What A Man Is Not – Biblical Manhood (Part 1): Paul Washer (Transcript)

Pre-care. Preschool. And stays within the arms of a government institution until it graduates from college.

And so we have literally thousands upon thousands upon thousands of hours of formal education in everything secular and anti-Christian, not to mention media in which the child may watch three hours or more of media every day of his life, and then you wonder why has our culture gone bad.

Now, I want you to realize something. I’m not talking about somebody out there. I’m talking about you. And I’m talking about myself, something that I had to fight out of and still must fight to remain outside of it. That we are a product of our culture. We have turned our children over to Caesar, and therefore we have followers of Caesar. And within the church, there’s no difference. We do the same thing.

Now, another reason for that is not just our educational system, but there’s something that seems a bit more mundane, something not quite as bad, but actually it is.

When my dad came out of World War II, he was a child of the Depression. He lived through the Depression. You know, 10 years old selling newspapers on the streets of Detroit just to buy food.

Then he goes into World War II. He fights, takes on an empire, sees most of his friends die, comes back, and because of the prosperity that the war caused, economic prosperity, then what was it? I’m going to give my children things I never had.

And so what happened? We lost our fathers in their passion to give their children things that they never had, and we lost our mothers. Because see, our mothers all went into the factories to build bombs and airplanes and everything else while our fathers were fighting over in World War II. The problem is when the war was over, our moms didn’t come home.

And so what basically has happened is this: we have been raised by an anti-Christian public or government institution. We have not been with wise men. But ever since we were little, we were thrown into a group of collective fools. And we look at our examples and they’re the same age as we are. And we grow up in that all our life. To the point where you have men who are 30, 34 years old and they still get together and their big thing is playing video games or some kind of NFL fantasy game or something.

You see, and so, you’ve lost manhood. Now let me give you an example. There may be some of you who can say, no, this isn’t true with me, so praise God if that’s the case. But most of you spent more time with young men your own age than you did your own father.

Most of you, after a few years in the public school system, as a matter of fact, your mother and father and especially your siblings, your brothers and your sisters, just got in your way. You were only in house long enough to eat and sleep, but you wanted to be with your friends. That’s all you wanted to be with.

And even now when you may be in your 20s, it’s the same thing. Just want to be with your friends. We have sitcoms that are very, very popular: Friends. Just be with your friends. And so you’re with your friends. There’s no family. The home becomes something like a condo where people just come to it, eat, go to their room, sleep, play video games, remove from the rest of the family, and then go out to see their friends.

And so what we have seen is literally the destruction of our civilization. When I was my first year student in political science, we were taught that there were certain institutions that — didn’t matter if you’re liberal, conservative, whatever — there are certain institutions that must exist in order for a society to exist. And if you want to destroy that society, you remove those institutions. That’s all you have to do.

And one of those institutions, as a matter of fact, one of the most important is family. You destroy the family. So we live in an age right now where even though mom and dad may stay together, if you look at what the family is, it’s not a family compared to Scripture.

Now let me give you another example. The Bible says that fathers are to be the greatest influences in the lives of their sons and daughters in every shape, form, and fashion. And we’ll maybe talk about that later.

But the Bible also says that in church, the people who are to minister to every individual in the church are elders. These are men who meet certain qualifications according to 1 Timothy 3, Titus 1: They are mature men of God. They’re men. Most of you never came in contact with one.

You went to Sunday school. You went to children’s church. There were no elders. You went to youth group, and it was just a young guy a little bit older than you with moose in his hair. Great personality who didn’t know anything.

Do you see? And so, the main influence in the family is to be the father. That was removed from you. The main influence in the church is to be the elders, and you probably never even saw one. And so what do we have? We have removed everything.

Manhood is something that is taught. Manhood is something that is learned by imitation, but they’ve taken all the men out of your life. Probably for some of you, the most memorable man in your life is your coach. Because he was the only one who acted in any way with a masculine authority in your life. So now you see.

And here’s the sad thing. You’re going to go back to church, and this is just going to continue on. Unless some great changes are made. We have lost men in the West. A few weeks ago, I was talking to a good friend of mine. You may know him: Body Beckham. And he called me just Wash; he goes, man, this article just came out. I don’t know if it was in Time magazine or what it was. I’ve got to send it to you. He hasn’t sent it to me yet, but I’ve been out of the country.

But he says even the secular authorities now are saying there’s no men. That America has no men. It’s a crisis. It’s a crisis. Now there are a lot of things that are your fault. But in this case, I can honestly say, because of a lack of knowledge on a part of a whole lot of people, your lives are not what they could be. Real manhood. And that’s what we need to talk about today.

Now the problem is it’s going to take more than two times tonight and one time tomorrow morning. And I’m going to get started on some things. But these are things that you’re going to have to pursue. You’re going to have to realize something that I realized several years ago. Not from an epiphany or some vision, but just by studying the Scriptures. One day it just hit me. Everything is wrong.

