Called • Judges 6:1-4, 7-16
By Roland L. McMillan
Gideon was God’s choice to deliver Israel from crisis. He was an unlikely choice from a purely human perspective. Gideon’s story runs from Judges 6:1 through 8:35. This lesson and the lesson for next week are small slices of the larger story.
The cycle of sin, consequences, and deliverance described in the lesson for last week is obvious in the opening verse of the lesson for this week. One result of unfaithfulness to God is moral weakness. Moral weakness leads to national weakness, so Israel suffered. Verses 2 through 6 add details to the portrait of desperation. The situation was so bad that people were hiding in the mountains. Midian was semi-nomadic, and verse 3 describes annual invasions. Other invaders came alongside the Midianites. By the standards of the day, some of the raiders were lightning fast. Using camels in warfare gave them unprecedented speed. Since households were the basis of production in the ancient world, production was ruined. The Israelite economy was ruined. The devastation is reminiscent of the curses for unfaithfulness recorded in Deuteronomy 28.
The Israelites called on God in their despair. They called on God to save them from the consequences of their sin, but they did not call on God to turn away from their sin. In response, God sent a prophet. The prophet’s name is lost to time, but the prophet’s message is not. What he told the people was like the messages announced by countless others who have spoken for God through the ages. Verses 8–10 describe God’s actions for his people, God’s commandment that they serve him alone, and the fact that they were not honoring his commandment. The passage does not contain even a hint that the people heeded the prophet’s words.
A first-time reader of this passage may expect fire and brimstone, but in his grace, God sent an angel. The messenger went to call Gideon to deliver God’s people. We first see Gideon in verse 11 as he was processing grain in a winepress. Exactly how he was threshing grain in a winepress is hard to imagine. Separating the wheat from the chaff usually happened in an open area, while winepresses often were carved into bedrock in the side of a hill. Apparently, Gideon was acting out of fear, so he chose an awkward location where raiders could not approach quickly. When God’s messenger calls Gideon the “mighty warrior,” the irony is hard to miss. He was an unlikely hero. Gideon did come from a prominent family, and verse 27 reveals that he had ten servants. Yet, he was part of a pagan family system. The “mighty warrior” came on the scene as he was threshing grain in fear.
If God’s grace is surprising in calling a deliverer, so is the deliverer’s response. Gideon was sarcastic in verse 13. He may have been generally correct in what he said. God had allowed Midian to dominate Israel, but Gideon missed the big picture. He was wrong to blame God. He overlooked Israel’s unfaithfulness. Also, he misunderstood the angel. The angel had said that God was with Gideon, but his rant in verse 13 was about God not being with Israel. This is not the way that stories about heroes usually start.
In verse 14, God’s messenger ignored Gideon’s harangue and continued the thought from verse 12. He commissioned Gideon anyway. Gideon’s strength had nothing to do with Gideon himself. His strength was in the fact that God chose him. Gideon revealed his bad attitude again in verse 15, and once again it did not matter. God will be with Gideon, he will deliver Israel, and that is how it will be.
The Bible is full of stories of God calling improbable people to do extraordinary things. We may think of Abraham and Sarah, or Mary the mother of Jesus. Moses, David, Amos, and Paul were unlikely choices. God’s grace shines through all those stories. In Gideon’s story, God’s grace is a wonder from the beginning. The people were suffering the consequences of their sin. They ignored the prophet, but God sent a deliverer anyway. This is no excuse to try to take advantage of God, but God is faithful when we are not. If we look at the bigger picture, we see God’s grace to his people in the time of the judges as a part of the larger story of God’s grace in sending the Messiah.
McMillan is senior pastor of Roseland Park Baptist Church, Picayune.
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