Judges 6:17-18 “Gideon replied, “If now I have found favor 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.” This episode talks about how Gideon kept asking the Lord for a sign to prove it was really God, or that God meant what He said. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Why Do We Question The Lord?
Judges 6:17-18 “Gideon replied, “If now I have found favor 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.”
Father Mike read chapter 6 of Judges the other day and while I was listening to him read I thought to myself, isn’t that just like all of us. I didn’t want to read the whole chapter for you today so let me give you a brief summary. The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, again and He gave them into the hands of the Midianites for seven years. Do you see a pattern here? I feel as though throughout the whole Old Testament we are reading how the Israelites turned away from the Lord, or they did something evil in the sight of the Lord. The first thing that came to mind was, man, when will they learn, when with they get it together? Immediately the Holy Spirit placed on my heart that we are not very different. Most of us are probably not worshiping other Gods in the same way they were, and luckily human sacrifice is not a common things here is the United States. However, we do often turn away from the Lord. Our hearts are fickle and although we would like to say we would do anything for God, most of us mean we would do anything that wasn’t too difficult and wasn’t too much of an inconvenience. This may sound harsh, but if you really think about it and were honest with yourself, I think you would agree.
Back to the story now. The Midianites were so oppressive that the Israelites cried out to the Lord for help. Then an angel of God came to talk to Gideon. The angel told Gideon that the Lord was with him and that he was a might warrior. Did you get that? An angel of God came to talk to Gideon and to tell him that God was with him. Do you know what Gideon did next? He began to argue or dispute that God was with him. In Judges 6:13 he says, ““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 they said, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up out of Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.”
I think this is such a human thing to do. We have an angel right in front of us telling us that God is with us and we want to just argue with it. We want to complain and say that what God is doing is not good enough. The angel doesn’t even get sucked into defending the Lord, or listing all the ways the Lord has helped them in the past. The angel just continues to go on and to tell Gideon to go forward and save the Israelites. What does Gideon do next? He questions the angel again. He says in Judges 6:15 “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.” Have you ever done this? Has the Lord ever called you to do something and then you questions His judgement? You question what He was thinking asking you to do this thing when you are clearly, in your mind, the least qualified person for the job. It amazes me how we keep thinking we are smarter than God, that we know better than he does. We may not think this is what we are doing, but when we are questioning His call, our actions are telling Him that we don’t trust Him, or we think we know better than He does. God created the whole universe in 6 days, surely He can decide who is and is not capable of defeating the Midianites.
The angel reassures Gideon that God will be with him and that he will in fact strike down all the Midianites and leave none alive. Then Gideon says, “Gideon replied, “If now I have found favor 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.” This is another typical thing many of us would do. We want proof of what was being said. Gideon asked God for a sign that it was really God talking to him. How many times have you done this before? How many times have you said, “God, if this is really you, show me.” The angel said he would wait and when Gideon gave the angel food to eat the angel burned it with one touch to show Gideon that he was really an angel of God. Finally Gideon realized that he was really talking to an angel of God. I wonder what that moment felt like? The moment he realized he had been talking with an angel of God. I bet it felt amazing!
Towards the end of this chapter, Gideon sent messengers all throughout Manasseh, calling them to arms, and also into Asher, Zebulun and Naphtali, so that they too went up to meet him. Gideon was ready to go against the army God said he would defeat. Now that it is time to go against the army, what does Gideon do? He asks God for another sign. In Judges 6:36-38 "Gideon said to God, “If you will save Israel by my hand as you have promised— look, 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 said.” And that is what happened. Gideon rose early the next day; he squeezed the fleece and wrung out the dew—a bowlful of water.” That is a pretty clear sign. Gideon asked God for a sign and God gave him one. Now Gideon is ready to go against the enemy, right? Wrong. Gideon gets the sign he asked for and then asks God for another sign, just to be sure. In Judges 6:39-40 he says, “Do not be angry with me. Let me make just 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.”
My first instinct is to judge Gideon for asking God for signs. Not only did he need one sign, but he went back and asked for a second sign. It was actually a third sign if you count the one at the beginning that he asked the angel for. I would like to say that my faith is stronger and I wouldn’t need signs. Then my rational brain looks at the circumstances Gideon was in. He was facing not only the ruling force, the Midianites, who had been oppressing them for at least seven years, but he was also facing the Amalekites and other eastern peoples who joined their forces. I can’t say with certainty that I wouldn’t want some sort of assurances from God that He was going to be with me. I think we look to God for assurances even in our every day lives. I can imagine it would be more so if we were headed into battle.
When I heard this chapter talking about Gideon the other day it just made me smile thinking about how much I can see each one of us in him. It made me smile when he asked God for something and then when he got exactly what he wanted he asked for something else. It was just so hard for him to believe that God was going to be with him, he needed to ask for proof twice. Can’t you picture yourself doing this? Hey God, if this is really you, turn that red light, green. Then He does and you ask something else. You tell yourself that was too easy, or that was a coincidence and you ask God to do something else to prove it is really Him. Have you ever done this before? Why is it so hard for us to believe that God would talk to us or do extraordinary things for us? If God says something He means it. Why do we question Him? Why do we ask for proof? “Why is it so hard for us to believe that God would use us to carry out part of His plan?” Jesus said in John 20:29, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” Let us strive to be like those who do not require proof to believe. Let us strive to believe and trust without asking for proof. “Lord I believe, help my unbelief.” Let us dare to believe that God wants to use us in His great plan.
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, help us to believe that you are with us without needing proof. Help us to trust without testing you and asking you to jump through hoops just so we can believe. Lord, we love you, you are amazing and we know this. Help us not be scared when you call us to something. Help us to know without a doubt that you will be there with us and you will give us the strength to do whatever you are asking us to do. We are so grateful that you are always with us. We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen.