Gideon: building and destroying altars in our lives

Well last time I was preaching, we were beginning to look at the life of one of the most scared people in the Bible – the life of Gideon. We found him hiding in a hollow of a rock hiding from the Midianites who had invaded the land. And God called him out of hiding and to lead his people against the invaders. 

We all get scared and we must all learn to face up to our fears to become and to achieve what God wants us to become and what God wants us to achieve. And so we read the story of Gideon we can learn how God helps a person overcome fear. We all have fears, fear or failure, fear of other people, fear of death, fear of illness and pain, and many others but God want to teach us how to face our fears with him and overcome them.

When God appears to Gideon who is on his hands and knees threshing grain in the winepress, trying to hide it from the Midianites, God appears the form of a human being. Gideon appeared not to fully realise who this person was he was speaking to. He offers a sacrifice of bread and meat to this Angel of the Lord who has been speaking to. But when the Angel of the Lord touches the sacrifice with his staff, fire consumes the sacrifice and He disappears. Gideon is terrified when he realises that he truly has been speaking face to face with the Lord. There was a common belief in Israel that no one can see the face of God and live. 

He is scared again! 

But the Lord reassures him, Gideon hears the voice of the Lord saying ‘Peace, do not be afraid. You are not going to die.’ 

And so Gideon built an altar there and called it ‘The Lord is Peace’. And the writer of the book of Judges – who was obviously writing many years later- adds the note ‘To this day, it stands in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.’ 

Before Gideon faces his fears and ventures out on his God given mission to save his nation, God appears to him. He has an experience of God. That experience would be important. It would give him confidence that God was really with him.

You know it’s important for us to have experiences of God. Where God reveals himself, his presence and his power to us. Before Moses went out to save his people from the oppression in the land of Egypt, God gave him an experience. He had the burning bush experience. Before Jesus went out to face the devil and preach the Kingdom and heal the sick, he had an experience on the banks for the Jordan River where the heavens were opened and He hears the voice of his Father affirming him, when Paul converted, he had an experience and it was so powerful he was blinded. All these experiences were life changing for the people who had them. The experience marked them, changed them and set them up for the life’s mission.

For the formation of our children’s faith, for our young people and our children, it’s important for them to experience God for themselves. We should give them the word of God, the truths of God in the Bible, but the Bible itself tells us that God’s people are shaped yes off course by his word, but also by experience, by encountering the presence of God. And our children, our youth will be greatly strengthened and encouraged in their Christianity if they actually experience the Jesus they have read about in the Bible.

It’s hard being a young person in school in modern Scotland. They are under a lot of pressures – on social media, through their peers who are not Christian and even through some of the teaching in school which goes against God’s values. And the pressure for our youngsters to compromise their faith and even to lose their faith altogether under the pressure of a secular society is strong. But if they have experienced Jesus in their lives, if they have seen Jesus revealing himself to them, answering their prayers, doing things in their lives, then they will not live in doubt. No one will be able to persuade our children that Christianity is a fairy tale, that it’s not real if they have had experiences of the work of Jesus in their lives. 

So God gives this scared man, Gideon, a life transforming experience. The Lord reveals to Gideon his presence and his peace. And Gideon builds an altar at the place the Angel of the Lord had appeared to him and he calls that altar, ‘The Lord is Peace’. He called the altar the Lord is Peace, because when Gideon was scared, realising he was speaking to Almighty God himself in human form, the Lord had said ‘Peace, do not be afraid. You are not going to die.’ 

Before Jesus went to the cross and in the upper room and when they were all anxious, He told them- ‘Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled; do not be afraid.’

When Jesus appeared to his disciples after his resurrection and they were all scared again, he said the same things Peace ‘Peace be with you.’ God does give his people peace in place of fear and anxiety. When God’s presence has come close to me, it has often come with a sense of peace. Not surprising because Jesus is the Prince of Peace, peace is his signature. We are living in a world which is anxious and needs to know the peace of Jesus. 

You don’t come across many altars in Scotland. But altars in the Bible were put up to offer sacrifices to God and also they were erected as memorials, reminders of God encounters that took place at that location. 

