The Hornet’s Nest – Part 2 (Part A)

But of course, what's happening here is before God can purge the land of the invaders, He's got to deal with the pagan invasion, the invasion into the people that are called to follow Him and Him alone. He's got to deal with the violation of the first commandment, thou shalt have no other gods before me, and then the commandments go on, no images of me. Even if you want to try to go around the first commandment and say, well, I'm going to make an image, but it will be of Yahweh.

That's forbidden. And so He calls Gideon to attack the hometown idolatry, no matter what anyone thought. Gideon knows there's going to be trouble. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the Book of Judges.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. But for now, let's join Pastor Rick in Judges Chapter 6 with his continuing study called The Hornet's Nest. Peter just prayed that God would guide us and strengthen us through His Word.

And this is an excellent story of just that very thing, the life. Gideon is before us now. This is part two that we started last session in Judges Chapter 6. We will resume at verse 25, but before we get going, we'll do a little bit of a review.

The Hornet's Nest, that's what was entitled last session, and we'll keep that part two of The Hornet's Nest. And this all started with, of course, the people of God delivered in the days of Deborah and Barak, and then they drifted back into idolatry, so God let the surrounding peoples invade the land and had gotten so bad that many of the Jews were hiding in the caves and just trying to get away and survive because these hordes of people came into the land and stripped it of all of its produce, and they brought their livestock with them, which, of course, stressed out the pastures for their own animals. And the people began to cry out, and God began to go to work on raising up a deliverer, and it was Gideon. But Gideon did not know this right away.

In fact, he's hiding, keeping a low profile from the invaders. He's thrashing wheat in the wine press when the angel of the Lord shows up and just sort of observes them, sits under a tree while Gideon is thrashing the wheat, and then he enters into dialogue. Gideon doesn't know it's the angel of the Lord who we're going to talk about in a moment, and they have this conversation about why the people are suffering. The angel of the Lord addresses Gideon as this man of valor, and he's saying, you're kidding me.

I'm not any such thing. I'm hiding. And, of course, where is God, Gideon said, as he was with our fathers.

He's not with us. Well, in the course of the conversation, Gideon began to be stirred and said, don't go anywhere. I'm going to bring an offering. And he brings out an offering. He lays it on the rock, and the angel of the Lord puts out his staff, and fire comes down and consumes the offering. And much as it was in the days of Moses and Aaron when they established the first altar in Israel, fire comes down from heaven and ignites the altar, and it's just a divine, miraculous moment.

And Gideon, of course, he builds an altar there on that rock where he put the offering before the angel of the Lord. But who is this angel of the Lord that has started all of this? Well, the scriptures show that it is God, and mostly in pre-incarnate manifestation of Christ, the Son of God. In Genesis 16, this angel of the Lord appears to Hagar, and she recognizes that she was in the presence of God. She refers to him as the God who sees, Genesis 16, verse 13. Then she called the name.

Then she called the name of Yahweh who spoke to her. You are the God who sees. For she said, I also, here, seen him who sees me.

Here I am. I have seen him who sees me. So Hagar recognized that this was a manifestation, a human form of God. And the Bible contributors, the scribes of the Word, the historians of the Word, they've recorded it in such a way that the evidence is convincing.

It's not veiled. You just have to read the verses and you come to the conclusion because the words are right there. Speaking to Abraham, Abraham on Mount Moriah, the angel identified himself as Yahweh, Genesis 22, verses 15 and 16. Then the angel of Yahweh called to Abraham a second time out of heaven and said, by myself I have sworn, says Yahweh, because you have done this thing and have not withheld your son, your only son. See, the angel of the Lord is the same. God is referred to as the angel of the messenger, the message that comes, an uncreated angel.

That's the distinction. Angels are created beings, but this messenger is God directly speaking to human beings, not always in human form, as it was there, and it will be in another spot with Moses. Jacob heard the angel introduce himself as the God of Bethel, Genesis 31, verse 11. Then the angel of God spoke to me in a dream, saying, Jacob, and I said, here I am.

