Then Gideon said to him, “O my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian” (Judges 6:13).

I commented a couple of days ago that it was likely that the parents of that generation of Israelites had not adequately taught their children about the LORD, because the text says,

All that generation also were gathered to their fathers; and there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord, nor yet the work which He had done for Israel (Judges 2:10).

Yet, Gideon testifies that their fathers did tell them about God's deliverance from Egypt. Even so, the LORD says of Israel that whether they knew of His mighty acts or not, they had not obeyed Him (Judges 6:10).

Now, it may well be true that some heard of God's mighty acts while others did not. And we will discover that some, like Boaz in the Book of Ruth, which was set in the days of the Judges, were faithful to the LORD while others were not. Thus, we are to understand that in every generation God reserves for Himself a faithful few. And He does this by His grace, even as He did in the days of Elijah, when he complained that he was the only faithful one left in Israel:

God did not reject his people, whom he foreknew. Don’t you know what Scripture says in the passage about Elijah—how he appealed to God against Israel: “Lord, they have killed your prophets and torn down your altars; I am the only one left, and they are trying to kill me”? And what was God’s answer to him? “I have reserved for myself seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” So too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. And if by grace, then it cannot be based on works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace (Romans 11:2–6).

What is the purpose of the detailed account of Gideon's conquest of Midian? It is to show that God's grace is greater than human weakness, and even though the people disobeyed Him, even though the Jewish parents failed to adequately teach the generations after them about the LORD, God's grace still prevailed, even through a remnant.

Even today, while the majority of the human race, ignorant of God, are perishing, God has reserved for Himself a remnant according to His grace. While the majority of professing Christians may only think they are saved, and will perish because they are ignorant of the Scriptures, God has reserved for Himself a remnant according to His grace. And we ought not to think that this remnant is very many, because Jesus said,

Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it (Matthew 7:13–14).

Those of you that cannot find it in your busy schedules to spend at least one hour in God's eternal Word every day, do you think that you are among these few? No, we are not saved simply by reading the Scriptures. And no, we are not even saved by our works. However, those who do these things demonstrate the fruit of those that believe God and are saved. I take to heart Paul's injunction, "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling..." (Philippians 2:12). While I have confidence in the Lord, I have no confidence in my own ability. This wrestling within causes me daily to both fear and tremble, as I seek to make my calling and election sure (2 Peter 1:10).

AI-Expanded Reflection

Gideon's question reveals a gap between inherited testimony and present experience. He has heard about the exodus, but Midianite oppression makes that history seem disconnected from the claim that the Lord is with Israel. Judges 6 does not dismiss the question as meaningless. Before Gideon's call, a prophet explains Israel's disobedience; then the Lord commissions a fearful man to participate in deliverance. God's answer includes both moral exposure and gracious action.

The original helpfully revises an earlier inference about the previous generation's teaching. Gideon's words show that at least some parents had told the story. This is a good example of allowing a later passage to qualify an explanation. Knowing about God's works and responding faithfully to him are related but distinct. Information can be transmitted while its meaning is resisted, distorted, or crowded out by other loyalties. Judges therefore challenges more than the quantity of instruction a community provides.

The reduction of Gideon's army in chapter 7 makes the purpose of the deliverance explicit: Israel must not claim that its own strength saved it. Grace does not wait for ideal human confidence or impressive resources. Yet Gideon still acts. He receives instructions, confronts idolatry, gathers the people, and moves forward despite fear. Dependence on God's power does not eliminate the need for obedience; it changes the ground on which obedience proceeds.

Paul's appeal to Elijah in Romans 11 likewise comforts a discouraged perspective. Elijah's isolation was real as an experience, but his conclusion that no faithful people remained was incomplete. God knew and preserved those Elijah could not see. The doctrine of a remnant should therefore encourage humility about our limited knowledge, not confidence that we can identify almost everyone outside our circle as unsaved. Romans 11 also warns those who have received grace against boasting.

The original's call to take Scripture seriously is appropriate, but the proposed benchmark of at least one hour each day is not a biblical test of salvation. Illness, literacy, caregiving, work, and access differ. A person may spend less time reading yet respond faithfully to what is learned, while another may study extensively without repentance. Scripture's warnings call for genuine faith and its fruit, not compliance with a timetable supplied by a teacher.

Philippians 2:12 should also remain joined to verse 13: believers work out their salvation because God is at work in them. Second Peter 1:5–10 identifies qualities such as self-control, perseverance, godliness, mutual affection, and love. These provide a richer account of growth than anxiety over a daily reading quota. We can establish disciplined habits while receiving grace as the source of both assurance and change. Gideon's story invites frightened, imperfect people to listen and obey, trusting that God's ability exceeds their weakness without making that weakness an excuse to remain unresponsive.

Gideon puts the LORD to the test three times. First he asks for a sign to prove it is really the LORD speaking (Judges 6:17). Then he proposes the fleece: if it is wet with dew in the morning while the ground is dry, he will know God will use him (6:36–37). Then he asks for one more test, reversing it — let the fleece stay dry while the ground is wet (6:39).

