The Gideon Story

1 Corinthians 10:11 talks about the experiences of the Children of Israel, and Paul says, “Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.” We are going through the same experiences they went through, so let us look at one of these experiences.

Judges 6, tells about a man who felt forsaken and discouraged. The Lord came to encourage him, and told him he was a mighty man.

Why so Many Problems?

Gideon felt like replying, Lord, I am not. He said, if the Lord is with us, why have all these calamities happened to us? “‘. . . Where are all His miracles which our Fathers told us about, saying, “Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?” But now the Lord has forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites.’” Judges 6:13.

Gideon did not hold any prominent position, and he did not belong to one of the strong tribes like Judah or Ephraim. In addition to that, Gideon said, I am the least of my father’s house, so why are you calling me a mighty man? “Then the Lord turned to him and said, ‘Go in this might of yours, and you shall save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Have I not sent you?’” And Gideon replied, “‘O My Lord, how can I save Israel? Indeed my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.’” Ibid., 14, 15.

The Lord said, Go!

Then Gideon asked for a sign. If I have found grace in Your sight, if I have found favor in Your sight, please show me a sign that it is You who talked with me. Please do not go away until I can fix you something to eat.

The Lord said, I will wait until you come back.

Gideon “went in and prepared a young goat, and unleavened bread from an ephah of flour.…He put the broth in a pot; and he brought them out to Him under the terebinth tree and presented them.”

“The Angel of God said to him, ‘Take the meat and the unleavened bread and lay them on this rock, and pour out the broth.’ And he did so. Then the Angel of the Lord put out the end of the staff that was in His hand, and touched the meat and the unleavened bread; and fire rose out of the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened bread. And the Angel of the Lord departed out of his sight.” Ibid., 17–21.

Then Gideon was scared. He said, I have been talking with God. Alas!

The Lord said, Do not be afraid. Do not fear.

Keep that in mind, because dealing with fear is a big part of the Gideon story.

I Am Going to Work Through You

Notice the first part of the instruction God gave Gideon. He already told him He was going to work through him to defeat the Midianites, a war-like people who were the enemies of God’s people. But before Gideon could go deal with the Midianites, he had some work to do at home.

Here are some questions for the men to think about. How are things in your family? If you are a pastor or an elder, how are things in your church? God holds you responsible for what is going on in your families. In the Day of Judgment, God is going to ask us a question that He is not going to ask our wives. You can read that in the Law of Moses.

If a woman made a vow, and her husband contradicted it, she was free from that vow. But let me tell you, if a man makes a vow, he had better fulfill it, because he is responsible to the Lord. He is responsible for what happens in his home. And, if he is a pastor or an elder, he is responsible for what happens in his church.

We are living in a generation where anything goes, and many fathers, pastors, and elders have let their responsibility slip. We have things going on in our homes and churches for which we are not going to want to give account in the Day of Judgment.

1 Samuel 2, tells of a man who did this very thing. It says Eli advised his sons not to do evil, but he did not enforce what he said. He and his sons lost their souls over it, and many thousands of people also lost their souls.

How Are Things in Your Home?

Before God can use any man to win a victory over his enemies, things have to be right in that man’s house, and things were not right in Gideon’s family. The Lord told him, “‘Take your father’s young bull, the second bull of seven years old, and tear down the altar of Baal that your father has, and cut down the wooden image that is beside it; and build an altar to the Lord your God on top of this rock in the proper arrangement, and take the second bull and offer a burnt sacrifice with the wood of the image which you shall cut down.’ So Gideon took ten men from among his servants and did as the Lord had said to him. But because he feared his father’s household and the men of the city too much to do it by day, he did it by night.” Judges 6:25–27.

Are there idols in your family? Are you allowing it to happen? If you are, God is going to hold you responsible. A father has responsibilities. Ellen White wrote to fathers that they should not allow their son to curse, use tobacco or alcoholic beverages in the home.

