Judges 5

Chapter 5. The Weapons of Our WarfareThe weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. (2 Corinthians 10:4)The three companies blew the trumpets and smashed the jars. Grasping the torches in their left hands and holding in their right hands the trumpets they were to blow, they shouted, “A sword for the Lord and for Gideon!” While each man held his position around the camp, all the Midianites ran, crying out as they fled. (Judges 7:20-21)This is the crowning illustration of the supreme lesson of Gideon’s life, the strength of weakness. In the weapons of Gideon’s warfare as well as in Gideon and his followers, we see how God can use the weak things of this world to confound the strong. We see how He uses the things that are not to bring to nothing the things that are (1 Corinthians 1:27-28). Gideon’s Fears Before the assault we again see the timidity of Gideon. As God sends Gideon forward for the final attack upon the Midianites, He recognizes the fears of His timid servant. He tells Gideon, Get up, go down against the camp, because I am going to give it into your hands. If you are afraid to attack, go down to the camp with your servant Purah and listen to what they are saying. Afterward you will be encouraged to attack the camp. (Judges 7:9-11) We see that God encourages the trembling faith of His child by giving him another sign. Stealthily, Gideon and his servant creep down to the edge of the Midianite camp, arriving just in time to hear one of the soldiers telling his friend about a dream he had. “A round loaf of barley came tumbling into the Midianite camp,” the man said. “It struck the tent with such force that the tent overturned and collapsed” (Judges 7:13). The man’s friend immediately interprets the dream. “This can be nothing other than the sword of Gideon son of Joash, the Israelite. God has given the Midianites and the whole camp into his hands” (Judges 7:14). That was enough to satisfy Gideon that God was already working. The enemies’ fears are prophetic of their fate. Likewise, God is working for those who trust Him. He can fight our battles for us in the hearts of our enemies and strike fear in them before the conflict begins. Let us have the faith to recognize our unseen Ally and the forces and resources that are waiting at His command to assist those who trust and obey Him. The person you want to see accept Jesus as his Savior, and to whom you may speak the final word that leads him to a decision has no doubt been under a preparation for that word through a whole chain of divine providences with which you have had nothing to do. And when you pass on, God still has other agents and influences to take up your work and carry it on to consummation. When Elisha stood at Dothan surrounded by Syrian armies, it seemed to his frightened servant that all was lost. But there were armies in the sky and on the mountain tops ready to fight the battle for him. In Gideon’s case we see faith that reckons on the unseen and steps out into the darkness alone with God to find that He is just as able to turn the Midianites against each other as to strike them down by His sword. Indeed, He was already beginning to melt their hearts like wax and prepare them by their dreams for the panic and disaster that was to follow. It mattered not that Gideon had only 300 men and that the enemy had 135,000. It did not matter that their weapons were lamps, pitchers and trumpets, for they did not need to strike a blow in this great battle. Jehovah was going to turn the Midianites against the Amalekites, while Gideon’s army stood waving the torch and blowing the trumpet of victory, shouting, “For the Lord and for Gideon!” (Judges 7:18). These simple and apparently foolish weapons are fitting for our warfare, which “are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds” (2 Corinthians 10:4). The Pitcher The pitcher was a clay vessel. It did not need to be strong or beautiful. If it had been made of iron or of brass, it would have been useless. Its fragility was its best attribute, because it was of no use until it was broken. How well it represents our bodies, vessels of clay as it were, through which God is pleased to work and about which He says, “Offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God” (Romans 12:1). “Offer yourselves to God,… and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness” (Romans 6:13). These members of our body are represented here as weapons. Our hands, feet, lips, eyes, ears and physical senses are all weapons to be used against evil and for the Lord. Gideon’s vessels had to be empty. Similarly, God requires our bodies and spirits to be given to Him exclusively and to be emptied of all our willful, selfish and absorbing desires, ready at any moment for His use and service. Then, when they are filled with His indwelling life and broken like Gideon’s pitchers so that the light may shine through, God will use them in their weakness for the revelation of His glory and the accomplishment of His plans. We need not be troubled about the breaking of the pitchers. God will do that or, at least, will allow it to be done. The circumstances and trials that come to us will furnish the occasion for the victory of His grace. I have seen a child of God standing unmoved amid intense provocation when the natural impulse would have been to speak out and take action and resent the wrong in a manner that might have seemed to the world more dignified and becoming. But instead there was nothing but the flushing crimson of the brow, the starting tear in the eye, the self-suppression that cost a moment’s effort, and then the gentle silence and a sweet smile. I have seen a strong man broken down by that victory of love and led to seek the grace that enabled that Christian to triumph over unkindness and to let the light of God’s love flash through a broken vessel and shine out because of the cruel wrong. I have seen some worker for Christ stand in silence and misrepresentation and wrong and wait for God to vindicate, and in the waiting days exhibit the patience as no self-vindication could ever have done. And then in the end I have seen the worker come forth with God’s own Spirit of Christ and glorify God by that silence the seal of approval and a vindication that human words could never have afforded. God lets these things come into our lives so that we may reveal the light of His grace and the Spirit of Him whose agony in Gethsamane and shame upon the cross were but the background on which the glory of His grace shone out with a luster transcending even the transfiguration light. The Lamps Gideon’s lamps represented not only the light of truth and the source of all light, the