In this chapter we are going to look at the passage in Judges 7 which commences with verse 8, and goes on to verse 15, but particularly we are going to look at verses 10 and 11. To these verses we can link a passage from the New Testament, verse 16 and 17 of 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 - "May the Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word." Encourage your hearts and strengthen you - that I think is our theme in this study - "An understanding and encouraging God."

It is very easy for us to be brave with hindsight, and wise after the event. We look back, and say, "Well, yes, it is all straight forward. It is simple. God is a great God, we don't have to fear or to be afraid. This is one of the dangers of expounding Scripture that we are wise after the event because we can look back. It has all happened, and we can then pontificate on what should be done, without being in the terrors and anxieties of the situation, which, for instance, Gideon was here. We see the whole thing. It is like reading a novel. We see the end from the beginning, and we look back from that vantage point. But Gideon was there. He didn't know the future. We need to take that on board when we are looking at the Bible, and certainly when we are expounding it. The Scriptures will have a whole lot greater meaning and blessing if we do.

We must seek to put ourselves into the thinking and feeling of the characters. Let us try and put ourselves into the thinking and feeling of this man Gideon. I find him such an encouragement, because I can identify so well with his weak humanity. We need to put ourselves into his feelings, and thinking, at the time of this event. I need to do it, otherwise I will apply the Word of God superficially and without understanding, and without sensitivity to other peoples feelings in the spiritual battle and the struggle we have in our Christian lives.

If God has given me any ability to do that - and I hope he has - I see here an encouraging and understanding God. May we go away after reading this chapter at least with that revelation and with that renewed understanding of God. This is certainly a message which comes out in this passage. It may not be all that could be said about it or from it, but I believe it is what God has laid on my heart. Certainly it has done me good.

So, first of all, God's understanding.

Before we consider this, look at the situation from start to finish. Look at verse 8, "So Gideon sent the rest of the Israelites to their tents." Can you imagine him doing that. There's his army, thirty-two thousand it was to start with, and he is left with three hundred, and he sends the rest away, saying, "you have got to go". He is left with three hundred. So small a number. There he is, miserable. I cannot imagine that he was particularly happy at this time.

He collects the trumpets, and so on, and looks at the weapons he has got. I wonder what you would think about if you had to fight with trumpets and pitchers and torches and things like that. As for Gideon, we are told in verse 8, "So Gideon sent the rest of the Israelites to their tents, but kept the three hundred, who took over the provisions and trumpets of the others. Now the camp of Midian lay before him in the valley. During the night the Lord said to Gideon, "Get up."

What had Gideon done? He had sat down - he and the three hundred - and there he was. He was paralysed. Now look at the end of this part of the story. We read, (verses 15), 'When Gideon heard the dream and its interpretation, he worshipped God. He returned to the camp of Israel and called out, "Get up! The Lord has given the Midianite camp into your hands."' What a difference. What a complete change, and it was due to the encouragement, and the understanding of God in his dealings with Gideon.

Look at what God says, "Get up, (verse 9), and go down against the camp, because I am going to give it into your hands. If you are afraid to attack..." God understood Gideon. He knew what he was feeling. Of course Gideon was afraid. I guess he was so afraid that he was near wetting his pants. He was sick with apprehension. I know I would be, if I was in his situation. In the supernatural strength of the Spirit of God, mentioned in the previous chapter, he had collected this thirty-two thousand men. The Spirit of the Lord had come upon him as we had heard, and he went out, and to his amazement, all the people of Israel and of the tribes came and gathered round him. Thirty-two thousand was marvellous, yet it was, in the eyes of fleshly wisdom, still too little. That number was like a flea-bite, compared with the number of the Midianite host and their allies, who covered the land like a swarm of locusts.

Then God comes along and says, you can send twenty-two thousand home, and then says, you have still got too many, send the rest home except 300. Here is Gideon left with 300 men and a promise. It is not surprising that he is fearful. He looked at his weapons, the trumpets and pitchers and torches. The promise of God was all very well, but he had no proof that it would be realised. God had given him assurance with the fleece, but he could see Midian down there, and it wasn't the same scene at all.

Gideon had no experience in his life or any hope of defeating Midian. Gideon's experience was of defeat and death and persecution and humiliation from Midian, with the Israelites totally impotent to stop them. God had given him just 300 men and the promise. Now God's promises are like this. God gives us his word, but the human evaluation of the situation always makes the promise, or nearly always makes the promise, seem impossible to fulfil.

I said that Gideon himself had no experience himself of God defeating his enemies, the Midianites. Oh yes, Israel's history was full of God doing wonderful things, just as we have the Bible which tells us of all the wonderful things God has done. We are able to look back in the history of our country, and we see the wonderful things God has done in our country, but has it happened to me? That is the big question. It hadn't happened to Gideon yet, and that was the problem..

It is all very well, as Gideon looked back on Israel's history, to say that this is what God can do, but it was very difficult for him to believe in the present and for the future.

