It's Good To Be A Man Pt 1 / Douglas Wilson

some of you already thinking how can he be going up there to preach and he doesn't have a Bible with him well I have an iPhone and I have an iPad I have hundreds of Bibles up here it's a new day man all right all right so this message is entitled as I'm sure you all know it's good to be a man we know that it's important for us to work through this topic because the title caused a number of you to get your back up didn't it even whether you yeah I agree I agree with that but why do people say things that I agree with that embarrass me in a society where that kind of response is possible it's important to make such a point and to tie it in with the gospel it's important to make the point that it's good to be a man and it's important to tie it in with the gospel and if you thought the title implied that it is therefore bad to be a woman then it is also necessary to tie this top again with rudimentary logic which we hope I hope to get to it reminds me of a big controversy no joke this was a big controversy a year or so ago on college campuses all across America and this controversy was caused by some inflammatory anonymous Flyers that simply said it's okay to be white it's okay to be white now that was incendiary and people you know well but what people are not objecting to what said they're objecting to what you think they think you're going to say next all right so when you say it's good to be a man and what's what's coming where are they going what's the what's the trajectory well if we're Christians that should the trek trajectory must always be back to the word what does the Bible say we live in muddled times and so I do want to clarify one thing at the front end it is good to be a man provided you are someone who is supposed to be a man that's an important qualification it's good to be a man provided you ought to be if you're a woman it's bad to be a man if you're man it's bad to be a woman it is bad for little yellow chickadees to try to become a herd of buffalo this is because all such attempts will be unsuccessful by definition God's us one of the things we learn from Genesis is that God gives assignments God gives assignments and when God gives assignments he gives them by dividing my God is a divider so in the beginning God said let there be light and at that moment when God at the first moment first moment of creation God said let there be light that meant that at that instant there was not two things there was God and there was not God before it was only God now there's a division there's God and not God there's the creator and the created and there's an infinite division between creator and created but God was not done he goes on to divide evening and morning he goes on to divide light from darkness he goes on to divide land and sea and Moon male and female God just divides God keeps dividing we're gonna get to that we're gonna touch on that in just a moment when God created the world he repeatedly said that every feature of it was good so God's God creates the world and as he and if God says the whole created order is good which he says at the end of the creation week then that means that it's good to not be God right it's good for that which is not God to not be God it's good for that which is creaturely to remain creaturely it's good to be what God made you it's good to be - it's good to stand where God puts you it's good to remain at the station at the post where God assigned you so when God created the world he repeatedly said that every feature of it was good light and dark Genesis 1:4 Landin see Genesis 1:10 grass and herbs Genesis 1:12 Sun and Moon Genesis 1:18 and so on it is not until we get to Genesis 2:18 that God says that something was not good right everything good good good and then he gets to the not good that particular not good was pronounced over a solitary male so God created a bachelor and God said not good okay land landen see that's good light and dark that's good Sun and Moon that's good single guy not good now let's do you think I thought this talk was entitled it's good to be man yes that potat that particular not good was pronounced over a solitary male but not because he was bad but rather because he was incomplete not because he was bad but because God was not yet done so there is the good good good good not finished right do you see that good good good good not finished not good because I'm not done and we're gonna get to that part in a moment this there is an incompleteness about Adam even though everything's good even though there's no sin in the world even there even though there's no rebellion nothing like that God says it's not good so let's back up it's good to be a man there's three points I want to make here so it is good to be a man it is good to be a man with the proviso with the caveat that I gave before when the Obi says it's a boy this is good news and it's good news because it is a boy we're receiving a gift from God God gave us a boy and so it's good news to say it's a boy it's not it's not right to at that moment to say oh but we wanted a girl or if the Obi says it's a girl that's good news to to when he when in the delivery the doctor says it's a girl that too is good news and for the same reason that's good news also and for the same reason it's good to receive whatever physical gift God has determined to give what God does in this regard is always good God isn't messing up in your case God does everything right God does nothing wrong God creates the way he wants to create and my quarrel is not with my you know the astrology section of the newspaper my quarrel is not with fate my quarrel is not with unseen forces everything has to do with