and look what the Bible says and he said verse 11 if the Syrians be too strong
for me then thou shalt help me but if the children of Ammon be too strong for
thee then I will come and help thee be of good courage and let us play the men
for our people and for the cities of our God and the Lord do that which seemeth
him good now I think that's a funny phrase where he says let us play the men
now when we think of playing we think of like an actor who plays a certain part
now it doesn't mean that that's really what they are it doesn't mean that
that's really how they feel but they're they're acting that way right that's
what it means it says to play the men okay so what's interesting about that is
he's basically saying act like men now you say well aren't they men but here's
what here's the here's the reality the reality is that humans have weakness and
I'm sure that a lot of these guys on a human level when they see the enemy
forces coming from the front and behind are fearful in their hearts right and
what he's telling them is to at least not let that show if you're if you're
weak if you're scared if you're fearful play the men you know on the outside
you need to look manly here and you need to be because why first of all the enemy
can read your fear the enemy can smell your fear it's like when a dog is coming
at you the dog smells fear and then they'll attack you because they perceive
you as weak but it's the same thing with people in a fight even in a fist fight
you don't ever want to show fear to your opponent show weakness you want to be
just a wall of just impenetrable resolve and courage and no fear and
intimidate them you don't want them to intimidate you also fear is contagious
because the Bible said that in the Old Testament when they would go out to war
they were supposed to at every battle and it's funny because Gideon is the
only one you ever see actually doing this remember where Gideon actually says
whosoever is fearful go home you know that way he was following the law of God
and that was something they were supposed to do for every battle anybody
who has just bought a field in the last year anybody who has just married a wife
in the last year you can go home anybody who's fearful go home because he said
you know what if you're fearful you're gonna cause the people around you to be
fearful and we don't need that so go home and remember when he says it to
Gideon there's 32,000 troops he says whosoever is fearful go home 22,000
people go home wait a minute I didn't mean that many because the fact that
there was such a huge enemy and then God of course said 10,000 is too many he said
I want it I want to get all the glory he whittled it down to 300 men okay which
is just ridiculous but then it goes down in history is a great event great
miracle so fear is infectious so when they're saying look play the man he's
saying look even if you're afraid that you got put on the B team I mean which
of these groups would you like to be in the choice man or the rest of the people
so let's say you're a pretty good fighter but you're like sent over to the
rest of the people side you're like oh great you know like I remember I
remember when I was in PE and Christian school I remember being in like eighth
ninth tenth grade in PE they would always divide up when we were in
basketball season they were really into winning at basketball for that for the
school you know and so at P even at PE they wanted the people who were good to
get the best practice so they would always divide us up into the choice
basketball players and the rest of the people well I was always on the rest of
side oh you know I'm not too proud to admit that I was always set to the rest
of side but there were some people had a bad attitude about that I was just like
you know I'm not I'm not in denial here I know that I belong on the rest of you
know so I was fine I was fine with being on the B side you know but honestly a
lot of people suck me what do you mean you know now you're over there buddy
you're playing with Steven Anderson over there okay with that with the rest of
people you know you're not on the A team over here so you know you can imagine
it probably scarier to be on the B team here going against the Ammonites you'd
probably rather be with all the choice guys kind of right on their coattails
you know watch them do their thing over against the Syrians so he's telling him
look you know and also the general he's talking to the general because Joe abs
telling his brother now I just put all the I put all the the losers with you
okay I'm taking the choice men with me you're having the rest of the people
but don't be scared all right you know so you can see why he could be scared
because he's got a bunch of guys behind him that aren't really the choice
fighters