March 17, 2025 • 41 mins
In this episode, Brody dives into the biblical design of marriage, discussing manhood, womanhood, and how God's intentions for both husbands and wives shape relationships. Whether you're married, single, or hoping for marriage in the future, this conversation offers valuable insights. Brody addresses the constant attacks on marriage, the roles of men and women, and the importance of guarding and nurturing relationships. He also shares practical wisdom for men in their responsibility to protect, provide, and lead, while encouraging women to co-labor with their husbands. Ultimately, Brody reminds us that marriage is a reflection of Christ's love for the church and that fulfilling God's purpose in our relationships points to a future eternal union with Him.
Genesis 1-3
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
In this week's episode of no Sanity Required, I
want to talk a little bit aboutmanhood and marriage.
We've got our Be Strong eventcoming up next weekend, and
there'll be men from all overthe country coming to that event
.
I just want to share somethoughts as we're kind of
gearing our minds towards thatand preparing for that.
(00:20):
I've had a lot of things happenin my life recently just
ministry situations andopportunities the Lord has put
me in.
I feel like that the Lord isputting this topic or this
subject matter right in front ofme right now, and so I just
want to share some thoughts thatI think will be helpful, not
just for husbands but for wives,and not just for married people
(00:42):
but for folks that hope to bemarried, and not just for
newlyweds but people that havebeen married 30, 40, 50 years.
So today we're going to talkabout relationships,
specifically about God's designfor men and women in the context
of biblical marriage.
We've got our be strong eventcoming up.
Then we've got our women'srespond conference next month,
(01:02):
so a lot of attention beinggiven to that right now, and so
I hope this is going to behelpful for you and I'm thankful
that you would tune in andlisten.
Welcome to no Sanity Required.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Welcome to no Sanity Required from the Ministry of
Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters.
A podcast about the Bible,culture and stories from around
the globe.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Most people are going to find themselves married at
some point or another.
And some people you might bethinking I don't know, I'm
starting to give up on it, and Iwould just say you know, the
Lord has a plan for all of us.
And some folks marry a littlelater, some folks marry earlier,
(01:56):
younger, um, and and somepeople are in their second,
maybe third marriage and maybefourth, fifth, I don't know.
I don't know where you're at, Idon't know what, what your
situation is, but I know thisthat marriage is an incredible
opportunity to reflect who Godis and reflect who Christ is.
It's a, it's a shadow of aneternal truth and reality, and
but it's also because of that,it's a perfect platform for the
(02:18):
enemy to tear down what God hasdesigned.
I think that's why you see anattack on marriage in the world.
There's a constant attack onmarriage.
That attack may come in theform of opportunities and
encouraged promiscuity andadultery.
It could come in the form of anattack on gender.
(02:40):
It could come in the form of anattack on sexuality.
Regardless of what cultureyou're in, marriage is always
under attack.
Let me say it again yourmarriage is under attack,
(03:28):
no-transcript.
And so let me give you a littlebackground to some things that
have happened in my liferecently.
In the last month, I've hadthree different situations where
I have found myself inconversation with men who are,
(03:51):
who are going through divorceswith their wives, and so and
none of these three guys areconnected or related, none of
them knows the other one andnone of them are men that well,
let me take that back.
One of them is a guy that Ialready knew, I've got some
history with.
Two of them are guys that theway I met them was that they're
(04:13):
in the midst of like a crisis intheir life.
One of them is a local guy thathe's not from this area but
he's lived in this area for awhile.
The Lord crossed our paths andhe's going through this area,
but he's lived in this area fora while.
The lord crossed our paths andhe's going through a pretty
tough divorce or breakup.
I don't know if it's a divorceyet, but that's where it's
headed.
Another one and and and anotherone where the guy I think drugs
(04:36):
are involved and there's been alot of uh, dependency on drugs
between them.
And then another one where Ithink it's more um, money and
and just life and busyness andraising kids and going in
different directions andmultiple careers and just the
stress and pressure of life, andso three very different
(04:58):
dynamics, but each headed forthe same end result, which is a
failed and broken marriage andall that's going to be
associated with that, and a lotof our listeners are divorced
and have.
Maybe, maybe you're in yoursecond marriage, or maybe more
than your second marriage, um,but it just kind of made me
realize that this is somethingthat that the enemy has always
(05:20):
been attacking and is alwaysgoing to be attacking, and it
also made me realize just justreminded me that, uh, in every
single society, marriage comesunder attack, because that's
where the enemy is going toattack God's designs.
So God designed a man to be oneway and a woman to be another
(05:43):
way.
Men and women have complementarybut different roles.
Rules are pretty much the sameBe faithful to the Lord, be
faithful to one another.
Different roles, whether youhold a more complementarian view
of marriage, which is that Godhas designed men to do certain
(06:04):
things and women to do certainother things and vice versa, and
they complement one another.
Or if you hold a moreegalitarian view of marriage,
which that's where the roles areinterchangeable and so an
egalitarian view of marriage orchurch might mean that women can
be in headship or leadership ifthey have different, stronger
(06:25):
giftings towards that when acomplementarian view of marriage
and or church would be.
There are certain roles ofheadship and leadership that are
reserved for men, but thenthere are certain roles that God
has laid out for a wife or awoman in that relationship.
And so, regardless of if youhold a complementarian view,
which is what we hold here atSWO and what I hold personally,
(06:49):
or an egalitarian view, whichthere's still some good biblical
framework for an egalitarianpoint of view, regardless of
what view you hold, there aresome things that we need to
understand, and it's that Godhas designed marriage to
function a certain way, to looka certain way, so that it might
reflect his glory and help uspaint a picture of the
(07:11):
fellowship and union that existsbetween Christ and his people.
And so it makes sense that theenemy would be wanting to attack
that.
I think one of the ways theenemy attacks that, first and
foremost, is he attacks the manin terms of his role in in the
relationship.
He attacks him personally andhe attacks the woman personally
in the in the terms of her rolein the relationship.
(07:34):
And I wanted to tell, I wantedto point out actually, uh, a
passage of scripture in Genesis,couple of passages, and then
give you some thoughts, somecomment on that, on those
passages.
The first one is in Genesis two, when God creates the first man
, it says the Lord, god saidit's not good that the man
should be alone.
So we know that God had createdthe man and then determined
(07:57):
that it wasn't good for the manto be alone.
But before God recognized theneed the man had and then
created the first woman orbrought a wife to the man,
before God ever did that, godhad given the man some structure
and some parameters and someinstruction.
And we see that if we back up afew verses in Genesis 2.15.
(08:18):
It says the Lord, god, took theman, put him in the Garden of
Eden to work it and keep it.
So the man is to be a worker.
He's to work to provide and tobring the basic needs of life
under his dominion, so toprovide food and shelter and
clothing and things like thatfor his family.
(08:39):
But then it says he's to workand keep.
But then it says he's to workand keep, and so keeping just
means simply that he's to defendand protect and guard that word
guard your heart.
In that Proverbs, chapter 4passage, guard your heart, it's
the same word.
It means to keep or protect.
And so the man is to be, he'sto stand guard, he's to protect,
(09:02):
he's to be ready to fight forthe things God's given him to
fight for, and most men.
We like the idea of working andprotecting in terms of I like to
work hard, make a living, youknow, go out and accomplish
things.
In my field of work, whetherthat's in the trades or whether
it's in, you know, finance orconstruction or accounting, or
(09:24):
business ownership or governmentor education, we like to work
in what we would call our domainor in the public square, the
marketplace.
We like to work and then, outof that work, we like to
accomplish things and becompetitive and set goals and
tasks and we find fulfillment inthat.
(09:45):
We also have to be careful,because we can struggle to find
our purpose and our identity inthat, and as a man, you've got
to be careful that you don'tfind your purpose and your
identity in your work.
You find that in Christ, andthen your work is an expression
of the joy that you have in theLord, and so we work as unto the
Lord.
In everything that we do, we doit to give glory to God, work
(10:06):
as unto the Lord, and everythingthat we do, we do it to give
glory to God.
And then, um, so, so a lot ofmen feel like, well, I'm, I find
a lot of pleasure and and, andI find a lot of purpose in my
work.
But then also, um, it says thatthe Lord, god, put the man in
the garden to work and keep, andso we like that idea of keeping
or guarding.
We like to guard our sons anddaughters, we like to guard our
(10:27):
marriage, we like to.
You know, a lot of us areconcealed carry.
Guys, you know, like to.
Um, people ask me all the timewhat do you conceal carry?
So I personally, most days Idon't carry the same thing every
day.
Most days I carry a Gen 5 Glock19, an MOS model that has a
(10:48):
Trijicon RMR red dot optic on itand I carry that pistol with 16
rounds of ammunition and anappendix holster on the front of
my belt.
