The Lord said to Gideon, “You have too many men. I cannot deliver Midian into their hands or Israel would boast against me, ‘My own strength has saved me. – Judges 7:2
The Midianites had been oppressing Israel. | WATCH ON YOUTUBE
They ravaged their fields leaving Israel nothing to live on, forcing the people to live in mountain clefts and caves. And in their suffering, Israel cried out to the Lord (Judges 6:6). God answered. He raised Gideon to deliver Israel from the Midianites.
Gideon had questions (Judges 6:13) about God and his own weakness. The Lord graciously answers each of these questions, including Gideon’s fleeces. Finally, Gideon is convinced.
The Midianite army was one lakh thirty-five thousand men strong, and Gideon had a mere thirty-two thousand men army. The odds were heavily against Gideon. But the Lord tells Gideon there are way too many people in his army for God to work? And so, He asks Gideon to do something almost ridiculous to human understanding, to send the men back. And the Bible says, in two rounds, the Lord brings Israel’s thirty-two thousand strong army down to a mere three hundred men! (Judges 7:3-8).
And yet, with those three hundred men, Israel won a convincing victory against Midian with just trumpets and torches. They totally routed them (Judges 7:15-25). What a victory! Though God asked Gideon to do some real strange, even ridiculous things, Gideon trusted and obeyed God. We often rationalize what God asks us to do. The Lord sometimes takes us through seemingly insignificant tests that determine how He will use us in life.
Does what God’s asking you to do today seem ridiculous and even impossible to you?
Even when it doesn’t make sense, help me obey you, Lord, I pray.
Extended Reading — Judges 6-7
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