John K. Jenkins Sr - I Will Not Go Down Without a Fight

Joshua chapter 11, verse 5 : When all these kings had met together, they came and camped at the waters of Merom to fight against Israel. I want to preach on the subject : "I Will Not Go Down Without a Fight." Come on, look at your neighbor and say, "I'm not going down without a fight!" Tell him with some enthusiasm and power, " I'm not going down! I'm not going down without a fight !" Hallelujah! Let 's pray. Father, we honor You this afternoon; we're grateful for the privilege to be in the house of worship. I pray that You would anoint our time together. I am praying now in Jesus' name that You would speak to Your people. Let me, for just these few moments, be Your conduit, Your channel, Your instrument to speak truth into the life of someone here today who needs this word. I pray that You would allow it, God, to speak not only for those in this sanctuary but for those who are watching around the world on the internet. Allow somebody's life to be transformed and changed. I thank You ahead of time for what You 're going to do. Thank You for what You 've done already. To the name of the Lord Jesus be all the glory and honor. In His name, we pray. Amen. You may be seated in the house of our God.

If I could sing like Brother West, I would probably never preach! I guess we would just keep on singing. The Book of Joshua is a fascinating book to me. As a matter of fact, Joshua is one of those characters in the Bible that I resonate with and celebrate; I like him. He had the awesome responsibility of stepping up and following in the footsteps of one of the greatest leaders who ever lived, a man whom God spoke to face-to-face named Moses. What an incredible responsibility it was to have to step up and follow the man whom God spoke to face-to-face ! But yet, he took the mantle and the assignment because laid upon Joshua was a mantle to do something that Moses could not do. Moses had the assignment of leading the children of Israel out of bondage, but he could not lead them into the Promised Land. The mantle that was on Joshua was to lead the children of Israel into the Promised Land , and that is a significant point because resting in this place underneath my voice right now are some people that God has given an anointing upon your life to do some things that only you can do . Nobody else can do it; nobody else can take your place. There are some things that God has assigned for you to do.

For 40 years, the children of Israel wandered around in the wilderness trying to find the Promised Land, but they never could get there. When Moses died and Joshua stepped up, it was now the time and the anointing upon his life to carry the children of Israel into the Promised Land . What an incredible anointing he had on his life! In order to conquer and take over and breach this Promised Land, there were some things that Joshua was going to have to do. Joshua, in order to lead the children into possessing the Promised Land, the Canaan land, the land that God said would be theirs, was going to have to fight . I didn't expect to get too many "Amens" on that point because I think I need to highlight to you that if you're going to reach the destiny that God has for you in your life, you're going to have to fight. I know that doesn't resonate with a lot of people; people don't get excited about that. People don't jump up and raise their hands. But let me tell you something: If you're going to achieve and accomplish what God has for you to achieve and accomplish, you are going to have to fight.

You see , too many people are just waiting for stuff to be handed to them on a silver platter . But for you to get where God wants you to get and to do what God has called you to do and to achieve the things that God has called for you to achieve, you are going to have to fight. Look at your neighbor and say, "You're going to have to fight!" Go ahead, tell him, "You 're going to have to fight!" Tell the person on the other side, "You 're going to have to fight!" Joshua had to fight ; it required a fight. Joshua is fighting, and here we find, through the book of Joshua, story after story and detail after detail of fight after fight, battle after battle, victory after victory, from one nation to one kingdom to one people in the land. He conquered time after time after time. As a matter of fact , over the course of his life, he's going to have 31 battles, 31 fights! He's going to win 30 out of 31 battles. The one fight that he lost and got defeated, he went back and retook that battle.

I say that to say that if you're going to be everything and achieve the things that God has called for you to achieve in your life, you're going to have to fight. You 're going to have to do some battling; you're going to have to throw up your dukes . You 're going to have to get engaged; you're going to have to do some battle. You are going to have to fight. It's going to be a long sermon; I can tell right now. If you can't celebrate on that major point, you're going to have trouble with the rest of the sermon.