S04 Ep33 Justifying your actions with Scriptures. Your will or GOD's

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. Happy God's Day, listeners.

Welcome back to Man Talk Radio. This is Roy Jones. I'm sitting here with Will Hardy. Will, it's great to see you today. Yeah, Roy, it's good to see you as well. Will, we've been talking over the last several weeks since our last podcast, I guess. You've got something on your heart as of late that you've been witnessing with some of the people out in the marketplace and some of the fellow believers and how they're using Scripture.

Let's talk a little bit about that today. Well, what you have, Roy, is you have individuals, I think, who have not understood the basic premise of Scripture, nor have understood the basic premise of how to interpret Scripture. So when they read it, they read and they take everything literal, because within the Word of God, there is symbolisms, there's anthropomorphisms, there's a lot of things that in there that describe certain things, and people take those things literally as though the Bible purports them or support them in such a way as a person should do it. For example, the Bible talks about polygamy, but that doesn't mean the Bible condones polygamy acts. There's people in the Bible who lied, but that doesn't mean that God supports liars. There are people who committed adultery, but that doesn't mean God supports adultery.

So the list goes on and on. So when you have an individual like that and they say, they may come to you and they say, that supports polygamy or supports adultery or fornication or something like that. Right, just because the Bible's speaking about it is not indicating that God's supporting it. It's creating the narrative right to understand what we're going to encounter in society in modern day times, and that's why the Bible's been applicable throughout time, because it spoke to the problems of basically men, correct? The challenges, the sinful behaviors, and if it doesn't speak to it, then how are people ever going to know that it's indeed wrong? And the fact that folks are trying to interpret it to support their position on participating in polygamy or adultery or any other sin you want to pull out of the Bible, lying or any of those sorts of things, thievery.

We understand, right, that that's not exactly what was intended. Well, you know, and of course when you talk about polygamy, and of course the first recording of polygamy is Genesis chapter 28 and verse 9, actually 6 through 9 will cover the whole concept of polygamy, but you had Esau. He went and he married an individual by the name of Mabelith, and this woman was actually the daughter of Ishmael. So you had a situation in there where he not only had this woman as wife, but he also had many other wives, and so the Bible speaks about that as well. So how can the Bible condone something on one hand and yet condemn it on the other hand? That would be a contradiction. So in Deuteronomy 17, 17 it talks about the differences between when an individual starts to marry that they are not to take multiple wives, and again in Leviticus 18, 18 speaks the same thing, that a man is not to uncover the nakedness of a woman if that woman is close to her.

And of course the Scripture outlines, you know, all of that in great detail when you look at the verses, and particularly when you start at verse number 7. He says, The nakedness of your father or the nakedness of your mother you shall not uncover. She is your mother. You shall not uncover her nakedness. The nakedness of your father's wife, you shall not uncover, because it's your father's nakedness. of your sister, the daughter of your father, the daughter of your mother, whether born at home or elsewhere, their nakedness you should not uncover. And of course, he goes all the way down through here until you get to verse number 18 and he says, Nor shall you take a woman as a rival to her sister to uncover her nakedness while the other is alive.

So that tells me that right there, you are not to have more than one wife. That's interesting, Will, when you look at it that way. I wonder what people that are trying to interpret those sorts of scriptures to fit their life. If you think about a follower of Christ as the conviction of the Holy Spirit in their life, right?

If they truly accepted Christ as their personal savior, then the question becomes, how does a person, are they overriding the consciousness that the Holy Spirit is providing them in order to rationalize the behavior and interpret scripture this way? And I think that's the case, Roy, because we know that there are certain encoded things within us that we know is wrong. So we have to ask, where do those things come from?

Where are they God-given for you to be able to determine what's good and what's evil, not even based on what God has said, but simply those things that you know you don't do in life. You don't all of a sudden get up and say, wow, it's sunny outside, today is a great day to go out and rob a bank, stick somebody up. It's funny you bring that up. I was just thinking about that this morning.

