The Belligerent Manliness of Christ

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Good evening. So what an honor to be here today. Apology at Church has been a great encouragement to me for many years.

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Most of what I know about theology and apologetics and church history I learned from your pastor

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James White. Later I also learned a lot from your pastor Jeff Durbin about theonomy and postmillennialism and how to defend the faith on the streets.

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And I learned the importance of saving babies. You were also an encouragement to us during COVID.

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When the German government ordered all churches to close we knew that we would not surrender the worship of God to Caesar but we thought we are the only ones until we read your statement on COVID and were greatly encouraged by it.

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So I praise God for Apology at Church and for your ministry and it is truly an honor to stand here in this pulpit today and preach the word.

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I wanted to preach on head covering but wasn't allowed to.

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So I will be preaching on the belligerent manliness of Christ.

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So if you would open your Bibles to 1st Corinthians 16 and verse 13 and I'll only read the second part of the verse.

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So 1st Corinthians 16 verse 13 the second part and this is a word of God.

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Act like men. Be strong. Amen.

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Let's pray. Father teach us what it means to act like men and be strong like Jesus.

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Amen. So what we've just read is one of the most disregarded commandments of God in our time.

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For decades there have only been few men who truly fulfilled this commandment and act like men and are strong.

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Instead we are experiencing a pandemic of effeminate sissified men and we shouldn't be surprised by that because for decades feminism has been telling us that manliness is toxic.

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Something that needs to be fought and overcome and that men who fulfill their

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God -given task as bold and resolute and belligerent leaders and providers and protectors are in fact oppressors.

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Relics from prehistoric times that also need to be overcome. And it starts with the boys.

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Instead of of channeling their audacity and aggressiveness and belligerence in the right direction we try to suppress these qualities.

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Yet these are the qualities from which manliness develops. And so the

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West hardly produces any true men anymore. That is true for Germany and I guess it's true for America as well.

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And that's intentional. For there is no greater threat to the godless and their godless ideologies and their godless state than men who will not be controlled by the state or by anyone else because they fear

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God rather than men and are determined to protect their families and fight for what is good and true.

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There is no greater threat to Satan and his kingdom than God -fearing

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Christian men who act like men and are strong. Where there is a lack of such men the consequences are devastating.

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Marriages perish, families perish, women and children suffer, those who should be led and protected and cared for and in the end the whole nation perishes.

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And this process is difficult to stop because where there is a lack of manly fathers the sons don't learn to be manly either.

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And so the problem is passed on to the next generation. God visits the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generation of those who ate him,

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Exodus 20 verse 5. And instead of the church being a bulwark against these developments and a fortress of biblical manliness she has been overrun by the enemy.

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There are hardly any manly and strong men left in the church either.

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And that is especially true for pastors and leaders in the church.

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Many of them are not shepherds like David, ready to risk their lives in battle against lions and bears, 1st

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Samuel 7, 34 and 35. They are not warriors like David, ready to risk their hats to cut off Goliath's hat, 1st

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Samuel 7, 45, 46. The weakness of the church begins in the pulpit with effeminate pastors who are unwilling to fight the real battles of our times.

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They are unwilling to fight the battles against the darkness of this culture, who are unwilling to wield the word like a sword that pierces and a hammer that smashes.

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And that's why the church herself is no longer manly and strong as she once was, but is herself effeminate and weak and harmless.

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She is no longer an Israel, a warrior of God who fights evil and drives out darkness and pushes back the kingdom of Satan and conquers the world for Christ.

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And because the church is so weak, she has lost all the important battles of recent decades.

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Darwinism, feminism, divorce and sexual immorality, abortion, homosexuality and transgenderism, secularization,

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Marxism, and don't even get me started on COVID. In her current state, the church no longer poses a major threat to Satan.

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She has become a mockery to her enemies. She no longer turns the world upside down.

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Instead, she conforms to the world or cowers away from it.

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Of course, this does not apply to every single church, and the Apologia Church is proof of that.

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But it is true of a large portion of the church, at least the church in the

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West, and you know it's true because you at Apologia take a lot of feet for your bold and belligerent approach, for your manly approach.

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And much of that comes from other pastors and leaders. And they invoke

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Jesus. Jesus wouldn't do such a thing. Jesus wouldn't say such a thing.

