Ep. 061 - The Rise and Fall of Gideon: A Story of Faith, Leadership, and Lessons for Today

Episode Transcript

Spencer
Fame and fortune have an impact on people, and it's rarely positive from a spiritual perspective. Today we're going to focus on the story of Gideon. Both his rise to power and obedience to the Lord as he led the people out of bondage, but also his fall later on in life as he embraced wealth and saw that actually destroy his family.

Austin
So, Spencer, today, and for the next couple episodes, we're going to explore some stories from Scripture that talk about the impact of wealth. And really what we want to focus on is the negative impact of vast wealth and really what it does to destroy not only individuals, but then the cascading effect that it has on generations that follow.
Today, we'll talk about Gideon. We'll get into some other characters from the Bible in the next couple episodes. But as we think about this, we often look at these stories; and as I was thinking about this, as we were preparing, we look at Gideon and we're like, “Oh, there's so many positive things about his life.” But then we end the story before reading to the end of the story.
We like the fleece. We like the culling of the army, and it shows his trust of the Lord. But we often don't finish the narrative, and I think this is often what we do is we look at some of these biblical characters, and we look at their success and their rise because it mirrors what we want to see.
What are some other things that we see and how the culture responds to this idea of wealth bringing success?

Spencer
Well, I think it's this neutrality that we see the culture, look at wealth as or even something that's positive, almost exclusively positive. There are many people that within the Christian faith would just say, “Well, wealth is just neutral, it's just how you use it,” I think when we look at the biblical reference points, though, of leaders who became wealthy and kept that wealth, we have to be really, really careful.
There's got to be a sobriety as we approach this, because we see so many leaders fall, whether it is the great leader, the wise leader, the one who has a heart for God, all kinds of different leaders having trouble with wealth, with fame, prosperity, all these different pieces that are kind of the American dream. And to an extent, it's the way that God does provide for us,
He gives us what we need, He gives us our daily bread; But when we go beyond even our own lives and we have this kind of intergenerational wealth, we see very, very few people handle it well. And we see a lot of problems. So we'll dive in, of course, to this, but I think big picture, there's this idea that success and diligence lead to a place where we have, we amass a level of wealth,
there is maybe God's hand at work in that, his blessing, but then we don't see that we're just stewards and we pass those resources on. Instead, we are much more willing to lead a life that is luxurious or increasingly luxurious, and that can be problematic.

Austin
Yeah. So let's go ahead and dive in here. We see Gideon is the story we're going to take a look at in Israel right now is in the period of the judges. And this is come after they've entered the Promised Land. But the story of the judges, there's this often cyclical part and nature to it, where there's faithfulness and then unfaithfulness and faithfulness and unfaithfulness, and it's very cyclical through this.
So where are we entering right now in the story of the judges?

Spencer
Well, at this point, again, the people of Israel, they have turned their back on God. They are being oppressed. It's not a fun situation. The Midianites are oppressing them, and Baal, the god of the Midianites, is the one that even Israel has started to embrace and bow down to. And so, Gideon, the people around him, they have this idol Baal, that they're bowing down to and that they're referencing instead of the God that they know, the God that delivered them out of Egypt, the God that gave them this land to live in.
So they're in this place where they're being unfaithful, they're also being oppressed, and there's no one really to step up and actually help lead them back to faithfulness. So God intervenes in this space and he chooses Gideon.

Austin
Right. And I think as we read this, we always want to reframe our our mindset as we enter Scripture. The characters are not the the main character. Gideon is not the main character of the story. We want to look and see: how does Gideon respond in faithfulness to the main character of the Lord? How does Gideon shine and reflect the character and nature of God, and where does he fall short?
So we don't want to focus as much on Gideon. But what does this tell us about God? That is faithfulness to his people? And how what is our natural response in unfaithfulness? So we'll start off and God calls Gideon in Judges 6:15 and he says, the Scripture say, And God said to him, please, Lord, how can I save Israel?
Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house. So Gideon was a low man. God was calling him to save Israel against this oppression of the Midianites. So walk us through what happens next.

Spencer
Well, again, first we have to recognize that as God reaches out to Gideon. And this is really, really important to see now because we'll see it in contrast, at the end of the story, but Gideon kind of looks behind himself and says, you talking to me? Yeah. Says, who am I? I'm like the lowest of the low and within my own clan.
Why are you talking to me? And God's like, okay, right answer. Because when you respond like that, then I can use you for my own glory, because everyone will say, “Okay, who's this Gideon guy?” It's not as though he, by his acumen or his strength has he saved, the people. And so, you know, as we look at this, God instructs Gideon, the first thing to do is to cut down this idol Baal,
which Gideon kind of, is nervous about, but he does it. And he wonders how his own people are going to respond to this. But what happens is everybody gets mad. But then his dad says, “Well, get over it,” basically. I mean, he basically says what they say, “Deliver Gideon out to us so that we can, you know, give retribution.”
And his dad says, “No, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to deliver him over to you. Let Baal contend for himself.” Yeah. So his dad basically says “If Baal's a real God, then he could smite Gideon and we'll all know.” And lo and behold, Baal doesn't do anything because Baal’s not a real god.
And so that gives Gideon the sense of, “Okay, well, the Lord is with me. You know, I got through this first trial, He was faithful.” And so that paves the way for these next acts that we'll talk about.