And if I'm traveling I'll havea couple of spare magazines.
I carry a flashlight, a pocketflashlight.
There's a lot of talk about EDC.
(11:08):
Have you ever heard thatterminology?
I know the men that listen toour show, our podcast, probably
do everyday carry.
So my everyday carry is a Glock19.
There's some days I carrysomething different, but most
days that's what I'm carrying.
I carry a flashlight, I carry.
I usually don't have a walletin my pocket.
I keep that in my truck.
(11:29):
I like to keep my pocketspretty empty.
I carry a knife, um.
I carry most days a fixed bladeknife made by a company called
Bark River.
If you ever see me in person,ask me to check out my Bark
River knife.
I'm very proud of it.
I've carried it for years andyears and miles and miles and I
love this knife.
That's my everyday carry knife,um, and that's about it.
(11:52):
I don't you know, I guess, myphone.
I carry my phone.
So I don't carry a lot on myperson each day, but what I do
carry I'm prepared to protect myfamily.
So recently traveled out of,traveled out of state.
We flew me Little, my oldestdaughter, Lailie, and JB flew
with us, and so the four of usflew.
We traveled to Florida and Icarried a handgun.
(12:16):
I checked a handgun at theairport and I carried it.
Why is that?
Do I think I'm going to get ina gunfight?
No, I don't think I am.
I really don't think I am.
But I live in a.
I live in a state of realitywhere I know there are evil
people in the world and I'mprepared to fight to defend my
wife, my children, the peoplethat God's entrusted me with.
I'd rather fight with a gun.
If I'm fighting somebody with agun, that that person has a gun
(12:39):
.
So anyway, why do I?
Why do I go down that rabbithole?
Well, I go down that rabbithole because, as men, we like
the idea of being protectors, ofbeing guards, of standing guard
.
But let me challenge you withsomething.
Is it not maybe more criticaland more practical that you
(13:02):
guard the hearts and minds ofthose God's entrusted you with,
so your wife, your sons, yourdaughters we need to guard and
protect what the devil wants todo to them.
We need to know who theirfriends are, who they're
communicating with, what they'reusing their phones for, who
they're, who they're hooking upwith on the weekends and
connecting with, and wherethey're going.
And we need to know that.
We need to know what contentthey're viewing on the internet.
(13:22):
We need to know how much timethey're spending indoors in
front of a screen.
We need to guard their mindsand their eyes, and so there's
not just the physical guarding,but we need to guard their
hearts, their minds, theirimaginations.
So, as a man, I'm to work, notjust to put a roof over our
(13:44):
heads, but I'm to work to buildrelationships and then to guard
those relationships.
So I'm a workman.
Paul tells Timothy you are aworkman that does not need to be
ashamed.
We're workmen.
And then Paul also writes weare Christ's workmanship,
created for good works, and sowe are to be workers, we're to
(14:06):
be.
As a man, you should be a hardworker.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
And as a woman.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
As a Christian, we should say men and women, we
should be hard workers, weshould be.
I find that most women are hardworkers.
Some men struggle with laziness.
That tends to be um, now,that's, that's pain with a broad
stroke.
But most women and I don't knowif it's just a result, I think
it's a result of what we'retalking about A result of the
(14:31):
fall is that men either tend tobe consumed with their work and
they find their identity in it,or they're lazy.
Um, some men are are stressedand overworked.
Some men are lazy.
Some men are stressed andoverworked.
Some men are lazy.
Some women are driven andoverworked.
Some women are lazy.
I'm not saying that therearen't both, but I'm saying that
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for men, we have to guardagainst laziness, even if you're
a hard worker.
I know a lot of men that worktheir rear ends off all day
driving a truck or running awelder or whatever, but then
when they come home, they wantto put their feet up, slide back
in the chair, crack a cold beer, get your favorite you know
soda, whatever, and watch yourshow and just chill for the
evening.
Where most women come home, ifthey work, they come home and
(15:16):
they work till bedtime, you know, around the house or whatever.
They tend to have more of aconstant on switch with that or
whatever they tend to have moreof a constant on switch with
that.
So all of the parameters for menand women that are laid out in
Genesis 2 are really helpful,especially for Genesis 2.15,
where men are told hey, you'vegot to be a provider, a workman,
(15:38):
someone who does what needs tobe done to create an atmosphere
of Eden-like dominion, where youhave dominion over the world
around you through the powerthat Christ has given you and
raise our children in thatnurture and admonition of the
Lord, and then be aware of thedevil's schemes.
(15:58):
The Bible says Understand thedangers and pitfalls of the
world and protect and guardagainst them in your own life
and in your children's lives andyour wife's life.
And then so it's.
And then, right after that, godgives the man some instruction.
In Genesis two move, move downto the next verse, for 16,.
The Lord, god commanded the man, saying you may surely eat of
every tree of the garden, but ofthe tree of the knowledge of
(16:19):
good and evil you shall not eat,for the day that you eat of it
you shall surely die.
So he gives him instruction andhe says to the man I want you
to take the word of instructionI've given you and then instruct
your wife and your children inthat.
So as men, we're to shepherd.
I think Votie Bauckham breaksthis down You're to be a prophet
(16:40):
and a priest.
A prophet the job of a prophetis that a prophet takes the word
of the Lord and he goes beforethe people as a representative
of God.
So as a man, you represent Godto your family, to your wife and
to your children.
And then a priest takes theneeds of the people and goes
(17:02):
before the Lord.
So if you think about in theOld Testament, the priest would
take the sin of the people,bring it to the altar, cover it
with blood and represent thepeople in the presence of the
Lord.
So the priest represents thepeople.
Bring it to the altar, cover itwith blood and represent the
people in the presence of theLord.
So the priest represents thepeople to God.
A prophet represents God to thepeople.
And what the scripture teachesin Genesis two is that as a man
and in my home, I'm to do bothof those things.
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I'm to be a picture and arepresentation of God to my wife
and children and I'm to be arepresentative of my family.
I'm to represent them beforethe Lord.
You think of passages in thescripture like when Job gets up
early in the morning and praysand makes sacrifices for his
children, he's taking a priestlyrole.
One of the greatest honors youhave as a man is to play that
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priestly role for your children,to go before the Lord on their
behalf.
And so the way I would kind ofroll all that up is to say and
roll it up into one category andsay that as a man you're to be,
you're to shepherd and pastor,and so that's what God tells the
man to do.
And then God creates the, the,the woman, and he brings her to
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Adam and late in chapter two ofGenesis Um, they're married and
Adam erupts into song.
He just rejoices at thegoodness of the Lord to give him
this great gift of marriage andhis beautiful wife, and and
they enjoy sex and sexual union,and it's pleasing to the Lord
and it's.
They see one another in theirnakedness and there is no shame,
(18:29):
there's nothing to hide,there's just purity of love and
relationship and purity ofsexual expression, gender
expression, man, woman honoringthe Lord, and then together.
If you back up into versechapter one, verse 27, it says
that God created male and femaleand he created them both in his
(18:52):
own image.
And then it says in verse 28,genesis 128, he blessed them and
he said to them be fruitful andmultiply and fill the earth and
subdue it and have dominionover the fish of the sea and
over the birds of the heavensand over every living thing that
moves on the earth.
Many of you have heard the storyI tell of when my oldest son
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was seven years old and we wentbear hunting here locally.
It was a snow day, there was noschool and it was snowing and
some buddies of mine had beentrying to get they were really
trying to get Tuck his firstbear.
And one of my favorite memoriesas a dad is we we killed that
bear and I'll tell I've toldthat story before.
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I'll tell it maybe some othertime but it was intense.
I mean it was.
The bear wasn't that big, butthe hunt was intense because
there was three or four inchesof fresh snow on the ground and
we had to climb probably 400vertical feet and he didn't want
me to carry him, he insisted ongoing his own way and we get up
there and when he shot thatbear it came out of the tree and
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had to shoot it point blank.
You know, in the in the base ofthe right under the ear, just
shove the muzzle into its earand shoot it and it's fighting
the dogs and it was just reallyintense.
And I remember that night my mygood friend, bradley Clodfelter,
bradley Bradley, who works atChestnut Mountain Ranch, he was
the one that guided us on thatbear hunting trip.
And we were having it was justme and Bradley and Tuck were
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having a meal and there'sseven-year-old Tuck is sitting
there.
The girls weren't there, Idon't remember where they were,
but we're eating fried bear meatand fried taters and onions and
and uh, and I said talk, we'vesaid the blessing.
And here here's thisseven-year-old kid sitting at
the table, no shirt on, wearinga bear claw necklace, cut all
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the claw, we'd taken all theclaws off off of the front paws
of that bear and he had anecklace.
And and I said we say theblessing, he said, lord, thank
you that today we took dominionover this buyer.
And I remember just thinkingthat is so good, what a good,
what a good picture this kid hasof dominion.
