Lessons From Gideon

Thank you again, Mr. Call. It just occurred to me I made a reference to my wife Sue being at home. Some of you might be wondering, she just came down with a cold this week and nothing real bad, but you know when it just, you got the sniffles and you don't feel good, and I understand I think Bill Heltabrand has about the same thing. I hope there aren't too many more that have that. It's interesting, well, I'm not going to get it sidetracked and tell you all about our health of our family. Instead, let's go into that sermon that I've been working on for, it seems, forever. You know, the Bible is full of a lot of interesting people. And surely we can learn lessons from just about all of them. There are some of them we look at and talk about a lot. How many times do we refer to Abraham? Of course we talk about Jesus Christ. We refer to Peter, and so on. And there are some that just come up once every now and then that we don't talk a whole lot about. And today I want to consider lessons from a life, the life of a man whose name is pretty familiar, but I wonder if we know him very well. The person I'm thinking about is Gideon. Gideon is listed in Hebrews 11, and you can start turning there if you like. I just want to read one scripture from Hebrews 11, and then we'll be heading back to the book of Judges.

Hebrews 11 is the faith chapter. It lists many notable characters from the Old Testament who did great things. It talks about Abel and Enoch, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, even Rahab. Then in Hebrews 11 and verse 32, the writer, who we believe was probably the Apostle Paul, starts feeling like he's running short of time or realizing he could go on and on writing about all these people. And he says, What more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, and also of Samuel and of prophets.

I don't want to focus in on David and Samuel and the prophets, but it's interesting there's a grouping here of four men from the book of Judges. Each of them did great things. He did bring them up in the faith chapter. They each demonstrated tremendous faith, but it strikes me as interesting that each one of them also had some notable flaws and things that we could look at.

Now, it almost made me wonder, is that the reason he didn't have time to talk about them, or was it just that he'd been going on? As you notice, it's a long chapter. I don't know, but I do know I'm not going to take the time to discuss all four of them today. Maybe I'll come back and revisit the other two later. But I want to take a look at the first one. Gideon has long been one of my favorite people to study in the Bible, probably for the same reasons that I decided I wanted to study military history when I went to graduate school. Battles are interesting and tactics.

But I believe his life provides some examples for us in ways that we don't often consider.

We can learn lessons mostly good from him. I'll point out one or two that weren't so good.

But first, I want to set the stage for the world Gideon lived in. I think it's quite interesting. If you want to go back to Judges 6 is where we'll start. I'm going to make reference, though, to Judges 11 without turning there, because we know Gideon's life occurred during the period that we call the time of the Judges. That is, after the children of Israel came in under the leadership of Joshua, they conquered the Promised Land. But they hadn't driven out all of the nations.

They conquered them, put them to tribute, but they left some pockets. And then later, God would use some of those peoples to test them. They would come into trouble. Now, I was going to make reference to Jephthah, because in Judges 11, I'm not going to go read there, but Jephthah was having negotiations with, if I remember correctly, the people of Ammon, because they were coming against them. And he wrote a message saying, why are you coming here to fight us? They made the point that Israel had taken their land. Jephthah wrote back and said, no, we didn't take your land. We took the, not the Ammonites, the Amorites' land. But one of the things he says is, you know, even so, why have 300 years gone by, and you haven't tried to take it back? So from that, we get the feeling that Jephthah's time was about 300 years after the children of Israel ended their wandering, you know, 40 years. So I'm saying that with a little hesitancy, because scholars have looked at the book of Judges and not always been exactly sure how much time passes, because we think some of them might have overlapped, and some of the chronology isn't as clear as we wish it were.

But if Jephthah's writing is correct, and he followed Gideon, and followed the time of peace during Gideon's time judging Israel, you know, Jephthah was probably about 40 to 70 years after Gideon. So that leads me to think Gideon was a young man about 200 to 250 years after Israel entered the Promised Land. Now, as I said, we're going to meet Gideon in chapter 6, but before reading there, I'll just tell you Gideon followed the story of Berak and Deborah. Deborah is the one that's the most famous. She was a prophetess. We don't hear a lot about those, but remember, God inspired Deborah to go get Berak and say, you've got to be the general fight off, you know, the bad guys. And after their time, there was peace for 40 years.

But then that peace ended, the many nights started invading the land.

So Gideon lived in a time when there had been peace and prosperity in a well-established country, but now times weren't so good. The reason I'm spending so much time explaining that is it occurred to me there's a parallel to our time now. Now in the United States, where 237 years passed when the United States declared its independence and won it from Great Britain, now Gideon lived maybe 250 years after the Israel entered the Promised Land. Okay, Gideon lived, you know, or he came to maturity about 60 years.

Oh, wait, I'm getting these backwards. We in this country, about 60 years ago, experienced a major challenge, World War II. We won that challenge and then followed a time of great peace and prosperity. I asked some of the older members in the congregation how wonderful those times were.

But things haven't been so good since then.

Just as Gideon might have been looking at thinking, well, things were great after Barak's victory, but things don't look so great here. You know, for today's young adults, the United States, the period that we speak of in the 50s and 60s might seem kind of fanciful, as much as the stories sounded to Gideon of Israel having those great miracles worked to bring them out of Egypt and go through the Red Sea. Let me say it more clearly. If I were to talk to a 20-year-old and say, America is a bastion of freedom. We're the defender of democracy and Christianity.

The 20-year-old might say, oh, yeah? That might have been true back in the days of Washington or Lincoln, maybe even Roosevelt. But nowadays, we've got the NSA spying on us. We've got atheist groups squelching any public support of Christianity. And our government seems to be making deals with enemy nations, letting them develop nuclear weapons and plan to harm us.

I wanted to say, you know, that's theoretically what someone could say. And now let's read Judges 6 and verse 13 to see that Gideon thought of that similar thought in his time.

Oh, did I say? Yeah, Judges. Sorry, I'm in Joshua. No wonder it didn't look right.

Judges 6 and verse 13, a messenger told Gideon he was going to free Israel, you know, man of valor. Gideon said, oh, my Lord, if the eternal was with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all of his miracles, which our fathers told us about? Didn't the eternal bring us up from Egypt? Now the Lord has forsaken us. He's delivered us into the hand of the Midianites.

As I said, I want to consider Gideon's place in society before he examined his actual words and his calling. But we can see this. He grew up in a country where times had been good.

Now they weren't so good. That country was losing its wealth. It lost its power.