Austin
Yeah. Okay. So we're going to now move a little bit further ahead in Judges. We read the sign of the fleece, the story that we're probably very well aware of. And so start off Judges chapter six, verses 36 through 40. “Then Gideon said to God, ‘If you will save Israel by my hand, as you have said, behold, I am laying a fleece of wool on the threshing floor.
If there is, dew on the fleece alone, and it is dry on all the ground, then I shall know that you will save Israel by my hand. As you have said.;’ And it was so when he rose early the next morning, and squeezed the fleece, he wrung enough dew from the fleece to fill a bowl of water. Then Gideon said to God, ‘Let not your anger burn against me.
Let me speak just once more. Please let me test just once more with the fleece. Please let it be dry on the fleece only and on the ground, let there be dew.’ And God did so that night, and it was dry on the fleece only, and on all the ground there was dew.” So, Spencer, walk us through the story that we we know well, we've heard probably hundreds of times.
But walk us through what's going on here.

Spencer
Well, God calls Gideon to raise an army to go against the Midianites to save his people. So now we're not just opposing Baal, the God of the Midianites. We're saying, “We're going to actually raise an army and go against our oppressors.” And Gideon again looks behind him and says, “What? What's going on here? You still want me?
So he tests God and he says, “Let me make sure that I can see a sign that I know.” So he's hearing God, but he still doesn't trust what he's hearing because his life is going to be on the line. So if we had to flash up a word here, it would be “Coward.” You know?
I mean, he's he's being pretty cowardly because he knows what he's being called to, but not just one sign, which is just unbelievably unlikely for this to happen, if, Gideon asks for that sign. But then a second night, he asks, so no one would look at this story and say, “Wow, Gideon, he's the one. He just had this strength and this, you know, acumen.
And he, you know, going to make his people free.” No, you can see that this is God working throughout this. And even going above and beyond to confirm with signs and lead Gideon ahead.

Austin
Okay. So since we've got Gideon, he has decided that he's going to trust the Lord. He's put Him through these signs, and then Gideon obeys. So just give us a big picture. What happens next before we get to the finishing of the story where we really want to focus today?

Spencer
Well, we've got the troops amassing. You've got Midian against him. You've got him as the leader. He's made the call. People have come, he's gotten these signs from the Lord and then the Lord says, “Well, actually what I want you to do, even though you're outnumbered, what I want you to do is be really outnumbered. So I want you to go from the 22,000 people initially that showed up, and then you sent 12,000 home because, they were fearful, and then we're going to take those 10,000, and instead we're going to winnow that down to 300, just by looking at the way that they drink from a stream.”
So what we see here, though, that's so interesting, is within the narrative we're seeing that God is explicitly saying, “I'm choosing someone that I can show it's not anything that they're doing that's that's achieving victory.” It's kind of like if the Lord chose me to be the USA gymnastics team, you know, coach, going forward, I have zero gymnastics talent.
I'm terrible. I'm inflexible. I don't know the movements. I mean, you know, you select the person that's the least likely to lead you to victory here in Gideon. So to his credit, though, Gideon does what God tells him to do. I mean, we've seen a progression here. I mean, his confidence and his faith in the Lord has been building because he does, cut down the idol.
He does move forward with calling the people after he sees the fleece two nights in a row. So he is moving in this direction, of faithfulness. But ultimately, and we won't spend a lot of time here by God's hand, those 300, create havoc overnight within the camp. And the Midianites turn it on each other, and they start to fight each other and kind of blow up there.
And then the people of Israel get excited and say, “Okay well, we can take them now.” And so, Gideon, you know, blows the trumpet, they come after them and there's a huge victory. Yeah. You know, basically. So in all of these events, we see the Lord being so gracious and bringing Gideon along, the Lord giving Gideon every next step, including the signs to confirm those next steps,
it's just one of these stories that you really couldn't come up with, almost a more inept or cowardly leader that ultimately wins, because of God.

Austin
Well, and I think this is where it's really important not to stop here. Because if we stop here and we focus more on Gideon, then we're missing the reality that it was never Gideon that did any of this, It was God that did it. And Gideon faithfully obeyed, listened to the Lord, and the Lord moved. The Lord provided,
He acted, and it was the Lord's hand that did everything. But we often look at this and we're like, “Man, look at Gideon. He won this great battle.” And it's like, no, no, no, no, no. The Lord won the battle. And he happened to use a faithless cowarding leader to do so.

