Episode 73 – “The Fleecer”

           Hi, Everyone! Welcome back to No Trash, Just Truth! as we continue in our series “Sin-Filled Nation.” Rose, have you ever felt like you were going around the same mountain you’d been around several times before, and still, you just never seem to learn your lesson? 

          You still make the same mistakes or sin just like a thousand other times? And you think “When am I going to learn?” Hasn’t everybody?! 

          We’re just like the Israelites were! They didn’t learn their lesson either. They had this cycle of apostacy (abandoning their worship of God or practicing syncretism), God allows them to be conquered and oppressed by another nation, the people cry out to God for deliverance; God saves them from their oppressors through a judge. Over and over and over again. But in today’s account, God changes things up a bit. Want to start reading for us today?

          This is Judges 6:1-10 “The people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, and the LORD gave them into the hand of Midian seven years. And the hand of Midian overpowered Israel, and because of Midian the people of Israel made for themselves the dens that are in the mountains and the caves and the strongholds. For whenever the Israelites planted crops, the Midianites and the Amalekites and the people of the East would come up against them. They would encamp against them and devour the produce of the land, as far as Gaza, and leave no sustenance in Israel and no sheep or ox or donkey. For they would come up with their livestock and their tents; they would come like locusts in number—both they and their camels could not be counted—so that they laid waste the land as they came in. And Israel was brought very low because of Midian. And the people of Israel cried out for help to the LORD. When the people of Israel cried out to the LORD on account of the Midianites, the LORD sent a prophet to the people of Israel. And he said to them, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: I led you up from Egypt and brought you out of the house of slavery. And I delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians and from the hand of all who oppressed you and drove them out before you and gave you their land. And I said to you, ‘I am the LORD your God; you shall not fear the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell.’ But you have not obeyed my voice.”

          So instead of sending a rescuer right away, God sends a prophet to lay the blame squarely at their feet by reminding them of their covenant with God and telling them they’d broken that covenant. A covenant is more than just an agreement between two people. In that day, a Suzerain king would conquer a people group and make a covenant with them. The covenant structure was what the king said it would be – there was no bargaining! It would go something like this: The king would say to people he conquered, “You will give me a tenth of your produce, serve in my army and obey my rules, and I will take care of protecting you from outsiders, etc. (giving them a sense of assurance), and if you break this covenant, I will kill you.” That was common and had been since Abraham’s time or before. It was more than an agreement … like I said, it gave the people assurance. God’s covenant with His people is “You will be my people, and I will be your God,” And God gives visible, tangible signs with His covenants to remind them of the covenant– in this case that sign was circumcision. 

          Right! And more than 200 years before this, Joshua reminded the people of the covenant, and performed the ceremony of circumcision on the men who hadn’t been circumcised while the Israelites were wandering in the wilderness. But that was a long time before Gideon’s generation. We don’t know how many Israelites were still following the rules for circumcision anymore. If they weren’t, they didn’t have that tangible reminder. Regardless, we can be sure they knew that when the prophet said they’d broken the covenant with God, it meant trouble. But what do they do? Nothing!

          God’s just judgement should have been enough to bring sorrow and repentance. Then God sent the prophet. But, they still didn’t repent. In fact, they kind of seem like they’re blaming God. No one likes to be told their trouble is of their own making. Everybody from the time of Adam wants someone else to be at fault when there are problems. And that’s where these people seem to be as we see from Gideon’s response to the “Angel of the Lord” which here is a Theophany (preincarnate Jesus). Let’s read about His first interaction with Gideon. 

“Now the angel of the LORD came and sat under the terebinth at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites. And the angel of the LORD appeared to him and said to him, “The LORD is with you, O mighty man of valor.” And Gideon said to him, “Please, my lord, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us, saying, ‘Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the LORD has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian.” Chris, sometimes the truth is the best medicine, but you’re right that it’s not often taken well. 

