Gideon—The Reluctant Warrior

Judges 6 and 7 

Together over the past few weeks we have been looking at men and women from the Bible who exhibited trust in God.  Abraham trusted in God to keep His promises even when he did understand how the things God promised were possible.  Noah acted upon his faith in God by building the ark, in doing so he preserved the race of man.  Hannah made a vow to God and after her prayer was answered she remembered and kept her vow.  This week let us consider Gideon who delivered God’s people from the oppression of Midian.  Please take the time to read about Gideon from the book of Judges.

When we first meet Gideon he is beating out wheat in a wine press.  Gideon was hiding what he was doing from the Midianites because the Midianites and the Amalekites had come up to “destroy the produce of the earth…and leave no sustenance in Israel as well as no sheep, ox, or donkey.”  In fact, things had gotten so bad for Israel that they “made for themselves dens which were in the mountains and the caves and the strongholds.”  The Bible tells us that this oppression came about because Israel had not obeyed God.

While Gideon was beating out the wheat the angel of the Lord appeared to him and gave him God’s command to “Go in this your strength and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian.”  Because he did not consider himself able to accomplish this great task Gideon asked for conformation through a series of signs.  First he requested a sign that the messenger was truly from God and later he asked for a sign that God would actually deliver Israel by his hand.  Of course we remember that that God confirmed his word to Gideon by the requested signs.

Now it would have been amazing enough if Gideon had taken all the men of Israel (the Bible tells us there were 32,000) and defeated the Midianites whose number was so great the Bible says they were as sands on the seashore.  But God had Gideon choose out only 300 men to go against the great host of Midian.  Through the power of God those 300 men won a great victory and were then able to enlist the help of their countrymen and drive out the enemy altogether.

Gideon doubted his ability to lead saying, “How shall I deliver Israel?  Behold, my family is the least in Manasseh, and I am the youngest in my father’s house.”  But he learned to put his trust in God.  Gideon did what no military leader would even consider and sent home all but a small fraction of his army simply because God said to.  And, because of Gideon’s trust, Israel was victorious. 

In the love Christ,

Thomas Sneed

Pond Church of Christ