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And if he did, he would surely not say it in this way, because Jesus was mild and meek and gentle.

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And you're not. You're mean. You're not nice.

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You're not being Christlike. Let me give you a recent example.

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A few days ago, Lincoln Duncan went after Douglas Wilson in an interview to the point where he said he had no reason to believe dark or people like him were even

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Christians. Why? Because of what he says and how he says it, especially with regard to Big Eva.

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And I get it. No one wants to be called out for their hypocrisy and effeminacy, and I don't want to get to go into all of that.

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But then Lincoln Duncan said that people like Doug would have called

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Jesus a weasel and told him to be more like John the Baptist, because John was belligerent.

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He spoke harsh words. He took on the mighty.

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He called Herod a fox. But Jesus did no such thing.

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The problem is, I mean there are many problems, the entire idea that the greatest of all prophets would speak words that his master would not speak is completely erroneous.

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But the major problem is this. It wasn't John who called

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Herod a fox. It was Jesus, Luke 13, 32.

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What a face plant. But this is precisely the issue with the church. Many Christians think that such manly behavior and such strong words are not appropriate for a

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Christian. Christ wouldn't do that. See, they will even publicly question your salvation.

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Why? Because you act like men. You act like Christ.

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See, here's the problem. Many make up their own Christianity, a harmless effeminate version of Christianity.

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A Christianity that does not confront the world, that does not offend anyone. A Christianity that is shaped in the image of its effeminate pastors.

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And even worse, they make Christ himself in their own effeminate image.

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A sissified Jesus, as Yes, Jesus is meek and gentle, and praise be to him for that.

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But Jesus also said, do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth.

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I have not come to bring peace but a sword, Matthew 10, 34.

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If your picture of Jesus only includes meekness and gentleness and humility, then that's not the complete picture.

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That's not the Jesus of the Bible. Jesus is manly. He is strong. He is belligerent.

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He is a man of war, Exodus 15, verse 3. A man who speaks such hard words that many, probably thousands of his followers turn away from him in anger,

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John 6, 60. He is a man who provokes his enemies so much that they finally have enough and nail him to a cross.

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This is my Jesus. This is the Jesus I follow.

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I want the biblical Jesus. I want to become like him in all things, even in the things that don't suit the feminists and the weaklings.

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I want to become like Jesus in his meekness towards his sheep, but also in his anger towards the wolves.

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Because, see, if you are only gentle and quiet, that is a very precious adornment in God's sight for women, not for men.

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1 Peter 3, 4. See, the church is at war. She is in a fight for survival.

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This is not the time for effeminate men who don't want to say anything harsh, who don't want to offend anyone, who don't want to cause any trouble.

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This is the time for manly and strong warriors of Christ, wielding the sword of the

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Spirit. This is not the time for fine precision instruments. This is the time for battle axes, for rough fighters who smash with the hammer of the word.

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Like Luther was important at his time, this is the time to train our hands for war and our fingers for battle.

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Psalm 144, verse 1. As Doug Wilson once said, desperate times call for faithful men and not for careful men.

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The careful men come later and write the biographies of the faithful men, lauding them for their courage.

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If we don't want to watch the West go down the drain and evil take over and the church sink into nothingness, if we don't want to drown in the blood of murdered babies, then we have to learn again what it means to act like men and be strong.

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And from whom could we learn this better than from the Lord Jesus Christ? If there's anyone who fulfills this commandment, act like men, be strong in a perfect way, it's him.

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He was and is perfectly manly in everything he does.

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He is the perfect man. That's why we now want to reflect on the manliness of Christ.

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First let's look at what it actually means to act like men, to be manly.

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You see, many today understand that there is something wrong with our culture because there is something wrong with our men.

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Many realize that they are not the men their grandfathers were.

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And there are many well -known social media personalities who want to tell you how to become real men.

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Some tell you that you have to be a macho, smoke big cigars, and treat women with disrespect.

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Others have better ideas, but there is no true wisdom because they are worldly men that do not fear

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God. They only appeal to your own strength, your own willpower to cultivate manly virtues so you can take pride in your own achievements.

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And unfortunately there are also Christians who give bad advice on how to be a man. I recently read a book by a pastor.

