Lena's Comments Judges 6

We’re talking the church – Israelites, did what was evil in God’s sight. That would be a good one to be on guard for in our own hearts and lives. Things such as refusing to forgive, or refusing to obey God’s word, are considered evil works. We think that means murdering, adultery etc. It’s more than cut and dried sins we’ve been trained to see. We need to re-train ourselves to see how God sees. Sometimes our gages are off.
Why do we sense continual bombardment of the world and it’s ways? Maybe we have not been walking with God. Maybe when we are tired of being cursed by decisions we’ve made, maybe THEN we’ll cry out to God with a willing heart of obedience, being truly interested in His interests; Maybe THEN we’d have become wise by our experiences where hard knocks point us back in the direction of faith.
Prophetic words are not always easily recognized by us, especially when we have not practiced obedience to His voice. God sends the voice of His will through simple vessels, and expects us to listen and obey. It always reminds me of Naaman. The presented to heed vessel is rarely as we’d’ve ordered it, but is usually the answer we need to our questions, if we’ll listen.
In vs 11, I find it cool that Gideon was still willing to participate in the making of bread ( I relate it to being in God’s word) even though His peers were not yet back into obedient rule. He hid his bread making in the winepresses from His enemy. To me this is saying that my time with God, and the words God gives me, are none of the enemy’s business, and if I pray in the Spirit, he has no part in it at all, it’s hidden under the winepress.
Another way to look at this could be that in my trials and the proving ground of my faith, I don’t need to give glory to the enemy, by telling all he has done to come against the Christ in me! ( which is a lot of what I’ve done lately). My only exaltation is in My Father God, and my genuine faith, though tried by fire. If I complain and murmur loudly crying when touched by a threatening enemy attack, he’ll then be clued in on what makes me "tick" and he’ll continue to hit me where it counts! I’ve got to HIDE God’s Word IN my heart. Gideon was not some exceptional physically or mentally strong man of God, he was any person we know. BUT GOD SENT him anyway. God called and used him anyway, beginning with the strength he had anyway. Not who he would be, but who he was right then.
When Gideon answered the call of God on his life, he immediately responded to it knowing full well it would be a sacrifice, a required - blood-shedding sacrifice. Gideon laid the sacrifice out , giving this to God for God to consume it. It was a symbol of his old responses, his old ways of thought. Being "crucified", so he could go on to new ways and thoughts. If God would consume Gideon’s sacrifice, Gideon would know God could and would consume all that he is and was and would be in "Christ". God would also make him new. Notice it stated that the altar he made remained to this day. It was real, it was his start and he followed the will of God enough to have a memorial of it in His life, he went on far enough to be able to look back and know he’d gone somewhere, been somewhere.
Vs 25-32 are awesome ! Gideon’s dad was possibly a priest of Baal! A false god worshipper, as all of us were without Christ! See there’s an example of sins deceit. We all think we were ok and Joash was a baaaadddddd guy, We were all baaaadddd guys without the free gift of salvation through the acceptance of the same call to the Lordship of Christ that Gideon was hearing. We have to forsake and even knock down the objects of our false (-sley taught) worship practices. We have to be willing to bring change into our lives even if others close to us won’t. Even to the point of violently forsaking their old ways that once influenced and guided our belief systems., cutting the source of their continued power against our new walk.
This is so out of the realm of our usual thoughts. Gideon was saved. He personally answered the call of God and stood alone in that call and the responsibility of it. He knew he was standing before God, rather than his own earthly father and the old ways that father had taught him to live by. This new relationship was very personal to him and he knew how it would and could effect change in His sphere of influence. I believe, in respect of his father’s ways, he quietly destroyed for himself what needed to be destroyed. He was doing that for everyone involved, but he did it as it were in his prayer closet initially as his first step of influence. He tore down ancient lifelong curses. He reached backwards and forwards in his deliberate actions of faith. His faith had a strong enough follow through to do something about shutting off any further influence of old ways. He went into darkness to destroy darkness. He didn’t wait for light to come in the darkness, he went there on purpose with purpose.
This was Gideon’s first spiritual conquest. After he faithfully did this he enlisted an army, of like warriors. Notice he went into darkness for the sake of the known "world" and his family first, there he was proven enough to go to and minister to the "church".