True Leaders Say “Do As I Do”

Pitchers, Torches, and Trumpets

We’re in Judges 7:16 to the end of the chapter. Gideon divides the 300 into three companies and gives each man a trumpet, an empty pitcher, and a torch inside the pitcher. I previously suggested that a lit torch inside a sealed clay pitcher was impossible — and that is largely right. But a smouldering torch, somewhat like the principle of a backdraft, could be maintained inside, and once the pitcher was broken and oxygen entered, the torch would blaze. All 300 lights, more or less simultaneously, on the breaking of the pitchers.

The trumpets carry the first-mention significance from Exodus 19: the presence of the Lord, the nearness of God, the covenant — all wrapped in one sound. The presence of the Lord was especially concentrated with these faithful 300 who remained when the fearful and the unsuitable departed. Worldly thinking — logical, rational thinking that leaves out the miraculous power of God — would say 300 against tens of thousands is madness. And it is, in purely human terms. But that kind of thinking, by definition, is worldly.

Do As I Do

Verse 17: Look at me and do likewise. When I come to the edge of the camp, you shall do as I do. This is real leadership. Look at the politicians of our day — they are managers, not leaders. They do not lead from the front. They push systems and levers from behind. The technocrat’s model is that you don’t need a leader at all — just the right processes and the right people in the right positions.

That model can bring a people to a dead level. It can manage decline. But it cannot move anything forward. For forward movement you need someone who says: watch me, and do what I do. Gideon went down to the camp himself — not with 300 men, but with one servant. He led from the front at every stage.

A Christian leader who says: I can give you the truth from up here, but I reserve this sin in my own life — that is not Gideon’s model. Gideon said: you shall do as I do. He had offered himself as a burnt offering. He had no hidden reserve. His life was on the altar.

Every Man in His Place

Verse 21: And every man stood in his place all around the camp. They did not break rank. They were in their assigned positions, and it was only from those positions that they could do what they did next. Think of the watchman who falls asleep at his post, or the soldier who wanders off. When you break rank — when distractions pull you out of the path of your duty — people suffer and you suffer. These men stood in their places.

This is something to work toward in our own lives. Being in the place God has for us is not mystical. It is a matter of identifying your calling and staying in it — especially when it is uncomfortable, especially when you cannot see where the money is coming from or how it will work out. God put these men in their positions. They stayed there. And from those positions, they were part of something that shook a nation.

The Sword of the Lord and of Gideon

Verse 20: The sword of the Lord and of Gideon. Gideon had overheard the dream — the enemy’s own fear, in their own words — and now he weaponised it. He took the intelligence God had given him and put it into effect, directing 300 men to shout it from every side of the camp simultaneously. Bone-chilling on its own. Amplified by the blaze of 300 torches and the blast of 300 trumpets, all at once.

The Lord set every man’s sword against his companion throughout the whole camp. The sword came from the mouths of the obedient. This should make us think of the book of Revelation, where the Lord conquers going forward — and his weapon is a sword that proceeds from his mouth. It is the proclamation of the word of God, the declaration of his covenant curses on the ungodly, the announcement of his lordship over the nations. That is what brought down the Midianite camp.

The Nature of the Ungodly

Psalm 1 contrasts the righteous man, who stands like a tree, with the wicked, who are like chaff driven by the wind. And what do we find here? The people of God are standing — every man in his place. And the wicked are fleeing in every direction, crying out, in total confusion.

Scripture is consistent on this. Deuteronomy 28:7: They shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways. Isaiah 45:16 says the makers of idols will go to confusion. Those who worship idols become like them — confused, directionless, chaotic. And here, the Midianites turn their swords on one another, killing each other in the dark.

The Princes of Midian: Raven and Wolf

The Ephraimites cut off the escape routes and captured two princes of Midian. Oreb means raven — the scavenger, the opportunist, the unclean bird that takes without building, without sowing. Zeeb means wolf — predatory, pack-hunting, dangerous and crafty. These are the rulers: scavengers and predators. They took what others had worked for. They destroyed what others had built.

They were killed — Oreb at the Rock of Oreb, Zeeb at the winepress of Zeeb. The winepress again. It started in a winepress. It ends in a winepress. The winepress is the judgement of God, the treading out of the grapes until the blood flows. What began as Gideon’s hidden labour became Gideon’s public victory, and the symbol of his beginning became the symbol of the enemy’s end.

A Word on Our Neighbours

One more thing. We are being invited, in our day, to hate the people who have come to our countries from far away. We are being manoeuvred toward a civil conflict that will serve the interests of our actual enemies. I recently had a conversation with a man I might have presumed was a threat — a Moroccan Muslim in Northern Ireland. He came the hard way. He married a local woman. He works hard, makes sacrifices, and is trying to build something. He is not the enemy.

Judge righteous judgement, as the Lord Jesus says in John 7. Do not lazily fall into the path set before you by people who hate you and want to divert you. Ask who benefits from your hatred of your neighbour. And ask what the Lord actually requires of you. That is wisdom.

God bless you. We’ll see you next time. A note: I have recently had surgery on my eye — please keep that in your prayers as it heals.