          By the words he uses, Gideon seems frustrated with God. In seven years, Israel’s enemies have overtaken them to the point that they live in dens in the mountains, their crops are repeatedly stolen or destroyed at harvest time (they’re basically starving), they had no sheep or ox to sacrifice, so proper worship isn’t happening. No donkeys to ride or carry anything up into the mountains. And what little wheat they do gather, they have to hide while they’re threshing it, as Gideon doing here in a winepress. And all Gideon seems to recall from what he’s been taught about God is that God did “wondrous” things for his ancestors; and he wants to know why God isn’t doing wonderous things for them now. Rose, this reeks of so much of the Church today!

          It does! They were practicing syncretism – worshiping the God of the Amorites as well as Yahweh. The people had started thinking of the One True God as the “national God” who would take care of the ‘big things’ for the nation. But they started living like the pagans and worshiped the pagan gods and trusted those gods (little g) with the everyday things like fertility, crops and things like that.

          Christians fall into the same trap. They add their own good works or moral behavior to their hope of salvation instead of relying on Jesus’s death on the cross. They practice pagan things like ‘positive thinking’, eastern meditation, crystals – even witchcraft – along with Christianity. Inter-faith marriages or attending inter-faith “worship” services or ceremonies are forms of syncretism. People think that all these things can be mixed together because they’re in some way “spiritual.” But that is not what God says in His Word at all!

          No and it happens often because people don’t know truth! They don’t know what the Bible says! Or they’ve been lied to by false teachers. One of the themes in Judges is that “Everyone did what was right in their own eyes.” The religious pluralism we see today in the Church is the same! The Israelites were instructed in God’s Law NOT to worship anyone by the One True God. Yet for some reason, they were attracted to what they saw the Canaanites doing, and so they did likewise. 

          Gideon mentions the Israelites being led out of Egypt. Gideon (and likely the rest of them) want to see God perform some of those same types of “wonderous acts” they’d been told He did for their ancestors. They’re probably wondering why the God who parted the Red Sea and made the wall of Jericho fall isn’t wiping out their enemies now! But God will deliver them from the enemies’ hands again, this time through Gideon. Let’s read on. Chapter 6:14-18 says, “the LORD turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian; do not I send you?” And he said to him, “Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.” And the LORD said to him, “But I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man.” And he said to him, “If now I have found favor in your eyes, then show me a sign that it is you who speak with me. Please do not depart from here until I come to you and bring out my present and set it before you.” And he said, “I will stay till you return.”  So Gideon prepares a meal and brings it to the Lord, Who tells him to place it on a rock. Then the Lord touches the food with His staff and it’s consumed by fire.

          Gideon’s story parallels Moses’ story in many ways. Here’s some of the ways Dr. Miles Van Pelt of Reformed Theological Seminary points out: they both feel unqualified for the task, they are both promised “I will be with you”, they are both given private signs of confirmation – a consuming fire that does not consume them – and later we’ll see that Gideon, like Moses, is given public signs of confirmation so that God’s people know that God has called them. 

          Later that same night, the Lord said to Gideon, “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 Asherah pole standing beside it. Then build an altar to the LORD your God here on this hilltop sanctuary, laying the stones carefully. Sacrifice the bull as a burnt offering on the altar, using as fuel the wood of the Asherah pole you cut down.” So Gideon took ten of his servants and did as the LORD had 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 when the people of the town see what he’s done, they go to his father and demand Gideon be killed. And his father says to the angry townspeople, “Why are you defending Baal? Will you argue his case? Whoever pleads his case will be put to death by morning! If Baal truly is a god, let him defend himself and destroy the one who broke down his altar!” From that point on Gideon is sometimes referred to as ‘Jerubbaal’ which means “Let Baal defend himself.”

          So Gideon’s got some people pretty angry with him and soon after that, Israel’s enemies – the Midianites, Amalekites, and others – cross the Jordan River at harvest time and camp in the fertile Valley of Jezreel. They’re back to wreak havoc again. Keep in mind that their numbers are huge – like a swarm of locusts. And, these people on their camels are a strong fighting force. The Holy Spirit comes on Gideon, and Judges 6:34-35 says, “the Spirit of the LORD clothed Gideon, and he sounded the trumpet, and the Abiezrites were called out to follow him.  And he sent messengers throughout all Manasseh, and they too were called out to follow him. And he sent messengers to Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali, and they went up to meet them.” Now, here’s where we need to stop and think about the text a bit, because what happens next is Gideon’s famous “laying out the fleece” test, and this has been pretty wrongly handled by a lot of people. A lot of people have been taught (and I myself used to think) that Gideon uses the fleece test because he has a lack of faith. But, that would contradict him being mentioned in Hebrews 11’s “hall of faith” AND from the two verses I just read, we know two things: 1) the Holy Spirit is residing on him, and 2) he’s called the army together. That doesn’t sound like a lack of faith.

