Questionable Instruments

            One of the things that we notice about the judges is that the Lord chose men of questionable character.  Ehud is a sneak.  He hides his sword on the opposite that most men wear it and meets and kills the king of Moab in private.  (The king’s men are so duped that they think he’s taking a long time on the toilet.)  Barak hides behind a woman’s skirt, refusing to go to war unless Deborah comes with him.  And Gideon, well, he’s alternately a coward and a bully.  When we first meet him, he’s threshing in a pit to avoid detection; he accomplishes his first mission—destroying the Baal altar—at night because he’s afraid; and he asks for several signs—just to make sure.  On the other hand, he threatens the Israelites in Succoth and Penuel, and he retaliates against them before he’s even finished his business with Zebah and Zalmunna of Midian!

            What shall we make of these flawed heroes?  To start with, we can stop calling them heroes.  I know what we mean when we say ‘heroes of the faith,’ but I’m pretty sure the biblical writers don’t want us thinking these men are all noble and good, like Supermen of yore, fighting for truth, justice, and the Israelite way.  These are flawed, sinful men, whom God uses for His purposes.

            That’s the greater lesson, don’t you think?  On Saturday we’ll read about Samson, who slew 1,000 Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey.  The lesson?  God can use whatever He wants for His purposes.  So, Paul famously talks about having the treasure of the Gospel in clay jars.  We Christians ought to take some comfort in that.  He can use the ordinary for His purposes.  So, dads and moms who faithfully train their children in the faith through devotions, modeling, Sunday school attendance, and regular worship attendance are doing really ordinary things through which the Lord works.  Ordinary congregations, too, are the instruments through which the Lord accomplishes His saving work.  (You don’t need to be a 10,000 member mega-church for the Lord to accomplish what He wants.)

            The Lord’s use of the ordinary is at the heart of the Gospel.  It is difficult in these latter days to remember who ordinary crucifixion was—and how ignoble!  Lamentations 1:12, “Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?”  Yep, on Good Friday, the suffering for a lot of the casual witnesses was nothing.  It was just, “Well, there go the Romans again.”  Tomorrow, our congregation will gather for the Lord’s Supper, another of those places where the very ordinary (bread and wine) contains the very extraordinary (the Lord’s body and blood).

            What we witness in Judges is the Lord’s typical M.O.:  “But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.  He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him” (NIV 1 Corinthians 1:27-29).