And he said, lift your eyes now and see all the rams which leap on the flocks are streaked, speckled, and gray spotted, for I have seen all that Laban is doing to you. I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed the pillar and where you made a vow to me. You see, it said in the beginning in verse 11 of Genesis 31, then the angel of God spoke to him, but it's developed to make sure that we understand this is not a created angel such as a Gabriel or a Michael or an unnamed angel.

The specifications accompany the distinction, the angel of the Lord. When Jacob struggled with the angel, he struggled with God when he wrestled all night with the angel. It was God himself in human form, allowing Jacob to use all his human strength so that God could change his walk forever. Hosea picks this one up. Hosea chapter 12, he took his brother by the heel in the womb.

Okay, that's Jacob. And in his strength, he struggled with God. You want to struggle with God in your strength?

You go right ahead. He's going to let you exhaust yourself. And if you stay true to him, you will not walk the same, but you may have a limp. Yes, he struggled with the angel and prevailed and wept and sought favor from him. He found him in Bethel, and there he spoke to us.

So the distinction, he struggled with the angel and prevailed. The blessings of Joseph were being given by Jacob to the lads of Joseph. Genesis 48 verse 15. Then he blessed Joseph and said, God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has fed me all my life, all my life long to this day, the angel who has redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads, let my name be named among them and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac and let them grow in a multitude in the midst of the earth.

And so there is Jacob on his death bed, or close to it of course, close to death, and he's blessing the sons of Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh, and he goes back and he says it was the angel of the Lord that has blessed me, that blessed my father, and my father's father. At the burning bush, Moses stood before the angel of the Lord who appeared to him. We know that from Exodus chapter 3 verse 2. But Moses hid his face it says, afraid to look at God, and then we go to verse 6 of Exodus 3, moreover he said I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.

And Moses hid his face for he was afraid to look upon God. And verse, again, verse 2 of Exodus 3 it says this was the angel of the Lord who appeared to him from the bush that did not burn. And then people of Israel, they were led by this pillar of cloud, of course in the day and the fire by night. Exodus 13 verse 21 tells us, and Yahweh went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them by the way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light so as to go by day and night. But then Exodus 14 19 says this about that very presence, and the angel of God who went before the camp of Israel moved and went behind them and the pillar of cloud went from before them and stood behind them. And so there is a theophany as opposed to a Christophany. It is a manifestation of God through a created item. That's a theophany. And a Christophany is a human manifestation in appearance of God as the angel that wrestled with Jacob. Gideon here in the sixth chapter that we're considering of course, he feared that he was going to die because he saw the angel of the Lord.

We talked about that a little bit. It goes back to the days of Moses, verse 22 of Judges chapter 6. Now Gideon perceived that he was the angel of the Lord. So Gideon said, alas, oh Yahweh God, or Adonai Yahweh, Lord God, Lord Yahweh that is. For I have seen the angel of Yahweh face to face. Then Yahweh said to him, peace be to you, do not fear you shall not die.

And then there is Manoah the father of Samson. And he asked the name of the angel of the Lord when he appeared to him. Judges 13 verse 18, and the angel of the Lord, or the angel of Yahweh said to him, why do you ask my name seeing it is wonderful?

Well Isaiah gives us commentary on that. For unto us is born a child, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor. The mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, Wonderful. His name shall be called Wonderful.

It is a superlative that is distinct in context for Yahweh. These are convincing proofs from our scripture that the angel of the Lord referred to in the Old Testament is a reference to God himself. And so this is the angel of the Lord. So you say, what parent would tell any child to go kick the hornet's nest? To go stir up trouble?

To bite off more than he can chew. Well the God that could protect him from the hornets, that's who. This is the story throughout the Bible of God's saints being dispatched to do his business. Sometimes he'd call them home because it was time.

Other times he would protect them. He told Paul that he would protect him, but he also said he would suffer many things. Now we look at our 25th verse and we continue with the story that started with this angel of the Lord coming to Gideon, the altar being established, and now verse 25. Now it came to pass the same night that Yahweh said to him, take your father's young bull, the second bull of seven years old, and tear down the altar of Baal that your father has and cut down the wooden image that is beside it.

