A Warrior in a Winepress
Background Story: God delivered the Israelites from the slavery of Egypt under the leadership of Moses. Then God uses Joshua to take the people into the promise land and conquer their enemies. But as the people settle into the land, they started to worship the gods of the people around them. In His mercy, God raised up judges to communicate God’s message to the people. (Read more in Judges 2).
Read Judges 6:1-24
The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, and for seven years he gave them into the hands of the Midianites. 2 Because the power of Midian was so oppressive, the Israelites prepared shelters for themselves in mountain clefts, caves and strongholds. 3 Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, the Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern peoples invaded the country. 4 They camped on the land and ruined the crops all the way to Gaza and did not spare a living thing for Israel, neither sheep nor cattle nor donkeys. 5 They came up with their livestock and their tents like swarms of locusts. It was impossible to count them or their camels; they invaded the land to ravage it. 6 Midian so impoverished the Israelites that they cried out to the Lord for help.
7 When the Israelites cried out to the Lord because of Midian, 8 he sent them a prophet, who said, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I brought you up out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 9 I rescued you from the hand of the Egyptians. And I delivered you from the hand of all your oppressors; I drove them out before you and gave you their land. 10 I said to you, ‘I am the Lord your God; do not worship the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you live.’ But you have not listened to me.”
11 The angel of the Lord came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites. 12 When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.”
13 “Pardon me, my lord,” Gideon replied, “but if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our ancestors told us about when they said, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up out of Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.”
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?”
15 “Pardon me, my lord,” Gideon replied, “but how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.”
16 The Lord answered, “I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites, leaving none alive.”
17 Gideon replied, “If now I have found favor in your eyes, give me a sign that it is really you talking to me. 18 Please do not go away until I come back and bring my offering and set it before you.”
And the Lord said, “I will wait until you return.”
19 Gideon went inside, prepared a young goat, and from an ephah of flour he made bread without yeast. Putting the meat in a basket and its broth in a pot, he brought them out and offered them to him under the oak.
20 The angel of God said to him, “Take the meat and the unleavened bread, place them on this rock, and pour out the broth.” And Gideon did so. 21 Then the angel of the Lord touched the meat and the unleavened bread with the tip of the staff that was in his hand. Fire flared from the rock, consuming the meat and the bread. And the angel of the Lord disappeared. 22 When Gideon realized that it was the angel of the Lord, he exclaimed, “Alas, Sovereign Lord! I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face!”
23 But the Lord said to him, “Peace! Do not be afraid. You are not going to die.”
24 So Gideon built an altar to the Lord there and called it The Lord Is Peace. To this day it stands in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.
Big Idea: Stop waiting and go is the strength you have.
Starving… the people meant to display God’s power and live under His provision are now starving. Every time they plant food, their enemies ruin it. So instead of living in the promises of God, the Israelites are hiding in caves, hungry and afraid. When the angel comes to Gideon, he is threshing wheat in an unlikely place. Wheat threshing normally happened on a hill where the wind could help divide the usable from the unusable. But Gideon is threshing in a winepress to hide the food supply from their enemies. When the angel comes to him and calls him a warrior, his first response is to question and doubt. He says, “but if the Lord is with us, why…?” Gideon is frustrated because he knows that the place the Israelites are (hiding, starving, and barely surviving), isn’t the promise God had for them when they left slavery in Egypt. Not only that, but he has major doubts about himself. He isn’t from the right clan and he isn’t strong. So the combination of all these questions and doubt seems like it would disqualify him from God’s service.
So how did God respond? God doesn’t take 45 minutes to answer Gideon and tell him His thousand year plan for the Israelites or try to convince him to trust Him. God instructs him to, “Go in the strength you have.” Even in His doubts and frustrations, God was calling him forward into his purpose. And when Gideon presents God with insecurities about himself, God responds, “I will be with you.” Gideon was a warrior because of the God who was with him… not because of his own abilities. And when Gideon needs reassurance, God responds, “I will wait.” What an amazing and patient God we serve who meets us right where we are in the middle of our doubts, insecurities, fears, frustrations to take us from potential to purpose!
God chose Gideon to once again reach out His arm of mercy to a people that continued to turn their back on Him. And God has chosen you for a special purpose to reach those far from Him! And while Gideon’s imperfection and doubts made him feel disqualified, God already knew the warrior He had created him to be. We can live our entire life making excuses as to why we never transition from winepress to warrior. Don’t wait to overcome every struggle and understand every principle before you step out in faith. All the heroes of the Bible were flawed and full of self-doubt (see Moses, Jeremiah, Peter, Paul). Like the meat and bread Gideon placed on the rock, God will take the offering of our life and consume us with His power to do His purposes! “Go in the strength you have” and have faith that God is going with you!
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