Gideon: God uses our smallness to demonstrate His greatness
“The people who are with you are too many” (Judges 7:2).
Gideon prepared for battle the way generals always did, by assembling the largest army possible and getting ready to fight to the death to defeat the enemy. But God’s ways are not our ways. That doesn’t mean He didn’t use valiant forces. He often did. And when such armies were victorious, they gave God the glory. But in Gideon’s day, the nation was in a poor spiritual state. God was about to demonstrate that the most significant victories are won, not by an army’s power but by God’s direct intervention:
“Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,”
Says the Lord of hosts (Zechariah 4:6).
God can do what we cannot do.
Just as Gideon requested God to fulfil two signs to assure him God was with him, so God reviewed Gideon’s army in two ways to reveal His greatness through their smallness. God turned the preparation for battle upside down when He 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.’ 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’” (vv. 2-3)
Gideon had tested God: God had now tested the hearts of the men in Gideon’s army. The result was that his force of 32,000 men was reduced to only 10,000 soldiers.
Then God said,
“The people are still too many; bring them down to the water, and I will test them for you there.”
God tested the minds of the remaining 10,000 men and chose just 300. Gideon was left with less than 1% of his original force, but God said, “By the three hundred men who lapped, I will save you” (vv. 4-7).
God uses people who follow him with their hearts and minds. The 300 were not only fearless; they were watchful. Fearlessness can become carelessness. Paul describes the necessary balance between watching and spiritual bravery in 1 Corinthians 16:13, where he writes, “Watch, stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong.” If COVID has taught us anything, it has taught us to be watchful and concerned about ourselves and others. Fearlessness of the virus does not protect us from it. Watchfulness does.
Water is often used as a metaphor for the word of God. It sustains us and sanctifies us. The Lord Jesus prayed in John 17, “I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth” (vv. 15-17). God’s word makes us watchful for ourselves and each other, to ensure we are kept in the truth and love of God.
When God reduced Gideon’s army to a small band, Gideon does not object. He was learning to trust God without question. In Paul’s words, he was learning to be “strong in the Lord and in the power of His might” (Ephesians 6:10). Through Gideon, God teaches us never to be discouraged by our weakness, but to have a holy confidence in the power of Christ our Lord who assures us, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9).
