Judges 8 - Sore Winner

PARENTAL WARNING: If this were a movie, it would probably be rated PG. If you have younger kids reading this, please read it first for yourself and decide if your child can handle it.

Let’s be honest here – it feels good to win. When I was younger, I would play a game of Monopoly with my dad and grandpa every time we went to visit my grandparents. We always made it into a huge competition. We would all get as many properties as we could as fast as possible, hoping to knock someone else out before they became too big of a threat (you know, as you do in Monopoly).

When the dust settled and only one of us was left standing, the winner would lord it over the other two. My dad, grandpa, or I would talk about how we were the best, the champion, and depending on how long we had left in the visit, that might inspire a rematch.

Now I don’t suggest you start acting like I did whenever you win a game. People like sore winners about as much as they like sore losers. It feels good to win, but we should never let a victory in a board game, a sport, a difficult time in life, or even an actual battle get to our heads.

This is what brings us back to Gideon. We learned last week how Gideon had just a tiny bit of faith, but it resulted in some big, amazing things from God. He and an army of 300 Israelites faced off against an army of thousands upon thousands of Midianites. The Israelites had a bigger army at first, but God sent most of the soldiers away so the Israelites would know that it was God who gave them victory, not themselves.

This really happened guys. A group of 300 people beat a huge army with some torches, some jars, and some trumpets. And as the Midianites were fleeing for their lives, the Israelites chased right after them!

I hope some of the soldiers celebrated God that night. I hope some of them sang songs to Him and prayed to Him and thanked Him for saving His people yet again from their enemies.

But as we keep reading the story of Gideon, we see this isn’t what Gideon did. Remember, Gideon is an unlikely Faith Hall of Famer, a super scared and unconfident guy who needed God to prove to him 4 different times that He was really with the Israelites… I’ve been saying it’s because Gideon doubted so much that I’m surprised he was included in the Faith Hall of Famer, but we see another reason in Judges 8.

One last warning – This is the part of Gideon’s story we don’t often hear in Sunday school. Because the sad thing is guys, even after all the amazing things he saw God do, Gideon messed up really badly. And his mistake didn’t just hurt him – it hurt the entire country!

The first part of this story is what Gideon did immediately after defeating the Midianites. He and his army were trying to chase down the stragglers, the Midianites who were running away after they had been defeated. Gideon especially wanted to capture Zebah and Zalmunna, two of the Midianite commanders, to make sure the Midianites wouldn’t bother Israel again any time soon. 

But the army couldn’t chase all day and night. The people were tired from all the fighting and chasing over the last few days, so Gideon decided to make camp one night among the people of Sukkoth. Now I don’t know if Gideon had planned to lead this chase or not. Probably not, given how scared he was to go through with the battle in the first place. But if this chase wasn’t preplanned, then they had probably used up most of the food they had brought with them. So, a hungry Gideon asked the people of Sukkoth if they would share their bread with the army.

Gideon had every reason to expect the people of Sukkoth would help him. Sukkoth was certainly not in the heart of Israel, but it was still part of the nation. And the Israelites had promised long ago that even though they were all from different families and tribes, they would always rally together to help each other when the nation was in danger.

So imagine how shocked Gideon was when the people of Sukkoth said no. They even mocked Gideon for letting Zebah and Zalmunna get away, saying they wouldn’t give food to troops who couldn’t finish off their enemies!

Now I don’t know exactly what made Gideon react the way that he did. Maybe Gideon got a taste of what God could do and assumed God would help him do anything now. Maybe Gideon was super excited after his victory and thought he could do anything. Maybe he was just really tired and hungry, which made him cranky.

Whatever the reason, his response is still shocking: “The LORD will hand Zebah and Zalmunna over to me. When he does, I’ll tear your skin with thorns from desert bushes” (Judges 8:7 NIrV).

…What? This is the Gideon that was scared to go after the Midianites? The same Gideon that always needed convincing to do God’s work? That doesn’t seem right!

