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Voddie Baucham - (Biblical Family): Biblical Manhood - Part 1 · Voddie Baucham Sermons

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Speaker 1: Yah h h.
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Speaker 2: It's my honor to introduce our next speaker, doctor Vote
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Speaker 2: Backam Vote. He comes from it. He came from Houston,
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Speaker 2: Texas today. That's where he and his family are located.
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Speaker 2: Vote is a world renowned speaker. He speaks at conferences,
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Speaker 2: he's a pastor, he's a biblical teacher.
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Speaker 1: Uh.
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Speaker 2: He's got some books out on a table.
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Speaker 1: I'm read.
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Speaker 2: I'm reading Family Driven Faith right now. It's outstanding. And Uh,
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Speaker 2: he's an amazing.
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Speaker 1: Man of God.
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Speaker 2: I've heard him speak at some different venues before, and
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Speaker 2: I think you're going to be really blessed. He's gonna
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Speaker 2: be talking about biblical manhood and womanhood, and I think
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Speaker 2: you're going to learn a lot.
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Speaker 1: So let's woken up voting. H Well, good evening to
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Speaker 1: teach you folks in western Kentucky. Little something about Texas hospitality.
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Speaker 1: Good evening. Oh that was much better. It's good to
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Speaker 1: be here tonight. I have been excited about this for
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Speaker 1: quite some time. I'm always excited to be in the
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Speaker 1: presence of Paul Washer. It's the man that I've always
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Speaker 1: admired greatly, and a man who is becoming a dear friend.
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Speaker 1: And in these days where the gospel is so polluted.
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Speaker 1: It is refreshing and encouraging and challenging to hear a
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Speaker 1: man proclaimant without apology and with incredible clarity and passion
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Speaker 1: and boldness, and it is what we desperately need in
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Speaker 1: our day. It's interesting, you know that Paul talked about
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Speaker 1: the Puritans and the into the writing of the Puritans
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Speaker 1: and his own life, and one of the things that
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Speaker 1: really has knit our hearts together is that same influence
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Speaker 1: in my life of the writings of the Puritans in
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Speaker 1: a number of areas, but specifically in the areas of
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Speaker 1: the applications of the Gospel to everyday life and the
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Speaker 1: application of gospel theory of biblical manhood, Biblical womanhood, and
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Speaker 1: the family. There are two sides of my life. There
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Speaker 1: is the one side, which is the professional side you
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Speaker 1: heard a little bit about this evening, where I serve
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Speaker 1: as a pastor and as a professor, and my area
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Speaker 1: of specialty is the area of cultural apologetics. Apologetics is
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Speaker 1: just a fancy word that means the defense of the faith.
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Speaker 1: Comes from the Greek word apologia, which is used in
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Speaker 1: One Peter chapter three when Peter says that we're to
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Speaker 1: always be ready to give an answer to anyone who
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Speaker 1: asks us the reason for the hope that is within us,
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Speaker 1: and that word for the reasoned response that we're to
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Speaker 1: give as apologia, and from that word we get our
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Speaker 1: word apologetics. And so it's giving a reasoned response for
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Speaker 1: why it is we believe what we believe. Cultural apologetics
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Speaker 1: is the term really popularized by Francis Schaeffer, and it's
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Speaker 1: the idea of applying that discipline to contemporary cultural issues.
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Speaker 1: And so that's the one side of my life. The
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Speaker 1: other side of my life is the place where I
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Speaker 1: am Bridget's husband, and Jasmine and Trey and Elijah and
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Speaker 1: Asher's father and the father of all of the other
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Speaker 1: arrows yet to come. And it is in the place
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Speaker 1: where those two areas merge together where I've been spending
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Speaker 1: a lot of my time lately, where cultural apologetics meets
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Speaker 1: the biblical understanding of manhood and womanhood and the family
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Speaker 1: from a biblical theological perspective, Because I believe the culture
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Speaker 1: has sold us a bill of goods as it relates
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Speaker 1: to what manhood is, as it relates to what womanhood is,
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Speaker 1: and as it relates to what the family is. We've
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Speaker 1: been lied to hoodwind bamboozled. Okay, we've been sold to
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Speaker 1: Bill of Goods. As it relates to the Biblical family
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Speaker 1: and what it is to be a man, what it
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Speaker 1: is to be a woman, we just don't get it.
