MJ Warrior

Hello, this is Matt Slick from the Matt Slick Live Podcast, where I defend the Christian faith and lay out our foundation of the truth of God's Word. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network.

This is the Truth Network. The heart of every man craves a great adventure, but life doesn't usually feel that way. Jesus speaks of narrow gates and wide roads, but the masculine journey is filled with many twists and turns.

So how do we keep from losing heart while trying to find the good way when life feels more like a losing battle than something worth dying for? Grab your gear and come on a quest with your band of brothers who will serve as the guides in what we call the masculine journey. The masculine journey starts here now. Welcome to Masculine Journey. We're so glad to have you, and this isn't Sam. We've been passing the baton lately, so this is Andy, and I'm standing in for Sam this week.

So glad to have you. We're going to continue our series on the stages of masculine journey, and Robby, you want to hit us and tell us what we've been through? We started out with Boyhood, right, which is ages six to twelve, and then we did Cowboy Ranger, which is, you know, ten to the mid-twenties, and so today we have Warrior.

Warrior. Sounds intense. It is, and it's got a little Buzz Lightyear in it because it's from sixteen to thirty and beyond. And beyond, yeah, which it is. And so, you know, this is one of the critical phases I really did not get until I came to my first boot camp. You know, I totally did not know what to do with this aspect of my personality, and actually it scared me, and I thought it was ungodly and something that had to be, you know, made under control.

Yeah, definitely. I remember reading Wild at Heart the first time, and that very early in The Core Desires, it talks about how we as men, as Christian men, were nothing more than a pious house cat, or a pious house cat, or even a dutiful man. Okay, sorry we're having some technical difficulties, but anyway, that whole idea was the fact that God created us for more than that. He created us as a warrior and as the church in trying to be, you know, be godly. We felt like there was no place for fierceness, no place for a man being a protector, no man to stand up and say no to the enemy when he's attacking his family. Not that that wasn't taught, but it wasn't taught in such a way that a man could receive it.

I think a lot of it was packaged in a way that in a way that I don't know, I just didn't feel empowered to be who I was as a man. I didn't have permission to do that, but when we saw that, and they do such a good job at boot camp of going through all the passages in Scripture that show this is actually God's image that you're made in, and there's a reason little boys go out and pick fights and do all that stuff is because it's God that actually has that image and we're made in his image. That's right. So can you drop the kind of the aspects of what we get?

Right. So we're hoping in the warrior stage to learn these things. First of all, that you know you're made as a warrior in God's image and that you learn that there are battles to be fought that are bigger than us, right? And learn not to yield your heart to evil and learn not to avoid passivity. In other words, it was Adam who was passive in the garden that, you know, led to the issue. And then, of course, you can be wounded when you attempt to rise up and, you know, somebody makes fun of you or shames you, or you're taught that all aggression is wrong like many people are, you know, get that picture, which is difficult. And does not have a good king to follow or, you know, or to serve.

In other words, you know, there's somebody that's leading into battles that aren't the ones you ought to be fighting. Right. Exactly.

All right. Great. So we've got that set up now. Danny, I think you're going to kick us off with the first clip. We're going to pull from Andy Griffith.

Again, it seems like you go back and forth between Starship Enterprise and Andy Griffith. Yeah. You know, we're going to have to do a mashup. Yeah. Like Worf the deputy or something. I don't know. Voyage of the Starship Griffith or something like that, you know.

Mayberry and beyond. That's right. So we can conclude Buzz Lightyear with that. So this clip is from the Andy Griffith show and it has Ernest T. Bass and Malcolm Meriwether, who are just two polar opposites when you look at them as characters. And there's a fight about to happen because Ernest T. Bass, who I would say would be the warrior that I kind of pulled out of this, and he has not had a king to lead him, evidently, but he does listen to his mother, you'll figure out.

And, but he is scorned and, and he's ready to go to battle with his, with his colleague there, the Englishter. And you can play the clip. What's the matter?

Turning in one badge, one notebook and one pencil. Wrong clip. Still in the Mayberry vein, but yeah, we're going to hit you with some Mayberry.

If you double click the mouse. Mayberry's proud citizens, I presume. I don't believe I've had the pleasure of your acquaintance, old chap. I could tell by the way you slipped, I threw them words. May I be an English artist, eh? Hey, as if in your Irish, my pa and ma are both Irish and that makes me Irish since I sprung off on them.

I am the proud product of their marital bliss. You Englishter, you done took my job, you ruined my macramona to my beloved Romina. You Englishter, you low down, ornery, no guts, gunky English. Hey now, that's being rather impolite. I am polite to my bastards and you are my worsterer.

