Typical God Victory (Part A)

This is important for us to understand we can't fight the war of life without God and the way we fight the war in this life is in such a way that he gets the glory. That's what he's telling Gideon here.

People are too many. You'll think you did something. I'm gonna shrink your fighting force down so low that no one can dispute that this was typical of God. To reach down miraculously and do something for his servant. We are in Judges chapter 7 and we have God's servant, we have the fear in that servant, the enemies of the servant, we have faith and of course we have the Lord working with his vessel, his chosen vessel. This is typical material for God's victory and that's this evening's message is entitled Typical God Victory because that's what this is.

The miracles, the people, all that's going on. We go right to verse 1. Then Jerubbabel, that is Gideon, and all the people who were with him rose early and encamped beside the well of Harad so that the camp of the Midianites was on the north side of them by the hill of Morah in the valley. Now as we discussed in chapter 6, Gideon was given the name Jerubbabel which means let Baal prove it.

If he's God, let him prove it. And it was a nickname given to him for creating a condition whereas the false god was challenged to defend himself. And Gideon's father comes to the rescue, they were going to kill Gideon for tearing down the altar and the image next to the altar. He gives him this name Jerubbabel, let Baal prove it and Gideon keeps the name.

He says, yeah, it's got a nice ring to it. I will wear that and I will mock the folly of man-made gods. In verse 2, Yahweh said to Gideon, the people who are with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hands lest Israel claim glory for itself against me saying my own hand has saved me. Yahweh says to Gideon, listen, these are the conditions that I'm facing with you people. I want to give you the victory with the Midianites, but if I just send a large army against their larger army, you're somehow going to claim that you brought about this victory.

And I'm not going to have that because you can't win without me. This was true even for the apostles. Jesus said abide in me and I in you as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine. Neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, I in him bears much fruit for without me you can do nothing. And God is, that's true.

I mean, it's true all the time. And he's telling Gideon to suppose that you can suddenly defeat these Midianites after all these years is silly. Without God, Israel was helpless, defenseless because they had sponged up idolatry.

They had sopped it up like you do with a biscuit and gravy. That's how the people handled these false ideas and we see it in Christianity to this day. We see Christians sopping up the world's ideas about how to live, our mental behavior, our morals and our responses and reactions to things.

The Bible tells us how we should live. I cringe when I hear Christians turning to psychologists or some other contrary belief system. I know of one way to go through this life now. I've tried the other way. I like this way better and that is with Jesus Christ and not some concoction of human wit and God.

That's leaven. I want more than what the world has to offer. I want what God has to offer me as a believer. And what he offers me as a believer is not a pass or an excuse. I have to face the same emotional struggles as everyone else.

Sometimes they're not just emotional. There's all kinds, all brands of hardship and this is important for us to understand. We can't fight the war of life without God and the way we fight the war in this life is in such a way that he gets the glory. That's what he's telling Gideon here. People are too many.

You'll think you did something. I'm going to shrink your fighting force down so low that no one can dispute that this was typical of God to reach down miraculously and do something for his servant. Verse 3 continues, Now therefore proclaim in the hearing of the people saying, Whoever is fearful and afraid, let him turn and depart at once from Mount Gilead. And 22,000 of the people returned and 10,000 remained.

Gosh, who would want to be a general over this army? This is the first of two stages in God's reducing the army. He's not done yet.

It's not enough that 27,000 depart. But this was also in accordance with God's law. Deuteronomy chapter 20, God starts out. He says, When you go to the battlefield, don't be afraid of them.

I'm with you. Then he says in that same section, he says, But if you have just built a house, or you could say just bought a house, you don't have to go to war till you've lived in that house. If you just planted a vineyard or vineyard, as some like to say it, then you don't have to go to war.

If you just took a wife, you're free from going to war. If you are faint-hearted, these are the four conditions in Deuteronomy 20. If you're afraid to die on the battlefield or be maimed, Deuteronomy 20 verse 2, The officers shall speak further to the people and say, What man is there who is fearful and faint-hearted?

