God, Who Loves Gideon to the End

25That same night, Yahweh said to him, “Take your father’s bull, even the second bull seven years old, and throw down the altar of Baal that your father has, and cut down the Asherah that is by it. 26Then build an altar to Yahweh your God on the top of this stronghold, in an orderly way, and take the second bull, and offer a burnt offering with the wood of the Asherah which you shall cut down.” 27Then Gideon took ten men of his servants, and did as Yahweh had spoken to him. Because he feared his father’s household and the men of the city, he could not do it by day, but he did it by night. 28When the men of the city arose early in the morning, behold, the altar of Baal was broken down, and the Asherah was cut down that was by it, and the second bull was offered on the altar that was built. 29They said to one another, “Who has done this thing?” When they inquired and asked, they said, “Gideon the son of Joash has done this thing.” 30Then the men of the city said to Joash, “Bring out your son, that he may die, because he has broken down the altar of Baal, and because he has cut down the Asherah that was by it.” 31Joash said to all who stood against him, “Will you contend for Baal? Or will you save him? He who will contend for him, let him be put to death by morning! If he is a god, let him contend for himself, because someone has broken down his altar!” 32Therefore on that day he named him Jerub-Baal, saying, “Let Baal contend against him, because he has broken down his altar.”

We have seen how patient God was with Gideon, bearing with his irreverence so that he might raise him up to the end. When Gideon grasped the love of a God who endured to the last in order to fulfill his plan of sending the Messiah through Israel, he would have repented. As we look at the aching love of a God who is patient for the sake of saving sinners, we must examine our faith today. Gideon’s faith, the kind that puts God to the test, is our faith too. Knowing that, we should turn back in faith and hold to a faith that stays fixed on the word.

While I was wondering how I could bring this God home to you, I happened to read a post that someone had written. I hope he will not be hurt to find that I have used his story as a sermon illustration. His family was in a serious car accident on the way home from a trip. Everyone in the family was injured, and the writer was left in such pain that he could not take a single step without two crutches. His father had injured his legs as well, so he bore the same affliction and could not walk without crutches either. The boy was in middle school at the time, and whenever a sense of inferiority tormented him, his father comforted him. Together they overcame it, and in time he knew the joy of being admitted to university.

How hard it must have been to lose the use of both legs at an age for running and playing! And how much his parents must have suffered as they watched their child! Still, whenever inferiority weighed on him, he would draw strength from his father’s comfort. With his father beside him, the son was able to enter university. When he had overcome every obstacle and been admitted, his father praised him and told him how proud he was of him. After the entrance ceremony, as they were leaving the campus, a moment of crisis came: a small child darted into the road. At that instant the father flung away his crutches and ran toward the child like an arrow. Carrying the child in his arms back to the sidewalk, he came face to face with his son.

The young man was so shocked that he called out to his father, but his father turned away from him, tucked the crutches under his arms, and walked on ahead. When he told his mother that his father had run without his crutches, she said she had always thought he would find out one day, and that it seemed the time had come to tell him. In the accident his father had hurt only his arm, and that had healed. In other words, his legs had never been injured; yet for the four years that his son’s legs were injured, he too had gone about on crutches. He had pretended on purpose that his legs were hurt, she explained, because only someone who carried the same pain could comfort his son. The son wept and asked why his father should have taken such suffering on himself, and she told him that his father had been glad, because it meant he could comfort his son in his pain.

It was true that the young man had drawn more strength from his father’s comfort because his father seemed to share his pain. You will understand the heart of a father who knew his child’s pain and went about on crutches so that he might understand that suffering. The young man said that whenever life felt wretched, he had wept his fill in the arms of a father who, he thought, understood what he was going through. Only now did he realize how much his father’s heart had ached when he wept.

As I read this story, I saw the love of God in that father. God longed to forgive the sin of human beings, who had been deceived by Satan and had eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But since the only way to forgive sin was to become like sinners, he put on flesh and came to this earth. Clothed in our weak flesh, he knew firsthand the sufferings of human beings: the cold, the hunger, the temptation. To bear the penalty for human sin, he carried the cross and offered himself as the atoning sacrifice.

Jesus, who bore the cross, must have had the same heart as the father who walked on crutches to share his son’s pain. He put on the same flesh as sinners and suffered so that he might understand human pain, and he told us that because he is fully man and fully God, he knows how hard the lives we live are. So he said, “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest.”

The love that shields us and bears with us until we grasp God’s heart and stand upright is a true love, one that we, his children, can scarcely comprehend. He was whipped and torn, yet he endured to the end for the salvation of his children. You repay that love by rising from the place of sin and living out a holy life.

That young man must also have come to understand his father’s heart, so he would have worked hard at university and striven to live a fine life, second to no one’s. Since this was exactly what his father had wanted, the young man, remembering his father’s sacrifice, should be able to come through whatever hardship lies ahead.

