Overcoming Your Fears

Chapter 6

Overcoming Your Fears
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No More Excuses:
Overcoming Your Fears
WE ARE ALL familiar with Murphys Law: Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong! When you get to the book of the Judges, you realize that everything that could go wrong went wrong. Every problem you could imagine happened to the Israelites. And in every case it was their own fault!
Once they had conquered the land and taken possession of Gods inheritance, they decided to take it easy. And the hope of the promise began to fade.
The book of Judges records six cycles of failure, repentance, and restoration. Six times the people are at ease. Six times they fall into sin. Six times God allows an enemy nation to come in and oppress them. Six times they come under judgment. Six times they cry out to God for a deliverer. Six times they repent. Six times God raised up a judge (the deliverer). Six times the enemy is expelled. And six times a time of rest and prosperity followed. It worked like this:
These cycles are true in our own lives. When we are doing what God wants us to do, everything goes well. That doesnt mean there arent problems and difficulties. It simply means the hand of Gods blessing is real. When we get used to the blessing and start ignoring God, the enemy comes in, and everything goes wrong.
This is exactly what happened in the days of Gideon.Judges 6:1says: Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of theLord, and for seven years he gave them into the hands of the Midianites. The Midianites were desert bandits who came from the Arabian desert to raid the farms of Israel. They would attack the people of the valleys, steal the food and cattle, destroy the villages, and chase the Israelites into the hills. For seven years these bandits came back. Every time the Israelites were ready to reap the harvest, the Midianites came and stole the crops. The results were devastating.
Imagine Ali Baba and 40,000 thieves! Thousands of Arab bandits coming out of the desert on their camels; attacking the children of Israel; stealing their food, their women, and their animals; destroying their cities and then running back to the desert again. This went on for seven years! Finally the children of Israel were broken before God. They repented of their sin and cried out to God for deliverance.
But this time God stepped back and said, Wait a minute. Weve been through this before! When are you going to learnyour lesson? So you can get the point this time, Im going to pick the most unlikely candidate I can find! A guy by the name of Gideon, akaSuper Chicken!A guy whos afraid of his own shadow!
An Unlikely Hero
The wordifand the wordfearappear constantly throughout the story of Gideon:Ifyou really want me to do this;ifthis is what Im supposed to do.If-if-if,Gideon never operates on faith and certainty. Hes always raising the wordifbecause he is afraid. Later, God turned him into something he was not. When we think of Gideon today, we think of a great hero, a great leader. There is even a great Christian organization named after himthe Gideons.
But Gideon started out in bad shape. When the Lord first found him, he was hiding in a winepress.Judges 6:11says, The angel of theLordcame where Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites. A winepress was a deep hole lined with stones. You threw the grapes down into the hole. Then someone would jump in and stomp the grapes.
Gideon was down inside the winepress, but he was not trying to make grape juice. He was in the winepress trying to thresh wheat! Normally, this was done on a threshing floor in an open field. Gideon was fearful that if he did it out in the open, the bandits would come and steal the wheat from him. So he got down inside the winepress and tried to throw the grain up through the opening. He must have looked ridiculous. He didnt even have enough room to operate. Imagine being cramped in a deep hole, trying to throw grain back up through the opening in the top and having the wheat fall back in your face, all the while frightened that the Midianites were coming. He had to have been covered from head to toe with the husks of grain!
About this time, the angel of the Lord came along dressed like a shepherd and sat down under a tree next to the winepress. Im sure he must have chuckled to himself. The winepress looked like an open mouth of a well, when all of a sudden, up comes a pile of grain and down it goes again: up and down, up and down, over and over again. Finally, the angel of the Lord decided he had better say something to this guy down there. So he said to him: TheLordis with you, mighty warrior (Judges 6:12).
Gideon probably thought, Mighty warrior? Are you out of your mind? Im scared to death! Im down here in the winepress hiding for my life!
