2 Samuel 10:12

"Handfuls of Purpose"

For All Gleaners

"Let us play the men for our people." 2 Samuel 10:12 .

The Old Testament continually calls men to courage. The Bible would seem to be the enemy of all timidity, all moral cowardice, all bodily shrinking from danger and loss. Read the exhortations of God to Joshua; read passages related to this verse: their whole tone is identical, being a tone of urging men to put on their strength, to arouse their courage to its highest fashion, and to go forward with steadfastness and zeal and hopefulness in all difficult service. "Let us play the men," let us be strong, noble, energetic, alive in every point, putting away from us all that is feeble and emasculating in sentiment. There is always another manhood deeper than the one we have yet realised: a larger self, an in-tenser force; let us call up all that is deepest and strongest within us, and as danger thickens let us rise in courage. Courage would seem to be but another word for faith. Courage is the Old Testament word, faith is the New Testament word. The courageous man does not fail if his cause be good; though he fall he shall rise again, though many enemies spring upon him he shall be enabled to throw them all off, and carry forward his processes to their fullest fruition. We should say, "Lord, increase our faith: Lord, increase our courage;" we should accept the exhortation of the prophet, "Put on thy strength."