The Planting of the LORD

"So it was, whenever Israel had sown, Midianites would come up; also Amalekites and the people of the East would come up against them. ⁴ Then they would encamp against them and destroy the produce of the earth as far as Gaza, and leave no sustenance for Israel, neither sheep nor ox nor donkey."

Judges 6:3-4

In the book of Judges, we are told that there was no king in Israel:  everyone did what was right in his own eyes.  God promised to reign over His people, but they rebelled from under His rule.  They sacrificed to idols and forsook God.  Then God delivered them to oppression by the hands of their enemies.  The Israelites toiled in their fields rising early and staying late, but their crops were destroyed by the Midianites.  The people of Midian and Amalek waited until the children of Israel had sown their crops before they would destroy everything.  They left them nothing to eat, even killing their animals.  It was a desperate time.  But it always took utter devastation and hopelessness before the people cried out to God.  He was always faithful to raise up a deliverer to save His people.

When I read this passage I considered the spiritual battle Christians, as God's adopted children, face on a continual basis.  The enemy is constantly on the lookout, seeking to hinder fruitfulness from the planted seed.  In the Parable of the Sower, the seed is the Word of God.  The devil seeks to attack a man after the good seed is sown.  Man's heart is naturally wicked and deceitful, and his flesh only propagates wickedness exponentially and cannot please God.  Satan turns his efforts on those who may slip from his grasp through belief in God's Word.  Jesus says in Luke 8:5 and 11-12 "A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell by the wayside; and it was trampled down, and the birds of the air devoured it...¹¹ "Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. ¹² Those by the wayside are the ones who hear; then the devil comes and takes away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved."  The Midianites and Amalekites swooped down upon the fields of the Israelites to impoverish them.  If they could not drive out the Israelites, they would starve them.

This is the same tactic Satan uses in the lives of believers.  He can kill the body, but he cannot touch the soul.  The devil rages against God and His people with vicious hate and tenacity.  Whom he cannot kill he will impoverish.  He will lure followers of Christ to seek after the passing pleasures and amusements of this world.  This same desire is seen in the Philistine leaders when they approached Delilah because they sought to destroy Samson, a man empowered with the Spirit of God.  Judges 16:5 reads, "And the lords of the Philistines came up to her and said to her, "Entice him, and find out where his great strength lies, and by what means we may overpower him, that we may bind him to afflict him; and every one of us will give you eleven hundred pieces of silver."  Don't you smell the sulfur on their breath?  Entice Samson so we might overpower him:  then we can bind him to afflict him!  How many people in this world are overpowered by circumstances, bound by sin, and afflicted with guilt and shame!

Whether you are teaching the Word of God or reading it, that will mobilise the enemy of your soul to rob you of the fruitfulness God desires.  Praise God that no weapon fashioned against us shall prosper, for we have a Redeemer and Deliverer in Jesus Christ!  He is the Living Bread from heaven, even as the Midinianite spoke of the vision with the loaf of bread which rolled down into camp, struck a tent, and threw it down (Judges 7:13).  Through Jesus we can cast down arguments, strongholds, and everything which exalts itself against Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 10:3-6).  Let us not be caught off guard by Satan's attacks which are designed to impoverish us.  You may feel fatigued when the alarm goes off early so you can spend time in God's Word.  Get up immediately trusting God to supply your strength, even as He did for Moses during his two 40-day fasts from food or water.  Believe He can gird up your mind even as Elijah girded his loins and outran a chariot pulled by horses!

If you find yourself in a situation where the Israelites, having departed from the Living God, being afflicted and oppressed without victory or hope, follow their example in crying out to God for salvation and deliverance.  Put away your idols (not in a closet but in the rubbish bin!) and seek the LORD with all your heart, mind, and strength.  The promise God has given to His people Israel has a valuable application to Christians in Jeremiah 24:6-7:  "For I will set My eyes on them for good, and I will bring them back to this land; I will build them and not pull them down, and I will plant them and not pluck them up. ⁷ Then I will give them a heart to know Me, that I am the LORD; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God, for they shall return to Me with their whole heart."  God plants His Word in our hearts to be fruitful for His glory, and we also are the planting of the LORD (Is. 61:3).  Even Satan cannot pluck us from God's hand, nor separate us from the love of God.  In Psalm 1:3 those who delight in God and His law are compared to a tree planted by the rivers of water, bringing forth fruit in season, with leaves which do not whither, and prosperous in all things for God's glory.  Thank God for this everlasting truth!