You know what else? I am going to whoop up on you. Well, why do you want to fight him? Because he is an Englishter and hence, I hate him. Why do you hate him because he's an Englishter? Because I am Irish. And my mommy told me as an Irishman, I have to hate all Englishters.

Now, I always do what my mommy tells me. Well, you might as well go at it, hadn't you, Earnesty? Right. It's going to be fun seeing two Irishmen fighting. Been having a little trouble with my hearing lately. What was that you just said? I said it's going to be fun seeing two Irishmen fighting.

Who's the other one? I'm welcome. Didn't you know his mother's Irish?

Welcome. His mother's Irish. From County Cork. County Cork. Well, never let it be said that Earnesty Bass ever spilled a drop of Irish blood.

Not one drop of Irish blood will Earnesty Bass ever be accused of spilling. Malcolm, I ain't going to touch your hair on your head. You're my friend, my true friend. I don't care if you did take my job away from me and ruined my matrimonial chances with my beloved Romina. You're my friend, Malcolm.

My bosom pal. I love you. I love you.

I love you. You know, Earnesty is going after something just because that's what he knows. And he hates, and you can tell Malcolm's probably not from Mayberry. He's probably not from the south.

He's actually from England. But the interesting part of that is that so many times in my own life, I think I've gone to battle with not being led well or really not a cause that I should rise to battle with. And going about things the wrong way because I haven't been taught right or not paid attention to what was being said. And you know, but I mean there are, you know, everybody wants to fight for a beauty and that thing, and Romina was his beauty. I mean, and you know, all that was going down and that's been, you know, the story of my life at times. And so, you know, I don't hate Englisters. I don't want that get out there.

But you know, we did whoop them once, I'm just saying. But that's kind of where that clip went for me is that, you know, that's my heart and soul sometimes is I don't want to fight the wrong battles, God. But you did put this warrior spirit in me. Yep, that fierceness rises, but it rises a lot of times in the wrong times if you haven't been initiated in battle and, you know, know what you're actually fighting against. So much of my stuff was arguing to be right on the job, you know, or in the home, you know, had to be right. And what was that about, you know? Where did that, that fierceness was there, but it was totally misguided.

And it really gets you in a lot of trouble. Well, I think it's the story of Peter in the garden. You know, he whipped a sword out, cut a dude's ear off. He was really bad with a sword or, you know, he had a heart change there in the middle of it. But, you know, his heart was in the right place to defend what he loved, but he went about it the wrong way. Right. And he didn't really have a lot of awareness of the situation at the time. Yeah.

And he was a really bad swordsman, still stuck to fishing, I guess. I don't know. It's true. I think we're going to try to get your second clip on the other side. Anybody got any other perspectives? Really what I want to drill into here is, though, is any time that you got in a situation where you were fighting really the wrong battle.

Robby just about jumped out of his seat. I think he's ready to share something. Well, sure. I mean, if you're the Christian car guy, obviously, road rage, you know, is, it's so easy and that, you know, some guy cuts you off or, you know, whatever. And, you know, that's part of how that warrior gets wounded, is you realize later that, you know, this is way off kilter.

This isn't what ought to be, you know? And so you're thinking, and I really, that aspect, that fierceness of my character, you know, I tried to just shove it down as far as possible. That's got to be bad because every time it wails up, it's always in the wrong direction and for the same purpose. And then, you know, I'm sitting next to the king of zipper merging right here. So how about you, Harold? Well, fortunately, I'm out of that mode.

And when we were coming back from Raleigh on Sunday afternoon, I had about one and a quarter car lengths between me and the car in front of me. And he occupied it. And I just recognize the fact that he's insane and I let him go on his way. And I left it at that.

Unlike what I would have done some years ago. So we have Sam on the line with us. He's been working hard this summer and had a lot of, you know, having to work late a lot. So not been able to get with us. But Sam, do you have any examples of some of that misguided fierceness? Yeah, I think a lot of times I've fought the wrong opponent. Yeah, I think of the times that I was married and, you know, thought the opponent was my wife instead of the enemy. Yeah. You know, and didn't recognize warfare for what it was, you know, especially early on before I really knew about warfare, you know.

And so if it's just her and me and one of us has got to be wrong, it wasn't going to be me. Yeah. You know, and just fought a lot of the wrong battles, you know, until you got a lot of teaching at a boot camp and other places. And God really just kind of put his hand on me and said, okay, let me guide you some more here. Yeah, it really is a lot of our story is that sadly, instead of the battle to fight, we mix that in with the rescue and the beauty, and it kind of gets all mixed up. And that's what leads a lot of us into this deeper place with God. So we got a boot camp coming up November 17th through the 20th.

But before that, we have the, what is it, entrench? One of the things that's been a true joy to me is having my sons go with me to boot camps and watching them get an understanding that I wished I would have had at their age. It took me several years, and I'm still probably learning it a little bit as we go, but watching them get a good foothold into manhood and understanding what's important, what their role is and how to stay away from the enemy to receive healing and restoration in the way that you love on others.

