Scripture: Judges 6: 1-10; 6:11-24 ; 7:1-24
Sermon: Gideon’s Faith: From Dormancy to Germination to Bloom.
A Message in Three Parts
Topics: Gideon, seed, faith, growth
Preached: January 28, 2001
Rev. Mike Abma
I. DORMANCY Judges 6: 1-10
The Israelites did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord gave them into the hand of Midian for seven years. 2The hand of Midian prevailed over Israel; and because of Midian the Israelites provided for themselves hiding-places in the mountains, caves and strongholds. 3For whenever the Israelites put in seed, the Midianites and the Amalekites and the people of the east would come up against them.4They would encamp against them and destroy the produce of the land, as far as the neighborhood of Gaza, and leave no sustenance in Israel, and no sheep or ox or donkey. 5For they and their livestock would come up, and they would even bring their tents, as thick as locusts; neither they nor their camels could be counted; so they wasted the land as they came in. 6Thus Israel was greatly impoverished because of Midian; and the Israelites cried out to the Lord for help.
7 When the Israelites cried to the Lord on account of the Midianites, 8the Lord sent a prophet to the Israelites; 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; 9and 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; 10and I said to you, “I am the Lord your God; you shall not pay reverence to the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you live.” But you have not given heed to my voice.’
This is the Word of the Lord
Thanks be to God
The Bible tells us that faith is like a seed.
This evening we are going to observe how faith slowly begins to grow in the life of Gideon. Gideon is the seed. God is the farmer.
The Gideon story, like most the stories in the book of Judges, begins in dark and desperate times. What makes things so dark and desperate for the Israelites are the raiding and marauding Midianites. The Midianites were a nomadic people. They moved from place to place. They didn’t occupy Israel all year long. But for seven straight harvest seasons in a row they would suddenly come galloping across the desert on their camels in hordes. Like a swarm of locusts, they would pillage, rob and destroy anything of value they found. Their scorched-earth policy left Israel in famine-like conditions.
Whatever faith there was in Israel seems to be in the dormancy stage. The faith of Israel is shriveled and dried. But even in this dormancy stage there is still something — a tiny glimmer, an embryo, a tiny seed. In the dry soil of despair, this embryo of faith causes Israel to turn to God. They cry out to God because of the Midianites.
We tend to see lament as a negative thing. We tend to see weeping to God as a desperate thing. But lament is a spiritually healthy exercise. In the past Israel had ignored God, flirted with other sources of security. Their lament shows that this is beginning to change. They are realizing the fertility gods were bankrupt.
So Israel cries out to God, to Yahweh, the great I AM.
They cry, “O Yahweh, how could you allow the Midianites to be doing this?”
In typical God-fashion, he sends a prophet to do the tough work.
The prophet says, “Midian is the symptom, not the cause of your problems.
You know the cause. The Lord God rescued you out of Egypt out of the land of slavery and delivered you to the Land of Promise. But you, you have turned this Land of Promise into a land of promiscuity. You are worshipping the gods of the Amorites, the god’s of fertility and productivity. I brought to this promised land to be faithful to me, but you have turned this promised land into a barren desert.
The story begins in the dry and arid soil of famine, failure, and unfaithfulness.
But in the lament of the people there is a ray of hope, an embryo of faith.
The lament acknowledges that without God they are hopeless and helpless.
As is so often the case in the Bible, lamenting the evil of others is simply a
prelude to repenting the evil of ourselves.
Prayer: Give ear to our words, O God.
Feel the heaviness of our sighing.
Listen to the urgency of our cry for help.
For you alone are our King and our God.
You are the one to whom we turn in times of trouble.
We know, Lord, that we have tended to forget you in our times of
plenty.
We have ignored you when everything seemed to be coasting along smoothly.
In your mercy and grace,
forgive our sins, hear our prayer, and lead us in your way.
