“So he brought the people down to the water, and Adonai said to Gid‘on, ‘Put to one side everyone who laps up water with his tongue the way a dog does, and put to the other side everyone who gets down on his knees to drink.'”-Judges 7:5
Gideon’s original army of 32,000 soldiers has been whittled down to 10,000 men.
Yet God tells Gideon that’s still way too many.
So the Lord devises yet another test.
He tells Gideon to take the remaining 10,000 men down to the river to take a drink from it.
While they’re drinking, Gideon is to carefully observe HOW the men drink the water.
Because that will be the determining factor to decide who stays and who gets booted out.
Gideon was to pay careful attention to 2 different groups of men.
Those who get down on their knees like dogs to lap up the water…
…and…
…those who take a more civilized approach and cup their hands together to scoop the water up and bring it to their mouths to drink.
It was the latter group who would be chosen to be Gideon’s final remnant.
Why was this group considered more fit for battle than the other one?
The answer is that those who took the time and care to cup their hands together to scoop up the water up and drink were by nature more alert and disciplined than those who got down on their knees like a dog to lap up the water.
The first test was to weed out those men who were fearful.
The second test was to weed out the careless.
Which leads us to the takeaway for today.
It is men who possess the opposite of these 2 characteristics who the Lord finds favorable.
In other words, the type of men God wants fighting for His Kingdom are to be both courageous and careful.
To close, the remaining number of men left after these 2 tests was a mere 300.
As far as God was concerned, this was the perfect ratio He wanted in order to fully demonstrate His supernatural power in the battle to come.
I imagine Gideon was getting just a tad bit nervous at this point don’t you think?
Because only about 1% of the original number of men was left remaining to fight.
You are right, l agree with you sir. Thanks
Amen!