6. “Light in Clay Jars” (Judges 6)

I believe that one of the ways that we most fully experience God’s kindness to us is through his work of teaching us to depend upon him.

Often when he is showing his kindness it doesn’t feel kind it doesn’t feel kind because the thing that stands in the way often times of us learning to depend on God is our own desire to rely on ourselves. And to be brought to the place that we need to can often times be painful. It’s not easy to be humbled. It’s not easy to come to recognize our weakness. But these things are things that God in his love does so that we can learn to turn to him in prayer

It’s loving because we need this. You and I were never meant to try to face everything just on our own, saying, “I’ll power through it. I’ll do it it’s all in my own strength.” We know deep down that this is a frightening position.

We need to experience what we were made for, and that is to be the one who is connected to God, trusting in him, worshiping him. That is what we need. And God knows that. In his love, through all sorts of things—sometimes suffering, sometimes our failures, he brings us to the place where we learn to depend upon him.

I think it’s important for us to recognize that because that begins to give us insight as we’re going through life where we can start seeing God at work in ways that we didn’t before.

And I bring that up this morning because I think that is what lies near the very heart of our passage.  

The Setup (6:1-24)

Once we recognize what Israel really needs, we can recognize that from the outset of our story, we see God acting toward his people in love. Once again, we are told that Israel, in their self-reliance, does evil in God’s sight. And so, in response, God does what they need for him to do. He brings them low.  

God, it says, gives Israel into the hand of the Midianites. This people, we read in verse 5, would invade Israel “with their livestock and their tents, and they would come like locusts in number.” If you’ve ever watched Planet Earth, maybe you’ve seen this. Locusts come together in swarms, and then massive swarms, sometimes as many as a billion in a gigantic cloud of something that looks like a blizzard in the summer. It’s unfathomably huge, and wherever that cloud of locusts goes, after they leave, there is nothing living left. It’s all been eaten. That was how Israel experienced the Midianites: it says they and their camels could not be counted, and they laid waste the land as they came in. They would devour all the crops of Israel and then leave with Israel having nothing left. Israel had to start making secret hiding places in caves and mountains, just to hold on to some of their food. They were brought to starvation. So, verse 6 tells us, “Israel was brought very low.” Do you know what that’s like—to be brought low? To feel like life is just too much, at least, too much for you. To feel a complete lack of hope that you have the ability to make your life work. That was Israel. And so, once again, they cry out to the Lord.

But this time God’s response is different from the past. His work of bringing low is not done. The Lord sends someone, but here, it’s not a deliverer. It’s a prophet. And the prophet brings words of condemnation: “God says to you, “I brought you out of Egypt and rescued you and made a covenant with you, where you agreed not to worship any other gods. But you have not listened to me. You have broken the covenant.” Israel, in your misery, you need to understand: you did this to yourself. Do you know what it’s like to be brought low and realize that it is completely your fault? That was Israel.  

It is not a pleasant experience. And yet, God’s purpose in bringing his people low is not to make them suffer. He’s a loving physician who knows that the cancer has to be killed for the patient to be healed. God’s purpose is to make his people whole. How do we know that this is God’s intent? Well, look what he does after speaking to Israel the truth of their failure. God sends an angel to raise up a savior for Israel.

This “savior,” named Gideon, is not quite the man we would expect for the job. Gideon, it says, is threshing wheat in a winepress. Which is not where a person threshes grain: you thresh grain where there’s wind, so that the chaff can be blown away. A winepress like this one, with walls all around, means there’s no wind. But Gideon is threshing here because he’s afraid that if he threshes out in the open, a Midianite will see him and take away his food.

So imagine poor frightened, faithless Gideon, shaking the wheat, pathetically blowing on it trying to get the chaff off. And then, this complete stranger startles him by entering the winepress and greeting him, saying, “Yahweh is with you, mighty man of valor.” Mighty man of valor? Is this man looking? Does he see?