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Speaker 1: We don't know. Tonight we'll look at biblical manhood. Tomorrow
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Speaker 1: we'll look at biblical womanhood. But again, it's something that
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Speaker 1: we have failed to understand in the biblical context, just
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Speaker 1: like these issues of the Gospel, these things that are
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Speaker 1: clear in the scriptures, but because we've heard the polluted
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Speaker 1: versions so often and for so long, the truth is
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Speaker 1: almost foreign to us. It is that way as well
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Speaker 1: when it comes to these ideas of biblical manhood and womanhood.
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Speaker 1: And we'll see that as we journey through our time
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Speaker 1: together over these next couple of days and looking at
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Speaker 1: biblical manhood. I want us to go back to the beginning.
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Speaker 1: I want us to look in the book of Genesis,
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Speaker 1: if you will open your bibles with me to Genesis
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Speaker 1: chapter two. In Genesis chapter one we have creation overview,
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Speaker 1: and Genesis chapter two things slow down a little bit,
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Speaker 1: and rather than just a general synopsis, we get some
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Speaker 1: more specifics about creation, and specifically about the creation of
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Speaker 1: man and woman, and we see this here beginning at
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Speaker 1: verse fifteen. I want us to see this here in
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Speaker 1: Genesis chapter two, in verse fifteen. And remember this is
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Speaker 1: before the fall. This is before corruption has entered in,
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Speaker 1: not long before, because it doesn't take long for corruption
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Speaker 1: to itter in for the fall to enter in. But
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Speaker 1: this is what it looks like in perfection. This is
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Speaker 1: not what it looks like when it's marred and it's
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Speaker 1: being restored. It's interesting, we're now looking at the other
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Speaker 1: side of the coin. We've looked at this picture of
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Speaker 1: God bringing about restoration, of God recreating man, if you will,
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Speaker 1: through this process of salvation, this process of regeneration. But
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Speaker 1: now we're gonna look at the other side of the coin.
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Speaker 1: We're gonna look at this picture of perfection. We're gonna
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Speaker 1: look at Man in his pristine form. And what we
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Speaker 1: see there just might surprise you, because again we've been
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Speaker 1: sold to Bill Goods. Look with me. Beginning in verse
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Speaker 1: fifteen of chapter two of Genesis, the Lord God took
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Speaker 1: the man and put him in the garden of Eden
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Speaker 1: to work it and keep it. The Lord God commanded
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Speaker 1: the man, saying, you may surely eat of every tree
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Speaker 1: of the garden. But of the Tree of the knowledge
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Speaker 1: of good and evil you shall not eat, for in
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Speaker 1: the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.
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Speaker 1: Verse eighteen. Then the Lord God said, it is not
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Speaker 1: good for the man to be alone. I love that verse,
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Speaker 1: I really do. Lord God said it is not good
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Speaker 1: that the man should be alone. I just have this
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Speaker 1: picture in my mind of God creating man, and there's Adam.
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Speaker 1: And God looks at Adam and says, that way ain't
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Speaker 1: gonna make it by hisself. I will make him a
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Speaker 1: helper fit for him. So out of the ground, the
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Speaker 1: Lord God formed every beast of the field and every
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Speaker 1: bird of the heavens, and brought them to the man
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Speaker 1: to see what he would call them. We just pause
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Speaker 1: here for a moment. Every type of animal that God
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Speaker 1: had created he brought before this man, and this man
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Speaker 1: named them all. We don't have minds like that anymore.
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Speaker 1: Can you imagine that? Naming all the animals. And you
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Speaker 1: couldn't just go that's four legged, upright crawling thing, because
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Speaker 1: there's a whole bunch of those, you know, each one
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Speaker 1: of these he named. That's the kind of mind this
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Speaker 1: man had. And even with a mind like that God
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Speaker 1: said wasn't good for him to be alone. And whatever
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Speaker 1: the man called every living creature, that was its name.
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Speaker 1: The man gave names to all the livestock and the
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Speaker 1: birds of the heavens, and to every beast of the field.
