We shall now ask the reader to open his Bible at the seventh chapter
of the book of Judges. Here Gideon's companions are brought before us;
and their history, as well as that of their leader, is full of
interest and profit for us. They had to be trained and tested as well
as he. Let us ponder the narrative.
"Then Jerubbaal, who is Gideon, and all the people that were with him,
rose up early and pitched beside the well of Harod: so that the host
of the Midianites were on the north side of them, by the hill of
Moreh, in the valley. And the Lord said unto Gideon, The people that
are with thee are too many for Me to give the Midianites into their
hands, lest Israel vaunt themselves against Me, saying, Mine own hand
hath saved me."
The clear and soul-stirring blast of Gideon's trumpet had drawn around
him a very large and imposing company; but this company had to be
tested. It is one thing to be moved by the zeal and energy of some
earnest servant of Christ, and it is quite another thing to possess
those moral qualities which alone can fit a man to be an earnest
servant himself. There is a vast difference between following in the
wake of some devoted man of God, and walking with God ourselves--being
propped up and led on by the faith and energy of another, and leaning
upon God in the power of individual faith for ourselves.
This is a serious consideration for all of us. There is always great
danger of our being mere imitators of other people's faith; of copying
their example without their spiritual power; of adopting their
peculiar line of things without their personal communion. All this
must be carefully guarded against. We specially warn the young
Christian reader against it. Let us be simple, and humble, and real.
We may be very _small_, our sphere very narrow, our path very retired;
but it does not matter in the least, provided we are precisely what
grace has made us, and occupying the sphere in which our blessed
Master has set us, and treading the path which He has opened before
us. It is by no means absolutely necessary that we should be great, or
prominent, or showy, or noisy in the world; but it is absolutely
necessary that we should be real and humble, obedient and dependent.
Thus our God can use us, without fear of our vaunting ourselves; and
then, too, we are safe, peaceful, and happy. There is nothing more
delightful to the true Christian, the genuine servant of Christ, than
to find himself in that quiet, humble, shady path where _self_ is lost
sight of, and the precious light of God's countenance enjoyed--where
the thoughts of men are of small account, and the sweet approval of
Christ is everything to the soul.
Flesh cannot be trusted. It will turn the very service of Christ into
an occasion of self-exaltation. It will use the very name of Him who
made Himself nothing in order to make itself something. It will build
up its own reputation by seeming to further the cause of Him who made
Himself of none. Such is flesh! Such are we in ourselves! Silly,
self-exalting creatures, ever ready to vaunt ourselves, while
professing to be nothing in ourselves, and to deserve nothing but the
flames of an everlasting hell.
Need we marvel at the testing and proving of Gideon's companions? All
must be tested and proved. The service of Christ is a very solemn and
a very holy thing; and all who take part therein must be self-judged,
self-distrusting, and self-emptied; and not only so, but they must
lean, with unshaken confidence, upon the living God. These are the
grand qualities that go to make up the character of the true servant
of Christ, and they are strikingly illustrated on the page of
inspiration which now lies open before us.
Let us proceed with the narrative.
"The people that are with thee are too many for Me to give the
Midianites into their hands.... Now, therefore, go to, proclaim in the
ears of the people, saying, Whosoever is fearful and afraid, let him
return and depart early from mount Gilead. And there returned of the
people twenty and two thousand; and there remained ten thousand."
Here the first grand test is applied to Gideon's host--a test designed
to bring out the measure of the heart's simple confidence in Jehovah.
A coward heart will not do for the day of battle; a doubting spirit
will not stand in conflict. The same principle is set forth in
Deuteronomy xx. 8: "And the officers shall speak further unto the
people, and they shall say, What man is there that is fearful and
faint-hearted? let him go and return unto his house, lest his
brethren's heart faint as well as his heart."
Faint-heartedness is terribly contagious. It spreads rapidly. It
withers the arm that should bear the shield, and paralyses the hand
that should wield the sword. The only cure for this malady is simple
confidence in God, a firm grasp of His faithfulness, a child-like
trust in His word, true personal acquaintance with Himself. We must
know God for ourselves, in such a way that His word is everything to
us, and that we can walk alone with Him, and stand alone with Him in
the darkest hour.
Reader, is it thus with thee? Hast thou this blessed confidence in
God--this solid hold of His word? Hast thou, deep down in thy heart,
such an experimental knowledge of God and His Christ as shall sustain
thee even though thou hadst not the support or sympathy of another
believer under the sun? Art thou prepared to walk alone in the world?