          It doesn’t. Gideon doesn’t lay out the fleece and ask “should I call the army?” They army is already there, or at least the local part of it is and the rest are already summoned. Let’s read on a bit. Then Gideon prays, “If You are going to save Israel by my hand, as You have said, then behold, I will place a fleece of wool on the threshing floor. If there is dew only on the fleece and all the ground is dry, then I will know that You are going to save Israel by my hand, as You have said.” Next, he asks 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 does that too. Putting God to the test was in direct violation of Mosaic Law. Deuteronomy 6:16 says, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah.” 

          It was and still is. Here are a couple of things to note about the fleece incident: Like you said, Gideon is not alone and Gideon wasn’t asking God what he should do. His words make it clear that he knew exactly what God wanted him to do. So ‘laying out the fleece’ was never about finding out God’s will. If you’ve been doing that in your prayer closet trying to figure out what to do with your life, stop it. That’s not what this is about and we’re not supposed to do it.

          We have God’s will revealed clearly to us in the Bible. We know what God wants us to do. He doesn’t spell out every detail of our lives, and He’s not going to, but we know what to do and what not to do.  I’m going to quote VanPelt here: “When it comes to God’s will there is no guesswork; only homework. The will of God in the Bible is crystal clear. Who should I marry? A believer of the opposite gender. How shall I treat my enemies? Love them.”  – VanPelt 

          Exactly. Gideon, like Moses, knew what God wanted him to do. And, Gideon has already started to obey God by calling the army together. So why the fleece? 

          Going back to his parallels with Moses, God gave Moses two signs – the signs of his staff turning into a snake and then back into a staff, and the sign of his hand becoming leprous and then being made whole again. God gave the signs so that Moses could prove to the Israelites that God had called him, and so they would follow his lead. 

          And that’s what’s happening here. Gideon already has the army together. Gideon is in public; he’s out in the open, on the threshing floor. This isn’t Gideon off by himself asking for some private sign; it’s public. It’s for the purposes of proof for the army that God has called Gideon to the task, and that God is with them. It’s a sign of assurance for all of them. Gideon and all of the Judges are ‘types’ of saviors. In other words, they are pictures or ‘types’ of Christ. Moses was too. They were given signs to assure the people with. Jesus didn’t leave us without signs today either! These signs in the Old Testament were pointing us to something greater!

          Christians can struggle with assurance of their faith, but Jesus gave us things to help us with our struggle. First, He gave believers the Holy Spirit Who lives inside every believer. He gave us the Bible, His Word. He gave us access to praying directly to the Father. And, He gave us visible, tangible signs that strengthen our faith – the sacraments of baptism and communion. When we take communion, we physically touch and taste the life-sustaining bread and wine, but the Christian is also spiritually strengthened by the reminder of Christ’s death in their place. Likewise, with baptism, whether it’s our own or others’. It’s a sign that is spiritually strengthening as we remember that we were washed by his blood; that we were once dead but are now raised to life – born again with a new nature.

           Exactly. Moving on, there’s a lot we aren’t going to get covered in Gideon’s story, so if you’re listening, we encourage you to read it for yourself. This book has some really surprising stuff in it. God does things in strange ways sometimes! 

          Most of Chapter 7 is about God whittling down Gideon’s army to only 300 men, and this tiny army defeating the Midianites. No one had any doubt that it was God Who defeated the enemy, and that was His intent of going to battle with only 300. But, right before the battle, God knows Gideon is afraid and He gives Gideon one more sign that the battle will be won. So, Chris, what should we notice about this sign? Is this one telling us we can lay out a fleece as confirmation?

