Our Daily Homily

Devotional For

August 3

      A cake of barley bread. Judges 7:13
      
      Like most dreams, incoherent and grotesque! Whoever heard of a cake of barley bread upset- ting a tent! To the dreamer and his comrade, there was no sense in it. But how much it meant to the two Hebrews, who had crept up to the other side of the curtain, in the thick darkness, and were drinking in each word!
      
      The dream was very humbling. - It brought Gideon back to the simplicity and helplessness of his own resources. In the gathering of these crowds of warriors, in the notoriety he had achieved, in the loyalty of the three hundred, there was much to inflate his pride. Therefore God brought him face to face with himself.He was only a cake of barley bread at the best.Be- fore God can uplift, use, and anoint us,He must show us what we are, humbling and emptying us, bringing us into the dust of death. Before God can use thee to work a great deliverance, He must convince thee of being only a cake of barley bread. "Five barley loaves, and two small fishes."
      
      It was full of hope. - A cake of barley bread might be a worthless thing; but if God were behind it, it would upset a tent! So when the weakest life is placed at the disposal of the Almighty, and taken in hand by Him, it becomes mighty to the pulling down of strongholds.
      
      It is full of teaching. - How much has to be learned by us on these lines! We are too strong for God. We vaunt our might, we count our warriors, we magnify our generalship. This may not be! So God brings us down ,to the brook and tests us there; and reduces our force to three hundred men, and ourselves to barley-cakes, and there gets the victory with His right hand, and His holy arm.