The LORD said to Gideon, "The people who
are with you are too many for Me to give Midian into their hands, for Israel
would become boastful, saying, 'My own power has delivered me.' "Now
therefore come, proclaim in the hearing of the people, saying, 'Whoever is
afraid and trembling, let him return and depart from Mount Gilead.'" So
22,000 people returned, but 10,000 remained.
Judges 7:2-3
The last time we saw timid, but stubborn Gideon. He thought
he was incapable of obeying God in rescuing Israel from the Midianites. He
asked God for several signs - including two different signs with the fleece as
a way of proving that God was really going to do what He said. So now it’s almost as if God is saying:
"So you want proof beyond a shadow a
doubt, huh?"
Humility
is not the absence of ability. Humility is the absence of pride.
Humility is the belief in God over self.
Humility is the belief in God over self.
The First Sifting
God brings Gideon and a vast army up, then proceeds to strip
Gideon of absolutely anything that could be considered confidence in order to
show the only confidence we need is in God.
Here we see the creation of that humility in Gideon, and lessons for us
as we attempt to obey God’s voice. God
is going to do a series of things here that are totally counterintuitive to
military strategy or even common sense - to prove that He doesn’t need anyone
to accomplish His will.
Christians are either overcome by of their
unbelief or overcomers through their faith.
The familiar
and exciting account of Gideon’s wonderful victory over the Midianites is
really a story of faith in action. You
see, a faith that can’t be tested can’t be trusted. “We’re simply going to have
to step out by faith!” leads to the question, “Whose faith?” Here are two reasons God tests our faith:
- To show us whether our faith is
real or counterfeit, and
- To strengthen our faith for the
tasks He’s set before us.
God tested Gideon’s faith by sifting his army of 32,000
volunteers until only 300 men were left.
I wonder if Gideon is thinking - "Hold the phone, Lord - of course
the people are fearful - we’re going to war after all!" It would be like saying, "There’s a
chance that you might die so if that makes you frightened then beat feet and
get out of here!" Perhaps he was
secretly hoping that great courage had been instilled in the people or something
- but it was not the case and in the first sifting two thirds of his fighting
force turned and left. What a blow to the flesh!
God told Gideon why He was decreasing the size of the army:
He didn’t want the soldiers to boast that they had won the victory over the
Midianites. Victories won because of faith bring glory to God because nobody
can explain how they happened. Pride
after the battle robs God of glory, and fear during the battle robs God’s
soldiers of courage and power. People who live by faith know their own weakness
more and more as they depend on God’s strength. “For when I am weak, then am I strong” (2
Cor. 12:10).
Fear has a way of spreading, and one timid soldier can do
more damage than a whole company of enemy soldiers. Fear and faith can’t live
together very long in the same heart. Either fear will conquer faith and we’ll
quit, or faith will conquer fear and we’ll triumph. John Wesley may have been thinking of
Gideon’s army when he said, “Give me a
hundred men who fear nothing but sin and love nothing but God, and I will shake
the gates of hell!” But God wasn’t done yet as we shall see.
Scripture to Claim:
“For whatever is born of God overcomes the
world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith” (1 John
5:4, NKJV).