But sir, Gideon replied, iftheLordis with us [the first of Gideons manyifs], why has all this happened to us? TheLordhas abandoned us (Judges 6:13). He was really saying, Where is the power of God and His great miracles that our forefathers told us about? We havent seen God do anything! Everything is going wrong!
Instead of correcting him, criticizing him, or chastising him, the angel said, Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midians hand (Judges 6:14).
Go in my strength?Gideon thought.I dont have any strength! Im Super Chicken, hiding down here in a winepress. And youre out of your mind! Im from the tribe of Manasseh, and were the least of all the tribes! And Im from the house of Joash, and were the least of all the families in Manasseh. And Im the least in my fathers house. No way! Youve got the wrong guy!
God has a way of choosing unlikely candidates to do His work. He deliberately picked Gideon because he was such a coward. The old rabbis viewed Gideon not as a great warrior, but more like a bumbling oaf. Some years ago in the Hallmark series on television, this story was recreated with Peter Ustinov playing the part of Gideon. He portrayed a clumsy farmer who kept stumbling over his own shadow. Why had God chosen acoward to defeat Israels enemies? He did it to teach them to trust His promises and not their own power.
Overcoming Our Excuses
Most of us know the story of Gideon. He offered every possible excuse. But God would not let him get out of this obligation. Finally, Gideon said, Ifnow I have found favor in your eyes, give me a sign (Judges 6:17). It wasifnumber two.
Gideon left to prepare a sacrifice. When he had finished and brought it out, the angel of the Lord asked him to put it on a rock. The Bible says the angel of the Lord took the staff in his hand and touched the rock. Instantly, fire came up out of the rock and consumed the entire offering. Gideon panicked and screamed, Im going to die! Im going to die! Ive seen God face-to-face. Im going to die!
The time for Gideons excuses had come to an end. It was time for action! The angel commanded Gideon to tear down his fathers altar of Baala Canaanite storm god. Gideons father, Joash, an Israelite, had no business having it.
The angel wouldnt take no for an answer. So Gideon tore down Baals altar. He got ten of his servants to help him, and he did it at night because he was afraid of his family and the men of the town (Judges 6:27). That simple phrase in the biblical text tells us how far the Israelites had strayed from God. They had totally forgotten the miraculous power of God. They were more afraid of public opinion than they were of God!
By morning, the whole town was angry. They came to Joashs house, knocked on the door, and demanded, Bring out Gideon! He tore down Baals altar, and were going to kill him!
Joash couldnt believe it!Gideon?he thought.He actually did something for once? Who cares if it was against me? Its the greatest thing hes ever done!Joash then told the men that ifBaal were really a god, then Baal could plead his own case. Let Baal defend himself, he said.
Then Joash gave Gideon a new name:Jerub-Baal.In Hebrew it means let Baal plead his own case.
All too often, most of us sit back saying, Somebody should do something. Somebody should stand against secularism and paganism in our society. Somebody should tear down Baals altar and raise the standard of God. And Gods reply usually is, Why dont you do it? When are you going to take a stand in your home, or at your place of work, or in your neighborhood and your community?
God is still in the business of eliminating our excuses. An excuse is nothing more than a lie packaged to look like an explanation. As soon as Gideon took a stand, fearful as he was, people were willing to follow him. What makes a person a leader? He has to be willing to lead. If you start leading, people will start following. But if youre not leading, no one is going to follow you. Thus we have confusion, compromise, and defeat.
As soon as Gideon took a stand for what was right, people lined up to follow him. God took the most unlikely person imaginable, touched his life, and empowered him to go on to win one of the most incredible victories in human history.
No Turning Back
Before Gideon realized what he was doing, the Spirit of God came upon him, and he rallied an army against the Midianites. People came from all the surrounding towns and all the northern tribes: Manasseh, Naphtali, Asher, and Zebulun. They all showed up, saying, Were here to follow you!