But what if they say, Dad, I have the power of choice and I am going to do it anyway?

Then you have a responsibility to say, You can do it if you want, but you cannot do it in my home, you will have to leave, because I want the angels of God to dwell upon my family, and I cannot allow that in my home.

People, today, are mixed up about love. They think love means that you just let anything happen. God is love, but there are certain things God would not allow to take place in heaven, and when some angel said, We are going to do it anyway, the Lord said, Then you are going to have to get out.

God cannot work miracles for His church through a man whose family is not in order. Of course, we must pray and ask the Lord to help us to not be harsh, overbearing, severe, and unchristlike in our words and behavior. People have to understand that, in our homes, there is a law—not our law, but the law of God. We are His children, therefore we abide by those laws, and disobedience is not allowed.

This principle is all through the Bible. Jacob said, we need to have a revival in our family. I am the father, you have idols and I want you to get rid of all your foreign gods. And they gave them to Jacob, and he buried them. Jacob recognized that he could not have the blessing of God on his family while some of them were worshipping idols. (See Genesis 35:1–4.)

What Are Your Idols?

If there are idols in your house, the Lord is not going to be able to bless you and your family. If you are a father, you need to rid your house of idols.

God made a covenant with Abraham. “‘This is My covenant which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you: Every male child among you shall be circumcised; and you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between Me and you.’” Genesis 17:10–11. This was between God and all of Abraham’s descendants.

One of Abraham’s most famous descendants was Moses. God called Moses to deliver Israel, but God could not allow him to deliver Israel until Moses had straightened out some things in his own house.

On his way to deliver Israel, Exodus 4:24–26 tells us that the Lord met Moses and sought to kill him. Why? You see, Zipporah had a horror of blood and suffering, so she had not allowed Moses to circumcise their son. [Because Moses had allowed this to continue, God could not let him go deliver the Children of Israel until the problem in his house was corrected.] Then Zipporah took a sharp stone and cut off the foreskin of her son and cast it at Moses’ feet. So God let him go.

Are You Following Divine Instructions?

Is your family in order? Is the Lord going to be able to use you to defeat His enemies and bring victory to His people? Not if your house is not in order.

Is your church in order? Paul gives the necessary qualifications for a Bishop: “One who rules his own house well, having his children in submission with all reverence (for if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the church of God?).”
1 Timothy 3:4, 5.

There are Seventh-day Adventist Churches and homes all over the world that are not in order, and we need to do something about it! A deacon is a servant of the church. That is what the Greek word diakonos means, and these are the qualifications of servants of the church: “Their wives must be reverent, not slanderers, temperate, faithful in all things. Let deacons be the husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own houses well.” 1 Timothy 3:11, 12.

God is going to have an orderly people, because they see it is the way God operates. If you really love God, you will obey His commandments.

I recognize that, no matter how humble, no matter how gentle, no matter how tactful you attempt to be, occasions will arise when people in the family will rebel.

Walking Alone

Ellen White says if you decide to do what is right and walk with the Lord, you might have to walk alone, like Enoch. (See the Youth’s Instructor, April 28, 1898.) I have often pondered that statement, because Enoch was a married man who had children, yet, she said he had to walk alone. I would rather be like Enoch and walk alone than be like Eli!

When you attempt to follow the instruction God has given to help your family come into order, you get in big trouble, and so did Gideon.

When the men of the city arose early in the morning, the altar of Baal was torn down; the wooden image had been cut down, and the second bull was being offered on the altar which had been built. When they found out Gideon had done it, they told Joash to bring Gideon out to them so they could kill him. (See Judges 6:28–30.) He knew he was going to have trouble, so he did it secretly, at night.

When you attempt to follow the Lord’s instructions, by getting the idols out of your house and bringing your family into harmony with what God has said, you will be accused of being a fanatic; an overbearing father; an unenlightened person, a hard taskmaster, and all sorts of things.

