It's a pleasure to be here with you this morning. Thank you very much for inviting me to speak today. And I bring greetings from the congregation. In addition to being Professor Westin, I'm also a stated supplier at an Orthodox Presbyterian Church just outside of Philadelphia, where my family are members. And I bring greetings from their congregation to their brothers and sisters here in Colorado as well. If you would turn with me to the Book of Judges, Chapter 6. And I want to read from verse, in fact I think I'll read the whole chapter, originally I was going to read from verse 11, but I'll read the whole chapter, because it gives us a good context for understanding the particular text towards the end of this chapter that I want to preach on. It introduces us perhaps to one of the most famous characters in the Old Testament, one whose name presumably most of us will be familiar, Gideon. Hear the word of the Lord. Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, and for seven years he gave them into the hands of the Midianites. Because the power of Midian was so oppressive, the Israelites prepared shelters for themselves in mountain clefts, caves and strongholds. Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, the Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern peoples invaded the country. They camped on the land and ruined the crops all the way to Gaza and did not spare a living thing for Israel, neither sheep nor cattle nor donkeys. They came up with their livestock in their tents like swarms of locusts. It was impossible to count the men and their camels. They invaded the land to ravage it. Midian so impoverished the Israelites that they cried out to the Lord for help. When the Israelites cried to the Lord because of Midian, he sent them a prophet who said, this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says. I brought you up out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. I snatched you from the power of Egypt and from the hand of all your oppressors. I drove them from before you and gave you their land. And I said to you, I am the Lord your God. Do not worship the gods of the Amorites in whose land you live. But you have not listened to me. The angel of the Lord came and sat down under the oak in Ofra that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites. When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, The Lord is with you, mighty warrior. 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. 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? But Lord Gideon asked, how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh and I am the least in my family. The Lord answered, I will be with you and you will strike down all the Midianites together. Gideon replied, If now I found favour in your eyes, give me a sign that it is really you talking to me. 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. Gideon went in, prepared a young goat from an ephor 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. 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. 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. When Gideon realized that it was the angel of the Lord, he exclaimed, our sovereign Lord, I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face. But the Lord said to him, Peace, do not be afraid, you are not going to die. So Gideon built an altar to the Lord there and called it the Lord is Peace. And to this day it stands in Ophrah of the Abiezrites. 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. 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." 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 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. They asked each other, who did this? When they carefully investigated, they were told Gideon, the son of Joash, did it. 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. But Joash replied to the hostile crowd around him, Are you going to plead Baal's cause? Are you going to try to save him? Whoever fights for him should be put to death by mourning. If Baal really is a god he can defend himself when someone comes and breaks down his altar. So that day they called Gideon Jerob Baal saying that Baal can tend with him because he broke down Baal's altar. Now all the Midianites, Amalekites, and other eastern peoples joined forces and crossed over the Jordan and camped in the valley of Jezreel. Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon, and he blew a trumpet, summoning the Abiezrites to follow him. He sent messengers throughout Manasseh, calling them to arms, and also into Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali, so that they too went up to meet him. Gideon said to God, if you will save Israel by my hands as you promised, look, I will place a wolf fleece on the threshing floor, If there is dew only on the fleece and all the ground is dry, then I will know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you said. And that is what happened. Gideon rose early the next day. He squeezed the fleece and wrung out the dew, a bowl full of water. Then Gideon said to God, Do not be angry with me. Let me make just one more request. Allow me one more test with the fleece. This time make the fleece dry and the ground covered with dew. That night God did so. Only the fleece was dry. All the ground was covered with dew. Praise God for his holy and inerrant word. I want to focus towards the end of my sermon today on that last passage. The bit where the writer tells us about this strange experiment that Gideon does with the fleece. I suspect it's one of the passages that's most familiar to many