I want you to turn to the book of Job chapter 38. I was going to bring one more message on the big biblical basis for separation, but the reality is if you don't get it by now, you're not going to get it. I should say if you don't get it by now, you don't want to get it. Okay. And another message I don't think is going to do you any good. We might as well move on to other things. And then I had another message I was going to bring. The Lord wouldn't let me do that. And so I felt just strongly impressed that even though we have a few people who have heard this, the ones that were at the Fundamental Men's Conference at the Short of the Lord, most of our people have not. And I brought a message there on Christian manliness. Manliness. Manliness. That's something that's run down by liberals. They're doing their best to try to make men effeminate. Anything that is manly is played down as being caveman-ish. And understanding what Christian manliness is will be a great help to Christians. All right? You start talking about manliness, people have a lot of different ideas. And where I started in the message, if you look in Job chapter 38, It says in verse 3, gird up now thy loins, and underline this, like a man. For I will demand of thee, and answer thou me. And you go over to chapter 40, and you look at verse 7. And again, God says to Job, gird up thy loins now like a man. I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me. Now, isn't that interesting? See, God's rebuking Job. Even though he says at the beginning of the book that Job was a perfect man, he eschewed evil, he hated evil, he stood for righteousness, all of that, but during the book of Job, when he was falsely accused by his friends, instead of justifying God, he tried to justify himself. Now, think with me for just a moment. Look at all the pain and the suffering, both physical, mental, spiritually, that Job went through. And he didn't know why. He didn't know why he was going through it. Now, because we've got the whole book, we know that he went through it for the glory of God. That in chapter 1, when the devil came around to accuse God's children, which is what he does, he accused man's motives, he said, your people only praise you because you're good to them. That's the only reason they praise you. That's what they said to God. And God said to the devil, have you considered my servant Job? Now in this battle that takes place, Job did not know that he was God's chosen soldier to take the hit for God. He loses all that he has. He loses his children, every one of them. And his wife is broken emotionally. She says, curse God and die. Now that's not how she would normally talk. I don't have any doubt she was a godly woman. As a matter of fact, his answer to her, you speak as one of the foolish women, lets me know she didn't speak like that often. But she was broke. And I've seen a lot of good people under very difficult circumstances who've gotten depressed. who have said things that they never would have said if it wasn't for the circumstances that they were in. I believe she was a godly woman. Job's gone through all that. Now he's got three friends that think he's going through this because of his sin. And you go through all those chapters where he's trying to justify himself to his friends. And now Job comes on the scene. And he says to Job, he says in verse 3 of chapter 38, he says, gird up now thy loins like a man. He's been hurting. Job, gird up your loins like a man. Take it. God's gonna rebuke Job. He deserves a rebuke. Well, that's not fair. Really? Is God treating him too harshly? God doesn't think so, and I believe God's always right. In other words, no matter what you're going through, that's never excuse for wrong. Never. And even if you're hurting, sometimes to get out of the hurting, you have to take a rebuke to get straightened up. Now, that's not the message. That's just some observations. from this passage. And the reason that I bring it up is because too many times when we are hurting, whether it be a little or a lot, it's usually a lot more to the person who's hurting than it is to the people who aren't. But whether it be a little or a lot, we think that gives us an excuse to think, say, or do wrong. And it does not. So, that's a side lesson. If everybody got that, I'll tell ya, it would help you throughout life. Just right there. But it's interesting, he says to him, like a man. Like a man. Well, what does that mean, like a man? It doesn't mean, well, what was me? Life is just so hard. That's not like a man. That may be like a sissy. That's not like a man. Matter of fact, I saw a story about this meeting that they were having over in England. It was headed up by some comedian that I've never heard of. But the point of it, it was to help men deal with how hard it is to be a man. Because people expect men to be strong and it's so hard to live up to those Expectations that everybody has Okay, so what's the problem? Life's hard deal with it get over it Be a man Just be a man Christian