"Men’s Day" By Brother Parrish Lee June 29th,
2014
One of these days—you know all that
clapping that y’all do? The Bible says,
“Clap your hands, all ye people,” (Psalms 47:1) you know that? And, you know, when He told us to look to the
beasts of the field, look to nature… You
ever go out there and hear the trees—just take a listen to them. You hear them, and they’re doing this
(clapping his hands). Actually, they’re
doing this (clapping his hands above
his head). High praise. You know, that’s what’s really going to fill
heaven. If you don’t like—if you happen
to be a person that don’t like praising God, really, His presence in and out
and all around you, and every place you go, there’s God, God, God. If you really don’t like that, don’t go to
Heaven. Don’t go to heaven. We will see that He alone is worthy to be
praised. The Bible says that every eye
shall see Him (Revelation 1:7), and that the veil shall be removed. I love
talking about Heaven. I love talking about it. It’s amazing!
That ain’t the message, but it could be. Giving honor to God, our Savior, our
Master, our Redeemer, the One who, without which, there would be nothing that
is. The Lover of our souls. The precious God, the One who is benevolenceful,
merciful, and graceful. Giving honor to
Him. Giving honor to our founding pastor
and his family, and our pastor and his family, for their work and their labor,
and giving honor to all of those who have gone on before us. All those who have gone on before us, knowing
that as God calls to labor, that he has an effective purpose for it. For us, that purpose has been seeing people
saved and encouraged. Last of all, but
not the least of all, giving honor to all of you, bringing your heart and your
souls, and saying, “You know what, Lord, you found me where I am, and I have
needs. Whatever day, whatever hour, I
do. Make me, God, so that I won’t be a
doubter, so that I will be a believer.
Lead, me, guide me, show me the way.
When I fall, and I will fall, don’t answer me there, just lift me up,
God, dust me off, and bring me closer to You, God.” Well, we know that this month has
been the month of sound doctrine. Our
Scripture theme for the month has been: Titus 2:1 But speak thou the things which become sound
doctrine: Yes,
this is the end of the month, and there are a lot of things going on, but it
all comes down to us worshipping and receiving from Him who is the giver of all
good and perfect gifts. Our Scripture
thought for the day: Genesis 2:15-18 And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to
dress it and to keep it. And the LORD
God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely
eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest
thereof thou shalt surely die. And the
LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an
help meet for him If
we could bow our heads for just a minute.
Lord, at this time, we come before You with praises on our lips and
thankfulness in our hearts saying that we just present ourselves to You,
thanking You for all that You have done for us, even up until this very
moment. God, as it is time for the
message of this particular service, we pray, as You have said in Your Word, as
You have guaranteed, that Your Word would not return unto You void, but that it
would accomplish, that which You sent it to do, and make it so, in our hearts
and lives that we might grow and be enrichened and emboldened, God, that we
might be better Christians for You, that we might be better servants for You,
that our sons and daughters might be able to hear and follow all the things
that you have given to us. We pray, and
claim in Jesus’ name, and everyone said amen. Amen. So,
we know that today—we’ve said that today is several things. For one, it’s the last day of the month. Our theme for the month, of course, as we’ve
said before, being Sound Doctrine for the month. We began the month of this—first of all, we
began, the first service, of course, was on prayer. That being one of the things we need to have
incorporated in our lives for sound doctrine.
The second service—Bob Heirtzler preached the message—was on Seek Ye
First the As
our sister read from the Book of Genesis, chapter two, starting off in verse
fifteen, we see where the Bible says that the Lord took the man and put him
into the Garden of Eden, to dress it and to keep it… We see that, first of all, after that God
breathed in him and he became a living soul, separating him from everything
else, God gave the man purpose. He gave
us purpose. It didn’t stop with Adam; God
is still giving us purposes, today.
After he gave the man purpose—put him in the garden—it goes on in verses
sixteen and seventeen and says He commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of
the garden thou mayest freely eat: But
of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in
the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. So we see that, right after God gave him
purpose, God gave him direction. He told
him, not just what He wanted him to do, but then He told him how he wanted him
to do it. So, God gave purpose, and God
gave direction. You know, how many have
ever done something—had a task, had a job, had something enormous—maybe you were
doing something around the house, tearing something out, or maybe you were cleaning
something up in it was a bigger task than you thought and you really wished,
“You know what? I could use some
help! I could really use some help!” Maybe you’re working on the car and you get
to the pace where you’re saying to yourself, “It’s okay, up to a certain point,
but after that, I need some help..