Spencer
Right. And we can even look at other parts of Scripture. I mean, we can look at, say Abraham and say, “Okay, well, you know, he was very cowardly at many points in his life,” you know, with respect to, situation with Sarah and kind of defending her against, someone that wanted to take her as a wife, we could say the same thing about Abraham, asking, being very reticent to ask God for deliverance of, you know, Lot and Sodom and Gomorrah not going down any farther than he did in terms of the number of righteous people.
The characters, particularly in the Old Testament, the Lord shows us that they are not to be lionized as, amazing in and of themselves. They had an amazing God.

Austin
Yeah.

Spencer
And that's what we need to come back to, just like you're saying we need to see and we need to see more clearly than the Israelites saw. Because the Israelites, of course, they get really excited about what Gideon has done and leading them. And they give, the accolades to Gideon, and they get really excited about him being the leader.
And we see that in, chapter eight, verse 22. They say, “Rule over us. You and your son and your grandson also, for you have saved us from the hand of Midian. And so they can't see that God has just used Gideon as an instrument. It's the great God that they serve. It's not the great leader that has led them to this victory.

Austin
Right. And I even think about the echoes of Moses as he's leading the people out of Egypt. They're constantly looking to Moses and being like, where have you taken us? You need to do this. You need to do that. Give us water from a rock, give us more food. Wasn't it better in Egypt? They're not looking again. Back to God. But,
so let’s take a turn and see, really, let's focus on the last parts of Gideon's life to see where the story ends. So we'll go ahead and we'll jump into, Judges, the tail end of it, but set us up. So, Gideon has been asked to be the leader of the people of Israel. And he says yes.
So what happens thereafter?

Spencer
Well, so he actually gets the response, right; first he says in verse 23, Gideon said to them, “I will not rule over you, and my son will not rule over you. The Lord will rule over you.” And if we could just cut everything thereafter, and if he did nothing else, maybe his life would be far different. But, he went on. You know, it's almost you get the sense that maybe it is almost like, the energy with, you know, Frodo in the Lord of the Rings with the ring, he's like, he's almost there.
He almost gets rid of the ring, but then he doesn’t. Yeah. And so, you know, in that story, of course, Gollum comes along and, that fight, gets the ring over, into Mount Doom and such. But in this particular circumstance, you see, he didn't end it there. Verse 24: “And Gideon said to them, let me make a request of you.
Every one of you give me the earrings from his spoil.” For they had golden earrings because they were Ishmaelites. And they answered, “We will willingly give them.” So, he doesn't stop. Instead he says, “Well, I'm just, just give me one, one little thing here.” And and it was actually not a little thing. It was something that was really significant in terms of wealth because of who they had taken the plunder from,
and we learned that about the Ishmaelites. And the people were incredibly willing because they said, “Well, you know, we're free now. We want to be able to honor our leader.” And what we see there is Gideon then parlaying those earrings to make an ephod. And that's a vestment that would have been used for religious ceremony. And essentially that made him the priest.
And his sons, the priests. So he took that, and what might seem kind of small or innocuous becomes more and more of a hindrance because he gets not only wealth in the golden earrings, but then he makes this spiritual vestment which gives him more power, and then people come and they worship God, you know, in front of him, in front of this ephod,
and, ostensibly you would expect that they are also, perhaps giving tithes or giving more offerings, you know, to him and to his family because he becomes very, very wealthy in this. Yosu can see he gains many wives, many concubines, 70 sons, I mean, that is, just a tremendous family size. You have to be incredibly wealthy in the ancient world to be able to support a family like that.
And it seems clear at the start of the story again that he is low man. He is not, you know, some amazing leader. He is not powerful. He is not rich. But by the end of the story, we can see he's certainly there. So it's very, very different. It says “...and the weight of the golden earrings that he requested was 1700 shekels of gold.
Besides the crescent ornaments and the pendants and the purple garnet garments worn by the kings of Midian.” So this is a huge amount that he receives. So the people are open handed with that wealth. There's a lot of other wealth that they keep. There's, you know, their lives that are freed and so on and so forth. But he gets a huge amount of wealth.
It's kind of like, you know, you won the battle and then you also won the lottery, you know, on top of that, tens of millions of dollars, you know, worth, potentially if we're looking at it kind of in an equivalency, you know, today of the power and wealth that would have been in his control within the community.

