The Mighty Man in the Winepress Text: Judges 6:11-18
Introduction: The Age of Accommodation
We live in an age of managed decline, an era of Christian accommodation. The church in the West has, for the most part, made its peace with the Midianites. We have accepted the terms of our cultural plunder. The enemy comes in at harvest time, year after year, and takes the best of what our civilization has produced, our institutions, our schools, our children's minds, and we have retreated to the caves and the strongholds. We have decided that the best we can do is hide what little we have left, threshing out our wheat in the winepress, hoping the marauders do not notice us.
This is the essence of a pietistic, defeated evangelicalism. It is a theology of the winepress. It says, "Let us preserve our personal holiness, our quiet times, our little bit of spiritual grain, while the world outside is overrun." It is a theology of quiet desperation disguised as piety. It sees the ruin, it feels the oppression, but its only solution is to hide better, to dig the winepress a little deeper.
But the God of the Bible is not a God of the winepress. He is the Lord of the harvest, and He is the Lord of the threshing floor, which belongs on the top of the hill, in the open, under the sky, where the wind of His Spirit can blow. The story of Gideon is a divine declaration of war against the theology of accommodation. It is God's summons to a cowering church to come out of hiding. And the central lesson is this: God does not begin His work of deliverance by finding the most competent, courageous, and battle-ready warrior. He begins by finding a man in a hole, crippled by fear and doubt, and He speaks a new reality over him. This is not a story about finding your inner strength. This is a story about being invaded by an outer strength, the strength of the living God.
We must understand that God's methods are a direct polemic against the methods of men. Men look for strength, for charisma, for resources. God looks for weakness, for emptiness, for inadequacy, because these are the empty vessels into which He is pleased to pour His glory. If you feel weak, if you feel hidden, if you look at the state of our culture and are tempted toward despair, then you are in precisely the place where God begins His great works of deliverance.
The Text
Then the angel of Yahweh came and sat under the oak that was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite as his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press in order to preserve it from the Midianites. And the angel of Yahweh appeared to him and said to him, “Yahweh is with you, O mighty man of valor.” Then Gideon said to him, “O my lord, if Yahweh is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His wondrous deeds which our fathers recounted to us, saying, ‘Did not Yahweh bring us up from Egypt?’ But now Yahweh has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.” Then Yahweh turned to him and said, “Go in this strength of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian. Have I not sent you?” But he said to Him, “O Lord, with what shall I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the least in Manasseh, and I am the youngest in my father’s house.” But Yahweh said to him, “Surely I will be with you, and you shall strike down Midian as one man.” So Gideon said to Him, “If now I have found favor in Your eyes, then do a sign for me that it is You who speak with me. Please do not depart from here until I come back to You, and I bring out my offering and lay it before You.” And He said, “I will remain until you return.”
(Judges 6:11-18 LSB)
The Divine Intrusion (v. 11-12)
The scene opens with a picture of utter degradation and a sudden, glorious intrusion.
"Then the angel of Yahweh came and sat under the oak that was in Ophrah... as his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press in order to preserve it from the Midianites." (Judges 6:11)
First, let us be clear about who this is. "The angel of Yahweh" is no mere created being. This is a theophany, a pre-incarnate appearance of the second person of the Trinity, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the Angel of the Covenant. And notice His posture. He does not appear in a blaze of glory on a mountaintop. He comes and sits under a tree. This is an act of profound condescension. God comes down to where His people are, in their dirt, in their fear, in their hiding places. He sits down, ready for conversation.
And where is Gideon? He is doing the right work in the wrong place for the wrong reason. He is providing for his family, which is good. But he is doing it in a winepress, which is a pit in the ground, because he is terrified. A threshing floor was a public, exposed place on a hilltop, where you could catch the wind to separate grain from chaff. A winepress was a hole. Gideon is the picture of the church in retreat. He is in a defensive crouch, trying to save his little pile of grain from the bullies. He is motivated by fear, not faith.
It is into this pathetic scene that the Lord speaks a word of divine, creative irony.
"And the angel of Yahweh appeared to him and said to him, 'Yahweh is with you, O mighty man of valor.'" (Judges 6:12)
A mighty man of valor? This man is a professional skulker. He is the opposite of a mighty warrior. But we must understand the grammar of God's grace. God's declarations are not descriptive; they are creative. He does not call things as they are; He calls things that are not as though they were (Romans 4:17). This is not flattery. It is a divine fiat. God is not telling Gideon what he is. He is telling Gideon what He is about to make him. The world says, "Become a mighty man, and then God will be with you." God says, "I am with you, therefore you are a mighty man." The power is not in Gideon's potential; the power is in God's presence and God's promise.
The Argumentative Faith (v. 13-15)
Gideon's response is not a polite amen. It is a raw, honest, and theologically confused complaint.
