The Power Of Love After Dark

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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 and today's show, The Power of Love.

I think that was Lou Rawls that just took over the mic. How you doing? So Andy, set it up for us brother. So just been on my heart since I had love as the word of the year and went to England with my family. And I just really wanted to, I felt like God was calling me into being more intentional in love. You know it's, our default is not to love. If you look at 1 Corinthians 13, it looks pretty impossible to do all these things, but that's the point. It's one of those impossible things that God gives us to do that we can't do in our own self.

He never intended for us to have agape love for one another without the agape behind it, the godly love. And that's just kind of where my heart was. So you're saying you kind of hosted the gong show? I reckon I did, I don't know. I know I did.

At some point in time I know I hosted the gong show. You could tell by, okay go ahead. But anyway, it's just that it's such an important part of the Bible. I mean we know that we're supposed to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and to love our neighbor as our self. And a lot of times we're so busy doing evangelizing or giving, all those things are good. 1 Corinthians 13 says all those things are good, but if love is missing, then you're in trouble. You're not really doing it right. All that stuff is pretty much pointless.

And then it goes on to tell you what love is and isn't. That's the resounding gong show. Right. Yeah. Okay. It is? Does that mean I've talked about it too long? Does that mean I need to leave the room?

No, no, no, no. I was just jumping in to help you. Oh, gotcha. It's like, man. Yeah. Because we've all been there.

I did a lot of loving in my own strength and love, air quotes, where you think you're doing it right and really a lot of it's just self-serving. So first up we have Danny and he's going to take us back to the Shower Ship Enterprise. Go ahead, Danny. Yeah, we're going to Deep Space Nine. So Star Trek Deep Space Nine and the clip is to set it up so you understand what's going on. Lieutenant Worf and his wife, Judzia Dax, have been on a secret mission.

His wife what? JZ Dax. So we'll just run with that. That's Southern for JZ Dax.

That's right. She was from Southern Deep Space Nine. So anyway, for a show about love, it sure is tough in here.

We love you, brother. So they had been on a secret intelligence mission to save this guy and they're both Starfleet officers and they had a mission to accomplish and she gets hurt pretty bad in the mission. And he has to leave her in a clearing and their mission Starfleet-wise is to go save this guy who's got intelligence that will save millions of lives. And so in the midst of that, Worf's heart takes over and obviously he does what any good husband would do. He comes back and saves his wife and he aborts the mission. And the scene we're going to see is his superior kind of dressing him down for letting the mission go and all the fallout from what's going on. So we can play the clip.

Yes. So what happened? You may not understand.

Try me, sir. You were at my wedding. You heard the story of the first two Klingon hearts and how nothing could stand against them and how they even destroyed the gods that had created them. I've heard this story since I was a boy, but I never understood it. I mean really understood it. Until I was standing in the jungle with my heart pounding in my chest and I found that even I could not stand against my own heart. I had to go back. And it did not matter what Starfleet thought or what the consequences were.

She was my wife and I could not leave her. As your captain, it is my duty to inform you that you made the wrong choice. I don't think Starfleet will file any formal charges.

Even a secret court-martial would run the risk of revealing too much about their intelligence operations. But this will go into your service record. And to be completely honest, you probably won't be offered a command on your own after this. I understand. I've also issued new orders. You and Jat Zir are not to be assigned to a mission on your own ever again.

One last thing. As a man who had a wife, if Jennifer had been lying in that clearing, I wouldn't have left her either. So obviously, to jump into masculine journey thing, Worf rescued the beauty. And, you know, so often in Ephesians, which is a book that Paul wrote as well, I know we've been talking about Corinthians, and y'all already broke Jesus and Paul on me.

And I bring a Klingon into the story, so I don't know what's going to happen here. But, you know, in Ephesians, he talks about that the husbands also loved their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. And that's kind of where I took this topic, Andy, was that if it wasn't for, obviously, if it wasn't for God bringing Michelle into my life, that I don't know where I would be because of all the brokenness, all the wounding, and all the stuff. You know, and he literally, I remember praying, and I probably told this before, God, if I missed her, make me okay with it. And, you know, here she comes on the scene. And there was a time in our relationship, early in our relationship, where we both tried to push each other away.

