Calvary Road Baptist Church
“A MASCULINE RELATIONSHIP WITH WOMEN” Part 3
Proverbs 31.3
This is the third installment of the sermon series “A Masculine Relationship With Women.” Should some men (and possibly even women) question my selection and the implication of this series title, I would assert that God, as the Creator of Adam, the first man, and the all-wise Guide of mankind, is the only One who truly knows what is and what is not masculine, which is to say manly.
Therefore, as we seek to learn what the proper relationship is that should exist between a man and the women in his life, what is truly masculine, I assert that no man who is uninterested in God’s design as revealed in Scripture can hope to be anchored to any objective standard of masculinity, but is adrift in an ever-changing sea of popular opinion and forever-changing cultural trends.
This is especially true of men who grew up in families without godly fathers living in the home and exerting serious spirituality as seen in manly behavior, both conduct and attitude. If a guy has his head screwed on straight, he should realize that there are more than anatomical differences between men and women. Since
“There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death,”
Proverbs 14.12 and 16.25, who is not far better off learning from God’s Word, what is the right approach than to spend his life fruitlessly and unsuccessfully pretending he knows what he is doing?
If this is a valid approach to manhood as it relates to the women in his life, how much more important are these matters if the man is a husband and a father, in addition to being a son and a brother? Please do not imagine that masculinity has anything to do with physical toughness or military success. Know that, throughout human history, those who were numbered among the most successful of warriors were also men who routinely sodomized other men. This would include Mayans, Aztecs and the Iroquois in North America, and also the Carthaginians, the Romans, the Greeks, the Celtic tribes, the Scandinavians, the English, the Chinese, the Japanese Samurai, the Thais, the Marlukes of Egypt, the Arabs of the Middle East and North Africa, Tibetan monks, and the Moguls of India.[1]
Would anyone in his right mind suggest that men, even powerful and combative men, who engaged in such debased conduct should be considered masculine? Do men who do such things have any concept of masculinity in the Biblical sense? So, you see, what so many consider to be toughness is unrelated to masculinity.
In the first of this series of messages, I established that the decline of masculinity is a serious issue in Western civilization, with the vast majority of men serving as unalloyed catastrophes of manhood and provided scholarly sources as evidence. I then pointed out the problem regarding agendas, an agenda provided to a man by God, and a woman’s agenda. Let it be admitted that there is nothing wrong with a woman’s agenda until a man surrenders his agenda as the spiritual leader in his home to an agenda suggested by his mother, wife, sister, or daughter. You would be surprised at how many men will hang tough with their God-given agenda when urged to abandon it by their mother, sister, or wife, but will surrender their agenda to a daughter’s agenda.
In the second installment of this series, I listed Biblical examples of men who did not surrender their agendas to women’s urgings, pleadings, and conniving, yet God blessed them. I reconstructed a scenario in which a husband and wife interacted in the context of some pagan Gentile culture around the world uninfluenced by God’s Word, be it in the Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia, or the Middle East.
Without exception, women throughout the world have historically been judged to be inferior to men because of their stature, strength, biological complexity, the burdens of motherhood and child-rearing, and their relatively less aggressive personalities. And it wasn’t just men who so regarded women. Women so regarded women because they had no Biblical basis for understanding the true value of women as being fellow Divine image bearers with men.
God’s Word changed all that, at least in the lives of Christians and those affected by the salt and light of the Christian faith.[2] While the Gospel faith did not alter the hierarchy of male and female relationships, it did radically alter the basis for the male/female hierarchy and one’s conduct within the hierarchy. The Christian worldview changed things. No more were men considered superior because of our stature, strength, intelligence, or other supposed measures of superiority. No more were women deemed inferior because of their more diminutive stature, their comparative physical weakness, or their interest in and devotion to childbearing and child-rearing.
God’s Word introduced the concept of men and women complementing each other in the human race. Men were forbidden their old brutality in favor of sacrificial love, kindness and gentleness, and willingness to love their wives as themselves. Women, for their part, were forbidden to fear the men in their lives and directed to fear only God. Both sexes were taught that they bore God’s image and, as image-bearers, were tasked with somewhat different tasks and talents in the home and the congregation.
