Gideon: Deliverer for the People

September 13, 2009

Background Scripture: Judges 6 – 8
Lesson Passage: Judges 6:1 – 3, 7 – 16

The book of Judges chronicles the ongoing cycle of apostasy and deliverance in the history of Israel in the land of Canaan. After the elders who knew the Lord had died, the generations that followed them were spiritually immature and unstable. They had not experienced the Lord’s dealings with Israel. Those generations constantly went against the will of God as given to them in the Law. The Lord allowed their enemies to come up against them and rule over them as chastisement. Whenever the children of Israel cried out to the Lord for deliverance, he would raise up a deliverer from among them. After this deliverance, the nation would again rest from war. In today’s lesson Israel is being harassed by the Midianites. The Midianites would routinely take the produce that Israel generated and leave Israel lacking. When Israel managed to harvest some of the grain before the Midianites could take it, they would have to hide to thresh it out. It was in this setting of hiding while threshing the grain that the Lord appeared unto Gideon. Gideon was greeted by a title that suggested that he was a brave man. He was also told that the Lord was with him. Gideon wanted to know why the Lord had not delivered Israel from the oppression of the Midianites. The answer to his question must have come as quite a surprise. Israel was going to be delivered but the Lord was not the reason for the delay. The Lord was going to use Gideon to bring deliverance to Israel. Sometimes we look for God to do something for us without realizing that God will sometimes use us to do for others as well as ourselves. Gideon, like many of us, complained about his condition and the condition of his fellow Hebrews and blamed God for the situation persisting. After the truth was made known, the situation lasted longer than necessary because Gideon was not willing to act immediately. God would work with him step by step until he was prepared and ready to become Israel’s deliverer. His first step was to overcome issues within his own family. His father was an idol worshiper. Gideon was directed by the Lord to destroy the altar of Baal that belonged to his father, build an altar unto the Lord, and use his father’s bullocks to make an offering to the Lord. God was not going to accept compromise. If it was deliverance that he wanted then it would be total deliverance; first spiritually and then physically. After the spiritual revival, then Gideon would be prepared for the physical victory. Again, his task would not be easy as viewed through human eyes. When his enemy came, they spread across the landscape like grasshoppers in number. Gideon had an army of 32,000. In spite of being grossly outnumbered, Gideon’s army was too large for God to get the glory for the victory. God gave him a two step process to reduce his army to an anemic number of 300 men. There was no humanly way this group could successfully fight against Israel’s enemy. But God had a way to destroy the enemy with this seemingly insignificant group. Gideon learned what his generation had not known and that is that God still worked miracles for Israel’s sake. God was going to deliver Israel but Gideon would not be a spectator to the event. Gideon would be a deliverer for the people.

Robert C. Hudson
September 2, 2009