It is a great privilege to be
here. It is also a comfort because many times when you go to a place
and you're gonna teach on something like biblical manhood, you realize
that you would like to have 10 sessions over each day for 10
days. There's so much to talk about.
My comfort is this, Many of you are in this place. And I would just like to say,
from what I know of my years here, gentlemen, if you can't
grow here, I don't know where you would grow. I have never
seen so many brought together. I've seen godly men all over
the world. but I've never seen so many men
brought together with a single purpose anywhere else in the
world with a firm hold, a firm grasp on this. What do I say? The inspiration
of scripture, the inerrancy of scripture, the infallibility
of scripture, but most importantly, the sufficiency of scripture. So if you are in this church
or you are in another church of like faith, you really need
to avail yourself because there are so many men around the world
that are goodly men, saved men, and yet find it so difficult
to find any place where they can congregate and grow. Remember, to whom much is given,
much is required. Now, When I'm in a place like this,
I don't have to think about, okay, I'm going to go into the
theology of the matter. Because I know that here in this
place, there are theologians at whose feet I would sit. What I want to do is to encourage
and exhort and rebuke. I want you to wake up. I want
you to wake up. To see your calling, but most
importantly, to see the one who called you to see all that is
at stake, gentlemen. I would not have done what I
have done for the last three and a half decades if this was
just about you getting your better life now. But this is a matter
of life and death, of heaven, of hell, of eternity. And I wanna look at that. We're
gonna take different, we're just gonna move through different
sections of scripture because I want to exhort you in specific
areas. So let's get started. First of
all, go to the passage that was mentioned here already, 1 John. First John, chapter two, verse
15, do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone
loves the world, the love of the father is not in him. For
all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust
of the eyes and the boastful pride of life is not from the
father, but is from the world. The world is passing away and
also its lust. But the one who does the will
of God lives forever. You live between two worlds in
a sense. You are not of this world, but
you are in this world. And the work of the Holy Spirit
inside of you makes you contrary to this world and makes the world
contrary to you. You must understand that, but
you live behind enemy lines. This is an extremely dangerous
place. You are called upon to believe
in a greater reality that you cannot see, but you're constantly
bombarded by the things that you can see. And although you
have been regenerated. There is still this flesh, this
remnant of fallenness that is in you that you must battle against
that can be drawn out, can be attracted by temptation. You've
got to realize you are in the middle of a battle. It's like
a scholar said many years ago, the world is at war, at war,
at war, and if we have a day of peace, it's only because everyone
is reloading. But that's the Christian life.
So many people are preaching that men should have it easy. No, everyone who is godly in
this world will be persecuted. Everyone who chooses to be godly
in this world must constantly swim upstream. must fight against principalities
and powers and mites and dominions. This is not an easy place and
it's not supposed to be. And in one sense, I'm glad it's
not. You say, what do you mean? There's something in me that
desires to fight. I don't mind dying, I just don't
want to die like a dog. I just don't want to die like
a passive frog that's been put into a kettle and gradually the
water is heated up until he can't understand, can't even sense
that he's being boiled to death. I don't want to go out without
a fight and I don't want to go to heaven without scars. I don't want to go to heaven. Without scars. I don't want to earn heaven,
I can't earn heaven, I glory in the fact that heaven is free,
I glory in the fact that there's only one hero in this story,
our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, I glory in that. Yet at the same
time. Because of who he is and because
he has put me in a place where I have an opportunity to fight,
I want to fight for him. And you say, oh, yes, yes, Brother
Paul, but the Great Commission, I'm not talking about the Great
Commission. I'm talking about the fight of faith. I'm talking
about the fight of holiness. I'm talking about the fight of
dying to self-love and giving myself selflessly to my bride,
my wife. I'm talking about going to bed
tired every night because I poured my life into my children. I'm
talking about laying aside all the silly little trinkets and
games of silly little men who are 60 years old, laying them
aside. I don't need vacations. I don't
need toys. I just want to live for him in
the practical of my life. That's what we're called to. Do you think that the only one
who does great endeavors is the man who goes to the mission field?
Now, when someone asks me, Brother Paul, how can I pray for you?
