Midianites, Midianites Everywhere! Part I

“And Gideon said unto him, Oh my Lord, if the LORD be with us, why then is all this befallen us? and where be all his miracles which our fathers told us of, saying,
Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt? but now the LORD hath forsaken us, and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites. And the LORD looked upon him, and said, Go in this thy might, and thou shalt save Israel from the hand of the Midianites: have not I sent thee?”
Judges 6:13-14

My mother was a Christian so I grew up with a knowledge of the Bible. I am sure that some of you had one or two parents, grandparents or others around you who may have had a Christian influence on you so that you too learned about the Bible and its stories. You might have attended Sunday School, or as my children did, went to a program such as AWANA, where you learned and memorized Bible verses. Well, Gideon, who was a young man at the time, demonstrated his ‘Bible’ knowledge when he complained to the Angel of the Lord about the Midianites, and asked, ‘Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt? Where are the miracles that our fathers told us?’ That told me that Gideon’s father, Joash the Abiezrite, must have taught him the stories of the exodus, as Joash’s father taught him. However, did Joash tell Gideon all? Did Gideon know of the warnings that Moses, and most recently, Joshua gave Israel? Was Gideon aware of Israel’s response to Joshua’s exhortation not to serve the gods of the Amorites? What was it Israel said? “Far be it from us,” Israel cried, “that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods….” (Joshua 24:16) I suspect Gideon knew what they had said. Why? Because the Lord didn’t answer Gideon’s question, “why then is all this befallen us?” As with us when we ask such questions of God, I suspect that we know, and certainly the Lord knows, why bad things happen: it is often the consequence of someone’s sin—not always; consider Job, but few of us are like Job.

Now, as for Gideon’s notion that God delivered Israel into the hands of the Midianites, let’s look at that. First, yes, God is sovereign and nothing happens that isn’t in accordance with His divine will. In that sense, Gideon was right, but it wasn’t as if God hadn’t told Israel what would happen if they worshipped the foreign idols. When sin enters the scene, do we really expect God to continue His fellowship and protection over us when we wantonly disobey His commands? I wouldn’t, and I’m certainly not God. Out of my love, I would remain in the background and observe, but I would let them learn; even if that meant learning the hard way. God does chasten those Whom He loves. But still you might ask, ‘what’s the hard way in the spiritual realm of warfare?’ The Midianites, in this case, reoccupied the land, even as our sin allows the Midianites to reoccupy our landscape. As the consequence of Israel’s sin, they went on to strip Israel of every blessing that God promised. I’m sorry folks, but what I see happening every day in our lives, homes, country and world are things that we invite as a consequence of abandoning God and not listening. The Midianites were simply tools! The Midianites swept in to fill the vacuum that Israel left when Israel went out and started worshipping other gods. Quite frankly, God is no tool, and while He loves us beyond measure, it is unwise for any man to think that God can be taken advantage, and as far as the vacuum that is left when we grieve or quench the Holy Spirit, it’s a matter of Midianites, Midianites everywhere.     

But there is good news to this story. The Angel of the Lord showed up at Joash’s winepress where Gideon was a good boy working; trying to hide the wheat he secretly threshed there as to keep it away from the Midianites. And when you stop to think of the fact that the Lord chose and appeared to Gideon to deliver Israel from their suffering that also speaks of God’s sovereignty in action.

[Oh, that is not to say that Israel did not complain. They griped all  the time. But a complaint isn’t prayer. People complain when they feel that they should get something they deserve, and still hope to gain relief. In prayer, we confront and confess our sin first, asking for what we know that we do not deserve (God’s mercy and forgiveness), and then we present our petitions through Whom we have access to make our petitions to begin with: the Lord.]

Clearly, Israel neither deserved the Lord’s appearance, nor asked. If you read the story, the Israelites were mortified (not their sin, but they were) of what Gideon did in the dead of night when he tore down the alter to Baal. I really like this story about Gideon and all that can be drawn from it. Tomorrow, I’ll finish the lesson. Until then….