Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1679
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, September 17, 1882
“And when Gideon perceived that He was the Angel of the Lord, Gideon said, Alas, O Lord God! For I have seen the Angel of the Lord face to face. And the Lord said unto him, Peace be unto you; fear not: you shall not die. Then Gideon built an altar there unto the Lord, and called it Jehovah-Shalom.” Judges 6:22-24.
These Midianites were wandering Bedouins from Arabia and the East country round about the Holy Land. They were masters of the art of plundering and knew no hearts of compassion. They generally lived a hard life, themselves, and when they had an opportunity to feast on the spoils of others, they rioted without stint and left a famine behind them. Most fitly does the Scripture compare them to grasshoppers, for both in number and in destructive force they were like those terrible devourers. God had brought them upon Israel to scourge that nation because it had been so foolish and so ungrateful as to set up the gods of the heathen and to forget the one mighty God who was so especially and graciously their Patron and Defender. They were impoverished and ground down to the very last degree by these plunderers who left no food either for men or cattle.
The poor Israelites, creeping forth from their dens and caves, attempted to carry on the work of farming and sowed the land, but when the time came for reaping, the marauders came forth once more, took away their harvest and despoiled their pastures again. Then, as usual, Israel cried unto Jehovah and His ears were opened to their groaning. Their afflictions made them weary of their idols and caused them to say, “We will return unto our first husband, for it was better with us, then, than now.” God in His great mercy raised up for them a deliverer, Gideon, a mighty man of valor, who distinguished himself in various skirmishes with the foe! His name was already a terror to Midian, for he who dreamed of the barley cake which smote the tent, and it lay along, said to his fellow— “This is none other than Gideon, the son of Joash.”
Gideon’s character has never been sufficiently admired—Scripture names, much less bright than his, have been preferred before him by the general ministry, yet he deserves far better treatment. He was a man gentle and yet strong, cautious and yet venturesome. He was a searching inquirer and an intense Believer. While he was a sort of foreshadowing of David, he had much of the afterglow of Joshua. He was a truly great man, though his later days were overshadowed by a grievous religious error and a sad moral fault. Despite his failings, he was one of the greatest of the heroes of faith. He was not in a hurry to venture upon a pitched battle, but waited his time, and then, by a sudden and unexpected attack, he struck the whole host with panic so that they fled at once and Midian was smitten as one man.
The leaders fled—two of the minor ones, Oreb and Zeeb, the raven and the wolf—are first captured and, by-and-by, the greater generals, who had fled, first of all, are taken by the victorious band. The leaders were ahead of all the others in flight. In later days the destruction of their mighty ones became a proverbial curse, “Make their nobles like Oreb and like Zeeb—yes, all their princes as Zebah, and as Zalmunna.”
Let us think for a while of Gideon in order that we may see that we, ourselves, are, or may be, somewhat parallels with him. We may not have to smite the Bedouin as he did, but unto a spiritual warfare God has called many of us. And though He intends to use us and to get unto Himself victory by us, yet it may be that at this moment we are in fear. We are now passing through the same mental processes as those which educated Gideon and we are being prepared, thereby, for future conflict and conquest. I shall begin by asking you to dwell, for a minute, upon Gideon’s sigh for peace, for he loved not war, but pined for quiet. He called the name of the altar, “Jehovah-Shalom,” which the margin reads, “The Lord Send Peace.” You see, therefore, that deeper down in his spirit than any desire for warlike honor, there was a yearning after peace.
Gideon wanted not the spoils of princes. He only desired to plow, sow and reap in peace. And do you wonder at it, when the evils of war were all around? He had, for a long time, seen, in the cases of his friends and neighbors, the desolating effects of war—their property was taken from them, their bread was stolen out of their mouths, their children were slain—and they, themselves, made to hide away upon the tops of mountains or in caverns among the hills. Life became intolerable amid such privations and dangers. Gideon must have felt his heart swell with grief and indignation as he looked upon the remnant of Israel hunted like partridges upon the mountains—though once they had dwelt safely— every man under his vine and under his fig tree.