Youth: Story of Gideon - Part 2

God told you to do it, did He? Yes, Father. Gideon's father scratches his head. He looks at the idols. He looks at the men. And the men are yelling, "We want Gideon dead! He killed our— or he knocked over our gods! We want him punished right now!" And Gideon's father thinks about it for a little bit, and then he says, "Do you believe, men of Israel, that these are gods?" "Yes, they are gods!" "Do you believe that Asherah is a god?" "Yes, Asherah is a god!" "Do you believe that Baal is a god?" "Yes, Baal is a god!" "Are they powerful gods?" "Of course they're powerful gods!" They're powerful gods, and the god of fertility, and the god of wisdom, or something else. And they're gods! And he said, so they're powerful. Yes, they're powerful. Fine. Then these powerful gods, if they are truly upset that Gideon has knocked down their altars, should we interfere and punish him on their behalf, or should we allow them to punish the infidel themselves? They'll scratch their heads. You're very wise. Yes. And so they changed Gideon's name. And for the rest of the book of Gideon, you'll often see him called Jereb-Baal, which means "let Baal kill him." Imagine that as you're introducing yourself to a new friend. You know, "Hi, my name's Sam." "Hi, my name's 'let Baal kill me!'" "That's your name?" "Yeah." "Your father named you that?" "Well, kind of. A whole group of guys named me that." Whoa, that's really freaky. Why don't you use a different— Well, my name is actually Gideon, but I kind of like "Let Baal kill me." Because you know what? He hasn't done it yet. And so just in saying his name for the rest of his life, he was stating the fact: It's me against Baal, and Baal has no strength. And so Gideon has done this, and God comes to him again and says, "Gideon, I have another great work for you to do." And Gideon tosses and turns about this, because God says He wants him to be a general. He wants him to lead His army. And Gideon's not sure if he wants to. And so he provides God with a test, just like he's already done with the offering. This time he gets this fleece and he says, "God, I'm going to throw it out on the ground at night, and what I want you to do is—" And I always forget which order they're in. But one night he says, "I want the fleece completely dry and the ground sopping wet with the dew from the night. And I want it to be very clear that that's dry and that's wet." And so he goes out and he picks it up, and the ground— his feet are just getting soaked as he walks out to it. When he picks it up, it's just dry like it's been in the sun. And the next day he goes out and does the opposite. And when he picks it up, the ground is crunchy like it's been in the hot day sun. But when he gets to the fleece, he picks it up and he wrings out, the Bible says, a whole bowl full of water. And it's just soaking wet. And so he agrees that yes, God really wants him to be a general. And so God says, "Gideon, I want you to send men to all the four corners of Israel, and I want you to bring my army. Send them out with the trumpet and blow the call to arms. I want my men to suit up." And so Gideon sends out, not soldiers, because they didn't have any soldiers. He just sends out farmers, whoever he can send, young men. Go out and blow your trumpets. Call people to arms. And so they go out to the four corners in every town they're going through. They play their "boop boop boop" call to arms. And the men start coming. And no, they're not trained. They're not like the Midianites who have thousands upon thousands of well-trained soldiers. But they do have a passion for their land. And they do want the oppression of the Midianites to be done away with. And so they all come together. And Gideon looks at them all. And he looks at this army, and it's a motley group, but he realizes after counting them, there's 32,000 soldiers. Wow, there's probably 300,000 or 400,000 down in just that one army that's gathered down there of the Midianites. At least, I mean, I didn't think we'd get 32,000. So he's really happy, and he's thinking, "This is a good thing." And so he starts training these 32,000 men, and he's training them how to fight and how to use a sword and how to use a shield, and they're making swords and shields as fast as they can because They don't have an armory. And so they're beating plowshares into swords, and they're making shields out of wagon wheels, and whatever else they can do. And they're just creating as much armory as they can. They're making armor. And Gideon is getting seasoned men who used to be in war and knew how to fight to train the men. And they're being trained up. And he's doing a good job. And he thinks, "I'm doing it right. God hasn't said anything else to me, so I must be doing it right." And then one night, just as he feels that the army is almost ready, they're gonna have to come up with a pretty unique