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Speaker 1: But for Adham there was not found a helper fit
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Speaker 1: for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep
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Speaker 1: to fall upon the man, and while he slept, took
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Speaker 1: one of his ribs and closed up the place with flesh.
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Speaker 1: And the rib that the Lord God had taken from
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Speaker 1: the man he made into a woman and brought her
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Speaker 1: to the man. Then the man and said, this is
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Speaker 1: at last bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.
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Speaker 1: She shall be called Eshah because she was taken out
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Speaker 1: of Ish and the Hebrew it's a beautiful picture that's
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Speaker 1: painted there by the words that he uses. She should
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Speaker 1: be called a woman because she was taken out of man.
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Speaker 1: She should be called eshah because she was taken out
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Speaker 1: of ish. That she's mine, she's part of me. Next verse,
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Speaker 1: therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother
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Speaker 1: and hold fast to his wife, and then shall become
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Speaker 1: one flesh. And the man and his wife were both
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Speaker 1: naked and were not ashamed. And here's this beautiful picture
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Speaker 1: of man in pristine conditions. And there are some things
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Speaker 1: that are present here that some may find surprising, and
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Speaker 1: as it relates to biblical manhood, these things are absolutely essential.
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Speaker 1: If a man wants to call himself a man from
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Speaker 1: a biblical perspective, the seeing things have to be in place. Now. Unfortunately,
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Speaker 1: at first we got to do some deep programming here.
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Speaker 1: I want you to understand what has happened to us.
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Speaker 1: We define manhood, you know, it has been said by
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Speaker 1: the three bees. Okay, we define manhood on the ball field,
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Speaker 1: in the bedroom and by the billfold in our culture.
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Speaker 1: That's how we've been taught to define manhood on the
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Speaker 1: ball field in the bedroom and by the billfold. That's it.
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Speaker 1: How does he perform athletically, how does he perform sexually?
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Speaker 1: How is he with the ladies? And how much money
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Speaker 1: does he have? That's how we define manhood in our culture,
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Speaker 1: whether we like it or not. And unfortunately, for those
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Speaker 1: of us who claim to be followers of Christ, and
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Speaker 1: in large part because of what we've just heard, our
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Speaker 1: definitions are no different. We define manhood by the three
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Speaker 1: bees and the homeschool follower, father of four. My oldest
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Speaker 1: son is not with me today. He travels with me.
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Speaker 1: I travel about eight days a month any less, and
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Speaker 1: be hard for me to feed my family any more,
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Speaker 1: be hard for me to say with a straight face
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Speaker 1: that they're the most important thing in my world. But
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Speaker 1: I travel about eight days a month, and my oldest
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Speaker 1: son travels with me. He does that full time. So
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Speaker 1: from the time my oldest son became thirteen years old,
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Speaker 1: I became his teacher. When he was thirteen, he went
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Speaker 1: through a manhood ceremony, and one of the parts of
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Speaker 1: that entering into manhood was his mother turned over the
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Speaker 1: books and I became his teacher of all of his
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Speaker 1: subjects and more particularly, more specifically his discipler. He is
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Speaker 1: my disciple. There is no man in the world that
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Speaker 1: is more important for me to disciple than my son.
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Speaker 1: And so as a result of that, he spends his
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Speaker 1: time traveling with me. And the interesting thing about that
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Speaker 1: is I get a lot of questions, several questions. I get.
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Speaker 2: You.
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Speaker 1: People look at me and they go, you know, you're
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Speaker 1: a pretty big guy, look like you maybe you know,
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Speaker 1: you know your ballplayer or something like that. So yeah, yeah, yep, yep,
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Speaker 1: been there, done that. Okay, it's great. You know son,
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Speaker 1: you know, he's fourteen, he's you know, pretty big kid.
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Speaker 1: And I'm just wondering, you know, with you guys doing this,
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Speaker 1: how's he gonna play ball? When people say that to me,
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Speaker 1: here's what I hear. I want to know how your
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Speaker 1: son is going to be able to worship at the
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Speaker 1: altar of the sport God, to which I respond, who cares?
