6/21 "A Few Good Men."

In the 7th chapter of Judges, we read about Gideon who with his band of 300 men defeated a massive Midianite army that was poised to wreck havoc on much of Israel and would have done so if God was not with Gideon and his courageous men. In effect, God used a few good men to thoroughly route the enemy and eliminate them as a further threat. Now Gideon had originally put together a large army of 32,000 men but God made it clear to his commander that the army was too large even though they were already outnumbered by 4-1. Well, a surprised Gideon trims his men to 10000 men after he lets everyone leave who is fearful to fight this battle. It seems that fear and victory are not cut out of the same cloth to say the least. But now, Gideon still needs to trim his army further and indeed so much so that he finally ends up with less than 1% of his original army, namely 300 men.

The reason God gives for this “close shave” is that Israel must be certain that the victory will be the Lord’s victory and not accomplished by these men on their own. So why does God put these men through the pressure cooker of daring to trust Him in the face of such overwhelming odds? The answer is that during the days of the Judges, about a two hundred year period, which followed the glory years of Joshua and his immediate successors (see Judges 2:6.7), the Israelites often backslid and different tribes of Israel would be harassed by their enemies because they had lost their divine protection due to their backslidden condition. Their faith, therefore, did not need to be tested so much as they needed to recover their faith through experiencing deliverance from imminent danger and actual bondage as happened on a number of occasions; see Judges 2 which summarizes this trend. They needed to learn that when they drift away from their faith based heritage, they are putting themselves in harms way.

On this Father’s day I believe that God is mobilizing a few good men who will stand up to the rising tide of godlessness and wickedness in our country and who will get their priorities straight and be the Priests of their own families by leading by example. Too often, we men leave it to our wives to carry the ball where family devotion to God is concerned. In our church, I am encouraged by those men who have stepped up to the plate and are pitching in a variety of places including especially VBS. Thanks guys. Without you we would be lacking those few good men who make a difference for us all.