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Listen to what they are Saying (Judges 7:9-15)
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.