Testing: God’s Refining Process
Judges 2021 Lesson #65
July 19, 2022
Dr. Robert L. Dean, Jr.
www. deanbibleministries.org

Opening Prayer

“Father we are so thankful we can come together and come to Your throne of grace and know that we have our Lord Jesus Christ who is our High Priest and our Intercessor and that God the Holy Spirit as well is interceding for us and cleaning up our prayers. So often we don’t know exactly how to pray. Father, we do pray for several in the congregation and extended congregation who are dealing with serious health problems; some have covid; some have other serious problems; some have cancer. We pray that you would give their doctors wisdom, and we pray that you would give them great opportunities to share the gospel and their faith and trust in Your plan for their life during this time of illness.

“And Father we also pray for Vacation Bible School this week, and we pray for the clarity of the gospel and we’re just so thankful for so many of the those who are volunteering to help out and so many of the of the workers, and we pray that you would give them great wisdom in talking to the kids and presenting the gospel. Same thing for the staff at Camp Areté, keep them safe. Watch over them. Give them wisdom as they talk to the campers up there and also to one another. And we pray for Jeff as he oversees and directs the whole operation. So Father, we put them in Your hands.

“And Father, we pray that You will help us as we focus on Your Word this evening that we might be strengthened and encouraged. And we pray this in Christ’s name. Amen.”

Slide 3

Tonight, we’re going to focus on how God is refining Israel while He’s refining the army that’s going to deal with the Midianites, but He’s also going to be refining the army as well as refining Gideon. And Gideon’s a mixed bag. This is always a great story to tell kids. I remember hearing this many times around the campfire when I was growing up at Camp Peniel, and I just loved the story. But rarely does anyone ever put the story of the victory over the Midianites into context, which is that it is in a spiritual sense a pyric victory because this means that it’s a victory that comes at great cost.

And the cost is that even though Gideon learns to trust God, he doesn’t trust Him for long. So as we have seen in Judges, this is the story about how a nation, how a culture becomes paganized, how their culture gets perverted.

We have to understand that culture—and culture isn’t talking about what is often referred to as high culture art, music, opera, symphony, things like that—culture is everything that people do, how they relate to each other, and that would involve politics, how they look at morality. All of that is really the result of their values. And where do they get their values? How do they know their values?

And so, as we’ve seen, and if you remember the chart I’ve used with the iceberg, that what we see in terms of behavior is the only part of the iceberg that we see that’s above the surface; the rest of it is below the surface. What supports everything is how people view God. And from that, it leads to their knowledge. How do they know their values? And what are their values? And if they don’t have the Judeo-Christian God, and if they don’t understand the Bible in a literal, historical, grammatical way, then it is going to affect their sense of right and wrong, their ethical values, their moral values.

When you take God out of the picture, and you take the Bible out of the picture, then you don’t have a basis for right and wrong. And you eventually have to say, well, who determines what’s right and wrong? The worst thing possible—well, both extremes are worst, but one of the worst—is that everybody decides what’s right in their own eyes, and that’s what’s going on in Israel at this time, and that’s what’s going on here. When everybody does what’s right in their own eyes, then you have a complete breakdown of ethical order. When you have a breakdown of ethical order, you’re going to have a complete breakdown of the culture. You’re going to have a complete breakdown of politics, relationships, and it’s going to be an earthquake that is going to send tsunamis through every institution, every one of the divine institutions of personal responsibility, marriage, family, government, nations, and Israel. It’s a cycle. You reject all those things.

If you watch what’s going on today, there is a war in our country against the divine institutions. The more they’re destroyed, the more there is an attack, and the more there’s an attack, the more they’re destroyed. It’s just this cycle that’s going on. And ultimately, the only thing that breaks it is going to be a return to God, a return to biblical truth and biblical values, because there is no other foundation for life, for personal life, for a nation. Many people are pointing that out right now.

In just the last few days, I’ve run across a number of quotes from Founding Fathers who said, that basically the Constitution is designed for a moral people. If people aren’t moral, they’re not responsible. And if they’re not responsible, then a government that is based on the involvement of people in the governing process is going to collapse. That’s where we are, except for a number of mostly conservatives who get their values from the Bible. This is so important for us to be involved and pray.

That’s why hosting some of these events is not me or the church saying, “These are the people you have to vote for.” It’s not us saying that this is the ultimate solution, but it’s part of the immediate solution to be informed, to know what’s happening, and to try to choose leaders that are getting their values from the Scripture. That doesn’t mean they’re always going to be Christians. That doesn’t mean they’re always going to be Christians that we might agree with, but that ultimately, they’re getting their values out of a Judeo-Christian worldview. That was true about the Founding Fathers. Not all of them were necessarily regenerated believers. Not all of the early presidents that we had were believers.

