Gideon: God’s work through him.
Build an altar to the Lord your God (Judges 6:26).
It is interesting to see the speed at which God works in the life of Gideon. God knows how to pace our lives. He knew Gideon’s natural hesitancy and the importance of his spiritual development. The time had come for Gideon to act, and it was not an easy task that God gave him. He had to tear down his father’s altar to Baal and build an altar to the Lord and sacrifice on it. It is extraordinary that, during the Midianites’ oppression, the people cried to the Lord for deliverance, but continued to worship Baal. And even when God spoke to them through His prophet, they continued in their idolatry. God could not bless His people until they addressed the spiritual hypocrisy in their hearts and the evidence of this in their lives. This had to be confronted first in Gideon’s home. God works in a heart, in a home, in a community and then in a nation.
Gideon was too afraid to tear down his father’s altar during the day, but he did it. We see Gideon’s fear, but we also see his emerging role as a leader, as he led ten servants in the destruction of Baal’s altar, the construction of an altar to God and in worshipping the Lord. Later, He would, at night, lead God’s small army to destroy the powerful Midianites.
In the morning, Gideon’s actions were discovered. He was quickly identified, and his death demanded. What a sorry state the people of God were in, seeking the execution of a man who honoured their true God and re-established His worship. It is then God intervenes in the heart of Gideon’s father, Joash. Gideon’s father had built the altar to Baal and was spiritually responsible for leading His family in idolatry. The call for his brave son’s death made him realise his failure and the emptiness of the wooden image he had worshipped, which could not defend itself. He challenges the people with the words, “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!” God shows how quickly He can transform lives. Over and over again, God works in the heart of just one person – Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Caleb, Deborah and Gideon. Through the faith of one person, so many others are blessed.
After Joash defends his son, Gideon is called Jerubbaal, “Let Baal contend against him” (ESV). Sometimes, we can have a tendency to look at the bigger picture. The real problem was not the Midianites; it was the individual hearts of God’s people. When this problem is put right, God can be trusted to put everything else right. The defeat of idolatry in the lives of the people of God marked the beginning of their blessing. God has to deal with the condition of our own hearts before He can bless us. David wrote in Psalm 26,
Examine me, O Lord, and prove me;
Try my mind and my heart (v. 2).
It is essential for us to abide in Christ and to “keep (our)selves in the love of God” (Jude 21). In doing so, we keep ourselves from the very real idols of the present age (1 John 5:21). God works in us. Then He can work through us.
As Gideon began God’s work in his own home and amongst his neighbours, the vast armies of the Midianites and Amalekites crossed the Jordan. In response to this movement of Israel’s enemies, the “Spirit of the Lord clothed Gideon” (v. 34, ESV). What a reminder that “You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world” (1 John 4:4) and “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31)!
