Faith and Force
Judges 4:14b-16
So Barak went down from Mount Tabor with 10,000 men following him. And the LORD routed Sisera and all his chariots and all his army before Barak by the edge of the sword. And Sisera got down from his chariot and fled away on foot. And Barak pursued the chariots and the army to Harosheth-hagoyim, and all the army of Sisera fell by the edge of the sword; not a man was left.
The author doesn’t tell us whether God performed a miracle on behalf of Barak’s army here by infusing Barak’s men with super-human, Samson-like strength in battle, or whether the natural ability He’d gifted them with at birth sufficed here. In other words, did these Israeli warriors stampede through Sisera’s 900 iron chariots like NFL linebackers through a 9-year-old peewee team, or like a herd of elephants through a corn maze? Or did they fight by the sheer strength and stamina they’d trained so hard to possess and win by the tactical genius of their superior commander, Barak? Think of it: countless generals in history have performed remarkable feats without miraculous intervention. Hannibal crossed the Alps with a depleted army, marched through a frozen marsh where he lost an eye to infection, and still blazed through Roman garrisons. So, too, Alexander the Great and Attila the Hun and the Welsh Robin Hood, Owain Glyndwr. Some men are just built for war and thrive in the heat of the fray. So whether or not the LORD reached down to give these warriors a miraculous boost, we shouldn’t take anything away from the perilous labor they subjected themselves to. Would I have had the courage to charge down from Mt. Tabor even after seeing 900 charioteers scoffing up at me from the valley below? Would you?
Not a man was left. That’s a crucial line, friend. Other great men from ages past failed to drive out all the pagan peoples from the land, but not Barak’s soldiers. When they kissed their wives and children goodbye that morning, I bet they vowed to only return in victory. That’s the sort of spiritedness every saint needs against the foe, isn’t it? The sort that outwits and outfights and outruns the enemy advances by trust in the LORD and by force of will: a will that refuses to give up until the battle is won.