Let's take a look at what the Bible says about the men of Ephraim.
Men, Judges chapter number 8, the Bible reads in verse 1,
And the men of Ephraim said unto him, Why hast thou served us thus,
that thou callest us not, when thou wentest to fight with the Midianites,
and they did chide with him sharply?
Let me bring you up to speed quickly in the story here.
If you remember, Gideon had gone against this innumerable multitude with only 300 men,
and they had the lamps and the pitchers, they blew the trumpets,
they shattered the pitchers, scared the enemy,
God just miraculously worked this thing out that they would win this very unlikely victory.
And so, when the enemy is on the run,
then let's back up just a few verses to catch the end of chapter 7 so that chapter 8 will make sense.
Verse 24, And Gideon sent messengers throughout all Mount Ephraim,
saying, Come down against the Midianites, and take before them the waters unto Beth-Bara and Jordan.
Then all the men of Ephraim gathered themselves together,
and took the waters unto Beth-Bara and Jordan.
And they took two princes of the Midianites, Oreb and Zeb,
and they slew Oreb upon the rock Oreb,
and Zeb, they slew at the winepress of Zeb,
that's obviously where those places got their names,
and pursued Midian, and brought the heads of Oreb and Zeb to Gideon,
on the other side, Jordan.
That flows directly into the thought in verse 1 here,
and the men of Ephraim said unto him.
So the men of Ephraim that are saying this are the ones we just read about in the last two verses.
So, when Gideon's got the enemy on the run,
he sends messengers ahead that they would kind of cut them off at the pass,
you know, and that they would basically get to this river that they needed to cross,
and be there to ambush them, so that basically he's coming from behind,
and then they can head them off at the pass, and then boom, we got them.
That's the idea here.
And so this is a success. It works out great.
But then the men of Ephraim just have this stupid objection that makes no sense.
I mean, they should all just be happy that they won.
We won the battle. The enemy's defeated.
Zeb and Zalmana, or Oreb and Zeb, rather, are taken care of.
But instead, they whine about it and say,
well, why didn't you call us when you went to fight with the Midianites?
Like, why did you just call us at the very end to do this?
This makes no sense. Who cares?
You see, and what we can learn from this is that whatever God wants us to do,
whatever job he has for us, we should just be happy to be a part of the team,
serving God in whatever capacity we can serve,
not necessarily that we're in the vanguard all the time.
You know, you've got the 300 guys that are the heroes of the story.
But you know what? Everyone had a role to play in the story.
God had a plan. God had a plan for the 300 men.
But he also had a plan for the Ephraimites.
And the Ephraimites were just as necessary.
They had maybe the less glamorous part of the job.
But that's not the point.
And in the work of Christ, there's no place for ego.
There's no place for pride.
It's all about being a part of the team,
everybody doing the job that God has called them to do,
everybody in their place.
And it doesn't matter whether your job is more or less glamorous.
In fact, the Bible says, you know,
the parts of the body of Christ that are the less glamorous,
obviously I'm paraphrasing because the Bible doesn't use the word glamorous,
but those less glamorous parts of the body,
the Bible says upon them we bestow more honor.
In 1 Corinthians, chapter number 12,
when it talks about how the body is important
and it's not that the foot is more important than the hand
or that the nose is more important than the ear,
because we can't just be all ear.
There'd be no smelling, right?
We can't be all nose. There's no hearing.
We've got to have all the parts of the body.
So just be happy to do whatever work God has given you,
whatever calling you've been called to,
and not have this attitude of,
well, I've got to be number one.
I've got to be in the limelight.
I've got to get accolades or whatever,
because I can't see a right motive for what they're saying here in verse 1
of saying, well, why didn't we get to go at the beginning?
Because God said no.
Because God specifically said it's only these 300 guys.
He didn't want 32,000 troops.
He didn't want 22,000 troops.
He didn't want 10,000 troops.
He wanted 300 troops.
That was God's plan.
And so don't be in the work of Christ
or be in the battle for the wrong reasons,
looking for personal glory or fame or gain.
Rather, be in it for the right reason of wanting to win,
wanting the work of Christ to go forward,
because if that's your motive,
then it doesn't really matter who's doing it.
Let's say, for example,
someone leaves our church and goes to another church
that's also a Bible-believing, soul-winning church.
Is there any issue with that?
Is there any problem with that?
Would that make us sad in any way?
Absolutely not.
If somebody says to me,
hey, I'm moving and I'm going to go to this other church,
and if it's a righteous church
or even if they're going to drive across town to a righteous church,
more power to them,
because it's not just about building our own little kingdom here
or our little team or whatever,
like this tribal mentality of Ephraim versus Manasseh or whatever.
Is that really what God had in mind with the 12 tribes of Israel?
No.
It's all about them being the people of God,
and it doesn't matter what tribe you are.