Gideon thought, Im not used to being a leader. Now what am I going to do? So he went back into his fear mode. He said, Ill tell you what, God,if(here we go again) You really want me to do this, I need another indication to prove that this is Your will.Lets try a fleece. We often use the termputting out the fleece.But in reality, the fleece wasnotan act of faith. It was an act of fear!
The fleece was part of Gideons hesitation. He wasnt ready to fully trust God yet. He was saying, God,ifYou really want me to do it, heres what Im going to do. Ill take this piece of wool and put it out on the threshing floor at night. When I get up in the morning,ifthe fleece is wet with dew and the ground around it is dry, Ill know for sure You want me to lead the children of Israel.
He got up the next morning and, sure enough, the fleece was wet and the ground was dry. It was so wet that he wrung out enough to fill a bowl of water! Did he believe God and proceed? No! He asked, How about two out of three? And this time the fleece is dry and the ground is wet.
He got up the next morning and again the fleece was dry and the ground was wet. God was not going to let him off the hook. There was no turning back now.
The people came by the thousands to follow him.
They encamped at the spring of Harod, which in the Hebrew language means the place of trembling. Cowardly Gideon with his army of farmers encamped at the spring of trembling. You can just imagine who was doing the trembling!
This place still exists today. Its off the beaten pathjust like it was thenbut you can still find it. There is a natural spring at Harod, which overlooks part of the valley below. It was here that Gideon came with an army of 32,000 men. The problem is, there were 130,000 Midianites and Amalekites down in the valley. The Israelites were completely outnumbered! In fact, Scripture describes the invading horde as grasshopperslike a plague of locusts swarming across the valley.
Gideon stood there thinking,Were outnumbered! We dont stand a chance! Were doomed! What am I going to do?
God spoke to Gideon and said, Weve got a problem.
Gideon agreed,Youre right! I dont have enough men!
God said, No, youve got too many men!
Too many men? What do you mean, too many men?Gideon thought.
Youve Got to Be Kidding!
God replied, If I let 32,000 defeat 130,000 theyre going to say, We did it ourselves! Ive been dealing with these people long enough to know how they operate. I want you to ask your men, How many are afraid? Then tell the ones who admit it to go home.
Gideon probably thought,Me! Im afraid. And I want to go home!But he went ahead and asked, How many of you are afraid? And 22,000 people raised their hands. He had to tell them to leave. That left him with about 10,000 menhardly enough to do the job.
Ive never been in a battle, but Ive been in a war zone in Africa. We would go to a town, preach, and leave. And the next day, the town would be attacked with missiles. We talked to soldiers every day who were being shot at in a terrible civil war. The soldiers claimed there were three kinds of people in a battle. First, they said anybody with any sense was afraid, and that covered most people. Thats why two-thirds of Gideons army left. Second, there was a bunch of guys who just wanted to fight. They didnt care if they got killed. They would stay and fight. Most of the other third of Gideons force was probably like them.
The soldiers also told us about a third category of men in battle. Theyre the ones who are too afraid to admit theyre afraid, they explained. So when Gideon said, If youre afraid, raise your hand, they couldnt do it. They couldnt even get their hands up. They were catatonic. They froze on the battlefield, too afraid to admit they were afraid.
God said, There are still too many men.
Too many men?Gideon thought.
Take them down to the water, and I will sift them for you there. Separate those who lap the water with their tongues from those who kneel down to drink (Judges 7:4,5).
Everybody who stuck his head down in the water and sucked up a drink was put in one category. Then all the lappers were put in another category. They were the ones who scooped up the water in their hands and lapped it with their tongues.
Ive read almost every commentary ever written on the book of Judges. There is every kind of explanation for this system of separation. Some say that the three hundred guys who lapped up the water were the wisest and best prepared. They were the ones watching for the enemy. The rest werent paying attention. They just stuck their heads down in the water and drank. Let me remind you, the Israelites were up on the top of the mountain. The enemy was way down in the valley. Nowhere near them! There was nothing to be afraid of at that point.
