“Gid‘on said to God, ‘If you are going to save Israel through me, as you said you would, then, here: I will lay a wool fleece on the threshing-floor; if there is dew on the fleece only, while all the ground stays dry, I will be convinced that you will save Israel through me, as you said you would.'”-Judges 6:36-37
Have you ever received an assignment from the Lord and then second doubted yourself?
I’m talking about a situation when everything was all set and ready to go.
But then all of a sudden fear rose up from inside of you and you wondered if God was really with you.
Maybe you were just imagining things.
Or worse, maybe your ego had gone hog wild out of control telling you it was God when it really wasn’t.
I think this happens to all of us at one time or another.
And when it does, our natural inclination is to want to test God in some way by asking Him to show us some form of proof we can accept so we can know for sure that God is really with us.
Well, this was the situation Gideon fell into.
Gideon’s army was in place and ready to go.
But all of a sudden Gideon started having doubts.
Of course I’m referring to the famous story when Gideon laid out a sheep’s fleece on the threshing floor (really a large rock) and then sought the Lord for a sign asking him…
“If you are going to save Israel through me, as you said you would, then, here: I will lay a wool fleece on the threshing-floor; if there is dew on the fleece only, while all the ground stays dry, I will be convinced that you will save Israel through me, as you said you would.”
Folks, anyway you slice it, this is a perfect situation of Gideon’s flesh warring against the Holy Spirit that had covered him.
It’s something that happens to the best of us and it’s nothing to be proud of.
After Gideon laid out the sheep’s fleece on the threshing floor, he requested to God to overnight supernaturally cause the fleece to become moist with dew while the area around it stayed dry.
‘If God will only just do this one thing for me’ Gideon reasoned, ‘then I’ll have faith that the Lord is with me’.
Well, the evening came and went.
And the morning arrived.
Gideon went out to see what had happened…
…and lo and behold the fleece was dripping wet with water!!!
But amazingly the surrounding ground was as dry as an Alabama porch on a hot sunny day.
God had met Gideon’s request but doubts still began to creep into Gideon’s mind.
‘What if what happened was simply something that occurred naturally?”
Gideon reasoned that since fleeces have a natural tendency to attract moisture and retain it, it wouldn’t be so mysterious if the fleece absorbed the dew while the moisture on the ground evaporated as the sun rose.
So Gideon’s doubting heart prompted him to come up with yet another test.
He next asked God to do the opposite.
“Lord, this time make the fleece become dry while the surrounding ground becomes wet”.
The day came and went and the next morning that’s exactly what happened.
So finally Gideon was convinced.
Or was he?
There’s an important lesson to be learned from this scenario.
A lot of folks will say “I’m laying a fleece to seek out God’s Will”.
That’s an incorrect application of this story.
Why?
Because God had already made His Will clear to Gideon.
Gideon KNEW God’s Will way before this fleece incident occurred.
This was simply a matter of Gideon’s heart wavering in his faith before the battle for the Lord was about to begin.
Personally I can’t blame him.
I’ve harbored doubts over much more minor things when given a task from the Lord.
This story also showcases another problem that occurs when we test God.
What happens when the results of the test we give to God all of a sudden don’t seem that convincing to us?
That’s exactly what happened with Gideon after the first test, right?
So what do we do then?
Sure, the Lord humored Gideon by doing what he asked.
But what if our doubts aren’t satisfied after the second test?
Or even the third or fourth test?
Our doubting minds can always come up with a million different ways the same result could have happened minus the Lord’s intervening hand.
You see what I’m getting at here?
Doubts can turn into a vicious cycle that unless nipped in the bud early will only serve to weaken our resolve to do what God has called us to do.
CONNECTING THIS TEACHING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT
“Yeshua answered him,
‘It is also written:
‘Do not put the Lord
your God to the test.’”
-Matthew 4:7
NEXT TIME WE BEGIN JUDGES CHAPTER 7
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