Morning! It’s good to be together on this Tuesday in the Pastor’s Workshop.
This week we’re finishing up our series, “Ready to Reopen?” As we answer that question our first message focused on “Recovering our Confidence”. Our second sermon invited us to “Reassure our Doubts”. Our third sermon is entitled “Rally Cry”.
The text for this message comes from the Book of Judges, Chapter 7:15-23. This Scripture centers on Gideon’s battle.
On Tuesdays in the Workshop we “dive deeper” into our passage. We look for a “thread of logic” that unites the elements of our text. We search for an underlying emphasis being expressed.
As we examine these particular verses we need to see them in light of the whole story of Gideon. Knowing Chapter 6 and the first part of Chapter 7 makes this text “come alive”.
Here’s the background. Chapter 6 opens with the overwhelming oppression of the Midianites (6:1-6). Israel cries to the Lord and God reminds them of their Covenant (6:7-10), and calls and commissions Gideon (6:11-12). Gideon has hesitations and reservations (6:13-40). In Chapter 7 God “sifts” Gideon’s army from 22,000 to 300. The enormity of the Midianite army is described (“thick as locusts”). God reveals to Gideon a dream for victory. Gideon arms his troops with “trumpets and torches”.
As you read this context it’s clear that Gideon’s army was outmanned, under trained, and ill equipped. Their captain (Gideon) came from a place of being unsure, unconvinced and unconfident. On paper the odds were not good. It looked for sure like a massacre in the making.
And then we read Gideon’s rally cry, the battle cry. Verse 18 lifts it up, “For the Lord and for Gideon”. Verse 20 echoes the cry, “A sword for the Lord and for Gideon”.
A battle cry rallies the troops. It unifies your forces. It inspires bravery. It mobilizes to action. “For the Lord and for Gideon”. This is who they were fighting for … their Commander and their captain.
After the battle cry is given the battle unfolds. The battle plan relies on a huge element of surprise. Gideon’s 300 sneak up in the middle of the night, at the changing of the guard. They light their torches so the flames will flare and they blow their trumpets with all their might.
The battle plan works! Surprise, shock and awe are successful. The Midianite army is totally confused and panicked. In their pandemonium they turn their swords on each other. And then they run for the hills, literally.
As you watch the battle progress you realize the rally cry was not really about whom Gideon’s army was fighting for. It was about who was fighting for them. The rally cry was a cry of faith. The battle belonged to the Lord.
The “Battle belongs to the Lord” is a common rally cry throughout the Scripture. Zechariah puts it this way, “Not by might nor by power but by my Spirit says the Lord”. What Gideon’s rally cry (“For the Lord and for Gideon”) does is unify the troops, instill bravery, mobilize to action and also draw on the strength of God’s Spirit in the midst of the conflict.
This is a great lesson for all of us in the battles and conflicts of our lives. In faith, as we lean upon the Lord, we can know that the battle ultimately does “belong to the Lord” and it is “not by might nor by power but by God’s Spirit” that victory is won.
I invite you to consider that thought as you go forward in this day. I pray it will provide you the confidence it did for Gideon and his forces.
In that blessing I’ll look forward to joining you again tomorrow in the Pastor’s Workshop.
Prayer: Gracious God, in the struggles of our lives, when we feel overmatched and under equipped for what is ahead, let us remember Gideon’s rally cry, ‘For the Lord and for Gideon’ and the faith it voices. Let us claim that cry as our own so we know the strength it brings through your Spirit. This we pray In Jesus’ name. Amen