00:00Hello everyone, my name is William Chambers. It is good to be here with you all.
00:04Love being with people that love to hear the Word of God.
00:08That being said, let us dive right in. We don't have a lot of time.
00:12So, if I had a title for today's text, I would call it
00:15When Everyone Else Ran, One Man Stood.
00:22Oh goodness, I love that title.
00:26Everybody Else Was Running, One Man Stood.
00:28We are living in the days where believers run from spiritual responsibility.
00:35We're living in times where silence is popular when you should speak.
00:40We're living in times where retreat is normal.
00:43I'm just going to leave it alone. I'm not going to get involved.
00:45I'm just going to back away from it. I'm going to move backwards,
00:48away from what I'm supposed to be doing.
00:51And in moments like this, God is looking for one man
00:56or one woman that is willing to stand in the midst of their culture
01:02and do what he said do.
01:06And after him was Shammah, the son of Aki, the Hararite.
01:10And the Philistines were gathered together into a troop
01:13where was a piece of ground full of lentils.
01:17And the people fled from the Philistines.
01:20But he stood in the midst of the ground and defended it
01:23and slew the Philistines.
01:25And the Lord wrought a great victory.
01:28There was this lentil field.
01:29If you want to know what lentils are, they're just beans.
01:31In Israel today, lentils had protein and they were food for survival.
01:36Without these beans, without these fields,
01:39some people would starve later.
01:43So the Philistines had organized themselves together into a troop.
01:47These troops gathered.
01:49Opposition was organized against the children of Israel.
01:52Darkness was mobilized against the children of Israel.
01:55And it says that these troops were gathered
01:58where was a field of lentils.
02:00And the people fled from the Philistines.
02:03The people of God was fleeing.
02:06That is no different from today.
02:08Believers are fleeing from what they're called to.
02:11This was their covenant land.
02:14And they were called to it, to protect it.
02:17What I want to say is,
02:18every Christian has been entrusted with some ground.
02:23What am I talking about?
02:24Every Christian has been entrusted with ground.
02:26They have to guard the truth.
02:27You are called to guard the truth.
02:29To spread the gospel.
02:31Oh, you have spiritual influence in your family.
02:33That is a ground that you're called to defend.
02:36You've been entrusted with influence in your family,
02:39with friends, with workplace, in your church.
02:42That is a ground entrusted for you to spread the word.
02:47We have been given gifts.
02:48Those are grounds.
02:49You have to protect your gift.
02:50You have to guard your gift.
02:51You can't just be undisciplined with that.
02:54You might have the gift of service,
02:56the gift of encouragement,
02:57the gift of teaching.
02:58That's a ground to be guarded.
03:00You need that to impact your environment.
03:03You have ground to guard.
03:05Let me get off this.
03:07These troops that came up against Israel
03:09had Israel moving backwards,
03:12in backward motion, in retreat,
03:14taking ground.
03:15Okay, we're not going to defend that.
03:17Okay, okay, I don't want to get involved.
03:19I don't want to be,
03:20I don't want no conflict.
03:21I want to be passive.
03:23Oh, we're not called to be passive.
03:25If you're going to guard things like Shama did here,
03:27you're going to have to get involved in some confrontation.
03:30Mm-hmm.
03:32Quit backing down.
03:33Quit that passive.
03:34Christianity is disobedient of Christianity.
03:37You are called into the fight.
03:38Paul said, I fought a good fight.
03:40Oh, you have weapons of warfare.
03:43You have a helmet of salvation.
03:45You have a sword of the spirit.
03:46You have shoes.
03:47Shop with the preparation of the gospel.
03:49A belt of something,
03:51a breastplate of something else.
03:53I don't have it all,
03:54but you know what I mean.
03:56Ephesians 6.
03:57Help us today, Lord.
03:58Standing against our culture with the word of God
04:00sounds all noble
04:01until it costs you your comfort.
04:04Oh, you got to give up your comfort.
04:05This is not comfortable.
04:06You got to study.
04:07You got to pray.
04:07You're going to have to be doing spiritual disciplines.
04:11Oh, so it sounds really noble
04:12until it costs you your reputation.
04:14People are not going to like what you're doing.
04:16Mm-hmm.
04:17You're going to lose some friends
04:18when it costs you companionship.
04:20Best believers are going to cost you companionship.
04:22People are not just going to get all behind you
04:24and push you along.
04:25No, no, no.
04:26It's going to cost you.
04:27So everything sounds normal
04:28until it's time to confront some things.
04:30Now, the Philistines gathered in troops,
04:32and these troops produced psychological warfare.
04:35People were gathered together.
04:37They were sending a message.
04:38Israel, you're outnumbered.
04:41Israel, you're surrounded by us.
04:44Israel, there's no way you can win,
04:47so retreat.
04:48Mm, look at our culture that we're in today.
04:50Hey, are we, does it appear like we're outnumbered?
