25 That same night the Lord said to him, “Take the second bull from your father’s herd, the one seven years old. Tear down your father’s altar to Baal and cut down the Asherah pole beside it. 26 Then build a proper kind of altar to the Lord your God on the top of this height. Using the wood of the Asherah pole that you cut down, offer the second bull as a burnt offering.” 27 So Gideon took ten of his servants and did as the Lord told him. But because he was afraid of his family and the men of the town, he did it at night rather than in the daytime.
In our study last week in verses 25 through 26 we saw how Gideon was given the command by God to, “Tear down your father’s altar to Baal and cut down the Asherah pole beside it.” This was the first step for Gideon to learn to trust God and also to experience the reality of what God told him who he would be in verse 12b, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.”
Last week we made the comparison that in order for us to be used by God to fulfill His purposes in our lives and also for us to fully experience God’s presence and blessing, we first must disown or renounce and repent of anything that is displeasing to God which God in His word calls sin. In addition, this also includes having in lesser importance in our lives our family members and or anything else that we put in more importance than God in our relationship with Him.
Jesus spoke about this in Luke 14:25-26. 25 A large crowd was following Jesus. He turned around and said to them, 26 “If you want to be my disciple, you must hate everyone else by comparison—your father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even your own life. Otherwise, you cannot be my disciple.
“Love for family and one’s own life must not compete with devotion to Christ.” – New Living Translation Study Bible
Matthew 10:37-38 (New Living Translation), 37 “If you love your father or mother more than you love me, you are not worthy of being mine; or if you love your son or daughter more than me, you are not worthy of being mine.
“Jesus is using hyperbole—a figure of speech that relies on exaggeration to make a point. He is not encouraging His followers to turn against their family members; rather, He is explaining that even devotion to family does not supersede the call to discipleship. Jesus and God’s kingdom must come first in the life of a believer.” – Faithlife Study Bible
Gideon knew that to obey God would cause much conflict. He realized the importance the altar and idols were for His Father, but also how important they were to “the men of the town”. Gideon also knew the trouble it would bring him by obeying God, this is why we read in verse 27 the following. “So Gideon took ten of his servants and did as the Lord told him. But because he was afraid of his family and the men of the town, he did it at night rather than in the daytime.”
The following paragraphs are short excerpts from Warren W. Wiersbe’s commentary, all of which will help put in our context what God was asking Gideon to do in verses 25-27.
“Knowing that Gideon was still afraid, God assigned him a task right at home to show him that He would see him through. After all, if we don’t practice our faith at home, how can we practice it sincerely anyplace else? Gideon had to take his stand in his own village before he dared to face the enemy on the battlefield.”
“Before God gives His servants great victories in public, He sometimes prepares them by giving them smaller victories at home. When we prove that we’re faithful with a few things, God will trust us with greater things (Matthew 25:21).”
“Gideon decided to obey the Lord at night when the village was asleep…but before we judge him, we’d better look at ourselves and see how much we trust the Lord.”
“It’s worth noting that true believers can’t build an altar to the Lord unless first they tear down the altars they’ve built to the false gods they worship. Our God is a jealous God (Exodus 20:5) and will not share His glory or our love with another. Gideon had privately built his own altar to the Lord (Judges 6:24), but now he had to take his public stand; and he had to do it without compromise. Before he could declare war on Midian, he had to declare war on Baal.”
In last week’s sermon we did not get a chance to study completely verses 28 to 32 as planned, even though something was said about them in the bulletin, on Facebook and on the Hope Chapel website some of which is in the next paragraph.
In these next verses (vers. 28-32) nothing is mentioned about what Gideon did or said. In addition, nothing is mentioned at all about the Lord, however all that is said in the next five verses is what the Lord did through Gideon’s father Joash in response to Gideon’s trust and obedience to the Lord. When we trust and obey God to do things His way, God will be responsible for the results. This is exactly what we see in these next five verses.
Judges 6:28-32
28 In the morning when the men of the town got up, there was Baal’s altar, demolished, with the Asherah pole beside it cut down and the second bull sacrificed on the newly built altar! 29 They asked each other, “Who did this?” When they carefully investigated, they were told, “Gideon son of Joash did it.” 30 The men of the town demanded of Joash, “Bring out your son. He must die, because he has broken down Baal’s altar and cut down the Asherah pole beside it.” 31 But Joash replied to the hostile crowd around him, “Are you going to plead Baal’s cause? Are you trying to save him? Whoever fights for him shall be put to death by morning! If Baal really is a god, he can defend himself when someone breaks down his altar.” 32 So that day they called Gideon “Jerub-Baal,” saying, “Let Baal contend with him,” because he broke down Baal’s altar.
In these five verses we see God’s direct or divine influence in the situation over the angry men of the town using Joash Gideon’s father to mediate the uproar. We must not forget that the towns altar to Baal and their Asherah pole were on Gideon’s family’s land. They were not only sacred pagan religious objects for Gideon’s father but could very well have been objects of family pride because their property was the focal point for the townspeople to worship these idols.
We also see in these verses how God used Joash to come to the defense of his son even though he suffered all the loss. One could imagine that Joash would be furiously upset with Gideon for what he did. We must not forget Gideon was “was afraid of his family”, (verse 27) for what he was going to do, because in his mind he thought he knew how they and especially his father would react for his obedience to God’s command.
God’s divine intervention using Joash to confront the angry townspeople was possibly something Gideon did not expect. However this is how God works when we are obedient to Him. He will use anyone and anything to accomplish His purposes in our lives.
Paul writing to the Ephesian congregation tells them in Ephesians 3:20, “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.” How many times do we lose out or forfeit experiencing God’s blessing in our lives because we limit God in what He wants to do in our lives as a result of not trusting Him and not being obedient. We can never figure out, what God can do and how He will do it, and who He will use to it.
Isaiah 55:8-9, New Living Translation, 8 “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. 9 For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.
This was another thing that Gideon also needed to learn if he was going to be successful “mighty warrior” (Judges 6:12), that God said he would be. We will see in the next weeks study, Judges 6:33-40
Pastor John
