Day 1: Setting the Context - Why Gideon's Story Matters

Setting the Context: Why Gideon's Story Matters

 Before we can understand the fleece, we need to understand the crisis that came before it.

In this opening episode of The Word & Prayer Room, we set the scene for Gideon's story by exploring the spiritual, social and economic conditions facing Israel in Judges chapter 6. For seven years, the nation lived under oppression from the Midianites. Fear was widespread, resources were scarce, and many had lost hope that things could ever change.

But beneath the surface of Israel's struggle was a deeper issue. Their circumstances were not simply the result of bad luck or difficult times. They were the consequence of drifting away from God. Yet even in their failure, God's mercy remained. While the people could only see their problems, God was already preparing a solution.

This episode helps us understand the backdrop to Gideon's calling and reveals important lessons about God's faithfulness, discipline and restoration. It reminds us that no matter how difficult the season, God is always at work behind the scenes, preparing the next chapter of His purpose.

Scripture Focus: Judges 6:1–10

Key Question: Could God be preparing an answer in the very area where you feel most discouraged?

Join us as we begin this journey through the Gideon Fleece model and discover how God works in seasons of uncertainty, challenge and change.

Seek. Discern. Obey.

Thank you for joining me in the Word & Prayer Room. If this study has encouraged you, please follow the podcast and share it with someone who may be seeking God's direction. Remember, God is not distant or silent. He is able to make His will known to those who sincerely seek Him. Until next time, keep listening for His voice, keep trusting His word, and keep walking by faith. 

