Thank you so much. What a beautiful song. Thank all of you for being here tonight. And Pastor, thank you for the invitation. I'm still rejoicing the afterglow of Saturday night. What a powerful testimony for the Lord and for the community and all the officials and dignitaries, the fire, the police and sheriff's departments that came, then all of our elected officials. What a great encouragement. to Knox County and to be able to be together and to see the hard work of Temple Baptist and Crown College and faculty. We salute you tonight and all the staff here at Temple. We honor you for your faithfulness and for being a part of what the Lord is doing. And thank you for being a part of the Faithful Men's Fellowship this time of the year, Saturday night and again will be here in the morning and tomorrow night, and I know that Pastor wants you to come and to take advantages of these services being together. I want to encourage you, if you would, after this service, Pastor gave me permission to bring a display of some materials that might be a resource for you And as you may or may not know, October 2021, I resigned the church there in Asheville, North Carolina, and went back into full-time evangelism. I began to study the nation, what was happening, what was going on, and I started out in evangelism. And my burden's always been for the local church. If we lose the local church, we lose the country. And so the local church is the key. And so I went on the road. We started going to Loudoun County, Virginia, investigating critical race theory. We went and worked in Boston. We went four times to New York City, five times to Washington, D.C. They started going everywhere, they were tearing down statues, doing research, what's going on? What's happening? There's gotta be an underlying theme. And when you come to Portland and Seattle, you find out that it has nothing to do with really what they're claiming to be, social injustice, because they're piling up Bibles and pouring kerosene on them and setting them on fire. And so why would we be burning Bibles after we're post COVID and what's taking place in the country? We need to understand that it's Ephesians chapter six, verse number 12. We wrestle not against flesh and blood. And when you go through that verse, you'll notice there's four things there. It's powers, it's principalities, it's rulers of darkness, and it's spiritual wickedness in high places. But notice all four are separated with commas. They are different entities. They are different beings and battles and those are the elements and the four pillars of darkness that are coming against the church and the family, the home, the house of God. and I believe even the manhood of our nation. And so I hope that you will go by our table. I just have been in 17 countries this past year doing research and I've got it summarized part of it. It's called 2023 Prophecy Update. And these three buildings that you see here on the front, those three buildings, I left Kuwait and I flew to the United Arab Emirates, and there I stayed in Dubai, and then I rented a van, went down to Abu Dhabi, and the French beautiful new museum there, the Louvre, and then there's a cultural center being built, and then rising up out of the desert are these three buildings. And you can look at them after service, but this is a brand new hundreds of millions of dollars mosque. And remember, we're in an Arab country, we're in a Muslim country. And right here in the middle, right here is a brand new Christian church. And right here across from that, in an Arab country, in a Muslim country, is a Jewish synagogue being built. All three of them are now completed. I counted 25 tower cranes coming up out of that desert building there. And out front, out front of that, is a big sign. It says World Religion Center. The name of this little piece of real estate is the Abrahamic Platform. And the sign says it's time for us to be one. Revelation chapter 13 says that right before the coming of the Christ we'll see the development and the beginning of that movement to one world. government, one world religion, and you are living to see it in your life cycle. It's not going to happen. My pastor is now my grandson, Pastor Winston Parrish, and we called each other a few months ago in the middle of the night about two o'clock in the morning. I couldn't sleep, he couldn't sleep. It started again last night with the earthquakes in Syria and also the earthquakes in Turkey. It's gonna be a devastating loss of life. And would you believe it? We even had an earthquake in New York today. So it's unbelievable how Matthew 24, all of these prophecies that God said, you're gonna see an increase of activity right before the coming of the Lord. And so I shared with him on the phone that night, I said, Winston, it's not going to happen. It is happening and God has allowed me to be alive and you to be alive to be a part of what's happening on our watch as Bible believers. That's why this conference is so important. That's why your faithfulness to the Lord has never been more needed and important than it is tonight. So I want you to really be in a spirit of prayer. Take advantage of these opportunities. And boy, do we need to pray for Crown College going forward that we can have this 10 million matching gift that five can be given and five can be matched because there are very few centers of light in a dark day in our country. So I hope that you will make this an object of prayer. You may be watching online, and God's blessed you. You could write a check for $5 million tonight, and God would still bless you, and you could still live comfortably, and you could help us take champions for the Lord Jesus Christ and send them out around the