Holy Spirit, but they also stood for the light of the indwelling Christ. The lamps were inside the pitchers, and Christ must be in us if we would shine. I have heard that travelers in the Arctic can take a piece of ice and shape it so that the sun’s rays can be concentrated to start a fire. Unfortunately, the same is not true for human hearts. We must be on fire for God before we can set others on fire. Thou must thyself be true, If thou the truth would’st teach. Thy heart must overflow, if thou Another heart would’st reach. In speaking of the true seed of the kingdom, Christ says the good seed are the children of the kingdom. And so again He says, “You are the light of the world,” (Matthew 5:14). It is not what we say, but what we are and what Christ is within us that constitutes the strength of our testimony and the power of our life. It is the life of Christ within shining through the broken vessel in a suffering saint, a feeble instrument, that most honors God and most effectively works for His kingdom and glory. The Trumpets The trumpet represents the gospel message. A trumpet is just an artificial voice proclaiming a loud and startling message of alarm, or warning, or of command. How perfectly it represents the message of the gospel. The trumpet was not used as a musical instrument. It had no fine inflections of tone or sweet cadences of elocution. No, its sound was loud; its summons was meant to arouse and to move. The word from which “preaching” comes is based on this figure: the trumpet of the herald. When Christ sent out His disciples to preach, He did not say, “Go, and give eloquent orations and artistic speeches.” No, He said, “Go, and proclaim as a herald the glad tidings of salvation.” Likewise, our message should be as clear and as urgent as the herald’s trumpet. And it should be so simple that no one can misunderstand it. This was what John the Baptist said he was, “a voice.” There was not much honor in being a voice to express another’s thought and message. This is the chief business of the missionary of Christ. Let us not be misled by our own reasonings. Let us not be led into believing that we are sent overseas simply to gather about us bands of little children and to train them in the truths of Christianity, thus gradually preparing a Christian community, giving up as hopeless those who are more mature in years and more steeped in sin. God sends us to these sinful and hardened lives—to men and to women, to homes and families, to the cannibal chief and the stone age savage. We are to flash before them the light of the living Christ and proclaim in their ears the message of God, believing that He who spoke to Midian’s myriads in their dreams and filled their hearts with fear, can still speak to the hearts of men and arouse them to repentance and obedience by the power of the Holy Spirit. Let this be the aim of our work and the claim of our faith, and we shall still find that the weapons of our warfare are as mighty as Gideon’s. We need not be “ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile” (Romans 1:16). The Battle Cry The battle cry of Gideon’s band is full of instructive meaning. “For the Lord and for Gideon!"—what a startling battle cry! There was no waste of words, but there could be no heightening of emphasis. The very words were almost as startling as the blast of the trumpet, loud and long. “For the Lord and for Gideon.” How they must have rung out over the midnight air until they echoed back from the hills and ravines! And what shrieks and groans of the terrified and wounded men answered them! These were fitting watchwords, linking together the two great principles of divine operation and human cooperation. God comes first, for the battle is the Lord’s. It is He who strikes down the enemy. It is He who uses and prepares the instrument. It is He who turns foes upon each other and fills their hearts with fear, deciding the battle before it even begins. It is He who is still present in all His unchanged omnipotence, who looks for opportunities to show Himself upright in behalf of those whose hearts are perfect toward Him. It is He who saves us. It is He who sanctifies us, who is our Healer and Deliverer in temporal distress. It is He who, as the God of providence, still works in the events and circumstances of life in answer to His people’s prayers. It is He who sits upon the throne—an everpresent God, making all things work together for good to them who love Him (Romans 8:28). It is He who by the Holy Spirit convicts the world of sin, of righteousness and of judgment (John 16:8). He can break the hardest heart. He can change the most stubborn will. He can break down the iron walls of Hindu caste and bring tribes and nations to seek and acknowledge Him. He changed the persecuting Saul into a humble apostle of Jesus Christ. He can prompt the hearts of men to lay their treasures at His feet for the needed resources for the work of the gospel and the evangelization of the world. He does not need our religious tricks or our shameful compromises with the world in order to gain the favor of the rich and win the popularity of the crowd. Christianity is supernatural power. And the same God who led Israel with pillar of cloud and fire, who spoke at Pentecost through the tongues of flame, who opened Peter’s prison door, is waiting to work the greater wonders of His grace for us. Oh, for the sword of God! Oh, for the faith to claim it! Oh, for the proof of the promise, “Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him and he will do this” (Psalms 37:5)! The Sword There is Gideon’s sword, too. There is a place for man’s obedience as well as for man’s faith. So Gideon must be true, and his 300 men must be adjusted and ready. They must follow him just as closely as he followed Jehovah. His command was urgent, “Watch me,… Follow my lead” (Judges 7:17). There must be perfect unity and precision of action. There is not much for us to do; but what He does ask us to do, we should do, and do it exactly as He says. And then, when the victory is won, there is still something to do. The foe must be followed up and pursued; the battle must be completed; the enemy must be cut off in its retreat. In the case of Gideon the enemy was cut off at the fords of the Jordan by the very men that had been rejected the day before. The 9,700 who had been sent home because of their failure at the testing waters, were permitted to come in at the finish and cut off the fleeing foe. And so there was a part for all. This was the part of Gideon and this is the object of our obedience and fellowship in the gospel. God, teach us to trust as if all depended upon You, and to obey as if all depended upon us.