God Calls Them in the Air

The Angel of the Lord came, and He sat under the oak that was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash, Abiezrite. His son Gideon was threshing wheat in the wine vat in order to hide it from the Midianites. Then the Angel of the Lord appeared to him and said, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.” Judges 6:11,12

Samson, of course, gets all the attention in Judges, but, to me, Gideon is at least as interesting – more so in some ways.

As I mentioned yesterday, Judges records a number of cycles. When Gideon is called, Israel was at one of its nadirs. The Midianites, largely nomadic, would sweep in and pillage Israel. Normally, threshing was done in a high, open area to allow the breeze to catch the lighter chaff as the grain was tossed upward, making the separation easier. Gideon is down in a wine vat, essentially a hole cut into the rock, hiding from the Midianites while he flailed away, sweating and laboring to get enough grain separated out to have something to eat. It was a miserable situation brought on by Israel’s abandonment of God.

Paul, speaking of Abraham in Romans 4:16, 17, says: He is the father of us all in God’s sight. As it is written: I have made you the father of many nations. He believed in God, who gives life to the dead and calls things into existence that do not exist.

When the Lord shows up, Gideon does not look like a mighty warrior. As is evident in his subsequent conversation, Gideon does not see himself as a warrior or significant in any way.

God says to an old, childless man with an elderly, barren wife, “You are the father of nations.”

He says to a man cowering in a hole, “You are a mighty warrior.”

I am not merely what I appear to be, and -- though there is a truth in “as a man thinketh in his heart so is he” – I am not limited to what I have come to think about myself. I am what God says I am. I am what God sees in me.

The Lord declares that He is with Gideon. Gideon responded by looking at the disastrous situation of himself and his people. “If the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? I’ve heard all the stories about Egypt, the Red Sea, and the conquest of Canaan, but that’s all the past. It looks like God has abandoned us and handed us over to Midian.”

How often I have said the same thing when push came to shove. “God has abandoned me.” It’s not true. I don’t think there are always easy answers. It would be simple if I could say that I am always to blame for my own suffering. In fact, it sometimes appears that none of my good deeds go unpunished, as they say. Nevertheless, God does not hand me over to the enemy any more than He handed Job over. I am the clay. He is the Potter. He shapes me by His own hand, and then there is the fire – but we’ll leave that for another day.

Let’s go back to Gideon who had all the excuses. He was of Manasseh – not the most prestigious of the tribes. Not only that, his family was small and insignificant even within Manasseh. He is the youngest of the sons – hence, the least important, and his father, Joash, was an idolater, having built an altar to Baal.

As Gideon lays out all the reasons why he is not the guy, the Lord responds:

“Go in the strength you have ... Am I not sending you? ... I will be with you.”

That’s really the bottom line. I have to go in the strength I have. How can that possibly be enough? I don’t have what it takes. I don’t have the education. I don’t have the intellect. I don’t have the eloquence, the charm, the beauty, the physique.

God says, “Don’t worry about what you don’t have. Take what you have and go. That’s the key. Step out there. This is God talking to you – think about it. I am right there with you. Do you somehow think that I don’t know what I am doing?”

So today, in spite of the obstacles, in spite of my fears, I will go in the strength that I have and see what happens.

Judging By Your Cycle

Joshua son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of 110 ... That whole generation was also gathered to their ancestors. After them another generation rose up who did not know the Lord or the works He had done for Israel. – Judges 2:8-10

The Book of Judges describes a repeating cycle of events. The Israelites would go along being obedient to God; they would prosper. Prosperity would lead to complacency and self-satisfaction. They would begin to ignore God, becoming progressively more disobedient and distant. “Everyone did what he wanted,” the writer of Judges says several times. They denied authority and willfully turned from the law. In the depths of Israel’s rebellion, God would send an oppressor against them, allowing His people to come under the heavy hand of an enemy. The losses and suffering would cause the Israelites to begin to seek the Lord again. They would repent. God would raise up a deliverer, a judge to lead His people. The oppressor would be driven out. Peace and prosperity would be restored. A new cycle would begin.

I can understand that. We are cyclical beings. We work, we rest. We are one way at midnight and another at noon. In The Screwtape Letters, Lewis describes it as “undulation”. We have rhythms. It doesn’t mean that we have to become apostate and then suffer in order to be restored, but it does mean that we will not always be on the mountaintop. It’s a good thing to know. Just because we are occasionally in the shade does not mean we have turned away from God.

Jesus said, “No one who puts his hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” If you’ve ever plowed, you know that in order to make your furrow straight, you have to focus on something up ahead and drive toward that. You can’t be looking back, but it doesn’t mean you are plowing all the time.

America is a lot like Israel after the death of Joshua. Generations have risen up who have not seen the difficulties and hardships of previous generations. They have drifted from a God-centered worldview to a position of thinking God is at most an accessory, not something strictly necessary to life. This view weakens our resolve to stand against evil, makes us more accepting of moral relativism, and makes the case for a moral equivalency with our enemies – the Islamofascists, in particular.

Just because there is consensus does not mean there is truth. Deliverance will not come from the crowd. Polling data will not tell us what is right. We may not see billboards for the practical and expedient on the road of righteousness.

Restoration will begin – I think it has begun – in the hearts of individuals. It will not descend in edicts from Washington but it will rise from the Heartland. Those who are chosen by God may never be seen by the press or get written in the history books, but their prayers and their obedience will write the history beforehand.