And, you know, she was diagnosed with this brain tumor thing. And she literally was trying to push me out because she didn't want me to have to go through it. And my common sense and that kind of thing was telling me, you might want to run.

And there was lots of other different things that were going on. But love was the power of love, as Ravi would say, is that, you know what, my heart and what God was telling me was, this is who I gave you. And you find those things in the brokenness of life that it doesn't make sense to do this. And it doesn't make sense to do that. But, you know, it doesn't make sense for God to send his only begotten son to save somebody like me.

That doesn't make sense. But it is the power of love and the redemption because in that scripture in Ephesians, where he's comparing his love for us, the church, and he makes that comparison between husband and wife. And that's the way he loves us. That's the way he, you know, Ravi talks about the Song of Solomon and that God loves us that way.

And I know I just opened up a Hebrew door. I'm pretty sure I did, even though he eats Greek salads. Well, David, you know, I got to tell the whole world, I would have played his clip in prime time. OK, but he asked to be in after hours. So, you know, I'm an obedient host.

Sometimes you just got to humble yourself. I mean, just because Sam's not here, you know, I can move myself to the After Hours show. I didn't need Sam to tell me to go to the After Hours show.

Oh, you wouldn't have made the After Hours show. I guess he didn't forget where the mute button was after that. So my clip, yeah. So I think a lot of times, you know, when we talk about love and think about love, we think about, you know, the fairy tale love and the relationship love and all that stuff. And that's the right feeling.

But a lot of times we get off of and don't talk about the love that we show when we're loving on somebody through a difficult time. My clip is from the movie Taken. It's probably if it's not the most intense scene in all three movies, it's up there in the top. So it's pretty intense.

And it shows Liam Neeson loving on his daughter during a time that I couldn't even imagine having to talk to my kid through. But we'll come back and we'll talk about it a little bit and I'll share story. There they are. I can hear them. Remember, concentrate. Put the phone closer so I can hear.

So, yeah, I mean, you can hear how he's talking to his daughter during that and he's calm and collected during it. And even though you might not see the love in that, there is. I can speak from experience to an extent on that. You know, I know all the guys here know my story and some of you all do on on the show or listening. Back in November, my daughter ran away for so far the final time. And I had to listen to the advice of law enforcement as well as, you know, pray and listen to the advice from God.

And, you know, what God ultimately showed me was that I need to go that route. So for me to love on my daughter, I had to sign magistrate papers, have her arrested. And I'm not talking about where we were staying at the courthouse and they took her in there like they came to our car. Winston-Salem police officer pulled her out of the car, searched her at 12 years old, put her in handcuffs and then walked her away from us. And then we had to ride in the car behind her to the hospital to have her involuntarily committed.

The legal way. And the whole time doing that, I mean, of course, she stared at me like she hated me and that I was making the wrong decision. And I had to fight inner demons on that. But, you know, the whole time I just told her I loved her and that I was doing this because of love. And ultimately I was. And with the strength and the love that God was given to me during that time, I was in turn showering her in that.

Which ultimately, now present day, I mean, she's 180 degrees from where she was then. And, you know, it's just you've got to love people during the difficult time. You can't just be like, oh, it's easy. I love you. And as soon as it gets difficult, kind of start pulling away. You know, I still love you, but I love you from a distance kind of thing.

That's where I was going with that. So speaking of fairy tales, you know, and I when I actually think of love, I do kind of think that like, man, you know, this is this is the stuff of a thousand fairy tales that, you know, Sleeping Beauty was under the spell until right. Love's true first kiss and awakened somebody, you know, whether it was Snow White eating the poison apple or you name the story, the princess beset in the dragon.

You know how it goes, you know. And but the cool thing from my standpoint was Shrek. Right.

They turned the tables on the whole idea, but it was so brilliant. Right. That here's this ogre that gets turned beautiful.

But when when true love's first kiss happens to her, if you've seen the movie, spoiler alert. Right. She turns into an ogre.

Right. And she when she saw herself, she saw herself as an ogre, which wasn't beautiful. However, Shrek completely saw her as a beautiful woman. And there's a story that I want Harold to share about the eight cow wife that kind of lines up with this.