You know, and the scriptureteaches us that Jesus took
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dominion over darkness, jesustook dominion over sin, jesus
took dominion over the fallencreation.
And that's because we, wedidn't do what God told us to do
in Genesis one 27.
We're told to take dominion,and we, when we failed, we
allowed the creation to takedominion over us.
What I mean by that is, godtold the man hey, in the middle
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of the garden there's this tree,and what I need you to do is is
is abstain from from taking thefruit of that tree.
There's this tree, and what Ineed you to do is is is abstain
from from taking the fruit ofthat tree.
You may surely eat of everytree in the garden, but of the
tree of the knowledge of goodand evil you shall not eat, for
in the day that you eat of it,you shall surely die.
God gives him clear instructiondon't eat from that.
And so god is saying here's away that you take dominion over
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creation.
You can't.
Okay, let me give you abiblical principle.
You cannot take dominion oversomething that doesn't pose a
threat at taking dominion overyou.
In other words, I'm not takingdominion over an infant.
I may possess and own and holddominion over that infant, but
(22:11):
but I'm not taking dominion byconquest, if that makes sense.
Um, or uh, or a kitten or apuppy.
You know, there I'm not takingdominion over an inanimate
object like my belt or my shoesor my you know, those are things
that I have possession over, Ihave stewardship over.
But the picture of dominion isa picture of conquest and
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domination.
And so imagine one generaldefeating another general and
bringing him into into subsubjugation or subjection.
He's taken dominion.
And so God put Adam and Eve in acreation that they needed to
rule over and maintain dominionover, because that creation has
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the strength, the power, thepotential, the capacity to
reverse and take dominion overthem.
And so God puts this tree inthe middle of the garden and
says you got to maintaindominion.
And the way you do it with thistree is you don't eat the fruit
from that tree.
And then we know the story.
If you don't know it you can goread it Genesis two and three
the serpent, also part ofcreation, comes along and the
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serpent, using the fruit of thetree, tempts the woman, appeals
to her desire for autonomy andself-authority and takes
dominion over her.
And in doing it he's takingdominion over the man, because
the man has what he's done ishe's abdicated his
responsibility.
That means he's relinquishedthe task and the responsibility
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and the authority that God'sgiven him.
He said I don't want to fight,I don't want to do it, I don't
want to.
I don't want to fight, I don'twant to guard, I don't want to
protect, I don't want to work, Ijust want to experience and
this is a lie that a lot of menbelieve A man that's having a
sexual, adulterous relationship.
He's saying I don't want tofight for my marriage, I just
want to feel and experience thesexual pleasure, the mental or
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emotional pleasure, the fleshlyfulfillment that comes from
having sex with this woman.
That's an abdication ofresponsibility, the fleshly
fulfillment that comes fromhaving sex with this woman.
That's just an abdication ofresponsibility.
You're removing yourself fromthe fight, and so Adam removed
himself from the fight.
Eve falls into sin, and whathappens is when Adam and Eve sin
(24:24):
against God.
I want to point something out.
God comes in and he lays down acurse for them.
He says here's going to be thelongstanding repercussions and
consequences of your sin.
He says to Adam, so to the man,okay, genesis 3,.
First he speaks to the woman.
This is Genesis 3.16, and thenin 3.17, he speaks to the man
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and he tells him here's what theconsequences of your
disobedience and your sin isgoing to be.
He says to the woman I'llsurely multiply your pain and
childbearing In pain you shallbring forth children.
Your desire shall be contraryto your husband.
He shall rule over you.
I want to focus on that worddesire, because I think this
helps us understand the tensionand the contention in a lot of
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marriages.
Your desire will be contrary toyour husband, but he'll rule
over you.
That word desire is used twoother times in scripture.
It's a Hebrew word, um.
That means the other two timesit's used.
That the next time it's used isone chapter later, in Genesis,
chapter four.
And the context of Genesis fouris that Cain is about to kill
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his, his own.
Cain is about to kill his own.
Cain is about to kill hisbrother, and it's in Genesis 4
and verse 7, it says let's doverse 6.
The Lord said to Cain why areyou angry?
Why has your face fallen?
If you do well, will you not beaccepted?
If you do not do well, sin iscrouching at the door.
(25:51):
Its desire is contrary to you,but you must rule over it.
So we get a little bit more ofan expression in the word there,
or a little bit moreexplanation or definition.
What does sin want to do to Cain?
It wants to dominate him, itwants to take dominion over him.
It wants Cain to rebel againstGod, to murder his own brother
(26:12):
and to master Cain.
And so what God is saying toCain, he's like Cain, I know
you're about to you've.
You've, you've offered mesomething that I will not accept
because your heart is not, isnot pure before the Lord.
This is a matter, an issue ofyour heart, and you're bitter
right now.
You're resentful towards yourbrother Abel because I've
accepted his offering.
(26:32):
And you better get this incheck because if you don't, your
sin is going to consume you andcontrol you and manipulate and
dominate you.
And the word he uses to describethat is desire.
He said sin has a desire thatis contrary to you, has a desire
(26:55):
that is contrary to you.
Sin is crouching at the door.
Its desire is contrary to you,but you must rule over it.
So there's the first time afterGenesis 3 that this word is
used.
The idea is that the desire isto take control, dominion, to
rule over this other person.
So now plug that into Genesis 3, 16.
God says to the woman yourdesire will be contrary to your
husband.
You're going to want to ruleover him, control him, dominate
(27:17):
him.
You're going to want to be incharge.
In other words, you're going towant to flip the order that God
has created, just as they'vealready flipped the order in
that they're supposed to havedominion over the tree, dominion
over the garden, dominion overtheir own will, dominion over
the tree, dominion over thegarden, dominion over their own
will, dominion over the serpent.
Instead, the serpent takesdominion.
Creation takes dominion overthe woman.
Who takes dominion over the man?
(27:39):
And in doing that, they'retrying to take dominion over God
and his design, and so thedesire that Eve is going to
experience is going to be thedesire to control and dominate
and manipulate her husband.
Now there's a there's acomplexity to this word, because
I want to then unpack a seconddefinition of that word, a
(28:00):
second meaning of that word, andit comes from the book of song
of Solomon, or the song of songs, and in that expression of the
word it's, it paints a pictureof a woman who will do anything
to win her man.
It literally means to distortor stretch to contortion.
So it's a word picture.
That's like twisting somethingout of its intended form to make
(28:26):
it manipulate or control orwork in a situation.
Make it manipulate or controlor work in a situation.
So think of something that'srubber or like a putty that you
can warp and bend and distort tomake it fit what you want it to
fit.
That's the other way the worddesire is used, and so it's like
saying this woman in thatpassage it's like she's saying
I'll do whatever it takes to winyou over and and and.
(28:48):
So if you take this complex,multifaceted definition of this
word desire, what you've got is,for women.
What you're going to strugglewith is either to control and
dominate your husband or toallow allow him to control and
dominate you, neither of whichis God's design.
Want you to think before wemove on to the man and his
(29:09):
struggle.
We all know people and we'vewe've witnessed marriages and
maybe you've been in arelationship like this, where a
woman controls and dominates aman.
He is neutered, he is worn down, beat up.
He just does what he's told.
He has no expression oridentity of himself.
She is the alpha dominator inthe relationship.
(29:31):
She snaps and orders him around, boss him around and she's the
boss.
We see a man like that who isessentially emasculated and he
does not accept his God-givenresponsibility to lead and take
headship as a workman, aprotector, a guard, a shepherd,
(29:52):
a pastor, a priest.
He doesn't do those things, hejust exists and does what he's
told.
That's not a healthy marriageand a lot of times you see this
from a man who had a mom thatdid that to him, and so then he
looks for a wife that'll do itto him.
The other scenario how many ofus we know of a situation and
(30:13):
maybe you've been in one where awoman will endure abuse.
Maybe it's sexual abuse, maybeit's emotional abuse, maybe it's
verbal abuse abuse, maybe it'semotional abuse, maybe it's
verbal abuse.
I recently was asked tointervene in a relationship
between a husband and wife wherethe husband was practicing
adultery but he wanted and thewife knew it and she was willing
(30:36):
to let him continue on thatpath If he would just stay home
and he was willing to stay homeif she would let him have the
girlfriend.
So I ended up in the in thehome of this couple who they're
not part of our church, they'renot there, they're, they're just
folks that are acquaintances,um, that I know, but not real
well.
And the husband's sitting theresaying I don't want to give up
(30:57):
my girlfriend because I love her, but I don't want to give up my
wife and children because Ilove them.
And he's warped and distortedhis own reality and the wife is
willing to let him do it becauseshe has such a desire that her
desire is warped.
She's willing to distort andmanipulate reality to make it
work.
