Gideon becomes the mighty man of valor the angel said he
was. Twenty two thousand people have
enough fear of the Midianities to leave just because they are allowed to. The other way to look at that is that ten
thousand saw the 22,000 leave and still had enough courage to go forward even
though their ranks were dramatically reduced.
Still that was too many and the Lord had to devise a strange test to see
who would continue, the way the men drank water, and 97% of who was left were
sent home, leaving 300 who were, even then, willing to continue. The Lord sent Gideon to the camp of the enemy
and listen to the description of the force against them, "(they) lay along the valley like locusts
in abundance, and their camels were without number, as the sand that is on the
seashore in abundance."
Nonetheless, Gideon was unafraid.
When he overheard the dream about the barley cake rolling in and
flattening the tent and the interpretation that it was the sword of Gideon and
they would win the day, he came up with an odd plan. They had no weapon, only a trumpet and a jar
with a torch inside and still the 300 went forward. The movie 300 glorified the wrong company of
men of that size. The only thing wrong
is the cry of for the Lord and for Gideon.
In that we can see the snare that will indeed entrap them later.
John knew who he was. We are all to be like him, a voice crying in
the wilderness pointing to the coming of Christ in judgment. John's ministry was a ministry of preparation
for that very thing, a call to repentance from sin and baptism as the external
sign of the cleansing of the heart. The
body was washed clean in baptism (as clean as you could get in the Jordan river
at least) as an outward and visible sign of an inner and spiritual reality, the
work of the Spirit of conviction of sin.
Baptism wasn't the means of grace, it recognized the operation of
grace. The leaders thought that surely
John was aligning himself with some biblical figure that was promised such as
Elijah (see Malachi 4) or the Prophet (see Deuteronomy 18.15ff) but John is an
humble man and refuses to take such accolade for himself but Jesus says later
that Elijah has already come (see Matthew 17).
John's attitude towards the ministry we have been given should be our
own.
What an incredible thing to see this man
healed, leaping and praising God. Peter
knew what Jesus would do, heal the man, and believed he could do the same. That the man could leap after being lame from
birth is an extraordinary thing. Think
of all the hours of therapy that would be required if a physician were to have
done such an operation today in order to restore the man to walking, much less
leaping. He is giving glory to God and
the people see and know who the man is and that he has been healed. They hurry along to Solomon's portico, a
place of teaching in the outer court of the Temple, someone needs to explain
things, like how this happened and what it means.
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