WHAT MADE GIDEON GREAT?

And the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, "The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor."  Judges 6:12, R.S.V.


Far be it from me to disagree with an angel, but I'll have to make an honest confession.  Even though the angel labeled Gideon as a mighty man of valor, I've sometimes suspected him of being rather weak in the faith.  After all, what would you do if an angel were to come to you for a personal conversation, make your meal suddenly catch fire while it sat on a rock, then disappear miraculously from sight?  Would you question the message he brought to you?  On top of that, would you insist on a wet fleece on the dry ground, and then a dry fleece on the wet ground, before you believed God meant what he said?

Missing the possibility that Gideon may have simply been fearful of presumption, I've thought, I would have said, Yes, sir! to the angel's first instructions.  Admittedly, Gideon was being asked to go on a rather dangerous mission, one that could endanger other lives as well.

Perhaps it could be said that, given the general spiritual poverty of the nation at the time, Gideon--with all his cautious faith--was the very best whom God could find.  It should be noted also that Gideon did, after all, get the job done.  And it is comforting to know that God can do heroic things even with people as careful as Gideon.

Which brings us to a key insight that goes far beyond the book of Judges: God is the only real hero in the Bible.  The outstanding personality in this well-known story isn't Gideon, but a patient God who was able to enable Gideon to do mighty deeds of valor.  The hero is a compassionate Father who understood Gisdeon's fears and humble self-opinion, and who--rather than chastising him for his seeking of reassurance--went ahead and gave him both a wet fleece and a dry fleece.

In the end, of course, I revise my opinion of Gideon, for he himself grasped this larger picture.  He knew who the true Hero was.  And when the people came rushing to him, begging him to become their leader, his response was firm: "I will not rule over you, and my son will not rule over you; the Lord will rule over you" (Judges 8:23, R.S.V.).  That attitude is, in the end, what made Gideon a mighty man of valor.

EAGER FOR JUDGMENT

I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against him, until he pleads my cause and executes judgment for me.  He will bring me forth to the light; I shall behold his deliverance.  Micah 7:9, R.S.V.

The young man was pacing the floor in front of the principal's office.  His palms were sweaty, his eyes cast downward.  He knew he was guilty, and the principal was about to deal with him.  Fearfully he entered the room.  But perhaps in contrast to many such familiar scenes, when an hour had passed and the door opened again, student and principal stepped out with arms around each other.  Both were smiling.  Yes, the student had lost some of his privileges.  But more than that, the principal had helped him overcome the weakness that had gotten him into trouble in the first place.  And they were friends.

The prophet Micah viewed God in much the same light.  He knew that he had sinned and that his sin was against God rather than against some abstract legal code.  What gave him the courage to be honest about his sins, however, was his confidence in how God would deal with him.  Though he knew that there would be consequences (since God deals in a world of moral realities), he knew also that God would deal redemptively with him.

Micah actually looked forward to the time when God would plead his cause, executing judgment for him.  He knew that in the final reckoning God would be on his side, working in his favor.  Judgment is that time when all the universe sees things as they really are; if Micah's loyalties really were with his God, then why should he fear?  He had declared his position: "But as for me, I will look to the Lord, I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me" (Micah 7:7, R.S.V.).

Too often the judgment has been presented as an awesome event, to be dreaded by all who fear the Judge.  It is assumed that His intent is to screen out as many applicants for the kingdom as He possibly can, using a strict measurement of behavior as the criterion.  On that basis, who can stand?

But God is interested in one central issue in the judgment: on whose side have our loyalties been placed?  If we are for Him (as evidenced by our lives), then He has every right to be for us.  We fully trust our Deliverer.

WHAT MAKES JESUS SORROWFUL?

Anguish and dismay came over him, and he said to them, "My heart is ready to break with grief."  Matt. 26:37, 38, N.E.B.

We urgently need to see, with spiritual eyesight, just what was bringing such great anguish upon our Lord during the final hours of His life.  For it will unfold to us some exceedingly rich understanding of the meaning of the cross.

Certainly He was dismayed by the betrayal of His friends; as a feeling, social being, He felt the loss of their presence.  Yet many people through the ages have been abandoned by their friends at crucial moments; but this seldom has led to near-fatal anguish.  Obviously He was not looking forward to the pain and suffering of the cross.  No feeling person would.  Yet many condemned prisoners have faced their final moments with stoic bravery.  There must have been something deeper.

It was there in the garden, just before His capture, that Jesus began to bear the sins of the world.  There, in the crucible of the experienced anguish itself, Jesus had to make the decision to continue with the plan of redemption.  The events that followed--the mockery of a trial, the humiliation, the painful death--were but the carrying out of the decision that He made in Gethsemane.