strategy to somehow attack these thousands of men. But if they do it right, maybe they have a chance. God said that they would win, so there must be some way. And so this night, as he's laying in bed, God's voice comes to him again. Gideon. Yes, Lord. Tomorrow I want you to talk to the army. Yes, Lord. And I want you to send some of them home. What? Gideon, you have too many men. What do you mean I have too many men? We don't even have 10% of what the enemy has. How can that be too many men? Gideon, if you want to win this battle my way, you have too many men. What I want you to do tomorrow is just to say to the men, anyone who's scared, can go home. Anyone who has a wife that they've just married or about to marry, they can go home. Anyone who has a field that they've just planted and they want to harvest it, they can go home. If there's any reason why they'd rather be home than be here, send them home. And so Gideon tosses and turns all night and thinks, "Well, these guys are really well trained now, and I'm sure not many of them will leave, especially if I say it right, if I really show them how much we need them and how important they are to the fight." So the next morning he gathers the men and he lines them up. And he says to them, "Are we men?" "Yes, we're men." "Are we strong?" "Yes, we're strong." "Is our God strong?" "Yes, our God is strong." "Are we wimps?" "No." "No, no." "Good." "I said, are we wimps?" "No," the army yells back. "Are we afraid?" "No." "Good. Listen carefully." Strong men, men of God, soldiers for the Lord's army. Last night God came to me in a dream and he said to me, to Gideon, to your leader, to your general, he said, "Any of your men who are afraid can go home." But we know there's no fear in Israel because the Lord is with us. Anyone who's afraid, you may go home. 22,000 men. Gone. And Gideon's just beside himself. What? How the hell am I— where are they all? How can they be so afraid? They said no. They're— how many? That's 10,000 left. What are we going to do with 10,000 men? God, what are we going to do with 10,000 men? God? God? And so Gideon keeps training his 10,000. And a couple days later, God comes to him again and He says, "Okay, Gideon, look, I want you to march towards the enemy." He says, "Oh, here it comes, march towards the enemy." And Gideon, I want you to march towards the enemy, and when you get to the river, I want you to listen carefully because I'm gonna speak to you at the river. I want you to cross the river first. Okay, Lord. And so he gets to the river, and God doesn't tell him what he's gonna do because he knows, maybe he knows what Gideon will do. And he just says, "I just want you to do this far." And he gives him this much instruction: go to the river, cross the river first, turn around. And so he goes there, he crosses the river, he's got his men all marching towards the enemy, they know which valley the Midianites are in. And he gets to the river and he crosses first and he turns around. And then the voice of the Lord says this: Gideon, you still have too many men. What? You do. You still have too many. But these guys aren't afraid, Lord! I know they're not afraid, but I just— I want you to see the power of the Lord in this battle, and I want you to win. And so I need you to have the right group of men. Okay, Lord, so how many do I send home this time? All I want you to do, Gideon, is just to watch them. Get your generals to watch, and as they come across the water, if they stop and kneel down and drink, send them home. But if, as they're coming across the water, they cup their hand in the water and take a drink, keep them. And Gideon thinks to himself, well, these are well-trained soldiers. They're not gonna kneel down in all their armor. They'd have to take their shield off, they'd have to set their sword aside. It's 10,000 men all kneeling down at the river. There's going to be very few who are going to do that. This is just— God's just whittling out a few men. And he watches as the men come towards the river, and the entire front row of men just kneel down to drink. And Gideon says, "Lord, you sure you don't have it backwards?" And God just says nothing. He says, "Um, okay, look, all the guys kneeling have to go home." And this general said, "They have to what?" They have to go home, so when they come across the river, tell them to go home. And as these men are kneeling down, the men behind them are saying, excuse me, can you scoot over? I'd like to have a drink too. And they make more room, and then more men kneeling down. One guy's fighting his way through, and he's saying, come on, guys, what are you doing? I want to get across the river. And he climbs over them, and he gets to the river, and he starts walking across the river. And he sees all the other guys having a drink, and he thinks, yeah, I might have a little drink. You guys are crazy. Has a drink, and he goes, yes! Stay!