And he said unto him, If now I have found grace in thy sight, then shew me a sign that thou talkest with me. Depart not hence, I pray thee, until I come unto thee, and bring forth my present, and set it before thee. And he said, I will tarry until thou come again. Judges 6: 17-18 KJV
Text: Judges 6: 11- 18
The above passage is a true story of a man Gideon who judged the people of Israel after they got to the promised land. It happened after Joshua had died and at that time they appointed all sorts of Judges to look after the affairs of Israel, There were no Kings because what they had was a Theocracy; God ruling His people Himself through the mouth and the voice of the Judges and the Prophets. But from time to time the children of Israel would forget their God and do all sorts of evil; whoring, adultery, fornication, idolatry, lasciviousness, enjoying life and God will be angry with them and He will make them weak.
As a result of their sinful act and disobedience God would allow the enemies that surrounded them, the enemies that the children if Israel didn’t refuse to destroy when they entered the promised land, to give them a hard time. This was one of the situations where a group of people called the Midianite, came and they attacked Israel and they laid siege on the them that things were so bad that there was a lot of shortage of food and people could not freely express themselves.
There was a man who’s name was Joash an Isrealite who had a son called Gideon; and Gideon I perceived must have been the youngest , the least favoured child of that family. He was there hiding by the wine press.
The wine press was a hidden part of the house where people could not easily access but they also had a place called the threshing floor which was typically to the left side of the house where people would bring their wheat harvest to thresh and bring out the grain.
This time around they had a little bit of a harvest and instead of threshing it on the threshing floor or where people could see him, Gideon went to thresh it at the back of the wine press to hide it from the Midianites because he didn’t want them to know that they had any form of nutrition. Or he was afraid that if the Midianites attack them, they would take again the food that the family had to survive on.
There are some questions I want you to ask yourself. Questions which are important to understanding the topic. My question to you is this;
- Why was Gideon hiding in the threshing floor?
- Why was he not the success that he had the potential to be?
- What was the reason why Gideon was hiding?
