Collateral Damage: Consequences of Bad Decisions Part 2

This is Robbie Dilmore from The Christian Car Guy and Kingdom Pursuit, where we hear how God takes your passion and uses it to build a kingdom. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds.

Enjoy it and share it. But most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. Welcome back to Man Talk Radio, and I'm Will Hardy. And I'm Roy Jones.

We're so glad you joined us today. And I'm telling you, Roy, you know, that was some good discussion on last week. We were talking about the collateral damage of what I like to call marital fallout. You know, that's definitely one phase of, you know, I mean, and we have it, you know, it's in the marriage.

People need to understand as born again believers, you are always going to affect someone in some way. When you make a bad decision. When you make a bad decision.

Or when you make a good decision. That's right. You're going to affect them in some way. And so we want to make sure that you concentrate on the positive and do those things that are according to the word of God and not our own will. Right. But society teaches us different.

That's right. And we talked about that in last week's show that, you know, it is a it's an issue in our society that it's about self gratification. It's all about me. If I'm not happy, then I need to it's perfectly okay for me to walk away from everything and start again or walk away from my wife or walk away from my children.

It's okay for me to do all those things. And just because I need to be happy. And, you know, happiness is not joy. No, no, God gives you joy, happiness. See, I could be happy because I got some strawberry ice cream, you know, and then once it's gone, I'm not happy anymore because it's all gone. But joy carries you through it. It makes you as a child of God empowered to want to go out and do the things of God.

Why? Because on last show we talked about, you know, having a desire and being motivated, being determined, being satisfied, being fulfilled. All of these things a person needs in their life in order to be successful walking in the body, right? But you're never going to find it if you're seeking it out in the world.

That's exactly right. You want to seek in these things in the world? You won't. There will always be a void. It doesn't matter how hard you try and how much you've massed in terms of wealth, belongings, cars, houses, all those things without the father in your heart and in your life. You will always have a void.

You will always be unfulfilled. Exactly. Always. So what are we talking about today? Well, let's talk, we're going to move to the divorce piece, Will, because we, I wish folks you could see my brother over here. He's starting to look like a criminal because he's getting his mask up over his eyes. So I don't know what he's doing. Well, you can't see obviously because he's on radio, but he's, what is up with that mask? Don't go there, Roy.

Don't go there. I just got my mask over my mic. Stay on task.

Stay on task. What's up with that? Hey, we're so glad you're with us again. We're going to talk, we're going to lead off now with divorce and the collateral damage of divorce. And you know, hey, we're not here to judge, so please don't. And again, always know that when we get on the topic, it's about the holistic approach and we're trying to make sure that we're moving as a group of Christ followers in the right direction and getting men moving off the sidelines.

We always talk about it. It's not to sit here in judgment on any topic. If you've had to go through a divorce or if you've made that decision, the point is we've got to turn the tide so that we're teaching our young folks and we're teaching our adult friends that God has a plan and we need to follow God's plan. And walk these things out and go through the test of fire like we talked about. So that's the important part. So let's talk about divorce. Some of the collateral damage that comes from divorce and the first thing that comes to mind is obviously it teaches the children that it's okay to go to do this.

Absolutely. You know, and when we look at Matthew chapter five, Jesus talks about, you have, of course, this, this is the beatitudes and he says, you have heard it said in old time, thou should not commit adultery. But then he says, if a man looks on a woman and then he has committed adultery in his heart, so you don't have to have the physical act. And this is what we were talking about last time, having the wandering eye looking once.

But if you look again, enemy got you. Well, do you think that the people have weakened down the need to be holy in their life because of the blood of Christ? Well, I think that they're not looking at themselves and what Christ have done. And then to say, if Christ did this for me, then as a citizen of the kingdom, what can I do for others? Because remember the two greatest commandments, love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind and strength and love thy neighbor as thyself.

So if I do those, I have fulfilled all of the other eight. And so just to be clear, to go back to this infidelity thing, men, we're not talking about go love your neighbors, literally. No, that's right. We're talking about in the God sense. Absolutely. Just to be clear, so we don't want anybody to take our conversation wrong or with the wrong context. Well, because what they'll do is they'll say, well, that's a way to justify because this is what he said.

Talk to him and say, it's okay to do this. I love my neighbors. Let me go love them. But back to the scripture you just referenced, Will, is that Christ was raising the bar. And see, I want to go back to my question to you. When I said, do you think that people have weakened down their commitment because of the blood of Christ? I think people oftentimes say, well, I'm covered by the blood, so therefore all my sins are forgiven and I don't have to live as holy a life as the Old Testament folks did. Because in the Old Testament, that was the way, right? You had to live a holy life. So when Christ came, yes, we have our gateway to the Father. Now, no one goes to the Father except through the Son, through Jesus Christ. But it doesn't mean we live any less holy. And I think that's what we've done, Will. Exactly, exactly. And see, here's the thing, Roy, when a person is talking about living a holy life, we can't live that life unless, first of all, we have Jesus Christ in us. Amen. But also, I've heard people say this before, well, if my sins are forgiven past, present, and future, then why do I need to confess?