And if you are an elder and try to help your church come to order, you will be accused of all those things, and more. People will accuse you of being unchristlike. When you attempt to follow the instructions needed to get your family or church in order, you will get in trouble, just like Gideon did.

Accusations Hurled Against the Reprover

People will say the same things about you that they said about Gideon. “You have wronged us. You are guilty. You have destroyed our property. You have destroyed our religion. You are a blasphemer. Since you have wronged us, you ought to be punished.” They will say, “You are too severe. The least you could have done is let us have the idols and let us get the market value out of them. You did not even allow us to recover our investment.”

And here is a real common one: “You took away our power of choice. You did not even let us choose; you have taken away our freedom.”

Let us just examine that for a minute. Did Gideon take away their power of choice? Gideon did not ask them if he could tear their idols down; the Lord told him to do it, and he did it. So did he take away their power of choice? It might seem like he did when you first look at it, but there is something you may have forgotten.

We all make agreements. When we get married, we make a holy, sacred and binding agreement, and it involves contractual relations, covenant promises. These people, who were so angry with Gideon, they and their forefathers had entered into covenant promises with the Lord. (See Judges 6.)

Gideon was not taking away their power of choice when he destroyed the idols. They had already promised not to worship idols! The choice had already been made. Those men had free choice, too. They could have decided to go back and live in Egypt, where they could have worshipped all the idols they wanted. They were free to separate from Israel and go back, but they had not. They wanted to be part of Israel, and being part of Israel meant no idol worship.

I appeal to the men who are reading this article to pray and ask the Lord if you are fulfilling your obligations. It may seem like your family is rebellious now, but the very people who seem rebellious now, can rise up in the Day of Judgment, your wife and your children, and say, Why did you not enforce the law of God in our home?

Where Are the Leaders?

We need leadership today. We need men who will say, “In my house, we are going to serve the Lord. We are going to live according to the Bible and the writings of the Testimonies of God’s Spirit. That is the way we are going to live here, because we have made a covenant to do that.” If you married a woman who was a Seventh-day Adventist, she has already made that decision. You are not asking anything unreasonable to say, “I want everybody in my family to obey God’s Word and to obey the Spirit of Prophecy.” Let me tell you young men, you better not marry somebody who has not made that decision, or you are in trouble.

Gideon was scared. I do not know if you have ever been in that state of mind. I have been, many times. Lord, I am so perplexed. You say do this, and I do not even know how to get started. So Gideon asked the Lord for a sign, and the Lord gave him a sign, but Gideon was still struggling to develop faith.

Lord, please do not be angry with me, he said. Let me ask you for one more sign. (See Judges 6:36–40.) Friends, with the situation in the world today and what we are soon going to go through, if we do not develop faith like Gideon had, we are not going to make it. You develop faith by proving His promises, and you are not going to make it through the Time of Trouble without it.

Gideon decided to do what the Lord told him to do. He issued a summons. He made some enthusiastic, zealous, impassioned appeals, and his countrymen flocked to him—all except the people from Ephraim. 32,000 men came. Even with 32,000 men the enemy outnumbered them about four to one!

God Will be Victorious!

The Lord said, You have too many people. (See Judges 7:2.) If this army goes out and they gain the victory, they will decide they did it themselves.

Friends, God’s work is soon going to be finished, and Gideon’s 300 are going to chase the enemies out of the world. The victory is going to be won in a way so you and I will know that we did not do it.

Gideon was astonished! Lord, you know whom I am up against! God said, I want you to do what Moses told you to do. Before you go to war, tell any man who is afraid to go home.

So Gideon did what the Lord told him to do, and with a heavy heart he watched 22,000 men go home. The majority of his army left. (See Judges 7:3.) They went home because of fear. Fear is a universal part of the human experience. Gideon had been struggling with fear, that is why he asked for those signs. He had received three signs so far, but he was going to receive more. God knew he needed something to bolster his faith and courage.

