AM Bible Study Group; May 13, 2015 from Judges 6:33-40
Theme: God graciously takes those that He calls through a process that prepares them for the work.
(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).
Very often, God calls His greatest servants “cold”—that is to say, while they are still spiritually wet behind the ears; inexperienced, uncertain, untested, and hesitant—and then, by the gracious work of the Holy Spirit, “warms them up” along the way. These “cold-call” commissions prove, in time, to lead to some of His mightiest and most fruitful servants. This certainly was the experience of Gideon.
As we’ve already seen, Gideon was of “the weakest” clan in Manasseh; saying to God, “I am the least in my father’s house” (Judges 6:15). He would certainly not be the kind of man anyone would expect to be one of God’s mighty generals, used by Him to lead His people into deliverance from the oppressive Midianites. But when God first called Gideon, He named him “mighty man of valor” (v. 12). That’s what He was in God’s sovereign purpose; and that’s what God would make him to be in actual experience.
Note in this passage the various stages that God graciously took him through in order to make him into what God called him to be. He was . . .
I. GOD’S MAN SET-APART (v. 33).
A. First, let’s consider the situation. The passage begins with these words: “Then all the Midianites and Amalekites, the people of the East, gathered together; and they crossed over and encamped in the Valley of Jezreel.” These were the enemy peoples who had been severely oppressing the people of Israel for seven years—bringing them into a state of becoming “greatly impoverished” (v. 6). They were sweeping across the land of Israel to destroy the produce of the crops, and ruin the sustenance of the land. Verse 33 is, most likely then, describing an annual invasion of these people groups to destroy the land once again—just as they had done at harvest time every year for the past seven years.
B. They thought that things would go as it usually had. But this time—in mercy to His people—God had provided a deliverer in advance. God had already called Gideon and declared that He was with him (vv. 11-24); and had already used Gideon to begin a reform movement of repentance from idolatry (vv. 25-32). At a time when the crisis came, God had already set His man apart as a deliverer of His people. We can be confident today that nothing catches our God by surprise. When the crisis of the times comes, God will have already have set His instruments apart for Himself.
II. GOD’S MAN EMPOWERED (v. 34a).
A. But even though God had set him apart, Gideon—in and of himself—would not be adequate for God’s purposes. He first needed to be given power from on high; so that it would not be himself alone who would do the work, but God doing the work through him. Verse 34 tells us that the foreign peoples gathered together to once again raid the land, “But the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon . . .” Already, God had said that He was “with” Gideon as a present reality (v. 12), had “sent” him as a past calling (v. 14), and “will be with” him as a future support (v. 16). But now, the Holy Spirit came upon him—literally ‘clothed’ him as it is in the original language—in order to enable him to do what God called him to do.
B. What a lesson for us! We can do nothing in and of ourselves. God’s calling must be accompanied by God’s enabling. And God provides that enabling in the person of His indwelling Holy Spirit. “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you”, Jesus said (Acts 1:8); “for without Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). May God teach us to tarry until we are empowered from on high! Then—and only then—can we do what God calls us to do!
III. GOD’S MAN EMBOLDENED (v. 34b-35).
A. In the Book of Acts, we’re told of how the apostles were emboldened to preach the gospel once the Holy Spirit came upon them (Acts 2). And now, we see how the coming of the Holy Spirit emboldened Gideon. After being (literally) “clothed” with the Spirit, “then he blew the trumpet, and the Abiezrites gathered behind him” (v. 34b). Just think! These were the people of his own clan (v. 11)—and they had just a while ago threatened to kill him for having destroyed their altar to Baal (v. 30). But he called them to action; and because the Spirit of God was upon him, they gathered behind him as their leader.
B. But he did even more. We’re told, “And he sent messengers throughout all Manasseh, who also gathered behind him. He also sent messengers to Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali; and they came up to meet them” (v. 35). He gathered a great army together from other surrounding tribes—numbering, as we find out later, 32,000 soldiers (7:3). The greatest way to have courage in God’s call is to be submitted to the power of the Spirit. If we lack confidence in God’s call, it’s a sure sign that we’re trusting in our own resources rather than in God’s enabling power. As Dr. John Murray has put it, “Our confidence should be as unbounded as our dependence is complete” (The Collected Writings of John Murray [Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1989], Vol. 1, p. 141).
IV. GOD’S MAN ASSURED (vv. 36-38).
A. Then came one of the events that Gideon is most famous for, “So Gideon said to God, ‘If You will save Israel by my hand as You have said—look, I shall put a fleece of wool on the threshing floor; if there is dew on the fleece only, and it is dry on all the ground, then I shall know that You will save Israel by my hand, as You have said” (vv. 36-37). Was Gideon wrong to ask this? After all, God had already promised that He would deliver his people through Gideon. It may have not been necessary for Gideon to do this; but let’s remember that he was called “cold”, and perhaps needed this assurance.
B. And, in considering the rightness or wrongness of this request, let’s remember that God granted it! We’re told, “And it was so. When he rose early the next morning and squeezed the fleece together, he wrung the dew out of the fleece, a bowlful of water” (v. 38). God knows His servants; and He knows when assurance is needed. Praise Him—He often gives assurance to us even when we don’t ask for it.
V. GOD’S MAN MADE CONFIDENT (vv. 39-40).
Nevertheless, Gideon asked again. And in doing so this second time, it appears that even he feared that he might be taxing God’s patience. We read, “Then Gideon said to God, ‘Do not be angry with me, but let me speak just once more: Let me test, I pray, just once more with the fleece; let it now be dry only on the fleece, but on all the ground let there be dew’” (v. 39). His cautiousness in asking was a lot like that found in Abraham in his pleas for Lot (see Genesis 18:22-33). It’s important to note, however, that this was actually a greater request—a larger miracle that required a larger act of faith. It would be natural for the fleece to soak up the dew even while the ground remained dry. But now, Gideon asks for something unnatural—the opposite! Only God could do that.
B. “And God did so that night. It was dry on the fleece only, but there was dew on all the ground” (v. 40). Our confidence in God’s call is something that grows in stages—through increasing steps of faith. God knows how to make His servants confident in His call for them.
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God so ‘warmed’ Gideon to His call that—as we find in the next chapter—God was able to set him off to battle in such a way that truly demonstrated that the battle belonged to the Lord. God is able to do the same for us. He chooses “the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise”, and “the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty”; all so that “He who glories, let him glory in the Lord” (see 1 Corinthians 1:26-31). Let us, by faith, learn to welcome His ‘warming’ process.