The United States is known around the world as a "Christian nation." There are several reasons why one might think that is true. In America there are:

• 1,485 Christian radio stations
• 300 Christian television programs
• 96% of all Americans are "believers in God"
• 70 million born-again believers
• 148 million professing Christians

62% of all Americans say they have "made a commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important in their life today."

Now if America is indeed a Christian nation, you would think that God would honor any nation that professes to honor Him. If America is as godly as she is purported to be, it would be reflected in her land. Well, listen to some more facts:

• The United States remains the world's biggest users of prisons, putting more people in prison than anybody else on earth.
• For every 100,000 people in the United States, 455 are behind bars.
• About 1.1 million Americans are in prison, costing taxpayers $20 billion a year.
• One million teenagers run away from home every year, and suicide is now the second leading cause of death among teenagers.
• This year Americans will spend $240 billion on gambling.
• This year 2.5 million children will be reported as being abused, missing, or abducted.
• Reports now show that the number one killer of children are their own parents.
• 50,000 drug addicted children are born every year just in California.
• Every year 800,000 babies are born to unwed teenagers.
• This year 1 1/2 million babies will be aborted before they are born.

Now we have not even mentioned homes that are breaking apart, alcoholism, the drug problems, racism, financial pressures in the home, a national debt of over $4 trillion.

Now you may ask the question: "How can God possibly turn this nation around?" Well, believe it or not, all He needs are a few good men.

It would amaze you what a few "spiritual marines" following our Commander in Chief, the Lord God, can do. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism said: "Give me a hundred men who fear nothing but God, and hate nothing but sin, and I will turn this world upside down for Jesus Christ."

This is a story of Gideon versus the Midianites. The Midianites were mortal enemies of the Nation of Israel. They are a picture of the world, the flesh, and the devil that the church faces today. God taught Gideon some wonderful lessons on warfare and how to have victory against the enemy that could enable us, as a church, to be victorious in our spiritual warfare against the enemies we face, and could even help us turn this nation back to God. As we study these lessons, I want to warn you that some of them might surprise you. For you are going to learn that as far as God is concerned it is not the biggest army, it is the best army that matters.

I. Excuse the Cowards

Gideon had an army of 32,000 men. They were going out to face an army of Midianites and Amalekites that had a combined force of 135,000 men. In other words, they were outnumbered four to one. Now Gideon didn't think he had enough men, but God thought he had too many. Notice why.

"And the Lord said to Gideon, ‘The people who are with you are too many for Me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel claim glory for itself against Me,' saying, ‘My own hand has saved me.'" (v.2) There is a great lesson that we need to learn about our great God recited in Isaiah 42:8, "I am the Lord, that is my name; and my glory I will not give to another."

God had commanded Gideon to go out and to fight the Midianites. He was going to make sure that Gideon got the victory, but God wanted to make sure that He got the glory. Every time that God does something for us, with us, or through us, He wants us to say, "This was the Lord's doing; it is marvelous in our eyes." (Ps. 118:23) You see, if Gideon had gone out and defeated the Midianites with that 32,000 man army, they would have been tempted to have thought that they did it.

They would have been like the Georgia woodpecker who was pecking away on a big thick Georgia pine, and while he was pecking on it a lightning bolt burst out of the blue, hit that gigantic pine tree and split it half in two. Well, the woodpecker flew off and a few minutes later he was seen flying back with ten other woodpeckers behind him saying, "There it is gentlemen, right over there."

Now God gives Gideon some strange instructions. "Now therefore, proclaim in the hearing of the people, saying, ‘Whoever is fearful and afraid, let him turn and depart at once from Mount Gilead.' And twenty-two thousand of the people returned, and ten thousand remained." (v.3) Gideon did something that I am sure no general before, and no general ever since, has done. He said, "If anyone is a bit fearful, or afraid to face the enemy, or you have a headache, or you are just not in the mood to fight, you are free to go home." Well, by the time Gideon picked himself up off the ground and the dust had cleared, two-thirds of his army had deserted. Most soldiers just did not want to fight.

