Is God Hindered In His Plans For You Because Of Your Sin?
The Bible is not about "heroes" but about the Hero
How often our hearts tremble at the thought of what the future holds. How frequent our minds obsess over the possibilities. How regular are the worries that we entertain that then become anxiety attacks.
While there can be physical and emotional factors to these fears, the primary influence is always spiritual. No matter how much we might target the body, mind, emotions, relationships, or whatever else we might think is a problem, the primary target must be the heart. What we need above all is to see how big our Covenant-Keeping God is and His gracious promises of goodness and mercy to follow us all the days of our lives.
So, with that in mind, let’s take an extended look at Judges 6-7 and the story of that scaredy-cat judge Gideon.
God, Did You Really Mean To Choose This Guy???
Judges 6-8 describes the story of Gideon. And let’s remember that this is not a made-up story—it is bonafide history. The historical narrative of Judges happened in the Ancient Near East during the Late Bronze Age (1550-1200 BC) and the Early Iron Age (1200-1000 BC). This is after Israel has come into Canaan from being delivered from Egypt and their wilderness wandering.
Rather than worshipping God alone as God, the Israelites indulged in worldliness that led to idolatry. They might not have forgotten about God but they didn’t treat Him as God (Rom. 1:21). As a result, God gave Israel into the hands of their enemies the Midianites for seven years (Judg. 6:1-6).
Then we read that the oppression was so bad that the people of Israel cried out to Yahweh (6:7). Interestingly, Yahweh sends a prophet to preach (6:8-10). Dale Ralph Davis says, “Israel needs deliverance and Yahweh sends a prophet; Israel asks for an act of God’s power and He sends them a proclaimer of His word who rehearses Yahweh’s grace (vv. 8b-9), repeats Yahweh’s demand (v. 10a), and levels Yahweh’s accusation (v. 10b). Hence Yahweh sends a prophet because Israel needs more than immediate relief; they need to understand why they are oppressed.”1
Welp…it sounds like there might be no hope. Was this the last straw? Is God too frustrated with Israel? Has Israel’s sin become too much for God to forgive? We often think this.
It is good for us to pause and feel the weight of this before we immediately move on. We see what happened in history but remember that all history is developed over time. At one point, the history of God’s deliverance through Gideon was not—until the moment God did it. If we move on too quickly then we won’t realize how accurately the Bible speaks into our life experiences.
In the midst of Israel deserving nothing but God’s wrath, we read in v11 that “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.”
Let me provide some detail as to what’s happening. First, one study Bible says, “Joash is an abbreviation of Jehoash, which means ‘Yahweh is strong.’”2 Interesting that the son of the man whose name means that Yahweh is strong is seen hiding from mere men.
Second, Gideon is seen to be “beating out wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites” (v11). Normally this process happens in a place where it is windy enough for the grain to be thrown into the air so that the chaff flies away with the wind and the wheat falls to the ground. Everything about this situation shows a man who is scared and who fears men more than God.
Nevertheless, God draws near in grace (v11-12). And when Yahweh draws near through His angel He says something that appears contradictory to Gideon’s current state. “The LORD is with you, O mighty man of valor.” No, you didn’t misread that nor did you misread what came before. Gideon is scared. Gideon was hiding. But God did bestow upon him a greater identity.
One way to translate this verse could be: “Yahweh is with you as a mighty man of war.” This could fit well when we go on to read about how Yahweh is emboldening Gideon to act based on the fact that Yahweh will be with him wherever he goes.
What we can take away from this is a remarkable truth that while we appear to be everything but courageous and brave, when God is with us we have a new identity. Everything changes when God is with us. The question is: Will we recognize this?
God did not choose Gideon because he was someone God could really benefit from. God was not looking for help in the fight against the Midianites. God needs no one. He is self-sufficient, infinite, and sovereign. He does all that He pleases (Ps. 115:3). He has never looked to anyone or anything for Him to be who He is or to do what He wills to do (Acts 17:24-28; Rom. 11:36). He did not choose Gideon because Gideon chose Him (because Gideon didn’t—it’s as simple as that). He did not give prevenient grace to Gideon and then wait for Gideon to active his faith (because that simply didn’t happen and is no where in Scripture). God sovereignly, graciously, freely, independently chose Gideon despite Gideon’s prevailing fear and sin. And until you recognize that then this story of Gideon won’t be that impressive to you—because it’s less about Gideon and more about God.
Gideon’s Doubts Despite God’s Word
Now, if you think Gideon is a prime candidate for God to use then how do you make sense of his response in verse 13? “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.”
Notice the “if” language. He doubts the message from the prophet from v8-10. He doubts God’s word. That doesn’t sound like a man of strength and courage just waiting for God.
