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Man, the part of the chapter that I want to focus on is there in verse 18 where the Bible reads, This charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on thee, that thou by them mightest war a good warfare. And the title of my sermon this morning is The Warrior Spirit. The Warrior Spirit. Now if you would turn over to Luke chapter 22, and what I want to show you briefly at the beginning of the sermon here is that every great man of God in the Bible, every man that God used greatly in the Bible was a warrior in his heart, right? He had a warrior spirit. Another way of saying this would be that he had a killer instinct, okay? Now I'm going to explain why this is so important and what this has to do with serving God in the New Testament, but if we study our Bible, we're going to see this common denominator. Now for example, you don't have to turn there, but back in the life of Moses who the Bible talks about as being the meekest man on the earth, he was obviously one of the greatest men of the Old Testament. Jesus was constantly referring to him and referencing him as a great man, and yet the Bible tells us in Exodus 2 11, you don't have to turn there, and it came to pass in those days when Moses was grown that he went out unto his brethren and looked on their burdens and he spied an Egyptian smiting in Hebrew, one of his brethren, and he looked this way and looked that way, and when he saw that there was no man, he slew the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. So we see right there that Moses' instinct is that when he sees this guy being beaten up by one of the Egyptians, he gets in there and just kills the guy with his bare hands, okay? That's Moses. Even in the New Testament, look at Peter's instinct in Luke chapter 22 verse 48, but Jesus said unto him, Judas, betrayest thou the son of man with a kiss? When they which were about him saw what would follow, they said unto him, Lord, shall we smite with the sword? So this is their instinct, and then Peter just gets in there and just smites with the sword. He doesn't wait for Jesus to answer, hey, should we smite with the sword? He's like, let's do it, all right? He jumps in there. It says one of them, but we know from the Gospel of John that it's Peter. One of them smote the servant of the high priest and cut off his right ear. And Jesus answered and said, suffer ye thus far. And he touched his ear and healed him. And then, of course, Jesus says to him in John chapter 18, he says, put up thy sword into the sheath. The cup which my father hath given me shall I not drink it, right? But Peter got in there and he cut off the guy's ear. Look at Luke chapter number 9. Luke chapter number 9, and we'll look at the two other most famous apostles besides the apostle Peter. We would think of James and John as being the next most famous. Those are kind of the top three that are mentioned together. And look at their attitude in Luke chapter 9 verse 51, and it came to pass when the time was come that he should be received up, he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem and sent messengers before his face. And they went and entered into a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him. And they did not receive him because his face was as though he would go to Jerusalem. And when his disciples James and John saw this, they said, Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven and consume them even as Elias did? I mean, should we just call down fire and just burn these people up? That's what Elijah did. But he turned and rebuked them and said, ye know not what manner of spirit ye are up. For the son of man is not come to destroy men's lives but to save them. And they went to another village. So what we see consistently, and look, we could spend the whole morning looking at examples like this. We're just looking at a few examples and consistently, whether it's Moses, whether it's Peter, whether it's James and John, they have this instinct, they have this impulse, they have this spirit to want to fight, to want to battle, even to want to slay the enemy. But in all three cases, of course, they're being corrected because they're doing it in a misguided manner. So Moses obviously was wrong when he slew the Egyptian. Obviously Peter is wrong when he cuts off the servant's ear and Jesus heals his ear and tells him that he can't live by the sword. And then, of course, we see James and John being rebuked here. But that's still who they were. That's what they were like. That was what their impulse was. And God consistently uses people who have this fighting spirit or warrior spirit in them. Think about David. I mean, that's a great example, right? You don't have to turn there, but Psalm 18, he teaches my hands to war so that a bow of steel is broken by my arms. Psalm 144 verse 1, blessed be the Lord my strength, which teaches my hands to war and my fingers to fight. Even Jesus himself, I mean, we see him make a whip and go into the temple and flip over the tables. He definitely had boldness. He definitely had courage. He definitely did not shy away from that fight when it was appropriate to cast them out of the temple when that was God's will. Other times when it was not God's will, Jesus held back and went like a sheep to the slaughter. He did always the will of his father. But think about Abraham, another great man of God in the Old Testament. What did Abraham do? We just heard about it a few weeks ago in the sermon where he armed his 318 servants trained in his house and went out and defeated five kings. I mean, he