Either lifting or turning or twisting…
I just can’t get to it, plus, I want to know if I’m dong this thing
right.” I’ve been there. I’ve been there. I’m sure I’m alone, right? So, the point is, after He gave him purpose,
and then he gave him direction, God gave him help. So, God gave them man—this is Adam we’re
talking about—He gave him purpose, He gave him direction, and then He gave him
help. I can only imagine that when Adam
saw his help, he said, “Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about.” I
was talking to a friend of mine, and he said, “You know, I don’t think I know
what it is, but I think I’ve finally got it.”
He said, “You know…” He’s a
married man; I’m not going to tell who it is, because he might get into a
little trouble, but he said, “I think I’ve figured this one out. You know…”
he said, “You know, I work all week, and when I get home, maybe want to
prop my feet up, maybe watch some TV, just want to take it easy, on a Saturday
or something, I just want to lay around all day, and my wife, she gets so
angry.” He said, “I think I’ve finally
figured it out.” I thought, “Well, this
ought to be interesting I wonder what
he’s going to say.” He said, “You know,
it goes all the way back to Genesis.” He
said, “You know, when God made big Adam, and he was doing all this stuff, and
he made Eve a help meet for him,” he said, “I’m sure that the Lord told Eve,
‘You know what? You’re beautiful, and
gorgeous, and awesome, and wonderful and I’m going to take you to meet
somebody, and this guy’s got it going on.
He’s a hard worker. You know what
he did? he named all the animals; he takes care of the whole Garden of Eden.’
And I’m sure he said, ‘Oh, Eve.” And Eve
said, ‘Really?’ and He said, ‘And he’s a dependable guy. He always shows up.’ Eve said, ‘Really? That’s sounds like somebody I’d quite love to
meet.’ God said, ‘You know what? he’s
got everything in order. He’s not
slothful, he takes care of business.’
Eve said, ‘All right. Lord, I’m
ready.’ So, as they went around the turn
to get over there to see him, the first thing that eve would have seen about
this man that she was looking for was shortly after the rib incident, and Adam
was still asleep. Yeah. And Eve must have said, ‘I thought you said
he was a hard worker. We’ve got stuff to
do, and he’s—GET UP!!!’” I don’t know,
because it’s my understanding, I think a lot of women also work, and they probably
get tired and they want to take it easy, too, but, that was what the brother
said to me, and I’m not going to tell you names, because I don’t want to get in
trouble, and I don’t want you to get in trouble. That was just a little ice-breaker there; I
thought I’d throw that in. Anyway,
so we see that first God has given man purpose, and then he gave him the
how-to-do, the direction, and then He gave him help. And, you know, as we talk about today being
Men’s Day, The world has given us a very corrupt image of what men are, what
men are supposed to be. If you look at some
of the movies that are out, you would think that man have to be an overgrown, muscle-bound, buffoon
always aggressively going after everything, always quick to start or get into a
fight. I can climb a building, or I can
carry a howitzer all by myself. I can go
to war, and I can kill all those people, because I am the man. That’s just movies. If you look at the entertainment industry and
music industry, you’d think that men are supposed to wear their pants around
their knees, walk around half-naked, shout obscenities out of their mouths,
treat women bad, and that’s stupid. I’m
just being honest. If you look at the
modeling magazines—Men’s Health, Men’s Life, Men’s This, Men’s That—you’ll see
that men are supposed to be all suave and just walk around with your shirt
open, and that makes you a man. Wearing
this special cologne that’s supposed to make women forget their mind, and get
over next to you because, “That’s the man.”
If you look at our politics nowadays, you would think that men are
supposed to grandstand, and get up there and say a whole bunch of nice-sounding
things; promise you that they’re going to do things for you, and secretly get
behind closed doors and make sure that they get a bigger piece of the pie than
everybody else and stick you with the tab. I’m just being honest. But that ain’t what God had called men to
be. There’s several things that God said
that men are supposed to be. Luke 18:1 And he spake a parable unto them to this
end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint Men
are supposed to pray. Why don’t we put
that on a billboard? Why don’t we put
that on TV, late night TV, instead of making some crazy joke, making mockery of
people and all that goofy stuff? 1 Timothy 2:8 I will therefore
that men pray every where, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting. Men
ought to pray everywhere. That don’t
mean you walk around looking religious; that means you walk around carrying
that in you heart. You have it in your
mind that if there’s a need going on, that you can say it in your life, because
you’ve got that connection. “Lord, I
come to Thee.” “I will therefore that
men pray every where, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting.” Men ought always to pray. You know, we had a powerful, beautiful, wonderful
prayer meeting, not this last Friday, but the Friday before last. Some of our brothers were in that meeting,
and they talked about it last week, but I’ll tell you, any brother that was
there will tell you, we let things out, we approached the throne of God. Amen?
