When my wife and I had the privilege to visit Israel with Samson Tours, we were able to see many wonderful Biblical sites. The following video on Youtube records some of them:
The parts on Harod Spring and Masada are also online separately (see on YouTube here) where Gideon chose his three hundred men in accordance with God’s direction (note: this and below are parts of the 1st video, so there is no need to view them again separately, but if you wanted to share these parts with someone, they are separated):
Here is the one on our the trip down from Masada, also on Youtube:
Israel was a fantastic place to visit, and, Lord willing, I will be able to say more in the future about how our trip went. If you want to go, Samson Tours was worthwhile–David Cloud and Fairhaven Baptist College, for example, have gone on multiple tours with them. They are run by a former Oneness Pentecostal who converted to a form of Judaism, so they obviously are not independent Baptists, but they still have a certain sort of understanding of “evangelicalism” that is not shared by tour companies that (for example) cater to Roman Catholics.
We added a few extra days in Jerusalem to the end of our trip, staying at the absolutely incredible Waldorf Astoria Jerusalem–an incredible hotel in a fantastic location by the Old City–but we were able to stay there for free instead of paying $500 a night because of a Hilton credit card that my wife and I both had that gave us free nights at Hiltons (like the one here that we both have now); we also were able to get our flights for free through the sign up bonus for an American Express Platinum Card (we now both have the Amex Gold Card, and have also gotten some very nice free travel with that card), so we ended up paying very little in cash for an amazing trip.
A picture we took in the Garden of Gethsemane
If you can get to Israel, I highly recommend going. If you avoid the dangers of credit cards, getting there for free and staying at amazing hotels for free can also be very worthwhile.
–TDR
Note: the Samson Tours, Hilton, and Amex Gold links are affiliate links. I do not believe I put anything in the content of this post that is different than I would have said were they not affiliate links. If you use them, I thank you.
Brother Ross,
I enjoyed the anecdote from Harod spring. However, I have a minor difference with your position here: Like many, I grew up hearing the same thing you discussed in the video, that the men whose heads were up as they drank, watching for the enemy, were the ones the Lord chose. And I agree with the taught principle that Christians should remain vigilant.
However, as I've studied the passage from Judges 7, the alertness of the soldiers is not the reason God chooses them. His purpose, as stated in verse 2, is to sharply reduce the numbers of the army so that the Israelites will not "vaunt themselves against" Him. His purpose His own glory.
It is possible (and when I've taught this, I've granted this possibility) that God was interested in the situational awareness of the soldiers, but that is not stated in the text. Ultimately, God chose only 300 men because He wanted so few men on the battlefield that there would be no question that God was the one responsible for victory.
This is not to say that God is opposed to strategic and tactical wisdom. The plan Gideon used was tactically brilliant, and we can see in circumstances such as turning movement God ordered in Joshua's conquest of Ai and the envelopment of the Philistines at Rephaim in II Samuel 5:23-25 that God uses wise tactical and strategic methods to accomplish His victories.
But the reason He chose the 300 was not, primarily, because they were alert. It was because they were few.
"Slim"
Dear Slim,
You are correct that the reason explicitly stated is that there were too many people. However, I believe that there is good reason to conclude that Gideon’s 300 men did a much better job than, say, 300 of the men who were afraid and were sent home, and the tested did point out something that related to their character.
Thanks for pointing out the explicit statement of the text, since I didn't make that point in the post.
That should have been "the test," not "the tested."