Date: Thursday, 12th December, 2024
Text: Judges 7:1-25.
Author: Pastor Adedeji Fadehan
Exhortation:
At a point in time in the history of Israel, they did evil in the sight of the LORD; and the Lord gave them into the hand of Midian for seven years. They became a menace to the Israelites. The Israelites were an agrarian society who worked hard to cultivate their farm and raised animals to maturity.
For seven years the Midianites plundered the Israelites at the point of harvest. They continued until they became impoverished. They so terrorized the Jews on their own land that they could no longer farm openly for fear of the Midianites. It was at this critical time that the Israelites cried to the Lord and God decided to intervene and fight for them- Judges 6:1-40.
God chose Gideon to lead the conquest. But the Most High did not want anybody to share in His glory so he decided to fight the multitude of Midianite army (perhaps running into millions) with only a few men.
The Israelites soldiers were about thirty two thousand and God wanted to reduce them to only 300 choice men. So he conducted two tests.
First he told Gideon to ask all the fearful soldiers to go back home. At this point twenty two thousand (22,000) men returned home. They failed the test of faith.
There were left ten thousand soldiers who were full of faith but God was still interested in downsizing them so he conducted another screening test. It was a test of watchfulness or alertness.
The ten thousand men were asked to go down to the waterside and drink water. Gideon was meant to observe their mode of drinking and screen them out.
Nine thousand, seven hundred men (9,700) of them knelt down to drink while three hundred (300) scooped the water in their hands and lapped it with their tongues like a dog. In other words as they drank they were watchful and at alert. They did not drink in a relaxed and careless way like the 9700 that let off their guards and knelt down to drink water.
Therefore only 300 of them scaled through the test of alertness. At the end of the day these were the few men that passed the tests of faith and alertness. And with them the Midianites were subdued totally- Judges 7:1-25.
Give no room for fear and stay alert. Jesus said, “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.” Matthew 26:41
Key Nugget: Alertness and faith are major qualities of good soldier.