Gideon, Who Lacked the Character of a Judge

9That same night, Yahweh said to him, “Arise, go down into the camp; for I have delivered it into your hand. 10But if you are afraid to go down, go with Purah your servant down to the camp. 11You will hear what they say; and afterward your hands will be strengthened to go down into the camp.” Then went he down with Purah his servant to the outermost part of the armed men who were in the camp. 12The Midianites and the Amalekites and all the children of the east lay along in the valley like locusts for multitude; and their camels were without number, as the sand which is on the seashore for multitude. 13When Gideon had come, behold, there was a man telling a dream to his fellow. He said, “Behold, I dreamed a dream; and behold, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian, and came to the tent, and struck it so that it fell, and turned it upside down, so that the tent lay flat.” 14His fellow answered, “This is nothing other than the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel. God has delivered Midian into his hand, with all the army.” 15It was so, when Gideon heard the telling of the dream, and its interpretation, that he worshiped. Then he returned into the camp of Israel, and said, “Arise; for Yahweh has delivered the army of Midian into your hand!” 16He divided the three hundred men into three companies, and he put into the hands of all them trumpets, and empty pitchers, with torches within the pitchers.

People have all kinds of character. Character is formed as words and actions become habits and then harden. However favorable the circumstances, however many chances to change one’s disposition come along, a character that has once set rarely changes. The older we are, the harder it is to change; yet if we make up our minds and work at it, change is entirely possible. Worldly knowledge and experience make the human heart as hard as stone, and since we use that experience to approve of ourselves, the mold becomes all the harder to break. A heart seared like this cannot receive what is good as good, and because it lacks sound knowledge, it has little power to judge rightly.

A character that cannot receive what is good is the nature we are born with. So it is by how far we lay ourselves down and strive to be born again that we can become good instruments in God’s hands.

One thing I have learned in pastoral ministry is that faith, too, is heavily shaped by a person’s character. People who will not give way, who are stubborn and complain over small things, practice their faith the same way: they will not sacrifice themselves, they expect to be waited on, and they will not bend. By contrast, I see those who love to give and are not ashamed to humble themselves serving others with a humble faith and devoting themselves. When wise people come to know the truth, they throw away all the knowledge, righteousness, and stubbornness they have held until then, turn from the road they were on, and come to true faith. Your character and your life are bound up with your faith, so only when you strive to live rightly will your walk with God become holy as well.

Judges 6:38-39

38It was so; for he rose up early on the next day, and pressed the fleece together, and wrung the dew out of the fleece, a bowl full of water. 39Gideon said to God, “Don’t let your anger be kindled against me, and I will speak but this once. Please let me make a trial just this once with the fleece. Let it now be dry only on the fleece, and on all the ground let there be dew.”

When I saw Gideon threshing wheat in a winepress for fear of the Midianites, my heart went out to him; how hard life must have been. When he pleaded that if Yahweh had been with them they would not be suffering like this, I even thought that after all he had been through, he could be forgiven a little complaining. When God told him to cut down Baal’s altar and the Asherah, and I heard him say he would acknowledge God if God accepted his offering, I wondered how he could behave like that, yet I told myself that he was weak and such things happen. But when I saw him, after meeting the God who had accepted his offering, afraid that he would die, I began to doubt whether he could keep the faith as a judge to the end. Gideon would not trust to the end the Yahweh who had spared his life; he lacked the character to be raised up as a judge.

God poured out his Spirit on Gideon and prepared everything so that his brothers in the faith could help him go to war. The Israelites waiting to march out probably took comfort at the sight of a judge whom God had raised up. But at this very moment Gideon tested God yet again, asking him to pass two more tests if he truly meant to make Gideon judge. At such a point, raising up someone else seems likely to have freed Israel sooner, yet God granted his request once more. When Gideon brought a fleece and asked God to make the dew fall only on the fleece while the ground stayed dry, God answered exactly so. When he next asked that the fleece be dry and only the ground be wet with dew, God answered this time as well.

By now, through several experiences, Gideon knows that God is the living God. Yet even now he cannot shake off his doubting nature, and it leads him to do something no one must ever do to God. Gideon’s other name is Jerubbaal, which means “contend with Baal” or “stand against Baal.” What he is doing to God now hardly seems as wise as his name.

He led his men toward the north of the spring of Harod. Gideon and his men were all in high spirits when God suddenly told Gideon that he had too many men and must send them home. The reason was that God intended the people of Israel to experience through this war that he is alive, and to teach them that he alone is their King. If Gideon went with a large army and won, they would think they had won by their own strength. And if after the victory they did not grasp God’s grace, they would not change, nor would they live as God’s people.