And it’s not a case of just tweaking the system. See, that’s the problem. It’s blowing it to pieces starting all over again. Now, that kind of language is very dangerous. That’s the way cults get started.

But let me share with you something. It’s a principle of biblical hermeneutics. And I want you to understand this. Biblical hermeneutics is the science of how you study the Bible. And there is a principle in biblical hermeneutics that states this: you should always do your theology in the context of the church.

What does that mean? It means if a guy like me stands up and says everything is wrong right now with regard to family, young men, everything, and we’ve got to change it, if you ask me the question why do you say that, I say because that’s what the Bible says.

But if you ask me, and how do you know the Bible says that? Because everyone else is just happy about what’s going on. So what right do you have to say that the Bible contradicts our western way of doing church?

Well, I appeal to history. See, that’s why they don’t want you to study history. If I appeal to history, and I look down through 2,000 years of Christianity, and I see that there are theological and doctrinal trends, that this is the way they did things, this is the way they interpreted the Bible, and then I come till today, and I recognize that today, the church today contradicts 2,000 years of Christian history, who’s wrong?

See, I can appeal to history and say we’re just wrong. We’re just wrong.

In many of the Puritan churches, you could actually as a man be removed from the membership publicly disciplined if you did not catechize your own children, if you were not the primary theological, doctrinal, religious teacher of your children, you would be admonished before the church for failure for being a derelict father.

Now, I want you to think of something. If I walked into a typical church today and I said, ok, how many of you men are consistently, let’s say, four times a week at least, and for a half an hour each time that you are teaching your children the Scriptures? Almost no one would raise their hand. Now that’s a bare minimum. And almost no one would raise their hand. And no one would have a problem with it.

But if I then stood up and said, and as the new pastor, I am going to cancel youth group, we’re no longer going to have youth group, we’re no longer going to have Sunday school, and we’re no longer going to have children’s church, what would they do to me? They’d fire me immediately, wouldn’t they? I mean, there would be such a battle going on. They would say that man hates children, that man hates youth. I mean, look at what we have. Jesus said you annul the commandments in order to carry out your traditions.

Nowhere in Scripture are fathers commanded to turn over the religious education of their children to a church. But all over the Scriptures, fathers are commanded to disciple their own children. To disciple their own wives. To pour their lives into their family for the cause of Christ. So, we will keep our traditions and we will kill anybody that comes up with Scripture and says you’re wrong. You see how easy it is just to be following a tradition and not following the Scriptures.

Well, this is the way we’ve always done it. Yeah, it is. In your generation. And it’s wrong. It’s wrong.

Just the idea of what we have here in Proverbs 13:20 where it says, he who walks with wise men will be wise. And what else does it say? But the companion of fools will suffer harm.

Now, I want us to go… I brought some notes here. What I’m going to do, instead of just trying to hit the best things I can hit, I’m going to just start theologically plowing some ground with you. If we don’t even get close to finish, we don’t get close to finish, I want you to know I’m willing to come back and do this again any time.

But we are going to look at a lot of things that at first you’re going to say, I don’t know if this applies. It does. Because I can’t just jump over here to what you need without laying a foundation first. Ok?

Now, the first thing I want to do is we need to look at our reality as people. We just need to look at our present reality. Now, in order to start this off, let me just give you an illustration from my past. I studied theology, of course. I have my master’s in theology. I studied Greek, Hebrew, logic, all kinds of things — philosophy and the university.

Now, several years ago, a friend of mine sent me a book. He’s in British Columbia and he sent me a book. And he said, read this. It was on logic. So I opened up and I read the first chapter. And I read through the first chapter three times. And I said, ok, I understand the terminology. I understand the definitions he’s put to the terminology, and now I can dialogue with this person. It was higher logic than anything I had studied in the university.

Well, after reading that chapter, I closed the book, I went in the kitchen to get me something to eat. I came back and I happened to look at the cover of the book. And it was like an ink sketch drawing on the cover of the book. And I thought, well, that’s unusual. Because it had what looked to be eight, nine year old children standing in a line with a schoolmaster over them, drilling them.

And I thought, why would that be on the front of the book? So I opened up to the preface, started reading. It was the logic primer for grade school children in the colonial period. You need to let that sink in with your head and your heart. And I don’t want to be offensive. I’m going to include myself in this. And I’ve been fighting my way out of this for years.

We are an ignorant people. We are an ignorant people. If I went back only 200 years, I could probably sit down with many, many 10 and 12 year olds and discuss theology that probably many of us have never even heard. We are a theologically and doctrinally ignorant people. We are technically advanced, but historically, philosophically, logically, no.

I was once talking to someone in a university on the matter of genetics after a lecture that I gave. And someone said to me afterwards, they said, what do you do? Do you just study all the time? How did you talk to that guy?

I said, if you notice, I didn’t talk to him.

Well, yes you did.

I said, no, I asked him questions.

Yeah, but he left mad.

I said, yes he did.

And they said, well, how did you do that?

I said, I don’t know anything about genetics.

