Young Men & Their Strength | Doug Wilson

the text this morning is from first chronicles chapter 12 verse 32 these are the words of god and of the children of issachar which were men that had understanding of the times to know what israel ought to do the heads of them were 200 and all their brethren were at their commandment our father and god we thank you for your kindness to us i pray that as we turn to your word this morning your spirit would be at work in our lives i pray you would teach us instruct us admonish us encourage us as we need it father we pray for all these things in the name of jesus and amen as you recall we're working through a three-part uh series of messages on the sons of adam and the daughters of eve and this is the second of the three and i wanted to speak this morning about young men and their strengths young men and their strength as we seek to address the dislocations the marital dislocations that confront us in every direction remember that we want to do so in a way that respects the men particularly the young men if they don't solve the problem then nobody is going to solve this problem if they don't solve the problem that we're confronting then nobody is and if the problem is caused by our culture-wide hostility to masculinity genuine masculinity not the knockoffs not the not the macho macho men uh nacho not that not that either especially especially not the macho men we hate those we our culture has a real hostility to genuine genuine masculinity and because of that we don't want to bring our additional contempt for masculinity uh to the problem we'd only be pouring gasoline on these cultural fires if we bring along any additional contempt so the text first chronicles 12 the children of issachar were men that had understanding of the times they knew the law of god and they knew the cultural situation because they knew the law of god they knew where we ought to be and because they knew the cultural situation they knew what we needed what they what israel needed to leave what israel needed to depart from so remember that the word of god is given to men and this means that it is not thrown into the abyss or into the void in order to understand the word it is necessary to understand how how it was intended by god for us to apply and this requires exegesis of the times it's not just it is not sufficient to exegete the word we have to read the culture around us we have to exegete the times we have to understand the times as the men of issachar did and and in order to know what israel ought to do if you require that every biblical solution for every 21st century problem be spoon fed to you right out of the text so that the text tells you what to do about this problem or that problem in our current terminology straight across with no translation you want something that is not going to happen scripture says nothing about computer dating services at the same time we don't want to be coming up with our own vanities willy-nilly independent of the authority of the word that's the sure road to self-deception we don't want to just cook up whatever we we think we ought to be doing and we don't want to expect the bible to talk about our situation uh in this is what you do with your computer problems this is what you do with online problems this the bible the bible gives us principles and we have to we have to make an a responsible exegesis of those principles from the text and then we have to apply those principles to our situation so we want to avoid the sure road to self-deception we want minnivisicar saturated in the word and we want men attuned to their times menivisic are saturated in the word and attuned to their times there's a wrong way of being attuned to the times the way the wrong way of being attuned to the times is where you're you're doing the monkey see monkey do thing you're just watching whatever the world does and then you think well let's put a bible verse on that and let's put a bible verse on that let's just do whatever the world is doing only it with a devotional attitude the glory of young men scripture says is their strength the glory of young men is their strength but it has to be the kind of strength exhibited by the men of issachar john wrote to young men because they'd overcome the wicked one it says in first john 2 13. i write to you because you've overcome the wicked one john wrote to the young men because they were strong and they were strong because of the word of god abiding in them it says in the next verse first john 2 14. again they overcame the wicked one but the wicked one is the father of lies the one they overcome is the liar the one they overcome is the one who spins falsehood the great work this great work is therefore done through faith by exalting in the truth so what young men need to do using their strength is believe the truth and reject all lies believe the truth reject lies follow christ now i i mentioned uh some of the i mentioned the problem that feminism uh presents across the board and the uh the overarching problem is sort of uh an entitled egalitarianism i want to talk about one of the particular lies of feminism here one of the corrosive lies but before we're doing that we have to be reminded that the really potent lies the potent lies are the lies that have a strand of truth maybe a large measure of truth running all the way through them now art and feminists have argued for some time now that that traditional marriage one man one woman over the course of a lifetime the traditional marriage what they call the patriarchy traditional marriage is simply a respectable form of prostitution they say it's simply prostitution that has been made respectable