It’s strange to be hearing a reading from the Bible at church on a Sunday morning and to be hearing the same names read out as we hear on our TV news broadcasts. There is the mention of Israel- a name frequently on the news and there in our reading from Judges 6 is the mention of Gaza another name that is on the news a lot. 

In some ways the Bible can feel like it’s talking about things that are very distant and different to our world today and in some ways it feels like it’s all really very close and up to date.

We are reading events that took place about 3200 years ago, but some things haven’t changed!

Back then Israel was under attack by a group of enemies. Enemies that were much more effective in their attacks upon Israel than Israel’s current enemies have been- Iran, the Houthis, Hamas and so on. They were using the most sophisticated weapons of their day, not drones and missiles but camels!

I read in a website that the first recorded use of camels was the battle of Qarqar in Syria in 853 BC. But here in the Bible we have camels being used in warfare hundreds of years before.  

For seven years these terrorists had swept in and swarmed over the land, many on the back of camels. The speedy long range fighting force seems to have overwhelmed the Israelites. And the people had to go into hiding, up in the mountains in clefts in the rocks, caves and strongholds. 

The Midianites, Amalekites and eastern peoples were nomads, coming in with their cattle and their tents in huge numbers like locusts ravishing the land and then moving on. They spared nothing, taking everything all the farm animals, leaving nothing for the locals.

They did this for seven successive years, coming in from the east and cutting right over to Gaza on the Mediterranean coast. The people of Israel were impoverished, they had nothing much left to eat, only what they could hide from the invaders. They experienced long, lean, hungry winters for seven years. 

When things get tough, it’s then that people who don’t have much time for God start to pray. And the Israelites did just that, they cried to the Lord because of their oppression. 

And in response, the Lord first sent them a prophet to explain what was going on. He didn’t send a solution, he sent an explanation first.

And the prophet explains that God had rescued his people from their oppression in Egypt and all their oppressors and he had given them a great land to live in and enjoy – a land free from oppression, and he had told them not to worship false gods, not to have idols in their lives, don’t worship the things the people in the land had been worshiping. Instead they were to worship the only God, the Living God, the Lord your God, but they had not listened. And so God responded by punishing them and handing them over to the hands of their enemies to oppress them. God had caused them to be oppressed again.

Like Israel, we may want escape from our hard circumstances while God wants us to understand our circumstances. Sometimes we may need understanding more than relief; sometimes God must give us insight before he dare grant safety. Understanding God’s way of holiness is more important than absence of pain. We may want out of a problem situation, whereas God wants us to see our idolatry. God means to instruct us, not just give us peace.

God sent a prophet- a person who had a message from God. He does this today, remember the prophetic word came forth in this church a few weeks ago here to us ‘Surrender- I am the only God.’ We must take the prophecy seriously. 

The result of worshiping idols and not repenting of it- of putting anything above God in our lives, turning any good thing into a God thing, into an ultimate thing- be it money, family, country, career, comfort, sex, pleasure and leisure or anything that governs their lives more than Jesus. Worshipping the idols which are worshipped in our culture and society ahead of the true God, the result of this is that the Lord gives us over to be oppressed by oppressors. God did it then and he does it today. 

As I was saying two weeks ago, we need to make sure we don’t allow anything in our lives to take the number one place in our affections, to become an idol. If we do, we end up missing out on God’s grace and getting oppressed. There are many Christians who are not enjoying the relationship with Jesus, and its simply because they have allowed an idol in. 

But He is a gracious God and when we turn back to him, he frees us. And this is what the Israelites did, or it seems they begin to do anyway, they cried out to God. The story shows us later that they hadn’t put away all their idols yet, but at least they are starting to call out to the Lord, the true God, to save them.

And the Lord responded by using a very unlikely person to lead them to freedom and blessing. He was one of the most timid and frightened men we read of in the Bible. A man who when we first meet him, is hiding in a hollow in the ground, crouching out of sight. 



This is a funny moment. The angel of the Lord- who comes in the appearance of a man, comes and sits down under a nearby oak tree and looks down into the hollow where Gideon is on his knees threshing wheat – doing it out of sight, so the Midianites don’t come and steal it. 

Gideon is hiding in fear from the Midianites and the angel of the Lord is looking down at him as he is kneeling in this winepress which is a hollow carved out of the rock. Where people would put grapes and trample on them- pressing the grape juice out of it, in order to make wine. 

He is kneeling there and the Angel of the Lord says ‘The Lord is with you mighty warrior’

Another equally good translation is ‘The Lord is with you o mighty man of valour.’

Here is a man hiding in fear and the Lord calls him a mighty warrior.

‘Mighty warrior’ is not what Gideon would call himself and that is not how others would have described him. 

