NUMBERS DONT COUNT
JUDGES CHAPTER 7
2 And the Lord said unto Gideon, The people that are with thee are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel vaunt themselves against me, saying, Mine own hand hath saved me.
3 Now therefore go to, proclaim in the ears of the people, saying, Whosoever is fearful and afraid, let him return and depart early from mount Gilead. And there returned of the people twenty and two thousand; and there remained ten thousand.
4 And the Lord said unto Gideon, The people are yet too many; bring them down unto the water, and I will try them for thee there: and it shall be, that of whom I say unto thee, This shall go with thee, the same shall go with thee; and of whomsoever I say unto thee, This shall not go with thee, the same shall not go.
5 So he brought down the people unto the water: and the Lord said unto Gideon, Every one that lappeth of the water with his tongue, as a dog lappeth, him shalt thou set by himself; likewise every one that boweth down upon his knees to drink.
6 And the number of them that lapped, putting their hand to their mouth, were three hundred men: but all the rest of the people bowed down upon their knees to drink water.
7 And the Lord said unto Gideon, By the three hundred men that lapped will I save you, and deliver the Midianites into thine hand: and let all the other people go every man unto his place.
As a finance major, I love numbers, at school I hated maths, so obviously I took business and accounting qualifications at college!
But numbers don’t and can’t tell the whole story. Since I have been writing in 2003, sometimes I have been consumed by numbers.
How many replies have I received?
How many hits has my website received?
How many people are in my group?
To be honest this has been my Achilles heel, when it comes to ministry, you know social media can be a great trap for the Christian worker.
In times past, I have been on up to twelve social media groups, and that doesn’t include Facebook, but now I am on JUST ONE
So often we want to be on all these groups, just to say:
” look at all these groups we’re on, we must be spiritual”
I remember I was on one group called bible study on a platform, it had 1138 members, but no one posted for two-three years, what is the use of that?
This is the case on most social media groups, in China, we don’t have Facebook, here it is called WeChat, I have two groups, many friends have up to 50 and above.
Numbers to God are not important:
In the Welsh revival of 1907, Evan Roberts and ten women were used of God to bless the whole world.
In the Hebrides revival in Scotland, God used two old ladies and Duncan Campbell.
The revival in the USA in the 1850’s started with a prayer meeting that started with 7 people in it’s first week.
In the book of Acts chapter 2, 120 unlearned fishermen were filled with the Holy Spirit and this led to the salvation of 3,000 souls.
In Judges 7, 32,000 came to help Gideon, but this was too many.
Twenty two thousand disappeared because they were afraid, Gideon had told them the situation, you are going to war.
In today’s world, we can tell our contacts on all our social media groups about our situation, and the people will not respond or respond with fear. It is time to break free from these people, they will bring you down.
What would of happened if Gideon had taken these people with him to battle?
But still that wasn’t enough, there were now 10,000 but that was still too many.
So God had a test for the ten thousand, he asked them to drink from the brook.
Have you even seen a dog lap water?
Although they lap from the water, they are aware of the slightest sound, they are always alert to any danger.
These are the people who you want on your side, they are always alert, always focused.
When I came to China, I had over 2000 on my email address book, I had many social media groups, now I have two WeChat group and less than 150 email contacts.
Does God need great numbers, no?
My pastor in the UK, Mark Johnstone said we live for an audience of one, it is not about numbers, it is about HIM.
You may say ” well I need to be on all these groups, to share the gospel”.
Recently the Lord has challenged me to get out from behind my computer, it is easy to sit behind a computer and share on this group or that group.
Here in China, it is difficult to share the gospel, near Helen’s mother house is a community square, where we have had many good conversations with people and met several believers. I do not say this in pride, indeed when Helen says, come and share, I am reluctant and have to be dragged out of the house.
Ray Comfort of Living waters says ” he goes out to witness dragging his feet, but after witnessing, he comes home clicking his heels”.
Do you know that less than 5% of Christians share the gospel actively on the street, they think that the church will do it, if they invite a person to church, I’ve done my duty.
Soulwinning and discipleship is the job of the individual believer, if every believer, won one soul to Christ and trained him up, we would win our community and country to Christ.
Now some of you are called to share on social media groups etc, but many of you have up to 50 groups, especially in China, it’s time to get off these groups, and get back to the word, prayer and witnessing to the world.
There are many instances in the New testament especially, that show one to one witnessing, especially look at the Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts 8.
God said in Matthew 28, go into all the world and share the gospel, he did not say Go into every social media groups and share the gospel.
Many of these Christian social media groups are very insular, they are reaching out to believers, very few unbelievers will come to a Christian social media group.
The first two of the words gospel is GO, it is not go onto social media.
No wonder we are so weak in prayer and knowledge of the word, it’s because we are constantly posting on social media.
Get off these groups and get into the word and onto your face in prayer.
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Numbers don’t matter, less is more to God. This is a lesson, I am constantly learning.
GOD BLESS YOU
KK