One of these days, we will find out what it is like to have the majority leave us. If you think that we have been forsaken now, read Testimonies, vol. 5, 80, 81. When the National Sunday Law is enforced, we are going to find out what it means to have the great majority of those who call themselves Seventh-day Adventists leave us. Why? Because of fear! If you are afraid, you are not going to make it.

So You Want to be One of the 144,000?

I have been aghast over the years when I have heard people say they hope that Jesus will come soon so that they will not have to die. They have no idea at all what they are talking about.

In the time of trouble, the 144,000, if they could have the assurance that their sins were forgiven, would not shrink from torture or death. If you are going to be part of the 144,000, you are not going to be afraid of death or torture.

During the Dark Ages they had many forms of torture, and some of the most awful were some of the most simple. In Inter-America, South America and in Europe they took men and women and tied an iron strap around their waist so that they were anchored to a big pillar. Another iron strap would be tied around their neck so that their head was anchored, and another around their ankles so they could not move. From above, they would drip a drop of water on their head.

They would let drop after drop of water fall. It was called The Drip, one of the most terrible forms of torture there is. Each hour they would turn the hourglass, and by the time four or five hours had gone by, the nerves were so irritated that every drop of water hitting their head felt like being pounded with a hammer. By the time five or six hours had passed, they could literally go insane, losing all their mental and physical functions.

When a prisoner was tied to one of those pillars, they, and their tormentors, knew exactly what was going to happen, and they knew what the consequence would be.

Those being tortured would say, Lord, unless You help me and deliver me, I am sunk. And unless the Lord helped them, the time would come when they would say anything and do anything to be free from that bang, bang, bang on their head. The 144,000 are going to be people who will not shrink from something like that.

Overcoming Fear

How are you going to overcome the problem of fear? As I read through the Bible, I find that fear is the universal experience of a man who is alone. There is only one Biblical solution to the problem of fear, and that is to have Jesus with you. If Jesus is not with you, you are going to be afraid. If He is with you, you will not be afraid. There is no human solution for fear. Isaiah 41:10 has the solution. “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, Yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.’” You do not need to be afraid, because God says He is going to be with you.

There were several times during Jesus’ life on earth when the disciples were afraid, until Jesus came. For instance, the disciples were out on the Sea of Galilee and they saw Jesus coming. They thought He was a spirit, and they were terrified. “But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘Be of good cheer. It is I; do not be afraid.’” Matthew 14:27. “Jesus came and touched them and said, ‘Arise, and do not be afraid.’” Matthew 17:7.

The Presence of Jesus Removes Fear

You see, it is the presence of Jesus that will take away your fear. There is nothing else that will do it. When we are faced with the kind of experiences that we will be going through, there is no psychology, no human rationalization that can deliver us from fear.

“Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’ So we may boldly say: ‘The Lord is my Helper; I will not fear. What can man do to me?’” Hebrews 13:5, 6.

Gideon only had 10,000 men left. The enemy outnumbered him twelve to one. The Lord comes to tell him that he still has too many. The Lord said, We are going to put the people to a test, and we are going to separate them into two groups.

Meeting the Test

You and I are being tested day by day. Most often, we do not even know it! These people did not know that they were being tested. Very often we are tested in every phase of life. One of the things that amazes me about God is how He works through such simple things.

This was a simple test. He said, Take your soldiers and bring them down to the water. I am going to test them. The people who get down on their knees and drink the water, put them all to one side. The people who walk down to the water, bring it up with their hand and lap like a dog, you put them in another group. So Gideon did that. (See Judges 7:4, 5.)

9,700 soldiers knelt down, leaving only 300 who did not. The Lord said, Take the 300. (See Verse 6.) This was such a great test of Gideon’s faith that the Lord knew he needed some more special help. So the Lord told him, Go down to the camp of the Midianites tonight and you will hear something.

