Biblical Masculinity with Rusty Thomas

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Desperate times call for faithful men and not for careful men The careful men come later and write the biographies of the faithful men lauding them for their courage

Going to all the world to make disciples not going to the world make buddies not to make grosses, right?

Don't go in the world make homies right disciples. I got a bit of a jiggle neck That's a joke, pastor.

When we have the real message of truth, we cannot let somebody say they're speaking truth when they're not.

Be watchful. Stand firm in the faith. Act like men. Be strong.

That is first Corinthians 16 13. What is up y 'all?

Luke the bear hosting today. Pastor Jeff actually just got done with a meeting with some legislators in Georgia.

So we're very excited about that. We should have a bill Lord willing going into Georgia this year and an equal protection bill.

So be watching for that. Joy the girl was supposed to be on today.

But she's having car trouble. She was going to try to balance out our toxic masculinity. But that didn't happen.

So it's just full -on toxic masculinity today. It's just in your face. It's coming. What's up?

I got I'm usually have you over here. So I got my dude pastor Zach Morgan over here.

What's going on? Very excited about this. You know, what's really funny before I bring our guests in.

Um, so I have this I have this intro pulled up the our intro, you know, and I look and on the right, it's got the you know, their videos and stuff.

So it's got John Sampson up there is where they're actually sorry. I didn't mean to do that.

He's going to start talking. So it was John Sampson. It was like a bunch of our videos and then it was like some prophetess video in there and I was like that does not belong there.

Which one of these does not belong. It's that one. No lady pastors here because we have toxic masculinity.

In a good way through in a good way. We are trying to we're trying to replicate biblical manhood, which is what we're talking about today.

Pastor Zach and I have been working on some some material for a little while. And so we're going to talk a little bit about that.

And before we bring our good friend in a couple of things. I want to announce

Reform Con is coming up very, very, very quickly. We are very excited about that and working really hard on that.

A lot of going to have some awesome sponsors, which there are still some opportunities available. If anyone's interested, please let us know.

Please go get your tickets at reformcon .org. It's going to be a great great time. But I do want to mention a couple speaking of sponsors.

I want to mention a couple things one. Zach. Did you know?

That in 1776 the newly formed United States rented private battleships to help them resist

British tyranny. I did not know that now you do. That's right. Private battleships rusty.

Did you know that? No, I didn't. Okay. Well, you're learning something today. That's our enterpreneurism.

That's amen to that. Well, that's I'll go ahead. I just introduced our guest. So rusty Thomas. Thanks for being with us today, brother. Oh, awesome.

Amongst my favorite brothers in the world. Oh, man, I second that. We love you a ton and are grateful to you.

So while it would be another 15 years, I do this.

I have this thing. I'm supposed to do for our sponsors and I keep interrupting myself before the Second Amendment was officially ratified.

These private battleships are a glorious example of the right to keep and bear arms. Another glorious example of the right is owning and wearing body armor at the

Armored Republic previously called AR -500 armor. We stand for arming free men with body armor so they can resist tyranny for Christ the

King. At its founding, the Armored Republic's flagship product was the

AR -500 steel body armor plate, which is innovatively designed to provide rifle rated protection at a lower price than any other armor on the market.

Back then we were named after that plate AR -500 armor. We got a we got a tour of that place.

Yeah, and it was pretty cool. Yeah, super dope. Yeah, they showed us all their little secrets how they make stuff. How much does it cost to rent a battleship?

That's a good question. Do they have the price tag on that? Yeah, I don't know. Is it like on Turo? Turo's got like battleships you can you can rent?

Maybe. We should look into that. Yeah, we should. Maybe we should buy one and then rent it out. Yeah, I'm sure you can make good money.

New truth ship. New truth ship. Now, though, we're emphasizing our broader mission alongside a wider catalog of products.

So we're refocusing on the name Armor Republic. Since in a Republic, there is no king but Christ and men should serve

God rather than men by resisting tyranny. You can't see Rusty right now, but I can and he is jumping up and down.

Check out our website at ar500armor .com. Sign up for an email list. Equip yourself.

Join the Armored Republic today. We're very excited to be partnering with them. We love them a ton and we're going to be doing a lot more cool stuff with them in the future.

I'm also excited to announce that we have a new sponsor as of this week.

New St. Andrews College in Moscow, Idaho. Sweet. Is now sponsoring us and we love them a ton as well.

We've had Dr. Ben Merkel on quite a bit and we'll have him on some more and he will also be speaking at ReformCon now as well.

So we're excited to be partnering with them and go check them out at NSA .edu.

Make sure it's .edu, not .gov. You'll go to the wrong site.

NSA .gov is not the one you want to go to. Yeah, not friends of ours, not not

Friends of Liberty. That's for darn sure. Absolutely. So you can go check them out.

Send your kids there. It's awesome. We love them. Okay. So we're just going to get into it here.

As I mentioned, Pastor Zach and I have been working on some curriculum and some,

I hate programs, but we've done it a few times and and I'll admit Pastor Zach's is much more thorough than mine.

Right now, mine's all in my brain and his is already half on, or it's on his computer. So it's been a lot more organized, but just to kind of give some background to this and what we're, what we've been talking about.

So many of you know, we had the the privilege of getting involved with defending a bunch of Navy SEALs.

It's almost been a year, believe it or not. It'll be a year in September and defending their rights to against tyranny and to stand up for Liberty and the

Constitution and all that. And we learned a lot of things from them. We went, Pastor Jeff and I went going there with the intent that we were going to try to encourage these guys and we left encouraged and spurred on by them and we've kind of learned a lot from them is just, just how to be better men.

