Be Men — Bill McLeod

The Biblical Call to Be Men

Corinthians 16, 13 and 14, where Paul said, watch you, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong, let all your things be done with love. First Corinthians 16, 13 and 14. You notice the phrase there, he says we are to quit ourselves like men, which means act quit, not cripped as we would understand the word today, but act quit yourself like a man.

And in the Old Testament we have a number of references to this kind of idea. The Philistines were warring with the Israelites and the Israelites brought the Ark of God down into the army and when the soldiers saw the Ark of God they shouted, and the Philistines heard this great shout and they wondered what was happening and they heard that the Ark of God was coming to the camp and they were afraid.

And then somebody, we don't know who because it doesn't say in the account, 1 Samuel chapter 4, somebody exhorted the Philistines and said, be strong, be men, be men, and fight. And so they did and they beat the Israelites.

The Israelites suffered a tragic defeat, the Ark of God was taken, and the two sons of Eli, the priests, they were both killed, it was a sad day for Israel. When David was old and saw that death was approaching, he had a personal talk with his son Solomon and he said, be a man, be strong, be a man now.

On another occasion when the Ammonites hired the Syrians to fight on their side against the Israelites and David sent Joab and Abishai's brother with the army of the Israelites to battle, Joab talked with his brother Abishai and said, now if the Ammonites are too strong for you, I'll come and help you.

If the Syrians are too strong for me, then you come and help me. Now let's play the men, he said, let's play the men, let's be men now, and fight for the cities of our God and for our God. And the Lord will do what seems best to Him.

So in these few instances, the appeal was, now be a man, act like a man. Now I don't think there's any women's livers around. You know, sometimes in an emergency a woman is liable to jump up and down and scream.

Now that's not always true, of course, but in some cases that's likely to happen. A man is not to do that, and normally a man would not. He'd try to figure out how to handle a problem and what to do with it and so on.

So I don't think that the writers here are casting any aspersions on the ladies. They're just saying that a man should be a man. And if there's anything that's needed in the church of God today, it's just that we have men that are men, that act like men, that take the leadership in their home, in their family, and not as in so many cases where the woman has to take the leadership because the man doesn't really care.

And the woman sort of has to be father and mother to the children, and as far as the spiritual side of things is concerned, she has to do everything. And the man just kind of coasts along. And that's so wrong.

Men Who Are Right With God

Stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong, let all your things be done with love. God is looking for men, first of all, that are right with Him. In Psalm 78, it says about the Israelites that their heart was not right with God, and they were not steadfast in God's covenant.

God could not depend on them. They were not right in their hearts. Their heart did not beat with the heart of God. They didn't love the things God loved. They didn't hate the things God hated. And their heart wasn't right.

Psalm 78, verse 8 talks about this, and a later verse, I think 37 or so. Then in Acts chapter 8, you remember the story about Simon the sorcerer, who had been the big wheel in Samaria until Philip came and preached the gospel, and then the people turned away from Simon and followed Philip.

And then it says that Simon himself believed and was baptized. And it continued with Philip, it says, wondering and beholding the miracles, the signs. He practiced witchcraft, and he'd seen that kind of stuff, you know, the supernatural.

But this was totally different, far surpassing anything he'd ever seen, and he couldn't put it all together in his mind. Well here were all these new converts to Samaria, but they had not received the Holy Spirit.

So Peter and John, they came down from Jerusalem, and they prayed for these converts that they might receive the Holy Spirit, and Simon saw all of this, and he saw a way of recouping what he'd lost. You see, nobody was paying any attention to him anymore.

And so he offered money to Peter and said, Give me also this power, that on whomsoever I lay hands, he may receive the Holy Spirit. And Peter said, well one translation says that Peter said, To destruction you and your money.

Your money perish with you, because you thought that the gift of God might be purchased with money. You have neither part nor lot in this matter. He said, your heart is not right in the sight of God. Oh, but he'd believed, and he had been baptized, but his heart was not right with God.

Peter said, I perceive, I see that you're in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of sin. Repent and pray to God. That seems like hard language for a preacher to say to a Christian, you know, but it had to be said.

