Dr. Manny Arango (0:00)

Hey, Bible nerds. This is Dr. Manny Arango, and I'm your host for the Bible department podcast powered by Arma. This podcast follows a Bible reading plan we created to help you read the entire Bible in a year. You can head to the show notes or thebibledepartment.com to download our reading plan and join the Journey family. We used church candy for our new church plant the Garden, and the response blew me and my team away. At our new church Plant the Garden, we ran simple invite ads through none other than church candy, and hundreds of people responded. Seriously. People who had never even heard of us, who had never met me or heard me preach. They saw an ad on Facebook or Instagram. They showed up to a launch party or launch team training. Some of them have joined our team. Here's the best part. A good amount of them have started giving and tithing, which means the ads have paid for themselves. Our church plant is growing, and it's because we chose the right partner. We didn't have to figure out marketing strategies or spend hours tinkering with ad settings. Church candy handled it all, and it worked. You might not be planting a church, but if you're a pastor who wants to see more new faces on Sunday. And by the way, I've never met a pastor who doesn't want to see more faces on Sunday. It's time to check them out. How about you go to churchcandy.com Manny and book a discovery call, Let their team show you what's possible when the right people hear about your church family. Welcome to day 143. Today we are in judges, chapters six, seven, and eight, three chapters of the Bible, all dealing with our dude, Gideon. Okay, if you've been in church for any length of time, you're probably really, really familiar with Gideon, and there aren't a lot of good things to say about this guy. Really. I think sometimes one of my frustrations with the Book of Judges is that I think that modern readers of the Bible just aren't comfortable with, like, bad characters. And we really need characters to be, like, heroes. And I. And I think this is rooted in using characters as, like, morality, examples of morality, which the characters in the Bible are not examples of morality. Like, but that's how they get preached a lot. So we preach all these sermons, like, be like David and then, well, not the part where he, like, raped Bathsheba and kills her husband, but other than that. Yeah, be like David or like, be like Abraham. Okay? Not the part where he raped his slave girl, Hagar. But other parts, okay, be like Jacob. It's just we. We do a lot of, like, hey, let's platform these characters. And I always go, the. The Bible is not platforming characters as object lessons in morality. The Bible is platforming God as the object of perfection and Jesus as the perfect one who has come because people are immoral and imperfect. And so I think we're uncomfortable with the fact that Gideon is not, not, not a good judge. Okay. This is not good. And, you know, from this. This marks a turning point in the narrative, like, arc of Judges. Like, this downward spiral is about to start going down pretty fast. Okay, so we'll look at Gideon. All right. Have you done the reading? That's kind of our. That's. Sorry, I jumped ahead. That's our context clue. Okay, so if you've done the reading today, then we're gonna jump in. And I about to jump into our context clue, but already gave you our context clue. Our context clue is that I don't think the Bible is giving us moral object lessons in these characters, which is the way that we use these characters in, like, Sunday school lessons. Children essentially learn that Noah's this great character, except when he's drunk and naked in his tent. Like, and the reality is that there is not a character in the Bible who you can prop up for your moral object lesson. It's just not. That's not what the Bible's trying to do, but it's almost like what we are trying to do because we are really, really interested in. In morality, you know? Anyway, that's a whole other conversation, but that is the context for looking at Gideon. All right? Judges, chapter 6, verse 12. Gideon is called a mighty warrior. And this is just a load of crap, okay? He's not a mighty warrior. Now. He is in a winepress or he's in a cistern, and he's threshing wheat. Now, when you thresh wheat, you are trying to separate the wheat from the chaff, okay? The chaff is not. It's kind of like. It's like cat whiskers. Like, this stuff's not what you want in, like, your wheat. So in order to thresh it, what you would do is you would go to the top of the hill. You'd actually go to a high place, and you'd go to someplace where there's some wind. And as you throw the wheat up and down, the wind would separate the chaff, okay? So you would keep throwing it up and down, up and down, up and down, and the wind would blow away the part that you don't want. And then what you're left with after doing this process of, you know, throwing it up and down, letting the wind separate it, you'd be left with some awesome wheat. He's doing this in a cistern because the Midianites were. Are so oppressive, okay, that they've been in the hands of the Midianites for seven years. And so they