What We Believe Day 3- A Story of Fear and Faith
Do you believe God? Not, do you believe IN God but do you believe GOD? Do you have faith that God is who He says He is and can do what He says He can do?
Today we are going to look at Judges 6 and read about a man name Gideon. His story is only
three chapters long and I encourage you to stop and read it or listen to it. It’s packed with lots of information and lessons and we could spend weeks on those three short chapters. Don’t worry; we won’t. We are going to look at how fear plays into what we believe.
At this point in history, Israel has been through 400 years of slavery, 40 years of wondering in the desert, more than 100 years of building Israel in the land of Canaan (the land God promised to Abraham), and years and years of going back and forth between worshiping God and worshiping idols.
Like the other main characters in the book of Judges, Gideon shows up in a time when they are worshiping idols…again. Scripture says it this way “Israel did evil in the eyes of the Lord.” (Judges 6:1) Because of that, for the last seven years, God had allowed the Midianites to attack the Israelites, driving them into the hill country, taking their food and animals. 
The promise land was not what they thought it would be at all because they didn’t get rid of the idols like God said to do (Judges 6:2-5).
We still do the same thing to this day. Our lives are not what God wants them to be, full of the peace that passes all understanding, simply because we do not get rid of thoughts that have no business being in our heads in the first place. So what do we do? We cry out to God for help, which is what the Israelites did. They cried out to God, not the gods of their idols, but THE God (Judges 6:6-10). And that’s when God spoke to Gideon.
Fear
Judges 6:11 tells us that an angle of the Lord found Gideon threshing wheat in a winepress to keep the wheat from the Midianites. He speaks to Gideon and says, “The Lord is with you, valiant warrior.” Hold up. Valiant warrior? The guy is afraid and hiding. He is so afraid that he is making his job of threshing wheat sooooooo much harder. Wheat is meant to be threshed on a threshing floor in the open air so that the wind will do the work too. Wheat is not meant to be threshed in a basement.
So God calls him “Mighty warrior” and then tells him to go take out Midian? Gideon knows he can’t do that, “How can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest. I’m the least in my family.” (Judges 6:12-15) . But God didn’t call Gideon based on what Gideon thought was true, which was based on fear. God called Gideon what He knew to be true. And when God speaks, we need to believe Him. Fear will make us believe a lot of things that are not true and will convince us that we can’t do what God has called us to do. Faith will keep us grounded in the words of God and will give us courage to do what God says.
Faith
Gideon’s faith in God does grow as he asks God for several signs. God agrees and proves that He is who says He is. What a gracious God we serve! God does not need to prove Himself to anyone but He loves His people so much that He will go to above what is needed just to help us believe and obey. And Gideon does. He obeys God and gathers a huge army of 22,000 to fight the Midianites.
God has other plans. “You have too many men me for me to deliver Midian into their hands.” I’m sure Gideon was confused. Wait, what? The army is too large? Why would God say an army is too large? (Judges 7). God knows what people. We tend to make all these plans and have gather large groups and believe in ourselves instead of God. We think WE can do this or WE did that so God doesn’t get the glory. This was a warning to Gideon, something God saw in him that Gideon didn’t see in himself.
But Gideon decreased his army just as God told him to and gave them the weapons that God had assigned: a torch, a jar, and a trumpet for each man. If you haven’t noticed by now, God does not do things the way that we would. If we were going into battle, we would take swords, shields, armor, catapults of fire. We would not take torches, jars, and trumpets. Well, maybe the torches, that’s a good idea. And that’s the thing. We are fine with things that sound like a good idea but trusting God is challenging when it doesn’t line up with what we believe is a good idea.
Thankfully, Gideon again did what God told him to do. He took his men to the edge of the Midian camp and spread out in three groups of 100. At midnight while everyone slept, Gideon’s army smashed their jars, held out their lamps, blew the trumpets, and shouted, “A sword for the Lord and for Gideon.” The enemy army was so confused they started fighting each other, scrambling and running away in defeat. God received the glory…and so did Gideon.
Gideon called in reinforcements and pursued the fleeing Midianites (Judges 7:24, Judges 8:1-21). Did God say to call in more men? Did God say for Gideon chase after the men who killed his brothers and kill them with a sword?
Gideon got carried away by feeling like we talked about yesterday. We do that too. Situations can drive our emotions and before you know it, we are taking over and taking care of the problem ourselves. Gideon sure wasn’t fearful anymore. He went from living in fear to having faith in God to having pride in himself. The people of Israel were so thankful to Gideon that they wanted to make him king. He said no thanks, “The Lord will rule over you.” And then he asked for a portion of their plunder just like a king would do.
Fear, Faith, and Pride
We tend to think that fear is the opposite of faith but faith has two opposites, fear and pride. Fear says “I believe can’t do it. There’s no way.” Pride says, “I believe in myself. I can do it myself.” Faith says, “I believe God. God is the One who can do I.”
We have to pay attention and be alert (1 Peter 5:8) so that we, in an effort to have confidence in God, do not swing over to pride. After God gave Midian into the hands of Gideon, Gideon took that victory and created an idol, maybe a symbol of Gideon’s victory. And the Israelites worshiped it. They didn’t worship God and praise His name for the saving them. They did exactly what God warned them about, taking the glory for themselves. Sometimes we are guilty of doing the same thing. We want the thanks. We want to recognition for the things WE did and we go down a path of self worship. We start believing in ourselves instead of the God who blessed us.
Check out these resources for the What We Believe series:
Learning from Gideon PDF Use this handout to guide you through the story of Gideon. The story may not have ended they way we like but there are still lessons to be learned.
Faith Scripture Cards PDF Print out these cards on cardstock to keep them sturdy. Carry them with you in your purse or set them around the house as a reminder of Who is in control.
Continue reading the rest of the series here:
