We're doing a series on Sunday nights and we're calling it Saving Masculinity. Saving Masculinity. Our culture has moved a lot, catching up through the centuries past, seeing a little aberration here and there about masculinity kind of falling by the wayside and little pockets of culture jumping up and making manhood look bad. But in the 20th century, or the last half of the 20th century, in the first part up until today's date, in the 21st century, we have seen things lurch forward. Let's just listen to him, I like him better anyway. I love technology. It gives everybody a laugh. See, I couldn't have told you a joke. You wouldn't have laughed at my joke. You'd just stare at me. Effeminacy among men. Feminization of manhood. It's been going on for a while, but especially in the last century, in this century, it has really lurched forward. Culture wants men and women, not only to look the same, but to think the same, and act the same, wear the same clothes, and have the same hairstyles, smell the same. And, you know, I just like, I like women feminine and men masculine. I believe that's the way God meant for it to be according to what we looked at in Genesis. He kind of created us that way. And I had biology 101, and I figured out men and women are not alike. I guess in my early 20s. I was working on a house. I was doing remodel work and building new houses back in those years. And in the neighborhood I was doing a remodel job for a friend of mine, Benny Johnson. He had a couple of boys, twins. One of them, Kenny, came over and he was watching me work. Kenny was just a little guy. I don't know, he was probably nine or ten years old. I don't remember. And he was watching me work, and I was laying out some boards on the saw horses and getting ready to cut them. And he's a little hillbilly. I mean, he's more of a hillbilly than I am. And little Kenny looked up at me, and he said, hey, Rick, he said, have you seen that woman over there that runs that hog farm over in the country, old Betty? I said, yeah. Yeah, Betty Potenza? He said, yeah, yeah, that's the one. He said, she wears old jeans and rubber boots, and she looks just like a man. I said, yeah, I guess she does, kind of. I said, I guess that's her choice to look that way, but I kind of like my women to look soft and pretty. And he knew Karen and I were sweethearts. He looked up at me after I told him I like my women soft and pretty. He looked up at me, a little boy, and he said, is Jorn soft and pretty? I said, yes, he is. I like women to be soft and pretty. That's the way I like them to be. And men ought to be strong and tough, right? And so there is a difference. And we've talked about it the last couple of Sundays how things have kind of gone downhill in that area. Culture has changed. men and women, the unisex movement wants to homogenize us and make us look alike and sound alike and think alike. And I don't think at all the Bible is in favor of that. But instead of just talking about those historical things that have happened, I'd like to take tonight and talk about from the Bible how to fix what is wrong. And in this series that we're calling Saving Masculinity, I'll entitle this one tonight, The Joy of Embracing Physical Labor. The Joy of Embracing Physical Labor. And I want us to read a couple of verses. Let's read Joel 2.7 and 1 Corinthians 16.13. Joel 2.7. They shall run like mighty men. They shall climb the wall like men of war. They shall march every one on his ways, and they shall not break their ranks. And 1 Corinthians 16, 13 says, watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong. Quit you like men. As Brother Vineyard said one time when I was in Bible college, he said, now if you're wondering how men quit, They don't. That was his view of it too. Brother Vineyard was a tough old, not a Navy SEAL, he was a Green Beret in the Vietnam era, and he was tough as nails, and he wanted to train his preacher boys to be tough. If they were gonna bomb out of the ministry, he said, I'd rather you bomb out in Bible college than to get out there and pastor some church and bomb out then. So he made it tough on us, and you either swam or sunk. Let's pray together and talk about what God can do to fix the problems in our culture. Father, we love you tonight. Thank you that you do give us examples and exhortations toward manhood, young men, how they can be trained up and shown how to be biblical men. And Lord, we pray that you'd help us tonight to embrace the joy of physical labor. