JUDGES vii. 20.
IN this chapter we have an account of a signal victory gained by Gideon over the host of the Midianites. Gideon was a mighty man of valour, raised up to do the Lord’s work amid troublous times in Israel, and he receives honourable mention in the Epistle to the Hebrews among those who were strong and did exploits through faith in their God.
The record of his overthrow of the Midianites is very suggestive, and we shall seek to consider it as illustrative of the Christian warfare. The principles that underlie Gideon’s victory are of perpetual application. We meet with them on every side in God’s procedure.
To guide our thoughts we shall look at the narrative under the following particulars:—
- The soldiers.
- The equipment with which they were provided.
- The spirit with which they were animated.
- The victory they obtained.
1. The soldiers.
First of all you will notice that for this exploit Gideon had at his disposal an army of 32,000 men. This was in itself no mean force, but it was as nothing compared with the host of the Midianites. The inspired writer makes no attempt at estimating their numbers in figures. He simply suggests the idea of size well-nigh inconceivable. The Midianites were “like grasshoppers for multitude,” and their camels “as the sand of the sea-side.”
But the strange thing is that though to human eyes the army of Israel might appear hopelessly inadequate for the task with which it was confronted God declares it to be too great. “The people that are with thee are too many,” He said to Gideon. His design was not merely to win a victory, but to win it in a way that should subserve another end—a way that should teach a great spiritual lesson.
So Gideon’s army had to be reduced, and the method adopted for reducing it in the first instance was this. A proclamation was issued in the hearing of the people, permitting all who were “fearful and afraid” to leave the ranks and return to their home. Twenty-two thousand men availed themselves of this permission, and departed from Mount Gilead.
Notice this first test. God did not want any for His work whose heart was not in it. He wanted no spiritless soldiers. He wanted none to fight His battlles who were without confidence in the might of that God in Whose name, and under Whose direction, they were to go forth. He wanted men—men of courage, men of spirit, men of faith.
The Lord wants such soldiers still. He wants, in a word, men of faith. Wherever there is faith there is also strength, and there is courage; wheresoever there is lack of faith you have weakness and fear. Who are the people who are strong and do exploits? They are the people who know their God, and, knowing Him, put their trust in Him. The Lord’s battlles are never won by cowards. There is, indeed, many a Mr. Fearing among the soldiers of Jesus Christ; many a one that has sad misgivings about his own spiritual state; many a one harrassed with the fear of being a castaway at last: but let us not forget concerning that same Mr. Fearing that he set a dauntless heart upon the Hill Difficulty, and went to meet the lions without flinching, and when he came to Vanity Fair he was ready to fight with almost every man he met. It was no coward’s heart that beat within the breast of Mr. Fearing. He feared no external foe. His fears were about his own soul, lest he should come short in the end, and so “never see that face with comfort he had come so many miles to behold.”
The supreme requisite of Christian usefulness is faith in God. Where there is faith there will be courage and perseverance; where faith is not, then, whatever appearance of confidence there may be, there will be a going back in the day of battle, as was the case with the men of Ephraim. Well, the Lord wants those who will go forward in the day of battle, those who will quit them like men and be strong, who will endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ.
Gideon was now left with ten thousand men, but the Lord said to him, “The people are yet too many.” They had to be reduced again, and the means used for sifting them on this occasion was this. They were brought down to a place where there was water to drink; all who went down on their knees and drank of the water at their leisure were put on one side, and those who lifted the water with their hand, swiftly and skilfully, to their mouth were put upon the other side. Three hundred only were found to have lapped the water in this latter fashion, and these were chosen to be Gideon’s soldiers.
At first sight this principle of selection may seem an arbitrary and meaningless distinction; in reality it was a decisive test of character. We have here the upper end of a principle whose roots go deep down and spread far and wide.
What was the real meaning of this final test? It was a proving of alacrity, of vigilance, and alertness. Those who did not wait to stoop down but scooped up the water quickly with their hand gave practical evidence of readiness. They showed that their main aim was to go forward; they did not allow even the satisfying of their bodily need to interfere with their primary duty. Even when drinking they were still watchful and prepared. On the other hand those who adopted a more leisurely and self-indulgent method showed that they did not possess these qualities at least in the same degree. The men in whom courage was joined with alacrity were the men who were selected to follow Gideon against the Midianites.