Right. Well, God would not have used the Apostle John in 1 John 1-9 to say if you confess your sins, he is faithful and just to forgive you your sins and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness. So therefore, if he said you have to confess your sins, you still have to confess your sins.

He didn't say that for nothing. So he knows that we are putting ourselves in position, and we do do this, to commit sin. But again, that's when I go back to James 4.17. If you know to do the will of God and you don't do it, then you sin. So my sins are forgiven, but if I'm willfully going out sinning, then I better confess that sin. That's right. And you know, folks, you can't remember everything you've done wrong. But if you have the prayer time with the Father and just ask him to cover the stuff that you've missed and those that you can remember, call them out. Absolutely.

It just shows your honor for the Father when you do those things and you're following his commands. Now, Roy, that second clip, I think we need to go ahead and put that on. And this is a clip from the movie Brown Sugar.

And I think what it does is we misinterpret some of the things that we see sometimes in reference to divorce and how we view it. Right. In this situation, if I remember correctly, the clip that's coming up is about the restaurant situation. Where folks, this is important, pay attention here, because back to what we talked about earlier, the seed plant, casual conversation that turns into something more, turns out to a restaurant.

And the next thing you know, you're in the middle of something, you shouldn't be there. Mr. Anderson, you deny each specific incidence of cheating. Yes, ma'am. Oh. Sorry about that.

Wrong clip. How you doing? It's funny running into you here, singing love songs to each other.

That was pretty. Don't stop on my account. Yeah.

You mind if we join you? No, not at all. Not at all. I'm sorry. I'm Dre Ellis. Richard Lawson.

Richard Lawson. All right. You sound educated. Good for you, girl. You guys are friends of Reese's. Well, actually, the funny thing is she's my wife. What? Look, hey, I'm sorry. That's cool. That's cool.

How could you know? She ain't wearing the $15,000 ring that I bought her. I should say it's still paying off, but you understand. Actually, I'm paying for it. Would you not put my business out on this thing? Are you joining us for dinner? Listen, my man. You know what? We were just about to leave. I'm trying to order the most expensive bottle of champagne, because we've been to celebrate.

Dre. We're going to celebrate what? My divorce. How about that? And some pork chops, because I'm kind of hungry. All right. Good. I want to make it mean. You know what I'm saying?

Bye-bye, Richard Lawson. So embarrassing. Well, that was, again, apologize for hitting the wrong clip there.

I'm new to the elements component here. But what's interesting there, back to what we talked about earlier, Will, is the seed plant. So obviously, this thing was framed out. The husband happens to walk into the restaurant where his wife is having dinner with or a meal with another man, which is obviously not him. And then take it from there.

And then what happens is both start getting on defense. So he's like, why are you here? And then she's like, well, you know, we're just here together. But obviously, she didn't say to him that she was married. And wasn't wearing a ring.

And wasn't wearing a ring. So he was like, well, what is this? So everybody's surprised. But the point here is this, Roy, is if you live that secret or double life, beware your sin will find you out. It will find you out. It will discover and ultimately expose the things that we are harboring in our heart. This is the collateral damage.

So we are harboring these things. And so now, all of a sudden, it starts affecting our work life. It starts affecting how we respond in community and all these things. Thought life, the whole gambit. You wake up thinking about it.

You go to bed thinking about it. So let's talk about some of the other collateral damage elements here, Will, of divorce. I think it lowers the bar of expectation for the children's future. Because when they see this happen, then they think, well, if my parents couldn't make it, why will I ever make it?

Absolutely. It creates a mentality of if it gets tough, I will just quit, walk away, fill in the blank, whatever it is. This can be in your job, in your marriage. It just sets the tone for it's okay to walk away without working through things. And there's only two reasons, Roy, in scripture that it is old. God basically put his seal on its divorce. And that is if an individual commits infidelity.

And in 1 Corinthians chapter 7, God blessed through the Apostle Paul to talk about abandonment. So if a person abandons you, just simply walk out, then you are not liable from that point. You're okay to be divorced.

And you can walk away and get remarried. Well, hey, we're getting ready to go into a break. We're so glad you joined us again. This is good stuff. Think about your bad decisions.

What is the collateral damage? We'll be right back. Welcome back to ManTalk Radio. This is Roy Jones.

