The Lutheran Hour
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"Gideon, the Farmer General"
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Text: Judges 6:1-8:27
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The Bible gives us a picture of God: one we can understand. He is a God of action. In the event, and even in remembrance of the event, He speaks to men. Through the history of long ago, as we shall discover today and in coming weeks of this broadcast, God’s Word talks to the needs of modern man.
Why all those stories from long ago, about Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon, Gideon, and the rest, the stories sometimes called obscene because people insist on making of God’s Word a goody-goody book about pretty people who never really existed except in the imagination of an ancient scribe?
The Bible does not dress up its characters. They are real people like us! Passions carry them away, as passions cause people to do crazy things today. Envy and greed corrode and corrupt character as they do today. The biblical story of one of the purest young men in history, headed for a position of power seldom held by even the most important figures of history, is marked by a seduction scene that was not dreamed up by a naturalistic novelist. The searing sarcasm of David’s general, reporting the death of Uriah whose only offense was that he got in the way of the king’s illicit desires, for sheer laconic ferocity is beyond the reach of a writer of fiction. This has to be history.
Bible history is a special kind of history. It is more than accurate reporting of what actually occurred. It is the story of God’s action among men, men as they can and do respond to, or rebel against, the goodness and power of a just yet gracious God. This is God the way He is, and this is men the way they are.
Today’s story, about the farmer general, begins in chapter 6 of the book of Judges.
Gideon is a much misunderstood man, largely because pious people have tried to make him out to be what he was not, a hero. A hero neither at the beginning nor at the end of his military career, Gideon is the central figure in a slice of history whose main object is to make one point: no one can predict how the goodness and grace of God will go to work in behalf of men. When God acts, all predictions and projections go out the window.
When we meet him, Gideon is a rustic lout. The children of Israel, having deserted their God, have been delivered into the hand of Midian. For seven oppressive years, they have tried to make out a living in dens and caves to escape the depredations of their conquerors.
Just about at harvest time each year, the Midianites with their allies the Amalekites came up to rob and plunder for no other reason than to keep Israel poor and subjugated. In their desperation, the people cried out to the Lord for help. God hears, and God acts. The angel of the Lord came to a man named Gideon and said to him, “The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valor.”
The divine irony of this statement was never more clear to anyone than it was to this farmer. All of his brothers had been killed in valiant attempts to throw off the Midianite yoke. Now all that was left was a collection of the crushed and cowardly, of whom he himself was a first-class example. Indeed, at the moment he was occupied with threshing the little bit of wheat left to him, for fear that he would be seen by the Midianites.
Gideon was an honest if not a brave man. He did not take the Lord too seriously. With peasant bluntness, he set the divine spokesman right: “If the Lord be with us,” he said, “why then has all this befallen us? Where be all these miracles which our fathers told us of, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up out of Egypt?’ But now the Lord hath forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites.” A perfect representative of a dispirited and defeated people, Gideon was neither a stalwart defender of the true God nor an outright unbeliever. He was just a non-believer, satisfied to be alive. He was “nothing,” as people often refer to themselves today when they have no particular faith and still do not want to be known as atheists. What is more, he was content to be nothing.
The Lord looked on Gideon and said, “Go in this thy might, and thou shalt save Israel from the hand of the Midianites.” Gideon protested: “Who, me? My might? Who would follow me? I am not a hero, and I am not the stuff out of which heroes are made.” The Lord replied quietly, “Have not I sent thee?”
“How can I save Israel?” interrupted Gideon. “Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh and I am a nobody, even in my father’s house.” Again, the Lord replied, “Surely, I will be with you and you will smite the Midianites as one man.”
Gideon was a farmer. He had to be shown. The Lord showed him. Sending fire to consume the meat and bread which Gideon had laid out on a rock, the Lord showed him and Gideon believed! From that moment on, whenever Gideon listened to the Lord, people listened to him! Gideon could not explain it, and they could not explain it, but they listened.
The first project to test the faith of the farmer was an assignment from the Lord to cut down the grove of Baal, the Philistine god whom Gideon’s father in desperation had elected to worship. Taking 10 men of his own household, Gideon cut down the grove by night, afraid of what would happen to him if he did it during the daytime. The next day, when people asked who had done it, the word got around, “Gideon, the son of Joash, has done this thing.” Ready to execute him for the deed, the people of the community were dissuaded only by the protests of Gideon’s father: “If Baal be a god, let him plead for himself, because one has cast down his altar.”
The Midianites and the Amalekites were gathered together in the valley of Jezreel. By the power of the Lord (the only power he had), Gideon sent messengers throughout all Manasseh, as well as to Asher and Zebulun and Naphtali. Their representatives came to meet him. Gideon listened to the Lord, and people listened to him.
