Gideon: Don't Get Fleeced

We open the Word of God to Judges chapter 6, and we're going to spend some time talking about Gideon. This is a part of our study of the will of God, and of course Gideon introduces us to a practice that many Christians use, the practice of putting out a flea.

Now don't be too critical of Gideon. He had his faults, he had his weaknesses, but he's listed in Hebrews 11 with some mighty wonderful people like Abraham and David and Moses and folks of that stature. You know the story of Gideon, recorded in Judges 6 through 8, there's no need to read it to you.

The easiest way to remember his life is to remember that it has three acts to it. The drama of his life has three acts to it. First, his call, that's chapter 6. And then his conquest, that's chapter 7 and the first half of chapter 8. And then his compromise, that's the last part of chapter 8 beginning at verse 22, when in the latter years of his life Gideon became a compromiser and led the nation into idolatry.

Now the story of his call is recorded in chapter 6, verse 11. You'll remember that the Midianites had overrun the nation because the people had sinned against God. And there came an angel of the Lord and sat under an oak, which was in Ophira, that pertained unto Joash, a Baezrite, and his son Gideon, threshed wheat by the winepress to hide it from the Midianites.

It's an interesting picture. Here's this farmer, this man who's hiding in the winepress. Ordinarily when you thresh wheat you go out in the open and allow the wind to blow away that which you don't need.

But he was doing it down hidden because it wasn't dangerous to thresh wheat. And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him and said unto him, The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valor. I have to smile at that.

If anybody in the nation looked like a failure it was certainly Gideon. And Gideon said unto him, O my Lord, which doesn't mean necessarily he knew he was an angel. Angels didn't show up with halos and wings, you know.

He was carrying a staff and he came walking up like an ordinary pilgrim. And Gideon wasn't quite sure who he was. O my Lord, if the Lord be with us, why then is all this befallen us? And where are all his miracles which our fathers told us of, saying, Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt? But now the Lord has forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites.

And the Lord looked upon him and said, Go in this thy might, and thou shalt save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Have not I sent thee? And he said unto him, O my Lord, wherewith shall I save Israel? Behold, my family is poor in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house. And the Lord said unto him, Surely I will be with thee, and thou shalt smite the Midianites with one man.

And he said unto him, If now I have found grace in thy sight, then show me a sign that thou talkest with me. Depart not from here, I pray thee, until I come unto thee and bring forth my present and set it before thee. And he said, I will tarry until thou come again.

And Gideon went in and made ready a kid and unleavened cakes of an ephah of flour. The flesh he put in a basket, and he put the broth in a pot, and brought it out unto him under the oak, and presented it. And the angel of God said unto him, Take the flesh and the unleavened cakes, and lay them upon this rock, and pour out the broth.

And he did so. Then the angel of the Lord put forth the end of the staff that was in his hand, and touched the flesh and the unleavened cakes. And there rose up fire out of the rock, and consumed the flesh and the unleavened cakes.

Then the angel of the Lord departed out of his sight. And when Gideon perceived that he was an angel of the Lord, Gideon said, Alas, O Lord God, for I have seen an angel of the Lord face to face. That's what he wanted to do.

And the Lord said unto him, Peace be unto thee, fear not, thou shalt not die. Then Gideon built an altar there unto the Lord, and called it Jehovah Shalom, which means the Lord our peace. Now this is the beginning of Gideon's ministry.

And as you know, God commanded him to tear down the altar to Baal that Gideon's father had erected. And that night he did it. He said, If you really mean business with me now, Gideon, you just tear down that altar.

And he did. The people of the city were going to kill him. But Gideon's father said, Now look, if Baal can't take care of himself, what kind of a God is he? Verse 34, The spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon, and he blows his trumpet and gathers together an army of some 32,000 people.

Now verse 36, we have the interesting experience of the fleece. And Gideon said unto God, If thou wilt save Israel by my hand, as thou hast said, behold, I will put a fleece of wool in the floor. And if the dew be on the fleece only, and it be dry upon all the earth beside it, then shall I know that thou wilt save Israel by my hand, as thou hast said.