Christians. The phrase, you know, if you're looking to, wondering what you should do, the phrase to sort of put out a fleece is sort of common in Christian circles. Well, you know, I'm tempted to say, well, why don't you, why don't we put out a fleece today? Why don't we all pray now that if my car has vanished when I go into the car park after the service, you as a congregation will buy me a new one. And if it's still there, you'll just give me $500 instead. It's a completely bizarre suggestion, isn't it? An absolute abuse of the notion of Christian guidance to test God like that. And what I want to argue today in this sermon is that what happens at the end of this chapter is not a paradigm or a pattern for Christian guidance. This chapter is actually telling us something very deep about God. and not about how we should seek guidance for him. And that's why it's important to set that passage in the context of the whole chapter. I would guess that in the United States this morning, there probably won't be that many sermons being preached on the Book of Judges, because it's not a great book for how we like to think about the world. The Book of Judges is full of strange stories, horrible goings-on, and the heroes in the Book of Judges that often loom large in our imaginations as great men and women, when you actually come and look at the detail of how they're described, they're feet of clay, they're remarkably disappointing people. I'm preaching through churches in my own church at the moment, and part of me hopes that my church is called a pastor before I get to Samson. If you look at the kind of stuff that Samson gets up to, well we all know he's this great hero of Israel, but read the detail of what he gets up to in his private life. How do you preach on that to a congregation where there are children? It's in the Word of God. How do you preach on it? And yet Samson is mentioned in Hebrews 11. It's one of the great heroes of the faith. Gideon is similar. As we come to look at Gideon in this chapter, we find before us not a, one might say, a giant to whom we should look up, if you like, but a portrait of flawed humanity used by God to achieve great things. First of all then, we'll think a little bit about the background. What exactly is going on in Israel at this point? Well, we know that Israel had crossed into the Promised Land sometime previously. In the book of Judges, it starts by telling us how the Israelites really fail from the word go. The Lord God says when you cross into the Promised Land, you need to clear out the people who are there. You need to do that. This is the land I'm giving to you. And if you don't clear out these people, you are disobeying my command and you will find yourself very soon to be tempted to start behaving as they do. You'll be mixing with people and very soon the way you act will be mimicked, the way they act will be mimicked in the way that you act. It starts very early, when you look at Judges chapter 1, we hear about how they deal with this king. Chop off his thumbs and his toes. And what's his response? He says, this is exactly what I did to my enemies. It's very interesting, isn't it? We get that hint right at the start of Judges, that the Israelites are already adopting the practices of the nations around them. Rather than going in and fulfilling the command as the Lord has given it, they chop off this man's fingers and toes. And his reaction is, you know, that's just what I do to my enemies. Interesting. Right from the word go, they're starting to accommodate. By the time we get to chapter 6, The accommodation to the nations around is so deep that Gideon's own father has an altar of Baal in his own house. Central to this chapter is Gideon starting to destroy idolatry in Israel. And where does that start? It starts in the house of his own father. And of course one of the interesting things about that is when Gideon destroys this altar of Baal, well first of all he has to do it at night because he knows what will come when he does it. People are going to dislike him. And secondly, what happens when he destroys the altar? Immediately the people are angry. I think there's a sort of, you know, an Old Testament precedent for Presbyterianism here. If you look at the anger of these men, verse 29, what do they do? Who did this, they ask. But then immediately they form a committee to investigate it. Good kind of Presbyterian practice. But they want to find out who did this. It's very un-Presbyterian and when they reach their conclusion it seems fairly quickly and want to act decisively on it. So it's not that Presbyterian. But it shows how deeply immersed in the religion of the nations around the people of Israel are at this point. And there are consequences to that. And this chapter tells us of some of the consequences of that. The consequences of that here are the Midianites. This nomadic tribe sweep in each year at harvest time and take the food away. To the point where Gideon has to thresh the grain in the wine press. Because presumably if he was out in the fields doing it and casting it up in the air, the Midianites on the hill would see the chaff being thrown up into the air and they would know that grain is being threshed. And then as we're told here, they would sweep down like locusts and take it away. I don't know how many of you have ever seen the, it's one of my favourite movies of all time, the great British movie Zulu. It's about a British military engagement in South Africa in the 19th century. 