          Absolutely not. Let’s read about it in Judges 7:9-15. “That same night the LORD said to him, “Arise, go down against the camp, for I have given it into your hand. But if you are afraid to go down, go down to the camp with Purah your servant. And you shall hear what they say, and afterward your hands shall be strengthened to go down against the camp.” Then he went down with Purah his servant to the outposts of the armed men who were in the camp. And the Midianites and the Amalekites and all the people of the East lay along the valley like locusts in abundance, and their camels were without number, as the sand that is on the seashore in abundance. When Gideon came, behold, a man was telling a dream to his comrade. And he said, “Behold, I dreamed a dream, and behold, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian and came to the tent and struck it so that it fell and turned it upside down, so that the tent lay flat.” And his comrade answered, “This is no other than the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel; God has given into his hand Midian and all the camp. ”As soon as Gideon heard the telling of the dream and its interpretation, he worshiped.” Notice first, Gideon never asks for the sign. The Lord knows what’s in his heart and He gives him the sign. Does that mean that we should always be looking for the Lord to give us signs as confirmation to our decisions when we’re not sure? Not at all. I think we get an important bit of information in the words I just read, “This is no other than the sword of Gideon…” What is this “sword of Gideon”? Neither Gideon, nor any of his men carried a sword in his hand.

          No, they didn’t. According to verse 16, Gideon “divided the 300 men into three companies and put trumpets into the hands of all of them and empty jars, with torches inside the jars.” Let’s read about it starting at verse 19. “So Gideon and the hundred men who were with him came to the outskirts of the camp at the beginning of the middle watch, when they had just set the watch. And they blew the trumpets and smashed the jars that were in their hands. Then the three companies blew the trumpets and broke the jars. They held in their left hands the torches, and in their right hands the trumpets to blow. And they cried out, “A sword for the LORD and for Gideon!” Every man stood in his place around the camp, and all the army ran. They cried out and fled. When they blew the 300 trumpets, the LORD set every man’s sword against his comrade and against all the army. And the army fled as far as Beth-shittah toward Zererah,a as far as the border of Abel-meholah, by Tabbath. And the men of Israel were called out from Naphtali and from Asher and from all Manasseh, and they pursued after Midian.”

          We said this in Part 1 of the series, but it bears reapeating: the weapon of our warfare is the Word of God. Let me explain a bit. We don’t rebuke Satan or his demons with it. Jesus did, but there’s no precedence set for people to do that anywhere. In fact, the precedence is set for leaving rebuking of Satan and the demons to God to do. That precedence is set in Jude 9 by the archangel Michael who would not rebuke a demon. In addition to that, it’s not looking for a sign in the Word. You don’t throw open the Bible and look for some words in the passage it opened to for confirmation of your decision. The Christian’s job is to get to know the Word so that we know God, we get to know His attributes. We get a solid understanding that He is unchangeable and that we can trust Him. And knowing all that and more from reading and studying the Bible will allow us to stand firm. That’s our job (or one of them).  Our job is to stand firm against the temptation to sin and against caving to pressure that results in ungodliness. It’s almost like the doctrine of election …. Once you see it you can’t unsee it. Once you see that’s what the believer is told over and over again, you get it.

          That really hit home for us as we were doing the Revelation podcasts.

          It did! Moving on, God gives Gideon this victory. But the book of Judges shows us Israel’s spiral downward, and we start to see that right away. Gideon has a small run-in with the tribe of Ephraim in chapter 8. There’s some struggle between the twelve tribes and it gets worse.

          Right after the run-in with Ephraim, Gideon’s tired and hungry army (who are still in pursuit of the Midianites, cross over to the east side of the Jordan river, comes to two towns...Succoth and Penuel located in the territory of the tribe of Dan. Gideon and his men had every right to expect help! Instead, both cities deny his request for food for the army. The leaders of the towns know that if the Midianites are not defeated, they will come back to attack anyone who helped Gideon. However, by refusing to help Gideon and his men they themselves are considered “the enemy” per God’s rules of Holy War. Being considered the same as they enemy meant death! And Gideon does kill some of them! And when you read further in the Bible, the tribe of Dan is just about obliterated.

