Father to Son (Part B)

Ancient Egypt tried to exterminate all of the male babies that were born to the Jewish women. David knew that being a male and being a man were two different things. Just because you're a male doesn't mean you're going to be a man otherwise he'd never have to say to Solomon, I charge you to be a man. He's already a male. The implication is explicit.

That's not a contradiction, that's a paradox. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of 1 Kings. Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching.

Today, Pastor Rick will continue teaching through his message called Father to Son in 1 Kings chapter 2. Just one biblical basis for men to recognize, men, people to recognize the gender distinction is as in Deuteronomy 22. Now for the politically liberal and progressive agenda to succeed, men must be either removed or feminized. In some way they have to be marginalized. In some way they cannot prove themselves to be men if their agenda is going to succeed.

This was the case in ancient Egypt. The pharaoh said we got a problem here. We feel threatened. We have got to get rid of the men. But we can't.

There's too many of them. So let's try to nip this problem in the bud. Exodus chapter 1 verse 16. When you do the duties of a midwife for the Hebrew women and you see them on their birthstools, if it is a son then you shall kill him, but if it is a daughter then she shall live. See, Satan knows that there is a great distinction between a man and a woman.

I said many times, the Bible says that men and women are equal in value to God and should be equal in value to us, but they are distinct in their roles. Satan, as I said, knows this. And for Satan to succeed, he's got to take out the men. That's why he went through Eve to get to Adam. Adam would have clocked him upside his head if he had gone there first. Well, maybe not, but I would like to think that.

He would have more than likely said no, but Satan, of course, more cunning than any creature in the garden, of course, went to Eve first. This was the same story with King Balaam telling Balak, look, send the women in, not the troops if you're going to win. For homosexuality, for the homosexual agenda of intimidation to succeed, men must be corrupted in their thinking. And that's what we're watching. We're watching this happen.

Men have been corrupted in their thinking to suppose, okay, well, you know, you see it years ago. Well, hey, I don't judge. Well, you should. There's just some things you should judge. Hey, there's a cannibal family moving in. I'm judging them right away.

What happened to Baxter? He didn't judge him. So they cooked them. I guess. I don't even know if they do. Do they cook them?

I mean, is it like, you know, you got to heat the meat up. I don't know. For Islam to carry out its imperialistic conquest, and it is imperialism, a form of, the men must be converted. Islam will not succeed. If the men don't give in, then it's going to be a fight. So it does matter.

It's very serious stuff. The one element that God must have to successfully stop evil movements are men. If the men don't rise up, it ain't stopping. Now, granted, God can get the women to stir the men to rise up against evil. This does not diminish the role of the woman.

It heightens it. What if Eve said, why are you talking to me? You talking to me?

Why are you talking to me? What if Eve was from Brooklyn, right? It would have been a different story.

Satan would have walked away saying, where's my wallet? Well, a man can be every bit of man and not skilled in martial arts. He doesn't have to be able to shoot a weapon well to be a man. A woman can be every bit of a woman, even if she is childless. There's no way you got to have a child before you could really be a woman.

That's Satan talking. This is why, again, ancient Egypt tried to exterminate all of the male babies that were born to the Jewish women. David knew that being a male and being a man were two different things. Just because you're a male doesn't mean you're going to be a man. Otherwise, he'd never have to say to Solomon, I charge you to be a man.

He's already a male. The implication is explicit. That's not a contradiction.

That's a paradox. In 1 Corinthians chapter 6, Paul, in laying out what unrighteousness is, he goes on to say, do you not know the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God, nor the effeminate, nor Sodomites? Now, he lists other sins, too.

But the translators usually translate that word that means effeminate, they usually translate it homosexuals, when it is really men behaving like women. It matters with God. A man does not need others to agree with him to believe what is right and to act on it. Could you imagine if your pastor went on? I want to say this today, but let me take a poll.

Who agrees with me? You know, Paul never asked permission to do anything. And Paul said, you know what, I'm going to Corinth. He'd gone to Corinth. There was not, hey, what do you think, Apollos?

Now, he was not a tyrant. He said he wanted Apollos to visit, and he actually mocks him a little bit. He says, Apollos will visit you when he has a convenient time.