defeated, or four kings, I believe it was. He went out and defeated great armies with just his trained servants. He was a warrior. You could go down the list. Obviously, Elijah was the one who originally called down the fire. He really did torch two groups of 50 soldiers by calling down fire from God. And even Paul, the apostle Paul, who was the most academic or intellectual and probably the least rugged of the apostles, because we think of the apostles that Jesus chose on this earth, and he's choosing fishermen. These are rugged men. They're going out and handling big heavy nets. They're working hard in physical toil and labor. Obviously, Jesus was born into the home of a carpenter. So a lot of those guys are blue collar, roughneck guys from Galilee, whereas the apostle Paul is brought up as an academic, as a scholar, as an intellectual at the feet of Gamaliel. His job is not the most rugged job. He's making tents, something that also Priscilla does and Aquila does. It's not really something that's a super manly job. But even Paul, when you read his epistles over and over and over again, what's he constantly relating the Christian life to? War of good warfare, fight the good fight, I fought a good fight. Or he's likening it to sports. And he talks about running the race and striving for the mastery, not for the incorruptible or not for the corruptible crown that they hand out in the Olympics, but for the incorruptible crown that Christ is going to give. But how many times does he talk about fighting, warring, battling, striving, competing, right? So he was a man. He was a manly guy. Okay. Why? Because that's the only kind of guy that God ever uses. God's not going to pick some namby-pamby, milk toast, effeminate man to do his work. All the men that he chooses throughout the Bible, I don't care whether it's Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Jesus, the apostles, Abraham. The whole spectrum from Revelation all the way back to Genesis, the man that God chooses are manly men, and they all have this fighting spirit in them. They all have fight in them. They're not, as they say in German, this is a great expression in German, a guy who's kind of a wimp is called a waschlappen, which is like a washcloth. So that's what they call a wimpy guy, they just call him like a washcloth. You know, just completely just meh. That's not who God ever uses. He uses men who have some fight in them. Now this instinct, this killer instinct, I mean, we see Moses kill the Egyptian. We see James and John, let's call down fire on the Samaritans and torch them, right? We see Peter ripping out the sword and chopping off the guy's ear before Jesus even has a chance to answer the question of whether they should fight with the sword, right? We see David, Abraham, all these guys. This killer instinct or this warrior spirit or this fighting spirit, it can't be allowed to just run wild. That's why we see so many places where Jesus is trying to curb this or God's trying to curb this. Even David, the great warrior, God ends up punishing him and saying, you've shed much blood, right? Saul was punished because of his bloody house. So these guys went overboard. Men tend to go overboard sometimes, but here's the thing, what we need to temper this fighting spirit that we should all have as men is we need the attribute of meekness, okay? So biblical meekness is what curbs this killer instinct or fighting spirit that we as men have, okay? Meekness is needed. What does it say about Moses in Numbers chapter 12 verse 3? It says, now the man Moses was very meek. He was very meek above all the men which were upon the face of the earth. So God in his all-knowing wisdom, his sight from it looks down, he looks at everybody on the whole planet, Moses is the most meek. That's who God uses, right? So he uses somebody who's a warrior at heart, but they have the meekness to control that. I've heard this definition given for biblical meekness, power that is under control or strength that is under control. Don't equate meekness with weakness. Sometimes you'll have this, you know, and basically, you know, you say, oh, that guy, he's so humble, he's so meek. You have these effeminate queer little sissies being praised as, oh, he's so religious. I remember when I was in Christian school, the most effeminate guy in the whole school was considered to be the most religious. He was considered the most godly. Just because he was so soft and queer and effeminate, he must be godly. Because that was the attitude that people have in these warped churches where they're not reading the Bible, they're not hearing hard preaching, they're getting everything that they believe from some soft-soaked preacher or from TV or whatever, their view of what religion is. So they just, they literally just associate effeminacy with spirituality. It's disgusting. It's wrong. It's wrong. Okay. Meekness is not being soft, it's not being a sissy, it's not being a wimp, it's not being just somebody who doesn't have a fighting spirit. If so, then why did everybody God used have that fighting spirit and have that killer instinct naturally? Okay. What it actually means is that it's power or strength under control. It's a man like Moses who is powerful, is courageous, is mighty. But yet, you know what he does? He controls that. And he's humble, he's meek, he's gentle, and he's good. Right? God wants us to be gentle, humble, good. He wants us to have kindness. He wants us to love one another. And that right there, those godly attributes that come from the Bible, that come from Jesus, that come from the Holy Spirit, those godly