This also is a principle that is of application still. Let me illustrate the distinction from the Gospel History. One day as Christ walked by the shore of the Sea of Galilee He saw Andrew and Simon his brother casting a net into the sea, for they were fishers, and He said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” And they straightway forsook their nets and followed Him. There was no questioning, no lingering, no looking back. These were men of like spirit with Gideon’s three hundred. But another day Christ said to one, “Follow me,” and the reply was, “Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.” Yet another said, “I will follow thee, but let me first go bid them farewell who are at home at my house.” Jesus said unto him, “No man having put his hand to the plough and looking back is fit for the Kingdom of God.” These were like the men who went down on their knees to drink. What, in a word, is the quality that is here commended? You find it plainly illustrated in the words of Paul, “No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.” It is the true pilgrim spirit. It is the heart which seeks first the Kingdom of God. It is the disposition of those who, though they are in the world, are yet not of the world; who have their loins girt, and their lamps trimmed, and, realising that here they have no continuing city, seek one to come. It is not those who stoop down and drink long and deep at the streams of worldly pleasure that are of much service in the cause of Christ, but those who keep the world in its own place and seek only as much of it as will meet the needs of their earthly pilgrimage.
And what is the truth which this whole history illustrates? It is that the Lord delights to accomplish great ends by seemingly feeble means. You are confronted with that principle again and again throughout the range of God’s visible government.
It was illustrated in Christ’s own victory. The prophet Isaiah tells us that the deliverance the Messiah was to accomplish was to be like the day of Midian (Is. ix. 4); that is an unmistakable reference to the victory of Gideon. Christ overcame in the most unlikely way. He humbled Himself; He made Himself of no reputation; He became obedient unto death; He was made a curse. And through His humiliation He spoiled principalities and powers, and brought forth judgment unto victory.
It is illustrated in the work that it pleases God to accomplish through His servants in the world. You remember the stupendous task that Christ assigned to His servants in leaving the world. “Go unto all nations and make disciples of them.” To whom did He say that? To a handful of men whom the world would call weak and simple and unlettered, most of them Galilean fishermen. He chose then, and He chooses still, the weak things and the foolish things of the world to confound the wise and the mighty.
And what is the end that He has in view in adopting this method? It is the clearer manifestation of His own glory. “The men that are with thee are too many . . . lest Israel vaunt themselves against me and say, Mine own hand hath saved me.” He perfects His strength in weakness. In the feebleness of the instrument there is afforded an opportunity of more unmistakably revealing the strength of the hand that wields it. There is such a tendency in men to exalt themselves. The very Israel of God are ready to forget the Rock of their strength and to fail to give Him the praise that is His due. If Gideon had gone forth with his 32,000 men and overcome the enemy Israel would have been ready to vaunt themselves on their own valour and skill, but when the Lord gave the victory to the three hundred they had of necessity to cry—”This is the doing of the Lord; it is marvellous in our eyes.” If Christ had come to Bethany when Martha and Mary had first sent for Him, when Lazarus was grievously sick, but was not yet dead and buried—if Christ had come then and restored him whom He loved to health would not the sisters have been ready to take some at least of the credit to themselves? Would they not have laid some stress on their own watchful care and tenderness and skill? But when Lazarus was restored to them after he had lain four days in the grave, was it not thereby more clearly manifested than otherwise it could have been that his sickness was “for the glory of God,” for the Son of God was glorified thereby? We are afraid sometimes that we are too weak to be of much service in the Lord’s cause. The danger is, if only we will understand it, that we are too strong.
2. The equipment with which they were provided.
Two particulars call for consideration in this connection, their provisions and their weapons.
a) Their provisions
They were going forth on a trying undertaking, a handful of men to face an immense army; the conflict might be long and arduous; they did not know when they might return, or what resources might be laid to their hand by the way. Did they then carry with them an abundant store of which they might avail themselves according to their need? Did each man at least carry a load of provisions on his back? No; they took “their victuals in their hand.” That was all they were to have at their disposal, no more than they could carry in their hand. It was a warfare in which they were literally, as someone has well said, to live “from hand to mouth.”