You see, Simon was bitter over the fact that Philip was now the big wheel. Now Philip didn't consider himself that, was not seeking for that, but that's the way it looked to Simon. And he was bitter over this.

He wanted to get back in the limelight again. And Peter, of course, dealt with this very forthrightly. You're in the gall of bitterness, in the bond of iniquity. His own iniquity shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be held with the cord of his own sin.

And sometimes, even although we may be a genuine, a baptized believer, our heart may not be right with God. There may be bitterness there. There may be unconfessed sin. And these are things, if we're going to be a man in the sense in which the Bible talks about it, and be strong, be filled with love, these are things we have to deal with to be right with our God.

Examining the Heart and Conscience

And you know that verse, we all know it, I guess, Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts. Now you can search your heart to a point, the Bible says you can, in Lamentations 3.

It says, Let us search and try our way. Let's turn again to the Lord. Let's lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens. But I'll never know the whole story, so I have to ask for God's assistance.

Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me. Have you ever prayed that prayer and really meant it? It's not easy to pray that kind of prayer because we're afraid that God might respond.

Well, He will. If I'm honest, God will be honest. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. James 4, verse 8. Alright, God is looking for men that are right with Him.

Then He wants men that are right with themselves. Beloved, the Bible says, if our heart condemn us, then I'm not right with myself, you see. If our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart and knows all things.

If our heart condemn us not, then we have confidence toward God. We sing in the line of one of our songs, Now my heart condemns me not, pure before thy law I stand. Is your heart condemning you? If it is, then you're not right with yourself.

Happy is he, the Bible says in Romans 14, happy is he that does not condemn himself in that thing which he allows. But he that doubts is self-condemned. Whatever is not of faith is sin. Right with God, right with myself.

Brethren, we need to have the kind of conscience Paul spoke about in Romans 9. He said, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit. A clear conscience with God. Acts chapter 24, Paul said, Herein do I exercise myself to have always a conscience void of offense toward God and toward man.

That delicate mechanism called a conscience. The Bible talks about a conscience being evil and weak and seared and defiled or dead. It also talks about a good conscience and it talks about a pure conscience.

If the blood of bulls and of goats and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctify to the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

Husbands Loving Their Wives

Right with God, right with myself. Right with my wife. We're not all married. Some I'm sure aspire to be. No doubt will be someday. So listen, right with my wife. Husbands, why did the Holy Spirit say this in Colossians chapter 3?

Husbands, love your wives and be not bitter against them. Why did the Spirit say that? Well, brethren, He said it because He knows there will be times when Christian husbands will feel bitter against their wives.

And as a word of caution and warning here, I think as Christian husbands, we need to read Ephesians 5, 18 to the end, maybe once a week. We're to love our wives as Christ loved the church. We're to honor them.

We are to cherish them as Christ did the church, as Christ does the church. And it ends by saying we're to love our wives. You know, even in Christian homes, many times there are problems and men are not right with their wife.

Petro LaLussa, the opera singer who met God in the Moody Church a year or more ago, we spent some time together. He went to the Philippines with me. We've had a couple of crusades together. And I like to hear him talking about his wife.

I've met her. She's a very beautiful person, very well-educated person. Very gracious Christian woman. But he said, you know, she's the best friend I've got. She's my companion and my best friend. He said, there's nothing comes into my mind.

And he said, Bill, I mean nothing that I don't share with my wife. And she shares everything with me. We just have the greatest time talking. I don't have a better friend than my wife. I'm sure there are some of us here today that couldn't say that.

Maybe we wish we could. I know Sherwood Wirth was saying that when he, that he was the editor of Billy Graham's decision paper for 25 years. But he wasn't right with his wife. As a matter of fact, he once told me, he said, I didn't want her to hurt Billy Graham or I'd have divorced my wife years ago.

He said, we live in the same house. That's all you can say for. And he blamed her until God heard Harry and Evelyn Thiessen's testimony in the Winnipeg meetings in 71 and God touched his life. And through that, he met God.