Austin
Right. And even, you know, as you were speaking, it's like he puts on this effort, and he starts trying to bear the glory. And he starts off the story and it's like my clan is Manasseh. Well, if we know anything about the Levitical law, the Levites were supposed to be the priests. He even moves out of the traditional identity that God has established for the Levites.
He has taken on a role that was never his to take on as priest, as the ruler of the people there. He is not going back and reflecting glory back to God. He's saying, I'm going to take it on. I am the one with the power. I am the one with the authority. So how do we then see it not only affected Gideon, but then it affects subsequent generations?
What do we see there?

Spencer
Well, what we see is that Gideon took this ephod and he took it back to his city. So verse 27, “Gideon made an ephod of it and put it in his city, Ophra, and all Israel poured after it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and to his family. So if we look at the entire narrative arc, we have a people who is being oppressed.
Israel's being oppressed by the Midianites. At the start of the story, Gideon is a low man. He has no power to be able to effect any change. They're being oppressed, but they're also whoring after they are worshiping another god. They're worshiping bail. Yeah. We have God, use Gideon to bring this massive victory to free the people of Israel,
But the tail end of that is that they have this wealth. And instead of distributing the wealth, instead of using the wealth in some way to honor God and glorify him, it resides in Gideon's power. It becomes an ephod,, like you said, he becomes an inappropriate priest, you know, of it. And, it becomes a snare for all of Israel.
They begin to worship the ephod instead of worshiping the God who actually freed them and used this, very cowardly man, Gideon, for his own honor and glory. So we see Israel goes from having an idol here in Baal up to the Lord, then back to an idol in this new ephod, but we see Gideon's family actually in a much worse position because we see Gideon's family being oppressed by the
the Midianites, come to tremendous power. But then by the end of the story, even though they have all of this wealth, what the story tells us is that one of the sons of Gideon, who was from a concubine. So, you know, basically a sex slave, there you had, the only someone with a level of wealth would have been able to have, in that time.
You have him, with the concubine having a son and that son then coming and killing all of his other sons, save one. So we won't get into all of the details here. But basically, that level of wealth creates this conflict within his family. You have all of these sons, and they come from different wives and different concubines, and you have, one in particular that has it out for all of his brothers, and he kills all of them except for one.
So the end of the story is so sad for Gideon's family because, all of his, all of his sons, grandsons, you know, they're murdered here. And it again, comes back to that sense of wealth, because he has been able to have more wives, more concubines, more, children. And then all of the disharmony that's created, you know, through the usage there and the power overall.

Austin
Right. As we wrap up today, as we start thinking about how this actually affects us in modern western United States. I think the allure is often in our lives, “Let me amass more wealth. Let me make sure I have enough in my barn. Let me make sure that one's full. Maybe a second, maybe a third. But it's, I want to make sure that I am provided for.
I am cared for based on what I may see other people doing.” If we see that as our end, that wealth is the end, we see one story here, that it's destructive. What else do we see, and how can we really move this into a tangible...leaving today?

Spencer
I think we want to be careful here that we are not saying that the Bible says that this is always what happens, you know, when there is wealth. But we see enough of the examples in the Bible of the dangers of wealth. And we'll get into some, you know, other, situations here in future episodes where we'll be talking through these.
But, the danger of wealth is that we start to put our hope in it. We start to use it in ways that give us fame and power and influence. We start to pass it on to our children in ways that actually harm them. There is a disconnect here in terms of culturally, because we're not thinking about having many spouses or, you know, some of the other elements here.
We none of us, I think 170 children, you know, that that was how you provide for that many children. I don't know, but there are some disconnects there. But I think the big picture is, all of us, somewhere in our hearts, probably want a level of, influence, a level of wealth, a level of protection, that Gideon did.
But what we need to come back to is God is our provider. And when we amass those things, we put ourselves progressively in harm's way. How much is enough? I every person has to to to grapple with that. How much is enough for our lifetime for our heirs? You know, these different questions we need to be asking that as stewards of God and what we see here

Spencer
again, I think, one of the key points about Gideon's life is that he basically just took all of that, and he embraced it as if it was his own. He was the owner. He was the one that wanted to then have control of that wealth, of that fame, power, use it for his own ends, rather than pointing people to God and God's mercy, God's glory.
He almost got there. And that's what's so agonizing. We almost got there. But he allowed, that wealth to actually come in. And then, do harm.

Austin
Yeah. Well, thanks for walking us through the story of Gideon. If you got questions about this or comments, feel free to leave them down below. We look forward to seeing you again next time. If you found this episode valuable, share it with a friend and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform so that you don't miss the next episode.

Disclaimer
This content was provided by Second Half Stewardship. We are in Knoxville, Tennessee and you can visit our website at www.secondhalfstewardship.com. The information in this recording is intended for general, educational and informational purposes only, and should not be construed as investment advisory, financial planning, legal, tax, or other professional advice based on your specific situation. Please consult your professional advisor before taking any action based on its contents.