But the Lord tells him that is sending him on a mission. He says ‘Go in your great strength and save Israel out of Midian’s hand, am I not sending you?’

Gideon there in the winepress, can’t quite believe it. ‘But Lord, how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh and I am the least in my family.’

Do you hear Gideon’s words? He is saying I am the least of the least. I am the weakest of the weak. My clan is the weakest in Manasseh and I am the least in my family.

Gideon’s name for himself was least of the least, weakest of the weak. 

But God’s name for him was ‘mighty man of valour.’

Gideon appeared and acted fearful but God saw who he really was, who God had made him to be. A mighty warrior. 

God’s description, God’s name for Gideon was the true one and Gideon needed to let go of the false name he had called himself, ‘least of the least’ to embrace God’s name for him, ‘mighty warrior.‘

Can I ask you do you know what God calls you? Are you thinking of yourself in the same way that God thinks of you? Is what God is calling you, the same as what you are calling yourself?

That’s an important question. 

When I think of the Lord’s calling of Gideon and his naming of him as mighty warrior, I think of the Father’s voice of affirmation to Jesus ‘ You are my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased’. The Father was affirming Jesus’ identity. 

George MacDonald the Scottish Christian novelist once wrote ‘Who can give a man this, his own name?’ God alone. For no one but God sees what the man is.’ 

I was reading about something called ‘social labelling’ and the way it affects the way we think about ourselves. When someone calls you “lazy,” “troublemaker,” or “vulnerable,” it may seem harmless—but these labels, these names carry weight. From classrooms to workplaces, social tags can shape how others see us and, worse, how we see ourselves. 

Maybe somebody called you a “smart kid,” a “good girl,” or “problem child” when you were growing up. These labels often arise informally: a teacher praises one student as “creative,” a parent calls a sibling the “quiet one.” What seems trivial often lodges in our mind, guiding how we think, feel, and act.

We can accept or even selfimpose such labels over time. We can accept certain labels, names for ourselves, that are not who we really are. They don’t describe how God sees us and what He made us to be. 

People have called you things, you have called yourself things- but what does God call you? 

Who are you? Really? 

Our thoughts about ourselves, will influence how we behave.

Gideon thought of himself as the least of the least and thus, not strong and thus he lives a life in hiding. Scared. And we see in this story that Gideon had a fear problem. He was insecure. 

John Eldredge gives this advice in his book ‘Wild at Heart’ – ‘you must ask God what he thinks of you and you must stay with the question until you have an answer.’

Take time at home maybe and ask the Lord and keep asking him to show you who He made you to be. Ask him to affirm you. 

I’ve given you this illustration before but it really speaks about the limitation that we live under, if we don’t remove low self-esteem from our lives, if we don’t remove false beliefs about ourselves from our lives.

 You know I read that the way they used to stop circus elephants running away was when they were young, they were chained by a chain or rope to a post. A little chain would run from the leg of the baby elephant to this wooden post that was fixed in the ground. The elephant soon realised that the chain was too strong for it and it stopped trying to pull against it and trying to break away. But the elephant grew and grew and became much bigger than it was when a baby. But the thing was that the same small chain and the same small post stopped that elephant from breaking away, even though the elephant was now more than strong enough to break the chain or pull up the post and charge away.

The elephant had been conditioned to think that the chain and post were unbreakable, that it couldn’t escape. So it never tried. If it had tried, it would have succeeded. But it had a chain on the brain, a restriction in its thinking, a false belief, which stopped it trying.

Gideon had a false belief about himself, that he was the least, weak and therefore he lived weak. God had to tell him who he was. 

Who are you? 

When Abram was an old man and only had one son God gave him a new name. His original name was Abram meaning ‘exalted father’ and God changed it to ‘Abraham’- meaning ‘father of many’. And Abraham started to call himself with that new name and his wife Sarah called him with that new name and he began to think and call himself as father of many. 

Sarai received a new name, she was renamed Sarah. We don’t know what Sarai means, but Sarah means ‘princess’ - that is what God called her, that’s how He saw her, isn’t that lovely? Princess.

God renamed ‘Jacob’, ‘Israel’. Jacob means grasp the heal. Israel means he ‘struggles with God’. Because he had struggled with God and man and had overcome. God renamed him a struggler and an overcomer. 

Jesus renamed Simon to ‘Peter’ meaning rock. Formerly he was called Simon which means ‘listen’ or ‘hear’, it was the most common man’s name in first century Israel. But Peter would be a man whose character would be foundational to the church rock. His new name was his God given character. Rock like. 

God knows what we really are. Our true character and calling. The man or woman he had in mind when He formed you in your mother’s womb. And this man, Gideon, who was acting scared needed to know that he not this man, he was a mighty man of valour. 