And so that's, that's been a lot of, we've been talking about that a lot and I'm actually working on a little side project.

Hopefully we'll be dropping that soon along these lines. I'm very excited about this and Rusty too.

We'll bring him in. He's going to have, he's working on some stuff as well, but so there's, there's two, two sayings.

Actually before, before we get into the sayings, there's, let's get into the scripture first. Let's get into the word. So the first, first verse is one

I just shared. First Corinthians 16 and 13, be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.

And I mean, it's just, it's such a concise, powerful verse. It literally defends what it, or defines what it means to be a man in that verse.

Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, be strong. So that's one verse. And before we get into the second one,

I will open it up to you, Rusty, go ahead. You're our guest. What, what are your thoughts on that verse? Well, you know,

God defines himself as a male. He's the father of the fatherless.

Obviously our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ didn't come as an animal. He came as a human being and he chose the gender male, a man.

And so when you look at the outlay or the theme of scripture, you see a lot of references to the, the

Patriots, the patriarchy. And, you know,

Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, right on down through redemptive history, we see men of God taking the role of the, you know, prophet, priest, king, you know, things of that nature.

And it's interesting because in that passage of scripture, you have heavenly father pretty much getting up into the face of men.

And, and commanding certain things from them. Number one is they, they got to be watchful and we have to watch.

In other words, men need to be that watchman upon the wall, you know, fathers need to be added in the home.

You're like, what's coming into my home? What's going out of my home? Has the enemy somehow invaded my home, captured my kids under my watch?

It's very, very important that men are watchful, that we are alert. There's a lot of danger, a lot of evil, a lot of threats in this world, and we have to be watchful.

It also says something about the manly virtue of firmness, you know, stand firm.

In other words, there has to, we have to develop within men a firm foundation of faith because that's the anchor that holds.

Men who are tossed to and fro, men that are unstable, obviously, that brings great harm into their marriages.

It brings great harm into the family. It impacts the church in a very negative way.

And so we need to have that, develop that immovable faith within the male of the species.

Now, the King James says, quit ye like men.

And I remember the first time I came across that, I said, like the American male, be a man and quit, right?

When the tough gets going, take off. You know, that's a lot of how masculinity is defined today.

But that is not what God is saying to men. He is literally commanding men, act the man, you know, to be the man, to play a man's part and role in this earth.

And then he says, be strong. Okay, so be watchful, stand firm, be the man, do your duty as a man, fulfill your responsibility as a man.

And then strength. So God presupposes strength to the male, to the man.

Now, I know this is fighting words today, but he said that the woman is the weaker vessel.

Okay, and so the Christian ethic, you are strong, you help the weak, right?

And it's that understanding, by the way, brothers, where men being strong and women sort of fulfilling what the scripture talks about, where God prizes a meek and mild spirit, that combination between strength in masculinity and meek and mildness in femininity, that is the best environment, that is the best place to nurture and raise children.

And it's critically important that we understand the different functions and roles in that regard.

Yeah, man, it's crazy because I was just talking to a young guy who had called in, you know, we don't only counsel members of Apologia, but we try to do our best even, and we got a lot of people reaching out to us, you know, wanting to know about evangelism, just trying to help them make it through life, and I talked to a young guy,

I think about a week ago, and he had just got out of basic training at Fort Benning. So I think his

MOS was infantry, and he had told me within 13 weeks, so you go eight weeks of basic training, then you go about four or five more weeks of AIT, which is advanced training, he had said six guys committed suicide, like a sergeant, a first sergeant.

Yeah, I couldn't even believe it. And then I've been getting into like suicide rates, and they have astronomically risen among young men.

And it's because it's like this, they don't know what it means to, like you just said, be firm, stand strong, be tough, make it through a time that you think that you can't make it through.

And so we got a lot of these young men just putting bullets in their mouth and eating bullets. It's a horribly horrendous thing, it's because that aspect, just one aspect of biblical manhood, a true manhood, is not being taught to the masses.

And it's so crucial, I couldn't even believe these guys killing themselves at 18, 19, and then the sergeants were killing themselves too.

You know what I mean? It's insane. Well, that goes perfectly into the next verse I wanted to share then.

It's in Proverbs 24, and if anybody listening that follows us and knows about an abortion now, you know, our main verse is 24 -11.

Russi, you know these verses like the back of your hand, rescue those who are being taken away to death, hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter.

But before that is verse 10, and that goes perfectly with what we're talking about here. Verse 10 is, if you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small.

And so that's been a big, a big verse for us as we're approaching this conversation, is

I think that perfectly defines, again, what you guys are, both of you were just talking about, that perfectly defines what it means to be a man.

You know, when you face the day of adversity, like, don't faint. Being a man is not fainting, it's showing that you're strong and you're holding your ground even though, you know, as they say in the military, even though you're in the suck, right?

You're withstanding that and you're being strong, you're being faithful.

And so that's the other verse I wanted to mention. And so I'm glad you said that, Zach, but Russi, you look like you wanted to say something.

Well, you know, obviously I don't think it's a coincidence that that's the order of that scripture.

Yeah. Because before he's commanding his people to rescue those unjustly sentenced to death, obviously,

God knows that's going to require a lot of inner strength to be able to intervene, to interpose on the behalf of the vulnerable and those being led to slaughter, you know, and that's not just talking like bravado and machoism or anything like that.