Manliness now our whole society today is confused about that saying Christian manliness men have become effeminate and women have become more masculine and We want everything to be equal We want us and by equal we mean we want everyone to be exactly the same and yet for anybody who believes their Bible that's not the way it is and Men and women were even created differently. Adam was created out of the dust of the ground. Eve was created out of the rib of the man. We were created for a different purpose. The man was created in the glory of God and to the glory of God. Now, all this, by the way, is out of 1 Corinthians 11, verses 1 through 15. That's God's statement. What was the woman created for? For the glory of the man. That's what it says. And to be a helpmeet to the man. Let me just interject something else for you. Some of these things they didn't get up there at the men's conference, but you're getting it here because you're special. All right? But let me just help somebody here. Women, ladies, pardon me, ladies, You were not created for the children. You were created for the man. Now, not that it's necessarily wrong for a woman to have a part in the workplace, but you were not created for the workplace, you were created for the man. And the woman is the helpmate to the man. Now, when you understand the differences in creation. But now, there are some things that are the same. You have to be born again, just like a man has to be born again. You're responsible to obey the word of God, just like the man is responsible to obey the word of God. It took just as much of the blood of Jesus Christ to pay for your sin, ladies, that it did to pay for the sin of man. but we have different purposes in God's creation. Now, I know that that's not politically correct. I know that the liberals in our nation despise that truth, which is one reason why they despise the Bible. I mean, I can't imagine a believer in Jesus Christ ever going out and buying one of those gender unspecific Bibles. where the son of God is now called the child of God. And the father is just simply called God. We don't want to call him the father. I mean, those Christians that are perfectly happy with the book, the shack, the God of the shack being a woman. You know why that's popular? I'm talking about in Southern Baptist churches, that's true. They love it. They love the movie The Shack. That's big. These are people that ought to know better. But I don't have any doubt there are even some independent Baptist people that love The Shack. As blasphemous as what it is, and it is blasphemy. I'm just saying in society, Society hates the idea of Christian manhood, Christian manliness. I do believe that in God's economy of things, that the woman has the hardest job. I believe that. But now, that doesn't give you an excuse not to be what you're supposed to be. Men should be knocking it out of the park. Unfortunately, men are not. Part of this whole unisex movement is to try to make them the same and then eventually make man far less than what God ever wanted. God created us male and female, didn't create us to look alike or even act alike. We've got different purposes. So when we get that, that will help us a great deal in doing the will of God. Now, it's interesting that as men have become more effeminate and the females have become more manly, we've become more confused about what even manliness is. Depending on who you talk to, you'll get all kinds of different ideas about it. Do you know there's actually a website out there called The Art of Manliness? Now, when I saw that, I thought, well, this ought to be interesting, the art of manliness. And the first couple of things I saw when I went to the webpage, oh, that's good, that's good. And then, but I didn't have to go far to realize this was not a Christian site. But one of the articles that they had in the site dealt with a hundred things that every man should know how to do. And so I thought, well, I'm gonna mark down some of those things. Now, I don't have the whole list of a hundred, and I'm not even gonna give you everything that a man ought to do, as they say. But these are a hundred things that every man ought to know how to do. Interesting to me, the number one thing on the list was tie a necktie. Now, it's funny, at least at the men's conference, I had some people say amen. Of course, that was only men who knew how to tie a necktie. Isn't that right? It's not that tough. It didn't say wear a necktie, it says know how to tie one. Unfortunately, even grown men have got one of those little clips that they just throw on there because they don't know how to tie a tie. And there are a bunch of men that even though they've got a tie on that's been tied, they didn't do it, their wife did. I got some of you there, I know. I know, I can tell. Matter of fact, underneath that, on this list, they said, you don't want to be the 30-something who needs to ask his mom to tie his tie for him. All right, that's the first one. The second thing they had was to build a