Third Presbyterian Sunday Morning Bible Study - September 20, 2020

Below is the Bible Study written by Jim Rudiger for his Sunday School Class which meets at Third Presbyterian Church, Norfolk, Virginia. It's based on Judges 6:1-3,7-14.

Ever try to hide from somebody?  There is a knock on the door and you peak out the window and there on the porch, are two well dressed young men with Bibles in their hands.  Obviously, they are Mormons there to save your soul.  Many people will pull down the shades and tell the kids to shut up and be quiet knowing how hard it is to keep kids quiet for only a just a minute.  It taxes all of your parenting skills to muffle them for five minutes or until the young men leave. These young men might be persistent and knock several times.  I think they know you are playing hide and seek.  Finally, they give up and go to the house next door where the shades were being closed as the young men descend your steps. 

There are other times that you try to hide from people even in crowded place like the mall.  You are walking along and coming your way is Gale or “Gabbie” as she is known to all of your friends.  Gabbie always has an IPhone full of thousands of pictures of her near perfect granddaughter.  Pictures of her looking cross eyed, sticking her finger up her nose or trying to stuff a cat in a zip lock bag.  With every picture Gabbie comments, “Isn’t she the most adorable child you've ever seen?”  Not quite how you would describe her.  How do you hide from Gabbie in a mall?  Turn around and walk in the other direction.  Duck into the nearest store.  Bend over and pretend to be looking for something in your pocket book.  Pretend you're having a senior moment and can't remember who she is.  Even if it doesn’t work, wasn’t it worth the try?

In today’s study we find Gideon, a guy hand picked by God, hiding out and being found.  Why is he hiding and why is God looking for him?  That’s what we are going to find out today.

Before we get to hiding and seeking, let’s get caught up to date.  It is about 1100 BC, 350 years after the death of Joshua.  Two weeks ago we talked about the void left when Joshua died.  There was nobody strong enough to keep the people on the right path.  Without a strong leader the people were on their own and that spelled trouble with a capital “T” for Israelites.  Here was the base of that trouble. 

In those days among the Canaanite population, people thought that the farm land had gods who took care of things so there would be a good crop.  The gods made sure there was enough sun and rain.  They made sure the ground was fertile and capable of producing bumper crops.  Remember, when Moses had sent the spies into Canaan, they came back with a bunch of grapes so heavy that it had to be carried on a pole between two men.  In other words, these were bumper BUMPER crops.  It may have been that because the Canaanites who had lived there for centuries, knew what it took to cultivate the land to produce a big harvest.  

But, the Israelites were new to this land and didn’t have those skills.  When their crops came out puny compared to the crops that had been raised by the Canaanites, they started to looking into what was different between what they were doing and what the Canaanites were doing.  Not accepting the fact that they might not have been as good farmers, they decided that it was because they weren’t playing up to the Canaanite gods assigned to their farms.  Now, they weren’t giving up on God, they were just playing all of the angles.  No use leaving a stone unturned was their motto.

Paying even respect to the Canaanite gods violated the basic requirement of their Covenant with God.  God was very specific about that.  What is the first commandment?  You won’t have any other Gods before me.  If the Israelites agreed to this and agreed to obey God, then he would protect them.  By paying lip service to the Canaanite gods, they broke their covenant with God and, in return, God withdrew his protection.  The tribes had been so used to God’s protection that they had reduced their military budget and had eliminated their defense shield.  The Canaanite tribes saw this and attacked and won back some the land that the Israelites had conquered.  The Israelites asked God for help and promised they would be good this time.  Who did God send to relieve their oppression?  Judges. 

This started a cycle of behavior.  The people would chase after Baal, the Canaanite god, be invaded by neighboring tribes and finally calling on God to give them one more chance.  God being compassionate sent a judge to drive out the oppressing neighbors.  As soon as that judge died, what happened?  The people went back to their old ways and the cycle started all over again. 

If you remember a few lesson ago when we were studying Exodus, before the Israelites entered the promised land, Moses allowed the tribes of Reuben, Gad and Manasseh, to claim land east of the Jordan on the provision that they be a part of the army conquering the Promised Land. In order to secure this land east of the Jordan, Moses had to defeat the Midianites and Amalekites who lived there.  The Midianites and Amalekites were the descendants of Ishmael who was Abraham’s son by Sarah’s maid.  Ishmael was the father of all of the modern Arabs.  So the Midianites and Amalekites had two problems with the Israelites.  First was the Ishmael/Jacob problem and the second was that Moses, a descendent of Jacob, had taken their land from them.  

While these tribes on the east side of the Jordan weren’t living in Canaan, they had problems sticking with God, too.  And that brings us to today’s study.

