We are living in difficult times, spiritual difficult time. But it is interesting that in the Word of God, God puts a spotlight again and again on men and women who also lived in difficulty times and puts them before us as examples how to behave in those difficult days. And one of these examples is Gideon as we find him in the book of Judges chapter 6. And there we see Gidion, he’s threshing wheat in a winepress, interestingly enough, and then the angel of the Lord appears to him and said to Him, The Lord is with you, you mighty man of Valor. Verse 12. Others probably wouldn’t have called him a mighty man of Vela. Gideon was not a soldier, a trained soldier who was fighting battles, he was more of a farmer and a fearful one, anxious one on top of that. But God sees something in this man. which finds his approval and he sees something in the heart of Gideon and therefore calls him you mighty man of Valar. Before we go any further and study the behavior of Gideon in this scene a little bit more in detail, let us look at the times Gidion was living in. Indeed, difficult times because God had to judge his people. They had forsaken him, they were worshipping idols. and were not willing to listen to God. And again, God had to deliver His own people into the hands of their enemies, in this case the people of Midian, the Midanites and the Amalekites. And the enemy was coming against Israel and they destroyed all the produce of the land. The oxen and the sheep and donkeys were taken away. That is what we read in this chapter. And then it explicitly says that Israel greatly impoverished the people of God. In the land of promise, in the promised land, In The Land of Milk and Honey, they impoverish. How is that possible? Is that also possible for us? How do the Israelites behave? Well, They don’t stand up against the enemy that they would fight. Not yet, at least. That’s what they need Gideon for. But they flee. They hide in their caves, the dens and the strongholds of the mountains. But then we see this Gideon and how does he behave in these times? Well, we have seen this already. He threshes wheat in the vine press and then it says in verse 11, at the end of verse eleven, in order to hide it from the Medanites. That was his intention. he wanted to have something of that wheat. and he wanted to hide it from the Medianites. He didn’t want them to take it away. he didn’ t allow the enemy to this away, he want to have something of that for himself and others. Now, what do we learn about this man in this chapter? First of all, He is realistic, not blind. You could have said to Gideon, hey Gidion, what are this? What do you do? Threshing wheat here in the winepress? I mean, come on, this is not done in a wine press. This is done on the thresching floor. And well, don’t you know that the Midianites are in country, in land? And come one, get yourself in secure place. You have to hide with us. Gideron was realistic. He knew the enemy is there. he knew that enemy came with great force. But this man wanted to be different. He didn’t want to flee. He wanted to be different than all the others. It would have been so easy for him to come up with all sorts of excuses. And that’s usually the case with those that lived in difficult times. They could have found many excuses, but they did not. So we find this man threshing wheat. Obviously, this weed is important enough for this man to get his life into danger. He’s not hiding, he’s threshing weed. And I think the fact that he is threshig weed, that is also the answer to the question, what is moving this men? What keeps this Man going? Why is he behaving so differently than everybody else? Well, the wheat has a twofold bearing. First of all, The wheat is part of the blessing that God had promised His people. And Gideon has an appreciation of that blessing. He wanted to secure it for himself and others. he was not willing to give up on it because it was God’s blessing also for him. even though it meant for him to go the extra mile, to tread a very unorthodox, untraditional way, threshing wheat in the winepress. But see, also for us today, God wants to bless us. They are those spiritual blessings in heavenly places that God has blessed us with already in Lord Jesus. Do we have a desire for those blessings, to enjoy them, know them and enjoy? Well, they are enemies who want to take them away from us. But Gideon shows us someone, a Christian who is not willing to let that happen. He wants to have some portion of that blessing for himself and to live on it. or maybe more generally taken, he shows us a Christian who has an appreciation for the things of God in general. He wants to read scripture and he knows this world wants have an influence upon him, to draw him away from the thing of god. But this man refuses. He says, I’m going to fight so that I have some of those things that i find in the Word of God. That I may find God Himself and His will and what He gives. And then the Weed also speaks about the Lord Jesus. Symbolically, the weed speaks of Christ. And we find here in Gideon, a Christian, we can apply it to a christian who has a deep appreciation of christ, who is not willing to allow the world to detach him from Christ. He wants to grow in the appreciation of Christ and the knowledge of who Christ is and what Christ has done because he understands that Christ enough for him, that his inner man needs a food that is not of this world. That he has a desire that only Christ can quench. This world has so much to give but nothing that can satisfy us as Christians, those who are born of God. The new life that we have received of God cannot be fed with the junk food that this world provides. We need Christ, we need what scripture provides and Gideon is a man who stands up for that, who fights for it because he has a deep appreciation for those things. My dear friends, We are living in difficult times. where the enemy wants to have an influence on us, especially us as Christians. He wants take away the produce of the land, so to say. he wants the spiritual food that we need, and he often time wants replace it with the junk food of this world, with fast food. But we need that spiritual food. But He wants to take it away. And are we those now who are mighty men or valour, who have a deep appreciation and who’re willing to go the extra mile? The enemy wants take away what is necessary to worship God. God wants us to be worshipped. The Father seeks those as worshippers who worship Him in spirit and truth. And in the case of Israel, they brought God’s sacrifices, living sacrifices. Those animals, the sheep and the ox that the enemy took away, there were meant to be sacrifices for God, but they were not taken away. And so the Enemy is working to draw us away so that our hearts are empty. When we come together as a local church, as the testimony of the worldwide assembly, when we want to worship God, is there something in my heart where I worshiped God from the depth of my hearts? Or has the enemy taken the sheep and the oxen away during the past week, where I have allowed him to occupy myself with all sorts of things, but with the things of God, with Christ Himself? So when I come before Him, I’ve nothing to bring? Isn’t it true that our phones and our laptops and all our different kinds of activities steal everything away? And then there are also the donkeys that were taken in the case of the people of Israel. A donkey is an animal that is used for labour work. What about the Lord’s work today? There are so many things to be done among the People of God. The work is great, but the workers are few. Do you, do I make myself available? In the days of Gideon, the people hid themselves in the caves and the dens. They had their retreats. We might not hide ourselves in dens and… caves and strongholds of the mountains. We have our different means of where we retreat into. Our jobs maybe, our hobbies, or our entertainments, cell phones. What is it in my life, what is in your life that we are retreating into? but we don’t make ourselves available in the Lord’s work. Yes, that calls for sacrifice, but let us make us available so that the LORD can use us. But where does that start? It starts that we actually read our Bibles. That we have a continuous, regular prayer life for ourselves. We are in contact, in fellowship with God. And then we have for ourselves and we also have others so that we can share the appreciation that have we for Christ, we share with others, so they can be drawn to Christ. When the eleven disciples met the first time, Thomas was not there. What did the disciples tell him? We have seen the Lord. And the next Sunday he is there, may it also be that he can tell others I have also seen The Lord! I have seen the Lord Jesus and then we can tell Him how we have met them in the quiet times where we studied His Word and read about Christ. The enemy wants to draw us away from Christ and that’s the fight we need to fight today. so that we can feed of Christ, that have food, spiritual food for ourselves, but also for others. Maybe that, we are more like Gideon, mighty man of Bela, might woman of Baela. Not those who do great things that are seen by others, But those, who in the quietness of their Bedroom. Study scripture. Have a prayer life. And who are full of the things of God. Who are of Christ and can give others, can encourage others. Can help to strengthen others who were active and available in the Lord’s work. For the blessing of others and for the glory of god. Let us be a Gideon. That is how God sees it. That is his approval.