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Speaker 1: I don't. It's meaningless, It's absolutely meaningless. We don't need
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Speaker 1: another ballplayer, we don't. We need men with trained minds.
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Speaker 1: We need men with godly biblical character. We need men
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Speaker 1: with multi generational vision. We need men who commit themselves
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Speaker 1: and all their faculties to the glory of Almighty God.
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Speaker 1: I am raising a warrior for Christ. That's what I'm raising,
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Speaker 1: Not an entertainer. That's not what I'm raising. A warrior
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Speaker 1: for Christ who cares. Well. You know, team sports they
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Speaker 1: build character. Really, do you really believe that? Do you
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Speaker 1: really believe that? Because if you believe that, let's test
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Speaker 1: your premise team sports build character. That means guys who
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Speaker 1: spend more time in team sports ought to have more
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Speaker 1: character than guys who don't So the guys in this
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Speaker 1: culture with the greatest character ought to be in the NFL,
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Speaker 1: in the NBA. Is that your final answer? That's ridiculous,
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Speaker 1: It's absolutely ridiculous. Besides that, how did George Washington build
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Speaker 1: a character? He didn't play Team sports? Adams Jefferson? I'll
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Speaker 1: go you one better? How Jesus build character? Hm?
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Speaker 2: Was it?
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Speaker 1: Pop Warner? See? We think like that? Why? Because how
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Speaker 1: do you measure manhood according to our culture? The ball field,
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Speaker 1: the bedroom and the bill phone. That's how you measure
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Speaker 1: manhood according to our culture. And that's how we've learned
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Speaker 1: to measure manhood. I mean, I think sports are evil
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Speaker 1: or that I didn't say that. That's not what I said.
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Speaker 1: That's not what I said. But once we step back
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Speaker 1: for a moment and ask ourselves some questions, we realize
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Speaker 1: that not only is that a limited understanding of what
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Speaker 1: a man is, but it also doesn't come close to
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Speaker 1: approaching scriptural truth. What is a man? And here's what's
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Speaker 1: even less fortunate. There are women walking around, some of
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Speaker 1: you in this room, and you'll be married in the
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Speaker 1: not too distant future, and our culture has said to you,
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Speaker 1: you measure manhood by what the ball field, the bedroom,
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Speaker 1: the billfold, And that's what you're looking for, claiming that
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Speaker 1: you're following Christ. But what you're looking for in a
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Speaker 1: man is not a reflection of biblical manhood and biblical character,
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Speaker 1: but a reflection of our carnal culture. What top of
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Speaker 1: marriage do you think you're gonna have? How long is
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Speaker 1: the ball field gonna satisfy you, ladies? We don't get
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Speaker 1: to do that long. How long is the billfold going
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Speaker 1: to satisfy you, ladies? Because certainly all women with rich
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Speaker 1: husbands are constantly happy. Yeah, right, the bedroom will satisfy you, ladies.
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Speaker 1: So if that's the measure that our culture has given us,
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Speaker 1: no wonder those who look for that and a man
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Speaker 1: end up with disillusionment quickly. But if it's not that,
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Speaker 1: then what is it? Three things we see here, even
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Speaker 1: before the fall, Three things that a man must be
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Speaker 1: committed to if he's going to reflect biblical manhood, at
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Speaker 1: least these three. And this is the minimalist version here.
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Speaker 1: All right, We could go into a lot more than this,
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Speaker 1: but this will encompass all that we need to understand
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Speaker 1: for here and for now. Three things. Number one, he
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Speaker 1: must be committed to God honoring labor. He must be
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Speaker 1: committed to God honoring labor. God does not abide lazy men,
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Speaker 1: and neither should we. You can't say amen, You ought
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Speaker 1: to say ouch. He must be committed to God honoring labor, ladies. Tonight,
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Speaker 1: what I'm going to do for you, ladies, is I'm
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Speaker 1: going to speak to you as a father. Okay, I
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Speaker 1: have a seventeen year old daughter. We talk about these
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Speaker 1: things a lot. My primary goal and my seventeen year
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Speaker 1: old daughter's life is preparing her and partnering with her
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Speaker 1: to see to it that she has a biblically qualified,
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Speaker 1: well suited mate for marriage. My number one goal in
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Speaker 1: my seventeen year old daughter's life. It's my job to
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Speaker 1: protect her from unqualified, worthless men. It's my job as
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Speaker 1: her father. And tonight, ladies, I'll do that for you,
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Speaker 1: just for the time that we have together, all right,
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Speaker 1: I will play that role for you tonight. I will
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Speaker 1: treat you like I treat my own daughter, And I
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Speaker 1: say to my own daughter, do not abide a lazy man.
