Judges 6:11-27 Click here for Bible Verses
Hi GAMErs!
Today’s passage is Judges 6:11-27. Let’s go!
Judges 6:11-16 (NIV)
11 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.
12 When the angel of the LORD appeared to Gideon, he said, “The LORD is with you, mighty warrior.”
13 “But sir,” Gideon replied, “if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our fathers told us about when they said, ‘Did not the LORD bring us up out of Egypt?’ But now the LORD has abandoned us and put us into the hand of Midian.”
14 The LORD turned to him and said, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?”
15 “But Lord,” Gideon asked, “how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.”
16 The LORD answered, “I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites together.”
On verses 13-16: God did not directly answer Gideon’s questions and doubts about why God seemed uninvolved and unconcerned when all this oppression was happening to his people (v13). God could easily have pointed to all the ways that Gideon’s people had broken their covenant with God and how patient God had been with the Israelites up to this point. But instead of focusing on that, instead of explaining anything, God gives Gideon a mission to save Israel from the hand of Midian (v14).
Like Gideon, sometimes we put the blame on God for our problems, not realizing that we are often the cause of our own problems.
Despite Gideon’s questions and doubts about why God allowed this problem, and despite Gideon thinking himself unfit and unqualified to lead (v15), God still called Gideon “a mighty warrior” (v12) and still sent him on a mission to save Israel and promised to be with Gideon (v16). What can we learn from this? God calls us in spite of us, not because of us. It’s because God wants to show His power through our weakness so that people would see that it is God and not us who can really do things.
Also, God sees us in ways that we might not see ourselves. God has a vision for the kind of person you will be that is beyond what you think of yourself. Blessed is the person who believes that vision and goes with God on it.
Judges 6:17-24 (NIV)
17 Gideon replied, “If now I have found favor in your eyes, give me a sign that it is really you talking to me.
18 Please do not go away until I come back and bring my offering and set it before you.” And the LORD said, “I will wait until you return.”
19 Gideon went in, prepared a young goat, and from an ephah of flour he made bread without yeast. Putting the meat in a basket and its broth in a pot, he brought them out and offered them to him under the oak.
20 The angel of God said to him, “Take the meat and the unleavened bread, place them on this rock, and pour out the broth.” And Gideon did so.
21 With the tip of the staff that was in his hand, the angel of the LORD touched the meat and the unleavened bread. Fire flared from the rock, consuming the meat and the bread. And the angel of the LORD disappeared.
22 When Gideon realized that it was the angel of the LORD, he exclaimed, “Ah, Sovereign LORD! I have seen the angel of the LORD face to face!”
23 But the LORD said to him, “Peace! Do not be afraid. You are not going to die.”
24 So Gideon built an altar to the LORD there and called it The LORD is Peace. To this day it stands in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.
On verses 17-24: The Israelites grew up thinking that God is holy that if you see Him face to face you will die. That is what Gideon thought when he realized that he had seen the angel of the LORD, whom we have discussed earlier in Judges as possibly being a theophany of Jesus. Yet instead of striking Gideon dead, the LORD proclaimed peace to Gideon and spared his life. Through this experience Gideon learns that the LORD is Peace, building an altar and naming it to that effect. God is holy and has every right to strike sinners like us down such that we should be separated from Him forever. But, as He did in Gideon’s life through the angel of the LORD, God through Jesus has mercy on us and proclaims peace to us.
Judges 6:25-27 (NIV)
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.
On verses 25-27: Gideon lived in a society that habitually worshiped many other gods. God tells Gideon to tear down his father’s altar to Baal as well as the Asherah pole beside it and in its place to erect an altar to the LORD. I believe God wants us to do the same when it comes to the idols that we otherwise are tempted to worship. God made us not only to be forgiven by Him, but to be worshipers of Him, not only recipients of His mercy but priests who worship Him above all other gods.
Thank You Lord that You are peace. In You we find our peace, our forgiveness, our reason to worship, and our calling to serve and make a difference. In Jesus’ name, AMEN!
Copyright © 2021 Justin Lim. All rights reserved.