I am convinced that most soldiers in God's army today want to sing "Hold the Fort!" instead of "Onward Christian Soldiers." I believe the church is under a curse, not a satanic curse, but I call it the curse of cowardly Christianity.

Several years ago I visited a lady who had visited our church. She said, "We just left a church because they were going into a building program." She said, "We don't mind giving, but we are tired of having to pay for more buildings."

I just stopped the visit right there. I said, "Excuse me, I'm in the wrong house." She said, "Why do you say that?" I said, "Because we are about to start a new building program." She never came back.

I want to give you fair warning. A soul-winning, evangelistic, faith-walking, devil-fighting, strong preaching, fast growing church, is not for the fainthearted. Do you know what I believe God said when these 22,000 men left? "Good riddance." You see, the fearful are good at fleeing, but they are no good for fighting. Cowards have no place in God's army and he doesn't even want them in the barracks.

You see, God had laid down a rule of warfare. He had instructed the nation on how to build an army to go to war to begin with. Over in Deuteronomy chapter 20, the Lord had said there were certain men that, for one reason or another, would not be fit for battle. Among that group were the fearful. I want you to listen to why God did not want any cowards in his army. "Then the officers shall speak further to the people, and say, ‘What man is there who is fearful and fainthearted? Let him go and return to his house, lest the heart of his brethren faint like his heart.'" (Deut. 20:8)

You see, fear is contagious. Did you know that the biggest danger of the person who is always negative, always critical, always cynical, always pessimistic, is not the person himself, but the people he might influence.

I read one time a story of a man who lived by the side of the road and sold hot dogs. He was hard of hearing, so he had no radio. He had trouble with his eyes, so he never read the newspapers, but he sold good hot dogs and he sold them by the bushel basket full.

He put up signs on the highway telling people how good his hot dogs were, and he would stand by the side of the road and cry out, "Buy a hot dog, the best hot dog in town." People began to buy those hot dogs like they were going out of style.

Well, this man bought more meat, more buns, bought a bigger stove so he could cook more hot dogs. He even called his son home from college to help him because his business was booming.

When the son got there he said, "Dad, haven't you been listening to the radio. Haven't you been reading the newspaper?" The dad said, "Well, no."

"Oh," he said, "there is a big recession on. The European situation is terrible, interest rates are up, home sales are down, we're in bad shape."

Well, the father thought, "My son's been to college, he reads the paper, he listens to the radio, I guess he knows what he's talking about." So the father cut down his meat and bun orders, took down his signs, didn't even bother to stand out on the highway anymore to sell his hot dogs. His sales went to nothing over night. The father said to his son, "You know, son, you are right, we are in the middle of a big recession.

I tell you, the church is full of people who want to tell us that the sky is falling, that it costs too much, that you can't do it, that it won't work. Well, Gideon didn't need soldiers focusing on their foes, focusing on their fears, focusing on their faults, focusing on their failures. What he needed were people who would focus on their Father in heaven and believe Him for the victory.

Friend, God can use the feeble, God can use the frail, God can use the flimsy, but He cannot use the fearful.

"For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind." (II Tim. 1:7) The devil is the sinister minister of fear. Three hundred sixty-five times in the Bible, one for every day of the year, in one form or another, we are told, "Fear not." If you want an army that will fight to win, you must excuse the coward.

II. Exclude the Careless

Now things could have been worse. Gideon had lost 22,000 men, but he still had 10,000 left. He could have lost all but a few hundred. I can imagine one of his aides came up to him and said, "General, cheer up, things could be worse." Well, Gideon cheered up, and sure enough things got worse.

You see, God was not finished yet. The odds now were fourteen to one. But the Lord said, "Gideon, your army is still too big. We've got to get it smaller. I want a lean, mean, fightin' machine."

So God pairs the army down even more. "And the Lord said to Gideon, ‘The people are still too many; bring them down to the water, and I will test them for you there. Then it will be, that of whom I say to you, ‘This one shall go with you,' the same shall go with you; and of whomever I say to you, ‘This one shall not go with you,' the same shall not go."