So we either have women thatcontrol and dominate and put a
(31:18):
man under their thumb until hebreaks or leaves, or we have
women that are willing to lettheir husband abuse them in
whatever capacity, because theycan't stand the thought of being
without the guy.
Ladies, that's, those are thestruggles you're going to tend
to have.
You're either going to want tobe a dominating controller, boss
, lady in charge you do what Isay, you're not my boss or I'll
(31:40):
do whatever it takes to keep you.
You can do whatever you want todo to me or against me.
I'll do whatever it takes.
That's the struggle a woman'sgoing to have.
You see all of that in that onelittle word desire.
Okay.
Now then, in verse 17, we'realmost done.
Genesis 3, 17, adam said or I'msorry to Adam, he said because
you've listened to the voice ofyour wife, you've eaten the tree
(32:00):
of which I commanded you.
You shall not eat of it.
Cursed is the ground because ofyou, in pain.
You shall eat of it all thedays of your life, thorns and
thistles it shall bring forthfor you, and you shall eat the
plants of the field by the sweatof your face.
You shall eat bread till youreturn to the ground, for out of
it you were taken, for you aredust, and to dust you shall
return.
(32:20):
What God's saying to the man isbecause you did not guard and
work and protect and keep andstand in the gap and represent
me to your family.
Because of that, you're goingto struggle now to find yourself
and, as a man, you're going tostruggle to find your identity.
You're going to find youridentity in the approval of
(32:42):
people.
You're going to find youridentity in your work.
Work is God's design.
Let me be real clear, people.
God designed us to work longbefore the fall and sin came
into the world.
There's a misconception, Ithink a lot of people think well
, work is a result of the fall.
Well, it's not.
God put the man in the gardento work.
What's a result of the fall isthings like laziness, strife,
(33:08):
working in futility, trying toget ahead but staying behind,
having to pick up a second jobbecause you can't pay the bills
and you're going further intodebt, debt that you can't pay
back, high interest rates, thestruggle to just survive in a
world that's constantly workingagainst you.
All of that's a result of thefall.
Work is supposed to begratifying and fulfilling.
(33:31):
I'll tell you what else is aresult of the fall for men
finding your worth and yourvalue in your work.
Solomon writes this and headdresses this in Ecclesiastes,
where he talks about thefutility of work.
He's like I worked.
I built the greatest structuresof the day.
There were engineering marvels,architectural marvels that we
(33:52):
built.
We accomplished what no man hadever accomplished to that point
in time, and yet I didn't findfulfillment.
And at the end of the day, Ididn't find fulfillment.
Think about somebody thataccomplishes and achieves so
much.
I think about Joe Biden, donaldTrump.
Here's two guys that are botharound 80 years old.
I'm not getting political, sodon't worry, this has nothing to
do with politics so I'm usingboth those guys because it'll
(34:14):
serve the same point.
These are men that, as theynear the end of their lives,
biden has now left office.
What is his day like?
What is his purpose and hisworth?
What has he accomplished?
He's accomplished.
You cannot accomplish more thanhe accomplished.
Regardless of what you thinkabout him and I have strong
opinions about that dude youcannot deny the fact that he
(34:37):
achieved the high status a humanbeing in the world's eyes can
achieve.
He became the president of theUnited States of America, the
leader quote unquote of the freeworld, most powerful position
in the free world.
He achieved that and now what'she doing?
I don't know.
Eating ice cream, looking atthe waves crash on the beach.
I don't know how he's spendinghis retirement.
Let's talk about Trump.
(34:58):
Trump is in the heyday right nowof his career, at almost age 80
.
I think he's about 80.
I think he's at least he's late70s and he has an incredible
capacity for energy and vibranceand vitality.
But he's in the twilight of hislife and three years from now
we're going to be nearing theelection that will see the end
(35:22):
of his presidency.
He's got four years from now.
It's over.
Then what's he going to do?
What's he going to go findfulfillment in?
The same could be true for aperson who I have a friend who
flew fighter jets all throughthe cold war.
He became a fighter pilot inthe 1970s and flew fighter
planes in the seventies,eighties and nineties and now he
(35:44):
just struggles.
He's he's a retired dude buthe's like just trying to busy
himself.
He's into like planting flowersand stuff around his property.
You know he loves.
He loves like horticulture.
But you think this guy flewF-15s against enemies, domestic
(36:05):
and foreign.
He's flying off the coast ofFlorida guarding Cuban airspace
and now he's planting shrubs inhis yard in his house that he
bought with his retirement money.
I'm not downplaying thatthere's a lot of fulfillment
that can be had in that.
But what Solomon says inEcclesiastes is if you find your
(36:25):
purpose and your value in yourwork as a man, then you're going
to be struggling when thatcomes to an end and you can't
work forever.
And so the the hope and promisefor us as men and women is that
we can find fulfillment and bein the men God's called us to be
.
We can work and provide andprotect and guard and shepherd.
(36:47):
We can be prophets and priests.
We can speak on behalf of theLord to our sons and daughters
and our wives, and we can speakon behalf of them to the Lord
and wives.
You can co-labor with yourhusband and together you can
build the strength of a fortressand within that fortress raise
sons and daughters that that seeJesus in the way that you live
(37:08):
your lives.
They see you sacrificially giveof your resources.
They see you care about yourneighbor and the destitute.
They see you care about theunborn, in that you don't just
lobby against abortion but youstrive to meet the needs of
children who are orphans and whohave been left to the fostering
community.
(37:28):
They see you care about yourcommunity and your world.
You're going to raise strongsons and daughters if you bring
them into the mission of life.
And we do all of this knowingthat all of marriage and manhood
and womanhood is a reflection,it's a shadow of a future and
eternal experience that we'regoing to have with Christ
forever.
So I don't find all of my valueand fulfillment in this life.
(37:52):
Ladies, if your desire is foryour husband, you need to turn
it so that, first and foremost,your desire is for the Lord, and
and the beauty of that type ofdesire is that it works whether
you're single or married orwidowed, or whether you're a mom
or not.
Like men, we find our value andour purpose not in our work,
(38:12):
not in sexual experiences, notin the domination or dominion of
sexual experiences and how manywomen you can sleep with.
You find it in the dominionover sin and temptation.
You take up the sword dominionover sin and temptation.
You take up the sword of theSpirit, which is the Word of God
, and you fight against thedesires of the flesh to bring
into captivity your thoughts sothat you create a world of
(38:35):
spiritual domain and dominion,and you fight for what God would
have you to fight for we loveour wives sacrificially.
Ephesians 5 is Christ loved thechurch.
We express ourselves throughlove and kindness and strength
and mercy and honor and graceand tenderness, and we work hard
(38:56):
with calloused hands to providefor our families and we fight
when we need to fight and wepray when we need to pray.
And we and we know this, men,here's, here's, the final word
for you.
Your children will know who Godis as their heavenly father
most clearly based on what youreveal to them as a
(39:17):
representative of God.
In other words, the way youfather them is going to teach
them a lot about who God is asour heavenly father, but they're
going to learn a lot about whoJesus Christ is as our Lord and
Savior in the way that you loveyour wife, their mother or their
stepmother, the way that youlove your bride, the way that
(39:38):
you care for your wife is goingto show them and express to them
the reality of who Jesus is,because the scripture says that
we are the bride of Christ.
Jesus loves his churchsacrificially.
So you can say a lot to themabout who God is, about who
Christ is, and the way that youlove them and love their mama.
(39:58):
And so, as we turn our attentiontowards this coming weekend and
the Be Strong event at SWO,there's a word, just a word, for
you to think about.
If you're coming to that eventthis weekend, man, hopefully
this will kind of prime yourpump.
If you're not coming, hopefullyit's a word that will give you
a glimpse of some of the stuffthat we're going to be
challenging men with thisweekend.
(40:19):
And just a word for husbandsand wives we ultimately have to
find our place and our peace inand um.
And just a word for forhusbands and wives, and and we,
we ultimately have to find ourplace and our peace in and with
Christ, and then we'll love oneanother well and we'll do what
God's called us to do.
You guys, have an awesome week.
I plan on having an awesomeweek, um.
By God's strength and power andgrace, I'm going to do it and I
(40:43):
hope you will too, and I'mexcited to see some of you this
weekend.
Hopefully, get to shake some ofyour hands, hug your necks and
you get to meet Bruce, who wason last week's episode, excited
for you to meet him, and meetsome of our newest additions
Andy Miller, joseph Wainwright,new guys here at SWO.
We've got a new guy, sam, who'scoming in to take a job on our
(41:07):
maintenance staff.
So God's moving and doing somecool stuff here at SWO.
Hopefully some of you men willget to meet some of the new guys
here and maybe some of you thatwe've never gotten to meet.
We're looking forward tocatching up and meeting you this
weekend.