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Young men need to embrace opportunities to develop their natural strength and performance of physical labor. This is one of the biblical ways that young men can learn how to be biblical men instead of effeminate, sissified men in today's culture. Proverbs 20, 29 says, the glory of young men is their strength and the beauty of old men is the gray head. God built it into men to be strong. It's in their DNA. God programmed us that way. And if you just look around, you can see that if you were gonna push your car out of the ditch and you need to select about four people to help you push it out, I bet you would select men out of the crowd. Now that doesn't mean women are not helpful and useful and have their place and that they're anything less than men, but they're just programmed differently. And God made men to be strong. And God built into man the ability to be physically stronger and to do more physical work than women generally, than the fairer sex. In recent news, you've probably seen, if you watch the news at all, I don't think you ought to watch the news 24 hours a day. It'll discourage you. But you need to stay up on what's going on. I mean, how else would I know what to preach against if I didn't watch the news? And so I watch enough news to know that in the recent weeks, we've seen that professional or competitive swimmer who is a transgender dude, well, Biologically, he was born a male, but he claims to be a woman. Listen, putting a dress on, boys, don't make you a woman. Well, he thinks he is, I guess, or claims he is. And his competitors, because it's a female competition in swimming, the female competitors are complaining because this guy is strong. This guy, he can swim, out swim any of those women, and he's winning all the trophies. Well, duh, he's a dude. I think it's horrible that they let guys who pretend to be girls swim. I mean, you've got this big muscular, what about a weightlifting contest? How about we put a Mia up against Brother Allen in lifting weights? Well, duh. Men are generally stronger and we ought to see men that way and stop the nonsense. It's just a biological fact that men and women are different and I'm glad it's that way. The greatest need for young men to increase their strength is not so they can stand in front of a mirror and flex their muscles, but it's to equip them to do the work that God intended for them to do. Physical labor is ordained of God. Man in the Garden of Eden, God said that you're gonna earn your living by the sweat of your brow. Well, you better have some good muscles if you're gonna do that. Let me give you two things tonight. We'll be out of here in no time. We're gonna have two points. First one is, why are you laughing? No sub points at all. Is this Super Bowl Sunday? Next Sunday? Okay, well I'll preach extra long tonight so I can preach shorter next week. The Super Bowl makes no difference to me. By the way, thinking about men and women, I wonder how many female football players they've got in the Super Bowl. Anybody know? I don't think there are any, is there? Well, I think there's a reason for that, don't you? Well, shucks. Maybe it's because men are generally bulkier, speedier, and stronger. Well, let's see, first point, biblical examples for young men. We're gonna look in the Bible and see some examples of young men. Now, when we talk about young men in the Bible, most generally, and this is generally speaking, when we talk about young men tonight, we'll be looking at examples where young men generally are considered between the age of 12 and 30. Now, it's not to say that little boys can't be taught some principles from these same things. Girls and ladies are not gonna pick up on some things that's gonna help them. How would it help the young ladies? Well, it'll help them pick out some guy that's gonna be a good worker and provide for his family, if he knows how to work. And might help mamas and daddies to be able to say, no, you don't need to marry that one, you need to pick a different one. You say, can you do that? You better believe it. Yeah. Biblical examples for young men. Genesis 18, I'd like for you, I don't think we got these, we won't have these on the screen, so you'll need to turn in your Bibles. Don't want you to become lazy, right? I love it when we can have scriptures up there, because quite honestly, sometimes people, visitors and so forth, come to church, and they don't have a Bible, and it's good that they can see the Word of God on the screens, but I still like it when I hear the pages of people's Bibles turning, and they're looking at their own Bible, and they're looking at a King James Bible, and seeing the real Word of God, I like that. And so in Genesis chapter 18, verse number 7, we'll see an example that'll teach us something about manhood. Genesis 18, 7. And Abraham ran unto the herd and fetched a calf, tender and good, and gave it unto a, next two words, a young man. And he hasted, who hasted? The young man. He hasted to dress it. Abraham picked the calf, but a young man labored to prepare it. Abraham said, go out here and let's fix us up a calf. We need to feed our visitors. And hey, right there, that's a good one, right over there. Get that young man, get that calf. What'd the young man do? that Abraham selected, he picked that thing up and he went and butchered it and got it ready to serve as a meal. So the old man, old Abraham, didn't do it. Who did it? The young man. How could he do that? Do you know that those things were pretty heavy? A calf like that, a butcher-sized calf, would be three, four, or 500 pounds. Whoa, he kills that thing and then gets it by the hind legs and he's dragging along. 