Where are the Men – Part 2
Transcript of FLOT Line Episode 567 aired on July 10, 2016
Good morning and welcome to The FLOT Line. I’m your host Rick Hughes and thank you for
listening today. Stay tuned for 30 minutes of motivation, inspiration, a whole lot of education,
and we do it all without any manipulation, with no games, no hidden agendas. We’re not trying
to con anybody. We’re just here to give you this accurate information that will help you verify as
well as identify God’s plan for your life. If you’re able to do this, then I know you can make the
decision to orient and adjust to the plan, that’s really up to you. We’re here every Sunday
morning at the same time, same station, bringing you The FLOT Line. Remember FLOT stands
for the the forward line of troops and we always try to tell you about those 10 unique problem-
solving devices. They are found in the Word of God. If you learn them and use them, they act as
a main line of resistance, a forward line of troops, that will keep the outside sources of adversity
from becoming the inside source of stress. We live a unique life, the Christian life, a life where
you don’t have to worry, be afraid, feel guilty or miserable, a life that’s really tremendous.
The
Christian life is based on two things – the power of God the Holy Spirit and the Word of
God in your soul, what you know, understand and apply.
If you take the Bible, the Word of
God, and the ministry of the Holy Spirit and put them together, these are two of your
phenomenal assets. God has designed these for you to use in this dispensation and it is my prayer
that as you listen to this radio show that you will learn and apply God’s Word and you will
glorify God with your life. We started a study the last time you were with me about the
difference between men and males and where have all the men gone. I’d like to continue this
study. I recently taught this series at a church in Houston, Texas, and it is available on DVD or
MP3. If you want it, give us a shout. What about the men? Let me give you some information
and we’ll go from there. What is the definition of a man? If there’s anything we need today, we
need men. We covered this last week, why I’m talking about this, and I want to go over this
again. A man, what do I mean by this? 1. It’s an adult male as distinguished from a boy or a
female. 2. It’s a male who has manly qualities or virtues that represent a man. We will discuss
these virtues on this radio show. 3. Here’s a key point for you.
Thought, not muscle, determines
the true man.
You are a man based on what you think not based on how strong you are or what
you feel. The Greek word for mankind is
anthropos
and we get the word anthropology from this
and it’s used in the Bible to express a human being without reference to sex or nationality
according to
Vine’s Expository Dictionary of the New Testament.
The Greek word for the man is
the word
aner
with reference to sexual identity. When the Bible uses
aner
it’s talking about a
male not a female. In order for you to understand what I want to tell you there has to be a
distinction between a man and a male. That’s what I’d like to bring out today. You have to
understand that all males are not men however, all men are definitely male. Got it?
Manliness is
a mental state, it’s not a physical attribute.
It doesn’t depend on how big your biceps are,
that’s not the deal. I want you to note spiritual manhood is about spiritual maturity, not about
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your physical attributes. Don’t look at a guy and his big muscles and say, “Well, that’s a real
man.” What God is looking at is not this, God is looking at their heart.
God is looking at what’s
in a male’s mind to determine if he is a man.
If you ever want to meet a real man, I’m going to
describe him for you on this radio show in the next few shows. In this brief study that I’ll do with
you, we will focus on the characteristics of a spiritually mature man. This doesn’t mean that some
of the same principles don’t apply to females, they do. Both men and women are to listen, learn,
and apply God’s Word. If you ever hope to be effectively representing your Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ in this stage of the angelic conflict you must learn the Word of God and apply it and
live it in your life. Now let’s go to a text in the Bible, something that I want to read to you, and
hopefully you’ll see what I’m talking about. Here is Paul writing to the Corinthians and this is
what he says,
“When I was a child I used to speak like a child, I used to think like a child, I used
to reason like a child and when I became a man
[now we don’t have the word
anthropos
for
mankind; it’s the word
aner
for a man, distinguished as an adult male from a boy; he was not
talking about being a boy]
I did away with childish things”
(1 Corinthians 13:11). The word for
childish is the Greek word
nepios.
This is a word for an infant. So we have two words here,
aner,
a man and
nepios,
an infant.