world. Take your Bible tonight and turn with me, if you would, to the book of Genesis. And I would like for you to think with me on this subject, be a man. God's creation. Ladies, thank you for being in the audience. You will be able to provide the appropriate nudges when needed, elbows of grace, and tender mercy as we continue to ask God to bless us as faithful men. Father, for the next moment or two, draw in the wanderings of our minds, sober us and separate us, God, for this spiritual time together, and we'll carefully give you praise, glory, and honor. In Christ's name we ask. Amen and amen. Genesis chapter 1 and verse number 26. And notice what the Word of God says, a very familiar verse for all of us. And God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over the cattle and over all the earth. And what God was doing, he was establishing an order. And God, our God, the God we love and serve is a God of order. He's a God of design. He's a God of purpose. And there's not an oops or an accident in the operation of our Lord and Savior. Go down to verse number 27, and I will highlight that verse for you. It says, and so God created man in what? His own image. Now, in the image of God, created He Him. You following me? And then it says male and female created he them. God is not and God has never been gender confused. He understands the difference in male and female. And he created male and female for a purpose. Each month each purpose for the male each purpose for the female was a design of God because God had a plan for the female God had a plan for the man and so that was the part of creation that God put in for and he defined it and let it be distinguishable so that we would understand in the day and hour of confusion that we're living in how important it is to be a man of faith and a man of the book. God in sovereign and absolute authority with the power and the might of his own throne He performed three things. He desired to create. Number two, he designed the form to fashion. And then number three, he delivered on his design and his desire. God created a man. God had a purpose for a man. The gospel will be carried forth in the future by a man. And so this was all part of God's eternal plan. Even before God made worlds, according to the scriptures, he loved us with an unexplainable love. Part of the reason I believe, as my own studies and research have brought out, that the decline of our country and the destruction of our culture has been produced in part by the feminization of our manhood, by taking the life and the vigor and the strength out of our creative minds and out of our young men that they would have no leadership or no role models to go after. I was reading in Mike Pompeo's new book, a former Secretary of State this morning, And he has a chapter in his book on faith. And he talked about when he was dealing with Afghanistan and Russia, and when he was dealing with North Korea, and he was dealing with cyber hacking, and he was dealing with China and its aggressive moves, he said the only place he had to go was every day. He would get along with God and he would read his Bible and he would pray because he said, The only place I could find safety and sanity was in the faith that God had given me as a man because that kind of relationship produces a leader that's got both feet on the ground and has his heart and his spirit attached to a heavenly God with plan and purpose for what must be carried out. We're missing that in the national leadership. We're missing that in the state leadership. And we're missing that in the local leadership. And that's why the ministries of this local church and the ministry of the schools and all that you're endeavoring to do, they're more important tonight than ever because of the vacuum of spiritually guided leadership in our land. The society of this world, the pressure of the media of this world would soften our men subconsciously a little at a time going even from Hollywood and movies and music and all the way even to television and commercials we see that the manhood many times in our own men of the country has been represented in a weak and undefining moment of having no leadership and no authority in even their own lives. If we continue to walk this pathway, we will continue to see our nation begin to soften and our men to begin to be like the men of Greece and the men of Rome as they weakened and destroyed their own manhood. And as they did with their culture, as they did, it destroyed the home. And as it did, it destroyed the nation because there was no foundation. You see tonight, our American and European societies have grown a maddening virus of anti-God and anti-marriage and anti-home. Have you noticed that there's not a commercial on TV where we've got a mom and a dad and kids? that belong together as even their own groups, but we see everything is blurred and the lines are blurred and some commercials even look like there's nothing wrong with adoption or fostering. I'm not talking about that, but I'm talking about the constant image. It looks like there's been a change in even the home of our own country. And during these dark days that we went through with the COVID crisis, what did we experience? We experienced isolation. We experienced quarantine. We experienced that you were taken away from the last one place of encouragement and strength, the local church. Isn't it amazing that our federal government had the audacity to take a stand and say, we need to keep the bar open, we need to keep the nightclub open, we need to keep the abortion clinic open, but it may be dangerous to go to church. So let's close the church, let's cut off the lights, let's lock the door, and let's isolate the Christian. Ladies