Let us try to relate this to a possible situation in the church to which I am minister. We had been led by God to build an extension to our church building. This was because the new church we had was becoming too small for the numbers attending. God provided £450,000 needed for this project in two years. Supposing God suddenly said to our Church Council, simply because numbers attending again had become a bit more than the building could accommodate, I want you to build a daughter church. It is going to cost you £600,000. Would we feel any more able to believe for the £600,000, because we had been given £450,000 in the building of the recent extension. I guess not. Even though we had that practical experience, yet for the future we can see before us the difficulties of raising so much money again with all the clarity of the human potential, and it would appear impossible.

And in one sense it is aggravated, because we have all the sacrifice still raw in the hearts of the people who have given already, and who are still giving. And that was the situation, and even worse, for Gideon. He had no proof in his own experience that God would deliver Midian into his hands.

God deals with Gideon so kindly. Inside he was terrified. God doesn't expose him baldly saying, "Get up, you wimp. You are cowardly. You should believe." So many Christians do that with other Christians. They say, now get up. You shouldn't be so weak and unbelieving. God simply says, "If you are afraid." (verse 10). I am not saying you are, but if you are afraid. See how richly and kindly God deals with Gideon, and this is how he deals with us. God doesn't expose him or destroy him. He is just there, tenderly dealing with him.

God is an understanding God. God who knows what we are like, knows our fears and anxieties, knows how we feel and doesn't destroy us, but seeks to build us up, rather than to crush us.

I think we do a disservice to the Christian life when we do not take on board exactly what we are like in these situations. God asks us to do things. He gives us promises, and we have the Word of God, but it is not easy, and sometimes we are terrified, and sometimes we are fearful. Certainly Gideon had sat down, with his three hundred, and nothing was going to move him, because he did not feel he could go forward to do what God wanted him to do. God comes to him and says, "Get up!"

What was Gideon's problem? The problem was, as it is always with us in such situations, that Gideon was looking at human resources, and not at God.

The trouble is that the human resources are concrete. They are there before our eyes. We can touch them. We can evaluate them. We can put the pros and cons. They are all there. They are visible. We can assess the potential. But God's potential is, as it were, every time in the future and is theoretical in the sense that we can't really quantify it in a concrete fashion. God doesn't show us how he is going to do it. He doesn't give us a revelation of where the resources are going to come from, or how he is going to do it. It is in that sense theoretical.

We know his power is limitless. We know his promises are sure. But our senses find that intangible. Faith is not always easy to exercise to make them tangible. That was Gideon's problem. And it is ours, if we are honest with ourselves.

Now we can only grow in confidence and faith by much communion with God, and sitting and being in his living presence. The whole issue is illustrated so very well in that incident which we all know in the life of Peter. There were the disciples in the boat being tossed about by the storm and ready to sink, and Jesus comes to them walking on the water. When we are in the midst of the turmoil of life, Jesus does see us from afar and comes to us.

But you remember the story how they cried out, "Is it a ghost?" And Jesus says, "No! it is I, do not be afraid!" And Peter says, "If you are walking on the water, can I come to you walking on the water? And the Lord says, "Come to me." Peter got out of the boat, and he was walking on the water, and then! - then he looked down at the waves and began to sink.

The waves were there, and were very real to him. Even though Jesus was just in front walking on the waves, and this is the way we tend to look at things. Let us not assume that it is easy to be looking at Jesus, and not at the waves. The waves were at Peter's feet, and they were splashing, and they were rolling. If he had been looking at Jesus, perhaps, he would not have seen the waves, but they were very big waves.

This is as it was with Gideon. A very big army of Midian. A very big thing to ask him, and a very small company of people to help him. He saw these human things, and he couldn't lay hold of the limitless power of God. What is so wonderful is that God understood and cared and wasn't angry with Gideon.

We have been seeing in the story, how that God had promised, and promised, and promised, and given him all sorts of assurances, but still he was afraid. He wasn't a very brave man, and he still needed encouragement. God doesn't chuck him away, nor does he whip him. He deals with him so graciously.

The encouragement, thirdly, is that God gives. Notice three things which God gives Gideon.

First of all God gives Gideon something to do. In verse 9 he says, "Get up, go down against the camp, because I am going to give it into your hands." Get up and go down. God is a wonderful psychologist. There was Gideon sitting on his backside shaking. What better thing to do than to give him something to do, to take his mind off the terror. But the wonderful thing about it was, that what he had to do was the beginning of tackling his terror.

It was not as bad as taking his army to fight the Midianites, but he had to go down into the camp of the Midianites in the dark. I don't know whether any of you have been in the army. I have never had to do it in battle, but I was terrified of doing it even on schemes, going on a reconnaissance patrol. I was more frightened of getting lost and looking a fool, than getting shot or whatever. But I certainly didn't like it and was terrified. Gideon was going down into the enemy camp.

God was dealing with him in this way. Giving him something to do, but something to do which was tackling the problem of his terror. Isn't God marvellous that he deals with Gideon in this practical way. It was not like human wisdom such as in the army. When soldiers have got nothing to do, authority will get them all to just dig a hole, and then when they have dug the hole they are told to fill it up, and then dig another hole. All useless things just to give occupation. God does not give us useless things to do. He gave Gideon something useful to do, which would be seen to be such a blessing to him.