These are weighty questions, and we feel the need of pressing them
upon the Church of God at the present moment. There is a wide
diffusion of the precious truth of God, and numbers are getting hold
of it. Like the blast of Gideon's trumpet, so the clear testimony
which has widely gone forth of late years has attracted many; and
while we quite feel that there is real ground for thankfulness in
this, we also feel that there is ground for very serious reflection
indeed. Truth is a most precious thing, if it be truthfully found and
truthfully held: but let us remember that in exact proportion to the
preciousness of the truth of God so is the moral danger of trafficking
therein without a self-judged heart and an exercised conscience. What
we really need is faith--unfeigned, earnest, simple faith, which
connects the soul, in living power, with God, and enables us to
overcome all the difficulties and discouragements of the way. Of this
faith there can be no imitation. We must either possess it in reality
or not at all. A sham faith will speedily come to the ground. The man
who attempts to walk by faith, if he have it not, must speedily totter
and fall. We cannot face the hosts of Midian unless we have full
confidence in the living God. "Whosoever is fearful and afraid, let
him return." Thus it must ever be. None can go to battle save those
who are braced up by a faith that grasps the unseen realities of
eternity, and endures as seeing Him who is invisible. May this faith
be ours, in larger measure, beloved reader.
It is full of instruction for the heart to notice the effect of the
first test upon the host of Gideon. It thinned his ranks amazingly.
"There returned of the people twenty and two thousand, and there
remained ten thousand." This was a serious reduction. But it is far
better to have ten thousand that can trust God than ten thousand times
ten thousand who cannot. Of what use are numbers, if they be not
energized by a living faith? None whatever. It is comparatively easy
to flock around a standard raised by a vigorous hand; but it is a
totally different thing to stand, in personal energy, in the actual
battle. Nought but genuine faith can do this; and hence when the
searching question is put, "Who can trust God?" the showy ranks of
profession are speedily thinned.
But there was yet another test for Gideon's companions. "And the Lord
said unto Gideon, The people are yet too many; bring them down unto
the water, and I will try them for thee there: and it shall be, that
of whom I say unto thee, This shall go with thee, the same shall go
with thee; and of whomsoever I say unto thee, This shall not go with
thee, the same shall not go. So he brought down the people unto the
water: and the Lord said unto Gideon, Every one that lappeth of the
water with his tongue, as a dog lappeth, him shalt thou set by
himself; likewise every one that boweth down upon his knees to drink.
And the number of them that lapped, putting their hand to their mouth,
were three hundred men: but all the rest of the people bowed down upon
their knees to drink water. And the Lord said unto Gideon, By the
three hundred men that lapped will I save you, and deliver the
Midianites into thine hand: and let all the other people go every man
unto his place" (vii. 4-7).
Here then we have another great moral quality which must characterize
those who will act for God and His people, in an evil day. They must
not only have confidence in God, but they must also be prepared to
surrender self. This is a universal law in the service of Christ. If
we want to swim in God's current, we must sink self; and we can only
sink self in proportion as we trust Christ. It is not, need we say, a
question of salvation; it is a question of service. It is not a
question of being a child of God, but of being a proper servant of
Christ. The thirty-one thousand seven hundred that were dismissed from
Gideon's army, were just as much Israelites as the three hundred that
remained; but they were not fitted for the moment of conflict: they
were not the right men for the crisis. And why? Was it that they were
not circumcised? Nay. What then? They could not trust God and
surrender self. They were full of fear when they ought to have been
full of faith. They made refreshment and comfort their object instead
of conflict.
Here, reader, lay the true secret of their moral unfitness. God cannot
trust those who do not trust Him and sink self. This is pre-eminently
solemn and practical. We live in a day of easy profession and
self-indulgence. Knowledge can, now-a-days, be picked up at very small
cost. Scraps of truth can be gathered, second hand, in all directions.
Truth which cost some of God's dear servants years of deep
soul-ploughing and heart-searching exercise, is now in free
circulation and can be intellectually seized and flippantly professed,
by many who know not what soul-ploughing or heart-exercise means.
But let us never forget--yea, let us constantly remember--that the
life of faith is a reality; service is a reality; testimony for
Christ, a reality. And further let us bear in mind that if we want to
stand for Christ in an evil day--if we would be men for the crisis,
genuine servants, true witnesses--then verily we must learn the true
meaning of those two qualities, namely, confidence in God, and
self-surrender.