or, Threshing Wheat and Midian

Please read Judges chapters 6 and 7.

[This lecture, given by Samuel Ridout about a hundred years ago, has been condensed to conserve space. The reader will readily see the timeliness and great need today for the truth contained in this ministry.]

"The children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord; and the Lord delivered them into the hand of Midian seven years" (Judges 6:1). We have now to gather the lesson from the oppression of Midian. First of all, we are reminded that the power of any enemy is put in his hands by the unfaithfulness of God's people. It was no might of Midian that could or would have prevailed had not the Lord permitted it; nor would He have done this had there not been a necessity in Israel's condition. Those who will not learn in communion with God must do so in the hands of the enemy.

Midian was a descendant of Abraham, and in that way, related according to nature with Israel. But from an early day they had shown themselves to be the enemies of God's people. It was they who with the Ishmaelites carried Joseph down into Egypt and sold him into bondage there. When the nation had been delivered from that bondage and was nearing their inheritance, it was the Midianites, in connection with Moab, who first tried to get the curse of God upon them through Balaam, and, failing in this, succeeded in defiling them, and bringing God's afflicting hand on them, because of their participation in the unholy rites of Baal Peor.

That which brings God's people into Egypt, which defiles them with its unholy alliances, is only too common, and we cannot fail to recognize in it the spirit of the world. Midian means "strife," a fitting name for that spirit of the world which brings in the strife of desires in the soul. "The flesh lusteth against the Spirit" (Galatians 5:17), and wherever the world is allowed it will introduce strife against everything that is of God. I need but refer to well-known illustrations. Look at that happy young Christian: the things of God are his delight, and fellowship with the people of God his only pleasure. But he wanders in heart, and the world finds an entrance. It will not be in some grossly immoral form, but some "harmless pleasure" is indulged, some "agreeable companionship" is formed. Mark the results. Strife with divine things ensues. Conscience will not let him go on declining in spiritual vigor without a vigorous protest, and the peace of his heart, which at one time was "as a watered garden," is exchanged for the battlefield of contending forces. Midian, the world, has brought strife into his once happy life, and it will continue to do its deadly work until he is delivered, or wholly ensnared and held in complete slavery. "What is the harm? Many others do worse than I." Ah, brethren, how strife accompanies worldliness. Do we not know something of this?

"A man's foes shall be they of his own household" (Matthew 10:36). What is happier than a Christian home, where Christ is owned as Lord? It is a little foretaste of that heavenly home where nothing can intrude to mar our eternal peace, because nothing can interfere with Christ's absolute control. Contrast this with the divided house, where the world is allowed. Faith must stand firm, but oh the sorrow and the strife that the world brings in. A faithful Christian parent is seeking to keep the world out of his home; a wife is seeking to walk with God, while her husband is doing his utmost to draw her into the world. Will there not be strife, must there not be if one is to be faithful to the Lord and His truth? Thus we seem to have clearly enough the meaning of Midian. But let us look a little further.

The church has often been under the dominion of the world. Look at those various testimonies which began as a distinct protest against the world. What has become of their testimony against the world? Ask the sorrowing saints of God who sigh and cry for the abominations, and hide themselves as far as possible from the strife all about them. It is needless to specify: worldly amusements in the Church, worldly methods of money-raising—the professed Bride of Christ has descended to the level of the world, and panders to its desires. We are told that in order to hold onto the young people we need to enter into competition with the theater and other worldly activities. But enough: tears shall be our only language as we think of the awful bondage to Midian all about us. Let us come right home. Let us be warned. The moment the world is allowed among those who are gathered to the name of the Lord—young or old—farewell to the testimony of Christ. May our God awaken us to this dreadful and insidious foe!

How many of the Lord's people have to complain of their leanness! They find so little food, the Bible is a closed book to them, their souls are suffering a famine. Ah, brethren, the world has devoured the food. You cannot enjoy the world AND enjoy Christ. It is an impossibility. Christ is the food of His people, but He cannot be enjoyed if the world is allowed to usurp His place.

