THE first effect of Gideon’s proclamation to Abiezer and the neighboring districts was, that a considerable army assembled under his command. But Gideon knew full well that no army he could muster would be a match for the Midianites and their allies. He knew that Jehovah was his only refuge; it was at his command he was going to the conflict; but would Jehovah indeed be with him? His faith was weak. He ought to have been satisfied, no doubt, with what he had already heard and seen; but fears will spring up, his heart will misgive him, and what is he to do? To go to the battle with such uncertainties would be madness; but how is he to get rid of them? He takes them to the Lord. He does not pretend to strong faith, while conscious of such doubts and fears; but weak in faith as he is, he knows enough of the Lord to feel sure that he will give him such further signs that it is he, Jehovah himself, who has sent him, as shall remove every doubt, and make him valiant indeed. Nor was he mistaken. It seemed a bold thing to ask, that, if the Lord would indeed be with him, the fleece of wool might alone be wet, with the dew and the ground dry all around. But so it was. “He rose up early, on the morrow, and thrust the fleece together, and wringed the dew out of the fleece, a bowl full of water.” Surely this will satisfy him! No. “And Gideon said unto God, Let not thine anger be hot against me, and I will speak but this once: Let me prove, I pray thee, but this once with the fleece; let it now be dry only upon the fleece, and upon all the ground let there be dew.” And was this request granted Indeed it was. “And God did so that night: for it was dry upon the fleece only, and there was dew on all the ground.”
Dear young Christian reader, see to it that you are open and honest both with God and man. If questioned by some older Christian, or conversing with such, do not pretend to know more than you do. It will only prevent your learning what your friend would teach you. Never be ashamed to confess ignorance. Avoid a pretentious spirit. If you have not courage, or faith, for any undertaking, do not pretend to either. Confess to God your want of faith, and ask Him to strengthen it. I do not mean by this that you are to seek such signs as Gideon asked. But be as simple in your prayers. Ask God, in the name of Jesus, for everything you need, and ask expecting to receive.
When God had so lovingly done all that Gideon asked of him, he and his army rose up early, as though they would proceed to the conflict; but if God had so strengthened Gideon’s faith, he was now about to put it to the proof. Gideon had been trying God—whether God had really spoken to him, and whether he would be with him—and now God tries Gideon. “The people that are with thee are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hands.” Why was this? Should we not all think in such a case the more the better? Ah! it was “lest Israel vaunt themselves against me, saying, Mine own hand hath saved me.” Dear reader, there is no danger greater than that of self-sufficiency and self-exaltation. Perhaps you have longed for the conversion of your parents, or brothers, or friends; and, oh, how fervent have been your prayers, how bright your hopes of a speedy answer! But the answer has not come, your friends are still far from God, and you wonder why it is. Perhaps it is because you are not sufficiently humbled—emptied of self. Perhaps God sees that if you had the desire of your heart you would take the glory to yourself, and say, Mine own hand hath done it. This would fully account for the delay.
If you turn to Deut. 20, you will find that long before this the Lord had made it an ordinance in Israel, that, when the nation went to war, proclamation should be made for any who had just married a wife, or planted a vineyard, or were fearful and faint-hearted, to go home, lest they should make their brethren faint-hearted. Gideon makes this proclamation, and how many, do you think, went home? Out of an army of two-and-thirty thousand, twenty-two thousand returned, leaving but ten thousand with their commander. But there were still too many, and the Lord bade Gideon bring them down to the water, and try them there. It was a strange mode of trial. All who lapped of the water, as a dog lappeth, were to be placed by themselves; and all who bowed down upon their knees to drink, were to be set in another company by themselves. Which was the largest? There were but three hundred who lapped. Nine thousand seven hundred knelt down to drink. What must Gideon have thought? He knew that all this was going on to reduce the number of his army; and as one hundred after another, and one thousand after another, knelt down at the water, how severely must his faith have been tried! Can we doubt that there was a meaning in the test that was applied? What was the difference between the two companies This, that the one were so bent on the errand they were upon, that they would not stop to kneel down and refresh themselves by a good draft: they merely cooled their lips in passing. The others forgot their mission in the opportunity to refresh themselves fully. It was by the three hundred who were so intent on fighting the battles of the Lord that they unconsciously forgot themselves, that the Lord said He would deliver Israel. The Lord grant us more of their single-mindedness for him.
