The Two Sifters of God

Spread the love

Judges 7:3 “But the LORD said to Gideon, ‘There are still too many men. Take them down to the water, and I will sift them for you there.”

From the original 32,000 men, Gideon’s men was down to 10,000 and the Lord even sift them to 300! Out of the 10,000 people that remained, 9700 kneeled down and drank straight from the water. Only 300 evidently stood and used their hands to bring the water to their mouth. God was only interested in the smaller group who were more watchful and alert, and didn’t give themselves over completely to their natural needs. That’s 300 Israelites versus 135,000 Midianites or 1 versus 450! Israel was greatly outnumbered aside from the small fact that they have the Almighty God on their side!

Based on this story of Gideon, our Lord God uses two sifters to qualify those He could use. The first sift is fear. Those that were fearful to fight were allowed to leave. The second sift is not being watchful. Majority of second group were disqualified because they were not watchful and ready to be used. So basically, there are three kinds of people here: those that disqualifies themselves by fear, those that were disqualified by God, and those that were used by God. Where are you among these three?