[00:00:00] Hey, thanks so much for listening to this message. My name is Jason and I'm one of the ministers here at the Madison Church of Christ. It's our hope and prayer that the teaching you hear today will bless your life and draw you closer to God. If you're ever in the Madison area, we'd love for you to stop by and study the Bible with us on Sundays at 5pm or Wednesdays at 7pm if you have questions about the Bible or want to know more about the Madison Church, you can find us
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[00:00:37] We've been talking this, this quarter about the men we need, and we're down to the last, the last two weeks, last two weeks of the quarter.
[00:00:49] So I wanted to, I wanted to look a little bit about, look a little bit at just the title of the class, the men we Need. And so to me, there's, there's kind of a message even in the title. And as I kind of break that down, one of the things that jumps out to me is we need men. We need men fulfilling their role. We need men that are active and engaged in that role.
[00:01:18] Look, throughout history, men have really dominated society, dominated culture, dominated families, dominated politically, financially. You know, that's the rent. Have really kind of dominated every aspect of society really, really throughout history.
[00:01:40] You look at more recent and oftentimes to the detriment of women.
[00:01:46] But you look more in recent history and you know, there's been more of a push from a feminist standpoint for women to take a more prominent role. And I would say kind of a course correction. But as sometimes happens with course correction, sometimes the pendulum swings too far right and in extreme cases of that, men are kind of left wondering, what is my role? What is my role in society? You know, what should I be doing? I think sometimes men feel left out, whereas women have been devalued for a long time. I think now sometimes men may feel devalued in society and kind of wondering what their role is. And I think men can react to that in different ways.
[00:02:35] Some men will just disengaged, disengaged and really not participate anymore, not being sure what they should or shouldn't be doing.
[00:02:45] Some men fight back and I'm going to maintain my role in society.
[00:02:52] And some men, I would say, press on, press on with what God has called us to do, called us to be in a godly way.
[00:03:03] So the first thing I notice really from the title is I want to emphasize that we do need men in our society.
[00:03:13] And we'll talk a little bit about what that means, what kinds of things men should be doing. But we need to first recognize that we need to be engaged.
[00:03:22] We can't disengage from society.
[00:03:29] Our families need us.
[00:03:32] Our wives need us, Our children need us. The church. The church needs us. And really society as a whole needs this. When men are not engaged, it causes societal issues.
[00:03:46] Some of those.
[00:03:48] Looking up some data, a couple of these were surprising. This first one was actually surprising to me, but I didn't realize that the United States has the highest rate of single parent homes in the world. I would not have thought that, but apparently we do.
[00:04:04] We also have 18 million fatherless children in the United States.
[00:04:11] Fatherless. Being there is no father active in their life. It's a lot of kids. And when that happens, there's obviously a lot of issues, a lot of issues in society, a lot of negative impacts.
[00:04:26] Some of those kids that are fatherless, there's a lot higher rate of suicide among those kids. There's a several times higher rate of homelessness of those kids. A lot higher rate of behavior disorders among fatherless kids. There's a lot lower academic performance and a lot higher dropout rate among kids that are fatherless.
[00:04:55] There's a lot higher incarceration rate among those that are fatherless. You look at, you know, looking at some numbers, and, you know, I saw anything from 70% to 90% of people in prison, the number is probably 80, 85. Best I could tell, 80, 85% of the people in prison were fatherless or did not have. Did not have an active father in their life.
[00:05:22] There's a lot higher rate of poverty for fatherless children. A lot higher rate of substance abuse.
[00:05:32] There's a lot higher rate of child abuse. You know, a lot of times we think of, you know, maybe an abusive father. And while that certainly is true in cases, in more cases, it's really the fathers that are protecting the children. And when there's a father not around, children are more susceptible to child abuse.
[00:05:56] There's a higher rate of teenage pregnancy among the fatherless.
[00:06:02] So these are societal impacts, but there's also spiritual impacts.
[00:06:08] Spirituality is one of those things that's hard to measure. There's not really great ways to measure, but. But certainly one of the things they look at is just attendance at church.
