Former M.V.C.W.C. - HERALD ARTICLE ARCHIVE








"A Very Precious Harvest"
by Kelly Purvis

I have been fascinated with a particular verse of Scripture lately ~ Judges 6, verse 11. It is found in the account of Gideon. This small, culled down army defeating the Midianites is an encouragement to all of us. I love the ways of God, particularly when He chooses to show Himself strong through "a few" ... "lest man claim glory for itself... saying my own hand has saved me." However, the portion of this account that has "leaped out" to me lately is a simple, seemingly unimportant fact presented at the beginning:

"Now the angel of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth tree in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezite, while his son

GIDEON THRESHED WHEAT IN THE WINEPRESS."

Think about that for a minute... a winepress is not usually a place we find wheat, nor a common site for threshing. Obviously, it was harvest time for Gideon and his Manasseh brethren... The chore of threshing, the separating of the wheat grains from the chaff, was usually done on a threshing floor... an open area, usually elevated so the wind could blow the chaff away. But here we see wheat hidden.

The enemy's oppression of Israel was great. So great that the Israelites had taken to living as refugees in dens, caves and strongholds in the mountains. Those brave enough to continue to sow, saw their harvests stolen or destroyed time and again by the enemy. "So it was, whenever Israel had sown, Midianites, also Amalekites, and the people of the East would come up... and destroy the produce of the earth... coming in as numerous as locusts..." What a hopeless situation... you sow, it's stolen, you sow, it's destroyed.

In the midst of this hopeless situation, Gideon is found faithfully tending, threshing out, and protecting a harvest. How did this particular wheat grow, escaping the enemy's grasp? We don't know. But we do see that once it matured to a harvest, it is hidden still for threshing. It must have been a very precious harvest indeed! Interesting that later in the account, we see Gideon and his victorious army depicted in a dream as a WHOLE LOAF OF BREAD rolling in to destroy the enemy's camp! HA!

© All articles remain the sole property of the author (s). Do not reprint or copy without permission of the author (s).

Make a joyful noise!