TheoTrek — A Journey with God in Discipleship
Unarmed Attack
Judges 7:12-21
Rev. Chrístopher Harbin, First Baptist Church, Huntersville, NC
24 January 2010
Gideon's men faced a lot. Gideon had wavered before God's instructions. God had called Gideon to free his people from the Midianite plague and he took him time to accept that God was really speaking to him, calling him to accept the task of rescuing his people.
Gideon was very insecure before this calling, but God patiently encouraged him several times. At the very last God sent him down to the enemy camp to hear from the mouth of his enemies that Yahweh had conceded victory to the Hebrews. It seems a Biblical refrain that we do not listen to God's word from God's prophet, but we listen with greedy pleasure to the same word from a contrary source.
Gideon was encouraged and placed his men around their enemies. 300 men stood against 130,000 enemies, armed with torches, pitchers, and trumpets. They circled in the enemy camp. They prepared a war cry to announce the beginning of the battle.
There was one small detail. On taking up a torch in one hand and a trumpet with the other, what happens with sword and shield?
Perhaps this little detail was why God was so patient with Gideon's insecurity. God called him, not to be a great and mighty warrior, but to place his life in danger without dependence on anything more than the action of Yahweh, God of Israel. God called him to take his stand on the hillside around his enemies, silhouetting himself visibly in the light of their torches, but without the benefit of any defensive or offensive weapons.
God did not call him to fight. God called him to take a stand beside Yahweh and in confidence that his liberation would come simply through divine action. God placed him in an unarmed position, not to make him worry, but so he might see up close God's action. It was a posture of confidence, not of human strength, just like what God calls us to today.
—©2010 Chrístopher B. Harbin