Judges 6
In one
of his concise and terse messages, speaking of leaders
and followers, Dr A.W. Tozer said:
“When
our Lord called us all sheep, He told us that we should
be followers; and when Peter called some shepherds, he
indicated that there should be among us leaders as well
as followers. Human nature being what it is, the need for
leadership is imperative. Let five men be cast adrift in
a lifeboat and immediately one of them assumes command.
No plebiscite is necessary. Four of the men will know by
a kind of intuition who the leader is, and without any
formality he will take that place. Every disaster, every
fire, every flood, elects its own leaders. In retrospect
the weaker ones may find fault; but they were glad enough
for the leadership when the crisis was on. Among
Christians, too, there are leaders and followers. The
followers may resent the leader, but they need him
nevertheless. In the church there must be leaders, but
the leader must also be a follower. Paul gave us the
pattern when he exhorted the Corinthians: “Be ye
followers of me, even as I also am of Christ” (1
Cor. 11:1).”
If,
then, leadership is both scriptural and necessary, it is
well that we get to know from the Scriptures what
leadership really is and what makes it. So we proceed to
another valuable and instructive example, and find here
some features and factors additional to those already
noted. Gideon indeed has some helpful and vital things to
teach us in this connection.
It is
not without importance to note that Gideon had no
official position in Israel. He became leader because he
had the spirit of a leader. Several details which
composed this leadership-spirit are evident. Let us note
them:
(1) A spirit of responsibility
Gideon
was characterized by a spirit of responsibility. The
times were times of straitness, weakness, and poverty.
The enemy was depriving the Lord’s people of their
bread, their means of sustenance. There was vigilant
alertness on the part of the enemy, and it was a perilous
thing for anyone to counter his strategy of starvation;
for weakness was a great ally of his purpose to suppress.
Both courage and wisdom were required in any attempt to
subvert the enemy’s plan. This whole story shows how
few there were who really were ready to pay the price. In
other words, how few there were with an adequate sense of
responsibility. Of those few, Gideon was chief. He had a
sense of responsibility for the Lord’s people and
their great need; a sense of responsibility for the Lord’s
honour. The sense of shame and reproach, this sense of
jealousy and indignation, this sense of things not being
as they ought to be, moved Gideon to action —
dangerous action. His whole course to find victory was
inspired by a spirit of responsibility which demanded
dangerous action.
The
first phase was his action of beating out wheat in the
winepress to hide it from the Midianites. Here was
exercise in secret to meet vital need. The true leader is
not always the one who ostentatiously parades himself in
public. Gideon was not thinking of leadership. His
action behind the scenes was not a subtle, veiled bit of
policy or diplomacy by which he would have control and
gratify an equally secret desire for power. It was just
an act of disinterested, unselfish concern, prompted by a
lofty purpose and largeness of heart. The food question
is acute and the people just must be fed, whatever the
cost to oneself. That is where leadership begins, in the
hidden history of the one concerned. It is to be noted
that the eye of the Lord was upon the secret life and
exercise. “The Lord sent a prophet unto the children
of Israel” (Judg.6:8), but “the angel of the
Lord” came to Gideon. (Was this one of the many
theophanies — appearances of God Himself in man-form
— recorded in Scripture? Verse 23 would imply this.)
The
Lord knew where Gideon was, what he was doing, and why he
was doing it. The Lord knew that Gideon was discerning
the works of the enemy and doing what he could to counter
them. There was not much that he could do, and
practically nothing in public — a very
testing situation; but he was being faithful in that
which was least.
Gideon
passed the first phase of the test for leadership without
ambition for it; the test of faithfulness,
responsibility, and selflessness in secret.
(2) The test of humility
The
second characteristic of great account with God is
humility. Responsibility was being thrust upon him
without his ever having manoeuvred, schemed, worked, or
used any force to get it. Indeed, the record would
indicate that leadership was something not desired by
Gideon.
Dr
Tozer says: “I believe that it might be accepted as
a fairly reliable rule of thumb that the man who is
ambitious for leadership is disqualified from it.”
To the
amazing declaration and command of “the angel”,
Gideon could only reply: “... my family is the
poorest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s
house”. His excusable trepidation is displayed in
his request for the tokens; easily understood in the
presence of so immense a responsibility. It is all the
revealing of how little the man had confidence in
himself. He passed that second stage in the test.
(3) The test of the home-base
A
further test of fitness for leadership had to be passed
before Gideon could move out to the task. It was what we
can call the home-base. Things were not right at home.
There was compromise there. There was mixture there. The
enemy had a foothold there. In the home, in the family,
in the background there was that which would have put him
in a false position and have completely sabotaged his
campaign. He could not win on the field if the enemy held
the stronghold behind. In other words, there could be no true
testimony in the world and in the heavenlies, if the
testimony was contradicted in the private life. However
those that might resent, contend (see verses 31, 32) or
fear in the long-run all those who knew him best had to
be compelled to say that, what he was in public, he was
at home and in private. How much more could be written in
there, but, with the Lord, and with the ultimate issue,
this “home-base” factor is vital.
(4) The sufficiency of the Lord
It was
indeed a testing way by which the Lord led Gideon to
leadership. The man well knew his own lack of
qualification and ability. Like David he was the least in
his father’s house, and, no doubt, despised by his
bigger and — according to the world’s standard
— more important brothers. But his course under the
hand of the Lord was one of continuous and progressive
reduction. Elimination and sifting out reduced his
resources to a minimum. The Lord was stringently applying
the precaution “lest”. Lest Gideon should feel,
lest Israel should say: By my own power, by our own
sufficiency we triumphed.
Gideon
does not seem to have disagreed or argued with the Lord.
The leaders of the world want plenty of room and plenty
of means. Gideon agreed that God was enough. He agreed
with God’s wisdom and judgment that a small company
of solid value is better than a great multitude of
divided heart.
There,
then, are the factors which constitute a leadership which
has the right to say: “Look on me, and do likewise.”
The leader must be spiritually all that he wants others
to be. He must be spiritually ahead of those whom he
would lead. Were we considering the whole episode we
should mention a number of other things, but we are only
concerned with the matter of leadership as it relates to
the leader, not to his strategy, which is very
instructive in Gideon’s case, not to the incidents
of the assault.
Other
things will come up in other instances but here we can
set a high value upon those four features mentioned,
because they were the things to which God committed
Himself.