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Speaker 1: Don't look twice at a lazy man. If he is
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Speaker 1: not committed to God honoring labor, he is not worthy
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Speaker 1: of your hand. In marriage. I will not I will
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Speaker 1: not authorize that marriage. I'm not signing off on it.
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Speaker 1: Matter of fact, I refuse to allow that kind of
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Speaker 1: man to get close enough for my daughter to even
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Speaker 1: become interested in him. Well, why are you gonna do that?
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Speaker 1: You know, when she goes out on these days and
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Speaker 1: she just she goes out on what Find that one
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Speaker 1: in the text. Find it in the text. Find that concept,
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Speaker 1: the modern American dating concept in the text, it's not there.
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Speaker 1: You have betrothal, you have marriage, You have relationships between
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Speaker 1: individuals who intend to mary. You don't have this idea
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Speaker 1: of people who just kick it because they like each
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Speaker 1: other for right. Now, that's how you end up with
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Speaker 1: the wrong one. You get involved before you evaluate. That's
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Speaker 1: a problem. That's a problem. And again, as a father,
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Speaker 1: you know, here's the picture that our culture paints, our
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Speaker 1: picture paints this culture. A father is doing his job.
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Speaker 1: If you know, when a young man comes over, a
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Speaker 1: suitor comes over for his teenage daughter, he sits down,
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Speaker 1: you know, and he's he's got this intimidating polls and
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Speaker 1: you stick your chest way out and you bawl all up,
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Speaker 1: you know, and you take your rifle out and you're
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Speaker 1: cleaning your rifle, you know, and you got to go
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Speaker 1: get on from snuff right there, and you spend your
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Speaker 1: stuff and you clean your rifle and stuff. And what
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Speaker 1: time he's supposed to have our home? You know what time?
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Speaker 1: You don't you scare him up real good? That's our
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Speaker 1: culture's picture, and we think a man's doing a good
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Speaker 1: job if that's what he does before his teenage daughter
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Speaker 1: goes out with a young man. Let me just change
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Speaker 1: the scenario, just briefly, just slightly change the scenario, same picture,
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Speaker 1: except now I have a two hundred thousand dollars Lamborghini
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Speaker 1: test Rosa in front of my house, and a snot no,
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Speaker 1: seventeen eighteen year old boy who has not yet walked
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Speaker 1: into manhood because our culture hasn't asked him to, is
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Speaker 1: going to come over my house to drive my two
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Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars Lamborghini Testoso. Am I going to be
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Speaker 1: satisfied just cleaning my gun and scaring him real good
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Speaker 1: and then giving him the keys. See here's what bothers me.
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Speaker 1: Our culture has taught you to value a two hundred
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Speaker 1: thousand dollar car more than a man's daughter. That's sick.
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Speaker 1: You give your two hundred thousand dollar car to a
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Speaker 1: seventeen year old boy. You're an idiot. But when I
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Speaker 1: said that about my daughter, you thought I was crazy.
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Speaker 1: Why you've been lied too. That's why I'd much sooner
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Speaker 1: give up the keys to a two hundred thousand dollar
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Speaker 1: car than to take a chance on some young man
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Speaker 1: manipulating and abusing the emotions of my daughter. Since you're
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Speaker 1: playing that role tonight, that means you, ladies. The first
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Speaker 1: thing we're looking for as we partner together as father
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Speaker 1: and daughter is a man who is committed committed to
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Speaker 1: God honoring labor. And we'll look at each of these
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Speaker 1: in turn in the text. Secondly, a man who is
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Speaker 1: committed to God's law. Committed to God's law, and I
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Speaker 1: know what you say, Well, wait a minute, wait a minute,
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Speaker 1: wait a minute. This is before the fall. There is
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Speaker 1: no law. You hold on to that idea, all right. Thirdly,
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Speaker 1: this man must be committed committed to the priority of
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Speaker 1: the family. To the priority of the family. Okay, let's
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Speaker 1: look at these three in turn. First of all, committed
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Speaker 1: to God honoring labor. The Lord God took the man
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Speaker 1: and put him in the garden of Eden. Now this
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Speaker 1: the garden of Eden is the perfect man is in
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Speaker 1: the perfect environment. A lot of people think of work
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Speaker 1: as something evil, as something bad, as something odious. It
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Speaker 1: must be the result of the fall, right I mean,
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Speaker 1: isn't that the case?
