This is the Truth Network. Coming to you from an entrenched barricade deep in the heart of central North Carolina, Masculine Journey After Hours, a time to go deeper and be more transparent on the topic covered on this week's broadcast.
So sit back and join us on this adventure. The Masculine Journey After Hours starts here, now. Welcome to Masculine Journey After Hours. We are talking about a topic that everyone has an opinion on. But every one of them are wrong.
Yeah. Wouldn't that be most things? Depends who you ask, right? We're talking about the topic of justice. And you're going to have some people say, well, obviously, this would be a justice kind of thing if this happened.
But we don't know the whole story, as we talked about at the last show, that there's more going on behind the scenes that we may not know. And you can get into the well, Hitler, or you know, or you just throw out certain certain things and yes, there's obviously outliers, but Look at our whole Political realm, everybody has an opinion of what justice would be in that area. No matter what you're talking about, just look at the news in general. You know, there's a whole lot of people looking for justice. And it's not going to happen more than likely.
It will be for some and not for others. But we're talking about a justice that's permanent for everybody. Robby, you want to take over from there? Because I just probably butchered that all up. No, you didn't.
So we are. We're on a sort of a series. We had done. We did Comforters last week with the idea of our struggles within these areas, one of which being justice. We have struggles trying to figure out where it is and how it lines up with.
You know how we're feeling. We feel like so many things have been unjustly done to us, or we feel like so many people have told us untruths because we're. putting together these things out of the 85th Psalm that were Again, truth. Justice in the American way, no. Truth, justice, loving kindness, and peace.
And As we showed in the or talked about in the first show, that God's justice is clearly coming, and clearly, everything, everybody's going to get exactly what they have coming. But unfortunately, sometimes when we decide that we're going to add our two cents, then we get something coming because we have stepped out of our own realm and we now deserve a little justice ourselves. And so, how fun! We get to dig a little deeper. Absolutely.
Andy, you actually have the first clip. Was there something else you wanted to add, Jim? You shaking your head, we can't hear you.
Okay. All right. Go ahead, Jim. That's Ed who's on first.
So my clip is from the Band of Brothers, the the uh Curie episode. And In here, you find a Captain Sobel, who's a pretty insecure man, pretty hard man. And he's not Thought very highly of by his troops. And you know, this is most of this justice. The thing that you know, brought Darren bringing this topic.
It's pretty Pretty tough thing that happened to his family. This isn't like that. It was somebody. You know, killing somebody of your family member or anything. But these are guys that really had a hard time.
This guy was making their life horrible. in boot camp and we all know what boot camp and that kind of thing is like. or in training. And toughen them up, but this guy was over the top and um. He was really rubbing his soldiers wrong, and you'll hear that in the clip.
But then kind of justice gets meat out at the end. But there's more I want to talk about, but this is basically these guys. Preparing for war, how he comes down on you'll hear Captain Sobel interacting with Lieutenant Winters, who's really the focus of the band of others. He ends up rising up to major Um very good man. And he's just, he's kind of, he's had, he's a lot of this is focused on him, too, and you'll see that in the clips as well.
So hear that. Ten of winters! What is it? Mission is placed, sir. Mission granted.
Sir, we got nine companies, sir. We do.
Well, I come where they own the company marching every Friday night, 12 miles full pack in the fit start. Why do you think, Private Ranham? Lieutenant Sobel hates us, sir. Lieutenant Sobel does not hate easy company, Private Ranham. He just hates you.
Thank you, sir. Lieutenant Winners, I want canteens out of belts with the caps unscrewed. Easy company canteens out and open. On my command, they will pour the contents onto the ground. On the CO's order, you will upend your canteens.
Now, Lieutenant, pour them. Who is this? Christensen! Why is there no water in your canteen? You drank from your canteen, didn't you?
Lieutenant Winners! Yes, sir. Was this man ordered to not drink from his canteen during the Friday night march? He was, sir. Private Christensen, you have disobeyed a direct order.
You will fill your canteen and repeat all 12 miles of the march immediately. Yes, sir. Fall out! What are you doing with my company? You're late, and you allow troopers to disobey direct orders?
No excuse, sir. You're making me look bad, Lieutenant. This is not Dog Company. This is not Fox Company. This is Easy Company.
And under my command, this will be the first and finest company in this regiment. I want the names of six men, their infractions, and your disciplinary recommendations on my desk by 0130. Is that clear? Your command of Easy Company has been exemplary. Thank thank you, sir.