That's exactly what happened. He got up the next morning, and lo and behold, he got a bowl full of water out of the fleece. And Gideon said unto God, Let not thine anger be hard against me, and I will speak but this once.

Let me make a trial, I pray thee, but this one more time with the fleece. Let it now be dry only upon the fleece, and upon all the ground let there be dew. And God did.

God did so that night, for it was dry upon the fleece only, and there was dew on all the ground. But he still wasn't ready. In chapter 7, we read how God said, Look, if you're still frightened, verse 9, go down to the camp of the Midianites, take your servant with you, your helper, and just listen.

So they went down, and a couple of the Midianites were changing the guard, and they were talking together. And in verse 13, the one said to his friend, Behold, I dreamed a dream, and lo, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the host of Midian, came unto a tent, and smote it that it fell, and overturned it, and that tent lay flat. And his fellow answered and said, This is nothing else except the sword of Gideon.

For unto his hand hath God delivered Midian and all the host. And we read in the next verse that Gideon worshipped God, and then he obeyed the Lord and conquered the enemy. Now Gideon is a great encouragement to us in this matter of knowing and doing the will of God, because from his life we get four very definite assurances.

Now Gideon was a man who was never quite sure. He was fearful. He was nervous.

He was a little bit addicted with unbelief and doubt. But from the life of Gideon, we are given four very wonderful assurances that ought to help us in this matter of knowing and doing the will of God. Now I'm going to deal with them and then put it together in a little package for you to walk off with.

Assurance number one, Gideon assures us that God has a purpose for every life. Now that sounds so ordinary and so elementary to us, but we need this. If there was anyone in the nation that you would not have chosen to accomplish this great feat, it would have been Gideon.

There was nothing special about Gideon. Gideon was an ordinary dirt farmer. He just was raising his crops and hiding from the enemy.

His father was an idolater. His family was the least in one of the smallest of the tribes. And there was nothing very special about Gideon.

God didn't say, go down there and call Gideon, he's a man of great faith, just the opposite. Go down there and call Gideon, he's a man with tremendous courage, oh great courage. He didn't say that at all.

He said, we're going to call Gideon because I have a purpose for his life. Now God called Gideon to accomplish this purpose for Gideon's own good as well as for God's glory. You see, if God can send the angels down, he could have sent an angel to the host of the Midianites, and that angel could have just snapped his fingers and that's the end of the army.

One angel went down back in Old Testament history and 185,000 soldiers died. One angel. But instead of God sending the angel down to defeat the Midianites, he sent the angel down, and it may have been the Lord Jesus himself, the angel of the Lord, he sent him down to tell Gideon to go do it.

You know, it's like parents with their children. You say to your children, now this needs to be done. We need the garage cleaned out, the garbage has to be carried out, the lawn needs mowing.

And sometimes, quite frankly, it'd be easier if you just do it yourself. But it wouldn't be very good for the children, would it? They have to learn how to clean out the garage, and they have to learn how to shovel out their room once a week, and they have to learn how to mow the lawn. You see, God called Gideon not only for God's glory, and God called Gideon not only to defeat the Midianites, God called Gideon for Gideon's good.

The purpose of the will of God is to build character in our lives. You say, well, God's called me to go to some island to be a missionary. Marvelous, go, and God's blessing be with you.

But the most important thing God's going to do on that island is not only to use you to win souls, it's going to be to use souls to build you. And we forget this, because in God's book, the worker is always more important than the work. And Gideon was the least likely to succeed in his high school graduating class.

Now, my friend, God has a purpose for your life. I don't care how little faith you may have. I don't care what your family situation may be.

You may sit here tonight and say, Pastor, I am the biggest hunk of no talent that ever walked into that place. How do you know? But even if you are, I say to you, if you're one of God's children, there's a purpose for God saving you, and you better find out what it is. Because everybody is important to God.

Everyone who is saved and is indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God is important to God. And so the first assurance that comes to me is that God has a purpose for our lives. Now, you better lay hold of that, because it's the beginning of a great adventure with God.

