Praise the Lord. Amen. Never know what a day may bring forth. I remember the day that the grace of God reached into my life. Amen. What a blessed day that was. Amen. Take your Bible with us tonight. We started a couple of Wednesday nights ago. Wasn't able to be there on the other Wednesday night, dealing with some subjects that revolve around principles of biblical masculinity. That's kind of an odd topic, I guess, kind of singles out. I was planning to take the young men and have a Sunday school class about this subject this summer. We're going to have a couples class, of course, this summer, and then my wife will be taking the ladies. We'll be dividing some other classes up. We've got to get all that in order and get teachers assigned to those areas. But I was going to do this. My plan was to just take the young men and deal with some of these biblical tenets. about just being a man. And so we're in 1 Kings chapter number 2. That's where we're reading from. I've read this text before and actually preached a message on just be a man. That was the title of the message. Then I brought a message from that text on the manhood of a monarch. But we're going to use that as a springboard to look at various tenets over the next several Wednesday nights. about manhood, more maybe of instruction than it is preaching per se, but I think it's needed in this hour that we're living in. And so, but I got to thinking about, you know, teaching the boys, taking them aside and just, or the young men, I should say. And I began to think, you know, our dads need to hear this because they're influencing young men. And mothers need to hear this because they're the God of the house and they're guiding young men and should guide young men to be young men. Young ladies need to hear this because they need to make sure that when they develop in a relationship from an attraction that he's a man. Amen. And so I think it's relevant for everybody to hear the things we're going to try to deal with. So we're going to go to 1 Kings chapter 2. That'll be the springboard. that we're dealing with. We all know that David's about to die. That's indicated to us in the first verse. Now, the days of David drew nigh that he should die, and he charged Solomon, his son, save. Verse 2, he says, I go the way of all the earth. He said, I'm going to die like everybody else. That's what he's saying. My time has come, pretty much, to face eternity. He says to his son, who is going to fill his shoes, take his place on the throne. He says, Be thou strong therefore, and show thyself a man, and keep the charge of the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways, to keep his statutes, and his commandments, and his judgments, and his testimonies, and it is written in the law of Moses, that thou mayest prosper in all that thou doest, and whithersoever thou turnest thyself. Those verses or those allusions are brought from the book of Joshua, to the verse number four, that the Lord may continue his word. which he spake concerning me, saying, If thy children take heed to their way, to walk before me in truth with all their heart, with all their soul, there shall not fail thee, said he a man on the throne of Israel." We'll stop our reading right there. And so we're dealing with just that subject that we see in verse number two, show thyself a man, be a man. That's not the title, but we're looking at biblical, I guess, principles of masculine maturity. That's what we're talking about. Young men growing up and becoming men. Now we all know that God has designed men to be leaders. They are to be leaders as breadwinners. They are to be leaders as husbands. They are to be leaders as dads. They are to be leaders in the society that we live in. Every facet of a male's life revolves around or demands in many ways leadership. Primarily it starts with being able to lead yourself. and not let your flesh lead you. That's another message within itself. But we understand that for the last several years in our nation there seems to be an attack on masculinity. There seems to be an attack on manhood. To say what I'm going to say through these series does not fit in the psychological mindset of our nation. And so with that being said, they're going to say what I say is a hate type thing. They're going to catalog it as chauvinistic. The psychological world has this mindset that traditional masculinity is harmful to the society that we live in. And there are many things that we talked about in the first message as far as for different articles, different polls that have been taken, and different things. We'll not go into all that. We just want to get into the thought that we did not finish on the other Wednesday night, and that is the strength of manhood. He says in the verse that we have read from this text, he said, Show thyself a man. Show thyself a man. And so he tells us in Let me make sure I got the right verse. Keep charge, he said be strong. So he's dealing with the strength of manhood. So that's kind of what we dealt with the other Wednesday night, and I did not get to finish the last point from that topic, the strength of