Is it not so also in the life of the believer in Jesus Christ? He too carries his victuals in his hand. All he has in his possession is just sufficient for his present needs. He has no rich store of grace and strength in himself. His sufficiency is of God. His fulness is not on earth but in heaven. He lives rather by faith in what God has promised than by the sight of what he already has. He has no supplies at hand to meet the necessities of to-morrow. He must go forward trusting in Him who is the God of to-morrow as well as of to-day. The Lord Himself has charge of His people’s supplies; they must look to His riches, and trust to His bounty. He has promised to supply all their need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus. He has said, As thy day so shall thy strength be. He gives manna fresh from heaven according to their daily recurring need. He causes the Rock to follow them through the wilderness, and there He spreads a table for them in presence of their foes. And what reaches them in this way, and in such circumstances, will be more glorifying for God to give, and sweeter for them to receive.
b) Their weapons
Each man had a trumpet in one hand and a pitcher containing a lamp in the other. These were the arms with which they were equipped. Now what would have been the unanimous verdict of the world in its wisdom on this method of conducting warfare? The world would have called it foolishness. The world would have called it hopeless, supremely futile, and impotent. The world would have been ready to pour on Gideon and his soldiers the force of its ridicule and its scorn.
And is it not the same with the weapons of the Kingdom of God? The servants of the Living God, the good soldiers of Jesus Christ, go forth to conquer the world with the trumpet of the gospel call in their hand, and with the light of heaven in vessels of earth. This is God’s way of obtaining the victory. When in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. The Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom—these are the weapons that would commend themselves to the judgment of men—but we preach Christ crucified; Christ crucified, the Power of God and the Wisdom of God.
Are not we ourselves sometimes ready to sit down in the chair of the scoffer when we consider God’s way of saving the world? Are we not ready to suggest modifications and improvements? It is so plain and simple and seemingly futile. We think it not sufficiently imposing in outward appearance to attain so mighty an end. What is the meaning of all the encroachments of men on the simplicity of New Testament worship? What is the meaning of the additions that are being made to the preaching of Christ crucified? It is, in a word, the professing Church joining with the world in writing foolishness over the Gospel of God. It is an attempt of human wisdom to redeem the methods of God from the charge of hopeless folly. But the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
3. The Spirit by which they were animated.
You find it expressed in their battle cry—the Sword of the Lord and of Gideon. In that combination and in that order there is manifested a spirit which is the pledge of victory. The Lord’s sword and Gideon’s sword together, but the sword of the Lord first. This is still the battle-cry of the true servant of Jesus Christ. What does it imply?
a) They go forth by His authority.
They display their banners in God’s name, and this is the reason why they are terrible as an army with banners. “Go” . . . said Christ, “and lo, I am with you alway.” The authority of their message does not depend on their own powers, or on the weight of their own personality. The Gospel is God’s Gospel. The Cause is His Cause. The enemies of the truth are His enemies. The word they preach is His Word. He that hears it listens to the voice of God; he that rejects it rejects the counsel of God. They who deliver the message may sometimes stand before their fellow-men in weakness and fear and in much trembling. Their hearers may be able to point to shortcomings and blemishes. But if the message is the message of Divine Truth, then he to whom it comes has to reckon not with man but with God. Behind the weakness of the human agent there lies the authority of the Eternal; behind the feeble pleadings of the human voice there is the Commandment of the Everlasting God. They who hear the Word must one day give an account of the reception they accorded it; and if on that day they are found rejectors, what will be laid to their charge is not that they refused to listen to this or that other man, but “because I called and ye refused, because I stretched out my hands and no man regarded, therefore ——”
b) They depend on His strength.
What an undertaking it was that Gideon had to face. How hopeless it should be if he depended on his own resources, three hundred men to overthrow an army whose numbers well nigh baffled calculation. He had indeed his own part to perform, and he did it. He laid his plans with skill, he arranged his forces with judgment, he proved himself a brave and resourceful leader; but when he had done all that was possible for him to do, he knew that he must depend for victory on the arm of the Lord. He knew that unless there was the Sword of the Lord, and the Sword of the Lord first, there would not be much use in the sword of Gideon.