400 pounds? You think he might have needed to be strong? Physical strength. Men need to teach their boys to have some physical strength and not be too easy on them. They need to be able to do what's necessary. And so this was no small job. I remember holding squirrels and rabbits for my dad when I was just a little tyke He'd go out and go squirrel hunting or rabbit hunting. He'd bring the game home, and he'd have me to hold it while he skinned it. Well, he had to gut it. See, that kind of teaches you something, too. It teaches those boys, don't be a frilly little sissy when it comes to yanking the guts out of a squirrel. I'd stand there, and I'd hold the hind legs of that squirrel or that rabbit, and Dad would take his pocket knife. Boy, it's sharp, too. I mean, it was so sharp, it got within an eighth of an inch of something, and he'd cut it. And he'd slip that thing open from breastbone to tail end, and out come those guts. You get rid of all the entrails. And then he'd take a squirrel, and back there where the tail's sticking up, I'd have the legs, and the tail's sticking up, he'd grab that tail, and he'd slip the skin right behind the tail, and start pulling down on it. And when he'd start pulling down on that skin, you'd skin that thing, and he'd be yanking on that skin. Well, my dad was a little stronger than me when I was eight years old. So I'd be going down with it, and he'd say, hold it still, Rick. Hold it. Hold it while I'm pulling it. Don't let it go in the dirt. And I'd have to hold on to that thing. My hands, my little arms were trembling. But you know what it did? It taught me some strength. Emotionally, I didn't join up with PETA to demonstrate and protest the killing of those poor little animals. I didn't protest when Dad brought home a deer. I was looking forward to eating some tenderloin. I wasn't worried about what Peeta thought. I don't think we'd heard about Peeta back in those days. I didn't protest the death of Bambi. I'm looking forward to gravy and biscuits. I love deer, now don't get me wrong, I love deer. I love deer with gravy and biscuits and mashed potatoes. And you're talking about hoisting an old deer up on the, back then the way we did it was just all by hand. You'd have a, what'd they call that thing? It was a stick that went sideways and pointed on each end. You'd go up there and run it through the deer's ligaments in his back legs and hang him up that high so he's high level. And you'd slit that thing open and remove the entrails and then skin that thing. That took some strength. And it got boys used to, where they wasn't queasy about seeing blood. Boys need to be strong. One of the things I liked about Danny Hopkins, he worked on the fire department in Judsonia for a number of years, 20 years. And he told me a lot of times he'd go out and help them when they're big car wreck out on the interstate. He'd go out there and help extricate bodies from wrecked cars and stuff. I'm glad he wasn't queasy. I mean, I'm sure it wasn't all that pleasant. But thank God there was somebody there to help get the injured people out and get the bodies out. And so boys can't be queasy. You got to have a strong stomach and a strong constitution and strong arms. And so we're talking about this young man that Abraham sent out there to get the calf and kill it and dress it and prepare it and get it ready for a supper. Then in Genesis 22, you're already there in 18. Flip over to Genesis 22. Genesis 22, three through five. And Abraham rose up early in the morning. This is when he's taking Isaac. He thinks he's gonna go to Mount Moriah and sacrifice Isaac on an altar there. And it says, and Abraham rose up early in the morning and settled his ass and took two of his, what's the next two words? Young men with him. And Isaac, his son, claimed the wood for the burnt offering and rose up and went unto the place which God had told him. And then on the third day, Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place far off and Abraham said unto his young men, abide ye here with the ass and I and the lad will go yonder and worship and come again to you. So Abraham rode, when they're going to Mount Moriah for three days, Abraham rode the donkey and the young men carried the wood. Hey, you