Well where he says, now it came to pass that same night that the Lord said to him. So after Gideon has established this altar and God has blessed it by consuming the offering that's on it, then Gideon built a structure around it over the rock, that same night God speaks to him. He's established a relationship with Gideon, and now he's going to put Gideon to work, and he's going to send him on a dangerous mission. Gideon doesn't know that at this point, but he does now, here in verse 25, where he says, take your father's young bull, the second bull of seven years old. Now the second bull, it's not clear exactly what that means, leaves us to kind of say, well it has to be a distinction between a first bull and a second bull, and maybe there's some pagan significance to offering or prohibiting from being offered the second bull, or whatever it is. Gideon knew, but it's not two animals, I should point, that's my whole point of saying this, that evidently his father had two bulls, and what we would think is the lesser of the two, the second bull is taken. Whatever pagan requirements or rules surrounded this, we don't, not only do we not know, we don't care.

We're more interested in what God has to say. And so Gideon is likely going to use this bull to tear down this elaborate altar, as the pagans were known to build, to help pull down this altar. It's going to be a lot of work, going to be a long night that's coming up for Gideon. The word for the wooden image referred to at the bottom of verse 25 in the Hebrew actually is a reference to Asherah, the pagan goddess, and of course immoral practices that were associated with worshiping her, the people were engaging themselves with and God is now dealing with it.

So this is a community shrine. There in Ofrah, the city of Gideon, or the town, village of Gideon, and his dad, Joash, is an idolatrous zealot. He might even be a priest because he has this zeal for Baal, which will come out in the story in a moment. But of course what's happening here is before God can purge the land of the invaders, he's got to deal with the pagan invasion, the invasion into the people that are called to follow him and him alone. He's got to deal with the violation of the first commandment, thou shall have no other gods before me, and then the commandments go on, no images of me.

Even if you want to try to go around the first commandment and say, well I'm going to make an image, but it will be of Yahweh, that's forbidden. And so he calls Gideon to attack the hometown idolatry, no matter what anyone thought. Gideon knows there's going to be trouble. He knew that the people were wrong and God was now raising him up to deal with this and it was something that was already in his heart that came out a little bit in the conversation that he had earlier with the angel of the Lord. Now to kick a hornet's nest, proverbially speaking or in metaphor, you don't want to do it without God's instruction and confirmation.

It's not something to take upon yourself. We read about that in the book of Acts. The seven sons decided to mess with the devil. They didn't even know Jesus themselves and they were of course pounced upon. But to not comply with God when he tells us to do something that we're not ready to do or willing to do or maybe just afraid to do, to not comply is even more foolish. So you have, you put us in a spot. A, we don't get ahead of the Lord and attack the enemy until we have leading from the Spirit.

In most circumstances, others sometimes it's obvious. And B, if we are commanded, then we better do it. And C, to not do it is very bad news because God will get somebody else more than likely. Not always, because think of Jonah. God was persistent with Jonah. Instead of firing him, he just impressed upon Jonah how important it was for Jonah to be compliant with God's commandment. So we look at this verse, we say God is telling him to take this bull that belongs to his father. What right does Gideon have to take his father's bull and then go and tear down this altar with it?

The bull that evidently has something to do with this pagan worship. He has every right incidentally, I should add this, to stone his father for this sin in Israel. That was their law. Like we have a constitution, they had a constitution. Their constitution was the commandments of God. The laws of Moses given to them through Moses. The Jews had heard a lot about God without learning a thing.

Just like Gentiles, just like many who claim to be Christ. Of course, we want to be not only attentive to what the Spirit teaches, but responsive. Verse 26, now, God's continuing his instruction to take that second bull and tear down that altar and build an altar to Yahweh your God on top of this rock in the proper arrangement and take the second bull and offer a burnt sacrifice with the wood of the image which you shall cut down. So build an altar to Yahweh your God. Tear down that monstrosity and replace it with truth on this rock. I think it's said that way to make a distinction from the rock that Gideon had already established a sacrifice on an offering on to the Lord. This is a different one, and that will come out in verse 28 that there's two different altars going on here, but it's not laid out as clearly as you would like it.

You have to dig into the text to come to this conclusion. This is the only way it works. And in the proper arrangement, God wants this done right. And take the second bull.