But Gideon was a man of his word. He chased the Midianite army down, caught them by surprise, and won another huge victory. And this time, he did capture Zebah and Zalmunna. And like Gideon said, when he came back through Sukkoth on his way home, he showed the elders of the city that he had now captured the two Midianite commanders. Then he made the elders of the city pay for their rudeness with those thorns from desert bushes and whole bunch of other, awful things!

I’ve mentioned that Gideon’s story is my favourite in the Bible. I’ve always liked the battle against the Midianites. But I didn’t learn about this part of the story until much later… No amount of mocking deserves this kind of response. What the people of Sukkoth did was wrong, but Gideon’s reaction was even worse.

If that wasn’t bad enough, listen to what happened next. After returning home, the Israelites were so happy that Gideon had saved them from the Midianites that they asked him to be king. Now notice that there’s no mention of how God had saved them from the Midianites. The whole point of making the army smaller was so God would get the credit and not anyone else. But it seems the Israelites had missed the point…Again…

Gideon did try to set them straight. “I will not rule over you,” he said, “and neither will my son. God will rule over you.” But then he continued, “I do ask one thing, though. I want each of you to give me an earring.” (Judges 8:23-24). It was normal for the Midianites and Israel’s other neighbours to wearing earrings in their ears. This is what Gideon was asking for – the earrings the people had taken from the Midianites after defeating them.

So all the people gave Gideon some earrings. He got 43 pounds worth of gold. Now I’ve done some math, and if each of these earrings weighed around 5 grams, which the Internet tells me isn’t too outrageous, then that would mean Gideon received around 3900 earrings! He then took all of these earrings and melted them down into a golden ephod.

What’s an ephod, you might be asking? It’s like a fancy apron that the priests wore, but Gideon’s was made of pure gold! And instead of wearing it, Gideon set it up in his hometown of Ophrah where the people could come and admire it.

And admire it they did. A little too much in fact. People started bowing down to the golden ephod and started treating it like an idol. And they kept this up for years, even long after Gideon and his sons were all dead!

This is how Gideon’s story ends guys. It doesn’t end on a note of victory… It ends with Gideon doing some pretty awful things to some Israelites and making a golden apron that accidentally became an idol.

Gideon’s pride and greed got the better of him. Gideon knew better than to start calling himself a king, but he certainly started acting like one at the end of his life. He acted as though he could do whatever he wanted, and the Israelites let him.

They had missed the point of that miraculous battle! Instead of remembering that God was the one who gave them victory, they looked to Gideon as their hero. And while Gideon said all the right things, he didn’t act like God was the one who had done all the work. He took the fame for himself and ran with it.

And that brings us to our lesson for today. God’s victories are for His fame, not ours. He is the one who deserves the praise when He helps us through a really difficult time, gives us the strength to avoid doing something we know we shouldn’t, or who works through us to introduce someone to Jesus. Our lives are supposed to be examples to others of how great and loving God is, but we ruin that when we take the credit for the stuff God has done. When we do that, we treat Him like He doesn’t exist.

So that’s the other reason I’m sometimes surprised Gideon is in the Faith Hall of Fame. Even though he said the right stuff, he acted like he had done all the heavy lifting against the Midianites.

But if we can take any encouragement from the end of Gideon’s story, I guess it’s that even when we mess up, God still knows and acknowledges the times we have done right. He is grateful for the times we have shown our faith and done what He’s asked us to do. And when we do have faith, giving Him the credit when things go well, we can trust He will be pleased with us too.

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That's not actually quite it for Gideon. We're done with his story, but we'll be coming back to it during the Second Sunday Switch-Up in a couple weeks. And after that... Well, do the math and I'm sure you can figure out what story we'll be talking about!

~Brentagious

Judges 7 - Big Battle, Little Faith

Last time, we started hearing about Gideon and his unlikely entry into the Faith Hall of Fame. Gideon was visited by an angel, but he really didn’t want to believe God was calling him at first. But when the angel made it clear his message was from God (with a fancy fire show no less), Gideon believed. He did what God asked, tearing down a pole and statue the people used to worship false gods.

