Judg 6:25 | KingComments | STEP | Gideon receives his first command after God has brought him into the right relationship to Him. Now God can start using him. But before He allows Gideon to perform in public, he first has to work in his family. He has to start at home. The same the Lord Jesus makes clear to His disciples when He instructs them to testify of Him and to do so “beginning from Jerusalem” ( ), that is, in their immediate environment, close to home. Then they can go on to “all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth” ( ). The mission Gideon receives is clear. He has just built an altar for the LORD and at home there is still an altar of Baal. These two altars cannot go together. He who builds an altar for the Lord, will have to come to pull down every other altar. Only then can a testimony be given in the battle for the Lord. Baal must be removed first, otherwise the victory could be attributed to him. The Asherah, the sacred pole that stands next to it, must also be removed. The sacred pole seems to be a kind of protection of the altar. Both the altar and the pole have to be cut down. Here the name Gideon, ‘one who hews down’, is given its practical meaning. In the altar of Baal we can see the reverence that people can have for all kinds of things in their lives, without God having His place in it. We remember that Baal means ‘lord’. For example, there may be things in our lives that have authority over us that dominate us. We use plausible reasons to delude ourselves that these things should be present in our lives. An example can clarify things. A certain sport can occupy such a large place in our lives that we do everything for it. We delude ourselves that it is useful for our body. To be used by the Lord, we will have to judge both our attitude toward the sport and our utility reasons. By this I do not mean to say that it is wrong to do sport. I just want to point out that it can be an ‘altar’ in our life that needs to be cut down, along with the wrong ideas with which we defend this ‘altar’.

‏ Judges 6:25

The First Task: Pull down and Cut down

Gideon receives his first command after God has brought him into the right relationship to Him. Now God can start using him. But before He allows Gideon to perform in public, he first has to work in his family. He has to start at home. The same the Lord Jesus makes clear to His disciples when He instructs them to testify of Him and to do so “beginning from Jerusalem” (Lk 24:47), that is, in their immediate environment, close to home. Then they can go on to “all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

The mission Gideon receives is clear. He has just built an altar for the LORD and at home there is still an altar of Baal. These two altars cannot go together. He who builds an altar for the Lord, will have to come to pull down every other altar. Only then can a testimony be given in the battle for the Lord. Baal must be removed first, otherwise the victory could be attributed to him. The Asherah, the sacred pole that stands next to it, must also be removed. The sacred pole seems to be a kind of protection of the altar. Both the altar and the pole have to be cut down. Here the name Gideon, ‘one who hews down’, is given its practical meaning.

In the altar of Baal we can see the reverence that people can have for all kinds of things in their lives, without God having His place in it. We remember that Baal means ‘lord’. For example, there may be things in our lives that have authority over us that dominate us. We use plausible reasons to delude ourselves that these things should be present in our lives.

An example can clarify things. A certain sport can occupy such a large place in our lives that we do everything for it. We delude ourselves that it is useful for our body. To be used by the Lord, we will have to judge both our attitude toward the sport and our utility reasons. By this I do not mean to say that it is wrong to do sport. I just want to point out that it can be an ‘altar’ in our life that needs to be cut down, along with the wrong ideas with which we defend this ‘altar’.