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:30

So before we go into the main bulk of the study, I want to set some context so that we can really understand what was happening in the time of Israel when we pick up the story in the book of Judges. Now, the main part of the book of Judges shows how Israel fell increasingly into sin. In actual fact, they had a relationship that could be described as falling in and out of love with God. When you study the book of Judges, it includes the stories of twelve judges that were raised up to deliver Israel from crisis brought on by their own unfaithfulness. So this wasn't just bad things happening to good people, they were happening as a result of their unfaithfulness to God. And when you look at the book of Judges, chapter 6, it opens out with a very grim scene, and I encourage you to read Judges chapter 1 sorry, Judges chapter 6, verses 1 to 6, and you begin to see the context in which this study is framed. And I'm going to leave you to read that in your own time. And what we see is that Israel was in a time of crisis, and the opening verses of Judges 6 sets a very grim scene. Israel, having once again turned away from God, finds itself under the oppressive hand of the Medianites. And this is a cyclical pattern of sin leading to suffering, which is a recurring theme in the book of Judges. And I often think about this book as a demonstration of God's persistence, God's tenacity in demonstrating his unfailing love for us. That even though we stray and we don't always do what God wants us to do, and we stray away from the path and the calling on our life, God doesn't always abandon us forever. Now this cyclical pattern that I mentioned before of sin leading to suffering is often referred to as the fourfold cycles of justice and judges, and it's a pattern that repeats itself throughout the book as God raises up deliverers called judges to redeem and to rescue the nation of Israel. So the cycle typically follows four patterns, and as I'm going through this pattern, maybe you might be able to identify seasons in your life. I certainly can, where I have fallen into this cyclical pattern, this pattern of falling in and out with God, being near to him, being distant to him, and how God does amazing things to pull us back, to draw us back, to lure us back, to woo us back into his love. So the first stage of this cycle is sin, which we could call apostasy. And this is where the people of Israel do what is evil in the sight of the Lord. They turn away from the true worship of Yahweh, the God, that they know is real, and they abandon all of his teaching and the covenant, and they begin to worship idols and follow the customs of the surrounding nations. And when you study the whole of the Old Testament, majority of that is taken up with Israel having this real weakness, this real preference for idolatry. This was something that they fell into time and time again. And as we pick up the story in Judges, this is exactly what's happening. They have fallen to idolatry, they have left the worship of their true and living God Yahweh, and they have turned to idols. So that's the first stage, the turning away from the true worship to false worship. The second stage is servitude, or we could call it oppression. So, as a consequence of their disobedience, God allows Israel to be conquered and oppressed by neighboring nations. If you look in Judges chapter 6 and verse 1, it actually says, and I'm reading from the New Living Translation, the Israelites did evil in the Lord's sight, and that is turning away from his worship, true worship to the worship of idolatry. So the Lord handed them over to the Midianites for seven years. What is the saving grace in this first verse, even though he gave them over to into the hand of the Medianites, their enemies, that it was only for a season, it was for seven years. So the second part of that cycle is as a consequence of their disobedience. God allows Israel to be conquered and oppressed by their neighboring nations, and the oppression often leads to economic ruin, it leads to fear, the loss of national identity, the loss of spiritual purpose, their physical life is impacted, their spiritual life is impacted. Let's not talk about the mental impact of well-being on a nation that is living in disobedience with a God that has given them over into the hand of their oppressors. So the sec oppressors, so the second verse is all around the oppression, the servitude as a consequence of turning away from true worship. The third part of the cycle is supplication and a cry for help. So in their distress, the Israelites would cry out to the Lord for mercy and deliverance. The moment of supplication is often prompted by desperation and the recognition of their sins. So this has happened at least 12 times in the book of Judges, where they turn away from God, they are then oppressed, and then they cry out to God in earnest desperation. God save me. And in the book of Judges, chapter 6, that's exactly what's happening. The Medianites are really pillaging Israel. We'll look at that in the next chapter. But then they cry out to the Lord and they recognize their sin of turning away from true worship and understanding that worshipping idols is never gonna be the right way to go. So the third part of that cycle is Israel crying out for help. And then the fourth part of that cycle, the last part is salvation, or you could say deliverance. So in response to their repentance, so they're crying out to God, they're saying, God, we know we have sinned, we've turned away from you, Lord. We recognize our faults, Lord, will you help us? God then hears their cry and he raises up a judge. And in this study, we're going to look at how he raised up a judge, raised up a deliverer in the person of Gideon. And when God raises up a person, he raises up somebody that is divinely empowered to deliver them, to rescue them from their oppression. And so the judge delivers them from oppression and peace is restored until the cycle sadly repeats itself after the judge dies. So when God raises up a judge in the time of judges, and that judge dies, then Israel has been more likely to go back to turning away, being oppressed, crying out to God, and then another judge is raised up. So I just want to finish this part of the study to just look at who the Medianites were because when we go into the next study, um, we're going to be looking at how Gideon was called, and we're going to be looking at where he placed his fleece and all of the details in that, but we need to understand what he was facing as the one that was chosen by God to deliver Israel from this cycle of oppression. So, as I mentioned before in verse 1 of Judges chapter 6, he delivered them into the hand of the Midianites for seven years. So, who were the Midianites? So we need to know a little bit more about what these people were doing and who they were. So the Midianites were descendants of Abraham through his wife Katorah, and you can find that