Then he tells how he tried to establish a relationship with his wife again. It was pretty hard. One day he said, I think I'll help you with the dishes. And she said, what's the matter? Are you feeling sick?

I mean, he'd never done this before. Then one day he said, I think I'll take the garbage out. And she said, you're still feeling sick? He said, I've been filled with the Holy Spirit. And she said, prove it.

She didn't believe it was real. And it took some months before he broke down the barriers and she met God. Matter of fact, it was in an afterglow. He said, she said to him one day, when's your next afterglow?

Well, he said, I'm having one tonight. And she said, I think I'll come along. And he said, she kept up this running conversation. Why is this fellow praying so long? Why is that lady crying so loud? Why is all this happening?

She went on and on and on. And then suddenly she said, Woody, you're not sure what they call him, Woody. She said, Woody, I think I'll hit the chair. You know, they had a chair in the center and people were kneeling at the chair.

He foamed me long distance. I was in the Alliance Church, View of the Alliance in Edmonton. And he foamed me long distance that night. And he was just talking so fast. He was hardly coherent. He said, my wife met God and our home is a heaven on earth.

Husbands, love your wives. You can't be right with God and wrong with your wife. Many times we try to be, but it doesn't work. Do you know what a danger signal is? When you don't pray with your wife on a regular basis, there's something wrong with your relationship.

And, you know, many women are starving for this kind of fellowship with their own husbands. I know one Christian came home one day and found a Dear John note on the table. His wife had found a man that would listen to her, that would talk to her.

And she was gone, never came back. He was in Christian work full time. He's selling life insurance today. He blames himself now. He sees it so clearly. He had no time for his wife. He was pouring himself into the work of God and thought he had to do it day and night.

No time for his wife. And she had remonstrated with him, but he had not listened. And the fault was his own. Are you right with your wife? Maybe some of us need to go home even this morning and make things right.

And our home, start there. One man once told me, he said, I'm married to a witch. Now, he didn't mean she was practicing witchcraft. He meant she had that kind of a nature, see. And he really told me how awful she was.

And I stopped him. I said, I don't want to hear this. I said, why don't you and I get down on our knees and you ask God to show you what you look like to Him, never mind your wife. I mean, he knew what his wife was like.

Well, he got down on his knees and he prayed the prayer, search me, O God. And then he got honest and he broke. And when he started confessing, it was terrible. He hated his wife so much that there were times when she got in the car to drive somewhere, he used to pray and say, God, get her in an accident, kill her.

I can't stand that scrawling voice anymore. He was a murderer because the Bible said, if you hate your brother in your heart, you're a murderer. He was committing adultery on a regular basis. Now, he was deeply involved in an evangelical church and the boys club work, but these things were in his heart.

He got rid of the whole thing. We went home together. He walked in the house like this, grabbed his wife, made everything right with her, got his two daughters, set them down in two chairs. They were eight years of age, adopted children, beautiful children.

And his wife and I sat around the corner watching and listening. And he made things right with the kids, asked their forgiveness that he'd been such a poor father and Christian. Growling around the house all the time.

And then his wife turned to me and she said, I don't know what's happened to him, but I want it to happen to me. I said, OK, get on your knees. So we get on our knees in the kitchen there. You know, the first thing she said when she prayed, Oh, God, she said, you know what a witch I've been.

So he wasn't so wrong, you see, but it was not for him to say it. That was for her to say. And they got everything straightened out. That was in Saginaw, Michigan. They were leaving on holidays that Saturday, but they never made it.

They stayed till Tuesday the following week because God was working in the church and they didn't want to miss it. And they finally left. As a matter of fact, that Sunday morning, the meeting was unsettled.

It was a men's meeting like this. And that Saturday they were supposed to leave. But Sunday morning they stayed. The preacher had them share. He never got to preach at all. The church I was holding meetings in that Sunday morning.

I was in a neighboring church and God just broke in when they gave their testimony, told the whole story, how life had been, how God had changed in the day before. Then they took off on Tuesday. They phoned the church Thursday.

I was the only one there when the phone rang. I picked up the telephone and they told us what happened. On Wednesday night, they'd gone to a prayer meeting in a totally strange church. The preacher met them at the door.

