Gideon, the Farmer General

3:45 He is a God of action. In the event, and even in remembrance of the event, He speaks to men. Through the history of long ago, as we shall discover today and in coming weeks of this broadcast, God's Word talks to the needs of modern man. Why all those stories from long ago about Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon, Gideon, and the rest. The story's sometimes called obscene because people insist on making of God's Word a goody-goody book about pretty people who never really existed except in the imagination of an ancient scribe. The Bible does not dress up its characters. They are real people, like us. Passions carry them away as passions cause people to do crazy things today. envy and greed corrode and corrupt character, as they do today. The biblical story of one of the purest young men in history, headed for a position of power seldom held by even the most important figures of history, is marked by a seduction scene that was not dreamed up by a naturalistic novelist.

4:54 The searing sarcasm of David's general, reporting the death of Uriah, whose only offense was that he got in the way of the king's illicit desires. For sheer laconic ferocity is beyond the reach of a writer of fiction. This has to be history. Bible history is a special kind of history. It is more than accurate reporting of what actually occurred. It is the story of God's action among men. Men, as they can and do, respond to or rebel against the goodness and power of a just yet gracious God. This is God the way he is, and this is men the way they are. Today's story about the farmer general begins in chapter 6 of the book of Judges. Gideon is a much misunderstood man, largely because pious people have tried to make him out to be what he was not, a hero.

5:54 A hero neither at the beginning nor at the end of his military career. Gideon is the central figure in a slice of history whose main object is to make one point. No one can predict how the goodness and grace of God will go to work in behalf of men. When God acts, all predictions and projections go out the window.

6:19 When we meet him, Gideon is a rustic lout. The children of Israel, having deserted their God, have been delivered into the hand of Midian. For seven oppressive years, they have tried to make out a living in dens and caves to escape the depredations of their conquerors. Just about harvest time each year, the Midianites with their allies, the Amalekites, came up to rob and plunder for no other reason than to keep Israel poor and subjugated. In their desperation, the people cried out to the Lord for help. God hears and God acts. The angel of the Lord came to a man named Gideon and said to him, The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valor. The divine irony of this statement was never more clear to anyone than it was to this farmer. All of his brothers had been killed in valiant attempts to throw off the Midianite yoke.

7:18 Now all that was left was a collection of the crushed and cowardly, of whom he himself was a first-class example. Indeed, at the moment, he was occupied with threshing the little bit of wheat left to him for fear that he would be seen by the Midianites. Gideon was an honest, if not a brave, man. He did not take the Lord too seriously. With peasant bluntness, he set the divine spokesman right. If the Lord be with us, he said, why then has all this befallen us? Where be all these miracles which our fathers told us of, saying, Did not the Lord bring us up out of Egypt? But now the Lord hath forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites. A perfect representative of a dispirited and defeated people, Gideon was neither a stalwart defender of the true God nor an outright unbeliever. He was just a non-believer, satisfied to be alive.

8:15 He was nothing, as people often refer to themselves today when they have no particular faith and still do not want to be known as atheists. What is more, he was content to be nothing. The Lord looked on Gideon and said, Go in this thy might, and thou shalt save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Gideon protested, Who, me? My might? Who would follow me? I'm not a hero, and I'm not the stuff out of which heroes are made. The Lord replied quietly, Have not I sent thee? How can I save Israel, interrupted Gideon. Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am a nobody even in my father's house. Again the Lord replied, Surely I will be with you, and you will smite the Midianites as one man.

9:08 Gideon was a farmer. He had to be shown. The Lord showed him. Sending fire to consume the meat and bread which Gideon had laid out on a rock, The Lord showed him, and Gideon believed. From that moment on, whenever Gideon listened to the Lord, people listened to him. Gideon could not explain it, and they could not explain it, but they listened. The first project to test the faith of the farmer was an assignment from the Lord to cut down the grove of Baal, the Philistine god whom Gideon's father, in desperation, had elected to worship. Taking ten men of his own household, Gideon cut down the grove by night, afraid of what would happen to him if he did it during the daytime. The next day, when people asked who had done it, the word got around Gideon the son of Joash has done this thing.

10:01 Ready to execute him for the deed, the people of the community were dissuaded only by the protests of Gideon's father. If Baal be a god, let him plead for himself, because one has cast down his altar. The Midianites and Amalekites were gathered together in the valley of Jezreel. By the power of the Lord, the only power he had, Gideon sent messengers throughout all Manasseh, as well as to Asher and Zebulun and Naphtali. Their representatives came to meet him. Gideon listened to the Lord, and people listened to him. Seeking anew a sign of the Lord's intent, Gideon was rewarded with dew upon the fleece of wool he had set out on the floor, while everything else around it remained dry. Not satisfied, he asked that the miracle be reversed the following morning. And it was. The representatives of the various tribes were impressed. When Gideon listened to the Lord, people listened to him.

