Notes | September 12, 2021

"Today's Message: Breaking Baal (Stuck In Hiding pt. 3)  | Brandon Naramore

We are in a message series called, Moving Forward. Stay caught up on this series by following the message series playlist on YouTube: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrEv__Oj59QevPRKJBdPk0PQChZBa0bFq

Judges 6:6 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
Thus Israel was greatly impoverished because of Midian; and the Israelites cried out to the Lord for help.

Judges 6:11 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
Now the angel of the Lord came and sat under the oak at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, as his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press, to hide it from the Midianites.

Judges 6:23-24 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
But the Lord said to him, “Peace be to you; do not fear, you shall not die.” Then Gideon built an altar there to the Lord, and called it, The Lord is peace. To this day it still stands at Ophrah, which belongs to the Abiezrites.

Galatians 5:1 (NRSV)
For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

Altar: comes from the Latin word Altus meaning high or lifted.

Whatever you give your attention and affection to becomes an authority 

2 Corinthians 3:17 (NRSV)
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

Judges 6:6 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
Thus Israel was greatly impoverished because of Midian; and the Israelites cried out to the Lord for help.

Judges 6:23-24 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
But the Lord said to him, “Peace be to you; do not fear, you shall not die.” Then Gideon built an altar there to the Lord, and called it, The Lord is peace. To this day it still stands at Ophrah, which belongs to the Abiezrites.

"What Gideon has just done he has done impulsively, as his own personal response to the revelation he has received. But probably without realizing it, he has created a situation which can’t remain unresolved, for there are now two altars in Ophrah, to two rival gods: his own God, Yahweh, who has just appeared to him, and his father’s god, Baal." - B.G. Webb, (2012). The Book of Judges. (R. K. Harrison & R. L. Hubbard Jr., Eds.) (p. 235).

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 NRSV
Or do you not know that your body is a temple[a] of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body.

Matthew 22:37 ESV
And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind."

Heart: Kardia – the center and source of physical life… The seat of your affection.

Judges 6:25 (NRSV) 
That night the Lord said to him, “Take your father’s bull, the second bull seven years old, and pull down the altar of Baal that belongs to your father, and cut down the sacred pole that is beside it;

“Asherah was the female counterpart of Baal, and was represented by a carved wooden image with female features... 'The goddess was popular in (cultic worship) in Israel and was sometimes considered a mediator of Yahweh’s blessings…' Most disturbingly for Gideon, however, is the fact that the entire complex is his father’s.” - B.G. Webb, The Book of Judges.

Judges 6:26 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
And build an altar to the Lord your God on the top of the stronghold here, in proper order; then take the second bull, and offer it as a burnt offering with the wood of the sacred pole[a] that you shall cut down.”

1 Corinthians 7:35 (ESV)
Secure your undivided devotion to the Lord.

Judges 6:27 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
So Gideon took ten of his servants, and did as the Lord had told him; but because he was too afraid of his family and the townspeople to do it by day, he did it by night.

“The problem for Gideon was that to destroy his father’s altar was to risk a breach with him that might never be healed, and could well mean banishment and disinheritance” - B.G. Webb, The Book of Judges.

Judges 6:28 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
When the townspeople rose early in the morning, the altar of Baal was broken down, and the sacred pole beside it was cut down, and the second bull was offered on the altar that had been built.

Judges 6:29 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
So they said to one another, “Who has done this?” After searching and inquiring, they were told, “Gideon son of Joash did it.”

Judges 6:30 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
Then the townspeople said to Joash, “Bring out your son, so that he may die, for he has pulled down the altar of Baal and cut down the sacred pole beside it.” 

​“In the morning Joash finds himself having to choose between the men of the town (its leading citizens) and his son. At a more fundamental level he has to choose between Baal and Yahweh.” - B.G. Webb, The Book of Judges.

Judges 6:31 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
But Joash said to all who were arrayed against him, “Will you contend for Baal? Or will you defend his cause? Whoever contends for him shall be put to death by morning. If he is a god, let him contend for himself, because his altar has been pulled down.”

Judges 6:32 (ESV)
Therefore on that day Gideon was called Jerubbaal, that is to say, “Let Baal contend against him,” because he broke down his altar.

The interpretation of the name thus becomes “Baal will take him to court” or “Baal will contend with him.” - T.C. Butler

“No one moves, and Gideon is reborn as Jerubbaal, a revolutionary hero and living testimony to Baal’s impotence.” - B.G. Webb, The Book of Judges.