and gentlemen, during the Iraqi war, one of the things that our military discovered that when our soldiers were kidnapped, part of the torture that they were placed through was a time of isolation to break them down mentally, to reduce their ability to even think or to do their task. They would be captured and they would take them to an abandoned apartment, a building or a factory, and there they would construct a spotty hole. usually three feet by three feet opening and then down inside that hole would be another opening of four to six feet wide and maybe six feet by six feet or six by eight feet and then they would drop the soldier inside there. No window. No water. No bathroom. No lights. In a hole in the dark. You can't see your hand in front of your face. And then they would put them in a piece of metal or plywood over the opening and then they would cover it in carpeting so that it would be soundproof. So now you're in the dark and you can scream and you can beg for mercy, you can help, ask for help, but no one can hear you and you can hear no one until they come to bring with a ration of water and food. and then for that glimmer of light to come rushing into that dark hole. I believe with all my heart studying Ephesians 6 and what I've seen traveling around the world that the enemy of our soul and the enemy of the local church tried to, with all he could, during the COVID crisis, to take the Church of the Living God and drop us into a hole of isolation, all alone, many times at home, sick and afraid, afraid to even go to the hospital. And many of your loved ones, your moms, your dads, your husbands and your wives, they lost their life during COVID. and they died alone on a ventilator in a back room of a hospital. I shared with the medical people in our health center that I really believe lives would be saved if you would take family members and put PPE on them, let them have a pair of gloves and a mask and let them go back in there with a sick loved one and hold their hand and sing to them and pray with them and encourage them to fight for what little life may be lingering inside their body. But isolation is painful and it is all alone that you feel. And without realizing it, men, I believe the manhood of America has found itself isolated and all alone. You feel like I may be the last man standing that really believes that God had a son and that Jesus gave his life for my sins and that I'm to be a responsible husband and father. that I should be a worker. I have brought some research materials with me that's even in the auditorium tonight on how many states are now paying men not to work. We've got several states that are paying men $70,000 a year not to work. paying $50,000 a year not to work. It's bad for a man not to work. God put it in us to work. God designed it that we would feel productive and needed and that is one of the things that's coming against the manhood of our country. You see, with this assault against the home, the life, I know that Jesus is the light of the world. And I know that the devil has actually tried to cut off that light, the Lord Jesus Christ. And men that should have been our leaders, they have turned us from the God of our founding fathers. They have tried to turn the nation from the God that made us great. Men that should have been statesmen have become nothing more than politicians and lackeys of even other cultures and countries. They've become, even as leaders in our land, they've become yet anti-American, anti-freedom. anti-flag, anti-God, and a part of the one world George Soros type movement that we've seen invade the land of our country, afraid to stand for our own country's rights and civil rights, afraid to stand for the citizens of our nation and even our own Constitution. What a sad day it is when we don't have men in leadership. What a sad day it is when the pulpits of America are being vacated because there's not a man of faith to stand and declare the whole counsel of God's Word, and to boldly declare that this book is the inerrant, infallible, holy, inspired Word of God. or to not be a part of a liberal seminary that says that God is now attempting to learn how to be God. That's why we still have tornadoes and earthquakes. It's because God is revining His ability to be God and to be a loving and a just God. The foolishness of man when he abandons God and he leaves God's Word out of his life. We're living to see that take place all across our country. And we're understanding that just a few days ago, one of the largest Baptist churches in Nashville, Tennessee, the pastor stood up and held up a King James Bible and mockingly declared that it is not the Word of God, but it's nothing more than an archaic rule book. and that it was not relatable to today's society or to today's people. I'm not talking about the world assaulting the Word of God. I'm talking about a Baptist preacher standing and saying that the Bible is not the Word of God. If it's that dark in the house of God, then ladies and gentlemen, what are we gonna do if we don't have revival in the New Testament church of today? We've got to have men and women stirred and awakened to say, this is the day and the hour that I need to humble myself before a holy God and beseech him that he would quicken me and revive me, that somehow God would shake me out of my apathy, break me loose from my unconcern, get me out of my frozen mold, and say, God, would you take me and refurbish me and refine me and regenerate me that I can be used to be salt and light for this generation. We need that great move of God. It has to come within the house of God. You see, ladies and gentlemen, when we move away from God, I believe part of the judgment that's on my land today