When God Wears a Man Text: Judges 6:33-35
Introduction: The World's Kind of Strength
We live in an age that is obsessed with strength, but it is a peculiar kind of strength. It is the strength of the mob, the strength of the algorithm, the strength of the bureaucratic checklist. It is a strength that is terrified of weakness, a strength that has to silence all dissent, a strength that cannot bear to be questioned. It is the kind of strength that puts a mask on a two-year-old and calls it compassion. It is the kind of strength that sees a man hiding in a winepress, threshing wheat to keep it from the tax collectors, and sees nothing but a coward.
But God's economy is entirely different. Our God is a God who specializes in glorious reversals. He takes the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; He takes the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He does not look for strength in men; He looks for emptiness in men, so that He might fill it with His own strength. He is not looking for a vessel of honor that is already polished and gleaming on the shelf. He is looking for a cracked clay pot that He can wear, a pot that He can fill with His glory, so that no one mistakes the power for the pot's own.
The story of Gideon is the story of God picking the most unlikely candidate from the most insignificant clan of a backwater tribe to save His people. And in our text today, we see the turning point. We see the moment when Gideon, the fearful thresher, becomes Gideon, the instrument of God. It is the moment when the Spirit of God descends and turns everything upside down. This is not just an interesting historical episode about ancient warfare. This is a paradigm for how God works in every age, and particularly how He works in ours.
The Midianites and their hordes are gathered. They are a locust plague of oppression, a picture of overwhelming, soul-crushing worldly power. And against them, God does not raise up a superhero. He raises up a man. And then He clothes him.
The Text
Now all the Midianites and the Amalekites and the sons of the east assembled themselves; and they crossed over and camped in the valley of Jezreel. But the Spirit of Yahweh clothed Gideon; and he blew a trumpet, and the Abiezrites were called together to follow him. And he sent messengers throughout Manasseh, and they also were called together to follow him; and he sent messengers to Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali, and they came up to meet them.
(Judges 6:33-35 LSB)
The Overwhelming Threat (v. 33)
We begin with the enemy's muster.
"Now all the Midianites and the Amalekites and the sons of the east assembled themselves; and they crossed over and camped in the valley of Jezreel." (Judges 6:33)
The threat is not abstract; it is tangible, and it is massive. This is a coalition of evil. The Midianites, the Amalekites, and the "sons of the east", this is a catch-all term for the nomadic hordes from the Arabian desert. Their numbers were like locusts, we are told elsewhere (Judges 7:12). They didn't just raid; they swarmed. They came to devour, to strip the land bare, to leave nothing behind. Their goal was not just conquest but utter demoralization. This is how the enemies of God work. They seek to overwhelm by sheer numbers, by noise, by ubiquity. They want you to look out at the valley of Jezreel, which means "God sows," and see nothing but the enemy's harvest.
They are assembled, they have crossed the Jordan, and they are camped in the heart of Israel's territory. This is an invasion. This is a crisis. From a human perspective, this is checkmate. Israel was already beaten down, impoverished, and hiding in caves. Now the full force of the enemy is arrayed before them. This is the world's power on full display. It is organized, it is unified, and it is occupying the high ground. This is what you face when you stand for Christ in a hostile culture. The forces arrayed against the church can seem just as overwhelming, a vast coalition of media, academia, and government, all camped in the valley, daring you to do something about it.
The Divine Equipment (v. 34)
But God's response to this overwhelming force is not to match it with an equal human force. His response is spiritual. It is intensely personal, and it is decisive.
"But the Spirit of Yahweh clothed Gideon; and he blew a trumpet, and the Abiezrites were called together to follow him." (Judges 6:34 LSB)
Here is the pivot of the entire story. The Hebrew here is potent. It says the Spirit of Yahweh "clothed Himself with Gideon." The Spirit put Gideon on like a man puts on a coat. Gideon is the garment; the Spirit is the wearer. This is not Gideon getting a little spiritual boost, a bit of heavenly adrenaline. This is a divine takeover. The power, the courage, the initiative, it is not Gideon's. It is the Spirit's, operating through Gideon.