The reason Gideon probably didn’t want to listen to the angel at first was because he was afraid. The Midianites, the people ruling over Israel at the time, were a strong and mean bunch. They would destroy fields and ruin people’s lives for the fun of it, hoping the Israelites would be too scared to fight back.

Now Gideon was able to put his faith before his fear and rip down those false idols. But it seems the Midianites didn’t like Gideon’s little act of rebellion. They started gathering their troops and camped just outside of Israel’s territory, probably hoping to put down Gideon and any courage he inspired once and for all!

God hadn’t abandoned His people, though. He gave Gideon the courage to keep fighting. The Bible tells us Gideon blew trumpets and rallied people from all over Israel to his cause. For days, people came pouring into the camp, ready to fight back against the Midianites.

Well, actually, not everyone was as ready to fight as you think. And Gideon most of all. There’s this super cool story involving some sheep wool about how God convinced Gideon that He really did want Gideon to lead this army. We don’t have time to talk about that today, but look up Judges 6:36-40 when you have a chance. Or do it right now. Go ahead, I’ll wait…

Anyways, after the wool thing, Gideon was ready to fight. At least, kind of. He saw this huge army of 32, 000 people and thought, We might actually be able to pull this off! We might actually be able to defeat the Midianites!!!

But just as he was thinking this, Gideon heard God speak to him. And what God said… Well, reading about it, I think it’s amazing. But if I had been Gideon, I’m pretty sure my shoulder’s would have fell, I would’ve shut my eyes, and I would’ve started running my hands through my hair. Because what God had to say was about to complicate things.

“I want to hand Midian over to you,” God began. This was stuff Gideon knew, and he was happy about that. But then God continued, “But you have too many men for me to do that. Then Israel might brag, ‘My own strength has saved me.’ So here is what I want you to announce to the army. Tell them, ‘Those who tremble with fear can turn back. They can leave now’” (Judges 7:2-3, NIrV).

I don’t know about you, but if I were a general about to lead soldiers into battle, the last thing I would want to hear is that my army was about to shrink. I would want all the soldiers I could get.

But God had a point. Israel had a history of thinking they knew better than God or of taking credit for things that God did. So God wanted them to know that this time, this was all Him. When Midian was defeated – and you can be sure Midian would be defeated with God on the Israelites’ side – God wanted His people to know that He had been the one to save them, not their own fighting skill.

So, a shocked and confused Gideon stood up before his army. The soldiers, already kind of nervous, were probably expecting him to give some epic speech that pumped them all up. But he didn’t. Gideon just looked out over the crowd, took a deep breathe, and said something like, “Look, I know the Midianites are a scary bunch. So anyone who wants to go home can.”

And what Gideon was afraid would happen happened. A few soldiers turned around, heaved a sigh of relief, and started going home. And then a few more. And then more. And more. And soon, whole chunks of the army were putting down their weapons and going home.

This kept happening until 22,000 people – 22,000! – left. Gideon probably expected to lose a few hundred or something, but not over half his army! If he hadn’t been scared before, you can bet he was scared now!

But then God spoke to Gideon again, “Well done, Gideon, but the army is still too big…” And as God kept talking, Gideon got more and more worried. But Gideon had seen God work before. He was still super unsure how this was all going to turn out, but he trusted God with the little faith he had.

So he called out to the remaining 10,000 men, hoping his voice didn’t squeak too much out of fear, “We have a stop to make before we go to fight. To the lake!”

The soldier’s probably looked at each other all confused. This was the weirdest training program they had ever seen. Shouldn’t they be out running drills or learning how to use their weapons? Remember, not all of these people were soldiers. A lot of them were farmers or tradespeople who had come when Gideon called.

But now they were off to a lake. And Gideon told everyone to take a drink of water. As each man approached the lake, they noticed Gideon was watching closely. Most of them got down on their knees and cupped some water to their mouth to drink. But a few people – 300 to be exact – got down and drank kind of like dogs do. They lapped it up with their tongues.