God God is the one who governs all things so it's good to be a man provided you're supposed to be a man it's good to be a man it's good for this boy to be on his way to being a man provided he's a boy right if he's a boy it's good to be a boy on his way to on his way to manhood if it's a girl it's good to be a girl on her way to womanhood so what God does this way is always good it's good to be a man it's good to be male provided that's what God has done the second thing there's a second usage of being a man that's important to emphasize it's good it is good to enact the role of a man when that is called for right it's good to enact the role of a man when that is called for because we live in a world where sin and disobedience are all around us it is possible for a man to be a male it's possible for a man to be a man and yet not play the man it's possible for a man to be a man in that he's male he's not a woman but he doesn't play the man 1st Corinthians 16:13 says this watch II stand in the faith and and Paul's saying this to the whole Corinthian church you saying this is going to be in the next point he says the whole Corinthian church men and women both watch II stand fast in the faith quit you like men be strong all right the glory of young man it says in first John is their strength act your part step into the breach stand up straight do it do what is right okay play the man this is a good that is that the process of sanctification grows a Christian man up into right this is the this is a good thing that we have not yet attained so when every male here has already attained to that right you've attained to it because it was a gift God gave you what you are God gave you your body God gave you your identity obey your chromosomes so when you do that you have to are what is God what has God called men to do what are men supposed to do and how are they supposed to do it and when a man seriously attempts to step into that role and he seriously attempts to learn what it's supposed to do what what that role is that's a good thing a problem with this when a man is neglecting this requirement there's commandment from God a problem or rebellion or a sin in this respect can take on many manifestations it can take on it can take the form of transvestitism dressing up in women's clothes to cowardice in battle to abdication in relationships just you know taking up oxygen guys and girl you know guy is going out with a girl and I'm not sure what do you want to do I just want to serve you do something she says decide something grow a spine excuse me all right so his failure in that regard is abdicating in a relationship he's not he's not taking the initiative he's not leading now there's there's two there's a distinction to be made here there's biblical Christian leading where you are leading for the sake of those who are leading the way Jesus led the disciples and died for them all right that's one kind of leading and then there's the leader who wants to be in charge of everything and just boss everybody around that's a self-centered self-absorbed lead it's not leading it's just bossing all right so we're not talking about bossing we're talking about leading so a problem here can take on very various forms of effeminacy cowardice abdication just not just not being a stand-up guy the way you ought to be a stand-up guy so the first the first point is good to be a male if God determined that it's good to be female if God determined that it's not good to be enviously look over the fence at what the other what the other person has it's wrong sinful rebellious for a man to wish that he were a woman it's wrong sinful rebellious for a woman to wish that she were a man that's not what God wanted for you if God if God had known in his perfect wisdom that that would have been better that's what would have happened it didn't happen so what you have is better so it's good to be a man it's good to be a woman provided that's what God has assigned secondly it's good for men to to grow up into the role that God has assigned to the one who is the man then third last it's good to be man capital M it's good to be man using the word in its generic sense in this sense both men and women are called to be man in this sense both men and women are called to be man capital M and that's the text I read Genesis 5 - I'm gonna read it again slowly male and female created he them right to male and female created he them and blessed them and called their name Adam in the day when they were created let me go over that again male and female created he them and blessed them and called their name Adam in the day when they were created the word Adam simply means mankind so when God came down to the garden and said hey mankind he's looking for Adam in other words Adam was Adam but it is also true that in another sense Adam and Eve were Adam okay with me Adam and Eve were Adam in the generic sense it was not sexist for Neil Armstrong to say one saw a small step for man one giant leap for mankind all right that's he wasn't excluding the women the way language has worked from Genesis on there is this inclusionary sense if you if you want to chase it if you want to run down though if you're linguistically gifted and you want to run down the wormhole Adam was created out of the dust and dust of the ground so Eve Eve was created out of Adams Adams side so Eve was created out of Adam Adam was created out of the ground the Hebrew word for ground is Adama Adama and it's a feminine ending all right so feminine ending Adam ax Adam has taken out of the dust of the ground then Eve has taken out of the side of Adam now this is a biblical principle this is the biblical principle beneath a woman taking her