Walking In The Word

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The Masculine Journey. I love that. You know, for those who don't know that is Ernie with the magical voice there that does our intro and has for years. But it does start here and now and tonight, interestingly, we usually have a whole studio full, but if you're watching on Facebook or YouTube you'll see that there are four of us present, one on the phone.

So we got Andy with us. But tonight's topic, you know, it's really at the heart of all of us, right? And I know not a single person here in the Masculine Journey would have much of anything to add to anything if we didn't have this particular subject, which Rodney, what's the subject? Walking with the Word. Walking with the Word. In other words, it's just critical, in my opinion, in fact it's not my opinion, it's God's opinion, to stay in the Word in order to be able to process any part of your life, really. And so we just want to take this particular show and kind of highlight, you know, that this is, you know, kind of the foundation stone from which we all stand and hopefully you are, too, as you're listening and maybe are learning the value of this in your own life.

We just wanted to highlight some things along those lines, right, Harold? If you're going on a journey, you need to know where you're going and how to get there. Yeah, so walking is, you know, a masculine journey, right?

It starts here now. It's a journey. And so much of that just happens, you know, as a result of, you know, think about how many adventures God got you into, right? I imagine, you know, He got you in there and what would you do if you didn't have Him to walk with you through that? And that happens through His Word and hopefully for you it happens numerous times a day, right, Rodney? He's the best tour guide I've ever had.

I would not want to go on a journey without Him. And teach you before you knew it. Right. And I know for you guys, all of you, that this is a lot more than just getting up in the morning and having some time in the Word, right? There's, because I've walked with all you guys enough to know, it's almost always on your mind, right?

If you try to get away from it, you're not going to be successful because you're going to stub your toe along the way and it's going to remind you. If you're lucky. Right. Yeah. And you've got so many times where you hear people, well, is it important enough to bug God about, to pray about, and talk to God about? And like, there's nothing too small. It's the, life is made up of many, many, many, many problems. Again, one of the big things I love to teach as well, if I tackle thousands of small problems every day, I'm probably avoiding some big ones. So I'd rather tackle them when they're small and many of them and keep doing it than to come into some big ones. And that's where we find that if we stay in the Word, we stay with him and we do whatever we can to stay in his presence, you will not be disappointed.

You will not end up with as major issues as what you would normally end up with as you depart from him. Right. So absolutely Rodney, because this clip that I'm going to use is from the book of Eli. And if you've not seen it, why not?

Okay. Cause it is truly like masculine journey 101 movie that you got to watch. It's the book of Eli. And essentially it's Denzel Washington is, plays the main character. Here comes a gigantic spoiler alert. If you watch it, you know, I'm, you find out near the end of the movie that he's blind, right?

And the book, the Bible that he's been saving all along is actually in Braille. And so here he has a been in this horrible bar fight that essentially he chops up everybody into pretty much dog food. That's that comes up against him in this particular bar fight. And he meets this young girl who was actually working there and she's like, stop, why are you, you know, why what's up with this? And so she ends up because he's wiped out everybody essentially that was, you know, the people that she hung out with.

She decided to start hanging out with him because there's been this horrible war. And what Denzel goes on to explain right before he tells her this is in this horrible war, what's happened is the Bible was the issue, right? That everybody was, Satan had sent whatever forces to destroy every Bible on the planet earth.

And in order to do that, he had destroyed much of the earth. And so there was no Bibles to be found anywhere until this particular scene happened. And, and the, well, I'll talk about it after we hear it from Denzel. One day I heard a voice. It's hard to explain what it was like it, like it was coming from inside of me, but I could hear it as clear as I could hear you talking to me now. What did this voice say? It led me to a place where I found the book buried under some rubble. The voice told me to carry the book out west, told me that a path would be laid out for me, that I'd be led to a place where the book was safe, told me that I'd be protected against anyone or anything that stood in my path. I've been walking ever since. And you did all that because a voice in your head told you to?

Yes, I did. I know what I heard. I know what I hear. I know I'm not crazy.

And I know I would have never made it without help. And so really I think anybody that really walks in the word knows exactly what that clip is saying because it's everybody's experience that really walks with God and walks with the word of God, which in John 1, it says, in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. Jesus is the word and the word is Jesus, how that works. And so when you're walking with God, you are in fact walking with word. But the nice thing about the word is it's 100% concrete and you can't argue it. In other words, if I wonder, did God really say, well, yeah, there it is in black and white.

