士師記7:9-25 Judges 7:9-25,

After their deliverance from the land of Egypt, where they were slaves, the Israelites were given ten teachings by God to observe. These are the Ten Commandments, which we also read in every Sunday worship. What is the first commandment of the Ten Commandments? The first commandment is: “You shall have no other gods before me.” What is the second commandment? The second commandment is: “You shall not make for yourself an idol.” In other words, the Israelites were not to make and worship gods like the people of the other nations, who had made visible idols of their own devising.

However, when the Israelites were rescued by God and settled in the land of Canaan that God had given them, they too believed in the image of the god Baals, whom the people of the land believed, would bring rain and a good harvest, and the image of the goddess Asherahs, whom they believed, would increase their offspring and bring prosperity. They worshipped them. Then God had the surrounding foreign nations attack the Israelites as punishment for breaking the teachings they were supposed to uphold. And they had to live under foreign domination for a while.

One of the stronger nations around Israel was the Midianites. The Midianites invaded the land of the Israelites on camels, destroying the crops in the fields and taking their sheep, oxen and asses. The Israelites, suffering from the Midianite invasion, prayed to the Lord God for help. God answered their prayers and called a man from among the Israelites named Gideon and established him as their leader. Today’s Bible passage describes how Gideon fought against the Midianite army.

The Midianite army was a large army. Verse 12 says: “And the Midianites and the Amalekites and all the people of the East lay along the valley like locusts in abundance, and their camels were without number, as the sand that is on the seashore in abundance.” There must have been tens of thousands of soldiers. In contrast, the Israelite army numbered only 300 men. Why were they so few? It was because God had commanded Gideon to reduce the number of soldiers. Lest the Israelites think they had won a victory over the Midianites on their own, God ordered Gideon to send home many of the 32,000 Israelite soldiers who had originally been present.

How could only 300 men fight against tens of thousands of enemies? Gideon divided the 300 soldiers into three companies of 100 men each. He had each of them carry a trumpet and an empty water jar with a burning torch in it. At midnight, they surrounded the enemy position from three different directions, blew their trumpets in unison, broke the water pots, held up the torches to their left and shouted, “A sword for the LORD and for Gideon!” The Midianites were so terrified that they began to fight each other, mistaking each other for enemies. They killed each other and fled away. In this way, God gave Gideon and the Israelites victory.

When we live our lives believing in Jesus, we experience many battles. The battles are not actual wars, but battles in which we testify that we believe in Jesus in the midst of many people who don’t believe in him. And if you can live witnessing to Jesus in the midst of persecution, that means you have won the persecution. There are not many people who believe in Jesus here in Japan, but God gives us the power to live testifying of Jesus and not to be defeated by persecution.