PM Home Bible Study Group; May 11, 2016
Hebrews 11:32a
Theme: The writer of Hebrews highlights the faith of the Old Testament hero Gideon.
The writer of Hebrews has been encouraging his believing fellow Jewish brothers and sisters to stay true to their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and to not fall back from Him because of persecution. And Chapter 11 is a portion of his letter in which he kicks that encouragement into high-gear.
Throughout this chapter, he has reminded his readers of their heritage in the Scriptures, and has highlighted the exemplary faith of several of the Old Testament saints. After telling many stories—using the repeated introduction, “By faith . . .” (see vv. 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, 17, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31)—he now seeks to summarize. He tells them;
And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets: who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead raised to life again. Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented—of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth. And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us (Hebrews 11:32-40).
Time might have failed this writer go delve further into these great stories that he hinted at; but it would be very good for us to take the time to review them and learn from them. In this story, we will focus on the first person he mentioned in verse 32: the great Old Testament hero Gideon.
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Gideon—this great hero of faith—is known to us in the New Testament only by this one reference in Hebrews 11:32. But he looms large in the record of the Old Testament. His story of faith is found in Judges 6-7; and can be summarized in seven specific stages . . .
Note first . . .
I. HIS TIMES.
In the larger context, Gideon lived in the difficult days of the judges. This was the time between the death of Joshua and the reign of the kings of Judah. It was a time that was characterized by the repeated cycle of Israel wandering from God, God punishing them by handing them over to their enemies, their crying out to God for deliverance, God raising a deliverer (a ‘judge’) to rescue them, a time of restoration during the ministry of that judge, and then a time of wandering away again after the judge had died. It was a sad and monotonous cycle; but it was also one that was characterized throughout by God’s faithfulness to His own promises to His disobedient people.
But Gideon’s specific story comes during one of the most difficult of those down times. The people of Israel had turned away from God once again; and God allowed them to be oppressed by the powerful Midianite people. The people of Israel had been oppressed by them for a period of seven years. Judges 6:4-6 tells us how the Midianites would align with the Amalekites against Israel to basically starve them out in the midst of their own land; so that
they would encamp against them and destroy the produce of the earth as far as Gaza, and leave no sustenance for Israel, neither sheep nor ox nor donkey. For they would come up with their livestock and their tents, coming in as numerous as locusts; both they and their camels were without number; and they would enter the land to destroy it. So Israel was greatly impoverished because of the Midianites, and the children of Israel cried out to the Lord (Judges 6:4-6).
The people would cry out to God; but God reminded them of how He had delivered them from bondage in Egypt, and that He had told them not to fear the gods of the Amorites; “But you have not obeyed My voice” (6:10). The people were truly in desperate straits—and that by their own doing.
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But God was merciful. He raised Gideon as a judge. This leads us to . . .
II. HIS CALL.
And what an unlikely deliverer he was! He was from the least of his father’s house—and that from not a very noteworthy house to begin with! He was the son of Joash the Abiezrite—of the tribe of Manasseh. The Bible tells us that he was out threshing wheat in a wine-press—which was usually a hole in the ground—in order to hide the grain from the Midianites. And the Angel of the Lord came to him (which seems to have been a pre-incarnate appearance of the Lord Himself), and greeted him with the announcement: “The LORD is with you, you mighty man of valor!” (6:12). “’Man of valor’–?”, Gideon must have thought. Here he was hiding in a hole! But God sees a man not for what he is, but for what it is that He will make him to be.
And that’s when we see the beginning indications of Gideon’s faith. He asked a question of this divine Visitor that showed something of his forward look to the promises of God:
“O my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites” (6:13-14).
God then let Gideon know that it was he who was to go out “in this might of yours”–that is, in this faith in God’s promises; “and you shall save Israel from the hand of the Midianites” (6:14). It would be humble Gideon who would “defeat the Midianites as one man” (v. 16). Gideon argued a bit with this idea—unsure that that he truly had God’s favor and that it was the Lord who spoke to him. But God assured him in three important ways: (1) “Have I not sent you?” (v. 14); (2) “Surely I will be with you” (v. 16); and (3) He accepted an offering that Gideon made; and when Gideon saw that the Lord truly appeared to him and he thought he would now surely die, the Lord told him, “Peace be with you; do not fear, you shall not die” (v. 23). Gideon responded to this three-fold encouragement from God whole-heartedly—building an altar of worship to the Lord and calling it ‘YHWY Shalom’ (“The Lord Is Peace”). Surely his people needed that peace; and it would now come from the Lord through him.
