19. Gideon

Gideon The Twofold Enemy - the Midianites and the Unfaithfulness of Israel

"And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord: and the Lord delivered them into the hand of Midian seven years. And the hand of Midian prevailed against Israel: and because of the Midianites the children of Israel made them the dens which are in the mountains, and caves, and strong holds. And so it was, when Israel had sown, that the Midianites came up, and the Amalekites, and the children of the east, even they came up against them; and they encamped against them, and destroyed the increase of the earth, till thou come unto Gaza, and left no sustenance for Israel, neither sheep, nor ox, nor ass. For they came up with their cattle and their tents, and they came as grasshoppers for multitude; for both they and their camels were without number: and they entered into the land to destroy it. And Israel was greatly impoverished because of the Midianites; and the children of Israel cried unto the Lord. And it came to pass, when the children of Israel cried unto the Lord because of the Midianites, that the Lord sent a prophet unto the children of Israel, which said unto them, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, I brought you up from Egypt, and brought you forth out of the house of bondage; and I delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of all that oppressed you, and drave them out from before you, and gave you their land; and I said unto you, I am the Lord your God; fear not the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but ye have not obeyed my voice." (Judges 6:1-10) In these lectures concerning the days of the judges we have seen, again and again, Israel getting into difficulty because of their disobedience to the Lord. Here again we find the same story. There was a terrible condition in Israel because they disobeyed the Lord. Normal life was disrupted, they were living in caves and dens and strongholds, and the food supply was very, very scarce. The Midianites destroyed all that was sown and took all that they could get for themselves, and consequently Israel was impoverished. The Midianites were a very strong and resilient enemy. The name Midian means ’strife’ or ’contention’. I do not think I need to say much more in this connection. How often we have seen amongst the people of God normal conditions in assembly life being disrupted because of strife and contention, with people seeking their own way, strong willed people making demands about things that ought never to be considered amongst the people of God; personal or family animosities, parties arising, and strife and contention existing amongst the saints of God. There is very little in the way of worship to the Father and the Son, there is very little in the way of testimony to the Lord or to the unconverted, and there certainly is precious little in the way of food supply. What the saints are asked to feed upon is strife and sorrow and backbiting and misrepresentation and cruelties of different kinds, and no spiritual growth is possible on this food. This was the kind of condition that Israel was in. There was no family life, all the business life of the nation was disrupted, and food supply was at a very low ebb. In such a condition we find the people were very much distressed, and it is a very good thing when the people do get distressed and cry aloud to God for some blessing and some help and some direction as to how to get out of their awful condition. We have seen it over and over again and we will consider this in these addresses on the book of Judges.

God is a faithful God and he sends a nameless prophet, and he tells the people the reason why they are in this condition, and as we have said in previous lectures, this was not because the Midianites were more powerful than the children of Israel, because when the children of Israel had God in their midst, and God fighting for them, it did not matter how great the enemy was, the battle was a foregone conclusion, God was with His people helping them. So often we find in the Old Testament words such as "the battle is the Lord’s" (1 Samuel 17:47), and when the battle was the Lord’s there was no enemy powerful enough to deal with the nation of Israel. The reason for their condition was their own unfaithfulness, their own disobedience to God’s plain and distinct word to have nothing to do with idolatry but to have Himself enshrined in their affections. The last word of John’s first epistle, "Children, keep yourselves from idols" (1 John 5:21), is not a negative statement, it is a very positive statement, it simply means, ’I want the affections of My people for Myself, I do not want any interference from any other source.’ This can be proved from the Old Testament, in Deuteronomy there are three distinct occasions when God describes Himself as a jealous God and the context in which He describes Himself in this way is each time connected with a warning to the people not to have anything to do with idols (4:23-24, 5:9, 6:13-15), in other words, God was jealous over the affections of His people. When John, inspired by the Holy Spirit, said to the saints, "Children, keep yourselves from idols", John was saying to them, ’The Father and the Son want your love for themselves’, and in view of all the wonderful truths that have been revealed, what a sad thing it is that the affections of the saints go astray after other things and prevent their enjoyment of these blessings, and prevent a response to the Father and to the Son. So the unnamed prophet told the nation very plainly that the reason for the prevailing condition was their own disobedience. It is very difficult for anyone to say today that there is one particular reason for failure amongst the people of God wherever they are found. I am very much aware that we are not the only Christian company that is experiencing difficulty. I have read in magazines and heard from other sources that all companies of Christians are experiencing the difficulty and declension that is marking this favoured land of ours. There may be isolated places where the Lord is blessing, thank God for that, but generally speaking, we all know something about the low condition of things that prevails. I think it would be right to say that in whatever way the declension is marked, and it may be different in different localities, we can all trace it to this one word - disobedience. In some way or another we have failed in relation to the word of God, either individually or collectively and if that is so we must expect the corresponding failure in testimony and in worship. It is inevitable. Divine things do not just work automatically, if there is failure in our obedience, then there must be failure in response. You might say this was a very despondent message, well this nameless prophet did not come along and say, ’Well, God is prepared to show you grace and love, He is a gracious God’. He did not come along to boost up their feelings and make everything nice when everything was not nice. The nameless prophet told the truth, and if we are told the truth we are well on the way to getting something done to repair the difficulties. Thank God, there was one man at least who was doing something to make the conditions better.