Well, what do you know about?

I said, I know logic. I know one simple principle that defeated many of the things he was saying. The law of non-contradiction. Something cannot be something and not be something in the same way at the same time.

If I were to go to your generation and I were to say with a microphone, what do you think about the war in Iraq? You’d say all kinds of things. Most of it would just be parroting what popular media says. But you would say all kinds of things. I’d get all kinds of opinions at your university.

But after someone gave their opinion, and I said, what is the basis of your opinion? What works have you studied on Middle Eastern politics? Nothing. What have you studied on economics in the Middle East? Nothing. The theory of war. What have you studied?

And I could just keep going. I said, could you quote primary sources? You see, the fact is, we’re a people who are quick to give our opinion, but usually it’s only to jump on the bandwagon of what everyone else is saying. Because we long for approval.

And see, what I want you to see is we’re a culture like this. We’re technologically advanced. I think there’s more stuff in a calculator, a Texas instrument calculator, than they had to put the first man on the moon. We are technologically advanced, but we don’t read. We don’t know history. We don’t question ourselves about the big things that really matter. And as a culture, we’re just following one another.

Let me give you just one more example. Now, I’m not against swimming, okay? And I’m not against going to the beach necessarily. It’s just that some beaches, you will have to be blind if you’re going to go there.

But here’s something I want you to just think about. What a Christian in your youth group would wear to the beach now, and everyone would be ok with that. Seventy-five years ago, if someone went out in public like that, the secular authorities would have had them arrested and either fined them, put them in jail, or sent them to an institution to be examined. That’s 75 years.

Now, I’m not saying right or wrong. I just want you to see something. What Christians totally approve of today, only 75 years ago, unbelievers thought it was either illegal or insane. Shouldn’t that make you think, man, what on earth? Where are we going to find some ground to stand on? If all this is shifting so fast and everything is changing. What do we stand on? We stand on God’s Word. We stand on God’s Word.

Now, I want us to look at our present reality. I’m just going to quote some verses to you. What I can do is I can give these notes to Doug. Doug can print them off or whatever so you don’t have to be writing like crazy. But I just want to read some verses to you.

Judges 17:6: ‘In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes.’ There was no king. It means there was no authority. And when there was no standard authority, cross-the-board authority, everyone just did what is right in their own eyes.

Let me give you an example just in church life. How many of you have heard the argument of the regulative-normative principle? Probably no one. And yet, that’s been one of the greatest arguments down through the history of the church. And the question is this, the regulative principle says we can only do in church what God specifically commands.

Normative principle says we can do in church anything that God does not specifically prohibit.

Do you realize that today no one even argues about it? Why? Because every sort of thing is done without even asking the Bible what should a church look like. As a matter of fact, churches are built today by going out into the community, finding out what they want in a church and then giving it to them by calling it a church.

So you see, we have no authority. If you believe that the Scriptures are infallible or they are inspired, you have only fought half the battle. Only half the battle.

The second question is this, are they sufficient? Do I have to go outside of Scripture to find what God wants for His people, for my life, for faith, for morality? Well, the teaching of Scripture is absolutely not.

But you see, you probably are recognizing even right now, almost everything that we do as a people is done without authority. Almost everything done in the church is done without authority. You just live your life basically the way that you think you ought to live it. This was the Puritan genius.

Now, I know that a lot of you have heard a lot of bad things about the Puritans, but I would challenge anyone to give primary sources on the matter. The Puritan genius, even though I wouldn’t agree with them in all things, was this, they asked the question: how do I apply Scriptures to every aspect of my life? We don’t ask that question anymore.

Let’s go on. Hosea 4:6: ‘My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge.’ It’s true. I could take you out into the Amazon way in what’s called the [Monti] or the outback, as far from the rivers as you can get. Because the farther you get away from the rivers, the more jungle it becomes. Alright?

You will die in a matter of a couple of days unless you’re with someone who knows what he’s doing. That’s the only reason I’ve been able to be in so many bad places. It’s not because I’m Bear Grylls. It’s because I’m always with Indians who know exactly what they’re doing and I follow them in everything they tell me. Do you see?

When you don’t have knowledge about a certain thing and you’re not following someone who does, then you’re destroyed for a lack of knowledge.

Isaiah 1:4-6, it says this: ‘Alas, sinful nation, people weighed down with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, sons who act corruptly, they have abandoned the Lord, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they have turned away from Him, where will you be stricken again as you continue in your rebellion? The whole head is sick, and the whole heart is faint. From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is nothing sound in it, only bruises, welts, raw wounds, not pressed out or bandaged nor softened with oil.’

That’s our society. And that’s the church. Or what’s called a church today.

Why? Because we have turned away from the Word of God.

Now, recognizing what we’re in, I want us to recognize what we’re supposed to be doing. We must be convinced. Now, if you’re not Christian, and you’ve decided that Christ and all of this is a hoax, and you desire to live according to your own wisdom, you have that prerogative.