They said, hey, we just experienced revival. He said, what's that? So they told him. He said, will you tell our people tonight? They said, sure. And a revival broke in the church that night as they were sharing what God had done in their lives.

Fathers Teaching God's Word to Their Children

Men right with God, right with themselves, right with their wives. She ought to be the most important person next to God in your life. If she's not, there's something wrong. Take care of it, brethren.

We're to love our wives as Christ loved the church. Then, right with my children, am I, the fathers to the children shall make known thy truth. Have you ever done that? Ever sat down with your kids and tried to teach them something about the Word of God?

We do it by remote control. We do it by proxy. It's sort of armchair stuff, you know. I sit here and either my wife does it, or the Sunday school does it, or the young people of the church does it. I don't feel I have to do a thing.

But the Bible says, the father to the children shall make known thy truth. Read Deuteronomy chapter 4. Read Deuteronomy chapter 9. Read Deuteronomy chapter 11. And there you'll see what God is expecting of the fathers to the children in the area of teaching the Word of God.

Read Psalm 44. Read Psalm 78, the opening verses. And there again, you'll discover what God expects of Christian men concerning the matter of teaching the Word of God to the children. We're supposed to talk about the Word of God in the home, it says.

When we're sitting down, when we're rising up, when we're walking around, when we're lying on our bed. We're to write the Word of God on our hands, between our eyes. We're to have it on the doorpost of our house, on the gates.

Harry Aronside was converted at the age of about 15. He became instantly, overnight, a renowned boy preacher. Why? Well, he explains it. His parents talked about the Bible so much in the home, and had so many Christian workers into the house.

He said, I used to sit on the floor by the hour as a boy, and listen to all these people talk about God and the Bible. He said, the day I was converted, all my doctrine was already formed. I'd heard so much in my home.

And he eventually became pastor of the famous Moody Memorial Church in Chicago, where Harold's brother Irvin is now the pastor. The fathers to the children shall make known thy truth. That's another text in Isaiah chapter 38.

Do you do that? Have you done that? Maybe for some it might be a little late to start, but I don't suppose it's ever too late. But I might have to start by making things right with my kids first of all, and then trying from that point on to give them something of the Word of God.

God expects it of us. Who can do it better than the dad? And you know, sometimes, well, I was talking once with a Christian man. He was quite well off, and his son had borrowed, I'm not sure, was it $30 ,000 or $40 ,000 to buy a boat.

After the son got the money, he told his dad, you know, I'm not planning on paying this back. He said, you aren't? I'll take you to court. And he did. And he was telling me about it. He hadn't taken him to court yet, but he'd hired a lawyer.

And he said, that wimping son of mine, I'm going to teach him who's boss in the house. He's going to pay me back every dollar. I said, is your son a Christian? Oh, yeah, the miserable wretch claims he is.

Well, I said, don't you know the Bible says that you're not to go to law with another Christian? Where does it say that? And I showed him. He said, I'm in trouble. I said, yes, you are. He said, how do I handle it?

I said, okay. I said, write your son a letter and ask his forgiveness. He was an American, but we met in South America. I said, ask his forgiveness. Tell him to forget about the $30 ,000 because the Bible says, why don't you allow yourselves to be defrauded?

If he wants to defraud you, let him do it. It'll be his problem. Your heart will be right. And we knelt together. And that man, he cried before God and made the whole thing right. Wrote his son. And you know, something happened in his life.

The next day, he was walking past me. He hit me with his elbow and said, Bill, it's fantastic what's going on in my heart. A couple of days later, he came up and said, Bill, it's getting better every day.

Walking with God, it's getting better every day. All the bitterness was gone. Right with his son. Man, that's important. Very, very important. To be right with my wife, right with my children, right with my parents.

Honoring Parents and Treating Others Justly

Honor your father and your mother, which is the first commandment, with promise that it may be well with you, that you may live long on the earth. Are you right with your parents? Maybe your parents are dead.

Well, we can't do anything about that now, of course. I don't know whether a person should do this or not, but sometimes I say to the Lord, Lord, would you mind telling my dad and mom that I really love them and I miss them?