in Genesis chapter 25, verses 1 to 2. But over time, this group of people, this community of people, they became enemies of Israel. They were desert dwellers, fierce nomads, skilled in guerrilla-style raids. They were good at moving fast, striking hard, and disappearing just as quickly. Now, what was interesting about the Midianites were that they used camels, so they didn't use horses, they used camels. That was unusual for warfare in those times. And what it did was to give them unmatched mobility. The use of camels allowed them to invade deep into Israel's territory before Israel could even prepare to resist. So they had an agile way, a very sneaky way, if you like, of raiding Israel before Israel could even know what was happening. But this wasn't just a fight about borders and control. This was about total devastation. Because the Midianites didn't invade Israel just to conquer cities or to occupy land, they came to destroy every hope of survival. They came to annihilate, to almost wipe out the whole nation of Israel, and they tried time and time again for seven years. So we read in Judges chapter 6, verses 3 to 5, and you can see it in the New Living Translation that I'm reading. It says, Whenever Israel planted their crops, marauders from Midian, Amalek, and the people of the east would attack Israel, camping in the land and destroying crops as far away as Gaza. They left the Israelites with nothing to eat, taking all the sheep, all the goats, the cattle and donkeys. They arrived on droves of camels, too numerous to count. And listen, hear what the Bible says, and they stayed until the land was stripped bare. So the Midianites' oppression was so severe that the Israelites were forced into hiding, seeking refuge in caves and strongholds. Their agricultural efforts, the farming efforts, in other words, were continually impacted. As soon as they planted crops, these invading forces would come in and destroy them, leaving the land stripped and bare and the people impoverished. So, in other words, this enemy, the Medianites, were not just attacking the people, they were attacking their future. Every time a seed was sown, it was a gamble. Would it reach harvest? Or would the horizon darken with the dust from camel hooves and the thunder of approaching war cries? I want you to imagine this that you plant your field in spring, you nurture it and you watch it grow. You pray the rain is enough. You make plans for your family, and just as the grain begins to ripen, you see a cloud. Not a storm, but a swarm of armies. Like locusts, they descend, and in but hours everything is gone, trampled down, burned down, taken away every single time. So the Israelites were not just losing food, they were losing their identity because of them turning away from God, they were losing their rhythm of life, their purpose in life. I can imagine that they lost sons and daughters to fear, to starvation, to violence. And they had to live in hiding, literally. The Bible says they made hiding places in caves and mountains in verse 2 of Judges chapter 6. Their homes were abandoned, vineyards became battleground, and cities were emptied. So I want us just to really think about this context before we go into our next study. Israel was reduced to starvation by the Midianites, and it's not often, it's often not until we hit the very rock bottom, the starvation point, that we cry out with sincerity. And so this is a moment of reflection, really, that sometimes we become broken by disobedience. Sometimes our ground becomes bare, sometimes the sky around us feels silent. But know this: God never leaves us in this state of disrepair. He always has a plan of rescue. So I want you to reflect and think about if you've ever felt like you were planting seeds in your life, efforts, dreams, relationships, only to see them wiped out before they could flourish. Ask yourself what Midianites are camped out in your life, robbing you of your purpose, robbing you of your harvest, robbing you of your clarity, robbing you of your hope. And could it be that some of the battles in your life are less about the enemy and more about being distanced from God who promised you the land, who promised you that he will be with you in your purpose, who has given you a hope and a future, but somehow that feels threatened. And most importantly, what might God be getting ready to do when you finally cry out in your distress? So let me leave you with a couple of teaching points. Um, number one, crisis often follows disobedience. So we saw right from the beginning that Israel were in this situation because of their disobedience. So when God handed them over to the Medianites, the oppression grew so bad that they had to hide in caves. And this is a reminder that when we stray from the Lord, he will sometimes allow a crisis in our lives to compel our return. So God is not doing this to punish us, not doing it because he's taken offense to us, turning away from him, but it's because he wants us to return. He loves us so much, he's gonna do whatever it he needs to do in order to bring us back. And the second point is cycles of hardship are often the consequence of spiritual drift. That disobedience to God often leads to cycles of hardship. And I don't know about you, I'm being honest, I've been disobedient in the past, and it has led to some terrible hardships. The Israelites were suffering as a direct consequence of their actions, and this helps us to remember the importance of being faithful and obedient. So let me close this first study with an application. You know, I like application, and that application is restoration begins with returning. Let's reflect on life, areas in our life where disobedience may have led to unintended consequences. Sometimes when we're doing what we're doing outside of the will of God, we we don't really think about the consequences, which is why the Gideon Fleece is a really good model for us to follow because it gives us absolute clarity where we can talk to God and ask him for wisdom and ask him for discernment so that we can make decisions and take steps in life that are going to be in line with his will. So think about how returning to God's guidance can restore us, can really help us to be confident in the God that we serve. And you know, sometimes we don't connect our present struggles to past spiritual decisions, but sometimes they are. That we want to get true alignment with God, but we've got to make sure we're in that place where we recognize the season that we're in. And if you're in a season of disobedience, a season of straying away, the season from abandoning your true worship to God, now is the time. Lord, I need you to take me forward, and Lord, I need you to help me to come back to you. There's that wonderful song that says, draw me nearer, nearer, nearer, blessed Lord, to the cross where thou hast died. Draw me nearer, nearer, nearer, blessed Lord, hallelujah, to your precious bleeding side. Well, God bless you, and we'll see you in the next study.