I always say the same thing. Pray that I would love my wife
as Christ loves the church. Anybody can be burned at the
stake. It's heroic. But to live every day, walking
in simple obedience to God. While all hell is coming against
you to stop you. We're in this world and we're
called not to love it. But you will love it. Unless you're Christian. Unless
you're truly regenerate, you will love this world and you
will hate God. And the only way that's going
to change is if God has changed your heart through the gospel.
And if you're here today to study about being a good man, but you
are not reconciled to God through faith in Jesus Christ, none of
this works. We must be changed by the gospel. But supposing that many of you
are changed by the gospel, now you must understand something.
We must cultivate our faith. We must cultivate knowledge,
we must cultivate a right understanding of God, we must cultivate the
mind of Christ, we must begin to see as God sees. And how does
that happen through the study of scripture? The only way you're
going to grow in your hatred for this world is to grow in
your love for God. And the only way any of that's
going to happen is if you stop laying aside the word of God
as though it was something quite unnecessary for your life. Do not love the world, nor the
things in the world, if anyone loves the world, the love of
the father is not in him. This is the part I want to go
to. For all that is in the world, the lust of the eyes and the
lust of the the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and
the boastful pride of life is not from the father, but is from
the world. The world is passing away. And also its lusts. Now, this
could be a middle verb here, the world is passing away. It's kind of just floating away. But could also be passive, the
world is being pushed out. That God has already judged the
world. And it's being pushed out so
that when we get to the book of Revelation, there's no place
found for it. Heaven and Earth flee away from
him, it's being pushed out. Oftentimes, you go to old museums
and look at art books, you see pictures of Oftentimes monks
and they're standing there in a window and they're holding
a skull and they're looking at it and you think, well, that's
kind of dark. It is, but you need to understand
what really is going on there. It's the contemplation of mortality. It's not just looking at a skull.
Do you know what he's doing? He's looking at himself. That monk knows This will be
me. In a twinkling of an eye. Strong
men grow old and old men die. Yes, strong men die. Men who are genius die. Strong men grow weak and die. All men die. Have you really grasped that
as a man? I don't mean just played around
with it and laughed and told a joke about it. Have you sat
down and really thought about this? You're going to die. And everything you lived for
outside of the will of Christ is going to burn. Everything. You say, well, but I'm not a
missionary and I'm not a preacher. If you're in this church, you
know better than to use that language. You can be a policeman. And be
a policeman every moment of your life for the glory of God, and
he takes it as service. You can be a doctor, you can
be a ditch digger, you can work construction, so don't don't
play that game. It doesn't matter who we are,
missionary in the Congo or construction worker out on the highway. If
we know Christ and Christ knows us, there's no longer the division
of secular and sacred in our life. Everything is sacred if
it's offered to him. And he takes it as service to
him. One of the most. Life changing
things. That I experienced, I experienced
before I was converted, as a matter of fact, it's one of the things
that led to my conversion. My father, I was I was many times
afraid of him. He was big. He was strong. He
was good. I wanted to be like him in so
many ways. We're running with a roll of
wire, putting up a fence for the horses. Put a pole between
the wire, one man on one side, one on the other, and you roll
it out. And all of a sudden, when we were talking, we were
talking about upcoming basketball season and all kinds of things. And all of a sudden, I looked
down and then I heard him scream. I felt the wire drop. I grabbed
him. We fell to the ground. He was dead. I realized at that
moment it didn't matter if I was like my father. Who I never thought
I would be like. It doesn't matter, he's dead. Strong like him and die, courageous
like him and die. Successful and die, intelligent
and die. You fall in love. You lose her
in the end. You need to contemplate, you
need to get away from media and contemplate your own death. And
contemplate everything you have invested in. Where are your investments? When I was at the University
of Texas, I had to study a lot of different things for my major
in economics, finance, just all sorts of things, engineering,
everything, and I remember after I became a Christian and some
of my friends said, what are you doing? And I said, I'm not
doing anything that I wasn't taught in class. And they all
knew it was very anti-Christian university. And they said, what
do you mean? I said, well, remember investments.