Seeing a newer sign of the Lord’s intent, Gideon was rewarded with dew upon the fleece of wool he had set out on the floor, while everything else around it remained dry. Not satisfied, he asked that the miracle be reversed the following morning; it was. The representatives of the various tribes were impressed. When Gideon listened to the Lord, people listened to him.
The grove and the fleece were only the warm up for the real thing. By this time, the Bible tells us, the Spirit of the Lord had put on Gideon the way a man puts on his coat to brave the elements. What was to come would be the Lord’s work, not Gideon’s.
Now for the big operation! A nondescript army of 32,000 came together to oppose 120,000 of the Midianites and Amalekites. “Too many!” said the Lord. Not too many Midianites, too many of His own people. It was to be the Lord’s work, and His alone. Responding to the Lord’s injunction, probably against his own better judgment, Gideon told those of his own people who were fearful and afraid to return to their homes: 22,000 did. 10,000 were left.
“Still too many,” said the Lord. There followed the operation at the spring, and 300 cowards were found who drank silently, lapping the water with their tongues as a dog laps, covering their mouths with their hands so that the Midianites would not hear them. All the rest were sent home.
Beneath, in the valley, lay the host of Midian. After one more sign, given to Gideon when he and a trusted follower made a spying expedition to the camp of the Midianites, God was ready. Now Gideon was ready, too.
Dividing the 300 men into three companies, Gideon put a trumpet in every man’s hand, with empty pitchers and lamps within the pitchers. The signal for action was to be the blowing of his own trumpet. With that blast, every man was to blow and to cry out, “The sword of the Lord, and of Gideon!”
You can read the rest of the story in the seventh chapter of Judges. Gideon might have thought, as Paddy Chayefsky has him say in the play, Gideon, that the Midianites would respond with the derisive comment, “What’s all this tootling about?” Gideon listened, however. God acted.
Victory was complete. It was the Lord’s victory.
This farmer had no West Point credentials. He did not need any. In spite of the immensity of the problem, the lack of manpower to deal with it, and his own personal inadequacy—indeed his own outright inability to provide leadership—the victory was complete. Whatever fighting took place was between Midianite and Midianite or between Midianite and Amalekite. In the confusion, the great host destroyed itself, as remnants of the once proud army fled pell-mell down the valley.
The Lord is awake. Though His people forget Him and even abuse His patience, when they cry out to Him for help, the Lord hears. The Lord hears, because He loves. It seems impossible that the great God could love a world like ours, which turns its back on Him, is contemptuous of His power, and makes fun of His kindness. It seems impossible, but it is true. God is a God of action. His love expressed itself in action. The entire Bible portrays God in action, culminating in the greatest action of all: the sending of His own Son into human history, to be one of us.
The Lord loved this farmer and made him a general, in spite of himself. The Lord loved His people and gave them victory in spite of themselves. The Lord loves mankind and sent His Son to pay the penalty for their sins in spite of their indifference toward His Word and their neglect of His will. The Lord loves you, in spite of what you have been or what you are.
God is a God of action. He is just, and He forgives. Himself having paid the price for human rebellion on the cross of Christ, by His own great action in human history, having paid the penalty in making atonement for all sin in the Person of Jesus Christ, He proclaims forgiveness to all, including you. His love knows no bounds. It includes you.
As Gideon discovered, living with the love of God is not easy. We have to take God as He is. He is truth. Where people had been saying, “The sword of the Lord, and of Gideon,” they now began to alter their war cry ever so slightly to “The sword of Gideon—and of the Lord.” People tried to make Gideon out to be a hero, pleading with him to become a hereditary king. He replied, “I will not rule over you. Neither shall my son rule over you: the Lord shall rule over you.”
Very admirable! Sooner or later, however, pride begins to assert itself. If people tell you often enough that you are a hero, you begin to believe it. Gideon began to believe it. Collecting all the gold of Israel, including the earrings taken from their foes, 1700 shekels worth, besides the ornaments, colors, and purple raiment worn by the kings of Midian, and the chains about their camels’ necks, Gideon made an ephod, a kind of priestly garment which could stand by itself, out of this gold, and set it up near his home. It became a shrine, “And all Israel went thither a whoring after it, which,” the Bible tells us, “became a snare unto Gideon, and to his house.” Gideon forgot who the real hero was; so did the people. It’s easy to forget the Lord; it is difficult to live with His love.
When shall we learn to live with the love of God, giving Him the glory and depending upon Him for His grace and kindness? It is not easy. It goes against our grain, since we would rather get glory for ourselves and depend upon our own resources. Being men, that’s the way we are.
