AND THE LORD SAID TO GIDEON, THE PEOPLE WHO ARE WITH YOU ARE TOO MANY FOR ME TO GIVE MIDIAN INTO THEIR HANDS:

God frequently cuts down on our resources in order that we may depend entirely upon Him. Sometimes He sends sickness or financial reverses or difficulties of one kind or another to put us in fighting trim and train us to rely solely on His power.

Hudson Taylor, pioneer missionary to China firmly believed God know his needs and would meet them. On one occasion, when Taylor's assets were down to 87 cents, he wrote to a friend

"We have this--and all the promises of God."

That is faith that sees the invisible, the eternal and it is faith that pleases the Father.

When God finished preparing Gideon for battle, he had no other choice but to trust God. Man's extremity is always God's opportunity. He delights to reveal His power when men acknowledge their weaknesses. When odds are overwhelming, God overwhelms the odds!

LEST ISRAEL BECOME BOASTFUL SAYING, 'MY OWN POWER HAS DELIVERED ME: Isn't this true for all of us? The pews fill up. The coffers overflow. And we begin to take just a tiny fraction of the credit (glory). There is a side of us (probably the old Adam, the Sin nature within us that remains in these fleshly bodies, defeated at the cross to be sure, but ever seeking to reign in these mortal bodies. Does it not teach us that sometimes he cannot trust us with his work unless we realize how inadequate we are to do it? This may explain why God frequently chooses such unlikely instruments.

Ralph Davis writes that...

NOW THEREFORE COME, PROCLAIM IN THE HEARING OF THE PEOPLE SAYING WHOEVER IS AFRAID AND TREMBLING LET HIM RETURN AND DEPART FROM MOUNT GILEAD:

Fear can have disastrous effects on an army and especially if over 2/3's of the army is fearful as in this case!

SO 22,000 PEOPLE RETURNED:

Put yourself for a moment in Gideon's sandals...imagine his heart sink as he watched his numbers dwindle by 2/3's in keeping with the instruction in [Dt 20:8]. They were keenly aware that up to 135,000 Midianites (8:10) were camped just 3-4 miles N at the foot of the Hill of Moreh. RESULT? many had greater fear of man than trust in God and so they departed from what appeared to be a humanly impossible situation. How could 32,000 untrained & unqualified Israelis hope to defeat a heavily armed force of 135,000? One mighty God would be the soon coming answer. God wanted the victory in battle to teach Israel to trust Him and give Him the glory. In the Christian life if our victories make us self-reliant, they ultimately work against us and they dishonor the God we serve.

BUT 10,000 REMAINED:

He doubtless knew the tales of Barak's army of 10,000 and how God had used them to route Sisera's invincible forces. So Gideon must have reasoned 'If 10,000 are good enough for Barak, then its good enough for me.' But he was unprepared for the next command of God (v4).

THEN THE LORD SAID TO GIDEON, "THE PEOPLE ARE STILL TOO MANY; BRING THEM DOWN TO THE WATER AND I WILL TEST (refine them, smelt them) THEM FOR YOU THERE

THEREFORE IT SHALL BE THAT HE OF WHOM I SAY TO YOU, 'THIS ONE SHALL GO WITH YOU,' HE SHALL GO WITH YOU; BUT EVERYONE OF WHOM I SAY TO YOU, 'THIS ONE SHALL NOT GO WITH YOU,' HE SHALL NOT GO.":

Warren Wiersbe comments that...

A faith that can’t be tested can’t be trusted. Too often, what people think is faith is really only a “warm fuzzy feeling” about faith or perhaps just “faith in faith.” J. G. Stipe said that faith is like a toothbrush: Everybody should have one and use it regularly, but it isn’t safe to use somebody else’s. We can sing loudly about the “Faith of Our Fathers,” but we can’t exercise the faith of our fathers. We can follow men and women of faith and share in their exploits, but we can’t succeed in our own personal lives by depending on somebody else’s faith. God tests our faith for at least two reasons: first, to show us whether our faith is real or counterfeit, and second, to strengthen our faith for the tasks He’s set before us. Spurgeon was right when he said that the promises of God shine brightest in the furnace of affliction, and it is in claiming those promises that we gain the victory. Victories won because of faith bring glory to God because nobody can explain how they happened. “If you can explain what’s going on in your ministry,” Dr. Bob Cook used to remind us, “then God didn’t do it.” Too often, we’re like King Uzziah who was “marvelously helped, till he was strong. But when he was strong, his heart was lifted up to his destruction” (2Ch 26:15–16). People who live by faith know their own weakness more and more as they depend on God’s strength. “For when I am weak, then am I strong” (2Co 12:10) (Wiersbe, W. W. Be Available. Wheaton, IL: Victor Books)

G. Campbell Morgan wrote that

“The fearful and trembling man God cannot use. The trouble today is that the fearful and trembling man insists upon remaining in the army. A decrease that sifts the ranks of the Church of men who fear and tremble is a great, a gracious and a glorious gain.”

Wiersbe adds that

"Pride after the battle robs God of glory, and fear during the battle robs God’s soldiers of courage and power. Fear has a way of spreading, and one timid soldier can do more damage than a whole company of enemy soldiers. Fear and faith can’t live together very long in the same heart. Either fear will conquer faith and we’ll quit, or faith will conquer fear and we’ll triumph. John Wesley may have been thinking of Gideon’s army when he said, “Give me a hundred men who fear nothing but sin and love nothing but God, and I will shake the gates of hell!”