Judges 6:1  The Israelites did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord gave them into the hand of Midian seven years.  2  The hand of Midian prevailed over Israel; and because of Midian the Israelites provided for themselves hiding places in the mountains, caves and strongholds.  3 For whenever the Israelites put in seed, the Midianite and Amalekites and the people of the East would come up against them.

How does this scripture start?  The Israelites did evil in the sight of the Lord.  Meaning what?  Worshiping idols and they weren't even being sneaky about.  They did it right in the open front of the Lord.  What did God do to Israel this time?  Let the Midianites oppress them.  For how long?  Seven years.  The Midianites were big in the caravan business.  What were used to carry the products in a caravan?  Camels.  The Midianties took their camels and trained them to be a calvary.  They would swoop down into the Israelite towns and steal all of the produce, burn the fields and pillage.  Then they would go back into the wilderness.   Every year after harvest, the people knew that the Midianites would come in and rob them.  They even circled the day on their calenders.  Now, there were a lot of caves in the Jordan valley, so, what the Israelites started doing was to put away as much produce as they could in the caves and then hide in the caves until the Midianites finished their pillaging. 

This cycle of planting and the Midianites pillaging had been going on for seven years.  The Midianites must have been very brutal in their attacks.  For years after that when the Jews wanted to express something that was horrible, they would refer to it as the “day of Midian.”  It’s like when we want someone to recognize how bad something are, we say, “It was like living in Pungo!” The tribes on the east side of the Jordan were particularly vulnerable targets because all of the rest of the tribes wouldn’t be able to cross the Jordan and come to their defense quickly.  Of course, by this time the confederation of the tribes had weakened so much that even in Canaan, a tribe being attacked had a hard time getting  a neighboring tribe to come their aid.

Judges 6:7  When the Israelites cried to the Lord on account of the Midianites,  8 the Lord sent a prophet to the Israelites; and he said to them,  "Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I led you up from Egypt, and brought you out of the house of slavery;  9 and I delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians, and the hand of all who oppressed you, and drove them out before you, and gave  you their land;  10 and I said to you, 'I am the Lord your God; you shall not pay reverence to the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you live.'  But you have not given heed to my voice."

God allowed Midian to invade Israel for seven years and the Israelites cried “Uncle” and they finally went to God.  I’ll tell you, if I was God, I would have said, “I’m through with you guys.  Your word means absolutely nothing, so why should I believe that you will change.  I’m going to find a better group to be my chosen people.”  Did God follow my advise?  No.  What did he do?  He sent a prophet. What other judge was a prophet?  Deborah. Why does God stick with the Israelites?  It was part of his plan that the Israelites would be the people who would bring all of the earth to recognizing God as the only Lord over everything.  His plan is too important to be ditched because humans had short memories.  God’s solution is to whip the Israelites into shape.  

God reminds them of all the things he has done for them.  Really big things. What had God done for them?  He rescued them from bondage in Egypt. That is definitely a biggie.  He delivered them from nations who oppressed them.  He gave them the very land they are living on.  For doing all of this, God told them not to honor the gods of Canaan..  In spite of that command, did Israel listen to God?  No.

Judges 6:11  Now the angel of the Lord came and sat under the oak at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, as his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press, to hide it from the Midianites.  12 The angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, "The Lord is with you, you mihjty warrior."  13 Gideon answered him, "But sir, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us?  And where are all his wonderful deeds that our ancestors recounted to us, saying, 'Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?'  But now the Lord has cast us off, and given us into the hand of Midian."  14 Then the Lord turned to him and said, "Go in this might of yours and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian; I hereby commission you."

Who appears?  An angel comes and sits under a tree right beside a wine press owned by a guy named Joash.  Joash is from the family of Abiezrite which was a part of the tribe of Manasseh. Remember this is one of the tribes allowed to stay east of the Jordan. It was a very small weak family.  Beside the angel and Joash, who else is there?  As the angel is sitting there in the shade of that tree, Gideon, the son Joash is in the wine press beating out grain.  In those days the wine press consisted of two large stones.  The larger stone was hollowed out forming a vat.  Grapes would be thrown into the vat and people would walk around stomping the grapes.  When I said that, how many oof y'all pictured Lucy stomping in a wine vat with her skirt hitched up?  The juice from the large vat would flow out and be collected in a hollowed out smaller stone.  You can imagine that the sides of the vat was,'t very high.

What was Gideon doing in the wine press any way?  Threshing grain.  The way threshing worked was that you would beat the grain shafts on the floor separating the hulls from the grain.  You would scoop up the pile of hulls and grain with a shallow basket and toss the pile in the air.  The hulls are lighter than the grain, so, the wind would carry them away while the heavier grain fell to the floor.  The grain would then be swept up and bagged.

