The great thing about cessationist thinking (God doesn’t operate in miracles any more) is that you never have to wonder if God has just spoken to you or pray your heart out for a miracle. If you do believe that God still intervenes in your life in direct ways, then you will wonder, at times, if you just heard the voice of God or another voice.

Gideon faced that same dilemma. Suddenly, out of nowhere he had experienced an angelic visitation and had begun to hear from the Lord directly. Apparently, this was somewhat new to our reluctant hero and he had some concerns. His strategy was to ask for signs of confirmation that he was hearing from the Lord and not from a weird well of subconscious fantasies. In the 6^th chapter of Judges we read, “Gideon said to God, ‘If you will save Israel by my hand as you have promised – look, I will place a wool fleece on the threshing floor. If there is dew only in the fleece and all the ground is dry, then I will know that you will save Israel by my hand as you said. And that is what happened’” (Jud.6:36-37). Interestingly, after God provided that sign for Gideon, Gideon asked him to reverse the process the next morning just for good measure.

Although this sounds like a real lack of faith, God did not rebuke him for being so careful. After all, the fleece thing could have just been a weird meteorological phenomenon. Gideon demonstrates an important principle in knowing God’s will for your life. Sometimes, what we believe we are hearing God tell us needs to be confirmed before we move ahead. There are several examples in scripture of men asking for clarification and confirmation when a dream, a word from God, or a prophetic word pointed them in a radically new direction for their life.

Gideon had already asked for the sign that the words the angel had spoken to him were from God. The angel touched the offering that Gideon had placed on a stone and it burst into flames as the angel disappeared.   You might think that this display was confirmation enough, but Gideon still doubted his own capacity to hear God clearly and wanted to make sure he was not being deceived by the enemy. God didn’t seem to be offended by his request for confirmations. After all, God had instructed him to “go in the strength that he had.” He was going… but carefully.

In 1 Samuel 14, we see another example of a fleece or a confirmation. In this example, Jonathan got the notion that he and his armor bearer were to assault a Philistine garrison by themselves. Jonathan said, “Come, lets go over to the outpost of these uncircumcised fellows. Perhaps, the Lord will act in our behalf.” For confirmation, Jonathan put out a fleece. “We will cross over toward the men and let them see us. If they say to us, ‘Wait there until we come to you,’ we will stay where we are. But if they say, ‘Come up to us,’ we will climb up, because that will be our sign that the Lord has given them into our hands.” The sign was given and God gave the entire garrison into the hands of Jonathan and his armor bearer.

In the old tabernacle, there was something called the Urim and Thummim that were maintained by the priests. No one knows exactly what they were, but God communicated through them and godly leaders would often go to priest and ask for confirmation about whether they should go into battle or not against a neighboring tribe. The priest would consult the Lord through these objects and give the leader confirmation as to whether his prompting to go into battle was from the Lord or not.

In the New Testament, God also confirmed his word with signs. In Acts 10, we are told how God extended the first formal invitation to enter the Kingdom of God to Gentiles. Remember that the church was opened first only to Jews. It was considered “unlawful” for Jews to fellowship with Gentiles. One day, Peter was praying at noontime. As he prayed, he fell into a trance in which he saw a sheet full of unclean animals being lowered from heaven with the command for him to kill and eat some of the animals. Peter, being kosher, refused to do so. In his vision, the sheet was lowered three times and he was told not to call anything impure that God had declared to be clean. As Peter awoke from the vision, three “unclean men” (Gentiles) were asking for him. Their presence confirmed the dream and the understanding that God had opened the kingdom up to the Gentiles as well as to the Jews.

There are many other examples of signs confirming the word of God that had come to someone in an unexpected way. The fleece was not the last time Gideon received a sign. As God brought him to the day of battle against Midian, he told Gideon that if he were still afraid, he could sneak into the enemy camp that night for another sign of confirmation that God was going to use him to deliver Israel from their oppressors. Gideon took God up on the invitation, sneaked into the camp, and heard two soldiers talking about a dream, which they interpreted as confirmation of their defeat at the hands of Gideon (Jud.7:13-15). That confirmation gave Gideon the faith to lead Israel into battle in a most unlikely way.

I don’t think we need to seek confirmation on everything we are hearing from the Lord –especially when it clearly lines up with scripture. But on life-altering decisions – marriage, a move to a mission field, a significant career change, adoptions, a church, etc. – asking for confirmation of your direction through signs that confirm what you believe you are hearing from the Lord is a biblical principle you may want to employ. Blessings today in all you do.