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Now; after being called by God to this remarkable role; Gideon underwent a test of . . .
III. HIS OBEDIENCE.
When God calls a man to great things, He first teaches Him the walk of obedience in lessor things. Gideon’s father Joash was a worshiper of the pagan god Baal. In fact, it seems that he was something like a custodian of the community Baal altar. And because spiritual reform needs to start at home, God told Gideon;
“Take your father’s young bull, the second bull of seven years old, and tear down the altar of Baal that your father has, and cut down the wooden image that is beside it; and build an altar to the Lord your God on top of this rock in the proper arrangement, and take the second bull and offer a burnt sacrifice with the wood of the image which you shall cut down” (6:25-26).
This was a bold and courageous act of obedience. And because he feared his father’s household and the men of the city of his hometown, he gathered ten men and did it in the cover of night. And when the men of the city awoke to find the altar of Baal torn down, and the wooden image used for the fire, and the second bull—a bull set apart for Baal—now being offered on an altar of the Lord instead, they were furious. They looked into the matter and found that it had been Gideon’s doing. They demanded of his father that his son be brought out and put to death.
But Gideon’s act of obedience must have brought about a change in his father’s heart; because Joash then told the men of the city;
“Would you plead for Baal? Would you save him? Let the one who would plead for him be put to death by morning! If he is a god, let him plead for himself, because his altar has been torn down!” (v. 31).
It must be that it had all set Joash a-thinking: If Baal is truly a god, then why couldn’t he protect his own altar? Is he really so weak a god that he can’t defend himself? Is he actually even real at all?
This act of obedience on Gideon’s part—along with his father’s appeal—must have also brought about a change in the people; because from that day on, they abandoned their worship of Baal and followed behind Gideon. He even came to be known by the new nickname that his father gave him; calling him Jerubbaal, and saying, “Let Baal plead against him, because he has torn down his altar” (v. 32). When we obey God, we may find that He turns us into the beginning point of a whole new renewal of obedience in everyone else!
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Now; God was calling Gideon to a remarkable task. The Spirit of God came upon him; and he was thus enabled to blow the trumpet that called the people of his hometown together to action. He also called men from other tribes of Israel; and they came. But then comes . . .
IV. HIS STRUGGLE.
Was God really calling him to this remarkable task? He needed assurance. To appreciate that a time of doubt and struggle could come, you have to grasp the magnitude of what it was that was calling him to do—and the utter human impossibility of it all. And that’s when we read of one of Gideon’s most famous dealings with the Lord. Judges :36-40 tells us;
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.” 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. 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.” And God did so that night. It was dry on the fleece only, but there was dew on all the ground (6:36-40).
Was Gideon wrong to ask this? After all, God had already clearly 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 very suddenly, from a time of weakness, and in a context of the terrible spiritual apostasy of his people; and perhaps he greatly needed this assurance. And let’s also remember that—right or wrong—God gave him what he asked! God knows the needs of those He calls. He often even gives assurance to us at times when we don’t think to ask for it.
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And Gideon would need that assurance; because God was about to cut his trust in human resources down to next to nothing. And with Chapter 7 of Judges, we discover . . .
V. HIS DEPENDENCY.
Gideon—ol’ “Let-Baal-Plead-for-Himself”—took his army of 32,000 men to the springs of the well of Herod and encamped against the Midianites. But the Lord told him that he had too many men. God didn’t want this to be a remarkable victory for which man could get any of the credit. So, the Lord told Gideon to send home whoever was fearful. 22,000 went home! You would think that this would have made everyone fearful! But 10,000 valiant men remained. They must have been men of faith too. And that’s when God really cut away all human trust from Gideon:
But the Lord said to Gideon, “The people are still too many; bring them down to the water, and I will test them for you there. Then it will be, that of whom I say to you, ‘This one shall go with you,’ the same shall go with you; and of whomever I say to you, ‘This one shall not go with you,’ the same shall not go.” So he brought the people down to the water. And the Lord said to Gideon, “Everyone who laps from the water with his tongue, as a dog laps, you shall set apart by himself; likewise everyone who gets down on his knees to drink.” And the number of those who lapped, putting their hand to their mouth, was three hundred men; but all the rest of the people got down on their knees to drink water. Then the Lord said to Gideon, “By the three hundred men who lapped I will save you, and deliver the Midianites into your hand. Let all the other people go, every man to his place.” So the people took provisions and their trumpets in their hands. And he sent away all the rest of Israel, every man to his tent, and retained those three hundred men” (7:4-8).
