The Lord told Gideon, “With these 300 men I will rescue you and give you victory over the Midianites. Send all the others home.” So Gideon collected the provisions and rams’ horns of the other warriors and sent them home. But he kept the 300 men with him. (Judges 7:7-8)

Now the Lord has what He wants. He has Gideon and 300 men. We have a tendency to focus this whole story on Gideon and miss the small miracle of these 300 warriors.

We don’t know a lot about them except that they passed two tests. They were brave, in that when given an opportunity to go home and not fight this battle, they stayed. This does not mean they were not afraid — fear is human — it means they were willing to stay and fight because they believed something was up, and they wanted to be a part of it. The God of Israel was on the move. Secondly, they were alert; they were awake to what was going on around them; they were tuned in. When you consider that they did not have, as Gideon did, the benefit of an angelic appearance and two fleece tests, it’s pretty remarkable what they did.

The Midianite camp was in the valley just below Gideon. That night the Lord said, “Get up! Go down into the Midianite camp, for I have given you victory over them! But if you are afraid to attack, go down to the camp with your servant Purah. Listen to what the Midianites are saying, and you will be greatly encouraged. Then you will be eager to attack.”

So Gideon took Purah and went down to the edge of the enemy camp. The armies of Midian, Amalek, and the people of the east had settled in the valley like a swarm of locusts. Their camels were like grains of sand on the seashore — too many to count. Gideon crept up just as a man was telling his companion about a dream. The man said, “I had this dream, and in my dream a loaf of barley bread came tumbling down into the Midianite camp. It hit a tent, turned it over, and knocked it flat!”

His companion answered, “Your dream can mean only one thing — God has given Gideon son of Joash, the Israelite, victory over Midian and all its allies!” (Judges 7:8-14)

What a surprise. Gideon has had three miraculous signs so far, all of which he asked for, and even apologized for taxing God’s patience with the last request — “This time make the fleece dry and the ground wet” — and God decides to throw in a bonus confidence-builder. He sends Gideon into the Midianite camp with the express purpose of overhearing a conversation about a prophetic dream in which Gideon, son of Joash (by name), defeats them. (It appears that rumors about Gideon had already been circulating around the camp; God was planting fear in the enemy’s heart.). God is going the extra mile here to assure Gideon that he is going to be victorious. This is nothing short of God’s grace to Gideon to give him a sign he didn’t even ask for.

When Gideon heard the dream and its interpretation, he bowed in worship before the Lord. Then he returned to the Israelite camp and shouted, “Get up! For the Lord has given you victory over the Midianite hordes!” He divided the 300 men into three groups and gave each man a ram’s horn and a clay jar with a torch in it. (Judges 7:15-16)

Gideon worshiped God over this, which, of course, is God’s favorite part. He interacts with us and receives our praise, which is something He truly desires in our relationship with Him.

So Gideon wakes up his soldiers and issues them strange weapons. All this happens in one night, by the way. God woke Gideon up and he, in turn, woke up his 300 men. That’s all the sleep they’re going to get tonight. No matter; they’re on nervous energy and God’s strength now.

And what’s with these strange weapons: a ram’s horn and a clay jar with a torch in it? They seem more like party favors than weapons of war, but this is God’s plan, and Gideon is merely following it. This is more proof of the fact that, for Gideon as well as for us, this is the Lord’s battle, not ours. You don’t get this stuff in military training. God often puts strange things in our hands because He wants there to be no doubt that the victory was, and is, His, and not ours.
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But the Lord told Gideon, “There are still too many!” (Judges 7:4)

Still too many? This is after God had already reduced the number of Gideon’s fighting men from 32,000 – a number that favored the enemy 4 to 1 – down to 10,000 fighting men, roughly 13 to 1. And that was still too many?

