Hello, this is Matt Slick from the Matt Slick Live Podcast, where I defend the Christian faith and lay out our foundations 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. You about heard us praying. Not that that would be a bad thing, but Jim's been gone for a few weeks. I'm like, hey, Jim, will you pray? And man, I thought he just kept going. It was like the energizer prayer. I bet I don't get asked to pray.
It'll be a minute. Yeah, no, I mean, it was a great prayer. It was just a prayer. I mean, it was a good one, but yeah. So he ended just as a music show.
Expect a good show. Yeah, just as music started, he ended, so that was good. So thank you for praying for us, Jim. And so, hey, it seems weird that we have, near as I can count, eight people in the room, and it feels light.
We don't have very many people, which is just crazy when you have eight in the room. And we're missing, of course, Harold, which will be gone for a few weeks. And so we wish him the best, and it gets back to us quickly.
And Michael's gone, and he'll be back next week. Art's lost. Yeah, yeah.
We're for art, though. Come on, Robby. Yeah, that's your saying there.
And man, the list goes on, Kenny. Just a lot of them, we miss seeing them. But then Danny's still here.
I'm here. It's hard to miss you if you don't leave. No, I'm just kidding. Well, yeah. Absence makes... I ain't even sure absence would make the heart grow longer, you know what I mean? Yeah.
When I was married, my in-laws would come and stay for like six weeks. And so at some point I go, it's kind of hard to miss you if you don't leave. Is it absence or abstinence? I've never been sure. Yeah.
Well, I guess it depends on who's... Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. Andy? No, never mind.
I should go somewhere. Well, Andy, you have the topic for this week's show, so you want to tell us a little bit about it? Yeah. It's probably about a year ago. I was driving, and a song, Dream Weaver, came on. Hadn't heard it a lot. I mean, in the last 20 years, I guess.
Yeah, a couple decades. And I'm sure I had. But it just brought back, and I started thinking just about how dreams affect us. And we have two kinds of dreams, I think.
There's probably more. There's a lot of different ways God conveys his message to us through dreams, visions, even trances, like in the Book of Acts. But most of the time, in our vernacular, we usually think a dream is something like a goal, not a goal, something that's in our heart that God puts there.
Sometimes it's not what God puts there, but something that we desire, and that is for the future. And you've got a glimpse of it in your heart, but you haven't seen it come to pass yet, is one example. So a long-term dream.
Long-term dream, right. And you can have, I have to feel like, these dreams at night that may support that or may not. Joseph was an example of his dream of the sheaves bowing down to him, and then all that transpired. And you just have to wonder what was going on in Joseph's mind during that time.
And then he delivered his whole family, and they truly did bow down to him. But all that, God knew what was going on. Joseph kind of probably did, but not really to the degree it all turned out. But that's what we're talking about here, is how God puts those things in our heart and how they transpired. And a lot of them are tied to our giftings and our desires and all that stuff. But I think this is the kind of thing that motivates us and keeps us alive and gives us a heart to move forward in life and expect something good out of it. Yeah, it would have been hard for Joseph to maintain that vision of the dream when he's in the pit or when he's cast into jail.
His buddies don't bail him out, like they said, or tell the Pharaoh or whatever. Yeah, things just keep happening. Potiphar it is.
Yeah, Potiphar's wife and all that stuff that keeps happening. It'd be easy to lose sight of that dream. And so you have the long-term dream, and then what was the other one? More just what we have get overnight a lot of times, but it could also be vision. It could be something short-term, I guess, of hey, this is going to happen that God places in your heart.
But all those things I think that God communicates to us through our heart of what we're to expect in life. Yeah, I think one of the things that I'd want to point out that a lot of times we treat our dreams taking nightmares off the table, right? The enemy is over those nightmares for the most part and trying to disrupt your sleep and things like that.
We're not going to really talk about that in the show. But even the dreams that seem frivolous, right? Don't just discount them. If you remembered them, which most people have trouble remembering the dreams.
If you remembered them, just like anything else, ask God, was there something in there that you wanted me to get? Yeah, for sure. Right, because sometimes there's things in those frivolous dreams that seem very silly but really have a deeper meaning when you want to dig deep in them. And we'll hear that on a couple of clips. Yeah, we don't bother to delve into them.
We're too sophisticated or too lazy or whatever. But I think there is a lot there too. God's given me a couple of those teaching moments through that. What I also think before we jump in here too is what happens to me overnight when I quiet myself and I wake up, a lot of times it may not be a dream, but I seem to always have a word or something, a truth that I normally wouldn't have thought of. And I think that's our spirit within us that God drops that in there and it gives us some wisdom for upcoming situation or a different idea about what's going on in life. That's good. That's good.
