The Lord is with you

The story of Gideon illustrates the nearness of the kingdom of God. In particular, Gideon provides an example of how we expect God to work.

In the time of Gideon, Israel had turned again to the idols of the cultures around them. The Lord gave Israel into the hand of Midian, who oppressed them severely for seven years. Midian took everything they could find from one end of Israel to the other. Israel finally cried out to God.

An angel appeared to Gideon as he was threshing wheat in a wine press to keep it from the Midianites.

"And the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, 'The Lord is with you, O valiant warrior."" Judges 6:11

The angel said that the Lord was with him, but Gibeon replied to the issue of the Lord being with Israel.

"Then Gideon said to him, 'O my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, "Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?" But now the Lord has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.'" Judges 6:13

Gideon had lived through the seven years of oppression; his older brothers had been put to death by the kings of Midian. He does not think that the Lord is with Israel.

But the angel spoke to him again.

"And the Lord looked at him and said, 'Go in this your strength and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian. Have I not sent you?'" Judges 6:14

The angel made it more clear; the Lord was with him, the individual, not Israel the nation. Gideon was to deliver Israel.

But Gideon replied that his father's house was the smallest in his tribe, and he was the youngest. Gideon's expectation was that God would work through others, not him. But the angel spoke to him again.

"But the Lord said to him, 'Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat Midian as one man.'" Judges 6:16

Gideon illustrates our attitude. We expect God to somehow work in the world to fix what is wrong. We are not expecting God to do it through "me".

This is the workings of the kingdom of God; the kingdom comes near to an individual to fulfill its intention. Israel had cried out; the Lord spoke to Gideon. Israel was delivered through Gideon. Midian was given into the hand of Gideon, not the hand of Israel. If Gideon had not acted, Israel would not have been delivered.

The point of contact between this world and the kingdom of heaven is an individual. The power of the kingdom of God works through a person.