 Once 12 years ago, I received a prophetic word. The prophet said the Lord had told him to look up my name and he said that the name means ‘brown or dark warrior’ that’s the meaning of Duncan. He said he felt God had chosen that name for me. And I believe it! My middle name was given after my uncle who sadly died in a motorbike accident. His name was a Dutch or Flemish name – Lieven, which means ‘dear friend’ or ‘beloved’. I believe that is the name the Lord wanted my parents to give me also. 

Look into your name. Maybe the Lord prompted your parents to give you it. 

Really you need to know what God thinks of you. What God calls you. And then call yourself by that name, by that label. 

I like the words of 1 Peter 2:9, they are words of identity, God’s label for us- you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

Well back to the story! As we read the story of Gideon we might be a bit confused about who this Angel of the Lord he is speaking to actually is. Sometimes he is called the angel of the Lord but at other times he is called the Lord. We read in verse 14, ‘the Lord turned to him and said.’ 

So is this the Lord himself who has come down to speak to Gideon or is it just his angelic messenger?

Tim Keller puts it well when he says: ‘This is one of the mysteries of the Old Testament which is impossible to understand without the New Testament. If there is one God, how can he both be in heaven, having sent this visible figure, and at the same time be the visible figure? ‘

If this was simply God come in human form, why doesn’t it just say he is the Lord, rather than also say that he is one sent by the Lord? (The word “angel” means messenger.) The only explanation that makes sense is that we have here an indication that our one God is also multi-personal. We have a deep hint of the Trinity. Three persons yet one God. There is good reason to see this figure as God the Son, Jesus revealing himself on earth to Gideon.

God had a mission for Gideon and it was to defeat the oppressors of his people, ‘Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you.’

It was a big task, too big for him alone, but he wouldn’t be alone, the Lord would be with him. The Lord would be present. The presence of the Lord is an awesome and wonderful thing. 

The Lord said to Gideon; ‘I will be with you and you will strike down all the Mideonites together.’ 

God often makes this promise to his servants when they are hesitant or fearful in carrying out His mission. In the face of Moses’ resistance, the Lord had insisted, ‘But I will be with you’ (Exod. 3:12). After Moses’ death had apparently left a giant hole in Israel’s leadership, the Lord had reassured Joshua with ‘As I have been with Moses, I will be with you’ (Josh. 1:5).

This is the call of Moses, Joshua and Gideon but it is very similar to the call that God has given all Christians. We are all sent on a mission. Jesus said ‘go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. 

He promised us his presence, and when he is present it is a guarantee of success. God’s presence gives us victory today as we go on his mission, just as it would give Gideon success. God is still in the sending business- be it to our workplace on a Monday morning, to our family in Edinburgh or Hong Kong, to our neighbour on our streets, wherever, He goes with us. And God’s unseen presence brings results. 

 A mouse and an elephant were best friends. They hung out together all the time, the mouse riding on the elephant’s back. One day they crossed a wooden bridge causing it to bow, creak and sway under the weight. After they were across, the mouse impressed by their ability to make such an impact said to the elephant, “We sure shook up that bridge, didn’t we?”

Things happen when we go into a situation with the Lord’s presence. God comes in with us and He surely make things shake! 

We might feel timid as a mouse, but if we go in obedience to the Lord, the full weight of his presence goes with us. Many of us, most of us here have been in the UK for less than five years. We are settling in but still don’t feel and think of ourselves as natives. First generation immigrants can feel intimated, nervous, the language, the culture is different, and also the work you get is often not as good as you had before you came. Maybe some of you feel small, like Gideon asking the question ‘But Lord, how can I ….? …I am the least’. Like Gideon you can keep your head down out of sight, just trying to avoid trouble. But remember God sees you different to the way you see yourself. Remember who you are in Christ. Remember that God has given all of us a mission here in Scotland and there are people who need us to stand up and be brave. God is calling us to partner with him in striking the Midianites of our times, the things that oppress. Remember Jesus command and promise, go and I will be with you. 

Well maybe one or two of us doubt Jesus is with us. Maybe things have been tough, like they were with Gideon and you wonder if the Lord has abandoned you. Well Verse 17 Gideon asked the Lord for a sign that it was the Lord speaking to him.’ And you know you can ask God to give you a sign as well, as sign that it is really him talking to you. God responds to us when we humbly ask for a sign. 

Gideon put a sacrifice of meat and bread on a rock before the angel of the Lord and fire flared up from the rock and consumed the meat and the bread. And the angel of the Lord disappeared. 

Gideon got his sign. And the Lord gave Gideon peace. He said to him ‘Peace, do not be afraid.’ With the Lord present and we pursuing his will, we do not need to be afraid.