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Find Hope When You Are Intimidated

  • 3 days ago
  • 19 min read

Judges 6:11-16 NIV 

[11] The angel of the Lord came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites. [12] When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.” [13] “Pardon me, my lord,” Gideon replied, “but if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our ancestors told us about when they said, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up out of Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.” [14] The Lord turned to him and said, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?” [15] “Pardon me, my lord,” Gideon replied, “but how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.” [16] The Lord answered, “I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites, leaving none alive.” 

Now, this is an area where I have a lot of experience. 


I wasn’t a tall or a strong kid. My biggest muscle was between my ears. I lived in a neighbourhood where people thought with their fists. I was brought up in a Christian family that knew right from wrong.  


We were constantly harassed and bullied by people who believed might was right. 


Now, what you learn as you get older is that people who think with their fists might seem intimidating, but it is they who are intimidated by people whose strongest muscle is between their ears. 


Why is this? 


Because their small brains cannot compute that anyone could ever think differently to them.


Or sometimes that anyone could think at all. 


So we were bullied constantly. Bullied at school. Bullied in our neighbourhood. Bullied by intolerant people who could not tolerate anyone being different to them because they were afraid of difference. 


I spent many of my formative years on the run through our neighbourhood, from the tunnel at the top of our neighbourhood to our house at the bottom. There were other neighbourhoods where I would have to watch my back when I passed through. 


Fear was my constant companion. 


This study is about a man who was afraid. He went on to be the mighty warrior who led his people to victory, but he did not start that way. 


Far from it.  


In this study we will look at fear and intimidation, understand the reasons for them and how God can bring us hope.  


So today, if you are a bright and scrawny kid like I was, or if you are facing circumstances that are terrifying you and robbing you of your peace, this is for you. 


Let’s start, then, by looking at The Pain We Feel. 

 

The Pain We Feel 

Judges 6:11-13 NIV 

[11] The angel of the Lord came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites. [12] When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.” [13] “Pardon me, my lord,” Gideon replied, “but if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our ancestors told us about when they said, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up out of Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.” 

When I was at school, there were people I just simply chose to avoid for my own safety.


Firstly, they were much bigger than me.


Secondly, they were known for being violent.


Thirdly, they weren’t very bright.


Fourthly, particularly in high school, it was likely that these people were high on some illegal substance or other and had lost all inhibitions and self-control. 


Put that combination together and you have a recipe for trouble. 


If we feel intimidated, we should always ask ourselves ‘Why?’ What is it that causes us to lose control and feel like we are going to lose big time? 


I’ll tell you. 


Have you ever seen those big statues of Lady Justice that you sometimes see outside courtrooms? She usually has a sword in one hand a set of balance scales in the other.  


I want you to imagine those balance scales. On one side is the threat you are facing. On the other side are the resources you think you have to meet that threat. For example, on one side you could have a bill you have to face, either for government taxes or property rental or educational fees or medical bills. On the other side you have the money in your bank account you need to pay those bills. 


That’s why, for example, we were not intimidated when my daughter went to university, because the government pay for university fees in our country. But in other countries, parents are afraid if they have children in higher education because the fees are so high. 


This principle works in other areas of life too. A very simple and puerile illustration is if a scrawny kid with no discernible strength or abilities was to threatento beat you up, but you would not be afraid. You would probably laugh. But if a one-man mountain of muscle who can practically cause a solar eclipse by standing up was to threaten you, you would be terrified. 


We feel intimidated when the threat facing us appears to be greater than the resources we have to face it. 


That is precisely where Gideon was. Look at what the Bible says: 


Judges 6:1-6 NIV 

[1] The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, and for seven years he gave them into the hands of the Midianites. [2] Because the power of Midian was so oppressive, the Israelites prepared shelters for themselves in mountain clefts, caves and strongholds. [3] Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, the Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern peoples invaded the country. [4] They camped on the land and ruined the crops all the way to Gaza and did not spare a living thing for Israel, neither sheep nor cattle nor donkeys. [5] They came up with their livestock and their tents like swarms of locusts. It was impossible to count them or their camels; they invaded the land to ravage it. [6] Midian so impoverished the Israelites that they cried out to the Lord for help. 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/jdg.6.1-6.NIV)


Let’s not beat around the bush here: this was a very real and very serious threat. It affected every area of their lives. 


