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 them 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 acting that way, right?
That's what it means when it says to play the men, OK?
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 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 weak, if you're scared,
if you're fearful, play the man.
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, 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 going to 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 to get all the glory.
He whittled it down to 300 men, which is just ridiculous.
But then it goes down in history as a great event, great miracle.
So fear is infectious.
So when they're saying, look, play the men, 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.
Like I remember when I was in P.E. in Christian School,
I remember being in like eighth, ninth, tenth grade.
In P.E., they would always divide up.
When we were in basketball season,
they were really into winning at basketball for the school.
And so even at P.E., 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.
I'm not too proud to admit that I was always
set to the rest of side.
But there were some people who had a bad attitude about that.
I was just like, I'm not in denial here.
I know that I belong on the rest of.
So I was fine with being on the B side.
But honestly, a lot of people were just like, man, what's--
what do you mean?
Now, you're over there, buddy.
You're playing with Steven Anderson over there, OK,
with the rest of people.
You're not on the A team over here.
So you can imagine it'd probably be scarier
to be on the B team here, going against the Ammonites.
You'd probably rather be with all the choice guys,
kind of ride on their coattails, watch them do their thing
over against the Syrians.
So he's telling him, look--
and also the general.
He's talking to the general.
Because Joab's telling his brother, now,
I just put all the losers with you, OK?
I'm taking the choice men with me.
You're having the rest of the people.
But don't be scared, all right?
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.