Gideon and the Fleece (Part 2)

Judges 6

Gideon, the mighty man of valor, is lead his people, but God had a very specific job in mind for him first. The people of Israel are worshipping idols, which is why God let the Midianites ravage the land like locusts. The idol worship is so widespread that even Gideon's dad is a part of it.  This is a big, big no-no, and God went on quite a few rants about idols when speaking with Moses.  

"You shall tear down their altars and break their pillars and cut down their Asherim (for you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God)". Exodus 34:13

"Take care, lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God, which he made with you, and imake a carved image, the form of anything that the Lord your God has forbidden you. For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.

“When you father children and children’s children, and have grown old in the land, if you act corruptly by making a carved image in the form of anything, and by doing what is evil in the sight of the Lord your God, so as to provoke him to anger, I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that you will soon utterly perish from the land that you are going over the Jordan to possess. You will not live long in it, but will be utterly destroyed. And the Lord owill scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the Lord will drive you. And there you will serve gods of wood and stone, the work of human hands, that neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell. But from there you will seek the Lord your God and you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul. When you are in tribulation, and all these things come upon you in the latter days, you will return to the Lord your God and obey his voice. For the Lord your God is a merciful God. He will not leave you or destroy you or forget the covenant with your fathers that he swore to them. For ask now of the days that are past, which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and ask from one end of heaven to the other, whether such a great thing as this has ever happened or was ever heard of. Did any people ever hear the voice of a god speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and still live? Or has any god ever attempted to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, and by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by great deeds of terror, all of which the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? To you it was shown, that you might know that the Lord is God; there is no other besides him. Out of heaven he let you hear his voice, that he might discipline you. And on earth he let you see his great fire, and you heard his words out of the midst of the fire. And because he loved your fathers and chose their offspring after them and brought you out of Egypt with his own presence, by his great power, driving out before you nations greater and mightier than you, to bring you in, to give you their land for an inheritance, as it is this day, know therefore today, and lay it to your heart, that the Lord is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other. Therefore you shall keep his statutes and his commandments, which I command you today, that it may go well with you and with your children after you, and that you may prolong your days in the land that the Lord your God is giving you for all time.” Deuteronomy 4

It sounds crazy that this is the story of Joash's fathers and he has so quickly forgotten. The Asherah "pole" is a tree with the branches stripped off that represented the fertility goddess. Baal literally meant "master," and you might make the argument (as Wikipedia does) that worshipping the "master" wasn't much different from worshipping the "Lord". But there were very specific rules about altars, sacrifices, and worship. A good Israelite knew the law and that worshipping the Caananite gods Baal and Asherah was way wrong.

"That night the Lord said to Gideon “Take your father’s bull, and the second bull seven years old, and pull down the altar of Baal that your father has, and cut down the Asherah that is beside it and build an altar to the Lord your God on the top of the stronghold here, with stones laid in due order. Then take the second bull and offer it as burnt offering with the wood of the Asherah that you shall cut down.” So Gideon took ten men of his servants and did as the Lord had told him. But because he was too afraid of his family and the men of the town to do it by day, he did it by night".

Once again, Gideon is scared. When we first found him, he was down in the wine press, threshing in secret for fear of the Midianites. Now he is doing God's task, but in the middle of the night, for fear of his father. Remember when Cameron went catatonic in Ferris Bueller after they wrecked his Dad's Ferrari?  He thought his dad would kill him! Gideon was going to obey God (how could he not after the burning soup incident?), but he would obey quietly if it were possible. . .maybe dad wouldn't find out, or if he did, at least Gideon would have already obeyed.

It turns out Joash wasn't the one to fear. In the morning the villagers wake up and discover the torn down altar, the sacrificed bulls, and they are ticked!

“Who has done this thing?” And after they had searched and inquired, they said, “Gideon the son of Joash has done this thing.” Then the men of the town said to Joash, “Bring out your son, that he may die, for he has broken down the altar of Baal and cut down the Asherah beside it.” But Joash said to all who stood against him, “Will you contend for Baal? Or will you save him? Whoever contends for him shall be put to death by morning. If he is a god, let him contend for himself, because his altar has been broken down.”

Ticked might be an understatement, the men of the town are grabbing swords and clubs to kill Gideon. Another movie analogy, remember Beauty and the Beast, where the villagers arm themselves to storm the castle?  Kinda like that, only there are no candlesticks and teacups to defend Gideon.

They march past the Terebinth tree, past the winepress, to Joash's house. "Bring out your son, that he may die!". Not the best moment in Joash's life. An angry mob wants to kill his son, and he had better come up with a good answer quick or Gideon will have no reason to fear the Midianites.

"Will you contend for Baal?". Genius logic! If Baal is real, why doesn't he come fight with Gideon? If Asherah is real, why doesn't she come beat him with a rolling pin? If God is God, let Him stand up for himself!

Elijah used the exact same logic in the epic showdown on Mt. Carmel with the prophets of Baal several centuries later. They built altars, the Baal followers danced and sang and cut themselves, but Baal did nothing. Elijah soaked the altar with water and Bam! A fireball from heaven cooked the sacrifice and God proved he was real!