Why would God do this? It was to make sure that Gideon placed his trust in God alone—and not in the size of his army. We should remember this whenever we find ourselves frustrated by a lack of resources or when circumstances seem contrary to us. It’s not because God is somehow failing us. Rather, He is teaching us to place our trust in Him—and setting us free from every lessor trust that we may depend on.
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At this strategic moment, we find another aspect of Gideon’s faith . . .
VI. HIS ASSURANCE.
God told Gideon to arise and go against the camp of the Midianites. But if he was still afraid (and it must be that he still was; and who could really blame him?), God invited him to go down to a certain spot of the outskirts of the Midianite camp and eavesdrop on their conversation. Gideon took his personal servant along; and this is what happened:
And when Gideon had come, there was a man telling a dream to his companion. He said, “I have had a dream: To my surprise, a loaf of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian; it came to a tent and struck it so that it fell and overturned, and the tent collapsed.” Then his companion answered and said, “This is nothing else but the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel! Into his hand God has delivered Midian and the whole camp.” (7:13-14).
What a remarkable conversation! The one man related this strange dream that—quite frankly—wouldn’t have made any sense without the interpretation given to it; and then the other man—as, we can take it, a work of God upon him—gave this astonishing interpretation that no one would ever have come up with otherwise! It was clearly a work of God—speaking through two pagan men in the earshot of God’s servant. And it was all Gideon needed. After hearing those words, Gideon worshiped God; and returned to the camp of Israel and said, “Arise, for the Lord has delivered the camp of Midian into your hand” (v. 15). Note that Gideon didn’t ask for this additional assurance. It must have been that he needed it; and God provided it at the right time without his even asking. It not only encouraged Gideon, but it also encouraged his 300 men!
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Now; those 300 men also must have been men of great faith in God. They too had come to trust that God would do what He promised. They rallied behind Gideon and Gideon’s God “by faith”. And that leads us to . . .
IIV. HIS VICTORY.
After having overheard this final word of encouragement, Gideon went forth with this tiny band against 135,000 mighty Midianite soldiers. And their battle plan was something that only God could devise—and that only God could win for them. We’re told;
Then he divided the three hundred men into three companies, and he put a trumpet into every man’s hand, with empty pitchers, and torches inside the pitchers. And he said to them, “Look at me and do likewise; watch, and when I come to the edge of the camp you shall do as I do: When I blow the trumpet, I and all who are with me, then you also blow the trumpets on every side of the whole camp, and say, ‘The sword of the Lord and of Gideon!’”
So Gideon and the hundred men who were with him came to the outpost of the camp at the beginning of the middle watch, just as they had posted the watch; and they blew the trumpets and broke the pitchers that were in their hands. Then the three companies blew the trumpets and broke the pitchers—they held the torches in their left hands and the trumpets in their right hands for blowing—and they cried, “The sword of the Lord and of Gideon!” And every man stood in his place all around the camp; and the whole army ran and cried out and fled. When the three hundred blew the trumpets, the Lord set every man’s sword against his companion throughout the whole camp; and the army fled to Beth Acacia, toward Zererah, as far as the border of Abel Meholah, by Tabbath (7:16-22).
A mighty victory was brought about by this strange method. 120,000 of the 135,000 Midianite troops were slain. 15,000 were on the run; and many of them would be later captured. And what was the secret? It wasn’t the sword of Gideon that did it alone. It was—as we’re told repeatedly—the sword of the Lord and of Gideon!
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Now; as we read on in Chapter 8, we find that not everything Gideon did was good or worthy. We find that his actions sometimes caused divisions among the other tribes of Israel. And then we find that he even began to take measures against his enemies and against his own people that seemed rash and extreme. Sadly, his last act was to create a monument to himself that ended up being a cause for stumbling for the rest of the people of Israel. Clearly it had been God who had worked—but equally clearly, it was through an imperfect instrument who lived in brutal and sinful times. Even the best of us may not have been able to keep clear of Gideon’s faults. And frankly, that ought to encourage us that God could use even us!
Nevertheless, in spite of his faults, Gideon remains a great example of faith in God’s promise. He remembered the promises that God had made to Israel; and God not only assured him that His word still stands, but then called him to be the instrument by which God would bring His promise to pass. As the writer of Hebrews would put it, he “through faith subdued kingdoms”; and out of weakness was “made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens” (Hebrews 11:33-34. What a great example he is, then, of faith—”the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). His story of faith proves to us, once again, that;
without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him (Hebrews 11:6).