When everyone had finished, Gideon called out, “Every man who cupped the water to their face is to go home. Those of you who lapped up the water…” Gideon paused, looking slightly uncertain himself, “We have a battle to fight.”

I’m sure at that point the camp exploded into an uproar. Remember, these are the people who had wanted to stay. These are the people who wanted to fight for their home, even if they weren’t sure what they were doing. But now Gideon had sent almost the entire Israelite army away! How were 300 people supposed to beat thousands upon thousands of Midianites?

I’m sure that question was going through Gideon’s head all day. His faith must have been pretty shaken after walking away from the lake with 300 people. So, to help Gideon out, God sent him to spy on the Midianite camp for a bit. While there, Gideon overheard some guys talking about a dream one of them had. This dream had the Midianite soldier convinced the Israelites were going to win!

This was a major confidence boost for Gideon. And I think that’s what I find so amazing about this story. Gideon doubted every chance he got, but God was still willing to use him and comfort him. And while I have a hard time understanding why God would include a doubter like Gideon in His Faith Hall of Fame, I wonder if it’s because Gideon continued to have faith, however small, that God would do something big to save the Israelites.

But back to our story. Late that night, Gideon began the plan God had given him. He divided the army into three groups and surrounded the Midianite camp. He gave each camp some trumpets and a jar with a torch inside.

Then Gideon told the army, “When my group starts blowing our trumpets, you do the same. And then you smash your jars and hold your torches high. Then run towards the Midianite camp with all your might, shouting, “For the LORD and for Gideon!!!”

And that’s exactly what they did. The Midianites had just finished changing their guards for the night when they heard trumpets surrounding them. They heard the sounds of things breaking, making it seem like thousands of people were on the move, and suddenly lights appeared all around them. They heard yelling and screaming form all sides. And the Midianites started freaking out.

The Midianites had no idea what was happening. The noise and the lights made them think there were a lot more Israelite soldiers than their really were. In the middle of it all, God caused the Midianites to grow even more confused, and soon they were fighting each other instead of the Israelites. Soon, the Midianites couldn’t handle it anymore. They were terrified, and the entire army took off running.

This made it way easier for Gideon and his small army to take on the Midianites. They defeated some, while others got away. But what matters is that Gideon and his little army of 300 defeated this massive army of Midianites.

The small army size was the whole point. Israel could never say, “Man, remember that time that massive army of ours took out the Midianites? How awesome are we?!?” No, they couldn’t say that because there was no massive army. 300 people shouldn’t have been able to defeat thousands of Midianite soldiers, but they did because of God. He made the odds impossible, He came up with the strategy, and He gave the Israelites a huge victory.

But all this started because one man had a little faith. Gideon was never confident. He was scared out of his mind, and even as the battle started, I’m sure Gideon was sitting there wondering if he’d made a terrible mistake. But He trusted God, and the result is something incredible.

You see guys, Big things happen with just a little faith in God. Jesus talks about that too. He says in Matthew 17:20 that if we have faith the size of a mustard seed – which is the teeniest, tiniest little seed – we’ll be able to move mountains.

Now it’s a little more complicated than that. We can’t just go around saying, “I believe God will make a million dollars will fall from the sky” and it’ll happen. We’re supposed to have faith in who God is and what He wants us to do. And when we do that – when we have even the teeniest, tiniest bit of faith that God will work in and through us – we’ll see Him do things in our lives that will blow our minds.

Again, this is why Gideon is in the Faith Hall of Fame. Gideon might have had a lot of doubts, but he trusted God. And when we do that, we might just find our names written in God’s Faith Hall of Fame too.

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That’s all for now folks. We’ve heard 2 stories so far about the cool stuff that happened in Gideon’s life, but next time, we’re going to talk about the other reason I’m surprised Gideon’s in the Faith Hall of Fame. It’s not necessarily a nice reason, but I think it tells us something incredible about God. But more on that in 2 weeks.

~Brentagious