"Behold, I will put out a fleece of wool on the floor and if the dew be on the fleece only, and it is dry upon the earth, then shall I know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you have said."
I always get a little aggravated with Gideon when I read this. My thinking is something like this: "Where is his faith? Wasn't God's declaration enough?" Then I think again. The Midianites had conquered Israel and ruined their crops and houses. Now the vast Midianite army was about to attack again. The Israelites repented and God turned to Gideon to rescue them. I have to ask myself what I would do under similar circumstances? I would probably act like Moses and say "Why me?" Or I would probably pull a Gideon and say "Prove yourself to me." Taking on the Midianite army at that time in Israel's weakened condition would surely be a tough task, especially since God pared his army down from ten thousand to three hundred. God proved himself to Gideon and, to make a long story short, under Gideon's leadership the Israelites prevailed. What is the moral of this story? When God calls upon us to serve Him, He wants us to do it by faith. This is certainly what Gideon had to do. I once heard a preacher say that “God plus one is a majority.” I later heard a correction to that: “God is a majority.” Compared to the power of God we have little power. What God wants from us is obedience. We are living in what is being called “the post-Christian age.” This means that we are not in the majority. The fact is that we have never been in the majority, but we have never needed to be in the majority. God wants us to know what Gideon learned, if we will follow Him by faith and obey Him, He will do great things through us. I recently wrote an article entitled “God Is not in Trouble.” In it I pointed out that just because things seem to be moving away from Him, God is not anxious, because He knows that He is a majority. That being the case, we don’t have to worry about it either. I wish that people across America would be more responsive to the gospel, and I wish that unbelievers would stop worrying about where the Ten Commandments are posted. But the reality is that these negative things are happening, but it is still true that “we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.” (Romans 8:37) Verse 31 of Romans 8 tells us: “What shall we say then to these things? If God is for us who can be against us?” This goes for our personal problems as well. Whatever you might be going through at this time, God is not unaware of it, and He will take you through it, over it, under it or around it. You need to start seeing yourself as a conqueror, not because of you, but because of Jesus. You won't go through anything that God will not go through with you. He has promised to never leave or forsake you, so take heart, have faith and, like Gideon, see what God can do. When you get to the end of what you are going through you will be the victor. The Lord wants us to take Him at His word and trust Him. He will take our humanity into account and humor us, like He did Gideon, but it would be better if we would just trust Him. The Bible is full of God's promises to us about using His power to aid us in serving Him. We quote Philippians 4:13 so confidently: "I can do all things through Him (Christ) who strengthens me." Do we really believe it or do we lay out the fleece? When I really think about it, I'm not quite as aggravated with Gideon and his fleece. But I can pray that I will have the faith and courage to serve the Lord in any endeavor He calls me to. You can pray the same prayer. Bro. Joe
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AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
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