So, whether we see you thiscoming weekend or not, we'll see
you here next week.
On no Sanity Required.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
Thanks for listening to no Sanity Required.
Please take a moment tosubscribe and leave a rating.
It really helps.
Visit us at SWOutfitterscom tosee all of our programming and
resources, and we'll see younext week on no Sanity Required.
In this week's episode of no Sanity Required, I
want to talk a little bit aboutmanhood and marriage.
We've got our Be Strong eventcoming up next weekend, and
there'll be men from all overthe country coming to that event
.
I just want to share somethoughts as we're kind of
gearing our minds towards thatand preparing for that.
(00:20):
I've had a lot of things happenin my life recently just
ministry situations andopportunities the Lord has put
me in.
I feel like that the Lord isputting this topic or this
subject matter right in front ofme right now, and so I just
want to share some thoughts thatI think will be helpful, not
just for husbands but for wives,and not just for married people
(00:42):
but for folks that hope to bemarried, and not just for
newlyweds but people that havebeen married 30, 40, 50 years.
So today we're going to talkabout relationships,
specifically about God's designfor men and women in the context
of biblical marriage.
We've got our be strong eventcoming up.
Then we've got our women'srespond conference next month,
(01:02):
so a lot of attention beinggiven to that right now, and so
I hope this is going to behelpful for you and I'm thankful
that you would tune in andlisten.
Welcome to no Sanity Required.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Welcome to no Sanity Required from the Ministry of
Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters.
A podcast about the Bible,culture and stories from around
the globe.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Most people are going to find themselves married at
some point or another.
And some people you might bethinking I don't know, I'm
starting to give up on it, and Iwould just say you know, the
Lord has a plan for all of us.
And some folks marry a littlelater, some folks marry earlier,
(01:56):
younger, um, and and somepeople are in their second,
maybe third marriage and maybefourth, fifth, I don't know.
I don't know where you're at, Idon't know what, what your
situation is, but I know thisthat marriage is an incredible
opportunity to reflect who Godis and reflect who Christ is.
It's a, it's a shadow of aneternal truth and reality, and
but it's also because of that,it's a perfect platform for the
(02:18):
enemy to tear down what God hasdesigned.
I think that's why you see anattack on marriage in the world.
There's a constant attack onmarriage.
That attack may come in theform of opportunities and
encouraged promiscuity andadultery.
It could come in the form of anattack on gender.
(02:40):
It could come in the form of anattack on sexuality.
Regardless of what cultureyou're in, marriage is always
under attack.
Let me say it again yourmarriage is under attack,
(03:28):
no-transcript.
And so let me give you a littlebackground to some things that
have happened in my liferecently.
In the last month, I've hadthree different situations where
I have found myself inconversation with men who are,
(03:51):
who are going through divorceswith their wives, and so and
none of these three guys areconnected or related, none of
them knows the other one andnone of them are men that well,
let me take that back.
One of them is a guy that Ialready knew, I've got some
history with.
Two of them are guys that theway I met them was that they're
(04:13):
in the midst of like a crisis intheir life.
One of them is a local guy thathe's not from this area but
he's lived in this area for awhile.
The Lord crossed our paths andhe's going through this area,
but he's lived in this area fora while.
The lord crossed our paths andhe's going through a pretty
tough divorce or breakup.
I don't know if it's a divorceyet, but that's where it's
headed.
Another one and and and anotherone where the guy I think drugs
(04:36):
are involved and there's been alot of uh, dependency on drugs
between them.
And then another one where Ithink it's more um, money and
and just life and busyness andraising kids and going in
different directions andmultiple careers and just the
stress and pressure of life, andso three very different
(04:58):
dynamics, but each headed forthe same end result, which is a
failed and broken marriage andall that's going to be
associated with that, and a lotof our listeners are divorced
and have.
Maybe, maybe you're in yoursecond marriage, or maybe more
than your second marriage, um,but it just kind of made me
realize that this is somethingthat that the enemy has always
(05:20):
been attacking and is alwaysgoing to be attacking, and it
also made me realize just justreminded me that, uh, in every
single society, marriage comesunder attack, because that's
where the enemy is going toattack God's designs.
So God designed a man to be oneway and a woman to be another
(05:43):
way.
Men and women have complementarybut different roles.
Rules are pretty much the sameBe faithful to the Lord, be
faithful to one another.
Different roles, whether youhold a more complementarian view
of marriage, which is that Godhas designed men to do certain
(06:04):
things and women to do certainother things and vice versa, and
they complement one another.
Or if you hold a moreegalitarian view of marriage,
which that's where the roles areinterchangeable and so an
egalitarian view of marriage orchurch might mean that women can
be in headship or leadership ifthey have different, stronger
(06:25):
giftings towards that when acomplementarian view of marriage
and or church would be.
There are certain roles ofheadship and leadership that are
reserved for men, but thenthere are certain roles that God
has laid out for a wife or awoman in that relationship.
And so, regardless of if youhold a complementarian view,
which is what we hold here atSWO and what I hold personally,
(06:49):
or an egalitarian view, whichthere's still some good biblical
framework for an egalitarianpoint of view, regardless of
what view you hold, there aresome things that we need to
understand, and it's that Godhas designed marriage to
function a certain way, to looka certain way, so that it might
reflect his glory and help uspaint a picture of the
(07:11):
fellowship and union that existsbetween Christ and his people.
And so it makes sense that theenemy would be wanting to attack
that.
I think one of the ways theenemy attacks that, first and
foremost, is he attacks the manin terms of his role in in the
relationship.
He attacks him personally andhe attacks the woman personally
in the in the terms of her rolein the relationship.
(07:34):
And I wanted to tell, I wantedto point out actually, uh, a
passage of scripture in Genesis,couple of passages, and then
give you some thoughts, somecomment on that, on those
passages.
The first one is in Genesis two, when God creates the first man
, it says the Lord, god saidit's not good that the man
should be alone.
So we know that God had createdthe man and then determined
(07:57):
that it wasn't good for the manto be alone.
But before God recognized theneed the man had and then
created the first woman orbrought a wife to the man,
before God ever did that, godhad given the man some structure
and some parameters and someinstruction.
And we see that if we back up afew verses in Genesis 2.15.
(08:18):
It says the Lord, god, took theman, put him in the Garden of
Eden to work it and keep it.
So the man is to be a worker.
He's to work to provide and tobring the basic needs of life
under his dominion, so toprovide food and shelter and
clothing and things like thatfor his family.
(08:39):
But then it says he's to workand keep.
But then it says he's to workand keep, and so keeping just
means simply that he's to defendand protect and guard that word
guard your heart.
In that Proverbs, chapter 4passage, guard your heart, it's
the same word.
It means to keep or protect.
And so the man is to be, he'sto stand guard, he's to protect,
(09:02):
he's to be ready to fight forthe things God's given him to
fight for, and most men.
We like the idea of working andprotecting in terms of I like to
work hard, make a living, youknow, go out and accomplish
things.
In my field of work, whetherthat's in the trades or whether
it's in, you know, finance orconstruction or accounting, or
(09:24):
business ownership or governmentor education, we like to work
in what we would call our domainor in the public square, the
marketplace.
We like to work and then, outof that work, we like to
accomplish things and becompetitive and set goals and
tasks and we find fulfillment inthat.
(09:45):
We also have to be careful,because we can struggle to find
our purpose and our identity inthat, and as a man, you've got
to be careful that you don'tfind your purpose and your
identity in your work.
You find that in Christ, andthen your work is an expression
of the joy that you have in theLord, and so we work as unto the
Lord.
In everything that we do, we doit to give glory to God, work
(10:06):
as unto the Lord, and everythingthat we do, we do it to give
glory to God.
And then, um, so, so a lot ofmen feel like, well, I'm, I find
a lot of pleasure and and, andI find a lot of purpose in my
work.
But then also, um, it says thatthe Lord, god, put the man in
the garden to work and keep, andso we like that idea of keeping
or guarding.
We like to guard our sons anddaughters, we like to guard our
(10:27):
marriage, we like to.
You know, a lot of us areconcealed carry.
Guys, you know, like to.
Um, people ask me all the timewhat do you conceal carry?
So I personally, most days Idon't carry the same thing every
day.
Most days I carry a Gen 5 Glock19, an MOS model that has a
(10:48):
Trijicon RMR red dot optic on itand I carry that pistol with 16
rounds of ammunition and anappendix holster on the front of
my belt.
And if I'm traveling I'll havea couple of spare magazines.
I carry a flashlight, a pocketflashlight.
There's a lot of talk about EDC.
(11:08):
Have you ever heard thatterminology?
I know the men that listen toour show, our podcast, probably
do everyday carry.
So my everyday carry is a Glock19.
There's some days I carrysomething different, but most
days that's what I'm carrying.
I carry a flashlight, I carry.