So I'm interested to see what God does with the show. Sure. I had a dream of – no, I didn't.
Well, go ahead, move on. Danny, you have the first clip of the show. Wow, welcome back to the first clip. Yeah, and I recycled this one. That's really cool. I knew it was a good clip because it had been played before. Yeah.
So it's from Field of Dreams with Kevin Costner and he has this dream of this turning this cornfield into this baseball field and these older players show up like ghosts, I guess. Yeah, players from the past. Players from the past and him and his daughter, I said son in the pre-show and you didn't correct me. I was going to on the regular. I really wanted to. I Googled it.
I'm not stupid. But this scene is where all the players are out there, eight of them are out there and he's invited people in to watch him and evidently only him and his daughter can see him. And his wife. And his wife can see him.
And so he's getting ridiculed and all about what's going on, but it's his dream and his vision and we can talk about it on the backside. All right, here we go. Ray, honey, mom and everybody's leaving now. Well, it was, you know, thanks for coming. Ray, think about what I said.
I'm just trying to help. I know. So I thought you two were going to watch some game. Because it's not really a game.
It's more like a practice. See, there's only eight of them, so they can't play a real game. Eight of what? Them. Them, them. You don't see them?
Karen, honey, what do you watch? The baseball man. Do you see the baseball man right now? Of course I do. But you really don't see him? I don't think it's very polite to try to make other people feel stupid. Mom, wait a minute. Mom, wait a minute. Dee, wait, you don't see these people?
It's not funny, honey. They couldn't see it. This is really interesting. Yeah, scripture, all through scripture, it talks about dreams and visions, and we had talked about some of that. But, you know, sometimes you are allowed to see stuff, you know, a vision of a ministry or something. And, you know, I thought about a couple of different things.
You know, when we started ministry in Ashboro, and we transitioned into making a transition house. And I could see the vision. And luckily, there were people who come along beside me who could see parts of it, I think. But, you know, there was ridicule in it. And because you're casting something that people don't really understand.
And that's kind of what I got out of that clip. And you know, when you brought this topic up, because, and Sam, I'm sure you guys did the same thing. We started this ministry, you could see something. But, you know, how's it going to plan out? Because sometimes I don't think it's the vision that scares us as bad as the process does.
And so that's the deal. And, you know, God allows you to see, and y'all were talking earlier about the little nuggets that he dropped. And I was describing to a guy last night, you know, he's just starting a journey with Christ. And I said, you know, I call them fireflies.
You know, you see fireflies all along the journey, some bigger, some, but you'll get them and hold them and hold on to those nuggets of what God gives you. Because that'll be what takes you on to the next level. And you mentioned about the ministry. You know, and Jim, you were there on the initial conversations we were having. You know, it was always about doing boot camps.
There was nowhere along the way we thought about doing a radio show or podcast. And then all of a sudden, our friend Robby, you know, suggested that we set in one week. And that became a big part of the ministry that, you know, we do every week and unites the team, which is really cool. And so God gave us a big dream, but he had a even bigger dream in mind. And because we're obedient and following in one, he opened the door to the other. And I think that's a lot of times we can't see what those next steps are.
Right. But he may have a lot of different paths that he adds on to that dream that you didn't even weren't even aware of. If you're just obedient, and you step out and you walk with him. I think if he showed you the whole blueprint and the whole plan, you'd run anyway. Oh, yeah, I'm pretty sure I would. But usually, they're not this one thing either.
And that's the beauty of it is these, you know, the boot camps and radio shows, they go like hand in glove. And so he's got a bigger vision than just one aspect. That's more like mitten. But yeah, that works. Like Dan said, we, we sometimes want the whole picture. And if we get it, we'll screw it up.
Oh, yeah. God wants us to take each step of faith one at a time. When we were called to Alaska, we had all these visions of what we were supposed to do when we get there. And we thought we were going forever. We weren't going forever. And what we planned had nothing to do with God, what God had planned for us. Right.
But what he had planned was better. Yes. Right. In the long run. Good, great.
One person to another. Yeah. You know, we talked a little bit earlier about hopefully the Lord in between. Yeah, exactly. We talked about Joseph earlier, had Joseph seen the whole plan of every step along the way. I don't know that he would have been signed up for it. You know, I and that's part of the problem or David even, you know, David was told very clearly that, you know, you're going to be king. Right. If he knew all the steps he had to get to get there. All the loneliness. Yeah, caves and all the persecution, all the things that he faced.
