Give Me A Man
1 Samuel 17:10 (NKJV) And the Philistine (Goliath) said, “I defy the armies of Israel this day; give me a man, that we may fight together.”
As we look at the world today, we quickly see the how they are trying to do away with masculine men. Telling the young men to be in touch with their feminine side. We are being bombarded with television shows that are taking the lead masculine role and filling it with women. And emasculating the men. They whip them down and will not allow them to be the leaders. The police programs now show little tiny girls taking down a big bad man. I stand six foot and go over 350 pounds and I doubt that I would even know if one of those little women hit me, other the less than whip me down, throw me over, and cuff me. I do not see that happening.
In the 1960’s and 70’s my Uncle Dee would often pay us a visit, I remember his after shave lotion smell to this day. It was “Old Spice,” and the advertisements at that time made me want to wear “Old Spice” too.
The scene was a manly man returning home from the sea, walking along the coast line town and all the women running to the doors, and windows to get a look at him. The man always had somewhat of a smile on his face. He would throw a bottle of “Old Spice” to their husbands and boyfriends. In the 80’s their ad even said “nothing say masculine like “Old Spice”.
Today’s ad has a big burly man sitting on a sofa with his wife, girlfriend, or significant other, whatever the case may be. And we see the wimp sitting there crying because the girl has used his body wash and bragged about how it makes him smooth and soft and she was using it up. How right he is SOFT. I do not want anything that is going to make me a blubbering idiot because I do not feel smooth like a little girl. Give me a break.
They even have one commercial in which he comes into a hotel restaurant and wants to know who used his bodywash. And when all three of the women sitting at the table start saying how good it is and passing it around, he grabs it from the last one takes some of her food and storms off. Really makes me want some of that sissy stuff.
We are seeing the demise of masculinity daily, at first little by little. But now with boldness. The world today is doing its best to remove the man and his role in the work place, the home, and even the local Church.
We need men. Men of God, and to be a Man of God one must be a Man of prayer, E.M. Bounds in his book “Power Through Prayer” one section says this;
Men of Prayer Are Needed
“WE are constantly on a stretch, if not on a strain, to devise new methods, new plans, new organizations to advance the church and secure enlargement and efficiency for the gospel. This trend of the day tends to lose sight of the man or sink the man in the plan or organization. God’s plan is to make much of the man, far more of him than of anything else. Men are God’s method. The church is looking for better methods; God is looking for better men. “There was a man sent from God whose name was John.” The dispensation that heralded and prepared the way for Christ was bound up in that man John. “Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.” The world’s salvation comes out of that cradled son…. This vital, urgent truth is one that this age of machinery is apt to for-get. The forgetting of it is as baneful on the work of God as would be the striking of the sun from his sphere. Darkness, confusion, and death would ensue.
What the church needs today is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men whom the Holy Spirit can use, men of prayer, men mighty in prayer. The Holy Spirit does not flow through methods, but through men. He does not come on machinery, but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men, men of prayer.”
We need not just Men but Men of God!
What does it mean to be a man of God This term is common in the Old Testament, but very rare in the New Testament. In the Old Testament it is used to refer to prophets’ example such as Samuel, 1 Sam. 9:6: Shemaiah of l Kings 12:22; Elijah in 1King 17;18; then we see Elisha, 2 Kings 4, Next Igdaliah, in Jeremiah 35:4. We also see the writers of Scripture such as Moses: Deuteronomy 33:1; David, in Nehemiah 12:24,36); We also see angelic messengers (Judg. 13:6,7). In all these cases, “man of God” refers to someone who is sent by God to speak for Him.
In the New Testament, “man of God” is used once to refer to Old Testament
prophets 2 Peter 1:21, once in a general sense 2 Timothy 3:16, 17, and only once specifically of an individual. This individual is Timothy. In 1 Timothy 6:11-16, Paul addresses Timothy as “Man of God.”
