22. Gideon Defeats the Midianites

Gideon Defeats the Midianites

"But the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon, and he blew a trumpet; and Abiezer was gathered after him....." (Judges 6:33-40; Judges 7:1-25; Judges 8:1-3)

Here were people in his own locality gathering to his standard. He sounded the clear distinct note. "For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?" (1 Corinthians 14:8). Well, Gideon gave a clear sound, blowing a trumpet, giving a signal to all concerned that there was something being done, now not only a food supply being provided, thank God for that, but now a very determined effort to get rid of the bondage of the Midianites. In Numbers 31:1-54 we find that God said He would have vengeance on Midian (v.2). That is what God said. God was determined that Midian should have no part with the people of God and He determined that they would not interrupt the blessings of the people. So, just as He said against Amalek and against Moab and against Ammon, God declared His hatred of all that belonged to the Midianites. So here the standard was being raised, but it goes a bit further, in verse 35 Manasseh, Asher, Zebulun and Naphtali gathered to the standard too. We are very glad to see our friends Zebulun and Naphtali here again, they were prominent in the revival in Deborah’s and Barak’s day, they jeopardised their lives in the high places, prepared to lay down their lives to defend what belonged to God, and here they are in the forefront again. This is a very fine thing to see, consistency in the desire to maintain what belongs to the Lord. Now this trumpet call led to this army of 32,000 that was going to meet the Midianites. This was quite a useful army to have, but Gideon had a few lessons to learn yet. One of them was that God does not necessarily work by large numbers, neither is He committed to work with large numbers, "Not by might, not by power, but by My Spirit saith the Lord of hosts" (Zechariah 4:6). God can save by a few as well as by many. We are reminded of 1 Corinthians 1:27 "God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty", and the many other statements that Paul made in that connection, "that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us" (2 Corinthians 4:7). There we find this wonderful history portrayed for us. These two verses fit exactly with this story of Gideon and his army of 32,000 men. How was Gideon going to use them? How would he deploy them in order to meet the great army? Well, God says, ’Speak to them and tell those who are timid or fearful to go home because such people are not of much use in the day of battle’, such people turn back. So Gideon told them what God had told him and 22,000 turned back and went home. This considerably reduced the army, from 32,000 to 10,000. ’Never mind, we might be able to do something with 10,000’ says Gideon, but God said, ’Gideon, take them down to the river and just see how they drink, and I will tell you the ones that you are to take’. And then the army was drastically reduced.

There were now only 300 out of the original 32,000, but God had said He would be with Gideon and the enemy would be destroyed, and when God starts to work it does not matter that there are only 300 against a vast army, the battle is already won. This was the lesson that Gideon had to learn, that it is not necessarily large numbers that indicate the power of God. Unfortunately people have often been governed by this sort of thing in our meetings. Twenty or thirty are too small for some people, they want hundreds, thousands and so they leave little companies; the principle does not matter so long as there are large numbers of people and plenty of activity. But the Lord is quite happy if there are twos and threes who go on with the truth. I am not putting any premium on the fact of small numbers, we do need adequate numbers to carry on an adequate testimony. There is no particular virtue in that we are only two or three, it might be our own folly or our own weakness that numbers are reduced to such small quantities, but we can be sure of this, that if there are two or three or two dozen or thirty or forty who very humbly and very genuinely maintain the truth as it has been revealed to them in the Scriptures then they will know in a very real way the presence of the Lord. They will know His power and they will know His blessing. This is the lesson that Gideon had to learn. It was not in his power, it was not in the largeness of the army, it was in the power of the Lord, it was in His ability to direct and to control, to win the victory.

Gideon was a man who always wanted to be sure, and we have four occasions when he asked the Lord for guidance, and the Lord showed to him that everything was all right. Firstly there were Gideon’s two signs in connection with the fleece, and then his desire to the angel to have it revealed to him who it was that was speaking to him, and then lastly the Lord directed him to go down into the camp of Midian, there he heard of the dream of one of the men, and the dream was that a little barley cake rolled into the camp and overturned the tents. The man woke up and said, "This is nothing else save the sword of Gideon" (v.15). They knew the battle was lost, that they were to be defeated. A little barley cake is not a strong looking thing, a humble instrument. I believe that the Lord was just indicating to Gideon how small he was personally - a little barley cake, that was God’s way of showing Gideon that it was the Lord who was fighting the battle and the victory was a foregone conclusion.

Gideon took his three companies and he provided them with their equipment for fighting this battle. It was a peculiar arrangement, he put into their hands a trumpet, and a clay pitcher and inside the pitcher a lighted torch. What a queer arrangement to fight a battle with. This is God’s arrangement and Gideon obeys. The three hundred were divided into three companies, and now he said, ’When I give the signal, you do what I do, you follow me’. This is the language of a man who was leading the saints of God in a positive way, he was sure of his ground, he knew what he was going to do, and he directed the people to do what he was doing. So the appropriate moment came, the trumpet was sounded, the three hundred created quite a noise, three hundred trumpets blaring at one time, the pitchers were smashed, the torches shone forth and the Midianites fled for their lives. The battle was won, a great slaughter resulted, and princes were killed. God had fulfilled His word, the enemy was overthrown. We turn to 2 Corinthians 4:1-18 and we get the explanation of all this. Paul says, "we have this treasure in earthen vessels" (v.7), the earthen vessels are the pitchers, these weak bodies of ours in which indwells all the precious things that God has placed there in view of testimony for Himself. This is the testimony, the trumpet sounds, the testimony that is to go forth contained in weak vessels, but when these vessels are broken, that is, when they are humbled under the hand of the Lord and kept there, there is an adequate testimony to meet all the power of Satan and to defeat his armies. Dear brethren, we are all poor, weak creatures in ourselves, but under the hand of the Lord if we can keep humble and allow Him to work with us, then an adequate testimony will be rendered for His pleasure and for His glory.

There are always grumblers, and we find that after the battle was won, there were some who came to Gideon and they complained to him saying, ’Why did you not come for us?’ When the trumpet had been blown, they would have heard it. I do not think there was any question about that, but they did not come when the trumpet was blown, so Gideon and those whom God chose carried on and the victory was theirs. It was all right to come in at the end and make complaints, but Gideon was not a man of forceful spirit, and here he gives a beautiful example of a soft answer turning away wrath (Proverbs 15:1) and instead of causing frustration amongst his brethren, or causing them to be in animosity towards him, he won them for his cause.