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It was an interesting read. He wrote that we need to become men again and fight boldly to establish a new

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Christendom. I agree with that. I like that. But then came the chapter where he explained how we become men.

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Eat lots of meat to boast your testosterone levels and hit the gym to build muscle.

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Because if you have muscles you also have the self -confidence as a man. That's rubbish.

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And I don't say that because I don't eat meat and obviously don't hit the gym. But of course you can eat meat and you can hit the gym, sure.

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But that's not what makes you a man. God's delight is not in the strength of the horse nor His pleasure in the legs of a man.

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God is not interested in your physical strength. He is not interested in your testosterone levels.

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But the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear Him. Psalm 147 verses 10 and 11.

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Bodily training is of some value. Godliness is of value in every way.

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1 Timothy 4 verse 8. So if we want to be men who God delights in, then we must learn from the man who

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God delights in, from Jesus. It is not flesh and muscles. It is not testosterone that makes us men, but the fear of God and the

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Word and the Spirit that transform us into the image of Christ, the perfect man.

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So what does it mean to act like men, to be manly? The word manly means courageous, brave, bold, audacious, determined, energetic, heroic, steadfast, unbending, fearless, combative, belligerent, daring, ready to face danger, unflinching, undaunted.

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All of those descriptions apply to Christ. And they should also apply to you and I.

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We have to act like men. We have to be strong, brave, courageous, fearless, undaunted, manly, belligerent.

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And then in some way this also applies to our sisters. Dear sisters, you too should be courageous and fearless and undaunted.

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But we men are the ones who must embody these qualities, because it's our job to stand boldly in front of our wives and children to fight for them and protect them.

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So let's look at how Jesus embodied these qualities. But first let me clarify one more thing.

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Being a man like Jesus does not mean being macho. It includes weeping in front of others,

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John 11, 35. It includes taking children in your arms, Mark 10, verse 16.

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It includes being afraid, Matthew 26, 37. And at times it includes being gentle like a nursing mother taking care of her own children, 1

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Thessalonians 2, verse 7. And being a man like Jesus means taking on your role as leader and provider and protector.

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But these are not the things I want to talk about today. Basically every Christian agrees on these things.

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I want to talk about the core aspects of manliness that are despised and attacked by so many today, even by Christian pastors and leaders.

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I want to talk about the courageous, bold, determined, fearless, belligerent manliness of Christ.

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And do you know why it is extremely important that we become courageous men like Christ?

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Listen to what Jesus says. The one who conquers will have this heritage, eternal life in the new earth.

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And I will be his God and he will be my son, but as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexual immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death,

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Revelation 21, 7 and 8. Did you hear that? What happens to the cowardly?

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Jesus mentions them together with the faithless, the murderers, the sexual immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, liars.

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They all do not inherit eternal life, but go into the lake of fire into the second death.

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Do you see how important it is that we learn to be strong and act courageously like men?

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And by the way, if you are manly and strong, only shows when there is danger.

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Everyone can pretend to be courageous when there is no danger. But when danger comes, then it shows whether you are really a man.

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If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small,

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Proverbs 24, 10. Only when the wolves come does it show whether a shepherd is really a shepherd or just a hireling,

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John 10 verse 12. That's why you should ask yourself, am

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I facing danger? Where does my manliness prove itself?

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Am I too afraid to speak hard truth? Am I too afraid to confront people, even people in authority, people that are stronger than me, that could harm me?

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Pastor, do you preach hard truth that will offend people?

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Do you take on the dangerous dragons of our times? Do you fight feminism?

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Do you fight abortion? Do you fight tyranny? That's where your manliness proves itself. So, let us now see how

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Jesus embodied these virtues in a perfect way, how He was the manliest of men, and let us learn from Him to do the same.

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The Bible is indeed full of the manliness of Christ. The reason why we often overlook this is that we already have our preconceived image of the always gentle Jesus.

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We read the scripture through these glasses, through these lenses, instead of reading it properly and putting ourselves really in that situation.

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Here's an example. On another Sabbath, Jesus, He entered the synagogue and was teaching, and a man was there whose right hand was withered, and the scribes and the

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Pharisees watched Him to see whether He would heal on the Sabbath, so that they might find a reason to accuse

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Him. But He knew their thoughts, and He said to the man with the withered hand, come and stand here, or as the

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KJV renders it, stand forth in the midst. And He rose and stood there, and Jesus said to them,

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I ask you, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to destroy it?