If Gideon’s faith had been in the size of his army, then his faith would have been very weak by the time God was through with them! Less than 1 percent of the original 32,000 ended up following Gideon to the battlefield. The words of Winston Churchill concerning the RAF in World War II certainly applies to Gideon’s 300:

SO HE BROUGHT THE PEOPLE DOWN TO THE WATER. AND THE LORD SAID TO GIDEON YOU SHALL SEPARATE EVERYONE WHO LAPS THE WATER WITH HIS TONGUE AS A DOG LAPS AS WELL AS EVERYONE WHO KNEELS TO DRINK:

No explanation for this choice is given, but it possibly was related to alertness, just as the first was based on courage. One explanation is that the 300 men, who satisfied their thirst in the most expeditious manner indicated their spirit, and alacrity to follow Gideon in his dangerous enterprise. This proved them to be watchful and alert in contrast to those who knelt The rest may have revealed their love of ease, self-indulgence, and want of courage.

On the other hand there is no indication in the text that God commended those who "lapped"; He only used this device to reduce Gideon's army (cf. v2).

God put Gideon’s surviving 10,000 men through a second test by asking them all to take a drink down at the river. We never know when God is testing us in some ordinary experience of life.

One of Warren Wiersbe's favorite quotes is from a man named Marsden who said...

NOW THE NUMBER OF THOSE WHO LAPPED, PUTTING THEIR HAND TO THEIR MOUTH, WAS 300 MEN; BUT ALL THE REST OF THE PEOPLE KNEELED TO DRINK WATER:

What significance was there in the two different ways the men drank from the river? Since the Scriptures don’t tell us, we’d be wise not to read into the text some weighty spiritual lesson that God never put there. Most expositors say the men who bowed down to drink were making themselves vulnerable to the enemy, while the 300 who lapped water from their hands stayed alert. But the enemy was four miles away (v1) waiting to see what the Jews would do; and Gideon wouldn’t have led his men into a dangerous situation like that. Another source writes that the 300 men drank as they did so they could keep their eyes on Gideon, but the text doesn’t say that either.

AND THE LORD SAID TO GIDEON, "I WILL DELIVER YOU WITH THE 300 MEN WHO LAPPED AND WILL GIVE THE MIDIANITES INTO YOUR HANDS:

Their options were reduced to trust God and His promise or perish. God graciously gave Gideon one more promise of victory: “By the 300 men that lapped will I save you” (v7). By believing the promise and obeying the Lord’s directions (which indicates his sincere belief), Gideon defeated the enemy and brought peace to the land for forty years (8:28).

Wherever there is a clear command in Scripture, we are to seek to obey it in every detail in our lives. But God may well reduce our resources to almost nothing in order to prove that it is by His power alone that we can be victorious and that His strength is made perfect in our weakness. Paul testified that God had spoken to him...

"My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness." Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong." (2 Corinthians 12:9-10).

The Preacher's Commentary adds some practical thoughts commenting that...

Gideon’s story proves that when we are at our least, God can be at His greatest. Like Gideon, we may think that we are proving God, but actually He is proving us. Yet all the while, in grace and mercy, He is giving us far more than we could legitimately ask for or expect, because He knows and understands our needs and because He sympathizes with our weaknesses...we are to take seriously the words of Jesus when He said to His disciples, “without me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). If we truly identify with Gideon, it should drive us to our knees, seeking from God to rightly discern what He is calling us to do and, secondly, that we might have the faith to believe that He will do it through us. There is all the difference in the world between writing our own agenda and striving to do it for God as best we can and, on the other hand, allowing Him to pick us up and use us in whatever way He chooses. (Briscoe, D. S., & Ogilvie, L. J. The Preacher's Commentary Series.  New Testament. 2003. Thomas Nelson or Logos)

While facing the threat of imprisonment in Nazi Germany, Dietrich Bonhoeffer pondered the opening petition of the Lord’s Prayer “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done” and based on these meditations, he advised his friends and fellow dissenters that

“by these we learn to forget ourselves and our personal condition and to hold them as of little account...How are we to remain steadfast as long as we remain so important to ourselves?”

John Wesley once said that the people of God must demonstrate

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Judges 7.7
G Campbell Morgan

Brensinger concludes that...

"Acts of reduction and self-denial repeatedly prepare people for spiritual service. The Bible makes plain that power, pride, and possessions often obstruct divine activity. Yet genuine human weakness provides God with fertile soil in which to perform his mighty works (2 Cor. 12:9). In all divine-human partnerships, God alone brings victory....

NOW THE SAME NIGHT IT CAME ABOUT THAT THE LORD SAID TO HIM ARISE, GO DOWN AGAINST THE CAMP, FOR I HAVE GIVEN IT INTO YOUR HANDS:

Night (layil) describes the portion of day between sunset and sunrise. This timing is significant. Gideon destroyed the Baal altar at night because he was afraid of the people (Jdg 6:27). The tests with the fleece (Jdg 6:36-40), evidence of Gideon's weak faith, were conducted at night. Now God encountered Gideon at night commanding Gideon to attack. By urging Gideon to attack by night, God intended to transform his earlier nighttime fears into faith and victory and reiterated for the fourth time that He had delivered the Midianite host into his hand. Note the past tense of the verb picturing the future event as a completed past action! This should have encouraged Gideon. Although the battle must be fought, Israel had already won! The 300 men could attack the enemy host confident that Israel was the victor. But God who sees Gideon's heart gives him one more encouraging word in the following verses.

It may be a cliché, but the old formula is still true: “God says it—I believe—it that settles it". In fact you can subtract the "I believe" and the formula is still true for Psalm 119:89 declares...

BUT IF YOU ARE AFRAID TO GO DOWN GO WITH PURAH YOUR SERVANT DOWN TO THE CAMP:

"But if your are afraid" As the Psalmist wrote...

"For He Himself knows our frame. He is mindful that we are but dust." (Psalm 103:14)

Ralph Davis writes that...

