Before we
look at Gideon and
his army, we must not overlook the Bride attributes shown by the life
of Gideon himself.
And when
the men of the city
arose early in the morning, behold, the altar of Baal was cast down,
and the grove was cut down that was by it, and the second bullock was
offered upon the altar that was built. (Judges 6:28) And
they said one to another, Who hath done this thing? And when they
enquired and asked, they said, Gideon the son of Joash hath done this
thing. (Judges 6:29) Here
we see
the single action of obedience to Yahuweh that
brought notoriety
to Gideon among his neighbours, and also gives us an important
prophetic picture
of the Bride. In this passage we see that Gideon reveals the Overcomer
quality of the Bride.
Gideon: The Removal of IdolatryHere, Gideon shows us the
Bride's willingness to break down, to destroy, and remove all the
graven images and idols in her life, even at the expense of a ruined
reputation among her peers. What many consider mere toys, or
art objects, or figurines - the Bride considers graven images and
idols. She will not "make, have, or acquire" them, as the
Scriptures teach. Neither will she even bring
them
into her house, lest her house fall under the same curse the item is
under (See Exodus 20:4; Deut 7:26, and study the meanings of the Hebrew
word <06213> "asah").
As
a result of Gideon's obedience in removing the stronghold of
Idolatry in the Land, we see that Yahuweh then begins to use Gideon
to bring deliverance to the rest of Yahuweh's people. We see next
that Gideon goes through a time of testing the word of Yahuweh, and
then Gideon gathers an army. We will then notice that Yahuweh
tests Gideon's army.
As we look at
Gideon's army, we see that it is composed of thirty-two thousand men:
And
the LORD said unto Gideon, The people that are with thee are too many
for me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel vaunt
themselves against me, saying, Mine own hand hath saved
me. (Judges 7:2)
Now
therefore
go to, proclaim in the ears of the people, saying, Whosoever is fearful
and afraid, let him return and depart early from mount Gilead. And
there returned of the people twenty and two thousand;
and there
remained ten thousand. (Judges
7:3) Notice
in the above passage, how the original army of 32,000 is separated into
two parts, by selective removal of certain soldiers based, on certain
of their personal qualities. Notice next what happens next to the
10,000 that remained:
And the
LORD said unto Gideon,
The people are yet too many; bring them down unto the water, and I will
try them for thee there: and it shall be, that of whom I say unto thee,
This shall go with thee, the same shall go with thee; and of whomsoever
I say unto thee, This shall not go with thee, the same shall not
go. (Judges 7:4) Here
we see
that it is Yahuweh's choice as to who goes, and who does not.
So
he brought down the people unto the water: and the LORD said unto
Gideon, Every one that lappeth of the water with his tongue,
as a dog
lappeth, him shalt thou set by himself; likewise every one
that boweth
down upon his knees to drink. (Judges 7:5)
And
the number of them that lapped, putting their hand to their
mouth, were
three hundred men: but all the rest of the people
bowed down upon their
knees to drink water. (Judges 7:6)
And
the LORD said unto Gideon, By the three hundred men that
lapped will I
save you, and deliver the Midianites into thine hand: and let all the
other people go every man unto his place. (Judges
7:7) Now we see a further
separation. The
10,000 are separated into two groups, one group of 300 men, another of
9,700 men. This separation was made based on some action the
men took, and even Gideon did not know beforehand which group was
which. We can see it was the natural inclination of some to drink the
water one way, but of others to drink another way. Each man made a
choice as to how he would drink. Notice that Yahuweh chose them based on
their actions.
At the future separating out of the
Bride harvest, it will be exactly the same - but in reverse order from
how Gideon's men were separated. In the Bride Harvest, the
representative 300 of the Bride will be
removed first; then
the 9,700 will be separated out; and finally the 22,000. Just
as
Gideon did not have three armies, but only one; so the harvest
separations will be 3 separate phases of the one Harvest.
The
final piece of the Gideon puzzle appears in verse 13:
And
when Gideon was come, behold, there was a man that told a dream unto
his fellow, and said, Behold, I dreamed a dream, and, lo, a cake
of
barley bread tumbled into the host of Midian, and came unto a
tent, and
smote it that it fell, and overturned it, that the tent lay
along. (Judges 7:13) In
the
above passage we will note two things. First, the prophetic dream of
the Midianite soldier speaks of Gideon's army as a Barley loaf tumbling
into the army of Midian. Barley speaks of the Firstfruit of the
harvest, and the loaf aspect speaks of the many overcomers that
together make up the one Firstfruit Bride company. (See 1 Cor 10:17)
Second,
we can learn from the chapter and verse numbers. We have
learned from Prophetic
Numbers In Scripture that even these numbers are "flags"
or indicators in themselves. Even though these numbers have
been assigned by men, many years later than the original
writings. Nevertheless, they were overseen and arranged by
Yahuweh, the true Author of the Scriptures. Even the chapter
and verse numbers are used to "flag" Scriptures for the
Bride-Candidates.
The chapter number 7, along with
the verse number 13, together with the mention of the Firstfruit grain Barley,
tells us this is a message for the
Bride. The number 7 speaks of the preparation, or perfecting,
of the Bride; The number 13 speaks of love, and together
speak of the perfecting of love within the Bride. These
items, within the context of Midian, Barley, and the loaf, all speak of
the victory that Yahuweh will bring for the Bride Company, in overcoming
the last enemy of Death.
For we have been told that
Love is stronger than - and prevails over - Death (See Song 8:6).
|