husband's last name that's that would be the biblical defense I would show for it my wife was Nancy green side I was her maiden name we got married she became Nancy Wilson she took my name on now this is runs clean contrary to what many feminists want to do which is to keep their father's name so man means a guy so man means a guy and man also means mankind men and women both brothers means the guys and brothers also means brothers and sisters you don't have to have a new trendy translation of the Bible that says brothers and sisters or have God say Oh humankind oh by you carbon-based bipedal units so what do we do how does this house this driving toward the gospel one time in the 19th century in England an aristocratic woman sniffed at the idea of an invitation to receive Christ at the end of a church service some of you may have grown up in churches that have that practice I did where at the end of every service there was an invitation to rededicate your life or to join the church or to become a Christian and we'd sing hymn and people would come down forward to be become Christians that would be that was the invitation system and that was developed early on in the nineteenth century well this aristocratic woman sniffed at the idea of needing to go down to the front of the church like that to become a Christian I don't need to do it she said Charles Spurgeon great London preacher who is no friend of the invitation system he was not a friend of that system of doing things replied something like it is true that you don't have to go down to the front of the church to become a Christian but you do okay now what's he saying yeah I agree with you on the merits if we're talking about the invitation system in the abstract I agree with you but you don't want to go down there because your pride and that means you've got to submit that point of pride you've you've got to surrender that point of privilege so that was her issue but our issues are different spurgeon point is Spurgeon's point however still remains different generations have different temptations and sins in our day a Galit arianism is rampant egalitarian ism is simply equal ism everything's got to even out everything's got to be equal everyone's got to have the same income everyone's got to have the same uniform everybody's got to look the same everything's got every you know we that's a Galit arianism egalitarianism is rampant and it's a sin it's envy driven sin completely wrongheaded feminism is a Galit arianism applied to sexual roles feminism is simply egalitarian ism a subset if feminism is a subset of egalitarianism applied to sex and gender just as Marxism communism socialism is a Galit arianism applied to finances money okay so egalitarianism takes many forms feminism is assumed throughout the unbelieving world if you challenged it take you an average class where feminism might come up at the U of I here if you are a student here and you challenged it and said I don't believe feminism is right as far as everybody else in the class is concerned you have three heads and you drool are you you are a problem mostly to yourself so feminism is assumed throughout the unbelieving world and I would argue that in the conservative Christian world a form of feminism light is serve to ously assumed in other words we don't go whole hog we just adopt the milder forms of it now I'm on feminism but I'm going to come back to what it means to be a man in a moment but this this is addressing what I said at the beginning in the introduction when I was talking about how we how we so easily get our feathers ruffled when someone's a looks like they're about to say something that conflicts with the sexual orthodoxy of the unbelieving world and so Christian women Christian women will say something like this to themselves and remember the aristocratic woman that that Spurgeon was talking to she'll say a woman doesn't have to wear a denim home school jumper to be a godly Christian that's quite true but you do you do because that you've just told God yeah this is something I've learned over the years don't tell God what you're not going to do stop it bad career move look you know before we were married Nancy who was converted here at the U of I my wife walked all it took a long walk and walked all over Moscow telling the Lord she'd go to the uttermost part of the earth I'll go I'll be a missionary I'll go anywhere I will go anywhere but Moscow get me out of this get me out of this town and lo 2019 right here don't don't tell God what you're not going to do when you when you draw a line say oh I don't have the Bible doesn't say have to do that and you can be exactly right that the Bible doesn't say you have to do that but you've got a particular reason for drawing that line that way and with that kind of vigor the Bible doesn't say that I have to wear my hair in a cute ponytail well that's true it doesn't but if it did would you yes I did are you saying well I'm gonna I'm gonna settle in my mind beforehand what I'm willing to and not willing to surrender and here's the deal as I'm coming to present the gospel to you I need to tell you that God doesn't deal God doesn't negotiate like that the claims of Christ are total and we have to come to him with the resolve to have no problem passages nothing in the scriptures once the exegesis is done once I know what the Bible is actually saying once I know that this is actually what it's is being taught that's the way it is all right why because I'm a Christian because Jesus treated the Bible that way and I've decided to follow Jesus if I've if I'm following Jesus then I'm gonna follow Jesus in his attitude toward Scripture so the issue is the issue is not do you agree with