Numbers 25:6: “Then an Israelite man brought into the camp a Midianite woman right before the eyes of Moses and the whole assembly of Israel while they were weeping at the entrance to the tent of meeting. 7 When Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, saw this, he left the assembly, took a spear in his hand 8 and followed the Israelite into the tent. He drove the spear into both of them, right through the Israelite man and into the woman’s stomach. Then the plague against the Israelites was stopped; 9 but those who died in the plague numbered 24,000. 10 The Lord said to Moses, 11 “Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, has turned my anger away from the Israelites. Since he was as zealous for my honor among them as I am, I did not put an end to them in my zeal. 12 Therefore tell him I am making my covenant of peace with him. 13 He and his descendants will have a covenant of a lasting priesthood, because he was zealous for the honor of his God and made atonement for the Israelites.”
That was followed by Moses taking vengeance on the Midianites shortly before his death. The Israelites killed all the men, women and children – except they were told to save for themselves every girl who had never slept with a man.
You can imagine the effect this had on the Midianites and their desire to get revenge. Long before Gideon there existed several centuries of hatred and waiting for their moment. In an honor culture people never forget the past. It is always present and revenge for the past is always at the top of mind.
Given that, it is remarkable they did not wipe out Israel when they had the chance. The virus of sin and idolatry had so weakened Israel that Midian could have easily eliminated them completely. Instead, they simply humiliated them on a regular basis and invaded the land to ravage it. They ruined their crops and killed their livestock. They impoverished them and reduced them to people living in fear – hiding in the mountains and caves.
Sin does that to people eventually. The effect of disobedience is fear. It may be masked as bravado but it is not confidence. It is the fear of loss, of being overwhelmed and the fear only increases over time. People do not become better when left to themselves and their own standards. Disobedience destroys people from the inside.
That is when we meet Gideon – who is threshing wheat in a winepress to hide it from the Midianites. The angel greets him in a way he has probably never been greeted or described before in his life: “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.” Nothing could be further from the truth in his mind. He only has questions and doubts. Like Moses before him, he lays out all the reasons he cannot do what he has been called to do. His background, his family, his lack of preparation for leadership. All these things argue against his being what God calls him to do.
That’s a theme in Scripture, isn’t it? God calls people we would overlook. He often calls the invisible, the unremarkable, the people with no pedigrees, the least of the weakest clans. Of course, those are the stories and the heroes we love the most. It reminds me of Hiccup in “How To Train Your Dragon.” Who would have guessed it would be him and his innovation that would defeat the dragons.
But then he says, “Go in the strength you have. Am I not sending you? I will be with you.” I will go before you but I will not go in your place. It is a little later in the story that we discover what Gideon’s strengths are but at this point they are completely unknown to him.
And, of course, Gideon has more questions and needs more assurance. He is full of doubts, fear and turmoil. This is not something he has chosen or desired. This is out of the blue. He’s not running for office. He’s running from it.
And then the Lord says, “Peace! Do not be afraid. You are not going to die.” Well, that is some consolation.
His first assignment? Tear down his father’s altar to Baal. When I was in my most obnoxious and rebellious stage this was one of my favorite verses. I saw myself as tearing down altars as an excuse for destroying anything with which I disagreed. You know the root word of “iconoclast” is someone who intentionally destroys icons and beliefs. It’s the childish part of revolutions. It’s what the French cartoonists saw as their main assignment – to viciously make fun of everything and to ridicule the deepest beliefs of not only Muslims but of Christians and Jews. They were tearing down the altars of every tradition. But they were not replacing them with anything. That is what God called Gideon to do. Tear down false beliefs but replace them with truth – but that is hard work. And Gideon was so fearful of his family and the men of the town that he did it at night.
That’s a theme in his life, isn’t it? He’s fearful but he obeys. His strength is not so much courage as it is obedience. He is uncertain, doubtful, frightened, plagued by second thoughts and reconsiderations – but he is obedient.