10:58 The grove and the fleece were only the warm-up for the real thing. By this time, the Bible tells us, the spirit of the Lord had put on Gideon the way a man puts on his coat to brave the elements. What was to come would be the Lord's work, not Gideon's. Now for the big operation. A nondescript army of 32,000 came together to oppose 120,000 of the Midianites and Amalekites. Too many, said the Lord. Not too many Midianites, too many of his own people. It was to be the Lord's work and his alone. Responding to the Lord's injunction, probably against his own better judgment, Gideon told those of his own people who were fearful and afraid to return to their homes. 22,000 did. 10,000 were left.

11:50 Still too many, said the Lord. There followed the operation at the spring, and 300 cowards were found who drank silently, lapping the water with their tongues as a dog laps, covering their hands with their mouths so that the Midianites would not hear them. All the rest were sent home. Beneath in the valley lay the host of Midian. After one more sign given to Gideon when he and a trusted follower made a spying expedition to the camp of the Midianites, God was ready. Now Gideon was ready too. Dividing the 300 men into three companies, Gideon put a trumpet in every man's hand with empty pitchers and lamps within the pitchers. The signal for action was to be the blowing of his own trumpet. With that blast, every man was to blow and to cry out, the sword of the Lord and of Gideon.

12:46 You can read the rest of the story in the seventh chapter of Judges. Gideon might have thought, as Padishiewski has him say in the play Gideon, that the Midianites would respond with the derisive comment, what's all this tootling about? Gideon listened, however. God acted. The victory was complete. It was the Lord's victory. This farmer had no West Point credentials. He didn't need any. In spite of the immensity of the problem, the lack of manpower to deal with it, and his own personal inadequacy, indeed his own outright inability to provide leadership, the victory was complete. Whatever fighting took place was between Midianite and Midianite, or between Midianite and Amalekite. In the confusion, the great host destroyed itself as remnants of the once proud army fled pell-mell down the valley. The Lord is awake.

13:45 Though his people forget him and even abuse his patience, when they cry out to him for help, the Lord hears. The Lord hears because he loves. It seems impossible that the great God could love a world like ours, which turns its back on him, is contemptuous of his power, and makes fun of his kindness. It seems impossible, but it is true. God is a God of action. His love expresses itself in action. The entire Bible portrays God in action, culminating in the greatest action of all, the sending of his own son into human history, to be one of us. The Lord loved this farmer and made him a general in spite of himself. The Lord loved his people and gave them victory in spite of themselves.

14:39 The Lord loves mankind and sent his son to pay the penalty for their sins in spite of their indifference toward his word and their neglect of his will. The Lord loves you. in spite of what you have been or of what you are. God is a God of action. He is just. And he forgives. Himself having paid the price for human rebellion on the cross of Christ, by his own great action in human history, having paid the penalty and making atonement for all sin in the person of Jesus Christ, he proclaims forgiveness to all, including you. His love knows no bounds. It includes you.

15:27 As Gideon discovered, living with the love of God is not easy. We have to take God as he is. He is truth. Where people had been saying the sword of the Lord and of Gideon, they now began to alter their war cry ever so slightly to the sword of Gideon and of the Lord. People tried to make Gideon out to be a hero, pleading with him to become a hereditary king. He replied, I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you. The Lord shall rule over you. Very admirable. Sooner or later, however, pride begins to assert itself. If people tell you often enough that you are a hero, you begin to believe it. Gideon began to believe it. Collecting all the gold of Israel, including the earrings taken from their foes, 1,700 shekels worth, Besides the ornaments, collars, and purple raiment worn by the kings of Midian, and the chains about their camel's necks, Gideon made an ephod, a kind of priestly garment which could stand by itself, out of this gold, and set it up near his home.

16:35 It became a shrine, and all Israel went thither a-whoring after it, which thing, as the Bible tells us, became a snare unto Gideon and to his house. Gideon forgot who the real hero was, and so did the people. It's easy to forget the Lord, and it is difficult to live with his love. When shall we learn to live with the love of God, giving him the glory and depending upon him for his grace and kindness? It is not easy. It goes against our grain, since we would rather get glory for ourselves and depend upon our own resources. Being men, that's the way we are. God is great in his goodness. Men become great only when they learn to depend upon God and his goodness.

17:31 Goodness and greatness do not come to men easily. Dependence upon God goes down hard. Life is complicated and its problems too great to be entrusted to God. We have to take care of ourselves. Our world today is engaged in a cold war, which could easily become a hot and shooting war. The end is not yet in sight. What is to be done? If only this great problem could be removed, everything would be all right. Would it? If the present problem were to be removed, another could take its place more dreadful in potentialities than the one we now know. The answer to our problem is to be found not in ourselves, ourselves, but in God's resources, given in grace and accepted in faith. What is faith if it is not faith in God? What is faith in God if it is not trust in the good purpose of God, accompanied by obedience to His will, as He unfolds His purposes and makes them clear? Faith in God is not passive and inactive. It is faith in a God of action. He that keeps Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps.