manhood. We may get to the next one in just a few moments, if the time will allow us to do that. I know you've worked through the day, and I want to be mindful of that. And we talked about in the strength of manhood, we talked about strength prepared. The glory of young men is their strength, the psalmist said. And so we understand that if young men are going to be strong, they have to prepare themselves to be strong. And I'm not talking about an athletic event tonight. I'm talking about a man just being strong as a man. Now, we have a mindset with the transgender world that it's a fair thing for a man to compete with a woman. Anybody that even has that mentality is demented within their thinking. And so I'm not going to deviate and deal with that subject tonight. We know that's demented beyond, amen, and it's wicked and perverted. We understand all of that. But we understand that God made men to be strong. And so that strength has to be prepared, and I think every dad needs to know that concerning his son, and every mother needs to understand that. Amen. They had me splitting firewood and busting tinling up when I was just old enough, amen, to swing an axe. Travis cut his chin one time up under here, busted it wide open. He was a little guy, and he was going to show his sisters how to bust firewood with a splitting maul. And he was a little bitty guy, and he was so little, he grabbed that splitting ball, and when he ran back to hit that log with it, the handle flew up and hit him in the chin. He couldn't handle the weight of the end of it. Split his chin wide open. So he took him to the doctor, to the emergency room, to get his chin sewed up. And he was laying there, he's just a little bitty guy, I don't know if he remembers it or not. And they come in there, they're going to have to sew him up, you know. Man, if it would have been me, I would have been talking him out of it. But he didn't say a word. And I said, all right, buddy, here's the way this works. I said, if you man enough to split firewood, you man enough to get stitches without crying. So he said, turned that whip quivered, but he never cried one time. Amen. Show thyself a man. So we talk about strength prepared. You prepare yourself mentally. It ain't just about being strong from a physical perspective, even though that is involved in it. But men have to be strong emotionally, amen, mentally, as well as physically. We won't have time to deal with all that again. I need to get to the thought that we didn't finish. We talked about strength publicly. He said, show thyself a man. And how laziness is considered in the Bible as disorderly. You look up the word lazy in the Bible, it means disorderly, insubordinate, rebellious, defiant, and unruly. That's what the word lazy means. Amen. We got some hard-working fellows here, and I praise God for you. You can walk out the front door and tell. Amen. We got some men here that work, and I praise God for them. Amen. They're to be commended. Then we talked about strength proposed. not strength proposed, but strength's purpose. In Genesis 46, 34, that you shall say, thy servant's trade hath been about cattle from our youth. When Jacob had went to Pharaoh and he let him know what his occupation was from his youth, he had a purpose. He was strong for a particular purpose. He had dealt with cattle all of his life. And we went through various others. Jesus was considered the son of the carpenter. And so God gives a man strength and there is a preparation time in your life to prepare you to utilize that strength to fulfill a purpose. work ethic. And we said that Jewish culture, when a young man was 12 years old, he became an apprentice, either to his father or to another trusted relative, to learn a trade, to learn something that he could do to make a livelihood and fulfill a purpose. Amen. So we talked a lot about that. Then we closed out, we didn't get here on the other evening, and this would close out this particular thought of manhood concerning the strength of a man, and that is strength, spiritual strength. Strength spiritually. Let me ask you young men something tonight. You may be able to bench press 200, 300 pounds, I don't know. You may be able to, I've seen Juddy hand crawl that cable all the way up, just hand over hand, all the way up to the top of that top beam and stood up there. That was impressive. Some of you can do a lot of things. There was out there a flat foot jumping on that stage to see who could jump on it. Jake didn't quite make it. His shins show the proof of him not making it. Oh, that's impressive. My question tonight is, what kind of strength do you have spiritually? What kind of spiritual things are impressive in your life if someone sees them? Go to Genesis chapter 33. Genesis chapter 33. Talking about strength spiritually. Do you have spiritual strength as a young man? We call it a walk with God. Being able to stand when the world and the pressure of the world is being applied to your life and to who you really are as a child of God. So let me talk to you first of all about what it means to be spiritually strong revolves around the essence