Now that shouldn't surprise us. We might be pretty familiar with the decline of Israel. If you look in verse 1 of that chapter, it clearly says, the children of Israel did evil on the side of the eternal, so he delivered them in the hand of the Midianites. They did evil, and they suffered for it. Over to verse 10, God sent prophets to warn them. In this case, a prophet speaking and saying the words of the Almighty God, he said, I said to you, I'm the eternal your God. Do not fear the gods of the Amorites and whose land you dwell, but you have not obeyed my voice.

As I said, it had been a great nation. It had followed God, but they wandered away from that.

And looking at Gideon's life, we can see a clear example of perhaps the religious confusion.

We just read his words. He knew about the true God. He'd heard the stories of the miracles and bringing Israel out of Egypt, and he knew there had been prosperity before that. But think about the household he grew up in. If you look over to verse 25, when God gave him instructions later, it says, it came to pass that night. The eternal said to him, take your father's young bull, the second one of seven years old, tear down the altar of Baal that your father has, and cut down the wooden image beside it. Gideon grew up in a household where they had an idol. And actually, the Hebrew word that's translated wooden image is asherah, and scholars believe it's the name of a goddess the same as Ishtar or Astarte. So apparently, there are these two idols in Gideon's household. Interesting mixture. You know, today we might call it multiculturalism. Oh, this religion's as good as that one. Let's bring them all in. We don't know for sure how much Gideon's father, whose name was Joash, if he was devoted to the worship of Baal or not, but he obviously put up with it. And the people of the village obviously were devoted to it. Down in verse 30, after the altar was torn down, the men of the city said to Joash, bring out your son that he may die. He's torn down the altar of Baal. He's cut down the wooden image. So they didn't want Baal worship ended. They wanted to protect that. That's where it reminds me of multiculturalism today. You know, people get upset if there are any obstacles put out there publicly to teaching Islam or Buddhism, Hinduism, even Wicca. Don't seem to be as many preservations to protect Christianity. Well, let's leave that for now. There's another way that Gideon's situation, I think, was similar to that that especially young adults would see in America. And I'm not picking on young adults. I'm just saying things have changed quite a bit in the last two or three decades, and you have to study history to see how much it's changed. But Gideon lived in a time of economic hardship, and it hadn't always been that way. Back up to chapter 6 in verse 2, we've been referring to the Midianites. Let's set the stage here.

The hand of Midian prevailed against Israel. Because of the Midianites, the children of Israel made themselves dens, the dens, the caves, and the strongholds, which are in the mountains.

So it was whenever Israel had sown, they put out their crops, the Midianites would come up, also the Amalekites, the peoples of the east would come up against them. 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 or donkey. They would come up with their livestock, their tents, coming in as numerous as locusts. Both they and their camels were without number. They would enter the land to destroy it. So Israel was greatly impoverished because of the Midianites. So Israel had been rich now because of forces outside of their control. They're being impoverished.

A lot of our people today feel like they're impoverished by forces outside of their control.

Now, we don't have Midianites coming in with their camels and eating up our crops, but some people might say, you know, I don't have Midianites taking my livestock and my crop, but I've got Chinese and Indonesians taking my job. And I don't mean any fault against Chinese and Indonesians. They're happy to have jobs. But, you know, manufacturing jobs have been taken away from this country by forces outside of people's control. And they say, government is going to be a problem. Government bureaucrats are making policies that severely tax our incomes, so we don't have as much as we thought we had. And their policies changing the monetary system seem to be making our savings accounts melt away. You know, inflation is making the money that we do save worth much less. So I think many people could relate to Gideon's situation. And he felt insignificant and poor. Let's read in verse 15. And I'm breaking in on the thought. And, of course, I've come back and picked up the narrative for Gideon, but I wanted to, like I said, set the stage of the environment he lived in. He said to him, Oh, my Lord, how can I save Israel? Dude, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh. I'm leased in my father's house.

You know, Gideon was saying, I'm nobody, and I don't have much money. I'm poor and not much.

However, when Gideon did act and tear down that altar, let's look in verse 27.

Gideon took ten men from among his servants and did as the Lord had said to him.

There's where I wonder. It's like, okay, I'm poor. I'm leased in my father's house. But he's got ten servants. Now, some people might say employees nowadays. But you can see the perspective. And it's funny, after I'd written out my notes, it occurred to me, I knew something was in my mind making me think of this. And I remembered one of my favorite movies that I've referred to in the past, the Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, it was Kevin Costner, where he doesn't have a British accent. But there's this one scene where they're traveling. I can't remember where they're going, but they've got to get through Sherwood Forest. And he gets tripped by a rope trying to cross the river, and they come out, you know, they're going to tax him. And he says, oh, I can't give you anything. I'm poor. One of them says, a man who travels with two servants and says he's poor is either a fool or a liar. I might not have the words exactly right, I didn't get the video out, but they say, yeah, he's a liar. You know, he's got two servants, how can he be poor? And we might look at Gideon and say, you got 10 servants, how poor are you? And maybe some of that's relative. You know, here in America, some of us might say, yeah, I've only got two suits. My car is seven or eight years old, man, I'm poor. If we were speaking to someone from Bangladesh, he might say, you've got two chains of clothing, and you own your own car? Boy, are you rich! So, as I said, it's a time of mixed feelings.

The Israel of Gideon's time was much less wealthy than it had been, but they hadn't lost all their power, as we're going to see. We can also determine that Gideon and his family must have been pretty healthy. They were pretty well off, and I'm going to gather that from what some outsider said about them. Over in chapter 8, now, we already mentioned Gideon, we saw that Gideon is from the tribe of Manasseh. 8 and verse 18 is where I'm going to read. The tribe of Manasseh, we believe, is the people that most white Americans are descended from. So Gideon was of the same ethnic stock as we are. And as I said, he must have been pretty healthy, and even God had a lot of people, pretty healthy, and even good looking. Because after he runs down these princes of Midian, and he questions them, he says to Zeba and Zalmuna, what kind of men were they whom you killed at Tabor? What did these men look like? And they said, well, as you were, as you are, so were they. They resembled the son of a king. And he said, well, they were my brothers, the son of my mother. And then he said, basically, if you hadn't killed them, I might let you live.

And they said, these princes, they look like the son of a king. They were good looking, healthy, probably tall. And before I comment, I'll mention also, we don't know for sure how old Gideon was, but I suspect that he was, and he was still a fairly young adult maturity, because the next thing we read is, he speaks to his oldest son. He says to Jethr, his firstborn, rise and kill them. And remember, he just told the guys, if you'd let my brothers live, I wouldn't kill you. But they did kill him. So he wants to give that honor to his oldest son. But the youth would not draw a sword. Why? He was afraid he was still a youth.

