Men Covered by God, Part 1

Unless Jesus Christ has the final say so, He is not Lord and you are not covered. Dr. Tony Evans says if exercising godly authority doesn't begin by submitting to it, the consequences can destroy your family.

If you are an uncovered man, that means it's raining on all the folk in your life too. Celebrating 40 years of faithfulness, this is the alternative with Dr. Tony Evans. Author, speaker, senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas, and president of the Urban Alternative. Connecting men with the leadership power God has given us requires a clear understanding of who we are and who we aren't. Dr. Evans discusses both as he takes us to Exodus chapter 34.

Let's join him. A man's malehood is tied to the biology with which he was born that establishes his male identity. Then that male becomes a boy. Boyhood is tied to dependency and immaturity.

So we got a couple of hoods. We got malehood, that's strictly biological identity. You've got boyhood, which is dependency and immaturity, but the goal of malehood is manhood. And in the Bible, manhood is defined as responsibility under God. That is, from God's point of view, a male has not fully arrived to be a man until he's operating under the rule of God in relationship to God.

So the question is, which hood are you in? Just malehood, immaturity, irresponsibility, boyhood, regardless of your age. But then there is biblical manhood. God called for three conferences a year, three men's conferences.

We just have one. Three times a year, all the males in Israel are to come before the Lord their God. Now, why did God call this meeting? Why was this meeting, three men's conferences every year, called by God?

Let me show you something in chapter 34. He says in verse 10, Then God said, Behold, I'm going to make a covenant. Verse 14, For you shall not worship any other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God. Otherwise you might make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land. Verse 27, Then the Lord said to Moses, Write down these words, for in accordance with these words, I have made a covenant with you and with Israel. Then at the end of verse 28, and he wrote on the tablet the words of the covenant. The word covenant means a divinely created bond.

It was an officially established relationship between God and His people. A synonym for the word covenant is covering. A covenant covers. As I've defined it before, it's like having an umbrella in the rain. The umbrella covers you. Doesn't stop it from raining, it just stops it from raining on you, because you are covered.

Now you can have an umbrella, but not be under it. Well, even if you are in the covenant, if you are not under the covenant, you go uncovered. So we have a generation today of uncovered men. They may go to church, they may be Christian, but they're not covered. And if you are an uncovered man, that means it's raining on all the folk in your life too.

Because you are uncovered, they're getting wet. God called all the men to covenant with them because they were to cover not only their own lives and their own family, but in this context, the whole nation. So the question on the floor was to bring all the men in alignment with the covenant so that they would be covered by God, so that that which they are responsible for in the covenant would be covered too. So the positioning of a man underneath God's covenantal covering would determine the well-being of the whole nation. So if you were the devil, your major goal is to get rid of men, because if you can get rid of men, you can keep everybody else uncovered.

And if everybody else is uncovered, the favor of God will be diminished or perhaps absent altogether. The issue of the covenant is alignment. Are you operating underneath its governance? I think I shared a year ago, my garage door wouldn't open. I'm pushing, I'm pushing, I'm pushing. I'm trying to lift it, but it's too heavy. Things are not working. The rope that releases it wasn't, was broke. So if things were not working, I couldn't make things work. It wasn't because I wasn't trying. I was pushing a button.

I was trying to lift it up, but it was too heavy. So it wasn't working. I wanted it to work.

I needed it to work, but it wasn't working no matter how hard I tried. I called the garage guy and I said, look, my car's in the garage. I got to get out. I'm stuck.

What do I do? Can you come over and deliver me? So I called on him for deliverance. I did everything I knew to do to be delivered, but I was still stuck in my garage. He told me to go over to the garage door. I went over to the garage door. He said, look down on your right and on your left. I did. He said, you see those two square canisters?

I said, yes. He said, which way are they facing? I said, well, one is facing horizontally toward the other.

The other is facing vertically toward the back door. He said, your problem is an alignment problem. He says, they're not aligned properly. He says, they are designed to face one another so they can pick up the signal.

But one is facing this way, the other is facing that way, so they're not communicating. He said, if you'll simply go down and turn the one on the left to face the one on the right, you'll find the power that you're looking for. When I changed the alignment and got the two canisters aligned to one another, then pushed the button, voila, power that I didn't know I possessed. What I needed was to get an alignment. And when I got things in alignment, power showed up.

And I was delivered from my incarceration in my garage. See, a lot of men are pushing buttons, cussing and fussing, and nothing's opening. The wife not changing, the children not changing, the career's not changing, but they're pushing all the buttons, and God is saying, I'm waiting for you to get an alignment. Because if you will get an alignment under me, you'll see some power that you didn't know you had. But because you're out of alignment and not operating in relationship under my divine rule, all your buttons aren't working. When the tires wear unevenly in your car and your wheel is shaken, that means you need an alignment.