In fact, except for the actions of a few of your non-comms, I believe you fielded one of the finest companies of soldiers I've ever seen. Herbert, Division has established a parachute training school at Chilton Foley. The idea is for non-infantry types who are vital to the coming invasion, such as doctors and Chaplains to take jump training there. Frankly, I can't think of anyone more qualified to command such a school than you are.
So I'm reassigning you to Chilton Foliot. I'm losing easy company.
So, the thing that he wanted the most was easy company and to lead it. He was losing, and it became evident that he wasn't a really good leader. He was a good. He was good at getting the men ready physically, maybe. And he was really hard on them and probably prepared them for battle some way, say.
I think Winners went along on to say how much of it he made an impact because of how hard he trained them. That was probably good for preparation, but that wasn't good for what they needed. It would have been horrible in war with a leader like that.
So there was some justice meet out pretty quickly here when it was obvious to the leadership that he wouldn't be a good man. But you could tell his insecurities. There's a lot more in the clip I would like to have put in that you see that. But Just going back to the idea of justice. is that You know, sometimes the justice that gets put on us as humans.
God looks back and he sees that as a way, like Robby was talking about, all things work to the good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose. But Those things, injustices to us, make us stronger, make us rely on him more. Allow us to ask him to meet out the justice possibly to take that person. I've had God. I've struggled with people in employment situations, and I prayed about it.
And in the right time, without me. doing anything. Just praying, God took them out at the right time. It happens. But he has a purpose in all this, and it's not always to make it easy for us either.
A lot of times it's to grow through that. I don't want to compare this to Darren's story. I'll just look, I got a different take on justice. But, you know, when something happens to your family, you definitely want to rise up. You definitely want to step in and take justice in your own hands.
I know that I have wanted to do that at times, but. We just have to trust him. It goes back to the clip Jim played on the last show of just really trusting God with the outcome of justice. There's nobody that loves justice more than God. And God likes righteous people making Just Um Just rulings.
He likes that. He likes justice being made out. If it's in accordance with his plan and his way. Um but A lot of times we just try to do too much of it on our own. Yeah.
Yeah. One of the things Robby said in the So earlier triggered a thought about the Bible study that I was doing with my wife today. And it was on Paul's comparing God's people to the body. And it made very clear that You know, if you're An eye, you shouldn't be sitting there saying, you know, you stupid ear, you can't see a thing. It is God's decision to make every one of us different.
All of us are unique. And we have specific Talents. And quite often, when we are judging people, we're saying, oh, you're not. you can't be very godly if you, you know, Don't believe this verse this way like I do. There's no place for that.
Uh we're all going to interpret things differently. And that's okay. God is the judge of that as well. And quite often, the infighting, and that's a big theme for me now, is. We need to be in unity as believers and No, not sure that's ever happened, but it will, and when it does, we'll see how often our disunity hurt.
our witness and our following God and Well, being just. Part of the idea of righteousness is right relationship. right relationship with God. Should. Relay to your clip the right relationship with his other sons, right?
That what God was telling Mac in the shack was, wait a minute. He's my son, too. I mean, we cringe when we hear that, but it's true.
Now he is. You know, it is one of those things that we really don't have to look very far back in our own genealogy to realize that, oh, yeah, we're absolutely brothers, absolutely came from Noah, we're absolutely related, but on top of that. God intended for you to exist and he intended that other person to exist with a purpose. Mm. You know, part of the joy of walking with God in that is sometimes He allows you this vision.
To see how you can help that person grow into the person that You just help, obviously God's the one who's doing it. you know, some of those challenges are where we think you know justice or righteousness should chime in. actually What we're trying to find you know, is is to see things through God's eyes. I know looking back as a dad when things have happened to my kids. You know, I I've wanted justice I wanted to take justice with my own hands.
Right, and fortunately, God wouldn't allow that because I probably wouldn't be around to spend time with him today. Um But we were made with the desire of wanting things to be just. And that's a good thing. But realizing where we are We're going to get glimpses. At times, but we're never going to see it for what it really is until one day when we're with God.
And that's the thing, we all have our own ways of looking at it. The clip that I have is from To Kill a Mockingbird. And so in this scene, you got Atticus Finch, who's doing the last of his thing with the jury. He's talking to them, giving his closing argument. And this is part of what he talks about of what he feels like justice is.
Now, gentlemen. In this country. Our courts are the great lovers. In our courts. All men are.
Created. Equal. I'm no idealist. To believe firmly in the integrity of our courts and of our jury system. That's no ideal to me.
That is a living, working reality.