It even affected Gideon: 


Judges 6:11 NIV 

[11] The angel of the Lord came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites.  

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/jdg.6.11.NIV)


This guy is afraid. He was threshing wheat in a winepress so that somehow his family got to keep the proceeds from his threshing and they didn’t have to give it to the Midianites. 


I actually find this encouraging in some way. Here was someone who was afraid, who was intimidated, who was doing what he could to provide for his family. He was in hiding.  

I can relate to that. I’m sure many of us can. 


Here is someone who was intimidated. 


What’s more, I want you to see the effect that this intimidation had on Gideon: 


Judges 6:12-13 NIV 

[12] When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.” [13] “Pardon me, my lord,” Gideon replied, “but if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our ancestors told us about when they said, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up out of Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.” 

Do you see it? 


What you see here is a sense of despondency; a sense of inevitability. Gideon was a defeated man. His situation was bad. His people’s situation was bad. He saw no way out of it. And so a survival mentality has set in and he was deceiving the Midianites to provide for his family. 


This is what happens when people are intimidated to a point of defeat. They lose all sense of respect or dignity. They see no other way out than to duck and to dive and to hide. They do the little tricks they can because the big picture solution – freedom from the force that has cowed then into despondency – seems completely out of reach. 


Is this how you feel? Has your situation got you down? Do you see now way out? 


Are you intimidated? 


I want you to see my next point, because it explains where these feelings come from. It won’t at all be comfortable. Because after the pain we feel – the pain of being intimidated and cowed into submission and despondency – we see the cause: The God We Lost. 

 

The God We Lost 

Judges 6:1, 7-10, 13 NIV 

[1] The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, and for seven years he gave them into the hands of the Midianites.  
[7] When the Israelites cried out to the Lord because of Midian, [8] he sent them a prophet, who said, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I brought you up out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. [9] I rescued you from the hand of the Egyptians. And I delivered you from the hand of all your oppressors; I drove them out before you and gave you their land. [10] I said to you, ‘I am the Lord your God; do not worship the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you live.’ But you have not listened to me.” 

[13] “Pardon me, my lord,” Gideon replied, “but if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our ancestors told us about when they said, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up out of Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.” 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/jdg.6.1-13.NIV)


The advent of self-service supermarket checkouts in the UK has seen the proliferation of a simple but effective device: accurate electronic scales. They are everywhere: in the fresh produce section, attached to the self-service tills themselves and even, in one clothing store, so incredibly sensitive that they can tell a single garment from another. 


There is even talk of scales so sensitive that you can push a supermarket trolley through them and they will be able to tell what goods are in trolley. 


These scales, however, can be fooled. They don’t have eyes. If you press down on them (and I don’t see why you would), you can make a product seem way heavier than it is. 


That might seem like a strange way to start this point. However, the Israelites were feeling intimidated by the strength of the Midianite army. On their balance, the Midianites were way stronger than the resources the Israelites had to overcome them, so the Israelites were intimidated. 


But Gideon apportioned blame in the wrong place. 


He was right that they felt intimidated because God was not with them. That much was true. 


But Gideon thought that God had abandoned the Israelites, when it was the Israelites who had abandoned God. Look again at the first verse of this chapter: 


Judges 6:1 NIV 

[1] The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, and for seven years he gave them into the hands of the Midianites.  

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/jdg.6.1.NIV)


Now look at what David wrote much later: 


Psalms 27:1-3 NIV 

[1] The Lord is my light and my salvation— whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life— of whom shall I be afraid? [2] When the wicked advance against me to devour me, it is my enemies and my foes who will stumble and fall. [3] Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear; though war break out against me, even then I will be confident. 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/psa.27.1-3.NIV)


2 Samuel 22:30 NIV 

[30] With your help I can advance against a troop; with my God I can scale a wall. 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/2sa.22.30.NIV)


Remember: this is the same guy who, as just a shepherd boy, stood firm while his own army fled (1 Samuel 17:20-24); who felled a giant of a man with a sling and a stone (1 Samuel 17:41-49). 


