Now therefore go to, proclaim in the ears of the people, saying, Whosoever [is] fearful and afraid, let him return and depart early from mount Gilead. And there returned of the people twenty and two thousand; and there remained ten thousand.
Commentary
- God gets rid of anyone who is afraid.
Jdg 7:4
And the LORD said unto Gideon, The people [are] yet [too] many; bring them down unto the water, and I will try them for thee there: and it shall be, [that] of whom I say unto thee, This shall go with thee, the same shall go with thee; and of whomsoever I say unto thee, This shall not go with thee, the same shall not go.
Commentary
- God tries us to see who will stay his.
Jdg 7:5
So he brought down the people unto the water: and the LORD said unto Gideon, Every one that lappeth of the water with his tongue, as a dog lappeth, him shalt thou set by himself; likewise every one that boweth down upon his knees to drink.
Commentary
- The most spiritual is the one that bows on their knees.
- God is rejecting all those that look spiritual.
- To the outside church, we look like dogs.
Jdg 7:6-8,10-14
And the number of them that lapped, [putting] their hand to their mouth, were three hundred men: but all the rest of the people bowed down upon their knees to drink water.
And the LORD said unto Gideon, By the three hundred men that lapped will I save you, and deliver the Midianites into thine hand: and let all the [other] people go every man unto his place.
So the people took victuals in their hand, and their trumpets: and he sent all [the rest of] Israel every man unto his tent, and retained those three hundred men: and the host of Midian was beneath him in the valley.
But if thou fear to go down, go thou with Phurah thy servant down to the host:
And thou shalt hear what they say; and afterward shall thine hands be strengthened to go down unto the host. Then went he down with Phurah his servant unto the outside of the armed men that [were] in the host.
And the Midianites and the Amalekites and all the children of the east lay along in the valley like grasshoppers for multitude; and their camels [were] without number, as the sand by the sea side for multitude.
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.
Commentary
- God's saying it's not his miracles thats going to get him through, its his word.
Jdg 7:15
And it was [so], when Gideon heard the telling of the dream, and the interpretation thereof, that he worshipped, and returned into the host of Israel, and said, Arise; for the LORD hath delivered into your hand the host of Midian.
Commentary
- What makes you worship God? Hearing his voice/word.
- Signs and miracles are secondary.
- God would like to have people believe him on word alone.
- Message on coveteousness put us on the straight route
- We will be in this situation of being straigtened until the Lord comes
Rom 8:16-17
The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:
And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with [him], that we may be also glorified together.
Commentary
- We're only heirs to Christ if we suffer with him.
Rom 8:19-22
For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.
For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected [the same] in hope,
Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.
For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.
Commentary
- The Earth and planets groaneth because of bondage from corruption.
- We should strive for the heavenly body that never groaneth.
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Gideon (Bible)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Gideon (Hebrew: גִּדְעוֹן, Standard Gidʻon Tiberian Giḏʻôn), also known as Jerub-Baal, is a judge appearing in the Book of Judges, in the Bible. His story is told in chapters 6 to 8. He is also named in the Epistle to the Hebrews as an example of a man of faith. He is the son of Joash, from the clan of Abieezer in the tribe of Manasseh. The name Gideon means "Destroyer", "Mighty warrior" or "Feller (of trees)".As is the pattern throughout the book of Judges, the Israelites again turned away from God after forty years of peace brought by Deborah's victory over Canaan and were allowed to be attacked by the neighbouring Midianites and Amalekites. God chose Gideon, a young man from an otherwise unremarkable clan from the tribe of Manasseh, to free the people of Israel and to condemn their worship of idols. Very unsure of both himself and God's command, he requested proof of God's will by a miracle:
- 36Then Gideon said to God, "You say that you have decided to use me to rescue Israel. 37Well, I am putting some wool on the ground where we thresh the wheat. If in the morning there is dew only on the wool but not on the ground, then I will know that you are going to use me to rescue Israel." 38That is exactly what happened. When Gideon got up early the next morning, he squeezed the wool and wrung enough dew out of it to fill a bowl with water. 39Then Gideon said to God, "Don't be angry with me; let me speak just once more. Please let me make one more test with the wool. This time let the wool be dry, and the ground be wet." 40 That night God did that very thing. The next morning the wool was dry, but the ground was wet with dew. (Judges 6:36-40, Good News Bible)[1]
On God's instruction, Gideon destroyed the town's altar to the foreign god Baal and the symbol of the goddess Asherah beside it. He went on to send out messengers to gather together men from the tribes of Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali, as well as his own tribe Manasseh in order to meet an armed force of the people of Midian and the Amalek that had crossed the Jordan River and were encamped in the Valley of Jezreel.
God instructed Gideon that the men he had gathered were too many. With so many men, there would be reason for Gideon's army to claim the victory as their own, instead of giving the credit to God. He instructed Gideon to send home those men who were afraid. 22,000 men returned home and 10,000 remained:
- 4Then the Lord said to Gideon, "You still have too many men. Take them down to the water, and I will separate them for you there. If I tell you a man should go with you, he will go. If I tell you a man should not go with you, he will not go." 5Gideon took the men down to the water, and the Lord told him, "Separate everyone who laps up the water with his tongue like a dog, from everyone who gets down on his knees to drink." 6There were three hundred men who scooped up water in their hands and lapped it; all the others got down on their knees to drink. 7 The Lord said to Gideon, "I will rescue you and give you victory over the Midianites with the three hundred men who lapped the water. Tell everyone else to go home." (Judges 7:4-7, Good News Bible)
God waited until night fell before instructing Gideon to attack the Midianite camp. Gideon gave each of his men a trumpet, a torch, and a clay jar. They quietly surrounded the enemy camp, each torch hidden inside a jar. At Gideon's signal, every man blew his trumpet and broke his jar. God confused the Midianites, and made them turn on one another. The confused survivors ran and continued to retreat across Israel.
Although God did not instruct him to do so, Gideon then called for a large number of men to pursue the Midianites and cut off their retreat. He eventually caught them and subsequently killed Zebah and Zalmunna, the two Midianite Kings, in response to their taunts, and as justice for the death of his brothers.
The Israelites pleaded with Gideon to be their king, but he refused, telling them that only God was their ruler. Interestingly, however, he carries on to make an "ephod" out of the gold won in battle, which causes the whole of Israel again to turn away from God, and marries a large but unspecified number of women. He also had a concubine who bore him a son that he named Abimelech (which means "my father is king"). There was peace in Israel for forty years during the life of Gideon.
He is regarded as a saint by the Eastern Orthodox Church, who hold his feast day on September 26, and as one of the Holy Forefathers in the Calendar of Saints of the Armenian Apostolic Church on July 30.
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