I was reading about Andrew Jackson recently. He was a believer, and he said some very positive things about the Word of God, but he was not saved until after he was president. He was saved very late in life. And that made a huge difference because he didn’t have that foundation earlier in his life. So it really depends upon learning the Word of God. And even when people know the Word of God, they fail and sometimes fail miserably, but they have success in some areas.

Slide 4

That’s what we see referenced in Hebrews 11:32–34, where Gideon is mentioned. We read this; the writer of Hebrews says: “What more shall I say?”—He’s already talked about Cain and Abel; he has talked about Noah and Abraham and Isaac, and now he just summarizes through other Old Testament spiritual heroes. And they weren’t spiritual heroes their whole life; they had one time, as we really see this with Gideon, it’s just this episode where he rises to the top at a critical moment and then he lays the seed for self-destruction and the further division and collapse of the nation.

So the lesson there is we trust in God but we can’t put our ultimate hope in man. So we read in Hebrews 11:32–34 “And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah.” Now we’ve talked about Barak already and seen that he was spiritually weak, but we haven’t gotten to Jephthah or Samson. They do some pretty horrible things, but they do trust God at a good point. And we learn that they’re summarized in Hebrews 11:33, “who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions,—that, of course, would be Daniel. Daniel’s not even mentioned in that list; he’s just part of the prophets—quench the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword—that would apply to Gideon and as well as some others—out of weakness were made strong—that would apply to Gideon as well—became valiant in battle, turned to fight the armies of the aliens.”

This is the result in Gideon, in Samson, in Jephthah, not Barak, but in three of those four, they all had some sort of empowerment by God the Holy Spirit. And we went through a study of that showing that this was not in relation to their spiritual life.

It didn’t make them spiritual in the way that we have it in the New Testament where we’re indwelled by God the Holy Spirit, filled by God the Holy Spirit, baptized by the Spirit. None of that was going on. This is all related to the theocratic kingdom. The theocratic kingdom is the Jewish kingdom that was established by the Mosaic Law that was a theocracy, and so it’s referred to as the theocratic kingdom because it’s a theocracy where God is the ultimate ruler in the Mosaic Law.

Slide 5

So we saw in Judges 6:34 that “the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon;” and immediately the first consequence of that is that he blows the shofar, and he gathers his clan around him. So I want you to just observe here that with the initial call to arms that it’s the clan of the Abiezrites who are part of his family they gather behind him.

Slide 6

Another couple of verses to be reminded of are in Psalm 56:4 and 11. Psalm 56:4, “In God (will praise His Word) in God, I have put my trust; I will not fear. What can flesh do to me?” And we saw last time that a big problem in this army is that because of the lack of values, because of their relativism, because every man was doing what’s right in their own eyes, they easily succumb to fear. They had nothing that stabilized their emotions. So in Psalm 56:4 and 11, we have two promises that are very important for helping us in times of crisis. [Psalm 56:11] “In God I have put my trust; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?”

Slide 7

And of course, Zechariah 4:6, we looked at last time, “Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts.” So, as believers, we have to walk by the Spirit, we have to abide in Christ, and we have an empowerment and an enablement by the Holy Spirit that is distinctive for this Church Age.

Slide 8

So we looked at the setting also last time [Judges 7:1] that “Jerubbaal, (that is, Gideon) and all the people who were with him rose early and encamped beside the well of Harod, so that the camp of the Midianites was on the north side of them by the hill of Moreh in the valley.” It’s important to realize Scripture, especially in the historical books, is grounded on space-time history.

You can go to these places. That’s why I like to show you the pictures because you can look at religious literature from any religion and they talk about places and events and people that never lived. There’s no historical, geographical, archaeological evidence of the claims that are made, but the Bible is grounded in history. We may not be able to find a mention outside of the Bible of Abraham, but everything that is said in the Bible about Abraham and his time period, archaeology has demonstrated, is exactly accurate to that time period the late 2^nd millennium, or actually the late 3^rd millennium BC, between 2100 BC and 2000 BC when Abraham lived, that that reflects the culture that we know at that time.

Slide 10

So we looked at Gideon, and Gideon is going to take his army, and they go to the Well of Harod, which sort of foreshadows some of the issues because the word ḥārod, which is the name for the well, comes from the Hebrew verb ḥārad, which means to quake, to move in fear, to tremble, and it emphasizes the fear that is still present in Gideon. He’s got levels of anxiety, but also the people because there’s going to be the first test; the, first refining test that God brings is going to remove those who are fearful, those who are anxious, and they’re going to be the ones who are sent home. Don’t you think it made Gideon’s heart fall when he saw 10,000 people pack their bags and leave? And then God said, well, you still have too many.