If your life is shaken and you worn out and everybody around you is worn out too, that's because you need an alignment. So God would call all the men of Israel to three conferences a year to get them back in alignment, to get them functioning underneath God's covenantal covering. Now, to understand this further, we want to study some Hebrew for a moment. There are three Hebrew names for God in these two verses, different names, but all referring to God.

You see the spelling capital L, small o, small r, small d, that is the name Adonai. You see the name God, G-O-D, that is the name Elohim. Then you see in verse 24, capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D. Lord, capitalized, that's the name Yahweh or Jehovah. Three different names. So God is the speaker in the conference, and He gives three different sermons using His three different names, because He wants all the males to know all three names.

So let's look at these three names so we can understand what the men's conference was about, because that explains what it means to operate under the rule of God. One name, G-O-D, is Elohim. Elohim is God's creation name. In the beginning, God, Elohim, created the heavens and the earth, Genesis 1-1 says. L, the singular, before you get Elohim, the plural, L means strong one. Elohim is God's majestic name of creation. God spoke and His power was manifested. Elohim is God's power name. When a man is not operating under the rule of God, he's limited to his power. When he's operating under the rule of Elohim, now his power source has got a strip on it.

He's got a power strip because he's operating under the strong one. The second name, capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D, is Yahweh, or when you put the vowels in it, it's Jehovah. Jehovah is God's sovereign relational name. In Genesis chapter 1, you only see the name Elohim, and God did this, and God did that, and God did this. But beginning in chapter 2 verse 4 of Genesis, you see the Lord God, the Lord God, the Lord God.

It's no longer Elohim only, it is now Yahweh, or Jehovah Elohim, because that is God's relational name. See, a lot of men want G-O-D who don't want L-O-R-D. They want God without a relationship.

What God wants you to know is you don't get G-O-D if you're not willing to accept L-O-R-D. That is, you must be pursuing a relationship with him, not just looking for power from him. Dr. Evans will come back in a moment to talk about how we can develop such a close relationship with God that he'll give us a playbook instead of a rule book. First though, I want to tell you about Tony's brand new study book, Kingdom Men Rising. This just-released title empowers men to be strong, courageous, loving leaders at home, at work, at church, and in the community. You learn how to reject society's warped image of manhood and replace it with the biblical blueprint God had in mind when he created you.

What becomes of the next generation of men depends on what happens with this one. That's why we want you to be one of the first to have a copy of the new Kingdom Men Rising book as our thank-you gift when you make a contribution to help us keep Tony's teaching on the station. Along with it, we'll send you all 12 messages in Tony's Kingdom Men Rising series as a bonus.

You can get them on CD or digital download. But this limited-time offer won't last long, so be sure to get in touch with us today to get the details and make the arrangements. You can do that online at tonyevans.org. And while you're there, you can also check out getting a copy of the Kingdom Men Rising Bible study that can help you dig even deeper and assist you in sharing this important biblical insight with others. Once again, that's tonyevans.org, or reach out to our Resource Center at 1-800-800-3222 any time of the day or night. That's 1-800-800-3222. I'll repeat that information for you right after part two of today's lesson.

Here's Dr. Evans. God just doesn't want us as men coming to Him to see what we can get from Him. He wants us coming to Him because we want Him, and because we want Him, He doesn't mind us getting things from Him.

So if you are pursuing the stuff from God, but not the God who has the stuff, then that becomes an illegitimate pursuit of God, because you want the person without the relationship. The third word is capital L, small o, small r, small d. That's Adonai. Adonai means I'm your boss man. I am the one who sets the governing guidelines for your decisions. And he says, I want all three relationships with you.

I want to be your power, I want to be in relationship, and I want to have the right to overrule you. First Corinthians 11 verse 3 says, God the Father is over Christ. And then it says, and every man is under Christ. So if you name the name of Jesus Christ, if you declare that you are a Christian, that means that you are to be operating underneath the lordship of Jesus Christ, which means Jesus Christ has the final say-so over your life in every area. And then it says, a woman comes underneath a man.

But a woman is supposed to only come underneath a man who's covered, so that she too is covered. And so he called all the men to be under the covenant or under the covering. A man's self-definition is intrinsically tied to his spiritual subordination. Let me say that again. A man's self-definition is intrinsically tied to his spiritual subordination.

So if there is no spiritual subordination to the rule of God over a man's life, his definition of his manhood is flawed. This is risky business. This is risky business, because see, when you call all the men out at one time to the conference, that means there's no military. That means commerce has taken a major dive.

