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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.
Christian Manliness
| Sermon ID | 1112172149316 |
| Duration | 50:48 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - PM |
| Bible Text | Job 38:3; Job 40:7 |
| Language | English |
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