But if you are going to call yourself Christian, then you have to make some serious decisions. First of all, we must be convinced that everything we do is to be for the glory of God. Absolutely everything.

We have 1 Corinthians 10:31: whether then you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all for the glory of God. Absolutely everything for His glory. Everything. And you cannot do it for His glory apart from knowing what He commanded. We have cases all throughout Scripture where people did things that were wise in their own eyes thinking it would abound to the glory of God only to recognize they were fighting against God.

Also, 2 Corinthians 10:5, we are destroying speculation in every lofty thing raised against the knowledge of God and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

Not only are we to glorify God in every deed, we’re to glorify God in every thought. My thoughts are to be held captive, are to be brought into obedience to Christ.

Now, let me just say something. Here, someone might argue, well, you know, it sounds like slavery. It sounds like the end of free thinking and all these different things. Well, you probably don’t remember this singer, but there was a guy by the name of Bob Dylan several, several years ago back in my time who said things like, you’ve got to serve somebody. You are going to serve somebody. You are going to be a prisoner to someone’s worldview. It’s just going to happen. I’m sorry.

And what’s funny is the people who most boast about breaking free from everybody else’s worldview, they gather together with their own worldview and in that, they try to please each other. It’s absolutely amazing.

When we talk about free will, you need to understand something. Theologically, there’s only one person who’s free and that’s God. There’s only one who makes decisions without being manipulated or coerced. You don’t have free will. Almost everything you do is coerced or manipulated by the people around you. By the trends around you. By the ideas around you. Even the way you dress. Everything has to do with what do people look like today? How do people dress? How do they talk? How do they walk? How do they wear their pants? All of it is influenced in your life by somebody else.

So the question is not do I trade autonomy or my personal freedom for submission to some declaration of how I should live. That’s not the question. You do do that.

The question is to whom are you going to submit? To a culture that is changing every moment? Or to something more stable, more eternal?

Now, also 2 Timothy 3:16-17,  “…All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped, equipped for every good deed.”

Now, man of God here isn’t necessarily someone who preaches. We are all to be men of God. And what it is telling us is that everything we need to be what we’re supposed to be is found in the Scriptures. And if we’re memorizing the Scripture, if we’re renewing our mind in the Scripture, then the Scripture will teach us, reprove us, and train us, and correct us.

But if we’re out there, just imagine for a moment, someone who is out in the world 16 hours a day, a couple hours a day television, a couple hours a day or an hour a day with video games, he’s surrounded by a worldly atmosphere, he goes to classes on a secular campus and everything else, and then he has a 15 minute quiet time. You’re going to change the world. No, you’re not. You’re going to be conformed to the world. You’re just going to throw a Christian t-shirt on your back. You see?

It’s going to take a lot, guys, to break free. The big problem NASA has is gravity. It’s just a really big problem. You ever do any mountain climbing? Your big problem is gravity. In the old age, your problem with your body is gravity. And it takes a whole lot of force to break free from that gravity. In the same way, it takes a whole lot of force to break free from your culture more than just 15 minutes a day. You have to realize this is wrong.

You also have to realize, young men, listen to me. You are going to one day totally influence the life of a woman, either for good or for destruction. You are going to influence the life of children, either for good or for destruction.  You just need to realize that. Unless you’re just going to remain single and hanging out in bars all your life, you are going to have a tremendous impact for good or for evil, okay?

Now, I want us to go into some things. This is about parents. And you’re saying why are you talking to me about parents? I want to show you the way it’s supposed to be.

First of all, to be a parent, my number one responsibility as a man, as a husband, as a father, is to know the Scriptures.

It says in Proverbs 29:18, where there is no vision, the people are unrestrained, but happy is he who keeps the law.

So many pastors will use this. Where there is no vision, the people perish. We have to have a vision. We have to go on a building program. It doesn’t matter what this verse means.

We have a Hebrew parallelism here. The first phrase is defined by the second. And the first phrase? Where there is no vision, the people are unrestrained. But happy is he who keeps the law. What is the vision? A vision of the law. In order to be a parent, my number one responsibility is to know the law of God.

Also, in Hosea again, My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge. I need to know the Word of God because I am going to influence a woman and I am going to influence children. And I cannot lead them in the course of this world. I cannot do that. I know the hell I’ve been through. I know the terrible things I’ve done prior to coming to Christ. I do not want that for them.

Now, I must also strive to be a biblical example. So as a man, my primary responsibility in my family is to know the Word of God. It’s not to give my children everything I didn’t have. But it’s to give them a father. Even if it means living in a small house and driving old beat up cars where you use roofing screws in order to keep the panels on the side of your car. Which is what I do.

Why? I don’t care about new cars. I’m a follower of Jesus Christ. I don’t care about buying my clothes at Walmart. I am a follower of Jesus Christ. I don’t care about money. I care about a wife. A woman. I care about my children. I care about my brothers and sisters in Christ. It’s the things I did not have that made me the man I am. It’s not the things that you get that make you a man.

