The Israelites did evil in the Lord’s sight. So the Lord handed them over to the Midianites for seven years. The Midianites were so cruel that the Israelites made hiding places for themselves in the mountains, caves, and strongholds. Judges 6:1-2(NLT)
Ha! This is interesting. God’s people being oppressed for seven years under the Midianites because they turned their back on God. The Midianites are oppressing them so badly that they’re hiding. They’re going into the mountains, into the caves, into their strongholds, and they’re hiding. I want to tell you something.
God’s people shouldn’t be hiding.
God’s people should never cower in fear. God’s people should never run away from evil, from a problem. When God’s people are hiding, something is wrong. I know we’re tired of talking about it, but that’s why the pandemic was such a bad thing. All of us went into hiding. Some of us chose it. Some of us were forced into it. Some of us just didn’t know we had any other option. And we all went into hiding.
It’s interesting that the Bible is very specific, that they went into the mountains and to the caves and to the strongholds. We all have different places where we tend to hide. You know how you hide. I know how I hide.
MOUNTAINS
Some of us hide at work. We just go to work and we do our thing. We don’t let anybody know what’s happening. We get behind our to do list and our tasks, and we hide behind that, not showing what’s really going on or letting work be the excuse why we don’t make the commitment to God fully. The “mountains” are our high places.
CAVES
Some of us hide in caves. The dark places. Those are the troubling ones. Depression. Anxiety. Generational dysfunctions. The challenges of life, the places that you go that are very dark that you don’t want anybody to know about. We hide in those places because we’re alone and nobody sees us there. And we’re hiding because we’re afraid.
STRONGHOLDS
The strongholds are fortified places. They’re very hard to break out of. They’re very hard to break in. And we have these strongholds in our lives where we’re hiding. Some of them are opinions and arguments–”you’re not going to move me from my position.” And we’re hiding behind these things, not showing that we’re scared, that we have pain, that we have trials, that we’re on the verge of losing everything and of giving up.
And this is where the Israelites were. When we hide or run away, we’re wasting time. We’re wasting energy that we should be using to be jumping into what God wants us to do and gaining the deliverance that we were meant to have. Every time I lose myself at work, it’s energy and time that I’m losing that I could be using to serve God in what he wants for my life. The forces of evil are out there, and there are expecting that God’s people are going to stand up and go out and fight. And instead we’re hiding. So stop it. How about that as a simple point today. Stop hiding. And I know it’s easy to say, but it’s difficult to do. But it’s time to get out from where we’re hiding and get into the fight. Because there is a fight happening right now. And it’s not a political fight. It’s not a social fight. It’s a spiritual war that’s going to claim lives if we don’t get off of the mountain, get out of the caves, unleash ourselves from our strongholds, and start saving lives.
To hear Chaplain Milton share more on this topic click here: https://youtube.com/live/HSM4jEOoFLU