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And after looking around at them all, He said to him, stretch out your hand.

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And he did so, and his hand was restored. But they were filled with fury and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus.

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Luke 6, 6 to 11. When we read this story, we immediately see the love, love and mercy of Jesus towards this man with a withered hand.

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But do you also see how blatantly manly Jesus acts in these verses?

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How fearless and intrepid, downright audacious and daring. Imagine the situation.

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Jesus is teaching in the synagogue and knows that all those spiritual leaders watching Him are just waiting for Him to heal someone on the

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Sabbath so that they can accuse and murder Him. How would you feel if you were surrounded by your enemies, just waiting to murder you?

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It's like being in a lion's den, surrounded by hungry lions ready to attack. Maybe, just maybe, would you be scared?

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Maybe scared to death? Would you feel nauseous, your heart pounding and your knees buckling?

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Would you run out and flee? Would you say to the man with a withered hand, let's meet tomorrow and then

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I'll heal you? Did you hear what Jesus did? He knew their thoughts and He said to the man with a withered hand, come and stand here.

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Stand forth in the midst. Do you understand? Jesus says,

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I know that you want to murder me if I heal this man.

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Hey, come here. Stand in the middle so that everyone can see what

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I'm about to do. And He looks at all His enemies, all these murderers, looks them in the eye and says, scribes,

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Pharisees, do you all see well? Are you looking carefully?

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I will give you what you're waiting for. Do you see the blatant manliness, the fearlessness, the courage to die?

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Do you see how Jesus does not try to be particularly gentle and make peace with everyone, but how

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He provokes His enemies as much as He can? This is how we must read the

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Scriptures, if we want to see Christ as He really is. I wanted to show you more of this belligerent manliness of Christ, and I want to do so from chapters 20 to 23 of the

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Gospel of Matthew. For here, I believe, we see the manliness of Jesus in a special way.

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So if you like, open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 20, and I begin reading in verse 17,

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Matthew 20 verse 17. And as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, He took the twelve disciples aside, and on the way

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He said to them, see, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn

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Him to death and deliver Him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and He will be raised on the third day.

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Matthew 20, 17 through 19. Someone once said that this sentence, see, we are going up to Jerusalem, are the most manly and courageous words ever spoken.

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Jesus knows exactly what awaits Him in Jerusalem, but He goes up to Jerusalem anyway.

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I don't think I would have done that. I would probably have run into the other direction. Luke writes that He set

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His faith to go to Jerusalem, Luke 9, 51. He had His goal firmly in view.

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He was fiercely determined to do what was necessary, even if it meant suffering and death.

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Do you see the manly, fearless resolve of Jesus, His courage?

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And then He enters Jerusalem as King, and He enters the temple, and there in the temple the final great confrontation with the scribes and Pharisees takes place.

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And it seems to me that Jesus now speaks more openly, more sharply than ever before.

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He provokes them to violent anger. He really escalates things.

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Chapter by chapter, He exposes their sins and announces judgment on them.

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It starts with Jesus doing the unthinkable. Matthew 21, verses 12 and 13.

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And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and He overturned the tables of the money changers and the seeds of those who sold pigeons.

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He said to them, It is written, My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you make it a den of robbers.

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This is already the second time that Jesus cleanses the temple. John tells us about the first cleansing of the temple at the beginning of His ministry.

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In the temple He found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons and the money changers sitting there, and making a whip of cords,

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He makes it Himself. He drove them all out of the temple with the sheep and oxen, and He poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables, and He told those who sold the pigeons,

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Take these things away. Do not make my father's house a house of trade. His disciples remembered that it was written,

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Zeal for your house will consume me. John 2, 14 to 17. Imagine again, imagine what

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Jesus is doing here. Imagine you're sitting here in this church and suddenly you hear loud noise and shouting.

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You turn around and see a man swinging a whip and chasing people out of the building and overturning tables and opening your offertory box and throwing the money on the floor.

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What would you think of such a man? He must be a madman, a lunatic, right?

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We should call the police to take him to an asylum. Isn't that how we would think about such a man that behaves in such a way?

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This is how Jesus behaved. Not very gentleman -like.