campfire. Every man ought to know how to build a campfire. And every Boy Scout says, amen. Okay, especially if you made it to Eagle Scout. Number three. Now this is where it starts getting a little dicey. I mean, we're only on number three. Hang a picture. Buddy, I can hang a picture. There. That's how men will do it. Amen. Shine your shoes. That's good. Shine your shoes. Every man ought to know how to treat a snake bite. And by the way, cutting it open and sucking out the blood is not one of the ways. That's only for TV. I wonder how many people have died because they saw a TV show where that's what they did. But anyway, number six, I think this is good, read a book. Number seven to me is great. Every man ought to know how to survive a bear attack. That doesn't mean, hey, David fought a bear, come on. He fought a lion too. You say, well, how is that ever gonna do me any good? You get attacked by a bear, you wish you knew. Oh, this next one, this is painful. Every man ought to know how to wet shave. I got news for you, man, that's painful. If you don't know how to do it, that leaves you hurting for a while. Every man ought to know how to parallel park. Thank God for cameras. Every man ought to know how to fix a leaky faucet. Every man ought to know how to treat a burn. This was interesting. Every man ought to know how to tell a joke. Every man ought to know how to do a deadlift properly. Now we get a little dicey again. Every man ought to know how to recite a poem from memory. Every man ought to know how to sew a button. I'm thinking, what, they ask the opinion of some woman what a man ought to know? What's that? She doesn't want to sew buttons anymore? But this is good. Every man ought to know how to change a flat tire. Number 25 in their list was every man ought to know how to break down a door. You may need to do that to save somebody's life one day in a fire. Men ought to be ready. Every man ought to know how to sharpen a knife. Oh, this is great. Every man ought to know how to navigate with map and compass. We shouldn't have to have a GPS to get around. Now, I use a GPS, but I love a map. And even though I use a GPS, when I'm going someplace I haven't been, I look at a map first. Matter of fact, remember in the early days of GPS, quite often they led you... Doesn't happen as much today, but it used to happen a lot. Every man ought to know how to unclog a toilet. I think this one's important. Every man ought to know how to shake hands. And every dad ought to teach his boys how to shake hands. They need to be taught to grip their hand. I didn't say crush their hand. I said grip their hand. And look the person in the eye that they're shaking hands with. It shouldn't be a, and it shouldn't be, I hate it too. I also don't like someone coming up and I've got to start flexing my muscles before I grab their hand. I've got arthritis in my fingers. And all of you young bucks that are trying to prove your strength, you understand that some of these women, you shake their hand. Matter of fact, we got some ladies who can flat shake a hand. Yes, I know you're pointing at Pam. We're gonna have her teach some of these young fellas how to shake hands. Every man ought to know how to treat frostbite. Every man ought to know how to do a proper pull-up. Every man ought to know how to identify poisonous and edible plants. Get this, every man ought to know how to perform the fireman's carry. How to pick that guy up over your shoulders, carry him off. I thought this was strange, but I agree. Every man ought to know how to open a bottle without an opener. What was that? Oh, man, you break the top off and guzzle it down. That's what you do. There's a couple more. Every man... Some of you will love me for even saying this. Every man ought to know how to cast a fishing line. And all the fishermen said, amen. You know, one of the reasons I don't like fishing is several years ago, I went out fishing with my cousin and my cousin was casting. I'm rowing and he caught me right in the head. And I say, every man that goes fishing needs to know how to cast a line anyway. Every man ought to know how to perform the Heimlich maneuver. Every man ought to know how to drive a stick shift. How many of you, that's how you learn to drive, stick shift? Yes, sir, man. Yes, sir. Every man ought to know how to do a proper pushup. Every man ought to know how to change your car's oil. And every man ought to know how to, why don't they put it, how to whistle with your fingers. Got some of you there, didn't I? Yeah, I tried it, couldn't do it either. I got on YouTube, man. I blew and blew and blew. And then the guy, he did it, he didn't do it very loud, he did it, but then he said on the YouTube video, he said, it took me two hours to learn this. And I said, well, I guess I'll just go through life not doing that. I've done it all right. What about Christian manliness? There was a Mennonite by the name of J. Otis Yoder who said the measure of a man is determined by how he responds to the truth of God. That's the