This is the first in a series of short papers written on the roles of Christian men.  My first priority is to set the stage in your mind.  To draw your attention to the seriousness of what we face as husbands and fathers in today’s Post-modern world.  Where truth is reduced to the a provocative word that only stirs debate about the obscure notion of right and wrong as our culture sees it.  Society will continue in this direction until Christian men lead their homes on a road that will turn the generations back to God.

    We are commanded in Scripture to “be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what [is] that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”( Rom 12:2 )   I bring this up because of a common trend that has been formed for years now, that “the church and Word of God needs to be relevant.”  I am here to proclaim to you that the Gospel of Jesus Christ IS relevant! It is relevant because God will “judge the world in righteousness” (Acts 17:30).  His wrath and justice for law breakers (sinners) makes the Gospel relevant.

    God grafted us in because the Jews rejected the truth of the Gospel.  I don’t want to imagine God’s eventual response to us whom He has graciously saved, for “it is a fearful thing to end up in the hands of the living God.” (Heb 10:31)  We must look at the world through biblical glasses and not the other way around. 

 

    To illustrate my point about looking at the world through biblical glasses, in 1799 after riding around his land on a cold winter day, the General got a major head cold or throat infection.  The doctors at the time exercised the finest that medical science had to offer, which was blood letting.  They ended up bleeding him to death!!  On his bed stand, right next to him was his bible!!  If they would have looked in it during there studies they would have discovered in Lev 17:11 For the life of the flesh [is] in the blood: This was thousands of years before this science was applied.

In his book “Sacred Fire”,  Peter Lillback spent a couple of decades studying the writings of George Washington and others to prove once and for all that Washington was a committed Christian man, not a deist, not a mason, though he did use the mason lodge as a tool to blend in with the common foot soldier, Washington put the utmost importance on honor and character. He often defined the underpinnings of it in military terms. 

“Washington had written near the end of his life about the qualifications of general officers....ranking officers “ought to have...Integrity and prudence in an eminent degree, that entire confidence might be reposed in them;””

“He wanted all his soldiers to be men of honor.  In that spirit, Washington created the Badge of Merit,  originally intended not for officers but for enlisted men.  Today it is known as the Purple Heart.  It was granted to “suitable characters” who were worthy of “that honorary distinction.”

“he explained that recipients of this Badge of Merit would be “enrolled in the book of merit which will be kept at the orderly office...And further, ever other soldier should know, “The road to glory in a patriot army and a free country is thus open to all””

“All of Washington’s soldiers were to seek “the road to glory.”  And just what was the highest glory on the this road to glory?  Washington had told his soldiers when they were at Valley Forge...”While we are zealously performing the duties of  good citizens and soldiers, we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties of Religion.  To the distinguished Character of Patriot, it should be our highest Glory to add the more distinguished Character of Christian.”  For Washington the “road to glory” led to the “Character of Christian.””

As Christian men we must take up this badge of honor and start living it in front of God, our wives, our children and the godless culture of America.  If we are men of God, we will fulfill the role of Godly men, men that study to show themselves approved in order to fulfill the role of honor; ready to give his life for that which God gives him as the most important task.  To raise up a Godly seed in order to take the Gospel to every tribe and nation.

“Washington also remembered the legacy of another officer with a different character.  He had discovered, by a close call with disastrous treason, just how true his words were...  Most Americans still recognize the name Benedict Arnold, for it has been a synonym for “traitor” for over two centuries”

Our Benedict Arnold is the lie of Secular Humanism.  It has crept into the church and will deliver us to the enemy if we don’t expose it and rid it of our homes.   We can liken it to a frog that is put in a pot of luke warm water.  The frog becomes comfortable and continues to adapt to his environment.  The frog will be slowly cooked, all the while changing his comfort zone to accommodate the changing temperature.  Christians are called to a different standard than the world around us.  We are no better than the worst sinner but because God has graciously saved us we must respond in faith and urgency at the changing climate in the church.

     Are we going to be included in the book of merit and brave the hot waters of societal pressures; not cowering to this siege of “toleration doctrine;” the doctrine that says we have to tolerate everything that offends the convictions of us, the majority!  Does this make sense when the Truth of Christ is not tolerated?

Please don’t think that I am painting all Christian men as lacking and have not already thought of these things.  I think that most of us can just look around and understand something is amiss.   Over the last 40 years the feminist movement has programmed us into vilifying the roles of men as God defines them, distorting the true meaning of Godly headship in the home and the consequence of it.  To be fair, these well-meaning and intelligent women are not only the result of men who have in the past taken and distorted Gods meaning of headship, but they are also victims of the natural out-workings of the evolutionary godless world views, in which both are self-serving.  The scripture makes it clear that we are to have a balance of love and respect, each having a clear role in the relationship.  I strongly feel men need to find out what God wants from them and do it.

I think it is always fitting to address the first and most important issue when it comes to Godly men, salvation.  We must reckon with our depraved nature before a wrath filled but merciful God. Salvation depends on obedience.  After God created man he put him in the Garden of Eden and set him to work, he then commanded him.  “Commanded”, denotes the expectation that Adam was to obey. (Gen 2:15,16)  We see in Gal 3 it was because of manifold transgressions He then gave man the 10 Commandments to obey. (Exodus 20:7)  These commandments reenforce our deadness in sin.

Then we see at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry he said “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Math 3:2) and “Repent and believe on the Gospel” (Mark 1:15).  We are able to do this only when God grants us the faith to respond to the Gospel, which are counted as “born-again”.

Without Christ, who fulfills the law, we are “at enmity with God” through manifold transgressions and “His wrath abides on us.”  So to be sure you start on the “road of glory” you must surrender and let the law kill you as Paul did and then run the to cross of Jesus in repentance, putting your trust in the work that Christ did, to be born-again and seen as righteous.  So to make it clear the first step on the road to glory is your salvation.  Repent and trust in the savior.  (Read Rom 7:10-14)

Now if you are soundly saved, you are not off the hook. 

2 Cr 13:5 Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?

Phl 2:12… work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

“Work out our salvation”, is it that you are some how helping Christ by accepting Him?  No, in the next verse  ” For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of [his] good pleasure.”  HE ACCEPTS YOU!!  For this, salvation should be worked out in fear and trembling.  In the verse before “And [that] every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ [is] Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”  If one is not born-again, he should fear, for the wrath of God will follow death.   And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.  (Hbr 9:27)

But we know also from the script that God desires all to be saved and not to perish. (Math 18:14).

There is great anguish in my heart to see so many young people just throwing themselves to the “dark side” as I have heard them proclaim with mocking indignation.  It is telling of the state of the our homes, when the world looks at our children, children that have grown up in “Christian homes” and they can not tell the difference.

Men, we are responsible for the generation that comes out of  our homes.  Our first mission, is in the home and our child are the next generation that will or will not evangelize the lost and dying.  So can you honestly sit back and allow your children to be “in the world and OF the world?”