Slide 11

Now, the other interesting thing I wanted to point out here is that we’re told that he has the Abiezrites with him. That’s part of the group of people who were with him. But we’re also told in Judges 6:35 that he had sent messengers to the tribes of Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali.

Slide 12

These are tribes that had their land allotment on the west side of the Jordan River, the area covering the Jezreel Valley, the area north, the area along the Mediterranean coast, up to the area around the Sea of Galilee. All of that was allotted to these tribes. So, he’s not going south to Judah and to Benjamin and to the tribes furthest away. He is sticking with those who are right in the general vicinity. The Midianites have encamped in the Valley of Jezreel.

Slide 13

So here’s our map. I showed you this last time. The Jezreel Valley runs from northwest to southeast, and it’s along the Kishon River that was more of a river then. Now it’s an intermittent stream because so much water is being taken off for the purpose of irrigation.

Slide 14

Here is another topographical view that shows up really well. This is the Jezreel Valley. It shows where the Kishon River runs. This is the area of action. Here is Ein Harod. That is Hebrew for the Spring of Harod. This is located right here. It’s near, just south of Hill Amor. The text said that the Midianites were north of them, so they’re going to camp right down here. This is a vast opening here where a lot of history in the Old Testament took place.

Slide 15

I also showed you this map as well. And again ,you see Moreh is north of Harod Springs.

Slide 16

Now God’s plan was to make it clear to Gideon that Gideon wasn’t winning the battle, that God was going to win the battle. There are warnings in Deuteronomy to the Israelites that they need to be careful not to succumb to pride and think that they are the ones who have the victory. It is only God who has the victory.

Slide 17

So the Lord directs Gideon, and He’s going to make sure that they can’t take any credit. As we pointed out last time, [Judges 17:2] “And the Lord said to Gideon, ‘The people who are with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel claim glory for itself against me, saying, “My own hand has saved me.” ’ ” So he’s going to remove anything that would make it appear as if this was accomplished on their own.

Slide 18

I pointed out the ratio here that initially Midian had 135,000 according to the eighth chapter; Gideon had 32,000. That works out to be about 4 to 1, which are tough odds, but somebody with a small army that’s outnumbered 4 to 1 can easily win still. So God is going to make sure that it’s going to be a little more difficult.

Slide 19

The first thing He does is He has anyone who’s fearful—and you’re sort of surprised Gideon doesn’t leave—anyone fearful can go home. So 10,000 leave and this changes the odds to 13.5 to 1.

Slide 20

But God says it’s still too many, so He’s going to come up with another test, and that’s what we’re going to be looking at in just a minute. This test will reduce the number to 300, so the odds now are going to be 450 to one. And God says, well, that’s pretty good. That’s in My favor, because God plus one is a majority. We have to remember that whenever we’re faced with any kind of challenge in life.

Slide 21

So God gives the analysis here of what the problem is. It’s arrogance on the part of Israel. And He’s not going to allow them the opportunity to claim the victory on their own.

Slide 22

Second, we saw that God knows that Gideon and many of the men with him are trembling in fear. So the first thing is they’re not trusting Him, because as we saw last time, fear and faith are mutually exclusive.

Slide 23

God is going to make sure that those who can’t trust Him are going to be excluded. So in Judges 7:3 God says, “Whoever is fearful and afraid, let him turn and depart at once from Mount Gilead. And twenty-two thousand of the people returned and ten thousand remained.” So He gets rid of the fearful. They’re left with the 22,000, but that’s still too many.

Slide 24

The problem is fear and trembling. And then the second test is to thin them out some more.

Slide 25

God said, [Judges 7:4] “The people are still too many; bring them down to the water, and I will test them there.”

Slide 26

Now that’s a very important word there. This is the Hebrew word tzaraf, and it doesn’t mean to test. There are other words for testing that are sometimes used as a synonym for this word. This is a technical, metallurgical word for refining metal ore. God refines His people. When you’re refining metal, you are putting it into a furnace to smelt it, and that burns off the impurities. So, God uses this as a metaphor that He takes us through tests and trials in order to teach us to rely upon him and to burn off the impurities of sinful reliance upon self.

He says, [Judges 7:4] “The people are still too many; bring them down to the water, and I will refine them for you there.” So He’s got to refine the army and get rid of the dross, the excess, that which is not needed, and so He is going to refine them.