150 British troops. And they're in this little mission station at Rorke's Drift. It's a true story. And they can hear this pounding. They don't know where it's coming from. And then they look up to the horizon and they see one, two, three, a hundred, a thousand. Suddenly, the horizon is darkened by this countless number of Zulus about to sweep down on them like locusts. Terrifying. Must have been just like that for the people of Israel. Every time the crops were brought in, these people would sweep in like locusts. And just like locusts, they would leave the ground bare as they passed through. And the Israelites in this context, they cry out to God. Time and again in the book of Judges, the alien nations bring suffering to Israel and we're told that Israel cries out to God. What is interesting about the word that is used for crying out to God is this. There is no hint of repentance here. It is a cry of pain. The grapes are being squeezed and the pips are squeaking. This is not a heartfelt repentance. The writer doesn't use the language of repentance. He uses the language of crying out in pain and anguish. Their concern is for themselves. Their concern is not that they've been disloyal to God. We know that they're crying out in pain to the Lord, but the alters of Baal are still there. This isn't true repentance. And the amazing thing about God is this. He responds every time. He responds every time. And it teaches us, I think, something about the deep compassion of the Lord. These men and women aren't even turning to Him in repentance. They're simply crying out in pain. And the Lord raises up deliverer after deliverer after deliverer to help these people who, quite frankly, do not deserve it because they've abandoned Him. And that is the context in which Gideon is raised. What is interesting about Gideon, of course, is from the word go, he's not really that impressive a character. His reaction when he's first approached by the angel of the Lord is this, I've heard all these great stories about what God did in the past, but now he's abandoned us. Absolute travesty. If he really knew the stories about what had been done in the past, he would know that it is not the Lord who has abandoned Israel, it is Israel who has abandoned the Lord. So the first thing we can say about Gideon is, in the first encounter with God, he's just not that impressive. And then when he's given this command to tear down the altar of Baal, He does it straight away, but he doesn't do it straight away because it is zeal for the Lord. The writer's very clear about why he does it straight away. He does it straight away because he's frightened of the consequences of delaying because the people might get it. He's not worried about God at this point, he's worried about the consequences that will come from the people. In some ways, when you read about a guy like Gideon, this is great stuff, isn't it? Because if you read about Gideon, and if Gideon was the man that many of us instinctively think he was, then when you read these stories, what's going to happen? We're going to go away and think we can never measure up. But I can actually identify with a man like Gideon, because he's really a pretty mediocre bloke. He's just not that impressive. He's doubting, he's struggling, his theology clearly isn't connecting with his life. in significant ways. This is a map, if you like, that one can sympathise with, one can understand. It's then, of course, this that makes the next phase in Gideon's career so remarkable. We go very quickly from him tearing down this altar, and he's doing it quickly because he's frightened, to the people wanting to lynch him, to this sudden statement. about his sudden power. Verse 34, well let's take a look at verse 33. All the Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern peoples joined forces and crossed over Jordan and camped in the valley of Jezreel. This is the Rorke's Drift moment. The mass armies of the enemy are now moving in. They've crossed the Jordan. They've entered Israelite territory and they're poised to strike. All of Israel of God is this man Gideon that the Lord has called, and we know that he's a bit of a coward, he's very wobbly theologically, and he's not even sure that God's really spoken to him. And then we have this remarkable verse 34. The spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon, and he blew a trumpet, summoning the Abraezites to follow him. He sent messengers throughout Manasseh, calling them to arms and also into Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali, so that they too went up to meet him. That is a remarkable gear change in the story. Gideon. Weak. Mediocre. Doubting. Hesitant. Frightened about what people are going to think. Not only that, but when he acts and obeys God's commands, there's a lynch mob out to get him. They want to string him up from the nearest tree. And then the next thing we hear is, the very people who must have been out to get him, suddenly in lockstep behind him. He's rallying the troops. What makes the difference? Is it that he's suddenly become a great and mighty and impressive leader? Absolutely not. Nothing in the text would indicate that that is the case. The key is, he's clothed by the Spirit of God. It's that that makes the difference. The discriminating factor between the earlier Gideon and the Gideon we see in verse 34 is, now he's clothed in the Spirit of God. And we see in Judges, on several occasions, the Spirit of God rushes upon people and suddenly they become powerful. Samson is the great example. The Spirit of God rushes on Samson on numerous occasions and suddenly he becomes a real mighty man. The Spirit of God is very interesting because when he comes, Hierarchies