attributes will keep that fighting spirit from getting out of control or causing harm or violence to other people, to keep us in the right fight, which is a spiritual battle. You know, the qualifications for the pastor is that he is not a brawler, no striker, right? So you can't have a pastor who's going out and getting in fistfights and he's beating people up and every time he goes out soul winning, he gets in a scuffle and just everybody, you know, next thing you know, he starts throwing punches and stuff. That is not acceptable for a man of God. But does that mean, oh, well, no striker, so let's find the softest, weakest man we can find. No, find the guy who has power that's under control. Okay. Find the guy who's manly and yeah, he's got that instinct. Sometimes he does want to call down fire from God and burn some cities up. You know, sometimes he does want to cut off somebody's ear, but he's not going to because he's got that under control. That's what meekness is, being kind, gentle, humble in spite of having power. I mean, Jesus Christ is the picture of meekness. Is there any question that Jesus Christ was mighty, that he was strong? Of course he was, but yet we don't see him doing violence. The only thing he ends up doing is dumping out a bunch of money, flipping over tables and chasing people out of the temple. That's his house, right? His house is rules, amen? So what happens when manly men, you know, men who are actually normal manly men who have this fighting spirit that all men naturally have, it's inborn. It's just normal. I mean, how do kids play? They want a sword fight. They want a gun fight. They want a fist fight. They want to pretend that they're doing martial arts or pretend that they're in the army or they want to play with the army. That's universal. This is part of the male experience, right? Being a man, being a boy, this is who you are. But what happens when we remove the restrictions of God's word, in turn if you went to Genesis chapter 6, what happens when we remove the influence of the Holy Spirit? We remove the influence of Christ. We remove godliness and biblical virtues of meekness and righteousness. What happens when you have a bunch of men that don't have these godly attributes? I'll tell you what happens. The earth becomes filled with violence, right? Because if this goes uncontrolled or unchecked, then it's going to cause violence, chaos. Society is going to break down and it's going to be horrible. Look what the Bible says in Genesis 6-11. The earth also was corrupt before God. What's the result? And the earth was filled with violence. So what happens that causes violence is when we become corrupt in our own eyes, in our own opinion. No, no. When you're corrupt before God, when you're not living for God, when you're not living by God's standards, when the Bible is removed, when Christ's name is removed, what's going to happen? We in the United States of America are going to experience violence because of the fact that it's God and the Bible that will actually prevent violence by teaching these virtues of kindness, gentleness, godliness, humility, etc. Here we see that it's the earth's corruption before God that leads ultimately to the earth being filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth and behold, it was corrupt. For all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth and God said unto Noah, the end of all flesh has come before me for the earth is filled with violence through them and behold I will destroy them with the earth. So what's the answer for the violence in this world? What's the answer to curb those things? It's the gospel, it's the Bible being preached, it's the Holy Ghost, etc. So what's the world's answer though? Because the world, they don't want to live in a state of violence, do they? I mean do you think that your average worldly American, whether atheist, agnostic or just, you know, they go to church but don't even believe in it, you think they want to live in a violent city? Do you think they want to live in a violent state? No. They don't want to have to worry at night that someone's going to break into their house. They don't want to worry when their wife or their daughter's out for a walk that she could be abducted or assaulted. They want their kids to be able to play outside and play at the playground and not be a victim of violence. Nobody wants to live in a world where they're constantly in danger of violence. They want to be safe and secure, right? So our answer is, hey, if people would be more righteous, if people would stop sinning, if people would get less corrupt, right, then we could have a peaceful place to live in. Right? Because people that are Christians and they're going to church, I'm not saying that Christians are perfect or without sin, but you know what, church-going Christians are not out raping and pillaging and robbing and killing and doing all these things, right? I mean the average church-going Christian who's actually saved and loves the Lord, you know, 99% of the time is going to be living a peaceful life and not going to be committing violence or acts of violence, okay? So our answer is Christ. Jesus is the answer. The Word of God is the answer. And the more we preach the Bible and teach the things of God, then we can have peace and curb the violence that way. Okay? You know, what's the answer to the school shootings? What's the answer to the armed robberies and the homicides and the rape and all these horrible things? The answer is Jesus. The answer is the Word of God. And as Christ is removed from our society and removed from the