Every Man Stood In His Place Series

EVERY MAN STOOD IN HIS PLACE

Judges 7:9-7:25

INTRO:

Do you remember the movie called “Crocodile Dundee?”

It was a good one.

Crocodile Dundee comes from the land down under.

He is completely out of his realm when he came from Australia to New York City.

Crocodile Dundee and his girlfriend are out for a walk at night, when all of a sudden some guys, which we would have called a thiefs or a hoods all a sudden appeared out of nowhere.

One of the guys pulled out a knife and demanded, “Give me your money!”

And Dundee’s girl screams, “Oh, he has a knife!”

But Crocodile Dundee, the cool character that he is says, “That’s not a knife.”

And he coolly reaches behind his back and pulls a huge knife out of his sheaf and says, “This is a knife.”

The thieves take one look at Dundee’s knife and takes off.

What would normally bring fear did not bring fear to Crocodile Dundee, because he had something bigger and better.

Application:

Believer friend, we have someone bigger and better working for us this morning.

God does not want you or me to be intimidated out of being the person He has saved us and sanctified us to be.

If you are doing the powerful kingdom work that God has called you to do then you have the powerful presence of the Holy Spirit and you and I are spiritually powerful persons.

The experiences of Gideon, an angel called him a “Mighty Warrior”, are indeed exciting and adventurous.

I read about a minister who used the story of Gideon in speaking to a group of fifty or so elementary school children.

Only a few of them knew the story of Gideon and his three hundred men who won the victory over an overwhelming enemy of 126,000 Midianites.

One phrase used in this drama stands out to me especially.

It’s found in Judges 7:21, “While each man held his position” in the NIV

It reads in the “Every man stood in his place” (7:21 NLB).

I want you to see with me in my last sermon on Gideon that this describes how important it is for every Christian believer to know and understand how important it is to Stand in Your Place.

Do you realize this morning when Christian believers are not faithful to what God has gifted them to do, it hurts the Kingdom of God and gives victory to the enemy?

Do you realize this morning when you can’t be trusted by God to stand in the place where He has called you to stand, there is gap – the wall has a break in it - and the enemy – the devil, can sneak through and cause chaos in the camp?

Church, listen to me, there is too much chaos allowed to be in the camp.

Illustration:

All it takes is several hours of power failure to make us realize how much we benefit from an invisible resource called electricity.

The other day our power went out up at our house.

I don’t know about you, but I really struggle to be in the house without the power of electricity.

Electricity has power within itself.

Stick a piece of metal in one of your home’s electrical outlets and you will become on the lights in your home! Don’t do that – I’m just kidding!

When it’s dark the lights come on, all because we have available to us an invisible power.

But this invisible power that can be positive and negative all the same time is not anything compared to the power that every one of us have who knows Jesus Christ and lives in the Person and the Fullness of His Holy Spirit.

Listen folks, He is the invisible presence and power of God.

He is God, in fact.

The Holy Spirit is deposited in the Life of the Believer when we give Him our total life, our total desires, out total ambitions.

He is the One who challenges us to Stay in Our Place where God has assigned us to be.

So I’m here this morning to tell you that it is my responsibility to help you find your place in God’s plan and purpose for your life.

This is one of the most important parts of the church’s responsibility.

Being in one’s place in God’s plan is essential to His Kingdom work and for your happiness and the feeling of success.

I. EVERY MAN WAS A VOLUNTEER.

And that’s the way it is in the Church.

We are all volunteer’s in the Army of God.

Gideon sent messengers throughout the land (6:35) calling men to follow him in warring against the Midianites and the Amalekites.

Thirty-two thousand men gathered at Mount Gilead, but when Gideon told those afraid (7:3) and trembling to go home, twenty-two thousand did so.