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| Listen to what they are Saying (Judges 7:9-15) | |||||
 Printer Friendly Version - opens in separate window Gideon's story is very familiar. We remember how he was threshing wheat in a winepress for fear of the Midianites; remember his encounter with an angel who charged him with going forth and saving Israel and how he went about at night to tear down his father's altar to Baal for fear of being caught; how he put out a fleece to test God's intentions and had his worst fears realised, God wanted him to defeat the Midianites.As Gideon gathered his army he must have been counting on strength of numbers even as he knew he would never match the strength and numbers of the enemy. Imagine his dismay as God began not to augment his army but to whittle it down to an essential force of no more than three hundred. God promised: "With the three hundred men that lapped I will save you and give the Midianites into your hands. Let all the other men go, each to his own place" (v.7) Gideon was to be left without even the hope of reserves. It would all depend on what God could do with three hundred men and perhaps to Gideon it must have seemed about as far-fetched as it was possible to imagine. God knew Gideon's fears and knew that he needed encouragement so he said: "Get up, go down against the camp [of Midian], because I am going to give it into your hands. If you are afraid to attack, go down to the camp with your servant Purah and listen to what they are saying. Afterwards, you will be encouraged to attack the camp" (vv 9-11) Understand that this was a big camp. We are told that there were Midianites, Amalekites and others "settled in the valley, thick as locusts". They were so many that their camels could be no more counted than the sand on the seashore - and Gideon had three hundred men. He went down with his servant and as he arrived at the enemy camp he heard two men talking: "'I had a dream', one was saying. 'A round loaf of barley bread came tumbling into the Midianite camp. It struck the tent with such force that the tent overturned and collapsed.' His friend responded, 'This can be nothing other than the sword of Gideon son of Joash, the Israelite. God has given the Midianites and the whole camp into his hands'" (vv 13/14) We are told that when Gideon heard the dream and its interpretation, he worshipped God. He immediately went back to the camp and called for his soldiers to, "Get up! The Lord has given the Midianite camp into our hands". The ensuing battle could only be described as a rout with the Midianite forces fleeing before Gideon and his little army of three hundred. Christian believers can feel overwhelmed by the enemy camp that sprawls vast and numberless before us. Secularism, humanism, scientism, scepticism, the cults and the occult, all stand against the truth of God in the gospel. Like Gideon, we can feel overwhelmed by numbers, shouted down by the sheer volume of the world. Perhaps we need to learn like Gideon that, after all, no matter how small our numbers or great theirs we are about the Lord's business. That God knows our fears, is patient with our timidity and wants us to be reassured. Perhaps like Gideon we need to listen to what is happening in the enemy camp and that is where many fail. They don't listen for fear of hearing something that will discourage or even dupe them. Like Gideon, they hunker down in little Christian ghettoes, reassuring one another in querulous voices that one day the Lord will come for them and meanwhile "isn't the world awful?". They don't talk to this one or that one for fear... Yet those of us who do listen in as the enemy mutter among themselves are often encouraged by what we hear. We hear that, like the Midianites, the world is at war with itself. Like the Midianites, the enemy is often not as confident as it appears to be. Like the Midianites, it displays mixed loyalties, harbours secret fears and struggles to hold things together and, for all their rhetoric, those proponents of worldly wisdom and ideologies, cultic thinking and hidden knowledge are confused and stumbling in the dark. We mustn't be afraid of listening to what they say indeed we may be encouraged, if not by their dreams and visions as was Gideon then by the discovery that they are not what they pretend to be. Perhaps then, like Gideon, we can speak to our fellows as well as to our own hearts, "Get up! The Lord has given them into our hands" and proceed to witness with a confidence we previously didn't have. Jesus said, "In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world" (Jn.16:3) Let's be people who take heart and face the trouble the world offers with courage and confidence. |
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