Gideon Defeats Zebah and Zalmunna

 

December 21, 2020

 

Judges 8: 1-3

 

Gideon Defeats Zebah and Zalmunna

Then the men of Ephraim said to him, “What is this that you have done to us, not to call us when you went to fight against Midian?” And they accused him fiercely.   And he said to them, “What have I done now in comparison with you? Is not the gleaning of the grapes of Ephraim better than the grape harvest of Abiezer?   God has given into your hands the princes of Midian, Oreb, and Zeeb. What have I been able to do in comparison with you?” Then their anger against him subsided when he said this.

 

When God puts His seal on a man to lead, it is amazing how that man’s character and wisdom change.  When the angel of God first encounters Gideon, he was hiding in a winepress threshing wheat, but do you recall what the angel called Gideon?  Look back to Judges 6:12, “And the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, “The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor.”  It leaves you and me who have the Holy Spirit of the living God living in us, to wonder, why we hide in our home and with our neighbors, and business associates and do not proclaim we have been chosen by God to be about His business.

 

Look at the wisdom God has given Gideon, when the men of Ephraim said to him, “What is this that you have done to us, not to call us when you went to fight against Midian?”  And he said to them, “What have I done now in comparison with you? Is not the gleaning of the grapes of Ephraim better than the grape harvest of Abiezer?   God has given into your hands the princes of Midian, Oreb, and Zeeb. What have I been able to do in comparison with you?” Then their anger against him subsided when he said this.”  Only God gives that kind of wisdom to a young farm boy, who has never read the book on how to win friends and influence people.

 

From the Back Porch,

 

Bob Rice