Unit 2: Out of Slavery to Nationhood
Key Verse:
Judges 6:23 NKJV
23 Then the Lord said to him, “Peace be with you; do not fear, you shall not die.”
Peace! Be still and see the Salvation of the Lord!
What you need to know
Judges 5:7 NKJV
7
Village life ceased, it ceased in Israel,
Until I, Deborah, arose,
Arose a mother in Israel.
The Book of Judges tells of a time when Israel grew as a nation but repeatedly failed as a people to walk before God as his holy representatives in the earth. Each time that occurred, they would be overwhelmed and subjected by the surrounding nations. Deborah, the prophetess, preceded as a judge and leader of Israel. Under her leadership, with Barack leading the armies of Israel, they defeated Jabin, the king of Canaan, and freed themselves from their Canaanite oppressors.
Judges 5:31 NKJV
31
“Thus let all Your enemies perish, O Lord!
But let those who love Him be like the sun
When it comes out in full strength.”
So the land had rest for forty years.
After Israel defeated the Canaanites, Israel enjoyed a generational period of rest, forty years. Forty represents a time of trial or transition in Scripture. Moses was exiled to the desert for forty years after he killed a man in Egypt. The children of Israel wandered in the wilderness of Sin for forty years, until the generation that had left Egypt died in the wilderness, leaving only their children alive to enter into the promised land, save Caleb and Joshua.
After Deborah, Israel rested for forty years. At the end of that time, Israel, again, fell into sin and subsequently fell under subjection to a neighboring nation or people group: the Midianites. This is where we begin this week’s lesson.
The Lesson
Judges 6:1-2 NKJV
1 Then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord. So the Lord delivered them into the hand of Midian for seven years, 2 and the hand of Midian prevailed against Israel. Because of the Midianites, the children of Israel made for themselves the dens, the caves, and the strongholds which are in the mountains.
The nation of Israel, whose very name meant, “He who has prevailed with God”, had somehow, after forty years, drifted from God, who had brought them out of captivity, then out of the wilderness to the land that had been promised to their progenitor, Abraham. At this point, the nature of their sin is unclear, but what is clear is that God has allowed them to become subject to the Midianites for seven years. Midian was a son of Abraham, by his second wife, Keturah (Genesis 25:1-2). It was the land of Midian where Moses fled and lived for forty years. It was where he met and married his wife, Zipporah, a Midianite woman (Exodus 2:15-22). For a time, they coexisted with Israel in the wilderness but were eventually driven from among the people of Israel as punishment for leading them into idolatry (Numbers 31).
Now, God caused the Midianites to drive Israel into hiding, driving them into the mountains and caves in the northern region of Israel, fearful for their very lives. Normally a peaceful, agrarian society, the Israelites were forced into the sparse subsistence of living outside of God’s abundant will.
Judges 6:7 NKJV
7 And it came to pass, when the children of Israel cried out to the Lord because of the Midianites,
Then, after seven years of misery, Israel remembered. Israel remembered who they were and Whose they were. They cried out to the Lord, God Almighty for help. Somehow, over time, they had become unplugged from their source: Yahweh, The I AM. Forty years of rest brought complacency. Now, in their desperation, they would return to holiness.
Judges 6:8-9 NKJV
8 that the Lord sent a prophet to the children of Israel, who said to them, “Thus says the Lord God of Israel: ‘I brought you up from Egypt and brought you out of the house of [a]bondage; 9 and I delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians and out of the hand of all who oppressed you, and drove them out before you and gave you their land.
Then, as in times past, God sent a preacher. Though he is unnamed, what matters is his message. It begins with, “Thus saith the Lord, God of Israel!”... It is here where God meets his people, at His Word. Before deliverance, comes repentance. Before repentance comes the Word. God desires a pure heart, a singleness of purpose that is focused on fielty to Him, His Kingdom, and His purposes.
2 Corinthians 7:8-10 NKJV
8 For even if I made you sorry with my letter, I do not regret it; though I did regret it. For I perceive that the same epistle made you sorry, though only for a while. 9 Now I rejoice, not that you were made sorry, but that your sorrow led to repentance. For you were made sorry in a godly manner, that you might suffer loss from us in nothing. 10 For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death.
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Judges 6:10 NKJV
10 Also I said to you, “I am the Lord your God; do not fear (worship) the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell.” But you have not obeyed My voice.’ ”
Here, we are given some indication of Israel’s sin: idolatry, the worship of false idols. Time and again, Israel would fall into idolatry. This was the first and most important of the Commandments that God gave Moses at Mount Sinai. God would not suffer his people to place any idol before Him. Unfortunately, the Israelites were surrounded by people who were polytheistic; they worshipped many idols all at once. God wanted people who could be drawn into a direct relationship with Him, not a polytheistic model that would draw them into worship of the creation, not the Creator. Beloved, God wants you to know His heart, not just seek His hand. He wants you to seek His face. He is jealous for you! It is after this Word of correction from the unnamed preacher that we are introduced to God’s arm of deliverance: Gideon.