It's talking about the strength of the inner man to be able to put himself in harm's way, to sacrifice, to help serve others and protect them.

And again, this gets to the heart of biblical manhood, like true biblical manhood.

What is that about? Well, that's about taking these two kind of extremes in manhood, the fierceness, the anger, the rage, the explosiveness of manhood, you know, coupled that with the ability to be gentle.

And it's interesting. C .S. Lewis said that it's the knighthood model that brought those two things together.

Okay, and so it's pretty important that men master their passions, their appetites, their lusts, and to use it in a redemptive way.

And so biblical manhood, you know, the scripture says be angry, but don't sin.

Be angry is a command. But for men, we get anger, angry for all the wrong reasons, and they're typically selfish reasons.

You're interrupting me. You're in my way. You're knocking me off my game, and we get very upset and we explode on people.

Okay, but the anger that God is talking about is a righteous indignation. And quite frankly, if men do not have righteous indignation where women are being turned into murderers and their children are being tortured and innocent blood that is being shed, if that doesn't strike a moral chord of righteous indignation, then yes, something is very wrong with our manhood.

And it's critically important that we understand that true biblical manhood puts women and children first.

We talk about being servant leaders, the head of the home. Very, very important. But what does that entail?

That's talking about being a protector. That's talking about being a provider.

That's talking about loving and caring for women and children. That was the great cry of the

Birkenhead ship. That was the great cry of the Titanic. Women and children first.

Well, where did they get that from? They got that from the Christian worldview. They got that from the

Christian faith. They got that from the Christian ethic. That's what Christian men do.

This is how we roll. This is who we are. And brothers, we see the state of our nation.

We see the state of the family and our culture. The restoration of biblical manhood is so critically important for our future and hope.

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, we got, I mean, look at the state of our nation, like you just had said, and that's all

I've been thinking about as you've been talking. Now we have the IRS putting on, what, 87 ,000 more jobs to enforce.

Of course, looking for the funding for that first. So we see just tyranny being even more entrenched in our nation.

I mean, what's the response to that? It's going to be men with firm spines that rise up and say no more.

If that didn't happen, if true men don't take their place, I mean, we're just going to be even more entrenched in more oppressive tyranny.

We got to get this message out. We have to exemplify that as Christian men. We have to teach our young men because if we don't teach these guys being strong in the day of adversity, it's just going to get worse and worse and worse.

And we're not doomsdayers, and we talk about this all the time. But I mean, you do see the writing on the wall here as far as what's going on in our nation.

And if we just lay down and let the tyrants roll on over us, is that really putting our wives and our children first as men?

No, that's just cowering in a corner and allowing an oppressive governmental system, which has happened all throughout history and all throughout the world, take control and victimize the most needy.

So yeah, man, it's what needs to happen. If there was ever a man that I've seen model righteous anger and not sin well, it's

Rusty Thomas. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, as far as like waiting and walking through adversity,

God has given you quite a bit to walk through with the death of your wife. Of course, early on when

God gave you the burden for the unborn in the church coming after you, that was in the early 80s.

Walking all through that with people turning their backs on you, of course, your big speaking engagements got shut down as soon as you had really,

God had given you the revelation to step into the fight for the unborn. You wait all through that for decades, you lose your wife and then you lose your son and then you lose your daughter and it just continues to go on.

So I guess a good question is how do we as younger men look at a man like you and how do we learn how to go through adversity?

How did God take you through that and what did you learn through that? Well, well, you opened the whole can there.

Yeah, I'm sorry. That's all right. That's all right. I learned early on in this battle, brother, not to ask why, because why was a black hole?

There's enough blame to go around, brother. You know, I'm a sinful man saved by grace, you know, we live in a fallen world, you know, there's such a thing as darkness and the demonic realm, you know, there's things that we're up against as men, but I learned very, very early on that the love of God so captured my heart and you know, the scripture says, he who has been forgiven much loves much and brothers,

I have been forgiven. You wouldn't want to have known me before Christ.

I will just tell you that because I was an animal. And I was full of a lot of anger and a lot of rage.

And if I wasn't beating up on flesh and blood, I was smashing my head against brick walls with blood screaming down.

I was like the mad damn madman of Gaderra. Literally, I was demonized. And so when the

Lord saved me and he freed me, you know, from that deep pit and put his, you know, put my feet on a rock and gave me this new song to sing, this redemptive song.

There was no power on earth, no demon in hell, no situation that would ever, ever take me away from him.

Now, I am human. You know, I am, I was, you know, a husband to my first wife, father, obviously, to my children.

I feel the pain, you know, I feel the sorrow of it. I feel the hurt of it, like any human being would.

But there's certain things, brothers, that have to be non -negotiable. You know, it's sort of like the

William Wallace, you know, deal. You can take everything but for the

Christian, Christian men, you can take anything from us, but you are, you will never get our faith.

There are certain things that are non -negotiable. They're not for sale. And the things that I've learned through that, brothers, is man is going to suffer for two basic reasons.

You know, we're going to suffer as a consequence of our sin. Okay, but we're also going to suffer when we do right, when we do good.

And that's called redemptive suffering. And the Bible says when we suffer in that way, the

Spirit of the Lord and God's glory rests upon us. So one of the things that the

Lord has used through our trials as a family is to teach the body of Christ.

How do you negotiate through tragedy? How do you negotiate through suffering and mourning and grief in a redemptive way?

In such a way that God uses that to lead others to himself, that brings the prodigal back home, that heals and restore marriages and births more good soldiers of Jesus Christ into the battle.