measure of a Christian man. How he responds. Now in that list there were some things like a man ought to know how to pour beer. I said it wasn't a Christian group. They had every man ought to know how to play poker. Let me just say for all of our young men, you ought never know how to do either one. As I said, it was not a Christian website. And yet some of those things were really good ideas that every man ought to learn to do. We got a bunch of sissy guys that sit in front of computers all day long. and they know how to do this, and they know how to do this, and they don't know how to do a thing that's useful. But the young men and fathers, it's up to you to teach your, if you have a young man, it's up to you to teach them how to do those things. It shouldn't be up to their buddies to teach them how to do those things. You ought to teach them how to do those things. Very important. One Christian writer said, young man needs a battle to fight, a beauty to win, and an adventure to live. It's part of our makeup. Well, that may be that that's what every young man dreams of. But if I'm going to be a Christian man, then the first thing is my response to God. So I got three things down. After all that, I've got three things down to give you. Number one. And just doing a Bible search, like a man and so on, number one, men ought to be under control. under control. We live in a society where the men are not under control. They scream, they rant and rave, they get mad at everybody that doesn't make life easier for them or things don't go the way they want. They're totally out of control. They don't know how to deal with difficulty, don't know how to deal with trouble. Every Christian man ought to know how to be under control. That's called godliness. Part of the fruit of the Spirit is temperance. Temperance means self-control. Why are so many people, men, addicted to everything? They're addicted to cigarettes, they're addicted to alcohol, they're addicted to pornography. Do you know why? It's because they have not gotten themselves under control. It is part of what we're to be as Christian men. But this matter of being godly, When was the last time you heard of a man spoken of that the highlight characteristic about the man was that he was godly? Because that is most important, how you respond to God being under control. 2 Peter 3.11 says, Let's just consider over here in 1 Thessalonians 4. It's important that you look at this because we have a lot of young fellas today, not gonna call them men, that unfortunately they are totally out of control. They are following the lust of the flesh. We dealt with the lust of the flesh this morning in much of their lives. But look at this, you don't get this from Hollywood now. Get this from the Bible. Notice he says in verse one, furthermore then, we beseech you brethren and exhort you by the Lord Jesus Christ that as he have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God so ye would abound more and more. For ye know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus Christ. Look at this. For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication. That is the will of God. Every Christian ought to have control of his own vessel spiritually. There is no excuse for immorality. There's no excuse. If you want to be a godly man, then you've got to learn self-control. You've got to be under control to where you have made some decisions where you have character. Boy, that's a big word that you don't find much today. That means, I was watching one of the ball games, I wasn't watching the whole ball game, I was just watching part of it yesterday, and some team, I don't know, it might have been Alabama, some team scored a touchdown, and the tackle that was in there did something really stupid, and they got a 15-yard penalty. Was that the Alabama game? Near the end of the game? And you think, now surely, the coach is just, this guy's facing something when he gets into the locker room. Because there's no excuse for it. Why was he out of control? You, a couple weeks ago in the NFL, they were talking about these major fights that took place. And of course, they're a bunch of thugs, because they run up, they don't go up face a man, man to man. They go up, get them from behind and hit them from the back, because they have no character. They have none. They're totally out of control. And a man is to be under control. That's the problem with our nation. Our nation is out of control. It's run by a bunch of people who are out of control. And it's full of people out of control, especially men who are out of control. But godly manliness includes being under control. Jeremiah declared in Lamentations 3 51, mine eye affecteth mine heart because of all the daughters of my city. You need to be under control even in what you see, even in what you watch. Job said, I made a covenant with mine eyes. Why then should I think upon a maid? You have to get your thoughts. under control. The Bible tells us, though we walk after the flesh, we do not war