Survival Skill #6
Never Forget the Power of God
Not By My Own Hand
(Judges 6; 7)
Once the Canaanite King Jabin had been subdued, Israel enjoyed forty years of peace (5:31).
However, as chapter 6 begins, we see how the
wearisome downward spiral continued. Israel
did evil, and the Lord sent oppressors into their
land. This time they were the Midianites, desert
dwellers from the South of Palestine. Their primary military assets were their numbers and
their camels, and each year during the harvest
they would invade Israel like a plague of locusts.
Their people, their flocks, and their camels consumed everything in the land. Once again, the
Israelites fled to the hills and the caves. For seven
long years these marauders dominated Israel
before the Lord heard the cries of His people and
sent them a deliverer. This time it was a reluctant
warrior named Gideon.
THE CALL OF GIDEON
When the angel of the Lord first appeared to
Gideon, he found him threshing grain in his
father’s winepress. Since threshing is most efficiently done in open spaces where the wind can
blow away the chaff, Gideon’s unorthodox practice indicates just how terrified the Israelites
were in those days. Hoping to save some of the
year’s crop from the invaders, Gideon was hiding himself and his grain from the Midianites.
That is why the angel’s words dripped with
sarcasm when he greeted Gideon, “The Lord is
with you, O valiant warrior” (6:12).
Gideon’s initial response was to take the angel of the Lord to task for the way Israel had been
allowed to suffer. “The Lord has abandoned us,”
he complained. The Lord responded through
His messenger, “Go in this your strength and
deliver Israel from the hand of Midian. Have I
not sent you?” (6:14). Again, Gideon deflected
the call of God with an excuse, whining that his
clan was the weakest in his tribe and that he was
the least in his family. Just as persistently, the
Lord assured him that He would fight with him
to defeat the Midianites.
Following the assurance of God to give him
victory, Gideon demanded for the first of many
times, “Show me a sign” (6:17). Gideon went into
his house and returned with a young goat, a
huge amount of unleavened bread, and a pot of
broth. The angel told him to place the goat and
the bread on a rock and pour the broth on them.
Gideon obeyed, and the angel touched the sacrifice with the tip of his staff. It burst into flames,
and the fire consumed everything! At that point
Gideon realized that he had, indeed, spoken
with a messenger of God.
FIRST STEPS
That day Gideon built an altar to the Lord,
and that night he took his first tentative step as
the new leader in Israel. He was told to take his
father’s bull and tear down his father’s idols,
consisting of an altar to Baal and an Asherah
pole. This he did, finishing his mission by cutting up the Asherah pole for firewood and offering his father’s bull on the “proper kind of altar
to the Lord,” which he had built in the place of
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the worship symbols he had torn down. The
Scriptures do not say, however, that
Gideon was, at this point, a fearless fighter:
Then Gideon took ten men of his servants and
did as the Lord had spoken to him; and it came
about, because he was too afraid of his father’s
household and the men of the city to do it by
day, that he did it by night (6:27).
At one time in Israel, anyone who worshiped
Baal would have feared for his life. By the time of
Gideon, the tables had turned so that the one
who tore down the altar to Baal feared for his life.
It is frightening how much this sounds like the
turnaround that has occurred in American culture in the past forty years!
GIDEON’S FLEECE
When harvest time rolled around that year,
the Midianites and their allies again invaded
Israel. This time, however, was to be different.
Gideon sounded the trumpet among his clan,
sent out messengers to his tribe, and even summoned fighting men from neighboring tribes.
When he had gathered his army, he asked God
for another sign, an indication of His presence by
the use of a wool fleece (6:36, 37). His first proposal was that God make the fleece wet with dew
while leaving the ground around the fleece dry.
The next morning it had happened just as Gideon
had requested; he wrung a bowlful of water
from the fleece. Not satisfied with just one sign,
this reluctant leader asked God to reverse the
miracle the next night and leave the fleece dry
while making the ground wet with dew. The
next morning it was so! Perhaps now Gideon
would obey his commission to “Go in this your
strength and deliver Israel!”
TOO MANY
As the armies of Israel and Midian settled
into their camps and prepared for the coming
battle, Israel was already outnumbered 4 to 1
(7:3; 8:10). Those odds, however, were still too
high for God.
And the Lord said to Gideon, “The people
who are with you are too many for Me to give
Midian into their hands, lest Israel 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.’”. . . (7:2, 3).
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For Gideon the sign-seeker this must have been
the limit! As 22,000 of Israel’s 32,000 soldiers
walked away, I wonder if God had to pluck
Gideon out of the column of cowards and say,
“Everyone who is fearful can leave except for
you, Gideon.”
If God’s commands had not been outrageous
enough already, He said that the army was still
too large. With 135 Midianites for every 10 Israelites, the odds were still too much in favor of
Israel! He instructed Gideon to take his men to
the water and have them drink. The three hundred who remained standing and lapped the
water to their mouths made the final cut for the
army of God. The others headed for home, but
they left their trumpets and provisions with the
tiny militia. By this time Gideon must have had
a booming headache, a burning ulcer, and a bad
case of the hives. Why was God doing this?
Knowing the heart of Gideon, God allowed
him one more sign. That night, Gideon and his
servant were to slip down to the camp of the
Midianites and listen to what the soldiers were
saying. When they arrived at the camp, the spectacle they viewed was enough to make Gideon
resign his commission immediately. The valley
was so full of Midianites and their camels that
they seemed like “the sand on the seashore”
(7:12). However, in the midst of this terrifying
spectacle, Gideon received his sign. He overheard a Midianite soldier telling a buddy about
a dream. In the dream, a round loaf of barley
bread (the poor man’s bread in Israel) came
tumbling into the Midianite camp, striking the
tent and turning it over. What was even more
encouraging than the dream was the Midianite
soldier’s interpretation of it: “This is nothing
less than the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a
man of Israel; God has given Midian and all the
camp into his hand” (7:14).
