Judges 6:1ff
6 Then the sons of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord; and the Lord gave them into the hands of Midian seven years. 2 The power of Midian prevailed against Israel. Because of Midian the sons of Israel made for themselves the dens which were in the mountains and the caves and the strongholds. 3 For it was when Israel had sown, that the Midianites would come up with the Amalekites and the sons of the east and go against them. 4 So they would camp against them and destroy the produce of the earth as far as Gaza, and leave no sustenance in Israel as well as no sheep, ox, or donkey. 5 For they would come up with their livestock and their tents, they would come in like locusts for number, both they and their camels were innumerable; and they came into the land to devastate it. 6 So Israel was brought very low because of Midian, and the sons of Israel cried to the Lord.
7 Now it came about when the sons of Israel cried to the Lord on account of Midian, 8 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. 9 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, 10 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.”’”
11 Then the angel of the Lord came and sat under the oak that was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite as his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press in order to save it from the Midianites. 12 The angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, “The Lord is with you, O valiant warrior.” 13 Then Gideon said to him, “O my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.” 14 The Lord looked at him and said, “Go in this your strength and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian. Have I not sent you?” 15 He said to Him, “O Lord, how shall I deliver Israel? Behold, my family is the least in Manasseh, and I am the youngest in my father’s house.” 16 But the Lord said to him, “Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat Midian as one man.”
If the Lord is with us, why then is all this befallen us? Where are all His miracles? … These questions are not unique to Gideon; we ask such questions of God, often. If the Lord is with us, why do we find our lives so confounding, so confusing, so perplexing? Why do we suffer? We may hear the words: “The Lord be with you,” but if He is with us, where are His miracles? His deliverance?
How does a stumbling, wobbling faith so pass through these things temporal that it loses not the things eternal? Consider this Sunday’s Collect:
O GOD, the protector of all that trust in thee, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy: Increase and multiply upon us thy mercy; that, thou being our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we finally lose not the things eternal: Grant this, O heavenly Father, for Jesus Christ's sake our Lord. Amen.
Judges 6 follows the pattern of the Judges …
God’s indictment … Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord (6:1)
God’s judgment … Israel was delivered into the hand of the Midianites for seven years — the number of fulfillment/completion (6:1-2)
Israel cries out to God (6:6-7)
God’s deliverer is raised up … Gideon “the mighty man of valor” (6:11-14)
God sends a prophet to the sons of Israel with a reminder of God’s miraculous deliverance and the gift of the Promised Land …
I brought you up from Egypt
I brought you out from the house of slavery
I delivered you from the power of those who oppressed you
I drove the oppressors from the Promised Land
I gave you their land
I am the Lord your God
I am to be feared, not the gods of the Amorites
In the midst of things temporal you must remember the things eternal. God’s deliverer, Gideon, will go forth in the same power of God that delivered Israel out of Egypt. Gideon does not think himself up to the task … and he was right. The angel’s salutation: “The Lord is with you, O valiant warrior” is met with profound skepticism by Gideon … Who me? How shall I deliver Israel? I am a nobody from the least of the families of the small tribe of Manasseh, and I am the youngest, the least of that family! What will make Gideon a valiant warrior? A deliverer of Israel? “The Lord is with you … your strength is My having sent you … surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat Midian as one man.”
If the Lord is with us, why then is all this befallen us? How do we pass through confusing things temporal so that we lose not things eternal? We recall our miraculous deliverance from Satan, sin and death. And we are ever mindful that the Lord our strength is with us. “O GOD, the protector of all that trust in thee, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy: Increase and multiply upon us thy mercy; that, thou being our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we finally lose not the things eternal: Grant this, O heavenly Father, for Jesus Christ's sake our Lord. Amen.
The Lord be with you! And with thy spirit.
JSH+