The second bull and the quarrel with Baal: (Judges 6.25-32)

God asks Gideon to cut down the wooden image, to destroy his father’s altar of Baal, to erect an altar to God, and to sacrifice his father’s second bull to the Lord. God does not command him to take anyone with him, but Gideon does not have the courage to go alone. He takes ten men (so far so good, he had to cut down a wooden image, after all). He does not have the courage to go by day, so he goes by night. He obeys, but with fear. He obeys, though afraid. You can see that he is afraid of men, but he is not afraid of Baal. He does not fear other gods. He fears God, or else he wouldn’t have obeyed. So, he is in a huge conflict between his fear of the situation and his fear of God. He chooses to fear God, and so God stays with him.

It is very amazing to see how God does not look at Gideon’s fear. God knows he’s afraid. God sees his fear, but He chooses to look at Gideon’s fear towards Him, and also his faith, which is an act of obedience. Due to the fact that he is terrified, Gideon’s obedience has even more value before God. He has to sacrifice more of his own fear to obey. God has good eyes and always looks at our potential and our effort to obey and overcome our faults and weaknesses. He looks at our sacrifice, our offering of obedience when made in sincerity and fear.

The men of the city quickly discover what has happened and it is not difficult to find out who did it, since Gideon took ten witnesses. And, of course, when it comes to pointing out the culprit, it all falls upon Gideon’s head, as if he had done it alone. Imagine if the witnesses had accused each other! Gideon’s father has to go and defend his son (because I don’t know where Gideon is… dad had to go and save him) and manages to reason with the guys. “If Baal is a god, then let him defend himself from the offense committed against him!” And then everyone allows Baal to avenge himself. It’s a kind of challenge.

It certainly makes Gideon the talk of the town. His behaviour is seen as an insult to Baal, and everyone must have been waiting to see what would happen to him. This is probably when Gideon’s fame began to spread, because they even changed his name because of this event! “Who is this man who does this to Baal and gets away with it? Why was Baal incapable of doing anything against him? Who is with this man? Who is greater than Baal? It can only be God! If God is with him and is greater than Baal, what on earth are we doing following the loser?”

Therefore, God’s request had multiple motivations. In addition to the obvious, which was to get that abomination out of Gideon’s father’s house and make Himself the only God there, as well as to sacrifice the best that Gideon’s family had and to place Himself above everything else in their life, He also wanted to shame Baal before the people, making everyone see that Baal was no god at all. He also wanted to test whether Gideon’s fear of men was greater than his fear of God, and He also wanted to spread an image that Gideon was a fearless and unpredictable hero and show everyone that Gideon was with Him.

God is great and is not limited by our limitations. Therefore, when He does something, it is multidimensional. It’s like someone who rolls a bowling ball and knocks down all the pins at once. What He does has an effect on several fronts, which we don’t always realise at the time. It’s never just for one thing.

Continued tomorrow…

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