This leads us to our second encouragement. God has a purpose for your life. Second, God's purpose is revealed in God's word.

You see, when you give yourself to the Lord, he'll talk to you. And so the Lord shows up and says to Gideon, The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valor. Most unlikely message anybody could have heard that day.

God spoke to Gideon, if my count is correct, God spoke to Gideon 12 different times. And God would say this to Gideon, and Gideon would do that. And God would say this, and Gideon would do that.

God's word was constantly communicating to Gideon what his will was for his life. Now, I'm interested to note here that God revealed his will to a man that was working. You ever page through your Bible and discover that whenever God calls a person, these people are busy? You ever notice that? Moses was out taking care of his father-in-law's sheep when God called him.

Gideon was busy threshing wheat when God called him. David was out taking care of his father's flocks when God called him. Peter was mending his nets along with James and Andrew and John when Jesus called him.

Paul was out trying to be the best rabbi he could be when God called him. God doesn't call lazy people. I meet some of these pious mystics who are trying to determine the will of God and they're sitting yoga style, doing nothing, waiting for some kind of evangelical earthquake to lead them.

Now, my dear friend, if you want God to guide you, shift that gear out of neutral into forward and start doing something. Get busy for God. I love to read biographies of two men, D.L. Moody and Charles Spurgeon.

You know why? They were always busy. You get tired reading some of these biographies. Mr. Moody was constantly doing something.

Charles Spurgeon was always busy. I don't mean by this they never took time for rest or relaxation or prayer. Of course they did.

What I'm saying is they were constantly with the receiver off the hook. They always had the gearshift lever ready to move forward. God calls busy people.

I have counseled with folks who have said, well, Pastor, I don't know what God wants you to do. What are you doing now? Nothing. Well, how nice.

What do you want the Lord to do? Get busy. Get that thing out of neutral and start moving and God will direct you. He called a busy man.

He spoke to a humble man. Now, Gideon may have had a bit of a problem with a low view of himself, kind of a deflated ego, but I appreciate his humility. Some other people might have said, hey, you got the right man.

Notice the way I stretch out this week. Oh, no. Gideon didn't say that.

Gideon said, hey, you've got the poor. I'm the bottom man, the totem pole. You've got the poorest of the poor and the weakest of the weak.

You know, God likes to get ahold of people who are humble. And there's something else I appreciate about Gideon. He was honest.

He admitted his fears. He admitted his trepidation. He admitted his unbelief.

He admitted to God exactly the way he felt. And God can guide people like that, people who are humble and honest and busy. Now, at this point, somebody says, yeah, but pastor, he heard the voice of God's voice.

If I'm in my room praying and an angel comes in, that's different. Yeah, it's dangerous. You see, God doesn't do that today.

God doesn't usually send angels down to tell you. You know why? He's given you a book. He's given you the Bible.

And when you and I spend time in the word of God, the word of God cleanses the mind so we don't think the way the world thinks. And the word of God renews the mind so that our minds, Roman 12 too, are transformed and renewed. So that we, this is going to sound arrogant, but it's true.

We think God's thoughts. Paul says we have the mind of Christ and the child of God who immerses himself in the word of God develops a spiritual radar and he knows what God wants to say to him. It's a beautiful thing.

When he doesn't know, he just waits and then God speaks to him. Most of the time, God can't talk to me, not because God is tongue-tied, but because I'm not ready to listen. But the word of God brings me to the place where I am ready to listen to God.

So God has a purpose for your life and God's purpose is revealed in God's word. Am I saying that God speaks to me from the Bible? Yes. My good friend, Dr. David Allen says, when you open your Bible, God opens his mouth.

When you close your Bible, God closes his mouth. Does that mean that God specifically gives me directions the way he did Gideon? Sometimes. Sometimes.

But most of the time, God's word gives me principles and promises and commandments and examples. And as my mind, led by the Holy Spirit, gets a hold of this word, it puts me in touch with heaven. And as a consequence, the Spirit of God is able to direct us through the word.

