Naas Presbyterian Church

What does this chapter remind you of? There’s a woman who is visited by an angel with the news that she’s going to have a baby even though she was sterile (v. 3). The son she gives birth to is to be set apart to serve the Lord (v. 5). Furthermore, he will save God’s people. It reminds us of the angel who appeared to Mary to tell her she would give birth to a baby even though she was a virgin. The son Mary was going to have would also be set apart for the Lord. What’s more, he would save God’s people from their sins and give them eternal life. The story of Samson points the believer forward to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Jephthah was able to conquer Israel’s enemies, but he did not bring peace to Israel: the Ephraimites turned on him and on the people of Gilead (vv. 1–6). Then there was a succession of other leaders who led the people of Israel for a time until they died (vv. 8–15). What God’s people needed was a king who would conquer their enemies, and unite them together, and rule over them for ever. In the Lord Jesus we have such a king, who by his death and resurrection defeated sin, death and the Devil, and who unites believers together across the nations, and whose reign will never come to an end.

In order to win God’s favour so that God would give him victory over his enemies, Jephthah offered to sacrifice something to God. Tragically, what he ended up having to sacrifice was his only daughter. While we don’t go as far as Jephthah did, we often think along the same lines: that in order to win God’s favour, we must make some great sacrifice for him or we must do something for him. We forget, therefore, that Christ offered himself as the once-for-all, never-to-be-repeated, perfect and sufficient sacrifice to reconcile us to God forever. Having been reconciled to God through faith in Christ and his sacrifice, we don’t need to sacrifice anything more to win his favour: Christ’s sacrifice was enough.

When, in verse 10, the Israelites confessed their sins but held on to the false gods, God refused to answer them. However, when, in verse 16, they confessed their sins and got rid of their false gods, then the Lord answered. By this we are taught that we must not only confess our sins, but we must give them up. As the our church’s catechism teaches: ‘Repentance leading to life is a saving grace by which a sinner having truly realised his sin and grasped the mercy of God in Christ, *turns from his sin* with grief and hatred and turns to God *with full resolve and effort* after new obedience.’

In the first part of this chapter, Jotham warned that the people of Shechem would be hurt not helped by Abimelech and that he too would be harmed because of his relationship with them. In the second half of the chapter we see that Jotham was right: on the first day Abimelech launched an attack on Gaal and the citizens of Shechem. On the second day, he attacked them again and destroyed the city. Those taking refuge in the stronghold were burned and died. However, in another attack, Abimelech himself was killed. At the end of the chapter we read that God had thus repaid Abimelech and the people of Shechem for their wickedness.

Abimelech proved to be a false Saviour: he promised to protect the people of Shechem, but he ended up destroying them. People today have lots of false Saviours: things they’re trusting in which cannot help them. But Jesus is the true Saviour who died to give us eternal life and who now is protecting us and all his people from his throne in heaven.

The people of the city of Shechem were Cannaanites and not Israelites. In other words, they were not part of God’s people. Gideon’s son, Abimelech, offers to be their king and murdered all his half-brothers except Jotham who managed to escape. Jotham warns the people of Shechem that Abimelech will not be a good king. Just as a thornbush cannot provide any protection but can only harm whatever comes near to it, so Abimelech will not be able to protect the people of Shechem and they will only be hurt by him. He too will be harmed by his relationship with them.

Believers today may thank God that, unlike Abimelech, Jesus Christ is a perfect king and all who come to him will find life and not death, joy and not sorrow.

There is much in this chapter which disturbs us. First of all, there is the way Gideon ruthlessly gets his own back on the people of Succoth and Peniel for refusing to help Gideon and his men (vv. 13–17). We see as well that he was acting partly out of personal revenge whenever he pursued and killed Zebah and Zalmunna (v. 19). Gideon’s ephod became a snare which caused the people to turn away from the true worship of God. And, in the end, once Gideon dies, the people turned back to worshipping false gods. The Lord Jesus is a far better leader than Gideon for at least two reasons. First of all, he never did anything wrong and so he never did anything which causes us shame or embarrassment. We never have to make excuses for the Lord Jesus. Secondly, Gideon died and the people went further astray. However, Jesus died to bring us to God.

God said that those who kneeled to drink should be sent home. This had nothing to do with who was going to be the better soldier. God simply wanted to reduce the size of Gideon’s army to a small number because God always saves his people in a way which will cause us to praise him. By saving his people with only 300 men, everyone who heard about it would say: ‘Isn’t God great the way he saved his people: the only reason Gideon and his army won was because God was with them.’ God saves us from our sins and from eternal condemnation in a way that causes us to praise him. He saves us by his Son who died on the cross to pay for our sins. When we finally come into the presence of God in eternity, no one will be boasting about themselves and what they have done. We’ll all be boasting about God and what he did to save us by his Son.

God sent Gideon on a mission to destroy the idols and false gods the Israelites were worshipping so that they would return to the one true God. And Gideon risked his life in the process: the people were mad with him and wanted to kill him. But he risked his life out of obedience to God and he rescued the people from idolatry and false worship. Well, the Lord Jesus not only risked his life, but he lost his life out of obedience to God. God the Father sent him into the world to suffer and to die in our place on the cross in order to bring us to the one true God. And out of obedience to his Father, and in order to bring us to God, Jesus died on the cross.

Most of the stories in the Bible are about men. But there are some which are about women and what they did. Can you think of any? There was Ruth who married Boaz and gave birth to David’s grand-father. There was the girl who advised Naaman the leper to visit Elisha. There was Esther who saved her people from being wiped out by Haman. There was Mary, of course. And there’s this story about Deborah and Jael. Once again, God’s people sinned against him and did evil in his sight. In order to humble them, God allowed their enemies to overwhelm them. When they turned back to God, God was merciful and saved them by Jael’s hand. How surprising! That this mighty warrior Jabin should be beaten by a woman! Who would imagine it! And very few people imagined that Jesus was the Son of God and that by his death on the cross God was saving his people from their sins. Who could have guessed that this was the way God would save us. But that’s precisely what he did.