March 9, 2025 - Judges 6-8

Once again, the people sinned, and as discipline the Lord put them under the hand of their enemies, this time Midian.  I suppose we all know this story, at least in its broad strokes.  To Gideon, the “Lord turned to him and said, ‘Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian; do not I send you?”’ (6:14). Like so many others who, when God called, thought themselves too small or two weak or who were thought foolish by others  – think Moses, David,  Jeremiah, and others – to them God showed his might.  Of course, they were too small or weak, but their God was definitely up to the task.  With Gideon, the Lord whittled down those in his army from 32,000 to 300 so that Gideon and Israel and the nations would know that it is the Lord who gives the victory.  The angel explained to the prophet Zechariah:  “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts” (Zechariah 4:6).  And so, we sing:

Lead on, O King eternal;

we follow, not with fears,

for gladness breaks like morning

where’er your face appears.

Your cross is lifted o’er us,

we journey in its light;

the crown awaits the conquest;

lead on, O God of might.   --Ernest W. Shurtleff (1887)