Welcome to Man Talk, a ministry sponsored by TAWCMM, talking and walking Christian men's ministry, where we're devoted to breaking down the walls of race and denomination, and to point men to their God-assigned roles.
Now here's your hosts, Will Hardy and Roy Jones Jr. We finished up last time on lesson number one. We were talking about the walking with God, and we introduced a little bit of obedience, but we were centering on walking with God. And this is what Noah did. He walked with God even though he did not understand all of the things that God was going to put him through in order for him to be blessed and be the one chosen because he was righteous, to be the one to repopulate the earth. So we are in actuality all descendants of Noah. That's a great point, Will, which brings the question up as you were sharing about being righteous. The scripture says there's no one that's righteous now, not even one. So what comes to mind when you think about that? For mankind to have gotten so evil and so bad that God was ready to wipe us all out during that time period, but there was a righteous man in that moment that God had sought favor.
Absolutely. And I think that was the key. And the favor comes with the faithfulness.
So the faithfulness, when he was faithful to what God said and not detour to the left, right, or even go back because we see the lives of those who were not faithful and what God did to them in order to let them know that he was God. And see, God can do whatever he wants to, whenever he wants to, to get your attention, and he will get your attention. I just have a visual of all these people floating, can't swim because they haven't been in water, and then all of a sudden they're just covered up. I mean, just the panic and just the disappointment that had to have been all in their spirits, just knowing that. But just think about, Roy, if you was in the ark and you heard all of the screams, the babies crying, you know, and let us in, let us in, and they couldn't get in. And the reason why Noah couldn't open the door is because God shut it. And when God shuts a door, it cannot be opened by man. Scripture tells us he closed the door. Absolutely.
Yeah. So a couple of things here we talked about earlier about Noah. He walked with God daily, Genesis 5, 22 and 6, 9.
He obeyed God completely, Genesis 6, 22, and he worshiped God respectfully, Genesis 8, 20. Well, Roy, there's an application question here, and it said, how much of the world's disorders exist in your life? You know, that was a great question. As I was looking through it, I'm thinking, when I think of disorders, it's almost like disobedience as it relates to this study we're in the middle of here. And, you know, my disobedience is, and I'll be very transparent here, is probably just like it is for every man, is reading enough, studying enough. And that's something I've committed to this year, and we're doing the one-year Bible, also doing another study to help along with that each morning or each evening.
And I've even got it booked on my calendar. So from that standpoint, I see it as disobedience. And so I'm probably not as tuned up there. But otherwise, you know, knock on wood, I don't see of anything that's really out of order in a large sense, not like it's a repetitive breakdown, if that makes sense. I feel like I'm walking close with God. I feel like I need to be doing those things that he's put on my heart to do for men, for my family, for other people. And I just, you know, in a spiritual sense, I'm in a pretty good place, I think.
Amen. And, you know, disorder can come, I think, in the life of any believer in many aspects. A disorder could be something that you as a believer had purpose to do. You know, and then all of a sudden some external stimuli come and cause you to be distracted and then to be diverted, you know, to other areas. And I think that happens with all of us all the time, you know, in our life. So that's something that men, that you could be cognizant and cautious of, because these things are there to ensure that you don't do what the word of God says.
So when a distraction or disorder attempt to come, it's wanting to take you away from everything that God said you should be doing. Amen. And not just being busy, but being productive. Right.
That's the key. Productive in a spiritual way, because all of us can be busy. Kingdom building. Yes. Not cleaning out the four walls. Exactly.
So, Will, how much of the world's disorders exist in your life? Well, that's what we just said. You know, those things that I think we as directed by. Exactly. You know, and it's like you might be in the middle of doing something or doing study and all of a sudden the enemy place put a phone call in there, you know. And so now, instead of concentrating on God, now you're on the phone talking to somebody that you could have a conversation with because it's something not pressing. You know, and I get these all the time now, especially now that I'm not working, working.
Now that you're working for fun. Exactly. Exactly. And for God. You know, it's the it's the it's the thing that I think the enemy wants to do is to keep us doing things that are not productive spiritually for the Lord. And then to keep us at a point to where we're busy and we think the business that we're doing is work that we're working for God, which is told to totally completely different things. You could think it and it not be for God, but we can convince ourselves it is.
And that's exactly what the enemy wants. Yeah. And he's very successful.
Yes, he is. So, Will, if the world is going in a downward direction, this application question number two, how do you stop moving in that same direction? How does one stop moving in the same direction? Well, the thing about it is, is we have to stay focused because we talked about those distractions and those things that will cause us to be disobedient. So what we have to do is remain focused. And how do you remain focus is putting the word of God in your inward spirit.
You can't go to the bank. And we've used this example before and say, I want to withdraw ten thousand dollars if you only got five dollars in the bank. You know, so you have to put something in your spirit and we feed ourselves bodily every day.
So if we're not feeding our spiritual man, what we become is we become anemic because we are spiritually not allowing the Holy Spirit of God to get the word of God down in us. So we can use that when we come under attack and attacks happen all the time. I was talking to a Facebook friend of mine and I was telling him, I said, you know, I'm getting ready to make a trip. Third, another third trip over to Thailand. Love that place.