I've not stopped investing. I've just traded up. I'm not going to invest in this
place anymore because I seriously believe it's going to burn and
everything that's going to burn with it. And the one who signs
on the dotted line, the cosigner with you in this world, he hates
you. It's going to take you for everything you have. I'm just changing where I'm investing,
where are you investing, where? Are you investing in your own
godliness? How much time a day are you investing
in your own godliness? Because your wife's greatest
need is a new husband. A better you, how much time are
you investing in your wife? How much time are you investing
in the godliness of your children and an intercession for them?
How much are you investing in your local church? Never forget this in the Lord's
Prayer after he says, Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come,
thy will be done. He says, give us this day our
daily bread. People make all kinds of nonsense about that
text. Well, it's not talking about give us bread for 90 years. It's give us daily bread, all
these different things, and they miss the entire point. You know
what the point of it is? You know what's really going
on there? You're praying in this way. Here you see the heart of
Christ. You're saying, God, my only reason
for existence, the reason for my breath. Is that your name
be hallowed, that it be placed in a category totally distinct
from all other categories and honored above all categories,
I want to live for that. For your name being hallowed,
for your kingdom to come, for your will to be done. Now, give
me this day my daily bread. Lord, I don't want riches. I
don't want luxury. I don't need anything. Just give
me enough food and shelter and clothing so that I can devote
my life to fulfilling those three things I prayed about. Just give
me the sustenance I need to keep serving you. That's what a man does. In the creation commission, Adams
told to go out. And bring God's kingdom, bring
God's rule, subdue everything in the world to the will of God
for the glory of God. I believe in one sense, the call
of the Great Commission and every command to the family and all
the commands given to us with regard to every aspect of our
life is almost a recommissioning of that in some sense. We are
to go out. We are to subdue ourselves. We
are to subdue our families. We are to subdue the world to
the reign of Christ. That's the only reason we need
food. It's to do that. You see. Because the world. Is passing away. And I'm well aware that there
are so many people that I love, that I love so dearly that are
passing away with it. They're passing away. Depart
from me. I never knew you. If we had time, we could go right
now and look at at the book of Revelation and the great white
throne judgment. And they were judged by all the
things written in the book of the law. All the things written
in the books. They were judged. You see, this
is not your home, this is a place that you have been you've been
thrown down into to do battle. That's why you live. That's why
you live. Now, I want to go on to something
else. I want us to look for just a
moment at this world. And the first thing I want to
do is I want to go to a strange passage over in Isaiah chapter
three. God is bringing judgment upon
a people in this passage. God is bringing judgment upon
a people. And he says in verse one, Isaiah,
chapter three, verse one, for behold, the Lord God of hosts
is going to remove from Jerusalem and Judah both supply and support
the whole supply of bread and the whole supply of water. So
he's going to remove this. But what else is he going to
remove? The mighty man. And the warrior, the judge and
the prophet, the diviner and the elder, the captain of 50
and the honorable man, the counselor and the expert artisan and the
skillful enchanter. One of the greatest acts of God's
judgment upon a people. Is when he removes the noble
men. From leadership. When he removes
The entire population of noble men, and there's nothing left
but ignoble, weak men. Now, who would dispute with me
today and say this passage has no application to the United
States of America? I travel around the world. I see men. Strong, angry, and
many of them mad at us. I come home. I see silly older men playing
with toys, I see little boys playing with video games, and
I see most people no longer even knowing what bathroom they should
go in. We are under the judgment of
God. Look at verse four. And I will
make mere lads their princes and capricious children will
rule over them and the people will be oppressed. Once again. This is our world, I've been
amazed for the last. 30 years, and especially in sitcoms
and things like that, isn't it amazing? That the parents, especially
the dad, is always portrayed as even if he's kind hearted,
he's foolish and really doesn't understand anything about the
world. And in the end, the children are the ones that are the counselors. But you know what? Most Christian
men saw things like that and couldn't even discern there was
a problem. Why not in the word? Not in the
word, not with men of the word, and I think both those things
are almost equally important. Brothers, the only thing that's
going to keep you from this is the word, the word, the word.