they advance this argument by making the quite obvious point that marriage involves an economic exchange one that includes within its terms money for sex and sex for money so they're in the middle of this economic exchange they see marriage but you're promised to support this woman you promise to give her money and she uh commits herself gives her body to you and see there at the heart of it you peel away all the the layers you peel away the wedding ceremony you peel away all the customs and all the things we've gotten used to see the feminists say it's just simply glorified prostitution now marriage is an economic institution and that's the point marriage is an economic institution that's the strand of truth that runs through the charge that it's self-evidently true that marriage is an economic institution even our word economy comes from the greek word for household so uh namas is law and the oykas is the word for household so the law of the household is where we get the word economy all right so the word economy comes from the greek word for household and at the center of the household is the marriage relationship but prostitution is not an evil because it includes sex and money together prostitution is not an evil because it includes sex and money together it is an evil because of what it excludes it it's an evil because of what it leaves out it's not it's not evil because there's sex and money involved in life in this world everything in this world has sex and money involved everything right so marriage included what prostitution does is it leaves out a number of things it excludes kids and fidelity and curtains and mowing the lawn it also excludes love but we have to be careful with that because of how greatly we have distorted what love means perhaps they'll have time to address that in the third message but sex and money are supposed to be located near the center of your entire life and they're not to be some adjunct to your life it's not off to the side of course of course of course economy is related to economy of course sex and money are right at the center of human existence so here's the problem whenever someone starts investigating uh market realities and traditional marriage and the connection between the two it takes about five minutes before someone starts yelling about dowries and bartering for brides bartering for brides but our modern cyber system our modern cyber system has simply relocated and distorted the monetary exchanges that are involved it's not you can't wave a wand and make money go away you can't wave a wand and make sex go away what you can do is lie tell tell one another a tremendous number of lies about the whole thing such that you don't see what's going on and everybody's operating in a fog of confusion we've not eliminated the economic aspect of this in our modern courtship and courtship and pairing off customs if you want to do any kind of serious interacting on e-harmony you will need a hem a paid subscription you're going to pay somebody some money to meet somebody and you're not buying a woman all right it's the neck we have to understand that money is the circulatory system of the body politic it's how we it's how we can track what we're doing now when people reduce um when people reduce everything to money and they they leave out all the things that they shouldn't leave out that's the problem it's not that when you when you pay for a service uh when you you need a plumber to come to the house and you pay him to come and he does a good job and he and he you pay him gladly and off he goes so what what happened there's there's nothing wrong with that that's that is how god intends for us to function it's when someone says that when they've got little cash registers in their eyes and and it's all about that and there's nothing else that's the problem it's what's left out so as the whole world knows as the whole world knows well not the whole world but the whole as the whole world should know men and women are different men and women are different uh and and the world says yeah women are nice and men are toxic yeah that's different and well no since i've gotten you ready for it since i've prepped prepped you for this let's talk about this in terms of the stark realities of supply and demand this is an economic situation this is an economic situation and we're not reducing it to that we are including that we're remembering to bring that back in to the picture men and women are different sexually and one of the differences can be seen here men represent the demand side and women represent the supply in the older order in the old order the order we have demolished in the name of liberating women ha men agreed to give up their roistering ways in exchange for something stable his wife is in exchange for something stable that his wife would then supply respect loyalty sex legitimate offspring and a stake in the future of civilization that's what she was offering a stake in the future of civilization stability so because he had to surrender the rest of his life for this staggering privilege what what she was therefore supplying was a high-end luxury item what she was supplying was something that was priceless whoso findeth the wife findeth a good thing and obtaineth favor of the lord says in proverbs 18 22. so if you find a wife you find a good thing she was supplying him with something that's priceless so instead so let me just make a parenthetical comment here when you when you think about men's view of and i'm speaking about men all men collectively and all women collectively men collectively if if you take if if women submit their sexual instincts their sexual preferences to