Before we get into the meat and substance of our passage tonight, let s take. a moment to consider what has transpired to this point.

Transcription

1 Judges 7:16-25 A Sword for the Lord and for Gideon Before we get into the meat and substance of our passage tonight, let s take a moment to consider what has transpired to this point. You ll remember that the narrative of Gideon began by informing us that Israel had sinned again against the Lord, and that as such the Lord brought down upon them the judgment of the Midianites. The Midiantes came pouring like locusts into the land of Israel, devouring all of the crops that had been planted, leaving next to nothing for the people of God to eat. Each time someone in Israel was about to reap what he had sown, here came the Midianites with some of their friends, the Amalekites and others from eastern nations. Israel was sore oppressed in this way for seven years. So severe was the oppression, the people of Israel had resorted to living in caves and caverns in the earth. What was the sin of Israel, the sin that occasioned this severe judgment? Idolatry. A prophet enters the scene and proclaims that despite God s faithfulness to Israel, Israel had not refrained from worshipping the gods of the inhabitants of Canaan. Indeed, as the narrative progresses we see a prime 1

2 example of the kind of thing that was going on in Israel in those days. When Gideon is introduced we are informed that he and his family owned an altar to Baal and an Asherah pole, representing the two most popular gods in the Canaanite pantheon. As it turns out, the father of Gideon, Joash, the father of the one whom the Lord would choose to be the deliverer of His people, owned the idolatrous town shrine. Those who lived in the vicinity would come to Joash s property to worship Baal and Asherah at Joash s altar. In the hearts of the people of God, Baal had replaced the Lord. We saw something of the attitude that Gideon had toward the Lord God when the Angel of the Lord came and spoke with Gideon. The Angel of the Lord declared Gideon to be a mighty warrior, and said that the Lord was with him. Gideon somewhat sarcastically, even cynically answered that God might have been with Israel at one time, that there might have been a day when God performed mighty wonders for His people and delivered them from their enemies, but those days are long gone. In Gideon s eyes, God had abandoned His people, not vice versa! Nevertheless, through the merciful and gracious Word of the Lord, and through the miraculous sign of transforming Gideon s present to a burnt 2

3 offering, God revealed to Gideon that far from abandoning His people, God had chosen Gideon to be the instrument through which God would deliver them. It was at this point that the theme of using Gideon s weakness to display God s glory and power began to be heard. Gideon did not believe at first because he was the youngest and his family the least, but God demonstrated that He was pleased to use Gideon s weakness not only to defeat Israel s human enemies and deliver them out of their hands, but to magnify Himself in the sight of Israel and the nations by overthrowing idolatry. God would defeat and destroy Baal by His servant, His weak and seemingly powerless servant Gideon. Later that night Gideon smashed Baal s altar and cut down Asherah s pole. He used the wood of Asherah to offer a sacrifice unto the Lord on a fresh altar to the Lord built upon Baal s ruins. The next day Gideon received the name Jerub-Baal. Let Baal contend with him. Let Baal, if he is able, contend for himself. It is important that we back up again and remind ourselves of this Godcentered emphasis in the narrative. Israel s sin was idolatry. God is, first and foremost, in this account, overthrowing idolatry. In delivering His people from their enemies God is simultaneously delivering them from idolatry and vindicating His great name in their sight and in the sight of the heathen. Baal is nothing. The Lord is God. 3

4 This theme continued in the account of how it was that God would defeat the Midiantes through Gideon. God told Gideon that Israel s idolatrous heart required that nothing in the deliverance should give them any reason to boast. God knew that this was a stiff-necked people who would just as soon attribute their victory to themselves rather than to the Lord. That, however, would defeat the whole purpose of this deliverance. God isn t about delivering people just because they need deliverance. He is about delivering a people so that they might worship and glorify Him. He is about delivering a people that would perceive Him as their true deliverer, their true God, their chief end. If He were to deliver them in such a way as to leave open the possibility of their boasting in their own strength, the fundamental religious purpose of redemption would be lost. So it was then that the Lord, consistent with His picking young and fearful Gideon, should pare Gideon s thirty thousand plus army down to a mere 300 men who liked to drink water the way a dog drinks water. The Lord removed any boast from the army of Israel. If victory was to be secured this day, it would not be by strength, nor by might, but by the Spirit of the Lord. Gideon, fearful and weak as he was, and seeing the size of his army now that the Lord had finished with it, needed extra encouragement from the 4

5 Lord. He went down into the camp of the Midianites and heard them speaking about a dream which the Lord had given them. He heard both the dream and its interpretation. He heard his own name spoken in conjunction with the destruction of the camp of the Midianites. Despite it all, they were terrified and understood that Gideon would be the sword of the Lord which the Lord would use to smite them. Now we come to our passage. Being so encouraged, Gideon divided his 300 men into three companies. Each man was given a trumpet, a torch, and a pot. Now, consider this in light of all that we have seen thus far. Gideon was called a mighty warrior by the angel of the Lord. Gideon knew himself to be anything but, at least as the world defines mighty warrior. Gideon is called the sword of the Lord by his enemies even as he is pictured as a loaf of bread just like all of the Israelite bread loafs that the Midianites had become accustomed of consuming. Now we are told that Gideon, the sword of the Lord, and his host, his 300 water lappers, have not a single sword among them. A horn, a torch, and a pitcher that is the extent of their combat gear. Dividing his already small group into three smaller groups, Gideon instructs his men to follow his lead. He makes a point to tell the men to do exactly as he does, with the implied command that they do only what he commands. When he and the 5