[00:06:18] You know, it's not a perfect measure by any means, but As a measure.
[00:06:24] Some interesting stats from that.
[00:06:26] If both parents of a child attend service regularly, then there's a 33% chance that the child will also attend services regularly when they're adults. 33%, that's first off. That's not a great number.
[00:06:46] And you would hope that within the churches of Christ maybe our numbers are a little better, but unfortunately they're not.
[00:06:54] That's consistent with what I've seen in other studies and other numbers. Basically two thirds. So a third are attending regularly, another third are still attending, but irregularly, and then a third really aren't attending at all. Those are kind of the breakouts in general.
[00:07:12] But if the father does not attend regularly, the number just bottoms out 3%.
[00:07:19] So if the father is not. If the mother is attending regularly and the father is not attending regularly, 3% of those children are attending regularly once they're adults, and another half or so are attending irregularly.
[00:07:35] Incredible impact of fathers.
[00:07:38] It's kind of interesting if you look at it the other way around. If it's the father that's attending regularly and the mother is not attending regularly, the numbers don't drop.
[00:07:53] The numbers don't drop, which is surprising. It actually went up a little bit. It's like 38%. I don't know why. I'm not sure I understand why that is, but. But again, it just emphasizes the importance that we fathers have in spiritual development of our children. If our kids don't see us active and engaged, the chances of them being active and engaged are lower. And maybe there's an expectation that mom is, I don't know. But to see dad active and engaged, it has a huge impact, huge impact on kids.
[00:08:29] So your family needs you now, if you're a father, if your kids are grown, if you have grandkids, whatever, don't have a family yet. Whatever role you in, whatever role you are in, your family needs you and they need you now.
[00:08:49] Whatever time you invest into your family, you will not regret it.
[00:08:55] You may have to make some sacrifices here or there.
[00:09:00] So a long time ago, I used to be a golfer. When I was in high school and college. Played a lot of golf.
[00:09:10] Actually was pretty decent. I was not Steve McNair good, but I was decent. Had a three handicap.
[00:09:21] And so I ended up marrying a girl who was a state champion in golf. So I thought, man, this is going to be great. We're going to play a lot of golf. I'm going to get to play all this golf. You know, we're going to have fun. Take these Golf trips and whatever, whatever. And then I had kids and golf came to a very quick end.
[00:09:42] I hardly ever got to play. I didn't have time, I didn't have money anymore to play golf. So, you know, I had to give that up. But you know what, I gladly gave it up.
[00:09:54] You know, it wasn't really that big of a deal.
[00:09:58] I was a lot more interested investing that time into my kids.
[00:10:03] So now I'm 53 and I'm trying to get back into golf and found out that I now stink at it. So. But I am trying to get back into it. My wife actually had a book that I saw last summer and the name of the book was Tea Time Ministry. T e a Time Ministry. And the idea was you get together with other women over tea or whatever and you make that a ministry by having fellowship with other women. I said, hey, I think I want a tea time ministry. Mine's going to be tee Tea time ministry. So. So I'm trying to get back into golf and spend four hours on a golf course with somebody. You kind of get to know them and maybe I can make that a ministry.
[00:10:48] But instead of golf. So as I had kids, they got interested in sports, thankfully, because I've always loved sports. But my boys especially played a lot of baseball and basketball and I played those growing up as well.
[00:11:07] So this was an opportunity for me to get involved with their life in something they enjoyed, something I enjoyed. So I kind of dove into that, took up coaching with them and was able to coach them for a lot of years, I think ended up coaching for 15 years. So we home schooled, so I was actually coaching them through school, all the way up through high school.
[00:11:29] Spent, you know, a lot of time on the baseball field with them, a lot of hours, a lot of time in the gym, a lot of time in the car, driving to events and, you know, really just got to spend. Spend a lot of time with them doing something that we both enjoyed and those were great times.
[00:11:50] I have no idea how many teams I ended up coaching in players. Probably, probably hundreds of players, to be honest.