My wife one time was teaching a group of women in Romania,
and finally, after a couple of days, one of them said, Miss
Miss Chato, we really love you. You know, you're teaching and
your help, but on every question that we've had, you've basically
said just the same thing. We need to be in the word. Why
do you do that? And she said, well, because you
need to be in the word. I'm sorry. In a way, it's really
wonderful that it's not mystical, that you don't have to climb
up to heaven or drive yourself down into hell to grow. Isn't it wonderful that it's
really quite simple? Read the word, fellowship with
godly men. Fellowship with your wife, fellowship
with your children around the word, learn the word. Isn't it
wonderful that it's really that simple? And isn't it terrible
how accountable we're going to be on that final day because
it was so simple? I didn't say it was easy, but
simple, there's no mystery to it, no esoteric knowledge that
you need, you need the word. Now. Look, verse five, and the people
will be oppressed, each one by another and each one by his neighbor,
and the youth will storm against the elder and the inferior against
the honorable. Is that not our society today?
Is that not exactly where we live now? Look. At verse 12,
oh, my people, their oppressors are children and women rule over
them. Now, most people, when they read
this, they think, yeah, wicked women ruling over men, but there's
two possibilities here. One has to do with someone like
Jezebel. Who was a wicked woman who sought
to usurp authority and everything else, then there's also Deborah.
Deborah's kind of difficult to explain, isn't she? Here she's
raised up this leader. Trying to put everything together
in the scriptures, it's my opinion that. That Deborah was raised up as
a rebuke to men. And at no fault of her own. Do you know how many young girls
and young men you listen to me? I travel all over, even here. Even in my own church, how many
young girls between the ages of 25 and 35? Godly, smart, intelligent,
strong, capable. And they say, Are we going to
be single all our life? Our only option is to be single
all our life or to entrust our lives to boys our age who, when
they get a little bit of extra money, buy cool tennis shoes
or another video game. What are we supposed to do? Brothers. The Chinese say there are no
bad students, just bad teachers. What kind of legacy did you leave?
Some of you were laughing. What kind of legacy have you
left? What have you done? I am not going to stand here and
curse the darkness and make fun of a younger generation. I'm
not going to do it. Because when you look in Israel,
a generation was raised up who did not know the Lord and whose
fault was that? The previous generation. Yeah, you guys might not be playing
video games, but a lot of you have wasted so much of your time
doing the stupidest, silliest things of which men are beyond
that. No, brothers, I'm telling you. It was a great thing for me to
learn that my life, that I should go to the casket poured out.
That life is supposed to be difficult. That self-sacrifice hurts. That
it's not about me. You say, oh, it's about Christ.
Be careful of a theology of glory. It is about Christ. But if it
goes no further than that, the words you've said are nothing
more than a meme. It's all about my wife. It's all about my children. And
it's all about my church. And then it's all about the elect
people of God who have yet to hear the gospel of their salvation.
That's what it's all about. That's what it's really all about.
I know professional men in this church and I know professional
men and other places around the world that are extremely professional,
extremely busy, and they witness to more people in one week than
I do in six months. through their professions, through
their things, they have Bible studies, they encourage, maybe
they don't do that, maybe they don't have the gift of teaching,
but you go to their home and you see their children and their
wives, they're not about gaining something in this world. They're
just using the gifts that they have in order to serve in those
concentric circles of concern. Now, what do I mean by that?
This is the way I've ordered my life. It was based on a book
on evangelism that was written about 40 years ago by a very
godly man, concentric circles of concern. But I took it and
changed it up a little bit in the middle of that circle is
me. You say, well, that doesn't sound
very Christian. Well, it is. And what am I saying when I say
the middle of that circle is me, the greatest thing I can
do for everyone else on this planet is to be a better Paul
Washer. And what does that mean? To seek to be more conformed
to the image of Christ, if I do not start with me in the word
and renewing my mind, nothing else works, nothing else works.
