Once Gideon had received the assurance, he did not delay, he went ahead and gathered together his army.
He rose up early (v1). How often do we ‘put out the fleece’ to be sure what we are doing or wanting to do is God’s will? How great it is to know God’s approval and to be certain, but then, sadly, when we know, we fail to do it!
There are many things in The Bible which guide us in our personal lives, but we are still uncertain or perhaps, wanting to do our own thing and then expecting God to bless it. We often do not go the way we should or even the way we should not. In Isaiah 30:21 we read, “Your ears shall hear a word behind you saying, “This is the way walk in it”” It is not enough to hear it or even to know the way, we must walk in it. Christianity is largely a life of action.
Gideon having received God’s assurance obviously attracted a lot of followers. Isn’t that human nature? Seeing is believing, or if something miraculous or out of the ordinary happens, we all want to jump on the band wagon. Quite simply, there were too many (v2). God knew that many were there for the wrong reason. Large numbers are not necessarily in The LORD’s will. In fact, the Bible says, “Then Jonathan said to the young man who bore his armour, “Come, let us go over to the garrison of these uncircumcised; it may be that the LORD will work for us. For nothing restrains the LORD from saving by many or by few.”” (1 Samuel 14:6) I guess that Jonathan had learned that from what he had been taught about Gideon in Israel’s history. Big is not necessarily great.
“And the LORD said to Gideon, “The people who are with you are too many for Me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel claim glory for itself against Me, saying, ‘My own hand has saved me.’”” (v2)
Note that God said there were too many for Him to give the victory.
God knows that it is not good for us to assume that we have won battles in our own strength. We become proud and full of our own importance, self-sufficient and then cease to rely on God from whom comes all our strength. God gives the victory, He achieves it, not us, we are simply His instruments.
Gideon was facing an army of 135,000 and no doubt the people gathered remembered the battle against Ai in Joshua 7:3-5 when, after the remarkable victory against Jericho, the Israelites considered that Ai, being a small place, they only needed to send a few – “Do not let all the people go up, but let about two or three thousand men go up and attack Ai. Do not weary all the people there, for the people of Ai are few.” So about three thousand men went up there from the people, but they fled before the men of Ai. And the men of Ai struck down about thirty-six men, for they chased them from before the gate as far as Shebarim, and struck them down on the descent; therefore, the hearts of the people melted and became like water.”
No doubt, being obsessed by numerical equations, they forgot the reason why they had been defeated – the disobedience of Achan, taking the forbidden treasure from Jericho and hiding it in his tent. It was not because they were too few, but the disobedience of ONE man. However they probably thought we will not be caught out twice, we have proved that Gideon is right to go, and we are faithful to follow him so they now had an army of 32,000 all of whom had experienced ‘the fleece miracle’.
God told Gideon to send home those who were afraid and 22,000 were honest enough to admit it and went home. God was still going to perform a miracle which I doubt Gideon really wanted for I’m sure even Gideon was now scared.
It is true that the safest place to be is in the centre of God’s will, but that does not mean to say that it will always appear that way when we are in it. However, time and time again, the Bible encourages us not to worry and to leave the results to Him, to be faithful but not necessarily fearless.
The army is now reduced to apparently 10,000 fearless men, although there were probably some there who were fearful but not honest enough to admit it. God said there was still too many. I wonder if Gideon was thinking of the words of Joshua (Joshua 23:10) before he died – “One man of you will chase a thousand, for The LORD your God, He it is who fights for you, as He has promised you.” Great words to hear, I’m sure we would all say ‘Amen’ to that, but far different when you are in the thick of it! The ‘amen’ then might be somewhat quiet. Mathematically One will have to chase 1,350. I guess by now Gideon was wishing he had gone home with the fearful! Yet, that wasn’t all as God said there were still too many! (v4)
God sets a test to determine who should go with Gideon and who should not (v5,6). God was not going to achieve the victory even with fearless men. The test was to prove who were careful enough not to put their personal need before keeping an eye on the enemy. Those who lapped water out of their hands would be the best soldiers. Not only were these men faithful and fearless but they were not careless. Now only 300 remain and, to be honest, whether or not they were fearless is immaterial, the important thing is they were faithful and careful.
God does not want us to count numbers but rather to make numbers count. Now, 0NE will, it seems, have to chase 4,500; but I think it was Martin Luther who said, ‘ONE with God is a majority.’
Gideon’s army is now settled by God (v7) at 300. Did Gideon have mixed feelings? He was once fearful and the fearful have gone home, was he now growing in strength? God promises that the battle is as good as won – “I will save you by the 300.”
The 300 which remained were fully committed and obedient, all in their tents looking down on the Midianite hosts, like grasshoppers in number (v12) Their camels were as numerous as the sand on the seashore – There were 135,000 (8:10).
That same night, God told Gideon to go down to the enemy alone (v9) saying “I have delivered it into your hand.” Did you say ‘alone’? Yes, but the mercy and grace of God adds in v10, “But if you are afraid to go alone, take Purah your servant.”. You might say, ‘big deal’ – two! But God had promised the victory. The purpose of going into the enemy camp was to listen and to spy. Faithful, fearless and careful as no doubt Gideon was by now, he still didn’t go alone, Purah went with him. I like that phrase just tucked away in the middle of the verse, “Then he went with Purah”. Didn’t say he was too afraid to go alone, but he obviously was, and God didn’t make such a big deal of it or castigate him for not going alone and not trusting enough. He knows our weakness; He knows we are just dust. He will always be with us – the promises are numerous.