are hiding their. Their. Their wheat, okay? So he's in a winepress, okay? Threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites is what verse 11 says of chapter 6. So this angel comes to him, okay, while he's hiding in a winepress, threshing wheat, and says, the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon and said, the Lord is with you, mighty warrior. Gideon's just not a mighty warrior. He's not mighty or a warrior. He is a weak coward at this point in the story. So the angel of the Lord appears to him, and this is actually one of the best things that Gideon does. Pardon me, my Lord, Gideon replied, but if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our ancestors told us about? When he said, did not God bring us out of Egypt, but now the Lord has abandoned us and given us to the hand of the. Of Midian? The Lord turned now. Now it's the Lord who turns to him. I need you to see this. That it goes from the angel to the Lord. 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 the. I love how God just puts the ball right back in our court. Anytime we complain to God, God's like, go in the strength you have and save Israel. God doesn't do victim mentality at all. Okay, like, I'm not answering this question. Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian's hands. Am I not sending you? Now here's the massive thing that I need everybody to see. God does not call Gideon to now raise up an army. What does God say? Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian's hands. Am I not sending you? Okay, so Ehud just went to the king, went to Eglon and killed him. But the number one thing Gideon does do is he's gonna go raise up an army, which is not what God told him to do. So when God starts getting his army numbers down, God's just actually trying to get him back to the Original thing that God actually said to him, which is, go save Israel. Pardon me, my Lord, Gideon replied, but how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family. I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites, leaving none alive. If now I have found favor in your eyes, give me a sign that it is really you talking to me now. This is good. Please do not go away until I come back and bring my offering and set it before you. This right here, this is actually what numbers, Deuteronomy, the New Testament, says that you should test every spirit. This is good. How do I know? I need proof that it's you talking to me. Please don't 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 inside, 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. The angel of the Lord said to him, take the meat and the unleavened bread, place them on this rock, and pour out the broth. And Gideon did so. And the angel of the Lord touched the meat and the unleavened bread with the tip of the staff that was in his hand. 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, alas, Sovereign Lord. So this is the first time that Gideon is gonna say Yahweh. I know your English translation is not. You're not always able to see the difference between Elohim and Yahweh. Gideon has been calling the person talking to him Elohim this whole time. Now he switches to Yahweh. 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. Now, when it says that fire flared from the rock, what it actually is trying to communicate is that lightning happens. Lightning just happened. Lightning came down from heaven and resulted in fire and consumed the meat and the bread. Now, there is no word in Hebrew for lightning. So therefore, that is actually very, very hard to communicate that it is lightning that happens. This is interesting because BAAL is the storm God. So BAAL is in control of the lightning. So now you have Yahweh who's using Baal's symbol to communicate to Gideon. Which is fascinating why? Because Gideon's father is the leader of the Baal worship in Israel at this point. Verse 25. That same night, the Lord said to him, take the second bull from your father's herd, 17 years old, tear down your father's altar to Baal and cut down the astral 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 astral pole that you cut down, offer the second bull as a burnt offering. Get this verse 27. At no point did God say, take anybody to do this. God actually says, just you go do this. Go do this by yourself. So Gideon took ten of his servants and did as the Lord told him. There's this track record of Gideon really doesn't wanna do things by himself. Okay? Gideon is like, there's safety in numbers, man. And this is Gideon's downfall, to be honest. But because he was afraid of his family and the townspeople, he did it at night rather than in the daytime. Now there's an interesting part of the story. Gideon's dad, verse 32. Because Gideon broke down Baal's altar, they gave him the name Jerub Baal that day, saying, Let Baal contend with him. So far in the story, we have Gideon having to break down BAAL worship in his family before he can do that for his tribe or for the rest of the people of Israel. Okay? He cannot go and oppose foreign nations if he serves the gods of those foreign nations. So when Yahweh meets Gideon, Gideon is not a follower of Yahweh. He's living in a