school system and the children are being taught you're an animal, you evolved, we're a product of a big bang, we're all stardust, nothing matters, this is nihilism that they're being taught. And basically, when you're taught that, you think, well, nothing really matters. I can do whatever I want. And people are just going to follow whatever the lust of the flesh leads them to. So the world has to have an alternative answer. If Jesus is not their answer, stop and think about this now. Jesus is not their answer. But they don't want to live in a world of violence. So what do they do? I mean, what controls the violence of man? What controls the fighting spirit of man is the Word of God. So if you reject the Word of God, what are you left with? And I'll tell you what it is. They want to emasculate men. That's their answer. That's the answer. Because, you know, they're like, well, we can't just have this fighting spirit and this killer instinct, and then we tell them there's no God, and then we tell them that they're an animal, and then we tell them that they're just stardust or whatever. Well, then, you know, they might just take a machine gun and go to school and shoot up the place because they've already been shooting it up on their video game. You know, they've been watching all these violent movies, and violence has been glorified. And you know, hey, if they want something and they can't afford it, of course they're just going to steal it. And maybe they'll even beat someone up to get it. Maybe they'll even kill someone. Or maybe they'll just kill someone just for kicks. Because I'm telling you, the reprobate mind leads you to those kind of places. To where they're just beating people up for kicks. Killing people for kicks. It's disgusting. It's horrible. So they have to do something. They don't want God. They don't want the Bible. So here's their answer. Let's emasculate men. Why? Because with freedom comes responsibility, right? You can't have liberty as a godless people. Even the founding fathers of the United States said, this system of government will only work to govern a righteous people. It won't work with an ungodly people. Because if you're giving people a lot of freedom, they have to have responsibility with that freedom. And the more you sin, the less freedom you end up having. Freedom is taken away from you. Because you abuse your freedom. Think about your kids. If your kids are constantly obeying and doing the right things and being responsible, you're going to give them more freedom. But if your kids, every time you let them out of your sight, get into trouble, you're going to stop letting them out of your sight. Because you know, hey, they're going to get into trouble. Well, it's the same thing with the governments of this world. When people are ungodly and they're getting out of control and going crazy, now all of a sudden the government has to come in and tighten up and make new laws and new laws and more laws. We just read it in 1 Timothy 1. The law's not made for a righteous man. The law's made for the lawless and disobedient, ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane murderers of fathers, murderers of mothers, manslayers, liars, perjured persons, right? Whore mongers, men stealers, they that defile themselves of mankind, that's who the law is for. People like that. Righteous people need very few laws. So their answer is to emasculate men. Go if you would to Jeremiah 51. Because look, if they want to control the population, they don't want to live in anarchy. They don't want to live in chaos. They don't want the city to be in a riot and an uproar, but they don't want the Lord to curb those impulses that men naturally have. So they're going to say, you know what, if we're going to have a docile population, if we're going to have a flock of sheep that we can control, we're going to have to remove that killer instinct. We're going to have to remove that fighting spirit. We're going to have to make, not warriors, but we're going to have to make a bunch of weak little effeminate sisters because they're going to be easier to control. And that's what part of this agenda is today in the United States of America, to emasculate men, to make men effeminate, to make them weak. Part of that agenda is so that they can control you. They don't want you to have courage and stand up for what you believe and be bold because you're easier to control if you're kept dumb also and effeminate. See if they can keep you dumb, you'll be too stupid to even know what they're doing to you and how they're ripping you off and all the lies that they're feeding you, right? See if you're smart and you're a warrior, you're not going to be easy to control, but you know what is going to control you? The Holy Spirit, Christianity, meekness. You know, when the intelligent warrior, such as the apostle Paul, you know, gets in God's hand, well now, all of a sudden, he's doing great things for God, but he's not violent to anyone, he's not hurting anyone, right? He's living a good, productive, helpful life. And that's what God wants us to do. But again, the world doesn't believe in that. So the world's answer is, we're just going to have to just neuter you as men. We're going to have to emasculate you, feminize you, and make no mistake, being effeminate is sin. This is not a preference, this is not my opinion. Being effeminate is sin. The Bible tells, you're in Jeremiah 51, but in 1 Corinthians 6, it said, Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves of mankind. The effeminate there is a man who's feminine. That's what that word means. That's a