Let me continue the story of Gideon from my previous post because I am reading the Bible in that order. Previously I told you that God chose a man called Gideon to gather a group of warriors and fight their enemy, the Midianites. It turns out that the men chosen by Gideon were many. In Judges 7:2, the Lord said to Gideon, “You have too many warriors with you. If I let all of you fight the Midianites, the Israelites will boast to me that they saved themselves by their own strength”. Now here’s what caught my attention. In chapter 4, God says to Gideon to go with the strength you have and now in chapter 7 when their collective strength is known to be great, God says that there are too many of them. The reason he gives is that He do not want the people to boast in their own strength after they have won the battle. God knows they will win because that is what he wants, so why not let all of them take part?
You see, the primary purpose of the mission is for God to bring Glory to Himself and therefore bring praise to his children and not the other way. So often He lets us fight our battle with a limited amount strength or number which under normal circumstances would never bring us victory. But when we get through all of that and come out victorious, suddenly we realize that we could not have made it through without a supernatural encounter. God’s name is lifted up when we begin small. Much grace is needed for us to move forward.
God was satisfied when the amount Gideon’s force got down to the count of 300. Similarly few ever actually find the small narrow gate which has been perfected by the crucifixion of Jesus Christ that must be used to enter the kingdom of God. I suspect that those few the Lord references is less than the amount Gideon was allotted.
Hi Theodore, thank you for your comment.