He says, [Judges 7:4b] “Then it will be that of whom I say to you, this one shall go with you, the same shall go with you. And of whomever I say to you, this one shall not go with you, the same shall not go.” Judges 7:5, “So he [Gideon] brought the people down to the water. And the Lord said to Gideon, ‘Everyone who laps from the water with his tongue as a dog laps, you shall set apart by himself; likewise, everyone who gets down on their knees to drink.’ ”

I’ve seen some and read some things where some commentators are trying to figure out how they would do this. It’s pretty simple, that if you have had any experience in the outdoors and you’re walking along a stream and you want to get a drink of water, you can just reach down with your hand and scoop up some water and drink the water out of your hand. And you’re still focused on where you’re going and you’re still moving, you’re still moving forward. That’s lapping up the water as a dog laps. It becomes clear in the next couple of verses that only 300 do that, and it’s the 300 who lap like a dog who are going to be the ones who go into battle.

Slide 27

When we look at this word tzaraf, it’s used a number of interesting ways in the Old Testament. It’s used in Isaiah 1:25 with this metaphorical usage applied to the spiritual life of Israel when they were in rebellion. Isaiah 1 is basically an indictment of the nation. Isaiah chapter 1 is not in chronological order. Isaiah 6 is before Isaiah 1, but Isaiah 6 comes as sort of a flashback following Isaiah 1 through 5, which lays out the indictment for their idolatry. God says, [Isaiah 1:25] “I will turn My hand against you, and thoroughly purge away your dross, and take away all of your alloy.” I’ll refine away your dross. I’ll burn it away.

Jeremiah 9:7, “Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts: ‘Behold, I will refine them and try them; For how shall I deal with the daughter of My people?’ ” God is going to refine, just as He would refine Israel to deal with the sin in their life, He’s going to do the same thing with us. But this also has an eschatological meaning. It refers to the future and what God will do with Israel in the end of the Tribulation period. This refers to the time period around the campaign of Armageddon. Zechariah 13:9, “I will bring the one-third through the fire.”

So there’s been some misrepresentations of this in the Jewish community that Christians just want Jesus to come back because two-thirds of the Jews are going to be killed when Jesus comes back. That’s how they represent it. But see, this is an Old Testament passage. And, you know, it’s interesting. I’ve had a couple people mention this to me or ask me questions about this. I say, “Well, this is a Jewish prophecy in Zechariah. This isn’t something that Christians came up with. This is in Zechariah, and it’s talking about the end times when the Messiah comes that God is going to refine the people then just as He did in Isaiah and in Jeremiah. God is going to bring this kind of judgment on the Jewish people.”

There have been some Christians who have had some harsh things said about them because they’ve made the point that it was through the Holocaust that God was able to cause a lot of Jews in Europe and America to turn to look at the Middle East and go home to Israel, and that God used the Holocaust to bring His people home. They say, “That’s terrible. How can you justify the Holocaust that way?”

It’s not a justification. You go back to the Old Testament. God did lots of things like that to Israel to purify them and to get them to look to Him and trust Him and to eventually do His will. More often, God had to use the stick rather than the carrot. This is seen again and again in the Books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles.

Slide 28

So in Zechariah 13:9, God says, “I will bring the one-third—this is the remnant; these are those who have trusted in the Messiah, that is, Jesus, who is the Jewish Messiah; I will bring the one-third through the fire, will refine them as silver is refined.” They will be purified in the fires of the Tribulation. There are fires in the Tribulation to some degree in some of the judgments, but this is a term that is used metaphorically throughout the prophets, that there is a refiner’s fire from God that purifies the land at the end of the Tribulation. That’s a reference to the campaign of Armageddon.

God says, [Zechariah 13:9b] “I will test them as gold is tested.” The word for refine is our word tzaraf. The word for testing is another word, but it refers to testing. It says, [Zechariah 13:9c] “They will call on my name.” We’ve studied this. This is when they are down in the area of Jordan, across the Jordan, where those who listen to Jesus as the Messiah said when he saw these signs, that is the abomination of desolation, you will flee to the mountains. So they will flee to that area of Basra and that area around Petra on the east side of the Jordan River.

Here Zechariah says, they will call on My name. This is when Jesus will return when a third of the Jews, these Jews that are across the river, when they call upon His name. That’s what He says at the end of Matthew 23. They’ll call on My name, and I will answer them and I will say, this is My people. And each one will say, Yahweh is my God.

Malachi 3:2 references the same thing. It says, “But who can endure the day of His coming?—that’s the coming of the Messiah at the end of Daniel’s 70^th week—And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire.” Notice it’s a simile, not a metaphor here. It’s a stated comparison. “He is like a refiner’s fire.” That’s the word we have here, tzaraf. So it’s testing, it’s purifying, and that’s what God is doing is He’s purifying Gideon’s army and getting rid of those who would be a distraction, so that He gets it down to that point where it’s going to be clear that God is the One who gives them victory.

Slide 29

We’re told in Judges 7:6, “And the number of those who lapped, putting their hand to their mouth, was 300 men. But all the rest of the people got down on their knees to drink water.” You get down on your knees, your focus is off of your objective, you’re taking your time. If you’re focused, you’re lapping up the water, you’re prepared. So these 300 are the ones who God is going to choose to use against the Midianites.