This is a crucial distinction for us to grasp. We often think of the Holy Spirit as a tool we use. We "tap into" the Spirit's power. But the biblical picture, especially in the Old Testament, is often the reverse. The Spirit is the sovereign actor, and He uses us. He is the warrior, and we are the sword in His hand. This is what it means to be filled with the Spirit. It is to be wielded by the Spirit. All the glory goes to Him, because He is the one doing the work. The coat doesn't get the credit for keeping the man warm.
And what is the immediate result of this divine clothing? Action. Timid, hiding Gideon is gone. In his place is a man who grabs a trumpet and blows it. The trumpet is a call to war. It is a public, unmistakable, courageous summons. The man who was afraid of his own family just verses before is now calling his entire clan, the Abiezrites, to follow him into a fight against an innumerable foe. Where did this courage come from? It came from the Spirit who was wearing him. True spiritual courage is not something we manufacture. It is something that possesses us when we are possessed by God.
His own clan, the very people he was recently hiding from, are the first to respond. This is where reformation begins. It begins at home. Before Gideon can lead Israel, he must lead his own family. Before he tore down the nation's idols, he had to tear down the idol in his father's backyard. And now, before he can rally the nation, he rallies his own kinsmen. Obedience has a ripple effect.
The Spreading Call (v. 35)
The trumpet blast widens. The call goes out from the clan to the tribe, and from the tribe to the neighboring tribes.
"And he sent messengers throughout Manasseh, and they also were called together to follow him; and he sent messengers to Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali, and they came up to meet them." (Judges 6:35 LSB)
The Spirit's work is contagious. The courage of one man, clothed in God, becomes the courage of many. First, Gideon's own tribe of Manasseh is summoned. Then the call goes north to the tribes of Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali. These were the very tribes that Deborah and Barak had rallied in the previous generation to fight Sisera (Judges 5:18). There is a memory of faithfulness here, a remnant of courage that the Spirit is now fanning into flame through Gideon's call.
Notice the pattern: God empowers one man, that one man acts in bold obedience, and that obedience becomes the rallying point for God's people. God does not usually work through committees. He works through individuals whom He has set apart and clothed with His Spirit. He raises up a Luther, a Knox, a Whitefield. And their Spirit-empowered boldness gives courage to the rest of the church. They blow the trumpet, and the faithful, who have been hiding and waiting, recognize the sound and gather to the standard.
This is not a political movement built on consensus or polling. This is a spiritual muster, a divine summons. The men who came up to meet Gideon were not responding to his personal charisma. They were responding to the sound of God's trumpet, blown through a human instrument. They were responding to the Spirit who was at work.
God's Battle Garb
So what does this mean for us? We are not Gideon, and the Midianites are not camped in the valley of Jezreel with camels and swords. But the spiritual reality is identical. We are in a covenant war. The world, the flesh, and the devil have assembled their forces, and they are vast and intimidating.
And God's strategy has not changed. He is still in the business of clothing Himself with weak, inadequate, fearful men and women. The New Covenant promise is not that the Spirit will clothe a few chosen judges, but that He will be poured out on all flesh (Joel 2:28). Every single Christian has been baptized by one Spirit into one body. The same Spirit who wore Gideon now indwells every believer.
The question is not whether you have the Spirit. The question is whether the Spirit has you. The question is whether you have surrendered yourself to Him to be used, to be worn, to be wielded as His instrument in the world. When the Spirit of God is wearing a man, that man stops making excuses. He stops calculating the odds. He stops looking at the size of the enemy and starts looking at the size of his God. He picks up the trumpet. For us, that trumpet is the unashamed proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the declaration that Jesus is Lord, and that all the assembled powers of Midian and Amalek are nothing before Him.
When you, by faith, step out and speak the truth of God in your home, to your neighbors, in your city council meeting, you are blowing the trumpet. And when you do, you will find that you are not alone. The Spirit who clothes you is the same Spirit who is at work in the hearts of others, preparing them to answer the call. He will gather the Abiezrites. He will summon the tribes. He will build His army. It will not be with the strong and the impressive, but with the weak and the foolish, so that when the victory is won, as it surely will be, no one can boast in the strength of the coat, but only in the power of the One who wore it.
Our job is not to win the battle. Our job is to let the Spirit wear us into the battle. He will take care of the rest. He clothed Himself with Gideon to defeat the Midianites. And He clothed Himself in human flesh in the person of Jesus Christ to defeat sin, death, and the devil forever. The victory is already won. Our task is simply to blow the trumpet and announce it.