Because he felt Apollos should be in the fight more. Anyway, as I mentioned, a man does not need others to agree with him to know what is right when he can see it. I mean, at times we're not sure.

That's another story. Being a man does not mean that man should be a great fist fighter or a tough guy. Be able to do all the manly things that maybe we want him to do.

Not necessarily. Daniel the prophet was no mixed martial arts practitioner. Probably could, you know, take him out pretty good by the time he got to the lions, Dan. He wasn't, you know, a young man anymore. Yet, he could stand in the midst of the lions by faith and prevail.

Quite manly, if you ask me. Daniel, are you there? Has your god protected you?

I'm here, King. He could still, you know, he was, he didn't lose it, huddled up in a corner shivering. He could look into the face of his prosecutors and say, you don't tell me how to worship or who to worship. That's pretty manly, if you ask me. That is being a man. Mordecai refused to bow down to such a fool as Haman. I'm not doing it. I don't care what happens, I'm not doing it.

And if it gets us in trouble, God will get us out. Mordecai didn't count on the backlash. He didn't count on the people being, you know, wiped out, genocide.

But that's what the move that Haman played, and Mordecai went to God, and they won. Jeremiah and Paul's persecutions and beatings were very manly. I mean, Jeremiah suffered so much because of that male king, Zedekiah, who could not stand up to the people that hated Jeremiah because Jeremiah preached the truth. And again, Paul. Paul was not this brawny guy.

He was just a regular guy who would preach the gospel no matter what. I will add that women who are in competition with their husbands are under the influence of Satan. This one thing to do the best you can do is another thing when your motivation is to try to outdo the other one. You're not rowing together at that point. And that goes for the man, too. If you're competing with your wife, you don't know who you are. Your compass is broken. You can't find the right direction. This kind of attitude has caused in-laws to be very problematic when they have this attitude.

You know, this, your grandparents over here are better than those grandparents. I mean, it's just stuff that Satan gets in there and does. This is, none of what I'm saying is anti-woman. It is anti-corruption of men. That's what I am preaching right now. Men don't ask women how to be men.

You go to the Bible, you go to another man. I'm not saying a woman cannot give good input. I'm not saying that. But if I want to learn how to be a man, I'm not going to say, maybe when I'm a little boy, yeah, but as I get older, I'm going to not, say, Mom, what do I need to do to be a man? Again, not that, my mother would say things.

For instance, she would say, when I was a boy, a man that beats a woman is a coward. Well, to this day, I've not forgotten that, because it's right. It is true.

It is accurate. So I'm not at all saying that moms and sisters and daughters and women in general cannot contribute. But how we go about it, it does matter.

It matters a lot. And here is David being the father and saying, Son, I'm charging you to prove yourself a man. Verse 3. And keep the charge of the Lord your God to walk in his ways, to keep his statutes, his commandments, his judgments, and his testimonies, as it is written in the law of Moses, that you may prosper in all that you do and wherever you turn. David is now, in verses 3 and 4, echoing Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy 4, 29, for example.

There are several verses in Deuteronomy that he is echoing, as well as the Davidic covenant between God and David given by Nathan in 2 Samuel 7. He is saying a king can only prosper by faithful respect and pursuit of God's word. Well, that would be true of us all, especially of the leaders.

You have less space. Well, there's more consequences in the lives of others if you fail in the position of leadership. And a leader can be anywhere from an individual to a head of a home. Joshua 1.8.

This book of the law, God said to Joshua, shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Well, there's a bad success. Bill Gates is a bad success. You know, there's no software that's going to get him out of hell. And if he doesn't figure it out before then, it's going to be too late.

He has an example. He says here in verse 3, David does to Solomon, and keep the charge of the Lord your God. That preposition, the charge, is significant. It connects the charge to be strong with this charge to be obedient.

They go together. Obedience and strength are united. Don't we pray, Lord, give us more power, more strength? Give us strength to love, to forgive, to obey? This is the path of safety, David is saying. This is the path of the devout and the loyal to God as best we can do. And a strong church brings out the best in believers.

