THE LORD AND HIS SERVANT
OUR GRACIOUS GOD
Chapter 2
IN the last chapter we saw, in the beginning of Judges six, something of the problem in Israel, which was an ever recurring problem, as it is in the church and the world. We also saw something of the time of Gideon and the atmosphere in which he was brought up, and the Israel to which he identified. Because of that, Gideon was a man of his people and a man of his time. He thought in the same way as the rest of the people.
We now commence to look at the sacred record. I say sacred, because the Old Testament is divinely inspired as much as the New, and what we read here of God's dealings with his servants is an expression of divine revelation, which we ought to take to heart. That is why we read the Old Testament, and study it.
We read this sacred record, which is of God choosing Gideon amazingly as a judge and saviour in Israel. He is one of the Judges. We are going to look at the passage before us, chapter 6 and verses 11 to 24, and if I have a text which I think is really the crunch of it all, it is verse 23, where the revelation which God gives of himself in his dealings with Gideon comes through in these words, 'But the Lord said to him, "Peace! Do not be afraid. You are not going to die."'
Gideon was given a revelation of God. God was frequently revealing himself in a new way to his people, and the revelation was often condensed in his name Jehovah coupled with words which highlighted this new understanding God that was giving of himself, and here it is, in this case, 'Jehovah Shalom', which is 'Jehovah, our peace'. So Gideon built an altar to the Lord, and called it "the Lord is Peace" - Jehovah Shalom.
I have given as a title to this chapter - The Lord and his Servant. I think, on reflection, it might be better just to say simply 'Our Gracious Lord' or 'The Lord Showing Sovereign Grace'. We have the same graciousness of the Lord revealed in that strange and difficult parable in St. Matthew 20:1-16, the parable of the labourers in the vineyard.
To each of these servants as they came, the owner of the vineyard said, "what is right I will give you", and grace gave them all the whole of a days wages, whether they had worked one hour or many.
So, notice first of all, God comes to Gideon. God comes to Israel. It was not Gideon seeking God. See verse eleven - "the angel of the Lord came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, and where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites." It is always true in the Bible that God takes the initiative. He comes to us, when we do not deserve it.
He comes also, and notice this, in the person of Christ. The Angel of the Lord, in the Old Testament, is understood, quite rightly I believe, to be pre-incarnation appearances of Christ, and he appears frequently. This passage confirms this view. If you look at verse 14, we read, - "The Lord turned to him, and said" - that is, the angel of the Lord. Then in verse 16 - "The Lord answered, 'I will be with you ...'". Then when we come to verses 22 and 23 we read, "When Gideon realised it was the angel of the Lord, he exclaimed, 'Ah, Sovereign Lord! I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face!'. But the Lord said to him, 'Peace! Do not be afraid. You are not going to die'". The whole revelation is that the angel of the Lord is speaking, and it is God, the person of Jesus, who is speaking.
God chose Gideon. When we look at the passage, we find a person who had no idea that God was going to come to him; with no particular desire for God to come to him. He never looked to God to choose him in this way, and he indicated that he did not like it very much either, as we shall see as we look at Gideon's words and reactions, and look at the way God spoke and dealt with him. It was God, who in his grace, was gracious enough to come to this man and bless him, and exalt him, and use him, even though Gideon was unbelieving and reluctant to receive the words of the Lord.
That is the pattern of all God's dealings with human beings in this world. We owe everything, not to our merit, but to sovereign grace. In that parable referred to earlier, do you notice, that the first people agreed to a penny a day; and then when they argued at the end, they were arguing for their rights and for what they felt was justice. The others were ready to throw themselves on the mercy of the land owner, and receive just what he would graciously give. Grace gives all, but to those who refuse grace, that is the ones who came first, the owner of the vineyard said "take what is thine, go". They did not work the next day in the vineyard. That seems to be the implication. So when we rely on merit, what God requires of us is complete obedience, and we can't do that, and we lose all. We have to come and to rely on grace alone. The wonderful thing is that even when, as it were, we do not want grace, the Lord goes out into the market place, just as he came to Gideon, and seeks us out, and brings us in to the vineyard. God brings Gideon into fellowship with himself. That is the message.
Let us look at how this grace is seen in the way God met Gideon. Now there is no evidence to suppose that Gideon was any better than any other of the Israelites of his time. In fact Gideon was the son of his father, (that goes without saying of course,) and he plainly had the same pattern of life and worship as his father. We find God, as we shall appreciate later, saying to Gideon, "Go and tear down your father's altar to Baal and cut down the Asherah pole beside it, then build a proper kind of altar to the Lord your God." There was Baal being worshipped in Gideon's back yard. Gideon shows no shame or guilt, or even repentance for that, at the beginning when God comes to him. And even at the end when it is grace that gives him peace, even then he doesn't actually show much real repentance. Grace, grace, grace is through this whole passage.