Yeah. Go to masculinejourney.org. We have a boot camp coming up November 21st through 24th. You can go register.
If you need help financially, please let us know. We'll find a way to get you there. We'll talk to you after the break. What we have in our boot camp is something that makes you stronger and gives you the strength to go on your regular walk with God. It's something that will make you be bigger than you were when you got there. The first one I had no clue what I was walking into and then realizing that other people are in the same boat and you know how open everybody was to share their struggle. It was a great group and a lot of contacting was able to be done. It is a tight bond of men. Everybody's the same and each and every time that I've come to boot camp, I've learned something different and not one man that's ever been there neglects not to take time out to talk or to share. It's serious business and you need to come one time to break free with the men and fellowship. Feel the atmosphere. Hear the people pray and get down to earth about what's going on in life and get real.
Register today at masculinejourney.org. So yeah that was Dream Weaver by Gary Wright and you know as I look at those lyrics when I picked that today, you know you could take that as just overnight dream. God kind of gets us through the night.
But you know when you look at it in scripture the night is always considered like darkness and this is a tough time and his dreams you know get us through the dream weaver gets us through those difficult times to the morning light to victory. So yeah I'm kind of dense y'all got probably saw that right away but anyway. And welcome back to Masculine Journey. We're glad that you're back with us. I'll be condescending myself. I just want to have fun with you. Robby you actually have the next clip if you want to tell us a little bit about that or a lot about it whatever you want to do.
Well I can't help it it's just as when he brought up this topic I went back to my journals because you know you don't remember dreams all that well and I just you know did a search because my journal is electronic these days I did a search under dreams and I came across in November of 2022 right which wasn't that long ago I had this reoccurring dream of receiving a crown of thorns and I was having it and I was having it and I was you could see in my journals where I was trying to determine you know what in the world did that mean and when I saw the answer it was just I was like man how cool is that and how could I forget this but but what it was is that the in November of 2022 I was finishing up a very long study on the Song of Solomon I'd actually memorized the book and I was trying to analyze all these verses in the seventh eighth chapter and seventh chapter is a pretty famous verse you hear quoted quite often where you know it's it's after the marriage night in the Song of Solomon and you know they're certainly consummating their marriage at multiple times here and at this point in time he says I'm going to you know come up to the palm tree and I'm going to take hold of what is often translated bows or sometimes it's translated fruit however when I began to study that word as I was you know studying the whole thing it became obvious that what he grabbed hold of were thorns and it just grabbed my attention immediately I was like what he took a hold of thorns and I went immediately and googled because it was a date palm very specifically kind of palm that was in Hebrew and I said to date palms have thorns and oh sure enough they do and they're quite wicked thorns in fact there's poison in those thorns that rots your bones if you happen to get one of those horrible thorns it's pretty I mean when you see it it's like oh my goodness and then all of a sudden I began to think about oh my goodness this he is rejoicing in the love that he has for his bride at this point in time but he is taking a hold of her thorn and in other words those are the nails and they are all kind of bitter poison for his you know physical life that they would be and I thought about what would that be like to really take hold of your own your own death in order to save your bride and you know just led me to a place of worship that was unbelievable that he truly does in fact take that all on himself and in such a way that he loved doing it because as you read the verses after that and as I recall it's like the sixth or seventh verse in the seventh chapter you're going to see that this is this is this big moment is they're going heading off into the sunset of their marriage and so I remember this movie clip from the movie fury which these guys are facing intimate imminent death and essentially there's a young guy who's just been trained in the tank these other guys have been in this tank for years and really had some tough times together but right now they're facing like a whole battalion of Germans the radio's out it's just them against unbelievable odds and they realize that they're going to die but they are going to hold this position because it was their thing it was their orders is what they were to do and so what we pick up here is we'll hear the scene where the tank commander is talking about getting lit and by that means you know they're fixing it he says we might as well do this and then you know as they're facing this you'll hear different people you know make comments but then I don't want you to miss as they are going through this moment that they really have together right before the battle of the new guy they give him his they give him his war name right and and how cool is it that God gives us his name you know his name as as our marriage will be consummated right in the book of revelation also we can have it through boot camps as we talk about quite often but as you listen to this clip you can hear at the end of it they say best job I ever had in other words they are they are doing it but they are doing it with wholeheartedness yeah wholeheartedness and and and at some type of joy that's involved in really being able to give your life um for your country I might as well get a little tight we'll get around for the hangover what you gonna do with that I'm gonna drink it I know you had me preaching I know it what we're doing here is a righteous act gentlemen you hear me gordo mm-hmm here's bible verse I think about some times many times it goes then I heard the voice of the Lord saying whom shall I send and who will go for us and I said here am I I said here am I send me so book of isaiah chapter six No, I can't. Yeah, I don't. That's exactly right.