Judges 7:7, “Then the Lord said to Gideon, ‘By the three hundred men who lapped—so it’s very clear the three hundred are those who lapped, the others are the ones who knelt. He says, ‘By the three hundred—I will save you.’ This isn’t soteriological salvation; this is just deliverance. It’s unfortunate that in so many places in the Old Testament the word for save, yashah, is translated saved instead of deliver because saved always gives people the idea of personal salvation and justification. God says—‘by the three hundred I will deliver you, and deliver the Midianites into your hand. Let all the people go, every man to his place.”

Now it looks like that means to go home but I’ll show you in just a minute that it doesn’t mean to go home; it means just to go back to their tents and not go into the battle. Judges 7:8: “So the people took provisions and their trumpets in their hands. And he sent away all the rest of Israel, every man to his tent, and retained those three hundred men. Now the camp of Midian was below him in the valley.”

Slide 30

So, here’s this great aerial photograph showing the main mountains. You’re not quite at Mount Carmel here, but you’re close looking across the Valley of Esdraelon, the Valley of Jezreel, the Valley of Armageddon. You’ve got Mount Tabor here, Mount Tabor. You’ve got the Hill of Moreh. This is the area where the Midianites were camped. And then you see a flat level valley and then Mount Gilboa.

Slide 31

I showed you two other pictures last time, but I’ve tried to combine them this time so that you could see them together. You see Mount Tabor. This is where Deborah and Barak gathered their troops to fight the Canaanites. Then you have the Hill of Moreh in the middle, which is where you have the Midianites. And then across this valley you have Endor, which is located out here and several other important Old Testament towns and settlements, Jezreel are located out here. Over here is Mount Gilboa. This is where Saul is going to be defeated by the Philistines. But right down in this area is Harod Springs.

Slide 32

Here’s a good aerial photo to show you what that looks like. There’s a lot of greenery here, a lot of trees because you have this spring that is feeding into the area, feeding into the Kishon River. And then this is the Tel Jezreel, which I mentioned a minute ago.

Slide 33

But here you have a picture that was taken somewhere between 1920 and 1933. This is about 100 years ago. This is what the valley looked like. You’re looking across the Jezreel Valley to the Hill of Moreh. On the far right you have Gilboa.

Slide 34

This is another picture of just an aerial. You’re looking right down in this area is where the cave is, where the spring comes out. You see there’s a swimming pool here and they have various other things. going on here. This is the kibbutz at Ein Harod. This is a very important location because just across the highway, which would be off to my left, there’s a kibbutz. At that kibbutz, you have the headquarters of Major General Orde Wingate. He was a British general. At the time, he was a colonel, and he taught night fighting to a lot of the Jewish fighters. They were being attacked at night. This was back in the 1930s. They were being attacked at night by the Arabs. And they wouldn’t go out and fight at night. So these were men like Moshe Dayan and others. So he studied Gideon and decided that because Gideon went out at night and fought, they should too. They’re right there at this same site.

Slide 35

This is the spring, the dark place right here. That’s the opening to the spring. Now there’s not a lot of water there because so much of it is used in irrigation.

Slides 36 and 37

This is what it looked like 100 years ago. This photo here was probably taken in the late 1800s or early 1900s. That’s over 100 years ago. There’s just a tremendous amount of water that was there, which you can see in those photos. But right now, not so much.

Slide 38

This is what it looks like now.

Slide 39

That’s the picture on the right. But the picture on the left is a little over 100 years ago.

Slides 40 and 41

So, there was a tremendous amount of water here flowing into the Kishon River, and this is where they could easily get distracted by all of the water. Instead of lapping it up, they were kneeling down and drinking their fill.

Slide 42

This is a picture of your IDF soldiers who are reenacting Gideon’s men at this particular time.

Slide 43

We come to Judges 7:6, “And the number of those who lapped … was three hundred men.” God promises that it’s going to be by these 300. And He sends everyone else to their place which is defined in verse 8 as his tent. So that tells you they’re not going home, they’re going just to their tent. So they’re still in the geographical area of the battle.

Slide 44

They take their provisions, and this is the word tzedah, which is a Hebrew word for food. So they’re taking their provisions and their trumpets in their hands, and these are the 300. And what’s missing from that? They’re taking their food, and they’re taking their trumpets, their shofar. What’s missing? Well, where’s their Tavor rifle? Where’s their M16 or M3? Where are their swords? Where are their shields? Where are their slings? None of those are mentioned. They have just at this point, it’s just their food and their shofars. And they’re preparing to go against Midian.