So when it comes down to, again, what the enemy means for harm,

God can redeem and see good come from it.

And if there's hopefully, prayerfully, anything that comes out of our life and our family, it is that truth, brothers.

And and so, you know, God has kept us. And I do believe that our

Christian education is not complete, brothers, until we, like Job, say, though you slay me.

Yeah. I'm still going to love you. Still going to serve you. I'm still going to obey you and I'm still going to praise you.

Yeah. Man, I got a just a, I know you don't like this, Rusty, but I'm going to heap some more praise on you here.

But, you know, Rusty is someone that's modeled to me, you know, not feigning the day of adversity.

And, you know, when they lost their daughter, we went and just to encourage him and pray with them.

And I go there, that was my intent, again, to go and encourage him. And I left, of course, encouraged by this guy, you know, and I'm like, how is he not just in the corner, just sucking his thumb, a hot mess?

Like I didn't, like, how is that not happening right now, you know? And so, so brother, I was, I was blessed by that.

And that's, you know, you've done such a fantastic job of modeling that. Not just to me, but to so many, so many men and I appreciate that.

That's actually a really good point. Because I know, I mean, losing your children too, and a wife, is some of the most, the worst thing that you can go through as a human being is a loss of your child, especially at a young age.

I think Jeremiah was 17 or 16 or 17? 16. 16. And I'm sure the temptation was to shake your fist.

And I'm not acting as if I understand or relate to that. The temptation is there, but you decided not to do that.

Why? Well, Zach, it's really important to know that Heavenly Father, I went through that with Heavenly Father early on in my life.

He had saved me, but I was, like I said, I was like the madman of Gadara.

And I had my fights with the Lord. I mean, there were times when I was saved that literally,

I was shouting to the heavens, you know, let's fight. Come on, bring it.

You know, send me to hell. I mean, I would do stupid, irrational, foolish things like that.

Where I, basically, I was a Christian, but I was sinning, and I was bearing all the consequences of my sin.

And I would, you know, raise my fist to heaven and rage. So, brother,

God brought me through that as a young man. And I can literally see

His hand upon me, even through my times of sin and rebellion and and rage as a young man.

He was preparing me, brother. He was preparing me for things that were coming. In fact,

I just shared this with my children today. We were in Proverbs chapter 3, and that's

Scripture. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not unto your own understanding and all your ways acknowledge

Him. He's going to direct your path. So January 1st, 2018,

I go to bed that night and in my dream, that passage of Scripture is put on repeat the entire evening.

When I went to bed till I woke up, trust in the Lord over and over and over again.

So I wake up, I go to my bride, Kendra. I said, sweetie, I don't know what this year's holds, but I know we better put our seat belt because we're going to have to trust

God in ways we never dreamed possible. And so the next day after that dream,

Pastor Matt and I are working with this magistrate in Kentucky with an abolition bill.

The next day he commits suicide. The enemy just totally takes him out, right?

Okay, so I'm thinking, oh, that's why we got to trust God. Well, that was just the down payment brother because that was the year

Jeremiah became sick and that was the year he died.

But I want you to see the goodness of the Lord here. I want you to see the guidance of God because in that dream using the

Scripture he was preparing me because he knew exactly where he was going.

But obviously this was going to devastate us. This was going to devastate our family.

This was going to devastate our ministry. But in his goodness he was preparing us and he was basically saying, son, you're going to have to trust me in ways you have never had to trust me before.

But to understand at the end of the day, it's going to work redemption in the world.

And so again, that's it. That's just the goodness of the Lord. That's his. He prepares us.

He leads us by his spirit and he doesn't forsake us or leave us especially when we need him through the tough times.

Yeah, absolutely. I appreciate that, brother. Do you do you mind if I share this picture that you sent me the other day?

Of you before Christ? The one you sent? Well, that was definitely back in the day, buddy.

Gabe, can you, I don't know, Gabe, can you pull that up? Is he, I don't know. Which one of those is you?

That's what I want to know. Yeah. There he is.

There he is. Which one of those is you, Rusty? I can't see it.

Oh, you can't see it? Yeah. It's a joke. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Wow.

Look at that. Look at that guy. He looks like, like Bruce Lee. Yeah, big old muscular guy. I just can't believe all the hair.

That's what's throwing me off is that hair. Well, do you remember, remember

Robert Plant from Led Zeppelin? Yeah. Oh, yeah. When I grew it out,

I had a strawberry blonde fro, man. You look just like him.

That's awesome. That is so cool. Well, hey, I, sorry, I just had to, I just had to bring it up.

Oh man, I hope my wife doesn't see it. So I've actually been listening to this really great teaching series.

It's on the Canon Plus app. It's from years ago, but it was like Steve Wilkins and Doug Wilson.

A bunch of guys were going through and like doing different talks on some of our founding fathers and that were good, solid

Christian men. And, and so much of what we're talking about is just made me think of that and actually was just listening to,

I just finished today. I was, there was a, a lecture on Israel Putnam and yeah,

Russ, you know who that is? Yeah. Well, yeah, I think he was up from your neck of the woods originally, but I mean, all of the founding fathers were from your neck of the woods.

So yeah, but I won't, I won't get into a lot of details, but the last part of this, this lecture was, was so good.

It's really fascinating story and stuff, but it was Steve Wilkins was giving the lecture, but, but basically what

I took from the end in his closing, like five minutes is he, he was saying that as men, we need to live simple lives.

We need, we need to be men of simplicity, not in mind, but like his point was, we should be genuine.