think they had to be strong to strap all that wood for the fire on their back? They didn't get to ride. Are you in tune with what I'm saying? The young men, they needed to be strong. They needed to be able to hold up all that wood for the offering. And so they're walking, Abraham rides. And that's the way it was supposed to be. Sounded like that's the way God wanted it to be. And so they honored Abraham by stepping up and doing the difficult. That's what men do. And we're talking about transitioning from being a young man to a mature man. And so the young man would take the hard job. And later they were assigned the task of staying there and with the donkey, guarding the donkey for Abraham. Kind of a mundane task, but an important one. And that helped them develop their patience as well. And their protective skills. What if somebody come along and tried to steal the donkey? Those young men would have They were protecting Abraham's donkey. That's what they were there for. Now Exodus chapter 24, we'll look at another example of what the young men in the Bible did. The young men, Exodus chapter 24, verse four, Exodus 24, four. And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord and rose up early in the morning and built an altar under the hill and 12 pillars according to the 12 tribes of Israel and he sent young men of the children of Israel which offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen unto the Lord. Young men were used in performing the taxing tasks of that day. That was heavy duty work. And most young men in our culture have never been involved in anything like that, butchering full grown oxen. Now we talked about the calf that Abraham's servant had to drag out of the herd and dress it. But we're talking about full grown oxen here. Those things would weigh, they'd weigh a ton. 2,000 pound animal. And the old priests were not doing that. The young men were. That was hard work. in 1 Samuel 26, 1 Samuel 26. Just keep in mind, we're looking at what the young men did. 1 Samuel 26 and verse number 22. And David answered and said, behold the king's spear and let one of the young men come over and fetch it. It was, listen, it was the young men who went and fetched the spear. They didn't take some old guy and say, hey, you run out there and you get the spear, and while the young men do some target practice, let the young men shoot and let the old men go fetch the spear. No, they didn't do it that way. They let the young men go after the spear and they honored the old men. The young men were doing the hard work, not an elder. admire people who recognize this in our current culture. Now, I don't think there's a lot. Brother Joey has trouble keeping helpers in the bricklaying business. I know Jameson said he's had trouble at his place of work for finding people who would work there. I mean, it wasn't real easy work. Laying brick and helping mix the mud, carrying brick, not real easy work. But Joey keeps doing it. He can't keep help to do it, but Joey keeps doing it. And you know why? Because he knows how to work. I admire something about Joey. If he sees a geezer like me around here trying to do something that's physical around here, if I'm trying to shovel or sweep or go pick up something, Joey will run and take my broom away from me and take my shovel away from me. He won't let me do it. He'll do it. I could do a better job than he does, but he won't let me do it. He knows how to work. And he honors his elders. Jamison's the same way. When we're out here shoveling, or not shoveling, we're chipping ice. And Jamison stood there and watched me for a minute or two, and he said, here, let me have that shovel for a little while and give you a rest. And he started busting ice. And he found out after a few minutes, that was pretty hard work, wasn't it, Jamison? Now, I'm just saying, I admire people who honor their elders and say, you know, This is hard stuff. This is what young men ought to be doing. Isn't that the way we see it in the Bible? Let the young men be doing this. I don't mind working. I've been a hard worker all my life. Now, since I've got into geezerhood, it's not as easy for me anymore. When I worked on highway construction, building interstate highways, we'd go out there and go to work at 6 o'clock in the morning. And we worked till noon. Hard, physical work. I was a concrete finisher a lot of that time. And I mean, it was just steady, sliding that straight edge out, a 16-foot pole out and back, out and back. Lift it up in the middle of the highway on the Crown, lift it up about two feet high and let it down gently so you don't dent the concrete and drag it back all day long. And 12 o'clock comes, guess what? You don't get to eat lunch. What do we do? You'd work with one hand and eat with the other. That was your lunchtime. And when