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Soon afterward the armies of Midian, Amalek, and the people of the east formed an alliance against Israel and crossed the Jordan, camping in the valley of Jezreel. (Judges 6:33)

It’s show time in the valley of Jezreel. Canaanite armies from the east have already joined forces and are moving west across the Jordan to camp in a large, flat, fertile plain just to the south of the hill country were Gideon lives at Ophrah. Inevitable forces are in play that will soon collide, and little timid Gideon will be right in the middle of it. But this is a different Gideon from the one who only a few days ago was hiding in a winepress. This is a man whose confidence is growing — confidence not in himself, but in the claim the angel of the Lord first gave him, that the Lord would be with him.

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Early the next morning, as the people of the town began to stir, someone discovered that the altar of Baal had been broken down and that the Asherah pole beside it had been cut down. In their place a new altar had been built, and on it were the remains of the bull that had been sacrificed. The people said to each other, “Who did this?” And after asking around and making a careful search, they learned that it was Gideon, the son of Joash.

“Bring out your son,” the men of the town demanded of Joash. “He must die for destroying the altar of Baal and for cutting down the Asherah pole.” (Judges 6:28-30))

Gideon’s first enemies were at home. You don’t tear down someone’s altar without repercussions. Idols don’t go down easily. Not because the idol itself has any power, but because of the hold the worshiper has on it. It’s like prying it out of someone’s hands. Gideon anticipated this reaction; that’s why he did the deed at night. He was afraid.

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That night the Lord said to Gideon, “Take the second bull from your father’s herd, the one that is seven years old. Pull down your father’s altar to Baal, and cut down the Asherah pole standing beside it. Then build an altar to the Lord your God here on this hilltop sanctuary, laying the stones carefully. Sacrifice the bull as a burnt offering on the altar, using as fuel the wood of the Asherah pole you cut down.” (Judges 6:25-26)

Before any of us can go out and do mighty things for God in the world, we have to take care of what’s going on at home. Before we can defeat the enemy that is encamped about us, we must deal with the one that already wormed its way into our household. There’s no way God is going to give Gideon victory over the Midianites while the false god, Baal, sits smugly atop the place of worship in his father’s house, where someone might even think it was by the power of the idol that the victory was won. No way.

And yet this is such a common reality. Indeed, for many who have experienced success outside the home, the tendency is to become more and more involved “out there” and pay less and less attention to what is going on “in here,” because what’s going on in here isn’t going so well. How can I expect God to entrust His wider family to me when I’m letting my own family go at home?

Our idols are not as obvious and clearly defined as Gideon’s, yet our idols are quite prolific. Indeed, our idols can be virtually anything. Anything we return to for comfort, power, insight — things God supplies to us freely — is an idol because it has taken over the place of God. For instance, one of my idols is the Ignore button. I press it whenever anything becomes too difficult for me, and by doing that, I supplant God who is available to empower me to do the difficult thing. The Ignore button has to come down.

Think about what (who) you go to for comfort. Find that which gives you a false sense of power and makes you think you’re smarter than everyone else, and you’ve probably found an idol in your house that needs to come down. Believe me, we’ve got lots of them.

So Gideon took ten of his servants and did as the Lord had commanded. But he did it at night because he was afraid of the other members of his father’s household and the people of the town. (Judges 6:27)

When you knock down an idol, you find out that’s all it was — an idol. Not the real thing at all. It’s powerless; that’s how you can knock it down. The only power idols have is the power we give them in our lives. Take them down and they are nothing.

Gideon got no argument from the idol. Tearing it down was a relatively easy job; he and his servants accomplished it all in one night. Cutting up the wooden Asherah pole only showed that it was made up of nothing but firewood — excellent fuel for an offering to the true God of Israel. The resistance came from the people of Gideon’s family who had given these idols of stone and wood significance in their lives. We have a psychological word for this: it’s called codependency.

When we knock down one of our idols, we will undoubtedly receive resistance from those close to us who have made adjustments to that idol in their lives as well. Just like Gideon’s family, they will have to decide what they are going to do without that idol in the house. The point is, it will create an environment that calls for a greater dependence on God, and that is where we all want to be.

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