And I'm Will Hardy. Hey, we appreciate you joining back after the break. So we want to wrap up this conversation around divorce and the collateral damage about divorce. So one of the things, too, that always happens, it pits people against each other.

Because no matter what the network is or what their friends are, close friends, whenever divorce occurs, then friends are split or you quit socializing with them altogether. Family members are hurt. And oftentimes, a spouse will pit the other spouse against each – the children against the other spouse. And that's the worst possible thing that happens in this collateral damage of divorce. It's for a mother or father to pit their children against the other parent.

It's just – it's really, really sad, Will. Or, Roy, when you devalue divorce. And when you devalue divorce, then you look at it as a means of escape instead of looking at what can I do. Look at it as a challenge and say, what is it that I can do to prevent this from happening?

That's right. Or to try and heal my marriage since it is a marriage for life. Yeah, and we often talk in our men's groups about if you will step in the natural, if you'll just take the step in the natural. In this case, it may be reaching out to a counselor. It may be going to your pastor and say, hey, I need help. My marriage is in trouble.

If you will take the step in the natural and turn it over to the Lord, He can come alongside in the supernatural and take you through a journey that you never thought possible, to a resolution and to a healing process and to a love and a depth of love, a true, true depth of love that you never thought you could have. You know, because in 1 Peter Roy, chapter 3, verses 4 through 7, God blessed through the apostle Peter and at the beginning of that particular chapter, though, He says, wives, submit yourselves to your own husband. But He also tells the men, He says, husbands, deal or dwell with your wives according to understanding. So we as men, we have to understand what it is.

And I think this goes back to the five love languages, you know, understand what their love language is so we can apply those things that they are calling out for. And they may not just call it out and say, look, husband, this is what I want. Most times they won't because there's been some reaction in the past that has basically squelched that voice. But you've got to listen for it.

Well, yeah, you do. And if you've squelched and you've responded such in the times past when she or he tried to talk to either one of you, and then it's basically closed the book and said, well, it's not worth the battle to have the conversation or worth the treatment or the response I'm going to get. So in this last clip. We're going to talk about this is from the movie Crazy Stupid Love. And, you know, when you listen to it, it's sort of like devalues.

And people using the excuse of divorce and how I can get out of it rather than work it out. Yeah. And hats off to Keith, our producer for finding this force, because it truly does show how complacent we've gotten in society. And we have.

And this is from a from this movie. You'll hear that and we'll come back to this. Oh, I just I got the report on the end of year financials. Good. Good. Good. Really great.

You killed this quarter. OK. Seriously. All right. OK. Seriously. Who told you that Emily and I are getting divorced?

Amy heard you crying in the bathroom. We all thought it was cancer. Oh, thank God. Yeah, that's my relationship. Thank God. I'm so lucky. You are. I have to go pick out furniture now. OK. OK. You go for it.

It could have been cancer, buddy. Everyone is just a divorce. Thanks. Feels good.

You know, that that should speak to everybody's heart right there, because, I mean, that truly is, I think, at least in the U.S., has become the mentality. It's no big deal. It is.

It is now. It's a big deal. Oftentimes to people who are going through it to some degree, but it's become the outlet. And what Keith was talking before we set this up and before the show was that it spoke his heart to how people have just gotten so complacent.

It's very complacent. Absolutely. And I think we should make it very difficult to get a divorce.

It shouldn't be just a matter of, you know, splitting the assets, signing the papers, having a year away, or some states doesn't even require that. We've just made it too easy. Well, and it's generally, Roy, the one big fight, and I'm ready to get out.

Yes. And that's a great point, Will, and one thing that was spoken to my heart sometime back is, folks, if you're listening, please never, ever allow Satan to utter those words or for you to utter those words and for him to get a hook in you that, well, if you don't like it, just leave, or I'm going to get a divorce because this just isn't working out. Because once you speak it, there's a hook. There is a hook that he's got either in the other spouse or in your heart and mind that, hey, you know, really, that's not a bad idea. I can make it on my own, right?

I really would like a fresh start. And, you know, there's all kinds of reasons now, Roy, why we can get divorces. I'm still trying to figure out, Roy, what irreconcilable differences is. What does that mean? What does it really mean?

Well, I want to divorce you because of irreconcilable differences. So, again, we're not making light of it, but, again, it's all of these terms that are put out here. And with these terms comes a way for us to easily get out instead of attempting to work it out. Well, nobody wants to work anymore at it.

That's it. So, therefore, it becomes irreconcilable. It's only irreconcilable if you're not willing to work at it.

So that really should be the flip side of the definition. Irreconcilable in the context of marriage or divorce means that I'm just not willing to put in the work to save my marriage. Now, again, we're not coming to the point of judgment. We're coming to the holistic view, the number of divorces in the church today, the number of divorces across the country. We know that it's an issue.

