PART B OF THE PLAN FOR GIDEON

 Image result for CLIP ART OFTWO BULLSI could be wrong, but Gideon has gotten over the shock of speaking with the LORD, HIMSELF, and is still alive, but now, the LORD comes to him the same night and reveals Part B to the plan of taking down Midian, and this will require more gumption and daring obedience from Gideon!  

The LORD announces to Gideon: 1.  Take your father's bull and a second bull.  Gideon is to use them to pull down his father's altar to the Baal and  the Asherah (Canaanite god and goddess of fertility.  The people were synergistic in their worship: a little allegiance to the GOD of Israel and too much allegiance to idols.  ). 2.  He is to build an altar to the "LORD your GOD" and sacrifice the second bull using the wood from the Asherah for the fire.  Gideon now gets to see the ire of his father and unbeknown to him, the whole city.  He uses 10 of his father's men to take the two bulls and tear down the altar and the idols, but because of his fear of his father, he completes the assignment at night.  

Undoubtedly, the whole city worshiped the idols and when they see the idols are down and the ashes, they inquire among themselves who would have "cut down" the Baal and Asherah. Secrets are so impossible to be kept!  It is revealed that the culprit is Gideon and they want him killed for such a dastardly deed. They are devout in their worship of the idols.  His father, Joash, is called out to give an account.  I love his bottom line:  "Let Baal content against him because he has torn down his altar."  Joshua 6:32.  Joash seem to be saying,"If this god cannot save himself, then he is not worth our worship."  Maybe this is again God's reality check for the sons of Israel.  Gideon has survived this assignment and now, ready or not, he will focus on THE PLAN to take down the Midianites. 

We are not told in the record the purpose of destroying the idols .  I wonder if it was God's way of building Gideon's courage and his obedience?  Again, God uses one man to perhaps wake up a whole city.  We will see Gideon rise to the assignment that God empowers him to accomplish.  Will God use one man to accomplish HIS plan and purpose for a group of people?  How influential is one life?  What if one life unifies and draws a group together to accomplish?  Psalm 138:8 NAS, "The LORD will accomplish what concerns me; Thy lovingkindness, O LORD, is everlasting; Do not forsake the works of Thy hands."  Does Father God ever require or ask something of you that makes no sense to you?  I am learning from the experiences of the last months, that GOD KNOWS EXACTLY WHAT HE IS DOING  whether it makes sense to me or not, and I can settle into praise, thanksgiving, and faith, or I can settle into fuming, fretting, and stewing.  Choose you this day!  #IHAVETHREESONS 

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