Have you ever felt like you are not as good or as capable as many others or that you have nothing to offer? Have you ever felt like you are stuck in your circumstances and you are powerless to do anything about it? Have you ever been afraid of the fallout if you were to make a different choice?
Let me introduce you to a guy who understood all those feelings. Meet Gideon — a young Israelite man who lived with the companions of discouragement, despair, fear and intimidation. For seven years the Midianites, an enemy tribe, had waged war against Gideon’s people, destroying their crops and stripping the land bare like a swarm of locusts. When we first become acquainted with Gideon (in chapter 6 of Judges), we discover him threshing wheat in a winepress — of all places! When I went to Israel last year, we went to a village where we learned how wheat was threshed in Gideon’s day and it certainly wasn’t down in the large hole of a winepress where the grapes were tread upon to squeeze out the juice. In order to harvest grain, they needed to be out in the open where the wind would separate the chaff from the wheat by tossing it into the air. Gideon was hiding in the winepress so he wouldn’t be discovered by the Midianites. But the angel of the Lord knew right where to “discover” Gideon, just as he knows right where to discover you and I down in the winepress of our own weaknesses and circumstances.
When the angel called Gideon a “mighty warrior” and told him that God wanted him to deliver the Israelites from the Midianites, Gideon’s response came from how he viewed himself: “My clan is the weakest in Manasseh and I am the least in my family.” This is not how God saw him. I believe God often tugs at our hearts and urges us to step out in response to his calling, but our fear and insecurities hold us back. We need to be willing to step up out of our own self-imposed winepresses because he will be with us just as he told Gideon he would be with him. He doesn’t expect us to face our fears by ourselves. Judges 6:34 tells us, “But the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon. ...” In Hebrew, this literally means “The Spirit of the Lord clothed himself with Gideon!” He covered Gideon — what a great picture.
Strengthened by God, Gideon faced his first fear — to take a stand against the idols in his own family. The Lord instructed Gideon to tear down the altar his father had built to the heathen gods of Baal and Asherah. You see, God allowed the Midianites to wage war against the Israelites because they had begun to turn away from him and worship other gods. Baal and Asherah were gods of fertility, whose worship was rooted in sensual ritualistic debauchery in the temple by both male and female prostitutes. These gods still thrive in our society. We can sit in our living rooms and worship them on our televisions and computers.
Gideon then summoned an army. Thirty-two thousand men showed up. Gideon had them set up camp near the Spring of Harod, located above the 135,000 Midianites who were camped below. How’s that for intimidation? And you know what is significant about the spring of Harod? It’s name means tremble and fear. God wants us to face our fears. He told Gideon to tell all those who were afraid to go home — and 22,000 left! If you and I had been there would we have been numbered among that group who went home? On many occasions, I know I would have been in that number. But it’s time to move our camps directly in the face of our enemies and not run away from our fears, doubt, unbelief and pride. You see, it was necessary for those to leave who weren’t willing to face their fears because fear, insecurity and negative attitudes will breed and spread to those who are in close proximity.
Then God said the 10,000 men left were still too many. He wanted to be sure the odds of defeating the Midianites were so great that the Israelites could not attribute a victory based on their own strength. Instead, they would know that victory came from the hand of God. And so their numbers where whittled down to a mere 300 men and God gave Gideon the strategy and the weapons for the warfare they were to wage. During the night, the 300 men positioned themselves around the Midianite camp with, get this, trumpets and torches inside of clay pots! And when Gideon gave the command, they blew their trumpets, broke their pots with loud noises and waved their torches. It gave the appearance of a huge army surrounding the Midianites who were so freaked out they killed one another in utter fear and confusion and those who were left alive fled.
I love the picture this portrays for us as Christians. We are those clay pots and the torch within is the Holy Spirit. 2 Corinthians 4:7 tells us, “For we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.” He is the treasure in our earthen vessels and it is through our own cracks and weaknesses that his light can show forth in our lives. The more we allow our “pots” to be broken before him, the more his power is released. We trumpet his word and our enemies are put to flight. God is willing to “clothe himself” with you and me. It’s time to stop believing that God could never use us and begin believing who he says we are — mighty warriors — because he is raising up an army to stand strong in a day when darkness is increasing. The good news is that torches show up really well in the dark!