Now I am confident. That you gentlemen will review. Without Passion. The evidence. That you have heard?
Come to a decision. That restored this man to his family. In the name of God. Do your duty. Yeah, a little over the top.
No, when I listen to that, you have a guy that's saying, look, I really believe. that justice needs to happen. And he's just missing the fact that he really believes it can happen daily in our flawed manhood, you know, in our not our manhood, but in humankind. Right, because we all bring biases into situations. You know, you hear of court cases that, well, we didn't have that information early enough, and so we convicted.
Well, then why didn't you overturn it when you got the information later? Right? Why do you have to wait until someone brings it back in and there's all sorts of things that are flawed about the system? And I'm not being down on America. I believe we have probably the best system that's out there.
I'm not saying that at all. It's just no matter what your system is, it's ran by humans and it's going to be flawed. And so I appreciate his idealism in that, but he's also trying to coerce them to go in his direction.
So there's a little bit of that in there as well.
Well, I You know what? If it was my life at stake and my family at stake, like what the man that was on trial for, I would want.
Somebody that had Mm-hmm. You know, because it I'm nervous. Unfortunately, had to visit a few friends that were in. prison for a number of years and It it it leaves a horrible scar. A lot at stake.
Well Absolutely. Anyone else got anything on justice? When are we going to get to the American Way? By the way, here's the American Way. Sam sent this clip, which was absolutely spectacular.
It's four minutes. I could probably play it. He didn't play it. But it was red skeleton. Yeah.
uh taken you through The Pledge of allegiance. And actually, spending a few moments on each word. I'm not saying to play all four minutes of it. All right, well, I'll play a couple minutes of it. But it's definitely worth.
Hearing As justice, I don't even remember. That was at the end of the Pledge of Allegiance, but we all said it as kids, clearly. Liberty and justice for all, yeah.
Well, here we'll play part of it and listen to the flavor of this. It's really impactful. I remember a teacher that I had.
Now, I only went through the seventh grade. I went to the seventh grade. I left home when I was 10 years old because I was hungry. I work in the summer, I go to school in the winter. But I had this one teacher.
It was the principal of the Harrison School in Vincent, Indiana. To me, this was the greatest teacher, a real sage of my time, anyhow. He had such wisdom. And we were all reciting the Pledge of Allegiance one day. And he walked over, this little old teacher, Mr.
Laswell was his name. Mr. Laswell. And he says, uh.
Okay. He says, I've been listening to you boys and girls recite the Pledge of Allegiance. All semester. And it seems as though it's becoming monotonous to you. If I may.
May I recite it and try to explain to you the meaning of each word. I Me. An individual A committee of one. Pledge. Dedicate all of my worldly goods to give without self-pity.
Allegiance. My love and my devotion. to the flag. Our standard. Oh glory.
A symbol of freedom. Wherever she waves There's respect. Because your loyalty has given her a dignity that shouts freedom is everybody's job. United. That means that we have all come together.
States Individual communities that have united into 48 great states. 48 individual communities with pride and dignity and purpose. That's a little flavor of it. Yeah, and again, it it's just It gives you this sense, and did you notice how he talked about unity? And all those words.
were there in something we all said, hopefully as children. The very end of the clip? Mm-hmm. Right. It's worth playing.
If could you click the mouse to get it there? Yeah. You just, yeah, just do it so that people can hear the last few seconds because to me, it was like after he takes you through the whole thing, go ahead and play it. All right, here, I think this is where it is. Yeah.
For all. Which means boys and girls It's as much your country. as it is mine. And now, boys and girls. Let me hear you recite.
The Pledge of Allegiance.
Okay. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States. If you actually move it to like the republic for which it stands. Like the last two or three sections here. I think I did it.
Yeah. Wouldn't it be a pity? If someone said that is a prayer, And that would be eliminated from schools too. what he said was that since that was you know, what happened to him in the seventh grade. They added under God into the Pledge of Allegiance, and they added the other two states, obviously.
As we know, there are 50. But then he said, but since it's under God now, wouldn't it be a shame if somebody said that that's a prayer and it would be removed from our classrooms? Because again, it speaks to this ideal of justice. That clearly only does come from God. And, you know, I can kind of go to sleep at night thinking to myself.
You know Whatever in the world shenanigans is going on in Iran. What I know is I'm not hearing the truth. You know, when I go by the scale of what it talks about in the 85th Psalm, is there righteousness going on? I don't think so. Is there loving kindness?
Is there that idea of God's loving kindness going on over there? I'm not getting a sense of that. Is there some sense of justice? Right? Or is there some sense of peace?