it got six o'clock, we didn't go home. What'd we do? We kept working till the days were, when you're pouring concrete, millions of dollars worth of concrete on the interstate highway, you don't stop and take breaks. You don't stop and let that concrete dry. You just keep on working. And there'd been a many nights out there, way after eight o'clock, nine o'clock at night, we'd be out there finishing concrete by the headlights on a truck. after the sun had gone down long ago. Now, could I do that now? I don't think so. I wouldn't look forward to even trying it. But I did then, because I was a young man. I don't think there's very many people want to work like that nowadays. And they pay a lot better nowadays, and people still don't want to work. I mean, we wanted all the hours we could get, because the more hours we worked, the more money we got at the end of the week. but it's not that way anymore. And that's why we need to see what the Bible talks about the young men doing work. Now let's go to one other, Acts chapter five. I remember going on a mission trip when I was in Bible college with Brother Vineyard one time and we took a RV and we had probably, I don't know, probably six or eight college guys. I was the oldest one in the group. I didn't go to Bible college until I was 30. No, I was 32, 33. Yeah, I was 33, I guess. And we went on a mission trip into Missouri, Lebanon, Missouri, and in this RV. And Brother Vineyard, he was the guest preacher, so they got him a motel. They put him up in a nice place. Those college guys were supposed to sleep in that RV. Well, in the RV, there was just a certain number of beds, and we had more students than we did beds. And so I got back that night after church services, I got back to the RV a little later than those young guys did. They had already thought, if we get there first, we get the beds instead of sleeping on the floor or on the couch. And so I got back, all those young guys had already run in and grabbed them a bed, and I came in. And so I said, where am I supposed to sleep? They said, well, you've got the couch. Well, I was the oldest one in the group, but I didn't say anything. I was just gonna sleep on the couch. And I got over on the couch and was fixing up my bed, and Brother Vineyard came by, our preacher. And he looked in, he saw those young guys in the beds and me getting on the couch. He said, hey, what's going on here? I said, we're getting ready for bed. He said, why are you sleeping on the couch? I said, well, the beds were already taken. He looked around, he said, one of you young guys, get out of those beds. Brooks is sleeping in the bed. You young guys can sleep on the floor. I thought, praise the Lord. You know why he did that? Because he thought honoring age was important. I wasn't an old guy by any means, but I was older than the younger guys that were there, and he thought they could take it a lot better on the couch than a 33-year-old could. So I got the bed, and one of those other guys got the couch. Praise the Lord for that. And Ananias, hearing these words, fell down and gave up the ghost. And great fear came on all them that heard these things. And the young men arose and wound him up, carried him out, and buried him. And it was about a space of three hours after when his wife, not knowing what was done, came in. And Peter answered unto her, Tell me whether you sold the land for so much? And she said, Yea, for so much. Then Peter said unto her, How is it that ye have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord? Behold the feet of them which have buried thy husband are at the door and shall carry thee out. And then fell she down straightway and came in. And the young men came in and found her dead. And carrying her forth, buried her by her husband. It was the young men that carried the husband out first and buried him. Boy, they were busy there for a while. They go out and dig a hole and bury the husband. Peter said, I got another one ready for you boys. And the wife had been stricken dead by the Holy Spirit of God. And so the young men grabbed her up and carried her out, dug another hole and buried her. And so who's doing all this heavy duty lifting of the dead weight? It's the young men. Peter didn't do it. The older guys didn't do it. The young men. Why? Because they're strong. They're young. and they had developed their strength and so they did the hard work. It was the young men. Well, young men who ever want to be a masculine man, need to learn to develop their strength. Dads, it's our job to teach them when they're little to embrace physical work. You say, well, they may grow up and be a computer tech guy. Well, that's OK. But teach them how to work when they're little anyway. Work's good for them. Everybody ought to have a little physical work. I don't care if you're