You know, what you see is what you get. We should be absent of hypocrisy, absent of deception.

We shouldn't be disingenuine. We shouldn't be full of drama, you know, and Zach and I, we've been talking a lot about this because, you know, as pastors, this, this is something that plagues the churches, young men that are the opposite of that.

They're not simple. They're complex. There's, there's always drama. There's, you're always questioning their motives.

You're questioning their intent. What is this guy up to? And so the last, one of the last things

Steve said was, he's like, by the grace of God, you devote yourself to being a man, stand firm, trust in him and have fun along the way.

And like, I loved, I love that. I love, especially partnered with the story of Israel Putnam.

Anyways, I just, it made me think of that as we were, as we were talking. I don't know if you guys have anything to add to that. Yeah. One of the things, go ahead,

Rusty. I'm sorry. One of the things that I, I've done in training my children, 13, one of the things that I've tried to train them, you're talking about the simplicity of life, is to live as much as you can, a consistent life, like what you are in private is what you are in public.

You know, it's, it's that consistency. It's that loyalty, because let's face it.

We all, all of us, because we have a sinful nature. We all deal with a level of hypocrisy.

We, it's just, oh yeah, sure. Because even, even the things that we deeply believe in, sometimes we fail to live it out.

You know what I'm saying? Right. And so what I try to encourage my kids is,

Scripture talks about an unfeigned love, an unfeigned faith.

And what the opposite of that is, you know, obviously a feigned faith, a feigned love.

And that's a pretense. That's, that's fraudulent. It's a fraudulent love.

It's a fraudulent faith. Okay. And so I do believe, you know,

God wants us to be very sincere and very genuine in our approach to Him and our approach to others.

And that's one of the greatest things that you can invest in children, you know, is to encourage them to live consistently you know, that they're not chameleons, you know, when they're with, you know, certain groups, like when they were at home, they act a certain way.

And then they're with their friends. They act a certain way. And then they were in the church. They act a certain way.

Really, the key to life is being consistent, you know, and I'll tell you that that brings such a security and such a stability.

Particularly when men know that they can go to their dad and he's steady, he's stable.

So critically important. And we model that for our children to follow. And believe me, that brings a lot of peace to their troubled minds.

It really does. That's so good. Thank you, brother. You're going to say something, Zach. No, I was just thinking about that too.

Even in the life of my dad, who was really successful as a construction business owner.

And it's just that consistency that he had that just kind of marked him. You know, he would be up early.

He'd be attending to his business duties. He didn't really let things become loosened because, you know, our lives can be like a shoe that gets on loose, you know, and that's just through whatever, you know, unforeseeables or we're just men.

And what about what I saw in him? He just kept everything tightened up and that created, like you had just said, so much stability and security in our hearts and our minds.

And of course, our wives too. Because we can't really take days off as men as far as consistency.

We can't go suck our thumb in the corner and wish all the adversity went away or just shake our fist at the government.

You know what I mean? I mean, people can take that role, but who suffers when that happens? Everybody suffers.

Our kids suffer. Everybody. So we as men have to take that role. And like you said, model that consistency and discipline in the way that we attend to our

God -given duties. And that's what, I mean, you think about it, that's what heals the world.

Yeah, as goes the church, as goes, you know, the nation. But I would say as goes the man, as goes the family, as goes the church, as goes the nation.

I mean, he is at the very basis of it. And so that's why we have to build these strong, biblical, consistent, disciplined men.

If we're going to turn this ship around, because it definitely needs to be turned around. Well, and Zach, you bring up an important part of biblical manhood, which is a strong work ethic.

We know the natural course of this world due to the fall is chaos.

You know, you know, in the book of Proverbs, I went by, you know, a man's house.

He didn't keep up with it. And what happened? You know, weeds, nettles, you know, grass grown too high, you know, the house falling apart, you know, and that poverty came down, you know, upon him like a, you know, a robber.

And so we need to train our young people to understand the natural course of human existence on this planet.

If we just let things go, it's going to overtake us.

It's going to destroy us. It takes consistent effort to tame that wilderness and to turn it into a garden that will produce for us.

That takes a very strong work ethic. And that's another thing that's missing in the training of young people today.

Because even when we're talking about the important issues of liberty and freedom and preserving that for our children, most of the children being raised, we've raised them with an entitled mentality.

They don't know the benefits of responsibility, the benefits of hard work and achieving something and making something that produces and helps.

You understand what I'm saying? And so we're basically raising a generation that thinks that because they're

Americans, they're entitled to liberty and freedom that they abuse, but they don't understand. There's a lot of responsibility that comes with it, which brings up another issue when it comes to biblical manhood.

See, our default template due to the fall is man's sinful nature.

In other words, men, there's just like there's original sin, there's actual sin, but there's also gender sins.

And we need to understand what the gender sins are.

For men, it's irresponsibility and passivity.

Okay, that's our fallback template due to our fallen sinful nature.

Okay, we see that in Adam when his manhood was demanded of him, he went passive and he became irresponsible.

And so that sinful nature in gender got passed to every man. Okay, that's something we do have to deal with.

We have to look that in the eye. Yeah. And so for us as men, basically our manhood is going to be defined by the two different atoms.

Yeah. Is our manhood going to be defined by the first atom, which is passivity and irresponsibility, or is our manhood going to be defined by the second atom who went through the same temptations, met the same enemy, but his response was a whole lot different.

Yeah. He led, he charged with the Word of God. And so as men, we got to understand that when

Christ redeemed us in salvation, he also redeemed our manhood.

