And Yet...

That same night the LORD said to [Gideon], “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. In the morning when the men of the town got up, there was Baal’s altar, demolished, with the Asherah pole beside it cut down and the second bull sacrificed on the newly built altar! They asked each other, “Who did this?” When they carefully investigated, they were told, “Gideon son of Joash did it.” The men of the town demanded of Joash, “Bring out your son. He must die, because he has broken down Baal’s altar and cut down the Asherah pole beside it.”
But Joash replied to the hostile crowd around him, “Are you going to plead Baal’s cause? Are you trying to save him? Whoever fights for him shall be put to death by morning! If Baal really is a god, he can defend himself when someone breaks down his altar.”
So that day they called Gideon “Jerub-Baal,” saying, “Let Baal contend with him,” because he broke down Baal’s altar. – Judges 6:25-32

God had called Gideon to deliver the Israelites from the oppression of the Midianites. Israel had cried out to God in anguish for help, and soon, Gideon would provide it to them. He would route a seemingly infinite Midian army with a scant 300 men, delivering his fellow countrymen in God’s strength. But who were Gideon’s countrymen? What was Israel like? Who are these people on whose behalf YHWH himself fought through Gideon?

Before Gideon’s famous fight, God asked him to do some “prep work.” God told Gideon to desecrate his own father’s place of worship—the same place he himself worshiped as a child, no doubt. On God’s orders, Gideon killed his father’s best bull, destroyed his Baal altar and sacrificed the animal to YHWH using the Asherah pole as fuel for the fire. There is really no more blatant religious commentary one can make than that! “YHWH is God; Baal and Asherah his consort are destroyed in his presence! Their holy places are worthless scraps of kindling, only useful to be burned!” If YHWH was to save Israel, they needed to be reminded that He was in charge.

How do the Israelites react to this—the same men who had cried out to God in anguish for help? They are filled with rage. They see their holy places desecrated and destroyed, and they demand a hefty revenge—the blood of Gideon! The idolatrous Israelites demand death for the “criminal” Gideon, when in fact it is the two-faced Baal worshipers whom God should have pronounced guilty of the capital-offense crime of putting another god before Him! Israel has become a completely pagan nation—incensed that their idols have been struck down but uncaring that they have forsaken the one true God—whom they had actually had the audacity to petition for help!

And yet God still delivers them!

Is any culture, then, so far gone that God is not willing to deliver the people, if only they would cry out?