Most of the things that you get are the very things that destroy you. So after being a man of the Word, I must be an example. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 4:15-17, “…For if you have countless tutors in Christ, yet you would not have many fathers. For in Christ Jesus, I became your father through the Gospel. Therefore, I exhort you, be imitators of me.”

You see that. In 1 Corinthians 11:1, he said, “…Be imitators of me, just as also I am of Christ.”

1 Thessalonians 2:14, “…For you, brethren, became imitators of the church of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea.”

That’s the positive side of this. My primary responsibility is to be a man of integrity so that those around me, they see an example. And it’s costly. It’s costly. Because when you set yourself to do that, the devil himself will hand you the world on a silver platter. And you’ve got to make some hard decisions. And those hard decisions are going to cost you.

A man I know down in Florida, walking with Christ, he’s serving in a church that was struggling, loving his wife, his children, everything. He’s offered a job twice what he was making. Twice. He went to his boss and turned it down. Why? Because the money is going to require me to work this much more. It’s going to require me to move away from a church that’s struggling.

The guy said, ‘Are you absolutely out of your mind? We’re talking about twice the money.’

He said, ‘My family doesn’t need money. My family needs food on the table. They need a house to live in so that they don’t get wet, hopefully safe enough. But what they need, my wife needs a man. My children need a father. And my church needs someone who’s going to stand up because it’s struggling.’

Tough choices.

But let’s look at the negative example. Matthew 23:2-3, the scribes and Pharisees have seated themselves in the chair of Moses. Therefore, all that they tell you, do and observe, but do not do according to their deeds, for they say things and do not do them.

Deciding I’m radical for Jesus. It’s going to take a lot more than a Christian song to make you radical for Jesus. One of my heroes in the faith is two girls in Indonesia. I can’t even tell you where they’re at: Seti and Ernie. Seti decided to follow Jesus Christ. HeartCry, my mission supports her now. She was captured by her family. She was imprisoned in her home. Her mother was an invalid who couldn’t eat. Seti was required to stay in that room, and the only thing Seti was allowed to eat was what her mother threw up. And that’s how she survived.

When we finally got to her, she had escaped because her parents had decided to kill her after a certain wedding or a certain party, and the sister found out and couldn’t bear with the fact that her sister was going to be killed by her parents. And so, let her out the door and she escaped. Now she works as a missionary. A pitiful little girl who is working in an area with her friend Ernie is another girl. And the only reason they’re working there alone is because there’s not a man brave enough to go into that village. That is radically following Christ.

Not that you and I should feel bad because we’ve not been put in that situation, but what I want you to know is giving up a little income or not being cool on campus, that’s a very small price to pay.

Ok, let’s go on. Also, parents must strive to love, teach, and govern biblically. Now, again, why am I telling you this? Because I want you to see even though I’m sure your parents, many of them really tried, took you to church and everything else, I want you to see we all grew up in this culture where parents thought they were doing right just by taking their kids to Sunday school. They thought that they were fulfilling the command, raise up a child in the way that he should go and when he’s old he’ll not depart from it. They thought that meant taking them to church.

No, it means investing your entire life in your children so that if it’s a girl, she grows up in pure Christian femininity and beauty. If it’s a man, if it’s a young boy, he grows up in a solid biblical Christ-like masculinity. That’s not been done for you.

I didn’t even start asking these questions myself until I was 39 years old. And I got news that my wife who had had a brain tumor for 8 years and we couldn’t have children, and I found out I was going to have a boy. I was going to be a father.

And I remember, I’ve preached in jungles to men who wanted to kill me, everything you can imagine. But I fell down on my knees that day and I realized when it comes to family, when it comes to marriage, when it comes to children, I’m a pagan. I’m a saved pagan. What do the Scriptures say? What does it mean to be a man? Because now, whatever I do is going to influence another young man, another young girl.

Now, so I must strive to teach biblically, to govern biblically, to love biblically. Listen to what it says in Genesis 18:19 about Abraham. God says, “…For I have chosen him so that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice so that the Lord may bring upon Abraham what He has spoken about him.”

Now this is a man from whom the Messiah was going to come. I mean, his descendants were going to be like the stars in the heavens, but look at the emphasis here. It’s on his children. That he would command his children. That his whole life would be raising up a godly heritage unto the Lord. It goes on.

This is one of my favorite passages in the Bible. Deuteronomy 6:5-9. Listen, now this is the responsibility of a father. Of a biblical father. This is His responsibility. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. These words which I am commanding you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up, you shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall write them on the doorpost of your house and on your gates.”

That’s the responsibility of a biblical man. That’s what you were supposed to have received every day of your life. A man standing before you constantly teaching you what it means to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

And notice, many people get this wrong. They think that what’s being said here is that you’re supposed to teach your kids a whole bunch of principles. Well, Christianity has principles and it has commands and it has a specific morality, but that’s not what this is talking about. It’s talking about through your teaching and your life example, your children would see what it’s like for a real man to love the Lord his God with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength. Not just someone who can teach principles or run a household based upon some legal system. But to be passionate about Christ.