How old was Gideon's oldest son at this time? It doesn't tell us, but he was old enough to be there, traveled with the army, old enough to have a sword. But young enough that the idea of drawing that sword and killing somebody, he just couldn't do it. I'm guessing maybe he was a young teenager.

13, 14, maybe 10 or 11. You know, kids had to grow up early back then. For some reason, he's not here for me to pick on, but I envision what Ethan Call would look like. You know, I could see him wanting to go out and follow his dad, you know, with the army, but then kill these guys. I don't know about that. Now, Ethan is Kevin's youngest. Imagine he was his oldest, so Kevin would have been 10 years younger or so. Now, that would be maybe about Gideon. Or I think of, you know, maybe Stephen Warren or John McKinney. We think Gideon might have looked like one of them. Pretty healthy, young, strong, you know, on the prime of life. I'm not trying to pick on you, fellas. Just to give an envision of what Gideon might have been like at that time.

But unlike some of the fellas I'm referring to, Gideon didn't grow up in the church.

You know, he grew up in this multicultural society, alder of Baal, stories about God working miracles in Egypt. He'd been exposed to some of God's standards. You know, he knew some of those things, like young people out there today, who they sort of know some of what should be right and wrong, but at the same time have been overwhelmed by other forces, by other religions, by situational ethics. In a world like that, the true God could seem like a myth or a folk tale. And the true religion, just one of many. So, when such a person is called by God, he's got some choices to make. He's got to work his way through, build his faith, step by step. And that's some of the things I want to look at with Gideon. Now, seeing the world that he lived in, let's look at his calling and see how that might relate to people today being called out of this world, or even growing up in the church and having that calling and trying to decide how to respond to it. So, let's take a look. We're going to go back to chapter 6. And now, I do want to look at the story of God calling Gideon very directly and personally. In verse 11, Now the angel of the eternal came and sat under a terribitry, which was an ophra which belongs to Joaz the Eviezrite. Now, it's interesting, it says this angel came, and later on we'll read that he had a staff. So, apparently, this was a person that looked like a traveling man who stopped and rested under this tree. And Gideon, while the son of Joash, that is, threshed wheat in the wine press in order to hide it from the Midianites. Obviously, that's not a normal way to thresh wheat. You thresh wheat in a threshing floor, not in a wine press. But he was doing, he was hiding, he didn't want the Midianites to see him come and take it away. And so we read the first words here. Verse 12, the angel of the eternal appeared to him. So, I don't know if he just appeared out of nowhere. He's not sitting under the tree. Or did he get up from the tree and walk over to where Gideon was? Either way, when he saw him, he said, the Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor. And I question that because I'm not sure which way to say it. Because it was he saying, you're a mighty man of valor! Look at you out here! Nobody else is threshing wheat. They're all cowering in the dens and the caves. Or was he saying, you mighty man of valor! Look at you hiding out! You know, how come you're not out there threshing floor? I don't know which, you know, I really don't have a suggestion. Whichever one suits you the best. I like to think, I guess because I like sarcastic humor, I tend to think the angels being a little sarcastic. Yes, I'm mighty man of valor. But as I said, nobody else was out there, apparently. And Gideon was saying, okay, there are many knights wanting to take our stuff away, but I'm gonna feed my family. He's out there working. Maybe he was more valorous and more mighty than I want to give him credit for.

Okay, then Gideon gives that response that we read earlier. Oh my lord! Now notice, that's Lord, small l-o-r-d, that's the word adonai. I'm gonna make a reference to that later. If the eternal is with us, why has all this happened? Where are all his miracles, which our fathers told about us, saying, didn't the eternal bring us up out of Egypt? But now the eternal has forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites. Then the eternal turned to him and said, go in this might of yours, and you shall save Israel from the hand of Midianites. Haven't I sent you? Now, yeah, this opens up a big question I was looking for in my notes. I said this.

Who was this speaking to Midian? Because we read earlier it was an angel, but then it says, the Lord turned and spoke to him. Was this an angel, a created being? Or some scholars say, this was the one that in John 1.1 is called the Word, the pre-incarnate Jesus, the logos who had always been with the Father, but was materializing and showing himself to Gideon. Well, scholars and commentaries have expressed different opinions, and I can't prove either one absolutely. We do know that the one known as the Word is sometimes referred to as an angel. In the Hebrew, angel is translated from the word malak, which means messenger. Malachi 3 verse 1, I'm not going to turn there, but that calls the Messiah specifically the messenger or the malak of the covenant.

So the one who became Christ is there, and in one or two other places referred to as an angel.

And that would fit with where it says in verse 14, the eternal turned and told him, go in this might of yours. But there's an argument that, you know, it was just a created angel. I shouldn't say just because angels are pretty impressive on their own. One is that it does say angel. It didn't say God appeared to him. And when I read this, I wonder if it had been the word, would he have told Gideon, take off your shoes? He told Moses to take off his shoes when he saw him, and he did the same for Joshua later when he appeared to him. And as I said, Gideon referred to him as Lord Adonai. He didn't call him the eternal, the YHWH. Adonai could be translated sir or, you know, mister. Well, I wanted to point out both sides of this argument and state my belief that it's okay to not be sure. I'm okay looking at both and saying, well, it could have been one or could have been the other. One of the main reasons I wanted to bring it up is I want to propose another interpretation that it's not one or the other, but perhaps both. How could it be both? Well, what I'm thinking is perhaps, and there's a reason I want to bring this out, what if there was a created angel that appeared, had the staff in his hand, and spoke to Gideon, but then also God started speaking to him. You know, maybe while the angel was still there, he's talking to him and then he hears this voice. You know, is that too far-fetched? It didn't seem too far-fetched for me. The reason I wanted to propose this, as I said, I'll point out, but we know that Gideon wasn't sure. He brought a meal offering, it says. It says, wait here, I'm going to go get something for you. He brought a meal offering, not a burnt offering. The meal offering is the meat cooked, and it says he brought the broth. So if this is just a guy traveling, I'm going to bring him cooked food that he can eat. But if it's God, then, you know, maybe, as I said, Gideon wasn't sure. We know what happened in verse 21. It says, the angel of the Eternal put the end of his staff that was in his hand, and touched the meat and the unleavened bread. Fire rose up out of the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened bread. And then the angel of the Eternal departed out of sight. So he works this miracle, you brought me this food, set it down there on the rock. Now let me touch it with my staff, and that would make you jump back, right? And then what's Gideon's reaction? And then the guy disappears, and Gideon perceived that it was an angel. Now I know, that wasn't just some dude traveling, that was an angel of the Lord. And he says, alas, oh Lord God, for I've seen the angel of the Eternal face to face. Then something interesting happens. Somebody speaks to him, maybe the same voice he heard earlier. The Eternal said to him, peace be with you, do not fear, you shall not die. Or to put it in the vernacular, could have said, calm down, you're not going to die.