[00:11:57] Definitely dozens of teams. But it was a lot of fun.
[00:12:01] So then I have a daughter and my daughter's gotten into volleyball. I don't really know, didn't really know a lot about volleyball, but I'm starting to learn it. So I can relate to her and spend some time with her in that. Try to go to as many of her games as I can as I learn the sport. And you know, I can't do a whole lot of coaching. But I've tried to learn, tried to learn the sport so I can give her some things and talk to her about it. But one thing I do, before every game, I do give her a piece of advice.
[00:12:35] So every time she's playing a game, I tell her this. Let's say I want you to go spike it in their faces and make them cry to their moms.
[00:12:47] She knows I'm joking, but she enjoys that. She thinks it's funny. So I'll always ask her after practice. Did you spike anybody's face? No. Okay, we'll get them next time.
[00:13:02] But find a way to spend time with your kids. And if they pick an interest that's not your interest, get into that, whatever it is. Find ways to do that and spend time with your kids.
[00:13:15] So some of you may end up with a girl that gets into dance if that happens, you know.
[00:13:22] Sorry, I guess.
[00:13:26] So Pete Winger knows about that.
[00:13:29] So he had a girl that got into. Got into dance.
[00:13:33] But Pete. Pete embraced that and used that as an opportunity to spend time with her as well. So Pete. So what did Pete do? He signed up to dancing the Nutcracker. Right? He's done that. He's done that several years with her as a way to spend time with her.
[00:13:50] And I think he's worked his. He's worked his way up into that, in that. And what's Drosselmeyer now dancing the role of Drosselmeyer. Right. So I guess when she graduates, if he's still doing it, you know, they'll tell us he's really gotten into it. Hung up my cape.
[00:14:13] Also, be willing to sacrifice financially. They need you more than they need money. They need you more than they need a college fund.
[00:14:22] Those things are great if you can provide. Provide those things. They need you more than they need a fancy vacation or a big house or any of those things you're charged with. You're not charged with getting your children a lucrative career, but you are charged with shaping their character. So invest in those things. And if you're able to provide the other things too, great. But those things are secondary.
[00:14:48] Remember that you don't get do overs.
[00:14:51] What you get is now, so don't waste now.
[00:14:56] They need security from knowing you, not from anything else that you can provide for them.
[00:15:05] And if your family is more important than your hobbies and your possessions and your career and all those things, I think we would all say that. Just make sure that we're proving it. Make sure that our kids know that and don't doubt that as well.
[00:15:25] So bottom line, stay at your post. We need men. We need men in their roles.
[00:15:30] In whatever role you have, again, whether you're single, embrace, embrace that. If you have a wife, embrace, Embrace the marriage. If you have kids, embrace. Embrace that. If your kids are young, embrace doing diapers.
[00:15:44] Enjoy that phase, whatever phase you're in. If you have teenagers, embraced that. You know, I was always told, oh, the teen years are horrible. But it wasn't that way for me. I enjoyed teen years.
[00:16:01] I still have a couple of them. There was a point where I had five of them.
[00:16:05] Three of them have graduated out of that. But now I have two teenagers left. I've loved the teenage years. I think if you put in the work early, it gives you an opportunity to enjoy those teenage years. So don't believe that the teenage years have to be bad and horrible.
[00:16:27] I would also say be joyful in all these things.
[00:16:35] As we're raising our kids, there's a lot of important things that we need to be doing.
[00:16:40] Think of it like preparing a dish. There's main ingredients that got to go in that dish. You need to be spending time in God's word with them. You need to be disciplining them, teaching them right and wrong.
[00:16:53] You need to have them at church. You need to be doing all those things. Those are kind of main ingredients. But to me, there's a secret. There's a secret ingredient or a secret sauce, I think that can make it all come together, and that's joy.