after the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but are mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalted itself against the knowledge of God. Now get this, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. You need to get your thoughts Under control, but you're not going to get your thoughts under control looking at pornography You're not going to get your thoughts under control listening to rock music You're not going to get your thoughts under control by watching TV You need to get under control He wants us under control. Now, you know the verse in Romans 6, 16, it seems like I've quoted it a lot lately. Know ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey, whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness. Isn't it interesting that there are a bunch of people, not just young people, adults, older adults, who do not know how to talk without cursing? They don't know how. You remember a past mayor that we had here? The reason he stopped being mayor was because he cussed in front of a bunch of kindergartners. And that made the newspaper and they voted him out. You know why? He wasn't under control. If you've got a cuss to talk, then you need to wash your mouth out with soap and learn to get under control. You've got a problem with your mind. You're not thinking straight. You're out of control. You need to get under control. needs to get under control. It's interesting, you go out to the golf course, and you gotta be careful when somebody comes up to us and says, do you mind if I play with you? We say, well, if you don't mind playing with a couple of preachers, because if they're gonna play with us, I want their mouth under control. It's absolutely astounding to me the number of men that will cuss in front of people they don't even know. And think that people don't mind. My mind? I don't like being with people cussing around me. I don't like it. Why would I fill my mind with that kind of godless wickedness? So godly men are men under control, and that's godliness. Number two, godly men will be men with convictions. That's grounded. So not only are they godly, but they are grounded. In other words, you need to know what's important in life. I was thinking about yesterday in the ball games, you know, when Alabama was getting beat by, was it Mississippi State? Yeah, well, they were getting beat by Mississippi State, and they were talking about that if Alabama loses a game, it'll be the first time since 1966 that the top three teams have all lost on the same Sunday. I mean, hey, Notre Dame got beat, praise God. You know, there were a couple of, I mean, my favorite team, my favorite team is always whoever's playing Notre Dame. That's my favorite team that day. So I enjoyed that. But regardless of that, regardless of that, you think of, that was their life. You realize, for those people that got beat a few weeks ago, it was Penn State getting beat, who had been undefeated and so on. These people got their hopes up, and now it's all crushed. They can't make it to the big game. They can't be national champions. Is that even important? What does that do for your life? What does it do for the world? Well, it brings a lot of money into Tuscaloosa. Or Auburn. Or whatever city the University of Georgia's in. You know, man, they're crushed. You can see it. It's like the world's come to an end. We got beat, oh no. How are we gonna get grounded? Get grounded, not just in what's important. Let me say that there really are things that are worth dying for. In 1 Samuel 4, verse 9, we have a statement that is not made by believers. Actually, it's made by some heathen men, but it tells us a truth about real manhood here. After all, you take Goliath, for instance, at least he was a man. And he acted like a man. He wasn't a sissy. He wasn't afraid to fight. He wasn't just, you know, a big dumb guy. It says, be strong. Now, let me set it up here. What's happened is the Philistines have whooped Israel twice. And so the wicked sons of Eli go to the tabernacle. They get the ark of God and they bring it out to their camp. They think that the ark of God is going to get them a victory. What they didn't understand was that God was the one who was fighting against them. The Philistines didn't win because they were strong. The Philistines won because God fought for the Philistines because of Israel's sin. And so, but when the people saw the ark of God, they began shouting, oh, this is wonderful, God is here. And it caused terror in the camp of the Philistines. People said, oh no, that God of Israel, that part of the Red Sea, he's in the camp, we can't win. Listen to this. Here was what some of the leaders of the Philistines said to their own men. Be strong and quit yourselves like men. O ye Philistines, be not servants unto the Hebrews as they have been to you. Quit yourselves like men and fight. Now, they felt there were some things worth dying for. But let me say, for the believers, there are definitely some things worth fighting for. In this case, for