It is designed that way. In Ephesians chapter 1 verse 22, he put all things under his feet. That is, the Father put all things under the feet of Christ, the authority of Christ, and gave him, that is Christ, to be the head over all things to the church. This is his church. And, you know, what we're seeing more and more are churches turning to technology now. Where there are, it's not about evangelism, it is about algorithms. If we can find the right algorithms and post them on our website, then we will be able to pick those people. So, you know, the hot buttons, you know, drugs and divorce and things like that. And we just attract people that way. This is ramping up in high gear.

A couple of weeks from now, I hope to hit it. I'll quote my source excerpts from the article that was on this very thing. In the article where I got it, there was no shame. There was no mention of Christ. It's just that we're going to reach people through our rhythms. Ephesians 3, 10. To the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places. He's talking about the local church.

There are those that would like to reduce. This is a universal church. It's invisible.

It's just everywhere. Well, there's some truth to that, but that's not the main point. They obviously wouldn't have anybody to write the letter to. The church was a recipient to the church in Ephesus, to the church in Smyrna, in Pergamos, in Thyatira.

I mean, it was to the assembly. I don't take it lightly when someone, a Christian, says, I believe in Jesus Christ, but I don't go to church. Well, I've got a problem with you, because the Bible has a problem with you.

And if you think I'm going to stand here and agree with you, you're wrong. And in fact, you use gentle and loving rebuke. That usually doesn't turn them.

They've made up their mind. Anyway, Ephesians 3, verse 21. To him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen. It would be easier if there was no church to the flesh. It would be so much easier. You wouldn't have to worry about, let's get servants in the children's ministry. Can we get some more ushers, some young men step up? Can we get this?

Can we do that? Wouldn't have any of those problems. Right now, I'd be sitting home eating a cheeseburger, searching for something wholesome to watch. And that's how I spend my whole night, because I never find anything.

Okay, I'll be back tomorrow and just keep clicking through. Well, I saw that documentary on lizards. I didn't care for it. Anyway, back to, Hey, keep the charge of the Lord your God. Man, David is shining brightly as a dad in this one.

Why was he doing this years ago? Well, he had his battles. David's own failures and the overcoming of those failures added great weight to what he's saying to his son.

His son is a man now. He knows about David's failures, disasters. He also knows about his victories. And he has decided, Solomon, at this point in his life, that his father knows best. He's not pushing against him.

He's receiving it. And the proof is that everything David tells him in this chapter, he does it. He gets it done. You've got to deal with Joab. You have to deal with Shemaiah. And he goes and takes care of business.

That will be when he purges at next session, if we are still here. And David adds this. He says, Keep the charge of the Lord your God as it is written in the law of Moses. At this time, it was Joshua back to Genesis, and that was pretty much it.

Officially, as scripture. And David has said, Be a man of the word. Keep the law of the Lord, I'm charging you with this, according to the scripture.

This title, incidentally, The Law of Moses, is most consistently used of the first five books of the Bible than any other. And here is David. And where is David? David is on death's doorstep. We were told, David is, I go the way of all flesh. David says, I don't have much time.

I know I'm dying. And yet, David is still quoting scripture. He is still ministering. He still matters. He still counts in this life.

He is still an influence. Christ did the same from the cross. Stephen did the same there in Jerusalem, where they stoned Stephen. What was Stephen's last word? He's quoting Jesus Christ.

Don't lay this charge against them. Powerful witnesses we have. You want to learn how to be a human being? Read the Bible. Because God holds up the good and the bad. And he says, Which one do you want to be?

Go after that. Verse 4, And that Yahweh may fulfill his word, which he spoke concerning me, saying, If your sons take heed to their way and walk before me in truth, with all their heart, with all their soul, he said, You shall not lack a man on the throne of Israel. So David is saying, this is what God has told me. That my sons will remain kings if they walk according to the scripture. If they serve the Lord in truth.

Can't take that out. That's why alarms go off when someone wants to come up with a heresy. When we find a Christian or a church defending something that's not true.

We get quite indignant about that. That's a lie. Why do you have that guy speaking there? Do you know what he believes? Because he doesn't believe the Bible. Or he's one of those that wants to mingle the Bible. He'll come up and he'll say, I believe every word in the Bible and then proceed to contradict everything in the Bible. But he's one of his audience.

