Day 117

Judges 7:1–8:17; Luke 23:13-43; Psalm 97:1–98:9; Proverbs 14:7-8

IN JUDGES TODAY, Gideon had managed to assemble an army of 32,000 troops. Counterintuitively, God whittled it down. Gideon invited all who were afraid of the fight before them to leave. Of the men, 22,000 departed, leaving Gideon with 10,000. But for God’s plan, this was still too many.

“If I let all of you fight the Midianites, the Israelites will boast to me that they saved themselves by their own strength,” the Lord said (Judges 7:2).

Eventually, the fighting force was reduced to only 300 men. God had put His people in another impossible situation. Perhaps they could have given Midian an honest fight with 32,000 warriors, but to take on a well-equipped army with only 300 men looked more like a suicide mission than a decisive battle for freedom from oppression. But God had other plans. Gideon took his 300 men, along with clay pots and rams’ horns, and surrounded the enemy camp. In the middle of the night, they began to smash the clay pots, shout loudly, and blow the rams’ horns. They sounded like a mighty and vast army, even though there were only 300 of them. The already spooked Midianites began to panic and attack one another. God brought the victory and freed His people from Midian’s oppression.

Gideon’s battle illustrates God’s tendency to confound our conventional wisdom and show His mighty power by doing the unexpected. The same is true in our own lives, but this only works if we are trusting God step by step and moment by moment.

In Luke’s Gospel, we again read of Jesus’ crucifixion in heart-wrenching detail. Once again, we had the opportunity to ponder the horrible price of sin and the overwhelming love of God for each one of us. Like Gideon’s battle, the victory Jesus won on behalf of all humanity was a counterintuitive one. No one fully understood what was happening until the battle was already won!

WORSHIP:

Let the sea and everything in it shout his praise! Let the earth and all living things join in. Let the rivers clap their hands in glee! Let the hills sing out their songs of joy before the LORD, for he is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world with justice, and the nations with fairness.