Judges 6:25
That night the Lord said to him, “Take your father’s bull, and the second bull seven years old, and pull down the altar of Baal that your father has, and cut down the Asherah that is beside it and build an altar to the Lord your God on the top of the stronghold here, with stones laid in due order. Then take the second bull and offer it as a burnt offering with the wood of the Asherah that you shall cut down.” So Gideon took ten men of his servants and did as the Lord had told him. But because he was too afraid of his family and the men of the town to do it by day, he did it by night
Exodus 34:13
You shall tear down their altars and break their pillars and cut down their Asherim (for you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God), lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and when they whore after their gods and sacrifice to their gods and you are invited, you eat of his sacrifice, and you take of their daughters for your sons, and their daughters whore after their gods and make your sons whore after their gods.
More than 500 years prior to Gideon God gave the Israelites a command and warning. Tear down these false idols for they worship a false god. Tear them down because it will be very easy for you to join them and follow the ways of those who do not worship Me the true God. As I look at our culture it seems this is still true for us today. Easy to adopt the ways of the culture. I wonder if this is due to our lack of spending time in His word.
Gideon was from the weakest clan and least in his fathers house. God chose him. Gideon was willing yet he still had that human part of doubt when he asked – how can “I “save Israel. It is natural for us to look at our weaknesses and automatically assume God can not use us. Moses said something similar – I cannot speak to pharaoh or lead the Israelites as I am weak in speech and stutter. We may have weaknesses but it is not in our strength that God will use us. More than likely it will be in our weaknesses. I think we turn our ears off to hearing God speak into our lives because what we hear is telling us to do something we have no strength or ability in our own power to accomplish. It is in His strength, power and might not ours. It is though faith in His strength, power and might that we are able to say yes Lord I will do it. We do need to take that step forward even with all of the questions pounding around in our head. Like one of the old hymns put it “listen and obey for there is no other way to be happy in Jesus, listen and obey”