Let him go and return to his house, lest the heart of his brethren faint like his heart. Fear is contagious. Maybe you're given to panic and fear.

You're going to book everybody else. The one that was thinking about victory all of a sudden isn't thinking about defeat and fear and what's going to happen to them. Fearful in the trembling soul makes victory on the battlefield near impossible.

It makes it impossible for God to use them successfully. The faint-hearted in war can become more of a problem than the enemy. An enemy that was otherwise beatable is now unbeatable because panic is in the ranks. And you've turned from the enemy and run because one person, how great a fire, a little fire can kindle, as James said. Gideon had not the war zeal of Caleb, but he was not faint-hearted nonetheless.

If he were, he would have left with the 22,000. I've got to resent hearing commentators or people saying Gideon was a coward, he had a problem with fear. You'd have a problem with fear too if God sent you to war with 300 men against 135,000.

Which is what's going to happen. It says 22,000 of the people returned and 10,000 remained. Do you know, according to God, Gideon was better off without them? You know, that one saying, troublemakers hate hearing that in the church, that the church is better off without you. They resent hearing that.

Don't stop causing trouble then, it's not hard. Well, the 22,000 that left, not that they were lost souls or did not love the Lord, but their fear again would bring otherwise avoidable disaster, so they are dismissed. Now the enemy knows that Gideon has rallied an army. They may not yet know how many men, they certainly won't know that it started out with 300 when they were attacked until months later, like years later, when Gideon publishes what happened.

It's kind of a comical side to the story, but they knew he rallied an army. If 22,000 of your troops were filled with fear, this would have been sheep to the slaughter. They would have been annihilated, wiped out. The invading whores had counted on Israel's retaliation, so they brought a force with them so big that nobody would think of attacking them.

And for years it had been this way. They'd come like locusts across the land and no one would challenge them. So they didn't think anybody would challenge them now. Intimidation through force because they believed their army was superior and it was without God. And God allowed them the victories that they had because, as I mentioned, the people had sopped up the idolatry of the land instead of stomping it out. And same with Christians. We're not going to beat up on ancient Israel and give the modern church or the church a pass as though she doesn't do these things, the people in the churches.

All Christians, thank God, are prone to leavening the church, but a great many are quick to leaven the church, to bring in things that don't belong, and they are clearly addressed in Scripture, and they bring them in nonetheless. As a military commander, he must have thought this a great setback. I mean, he's got to say to himself, what am I going to do with 10,000 troops? God is saying, wait till you see it's down to 300.

Two-thirds gone, just like that. But you have to add this to the story. When Gideon rallied the troops, he had 32,000 men that were ready to follow, not necessarily brave, the 10,000 remaining are braver than the 32 that, the ones that left, the 22 that left. But that says something about the whole story, which is, I think, lessons in all of this, is God has to raise up a leader, a Gideon, one that is worth following. And when you follow a leader who's not worth following in Christianity, you have usually an apostate church or one that is on its way there. And what makes the leader worth following is not his ability, it's his appointment. God appointed him. This comes out in the story. Gideon had no military credentials. He was a farmer hiding for his life, trying to eke out a living, and God selected him.

That's what we call anointing, a calling on his life to deliver Israel. This is the story of all the judges. I am, I should add, having more fun this time through judges than the last time we went through judges. It's because the book has matured.

It's a joke. All right, anyway, it's because, of course, my outlook has changed. I see more of God's mercy and God's word with each passing year. You know, when you're young and you think you're going to change the world to preaching and people are going to line up, you've got, wait a minute there, they're saddled with sin. So bad is the situation that God had to die for sinners.

That's how bad it is. And yet, in the midst of all of that, we are more than conquerors because of love, God's love, and our love in return for him. Whatever we can give back, he takes. He doesn't say, you know, that's not enough love.