[00:17:10] They need to see your family, your kids need to see the joy in your life, and they need to see that you have joy in your faith, joy in your Christianity. Because if you don't have joy in your faith, but if you don't have joy in your life when your kids get older, there's a less likely chance that they're going to want your faith. But if they see that you have joy in your Christian walk, then they're going to be a whole lot more interested in having that faith themselves.
[00:17:43] So not only do we need men, but we need a certain kind of men.
[00:17:48] We need godly men, men who are spiritual leaders.
[00:17:53] So masculinity, masculinity or godly masculinity is not about hunting, fishing. Those things that we think of as masculine, those things are great. That's fine. But true masculinity is about being godly and fulfilling the purpose that he has given us. So that purpose, we can look back at Genesis and see some of that.
[00:18:19] As God created Adam and Eve and he told Adam Says, fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over it. That was in Genesis 1. And then in Genesis 2, it words it a little bit different. It says, he put them in the garden and he told them to work it and to keep it. So they were to have dominion over creation, they were to work it, to keep it.
[00:18:42] I think those are basically saying the same things in a slightly different way. So they were given responsibility to care for creation.
[00:18:54] As we look at what happened in chapter three, well, let me first say it was really a joint responsibility. It was a job given to men and women to work together, to use their strengths together in cohesion, right?
[00:19:09] And so each kind of represented an important part of humanity, important characteristics that were part of humanity, and they were to work together in that job. So then we get to Genesis 3, and we find that woman was tempted, ate of the fruit, gave some to Adam, and he ate of the fruit. And I think the very first class, we looked at this section, and this one hadn't really stood out to me before. I always thought of maybe Adam was off somewhere else in my mind. I always pictured Adam being off somewhere else while maybe he was off at work or whatever. And Eve got tempted, ate, and then Adam came home, and then he ate. But when you look at this, it seems like he was right there with her.
[00:20:02] So when she was tempted, where was he? Why was he not? Satan came speaking to his wife. Why was he not doing anything? Why was he not standing up?
[00:20:13] Why was he not defending her? Seems like he was kind of missing in action there.
[00:20:20] But regardless, you know, they both were tempted and took of the fruit.
[00:20:27] So part of what happened from that, as a result of that, it says to the woman, he said, you desire shall be for your husband, but he shall rule over you.
[00:20:38] There's been a lot of question over what that means, what that verse means. What does that mean? Desire. So what does it mean that the woman's desire is for her husband?
[00:20:48] There's been some different ideas put forth. Some have thought maybe it was a sexual desire. Some maybe have thought it was a desire to please him.
[00:20:58] But I don't think either one of those are it. I think the key is in the next verse. So this verse, this word desire, it's only used three times in. In the Hebrew Old Testament. The next time it's used is actually in chapter four, the very next chapter, just a few verses later. And I think that's the key to understanding what that means there. And it says that sin is crouching at the door. And Its desire is for you, but you shall rule over it. Right.
[00:21:30] So it's basically sin is trying to conquer.
[00:21:35] This was Cain. This is after Cain killed Abel. God speaking to Cain, he's saying sin is desiring to overcome you, but you need to overcome it. So I think this is the same word here. It's basically saying the woman's desire is going to be to rule over the man, but the man is going to rule over the woman. So this is talking about conflict. This is conflict between men and women. This is not God's ideal. Right. This is not a verse talking about male leadership. There's plenty of places in the Bible that speak of that, but this is not one of those places. This is talking about a bad situation where there's now conflict between men and women, each trying to rule over the other. And he says the man's going to end up ruling. And I think it's safe to say the reason that happens is because we're bigger.
[00:22:27] You know, we kind of opened with that. That's how society has gone. Men are bigger and for most of society, men have ruled. But there's been conflict. And as a result of that, our mission has suffered. Our mission to take care of, take care of God's creation has suffered as a result of that.
[00:22:48] But our calling is for us to rule godly. So let me just kind of open it up to some discussion here. How is godly rule different than earthly rule? So if we're supposed to rule over God's creation in a godly way, how is that rule different from worldly rule?
[00:23:15] Worldly rule is more self centered. It's more focused on us and what we can get right now as opposed to planning ahead for the future.