sin. That's listed in this list of unrighteousness. This is something bad. It comes right after adultery, adulterers and effeminate. This is wickedness. Now, some people will be like, yeah, but what does that even mean? How do you know what's... You are one then. If you have to ask, well, I don't even know what that means, you run into these people who are like, what does worldly mean? What does that mean, worldliness? What are you talking about? There are words in the Bible teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, godly in this present world, love not the world, neither the things that are in this world. Look, effeminates in the Bible, he says, quit you like men. He says, don't be effeminate. You're like, I don't even know what that means. Go look in the mirror then, and there's your definition, buddy, because any normal man knows the difference between someone who's manly and someone who's effeminate. If you just have no clue, well, look in the mirror and you'll get an inkling. But look at Jeremiah chapter 51. The Bible said not to be effeminate, it's a sin, it's wicked, but this is the government's program for your life, men, make you weak, sissy, emasculated so that they can control you. They don't want you living for God. They don't want you to be a warrior in the spiritual battle. They want to turn you into a weakling. What does effeminate mean? Well, look at Jeremiah 51.30. The mighty men of Babylon have foreborn to fight. They have remained in their holds. Their might has failed. They became as women. They have burned her dwelling places. Her bars are broken. So here, the Bible is saying that because their might failed and they forebore to fight, they became as women in that regard. Now, look, there's nothing wrong with women being feminine. Women are supposed to be feminine. But when a man is feminine, it's not feminine, it's effeminate, right? That's a bad word. Feminine is good, effeminate is bad, okay? Now here's the thing about that. Should women have this killer instinct? Should they have this warrior spirit, this fighting spirit? This is a terrible attribute in a woman to just be out there wanting to fight and kill and war. I mean, that's very unseemly for a woman to be out there. Those are not feminine attributes, am I right? So here's the thing. When the men of Babylon, when it says they forebore to fight, to forbear means that they're not going to do it. You know, they're holding back, okay? They're holding back from the fight. So when these men are shying away from the fight, it says they're as women. It's not that there's anything wrong with being women. It's just that women are supposed to shy back from the fight. Men are supposed to have that fighting spirit, that warrior spirit, okay? Women are not supposed to be mighty and strong and have all this. They're the weaker vessel, okay? Men are supposed to be strong and mighty. And so when he wants to say that they're not fighting, they're weak, he says they've become as women in that regard. So that should give you an inkling of what it means to be effeminate, okay? To not have what we've been talking about all morning. I mean, look, men, like I said, this is innate, inborn, in every boy, every man that he desires to fight or compete. Why do you think sports are so popular? Why do you think they pack out stadiums with a bunch of guys in helmets crashing into each other, right? Or hockey games where they just actually beat the snot out of each other. Why is it so popular? Why do men love to play on the playground, doing what? Shooting toy guns, fighting, because that's part of being a boy or a man. And if you're a woman, you say, I don't get it, well, of course you don't. But every man in this room gets it. It's inborn. This is not something that we decided, like, you know what, I think I'd like to be a warrior. It's kind of just who you are as a man, right? This is just instinctive. It's how God created us. It's not bad in and of itself. It just needs to be controlled by the word of God. It needs to be controlled by your Christianity. But what the world wants to do is they want to take this away from you. They want to take away who you are as a man, turn you in to a weakling and a sissy. This is not God's will. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians, if you would flip over to 2 Corinthians chapter 10, the Bible tells in 1 Corinthians 16, 13, watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong. So the Bible says, quit you like men, be strong. This is also reminiscent of 1 Samuel chapter 4, where the Philistines are trying to get their troops all riled up to fight against the Israelites. And they actually do get all worked up and they do actually fight and win this battle. But the leaders of the Philistines tell them, be strong and quit yourselves like men, virtually identical to what it is in there in 1 Corinthians 16. O ye Philistines, that ye be not servants under the Hebrews, as they've been to you, quit yourselves like men and fight. So notice consistently, quitting yourself like a man is being strong and includes fighting, right? Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong. Finally my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Look down, if you would, at 2 Corinthians 10. So what's God's answer? So the world's answer is, effeminize men, emasculate men, strip men of their manhood, their identity, their warrior spirit, their fighting spirit, their killer instinct, take it away from them. God's answer is, retain the warrior spirit, but fight the spiritual battle. Don't physically assault someone, right? Don't kill the Egyptian and bury him in the sand. Don't call down fire and torch people, you know, not that we had that ability, you know, sometimes it would be a blessing, amen? You know, don't chop off anybody's ear, but feel that on the inside, but use that to fight a spiritual battle, right? Not used for carnal, fleshly, sinful, or violent activities. Don't stop being a man. Don't stop being mighty. Don't stop being a warrior. Don't get rid of your killer instinct, just point it in the right direction, okay? 2 Corinthians 10 verse 3, for though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalted itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ, and having inner readiness to revenge all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled. Go to Ephesians 6. This is continually the language that Paul uses. It doesn't matter whether we're reading 1 and 2 Corinthians, whether we're reading Ephesians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, I mean, this is all through Paul's epistles. He's constantly hammering this language. Why? Because he's a man, and he's appealing to men here. Parts of the Bible are more appealing to women. Parts of the Bible are more appealing to men. Obviously, all of it's for all of us, but you know what? Half the population is male, and that half the population, you know what? They like these verses. Ask a teenage boy, hey, what's your favorite Bible verse, or what's your favorite Bible character? What's your favorite Bible story? What kind of stories are they going to tell you? Are they going to say, you know, my favorite Bible story is the one where Jesus healed a blind man. You know, look, that's a great story to have as a favorite, but typically little boys are probably going to gravitate toward what? You know, David and Goliath. I like that story. They like somebody that they can relate to, a young person who's chopping off somebody's head, right? They like that. You know, in case your Sunday school teacher censored that story for you, that's how the story ends with David cutting off Goliath's head and carrying it around, okay? So just so you know, that's how the story actually ends, right? Like, oh, Pastor Anderson, I can't believe that you would, you know, advocate for these things. Do you ever read the Bible, ever? Look folks, it's not wrong to fight the Lord's battles. It's wrong to fight carnal battles, and in the New Testament, we're not wrestling against flesh and blood. We're not defending the nation of Israel against the Philistines. We're casting down imaginations, right? Look at the Bible. Ephesians 6, 10. Finally, my brother and be strong in the Lord and the power of his might, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil, for we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places, wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all to stand. So here's the bottom line about this sermon. If you don't have the warrior spirit, that's bad. If you have the warrior spirit, but you don't control it, that's bad too. These are the two wrong paths, right? Being stripped of your manhood, stripped of your masculinity, stripped of your warrior spirit, your fighting spirit, your killer instinct. There's no glory in being a weakling and a sissy. No glory in that at all. The glory is being manly, having a manly attitude, a manly heart, but saying, you know what? I'm living for God. I'm going to control my anger. I'm going to control these impulses. I'm going to fight the Lord's battles. I'm going to read my Bible, pray. I'm going to be kind, loving, caring, humble. And look, I'm going to fight the Lord's battles. I'm going to war a good warfare that God wants me to war. I'm going to take a stand, right? And I'm going to withstand in the evil day. I am going to fight and war and wrestle and strive and battle. But I'm going to do it for the right reasons, for the things of God. And this is what the Bible is teaching us. Don't let the world strip you of that or tell you that there's something wrong with you having that attitude. I hate this word when people say like, oh, he's so aggressive. Like that's a bad. You ever hear people use the word aggressive like that's bad? That's what I'm talking about. I remember we were having, I don't know if it was the produce co-op or a milk drop pickup or if it was the Azure delivery truck or something. But anyway, we had some kind of a food co-op and people were standing there waiting for the truck to show up to deliver the stuff. And these different moms are standing around and talking. And I'm sitting there and I hear these moms talking. And this one mom says to another like, oh, I don't let my son drink milk because it makes him aggressive. And I want him to go vegan because if he's taking in these animal products, he's going to be like an animal because you are what you eat. And she's acting like she doesn't want him to get too much meat or milk or anything like that because it's going to make him too manly or something. But she didn't put it in those words. She just said it makes him aggressive. So she wants to keep him docile. Maybe a little, may I write you a prescription for Ritalin maybe. Maybe we can just drug him into submission. Maybe you can just give him a lot of Benadryl or maybe you can smoke some pot and just kind of mellow out, just kind of chill out a little bit. Look folks, why would I want my son to be watered down and not be, yeah, let's just feed him all fruits and vegetables so he can be a little soy boy. Do you think that's what I want? No. See, the real answer is it's not to stop giving your kid milk. It's not to not give