I usually don't have a walletin my pocket.
I keep that in my truck.
(11:29):
I like to keep my pocketspretty empty.
I carry a knife, um.
I carry most days a fixed bladeknife made by a company called
Bark River.
If you ever see me in person,ask me to check out my Bark
River knife.
I'm very proud of it.
I've carried it for years andyears and miles and miles and I
love this knife.
That's my everyday carry knife,um, and that's about it.
(11:52):
I don't you know, I guess, myphone.
I carry my phone.
So I don't carry a lot on myperson each day, but what I do
carry I'm prepared to protect myfamily.
So recently traveled out of,traveled out of state.
We flew me Little, my oldestdaughter, Lailie, and JB flew
with us, and so the four of usflew.
We traveled to Florida and Icarried a handgun.
(12:16):
I checked a handgun at theairport and I carried it.
Why is that?
Do I think I'm going to get ina gunfight?
No, I don't think I am.
I really don't think I am.
But I live in a.
I live in a state of realitywhere I know there are evil
people in the world and I'mprepared to fight to defend my
wife, my children, the peoplethat God's entrusted me with.
I'd rather fight with a gun.
If I'm fighting somebody with agun, that that person has a gun
(12:39):
.
So anyway, why do I?
Why do I go down that rabbithole?
Well, I go down that rabbithole because, as men, we like
the idea of being protectors, ofbeing guards, of standing guard
.
But let me challenge you withsomething.
Is it not maybe more criticaland more practical that you
(13:02):
guard the hearts and minds ofthose God's entrusted you with,
so your wife, your sons, yourdaughters we need to guard and
protect what the devil wants todo to them.
We need to know who theirfriends are, who they're
communicating with, what they'reusing their phones for, who
they're, who they're hooking upwith on the weekends and
connecting with, and wherethey're going.
And we need to know that.
We need to know what contentthey're viewing on the internet.
(13:22):
We need to know how much timethey're spending indoors in
front of a screen.
We need to guard their mindsand their eyes, and so there's
not just the physical guarding,but we need to guard their
hearts, their minds, theirimaginations.
So, as a man, I'm to work, notjust to put a roof over our
(13:44):
heads, but I'm to work to buildrelationships and then to guard
those relationships.
So I'm a workman.
Paul tells Timothy you are aworkman that does not need to be
ashamed.
We're workmen.
And then Paul also writes weare Christ's workmanship,
created for good works, and sowe are to be workers, we're to
(14:06):
be.
As a man, you should be a hardworker.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
And as a woman.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
As a Christian, we should say men and women, we
should be hard workers, weshould be.
I find that most women are hardworkers.
Some men struggle with laziness.
That tends to be um, now,that's, that's pain with a broad
stroke.
But most women and I don't knowif it's just a result, I think
it's a result of what we'retalking about A result of the
(14:31):
fall is that men either tend tobe consumed with their work and
they find their identity in it,or they're lazy.
Um, some men are are stressedand overworked.
Some men are lazy.
Some men are stressed andoverworked.
Some men are lazy.
Some women are driven andoverworked.
Some women are lazy.
I'm not saying that therearen't both, but I'm saying that
(14:54):
for men, we have to guardagainst laziness, even if you're
a hard worker.
I know a lot of men that worktheir rear ends off all day
driving a truck or running awelder or whatever, but then
when they come home, they wantto put their feet up, slide back
in the chair, crack a cold beer, get your favorite you know
soda, whatever, and watch yourshow and just chill for the
evening.
Where most women come home, ifthey work, they come home and
(15:16):
they work till bedtime, you know, around the house or whatever.
They tend to have more of aconstant on switch with that or
whatever they tend to have moreof a constant on switch with
that.
So all of the parameters for menand women that are laid out in
Genesis 2 are really helpful,especially for Genesis 2.15,
where men are told hey, you'vegot to be a provider, a workman,
(15:38):
someone who does what needs tobe done to create an atmosphere
of Eden-like dominion, where youhave dominion over the world
around you through the powerthat Christ has given you and
raise our children in thatnurture and admonition of the
Lord, and then be aware of thedevil's schemes.
(15:58):
The Bible says Understand thedangers and pitfalls of the
world and protect and guardagainst them in your own life
and in your children's lives andyour wife's life.
And then so it's.
And then, right after that, godgives the man some instruction.
In Genesis two move, move downto the next verse, for 16,.
The Lord, god commanded the man, saying you may surely eat of
every tree of the garden, but ofthe tree of the knowledge of
(16:19):
good and evil you shall not eat,for the day that you eat of it
you shall surely die.
So he gives him instruction andhe says to the man I want you
to take the word of instructionI've given you and then instruct
your wife and your children inthat.
So as men, we're to shepherd.
I think Votie Bauckham breaksthis down You're to be a prophet
(16:40):
and a priest.
A prophet the job of a prophetis that a prophet takes the word
of the Lord and he goes beforethe people as a representative
of God.
So as a man, you represent Godto your family, to your wife and
to your children.
And then a priest takes theneeds of the people and goes
(17:02):
before the Lord.
So if you think about in theOld Testament, the priest would
take the sin of the people,bring it to the altar, cover it
with blood and represent thepeople in the presence of the
Lord.
So the priest represents thepeople.
Bring it to the altar, cover itwith blood and represent the
people in the presence of theLord.
So the priest represents thepeople to God.
A prophet represents God to thepeople.
And what the scripture teachesin Genesis two is that as a man
and in my home, I'm to do bothof those things.
(17:24):
I'm to be a picture and arepresentation of God to my wife
and children and I'm to be arepresentative of my family.
I'm to represent them beforethe Lord.
You think of passages in thescripture like when Job gets up
early in the morning and praysand makes sacrifices for his
children, he's taking a priestlyrole.
One of the greatest honors youhave as a man is to play that
(17:46):
priestly role for your children,to go before the Lord on their
behalf.
And so the way I would kind ofroll all that up is to say and
roll it up into one category andsay that as a man you're to be,
you're to shepherd and pastor,and so that's what God tells the
man to do.
And then God creates the, the,the woman, and he brings her to
(18:07):
Adam and late in chapter two ofGenesis Um, they're married and
Adam erupts into song.
He just rejoices at thegoodness of the Lord to give him
this great gift of marriage andhis beautiful wife, and and
they enjoy sex and sexual union,and it's pleasing to the Lord
and it's.
They see one another in theirnakedness and there is no shame,
(18:29):
there's nothing to hide,there's just purity of love and
relationship and purity ofsexual expression, gender
expression, man, woman honoringthe Lord, and then together.
If you back up into versechapter one, verse 27, it says
that God created male and femaleand he created them both in his
(18:52):
own image.
And then it says in verse 28,genesis 128, he blessed them and
he said to them be fruitful andmultiply and fill the earth and
subdue it and have dominionover the fish of the sea and
over the birds of the heavensand over every living thing that
moves on the earth.
Many of you have heard the storyI tell of when my oldest son
(19:13):
was seven years old and we wentbear hunting here locally.
It was a snow day, there was noschool and it was snowing and
some buddies of mine had beentrying to get they were really
trying to get Tuck his firstbear.
And one of my favorite memoriesas a dad is we we killed that
bear and I'll tell I've toldthat story before.
(19:33):
I'll tell it maybe some othertime but it was intense.
I mean it was.
The bear wasn't that big, butthe hunt was intense because
there was three or four inchesof fresh snow on the ground and
we had to climb probably 400vertical feet and he didn't want
me to carry him, he insisted ongoing his own way and we get up
there and when he shot thatbear it came out of the tree and
(19:56):
had to shoot it point blank.
You know, in the in the base ofthe right under the ear, just
shove the muzzle into its earand shoot it and it's fighting
the dogs and it was just reallyintense.
And I remember that night my mygood friend, bradley Clodfelter,
bradley Bradley, who works atChestnut Mountain Ranch, he was
the one that guided us on thatbear hunting trip.
And we were having it was justme and Bradley and Tuck were
(20:21):
having a meal and there'sseven-year-old Tuck is sitting
there.
The girls weren't there, Idon't remember where they were,
but we're eating fried bear meatand fried taters and onions and
and uh, and I said talk, we'vesaid the blessing.
And here here's thisseven-year-old kid sitting at
the table, no shirt on, wearinga bear claw necklace, cut all
(20:42):
the claw, we'd taken all theclaws off off of the front paws
of that bear and he had anecklace.
And and I said we say theblessing, he said, lord, thank
you that today we took dominionover this buyer.
And I remember just thinkingthat is so good, what a good,
what a good picture this kid hasof dominion.
You know, and the scriptureteaches us that Jesus took
(21:03):
dominion over darkness, jesustook dominion over sin, jesus
took dominion over the fallencreation.
And that's because we, wedidn't do what God told us to do
in Genesis one 27.