home with the leader of the man who's the charge for BAAL worship in Israel, at least for their tribe. It seems like Gideon's dad is like, wants to protect him. This is what Gideon's dad says. If BAAL really is a God, he can defend himself when someone breaks down his altar. So because Gideon broke down Baal's altar, they gave him the name Jerub BAAL that day, saying, let BAAL contend with him. We'll see. We'll pick up that strand in a couple of minutes, okay? Now from here, Gideon wants a fleece. Gideon says, I will place a wool 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 did. And that is what happened. Okay? So God is like, I'll go along with this. The offering being consumed by fire. From heaven. That was actually a good test. That was Gideon being responsible. That was great. Good job, Gideon. This is doubt. And we've already seen this kind of doubt. Because he doesn't tear down the altar in the middle of the night. He doesn't tear it down in the day. He tears it down at night because he's scared. And he brings people with him because he's scared. And I know God's called this man a mighty warrior, but this dude is giving coward energy. Okay? All day long, God does this. Okay, so the dew is on the fleece, but the ground is dry. Here we go. Then Gideon said to God, do not be angry with me. Let me just make one more request. Allow me one more test with the fleece, but this time, make the fleece dry and let the ground be covered with dew. That night, God did so only the fleece was dry. All the ground was covered with dew. Now, I have heard so many people try to defend this. I've heard so many people say, well, no, this is a good thing. This is just confirmation. This is not a good thing. Which is why Gideon says, do not be angry with me. He knows that he's doing something that's angering. That's kind of like when I say to my wife, babe, don't be annoyed, but I know I'm doing something annoying. Okay? Gideon knows that this is a lack of faith. Now, here's why I think God gives him a pass. Because he's a baby Christian. Gideon. Well, he's not even a Christian. He's a baby. He's a baby Jew. But he's. I mean, a religious Jew. He's already an ethnic Jew. You get it? He is spiritually immature. Like earlier in this chapter. He was not someone who. Who even followed Yahweh in any way. Okay, let's get to chapter seven. So this is a massive issue. Then he raises up this whole army, which God never told him to do. God never said raise up an army. So now God's got to do all this stuff to whittle down the army. So here's the first thing he says. Anyone who's scared, you can leave. Which if you read Deuteronomy chapter 20, verse 8 and 9, guess what Deuteronomy 28:9 says. When you go out to battle, ask if anyone's scared. And if anybody's scared, they can leave. Actually, I'm going to read Deuteronomy 28:9 for us because it's exactly what happens with Gideon's army. Deuteronomy 28 Then the officer shall add, is anyone afraid or faint hearted? Let him go home so that his fellow soldiers will not become disheartened too. When the officers have finished speaking to the army, they shall appoint commanders over it. Deuteronomy 28 says that officers should go throughout the army and ask, is anyone afraid or fainthearted? And if they are, let him go home so that his fellow soldiers may not become disheartened too. Because fear is contagious, Doubt is contagious. So if anyone is faint hearted, or if anybody's shook, if anybody's scared, you can leave. And essentially this is exactly what God does. Gideon amasses this big old army and God immediately says, hey, anyone who's scared, they can leave. To which people leave. Then God brings them down to a place where they have to drink and God says, hey, anyone who stuck their face in the water, they can go home. Anyone got the water out with their hands and put it to their mouth. Those are good soldiers. They can stay family. The wait is over. My brand new book, Crushing Chaos is out now and available everywhere. Books are sold. Literally. Today I walked into a Barnes and Noble and I signed a bunch of cool copies at a physical location. So you can grab this book at a physical Barnes and Noble or you can go to a Books a Million or Amazon or anywhere books are sold and grab a copy. If you enjoy reading the Bible from an ancient perspective, if you understand that the beauty of scripture is actually knowing it in context, then you'll love this book. And if there's any chaos in your purpose, personal life, I think that reading the Bible from an ancient perspective can actually help to crush the chaos in your life. I think this book is going to be a New York Times bestseller. I really do. I think we wrote a good one. I think you should get a copy today. All right, back to the episode. So the army gets whittled down all the way to just 300 people, 300 men. This is interesting because in a war there's tons of chaos, okay? Mud is getting on people, blood is getting on people. People are getting trampled. War is just, it's hell on earth, especially like ancient warfare. So a lot of times what would happen is that people wouldn't even know if they were winning or losing. So they would start retreating and they would