The Hornet’s Nest – Part 2 (Part B)

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. 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 this is a community shrine. They're in Ophrah, 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. 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. He's got to deal with the violation of the first commandment. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Then the commandments go on.

No images of me. Even if you want to try to go around the first commandment, 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 puts 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, although 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. In 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. 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 is 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.

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 does 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 Ashtore. 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 used to eat 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 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? 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. Okay, here's where everybody, not everybody, but a lot, like the gang up on Gideon was a coward and God used him. Gideon's not a coward. He's smart.

He's not a coward, nor is he a fool. First he was to tear down the old altar and then build the proper altar unto God, demolish that which was pagan, and as we covered, to offer that bull on it. This was a lot of work, too much for one man. We'll get to the nighttime part and I think what happens is a lot, it's easy to read verse 27 that Gideon took ten men and then the next sentence talks about his fear of the men in the city and it's easy to say, aha, that's why he took the ten men because he's afraid. No, he's taking the ten men because it's a lot of work. They are not enough to protect him from the men of the village. These are servants and they're workers. They are to demolish, they are to build, and they are to butcher and he's going to need their help. Then it says, but because, but because he feared his father's household and the men of the city too much to do it by day, he did it by night because he's not stupid.

He wouldn't have got the job done. He's going to get the job done. He knows they're going to find out.

It's a little town, come on. They're going to find out it was Gideon. Your name came up last night because when he said, I'm the least of my father's house, it was likely the implication that he's the one that didn't follow Baal because all of his father's house did. And so they're going to say, hmm, who doesn't show up on our worship days? Gideon.

Who tore down this altar? Gideon. He knows that. Had he been a coward, when we get to chapter 7, he would not be part of the men that went to war.

He'd be part of the 22,000 that went home. So I get a little protective of these characters because we learn so much from them and we miss it if we wrongfully attack them. Like Thomas. It hurts me when someone says, doubting Thomas. Like, we don't doubt. Thomas was a courageous man of God.

Yeah, he was rebuked because, you know, he said, I'm not going to believe him until I see him. And the Lord said, okay, fine. But let me tell you something. If you want to roll that way, here's the consequence.

There are others that are going to out-faith you. And we don't like to hear that. I bet you that stuck in Thomas' ear for the rest of his life. And I bet you he did something with it. Well, had he been a coward, he wouldn't have acted on this night or day.

I should add that. To do it in the daylight would have invited interference. They would have stopped them. It would have been, you know, they would have shut down the job.

They would have gotten ugly unnecessarily so. So he's doing what is wise. And, you know, being wise is not necessarily being a coward.

Not even close. He knew they were going to come at him for this. But if he did it at night, by the time they found out what was going on, it'd be done. There'd be nothing left. Ashes. That's it.

And the new altar, the proper altar, and all the conviction that would go along with it. So this precaution was smart versus reckless. Too often we believe that some mindless dash somehow makes us courageous. It would be courageously dumb if we're not careful. I like, you know, as I mentioned, I've been reading General McArthur's Reminisces.

That's the title of his memoirs. Well, outside of that, we just it's history that the Japanese Imperial Japanese Army were notorious for their bonsai attacks on a position. They just come at you straight on. Well, they did that to the Marines in Guadalcanal and they were slaughtered. They were slaughtered wherever they tried this. The machine gun made this an obsolete tactic. And McArthur knew this in World War One when he was a general in World War One. He said modern weapons make funnel assaults obsolete. That stuck with him.

So when he takes command of the war in the South Pacific, instead of attacking these strongholds on the Japanese, on the islands the Japanese Army had taken, he bypassed them. His philosophy was hit them where they ain't. He got that from a baseball player. Baseball players said, well, don't hit it to the center field or hit it where you ain't.

And it registered with McArthur. And so he, his philosophy at first, his staff gave him pushback. It won't work. We're going to be attacked from the rear. He said, listen, what we're going to do is we're going to take the airfields where they have little forces or nobody. We're going to put our airplanes there. I'm going to take Halsey's Navy and I'm going to put that in the way of their Navy so that between the planes and the Navy, they won't be able to supply their big forces on these islands. And we'll just let them die on the vine.

Those were his words. They'll starve to death. We're going to attack on the other side of the island where they're not and let the Japanese Army try to come through the jungle.

And by the time they get to us, they're going to be so jungle whipped, we'll just pick them off. And it worked. He stacked up victory after victory, turned in the lowest casualty reports of them all. He bypassed them. When he had to, he had to face them head on. Of course, in the Philippines, for example, he had to just fight it out. My point for bringing up MacArthur is to just show you how much reading I did on my vacation. No.

No, that's not true at all. I like people who aren't liked by other people when the people that I like that aren't liked are really good. Got it? Got it. So, Gideon says, let's hit them where they ain't. Why would I do this in broad daylight?

It's just dumb. And he accomplishes the mission. God did not say, Gideon, I need you to do this at daytime when they can all see you. He doesn't say, just say, I just need you to take down that altar and burn up the junk.