"So he brought the people down to the water. And the Lord said to Gideon, ‘Everyone who laps from the water with his tongue, as a dog laps, you shall set apart by himself; likewise everyone who gets down on his knees to drink.' And the number of those who lapped, putting their hand to their mouth, was three hundred men; but all the rest of the people got down on their knees to drink water. Then the Lord said to Gideon, ‘By the three hundred men who lapped I will save you, and deliver the Midianites into your hand. Let all the other people go, every man to his place.'" (vv. 4-7)

God gives a test. He has all of these men who have been marching all day long and in the hot sun, come to a lake. One group gets on its knees, buries their face in the water, oblivious to everything else going on around them. They forgot that they were soldiers in training. They forgot that a war was going on. All they cared about was water.

God said to Gideon, "You can exclude them, we don't need them." Now why? You might think, "what a little thing." One group put their face in the water, and one group drank from their hands. It seems like such a little thing.

Well, did you know that it's the little things that enable you to do the big things well. Michael Angelo was working on a statue one afternoon when some friends visited with him. A month later they returned and found he was still working on the same statue.

They said, "What have you been doing since our last visit?" He said, "Oh, I've smoothed a line here and polished an arm there, taken a few flakes of marble from the forehead and so on."

They said, "But those are only trifles. Is that all you've done?"

Michael Angelo replied, "They may be trifles, but trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle."

You see, these were the careless. While their heads were buried in that water, they could have been attacked and killed by the enemy.

There are two dangers in any war. The first danger is to overestimate the enemy. That's what the cowardly did, and that's why they fled.

But the other danger is to underestimate your enemy. That's what the careless did. You can get into big trouble when you underestimate your enemy. I heard about a man who was in a courtroom. He had been severely beaten up and brutalized by a big bully. The judge said, "Well, would you mind describing the man that beat you up?" He said, "Oh, no, your honor, I don't want to describe him. That's what I was doing when he beat me up."

There is another curse that the church is under today. I call it the curse of careless Christianity. You see, there are people in God's army today who are not cowards. They love God. They are not ashamed of Jesus. They are willing to fight. They are not afraid of the enemy. But they are careless.

They are careless in their looking. They are careless in the movies that they watch, the material they read, the pictures they peruse. Jesus said in Luke 11:34, "The lamp of the body is the eye. Therefore, when your eye is good, your whole body also is full of light. But when your eye is bad, your body also is full of darkness." You better be careful what you look at, because your eye is the window of the body. You look at evil, you fill your body with evil. You look at good, you fill your body with good.

But they are careless in their listening. They are careless in the kind of music they listen to, in the kind of jokes they will hear, in the kind of language they expose themselves to.

Then there are those who are careless in their living; Christians who are careless in the places they go, the things they watch, the people they associate with. There are so many people God could use in such a mighty way if they just weren't so careless. You see, these people were more interested in comfort than they were in conquest. They were more interested in quenching their thirst than they were in defeating the enemy.

Without exception, you can say something when a man of God falls. I can tell you something that is true about every one of these television preachers and big shot pastors who allowed themselves to get tangled into sin and immorality they got careless. No matter how good a shot a soldier may be, a careless soldier can cost you the battle.

III. Enlist the Committed

A third group of this army, three hundred in fact, knelt down by the lake, scooped the water up with their hands, and drank, all the while keeping their eyes peeled, watching out for the enemy. We are told in v.5 that they lapped from the water "as a dog laps."

I was reading about how Egyptian dogs drink water from the Nile River. As you now, the Nile is filled with crocodiles, and Egyptian dogs have learned, out of fear for the crocodiles, to lap the water while they are running along the banks; always keeping their eyes peeled for those dog-eating crocodiles that could come out of that water and come out of the bush and kill them.

These men who meant business, for whom conquest was more important than comfort, who never let their guard down, these were the spiritual marines that God wanted. The Lord said to Gideon, "These are the ones I want and you need. They mean business. They are ready to fight."