What has your God done? We worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who created the universe and everything in it. We worship the God who created man from dust. We worship the God who led Israel from Egypt, Joshua into the promised land, helped David slay Goliath, gave Solomon wisdom. We worship the God who is jealous over sin and gave his own people into captivity in Babylon. We worship the God who saved Daniel from the lions and gave power to Elijah. We worship the God who loved the world so much he sent his son to earth to walk among us, to teach us, and to die for us. We worship a God who conquered death and raises the dead. We worship a God who speaks today through his word and his spirit, and TODAY is at work in our world, setting wrongs right, revealing his salvation to the ends of the earth. We don't worship a pile of rocks or a dead tree, we worship the living God! We worship Jesus, his son, and the holy spirit, his messenger to the world.

Apparently the men were persuaded by Joash's logic because they not only allowed everyone to live, but they gave Gideon a new name. "On that day Gideon was called Jerubbaal, that is to say, “Let Baal contend against him".

"Now all the Midianites and the Amalekites and the people of the East came together, and they crossed the Jordan and encamped in the Valley of Jezreel. But the Spirit of the Lord clothed Gideon, wand he sounded the trumpet, and the Abiezrites were called out to follow him.".

How awesome is that, the spirit of the Lord clothed Gideon. Like any mighty man of valor, our hero needs a supersuit, and God provides him one. Of course not literal clothing, but God's spirit clothed him with strength, boldness, and fearlessness to blow his trumpet in full earshot of the enemy invaders. The trumpet calls fighting men to him and he also sends out messengers to recruit even more men for battle (as we will see later, some 20,000 soldiers!).

"Then Gideon said to God, “If you will save Israel by my hand, as you have said, behold, I am laying a fleece of wool on the threshing floor. If there is dew on the fleece alone, and it is dry on all the ground, then I shall know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you have said.” And it was so. When he rose early next morning and squeezed the fleece, he wrung enough dew from the fleece to fill a bowl with water. Then Gideon said to God, "Let not your anger burn against me; let me speak just once more. Please let me test just once more with the fleece. Please let it be dry on the fleece only, and on all the ground let there be dew.” And God did so that night; and it was dry on the fleece only, and on all the ground there was dew."

I have to say, this is an odd exchange between Gideon and God. Remember when Satan took Jesus to the top of the temple and tempted him to jump quoting scripture: "he will command his angels to guard you carefully, they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone'". Jesus responded, "you shall not put the Lord your God to the test". It sure seems like Gideon is testing the Lord.

There is a story about Balaam (the guy with the talking donkey), who asks something of God, gets his answer, goes back and asks God again, and God gets really upset. 

Gideon, unlike Balaam, is not questioning what God said, he is asking for confirmation. He says twice "if you will save Israel by my hand AS YOU HAVE SAID". When God told Moses to speak to Pharaoh, Moses said he could not speak well, there's no way he could do it. Moses flat out refused to obey.  So God choose Aaron to speak, and it caused a bit of trouble down the road (Golden calves and whatnot). Gideon is not arguing with God about whether or not he could do the job God chose him to do. He understands that God is the one doing the saving and that He is choosing to use Gideon. No pride in this statement, no "I'm going to put out this fleece and you better act or I'm not leading the army". The if-then is not, if you do x then I will do y. The if-then is: if you do x then my ears are working properly.

In addition to laying out the fleece in humility, Gideon is displaying a huge amount of faithfulness in God's power. What he is asking is physically not possible. And I think maybe the reason God was willing to do the fleece test twice is basic scientific method. "Okay," Gideon thinks, "my fleece got soaked and the ground is dry. . .maybe I have some sham-wow fleece that soaks up everything in sight".  So in asking again, I think Gideon is not so much testing God as he is testing his experiment. In the process, though, he once again is shown that God can do anything!

Have you ever heard about people laying out "fleeces" to determine God's will? "Should we do that, should we not do that?" Gideon is not trying to choose between two colleges to attend or two houses to buy.  He is only trying to make sure that his ears are clean and he's hearing God correctly. He is not saying, "Lord, if I spin this twister arrow and it points to Kim Thompson, then I'll ask her to homecoming". That would be a human-created plan, not a God-created one.

A better correlation to real life might be the story of Arianna's dad. He is a commercial realtor and is driving down the highway past the seminary and all of a sudden, hears God's spirit speaking to him: "you need to go to seminary and be a pastor". He lays out a fleece of sorts: "Okay God, I heard you and believe you, but how about you make it financially possible?" So God provides, he makes more money in the next three months than in the year beforehand, quits his job, and goes to seminary, and becomes a fantastic pastor. 

**so after writing this, I called my father-in-law to fact check the story that we remembered, and while the part about driving by the Seminary and feeling God's call were true. But not the waiting part; saving up for several years was his initial plan, but he changed his mind by the next morning. He realized that if he was going to follow God, he needed to do it right away. He told family, filled out application papers, sold his office and house, and three months later he was on his way to becoming a pastor.

Sometimes stories we read in the old testament are tempting to apply in our lives. There might be a situation where the fleece test could be used in a way that God is honored. But before we play Gideon, we should other Bible teachings to see if they are consistent with what we know of God to be true. Absolutely, certainly, we know that God wants us to hear and obey him, immediately, trusting in his wisdom and goodness. Throughout the Old and New Testament we find stories both of people who obey immediately and find blessings and people who disobey or do things their own way and end up in a huge mess of trouble. So the better rule is to pray, and when God answers, obey right away!     

How much cooler is it that Arianna's parent's did trust and obey.  Kinda like the Chris Tomlin song, "if you move I'll move, if you stay I'll stay, where you go, I'll go, I will follow you."