You know, it's amazing what some people do when they come and tell you about it and you say, hey, you know what the Bible says about that? No. What says this? Oh, I didn't know that. Why didn't you? I never read it.

Why didn't you? You know, if the government passed a law, you could no longer read your Bible. You'd go out into protest. But the law says you can read your Bible, so we don't read it.

The word of God reveals the will of God. Now, this leads us to our third assurance. Assurance number one, you can be sure that God has a purpose for your life.

Assurance number two, God's purpose is revealed in God's word. Assurance number three, God's word is fulfilled as we believe it. God's word is fulfilled as we believe it.

Not read it. Not study it. Not explain it.

Believe it and obey it. As Gideon believed the word of God and obeyed the word of God, then step by step, day by day, God's will was revealed and worked out in his life. Later on in Gideon's life, he turned away from the word of God.

You no longer find God talking to him. He became an idolater. He disobeyed the word of God by multiplying wives and concubines, and he led the nation into idolatry.

God stopped talking to him. And so the will of God is fulfilled as we trust and obey the word of God. This book has power in it.

For the word of God is living and powerful. And God said, let there be in their wives. Now, that same creative word that ordered the universe is here.

Over in the Gospel of Luke in chapter one, in verse 37, there is that familiar verse that you have often quoted, for with God, nothing shall be impossible. That's a great verse, isn't it? For with God, nothing shall be impossible. I like the way the American Standard Version translates this.

That's the original American Standard Version. Here's the way it translates Luke 137. For no word from God shall be void of power.

I like that. You know what that means? It means that when God's word says something and you believe it and act upon it, power is released. One day Jesus was preaching in a synagogue and there sat there a man with a withered hand.

Everybody could see it. He tried to hide it. Everybody knew it.

He was a man with a withered hand. Jesus said, stand up. What an awful thing to do, make a man stand up with handicaps.

Stand up. The man stood up. Stretch forth thy hand.

That's the very thing he couldn't do. I can just see people getting embarrassed and saying, oh, why did he do that? Stretch forth thy hand. But God's commandments are God's enablement.

And that man said if he commanded it, he can enable it. And he stretched out his hand. It was healed.

Jesus walked into a Jewish hospital one day. He said, I've been lying there for 38 years. Do you want to be made whole? And he did what some of us do.

He made excuses. Oh, Lord, I have no man. I can't.

Take up your bed and walk. That's the very thing he hadn't been able to do for 38 years. But he did it.

You know why? When you believe the word of God, it releases power. And so I say to you, God has a plan for your life. God's plan is revealed in God's word.

God's word releases power when we believe it and obey it. Now, Gideon did this. It took him a little while to get there, but he did it.

You see, everything about Gideon's victory completely obliterates what people think today. You know, if Madison Avenue were going to plan this battle, it would have been interesting. If some of our denominations were going to plan this battle.

I read over in chapter 8 and verse 10 that there were 135,000 Midianites. And many of them had camels. They were mobile.

135,000 Midianites against 300 Jews. Now the world says, oh, you can't succeed unless you've got numbers. Oh, if my calculation is correct, there was one Jew for every 450 Midianites.

Try fighting 450 people at one time. And so they didn't have any numbers. Madison Avenue says, now, if you're going to have a victory, get an experienced general.

Oh, what does your general do? He's a farmer. What's he best known for? Hiding from the Midianites. I dare you to find his wine press.

You mean to tell me he got 300 people and a dirt farmer who's never been to West Point? No, no. You ever read any books on war? No. Oh, you must have pretty good weapons.

We do pitchers and torches. You see, if they had taken a Harris poll prior to this particular battle, they would have said 2% of the people really believe Gideon's going to make it, you know. Don't you see this in the Lord's work today? It can't be done.

That's the battle cry of most evangelicals. It can't be done. But Gideon did it.

With 300 men, he attacks an army of 135,000, kills 120,000 of them. They killed each other, really. And he did it with 300 people carrying torches and pitchers and trumpets and shouting the sword of the Lord and of Gideon.

