WHEN Jesus walked with two disciples on the road to Emmaus after his resurrection, he taught them about himself from the Old Testament. We come to a part of the Old Testament which may well have featured in the teaching of Jesus to his disciples, although we have no record of it. It is certainly one that is full of spiritual instruction.

The passage we are to look at now in this continuing study in the life of Gideon is Judges, chapter 7 and verses 15-25. If I have a text, it is verse 22, which reads as follows - "When the three hundred trumpets sounded, the Lord caused the men throughout the camp to turn on each other with their swords." I feel that it is the crunch of this incident.

I am continually encouraged by Gideon. He is such an ordinary fellow. So weak, yet used and loved by God.

There is one powerful message for us in this passage. It is a message which is ever more being impressed upon my heart and soul. I am so sorry that I am so slow to actually learn it, not so much in my head, but in the way I live my Christian life. It is message which is vital for the church and every Christian to learn, and if only we would learn it, in the church world-wide, I think we would have revival tomorrow.

It is the lesson that victory in the spiritual realm, in the work of God and his church, comes not by human wisdom, or human power, skill or energy, but from God.

Now we all know that, and we will affirm it. However when we get down to our church business, we forget it.

Once at a Deanery Synod meeting at which the Suffragan Bishop was present with the Archdeacon, we had a better meeting than usual. The Bishop and the Archdeacon challenged us with a vision for the diocese and particularly for our deanery, but in the end, just as we inevitably do, when we have our church councils and our meetings, all that we were really thinking about in our discussion was what we could do and should be doing, such as parish audits and the like. I am not saying that these are bad. They are essential, but in the end if we have not got firmly hold of this, that it is God who works in his church, and we are nothing, we shall never begin to know blessing, for we shall only be putting our trust in our own efforts and wisdom and not in the power of God.

This is why I have linked with this passage in Judges, Philippians 3, verses 3 and 4, "For it is we who are the circumcision, (that is the true Christians,) we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus," - and here is the important line - "and who put no confidence in the flesh - though I myself have reasons for such confidence ..." We may have great reason for confidence in our own ability, but if we are taught by the Spirit of God, we put no confidence in the flesh.

This is the great lesson, and the purpose of this study is to see how God taught it to Gideon and to Israel.

Firstly Gideon was called by God when he was in his father's backyard, and he was told to go and pull down the altar of Baal in his father's backyard. He didn't want to do it. Then he was called to be the leader and he knew, not only that he was without strength, but that everybody else thought he had no strength, and he was most reluctant to take the leadership in Israel to oppose Midian. Midian had not been defeated. Midian and been the plague of Israel and their nuisance for years. But God had called him, and amazingly he had pulled down the altar of Baal. His father had defended him, and God defended him, and then the Spirit of God came upon him.

In the Spirit of God he had gone out and gathered an army. We are told this in chapter 6 and verse 34 - "The Spirit of God came upon him". So in God's strength he went out and gathered an army, Thirty two thousand men, against the hundred and thirty five thousand of Midian.

However Gideon was still thinking in terms of the flesh. God was with him. God's Spirit had come on him and he felt strong. He was amazed how people flocked to him, and how these people came to him. They would not have done so if the Spirit of God had not been with him, but we still find him thinking in terms of the flesh, that he could go out now with these men and think about battle. God was with him and God would give him the victory, but still, in his human thinking, it had to be human flesh as well.

Isn't that how we think? God will give us the victory, but we must be the ones that do things, and if we don't do it, somehow nothing will happen. We are depending upon our flesh. I am not saying that we should do nothing. I have got no time for those Christians who come into a meeting and say "the Lord will give me inspiration at the time", and have prepared nothing at all. The result is that the whole meeting is a mess. I am not saying that we should do that. But here was Gideon doing what I have done so often. I say God is our hope and strength, but I say we must get together, and we must plan this and do this, and so I forget God.

And so God in Gideon's case, in order that he may learn to trust in God alone and not in human strength, removes his whole army except three hundred men. A derisory number, and Gideon is completely demoralised. But then God builds him up.

Why was he demoralised? Though he trusted in God, he also trusted in the flesh, but God had taken away all that he had trusted in. Oh yes, God was with him, but God could not perform any victory unless there was at least thirty two thousand men. Isn't that how we think in our church life? So God had made the power of the flesh silly. What was three hundred men against one hundred and thirty five thousand. I guess also that the three hundred left were not the best in the army. God is rather like that. He picks the foolish things to confound the wise.

Then God gives this dream to Gideon, the one we looked at in the last chapter, to assure him that the victory was certain, and he sees that it is not the flesh but God, and this is what it proved to be. Look at verse 22. Three hundred trumpets sounded, but it was not that that gave the victory. It was the Lord who caused the Midianites through their camp to turn on each other with their swords.