In light of this, we may need to alter our current stereotypes of what a servant of Christ is (or, is like). We sometimes dupe ourselves into thinking that a real servant of Christ is only someone who is dynamic, assured, confident, brash, fearless, witty, adventuresome, or glamorous — with one or two appearances on a Christian television network (Ed note: Or maybe a famous athlete). Don’t think you are unusable because you don’t have that air about you. Christ takes uncertain and fearful folk, strengthens their hands in the oddest ways, and makes them able to stand for him in school or home or work. We must not forget how the writer of Hebrews describes those we sometimes call the “heroes of faith”: “They were weak people who were given strength to be brave in war and drive back foreign invaders” (Heb. 11:34 NJB). (Ralph Davis Judges: Such a Great Salvation - Focus on the Bible)

The Lord wanted Gideon and his 300 men to attack the camp of Midian that night, but first He had to deal with the fear that still persisted in Gideon’s heart. God had already told Gideon four times that He would give Israel victory (6:14, 16; 7:7, 7:9), and He had reassured him by giving him three special signs: fire from the rock (6:19–21), the wet fleece (6:36–38), and the dry fleece (6:39–40). After all this divine help, Gideon should have been strong in his faith, but such was not the case. But the Lord knows the needs of His children and He met Gideon in his frailty by providing encouragement in a most remarkable way.

WHEN GIDEON CAME, BEHOLD, A MAN WAS RELATING A DREAM TO HIS FRIEND. AND HE SAID, "BEHOLD, I HAD A DREAM:

God had given one of the soldiers a dream, and that dream told Gideon that God would deliver the Midianites into his hand. The Lord had already told Gideon this fact, but now Gideon heard it from the lips of the enemy!

In the biblical record, you often find God communicating His truth through dreams. Among the believers He spoke to through dreams are Jacob (Gen. 28, 31), Joseph (Gen. 37), Solomon (1 Kings 3), Daniel (Dan. 7), and Joseph, the husband of Mary (Matt. 1:20–21; 2:13–22). But He also spoke to unbelievers this way, including Abimelech (Gen. 20), Nebuchadnezzar (Dan. 2, 4), Joseph’s fellow prisoners (Gen. 40), Pharaoh (Gen. 41), and Pilate’s wife (Matt. 27:19). However, we must not conclude from these examples that this is the Lord’s normal method of communicating with people or that we should seek His guidance in our dreams today. Dreams can be deceptive (Jer. 23:32; Zech. 10:2), and apart from divine instruction we can’t know the correct interpretation. The best way to get God’s guidance is through the Word of God, prayer, and sensitivity to the Spirit as we watch circumstances.

A LOAF OF BARLEY BREAD WAS TUMBLING INTO THE CAMP OF MIDIAN:

This bread metaphor pictures the 300 soldiers of Israel, and tents the nomadic Midianites. The interpretation by a Midianite gave Gideon final assurance.

The specific fact that this is barley (rather than wheat) represents the poor farmers of Israel. The interpretation by the Midianite gave Gideon the final assurance he needed to complete his task.

SO THAT THE TENT LAY FLAT:

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Judges 7:13
F B Meyer
Our Daily Homily

A cake of barley bread.

Like most dreams, incoherent and grotesque! Who ever heard of a cake of barley bread upsetting a tent! To the dreamer and his comrade, there was no sense in it. But how much it meant to the two Hebrews, who had crept up to the other side of the curtain, in the thick darkness, and were drinking in each word!

The dream was very humbling — It brought Gideon back to the simplicity and helplessness of his own resources. In the gathering of these crowds of warriors, in the notoriety he had achieved, in the loyalty of the three hundred, there was much to inflate his pride. Therefore God brought him face to face with himself. He was only a cake of barley bread at the best. Before God can uplift, use, and anoint us, He must show us what we are, humbling and emptying us, bringing us into the dust of death. Before God can use thee to work a great deliverance, He must convince thee of being only a cake of barley bread. “Five barley loaves, and two small fishes.”

It was full of hope — A cake of barley bread might be a worthless thing; but if God were behind it, it would upset a tent! So when the weakest life is placed at the disposal of the Almighty, and taken in hand by Him, it becomes mighty to the pulling down of strongholds.

THE DREAM OF THE BAKERY CAKE.
NOVEMBER 22ND, 1885,
BY C. H. SPURGEON

“And when Gideon was come, behold, there was a man that told a dream unto his fellow, and said, Behold, I dreamed a dream, and, lo, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the host of Midian, and came unto a tent, and smote it that it fell, and overturned it, that the tent lay along. And his fellow answered and said, This is nothing else save the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel: for into his hand hath God delivered Midian, and all the host.” — Judges 7:13, 14.

The Midianites were devastating the land of Israel. These wandering tribes purposely kept away during the times of ploughing and sowing, and allowed the helpless inhabitants to dream that they would be able to gather in a harvest; but no sooner did there come to be anything eatable by man or beast, than these Bedouin hordes came up like locusts, and devoured everything. Imagine a country like Israel, which had at one time been powerful, so greatly reduced as to be unable to keep off these desert rangers; brought so low that the cities and villages were empty, and the inhabitants were hidden in the hill-sides, in the water-courses, and in the huge caverns of the rocks. God had forsaken them for their sins, and therefore their own manhood had forsaken them, and they hid themselves from enemies, whom, in better days, they had despised.