him the red meat and, you know, I'm afraid he's going to grow up and be too manly or something. But the real answer is to teach him to not just do whatever comes to his mind. Okay. It's not like, oh, he's going to get, we got to just make him nonviolent by changing his diet. No, he needs to be punished if he's violent, right? If a kid is violent, they need punishment. They need someone telling them no, they need to be stopped. They need to be disciplined. But again, our world today doesn't even want to practice discipline. They don't want to spank their kids. Sometimes they even go beyond saying no spanking, sometimes they just say no consequences. Oh, Johnny, let me show you a better way to do that than, you know, punching someone and giving them a bloody nose. How can we have done that a little bit better, you know, than, you know, just destroying property and, you know, torturing someone's pet and everything. Let's see if we can find a better way we could have played with little Johnny there. But that's the stupidity of our world today. So then they're like, what do we do? I can't get this kid under control. Get out the soy milk, get out the tofu, because that's the only way we're going to get this kid under control. Put the, you know, let's fluoridate the water, let's get the Ritalin, the marijuana, let's just pull out all the stops and then we can live in peace with a bunch of just zombie brain dead, watered down, queer little sissies. And you know, you see these, you see these guys walking around now, there's no fighting spirit. They're not warriors. There's no killer instinct. They just, they just look like a complete joke. You just look at them and you're just like, what in the world? But look, it's by design. It's that same mentality that that mother had when she said, oh, I don't want my little Johnny to be aggressive. I want my kids to be aggressive. What does aggressive even mean? I mean, I thought, correct me if I'm wrong, maybe I need to look this up in the dictionary. I thought aggressive means, hey, you get in there and you do stuff and you get things done. And you know, to me, if you're aggressive in sports, it means that you're, you're trying to win. You're pushing yourself. You're aggressive on the job, right? You're getting in there. You're taking initiative. You're working hard. What in the world? You say, well, no, no, that's not the meaning of aggressive they mean. I mean, I want to pastor aggressively. You know, I want to, I want to study the Bible aggressively, right? I want to go soul wading aggressively, aggressive evangelism, right? But they said, no, no, no, that's not the definition of aggressive. It's more like aggressive, like being violent. But here's the thing. I don't want to take away the fighting spirit from my kids. I just want them to know, hey, that's the wrong fight. It's a spiritual fight. And I don't want to just teach them like, oh, all fighting is just bad because then they're, then when they read the Bible, they're going to be really confused if they just think fighting's always wrong and, and just, you know, war is always wrong and you know, they're going to get confused when they read the Bible because the Bible has a lot of fighting and warriors and everything. They just need to understand what is appropriate and what is not. And you know what? That's actually going to take you actually training your kids and raising your kids and disciplining your kids and actually teaching them right and wrong. And then when they say, well, who says that that's right or wrong? Well, cause I said so. No. Well, who said that's right or wrong? Well, the Bible did. Here's what the Bible said thou shalt not kill. Here's where the Bible said thou shalt not steal. Here's where the Bible says thou shalt do no murder. Here's where the Bible said not to be a fighting a physical battle, but to fight a spiritual battle and that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal and so forth that we have an authority. The world has no authority. to resort to drugs and a diet program and just dumbing down America so that they can control you. Look, Hey, I want to be like the apostle Paul. I want to be intelligent and I want to be a warrior, right? And as men, that should be what we all want to be. None of us wants to be stupid. None of us wants to be docile and weak, right? We all want to be a warrior and we all want to have brains. Okay. Well, you know what? In order for us to be able to live peacefully in society as a warrior with brains, we need the Lord. We need meekness. That's the only way this works. And that's why we see the world resorting to some strange things because they don't want that piece of the puzzle. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your, your word Lord, and thank you for creating us the way that you did, Lord. Thank you for creating us as men, uh, with this fighting spirit and killer instinct Lord, but help us to point that in the right direction. Help us not to disdain that or, or think that that's a bad thing, but help us to, uh, use that for your honor and glory so that we can aggressively serve you aggressively fight against the devil and fight against sin aggressively when souls aggressively preach the word Lord, help us to be men. And Lord, for the ladies in the room, help them to raise men. And for the ladies in the room that are young ladies, help them to marry men and not to marry one of these queer little sissies because they're, they're, they're wicked people, Lord. Help them to marry a godly man who is not a wimp. And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.