God is great in His goodness. Men become great only when they learn to depend upon God and His goodness. Goodness and greatness do not come to men easily. Dependence upon God goes down hard. Life is complicated, and its problems are too great to be entrusted to God. We have to take care of ourselves.
Our world today is engaged in a Cold War, which could easily become a hot and shooting war. The end is not yet in sight. What is to be done? If only this great problem could be removed, everything would be all right. Would it? If the present problem were to be removed, another could take its place more dreadful in potentialities than the one we know now.
The answer to our problem is to be found not in ourselves, but in God’s resources, given in grace and accepted in faith. What is faith, if it is not faith in God? What is faith in God, if it is not trust in the good purpose of God, accompanied by obedience to His will as He unfolds His purposes and makes them clear?
Faith in God is not passive and inactive. It is faith in a God of action. “He that keeps Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps.” Faith in Him does not go to sleep. It is ready for action, listening to His call and following His good and gracious will. Accepting His forgiveness, acknowledging His watchful care, and warming to His ever-present love, faith in God makes a man ready to live. This is what the Bible means when it says, “A man who is just by faith will live.”
If there’s anything heroic in life, it is to live by faith. This takes real courage: to listen to God and then to be ready for the impossible in the great line of the faithful who, having come to know God in Jesus Christ, have always been ready to say with St. Paul: I can do all things. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Amen.
Reflections for August 24, 2025
Title: Gideon, the Farmer GeneralMark Eischer: Dr. Oswald Hoffmann tells the story of Gideon, the farmer general, part of “Archives August,” today on The Lutheran Hour. I’m Mark Eischer. Glad to be with you as we continue to explore the archives of The Lutheran Hour to bring you classic messages from past Speakers. This is something you can do, as well. Go to lutheranhour.org and click on “Sermon Archives.” Now, to introduce today’s message, here is Lutheran Hour Speaker, Dr. Michael Zeigler.
Michael Zeigler: Thank you, Mark. In the studio with me today is Pastor Ryan Tinetti. He was a parish pastor for 14 years, [and] now is a professor at Concordia Seminary here in St. Louis. Welcome back to the program, Ryan.
Ryan Tinetti: Thanks. Good to be here.
Michael Zeigler: Ryan, you’ve been a pastor for a good long time. Something that people ask pastors often is this question: “Where is God in all of this?” We find ourselves [experiencing] all this stuff of life, and not just randomness, but frightening things that happen. I hear people say, more and more often, “It seems like things are getting worse, and what’s going to happen, and where’s all this going, and where’s God in all this?” And the account from the Old Testament we’re going to hear in the sermon today that was first broadcast in the summer of 1963, it opens with a figure, a character who’s asking just that: “Where is God in all of this?” And if you think about the context of this sermon, 1963, just the fall before, 1962 was the Cuban Missile Crisis, 13-day confrontation between the United States and the former Soviet Union, probably the closest the world has ever come to complete nuclear Armageddon. And Dr. Hoffmannn, Oswald Hoffmannn is preaching this sermon about Gideon, and he even references the Cold War in this sermon. So he’s talking about Gideon, this guy, he’s got questions. Where’s God in all of this? Ryan, help us remember, where does Gideon fit into this bigger story of the Bible and the Old Testament?
Ryan Tinetti: Sure. I mean, for a lot of people, this isn’t necessarily a very familiar story or character, so it’s helpful to situate it a little bit. The story of Gideon comes in the book of Judges, and the judges are a period in Israel’s history, this is after the exodus and the wandering in the wilderness and then the conquest into the Promised Land. They’re dwelling in the Promised Land, but it predates the time of the kings. Saul would be the first king, and of course, then David and Solomon, and so on. And so, it’s this in-between period where they’re in the Promised Land, they don’t yet have the kings. And instead in this time where they’re sort of a tribal league, as some commentators have called it, they are not ruled but cared for in God’s care and His providence through judges whom He raises up in order to deal with particular problems and enemies that are troubling Israel. And so, it is in the time of Gideon, as Pastor Hoffmann will bring out in the course of his sermon, the Amalekites and the Midianites [are] coming in after the people of God. And so, God raises up this particular judge, Gideon.
Michael Zeigler: All right, here’s this sermon from the summer of 1963, by Dr. Hoffmann.
(Commentary resumes after the sermon)
Mark Eischer: You’re listening to The Lutheran Hour. For FREE online resources, archived audio, and more, go to lutheranhour.org. Now, back to Lutheran Hour Speaker, Dr. Michael Zeigler and his guest, Dr. Ryan Tinetti.