God, too, wants his people to live boldly by faith. Since he has the power to supply whatever we lack, he will help us through our lives if we obey his will. We must live lives that answer the aching love of God, who laid aside all the glory he enjoyed and put on weak flesh that Satan could tempt.

God came to earth to raise Gideon up as a judge, and he bore with Gideon’s insolence and held him close. Even when Gideon said he would acknowledge him as God if he waited until Gideon came back with his offering, God waited right where he was. God knows how weak and lacking we are; that is why he waits until the one he has chosen fully takes up the calling. It is because of that love that Gideon, and you and I as well, grow little by little and can live as children of God.

Judges 6:25-26

25That same night, Yahweh said to him, “Take your father’s bull, even the second bull seven years old, and throw down the altar of Baal that your father has, and cut down the Asherah that is by it. 26Then build an altar to Yahweh your God on the top of this stronghold, in an orderly way, and take the second bull, and offer a burnt offering with the wood of the Asherah which you shall cut down.”

When the angel of Yahweh told Gideon to tear down the altar of Baal and cut down the Asherah to use as firewood for the offering, Gideon was afraid. This was because they were not idols that only his own household worshiped; they belonged in common to the Abiezrites who lived together in Ophrah. Israel was not worshiping God; they had built altars to idols and were serving Baal and Asherah. Whenever there was no judge they turned to idols, and that reveals how little they loved God. They were using God as the one who would lift the yoke of suffering from their necks, and whenever life was easy, they betrayed him every time.

In such a setting, we may imagine what courage Gideon needed to pull down the altar the townspeople worshiped at and to cut down the Asherah. God told him to take the second bull, seven years old, cut down the Asherah, and with its wood offer a burnt offering on an altar built on a high place where everyone could see. Afraid of the people, Gideon took ten of his servants at night, while everyone was asleep, broke down the altar of Baal, cut down the Asherah, and offered a burnt offering with its wood. In the morning the men of the town saw that the altar of Baal had been broken down. In their fury they flocked to Gideon’s father Joash and demanded that Gideon be put to death. Here were God’s people, who, far from repenting of their sin when they saw their idol destroyed, called for the death of the man who had given them the chance to repent.

When the angry crowd came, Gideon must have been terrified. He had torn down the altar because he had come to see that God alone is the true God, yet faced with those calling for his death, he was probably overcome by fear. Had Gideon boldly told them then how he had met God and what command he had received, those angry men would have taken it as an opportunity to look at themselves. But Gideon could not say a word; he hid behind his father.

Far from rebuking Gideon, Joash turned to the angry crowd and asked whether this was not a good opportunity to find out who the true god was. If Baal was the true god, Gideon deserved to die; if God was the true God, Gideon would come to no harm. That was his wise answer. In a moment of grave danger, the father’s wisdom and faith saved his son. When I see this wisdom in Joash, I think I understand a little of why God chose Gideon, doubtful and weak as he was. May you, like Joash who saved his son, save lives with the wisdom of God.

Having found the courage to break down the altar and the Asherah as God commanded, Gideon ought to have proclaimed to the people that they, and he with them, had forsaken God and sinned by serving idols. If he had told them that God had raised him up as judge because he wanted them to put away their idols and repent, the people would have been given far more opportunity to repent.

A judge is charged with rescuing the people out of darkness. In the same way, we who believe must proclaim the Christ who conquered death and rose again. This matters because a soul can be saved only when we show sin to those who accept death as a matter of course, and declare that the death of the body is not the end. Since we have to preach a gospel that runs against human nature, we cannot escape the world’s persecution, just as Gideon could not. So we must take courage and preach the gospel boldly. God himself came to Gideon and told him to go and tell the people, for he would help him; yet Gideon, raised up as judge, showed his weakness, saying he had no strength, that he was poor and unable. We are no different: God has given us the cross with the promise that he will help us, and still we are not proclaiming it boldly.

Gideon broke down the altar in the midst of his fear because he knew that God is the living God. Although fear of the people drove him to work secretly at night, God praised that service highly. In the same way, when we strive to live by faith, God will give us strength and courage and help us fulfill our calling. God does not expect you to be perfect. All he hopes is that when you receive a command, you will trust the Father and show it in what you do.

Just as Gideon’s father Joash shielded him from the consequences of all he had done, so the Holy Spirit will help us through every hardship that comes from preaching the gospel. God did not make Gideon judge because he saw ability in him. He chose Gideon knowing that anyone who receives grace will grow.

God told Gideon to take his father’s second bull and offer it as a burnt offering. Why the second bull? Because the firstborn of every animal, and every firstborn son, belongs to God. At the exodus, the firstborn of those who did not obey and the firstborn of their animals all belonged to God, and they were therefore struck down. From the second onward, then, they became the portion of human beings, which is why God commanded him to offer what was a man’s own: the second bull. The second was Gideon himself; in this command God was telling him to offer himself as a living sacrifice. Unless Gideon first gave himself to God, God could not use him as judge for the sake of the people. Jesus, too, first gave himself to God in order to save souls. Showing his own sacrifice before our eyes, he strengthened and helped his followers, telling them that since he had done it, they could do it too. If you want to fulfill your calling, I hope you will offer to God as a burnt offering the bull you have been raising all your life.