18:42 Faith in him does not go to sleep. It is ready for action, listening to his call and following his good and gracious will, accepting his forgiveness, acknowledging his watchful care, and warming to his ever-present love. Faith in God makes a man ready to live. This is what the Bible means when it says, the man who is just by faith will live. If there's anything heroic in life, it is to live by faith. This takes real courage to listen to God and then to be ready for the impossible in the great line of the faithful who, having come to know God in Jesus Christ have always been ready to say with St. Paul, I can do all things. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Amen.

19:48 For free online resources, archived audio, and more, go to LutheranHour.org. Now back to Lutheran Hour speaker Michael Ziegler and his guest, Dr. Ryan Tinetti. Thank you, Mark. What a powerful sermon from Dr. Hoffman. If you think this is the summer of 1963, in just a few months, President Kennedy is going to be assassinated. And this word that comes from the preacher, from this kind of obscure Old Testament event and strange events and an unlikely figure in Gideon. But what Dr. Hoffman has emphasized in this sermon is that God is a God of action, that he speaks through actions. So, Pastor Tonetti, we've been talking about how God reveals himself through characters, through figures in the Old Testament. Let's talk some more about how does God speak and reveal himself through events, through actions?

20:44 So we see throughout not just the Old Testament, New Testament as well, and continued in through history, that God works in surprising and unexpected ways. And in particular, when you see a story like Gideon, and Gideon's problem is not that he doesn't have enough soldiers to go up against his foe, but instead his problem, God says, you've got too many. I'm going to save you with 300 cowards. Exactly, with the dog lappers. But this is typical of the ways that God is going to work through history, that he is going to work in these ways that, as he says in the course of the sermon, that no one can predict. No one can predict how the goodness and grace of God will go to work in behalf of men. And this theme is certainly carried forward in the life of Jesus. So the events of how God saves Israel through Gideon, in a way, anticipate how he's going to save and work through the life of Jesus. All of those Old Testament stories, in a sense, are preparing us, not giving us necessarily perfect pictures of how it's going to happen, but preparing us for a God who's going to work in a way that you could not anticipate.

21:59 Unpredictability is the key thing. So be ready to be surprised. but here's some patterns that'll help you notice the surprise when it happens. And so God saves Israel through this. I love how Dr. Hoffman says this, this, what is this tootling? You know, the horns, why on earth would, would breaking glass and, and horns playing in the night? Why would that have victory over this massive army of 120,000 people? In human terms, in military science, there's no reason this should work. It's really foolish. It's foolish. And again, we've talked about the characters in Moses, the stuttering man of destiny, and now Gideon, the farmer general, who, as Hoffman points out, is what we'd say in contemporary parlance, kind of a nun. He's not a rank unbeliever, but neither is he a passionate advocate for the God of Israel. He's just kind of like, eh, are we sure?

22:55 Yeah, where's God? Where's God? What about all these miracles we've heard about? If he's so great and so powerful, why hasn't he acted for us before? I love how he says he's content to be nothing. He's content to be nothing. And, you know, this was 60 years ago. Resonates with today, too, that so many of us, and even for those of us who profess to be believers in Christ, how often can in our own lives we can act in ways that would deny the faith that we have. And yet God is still active and working. He's a God of action, and he's going to act in these ways that we couldn't expect and through people that are surprising. So as Dr. Hoffman said, that God is a God of action, and this action is culminating. It culminates in Jesus. It's unpredictable. It looks foolish, but it actually is effective and powerful. So reading the Old Testament, it primes us, gets us ready to see Jesus more clearly. And then also when we turn back to our lives in the dog days of summer in the mix to see how God is also working through these unpredictable ways.

24:00 You know, you've heard, I'm sure, countless stories of people who look back on their lives and say, I never would have thought God worked, could have even worked through that. And yet, in hindsight, I can see it. I think that the mantra for the people of God is always to expect the unexpected. when it comes to our Lord. And yeah, I've seen it, heard it in so many countless stories where folks would say, I never would have drawn it up that way if I could say this is how my life should go. And yet in retrospect, I can see how God is working through that. And so it is through all of history and these times and these things that we think things are out of control. And where is God in the midst of this? And yet he shows himself to be a kind and patient and goodly Lord in the midst of all of those vicissitudes of history. And then when we can look back and see it on the other side, how it all came together, the glory is all his. We can't claim any of it on our own.

24:56 We never would have predicted it that way. We never would have predicted it that way, but we doff our cap and we bow our heads and we say, Lord, you are good, you are faithful, and your mercy endures forever. Amen. not by sight, no gracious words we hear. From Christ who spoke as none e'er spoke, but we believe in me. He may not touch his presence, nor follow where he's from, The day we promise we rejoice and cry, my Lord and God. Help then, O Lord, our unbeenie, and may I make the vow to come you when you are near, and see where you are found.

26:10 That when a time of faith is done, in rent of clear light, we may be whole, who has to know, with full and endless sight. We walk by faith and not by sight, in a choral setting by Dr. Kenneth Koshy. Lord Jesus, remember us in your kingdom and teach us to pray.