“When I became a man I did away with childish things.”
Like I use
to play with toy soldiers and now I’m a real soldier, that sort of deal. Well here’s the point. This
is a metaphor used by the Apostle Paul and he’s describing the objective of the Christian life,
which is to grow to spiritual maturity. The Corinthians, whom he wrote this letter to, were acting
rather childish especially over some spiritual gifts. If you look back at 1 Corinthians 13:4-8
you’ll notice how the absence of virtue love produces childlike actions. Before I go too much
further, let me say this. Virtue love is a problem-solving device, love for God, love for others,
motivational love, virtue love, okay? Motivational love is the most virtuous thing you could
have. Listen to 1 John 5:3,
“If you love Me, you will obey Me and My mandates are not hard,”
they’re not grievous.
Motivational virtue is the thing that causes us to be faithful and
obedient to God.
There is also impersonal love and impersonal love is when I’m loving other
people that I am mandated to love. 1 John 4:20 says,
“If we say we love God and hate our
brother, we are liars and the truth is not in us.”
I am told in the Bible that I have to love all
people, even as the Lord did the same thing. This doesn’t mean that I have to run out and put my
arm around their neck and give them a hug and say, “I love you brother.” That’s not what it
means. What it means is there’s an attitude that every believer is suppose to have, an attitude of
virtuous thinking.
You can love the worst person in the world based on who you are, not
based on who they are. What they are and what they do is not even the issue.
“For God so
loved the world”
(John 3:16), remember that? God loved you before you ever accepted Christ.
What did you do before you accepted Christ? Are you such a lovable, wonderful creature? No, I
doubt it and God doesn’t expect everybody to be perfect. We have sin natures. He knows we have
a sin nature. He knows we are related to Adam. People sin and people can be cruel. You still have
to love them. But you’re loving them based on your integrity not based on theirs, this is
impersonal love. When we talk about this impersonal love, here’s what we’re talking about.
If
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you don’t have this personal love for God and impersonal love for others, then you’re going
to act like a child.
Without the virtue of impersonal love or personal love for God here is the
way the Bible would describe the childish believer. Listen to 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 and you can
read it and say,
“Love is longsuffering, love is kind, love does not envy.”
A childish believer or a
male type believer that’s not a man, he is not longsuffering which means he’s not patient. He
doesn’t have any endurance. Using these verses in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8, he’s not kind, which
means he’s not benevolent. He’s full of envy, which means he’s full of hatred or anger. He
parades himself full of arrogance. See all I’m doing is taking these verses and extracting
impersonal love out of them and showing what a male would do. He is full of arrogance,
phusioo.
This means he justifies everything that he does. Self-justification, self-absorption, self-
deception, these are all traits of arrogance. A person without virtue love is rude, he’s indecent,
he’s inappropriate this verse says. The word for rude is indecent or inappropriate,
aschemoneo,
inappropriate. He’s rude, always saying the wrong thing. People have a rude mouth, rude
language, and they say the wrong thing at the wrong time. Some people do it just to shock
people. A male will do it to be the center of attention. Using the same passage he behaves rudely.
He’s always seeks his own, he’s selfish. He’s easily provoked. What does this mean? It means
he’s hypersensitive. He thinks in terms of evil, not grace. This is wrong thinking, a system of
Satan’s genius, evil.
Evil is the genius of Satan, grace is the genius of God.
Let me give you an
example. Grace says,
“Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved”
(Acts 16:31).
“For by grace are you saved through faith, it’s a gift from God”
(Ephesians 2:8), this is grace.