And so it is still with the people of God. They have learned to put the Sword of the Lord first. When they have done all that is within the limits of their power, they are unprofitable servants. With regard to their own souls, they are called upon to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling, but they know that the Sword of the Lord must go first: “for it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure.” With regard to their labours in the Lord’s Cause, the same thing holds true. Paul may plant and Apollos may water—Paul with all the strength of his reasoning, and Apollos with all the grace of his eloquence; but it is God that giveth the increase. What would the servants of Christ do had they not the Sword of the Lord to look to? When they look at the strength of the world’s fortresses, when they see the forces of the Lord’s enemies, when they realise the power of sin and the resources of hell, they would altogether despair were they not assured that the Cause is the Lord’s Cause, and that His Sword is pledged to bring forth judgment unto victory. And so, when they see their labours barren of results—as, alas! is so often the case—they cry not only, “Who hath believed our report,” but also, “To whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?” They know that in the last resort the lack of fruit is due to the withholding of the Lord’s arm.
c) Thy seek His glory.
as their supreme aim. In the matter of praise and honour and glory they have learned to put the Sword of the Lord first. They have been made willing and loyal subjects of the King of Zion, and they are joyful in their King. Their souls have been wedded to the glory of His name. They beheld His glory, and they gave themselves to Him in their persons and in their services. They desire to be used by Him and for Him. They desire that He should be glorified through their poor efforts. They desire that self should be crucified. There is that root of bitterness within them; it makes its presence felt, and seeks to regain the ascendancy; but they long for its complete extinction, that Christ may be all in all. He must increase, but I must decrease, in some measure they attain to the spirit of these beautiful words; and they are willing to be fools for Christ’s sake, and to be considered the off-scourings of all things if only Christ should be glorified.
And is there nothing at all left for them to do? Yes, there is. It is the Sword of the Lord first, but not the Sword of the Lord alone. God works through means; and He assigns to His servants an honourable and necessary part. He links His own Sword with the Sword of Gideon. O, what an honour is this for a poor worm of the dust, to be a fellow-worker with God, to be joined unto the Lord and be of one spirit with Him in service! That God’s name and your name should be joined together—is not that a high and glorious calling? That God’s Almighty Power should be wedded to your weak effort, that God’s Almighty voice should be identified with your faltering words, and should make them the vehicle of His Power—this is the transcendent glory of Service. Your sword may deal but a very feeble stroke; but God’s Hand closes over yours, and infuses through your impotence the current of His own resistless might. For this is the wonder of being a fellow-worker with God; there are not after all two swords. There is only one sword. The sword of the Lord is the sword of Gideon. The Lord makes Gideon’s weakness the channel of His own Almighty strength.
4. The victory they obtained.
Notice two particulars concerning the victory. In one sense it was obtained at the first onset. The enemy were thrown into confusion; their ranks were broken, they were put to flight. On the other hand the victory was not complete with the first successful encounter. Gideon had to follow on to complete success. And you see him and his followers coming up to the banks of the Jordan and crossing over “faint yet pursuing.” The enemy were put to flight, but they were not yet exterminated; and Gideon pursued them till he slew their kings; then the victory was complete.
And have we not here a realistic picture of the Christian conflict? In the day when the Gospel comes into the soul with power, when God shines in the heart to give the light of the knowledge of His glory in the face of Jesus Christ, there indeed is victory. The dominion of sin is broken, and grace comes in to reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ. But the whole subsequent life of the believer in this world is a following on to know the Lord. He has to follow up his initial effort. As he received Christ Jesus the Lord, so he is called upon to walk in Him. His whole life is described as a “coming” to Christ. So in these words you have a faithful description of a believer’s life on earth—”faint yet pursuing.”
Faint, through bearing the burden and heat of the day; faint, through hunger and thirst in the land of drought; faint, because of the length and the roughness of the road; faint, because the enemy still elude their grasp, and hope deferred maketh their heart sick; faint—yet pursuing; the face still turned Zionwards; the weapons of the conflict still in their hand, the cry of battle still on their lips; the steps, however sore and weary, still pressing toward the mark for the prize; the whole soul stretched out in the trustfulness of faith, and the expectancy of hope, and the longing of desire, looking for and hastening unto the coming of the Day of the Lord, that Day when they shall see Him as He is, and shall be perfectly conformed to His Blessed Image.
The late Duncan Maclellan, Lochcarron.
The sudden removal by death of Mr. Duncan Maclellan, Camalt, Lochcarron, at the beginning of November, has cast a gloom over our congregation there. He was a pious, unostentatious man, who had a mind of his own about men, doctrines, and principles, and who took the Word of God as a lamp to his feet and a light to his path. Though not laying claim to great mental powers, his prayers and speaking in public were expressive of much seriousness and earnestness. He will be much missed as a pious man and as a true friend. He has left a widow and a family (some of whom are very young) to mourn his loss. We desire to express our deep sympathy with them in their painful bereavement. N. C.