Go ahead here. Well, the story is told that South Pacific Island. The tradition there was that when a young man wanted to take a young lady as his bride, he would bring an offering of cows to her father. And the norm was two or three cows for the wife. And there was this one young lady that was considered to be ugly and that she probably wasn't even going to find her husband. And the most eligible, best looking, richest one came for her hand. And he gave eight cows and they left that island and went off. And after a period of time, they came back and she was such a beautiful young woman. And the only thing that had really changed was the love of the man that took her.

Right. The legendary eight cow wife. If you've ever heard of that, that's the eight cow wife story. Well, that story actually played out in Israel for years and years.

On the 15th of the month of Av, they had a ceremony. And the way that this would go down is all the girls of Israel would have to go out and borrow white clothes from somebody. They weren't allowed to wear their own clothes so that nobody would be jealous because somebody had better clothes than the other one. And they would go out into the vineyard and they would all cry out and they'd put them into three groups. One that they considered to be beautiful, but beautiful to them meant that they knew the Torah. They knew the law and not only that they knew it, but that they had dug into it and found new things that hadn't been found before.

And that's what made a woman beautiful. And then there was another group that had outstanding families. These would be the priest's kids and those that came from David's family or that kind of thing. They would be the lineage. And then the third group was essentially those that didn't have the Torah study and didn't have the family. And they were considered ugly.

Right. And so the first group would cry out the beautiful ones and say, you know, men of Israel, search for your bride, the beauty and enjoy the beauty because women are for beauty. And the second group would say, men of Israel, search out your bride and look for family because women are made for children. And then the third group would yell out, men of Israel, find your bride, pick your bride for the good of heaven and adorn her with jewels. And the idea of that is that it is through the husband's love that, as Paul would describe in that section that you were talking about in Ephesians, that he's presenting her whole and beautiful and spotless.

And so when you hear this clip with that in mind, you know, think about Shrek here and Donkey and there's a little dragon involved, too. But nonetheless, she ends up spotless. Outrageous! Fiona, don't listen. He's not your true love. What do you know about true love? Well, I mean, oh, this is precious.

The ogre has fallen in love with the princess. Is this true? Who cares?

It's preposterous. Guards! Guards! I order you to get them out of my sight. Now! Get them!

Get them! And as for you, my wife, I'll have you locked back in that tower for the rest of your days. I will have order. I will have protection. I will hide! All right, nobody move.

I got a dragon hand. I'm not afraid of you. I'm a donkey on the edge. Go ahead, Shrek. Uh, Fiona?

Yes, Shrek? I, I love you. Really? Really, really? I love you, too.

Let me tell you my true love's first kiss. Fiona? Fiona? Are you all right? Well, yes, but I don't understand. I'm supposed to be beautiful.

But you are beautiful. I was hoping this would be a happy ending. Yes, fairy tales. And, you know, the beautiful thing from my standpoint about that is if you look in the fourth chapter of the Song of Solomon, I know you brought it up, so here we go. I knew it. It starts off with, you know, Jesus or the king saying, Behold, thou art beautiful. Behold, thou art beautiful. Thou hast dove eyes. Right?

You might remember that. And the reason why that's said twice like that is because one thing for your head to get that, and he's talking to you, he's talking to the church, but he's talking to you specifically. And, and you see ogre.

I'm just saying. But he doesn't see, he doesn't see ogre. Right? He sees this eight cow bride. And when he says you have dove eyes, let me unpack that just a minute for you.

Okay? Because you might remember in Genesis that when Jacob blessed his kids, what did he say about Judah, which was Jesus' great, great, great, great, you know, grandfather? He said that he would have eyes of wine and teeth of milk. Well, wine in Hebrew is a yud, yud, right? And a nun, which is ayin, if you were to say it in wine, right? But the beautiful thing about the word dove is it is yud, yud, nun, hey, which means wine expressed. So what, when he said she had dove eyes, what was he saying? You got Jesus' eyes, which means you see things the way that Jesus sees them.

Are you following me? That you have your father's eyes. You really, really do. Because that wonder of, that comes from seeing something that's really, really deep like wine.

Okay? And then what does he say? You got, you got Jesus' teeth. So if you look at me and you're going, gee, those aren't Jesus' teeth. They can't look like that. But no, it says right there, the second verse in the fourth chapter says, your teeth are like a flock of sheep, right?