Your wife is going to need the same thing. It doesn’t matter how spiritual your future wife is, she was not designed by God regardless of what Christian feminists say today, she was not designed by God to be everything she could be alone. She will never be everything that she could be unless you assume the rightful place in her life and pour into her so that she becomes everything God wants her to be.

Now, Joshua 4:5-7: ‘And Joshua said to them, ‘Cross again the ark of the Lord your God into the middle of the Jordan, and each of you take up a stone on his shoulder according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Israel. Let this be a sign among you that when your children ask later, saying, ‘What do these stones mean to you?’ You shall say to them, because the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. So these stones shall be a memorial to the sons of Israel forever.’

What does that mean? You’re to be a man of God who fights God’s battles. And when you see God do tremendous things in your life and through you, you write them down. You set them down. You remember them, so that when you go to your children, you can say, I saw this. God did this. God delivered me here. God was faithful here. God changed me here.

Guys, this is all about God. And this is all about eternity. It’s not about your best life now. It’s all about Him. Every last bit of it. It’s all about Him.

Now, Ephesians 6:4, ‘Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.’

He’s not commanding this to Sunday school teachers, youth leaders, or anything like that. It’s the father’s primary responsibility. My primary responsibility as a man is to know Christ. After that, it’s my wife. It’s my primary responsibility. After that, it’s my children. After that, it’s the ministry. And that’s the way it goes.

That’s the way it has to be. Now, you may not be in the ministry when you graduate from college, but it’s going to have to be the same thing for you. If you think that you have done well because you have provided financially for your family, you have no clue what the Scriptures say.

As a matter of fact, guys, this is the way it’s going to be if you’re going to be biblical. You have to work and work and work and work. And when you come home at 5 in the afternoon and you’re completely wore out, guess what? Your job just began. Then you’re going to pour your life into your family until you go to bed at 10 or 11 o’clock at night. You are not going to sit down and watch TV. You’re not going to go out with your buddies and do all kinds of things. You are going to pour your life into your wife and your children and you are going to go to bed tired. And you’re going to get up again and you’re going to do it all over again. This is the Christian life.

Not hanging out with your buddies, not doing all the stuff. No. It’s that. And it’s enough.

It’s enough. But then also realize this, a man so dedicated to his family, there will be a time, like for me, I love to hunt and things like that. My wife will just come to me and say, here, here’s your bow, here’s your arrows, here’s your tree stand, go out, have a good time, kill something. Because they know, they know, he’s poured out his life.

And she will learn as you have given your life to bless her, she will learn to give her life to bless you. Instead of you fighting for your territory and your free time and she fighting for her territory and her free time, it will be one of servanthood of blessing.

Now, it says in 1 Timothy 3:4, he must be one who manages, this is talking about a pastor, to superintend, preside over, or to be a protector or guardian. He must be one who manages his own household well, keeping his children under control with all dignity. Do you realize that if you cannot handle your wife and your children, you can’t even be in the ministry? If you can’t pour your life into them, you can’t even be in the ministry.

Now, I want to go on from here and I want to look at… I know you’re not children, but I want you to see the way things are supposed to be. Children must be convinced of their parent’s role. They must be.

A parent’s role is ordained by God and is the first law governing man’s relationship to man. If you look in the Ten Commandments, you see the first four have to do with God. The next six have to do with man. And the first of those six is the family. And this is what it says: “Honor your father and your mother that your days may be prolonged in the land which the Lord your God gives you.”

So the Lord does not kill you prematurely. But it means much more than that. Israel, you don’t obey this, the land will vomit you out. No culture can be sustained where the children are not honoring their father and their mother. No culture can exist.

Guess what? You know cultural experts are saying we’re on the brink of just disaster. We are.

Why? The Scripture is true. The Scripture is true. It’s just true.

And so it all begins with that. I used to work in a street ministry when I was in seminary. I lived for a while down with the street people. And I had to do kind of an informal questionnaire that I would give them. And I found out that the rebellion of every one of those street people began at home. Began at home. Against their parents. Sometimes their parents were not worthy. They were not dignified. They were horrible. But that’s where it began.

You see, and you have been raised in a culture where the absolute opposite is not only taught, it’s seen in almost every avenue of media. I mean, if you could just see, there was a time when I was a little boy where if you saw like a sitcom, Father Knows Best or Leave It to Beaver, the boys were always running wild, getting themselves in trouble, foolishness, and father would come in and straighten the situation out.

Now it’s just the reverse. Father and mother are idiots. And the young people know every way it’s supposed to go. You’ll see an entire sitcom with nothing but teenagers in a high school and you never even see the parents.

I’m telling you guys what the Apostle John tells us in 1 John: This whole world lies in the power of the evil one. And the whole thing is designed to circumvent, to destroy everything that God would be doing.

