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It’s amazing to see how the angel of the Lord addresses Gideon when he is secretly threshing wheat in a wine press. He is obviously frightened of the Midianites and working under the radar and yet is called a “mighty man of valor”. Wow! How differently God sees us from how we see ourselves. It’s also interesting how the angel says to Gideon “God is with you” and Gideon replies with a question asking “If the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us?”. Gideon doesn’t as for just himself but for his people. That’s a mark of leadership and God saw it in him before he saw it in himself. Although Gideon tests the word of God at every step, God is very patient and answers him every time.
Gideon is led step by step into the battle against the Midianites and even though it’s a very unconventional battle strategy it has the hand of God all over it. God intervenes even in the choosing of soldiers for the battle because he desires that Israel won’t get overconfident and veer off track again. While a big victory is won that day on the battlefield, Gideon didn’t finish well. He leads Israel into idolatry and it was a snare to his family.
But the LORD said to him, “Peace! Do not be afraid. You are not going to die.” So Gideon built an altar to the LORD there and called it The LORD Is Peace. To this day it stands in Ophrah of the Abiezrites. That same night the LORD said to him, “Take the second bull from your father’s herd, the one seven years old. Tear down your father’s altar to Baal and cut down the Asherah pole beside it. Then build a proper kind of altar to the LORD your God on the top of this height. Using the wood of the Asherah pole that you cut down, offer the second bull as a burnt offering.” So Gideon took ten of his servants and did as the LORD told him. But because he was afraid of his family and the townspeople, he did it at night rather than in the daytime.
Early in the morning, Jerub-Baal (that is, Gideon) and all his men camped at the spring of Harod. The camp of Midian was north of them in the valley near the hill of Moreh. The LORD said to Gideon, “You have too many men. I cannot deliver Midian into their hands, or Israel would boast against me, ‘My own strength has saved me.’ Now announce to the army, ‘Anyone who trembles with fear may turn back and leave Mount Gilead.’ ” So twenty-two thousand men left, while ten thousand remained. But the LORD said to Gideon, “There are still too many men. Take them down to the water, and I will thin them out for you there. If I say, ‘This one shall go with you,’ he shall go; but if I say, ‘This one shall not go with you,’ he shall not go.” So Gideon took the men down to the water. There the LORD told him, “Separate those who lap the water with their tongues as a dog laps from those who kneel down to drink.” Three hundred of them drank from cupped hands, lapping like dogs. All the rest got down on their knees to drink. 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 others go home.”
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.
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