Sermon(Judg 7:1-8): Jehovah, the God of war

The original Korean text: https://blog.naver.com/stevision/50025286564

 

 

 

Scripture reading: Judg 7:1-8

 

>> ... 2 The Lord said to Gideon, "The people with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand, lest Israel vaunt themselves against me, saying, 'My own hand has delivered me.' 3 Now therefore proclaim in the ears of the people, saying, 'Whoever is fearful and trembling, let him return home.'" And Gideon tested them; twenty-two thousand returned, and ten thousand remained. 4 And the Lord said to Gideon, "The people are still too many ..." 5 So he brought the people down to the water; and the Lord said to Gideon, "Every one that laps the water with his tongue, as a dog laps, you shall set by himself; likewise every one that kneels down to drink." 6 And the number of those that lapped, putting their hands to their mouths, was three hundred men; but all the rest of the people knelt down to drink water. 7 And the Lord said to Gideon, "With the three hundred men that lapped I will deliver you, and give the Midianites into your hand; and let all the others go every man to his home." ... <<

 

As David went toward Goliath, King Saul gave him his armor and weapons. But David refused them all. Because they didn't fit him and he had a hidden card for the battle. David could win without a spear or a sword or an armor. Rather, the spear, the sword and the armor were not useful means but a hindrance to David's defeating the enemy. Having good spears, shields, and armors does not always make you the winner of war.

 

Brethren, what god is the Lord? “The Lord is a man of war; the Lord is his name. (Ex 15:2)” “The horse is made ready for the day of battle, but the victory belongs to the Lord. (Prov 21:31)” “... and that all this assembly may know that the Lord saves not with sword and spear for the battle is the Lord's and he will give you into our hand. (1 Sam 17:47)” Jehovah is a good god of war. No one can withstand the tactics and power of the Lord God, because he is the omnipotent God. Ladies and gentlemen, what do you think when it comes to germ warfare? Suddenly, a bad country comes to your mind? Do you know who is the first performer of the germ warfare? The Japanese special forces in World War II? No! The origin(!) of the germ warfare is God. “And that night the angel of the Lord went forth, and slew a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians; and when men arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies. (2 Kings 19:35)” It seems to me that this passage was written by a Bible reporter about the death of the army of Assyria who had been fighting against Judah but who died of a mass epidemic in the night. Of course, the angel of God made them die of disease. These days, science has developed so that weather can be controled to be used in war. But God already struck the enemy with hails big like a fist long ago. When the day was too short to attack the enemy, he manipulated the sky so that the sun would stay high for a long time. What a fantastic space war! God doesn't need an engineer corps. When there was no road, he made the sea split apart suddenly, and let his people flee in the road between the separated waters, but when the enemy chased his people in the road, he killed them all by making the waters return. When it comes to psychological warfare, God is the specialist. God made the rumor that the army of Pharaoh of mighty Egypt had been disastrously defeated by the army of God spread among the inhabitants of Canaan, and made them terrified so that they might lose their fighting spirit. So a woman such as Rahab was terrified before the war, and she cooperated with the spies of Israel so that Israel won the war. People (of Korean) call 'an easy thing to do' 'a cooled (or lukewarm) soup'. To wage war is 'to eat a cooled soup' itself for God! Secular people ascribe the glory of their victory to the goddess of victory, an idol, but it's wrong. The only god of victory is the Lord God who is capable of winning war.

 

Then who is the enemy of God's war? Is Israel an ally of God, and the Gentiles an enemy of God? It is not necessarily so. “When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man stood before him with his drawn sword in his hand; and Joshua went to him and said to him, "Are you for us, or for our adversaries?" And he said, "No; but as commander of the army of the lord I have now come. (Josh 5:13-14)” My brethren, the enemy of God is not the Gentile, nor Israel, but the kingdom of Devil. If there are the people of Devil in Israel, God punishes them through even the Gentiles. God wipes away from the earth those who, selling their spirit to Devil, trample down truth and justice and exclude the God from their life. God used Israel whose leader was Joshua to remove the evil peoples of Canaan. God made a covenant with Abraham. God would be the God of Abraham and his descendants, and they would be the people of God. According to the promise, God must give to his posterity the land where the Canaanites full of iniquity were living, the land where Abraham had lived as a stranger. In accordance with this, Abraham's sons must live up to the commandments of the Lord. By this, God wanted to drive out the iniquities of all mankind and the power behind them and to build his kingdom. When God called Abraham, he said, "All the people will be blessed through you." By this he plainly shows us with what purpose he chose Abraham and his descendants as his people. God chose Israel not for the election itself, but for the salvation of all mankind. Therefore, if Israel sinned, God punished them through the Gentiles, and if the Gentiles invaded Israel and tried to destroy it, God punished those Gentiles who would hinder his salvation plan.