So, first of all, as men, what do we do to combat this? What
do we do? First of all, our great goal
should be to be conformed to the image of Christ in character,
isn't it amazing that the qualifications for an elder are almost exclusively
character? And you say, well, I'm not an
elder. I don't have to worry about that. What you have to understand
is in that list and Titus three and Titus one and first Timothy
three. What he's basically saying is
this, an elder needs to be a mature Christian, and this is what a
mature Christian looks like. Husband needs to be a mature
Christian, and this is what a mature Christian looks like. Character
to grow in conformity to Christ, which starts by cultivating the
mind of Christ in the word of God and then growing. If you don't know anything about
the principles of marriage, but you're a man who walks full of
the Holy Spirit and bearing the fruit of the spirit, you're going
to be OK in your marriage. Now, you need both things. But the
one without the other just doesn't work. And so that's the first
concentration you should be thinking of. I need to be a clean tool,
a useful tool, an accurate tool. And then from there, what is
our greatest concern? Your wife. Your wife. Her godliness, her
sanctification, her prosperity as a person, her flowering, your
wife. What about me? OK, you die, that's
your job. You say, well, I don't like that,
then don't walk around pounding your chest like a gorilla and
saying you're a man. Because a man is someone who
dies to self for his bride, because Jesus was not a man. He was the
man. And we follow him. And then you
give your life to your children. Well, I thought children were
first. Now there's your problem. Greatest thing you can do for
your children, men, is to love their mom. And do you know why
so many women hate their daughter in laws? Because it's your fault. Yeah,
sin has many consequences. So as a husband, you neglect
your wife, you neglect affection, intimacy, growing as friends,
you neglect all these things. And so your wife, she needs that.
She needs that. She's a faithful woman. She's
not going to commit adultery. But now you forced her to find
it somewhere else and she finds it in her children and her children
start supplying for her all the affection that she's not getting
from her husband. And then when other people come
along to take her children away, she can't stand it. And it's
your fault. That's my fault. You see, when
you see obedience and God's commands, I can remember looking at a certain
thing in Hebrews 10, taking Hebrews 10 and then seeing how it seemed
like the entire Bible was interwoven into that chapter. It was just
unbelievable. And you've got to see that in
every aspect of our life, everything is interwoven. And if there's
a thread that breaks loose here, everything else starts to come
undone. And so that concentric circle
of concern, it is to give myself to my wife, then to give myself
to my children and then to give myself to the people of God. And then to give to myself. To
the world. In the sense of sharing with
them the gospel of Jesus Christ. So look what we have here, brethren,
look what we have, this is the world that we're living in. Now
I want to go to another. Go over with me for a moment. To Jeremiah, chapter 12, verse
five. If you have run with footmen
and they have tired you out, then how can you compete with
horses? If you fall down in a land of
peace, How will you do in the thicket of the Jordan? Jeremiah has suffered. We're
early in on the book. He suffered. He prays something
of a prayer of complaint in chapter 12. And you know what God says
to him? Jeremiah, if you think this is
bad, buckle up. Buckle up. In the last year,
we have seen. We have seen that there is much
darkness in the rules being made. And just in one year, we have
seen a change in our society and we have seen change in society
and government's view of the church. And everyone saying persecution,
persecution, buckle up. Buckle up. This is nothing. But gentlemen, this is a text
that I think about with regard to myself, I don't need to look
at you, I can look in the mirror. You look at the difficulties
that I've had throughout life. You know, sometimes you think
your difficulties are so great until you meet another person. And I'm constantly asking myself,
Paul, If you've run with footmen and they've tired you out, how
can you compete with horses? Paul, if if slander and attacks
and Twitter and Facebook and all these other things that people
do, if all that. Bothers you. Makes you weak in
the knees. How are you going to die at the
stake? How are you going to go to prison? How's it going to be when? Well,
who knows? Another way we can look at this
is. I know people. I work with tribal settings,
I've worked 13 years with with the Chinese, some of my dearest
friends. In China. I look at the things
they go through. In Myanmar. My brother's there, different