In her extremity, the guilty nation began to cry to Jehovah her God; and the answer was not long delayed. An angel came to Gideon and announced to him that the Lord had delivered Midian into his hand, and that he should smite them as one man. Gideon was a man of great faith: his name shines among the heroes of great faith in the eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews; and you and I will do well if we attain to the same rank in the peerage of faith as he did. But for all that, the best of men are men at the best; and men of strong faith are often men of strong conflicts; and so it was with Gideon. This man’s great faith and great weakness of faith both showed themselves in a desire for signs. Once assure him that God is with him, and Gideon has no fear, but hastens to the battle, bravest of the brave. With a handful of men, he is quite prepared to go against a host of adversaries; but he pines for a sign. Again and again he asks it. The anxious question seems to be constantly recurring to him, “Is the Lord with us? If the Lord is with us, where are all his miracles which our fathers told us of, saying, Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?” Hence his frequent prayer is, “If now I have found grace in thy sight, shew me a sign.” He began with this, and this ill beginning coloured his whole after career. I have known many persons like this son of Joash: they say, “Let me but know that God is with me, and my fear is gone”; but their repeated question is, “Is the Lord with me? Is Jesus mine, and am I his? Let me but know that I am a true believer, and I am sure that I shall not perish, for God will not forsake his own; but then, am I a believer? Have I the marks and evidences of a child of God?” Hence the practice of severe self-examination, and hence also the weakening habit of craving for tokens and feelings. How many are crying, “We see not our signs”; when they ought to say, “But we see Jesus!” How many are praying, “Shew me a token for good” when the Lord Jesus has given himself for them, and has thereby given the best token of his grace!

So it happened unto Gideon, that the Lord knowing his hunger for signs and yet knowing the sincerity of his faith, bade him, on the night of the great battle which was to rout Midian, go down as a spy into the camp with his servant, and there he should receive a token for good, which would effectually quiet all his fears.

I picture Gideon and his attendant creeping down the hill in the stillness of the night, when the camp was steeped in slumber. It was about the end of the first watch, when they were soon to change sentinels. The two brave men, with stealthy footsteps, drew near the pickets, and even passed them. From long habit they had learned to make no more sound with their footfalls than if they had been cats. As they move along they come near to a couple of men who are talking together, and they listen to their conversation. Whether they were inside the tent, lying on their beds, or whether they were sitting by the camp-fire whiling away the last half-hour of their weary watch, we do not know: but there they were, and Gideon remained breathless to hear their talk. One of them told his fellow that he had dreamed a dream, and he began the telling of it. Then the other ventured an interpretation, and Gideon must have been awe-stricken when he heard his own name mentioned, and his own success foretold. Do you not see him with streaming eyes and clasped hands silently worshipping God? His assurance overflows, and motioning to his servant, they steal away through the shadows, and quietly ascend the hill to the place where the little band of three hundred lay in hiding. They look down upon the sleeping camp, and Gideon cries, “The Lord hath delivered into your hands the hosts of Midian.” Obedient to their leader they descend with their trumpets, and with torches covered over with pitchers. At a signal they break the pitchers, display the lights, sound the trumpets, and shout, “The sword of the Lord and of Gideon.” Imagining that a vast army is upon them, the tribes of the desert run for their lives, and in the darkness fall foul of one another. Midian is scattered: Israel is free.

In quiet contemplation let us now play the part of spies. With all our wits about us let us thread our way among the sleepers, and listen to this dream and the interpretation thereof.

—————

I. The first thing that I shall bring under your observation is The Striking Providence which must have greatly refreshed Gideon.

Just as he and Phurah stealthily stole up to the tent, the Midianite was telling a dream, bearing an interpretation so appropriate to Gideon. It may appear to be a little thing, but an occurrence is none the less wonderful because it appears to be insignificant. The microscope reveals a world of marvels quite as surprising as that which is brought before us by the telescope. God is as divine in the small as in the stupendous, as glorious in the dream of a soldier as in the flight of a seraph.

Now observe, first, the providence of God that this man should have dreamed just then, and that he should have dreamed that particular dream. Dreamland is chaos, but the hand of the God of order is here. What strange romantic things our dreams are! — fragments of this, and broken pieces of the other, strangely joined together in absurd fashion.

“How many monstrous forms in sleep we see,
That neither were, nor are, nor e’er can be!”

Yet observe that God holds the brain of this sleeping Arab in his hand, and impresses it as he pleases. Dreams often come of previous thoughts; see then the providence which had taken this man’s mind to the hearth and the cake-baking. The Lord prepares him when he is awake to dream aright when he is asleep. God is omnipotent in the world of mind as well as in that of matter: he rules it when men are awake, and does not lose his power when men fall asleep. The heathen ascribed dreams to their gods; we read of one, that

“Pallas poured sweet slumbers on his soul,
And balmy dreams, the gift of soft repose.”

Thin as the air, inconstant as the wind, the stuff that dreams are made of is vanity of vanities; and yet the Lord fashions it according to his own good pleasure. The man must dream, must dream then and there, and dream that dream which should convey confidence and courage to Gideon. Oh, believe it, God is not asleep when we are asleep: God is not dreaming when we are. I admire the providence of God in this: do not you? Is it not specially well ordered that this man shall dream, and therein declare a truth as deep as any in the compass of philosophy?

Further, I cannot but admire that this man, should be moved to tell his dream to his fellow. It is not everybody that tells his dream at night; he usually waits till the morning. We are grossly foolish sometimes, but we are not always so: and hence we do not hurry to tell such disjointed visions as that which this Arab had just seen. What was there in it? Many a time, no doubt, this son of the desert would have cried, “I have had a dream — past the wit of man to say what dream it was.” But this time he cannot shake it off. It burdens him, and he must tell it to his comrade by the camp-fire. Look you into the face of Gideon as he catches every syllable. Now, if this dream-telling had been arranged by military authority, and if it had been part of a programme that Gideon should be present at the nick of time to hear it, there would have been a failure somehow or other. If the man had known that he had a listener, he might not have been punctual with his narrative; but he did not know a word about being overheard, and yet he was punctual to the tick of a clock. God ruleth men’s idle tongues as well as their dreaming brains, and he can make a talkative soldier in the camp say just as much and just as little as will subserve the purposes of wisdom.