of God's presence in your life. In Genesis 33 verse 11, notice what it says. And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. And he turned again into the camp. But his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, departed not out of the tabernacle." That's impressive. Moses is talking to God. And it tells us that Moses is talking to God as a man would talk to a man face to face. And Joshua is a witness of Moses, this old man of God's fellowship with the Lord. Moses left the presence of God, but Joshua was so overwhelmed by being in the thick of God's presence that he wouldn't depart out of the tabernacle. Now go to Joshua chapter number 1. This is the verses or the I guess the context that David is referring to when he's talking to Solomon, you know these verses, you could quote them, most of you could. Joshua chapter 1 verse 9, Have not I commanded thee, Be strong and of good courage? Be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed. For the Lord thy God is with thee, wheresoever thou goest. Can you say that tonight as a young man? God's with you? As we said, as we sang, stand by me. When the storms of life are raging, stand by me. In the midst of faults and failures, stand by me. When I face persecution, stand by me. When my friends have forsaken, stand by me. Joshua has seen something and sensed something in the tabernacle when the man of God who he is serving is talking to the Lord face-to-face. And it made such an amazing impression on Joshua that he hungered and thirsted for the presence of God. God, walking with God, being spiritual. Having a prayer life. Hiding the Word of God in your heart. Do you pray? Do you know what it means to spiritually worship, young man? Where all you're interested in is climbing up a cable. Jumping on a stage. Shooting a basketball. Trying to increase how much you bench press or squat. What kind of relationship do you have with God's presence? in your life. Amen. Do you know? I mean, I see the Lord breathe in here, God move in this place, and I see young men sitting like they're in a foreign land and don't know the language. That's deeply concerning. It's not only concerning to a pastor, but it should be concerning to a dad, to a mom. When a young man can be sitting up front and involved in the house of God and in the service of God and in the work of God, they're interested in congregating in the back. Not interested in anything whatsoever when it comes to the presence of God. That should be a serious concern to mom and dad. Do you have spiritual strength? Do you know anything about living with God's presence manifest in your life? I'm not talking about walking around in life with your head in the clouds. I'm talking about a simple spiritual awareness that God is where you're at. He knows what you saw. Why did He know what you saw? He's there. David says that no matter where I go, I don't have time to try to look it up or quote it. He said, no matter where I go, you're there. It can't hide from God. Amen. And so, whatever you're looking at, God sees what you're looking at. What have you listened to? God's presence is real. If you're a child of God, God's listening to that. That's why He says don't defile the tabernacle. You defile the tabernacle when you expose the tabernacle to things, amen, that are perverted and that are ungodly, because that's where God dwells. Pretty serious, isn't it? Amen. Know you not that your body is the temple of the Spirit of God? Amen. He lives within you. Christ lives. The whole aspect, the whole reality of the triune existence of God dwells within you. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost. Biblical verses can be quoted tonight that all aspects of the triune existence of God dwells within the heart and the life of everybody here. So if we are the temple of God, That He went where you went today because you carried Him there. He saw what you saw today because you looked at it. He listened to what you listened today because you listened to it. God's presence, amen, is a reality of spiritual strength. Amen. That might kill everybody tonight, but that's the truth. Then we go from God's presence to God's precepts. He tells Joshua in those verses, Be strong and of a good courage, for unto this people shalt thou divide for an inheritance of the land, which I swear unto their fathers, to give them. Only be thou strong, very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law which Moses my servant commanded thee, turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest." He says the same things to his son in these verses. Verse 3 of chapter 2 in Genes, keep the charge of the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways, to keep his statutes and his commandments, his judgments, his testimonies. Every aspect of those terms, amen, define a different a different setting of the Word of God and its effect in our lives, the testimonies, the judgments, the commandments, the precepts, God's precepts. What do you know about them? Do you read them? We used to have Bible quiz teams, and I regret that things happened the way they did for that to