You know, because you'd be pretty afraid, you saw that, you worked a miracle, he's gone, you know, God's going to strike me dead. No, no, be calm, you're not going to die. At that point, who said that? It doesn't say that he did that, but we do know throughout the rest of the story, several times God spoke to Gideon, and there's no doubt who it was. It says the Eternal spoke to him.

And I'm pretty sure because of the detail of the directions that are given to him, it wasn't just, you know, sometimes in Acts, the book of Acts, the Apostle Paul would say, the Spirit, you know, let us to go here. You know, sometimes you think God just gave them a feel and they need to do something.

But no, there's their specific words and instructions. So God was speaking later to Gideon, and I've always wondered, did he just project the voice into his head? So he heard it as though he was hearing it, but nobody else knew? Or was it a voice? And if somebody's standing by, those 10 servants, maybe they were looking around and going, who's that talking to you, Gideon? That's the Lord. He talks to me all the time. Now, there's no humor built into the story, but it's hard not, hard to resist sometimes. Okay. How much easier would it be for us if God spoke directly to us?

Do you ever say, I wish God would tell me. It's like, okay, don't apply for that job. Apply for this one. You know, or don't go out with that person. Go out with this one. Do this. You know, we'd like to have that sometimes. But then again, we think Gideon didn't have the Bible. You know, if God started speaking to us, we would have a context to put it in. We know him pretty well. But as I said, Gideon didn't grow up in the church. He grew up in this multicultural society where he had an altar of Baal and some wooden idol also in his house, and who knows what other religions are around. So God had to lead him step by step to get to know him a little better.

So here's where I want to draw a proposal for why I'm suggesting perhaps the angel spoke to him, and then he heard the direct voice of God. The parallel I want to make is that especially young people, but it doesn't have to be young people. It could be someone who is young in the truth.

We have some of those. You know, they haven't been with us a long time. They have messengers of God speaking to them, especially if you're teenagers or young adults. You have your parents who have been speaking to you and saying, God wants you to do this. God wants you to do that. That's why we do that with Connor. And it's interesting how he's starting to learn. I'm trying to remember what it was because, you know, Sue is especially good with telling him, that breaks one of the commandments. You can't do that. And I think we corrected him for something, and he was basically saying, you can't correct me. That's not worshiping God, because we've told him some things we don't want him to do are not worshiping God. You know, he's picking up on that. Well, as I said, our people have gods. They have their parents. They have ministers. They have booklets and programs from the church. You know, like perhaps an angel came and spoke to Gideon, but those people also have access to the direct and unfiltered Word of God right here in the Bible, which Gideon didn't have.

You know, back then there were a few scrolls that only the priests and Levites had, but we have it.

So we have the direct words of God. Now, I remember it's been a long time, but Herbert Armstrong used to sometimes say that he'd been trained by Jesus Christ because the Bible is Jesus Christ in print, and the apostles had Jesus Christ in the flesh. I kind of like that idea.

When this happens, you know, a person can listen to God's words direct and unfiltered. They have people like me or their parents telling them, God wants you to do this, doesn't want to do that, but then they can read God's words. God is speaking to me. And when that happens, like Gideon, they find that they're instructed to do something. They learn that they have a destiny, a great high calling, and it's a calling and a destiny greater than they might have ever dreamed of before. And it might be a calling and a destiny that they think they could never measure up to.

And that was Gideon's first reaction also. Let's read in verse 15. I'm still in Judges chapter 6.

Remember, he's told you're going to go deliver Israel from the midnights. Gideon said, how can I save Israel? You know, my clan is the weakest of Manasseh. I'm the least of my fathers. Who am I to do this? When we first realize God's calling, we might say, who am I?

How can I possibly have a special calling to be in God's family? You know, me, a king or a priest? No, that's a pretty normal reaction. If you remember when God did appear to Moses, remember, in that bush and told him to take off his sandals, you know, when he told him, I'm going to send you to Pharaoh, Moses said, who am I? Who am I that I should leave the children of Israel out of Egypt?

And that reminds me also, I'm not going to turn to Psalm 8, but we're familiar with David said, what is man that you're mindful of him? I think anybody, when they first come in contact with God's plan and purpose, it's natural to have that feeling. Who am I? God made all this, he's all powerful, and he's calling me? And imagine Gideon said, God sent an angel specifically to me.

Well, we also, we know John 6 44, where Jesus said, no one can come to me unless the Father draws him. If you're here, it's because the Father called you. He spoke your name and said, okay, I want that one. And when you realize that, you probably go, really? Me? Who am I that I should do this?

You know, when Gideon told he was going to defeat the Midianites, he said, that's impossible.

When we are first learning that we're to become a spirit-born child of God, that might seem like fantasy. But we have to face it, you know, it'll become real to us. And then, like Gideon, before we can move on to that, we have to take immediate action. We have to make changes in our life right then and there. We have to abandon whatever false religion we had. We have to turn our backs on a mixture of some good with a lot of bad and devote ourselves now entirely to worshiping this God who has called us. Gideon did that. In verse 24, this is right after the calling, after, you know, the fire came out of the rock, and God told him, calm down, you're not going to die. So in verse 24, he says, so Gideon built an altar there to the eternal. So I'm going to worship this God. He built an altar to the eternal. He called it, the Lord is peace. Yahweh shalom. I believe it is in Hebrew. To this day, it's still an ophra of the Abbezrites. I'm not sure when the book of judges was written down, but that altar must have stayed there for a while. So Gideon made changes right then and there. He started worshiping God, but in his household, there was still worship of idolatry. There was still false worship and idolatry. And God showed Gideon that, okay, the next step is you've got to publicly break from this false worship. If we go to verse 25, now it came to pass the same night. The eternal said to him, take your father's young bull, the second bull of seven years old, and tear down the altar of Baal that your father has. Cut down that wooden image that's beside it and build an altar to the eternal. To the eternal your God, on top of this rock, in the proper arrangement, take the second bull and offer a burnt sacrifice with the wood of the image. So cut down that wooden idol and burn it to offer a sacrifice to me. That's pretty bold. I might make a comparison of that to a person today who's beginning to learn God's way. He starts to pray, he starts to study, he starts keeping the Sabbath, and then it hits him.