[00:23:25] So we're talking about like a spiritual view or godly view rule. Then we're focused on the kingdom and trying to get our family there.
[00:23:35] Yeah.
[00:23:39] Other thoughts?
[00:23:41] Yeah. To piggyback on that is godly rule is outward focus. We're looking to the betterment and improvement of others.
[00:23:51] Okay. Yeah. So whereas worldly rule is more selfish, self centered, self seeking. Right?
[00:23:59] Yeah.
[00:24:00] Godly rule is really all about sacrifice. You know, if you want to be a leader, a godly type leader, that means you want to be a servant, that means you want to, that you want to sacrifice. It doesn't mean it's not about being in charge.
[00:24:15] It's not about having people under you. It's about being willing to sacrifice, being willing to give of yourself. That's what godly leadership is about.
[00:24:27] Some rules I think Some verses, I think, that speak to that speak about godly rule. So in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gives a sample prayer and he says, you kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
[00:24:47] So your kingdom come and your will be done, I think are basically saying the same thing here.
[00:24:55] So his desire is that the kingdom, God's rule will come like it is in heaven. So what's the nature of God's rule in heaven?
[00:25:05] God's rule is complete without opposition. Right.
[00:25:10] Everything is under his rule, as it should be.
[00:25:14] What's the nature of God's will being done in heaven? It's done completely in heaven. Right. So Jesus prayer here is just like your will and your rule is being done in heaven. We want that to happen here on earth.
[00:25:31] So Jesus is the one that came to make that happen. Right. To bring God's reign to earth, to bring heavenly rule to earth.
[00:25:40] Another verse we could look at is do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.
[00:25:48] So when you say that word, justice, what do you think of, you think of biblical justice, what comes to mind?
[00:25:56] For me, I tend to think of like, my mind tends to go to like an American justice system where I'm thinking more about punishment, the punishment side of it. Our justice system is kind of based on if you break laws, you're going to get punished. And there's definitely an aspect of justice that speaks to that.
[00:26:17] It's called retributive justice. So retribution based justice. Right. But there's another side of justice. I think, at least for me, I don't always think about when I think of God's justice, and that's restorative justice. His desire to take care of those that are oppressed or weak and see that they're treated fairly, his care for the poor, his care for those who are suffering. That also is justice. God has a desire that those people are cared for and that too is justice. So I think it's all that. So I think this last verse speaks more to that side of justice.
[00:26:57] I view this kind of as a mission statement of Christ.
[00:27:01] It's from Isaiah when he was asked to read from the scroll, he read from Isaiah. He said, the Spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free.
[00:27:21] I think that speaking of Christ, bringing justice and specifically bringing justice for those who have been oppressed by Circumstances or situation. Right.
[00:27:38] All right, thoughts on that?
[00:27:40] I'm real thankful that he put in love mercy and not just do justice. Yeah, yeah.
[00:27:48] And I think those go together, right.
[00:27:51] I've typically thought of them as being opposites, but I think they go together. I think both of them flow from his love. His desire to see justice and his desire to show mercy. I think both come from a place of love.
[00:28:07] All right, so we'll move on.
[00:28:10] So a little bit of review from where we've been in the class.
[00:28:15] So if we want to be the kind of men that we need to be, these are some of the things that we've talked about in this class. Forsaking the fake and relishing the real.
[00:28:25] Talks about the things that sometimes distract us, the things in life that aren't fake, I mean, that are fake, that take us away from real.
[00:28:35] We've talked about it could be substances, it could be pornography, it could be a number of things. Any of those things that, that don't have real value, that take us away from what's true and good.
[00:28:50] We talked about choosing today who you will become tomorrow and how we're all growing and the choices that we make are going to impact that and impact who we become.
[00:29:00] And along with that, taking responsibility for our own spirituality. We talked about being ambitious about the right things. We want to be ambitious.
[00:29:10] Ambition is good when it's about being ambitious for godly things.
