Mighty Warrior

A series on the Judges of Israel
 – Gideon from the tribe of Manasseh
(Click on the link below to read the verses.)
Judges 6 

[The book of Judges is a roller coaster ride. It’s about the history of Israel following their entry into the Promised Land. Unfortunately, Israel went through cycles of rejecting God and then repenting. Each time, the Lord saved them by raising up a leader who was called a judge. In this series, we will be looking at some of these judges to learn about God’s character as well as our own.]

  

¹ The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, and for seven years he gave them into the hands of the Midianites.    NIV

 

Bam! Just like that! The cycle started again! Only this time, the Lord didn’t oppress Israel through an occupying nation, but instead through a nation of nomadic herdsmen that invaded the lush Jezreel Valley, the breadbasket of Israel. Like clockwork, when Israel was harvesting their crops, the Midianites would invade.

 

⁵ These enemy hordes, coming with their livestock and tents, were as thick as locusts; they arrived on droves of camels too numerous to count. And they stayed until the land was stripped bare. ⁶ So Israel was reduced to starvation by the Midianites. Then the Israelites cried out to the Lord for help. NLT

 

Because the Midianites were so cruel, the Israelites hid in the “mountain clefts, caves and strongholds”, especially when they were harvesting crops. Such was the case for Gideon who was hiding in a winepress to harvest his wheat.

 

An angel of the Lord appeared and spoke to Gideon saying, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.” Gideon was anything but a “mighty warrior”. He saw himself as a fearful farmer. A man whose clan was the weakest and whose family worshiped Baal. He even accused the Lord of abandoning Israel. Here’s what the Lord said.

 

¹⁴ Then the Lord turned to Gideon and said, “Go with the strength you have, and rescue Israel from the Midianites. I am sending you!”            NLT

 

Gideon needed reassurance. Therefore, he asked the angel to show him a sign that it was the Lord who was speaking to him. It was a small step of faith, but Gideon was “going with the strength you have”.

 

Following this, the angel gave Gideon a challenge. He told Gideon to tear down his father’s altar to Baal and the Asherah pole. Because he was afraid of his family and the townspeople, Gideon did it at night. Still, he took a huge risk. This step of faith brought him closer to being ready to fulfill the angel’s title of “mighty warrior”.

 

As the Midianites and their allies gathered in the Jezreel Valley, the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon. He called the Israelites to prepare to fight. But even then, before Gideon was willing to go to battle, he twice asked the Lord for a sign.

 

Gideon was no different than you or me. He was afraid to take risks; to step out in faith; to lose control. He saw himself as the world saw him, not as the Lord saw him. He let the culture around him shape his life. Despite this, when he was called and sent by the Lord, he obeyed.

 

¹⁶ The Lord said to Gideon, “I will be with you. And you will destroy the Midianites as if you were fighting against one man.”      NLT

 

The Lord doesn’t want a mighty warrior. He wants us to “go with the strength you have” and in the knowledge that the Lord will be with us.

 

Copyright 2024 Joseph B Williams

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www.lifelinebasketball.blogspot.com

 

 

 

Hitting Rock Bottom

A series on the story of redemption
The story of Gideon
(Click on the link below to read the verses.)
Judges 6 

[Everybody has a story. Even God has one. His is a story about love and redemption and faithfulness. In this series we are going to take a closer look at God’s story through the lives of the people that He touched. How their story became His story of redemption. And how your story is also a part of it.]

  

You’ve probably hit rock bottom before. I have. My most painful experience happened a few years after getting married when our first child was still born. Everybody has their own story to tell.

 

Hitting rock bottom for the Israelites was directly related to the Midianites. For seven years, the Midianites and their allies would invade Israel, ruining their crops and taking their animals. Finally, the Israelites called out to the Lord for help.

 

That’s where Gideon’s story began. Like most of the Israelites, he was hiding in fear. One day, while threshing wheat in a winepress, an angel of the Lord addressed Gideon in the most surprising way.

 

¹² When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.”     NIV

 

Of course, Gideon was anything but a mighty warrior. In fact, the first thing he said was to accuse the Lord of abandoning the Israelites. In reality though, the Israelites had abandoned the Lord by worshipping Baal and Asherah.