the men if you have women submitting their sexual cycle to the men's interests in sex what you what you get is a boatload of vikings which what you get is a motorcycle gang right so women abandoning their natural proclivities and following them in and you you get the all the civilization building power of a biker gang when you when you go the other way when men surrender their uh natural predilections when men give that up and submit their sexual interests and proclivities to the women's what you get is civilizations what you get is cultures what you get is cities what you get is stability and order and and every every glorious thing that many as many glorious things this can be enjoyed in this fallen world so what what has happened over the last the course of the last generation as a consequence of the sexual revolution that was undertaken in the name of liberating women what we've done is we've enslaved women in the name of liberating them what we've done is we've thrown away their glory for the sake of liberating them so instead of instead of the old order what has the sexual revolution accomplished what is our vaunted feminist liberation done all in the name of eliminating the commodification of women we're afraid of talking as though you can barter with a woman's father for three chickens and a cow and we think okay i don't we want to avoid that we don't we don't want to act like women or a commodity so we're going to treat everybody as equal we're going to just eliminate everything's going to be equal equal equal it's all going to be egalitarianism in the name of eliminating the commodification of women what has happened it has not eliminated the commodification of women what it has done is send the price crashing through the floor right that's what we've done we've crashed the market that's what we've done we've just crashed the whole thing what has abortion done it subsidizes irresponsible men that's what abortion does abortions subsidize subsidizes irresponsible men what has ubiquitous porn done it caters to irresponsible men what has the expectation of sex by the second date done well it flatters irresponsible men and then we say hey where did all these irresponsible men come from we actually think that way we what we do we everything we've done for the last 50 years we've done for the sake of catering to irresponsible men and because you get more of what you subsidize and less of what you penalize what we've done is we've done irresponsible men farming we've grown that crop and then we wonder where to where what has happened if our generation were the prodigal son we are now at the point in the story where we are staring at the pig food oh and all the painted ladies are off with some other good time charlie who who hasn't run out of money yet incidentally we live in a time when the even more evangelical thought leaders will be offended that i spoke of women in terms of the price uh you know that when i said we've sent the price crashing through the floor well you shouldn't you shouldn't really talk about marriage and sex and pairing off and courtship you shouldn't talk in terms of the price that's just that's off-putting that rubs the fur the wrong way they're more offended by my us recognizing the realities of the pricing market there there is a market there are people out there making decisions they're people out there making decisions and they're making decisions in terms of how much it is going to cost them right and and jesus tells us that we ought to think that way jesus says before we follow him he says to count the cost jesus says to do a market analysis before you follow him it's going to cost you everything and when you go to go to marry a good woman it's going to cost you everything also and you ought to think about that right you ought to be aware of that before before you undertake it so but but we want what we want to do is we want to look at the whole thing as though it's just a matter of love we should talk about marriage in terms of true love conquers all and but we are at the point in the movie where we're that's we're down to the parity of that you know marriage it's not just love love has to do with how you live your life and part of how you live your life is whether you bring home the bacon part of and how much bacon she says she's going to need the answer is lots so they're more many of our evangelical thought leaders would be more offended by the by just simply mentioning the price than by the actual damage that countless actual women have suffered through having their value directly challenged and denied you can refuse to set a price on a woman in two ways you can refuse to set a price on a woman in two ways you can deem her priceless you can deem her priceless who can find a virtuous woman for her price is far above rubies proverbs 31 10. that's one way you can set a value on a woman as priceless and you're not setting a price on her because her price is off the charts her price is far above ruby's or on the other hand you might deem her priceless because you've run her clean out of the market in the other direction you've crashed the market in other words what we're dealing with is a sexual market crash what would and this is why it's not just it's not going to be sufficient to tell young men hey get off the dime you know go ask a girl out would you there are larger forces at work in all of this so sadly too many christians too many christians participate in all of these actual compromises things like porn or hooking up so the world is out there doing their thing and doing it with abandon some christians are compromised or uh they stumble periodically uh through pornography use or