Judges 6 – Part 3

QUESTION: Cowardice to Faith - 3

ANSWER:

Judges 6 – Part 3

by Pastor Nathan Shepherd (Dive Chapel, Candle Key, Florida)

“In verse 23, the LORD says, ‘Peace be with you; do not fear, you shall not die.’ In response to all of this, Gideon builds an altar on the site of the rock where the sacrifice was consumed in fire.

“Then the LORD tells Gideon to go and tear down the altar to Baal that his family has set up and uses to worship that pagan god. Jesus is saying that Gideon needs to deal with the sin in his family before he can be used as a mighty man of valor to defeat the Midianites.

“So Gideon goes and gets ten of his men – do you see what’s happening? The G-man has gone from being the wimpiest chicken-whiner to a leader. And it’s because he has seen the LORD. He’s been hanging out with Jesus. This is such a great lesson for us. First, we can’t be what the LORD wants us to be unless we hang out with Him. Second, we have to let Jesus deal with our own sins before He can use us in His Kingdom.

“Gideon and his posse tear down the altar to Baal and offer a bull on the altar that was built in the place where the LORD consumed the goat and bread with fire. The men of Israel get mad and come to Gideon’s house to kill him. But Gideon’s father, who was a Baal worshipper before, says ‘Hey, if Baal is a real god, why doesn’t he kill Gideon himself?’ That shut up the Baal-mob.

“Now the Midianites and the Amalekites come to attack the children of Israel. Think about this, they’ve got to be severely overconfident, right? They’ve been beating the tar out of Israel for years. Why should this battle be any different? What they don’t know is that Gideon has been spending time with the LORD. The sin of cowardice is about to be dealt with.

“The Spirit of the LORD came upon Gideon and, no longer a chicken-whiner, he blew the trumpet and sent messengers to gather an army. Men showed up to fight from all over the region.

“Now Gideon is not quite there yet. He asks the LORD for some more signs in verses 36 through 40. And we’ll talk more about that as a prelude to Chapter 7 next week.

“One last thing I want to go back to. I kind of skipped over verse 11. Flip back to that and let’s read the first part of that verse. ‘Now the Angel of the LORD came and sat under the terebinth tree’. That’s an oak tree. Did you get that, though? We’ve talked a lot today about hanging out with Jesus, but are you too busy? Could Jesus be sitting, waiting, wishing that you’d come sit with Him in the shade and, because you are too busy running here and there, you don’t even notice Him? Ouch. Think about that this week.

Judges 7 - Go!