Gideon’s Remarkable Dialogue With God: Testing the Spirits

A Dialogue, Not a Monologue

We’re in Judges 6, looking at the dialogue between the angel of the Lord and Gideon. One speaks, the other responds. Talk, response, talk, response. That is what a dialogue is — and it is very interesting that God speaks to us and we speak back. We ask for clarification. We are not to be passive or silent before God.

In some Christian circles, asking questions is treated as a sign of unbelief or rebellion. But God did not treat Gideon as a child to be silenced. He treated him as an adult. This is part of the image of God in us — God dialogues. If we have children who ask difficult questions, are we imitating God by shutting them down? Gideon began with a hard question: Oh my Lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? A question from belief, not from cynicism.

The Lord’s answer in verse 14 was not a lengthy theological explanation. It was a word of command: Go in this might of yours. He didn’t answer Gideon’s why — he redirected him to his calling. That is also instructive. Sometimes God opens things up through meditation on his law; other times his answer is simply: you’ve got to do this. Accept it and move.

The Covenant is the Key

To answer Gideon’s question — If the Lord is with us, why has all this happened? — you have to know the covenant. There is a popular answer in the church today that says: God is not with us because Satan is the god of this earth. He is in control. We must wait for the second coming. That is definitively the wrong answer. It is a God-dishonouring lie.

The correct answer requires knowing that God brings chastisement against his people — individually, as families, as nations — when they depart from him. What looks like Satan being in charge is simply God’s covenantal discipline on a disobedient people. The covenant is the beating heart of the word of God. It is the structure in which the law sits, the law which our Lord says will never pass away — not one jot or tittle.

God’s Presence is the Answer

The crux of the passage is God’s answer to Gideon’s second objection — my clan is the weakest, I am the least — which comes in verse 16: Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat the Midianites as one man. The answer is not a resource list. It is not a strategy. It is God’s presence. That presence is the prerequisite for everything that follows.

Verse 17: If now I have found favour in your sight, show me a sign that it is you who talk with me. Gideon had a good inkling that this was the Lord, but he needed to be certain. This is the command of 1 John — test the spirits, see whether they are of God. This was a cultic area; there could have been deceiving spirits. He was not wrong to ask.

The Hebrew word for sign is oth: aleph for strength, vav for a nail connecting things together, tav for covenant. He needed a sign that was covenantal — marked with the cross, as it were. He was not seeking a sign out of scepticism but out of godly diligence. We too must be firmly rooted before we can act. Vague faith will not carry us through. We need to be locked on and bedded into Christ the rock.

The Offering

Do not depart from here, I pray, until I come to you and bring out my offering and set it before you. The word for offering here is mincha — a word that can mean an offering to God or a gift to a man of high standing. Gideon was not sure yet which this was, but he was acting. He was giving, and he was giving generously.

He prepared a young goat and unleavened bread from an ephah of flour — somewhere between ten and twenty-two litres by the commentators’ reckoning. He had beaten out that grain himself, by hand, in a time of scarcity. This was a lavish, costly offering, far beyond what was merely expected. When we are moving forward in God’s will, it is going to cost something. You cannot have half measures. He was saying: I am all in — but I need to know you are the real thing.

This also reveals the competence of the man. He didn’t need to call a servant. He knew how to prepare an animal, how to bake bread, how to construct an offering. He was not an idler. He was a man who served in his father’s house in the most humble tasks, just as Jacob made the stew of lentils, just as the disciples were found working when the Lord called them. God calls for service those who are already serving.

The angel directed him: Take the meat and the unleavened bread, lay them on this rock, and pour out the broth. Then the angel put out the end of his staff, touched the meat and the bread, and fire rose out of the rock and consumed everything. The angel of the Lord departed out of his sight.

Fire from the Rock

What does this mean? It is not random Bible people doing random Bible things. There is logic to it. When God consumes a burnt offering, he is accepting it. He is saying: yes, I receive this. Yes, there is fellowship between us. This is the sign Gideon needed.

Many in the Reformed tradition emphasise God’s holiness as a consuming fire — and rightly so. But here, what does the consuming fire consume? Not the sinner. Not the disobedient. It consumes the fellowship offering and says: I accept you. We are walking together. There is no disharmony here. The consuming fire is a sign of approval, not of wrath.

Gideon realised he had seen the angel of the Lord face to face and cried: Alas, O Lord God! — fearing death. The Lord answered: Peace be with you. Do not fear. You shall not die. Peace. Not wrath. Not condemnation. The evidence of fellowship is confirmed.

The Altar: The Lord is Peace

Verse 24: So Gideon built an altar there to the Lord and called it The Lord is Peace. He has just been commissioned to go to war — to strike the Midianites as one man. And he builds an altar called The Lord is Peace. This is not a contradiction. It is the foundation. You can only do battle, only embrace your life’s calling, only do the difficult thing, if you know: it is well with my soul. The Lord has accepted me. I am at peace with God. That is the only position from which true courage flows.

Before God commanded him to tear anything down, Gideon built. He marked this moment. History matters. God says remember constantly throughout the scriptures — remember Egypt, remember the Amalekites, remember what the Lord has done. Gideon was marking what God had done here, making it concrete, making it lasting. Even when our ministry is to confront and break down, we must also be builders.

God bless you. We’ll see you in the next episode.