Judges 7:15-25. \u00a0As you read this you probably think Gideon finally got it, and he did, sort of. \u00a0As we saw in yesterday’s blog he is listed in Hebrews as an example of faith, so he definitely has to get credit for that. \u00a0But when I read this it seemed a little sad to me that he had to see the enemies fear before he would believe. \u00a0After all of the signs, it still took hearing the dream for him to believe. \u00a0Now no doubt he stepped out in faith, way out. \u00a0Who would go up against a force that was too big to count (and clearly they could count pretty high since we know the Israelites started out with 30,000 troops) with only 300 men unless it was an act of faith. \u00a0So Gideon and his 300 men surround the enemy camp in the middle of the night and caused a great deal of confusion. \u00a0It’s kind of funny that they are holding torches in one hand and ram’s horns (the trumpets were made out of ram’s horns) in the other and were yelling, “A sword for the Lord and for Gideon.” \u00a0The enemy had no idea and in the confusion started fighting with each other and running. \u00a0This victory so far has clearly been from God.<\/p>\n
At this point Gideon seems to start losing sight of God though. \u00a0He calls back all of the troops which God sent home to join in pursuing the enemy. \u00a0Some of these men are identified as Abiezerites and men from the tribe of Manasseh (Judges 6:34-35). \u00a0Abiezer was actually a part of Manasseh so that part of the army that came to fight with Gideon originally was all from his tribe (See “The Twelve?”<\/a> for more on the tribes of Israel). \u00a0He also called men from Asher, Zebulun and Naphtali. \u00a0These were three of the tribes to the north of Manasseh. \u00a0The invading troops had been camped between Manasseh and them. \u00a0Now with his original army reassembled \u00a0Gideon calls into the battle men from the tribe of Ephraim. \u00a0The battle which had been the Lord’s is now taken over by Gideon. \u00a0I guess all of that talk of a “sword for the Lord and Gideon<\/span>” started to go to his head. \u00a0No more throwing skins on the ground looking for a sign, just do what I want. \u00a0He evidently forgot that he was just a loaf of bread (Judges 7:13-14) that God was using\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Later in the story we will see that Gideon’s focus on himself more clearly. \u00a0It’s like that for us too. \u00a0We have trouble in our lives and we beg and plead with God. \u00a0“Please God help me with that girl or guy or my friend, or my parents, or my brother or sister”. \u00a0“God give me a sign”. \u00a0 Then when things turn around we just cruise along and don’t bother asking. \u00a0We just do things our own way.<\/p>\n Lord I don’t like it when trouble comes into my life. \u00a0I know you told us to consider it joyful when we have troubles because troubles cause us to grow spiritually (James 1:2-3). \u00a0I would rather just stay in touch and faithful with out the trials. \u00a0But I know I don’t and won’t. \u00a0God help me remember to keep in touch during the times of quiet, when things are going good. \u00a0Thank you for loving me and being faithful when I can be such a bad friend. \u00a0I really do love you God.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Judges 7:15-25. \u00a0As you read this you probably think Gideon finally got it, and he did, sort of. \u00a0As we saw in yesterday’s blog he is listed in Hebrews as an example of faith, so he definitely has to get credit for that. \u00a0But when I read this it seemed a little sad to me […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=209"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":226,"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209\/revisions\/226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}