[00:29:17] Then we talked about protecting the vulnerable. And then so for this week and next, our focus is really on making women and children feel safe, which is kind of a follow on idea to protecting the vulnerable.
[00:29:31] That's what we're going to be focusing on the rest of tonight and next week.
[00:29:38] Alright, so got some pictures. So what do these pictures have in common?
[00:29:45] So there's number one, number two, number three, what do those pictures have in common?
[00:29:58] Same actor. Well, two of them are.
[00:30:02] He was fighting for his family. Yeah, yeah. I couldn't see who said that. Yeah, he was fighting for his family. So as part of research for the class, had to go back and watch these movies.
[00:30:16] But yeah, in all three situations it's a guy fighting for his family.
[00:30:23] In Gladiator, he just wanted to go off to his farm and live his life and his wife and his kid got killed. Right. And that changed the course of his life.
[00:30:33] And the patriot, same thing. He wanted to be a farmer, he wanted to be left alone and they came and killed his son in front of him and that changed his course. Right.
[00:30:46] And then Braveheart, they killed his wife. Same thing. He wanted no part in the rebellion, but they killed his wife and that kind of changed the course.
[00:30:57] I remember the first time I saw these movies and just kind of, to me, those kind of things just stir my gut.
[00:31:04] Seeing thinking about somebody coming after your wife or your kids. I don't know why, it just kind of stirs me in the gut. I think for most men it does.
[00:31:18] So here's another one. So this one's a real life hero. The other ones were movie actors.
[00:31:24] This kid is a real life hero.
[00:31:26] This is a six year old kid from Utah. This is a few years ago, his little sister. Little sister's four. His little sister was attacked by a German shepherd.
[00:31:40] And he saw it and jumped in and ran in between her and the dog and told his sister to run.
[00:31:50] And then he took the attack.
[00:31:52] Right.
[00:31:54] Six year old, had 90 stitches on his face and other parts of his body.
[00:31:59] Certainly could have died, but was able to survive the attack.
[00:32:05] So that's a real life hero taking care of his little sister.
[00:32:11] His dad, after his dad asked him, he said, why did you do that?
[00:32:16] And his answer was, if someone had to die, I would rather it be me.
[00:32:23] Heroism. So this kid got it right. This kid knew what it meant to protect to women and children at an early age. He was just a child himself, but he already knew what it meant to do that. He's doing pretty well. I've seen more recent pictures of him and he's still got a scar, but he's doing decently well.
[00:32:45] All the Avengers actors ended up sending him stuff.
[00:32:50] I don't remember the actors names, but they sent him a Captain America shield, like a real one, and sent him a Thor, the hammer from Thor and all that. So he ended up getting some stuff out of it. But amazing story to me.
[00:33:05] So reality is that women and children tend to either feel safer or they tend to feel more threatened around men.
[00:33:13] It's one of the two and there's certainly reasons for that.
[00:33:19] There's just physical differences between men and women.
[00:33:22] I read a study that was talking about that.
[00:33:26] This was a study, it was focused on army recruits.
[00:33:32] So this isn't a statement about women in the military or anything like that. So just let me preface that.
[00:33:40] But it said the average female recruit is 4.8 inches shorter, 31.7 pounds lighter, 37.4 fewer pounds of muscle, 5.7 more pounds of fat than the average male recruit.
[00:33:55] She has 55% of the upper body strength and 72% of the lower body strength.
[00:34:03] Women are more than Twice as likely to suffer leg injuries and nearly five times as likely to suffer stress fractures.
[00:34:11] Their aerobic capability is significantly lower, et cetera. So I mean something we all know, it's obvious, but I mean, just physically we're very different. And I've never really thought of, I guess I've always, being a male, I've always viewed things differently. I'm never really scared when I'm out. I'm never really scared in situations. But for women it's a common thing if they're out, especially if they're out by their self, you know, they're typically going to be scared, especially if there's a strange man nearby or whatever, you know, it may be a scary situation to them. But I've not really experienced that much.
