Conflict.
WHAT an eventful day was that for Gideon in the which, when hidden by the wine-press through fear of man, the Lord sought him out, nor left him until in a figure he had made him nigh, and given him power to confess his name, and in the teeth of all Baal’s worshippers to testify that he, a youth, “the least in his father’s house,” timid by nature, helpless and alone, would own none other than Jehovah for his God that to him, and him only, he looked for peace for down-trodden Israel, who lay so near his heart — peace which the Abi-ezrites were so vainly seeking at the hands of Baal. Nothing less than the divine energy of faith would have sufficed for this. Nature has no power under such circumstances. Its energies may carry a man very far, but it is only to make the fall the heavier. “Though I should die with thee,” said Peter, “yet will I not deny thee;” and, true to its instincts, affection seeks to follow its object even into the very midst of the scene of danger, there only to expose its utter weakness, denying — and that with oaths and curses — him whom it would nevertheless have fought for to the death! (Matt. 26:35, 51, 69-7435Peter said unto him, Though I should die with thee, yet will I not deny thee. Likewise also said all the disciples. (Matthew 26:35)
51And, behold, one of them which were with Jesus stretched out his hand, and drew his sword, and struck a servant of the high priest's, and smote off his ear. (Matthew 26:51)
69Now Peter sat without in the palace: and a damsel came unto him, saying, Thou also wast with Jesus of Galilee. 70But he denied before them all, saying, I know not what thou sayest. 71And when he was gone out into the porch, another maid saw him, and said unto them that were there, This fellow was also with Jesus of Nazareth. 72And again he denied with an oath, I do not know the man. 73And after a while came unto him they that stood by, and said to Peter, Surely thou also art one of them; for thy speech bewrayeth thee. 74Then began he to curse and to swear, saying, I know not the man. And immediately the cock crew. (Matthew 26:69‑74).) Nature can do a great many things under excitement, but in the recesses of the vineyard of Ophrah there was nothing to excite, but everything to depress its energies. Yet there, where there was no voice to applaud, no eye to gaze in admiration, he builds an altar to Jehovah, and the same love which characterized his reply to the angel’s salutation is expressed in the name by which he calls it. The Lord had spoken peace to him. Now Gideon’s supplication is, “The Lord send peace” to them. Though standing alone in his testimony, in separation from the evil they are in, he is still linked in love to them; his affections must go out after them; he cannot help but plead for them, even while raising a testimony against the grievous idolatry into which they had fallen. How different this to that Pharisaism which, while making much of “outward observances,” and mere formal separation from evil, turns in contempt on those it esteems defiled, saying, “Stand thou by thyself, for I am holier than thou.” Or that more subtle form of sanctimoniousness which, making much of a little bit of knowledge, and the acting’s founded upon and springing from it, regards with contemptuous pity those who are “ignorant and out of the way.”
“And it came to pass the same night that the Lord said unto him, Take thy father’s young bullock... and throw down the altar of Baal that thy father hath, and cut down the grove that is by it.” How readily grace responds to Gideon’s work of faith! Although as yet no eye had seen the altar he had raised, Gideon has no sooner confessed Jehovah thus, than “the same night” he owns him for his servant, and condescends to use him; instructing him, too, that before “peace” there must be “purity,” and that Jehovah cannot have an altar side by side with Baal, but that if Jehovah’s is to stand, Baal’s must be swept away. “Throw down the altar of Baal that thy father hath... and build an altar to the Lord, thy God.” This is the first time that Jehovah is called Gideon’s God: “The Lord thy God!” How gracious is the distinction thus conferred upon him! and because his “heart is not haughty, nor his eyes lofty,” he can bear to be reminded thus that of all the Abi-ezrites, to him alone Jehovah is God. Alas for them! they too were Israelites, and yet it is not “Build an altar to the Lord God of Israel,” but “the Lord thy God.” “Them that honor me I will honor;” and well for them it is when the honor given of grace does not lift them up above their brethren.
But why build a second altar when the first was yet standing? Gideon’s first altar was indeed a testimony to the truth, and a very bold one; nevertheless, as far as it had gone, it was rather of the passive than the active character. The Lord graciously accepted it as between himself and his young servant, but to be owned the testimony must be active. Religiousness, under whatever form it may present itself, can tolerate a passive testimony, and make a merit of doing so, miscalling it “charity,” “liberality,” “large-heartedness,” and other fine names, by which it seeks to quiet consciences, secretly ill at ease, and excuse its own persistence in evil. And the men of Abi-ezer appear to have raised no opposition to Gideon’s altar — “Jehovah Shalom.” They did not pull it down. “It is yet in Ophrah of the Abi-ezrites,” says the inspired writer, as if to mark this fact. Yes; if the Abi-ezrites saw it, as no doubt they did on the day following its erection, their reasoning about it would probably be very similar to that employed in more modern times: “Let us be friends. You worship the Lord, and we worship the Lord, only under different names and forms. It is hardly worthwhile to quarrel about non-essentials. You have a right to your opinion, and we to ours. We are Israelites, so are you. If you leave us to pursue our way in peace, we will do, the same by you,” and so forth. More than this, it is just possible that the more “large-hearted.” men of Abi-ezer may have boon secretly glad to see an altar raised to Jehovah. What if, thus honored and tolerated in their midst, he should indeed. “send peace”? How important to them and their families This species of large-heartedness will embrace a great deal for food and raiment. At all events, the altar did no harm standing there in the vineyard of Ophrah.