He also shows himself timid and lacking confidence. He asks how he can possibly rescue Israel, since his clan is the weakest in Manasseh and he is the least in his family (6:15). When he tears down his father's altar he does it at night, because he is afraid of his household and the townspeople (6:27). And before the battle God tells him that if he is afraid to attack, he should go down to the enemy camp and listen — and he goes (7:10–11).

It is only when the Spirit of God comes upon him (6:34) that this timid man rises to become the mighty warrior God had called him. Then with every success he grows in confidence and boldness.

AI-Expanded Reflection

The detail worth adding is God's own patience with all of it. Gideon is never rebuked for asking. He prefaces the second fleece request by asking God not to be angry, and God simply does what he asks. When God offers the trip to the enemy camp, He initiates the reassurance — Gideon had not requested it. The angel's greeting in 6:12 addresses him as a mighty warrior while he is threshing wheat in a winepress to hide from raiders, which is either irony or a statement about what God intends to make of him, and the narrative suggests the latter.

That pattern is worth holding alongside the passages this project has noted elsewhere where sign-seeking is rebuked. The difference does not seem to be the request itself but what the person intends to do with the answer. Gideon asks repeatedly and then goes; Ahaz is offered a sign, refuses it piously, and does what he had already decided.

The angel of the LORD comes and sits under an oak in Ophrah, belonging to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon is threshing wheat in a winepress to hide it from the Midianites. The angel greets him as a mighty warrior, and Gideon replies, asking, if the LORD is really with them, why has all this happened — where are the wonders their ancestors told them about, since it now seems the LORD has abandoned them into Midian's hand (a paraphrase of Judges 6:12–13).

Doesn't what Gideon says sound familiar? Isn't it the most common reaction, across every nationality, when disaster strikes — a tsunami, terrorism, a massacre? People never hesitate to blame God for their calamities, asking how a loving God could allow such things. Yet when everything goes well, credit rarely goes to God — people take it for themselves instead. God knows how evil our hearts truly are, and later tells Gideon he has too many men — if he wins with this large an army, Israel would boast that their own strength saved them (a paraphrase of Judges 7:2). It's by His mercy alone that any of us still exist on earth. Our depraved minds seek nothing but evil, so we truly deserve His rightful punishment. Let's give glory to Jesus, our mediator and intercessor.

AI-Expanded Reflection

Gideon's complaint here is worth pairing with what he's actually doing physically at the very same moment — threshing wheat inside a winepress specifically to hide it from Midianite raiders (Judges 6:11), a genuinely undignified, fearful way to process grain. The angel's greeting, calling this frightened, hiding man a "mighty warrior," lands as a striking mismatch between the title given and the reality visible on the ground. That gap is worth noticing alongside this comment's own observation about blaming God during hardship — God doesn't rebuke Gideon's honest complaint at all; He simply addresses him according to who he's about to become, not who he currently appears to be while hiding in a winepress.

That same night, the LORD tells Gideon to take his father's second bull, tear down his father's altar to Baal, cut down the Asherah pole beside it, and build a proper altar to the LORD on that same height, using the pole's wood to offer the bull as a burnt offering (a paraphrase of Judges 6:25–26).

Before Gideon takes his 300 men against the massive Midianite army, he's first instructed to tear down his own father's altar to false gods. It made me think about how we need to get our own household right with God before we can serve Him effectively outside of it. If we're not willing to tear down the "altar to false gods" within our own home, what army can we possibly fight outside it? Let's offer our homes properly to the Lord, so He can use us in mighty ways.

AI-Expanded Reflection

The order of operations this comment identifies is worth noting as deliberate, not incidental — God doesn't send Gideon against Midian first and address his household's idolatry later; the domestic reformation comes before the military campaign even begins. That sequencing suggests something worth taking seriously for anyone hoping to be used significantly beyond their own home: the public battle God ultimately calls Gideon to fight was never separate from the private, unglamorous work of first setting his own house in order — the second couldn't credibly begin until the first had already been done.

God said that Gideon could only take 300 men, because He didn't want Israel to think that they themselves had defeated the Midianites and Amalekites, who were as numerous as locusts and as the sand on the seashore. He wanted to prove to Israel that He is the one giving them this land. It reminds me that my own accomplishments aren't truly mine, but are due only to God's providence. I have to remember to stay humble and to know who is really at work in my life.

AI-Expanded Reflection

The actual method used to narrow the army down makes the point even more pointed than the number alone: God has the men drink from a stream, and keeps only the few who lap water from their hands like a dog rather than kneeling down to drink directly (Judges 7:4–7) — a test with no apparent connection to courage, skill, or strength at all. That arbitrariness seems to be the whole point. Paul later states the same principle as a settled New Testament conviction: God's power is made perfect specifically in weakness (a paraphrase of 2 Corinthians 12:9). Three hundred men chosen by an oddly specific drinking posture, defeating an army compared to locusts, is that principle acted out almost literally on a battlefield.