get switched upside down. What you see outwardly suddenly doesn't seem to apply anymore. The world gets turned upside down by the Spirit of God. And a good example of this comes in the Gospel of Luke, if you'll turn with me. Turn with me to the Gospel of Luke in chapter 1. It's one of the kind of touching human scenes in the Gospel of Luke. Holy Spirit's come upon the Virgin Mary and she's conceived and is going to have a child. The Lord has also visited her cousin Elizabeth, who's an older lady, really past the age of childbearing. And Elizabeth too has conceived. She's going to give birth to John the Baptist. And then according to typical Near Eastern protocol, the lady's going to get together to share their exciting news. But there is a definite protocol that applies here, and that is that the younger should always go to the older. I find that my in-laws live on an island off the west coast of Scotland, and it's very interesting that the assumption is, generally speaking, that I and my wife and kids should go and visit them, not the other way around. It's just a natural hierarchy, if you like. They're older, we should go and see them, rather than them coming to us. Same thing applies in the ancient world. We hear this, at that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea where she entered Zechariah's home and greeted Elizabeth. She's doing what you'd expect her to do. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leapt in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit clothes Elizabeth at this point. And then listen to what she says. In a loud voice she exclaimed, Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear. Fair enough, we're all familiar with that. But in some ways the most important thing she says that day is the next phrase. Why am I so favoured that the mother of my Lord should come to me? See what's happening there? The hierarchy is being turned on its head. Mary's doing the right thing. She's the younger woman going to visit the older. But when she gets there, Elizabeth is clothed in the Spirit and her reaction is, wow, I should really be coming to see you. Why? Because Mary's bearing Christ. The Spirit comes, the hierarchies get turned on its head. We see that in Judges. We see in Judges this minor son of a minor man in a minor clan is clothed by the Spirit and suddenly all of Israel surges to him and will walk in lockstep behind him. We see that in the New Testament, in the Gospel of Luke there with Mary. And I would suggest to you, this is just one more piece of evidence that the God of the Old Testament is the God of the New Testament. People often say, well, the God of the Old Testament works in different ways than the God of the New. Well, not really. God in the Old Testament is all about taking the weak and making them strong. And that is consistent with what He does in the New Testament. This brings us then to the second gear change. Gideon, clothed in the Spirit, seems to be moving forward as he should be. Then suddenly we have another gear change, indicating in some ways what a strange and weak character Gideon is. Suddenly, in verse 36, Gideon says, if you will save Israel, Gideon said to God, if you will save Israel by my hand, as you have promised, look, I will place a wool fleece outside, etc., etc., etc. This is strange. God has already clearly stated his plan to Gideon. I'm going to save Israel and you're the man through whom I'm going to do it. He's clothed him in his spirit in such a way that the men who wanted to kill him just a few hours ago now rally to his cause, ready to fight and, if necessary, die for him. And yet Gideon suddenly says to God, if you will save Israel by my hands, as you have promised, notice what's going on here. Well, first of all, You'll notice in the NIV that the word you have there is God, verse 36. Compare that, let's say, with verse 23. If you go to verse 23 of the NIV, you'll see that the Lord is spelt in capital letters. And that's because the Hebrew word there, the word that that's translating is, the word for God is Covenant God. Specifically, the God who brought Israel out of Egypt. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It's a very specific word. Verse 36, Gideon said to God. The writer changes the word. The word used there is just a generic word for God, divine being, if you like. The author of Judges is sending us a signal that something's going wrong here. Gideon's losing his grip again on who exactly God is. We're moving from a very clear understanding that this is the God who saves Israel to some kind of supreme being. Wright is sending us a very clear signal, I think, on that. Secondly, notice what Gideon is doing here. He's doubting God's Word. This is not an example of guidance. This is an example of doubting God's Word. The only reason he wants to put the fleece out is he's ignoring what God has already said to him. God has said, I'm going to save Israel and you're the man I'm going to do it through. Gideon does not put out his fleece to get guidance, he's already got that. Gideon puts out the fleece because he doubts the word of God. And it's crucial that you grasp that. Because if you don't understand that, then you will engage in this practice of putting out a fleece. that will always be more or less disastrous unless God in his grace accommodates himself to you on it. This is not a model of guidance. This is an example of Gideon trying to manipulate God because of his own lack of faith. Guidance is not a magical thing. What Gideon is trying to do here is a bit of magic. Guidance is not a magical thing. Guidance is not a