Now I'm sure that didn't make Gideon feel too much better, for his army was down now to less than one percent of what he started with (.009375 percent to be exact). Now the odds were four hundred fifty to one, exactly the same odds that Elijah faced on Mount Carmal when he stood against the 450 prophets of Baal.

You see, God loves a fair fight. You say, "What is fair about four hundred fifty to one." Listen, you can have many without having much.

I think there is a tremendous lesson we can learn here that will encourage us, who so often are in the minority, in a world that is sinking deeper into a cesspool of sin and iniquity and immorality. The lesson is this: The Master's minority is more important than the immoral majority.

You know, we could maybe do more as a church with fewer members if we had better members.

Lenin, the founder of Communism, said, "We want fewer but better disciples. We want people, not people who will give us a spare evening once in a while, but people who will give us the whole of their lives."

You see, what God needs is not quantity. What He needs is quality. Because God plus one is a majority. What I am trying to get you to understand is just you and God can make a tremendous difference in this world. You don't believe one man can make a difference:

Churchill saved England. Lombardi turned the Packers from doormats into champions. Namath convinced the Jets they could win the Super Bowl. Iacocca turned Chrysler around. One man can make a difference.

Jonathan Edwards was one man who made a difference. Born in 1703, he was perhaps the most brilliant mind and the finest theologian that America ever produced. He and his wife had eleven children and of his known descendants:

• More than 300 became pastors, missionaries, or theological professors;
• 120 were professors at various universities;
• 110 became attorneys;
• Sixty were prominent authors;
• Thirty were judges;
• Fourteen served as presidents of universities and colleges;
• Three served in the U.S. Congress;
• One became Vice President of the United States.

It doesn't take much of a man to be a Christian; it just takes all of him there is. Dwight L. Moody heard a preacher say one time, "The world has yet to see what God can do with one man totally committed to Him." Dwight L. Moody said in his heart, "By the grace of God I will be that man." Dwight L. Moody touched two continents for Christ.

Now don't miss the conclusion to this story. Gideon takes this band of three hundred men, they go to battle, and they win the victory. But notice how it was done.

"Then he divided the three hundred men into three companies, and he put a trumpet into every man's hand, with empty pitchers, and torches inside the pitchers.

And he said to them, ‘Look at me and do likewise; watch, and when I come to the edge of the camp you shall do just as I do:

When I blow the trumpet, I and all who are with me, then you also blow the trumpets on every side of the whole camp, and say, ‘The sword of the Lord and of Gideon!'

So Gideon and the hundred men who were with him came to the outpost of the camp at the beginning of the middle watch, just as they had posted the watch; and they blew the trumpets and broke the pitchers that were in their hands.

Then the three companies blew the trumpets and broke the pitchers they held the torches in their hands and the trumpets in their right hands for blowing and they cried, ‘The sword of the Lord and of Gideon!'

And every man stood in his place all around the camp; and the whole army ran and cried out and fled." (vv. 16-21)

Now notice carefully they did not throw a spear, did not hew an arrow, did not hurl a rock, did not wield a sword. What did they do? At the command of God they blew the trumpets, broke the pitchers, and bared the torches. They got the victory and God got the glory.

Now why did God do it this way? I think to remind them and to remind us, "No king is saved by the multitude of an army; a mighty man is not delivered by great strength. A horse is a vain hope for safety; neither shall it deliver any by its great strength." (Ps. 33:16-17) No, friend, do you know where victory comes from? Do you know where deliverance comes from? "The horse is prepared for the day of battle, but deliverance is of the Lord." (Prov. 21:31)

In 1775 the U.S. Marine Corps was founded, and they adopted as their recruiting slogan: "We're looking for a few good men." Well, so is the Lord. As a matter of fact, He wants you. With the Lord before, Jesus beside us, the Spirit within us, and the Bible behind us, there is no foe we cannot face. There is no war we cannot win as long as we are watchful, trustful, and faithful to our great God.