Slide 45

So in Judges 7:9 we read, “It happened on the same night that the Lord said to him …” Now this is an interesting little interlude because what you expect after reading Judges 7:8 is you expect to go right into the story of the attack, which doesn’t take place until you get down to Judges 7:16. What is going on here?

Well, what we infer from this is Gideon’s confidence in the Lord still isn’t where it should be. He still has a lot of reservations, and so God is going to give him an interesting shot of confidence here, and it’s going to come from the Midianites themselves. This is a strange and unusual interlude right here. There’s going to be this conversation that Gideon is going to overhear. So God speaks to Gideon in some way.

He says, [Judges 7:9b] “Arise—in other words, get up—go down against the camp for I have delivered it into your hand.” This is at least the fourth time God has promised that He is going to give the victory to Gideon. But as you can see, Gideon has a shaky confidence in the Lord. So, the Lord says, well, if you’re afraid to go down, the Lord recognizes clearly that he’s still doubting and he’s still fearful. He says, [Judges 7:10] “But if you’re afraid to go down, go down to the camp with Purah, your servant.” If you don’t want to go by yourself, then you take your servant with you so you won’t give in to fear.

Listen to what is said in the camp. So you’ve got this huge camp of Midianite, Amalekite, and other soldiers. They are right there at the base of Mount Moreh. And he’s going to go down and sneak up on them and get close enough to where he’s going to hear a conversation between two of the sentries. And God says that he listened to them, [Judges 7:11] “and afterward, your hands will be strengthened.” It’s another way of saying you’re going to have courage; you’re going to have confidence. This is the last time God is giving him a little extra shot of confidence.

This is just the grace of God. We must recognize that God is not being judgmental. He’s not making fun of Gideon and his lack of faith or lack of confidence. Each time God just gives him a little more assurance of the truth of His promise. He meets us where we are. He doesn’t say, okay, you’ve got to grow up a lot before I’m going to deal with you. You’ve got to quit being a little whiny, fearful, anxiety-driven Christian. God treats Gideon in grace.

Gideon wasn’t a Christian, but we are, and that’s what I’m saying. God’s not going to say to you, you’ve got to grow up a little bit, or I’m not going to deal with you. He deals with us in grace. So, He says you’re going to hear, what you hear will give you confidence. It will strengthen you to go down, you shall be strengthened to go down against the camp, which means he’s talking about attacking the camp. So then Gideon goes down with his servant Purah to the outpost of the armed men in the camp. He’s going down to where the sentries are.

Slide 46

Then we’re reminded by the writer of the significance of this and how dangerous this is in Judges 7:12, “Now the Midianites and the Amalekites, all the people of the East, were lying in the valley as numerous as locusts; and their camels were without number, as the sand by the seashore in multitude.” So this is a dangerous situation to Gideon, and he goes down and it’s nighttime, so they’re in the dark and they have to sneak up to the line. As they do, they overhear the conversation between two sentries. And one man is telling a dream that he has to the other one.

Slide 47

He says, [Judges 7:13–14] “ ‘I have had a dream: To my surprise, a loaf of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian; it came to a tent and struck it so that it fell and overturned, and the tent collapsed.’ Then his companion answered and said,—and notice he immediately gives the interpretation—‘This is nothing else but the sword of Gideon, the son of Joash.’ ”

How do you get a loaf of bread being a symbol for a sword or a military attack? There’s a lot of questions about this, but God’s given him the interpretation, but there’s no way you would get it from the loaf of barley bread to the sword of Gideon other than God telling you this is what this means. And he says the bread is [Judges 7:14b] “ ‘the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel! Into his hand God has delivered Midian.’ ”

Now this is two unbelievers, two pagans, two Midianites who are having this conversation. There are a few times in Scripture when God has given a dream to unbelievers. He did it with Pharaoh. He did it with Nebuchadnezzar. He does it with Balaam in Numbers 22 to 24, who’s a Gentile. But very rarely does He communicate to non-Israelites through any kind of vision or oracle. But the dream seems kind of weird. There’s this loaf of bread or a cake of barley bread that tumbles into the Midianites’ camp and smashes a tent so hard it collapses the tent. So it makes us wonder a lot of things about what is really going on here and how this dream can fit the interpretation. But God defines it, so God allows this one to interpret it that way.

So Gideon hears this, and then after the one sentry explains it to the other one, the first one says, “ ‘this is nothing else but the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel! Into his hand God has delivered Midian and the whole camp.’ ” So now God has promised Gideon just prior to this that he’s going to deliver them. Now he hears it in the interpretation of this dream from a Midianite sentry and this is finally going to give him great confidence. Judges 7:15 is the turning point in the whole narrative of chapter 7.

