is the fact that he is afraid. But it's in this moment where he is doing a fearful thing that the angel says, Mighty warrior, the Lord is with you. That's why Gideon's like, excuse me. And this is what he says, Sir, Gideon replied, If the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? And where are all the miracles our ancestors told us about? Didn't they say the Lord brought you out of Egypt? But now the Lord has abandoned us and handed us over to the Midianites. Isn't that a great question? If the Lord is with us, then why is all this bad stuff happening? Look what the Lord says. The Lord turned to him and said, Go with the strength you have and rescue Israel from the Midianites. I am sending you. But Lord Gideon replied, How can I rescue Israel? My clan is the weakest in the whole tribe of Manasseh, and I am the least in my entire family. The Lord said to him, I will be with you. That's how you're going to do this, and you will destroy the Midianites as if you were fighting against one man. Gideon replied, If you are truly going to help me, show me a sign to prove that it is really the Lord speaking to me. Don't go away until I come back and bring my offering to you. He answered, I will stay here until you return. So Gideon hurried home, he cooked a young goat with a basket of flour he baked with some bread without yeast. Then, carrying the meat in a basket and the broth in a pot, he brought them out and presented them to the angel, who was under the great tree. The angel of God said to him, Place the meat and the unleavened bread on this rock and pour the broth over it. And Gideon did as he was told. And the angel of the Lord touched the meat and the bread with the tip of his staff that was in his hand, and the fire flamed up from the rock and consumed all that he had brought. And then the angel of the Lord disappeared. When Gideon realized that it was the angel of the Lord, he cried out, O sovereign Lord, I'm doomed. I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face. It is all right, the Lord replied. Gideon built an altar to the Lord there and named it Yahweh Shalom, which means the Lord is peace. The altar remains in Orphra in the land of the clan of Abizar to this day. That night the Lord said to Gibeon, or Gideon, take the second bull from your father's herd, and uh the one excuse me, take the second bull from your father's herd, the one that is seven years old, pull down your father's altar to Baal, and cut down the ashera pole standing beside it. Then build an altar to the Lord your God here on this hilltop sanctuary, lying the stones carefully. Sacrifice the bull as a burnt offering to the Lord, or on the altar, using the fuel of the wood from the ashera pole you cut down. Gideon took ten of his servants and did as the Lord commanded. But he did it at night because he was afraid of the other members of his father's household and the people of the town. The next morning, as the people of the town began to stir, someone discovered that the altar of Baal had been broken down, and the asherah pole beside it had been cut down. In their place was a new altar that had been built, and on it were the remains of the bull that had been sacrificed. The people said to each other, Who did this? And after asking around and making a c a careful search, they learned that it was Gideon, the son of Joash. Bring out your son, the men of the town demanded to of Joash. He must die for destroying the altar of Baal and for cutting down the Asherah pole. But Joash shouted at to the mob that confronted him, Why are you defending Baal? Will you argue his case? Whoever pleads his case will be put to death by mourning. If Baal truly is a god, let him defend himself and destroy the one who broke down his altar. Then, from then on, uh Gideon was known as Jeru Baal, which means let Baal defend himself because he broke down the altar. So pause. So what I love about this is the first thing that God tells Gideon is something that he can handle. Like he doesn't tell him immediately to go wage war against everybody. He says, I want you to do something for me that is small, but is still significant. And that is, before you can reach the world, you need to reach your world. And so first thing I want you to do before defeating your enemies is defeat the enemies close to you, and that is get rid of Baal, get rid of the Astroth pole, and make me the center of your community again. That is so important because many times what God will do in our life is before he sends us out to confront and defeat major battles in our life, he'll start off with, make me the center of everything you do again, and then we'll build from there. And I love the way that Joash, Gideon's dad, did this. He's like, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Supposedly, Gideon just completely disrespected a God. You think you're gonna do something about it? Why don't you let this God defend himself? And I think that's wonderful, is because it's like, okay, then if your God is God, then do something. And that's a wonderful way for us to talk to people who sometimes, you know, want to say something that, you know, whatever and say, okay, if that's true, then prove it. Prove it. If God's not real, then do something about this. If not, I'm gonna move forward. All right, let's finish this up because Gideon asked for a sign that we are forever still using. Here we go. Soon afterward, the armies of Midian, Amalek, and the people of the east formed an alliance against Israel and crossed the Jordan, camping in the valley of Jezreel. Then