Oh, okay, he's one of us. Because the people sometimes are not listening. Because all we like sheep go astray. To David, God was personal.

That Yahweh may fulfill his word, which he spoke concerning me. I can say that. When John the Apostle says, and we believe it's John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, I can say that.

I can say that with equal enthusiasm, with equal authority. I can say, John, he loves me just as much as he loves you. And John, I am a lot more messed up than you. To John, the love of Christ was personal. Before the cross, to David, God is personal.

God could be known and God could be your friend. And I know as a young Christian, what was so outstanding to me working around unbelievers is that God was real. He was real to me. He still is real to me. It's not a religious thing.

It's personal. You can take everything away. God's going to still be there. And so David is saying, son, for God to fulfill his promise, you will need to be more than a male. You will have to be strong and you will have to be a man according to the scripture, according to truth. And the Holy Spirit says, this has not stopped being so.

It is still in effect. Integrity before God. Integrity before God allows a man to recover if he fails. If you fail, you say, you know, I'm wrong. I've got to build this back up.

I've got to get to work. To be able to be a man of God or a child of God, in the eyes of God and even people by that blameless according to the rule. And that's what Peter said. Look, they're going to say nasty things about you as a Christian.

Just make sure they're not true. Luke's Gospel, chapter 24, concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet, mighty in deed and word before God and all the people. This is the two disciples on the road through Emmaus. They're telling Christus about Jesus.

And he's going, yeah, that's me. But Acts, in Acts 24, there's Paul giving his witness and he says, I myself always strive to have a good conscience without offense toward God and men. God knows who I am.

He knows my heart and that's it. It doesn't matter what kind of damage I'm doing to human beings. We want the balance. We want to be blameless before not only God, but also before men. Otherwise, the integrity is sacrificed and we can become delusional, supposing that God is pleased when we're not living according to his word.

If your sons take heed to their way, that if is not chance like they might. It is a requirement. It is a conditional clause. 1 Chronicles 28, David's last words this belongs to. As for you, my son Solomon, know the God of your father. The authority that David is just pouring, you know he's under the anointing. And this is also the building of the temple at this time. He's just laying out how he wants the worship set up, how the temple is going to be.

And he is all over. This is a man going out of his life just like Elijah, just not with the chariot on fire, but just as a sensational, spiritually, sensational leaving this world. And so he says, as for you, my son Solomon, know the God of your father and serve him with a loyal heart and a willing mind.

Have a teachable spirit. For Yahweh searches all hearts and understands all the intent of the thoughts. If you seek him, he will be found by you. But if you forsake him, he will cast you off forever.

This does not put us in a bubble. This does not make it so that if I'm having hard times and I seek God, he's just going to come and take my problems away. That is not what it means. It means that when the dust of this life settles because you adhered to the Lord, you abided in Christ, you will be with Christ forever. And there will be no more suffering for you. God always has his eyes on eternity because that's where he dwells.

He says, if your sons take heed to their way, to walk before me in truth, truth is to be lived and it must be esteemed. Why the world doesn't really, you know, the news media, how much time do they spend suppressing the truth? You know what they call it?

They even have a fancy, well it's not fancy, it can be. They have a word for their suppression of the truth. It's called editing. Don't tell that story. That's true.

Tell this story instead. That has nothing to do with anything. And they do this all the time, if not flat out lying as they do do. And so they do not respect the truth as truth is not esteemed. David is saying truth must be esteemed and it must be guarded in the mind. You have to have it in your head that this is what's going to dictate the course of your life, truth.

It's not a magic wand. Just because you love the truth and pursue the truth and are a child of the truth does not guarantee that you will be shielded from other truths that aren't so pleasant. Thanks for joining us for today's teaching on Cross-Reference Radio. This is the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia.

We trust that what you've heard today in the book of 1 Kings has had a lasting imprint on your life. If you'd like to listen to more teachings from this series or share it with someone you know, please visit crossreferenceradio.com. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast too so you'll never miss another edition. Just visit crossreferenceradio.com and follow the links under radio. Again, that's crossreferenceradio.com. Our time with you today is about up, but we hope you'll tune in next time to continue studying the word of God. Join us again as Pastor Rick covers more in the book of 1 Kings on Cross-Reference Radio.