been married betrothed to Christ during this time that are going to be a monument of his character and they are going to stand during this final time when this final battle that is represented by Mount Carmel where Elijah went to battle with the prophets of Baal and by Megiddo which is Armageddon and by the mountains of evil and jurism identifying the disobedient and the obedient this whole geographical area is in the valley of Jezreel and this is where God's people are going to stand during this final battle and in this sense Gideon is literally going to go into battle to parallel the spiritual battle that takes place at the end now taking off from Judges 7 verses 2 through 7 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 my own hand has saved me 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 which means hard or rough Gilead hard or rough and there returned of the people twenty and two thousand and there remain ten thousand and the Lord said unto Gideon the people are yet too many bring them down into the water and I will try them for thee there and it shall be that of whom I shall 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 with thee shall not go so he brought down the people into the water and the Lord said unto Gideon everyone that lapeth the of the water with his tongue as a dog lapeth him shall thou set by himself likewise everyone that bowed down upon his knees to drink and the number of them that lapped putting their hand to their mouth were 300 men but all the rest the people bowed down upon their knees to drink water and the Lord said unto Gideon by the 300 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 and what we see among other things illustrated here prophetically is that Gideon's army was twice cleansed twice reduced from the troops that weren't going to be faithful in this battle and that's why we've titled this presentation the cleansings there's two cleansings that take place and in Gospel Workers page 297 298 we're told this there is a lesson for us in the experience of Gideon's army those who hearts whose hearts were in the work were so earnest that they would not stop to kneel by the brook to drink but dipped up the water in their hands as they hurried on to the battle and these are the ones whom God used while those