It's absolutely accessible. But the interesting thing about it is just like he described, there's this voice, it was coming from inside and he knew that he knew that he knew. And interestingly, he did not choose it, but it chose him. And as we play these Bagger Vance clips over and over again, you remember that shot chose him. And it's the same thing with the word of God.

It chooses you. And you know that that was a voice that said, even this morning, Robby, get in there. And I want you to look in Psalm 119. And I want you to actually look in the verses.

I mean, this is my real experience this morning, okay? I mean, I want you to look in the cuff verses. I want you to look in the hoof verses.

Those were the specific instructions, right? And there wasn't anything I sat there and chose, although as I read it, he began to open my mind and wash my mind so that I could see things that I hadn't seen previously because he knew I needed that. Because just like Denzel was talking about here, he's protecting me. You know, I couldn't do this alone because, you know, he's walking with us every single minute. And so to walk with the word, actually, and I hope that a lot of your experience is way more than I do, but from my perspective, there's very few things that happen throughout your day that don't correspond to something that you got in the Bible. And you go, oh yeah, that's true.

I know that's true. You don't have to wonder if that's true because you know the Scripture that points to the fact that that's absolutely yes, right? And yes, there's a word and yes, you can read it, but also it's that voice inside, which is, by the way, the Holy Spirit, that is, you know, helping you along those lines, and it's all part of that process of making your journey, right, Andy?

Andy King Yeah, definitely. I mean, it's interesting. Recently, I've just really been diving into the Psalms. In fact, I've read through them, and I'm bad about just reading and not taking the time to study, but there's so much in the Psalms, and it's just being able to quote a Psalm for a particular event in life or whatever. I mean, Jesus quoted the Psalms so much.

They're quoted so much. There's so much of our life in them of what we go through. What David went through is the same thing that we go through and all, and it just, that desire to continue to go and to find life in the Word in a deeper way than what you did, and not just take the surface stuff, not the easy stuff, but dig down into it. It is, it brings life, and you know, you look at a Scripture on a page that was written about 3,000 years ago, or 2,000, well, yeah, about 3,000 years ago.

Darrell Bock Or 4,000. Andy King Yeah, yeah. And it's just so relevant, so relevant for what I'm going through today, and it's, we've all had those times. It's amazing. You get a Scripture that speaks to what you're going through in that day. How many Christians have you spoken with that have given evidence of that?

That's why we're connected to the vine. We're seeking him, and he's going to be faithful to give us those words of speaking to our life for the given moment. Darrell Bock Yeah, last week, I mean, the Lord did an amazing thing in our church there at West Ashboro Baptist in Ashboro. We got to baptize 11 people in the same day. Like, man, it was, you know, like more than 10 percent of our normal attendees in the congregation. It was pretty outstanding and pretty exciting. But interestingly, if you have something like that happen, Satan did not like that at all.

He was very upset about that situation, and he came after me with more stuff that I can remember dealing with in a long time. And so by Monday morning, I was pretty convinced that I was the biggest failure in the history of the world. I mean, I couldn't even, I couldn't find my way to the word.

I couldn't find my way through prayer. I was just, like, just beating myself up horribly, and Satan was using everything he could to enjoy, you know, watching me do it. And so when I got to the point that I was just, man, I knew, man, this is warfare. This is warfare. Robby, these are lies.

This is lies. Yeah, but how do you break out of it when you know you're in the midst of it, and it's on, and it's heavy duty? And I just kept pushing into God, and I kept on pushing into God. So we will tell you the rest of the story when we come back. In the meantime, you know, we would like to walk with you, walking with the Word at the next boot camp, which is coming up in November, the weekend before Thanksgiving, 21st through the 24th.

Go to masculinejourney.org and register. Being attacked or harmed, either physically or emotionally, I always had a negative aspect of vulnerability. But at boot camp, it's really different because we come, and there's seven or eight guys here that speak, and they all get vulnerable with the rest of us. And what comes from that is encouragement, just building up and knowing that, hey, I'm not by myself in this battle and warfare and growing up stuff. You guys have all had similar experiences, and it's great to know that.

