Judges 6:19-35.  If you read yesterday’s post, you know that many scholars think that the “angel of the Lord” was a pre-incarnate (before he became a flesh and blood person) appearance of Jesus.  What happens in verse 18 and the next paragraph would support that idea.  Gideon wants to make an offering to the angel.  The angel says he will stay.  Then in the next paragraph (Judges 6:19-24) Gideon prepares and presents the offering.  Which the angel takes in a very dramatic way by making fire come out of the rock and burn up the offering.  In Revelation 19:10; 22:9 we see another time an angel speaks to someone for God.  In this case John, the person being spoken to, falls down in front of the angel and the angel tells him to stop and get up because he (the angel) is a servant of God just like John is.  The angel in Revelation refused to be honored but the one in Judges accepted the honor.  Only fallen angels like Satan will accept worship (see Matthew 4:8-10 where Jesus refuses to worship Satan).  In fact the fact that Jesus accepts worship is one part of the proof for the fact that he is God.  So when the angel in Judges accepts the offering (an act of worship by Gideon) we can figure that the angel is either God or a demon.  Based on the story it is certainly God.

In the next part of the story God tells Gideon to tear down an altar that belongs to his father.  Sadly enough the altar is to Baal, one of the Canaanite gods, and has a statue of another Canaanite god, Asherah, next to it.  Even after the fire from the rock thing Gideon is afraid and so he tears down the altar at night.  He is also instructed to build another altar to God and make an offering to God. I don’t know what he thought doing it at night would accomplish.  I have done construction all my life and it’s kind of loud so I don’t know how you demolish one altar and use the wood for another one without making enough noise to wake up the whole neighborhood.  On top of that he has to kill a seven year old bull and burn it on the altar.  Big bull, big fire, dark quiet night.   Some how Gideon pulls all of this off and leaves.  By the way altars were usually built up high, more visibility.  The men of the city are furious that the altar of their god has been destroyed (even though it specifically belonged to Joash, Gideon’s father).  Obviously someone saw it all go down because they find out Gideon did it.

At this point Joash stands up for Gideon and tells the people that if Baal is mad about the altar let him come and deal with it.  He then changes Gideon’s name to Jerubbaal which means “let Baal fight for himself”.  The author of Judges then jumps back to where the story began.  Remember the Midianites kept raiding the land and the people were hiding out.  Here they come again.  Now Gideon, who up to this point has been quite fearful, blows the horn to call his people to battle.  These are the same people who just wanted to kill him.  We will see in tomorrows reading that it is not because Gideon is past his fears.  The answer is in the fact that “the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon”.   As we will see God will use Gideon to be the next deliverer of His people.  As we have been studying in Sunday Scripture Exploration every person who has put their eternity into Jesus’ hands has the Holy Spirit living in them, permanently. As someone once said, “Being used by God is not about ability but about availability.”  In reality it’s the Holy Spirit who works in and through us (see 2 Corinthians 12:9-10, Acts 1:8, Ephesians 2:10, Philippains 1:6). The question is are we going to be available in spite of our fears.

Lord, really be the lord of my life, the one who runs it.  Help me be a faithful and obedient servant.  Fill me up with your Spirit.  Like Jesus, let me use your word to know what to do.  Help me Lord and thank you.  Let my life be a living sacrifice to you.