His troops are reduced down to 300 men and this is one of the several times in this story where we see a 3-1 combination illustrated. Gideon and his three bands of 100 men is a 3-1 combination. We've seen this 3-1 combination in the tribes that came to stand with him and this 3-1 combination we have identified as symbolizing the three angels message followed by the fourth angels message which is clearly symbolizing the work and message and experience of Adventism at the end. The cleansing process takes place and then we see illustrated in this story the loud cry message, the latter rain, and this is in agreement with the prophetic sequence of events because it's at the fourth angels message, the second time that Adventism is involved with proclaiming the message come out of Babylon, that the church is once again cleansed and this fourth message, of course, is the loud cry which is illustrated so clearly in the battle that Gideon is about to take up and this is in agreement with where Sister White spoke of Christ cleansing the temple two times and that this parallels the second fourth angels message and we noted that one of the characteristics in these stories of the cleansing of the second and the fourth angels message is that the number of people in the movement is greatly reduced in the second angel message in the 1844 time period Adventism went from 50,000 down to 50,000 and we know that the greatest majority of those among us at the Sunday Law are going to go out from among us not to walk ever again with us and that is what just precedes the loud cry, a two-fold cleansing. We also noted that when Christ cleansed the temple and the rulers and the priests fled from the temple what remained was the poor and the humble and consistently in Bible prophecy it is illustrated and Gideon is a classic example that those that will be used in the final work are going to be those that are called from the common walks of life the humble and poor those that are hidden until the crisis arises. We want to take up the story now of the loud cry in Judges 7 start our presentation with a passage from Review and Herald February 21st 1893 those who have been and who still are diligent students of prophecy are to prepare the way of the Lord and to make his path straight Review and Herald February 22nd 1893 Judges 7 16 to 22 and he divided 300 men into three companies and he put a trumpet in every man's hand with empty pitchers and lamps within the pitchers and he said unto them look on me and do likewise and be