1 Timothy 6:11-16 (NKJV) 11 But you, O man of God, flee these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness. 12 Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. 13 I urge you in the sight of God who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus who witnessed the good confession before Pontius Pilate, 14 that you keep this commandment without spot, blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ’s appearing, 15 which He will manifest in His own time, He who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16 who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom be honor and everlasting power. Amen.
Why should “Timothy be singled out as the only man in the New Testament to be called a man of God?
First, in the tradition of the Old Testament men of God, he was one: Who was called by God to proclaim His word (2 Tim. 1:6).
Second, Timothy had been sent by Paul through the Holy Spirit to minister in Ephesus, in a very difficult and challenging situation: Paul called Timothy “man, of God” – in order to remind him of the awesome responsibility he bore to safeguard the truth against the false teachers in Ephesus, and also to encourage him with the reminder that he belonged to God, and therefore God was standing with him in his trials.
(1) A man of God is known by what he flees from. Verse 11, “But you, O man of God, flee these things…” what things?
1 Timothy 6:9-10 (NKJV) 9 But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. 10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
(2). A man of God is known by what he follows, after. Verse 11 “…pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness
(3) A man of God is known by what he fights for. Verse 12 “Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.”
(4) A man of God is known by what he is faithful to. Verse 13 and 14. “13 I urge you in the sight of God who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus who witnessed the good confession before Pontius Pilate, 14 that you keep this commandment without spot, blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ’s appearing,”
This is an excellent practical outline for every man of God who is called to speak divine truth.
The problem is we do not even have “The Man of God” in the modern Church today, now we are seeing even in the Churches a falling away of masculinity all in the name of getting along and coexisting with this failing world system. The Church now has Pastors that wears pink and purple pastels, has man buns and ponytails and makeup. They are more concerned with the paint colors of the interior and exterior building rather than the fact that the Church is dying under their so-called leadership. And we as Christians are call to do the very opposite of that.
2 Corinthians 6:16-18 (NKJV)
16 And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will dwell in them And walk among them. I will be their God, And they shall be My people.” 17 Therefore “Come out from among them And be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, And I will receive you.” 18 “I will be a Father to you, And you shall be My sons and daughters, Says the LORD Almighty.”
We are to set the example not play “follow the leader” if the leader is the world.
We need to choose the right path and be the manly man that people will follow. I remember a Pastor in a weekend retreat I was working say. “If you are the leader and you turn around and no one is following, then you are just a man going for a walk.” Not a leader.
The Former Pastor of my Church that I was raised in, Pastor Ben Turner was a Man’s Man. A real leader. If he asked you to do something like stucco the wall outside the foyer. He was there plastering the wall while I, a 15-year-old kid mixing the cement and brought it up for him as he did the work. The leader gets his hands dirty. I saw him day after day nailing up stain grade oak with my Dad. Or putting up ceiling grid and the tiles again with my Dad as I was cutting the tiles as they installed them. Not sitting high and mighty in the pulpit just telling people what to do and never doing anything but spend the money that he did not sacrifice for. We did not hire the work out; we did the work with our own hands. I would have followed that man anywhere he asks. I would have fought and died for him. Pastor Ben was a leader; the other guys, they are just a men going for a walk.
Men have a choice to make, either we will be the Man that Goliath is calling for and prepared for the battle against Satan. That is the man God is wanting us to be, or we can be what is being sold by the world today as a wimpy watered-down version of a man.
Without the Men in the Church leading, the Church will fall, it has been proven over and over. The same is for the family. Without the Godly influence of the Man in a family, in most cases it will fall. And in all cases, it makes a difference. We see across America, 2022 data indicates there are approximately 18.3 million children who live without a father in the home, comprising about 1 in 4 US children.
About 80% of single-parent homes are led by single mothers.
Children from single-parent families are twice as likely to suffer from mental health and behavioral problems as those living with married parents.
Children with an actively engaged father perform much better in school, some data shows that they are 33% percent less likely to repeat a class and 43% more likely to get A’s in school.