That may be a good thing to do on Monday. Well, see, there you go. So all of what we think we engage ourselves in, we understand that we don't go and we don't start putting screwdrivers in electrical sockets because you're going to get shot.

You don't go and put your hand in fire and say, I'm going to move these coals around and not expect to get burned. I think as followers of Christ, we've got to be mindful that Satan is in there in the mix, right? Absolutely. Trying to get you confused, distracted, off center, and your mind, the human mind, can rationalize just about anything if you focus on it long enough. And that's the enemy's objective. So I think the statement that we say is, if I can do it and not hurt anybody, it's OK for me to do.

And that's, of course, the rationale of the world. But you can't say, just because it's not hurting anybody, eventually it will, depending on what it is. It's going to have a rollover effect or spillover effect, either with yourself or with someone else that's in the household, on your job, within the Christian community or social community. Eventually the light's going to be shone on the sin, especially when you're trying to rationalize the sin.

It will eventually be shown on it. And when it illuminates, then the collateral damage and all the other stuff that's going to come with that will come flowing towards that particular activity. So that's the thing we've got to always be mindful of. You may be able to rationalize it.

You may be able to get yourself in a place of acceptance that it's OK to do this. But knowing the consequences will come eventually. It may not be today. It may not be tomorrow. But eventually those consequences will come from those actions.

So I want to go back, though, and look at that. When God made the statement through Moses, he actually started with the king in Deuteronomy 17 when he said that he shall not take for himself basically any other than one wife. Why?

Because he will be turned away. Now, when I look at that, I said, OK, now, if you have 10 wives, each one of them will want attention. And I'll just let you go with that. Yeah, yeah, you know where that's going.

I'm doing good to give enough attention to the one I've got, much less nine others. And I think that's what God meant when he said that if you're king, then and you have all these wives, all of these wives will want attention. So now you won't be focused to do your kingly duties. And of course, we see that happening in government when men go out and who are, you know, government officials, governors, mayors, congressmen, whatever the case may be. And they have extramarital affairs. And now these things spill over. Not only does it tarnish whatever platform that they had that they want to convey to the people. Now all that's been tarnished. Why? Because now we can't trust you if you can't even trust yourself in the home.

Yes. The first thing people said, you know, you lack integrity, broken the ultimate vow with your wife, you know, the most sacred and the most holy, second to our commitment to God. It's interesting, Will. And I believe that we as husbands have a great charge, right, a really great charge while we're on this topic of infidelity is that, man, we need to be faithful to our spouses. We need to be men of purity.

And we talk about that quite often on our show, but it never hurts to remind each other. We know that statistically speaking that there are purity problems in the church. There are purity problems outside the church.

But men, if you're listening today, and women, if you're listening today, we just encourage you, if that's a part of your life, that you turn that over to God and confess your sins and walk away from that so that your marriage can be holy. Folks, we need to take a quick break here. We'll be right back to you in just a moment. But while we're taking a break, we want to just tell you about a few upcoming events. We've got breakfast this coming Friday morning here at First Christian in Kernersville, North Carolina.

Start time of 6.30. So we've got an hour of prayer that'll be coming up in October, October 17th, Saturday, October 17th in High Point, North Carolina. That's open to all folks, men, women, children. It's going to be an hour of prayer. We want to make a very large stand in the community that we are chasing God and we want God to reign over our communities. So try to join us if you can in October, and then we've got family night here at First Christian, our host site, August the 27th on Saturday evening. We'll have a movie night, bounce tents for the children, refreshments, that sort of thing. So it is a community open night on that Saturday. So try to join us at 6.30, 7 o'clock on the 27th of August. Okay, Roy, you were talking about before when we were saying in reference to the things that will happen as a result of someone attempting to justify why they should do certain things that the Bible clearly calls for us not doing those things.