So there was Gideon stooped over in the wine press, beating the sheaves of grain on the floor.  Why was he threshing in a wine press?  He was hiding.  He was afraid that the Midianites would see him and steal his grain.  He probably planned on hiding the grain in a cave in the hills.  He didn’t want to be noticed threshing, but if he followed the threshing procedures and tossed the hulls and grain in the air, some Midianite might see the cloud of hulls and grain and the jig would be up.  So there wouldn’t be a cloud of hulls puffing up out of the wine press, Gideon was having to brush around and pick up grain piece by piece.  Can you imagine what a tedious back breaking job that was?  

Gideon is working away concentrating on picking up all of the grain he can, when all of the sudden, he hears somebody clearing his throat.  At first he might have thought that it was a Midianite and he was caught red handed.  Who was it?  The angel.  Gideon looks up and there peeking over the top of the wine press is the glowing face of an angel.  What does the angel say?  “The Lord is with you, you mighty warrior.”  Gideon was very tired from the back breaking work and, maybe, a little annoyed at being interrupted.  Another thing that got to him was that he called Gideon a mighty warrior.  A mighty warrior wouldn’t be hiding in a wine vat trying to get enough grain for supper. "What does he mean calling me a mighty warrior?  I’m a rich kid who has never even had a fight over marbles.  Never been drafted.  Never lifted a sling shot against anybody.  The nerve of that guy making fun of me.”  

Gideon shows his impatience with his uninvited guest.  What does he ask the angel?  “If God is with me, he’s sure quiet.  If he is with me why isn’t he beating up on the Midianites?  Where are all of those great miracles that my daddy said he did way back then?”  The angel doesn’t even pay any mind to Gideon.  Doesn’t even try to answer his questions.  He gets right to the point, “God has drafted you.  You are going to be his general and will defeat the Midianite army?  God will be there to clear the way for you.”  Gideon asks for a sign that God will really do these things.

Now, hospitality was big with the Israelites and hospitality demanded that a guest be fed.  So, Gideon goes home and fixes supper consisting of lamb and unleavened bread with a broth to poured over it.  He takes it back to where the angel is and was about to cook it when the angel stepped over to him and touched the food with the end of his staff and, suddenly,  it burst into flames and was consumed.  Gideon recognizes that this is the sign he had asked for.

That night Gideon has a dream where God tells him to go and tear down the Baal idols that his Daddy had.  Generally, right beside the Baal alter was a wooden pole which represented Baal’s girl friend, Astartes.  Remember, last week I said that Baal lived inside of tree trunks.  Evidently, Baal loved trees so much, he had a girl friend that looked like a wooden pole.  While it’s still dark, Giideon goes and destroys Baal’s alter and takes the pole, cuts it up and uses  it as fuel for a sacrifice to God.  

The next morning the people looked over at Joash’s place and the Baal altar is gone and so was the pole.  They were sure that his no good son, Gideon, had done it and they were fit to be tied.  They pulled Gideon’s dad in front of the town elders and demanded to know why this had happened and what punishment he was going to deal out to Gideon.  Right now it might be interesting to know that the name “Gideon” means “Chopper”.  He sure lived up to his name in chopping down Astartes’ Festus pole.  Anyway, Gideon’s dad said, “I ain’t going  to do nothing about it.  If Baal was such a big deal god, then let him deal with my son.”  And from that day on, the people renamed Gideon “Jerubbaal” which means “Let Baal handle him”.  Scripture will use both names to identify Gideon as long as he lived.

While all of this was going on, the Midianites, Amalekites and a few other tribes crossed the Jordan and made camp in the valley of Jezreel.  When Gideon gets the news he goes to Canaan and sends out a call for troops from the other tribes.  Standing in the hills above Jezreel, Gideon saw a Canaanite army so big that it looked like a swarm of locust down in the valley.  The response to his call was better than he thought, about thirty two thousand men showed up.  He assembled them and then waited for God to tell him what to do with his army.  But, he still had gnawing doubts about whether God was serious about him leading an army against the Midianites, so he asked again for a sign.  He would lay a fleece of wool on the ground over night.  If the next morning the fleece was dry and the ground was wet with dew, then God wanted him to do it.  The next morning he checked the wool and it was dry and the ground all around it was soaking wet.  Did this convince him that God really wanted him to lead the army?  Nope.  Gideon thought that maybe, without his knowing somebody replaced the wet wool with dry wool or maybe the sun came up and dried the wool out before Gideon got there. For what ever reason he wanted the sign done again only this time the wool would be laid on the grass overnight and the next morning if the wool is wet and the grass dry then God had picked him.  What do you think happened?  Wet wool; dry grass. 

