Where Is God When You Need Him?

Where Is God When You Need Him? Judges 6.1-16

The New Zealand national bird is the Kiwi. The Kiwi, is a flightless bird, closely related to the extinct Moa. The Kiwi is restricted to New Zealand. It is about the size of a chicken and has short, stout legs, no tail, tiny useless wings, gray or brown hair like plumage, catlike whiskers, and a long, straight or slightly curved bill.

It is very shy and during the day hides rolled up in its burrow in the forest, venturing out at night. Its food is mainly insects and earthworms. It taps the ground with its feet to locate a worm burrow, which it then probes with its bill to extract the worm. Only the male sits on the egg during the seventy-five day incubation period.

The natives hunted the Kiwi for food but its relative the Moa was hunted to extinction - little wonder - the Moa was a formidable bird. While it appears to be shy, the Kiwi has survived by its alertness and sharp three-toed feet which it uses in defense against predators.

The Midianites oppressed Israel and challenged them even in their survival. We see the situation in Judges 6.1-6 (ESV):

The people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, and the LORD gave them into the hand of Midian seven years. 2 And the hand of Midian overpowered Israel, and because of Midian the people of Israel made for themselves the dens that are in the mountains and the caves and the strongholds. 3 For whenever the Israelites planted crops, the Midianites and the Amalekites and the people of the East would come up against them. 4 They would encamp against them and devour the produce of the land, as far as Gaza, and leave no sustenance in Israel and no sheep or ox or donkey. 5 For they would come up with their livestock and their tents; they would come like locusts in number—both they and their camels could not be counted—so that they laid waste the land as they came in. 6 And Israel was brought very low because of Midian. And the people of Israel cried out for help to the LORD.

The oppression of the Midianites was so bad that the Hebrews had to go underground. They “bugged out” of their homes and hid in the caves from their enemies. This is actually going on in some places today. Did you know that Australia is forcing its citizens to stay in their houses? Helicopters fly overhead looking for people who may have gone out into their yards for sunshine or recreation. The people are essentially forced into hiding. Did you know the Canadian government has shut down churches and those churches and their Pastors have gone “underground”?

The Midianites were feeding off of the labor of the Israelites. In fact, like locusts, they took everything. They either ate it or destroyed it. Sounds a lot like today. Hard-working people are taxed to the hilt so that non-working people can devour their productivity on government handouts. Have you noticed that there are numerous businesses begging for workers? That’s because it is now more economically feasible to stay home on unemployment than it is to go to work. Who would want to work when you can have a living for free? The trouble is, that pool keeps growing and that Government black hole of taxation keeps getting larger.

Not only that, but look at the destructive riots of the past year. Mobs burned cities and looted stores. Just like the Midianites and the locusts, they devoured the land.

Thomas Sowell said:

“No society ever thrived because it had a large and growing class of parasites living off those who produce.”

Gideon would deliver Israel from the seven year oppression of the Midianites. He was more than he first appeared. Notice Judges 6.7-16 (ESV):

7 When the people of Israel cried out to the LORD on account of the Midianites, 8 the LORD sent a prophet to the people of Israel. And he said to them, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: I led you up from Egypt and brought you out of the house of slavery. 9 And I delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians and from the hand of all who oppressed you, and drove them out before you and gave you their land. 10 And I said to you, ‘I am the LORD your God; you shall not fear the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell.’ But you have not obeyed my voice.”

11 Now the angel of the LORD came and sat under the terebinth at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites. 12 And the angel of the LORD appeared to him and said to him, “The LORD is with you, O mighty man of valor.” 13 And Gideon said to him, “Please, my lord, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us, saying, ‘Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the LORD has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian.” 14 And 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?” 15 And he said to him, “Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house.” 16And the LORD said to him, “But I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man.”