In a study of 56 school shootings, only 10 of the shooters (18%) were raised in a stable home with both biological parents. Eighty-two percent grew up in either an unstable family environment or grew up without both biological parents together.
So, we see not only Goliath call for a man, but also every fatherless child.
63% of youth suicides come from a fatherless home,
90% of all homeless and run-away children come from a fatherless home,
85% of all children exhibiting behavioral disorders come from a fatherless home,
80% of rapist motivated with displaced anger come from a fatherless home,
71% of all high school dropouts come from a fatherless home,
70% of juveniles in state operated institutions come from a fatherless home,
85% of all youths sitting prisons come from a fatherless home.
Do men matter? YES, now more than ever.
I saw the following graph on Facebook and it makes the point of how important the masculine Fathers is in the converting the family to following Christ. When you convert the Dad in most cases you get the whole family. With the Dad first 93% chance of the whole family. With the Mom it drops to 17% and when the children first it is down to 3.5%.
Not only the Church is needing men, real men. The family needing them just as much. As Tony Evans says, “the Church is made up of families”
And without the dad’s the family is NOT a God designed family.
We have a choice to make, one of the most masculine men in movies is Clint Eastwood. And in one of my favorite films is “The Outlaw Josey Wales,” in one of the later scenes Josey (Clint Eastwood) met up with the Comanche Chief Ten Bears (Will Sampson). We see Josey as he meets with Ten Bears to negotiate a truce:
Josey Wales:
You’ll be Ten Bears?
Ten Bears:
I AM Ten Bears.
Josey Wales:
I’m Josey Wales.
Ten Bears:
I have heard. You are the Grey Rider. You would not make peace with the Bluecoats. You may go in peace.
Josey Wales:
I reckon not. Got no place else to go
Ten Bears:
Then you will die.
Josey Wales:
I came here to die with you. Or live with you. Dying ain’t so hard for men like you and me. It’s living that’s hard when all you’ve ever cared about has been butchered or raped. Governments don’t live together–people live together. With governments, you don’t always get a fair word or a fair fight. Well, I’ve come here to give you either one or get either one from you. I came here like this so you’ll know my word of death is true, and my word of life is then true. The bear lives here, the wolf, the antelope, the Comanche. And so will we. Now we’ll only hunt what we need to live on, same as the Comanche does. And every spring, when the grass turns green, and the Comanche moves north, you can rest here in peace, butcher some of our cattle, and jerk beef for the journey. The sign of the Comanche, that will be on our lodge. That’s my word of life.
Ten Bears:
And your word of death?
Josey Wales:
It’s here in my pistols and there in your rifles. I’m here for either one.
Ten Bears:
These things you say we will have, we already have.
Josey Wales:
That’s true. I ain’t promising you nothing extra. I’m just giving you life and you’re giving me life. And I’m saying that men can live together without butchering one another.
Ten Bears:
It’s sad that governments are chiefed by the double tongues. There is iron in your words of death for all Comanche to see, and so there is iron in your words of life. No signed paper can hold the iron. It must come from men. The words of Ten Bears carries the same iron of life and death. It is good that warriors such as we meet in the struggle of life… or death. It shall be life. [Draws his knife and cuts his palm, and Josey does likewise. They then grasp hands with each other, becoming blood brothers] So will it be.
Josey Wales:
I reckon so.
What choice do you make as a man? Do you choose life or death?
Alistair Begg. Says it this way; “God’s word is the key by way of the invitation that comes. “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread he will live forever.” The instrument that God uses is His word so that we might come with faith, you see because when I teach the Bible to you it either becomes an instrument of life or becomes an instrument of death either we receive it and then inter into life or we rejected and we continue perishing.”
Hebrews 4:12 (NKJV) For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
I chose Life
So now Men you have a choice to make you either will choose “Life” to be a Man of God or you can choose “death” the way the of the world. And that is the way Satan is leading the man to go. For me;
“It shall be life.”