God looks over the army and you know what he tells Gideon?  The army is too big.  Too big? If it was me, I’d have told God that we need to double the size of his army.   Why does God say the army is too big?  If a big army defeats the Midianites and their allies, the people would think they were the ones who beat the enemy because they had the larger army.  God’s input wouldn’t be recognized.  Here is how God told Gideon to reduce the army.  If anybody is scared, tell him to go home.  I like that plan.  I’d have been packing my bag before Gideon stamped my get out of the army pass.  22,000 men took the offer leaving only 10,000 men to battle an army that looked like a plague of locust.  You think Gideon was getting a little panicky right about now?  If he was, then the next thing God said must have made him drop in a dead faint.

God says there are still too many men in the army.  He had run out of cowards so what does he tell Gideon to do next?  Take the 10,000 men down to the water’s edge to drink water.  Based on how they drank their water, they would be accepted or rejected by God.  How many ways are there to drink water from a stream?  Use a cup.  Use your hands to scoop up the water.  Laying down and licking it up like a dog.  Lets look at the posture of each choice.  Drinking from a cup or your hands, you would probably be on your knees able to look all around while you’re drinking.  In other words, you would be prepared if someone was sneaking up on you and could jump up and defend yourself.  But, to lap up the water like a dog, what do you have to do?  Lay on your stomach and put your face nearly in the water.  This position makes you pretty vulnerable to attack, because, you aren’t able to see people coming at you.  Which ones do you think God picked to form his army?  God picked the dog lappers.  They had to be the dumbest because they didn’t even consider their own safety.  Of all of the 10,000 men, they would be least capable of defending themselves on their own.  So, why pick them?  God is making sure that Gideon’s army is made up of the least likely soldiers to win a battle much less a war.  It’s like picking the French army.  Do you know how many men drank like a dog - how many were drafted?  Only three hundred. 

Does this scheme have a chance of winning?  Here is what Gideon does.  Gideon waited until it got dark.  He split his army into three divisions.  One was posted on one side of the camp and another on the other side and a third right in front.  The 9,700 men who weren’t picked had left their lamps which were bowls with oil in them.  The dog lapping men were directed to put the lit bowls all around them on the slopes of the hills leading down to the valley where the Midianite army was camped.  Suppose you were in the Midianite camp and looked up to hills that night and saw thousands of lights on the hills, what would you think?  Thousands of soldiers in the hills were ready to attack.  The men in the Midianite camp were getting more scared with each passing hour.  Gideon told his guys that when he called, “Charge”, they were to start breaking the bowls and blowing on their trumpets.  Finally, they were to yell, “A sword for the Lord and for Gideon!”  And run down the hills, yelling, toward the Midianite camp.  Remember it’s at night.  The bowls of light are out and the men in the camp couldn’t see there were only 300 men.

The men in the Midianite camp began to panic and in the dark they started to mistake some of their own men for Israelites and started killing each other.  We’d call it friendly fire.  The rest started running for the Jordan.  Gideon sent word for the tribe of Ephraim to move to the Jordan and block access to the Jordan and then kill the stranded Midianites.  The great Midianite army had been routed by only three hundred dog lapping soldiers.

The Israelites had driven out the feared Midianites through the leadership of Gideon.  They looked at what had happened and recognized that without a leader like Gideon who united the tribes, it was every man for himself which left them very vulnerable.  If Gideon was in charge he could make sure that people like the Midianites wouldn’t threaten them again.  They wanted Gideon to be their king. That is what we do for people like Washington who save our skins.  What did Gideon do?  He refused.  Who did Gideon say was the people’s king?  God.

The story of Gideon doesn’t have a happy ending.  Gideon wanted a reward.  What did he ask for?  He asked that each man give him a gold ear ring from their booty. That was small enough reward for each man to give, but, melted down it made Gideon a rich man.  Do you think Gideon should have asked for a reward since it was really God who won the battle?  It appears that Gideon fashioned the gold into an idol to represent God and erected it in his home town.  One bit of irony from this story is that when Moses was up on Sinai getting the Ten Commandments, what was Aaron making in the camp?  A golden bull.  Where did the gold come from?  Rings donated by the people.  God long ago had explained that man wasn’t capable of representing God in a statue and shouldn’t try. Gideon went on to have a lot of wives and concubines.  From them he had seventy children and it took every penny he got from the melted down rings to send them all to college.

Excuse me.  Somebody is knocking on my door.  Hmm.  Should I close the blinds and hide or open the door?  Christ said, "I stand before your door and knock" and scripture says, "Seek you the Lord."  I think the time for hiding in our own personal wine press is over.  Now in these troubling times we need to seek Jesus,  We will never regret letting the Lord in and I'll bet that even Gabbie will turn off her Ifone to answer that knock.

Prayer: We pray that we don’t hide our salvation but humbly submit it to a doubting world.   Amen.