the Spirit of the Lord clothed Gideon with power. He blew a ram's horn as a call to arms, and the men of the clan of Abizar came to him. He also sent messengers throughout Manasseh, Asher, Zebulon, and Nephtali, summoning their warriors, and all of them responded. Then Gideon said to God, If you are truly going to use me to rescue Israel as you promised, prove it to me in this way. I will put a wool fleece on the threshing floor tonight. If the fleece is wet with dew in the morning, but the ground is dry, then I'll know that you are going to help me rescue Israel as you promised. And that is just what happened. When Gideon got up the next morning, he squeezed the fleece and wrung out the a whole bowl full of water. Then Gideon said to God, Please don't be angry with me, but let me make one more request. Let me use this fleece one more for one more test. This time, let the fleece remain dry while the ground around it is wet with dew. So that night God did as Gideon asked, and the fleece was dry in the morning, but the ground was covered with dew. So what he did was is he said, I want to, I want to put something out here, God. And if you're really in it, then let A, B, and C happen. That's what we call putting out a fleece. You ever heard that? If you've been a been in Christian circles for a while, you've probably heard someone say, Well, man, if you don't notice, put out a fleece. I put out a fleece before God. It's like, God, if you are real, then do this. Now, this is my soapbox for 30 seconds, and I'm gonna get off of it. Here's the thing that is a legitimate way, according to God's word, that if you're not quite sure if God is speaking you to move in one direction or another, then this is something you can do. This is something that you know Gideon did. That's fine. The problem I have with it is that there are two things. Number one is I know people, that is what they always do. They never seem to want to trust God's word. God's word, I'm gonna use a silly example. God's word says, um, don't cheat on your wife. Okay, well, God, if you don't want me to cheat on my wife, I'm gonna send a friend request to my old high school girlfriend. And if she doesn't respond, I'll know that you don't want me to see you you don't have to use a fleece for everything. You only use a fleece if you're not sure what God's word says. So that's the first thing is I just I never want people to constantly be testing God. If God's word says to do something, you don't have to test him on it. Just do what God's word says. The second one is this is that God is under no obligation to answer your fleece. Because that's the other thing you have to be careful with. Some kind sometimes God just wants you to have faith. So, once again, I'm not against you doing these things. I'm just saying you have to be careful that God is not an equation to be solved, he is the king to be served. So we serve him, and if we're not sure if we heard our king correctly, we can say, God, I'm not entirely sure. So here we go. But we have to be careful to realize that sometimes he's not gonna answer your fleece, and he still wants you to go forward, which is why instead of always going after fleeces, know God's word. If you know God's word, then you're gonna get in the right direction most of the time. Now, what can we say about this chapter? And that is this. What I love about this chapter the most is the very beginning. God saw something in Gideon that he did not see in himself. Gideon is hiding in a threshing floor, and God looks at him and he says, You're a mighty warrior. Well, you tell me I'm not no mighty warrior. I'm I'm hiding. I know what you're doing, but I know who you are. And who you are is more than what you're doing. I see more in you than you see in yourself. And I love that idea that God sees more in us than we see in ourselves. That's why we have to read God's word. It's because if you don't let God define you, there's a whole lot of people in your life who would love to define you. You two personalities, sports stars who want to tell you, do this like me, you know, the 10 unwritten rules of your family history, coworkers, um, ex-boyfriends and girlfriends, all these different people want to tell you who you are. You know, I think we should make sure we go to the one who created us to tell us who we are. And even though you know Gideon didn't look like a mighty warrior in that moment, God said, I know who you really are. You're more than you think you are. And I think that if we turn to God, we might be surprised at who he says we are. He might say, You are faithful, you are strong, you are able, you are going to be able to persevere and do the things I've called you to do. And so today, I want to encourage you, instead of listening to the world around you, listen to what God says about you, and I guarantee it'll help you get in the right direction. Let's pray. God, thank you so much for today. Thank you for your word that is real and good. I pray you'll help us, Lord, to know your word so we can know you more. And when we know you, we can know what you say about us, and you always lead us in the right direction. Thank you for loving us. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Remember the reason why all this is happening is Judges 17, verse 6 says, In those days, Israel had no king. All the people did what seemed right in their own eyes. And the lesson for us is please don't do life your way, do life God's way. It ends out a whole lot better. We're going to talk more about Gideon tomorrow for Judges chapter seven.