them, it was the difference between life or death. And life, if they lost, meant slavery. And they felt it was better to die than be a slave. That's what the Philistines thought, that's what they did. And yet we know that God's people have been willing to fight and even die because they realized there were some things worth dying for. You remember when David went into the camp, the reason he was sent to the camp by his father was to take food to his brothers. And here David watches Goliath come out of the camp of the Philistines and he's cursing Israel and he's cursing the gods of Israel, the God of Israel. And David looks and he's wondering, why aren't any of you taking this guy up on the challenge? They're shaking in their boots. And his brothers got so mad at him for even questioning them that they began to run him down. And David cried, is there not a cause? Now there's some things God doesn't tell us here about David, but I believe at that point right there, David would rather be dead at the hands of Goliath than to live with a bunch of cowards. He was ready to die. Now, hey, I'm preaching here to a church that is full of veterans that believe your country is worth dying for. Isn't that right? And even though, let's face it, you hope that would not be your fate when you were serving and you were hoping to go on through to get out to do other things, but nevertheless, you always realize that at any time, that could be a possibility. because you felt your country was worth dying for. And you could be counted on. And I believe that too. I believe my country's worth dying for. So a man is a man who is grounded to be willing to die for the right things. Curtis Hudson used to say, there are some things that we ought to fuss about, some things we ought to fight over, and some things we ought to be willing to die for. Now, wisdom is knowing which is which. You don't want to just fuss about something you ought to be willing to die for. And you don't want to die for something you ought to just be fussing about. So that is part of the wisdom of life. But for that, you've got to be grounded as to what is really important. You've got to make some decisions. And you want them to be grounded decisions. I mean, our country is full of people. They disrespected me. I'm gonna fight. And they go out and get killed. And they got killed because somebody doesn't respect them. So what if somebody doesn't respect you? Big deal. What should that mean to you? I gotta respect my honor. Talking like that, you don't have any honor. If you're just a thug, you don't have any honor. You understand? You gotta be grounded. There are times to fight and times to be ready to die. But that's not for everything. You need to get a brain. Being grounded. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego felt their God was good to die for. You remember, they would not bow to the image that Nebuchadnezzar had set before them. When the music played, everybody was supposed to bow. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego didn't bow. They were the only ones that didn't bow. Even the other Jews bowed. But they didn't bow. And when people told Nebuchadnezzar that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego did not bow, the king came out, and he said, I'll give you one more shot. He said, if you don't bow when the music plays, you're gonna die, and your God cannot save you. And they said, O king, we are not careful to answer thee. Our God can save us, but even if he doesn't, we're not bowing. I stipulate to this day that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were not heroes because they came out of the fire. They were heroes because they were willing to go into the fire. There are some things worth dying for. It's amazing, people will fight over their Xbox, they'll fight over their PlayStation, but they won't fight for right with God. Not only are there things worth dying for, there are people worth dying for. I do believe. By the way, in Psalm 82 and verse 7, the Bible says, but ye shall die like men and fall like one of the princes. Now that's the verse. If you read, he says, you shall die like men. There's a way for men to die. In the passage, he's talking about them being willing and ready to stand up for those who are hurting and downtrodden. The people that could not stand up for themselves to stand up. He said, you'll die for that. And that one, he was speaking a good thing about that. You'll die like men. There are people worth dying for. I believe my wife is worth dying for. I believe with all my heart, my children are worth dying for. My family's worth dying for. I believe, now, none of us know what we would do unless we're in this situation, but I believe and I hope that if we did have some crazy guy come in here, That I would do my best to die before any of these kids would die. Now, because of stuff like the church shootings, I've had a number of people ask me to carry in the pulpit. I don't. And let me tell you why I don't. There's a couple reasons