Slide 48

Judges 7:15: “And so it was that when Gideon heard the telling of the dream and its interpretation that he worshipped.” What’s so significant about that? It’s the only time in the whole Book of Judges that anybody worships or is said to worship. So Gideon worshiped the Lord. And this, as we see in places like when Eleazar is sent to find a wife for Isaac, and when he finds Rebekah, he worships and gives thanks to God.

This doesn’t mean that he broke out into a praise chorus; this doesn’t mean that he even sang. It just means that he gave a prayer of thanks to God. And he goes back to the camp of Israel. What does he say? He finally really, really gets it. His faith is strengthened. He has confidence in God and he says, [Judges 7:15b] “Arise for the Lord has delivered the camp of Midian into your hand.” Who’s he talking to? He’s talking to the 300. So, he calls upon them to rise up and they will have the victory.

Slide 49

So now we see his tactics here. His tactics seems pretty basic. He’s going to divide his 300 into three separate companies of 100 men each. And what do they have? They have their shofar. They have empty pitchers. This is just a clay, like a clay pitcher or a clay bowl or something that the torch would fit inside of, and the torches are inside the pitcher so they can hold it and eventually light them. So he says to them, [Judges 7:17] “Look at me and do likewise; watch, and when I come to the edge of the camp do as I do. When I blow the trumpet, I and all who are with me, then you also blow the trumpet.”

Where are their weapons? They’ve got a torch in one hand and they’ve got a shofar in the other hand. and it’s really difficult to fire your bow or sling your sling or throw a javelin. So they are unarmed. That tells us that these 300 are going into this battle against 135,000 and they have come to the same conclusion that Gideon has and that is that the battle is the Lord’s, and they can trust God to deliver them. So they’re going into this battle They’re spread out across the front in a semicircle surrounding the Midianites.

Now, what’s going on kind of as a background to understand this is it’s pitch dark at night. We don’t know whether there was a moon at night or any kind of light, but it was typically dark. And they are moving into position. If there was a night attack and you had, let’s say, 300 companies attacking you, each company would have their bugler. They’re blowing the shofar. And each company would have one leader who’s got a torch. So when they hear 300 shofars and they see 300 torches, they’re not thinking 300 people. They’re thinking 300 companies that are attacking. God is using His own special psychological warfare against them.

This happens several other times in the Scripture. For example, when under Jehoshaphat, Judah is fighting the Moabites, and they’re down near the Valley of Barakah, and they’re going into battle, and Judah is outnumbered. And when God says, get up and be prepared to fight at dawn, and He causes some sort of optical illusion to take place so that when the Moabites hear the Jews attacking, they see, it’s like a mirage of blood that’s on the ground. They think that there’s already been a huge defeat, and so they start fighting each other and then turn around to flee.

So God can give the victory many times without any sort of strategic, tactical, or technological excess so that Israel has nothing. It’s like David fighting Goliath. All he’s got is his sling and Goliath has everything on his side, but the battle is the Lord’s.

I keep thinking about this when I pray for Ukraine, that here you have Ukraine which is like David and Russia is Goliath. God can cause the Russian troops to do all kinds of mistakes, which I think He has done already. My prayer is that God would cause them to continue to defeat themselves through their own mistakes until eventually God will give Ukraine the victory.

So what Gideon says is, when I blow the trumpet, you blow all of your trumpets, and then you shout, “of the Lord and of Gideon!” The word “sword” is not present. It is simply a Hebrew preposition which has the idea of possession. That we are of the Lord, we are the Lord’s, we are Gideon’s. They go into battle.

Now, a lot of people make a point here that that in comparison with statements made by Moses, the battle is the Lord’s, statements made by David, the battle is the Lord’s, there’s no mention of their role. So, this is perhaps a little foreshadowing that Gideon is trying to capture a little bit of the credit for the victory.

Slide 50

As a result of this, the men under Gideon’s leadership go down, sneak across to the camp of the Midianites in the beginning of the middle watch, which would be sometime around two or three or four in the morning. They blew their trumpets, broke their pitchers that were in their hands, which held their torches, and [Judges 7:20] “they held the torches in their left hands and their trumpets in their right hands for blowing.” Which hand did they use for their sword? They don’t have any weapons. Interesting. The battle is the Lord’s.

Slide 51

On this map, we have a tactical map. Here’s the Hill of Moreh. Here are the troops of the Midianites. So the Israelites under Gideon come across, they surround the Midianites, and then they attack. Then the Midianites are going to flee to the southeast. We know they went to the southeast because they’re going to cross the Jordan, and they’re going to cross over to the other side of the Jordan. But there are some locations that are mentioned in the text, and frankly nobody knows where they are. So they’re not listed on any maps because we’re uncertain of their actual location.

Slide 52

Here again is a map showing the attack, the three companies, the 300 men, and then the blue line here chasing the Midianites back across the Jordan.