Can you imagine it. They knew their numerical superiority. We are told that they were like locusts on the plain. Now one or two naturally would have been frightened. May be a thousand or two thousand at the most. But the whole army, the officers, the generals, do you think that they would be frightened. Can you imagine any army being so demoralised as to be defeated by three hundred men?

God did a miracle. God performed a great act. But it is not just in that particular incident but in the acts of God we see before hand. God's hand was in it, and if we do not see this I believe we are not actually reading the Bible in a spiritual way. Can't we see the hand of God in the battle strategy used by Gideon. God said in verse 7 of this chapter. "The Lord said to Gideon, 'With the three hundred men who lapped', notice it, 'I will save.' The emphasis is all on God who would give Midian into Gideon's hand.

Who is the general? Who is the commander of the army of Israel? Is it Gideon? No! it is not. It is God. The three hundred may have seen Gideon as their commander, but what Gideon had learnt was that he was only the second in command. He was the lieutenant, and a lieutenant's one duty is not to make the plans, but having been given the plans and the instructions by the commander, to see that they are carried out in an efficient way by the troops which are under him.

That is what Gideon did. It was God who was the general, and Gideon was simply the second in command, and if we don't see that we have not seen the message here. Gideon had at last come to that point where not only was he depending on God for God's help, but he was in the hands of God, so that in every step that he took, it was God who was working, and moving, and in the end giving the victory.

It was after God had shown Gideon the divine strategy for victory that the seeds of panic and terror were sown in the minds of the Midianite soldiers. So this extraordinary strategy was not Gideon, it was from God. It is actually psychologically amazingly good. If someone came outside your house, and blew a trumpet and broke a pitcher and shouted; and then it happened all the way around the house, I expect you would wake up in the night in quite a lot of terror. But in and of itself, although it was marvellous strategy, it couldn't have given the victory.

The way it all worked was that Gideon was in the hands of God at this point, not only in trusting him for the victory, but in the means which was used for the victory. This is what we are learning in this study, or at least I hope we are, that it is nothing of the flesh, and that it is all of God. Courage, the plan, the strategy, the result, all was of God.

It is an amazing thing that God, who can do all things, is pleased to use us, his sinful people. He is pleased to do it, and it is part of his saving work in our lives. Gideon learnt because God used him. We learn as God uses us. But we only learn as we are like Gideon, or learn like Gideon, that it is the will of God that we must do. The will of God that we must see, and that we must rely on the power of God, and give all the glory to God. We must not lean on anyone, but God.

As we dig deeper in this study, we see that Gideon tells the soldiers in chapter 7, "Watch me, ...., do exactly as I do", verse 17. Watch me!, he told them; follow my lead. When I get to the edge of the camp, do exactly what I do. How confident Gideon is here. But we saw he was not confident in verse 9. "During that night the Lord said to Gideon, 'Get up'". After God had taken all his soldiers away from him, and he only had three hundred, Gideon sat down in despair. He was not going to move. God was with him, yes, but three hundred men; what was that. He sat down. He had no confidence. But now he has confidence. Where has the confidence come from. The confidence is there because, at last, Gideon was in tune with God. He knew the will of God. He had the instructions of God, and when he said do exactly what I am doing, he was saying, I am doing exactly what God wants me to do, so you follow me, and we will together, do the will of God. That is how it must be within the church of God.

Gideon acted when God's instructions and his plan were clear. He could not have gone into battle else. Yet we go into battle in the spiritual realm with our own plans, and our own devisings, and we are surprised then when things don't go too well. Oh yes, we have discerned God's will in the overall thing we have to do, but we haven't discerned God's will in the nitty gritty of everything that has to take place. Having got this wonderful vision, we then do it all in our own strength. We mustn't do that. Gideon was following God's instructions to the letter.

Really it was very foolish for three hundred men to go out in the dark, - one hundred here, and one hundred there, and one hundred in a third place, - and then break their pitchers, etc. against the one hundred and thirty five thousand men. Yet they could do it because it was God's instructions. The flesh could not have done it, but it is not the flesh but God.

Then in the cry of the battle, notice it, "For the Lord, and for Gideon". "The sword of the Lord, and of Gideon". This is the cry that Gideon put into the mouths of the soldiers, so that Israel may know that they are not fighting for themselves and their own glory. Not fighting for Israel, and Israel's glory, but fighting for the Lord and his glory. When we do things in the church, in the ministry of God's church, whose glory have we in mind? Whom are we exalting? Who do we want that the people should see in the end?

