Judges 6 cites how God raised up Gideon to fight against the Midianites who oppressed Israel and robbed all their harvests. We meet Gideon in the winepress treading grain. He is met by the Angel who speaks to what Gideon would be. God was calling him to be a warrior.

God calls us in according to what He is making us to be in His Enabling not our ability

Gideon’s response to the Call was the disappearance of God’s acts amongst His People. He cites the oppression of Midian as limitation not opportunity. He is doing in the Winepress what should be done in the open in a threshing floor. How many times in the lockdown we are “treading the grain” in secret because we are limited by fear, by regulation? The oppression has been allowed by God to bring God’s people back to Him. Now Gideon is not seeing that he is the response of God to the cries of an impoverished people.

When Haggai started to prophesy to a people returned from Captivity their impoverishment came from wrong priorities

Haggai tells us in Chapter 1 that the Temple was still a foundation yet they were completing their own houses 🏘️. They had more priority in their own house than the House of God, the restoration of prayer and worship. The results were that impoverishment would come to them. Their salary would disappear. This is the same type of impoverishment we see in Judges. What we verify is that when we experience impoverishment we must ask ourselves if we have put God’s priorities before our own. This pandemic has brought with it an impoverishment with it across the board, the lack of fellowship,lack of edification, lack of resources spiritual and physical. We must see that God allowed the pandemic as a kind of sifting that God allowed on both Peter and Job. Satan petitions, God permits, Jesus prays. So if God allows a sifting by a crisis like we have experienced what did Satan petition? Did he affirm that God’s people would abandon faith and embrace fear? We must stay at conjecture. For those who have a discipline of prayer and study then this crisis has been a rich opportunity to be prepared for the battle ahead.

Gideon was being prepared to war with God’s ability, in God’s way, with God’s company

The battle God was preparing Gideon for was to deliver Israel from restrictions and from impoverishment. God was to do the task in 3 stages. He was to prepare Gideon to believe God’s call on himself, to believe in God’s ability with so few, and in God’s way through trumpets and lamps. This has one objective to prove that we are simply a vessel of His Power. So the Church and God’s people must recognise that there is a call to break the “power of Midian” over the earth. The first take is receive that Call. And that call will not be for a multitude but for the chosen few. They will be proved at the River of God and how they drink of His Spirit and His Word. Those who are fearful now cannot be part of this work.

Gideon’s first act is to tear down the growing idolatry in his family and his nation

His first act was to tear down the pole set up to worship false gods . He is the object of death threats yet he broke through this barrier. Our idols and “poles” today can be a lockdown survival mentality, can be streaming TV and series. Anything that fills a vacuum. There is a vacuum because Gideon said so when he said: “where is the God of our fathers?” The pandemic has brought a vacuum which can be filled. To fulfil this Call to be a warrior we must first be prepared to tear our own idols down. We must make a radical sanctification to God’s cause.

The enemy is defeated by so few with so much divine ability

Every awakening, every move of God starts with the few who believe in spiritual preparation of prayer to believe that the defeat of a multitude of enemies is not by numbers or physical strength, it is by obedience to God’s ways.

Concluding words

I believe that the present crisis, agenda and pandemic can be won over if we take the lessons from the story of Gideon. Let us receive God’s call and move in God’s ability, then we shall see new freedoms and new fruits. Shalom.