Scripture often celebrates Israel's victory over Midian. Before it, God tells Gideon he has too many men. So that Israel may not boast against me that her own strength has saved her, changes are needed. Judges 7:2 highlights important principles.
Universal tendency
God speaks and acts as he does because of our tendency to boast. For unbelievers, pride is their necklace. Boastfulness is typical of these last days. How readily we boast. A sure sign of worldliness is boasting of what we have and do (Psalm 73; 2 Timothy 3; James 3; 1 John 2). It is somehow instinctive with us. Gresham Machen describes tourists boasting of conquering summits when they have simply followed guides equally able to get sacks of corn to the top!
Children brag about themselves. Adults blow their own trumpets. Even octogenarians crow about how young they look. Do you tell stories lionising yourself? We are subtle sometimes but the propensity is continual. Denying it is only another brag - 'others boast, I don't'! Are you aware of this proclivity?
God hates
Judges 7 proves God hates boasting. Recall his response when Nebuchadnezzar bragged that he had built Babylon by his mighty power and for the glory of his majesty. That arrogant man was soon eating grass like a cow. 1 Peter 5:5 urges us to clothe ourselves with humility ... because Cod opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. God esteems the humble and contrite in spirit and pronounces the meek blessed. He warns the wise not to boast of their wisdom, the strong of their strength, the rich of their wealth. Rather, if he must boast, let him boast that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight (Isaiah 66:2; Matthew 5:5; Jeremiah 9:23-24).
Undeniably, God hates all boastfulness and pride. Reject it and humble yourself. Ephesians 5:17 says find out what pleases the Lord. God abhors boasting and demands all the glory for himself. The only glory we can know is reflected glory. He must have the praise. To covet it for ourselves brings wrath. Certain famous prima donnas want everything to revolve around them, taking credit for everything. How mean-spirited and arrogant. God takes the credit because it is due. He is responsible for everything. Do you see that? Then honour him.
Avoid boasting
Clearly, we must do all we can to avoid self-promotion. Jesus says, when giving to the needy, not to let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. Give, but avoid drawing attention to yourself. Similarly, avoid praying standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. ...go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen .... Pray, even in public, as if it is just the Lord and you. And when fasting avoid looking sombre as the hypocrites do. They disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. ... rather put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to men ... but only to your Father, who is unseen .... (Matthew 6:3,5,6,16-18). Philippians 2:3: Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. We have a bent for boasting but God loathes it. Do all you can to eliminate it. Self-flagellation and prolonged fasts will only tempt us to boast. Deliverance comes from doing what God requires.
God's work
One of the wonderful truths of the Bible is that God himself helps us avoid boasting. The very way he saves us shows this. It is not a matter of intelligence or beauty, nationality or family nor how good we are in men's eyes. Rather, it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of Cod - not by works, so that no-one can boast (Ephesians 2:8, 9). As we look from ourselves to Christ, he saves. Who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not? (1 Corinthians 4:7). Are you cleverer, better looking, abler than others? If you fail to see it is God's gift, you are a boaster.
Prayer is something else God uses to teach humility. How incongruous to brag about answered prayer. All the glory is God's. Think of Paul's thorn in the flesh. Whatever it was this Messenger of Satan was highly unpleasant. Paul wanted it gone but instead God enabled Paul to cope. Suffering can help us. It can promote maturity in Christ if we are teachable.
God whittles down Gideon's army in stages. First, he removes the fearful, as Deuteronomy 20 demands. Over two thirds depart. The rule was to counteract low morale but it must have been hard to see 22,000 depart! Nevertheless, God was determined to prevent boasting. Cut backs were essential. What is it about numbers? Numbers spell prestige and power. There is safety in numbers. We sometimes think they are the key to everything. Smaller churches envy larger ones; low numbers dishearten us. However, God sometimes wants a decrease. He has his chosen few. Many are on the broad road, few on the narrow road to heaven. We must give up worldly thinking and see that (as E F Schumacher put it in another context) 'small is beautiful' or, to use another slogan, 'less is more'. If God is to use us, we must 'think small'.
Even then, there were still too many. Gideon must take them down to the water for further sifting. Perhaps you learned in Sunday School that God chose the final three hundred for their superiority but it does not say that. Rather, if God said this one shall go with you, he went. And if he said this one shall not ..., he stayed. The division, however we understand it, is arbitrary. And, so it seems, is the kingdom. God appears to bless a preacher, a church, an individual. We seek explanations. Sometimes we think we know why. Often we are baffled. It seems capricious, nonsensical. Eloquent preachers with small churches, ordinary preachers with large ones; the godly forgotten, the worldly acclaimed. The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favour to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all (Ecclesiastes 9:11). Accept the way it is and recognise how God thus subverts boasting and glorifies himself, doing as he chooses. We must learn humility.
Success through weakness
Gideon's experience shows how mysterious success is. We dare not excuse laziness or neglect but we must learn to give God glory. We must somehow learn with Paul not to boast about ourselves except, as it were, of our weaknesses (2 Corinthians 12). To know what Gideon and Paul knew we must ponder God's words, my power is made perfect in weakness. We must gladly boast of our weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on us. For his sake, delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties convinced that when I am weak, then I am strong.
