Best Epic movies of all time? Brave Heart with William Wallace, Lord of the Rings with Aragon, Gladiator with Maximus.  

I really enjoy epic movies. There’s something about the tale of a great warrior or leader battling evil foes with large casts and enormous battles. But there’s something more about these historical characters like William Wallace, and fictional characters like Aragon that draw us in. In so many ways, they give us a taste of something we want or desire, but do not have.

The Bible is filled with similar incredible epic adventures, and one of the great ones is the true, historical story of the man, the great warrior, Gideon. But like so many great warriors, Gideon did not start out great but was just like you and me, a common person going about the regular everyday duties of his life.

This story begins in the Old Testament (OT) in Judges, Chapter 6.

Living in fear during troubled times

If we were creating a movie out of this biblical story, the opening scene would be of the Israelites, the people whom God loves and has called his own. The people whom God gave clear boundaries and moral laws to; but a people who ended up living in accordance with their own desires, their own passions, and not following the one true God of the Bible. In Verse 1 of chapter 6 we read:
“Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord…” Again is the key word here. These people had a pattern of not doing what the Lord God desired and if you’re familiar with the OT, you’ll recall how repetitive this pattern was. Nothing new is being reported at this time. In so many ways, the obedience of the Israelites and their disobedience is really my story. It is our story.

And because of their disobedience, the Lord God allowed them to be invaded by the Midianites. The Midianites were a desert-dwelling people who would invade the Israelites and ransack their homes, taking their food, and utterly destroying their livelihood. The people of Israel lived in fear. They would plant crops and the Midianites would destroy them; they would murder people and kill their livestock. They came swarming in on their camels like locusts. That means that there were more than they could count. Tens of thousands of troops. The Israelites lived in utter fear of these people – so much so that they became cave dwellers and hid in the mountains. They had hit rock bottom. They were impoverished and they cried out to the Lord. That seems to be the place where we usually cry out to God. When everything is crumbling around us.

Have you ever hit rock bottom? Felt as though life was meaningless? Or lived in utter fear? My early recollection of fear is losing my mom in a busy department store. That traumatized me so much that I dreamt about it for months. Of course, a close second is asking a girl out to my eighth grade dance. Wow, that was fear! What about after 9/11, or after a difficult prognosis from the doctor? We tend to fill our lives with so much busyness that it can distract from, or dampen just for a moment, the fear or difficulties of the world we live in. 25,000 jobs that will be cut by General Motors, a spouse who says she doesn’t love you. Life has its basements and most of us have spent some time there. The Israelites in the time of Gideon had hit their rock bottom. They were living without meaning, without God-given purpose. They were living in fear.

A great warrior enters the picture

The epic begins. Now enter Gideon, this mighty warrior. I call him this because the angel of the Lord calls him this. “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.” We probably picture him training with swords, or tossing men around like little ants, a real-life Conan the Barbarian. That’s what mighty warriors do. But instead, the angel of the Lord finds Gideon threshing wheat in a winepress, hiding from the Midianites. A winepress was a pit carved out of rocky ground. Normally, threshing floors were located in exposed areas so that the wind could easily blow away the chaff. Not the mighty warrior that I would picture.

This is where this great epic gets interesting. God is saying, “Look, you’re the one who is going to save the people from the Midianites.” The one thing I love about the Bible is that it is so real and true. Gideon’s like, “Who, me? Hold on God! First of all, if you are with me and with us, and you’ve reminded us of all these great things you’ve done like defeating Egypt, why are all these bad things happening? And for that matter, I think you have the wrong guy. The tribe I am part of is the weakest. There are no first round draft picks in our bunch, and I am the least of all of them. I am not even up for the draft. Wrong guy, God - sorry!”  (verses 13-15).

God being God, and never being surprised, reminds Gideon of exactly what He’d just said in his introduction, “You are a mighty warrior.” But the second part of what He says is, “The Lord is with you - the same Lord who did all the mighty and great things for your forefathers.” The Lord also tells him to go in His strength. “Listen Gideon, the Lord is with you and we will defeat the mighty Midianites together.”

At this point Gideon is not totally convinced that God has the real guy. Perhaps God has made a mistake. He asks for a sign so that he can know this is all for real. Finally, he seems to get what he wants and he realizes this is the real deal - the real God. Knowing his holy Scriptures, he recognizes that coming face to face with the Creator of the universe is not a good thing, so he shouts in fear that he has seen the face of the Lord. The Lord says, “Peace, do not be afraid, you are not going to die.”  

You see, God sees us very differently from the way we see ourselves. Some of us are living in fear and that fear is consuming our lives. Some of us have climbed the corporate ladder, we are at the zenith of our career paths, or are on the fast track, and yet we have this incredible ache that all is not how it should be. We fear we are missing something or someone. There has to be more to this life. We find our days filled with emptiness. In fact, I think most of us don’t have a proper view of ourselves. We see ourselves in a very different fashion from the way God sees us. Maybe we think that because of past choices we’ve made, God would never come to us. If God knew what I’ve done, He would cross onto the other side of the street. I am sure that Gideon felt as though God had abandoned him and his people, and that his young life was just buying time until the armies destroyed everything he had and perhaps end up killing him.

Friends - God sees us very differently from the way we see ourselves, and He has not abandoned us. In fact, He whispers to all of us in so many ways that He loves us; that He cares for us, that our life can have value; that our sins - the garbage in our life - can be forgiven. That we don’t need to live in fear, but that we can have hope, security and purpose.

Jason Esposito: We will continue Gideon’s epic in a couple of weeks. In the meanwhile, do share your thoughts and comments by clicking on the Comments button.