So, therefore, it can't be that everybody's irreconcilable, that everybody's to the point that there's no way to get through this. We know there are situations, abuse. We know that there's physical abuse. We know there's psychological abuse, psychological infidelity.

It's just multiple infidelity situations. It is time to pull out. And God has given you blessing to do that, or the authority to do that.

I wouldn't say the blessing, but the authority to do that and by His word. So, you know, Will, we've got to, as a society, we've got to turn the corner. We know that we're going to win the war, but we've got to turn the corner. We've got to start shaping up our families. We've got to start shaping up our households. And before we've got a few minutes left, I want to talk about the collateral damage of racial bias. And, you know, Will, obviously our show is a black man and a white guy, a black guy and a white guy. And that's because we love each other as brothers, and we're here to talk about the things that we experience in our life and the things that hopefully will help you understand a little bit better about what God intends for you as a man following Christ.

Absolutely. Because, you know, there's nothing like experience. When you, you know, when you have encountered things in your life that you can share and they are meaningful so that someone else could perhaps benefit from these things, then, you know, that should give you fuel to want to say, hey, if this individual here overcame and God says I'm an overcomer, 1 John 4 4 and 1 John 5 4, that I'm an overcomer and I overcome because of my faith, then there is nothing that can defeat me. I'm the one who defeats myself. I allow myself to be defeated when I'm disobedient, when I fail to meet the standard of God that he has set out in his holy word. These are the things we need to strive for.

That's a good word. You know, as we were talking about this racial bias intro here, the thing that came to mind was the Matthew McConaughey movie that was out several, several years ago and it was where he was defending a father who had killed and shot, he had shot the guy who had raped and basically had tried to kill his daughter, you know, like 11, 10, 11 years old. And so we'll bring that clip, we'll actually play that clip because it's a great, great opportunity to talk a little bit more about this racial bias and it sets the tone well.

So we'll try to get that clip for our next program and bring back and just cap this piece off. But folks, one thing we want, we know there's a lot of unrest right now in our society, especially in the U.S. We know from multiple things, whether it's the election topics or people's views on things or, you know, certainly the injustices as it relates to some of the deaths that have occurred. We know all those things that really got people on edge. Bigger picture, we know how the story ends, we know what God's, how God's going to end it. And if you're following, if you're following in the Christ follower, you know how that you've got your salvation, you know that you're going to be okay.

So that's why we want to reassure you at this point. Don't get distracted in all the things that are going on. Don't let Satan get you distracted with political issues. Don't let Satan get you distracted with social issues that aren't kingdom issues.

It needs to be kingdom issues that you are focused on in your daily life and your thought life. Get your thought life straight. If your thought life is not tuned up, then guess what? Satan's going to have a distraction on you. And your salvation may be assured, but your impact for the kingdom gets totally out of whack.

He pulls you off course because he's got you distracted. Yes, you're headed home, but what about the person you could have saved or the person you could have shared a good word to? And all of a sudden that person comes to know the Lord because of what you did. But if you're distracted with the stuff, everyday life of the social issues and all those things that are going on that aren't kingdom issues. Now God, this is important to God, but is it the kingdom issue that you're focused on or are you focused on an opinion?

Are you focused on one issue versus the bigger picture? And we've talked about this. And this is why God tells us in Romans chapter 12 verse 1, I beseech you therefore brothering by the mercies of God to offer yourself up as a living sacrifice. Because this is your reasonable service or your reasonable worship. If you're going to put the time in to devote your time to God, to worship him, to love him, to praise him, then he's going to give you the ability to love others. And once you're loving others, then you're fulfilling the law of God.

Living sacrifice, that means all in, totally giving up. Absolutely. It's no longer about me, it's about thee and they and we. Absolutely. And when we understand what our position is in Christ, then we could act on that position as men and women of God and we can stop a lot of these marriages that are ending in what I call superficial divorce.

Right. Which means you're going to also save those children in the background and they're going to have a healthy life and healthy marriage, better potential for healthy marriage when they get grown. And you're going to save your neighbor's children. Folks, we thank you so much for joining us. It's been another good conversation. Will, it's always good to see you. Likewise, Roy.

And we'll look forward to catching up here in a few days. Praise God. God bless you all.

All right. As we wrap up today's show, be assured that TAWCMM, Talking and Walking Christian Men's Ministry, is building a community of men that are Christ followers with a desire to be servant leaders in their homes, communities, churches, and work environments. Check out our website for upcoming events and regularly scheduled meetings. Drop us a note for topics that you would like to have us visit in the future. Thank you for joining us on Man Talk today. Visit us at www.tawcmm.com. Men walking the talk. This is the Truth Network.