It is remarkable that the man should tell his dream just when Gideon and Phurah had come near. Just think a minute of the many chances against such a thing. We are on the side of the hill, and we glide down among the trees and the great rocks till we are nearly in the grass lands in the valley. Here lie the Midianites in their long lines of black tents, and the hush of deep slumber is over all, save where a few maintain a sleepy watch. Why does Gideon go to that particular part of the camp? Going there, why does he happen to drop on this particular spot where two men are talking? If he was spying out the camp, he would naturally wander along where there was most quiet, in order that he might not be discovered; for if the warriors had suddenly started up and snatched their spears these two men would have had small chance of life. It was singular that out of tents so countless Gideon should alight upon the very one in which were the two wakeful sentinels, and that he should come just as they were talking to one another about Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel. Considering that there were fifty thousand other things that they might have talked of, and considering that there were fifty thousand other persons upon whom Gideon might have lighted, there were so many chances against Gideon’s hearing that singular talk, that I do not hesitate to say, this is the finger of God. If this were but one instance of the accuracy of Providence it might not so much surprise us; but, history bristles with such instances: I mean not only public history, but our own private lives. Men sometimes make delicate machines where everything depends upon the touching of a certain pin at a certain instant, and their machinery is so arranged that nothing fails. Now, our God has so arranged the whole history of men, and angels, and the regions of the dead, that each event occurs at the right moment so as to effect another event, and that other event brings forth a third, and all things work together for good.

I think it I had been Gideon I should have said to myself, “I do not so much rejoice in what this dreamer saith as I do in the fact that he has told his dream at the moment when I was lurking near him: I see the hand of the Lord in this, and I am strengthened by the sight. Verily, I perceive that the Lord worketh all things with unfailing wisdom, and faileth not in his designs. He that has ordered this matter can order all things else.” O child of God, when you are troubled it is because you fancy that you are alone; but you are not alone; the Eternal Worker is with you. Listen, and you will hear the revolution of those matchless wheels which are for ever turning according to the will of the Lord. These wheels are high-and dreadful, but they move with fixed and steady motion, and they are all “full of eyes roundabout.” Their course is no blind track of a car of Juggernaut, but the eyes see, the eyes look towards their end, the eyes look upon all that comes within the circuit of the wheels. Oh for a little heavenly eyesalve to touch our eyes that we may perceive the presence of the Lord in all things! Then shall we see the mountain to be full of horses of fire and chariots of fire round about the prophets of the Lord. The stars in their courses are fighting for the cause of God. Our allies are everywhere. God will summon them at the right moment.

—————

II. But now, secondly, I want to say something to you about The Comfortable Trifle which Gideon had thus met with.

It was a dream, and therefore a trifle, or a nothing, and yet he took comfort from it. He was solaced by a dream, a gipsy’s dream, and a poor dream at that. He took heart from an odd story of a barley bannock which overturned a tent. It is a very curious thing that some of God’s servants do draw a very great deal of consolation from comparatively trivial things. We are all the creatures of sentiment as well as of reason, and hence we are often strongly affected by little things. Gideon is cheered by a dream of a barley cake. When Robert Bruce had been frequently beaten in battle, he despaired of winning the crown of Scotland; but when he lay hidden in the loft among the hay and straw, he saw a spider trying to complete her web after he had broken the thread many times. As he saw the insect begin again, and yet again, until she had completed her net for the taking of her prey, he said to himself, “If this spider perseveres and conquers, so will I persevere, and succeed.” There might not be any real connection between a spider and an aspirant to a throne; but the brave heart made a connection, and thereby the man was cheered. If you and I will but look about us, although the adversaries of God are as many as grasshoppers, yet we shall find consolation. I hear the birds sing, “Be of good cheer,” and the leafless trees bid us trust in God and live on, though all visible signs of life be withered. If a dream was sufficient to encourage Gideon, an every-day fact in nature may equally well serve the same purpose to us.

But what a pity it is that we should need such little bits of things to cheer us up, when we have matters of far surer import to make us glad! Gideon had already received, by God’s own angel, the word, “Surely I will be with thee, and thou shalt smite the Midianites as one man.” Was not this enough for him? Whence is it that a boy’s dream comforts him more than God’s own word. O child of God, how you degrade yourself and your Master’s word, when you set so much store by a small token! Thy Lord’s promise — is that little in thine eyes? What surer pledge of love dost thou desire than the blood of Jesus spilt for thee? When Jesus saith, “Verily, verily, I say unto you,” what more can you require? Is not the word of the Lord absolute truth? What seal dost thou want to the handwriting of God? The Lord may grant us further tokens for good, but we ought not to require them.

I have said that our gracious God does condescendingly grant us even trifles, when he sees that they will cheer us, and this, I think, calls for adoring gratitude, and also for practical use of this comfort. God grant us grace to do great things, as the result of that which to others may seem a trifle. Let us not make a sluggard’s bed out of our tokens; but let us hasten to the fight as Gideon did. If thou hast received a gleam of comfort, hasten to the conflict before the clouds return; go to thy consecrated labor before thou hast lost the fervor of thy spirit. May the Holy Ghost lead thee so to do.

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III. I have been brief upon that point, because I want you to notice, thirdly, The Cheering Discovery. Gideon had noticed a striking providence, he had received a comfortable trifle, but he also made a very cheering discovery; which discovery was, that the enemy dreamed of disaster.

