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THE KING’S BUSINESS
chosen three hundred, but nothing to what it is to be one of God’s picked few today. There was no room left for boasting now. God had knocked away every human prop that they might rely upon Him and Him alone. Gideon’s heart might naturally have failed when he saw the thirty-one thousand seven hundred leaving him, and only three hundred left. It did not seem possible that that three hundred could save Israel, but it was sure that they would because Jehovah. Himself said so, or rather He said “I will save you” by them. However improbable God’s word seemed, yet it was God’s word and therefore was sure. There were fewer persons in Gideon’s army after this sweep ing reduction, but there were not fewer men.’ The army was really stronger than ever. “And let all the other people go every man unto his place.” Sooner or later every man finds his level. He goes unto his own place. Judas Iscariot was chosen to be an apostle, but he had the heart of a devil, therefore he went “to his own place” (Acts 1 :25; Matt. 25:41) . We may get into God’s army, but we will not stay there if we are not fit. God will find us out and send us to our own place. v. 8. “So the people took victuals in their hand, and their trumpets.” That was ap parently a strange equipment to go to war with, but the only essential needs of Christ’s army are the Word of God for food,(l Peter 2:2), and the voice of prayer for a trumpet (Num. 10:9, 10; 2 Chron. 13:14). With these used according to Divine in structions, victory is sure. That very night the command came, “Arise and get thee down unto the host” (v. 9), and with the command came the promise of victory, “For I have delivered it into thine hand.” v. 16. “And he divided the three hundred men into three companies, and he put a trumpet in every man’s hand, with empty pitchers,. and lamps within the pitchers." Gideon’s arrangements for the battle must have seemed ill-fitted to produce the re sults desired, but when we study it we see that this stratagem to produce a panic in
knows the human heart, and therefore He knows that the human heart does not need even half a chance to boast before going at it. Therefore He proceeded to take away every chance. "I will try them for thee.” It was God Himself who was trying the men, Gideon was simply God’s instrument. It is a great thing when God will try our men for us; then we are bound to get men who can be depended upon. “And it shall be, that of whom I say unto thee, This shall go with thee, the same shall go with thee.” Happy the leader who has with him only those whom God has picked, and wise is the leader who looks to God to know whom he shall take and whom he shall leave behind. The test God ap pointed in this instance was peculiar (v. 5). It was seemingly a very little thing that was to decide who should go, but it was an extremely significant thing. It is always by the little things that God tests men (Luke 16:10; Matt. 12:36). The significance of the test was this: those who were so eager for the .battle that they just scooped up the water as they passed and could not even stop to kneel and drink, were the ones whom God would have fight for Him. On the other hand, the one whose heart was not altogether in the battle, but who could take time to bow down upon his knees and drink when there was a battle for God brewing, was the one whom God would have left behind. As', some rushed eagerly forward to the LORD’S battle, and as others linger ed behind for their own personal gratifica tion, they had no thought that they were Being tested. And so God is testing us by the little experiences that come to us day by day that we never dream are a test of our fitness for the work. v. 7. “And. the LORD said unto Gideon, By the three hundred men that lapped will I save you, and deliver the Midianites into thine hand.” ..Only three hundred chosen out of the whole army of 32,000, and it is an equally small number of God’s professed army that today are really doing the fight ing. It was a great thing to be one of the
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