We need not be reminded how active Satan is to bring people under the power of the world. Before we know it, some little loophole has opened the way, and the enemy has come in like a flood. Let us not think of the spirit of worldliness as something that moves slowly. It is wily and active, and its name is legion. If asked to give a list of what pursuits and habits were worldly, it would be an impossibility. The Spirit of God has, however, done what is far better for us; He has told us what the world is—"All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world" (1 John 2:16). We have the general characteristics of the world—lust; but what marks it unmistakably is that it is not of the Father. Whatever we cannot enjoy in communion with the Father, no matter how harmless it may seem to be, is a thing to be avoided as of the world. How plainly does the apostle James put it, "Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God" (James 4:4).

But how touching is that word "Father"—the Father's love, the Father's heart, the Father's care. What room or need in the soul that is in the happy enjoyment of the Father is there for the things that are in the world? It is satisfied, and "the full soul loatheth an honeycomb" (Proverbs 27:7). Does not even the first approach of worldliness tell of a coldness of heart towards the Father? How often is He grieved at heart. On the contrary, if we are engaged in the things that occupy the Father, if we are occupied with His thoughts, as unfolded in His Word, delighted with Him who is the object of the Father's delight, there will be nothing in the world for us.

"Its pleasures now no longer please,
Nor e'en content afford."

God now begins to intervene in their behalf. He is going to deliver them from the bondage of Midian, but where will He find a suited instrument, one who will in himself embody the lessons of the deliverance, and who thus will point out the reasons for the servitude? He sends His messenger to Ophrah in the tribe of Manasseh, to Gideon the son of Joash. He finds him threshing out wheat behind, or in, the winepress to hide it from the Midianites (Judges 6:10,11).

Remembering that Midian represents the world, we see at once how appropriate that the deliverer from this should have the character of that which overcomes the world. It is our faith that overcomes, as we are told, and that faith exhibits itself in the character suggested by the tribe of Manasseh. Manasseh means "forgetting," and it is the heavenly racer who, "forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before" (Philippians 3:13), distances himself from the entangling elements of the world, and has the prize on high ever before him (Judges 6:14). The principle that will overcome the world, then, is this unwordly spirit which has its hopes and expectations elsewhere,

Gideon's employment is most suggestive; he is threshing out wheat and hiding it in the winepress, as being both secure and an unlikely place for the Midianites to look. That which they destroy is what he is securing as his food. The wheat suggests Christ, the food of the soul, as He is revealed to us in the Scriptures, and the threshing tells of that patient effort to find Him as our food, in the Word. The winepress reminds us of the "blood of the grape," and of His blood which cleanses from all sin. It may well then suggest the Cross, the winepress for Christ, and this, indeed, is an effectual shelter and hiding place for faith from all the power of the world. We take our place by the Cross and no Midianite dare dispute our position.

But notice the determination of Gideon. The enemy is everywhere present, but Gideon must have his food. It is an absolute necessity, and without permission from friend or foe, he is getting it, and hiding it from those who would gladly destroy it. Israel has failed, the land is downtrodden by the enemy, but he must have food for his soul. Do you think he will be disappointed? Whoever goes hungry, Gideon will not, for there is the compulsion of a faith that will not be hindered in gaining what it needs.

Let us pause here a moment, brethren, and consider this solitary man. He is in tremendous earnest; there is no thought of giving up, for what He seeks is an absolute necessity to Him. How is it with us? Is Christ a necessity to us? Must we have Him as our food no matter who has departed from God, or how great the obstacles? And do we know what it is to use the shelter of the Cross not only as that which has secured our everlasting salvation, but as that which has delivered us "from this present evil world" (Galatians 1:4)? Thus it becomes the pledge that we shall not be disturbed in getting our food.

