By 
One Foot in the Promised Land
When the book of Judges showed up on the Womenary list last fall, I was intrigued. So many of the characters were familiar, some of the stories downright gruesome. Take Jael in Deborah’s time—the woman who tent-pegged Sisera while he slept (Judges 4:21). And the key verse of Judges: People did whatever they felt like doing (Judges 17:6; 21:25, MSG). Hmm! Sounds a bit like today.
What precipitated the need for this strange bevy of men and women? After being snatched from the power of Egypt (Judges 6:8) and entering the Promised Land, Israel served the LORD throughout the lifetime of Joshua and of the elders who outlived him and who had experienced everything the LORD had done for Israel (Joshua 24:31). But those elders had passed away. There was no one to remind the next generation of all that oppression, no one to tell them the folly of worshipping any god but the LORD.
You might say they had one foot in the Promised Land, expecting God to bless them while not living up to His expectations. You might even say that we, God’s people now, are teetering on the border of those expectations, one foot in and one foot out of all He promises. The ways, the idols, the wishy-washy sentimentality of the culture around us have a distinct pull on our devotion.
God Sends an Angel
So God had to call out those He saw fit to help Him rescue His people from their messes. He couldn’t wipe them all out. After all, He had promised (Judges 2:1).
In about the middle of the Judges’ era, God chose Gideon: The angel of the LORD came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites (6:11). And presumably he sat there for awhile according to the translation of the Hebrew word yashab, waiting to reveal himself to Gideon.
Isn’t that fascinating! How many times has the LORD sent a messenger to sit down by me, waiting to get my attention? How many times have I missed the moment, be it a person, a Scripture, a nudge from His Spirit, an angel? I wonder.
Well, God certainly did get Gideon’s attention: “The LORD is with you, mighty warrior” (6:12). You can hear the wheels turning in Gideon’s head: God is with us—how could that possibly be? “Why has all this happened to us? Where are all the wonders that our fathers told us about when they said, ‘Did not the LORD bring us up out of Egypt?’” (6:13). Problem was, God had not abandoned them; they had abandoned Him.
And mighty warrior indeed—that’s downright ridiculous! There Gideon was—cowering in the winepress, afraid of the Midianites. What does God see in Gideon that Gideon doesn’t see? Enough to give him the task at hand: “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?” (Judges 6:14). God’s assignment—you can count on Him to give you the strength to see it through.
Signs and Wonders
First of all, Gideon wanted to make certain he was hearing from God. He prepared a goat, baked unleavened bread, and returned to the stranger under the oak. If this was merely a man he’d have been hospitable, as the far East culture required. If it was an angel—well, let’s see what happened: Fire flared from the rock, consuming the meat and the bread (6:21). “Ah Sovereign LORD! I have seen the angel of the LORD face to face!” (6:22). So Gideon built an altar to the LORD there (6:24).
Next he was instructed to tear down the family altar to Baal, rousing the ire of the enemy. Not to be daunted, he rallied the troops. And then he literally put out not one fleece but two.
Is it wrong to “put out a fleece”? It’s not that Gideon didn’t know what God’s will was—to save Israel. It’s the by my hand part (6:36) that scared him. God, knowing Gideon needed reassurance, was gracious to both wet the fleece and leave the ground dry on the first evening, and to wet the ground and leave the fleece dry the second—as McGee says, the more supernatural of the two: Online “Thru the Bible”.
I shudder to think of how many fleeces I have set out: Is it really me that you want Lord? She can do that much better than I.
Less Is More
The LORD said to Gideon, “You have too many men for me to deliver Midian into your hands. In order that Israel may not boast against me that her own strength has saved her” (Judges 7:2). Too many men: God, what are you thinking? The enemy are 135,000 strong (Judges 8:10) and Israel has a mere 32,000 (7:3). You want all who are afraid to turn back? And guess what—22,000 did just that. But the 10,000 who remained were still too many to suit God. So God whittled that 10,000 down to 300.
And then the LORD gave Gideon one more sign to reassure him, only this time Gideon didn’t have to ask: “If you are afraid to attack, go down to the camp with your servant Purah and listen to what they are saying. Afterward you will be encouraged to attack the camp” (7:10-11). There he and the servant, privy to a dream interpretation, understood, worshipped God, and gathered the troops for battle (7:15). Dividing the three hundred men into three companies, he placed trumpets and empty jars in the hands of all of them, with torches inside (Judges 7:15-16). The rest of the story is history.
As we worshipped in church a few Sundays ago, the utter simplicity of God’s ways struck me full force:
“In the presence of my enemies
I raise a hallelujah, my weapon is a melody
…heaven comes to fight for me.”
—Bethel Music, JD and Melissa Helser
The Score at Halftime
To God be the glory! And the enemy stayed far away from the people of God for as long as Gideon lived: During Gideon’s lifetime, the land enjoyed peace forty years (8:28).
Sadly though, the credit for the victory did not go to God: “Rule over us—you (Gideon), your son and your grandson—because you have saved us out of the hand of Midian” (8:22). Come on folks, there were only 300 of them. Gideon wisely declined: “I will not rule over you. The LORD will rule over you” (8:23).
In the very next breath he figured a little gold might not hurt, and the ephod he made some of the gold into became a snare to the people. Instead of worshipping God, they prostituted themselves to a bejeweled priestly garment. And as soon as Gideon died they prostituted themselves to the Baals (8:33). Inevitably, the worship of God was again lost to the next generation.
Gideon was listed with the men of faith (Hebrews 11:32). But those last forty years of his life were not stellar. He lived like a king even if he didn’t take the title. He had many wives plus a concubine (8:30-31). And most importantly he stopped listening for God. Why in the world would he not remember those sacred moments under the oak by the winepress? Why would he not continue to constantly seek the wisdom of God?
The final lesson from Gideon shouts out to me loud and clear: you need to finish well. On my daughter’s refrigerator is this quote: “The least important thing in the game of life is the score at halftime.”
All Scripture quotations are from the NIV 1973,1978,1984, unless otherwise noted.
Nancy Paul
Nancy Paul is Canadian born and bred but happily settled in Texas. She is married, mother of two, and grandmother of three busy boys. A long time Womenary student, she loves to read, is a lover of God's word and a wannabe writer. Nancy is a regular contributor to encouraging.com, a collection of blog articles regularly published by the women of Green Acres Baptist Church of Tyler. As well, she is the women's Bible study coordinator at GABC. 