Build me an altar there. What a lesson if Christians would just say, it's okay to think. It doesn't block God out.

It invites him in. I know, but we get emotional. We all have. Everybody makes an emotional mistake.

Sometimes we have to check it. Verse 28. And when the men of the city arose early in the morning, there was the altar of Baal torn down and the wooden image that was beside it was cut down. And the second bowl was being offered on the altar which had been built. Verse 29. So they said to one another, who has done this thing?

And when they reviewed the footage, no. And when they had inquired and asked, they said, Gideon, Gideon, the son of Joash has done this thing. See, there's no way to hide it. May God always help us to be a step ahead of the lost and the pagans. May we just outwit them and beat them to the punch. May by the time we make our move, they don't know what hit them with the truth and love about destroying them physically. But to help us stay a step ahead of the enemy.

Is that a bad thing to want? Lord, help me stay a step ahead of them. There it is. Verse 30. And the men of the city said to Joash, bring out your son that he may die because he has torn down the altar of Baal. And because he has cut down the wooden image that was beside it and his fingernails are dirty. We don't like them.

Once they don't like you, they start picking anything out they can find. Well, Gideon's loyalty to his God got him into trouble. But Gideon's God would get him through the trouble.

So again, you know, Gideon, your name came up last night and now we're going to kill you. Well, pagans take their religion very seriously. That's another lesson in this. I knew when I was born again, I felt that everybody was going to love what I had to preach. I didn't factor in that they loved what they believed in.

In most cases, they loved what they wanted. Because religion is essentially an extension of the self at some point. It becomes your identity of who we are. That's why Christ says, I want you to be like me. Imitate me, Paul said, as I imitate Christ. The likeness of Jesus Christ, our identity. It becomes us. So they felt obligated to defend their God.

This still happens to this day. And of course, we believe that if you have to force your God on someone or if you have to defend his honor through violence, then he's not God. He can't defend himself. I'm not talking about upholding civil laws that may have come from your God, such as it was in Israel. I'm talking about the honor of the name. Israel's intolerance was to be strong and to the point they would not honor any other gods.

Of course, they did. Not all of them, but many of them, and that's what we're dealing with right now. So according to these men, Gideon had to be executed for dishonoring and probably cost him a good penny, too. You know, how much would we put into that?

You know the price of lumber. So verse 31, But Joash said to all who stood against him, Would you plead for Baal? Would you save him? Let the one who would plead for him be put to death by mourning. If he is God, let him plead for himself, because his altar has been torn down.

What is going on with Joash? His name means Yahweh is strong. Is he saying this to protect his beloved son, Gideon? Possibly. Is that the only reason why?

I don't think so. I think that for him to have a speech like this ready, his conviction, he probably really believed in Baal, and now he sees Baal has been chopped up by his son, who does not worship Baal, but worships the god of their fathers. And probably his incentive, if they didn't want to kill Gideon, we never, maybe never, he would not have been pushed to the point of coming to this realization, which is very true.

And the men of the village, they signed off on it. You know, you got a good point there, Joash. We didn't say that before we wanted to kill him.

Now we look like a mob, and the image is everything. Christians have to learn early on that we're not his lawyers. We're not trying to get God out of trouble. We're not prosecutors. We're witnesses. We tell what we saw, and when that is based on love, our love for Christ, there is power in evangelism.

It's contagious. So just be careful with that, that we're not trying to force people into our views or win the argument. I mean, I don't, if I'm in a, when I say argument, I don't mean a heated discussion.

I mean the exchange of ideas. I want to win them all. I'd be pretty dumb if I just want to win half of them. I want to win everything I do. That's why I don't do some things.

It gets me in the flesh. I had a pastor, Brandi, still a friend. If you played sports with him and you won, he was instantly in the flesh. He wouldn't talk to you. He'd just shut you right off.

You'd go, good game. He'd look the other way, right? It's like, wait a minute. You're the pastor. You can't act like that.

It says right here, right here in 1 Corinthians. He'd cool off and he'd come back and he'd be his buddy, his self again, but you'd remember that forever. And I never forgave him. I won't. No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. It's just comical.

It was worth seeing him drive. I'm not kidding. See, I'm not telling you who it is.

That would make me a gossiper. But the lessons, the lessons. He's a great guy, great man of God, I think. I mean, he loves the Lord. He led a lot of people to Christ and, but he had the, that was his fight in the flesh.

I don't know what that has to do with anything except I got that shot in. Anyway, may we, well, I can say that there have been times that I have gotten the flesh and I would think about him and say, well, you know, yeah, I know God loves him and I know God loves me too. Verse 32, Therefore on that day he called him Jerubabal, saying, Let Baal plead against him because he has torn down his altar. So his dad, who gets Gideon out of the problem, God, of course, doing it all, he makes a big deal out of this. He makes a, you know, the nomenclature of Gideon has changed. It has become a rebuke.

It's now a nickname. Jerubabal. If Baal is God, prove it. If Baal is God, prove it.

That's his name. Every time someone would say Jerubabal, they would say, if you're God Baal, then go ahead, prove it. 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.