You and I sometimes think about the hosts of evil, and we fear we shall never overcome them, because they are so strong, and so secure. Hearken: we over-estimate them. The powers of darkness are not so strong as they seem to be. The subtlest infidels and heretics are only men. What is more, they are bad men; and bad men at bottom are weak men. You fret because in this war you are not angels: be comforted to think that the adversaries of the truth are men also. You sometimes grow doubtful; and so do they. You half despair of victory; and so do they. You are at times hard put to it; so are they. You sometimes dream of disaster; so do they. It is natural to men to fear, and doubly natural to bad men. It must have been a great comfort to Gideon to think that the Midianites dreamed about him, and that their dreams were full of terror to themselves. He did not think much of himself, he reckoned himself to be the least of all his father’s house, and that his fathers house was little in Israel — but the foes of Israel had taken another gauge of Gideon — they had evidently the notion that he was a great man, whom God might use to smite them; and they were afraid of him. He that interpreted the dream made use of the name of “Gideon, the son of Joash,” evidently knowing a great deal more about Gideon than Gideon might hay-e expected. “This,” said the soldier, “is the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel: for into his hand hath God delivered Midian, and all the host.” Notice how his words tallied with those which the Lord had spoken to Gideon. The enemy had begun to dream, and to be afraid of him who now stood listening to their talk. A dread from the Lord had come upon them. Let us say to ourselves, “Why should we be afraid of sinners? they are afraid of us.” A Christian man, the other day, was afraid to speak about his Lord to one whom he met. It cost him a deal of trouble to screw his courage up to speak to a sceptic; but when he had spoken, he found that the sceptic had all along been afraid that he would be spoken to. It is a pity when we tremble before those who are trembling because of us. By want of faith in God we make our enemies greater than they are.

Behold the host of doubters, and heretics, and revilers, who, at the present time, have come up into the inheritance of Israel, hungry from their deserts of rationalism and atheism! They are eating up all the corn of the land. They cast a doubt upon all the verities of our faith. But we need not fear them; for if we heard their secret counsels, we should perceive that they are afraid of us. Their loud blusterings and their constant sneers, are the index of real fear. Those who preach the cross of our Lord Jesus are the terror of modern thinkers. In their heart of hearts they dread the preaching of the old-fashioned gospel, and they hate what they dread. On their beds they dream of the coming of some evangelist into their neighborhood. What the name of Richard was to the Saracens, that is the name of Moody to these boastful intellects. They wish they could stop those Calvinistic fellows and those evangelical old fogies. Brethren, so long as the plain gospel is preached in England there will always be hope that these brigands will yet be scattered, and the church be rid of their intrusion. Rationalism, Socinianism, Ritualism, and Universalism will soon take to their legs, if the clear, decided cry of “the Sword of the Lord and of Gideon” be once more heard.

There is nothing of which a child of God need be afraid either on the earth or under it. I do not believe that in the lowest depths of hell we should hear or see anything that need make a believer in the Lord Jesus to be afraid. On the contrary, tidings of what the Lord has wrought have made the enemy to tremble. Goodness wears in her innocence a breastplate of courage, but sin gendereth to cowardice. Those who follow after falsehood have a secret monitor within, which tells them that theirs is a weak cause, and that truth must and will prevail over them. Let them alone; the beating of their own hearts will scare them. The Lord liveth, and while he liveth let none that trusteth in his word suffer his heart to fail him; for the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed, but the word of the Lord endureth for ever. Our adversaries are neither so wise, nor so brave, nor so influential as we think them to be. Only have courage, and rely upon God, and you will overcome them. David, thou needest not fear the giant because of his size; the vastness of his shape will only make him an easier target for thy smooth stone. His very bulk is his weakness; it were hard to miss so huge a carcase. Be not afraid, but run to meet him; the Lord hath delivered him into thine hand. Why should the servants of the Lord speak doubtfully when their God pledges his honor that he will aid them? Let us change our manner of speech, and say with the Psalmist, “Ascribe ye strength unto God: his excellency is over Israel. Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered; let them also that hate him flee before him.” We have received a kingdom which cannot be moved. We have believed the faith once delivered unto the saints, and we will display it as a banner because of the truth. Yet shall this song be sung in our habitations — “The Lord gave the word: great was the company of those that published it. Kings of armies did flee apace: and she that tarried at home divided the spoil.”

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IV. Lastly, and most important of all, let us think for a little of The Dream Itself And Of Its Interpretation.

The Midianite in his dream saw a barley cake. Barley cakes were not much valued as food in those days, any more than now. People ate barley when they could not get wheat; but they would need to be driven to such food by poverty, or famine. Barley-meal was rather food for dogs or cattle than for men; and therefore the barley cake would be the emblem of a thing despised. A barley cake was generally made upon the hearth. A hole was made in the ground, and paved with stones; in this a fire was made, and when the stones were hot, a thin layer of barley-meal was laid upon them, covered over with the ashes, and thus quickly and roughly baked. The cake itself was a mere biscuit. You must not interpret the dream as having in it a large quartern loaf of barley bread, tumbling down the hill and smashing up the tent with its own weight. No, it was only a cake, that is to say, a biscuit, of much the same form and thinness as we see in the Passover cakes of the Jews. It may have been a long piece of thin crust, and it was seen in the dream moving onward and waving in the air something like a sword. It came rolling and waving down the hill till it came crash against the pavilion of the prince of Midian, and turned the tent completely over, so that it lay in ruins. Perhaps driven by a tremendous wind, this flake of barley-bread cut like a razor through the chief pole of the pavilion, and over went the royal tent. That was his vision: an odd, strange dream enough. His fellow answered, “The dream means mischief for our people. One of those barley-cake-eaters from the hills will be upon us before long. That man Gideon, whom we have heard of lately, may fall upon us on a sudden, and break down our power.” That was the interpretation: the barley biscuit the ruin of the pavilion.

Now, what we have to learn from it is just this, God can work by any means. He can never be short of instruments. For his battles he can find weapons on the hearth, weapons in the kneading-trough, weapons in the poor man’s basket. Omnipotence has servants everywhere. For the defense of his cause God can enlist all the forces of nature, all the elements of society, all the powers that be. His kingdom cannot fail, since the Lord can defend it even by the cakes which are baking upon the coals. Gideon, who threshes corn to-day, will thresh the Lord’s enemies to-morrow. Preachers of the word are being trained everywhere.