Up to this point Gideon was still full of faith, so he told the men that anyone who wanted to go home could leave. Of the 32,000, 22,000 went back and 10,000 remained, but God said that even 10,000 was too many. He told Gideon to bring them all down to the water, make them drink, and choose the men by the way they drank. Those who scooped up water in their hands and lapped it a little at a time, as a dog laps, were to be set apart from those who knelt down and bent over to drink. Three hundred lifted the water to their mouths with their hands and lapped it; all the rest knelt down to drink. Just looking at these two ways of drinking, you can probably tell what kind of temperament each group had. The 9,700 and the 300 would have looked at one another and assumed that the larger company would go into battle, since that is the yardstick every human being judges by.

But against all expectations, God kept only the 300 and sent everyone else home. The enemy was preparing for war with powerful weapons and hundreds of thousands of soldiers, and Israel was left with 300. When we see that God kept only 300, we learn that war is not waged with numbers and weapons. The judges so far had been a left-handed man whom people scorned, a man who faced the Philistines with an ox goad, and Deborah, a frail woman, who defended Israel. These judges knew how insufficient they were, and so they had a faith that looked to God alone and the good character of those who obey.

Now the task given to Gideon was to save Israel with 300 men. When the multitude of soldiers who had been his strength and courage went home and only 300 were left, what was in Gideon’s heart? Did he trust God’s hand, as left-handed Ehud did when he killed the king of Moab? Did he think, like Shamgar, who faced the dreaded Philistines with nothing but an ox goad, that he could do it because God was with him? Was he as bold as Deborah, who as a woman led an army into battle?

If you think about how Gideon has behaved so far, you will find the answer. A person’s character does not change easily, and unless Gideon lays himself down, his final choice will be the same as everything he has done up to now.

Judges 7:9-11

9That same night, Yahweh said to him, “Arise, go down into the camp; for I have delivered it into your hand. 10But if you are afraid to go down, go with Purah your servant down to the camp. 11You will hear what they say; and afterward your hands will be strengthened to go down into the camp.” Then went he down with Purah his servant to the outermost part of the armed men who were in the camp.

Gideon had been called as a judge. He ought to have believed that God certainly had a reason for leaving only 300, and in that faith he should have put courage into the men who remained.

But Gideon did not change. Rather than obey the command, he acted on his feelings; he was a man who tested God until God’s will made sense to him and he felt sure. Gideon never trusted God from the heart.

God knew that a Gideon like this would not head for the battlefield with 300 men. Friends, in the world we need the wisdom of serpents, so we understand before we move and are sure before we act. But since God always tells his people beforehand what is going to happen, if you wait to act until you are sure, it is already too late.

Gideon now knows who God is, and he knows that war is won not by his own strength but by God’s grace. Even so, he did not trust God. With a character like this, he doubts God, fears Midian, and complains that no one can fight a war with 300 men. He would have grumbled that if the 30,000 had not been sent home they would at least have been some help, and he would have blamed God, insisting that with 300 men he could never win. Character, once hardened like this, does not change.

With the battle set for the next day, God came to Gideon at night. Joshua and the other judges had never once defied his word, so it is truly remarkable that God came in person to Gideon on the eve of battle. He told Gideon that although he had promised to deliver the enemy into his hand, since Gideon was doubting and afraid, he should get up and go down to the Midianite camp. And if he was afraid even to go alone, he should take his servant and listen to what they were saying.

God is now working in a way that suits Gideon’s character. Yet his doing so is by no means a blessing. For only when we follow wherever he leads and obey, as Joshua did, even when we do not understand, can we experience God’s wonderful works and miracles. Suppose you want to buy your child some pretty clothes and suggest going to the department store. If the child cries, asks why they have to go, and refuses, you cannot buy the clothes. Had they come along when you asked, they would have had lovely clothes; instead they doubted and went without.

Why does God not cast Gideon aside and raise up someone else? When he could simply act himself with his angels, why does he go so far as to coax Gideon along and help him? It is exasperating. Why do you think God goes to such lengths? It is because of his love for Israel.

As God had told him, Gideon went down that night into the enemy camp, where the Midianites, the Amalekites, and all the children of the east lay sleeping. When Gideon looked at the enemy, the text says, they were like locusts and seemed as many as the sand on the seashore. He had only 300 men, and the enemy were as countless as the sand; Gideon must have been afraid at the sight. Yet if he had remembered the miracles God had shown him so far, he ought rather to have given thanks as he looked out on so vast a host.

You too will have experienced God’s grace. So when trials come, you will think less of your fear than of what you are to learn through them, and you will look forward to the fruit that will remain once the trial has passed. Trials are certainly frightening and hard to bear, but the trials we meet before we know God and those we meet knowing him are not the same. God is going ahead of you and already dealing with the problem, so all you need to do is obey in faith. But if you keep doubting and complaining, asking how God could do what even you cannot, the trial will not end. God knew Gideon’s nature: that he did not wholly rely on God, that he was full of doubt, that he feared those who held power in the world. That is why he kept resolving Gideon’s doubts to the end.