You know why it worked? He believed God. Somebody says, oh, you can't make it through school. You believe God, you can make it.

The first church building we built, my first pastorate, we had all the experts come in and check out the accounts and everything. He said, you'll never build. We built.

God provided the need. Oh, you can't make it to the mission. You'll never make it to the mission.

Oh, inflation. There's a real economic problem. Oh, you'll make it if you trust God.

God has a purpose for your life. That purpose is revealed in his word. And his word is fulfilled when you believe it and act upon it.

Now, this leads me to the greatest encouragement of all. As I was preparing this message, I was just shouting. I may blow up the PA system tonight.

I don't know. I was just so thrilled. Here's the fourth assurance.

Get this now. God will do everything he can do to build your faith. Now, just look at Gideon.

God sends a messenger down who says, the Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valor. And immediately Gideon starts talking the way we talk. If, why, where.

All the questions, all the doubts, all the weaknesses of unbelief. And the Lord says to him, go in this thy might, and thou shalt save Israel. Have not I sent thee? That's the might.

That's his might. His strength was in the fact that God sent him. But you know, Gideon wasn't a great man of faith when God first got ahold of him.

First, he questioned God's word. A mighty man of valor? You got the wrong man. There must be somebody else named Gideon on this street.

You got the wrong man. He questioned God's word. And then he tested God's word.

Well, he said, if you're really from God, let me bring a sacrifice out here. And boom, the whole thing went up in smoke. Then the angel disappeared.

And then Gideon, instead of saying, hey, this is great, got scared. I think Gideon and Timothy were a lot alike. A bit of fear in their lives.

This brings us to the famous fleece. He says, now look, if you've really said this, and you're really going to do this, would you help me a little bit? You see, Gideon's fleece was not an act of unbelief. It was a step toward building his weak faith.

Now, God will not honor unbelief, but God will strengthen the man who honestly admits, my faith is not very strong. This encourages me. God's called you to do something and to be something.

And you say, God, you know, I can't do it of myself. I just can't. Now, I want to know for sure, is this what you want me to do? You see, Gideon did not use the fleece to determine God's will.

He already knew God's will. He used the fleece to authenticate God's will. He wanted to be sure.

And so God stooped to his weakness. God said, all right, Gideon, I know where you are and what you are. And so I'm going to stoop to your weakness now, and I'm going to accommodate you.

And so he allowed him to use the fleece. Now, why did God do this? Well, for one thing, you've got to remember that we're in the Old Testament. You never find people using fleeces in the New Testament.

We're in the Old Testament. And according to Galatians chapter four, the Old Testament is a childhood period of God's revelation. God accommodated himself to many weaknesses in the Old Testament that he would not do in the New Testament in the same way.

So God did not blame Gideon for putting out the fleece. God accommodated himself to Gideon. It was the Old Testament period of childhood.

It was the beginning of Gideon's walk of faith. You know, when we first get saved, God accommodates himself in so many ways, just like you and your children. You don't spank your children or scold your children when they're first learning how to walk.

I was watching one of our little girls here in the church. Walking this morning. When she falls down, they don't pick her up and spank her.

They encourage her. So when we first get going in this walk of faith, God encourages us in ways he may not do after we have been saved for a number of years. But you see, the important thing was that Gideon had obeyed God.

God said, tear down your father's idol. He risked his life to do that. And so Gideon, that very night, obeyed God and tore down the idol.

Whatever God told him to do, he obeyed him and did it. And God said, you know, I can teach an obedient man like this. I can teach a humble man like this.

Which leads us to the interesting question. Are you and I supposed to use fleeces today? If there's somebody here tonight whose faith is so weak and you're just getting started in your Christian life and honestly, from your heart, you need all the encouragement you can get. I believe God would honor a fleece, but I don't think God would want you to keep on doing it.

You see, I had several problems with a fleece. First of all, we today have a whole Bible. Gideon didn't.

We today have the indwelling Holy Spirit. Gideon didn't. We today have an interceding high priest.