What’s the difference between a man cowering in fear and another standing firm against a fearsome foe? 


God. 


1 Samuel 17:45-47 NIV 

[45] David said to the Philistine, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. [46] This day the Lord will deliver you into my hands, and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head. This very day I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds and the wild animals, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. [47] All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give all of you into our hands.” 

It’s uncomfortable for us to admit it, but the reason that we, like Gideon, are intimidated is because we have removed God from the equation. We either believe He doesn’t exist or act like He doesn’t exist, or live as if He might as well not exist. 


We assume that He either can’t intervene or won’t intervene. 


We face our foes without our most fearsome ally. 


What do I mean? 


Let’s go back to that scales analogy. On one side is the thing that intimidates us, on the other is our resources to meet it. We see the scales tipping in the direction of the thing intimidating us and are afraid.  


But we don’t factor God in this. 


He can lean on the scales on our side and in a split second turn things back in our favour. 


The question is: do we believe He can or that He will? 


Gideon clearly believed that He could, but would not. He believed that God had walked away and abandoned them to their fate. But that was not true: God had remained where He was; it was His people who had moved. They had rejected Him. They had turned their back on Him. They had replaced Him with cheap trinket gods that could do nothing. 


That was the real reason why they were intimidated. 


And often it is the same reason why we feel intimidated. We look at the issue we face and are afraid because we don’t have the resources to face it, even though God does. 


We have effectively counted him out of the solution. 


Even the quickest survey of Scripture tells you this is really not a good thing to do. 


It’s what the Israelites did when they were on the verge of entering the Promised Land (Numbers 13:31-33, 14). 


It’s what the disciples did when the storm threatened to sink their boat (Matthew 8:23-27; Mark 4:35-40). 


It’s what Peter did when he took his eyes off Jesus and instead gazed at the wind and the waves (Matthew 14:25-33). 


As unsettling as it is to admit it, it’s what Gideon did and it’s what we do too when we allow ourselves to be intimidated by our situation. 


So how do we turn this around? How do we get rid of the feelings of intimidation? How do we stop being afraid? 


That’s what we’re about to find out as we turn from the pain we feel and the God we lost to The Strength We Have. 

 

The Strength We Have 

Judges 6:12, 14 NIV 

[12] When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.” 
[14] The Lord turned to him and said, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?” 

There is something rather tragic and profoundly wasteful about seeing a talented and able person throw their gifts away. 


It’s happened so often that we could almost miss it. 


I can go back to my school days and remember a talented footballer who lost any chance at a career due to drugs.


Or another clever classmate who blew his exams completely due to alcohol.


Or the nine girls in my class who had a future mapped out for them, but over my last two years of high school all of them got pregnant. 


That’s not to mention the many stars who broke into the limelight and who disappeared just as quickly to addiction. 


Here we see Gideon, a man who, was seemingly at the opposite end of the scale because he felt like he had nothing of value. He was threshing wheat in a winepress because the only thing he had left were his wits. 


Then God’s angel said two things that, on first glance, seem to be highly ironic: 


Judges 6:12 NIV 

[12] When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.” 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/jdg.6.12.NIV)


‘Mighty warrior’? How many mighty warriors do you know are skulking around in fear? 


Judges 6:14 NIV

[14] The Lord turned to him and said, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?” 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/jdg.6.14.NIV)


What strength? Really, what strength?  


It just seems absurd. 


But then, God deals with absurdities.  


He earlier called an eighty year old fugitive shepherd to lead His people out of slavery (Exodus 3:1-10). 


He called a small boy to shame a king (1 Samuel 16:1-13). 


He called a man with a fouled mouth to be his prophet (Isaiah 6). 


He called perhaps the most unlikely people to be His disciples.

 

He called an arch persecutor of the Jewish church to take His Gospel to the Gentiles (Acts 9:1-19). 