But before even addressing that strange title, we see that Gideon is very much like the rest of Israel: he has been brought low. “If Yahweh is with us,” he says, “why are things so bad? I’ve heard about the greatness of Yahweh, but now look at our condition.” This is such a strange start to our story. Not only is our hero a coward. But he has lost whatever faith he might have had in the Lord.

But the angel speaking on behalf of God ignores Gideon’s question, and instead gives him a command. “Go in this might of yours and save Israel. Do I not send you?”

And at this point Gideon is completely bewildered. There is absolutely nothing about him to make him the one who will save Israel. He’s not a a “man of valor.” He’s a faithless coward. And he’s not mighty. As he himself says in verse 15, he belongs to a weak clan, and he is the least significant in that clan. And, honestly, it’s even worse than this: this clan that Gideon belongs to has their own personal shrine with idols to Baal and Asherah that people of the town visit. He and his family have turned away from God and is leading others to do the same—there is no reason for Yahweh, the God he has abandoned to be with him. Are we sure the angel has the right guy? It makes sense that he says, “Sir, how can I save Israel?” Because he is not remotely qualified!

But the Lord God has a really simple answer to this. “But I will be with you.” Notice he doesn’t disagree with Gideon’s assessment. He just considers it irrelevant. Yes, Gideon is absolutely right to think that he lacks the capacity to bring salvation IF HE RELIES ON HIMSELF. Of course he does. But what matters here is these simple words “I will be with you.” If God is with him, and if Gideon depends upon God, then everything changes in the equation.

This is why the angel offers a sign immediately after, so that Gideon can be assured that it is God who is with him. With his staff the angel touches food that was placed on a rock, and as it immediately burns up, the angel disappears. And Gideon suddenly becomes afraid because he now understands the identity of the angel, but God says, “Peace to you, don’t be afraid.” In other words, “Gideon, I am with you.”

The Preparation

Gideon has now heard this call. But it’s not yet time for battle. Because, again, God is pursuing something deeper than rescuing people from Midian. Remember, it was God himself that handed his people over to this hardship. God knows that the deeper danger is not flesh and blood, but the forces of evil that want to take them captive to sin. What they need to be rescued from is sinful self-reliance into a place of trust in God, dependence on him and worship of him. That’s what Israel needs. That’s what Gideon needs. So before the battle with Midian is to happen, three other things must first take place. 

Step 1: Gideon’s idols must be destroyed. God tells Gideon that he first needs to pull down his father’s idols and place an altar to Yahweh right on top of it and offer a sacrifice to him. This makes sense. Every false hope must be torn down if Gideon and the rest of God’s people are to come to a recognition that it is God who saves them.   

So Gideon, in response to God’s instructions, mighty man of valor that he is, goes into the idolatrous shrine in the night so that nobody can see what he’s doing. Which of course raises a question: how is Gideon going to lead a group of people to fight against the innumerable Midianite army if he’s almost paralyzed with fear of his DAD and Joe the next door neighbor? But Gideon does what God commands. And the result is that his clan come to accept the change in religious allegiance. Yahweh is now the God they will depend upon.    

Step 2: Gideon needs to learn to depend on God. The Midianite army, like it does every year, comes once again to the Israelite countryside like locusts to take all Israel’s food. And we’re told that this time, God’s Spirit gives Gideon power—Gideon blows on the ram’s horn, sends messengers throughout the land, and he gathers a pretty large army. Not Midian army sized, but big. It’s battle time, right?

Well, not quite. Gideon loses his nerve. Listen to what he says here: “If you will save Israel by my hand, AS YOU HAVE SAID, give me a sign: I will leave a sheep’s fleece on the ground, and in the morning, if it’s wet with dew while the ground is dry, I’ll know you will save Israel AS YOU HAVE SAID.” Gideon here is not seeking guidance, asking, “Lord, show me what to do.” Gideon already knows what God has told him to do. And he knows that God is with him. But he’s not yet willing to obey. This “mighty man of valor” is saying “God, I need proof that I can trust you.” Which is crazy talk. And blasphemous. “God I’m not convinced yet that you’re trustworthy.” You might expect a lightning bolt here. Gideon would have deserved it!

