(Gideon had just delivered Israel, with God's help, from the final kings of the Midians)
22 The Israelites said to Gideon, "Rule over us—you, your son and your grandson—because you have saved us out of the hand of Midian."
23 But Gideon told them, "I will not rule over you, nor will my son rule over you. The LORD will rule over you." 24 And he said, "I do have one request, that each of you give me an earring from your share of the plunder." (It was the custom of the Ishmaelites to wear gold earrings.)
25 They answered, "We'll be glad to give them." So they spread out a garment, and each man threw a ring from his plunder onto it. 26 The weight of the gold rings he asked for came to seventeen hundred shekels, [b] not counting the ornaments, the pendants and the purple garments worn by the kings of Midian or the chains that were on their camels' necks. 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.
God is an interesting sort. God leads us to really strange places while reading the bible and shows us something we never really thought about before. Then, confusion sets in.
Sooooo, Gideon is basically the main man for trusting God right now in the passage out of Judges. Seriously! The Israelites wanted him to rule. And after his huge faith-test with God, leading a paltry 300 men to simply crush the Midians, he tells them frankly "Nope. God is your King."
As important as that comment is, right after he starts gathering up some spoils of war, makes a vestment out of it, and people worship it. It's not really a wonder that right after he died they fell back away from God. Gideon was pretty awesome, but even he stopped worshipping God, even allowing his family to stumble.
What's the lesson here exactly? There's a lot of trust in God in Chapter 7, showing that Gideon was righteous. In Chapter 8, he kills the kings of Midian himself, and then falls away from God. So much so, that even after his death the people went right back to worshipping Baal.
The Israelites were a strange people too - instead of abandonning the God of Abraham (other cultures we well known to abandon gods when said god didn't seem to work so well anymore) completely, Israel kept coming back. This usually had to do with prophetic urging. And all the great men they had leading them....they all had their flaws. Gideon went to idol worship. Samuel was not a good father and his sons were unfit to take his place. David got a man killed so he could sleep with his wife. Each man died, because he was just a man. Christ was the only difference. No flaw, and after he died, he came back.
Now I think I have to realize that I'm just a man too. It's not that my flaws and failings are 'ok', but God is bigger than them. Christ has already overcome that struggle, it's not for me to fight and re-fight every day of my life. I just need to have the faith to claim that power, to choose out the 300 men God has picked, to annoint the scrappy pasture-boy God chose to be King, and to crazy enough to dance in front of a nation wildly to show the love and excitement I have for God. Just men were capable of doing all of that - I can too, if I mearly claim it.
What's so confusing about that?
Not much, except how to live it every day of our lives.
No comments:
Post a Comment