If you come to an understanding on, number one, what you have to do as a man within the family and what your responsibilities are, and you're following after God the way that God intends you to follow after him, then I think everything is going to fall into place. Because when the disciples came to Jesus and they asked the question, hey, Lord, why do you speak to us in parables? And Jesus told them, it's for you to know the mysteries of the kingdom, but for those who are outside of me or outside of the body of Christ, it's to them, they have no understanding of it. So what he wanted to do is convey and illustrate a natural illustration to convey a spiritual meaning. And so as they were being taught and as they were following Christ, he would give them these parables so that they can understand and associate, have an association with the meaning behind what he was saying. And of course, the scribes, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, all of those individuals, they had no clue on what he was saying. He's talking about a bush, he's talking about a tree, he's talking about seed being sown.

You know, what is all this he's talking about? It makes no sense to us because they were looking for structured language. And see, that's the difference when we're talking about in that article that I sent, that's the difference between descriptive language and prescriptive language, the two differences.

And it's so easy to get the two confused. Descriptive language is like being book-taught. So it's like, for example, when I tried to learn Spanish, and that was a chore, Roy, let me tell you, you know, and I'm reading from the book, and it's like, okay, this is the way Spanish should be spoken in the context in which Spanish originated. But everybody don't speak Spanish that way. You have different dialects, you have different areas of the country where people come from, and so if a person is speaking Spanish in Bolivia, for example, it may not be the same Spanish as you speak in Spain, the country. So that's the difference.

The prescriptive is how people understand the language, whereas descriptive is saying this is how it should be, but if it should be this way, it might be harder for me to understand it because it's structured rather than conversational. And see, when you learn languages, and I know you know this, Roy, but when you learn languages, that's what they, the teacher expects you to get in the understanding of learning the conversational piece, because you're going to be using that every day. You know, where's the restroom, where's the post office, where's the hospital, you know.

Where's the restaurant. Exactly. So all of these things is conversational, and see, and that describes prescriptive language rather than descriptive. That's good, Will. Will, as you've mentored and counseled and just hundreds of people through the years, what has been your number one observation along this line with people you've counseled? Have you had these rebuttals and these responses that, well, wait a minute, scripture says this when you're trying to coach a couple or an individual through a sinful situation or behavioral change, do you ever get that type of rebuttal where they're trying to interpret scripture different than what it was intended?

Absolutely. And basically, it follows the sense of reasoning when it comes to people, and that is whatever and whenever I read the Bible, I read it and I take it literally for what it says, which, and we're going to get into some of the other symbolisms that the Bible notes. But again, and I think this is where you have individuals who don't have an understanding because they are outside of Christ. So when they read something and they say, wow, there's polygamy or there's lying going on in the scripture. So if lying is going on in the scripture, then they must be tolerated.

So maybe I can tell a little white lie or, you know, get away with this or that. So that's what I've seen, Roy, is when people take things literally and in all cases in scripture, it's not speaking literal. So we have to have the, and understand the difference between when symbolism is used and how that symbolism is interpreted versus when Jesus speaks something and he is speaking something literal.

So you know, when we go back and we look at the law, for example, you know, we look at the law, Levitical law, we look at the law as it's outlined in Deuteronomy, all those things were literal. You know, when God said, don't eat this, you don't eat it. And there's reasons behind why you don't eat it. You know, you had certain animals that had hooves or, you know, that they were not allowed to eat.

And of course, these were for like health reasons or things like that because they couldn't preserve certain type meats or if God simply says this particular animal was unclean. And so that's the difference. But that's what I've seen, Roy. I've seen people look at the scripture, take it literal when it might be speaking symbolic. And they use that as a means of justifying. Thank you for sharing that, Will. Folks, we do want to reiterate that we believe the bot with the true word of God. What we're trying to explain to you here is how to interpret certain things that you're reading so that you're applying it properly and you're not taking it out of context and make it fit your situation and circumstance. So sometimes when you hear people say, well, and Will, you know, we've had this happen quite often.

