Articles
Application to Gideon, The Fearful (Judg.6:25-30) (#2)
It all began with one person. It was the nation that turned from God to idols and they were badly in need of repentance. God started the process with a rebuke by one of His prophets but then He raised up one man – Gideon – through whom He impacted many others. God first brought Gideon to the point where he forsook the worship of the Canaanite gods & entrusted himself completely to God. When his faith became public by destroying his father’s idols and his worship of the God of Israel, his father was now place in the position of either defending his powerless gods or forsaking them. He, too, chose to trust in God. It seems clear that Joash’s faith was instrumental in bringing his Abiezrite city to faith, then the entire tribe of Manasseh, along with Asher, Zebulun & Naphtali.
The point is that it only takes one person to impact many when that person entrusts himself to God by following Him. Those people God uses to impact many others are most often not those we would have considered the most likely to succeed.
Some may be thinking, “I know God can use individuals to greatly impact others but I’m not that kind of person. Who am I to think that God could use me mightily, like He used Gideon?” But as we’ve looked at Gideon, he was not a person who was likely to succeed. He called this fact to God’s attention, hoping that it might get him off the hook. It didn’t.
The entire book of Judges, not to mention the rest of the Bible, reveals how God has used unlikely vessels to achieve His purposes, just as He employed unlikely means such as pitchers, lamps & trumpets as well as an ox goad, a millstone & the jawbone of a donkey
This book is meant to teach us that the key to success is not having strong, self-assured people to lead God’s people but having an all-powerful God to lead and empower weak vessels.