And He kept doing it: 


1 Corinthians 1:26-29 NIV 

[26] Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. [27] But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. [28] God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, [29] so that no one may boast before him.  

And He is still doing it.  


So why not you? 


I want you to notice another very specific pattern here, which also repeats itself throughout Scripture. When God called Gideon, He didn’t ask Gideon to go with what he did not already have. Look again at the call: 


Judges 6:14 NIV 

[14] The Lord turned to him and said, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?” 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/jdg.6.14.NIV)


Gideon was called to go with what he had, not what he did not have. 


God did the same with Moses: 


Exodus 4:2 NIV 

[2] Then the Lord said to him, “What is that in your hand?” “A staff,” he replied. 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/exo.4.2.NIV)


And again at the feeding of the five thousand: 


Mark 6:38 NIV 

[38]  “How many loaves do you have?” he asked. “Go and see.” When they found out, they said, “Five—and two fish.” 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/mrk.6.38.NIV)


And again at the feeding of the four thousand: 


Matthew 15:34 NIV 

[34]  “How many loaves do you have?” Jesus asked. “Seven,” they replied, “and a few small fish.” 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/mat.15.34.NIV)


God never chastises us for what we don’t have to solve our problems. nstead He asks us to use what we do have. 


Issues arise when we have the means to change our situation and don’t use them. 


Everyone in these situations had the same problem: they were facing a huge problem and the resources they had felt woefully inadequate – less than a drop in the ocean. But what we have to understand is that God plus us always equals infinity. He doesn’t ask us to bring what we don’t have; He asks what we do have and He supplies the rest. 


I want you to notice something else. Gideon felt his own inadequacy for the task. Yet God made him even more inadequate by stripping his attack force to just three hundred men (Judges 7:7), against a foe so great in number that even their camels could not be counted (Judges 6:5, 7:12). 


God did this for a reason: 


Judges 7:2 NIV 

[2] The Lord said to Gideon, “You have too many men. I cannot deliver Midian into their hands, or Israel would boast against me, ‘My own strength has saved me.’  

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/jdg.7.2.NIV)


God had to be magnified and glorified through their victory, and for this to happen, the Israelites had to be reduced to a state from which victory was utterly impossible by any other means. 


Often this refining has to happen to us. God has to reduce us from a place of pride in our own strength to a place of utter humility and dependence to prove to us just who we are and who God is. It’s happened to me – on more than one occasion, and often by different means. 


I pray it won’t need to happen to you, but if you are reading this study and identifying with what you are reading, there is every possibility that it’s already happening to you. 


Despite all the hard truths we have had to explore ih this study, and the uncomfortable realities we have had to confront, the story of Gideon ends on a high point. As God promised, this mighty man defeated the Midianites in Lord’s strength (Judges 7:19-25). He faced the forces that were intimidating him and he was victorious, because God was with him. 


When we are staring down difficult and dangerous foes, we should not always assume that, like Gideon, we will experience miraculous victories. It isn’t always so cut and dried.


Sometimes we will win battles. Sometimes we will lose battles. That’s how life is in a fallen world. 


But, Christian, in life we win the war. Do you hear me? We win the war! 


Romans 8:35-39 NIV 

[35] Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? [36] As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” [37] No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. [38] For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, [39] neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

Life can knock us down, put us on our back, leave us devastated. All that can happen, even to God’s people. 


But like a piece of cork on a stormy wave we will always rise. Life will never defeat us. Losses now will be repaid in spades in Heaven. 


So don’t be afraid. Don’t be intimidated. Those who are with you are more than those who are with them. 


The battle is the Lord’s. The outcome is yours. 


Stand firm, Christian. 

 

Conclusion 

Judges 6:25-27 NIV 

[25] That same night the Lord said to him, “Take the second bull from your father’s herd, the one seven years old. Tear down your father’s altar to Baal and cut down the Asherah pole beside it. [26] Then build a proper kind of altar to the Lord your God on the top of this height. Using the wood of the Asherah pole that you cut down, offer the second bull as a burnt offering.” [27] So Gideon took ten of his servants and did as the Lord told him. But because he was afraid of his family and the townspeople, he did it at night rather than in the daytime. 