is a spirit of chaos and confusion. I believe the reason we can't decide what to do, when to do it and how to do it, I believe that's part of the judgment of God because we've abandoned the ways of God. Many churches that reopened after COVID, those that tried to come back in, they thought they had to change church to be something else than it had always been. They wanted to change church. Do we not have something wrong with our methodology if we think the church ought to look like a nightclub? Why should church look like a club? We've already got plenty of clubs, but we don't have a lot of churches. Do we not have a problem with our methodology when we go trade old-time religion for showtime religion? There's a problem there. We cannot build ministry on a personality. We have to build ministry on the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. We've got to have that great breakthrough in the life of the church. We may have become awakened, or as the cultural world declares, that we've become woke, but I submit to you that we are now spiritually broke as a people and as a nation. At this same time, I really believe that you and me as people of faith that we could look at this book and if we had time to take a lot of things apart we would see how quickly we have left the God of our fathers and whoever dreamed in two short years we would absolutely just reject everything that we had all those decades and years of our founding fathers and their faith and their love for God and their love for the Word of God. If you would go with me to Boston, Massachusetts, or you would go with me up to Plymouth, you would find statues there. One of the largest freestanding granite statues in the world is in Plymouth. It's right near the harbor where Plymouth Rock is located. And there you'll find in a place, they didn't even pave the parking lot. because the Parks Department of the United States just sort of abandoned this statue because it's all about God. They don't even pave the parking lot, doesn't even have signage on how to locate it or get to it. But when you get inside there, you see the statue of victory and faith, and she's raising her hand to God. and she's pointing her finger to heaven and in her left arm she has it wrapped around the word of God and all around her are the reasons that the four pillars that holds a nation together whether it's law and whether it's education And underneath each one of the four smaller metaphors around her, it's the Word of God, it's the Word of God, it's the Word of God, it's the Word of God. And that's why, ladies and gentlemen, we're still standing tonight. Our founding fathers had enough sense that one day we would become prosperous and blessed and busy and we would forget the God that got us here and they wanted to part carve it in stone. If you go with me to Reagan Center in Washington, D.C., you're going to find Lady Liberty and she's carved out a beautiful granite rock and she's leaning against that big backdrop of her chair and you look closely at the chair and what is the backdrop of her chair? It's the Ten Commandments. And she's turned to the right with her hands folded in prayer. And she's saying, the only way America can exist is that we have men, that we have women that will love God and serve God and have their faith in God. Oh, yes. And at her feet is a child. And the whole lesson is that I'm passing my prayer and my Bible to the next generation. If you want to have a tomorrow for the country. That's why this conference is so pivotal. That's why this conference is so essential. You say, well, I'm not a member of this church. I don't go along with everything that Dr. Sexton does. I don't like all this. Listen, ladies and gentlemen, we're so far past playing games at the foot of the cross. Somebody better wake up and realize we need God more than we need our egos, our pride, and our own way to do things. We need the hand of God and the presence of God. Listen, I went back and listened to some of my old preaching from the 70s and 80s. I don't agree with everything I've ever preached. Because you grow in light, you grow in knowledge, you begin to understand things. And God will bless us and understand that we have this opportunity. For the sake of time and my future with you as a friend, let me accelerate through this. I get excited and I want to share with you, but here's four things you can write down. Number one, you can write down the creation of man. It was of God. And then the consecration of men, the consecration of men. And number three, the confirmation of manhood. And number four, the challenge to be a man. and to train the next generation. I believe part of the assault is to keep us from preparing that next generation to have a foundation of faith going forward. Number one, that creation of man. Genesis chapter two, again, go to verse seven. And what do I see? I see God's work. The Lord God formed man. The Lord God formed man. How did he form him? Of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his life the breath of life, and man became a living soul. Genesis chapter 2 again, verse number 15. Not only do I have God at work, but now I've got man created to work. And the Lord God took man. Notice man didn't volunteer. God drafted. God took the man. And then this next word is pretty strong, and God put the man. God put him in the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. God created us to work. Young ladies, I see a lot of you, the college students that are in the building with us tonight, and thank you for coming and thank you for listening. But I want to promise you something. As you pray about your future and you ask God to guide you into who will be a husband in your life going