It's so uncritically important. And believe me, the enemy knows very well what happens when men get a revelation of who they are in Christ.

When you go to Malachi, right? It's the last, what's the last, what's the last word of the

Old Testament, brothers? What's the last word of the Old Testament in Malachi? You all know?

I can't remember. I just failed the test. All right. The word is curse.

That's the last word of the Old Testament is curse.

It is directly related to fatherlessness. That's right.

Directly related. That's where God says he's going to send

Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of the Lord, and he's going to turn the father's hearts to their children and the children's hearts to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with the curse.

Now, God goes silent for 400 years. The last word, curse, tied directly to fatherlessness.

After 400 years, he decides to speak again in Luke chapter one with Zachariah in the temple, talking about John the

Baptist, the birth of this child. And what's the calling on this

Elijah, this John the Baptist? He shall go in the spirit and the power of Elijah.

Now listen, to turn the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to turn the father's hearts to their children.

All right, and to prepare the way of the Lord. Now, listen, put this together. Last word,

Old Testament, curse, fatherlessness, silence for 400 years. God decides to speak again.

He reiterates the same thing from Malachi in Luke chapter one.

Now, what's this calling upon John the Baptist? His calling is to prepare the world to receive her king.

Now, now watch this, brothers. This is so critically important when we talk about biblical manhood.

You would think if somebody's called to prepare the coming of the

Lord, that it would be a lot more spiritual. But one of the elements of preparing the world is

God saying to men, listen, dad, I want you to be a good dad.

Fathers, turn your heart to your kids. Are you kidding me?

You're saying to prepare the world to receive her king.

One of the aspects of this is the relationship between the father and their children.

So if that is what was used to prepare the way of the

Lord, how much more important it is to advance the kingdom of God in the earth.

That is why toxic masculinity. That is why manhood is so savagely attacked in this nation, which produces two kinds of young men.

They're either given over to, you know, machoism and become bullied or they become effeminate and a prey.

To the homosexual agenda. And this is why also brothers, there's a great barrier even in the church because men find it very, very hard as fathers to connect with their kids.

And that is not by accident. That is strategic by the enemy because a lot of times he knows his battle a whole lot better than we do.

Man, and I'm going to listen. This is critically important because he says, it's the sins of the fathers that are passed to the children.

Okay, not the sins of the father, not the sins of the church, not the sins of the state, the sins of the father that tells you the high and lofty position we have in the kingdom of God.

So what men say or don't say what men do or don't do has extreme importance for the future of children.

It's critically another revelation. Another revelation is God never calls the orphan, the motherless, the churchless or the stateless.

He always calls them the fatherless and that is father's heart at his father's heart.

And we desperately need to instill this back in young men today. I mean, it would revolutionize their understanding of manhood.

And again, brothers, that's why it's so attack. When you look at the sitcoms and movies, how is manhood presented?

Yeah, effeminate, stupid, worthless, lazy, moronic, moronic, selfish.

They need women to save them, right? I mean, who's the new superhero superheroes today?

They're all girls. They're all girls. They're all girls. And then we wonder why this nation can't tell the difference between a boy and a girl.

Yeah, we are so out of whack. We are so out of order and we're spinning out of control.

Right? And this is why biblical manhood is so critically important. Whoo. Well, that was amazing.

Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. There's two points. I wanted to address that you brought up before you went on that little mini rant, which was incredible.

One is hard work and the other is victim. And so I'll address those quickly.

But as far as the hard work, like I know we've talked a lot about this, you know, we live in the desert.

I've tried to I've tried to model that hard work, not just in what

I'm paid to do, but at home, you know, in my in my yard. I try it.

I take the Dominion mandate seriously and I want to model that to my kids and I want to model that to the men that were raising up to be men, you know, and it's it's not easy to take

Dominion over the desert and I know you're not quite Arizona, but you're in a desert ish area. Like it's not easy to take

Dominion over over the domain that God's given us and it requires a lot of work and I tell our guys that we're raising up.

Like, how do you expect to take Dominion over the earth and fulfill God's Dominion mandate?

If you can't even take Dominion over the domain he's given you, you know, in other areas of the country where it's the opposite, you know, things grow naturally.

You still have to take Dominion over that you have to, you know, control that and and that's just to me.

That's a perfect picture of of just modeling that to future generations is, you know,

Christ Christ didn't come just to save us. He came to to reconcile all things to himself including things here on Earth.

So as Christian men that we should strive to reconcile to God all things including the things he's given us the things that we're stewards over and so that's that's one aspect

I wanted to mention and the other is is victimhood. I think this is so important is everything that you just said rusty is the result of not doing that is men being victims playing the victim card, you know, and we do we deal with this all the time and I say this quote all the time, but it's it's perfect is it's from my friend

Toby Sumter, but he said as Christians we should reject all invitations to victimhood because we have the perfect victim and we're never truly innocent and thankfully in the culture.

We're all white cisgender males. So we're not allowed to play the victim card, but we're the oppressors but guess what it happens in the church all the time and we're constantly telling our young men like you're being a victim right now.

Stop being a victim your your job your duty is to be the man of your household.

It's to work hard is to provide for your family and it's like you said rusty to care for and love your kids and so many times we we see men, you know married and unmarried just wanting to immediately point the finger blame their wives blame the kids even blame

God and you know, we're constantly saying you're being a victim stop being a victim and so that that brings me so there was two

I mentioned there was two quotes and they kind of go hand in hand and this has been these these mantras have been what would have got us through 2022.

