Gideon is a great example of what happens when the people of God lose the vision of who they are in God.

They were called to take out the inhabitants of the land. That was the command from God. They simply did not obey.

Oppressed, we find Gideon hiding out. To grind grain, he was using a winepress to fool the Midianites into thinking he didn’t have enough grain for them to steal (Judges 6:11).

When God came calling, he just flat out blamed GOD for their troubles (Judges 6:13).

When called by God to lead the people, he simply gave excuse after excuse (Judges 6:15), and then wanted a “sign” (Judges 6:17).

Given a task, he did it at night out of fear (Judges 6:25-27).

When he finally obtained victory over the Midianites, he led Israel right back into idolatry (Judges 6:22ff).

Gideon is a picture of what happens when the people of God lose sight of just who they are. 

The CHURCH needs to learn from Gideon. Not from what he did, but from what he shows in how NOT to live in the Kingdom.

We hide from an enemy we preach doesn’t even exist. We blame God (or his church) for all our troubles. When God calls us to Kingdom business, we give excuse after excuse, then ask for signs to “confirm,” and often STILL don’t move. Every once in awhile we get “lucky” with a victory, but then go back to our default programming.

Don’t be Gideon.