Grace is unmerited favor. Evil is works, it’s religion. Religion will tell you, “Believe in Jesus
Christ and quit chewing bubblegum and you’ll go to heaven and don’t drink anymore soft drinks,
and never smoke a cigar, and don’t this and don’t that.” It will give you a long list of things to do
and then maybe you’ll go to heaven. That’s evil, that’s not grace. A person without any
impersonal love rejoices in iniquity but not in truth. If he doesn’t have this virtue love, he can be
grossly wicked. He does not bear all things, can’t handle pressure and can’t hold things off. He
does not have hope in all things. He doesn’t have confidence in God’s plan. He does not endure
all things,
hupomeno
, which means patience or perseverance. He’s always failing or he’s always
ekpipto
, always powerless, tripped up by the enemy. Paul uses this imagery of growth and
imagery of maturity to illustrate his intention for the Corinthian believers, what they can actually
be like if they have virtue love. I just used it to show what a male is like without virtue love. He’s
not longsuffering. He’s not kind. He’s always full of envy. He’s always arrogant. He’s always
rude. He’s always seeking his own. He’s easily provoked. He’s always thinking in terms of evil,
not grace. He rejoices in iniquity. He does not bear all things. He does not have hope in all
things. He doesn’t endure all things. He’s always failing. Is this the kind of person you want to
hook up with for the rest your life ladies? I hope not. Is this the kind of person you want to be
your best friend guys? I hope not.
The immature believer, whether it is male or female, will
act like a child, think like a child, and reason like a child. If you’re a believer you must
grow to be a mature believer by putting away those childish things. This means you’ve got
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to learn to think, speak, and reason like an adult believer.
All of these things require you to
renovate your thinking. There is only one way to renovate your thinking, there’s no other way
around this. The only way I can change the way I think is to decide to do it volitionally, to make
a volitional decision. This is the key, your volition. No one can do it for you. No one can pray
you into it. You have to make a volitional decision, “I want to learn God’s Word. I’m sick of
beating my brains out. I’m sick of acting like a jerk. I’m sick of being a loser. I want to learn
God’s plan for my life.” Then maybe you can learn to think like a man, speak like a man, and
reason like a man. Thinking like a man, what a wonderful way to think. Proverbs 29:22,
“A fool
always loses his temper, but a wise man holds it back.”
Ecclesiastes 7:9 says anger is related to
stupidity.
“Don’t be hasty to be angry for anger resides in the bosom of the fool.”
There you
have it, anger is related to stupidity. How about this? Emotions are the basis for uncontrolled
anger. My pastor once said,
“Anger can turn a genius into a fool.”
He’s right. Any male who
cannot control his temper is not the man that God is searching for in this nation, the United
States of America, a client nation, a nation that’s falling fast, a nation that’s on the brink of
disaster, a nation that is looking at a train wreck and can hear the whistle blowing. Do you
remember how I started this in Ezekiel 22:30? God said,
“I’m looking for a man that will stand
in the gap and make up the hedge between the people and Me and I couldn’t even find one,”
not
one in the whole land.
The man that God’s looking for must control his emotions.
Anger is a
violation of the royal family honor code as seen in Colossians 3:8. If you have emotional anger,
outbursts toward your wife, outbursts toward your children, even toward your dog, it displays
what a child you still are. The mental attitude sin of anger must be confessed as sin and it has to
be contained. This was something that’s hard to learn as a young Christian, even for me. I had to
learn to control my temper and I had to learn to stay filled with the Holy Spirit and not seek
revenge. I had to learn the 3R’s, not reading, writing, and arithmetic, that’s not it.
The 3 R’s:
recognize my sin; rebound my sin; and resume my spiritual life.
Hebrews 5:11-14 says,
“Concerning him
[that’s the immature believer]
we have much to say but it’s hard to explain
since you have become so dull of hearing
[in other words, you can’t pay attention for a very long
period of time and that’s a trait of a child. Unless you’re entertaining them, unless you have the
TV on and the cartoons going, they can’t pay attention for very long. Are you like this? Do you
need someone to entertain you before you can focus?]
For though at this time you ought to be a
teacher instead, you need someone again to come and teach you the elementary principles of the
oracles of God and you have come to need milk, not solid food.
[Guess who needs milk? A little
baby on a bottle.]
For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the Word of
righteousness, he is a napios
[an infant].
But solid food is for the mature who because of practice
have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.”