They're supposed to all be on the same team.
They're all for the Lord against the Midianites,
the Ishmaelites, the Philistines.
People are worshiping other gods,
but rather they're on the same team,
and so we shouldn't have this attitude
of being really tribal or territorial
or wanting fame or accolades for ourself.
And, you know, it's childish,
because think about this.
If you have toddlers, you've experienced this.
I'll tell one of my little tiny kids,
hey, would you throw this in the trash for me?
And another one will jump in.
I'll throw it in the trash.
Grabs it, beats him to it, throws it in the trash,
and then it goes like...
Like, I wanted to throw it in the trash.
That doesn't really make sense, does it?
Or like, hey, would you grab me a cup of water?
I'll do it.
Boom, you know, and then they get it done.
Basically, that's what's going on here.
Why didn't I get to do the job?
But when you mature, you just care that the water was brought
and that the trash was thrown away,
and you don't care who did it.
That's a mature attitude.
Well, that's the way we should look at the work of Christ.
Hey, we don't care who knocked the doors.
We don't care who won the souls, just so long as it gets done.
You know, we don't care what church people go to,
so long as they're in a good church.
Who cares if it's our church, their church, his church?
It doesn't matter, does it?
As long as we're all serving Christ, that's what matters.
Like, I remember there was this bozo who basically,
you know, he wanted to be a pastor someday,
and he had this city all picked out,
and this guy was light years from ever being a pastor,
but in his mind, he's got the city all picked out.
Then he heard about someone else going there and starting a church there,
and he's like, oh, man, that's what I was...
It's like, you know what that shows?
It's not that he cares about the people of that city
or that he wants the work of Christ to happen in that geography.
It's just that he wants to be a big shot,
and that's what we see in this passage.
So they chided with him sharply over no good reason.
Look at verse number 2, and this is Gideon speaking.
And he said to them,
What have I done now in comparison of you?
Is not the gleaning of the grapes of Ephraim
better than the vintage of Abiezer?
God hath delivered into your hands the princes of Midian,
or Ebenzib.
And what was I able to do in comparison of you?
Then their anger was abated toward him when he had said that.
And what we see here is that Gideon understands the concept
that a soft answer turns away wrath.
A soft answer turneth away wrath.
Even though they chode with him sharply,
and even though they're 100% wrong,
yet Gideon gives them a soft answer
because sometimes it's just not worth fighting
with people that are being stupid.
You don't have to fight with every single person
and argue with every single person.
Even if you know for sure that you're right and they're wrong
and they're coming at you mad.
You know, let's say you're out in public
and somebody gets mad about the way you drove or whatever.
Just smile sorry and just let it go
because the soft answer turneth away wrath.
Especially this principle goes with your neighbors.
You do not want to get in a fight with your neighbors
because you have to live with them.
Somebody was telling me, I think it was my dad,
was telling me about some kind of a reality show
or a documentary about neighbors like getting so mad
that they actually would just be violent
or kill one another or something.
It was some kind of a, it was called like,
what was it called?
No, I mean, we all know about the Hatfields and the McCoys,
but it was, does anybody know what I'm talking about though?
It was some kind of a program.
It's on the tip of my tongue.
It was something about like, beware of thy neighbor
or something, I don't know.
It had a funny title.
But anyway, the point is, it was about these situations
where people would get in some kind of an argument
with their neighbors and it would just keep escalating
like the Hatfields and the McCoys or whatever
and it would just keep escalating.
And I'm telling you, it's easy for this to happen
when people have a big ego or people are prideful
and they can start over something stupid.
You know, the neighbors making too much noise
and you tell them to quiet down.
It's like, well, how dare you tell me to quiet down
or you know, this tree is growing over into my property
so I'm just like, you know, and just chop that part off.
Your dog did his business on my lawn or whatever.
These are the type of dumb things that could escalate
and get out of control and get out of hand
and sometimes, or your kid punched my kid in the face
or vice versa or whatever.
Yeah, but he told me to do it or we were play fighting.
I just hit harder than him.
He hit me first.
These kind of things can escalate and get out of control.
If you're smart, when these type of things happen,
you want to de-escalate the situation even if you're right
because it's not worth it to get into a feud with your neighbors
and then your neighbors are retaliating
by they call the city on you
because your weeds got a little too high
or you did something without a permit or something
and you know, they can find ways to retaliate
or it could get even more serious
like my dad was telling me about.
So the point is that you want to de-escalate these things.
The Bible says, a soft answer turneth away wrath
but grievous words stir up anger
and the Bible also says,
surely the churning of milk bringeth forth butter
and the wringing of the nose bringeth forth blood
so the forcing of wrath bringeth forth strife.
Don't force wrath.
Don't fight every battle, die on every hill.
It's not, just let things go.
And here Gideon is 100% right.