God can work by the feeblest means. He can use a cake which a child can crumble to smite Midian, and subdue its terrible power. Alas, sirs! we often consider the means to be used, and forget to go onward to him who will use them. We often stop at the means, and begin to calculate their natural force, and thus we miss our mark. The point is to get beyond the instruments, to the God who uses the instruments. I think I have heard that a tallow candle fired from a rifle will go through a door: the penetrating power is not in the candle, but in the force impelling it. So in this case, it was not the barley-biscuit, but the almighty impulse which urged it forward, and made it upset the pavilion. We are nothing; but God with us is everything. “He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.”

By using weak means our Lord gets to himself all the glory, and hides pride from men. The Lord had said to Gideon in the early part of this chapter, “The people are yet too many for me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel vaunt themselves against me, saying, Mine own hand hath saved me.” Their oppression was a punishment for sin, and their deliverance must be an act of mercy. They must be made to see the Lord’s hand, and they cannot see it more clearly than by being delivered by feeble means. Out of jealousy for his own glory it often pleases God to set aside likely means and use those which we looked not for. Now I know how it is to-day: men think that if the world is to be converted it must be done by learned men, men of noble family, or at least of eminent talent. But is this the Lord’s usual way? Is there anything in the Acts of the Apostles, or in the life of Christ, that should lead us to look to human wisdom, or talent, or prestige? Does not everything look in the contrary direction? The lake of Galilee was Christ’s apostolic College. Has not God always acted upon his own declaration that he hath hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hath revealed them unto babes? Is it not still true that the Lord hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are? Are we not on the wrong track altogether when we look to men, and means and measures, instead of considering the right hand of the Most High? Brethren, let us never forget that out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hath the Lord ordained strength because of his enemies, that he might still the enemy and the avenger.

The Lord employs feeble means, that so he may have an opening for you and for me. If he used only the great, the wise, the strong, we should have to lie in the corner. Then might the men of one talent be excused for hiding it. But now the least among us may through God’s grace aspire to usefulness. Brothers, let not your weakness keep you back from the Lord’s work: you are at least as strong as barley cakes. I find that the original text suggests a noise, such as might be made by chestnuts or corn when roasting in the fire. The dreamer marked that it was a noisy cake which tumbled into the host of Midian. More noise than force, one would say. It was like a coal which dies out of the fire, makes a little explosion, and is never more heard of. Thus have many of God’s most useful servants been spoken of at the first. They were nine-day wonders, mere flashes in the pan, much ado about nothing, and so forth. And yet the Lord smites his enemies by their feeble means. My brother, perhaps you have begun to make a little stir by faithfully preaching the gospel, and this has opened the mouths of the adversaries, who are indignant that such a nobody as you should be useful. “Why, there is nothing in the fellow: it is sheer impudence for him to suppose that he has any right to speak.” Never mind. Go on with your work for the Lord. Cease not because you are of such small account, for by such as you are God is pleased to work.

Never are his adversaries so shamefully beaten as when the Lord uses feeble instrumentality. The Lord smote the hosts of Jabin by the hand of a woman, and the hosts of Philistia by the hand of Shamgar the ploughman. It was to their everlasting reproach that the Lord put his foes to the rout with pitchers and trumpets in the hand of the little band who followed the thresher of Abiezer. The Lord will tread Satan under our feet shortly, even under our feet, who are less than the least of all saints.

Note, next, God uses unexpected means. If I wanted to upset a tent I certainly should not try to overturn it by a barley cake. If I had to cannonade an encampment I should not bombard it with biscuits. Yet how wonderfully God hath wrought by the very persons whom we should have passed over without a thought. O Paganism, thy gigantic force and energy, with Caesar at their head, shall be vanquished by fishermen from the sea of Galilee! God willed it so, and so it was clone. Rome Papal met as signal a downfall from reformers rude of speech, and poor in estate. Expect the unexpected. Thus the Lord works to call men’s attention to what he does. If he doeth what men commonly reckon upon, they take no notice of his doings, however splendid they may be in themselves; but if he steppeth aside and doeth that which none could have looked for, then is their attention arrested, and they consider that the hand of the Lord is in it. Then also they admire and feel somewhat of awe of him. For the tent to fall seems nothing, but for the tent to fall by being smitten with a barley cake is something to be marvelled at. For souls to be saved is in itself remarkable, but for them to be saved by some simple child-like evangelist who can scarcely speak grammatically, this is the talk of the town. For the Lord to call out a thief or a blasphemer and speak by his lips, is a thing to make men feel the greatness of God. Then they cry, “How unsearchable are his ways!” For an error to be blasted and dried up is a blessed thing — and yet it is all the more miraculous when this is done, not by reasoning, nor by eloquent argument, but by the simple declaration of Gospel truth. O sirs, we never know what the Lord will do next. He can raise up defenders of the faith from the stones of the river. I despair not for the grand old cause. Nay, I hope against hope. Driven back as we may be, I see the very dust breeding warriors, and the grass of the field hardening into spears. Courage! Courage! Stand still, and see the salvation of God!

But the dream hath more in it than this: God useth despised means. This man Gideon is likened to a cake, and then only to a barley-cake; but the Lord styles him “a mighty man of velour.” God loves to take men whom others despise, and use them for his glorious ends.” He is a fool,” they say, “an uneducated man, one of the very lowest class of minds. He has no taste, no culture, no thought. He is not a person of the advanced school.” My dear brother, I hope no one among you will be influenced by this kind of silly talk. The “mashers” in our churches talk in this fashion; but who cares for their proud nonsense? It is time that men who despise others should be themselves despised, and be made to know that they are so. Those who boast their intellect are of small account with God. The whole tenor of this inspired Book is that way; it speaks kindly of things that are despised, but it has no word of reverence for the boastful and pretentious. Therefore, ye despised ones, let the proud unbelievers laugh at you, and sing concerning you their song of a barley cake; but do you in patience possess your souls, and go on in the serf ice of your Lord. They think to render you contemptible; but the scorn shall return upon the scorners. You shall yet by the Lord’s strength have such force and vigor put into you, that you shall put to flight the armies of the aliens. Say you with Paul, “When I am weak, then am I strong.” “Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” “He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree.”