forward, you pray about, make sure that the man you're praying over has a work ethic, that he will work and take care of you. Even sometimes I see a young lady and she gets enamored and maybe doesn't really think what's happening and falls in love with an unsaved man. And you know that's not what we're praying for, that's not what you're wanting. But I don't give up because there's hope that man can be saved. But if she marries a lazy man, there's no hope. Because even if he gets saved, he'll be lazy. Unless God does a miracle in his life. I know it got quiet in the auditorium, but Ralph, that is very good preaching. You need to know what God said He created man to work. And then the rib in Genesis 2.22, the rib was taken from man. And notice that it's from the area of the heart. He didn't take a bone out of the foot. And if you're going to be a man of God and a real man, you will love and cherish and you will take care of the lady that God puts in your life. Gentlemen, if you'll treat her like a queen, you'll live like a king. You say, well, she gets on my nerves and she did that. Wait a minute. You just got to remember who picked her out. I didn't. You did. And you need to love her, cherish her, and take care of her, provide for her, and ask God to draw your hearts together. Because the one thing that the devil's gone after is the home and the church. Can you believe it? According to the Pew Foundation, last year, divorce in church, past divorce in the world. Can you believe that? 51% of the marriages in the church fell apart in divorce, while only 49% in the world, people that don't even go to church. There's a real problem. It's a spiritual problem. And that's why we've got to beg God for revival, man. And that's why God's got you in this conference, that you can ask God to stir you. Notice verse 23. It says the woman, she. It says man, he. Aren't you grateful that God had his pronouns correct? And there's, you know, you can't work in some places unless you learn a whole vocabulary of pronouns. God really put this thing in order. He said the woman's a she and the man's a he. And that simplifies that you would understand the order of God. Part of the confusion and part of the foolishness is when we leave the Word of God. Number two, the consecration of man. God declared the man to be sacred and separate. You say, Pastor Ralph, what are you talking about? Well, it was God that did the creation of man, correct? And so now God said, I'm gonna consecrate the man. I'm gonna set him apart. He's gonna be the caregiver. He's gonna be the guardian of the home. He's gonna be the high priest. He's gonna be the provider. He's gonna be the next generation. And God's creation and purpose is so special, listen to me carefully, that he created the office of manhood. The office of manhood. In the Old Testament there's a verse of scripture in Deuteronomy chapter 22 which is under the law and make sure you know that I understand this is Old Testament law. A lot of things are Old Testament. But we also know that there's types and shadows. And under the Old Testament law, even if I read the Torah or I took the oral tradition from a rabbi in Jerusalem and studied with him, I would discover that one of the things that was taught is that God had a special place for the man in the home. And God actually ordained the office of manhood Go with me to the tabernacle in the wilderness, a tent, a worship center. And now we've got the children of Israel camping on the right, they're camping on the left, they're camping on the north, they're camping on the south. If you had a drone back then and you flew that drone up over the tabernacle in the wilderness, it would be an unbelievable sight what you would see. You would see a giant cross in the desert. And the center of that cross would be the tabernacle, the house for God, with the Shekinah glory burning over the top of that tent, that tabernacle. That's how you knew God was in the presence of His people. It was made evident by the Shekinah glory. And from that drone, we can see it. But obviously, there's no way I can get three million people in that tent to worship. There's not enough room. So God ordained and I won't take time to go through all of this but many of you know I've spent over two years of my life studying in Israel and going through the customs of the Word of God that we would understand more about what it means when these passages appear. And what I'm holding up for you here is what we call a prayer shawl. This is a prayer shawl. This is actually a messianic prayer shawl because it has the symbol on it of the first church, which was the fish. And then it also has the symbol of the candelabra. And if I put the tail of the fish and the base of the candelabra together, they make the Star of David. That was found on pottery in Jerusalem about eight or nine years ago when we were there, and it signifies that they were testifying that the first church was all Jewish. For the first hundred years, almost 95% of the church was Jews that had been saved. And so this prayer shawl becomes important Now do we understand that in Deuteronomy it told them to make it and told them to have the stripe of the purple and then we know that this is the seat seat coming out and we know that these knots that are on here there's 613 knots tied into that prayer shawl. Those are the shalls and shall nots of Moses. They wrap it around their finger to pray so that when I hold it I've got not only the 613 laws of Moses, shalls and shall nots, but I also have 6 plus 1 is 7 plus 3, 613. and with their gematria, their numbers of studying in the Hebrew language, then they also have the Ten Commandments. So they have the 10 plus the 6, 13. That's why on the bale of