Register today at masculinejourney.org. One of my favorite things about boot camp, well, the favorite thing about boot camp is every time I go, I encounter God. And as anyone that has encountered God knows, generally speaking, it's nothing we expect. Real encounter with God out of the blue. He knew what I needed.

I knew what I wanted, and those two were rarely the same thing. Welcome back to The Masculine Journey. That was The Warrior.

And Sam, I think you submitted that. What you got to say? Well, I just think that we got to remember we're the warrior, you know, and we got to be able to stand in and fight when we need to. And you can never go wrong with good Patti Smythe. I mean, I know that the group was scandal, but at the end of the day, it was really Patti Smythe singing. And wow, what a powerful song.

You know, just that chorus is, you know, reminding ourselves, we are a warrior and we need to stand in the gap and fight for our own hearts and for the hearts of others. I mean, this is The Masculine Journey, right? Yeah. Okay. I was just curious.

I mean, it is a great song and definitely the point behind it was great. I was just asking. Oh, man. Yeah, David, I don't remember what song you submitted.

Oh, that's right. Like Sam, I was busy at work too. No excuses, but you know. So we've managed to bring out some fierceness here in the studio. Definitely.

Definitely. I mean, you know, it's all in good fun. It's all in good fun. So if y'all listen to the shows every week lately, it's been, you know, Sam and me. The Sam and David show. Yeah. So Danny, we're on Andy Griffith 2.0, right? We're doubling down. Well, there's so much truth in it. I mean, Danny submitted both of these clips and he was like, I don't know which one.

I was like, I think both are good. So. Yeah.

So Andy's my hero, Andy Griffith and Andy Thomas. So this one is Barney and he's been jolted, so to speak, and offended. And he's resigning for probably, this is probably his sixth or seventh resignation.

If you keep up with the, there's no new episodes, but yeah. Right. And so, but Barney's just, he's his, his warrior spirit has been attacked.

And that's kind of where I went with his clip was. And he's like a lot of us, Barney's checking out and he's just done with the fight. So. What's the matter? Turning in one badge, one notebook, and one pencil. Barney, what are you doing? I'm handing in my resignation as deputy.

That's what I'm doing. One gun belt, one holster, one revolver, and one bullet. Well, now hold on there. Wait just a minute. No, no. This is it, Andy. This is it. One whistle.

I replaced the P in it, but I ain't gonna charge it. Barney, what do you mean you're handing in your resignation? Just what I said. I'm handing in my resignation.

One tie clip, one tie. Well, now hold just a minute now. Now before I accept your resignation, I got to have a little explanation here.

Now just ease back and tell me what's got into it. Well, this is the last straw, Andy. It's bad enough there ain't any deputying for me to do, but I don't like to be teased about it. You as, uh, you as teased? That's right, and by your own son, Opie. Well, what happened? I seen him do it. I caught him red-handed.

Well, what'd Opie do? You don't believe it, do you? Well, I didn't think you would.

One cap. Well, now wait, wait a minute. I am bound to hear this. Now tell me what did Opie do? He wrote a poem about me on the wall of a bank. Well, what poem?

Well, I wrote it down, and I'd like to offer this. It's foolproof evidence. The once was a deputy called Fife who carried a gun and a knife.

The gun was all dusted. The knife was all rusty because he never caught a crook in his life. Now that's undermining the dignity of the law. It makes out like I never wanted to catch crooks, and that just ain't so.

I'd catch them in a minute, but how am I going to catch them if there ain't anything for heaven's sake? If only somebody would just commit a crime, one good crime. You know, Barney is the epitome, and this is what I thought about with that clip is, you know, we read it, how you're wounded is when you attempt to rise up and is mocked and shamed, and that's what Barney is feeling because later on you find out Opie didn't do it because Opie couldn't read or write. So, you know, he was falsely accused, but so Opie's boyhood was assaulted all in the same thing. But, you know, that's been the case, and when I look at my own life and probably talk more about it, you know, after hours, but there's so many times when I begin to look at this and, you know, as we've broken down this masculine journey and look at this and see where the enemy has attacked.

And, you know, Sam talks about it a lot that, you know, there is a pattern and it looks random on the surface, but there is a pattern. And, you know, Harold talks about his size. I mean, I was a skinny kid. I mean, I was small width wise, not height wise. And, you know, I was the kid people picked on and I've never looked in the mirror and go, man, you're a fierce warrior, but I've known for a long time that God gave me a warrior's heart.

And I just thought maybe he was just had a surplus of them and threw one my way. But, you know, I've learned in this that there is a purpose for things. And then that's kind of, you know, I don't want to be the resigned Barney Fife and turn in my bullet, you know.