Ever done that? I think maybe the Lord would convey the message. I wouldn't try and do it directly because we're not supposed to try and talk to the dead. But I don't think the Lord would mind telling my parents over there in heaven that I miss them.

Anyway, honor your father and your mother, which is the first commandment, with promise that it may be well with you. My dear brethren, if I'm not right with my parents, it can't be well with me, spiritually speaking.

The Bible says in Proverbs, listen to your father, hearken to your father, and don't despise your mother when she's old. We have a tendency to do that because they do some strange things. Like my mother, you know, she had this cane, you know, and she'd hobble around with the cane.

And, you know, we felt sorry for her because obviously she was crippled. And then one day she was sitting on the Chesterfield and the cane was beside her. And little Jamie, one of my grandchildren, grabbed the cane and ran.

My mother leaped to her feet and she chased him all around the house like a teenager. And she got the cane and she was walking back with this look of triumph. And I said, Mother, I thought you were crippled.

Oh, and she took the cane and started walking like this. But you're not to despise your mother when she's old, or your father either. Honor them, honor them. Right with my parents. If I'm an employer, am I right with my employees?

Well, the Bible talks about that. Give unto your employees that which is just and equal, and don't threaten them. Don't threaten your employees. And give them a proper wage. I know of a certain city, small city, in Canada.

They say it's the most probably, there's a higher percentage of Christians in that city than any city in Canada. And at the same time, they have the lowest wage scale of any city almost in Canada. And that's not right.

See, that's not right. As an employee, I should give good service to my employer. The Bible even talks about that. Not purlaunting, not stealing, don't steal. You know, my father was a soul of honor. He was a school caretaker in Winnipeg for many, many years.

He'd rather die than steal anything. And he taught us kids. He wasn't a Christian, but he never swore, didn't smoke, didn't tell dirty stories, paid his bills, taught us all these things. And I really respect that.

He became a Christian later on in life when he was 72 years old. But he never thought anything of taking light bulbs and toilet paper and soap and stuff home from the school to our house. That wasn't stealing, he figured.

That was subsidizing his income. And sometimes as Christians, we do that very thing. We take things home from the job because we call it subsidizing the income. Not stealing. It is stealing. And it grieves the spirit of God.

And sometimes we have to make things right. In a very recent crusade, just a week or so ago, this girl came to me about 16, 17. She'd been stealing from different places. And so her pastor told me about it later on.

He said, you know, I had to go with this girl. He said, we went to seven different business establishments where she'd been stealing. And she made everything right. Well, maybe it's something that happened 40 years ago.

And we think, well, time has eroded it away. And it's no longer there. But time doesn't erode it away. The Bible says God requires that which is past. And there may be something like this in our lives.

Things that have to be made right. God is looking for men that will be men. Strong men. Christian men. Filled with the Spirit. Filled with the Word of God. Right in all these departments and areas. There's one other thing we might mention briefly before we conclude.

Christians and the Authorities

Right with the authorities. You know, some Christians when they're driving, they always have their eye on the rear vision mirror. That's a bad sign. You know. We should stay within the speed limit. At one time I didn't.

And I drove a truck. I was starting a church in Transcona. I drove a truck. And it said dodge on the tailgate. You know, big letters. So I got some scotch light. And I made it say, don't dodge. Jesus saves.

And I thought that was pretty neat, see. Then one night I was visiting a sinner, trying to win him to the Lord. And he says to me, what do you drive? And all of a sudden I had this terrible sinking feeling.

I said, I drive my maroon colored Dodge truck. Oh yes, he said. I followed you on the highway. And you don't believe in obeying the laws, do you? I couldn't talk to him about the Lord anymore. I get out of there.

I got home. And I wept before God. And I asked God to forgive me. And I said, Lord, I'll never again knowingly break the speed law. Some Christians are doing it all the time. I knew a Christian worker.

He had to leave the ministry. Matter of fact, he had to leave the ministry. He got so deeply in debt. And he thought he'd get a job and get enough money to pay off his debt. He never ever got out of debt.