I need more. He takes the love we have, be it long as it is genuine love, not the love that says, well, God, what are you going to do for me? I mean, I'm going to love you so I can get something from you. After all, that's what prayer is for. God is just a genie in a Bible. That is heresy. Verse 4, so Yahweh said to Gideon, the people are still too many. Just, you know, what would you give to see the look on Gideon's face when he heard that?

Bring them down to the water and I will test them for you there. Then it will be that of whom I say to you, this one shall go with you, the same shall go with you, and of whomever I say to you, this one shall not go with you, the same shall not go. So God's going to sift the troops. More blessed subtractions.

Again, 135 million troops are waiting for them. We get that from chapter 8, verse 10. Bring them down to the water and I will test them for you there. You know, Lord, I'll test them. Thanks.

I'll test them for you. Of course, this would take a little time. And you don't just bring 10,000 people down there and have one man walk through and say, okay, you and you, you.

This is a process. They probably brought them down in ranks, perhaps, you know, 200 at a time, and give him a chance as the men would drink and the next group would then come in. He says, then it will be that of whom I say to you, this one shall go with you, and the same shall go with you, and of whomever I say to you, this one shall not go with you, the same shall not go with you. Well, that's clear enough. Stand by to lose a total of 31,700 troops out of 3,200.

Are you kidding me? I mean, it's amazing how God is talking to Gideon and he's acting on these things, but yet he still has, you know, we would say great concerns. And God knows this. This comes out, verse 5. So he, that's Gideon, brought the people down to the water. Now, it's not one man just walking down.

He gives the command to his commanders and they're bringing them down. And Yahweh said to Gideon, everyone who laps from the water with his tongue as a dog laps, you shall set apart by himself. Likewise, everyone who gets down on his knees to drink. And the number of those who lapped putting their hand to their mouth was 300 men.

But all the rest of the people got down on their knees to drink water. Now, I've changed my view on this. Last time I had a view that there were possibly three groups here.

But I think there's only two. Those who scooped hand to mouth and those who got down on the hands and knees. Those are the two groups.

The men were unaware that they were being evaluated, sifted. The two groups with this only significance that one again is on hands and knees and the other is not. The ones that are on their hands and knees will be dismissed. They'll come back into the fight later, most of them, if not all of them. And those who do not get on their hands and knees but scoop up the water and bring it to their mouth, they are retained. It makes it very easy for Gideon to walk around and say, you, and he walks around a little bit more, and you, and there's no more. Everybody's on their hands, bringing the next company of men and he does the same process until finally they've all come through.

And he looks over and he says, we've only got 300 left. Additional observations concerning this. Likewise, everyone who gets down on his knees. Is the Bible teaching us that these were two self-indulgent and unmindful of their surroundings to be used as an elite strike team? I think yes, but if you said no, I don't think so because it doesn't say it.

I couldn't argue with that. But I also know the Bible has lessons for pastors to extract. Paul did it. In Galatians, he would talk about Abraham and Hagar and Sarah. He would extract the lessons. He would say that Sarah was the wife and Isaac is the child.

And so that's how pastors do their messages somewhat like that to this day. So was this an indication that their character was less than ready for the elite mission and I think so. God knows that. No, they weren't rejects entirely because, as I mentioned, we'll see them come back, rejoin the battle. But not for this, the vanguard, the tip of the sword into the fight. Gideon will end up with the most suitable men and God picks them. I think there are lessons here. And the number of those who lapped, putting their hands to the mouth, there was 300 men selected.

So you have two postures and you can judge the significance one over the other. Verse 7. Then Yahweh said to Gideon, By the 300 men who lapped, I will save you and deliver the Midianites into your hand.

Let all the other people go, every man to his place. I think it's interesting that there's no second in command mentioned. That would have given Gideon another problem. But, of course, it is God who saves, whether it is through the 32,000 or the 300. It is, again, a typical God victory that we're going to end up with.

Judges chapter 5. Any leader should be familiar with this as well as any follower. You can't have one without the other. God does appoint some to be the leader and he appoints some to be the assistant leaders and he appoints others to be the troops. That's how things get done. You know, everybody cannot be a chief.