Did not the Athenians raise an altar to “The Unknown God” in a period of public distress? Is it not said that an image to Christ was even set up in the Pantheon at Rome? Yes; expediency has always been a leading feature of religiousness, and “liberality” can tolerate anything, providing it will consent to be and remain passive. Had not Ananias a “good report of all the Jews which dwelt in Damascus”? Yet was he a Christian, and without doubt a godly man.
It by no means follows that the Abi-ezrites must needs see such an altar to be a testimony against the worship of Baal, although it surely was so. Religiousness is blind; and “the heart (whence it all emanates) deceitful above all things,” as well as “desperately wicked.” The “larger” it be, therefore, the worse for those who boast its possession.
But in Gideon’s inmost soul there was conflict such as the men of Abiezer had no thought of. As he went in and out among them all the day following that “same night,” how those words, “Throw down the altar of Baal that thy father hath,” must have rung in his ears! How oft, too, must his eye have turned to look where the “grove” threw its shadow on the ground, and hid the cursed thing which mocked by its presence HIM whose grace had made him nigh! And as that shadow lengthened, so deepened the struggle in his heart, as, conscious of procrastination, an accusing conscience did but weaken while it spurred him to the deed he dared not do! How very full of trouble must his soul have been! “He could not do it by day;” nor can we wonder, for he was young and meek-hearted. And if indeed it was so that the Abi-ezrites treated him and his altar with gentleness, how would it increase his difficulty! They had let his altar stand, and must he throw theirs down? He loved the men of Abiezer, too, for they were Israelites; how, then, could he find it in his heart to do that which would be an open declaration of “war to the knife” against everything they revered as sacred, especially when they probably considered it “all the same, only under another name.” What bigotry — what narrowmindedness — what insolence — what outrage! And then, to intensify the conflict, it was his father’s altar, and can we doubt his love and reverence for his father?
But who shall write the secret history of but one heart, tried as the hearts of those who are called to any special place of service always are tried? Not “till the day shall declare it” will the details be known, nor even then but to Him whose grace supported them, and to those to whom shall be given the “white stone, and in the stone a new name written which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.”
And what had Gideon to uphold him all that long, weary day, which, as it drew towards its close, seemed all too short, because the dreaded hour of action was at hand? That one gracious word, “the Lord thy God!” Grace knows how to meet our need. “Jehovah thy God,” most suited word to Gideon’s circumstances, and spoken by HIMSELF, too, as he knows how to speak, in words so tender, yet so full of power. What though all Abiezer should be against him, was it not because Jehovah was his God, and not theirs? Why heed their universal condemnation of his act, when the cause of it lay in that precious word, “the Lord thy God”? What though it was his father’s altar that he must throw down — a father’s feelings he must wound — a father’s condemnation he must bear? Very dear to his affectionate heart that father doubtless was, but dearer still the Lord his God! While he fed upon that word, and kept the eye of faith full on him who spoke it, his soul would be in peace. But when his eye turned upon the men of Abiezer, and their thoughts and ways, their power to harm and rage against him; when his father, who evidently loved him even more than he loved his idol Baal, crossed his mental vision, and the insult he was about to cast upon him came in all its breadth before him; when, looking at himself, he contemplated his own insignificance, his solitariness in all that crowd of Abiezrites, his heart must indeed have failed him, and full sore must he have found the conflict.
But the Lord his God was with him in it all. The day declined at last — the night drew on: patient grace had borne with his procrastination, and now the hour for action had arrived. “Then Gideon took ten men of his servants, and did as the Lord had said unto him.” And there, beneath the star-lit canopy of heaven, trampling underfoot the lordship of Baal, surrounded by the ruins of his altar and felled grove, he raised an altar to the Lord his God; and though in conflict still, yet victor by faith over his own fears and all the power of the adversary, he drew near and offered a burnt sacrifice to Jehovah. Thus a priest unto God, though not of the tribe of Levi, but, better still, made nigh in a figure by grace, he stood a lonely worshipper, called out and separated from the multitude around, wholly given to idolatry; and as he turned the grove of Baal to ashes, and the flame of the burnt sacrifice went up to heaven, who can doubt but that his heart rose with it in praise and adoration to him who had given him a place so blessed, and had led him on, in spite of all his fears and failure, to take it? Surely the believer, as he contemplates this scene in Ophrah of the Abi-ezrites, may well be reminded by it of the more blessed position into which he is brought; and as he meditates upon the grace of Christ Jesus, the true Burnt Sacrifice, in whom and by whose precious blood he is made nigh — not now in a figure, but in truth and verity — may his heart, too, ascend in praise and thanksgiving to him who to accomplish all for us stooped not merely to sit beneath the oak of an idolater, and to touch with a staff the kid and unleavened cakes, but himself was smitten, wounded, nailed to the cursed tree, numbered with transgressors, and poured out his soul unto death, “even the death of the cross.”
And can the unbeliever look unmoved upon all this? Will a nominal position meet your need in the hour of death and judgment?