XYZ the issue is put it into a hypothetical put it into a hypothetical if the Bible taught XYZ would I be there and gladly I don't know I don't know what it is yet I don't know whether that's what the teaching is but whatever it is I want it whatever God teaches I want that whatever God says I want to embrace it now repenting the sins of other generations is a low-cost activity it's also very popular it's also very popular for reasons that should be obvious to any Christian who is suitably cynical but repenting of the sins that are common in our era and not only common but applauded is another thing entirely all right so it's it's relatively comparatively easy to repent of your sins it's really really hard to repent of your virtues the things that you thought you were doing right the things that you think the society around you gets right at least they get at least they get the care for the read environment right no they don't but that's another thing that's another topic another time but but you say at least they get that right well fine okay okay if they got it right then you should embrace it because the Bible teaches it but you shouldn't say you shouldn't embrace things that you think are right and boast in your virtue so quite a number of you need to repent of your tolerance repent of your liberation your freedom from traditional norms or your sensitivity these are all things that we think are good you know we know that we're supposed to repent we're Christians we know that we're to repent of greed or lust or or covetousness that sort of thing but oftentimes we don't know that when we're embracing certain virtues we're actually embracing the world's system of value and that's worldliness and we need to repent of that in other words repenting of your self-identified virtues can be a real challenge the gospel the gospel is the message of the death burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ he accomplished this great work so that we could be freed first from the blindness brought about by sin which is repentance when you see your sin for what it is for the first time that's repentance your eyes are opened and you see oh that's what that is so that's he freed frees you first from blindness and you are forgiven secondly for the guilt of the sin which is conversion for the first we don't see the sin as sin we think it's virtuous until God opens our eyes to it for the second we don't see the guilt of sin as something we can get away from and until Christ comes we cannot get away from it so we have to be we have to get ourselves out of the world's definition of what an upright man is looks like right what do you what are you supposed to do right what are you supposed to do if your man according to the world well apologize for breathing is the first the first thing taking up space there the world doesn't have a high view of what it means to be a man have you heard the phrase toxic masculinity yeah toxic masculinity well we need to the world says you be careful you be careful you be careful and we well the first thing you have to do is is flip the switch shut that whole dialogue off and then say the bike does the Bible teach men to guard against certain sins does the Bible address the men and say you know you're you're prone to you're going to be susceptible to this sin and this end this sin does the Bible give TaylorMade directed directives to men as men absolutely and to women as women what you need to be doing however is looking to the Bible to define your sin so you can repent of it so you can turn to Christ right so the Bible teaches now when you do the Bible teaches us that the gospel being efficacious will put us totally out of kilter with the spirit of the age okay what this is what's gonna happen when your can when you're converted if you're well saved if you're born again and it's not just an evangelical cliche but it's the thing that happens you're you're converted to God your sins are forgiven you're made new your Clint you're justified you're saved you know all those all of those traditional theological cliches they're truisms because they were true they up there they point to something and that something has happened when that something has happened you're totally out of kilter with the spirit of the age Jesus died and rose and that is why you will be terminally uncool forever glory they say what I want to do I'd like to be a cool Christian I would like I would like to be the kind of Christian who believes all that Bible stuff and never and never embarrasses anybody in sociology class I want to be that kind of Christian the kind that goes to hell they say well Jesus said whoever is ashamed of me and my words I will be ashamed of him I will deny him Jesus is our Lord he's our Authority for Christians Jesus is Lord Jesus died and rose and that's why people who follow him are always out of step always now they're not out of step forever they die they do a lot of good despite being terribly unpopular they do a lot of good and then they die and then 50 years later people start building memorials to them because of this great prophet who once walked among us we can afford to build a marble Liam to him now because he's dead and can't mess anything up we will honor him not G doesn't Jesus talk about that he says you build the tombs of the prophets and he and he said by building the tombs of the prophets you testify that you are the children of those who killed the prophets that's what people do right you say well why that's a little harsh that's a little unfair well if you went through Washington DC not that I recommend it but you went through Washington DC and you rounded up every person that there's a memorial to that you