He Did It at Night

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Judges 6:25-27 "That same night the LORD said to him, 'Take the second bull from your father's herd, the one seven years old. Tear down your father's altar to Baal and cut down the Asherah pole beside it. Then build a proper kind of altar to the LORD your God on the top of this height. Using the wood of the Asherah pole that you cut down, offer the second bull as a burnt offering.' So Gideon took ten of his servants and did as the LORD told him. But because he was afraid of his family and the men of the town, he did it at night rather than in the daytime."

Think

Before God let Gideon do anything about the army occupying his country, he handed him a much smaller job that was much harder.

Go into your own father's yard. Tear down the altar he built. Cut down the pole standing beside it.

Here is what that meant. Israel was being crushed by invaders, and Gideon's own dad had an altar to a different god set up on the family property. It was not a stranger's house, and not the pagan town down the road. It was his father's. The problem Gideon was about to go fight nationally was already sitting in his own backyard, and everybody in the family had gotten used to walking past it.

That is not an ancient problem. It is very possible to be genuinely burdened about your school while carefully never touching the thing in your own house, your own phone, or your own week that you know God has been pointing at for months.

It is always easier to want God to fix something out there. “Out there” does not require an uncomfortable conversation at dinner.

Now watch what Gideon actually does, because verse 27 is one of the most encouraging sentences in the Old Testament and most people read it as a criticism.

He obeys. He takes ten servants, goes out, and tears the whole thing down exactly as God said. And then Scripture adds this: "But because he was afraid of his family and the men of the town, he did it at night rather than in the daytime."

He was terrified. He did it in the dark so nobody would see him. And that is written down in the Bible on purpose, sitting right next to the fact that he did it.

Notice what God does not do in response. There is no rebuke. There is no verse where God tells him that was weak and he should have done it at noon with his chest out. The next thing that happens in the chapter is God's Spirit coming on him.

God accepted the obedience of a scared person.

That should change how you think about courage, because most of us are waiting to feel brave before we do the right thing, as if the feeling comes first and the action follows. It usually runs the other direction. Courage is not a mood you wait for. It is something you do while still feeling exactly the way you felt before.

Doing the right thing scared still counts. It counts fully.

And look at the detail in verse 26, because it is such a God thing to do. He tells Gideon to use the wood from the Asherah pole as the fuel for the new altar. The thing that was pulling his family away from God becomes the firewood for worship. God does not just remove what was wrong. He repurposes it.

One more thing worth naming honestly. This was not a private decision. Everybody in that town saw the wreckage the next morning and knew exactly who did it, and the next verses in the chapter are them showing up at his house wanting him dead. Obeying God cost him something real, and it cost him at home first.

So what is the thing in your own house, your own room, or your own phone that God has already put his finger on?

You do not have to feel brave about it. You just have to actually do it.

Apply

Start in your own yard – Name one thing in your own life that is pulling you away from God and that you have treated as normal because it has been there so long. Deal with it today. Delete it, end it, or tell one person about it so it stops being a secret.

Pray

God, it is easier to be worried about everybody else than to let you deal with me. There is something you have been pointing at and I keep walking past it. I am not brave about this at all. Help me obey you anyway, scared, tonight. In Jesus' name. Amen.