But that was then, and this is now.
Sad to say, we now live in post-Christian America. Evident to anyone paying attention, there is a struggle taking place for dominance in our culture, with a large segment of the female population struggling for supremacy and the great majority of men mostly doing nothing. The consequences of this social and political struggle are perplexing, with violence toward women escalating even as the political clout of supposedly pro-women politicians in the culture increases. It is almost as if those driving so many women in their struggle for women’s causes have no interest in protecting women from the consequences of the results they are producing. This struggle for leadership between men and women in our society of equality without a recognized functional hierarchy in the home and Church has made some rather unique specimens that I cannot imagine existing in any culture where the Bible is honored.
Have any of you heard of rape gangs?[3] Suppose you naively believe most of this world has not yet fallen into a pre-Christian state of male-female relationships. In that case, I suggest you do online searches of rape gangs in Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States. What will you find? You will find women and girls brutalized in those cultures where women have always been regarded as inferior and of less value than men and boys, and now in countries where the Bible and the Christian faith have been set aside, with tragically identical results.
Only God’s Word shows that men and women are equal in the sight of God but with complementary roles assigned to each sex in the family unit and the Church congregation. Those who oppose the functional hierarchy on display in God’s Word reveal their ignorance of what is happening to women in almost every country where the Bible has never been or is no longer highly regarded.
But that is not all. More and more, we see sissy boys who prefer the company of girls to boys their age. These fellows will strongly protest that they are sissy boys. However, such preference for girls instead of boys is something unseen in healthy cultures. Such preferences of young boys for girls over boys are not usually exhibited by boys with powerfully masculine personalities. Instead, they tend to have relatively weak and effeminate personalities.
Are these youngsters candidates for homosexuality? Not always. Almost certainly not usually. However, the likelihood of such learned behavior increases as this conflict between men and women continues, and boys become increasingly confused about their proper role in relationships with other males and women. In other cases (and there will be considerable overlap in these examples I mention to you) there will be a surprising amount of aggressiveness by girls. This will be seen by their tactics of bullying their boyfriends and bossing them around and the increasing incidents of so-called Karens engaged in bullying tactics.
It used to be a given among youth workers that when you saw a guy who allowed himself to be pushed around by a girl, it was because he was having sex with her, and he would put up with her nonsense so he could get sex from her. However, more and more, you will find it is just because boys are becoming more and more passive in the face of more aggressive behavior by girls, even if there is not something going on behind closed doors.
A third type of case is the momma’s boy, who will not grow up. He may or may not be promiscuous. Bill Clinton is promiscuous. The key to understanding him lies not in his promiscuity but in his relationship with his mommy. He wants to be his mommy’s boy, but he does not want to become what he thinks a man is.
You may be old enough to remember that singer Ricky Nelson was that way. When he was over forty, he still told people who would listen that he did not want to grow up. Bill Clinton did not grow up. He just grew old. Elvis Presley was the same way. Promiscuous in the extreme, Elvis was, nevertheless, very much a momma’s boy. Frank Sinatra was also a real momma’s boy if you are old enough to remember.
A fourth characteristic typical of our time in history is the man who is both passive and promiscuous. As I said, there is considerable overlap with some of these. This is the man who seems to be wildly successful with women. Frequently not aggressive at all, he is often quiet and soft-spoken ... and patient.
He will do whatever he has to do, put up with whatever he has to put up with and remain as silent and easygoing as he has to for as long as he has to, for only one purpose. What he wants is to have sex with that woman, and he will have sex with her because she will trade sex with a man who is passive in return for her being aggressive and dominant in their social relationship.
Finally, we have the befuddled man or the stubborn man. The befuddled fellow and the stubborn fellow are so very much alike. Neither one is a leader in his home. The one reacts to difficulties and confusion by exhibiting befuddlement, waiting for someone else to decide or address a problem. British actor Hugh Grant’s acting career is built on his various characters acting out befuddlement.