Many times, through history we have seen God’s people stand alone and their courage and faith commended and rightly so, but don’t think that you must always be strong enough to stand alone. Whilst there is no reason that you shouldn’t because He has promised to be with you, He knows just how much you can do and often He will send someone to stand with you. In spite of this it still took great courage to sneak into the enemy camp.
Gideon arrived (v13) just as a man was telling his friend a dream and even the interpretation of it – “This can be none other than Gideon…. God has given the whole camp into his hands.” (v14) I wonder if Gideon had to stifle the words – “Wow, Who me?”
This reminds me of the conversation the two spies had with Rahab when they went into Jericho in Joshua 2:8-13 when she told them that the inhabitants of the land were afraid of them because they had heard of how God had led them from Egypt and through the wilderness. She said (v11) “As soon as we heard…. our hearts melted, neither did there remain any more courage …. because of you, for The LORD your God, He is God….”
Evidently the Midianites knew of Gideon and God’s promise to him. These words would be music to his ears. When he heard this, he worshiped God (v15) and went back to the camp of his army and issued strategy for war.
It is so easy when we know that God is on our side to immediately want to get up and go. First things first – Gideon worshiped God. Seemingly alone or at the most with Purah his servant. The story he heard no doubt filled him with great excitement – even the enemy believed he was going to defeat them!
God sometimes uses the enemy to convince us that we are on the victory side – the devil knows his place but sometimes he can mislead us by telling us that we are not going to win. Be sure that we put first things first – God. Worship God then attack the enemy. Always bear in mind that the victory comes from God
There are many ideas as to what worship is – singing, praising, praying, various forms of excitable displays. Readers of my ‘simple walk through the Bible website’ will know my thoughts on worship times. Worship may include singing, which is usually what follows, but it is far more than that. In fact, worship is everything we do 24/7. It seems to me that Gideon’s worship stemmed from one thing and one thing alone, the confirmation of the message of truth. God’s Word is truth.
Worship can be superficial if we are not very careful, it can become light and frothy and ultimately meaningless unless we base our rejoicing, which is what it seemed to be in Gideon’s case, rejoicing on the word of truth. God promised him victory, now he has it confirmed in a miraculous way. I don’t know about you, but when I hear the Word of God read and ministered and see how it is true, hear it explained and The Holy Spirit applies it to my spirit, which causes me to rejoice and I cannot help but worship. Of course, we want to worship in Spirit, but it is not enough, Jesus said to the woman of Samaria (John4:24) that they that worship Him must do so ‘in Spirit and in truth’. In Matthew 15:7,8,9 Jesus said to the Pharisees, quoting from the prophet Isaiah, “You hypocrites …. ‘These people draw near to Me with their mouth, And honour Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me. And in vain they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’”
It is possible to worship God in vain – plenty of noise, plenty of excitement, plenty of emotion and animation but, if what we say or do, sing, hear, read or believe does not affect our lives then our worship is vain, empty, meaningless. It becomes a ritual. If I sing words to a so-called worship song, however much I enjoy it, however much I get carried up to the seventh, eighth or umpteenth heaven, however much I feel in the presence of God, if it makes no difference to my life, it is vain.
If Gideon was still in the enemy camp when he worshiped, I doubt whether he even made it public. He could have blown his cover. Maybe his heart worshiped within him, quietly even with Purah. I’ll guarantee that he couldn’t get back to his camp fast enough to engage in the battle. Does our worship cause us to do that? If it doesn’t, why not? If our worship does not unite us and get us ready for battle, there may be something wrong. Gideon (v15-20) tells his small army to “Get up and go” He gives precise orders – “Follow me and do as I do”. Their arms – a trumpet, a jar and a light and at the given signal, to say, “The sword of The LORD and Gideon”.
It was dark, the beginning of the middle watch, some say around 10pm, each man was to stand in his place all around the camp. They were to shout, “The sword of The LORD and of Gideon”, break their jars and the lights would shine and blow their trumpets. When the enemy saw the 300 torches around them they couldn’t see what was behind them and they panic and flee. They heard 300 voices, saw 300 lights and heard 300 trumpets, how were they to know there was only 300 people. The enemy panicked and turned on each other as they fled, not knowing who was friend or foe. The army of Gideon stood each man in his place (v21). Do we?
Israelites from other tribes slew some of the enemy as they joined in the slaughter. (v23)
Do we let our light shine, we may often blow our own trumpet, figuratively speaking. We often shout our message but does our worship, our preaching affect the way our light shines. It should and it must, to have any effect at all. The Bible says, “Let your light shine before men so that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.” “You are the light of the world…. the salt of the earth.”
Derick Bingham said (in Waiting for God) ‘So you may feel depressed today about the seeming insignificance of your witness for Christ? You may be filled with self-doubt (I’m plagued with the wretched thing) yet if only one person this year, this month, this day catches sight of something different about you, namely the presence of the Light of The World in your life and is led to come to know that Light in their darkness, does it matter if they cannot see you and your weakness for the light that is shining through you? The light’s the thing!’