The same old rabbis who viewed Gideon as a reluctant leader also viewed the three hundred lappers as being afraid to take a drink. Those who lapped their water thought,Theres a Midianite behind every rock. Theyre going to get us.But there wasnt anybody there! I believe God picked out the three hundred biggest cowards He could find in Gideons army and put him in charge of them!
When Youre Too Afraid to Go On
By now, poor Gideon was bewildered.How am I going to lead these guys to victory?he wondered.Ive only got three hundred men!
Thats when God intervened. Get up, go down against the camp, He said.
You want me to go down to the camp of the Midianites?Gideon thought.
If you are afraid to attack, go down to the camp with your servant Purah and listen to what they are saying, God suggested (Judges 7:10,11).
Next, the Scripture says he took his servant Purah with him. Purahs name means foliage. Thats something to hide behind. Remember those old cowboy movies where they crept in behind the tumbleweed? Thats the idea in this passage. Gideon is pushing the servant down the side of the mountain, saying, Im right behind you.
Something unusual happened when he got to the edge of the enemy camp. It was dark, and 130,000 men were asleep on the valley floor. Gideon came to the edge of the camp where two men were standing guard, talking to each other. This is the conversation Gideon and his servant overheard:
Man, Im scared about this whole thing, the first guard said.
Why are you so scared? asked the other.
I had the weirdest dream last night, the first guard said. I dreamed a barley cake rolled down the side of this mountain and destroyed our whole army.
What do you think it meant? said the other.
I think its Gideon! Hes going to attack and kill us all! the first man replied.
If there is anything that will encourage the heart of a coward, it is to find out that the enemy is more afraid of you than you are of him. With renewed confidence, Gideon charged back up the hillside, gathered his troops, and prepared to attack.
I Know the Feeling
When I was a kid growing up in Detroit, my mother decided I needed to be in the Cub Scouts. So she signed me up and sent me off. In Detroit, the Cub Scouts didnt collect butterflies or rocks. They just fought all the time! Every time I would go to a den meeting, fights broke out. One day the den mother decided that since we wouldnt stop fighting, we would have organized fightinga boxing elimination with a champion.
There was only one problem with this arrangement. One of the kids in our Cub Scout troop was an absolute monster! He was a Tasmanian devil. His name was Tim. Big Tim, and he had a buzz haircut and a big, square jaw. Besides all that, he was ten years old!
When I was eight years old, Tim looked like he weighed 200 pounds. Like I said, he was a monster!This is going to be a waste of time,all of us kids thought.Tim will beat all of us up!The den mother divided us into two groups. Fortunately for me, I was not in Tims group. Those poor little skinny guys would walk sheepishly into the ring with Tim. He would growl at them, stalk them into the corner, then POW! It was all over in one swing!
I was with a bunch of nerds who didnt know what they were doing. I didnt know what I was doing either. We pushed each other around for a few minutes. Nobody even got hurt. But they kept announcing, The winnerHindson! I won a couple of rounds by pure accident.
I was feeling good until it occurred to me that if I won another round, I would win my division. And if I won my division, I would have to fight TIM! I was in real trouble! So I figured I would take a dive as soon as the bell rang. But the other kid beat me to it! The championship battle came around, and it was Little Edward against Big Tim. Scared as I was, a strange thought came to my mind. I had made an observation. Up to this point, nobody had ever hit Tim. They only backed up and backed up, and WHAM!Tim blasted them. I began to think through my options. I could quit Cub Scouts and go home. Or I could do something really crazy and stupid: I could wind up and hit him.
I was standing there scared to death. But I was not about to back up, because I knew he would get me. Which option would it be? The bell rang. I ran across the ring and hit Tim right in the mouth. It shocked him! He wasnt expecting it! Itcouldnt possibly have hurt him, but it scared him. He started to cry! Then I went crazybam-bam-bam. Why? I found out the other guy was more afraid of me than I was of him. Thats all it took!