The other guy, Mr. Stubborn, reacts by shutting down. He achieves this by making stupid decisions or ridiculous pronouncements and then being stubborn and unwilling to deal with reality as it unfolds. They are men like computers whose hard drives have locked up in both cases.
I submit to you that each of these is an example of the confusion that exists in a society, in a culture, when people have turned their backs on the functional relationship between men and women that God established. In our society, people remember only the fundamental equality of the two sexes while vigorously denying that there is or should be a divinely ordained functional hierarchy.
Thus, we find ourselves caught up in an uneven struggle for supremacy, for dominance. Or, and this is more likely, the woman engages in this struggle while the confused man, who does not want to be thought of as primitive or unkind in the face of withering opposition from his culture and is a coward, simply refuses to assert himself as a masculine man and gives up.
I realize that these examples are oversimplifications. However, I cite them to provide you with some composite personalities that result from men having no idea (because they do not know how to do God’s Word) what they should do or how they should behave when dealing with women in their lives.
You should see the frustration of some of these guys. Some have pleaded with me, “What should I do now? How am I supposed to act? What’s expected of me?” All of this is about their relationships with the women in their lives or the absence of women in their lives.
The challenge, as I see it, is the all-too-common tendency of men to base their conduct as men, in marriage and family life, on their level of happiness rather than their fidelity to the truth of God’s Word. It is a matter of pragmatism and going along to get along at the expense of integrity and any consideration of obedience to God.
That, along with timidity and a fear of the wife should he attempt to provide spiritual leadership, stifles many guys. Our present state of affairs reminds me of a great 1954 Korean War movie, “The Bridges Of Toko Ri,” starring Grace Kelly, William Holden, and Frederic March.[4] In one of the final scenes of the movie, Frederic March, starring as the father figure admiral serving as the naval task force commander, looks into the night and wonders out loud about the courageous pilots launching from his aircraft carrier, and asks himself, “Where do we get such men?” As I look back seventy years to that movie, my question is more like, “Where have those kinds of men gone to? Why are there so few such men of courage and conviction and spiritual bearing left?”
The problem, of course, is generational in its implications. The children are sacrificed, and depending on their ages, the grandchildren are also sacrificed. Too many dads and granddads are quite willing for their children to go to Hell, so long as wifey is not on the warpath, there is some peace and quiet at Thanksgiving, and occasional opportunities to watch the grandkids. However, serious witnessing and Bible principles are rarely dealt with.
When mom and dad have a relationship that does not reflect the biblical pattern for marriage and the home, no matter how happy they are, God is misrepresented. The picture of Christ in the marriage is distorted. Marriage is supposed to reflect your relationship with God and your understanding of a masculine relationship with women.
How am I to understand someone who has preached here numerous times, having seven grown children, with six of them saved and serving God, and the one of them who is lost is being dealt with by his father and is seriously considering the claims of Christ?
What do I do with another who has four grown sons, each a believer in Christ and faithfully attending Church and serving God as husband and father? What of several others who have four grown children saved and serving God? Others have three grown children each, who are serving God.
It is not easy for preacher’s kids in any congregation. The spiritual conflicts and opposition they have to deal with are staggering. But no one faces unique spiritual challenges, First Corinthians 10.13. No one. Yet the children of so many Christian leaders who have a Bible-based understanding of a masculine relationship with women have been wonderfully blessed with godly children.
Men who want to be useful to God, who are serious about properly representing the Savior, and who function as genuine spiritual leaders in their homes are the guys who seriously want to be used by God to guide their kids to Christ.
You must lead, sir. You must take obeying God seriously. You must pray fervently. You must witness to the lost who are not your children to be more effective when witnessing to your children. The stakes are very high. You must avail yourself of the means of grace to have any expectation that your children will do the same when the choice is up to them.
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[1] https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/judaisms-sexual-revolution-judaism-christianity-rejected-homosexuality
[2] Matthew 5.13, 16
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_rape
[4] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046806/?ref_=fn_al_tt_4
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