But here to me is one of the most remarkable moments in the story. God does not treat Gideon as he deserves. He doesn’t punish Gideon or choose to find someone else more willing to trust him. God actually does the very thing that Gideon asks him to. And not once, but twice! Even after God miraculously makes it so that the dew only is accumulated on the fleece, Gideon still isn’t convinced. He asks for another sign: “Now do the opposite—make the fleece dry but the ground wet.” And God again does what Gideon asks.

I want you to see here the kindness and patience of God. Here’s how committed God is to his people: God here is willing to humble himself, he’s allowing himself, the Creator of the Universe, to go through a test to help bring sinful, fearful Gideon to a place of learning to trust in him. 

Step 3: Gideon and God’s people must learn to not depend on themselves. Gideon has an army. And finally, as afraid as he might be, is ready to lead his army to fight Midian. Now it’s battle time, right? No. As Gideon begins to make plans, this time God is the one who presses pause. “Gideon, you have too many soldiers.” I’m sure Gideon was utterly confused by this. “Gideon, if you have an army this big, when you win, you will forget that I did this. You will all say, “Look at what we have done.” For you to be saved from your deepest, truest enemy, you need to have no doubt about who did the saving from Midian. I want to make it absolutely clear who did the saving. So, you need to send away anybody in your army who is feeling overcome by fear.” So Gideon sends out the command, and 2/3 of this army leave, such that 10,000 are now remaining.

But God stops Gideon again: “it’s still too many.” God has him divide the people by how they drink water from the river, and in the end that leaves only 300 men. 300 soldiers and “Mighty” Gideon to fight the HUGE army of Midian. God says, “Okay, now you can go—with this army I will save you.” Now they are ready to fight. Now with just 300 men it’s absolutely, ridiculously clear that if they somehow succeed, it will only be through God, and not themselves.

The Battle

And so now Gideon leads his small group, a group of men that could easily all fit just in the middle section of this church, and they come to the edge of the Midianite camp. And as Gideon looks, he sees too many camels to count, tents and people spread across the valley as many as locusts. And we can only imagine how frightened he was as the sun went down; how impossible it would have been for him to sleep; how every doubt would come crashing upon him. But God knows Gideon and knows what Gideon needs to be able to take this next step. Without Gideon even asking, God gives Gideon one final, strengthening reassurance. He tells Gideon to sneak into the Midianite camp and listen. So Gideon does. And as he hangs in the shadows, close to where soldiers are gathering around the fire and talking, he hears one of the soldiers say to his friend, “So, I had a really weird dream last night. A loaf of bread just kind of tumbled into our camp, and when it hit a tent, it completely flattened it. I know that’s weird, but it really freaked me out.” And his friend says, “That’s a sign. It’s saying that God will give Gideon victory over Midian.”

And there it is. Gideon and his 300 men—just 300 men, before the vast army of Midian are as dangerous to them as a loaf of bread. To my knowledge, nobody has ever successfully attacked another person with a loaf of bread. And yet, by the power of God, somehow, a loaf of bread can flatten a camp.

This is the moment. This is the moment when he understands: yes, his army is nothing on its own. Yet, with God, it is everything. And so, we are told, when he hears these things, he worships. God has brought him to a posture of faith and dependence. In his weakness, he has become strong. With God, this idolatrous coward has become a mighty man of valor.

And so he returns to his army and he declares to them this gospel: “The Lord has given this army into your hand.” And he gives them instructions that flow out of this understanding of how God is working. As they go out in groups to surround the camp, they are to carry in one hand a ram’s horn, and in the other a clay jar—something on its own that seems relatively insignificant, except that it hides the light of a torch inside it. In a sense, the tools Gideon’s army carries are symbolic of what they are. These 300 are only jars of clay; but they carry the light, the glory of God.