The angel addresses Gideon in a striking way, "The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valor" (Judges 6:12). At first sight he might seem like anything but a man of valor. He is in hiding. A man of valor, in man's eyes, would be facing the enemy, leading the people against them, and driving them from the land. But God seeth not as man seeth. He sees the valor in that determination to get the wheat at any cost. He knows the purposes of heart that are forming, and He sees that it is all connected with that lowly work of beating out the wheat.

Who are God's mighty men of valor? Where will we find them? If you want to see God's mighty men, you must look in the closet of prayer and communion. There is a mother with a family of children, and work that never ends. There is the temptation to keep up with the rest of the world in appearances, and all that subtle allurement which makes slaves of so many mothers. There is the necessary work which must be done each day, and which presses on her every moment. How strong the temptation to offer a hurried prayer, and rush through the day with the heart out of the presence of God. Is it any wonder that the "strife" of Midian comes in, and there is little power to control the children, and none to guide them in God's ways instead of the ways of the world?

But see; she lets her work stand, takes her Bible and reads it in the presence of her children for a quiet season of devotion and prayer. She pleads that the Cross of Christ has purchased for her at least that privilege and she claims it as her own. But I hear some busy housewife say, "You do not know what I have to do." Ah, my sister, I know if you have not a settled purpose of heart to get food for your soul daily, you will never be an overcomer.

Here is the man of business who will rise half an hour earlier than necessary for his business in order to get a word from God before he goes out to wrestle with the world. He must and will have that, even if he cannot take his food, or if his business suffers. He seeks first as a matter of importance, the kingdom of God. It must be first, first, first—not in point of time merely or necessarily, but in importance.

Do you smile, and say that is putting it too strongly? I tell you frankly brethren, you are not "Gideons" unless your soul responds to that. You are no mighty man of valor, nor will you ever deliver a single child of God from the world, unless your purpose of heart is such as I have been describing. What wonder is it that the mother must deplore the constant inroads of the world into her family, that her children naturally turn to that instead of to Christ? No, let it be written in letters of fire in our souls, in our consciences—Christ and His Word first, everything else, even life, but secondary. Soon will we see Midian flee, when this is the case.

This is what takes courage, far more than the excitement of public speech. If you doubt it, make a fair trial, and see how many hindrances you will meet in maintaining such a godly practice. If you are a victor in the closet, you will be prepared for the more open conflicts and you will find that the battle has been already practically won. God can salute you as a mighty man of valor, and use you to help others. Again I ask, dear brethren, how is it with us? But how simple that is. We are not called to do great things, only to be faithful in the matter of our own soul's health, only to desire Christ above all else. Is it possible that we do not? And yet how few have the courage for this simple thing.

It is such a man that God can use as His instrument to deliver Israel. "Go in this thy might, and thou shalt save Israel from the hand of the Midianites: have not I sent thee?" (Judges 6:14). You notice, He does not give him fresh might, but deems the might he had already shown as sufficient to deliver Israel. We have already seen the import of this, and I only call your attention to it again to show how God emphasizes the courage of a faith that gets its own food at all cost—"Go in this thy might."

If we have nothing but Christ, His work and His person, we may be assured that God's acceptance of Him is the amplest assurance and pledge that we shall be "more than conquerors through Him that loved us" (Romans 8:37). The world never has, and never can, face these precious facts. It can never stand before the simplest soul that has them in divine reality as the basis and expression of relationship with God. They are at the same time the witness of his separation from, and victory over, the world.

We are now to see Gideon in connection with the people (Judges 7:1). It is not so much his, but their preparation for service. The whole army, some thirty-two thousand, is encamped at an appropriately-named well, the well of Harod, or "trembling." No doubt it fittingly described the condition of most, for when the Lord had him proclaim through the army that all who were afraid should return home, twenty-two thousand availed themselves of the permission (Judges 7:3).

This had always been God's provision. In the law, He had directed that this proclamation should be made, in order that the timid should not make a panic by the contagion of their fear. But he has another reason here. The people were too many to make the truth perfectly plain, that it was not human, but divine power that had wrought the victory. Man is too prone to boast, and all occasion for doing so must be taken away, or boast he surely will.