We started off, you know, the beginning of this year was was rough and and the first one is you got this from the seals, but like the only easy day was yesterday and we keep that in mind all the time like, you know, when you wake up and it's a rough day.

It's like yesterday was the easy day, you know, let's let's face this head -on and the other one is is is get hard stare.

We said all the time if Zach will Zach and I will will echo this like if we're having a rough day and you know, we're dealing with drama or dealing with some tragedy or whatever and you know, we're struggling with everyone to say stay hard stay hard and in the point is like you're not hard in spirit.

You're not hard in mind, you know, but you're resolute and that's the idea is biblical manhood is your resolute your feet are firmly

Planted in objective biblical principles and whatever comes my way.

I'm going to take a head -on standing on God's word. And so anyways,

I want to make sure I got those things in and I'll let you open up to you guys here. I want to hear your thoughts. Well, I gave you a lot.

I know. Yeah. Well, you bring up some important again. This is something that I invested in my own children.

I asked I would ask him what kind of Christian are you? Are you an apple

Christian? Are you an orange Christian? If you're an apple

Christian, you have thin skin and a hard heart. If you're an orange

Christian, you got tough skin, but a soft heart. And that's

That's what we're seeking to achieve as men. We got to take the blows of life.

We got to have tough skin to handle that. Okay, the problem though, is if you ain't walking.

You know, faithfully with your Lord and you're just getting hit and pummeled.

The temptation is bitterness. Yeah. Yeah, the temptation is the bite into that scandal on and when you do it says it defiles you and you defile others, right?

You know what I'm saying? And so having that tough skin and keeping that soft heart allows us to take the blows of life and instead of exploding in rage that you're talking about shaking our fists towards heaven and you know, yelling at our families and and just being ornery and you know, we we take that blow.

And somehow through the Lord, it comes out in a way that we can love and serve and help others and that's the way it's supposed to work.

Okay, but that and the other issue brother is the whole victim hood issue which the

Bible tells us in Jeremiah 31, that's actually one of the signs of God's judgment on a nation.

He talks about there's a saying when a nation is being judged the father ate sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge.

Okay, and so the sign that God is restoring a nation is when we take personal responsibility for our own thoughts deeds and actions.

That's a sign that God is restoring you but when it when a nation adopts victimhood as a policy which we have done right where everybody's pointing the finger at everybody else you're to blame for what

I have become in this life when we do that, that's that's the sign that God is very displeased with this nation that he is judging this nation.

And again, when we're talking about restoration, you know, Reformation Revival, one of the things that desperately needs to happen is for young people to understand they are personally responsible for their actions and that is something we have to instill and teach in young people again.

Were you going to say something? Yeah, that's just so good brother. So many thoughts going through my mind because we deal with it on a daily basis.

You know, I think the one of the best definitions of manhood is he who accepts responsibility, right?

It's the acceptance of responsibility. That's it. Absolutely. And so you're going to be defined by like you had said, so many thoughts going through the first Adam or the last

Adam, right? Adam or Christ, excuse me, the first Adam, he disobeyed and then that's known as the fall where God, you know, he died spiritually in that place.

And what were some of the first words out of his mouth? It was the woman that you gave me, right? The blame game.

Victimhood. Victimhood. I mean, one of the first signs, one of the first signs of the curse upon mankind was victimhood and he took that role instead of accepting responsibility.

And that's, if you take that, if men take that role in life, they're not men really.

They're, they're anti -men and it's, it creates a fall. Everything falls around.

Families fall and the family falls, the nation falls. So what do we have to do is we have to, you know, look ourselves straight in the face and say, you know what?

I'm not going to blame anybody else. I'm not going to blame the wife that you've given me. So many guys are like, oh, if only my wife was a, b, c, or d, if only if my kids were this way, if only my boss treated, you know, the, the if game, if only

I could have it like I want it. When really we just have to say, no, I'm going to take responsibility for my, like you just said, thoughts, words, and deeds.

I'm going to be the man that you've created me to be. We do that as men, as Christian men, really.

It starts, judgment has to start in the house of God, right? In the church. Yeah. And here's the thing.

This is even just relates to the gospel of the kingdom. God doesn't save victims.

He saves sinners. That is so huge, you know, right there.

And then the responsibility issue, God works. In other words,

God will impart his authority into men that take responsibility.

That's an important biblical truth that God will impart his, his authority into men that take responsibility.

That's how that works, right? Because God works through headship.

Amen. And he's a governmental God, a jurisdictional God, and he works through headship.

And when men take responsibility, they could be assured that God's authority is going to work through them into the earth.

And again, that needs to be reestablished because it's so needful and necessary in these days.

We begin that process. Yeah, right. I think you had said it too, in one of the many sermons that you've preached or conferences that you've taught at,

I mean, you're talking about men taking responsibility. I mean, that has been at the foundation of every major move for the good of our neighbors, right?

I mean, look at the war for independence or, you know, putting slavery under our feet, whatever it is, there's at the basis, men who rise up and say, you know,

I'm taking responsibility for my actions. Even in the late 80s, early 90s, when

God had done such a work through, you know, the pro -life movement, what was the mantra, you know, at the basis of all those babies that were saved, we are taking responsibility.

Come and repent with us as a church. So when that happens, especially in the lives of Christian men, it doesn't take a lot too.

I mean, look at the war for independence. How many people were in the mushy middle, like Pastor Matt says?

I think it was 85%. It was split up.

One third pro -American, one third pro -England, one third didn't give a rip.

And out of the one third that were pro -American, I think it was like 5%. Right.