Is the Bible literally, is it the word of God really, you know, and that's, is it truly from him? So yes, we believe all of that. Let's be clear. We don't want any confusion on the podcast at all here. So I believe if people have listened to our podcast, they basically know where we stand when it comes to this.

It might be that first time listener turns in and says, wait a minute, what's up with these guys? Exactly. So, you know, when you, when you have somebody who again, and that's something we'll probably talk about a little later too, is they say, well, man wrote the Bible, but see again, if you don't have an understanding of what the Bible says, God use man to write the Bible, but it was God inspiring man to do so. So the inspiration comes in when God moved upon man. And as he moved upon man, man wrote what God, amen, and tended him to write.

And there was nothing more, nothing less. You know, God, the whole word of God is everything that we need in order to journey through this life and to overcome any obstacle that, you know, might get in our way. Well, I tell you, we've got a bunch of obstacles for sure, especially in today's time. There's always something that's coming at a couple or an individual or a child, or you just never know what you're going to encounter. That's why as before we started the show today, you know, as Johnny prayed, our producer prayed for us, it was just nice to remind ourselves that the blessings that God has given us and I don't think we talk enough about that while we're here on this topic real quick. If you just take a moment and thank Father for everything He's provided you, even the tough circumstances you may be in, it still is grooming you and shaping you for the next steps. And oftentimes when we go through those journeys, we don't recognize what the purpose is, but God will unveil that down the road.

It may be that you're supposed to speak into someone else's life who's really struggled with someone that didn't have God to lean on because they didn't have that personal relationship that you have, and that may be the very thing God uses to open a door with someone else. So take a moment, be thankful for what you have for your family, and if you're in the middle of a struggle, please let us know. We're more than happy to pray for you. We would welcome the prayer request.

We've gotten several online and there is a form on our website at tawcmm.com. If you'd like to submit a prayer request, we'd love to hear from you, and we do thank you as listeners for all that you do and all your support for our ministry. Amen. And we do respond to every single prayer request that comes through, and we will get back to you with an answer in reference to how we prayed. I know I've sent a response back to an individual who put a prayer request through and was asking some more specifics, and they said, well, you know, at this point, we're just going to have that unspoken, which we honor, you know, that some folks don't want to go into any details. And so we just ask God, you know, in our prayers that we know that it is, you know, you as an individual understand what God wants for you. And so we're praying with the understanding that even though we don't know the specifics, God does. He can cover that, and he appreciates our intercessory actions on their behalf. Absolutely.

It will honor that as well, even though we may not have the details. Will, we have had a good topic, a discussion this morning. I think it's, or today, it's been good for us to chat through this, and folks, Will does an excellent job with his scripture references and the memory recall.

We feel like he's an elephant at times with his memory recall, but it's so blessing for me personally to be a part of this conversation with him each time we're together, and we hope that you're gaining something from this. It's all about maturing and getting just a little bit further down the road in your walk each day. And remember, you're on a marathon.

You're not in a sprint, just to walk it out that way. And for further understanding, Roy, we're going to pick this topic up for next time and talk a little bit more about this, because we know that this is something that I think the general audience that's listening and some things that they can take back to people who they might encounter in their family or friends or associates in the workplace, they can take back and challenge some of the things that a person might say in reference to why the Word of God says this or why you should be following this or why you should understand this this way and not that way. Thank you, Will. That's a good lead-in for our next program next week when we get back to you. We just want to again thank you for being with us today.

It's been a great honor of mine and Will's to be with you. We feel honored to be able to share the gospel with you and just to talk about how God's walking this out in both of our lives. We love you.

We appreciate you. And please reach out to us. Let us know if you need anything in terms of prayer support. If you want to financially support the ministry, we occasionally let you know about that as well. There's an opportunity to donate on the website and keep the podcast moving.

Amen. Thank God for everything that he's doing and everything that you're doing. We love you and God bless you. 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 website 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.