No Indians. Judges 5-2. When leaders lead in Israel, when the people willingly offer themselves, bless Yahweh.

And that is what we're watching here. The people are being led by Gideon and they're submitting to Gideon's rule. The 300 could have said, uh-uh, I am not going to war against those Midianites.

It's just this little army. We never read of that. If there were a second in command, or seconds in command, there would have been muteness. It would be shared that, you know, General MacArthur, when he laid out his plans to make his way to the Philippines, the commanders were saying it would never work. But in typical MacArthur fashion, he was the commander. He gave his order and that was that. He didn't like it. He got court-martialed.

And he won. How much more should we expect that when God is working through his spirit? And sometimes, sometimes God intentionally allows the setbacks to sift out the doubts to see if we're really in it. So you failed at your first attempt. Are you going to quit now? I'm going to show you what's inside of you. That the fight is not yours to win.

What do you think? Because I said I'm going to be with you, we're just going to storm the gates and the battle will be won that day? It's too complex for that. Life's too complex.

Too many other things going on that you know nothing of. I just need you to surrender. We like to talk about, I surrender all when I'm good and ready. That's not surrender. Surrender means you have no option.

Or actually it means this. The alternative is worse. To not surrender is worse than surrendering. Force.

There's force in life. Gideon is being forced into this situation. He's being forced into a situation where he's got to trust God more than anything else. At any point he could have gotten on his donkey and rode away.

He never does. So God says at the bottom of verse 7, let all the people go, every man to his own place. That means they are dismissed and there's not one recorded word of their protest.

No one is saying, you mean you brought me all the way from Asher to here just to send me home? We don't get that. We don't get one, well this is my land and I have a right to fight for it.

You don't get that. Because the people I believe had a basic understanding that God appointed Gideon to this. It is now filled with the spirit for this. In verse 8, so the people took provisions and their trumpets in their hands. And he sent away all the rest of Israel, every man to his tent and retained those 300.

Now the camp of Midian was below him in the valley. I will add that there will be some, you know, the fly in the ointment. It says in Ecclesiastes, the dead flies in the ointment, something to spoil it. At the end of the victory, Ephraim is going to be pretty upset with things.

We'll get that in the next chapter but Gideon is, you know, going to deal with it in a very successful way. But right now, the people took provisions and their trumpets in their hands and they were sent away. But they left supplies for those that were there.

You can't fight without supplies, not very long. Likely, you know, somebody, I have a horn, you can have it, food, water jugs, whatever supplies maybe have been lacking or whatever they felt maybe they needed more of. The word where he says they sent the men to their tent is the prevailing word is their homes. It's an expression, to your tents, O Israel. But many of them were living in, you know, structures. Some may still have preferred tents but overall structures. Verse 9, it happened on the same night that Yahweh said to him, Arise, go down against the camp for I have delivered it into your hand.

Cough, cough with 300 men, Lord, I don't think so. That's what the natural response would have been. The difference is sometimes we come up with an idea and we want God to bless it. But we're actually tempting the Lord. We're stepping, we have no right to go out and do something.

They've not given us anything to do that. We just had a good idea. And we step out thinking he's got to honor it. And then it fails and then we're wondering how could God let this happen?

I think in some cases, as I mentioned earlier, he's sifting out the leaders who will pick up themselves by their bootstraps and say, okay, Lord, what's next? Be careful not to tempt the Lord under the guise of faith. Thanks for tuning in to Cross-Reference Radio for this study in the book of Judges. Cross-Reference Radio is the teaching ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel in Mechanicsville, Virginia. If you'd like more information about this ministry, we invite you to visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com. You'll find additional teachings from Pastor Rick available there. And we encourage you to subscribe to our podcast. By doing so, you'll be notified of each new edition of Cross-Reference Radio. You can search for Cross-Reference Radio on your favorite podcast app or just follow the links at crossreferenceradio.com. That's all the time we have for today. Join us next time to continue learning more from the book of Judges right here on Cross-Reference Radio.