But in what specific way was Jesus bearing our sins that dark night?  What was the cause of such anguish that, had the angel not strengthened Him, would have snuffed out His life even before the cross?  The evidence is this: Jesus began during this hour to experience what all unredeemed sinners will experience--the breaking up of His relationship with the Father.  For this, precisely, is the consequence of sin.  This is what Jesus has experienced in our place.  This is how He was the sin-bearer for all mankind.

In a very real sense, it was far more dreadful for Jesus to experience separation from His Father than for any other human, because Jesus always had enjoyed a richly close fellowship with Him.  We, by contrast, usually experience such a sparse and threadbare relationship with Him that we hardly feel the difference when it dies completely.

What a wonderful statement of spiritual maturity it would be if we had such a close relationship with God that any distance, any hint of separation, would bring us immediate anguish.  Of all the things that could cause us sorrow, what could be more beneficial?

THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE

Behold, the dwelling of God is with men.  Rev. 21:3, R.S.V.

"Imagine that the thickness of this page represents the distance from earth to sun (93 million miles, or about eight light-minutes).  Then the distance to the nearest star (4 1/3 light-years) is a 71-foot-high sheaf of paper.  And the diameter of our own galaxy (100,000 light-years) is a 310-mile stack, while the edge of the known universe is not reached until the pile of paper is 31 million miles high--a third of the way to the sun!"--National Geographic, May, 1974, p. 592.

Our eyes can read these words; our lips may even repeat them to someone else.  But when it comes to fully comprehending such enormous distances, such vast measurements of matter and emptiness, our minds go numb.  It is so far beyond us as to make us feel almost silly, standing on this microscopically small planet, looking outward to a virtually endless universe.

Yet one truth jumps out beyond even these stunning measurements of space.  And that is that the God who created it all has taken an almost consuming interest in this planet.  What is more, this preoccupation with earthlings is not warranted because of any thrilling virtue on our part.  Indeed, it appears that it is our very foolishness, our self-chosen helplessness, that has drawn out His attention the most.  To ask "Why?" is to phrase in one word a question that will take an eternity to answer, for such is the measurement of the love that motivates it.

But that is not all.  This is no temporary interest in this planet, to be "set back into perspective" once all our problems have been solved.  God's attention will not simply pass on to more pressing and worthy matters once redemption has been accomplished for mankind.  The promise of Scripture, as recorded in today's text, is that God is going to relocate headquarters!  He is going to move in with us!  The dwelling of God shall be with men.

But the amazement still doesn't stop, for there is every indication that this anticipated move on God's part is something that will bring Him great personal delight.  In it is not one hint of condescension, not a trace of reluctantly fulfilled duty.  When Jesus became man, that was a down payment, an acted pledge, of God's joyful intention to spend eternity with this human race.  Don't you just love our Father!

DOES GOD CARE?

"Where have you put him?" he asked.  "Lord, come and see," they replied, and at this Jesus himself wept.  John 11:34, 35, Phillips.


On those few occasions when artists have attempted a portrait of God the Father, they seem to have been stuck with those sterner qualities of justice and power that describe the Almighty.  And we who, as children, formed our first impressions of God from the pictures in our books, had trouble feeling close to Him in our tender moments.  We didn't see Him as tender.  We were comforted that at least Jesus had that capacity.

I, for one, am glad that when Jesus said He had come to show us the Father, He had clearer perceptions of His Father than most current artists.  And I watch carefully the subtleties of Jesus' manner and style, grasping every shade and shape to add to my refining understanding of God.  I have come to believe that had Jesus remained in heaven and had the Father come to earth to live and to die among men, the New Testament history we have would not be changed one bit.

And so I was warmed to read that when His close friend Lazarus died and Jesus was mingling among sorrowing people, His tears flowed with theirs.  I am somehow both comforted and touched to realize that, should I be lost, my Father would weep for me.  A Spirit-placed tug in my heart goes beyond mere lists of qualities about God that my intellect can appreciate.  I am living in the presence of a whole Person, with sensitivities of the heart that answer to those which He Himself placed in my own heart.  If He can weep with sadness, then can His eyes not also brim over with joy when His children come home?

We are not talking about a weak sentimental God--the kind some lightweight gospel music tries to glorify, who fawns over His children with maudlin gushiness.  Rather He combines great strength with true kindness.  He shows me that I can be a manly Christian, yet still feel the full range of proper human emotion.  He presents a Christianity that affirms fully developed personalities, completely alive to others, able to "rejoice with those who rejoice, [and] weep with those who weep" (Rom. 12:15, R.S.V.).  Though, in the new earth He will wipe away the tears of sadness, I suspect we shall more than once weep together for sheer joy.