Thats what happened to Gideon. He couldnt believe it. The enemy was afraid of him! He took courage in their fear. The Bible says, Resist the devil, and he will flee from you (James 4:7). All too often we let our fears overwhelm us, and we give up. But God says, Dont give up. Get up! Take courage. Stand up. And trust Me!
When God Has a Better Idea
Gideon came back to the Israelites raring to go. Then God said, I have a very unusual plan as to how were going to defeat the enemy. Its probably not what you had in mind. Were not going to go down and beat them up. Were going toscarethem away!
How easily we forget where we were when God found us. The fearful, hesitant coward is raring to go, and God had to hold him back. He had to remind Gideon that He was still the One in charge.
The Lord gave Gideon an incredible battle plan. He told him to take the three hundred men and divide them into three groups. He gave instructions to Gideon to give a pitcher with a torch inside it to every man, along with a trumpet for them to carry. Then He told him to put a hundred men on each side of the valley and a hundred in the middle. Gideon was to give the signal and the men would break the pitchers, wave the torches, and blow on the trumpets. Then they were to shout, The sword of theLordand Gideon!
God used Gideon and his three hundred lappers to scare the enemy away! When armies fought in ancient times, they rarely ever fought at night because they couldnt see anybody. Almost all of the battles in the ancient world were fought during theday. However, when they did fight at night, only a few soldiers carried a torch to light up the battlefield. Anybody who carried a torch could not carry a shield, which meant every torchbearer was undefended. So they used one torch for about every hundred men. That was usually enough light to see by.
They couldnt put a trumpet in every mans hand, either. If he had a trumpet in one hand, he would be missing a shield or a sword. Have you ever seen those Revolutionary War paintings? They had a little fife and drum corps. A few guys are playing on a piccolo and banging on a drum. Typically, there are about a dozen of them for every thousand soldiers.
Put the Enemy to Flight
A similar situation occurred in British history when the Scots were losing the Battle of Bannockburn. Word came from the battlefront that the Scots were retreating. In response, the old men and young boys waiting behind the Scottish front line picked up the flags and bagpipes and ran toward the battlefront. When they did, they made so much noise and kicked up so much dust that the other sidethe enemyretreated instead.
In the middle of the night Gideons enemies heard the smashing of the pottery pitchers. It simulated the clash of arms and echoed down in the valley below. The noise terrified the Midianites and the Amalekites. They looked up and saw the torches and heard the trumpets surrounding their camp. They assumed there were thousands of soldiers out there. They panicked, thinking the Israelites had hired allies to come against them. In the confusion of the noise and darkness, two different groups of people with two different dialects ran out of their tents. The Midianites and Amalekites slaughtered each other without even realizing it. Before the night was over, 120,000 Midianites and Amalekites were dead. All Gideon and his three hundred men had done was to stand there and make some noise for God!
It doesnt take thousands of people to make a difference in the world in which we live. If a few people will get out and make some noise for God, and wave the light of the truth in the darkness, God will multiply and magnify their efforts. There is no telling what you and I could do for the cause of Christ if we really tried.
As Gideon and his men saw their enemy in confusion, they were so excited that the three hundred men ran down the hillside and chased the ten thousand Midianites and Amalekites that were left. Then the other Israelites came from the surrounding hills and joined the fight as the morning dawned. Before the fight was over, the Israelites had wiped out nearly everybody. The few that survived ran into the desert and never came back.
The Promisor kept the promise alive! For the first time in a long time, the enemy respected the people of the promise and left them alone. They had taken a stand, scared the enemy away, and God had brought a tremendous victory through the leadership of an unlikely person with an unlikely army. Super Chicken and the lappers had prevailed.
God has always been in the business of doing the impossible. Sometimes it was the only way to keep the promise alive. Usually it was the only way to remind people that the Promisor was greater than the promise. The Bible reminds us: God has not given us the spirit of fear: but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7, KJV). Its a lesson we all need to remember: God is more interested in our finding Himinlifes struggles than protecting usfromlifes struggles.