But here’s the problem. This is true. And I said it when many of them were present. The problem are the supposed men of God, pastors and preachers in our land. Instead of being men who know God, who walk with God, who spend time in prayer with God, who feed upon God’s Word, and who stand in courage, they’re little boys running around trying to find the next key to making their church big.

And because of these things, these things are never taught. You see, we need men who spend more time with God than they do in some church growth manual. Men who are not concerned so much about whether or not the people’s checkbook is balanced, but how will their soul do on the day they stand naked before God when they’re judged?

The big questions of culture and what’s happening. It is very probable that the world as you know it is going to dramatically change.

See, you can even see this in a microcosm. Let me just kind of shoot off here for a moment. Like when I talk to immigrants, whether they be Spanish immigrants, immigrants from India, or whatever, you know what they’ll tell me? And all of us basically came here as immigrants one way or another.

This is what they’ll tell me. I was in a hotel a few years ago and an Indian family owned the hotel from India. And I was talking to them and telling them how much I admired because they will buy a hotel, the whole family will live in the hotel, they’ll make sacrifices, they’ll do all these things in order to build up something for their family.

And I was telling the lady who was working the front desk how much I admired their dedication. And she said yes. But the only problem is, she goes, it doesn’t get passed on.

And I said ‘What do you mean?’

She goes, ‘Our children — they care more about expensive tennis shoes. They don’t know how to work. All they want to do is have cool clothes, play video games, and they’re just like the people in the West. They’re just like your young people.’ And she goes, ‘So this will not be sustained. We’re losing our children.’

You see, I come from a generation of men who worked around the clock. Now, they did not do so biblically. But they were men who starved when they were kids. They were men who went to war. They were men who were happy to flip burgers 12 hours a day if it just meant they could eat.

But then there’s a problem. What is that problem? The next generation comes. And it’s more prosperous and more spoiled and weaker. And it’s involved in extracurricular activities and games and entertainment. And then that was my generation. Then your generation comes behind that.

Guys, this isn’t new. This happens all the time throughout history. I would venture to say that our society will not be able to sustain your children. That at that point, we become so weak, effeminate, that we will not be able to even hold together as a society. And we will be taken over.

You see, government functions this way. Big government. When people are willing to surrender all their rights because they no longer want to assume responsibility for themselves, then they are a people ruled over by a tyrant.

You see, you’re living in an age great men are born out of horrible crisis. You’re living in an age where you can rise to the top, where you can decide you’re not going to live for yourself, you’re not going to live for entertainment, you’re not going to live to get your best life now, you are going to live for eternity, for something much larger than yourself, to save peoples, to save kingdoms.

My little boy, I remember when Ian was about five years old, he knew I always traveled into strange places whether it was Nepal or Peru or England or just somewhere. I was always somewhere. He was like, daddy, what do you do?

And I said, oh, you wouldn’t believe me.

He said, no, really, what do you do?

I said, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.

He said, no, daddy, what do you do?

I said, I fight dragons.

And what am I saying? Son, there’s a war going on. There is a dragon. He’s worse than anything you could ever imagine. And every day, hundreds of thousands of people are being killed. Every day, nations are crumbling. Every day, families are falling apart. Every day, tens of thousands of children are starving to death. All of it because of this dragon. And I have given my life to fight him.

You have to decide what you’re going to do with your life. This is very, very important.

Now, I want us to take just for a minute a deeper look at a… and we’ll finish here. We’re just going to run down through a few things. In the next one, we’re going to get to the idea of you and a mate.

But I want us to look just for a minute at a deeper look at Ephesians 6:1-3: ‘Children, obey your parents.’ The word means to listen to, to hearken to, to one who on hearing the knock at a door comes to listen who it is. The duty of a porter. It’s someone who lives in obedience to someone else.

Now, you are no longer children. There’s a heresy out there that says children, obey your parents in the Lord. And it means, they say, if you’re 45, you should still be obeying your dad. That’s not true. You should still be honoring your dad. You’re a man in your own right or you’re supposed to be. You’d be making decisions.

But here’s what you need to understand. The whole time that my children are under my house, they’re in my house under my roof, I am to pour my life into them. I am to sacrifice for them. I am to teach them the Scriptures. I’m going to lead them by example. And their responsibility is to honor me. To obey me. To hearken to my voice. And that’s a terrible responsibility on my side.

Because if my children do obey me, then everything that falls will be accounted as my responsibility on judgment day. If my children are doing what they’re supposed to be doing, obeying me, then I am going to be responsible on the day of judgment for the way that I have led my children.

Now, in the Lord, it says, ‘obey your parents in the Lord’ in the context of the Lord’s authority. I don’t just with a whim command my children to do certain things. No, I let my children know that I am under authority and I am sharing with them the same authority that I’m under. That means that this isn’t my game. I’m not king. I’m someone under authority. God’s Word.

And, since I have to obey this Word and this Word has brought such blessing in my life, in my house, they will obey this Word. They will obey.