Oh, come on, if you’re a man and you were there, then you know God moved! Amen?
Call it out, call it out. Prayer
is so hard to find in the world. We
went to one of Jesse’s family’s relatives—Kirk, and myself, and Sister Zelda,
you were there. She called, and she
said, “I had cancer really bad. I don’t
know what’s going to happen, but I need some intervention because the doctors
told me that it don’t look good.” Did we
show up in suits and ties? not necessarily; I don’t remember what we were
wearing. Did we show up with a jokes on
our lips? absolutely not. Did she want
some money? NO!! She just wanted God to
move. We showed up—we had never met the
lady before—but the need was there and we showed up with our open hearts. Everybody knew why we were there. We didn’t come there to just entertain. We came over here to pray and to seek the
face of Almighty God; that’s why we’re here.
We’re not leaving until we get through.
She texted me this morning, she said, “I’m back in the When
I was in What
else ought men to do? John 4:20 Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and
ye say, that in Men
ought to worship. Men ought to
worship? You’re doggone straight men
ought to worship. Men ought to worship
the holy and wise, one true God. You
know, men ought to come before God and say, “I must decrease and you must
increase.” () To be able to stand and to
say, “I’ve got a lot of things going on in my life. Things that need some answers, God, but
before I take another step, I’m first going to come to You. Now, God, first, I’m not going to ask You for
nothing, but I’m going to praise You for who You are. Listen, if You never give me anything else,
Lord, You have been mighty, mighty, mighty good to me. I don’t care what the devil says, I tell him,
‘Get behind me! My God is good! And if God does not give me what I ask for,
it is for my good that He does not.’”
Yes, men ought to worship. What
else ought men to do? Hebrews 12:12 Wherefore lift up the
hands which hang down, and the feeble knees; Men
have to realize that life is like a roller coaster: sometimes you're headed up,
and sometimes you’re at the top, and sometimes you’re coming down, and you’re
coming down with a quickness, and sometimes you’re on the bottom. Men have to realize, in this roller-coaster of
a life, when I’m at the top, I need to strengthen somebody who might not be
up. Maybe somebody’s down and it’ my
turn to go help them. You know why? because
tomorrow, I’m going to be down. Something’s going to happen to me, and I’m
going to need somebody to reach down and say, “I’m going to lift up your feeble
knees because you’re my brother, and, tomorrow, I’m going to need you to help
me.” Yes, to lift up the feeble
knees. You know, there’s a reason why a
lot of people don’t ask for help a lot; you know, they kind of push things
off. Yeah, there’s that whole
‘independent’ thing, yeah, there’s that.
But, some people, when they help somebody else out, they always want a
little pat on the back. But, when we
expend the honestness that’s in our life, the sincerity, then we realize that
the Lord gives us so much, and if we have received so much, freely we have to
give. To whom much is given, much is
required. I’ve been there, where I’ve
received help, and somebody lorded it over me.
I need to put your name up there, too, just in small letters, but still
up there, where I’m thankful to you, too, for all that you’ve done. I’m thanking God, but, thank you, too. God, look at how much you stand out. As if that was the epitome of
everything. I see that, I see that, but
that’s not what God called us to do. God
didn’t call us to lord over people, in fat, in one place He talks about shake
out the lap (Nehemiah 5:3) if that’s what you’re going to be; I’ll shake it
right out. You want to step in the
middle of this? Anyway, we need to chase
that kind of spirit completely out.
Chase it out. Call it out, and
cast it out. What else men ought to do? Ephesians 5:28 So ought men to love
their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. I
am not married, and, for this, I’m going to defer to out fellowship leader,
Andy, as he would come and speak about what men ought to do. ANDY: I’ve been married about fourteen years now,
and it’s not one thing that I take lightly.
A question to ask: Where do we
learn to be husbands; where do we learn how to treat our wives? We look out, Parrish brought it up already,
we look at Hollywood, we look at different cultures, we look at different
countries, different religions, and I’ve
seen influences in many men in different places; men in the church and men out
of the church. How they treat their
families; how they think their wives should treat them, and how that
relationship should go. And I looked at
all that, and I’m thinking, “Wow, there’s a lot to that. But, then I look at—I’ve got to dig into the Scriptures,
and see, what does the Bible say about how we treat our wives?” Parrish took a Scripture, and I’m going to go
back to Ephesians, but I’m going to go back to verse 22—and this is the part
that men like: “Wives, submit yourselves
unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.