president of the United States. I don't know that Joe Biden ever worked a day in his life, but he should have. You need to know more about what you and I go through out here in the real world. Everybody, every man ought to learn what it's like to work when he's little and as he's a young man. And develop the strength, the acumen, the understanding, the emotions, learning how to do hard labor without whining. without whining. If they whine, give them another job. If they whine, give them another job. Give them jobs till they quit whining and say, boy, I like doing this. And then if they really like doing it, you won't have to go through that again. And maybe you can give them another job. Now, let's see some biblical exhortations. I told you I had two points. This is the second one. Bible exhortations for young men. We saw the examples, now the exhortations. If you shirk work, you're not a young man, you're a boy. If you shirk work. You see, immature little boys, they try to hide from work. When I was a boy, I'd go out with my dad to the job where he was building a house or building cabinets, and he'd give me a job. He'd say, son, this was his favorite saying, he'd say, son, while you rest, do this here. It's always while you rest. If you're taking a break, sand these boards for me. If you want to rest a little while, cut the ends off of these for me. And while you're resting, carry in the rest of those shingles. That was his way of saying, I don't want you taking a break, I want you working. He wanted me to do stuff. And it taught me some things. I would try to hide. That wasn't good, but that's what I tried. I know what it's like to fear work. When I was a little boy, I didn't want to work. I'd rather play. And that's kind of normal. But you teach him to work anyhow. It's good to play, but there's a time to play and a time to work. and you have to teach them. The way you start out, when they're little, you take those little tykes, and the first thing you better teach them is how to sit still and listen. Hello? If you don't teach them to sit still and listen, you're never gonna get them to work when they get bigger. Because they'll ignore you then more than they do now. When they get to be 16 years old, they won't listen at all. They'll play games while you're out mowing the yard. Isn't that the way it works? It ought not to be, but that's the way it works. When you turn from boyhood to manhood, there's a change in the way you view labor. In the way you view labor. Embracing labor with joy. I think the Bible teaches we ought to enjoy what we do. I like the seven dwarfs theology. Whistle while you work. Just have a good time. Have a good time. Enjoy what you're doing. If you don't enjoy it, you may be doing the wrong job. Teaching people, teaching those boys how to embrace their work, to look for something to do. When the last, I think a year ago last summer, Alan, I got my tractor and bush hog, I got a bush hog in this field behind the church and somebody from the apartments had thrown a box spring down in the weeds there and it was growing up over it. Man, I'm just bush hogging along, I'm chopping down bushes, you know, really feeling good about what I'm doing. I'm chugging along on my tractor and all of a sudden, bang! And I hit those box springs and it took the blades on that bush hog, they're strong, They took those springs out of that box spring bed and they twisted round and round and round the shaft of my bush hog blades. I mean, it died right there. I have disengaged the bush hog before I could even drive back to the church. So I knew what happened. I saw the cotton flying and the springs flying. I knew what happened. So I drove back to the church and I looked at it and I fooled with it for a little while trying to get those. But it wasn't like just regular wire being, if it had been bailing wire, I think I could have got it off. But it was bed spring wire. You know what bed springs do, boing. They go where they want to. And you bend it this way and it'll go back that way. It's got a mind of its own. Springs, it's wound up around those blades, trying to get them undone, and man, I'm at my wits end. And I thought, Lloyd Smith knows about stuff like this, and so I called Brother Lloyd. I said, have you got any suggestions? I told him what I'd done. I said, tell me how to get these things off. I can't get it untwisted. He said, Alan's in town. Let me call him. He'll come and help you. I said, well, I don't want to. He's probably busy doing something. He said, no, no, I'll call him. He'll come and help you. And I love it the way dads volunteer their sons, don't you? And so it was a few minutes, Alan and Austin drove up out here in the parking lot and I'm sitting there with my bush hog all tangled up and I raised the bush hog up where they can kind of get