We're told to take dominion,and we, when we failed, we
allowed the creation to takedominion over us.
What I mean by that is, godtold the man hey, in the middle
(21:27):
of the garden there's this tree,and what I need you to do is is
is abstain from from taking thefruit of that tree.
There's this tree, and what Ineed you to do is is is abstain
from from taking the fruit ofthat tree.
You may surely eat of everytree in the garden, but of the
tree of the knowledge of goodand evil you shall not eat, for
in the day that you eat of it,you shall surely die.
God gives him clear instructiondon't eat from that.
And so god is saying here's away that you take dominion over
(21:50):
creation.
You can't.
Okay, let me give you abiblical principle.
You cannot take dominion oversomething that doesn't pose a
threat at taking dominion overyou.
In other words, I'm not takingdominion over an infant.
I may possess and own and holddominion over that infant, but
(22:11):
but I'm not taking dominion byconquest, if that makes sense.
Um, or uh, or a kitten or apuppy.
You know, there I'm not takingdominion over an inanimate
object like my belt or my shoesor my you know, those are things
that I have possession over, Ihave stewardship over.
But the picture of dominion isa picture of conquest and
(22:35):
domination.
And so imagine one generaldefeating another general and
bringing him into into subsubjugation or subjection.
He's taken dominion.
And so God put Adam and Eve in acreation that they needed to
rule over and maintain dominionover, because that creation has
(22:55):
the strength, the power, thepotential, the capacity to
reverse and take dominion overthem.
And so God puts this tree inthe middle of the garden and
says you got to maintaindominion.
And the way you do it with thistree is you don't eat the fruit
from that tree.
And then we know the story.
If you don't know it you can goread it Genesis two and three
the serpent, also part ofcreation, comes along and the
(23:19):
serpent, using the fruit of thetree, tempts the woman, appeals
to her desire for autonomy andself-authority and takes
dominion over her.
And in doing it he's takingdominion over the man, because
the man has what he's done ishe's abdicated his
responsibility.
That means he's relinquishedthe task and the responsibility
(23:42):
and the authority that God'sgiven him.
He said I don't want to fight,I don't want to do it, I don't
want to.
I don't want to fight, I don'twant to guard, I don't want to
protect, I don't want to work, Ijust want to experience and
this is a lie that a lot of menbelieve A man that's having a
sexual, adulterous relationship.
He's saying I don't want tofight for my marriage, I just
want to feel and experience thesexual pleasure, the mental or
(24:04):
emotional pleasure, the fleshlyfulfillment that comes from
having sex with this woman.
That's an abdication ofresponsibility, the fleshly
fulfillment that comes fromhaving sex with this woman.
That's just an abdication ofresponsibility.
You're removing yourself fromthe fight, and so Adam removed
himself from the fight.
Eve falls into sin, and whathappens is when Adam and Eve sin
(24:24):
against God.
I want to point something out.
God comes in and he lays down acurse for them.
He says here's going to be thelongstanding repercussions and
consequences of your sin.
He says to Adam, so to the man,okay, genesis 3,.
First he speaks to the woman.
This is Genesis 3.16, and thenin 3.17, he speaks to the man
(24:45):
and he tells him here's what theconsequences of your
disobedience and your sin isgoing to be.
He says to the woman I'llsurely multiply your pain and
childbearing In pain you shallbring forth children.
Your desire shall be contraryto your husband.
He shall rule over you.
I want to focus on that worddesire, because I think this
helps us understand the tensionand the contention in a lot of
(25:06):
marriages.
Your desire will be contrary toyour husband, but he'll rule
over you.
That word desire is used twoother times in scripture.
It's a Hebrew word, um.
That means the other two timesit's used.
That the next time it's used isone chapter later, in Genesis,
chapter four.
And the context of Genesis fouris that Cain is about to kill
(25:29):
his, his own.
Cain is about to kill his own.
Cain is about to kill hisbrother, and it's in Genesis 4
and verse 7, it says let's doverse 6.
The Lord said to Cain why areyou angry?
Why has your face fallen?
If you do well, will you not beaccepted?
If you do not do well, sin iscrouching at the door.
(25:51):
Its desire is contrary to you,but you must rule over it.
So we get a little bit more ofan expression in the word there,
or a little bit moreexplanation or definition.
What does sin want to do to Cain?
It wants to dominate him, itwants to take dominion over him.
It wants Cain to rebel againstGod, to murder his own brother
(26:12):
and to master Cain.
And so what God is saying toCain, he's like Cain, I know
you're about to you've.
You've, you've offered mesomething that I will not accept
because your heart is not, isnot pure before the Lord.
This is a matter, an issue ofyour heart, and you're bitter
right now.
You're resentful towards yourbrother Abel because I've
accepted his offering.
(26:32):
And you better get this incheck because if you don't, your
sin is going to consume you andcontrol you and manipulate and
dominate you.
And the word he uses to describethat is desire.
He said sin has a desire thatis contrary to you, has a desire
(26:55):
that is contrary to you.
Sin is crouching at the door.
Its desire is contrary to you,but you must rule over it.
So there's the first time afterGenesis 3 that this word is
used.
The idea is that the desire isto take control, dominion, to
rule over this other person.
So now plug that into Genesis 3, 16.
God says to the woman yourdesire will be contrary to your
husband.
You're going to want to ruleover him, control him, dominate
(27:17):
him.
You're going to want to be incharge.
In other words, you're going towant to flip the order that God
has created, just as they'vealready flipped the order in
that they're supposed to havedominion over the tree, dominion
over the garden, dominion overtheir own will, dominion over
the tree, dominion over thegarden, dominion over their own
will, dominion over the serpent.
Instead, the serpent takesdominion.
Creation takes dominion overthe woman.
Who takes dominion over the man?
(27:39):
And in doing that, they'retrying to take dominion over God
and his design, and so thedesire that Eve is going to
experience is going to be thedesire to control and dominate
and manipulate her husband.
Now there's a there's acomplexity to this word, because
I want to then unpack a seconddefinition of that word, a
(28:00):
second meaning of that word, andit comes from the book of song
of Solomon, or the song of songs, and in that expression of the
word it's, it paints a pictureof a woman who will do anything
to win her man.
It literally means to distortor stretch to contortion.
So it's a word picture.
That's like twisting somethingout of its intended form to make
(28:26):
it manipulate or control orwork in a situation.
Make it manipulate or controlor work in a situation.
So think of something that'srubber or like a putty that you
can warp and bend and distort tomake it fit what you want it to
fit.
That's the other way the worddesire is used, and so it's like
saying this woman in thatpassage it's like she's saying
I'll do whatever it takes to winyou over and and and.
(28:48):
So if you take this complex,multifaceted definition of this
word desire, what you've got is,for women.
What you're going to strugglewith is either to control and
dominate your husband or toallow allow him to control and
dominate you, neither of whichis God's design.
Want you to think before wemove on to the man and his
(29:09):
struggle.
We all know people and we'vewe've witnessed marriages and
maybe you've been in arelationship like this, where a
woman controls and dominates aman.
He is neutered, he is worn down, beat up.
He just does what he's told.
He has no expression oridentity of himself.
She is the alpha dominator inthe relationship.
(29:31):
She snaps and orders him around, boss him around and she's the
boss.
We see a man like that who isessentially emasculated and he
does not accept his God-givenresponsibility to lead and take
headship as a workman, aprotector, a guard, a shepherd,
(29:52):
a pastor, a priest.
He doesn't do those things, hejust exists and does what he's
told.
That's not a healthy marriageand a lot of times you see this
from a man who had a mom thatdid that to him, and so then he
looks for a wife that'll do itto him.
The other scenario how many ofus we know of a situation and
(30:13):
maybe you've been in one where awoman will endure abuse.
Maybe it's sexual abuse, maybeit's emotional abuse, maybe it's
verbal abuse abuse, maybe it'semotional abuse, maybe it's
verbal abuse.
I recently was asked tointervene in a relationship
between a husband and wife wherethe husband was practicing
adultery but he wanted and thewife knew it and she was willing
(30:36):
to let him continue on thatpath If he would just stay home
and he was willing to stay homeif she would let him have the
girlfriend.
So I ended up in the in thehome of this couple who they're
not part of our church, they'renot there, they're, they're just
folks that are acquaintances,um, that I know, but not real
well.
And the husband's sitting theresaying I don't want to give up
(30:57):
my girlfriend because I love her, but I don't want to give up my
wife and children because Ilove them.
And he's warped and distortedhis own reality and the wife is
willing to let him do it becauseshe has such a desire that her
desire is warped.
She's willing to distort andmanipulate reality to make it
work.
So we either have women thatcontrol and dominate and put a
(31:18):
man under their thumb until hebreaks or leaves, or we have
women that are willing to lettheir husband abuse them in
whatever capacity, because theycan't stand the thought of being
without the guy.