They're totally wrong and they have the wrong attitude
and they're speaking sharply to him
so he could have just turned around and been sharp back
but you know what, it's just not worth it
because what's the reality here?
The men of Ephraim just helped him out, didn't they?
Did they help him out?
I mean they helped him out, they were a necessary part.
I'm serving God, you're serving God,
I was in the battle, you were in the battle,
we both accomplished something,
we both did something for God,
you have a stupid attitude about it
but you know what, he just instead turns it around
and here's what he does, he compliments them.
Instead of saying, you know, you got a lot of nerve.
We already, you know, you guys showed up
when I already had them on the run.
You know, you guys just came and did a little cleanup.
Instead, he turns around and basically says,
well you guys had the most important job.
You did the big thing by catching Oreb and Zeeb
and what could I do in comparison to you?
And he also sort of plays on their geographical pride
by saying, well it's not the gleaning of the grapes of Ephraim
better than the vintage of Abiezer.
He's saying, you know, you guys,
your wine country or your produce of grapes
is actually of a higher quality than what we even have.
I mean, you guys are wealthy, you guys are doing great,
we're nothing, you know what I mean?
And you guys really were the ones who shone out there
on the battlefield today.
And then they're just like, oh well yeah,
I guess you're kind of right.
I see what you're saying.
And it says at the end of verse 3,
then their anger was abated toward him when he had said that.
And what have we been saying about Gideon already
over the last couple of weeks?
We've been saying that he's a humble guy.
And that's why he's able to do this.
That's why he's able to say something like this
and compliment their geography.
It's just like today in the United States of America,
you know, there's a little bit of a rivalry between states.
You know, certain states that just think they're so cool
and better than everybody.
You know, I don't want to name any names, but Texas.
Excuse me.
You know what I mean?
And they're just like, oh man, you know, we're so cool.
There are certain states that feel that way.
And then other states are like, no, we're the best,
we're the coolest, you know.
There's this big argument who had the first rodeo,
you know, is it Payson, Arizona, or is it Odessa, Texas,
or whatever, and that's some kind of a,
and I don't even know if it's Odessa.
Because, what is it?
Well, it doesn't matter, because we all know it's from Payson.
We all know Payson is the original rodeo,
and there's no awards for second place.
Second place is the first loser.
No, I'm just kidding.
Anyway, no, but the point is, you're right, it is Pecos, Texas.
Yeah, it's Pecos versus Payson.
Amen?
But the point is, who cares?
But the point is, you know, people, they do get really proud
of their geography, and they're really into being from wherever.
And they think it's the coolest place, whatever.
So he's kind, you know, he's like, hey, you guys are from a really cool place.
See, he's humble enough to compliment other people,
play up their achievement, play down his own achievement.
Why? For peace, because you know what's going to happen
if this situation escalates?
People are going to die.
In fact, if you don't believe me, flip over to chapter 11.
I'm sorry, chapter 12.
Flip over to chapter 12 in the very same book,
very same people, very similar situation.
Look at Judges, chapter 12, verse 1.
And the men of Ephraim gathered themselves together
and went northward and said unto Jephthah,
so this is a different group of people, way later,
different generation, okay, decades later,
Wherefore passest thou over to fight against the children of Ammon,
and didst not call us to go with thee?
Sound familiar?
We will burn thine house upon thee with fire.
And Jephthah said unto them,
I and my people were at great strife with the children of Ammon,
and when I called you, you delivered me not out of their hands.
And when I saw that you delivered me not,
I put my life in my hands and passed over against the children of Ammon,
and the Lord delivered them into my hand.
Wherefore then are you come up unto me this day to fight against me?
You know, he's like, what is your problem?
I needed help. You guys weren't there.
You failed to show up. I had to do your job for you.
And then what happens?
Obviously this thing escalates,
and then it ends up being a big battle.
And of course, Jephthah wins,
and the Ephraimite people,
I mean, they're the ones who suffer the casualties,
but isn't it just better if nobody dies,
and you can just resolve things?
Because both people are supposed to be on the Lord's side.
So if you can get along with people, that's better,
especially when your brothers and sisters in Christ,
you know, that would be the symbolism here,
because these are all the people of the Lord here.
You don't want to have that civil war
between God's people within the nation of Israel.
So it's better, and the Bible says
that we should strive to live peaceably with all men
if it's at all possible.
And so I prefer Gideon's approach in chapter 8
to Jephthah's approach in chapter 12,
because in chapter 8 there's no bloodshed,
because he just de-escalates with the soft answer,
turning away wrath.
So back to chapter 8,
but then we're going to get to some people
that Gideon doesn't have any patience for.
So Gideon, you know, placates the big ego guys from Ephraim.
Soft answer turns away wrath,
because you know what?
They were participating,
and they just had a weird attitude.