They're coming up from the washing. Each have his twin and none are barren. In other words, you got milk teeth, I'm saying. And why do you have milk teeth? Because Jesus had milk teeth.

Remember Genesis, right? He's saying, see, not only do you have your father's eyes, but you have, and not only do you have Jesus' eyes, but you have Jesus' teeth. Which are kind of significant because with those teeth, you literally are, you know, ruminating on the word of God. In other words, those teeth get wider and cleaner as you sit there and think about the word of God and study on it and all that stuff. And you're becoming that eight cow wife.

You know, you're becoming the Proverbs 31 woman you always wanted to be. But it's just true. I mean, we are the bride of Christ and that is kind of how that works. And so, Jim, you're looking at me like, yeah, you knew I was, just go for it. Well, as I was ruminating and turning my teeth white this morning, the just, or the gist, that was the word I was looking for, of what I was studying is how we do reflect our father. We do have his eyes.

And people can see that if we're not blocking it with our attitudes and our flesh. And I know that I've had a couple of very godly men in my life that, and a couple of them, the names would be familiar. But when I first met them, I could see Jesus in their eyes.

There was no question. Now, I've met other people in ministry that you'd also recognize their names that I wondered if they knew Jesus. But we should all be reflecting our father's eyes. Go ahead, Sam. I agree, Jim. Oh, I was just going to say you had me at yud.

That's so true. He did me as well. He did me as well because that yud is this really, really deep letter that means, it's the first letter in the word Jesus. It's the first letter in the word Yahweh. You know, it's the first letter in the word Jacob. In other words, wherever you go, you see that that letter is a bit deeper, and it's also the first letter in the wine.

As it actually first and second letter, right? And so, you know, Danny, I can see you have words of something over there. No, you're just, you're ruminating? I was ruminating on the fact that back home, they're probably still trading livestock for brides.

I'm just like, that may still be a live practice. Well, if you want to make some really big points with yours, do what I did. Tell her she's a 10-cow wife.

It really did work. She talks about it all the time. You may want to just... You better explain the story for her. Well, either that or just drop the cow wife stuff and just say you're a 10. Yeah.

Well, the people are utterly speechless. Yeah, you've got to quit milking this stuff. Can we move on? We digress. We are expressing ourself incorrectly now, I believe. But, you know, I think of how all, you know, my own temper, right, which is nowhere near where I wish it would be, but I think of the joy that I have as a result of being in his presence and so many things like that.

But Andy, your topic, brother. Well, I think the thing, as I listen to you all, again, I was trying... What I felt the focus should be on is really to living that love that we know that he wants us to and that really genuinely comes from him. But that really goes back to all of us are empowered because of the healing and the strength that he's given us over time. That very thing that you spelled out there of a groom going after his wife, his spouse, is what he did for us and positions us to be able to love like that.

Really, we have no way of doing it. And I think it has to be not some just cursory understanding of salvation or whatever. You have to really walk with him to be able to begin to realize, well, man, he gave up what he did in love and therefore I have to give up. I think we were talking before the show started about really you can translate this love idea as really being a servant.

I mean, you want to talk about that a little bit more? Yeah, the beautiful thing about what Jesus or the king refers to his bride throughout the Song of Solomon is his, you know, beloved and that word is the letter that means servant. And then a word that means continuation and then another letter that means servant. And that word is very familiar to most Christians.

It's the word David because you hear the D sound and then above and then another Dalet. And so when you have servant, a continuation of servant, and what did Jesus say? If you love me, you'll do what?

Obey my commandments. And thus, you know, as we try to serve from our whole heart, right, there we go. Well, very fun, Andy, thank you for your topic and thank you all for, Sam, for being there.

We all were praying that you will get better. We're going to remind you all that we have an entrenchment coming. It is coming up September 30th through October 1st and it is F-R-E-E free. And we're looking forward to seeing you there. And all you've got to do is go to maskandjourneyradio.org and just send them an e-mail and say you're coming. Or you've got the boot camp coming up the weekend before Thanksgiving. That's right. So go to maskandjourneyradio.org. Sign up. This is the Truth Network.