kind of dissolve. We had children or young people and young men in this church memorizing books of the Bible. I'm talking about complete books of the Bible. And all year long, our world revolved around those books. And God blessed us as we were flying in airplanes and kids quoting Bible on a jet and folks looking at us and asking, what are y'all doing? Amen. Heading down the road in the bus, setting out in the lobby of motels with Bibles open and thousands and thousands of verses being quoted every day. And some of that, amen, was just for a competitive nature. But there were some of them, amen, that let the Word of God become a part of who they were and what they were about. And they're here teaching Sunday school, preaching the gospel these days. So what kind of relationship do you have with God's precepts? Do you study to show yourself approved? Do you read the Bible, sir? You see, your wife, and we're talking to young married men, your wife expects you to be a spiritual leader in your home. That's never going to happen until you have a knowledge of what the Bible has to say about who you are and what she's to be about in your life. dwell with her according to knowledge. Where do you find that at? It ain't just because, amen, just because you're living with her and you find out she don't like this and she likes this or that or whatever the case may be. You dwell with her according to knowledge because you've read the Word of God. You've prayed and you've sought the Lord's will in your mind, amen, to know, amen, what God expects you to be and how you're to act as a husband. And so tonight we're talking about Amen, spiritual strength, we're talking about that spiritual strength in the realm, amen, of just how God works in our life from the Word of God working in our heart, a purpose, spiritual strength in that purpose, strength in Amen, God's precepts. Then, God's perception. Turn to Genesis chapter 41. These are low-key, I know, but they're just tenets that I feel like we need to be reminded of. And I'd really like to get through with this and go to the next point if I've got time tonight. A couple of things I'd like to cover. But Genesis 41 verse 12. There was there with us a young man, in Hebrew, servant to the captain of the guard. And we told him And he interpreted to us our dreams. To each man, according to his dream, he did interpret. Now who is that? Anybody know who that young man is? Joseph. He's in jail. He's in prison. You know the story. The dream of the butler and the baker. You know what went on there. So when I think of, when I'm talking about, and the term young man is used, so Joseph is a young man while he is in this prison house. And I'm talking to you about spiritual strength, spiritual presence, God's presence, God's precepts, then God's perception. Do you as a young man have any discernment, spiritual discernment? There are older men in this building that have no spiritual discernment, sad to say. because of what they feel and have filled their mind with. And all the decisions that they make, everything that they talk about, everything that they conclude, is concluded from a logical mindset. But God doesn't always deal. There is nothing logical about anything this church has done in thirty-eight years. from buying this building. It was not logical to buy this building. Raise your hand if you were here before we bought this building. Stand up if you were here. If you were here when we bought this building. All right. So y'all take a good look. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 21, and then there's a few backsliders. 23, whatever. Y'all can be seated. So, 25, 30? So the rest of you that are here, you see any logic in that? Buying a 20,000 square foot building when there ain't but 30 people in the church? Does that make sense to anybody? So if you'd have been here, you'd have been, not as a crowd this size, but if you'd have been here among 25 or 30, you men, and we're going to buy a 20-something thousand square foot school, what would your vote or recommendation be? This don't make no sense. But if you were there in that service and remember being in that service, The presence of God moved into that service because we had no intentions of even going to the auction. But God moved in that service and settled in all of our hearts and minds that we were to buy this building. We bought it for like, what, $72,000? Had it bought for $56,000 and someone run the bid up on it, so we bought this entire facility for $72,000 and the six acres with it. spiritual perception. We had no idea what we was going to do with it, nor why we were buying it. And I'm honest with you, I didn't either. If you would have come and asked, they wouldn't do a radio interview with me. I said, we have no, and they'll probably call me a liar now, but I said, we have no intentions of moving the ministry out to McWheatie. We had a really nice place there on the corner on Highway 60, right on the corner of the road there, you could see. We could have bought some, we had maybe an idea of building on to that building later on. Had no perception whatsoever of moving