You can't just worship God a little bit on the side while still allowing this prominent false worship to be a part of your life. I imagine, as I said, I'm guessing Gideon maybe was in his early 30s. Imagine a man who's 32 years old today who comes in contact with the true church, starts keeping the Sabbath, not breaking God's laws and such, and maybe he starts slipping away on Saturday mornings to go attend services somewhere without telling anybody in his family. But as he learns and learns, then at some point he realizes, I can't just sneak away on Saturday mornings. I'm going to have to go home and take down that Christmas tree that's in my living room.

I'm not sure if that's a good comparison, but it seemed that way to me for Gideon.

Sometimes, even if you start worshiping God in secret, your obedience is going to have to come out into the open. Some of you might have had experiences like this, and it can be pretty scary.

Gideon eventually grew into a man of great boldness and bravery, but he started his relationship with God a little bit surreptitiously. As it's surreptitiously, secretly. So we read in verse 27, God gave him these instructions, so Gideon took ten men from among his servants, and did as the eternal had said to him, but because he feared his father's household and the men of the city, too much to do it by day, he did it by night. And when the men of the city rose early in the morning, there was the altar of Baal torn down. The wooden image that was beside it was cut down, and the second bowl was offered on the altar which had been built. Perhaps this is like that man, who, as I said, he's been keeping the Sabbath and honoring God, and he's convicted that he needs to take down the Christmas tree and the lights, but he waits until his wife and children are asleep.

And then he sneaks down the living room and takes them down, and he makes sure he's not there in the morning when they come down and see it. Because that's what we see in verse 29.

So as I said, the men of the city woke up and saw this, and they said, who's done this? When they inquired, somebody knew, and they said, it's Gideon, the son of Joash has done this thing. So the men of the city, they came to Gideon's dad. We don't know where Gideon is. Is he hiding out in the back room where he's split down? But they come to Joash and say, bring out your son, that he may die because he's torn down the altar of Baal, and because he's cut down the wooden image that was beside it. As I said, we don't know where Gideon was, but it's interesting, you know, how devoted was Joash to worshiping of Baal? I don't know if he was much, but something, you know, perhaps he had the natural instinct of a father to protect his son, but he also looked at that and said, you know what? Baal didn't stop that. That wooden idol couldn't save itself. Maybe he had this flash. Those things aren't real, you know, because then he defended Gideon and said, Joash said to all who stood, would you plead for Baal? Are you going to save him? Let him let the one who would plead for him be put to death by morning. So don't try to kill Gideon, the one who's defending this false god. Let him be put to death. If he's a god, let him plead for himself because his altar's been torn down. Is this a god that needs people to go and protect him? No, he didn't stop it. Therefore, on that day he called him, that is Gideon, Jerubael, saying, let Baal plead against him because he's torn down his altar. It's interesting. Gideon acted at night, it says, because he was afraid of his own household, but now the head of that household is the one defending him. I think there's something to that. People called into God's church often are most concerned about what their families are going to say or think, but often those are the ones who understand the most. They really love them. They say, okay, they might even say, I don't understand this crazy stuff you're wanting to do, but I respect you and I'm going to stand by you. And sometimes God will even call them in. Now, God likes to work through families. He doesn't promise that he'll call our families, but often there's more of a chance of that than co-workers or friends. And, of course, I still wonder about this new name. He called him Jerubail. I'm not sure if that was a mark of affection or sort of making fun a little bit because let Baal plead doesn't roll off the tongue. Jerubail does a little bit more, but I thought, you know, in English there have been some names like that that do roll off the tongue and sound kind of impressive. If you've seen the movie Braveheart, one of my favorite movies, the King Edward Longshanks from the 12th century, you don't get that whole feel in the movie, but if you study history, he really conquered the Scottish nation and ruled it for many years. He had a nickname besides Longshanks. He was called the Hammer of the Scots. Boy, that's I'm the Hammer of the Scots. And nothing against Scott, you know, that means the Scottish people.

There's a fairy tale character named Jack the Giant Killer. You know, so maybe that's the impression that we want to give Gideon is now, you know, let Baal plead. I thought maybe a better way we might have called him. He's Baal's prosecutor. Doesn't that sounds more like, you know, perhaps what he wanted. But even if it wasn't meant to be complementary, you know, we all sometimes when we come into the truth, people get names attached to them. I still have memories, fellow I-I-I-I worked with when I was a student in Big Sandy. I worked at the water plant. I was the only student worker. And there was a fellow who was 10 years or so older than me, who was a full-time employee. And he told me about when his mother first came into the church when he was a kid, was back when the corporate name was the Radio Church of God. So he said the kids in his neighborhood started calling he and his brother radars. He was like, are you a radar? You go to that radar, Church of God. And we've had that. Have you ever been called a Jew wannabe? Because you keep the Sabbath. People call you a cracker eater if they see what you packed for lunch during the days of Unleavened Bread. Or young people might be called goody goods or Puritans because they obey God's laws about sex and marriage. Now, I don't know if Gideon liked being called Jerubail, but I know he didn't let names deter him. Maybe he took it on as a badge of honor. He's referred to as Jerubail several times in Scripture later. Hopefully all of us would be the same. People want to call you funny names? That's okay. As long as I'm close to God, I can put up with a funny name from people. So I want to pause here. I'm going to shift gears because we've covered... Now, Gideon's had this calling. We might tend to read through this whole chapter and think all these things happen boom, boom, boom, one after the other. Now, we do know right after, you know, he saw that miracle and God told him, don't worry, you're not going to die. It was that same night that he told him, okay, go tear down the altar. But then we read in verse 33 what's going to happen after all this exchange. Then all the Midianites and the Amalekites and the people of the east gathered together. They crossed over and encamped the valley of Jezreel. Now, we might tend to think, okay, Gideon did that. Now it's the next day he's got to fight the Midianites. But that word then that might encompass some time. I mean, remember they didn't have automobiles and interstate highways. How long does it take the Midianites and the Amalekites and the people of east to gather together and then come marching into Israel? Not necessarily a long time, but it could have taken days or weeks, maybe even months. You know, that velocity of narrative here, you know, throughout, there's places in the Bible the velocity speeds up and slows down, and I think it might have speeded up a lot there. I want to imagine Gideon had some time to settle into his new way of life, and for people to observe him, hey, he's living a different life now. He's acting differently.