Ladies, that's, those are thestruggles you're going to tend
to have.
You're either going to want tobe a dominating controller, boss
, lady in charge you do what Isay, you're not my boss or I'll
(31:40):
do whatever it takes to keep you.
You can do whatever you want todo to me or against me.
I'll do whatever it takes.
That's the struggle a woman'sgoing to have.
You see all of that in that onelittle word desire.
Okay.
Now then, in verse 17, we'realmost done.
Genesis 3, 17, adam said or I'msorry to Adam, he said because
you've listened to the voice ofyour wife, you've eaten the tree
(32:00):
of which I commanded you.
You shall not eat of it.
Cursed is the ground because ofyou, in pain.
You shall eat of it all thedays of your life, thorns and
thistles it shall bring forthfor you, and you shall eat the
plants of the field by the sweatof your face.
You shall eat bread till youreturn to the ground, for out of
it you were taken, for you aredust, and to dust you shall
return.
(32:20):
What God's saying to the man isbecause you did not guard and
work and protect and keep andstand in the gap and represent
me to your family.
Because of that, you're goingto struggle now to find yourself
and, as a man, you're going tostruggle to find your identity.
You're going to find youridentity in the approval of
(32:42):
people.
You're going to find youridentity in your work.
Work is God's design.
Let me be real clear, people.
God designed us to work longbefore the fall and sin came
into the world.
There's a misconception, Ithink a lot of people think well
, work is a result of the fall.
Well, it's not.
God put the man in the gardento work.
What's a result of the fall isthings like laziness, strife,
(33:08):
working in futility, trying toget ahead but staying behind,
having to pick up a second jobbecause you can't pay the bills
and you're going further intodebt, debt that you can't pay
back, high interest rates, thestruggle to just survive in a
world that's constantly workingagainst you.
All of that's a result of thefall.
Work is supposed to begratifying and fulfilling.
(33:31):
I'll tell you what else is aresult of the fall for men
finding your worth and yourvalue in your work.
Solomon writes this and headdresses this in Ecclesiastes,
where he talks about thefutility of work.
He's like I worked.
I built the greatest structuresof the day.
There were engineering marvels,architectural marvels that we
(33:52):
built.
We accomplished what no man hadever accomplished to that point
in time, and yet I didn't findfulfillment.
And at the end of the day, Ididn't find fulfillment.
Think about somebody thataccomplishes and achieves so
much.
I think about Joe Biden, donaldTrump.
Here's two guys that are botharound 80 years old.
I'm not getting political, sodon't worry, this has nothing to
do with politics so I'm usingboth those guys because it'll
(34:14):
serve the same point.
These are men that, as theynear the end of their lives,
biden has now left office.
What is his day like?
What is his purpose and hisworth?
What has he accomplished?
He's accomplished.
You cannot accomplish more thanhe accomplished.
Regardless of what you thinkabout him and I have strong
opinions about that dude youcannot deny the fact that he
(34:37):
achieved the high status a humanbeing in the world's eyes can
achieve.
He became the president of theUnited States of America, the
leader quote unquote of the freeworld, most powerful position
in the free world.
He achieved that and now what'she doing?
I don't know.
Eating ice cream, looking atthe waves crash on the beach.
I don't know how he's spendinghis retirement.
Let's talk about Trump.
(34:58):
Trump is in the heyday right nowof his career, at almost age 80
.
I think he's about 80.
I think he's at least he's late70s and he has an incredible
capacity for energy and vibranceand vitality.
But he's in the twilight of hislife and three years from now
we're going to be nearing theelection that will see the end
(35:22):
of his presidency.
He's got four years from now.
It's over.
Then what's he going to do?
What's he going to go findfulfillment in?
The same could be true for aperson who I have a friend who
flew fighter jets all throughthe cold war.
He became a fighter pilot inthe 1970s and flew fighter
planes in the seventies,eighties and nineties and now he
(35:44):
just struggles.
He's he's a retired dude buthe's like just trying to busy
himself.
He's into like planting flowersand stuff around his property.
You know he loves.
He loves like horticulture.
But you think this guy flewF-15s against enemies, domestic
(36:05):
and foreign.
He's flying off the coast ofFlorida guarding Cuban airspace
and now he's planting shrubs inhis yard in his house that he
bought with his retirement money.
I'm not downplaying thatthere's a lot of fulfillment
that can be had in that.
But what Solomon says inEcclesiastes is if you find your
(36:25):
purpose and your value in yourwork as a man, then you're going
to be struggling when thatcomes to an end and you can't
work forever.
And so the the hope and promisefor us as men and women is that
we can find fulfillment and bein the men God's called us to be
.
We can work and provide andprotect and guard and shepherd.
(36:47):
We can be prophets and priests.
We can speak on behalf of theLord to our sons and daughters
and our wives, and we can speakon behalf of them to the Lord
and wives.
You can co-labor with yourhusband and together you can
build the strength of a fortressand within that fortress raise
sons and daughters that that seeJesus in the way that you live
(37:08):
your lives.
They see you sacrificially giveof your resources.
They see you care about yourneighbor and the destitute.
They see you care about theunborn, in that you don't just
lobby against abortion but youstrive to meet the needs of
children who are orphans and whohave been left to the fostering
community.
(37:28):
They see you care about yourcommunity and your world.
You're going to raise strongsons and daughters if you bring
them into the mission of life.
And we do all of this knowingthat all of marriage and manhood
and womanhood is a reflection,it's a shadow of a future and
eternal experience that we'regoing to have with Christ
forever.
So I don't find all of my valueand fulfillment in this life.
(37:52):
Ladies, if your desire is foryour husband, you need to turn
it so that, first and foremost,your desire is for the Lord, and
and the beauty of that type ofdesire is that it works whether
you're single or married orwidowed, or whether you're a mom
or not.
Like men, we find our value andour purpose not in our work,
(38:12):
not in sexual experiences, notin the domination or dominion of
sexual experiences and how manywomen you can sleep with.
You find it in the dominionover sin and temptation.
You take up the sword dominionover sin and temptation.
You take up the sword of theSpirit, which is the Word of God
, and you fight against thedesires of the flesh to bring
into captivity your thoughts sothat you create a world of
(38:35):
spiritual domain and dominion,and you fight for what God would
have you to fight for we loveour wives sacrificially.
Ephesians 5 is Christ loved thechurch.
We express ourselves throughlove and kindness and strength
and mercy and honor and graceand tenderness, and we work hard
(38:56):
with calloused hands to providefor our families and we fight
when we need to fight and wepray when we need to pray.
And we and we know this, men,here's, here's, the final word
for you.
Your children will know who Godis as their heavenly father
most clearly based on what youreveal to them as a
(39:17):
representative of God.
In other words, the way youfather them is going to teach
them a lot about who God is asour heavenly father, but they're
going to learn a lot about whoJesus Christ is as our Lord and
Savior in the way that you loveyour wife, their mother or their
stepmother, the way that youlove your bride, the way that
(39:38):
you care for your wife is goingto show them and express to them
the reality of who Jesus is,because the scripture says that
we are the bride of Christ.
Jesus loves his churchsacrificially.
So you can say a lot to themabout who God is, about who
Christ is, and the way that youlove them and love their mama.
(39:58):
And so, as we turn our attentiontowards this coming weekend and
the Be Strong event at SWO,there's a word, just a word, for
you to think about.
If you're coming to that eventthis weekend, man, hopefully
this will kind of prime yourpump.
If you're not coming, hopefullyit's a word that will give you
a glimpse of some of the stuffthat we're going to be
challenging men with thisweekend.
(40:19):
And just a word for husbandsand wives we ultimately have to
find our place and our peace inand um.
And just a word for forhusbands and wives, and and we,
we ultimately have to find ourplace and our peace in and with
Christ, and then we'll love oneanother well and we'll do what
God's called us to do.
You guys, have an awesome week.
I plan on having an awesomeweek, um.
By God's strength and power andgrace, I'm going to do it and I
(40:43):
hope you will too, and I'mexcited to see some of you this
weekend.
Hopefully, get to shake some ofyour hands, hug your necks and
you get to meet Bruce, who wason last week's episode, excited
for you to meet him, and meetsome of our newest additions
Andy Miller, joseph Wainwright,new guys here at SWO.
We've got a new guy, sam, who'scoming in to take a job on our
(41:07):
maintenance staff.
So God's moving and doing somecool stuff here at SWO.
Hopefully some of you men willget to meet some of the new guys
here and maybe some of you thatwe've never gotten to meet.
We're looking forward tocatching up and meeting you this
weekend.
So, whether we see you thiscoming weekend or not, we'll see
you here next week.
On no Sanity Required.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
Thanks for listening to no Sanity Required.
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