Register today at masculinejourney.org. Oh Lord, as we come to you to receive the food of your Holy Word. Take your truth, plant it deep in us, shape and fashion us in your likeness. Pete And that is Speak O Lord by the Gettys, Keith and Kristen. I think this was originally maybe at Shep Con in 2019, but I was looking for something in, because I knew some lyrics from another song, and I was looking up, couldn't find that one.

I ran across this one though, which I love as well. And then the food which feeds us. And you think about somebody who overeats is a glutton, but you can't do that with God's Word. All you want is more, and you're going to be in better spiritual shape every single time you eat it. You're going to get better and better in the living water that we talk about so much as well. But it's just, when you talk about the ultimate gift that keeps on giving, God's Word, the more you're in it, the more you want more of it.

I've never had anything like that and would have always been, yeah, whatever, until I kind of immersed myself in it and found out, oh my gosh, there's life there. Steve If you realize, it's not your word. Darrell Bock Right? Pete Yeah, exactly.

Darrell Bock And so, you know, we left our hero. He was beating himself up, and I could not find myself with both hands. And oh, man, it was tough. And this is like two or three o'clock in the morning.

It probably was two o'clock in the morning. And I was really just pushing into God, like if I can just get there, I always think about the woman caught in adultery. When Jesus showed up, he said, woman, where are your accusers? So I know that if I can get in his presence, I can truly, the prayers went bouncing off the ceiling, and I can sense his real presence. The accusers always go away, and then it's just me and him. And I can get something out of his word.

So I'm pushing in, pushing in, pushing in. I finally get to the place where I knew that I was actually in the presence of the Trinity, like the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and there I was. And he was very clear to me.

He was fixed to choose me for something. He said, Robby, because I was just telling him, I said, man, just give me some piece of Scripture. I was looking for some Scripture, because when I find the Scripture, then all of a sudden I can kind of become myself.

I don't know how to put it other than that. I don't feel like myself until I'm beginning to learn something. And so I was literally laying in his arms as far as I was concerned, and he says to me, Robby, what you're looking for is in your Father's Bible. And immediately I thought, well, yeah, my Father's Bible is around the corner in a bookshelf right there that I would get stuff. And he said, no, not that one. He said, there's another Bible you've never seen before. I was like, what? I knew my dad, I mean, this is his house I'm living in, and I knew my dad really, really well.

We were very, very close. And I know what Bible he carried. He goes, no, no, you don't know about this Bible. He said, I want you to go upstairs in his office, and he has a really super huge desk. It's actually, his desk is bigger than this. My dad was a big, best desk guy.

He just was. His desk is significantly bigger than the platform that we're broadcasting from right now. And he says, if you look up near the top of the left corner, you're going to see it. And he said, open it up, and it has what you're looking for.

And, you know, it's dark, and I'm thinking I'm on a wild goose chase, right? But okay, okay, all right, there's a Bible up here I've never seen before. Well, sure enough, man, I get upstairs, turn on the light, there's my dad's desk, look at it. He's got a lot of stuff on his desk.

A lot of stuff. But anyway, I look up there and I'm like, oh, wow, there it is, a burgundy Bible. And I open that thing up, and first of all, it has my name on the outside of it, because my father's name is my name.

I'm just junior. Of course, when he got this Bible in 1948, he was the only one, so he wasn't senior back there. So essentially, my name's on the Bible.

It says Robert Bruce Dilmore, and it says, you know, presented to Robert Bruce Dilmore on July 9th, excuse me, June 9th, 1948. For excellency, and Harold can say the word. Darrell Bock Extemporaneous.

Darrell Bock There you go. Big word. But anyway, and I'm like, oh, really? How come I never knew about this Bible? And so I start flipping through it, and as I'm flipping through it, I come to this chapter in Romans. It's actually in chapter 12, where it says, overcome evil with good. And see, I knew what I'd been fighting, and that verse has always meant a lot to me, but it didn't mean near as much to me as to know my father had it for me.

In other words, he was walking. In fact, the whole reason for choosing this topic was I was just like, this is exactly what I needed when I needed it, and I didn't choose it. It completely chose me, right? And it wasn't just my journey, it was my father's journey, you see? Which clearly he got from his father, which was a wonderful Christian man, Hermoine Dilmore, and it just took my breath. It continues to take my breath on how refreshed I became almost instantaneously. In other words, within 10 minutes of God telling me that and me finding my place weeping over my father's Bible, right, as you could imagine, like here it is, exactly where you were told it was gonna be, and it was exactly what you needed.