Love that food, too, by the way. But it what what I found is on my first trip in 2014, I encountered a family, Roy, who had gone through the tsunami back in 2004. Which happened on the other side, actually, on the west side of Bandarachi and this family, because his wife, she spoke English. And so she was translating in Thai because he didn't speak English. And he was saying how when the tsunami wave came, how he was near the beachfront and the beachfront got hit hard.
But he said the wave carried him almost 10 miles inland. And he was crashing into things, you know, chairs, furniture, cars, trees, all these things where he was crashing into. And he said that somehow, he said, I looked around and there was like all of these people who were dead. And he said, we were still alive.
Me, my wife, my son and daughter, we were still alive. He said we were hanging onto a board. And we were just going with the waves because we couldn't fight it. And he said all of these dead people, he said, but yet we were alive. But he said it was almost like a hand picked him up and his family and put them, distributed them on this one little pile of dirt on the island. And he said, I can't explain why.
And I told his wife I can. So I shared the gospel with him. So he wasn't a believer.
He was not a believer. But I shared the gospel with him. And when I go back, they gave me, he gave me his address and stuff and of course everything is built back up now.
It's built back up much better and they have all these ocean things in there to where they can determine, you know, when the earthquakes and shakes and tsunami warnings and all this. But he said, on your way back, stop by and see us. Because that seed that was planted was just enough, I think, for him to start thinking.
I think she was more on board because she could communicate and understand the English. You know, because when you're translating, there's some time things get lost in translation when you're translating from one language to another. But when I think about that, I thought about how God's protection envelops us, even when we are unaware that there is danger around us that we may not even encounter. But it's happening around the corner. But because we're here at this point in time, God saying, you don't need to go this way.
You need to go this way. And we're wondering why we turn left instead of right. Well, if we turn right, there's danger. We turn left, there's God. God's protection.
The ark was Noah's protection. Jesus is our protection. The Holy Spirit is our guide. And if we don't learn to depend on him in times of need, then we can allow ourselves to not be walking with God, but we can be walking against him. And that's simply doing those things that we want to do and be criticized for them rather than doing our own thing and blending in, having the acceptance of the crowd in the world.
That's the difference. So good, Will. Very good. You know, one of the things that are a couple of things that came to mind when we were talking about downward directions was preparing for this and how to prevent that. All things which you have shared in the past and today and pursuing God, being daily in the Word, being in the Word daily in the community, being part of a like-minded community. So that helps you stay on course and stay tuned in. Exactly. To your point, it all goes back to the Word.
It does. It all goes back to the Word. So Roy, what is it like when you walk alongside someone? When you come alongside someone and you're walking with them, what is that like for you? You're talking about the mentoring stuff that we do? Well, from a step perspective, it's getting to know the individual, getting to know the heart of the man. And then once I know the heart of the man, then I can start talking about things that God has put on my heart to share. And so it's literally meeting them where they're at, getting a clear understanding of where they want to go or what's brought them to this point of wanting a mentor or that they want to go into a different level of relationship with God. And then, of course, just being honest and holding them accountable to the things that they may or may not know are right. But through the mentoring and the teaching process, they will learn those things through the Word, through the experiences you and I have talked about many times. And I think that means so much to somebody that when you've walked it, you've walked through the fire, if you will, quote, unquote, and you talk to them about how to get out of the fire, then they understand because you're coming from a place of experience, which we use quite often in our examples, versus an opinion. And so that to me, in a sense, being that brother that loves, doesn't judge, but holds accountable, teaches, coaches, lifts up, encourages, that's the things that come to mind.
And then getting them connected to a body, to a community, if they're not in a community, it doesn't matter if it's our community or what community, as long as they're in a similar mindset community, get plugged in. And you know, when you're walking naturally for health reasons, what you're doing is you want to build your body up. So because years ago, I used to be a runner, you know, I ran ran races, you know, marathons, 10Ks, 5Ks, 10 mile runs up in Washington, D.C., I did all these things. But when I and I felt good about it, now I'm reduced to walking, but walking because I can't run anymore, but for health reasons.
But there is an advantage when you walk, you're getting your blood circulating, you're building up your, you know, aerobic in your lungs, you're actually you're helping your lung capacity, you know, so when you do these things naturally and then you sort of like parallel that to the supernatural, you know, how does spiritual walking with a brother, you just describe that. So it's those things that you describe. But when we look at it a natural, we say, well, we do things. We're not just going to be a couch potato. We're not just going to sit on on the couch every day and just do nothing and eat bonbons all day. Of course, that's everybody know what a bonbon.
They should know what a bonbon is. But we're making we're making a comedic reference to a show that was in the 90s. So all of these things, I think, Roy gives us some direction with respect to how to walk, when to walk, because remember now it says walking with. So you're not ahead of the spirit, but you're not also not lagging behind the spirit. So we're walking in step with the spirit. And of course, the only way to do that is you have to understand what God wants from us.
And that's found in the word. Well, I think that concludes our part one. As we conclude today's show, TAWCMM talking and walking Christian men's ministry are building a community of men to be servant leaders in their home communities, churches and work environment. Check us out on our Web site for upcoming events and regular scheduled meetings. Don't forget to send us an email for topics that you would like us to visit in the future. Thank you for joining us today on Man Talk. Visit us at TAWCMM.com.