the prophet, the high priest, you know, he had bales and he had a fruit. Do you remember what the fruit was? pomegranate. And you know why? Because under the Jewish custom, if you split the pomegranate open, it has 613 seeds on the inside. One seed for every shall and shall not of Moses. So they put it on the base. And you know in Malachi where it talks about Jesus shall rise with healing in his what? Wings. Does Jesus have angel wings? Does Jesus have wings? Well, the prophets taught for hundreds of years that when the real Messiah comes, he'll have wings of healing. Well, now we got a problem, but we don't have a problem because Jesus at his bar mitzvahs there in Jerusalem at age 13, he got his prayer shawl and on the prayer shawl of Jesus he had four corners, you see it there beautifully decorated, you see the seat seated, that's called the wing of the prayer shawl. And the prophet said and the old rabbi said, if he's really the Messiah, if he's really the son of God, if he's really got power in his life, he'll have healing. It'll be so great, so powerful that even his prayer shawl will have the glory. And if you had the faith, you could just touch the hem of his garment and be made whole. And that's why that woman with the issue of blood that had no hope and had no money, She perched through that crowd and said, if I could just touch the hem of his garment, I'll be made whole. Lord, what a mighty God we love and serve. We can't get all those people in that little tent. So God said, I'll give you all a tent. And he gave them a prayer shawl so they would get inside it to pray. And every man would have his own tent. See my tent? I close the door, that's the closet. I'm in there to pray. That's why when Jesus came, he changed it all. He said, I will what with you? Tabernacle. Why did he use that word tabernacle? Because it's an Old Testament word for tent. I will be in the tent with you. And he left this, I moved right here. Now he lives inside of me. He's in the tabernacle, my body. He moved in. Oh, by the way, did the apostle Paul, what did he do? He was bivocational, right? What did he do? He's a tent maker. But if you've ever been to Jerusalem and studied in the Holy Land, the one thing they don't need is tents. because they have all beautiful stone houses. For over 2,000 years, they have beautiful homes, and they had the first malls in the world 2,000 years ago. They had them there, Bet-Shan, Jerusalem, many other places, at Caesarea by the Sea. They don't need tents. But what did Paul make? Paul made prayer shawls, because the word for this is called talit. And that's the Hebrew word for tent. And Paul was a maker of prayer shawls. It has to go with what he, you say, well, brother Ralph, you said there was something special. Yeah, God consecrated manhood. So look what he said. These men, he had these beautiful bar mitzvah prayer shawls. They wear them on Shabbat, on feast days, on Passover, but you can't go to work with that. So what they do is they have a tallit katan. And this is a tallit katan. And it's made of t-shirt material. You see it's still got the seat seat. It's still got the wings. It's still got the 613 knots. And so what happened here is God said, We're in the drone now. We're looking down. The priest comes out. He's been with God. He blows the shofar. The shofar's blown for three things, to be on the wall, to warn for an enemy, to say that we're going to worship, number two. Number three, it's time to pull up the stakes and go to the promised land, to move. Three times the shofar's blown. They would blow it to worship. And what all the men would do then is they would put on their prayer shawl, right? they would come in and listen to the priest and then God said now you go in your tent and teach your wife and your children thus saith the Lord that I taught the priest and now the priest will teach you. And God established the priesthood of the home and established the office of manhood. Now he's gonna go to work, he can't wear this beautiful thing, so he wears this. A lot of times you've been in New York in business districts and you'll see men walking around and you'll see hanging down from their shirts, you'll see these threads hanging down from underneath their garments. and that means that underneath there there are religious, believing, orthodox Jew and they're wearing their talit katan which in Hebrew is little. or little prayer shawl. And that way he can wear it to work every single day. So God consecrated the manhood, and then look what he said in Genesis 22, 7. This is the example under law now. I'm sorry, Deuteronomy 22, verse 7, the example under the law. The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth to a man. The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man. Neither shall a man put on a woman's garment and go to the public school and read stories to little children. See what happens when you leave God's Word? You have a problem. And so the dad's been now given the responsibility to train up his little boy. So the little boy has, and he has the responsibility to make the Talik Ketan in the size of a young man, a little boy, that he can learn to worship God. So all of this is a part of what God did when he consecrated the manhood, that man would be the high priest of the home, the woman would be the heart of the home, and that that together they would have a safety place for the children. Thirdly, the confirmation of a man, 1 Corinthians 16, 13. The Bible says, watch ye, stand fast in the faith, and what does it say? Be strong, And it says, what are we gonna do? We're gonna be quit ye like men. He said, you've got to have these abilities. 