Even after the Spirit of the Lord comes upon him and blowing the trumpet that attracts 32,000 men ready to fight, he steps back and says, “One more time I want to check and make sure this is not going to get me killed.” Not the best time to be wondering about that with a whole army looking on. This is not what Churchill did for sure. This is not what MacArthur or Patton would have done.
Have you ever read Patton’s speech to the Third Army on June 5th, 1944? This is the way a real general addresses his troops on the eve of battle. I have tried to delete most of the profanity but with Patton that is close to impossible. His rough language is what endeared him to his soldiers.
“We’ll win this war, but we’ll win it only by fighting and by showing the Germans that we’ve got more guts than they have; or ever will have. We’re not going to just shoot them, we’re going to rip out their living guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks. We’re going to murder those lousy Huns by the bushel basket. War is a bloody, killing business. You’ve got to spill their blood, or they will spill yours. Rip them up the belly. Shoot them in the guts. When shells are hitting all around you and you wipe the dirt off your face and realize that instead of dirt it’s the blood and guts of what once was your best friend beside you, you’ll know what to do!”
“I don’t want to get any messages saying, “I am holding my position.” We are not holding a damned thing. Let the Germans do that. We are advancing constantly and we are not interested in holding onto anything …. Our basic plan of operation is to advance and to keep on advancing regardless of whether we have to go over, under, or through the enemy.”
Or Henry V on the eve of the Battle of Agincourt:
“He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say ‘To-morrow is Saint Crispian.’
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say ‘These wounds I had on Crispian’s day.’
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words-
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester-
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb’red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.”
At the very time he has momentum Gideon asks for one more test. I cannot imagine General Patton or Winston Churchill or Henry V listening to Gideon ask for one more sign before attacking.
Even worse, he winnows his army down to 300 men by allowing two-thirds of them to go home because they are afraid and then dismissing 9,700 of those who did not pass the test of drinking water. What was he looking for? He was not just looking for traditional soldiers who would fight in traditional ways. He was looking for a different kind of courage – the courage to fight in a very innovative and seemingly stupid way. Military innovation is not easy. And the more experienced leaders find it the most difficult to change.
In a 1986 article titled Innovation and the Military Mind Air Vice-Marshal R. A. Mason, Royal Air Force said, “Paradoxically, the more powerful, competent, and confident the general, the more difficult it becomes to convince him that he may not be omniscient: it is the general who must be prepared to fight with what he has available and who therefore is the most conscious of the costs in training time, of the possible reduction in readiness or fighting effectiveness, or the gamble involved in changing current proven operational practices under the threat of imminent enemy attack. It is scarcely surprising that he tends to approach innovation with caution. Indeed, when one reflects on all the factors militating against innovation in modem military affairs, it is astonishing that tactical and technical innovations ever take place at all.”
In other words, experience and training would have probably worked against him instead of being in his favor. The same could be said of David when he met Goliath. He used the strength he had instead of Saul’s armor.
Gideon needed a very small force with particular skills. This is where we discover the strength of Gideon. The whole battle plan was reverse logic. He didn’t try to inspire 32,000 men. He could hardly inspire himself. He attacked at night when it was common belief you only did battle in the day when you could see the enemy. Normally, there was one trumpet for every 1,000 men and 300 trumpets would have indicated 300,000 men.
They had no swords – only empty pots, torches and trumpets.
They were not silent but screaming. It must have been like the rebel yell. Here is how one Union survivor described it. “Then arose that do-or-die expression, that maniacal storm of sound; that penetrating, rasping, shrieking, blood-curdling noise that could be heard for miles and whose volume reached the heavens–such an expression as never yet came from the throats of sane men, but from men whom the seething blast of an imaginary hell would not check while the sound lasted.”
They did not rush into the camp but held their position around the perimeter.
They used the power of terror.
Everything was unexpected. Everything was an innovation. Everything was a surprise. This was Gideon’s genius that he never before realized. Like threshing wheat in the winepress he found creative solutions to intractable problems. He discovered he had the ability to do the unexpected and show others how to do the same. And this was the turning point for him as a leader. “Watch me. Follow my lead. Do exactly as I do.” Patton used to say, “If you need me you can always find me in the lead tank.” What Gideon learned about himself he taught to others.