Notice again that he questions where this God’s “wonderful deeds” are. It sounds “cheeky and sarcastic”.3 It sounds a lot like doubt and unbelief.
Have you ever had those times in life where you wondered if the God of the Bible really is still the God who does great things? Of course you have! Welcome to the club! We all have wrestled with this. When we look at our current circumstances, the circumstances of others, and our opposition, we wonder if God cares. We wonder if He’s powerful. We begin to even wonder if everything we’ve been told was a lie. Isn’t this what happens when professing Christians are tempted to “deconstruct” the faith?
There are times when it seems like God has left us in our sins and the earthly consequences. It feels as if there is no forgiveness, grace, righteousness, and cleansing. Especially when others treat us contrary to our justification in Christ we can slump into despair and wonder if we have even been justified—or if there is even the possibility of it. This is not at all to develop a victimhood mindset by blaming all our problems on others. We ought to repent of that! Rather, while the way others treat us might be influential (and something we address in a biblical way) the root problem of our doubts in God’s grace is our sin of unbelief in His Word.
We are often tempted to think that our sin and its effect will win the day. We live like Jesus only died but didn’t rise. Our sin becomes our identity. Our past becomes the banner over our lives. Our sins define us and defile us forever. Christ is only seen as a hope for potential Heaven rather than right now. Rather than having Christ as our banner and His name upon our foreheads, sin still is the sovereign determiner of our lives. Or, maybe God is sovereign but He is still angry and displeased so much so that He must “get us right” by disciplining us in such a way that it is indistinguishable from His wrath.
This is no gospel. Jesus might as well not have come if this is what the gospel is (Gal. 2:21).
We are more like Gideon than we realize.
God’s Strange Providence
God sovereignly allows certain events to happen so that He can once again deliver His people for the purpose of strengthening their faith. It is sometimes used as trite and un-pastoral when we so quickly quote Romans 8:28 to people. But, that verse is God’s inspired Word. It is always true for God’s people. God does and will use all things for the good of those who love Him. He is undefeated in reversing the curse.
God cannot do anything that is not for His own glory and the salvation of His elect. It would contradict God’s Being and His covenant. There was not only Christ’s humiliation but also His exaltation. There was not only death but resurrection. There was not only Incarnation into a cursed world but Ascension as the Victorious Savior.
Sin and Suffering are never the last word for us. Gideon’s sin (of being just like every other Israelite who was rebellious) was not an insurmountable obstacle to God’s grace. His unbelief didn’t make God give up—because God was not dependent on him. God was not thrown off, intimidated, nor hindered by Gideon’s sin. God is so great that sin does not and cannot affect Him. He has no rivals, threats, or hindrances. And when this sovereignly gracious God decides to move toward His people He does so freely, unrestrictedly, and infinitely.
This God, the only wise and sovereign, moves toward scaredy cat sinners. He showers them with His sovereign grace. And no one can tell Him “no” nor limit His grace to His elect.
Don’t be afraid dear believer. Your sin, however great, is measurable. His grace is immeasurable (Ps. 103:12; Rom. 5:20). If you could count your sins or measure the heinousness of your sinful nature numerically there would have many commas in that number. But, that number is nevertheless a number that can be counted and measured. Jesus Christ is infinite in worth and can cover all your sins 10,000 times over and more!
And God is not, and never will, ask you for your contribution. The only thing you contribute is the sin from which you are saved. It is Jesus and Jesus alone. Jesus gives Himself freely and fully to us all at once. He is not dependent on you. He does not put His trust in you. He is not waiting for you to prove to Him that you were worth it for Him to choose you. He is not depending on you to partner up with Him. He is not looking to see what act of repentance you do first. Every bit of sanctification that you progress in is given to you by Him (Rom. 11:36; Gal. 3:1-7; Eph. 1:3; Phil. 2:12-13). You must strive to obey God (Rom. 6:12-19; 8:5-11; 1 Pet. 1:16) but your obedience is all by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone (Rom. 1:16-17; Col. 2:6-7).
This is the God of Gideon and this is our God today. This God does not change (Mal. 3:6) and that means that whatever we see Him do is what He can do again today. Despite your sin, despite your oppression from sin or earthly enemies or The Enemy, regardless of what it is you must look to God and trust His ways. And even when you are faithless, He is faithful (2 Tim. 2:12). With this confidence in His grace and power, let us pursue His ways and trust Him despite the opposition from sin, Satan, and the world.
Dale Ralph Davis, Judges: Such A Great Salvation (Ross-shire, Great Britain: Christian Focus Publications, 2015), p. 92.
John D. Barry et al., Faithlife Study Bible (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012, 2016), Jdg 6:11.
Daniel Isaac Block, Judges, Ruth, vol. 6, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1999), 260.