Really fractional. It was a fraction of the pro -American men who signed up, took responsibility.

Exactly. And God worked a miracle. I mean, he worked a miracle. He did. But the encouraging thing is we're like, well, we have to be in the majority to enact change in the nation.

We don't. Look at Gideon's army, and that's so encouraging. But if only we had just a small group of men, you know, unite arms, take responsibility, and say, we're not going to put up with tyranny anymore.

We're going to, as our Savior did, destroy the works of the devil.

If that happens and good stuff happens. I think, Zach, we're seeing some signs of that.

I do see the Holy Spirit moving on pastors, moving on magistrates.

I think we're in the death throes of humanism, the death rattle of humanism.

It's falling apart. It's being exposed for what it is. Even Joe Blow Christian. I mean, you know, a six -pack guy,

American citizen. He's seeing the writing on the wall. He's seeing the failure.

It's touching them. You know what I mean? It's impacting them. And so, you know, we are seeing some blowback now, and we know about the network that God has been establishing to, you know, brethren that have a kindred spirit, you know, a like -minded faith, you know, where we do see the situation for what it is, and we are seeking the

Lord, and we are living out our faith to address that. And so the change is happening, brother.

This thing is coming down. It is coming to a head. And again, we don't know for sure how this is going to translate, but we do know one thing.

God says this world belongs to him, okay? That the Great Commission will be fulfilled in time and history.

That the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of our God and of his Christ, and he's going to reign forever.

And that's so important, brother, that we have that faith for that future and hope.

Now, I do believe we're going to have to sludge through some things. I do believe there's going to be difficult days, and that's where this godly biblical manhood is going to be so critically important to be able to guide and lead our homes, our families, our children, and the church through this time.

But like I shared just recently, when we see empires collapse and civilization fail, who has always been on the stage over here that rose up to rebuild civilization?

It's been the Christians. It's been their faith. It's their worldview that when humanism rebels and collapses and serious consequences come upon the earth, it has always been the

Christians. Who were there because of their faith, because of their family values, and because of their kingdom worldview that has restored civilizations.

Amen. Amen, brother. Amen. And so we may be called upon again, brother, is what

I'm saying. No, excellent point. So, well, someone asked a question in the chat.

That's a really good question. I'll clarify and we'll end here. I know we're over time here. So, you know, someone asked what's the difference between, you know, like truly being a victim and victimhood mentality, you know, and victimhood mentality.

It's a great question. So thank you for asking. But victimhood mentality is like we said, just not taking responsibility for your own faults and things that you are responsible for before God and pointing the blame to others.

That's victimhood mentality. But yeah, of course people are legitimately victims. Like that's why I mentioned that quote,

Christ was legitimately a victim. And even I had an old dude basically want to fight me on this once Zach was there for that.

But Christ was a victim of men's sinful desires.

They killed him. You can still be a victim in the in the law through the law, right through the civil realm.

You can be a victim there. You can even be a victim. Someone sins against you, right? You can still be a legitimate victim there.

But the difference between that and victimhood mentality is just not taking responsibility for what you should be responsible for.

So thank you for that question. But we'll go ahead and end here. A couple things I want to mention.

One, we're bringing this toxic masculinity train back to Ireland. So I saw we have a bunch of people in the chat today from Ireland watching.

So thank you for that. James and Benji. What's up, dudes? So we'll be there early

September. Be watching. We'll be announcing dates. Our airfare is booked. We are trying to figure out how to fill in that time with different things.

So be listening for that. We'll be letting everyone know where we're going to be at, what we're doing. And then Rusty is following right up behind us in October.

He'll be back. Just found that out the other day. So get ready, y 'all. Last time

Rusty was there, he caused quite the stir. So hopefully you can continue that.

So we're excited. It's going to be a good time. I got so much trouble, brothers. I know. I heard all about it.

But we love our brothers and sisters there. I mean, you guys both know this. There's some amazing, faithful brothers and sisters there in Ireland, in the

Republic and in the North, you know, fighting to end what's new for them, fighting to end the new slaughter of the baby's preborn neighbors in the wombs.

And so they're doing a great job there. And we're super, super thankful to come back and be able to assist them again.

So be watching for that. And obviously that's end abortion now and be praying for us as well.

We thank everyone for your support. Again, Pastor Jeff's in Georgia right now. We're going to have hopefully some more states to add this next year with some equal protection bills.

So overturning a row is just the beginning. We still got a lot of work to do. So be listening for that.

And I saw the people ask where to get this shirt. I'm wearing. You have to come see us in person.

It's not on the store. That's why you can't find it because it's a conference only shirt. So come to ReformCon and get it and but you can also go to our store.

We have lots of lots of stuff there and I know we saw a lot of tracks there. So check that out.

It's apologiestudios .com. That's all I got. This was this was such a great show.

Thank you brother rusty for being on once again and blessing us. Thank you, bro. It's awesome. It's always a joy to be with you.

Honestly guys. I really love you. Yeah, we love you too. All right. Well Zach. Thanks for joining me in kind of last minute today.

No problem Bob. We're going to be doing a I'll be on your show soon couple weeks.

Well, I almost said culture. Sorry. I didn't mean to offend you. Well, you're wearing a culture shirt.

That's why I'm wearing a culture. Yeah, I'll be unprovoked here. I don't know what we're talking about. Probably the same thing but good stuff. We'll be on there.

And so thank you everyone for your support. We mean it go to apologiestudios .com and sign up for free bonds and you account there as well and God bless everyone.