Now, ‘for this is right’. It’s righteous. It’s observing divine law. It’s pleasing to God. Honor your father and your mother. See them as valuable. Extremely valuable. That’s what it means to honor something, to give it weight, to give it worth.

You say, ‘Well, my father’s an unbeliever. My father’s a drunk.’ That may be true, but whenever you can, and as much as you can, you must seek to honor him. Even ask his opinion, want to know what he thinks. To go to him first of all. Doesn’t mean you’ll agree every time. It doesn’t mean you do what he says all the time now that you’re men. But it means that you will honor your father. You will show value to him. You will show value to your mother.

‘which is the first commandment with a promise, so that it may be well with you and that you may live long on the earth.’ A reference to a blessed life without fear. Fear of divine judgment.

You see, you can dishonor your mother and your father, and that can have effects upon the entirety of your life. Not only that, it can affect your children and your children’s children. And on down, do you realize that? That your rebellion can be carried through down through the ages.

Can you imagine Solomon come to his dad, king David? I’d say Solomon is 15. He says, ‘Dad, I’ve been noticing that girls are pretty.’

David goes, ‘Well, Solomon, that’s good. You know, they are. It’s a good thing. It’s a manly thing. It’s something that you ought to do. That’s wonderful.’

He said, ‘Yeah, dad, I’ve got a lot of questions. How did you meet mom?’ Can you imagine? How did you meet mom?

‘Well, I was walking out on the palace rooftop one day and I looked over and I saw her bathing.’

‘Well, I’m sure, dad, that she covered herself up and you turned away.’

‘Well, actually, no, I didn’t turn away. I called for her to come over to the palace.’

‘Yeah, but dad, I guess that’s okay. After all, you know, she’s single.’

‘Well, actually, no, she was married.’

‘But dad, I’m sure when you saw that, you must have knew she had a husband then.’

‘Well, no, I killed her husband.’

And so look at Solomon after him. How many concubines? How many wives?

You see, what we do has a tremendous impact on those who follow us. A tremendous impact.

Now, also, in this obedience with our parents, we want to move beyond obedience to honor.

Leviticus 19:32, “…you shall rise up before the grey-headed and honor the aged, and you shall revere your God. I am the Lord.”

You know, one of the things that I hear men say is they’re blown away. I’m blown away sometimes when someone even knows how to shake my hand. When a young guy under 30 even knows how to shake my hand. Or even knows how to honor me. Because we come from an age of no honor.

It always just cracks me up sometimes. If I talk to John MacArthur, I say, Dr. MacArthur? I say, yes, sir?

And then I hear all these 19-year-olds, well, I was talking to John the other day. I just want to slap them. Where’s the sense of honor? Where’s the sense of honor? To honor the aged.

I’ve been told that Susanna Wesley, who raised John and Charles Wesley, that in order to teach her children how to honor an adult, that she walked in and out of the room one day, I think it was something like 100, 150 times, so that when she got up out of her seat, they stopped playing and they stood up and looked at her until she left the room.

And then they went back playing, and then when she came in the room, they said stand up, stop playing, and look at her.

See, I know that this may sound just absolutely asinine to you, but we are a people who no longer honor anything. And that’s very, very, very sad. Very sad. We’ve lost so much.

Now, I just want to look at the divine penalties for a second of disobeying authority.

Jude 1:6, ‘The angels who did not keep their own domain, keep or stay within their own position of authority, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day.’

God has set structures of authority. And apart from the violation of the human conscience, we are to obey that authority. And that has to do with our parents. And every time I say that, some kid will go, what if my dad tells me to build a bomb and blow up the Empire State Building?

I always ask him, I say, when was the last time your dad asked you to do that?

Your problem with your father is not some unethical thing he asks you to do. Your problem with your father is when he tells you to take out the trash, clean your room, you see. We’re always looking for a loophole of not submitting.

Deuteronomy 21:18-21, ‘If any man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father or his mother, and when they chastise him, he will not even listen to them, then his father and mother shall seize him and bring him out to the elders of the city at the gateway of his hometown. They shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death. So you shall remove the evil from your midst and all Israel will hear of it in fear.’

Now you say that is just insane. Obviously, Scripture does not care about human life?

Ok, let me ask you a question. Since we allow absolute rebellion in the family, rebellion against authority, how many people have died as a consequence of that? I submit to you infinitely more. Not that we should be doing this. This was under a special economy of God, a special dispensation, a special thing going on.

But at the same time, you need to see this is a crime that will destroy society, and yet it is the very crime that is promoted in our society and our culture today.

Ok? Now, when we come back, what we’re going to talk about is this whole idea of you being a young man and the idea of a mate, of a future wife, of things that may help you understand biblically where you ought to be.

For Further Reading:

The Heart of the Gospel: Paul Washer (Full Transcript)

Knowledge of God: Paul Washer (Full Transcript)

Four Pillars of Walking With God: Paul Washer (Full Transcript)

The Depravity of Man: Paul Washer (Full Transcript)

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