But, then, God ever uses effectual means. This cake of barley-bread came unto a tent and smote it, that it fell, and overturned it, that the tent lay along. The Lord never does his work by halves. Even if He works by barley-cakes, he makes a clean overthrow of his enemy. A cannon-ball could not have done its work better than did this barleycake. Friend, if the Lord uses thee for his own purpose, he will do his work by thee as effectually and surely as if he had selected the best possible worker. He lifts our weakness out of itself, and elevates it to a level of power and efficacy little dreamed of by us. Wherefore, be not afraid, ye servants of God, but commit yourselves into the hands of him who, out of weakness, can bring forth strength.

I have done when I have made an application of all this to certain practical purposes. Brethren, do you not think that this smiting of the tent of Midian by the barley cake, and afterwards the actual overthrow of the Midianite hordes by the breaking of the pitchers, the blazing of the torches, and the blowing of the trumpets, all tends to comfort us as to those powers of evil which now cover the world? I am appalled sometimes as I think of the power of the enemy, both in the matter of impurity and falsehood. At this present moment you seem as if you could do nothing: you cannot get in to strike a blow. Sin and error have so much the upper hand that we know not how to strike them. The two great parties in England, the Puritan and the Cavalier, take turn about, and just now the Cavalier rules most powerfully. At one time sound doctrine and holy practice had sway; but in these days loose teaching and loose living are to the fore. But our duty clearly lies in sticking to the word of the Lord and the gospel of our fathers. God forbid that we should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. By this sign we shall conquer yet. The impurity of the age will never be cleansed except by the prevalence of the gospel; and the infidelity of the period will never die before any assault but that of the pure truth of the living Lord. We must tell of pardon bought with blood, of free forgiveness according to the riches of divine grace, and of eternal power changing fallen human nature, and making men new creatures in Christ Jesus. They call this a worn-out doctrine: let us put its power to the test on the largest scale, and we shall see that it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth. As for me, I shall preach the gospel of the grace of God, and that only, even if I be left alone. The hosts of Israel are melting away, and they will melt much more. As in Gideon’s day, out of the whole host twenty and two thousand have gone altogether away from true allegiance to the cause, and many more have no stomach for the fight. Let them go. The thousands and the hundreds. Let the thirty thousand who came at the trumpet call decrease to the three hundred men that lap in haste as a dog lappeth, because they are eager for the fray. When we are thinned out, and made to see how few we are, we shall be hurled upon the foe with a power not our own. Our weapon is the torch of the old gospel, flaming forth through the breaking of our earthen vessels. To this we add the trumpet sound of an earnest voice. Ours is the midnight cry “’Behold he cometh!” We cannot get victory by any might or skill of ours, and yet in the end the foe shall be defeated, and the Lord alone shall be exalted. Were things worse than they are, we would still cry, “The sword of the Lord and of Gideon,” and stand each man in his place till the Lord appeared in strength.

Another lesson would I draw from the text as to our inward conflicts. Dear friend, you are feeling in your heart the great power of sin. The Midianites are encamped in your soul; in the little valley of Esdrelon which lies within your bosom, there are countless evils, and these, like the locusts, eat up every growing thing, and cause comfort, and strength, and joy, to cease from your experience. You sigh because of these invaders. I counsel you to try what faith can do. Your own earnest efforts appear to make you worse; try faith. Neither tears, nor prayers, nor vows, nor self-denials, have dislodged the foe; try the barley cake of faith. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. In him you are saved; in him you have power to become a child of God. Believe this and rejoice. Poor sinner! try faith. Poor backslider! try faith. Poor desponding heir of heaven! try faith. This barley cake of faith will smite the power of sin and break the dominion of doubt, and bring you victory. Remember that ancient Scripture, “Call upon me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.” Make bold to believe. Say at once,

“I do believe, I will believe, That Jesus died for me.”

This seems a very poor means of getting the victory, as poor as the barley cake baked on the coals — but God has chosen it, and he will bless it, and it will overthrow the throne of Satan within your heart, and work in you holiness and peace.

Once again, still in the same vein: let us, dear friends, try continually the power of prayer for the success of the gospel, and the winning of men’s souls. Prayer will do anything — will do everything. It fills the valleys and levels the mountains. By its power men are raised from the door of hell to the gate of heaven. What is to become of London? What is to become of heathen nations? I listen to a number of schemes, very visionary, and very hard to work out. But I put these aside. There remaineth to believers but one scheme: our Lord hath said, “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” This, therefore, we must do, and at the same time we must cry mightily unto God by prayer that his Holy Spirit may attend the proclamation of the Word. Let us more and more prove the power of prayer, resting assured that the Lord is able to do exceeding abundantly above what we ask or even think. Let each man stand with the flaming torch of truth in his hand, and the trumpet of the gospel at his lips, and so let us compass the army of the aliens.

This is our war cry — Christ and Him crucified!

AND HIS FRIEND ANSWERED AND SAID, "THIS IS NOTHING LESS THAN THE SWORD OF GIDEON THE SON OF JOASH, A MAN OF ISRAEL:

AND IT CAME ABOUT WHEN GIDEON HEARD THE ACCOUNT OF THE DREAM AND ITS INTERPRETATION:

As Gideon listened to their word