Because those people that make fun of him at first, people that make fun of us at first when we change our life, can sometimes then begin to build a respect for you. Hey, you know, I make fun of him, but there's something going on there that's good. It might have been a period of days or weeks, possibly months. I would be almost certain it couldn't have been as much as a year, because it seems like this invasion happened on an annual basis around the crops. But Gideon probably had time to develop this new relationship with God somewhat, and yeah, I think that's common.

Generally, that happens with us. If someone's called into God's Church, they get a period, you know, even if they have great leadership ability and potential, there's usually some time to get acclimated and practiced before suddenly you're thrust into a new role. You know, you don't get baptized, and then next week you're up here giving a sermonette. Although some people might have that capability, you know, but like I said, we like a little time. Even the Apostle Paul, you know, the Apostle Paul was called personally by Jesus Christ, and boy, was he well qualified.

But you're... I'm not going to turn to the book of Acts. You remember there's this big ruckus. All that guy that used to persecute us is now in the Church, and things settle down, and what did they do? Well, Paul had been told that he's going to be a witness, you know, before the children of Israel, before nations and kings, but before that happened he was sent back home to Tarsus, and he probably spent a couple of years making tents, practicing, you know, living the right way. And then, and by then in Acts chapter 9 is when Barnabas goes and gets him to say, hey, I need some help over here in Antioch, then he gets him and brings him in, and Paul starts taking a leadership role. So I'm saying Gideon probably had some time to settle in, build up what he was doing, build some faith and knowledge, and as I said also, for people to see the difference. Because here's where I want to pick up in verse 34. You know, the Midianites and the Amalekites and the people of the east invade the land, and the Spirit of the Eternal came upon Gideon, and he blew the trumpet, and the Abbe-Esrites gathered behind him, and he sent messages throughout all Manasseh who also gathered behind him, and he sent messengers to Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali, and they came up to meet him. Now, I question, this is sort of a side issue, it says the Spirit of the Lord came on him. I don't know if Gideon had the Holy Spirit in him, the way we do when we're baptized and have hands laid on him. That might be exactly what this means, or it might mean God was guiding him by a spirit. But what we do know is the men of his own town, when he blew the trumpet, and this is somewhat symbolically, he probably did blow an actual trumpet, but he had to send messengers saying, we're going to go fight these guys. And the ones who had been calling for him to be killed now gathered behind him. They respected him now. That's one of the reasons I think there must have been a little bit of time, but they said, this guy, we respect him. That's another aspect of making a firm commitment to living God's way that can happen to people today, especially among young adults. Young people that you know from school or from work, they see a world of relativism and people who don't really stand for something, wishy-washy standards. And so they might see a true Christian, and at party time they make fun of those goody-goods. You know, they won't smoke a little weed, they won't sleep around, you know, in corrals and have fun. But when there's a time of crisis, that's a person who stands for something. I want to be with that person. That's what happens a lot of times. You know, suddenly they see a Christian as a symbol of strength and firmness, someone who could take the lead. And I'm saying young adults, it doesn't have to be young, it can be older people. People tend to want to follow someone who's confident of the way to go. They know what's right.

That was Gideon then. It could be any of us now.

However, just as a Christian in society today might waver in the face of a severe trial or test, Gideon waivered. You know, however confident and strongly appeared outwardly, he needed some reassurance from God. And following the story, we see he needed that reassurance, so he asked for it.

Let's read in verse 36. All these men gathered behind him, so Gideon said to God, If you'll save Israel by my hand, as you've said, now look, I'm going to put a fleece of wool on the threshing floor. And he's referring to mourning. If there is dew on the fleece only, and it's dry on the ground, then I'll know that you'll save Israel by my hand, as you've said. And it was so. He arose early the next morning. He squeezed the fleece out. He wrung a whole bowl full of water out of the fleece. Now, some people have read this and commented, well, Gideon, boy, he was lacking faith. He had to ask God to work some miracle just to do what he said. But I would note, Gideon didn't say, well, God, if you really exist, or God, if you really want me to keep the Ten Commandments, no, he took those things for granted. He knew God existed. He was confident of his way of life, but he was saying, if you want me to go to fight the enemy, you know, do an impossible task, then could you show me for sure that you're working with me? And, you know, so he was put in a position unlike any that any of us are likely to experience. But I would say asking God for reassurance before you risk your life or take on a life-changing decision, that's not a bad thing to ask God to show you. Now, God doesn't often work blatant miracles for us. I'm not going to say that he wouldn't. And we've seen God does sometimes work miraculous healings. He might protect us from harm from enemies. But I'd like to remind all of us of, I think, the most amazing miracle that God does work. And we tend to forget that God is working a transformation in our lives. When the Holy Spirit comes in you and you start becoming a different person, that's a miracle. He makes us into new people. That's a miracle that's happening every day. But still, you know, sometimes even when we see our miracle, we reason it away. It's easy to say, well, that wasn't a miracle. It was this or that. And Gideon did that. And I was thinking people say, you know, the wonder of creation around us. If you just look, you know, walk out in the woods sometime and look at things and, you know, he's, wow, it's a miracle. But other people look at it, no, it was evolution. There was a big bang and time and chance and that brought all this about. Well, apparently, even after God had given Gideon exactly what he asked for, he said, let it be dry everywhere but on this fleece, then he started thinking, hmm, well, you know what? A fleece will soak up water. What if God didn't work a miracle? What if it was just a natural absorbency? There was water and it all, the fleece sucked it up. You know, I don't want to go out and fight those Midianites and find out that I was just thinking it was a miracle. So the only way to be sure is ask God to do it the other way around. And he does in verse 39. Gideon says to God, don't be angry with me. Let me speak just one more time. Let me test. I pray just once more with the fleece. Now, if you would, let it be dry on the fleece, but on the ground let there be dew. So then I'll know because the fleece would naturally soak up the water. But if you make the fleece miraculously stay dry while there's water all around, and God did so that night. It was dry on the fleece only, but there was a dew all around. I'm guessing he made it a real heavy dew. Probably got his feet, his shoes, and the socks all wet.

