OUR GOD AND SAVIOUR

THE whole Bible is concerned to be a revelation of God, but we learn a little here and a little there, and each particular part opens the wonderful nature of God to us.

In this respect the account of God's approach to Israel in salvation in Judges 6:1-23 is really very revealing and assuring. The passage is where God chooses Gideon as a judge and saviour in Israel, after the people had suffered seven years of oppression from the Midianites.

The reason for this affliction is given. The people had departed from the Lord to worship the Amorite God, Baal, (v.9). Because of this their lives had become more progressively sinful (v.1). God had withdrawn his protecting hand and allowed the Midianites to afflict Israel (v.1).

We read in verse 6 that Israel cried to the Lord for help, and God responds by choosing and equipping Gideon to be their deliverer.

It is not just that God answered their prayer which is so wonderful, but that he answered their prayer while they were in the state they were.

We find as we read on in this sixth chapter of Judges that they were still worshipping Baal, even as they prayed. Gideon is told to pull down the altar of Baal which his father had set up. He does it at night because he fears the people, and the fear was justified because in the morning, when the people saw the altar pulled down, they were very angry.

It seems that Israel were very unhappy in their affliction. They found it very hard to bear. They desperately wanted relief, so they prayed to God. But still they did not seem to realise that their ways were an offence to God, nor did they make much move to improve, even though God sent a prophet (v.7-9) to help them to understand how God felt.

This is not the whole of their shame. When God comes to Gideon in v.12 and says he is with him, Gideon expresses the feelings, not only of himself but the people. We talk together and are opinions are formed by such discussion. What we say usually reflects the group we belong to.

What were these feelings in Israel. They felt God had abandoned them, and they felt resentful and angry. Gideon shows very little belief in the Lord's words to him that the Lord was with him. Where were the actions of God for Israel which their father's had told them of (v.13).

The grace of God is amazing here. He answers their prayer even when they show little if any sign of giving up the way of life which brought the affliction of God in the first place. God has compassion on them and relieves their suffering before they have changed. He takes no pleasure in their pain. Isn't this amazing. How comforting this is in our dilemma and weakness where we find it so difficult, for one reason or another, to change our ways; when we fall short every day and see no hope for improvement; or when we feel trapped in a situation and see no way out. How comforting it is when the actions of the past can't be remedied now, and any sin can't be repaired or changed.

His grace is amazing when we see how he saves. This is always the picture of God's action in grace. This was a temporal salvation, but the way of God is the same in our spiritual and eternal salvation.

God determined that he would provide the salvation completely. It is true that Gideon was used, and his army, but the narrative reveals that these were nothing as far as the achieving deliverance was concerned.

Gideon was a wimp. He had all the resentment and unbelief of the people. He had very little faith, in fact none at all in the beginning.

Gideon had no standing amongst the people. His tribe was the weakest clan. He himself had little courage as seen in his going by night to pull down his father's shrine to Baal. His army was diminished to only 300. It is God not Gideon who routs the Midianites.

When God saves he leaves nothing to the weak hands of his people. He engages to provide a complete salvation. The power is his. The plan is his. The victory is all his. Gideon was used, but there is no doubt that the whole victory was from God. So it is always. This is a comfort of untold strength. God in his grace does it all. If he did not, we would never be saved. The smallest thing left to us would fail to be done.

His grace does not end here. As Gideon's faith staggered along, God graciously met his need, providing props for his faith. There is the consuming of the offering which Gideon brought to the Angel of the Lord after the first encounter and call (Judges 6:20-21). There are the two incidents with the fleece of wool in Judges 6:36-40 where Gideon asks God to give him a sign. First that the fleece of wool put out at night may be wet with dew, and the ground all around perfectly dry. Then when this was not enough for Gideon, at his request, God does it for him the opposite way around - the ground wet and the fleece dry. Then there is the dream before the battle, where God tells him to go and hear the dream of Midian being overthrown by Israel that God had given to the Midianites (Judges 7:13-15).

All this is a picture of weak and sinful humanity, and God, in infinite grace, saving him. We should not presume on this grace, but in our despair and grief over a sin and failure and when we have, through our own frailty, found ourselves trapped in a corner, let us be comforted that we can cry to the Lord in our trouble, and he will deliver us out of all our distresses.