Isn't it true that so often we are triumphal as we talk to other Christians about the work that God is doing in our patch, and thus take glory to ourselves, not giving glory to God. It is John the Baptist who is so very profound in this respect. When his disciples came to him, and said 'look what is happening, this Jesus is taking all your glory away', he said "He must increase, and I must decrease". We should be unhappy until we are as insignificant as this in the eyes of everyone else. How difficult it is, because when we are insignificant we are miserable. But we need to be insignificant, so that God, Jesus, is great in the eyes of the people.

Let us apply this before we finish. There is a fourfold application.

First of all we must learn to have confidence in God, and not in ourselves. Let us be weak in ourselves. Some people, because of experiences in their lives, have very little self worth. Praise God for it. When we feel we have little worth, we imagine other people looking at us, or we think that they are looking at us, and thinking we are useless, and that makes us miserable and oppressed. Let us look to Jesus. He looks upon us and says, 'You are precious to me', for "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth". But why is this so? It seems such a contradiction. It is because that when we are in this lowly position we look to the Lord Jesus and rely on him alone. The Lord Jesus comes and builds us up and makes us strong. As we look at him this sense of lack of self worth is something of great blessing. Generally we are too self confident. The world today tells us to sell ourself, and we pick up this message, but in the end Jesus says, "sell me and not yourself".

Secondly, after learning to have confidence in God and not in ourselves, then let us learn that no obstacle or power is too great for God to overcome if it is his will.

If it had not been God's will at this time for the Israelites to beat Midian they would have been foolish to even attempt it. In the history of Israel in the time of Jeremiah, Jeremiah told the people, God says I will save you if you give yourselves into the hands of the Babalonians. That was God's word at that time. When they did not want to do it, they found that fighting against God brought defeat.

With God nothing is impossible, however; a hundred and thirty five thousand men against three hundred is still a victory for the three hundred because it was God's will. God's power is infinite and nothing is impossible. It only becomes impossible when we are not doing the will of God.

Thirdly, no power of men, however great, will achieve anything if God is not for it.

We may have a wonderful church building, and we may have much expertise and so on in the congregation. We may have many plans and visions, and we may do them with great excellence so that the people outside say, 'Look, don't they do it well!'. But if it is not God's will it will achieve nothing. In the story of the feeding of the five thousand we see all these people flocking to Jesus. Seeing something like this today we would say in our looking out on the church life that there was church growth. All that host of people flocking to Jesus and filling the church. But Jesus put his finger upon the reality of it and said, "You are not coming to me for the Word of God, you are coming because of the miracles, and the feeding." Later when they chased after him he said, "You have come because you were fed yesterday, but you have not come for the bread of life. Labour not for the meat which perishes, but for the meat which endures to eternal life." The fact that there are whole crowds coming is not necessarily church growth in the spiritual sense. The only thing that is of worth is when it is God's will, and however our success outwardly, if it is not God's will it is not success. It will eventually fail and fade away.

Lastly, we learn the importance of walking in God's will as Gideon did.

Now, I know this to be true, and I have said it so often in church council meetings, but I just do not know an easy way to know God's will. How confused I get when there are all sort of different views, all of them good, but some are conflicting. What is God's will? I may be uneasy in my mind about something, and yet other people are convinced it is God's will, who am I to say, that what others propose is not right. How do we know God's will.

Gideon seemed to learn God's will because he was such a poor specimen of human nature that he sat down until God indelibly impressed it upon his mind with compelling force what his will was. We need to pray that he may do it for us. Having no confidence in ourselves, we need this desire from the bottom of our hearts above everything else, that we know and discern the will of God, and know it clearly; not just in the wonderful plan or vision, but also in the details of how that plan should be carried out. Thus we must be people who pray.

When we wait upon God in prayer and times of quiet set apart to listen to God, perhaps we feel, are we going to hear anything? We won't hear anything if we don't seek to be tuned in. But even if we don't hear anything at one time, we should go on seeking until we do know God's will. Until we know God's will we should not act. That does not mean to say that we just sit down on our backsides and do nothing, but we should not do anything more than in one sense we are doing at the present. We leave knew things until God has given us his purpose and his will.

When God does make his will clear then let us do his will like Gideon did. Gideon obeyed God exactly and then said to the people "Do exactly what I do". So it was God's will that they did, and God brought the victory. We will in these circumstances be amazed at the power of God. The Lord caused men throughout the camp to turn on each with their swords. The three hundred had to do nothing but watch them run by them in terror. When God works in power that is how it is. We are amazed at what God is doing. We stand back amazed. It is all being done, as it were, for us. We are running to keep up.

Let us have no confidence in the flesh, but in God. If that is so let us seek his will with all our hearts.