[00:34:54] There was one time in New Orleans, I would say I experienced that walking in the streets in New Orleans and a car backfired and I took off.
[00:35:10] I think I ran a four minute mile.
[00:35:13] But other than that, other than that one time, I mean it's just, you know, not something. But it is a common thing for women. So what do we do? Are we making women around us feel safer or are we making women around us feel more threatened?
[00:35:28] Every woman and child has a protector.
[00:35:32] If there are women and children in your life, you are their protector. Every woman and child has somebody that is their protector and that's the man in their life. That's your responsibility to do that.
[00:35:44] A lot of times, a lot of times it's just a matter of being there, being present, right? Just your presence provides safety.
[00:35:54] You're not necessarily getting in fights or anything like that.
[00:35:58] Just the fact that you're there provides some safety. So you don't have to be, you don't have to have biceps like Justin Boatwright or me, you know, but, but just being there.
[00:36:16] Think about fathers and daughters dating. The dating situation with fathers and daughters, the guy coming to pick up the daughter, just the fact that the father's around has a presence there. When the guy comes to pick up the daughter. Have you thought about, if you have girls, have you thought about what you're gonna do and some guy wants to come over and pick up your daughter. Have you thought through that or have you experienced that? Have you picked up, have you picked up somebody had to go pick up a date and the girl's dad's on the porch with the shotgun.
[00:36:49] Have you experienced that? So my father in law was that guy.
[00:36:55] So some of Laura's previous dates, she went kind of a fancy school and some of her Some of the fancy guys from that school, when she was in high school, they came to pick her up. So she lived out in the country down a windy through the trees road. I can just imagine the look on their face as they get through there. And then there's Pat Murphy on the porch, literally cleaning a shotgun.
[00:37:21] So my father in law was that guy. I didn't get that treatment personally, but I didn't know that about him.
[00:37:30] It was actually a few years later, it was after we'd been married a while and had a couple kids. He came up to me with a serious look on his face and he said, you know, if anything ever happens to Laura or any of the kids. And I'm thinking, oh, I guess I'm about to get, I didn't get the shotgun treatment. I guess I'm about to get it now. He's like, but it wasn't really aimed at me. He's like, if anything ever happens to Laura or the kids, I don't want you taking care of it. You let me take care of it. He's like, cause I'm old and I can go to jail.
[00:38:06] Laura and the kids need you, right? So you let me handle it.
[00:38:10] I don't know exactly what you say to that.
[00:38:14] The nervous laugh is, I don't know, ended up not being appropriate.
[00:38:19] So. Yes, sir.
[00:38:22] So I think, I think that was the message I was in. I was approved. I think that was the message to me.
[00:38:30] And knowing him, I think he was serious. I don't think he was joking.
[00:38:35] I mean he's an awesome guy, he's funny, he loves kids, he loves telling stories to kids.
[00:38:41] He'll tell fishing stories and all kind of stuff, but don't mess with any of his family.
[00:38:49] He's serious about that.
[00:38:52] So I mentioned that everybody has a protector. So what about.
[00:39:00] So every woman and child has a protector. So what about the orphans and the widows?
[00:39:05] Well, Exodus 22, this is words from God. He said, you shall not mistreat any widow or fatherless child. If you do mistreat them, I will kill you.
[00:39:17] Pretty straightforward how God feels about that.
[00:39:23] In other situations he talks about if somebody does something, there are other capital punishment type crimes. And this one he says, I'm going to take care of, may be in his time and in his way, but God cares for the widows, the widows and the children. So every woman and child has, has a protector for those that have, have a father or a man in their life. That, that's your job. That's your job to be that. If you're, you know, for the women and children in your life, you are that protector for those that don't have a man in their life to be that God. God is their protector. Alright, I don't want to start, I don't want to start the next story. So we may wrap it up there. Next time I'll have some stories about, about Samuel. I didn't get to get to it, but we'll have, we'll have a story or two about, about Samuel. Alright, thank you guys. And we will see y'all next week.