Amen
We Sing Hear, O Lord, My Urgent Prayer
II. GERMINATION — Judges 6: 11-24
Now the angel of the Lord came and sat under the oak at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, as his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press, to hide it from the Midianites. 12The angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, ‘The Lord is with you, you mighty warrior.’ 13Gideon answered him, ‘But sir, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our ancestors recounted to us, saying, “Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?” But now the Lord has cast us off, and given us into the hand of Midian.’ 14Then the Lord turned to him and said, ‘Go in this might of yours and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian; I hereby commission you.’ 15He responded, ‘But sir, how can I deliver Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.’ 16The Lord said to him, ‘But I will be with you, and you shall strike down the Midianites, every one of them.’ 17Then he said to him, ‘If now I have found favour with you, then show me a sign that it is you who speak with me. 18Do 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 until you return.’
19 So Gideon went into his house and prepared a kid, and unleavened cakes from an ephah of flour; the meat he put in a basket, and the broth he put in a pot, and brought them to him under the oak and presented them. 20The angel of God said to him, ‘Take the meat and the unleavened cakes, and put them on this rock, and pour out the broth.’ And he did so.21Then the angel of the Lord reached out the tip of the staff that was in his hand, and touched the meat and the unleavened cakes; and fire sprang up from the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened cakes; and the angel of the Lord vanished from his sight. 22Then Gideon perceived that it was the angel of the Lord; and Gideon said, ‘Help me, Lord God! For I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face.’ 23But the Lord said to him, ‘Peace be to you; do not fear, you shall not die.’ 24Then Gideon built an altar there to the Lord, and called it, The Lord is peace. To this day it still stands at Ophrah, which belongs to the Abiezrites.
This is the Word of the Lord
Thanks be to God
A seed breaks out of dormancy when certain conditions get under its skin.
If moisture, warmth, or light can break through the skin of the seed,
the seed will start to germinate and grow.
In this reading, God slowly and gently gets under Gideon’s skin and the faith of Gideon begins to germinate and grow. That God is willing to do this slow and gentle germinating once again is itself a miracle. God had already raised Othniel, Ehud, Shamgar, and Deborah as rescuers, as judges. You would think that he would be getting rather impatient with the chronic amnesia problems of his people and with their tendency towards faith atrophy.
But God’s relationship with Gideon shows the face of an incredibly patient God.
Here is God the farmer gently prodding Gideon, the seed,
with the warmth of his love,
with the water of his promises,
with the light of his presence.
From the start we know that Gideon is a dry, dormant, unpromising looking seed.
The first image we have of Gideon is of him cowering and hiding in some crag of a winepress. He is trying to thresh wheat without being noticed by those marauding Midianites. Hardly the image of a “mighty man of valor.”
But the angel of the Lord greets Gideon with words of promise rather than present reality:
“The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.”
Amazingly, the first thing Gideon does is get in an argument with God.
And amazingly faith begins to germinate in the form of this argument with God!
I think that’s why we all love Gideon so much.
He is the Thomas of the Old Testament.
He is a chronic doubter who wants a little flesh and blood on God’s promises.
But notice how throughout the argument, God begins to get under Gideon’s skin.
Gideon protests:
“But sir, if God is with us, why do we keep getting sacked by the Midianites?”
God patiently answers:
“Go, save Israel from Midian. Am I not sending you?”
Again Gideon protests:
“But sir, how can little me do this? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh. I am the least in my family?”
What Gideon may not know is that this is just the type of seed God likes best.
The small kind. The way God sees things, it is the small seed that is able to grow into the largest plant. God loves to choose the weakest, the least, the smallest.
It is his modus operandi – his m.o.
Hadn’t God chosen an old childless couple to be a blessing to the whole world?
Hadn’t God chosen an Israelite refugee with a speech impediment to lead his people out of Egypt?
God loves to chose the weakest, the least, the smallest.
So God patiently prods Gideon:
“I will be with you – weak as you are – and you will strike down the Midianites as if they are only one person.”
Slowly God gets under Gideon’s skin.
Gideon realizes this and desperately asks, “Give me a sign!”
And God answers, “Okay”
The angel of God touches Gideon’s offering with the tip of his staff — sort of reminds you of Moses and his staff doesn’t it? – and immediately there is an explosion of fire.
The offering is consumed.
With the wonder, the angel disappears.
