The LORD said to Gideon, "With the three hundred men that lapped I will save you and give the Midianites into your hands. Let all the other men go, each to his own place."Is too many men in an army a problem? It was for Gideon.
The Lord hand-picked Gideon’s army. The fearful and those who knelt to drink with their heads next to the water were sent home. The only men left to fight were those who were brave and observant. Gideon saw God’s lesson in army-building. True warriors know what’s going on around them, and they rise to the challenge.
Out of the thousands of Israelite men, only 300 made the cut. These men didn’t get to use state of the art weaponry. They used trumpets, empty jars, and torches.
All Gideon had to do was listen to God’s guidance and obey. But he wasn’t a courageous warrior, so God gave him something to do to build his courage. He sent Gideon to his enemy’s camp to listen to them.
When you’re preparing for battle and you overhear your enemy confessing that God has given you the victory, that would certainly build your courage. You’d shout with joy – at the appropriate time, of course.
Gideon followed God’s instruction and the enemy fled. Obviously, you don’t need a large army if the enemy runs away at the shout of 300 voices.
Even though I know they only had swords to fight with, my imagination has that terrified army running away and shooting behind them, not looking to see who they pointed the gun at. The enemy lost a lot of soldiers with friendly fire.
Gideon’s army was small but very effective because of God’s guidance. The lesson to learn in this battle is that the size of your enemy doesn’t matter, the size of your army doesn’t matter, but listening to and obeying God is everything.
Do you have a battle you need to win?
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