1 Corinthians 16, watch ye, be on guard, stand fast, be firm in your faith. And then in the faith, that means keeping sound doctrine. And then a man's relationship with a holy God and divine thanks. And then it says, be strong. It means be courageous, act like a mature man. Don't be a whiner. Don't be a complainer. And when you go home, guys, at night from work, find you a trouble bush right beside the door to your house. And when you get out of your car, you get out of your truck, you take all your problems you've had all day long, all the things you've been through, and lay them on that bush. And then you go inside, and how's your day, daddy? It was wonderful. I said, glad to be alive. I'm glad God saved me. I'm glad God gave me a wonderful family like you. Be happy, be joyous, be victorious, because you leave your troubles, and you come out the next morning, those troubles will be right there on that bush waiting for you. You can pick them up, put them in the truck, and start being mad and aggravated at everything that went wrong. But when you're with your wife, the apple of your eye, the joy of your very existence, you love her, you be kind, and don't take the problems and put them on the inside of your home and your life. These things are all together. The fourth one is the challenge to be a man, to train up the next generation. Psalm 78, in verse number three, it talks about a biblical worldview and the truths that we see. And when I go to Psalm 78, let me just turn there for a second. Look what the word of God says. It says in Psalm 78, it says, verse three, it says, we have heard and known our fathers have told us here. It is the manhood responsibility. He's taking, you've got to be the teacher and the high priest of the home. And then it says in verse four, uh, we will not hide them these truths from our children, showing the generation to come the praises of the Lord, his strength and his wonderful works that he's done. And then look what it says in verse number five. It says, which he had commanded our fathers. Dads, you've got the responsibility given by God to train your children to love the Lord and the things of the Lord. And then look what it says down there in verse number seven. When you go to verse seven, this is the why of the whole process. You see it, that they might set their hope in God and not forget the works of God but keep His commandments. We need to understand that the children of the next generation, do you realize in America today that according to statisticians, over 1,000 teenagers attempted suicide today? Today, last 24 hours. Do you realize that the number two killer of young adults in America, between the ages of 20 and 30, number one killers, accidents, cars, motorcycles, skateboards, whatever, but the number two killer, suicide. Do you know between the ages of 14 and 20, the number two killer, number one, accidents, but number two is suicide? This is what breaks my heart. Those of you that are going to the elementary schools this year with the Word of God, do you know that the number two killer for children between ages eight and 14? Suicide. A child has nothing to live for. Because of the home and the situation, we need revival. It needs to be at the house of God. And the only way we can do that is to have men to step up and to be that man of faith. I've got all kinds of illustrations I brought how manhood has been hammered in our country. I'm not going to take time to go through them. And I want you to search your heart tonight. I want you to say, God, as a part of that challenge, that verse 7 there in Psalm 78, that I would be a man of faith. You say, well I'm a teenager, I'm a young adult. God's got you with a powerful influence of life and testimony. And why don't you ask God tonight that you will be a man of faith. You will step up. You'll take that challenge. You'll say, by the help of God, I will be courageous. By the help of God, I will be faithful. By the help of God, I will be a prayer warrior. By the help of God, I will be a part of the local church. By the help of God, I will be an asset to my home, my family. Dads, I'm going to tell you something. Grandmothers, grandfathers, I was just preaching right up the road from you in the Tri-Cities area just a few months ago. In the invitation, I noticed that there was a lady sat on the front row with a little blonde-headed child. And the lady was crying, the child was crying. The altars filled a couple of times and people went back to their seats. And that lady and that child kept crying and crying. Finally, I left the platform and I knelt down in front of them and I said, is there something I could help you pray about? And the lady looked up with me with her mascara all running down her face and tears and eyes swollen red. And she said, my granddaughter came home today with me after her school. And she said, Granny, I want to die. I don't want to live. She's five years old. And I said, Milo, what's the matter, what happened? And that little girl pulled that little handkerchief down and she said, my daddy's getting a divorce, my mommy's getting a divorce, and they told me I had to pick, I gotta pick mommy, I gotta pick daddy, I don't wanna pick, I want us all to be together, I just wanna die. Ladies and gentlemen, We are seeing an assault on the next generation like we've never seen before. We've got to have revival. And grandmothers and grandfathers, your child may have gone through a divorce, your grandchild may be out in the world, but I'm going to tell you, nobody will love that child like you do. No one will pray for that child like you will. I'm going to invite you to meet me in the altar tonight a prayer that will meet the challenge not only as men but men will lead the way in that prayer for the home and for the community the church