TO BRING US HOPE

But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.  Eph. 2:13, N.I.V.

His family was in East Berlin.  Though he had managed to escape several years earlier, he had not been successful in his attempts to get his wife and children out.  Each year his hopes diminished until, at last, he found himself with no hope left.  And so he lived, lonely and despondent, in New York City for the rest of his life.

A great many people in this world live out their lives in a state of hopelessness.  Things just never seem to turn out; plans are aborted, children turn against parents, the stock market fails.  Without the knowledge of God, they have nothing to look forward to either in this life or in the life to come.

God's heart goes out to such people!  In Ephesians 2:12, 13, we read, "Remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.  But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ'' (N.I.V.).  Let's examine this text carefully, so as not to miss the beauty of what Paul is saying.

To know God generates hope.  You begin to realize that when God made covenant promises to Israel, it was a means of giving Himself to them.  The tabernacle service was initiated so that God could "dwell among" men.  The coming Messiah was referred to as Immanuel, which meant "God with us."  And Christ's death demonstrated the extent to which God would go to secure us forever as His friends.  This knowledge is meant to cause our hearts to raise up within us!  There is more to life than heartache and shattered dreams.  There is God with us.

He has drawn us near to Himself in the person of His Son.  He walked lonely roads, bedded down among men who struggled with poverty, spoke to outcasts.  He deliberately chose to have no home of His own, for He was making His home with us.  The very last words that came from the Saviour's lips were " 'Remember, I am with you always, even to the end of the world' " (Matt. 28:20, Phillips).

"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him" (Rom. 15:13, N.I.V.).

GOD'S "PLAN A"

Loyalty is my desire, not sacrifice, not whole-offerings but the knowledge of God.  Hosea 6:6, N.E.B.

One feature of modern high-level management training is teaching executives to have backup plans.  While planning and hoping for success in every new product line, every sales or service campaign, it is still wise to have contingency plans.  If the first goals are not reached, the whole plan should not be scrubbed.  The wise manager has a plan for redeeming as much as he can from the efforts invested.  He knows that "Plan B" may not be as ideal as "Plan A," but it's far better than having no plan at all.

God is a wise manager.  Creating this new and unique order of beings on this planet was quite an adventure.  His "Plan A" was that we should enjoy unbroken, ever-growing friendship with Him, for our mutual joy.  But giving us as He did that unpredictable capacity of free choice, from the foundations of eternity, He designed a "Plan B."  Should His people ever break the life-sustaining relationship with Him, He designed that He Himself (in the person of the Son) should bear the ugly death of separation.

It was not long before our first parents and all their children were very much in need of "Plan B."  As a four-thousand-year pledge that He Himself would die in our place, Jesus provided the symbol of the sacrificial lamb.  Every sinner, convinced of his destiny of eternal death, could bring a lamb to the altar as an expression of his hope in the Lamb of God as an atonement for his sins.

It was also not very long before God's people began to prefer "Plan B" to "Plan A."  There seemed to be something so very convenient about it.  They could continue to live with some degree of carelessness, sometimes even committing overt sin.  But the solution (they thought) was simple: Let the lamb bear the problem.  Furthermore, bringing lambs to the Temple seemed easier than intimate fellowship with their God.  They came to think of "Plan B" as God's ideal.

Hosea's plea did not diminish the sacrificial lamb.  Indeed, who could live without it?  But he reminded them (and us) that God's "Plan A" is not that we should settle into an endless cycle of sinning and repenting, sinning and repenting.  Our highest calling is to enter even now into unchanging loyalty to Him.  For that, precisely, is God's "Plan A."

MUTUAL PRIDE

This third I will bring into the fire; I will refine them like silver and test them like gold.  They will call on my name and I will answer them; I will say, "They are my people," and they will say, "The Lord is our God." Zech. 13:9, N.I.V.

Many Christians have puzzled over God's plan to allow His sealed remnant to go through a period of serious trial before He rescues them from this dying planet. (See Dan. 12:1, 2; Rev. 7:13, 14.)  But ask a man who is buying gold ingots if he is glad that the refiners have purified the gold until it can be certified 99,999 percent pure.  For God is about to bring home a people that He can "certify" as safe to save, totally cleansed from any lingering attachments to Satan's deceptions and values.


The Bible often uses the imagery of "a third" to describe God's remnant--that minority who remains loyal to His purposes.  When Zechariah portrays that time when God will purify His own, there is a note of special pride in the passage.  God puts into the purifying fires only those whom He knows can handle the heat.  When He permits them to experience great trial, it is actually a statement of confidence in His people.  It's as though God is calling all His friends from around the universe to look over the balconies of heaven and to watch how His people respond when every earthly means of support has been stripped away.