that sort of thing and that contributes but even those who do not participate directly in the overtly immoral aspects of this are still having to function in a market where all the expectations and the prices have been dislocated there's still even if you're making responsible moral decisions and no decision itself is a problem you're still having to operate in a general market that is completely out of kilter it is like a private school having to charge for what the government schools are are promising to give away for free that's that's what you're dealing with you've got a whole school system and it's the the the growth of private school private christian schools over the last generation is a remarkable instance of a true counter-cultural move because the government's giving it away for free and we're saying we don't want the free one we don't want the free thing the free thing has been cred the value of it has has crashed through the floor we want to do something worthwhile now in this world the the women generally have been the women generally who are in quote unquote the dating scene have been taught that you just have to put out they've been taught that there's a you because you're you've been sexually liberated we don't nobody wants to think that you're uptight about these things you have to just give it away you must give it away that's what the dating scene in the world is like and a virtuous christian woman is having to function in a world in which that is the general set of expectations and even if she doesn't participate she's still affected by it all right so someone can't someone can make a moral decision for example in a climate that was created by a host of immoral decisions and that doesn't keep it from being negative so um i'm about to mention that a young woman's peak attractiveness and fertility happens in her early 20s thus proving myself to be an incorrigible dinosaur other and the other aspect of this is saying what everybody in the world knows but most people in the world are afraid to say but let's say that a woman wants to get a graduate degree or two and then a successful career and then when she's in her mid-thirties she wants the men to cluster around like they used to when she was 23. she wants to that's what she wants because the world tells her that she has every right to that right the world says you have a right you have a right to that you because remember i'm talking about entitled egalitarianism you know you go girl you just do what you want to do now there's nothing wrong absolutely there's nothing sinful about a woman getting a graduate degree there's nothing sinful about her no one's no one's come and asked proposed she needs to do something with her time there's not you know though the a christian woman could be making moral decisions in that those decisions are not sinful decisions but if she her expectations can be skewed by the way the world's talking she thinks that it's going to be just the way it was when she was 23 but she's wanting something that rarely happens she's wanting something that doesn't happen all that much now she might be doing this because her thinking has been distorted by all the messed up thinking in the broader culture she might she might be i'm not going to participate in the immorality but i'm just going to share in all the assumptions you get married when you want to right so we we think in terms of designer marriages designer families you get how many kids do you want like you're standing at a vending machine but how many kids do you want when do you want to have them so all of these expectations have been handed to us and oftentimes christians just take up the those expectations so so she might be doing this because she's uh picked up on these broader uh cultural assumptions or she might be doing it from necessity because potential suitors are giving her space to pursue her dreams right what are you going to do after after you graduate from college so i think i think i might apply to this grad school or that school and and then word gets out in the in the community of singles that she's planning to go to grad school here or there and a young man was halfway thinking about showing an interest in her and but he thinks because he's affected by the way the world operates and he says well maybe i need to give her space to pursue her dreams she clearly wants to go away to graduate school but a godly young man should be willing to interrupt that's his job is to interrupt he should be willing to mess up all her plans all of them i don't want you to pursue your dreams i want to ask you if you would pursue our toddlers with a spanking spoon instead that's what i would like and i would like you to be faster than they are so and now someone's going to say that that just seems so insulting she might not want to she might not want to pursue your toddlers that's why god lets women say no she might if she if you're not the kind of man she wants to follow if you're not the kind of man she wants to minister to in that way she doesn't want to be your help me she is built by god to be helped me to someone but it might not be you might not be the person who asks she can say no she should say no if she doesn't want to go there she shouldn't go there but she can't just stand around and say i'm going to uh what are you going to do after you graduate well i was going to wait for someone to ask me to marry them she can't say that she has to do something she has to be useful and occupy herself with something but a godly man should interrupt a godly man should say i believe that god's calling me to do this and this and i would love for you to come would you like to come