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That's not how Christians should behave, right? No, but Jesus did.

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Here's what the German Wikipedia site writes about this. All the

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Gospels convey to the reader the image of an angry and aggressive

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Jesus in this situation. Well, at least for once Wikipedia is right. Jesus was angry and He was aggressive.

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You could almost say, and I want to be careful with my words, you could almost say

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He snapped. The Scriptures say, zeal for your house will consume me.

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Jesus was consumed, eaten up by zeal for the glory of God. That's all

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He could think about. He acts angrily, aggressively out of zeal.

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See, if you love something, if you have zeal for something good, then you must inevitably hate with anger.

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If you love good, then you must hate evil. If you love babies, then you must hate abortion.

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The fear of the Lord is, here's a definition of the fear of the

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Lord, the fear of the Lord is hatred of evil. Proverbs 8, 13, or as Chesterton put it, the true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.

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Love for good is the reason why we hate evil and fight it zealously.

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Jesus hates evil, and His wrath is kindled against the evil doers and hypocrites, as it is written, and He looked around them with anger.

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Mark 3, verse 5. And if you act like that, then of course you will have enemies, enemies that seek to destroy you, to silence you.

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But you see, the commandment is love your enemies, not have no enemies. You can only love your enemies if you have enemies.

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Jesus had enemies, and so should you. For if you belong to Jesus, the world will hate you.

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John 15, 19. Why? Why does the world hate Jesus? Because He's always so nice to everyone?

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No, because He confronts the world, because He testifies about it that its works are evil.

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John 7, 7. So if you want to be like Christ in all things, you should hate evil, and you should have enemies for the sake of Christ.

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If you don't, if you behave in a way that no one realizes that you actually hate evil, that no one wants to be your enemy, you should ask yourself why this is.

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Because the fear of the Lord is to hate evil and be hated by the evil doers.

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Of course, when we talk like this, we have to be careful not to get any wrong ideas about Jesus.

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When Jesus behaves like this, He never lost self -control or acted sinfully in any way.

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His hatred, His anger, His aggression, His belligerence were at every moment perfectly good and righteous and holy and pleasing to God His Father.

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That's more difficult for us. Our hatred and anger are not as pure and holy as Jesus's, but that applies to everything we do.

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That doesn't mean that we shouldn't strive to become more like Jesus, even in this.

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But what about verses that warn us against anger? Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice,

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Ephesians 4, 31. Yes, all malicious anger and all malicious wrath should be put away, but not holy anger, not the anger that Jesus has.

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That anger isn't sinful, but righteous. Let's continue.

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So after the cleansing of the temple, Jesus returns to Bethany for the night, and when He returns to Jerusalem the next morning,

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He curses a fig tree on the way, and the fig tree withers at once, Matthew 21, 19 and 20.

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And I'm sure for some people today, Jesus killing a tree is probably the greatest scandal. And when

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He then enters the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people come up to Him and confront

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Him about His behavior, and ask Him, by what authority are you doing these things?

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Who do you think you are? But He doesn't even answer them, because He knows that they are hypocrites,

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Matthew 21, 23 to 27. And then He begins to speak about them, about the scribes and Pharisees and parables.

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He tells them that they are hypocrites, who say that they are doing the will of God, but they are not.

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And then that is why the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before them,

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Matthew 21, 28 to 32. Do you understand what an insult this is to them?

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Tax collectors and prostitutes are better than us? How dare He? And then comes this violent parable of the husbandmen.

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Jesus tells the scribes and Pharisees that they have killed the prophets whom

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God sent to them, and that they will now also kill the Son.

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And therefore, the kingdom of God will be taken away from them, and given to a new people, to the

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Christians. And God will kill them. Jesus, the cornerstone, will break them to pieces.

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And crush them, Matthew 21, 33 to 46. He will throw them into the outer darkness, and will set

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Jerusalem on fire, and make it desolate, and destroy the temple. And there will not be left one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.

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So great is His wrath, Matthew 22, 1 to 14, 23, 38, and 24 too.

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Do you see how manly, how fearless, how beloved and belligerent Jesus speaks?

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What do you think will happen when you talk like this about these mighty men, who by the way were not only the spiritual leaders, but also had political powers in the

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Sanhedrin, in the High Council? They will try even harder to take you out, right?

