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“I CAN’T DECIDE WHO TO VOTE FOR”

Here in California, we recently went through quite a roller coaster ride – and political pundits suggested that this particular carnival attraction belonged in its own circus somewhere. But a recall election pitted the embattled governor, one Gray Davis, against a porn queen, talk show hosts, and a novice politician with pectoral muscles named Arnold Schwarzenegger. But even in the closing days, as the clock ticked down to October 7, there were still many, many citizens here on the “Left Coast” who hadn’t made up their minds. When the Gallup people called, they were still undecided.

It’s always a temptation to hold back, isn’t it, and wait for a trend to emerge. Then when you can see who’s plainly going to win, that’s when you put a bumper sticker on your car. But in the early going, when you don’t positively know that the side you secretly favor is going to triumph, you might keep your allegiances to yourself.

Here at the conclusion of our Gideon series, which we’ve entitled Fleeces and Faith, we find the same thing to be true. A commodity called loyalty has been in fairly short supply all during this bloody saga, and here at the violent conclusion of the story, that’s still the case. Yesterday we studied how the mighty tribe of Ephraim was petulant with Gideon, demanding to know why he hadn’t called them into action at the very beginning of the war. But the plain truth is that Ephraim had stood by idly while the seven-year Midian invasion had been going on. They hadn’t done a thing to intervene, to show solidarity.

Now here in chapter eight, in the final throes of warfare, Gideon and his 300 men are still in the hunt. One hundred twenty thousand enemy troops have already fallen, but there’s still a Midianite remnant force to be chased across the Jordan. I like what the Adventist Bible Commentary says about this brave leader’s indomitable spirit; notice:

“Even though Gideon and his men were tired and hungry from their exertions in fighting the rear guards of the Midianites, they did not pause at the Jordan but immediately crossed it and continued to follow the enemy. They had already done much, but they were willing to do more. Similarly, our spiritual warfare demands persistent effort. At no point in the struggle is it safe to relax our efforts through weariness. Many a victory has been won by Christians who were ‘faint, yet pursuing.’”

Now, on the other side of the Jordan, and with the dust cloud of the Midianites so close at hand, Gideon has a request to make:

“He asked the men of Succoth for food. ‘We are weary from chasing after Zebah and Zalmunna, the kings of Midian,’ he said. But the leaders of Succoth replied, ‘You haven’t caught them yet! If we feed you and you fail, they’ll return and destroy us.’”

That’s the Living Bible paraphrase, which intimates that these men are afraid to commit. After all, this is still just 300 guys going up against a yet formidable army of 15,000. What if they bet on the wrong horse? What if the Midianite machine wipes out Gideon, then circles back in a scorched-earth circle of revenge on anyone who helped him? Better to do like Switzerland and stay neutral.

It’s interesting – and friend, there’s no papering over the reality that this is a bloody story, happening in an era when the loss of life in battle was horrific – that Gideon himself threatens to return with a punishment for Succoth’s lack of loyalty. This same Bible commentary observes:

“Instead of exhibiting compassion and patriotic sympathy, they displayed extreme selfishness in consulting only their own petty interests. They exemplified a materialism that serves a foreign tyrant rather than risk a loss.”

So Gideon says to them – this is the NIV now:

“Just for that, when the Lord has given Zebah and Zalmunna into my hand, I will tear your flesh with desert thorns and briers.”

He goes next to the city of Peniel, and is rebuffed in exactly the same way. “We don’t want to take a chance on you” was the basic message again. “We’re going to just stand here on the sidelines; if it looks like you’re winning, we may jump in and give you a few MREs then, but right now we can’t spare a single falafel.”

There’s a telling little anecdote going way back to the comedy spoof western, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. That’s probably before your time, most of you, but there’s a moment of conflict where one of Butch Cassidy’s “Hole in the Wall Gang” members decides to stage a little coup d’état. Now he wants to be in charge of the train robberies, not Butch. So he challenges the group’s founder to a duel. And Cassidy is incredulous: “Come on, you guys can’t want Logan for your leader, can you?” Silence. Cough. Clear throat. He looks from one to the other, but all of a sudden, these guys are scanning the sky for new constellations or checking their cell phones to see if their mothers are calling them home to an early supper. They don’t want to commit to Butch Cassidy, just in case this hulking wanna-be, Logan, beats him in a fight, and then slices them up too for their statement of loyalty to the enemy. Anyway, to cut this illustration short, Butch Cassidy wins the duel in about four seconds. Instantly, as soon as he does, a shy little guy nicknamed “Flat Nose Curry” comes up to Cassidy, and says: “I was really rooting for you, Butch.” And Paul Newman, forgiving his underling for his timidity, says very graciously: “Well, thank you, Flat Nose, that’s what sustained me in my hour of need.”

But friend, when it comes to matters of eternity and the warfare for my soul and for yours, there can be no such thing as standing on the sidelines, endlessly waiting for the war to be over before we pick our side. Choose ye this day, Joshua says just a few chapters before this story happens. There comes a time when we all have got to declare ourselves.

In any case, Gideon and his 300 men have to fight on empty stomachs . . . and they still win. The Midianite army is routed, and he does capture the two kings, Zebah and Zalmunna, who meet their own violent end. It appears that these two monarchs had knowingly killed some of Gideon’s own brothers, so, as the biblical custom indicated, he was redressing a personal injury in this battle. But as he promised, he circles back and delivers justice to the two cities that stiffed him with their passive disloyalty. In Peniel, he tears down the tower of defense, and kills the men guarding it. And when he gets to Succoth, the Bible says that he indeed scourged them with desert briars, possibly to the point of executing them too. Although we cringe at the idea of a man killing his own countrymen, we find presented here in God’s Word the compelling need for loyalty, for the citizens in a common cause to stand together, to declare their fealty to a vision . . . and to do so in a timely manner. In other words, before the army bugle plays Taps.

I’m reminded of a powerful paragraph right at the close of C. S. Lewis’ book, What Christians Believe, which is contained in the larger trilogy, Mere Christianity. And he addresses the issue of: Why does it take God so long to solve this world’s problems? Why doesn’t Jesus come already? Here’s his answer:

“We can guess why He is delaying. He wants to give us the chance of joining his side FREELY.”

And, remembering the World War II background of this Christian bestseller, we can understand the next illustration:

“I do not suppose you and I would have thought much of a Frenchman who waited till the Allies were marching into Germany and THEN announced he was on their side. God will invade. But I wonder whether people who ask God to interfere openly and directly in our world quite realize what it will be like when He does. When that happens, it is the end of the world. When the author walks on to the stage the play is over. God is going to invade, all right: but what is the good of saying you are on His side THEN, when you see the whole natural universe melting away like a dream and something else – something it never entered your head to conceive – comes crashing in; something so beautiful to some of us and so terrible to others THAT NONE OF US WILL HAVE ANY CHOICE LEFT?”

And then comes his appeal, and friend, I humbly stand aside and just second this stark invitation. Here it is:

“For this time it will be God without disguise; something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistible love or irresistible horror into every creature. It will be too late then to choose your side. There is no use saying you choose to lie down when it has become impossible to stand up. That will not be the time for choosing: it will be the time when we discover which side we really HAVE chosen, whether we realized it before or not. Now, today, this moment, is our chance to choose the right side. God is holding back to give us that chance. It will not last forever. We must take it or leave it.”

Three weeks ago, we titled this series FLEECES AND FAITH. And friend, God has already given us the fleeces, proved His love for us. Now, today, it’s time to move from the “Undecided” column and fill out our ballot.
Don’t leave any chads hanging.