When Gideon got down there, he heard these soldiers talking about a dream one of them had. In his dream a loaf of bread rolled down the mountain, hit a tent and destroyed it. The other soldier said, That is the sword of the Lord and Gideon. The Lord has given the Midianites into the hand of Gideon. When Gideon and his servant heard that, Gideon said, the voice of God is speaking through those Midianites. I know it. The Lord has delivered them into my hand, and I am going to do what the Lord said to do, and we are going to do it now! (See Verses 10–14.)

It is not enough to be without fear. 10,000 were without fear. If you are going to go through to the end, it is not enough to be fearless. What did those 300 men have that the others did not have?

Character Revealed

The simplest event of life reveals character. One of the differences was that the 300 had a sense of urgency. They said, God’s business has to be done now. It has to be our number one priority!

Do you have a sense of urgency? Would you be willing to go into the Time of Trouble right now, or do you want to wait for another generation? What is really top priority in your life? Do you think it is time to finish the work?

People write me, I believe in The Great Controversy, but I do not believe it is time yet to do what you are doing with it. I think we need to distribute The Desire of Ages and Steps to Christ all over the world first. Well, when do you think it will be time?

Others call, or write, “I am opposed to these newspaper ads because I do not think we should do it now.” Let me ask you, friend, when would you like the Loud Cry to occur? Some future generation? Is that what you are waiting for?

You see, the difference between the 300 and the others was the others were going to take their time to get a big drink of water, but the 300 said, This is urgent. We will get a little water on the way, but we are going now!

How Long Must God Wait

How long is God going to have to wait before there is a group of people who are willing to go into battle now? Concerning this battle recorded in Judges 7 and 8, Ellen White wrote, “The most complete system that men have ever devised, apart from the power and wisdom of God, will prove a failure, while the most unpromising methods will succeed when divinely appointed and entered upon with humility and faith.…He [God] is just as willing to work with the efforts of His people now and to accomplish great things through weak instrumentalities.” Patriarchs and Prophets, 554.

I am so happy for that statement. We are all weak, but the Lord said He is willing to work through weak instrumentalities and to do mighty things. “If they would cherish true humility, the Lord could do much more for His people.” Ibid., 553. Although that is a comment on Gideon, it also includes us.

If I would be humble and manifest faith, how much more would the Lord do? Mrs. White says that most of the time, the Lord cannot do for us what He wants to do. (See That I May Know Him, 227.)

Do You Not Want to Go Home?

Do you want your family, your local church, the other churches in your sisterhood of churches, to be in a condition where God can finish the work? I propose that we fast and pray and ask the Lord to help us come into a spiritual condition so He can do for us what He wants to do. What happened after this battle is going to happen again.

“No words can describe the terror of the surrounding nations when they learned what simple means had prevailed against the power of a bold, warlike people.” Patriarchs and Prophets, 553.

If God had done this through 30,000 people, they would not have felt such terror, but when those surrounding nations heard that 300 people had defeated and destroyed an army of 120,000, they knew that it was of God.

Character is What Counts!

What we are up against is not humanly possible either. But that does not matter because of the God we serve. You see, it is God’s work, and success does not depend on numbers. It never has! God can deliver by few as well as by many. It is the character that counts.

Sometimes when people have decided to keep the Sabbath for the first time, it seems like they are all alone; their family is against them; their employer is against them; their friends are against them; everybody they know seems to be against them. Many times I have told such people, “If you were the only person in the whole world who was keeping the Sabbath, it would still be right, and you would still be victorious. Study the story of Noah!”

We know from the story of Gideon, that success does not depend on numbers, and we know that God is going to finish His work in a way that is going to bring glory to Him, and not to us. I want to have the character of the 300. I know that I am not worthy, but it is not a matter of worth.

If you want to be part of this little group, say, “Lord, help me to follow directions. Help me to get my family and my church in order so You can work through us. Help us to have faith and just follow directions so we can have this character experience.”