THE BATTLE
The dream was enough for Gideon. He returned to camp and, for the first time in the
entire story, he said something positive! “Arise,
for the Lord has given the camp of Midian into
your hands” (7:15). What was even more remarkable was his challenge: “Do as I do” (7:17).
Armed with trumpets, empty jars, and concealed
torches, Gideon and the three hundred surrounded the Midianite camp. All at once, the
quiet night came alive with the light of three
hundred torches and the terrifying sound of
three hundred trumpets! The impassioned Israelites shouted, “A sword for the Lord and for
Gideon!” (7:20). Then they simply held their
ground while God did the rest.
The confused Midianites awoke in a panic,
turning their swords on each other. Those who
survived headed for the Jordan River, looking
for the shortest way home. Gideon now was free
to call for reinforcements to help with the “mopping-up” operations. Men from Ephraim cut off
the fleeing Midianites and captured Oreb and
Zeeb, two of the Midianite leaders. At the end of
the day the casualty report read like this: “No
reported Israelite casualties; 120,000 Midianites
dead.”
Many lessons are taught in the narrative of
Gideon, but one message stands out above the
others. Something that was whispered in the
story of Deborah and Barak is shouted in the
account of Gideon: “Deliverance comes by the hand
of the Lord!” The victory was total, and it was
totally by the hand of God. Later, we see an
almost comical scene in which the Israelites said
to Gideon, “Rule over us, both you and your son,
also your son’s son, for you have delivered us
from the hand of Midian” (8:22). They did not
realize that God had dragged him into battle,
and they did not remember that God had killed
120,000 Midianite soldiers while the army of
Gideon stood around holding torches and blowing trumpets!
My own experience with the lesson of Gideon
takes me back to Kenya, East Africa, in 1984. My
wife and I, along with our two-year-old and
four-month-old daughters were one family in a
five-family mission team. We were all young,
idealistic, and ready to take on the world! However, one month after we arrived on the field,
two families had to leave. In the aftermath of that
experience I wrote the following work report,
dated April 1984:
Learning the Lesson
of Gideon
And the Lord said to Gideon, “The people who are
with you are too many for Me to give Midian into
their hands, lest Israel become boastful, saying,
‘My own power has delivered me.’”
“My own power has delivered me.” I’ve
often reflected on this phrase, and, on occa-
sion, have even preached from this text. However, it has been within the last two months
that I have been confronted with the power of
this passage in my own life.
Pride can stain any endeavor, even mission
work. From the time we made the decision to
become a part of the Meru mission team, I have
had a great deal of pride and confidence in our
team. Educationally we were well prepared.
Among the five men there were four M.Th.
degrees and an M.A. in counseling. Among our
wives there were two school teachers and three
nurses. Everyone on the team had received
excellent training in missions, and we arrived
on the field with the very latest in mission
methods. Try as we might to resist the temptation, a certain degree of pride crept into our
thinking. Our numbers, our training, and our
methods would certainly bring in a tremendous harvest for God! We had set ourselves up
to relearn the lesson of Gideon.
The past two months have been months of
pain for us. We have seen our team suffer some
traumatic setbacks. Two of our families have
had to return to the States. Almost over
night our “outstanding” team of five families
has become a stunned team of three. To be
totally honest, we have been embarrassed that
our team could suffer such a setback. But as
those of us who remain have sifted through the
rubble of a once-confident team, I think we
have all learned the lesson of Gideon.
Please don’t misunderstand me. The two
families who now work with Ann and me are
all outstanding coworkers and dear friends.
We feel tremendously blessed to be working
with them. But now as we look out at the
1,000,000 people of the Meru tribe, our task is
much more awesome. Our training, our numbers and our methods are no match for this
situation. Now, as never before, we realize that
if the people of Meru are to be reached with the
Gospel, it will be through the power of God. If
churches are to be planted and matured, if a
growing, loving fellowship of Christians is to
arise in Meru, it can only come through the
power of God. Please pray that we have truly
learned the lesson of Gideon and that someday
when there are hundreds of growing, loving,
Christ-centered, God-praising churches in
Meru, we will stand up and proclaim, “Only
the power of God has accomplished this!”
One year later, we, too, returned to the U.S.,
leaving only two families on the team. Now,
more than ten years later, there are forty congregations among the Meru, made up of over 1,300
Christians. Having relearned the lesson of
Gideon, today we can only say, “The power of
God has accomplished this!”
CONCLUSION
Many years later, Paul expressed the same
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sentiments in his letter to the Colossians.
After thirty years of following Jesus and almost
thirteen years of missionary travels, he wrote
them from prison around A.D. 62. By that time
he had been beaten repeatedly, imprisoned, and
slandered. In the opening of his letter, Paul indicated just how deeply he understood the lesson
of Gideon:
Colossians 1:28, 29
“And we proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all
wisdom, that we may present every man
complete in Christ. And for this purpose
also I labor, striving according to His power,
which mightily works within me.”
He saw—and he wanted the Colossians to see—
that any good that had come from his work had
been accomplished by the power of God.
All Christians and all churches are at times
tempted to place their confidence in their numbers, their education, their financial power, their
past, or their good judgment. Gideon stands
(reluctantly) before us to this day to remind us
that it is only by the hand of God that we accomplish whatever success we may attain in His
name. Our mission is simply to pick up our
pitchers, our torches, and our trumpets and faithfully do the bidding of the Lord.
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©Copyright, 1997, 1998 by Truth for Today
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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