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And that's exactly what happens. The scribes and Pharisees try to describe Jesus in its words, but He answers all their questions and calls them again hypocrites, and tells them, you know neither the

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Scriptures nor the power of God. In other words, you are godless. Matthew 22, 18 and 29.

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And then comes chapter 23. And then come the most violent words that Jesus ever spoke.

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The cries of woe against the scribes and Pharisees. And I want to read this entire 23rd chapter.

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Oh great, the German guy comes to read. But I want to read, I want to read it as I believe

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Jesus actually spoke these words. See, Jesus did not read these words from His Bible in a boring way as many do today when they read this passage.

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He lived them. He experienced them. He is truly man.

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He has emotions. He has anger. He has fear. He knew they would murder

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Him for what He was about to say to them. And you can see how

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He gets angrier and angrier as He speaks. So try to put yourselves in the situation, and let me read these verses as I believe

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Jesus spoke them, and you can judge for yourselves whether they sound realistic, whether it could have happened like this 2 ,000 years ago in the temple in Jerusalem.

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So imagine Jesus in the temple, surrounded by large crowds. He knows that the scribes and Pharisees are already planning

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His murder. And now He raises His voice against them for the last time.

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Matthew 23, Then Jesus said to the crowds and to His disciples,

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The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat, so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do.

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For they preach, but do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens hard to bear and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger.

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They do all their deeds to be seen by others, for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seat in the synagogues and greeting in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others.

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But you are not be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers.

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And call no man your father on earth, for your father, but before you have one father who is in heaven, neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the

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Christ. The greatest among you shall be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

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But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces, for you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in.

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Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.

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Woe to you, blind guides, who say, if anyone swears by the temple, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.

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You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that has made the gold sacred?

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And you say, if anyone swears by the altar, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gift that is on the altar, he is bound by his oath.

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You blind men! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred.

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So whoever swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it, and whoever swears by the temple swears by it and by him who dwells in it, and whoever swears by heaven swears by the throne of God and by him who sits upon it.

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Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mind and dill and common and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faithfulness.

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These you ought have done without neglecting the others, you blind guides, straining out a net and swallowing a camel.

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Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self -indulgent.

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You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate and the outside also may be clean.

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Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanliness and cleanness.

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So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

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Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, saying, if we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.

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Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets.

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Fill up, then, the measures of your fathers." This means kill me now.

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You serpents! You brood of wipers! How are you to escape being sentenced to hell?

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Therefore, I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flock in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous

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Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar.

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Truly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.

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Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones who are sent to it!

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How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing.

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See, your house is left to you desolate, for I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the

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Lord. Matthew 23. Did you hear how manly and strong and fearless Jesus speaks here?

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How angrily and aggressively he speaks, and how he insults the scribes and Pharisees in the worst possible way and provokes them to burning anger.

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And if you believe that's not how Jesus spoke, then tell me how you can insult people as serpents and brood of vipers and do it in a very calm and low way.

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I don't think so. And he does so in front of everyone, in front of everyone.

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He calls them hypocrites, children of hell, blind guides, blind fools, whitewashed tombs full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness, full of hypocrisy and lawlessness, murderers and sons of murderers, guilty of all the righteous bloodshed on earth, serpents and brood of vipers destined for hell.

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Tell me those are not strong words. So, what exactly would

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Jesus never do and never say? Well, it seems to me he pretty much said everything.

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Every harsh word, every insult, this is also the Jesus of the

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Bible. This is the manly, belligerent Jesus that we have almost completely forgotten about.

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Remember that the next time one of your pastors says the

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B .S. word. But how can that be? Doesn't Jesus say about himself,

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I am gentle and lowly in heart? Yes, he does, Matthew 11, 29, the same gospel.

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How does that fit together? Well, you have to understand this. When Jesus was consumed with zeal and overturned everything and when he spoke those fierce words in anger and insulted and offended everyone, he remained the most gentle, most humble, most loving man who ever walked this earth.

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Gentleness and humility towards the sheep and towards God on the one hand and consuming zeal and wrath towards the wolves on the other hand are not mutually exclusive but go together.

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They are two sides of the same coin and they must be present in all

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Christians, especially men, because he who fears God zealously hates evil zealously and he will act and speak accordingly.