That means there's nobody there protecting the homes. That's risky business. God has the audacity to say, take a bet on me. You take a bet on me. You want a bet, man, bet on me. Because even though I'm calling all the men away from the nation to meet with the Lord their God at the very same time, it's gonna be alright.

It's gonna be alright, and I'm gonna show you that in a moment. So, all the men have come to the conference now. They all come to the conference, and they are, they're sitting there, and God is on the stage. He's doing the preaching, okay? He's doing all the sermons. Elohim, Yahweh, Adonai. What is he telling them? What is he telling them?

Let me show you something. Psalm chapter 25 verses 12 to 14. Oh, this is sweet. Watch this. Who is the man who fears the Lord? He will instruct him in the way he should go.

His soul will abide in prosperity, and his descendants will inherit the land. Watch this. The secret of the Lord is for those who fear Him, and He will make them know His covenant. This is deep. He says, if I could get the men to come underneath me, come underneath my authority as God, then what I'm going to do with those men is I'm gonna tell them some secrets. I'm gonna tell them some secrets. A secret, a secret is not everybody. When you tell a secret, it's only for the people you want to hear it. A secret is not blast out to everybody. A secret is just for that person you want to hear it. Only men under the covenant get secrets. Men who are not under the covenant don't get secrets. They don't get a private conversation about what God wants them to do next in their life, with their problem, with their career, with their money, with their circumstance. They don't get secrets. So men not under the covenant live their lives in trial and error.

Let me try this, let me try that, let me try this, let me try that. When Jesus Christ walked on the earth, He never had trial and error. He knew exactly where He was supposed to go, what He was supposed to do, because Him and God had secrets. Let me explain how this works. In football, you have a rule book. All 32 NFL teams have the same rule book, because the rules govern the game no matter where the game is being played. All the rules apply to all the games and all the players on all the teams in every stadium every Sunday, because it's the NFL rule book.

As you sit here this morning, I'm giving you the rule book. I'm taking the Bible, I'm seeking to explain it, everybody's hearing the same rules and the same guidelines, because you're hearing the rule book. But every NFL team has their own playbook. The playbook is not available to all the other teams.

It's only available to that team. This team doesn't give that team their playbook, because their playbook are the plays uniquely related to their team. All teams have the rule book, but each team has its private playbook. If you look at a football game, you'll see the head coach or the offensive coordinator calling in plays but putting a covering over his mouth. It's a sheet or it's a board, something so that the media won't show what he's saying about the play he wants the team to run next. He's saying it in secret. It's only for his team to know.

It's only for his quarterback to know. It ain't for everybody. It is not for the other team. It's not for the stadium. It's just for his team.

It's a secret. So you can come to church and get the rule book, but God says for every man, I got a playbook. I want to give you some private instructions with your name on it, and this play is just for you. It's not for every man.

It's for you. But that playbook is only given to men who are in the Covenant, who are under the covering, who are operating. The way God did it was He gave the play to Adam. Adam gave the play to Eve. We got Adam looking to Eve for the play, and the reason we got all these Adams looking to Eve for the play is that men aren't close enough to God to hear the secrets for themselves. Dr. Tony Evans will have more on the importance of spiritual covering tomorrow when he continues this lesson from his teaching series, Kingdom Men Rising.

I'll have more on that in just a moment. Men are wired for impact at home and in their communities. In the game of life, you either make the play yourself or you stand on the sidelines and watch the play being made.

The choice is yours, but too many have chosen to sit it out. In Tony Evans' long-awaited sequel, Kingdom Men Rising, he calls on men to rise up in places they're needed most. Get on the field, listen intently to God, engage in His plans. It takes both focus and faith to embody your true potential, and this isn't something that's out of reach. It's right there.

You can almost touch it. It's available to you if you'll rise and become the influencer God has designed you to be. Kingdom Men, it's time to position yourself to leave a lasting legacy. Find out more at TonyEvans.org. Also makes a great gift for brother, husband, son, uncle, pastor, and more. Don't forget this powerful book is available for a short time as our gift when you make a contribution toward the ministry of the Urban Alternative, and we'll send it along with Tony's 12-lesson CD series also called Kingdom Men Rising. A separate Bible study is available as well. Get yours before time runs out by calling 1-800-800-3222 or by visiting TonyEvans.org, where you can check out our huge library of resources and sign up for Tony's free weekly email devotional. That's TonyEvans.org. Dr. Evans says one reason men don't use the spiritual authority God gave them is they don't understand the covering over them. Next time, he'll take a close look at what that means. I hope you'll join us. The alternative with Dr. Tony Evans is brought to you by the Urban Alternative and is celebrating 40 years of faithfulness thanks to the generous contributions of listeners like you.