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Speaker 2: No?
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Speaker 1: No, no. He puts them in there to work it
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Speaker 1: and keep it. There's work before the fall. It's not
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Speaker 1: work that's a product of the fall. It's our attitude
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Speaker 1: toward work that's a product of the fall. Luculd be
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Speaker 1: in chapter three. In chapter three, you see the fall,
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Speaker 1: and after that you see these three curses. And look
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Speaker 1: at verse seventeen. To Adam, he said, because you have
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Speaker 1: listened to the voice of your wife, by the way,
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Speaker 1: stopped there for a moment. Notice he didn't say, Adam,
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Speaker 1: because you ate from the fruit of the tree. Hey,
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Speaker 1: I don't write the mail, I just deliver it. God said,
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Speaker 1: because you listened to that woman, take over what is work?
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Speaker 1: All right? Because you listen to the voice of You're
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Speaker 1: right by the way. I'll explain that later. Don't worry, ladies,
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Speaker 1: and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you,
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Speaker 1: you shall not eat of it. Cursed is the ground
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Speaker 1: because of you in pain, you shall eat of it.
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Speaker 1: All the days of your life, thorns and thistles, it
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Speaker 1: shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat of
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Speaker 1: the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face.
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Speaker 1: You shall eat bread till you return to the ground.
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Speaker 1: Out of it you were taken. For you are dust,
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Speaker 1: and to dust you shall return. It's the toil and
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Speaker 1: the labor and the hardship of work that is a
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Speaker 1: result of the fall, not work itself. Not work itself.
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Speaker 1: You know, you hear about the Protestant work ethic, this
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Speaker 1: idea of the Puritan work ethic, that in all labor
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Speaker 1: there is gain, That labor is a reward in itself.
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Speaker 1: That's something that's foreign to us. But laziness, sloth is sinful,
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Speaker 1: it's godless. Turn with me, if you will look to
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Speaker 1: the right with me and look at Proverbs. Be Proverbs
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Speaker 1: chapter six, Proverbs chapter six and verse six. Go to
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Speaker 1: the ant, oh sluggard, consider her ways and be wise.
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Speaker 1: Without having any chief officer or ruler. She prepares her
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Speaker 1: bread in summer and gathers her food and harvest. So
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Speaker 1: here's the ant. Nobody's saying, go do this, go do that,
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Speaker 1: No chief, no nothing. The act just doesn consider the ant,
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Speaker 1: think about that verse nine, How long will you lie there,
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Speaker 1: oh sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep? A
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Speaker 1: little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the
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Speaker 1: hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like
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Speaker 1: a robber, and want like an armed man. Turn to
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Speaker 1: the right. Look at chapter twenty six in this same book.
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Speaker 1: In verse thirteen, the sluggard says, there is a lion
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Speaker 1: in the road. Laziness will make you a coward. Laziness
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Speaker 1: will make you a coward. You'll always find an excuse
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Speaker 1: not to work, ladies, And you're running up on men
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Speaker 1: who find excuses not to work, or men who always
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Speaker 1: need somebody to tell them what to do and when
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Speaker 1: to do it, or a man who's diligent. Which is it?
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Speaker 1: Biblical manhood is characterized I love for God, honoring labor.
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Speaker 1: Look at the next part of this. As a door
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Speaker 1: turns on its hinges, so does the sluggard on his bed.
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Speaker 1: By the way, you notice something similar between chapter six
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Speaker 1: and chapter twenty six. A little sleep, a little slumber.