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At the end of this passage we read, when Jesus had finished all these things, the chief priests and the elders of the people gathered in the place of the high priest whose name was

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Caiaphas and plotted together in order to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him, Matthew 26, 1 -4.

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This is how Jesus spoke. If you don't believe he spoke harsh, he spoke aggressively.

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See, he spoke so harshly that his enemies have finally had enough. Now they will murder him.

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That's how manly, how strong Jesus was. And then the suffering and death of Christ begins.

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And what should I say about this? Do I really need to talk about Christ's manliness in the hour of darkness and death?

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How he endured everything, how he boldly confessed before the synod, before the synhedrin, that he is the

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Christ, the Son of God, for which they condemned him to death?

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He knew it. He said it anyways. It says about Christ, I gave my back to those who strike and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard.

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I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting, but the Lord God helps me.

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Therefore, I have not been disgraced. Therefore, I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame,

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Isaiah 56 and 2. Jesus sets his face like a flint. He is absolutely determined to do whatever is necessary, to suffer whatever is necessary.

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He is indeed the manly, fearless, strong, belligerent, good shepherd who does not run away when the wolves come, but lays down his life for the sheep.

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He freely offers his back and his cheeks and his life.

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True men take responsibility and risk their lives and are determined to die for the ones they love.

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Why? Because they do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul, rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

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They fear God. Matthew 10, 28. We must all act like men.

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We must be strong like Christ. We must be prepared to fight and even lay down our lives for our wives,

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Ephesians 5, 25. We must be prepared to fight and lay down our lives for our brothers, 1 John 3, 16. But this is not the end of Christ's belligerent manliness.

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He came to judge the unbelieving Jews because they had killed all the prophets and the

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Son. He came in 70 A .D. and killed them and destroyed

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Jerusalem and the temple as he had said he would. And Jesus will come again to judge the whole earth in wrath.

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It is he who will send people to hell, Matthew 7, 23 and 25, 41.

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And when he does so, when he comes back to judge, the people will call to the mountains and rocks, fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne and from the wrath of the

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Lamb. For the great day of their wrath has come and to can stand,

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Revelation 6, 16 and 17. And for all eternity, for all eternity,

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Jesus will watch the torment of people in hell. He will drink the wine of God's wrath, pour it full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the

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Lamb, Revelation 14, 10. You see, even after half an eternity,

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Jesus will not turn away from this torment, from all this pain and suffering.

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He will not say, it's enough, I can't take it anymore, release those poor souls. Instead, the people will burn eternally in the fire of hell in the presence of Christ.

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And what about us? Will we say that this is not how Jesus should behave?

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No. We will cry out, hallelujah, praise God, praise

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Christ, for he has judged righteously. That is my

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Jesus, manly, strong, belligerent, and I love you,

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O Lord, my strength. So, in closing, throw your false, one -sided, unbiblical image of Jesus in the trash.

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Stop talking and thinking and judging like a child, but become a man, 1

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Corinthians 13, 11. Imitate Christ, His gentleness, His meekness,

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His humility, but also His belligerent manliness and strength. Act like men, act like Christ, courageous, bold, undaunted, unbending, fearless, combative, daring, death -defying, unflinching, undaunted, belligerent.

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Be determined not to fear men and what they will think about what you say and do, but to fear

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God and hate evil, to speak harsh words, to provoke when necessary, especially the hypocrites and false leaders in the church.

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Be determined to fight, to endure opposition, to overturn tables if necessary, like the brother who crushed the

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Satan statue in the Iowa State Capitol. There are times for overturning tables.

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Be determined even to suffer and die if necessary. Be manly, be strong.

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Do we need wisdom to decide when and how we should act and speak?

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Of course, of course we do. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't strive to be manly and strong like Christ, to act like Christ, to speak like Christ.

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So how can we do this? By looking to Christ and trusting in God.

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He will give us wisdom. He will give us strength. He will through the work of His Spirit in us transform us into the true biblical image of Christ, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

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Praise be to God. Amen. Let's pray. Father, please help us to be manly, to act like men, to be strong like Christ.

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Help us to learn from Him what it means to be truly manly, a man that You delight in.

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Father, train our hands for war and our fingers for battle.