God had told Gideon that when he reached the enemy camp some men would be talking, and that he should listen carefully. When Gideon and his servant arrived, some men began telling about a dream, as though they wanted Gideon to come and hear it. This is the answer of God, who works without the slightest error. If you truly rely on God, he will, wonderfully, cause you to meet those who will help you, make you hear the words you need, cause you to receive what you longed for, and even bring about your deliverance through your enemies.

One man said that in his dream a loaf of barley bread had tumbled into the Midianite camp, struck the tent, and knocked it down. His friend, hearing the dream, said it was the sword of Gideon son of Joash, a man of Israel: God had delivered Midian and all its camp into his hand. When you hear what they said, how do you see this situation? If we told the people of the world about it and said they ought to believe in God, they would scoff.

God had told Gideon there would be two men talking, and when he went to the enemy camp, God made him hear the enemy really talking about a dream and saying they would be defeated by Gideon. Only then did Gideon worship God, and he told the three hundred to arise, for Yahweh had delivered Midian and all its camp into their hand.

It strikes me that Gideon’s faith was not a broad river always flowing full, but more like a spring from which you must gather water a little at a time to quench your thirst. But because the 300 saw only this Gideon, full of faith, they would have admired his faith and followed him. I imagine they told one another that a judge truly was different, and marveled that he could have such faith with hundreds of thousands of enemies before him.

But you know the relationship between God and Gideon. What goes through your mind as you watch him now, so full of faith? Gideon moved only when he had been shown and followed only when he had been told, and God, watching him, must have grieved that he could not hold on to that fullness for long.

Having heard the dream, Gideon made his decision, just as God had expected.

Judges 7:20

20The three companies blew the trumpets, broke the pitchers, and held the torches in their left hands, and the trumpets in their right hands with which to blow; and they shouted, “The sword of Yahweh and of Gideon!”

Full of faith, Gideon and the 300 went forward with trumpets, pitchers, and torches. Advancing on the sleeping camp, the 300 smashed their pitchers, raised their torches high, and blew their trumpets. When they shouted with all their strength, “The sword of Yahweh and of Gideon!” an astonishing sight unfolded before their eyes. Startled by the sound of the pitchers shattering and by the blaze of the torches, the enemy began striking one another with the sword and fleeing. There can hardly be a more absurd plan of battle than this one, since it defies belief that 150,000 soldiers should be so startled by breaking pitchers and by torches carried by 300 men that they stabbed their own comrades. But it was possible because God was at the center of this battle.

A scientist once asked whether we really believe that human beings came from the dust of the ground. They went on to say that if you give soil to a child, the child makes a little sand house; give it to someone with a bit more knowledge and wisdom, and they make pottery. Give it to someone with still more knowledge and wisdom, and they make semiconductors, because soil, sand, and stone are the main raw materials of the silicates that make up a semiconductor. Hearing this, I thought it a wonderful analogy. If even human beings make different things according to their knowledge and wisdom, it is entirely possible for the almighty God, the Creator, to decide the outcome of a battle as he pleases.

Gideon put the torches inside the pitchers and approached the enemy camp. When they blew the trumpets loudly and smashed the pitchers, the torches blazed out, and the enemy fled in terror. In the hearts of those who believe in God there is a torch received from Christ. It may not show outwardly because of our character and temperament and our own righteousness, but every one of us carries the torch of the gospel.

God has told you to lift that torch high. To do that, you must break the pitcher that hides it. Whatever life you have lived, whatever knowledge, character, or temperament you have, you must now break your outer shell, so that you may blow the trumpet louder and lift the light of Christ higher. Those who cannot break themselves are no example to anyone, even when they sound the trumpet of the gospel. Their outward life is dark, and people will not listen to a believer who does not live as an example. However hard and painful it is to break that shell, break it boldly. Then God will make you lift your torch high, and he will cause the world to see how deeply you are loved. The world is darkness. If you hide your torch while living in so dark a world, even you will not be able to go forward.

If you trust God and boldly smash your pitcher, the sound of your trumpet will make Satan afraid, and Satan, who loves the darkness, will not be able to shake your life. They were only 300 men, but God had prepared for them the instruments of victory: trumpets, pitchers, and torches. You already have the power to defeat Satan. Go forward boldly, confident that you can overcome this dark world.

Gideon had tested God again and again to come this far, yet God made him glorious by making the people cry, “For Yahweh and for Gideon!” Through the service of Gideon and the 300, a great victory was won. Now all Gideon had to do was obey God with true faith; but because he did not change his character, he could not keep this blessing. While God is with us, we must strive to discern his will and obey it. Then God fills his obedient children with his power and wisdom and helps them live lives they need not be ashamed of.

May you not doubt as Gideon did, but trust that God will work for you, and live with an honest faith.