Like that being the last one? And if you put that all on like a check engine light scale, they're all flashing bright yellow, telling you to pull over to the side of the road, and somebody needs to get a checkup, right? But I know. That The one who is going to mete out justice because everybody will get what they have coming to them. Um The one who's meeting it out is perfect.
And each of those deserved just as much of a chance as I had to come to know God. I'm feeling the need to hop on another soapbox. Uh back about the time that he did this recording in the Sixty-seven. range thousand high school. And our church Invited all the students from overseas to stay there, and we fed them and took care of them in Charlotte.
And some of the I mean, here I am a high school kid. I think ninth, tenth grade, that range. And these are college students, and American college students did not. Do nice things to or for high school students as a rule, even back then. The nicest kids.
that were there. that I talked to were from Iran. They were wonderful. friendly Loving people. By nature, and it was not just one or two.
This was at least half a dozen that I had a chance to mingle with. Those are the people. that now are old folks There for those that have survived that long. And I can't believe that the actual people of Iran Or Connected to the government. We do see that in the news some, but.
We're we judge the nation. And my prayer is always that, you know, God bring the leaders to know you and protect. you're people that are there, and that doesn't necessarily mean they're Christian. They've got other religions there and Those that are loving To me, they are God's people, just like in this. We have a murderer.
But he's godsons too, and Everybody that's still breathing has a chance to be in heaven and be forgiven of everything, and that's what we need to be. Exporting. It gets back to some of the things the enemy whispers at you. You deserve. You're entitled.
Right, all these things that makes you believe that, oh yeah. Yeah, I should be able to get this. And again, in the right realm with God in the lead of it, absolutely you deserve it. Absolutely, you will get it. It may not be in this lifetime.
right, but it will happen down the road because you know God's going to handle it. There's countless times, probably half a dozen I can think of, where I did want to intercede, as I was saying earlier, in different situations, and God held me back for one reason or another. And I'm so grateful that he did. I know I shared one time on the air here, but when I was working at a company in Indiana, they brought in a guy to work with me. He was brand new to the company, and he started badmouthing me and telling people I was doing all these things wrong, all these kinds of things.
And people were listening to him. I hadn't been there that long. And I just wanted to go knock him out, man. I mean, that's really what I wanted to do. And I had to.
My wife kept saying, don't go do that. You'll get fired. I'm like, I don't care. You know, and she was in one ear. And then I actually went to God and he was in the other ear.
And he said, Sam, that's not going to prove anything, right? And he said, just continue on, continue on. And I did. And every time this guy raised his ugly head, I wanted to play whack-a-mole and knock him back down. But God said, no.
I got this. And it took about a year, year and a half, but finally he had done that to enough people that his colors shone to everybody. and he was terminated. you know, and everybody could move on. I saw that also in leadership with the company.
They brought in somebody from the outside, and if you're not paying attention to what he was doing, it looked really good for the results, but he was killing everybody that worked there. And eventually, that also came to light. Captain Sobel on the construction. Yeah, in that type of situation, right? And so it's just realizing: you know, who do I have my faith in?
Do I have my faith in me? And what am I going to do with this, or do I have my faith in God? It's a lot easier to want to take faith into your own hands because it feels like you have control over it. I think there's a place, though, for that as well. I think there's.
Sanctioned by God, I mean, approved by God. Oh, so. I mean, There are times when he calls He he calls us As men to rise up and be protectors. I mean, you don't have to fight every fight. But there are going to be those times.
This is no different than when, God, do we go up in battle? That David asked. I mean, you've got to get that counsel from him. But I think there is a time when our job is to meet out justice. I don't think it's the norm.
I think it's the exception most of the time. God has a way of using people he trusts with power to mete out justice. I don't disagree with that at all. I remember one time Caleb was in a swim league of some sort, and this mother thought he'd done something to one of her kids. And all I could see is him walking along, she running over, grabbing him by the arm, and him getting, you know, kind of afraid.
You know, and there was no asking God at that point. I was over there. I was like, look, you don't touch somebody else's kid and all that. But, you know, I knew when I got done, I did exactly the right thing that I needed to do. Go to masculinejourney.org.
But, you know, this week, take some time and let God just work on your heart on this topic of justice. Where are you looking towards to get it? Are you looking towards yourself? Are you looking to the courts? Are you looking to Him?
Because He's the only one that's going to give you the answer you really do need. And let Him just work on how you look at yourself in this whole topic. We'll talk with you next week.
