(Some content adapted from Gideon by Priscilla Shirer)
Now it came about when the sons of Israel
cried to the LORD on account of Midian, that the LORD sent a prophet to the
sons of Israel, and he said to them, "Thus says the LORD, the God of
Israel, 'It was I who brought you up from Egypt and brought you out from the
house of slavery. 'I delivered you from the hands of the Egyptians and from the
hands of all your oppressors, and dispossessed them before you and gave you
their land, and I said to you, "I am the LORD your God; you shall not fear
the gods of the Amorites in whose land you live. But you have not obeyed
Me."' Judges 6:7-10
The last four weeks I have been involved in a Bible study
about a man in the Old Testament named Gideon.
I must admit that when I found out that our new Bible study that we were
to begin in January was going to be about Gideon, I was less than
enthused. It sounded horribly
boring. After all, who wants to know
about Gideon? I wanted something
RELEVANT, something that was going to be helpful to me, something I could APPLY
to my life and my current situation. I
didn’t want to know about Gideon! Well,
God obviously wanted me to know about Gideon.
As far as it being helpful and applicable to my life at this time,
nothing could have been more on point.
A Little Background Information…
The Israelites were in a bad place. They had done evil in the eyes of the
Lord. They had turned their backs on God
over and over again and now they were worshipping pagan gods and suffering
painful consequences as a result. For
seven years, God has allowed them to be harassed by their enemies. These include the Midianites, the Amalekites,
and the people of the east. Every time
Israel plants a crop, these enemies come in and plunder and destroy it. The enemy has camels which carry heavy loads
and run fast. They are so powerful that
the poor Israelites don’t stand a chance.
So the people are reduced to abject poverty. They hide in caves; they cower when the
Midianite hordes descend upon them and finally cry to God for help in
desperation. They were scared,
terrified. This, then, is the existing
situation when Gideon enters the account.
I don’t know about you, but I have been known to cower and
hide in the face of the enemy on more than one occasion. When we first see Gideon, he is hiding in a wine
press, hoping the Midianites won’t find him and steal his crop. Most of the crops have been plundered and
destroyed, but what he has somehow managed to save must now be winnowed. So Gideon is threshing wheat in a wine press,
trying to get enough grain for flour for food.
He’s doing his job in the worst possible way. To winnow wheat you need to be out in the open
air where the wind can blow the chaff away as the grain is tossed upward, leaving
the good grain. But he’s scared to be
seen out in the open - so he’s doing the best job he can, in hiding.
You Cannot Hide From God
Gideon thought he was hiding. Maybe the Midianites could not find him there,
but God did. We will hear the story tomorrow
of what happened when the Angel of the Lord met Gideon there. It is a wonderful story of how there is
absolutely nowhere you can go to hide from God.
You may hide from the world, but God, and most importantly the love of
God, can find you anywhere. There is no
place on earth that you are out of His reach.
I don’t know about you, but that makes me feel a whole lot better.
Scripture to Claim:
Behold, the LORD'S hand is not so short
That it cannot save; Nor is His ear so dull That it cannot hear. Isaiah
59:1