Hey, I think can I add something to that? What I was thinking about when I listened to that earlier is, you know, you hear about these soldiers that train and train and train and train and prepare, but there's no conflict to go execute their skills. Right. And after a while, it's hard for them to not lose heart. And that's what I really heard with Barney there.

You know, I mean, we like to laugh at Barney. But, you know, if we're sitting there waiting on the battle, you know, there's lots of battles out there. God wants to use us.

And we just need to say, okay, God used me. Right. There's enough out there. So there shouldn't be any, you know, Barney's sitting at home.

Well, I just need a crook, you know, kind of thing. There's a lot out there to fight right now. There always is.

Definitely, definitely. That's a good point. You know, how many warriors train and train and really never see the battle. And you see a lot of the movies where you see these guys coming in and it's kind of like grunts or whatever. And they were just ready to get out there.

I think Band of Brothers showed it on them. They had some guys that were just so ready for a battle. Then when the battle came, they weren't so sure that they wanted to do it.

But, you know, you do that. You put all that preparation in to go to battle. I think a lot of, partly with me on what's associated with this clip was my resignation. I tried to battle.

I remember I got serious about God in my late 20s and 30s and did a lot of ministry stuff and I saw God do some things. But there was still a lot of me that was uninitiated and I really didn't know how to do battle. And when I got that whack-a-mole knocked down a few times, you just begin to, you know, back away and say, no, maybe this isn't that, you know, really that worth it to fight it. I'd rather take, I'd rather have the target off of me and have a peaceful life than go to battle.

Well, you really don't have a choice. We've talked about that many times. So Robby, you got a clip. We've got to get in here.

You want to set it up? Yeah. So this is from the next Karate Kid, you know, part of the Miyagi franchise. And the neat thing about the warrior phase from my perspective is, it's from 16 and beyond, like Buzz Lightyear and beyond. And so here, if you're familiar with the Karate Kid, Mr. Miyagi is certainly a sage and he took Daniel-san all the way through, you know, two movies. And so now he has Julie-san and Julie-san, you know, is having this battle, but in, you know, classic Karate Kid style, you know, the leader of the kids on the, you know, the bad side, the dark side is, you know, pushing everybody to fight. Well, at this point in time, the warrior rises up in Miyagi and I love the way, you know, he just commands such respect as a warrior. You know, you know, you know, you can hear him when, you know, when it comes time to, you know, you know, it's gonna, it's gonna happen. And so we got to listen to Mr. Miyagi, the sage that turns to a warrior. What's the matter?

He loves that Barney clip. What are you talking about? The war is not over because one battle's lost. Charlie, Charlie, a fighter. Come on, Charlie. What are you doing now?

You're crazy, man. I said get up and finish the job. No more.

What? Enough? It's not over. Then we finish.

Absolutely. I'm going to put your lights out. Time to put your lights out. Mr. Miyagi. Hey. You kicked some butt. Julissa, how many times did Miyagi say, fighting not good?

I know. Somebody always gets hurt. Mr. Miyagi, come on, admit it. You kicked some butt. Julissa, fighting not good, but if must fight, win. I just, you know, it's interesting to me that here's this sage, and in his own way, he's not unlike Yoda, right? You got this little, somewhat comical character, but they command such tremendous respect, and they have such discipline, and you see the warrior that's down in there that makes them a fabulous sage, right?

And that's why I like the infinity and beyond. And for us, as we go back and we pick that up and ask God to show us how we do that, you know, for those of us who are in the sage, you know, that here's the opportunity to see when is the time that really you got the young warrior who should be stepping up, right? He's getting Julissa on to fight when she's supposed to fight, but there comes a point where the sage, you know, it's time to jump into the battle. And it, you know, It'll be one, you know, right. It's exactly right. That there you go. And there's a time. Yes.

I was always hoping that the next karate kid would be like Ralph mouth or posse. They spent so much time with him at the diner. Yeah. He never got him out there washing his car or nothing. I mean, I don't understand.

They had their chance to wax the car and all that stuff. Right. Exactly. But you got to admit, man, he is a fantastic actor and he completely, you know, demonstrated that sense of like, man, here, here is a fierce warrior when, you know, when he wants to turn it on and, you know, permission to do that as a Christian man is, is, is an important thing. If you're going to walk in the image of God, I think building on the stages, just, uh, just remember that we are a warrior, um, for the King. So we got an entrenchment coming up September 30th through October 1st.

You've heard that that's free. Um, we've got the boot camp coming up November 17th through 20th. Love to have you there. You go to masculine journey.org to find out more about it. We love, uh, love having you there. We really want to, to speak into your life and let God come after your heart. This is the truth network.