It’s time for you as a man or a male to
evaluate your life. Where are you in this process? It’s time for you to make a decision. In
Ephesians 4:13 Paul talks about the distribution of spiritual gifts and you’ve often heard me talk
about a well-qualified pastor. Listen to Ephesians 4:13,
“Until we all attain to the unity of the
faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man
[
aner,
there it is again]
to the
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measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Jesus Christ.”
Christ our Lord was a
mature man.
A mature spiritual man will replicate the thinking of our Lord Jesus Christ
because if we can think like Him, then we can live like He lived.
A mature man, the word
mature is
teleios.
It means full-grown, a full grown
aner,
man. Why did God give the gift of
pastor-teacher? Again,
“Until we all come to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son
of God to be full grown men.”
Paul is speaking of men who have communication gifts. They are
chosen for the purpose of equipping other believers both doctrinally and practically. They are
essentially the color bearers, men that carry the colors. It’s an interesting thing, we’ll talk about
this more later, men who carry the colors in the field of combat. I’m thinking about one Civil
War battle where many soldiers died carrying the colors of their company and this is what Satan
is going to do. If a man is a pastor or a man has a gift of pastor-teacher, he’s going to be the color
bearer. He’s going to be the one that leads the charge. He’s going to be the one that says, “Rally
around me.” He’s going to be the one the sharpshooter shoots at first. To be a pastor-teacher is
going to take courage and desire. Here’s the principle.
If God is going to deliver the United
States of America from what we are about to face under the fifth cycle of discipline, we
must have men who are equipped to study and teach God’s Word
. It must be a lifelong
priority, not something you do when you run out of options. You can’t abandon your post. There’s
no retirement.
You serve God until God is through with you, then He will call you home.
It
requires courage for a man with a communication gift to step out and trust God for his finances,
for his health, for his family. It requires the faith-rest drill, this is problem-solving device #3 on
our main line of resistance. In this passage in Ezekiel 22:29-31, God could find no one, not even
one person. He could not find one person who would stand at the right time and in the right
place. It’s not about politics, it’s about the male believers who have a communication gift and are
not hesitant to go forward due to the fear of the consequences.
We must have men to stand in
pulpits, we must have men to study and teach God’s Word if our nation is to be delivered.
Are you willing to prepare to do this? Are you willing to speak words of confrontation and words
of exhortation? Are you a man with a communication gift and you are not using it? Are you
willing to be unpopular to most of the world? Can you face opposition and not cave in? In the
verse I’m about to give you, Isaiah 6:8-9, we see the prophet Isaiah volunteering to be God’s
messenger to pronounce judgment on Judah, the Southern Kingdom. Here’s what he says, listen
carefully,
“
Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for
Us?’ And then I said, ‘Here am I, send me!’
And He said, ‘Go and tell this people, keep on
hearing but don’t understand. Keep on seeing but do not perceive.’”
What a tragedy, a nation
blind to their own sin. A nation blind to their own arrogance. A nation deaf to the warning of
disaster that’s coming. This would only harden their hearts when Isaiah did this, but it was true
and the judgment of God came. Isaiah had to, he was God’s man. He was a contemporary of
Amos, Hosea, and Micah. He was married, he had two children. He wrote during the decline of
the Northern Kingdom of Israel on the fall of Jerusalem and the restoration of Jerusalem. He was
God’s man and this is what God is looking for. There is a difference between a mature male
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believer and an immature male believer and you can see it in their actions. If the gift of pastor-
teacher has been supernaturally provided and if the canon of Scripture has been supernaturally
prepared and if you have been supernaturally indwelt by God the Holy Spirit, then what is the
weak link in the whole process? The weak link is you. The weak link is your volition, your desire
to serve Him, your desire to stand in the gap, your courage to stand up and be counted.
God is
looking for spiritually mature men.
A man at work, with his family, in his community, a
spiritually mature believer, not a bully, not an arrogant jerk, a man who is replicating the life of
Christ. God, give us these men. We are about to lose everything our forefathers fought and died
for. God, give us these men. This is my prayer today and I trust that it is your prayer also. Until
next week, this is your host Rick Hughes saying thank you for being with me on The FLOT Line.