under it and Alan goes under there and he starts. unraveling those things. And you don't unravel those fast. And they're using all kinds of different tools trying to get that off. And Alan worked for a little while. Austin worked for a while. And it's hot out there. And after a while, I was feeling guilty about them out there doing my work for me. And so I said, hey, Alan, let me work on it while you guys get over in the shade and rest a little bit. He said, no, no, we can do this. You sit over there. I said, no, I don't feel good about sitting over in the shade. I feel like I need to be doing something. He said, well, just sit over in the shade and boss us. I said, well, that sounds like a pretty good deal. And so I got in the shade and they worked on that thing all afternoon long. They finally got it all out of there, but man alive you talk about a job. I'm glad somebody had a mind to work. I'm glad Alan's dad taught him to be a worker. And I'm glad Alan had passed some of that on to Austin. Austin worked hard on it. And he'd just keep on going, man. I think they'd have worked on it till midnight if it hadn't got done before dark. But they were doing the work and they got it done. I'm glad some young men like to work and know how to work. Thank God for that. Well, I think after dad comes home from working eight or ten hours on the job, I think it's kind of a shame if he's got a son inside playing video games After dad's worked 10 hours already on the job and come home and then has to mow the yard, let's do that boy doing it. Isn't that what the strength of the young men are for? And after mom's worked hard all day, for her to walk in a young man's room and have to gather up dirty laundry scattered all across the floor, isn't that kind of a shame? I think even girls could learn something from that. Oh, sorry girls, I forgot, we're preaching to young men. I mean, I've seen guys back here after a fellowship supper, I've seen a lot of young guys come back there when geezers like me and Brother Paul, and Brother Paul's always, if he's here, he's the first one back there in the fellowship hall folding up tables after everything's over, folding up tables and chairs and putting them away. And I've seen people notice that he's working and they'll come back there, some of the young men will start grabbing the chairs and tables up and putting them away. Boy, that's a blessing to see young guys do that. And maybe some of the older ladies are in there in the kitchen cleaning up, and it's a blessing to see the younger ladies helping them before just instead of running off and leaving them to do it all by themselves. Amen, ladies? Boy, I got on the wrong toe there, didn't I? 1 Thessalonians 4.11. Apostle Paul must have had some reports of laziness there in that church in Thessalonica because in his first letter, 1 Thessalonians, there was an admonition. And then in 2 Thessalonians, there was a strong rebuke. 1 Thessalonians 4, 11, listen to this. Paul said, that you study to be quiet and do your own business and work with your own hands as we commanded you. There's the admonition. Maybe they didn't listen to him very good, because in 2 Thessalonians, in chapter 3, 2 Thessalonians 3, 6, Paul said, now we command you, brethren, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly and not after the tradition which he received of us. He's saying, I taught you some things. And he said, it's not getting done. And then he goes on to say, for even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat. Oh, ouch, that hurts, doesn't it? Yeah, if you want to work, you don't need to eat. For we hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly, not working at all, working not at all, but are busybodies. Now them that are such we command and exhort by the Lord Jesus Christ that with quietness they work and eat their own bread. So he's kind of talking about shunning them. He said, withdraw yourself from those brothers that don't work. If they won't work, you don't want to hang around them too much. You'll get lazy too. And that shunning, I think it was to kind of shame those people that weren't working. It must have been designed to kind of shame them into saying, no, you know, they're not having anything to do with me. I guess my laziness is not paying off. I better get to work. I liked what I heard at the preacher's meeting this past Tuesday down at Sherwood. Brother R.B. Ouellette preached, and he was talking about, he was trying to encourage preachers, and he was talking about Elijah, you know, when Elijah said, man, he's been doing a lot of stuff for the Lord, and then he goes up on Mount Carmel, and calls down fire from heaven and slays the prophets of Baal, and then he hears that Jezebel's after him and threatening to kill him. And he takes off down the mountain. He