places around the world, and I see how little support they
have. They never studied in a wonderful
seminary. They never. And yet to see them
stand against. Everything at risk of life and
limb, and I look at myself and I go, really? Someone says, well,
it's hard to study the Bible, really? Well, you know, it's
it's hard to be disciplined to go to, you know, to kind of covenant
with the other group of men and grow together. Really? That's
hard. Really? Let me give you some tissue paper
and wipe your eyes. Really? So if we can't run with
footmen, how are we going to run with horses if we fall down
in a land of peace? Now, I know the covid thing has
had devastating effects on families and men and everything. But honestly. Just having to spend more time
at home has turned you into an alcoholic. Having to spend a
little bit more time at home has made you angry with your
wife, what are you going to do when you have to spend a little
bit of time in a prison cell? Really? Well, you know, it's so difficult
to grow. Brothers, as I said, if it's
difficult to grow here, then you don't want to leave here
because it gets far worse than many other places, I can tell
you that. This is a thing, Paul, and I think every preacher has
looked at this text many times in their life, if you think this
is difficult. And what's amazing, he doesn't
say, do you think this is difficult? It's not really. He says, you
think this is difficult? Buckle up, because it's going
to get far more worse than you could ever imagine. But throughout this entire book,
Jeremiah is told, I will be with you. And that is enough. That is. Enough. Now, I want to go to one other
introductory Text, 1 Corinthians 16. Some people have gotten rather
annoyed with me that I said that men are not supposed to get in
touch with their feminine side. I've discovered that that annoyed
some people. First Corinthians 16, 13, be
on the alert, stand firm in the faith. Get in touch with your
feminine side. Be strong. That's not what it says. Do you
realize that to many professing evangelicals today, they probably
will never now again preach this text? Because it will be offensive
to their crowd. Would you have believed ever
that this text would have been an offense? And now, oh. Beyond the alert, the devil is
like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. And if that devil
were to take a vacation in Palm Springs for the rest of your
life, you would still struggle with sin. be on the alert outside
and inside. And a great rule with regard
to that is do not trust yourself. Be on the alert. How can you
be on the alert? You know, sometimes I take somebody
deer hunting and and I go, look, look right over there. There
it is. And they're like, And they're
like, and you forget that as a little boy, you were trained.
Don't look for a deer. Look for a little flicker of
white. Look for something that stands out in that foliage, in
that thicket. It just doesn't belong there.
So I'm seeing a little tip of white on an ear, and I know he's
there. That other person says, there's
nothing there. No, he's right there. And why
is that? Well, from a little boy. Remember,
Timothy, from a little boy, from childhood, you have known the
scriptures. Hebrews. That we grow in our
discernment by training the book of Proverbs. Second, Timothy three, 16 and
17. Do you see? How can you be on the alert?
You can only be on the alert in the following ways. Number
one, it's the word of God. You have to train your eye. You
have to train your eye so that it recognizes. Well, there it
goes. I remember when my my little
boy first read his first book on on logic. I think it was the
fallacy detective or something. And we went and heard a preacher
and we came back and I was like, oh my, a critic. My son goes, dad, he committed
two logical fallacies in his sermon. I said, okay, you're
not studying logic anymore. But that you see, he wouldn't
have been able, there were, there were fallacies. Well, one of
them was, but there were fallacies. But my point is this. He wouldn't
have known that unless he had read that little book, Fallacy
Detective. But by knowledge, he was then able to discern.
No, that was a deviation. He was alert to it. I mean, his
ears popped up. And every little boy is a legalist,
so he wanted to point out really quick that everyone was wrong.
Do you see the word of God trains your eye? Don't be like the man
who has to see full blown sin coming at him, capturing him
and eating him alive before he recognizes full blown sin. You
need to be discerning. Read the word of God so that
when that thing pops up. Kill it, kill it now. Another way in which you're alert
is in prayer. Paul talks about being alert in prayer and Colossians
4 has the idea of being alert in prayer. We pray, we pray,
we ask for God's help. We ask for God's grace. We could
go on and on. But another way of being alert.