But there is a two-way message in this verse.  God is saying, "Look at them?  Don't you agree that we can be proud of them?  If they remain loyal under these most trying circumstances, can't we trust them throughout eternity?  I'll claim them; they are My people!"  At the same time, God's people--though surrounded with every manner of threatening circumstances--are looking above it all.  They are looking up and saying, "The Lord, He is our God.  We are done with every lesser object of trust, every inducement to doubt, every trace of rebellion."

What could be finer!  Mutual trust, mutual pride, mutual adoration.  This is a relationship that will last.  For all who wish to prepare themselves for the trials of the last days, this is the key: Become so deeply acquainted even now with your Father that in every trial you can look to Him with utter confidence.  After all, that's exactly how He wants to look at you!

READINESS TO LEARN

And if they are ashamed of all they have done, make known to them the design of the temple....Write these down...so that they may be faithful to its design and follow all its regulations.  Eze. 43:10, 11, N.I.V.


Geometry teachers, I believe, have just about the hardest job in the whole teaching profession.  Their task is to present a textbook full of excellent answers to young people who simply don't appreciate the questions.  And the more complex the answer, the more convinced the ninth-graders are that there just isn't a question around that requires such an answer.

But teachers have come to know that true education is not the forcing of knowledge upon an unready mind.  They spend a good deal of time helping a student recognize his need for certain information; then they present it to him.

Our heavenly Father, the Master Teacher, has packed enough answers into His sanctuary to save the whole human race.  It portrays the cross of Christ, the ministry of the Holy Spirit, the good news of final judgment, and the path to personal salvation and to holiness of life, just to name a few.  It is a marvelous teaching device, a life-size object lesson, an acted parable of the redemption plan.

But as with the geometry class, few people care about the answers because they haven't yet discovered the questions.  The plan of salvation is exciting to only those who know that they are lost.  The way in which the sanctuary reveals how God will end the cosmic conflict is thrilling to only those who know that the sin problem is that big.

God instructed Ezekiel to explain the whole plan of salvation as revealed in the sanctuary to only those who had first come face-to-face with their own desperately sinful condition.  Only then would they appreciate the answers.  It should not surprise us, then, to find God working to show us our true condition, even though that is a painful thing for us to discover.  The embarrassment of our broken promises, the shame of our unholy acts, the alienation of our deceptive ways, can be the very readiness we urgently need in order to appreciate God's totally adequate answers.

Satan is also interested in showing us the corruption of our hearts.  But his goal is to crush us, not to enlighten us.  He hates the sanctuary, and he has always tried to destroy it (see Dan. 8:11, 12) because of the powerful truths it reveals to ashamed sinners.

A LAW OF THE MIND

Their idols are silver and gold, made by the hands of men.  They have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes, but they cannot see....Those who make them will be like them.  Ps. 115:4-8, N.I.V.

Recent government-sponsored research is tending to verify that the more than eighteen thousand hours of television viewing that the average youth does before he graduates from high school really is having an impact upon his value system.  Particularly, certain temperament types who behold a heavy fare of tele-violence are less shocked to see it in real life and are more prone to enter into it themselves.

This research confirms a principle expressed in a positive manner some nineteen hundred years ago by the apostle Paul.  By beholding Christ, he said, we become transformed into His likeness. (See 2 Cor. 3:18.)  That is, the mind gradually embraces the values, attitudes, even the expressions, of that which one chooses to behold.  It becomes like that which one is accustomed to love or reverence.  This powerful law of the mind can readily be used to advantage by those who long to be like Jesus.  It is the strongest argument in favor of regular time spent in private devotions, in meditation upon the life and teachings of Jesus.

But it is a law of the mind that still works with equal force when one shifts attention away from Christ and toward the idols of this world.  David spoke of the mindless, unresponsive, inert qualities of idols his people were worshipping; then he warned them with certainty that they would soon become just like those idols.  They would become incapable of responding to important moral-choice situations with decisiveness and direction.  They would, though alive, become ineffective in living.

Satan is no fool.  He understands this principle and uses it constantly to his advantage.  He dresses up the value system of his kingdom in the most dramatic, attention-grabbing, emotion-jolting form that our high-powered media can transmit.  He makes it continuously available, even while we are out walking.  He portrays it as socially appealing, "fun to do with our friends."  Then he builds a whole subculture around the worship of the media heroes that--like a black hole--draws everything into it.

Since our every waking moment is spent in some type of beholding, and thus in becoming, how carefully we must choose.  The kind of persons we become will determine not only our effectiveness here but our eternal destiny as well.