Slide 53

We’re told in Judges 7:21, “And every man stood in his place all around the camp;—and that’s all the Israelites—and the whole army ran and cried out and fled.” That’s the Midianites. So you have the Israelites stand their ground, Midianites flee.

Judges 7:22, “When the three hundred blew the trumpets, the Lord set every man’s sword against his companion.” See, God just confuses their thinking. They get all disoriented and they just start killing each other. And they fled [Judges 7:22b] “to Beth Acacia, towards Zererah, and as far as the border of Abel Meholah, by Tabbath.”

Slide 54

So, we have four geographical locations. They’re not mentioned anywhere on the map. You don’t see them, do you? Nobody knows where they are. But they’re somewhere in the vicinity of the Jordan Valley. What happens after this is really interesting. What we’ve seen is just about the high point of Gideon’s role as a judge, and then we start seeing some cracks in what’s going on.

Slide 55

Judges 7:23: “And the men of Israel gathered together from Naphtali, Asher, and Manasseh, and pursued the Midianites.” Did Gideon say, “Well, Lord, what do we do now?” No. Did God authorize any more than the 300? No. So Gideon is taking the initiative to call in the reserve troops, the 22,000 or however many that were left behind, and to come and to pursue the Midianites.

Then he sends out messengers in Judges 7:24 to the mountains of Ephraim. This is in the hill country of Samaria, and Ephraim hasn’t been mentioned yet. He says, [Judges 7:24] “Come down against the Midianites, and seize from them the watering places as far as Beth Barah and the Jordan.” In other words, seize all the watering holes, seize all the springs, and that way they’re not going to have access to any water or food. So all the men of Ephraim respond to that call, gather together, and they seize the watering places. But they’re not very happy.

Slide 56

What’s happened is that the Abiezrites gathered with Gideon, his own clan, which we saw in Judges 6:34. In Judges 6:35, it mentioned Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali. Naphtali and Asher are mentioned in Judges 7:23 and the addition of Manasseh: that was the tribe that half the tribe had land on the east side of the Jordan and the other on the west side of the Jordan. And so they’re the ones who are doing the pursuing.

Slide 57

Then there’s a fight, and they—that is the Ephraimites—capture two princes of the Midianites, two of their royalty: Oreb and Zeeb. They kill Oreb at what later becomes known as the rock of Oreb. And Zeeb, they killed at what will later be called the winepress of Zeeb. They pursued Midian and brought the heads of Oreb and Zeeb to Gideon on the other side of the Jordan. So, at this point you would think that there’s a great victory celebration.

Slide 58

But the Ephraimites are irritated with Gideon [Judges 8:1]. This is another example of a high point in Gideon’s career. There’s going to be one more high point, but he shows a lot of tact, and he shows a lot of wisdom at this point, in dealing with this problem with the Ephraimites because they have taken offense at the fact that he didn’t invite them to the battle to begin with.

So, the men of Ephraim said to him, [Judges 8:1] “Why have you done this? By not calling us when you went to fight with the Midianites?’ And they reprimanded him sharply.” That’s a mild way of putting it. They just gave him holy hell. They were really angry with him.

So he said to them, [Judges 8:2] “’What have I done now in comparison with you?—notice how he plays down his own role. He shows some humility here. And I can say that because when he’s offered the kingship, he will deny it. He will reject it, which shows that he does have an element of humility here. It doesn’t last long, but he has it at this point.

And he says, “ ‘What have I done now in comparison with you?—Is not the gleaning of the grapes of Ephraim better than the vintage of Abiezer?’ ” Basically what he is saying here is, “isn’t the [scraps] of Ephraim far better than anything that Abiezrites have done?” You know, the Abiezrites just have some crumbs compared to the wonderful things that Ephraim has accomplished. Look at what you have done. You’ve delivered into your hands the princes of Midian, and Oreb and Zeeb, and what was I able to do in comparison? [Judges 8:3] And so their anger subsides, and they begin to relax.

Well, this is just about the high watermark of Gideon’s success and his trust in God. But we have one more thing to cover when we get further into Judges 8, because there’s still going to be another battle that takes place starting in verse 4. And we’ll come back to look at that next time.

Closing Prayer

“Father, thank You for this opportunity to study this, to be reminded of the importance of trusting You; that the battle is Yours. It’s not ours. The battle doesn’t go to the one who runs the fastest. The battle doesn’t go to the one who is the strongest, the tallest, the wealthiest, the most popular; the battle goes to the one who trusts in the Lord.

“We need to learn that and to trust in You day in and day out as we face so many challenges in this world today. And we pray that You would strengthen us in our inner man by the Holy Spirit. We pray this in Christ’s name. Amen.”