The Sword of the Lord and Gideon
Judges 7-8
In this sermon we will be looking at the phrase “the sword of the LORD and Gideon”. We will make a spiritual application to our sword being the word of God and how when we give up on our ideas and thoughts and focus on God’s word, we like Gideon can accomplish great things.
In our passage the children of Israel are being ruled by the Midianites. God uses Gideon and a very small number (300 men) to win a major battle and free Israel from the Midianites. There is a great battle plan where Gideon divides his men into three groups and give them trumpet and lamps. They surround the enemy, blow their trumpets, break the pitchers revealing the lamps, and shout the sword of the LORD and Gideon. Upon hearing this the host of the Midianites flees, and 120,00 men were killed as a result of this battle.
Our Sword must be the Sword of the Lord (Judges 7:14 with 7:18-20)
Note that because of the dream the Midianites said it would be the sword of the Gideon that would destroy them, but Gideon refers to it as the sword of the LORD. From this though we see that our sword must be God’s sword. It must not be our intellectual abilities, talents, knowledge, what we find on the internet, or even what others say about the word of God. It must be what God says in his word.
The word of God is no ordinary Book ( 1 Peter 1:23 with Hebrews 4:12-13):
Below we will give some examples for God himself being the author of the Bible:
1) The middle verses of the entire Bible are Psalm 103:1-2.
- In a King James Bible, there are 31,102 verses. When you add these numbers together you get the number 7 (3+1+1+0+2=7). Therefore, we know that when God completes something he does it with the number 7. This will not be true for some of the modern bibles like the NIV because they leave verses out, like Acts 8:37. Try to find that one in the text of a NIV.
- Since the number of verses in a King James Version is an even number then that means there will be two middle verses. That is why we listed Psalm 103:1-2 as the middle verses.
- Now it is also interesting that the numbers in Psalms 103:1-2 also add to the number 7 (1+0+3+1+2=7).
- Both verses begin with “Bless the Lord”. Right in the middle of the word of God is two verses that begin with Bless the Lord. That cannot be a coincidence. Only God could arrange his word that way.
- If you count up the total number of words in these two verses, you will find that there are 28 words which is 7 X 4.
- Therefore, the middle four words are “Bless His Holy Name”. Now that must be the work of God. There is no way that so many different men writing so many years apart could have made this work out. Right in the middle of the entire Bible is the phrase Bless His Holy Name.
- Now this is interesting because in Psalm 138:2 the word of God says that he has magnified his word above his name.
2) The Bible knows more than science
- It can be day and night at the same time (Luke 17:30-34)
- The earth is round (Isaiah 40:21-22)
- Wind has circuits, jet streams as they are called today (Ecclesiastes 1:6)
- How does rain work (Ecclesiastes 1:7)
- The moon doesn’t shine (Job 25:5)
- Light is always moving (Job 38:19)
- Light can be parted (Job 38:29)
- Electricity and communication (Job 38:35)
- You must bath in running water (Leviticus 15:13)
What can we accomplish when the word of God is our sword:
1) We can overcome great obstacles and odds (Judges 7:16 ; 8:10)
- The word of God has great power that can accomplish the unimaginable (Acts 4:13-15 ;
1 Corinthians 1:18-25)
2) We can be a good example (Judges 7:17)
- We will never be a good example without following the word of God (1 Thessalonians 1:5-7)
3) We can stand our ground (Judges 7:21)
- There were times when no one stood with Paul and their will be times when no one will stand with you (2 Timothy 4:16-18)
4) We can answer the critics (Judges 8:1-3)
- Proverbs show us how to answer (Proverbs 15:1 ; 26:4-5)
5) We can have strength to carry on (Judges 8:4)
- The word of God is our true source of strength (Matthew 4:4)