Tuesday, August 12, 2025
Scripture Readings
- Primary Reading: Judges 5-7
- Secondary Reading: Psalms 93
Key Verse
Judges 6:18 — “Depart not hence, I pray thee, until I come unto thee, and bring forth my present, and set it before thee. And he said, I will tarry until thou come again.”
Devotional Thought
Deborah sang on the day of victory, and her song is a window into how God works. Israel had been crippled for twenty years under Sisera’s nine hundred chariots of iron. The highways were deserted; travelers crept along back roads; village life had collapsed. Then God raised up a mother in Israel and a reluctant general named Barak, and when they finally went down to the valley, heaven itself joined the fight — the stars in their courses, the river Kishon sweeping the enemy away. Deborah’s song celebrates not merely Israel’s courage but God’s initiative: “They fought from heaven.” And after the song, the sad rhythm resumes: Israel did evil, Midian swarmed like grasshoppers, and the people hid in caves.
It is into that caves-and-grasshoppers world that the angel of the LORD comes and finds Gideon threshing wheat in a winepress, hiding from the Midianites. “The LORD is with thee, thou mighty man of valour,” the angel says — to a frightened man in a hole in the ground. Gideon protests his poverty and insignificance; God answers, “Surely I will be with thee.” Then comes the fleece, twice tested, and the shrinking army: thirty-two thousand reduced to three hundred, so that no one could say, “Mine own hand hath saved me.” Finally, that strange midnight scene: a barley cake tumbling into the camp of Midian, and an enemy soldier interpreting his own nightmare — “This is nothing else save the sword of Gideon.”
Perhaps you know the feeling of this season — the long summer days when the news feels like grasshoppers without number, when the ground you worked hard to sow seems stripped bare, and prayer feels like threshing wheat in a winepress, hidden and small. Notice what God does with Gideon: He does not scold the fear; He strengthens it. He sends him down to the enemy camp to overhear a dream, of all things. And Gideon worships. He builds an altar called Jehovah-shalom — “the LORD is peace” — before a single battle is won. The God of Judges 5 and 6 and 7 is the God of Psalm 93: “The LORD on high is mightier than the noise of many waters.” The floods lift up their voice; the chariots roar; the grasshoppers descend. He is mightier still, and His testimonies are very sure.
Reflection
- Gideon asked for signs because he could not see how God’s promise could possibly come true through someone so small. Where in your life are you threshing wheat in a winepress — doing faithful work in hiding, waiting for God to confirm what He has already said?
- God reduced Gideon’s army from thirty-two thousand to three hundred so that Israel could not boast, “Mine own hand hath saved me.” What might God be stripping away in your life right now, not to abandon you but to make it unmistakable that the victory is His?
Prayer
O Lord, who reignest clothed with majesty and strength, we confess that we often measure the battle by the noise of the waters — the grasshoppers, the chariots, the floods lifting up their voice — and forget that Thou art mightier still. Thou didst find Gideon in his hiding place and call him a mighty man of valour; find us likewise. Quiet our anxious fleece-testing, strengthen our weak hands, and send us down into the valley with the confidence that the battle is Thine. Let us build our Jehovah-shalom in the middle of the conflict, and when the noise subsides, let us be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might. In the name of Jesus, Amen.
Psalm Verse
Psalms 93:1 — “The LORD reigneth, he is clothed with majesty; the LORD is clothed with strength, wherewith he hath girded himself: the world also is stablished, that it cannot be moved.”