Many of us feel inadequate when we measure our seemingly
unproductive lives against the roll–call of faith in Hebrews 11,
where God’s servants “stopped lions’ mouths, quenched [the] power of
fire, escaped [the] edge of the sword … others were tortured …
underwent trial of mockings and scourgings, yea, and of bonds and
imprisonment” (vs 33–36). Our sense of inferiority is exacerbated by
the snide remarks of some around us today—who claim that
their testimony is rarely ineffective, and who boast that
theirs is a path of
constant victory. However, while it is true that “God has not given us a spirit of cowardice” (2
Tim. 1: 7) it is fatal to mistake confidence in self for the power
of the Holy Spirit!
In Heb. 11: 34 we read of those who “became strong out of
weakness”. These words refer, most probably, to Gideon (see v32)—a
man whom God took up in his manifest feebleness and converted into
an instrument of power to save Israel from her enemies. That one
whose thousand was the poorest in Manasseh, and the least in his
father’s house (see Judges 6: 15) could be so used, is surely a
witness to what God can do with you and I. Certainly Gideon was a
man of faith, but that faith grew out of a deep sense of his own
weakness. He is sometimes criticised for testing God’s Word with the
fleece (see v37), but his action did at least go hand in hand with a
recognition that he could not go forward in his own strength, and
that God alone could give Midian into his hand! At the beginning his
faith was small, and his fears great. God fanned that little flame
of faith, not by condemning Gideon’s timidity, but by passing him
through an experience that strengthened his faith in a way that
would not have been possible had he not first been frightened:
“Jehovah said to him, Arise, go down to the camp; for I have given
it into thy hand. And if thou fear to go down, go thou with Phurah
thy servant down to the camp; and thou shalt hear what they say; and
afterwards shall thy hand be
strengthened” (Judges 7: 9-11, my emphasis).
Again, when Gideon was instructed by Jehovah to throw down the
altar of Baal in his father’s house “it came to pass, because he
feared his father’s house, and the men of the city, if he did it by
day, that he did it by night” (Judges 6: 27). Who cannot identify
with Gideon here, and has not, at some time, been marked by a fear
of man—whether family, or from those around? A man full of faith
would, no doubt, have acted by day, but we do not become full of
faith overnight. Furthermore, without excusing Gideon’s failing, we
must not lose sight of the fact that he
did act. He obeyed
God—perhaps not in the greatest display of faith, but nonetheless he
obeyed. Better to act by night than not at all! Our “father’s house,
and the men of the city” are often unsympathetic to our testimony,
and we may shrink back from overt and public witness, but God will
honour any service, however feeble, that is done for Him. May you
and I—timid and fearful Christians as we are—be thus encouraged!