04:54Mm, does it appear like we're surrounded by ungodliness?
04:57Uh, does it appear like we cannot win?
05:00But the Bible says if God before us,
05:03he's more than the world against us.
05:04We're never outnumbered.
05:05Let me move on.
05:07So in the midst of all this,
05:10Shammah, the Bible says,
05:12he stood in the middle.
05:14He positioned himself in the middle.
05:17He did not stand at the edge.
05:18He did not stand behind other people.
05:20He stood right in the center.
05:23And that's, if we're gonna make change,
05:24we gotta stand in the center of our culture.
05:27We, we are to stand in the middle of culture
05:30with the word of God,
05:32planting ourselves publicly and saying,
05:34this is where I stand.
05:36Help us.
05:37Shammah, he deliberately placed himself here.
05:40He was not, he said,
05:41retreat is not an option.
05:42I'm not going backwards.
05:43He said, I'm committed and my commitment is visible.
05:46You're going to see my visible commitment.
05:48Believers, we should see your visible commitment,
05:52your visible standing.
05:53You are standing against darkness.
05:55Help us.
05:56Shammah was not trying to blend in.
05:57He wasn't trying to hide behind numbers.
05:59He wasn't trying to see where he could fit in.
06:00He was visible to his foes.
06:03He was a target right in the middle.
06:06Come and get it.
06:06There's somebody that's going to defend this territory
06:09because it is worth defending.
06:11Spiritual things should be worth defending.
06:14The word of God should be worth defending.
06:15Your God himself is worth defending.
06:18To stand, Shammah was displaying some stability
06:21because chaos was all around him.
06:24Everybody was running in fear.
06:26They were in panic.
06:27Movement was all around him.
06:29Fear was all around him.
06:30Let's get away.
06:31Here's the Philistines.
06:32But he said, I am not going to run.
06:35I'm going to stand up in the midst of this.
06:36He positioned himself to protect the ground.
06:41He said, no, this is valuable enough where I'm going to get involved.
06:44Believer, you need to get involved in your culture.
06:47Get involved in your society.
06:49Shine light so that darkness has to scatter.
06:52So light exposes.
06:54Shine light so men have guidance.
06:56Get in the middle of your culture.
06:58Get in the middle of your family.
07:00Get in the middle of your workplace.
07:01Wherever God said get in the middle of it.
07:03And shine.
07:05Confront your culture.
07:06You will not take my lentils, Shammah said.
07:08And you will not without a fight.
07:10There will be resistance here.
07:12You will not just be able to walk with all kind of ungodliness.
07:15We will stand our ground in God.
07:17You will not, devil, just take over everything.
07:19We're not going to let you have our whole culture, all of our society.
07:22No, we are going to stand up and speak truth.
07:24We're going to stand up and teach.
07:25We're going to stand up and do what God says.
07:27We're going to stand up in obedience.
07:29That should be the spirit of Shammah that we have in our society.
07:32So he took responsibility.
07:34He did not wait for others to help him.
07:36He did not wait for reinforcements.
07:37He didn't say, oh, let me go calculate the odds.
07:40No, no, no.
07:40He did not do that.
07:41He didn't say, okay, I'm going to negotiate with y'all.
07:43Please don't take my stuff.
07:44No.
07:45The Bible said that he defended the ground and he slew the Philistines.
07:52He interrupted the enemy's advance.
07:54Believer, you should be interrupting the enemy's advance.
07:56You're not going to just walk up on this turf.
07:58This turf belongs to God.
08:00My house belongs to God.
08:02My social media belongs to God.
08:04I belong to God.
08:05My family belongs to God.
08:07My church belongs to God.
08:08We're not just going to be speaking all kind of falsehood up here.
08:11No, no, no.
08:12The enemy knew that this ground sustained them and he wants the instability.
08:17He wanted Israel's instability.
08:19The devil wants our instability.
08:20He don't want us to be able to stand.
08:22He don't want us to stand anything that nourishes us spiritually.
08:25He want to take out.
08:26No, no, no.
08:27This ground right here can feed generations.
08:29We don't put too much work into this lentil ground, Shama said.
08:33No, no, no.
08:33We've been planting and watering and waiting for stuff to grow.
08:36You're not just going to come up on this territory and this turf.
08:40And Shama was probably thinking, if you take this field easily, you're going to go after the next field.
08:44No, no, no.
08:45I'm going to stand in resistance.
08:46And God is looking for a man that stands in resistance.
08:50When everyone else runs, will you stand?
08:53Will you be that one man?
08:57Is your ground that God has given you, believer, being protected by you?
09:04Or are you abandoning it when pressure gathers?
09:10I pray that you are defending your ground.
09:14God is looking for one man that will stand when everyone else runs.
09:18Lord, give us the spirit of Shama.
09:20In Jesus' name we pray and say amen.
09:45Lord, give us the spirit of Shama.
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