That's not another bull. That's the one that he referred to earlier that was used to tear down the altar and butcher him. Kill it, slaughter it, butcher it, and burn it up with the wood of the image which you cut down. So Gideon's father's idolatry is going to cost him, and his son Gideon's going to deliver the bill. God wanted no association with idolatry as he was about to work. No fake God was going to get any of the credit.

There was not going to be this joint venture with the only true God and the make-believe gods, the man-made versions. And so he's making this statement right at the beginning. Before he deals with the Midianites and all of the other peoples that have invaded the land, he's going to deal with the pagan invasion in the hearts of his people. He says the wood of the image. Literally, that's the pole of Ashtore. So they had this altar for the pagan god, and next to it was this shrine that was likely phallic, as many of them were, to mark their perversity. They would often say, oh this fertility, but that fertility included sexual perversions.

And we have it today, to this very day. In some form, under some name, men and women are doing honor to these sexual perversions. And by that, I mean what God had not intended it to be. They have twisted it, and there is your perversity. And they're very indignant about it, and want to come up with all sorts of reasons why they should have no guilt. And it is a big problem. It has always been a big problem. But the purpose of bringing it up is to say that we have to deal with sin all the time.

No way around it. And you have to name names when it comes to sin. You have to say, this is the sin, this is what this is called. The Ten Commandments names the sins. It is nothing, you say, thou shall not steal.

If it doesn't belong to you, don't take it for yourself. Well, God treated these devilish images, or this devilish image singular in this case, but it was all for Baal and Asher where they were together. And he treats them for what, he uses them for what they are. They're pieces of wood. Isaiah and Jeremiah are going to mock these things. You cut down a tree and then you carve an image to it, and a piece of the wood you use to heat the fire, another piece of the wood you bow down to.

This is kooky. And so God is saying, just cut that thing down and just use it for fuel. It's wood.

It's nothing but wood. And that is what Gideon is going to do. Dealing with society's favorite thing, their opinion about God against God's revelation about God. And again, the Bible is relevant because everything it deals with in human behavior is being dealt with to this day, nothing new under the sun. And so to be publicly used, the public had to take a stand with Gideon. He had to kick the nest. Exodus 34 verse 12 and 13, take heed to yourself, Moses speaking to the people, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land where you are going, lest it be a snare in your midst.

And that's what they did. They made covenants with the people of the land and it included their gods, and it was a snare. Moses continues verse 13 of Exodus 34, but you shall destroy their altars, break their sacred pillars, cut down their wooden images. Do you have a Christian and he's at work or she is at work and the person is telling them all their pagan ideas, we interrupt them and say, I'm sorry, I don't believe in that stuff. I think it's a lie.

I think it comes right out of hell. I think that the word of God is God's revelation to man. And all that other stuff is speculation and I can back it up. I can back it up with the prophecies, I can back it up with the lodging.

That is breaking down the altars and not letting them get away with it. Now there are times when God says don't say anything, but we know when those times are as opposed to when we're just scared to say something. What worked for me is I just loved the message.

I never was afraid to share the message because I loved it. And I never thought about the consequences. I just thought about, no, I don't believe in that and I'm not going to let you tell me what you believe and I don't get to tell you what I believe.

It doesn't work that way. You want to talk about all the sins you commit with glee? Well, I'm going to tell you the sins I'm trying not to commit with glee. Like for instance, right now I'm thinking about choking you. But I'm restraining myself because of God.

Aren't you glad? Let's pray. Verse 27. So Gideon took ten men from among his servants and did as Yahweh had said to him because he feared his father's household and the men of the city too much to do it.

He did it by night. Thanks for tuning in to Cross-Reference Radio for this study in the book of Judges. Cross-Reference Radio is the teaching ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel in Mechanicsville, Virginia. If you'd like more information about this ministry, we invite you to visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com. You'll find additional teachings from Pastor Rick available there and we encourage you to subscribe to our podcast. By doing so, you'll be notified of each new edition of Cross-Reference Radio. You can search for Cross-Reference Radio on your favorite podcast app or just follow the links at crossreferenceradio.com. That's all the time we have for today. Join us next time to continue learning more from the book of Judges right here on Cross-Reference Radio.