Overcoming Giants

Arise, and let your enemies be scattered.

Judges:6:33 "Then all the Midianites and Amakelites, the people of the East , gathered together: and they crossed over and encamped in the valley of Jezreel. 34. But ,The Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon."
Judges 7:6 "And the number of those who lapped; putting their hand to their mouth, was three hundred men."

What enemies do you face today? Is your soul vexed? Do you believe that the crisis you face is too great for you? Time and time again the Lord has used that which seems insignificant, to carry out His will. David, a small boy, faces the bear, the lion and finally Goliath. How is it that David can beat insurmountable odds? How is it that Gideon, with a ridiculously small number of men, can take on, rout, and destroy 120,000 men?

When I was 12 years old, I discovered the secret of overcoming giants. My father was a very violent alcoholic. When I was 7 my mother had come to Christ and all hell broke loose in our house. Prior to that, our house was peaceful as my mother had always "towed the line," done what she was told. After coming to Christ, my Father realized he was no longer in control of his wife. She was having a love affair with Jesus. If it had been another man, he would have killed Him, but how do you fight God?

After many years of violence and terror, one particular night seemed to draw all the demonic forces together. My father, always highly unpredictable, seemed to have lost his mind this night. He was laughing hysterically and then crying, and all the time holding my mother by the back of the hair and pounding her face with his fist. She just kept repeating "Jesus loves you, Jesus loves you." My sister was in the corner of the room screaming. I stood behind my dad, frozen in terror. We had witnessed violence many times before, but this night was different. The air was almost tangible, it had substance, almost like you could cut it with a knife. There was a demonic presence in the room that night and it had come to finish its work with my mother.

As I stood there, frozen in place, suddenly, it was as if someone had poured water over me, yet in slow motion. It came down over my head and flooded my whole being, right down to my toes, and as it flowed down, then every bit of fear fled from my body. I stood in the midst of all that demonic chaos and I felt perfect peace and no fear. I reached up, and put my hand on my fathers shoulder. His head snapped round in what seemed like less than a second, faster than a man could normally move, still holding my mother by the hair, and I found myself looking into the blackest, wildest eyes I had ever seen. I looked straight into those eyes, and suddenly my vision went beyond the natural, and I found myself looking into the very soul of my father.

Inside his own soul, the father that should have been, was bound by chains and gagged, lying on his side. I spoke to him and said "I love you." As soon as the last syllable was out of my mouth I was looking at the black eyes again and it said "I cannot argue with that." The presence was gone, and my father sat down, seemingly shell-shocked. Whatever demonic force had come, it was sent on its way by a 12 year old child, full of the holy Spirit.

Gideon was full of the Holy Spirit, as was David. If we are to fight the enemy and defeat him in the field of battle, we too must be full of the Holy Spirit. Religious men will tell you that we are sealed with the Holy Spirit when we are saved and that is true, but we must be filled again and again. This filling flows from the very presence of God. We must take advantage of the throne room of God. With a price that can never be estimated, God the Father, through Jesus His Son, made the way to the Holy of Holy's accessible to all who call upon His name and are washed in the Blood of the Lamb. David says "Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your Holy Spirit from me, restore unto me, the joy of my salvation and renew a right spirit within me."

The three hundred men that were chosen for Gideon by God were the men who lapped the water with their hand. The first to be rejected were the fearful, God does not want them to be part of the three hundred. The rest got down on their knees and drank with their tongues. The correct military position was to remain upright, and use the palm of one of their hands to drink. In this way they did not have to lay down their weapons and they could continue to watch for the enemy. We too must remain upright. If we are to remain in the fight, we must not lay down our weapons, we must be ready for the schemes of the enemy, ever vigilant.

It is the Spirit of God within us that does all the fighting, if we quench that Spirit with sin, or by not coming into the presence of God, then we render ourselves useless. Only by flowing in the Spirit can we overcome fear, can we wield the weapons of our warfare which are not carnal, but mighty in God for the pulling down of strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God.(2 Cor 10:4-5)

Several years after the incident recorded above, my father came to Jesus, as all men do, on his knees. At the age of forty-nine, having struggled against God violently, and being a slave to alcohol, he was gloriously set free from His struggle and also from drink. He has now been saved for 15 years and has never had the desire for drink since the day he met Jesus