When the angel disappears, Gideon is panic-stricken. Before God was too invisible, too absent, seemingly too powerless. Now suddenly God is too visible, too present, too powerful. And Gideon is sure he is about to die.
But again, God is there to gently comfort him.
“Peace! Don’t be afraid. You are not going to die.”
Through all this, Gideon’s faith is beginning to germinate and grow.
Later in Judges chapter 6, we see Gideon’s faith continuing to grow – slowly.
* Gideon tears down the altars to Baal. But his faith is still fragile – he does this in the cover of night because he was afraid to do it in broad daylight.
* His faith grows and causes him to assemble the Israelites for battle against the Midianites. But his faith is still less than full-grown. Before the battle he gets the night-before-jitters and asks for more signs.
He wants a wet-fleece and dry ground.
Then he wants a dry-fleece and wet ground.
Amazingly in each instance God patiently complies.
God the farmer, patiently prods Gideon’s germinating faith into maturity.
That is how God works.
He patiently takes our weakness and turns it to strength.
Prayer:
O patient Lord, we do believe –
but we admit our faith is like a tender shoot,
it is here one moment and gone the next,
like a bubbling geyser, sputtering hot and alive then disappearing.
Lord, we believe, please help our unbelief.
Teach us to trust in you alone and always.
Amen
Hymn: If We But Trust in God to Guide Us
III. BLOOM Judges 7: 1-24
Then Jerubbaal (that is, Gideon) and all the troops that were with him rose early and encamped beside the spring of Harod; and the camp of Midian was north of them, below the hill of Moreh, in the valley.
2 The Lord said to Gideon, ‘The troops with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand. Israel would only take the credit away from me, saying, “My own hand has delivered me.” 3Now therefore proclaim this in the hearing of the troops, “Whoever is fearful and trembling, let him return home.” ’ Thus Gideon sifted them out; twenty-two thousand returned, and ten thousand remained.
4 Then the Lord said to Gideon, ‘The troops are still too many; take them down to the water and I will sift them out for you there. When I say, “This one shall go with you”, he shall go with you; and when I say, “This one shall not go with you”, he shall not go.’ 5So he brought the troops down to the water; and the Lord said to Gideon, ‘All those who lap the water with their tongues, as a dog laps, you shall put to one side; all those who kneel down to drink, putting their hands to their mouths, you shall put to the other side.’ 6The number of those that lapped was three hundred; but all the rest of the troops knelt down to drink water. 7Then the Lord said to Gideon, ‘With the three hundred that lapped I will deliver you, and give the Midianites into your hand. Let all the others go to their homes.’ 8So he took the jars of the troops from their hands, and their trumpets; and he sent all the rest of Israel back to their own tents, but retained the three hundred. The camp of Midian was below him in the valley.
9 That same night the Lord said to him, ‘Get up, attack the camp; for I have given it into your hand. 10But if you fear to attack, go down to the camp with your servant Purah; 11and you shall hear what they say, and afterwards your hands shall be strengthened to attack the camp.’ Then he went down with his servant Purah to the outposts of the armed men that were in the camp. 12The Midianites and the Amalekites and all the people of the east lay along the valley as thick as locusts; and their camels were without number, countless as the sand on the seashore. 13When Gideon arrived, there was a man telling a dream to his comrade; and he said, ‘I had a dream, and in it a cake of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian, and came to the tent, and struck it so that it fell; it turned upside down, and the tent collapsed.’ 14And his comrade answered, ‘This is no other than the sword of Gideon son of Joash, a man of Israel; into his hand God has given Midian and all the army.’
15 When Gideon heard the telling of the dream and its interpretation, he worshipped; and he returned to the camp of Israel, and said, ‘Get up; for the Lord has given the army of Midian into your hand.’ 16After he divided the three hundred men into three companies, and put trumpets into the hands of all of them, and empty jars, with torches inside the jars, 17he said to them, ‘Look at me, and do the same; when I come to the outskirts of the camp, do as I do. 18When I blow the trumpet, I and all who are with me, then you also blow the trumpets around the whole camp, and shout, “For the Lord and for Gideon!” ’
19 So Gideon and the hundred 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. 20So the three companies blew the trumpets and broke the jars, holding in their left hands the torches, and in their right hands the trumpets to blow; and they cried, ‘A sword for the Lord and for Gideon!’21Every man stood in his place all around the camp, and all the men in camp ran; they cried out and fled. 22When they blew the three hundred trumpets, the Lord set every man’s sword against his fellow and against all the army; and the army fled as far as Beth-shittah towards Zererah, as far as the border of Abel-meholah, by Tabbath. 23And the men of Israel were called out from Naphtali and from Asher and from all Manasseh, and they pursued after the Midianites.