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Speaker 1: You see in chapter six here you see, like a
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Speaker 1: door turning on the hinges, there's a sluggard in his bed. Ladies,
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Speaker 1: you got a man who doesn't want to get up
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Speaker 1: in the morning. Hm. I don't write the mail, I
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Speaker 1: just deliver it. That's laziness. It's ungodly. It's ungodly. Look
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Speaker 1: in the next part of this, the sluggard buries his
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Speaker 1: hand in the dish. It wears him out to bring
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Speaker 1: it back to his mouth. That's just lazy. I'm hungry,
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Speaker 1: what eat? What's wrong? I don't feel like bruing my
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Speaker 1: hand back up to me. That's lazy. Okay, that's the
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Speaker 1: picture that's painted here, so lazy that the effort to
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Speaker 1: bring the food and nourishment that he needs back to
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Speaker 1: in his mouth is not even there. By the way,
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Speaker 1: this is the epitome of all laziness. God says, if
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Speaker 1: you want to be sustained, labor and toil. So if
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Speaker 1: you are lazy, you are actually committed to your own destruction.
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Speaker 1: And ladies, if you end up with a lazy man,
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Speaker 1: you're committed to yours. Look at verse sixteen the slugger.
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Speaker 1: The sluggard is wiser in his own eyes than seven
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Speaker 1: men who can answer sensibly. He's always got an excuse
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Speaker 1: for his laziness, always got an excuse for his laziness.
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Speaker 1: He's wiser in his own eyes than seven men who
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Speaker 1: can answer sensibly. Now you line up seven men who
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Speaker 1: can just you ask him a question. Innay, boo boo boo,
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Speaker 1: boom bom, there's the answer. The lazy man. One thing
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Speaker 1: he's not lazy about is making excuses. That's ungodly. That
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Speaker 1: is not biblical manhood. A lazy man does not qualify
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Speaker 1: when we're looking for biblical manhood. Turned with me to
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Speaker 1: the right. I want you to see something else. Look
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Speaker 1: at the New Testament. Look at Second Thessalonians. I want
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Speaker 1: you to see something here in Second Tessalonians. Second Thessalonians,
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Speaker 1: Chapter three. Okay, that look right, because it's the wrong book.
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Speaker 1: And verse six. Now we command you brothers, in the
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Speaker 1: name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away
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Speaker 1: from any brother who is walking in idleness and not
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Speaker 1: in accord with the tradition that you received from us.
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Speaker 1: So the apostles taught the churches about laziness. Okay, this
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Speaker 1: is not some way out there unimportant issue. Here the
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Speaker 1: apostles themselves taught the churches about laziness. Verse seven. For
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Speaker 1: you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because
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Speaker 1: we were not idle when we were with you, nor
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Speaker 1: did we eat anyone's bread without paying for it. But
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Speaker 1: with toil and labor, we worked night and day that
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Speaker 1: we might not be a burden to any of you.
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Speaker 1: It was not because we do not have that right,
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Speaker 1: but to give you in ourselves an example to imitate.
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Speaker 1: So here's what the apostles are saying. We had every
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Speaker 1: right as apostles to come to you and say, because
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Speaker 1: we're teaching you the Word, and because your apostles, the
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Speaker 1: workman is worthy of us hire, you need to take
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Speaker 1: care of us because we're taking care of you spiritually.
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Speaker 1: But because laziness was so prevalent here in Thessalonika, they said,
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Speaker 1: in order to teach this church a lesson, we're not
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Speaker 1: going to take anything from them. We are going to
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Speaker 1: work in order to model for them what biblical manhood is.
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Speaker 1: So the apostles didn't receive the support in Thessalonika that
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Speaker 1: they could have asked for, and they did so in
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Speaker 1: order to demonstrate to this church a biblical work ethic.
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Speaker 1: Keep reading, for even when we were with you, we
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Speaker 1: would give you this command. If anyone is not willing
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Speaker 1: to work, let him not eat, for we hear that
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Speaker 1: some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work,
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Speaker 1: but busy bodies. Now such persons we command and encourage
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Speaker 1: in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly,
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Speaker 1: and to earn their own living.