could find Jefferson Memorial Washington Monument you know all of those guys every statue rounded them all up and these are statues honoring these people and took these people all into Congress they would all be run out of town on a rail every last one of them because and this this is in the city named after one of them it's it's the same thing in evangelical circles we name things after John Knox and we named them after William Tyndale and we named them after Calvin and we named them after Wickliffe and we did we named and that if any of these guys came back from the dead and paid a visit to the the places that have their name on the big sign out front there would be anguish cries and broken furniture and sirens and it would be us so part of the whole point of the gospel part of the whole point of the gospel is to get you out of the mainstream you need to get out of the mainstream remember that it is often the case that the mainstream goes right over the falls that's that's where most of the river goes right over the falls so what's the nature of the gospel that will do this thing to you what is the nature of the gospel to do this thing now God takes you from where you are not from where you should have been God takes you from where you are not from where you should have been and I want to have this message declared to you now where you are where you are is a mess right that's where you are and you might say well I'm a Christian I'm I've already been converted I don't need no people who are already converted always need to hear the gospel well again it's people who aren't converted need to hear the gospel people who are converted need to hear the gospel by nature Paul says and he's speaking to Christians by nature we are all objects of Wrath we're all a mess we're all a total mess God sent his son to take on the on the form of a servant he was the second person of the Trinity the log us of God the eternal Word of God and he took form he took shape in the womb of a virgin he was born into this sorry world and he lived a perfect sinless life and then at the end of that perfect sinless life lasting about 33 years he ran afoul of the authorities and it wasn't an accident he challenged them basically to a duel he he wasn't trying to slip away quietly he went into Jerusalem and he started a big fight in the temple turning over tables and chasing the animals out and he did Jesus was playing brinksmanship with the religious authorities so they had him betrayed they crucified him and when they crucified him they were they didn't know it if Paul says if the rulers of this age had known what they were doing they would not have crucified the Lord of glory they didn't know they didn't understand that they were wrecking Satan's Kingdom if you'd stopped one of the Roman soldiers and said what are you doing he could have said he could could have been able to say truthfully I'm wrecking Satan's Kingdom if you'd stop the devil who was inciting the mob to yell crucify him and said to the devil what are you doing he said I'm destroying my own kingdom I'm pulling down deep heaven on my head I'm is so what happened was Jesus when he died cried out it is finished when he died that the veil in the temple was rent from top to bottom that was the Holy of Holies behind the veil the place where no sinner could go no sooner could go the high priest went there once a year Yom Kippur on the day of atonement he would go in there to present the to present the blood of the sacrifice so one mortal one sinner could go in there one day out of the whole year and they would tie a rope around his ass in case he had a heart attack or something died in there so they could retrieve him without anybody else going in there that they took that very seriously that was the place where sinners could not go and when Jesus died that veil was torn in two and God said in effect to absolutely everybody come in come in now if you come here the world that you're leaving is not going to think much of you the world that you're leaving the world you're leaving behind you're going to be out of step with for the rest of your life you're going to be terminally terminally unhittable you're gonna always be angular it's not going to be quite right stop trying to sandpaper the differences between you and the world it doesn't work so if you're Christian you can't overcome those differences and if you become a Christian there's nothing you can do about the differences that are going to be created so the gospel is the death burial and resurrection of Jesus that's the gospel that's the objective gospel message outside that gospel message is the subjective response so the preacher declares Christ crucified Christ buried Christ resurrected and Christ ascended that's the message the subject of response of the individual hearer that would be you is to hear that message to seed Christ publicly portrayed before you as crucified and you're commanded response is to look on that and believe if you look on that if you hear those words and believe your life is going to be transformed turned inside out upside down and you're gonna be fitted for another world you're gonna be fitted for another Kingdom your God's gonna start the work of fitting you for heaven and the more you're fitted for heaven the less fitted you are for here your it's going to be a challenge so what is the nature of the gospel who'd do this thing to you for you in you through you surrounding you it's the death burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ in the name of the Father Son and Holy Spirit and

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Length: 34min 19sec (2059 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 18 2019