find out later that they weren't even losing. But just they're caught up in the disorientation and the chaos of ancient warfare. So what you would have is you would have people with flags who at any Point. If the army needed to regroup, they just went to the person with the flag, they regrouped, and then they re. They would re. Engage or reattack. So Gideon actually has people who. It says they are going to have trumpets. And so for an army of like 30,000 people, you would need, like 300 trumpets so that the people with. With 300 trumpets, you can control an army of 30,000 people. Why? Because it's the same. It's the same as people who are raising flags. Okay, if you had an army of 3,000 people, you would want 300 people with. With the flag so that groups of people could come and. And kind of regroup. What does Gideon do, even though he has an army of 300? He gives all of them trumpets. Here's what the Bible says. Verse 16. It says, Dividing the 300 men into three companies, he placed trumpets and empty jars in the hands of all of them with torches inside. Why does he want to do this? He wants the Midianites to think that there are 30,000 of them. Still. Still. This dude has no faith. He doesn't actually get that dude. God's gonna do the fighting. Okay, so God wins the battle. This is what actually happens. And now we get chapter eight, and Gideon is gonna go freaking full dictator on everybody. And he's gonna become the first king of Israel. Not because God anointed him, but because he's gonna set himself up as king. He's going to start to try to centralize worship. He's going to set up idolatry. Here we go. Verse 28 of the next chapter of chapter 8. Thus Midian was subdued before the Israelites and did not raise its head again. During Gideon's lifetime, the land had peace for 40 years. Jerubbaal, son of Joash, this is Gideon. He had 70 sons of his own, for he had many wives. What kind of people have 70 sons? Kings have 70 sons. The only people who have that amount of sons are kings. And he has a son named Abimelech. You want to know what Abimelech means? Son of the king. So when you name your son Abimelech, you are saying that you are a king. Gideon died. Get this. Gideon died, but the idolatry that he set up is going to become a snare. So there's nothing that Gideon does that's positive. Verse 27. Gideon made the gold into an ephod, which he placed in Ophrah, his town. All Israel prostituted themselves by worshiping it there, and it became a snare to Gideon. And his family. Gideon is not a good guy. He's not a good character. And there's no point in his character arc where it arcs. He actually goes from scared coward to dictator. So he does change, but he never becomes someone that follows. Yahweh believes in Yahweh and get this, verse 23. But Gideon told them, I will not rule over you, nor my son will rule over you. The Lord will rule over you. And he said, I do have one request. That each of you give me an earring from your share of the plunder. Okay? We'll be glad to give them. So they spread out a garment and each of them drew a ring from the plunder onto it. The weight of the gold rings he asked for came to 1700 shekels. That's a lot. Not counting the ornaments, the pendants, the purple garments worn. Gideon made the gold into an ephod, okay? This is the exact same thing that happens with Aaron as he tells them, give me the jewelry that you got out of Egypt and I'll make it into a golden calf. Gideon makes it into an ephod. And all Israel prosper themselves by worshiping the ephod, okay? And the idols that Gideon creates. And he says, I'm not going to rule over you. But he sure is acting like a king. And if it acts like a duck and quacks like a duck and walks like a duck, it's probably a dang on duck. So I'm not against preaching content with Gideon, but I think sometimes we are scared. We don't know how to preach things when they don't end cute with with a pretty bow on it. The reality is that Gideon's life is a tragedy. There's nothing about this that's good. This is wicked and bad. And it's just the beginning because now we have turned the corner of the book of judges. And the next six judges are going to be trash, followed by Samson, who's going to be trash. And obviously the book has a purpose. And I'll share that purpose. I'll probably share that purpose in tomorrow's content. All right. We got through Gideon in one day. I'm super excited. Hey, if you're on a streak, do not break it. If you're not on a streak, what you doing with your life? Like, come on, let's get some wins back to back to back. Let's start to rack up some wins. Let's stack em up. I'm proud of you if you are on a streak. I'm proud of you if Today was your first day. I'll see you right here tomorrow for day 144 as we continue our trek to the Book of Judges. I love you guys. Can't wait to see you tomorrow. Peace. Thanks so much for joining us on the Bible Department Podcast. You can find us online and learn more about the show@thebibledepartment.com and on Instagram hebibledepartment. If you enjoyed this episode and want to dive deeper into the Bible, you can get free access to our library of courses@thebibledepartment.com we'll see you back here tomorrow.