          Gideon is a judge a type of savior, raised up by God to defeat Israel’s enemies. But He’s not the perfect Savior, Jesus; and eventually Gideon starts to spiral downward too. When he finally overtakes the two Midianite kings, Zebah and Zalmunna, Judges 8:21 tells us, “Gideon arose and killed Zebah and Zalmunna, and he took the crescent ornaments that were on the necks of their camels.”

          He’s starting to be enamored by something other than God. Later in Israel’s history the prophet Isaiah has a warning about it that mentions these very trinkets, It says, “In that day the Lord will take away the finery of the anklets, the headbands, and the crescent necklaces; earrings, bracelets, and the scarves; the headdresses, the armlets, the sashes, the perfume boxes, and the amulets; the signet rings and nose rings; the festal robes, the mantles, the cloaks, and the handbags; the mirrors, the linen garments, the turbans, and the veils. Instead of perfume there will be rottenness; and instead of a belt, a rope; and instead of well-set hair, baldness; and instead of a rich robe, a skirt of sackcloth; and branding instead of beauty.”

          That’s how far the Israelites spiral downward eventually. ButGideon’s been successful so far and people like having a successful leader. In verse 22 we’re told, “Then the men of Israel said to Gideon, “Rule over us, you and your son and your grandson also, for you have saved us from the hand of Midian.” The Israelites forgot that it was God who won the battle. The offer to Gideon is not just for kingship. By including his son and grandson, they’ve offered a dynasty! Reject God as king; make a man king. Gideon refuses and reminds them that God is their king.  This sounds good, except that he turns right around and requests gold from the plunder. In Holy War, plunder is devoted to God and is burned, unless God says otherwise. Gideon’s desire for gold shows he speaks the right words out of his mouth, but his heart desired the pleasures of kingship.

          And we’re not immune to that today. Look how many Christian people are waiting for God to give them their “breakthrough” or their “promotion.” There are even sermons preached about that in some so-called churches, like Elevation Church or Creflo Dollar’s church, and there are books written by supposed Christians on the steps to achieving earthly success they say are based on God’s Word by people like Gloria Copeland or Paula White. But they distort God’s Word. The Bible shouldn’t be treated like a how-to manual for earthly success. These people speak the words of God but their hearts are far from Him. Earthly success for our own glory is not what we’re supposed to be after. We’re to show God’s glory.

          Gideon’s next move is to make an Ephod. An Ephod usually is a priestly garment.  However, here and in other passages, it denotes something that was associated with idol worship, possibly like the golden calf. Gideon takes his idol is back in Ophrah, the place that he not only met with the Lord, but at which he tore down his father’s idols and build an altar to the Lord and worshiped! And now, it’s not only his family and the men of the town worshiping falsely there, national idol worship is happening there; and it’s happening before the Judge, Gideon, is even dead. And he is doing it too! This God-appointed, chosen-by-God leader was supposed to be their leader and role model for proper worship and obedience!

          Even though the idol worship had already started again, the Lord gave them peace for 40 years. Gideon is living the life of a king. He establishes a harem and is given a son by his most prominent concubine, which we’ll talk more about in the next episode.

          Gideon dies, and before long the Israelites start worshiping Baal. They did not remember the Lord, nor what He had done for them. They also failed to show kindness to Gideon’s family. Although Gideon had many flaws and took a big spiral downward, it does not mean that he didn’t do any good, and he is listed in Hebrews as a man of faith.

          How ironic it is that at one point in Gideon’s story God’s people see Baal not being able to defend himself against Gideon, a man. And yet, at the end of the story, they are putting their hope and trust in Baal as lord. Even with proof that Baal was unable to stand up to a human, they’d still rather worship him.

          The people wanted to make Gideon their king. They’re already rejecting God as king and want instead an earthly king. Why? If you read on past the book of Judges you’ll find out in 1 Samuel 1:5 it’s because they wanted to be, “like all the nations.”

          I’ll end us today with Romans 12:2, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

          Amen to that. When you get a chance, read the account of Gideon for yourself. Have a blessed day everybody!