Now, of course, I'm not suggesting that we go around demanding that God work miracles to show us what to do all the time. But we should feel comfortable asking God to show us. God, please, you know, I'm thinking of this or that, or there's a multitude of choices. Can you give me some guidance? You know, show me what I need to do. Let me make a reference if you want to jot down. Philippians 4, verse 6, Paul writes, Be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your request be known to God. Let your request be made known. Don't hesitate to ask God.

Even if it's, okay, God, I asked you to do this, and then I realized it might have happened naturally, could you do something the other way? You know, don't try God's patience. Now, He's got infinite patience, but He also knows when we're just delaying because we're afraid to take something on.

But God knows sometimes what we have to do is scary. I don't think He gets angry with us sometimes when we do ask Him for reassurance. But He requires us to overcome our fears and doubts.

And that's another thing we can see from the story of Gideon, that God anticipated some of Gideon's fears and in advance planned to help Him over those. Sometimes that reassurance you need comes from unexpected sources. If we go to chapter 7 and verse 9, I'm going to skip past the whole whittling the army down to just 300 because we've heard about that a lot of times. This is a story that amazes me. This is after we're down to the 300 people that are going to go fight the Midianites. It happens the same night. The Eternal said to Him, that's Gideon, arise, go down and against the camp, for I've delivered it into your hand. I've read over that sometimes and didn't realize God is saying, go fight them. Now is the time. Go, you know, I'm not going to whittle it down anymore. But then He says, but, in verse 10, but if you're afraid to go down, meaning if you're afraid to go down to the battle, you go down to the camp with Pura, your servant. So instead of taking the 300 men, just you and your servant go down and you'll hear what they say. Go down and listen to what they're talking about and afterwards your hand will be strengthened to go down against the camp. So He went down with Pura's servant to the outpost at the armed men at the camp.

So, you know, God is ready to miraculously defeat the enemy, but He realizes Gideon's kind of afraid. You know, I'm asking him to take 300 men and fight. Now I'm trying to think it's, uh, I had the numbers in my head.

It's like 120,000. Maybe it's not that many. The odds are like 10 to 1. It's, anyways, it's a big number. So He says, okay, go down there. When you hear this, you're going to be ready to fight them. So we'll read in verse 13 what He hears. Gideon had come down. There was a man telling a dream to his companion. He says, I've had a dream and surprise a loaf of barley bread tumbled into the camp.

It came to a tent and struck it so it fell and overturned and the tent collapsed. That's an unusual dream. You might remember that. And his companion says, he answers and said, that's nothing but the sword of Gideon, the son of Joash, a man of Israel. Into his hand, God has delivered Midian in the whole camp. And Gideon heard the telling of the dream of an interpretation and he worshipped God.

He said, thank you, Father. Now I know. And he returned to the camp. He said, let's get up and let's go get them. But just imagine that. These two guys are sitting here. They're not Israelites. I still wonder, how do they know even Gideon's name? One of them says, I had this weird dream last night. I was dreaming and this big loaf of bread rolled in and knocked down my tent. That's Gideon!

He's coming to kill us! Where do you interpret a loaf of bread hitting a tent into Gideon and God coming? Well, if God has planted that seed, then you have. And that's what God was showing Gideon. My dad said, where do you get that weird idea? I know where he got the weird idea. God put it there. God was showing Gideon, I'm going to take care of this.

God had already planted the fear in the mind of all those enemy soldiers. So that when, of course, and we're not going to read there, you know, they surrounded the enemy and he divides them up. He gives each man a torch with a pitcher over it, covering the fire and a trumpet. And all at once they break the torch, the light comes on, they blow the trumpet, they say, the sword of the Lord and Gideon!

And the guys are remembering that big loaf of bread, or whatever it is that's got them scared. And they run fighting and they kill each other off and the rest of them flee. As I said, God already knew how he was going to destroy the enemy army and that Gideon and his men weren't even going to have to fight.

But he wanted to let Gideon know you can be confident in this. And I think, likewise, God will do amazing and impossible things in our life and he won't ask us to do impossible things. But he will ask us to trust him that he can and will do impossible things.

And sometimes when we have doubts, God, I can't do it, he might give us reassurance from places we never would expect. You know, I've heard stories of young people and I fictionalized a couple accounts, but you know, I've heard of, you know, say young guys, say, in high school, getting around with their friends and somebody pulls out, you know, a marijuana cigarette, a joint, lights it up, pass it on.

He sees this young Christian, it's like, you can have a hit off this, but I know you don't do that. He says, you're right, I don't do that kind of thing. You know, I'm not gonna have any of that. He might even leave then. Or, you know, at a party, you know, some young guys talking about their sexual conquests and the girls they've been with and they see a young girl that they know is in the church and, well, I know that would never happen with you because you're saving yourself for marriage.

And she might say, thank you, yes, I am saving myself for marriage. As I said, I'm fictionalizing, but I've talked to people who've had similar things happen. And it doesn't only work in the negative. Sometimes, as I said, you know, someone's saying, I know you won't do that. Sometimes you get encouragement from a place you don't expect telling you, yes, you can do it.

I'll share a story of my own in this regard. Now, this is nothing like fighting an army, you know, an army of Midianites, but my second year that I was volunteering at SCP Scotland, you know, I went there a number of years, and the second year I wasn't a counselor. I was an activity staff. And you need to remember for this, those of you that haven't experienced camp back then, it was three weeks long. So we did evening activities a little bit different. And one of the activities they did is each dorm, one night of the week, would have Spokesman's Club. When I first heard that, I said, what? You're gonna have these teenagers do Spokesman's Club? You know, I was skeptical, but it really worked. That's why they did it year after year. They, you know, the, I say the men, the girls did it too, they would give two-minute speeches. They didn't ask too much of them. And the counselor and co-counselor would be the president and vice president of the club, and they would have a staff member come in and be the director. The reason I'm mentioning this is they handed out a list, you know, staff assignments, and I saw, here I am, 25 years old, just graduated from Ambassador College, and I'm assigned to be a director.

That can't be right. I didn't even need reading glasses back then. I gotta go talk to the camp director about this. I went to his office, and he wasn't there, but his secretary was.

And I said, are you sure this is right? Didn't you mean to have an older, more experienced guy?

She said, well, you graduated from club, didn't you? Well, yeah, I just did. Well, then you're qualified. And then she said, besides, they won't give you any trouble.

