Surrendering When You Don't Have To

Bunbury

Sun am

26/09/10

“Surrendering when you don’t have to”

Intro: *** British surrender to the Japanese in Singapore. Had a numerically superior force of men & they were better equipped but the Japanese force managed to convince them that there was no hope so they surrendered thousands of troops into the hands of the Japanese who then systematically began slaughtering them.

The tragedy of this is that they surrendered when they didn’t have to!

I think that this is something that we as Christians do all the time – surrender when we don’t have to.

We give in believing that there is no way we can win, no way we can have victory.

So what we do is give in to the enemy, give in to his demands, surrender to his will instead of God’s will.

When we do this the result is always a bad one & we always end up losing when God has set us up to win.

We find a story in the O/T that has some similarities to the British surrender to the Japanese during WWII.

But fortunately there was something in the thinking of these people that made them begin to consider that there was another way rather than surrendering.

Let’s learn some of the lessons from these people.

I want to preach a message t/m I’ve entitled ‘Surrendering when you don’t have to’.

Text: 1 Samuel 11:1-11 (NKJV) 1Then Nahash the Ammonite came up and encamped against Jabesh Gilead; and all the men of Jabesh said to Nahash, “Make a covenant with us, and we will serve you.”

2And Nahash the Ammonite answered them, “On this condition I will make a covenant with you, that I may put out all your right eyes, and bring reproach on all Israel.” 3Then the elders of Jabesh said to him, “Hold off for seven days, that we may send messengers to all the territory of Israel. And then, if there is no one to save us, we will come out to you.” 4So the messengers came to Gibeah of Saul and told the news in the hearing of the people. And all the people lifted up their voices and wept. 5Now there was Saul, coming behind the herd from the field; and Saul said, “What troubles the people, that they weep?” And they told him the words of the men of Jabesh. 6Then the Spirit of God came upon Saul when he heard this news, and his anger was greatly aroused. 7So he took a yoke of oxen and cut them in pieces, and sent them throughout all the territory of Israel by the hands of messengers, saying, “Whoever does not go out with Saul and Samuel to battle, so it shall be done to his oxen.” And the fear of the LORD fell on the people, and they came out with one consent. 8When he numbered them in Bezek, the children of Israel were three hundred thousand, and the men of Judah thirty thousand. 9And they said to the messengers who came, “Thus you shall say to the men of Jabesh Gilead: ‘Tomorrow, by the time the sun is hot, you shall have help.’” Then the messengers came and reported it to the men of Jabesh, and they were glad.

10Therefore the men of Jabesh said, “Tomorrow we will come out to you, and you may do with us whatever seems good to you.” 11So it was, on the next day, that Saul put the people in three companies; and they came into the midst of the camp in the morning watch, and killed Ammonites until the heat of the day. And it happened that those who survived were scattered, so that no two of them were left together.

# 1. The challenge of the enemy.

A. The devil loves to remind us of what we really are.

a. Our lives are lived out much of the time like a charade.

i. In other words we’re all to one degree or another play actors...... putting on a performance.

ii. Making out to everyone around us that we are certain types of people ...allowing everyone to see our strengths / talents.

iii. But the truth is that our public face is not always who / what we really are.

** Like someone has already said in a book “Everybody’s normal until you get to know them.”

iv. What he’s speaking about is the reality that just below the surface ..... just below that outward veneer of togetherness is the real you.

v. It doesn’t take long after we meet someone to realise that what they want everyone else to think they are is not what they are.

b. The problem of course is that the enemy – the devil / Satan / Lucifer knows what we are.