When we encounter Gideon in the sixth chapter of Judges, he is hiding his meager harvest from the Midianites. He seems almost timid as an angel of the Lord begins a discussion with him and refers to him as mighty warrior. I’m fairly certain that Gideon had no military background and certainly would have not been thought of as a mighty warrior by anyone – especially himself. And yet, God sees us primarily as who we are going to be, rather than who we are today. The angel was making a prophetic declaration over Gideon, calling out God’s plan for this man by calling him a mighty warrior. We also would do well to call out goodness and greatness in one another instead of pointing out all the flaws and failings that we see. We can do so because we know that the Spirit of God is within every believer and it is his plan to make each of us both good and great in his Son.

The second thing the angel said to him was to “go in the strength that he had” and deliver Israel from the hands of Midian. The Lord new Gideon’s resources and capacity better than Gideon did. He will never send us to do what we have no capacity to do because he has already designed us for that very thing (Ps.139:13-16). We may be unaware of our ability but God is not. The Lord promised that he would resource Gideon for the mission by saying “Am I not sending you?” If the Lord assigns us, he will also resource us to complete the assignment. In the Lord, we are never on our own when we are walking in his will.

But, let’s be honest. Most of us don’t feel that way when we face a crisis, a hardship, or a challenge. Most of us feel just as Gideon felt when he responded, “How can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family” (Jud.6:15). The Lord replied, “I will be with you and you will strike down all the Midianites together.” Remember that Gideon was not sure that the man speaking to him was an angel. He, perhaps, sensed that the man was a prophet speaking on behalf of the Lord, but it was a strange conversation all the same. At that point, Gideon asked a very honest thing – “give me a sign so that I can know it is really you (the Lord) talking to me.”

I think that he was not only being honest but also wise. God was asking him to step out into a life-changing assignment – even a life threatening assignment. In all likelihood, he had never heard from the Lord before, or at least rarely, so he was asking for confirmation. Asking for confirmation, is not doubting God, but is recognition that the voice we are hearing may not be from him or that our discernment may be faulty. It is one way to test the spirits (1 Jn.4:1). So, Gideon asked for a sign. The angel wasn’t offended. He told Gideon to place a young goat and some unleavened bread on a rock as an offering to the Lord. The angel then touched it with the tip of his staff and it was consumed by fire just as the angel disappeared.

Gideon’s response was a normal response in the face of a supernatural experience. He was afraid and thought that he might die because he had seen the angel of the Lord face to face. But the Lord spoke to him and told him not to be afraid. He first heard the voice of God through an angel and then directly so that he could begin to recognize and trust the voice. We have to go through a similar process. We will often hear from the Lord through another person first – a word of knowledge, a prophetic word, a teaching that we know was from the Lord just for us, etc. Eventually we will begin to hear his voice internally. We have to hear from the Lord often enough that we recognize his voice as sheep recognizing the voice of the shepherd. Then we can respond with confidence that the Lord has shared his heart or wisdom with us.

That same evening, while the voice of the Lord was still fresh in Gideon’s mind, the Lord told Gideon to tear down his father’s altar to Baal and to cut down his Asherah pole and then to offer a proper sacrifice to God on an altar Gideon built using the wood from the Asherah pole for fire. The text says, “So Gideon took ten of his servants and did as the Lord told him. But because he was afraid of his family and of the men of his town, he did it at night…” (Jud.6:27). Fear comes up three times in the story of Gideon so we know he was not a fearless, faith-filled warrior but a common man trying to serve God. Yet, in the face of fear he moved ahead in obedience.

There will be times that our flesh will be afraid but our spirit will move ahead in faith, choosing to trust God rather than to obey our emotions. Feeling fear does not disqualify us if we do not give into the fear. God also gives us time to grow in faith, which will proportionately diminish our fears. God did not rebuke Gideon for destroying his father’s idols at night. It was a next step in being used in even greater ways by the Lord. Our faith is also a series of next steps. If it fails, shake it off and move ahead. Ask for boldness as the first century church often did in their prayers. Determine not to give into fear next time.

We simply need to understand that fear comes in many ways and will probably always be with us. The fear of man, the fear of rejection, the fear of disappointment, the fear of failure, etc. will raise up its head against us. It resides in the flesh but it is also a spirit. We will have to learn to ignore the feeling, rebuke the spirit, and move ahead in obedience. In the process, God will be with us and will remind us, as he did Gideon, “Do not be afraid.”

IN our next blog, we will look at Gideon and the fleece.