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Gideon: Judges 6–8

Gideon was more than just a war hero with a cut-down army and unique battle tactics. He also dared to offer sacrifices (of things that could be eaten) to the real God at a time when Israel was starving, hiding in caves and worshipping other Gods.

It was Gideon who was threshing wheat, albeit in a winepress, when God found him. Who knows where he got the wheat from at a time when the Midianites took everything they could. And who knows where Gideon found a young goat to make an offering to God (we can assume he could easily find flour, as he was threshing wheat).

And who knows what Gideon’s father thought when Gideon took his seven-year-old bull to sacrifice to God. In desperate conditions, when an entire herd has been lost, a seven-year-old bull would have had to have been one of his father’s prize bulls. Today’s farmers might possibly call it breeding stock. It would have been very valuable.

Although Gideon couldn’t see it in himself, you can start to see why:

6:12 The angel of the Lord  appeared to him and said, “Mighty hero, the  Lord is with you!