Michael Zeigler: Thank you, Mark. What a powerful sermon from Dr. Hoffmann. If you think, this is the summer of 1963 and [in] just a few months, President Kennedy’s going to be assassinated. And this word that comes from the preacher, from this kind of obscure Old Testament event and strange events and an unlikely figure in Gideon. But what Dr. Hoffmann has emphasized in this sermon is that God is a God of action, that He speaks through actions. So, Pastor Tinetti, we’ve been talking about how God reveals Himself through characters, through figures in the Old Testament. Let’s talk some more about how God speaks and reveals Himself through events, through actions.
Ryan Tinetti: We see throughout—not just the Old Testament, New Testament as well, and continued in through history—that God works in surprising and unexpected ways. And in particular when you see a story like Gideon, and Gideon’s problem is not that he doesn’t have enough soldiers to go up against this foe, but instead his problem, God says, you’ve got too many!
Michael Zeigler: I am going to save you with 300 cowards!
Ryan Tinetti: Exactly, with the dog lappers. But this is typical of the ways that God is going to work through history, that He’s going to work in these ways, that, as [Dr. Hoffmann] says in the course of the sermon, that no one can predict. No one can predict how the goodness and grace of God will go to work on behalf of men.
Michael Zeigler: And this theme is certainly carried forward in the life of Jesus. So the events of how God saves Israel through Gideon, in a way, anticipate how He’s going to save and work through the life of Jesus.
Ryan Tinetti: All of those Old Testament stories, in a sense, are preparing us, not giving us necessarily perfect pictures of how it’s going to happen, but preparing us for a God who’s going to work in a way that you could not anticipate.
Michael Zeigler: Unpredictability is the key thing. So be ready to be surprised, but here’s some patterns that’ll help you notice the surprise when it happens. And so, God saves Israel through this—I love how Dr. Hoffmann says, “What is this tootling?” you know, the horns? Why on earth would breaking glass and horns playing in the night, why would that have victory over this massive army of 120,000 people? In human terms, in military science, there’s no reason this should work. It’s really foolish.
Ryan Tinetti: It’s foolish. And again, we’ve talked about the characters and Moses, the stuttering man of destiny, and now Gideon, the farmer general, who, as Hoffmann points out, is what we’d say in contemporary parlance kind of a “none.” He’s not a rank unbeliever, but neither is he a passionate advocate for the God of Israel. He’s just kind of like, ‘Eh, are we sure?”
Michael Zeigler: Where’s God? Where are all these miracles we’ve heard about?
Ryan Tinetti: If He’s so great and so powerful, why hasn’t He acted for us before?
Michael Zeigler: I love how he says [Gideon’s] content to be nothing.
Ryan Tinetti: He’s content to be nothing. And this was 60 years ago, resonates with today, too, that so many of us, and even for those of us who profess to be believers in Christ, how often can in our own lives, we can act in ways that would deny the faith that we have. And yet God is still active and working. He’s a God of action, and He’s going to act in these ways that we couldn’t expect. And through people that are surprising.
Michael Zeigler: So, as Dr. Hoffmann said, that God is a God of action, and this action is culminating. It culminates in Jesus; it’s unpredictable; it looks foolish, but it actually is effective and powerful. So, reading the Old Testament, it primes us, gets us ready to see Jesus more clearly. And then also when we turn back to our lives, in the dog days of summer, in the mix, to see how God is also working through these unpredictable ways. You’ve heard, I’m sure, countless stories of people who look back on their lives and say, “I never would’ve thought God worked, could have even worked through that. And yet in hindsight, I can see it.”
Ryan Tinetti: I think that the mantra for the people of God is always to expect the unexpected when it comes to our Lord. And yeah, I’ve seen it, heard it in so many countless stories where folks would say, “I never would have drawn it up that way, if I could say this is how my life should go. And yet in retrospect, I can see how God is working through that.” And so, it is through all of history and these times and these things that we think things are out of control, and where is God in the midst of this? And yet He shows Himself to be a kind and patient and goodly Lord in the midst of all of those vicissitudes of history.
Michael Zeigler: And then, when we can look back and see it on the other side, how it all came together, the glory is all His. We can’t claim any of it on our own. We never would’ve predicted it that way.
Ryan Tinetti: We never would’ve predicted it that way. But we doff our cap and we bow our heads and we say, “Lord, You are good. You are faithful, and Your mercy endures forever.”
Music Selections for this program:
“A Mighty Fortress” arr. Peter Prochnow. Used by permission.
“Crucifer” by Sydney H. Nicholson, arr. Peter Prochnow. Used by permission.
“We Walk by Faith and Not by Sight” arr. Kenneth Kosche. (© 2011 MorningStar Music)
“A Multitude Comes from the East and the West” From The Concordia Organist (© 2009 Concordia Publishing House) Used by permission.