Gideon showed also, as he met with God, that he was just as much in the same mold as all the other people amongst whom he lived. His words show he had imbibed the whole atmosphere of his people. God comes to Gideon, and says, "The Lord is with you mighty warrior". "But sir," Gideon replied, "if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all those wonders our fathers told us about when they said, 'Did not the Lord bring us up out of Egypt?' But now the Lord has abandoned us and put us into the hand of Midian." You see, to Gideon, as with all the people, God is at fault. He has forsaken us. Why has he done it? What have we done to deserve it? All the usual things we pour out from the anguish of our hearts sometimes. So Gideon showed all the unjust resentment towards God that the rest of the nation showed. He was pouring out the complaint which was the usual attitude of the day.
This is Gideon. This is the people of Israel. And although they prayed in their anguish to the Lord in verses seven and eight, as we saw in the previous chapter, like so many of our prayers in our anguish, he didn't actually believe anything was going to happen. The Lord has forsaken us. That was the conviction that the people had persuaded themselves was true.
And this was Gideon, but God came to him. The Lord Jesus came to him. This is the wonder of grace. Think for a moment. If you came to someone with love in your heart, and desire to help them, and you said something like the Lord said to Gideon, "The Lord is with you, mighty warrior", and you had a response like the one Gideon made, what would your reaction be? It is like a slap in the face, is it not? It is just like when I was in Tidworth, when I was delivering some Harvest produce to an old lady, and I knocked on the door, and she came and she said, "You can take that away. I don't like that. And you can take this away, and this. I will just have that." And that is exactly what happened. You feel, well! What an ungrateful response. If God had said, "Well, stuff it, Gideon. If that is how you feel I am going," we would not be surprised because we react in that way ourselves. I reacted in just this way with my doctor when I was a curate, when I felt that he was being totally unconcerned and off hand about the sickness I was telling him about.
We would not have been surprised if God had reacted in this way to Gideon's response to his help. But God did not react in this way. And when Jesus turned to him and said, "Go in the strength you have" - and the sense is 'the strength that I will give you' - "and save Israel out of Midian's hand. Am I not sending you?", what is Gideon's response? We have it in verse 15, "But Lord," Gideon asked, "how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family." Gideon's response to God's approach to him gets worse and worse.
How relevant this is. You go to some one, and say, "could you do this for the church" and out comes a stream of impossibilities. We don't particularly want to do it. I remember, at college, when I was asked frequently to do things, and I wanted to do other things, and I did not feel that what I was being asked to do was a very easy sort of thing to do, I made excuses. Somebody challenged me about it, and said, "whenever we ask you to do anything, you are always making excuses." They were right to challenge me. My attitude, like Gideon's, was wrong.
Gideon didn't want all this change in his life which the Lord was calling him to. It frightened and threatened him, and so he reacted badly. The Lord was coming to him in this gracious way, giving him gracious promises, but he, (and let us not mistake it - it wasn't humility,) was just saying, 'this is too much for me. I do not want to get involved.' And we are like that, but God is gracious. God goes on still patiently speaking to him. Look at verses 16, "I will be with you." What reassurance! "And you will strike down the Midianites as if they were but one man." They will all go down together, as the other version of the NIV says. And they did all go down together as we shall see in the narrative as we come to it.
Gideon, we can see, is still finding it very difficult to believe. 'If you are the Lord' is still the question on his mind; and this is expressed in verse 17 where he says, "if now I have found favour in your eyes, give me a sign that it is really you talking to me." His faith falters. He wants and needs some certain sign to strengthen his faith and convince him.
It is very difficult sometimes for us to step our in faith in the word of God. This problem with Israel is a very real problem, because it is very difficult for us to dissociate our own failure from what is happening to us. And so we say in our hearts, "well, the Lord has not done it in the past, how can we believe he will do it in the future?" It is so difficult to believe, and here Gideon wants a sign.
God is again gracious. God gives a sign. Gideon goes off, and he makes this stew, or whatever it was. He boils it up and makes bread, and he pours out the broth, and takes the meat to one side, and he brings it, and presents it to the Lord at the oak; and the angel of the Lord - Jesus - says, "Take the meat and the unleaven bread, place them on this rock, and pour out the broth." And Gideon does this.
And then when this offering is to be offered, the Lord touches it with his staff, and it bursts into flames, and it is consumed. This is an amazing miracle. A miraculous sign to Gideon. Gideon did not know what to expect, but he is offering something, and the Lord's response is beyond anything he could have expected. It wasn't just the miraculous fire, but that the offering was accepted in the fire, that is what was so special. Isn't God gracious that he accepted this, perhaps, not too willingly given offering.
