You already know the numbers don’t add up. Your father bought a house on a single income, supported a wife and children, and had something left over. You’re working the same hours or more, and you can’t get close. The houses cost ten times what they did. The taxation is heavier, and that’s before you factor in the cost of everything else that’s quietly doubled while wages barely moved.
You don’t need me to tell you that your generation is poorer than your father’s. You live it every day. But what if the Bible already explained why, and the explanation is not what you expect?
The Lord Delivered Them
Judges 6 opens with a blunt statement: “Then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord. So the Lord delivered them into the hand of Midian for seven years.”
Notice who the active agent is. It doesn’t say Midian invaded. It says the Lord delivered them. God is the one behind the punishment. He handed them over.
This is the bit we don’t want to hear. We get our noses pressed so far into the screen that all we can see is the enemy. Midian, Midian, Midian. And we can substitute for Midian whoever we like: the WEF, the government, the immigrants, the banks, the elites. It’s all their fault.
But the Bible says otherwise. The ultimate cause is not out there, it’s in here. It’s you, and it’s me, as part of a nation that did evil in the sight of the Lord. That doesn’t mean the Midianites don’t exist, or that they’re not real, or that naming them is conspiracy thinking, God names them too. But He names them as His instrument, not as the root cause. The root cause is covenantal unfaithfulness.
Boomers and the Generation of Gideon
The verse just before Judges 6 says: “So the land had rest for forty years.” Forty years. A generation. The previous generation had peace, prosperity, and security. Marriage was straightforward. Housing was affordable. Life was, comparatively, easy.
But during those easy years, that generation did evil. Either they failed to suppress wickedness or they actively embraced it. And the consequences fell hardest not on them, but on the generation after.
So yes, there is a real generational injustice at work. The Bible doesn’t hide it. The land was devastated, the people were driven into caves and mountains, and the text says plainly that Israel was “greatly impoverished.” Not just impoverished, greatly impoverished. God takes the destruction of prosperity seriously. It’s not a spiritual metaphor, it’s real poverty, real insecurity, real loss.
But here’s where you have to come with me if you want to see this through. Blaming the previous generation, however justified, will not produce victory. Blaming is Adam’s policy. “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” How far did that get him? It didn’t solve a single thing, the only one who solved the problem was Christ.
The War on Production
The parallels between Judges 6 and our present situation are uncomfortably precise. The Midianites would come in and destroy the produce of the earth, leaving no sustenance: neither sheep, nor ox, nor donkey. That’s not a spiritual malaise, that’s the destruction of agriculture, infrastructure, and productive capacity.
The ground was yielding, the land could produce, but the overwhelming majority of the produce went into the mouths of the enemy.
Now think about taxation. Think about how much a farmer has to produce and sell just to meet the tax burden. Think about the bureaucrats who contribute nothing productive but ‘consume’ the produce of the land, multiply endlessly, and devise new ways to make life harder. Think about rewilding (read wilderness-making) policies that take land out of production permanently. Think about solar farms built on good agricultural ground that will take decades to restore. “They would enter the land to destroy it.” The text could have been written this morning.
There is a war on production, there is a war on fertility. And the result is what the Bible says it is: great impoverishment.
The Turning Point
But Judges 6 doesn’t end in despair, it ends with a turning point, and the turning point is simple: “And the children of Israel cried out to the Lord.”
Not cried on the internet, not cried blaming the boomers, they cried out to the Lord.
That means pointing upward and saying: You are the one in whom the solution lies. Not me, not my posting, not my outrage, you.
And that requires humility. It requires saying: I am part of the problem, my nation has sinned, and I am part of that nation.
Maybe you need to widen your concept of who Jesus is. Maybe you’ve only thought of Him as someone who gets you into heaven when you die. Comfort when you’re alone. Warmth in your heart. But have you thought of Him as the Saviour of your nation? Bigger than the wars? Bigger than the cost of living crisis? Bigger than your mortgage?
“Ask of me and I will give you the nations for your inheritance.” Your nation belongs to Jesus. And the very fact that He is chastising it is the proof: He hasn’t abandoned it. He’s disciplining a son, not discarding a ‘bastard’ stranger.
The question is whether you’ll be part of the solution, or keep on whining on the internet about how it’s somebody else’s fault. That’s your choice. And Judges 6 is about to show you what happens when a man makes the right one.
This article is based on the God’s World, God’s Way podcast series through Judges 6. Subscribe on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts for the full episode. Listen live on Cr101Radio.com. Share this with a brother who needs to hear it.