technique. Guidance is not some secret piece of arcane knowledge, sort of beamed into your head at some point. Guidance is what? Guidance is listening to God's Word, believing it, putting it into practice. And it's the fact that Gideon doesn't do that, that leads to this rather silly incident with the fleece. If you want to learn about guidance, then learn the Bible. Read God's Word. That's where you get guidance. Not through praying that some fleece will get wet, or something, you'll bump into somebody, or something like this. The myriad random things that we could latch on and say, Lord, if this happens, then I'll know. It's your will for me to do X. That's all nonsense. Guidance comes from reading the Word of God, believing it by faith, and acting upon it. And the problem with Gideon here is, he doesn't believe God's word. God has spoken to him and he still needs guidance because he doesn't believe what God has said. So, draw these thoughts to a close then. I want to end on that sort of negative point. Gideon comes out pretty badly from this chapter and frankly, if you read on through Gideon, Gideon has this brief moment of glory at the start of the next chapter. And then he goes on a murderous rampage. And finally he ends up setting up an ephod in Israel that is functionally the equivalent of the altar of Baal that he tore down. By the time Gideon dies, it's as if he'd never been there in the first place. Because Israel are just as bad when he dies as they were when he's called by the Lord. But there is one beautiful thing, a further beautiful thing, that can be drawn from this passage. And that's the picture of God that it gives us. Look, verse 36. Gideon said to God, if you will save Israel by my hand, as you have promised, look, I'll place a wool fleece on the threshing floor. If there's dew only on the fleece and all the ground is dry, then I will know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you said. And then verse 38 is quite remarkable. And that is what happened. Gideon rose early the next day. He squeezed the fleece and wrung out the dew, a bowl full of water. It gets more remarkable because he does it the other way around the following night and the opposite happens. What's going on here? I think this is a beautiful example of God in his grace accommodating himself to Gideon's inadequacy. What's going on here? The Lord needs to get Gideon onto that battlefield. The Lord needs to get Gideon there. And he is so gracious of God. that he snoops and condescends to meet Gideon at his point of weakness in order to get him to where he needs to be. The Lord is not here putting his rubber stamp or a sign of approval on what Gideon is doing. The Lord is graciously, once again, coming down, if you like, to Israel's level in order to save Israel. I started this by saying there's no sign in Judges that Israel ever repents. But the Lord saves them again and again. Why does he do that? Not because of anything intrinsic in Israel. They're disastrous. He does it again and again and again because God is a God of love. And His love flows out from Himself. Martin Luther has a wonderful statement. He says, The love of God does not find, but creates that which is lovely to Him. What does that mean? It means that when God looks at the world, He doesn't find lovely things and responds to them. When I fell in love with my wife, I saw something in her that was lovely. and that caused me to fall in love with her. But God's love isn't like that at all. God's love finds that which is unlovely and makes it lovely. And we have a little hint of that here. What are we being told about in this last section of Judges chapter 6? We're being told about the Lord. Look at Him in His grace and His compassion, meeting Gideon at his point of weakness. And again that brings me back to the question I raised earlier. Is the God of the Old Testament the same as the God of the New Testament? Oh yes he is. There are some horrific things described in Judges, but time and again what comes through in the book of Judges is this. God is a gracious and a merciful God. And the culmination of that of course is what? The Lord Jesus Christ. the greatest example of God's condescension to human weakness, that he would send his own son to die at the hands of Israel itself, in order to bring about the great deliverance of the greater Israel. So, brothers and sisters, when you read the book of Judges, I would suggest to you, when you look at Gideon, the issue for us is not to dare to be a Gideon. If you like, the issue for us to read this chapter is we should dare not to be a Gideon. dare to be one of those who takes God at His word, and does not presume to test Him beyond that. Praise God for His holy word. Let us conclude. Sorry, I didn't realise there was a prayer response. I will pray and then we will respond to the words of the psalm. O Lord God, You are indeed a great and a mighty God. You are small and mediocre and inferior. We are unworthy, Lord, to raise our eyes to gaze upon you, and yet you have reached down to us in the person of your Son, for you are indeed the God who is always compassionate. You are the God who takes that which is unlovely and ugly and makes it lovely and beautiful. We praise you, Lord, that that has been the consistent testimony of your actions throughout history. We praise you above all for the way you have acted in the Lord Jesus Christ, and we pray today that small and humble in number though we be, you will yet take us, weak as Gideon, and use us as a way of bringing your grace and your light to this world. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.