would you like to come with me now if she says yes then glory to god if she says no then also glory to god c.s lewis the the more i'm acquainted with what c.s lewis wrote over the years the more amazed i am at his prescience or his prophetic uh his prophetic ability to look at things in the the culture that he was living in and call it you know call what's going to be happening decades later this is something that lewis said in an essay called we have no right to happiness this is you can find in god in the dark this is lewis a society in which conjugal infidelity is tolerated must always be in the long run a society adverse to women women whatever a few male songs and satires may say to the contrary are more naturally monogamous than men it is a biological necessity where promiscuity prevails they will always be always they will therefore always be more often the victims than the culprits also domestic happiness is more necessary to them than to us and the quality by which they are they most easily hold a man their beauty decreases every year after they've come to maturity but this does not happen to those qualities of personality women don't really care two cents about our looks by which we hold women all right a little bit of non-flattery there thus in the ruthless war of promiscuity women are at a double disadvantage they play for higher stakes and are also more likely to lose they play play for higher stakes and are also more likely to lose i have no sympathy with moralists who frown at the in increasing crudity of female provocativeness these signs of desperate competition fill me with pity in other words there are people acting out there in the world people are acting like there has been a market crash because there has been a market crash and the christians are all exhorted to pretend that there hasn't been we're not supposed to pretend anything we're supposed to confront the truth we're supposed to confront the truth about our condition about our situation and about how jesus is our lord who will lead us out so this brings us to christ as it always as should all we should to christ the truth jesus tells us plainly that he is the truth jesus saith unto him i am the way the truth and the life no man cometh unto the father but by me john 14 6 now young men are the ones who must overcome the wicked one and they must do this by following christ everywhere they must realize that christ is the truth everywhere and not just in some isolated spiritual realm in other words we don't just say christ is the truth when it comes to how to get into heaven when you die we're not saying that christ is the truth when it comes to understanding the trinity we don't say that christ is the truth when it comes to spiritual things of spiritual value no christ is the truth everywhere in all things all of christ for all of life all of christ for all of life and all of life has to include at its center god's creational design for human thriving which is a man and a woman together for life nurturing children so that the son can grow up leave his father and mother cleave to his wife and the two become one flesh that's god's general creational pattern we we did a lot of damage to that creational pattern by our initial sin and over the last generation we've done a lot more damage to it by our over rebellion wanting to say that homosexuals can be married one wanting to admit room for the transgender foolishness wanting to say that two men can marry two men a man can marry a man and a woman can marry a woman and those those sorts of absurdities those sorts of round squares are taken are taken seriously by our culture the respective created natures of men and women are part of this truth jesus is lord of all things he's the lord of who the men are and he's the lord of who the women are he is the lord of which man ought to marry which woman he's the lord of the children that are given he is the lord jesus is lord so following christ in all things means resisting the lies of the world at this point and acting on the basis of what god has given in the order of creation and in the revelation of scripture we have to be willing to say things that that ruffle feathers we have to be willing to say uh say and do things that make people think that we're troglodytes but we're saying look the bible teaches the bible teaches us plainly what we're here for the bible teaches us plainly how we're supposed to live the bible teaches us that men are not the same thing as women and not not to be women are not the same thing as men and ought not to be the bible teaches us what marriage is the bible teaches us how courtship ought to proceed the bible teaches us of a father's authority uh over the court of the uh the giving away of his daughter the bible teaches us how a husband and wife ought to relate when that process is uh going on with their daughter the bible teaches us that a father and mother should bring up a son to leave to a son you know a son is playing an away game the daughters are playing a home game so the the sun goes away the sun goes away and he follows the pattern set by the father and mother of a young woman he he wins her hand and he establishes his own household this is um absolutely for for people who've been steeped in the world's way of thinking living together without marriage uh dating around the expectation of sex with multiple partners over a course of a generation all of that all of that is resulting in untold misery it doesn't work it's not god's creational pattern and we don't reject it because it doesn't work we we reject it because it's false it's not what god said we reject what we embrace what god said what god tells us to do