The story should end there for a happy ending. He routs the enemy and retires – like Cincinnatus the Roman General who was called to defend Rome while plowing his field. He defeated the enemy and two weeks later returned to the farm. Or like George Washington who retired to his farm after serving as President and Commander in Chief.
Instead, something else happens.
Judges 8:22: “The Israelites said to Gideon, “Rule over us—you, your son and your grandson—because you have saved us from the hand of Midian.” 23 But Gideon told them, “I will not rule over you, nor will my son rule over you. The Lord will rule over you.” 24 And he said, “I do have one request, that each of you give me an earring from your share of the plunder.” (It was the custom of the Ishmaelites to wear gold earrings.) 25 They answered, “We’ll be glad to give them.” So they spread out a garment, and each of them threw a ring from his plunder onto it. 26 The weight of the gold rings he asked for came to seventeen hundred shekels,[b] not counting the ornaments, the pendants and the purple garments worn by the kings of Midian or the chains that were on their camels’ necks. 27 Gideon made the gold into an ephod, which he placed in Ophrah, his town. All Israel prostituted themselves by worshiping it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and his family.”
Gideon turns down the offer to be ruler but, in some ways, chooses something worse. He did not want wealth or political power. Instead, he wanted what men from humble circumstances often want – stature, recognition and a good life. Gideon wanted spiritual power and that is probably more dangerous and seductive than secular power.
It was an easy transition from having a gift to creating a snare. It would have been easy for people to look at his life and recognize how many times he had used creative ways to discover the mind of God. The angel of the Lord appeared to him. He asked for a sign and God spoke to him. He laid out the fleece. He heard the dream of the Midianite. God had time and again showed him what he wanted him to do. It would have been easy for the Israelites to think Gideon was a very special person with a unique relationship with God – and he was but he turned it into something counterfeit.
I like Charles Spurgeon’s response to the admiration of a member of the congregation after a brilliant sermon. “Mr. Spurgeon, you were wonderful,” she crooned. To which the reply came, “Madam, the devil whispered those same words in my ear, as I left the pulpit.”
We know an ephod was the way the priests discerned the will of God and we know that it was only the priests who were allowed to do that. The priests were all located at Shiloh – the legitimate center of worship. Gideon was, in effect, setting up his own center of worship in his hometown. The one least expected to succeed from a backwater town was going to show the world what God had done through him. It was not enough to have been used by God…and then retire. He wanted more than that. He wanted more than a Presidential Library. He wanted the people to come to him to hear from God.
We drive through Andrews, South Carolina every year on the way to the beach and there is a sign that says proudly, “The home of Chubby Checker.” That’s not a bad thing. But what Gideon wanted was for the sign at the city of limits of Ophrah to say, “The home of God and Gideon.”
He didn’t want to be king. He wanted something even more dangerous. He wanted to use what God had done for his own purposes. He was seduced by his own success – and took others with him. “Watch what I do. Follow my lead. For the Lord and for Gideon.” Those very strengths led him into a very comfortable life of prestige, power and corruption. Not just personal corruption but the whole nation of Israel prostituted themselves there. It’s sadly ironic that the young man who tore down altars to false gods builds another when he is old.
John Hunter says, “In some ways we can be like this. Great men and women can be used of the Lord. They can then start organizations, societies, or denominations, to commemorate and extend the glory of God in their work. These can function wonderfully as planned — to begin with. But then as the vision goes, so does the response of those who follow those leaders. (cp Pr 29:18)
This can deteriorate until the purpose of the organization, society, or denomination becomes simply to maintain its own entity. So we find people dedicated to keep a certain movement in existence, regardless of whether the Lord is purposing to use it or not. Their “ephod” takes their allegiance and true effort away from the living Lord to a dead organization.”
It’s a great story of innovation, discovering your unique strength, and being a player in a moment in time when God uses the least likely person. But it is also a warning to those who are tempted by adulation, approval and the natural desire of people to be associated with success. My father used to say about certain men: “They think they are as big as the gift God has given them.” That is the story and the tragedy of Gideon.