why I don't. Well, there's probably about three or four reasons why I don't. One of those is this, I've seen YouTube things where men trained with guns, I'm talking about policemen, has somebody pull a gun on them at a traffic stop, and even though they're only five or six feet away, they unload their gun and don't hit the person they're shooting at one time. You don't know how your adrenaline will impact you. And if somebody came in and was coming down the aisle, coming toward me to get me, if I shot and hit one of you, I wouldn't be able to live with that. I'd rather be dead anyway, so I might as well not carry. Now, that doesn't make me a hero. It may make me a dummy. I don't know, but that's just the way I am. I'm not here for people to be a shield to me. Secondly, if they're coming in, then they're usually at least after the pastor. At least that's what Brother Crane told us when he did our seminar here, that one of the commonalities of these things is the pastor always dies. So, but I figure this, if they come in and he's shooting at me first, that means he's not paying attention to our guys who can take him out. And that way, they can shoot clearly. Again, that doesn't make me a hero. It's just one of those things that I believe I'm worth dying for. There's a third thing here. I'm 68 years old. I'm about done anyway. So, it might as well be me rather than somebody here that's in their 20s or 30s or 15s, 10. Now, that's why I don't carry with that in mind. there are people worth dying for. That's being grounded. By the way, there are doctrines I'd be willing to die for. You study church history and Baptists were persecuted. They were persecuted by the Catholics, they were persecuted by the Calvinists, they were persecuted by the Lutherans. Every one of those groups were guilty of murdering Christians. Every one of them. Do you know that one of the things Baptist died over was not baptizing their children until they got saved? Baptist died for that they were put to death for that the day before Patrick Henry made his speech where he ended up but asked for me give me liberty or give me death the day before he saw two Baptist preachers horse whipped with iron whips in front of the crowd in the city. Walked right by it. He saw those men ready to take it for what they believe. There are things, I believe this book. I'm not backing down on this book. That's why we don't change. I'm not gonna do it to get more people into church. I'm not gonna do it to just keep somebody happy. Who says, oh, we just love it if you just preach generality. Not gonna do it. Why? I believe God's book is worth standing for. By the way, I look around, all of our missionaries. Brother Fabian here, he's working in a dangerous area. You don't know when a drug cartel or something, they may come around his church and start blasting away. I mean, he could live up here in the relative safety of Lawrenceburg, Tennessee. Our missionaries who've been to Uganda, South Africa, where people are being murdered in South Africa, galore. That's one of the highest criminal and death rates in the world is in South Africa. I mean, they know they're going to some dangerous places, where Chris Lanier's at right now. They've had shootouts at the mall there, not too far from his house. And they could be back here in the relative safety here, but you know what? They believe that if God called them to reach those people, if it means their life, it's worth doing. And you look at the history of the church, whether it be Fox's Book of Martyrs, or By Their Blood, the book by James and Marty Hefley, dealing with the martyrs of the 20th century, that has been the history of the church, people willing to die to reach other people. Not looking for the easy way out. So Christian manliness. is godliness, men under control, men with convictions that's being grounded, and lastly, they are goal-oriented. Now what I mean by goal-oriented is not necessarily having 1,500 in Sunday school one day, but it's like Joshua when he stood before the people and he says, If it seemed evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom you will serve, whether the gods that our fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land ye dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." Basically saying to these people, you choose who you're going to serve, but we're serving God whether you do or not. That's our goal. We're going to serve God no matter what you do. You decide you don't want to be faithful to church. Well, that's not going to change me. I'm still going to be faithful to church. That sounds a lot like Noah that in the midst of a totally wicked culture, totally wicked world, he brought up his family for God. And when they were building an ark for safety and the world was going about their wickedness, they stayed true to God. You can do that in a wicked world. I know we're in a wicked world. You just have to make some choices. I look at the Apostle Paul. He says, In other words, I want To serve God till I die