and then we turn and follow him and we find out that because he's the true creator lord what he teaches what he requires of us makes good sense it fits with our nature it fits with how he made us to be because in christ we're being remade into the the image of christ we're growing up into the image of christ and as that is happening god is being kind to us and so follow christ young men particularly follow christ i'm not saying young men get off the dime and go find a woman i'm saying young men follow christ what is the truth of god in christ what is the truth of god about society in christ and i want to press that question particularly on the young man i don't want to say why are you still single that's not the question that young men need to be asked the question is not why are you still single i want to ask young men are you pursuing christ with all your heart soul mind and strength if you're pursuing christ you're reading his word you're reading the you're reading the scriptures you're seeing the big picture you're not just simply thinking in terms of your own life your own circumstance your own situation you're seeing the big picture therefore young men follow christ young women follow christ all of you follow christ father and god we thank you for your kindness to us i pray that as we meditate on these things that you would give us a good understanding of them there are many uh aspects to this we haven't talked about before or pursued before i pray that you'd give us grace and wisdom as we do father we as we lift this prayer up to you we would remember the words that jesus taught us to pray saying pastor wilson has often warned us over the years about what he has called the fellowship of the grievance this is the phenomenon of folks who barely know one another or who have little else in common but by some magnetic force in the universe find one another in order to share their grievances and so a sort of pseudo-fellowship emerges but the glue that holds it together is not christ but complaining sharing frustrations airing rumors gossip accusations and so on it's not real fellowship at all but it masquerades as christian it masquerades in christian circles under the guise of christian concern or i just have a prayer request or looking for counsel remember satan does not creep into churches and houses with a name tag which reads dragon of old deceiver and accuser of the brethren beware no satan creeps into churches and houses with smooth words and spiritual tones the bible says he comes disguised as an angel of light he comes pretending to be a friend to the lonely he comes pretending to offer comfort to the hurting he comes pretending to offer unity to those who feel left out in fact he would not mind at all showing up assuring you that she would never want to participate in a fellowship of the grievance never never she just has some concerns about some things in the church some things in the community and she just wants a second opinion he just wants to get your advice he doesn't want to slander anyone no bad-mouthing no complaining certainly not the fellowship of the grievance the crucial thing is not in the advertising the crucial thing is not what's on the name tag the crucial thing is what's actually happening of course friends need advice and counsel of course lonely the lonely need friendship and the hurting need comfort but christian fellowship offers true friendship which drives straight forward and straight toward actual solutions let's go talk to that person right now let's call them right now let's go make it right right now we know what true fellowship is because god invites us here to this table which is true fellowship week after week and here god does not flatter us or lie to us or provide false comfort or allow us to remain comfortable in our sin here he gives us the broken body of his son the shed blood of his perfect and beloved sin and says here my life for yours he tells us the truth in love about our sin and then by his goodness leads us straight to repentance so this is true fellowship and true christian friendship you cannot be at this table in fellowship with jesus and his people and also partake of the table of demons the fellowship of the grievance this here is the fellowship of joy the fellowship of forgiveness the fellowship of sincerity and truth so come and welcome to jesus christ jesus died and rose again in order to make all things new and among the many things he's making new are people made in his image male and female but this means that as we pursue christ what we're actually becoming is more male and more female more of the men we were made to be more of the women we are made to be so as you pursue christ pursue him in that way pursue him in his word and as you do that not only will you become really and truly masculine more and more and really and truly feminine more and more but you will understand more and more deeply how you're to treat the others how you're to honor and respect one another that's the gift that god is giving us in his son so rest in that the lord bless you and keep you the lord make his face shine upon you be gracious unto you the lord lift up his counts upon you and grant you his peace and amen

Channel: Canon Press

Views: 8,228

Rating: 4.9710145 out of 5

Keywords: young men, doug wilson, douglas wilson, pastor doug wilson, young men and their strength, sermon, pastor, preacher, manhood, masculinity, strength, canon press, how to be a man, masculinity crisis, theology, moscow idaho, christ church, bible study, moscow, christian worldview, christian

Id: Z-8uQD8MQtY

Length: 38min 4sec (2284 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 27 2020