 

Then how does God carry out the war in detail? God uses humans, but he does not depend on human strength. God wanted his people to learn of his justice and omnipotence through war. The wars of old days can be said to be the war of gods. Each country or tribe had its own god. When a country beat another country, they thought that their god beat the god of the other country. So the servant of Sennacherib king of Assyria who invaded Judah said, “And do not listen to Hezekiah when he misleads you by saying, The Lord will deliver us. Has any of the gods of the nations ever delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria? (2 Kings 18:32-33)” In fact, the gods of all countries except Israel were man-made idols, but since all people understood that the war was the war of gods, Israel's war was the war related to the honor of God. Through the war, God makes Israelites who are believing in him realize that only he is the true god. So, if possible, God does not let Israel rely on the number of soldiers or weapons when going to war. Because, If they are strong enough to win the war, they could be under the illusion that they won the war by their own strength, thus weakening their faith in God.

 

And so at times, God commands Israel to reduce its forces when they to go to war so that they may know that the victory of war is not in the number of soldiers and weapons, but only in the will of God. For example, when Joshua led the Israelites to conquer Canaan. God said then, “Do not be afraid of them, for tomorrow at this time I will give over all of them, slain, to Israel; you shall hamstring their horses, and burn their chariots with fire. (Josh 11:6)” Horses and chariots were like tanks of the army of today. In fact, the Israelites were very afraid of chariots of the Canaanites those days. The enemy soldiers tremble with fear when the strong horses pulling chariots run to and fro, causing big noise and clouds of dust. The movie Ben-Hur tells you how threatening the horses and the chariots can be. The dust and the roar were amazing. If the Israelites had defeated the Canaanites and possessed their horses and chariots, they could have conquered Canaan more easily, but God ordered the Israelites to cut the leg muscles of the horses and to burn the chariots pulled by them, in order that Israelites might know that also the victory thereafter would be given them only by God.

 

As Saul's armor and weapon were superfluous to David, so a large number of soldiers in the war that God intervened in was superfluous to God. The war between Israel and the Midian in today's text is an example. Why is this God's war? It was God's war because God appointed Gideon as the commander of the army of Israel to deliver his people who were suffering under Midianites. When Gideon recruited soldiers of Israel under the command of God, about thirty-two thousand were gathered. Saying that there are too many soldiers, God tells cowards to go home. So twenty-two thousand went, only ten thousand remained. God says again, "There are still too many. Reduce more!" Gideon led ten thousand soldiers to the waterfront. There, the army is divided into 300 to 9700. 300 people drank water by hand, and the rest knelt and drank water like cattle. God commands only 300 people to go to war. Why did God choose those who drank water by hand? No particular reason! Because he could win the war only with the army of 300 men. >The Lord said to Gideon, "The people with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand, lest Israel vaunt themselves against me, saying, 'My own hand has delivered me.'” (v. 2)< After all, God took 300 soldiers and defeated tens of thousands of enemies. What God promised is sure to happen.

 

There are several things God dislikes, the hands that love to shed the blood of the righteous and the haughty eyes. God hates human arrogance. Because from the standpoint of God the Creator, human pride is not beautiful. It's really ridiculous that a man, who is like dust or morning fog, who is not stronger than a gorilla, should boast of himself before God. Moreover there are the invisible providence and the hand of God behind all human accomplishments; just a few people know and acknowledge it. My brethren, humility is beautiful. Humility is our strength. Because, when we are humble, we can be helped by God's infinite ability even if we are incompetent.

 

In order to be victorious like Gideon, we must first become good tools of God. If we live in sin, we can never have victory in our life. In order to win, we must obey God's command thoroughly. Sometimes God commands us to throw away our useful means. As Joshua destroyed the horses and chariots he had taken from the enemy, and as Gideon sent many soldiers home, so we can win and succeed if we give up our tools if God commands. We can get the full help of God if we wholly trust in God's mercy and faithfulness rather than rely on our strength and merits. If we attribute today's victory exclusively to God's help, we can also be promised tomorrow's victories. We must always give all glory and thanks to God. The faith of 300 soldiers was not little. When Gideon, the leader, sent many of his soldiers home at the command of God, and tried to go to war with the rest, 300 soldiers, they followed the leader without objection. Dear friends, if your spiritual leader is a man of God, please do not challenge his leadership.

 

Thus, God determines the victory and defeat of all wars. He always wins the battle through the man who is humble, who gives up what must be given up, who obeys God wholly, who has the firm faith that can't be moved. God achieves a 100% victory through a leader who is thoroughly obedient to God and his men who do not doubt his leadership.

 

May you be God's loyal soldier. May God always give you victory.

 

Chong Tack Kim

 

                               - Dongtoma Sunshine Church -