And now comes the dream about the barley cake. This was not a sign that Gideon asked of the Lord, but one that the Lord graciously gave His servant without being asked. The Lord had thoroughly emptied His servant of all confidence in self, and of all confidence in his army. His army indeed was gone: but the Lord, knowing His servant’s weakness, said to him in the night, “Arise, get thee down unto the host; for I have delivered it into thine hand. But if thou fear to go down, go thou with Phurah thy servant down to the host: and thou shalt hear what they say; and afterward shall thine heart be strengthened to go down unto the host.” He was first to go by himself, or, if afraid, with his servant, and he would hear what would strengthen him to go down with his little company of three hundred. A blustering, self-confident man would have said, — “Afraid! Not I indeed! I’ll go alone, and not put it in my servant’s power to say he went with his master because his master was afraid.” Would no boy—no youth—among my readers, have felt and spoken thus? Gideon did not. He was afraid, and he owned it by taking his servant Phurah with him. O for the simplicity of this man of God! Well, as they approached the hostile camp, there they were, Midianites, Amalekites, and all the children of the east, and they “lay along in the valley like grasshoppers for multitude; and their camels were without number, as the sand by the sea-side for multitude.” Was this a sight to strengthen Gideon’s faith? You shall hear. “When Gideon was come, behold, there was a man that told a dream unto his fellow, and said, Behold, I dreamed a dream, and, lo, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the host of Midian, and came unto a tent; and smote it that it fell, and overturned it, that the tent lay along.” Just like a dream, you are ready to say. In dreams the greatest things are brought about by the most unlikely means. Only to think of a barley cake upsetting a tent! Such was the dream that one Midianite told to another—Gideon and Phurah listening all the while outside! But was the dream all they heard? No, the Midianite to whom it is related interprets it. “This is nothing else,” he says, “save the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel; for into his hand hath God delivered Midian, and all the host.” What was the effect on Gideon? “And it was so, when Gideon heard the telling of the dream, and the interpretation thereof, that he worshipped, and returned into the host of Israel, and said, Arise: for the Lord hath delivered into your hand the host of Midian.” He adores God, who had so mercifully strengthened his faith; and he calls on his three hundred men at once to follow him to the host. He divides them into three companies, gives each man a pitcher, and a lighted lamp or torch, puts the war-cry into their lips, “The sword of the Lord and of Gideon,” and bids them do as they see their leader do. Thus, in the dead of night, while thick darkness reigned around, these three companies blew the trumpets, brake the pitchers, held the flaming torches towards their foes, or waved them in the air, and cried aloud, “The sword of the Lord and of Gideon.” Then it was the host ran, and cried, and fled. “The Lord set every man’s sword against his fellow, even throughout all the host.” The men of Israel gathered together to pursue them; two princes of the Midianites were slain; and the whole mighty host scattered like chaff before the wind. Thus it is when the Lord works. The instruments may be the feeblest possible, but this only the more displays the power of the One who uses them for his own glory, the deliverance of his people, and the discomfiture of his foes.
Is there a thing too hard for thee,
Almighty Lord of all,
Whose threatening look dries up the sea,
And makes the mountains fall?
Who, who shall in thy presence stand,
And match Omnipotence?
Ungrasp the hold of thy right hand,
Or pluck thy people thence?
Sworn to destroy, let earth assail,
Nearer to save thou art!
Stronger than all the powers of hell,
And greater than my heart.
There are deeply interesting details in Gideon’s history, beyond those with which we have now been occupied. I hope my young friends will carefully read the whole account in Scripture. The questions that follow will not be confined to what has been before us, but will extend to the close of Gideon’s life.