There is a subtle desire for numbers with us all. Why the desire for statistics, numbers of conversions, numbers of "members," if man has not the thought that the power is in the numbers? On the contrary, does not Scripture abound with illustrations just to the contrary? Numbers have too often been the occasion for the pride that goeth before destruction. When the numbers of the disciples increased, the murmuring began. Far be the thought that we are to refuse numbers for their own sake. We should surely rejoice for the many who receive blessing, but our eye is not to be on the many, but on the Lord. Particularly is this true in a day of decline, when God has raised up a remnant testimony to His truth. Better far the little company, tried and tested by God Himself, than the large and pretentious body which commands respect in the eyes of the world by its numbers.

The fearful depart. How humiliating to think of two-thirds of those who had rallied to Gideon being too timid to go on. Are there not many in our day who see the path of testimony and conflict, and have not the courage to take it? We fear persecution, we fear scorn, we fear what the world will say. Then, alas, we are not ready for God to use, and must stand aside.

But a severer test is yet to be applied. God says, "the people are yet too many" (Judges 7:4). So they are to be brought down to the water, and there tried in a way they do not understand. It is to see how they drink the water. If they catch it up in their hands, lapping it like dogs, they are chosen. Only three hundred do so; the remainder of the ten thousand kneel down to drink (Judges 7:5,6). The test seems a plain one. It is necessary to quench the thirst, but it must not be such an absorbing necessity that it takes the chief place. The needs of this life are evident, but are they chief with us? Beloved brethren, how many of us can stand this divine test? How solemn it is, too, to remember that we are being tested without our knowledge. If we knew when the test was being applied, we would be on our good behavior, but God is watching us when we little think it, and accepting or rejecting us for the posts of danger and honor.

I need not say that this is not a question of salvation. It is a question of service, of testimony. Can God use us as instruments to deliver His beloved people from the bondage of the world? Surely He cannot if we are partly bound to the world ourselves. But how dreadful is the thought that we are not in a condition for service, and God has to set us aside. May it bring us to searchings of heart, to see if there is in us a subtle slavery to the world, or a failure to make God's interests first. A trifle may make our state apparent, even as here such a trifle as a drink of water. Only one thing can make us answer to God's test, and that is a heart that is absolutely set upon His will. "This one thing I do" (Philippians 3:13), says the apostle Paul. Dear brethren, how is it with us? Are we set aside as unfit for service, or are we vessels "sanctified and meet for the Master's use" (2 Timothy 2:21)?

And so the little company of three hundred are the honored ones, to overthrow the power of Midian (Judges 7:7). Few and despised, doubtless, they were, even by many of their brethren, but still they are the chosen ones. Do you not covet a place with them? What would you give for a place with the three hundred? Money, nor knowledge, nor influence, can buy a place with them. It costs more than gold; it costs self. To refuse, to have no confidence in ourselves—this is the only way to be fit for Christ's use. Do we desire to be fit for His use? Then let us learn from God's way with Gideon and his company how He prepares vessels for service. It is the same lesson we have had before, emphasized by its new settings—the lesson of no strength, no goodness in ourselves. Christ is all, Christ alone.

Barley bread (Judges 7:14) is the poorest of all foods—the food of the paupers. It thus suggested poverty and feebleness—the very lessons emphasized all along. The fact, too, that it was food and not a sword that was to overthrow Midian is significant. When the people of God are feeding upon Christ, they are getting a sword for the enemy. God can use even our feeble and partial apprehensions of Christ as a most effective weapon. The lad had but five barley loaves of bread, yet these were enough in the Lord's hand to feed the multitude. So it is ever. Will we not learn the simple lesson? Weakness, helplessness, nothingness—in Christ's hands will win the day against all the power of the world. The Lord grant that we may know more of this practically, for the sake of Christ our Lord, and the help of His Church.

—Samuel Ridout