Gideon didn't. We have all these great spiritual treasures that Gideon did not have. And therefore, we should not really need to walk by sight, which is what a fleece is.

We should walk by faith. We don't go from faith to sight. We go from faith to faith to faith to faith.

And you've discovered, I'm sure, as you walk with the Lord in this walk of faith, it sometimes doesn't get easier. It gets harder. Sometimes God pulls all the rugs out from under you.

Then he does away with the floor. Then the foundation starts to shake. He did this with Abraham.

He did it with Moses. He did it with Paul. In the early stages of our Christian walk, God takes us like children and encourages us to grow in our faith.

And then as we grow in our faith, he takes away some of these props, some of these crutches. My problem with a fleece is this. Who is going to determine the conditions? I've had people say to me, now, pastor, I didn't know whether or not I should go to this school or that school.

So I wrote to both schools and said, now, Lord, whichever one you want me to go to, may that letter come first. Now, maybe I'm cynical and critical, but I would certainly hate to yield my future to President Ford's postal system. I don't know whether God would put his stamp of approval on that.

I have an evangelist friend who says that he takes his meetings as the letters come in. Now, if I were ever going to go into full-time wider ministry, I wouldn't do that. Because one week he's in Michigan, next week he's in California, then he's in Montana, then he's in Florida.

He could consolidate these meetings and do just as much good. Who's going to lay down the conditions? Who tells you that if this and this and this happens, God wants you to do so-and-so? I don't know who's going to lay down the conditions. If God can give me the conditions, why can't he just give me his will? So, in my own life, I have never used fleece.

I'm not a critical of people who do. I do know some Christians who have been fleeced, though. I really do.

And then they blame God for it. My own conviction is that as we grow in the spiritual life, all we need is the Word. Just the Word.

God does yield to us and lead in circumstances. God does lead us through the Spirit in our hearts. I'm thankful for this.

I've watched circumstances and I've listened to the Holy Spirit. But circumstances, apart from the Word, will lead you astray. And feelings down inside, apart from the Word, will lead you astray.

And I think the only fleece we need is right here. And if I don't know what God wants me to do, I just stop and wait. And I say, now, Father, you know where and when and how.

I'll just wait. Sometimes I have run ahead of God. Sometimes I've lagged behind God.

David prayed, don't be like the mule and don't be like the horse. And sometimes I've been like the horse and I've run ahead. And sometimes I've been like the mule and I've lagged behind.

But it hasn't been God's fault. I've known what his Word wanted. You see, the key to God's will is God's Word.

And the key to God's Word is faith. And the key to faith is just being open and honest with God, letting him know your fears and your doubts, and God will direct you. I'm afraid that sometimes Satan can get in on fleeces.

I'm afraid sometimes other people can get in on these things. There's one thing I'm not afraid of. I'm not afraid of what God says in this book.

I can depend on it. God's Word is faithful. Now, somebody here tonight may be wrestling with the will of God, or God may be wrestling with you to get you to do his will.

Someone may be very fearful. You say, God's called me to do something. I'm scared.

Gideon was scared. I don't think I have the faith to follow through. Gideon had a lot of doubt.

And so take these four assurances with you. You can be sure God has a purpose for you. You can be sure that purpose is revealed in his Word.

You can be sure that as you trust and obey his Word, that purpose will be fulfilled and you can be sure that God will do everything he has to do to build your faith. But he wants you to graduate from kindergarten into grade school, and then into high school, and then into graduate school. You know how he does it? Through his Word.

For faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. We pray, our Father, that we might grow from faith to faith, not from faith to sight. The things that are seen are so temporal.

The things that are unseen are eternal. I pray for those believers who have been neglecting the Word of God, meditating on it, memorizing it. Oh God, we want our minds to be spiritual computers into which you can see your truth and from which you can give us guidance and answers.

I pray, Father, for any unbelievers here tonight who have never trusted Christ, out of the will of God, oh, that they might trust you. Now guide us this coming week. Make us sensitive to the Spirit leading through the Word.

We pray with thanksgiving in Jesus' name. Amen.