That is often overlooked. Is. You can't stay up 24 hours a
day. Someone else needs to take watch. One of the greatest kindnesses
that the Lord has ever shown me. He's shown it to me throughout
the great portion of my life is surrounding me with godly
men. I'm going to choose to be around
men that make me want to be more noble, that make me want to be
more like Christ, that sometimes I walk away from them and I'm
ashamed. at my lack of maturity and my
lack of spirituality. But it's not a shame unto condemnation. It's a shame unto motivation. So we are alert, we are alert. And how are we alert? Through the word of God, through
prayer. And through others. Brothers, I've said this, I think
one other time since I've been here this last week, and that's
this. Please do not fall into the error
of thinking some people study the Bible because it's their
gift. Or some people pray more than you because they're just
have that kind of disposition. One of the most helpful things
I ever heard, I heard from John Piper and its application to
my life was unbelievable. And that was this when when I
heard that he said, I have to fight for absolutely everything. And I've asked other men about
this, men that I admired in the word, men that I admired in prayer,
and men that I've admired for their godliness. And do you know
what? For every one of them, it wasn't any easier to study
the Bible than it was for me. It wasn't any easier for them
to pray. They had to fight the same exact
battles. Then what's the difference? They
knew their life depended on it. I remember one of the greatest
preachers you've probably never heard of is a man by the name
of David Miller. He's just one, I mean, still
preaches. He's had such an impact on so
many people's lives. And I was chopping wood for him
one day because he's in a wheelchair. And I was chopping wood for him
out on his hunting camp. He hunts in a wheelchair. with
big tires. And I was chopping wood for him. And I said, because I remember
the first time that I heard him preach, he goes, he has a I can't
imitate him. Well, he's going to kill me for
this imitation. But he's like, turn in your Bibles to Acts chapter
two. And so I did. And then he proceeded
to read Acts chapter two, about halfway through it, I realized
he wasn't looking at his Bible. He was just quoting Acts chapter
two off the top of his head like it was nothing. And he could
do that just about any place else. So I'm chopping wood one
day and I said, I said, Brother David, God has really given you
a gift of memory. Said, No, he hadn't. Brother
Paul, don't talk like that. I just work at it harder than
you do. You see, I get, you think I slam
people? I get slammed so bad sometimes
it's unbelievable. But think what he said. He said,
no. You know, when I came out of
whatever I came out of after about seven days and I like woke
up and knew where I was, I felt like I'd been hit by a truck. It hurt so bad because of the
machine they put on me that pounded me and pounded me to get my heart
restarted three different times and went on forever, they said.
When I breathed, I didn't want to do that again. It hurt so
bad. And I can remember just concentrating,
just, okay, breathe, just go in and go out. I didn't want to breathe. But
would have that been a good option? So what hurts? Yeah, it does. OK, but you got one other option,
die. You breathe or you die. You breathe or you die. You study
the word or you die. You pray or you die. I'm sorry,
it changes everything. It changes everything, doesn't
it? If only that we could all take
seriously, it would change so much in our lives. Read the word
or you die. He goes on, stand firm in the
faith. You know, I love taking people
to Hebrews 11 one and you know, Faith, well, let's just look
over there for just a second. I'll take it because there's
no sense saying stand firm in the faith if you don't know what
that means. Now, faith is the assurance of things hoped for.
I've always hoped to fly, hoped to fly unaided by machine. And so this morning I woke up
with a great assurance that I could fly. So I climb up on top of
this. building and I throw myself off
with all the assurance in the world and I die. I have the conviction
of things not seen, I've never seen anybody fly unaided, but
I have the conviction I can do it this morning. So I climb up
to the top of this building, throw myself off with the greatest
conviction and I die. But if you just take that one
text out by itself, that's exactly what it's saying. But that's
not exactly what it's saying, because you have to read it in
the context of Hebrews and the context, the entire Bible. And
the thing that I want you to see that is so important, how
can you stand strong in the faith? How can you even have faith?
How can you have the assurance for something that you hope for?
How can you have conviction of these things you've not seen?
You've not seen these things. There's only one way. And that
is you have assurance of things hoped for because God promised
them in his word. You have the conviction of something
you've never seen because God promised it in his word. And
you as men cannot stand firm in the faith apart from the word
of God. You cannot. It's impossible because
faith is not a leap into the darkness, it's leaping upon a
rock. It's trusting in what God said. And how can you trust in what
God has said? How can you do it, gentlemen?