After the flood Noah built an altar. Abraham built four altars in different places

For example, when God provided a sacrifice in place of Abraham’s son Isaac, Abraham built an altar and gave the place a name- ‘Yahweh Jireh’- The Lord will Provide.

When Jacob, Abraham’s grandson returned to the land after exile, he built an altar and gave it a name El-Elohe-Israel, which means "God, the God of Israel" .

Moses built an altar after a victory over the Amalekites, naming it "The Lord Is My Banner" (Exodus 17:15)

You know it’s a good idea as you go through your Christian life to set up altars. Set up markers in your mind, in your memory, where you remember the moments God did something for you, revealed himself to you, spoke to you. Don’t forget these moments when you met with God. Set up altars. 

I have a journal and I record the times when the Lord gave me a word, answered a prayer, did something, when He really turned up. It helps me remember. 

When did you become a Christian, where was it? Set up an altar. 

When did you need a word of guidance, you were stuck and you didn’t know which way to God and then God guided you, he showed you. Set up an altar. 

When were you scared and worried and God came in and calmed the storm, gave you peace, set up an altar. 

In your mind go back to that time and thank God for it. Worship him at that altar. Set up the altars in your memory, the moments when God appeared. Don’t forget these times. Its easy to forget what God has done in the past. 

In our culture, often we remember not by putting up an altar, but by putting up a memorial plaque. Here is a plaque, to a long serving minister – Mr Buchan. He is remembered. Here is one to another to a respected elder in the church. In the hall we have another plaque to a child who died  . These are memorials to significant people and moments in the past. It’s the same idea as an altar. Memory is important. But especially memory of what God has done, because we forget.

Remember how came through for you then, in 2005, in 2016, you have an altar of it in your mind, a plaque of remembrance, you can go back to that moment and recall it go back to your altar and then you can believe he will come through for you in 2026 and in the future.

Now that God had revealed himself to Gideon and given him peace, immediately, that same night, the Lord gave Gideon his first mission. His first test. And it was test of obedience that would ask him to trust the Lord and overcome his fear. His first mission was to destroy the altar his father Joash had built to the false god Baal and cut down the idol to the false god Asherah and then to build a proper altar to the Lord instead and then he was to take the second bull from his father’s heard of cattle and kill it and offer it as a burnt offering on the Lord’s altar.

As well as a test, this was a message to Gideon and to all of Israel that the living God wasn’t going to allow his people to worship false gods, only one altar must stand in Israel. 

The Israelites had not abandoned worship of God for idols. They had combined the worship of God with idols. And this had to stop.

That was a scary undertaking for Gideon. His father’s altar was a place of sacrifice for the town as well as his family. It was like being asked to knock down the local Freemason lodge. Gideon’s father was obviously an important man in the town and it seems he was the man who looked after the local place of worship to the false gods Ba-al and Asherah. 

Gideon was scared so he did it at night- but he got ten of his servants and he demolished the altar, cut down the false idol to Asherah, the Asherah pole and then killed his Father’s second bull on a new altar they put up to the Lord. Sacrificing the second bull was like selling the family car and giving the money to charity! 

Gideon’s father Joash was going to be very angry! 

But desite his fear, Gideon did it. He was obedient. 

Well the following morning the village must have been in uproar. There was their place of worship demolished. And the second bull sacrificed on the new altar.

Well off course the word got out that it was Gideon who did it. When a secret is known by ten men, then it really is no secret. So the men of the town came to Joash and demanded that Gideon be brought out so he could be killed for it. But Joash defended his son, saying if Ba’al is a god, let him deal with Gideon, why do you have to fight his battles? And the crowd accepted that logic.

Off course it was the Lord protecting Gideon and using Joash to do it. The Scots missionary David Livingstone once said ‘men are immortal until their work is done.’ And that is true, God protects his people so they can fulfil their life mission. 

We are reminded that the God hates idolatry, the worship of false gods in his people. He wants it rooted out. It brings me back to the word shared last month. ‘Surrender, I am the only God.’ 

Last week Mike was preaching about the Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps who had made his swimming career his idol. He was worshiping at the altar of his chosen sport, swimming was his god, the focus of his life. Thing from which he got his identity and value from. Last week also Doreen was sharing about how God showed her that her family had become an idol. She was putting her family in a higher place of importance in her life than God. An idol can be anything we value and think about more highly than Jesus Christ. 