Then we find Gideon overcome with terror. He has not got real faith as we see him here. He feared God. He feared the Lord, but it wasn't that reverential awe which is the beginning of wisdom, where we bow in humble abasement before God. Fearing, but knowing he loves and is gracious to us. Rather Gideon is feeling that here is a God who is going to turn that staff which produced the fire on him (21), and he would be consumed.
He realised his sin. He was not particularly repentant. He just felt the retribution that a holy God brings on the sinner.
So we see the man. No great shakes either as a man or as a Christian. Very wimpish. But God chose him, and God loved him; God was patient with him; God persevered with him; God brought him to himself and saved him. That is the comforting thing. That is the reassuring thing. You see, God does not save us, nor does he even use us, because we are better than anybody else. In actual fact, as we see our demerit, then we give the glory to God. There was not anything that Gideon could pretend that he had done in all his history. It all came from God. And when he, and Israel, were actually tempted to rely on themselves, then God took away everything, until there was only three hundred men, so that there could be no pretence that human strength was achieving anything.
We owe everything to grace. It is all on account of grace. And the wonderful thing is that God knows what we are like before he comes to us. He is not taken by surprise by our attitudes or behaviour. So he does not cast us off when we behave in this way, as Gideon behaved. Isn't that reassuring. God is so gracious and merciful. So full of unconditional love. He does not come and spit out abuse at us, and call us names, and reject us, as perhaps we may have experienced from other human beings and other Christians. He doesn't, as he has every right to do, stand up above us, and look down in contempt. No, he comes by our side. A gracious God.
Do we get this picture which Satan is always seeking to remove from us. A picture of the reality. God is revealing himself to us in this passage. He is very patient with Gideon, as he is patient with us. As he calls us, he completely saves us and equips us. He is a God of grace.
Let us see this remarkable experience of God which Gideon had. What does God do first of all? He comes to Gideon, and if Gideon could see it, it was all there is the first statement. "The Lord is with you". I am saving you. "Mighty warrior". But he wasn't a mighty warrior! So what was God saying? God was saying - This is how I see you, and this is how I will make you. But Gideon wasn't prepared to listen to that. He was fed up with God, and he couldn't respond. But grace goes on, giving assurance of love. "Go in the strength you have, and save Israel out of Midian's hand". Am I not with you? Am I not sending you?
This is the assurance that Gideon was given. So God says, "I am with you. You have said I am not. And you have said the mighty works of the past are not going to be shown. I tell you that they are going to be shown." God goes on reassuring him that he is at hand and that he is with him.
And then God does not grow angry, as we have said, when the next minute Gideon brings out all these excuses in verse 15. Instead the Lord answers, "I will be with you". You feel so weak, but I will strike the Midianites for you. You will strike them down as if they were one man. It will be my power! You will be able to do it, because it is in my power.
And then when Gideon seeks for a sign, God graciously gives him a sign. Even in this continued opposition, God does not give him up. Gideon, you see, still can't believe, and asks for this sign, and then when terror reacts in his mind and heart, God saves him. He says the words of peace. So Gideon builds an altar as he now knows God - Jehovah Shalom.
Christ is seen here as the propitiation for our sins. And if you do not like that long word, and feel that preachers should not use it, I want to tell you that I do not know any other word that expresses what 'Jehovah our peace' is saying. For what Gideon felt was the wrath of God directed at him. A wrath so powerful and so consuming, that it would not only just burn up his flesh, but burn up his soul, and cast him out forever. And when God said peace, he was saying that wrath would not strike him, because this angel of the Lord, this Jesus, was his propitiation.
The Old Testament speaks of the cross, where Jesus became the propitiation for our sins; where that wrath which we so grievously deserve fell upon the Lord Jesus, and the terror was taken away. Being justified by faith we have peace with God. Gideon was afraid of judgement, and God gave him life and salvation. That was the beginning of his new life.
In reality this was Gideon's conversion, the beginning of his understanding. His conversion is affirmed in Hebrews chapter eleven, and in verse 32, where Gideon is mentioned as one of the heroes of faith, "What more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, and so on." The source of all our service starts with this gracious act of God in saying, "Peace". Your sins are forgiven. My wrath is turned away from you. You are mine; I have redeemed you.
It is all of grace. In the narrative God's love and grace goes on. The marvellous thing about this passage is that it is not that we receive grace, and then we have to merit. So often we live our Christian lives like that. We receive grace at the beginning, and we are so grateful for that grace; but then we feel we have to merit everything afterwards. But in fact it is grace from start to finish. As we go on we find Gideon is not very much better after this experience than before. And the battles he wins and victories that he achieves are by God's power. God's grace, not only saves him, but sustains him every day of his life.
Let us be comforted, therefore, at this time by this revelation of God. Jehovah Shalom. The God who brings peace in all the conflict, failure, weakness, and sin of our lives. And whatever we are like, he has anticipated and he knows about it; and having chosen us to bless us in this way, he doesn't cast us off. We are saved by grace and kept by grace.