Stop Waiting For a Risk-Free Life
Judges 6:17-24
Last time we looked at Judges 6 verses 15 and 16. We saw Gideon raise every objection he could muster — wrong tribe, wrong family, wrong standing. And we said that this was a fundamental misunderstanding of how God works. We traced God’s pattern of choosing the weak, the youngest, the overlooked. And we said that your lack of personal pedigree is likely a qualification rather than a disqualification.
We then looked at God’s answer, which was not a bigger army or better resources, but his own presence — the dunamis theme through Luke, Acts, and Judges. And we saw that God’s plan was laser-targeted: not a vague, open-ended campaign, but a precise strike against the primary enemy.
Today we pick up in verse 17, and this passage is going to take us into territory that most of us have never properly explored: the nature of tested faith, the cost of entering God’s service, and one of the most extraordinary patterns in the entire Old Testament.
Asking for a Sign: Faithless or Responsible?
And he said unto him, If now I have found grace in thy sight, then show me a sign that thou talkest with me. We need to deal with a very common misconception here. When we hear the phrase asking for a sign, our minds go straight to the Pharisees — Matthew 12:38, an evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign. Is Gideon being faithless here? Absolutely not.
The difference is critical. The Pharisees had been given sign after sign. They had watched Christ heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out demons, and feed thousands from a boy’s lunch. They weren’t lacking evidence. They were lacking willingness to submit to Christ. But Gideon had nothing. He had the words of an imposing stranger. No miracles, no track record, no history of interaction — just a man he had never met before telling him to go and save the nation.
Consider the spiritual environment. This was Ophrah, where Baal and Asherah were openly worshipped. Gideon’s own father had a Baal altar on his property. Lying spirits and false prophecies — the spiritual atmosphere would have been thick with it. In that context, it would have been irresponsible not to test the call. 1 John 4:1 commands: beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits, whether they are of God.
This applies directly to us. How many men have had their faith undermined because they accepted something at face value that they never tested? A preacher says something with confidence and we take it as truth. A YouTube figure builds a following through charisma and we’re carried along by the current. The Bereans in Acts 17:11 were praised as more noble than those in Thessalonica because they searched the scriptures daily whether those things were so — even when it was the apostle Paul doing the teaching. Even Paul had to be checked against the word of God.
A fuzzy idea that you’re kind of called is not going to hold under pressure. You need to establish that you are dealing with the very words of Christ, not the words of a movement or whatever is trending in Reformed circles this month. Isaiah 28:16 speaks of a tried stone, a sure foundation — not a shifting sand of half-examined opinions. Something you have tested and found to be solid. That is what your faith must stand on if it is going to survive the storms that are coming.
The Costly Offering
Now look at what Gideon does next. He says: depart not hence, I pray thee, until I come unto thee, and bring forth my present and set it before thee. And the Lord says: I will tarry till thou come again.
This isn’t a quick meal. Verse 19 tells us Gideon made ready a kid and unleavened bread from an ephah of flour — between ten and twenty-two litres of flour. That’s enough to feed a football team. He had to slaughter the animal, bleed it, hang it, remove the blood as required by the law, cut out the unclean portions, separate the offal, prepare the meat, and cook the broth.
That would have taken hours. And yet the Lord sat there and waited patiently, without complaint, without hurrying him along. There is something deeply pastoral in that detail. The Lord knows that things in this world take time. He enters into time and takes time. He doesn’t demand that you go from zero to hero in an instant. He’s willing to wait while you prepare yourself, while you count the cost, while you make ready what needs to be made ready.
But notice that Gideon did not delay. He didn’t say, perhaps next Thursday would be more convenient. He went immediately. Though soaked in sweat from threshing wheat in a winepress, he went straight to work. Not haste that skips preparation, and not delay that avoids commitment.
And also notice: the entire passage from verse 11 onwards is a dialogue. The Lord speaks. Gideon responds. Gideon pushes back. The Lord answers. Gideon asks for a sign. The Lord agrees to wait. He doesn’t treat Gideon like a beast. He treats him like an adult — capable of reasoning, capable of asking difficult questions, and deserving of answers. We should imitate that in our households, in our churches, in our discipleship of younger men. Answer the questions. Don’t suppress them.
The Cost and the Pattern of the Offering
This was a time of severe national distress. The crops were being destroyed. Food was scarce and every morsel was precious. And Gideon slaughtered a young goat — an entire animal — and made bread from a vast quantity of flour that he himself had been threshing by hand in a winepress, alone, hiding from the enemy. This offering wasn’t a token gesture. It was an enormous sacrifice. A man pouring out the product of days or even weeks of secret solitary labour in the middle of a famine — and he gave lavishly.
This points to a principle that runs through the entire Scripture: the offering that costs nothing is worth nothing. The offering that is given at genuine personal expense is the one that the Lord accepts. Think of David at the threshing floor of Araunah — 2 Samuel 24:24: I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God with that which costs me nothing.
Fire from the Rock
Then the angel of the Lord reached out the end of the staff that was in his hand and touched the meat and the unleavened bread — and fire rose out of the rock and consumed the flesh and the bread. And the angel of the Lord departed from his sight.
Fire consuming an offering as a sign of divine acceptance is one of the most consistent patterns in the Old Testament. You see it at the inauguration of the tabernacle in Leviticus 9:24. You see it with Elijah on Mount Carmel in 1 Kings 18:38. You see it when David offered at the threshing floor in 1 Chronicles 21:26. You see it at the dedication of Solomon’s temple in 2 Chronicles 7:1. Every time God accepts an offering by fire, it marks a turning point, an inauguration, a confirmation, a new beginning. Gideon’s offering consumed by fire is God saying: I accept you, I accept your offering, the commission is real — now go.
Jehovah Shalom: The Lord Is Peace
Gideon perceived that he was an angel of the Lord and cried out — for Exodus 33:20 says no man can see God’s face and live. But the Lord said unto him: peace be unto thee, fear not, thou shalt not die.
Then Gideon built an altar there unto the Lord and called it Jehovah Shalom — the Lord is peace. Not the Lord gives peace, as though peace were a product he dispenses. The Lord is peace. He himself is the substance of it.
Gideon was about to enter the most dangerous period of his entire life — tearing down idols, facing the fury of his own neighbours, leading a tiny army against an overwhelming enemy. And the name he carved into that altar was the Lord is peace. Because he had tested the call, presented his offering, seen the fire fall, and he knew — not he hoped, not guessed, not felt — he knew that God had sent him. This is what a tested faith looks like. Not a warm feeling, not a vague impression — a rock-solid conviction, established through obedience, sacrifice, and a confirming fire from God, that you are standing on ground that will not give way beneath your feet.
The Altar Is the Launchpad, Not the Destination
Before we close, notice this: Gideon did not build that altar and then retire. The altar was not the destination — it was the launchpad. Everything that has happened so far — the call, the objections, the reassurance, the offering, the fire, the fear, the peace — all of it was preparation. Gideon has been tested and he passed that test. But the real work hadn’t even begun.
What comes next in this chapter is going to demand everything that altar represents. God is about to tell Gideon to go home to his father’s house and tear down the altar of Baal and cut down the Asherah pole — not in some foreign land where nobody knows him, but in his own backyard, among his own people, under his own father’s nose. That’s the way it works. Before God sends you out, he asks you to deal with what’s closest to home. We’ll deal with that next week.