How can you trust in what God has said? Only if you've studied
what he said, only if you've been in a church that proclaims
what he said, that's all you can do. And listen to this, I
love this is one of my favorite texts, it comes out of the servant
songs of the Messiah and Isaiah, just listen. Who is among you
that fears the Lord, that obeys the voice of his servant, that walks in darkness and has
no light? You know, in 1 John, it says
that if you walk in darkness as a continual style of life,
not a Christian. So why is he saying here that
the one who truly fears the Lord, the one who truly obeys the voice
of his servant, the Messiah, Is the one who walks in darkness
and has no light. It means this. This is key to
understanding almost everything with regard to piety. And you
need to know this. This goes all the way back to
the garden. There was no reason for Adam and Eve to look at that
tree and believe that it would kill them. There was no evidence. It was beautiful. There was just no evidence. There
was no evidence that Abraham, when he looked at his body, there
was no evidence that he was going to sire a child. When he looked
at his wife, there was no evidence that she was going to give birth
to a child. You look around and there's absolutely
no evidence with regard to that thing. And you see, that's the
whole point of Genesis chapter three, and people oftentimes
don't understand it. They'll say that that one sin
brought the whole world into fallenness because it was against
God and God is infinitely worthy and all that. It's true. But
it was a huge sin because it all came down to the character
of God. Who is God? There you look at
that tree, there's no reason to believe there's no reason
to believe that tree will kill you except for the word of God. And if you believe that word,
you are affirming God is who he says he is, if you do not
believe that word, you are literally saying God is a liar about the
worst thing he could be a liar and that is himself. It's a direct
attack on the character of God. And so those who walk in darkness
here are those who have their faith firmly set upon the word
of God. They need no other stimuli. They need no carnal stimuli to
worship. They don't need to get psyched
up at some acquire the fire conference to go home to be good husbands.
To be obedient. They don't even need to see temporal
blessing for their obedience. Why? Well, it's very clear. Look what it says. He trusts
in the name of the Lord and relies on his God, that's faith. So when it says stand firm in
the faith. You know, it's basically saying
stop calling God a liar if you want to look at it negatively. Brothers, sometimes I come across
men who and we all. Who are attacked with doubting
or something. But I want you to know that even
though I'm going to speak kind words and I'm going to do this
slowly, I try to do with most men what I do with myself, unmask
that doubt. That's not just a little man
who's hurting and he needs me to put my hand on his shoulder
and say, I understand. Doubt is a direct affront upon
the character of God. And when I see doubt in my life. It just needs to be crucified. And it needs to be acknowledged
as what it is, unbelief in the character of God. Now, isn't
it isn't it amazing that he says here in verse 13, stand firm
and be on alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men. What does it mean to act like
men? Be strong, be strong in what way? Be strong and being
alert, be strong and standing firm in the faith. How do you
act like men? You're alert. You're ever vigilant,
you've got a family to protect. That's why I tell men, if you
won't study for yourself, study for your wife. Do it for her. If you won't do
it for yourself, do it for your children. They need a man and
a man isn't somebody who makes six figures, a man isn't somebody
who can lift a building, a man isn't somebody who fights MMA.
A man is someone who is able to stand alert at his post. To be vigilant with regard to
his own heart, to be vigilant with regard to his wife, to be
vigilant with regard to his children and to be vigilant with regard
to his church. Realizing it's a battle. It's a battle. It's a battle,
men who believe their God. I've said this many times as
a young man that was always very, very afraid that had gone with
me into the jungle several times, and I mean, he's scared of his
own shadow. Everything was going to bite him, of course, everything
would bite you there, but. The thing of what I appreciated
about him so much was he went. He went weak, he went afraid,
but he went, why are you going, son? Because they need Christ,
because Christ needs to be glorified here, that to me is a man. That to me, self-sacrifice, self-sacrifice. Selflessness. The world doesn't
revolve around you, your family, your wife is not an extension
of you. You have been called to serve.
But we can't we do we will not have the character to serve and
we will not have the knowledge to serve. We will not be able
to be biblical men. That means conform to the image
of Christ. We won't accomplish any of that
if the word of God is not dwelling in us richly. If we are not in
prayer and if we are not in fellowship, not only with a biblical church,
with some really good brothers in that church that will rebuke us, offend us,
and if we get offended, kick us in the pants and laugh. I
tell you what, we've just become such a bunch of, I don't know,
kick us in the pants. We need it. We need to act like men. We need
to be conformed to the image of Christ. God bless.