It was exactly what I needed, and he knew it. But again, I bet you there's been 20 times I've thought about that verse since I saw it. Because like if you watch the movie, The Book of Eli, again, huge spoiler alert, but you just need to go get it. It's called The Book of Eli. If you go to the end of the movie, you're gonna see that the only Bible on the planet Earth that he is carrying out west gets destroyed, right near the end of the movie, and you're like, oh no, all is lost.

But at this point in time, all was not lost because the entire book was inside of Eli. And so he begins to just quote the entire Bible to these people as they're writing it down, and so the Word of God is preserved just like he did preserve it and is continuing to preserve it. No matter what happens to you, if you got John 3.16 in you, it's still in you. You know, if you have Psalms 23 in you, you know, the Lord is my shepherd, here you go. It's in there like Prego spaghetti sauce.

Ain't nothing gonna get rid of it. It's in there just like in The Book of Eli. And so, you know, that was my experience and part of the reason for the topic tonight. Harold, you look like you had a word. Well, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel would probably think I'm doing a disservice to them, but for quite some time I've sort of done a take-off on one of their Psalms. You know, for me it's, hello Bible, my old friend, I'm back to walk with you again. And that, to me, is kind of what it's like that even though for many years now I've read through the Bible in a year's time, because I have, well, the last few years I've been in the chronological version of it, but you become so well acquainted with some of the stories and the characters in there that, you know, you turn the page and it's like, oh, you're back. You know, and it's like, Aiken, what made you think you could take that stuff and hide it in the tent and get away with it?

It don't work that way, buddy. And just on and on it goes where things in the Bible that scream to us, I'm real, or this would not be here. There's no way that just men would put stuff in the Bible where David commits adultery with a woman and has her husband killed, and yet he's a man after God's own heart. Huh?

How is that? Well, he did some bad stuff, but he never left God. People leave God. God doesn't leave people, and so Scripture is a familiar friend when you let it become that, but it means you've got to be conversant with it over an extended period of time to make it be a part of you. And you mentioned the John 3 16, and that's special for me, because the last time I rode a motorcycle is I had a wreck.

I had on a t-shirt that was the Numbers of Hope, a book by Max Lucado, and it's John 3 16, and on the back of that t-shirt it has the the verse in the shape of the cross. Well, I had that motorcycle wreck, and that I didn't have. It's stupid me. I didn't have on any leather stuff, and the really odd thing that happened is on my right shoulder underneath that t-shirt I had a road burn, but the t-shirt didn't even look like it had been washed. I mean it wasn't cut or anything, which was kind of amazing, and so that's sort of been a thing that I look back on. It's like hmm.

Yeah, like hmm. Yeah, I had a wreck that people can die from less, and I came away with a few scratches. How fast were you going? Well, when I went off the road I was probably doing around 50 to 55, and I had done that before, you know, but I knew not to hit the brake, not to jerk the wheel. I knew what to do, but what I couldn't overcome was the gap between the shoulder and the height of the asphalt, so when I came back up on the road the bike jackknifed on me, and I was so tickled because like most little boys from South Alabama, I knew a lot of words and used to use them. I didn't want to use them anymore, and one of my big fears after I started riding is, you know, I don't want the last words out of my mouth to be something that it shouldn't, and I remember clearly that when that bike jackknifed, I remember saying, oh no, and I was so tickled that instead of a lot of those curse words that I know and used to use rather freely, I was so tickled that it was oh no, and, you know, there's at least one angel involved, and when I get to heaven he'll probably give me a black eye for what I put him through, but I came out with just some scraps. I did get eight stitches on the underside of my right arm, but other than that, oh. There's a short sleeve t-shirt, yeah.

So you like black eyes, huh? Again, we got a lot more coming after ours. We got a clip from both Rodney and Andy, and of course we need you, so, you know, you can go to masculinejourney.org, get the podcast, get it there, or any other of our, you know, outlets. Don't forget, we need you there at the next boot camp coming up in November 21st through the 24th. Go to masculinejourney.org, podcast, register. We need you. Come join us. This is the Truth Network.