Now, imagine being one of Gideon’s soldiers. 300 against 10’s of thousands, and all you have is a horn, a jar, and a torch. Consider how utterly defenseless you would feel going into this battle. And yet, at the moment of Gideon’s signal, with all 300 surrounding the army, they blew their ram’s horns, and they broke the jars so that the light of the torches shone forth, and they yelled their battle cry: “A sword for Yahweh and for Gideon!” And we are told that in that moment, every man, all 300 of them, stood their ground. Through the power of God, it is not just Gideon, but all his army who have been strengthened by the knowledge that God is with them.

And the Midianites are immediately overcome with fear. While the 300 holding their torches take their stand, all of the enemy soldiers awakened confused, start running around in terror, taking their sword and just starting to attack, not realizing that they’re fighting each other. The army, losing any sense of self-control, just start running. And in the next hours and days, Gideon gathers others to join him as they pursue the Midianites and all their leaders and are victorious.

Their victory makes no sense. This kind of thing doesn’t happen. And yet it did; 300 men defeated 10’s of thousands; a loaf of bread wiped out a camp; hopeless weak cowards became mighty men of valor. When they were weak, then they were strong, because God was with them.

Do you see it? Do you see how God worked with such care and such patience to bring Gideon and his people to a place where the conclusion is unmistakable? That peace and joy and strength do not come from relying on yourself and looking elsewhere; they come in God, trusting him, worshiping him? It is completely clear.

The Aftermath (and the failure)

And yet, tragically, this will be almost completely forgotten. If we were to continue following this story, we would see that Gideon becomes arrogant through his victory and despite all that happened, turns again to self-reliance. And likewise, Israel turns again to self-reliance and the idolatry that comes with it. What God demonstrated through all of these events could not have made things clearer for his people. And yet it was not enough. For Israel, for humanity to be saved from self-reliance, something even bigger, even greater will be needed.

But we have a God who is far more committed to rescuing his people than we can ever imagine. He does that greater work, one that comes in the appearance of weakness. His glorious salvation will come in humiliation. Because the only true way to defeat self-reliance is through putting the old self to death, Jesus did exactly this on the cross for us. He died for our sake so that in him we also die. For those who trust in Christ, the power of the cross breaks self-reliance’s hold upon us. The death of Christ now has become a part of us. As Paul says, I have been crucified with Christ.

And he rose from the dead so that we also might finally, truly live as those who belong to God, trust in God, and joyfully worship God. The resurrection power of Christ becomes a part of us as well; his Spirit is alive within us.

And get this: what this means is that if you are one who trusts in Jesus, God also says to you, “The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor.” I’m not making this up: Romans says you are a victorious conqueror. The glory of God is powerfully at work in you, and he’s able to work through you far more than you imagine.

If you find that impossible to believe, I would suggest that’s only because you don’t understand how this works. It’s because you are looking in the wrong place. It’s not in you on your own. It’s in the God who is with you.

I believe the apostle Paul had the Gideon story in mind when he wrote, “For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.”

Yes, I am unimpressive, Paul will go on to say. Yes, I experience persecution and what looks like failure. Yes, I experience confusion and suffering. Yes, in pretty much every way, I am weak. But somehow, in all of this, God does the remarkable, sustaining my faith, growing me, working through me to bring others into the freedom of Jesus.

What Paul discovered is also true for u: Somehow, even as in our lives we are experiencing the reality of the cross, through our weakness, God chooses to shine forth the reality of the resurrection. God’s power is made perfect in our weakness. Not in spite of our weakness, but his power is displayed through our weakness. When we are weak, then we are strong.

And this is how it is for every believer in Christ. By the power of God, by the power of the resurrection, you and I in his kingdom can be mighty people of valor. But we will only discover this as we turn from our reliance upon ourselves and place all of our trust in the promise that God is with us. So let’s turn to God in confession now.