Tell me why. You're something. It's like a machine, ain't you? Machine. That's it.
That's his warning. That's permafrost. I christened the machine. Machine. Machine.
Machine! I love it in here. The best job I've ever had. Yeah, and when you think about, you know, from my standpoint, all the heroes that made up this country or fought for our freedom or fought for the church's freedom or certainly all the disciples and all those people had that moment of really laying down their life. And interestingly, to whatever extent, we all do.
Right? It's just a beautiful thing. And it came to me through a dream that certainly, as I recalled it all, it's really remarkable to me. Well, as you were describing that, I mean, I've heard that passage several times. John quotes it a different way, right? As you talked about those thorns, just the image of Jesus on the cross, for me, of, you know, he took on all of our thorns, that we may have the freedom. And you're alluding to that, I guess, but for me, it was just made it more clear that I'll never hear that passage again and think of anything different than Jesus taking that on, right?
That he loved his bride, us, so much that he would take that on at the ultimate cost for him. And so that was really cool. Robby, I appreciate you sharing that. And so I want to encourage you to pay attention to those dreams, right? Jim, you want to say something? Well, I was going to sort of say what you did. It's not too often that I learn something that is as different as night and day from what I assumed, and I appreciate that, too, and it makes that mean so more than grabbing fruit. And I've been thinking about it ever since you brought it up.
Well, thank you, Robby. I'm going to get one more clip in. We've got enough time, and so I'm just going to play this, and then we'll talk about it as we head out. And Caleb said the question is what time. And I used to say I would dance. So if you guys want to let her go, I have the rosy Meaning with a ring.
Go flip back and look at the ring and have a look around and see what's next for you. All kinds of things in the world, an area that makes the world' most can be seen as well. And we'll chat about what it's like out there.
So with that in mind, we'll do a lot of stuff like that, and it is well put in place here in the business world. It is hell, and so I'm fourteen Dream on, dream on, dream on, dream on, dream on, dream on, dream on! That was Arrowsmith obviously with Dream On, and that's the encouragement, to continue to dream. If you find yourself right now in a situation like Joseph was, you find yourself in a pit, And realize God has another dream bigger than that. Your dream isn't the pit, right?
Or if you find yourself incarcerated in one way or another, either physically, emotionally, know that that's not God's dream for you. He has something so much bigger. And continue to dream on.
And so whenever you hear that song, and they play it still a lot, it's a classic rock that's been around forever, I wanna encourage you to think about that and also think about those dreams that you could chalk off as frivolous that we talked about earlier. Robby's dream of having a crown of thorns. Just go, that was weird. Maybe I ate something at Taco Bell last night. Whatever that might have been. Not to discount it, but to say, okay, is there more to it than that?
Because not only did it have a great impact on him, but him sharing it tonight had at least an impact on Jim and I, and I'm sure some of the others here, and hopefully some of you, that you'll never see that passage the same way again. Just continue to push and to dream on and to keep pushing through. And then what I wanted to ask about before we head out of this segment is, how do you hold on to those dreams, right? So just what's some key tips to holding on to the things you dream about? Because I'll dream about it, and then I don't remember it the next day.
So what do you guys do to hold on? Robby, you have a dream book. I have a journal, right? Yeah. And it's first thing in the morning, and so if I got something and I go, wow, that's weird, that's generally, I'm gonna go write it down, and that's what it is.
Right. And so write it down, hold on to it, go back and look at it. It may be like me, I'll write something down, and if I don't go back and look at it, my notes are kind of pointless. Right, I remember one time, I'll say it real quick, I was really struggling, and so I took a day and I went up and spent some time on the mountain, literally went up the top of the mountain and hiked, and I'm praying to God about a situation. He gave me some words, and so I opened up my journal, and literally where I flipped open to, it was the same words He gave me two years before that I hadn't listened to, right? So listen to those things and ask God and seek His heart, and ask what He has for you there, because I promise you, His dreams for you will blow your mind. He's got some amazing things planned. Go to masculinejourney.org to register for the upcoming bootcamp, November 21st through 24th, and as always, love somebody well this week. We'll talk to you next week. This is the Truth Network.