here, but we knew that this is what God wanted. It made no sense to any of us. God don't have to make sense to you. God don't have to make sense to me. Amen. We bought that land across the road over there, and there's people that, they didn't tell me, but they said they were worried about the interest, worried about all the payment. The day that we bought it, we could have made $50,000 on it. But that's not why we bought it. We didn't buy it to make money. We bought it, you know, thinking that God may let us build a building over there. Because this man would not sell any ground around this building. I mean, he made it known. We had talked to him, no ground for sale, don't even ask. In fact, we had kind of a dilemma when we found out, when we surveyed, that some of the cemetery out there was on his property. And we had to do some finagling around to get him to allow us to cut that, square that off. And I was riding down the road. I made a turn at the light. I remember it, I was in the truck, I turned to the right and I thought, I wonder if he'd be interested in trading. So we'd already planned to build over there and try to make it so we wouldn't have to come back and forth to make this the school. So I called, and here we are. But if we hadn't have bought that land, we would have never been able to acquire that ground that's The same amount around us here for future use. And so the question is, do you have spiritual perception? Or does every decision that you make as a young man, everything that you do in your life, is it just simply revolving around carnality? Nothing wrong with thinking logically. Nothing wrong with having common sense. But God does not have to work with that. Nothing wrong with weighing it out in your mind, but His ways are higher than our ways. Until you realize that, most churches, you know why most churches are in the shape that they're in? Some of them are stagnant. It's simply because they want to run the church and govern the ministry based on carnal things without any, I mean, me and Brother Sample were talking, you know, some things just don't make sense. They just don't make sense. But they don't have to make sense. If it's the will of God, God is going to bless it. And for me to worry myself to death trying to make sense out of it from a carnal perspective is of no value. It's a waste of your time. I mean, go catch a fish and you're going to find a coin to buy the tax. That don't make no sense. Put this stick in the water and it's going to be sweet to drink. That don't make any sense. There's nothing in this Bible that God has ever done that makes any sense of a common thinking man. So when I'm talking about biblical masculinity and the maturity of that, you young men need to develop some spiritual perception. And you'll find that spiritual perception by knowing something about the presence of God. Amen. Living, amen, in the presence of God. Awareness that wherever you go, God is with you. Whatever you see, God sees. Whatever you hear, God hears. God's precepts make this Bible, amen, the way you rule and govern your life and direct your path. Then God's protection. In Numbers 11, let me read you this. This is the last one in spiritual strength. We need some young... Tell you young men something. I thank God for your heart. I mean, we've got pictures up here on this. I mean, it's amazing. I can get up there, but I don't like lifts, but I was up at the back yesterday or whenever it was, putting stuff on, girts on this end wall up there, and you're 45 feet up in the air on a gravel that ain't too stable anyway, lift, and that thing's moving around, you're thinking, I wonder what the guy was drinking when he made this thing. I wonder if he really tightened them bolts up or not. I mean, everything, you know, you've got all that running through your mind. I'd far rather be on that building, amen, with them bolts and that concrete, than I would be on this man-made device here. That's just the way I think. But anyway, amen. You listen, I praise God for you labor and for you strength. But you know what we need? We need men of that caliber and that ability with that trade and that mindset and that strength. But we need you young men to be spiritual. We need you to have a waltz with God. And you're going to have a waltz with God, you're going to have to know something and desire to be... You're going to have to have a... I don't know how to say it. You're going to have to hunger and thirst for God's presence in your life. Can I tell you something? Folks watch services. We had people write letters this week wanting us to pray for them, various things mentioned in the prayer room. And you can go online and hear anybody preach better, far better than what I'm doing, I can tell you. You can go online and hear better singing. But it ain't the quality of the singing. It's the environment of what's going on in this church that people are lacking in desire. You know what that comes from? It comes from people who have spiritual strength. And you young men, you listening to me? You young men need to know what it means to be spiritual. God's presence. This