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15As soon as Gideon heard about the dream and what it meant, he bowed down to praise God. Then he went back to the Israelite camp and shouted, “Let's go! The Lord is going to let us defeat the Midianite army.”
16Gideon divided his little army into three groups of 100 men, and he gave each soldier a trumpet and a large clay jar with a burning torch inside. 17-18Gideon said, “When we get to the enemy camp, spread out and surround it. Then wait for me to blow a signal on my trumpet. As soon as you hear it, blow your trumpets and shout, ‘Fight for the Lord! Fight for Gideon!’ ”
19Gideon and his group reached the edge of the enemy camp a few hours after dark, just after the new guards had come on duty. Gideon and his soldiers blew their trumpets and smashed the clay jars that were hiding the torches. 20The rest of Gideon's soldiers blew the trumpets they were holding in their right hands. Then they smashed the jars and held the burning torches in their left hands. Everyone shouted, “Fight with your swords for the Lord and for Gideon!”
21The enemy soldiers started yelling and tried to run away. Gideon's troops stayed in their positions surrounding the camp 22and blew their trumpets again. As they did, the Lord made the enemy soldiers pull out their swords and start fighting each other.
The enemy army tried to escape from the camp. They ran to Acacia Tree Town, toward Zeredah, and as far as the edge of the land that belonged to the town of Abel-Meholah near Tabbath.
23Gideon sent word for more Israelite soldiers to come from the tribes of Naphtali, Asher, and both halves of Manasseh to help fight the Midianites. 24He also sent messengers to tell all the men who lived in the hill country of Ephraim, “Come and help us fight the Midianites! Put guards at every spring, stream, and well, as far as Beth-Barah before the Midianites can get to them. And guard the Jordan River.”
Troops from Ephraim did exactly what Gideon had asked,
Reflect
While the instructions to the soldiers must have sounded silly at the time, Gideon understood God’s bigger plan. Each of the 300 soldiers got to see God in action as the Midianites started fighting each other. That must have been quite the experience. But to have that experience, they needed to trust both God and Gideon. Good soldiers are well trained to follow their leaders without question – but these were not trained soldiers, they were simply men who drank water from the stream with their hands! God used their trust and faithfulness to defeat the enemy.
God can use our small acts of obedience for his greater purposes, too. Sometimes we see the results of our obedience and sometimes we do not. When I was in high school, I visited a friend in the hospital. Years later, I met him again. He introduced me to his daughter as “the one who had visited him in the hospital.” I never knew that I was his only visitor at that dark time of his life. And it had a huge impact on him and was a story he told his children.
Sometimes we follow God’s instructions as individuals, and sometimes as groups. He can use both. The point is to learn to follow him and his promptings in your life.
Respond
Dear Father God,
Thank you that you can use me to help others. Today, I pray that you will help me to hear your instructions and follow them. Through Jesus Christ, who followed your instructions even to dying on the cross. Amen.
Janet Epp Buckingham
Janet lives in Ottawa, Canada and has served as the Director of Global Advocacy for the World Evangelical Alliance since July 2021. She is also the Executive Editor of the International Journal for Religious Freedom, the flagship publication of the International Institute for Religious Freedom. Books: Donald E. Buckingham, Carolyn Marcotte, Janet L. Epp Buckingham, Bonnie Manning, and Lee Thompson, Learning About Law, (McGraw-Hill Ryerson: Toronto, 1997); Janet Epp Buckingham, Withering Rights: Religious Freedom in Canada, (The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada: 2004