After raising that bull for seven years, Gideon must have grown attached to it. But he had met God, and Israel had to be saved, so he burned the bull together with the wood of the Asherah he had cut down. A bull raised under oppression was likely as precious to Gideon as any treasure. At a time when he had to thresh his wheat in hiding, giving up that bull could not have been an easy decision, and it would have cost him pain as well.

How many years has the bull growing in your heart been raised? Suppose God told you to offer as a burnt offering the wealth, honor, righteousness, and children you have raised with all your care, using the greed and lusts of the world as the firewood. What would you choose? Could you say with confidence that you would offer them the moment he spoke? If you waver, even for a moment, when God commands you, you will understand how great a decision Gideon had to make to offer that burnt offering.

Judges 6:36-37

36Gideon said to God, “If you will save Israel by my hand, as you have spoken, 37behold, I will put a fleece of wool on the threshing floor; if there is dew on the fleece only, and it is dry on all the ground, then shall I know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you have spoken.”

When the Midianites, the Amalekites, and the children of the east crossed the Jordan and camped, Yahweh’s Spirit came upon Gideon. God was giving Gideon courage and assuring him of his presence; he was preparing to fight alongside Gideon.

When Gideon blew the trumpet, the Abiezrites rallied behind him, and when he sent messengers throughout Manasseh, Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali, they too came up to meet him. Once God had lifted Gideon up, all the people of Israel trusted him as their judge, welcomed him, and honored him. This is the love of God, and this is the way God raises a person up.

You need to know that when God raises you up, you must never grow proud. The Israelites knew Gideon was a judge and obeyed him because Yahweh’s Spirit had come upon him. It was not Gideon’s ability but God’s grace; if he forgot that and became proud, he would not be able to carry his calling as a judge through to the end.

Even as he watched the people follow and obey him as their judge, Gideon put God to the test once again. God had accepted his offering; Gideon had received the promise that he would not die; he had been blessed with the honor Israel gave him as judge. And yet once more he asked God to pass this test as well, if he truly meant to save Israel by Gideon’s hand. By now he could have gone out trusting God, fought, and won. Why did Gideon keep testing God to the end? It is simply heartbreaking. This kind of behavior is what happens when grace cannot be held on to for long.

When we pray to God to solve a problem, he answers. Sadly, though, people are thankful and full of faith only in the moment the answer comes. Then, when another problem arises, they say again: if you want to save me, solve this problem, and show me proof that you love me. Of course, God had no obligation to answer such tests from Gideon. He has no need to answer our foolish prayers either, and he is under no compulsion at all to save you and me.

Yet God answered Gideon, and he has answered you. He knew that Gideon was testing him out of weak faith, but because his purpose was to save the people of Israel, he granted Gideon’s requests. Gideon tested God because he lacked assurance; God answered, not for Gideon’s sake, but to accomplish a greater plan.

Look at how Gideon later betrayed God and how his sons were killed all in one place, and you see that God knew full well what kind of character Gideon had. Yet he chose him and worked through him for one purpose alone: to save Israel from the nations. That is why I always urge you not to be in a hurry to use God to fix the problem in front of you, but to have eyes that look to God’s promises, his plan, and even the life after death.

It was the grace of God, who loves souls, and the faithfulness of God, who keeps his own promises, that called Gideon and us. We were not called because we were capable or because we were needed. It is all God’s love and grace, from first to last.

If you believe God and obey his word, God will lead you into heaven with no conditions attached, and he will make your life in this world one you need not be ashamed of.

What kind of believer are you? Do you believe that God endured the pain of giving his only Son in order to save you? Are you doing your utmost to fulfill the calling God has given you? Or are you one of those who, at the slightest trouble, leave God and follow their feelings?

Friends, only when you have a faith that does not magnify the small things of the world but sees God’s work as great can every matter be resolved in God. Gideon doubted to the end even after God had caused him to be honored, and in the end he betrayed God. Those without true faith seem devoted and loyal while God’s grace is upon them, but they cannot carry that faith through to the end. Even so, God granted Gideon’s requests, longing for him to grow, and bore with him. You must come to understand that heart of God.

God has made many promises to you as well, and he has given you a calling. Jesus Christ, who came to this earth and sacrificed himself, promised that once he had prepared a place, he would come again to take us to himself. Until the Lord returns, we must keep his word. Until that day, do not put God’s love to the test; strive to be found within that grace on the day the promise is fulfilled.

Gideon, who tested God without end, came to an unhappy end. Let us take to heart how his life finished: let us show God an honest faith, never take salvation lightly, and win the victory of faith day by day.