Paul says in Colossians 3:5- Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.

Paul says covetousness, or another word is greed, is idolatry. 

You know there are various altars to false gods in this land… people are worried about the rise of Islam in this country. And certainly that altar to Allah has risen up in the UK over the past few decades. But there is a bigger altar in this country to which many more people sacrifice and that is the altar to mammon. Jesus said once you cannot worship both God and mammon. What is mammon? It’s an object of worship, it’s a god. What is mammon- it is a word that means material gain, wealth. And many people are worshipping wealth, the accumulation of stuff. 

People who are greedy or covetous are worshipping at that altar of mammon, the altar of materialism, material gain. 

Materialism is a huge idol, a great false altar in our land. We are living in a society in which the advertisers are wanting us to want, want and want again. It’s difficult when you can’t put on a TV program or go on Youtube without it being interrupted by some saying, ‘Everyone else has this, millions of others have this, why don’t you have it?’ We live in a pressurised world in which greed is being encouraged for commercial reasons. 

I was reading a book and the author was invited by a man in the church he was preaching at to show him his collection after the service. The man didn’t say what his collection was, it was a secret. After lunch the man took him round the corner of the house to where there was a huge hanger of a shed. He flung open the doors and inside were about 25 stage coaches, all kept locked up there. He must have spent a fortune on them, all beautifully renovated. There they were ‘my stagecoaches, my collection’. 

There is some need for collecting, to preserve that which is valuable from the past or collecting things that will help other people. But if my collection is making me more proud or more greedy, making me want more and more, so I can say ‘I’ve got more’ then we are being possessed by our possessions. That goes for anything clothes, jewellery. 

Someone in the crowd once said to Jesus; “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”

Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?”  Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”

The man’s motivation was greed. And Jesus tells the listeners ‘be on your guard’, greed comes in many forms, defend yourself against greed. Don’t worship at that altar. There is no life coming from that altar. Life does not consist of the abundance of possessions. 



And then he hammers the point home with a parable (it’s found in Luke 12).

And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’

“Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’

 “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’

“This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”

The man is talking to himself and keeps on repeating the word ‘my’. My grain, my crops, myself- he is accumulating for himself. Eat, drink and be merry. Building bigger stores for his money, for himself. 

That’s what people do all the time in our country. Accumulating more and more in the bank. But its greed. 

We are living in a world of need and we must not store up things for ourselves but be rich towards God. Give to the needy and to things God cares about. Beware of all kinds of greed. 

David Pawson writes about how he has spoken with people working in the poorer regions of the world and they have told him of the deep resentment, anger, discontent and determination to have more that has come from the fact that Hollywood has exported films to them which have shown a standard of living and a way of life in lush apartments that these people never dreamt of until mass media came into their country. And now with so many people having access to the internet , the poor in Africa, South America, India and elsewhere see the wealth and living standards in the rich nations No wonder they want to come to Western Europe, the UK and the United States. No wonder we have so many asylum seekers risking their lives crossing the channel in inflatable boats. We are living in what is still a wealthy country in world where there are millions in really grim poverty. 

8.5% of the world's population—approximately 700 million people—live in extreme poverty, defined as surviving on less than $1.90 a day. That’s £1.40 per day. And they are our neighbours who we are called to love.

The way to demolish the altar of mammon in our lives and the life of the country. The great altar built to greed, to avarice, to wealth is generosity. That altar will fall as we give generously.

How generous should we be? Well probably more that you find comfortable. If you don’t find your giving a bit painful, then probably it’s not really sacrificial giving. Generous giving is sacrificial. 

The other thing that breaks the hold of the idolatry of things and money is to learn to be content. 

Paul said; ‘I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.  I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.  I can do all this through him who gives me strength.’

God gives us the ability to be content no matter what our circumstances are. Remember the Lord’s prayer; ‘the Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want’. The Lord gives us contentment, even if it means we don’t have much. Because our lives don’t depend on the abundance of our possessions. When the Lord is our Shepherd we don’t need much.  

May the idol, the altar of mammon, of materialism not be found in our lives, alongside the altar to Jesus. If it’s there, let it be demolished and the altar to the Lord be the only one left standing. May He be the only one we worship. Amen.