Osaka Kansai airport in Japan has a unique claim to fame. 


It’s sinking.


It was built on reclaimed land on soft clay soil. The engineers who built it were aware that this might happen, but its progress has been unexpectedly fast. Millions of dollars have had to be spent to arrest its progress. 


What we have seen here is a clear sign that something is wrong – and not just with our situation. We can be in a really negative place. We can be suffering. We can be facing a whole host of issues that upset us and stress us and drive us crazy. 


But if we feel panicked or overwhelmed or intimidated by them, if they rob us of our sleep, our rest and our health, if we feel despondency, despair and a sense that all is lost, then something is badly wrong in us. 


We are as much of a problem for ourselves as our problem is. 


In the call of Gideon we saw the pain we so often feel when we are being intimidated by circumstances. I’ve been there. More times than I wish to recall. It’s not a good situation. It hurts and it hurts badly. 


The biggest problem of all is the root cause of this situation. The Christian philosopher Francis Schaeffer wrote a book about God called ‘He Is There And He Is Not Silent’. The root cause of our stress is not necessarily the situation we are in, or even what we believe it to be, but who we believe God to be. We stress out and panic and are intimidated because we believe that either God is not there (He can’t intervene because He doesn’t exist), or that God is silent (because He has decided not to intervene and we don’t know why).  


The reason we feel the way we feel is because, like the Israelites, we have lost God. 


Now, there is a crucially important event in Gideon's story that often gets overlooked – a small but important task that God had for him. 


He had to destroy his father's altar to the false god Baal and sacrifice to the One True God. 


His way out of fear and panic and despair and despondency and intimidation was to give God His rightful place. 


It was to displace idolatry and worship God for who He is. 


Only then was Gideon able to step out in faith with what he had and win the battle. 


Maybe today you are feeling like Kansai airport – you’re sinking under the sheer weight of all that is happening to you. You cannot see a way out. You just feel like giving in. 


Here lies the cure for all that. 


Psalms 73:16-17 NIV 

[16] When I tried to understand all this, it troubled me deeply [17] till I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny. 

There is a reason why Jesus taught the Parable of the Wise and Foolish Builders (Matthew 7:24-27). It’s because those who trust in the Lord and not in their own wisdom (Proverbs 3:5-6) are those who are able to stand in times of trouble and remain resilient, even while the world, the flesh and the devil are doing their utmost to destroy them. 


It’s because their strength is not in themselves but is in God. 


I recently read a devotional about a man who returned to a town that had been devastated in previous years by a forest fire. He was astounded that, while most of the town was nothing but a mangled mess of ash, trees were growing. The reason was simple: they had put their roots down deep into the groundwater and received the nourishment they needed to survive even the aftermath of a deadly fire. 


The story of Gideon is a story of what one human being can achieve when the odds are against them and they are completely overwhelmed. That is absolutely true. 


But his triumph begins with giving God His rightful place, with putting out roots down deep into Him and building our life on the foundations of His Word.


There is a reason why Jesus taught this: 


Matthew 11:28-30 NIV 

[28]  “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. [29] Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. [30] For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” 

The only way to rid ourselves of the worry and the stress and the fear is to bring that burden to God and let Him take control.  


After all, the battle is His – not yours. 


Are you intimidated? Are you afraid? The root cause of your fear might not be comfortable to acknowledge, but in confessing and repenting of it, you will find the cure. 

 

Prayer 

Lord Jesus, I am intimidated by my situation. It has bested me. I come to You with my exhaustion and my despair and I confess that I was wrong to be afraid when You are with me. I leave my troubles at Your feet. I confess that the battle is Yours, not mine. Give me the strength to face each day in You. Amen. 

 

Questions for Contemplation 

  • What was the real reason why the Israelites were afraid and Gideon was so downbeat? What startling truth can we learn from this? 

  • What did Gideon have to do before he went off to fight the Midianites? Why is this important? 

  • Why did God reduce the side if Gideon’s army? What doss this mean for you in your situation? 

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