6 100 he leads blow the trumpets, the rest are to blow their trumpets and shout For the Lord and for Gideon. It might seem a bit presumptuous of Gideon to have the men say, For the Lord and for Gideon, but given that the Lord had already gone before Gideon in this, revealing Gideon to the Midianites as His instrument of their demise, it is perhaps not all that improper. Gideon is the hand of the Lord, or rather, the sword of the Lord in the battle against the foe. Through Gideon the Lord would now, as He had done before, smash the enemy. So it was that, during the middle watch of the night, in the pitch blackness, while the camp slept, that Gideon and his three companies of one hundred surrounded the camp, blew their trumpets, broke their jars, grasped the torches in their left hands and shouted A sword for the Lord and for Gideon! Now, you might note the subtle change in the wording of the shout from that which Gideon said they were to shout to that which they actually did shout. Gideon told them to do exactly as he did and to shout for the Lord and for Gideon. When the time came, Gideon and the men shouted, a sword for the Lord and for Gideon. Why this addition? What is the meaning and purpose of adding the word sword to the shout? Well, before we answer 6

7 that, let s look at the result. Awakened by the blast of the trumpets, seeing the lights appear suddenly all around them, and hearing the battle cry a sword for the Lord and for Gideon, the enemies of God s people were already undone. The cacophony threw them into total chaos. They began to run, wildly, screaming in terror as they ran. The ringing of the trumpet blasts in their ears, they began to turn on one another with their swords. Israel carried no swords, but the Midianites were dying by the sword nevertheless. Routed, they fled east all the way to the Jordan. Pursuing them were men of Israel from the tribes of Naphtali, Asher, Manasseh, and Ephraim. Ephraim in particular played a significant role, blocking any escape to the East by securing the Jordan River. Midian was blocked in, surrounded, and utterly defeated. Their defeat is symbolically displayed by the capture and deaths of the Midianite leaders Oreb and Zeeb. The heads of these men were brought to Gideon, who was by the Jordan. In an ironic twist the Lord takes the shame of Gideon and applies it to Gideon s enemies. Whereas Gideon was, in the beginning, hiding in a winepress so as to escape Midianite oppression, so now we hear that Zeeb would be laid low at a winepress, perhaps one in which he had been seeking to hide from 7

8 Gideon. And the rock upon which the Angel of the Lord consumed Gideon s meat and bread is here alluded to in the rock of Oreb. At Gideon s rock, the Lord provided a miraculous testimony to His being with Gideon and to the restoration of true worship that He would bring into being through Gideon. At Oreb s rock, God consumed his enemy in judgment. So we come full circle. The Lord performed precisely what He promised to perform. The Lord utterly defeated, and that in a most wonderful manner, the enemy of His people and in the process demonstrated that to Him and to Him alone belongs all power and honor and wisdom and glory. But what about the sword? What was that with the addition of the word sword to the phrase, for the Lord and for Gideon? No longer, for the Lord and for Gideon in the sense of this battle belongs to the Lord and Gideon or we fight for the Lord and for Gideon the phrase is now a sword for the Lord and for Gideon. Now, we should not come to any hasty conclusions about the meaning of this. The fact is both phrases express the idea that this battle belongs to the Lord and Gideon, or we fight for the Lord and for Gideon. What is added then is the nature or manner by which this battle is fought and by which victory comes to be attained by the Lord and Gideon. 8

9 Remember the Midianite dream of loaf of bread rolling into and smashing the camp? Remember how it was interpreted? This can be nothing other than the sword of Gideon son of Joash, the Israelite. God has given the Midianites and the whole camp into his hands. (Jdg 7:14 NIV). The bread was understood as the sword of Gideon. Paradoxically, that which the Midianites had consumed would be the deadly instrument of their destruction. So it is then that when the Israelites, the 300, blow their trumpets and smash their jars they understand this foolishness, this absurdity in the eyes of the world, this weaponless non-violent non-attack to be the very sword of the Lord and Gideon. It is a single sword belonging both to the Lord and to Gideon. It is the weapon of the Lord by which the Lord smites His foes and simultaneously removes any and all grounds for boasting. Man did not do this, God did. Baal and his host are defeated without a sword, and yet, by the sword of the Word of God, the sword of the chosen deliverer of the Lord, the weakness, the foolishness, the impossibility of the Cross. So it was in the fullness of time when our Lord appeared. He came not in power, not bearing a sword, but in humility, in shame, in apparent weakness, and yet, it was precisely in that weakness, that foolishness, that the Lord God broke the back of His and our enemies. It was precisely in the 9

10 foolishness of the gospel that the Lord God is pleased to glorify Himself in the face of idolatry and so deliver His people from idolatry. The foolishness of Christ is the sword of the Lord. The Cross of Christ is the instrument by which the Lord conquers and delivers. So it was that by His Cross the Lord has thrown the world into all confusion and chaos. By the Cross the Lord has judged this world. Is it not the case that the world manifests a spirit of self-destruction? Is it not the case that Christ Jesus has not brought peace into the world, but a sword? Is it not the case that the Cross of Jesus Christ is the most hated and feared weapon the world has ever seen? By that Cross the Lord has crushed the serpent s head. By that Cross the Lord has made foolish the wisdom of the world. By that Cross the Lord has terrified all who call not upon the Christ for salvation, for in that weakness, that shame, is revealed not only the overthrow of idolatry and false religion, and not only the salvation of God s people, but the end of all who serve idols. Indeed, The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead." (Act 17:30-31 ESV) 10

11 As we already noted, the winepress and the rock, the shame, the fear, the consuming fire come to be associated, in the end, with those who fight against the Lord and side not with His chosen instrument. But to the rest, to those who follow Him, to those who are not ashamed to imitate Him, to bear His image, doing what He does, bearing His Cross, His shame, His weakness, His foolishness, belong the victory, both now and in the consummation, in that day when we will be caught up in the clouds with the One whose very Word is a sharp two-edged sword and with Him stand as more than conquerors. Amen 11