(23) For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head
of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.” We like to stop there, but it goes on a
little: “(26) That he might sanctify and
cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, (27)That he might present it
to himself…” Let me back up a
little: “(25) Husbands, love your wives,
even as Christ also loved the church…” I
want to put a phrase out here: Love is a
choice. Jesus said, “If ye love me, keep My commandments.” (John 14:15)
It’s a choice. When it comes to
just loving God, and serving Him and doing what’s right, that’s a choice. Sometimes my emotions get caught up and I
say, “Why can’t I get this right? Why
does this bug me? Why can’t I be joyous
all the time?” and thinking there’s something wrong with me. No, love is a choice; it’s not all about
emotion. It fits with our families, our
children and our wives. Love is a choice The first part, we talk about falling in love. That’s not the love that we’re talking about
here. Falling in love is a very
important part of that relationship, and it’s a wonderful part of it, but
that’s not the love we’re talking about here.
Fourteen years later, I have things that I do because of love. As a Christian, Jesus said, “If ye love me,
keep My commandments.” I keep His
commandments because I love Him. It’s
not just a feeling. I’m going to read
on: “(28) So ought men to love their
wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.” There’s a powerful thing, there. If you love your wife, you love yourself,
because no man hates himself. If you
don’t take care of your wife, there’s going to be problems. This is Bible; this isn’t me trying to put
forth my own ideas. It says, “(29)For no
man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the
Lord the church: (30)For we are members
of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. (31)For this cause shall a man
leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two
shall be one flesh. (32)This is a great
mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. (33)Nevertheless let every one of you in
particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence
her husband.” Once again, I’ll go back
to the cultures we live in: We look at
cultures where they make their women wear a veil, that they’re not allowed to
go out in public, and we look at different things and we say, “Oh, I’m the man;
I’ve got to be in charge.” I find that
the more I try to be in charge, the less in charge I can be sometimes. But, I find that when I love my wife, when I
love my children, when I do things out of love, then that comes back. I find that I do not need to be forceful to
make things happen; I find that the more I try that, the more that does not
work. I’ve seen men that try to say,
“Woman, you’re my wife; you’re going to do this.” I’ve seen it in many cultures. In some cultures, that works, because that’s
their culture. You can’t just look at
that culture, whatever it is, and say, that’s how my wife’s going to be. I can’t say, my mom and my dad lived this
way, that’s the way it’s going to be for me.
I just have to model after Christ.
It says, “…as Christ loved the church.”
We want to stop at the point where He died on the cross; well, I should
be willing to die. It goes beyond
that. What does Christ do for us today? He still here for us, today. We still have an avenue to God through
prayer. He’s still providing for us
on daily basis. He still loves us on a daily basis. He still gives to us on a daily basis. It doesn’t stop there, and that’s how we
should treat our wives. Love is a
choice. Amen. So, men ought to love their wives. What else ought men to do? Men ought to lead. 1 Peter 5:3 Neither being lords over God's heritage, but
being ensamples to the flock. It's
so easy to get in trouble at this point. Not as lords over people. So, if I'm not over people, how can I lead? He clarifies that: By being ensamples of the flock—or to the
flock. Being ensamples to the flock; but
what is an ‘ensample?’ It’s a sample of
the end; we call that an example. Being
an example to the flock; being able to lead by example. Leading by example. So, you mean, when anybody looks at my life,
they should be able to see how to be a good Christian. I should be an example of that. I should be an example of a God-fearing
man. I should be an example of a good
brother. Yes, being examples to the
flock—by being examples to the flock, and to everybody else. Men should lead by example. Did you ever notice that if you get too many
people and they want to get their way, you’re going to have a mess. What is it they say? too many cooks spoil the
broth? Too many chiefs and not enough
Indians; you ever hear that? Yeah, it’s
crazy; it’s crazy; the whole world will tell you that kind of stuff is
crazy. If they would just open to the
Book of First Peter, chapter 5, verse 3, they’d see, “Hey, it’s right
there!” What else ought men to do? Ephesians 6:4 And, ye fathers,
provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and
admonition of the Lord. Again,
the only thing I can speak about is what the Bible says. I don’t have kids, you know, and I think I
might have an answer or two in my flesh—no, I don’t. But, in the Word, by nurturing and
admonition, no of us, but of the Lord.
Being able to show love… What
else ought men to do? John 20:22 And when he had said this, he breathed on
them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: Men
ought to be able to receive the Holy Ghost, wherever they are. Men, learn to be not just a priest but learn
to be a high priest. Don't just bring
people to the door of the Temple—a lot of good things happen in the door of the
Temple: we have some good fellowship, we
have some good moments, we have some blending, we have some nice people, we
ain’t got a lot of craziness, normally, at the door of the Temple, but don’t
stop there. A lot of good things happen
in the courts, but don't stop at the courts of praise; don’t stop at the courts
of wondrous, and anointing, and blessings. Don't stop at the
|
|
|
|