Judges 6:11 NKJV
11 Now the Angel of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth tree which was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon threshed wheat in the winepress, in order to hide it from the Midianites.
The Angel of the Lord is the star of this story. Pay attention. When the Angel of the Lord appears in Scripture, it is to be regarded as a Theophany, a physical manifestation of God. In fact, it can be further regarded as a Christophany, a pre-incarnate of Christ in the Old Testament. Literally, the Word made flesh. So then, the Angel of the Lord appears to Gideon at the place of pressing. Gideon is at the winepress, threshing wheat. Why was threshing wheat in a winepress? He was hiding from the Midianites, the marauding bandits who had overrun their land. Gideon was alone, in a place of contemplation. He was trying to make the best of a bad situation.
Judges 6:12: NKJV
12 And the Angel of the Lord appeared to him, and said to him, “The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor!”
And the Angel speaks. There are two distinct aspects to the Word of the Lord to Gideon. The first proclaims, the second identifies. What do I mean by this? Beloved, When the Angel of the Lord identifies Gideon as a, “...mighty man of valor, He is simply stating the literal Hebraic meaning of Gideon’s name. In Hebrew, Gideon means ‘Great Warrior’, or ‘Great Destroyer. You can see that what had at one time been a parent’s hope and prayer before God at the time of his birth would now become the instrument of God’s deliverance.
However, the beauty of the Angel of the Lord's proclamation comes at the beginning of His statement. It is there that the Angel proclaims that ‘God is with him (Gideon). Beloved, this is the place where Gideon’s name takes on Kingdom purpose. It is the place where God draws Gideon into covenant. It is the equivalent of God changing Abram’s name to Abraham. It is the moment where God, by His Word, empowers His ‘Great Warrior’ to deliver His people, Israel, from bondage.
Judges 6:13 NKJV
13 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 forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites.”
Gideon is a generation removed from the last move of God on Israel’s behalf, during the time of Deborah and Barak, and around four hundred years removed from the miraculous deliverance of the Hebrews from Egyptian slavery. He’s never seen a miracle. He questions the Angel of the Lord about the absence of God’s Presence amongst the people of Israel, not recognizing that the fault lies with them, their fall into idolatry, not with God. But it’s OK. God has not come to Gideon to accuse him. He has come to encourage and empower him. Beloved, wherever you are, whatever you’re going through, somebody has prayed for you. You may not know it, nor might they. But God has heard. In His time, He will act! Deliverance is on the way!
Judges 6:14 NKJV
14 Then the Lord turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours, and you shall save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Have I not sent you?”
This is just the beginning of God’s interaction with Gideon. Miracles will come, but God’s not sending Gideon with a magic wand. In fact, He is sending Gideon in His own strength, …and nothing else. Gideon will have to trust God and act. In fact, God will perform miracles for Gideon, but only to move Gideon’s heart to a place of faith and trust in Him. God has purposed to send Gideon as His arm of Deliverance.
Judges 6:15 NKJV
15 So he said to Him, “O my Lord, how can I save Israel? Indeed my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.”
Suddenly, Gideon begins to understand what is happening. Suddenly, he becomes introspective, his focus turning to his weaknesses and insecurities. Suddenly, under the revealing light of the Word, Gideon sees that he too falls short of the Glory of God. Suddenly, he finds himself right in the place where God can use him, a place of humility before God. His is not so much of a complaint as it is a confession of his need for God.
Judges 6:16a NKJV
16a And the Lord said to him, “Surely I will be with you,..
It is here that the Angel of the Lord affirms, for the third time, that He is with Gideon. He is with Gideon. He is with Gideon! God is with Gideon! Beloved, God with you is more than the world against you! God with you means that the enemy is vastly outnumbered. God with you means that His grace, more than sufficient for all of your needs, is at hand. When Jesus declared, the Kingdom of Heaven is within you”, this is exactly what He meant. Everything you need is available from within. Gideon would go in ‘his own strength,’ but God would go with him, and that would be more than enough!
Selah,
wb
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Romans 8:31 NKJV
31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?
1 John 4:4 NKJV
4 You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.
Isaiah 59:19 NKJV
19
So shall they fear
The name of the Lord from the west,
And His glory from the rising of the sun;
When the enemy comes in like a flood,
The Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him.
Luke 17:20-21 NKJV
20 Now when He was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He answered them and said, “The kingdom of God does not come with observation; 21 nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.”
2 Corinthians 12:9a
9a And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.”
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