And I, the way she said that, you, I said, is there something about me? You know, if I get some reputation around here, I don't know about. Now, I was teaching wrestling at camp that year, so I don't know if they thought I was extra tough or whatever. But that gave me that encouragement. I never did talk to the director. I just said, okay. She says, I'm qualified, you know, I can do it. So I went, and it went really well. I mean, the kids were really respectful, the counselors, I don't know if I gave them good advice, but it was an enjoyable thing. And perhaps that's a bit of how Gideon felt when those soldiers were talking about that loaf of bread and how afraid they were of him and of his God. And like I said, it's not like Gideon had to conquer the Midianites.

And it's not like we have to overcome our greatest challenges. We do, but God will overcome them through us. You know, God will develop righteous character in us if we let him. I'm going to move on. Now, actually, this is planned, but I made a note in here because I find myself in an unusual situation giving a sermon about Gideon, and I'm not going to talk about his military tactics or any of the battles, which is hard for me. You know, being a military historian, I've always loved the story of Gideon, and I've actually read non-religious scholars who say Gideon was a master of guerrilla warfare. But I wanted today to look at, you know, some of those other lessons that we don't always think about with Gideon. As I said, how he was called, how he started developing faith. But I would be negligent if I didn't talk about at least one or two of his failings. And we do find near the end of the narrative, Gideon, he did have a mistake of failing. That's kind of surprising because Gideon asked for a special gift from the people. If you go to chapter 8, we'll read in verse 24. One of the reasons this is surprising is because they wanted to make him king, and he said, I'm not going to be your king. My son's not going to be your king. God will rule over you. But then in verse 24, and if you look at the bottom of verse 23, the eternal shall rule over you. Then Gideon said, I'd like to make a request of you, that each of you would give me the earrings from his plunder. For they, that is, the Midianites, had golden earrings because they were Ishmaelites. Midian was a son of Ishmael. So they answered, we'll gladly give them. They spread out a garment, and each man threw into it his earrings from his plunder. And the weight of the gold earrings that he requested was 1,700 shekels of gold. I'm not sure how much gold a shekel is, but 1,700 of them must have been a fair bit of gold. I mean, they'd kill thousands of Midianites, so that many thousands of earrings add up. And that's besides the crescent ornaments, the pendants, the purple robes that were on the kings, and besides the chains that were around the camel's neck. And Gideon took this gold, in verse 27, he made it into an ephod and set it up in the city of Ophrah, and all Israel played a harlot with it there. And it became a snare to Gideon into his house.

Now, before I comment on the last part of it, sometimes the question comes up, well, what exactly is an ephod? It's funny to say, but... And it's funny, the Bible is a little... It's not exactly clear. We know it was one of the... something the priests wore, and it talks about something on his chest, but also the back and strap. So apparently it was something he wore over his robes, and a breastplate was attached to the ephod. So it was a special thing, and for the high priest it was made with gold, but also blue and purple, very elaborate stuff. As a matter of fact, you can read in Exodus, they pounded out the gold flat, and then cut it very thin, so it made threads that were worked in. So this ephod is something that goes on to human torso. And Gideon probably made a huge model of this ephod, and maybe he made a, you know, like a giant mannequin, or a statue that would wear it. And I'm wondering, maybe as a reminder, this is something the high priests wore, maybe to show that people see, God is ruling. This is a symbol of God's power.

I don't think he intended it to be an idol, but it was something big and impressive, and it seems natural in the Israelite people, and there's something big and impressive. We want to start worshipping it. It's really sad. Now that happened, matter of fact, there's an example of it in the Old Testament. If you remember the story of the children of Israel, at one point God sent poisonous snakes to bite them, and he said, okay, if you want to be healed, he told Moses, make an image of a big snake out of bronze and set it up on a pole. He said, I'm not taking away the snakes. Make them go look at this image, and then I'll heal them. So they had to acknowledge that God made the snakes. But it says later in 2 Kings 18 that they'd started worshipping the stupid thing. They made an idol out of something God gave them. That's what happened with Gideon's big ephod.

That sounds funny when you say it out loud. The big thing that Gideon made, you know, and I wonder, you know, maybe it was like a tourist attraction. People came to see it. Like nowadays, they'll come to see the world's largest ball of twine. And like, this had religious significance, and apparently people started worshipping it. Doesn't say for sure if Gideon worshiped it or not. I wonder. It says it became a snare to him. At the very least, it seems Gideon allowed himself to get caught up in the power and the prestige that came from having this, you know, out in his front yard, so to speak. Not to mention, you know, the respect he had from winning this battle.

And we don't know exactly what happened, but Gideon seems to have lost some of his devotion to God.

Maybe some of that humility he had earlier. I'm reminded, you know, it says that King Saul, you know, late when the Samuel spoke to him and said, you know, God said, I called you when you were little in your own sight, but Saul stopped being little in his own eyes. Maybe that happened to Gideon as well. If so, there's a lesson for all of us. We might, at first, when we're called, say, who am I? How could God make me one of his children? But there's a danger of us not becoming little in our own eyes anymore, starting to think that we're something. We can't lose that. We need to stay humble and small in our own eyes.

Now, how did the story for Gideon end? That's the last thing we know of.

But he was listed in Hebrews 11. Remember, time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Jephthah and Barak. Maybe Gideon saw his ways and turned around again. I want to, I like to believe that he did. I'd like to say that Gideon saw that, and I gotta stop this. We don't hear about that he fought anymore. Maybe he tore it down himself. But either way, I want to remember and focus on the good lessons that we can get from Gideon's life, from his calling. We see in that life that Gideon was called by God in the middle of a confused and lost society. But Gideon still accepted that calling. He began changing his life right away. Now, he built that altar to God right then and there. And then Gideon continued looking to God. He started following and building up his faith, step by step, building ever greater faith. And he grew in confidence of God working through him. And God did work through him. He did great things. He made Gideon into a great leader.

And at least at first, as I said, Gideon told the men, I'm not going to rule over you or my son. The eternalist is going to rule over you. Gideon realized that God had made him who he was.

It does seem later he might have lost some of that. Maybe the wealth and power influenced him and led him astray. But if so, my hope is that he was led back. But either way, we all should strive to follow the good examples that we can find from Gideon's story. And I said, I think these lessons are especially useful for young adults, but they shouldn't be lost on any of us.

We need to resist the temptations that success and blessings from God can bring.

We need to remain humble. We need to continue growing in faith, trusting God to lead us.

Because God will use us in great ways, and he'll make us into something great.