Pulling Down False Altars

Sustaining Hope
Visions of Grandeur

The Alter, A Sign of Hope

Judges 6:24-32  The Message

²⁴ Then Gideon built an altar there to God and named it “God’s Peace.” It’s still called that at Ophrah of Abiezer.
^25-26 That night this happened. God said to him, “Take your father’s best seven-year-old bull, the prime one. Tear down your father’s Baal altar and chop down the Asherah fertility pole beside it. Then build an altar to God, your God, on the top of this hill. Take the prime bull and present it as a Whole-Burnt-Offering, using firewood from the Asherah pole that you cut down.”
²⁷ Gideon selected ten men from his servants and did exactly what God had told him. But because of his family and the people in the neighborhood, he was afraid to do it openly, so he did it that night.
²⁸ Early in the morning, the people in town were shocked to find Baal’s altar torn down, the Asherah pole beside it chopped down, and the prime bull burning away on the altar that had been built.
²⁹ They kept asking, “Who did this?”
Questions and more questions, and then the answer: “Gideon son of Joash did it.”
³⁰ The men of the town demanded of Joash: “Bring out your son! He must die! Why, he tore down the Baal altar and chopped down the Asherah tree!”
³¹ But Joash stood up to the crowd pressing in on him, “Are you going to fight Baal’s battles for him? Are you going to save him? Anyone who takes Baal’s side will be dead by morning. If Baal is a god in fact, let him fight his own battles and defend his own altar.”
³² They nicknamed Gideon that day Jerub-Baal because after he had torn down the Baal altar, he had said, “Let Baal fight his own battles.”

 
For Reflection
It seems to me that this is a perfect metaphor of life in the hollow of God's hand,  We accept The Way and move away from the alters of our former lives and sacrifice our selves on the alter of God.  In doing so, we are becoming a child of God, transformed from our former selves into our righteous selves.  The transformation is noticeable.  So much so, that old friends and acquaintances, even family, may be critical of our new selves.  It is hard to face the battles waged by those common place assumptions.  Rest assured, God will fight your battles.

Pray
for strength when your faith shields you from the swords of the common place.  Pray for those who can not see the value of the transforming power in standing with God.  Pray that God will guide you and shield you so that you can bring light into the darkness of the common place.