"O my lord, if Yahweh is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His wondrous deeds which our fathers recounted to us... But now Yahweh has abandoned us..." (Judges 6:13)
This is the cry of a man who believes in a God of history but sees no evidence of Him in the present. He has a secondhand faith, built on the stories of his fathers. He knows the catechism, "Did not Yahweh bring us up from Egypt?" but he cannot reconcile that glorious past with his miserable present. His logic is simple: if God is with us, we win. We are not winning. Therefore, God is not with us. He has abandoned us.
His conclusion is wrong, but his question is honest. He has forgotten Israel's sin, which is the true cause of their predicament (Judges 6:1-10). He blames God for the consequences of their own covenant-breaking. But God is gracious. He does not rebuke Gideon for his faulty theology. Instead, He answers Gideon's complaint with a commission.
"Then Yahweh turned to him and said, 'Go in this strength of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian. Have I not sent you?'" (Judges 6:14)
What strength? The strength of a man hiding in a hole? The strength of a man full of doubt and complaint? No. "This strength" is the strength of God's presence that was just announced. "This strength" is the strength of God turning His face toward you. The strength is the commission itself. God is saying, "The very fact that I am speaking to you, sending you, is all the strength you need." The basis of our action is not our qualification, but His authoritative, sending word: "Have I not sent you?"
But Gideon is still looking at his own empty pockets.
"O Lord, with what shall I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the least in Manasseh, and I am the youngest in my father’s house." (Judges 6:15)
He provides two impeccable reasons for his inadequacy. My family is a nobody, and I am a nobody within that nobody family. He is doing the world's math. He is looking at his resources, his pedigree, his position. And by any human metric, he is correct. He is the wrong man for the job. And this is precisely why God chose him. God's glory is best displayed against the backdrop of human impossibility. He picks the foolish, the weak, the low, and the despised so that no one can boast in His presence (1 Cor. 1:27-29). Gideon's resume of weakness is his primary qualification for God's service.
The All Sufficient Answer (v. 16-18)
God does not argue with Gideon's assessment of his own weakness. He simply renders it irrelevant.
"But Yahweh said to him, 'Surely I will be with you, and you shall strike down Midian as one man.'" (Judges 6:16)
This is the central promise of the entire Bible. This is what God said to Moses at the burning bush, to Joshua as he prepared to enter the land, and what Jesus said to His disciples in the Great Commission. The one, all-sufficient, problem-solving, fear-destroying reality is the presence of the living God. God does not say, "You are stronger than you think." He says, "I am with you." It does not matter how weak your clan is if God is with you. It does not matter if you are the youngest if God is with you. One man plus God is an infinite army.
And the result of this presence is a promised, unified victory. "You shall strike down Midian as one man." The chaotic, swarming horde of the enemy will be defeated as though they were a single, vulnerable person. This is God's doing.
Gideon, now beginning to have his fear transformed into a holy awe, asks for confirmation. He is not asking for a sign out of sheer unbelief, but as a man whose entire world is being turned upside down. He needs to know this is real.
"If now I have found favor in Your eyes, then do a sign for me... Please do not depart from here until I come back to You, and I bring out my offering..." (Judges 6:17-18)
His request for a sign is tied to an act of worship. He recognizes that he is speaking with someone who is worthy of an offering. This is the turning point. He is moving from cowering in the winepress to building an altar. He is moving from fear of Midian to fear of the Lord. And the Lord, in His great patience, agrees to wait. He condescends to our weakness and gives us the assurances we need. He is willing to sit under the tree while we prepare our hearts and our sacrifices to meet with Him.
Conclusion: Your Commission from the Winepress
The application for us is direct and unavoidable. We are Gideon. We live in a plundered land, and our instinct is to hide in the winepress. We look at the overwhelming forces of secularism, perversion, and apostasy, and we say, "My church is the least in the presbytery, and I am the youngest in my father's house." We make our excuses. We calculate our weaknesses. We complain to God about the state of affairs.
And into our self-imposed exile, the Lord Jesus Christ comes and sits down with us. He does not find us on the battlefield. He finds us in hiding. And He speaks a new name over us. "The Lord is with you, mighty man of valor." He calls you what you are in Him, not what you are in yourself. He calls you righteous, a saint, a warrior, a child of the King.
And when we complain, when we point to all the evidence of our defeat, He does not offer us a five-step plan for self-improvement. He offers us Himself. He turns to us and says, "Go in this strength. Go in the strength of My presence. Go in the strength of My promise. Have I not sent you?" The Christian life is not about mustering up our own courage. It is about believing His commission. It is about obeying His sending word.
Our weakness is not a disqualification; it is the prerequisite for His power. He has chosen you, in your weakness, in your smallness, so that the victory will be so obviously His that all the glory goes to Him. The call today is to come out of the winepress. It is time to stop making excuses based on your own inadequacy and to start making plans based on His all-sufficiency. The Lord is with you. Therefore, go.