hides under a juniper tree, and he's whining and saying, I'm just ready to die. And an angel comes along, and God sends an angel and says, okay, eat a bite and lay down and take a nap. He woke up and the angel said, okay, eat a little bit more, lay down and take another nap. And he did. Probably all of that took about a day. And then when he got up, God sent him to hear the still, small voice. And that was like a day later. He didn't take a seven-year sabbatical. He didn't take a seven-month sabbatical. And Brother Ouellette said, you know what God was saying to that preacher? You don't need to take more time off. I've got somebody over here that needs to be anointed as king and I've got somebody over here that needs to have this done and this prophet pass the mantle down to him and I've got some things I need you to do. Now get back to work. You had your nap and you had a couple of meals. I fed you. Get back to work. And you know what we need to teach our boys? Get to work. Get to work. You don't need to rest for a week over one little job. Get back to work. If you shirk work, you'll gain a shameful testimony and reputation. Work is the proving ground of manhood, of biblical masculinity. And work provides its own reward. When we embrace work, We feel satisfied. You know man was made to work. And so when we do what God has said for us to do, work, and we go ahead and work, we feel satisfied. Not to mention the eternal rewards that will come later on. Galatians 6, 4, and 5 says, But let every man prove his own work. And then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone and not in another. For every man shall bear his own burden. thing he means for everyone to work. And we teach our young men, hey, you're not made strong to lay around. You're made strong to bear the burdens. Because some of us are getting a little weaker. And not me. Brother Paul is, not me. And so the young men are there for a reason. They're there to work. When the company founded by Andrew Carnegie was taken over by U.S. Steel Corporation in 1901, the new company acquired as part of its contract a contract obligation to pay their top executive, Charles M. Schwab, then the unheard of minimum salary of $1 million. That's still a big salary to me today, isn't it? They were obligated to pay him that. And J.P. Morgan of U.S. Steel was now their leader, and he was worried about having to pay a million dollars to Schwab. So he called Schwab in, and he said, Mr. Schwab, we've acquired this contract that says we're supposed to pay you a million dollars to keep you on board. How are we going to do that? Schwab said, I can show you how we can take care of that. And they reached and got the contract and just ripped it in two and threw it on the floor. He said, I didn't come here just for the love of money. I came here to work and I came here because I love work. I love to design. I love to make things happen. And that's why I'm here. so you don't have to pay me a million dollars. Wouldn't it be good if that kind of attitude was in our young men today? They said, you know, I don't work just to get a buck. And we need a little money to pay the bills. We need to pay the light bill, pay the insurance and the house payment and all of that. But we ought to embrace our work. and love our work. I've said it. I hope you don't try me out on this. I've said it for over 40 years, ever since I've surrendered to preach. I said the Bible teaches that a workman, speaking of preachers, the workman is worthy of his hire. And Paul said that the one who labors in the word is worthy of double honor. And the church has taken really good care of me and my family, and I'm grateful for that. but I've said for over 40 years, if I don't get paid for preaching, I'm gonna preach anyway. I didn't surrender to preach because I thought I'd make a good salary. I surrendered to preach because God put it in my heart to love preaching and to love God's people and to love the work of God and the ministry is what I do and the money has nothing to do with it. I got to pay light bills too. I'm saying we ought to teach our young men to love their work. And that's why it's not always smart to give up a job that you love to take another job that pays a little more money if you don't like it. Love your work. Do it because that's what God designed you to do. Let's pray together. Father, I pray that you'd bless us. Bless the invitation time. I pray that you'd touch our hearts with the examples and the exhortations that you've given us in the scripture about young men working. Lord, we really believe that if young men just took this one step in the right direction of being tough, strong, hardy, work-brickle, Lord, we believe that would go a long ways towards heading off the feminine movement among men. I pray that you'd help us in that area.