24 Then Gideon sent messengers throughout all the hill country of Ephraim, saying, ‘Come down against the Midianites and seize the waters against them, as far as Beth-barah, and also the Jordan.’ So all the men of Ephraim were called out, and they seized the waters as far as Beth-barah, and also the Jordan.
This is the Word of the Lord
Thanks be to God
Most gardeners know that a plant will not grow a strong healthy stem unless it has to stand up against the wind.
A plant will not grow deep roots unless it goes through some dry spells.
A plant will not flower and bloom and produce seeds unless there are certain stresses and strains that push the plant into blooming and then producing seeds.
In the 7th chapter of Judges we have Gideon’s germinated faith growing a strong stem, deep roots, and coming into bloom.
Gideon spent the last chapter, chapter 6, testing and trying God’s love.
Now it is God’s turn to test and try Gideon’s faith.
This becomes the heart of the story.
This is where Gideon’s faith flowers and blooms.
With a smile on his face, God, the farmer, begins to take away the props that might be holding Gideon’s faith up. God does this by making a simple two word request:
“too many.”
Gideon starts with an army of 32,000.
“Too many. Let any who are shaking in their boots go home.”
Gideon’s army is down to 10,000.
“Still too many. Send the ones who lap like dogs home. Keep whoever is left.”
9,700 are sent home. 300 are left.
300 hundred to fight against the swarm of thousands of Midianites, who were as thick as locusts. It would be like attacking an elephant with a roll of toilet paper.
Just to give Gideon’s faltering courage a lift,
to let the warmth of his love, the water of his promises, and the light of his presence sink in, God let’s Gideon do some inspired espionage work.
This sign helps Gideon return to his camp calling, “Get up! The Lord has given the Midianites into our hands.”
With trumpets, and torches, and jars of clay, this small band of 300 launch a surprise attack on the Midianites in the dead of the night. It is one of the most vivid battle scenes in the Bible. The terrified Midianites, clueless as to what is happening, flail at each other and flee.
What does this story tell us?
It tells us that God is almighty and God alone.
It tells us that this mighty God does not bind himself to the powerful, the mighty, or the great of the earth. God binds himself to the least, the weakest, the most insignificant.
God uses jars, jars of clay, to contain his light, his power, his grace.
It tells us that God likes to work with little seeds – small and thin-skinned, yet filled with power.
In this story, God takes Gideon – the doubting, scared, argumentative Gideon — to lead his people:
God takes Gideon’s army of 32,000 and pares it down to 300 to win the victory.
God has a taste for doing great things through humble means:
like taking 12 disciples to change the world;
like taking a few nuns in El Salvadore to demand justice in the face of
tyranny;
like taking a lone figure standing before a tank in Tiananmen Square
to bring an end to a brutal bloodbath in China.
What is God doing with us, humble little Woodlawn?
What is God doing with you, a small, doubting and often scared believer?
In Germany in the early the1930’s, the Nazis were coming to power. They were overrunning Germany and soon Europe like a swarm of locusts. In contrast to them,
the resisting church was very small.
And in this small resisting church there was a single pastor.
The name of this pastor was Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
In resisting this swarm of locusts, he became one of the greatest martyrs of the twentieth century. Listen to what Dietrich Bonhoeffer said as he preached about Gideon to his students. He said:
Do not desire to be strong, powerful, honored, and respected,
But let God alone be your strength, your fame, your honor…
Gideon, who achieved faith in fear and doubt,
Kneels with us here before the altar of the one and only Lord,
And Gideon prays with us:
“Our Lord on the cross, be thou our one and only King.”
Amen.
* We Sing “Lead On O King Eternal”
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