book is a spiritual book. Amen. Perception. God's protection. Let me get this. We might let you go home. Numbers 11 verse 25. The Lord came down in a cloud, and spake unto him, and took of the Spirit that was upon him, and gave it unto the seventy elders. And it came to pass, that when the Spirit rested upon them, they prophesied, and did not cease. But there remained two of the men in the camp. The name of the one was Eldad, and the name of the other was Medad, and the Spirit rested upon them. And they were of them that were written, but went not out unto the tabernacle, and they prophesied in the camp. And there ran a young man, and told Moses, and said, Eldad and Medad do prophesy in the camp. And Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of Moses, one of his young men, answered and said, My Lord Moses, forbid them. And Moses said unto him, In this thou for my sake would God that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put His Spirit upon them. Now we understand the setting here, and I understand that there is an admonishment given to Joshua. But Joshua was concerned that somebody was overstepping their bounds in regard to the role and the position that God had put Moses in the life of the Israelites and in his life as well. Now Moses straightened him out, but I'm going to tell you what, He was protective of Moses' role. He said, End this now for my sake. And that's what he was doing. He didn't want nobody doing what Moses was supposed to be doing. And Moses straightened that out, but he had an element of courage. Amen, to come forward and desire that nobody, I don't know how to say this without sounding the wrong way, I mean, he was very concerned that no one would overstep the boundary that God had placed with Moses as the ruler of Israel. You see, courage, and that's what it was, it was an out to pray, even though he had to be dealt with, he was acting out of a sense of courage and envy for Moses' sake. Courage is not the absence of fear. That's what we think courage is. And I was, you know, I hadn't been up in the air in a long time, so I was all the way up at the peak the other day, and I got up there and I thought, you know, this is crazy. You know, I'm too old for this. And that thing's moving around, the wind's blowing, we're trying to put those girts in, they don't fit, we had to punch holes in them and everything else. And so Brother Josh is inside on the lift, and I'm out on the gravel on the lift. And I thought, you know, this is senseless. I've been up here before. This thing's going to hold me. You know, you just have to talk yourself out of your fear. That's not courage. That's that mind over matter stuff. So courage is not the absence of fear, but the calm conquering of your fear as you focus on doing what needs to be done. You understand that? You young men got courage. spiritual courage. It's a serious matter. The conquering of what lies, the conquering of what lays in, I don't know how to say it, how to put it in words tonight, but just, just, here's what he said. The psalmist said it this way, maybe this is the way to describe it. What time I'm afraid, I will trust in thee. God's protection. What I mean by that is you are to be a young man that is protective over what God has given you as a young man and will one day have in place for your family. What is here tonight in this ministry is a result of men through the years of being protective of God's touch and God's presence. I'd like to talk to you about the authority of manhood. That was going to be my next thought. But we'll just close out there with the strength of manhood. But I'm going to tell you this before we... And we're going to talk about the authority of manhood. And we're going to deal with, you know, the reasons that God has given masculine men authority. Now, a passive man is not going to do anything for God. And he normally is not going to rule his house well. So I want to say this to get your mind thinking about this thought. So we've talked about the strength of man, and we probably could have an altar call about the spirituality of it that we've dealt with tonight. But I want you to go home, and I want you young dads and you young men to consider the question, are you spiritual? Do you have spiritual perception? Are you protective of spiritual things? That's what I was trying to say concerning Joshua. He was trying to protect the spiritual role that Moses was in his life and in the life of the people of Israel. Does that make sense? He was trying to protect that. And that could go a lot of different things. Protect the church, protect your mom, protect anything that is a positive influence in your life from a spiritual nature. Let me say this about the authority of manhood for you to think about these two topics. God has created in the male gender a masculine trait to lead. To lead. Now, what you do with that trait, I think nobody in here can do anything about that but you. But God has created in the male gender a masculine trait to lead. And we're going to deal with that. And how important that is and what that means, some of you need to hear it.