 

¹⁴ The Lord turned to him and said, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?”     NIV

 

For Gideon, to “Go in the strength you have” meant taking that first small step towards living up to the name that the angel of the Lord had given him… mighty warrior. The defining moment occurred when he obeyed the Lord and took down his father’s Baal altar and Asherah pole. The following incident occurred.

 

³³ Now all the Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern peoples joined forces and crossed over the Jordan and camped in the Valley of Jezreel. ³⁴ Then the Spirit of the Lord came on Gideon, and he blew a trumpet, summoning the Abiezrites to follow him.      NIV

 

Even though Gideon wasn’t in a position of strength, the Spirit of the Lord came on him. From then on, Gideon was more decisive; more directed. Although he still needed encouragement from the Lord, he wasn’t hiding anymore.

 

Israel was constantly going through a cycle of sin and redemption. Like Israel, we do the same thing and sometimes hit rock bottom. But there is a silver lining. Here’s how Eugene Peterson put it in Matthew 5 from the Sermon on the Mount.

 

³ “You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.

⁴ “You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.     MSG

 

We normally don’t feel blessed when we hit rock bottom. But sometimes redemption finds us there.

 

Copyright 2023 Joseph B Williams

www.lifelinebasketball.blogspot.com

 

 

 

A Mighty Warrior

 

Continuing a Series on Living by Faith
 (Use the link below to read the verses.)
Judges 6:1-16; Hebrews 11:32

 [Hebrews 11 is a recounting of the Heroes of the Faith. Even though they never saw what they had been promised, each person is commended for living “by faith”. At the end of these commendations, Hebrews 12 tells us, “Therefore, because you are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses… throw off sin; run with perseverance; fix your eyes on Jesus”. In other words, live “by faith”.]

  

In the comic strip Peanuts, there is a famous sequence where Lucy holds a football for Charlie Brown to kick. 

She promises to not pull it back at the last minute. But invariably, she does exactly that. As a result, Charlie Brown completely misses the ball, falling flat on the ground. This comic strip story is repeated over and over again with the same results every time.

 

Life is like that sometimes isn’t it? You and I are Charlie Brown and Lucy is “life”. She represents all the negative things of the year 2020; the virus, the economic upheaval, the social, racial and political unrest.

 

She also represents life outside of 2020 with its unexpected disappointments, losses, pain and broken relationships. The uncertainty of life. And just when we think we can trust the Lord, I mean Lucy, she pulls the football out and we fail again; we cause pain to ourselves and to others; we lose hope.

 

I wonder if the Jews might have felt that same way about the Lord in regards to the Midianites. Year after year, for seven years, the Midianites invaded the Jews in Canaan. Always with the same results. Where was the Lord? Why was He letting this happen to His chosen people?

 

The Jews remembered that the Lord had brought them out of slavery in Egypt with mighty miracles. He had brought them into the Promised Land. And yet, here they were hiding in caves, and in Gideon’s case, a winepress.

 

So what did they do? They cried out to the Lord to save them. But instead of taking military action, the Lord sent a prophet who reminded them of all that the Lord had done in the past, and that they were in this situation because of their own actions; their own sin.

 

Thankfully, the Lord didn’t stop there. He never does. He sent an angel to speak into the life of Gideon. Even though Gideon doesn’t appear to be someone capable of leading the Jews to fight against the marauding Midianites, a violent group of nomads, the Lord speaks into Gideon’s heart by calling him a Mighty Warrior, and promises him this.

 

¹⁴ Then the Lord turned to him and said, “Go with the strength you have, and rescue Israel from the Midianites. I am sending you!”

¹⁵ “But Lord,” Gideon replied, “how can I rescue Israel? My clan is the weakest in the whole tribe of Manasseh, and I am the least in my entire family!” ¹⁶ The Lord said to him, “I will be with you. And you will destroy the Midianites as if you were fighting against one man.” NLT

 

Gideon is one of my favorite characters in the Bible because he is so relatable. His faith is weak; he’s not a risk taker or a courageous leader. He’s very polite on the outside, but faithless on the inside. He doesn’t stand up to the Midianites like David did to Goliath, and yet in Hebrews, he is considered a Hero of the Faith.

 

So what does Charlie Brown do, what should we do, when life happens? Get back up and try again! But after seven years, or a lifetime, it gets more and more difficult to keep getting back up. However, we must keep trying; keep trusting in the Lord; and remember that the promises given to Gideon are true for you and me.

 

“You are a “Mighty Warrior”, and the Lord will be with you.”