He contracted cancer and died in his 40s. He was gone. But you know, he broke laws again and again and again. Even as a Christian worker. I drive with him. And he'd be muttering, stupid laws. Stupid light.

Why did it turn red? There was nobody around. He slipped through it, you know. He never stopped at stop signs. He hesitated. And parking regulations, he totally ignored them. He had to pay fine after fine after fine after fine.

He thought it was a big joke. The Bible says, put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to every good work. And so, that's in Titus chapter 3 verse 1.

So people, men, are you right as far as the laws of the land are concerned? Do you take more fish than the law allows if nobody's around? Do you shoot a deer before the sun comes up or after the sun goes down?

You know, these are questions because many times Christians are not honest here and consequently we're not right with God. Because we're not right with these matters. We have to break it down, dear brethren, into the specific.

Am I right in these areas? As a pastor, am I right with my congregation? Am I cheating them in any way? Congregation, are you right towards your pastor? Do you love him? Really love him? Do you pray daily for him?

Do you support him and encourage him? Or do you criticize? See, we can extend this thought in many different directions. We don't have time, really, to do that. I want to close. 1 Timothy 2 says, I will therefore that men, and literally it means the men, and it doesn't mean men in the general but in the specific sense, I will therefore that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting.

And we know he means men in the specific sense because the next verse says, in like manner that the women adorn themselves in modest clothing. So he's speaking to men and he says, Men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting.

Men Who Pray and Are Filled With the Word

Are you that kind of a man? When you meet other Christians, do you pray with them? There's an old saying, it's not based in the Bible maybe, but it's something we could kick around. If two Christians talk for an hour and don't pray, they sin.

I don't have chapter and verse for that. But, you know, sometimes we can talk for four hours about a thousand different things. God never gets in the conversation. And we don't end in prayer. I once led an Anglican woman to Christ back in Brno, Manitoba.

I served four churches in that area many years ago. And I first went out preaching, Shoal Lake, Brno, Burdette, and Strathclyde. I preached four times every Sunday. I had three prayer meetings every week.

And I had a young people's meeting besides. I was busy. But anyway, filled with God's Word. Am I really? Men pray everywhere. In Burdette, there was this woman from Wales, an Anglican woman, unconverted.

She came to my church. I called on her. She got saved. Do you know what she told me? She was in Wales as a young girl at the time of the Welsh Revival, 1904 -1905. She said, all these years I can't get out of my mind the picture of Christian men meeting and getting on their knees on the sidewalks and praying.

She said, I saw it many times. Sometimes large groups of Christian men and women kneeling on the sidewalks praying. She said, I know they have something I don't have. And she wanted to have it. And she found it.

The reality of the Lord Jesus Christ. I will therefore that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting. And then, Colossians 3 .16 says, Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom.

Fill yourselves full, men, of the word of God. Then Ephesians 5 .18, what a combination. Be filled with the Spirit. What a combination. Filled with the word of God. Filled with the Spirit. The consequence is praying always.

Lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting. Men, it matters so much how you live as a Christian believer. Not long ago in British Columbia, you know what a Christian employer told me? His business was going belly up.

He could see it coming. He couldn't prevent it. And he said, you know what the reason for it is? And I said, no. He said, because of Christian employees I have who have borrowed money from me and will not pay it back.

And he was kind of a quiet person, not outspoken. And he didn't want to go after them. And so he was sort of suffering in silence. But the whole business was going belly up because his employees, some of them, would not pay back money they borrowed.

And he said, it's not as if they don't have it and can't do it. They made promises which they do not fulfill. Now I wonder, those men are going to be in trouble with God. Probably by now the business is finished.

They'll be in trouble with God all their days until they make this thing right. Try to pray for your kids, see your kids going astray. And the real problem is that Dad's gone astray. Then you see it sometimes reflected in the children.

It doesn't mean that if somebody has children that are straying from God, that you should sit in judgment on them and say, well now, there must be something wrong with him. There may be, there may not be.

That's not your business to even think about. That's between that person and God. But there's no doubt that sometimes this is how it is. Watch you, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong, let all your things be done with love.