This is what God does in our lives and we need to be noticing these things in our lives as God does them, and see how God is encouraging us in them.

Secondly, God renews the promise. Verse 9 again. "Get up, go down against the camp, because I am going to give it into your hands." God is so wonderfully understanding. He had been continually renewing his promise, and continually Gideon couldn't lay hold of it. Isn't that like us? Yet God understands, and he renews the promise, and he renews it with more completeness - I am going to give the camp into your hands. The camp he was looking at. The camp he felt he could not go near. I am going to give it into your hands. God renews the promise. God understands our need to be reassured by being told frequently. Consider the relationship in marriage. The wife comes up to the husband, and says, "Do you love me?" And he says, "Yes, of course, you know I love you." But she says, "But you don't tell me so." We are all told by the people who know about these things that you cannot tell each other too often that you love each other. You have to verbalise it. You have to repeat it often, otherwise we begin to doubt it.

God is so infinitely patient. Here is Gideon needing the assurance of the promise again, and he gets it. Even though the promise that God would deliver the Midianites into their hands had been given so many times to Gideon that it shouldn't have been necessary to repeat it again; and even though because of this God would have a right to chide Gideon, saying, "Well I have told you this already so many times, can't you get it into your thick skull that I mean what I say"; yet God doesn't do that. He makes the promise again, that he, God, would deliver.

Also it is such a complete promise. It is not "I will help you." But "I will do it for you." And so God is gracious there.

Thirdly, God gives encouragement to Gideon. "If you are afraid" (verse 10) "to attack, go down to the camp with your servant Purah, and listen to what they are saying. Afterwards you will be encouraged to attack the camp." God provided evidence for Gideon that he need not be afraid to go down into battle as God had commanded him. God provided evidence that God was working, and how God would work amongst the Midianites. He wasn't going to send a thunderbolt, and he wasn't going to send a storm or something like that. No, he was going to sow seeds of doubt, by causing fear of Gideon in the Midianite army.

It must have seemed very encouraging to Gideon for God to tell him that. He would be able to think, "They are actually frightened of me, when here am I frightened of them." God had put the fear of Gideon into the hearts of the Midianites, by supernatural means, by a dream and by a special agency. The wonderful thing is that God led him to the important tent, and at the right time.

Notice how it is said, verse 13, "Gideon arrived just as a man was telling a friend his dream." There is no coincidence about that. God meant it to be so. There was Gideon groping about in the dark, saying "Ssh, ssh" to his servant. You know that sort of thing, and wondering where he should be going. Then he finds himself just at the right place to overhear this conversation through the tent. And what an encouragement to him that everything would be alright. God causes him to arrive at the tent just at the right time to hear this word of encouragement that would strengthen him, and it assured him that all would be well.

God does that sort of thing in our lives. Certainly I have found God doing that for me on more than one occasion and in all sorts of different ways. A word of encouragement here. Something else there. The trouble is we don't remember them. God does not say, "Well, it is time you did remember them". No! he just gives you another word of encouragement. Let us notice them. Let us expect them. Let us cry to God to give them to us. Let us never be afraid, in our weakness like Gideon, to appropriate the fact that God loves us, and treats us so graciously.

In closing, notice Gideon's response. "When Gideon heard the dream, and the interpretation, he worshipped God." (verse 15). What is worship? Here is Gideon worshipping God in the dark, outside a tent. Whatever our expression of worship is, where is worship truly expressed? It is expressed in our hearts and in our attitude to God. It was a drawing out of his heart a thankfulness to God. He probably almost wept there before God, that God had been so good to him. A thankfulness. The bowing of his heart in humble adoration. It was a growth of faith in this God - I can trust you, Lord.

He would have to renew his faith again, but at this moment, he worshipped and he had this trust in God, this thankfulness, this humbleness, this bowing before God. That is true worship. It is an action of the heart. It may be expressed in all sorts of different ways, and each of us do it in a different way. Some are quiet. Some are more exuberant. Gideon of necessity here could not be exuberant. He might have, when he got home, jumped up and clapped his hands and turned a somersault, or stood on his head. I don't know what he may have done, but at this moment all he could do was to be quiet, but it came from the heart. The outward actions are nothing unless it is first and truly in the heart. That is where it was with Gideon.

What a transformation. Wisely he crept out of the camp, but when he got back, we read, "He returned to the camp of Israel (verse 15) and called out, 'Get up! The Lord has given the Midianite camp into our hands.'" Notice the certainty of his mind now - "Has given!" The promise was real to him. He now could see God, and not the Midianite camp. So in God's wonderful way, Gideon sees that God understands him, and he experiences this marvellous encouragement.

May we expect this, and in expecting it, see God giving us such encouragement as we go on. The next time we are paralysed, let us expect that God will give us the same understanding and the same encouragement as we see here.