all the way to the end. And how does he end it? 2 Timothy chapter 4. In 2 Timothy chapter 4 he says, I fought a good fight. I have finished my course. I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord the righteous judge shall give me at that day. Now I want to end right. I can't say I have ended right because I haven't ended yet. I mean, the jury's still out on that, isn't it? But I want to end right. I can't think of anything right now in my mind that I want more than ending right. And every Christian ought to want to end right. Their walk right, their testimony right, that's goal oriented. Joseph had goals that even though he was sold into slavery by his brothers, even though in slavery he was falsely accused and then put in jail, even though he was forgotten even by a man he gave a good prophecy to, Joseph, when he had offered to him to commit immorality with Potiphar's wife, he said, God forbid that I should sin so great sin against God. And Joseph didn't even have a Bible. The Bible hadn't even been written yet. And he had made a decision, I'm going to stay pure. Do it. Part of Godliness. You say, but people will laugh at me. Let them laugh. Who's gonna be laughing at judgment? I mean, brother, goal-oriented. Bible says, watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit ye like men, be strong, let all things be done with charity. That's our command. And in goal-oriented, I want you to get this. I know you ladies are gonna hate this point, but I'm talking about Christian manliness, so just deal with it or read a book. Men, men want to win. Have you ever heard that, men, from your wife? You're playing a game. Oh, you just always want to win. That's why I'm playing the game, hon. I want to win. I don't play games that don't keep score. It's a waste of time. Amen. I want to win. And if I was to lose in a bowling match, then the game has to do with outscoring them in the three games total. Forget the one, doesn't matter. Right? Now, of course, Christian man wants to win, but he always wants to win by the rules. I mean, it's not winning to cheat. As a matter of fact, that makes you a loser. If you've got to cheat to win, it means you're not good enough to win. You've got to cheat. That's how a lot of Americans go through life, by the way, is cheating. Isaiah 42, 13, the Lord shall go forth as a mighty man. He shall stir up jealousy like a man of war. He shall cry, yea, roar. He shall prevail against his enemies. He's in it to win it. It's what he does. The declaration of God's judgment on His people from the Lord has been describing the parts of manliness. Men have a goal and they're in it to win it. I tell you, as a pastor, I'm in it as far as Madison Baptist Church is here. As long as I'm here, I'm here to keep us true doctrinally. I don't budge. And when I see the different movements coming on, whether it be that fake hyper-grace movement, or whether it be Calvinism, and it's starting to creep in, and some people are starting to get a little caught up in that. If it's the nutcase out there in Arizona, the YouTube nutcase that's an independent Baptist, and his false doctrine of post-tribulation, and replacement theology saying that the church is now Israel and so on. Brother, I'm going to stand against that mess because that is a bunch of wickedness. And I'll do that to my dying breath because, brother, I'm going to stick with the Lord and I'm in it to win it. Now, I'm on the victory side already. God's already won the war. I want to be faithful in my part of it right up to the end. We're in it to win it. That's godly manliness. They're men who are grounded. They're men who are under control. They're men who have goals for God. I'll tell you why a lot of Christians never accomplish a thing for God. They don't win a soul because they never plan on winning a soul. They don't have a goal to win a soul. They don't have a goal to give out tracts. They don't have a goal. Give yourself some goals. Men. After all, it's the men who lead the families. Now, I know we have a number of Christian ladies. They seem to be goal-oriented. They're giving out tracts all the time. They go door-knocking. They talk to people about the Lord. And thank God for you Christian ladies who do that. But men. We're men. But it's hard. We're men. Don't tell me it's hard. Give yourself a goal. Just do it. Be a man. Like a man. And it can get done. Now thank God. Boy, hasn't it been a nice message for you ladies? No pressure. I mean, the only thing you've had to do is do this. Amen. But man, let's give our wives Christian Godliness, Christian manliness for the glory of our Savior. Let's pray. Father, we come to you in the name of the Lord Jesus. Dear God, deal with our hearts. There are decisions we need to make in our lives so we can lead our families as Christian men. And God, may we make decisions to get things right with you so that we'll be what you intended us to be in the beginning. And Father, we'll thank you for it all in Jesus' name. Let's stand to our feet, heads bowed.